by Ric Beard
“But he was also the one who Morgan wanted.”
Lexi leaned away from Mikael and searched his eyes.
“Morgan knows he doesn’t age.”
“Yes.”
“Which means that William is in danger.”
“Or, he was.”
“He’s safe then?”
“Give me your Tab.”
She handed it over. He tapped it repeatedly, swiped a few times, and tapped again. After a minute of this, he held it and viewed the screen. Lexi saw a progress bar for only an instant. He handed it back to her.
She tapped the screen and watched. Photos of the man she’d passed in Blake’s reception area popped onto the screen. He was walking out in the open like he wasn’t wanted by a dangerous man who looked like a vampire. She scrolled to the last photo. It was time-stamped—she checked the time on her glasses—four minutes earlier. William was standing among falling snowflakes on the sidewalk outside City Hall!
She jumped off the sofa.
“Lexi,” he said.
“Yes?”
“You’re fired.”
“You’re going to make a wonderful mayor, Mikael.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I will never forgive you for killing my parents, but I will always be thankful for what you did to make up for it.”
She turned and saw Kara aiming her pistol at her.
Lexi stopped short.
“Umm…”
The two women stared at each other.
“Tell me you don’t work for Vaughn or some shit like that.”
“What?” Kara looked down into her hand. “Oh! God no! I’m sorry! I was just holding it for you. You dropped it.” She turned the pistol around and held it out for Lexi before pulling her into an embrace.
Lexi turned and snapped a picture of Kara and Mikael. Then she slapped her Tab into its holster. After slapping the panel inside the door, she stepped outside and bumped into what felt like a wall.
“Sorry!” she said, taking a step back and looking up at the tall man who barred her way. He had a wide-eyed expression on his face.
Stevens.
He grinned and reached inside his jacket.
Chapter Eighty-Eight
Boy
Lexi stayed Stevens’s hand with a swiftly-delivered barrage of punches to his face, catching him by surprise and causing him to fling the weapon to the floor. He raised his hands to ward off the flurry of blows, so she sent a knee into his stomach, causing Stevens to falter and step backwards. As she continued punching, he flung his hands out blindly and tapped her chest. Suddenly, she felt both of Stevens’s hands push into her torso, sending her reeling backwards. Lexi curled into a ball and rolled easily onto her back before kicking her feet into the air, pushing her hands off the floor above her shoulders and bringing her body weight back onto her feet. She put her weight on her back foot and looked up.
Stevens was waving a fusion pistol in greeting.
Then Mikael was at her side.
“Stay back, Kara,” Mikael said over his shoulder. “Get back and close the door!” After a couple seconds delay, the door slammed behind them.
“You’re hereby in the custody of the Triangle City Security Services,” Stevens said, a smile crossing his bleeding lips. “You’re charged with treason, resisting arrest, assault on an officer, and whatever else I think of by the time I get you upstairs.”
“If you think I’m letting you get me alone in an elevator, you’re gonna need to think a little harder, butch,” Lexi said.
“Let me guess,” Mikael said, looking calmly at Lexi. “Officer Stevens?”
“That’s the mother fucker, all right.”
“I see.” He turned to Stevens. “Exactly how stupid do you think we are?”
“What’s it to you, Jensen? You want me to run you in, as well? It can certainly be arranged.”
“I would love to see you try.”
“Fine.” He stepped back and started waving the pistol in the direction of the elevator at the opposite end of the hall. “You’re going in for interfering with an officer in the course of his duties. Your campaign is over, chief. Start walking.”
Mikael gestured for Lexi to take the lead. Lexi knew he wanted to make sure he was stationed between her and the brute who’d beaten her in the jail cell. Mikael knew the only reason Stevens hadn’t shot her was because Mikael was present.
“Move it,” Stevens said, pushing Mikael in the back and running him into Lexi.
Without so much as turning his head, Mikael said, “Touch me again, and you’ll be sleeping outside the wall when I’m finished with your boss.”
“That’s rich.” He pushed Mikael forward again. “I could put you down right now, the both of you, and no one could do shit about it. You forget who I work for.”
“That’s that, then,” Mikael said. “Hope you like camping.”
Lexi looked up and saw a sliver of light drawing a neat line between the elevator doors as the elevator dropped to the basement. As they were likely blocking his view, Stevens probably hadn’t seen the light. She took four quick steps forward to get close to the door.
“Hey!” Stevens called.
Then the elevator tone hummed and the doors opened.
The eyes of the two men standing on the elevator in their combat suits widened in surprise for a moment and then relaxed.
“Miss Shaw,” the smaller man with the hint of gray at the ears said. “The Chain’s still a ways out, so we can move Mister Jensen and Kara to the estate.”
Lexi heard Stevens shove Mikael out of the way and raised two fingers to her chest, out of Stevens’s sightline. The two men paused only for a moment before raising their weapons. Lexi stepped to the side.
“Drop it, asshole,” the graying man said.
Stevens held up his free hand. “Security Services! You drop it! Both of you.” He waved the gun back and forth between them, a practiced look of authoritative anger locked onto his face. The other two men shared a look of confusion. Lexi understood their conundrum. If they fired, they could be prosecuted. If they didn’t, they had no way of knowing what would happen. Lexi watched as Stevens continued to wave the pistol back and forth, but the look on his face was morphing from authoritative to doubtful the longer the two pulse rifles were leveled on him.
“Miss Shaw?” The taller of the two asked.
“Fuck her. I’m a god damn Security Services officer, and I told you to drop your weapons, boy.”
“Who are you calling a boy?”
Oh, you did it now, dummy, Lexi thought.
Stevens raised his pistol higher and aimed it at the man’s face.
“I’m talking to you, boy. Do you know what kind of pistol I’m holding on you? I could turn your whole head into black dust. Even if you shoot me with those—”
A blue flash erupted from the barrel of the graying man’s rifle, pounding Stevens in the center of the chest, the close proximity and stopping force of the rifle combining to send him flying backwards and flat onto his back. Lexi cringed as she heard Stevens’s head thunk onto the floor.
She looked at the smaller man and gave him a half smile.
The bodyguard looked at Mikael, then at Lexi, down at Stevens, and back at Mikael.
“I sure hope you win,” he said.
Lexi felt a surge as she looked down at Stevens. A vision of his bruised and battered face, custom-tailored to match her own, ripped through her mind. A mental image of spidering bruises beneath her combat suit, busted vessels webbing out in all directions. She could be on him in a moment, beating him while he was as defenseless as she’d been after the stun stick.
“I wouldn’t stop you,” Mikael said.
Lexi looked up. In a single, familiar expression on Mikael’s face, she saw what he had truly become in this new world. She looked down at Stevens again and remembered that same expression worn by the Asian from Mikael’s pictures, the man she’d known so long ago, a man who’d taken her in after her
parents died. That man taught her self-discipline and raised her like she was his own. He taught her the compassion this mission had often made her forget. Mikael was like Miko, the man whose memory she’d betrayed hundreds of times with the edge of her blade.
“I think the skinny guard from my cell would be willing to arrest him with your witness statements, guys,” she said. “Take him there.”
Mikael smiled.
Chapter Eighty-Nine
Magic
The man in the brown suit had a purpose. A leather satchel bounced next to his hip as he raised the collar of his suit-matching brown trench coat and trudged down the stairs of City Hall without so much as a glance around. Sean had seen Reagan marched into the building as he’d set up his watch out here for Morgan. Though he thought the long-lost daughter of the city’s leader would likely be safe, if not revered as a hero, a lump rose in his throat. Nothing was sure in life.
He was torn. He wanted to know Reagan was okay. But the moment he saw the vampire walk out of the building, he knew what to do. Sean rationalized that Reagan had survived hell that even he couldn’t imagine. She’d be fine.
Though Sean had seen enough death in his 121 years and wouldn’t have dreamed of killing someone when he’d entered the city just two hours earlier, being abducted had finally pushed him over the edge—and he damned well knew it. If he wanted to live on the east coast unmolested, Morgan couldn’t tell his story. He might not be able to come back to this city, but now he had Lucian, Jenna, and Miranda to think about and, who needed all the glitter this place provided, anyway? He cursed and took a step in Morgan’s direction.
It was then that a woman with red curls reaching to her shoulders, wearing a form-fitting black outfit and high boots crashed through the door and stopped just outside. This had to be the same woman he’d seen at JenCorp stepping onto the elevator, unless that suit was a common fashion trend. She was the one with the great ass.
Wait. That suit looks a lot like Jenna’s.
The woman’s head swirled as she scanned the bottom of the stairs, squinting through the snow. Sean thought she looked frantic, desperate. He felt a desire to reach out, to see if he could help. But it was the same kind of desire that had burned him so many times before, so he pushed it away and looked back at Morgan descending the stairs. But the woman was dragging his attention back to her. It was that damn suit.
Then she saw him. She raised her hands to the sides of her head, grabbing handfuls of red hair. She looked like she might collapse as her knees seemed to bend of their own will, but she steadied herself on the wall and lowered her head. The desire to help was almost overwhelming, but his target was at the bottom of the stairs now, crossing onto the sidewalk. Motion captured his attention, and he jerked his head back to the woman as she started in his direction.
Was she crying? Every fiber that made him human told him to help her. But then he thought of Carson, who’d framed him. He thought of Moss, who’d caught him off guard with his rifle butt. He thought of Morgan, who abducted and tried to kill him outright. No more mister nice guy.
She’s coming right towards me.
His muscles tensed. The woman was young. Pretty. Tall. Her hair color a mixture of flames and sunsets. Her slightly upturned nose perfect for her angular features. Her eyes. She was fifteen feet away now, and her crystal blue eyes erased everything in the universe that surrounded them, as if he had tunnel vision. The slightly upturned nose set beneath blue eyes screamed of a sudden familiarity, and then the red hair sealed it.
Miranda?
His head spun as if the afternoon sun had breached the snow-filled clouds and blinded him. The whole world seemed to spin around this woman dressed in the body-hugging black outfit. Sean’s knees struggled to hold his weight. He thought he might fall into darkness as the world continued to spin. His arms were open, though he hadn’t thought to make them so. Then she was upon him, and they were locked in a crushing embrace.
“Oh, my God!” she shrieked. “Oh my love, oh my God, you’re alive!”
“Miranda,” was all he could say as the tears started down his own face. “Miranda.”
They clutched each other desperately, maintaining their crushing grips as if they were afraid the other might vanish if they let go. Her wet tears rolled down the shoulder of his jacket as he kissed her ear and cried out his gratitude.
“What did I just walk up on?”
Sean opened his eyes and saw Reagan, standing with her head tilted to one side.
Miranda released him and swung around, but she held tight to his arm with both hands, as if he would never leave her grip again. Reagan’s eyes searched from Sean’s face to Miranda’s.
“Lexi?”
Sean remembered the name Lucian spoke in the warehouse.
He was talking about my sister…
“Holy duck balls,” Miranda said. “What? How? Reagan?” Then she threw her hands up and looked back and forth between them. “Okay, who has his hands on the controls because he’s starting to spin the world around.” She looked back and forth between them again. “You are both supposed to be dead.”
Sean watched as Miranda hugged Reagan. He looked down at the street and saw Morgan’s figure growing smaller as he scurried away.
“I’m sorry to break up the reunions and—” he looked at Miranda, “—there’s no way I’m letting you out of my sight,” then at Reagan, “or you for that matter, but that man down there is on my shit list in a big way.”
Reagan turned and looked through the pouring snow at the man on the street.
“That man has been supplying weapons to The Chain,” Reagan said. “Add him to my list.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Miranda asked. “That’s the mayor’s—” She pointed at Reagan. “Wait, you know exactly who—” Her face changed. “The Chain? Morgan has been—?”
“Let’s go,” Sean said. He glanced at Miranda and grabbed her arm. “All of us.”
They took off down the stairs. Sean pulled out a pair of bulky goggles and strapped them onto his head, trying to evade a thought that he’d admired his long-lost sister’s ass.
“Those are interesting,” Miranda said as they jogged down the stairs.
“OK City’s finest,” he said. “Nothing as nice as yours, but they work.”
“So, OK City?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think we have some really long stories to tell each other.”
“Talk about understatements,” Miranda said.
Morgan turned and looked over his shoulder.
“He saw us,” Reagan said. “But I don’t think he was expecting three people, so maybe he didn’t know it was us. Snow might have helped, too.”
But then Morgan turned. In a second, he was gone. At that same moment, the city sirens started screaming throughout the streets again.
They rushed ahead, the snow thickening around them. They turned the corner just in time to see Morgan turn one block away. Miranda pulled a pistol from her hip holster. Sean started running, holding Miranda’s free hand, and pulling her with him. Reagan almost slipped in the snow but regained her footing. Miranda pulled away from Sean’s hand and passed him. She was the first to reach the next corner.
Damn, she’s fast.
She screeched to a halt and almost slipped in the snow. Her hands went up, and Sean slid to a stop next to her. Reagan slid into him.
“You’ll want to drop that, now,” Morgan said. A pulse pistol in his left hand was trained on Miranda’s chest.
She dropped her sidearm.
“Good, now let’s have everyone else disarm themselves. Including that little contraption you had in the mayor’s office.” He nodded at Reagan.
“How did you—” Reagan started to ask. Morgan waved the weapon at her. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the small contraption by its makeshift handle, and tossed it on the sidewalk. Then she pulled a folding knife out of her boot and dropped it as well. Morgan looked at Sean. Sean shrugged.
>
“I’m not carrying.” He unzipped and opened his coat to prove it.
“Well, judging by the three of you, I seem to have problems.”
“Oh, you’ve got problems, all right,” Miranda said.
“Don’t piss off the guy with the gun,” Sean warned.
“He might get one of us, maybe even two—”
“Don’t be stupid, woman. I’ll shoot you first.” Miranda glared at him through the slits of her eyelids. He turned to Sean. “So, Mister Stone. I guess you weren’t lying after all. Not the loner I thought you were, hm? Aren’t you just full of surprises. Tell me, how exactly did you get out of the warehouse?”
“Magic.”
“Warehouse?” Miranda asked.
“It’s of little consequence,” Morgan said. “Is my man dead?”
It took Sean a second to register what he was asking.
“The nerd in the white coat? No, but he probably has a bitch of a headache, and I’m thinking his shoulders are pretty sore by now. But he’ll live.”
“I still need what I brought you here for. Quite the predicament. And you,” he pointed the gun back at Miranda. “Maybe you can tell me why you’re here?”
Miranda shrugged. “Oh, I’m just along for the ride. They don’t seem to like you. And after our last meeting, I don’t like you much either. So I thought it might be fun to chase you down and see what this was all about.”
Sean’s eyes flicked over Morgan’s shoulder for an instant as, up the alley, a figure wearing black with a wide-brimmed hat appeared. He was marching toward them, black boots kicking up white powder.
You better be on our side...
There was something strange in his gait, in the way he moved. He wasn’t pumping his arms like a runner. His speed was deceptive. It was like he was concealing his movement as he grew larger, coming up the alley.
He’s trucking!
Sean shot his eyes back toward Morgan and kept them locked there, hoping Reagan and Miranda would do the same.
