CHAPTER 28

The police officer at the front desk shot a blast of cold air into his face from the tiny fan gun in his hand. It wasn’t doing much for him; poor guy was basically raining onto his holodesk. Fat drops flew from his forehead and chin, sailing through hovering digital keys and splashing against the screen. The sweat typed out gibberish.

“Damn this summer,” the officer said. “Worst one I can remember. Sorry, our air conditioning is being repaired.”

I looked to Afu and Renfro at either side of me and shrugged, not feeling whatever heat was punishing the cop and everyone else in the building. “We’re smoke eaters.”

“Lucky you,” he said, wiping away the hologram keyboard like it was vapor in the air. “What can I do for you?”

“We’re here to see Detective Rankin,” I said.

“Oh, right, right, right.” The officer stood and put a half-eaten burrito in his mouth. He gave us a summoning wave and mumbled over his food. “He’s out back. Follow me.”

The officer led us past tired looking human police at their desks and a couple of droids that were doing twice the work in half the time, typing up fifty-page reports in less than a minute. One day we were going to have a droid-novelist and no one would be able to stop him.

After a long walk down a short hallway, we came to a large blue door that looked more like a loading gate. The officer pressed his thumb to a pad and the door lifted outward.

Rankin stood there, puffing on a bubble vape, but quickly popped the green orb he’d blown into the air and, like a hot-heeled Houdini, swapped it out with a metal toothpick.

“Oh, you’re here,” Rankin said.

“Eight o’clock, like you said.” I shook his hand.

The desk clerk swallowed some of his chorizo and waved as he walked back inside. “I’ve got more pounds to shed sitting in this goddamned inferno.” The loading door closed and now it was just the detective and us smoke eaters under an orange street light behind the tall, blue building the cops called home.

“Where’s the other captain and her crew?” Rankin asked.

“They’re short a guy,” Renfro said. “Captain Williams asked them to work on looking into any phoenix sightings while we do this thing for you.”

I gave our surroundings one more glance. Felt like Jack the Ripper would pop out from behind a trash can. “So what’s with the secret squirrel shit, Rankin? Why are we out here?”

“It’s just the few of us who know about this little operation. I don’t want the press getting wind of it and I sure as shit don’t want to hear about all the legal hoohaw from any desk riders.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache coming on. “Are you saying you conned us into something illegal?”

“No, no.” Rankin rolled his metal toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “Well, not really.”

“Good lord, Ralph,” Renfro said.

“Mayor’s approved it,” Rankin held his hands up in defense.

“That doesn’t mean shit to me,” I said. “She also approved the army to roll in here and rough up innocent people.”

“And I’m trying to prevent more of that,” Rankin said. “That’s why I came to you first. I’m stretched thin and out of options. And more than likely this isn’t going to produce any results, so you have nothing to worry about.”

I groaned. “Just tell us what to do.”

“Alright,” Rankin said. “Pull out your holoreader.”

He sent a file from his device to mine. Afu and Renfro squeezed in beside me to get a look. A white man’s picture appeared in the air. He was somewhere in his twenties, fresh-faced and probably grew up in a cul-de-sac. He looked like many things, but a cult member wasn’t one of them. Then again, neither did any of the other supposed arsonists.

Rankin pointed his toothpick at the man’s face. “His name is Terrence Blithe.”

“He looks harmless to me,” said Afu.

Rankin shrugged. “He just moved here from New York. He’s got a record, but only some minor protesting stuff, nothing I’d normally worry about, except he’s also some kind of whiz with pyrotechnics. He did all of the fireworks for New York’s big events. Plus, he also recently received a dragon blood infusion and likes to attend group meetings for his various interests. I mean, a lot of meetings. Like, he has an addiction to them. Too bad there’s no such thing as a Groupaholics Anonymous.”

“That doesn’t sound like enough to go on,” I said. “And everybody loves fireworks. How did you find out so much about him?”

Rankin rubbed the back of his neck. “We have our ways.”

“Never trust the police,” I said under my breath.

“Are you sure you want us doing this, Ralph?” Renfro said. “If this blows up in our face…”

“You’re just going to keep an eye on Blithe, okay? Look at it this way, if you’re right about there not being a cult, then we can move on and you can tell me you told me so. Oh, and I should tell you not to engage him, unless it’s to save somebody’s life. Fair enough?”

I huffed. “Alright, where can we find him?”

“So what’s the more bullshit job?” Afu asked me as we sat, wearing our power suits, and crammed inside an SUV the police department had provided. “Nabbing dragons alive or this?”

“This,” I said, staring down the street at the community center Terrence Blithe had entered forty-five minutes before. “At least with the dragons we didn’t have to wait around for them to finish their Art of Wood Carving class.”

“I always thought about taking a cooking class,” Renfro said.

Afu hummed. “Me and Tamerica went to one about a year ago. It was fun.”

I glanced at Renfro out of the corner of my eye, waiting for him to make a face.

The cooking class had been fun. Afu and I had made ravioli with alfredo sauce, which confused the instructor, who’d told the class to use marinara. That’s just what we were like, especially together – always coloring outside the lines.

I kicked the floorboard. “This is so stupid.”

“Class is letting out,” Renfro said.

I turned and watched the clusters of people making their way down the community center steps. Most of them were older ladies, so it was easy to spot our prey.

“Okay,” I said. “There he is.”

“I still think it’s going to be pretty obvious he’s being followed,” Afu said. “This SUV is bright white.”

“That’s why we have the best driver in the department behind the wheel. You can be covert, right?”

“I guess,” Renfro said.

He waited until Blithe had walked around the corner and started the SUV. We eased into a slow speed until we came to a red light. Blithe kept walking in the dark by himself

“He’s not getting into a car,” I said.

Renfro hummed. “Nice night for a stroll?”

We made the block, and Blithe passed us, now headed in the other direction. We parked across the street in a fire lane outside a twenty-four-hour gym.

“This is going to be a long night,” Afu said.

A black hover-van pulled up and three people wearing ski masks jumped out. Blithe was able to get out a blip of a shout when the masked men put a silencing bag over his head and threw him inside the van.

“What the fuck!” I said.

“Looks like we weren’t the only ones looking for Blithe,” said Renfro.

“Does this mean he really is in a cult?” Afu asked.

The van sped off.

“No, but this means our job has gotten a shit ton bigger than surveillance. Follow that van, Renfro.”

The van was speeding, but not so much that it would draw notice from any patrolling cop cars.

“They’re taking the freeway to South Parthenon,” Renfro said. “You still want me to follow?”

If we didn’t, and these masked people did something to Blithe, we could be charged with something. Negligence? Failure to Act? I’d feel like shit one way or another.

“Yes,” I told Renfro. “Get in another lane until you see them taking an exit.”

“Maybe these guys are the real cult and they’re trying to take Blithe out so he doesn’t draw attention to them.”

“There’s no cult, goddamn it!” But now I wasn’t so sure. “Anyway, we won’t know shit until these creeps get to wherever they’re going.”

“You going to call the cops in on this?” Renfro asked.

I knew I should.

“Not yet,” I said.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea. This isn’t what we signed up for.”

“Renfro, I’ll let you know when to call Rankin.

Let’s just see where this goes.”

The van exited the freeway and Renfro slowed to follow behind. I had him stop at the corner while the van zoomed farther down the street, turning onto a path leading to the abandoned lumber warehouse.

“I don’t like this,” Afu said. “Creepy van. People in masks. Now a run-down warehouse. This is some horror movie shit.”

“Says a guy who fights monsters for a living.” I tried to smile, but this was giving me a weird feeling too.

“Dragons are easy,” Afu said. “People are the scary ones.”

“Renfro, stay here. Give it ten minutes and then call the cops. Me and Afu are going to go get a better look.”

“Aww man!” Afu leaned his head back in defeat.

“I can do that, Cap,” Renfro said. “But are you sure you don’t want to wait until the cops get here first?”

“If this is the cult the cops keep droning on and on about, I want to see it for myself. And you and I both know how slow PD response is. If Blithe is in danger, I want to stop it.”

Renfro nodded. “All right then. As long as you aren’t just trying to be a hero.”

I left my seat and waited in front of the SUV as Afu took his sweet ass time.

“This is kind of exciting, isn’t it?” I said.

“Sometimes I just don’t understand you,” said Afu.

“Come on, you big wuss.”

Afu sighed and followed me toward the warehouse. We had to follow the chain link fence surrounding the property for about a hundred feet before we came to the path leading in. The hover van had been left just outside a wooden door that looked like it had been repeatedly assaulted by termites and spray paint.

Keeping low, we moved across the lot and stopped at the van. They’d locked it and no one was inside from what I could see. That left the warehouse itself.

“Do we have to go in there?” Afu whispered.

I drew my fingers across my throat and put them to my lips. Smoke eaters didn’t have any official hand signals, but I’m sure he understood that I was telling him to shut the fuck up.

Outside the warehouse’s front door, a sign had been posted in red and white:

WARNING! This property is protected by armed droids.

Afu jabbed a worried finger at the sign, but I shooed it away. The sign had probably been put up when the warehouse was still open. Nothing to worry about.

Removing my helmet, I put my ear to the door. Afu raised his brow, asking if I heard anything. I shook my head. No voices, no screaming Terrence Blithe, not even footsteps or a cough. I opened the door slowly to keep its creaking swing to a minimum.

Pitch dark lay before us but I wasn’t about to turn on a flashlight and kill the stealth we’d been fortunate enough to have. Afu’s heavy footsteps would end that eventually.

I stepped into the warehouse and Afu shoved his way in to stay at my side.

That’s when the floor fell beneath us and we dropped like bowling balls. And it didn’t matter how silent I’d been before, because as I fell through the bottomless dark, I screamed and screamed and screamed.