Chapter 15

“I don’t like this,” Sable said for the fifth time in as many minutes. She was nervous and it showed. She had traded in her tight dress and heels for tan coveralls and work boots. Every so often she would scratch her head through the matted black wig she was wearing. Sable hated synthetic hair because it made her itch.

“Neither do I,” Tay agreed. He was dressed the same. They sat in a dark-blue van with the words McMillian Cleaning Services stenciled on the sides in white letters.

“Maybe we should wait.”

“We been waiting nearly a half hour now. Any longer and we run the risk of missing our window of opportunity.”

“I don’t like it. First Snake gets himself killed, then Ben goes missing. Maybe it’s a sign that we should back off.” Sable had found out about Snake, aka Detective Cobb, getting killed on the evening news. They hadn’t given much detail, but the fact that he had turned up dead right after the botched robbery was enough to spook her.

“Snake was a fucking degenerate!” Tay said. “That pig had so much beef on the street, I’m surprised it took somebody this long to do him. And Ben, he’s always been Magic’s little lapdog. He was probably afraid that his master was gonna find out about him running with us.”

“As long as we’ve been running with Ben, you ever known him to be afraid of anything?”

She had a point, though he wouldn’t say as much. He needed her on board. “Don’t go getting cold feet on me. I need you for this one, baby.” He reached for her hand but she withdrew. “Oh, so it’s like that? You might be spooked enough to walk away, but I ain’t. I need this. If this don’t go down, some real unhappy people are gonna want to know why. No telling what I may get to saying to them in the heat of the moment. Angry people tend to let things slip, including secrets.”

Sable glared at him. “You can’t hold that over my head forever.”

“I don’t need forever, just one more night. I don’t give a fuck what you do once this is over and I get paid. Now get your shit together and let’s go to work!”

They had come to a facility that rented out multiple office suites inside. It was after-hours, so the place was quiet. A lone security guard sat behind a small desk reading a magazine. He looked up briefly when Tay and Sable walked in wearing their fake cleaning gear, pushing a bin that held their supplies. With a simpleton’s grin, Tay flashed the dummy badge clipped onto his coveralls. The guard gave it a hard glance before waving them past.

When they were safely inside the elevator, Sable breathed a sigh of relief. Her stomach had been doing flip-flops since they’d left the van. She wished she’d taken a bump before setting out on this fool’s errand, but cocaine would’ve likely made her nerves worse. She just needed to survive the night and she was done with Tay and his bullshit. At this point she didn’t care who learned about her snitching.

“Look alive.” Tay snapped her out of her thoughts. He had just pulled his wizard’s mask and wand out of the bin and was gearing up. “You ready for this?”

“Does it matter?”

He tossed Sable her claws and fox mask. “Look, we’re only two instead of four, but the plan is the same: I’ll take the guards and you grab the hard drive. Any of these lab geeks try and play hero, give them the business end of them claws.” He powered on his wand. “Now let’s go get paid.”

Their destination was the top floor of the building. It was said to be closed for renovations, but that was an excuse to keep anyone from going up and poking around. When the elevator doors opened, they immediately smelled burning chemicals. The foul scent fell somewhere between rotten eggs and broccoli that had been left out overnight. Tay walked out, wand charged and ready for trouble. He had expected to encounter a guard posted by the elevator, but as luck would have it, no one was there.

From the end of the hall they could hear the low hum of machines at work. Tay moved with stealth toward the noise with Sable watching his back. They approached a smoked-glass door with a prop-up sign marked DO NOT ENTER. The smell was strongest there. He glanced over his shoulder at Sable. He could tell she was still nervous, but was sure once it popped off she would stand tall as she always did.

“Where are the guards?” she whispered. If what they were out to steal was as valuable as Tay had claimed, it struck her as odd that it wouldn’t be better protected.

“No clue, but whatever rock they’re hiding under is the one they’ll die under if they give us grief. Just keep your head on swivel. You ready?” In response, Sable extended her claws. “That’s my girl.”

Tay went through the door first. If they thought the stench was powerful in the hallway, inside the office suite it was overwhelming. The room was dark, save for the flickering of the emergency lights that appeared every few feet along the walls. Set up on several tables were glass beakers atop small burners. One of the heated beakers was bubbling over, spilling a pale-blue liquid onto the table. According to the backer, this was an operation of major importance, but to Tay it looked like a neglected high school science lab.

“Something isn’t right.” Sable’s foot had just landed in something sticky that she couldn’t identify.

There was a stir of motion to her left, causing her to spin. A figure shambled through the shadows, something long and thick dangling from its hand. Sable’s first thought was that it was a club or sawed-off shotgun, but when the person got close enough, she saw it was neither. In fact, it wasn’t a weapon at all but an arm—a man’s arm. Someone had cut his left arm off at the elbow, and he was carrying the bloody limb in his right hand.

“What the fuck?” Sable gasped. Just then the overhead lights came to life, temporarily blinding her. When her eyes adjusted, she saw her surroundings and wished she hadn’t.

The mystery of where everyone had gone was solved. They were dead. Corpses lined the floor of the spacious room. They had all been butchered, some missing limbs, others without heads. This was no lab. It was a slaughterhouse.

“Beloved,” a strange, mechanical voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, “never avenge yourself, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” Kahllah emerged from the shadows in the corner. She was armed with a kyoketsu-shoge, a short blade attached to a length of chain. She had been expecting the rogue, but it seemed he’d sent his accomplices. “I see the devil has employed helpers.”

“Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” Tay asked, looking at the strange getup consisting of a mask and harness. Before taking on the job, he had been assured that the only resistance they might encounter would be a few hired guns, but the person standing before him was clearly more than that.

“I am the Maiden Sword . . . the purifier . . . I am that which will usher in the end of days.” She swung the chain over her head twice before whipping it at Tay. The strike would’ve been the end of him, had one of Sable’s iron claws not deflected it. Seeing the claws, Kahllah had to swallow a rush of anxiety, recalling the scarring of her young flesh. She shook the feeling off. This fox was not Tiger Lily, and Kahllah was no longer a naive, approval-seeking girl. She was the Black Lotus . . . She was death!

Sable absorbed the weight of the assassin’s next blow with her gauntlet, and felt her wrist snap inside of it. A sharp elbow to her jaw knocked away the fox mask, exposing her face. It was then that the assassin paused.

“You!” Kahllah hissed. It was the same girl she had seen at Voodoo. If this was Sable, the man had to be Tay. This confirmed her suspicion that it was all a setup.

Sable used Kahllah’s brief moment of indecision to make her next move. She lashed out wildly, and the assassin stumbled backward, seemingly flustered. Sable went in for the kill, but the assassin flung the chain around her ankles, throwing her off-balance. In the same motion, the bladed end of Kahllah’s weapon came whipping across her torso.

Sable thanked her stars that it hadn’t connected, but then she saw the blood. She tore away the front of her coveralls and stared, in wide-eyed horror, as her intestines came spilling out. “Tay,” her voice trembled. She fell.

“Nooooo!” Tay howled.

Kahllah looked down at the unconscious girl. When she spoke to Tay, her voice was almost apologetic. “They say that at the moment of death, all the mistakes we’ve made in life flash before our eyes. Hers, and yours, was not knowing how to leave well enough alone. And now you’ll die for it.”

“Fuck you!” Tay roared, and slammed his wand on the floor.

Kahllah was unprepared for the powerful shock wave that followed. She felt like someone had knocked the wind out of her, and she crashed through one of the tables that held beakers. Glasses shattered, and when the blue liquid touched the open flame of a burner, it ignited. A series of small explosions went off around the room, and it wasn’t long before the air was filled with rancid chemical smoke.

“I’m going to kill you!” Tay coughed, sweeping his wand back and forth. Smoke invaded his eyes and nose and obscured everything. The sound of glass crunching under boots caused him to turn. The assassin was coming through the smoke, spinning the bladed chain like a helicopter. Tay tried to use his wand again, but this time Kahllah was ready; the blade bisected the wand just before it reached the ground. There was a nasty surge of whatever powered the weapon, and Tay dropped it.

Kahllah stalked toward him. “And so, the wolf becomes the sheep. You should’ve left while you could, but you didn’t, and now here we are.”

“Look, whatever Magic’s paying, I’ll double it,” Tay offered. This whole setup stank of Magic. Besides himself and his backer, the only person who knew in advance the location of the lab they’d planned to hit was the one person conveniently absent. Ben had crossed them. That had to be it. If Tay survived this, he would settle up with both of his former partners.

“Magic will have his day, but this dance is yours,” Kahllah said. “Will you repent before I send you to join your friend at the feet of our Lord and Savior?”

As if on cue, a guttural scream erupted behind her. It happened so fast that Kahllah didn’t have a chance to stop it. Sable came leaping through the fire like a madwoman, eyes wild. Her iron claws sliced a part of Kahllah’s side unprotected by armor. Ignoring the explosive pain, Kahllah whipped her weapon out and lassoed the girl’s neck.

Tears welled in Sable’s eyes as she knew the end was at hand. With her last breath, she asked a favor of her killer: “Tell Magic . . . I never stopped loving him.”

Kahllah nodded before yanking the chain. Sable’s head made a faint snapping sound as it came off her shoulders, rolling to a stop at Kahllah’s feet. Her eyes stared up at the assassin accusingly. Even in death the girl’s face was just as beautiful as the first time Kahllah had seen her. What could her life have been, had she not fallen in with the enemies of the Lotus? She said a quick prayer for the misguided girl before turning back to Tay. Unfortunately, there was no sign of him. While his lover was being killed, he’d slipped out a back door. It didn’t matter. She had his scent; he could crawl into a hole and still not find refuge from her blades.

As Kahllah was making her way from the burning structure, a vibrating sensation startled her. It was her cell phone, tucked into one of the pockets of her harness. She was hardly up for conversation, especially with the man whose name flashed across the screen. She’d almost forgotten about Dominic and the way she’d left things. At the last second, she decided she owed him an answer. “Dom, this isn’t really a good time,” she said while rushing down the back stairs.

“Guess again,” an unfamiliar voice replied.

Kahllah stopped in her tracks. “Who is this? Where’s Dominic?”

“Dom can’t come to the phone right now.”

“If you’ve hurt him—”

“Your boyfriend is good, but I can’t say for how long. I told you that the next time you involved yourself in my business I was going to break your heart instead of your body. You’ve broken your vow to love none above the Order, Lotus. I’m surprised at you.”

“What do you want?”

“What I’ve always wanted . . . you. If you want to save your boyfriend, meet me at the place where it all ends. Humble yourself before your betters and he may just survive the night. Don’t keep me waiting too long, little bruja.” He hung up.

The man didn’t need to tell her where he was. Where it all ends was something said among the Brotherhood. It referenced a predetermined spot where a sworn member would execute their last kill, before ending their service to the Order. There was only one place all this could end for Kahllah.