by Dakota Banks
Her phone rang. It was Chick.
“Got a lady name of Eliu to see you, with luggage. Okay?”
“Yes, send both up.”
“Christ,” Hound said. “Should we hide all this?”
“I suggest we put the box and envelope away and tell her everything. She can decide what she wants to see,” Amaro said.
“Sounds good. Use my bedroom.”
The box, envelope, and cooler were spirited away before Eliu arrived. She waited until her two small bags were brought in before giving Maliha a tearful hug, then giving one in turn to Hound and Amaro. Maliha made some tea while the two men led her to a sofa and sat on either side of her trembling body like bookends.
“Has Yanmeng viewed you?” Maliha said, when all four of them cradled hot cups of fragrant tea. She wanted to know if he’d attempted to contact her via remote viewing.
Eliu shook her head. “It’s not a good sign. Usually we’re in touch several times during a day, sometimes for hours at a time.”
“Hours? I didn’t know he could sustain that.”
“That’s only been for the last few months. For him not to contact me in so long a time, he must be . . .”
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Hound said. “He could be knocked out.”
“My husband’s mind is very powerful. He would have to be deeply sedated, I think. Like for surgery.”
“That’s an idea. He could be in a clinic somewhere,” Maliha said.
“The clean cut that took off his finger could be from a surgical instrument,” Amaro said.
Eliu looked startled. “What does this mean?”
“Way to go, big mouth,” Hound said. “You must’ve lost your tact pills.”
“I’m sorry, Eliu,” Maliha said. “Since we last talked on the phone, a box arrived. It was your husband’s finger.”
Eliu bowed her head. “Oh no,” she said in a small voice. “How do you know it was his?”
“I recognized the knife scar on his index finger.”
“I want to see.”
“Are you sure? It isn’t necessary.”
“It’s necessary to me.” Eliu straightened up and her voice was steadier. She’d made it clear that she wasn’t going to be sheltered.
Plenty of time for grieving later, if it comes to that. No, don’t think about that. I have to believe he’s alive so that I can bring him back home.
Maliha nodded at Hound. He picked a few items out of his fingerprint kit and then took Eliu into the bedroom.
When the two of them left the room, Maliha glared at Amaro. “Well, that could have been handled better.”
“You’re right. I messed up.”
There was no use in belaboring it. “This building has security cameras in the hallways. Why don’t you see if you can find out who delivered our surprise package?”
Amaro headed for his room, where he kept most of his computer equipment.
Hound came out by himself. He wore latex gloves and carried the note in a clear evidence bag. “Eliu needs a minute. She confirmed your identification. I didn’t get any latents off the box or envelope, so I doubt that this note will have any. It’s worth a try, though.”
“Let me see that note before you get started,” Maliha said.
8:15 A.M. TOMORROW, CORNER OF DIVERSEY AND NEWCASTLE, HALF A BLOCK NORTH. COME ALONE OR HE DIES.
“Diversey and Newcastle . . . where’s that?” Hound said.
“I know it. It’s on the northwest side.”
“Geez, woman, is there any part of this city you don’t know?”
“I believe in knowing my surroundings so I can get from point A to point B using the shortest route.”
“Get a GPS.”
“I’m old-fashioned in some ways. Sometimes you forget I’m older than I look.”
There was a knock at the door.
Maliha and Hound approached and pressed against the walls on opposite sides of the door.
“Who is it?” Hound said.
“Flowers for Marsha Winters.” The voice was cheery and young.
“Leave them outside and go.”
“Um, I need a signature.”
“Leave them. Go.”
A few minutes later Hound opened the door. There was a vase of two dozen red roses in the hall and there was no one around.
“What do you think?” he said to Maliha. “Bomb? A bug?”
“Who are they from?”
Hound squinted at the card tucked among the flowers. “Jake.”
“I think we can chance it.” She came over, picked up the vase, and brought it into the kitchen. The card said, MISS YOU MORE THAN I CAN SAY. CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU, LOVE, JAKE.
“I’m getting my kit,” Hound said. “Check it out for bugs.”
It’s sweet. Am I wrong about him? Jewelry, roses, must be candy coming next.
It was 20 degrees and blustery the next morning. The gray clouds seemed to hang so low that Maliha could reach up, grab one, and squeeze the snow out of it. She dressed in loose jeans, a T-shirt covered by a worn sweatshirt, and a jacket with deep pockets. One jacket pocket harbored a Walther P22 short-barrel pistol and the other an automatic knife and a few extras. At Hound’s insistence, she had a handheld GPS unit in the pocket of her jeans.
Woven into the neckband of her T-shirt was a wireless transmitter made of a new material, polyester fibers with a metallic coating twisted into strands or mesh. When an informant was wearing a wire, he was always in fear of being discovered by the bad guys. No one would suspect Maliha of transmitting information because her T-shirt looked like any other. Amaro would be listening to her conversations and recording them for later analysis.
She took a cab and got out a few blocks from her destination. Half a block north of Diversey and Newcastle there was an elementary school. Students were arriving, and Maliha tried to look like she was not lingering outside a school for nefarious purposes. A girl about nine years old headed toward her.
I don’t like this at all. My contact is a little girl?
It was disappointing, because Maliha had been planning to extract information from her contact, as roughly as necessary.
“You Malehat?”
My name lost something in translation. Warily, Maliha nodded.
“Here.” The girl handed her an envelope and turned to walk away.
Maliha wanted to grab her by the shoulders and spin her around, but she wouldn’t do that to a child. No wonder they sent me here. Very clever.
“Wait a minute. Who gave you this?” Maliha said.
“I’m gonna miss the bell.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No. He was here just a few minutes ago. He gave me five dollars.”
Maliha flinched at the thought of the girl talking to someone associated with Yanmeng’s captor. “What did he look like?”
“Not as tall as my dad but about the same age . . . old. I really gotta go now.”
“Okay. Don’t talk to strangers and especially don’t take money.”
The girl didn’t hear her. She was already hurrying away toward the school entrance, and the wind carried Maliha’s warning away. She opened the envelope.
CORNER OF FULLERTON AND LOGAN.
She stuck the note back into the envelope, inserted it into a plastic bag, and tucked it into her back jeans pocket. She didn’t need a cab.
Here we go. One wild goose chase coming up.
Snow began to fall, insistent flakes that pelted into her face, driven by the wind. That was one thing about Chicago—it knew how to do a snowstorm right. She pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt.
As Maliha feared, the second location was another elementary school. This time a boy of about twelve separated from a group of friends and came over to her. The boys left behind shouted encouragement at him, as if he were about to charm the pants off her.
“You the Mailman?”
“Yes.”
“I got somethin’ for ya.” His friends hooted as he pulled an en
velope out of his pants. He purposely held it close to his body so that she had to step forward to take it.
“Who gave this to you?” she said.
“Some dude.”
“What did he look like?”
“Talk wit some kinda crazy accent. Got one o’ them ponytails.” He swaggered back to his friends.
Maliha opened the envelope.
LAMON AND DICKENS. HUSTLE.
There were two more stops before she ended up at Lavergne and Maypole, at a boarded-up house across the street from a school. Her target was marked with a red X on the plywood covering the front entrance. Maliha was frustrated from the runaround and hoping to get her hands on the man with the ponytail. She was disgusted that she’d been given children to deal with, and didn’t like the idea that some creep was using the children as intermediaries.
What was all this for? To make sure I’m not followed? It’s criminal to mess with these kids like that, or ought to be.
There were no footprints in the snow leading up to the front door. She went around the back of the house. No footprints there, either. That meant her contact had been in the house before it started snowing.
Hope he’s freezing his ass off in there. The temperature’s dropped 10 degrees since I left.
She loosened one of the boards on a basement window quietly. Wary of a gunshot from the interior, she pulled a telescoping mirror from her pocket so she could get a look into the basement.
The mirror showed no threat. Maliha moved to the middle of the backyard, ran toward the window, and dove through it, snapping boards and the remnant of a broken pane of glass. She rolled when she hit the concrete floor, jarring her shoulder a little, and stopped behind a large desk that had been turned up on end. She drew her .22 and checked out her surroundings. Dust motes, disturbed by her flying entrance, floated in the pale light coming in from the window. All the drawers of the desk that sheltered her were gone and the wooden frame was split in several places as though someone had started to chop it with an axe and gave up. As a vantage point to survey the room, it didn’t offer much cover.
The ceiling was low and the place was cluttered. In one corner, there was an old urine-stained mattress and an Army blanket with moth holes. There wasn’t any sign of recent occupation. Not far away was a rusty barrel on the concrete containing ashes and some wood fragments. The occupant had been keeping warm by burning pieces of wood from the dilapidated furniture. The splintered pieces of a chair were stacked nearby, but the burnt smell was stale and barely noticeable. It had been a while.
“Up here, sweetheart!”
The male voice came from almost directly over Maliha’s head, on the first floor of the house. The stairs were in a dimly lit area away from the only window. Several of the stairs creaked as she stepped on them, so there was no way to surprise the man waiting.
The door at the top was held in place only by its upper hinge, but had been fitted into the frame, another barrier to surprising her contact.
As soon as I pull on that door, I have a target on my forehead. This guy better be here to deliver a message, not to kill me.
She pulled the door open and came out ready for action. There was a battery-powered camping lantern hanging from a hook that had formerly held a hanging basket. She was in the kitchen, but there was little sign of cabinets. The squatter in the basement had gotten to them. The man she faced pointed a gun at her and for the moment she respected that. He was shorter than she was, dressed in dark pants and a black sweatshirt, and had a ponytail.
“Hello, Malehat,” he said. “That is your name, right?”
She studied him before answering. He had a thick, powerful frame and shiny black hair that was oiled. He spoke English well enough, but she recognized the accent of his birth language, Quechua, spoken by indigenous people who lived in the Andes Mountains. Maliha had lived among the Quechua people for more than thirty years when she was Ageless, exploring the Andes on foot. Millions of people spoke Quechua, but it was little known on the world stage because of the prevalence of Spanish in the Andean countries of South America. There were three variations of the language, and speakers from one region might have a hard time understanding speakers from a different region. She thought his native language was that of the central region, probably Peru.
“I want to know. I need to verify before I hand over the documents.”
“I’m Malehat. And you are?” She edged closer.
“My name is Wayra, though we are not here to have a civilized conversation. On the other hand”—he let his eyes travel up and down her body—“there is no reason why I can’t have a little fun before I deliver the documents. Put that gun down.”
She followed his directions, waiting for her best opportunity.
“Take off your jacket and put it down on the floor.”
Maliha smiled mentally and did as she was told. This man has something to do with Yanmeng’s disappearance, but he couldn’t be the captor. He’s just a thug with a gun.
“Now the sweatshirt and pants.”
Maliha stood in her T-shirt and panties. She trembled a bit, intentionally, to make her breasts shake. The coldness in the room did the rest—her nipples hardened, a spontaneous invitation that served her purpose.
It was all too much for Wayra. He gestured with the gun. “Take off the T-shirt.”
“Why don’t you come over here and do it yourself?”
He started toward her, his gun wavering in one hand, the other hand undoing the button of his pants and sliding down his zipper to free his erection. Maliha was ready to unleash the anger that had been building in her all morning, now that she had a target she could rough up instead of children. When he was close enough, she lashed out with her foot and knocked the gun out of his hand. Then she delivered a powerful kick, angled upwards, to his genitals, shoving his testicles into his torso. A second upward kick caught his erection. There was a popping sound that didn’t bode well for Wayra’s penis. A rapid third strike hit him in center of his torso, tossing him backward.
Wayra curled up on the floor in agony. She pushed him down with a foot in the middle of his back, but he was no danger to her anymore, so she removed her foot.
“Let’s have that civilized conversation now,” she said. There was nothing but moaning from the man. She found a battered metal folding chair, opened it, and dragged Wayra up into a seated position. There was blood on the front of his pants.
“First, where are the documents you were supposed to give me?”
“Damn you, bitch,” he said in a weak voice. His breath was coming in painful gasps. “Call 911. You broke my fucking dick!” He clutched at his bloodied pants. “My balls are gone!”
“You’ll get a doctor if you cooperate. The documents?”
Wayra nodded his head toward a corner of the kitchen, where there was a briefcase on the floor. Maliha retrieved it. There was no lock, but she was worried about a trap. She brought the briefcase to Wayra. His head was leaning to the side and he was starting to fade into unconsciousness. She slapped him with perfectly calculated force and he opened his eyes.
She pulled up his hands and put them on the briefcase, and he groaned. “Open this.” She walked across the room. There wasn’t enough space to get out of the way of a major blast, but it was better than nothing.
With effort, he flipped the latches and opened the lid. There was no trap. She took the briefcase away and examined it. Inside, Maliha found a dossier with photos and information about a man named Nathan Presser. There were clear instructions to assassinate Presser or Yanmeng would die. A flash drive in the bottom of the case had WATCH ME written on it. She slammed the briefcase shut.
So that’s it. Someone’s blackmailing me to do what I was forced to do for Rabishu for three hundred years. Could it be Rabishu? He made me an offer to return to the fold, and maybe he’s angry I didn’t accept.
She turned her attention back to the man in the chair. “Who hired you?”
He shook his head. “G
ot a call. Threw the phone out.” His chin drooped down to meet his chest.
“Why all the business with the kids?”
“Uhhh . . . told to.”
She was sensitive enough to psychic activity to feel the pain flowing from him like blasts of hot desert wind. It was something she usually shut out completely, since she had enough pain in her life from sharing death experiences. She relaxed her eyes and looked through him, focusing on a point beyond him. His aura came into view, a luminous radiance in layers around his body extending about six inches on either side, with tendrils and spikes that could be a foot in length. The dominant color was brown, for deception and selfishness. There were tendrils of black for evil, but the man wasn’t given over to it. She was more concerned about the increasing spikes and swirls of dark, ominous green that showed his injuries. They were fatal. In a few seconds, his aura began to fade and thin out, showing patches of ice blue with specks of soft light suspended in them like fireflies. Soon it would become gray and dissipate further. He was dying. No doctor could help him now.
Five or ten minutes left. That last kick must have ruptured something inside. Shit. I didn’t intend that.
“All right. I’ll get that medical help now,” she said, hoping he could still hear her. She slipped behind him and snapped his neck to spare him a few minutes’ pain. Pulling his body from the chair, she sat in it and went through his death experience, collecting the confused remnants of his spirit and sending them through the portal. Wayra was whole.
Maliha’s anger dissipated. She felt guilty for killing the man, who was, after all, a hired messenger. She didn’t know enough about his background to say whether he was an evil man or not. There was that indication of evil in his aura, but it hadn’t been clearly defined, not like some of the auras she’d viewed. Not like her own.
He was going to rape me, but I’ve faced that before and stopped it without killing. Master Liu said that the one who strikes out in anger is the loser, even if by chance he lives.
She put her clothes back on, picked up the briefcase, and wiped down the folding chair. Searching the man’s pockets, she found his wallet and tossed it into the briefcase to take with her. Waiting for Anu’s displeasure with her, she went into the basement and sat on the floor. There was a penalty for a life taken without purpose. A figure on her scale would walk from the lives saved side to lives taken—a setback for her quest to regain her soul.
