I didn’t realize I was expecting the office to look like the set of a TV show until I walked through the door. There was no mood lighting, no penthouse vista. The law firm was on the fourth floor of a six-story building, and the exterior walls were actual walls, not a pane of floor-to-ceiling glass. There were three receptionists behind a long, narrow marble counter, all talking into their headsets. The nearest smiled at me when she saw me pull open the glass doors.
The floor was some kind of hardwood panel, and there was an L-shaped gray couch in the corner that looked like it had never been touched by human ass. There might not have been glass walls on the outside of the building, but the two conference rooms were wide open to every prying eye. Between them lay a long corridor with a black carpet that would lead me to the offices in back.
Victim, I reminded myself. I looked around the place, nodding with approval like a jackass who thought his approval meant something.
“Are you Mr. Rose?”
I turned back to her and smiled. She was a tall, gorgeous young woman with black hair that shone even in the tastefully indirect light. It suddenly struck me that she looked like Violet Johnson, the girl in Los Angeles that I had loved and lost twice. That made me feel wary, as though everyone could see that I was pretending to be someone I’m not. “That’s me.”
“Mr. Birdwell will be out here in a moment. He’s just finishing up a call.”
“I’ll grab a seat.”
“No need!” a man called out to me. He strode the length of the black carpet, his hand extended. “Les Birdwell.”
We shook. He was younger than I’d expected, in his early thirties. His suit was navy blue and double-breasted, and his hair was parted on the side and combed high over his head like a politician. He tried to squeeze my hand too hard, just for a moment, then released it. He moved like a guy who had a team of fitness coaches, and who thought that made him intimidating.
“Raymond Rose. Er…” I looked around. There were still three people at the reception counter, but none were paying attention to me at all. Three white women in nearly identical blue business clothes moved into the conference room, and a Nordic-looking guy who looked like he’d been an Olympic decathlete thirty years earlier passed us on the way to the counter. Two Slavic guys dressed like plainclothes cops stood in the corner, talking to a frail old woman. “Is there someplace private we can talk? I feel like I’m in an aquarium in this place.”
“Of course! Not to worry, though. There are sharks in this aquarium, but they’re all on your side.”
His grin was strained as we walked down the long hallway. He looked tense, and I wondered if he was afraid of me. That wasn’t what I wanted at all. “I appreciate you taking the time.”
“Of course, of course. The truth is that I had scheduled a meeting with a client who wanted to update his will, but he passed away overnight.”
“Yikes.”
“Right? Never put off to tomorrow what you can do today.”
It used to be an occupational hazard of mine that some motherfucker I just met wanted to talk to me about death. Killing—or getting killed—was something criminals thought about a lot, and so they talked about it. Usually, it was just because they wanted to establish that they were bad dudes that no one should fuck with. Occasionally, it was because they actually wanted you dead.
I followed Les into his office. His desk looked like one of the more-expensive options from Office Max. It was shaped like a letter L, with a rounded end that stuck out into the middle of the room for no reason. Maybe Les liked to take up space. The early-afternoon sun wasn’t low enough to reach the desk itself, but I wondered what kind of advantage it gave to have the sun at his back.
Then I noticed a third guy in here, standing in the corner as though it was some sort of ninja trick. It was the former decathlete. He was wearing a suit too, but his was black with a white shirt and black tie like he was Secret Service or something. At first, I thought he was Les’s disapproving boss because he had gray hair, wrinkles, and a nasty scowl on his face. But that scowl was directed at me. I got the weird feeling that he wasn’t another lawyer.
I wasn’t quite clear of the door when a little voice in my head told me something was wrong. I stopped on instinct, my hand reaching for the doorknob, but before I could grab it, someone shoved me from behind.
A sudden rage and panic swept through me. I swung around, my fist already balled up and drawn back, when I saw that I’d been shoved by one of the guys dressed as a cop. At the last moment, I stepped away from them and lowered my arm. If these two assholes really were carrying badges, I had to be very fucking careful.
“Knock it off, Mr. Lilly. Sit down.”
Mr. Decathlete sounded like he expected to be obeyed. Another cop, maybe, or an officer in the military.
But Annalise was the only one who could order me around. “Go fuck yourself,” I said. “Get out of the way and let me out.”
They weren’t taking my orders, either. Plainclothes One and Two smirked at me. One of them swung the door shut while the other stepped forward and held his arms open. If I wanted out, I’d have to go through him. The way he stood suggested that he knew how to fight and that he was a southpaw.
“You two are dressed like cops, but you haven’t flashed a badge or identified yourselves. If you want to hold me, you gotta do that right now.”
“Mr. Lilly, please.” This time, it was Lester speaking. I shifted position so I could glance at him behind his long, stupid desk while keeping my eye on One and Two. The Decathlete had moved behind me, but I didn’t have room to circle around and face them all at once. “Mr. Lilly, we know why you’ve come. Our client warned us that you might show up here, and here you are. Now, we don’t want a fight, do we?”
“Maybe we do.”
“Mr. Lilly, don’t be stupid. Let’s pretend you could possibly win this fight against these three security professionals, and that you’d come out the other end with all your teeth and no broken bones. Okay? Let’s pretend that’s a thing that’s possible. This isn’t a playground, son, and you’re not a child. Do you want to go back to Chino? Because I can make that happen if you behave like a dipshit.”
Les might have been on the wrong side of the society’s secret war, but I liked his guts. “That’s the thing, Les. I don’t think you can. The fact that you’ve brought these three guys here tells me that your boy left out vital information about me.”
Les spread his hands, but unlike the guy blocking the door, he made it a gesture of surrender. “Okay. You know what? Fine. This will still be better for everyone if we just talk things out. Why don’t you have a seat?”
“With these two standing behind me? Fuck, no.”
Les turned to the Decathlete. “Boyd?”
From behind me, he said, “Why don’t you boys wait outside.”
They went, giving me one last look that was meant to let me know I didn’t scare them. Honestly, that look was almost enough to make me go for them right then.
But I didn’t. The Raymond Rose name might have been blown, but I was still wearing his clothes and his stupid fancy haircut and frankly, I felt stupid trying to be myself when I looked like this other guy. This victim.
After One and Two shut the door, I turned to face the desk. Les had taken his seat, but Boyd—the former decathlete—had shifted position so he had a clear shot to kill me with the gun he was holding in his left hand. It was huge, even without the ridiculous silencer he’d screwed onto the end. The gun wasn’t aimed at me, but with a turn of his wrist it would be.
If he shot me in the chest, I had Annalise’s tattoos to protect me. If he didn’t, I had a different spell to protect me, one I still wasn’t sure I could trust.
“I thought silencers were movie bullshit.” I’d seen—and heard—silencers before, but I needed something to stall him.
“This is a suppressor, not a silencer. And this”—he turned the gun sideways so I could see it—“is the weapon I carried as a Navy Seal. It’s not a gun you’d carry if all you wanted to do was defend yourself, in case you were wondering. Returning to prison might be the best option for you after you leave this room.”
My hands rested lightly on my knees. “We’ll see.”
“Mr. Lilly,” Les said, “can I call you Raymond? I’d like to be friendly, if we can manage that.”
“Ray will do.”
“Good. Ray. So, tell me, Ray. Why are you trying to kill my client?”
I realized too late that I was supposed to act surprised by the question. With all the world-weariness I could scrape up, I said, “I knew you would try this shit.” Neither one of them looked like they were fooled. “I’ve been trying to catch up to Tristan Serrac for months. After he set off that car bomb in Oregon, and—”
“The FBI already looked into that,” Les interrupted. “He has a solid alibi for that week. He was on a friend’s boat. We have dozens of affidavits attesting to that, and these conspiracy theories someone has been spreading have brought stalkers who—”
“Shut up, Les. I was there. I talked to Serrac. He wasn’t on any boat. He was standing in front of a bunch of beardy assholes talking about the innocent American citizens he was going to kill if I didn’t do whatever he wanted. So, fuck you. I don’t care how much you spent on those affidavits. I know they’re fake.”
Les sighed with a weariness that put my own performance to shame. “Another conspiracy theorist. Another stalker.”
Enough. I’d had enough of this bullshit. I leaned forward to stand, and Boyd barked “Stop!” His gun was already pointed at me.
Maybe this wasn’t the first time he’d pulled that trigger in this room. Maybe a silencer—I mean, a suppressor—was good enough if the only people who heard it were on your payroll. “You assholes are making a mistake.”
Les drummed his fingers on his desk. “Are you armed?” I wasn’t sure how to answer, and before I could decide, he raised his voice. “Are you carrying a weapon at this moment?”
All I had was my ghost knife, but I wasn’t going to tell these assholes about it. “A big mistake.”
Les sighed, but his pretend weariness was wearing thin. I could see delight in his expression, which was different from the excitement in Boyd’s face. The old guy looked like a john in a strip club who was about to nut in his pants.
“It doesn’t matter,” Les said, pulling open a drawer in front of him. He took out a folding knife and a little white cloth. He smiled at me as he wiped his fingerprints off it, and he kept studying my face, waiting for realization and despair to set in.
Fuck these guys.
I stood. Not fast and not slow, but I stood. Boyd did the expected thing, which was to shoot me twice in the center of my chest. I barely felt it—getting shot where Annalise had protected me felt like being poked by an obnoxious uncle. Another shirt ruined. Luckily, this one belonged to Raymond Rose, not to me.
With all the quickness I could muster, I lunged toward Boyd and grabbed his gun. A third shot went off, the bullet passing by me and making a splintering sound. Maybe it hit the door.
I tried to rip the gun from Boyd’s hand, but he was even stronger than he looked. The old guy’s brow furrowed as though he was facing a puzzle he couldn’t solve. His right hand came up quickly and hit me in the side of the face. It was a solid hook, one I would have been proud to throw myself. It hurt a bit but not as much as it should have. It did force my head to the side, so I could see Les sliding his chair back from his desk. He looked at me with horror.
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed out loud, trying to grab the gun with both hands now as Boyd threw a second, then a third punch at me. When that didn’t have the effect he expected, he struck at my wrist, loosening my grip enough for him to angle the barrel upward.
Then he shot me in the face.
The bullet punched through the bottom of my jaw on the right side, shattering my teeth on that side and bursting out of my forehead into the ceiling. My right eye went dark.
Shock. I felt the impact and the pain, but it wasn’t the world-shattering agony it should have been. It wasn’t even enough to send me reeling to the floor, helpless against the rest of the bullets in Boyd’s gun. I kept struggling, waiting for the strength to go out of my legs or something. It didn’t happen.
The old guy ripped the weapon away from me—he was stronger than me, as much as I hate to admit it—and tried to slide away along the wall to put some distance between us. I followed him across the desk, seizing both of his hands as he tried to raise his gun again, but this time, I used my weight as well as my strength. The gun felt hot in my grip, and the next time he pulled the trigger, the shot hit the carpet between my feet, but the shell jammed in the slide because I was burning my hand to hold it in place.
Boyd ripped the weapon from my grip again and drew it back to crack my skull with it. As I tracked his motion with my good eye, I caught a glimpse of his face. His teeth were bared in furious determination, but his eyes were wild with horror.
He swung, and I caught the blow against the outer part of my forearm. I threw a right hook, catching him right below the ear. He staggered. His follow-up had less power behind it.
It took two more hits to have Boyd reeling, falling against the window sill and groping blindly for something to keep him on his feet.
My ghost knife was in my back pocket, and I finally had a moment to pull it. As I did, I heard Les scream in a high-pitched voice, and the latch of the office door behind me clicked open.
I rolled onto my side, letting my legs drop to the floor on the other side of the desk. Les was scrambling backward, trying to push himself through the wall into the next room. One and Two burst into the room, guns drawn.
The ghost knife zipped out of my hand at the speed of thought, passing through both of them. They faltered in their charge—hands falling to their sides, shoulders slumping—as the ghost knife curved around and flew over their shoulders to my hand.
I almost missed it—catching things with one working eye was as hard as I’d always heard—but the spell was mine and it did what I wanted. After sliding it through Boyd’s arm like he was a credit-card swiper, I turned to Les.
The expression on his face told me I needed to check myself before I went back into the world. But where was my pain? If I’d gone into shock, I wouldn’t have felt this pain yet, maybe, but I couldn’t have won this stupid fight, either.
“What is happening right now?” Les whimpered. “What?”
I leaned close to him. “I told you you were making a mistake.” Despite the hole in my face, I could more or less make the words. I sounded like I had a lisp and a bad cold, but he understood me.
Then I said something I did not mean to, and the words scared me as much as they scared him. I said, “You thought you were dealing with a human being.”