“Pick her up. Easy, you fool.”
“Call me a fool again, Rex, and you’ll be—”
“Guys, guys, c’mon. Help a siren out here. Carreg, grab her arm, make sure it doesn’t dangle.” Hands dug under me and lifted. My head thudded against a hard chest as another hand placed my wounded arm gently over my stomach.
The bounce of footsteps jarred me somewhat, but otherwise I was protected in a cradle of warmth. This must be some kind of residual memory. I’d died. Hank, Rex, and Carreg had come back to rescue me, but they were too late and now they were carrying my dead body home.
Suddenly, a burst of understanding jolted me. Carreg had made it. Rex and Hank were free from the lab. That meant … Emma was safe. A flood of relief soothed my thoughts. Emma was safe. Now I could rest in peace. Peace out. Laughter bubbled out of me.
“She’s laughing,” Rex’s voice sounded from somewhere behind me. “What the hell is she laughing about? Dude, maybe she’s brain damaged or something.”
Poor Rex. He was once just a spirit. Like me. He must be hearing my incorporeal self.
I was floating, floating over the grass and woods, and the crickets and katydids, through the crisp nighttime air. And into blackness.
“Uh, Charlie?” Fingers tapped my cheek. It was Will’s voice. “Hello? Can you hear me?” More annoying taps.
“Stop tapping her cheeks like that. She doesn’t like it.” This from Emma.
She was right—I didn’t like it. You tell him, baby.
“Momma,” she said, so close to me, I could feel the soft brush of her breath on my other cheek. It smelled like bubble gum. “Can you wake up now, please?”
Instinct lifted my hand, wanting nothing more than to run my fingers through her hair. A gasp reached my ear as my hand landed on a real head of soft hair. Stunned, my eyes cracked open.
What the—
I blinked rapidly until my sight adjusted to the overhead light and the grinning face hovering above me. “Emma?” I croaked out through papery lips.
I’d never seen her smile so big. She turned away from me for a second and said, “See, I told you I could do it. You owe me twenty bucks.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Rex muttered. “Here, you little thief.”
She grabbed the twenty and then turned back to me. “I love you, Mommy.” Then she hugged me tightly.
There was nothing like it in the world. I breathed her in, amazed and humbled that I was here. Apparently alive by some insane miracle. It all dawned on me at once. I swallowed the lump rising in my throat, my eyes too dry for tears. God, she smelled so good.
Emma drew back, and I scrutinized every inch of her. She looked perfect and unharmed. Her brown eyes were bright, her auburn-brown hair in the usual ponytail, and those few freckles splattered across her little upturned nose. Over her shoulder, Rex was staring down at me with a happy, slightly goofy, smile.
I was in a hospital room, lying in an elevated position. To my left, Hank’s big sleeping body was sprawled over a worn out recliner. To my right, the curtain was drawn back to reveal my sister lying in a similar bed, her head turned and staring, teary-eyed, at me.
“Bryn?”
A smile came slowly to her face, and though it was a happy one, there was an air of sadness about her, a flat, haunted look that hovered behind her eyes and dimmed the light that was usually there. My lips parted, about to ask her what was wrong when Aaron came through the door with two vases of Gerbera daisies. I bit my tongue. Immediately, he headed toward Bryn’s bed, but when he saw where her attention was fixed, his gaze shifted to my bed. “Well, it’s about time.”
“Hello to you, too.” I coughed, my throat dry and sore, as he set one of the vases by my bed and the other by Bryn’s. When that was done he glanced from sister to sister, shook his head, and grinned, taking a seat in the empty chair next to Bryn’s bedside.
“Would someone mind telling how I got here, and why Bryn is in that bed?”
Emma scooted more fully onto my bed as Rex sat at the foot, making me move my feet over.
“Ash,” Aaron explained. “It doesn’t have the same effect on us as it does on humans. Bryn was in a coma for five days. But with Titus Mott’s help, she and the others are now on the road to recovery.”
“And outside, what’s been happening on the streets?”
“It’s quiet. A few more overdoses trickled in, but, so far, it appears that field you flooded halted the supply. And no other cities have reported any cases, so looks like we got to it before it went wide.”
For now. It was only a matter of time before someone else picked it back up again, or introduced something entirely new into society.
“And you should know,” Aaron continued, “it’s dark outside. Charbydon dark.”
My eyelids fluttered closed for a few seconds as I composed myself. I knew it. I’d felt it in the circle, had seen it shooting up from the ground, and I felt it now, in my bones, in the faint thrum of my Charbydon side. I accepted the news with a nod, not ready to deal with those repercussions right now. “How long have I been out?”
“Seven days.”
“Seven days!” I tried to sit straighter, but gave up as weakness stole over me. I hadn’t used my muscles in a week. My gaze drifted to Emma. “Where were you this whole time?”
She shrugged and popped a bubble with her chewing gum. “I stayed at Aunt Bryn’s with Daddy.”
Okay, so maybe I hadn’t woken up all the way. Surely I hadn’t heard that correctly. “Come again?”
Rex gave me a pointed look. “Em and I took care of the shop, and looked after Gizmo and Spooky. Disney World will just have to wait.”
My pulse surged. I’d dreaded the moment when Emma would discover that the man she knew as her father was gone. I never had the time to sit down and really think about how I would tell her or what I would tell her. Panic shot through me. I wasn’t prepared.
Rex stopped making eyeballs at me since obviously I wasn’t getting his meaning. He let out an impatient huff, and leaned in for a hug. His mouth pressed against my ear as he whispered. “I know, not many actors can pull off a role like this,” he said, clearly amazed by himself. “Good thing for you I just happen to be an exceptional artist. You can thank me later. And just remember to call me Will.” Emma grinned at his display of affection, and I felt the most horrible sensation in my gut as I realized he was playing the part of Will. Lying to my kid was not something I was comfortable doing.
I put an arm around him and made like I was kissing his cheek. “We’ll talk about this later …”
A low chuckle bathed my cheek in warm breath. “Oh, Charlie,” he said loudly. “I’m glad to see you, too, baby.” He straightened and let out a happy sigh. Yeah. Exceptional, my ass.
Emma beamed at the man she thought was her father.
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked her.
“Uh, yeah. Everyone can stop babying me now.” She rolled her eyes. “Although, I’m cool with the extra junk food and later bedtime.”
Rex shushed her with a hand over her mouth, but she just giggled and shoved him away. “C’mon, kid.” he said “Let’s go tell the doctor she’s awake before you rat me out some more.”
She gave me a happy eye roll that said, Daddy has lost his mind, but I like it, and then hopped off the bed.
As they left, I sat there stunned for a long moment, unsure how I felt about him taking care of my kid for the last week, or the fact that he, we, were lying to her. I’d have to tell her. Sooner rather than later.
“She’s been well looked after, Charlie,” Aaron said. “Hank’s been sleeping over at Bryn’s, too. Rex seems to have taken on the role of father like he was born to it.”
The doctor came in, so we shelved the conversation as he listened to my heart, checked my blood pressure and the bandages on my arm and back. He gave me another day in the hospital before I could leave, which I immediately objected to. I wanted to go home. My bed. My clothes. My life to get back to normal as soon as possible. We finally settled on me leaving mid-morning tomorrow if everything still looked good.
Hank woke during the exam, shell-shocked to see me sitting up and speaking. Watching him try to wake up and digest it all was an amusing distraction. His hair was ruffled and one side of his face held the pattern of the checkered pillow he’d been sleeping on. The voice-mod was still stuck on his neck, but I tried not to let my gaze or thoughts dwell on it and ruin the moment.
After visiting for a little while and keeping things light, Aaron and Hank left, followed a few minutes later by Rex and Emma. She had school in the morning and homework to finish.
“Amanda came by a few times to visit you,” Bryn told me once we were alone. “They let her go home yesterday. Cass fled the country. He left the lab and everything in it, so Titus had all the samples he needed to study the drug.”
I turned more to face her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m awake,” she said as though it was one step above a No, I’m not okay. “I don’t like the fact that every other day I have to take a small, regulated amount of ash to keep my system from shutting down. And if you want to know the truth, I feel like a fucking drug addict.”
I winced. Bryn never cussed like that. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She shrugged. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” An air of depression settled around her, and for a long moment she didn’t speak. “Rex is good with Em,” she finally said, changing the subject. “I don’t think you need to worry about him. But there is one other thing … He, um, sort of rescued a pet. It’s living in your backyard.”
“Why do I have a feeling this is not going to be good?”
“It’s the hellhound. Brimstone. Once he found out Animal Control was going to euthanize it, he had a fit. He and Aaron broke into the pound and stole him.”
I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.
“He bought him a reinforced kennel and is working with him, training him.”
I nodded. Great. Just great. Now I had an illegal hellhound living in my backyard. “That hound gets anywhere near my kid and I’ll shoot it.”
“Yeah, I told him. So did Hank. But you should see it, Charlie. Anytime Emma goes out to visit him in the kennel, he becomes completely docile. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
This was the first time since I woke that she sounded like the old Bryn. “Thank you,” I said, knowing our fight had cost her far more than she’d ever admit. “For what you did. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
An ache blossomed in my chest. Bryn always wanted to talk about things. That was—had been—part of her personality. Now she was different. Changed. Like me. Like Hank. Like Will. Tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them back before Bryn could see. But it didn’t really matter. When I looked over, she had fallen asleep.
Waking up to two giant forms hovering over me wasn’t exactly the best way to start the morning. I gasped and sat up as one of the forms reached over and hit the lamp switch.
The chief and Hank stood on either side of the bed. Hank with his hands shoved deeply into his front pockets, in dire need of a shave and haircut, and the chief, folding his big, leather-clad arms over his chest. I suddenly felt very small and very under-dressed.
“What is this? ITF’s version of a wake-up call?” I asked, voice groggy and scooting up. I went to adjust the bed’s angle with the control, but the loud burst of sound made me stop; I didn’t want to wake Bryn.
But then I noticed she wasn’t exactly in the room. Her bed was made. Her table cleared off. I continued to raise the bed.
“Where is Bryn?” I asked.
“She was released about three hours ago,” Hank said. “Aaron picked her up. She didn’t wake you?”
What the hell? She left without saying good-bye, just snuck out without a word? Granted, I knew she was seriously troubled and still physically suffering from her ordeal, but to just leave like that … “Guess not,” I said, feeling confused and hurt and a whole lot concerned. Maybe she was worse off than I thought.
The chief cleared his throat, obviously seeing my mind wandering. I focused on him. The last time I’d seen the chief, I’d shot him with a stun gun, and I still didn’t feel bad about it. “How’s your leg?”
“It hurt like hell, Madigan,” he barked and then shook his head. “But it worked. No one blamed your little escape on me, except Otorius, but that was no surprise. Listen,” he began more quietly and a hell of a lot more uncomfortably, “about that … I just want to say … well, I’m sorry for keeping that whole DNA thing a secret. Titus had a chance to save you, and I don’t regret giving him the go-ahead.”
I absorbed his words, knowing that, in a roundabout way, I owed him my life. But I still wasn’t ready to let him off the hook for keeping the details from me. I dipped my head slightly and changed the subject. “So, one of you going to tell me where we stand?”
“We’ve got Interpol looking into Cass’s whereabouts. We’ve been cleaning and processing the lab. Your friend Carreg has dropped out of sight. And if there was a connection between Mynogan bringing ash to the city and his plan to call the darkness, hell if we can figure it out.”
“And Tennin?”
The chief’s dark face went blustery. “Well, let’s see,” he said growing more perturbed by the minute. “That string I pulled at Deer Isle for you ended up getting Lamek Kraw killed by his visitor. Murder-suicide. Yeah. It was a hit. Feeling a little used yet?”
My lungs deflated. Shit. “What else?” I knew there was more.
“Oh, it gets better, Madigan. I went and raided the Lion’s Den. And you know what? Didn’t find a goddamn thing! Held that bastard in cold cell for three days while we searched! And you know what all it’s gotten me?”
I was afraid to ask. But I didn’t have to.
“Fired! That’s what it got me!”
Hank and I winced at the same time.
“So what about us? The department knows now that I was attacked, that Mynogan was behind the kidnapping.”
A sharp laugh jiggled the chief’s angry cheeks. “You’re not off the hook! Neither one of you is. You can’t just go renegade and run around the city killing off-worlders, even if they are bad. What you both did should land you in jail.”
“Should?”
The chief’s indignation diffused somewhat, and he relaxed into the chair by the bed. “I’ve been offered a new job.”
“What?” Hank and I said in unison.
“Yeah, and you two nutcases are coming with me.”
A quick glance at Hank told me he was as stunned as I was. And we were both hesitant to ask where.
“All right, I’ll ask,” Hank finally said. “Going where?”
“The fifth floor.” At our confused faces, he laughed. “Yeah, I know. There is no name for where we’re going. Just a floor. The fifth in ITF Building One.”
“But the fifth floor is the clerical floor. There’s nothing up there but accountants, bookkeepers, and records clerks.” What the hell was the chief talking about?
“Have you ever been up there, either of you?” We both shook our heads. “Well, there you go. Look, we’ve been given a chance by the higher-ups to keep our heads above water after this fiasco. We answer to no one but them, and as far as the ITF is concerned, they’re on a need-to-know basis.”
“So, what, we’re classified now?” A laugh escaped me.
“To the rest of the world, pretty much. To the assholes and criminals on the street, we’re gonna be their worst nightmare.”
A slow grin split Hank’s face. “I’m liking the sound of this.”
I liked it, too, but then my sane voice interrupted. I couldn’t do this anymore. I’d almost died twice in one year. There was my daughter to consider here. I shook my head and let out a deep sigh. “I can’t do it, Chief. I can’t.”
The chief’s pupils dilated to hard points. “You don’t have a choice, Madigan. It’s either prison or this. You tell me which one is better for your kid.” I felt as if the breath had been kicked out of me. “Look, I know how you’re feeling right now. I know why you don’t want to do this anymore. But damn it, Charlie, the higher-ups aren’t doing this to be nice. They want you and Hank, and they’ll use any leverage they’ve got. Look at it this way,” he said, sitting back. “You can heal yourself now. You got more protection than any off-worlder I know. You bled out almost entirely. Hell, you didn’t even need a transfusion when you got to the hospital.”
That shocked me. “I didn’t?” A creepy sensation crawled up my spine, and all I could see was blood in my vision and the taste of it in my mouth.
I’d kept Mynogan’s blood. Oh, God, I was going to be sick.
Hank was beside me, hand on my back. “Breathe through it,” he said gently. “Deep breaths.”
I put my head toward my knees as waves of nausea rolled through me.
“He’s not in you, Charlie. Your body used what it could to keep you alive, but you had enough of your own blood in you to recoup it as you healed.”
It sounded like a theory to me, not fact, but I had to give props to Hank for trying. “So what kind of job are we talking?” I asked, easing back onto the pillows and not wanting to think about blood.
“Well, let’s just say the ITF has cases that need to be handled outside the normal confines of the law. That’s where we come in. You answer to me. I answer to a contact in Washington. And you two have already proven you’ll go above and beyond. The head honchos have been looking for a new team to work Atlanta for months. I know it’s not fair, Charlie, but it’s all we got, and I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
The chief stood, signaling the end of this little meeting. “As soon as you’re recovered, we’ll get to work. The CPP may be disbanded, but Mynogan had a loyal following. And we still have a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to ash and Tennin’s involvement. It’s not over.” He opened the door and sighed. “And apparently we have an escaped Adonai serial killer on the loose.”
For some reason that didn’t surprise me. Just add it to the other things on the list: nailing Grigori Tennin, getting Will’s soul back, fixing Hank’s voice-mod problem, ridding myself of this power inside of me, having a heart-to-heart with my daughter because there was no way I could keep lying to her … And now Llyran had escaped.
Just a day in the life, I thought ruefully.
After the chief left, Hank sat on the edge of the hospital bed and, like me, took a long moment to ponder the chief’s words. Finally he straightened his back, dragged his fingers through his hair, and turned his gaze to me. “So, are we doing this, then?”
What choice did we have?
Going off the grid, having no one to answer to but the chief, being the worst nightmare to criminals who deserved it … I gave him a shrug, feeling a small smile tug the corners of my mouth. “What the hell.”
It was fitting that my first view of the darkness I’d brought to Atlanta would be seen with Hank at my side. I’d kept the hospital curtains drawn, hadn’t asked about it, and had basically avoided the issue until the last possible minute. And now it couldn’t be avoided; I had to leave the hospital. Of course, leaving in a wheelchair wasn’t exactly my style, but I cooperated because, quite frankly, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand once I saw the damage I’d done.
Maybe sitting down was the best thing for everybody.
“Aaron said it won’t last,” Hank said quietly as he pushed me through the elevator door and into the hallway that led to the main lobby. “You made it out of the circle before your last drop was spilled and your life force gone. He’s not sure how long, but the League seems to think the darkness shouldn’t spread too far or last forever.” He paused, and I heard a small sigh. “I won’t lie to you, Charlie, it’s been hell trying to calm the fear and panic once it reached the city. The ITF has managed to keep your name out of the media so far, but you should know … some people in the department blame you. Others think you’re a hero.”
Joy. “And you?”
“I think you’re out of your mind, as usual.”
I laughed even though my hands clenched and unclenched the armrests. “Thanks.” And then he turned the corner.
My heart hammered quick and hard against my rib cage.
I could see it through the main lobby’s wall of glass. My mouth went dry, too dry even to swallow. The front doors slid open, and we glided past a florist, through another set of glass doors, and then we were out.
Outside. In the dark. At 11A.M.
The blue sky and sunlight had been replaced by an undulating, churning mass of gray. It was not the complete darkness of night, more like the darkness of a total eclipse or a very nasty thunderstorm with the darkest damn thunderclouds you ever saw. Occasionally a bright flash, similar to heat lightning, would illuminate the darkness, but it was the only light from above. It moved and seethed like a living entity, an entity built on my blood. My gut twisted.
“Excuse me,” a voice interrupted my horror. I glanced over my shoulder as the florist we’d passed approached. “The lady at the front pointed you out,” he said to both of us and then switched his gaze to me. “You’re Charlie Madigan, right?”
“Yeah?”
“These are for you.”
He stuck them out, but Hank snagged the flowers with an unamused glare that made the guy dip his head and then hurry to his van.
Once he was driving away, Hank handed me the flowers. They were lilies. Bloodred. I secured the vase between my thighs and picked out the note card, feeling a sudden pang of apprehension.
Charlie,
I like what you’ve done with the place.
My vision distorted. Hank’s voice drifted away as he asked me who the flowers were from, but I couldn’t answer because I couldn’t breathe.
Panic blasted through me like an arctic wind, then doubled back to blanket me. It was the panic of the trapped, of that precise moment when you realize that you can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t do anything physical at all. You can only think and feel the drumming of your heart and the intense surge of adrenaline as it races through your system.
Then, just as suddenly as the feeling came, it was gone.
The world blinked back into focus—sharp, gray, slithering focus that lay like a living shroud over the city. A dark city. Electric goose bumps snaked down my arms and thighs. A Charbydon paradise. Hell on Earth.
There’s more than one monster in this city. The last words Otorius had spoken to me echoed through my mind.
I knew who had engineered me and made me call the darkness, and that monster was dead. But why the hell did I get the feeling this was only the beginning, like I’d just been played big time, like I’d fallen into something way bigger and far more complex than darkness and ash?
As I sat there in the wheelchair, hospital traffic going by, people walking in and out, the earthy scent of lilies invading the air, I knew one thing. Grigori Tennin might like what I’ve done with the place, but I had created the darkness. It was my blood that had called it, and it was my blood that would fix things. I was the lone wolf, the only one of my kind in existence, and I had the power inside me to change everything.
Grigori Tennin was about to learn a valuable lesson: there was one thing more dangerous than making a deal with the devil, and that thing was me.