I walked over and reached inside, smiling.
Chapter 21
It was against protocol to transport directly to any place in the Netherworld PPD unless you had an immediate need, so I had to hit the main portal.
Just as I stepped off and headed for the elevator, Chief Carter cut me off.
“What in the blazes is going on, Piper?” he said with a bit of heat. “Dr. Hale’s doing what she can to save Kix and Brazen, who were under your protection, a building in the Overworld has been compromised, and I’ve got the head of the containment department griping at me regarding the extent of the damage up there!”
I nodded at him. “Sounds like you’ve got the latest details all sewn up fine, Chief.”
“Don’t get smart with me, young lady,” he replied, wagging his finger. “I want answers and I want them now.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say. We’re trying to catch this guy and he’s got a lot of goons who are carrying a fair amount of firepower. Oh, and we can’t track them. At least not at a distance.” I was doing my best to keep my voice under control. “As for Brazen and Kix, I warned you that—”
He waved his hand at me. “I don’t need your explanations about them. They’ll be fine, and even if they aren’t, they knew what they were getting into.”
“Then why are you so fired up?”
“Because the head of the containment department is a real nag, that’s why.” He grunted. “I hate dealing with her.”
“But you’re married to her, Chief,” I noted with a frown.
“Exactly my point.”
I wanted to laugh, but I was already in enough trouble.
“Look, Chief,” I said finally, “I’m doing everything I can to contain Gallien, but he’s not making it easy.”
“That may be, but—”
“You put me on the toughest cases for a reason, Chief,” I reminded him.
He glared at me for a second and then sighed. Then he turned and skulked back to his office.
“Catch him, Piper,” he yelled over his shoulder. “Soon!”
The volume of his last word was enough to make me shake slightly. I loved the guy, and he did look rather jolly—even when he was mad, but something always told me that he was not to be trifled with too much. There was just a depth in the way he carried himself that told me there lived a badass under all that grandfatherliness.
I jumped on the elevator and hit the medical level.
When I walked into the room, I saw that Brazen was still being worked on. Kix was in a seated position, breathing on his own.
Keeping to the periphery, I scooted over to where Reaper was seated.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Nearly healed,” he slurred. “Thanks for getting the doc to medsi…meder…uh…”
“Medicate?” I suggested.
“Yeah, that,” he said, grinning serenely. “It feels wonderful.”
Great, Dr. Hale had managed to turn a once-reaper into an instant junkie.
“What the hell did you give Reap, Doc?” I asked as she sped past.
“Ibuprofen,” she replied.
“That’s it?” I rasped, wide-eyed.
There was no answer as I turned back to stare at Reaper, who appeared to be on cloud nine.
“Lightweight,” I chuckled, and then said, “Are you with it at all, Reap, or should we talk later?”
“Am I with what?” he asked, turning to face me. He cracked a warm smile. “You’re a good friend, Piper.”
“Oh boy.”
“No, I mean it,” he said. “I don’t have many friends.” Then he pursed his lips. “I mean, Brazen is okay.”
“He is?” I asked, shocked that Reaper, or anyone, would think that. “I doubt his own mother thinks he’s okay, Reap.”
“And I like Kix, too,” he continued, clearly ignoring my comment. “Rough arbout…abround…around the edges, I guess. But he’s okay.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The chief is great, too.”
I couldn’t argue that. My life would have been vastly different were it not for the chief.
“And Dr. Hale and I went to dinner once.” It was hard to tell, but it looked like his eyes were pulsing. “She was nice. It wasn’t meant to be, though.” He patted my arm. “Love is a pickle thing, you know.”
“I think you mean ‘fickle,’ Reap.”
He furrowed his brow for a moment and then shrugged.
“Got it,” exclaimed Pecker from across the room, causing me to jump.
Reaper giggled. “I love Pecker,” he confided. “Honestly, Pecker is great.”
I wanted to tease him again about his choice of words, but I found it more amusing this way. If I went about correcting him each time, he’d figure it out and stop saying things without first thinking them through. Where was the fun in that?
“Here,” I said as I got up to go and talk with Pecker, “I got you something.”
I showed him the pair of sunglasses I’d taken from the case at the pawn shop, and dropped them in his lap.
“Aw,” he said as he slowly put them on. “I love them, Piper.”
The glow of his eyes disappeared.
Good enough for me.
“What’s up?” I said to Pecker as I approached.
“This guy’s tat is quite a piece of work,” he said. “There’s definitely a tracking mechanism in it.”
Shit.
“Do you think Gallien was informed that he was down here?”
“No,” he said. “The tat is powered by the owner’s energy or external energy, so it went inert when he died, but I was able to run a passive check to find the tracking system before I ran power through to it.”
“Good,” I breathed.
“Anyway, it’s got some pretty crazy stuff going on in here. Decent tracking, communications, their own portal setup.” He rubbed his chin. “Honestly, it’s better than my creations on many fronts.”
That was quite an admission from the chief engineer in the Netherworld PPD.
“Can we use it to find Gallien?”
“Hmmm?” he said and then looked up at me. “Oh, yeah, yeah. Definitely. I’ll have something running on this soon and will get you their coordinates.”
“Being able to track them would be quite helpful,” I said.
“Can’t do any realtime tracking in a short amount of time, Piper,” he said, “but I should be able to get his current location based on the history data in this guy’s tat.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. “What about communications and using their portals?”
“Not likely,” he admitted. “There’s a lot of code in here and it’s all pretty heavily encrypted. Again, though, I should be able to get you the whereabouts on at least one of them within an hour or two.”
It’d have to do.
Just before I turned to leave, I remembered that Pecker had stuck the rune that I brought back earlier into his comparison machine.
“What about the rune?” I said. “Any matches?”
“Oh yeah. No matches on the magic front, but the computer found a ninety-seven percent hit on a wizard.”
That was odd. Both Reaper and Pecker pointed out how it was nearly impossible to match someone’s painting strokes, coloring, shading, etc., and I already knew that magical signatures were unique.
“How is that possible?”
“I thought it was odd, too,” he answered with a shrug. “The painting was almost dead-on, but the magic was completely different.”
“Strange.”
“Yeah.”
“So,” I asked, “anyone we know?”
Pecker looked at the readout. “Azura.”
“Never heard of him,” I said.
“It’s a her, not a him,” corrected Pecker, “and according to her files, she’s kind of a tool.”
Considering that she was involved in helping these pricks, that was an understatement.
Chapter 22
A few hours later,
everyone was back on their feet and cleared for action. There was nothing quite like being a supernatural and having a set of doctors like Hale and her staff.
“How are you two feeling?” I asked Brazen and Kix.
I already knew Reaper was fine, and thankfully his ibuprofen had faded enough to make him sober again. I would have to keep him away from the drugstore for sure. Having a ibuprofen-head on my hands would not only be annoying, it’d be embarrassing.
“Feeling a little foggy,” admitted Kix, “but I should be okay.”
Brazen stood tall and said, “Never better,” but I could see he was still in a heap of discomfort.
“When will you be ready for action?”
“Now,” Brazen answered immediately.
Kix looked at him like he was nuts, and then his eyes darted about for a second.
“Yeah,” he said as if he were catching on to how things worked in Retriever land. “I’m ready to go when you are.”
“Good,” I stated, though Reaper didn’t seem too happy with my quick movement on this issue. “We got word back from Pecker that he’s found the location of Gallien’s stronghold.”
I clicked on my screen and zoomed the map out until we were looking down near the docks in New Orleans. It was a nondescript building that appeared to be abandoned. At least, there weren’t any cars around to signal otherwise. In fact, the entire area was kind of barren.
“Did he give any details on what kind of army we’re looking at in there?” asked Brazen.
“No, but I’m assuming it’s not going to be a walk in the park.” I leaned back and crossed my arms. “That said, my guess is that if we cut out their leader, the rest of them will either take off or surrender.”
Kix nodded. “Still, shouldn’t we have backup?”
My eye twitched.
“Piper doesn’t believe in backup,” Reaper chimed in. “They ‘get in the way.’”
“No need for finger-quotes, Reap. Backup does get in the way.” I motioned at the three of them. “For example, I could have been at Gallien’s building thirty minutes ago if I hadn’t been stuck here waiting for you guys.”
“You really do prefer to go at it alone, don’t you?” Reaper asked in a non-sarcastic way.
“Less responsibility,” I answered.
He grunted and shook his head at me.
“All right,” I went on before there could be any debate on the subject, “I’m going to give you two the option to take a pass on this.” I was kind of hopeful here. I’d had to wait for them in order to ask, but they could turn down the offer without punishment from me. “There’s no negative points for staying here. I’ve already seen you through some pretty bad shit, so it won’t influence my decision about your entry into the RTP if you want—”
“We’re going,” Brazen interrupted.
“Yeah, Piper,” Kix said just as firmly. “We started this and we need to finish it.”
“You both realize that you could die, right?” I pointed back and forth between me and Reaper. “We’re both immortal. You two…not so much.”
“We know what we are,” said a determined Brazen. “So are we going or not?”
“Fine,” I said, staring back and forth at them, “but you have to put on some decent garb and get some proper weaponry. Your basic cop shit just doesn’t cut it.”
Chapter 23
With Brazen and Kix properly dressed and armed, we were ready to take a trip to the building that Gallien and his crew were supposedly holed up in.
“I like the brown tweed, Brazen,” I said. “It kind of has that used-car salesman thing going. Suits you.”
“Yeah?” he smirked. “Thanks, Piper.”
All right. I guess he’d been going for that look, then. Honestly, it did fit his personality.
Kix, on the other hand, went with the charcoal gray and a hat that was similar to Reaper’s. Then I caught something interesting about his hat. He had a black feather sticking off the side of it.
I was going to comment but decided to let it go.
“Okay,” I said, taking my gun out, “get your weapons ready and don’t do anything stupid.” Just as I was about to head in, I stopped and added, “In other words, do not fire your weapons unless there is no other option.”
“You want to take them alive?” asked Kix.
“Uh…sure,” I answered. Then I decided it was time for a teaching moment, so I paused. “Think of it like a stakeout. You don’t want the bad guys to know you’re keeping tabs on them, right?”
Brazen just stared at me.
“Right,” I said. “Well, once you guys have a warrant, you break in with guns high and voices yelling.”
“Exactly,” said Kix. “Guessing you don’t want that here, though, because these guys aren’t likely to roll over easily.”
I nodded at him and said, “And so we are going to sneak in as best as we can. At some point it’ll be obvious that we arrived, but let’s try to at least get an idea for the layout of the place before that happens.”
Brazen motioned at his jacket. “You think dressing like this will help us blend in?”
Reaper chuckled at that. His sunglasses probably wouldn’t help either. They were better than his glowing eyes, though.
“Just follow me,” I said and then started hugging the walls. “Reap, I’m guessing you’re tracking?”
“Yes,” he replied through the connector.
He was learning.
We moved along carefully. I doubted there were any cameras in place to detect intruders, but it was possible. If there were, I couldn’t see any. A more likely scenario would be sentries or runes. Runes were most probable since we’d already seen a few of them during our fun hunting Gallien.
Since I was the only one in our little troop who could spot runes, I kept my eyes opened and scanning.
“Body just around this corner,” Reaper said. “Female, about your build. She’s carrying a gun.”
I held up a hand to stop them as I took the next few steps and peered around the corner. In a flash, I jumped out and threw a left cross right to her temple. She dropped instantly.
“Kix,” I called while crouching down and checking the woman’s pockets, “send this one down to holding, and give them instructions to block her tattoo. My gut tells me she doesn’t have the same tweaks as the others we’ve seen, but better not to chance it.”
“You got it, boss,” he said.
I couldn’t help but notice Brazen’s sour look at Kix calling me “boss.” That worked for me—both being called “boss” by Kix, and Brazen not liking it, I mean. Good stuff.
“Oh,” I caught myself, “also tell them to read her the Retriever bit.”
He looked up. “The what?”
“They’ll know, and with any luck, you’ll learn it soon enough.”
The guard shimmered from view and we moved on.
“Two more, straight ahead,” announced Reaper.
I motioned Kix and Brazen to go wide and then stepped up with Reaper in tow. The goal was simple. Reaper and I get spotted, the bad guys turn toward us, Kix and Brazen knock them on the head and down they go. This was a standard cop play, so my hope was there wouldn’t be any hiccups. If anything went wrong, I had Death Nails to make it right.
“Hey,” the one guard said, turning toward us.
This caught the attention of the other guard. By the time he had his gun up, though, he was out. If there was any one thing I had to hand to Brazen, it was his ability to knock the crap out of somebody. The guard by Kix had been dropped, too, though it wasn’t as fluid.
“Send them down,” I said. “Reap, anyone else on track?”
He held up his finger as his head moved around as if using sonar. Chances were that’s exactly what he was doing, except through energy signatures. Each person had a unique signature, so if Reap had catalogued one in the past, he could track it whenever it was nearby. Send out a wave and see what energy bounces back. If it matched a signature he had in his mental f
iling cabinet, he’d know who it was.
Again, that was a guess.
“Gallien, Haley, Jax, and a woman I don’t recognize are in a room up ahead,” he said, pointing. “There are a few more guards along the way, though.”
“Got it.” My guess was that the woman was Jax’s wife. Getting her and Jax out was admittedly unlikely, but it was worth a shot. “Let’s clear those guards and get in there before Gallien does anything stupid.”
“You mean like make a bunch of vampire zombies?” asked Reaper.
I gave him the evil eye. “I thought we agreed to call them ravens?”
“I never agreed to that,” he argued. “I still think that’s a silly name for them.”
“No sillier than the name Reaper for a reaper,” I mumbled. “Asshat.”
I waved everyone forward and we got moving.
Chapter 24
We dropped a few more guards as we approached the room that Gallien was in. I nodded at the other three and got ready to push through the doors, when Reaper stopped me.
“Would you mind using these instead of Death Nails?” he asked while holding up Numbshots. “There’s no need to kill everyone in there, especially not Gallien.”
Numbshots were standard bullets used by most Retrievers. Their purpose was to numb instead of kill. If you got hit by one of them in the leg, for example, you’d be dragging your leg around like a dead weight within seconds. Kind of like when you have a limb that falls asleep. It’s not dead, but you just can’t properly control it. If you hit someone in the torso with a Numbshot, it would put everything to sleep except for their head. If you hit them in the head, they’d likely die. It was still a bullet, after all.
I blinked at him. “Why?”
“Because a one-hundred-percent commission is much better than a twenty-five-percent commission, Piper,” he replied evenly.
“Thanks for the math lesson,” I said. “But so what?”
“So what? So I have bills to pay, that’s what.” He was looking at me like I was an idiot. “My rent is due, I’ve got groceries to buy, my pet turtle has a vet appointment that I have to pay for, my—”
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