I gripped my sister above her knee, squeezing with enough force through the shield to hold her in place. “Don’t take any chances, just listen and don’t get trampled by a waitress.”
Silver slid her fingers around my thumb and bent it back to extract herself. “Piece of cake, Sister. Quit worrying.” Her attention shifted behind me, to Chavarria. “Uh, where are the restrooms by the way?”
The Agent pointed to a hanging sign with a huge arrow and the word ‘restrooms’ underneath. His voice was drier than a desert as he asked, “Can you find it now?”
The bright overhead lights glinted off Silver’s white hair making it look pale blonde. She held up three fingers with her thumb trapping her pinky. “Read between the lines, Marco Polo.”
James coughed to choke down a laugh. “Hurry up, you’re missing what they’re saying standing here smart-assing. Go be invisible.”
I watched Silver nimbly maneuver the busy tables with Mez and I wondered at how good they looked together. He was eight feet tall and Kara’s altered body came in at six feet but their gait was aligned as their long legs scissored in unison. She bumped his chest with a shoulder and he looked down at her with complete adoration and no hesitation. Mez loved my twin for her mind and soul without much care for the flesh she occupied. My heart swelled at the realization that if anything ever happened to me she wouldn’t be alone.
Phantom nerve tingles burst in my extremities like microscopic ice chips melting in the lava flows of my veins. Why was I entertaining the thought of my sister residing permanently in Kara’s empty shell? Did I want to stay separate? Guilt washed over me.
Chavarria picked at the seam of his slacks on his thigh with one thumb and index finger. “A general order for heightened surveillance on all cities with your kind was put out after I reported in six months ago. The larger group of gentlemen has been in town for two weeks this time, but they usually only stay for a weekend. Meetings are always here with the Warp.”
James straightened the shiny metal napkin dispenser on the table and picked at the tops of the uneven artificial sweetener packets. “So they’re colluding, but about what? They obviously don’t trust each other enough to hold these little meetings in the Web.”
Chavarria inserted four straightened fingers between the buttons on his pressed dress shirt like an old-timey photograph of a sheriff in the untamed west of the 1800s. No one would ever be fooled that he was a civilian so I said so. “You’re kind of the worst undercover in the world, you know? How have they not picked up that you’re watching them?”
With his free hand Chavarria gestured with a lazy wrist flick at the hostess station again, where four uniforms were waiting patiently to be seated and shooting the breeze. “LPD comes here all the time. I imagine it makes the men from Arizona feel safer because they think the Warp will restrain himself. We know differently, do we not?” His eyebrows rose.
Our waitress zipped past with a coffee carafe and her shoulders lowered as she realized we were missing people so she couldn’t get our order yet. I smiled in apology and pointed to the restrooms. She looked at the hanging black bathroom sign and then back at me before she disappeared into the kitchen. We were throwing off her game big time.
I turned on Chavarria. “Gerome already explained about the Warp Faction before he died. You know they’re the aggressors and we’ve all been forced to huddle in our little communities with the illusion we’re safe. I’m done hiding and so is our clan. The rest of the clans will do what they will, whether we keep our heads down or not. Obviously, we aren’t the only clan with plans in motion.”
Chavarria cracked his neck with a head jerk to the left and right, then pulled his hand out of his shirt front and leaned close enough to touch knees. “My superiors want in. Information has been gathered on this Warp Faction and none of the chatter has been benign. If we have a homegrown terrorist cell, they need to be neutralized. I propose a temporary alliance for our mutual benefit.”
James pulled a yellow sweetener packet out and started to fold its edges one side at a time. “We won’t agree to wholesale slaughter. No drone strikes allowed. We lead and you follow with an assist and that’s it. The Warp Faction may not care about innocent life, but we do.”
I wanted to kiss him.
Chavarria resettled himself in his chair, the semblance of a relaxed man with a full belly, the former moment of intensity faded as if it had never been. “I can’t speak for my leadership, but I can say with surety that if the threat looks imminent, nothing will be held back, regardless of the reassurances I give you.”
I scanned the room, trying to pick up on my invisible sister and Mez but there was too much movement for my gaze to focus. Maybe they were already in place, gleaning valuable intel? I hoped so. I locked eyes with the Agent. “Why so honest and cooperative all of a sudden?”
Whatever he would have said was lost in the crash of plates on the concrete floor. A backcombed blonde stood glassy-eyed and red-faced over splattered food and ruined dishes. Her mouth was a pretty pink poppy of dismay.
When I checked on the colluding party against the burgundy wall my eyes met directly with the Soul Eater’s powerful penetrating gaze. The jig was up.
James turned in his seat to look through the glass. When he realized who the Soul Eater was smiling at, he stood with his hands on his waist to block me from view as if he were gawking at the mess on the floor in the other room.
I shot to my feet, thinned my shield over my back pocket and threw the ten dollars in cash I’d slipped out next to the napkin dispenser. Chavarria followed suit with two twenties, fully alert and focused on Laser Eyes.
My lids lowered on the audible chaos as I entered the Web to tug hard on Mez and Silver. The Web sojourn was brief. I didn’t want a confrontation with all of this innocent cannon fodder around so I wrapped a light field around our threesome. I doubted Marco Polo even knew he was camouflaged like a bipedal gecko with a buzz cut. The Agent’s hand hovered discreetly by his sidearm, a .45 caliber with a dull metal finish.
I snapped my fingers. “We’re undercover and out, James. I already tagged Silver and Mez in the Web. Let’s go. I don’t want Laser Eyes to start taking people out for fun or slit his throat again.” His nod was brief.
Chavarria whispered, “No one can see us?”
As we rounded the table and I caught up with James’ broad back, I forced my words through barely open lips. “They can hear you and feel you though, so shut up and stay out of people’s way, Marco Polo.”
I’d lost track of our enemy in the crowd of waitresses rushing to help their apron-clad comrade. Using a burst of speed to zip through to the front door was out because of Chavarria. We could leave him behind but that probably wouldn’t be wise for our proposed alliance or his health. Teleportation was out too because I didn’t have enough juice without Silver to jump two other people besides myself. The idea of leaving that quickly without knowing if my twin and Mez were clear was anathema anyway.
We moved as fast as Outsiderly possible between the tables and angled black metal chair legs. Through a temporary gap in the bodies blocking the burgundy wall I spotted the Renos, Doe and Soto. I imagined that three out of the four saw us in the brief cleared crowd space and in the made up version of reality in my mind, Ramon Jesus Ballesteros Soto and his nephew John Doe had the grace to look ashamed, but Manuel Reno just dimpled his chin in disapproval as if we were the ones caught doing wrong. Even in my waking daydreams Manuel was an asshole.
The hostess stand was still unoccupied and the two uniforms were tugging on their utility belts and shuffling their feet as they tried to seem patient as they waited to be seated. We skirted them with careful, soft steps because the noise wasn’t as overwhelming away from the bustle and action of the restaurant’s interior. I noticed the shoe shine gentleman stropping his rag and then James pushed through the heavy windowed door and into the sunshine of daytime. I shredded the light field when we cleared the side of the white painted building. The Bea
st was so close.
Silver cursed herself. Kara’s body was much longer and taller than she was used to. She’d botched the spy job before it had begun with an elbow to a waitress’s tray. Mez threw a horrified hand out to yank her into his chest before white gravy and fluffy yellow eggs could splash her shield.
Cass sent a mental tug through the Web. The intent was clear. She wanted us out of there lickety-split. Silver looked up to mouth ‘car’ and pointed to the parking lot. Mez blinked in consent. She took charge of the bend and they ended up side by side on the cracked vinyl back seat just in time to see Laser Eyes aim a gun at Cass, James and Chavarria. It was clear from her body language Cass wanted them to stay put.
Motion caught Silver’s eye from edge of the restaurant’s stucco side and she stared in panic as the gun shifted to point at someone unexpected. No! What was she doing? Silver widened her eyes, then cut them at Cass but it was too late. Words were exchanged that she couldn’t hear. The report of the discharged handgun made the interior of the SUV seem like an all too real movie theater.
Just when we were even with the bug splattered grill and right as Mez and Silver popped into the back seat of the Suburban, Laser Eyes rose like a demented jack in the box. He leaned across the hood and pointed the barrel of a two tone Walther P99 at James’ chest. I only knew the type of firearm because Kara had made my sister and I watch every Underworld movie there was when she couldn’t sleep, right after we moved to the enclave.
Silver moved her light brown iris in a sea of white as she tried to tell me something without words. I could see the side of Chavarria’s drawn weapon in my peripheral vision, and I realized he wasn’t shielded. Rather than freak him out by covering him directly I put up a convex barrier that let the nose of his .45 peek through. It would be better all-around if he didn’t kill himself with his own ricochet.
Laser Eyes held the handgun braced and steady with his elbows on the hood. “Tell them to stay inside the SUV or I shoot the Agent who’s been spying.”
The hair, the face, the glowing irises—they were the same as I remembered them. Age lines ran in deeper tracks at the corners of his eyes and his skin looked like a golfer’s—all even warm tan. Dirty blonde hair giving way to gray around the edges was cut in a banker’s neat parted style. How could someone so evil wear the guise of civilization so well? How come bad people didn’t have flashing signs over their heads with skulls and crossbones? Unbidden, a flashback raced to the forefront of Laser Eyes smelling his bloody finger with relish. As a scared thirteen year old girl the unwanted memory would have terrified me, but today it only made me furious.
I shook my head at Mez and Silver through the windshield. They probably wouldn’t stay out of this long. “You’ve got about two seconds before they ‘port out and rip off your arms.”
He smiled as he shifted the P99 a centimeter to the right and squeezed the trigger. The boom and the muzzle flash jolted every muscle in my body. At first I thought Chavarria was the target but a feminine scream belayed that assumption. I sensed James dash further from us through the shield as the Agent returned fire at the Soul Eater who ducked back behind the hood of the Suburban. A tan luxury car screeched to a stop on the street and the passenger doors on the opposite side opened as two black clad henchmen fired compact machine guns with long clips over the roof.
The whine, pop and ping of bullets deflecting into The Beast and every other vehicle in the vicinity filled my ears. I ran after Laser Eyes as he scuttled beneath the unleashed cover-fire. There was no need for me to cower but my eyes burned at the realization that an innocent bystander was down on the sidewalk, that poor person’s crime nothing more heinous than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I hoped to hell the ultimate price—a lost life—wasn’t paid.
Long arms wrapped around my middle and lifted me from the ground. I kicked backward to no avail, and when I looked down I recognized the dark brown hands clutching me with effort belonged to Mez. His voice right next to my ear would have clued me in anyway.
“Sustor Cor! Now is not the time. Remember the plan and let him go!”
I sagged, like a lifeless sack of wet laundry, when the sedan burned rubber onto the street toward the Interstate and the possible evasion of authorities. Mez released me with his arms up in immediate surrender.
Sirens sang their dissonant song, growing closer as I toe-kicked a spent casing into the gutter across the hot asphalt, throwing my face to the sky and howling in frustration.
Chapter 19: Don’t Start None, Won’t Be None
The rage in me felt like trapped, heated gas and when I breathed in, the hot air felt cool on my throat. I could feel blood in the skin of my face and adrenaline flooding my veins, pulsing with the urge to fight or flee. Mez stood still with his hands raised. He dropped them after a silent consideration, and his light field eyes jumped as if they were an interrupted satellite connection.
My ears filled with the growing wail of the police approaching. They’d be here any second. The Beast was totaled but it didn’t matter because I needed to see if the woman who’d been shot was going to live.
Chavarria was on his phone already by the corner of CIS, looking down at the sidewalk as he spoke into the wind. He looked calm and collected, but I could see tiny beads of sweat in his hairline. It sounded like a conversation with 9-1-1.
The four uniforms that had been inside waiting for a table made a precision rush from the front of the restaurant, keeping out of their brethren’s line of fire while covering all of us.
Chavarria flashed his badge, still talking with the emergency dispatcher. James and Silver kneeled over a young woman with an apron and a twenty dollar bill gripped in long, light brown fingers. I recognized her charcoal eyes as they swam in a panicked pool of white—a sheen of perspiration covered her exposed skin as if she’d oiled up to suntan. Carrie the waitress had a bloody hole in her side just above her left hip.
Silver used a flexible tentacle of pancake-flat shield to apply even pressure against the wound, covering it with her own overlapped hands to hide the unusual behavior of Carrie’s escaping fluids against the invisible compression. Silver’s abilities to heal were limited to Weavers as far as we knew so this Outsider was going to have to take her chances with conventional medicine. Now wouldn’t be the time to experiment anyway.
James held the waitress’s left hand while smoothing the hair on her forehead. His voice was solid as if his words were carved in the senses. “Help is coming, Carrie. The hospital is just down the way and EMS is almost here. You’ll be fine.”
Her wide eyes jerked to Chavarria then back to James. “I was only trying to return the money. Marco left too much again and I didn’t want to take advantage.” A fat trapped reservoir of saline pooled by the narrow bridge of Carrie’s nose. “He already gave me a loan to fix my transmission.”
Silver looked up from the girl’s injury with raised eyebrows.
Mez put his arms high like he was praising Jesus, and I followed suit to make the on-guard patrolmen feel more in control. The last thing we needed was for them to fire and realize how bulletproof we were. Forensics was already going to have a heyday trying to figure out trajectories from the spray of machine gun fire bouncing off our shields.
The head-exploding, up close pulse of multiple sirens accompanied the screech of brakes, opening doors and shouted commands. The distinctive background babble of multiple radios replaced the sirens as they all shut off. Weapons got holstered and the tension ratcheted down a few notches when all the uniforms realized we weren’t armed and the bad guys had fled.
One of the police officers from inside the CIS tried to pull Silver to a standing position, but Chavarria angled the phone away from his mouth to say, “Leave her, Cooper.” His lids were half-mast as he checked on Carrie, but his tone suggested the interfering officer was suffering from a case of stupid. Chavarria went back to his conversation with the 9-1-1 operator as a dismissal.
Cooper turned on me, and his head tilted
as he took in all eight feet of Mez by my side.
“You need to move back.”
Cooper moved forward, using his Kevlar bulked chest as a herding tool with his arms spread wide. A tattoo of purple and blue wings peeked out of the short cuff of his right sleeve on the underside of his bicep. His features were boyish and rounded with wind-tousled dirty blond hair to cap it off. Muddy brown eyes were glued to Mez in either awe or curiosity.
We shuffled backward on the uneven asphalt, loose pebbles rolling under the soles of our shoes, until we stood by the front grill guard of a black and white with a ticking, cooling engine. The questions started and I knew they wouldn’t end for hours.
An ambulance showed up and Carrie got carted away on a raised gurney by cargo pant- wearing EMTs with no nonsense attitudes and brusque, sure movements that spoke of experience. One was a stocky black woman with a full curly afro and the other was a muscular oriental man with a shaved head and so many ear piercings it would take him an hour to get through the TSA checkpoint at an airport. I saw a tragus, an inner conch, an outer conch, a vertical tragus, an upper lobe, a stretched lobe, a snug and an orbital to start with. I realized I was just trying to distract myself with details, and I forced myself to look at Carrie’s washed out face as they collapsed the gurney and lifted her into the back. She was terrified. I wondered if she had any family that needed to be called.
A crowd from inside the CIS grew and grew like a high speed time lapse series. The shouts of, “Hey that’s my car!” and “What happened to my truck!” started from the owners of the bullet riddled vehicles. A backdrop of cloudless cerulean blue covered those gathered like a glass pot-lid and I sensed that the steam of anger, fear and shock could erupt if the situation wasn’t explained soon. Knowledge, even tiny bits, could soothe even the most ruffled of feathers. The police needed to give them something to do, so as more units showed up, more bystanders were questioned. The majority of them hadn’t seen a thing, but the uniforms took statements about what they’d heard anyway.
PHOENIX (The Weaver Series Book 4) Page 16
