Drakanis took the last step, coming into his living room, and glanced around. He bent down near the foot of the stairs and walked hunched over toward the couch, looking very carefully at the floor, even going so far as to sniff at it. No sign that any of it had happened, nothing except a grape-juice stain that hadn’t been there when he had gone to bed the night before. Finally beginning to accept the possibility that all of that had been just a dream, he straightened back up—feeling all the muscles in his back flex and listening to the cracks of his spine popping like it always did when he’d been sleeping badly—and smiled into the empty room.
“Good God. If that was a dream, I hope I never have that one again.”
“What was that, hon?” The voice floating into the living room from the kitchen was like music to his ears, even the rough New York Italian in it sounding peaceful rather than abrasive this morning. Drakanis closed his eyes and for a moment saw the horror from the nightmare: Gina and Joey in a bloody sprawl behind the couch, the officers warning him that he didn’t want to go in there. Had he punched Perez? He thought he had. The shit people cook up when they’re asleep, he thought as he rounded the corner and came into the kitchen.
Everything carried with it an air of normalcy, of a status quo so deep it shrieked. There were the placemats, Joey’s stained with all manner of interesting substances—not all of them edible—and marked so deeply that a hundred cycles of the dishwasher still hadn’t cleaned it up; a cup of coffee for him, a glass of OJ for Gina, and a glass of milk for Joey; bowls set in the center, like they should be, ready to receive the sacrament of whatever flavor of Cream of Wheat had been at the top of the box this morning.
The television was on, the sound turned off, and the usual idiot morning hosts were babbling about their usual idiot topics, but Drakanis had never been so happy to see Regis. Mr. Philbin, however, was of secondary concern, as his gaze came up to the stove, riding up one shapely calf clad in denim to the curve of a hip and then to the old NYU T-shirt she wore around the house, the one that rode up and exposed just a small strip of her tanned back. Above that were the face, heart-shaped, dark-eyed, and smiling, and the miles of glorious black hair that were currently piled on top with some funky-looking butterfly clip trying to contain it.
He couldn’t help himself; he ran to her, wrapped his arms around her, and dragged her away from the stove before shock could even register in her eyes. His mouth was on her throat, her ear, her lips, kissing and biting, while he crushed her body against his. When he finally let her go, they were both left out of breath and there was a sparkle in her eyes that was equal parts curiosity and satisfaction.
“Whoa, tiger. Haven’t done something like that since Joey was born.” She winked at him. “Good dreams, baby?”
He pursed his lips. Still not relinquishing his hold on her waist, he allowed his hands to roam despite the playful slap she gave them. “The opposite.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him as she turned back to stirring the cereal. “Well, we’ll just have to chase those away then, won’t we? Just as soon as the little monster heads over to Grandma’s. Stay home today. Let Parker save the world for once.”
Her tone was playful but also carried a certain amount of reproach. He knew he’d been working too hard lately, and perhaps he hadn’t been around as much as he should have been. That stopped, today. Hell, he’d retire if that was what she wanted. Get a nice, normal job, like gardening or maybe teaching.
He was still kissing at her neck and hair when the giggle disrupted his train of thoughts. “Speak of the devil…” he muttered, as he let Gina go and turned just in time to have all the pleasant weight of a rambunctious six-year-old barrel into his open arms.
He lifted Joey up, planting him in the crook of his arm. Joey was small for his age, like Drakanis had been, and fit there easily. He settled into his chair.
“You’re up and at ’em early, kid. What’s the occasion? You think it’s a holiday or something?”
Joey’s laughter was high and bright, carefree like only a child’s could be. His voice carried a strange mix of Gina’s accent and his own but tuned to a higher pitch. Drakanis had always marveled at the strange amalgams that children were of their parents, and now he was seeing it with fresh eyes.
“It is a holiday, stupid!”
“Don’t call your father stupid,” came Gina’s automatic response.
“Sorry, Ma. But it is!”
Drakanis pretended to think it over for a long moment and then ruffled his son’s hair and laughed along with him.
“No, I don’t think so. I think someone’s just imagining things. What holiday is it supposed to be?”
The voice that came out of Joey’s mouth was like a splinter of ice shoved into his heart. He knew the voice, knew it from his nightmares, but it didn’t belong in his son’s mouth, not on this wintry Christmas Day that he was going to spend making love to his wife and opening presents at midnight with his son. It was the rasping voice of the monster who had killed them in the dream, of the beast that lived in a painting that was really a prison.
“It’s my birthday, of course. So glad you could come.”
* * *
The first sensation that came back was pain, though it was almost so universal that it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. After pain came hunger, sending her stomach into thrashing cramps and making her want to vomit. She turned her head to one side, coughed, and discovered perhaps the worst of her torments; thirst had sunk deep into her body, and coughing woke it up. It felt like barbed wire had been embedded in her throat and then coated with salt and vinegar for extra measure.
Brokov’s eyes cracked open half an inch, and the bright fluorescent light felt like needles being driven into her eyes. She swore she could feel her pupils contracting against it in the split second before she pinched them shut again. She wasn’t sure where the hell she was, but she knew what she felt like; this was the feeling you got after being up all night and drinking enough to put you in the hospital.
Given her fuzzy memory and the fluorescents, Brokov wondered for a moment if that might not be just where she was. She discarded the idea quickly, since the lighting hadn’t been right for that. She had spent a lot of time in recent weeks sitting under hospital fluorescents and had almost gotten used to the weird bluish cast and the tinge of green it added. This light didn’t have that quality. It looked more like—
Bathroom, she thought, even as her mind pointed out the cold tile floor she was lying on. The rest of it fell into place easily enough. Okay, yes. A bathroom. The question now was what bathroom, and why?
“There’s no need to be playin’ possum, Miss Brokov. Saw your eyes open once already.” The voice came, sounding patient and bemused, from somewhere above her. Assuming her thought about this being a bathroom was correct, she supposed the owner was probably sitting on the toilet or maybe the edge of the tub. She tilted her head in that direction, squinching one eye open just a hair.
Manderly was sitting on the toilet, running one long-fingered hand through his crew cut and looking down at her with eyes that had gone the faded blue and yellowy white of the elderly. He nodded at her and then lifted his other hand into her field of vision, displaying the glass.
She wasn’t sure if she had ever seen a more welcome sight in all the world before that moment. The glass was nothing special, one of those freebies they put in hotel rooms for you to wash out your mouth or pour a small drink or something, but it looked like heaven at that particular moment. Filled with water, ice cubes clinking in it, and beads of condensation gathering on the edges, it made her whole body cramp with thirst-lust for it.
“Come on, then. Drink up, but drink slow. Don’t want you to choke on it.” Manderly bent, putting one hand behind her neck, and she could feel fever in that hand, baking off of him like a furnace. He lifted her head a little, tipped th
e glass to her lips, and allowed her a single sip. He pulled the glass away when she tried to guzzle it, giving her a stern look, and then tipped it back again.
He kept it up until the glass was empty, always taking it away just before she started to drink it all down at once, and slowly, the pains faded. Then he set the glass on a countertop to his left and looked down at her, shaking his head.
She tried her voice, managed a croak, and then tried again. “Where… where am I?” She vaguely remembered going somewhere with Parker, but other than that, it was a blank. How she’d ended up in a bathroom with the oldest cop on the planet was something she’d very much like to know.
“In a safe place. Got yourself mixed up in things you had no business mixing in, so you had to be put away for a while.” There was a certain amount of menace in his words. His delivery was like that of an actor in a bad Mafia movie or one of the characters in the novels she was always reading, warning someone that they shouldn’t have been digging in that particular grave. At the same time, his Northeastern accent smoothed it over, made it sound like a grandfather giving matter-of-fact advice to an overeager kid. He leaned back, his head against the brown and gold patterned tile on the walls.
“It’ll all be over soon, anyhow. Ayuh, I suppose it will.” His tone was almost regretful, and it sounded more like he was talking to himself than to Brokov.
She started to pull herself up, her hand sweeping for something to grab onto and finding the handle of one of the cabinets under the sink. She put her back against it, eyeing Manderly with a bit of suspicion as she took a quick inventory and found that almost everything was present. Of course, the things that were missing were what she was hoping were still there; her handcuffs and handgun had been removed, along with the Sam Browne belt that they had been attached to. Fragments of memory were starting to float back like the flotsam left over from a bad dream, and nothing she saw there indicated how she’d ended up here. Manderly croaked a laugh at her and shook his head.
“They’re gone. Couldn’t have you waking up and deciding someone needed a few extra holes, now could I?” His grin was rueful, showing off the yellowed teeth he’d earned himself over decades of chewing tobacco and mostly ignoring dental hygiene.
She narrowed her eyes at him, pedaling with her feet to push her back to the door. Okay, standard bathroom layout then, she thought and glared up at him. “Any reason I would decide you needed a few extra holes?”
His grin didn’t change, and he didn’t elaborate. “Ayuh,” was his only reply. He seemed content to just stare at her for as long as he felt like; apparently, he was in no hurry to be out of there. He saw Brokov’s hand start snaking up, looking for the handle, and widened his smile. “T’won’t do you no good. It’s locked, like it should be.”
She tried it anyway, just to spite him. Not taking her eyes off of Manderly and his sick-looking grin, she fumbled for the latch and tried to press it down. Nothing. She thought if she really felt like it, she could put enough force on it to snap the lock—bathroom locks, as a general rule, were not particularly strong—but she was sure Manderly wouldn’t give her the opportunity. Sheila slumped against the door, letting her hands sit useless in her lap, and continued to glare.
“So what is this? A kidnapping? Doesn’t seem to fit you, Old Man.”
He shook his head. “Ain’t about kidnapping. It’s about keeping you out of the way—and out of harm’s way—till this is over, that’s all. Soon as we’re done, you get to go back to your plain old life and start the business of forgetting all about this.”
She curled her lip at him, the traces of daddy’s little girl fading away beneath the feral glare. “I don’t think so. I think I’ll be spending quite a bit of time in court with you.” As soon as I figure out how to get out of here, she thought but didn’t add. She thought there was a glimmer of hope, though. The glass was sitting on the counter, and she was willing to bet that she could dive for it a hell of a lot faster than one crazy old man. Adding to her confidence was the office gossip going around about Manderly’s last physical; supposedly, he was still a crack shot, but his running and rolling days were long behind him. If she could get the glass before he managed to get up, she figured clocking him with it wouldn’t be too difficult. It was one of those with the big, thick base, so it didn’t fall easily and didn’t break when it did, and the back of the old man’s head was probably thinner than that glass. She had to hope, anyway.
Manderly just shrugged, as if he didn’t care one way or the other about her threatening court dates. “We’ll see. I probably won’t live long enough to see it anyway. And you and yours look the type to let a brother in blue die in jail for trying to lend a help, oh, ayuh! It’d be just like the lot of you. Don’t know why you won’t just sit back and let it happen.”
Sheila’s face was slowly dropping, an expression of shock coming in to replace the feral anger she had been displaying a moment ago. “You knew?” She couldn’t get her brain to wrap around the idea, the thought that this whole time there had been people in the department—and she was sure it was people; if there were two, there were probably more—working toward this shit, trying to do whatever the hell Damien’s demon wanted. Reason was considering taking a leave of absence, but there was enough common sense left in her to hold back the primal part of her that wanted nothing more than to gouge his eyes out at this second. She could tell it wasn’t going to be possible to keep that animal at bay for much longer though.
“Of course I knew. Do you think I’m stupid? Oh, I can see you do, but for all the wrong reasons.” He gave a rusty chuckle that dropped into a cough, causing him to wince and rub at his chest and throat. “There were choices to make. Choices like your friends are having to make right now, I’ll wager.” He stood up, and contrary to what reports might have claimed, Manderly did it quickly and without traces of pain or stiffness. “That’s what it all boils down to in the end anyway. What kind of concessions you’re willing to make to hang on to what’s dear to you. How big a price are you willing to pay, and how much are you willing to stain your soul while you’re at it?” His fingers filched the glass from the counter even as Sheila decided the time had come and launched herself at it. He stepped away from her with a liquid grace, kicking up the toilet lid and tossing the glass in with a splash as he did so.
“I really wish you would have sat still.” You’re going to hell, and you know it, old man. And for what? A couple extra years of pains in your chest and being laughed at by the young’uns? Should have stayed retired. Part of him knew that, had known it when he’d taken Karim’s devil’s deal, but life was sweet and what came after was fearsome; in the end, fear had driven him as surely as it did any simple pack animal who hears the rattle of a snake in the grass. Now it was time to pay the piper, and while he didn’t like it, he knew that to refuse was to make his own torment infinitely worse. He could feel the pulses of panic coming from the girl. He would have known even if it wasn’t for the gifts of the talu`shar, just from the smell that was coming off of her. It was an electric scent like ozone and wet pennies, the stench of fear and the hormones the body dumped into the bloodstream when a person hit the final war of survival.
Brokov was beyond thinking, driving herself upward just to claw at him and put out his eyes, to take it all out on this bastard, this traitor. She sank her nails into his leg and yanked hard, trying simultaneously to pull him down and herself up.
Manderly was thinking that this was almost absurdly like one of the cartoon strips you sometimes saw, where one of those little yip dogs is clinging for dear life to the leg of the postman or someone, trying to drag him down while he goes on about his business without a care in the world. Like those postmen, he found the easiest solution to be the most effective. He drew back the foot that she didn’t have a clampdown on and drove it forward, as hard as he could, into her side.
He had played football for a while in high school,
and while that had been nearly sixty years ago and he had never been great at it to start with, some of the old memory of how to kick a field goal was still there; his shoe impacted with her rib cage just the way it should have when there were three seconds on the clock and the team was down by two. The snapping sounds that came from inside her almost sounded pleasing to him, and he felt a moment of remorse for it; that he had fallen so far, to the point where hearing bones break was actually enjoyable, was only further testament to the truth that he had known all along, to the fact that the talu`shar, whatever else it was and whatever wishes it could grant, was inherently a bad thing—but he had a debt to pay and so pushed that thinking to the back of his mind.
Brokov felt her ribs break—fuck, it didn’t feel like they had broken, it felt like they had shattered—and fell away from him, coughing and sputtering. She could taste blood in her throat and felt sure that whatever he had done to her was fatal, but she didn’t see much use in worrying about that now. They were probably all dead anyway. The best she could hope to do was to take the old bastard with her.
She coiled herself up, ignoring the fire burning in her left side and the way every breath felt like it was raking her lungs across sandpaper, and was about to leap at him when the gunshot came. All the prayers she had ever been taught, the relics of her youth that she thought she had put away for good, came flying back to her. It had been years since she’d bothered to set foot in a church, but she started to pray now anyway. Better late than never, she thought as she dove into darkness.
Chapter 38
9:30 am, December 24, 1999
“Wake up.” The voice came from someplace high above, drifting down through the air like he imagined the voices of angels must do when it’s time to go. He ignored the request, preferring instead to remain as he was, blacked out—or was he? He couldn’t tell, but being able to hear things probably meant he wasn’t. He lay with his face mashed against the floor and a deep pain radiating through his guts. He thought there was something wrong with this picture but couldn’t decide what it might be; that just made him want to stay asleep or unconscious or dead or whatever he was.
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