season’s bleedings bleedings... · 2019. 10. 25. · also by cristelle comby the neve & egan...

SEASON’S BLEEDINGS

VALE INVESTIGATION - SPECIAL CHRISTMASNOVELLA

CRISTELLE COMBY

ALSO BY CRISTELLE COMBY

The Neve & Egan Cases

RUSSIAN DOLLS

RUBY HEART

DANSE MACABRE

BLIND CHESS

Vale Investigation

HOSTILE TAKEOVER

EVIL EMBERS

AVENGING SPIRIT

Short Stories

Personal Favour (Neve & Egan prequel)

Redemption Road (Vale Investigation prequel)

The short stories are exclusively available on the author’s website:

www.cristelle-comby.com/freebooks

Copyright © 2019 by Cristelle CombyThis book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents, other

than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious. Any resemblance toactual events or real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form orby any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from

the author.

Edition: 1

CreditsEditor: Johnathon Haney

A

1

’TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORECHRISTMAS…

ny P.I. manual worth its salt will tell you that the trickto invisibility is looking like you belong — that and

staying out of the spotlight.But sometimes, there are places with nothing close to

shadows. Now when you’re handed those kinds of lemons,the only way to make lemonade is by blending in with thebackground. Right then, that meant squatting down in afilthy alley just one minute shy of 0100 hours. A few feet tomy right, Columbo Avenue ran parallel to my spot; all itsstorefronts were strung up with tinsel and Christmas lights,which illuminated even the darkest corners. As near as Icould tell, I was the only one around to see them this late.

I had about three days’ worth of growth on my chin,smeared with some of the spare grime and dirt lying aroundthe alley. I was wearing a surplus store army jacket—alsoredecorated with the alley’s filth—and dulled, beat-upcombat boots that had a second sole of crushed drug vialsingrained on the bottom. Add in the bleary-eyed expression

that I’d spent about two hours perfecting in front of themirror, and I was as much a part of the scenery as the dump‐ster I was sitting next to.

A functional digital clock, attached to the new bank thathad opened up last month, shined from behind a ring ofwreaths across the street. It was now 0100 hours. If my infowas on the level, the mark would be here in exactly twominutes.

Right on schedule, he turned the corner at the other endof the alley. Even from this distance, the streetlamp on GrantBoulevard made him stand out like a GQ model in a bikerbar. His dark three-piece suit was Eurotrash chic, withexpensive tailoring that flattered his shape and helpedconceal the pistol I knew was inside his coat. By contrast, hislight copper skin suggested he was Latino or Latinx. It was agood fit with his face, so clear and smooth it felt as if he’dnever had to shave a day in his life. While I’d never beenclose to him while standing up, I pegged him as being acouple of inches taller than my six feet.

He walked past me and the rest of the trash without asecond glance. Guess in Cold City, nobody notices a bumunless they’re loud or obnoxious. And my mark certainlyhadn’t been the exception to that rule.

Though I’d spent the last two days establishing his routewith a discreet tail, he hadn’t made me. It’d have been betterif I’d had another person to switch off with, but such are thecompromises of a one-man operation like mine.

I waited for his steps to recede before rising to my ownfeet. His footsteps were the only ones on the block. But thatwas to be expected, seeing as tonight was Christmas Eve.Just about everybody else was at home… with their families…

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A sudden pain stabbed its way into my heart at thethought. I pushed it aside while I peeked around the corner.Not now—I was working on Santa’s schedule tonight.There’d be plenty of time to deal with all the ugliness after.Of course, that was assuming that I’d even want to.

As expected, Señor Suave was walking into a door threebuildings down, entering a vacated apartment complex. Aninformant of mine had confirmed that he had a key to theplace, which had an appointment with the wrecking ballafter the New Year. It’d barely stood for a decade, but thatwas long enough by Cold City’s standards. Euthanizingbuildings to make room for more expensive ones was amunicipal tradition right up there with Independence Dayand Christmas. Besides, the place’s outdated style probablyclashed too hard with the rest of the neighborhood gentrifica‐tion going on around it.

Personally, I considered those circumstances a bonus.That meant the only things likely to be in that building weremy target, the person I’d been hired to find and, in a fewminutes, me.

I went down to the other end of the alley in a quick strut.It’d cut into my ETA, but there was nothing for it. If Iwanted to get the drop on this guy, I had to take anotherroute. Good thing for me that he was a creature of habit. Hisroutine involved going to exactly three spots: a no-name barnear the waterfront, the bank on Columbo with the clock,and the apartment building he’d ducked into. No grocerystores, no hotels, and no restaurants.

I’d sent a rotating roster of homeless guys inside the barto confirm that he wasn’t putting anything into his body butliquor.

Season’s Bleedings 3|

I wasn’t just paying those guys to drink either. A fewquestions to them helped me come up with an ID on mytarget: Javier Nunez, a middle manager in an up-and-comingdrug cartel moving into Cold City.

The rest of what I knew fit the profile: he liked theladies, Cuervo Gold, and his privacy. But, aside from the nofood thing, there was one problem. Per some online researchthat I’d put together, Nunez was supposed to have beenblown up by a car bomb about six months ago.

Maybe he’d faked his death and was laying low until itwas safe to show his face again. Or maybe he wasn’t thesame guy that got vaporized in the blast. The inside info I’dgotten from Client #1 made Possibility #2 look mightygood.

Before I got to the back of the apartment building, Iducked down the alley between it and its neighbor. I notedthe torn camera mounted over the side door. Before theprevious owners turned the building over to the realtors,they’d made it a point to take all the CCTV equipment withthem. Cheap bastards who tried selling this place expectedthe locks to keep out the squatters. Too bad for them I knewa down-and-out break-in artist.

The lock on the side door was broken from when I hadbusted it last night. It opened up into a backroom that hadbeen the landlord’s office. The office front door led to ahallway that had a row of mailboxes to the right. Those boxeswere embedded into the side of a flight of stairs.

While my eyes adjusted to the dark, I let my ears listenfor any noises. I could make out some faint steps a little wayover my head. According to some blueprints that I’dretrieved, this place had three floors. Nunez could have been

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roosting on the second floor, but I laid even money on itbeing the top floor.

Not wanting to take any chances, I pulled off my boots.The last thing I needed was those broken shards to give meaway. After tying the strings together, I hung them aroundmy neck while I started tiptoeing up the stairs. Since thesteps were made of stone with some light Astroturf thrownover them, there was nothing to make them creak. Mystocking feet barely whispered with each step.

On the second floor, I scanned the open hallway at thetop of the stairs. Before I could finish, I heard a muffled voicefrom the next floor up. Despite being indistinct, the voicesounded like it was talking to someone else…like, say, theyoung woman I was here to rescue for Client #2. Somethingabout that voice’s tone set my teeth and made me pick up thepace as I headed for the last floor, careful to remain quiet.

I stayed low on the steps as I reached the third-floor hall‐way. A quick scan of it showed the fourth door on the rightwas ajar. A faint, flickering, orange light was spilling aroundits edges. Even though I could make out the kidnapper’svoice now, I couldn’t understand what he was saying; what‐ever foreign language he was speaking wasn’t Spanish orPortuguese.

I set my boots down next to the stairs and crawled up thehallway. Once I got to the edge of the door, I reached into myjacket pocket. As I got to my feet, I found some holiday cheerin the handle of the Marine K-Bar that my hand waswrapped around.

Peeking through the cracked door, I saw Nunez squat‐ting on top of a sleeping figure on a twin bed to the right.The candle on the nightstand put out enough light for me to


see him and his victim, the girl whose family had hired me tofind her.

I was struck by how young and innocent she looked inthe candlelight. But then, being just out of her teens, uncon‐scious, and wearing club clothes that were probably cleaner afew nights ago had a lot to do with that. Though her pictureshowed her having a naturally dark-brown complexion, herface was much paler. It took me a minute to figure out that itwasn’t a trick of the light.

I took a closer look at her non-gentleman caller. At first,it looked like Nunez was holding his fingers over her cheeks.Then I saw the things coming out of his digits, thin asneedles and, going by the blood trickles on her cheeks, sharpas ice picks. He rocked himself back and forth on top of her,jabbering in his weird tongue. Was it some EasternEuropean language? The words sounded like a prayer tosome deity no sane person would want anything to do with.

Client #1 had told me to expect the unexpected fromthis guy, but watching him in action was a whole differentstory. The original plan had been to slip in and quietly cutthis asshole’s throat while he was occupied. But this Yuletidehorror show called for a change of plans.

I shoulder-rammed the door open with a bang. Nunezhad enough time to turn his head before the K-Bar’s bladeripped out the throat it was embedded in. Once the bladewas clear, I tackled him off the girl and onto the floor, whichwe hit with a dull thud.

Nunez gurgled while his fingers wrapped around hisneck like a leaky bandage. Pulling myself upright, I plungedthe knife into his chest, again and again, my rage fueling mycombat reflexes. It took me until the sixth stab to realize he

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wasn’t moving anymore. Then I noticed his needle fingershad retracted completely into his hands.

I took a second to clean my steel on Nunez’s overpricedsuit before checking on his victim. Getting his freaky fingersyanked out of her face had left a few scratches behind. But Ifound a bigger problem when I checked the girl’s pulse. Itwas a lot more uneven than it should have been. The nearesthospital was a couple of blocks away, but there was no wayI’d be able to get her there on foot in time.

I went back to Nunez and started patting him down.Once I found the cell in his coat’s inside pocket, I wasted notime dialing up help.

“911, what’s your emergency?” the operator’s voiceanswered.

“There’s a young lady in the condemned apartmentbuilding on Columbo Avenue,” I said in a high-pitched voice.“She’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t know how much longer shecan hold on.”

“Where is she in the building?”I glanced over at the number on the open door. “Apart‐

ment 307—please hurry.”I hung up before the operator could ask me anything else

and placed the phone on the nightstand next to the candle.Then I ran outside to grab my boots.

While I put them back on, I thought about the freshcorpse on the floor. I could leave him there, but I’d beenasked to keep things quiet, and the last thing that I neededwas a murder investigation complicating things. I movedback inside and, after checking that the girl was breathing,dragged him out by the shoulders.

Hauling the corpse out of the room was a lot easier than


it should have been. Nunez’s body felt like it was made ofhelium. The nearest end of the hallway had a door that led tothe service stairs. The blueprints had shown a fire exit at thebottom of the stairs, next to another handy dumpster I coulddrop the corpse into. All I had to do was beat the incomingparamedics. The corpse didn’t get any heavier as we wentdown the steps, and I wondered if he was the real Nunez ora clever imposter.

His eyes popped open a couple of flights of stairs later,and I froze mid-step. I was trying to write it off as a reflexaction when he slipped his way out of my hands. I stumbledbackward while he picked himself back up.

I yanked out my gun and waited for my back to hit thewall to take aim at the not-quite-dead man. That was whenhis whole appearance began to…change.

My brain short-circuited at the sight that stood beforeme. One second, Nunez was turning around to face me. Thenext, my dead wife Marissa stood inside that suit like it wassome ill-fitting Halloween costume. My gun hand wavered.

“Bell…” She looked at me in fear and confusion. “Whatare you doing? Why are you trying to kill me?”

God damn it; it even sounded like her.“Don’t hurt me, my love. Please,” she pleaded, her eyes

misting over with tears.My heart panged as I realized how much I’d missed her…

my body surged forward, wanting, needing to get closeto her…

“Marissa?”“Come closer, my love,” she said, her soft lips curling up

in a sweet smile, “then we can be together again.”I’d almost taken a step forward when I saw her fingers

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starting to extend the needles. That was enough to bring meback to reality and take aim while growling menacingly, “Goscrew yourself, bitch.”

The thing that wasn’t my wife blinked hard at that state‐ment. “Go…screw myself. How do…what does…”

The whole illusion of looking human collapsed afterthat. In the blink of an eye, it transformed from Marissa intoa monstrous thing with black feathers and a beak the size ofgarden shears. It grew to be so big that it damn neardestroyed the suit it was in. In the end, the creature lookedlike nothing less than a giant chicken with human hands.

As convulsions racked its body, it started speaking in thatlanguage I’d heard upstairs, spacing out the words with a lotof caws and high-pitched shrieks. I was squeezing the triggerwhen one shriek made it open its mouth so wide that its headsplit open. The screams became truly horrific after that. Itwas like this birdman’s whole body was determined to turnitself inside out from the head down.

The sound of the ambulance rolling up in front snappedme out of my funk. Maybe shooting the thing would expe‐dite its demise, but I was out of time. I took my finger off thetrigger, shoved the gun back in its holster, and ran the rest ofthe way down the stairs. The fire exit slid open for me,letting me slip outside and onto Grant Boulevard.

Just like I’d hoped, the ambulance’s lights were flashingfrom Columbo. Slouching slightly, I ambled down the boule‐vard, looking like I’d had a drink too many.

I’d gone about three blocks north before my guts rebelled. I


couldn’t get the image of that big chicken bastard unzippingitself out of my head. Ducking into the nearest alley, Iunloaded what was left of my lunch onto the snow-coveredfloor. After a couple more dry heaves, I noticed that I hadcompany.

As usual, Client #1, my boss, code-name Lady McDeath,was dressed to the nines— tonight that involved a tasteful redcocktail dress that stood out like a neon sign on the moon. Apair of matching pumps adorned her feet with matchinglipstick slashed across her kissable mouth. The rest of her feltanything but kissable. Her dark, probing eyes bore down onme like a sentence of doom, and her skin was pale enough tomake the girl I’d left with the EMTs look healthy. Herangular face was attractive but sharp like an ornate katana.Her French-braided hair was dark enough to be one with theshadows of the night.

Her lips sneered at my prostrate form. She impatientlytapped her left foot as she told me, “Your stomach is going toneed to be much stronger for any future tasks I put to you,Bellamy Vale.”

I humphed. Oh, but she loved reminding me that I wasnew to this job and, overall, bad at it. I had to hack up somemucus before I could talk. “Well, pardon me all to hell. Someof us have a hard time watching giant chickens disassemblethemselves.”

She grunted while I got to my feet. “Such has alwaysbeen the way for the lidércs.”

That set my blood boiling. “You mean that you knewwhat that thing was all along?”

Lady McDeath didn’t offer any reply—God, but sheliked toying with me.

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I wiped my mouth off on my jacket sleeve. The alleycrap on the sleeve made me regret it. “That girl almost died.I’d have gotten to her quicker if I knew what I was upagainst.”

“You had all the information you needed, envoy.” Mymistress turned her dark, dead eyes to me. “Alas, you failedto comprehend how to use it.”

I shook my head. “What is that even supposed to mean,huh?”

“That it is time you realized you are not fighting merehumans anymore.”

And there it was; she’d all but called me a pathetic rookieagain. Damn—but it wasn’t like this job came with a hand‐book or video tutorials.

“Fine, enlighten me,” I said, letting my exasperationshow. “What was that thing, anyway? Wait—didn’t you tellme that the thing was a lidérc? Which nasty part of AlterumMundum did it sprout from, and why didn’t it die rightaway?”

“The lidércs are part of the Hungarian folklore, and theonly true way to kill them is to tell them to do an impossibletask.”

Okay, that made no sense. “And what impossible taskdid I —”

I stopped asking the question mid-sentence as the piecesfell into place. I held up a finger. “Wait. I told it to go screwitself… You mean… that’s what made it—”

“Yes, a crude method,” Lady McDeath said withnarrowed eyes and a disapproving tone. “But one I will admitproved effective. Then again, you tried to kill it with a knifebefore that, which was far cruder.”


“The idea was to keep this quiet. Going in guns blazingwas only going to make that job much harder.”

Her eyes flared with a dark fire I was coming to know alltoo well. “Are you referring to the mission I put before you orthe one you arranged for yourself for a price?”

She said these last words like they were a bigger perver‐sion than the creature I’d left smeared on the stairs. I sneeredright back at her. “Don’t you dare talk to me about howmaking a living is a bad thing. I have bills to pay, and it’s notlike you bother paying me any—”

My throat closed up before I could finish the thought.Unlike the last time that had happened, she didn’t eventouch me. She cupped her hand around the empty air, and Ifelt my trachea being squeezed in response.

“It is only because you have succeeded in your task that Iam not harsher, envoy,” she growled at me, closing thedistance between us. “Involving others in this matter had thepotential to reveal secrets best left buried. Care to explainyour carelessness?”

She flattened out her hand, and my throat felt air rushinginto it. The rest of me was glued to the spot.

I coughed a couple of times before I could answer her. “Ifollowed the trail of evidence in front of me. The girl I savedtonight worked at the bank he’d been using. When she wentmissing, and the cops couldn’t find her, I made sure herfamily knew I was a private eye looking into a related case.”

“And thus, you put yourself in a position to be askedquestions that should never have been spoken,” mytormentor accused me.

“Hey, I was trying to keep them away from the truth,alright? Once they knew I was on the case, they backed off.”

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Ruefully looking down the street, I added, “Fat chanceof keeping things quiet now with what’s left of our perp onthe stairs.”

Lady McDeath didn’t say anything for a minute. Thenshe muttered, “That will be dealt with…not that you deservesuch consideration.”

She took a step back, and I regained control of all mylimbs. Once I was sure we weren’t about to do anything butstare at each other, I said, “Look, all that’s left is calling thefamily up and letting them know which hospital they canfind her in. We win; the lidérc loses. I’d call that a Christmasmiracle.”

She frowned at me before turning her piercing gaze tothe ground. “Very well, envoy…I shall consider this anacceptable result.”

Looking back up, she put her pointer in my face. “Buttread more lightly in future, Bellamy Vale. Never forget thatthere are millions of others I could replace you with.”

I looked around the alley for effect. “Well, seeing as noneof those millions are around right now, I guess that—”

She’d completely vanished from the spot she’d beenoccupying before I could finish the sentence. Abruptnessaside, I wasn’t sorry to see her go. I’d worked under someharsh bosses, but Death qualified as the Queen Bitch ofSupervisors.

Reaching for the phone in my pocket, I glanced at thetime; there were five and a half hours to go before daybreak.After checking the boulevard to be sure it was deserted, Ibegan the long hike back home.


N

2

HERE, KITTY, KITTY!

ormally, I would have driven my fancy new Stingrayroadster home. But even with the lack of people on

the streets tonight, a ride that loud would stand out toomuch. No cabbie in his right mind would stop for a guy thatlooked the way I did, and since I couldn’t hitch a ride onSanta’s sleigh, I opted to walk my way home.

Seven blocks later, the ultra-modern architecture gaveway to buildings that had been standing since at least theNixon administration. Usually, coming into this part of townon foot was a lousy idea. But this was Christmas Day.

While Derby wasn’t exactly a slum, it was the one spotin Cold City where you couldn’t get a fast response timefrom the cops. Crime, at every level, was its principal indus‐try. Let the CCPD make as many arrests and sweepsthrough here as they like; replacements would be back out onthe street the next day, whether the perps got charged or not.And any outsiders without a police shield had better be hereon business or else.

However, for at least three generations, a truce had beenobserved during this one time of year. No illegal businesswould take place until the wee small hours of the 26th. Iguess career criminals have families, too.

That train of thought made my mind go down places I’dbeen trying to avoid since the job started. When Marissa andmy little girl Line died, I crumbled. I fell into a pit of alco‐holism that had me living out of a dinghy for most of thisyear. It got to the point where the only thing that made meget up in the morning was my obsessive search for the hit-and-run driver that had taken their lives.

An obnoxious prick of a detective named Morgan wassupposed to be doing the same, but he refused to tell meanything. Months later, when I finally got a face-to-face withhim, he told me that the investigation had been sent to thecold-case pile. That earned him a sucker punch on the spotwhile I felt all the hope that I had left die inside.

The next night, I took my dinghy out on the open waterfor the first and last time. I tried to drown myself, whichbrought me straight into Lady McDeath’s grip. In exchangefor doing some work for her, she promised to get me thename of my family’s killer.

When I stabbed the guy to death in his home, it resolvednothing. My family was dead, I was alone, and a search of hisplace showed that the guy had been as broken as I was.

I tried drowning myself again; only she wouldn’t let me.In the compact, I’d signed over my soul to hell. I was

hers, and so was my death. And she would only let theeternal night take me when it suited her. In the meantime,she had ways to keep me busy.

There was nothing I could do for my family now, but I

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could keep other families from ever experiencing my pain.And jobs like tonight reminded me that I had a lot left tolive for.

As these thoughts bounced around in my head, I got tothe dead center of Derby. There, I felt like the last man onearth. There wasn’t even the occasional car to let me knowthat other humans existed. Come to think of it, the daylighthours didn’t feel much better. None of the people I wassurrounded by could ever understand my new position inthis world. I felt isolated, no matter what time of day ornight.

But at least I was alive, which is more than I could say forthe last guy who had my “position” with Lady McDeath. I’dbeen spending a lot of my spare time looking into my prede‐cessor, and I came up with frustratingly little. The name I’dfound on his driver’s license had been an alias. The onlyperson with the name Daniel Cohen was listed in city hallrecords as having died a couple of years before I was born.And that was before you got into the fact that he’d beenkilled by some shadowy creature I never got a good look at.

Presumably, he’d had the same supernatural benefitspackage I did, including the no-death-until-I-say-so insur‐ance. So what went wrong? Did he piss off my new benefac‐tress one too many times? Or had the creature found a way tocircumvent his no-death policy?

I shook my head. Those were questions for the practicingparanoid, not a professional investigator. And no matterwhat I tried my hand at in life, I always strove to be a profes‐sional. I needed to get back to my apartment and sleep therest of the day off. That’d do wonders for clearing these scarythoughts out of—


I froze. The broken glass on my boots was making somuch noise that I nearly missed it. I stayed put until I heardit again. Yep, there was no mistaking the voice of a little girlechoing off these lonely buildings with their lit Christmasdecorations. What the hell was a kid doing out in Derby thislate?

I focused on the voice to get an idea of where it wascoming from. I worked out that she was in the next alley onmy right. I took a stroll up to the alley mouth and flattenedmyself against the wall. Just because it sounded like a littlegirl didn’t automatically make it one—see, boss, I’m learning.

I leaned around the corner to glance up the alley. Well,the figure in the middle sure looked like a little girl. Going byher size, I’d put her at being nine or so…almost Line’s age …

I grounded my teeth as I forced myself to keep looking ather. Her winter coat and hood seemed barely adequate forthis weather. When a Cold City winter hits, the water offthe bay does an excellent job of wrapping everything up inan icy blanket. The snowfall from two days ago was a rarertreat.

The kid was squatting in front of an open box that hadbeen turned on its side. She kept holding out her hands andsaying soothing things like she was trying to make some straycome out. I made out a pair of glistening eyes that shonefrom the darkness of the box, distrustful and flat.

The sight of those eyes made me feel a chill that hadnothing to do with my Winter Wonderland surroundings.All those months living on the streets made me see a lot ofthings that I couldn’t explain. But now that I was in LadyMcDeath’s back pocket, I knew that whatever was in there

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came from the other side of the border. And whatever it was,all bets were on it being unfriendly to humans.

I broke cover and started rushing toward them. As theywere right in the middle of the alley, I had to pour on thespeed. The noise I made had the girl look over at me. Thatgave the eyes’ owner all the opening it needed.

A small red creature shaped like a man flew out like ademonic Jack-In-The-Box. It had an open mouth of fangsthat were ready to bite the little girl’s arm. Without thinkingabout it, I dropped to my knees, yanked out my Sig SauerP226 from the holster in my back, and fired in one motion.The first shot was off, just grazing the top of the thing’scrimson head. The next shot clipped it in the shoulder,making it fly head over heels onto the box it had been hidingin. The creature gave out a horrible cry that made the girlscramble back before it took off for the other end of the alley.

I looked around, convinced that all the noise I’d madewas going to bring people out. After a minute of silence, Irealized that everyone had managed to sleep through it. Iholstered my gun and went to check on the girl.

I knelt down and asked her in a low voice, “You okay,honey?”

Her black face inside her blue hood had dark eyes thatwere wide with wonder at the dirty-looking white man infront of her. When I gently repeated my question, she finallynodded. I followed up with “Where’s home?”

She couldn’t find her voice, but she pointed to a fireescape I’d run past. I noticed an open window in front of it,four stories up.

I got to my feet and finished the rest of my walk over to


her. I knelt down again and held out my hand. “Let’s get youback there, okay?”

She blinked at me a couple of times before taking myhand. As I stood up, she asked, “Are you Santa?”

I gave her a sad smile. “I wish, sweetie. That would makegetting you back in your bedroom a lot easier.”

We went back up the fire escape as quietly as we could.When we got to the open window, she whispered, “Thisis it.”

I gently tapped the sill. “Need a hand up?”She shook her head and pulled her little body up over

the sill. When she got inside, she stuck her face back out towhisper, “Tell Santa I’m sorry for being bad. I thought it wasan elf.”

I stroked her cheek. “You weren’t bad, honey. You didn’tknow what you were dealing with. I’ll tell Santa that forsure.”

As she started to grin, I held up a finger. “But…you cannever tell anyone what you saw tonight, understand?”

She looked nervously down the alley mouth that herwould-be attacker had fled through.

“Oh, I’ll make sure he doesn’t come back,” I promisedher. “But you need to keep everyone else safe by nevermentioning that the box was here, okay?”

I hated lying to her like this. Not telling her parents orwhoever she was living with was going to keep themanything but safe. But, Lady McDeath was pissed enoughfor one night; there was no sense in making it worse.

To my relief, the kid nodded her head again. “KeepSanta safe.”

My smile widened. “I will…now go to bed.”

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Her face disappeared from the sill, and I closed thewindow shut before climbing back down.

The snow cover made tracking whatever hellish creature Iwas after easy at first. It’d left deep tracks that led me out ofDerby altogether. Unfortunately, the snow became muchshallower, and the steps got muddied up by all the vehicletracks on the road. At a busy crossroads, I realized that therewas no way I could keep tracking the little red devil with thenaked eye.

I sighed in frustration. Not because I had lost the trailbut because I had to resort to a way to pick it up that I wasn’tgoing to enjoy. I took a deep breath to help center myselffirst. When I was as centered as I was going to get, I turnedon the Sight.

I had yet to find a cooler name for it and figure out a wayto get the hang of it. Even with all the practice that I’d put in,I couldn’t turn it on for long. The basics were simple enough,though.

With the right amount of concentration, all my sensesgot turned up to eleven; my eyesight especially. With theSight, I could pick out granular details that would do creditto a spy satellite, from the depth of footsteps to the faint odorof someone’s aftershave. The downside was that it got over‐whelming quickly. No city was free of pervasive influences,and while most humans ignored them, the Sight made themall too pervasive. I had to get a handle on where Red Fangshad gone before it overloaded on me.

I swung my attention back to the last clear tracks in the


snow. I noticed that the toes of the foot had left some extraindentations indicating claws of some kind. After that, it wasa cinch to find tracks with the same distinctive pattern in themess ahead. I struggled to keep the Sight going while Ifollowed the trail.

It only took me about a dozen steps before I realized thiswasn’t going to work. My head felt like it was going toexplode from the strain. I shut the Sight off to relieve thepressure. Dry heaving, I slapped my face around a littlebefore turning it back on. I kept it on for six steps before Ihad to shut it off again.

When I turned it on that third time, I made out a small,thin trail of blood that ran parallel to the tracks, which weregetting too faint even for the Sight to track. When I shut myimproved eyesight off, I couldn’t see the blood at all. I keptgoing, periodically turning the Sight on to check that I wason the right path. While I was grateful to have trail markers,I wasn’t sure how long I could keep this up.

I got my answer next to the edge of a chain-link fence.My ears popped as the Sight shut itself off for the night,leaving me with a headache to rival my worst hangover. Thepain shooting through my skull made me bang my headagainst the metal sign on the fence. I let the cold of the metalseep through for a minute as I fought not to throw up again.

I grunted while I took some more deep breaths, doing mybest to ride out the pain. Gradually, the pressure eased off,letting me think clearly again. That’s when I took a minuteto notice my actual surroundings.

The fence encircled a construction site for what lookedlike a trendy nightclub. Being both Christmas Day and a fewhours before dawn, nobody was working on it right then. But

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the real surprise was how there didn’t seem to be any secu‐rity either. The Christmas truce only applied to Derby. Anyother enterprising thief wouldn’t hesitate to grab whatevermaterials they could fence from a place like this. I glanced atthe sign. It read: “Future Home of The Indigo”, whichseemed to corroborate my nightclub hypothesis.

The smell of sea air told me that the docks were a coupleof blocks away. The bay seemed like the perfect escape routefor my mini-fiend. But I remembered seeing the trail of bloodgo to the other side of the fence. Seeing as I’d gone this far tokeep my promise to the little girl, I figured I might as well gothe rest of the way.

That thought lasted right up until I had climbed over thefence. The second that I dropped down to the other side, Iheard a lot of clicking bolts and a stern, “Don’t move amuscle!” I froze on the spot, barely daring to breathe.

Several guys in full-body armor came out of the shadowsaround the site. Every one of them had an H&K MP5pointed right at me. The one directly in front of me gesturedwith the barrel of his submachine gun. “Hands on yourhead.”

I laced my fingers behind my head while someonebehind me did a frisk. It didn’t take them long to find myknife and Sig. They reached around me to pass them on tothe guy who’d talked to me. Stowing them in his belt, heturned his gun barrel toward the unfinished building. “Let’sgo see the boss.”


T

3

THE NAUGHTY LIST

he guards had me surrounded the whole way inside. Ifelt several barrels press into my back and ribs to rein‐

force what kind of position I was in. None of us saidanything to each other. The time for talking would comewhen I was in front of this crew’s boss.

One thing that I couldn’t figure out was who thesepeople were. My first guess was that they were part of acontinuing criminal enterprise. They weren’t dressed likeyour usual rent-a-cops, and they sure as hell weren’t eager toturn me over to the police. But they also hadn’t shot me fullof holes on the spot. Then there was their gear and tactics,which were more Blackwater than mall cop. Maybe I’d stum‐bled onto a secret government facility, possibly run byHomeland Security. And why would the boss want to talk tosome random intruder anyway?

All these questions gave me something to think aboutother than the guns on me. Once we were inside, the ques‐tions multiplied. I saw several electrical outlets on the unfin‐

ished walls that gave me pause. No nightclub that I knewneeded that many. What the hell were they building here?

The guards herded me onto a service elevator in the farleft corner. I felt my guts clench when the doors closed.Were they about to haul up to the unfinished roof for atossing contest? But the button that lit up was for goingdown, not up. Our descent made my government agencytheory look a lot more on the money.

When the lift grounded to a halt, the doors opened toreveal an impressive command- center setup. The theater-sized back wall had several video screens of varying sizes,some of which were tapped into live feeds. A slightly smallernumber of laptops were arranged on the five extended tablesin front of the screens. The rest of the walls were occupiedby several supercomputers that looked like they’d have beenat home in an NSA facility. Unlike upstairs, this room wasfurnished, powered and staffed.

The people milling around the surroundings looked likeyour standard computer nerds. Most of their attention wasspent fussing over various pieces of equipment, getting themin full working order.

I heard a lot of cross-chatter from them, such as: “Con‐firmed, the cable is live” and “Testing that connection now.”None of that made any sense to me.

While their individual styles varied, they tended toconform to a business-casual look popular in offices every‐where. Another similarity was one distinguishing accessorypinned on all their shirts: a golden brooch—a staff and a pairof wings. A quick glance at my armed escorts showed that afew of them had those on their collar as well. That symbol

26 CRISTELLE COMBY|

made me think of doctors and hospitals, definitely not thevibe I was getting so far.

The guy coming out of the office ahead of us only mademy confusion worse. Like the staff, he was fairly young, prob‐ably no older than the girl I’d rescued from the lidérc.

Unlike everyone else, he wore casual clothes, a T-shirtwith four cartoon characters in side profile, and the word“Gorrilaz” on top, and dark skinny jeans that had a numberof cuts up and down the legs. It was a good fit for the badly-cut, obviously bleached blond hair and olive complexion. Allin all, the young man looked like he should have beenplaying in an e-sports tournament rather than working in ashady underground office.

“Good work, chaps,” he began with a cut-glass Britishaccent. “I take it this is our intruder?”

“Yes, sir,” the nearest guard confirmed, his tone making itclear he was ready for further instructions. Wait, this is theboss?! I thought.

The young guy regarded me carefully before asking hisnext question. “I assume you can speak?”

“Might be hard to get me to shut up once I get started,” Iquipped, hoping that his sloppy appearance meant that hehad a decent sense of humor.

He chuckled. “Well, not so much when several guns arepointed at you, surely?”

He gave his guard detail a backhanded wave. The gunscame off me, though I could feel their barrels aimed my way.

He used his index and middle finger to point at two ofthe lapel guards. “Right, you two get him cleaned up andescort him to my office. I’ll be there shortly. The rest of you,


back on watch, chop, chop.” He punctuated those last twowords with a couple of claps.

The guards gave various acknowledgments as theyfollowed their marching orders. Most of them were back onthe elevator by the time my personal escort steered metoward the office door that the kid had come out of.

The inside of the office was as standard to corporateAmerica as the dress code outside. Three eggshell walls, aclear glass one for looking out at the computer networkbeyond, and a rolling office chair in front of the desk with amore plush-looking one on the other side of it. Mounted onthe wall behind the desk was a medium-sized monitor, agallery of rotating landscapes flashing across the screen.

The guard on my left gestured at the rolling chair, and Ipromptly sat down. I glanced outside to see Blondie walkingamong the nerd set and occasionally talking to them aboutthis or that. The younger of the two guards brought me a wettowel a minute later.

Once I got the grime off my face, I looked over at bothmy guards. I didn’t think they’d shoot me before the boss hadhis chat. But I wasn’t sure if talking to them was a good ideaeither. And like everything I’m less than sure is a good idea, Idid it anyway.

“So how long you think he’ll be?” I asked the one on theleft. All I got out of that question was a shrug. So I lookedover at the guard on my right. “You got any better an ideathan your pal?”

This guy gave me a murderous stare. “Whenever theboss gets here…now are you done asking stupid questions?”The way that he said that made me respond with a quick

28 CRISTELLE COMBY|

little nod. These guys were not hired for their charm orconversation skills.

A couple of minutes later, the kid waltzed in the door ascasually as if he were going to a business meeting. Once heplopped down in his chair, he glanced at my escorts. “Well?Are you going to give us some privacy already?”

The guard, to my right, glanced at me with suspicion.“He’s been asking questions, sir.”

The young guy gave that statement a backhanded wave.“Of course he’s been asking questions! He doesn’t knowwhere he is, who we are, or why he’s here. Those are mattersthat I intend to put to rest immediately.”

He rose from his seat and gave both of them a hard look.“After you have left the room—now, go wait for us outside.”

He then pointed at the guard to my right as the latter wasopening his mouth. “And before you ask the obvious ques‐tion, Vincent, yes, I’m sure.” He then turned the pointertoward the still-open door. “Out.”

Both armed men did what they were told. The silent oneclosed the door behind them, and I was left with this guy incharge. I glanced behind my shoulder. “I didn’t realize I wasthat scary to them.”

The man sat back down and laced his fingers together onhis desk. “Well, as Lovecraft once famously put it, the oldestfear of mankind is fear of the unknown. And you, sir, arevery much an unknown quantity at present.”

I looked around for any other countermeasures thatmight make me dead if I dipped so much as a toe wrong. “Nooffense, but I could say the same thing about you and this opyou’ve got running here.”


He grinned and leaned forward a bit. “None taken…at leastit gives us enough common ground to start a conversation with.”He paused, looking at me intently. “You intrigue me. Your looksays one thing, but the way you hold yourself says another…”

He leaned back and reached under his desk in the samemotion. A black spot at the top of the monitor frame cameon, shining a soft blue light over me. The screensaver gotreplaced by a blank black screen once the light kicked on. “Ifyou’ll kindly stay still for a moment.”

Since it didn’t involve me getting shot, I did what I wastold. While I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being felt up bythis electronic eye, maybe it also meant that I’d be able to talkmy way out of this. The light winked off, and the monitordisplayed the following message in white block letters: “Bio‐metric scan complete.”

The young guy pulled out a laptop from under the samespot he’d triggered that beam. Opening it up, he begantyping away at it in the way only true programmers canmanage to make look natural. A lot of beeping followed hisfurious keyboard attack, the soft glow of the laptop’s monitoron his face providing a subtle contrast to the overhead light‐ing. The beeping stopped, and he leaned back in his seatagain.

He looked at me and said, “Mr. Bellamy Vale…formerlypart of the United States Navy, worked a while for RomanSquare Security. Then there’s a blank until a recentpurchase of a semi-waterfront condo with no mortgageattached.”

I pointed a finger at him. “You forgot the part where I’malso a licensed private investigator.”

30 CRISTELLE COMBY|

He glanced at the screen before looking at me again. “SoI did—but maybe that was because I wanted to be polite.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Not a Sam Spade fan?”“Or Phillip Marlowe or Mike Hammer either, no. I’ve

very little use for the romanticism that surrounds your newprofession, Mr. Vale. Most days, it’s a tossup for me whetherprivate detectives or private barristers deserve less respect.”

That last sentence told me the cut-glass accent wasn’t anaffectation. “The U.K. is the only place that I know of wherethey use ‘barrister’ instead of ‘attorney’ or ‘lawyer’.”

He smiled at me in appreciation. “Spoken like someonewho paid attention to such details during their shore leave.”

Even though we were alone, he glanced around likesomeone may have been watching. “Actually, I’m Greek. Butpart of my upbringing took place in the south of England,which is why I have the accent.”

I waved my pointer around his face. “Yeah, now that youbrought it up, I can see that in your face. You got a nameyou’d be willing to share with me?”

His smile softened as he nodded. “That’s only fair,seeing as I’ve already had my system introduce me to you.The name’s Zianyon, but feel free to call me ‘Zian’. It rolls offthe tongue a trifle better.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Sure you don’t want me to call you‘Boss’?”

He chuckled while he shook his bleached-blond head.“No, no, no, I always think of Big Boss from the Metal Geargames when people call me that.”

I cocked a thumb at the door. “Doesn’t stop your petguard dogs from doing that.”


He shrugged. “Well, they’re ex-military, obsessed withranks, chains of command, and all that nonsense.”

Then he stopped himself and held up a hand. “Nooffense.”

“As you said, none taken. There’s a reason that I neverbecame a lifer for Uncle myself.”

There were two big reasons why I didn’t do that in theend, but both of them were now gone from my life. Zianprobably knew about them from his little records search. ButI wasn’t going to talk about it as long he didn’t bring it up.This many months later, it still hit too close to home.

“So… the whole hobo look has to do with a job, I take it?”he asked, with a smirk. “Very thorough.”

I nodded.The smile on Zian’s face became a frown. “Now then,

Mr. Vale—”I held up a hand of my own. “Please…if I’m going to call

you by your first name, you can do the same.”“Fair enough…but like I was saying, Bellamy, we have a

bit of a situation that’s developed over the last couple ofweeks. It’s been delaying the progress on the Indigo’sconstruction, which is not pleasing my father in theslightest.”

That last bit of information made me inclined to rule outa government operation. “So your father’s the head of thecompany you work for?”

His eyes widened. “And what makes you so sure that thisis a private business concern?”

I shrugged. “I’m not…but the equipment out there is wayabove the mil-spec gear I used in the Navy. You admittedthat your security is ex-military, which tells me that they’re

32 CRISTELLE COMBY|

either part of a PMC or working directly for you or yourfather.”

Zian’s eyes got calculating. Behind them, I saw eagernesswrestling with fear. He wanted to tell me something butwasn’t sure if I could be trusted. “And is anything makingyou think that they’re part of a PMC?”

I shook my head. “I guess it doesn’t matter either way.But what does matter is the money I see on display. An oplike this needs a lot of generous funding that’s gotta comefrom somewhere. And if it’s not the government, then it’s gotto be private industry. Nobody in the 1% I ever heard ofwould be willing to lay out this much dough on an under‐ground surveillance center.”

When he smirked, I knew that some of my guessworkwas off. “You obviously have never met my father.”

“And he is…?”Zian sucked a deep breath in through his teeth.

“Someone we’re not here to discuss—I don’t need to remindyou that we’re here to talk about you, Bellamy.”

“Well, I got nothing to hide.” I gestured toward theblank monitor behind him and added, “Especially afterthat digital frisk that you put me through a few minutesago.”

The kid leaned forward and fixed his eyes on mine. “Isthis the first time that you’ve ever been near the Indigo?”

I gestured around the room. “This is the first time I’vebeen on this end of town since…I don’t know, August maybe.I’ve been working around the downtown area since I got mycondo.”

Zian leaned back and went back to performing lightningkeystrokes on his laptop. Half a minute later, he nodded and


looked at me again. “The video feed that I’m getting backsthat claim up…”

Then he raised an eyebrow at me. “Unless you happento know a hacker who’s as good as me?”

I rolled my eyes. This kid watched way too many bad spymovies. “How the hell would I know someone like that? Imean, I spent…”

My throat closed up as the flood of memories started tohit me. Christ, not now, I thought. As the past kept trying topush into my present. Not now.

When the pressure lifted from my thoughts, I got tofinish my answer. “I was homeless for most of this year. Thepeople I ran into, they…they probably wouldn’t even knowhow to turn a computer on.”

The kid stroked his pointer up and down his cheek.“Again, that fits with what I saw. But here’s the thing…I wantto believe you. I really, really do. It’s just…”

He looked up at the ceiling as the frown started to tug athis lips. “You’re the first solid lead we’ve had on that situationI mentioned in over a month. And Father would never let mehear the end of it if I took what you’re saying at face value.”

Given how I’d gotten here, I was wondering if his situa‐tion and mine were related. “At the risk of pushing it, whatcan you tell me about your problem?”

To his credit, he didn’t hesitate to answer me. He hit acouple of keys on his laptop. A quartet of ID badges,complete with photos and arranged like the characters on theGorrilaz T-shirt, popped up on the monitor. The men onthem all had Hispanic features and the names to match.

Zian looked over his shoulder at the pics himself. “These

34 CRISTELLE COMBY|

are contractors we hired to work on the Indigo and thecommand center outside. All of them were injured in theline of duty, some quite seriously. At first, we thought wemight be dealing with a white supremacist gang.”

My brain shifted gears at this new information. “If that’sthe case, they’d have to be out-of-towners. Last DA we hadhere broke the back of the local white powerpuffs. Any ofthose numbskulls try causing trouble in the city limits, prose‐cutors throw the book at them the second the indictment hitstheir desk.”

Zian turned back around at me. “That is indeed what Iwas told when I brought that angle up myself. There’s alsothe fact that they’re getting attacked in a very specific part ofthe construction.”

My mouth opened before my brain had fully processedwhat he was saying. “Down here—which nobody at streetlevel should have the first clue about?”

Zian may have nodded as he hit another key. This time,the ID shots were replaced by emergency room pictures.Each victim had some kind of bite marks on the area beingphotographed. “On top of that, there are the injuries toconsider. While I can buy that someone could have letvicious dogs loose down here, the docs were clear that no dogdid all that damage.”

“That true for all of them?”Once I saw Zian’s nod, I started wondering if this was

that little red beastie I’d chased here. Near as I could tell, thebites were strictly based on the lower extremities—leg, foot,toes. Well, I should say “toe”—one of them had lost a goodchunk of his big one. But all those injuries would fit with


both the height and ugly teeth I’d seen on my little girl’swould-be attacker.

My poker face needed work because Zian said, “You’veseen something like this.”

No point in denying it. “Maybe…just maybe.”As all young men do, the kid got impatient enough to

blow out a frustrated breath. “Well, c’mon, man, share thefile with me already.”

And I wanted to. I really, really did. But if there’s onething that had been rammed into my head over the last fewweeks, it’s that you never share details on AlternumMundum with outsiders…period. For all I knew, doing thathere would be enough justification for Lady McDeath to goahead and pull my plug. On the other side of that argument,the kid had a genuine problem; I had information that mighthelp him, and there was no upside on holding out.

Oh, the hell with it, I thought. Lady McDeath is a Class-A bitch anyway. “Okay, this might be hard to swallow, but Iswear that what I’m about to tell you is the truth.”

Zian’s only answer was another annoyed exhale and agesture for me to keep talking. So I did, starting with mywalk across Derby and ending with all the guns pointing atmy head. I did leave out the detail of the Sight. After all, theonly thing I’d agreed to talk about was the creature.

When I saw the look in his eye after I’d finished, I wassure I’d blown it. He didn’t believe me, and now I’d boughtmyself a first-class ticket to the nearest mental hospital. Thenhe asked, “You mean you walked across Derby…by yourself?”

I blinked hard. “Come again?”“From what my people tell me, that’s like a suicide pact,

especially in the wee, small hours.”

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I ignored the static in my brain that was confused overhow that was the part of the story he had trouble swallowing.“There’s a Christmas truce on tonight; it happens every year.They’ll get back to business at midnight tomorrow.”

He raised his eyebrows and grunted. “Alright, I can buythat.”

“Does that mean you buy the rest of my story?”He chuckled again as he tapped a few more keys. “Oh,

that was never in doubt.”The photos were replaced by a single picture this time.

Zian looked up at me while pointing back to the monitor.“Look familiar?”

Even though I’d only seen that overgrown pest in poorlighting conditions, I recognized it instantly. The deep-redcoloring, short stature, and dental work that would put agreat white shark to shame left zero doubt. “Yeah, that’s thecreature I saw. What is it?”

Zian swiveled his chair around to face the picture he’dput up onscreen. “Meet the Nain Rouge—that’s French forRed Dwarf, by the way—a prominent figure in Detroit’s localfolklore. Matter of fact, they’re so prominent that there’seven a local beer company and festival named after them.”

I started patting my knees like I was playing the drumswith them. “Okay, but that’s Detroit. What the hell wouldthey be doing all the way out here?”

Zian leaned back in his chair as he grunted. “That’ssomething I’d like to figure out before Father does. Thesecreatures are characterized as harbingers of misfortune anddoom when seen. The legends aren’t wrong, but they’re alsonot right about how they cause it.”

My thighs started smarting enough to make me stop


drumming them. “Well, I’d say your guys had their share ofbad luck by running into this thing.”

Zian turned back around. “Especially Jimenez, the onewith the mangled toe…he’s still in the hospital with a nastyinfection that’s complicated his recovery.”

The way Zian said that it sounded like Jimenez’srecovery was anything but a certainty.

The Brit cleared his throat before going on. “I’m afraid itgoes way past grievous bodily harm. Like you were saying,Bellamy, these things usually stick close to Detroit. So therehas to be some kind of compelling reason for them to uploadinto Cold City’s system, don’t you think?”

Having come this far, I figured it was only fair to see if Icould push my luck further. “Like, say, if they came fromover the border?”

Zian acted like he didn’t know what I was talking about,but he had the same kind of lousy poker face that I did. “Lasttime I checked, Cold City’s thousands of miles from theCanadian or—”

“Not that kind of border…I’m talking about the borderbetween things like that and people like us.”

Zian took a slow, unsteady breath. “So you do knowabout Alternum Mundum.”

I shrugged. “What I didn’t pick up on the streets, I got alot of inside info on a couple of months ago. And that’s asmuch as I can say.” While I said that, I wondered how muchthis father he couldn’t talk about was clued into the kid’s andmy mutual knowledge.

I leaned into the desk, hands clasped in front of me.“Look…we both want the same thing here. That hobgoblin

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needs to go, and there’s only so many people who know whatit is. So let me help out.”

Zian swiveled back and forth in his chair for a fewminutes, deep in thought. Then he looked at me and said,“Nope.”


I

4

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

t took me a few seconds to register what he’d said. WhenI did, I got pissed. “Hey, wait a minute. You drag me

down here, show me that pic and now—”“—you’re leaving and letting us handle this,” Zian said,

cutting me off.I leaped out of my seat. “The hell you will!”The door bursting open told me that I’d screwed up once

again. The click of safeties coming off the guns told me that Iwas two seconds away from leaving feet first. Zian waved hishands at the shooters behind me. “Stand down…our guest isreluctant to leave the premises.”

I could hear the eagerness in Vincent’s voice. “Want meto cure his reluctance with the generous application of pain,sir?”

That exasperation I’d glimpsed earlier returned to Zian’sface. “No! I want you to escort him back to the street andsend him on his way.”

The other guard picked that moment to talk. “Aftereverything that he’s seen? You sure that’s wise, sir?”

The look of confusion on his face told me that he hadn’tthought this through. It was as good a place as any for me toinsert a word in edgewise. “They’ve kind of got a point,Zian.”

I felt a gun barrel prod my right shoulder. “Show somerespect to the boss.”

The man he took orders from started pacing behind thedesk. “He’s already gotten permission to call me that,Vincent. Now shut up and let me think.”

The steps of his pacing were tight and quick—the kindpeople do when they’re trapped in impossible situations. Itwas now dawning on this young guy how big of a mistake hemade. By bringing me down here, he’d revealed too much ofhimself. Even if I didn’t know all the details, I now hadenough to piece together the rest of his operation. Plus, weboth knew about the over-the-border business, which mademe a special kind of liability.

Not that my immediate options were much better. Sure,I could grab the chair behind me and shatter the glass wall.But that left me with an underground base crawling witharmed security. Oh, and did I mention that I had two subma‐chine guns trained on my back that’d turn me into a bulletstocking stuffer if I so much as flinched wrong?

All those cheery thoughts made me brace myself againstthe near certainty that I was about to have a final Christmas.For all I knew, Lady McDeath was going to let me get shot todeath for my stupidity. I closed my eyes and heard threerapid taps right after that. It took a second round of those forme to realize that it was someone knocking on the open door.

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When I opened my eyes, Zian was coming to a halt onhis pacing. “Not a good time, Cassie.”

Cassie, Gods bless her, wasn’t deterred. “Sir, the connec‐tion isn’t working.”

Her boss leaned over his desk in disbelief. “What do youmean it isn’t working? All the tests have been comingback—”

“Not this last round of them,” she corrected him. “Theconnect speed keeps dropping to dangerously low levels,spikes for a few seconds, and then drops all over again. Andit’s getting slower on each down cycle.”

I glanced over at the back wall monitors. None of thecamera feeds looked fuzzy or pixelated. Whatever this wasabout, it had to be something as or more important than city‐wide surveillance.

I could see the controlled panic on Zian’s face as herubbed a hand over his mouth. “Alright, shut everythingdown and reboot.”

Cassie’s voice went from tense to angry. “We tried thatthree times already! Too many of the relays have beendamaged to make it work.”

The kid leaned even heavier on his desk. “The spikes…”Cassie settled back down to a more reasonable tone.

“Yeah, that’s what we’re thinking, sir. It looks like too manymore of those spikes, and we’re going to lose the last of ourrelays.”

Zian looked up at her with grim determination. “Thatcan’t happen.”

“I know, boss. That’s why I came to you.”The look in the kid’s eye made me feel for him. Being the

guy in charge is never fun, especially not in a crisis. I’d seen


my share of COs crack under pressure in my Navy days. Henot only needed to make a decision now, but it had to be theright one. Fail at either one of those, and his command was asgood as finished.

He pushed himself off the desk and started working onhis laptop. “See what you can do from the floor. I’ll do aquick assessment and let you know what the next step is in asecond.”

Vincent decided to pick this moment to remind him ofme. “Sir, what about our guest?”

His boss didn’t even look up from his screen. “Not now,Vincent…get in contact with our security in the tunnels.”

“But radios and cell phones don’t work down there.”“And that’s why you and Mark are going in person. Our

guest can stay here.”A second later, he looked up and asked, “Well, what are

you still doing here?! Move!”I could hear their footsteps fly out the door.“Bloody monkeys,” he muttered after the door closed

behind them.I looked over my shoulder to confirm that I was alone

with Zian. Once I was sure, I asked, “How bad is it?”His face turned ashen as he collapsed back into his chair.

“However bad you’re thinking, it’s much, much worse.”While not what I’d call an ideal opportunity, this crisis

did sound like the only way I could get what I came here todo done. “Is this something I could help you with?”

“Well, that depends. How much do you know aboutsubmarine communication cables?”

The minute he mentioned those, everything I’d seen in

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this Bond villain lair made more sense. “Backbones of theinternational Internet…last time I checked, there were overtwo hundred of them in use.”

Zian glanced up and nodded. “Which is why we’ve beentrying to tap into one that was lit…” He glanced at hislaptop’s clock. “…fourteen hours and eight minutes ago.”

“And I’m guessing that this tapping is a major part of theconstruction your underground crews have been workingon?”

His nod this time was slower and more reluctant.“Which is why, based on the available evidence, I’m afraidthat may be where our little red devil has gone to ground.”

Catching the look in my eye, he added, “No, I don’t thinkit’s deliberate sabotage on its part. The Nains Rouges areferal to the extreme, which leaves zero room for higherthought.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Still, it’s also not personalwhen a hurricane wipes out a coastal town either.”

Having handed me a few puzzle pieces, I decided to tosshim a few more conclusions. “So I’m guessing that thesetunnels you sent your guys down lead to somewhere on thecoast?”

He frowned as he nodded. “I suppose it isn’t that big alogic leap, given what you heard. The current theory I haveis that our wayward monster jumped ship off whatever boatit was riding and decided to nest in our caves.”

Then his face tightened, and he gave me a hard stare.“But you never did answer my original question…what doyou know about these kinds of cables?”

What the hells…I didn’t have anything to lose by being


honest. “That they’re the size of a Magic Marker, you have tolay them carefully on the ocean floor to avoid ecocatastro‐phes and—”

He cut me off with, “I mean technical specs. What doyou know about those?”

Well, since I’d been honest so far… “Just what I told youabout them. I was in the Navy, so I know what’s at thebottom of the oceans. But I never said anything about beingan engineer.”

Zian pushed himself away from his desk so hard that hischair nearly banged into the wall behind him. “That’s notenough to be any kind of help here.”

It was everything I could do not to grab the kid and banghim against the wall. I’d tracked this little creature, revealedto this know-it-all jerk I was clued in on Alterum Mundum,and he still thought I’d be a liability? I had nothing againstthe SWAT twins he’d sent down to the tunnels, but theydidn’t strike me as the best guys to handle something likethat.

The uncertainty came back into the young man’s face,probably because he didn’t know what to do with me. Hisnext words confirmed that guess. “If you swear by the RiverStyx not to speak of what you’ve seen here, you can leave.”

I gave him a puzzled and annoyed look.“I mean it, Bellamy. My father isn’t someone you’d want

on your bad side, trust me. You can’t tell a soul what’s belowthe Indigo.”

The way that he said that made me realize he feared hisfather, too. “Why would I do that anyway? I’ve got nothingto gain and everything to lose by telling tales out of school.”

He was about to open his mouth when a musical ring‐

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tone went off in his pocket. He looked down at it in annoy‐ance, and I couldn’t blame him. Whoever was calling had ashitty sense of timing.

Just the same, he pulled out his cell and answered it witha professional, “Hello?”

The volume on the earpiece was too low for me to makesense of, so all I heard was what Zian was saying. “Yes,it is…”

His face turned even paler while the person on the otherend talked. All he could say in response was, “When?”

Once he got his answer, he nodded. “Send me the bill,and I’ll have it settled by the next business day…yeah,thanks.”

As he hung up the phone, he looked even more forlorn.“Jimenez died from the infection he got from his toe bite tenminutes ago. And that’s on me.”

I forced my tone to be gentler as I said, “No, that’s on thelittle bastard who bit him. And how many more people issaid little bastard going to hurt unless it’s stopped?”

I could see Zian’s resolve weaken at my words. Damn,this kid needed to learn how not to wear his heart on hissleeve. “I think bringing you along is a bad idea. Based on thepolice reports revolving around your family’s case, I’mwondering if you’ve developed a death wish.”

Honestly, I was wondering that myself, but I wasn’ttelling him about my ongoing inner struggles. “I did. Andthen I got better. Facts are facts. I’m willing to lay my condopayment that none of your people have the first clue aboutwhat we’re up against here. Don’t you owe it to yourself tobring someone who knows the score more than Jimenezdid?”


The way Zian’s eyes bored into his laptop screen, you’dthink he was deciphering the Mayan Codex. Finally, hestood back up and stuck out his hand. “You’re in.”

I took that hand and gave it a firm shake. And to thinkthat all this had been the easy part…

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W

5

DOWN THE CHIMNEY

hen we stepped outside his office, we found thecontrol room in a state of controlled chaos. While

the camera feeds were coming in as strongly as before, all thelaptops were flashing various lights, which I could only guessmeant bad things. The techies were pounding away at theirkeyboards, but nothing that they were doing seemed to beworking. There was also a lot of fast and furious crosstalk asthey tried figuring out this problem that they couldn’t solve.

Zian raised his hands. “Everyone…” It took a couplemore repeats of that statement before they noticed their bosswas talking to them.

Lowering his hands once everyone was quiet, he said,“You’ve done all that you can do. Go home to your familiesand have a Merry Christmas.”

A rumble of dismay started bubbling up at this until headded, “With a full day’s pay.” The rumble turned into acelebratory shout.

One of the techies, a mousy girl with a few extra pounds

and librarian glasses, wasn’t joining in the hailing of the boss.“But what about the network setup, sir?” The minute shespoke, I recognize her as Cassie from earlier.

He gave her a reassuring nod. “I’ll be handling that issuepersonally. By the time you all come back tomorrow, we’ll beoperational again. Now please…go home.”

It didn’t surprise me to see them making for the exitelevator. It doesn’t matter if it’s a furniture factory or a Navyvessel…there’s not a workforce out there that doesn’t appre‐ciate subsidized time off.

Zian flipped open his phone. It didn’t take long to puttogether that he was calling up the guards outside. He gavethem clear instructions on making sure everyone got out ofthe worksite and to keep an eye open for trouble. Then hepromised them the rest of the day off once the situationdown here had been resolved. As soon as he hung up, Iasked, “You sure your dad isn’t going to mind you being thisgenerous with his money?”

The grimace he flashed at me showed that he wasn’t toosure himself. “Father already thinks very little of everything Ido, so I couldn’t care less. Now that I know what we’re upagainst, I want my people safe and out of here.”

With that said, he gestured at the plain metal door on theopposite end of the room. “Let’s get down to the tunnels.Vincent and Mark will be waiting for us.”

“Along with the guys they went to check on?”The mysterious young keyboard warrior shook his head

as he opened the door. “Those guards are going home too.Vincent and Mark were contracted by my father to be mypersonal protection. The others weren’t, and I’m not going to

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ask men who have no clue what they’re up against to take thesame risk.”

Sometimes putting the pieces together leads you toconclusions you wish you were wrong about. “Wait for asecond; you’re not thinking of—”

Zian stepped into the dimly-lit space beyond the door.“I’m the only one left with the technical know-how. I won’tlie…I wish that you were good enough for that part of the job.But no sense in wishing for things we can’t make true.”

He closed the door behind us as I sighed. “Like wishingyour armed nannies were good for something else besidesshooting intruders?”

We’d stepped into a small cave lit by tiny fluorescentbulbs on the ceiling. In size, they were little better thanChristmas-tree lights. In brightness, they put out enoughlumens to qualify as mini-suns. They laid out a clear pathforward that Zian guided me down. “It’s going to have to beme to make the repairs. Just watch my back the whole way,yeah?”

The path turned a sharp corner while I shrugged. “Whatthe hells…it wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve done a littlebodyguard work. How hard is it going to be to get Vincent tohand me my pistol and knife back?”

Zian shrugged. “As long as I tell him to do it, it better notbe that hard.”

“I say, this don’t seem right, boss,” the low-grade guard on theleft said, knowing he’d already lost this argument. It hadn’t


helped that he was the only one with the same shoe size asme and that his boss had ordered him to switch with me.

Vincent got within a couple of inches of the guard’s face.“You think Mark and I can’t handle this?”

“What, I don’t count?” I quipped, prompting a dirty lookfrom Vincent. As expected, he hadn’t been thrilled with mebeing on the team or armed again. But like the good littlesoldier he was, he didn’t bitch about it either…even if he wasgiving me the stink eye.

“There are people upstairs who need your protectionmore than I do,” Zian assured him. “Take care of them,okay?”

The guards we’d found in the tunnels glanced at eachother, and then the one on the right said, “Wilco, boss.”

They took off down the lit portion of the cave while wewent deeper into the darkness. There were supposed to belights here, too, but the power spikes had knocked them out.

Vincent took point, the flashlight attachment on his MP5scanning around the rocky corridor we were walking down. Istayed next to Zian on the right while Mark, as silent as ever,kept covering the rear with his own flashlight-equippedsubmachine gun. My right hand was wrapped around mySig while my left hung onto my K-Bar for dear life. Eventhough they were in my pocket, I was prepared to yank bothof them out at a moment’s notice.

What little I could see of this place, it looked like yourstandard cave: brown rocky walls, stalactites on the ceiling, afew stalagmites on the floor—not on the main path, though—and the constant scent of an ocean breeze coming ahead ofus. There were a few nooks and crannies in the walls andceiling that the flashlights picked up, and the occasional

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glisten of dead mini-bulbs winking back at us. Even thoughnone of the holes would be big enough for a man, theylooked like the right size for Red Fangs.

In the shadows, I could make out Zian pulling somethingfrom his pocket. It was some sort of case that had a zipper onthe side that he undid. When he pulled out his phone andturned on its flashlight, I saw a small assortment of toolsinside. They ranged from mini-screwdrivers to techno-thingamajigs that I’d need an instruction manual to under‐stand, never mind use. Whatever we were going to fix, I hada hunch that all these were going to come in handy.

Vincent hissed at us and held up a fist. I wasn’t sure whyuntil his flashlight went over what lay ahead of us. We’d hit abranch of two tunnels, so he was taking the extra time tomake sure that everything was safe. Wanting to do the same,I pulled out my Sig and held it with both hands whileplaying “follow the leader” with his light beam. Everythingkept on looking like it was all clear. Vincent took a breathand gestured toward the left-hand tunnel.

We’d gotten all of two steps toward it when we heard anoise. It wasn’t much, just a quiet scraping of somethingsharp across the rocks on the right. But it was enough tomake Mark whirl around, push me aside, and point his flash‐light up the branch we weren’t going toward. The beamcaught a glimpse of something red right before Mark yelled,“Contact!” He opened up on it with a three-shot burst.

Hearing an MP5 go off at that range is hard enough onthe ears. But hearing it that close in the middle of a tighttunnel was homicide on the eardrums. By the time Mark’sburst finished, I could barely hear him yell, “Threat! Up!”

The scraping got louder as his target started taking off


down the right tunnel. Mark pushed past Vincent andcharged after the sound, ignoring the latter’s yell of “Main‐tain formation!” By the time the echoes on that order died,Mark and his torch and gun combo had already disappearedaround the corner.

“I’m on him!” I said before charging after Mark. I didn’thear either Vincent or Zian follow me, which suited me fine.Zian needed to be protected, but Mark didn’t need to goafter that Nain Rouge without some backup. Besides, I hadLady McDeath’s full coverage death insurance plan to keepme alive…assuming that I hadn’t crossed the line withher yet.

Remembering that I had something else that might help,I turned on the Sight. The inside of the cave got a lot easierto see, but the echoes of my footsteps were as hard on myears as the gunshots had been. But that was nothingcompared to the howl of agony that ripped its way throughthe tunnel ahead of me…followed by yet more gunshots. Ittook everything I had not to stop and fall to my knees fromthat ruckus.

When the sound passed, I smelled something new in theair…blood. While I wasn’t 100% sure, it smelled a lot like thehuman variety. That revelation made me pick up my paceand use my nose to follow the scent. My heart skipped a beatwhen I saw the fallen flashlight on the ground. But I relaxedagain when I heard the groan behind it and saw Markclutching his leg.

Turning off the Sight, I knelt down next to him. “Didyou get it?”

Still, as wordless as ever, Mark shook his head whileclutching at his leg in agony. I picked up his gun to get a look

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at the wound. It seemed like all the meat on his right leg wasintact, but it was bleeding. The trained soldier reached intohis belt and pulled out some bandages and antiseptic. Iapplied the latter, which made him howl, before wrappingthe former around as tight as I could.

I took a second to check my handiwork before asking,“Think you can get up?”

He tried it on his own, but the injury to his leg was tooheavy. I grabbed him under his shoulder and helped him tohis feet. Holding the MP5 with one hand while using theother to brace him, I said, “Let’s get you back to the skipper.”

Mark looked at me. “Think he’ll chew my ass out?”I looked down at his wounds. “Not as bad as that thing

just chewed your leg out.”

By the time we got there, Vincent was furious. “What thehell, Jenson?” he hissed at Mark. “You know the rules of—”

A set of footsteps came from the route back to the controlroom. Vincent and I turned our guns in that direction. Ourtwin lights caught the two guards that Zian had just sentback, their hands raised.

Vincent put his gun down in disgust. “Goddamn it, doesanyone know how to follow the chain of command?”

The guard on the right lowered his hands. “We knowwe’re risking our jobs here, sir. But orders or not, we couldn’tignore a bunch of gunshots, even if we were at the door.”

Zian stared at them, looking like he wanted to yell atthem. That’s when our disobedient guards noticed Mark’sinjuries. “What happened to him?”


I was breaking that chain of command myself, butsomeone needed to take charge. “He needs a medevac imme‐diately…immediately as in ten minutes ago. Think you canget him back to a doctor?”

The two men glanced at me before looking at Zian.Their boss gave them a nod. “St. Andrew’s is the closesthospital…charge the company for any medical payments.”

The right guy looked dubious. “No disrespect, sir, but…you sure this is going to be safe for you?”

Zian shook his head and looked over his shoulder. “No…but it can’t be helped either.”

Both of the guards looked at him like he was nuts buttook the burden of Mark from me. We heard them guidinghim back to the surface while we went down the left tunnel.

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A

6

IT CAME UPON THE MIDNIGHT CLEAR

fter all that FUBAR, neither Vincent nor I was takingany chances. We both took slow, careful steps up that

tunnel, checking every inch of the rocky floor, ceiling, andwalls with our flashlights. We got a third beam courtesy ofZian’s cell. It went back over every inch we’d looked over,probing the space as carefully as I hoped the doctors wouldprobe poor Jenson’s mangled leg. I guess you could make anargument that we needed to hurry to minimize whateverdamage had already been done. But none of us were willingto take that kind of chance.

As we got near a bend of the tunnel, I noticed a flash oflight blinking on and off around the other side of it. It had abrown sodium tinge to it, flashing around the way a fish outof water flops on a dock. You didn’t need to be a detective todeduce that this was where Zian needed to start on hisrepairs.

One nice side effect of the light was that it was easy

enough to see that the coast ahead of us was clear. Once wegot into the cone of sporadic light, our flashlights seemed alot less necessary. Vincent turned around to keep checkingour rear for anything to shoot, and Zian gave him an annoyedglance. “Really, Vincent?”

The hired gun wasn’t fazed by his boss’s disapproval.“All due respect, sir, if I was going to ambush us, now wouldbe the time and place I’d go for it.”

The shadows helped hide my approving smirk; the manhad a good point. Despite the impromptu light show goingon around us, there was a lot of darkness to take advantageof. Add to that the constricting tube that we were standingin… hells, if I’d been lining up ducks to shoot, I couldn’t havepicked a better spot myself.

And I’d be lying if I said that I felt any more secure withonly my borrowed MP5 pointed straight ahead. There weresmall holes here and there in the cave ahead and behind us.And many were large enough for the Nain Rouge to wait inambush.

In spite of this, we made it around the bend none theworse for wear. It gave us a chance to see what had beenlighting our way in lieu of the dead bulbs around us. Behindthe sparks and bright light, I could make out some sort ofcontrol box. The wires from it ran both into the cables for thelights and further down the tunnel past it on the left. It tookanother minute for me to realize that it was one of severalboxes lined up on that cave wall. None of the others weresparking, but who knew how long it’d be before they started?

“Shit,” Zian muttered under his voice in disgust, as hegot closer. “No wonder the power started spiking.”

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While I was paying attention to anyone or anythinghiding in the glare, I couldn’t help but ask my host a ques‐tion. “Think fixing it will solve the problem?”

“If only…at best, it’ll help with our light problem. Intruth, this is more like a symptom and not the disease. What‐ever triggered this box to fry has to be closer to the source.”

“Which is how far from here?” I asked.Vincent turned to face me as he decided that he needed

to answer for his boss. “You ask a lot of questions, civvie.”This time the shadows weren’t enough to hide my reac‐

tion. I know, the smart play would have been to ignore him.But if I was smart, I doubt that I’d have landed in this mess inthe first place. My tone was none too kind, as I said, “Andyou don’t ask enough of them, merc.”

That little snipe made him get crazy eyes, the kind thatpromise you’re going to pay for the insult. It was all thewarning I got. I dodged him when he tried to club my headwith the butt of his gun. But two could play this game, and Irammed my lowered head straight into his groin, which, Idon’t care how much of a tough guy you are, always hurtslike hell.

I thought I heard Zian yelling at the both of us, but it gotdrowned out by the gasp I’d squeezed out of Vincent’s balls.I flung my head back up football-style, feeling the satisfyingcrunch of his nose and the slight trickle of blood on my neck.I was about to move in to rest a knee on his chest when theboy hacker got in my way.

“Dammit, I said, stop!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.While he pushed me back, I saw Vincent over his shoul‐

der, shaking his head from the blow I’d given him. When his


eyes focused on me again, I was sure I was going to have touse the gun this time. But Zian was on top of that too,pointing at his aggressive bodyguard. “Don’t get off theground until you’re prepared to act civilized, Vincent.”

The man turned his glare on his boss. “Well, what am Isupposed to do when some civvie gives me that kind of beat‐down?” Guess the “all due respect” was as knocked out ofhim as his wind.

“Let’s get one thing straight right now,” I spat back athim. “I wore the uniform too…maybe not your branch, but Iserved. I did my time, I came home, and unlike you, I don’tmiss a day of it. So don’t think that because you went private,it makes you superior to me.”

The sourness on Vincent’s face told me my little speechhad hit home. Zian shoved me away from him, but there wasno need. My point had been more than made. “This is why Iprefer computers. Code has no ego, and it does what you tellit to do.”

“Computers can be hacked, and they break down,” I feltthe need to point out.

Zian quirked an eyebrow up at me. “And humans don’t?”Heaving a deep sigh, he turned to face his employee. Thebody language I saw from the back of him told me that hewas over this insubordination. “Now, you ready to use thatgun on somebody else than the only other guy down herewith us?”

Vincent’s face didn’t get any less sour as he got back up,but at least he remembered who he was talking to. “Yes, sir.”

“That’s good…because the next time that you’re thatdisobedient, it will come out of your wages.”

Next, Zian whirled around to turn that glare on me.

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“The same goes for you, Bell. I won’t tolerate either of youengaging in this sort of nonsense until after we’re back uptop.”

I winced inside. The best way to assert your authority incircumstances like this was to keep it short. The more youtalk, the weaker you look. And I had a bad feeling thatVincent was going to remember that.

Either my poker face had improved, or Zian was toostressed to notice it. But the next thing he did was turn toVincent and say, “Remember where the relay masterlever is?”

The bodyguard answered by turning his flashlight backand pointing it at the right end of the box row. The spotlightfocused on a metal lever just off from the box with a redrubber handle.

Zian nodded. “Right, I’ll need you to shut that off so Ican work on the relay that’s shorting out.”

I swallowed hard. “Which is going to plunge this wholeplace back into darkness.”

The young supervisor didn’t miss a beat as he pulled outhis toolkit again. “Which is why you will be guarding myback until I can finish the repairs.”

The other man didn’t like this idea any more than I did.“At the risk of being disobedient again, sir, wouldn’t it be agood idea if I stay close after I flip—”

“I want you to stay near the lever, Vincent. Once therepairs are done, someone is going to need to flip the switchso we can all see again.”

It made sense, I supposed. But I spotted one gaping holein this plan. “You might be needing a little light yourself towork by, no?”


Zian waved my concerns away with his free hand. “I wasable to take relays like this apart in my sleep by the time Iwas fourteen. I should be able to manage it in pitchblackness.”

Vincent wasn’t quite done with his attempts at insubor‐dination. “Why do I have to throw the lever?”

Zian’s face got hard again. “Because a) you’re bettertrained in night fighting than either of us and b) I said thatyou would. Now do it already, man!”

Vincent didn’t care for those orders, but he was donearguing. While he went to grab the lever, I looked at Zian.“How close do you want to get for when the lights go out?”

He pointed at a spot off to the left, which lined us upwith the sparking box. As soon as we got there, Vincentcalled out, “All set!”

“Now!” Zian called back. The second the switch had hitthe bottom, the box sparked for the last time. Zian took off ina dead run to chase the dying light with me right on hisheels. But I got a little too close to him, as evidenced by myrunning into him when he came to a halt. He grunted,“Dammit, careful, Bell!”

The flashlight on Vincent’s MP5 was back to scanningthe area around us. I switched mine on and joined suit. For afew seconds, the only sounds echoing in that cavern was theclicking and scraping of Zian’s tools as they worked on therelay. Then I heard it…another kind of scraping, sharper andmore sinister. It was the sound of claw against rock.

The acoustics of this place were so screwed up that I hadno idea where it came from. Tightening my grip on the flash‐light, I moved the beam left and right as I scanned the place

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to find it. Going by how Vincent’s light was hitting all thesame areas as mine, he’d heard it too.

“Hurry up,” I muttered to Zian, sotto voce.While there was no telling where that sound came from,

every one of us could tell it was coming closer and closer towhere we stood.


V

7

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

incent’s flashlight caught it first: that unmistakablered hide on something the size of a dog. He fired off a

three-round burst that made it moan in screeching pain. Itcrashed into the floor, out of sight of Vincent’s flash, butmine caught up to it a second later. The creature was tryingto reach us, its bloodstained teeth bared. I fired off my ownthree-shot burst, the 9mm rounds ripping their way up itsface. The shots made it flop back down, but it was stilltwitching. Vincent’s flashlight overlapped mine, and we bothgave the Nain Rouge a burst apiece. After that, it went verystill.

Our flashlight beams separated as we went back tolooking over the cavern. Meanwhile, Zian muttered in astage whisper, “Almost…”

A final clacking of something being mounted into placeechoed in the heavy silence, and then he said, “Switch herback on, Vincent.”

The man complied, and the cavern flooded with light,

courtesy of the no-longer- dormant bulbs. Before, we couldonly catch glimpses of the place. But now every nook andcranny were plain to see. As were the row of electrical boxes,the rest of the relays…and the nasty Nain Rouge that wasabout to drop down on Vincent’s head from the ceiling.

“Look out!” I yelled, turning on my heels, but it was toolate. The crimson bastard had landed and was munching onVincent’s neck like it was a chicken wing. The bodyguardtwirled away, trying to throw it off, but the Nain Rouge hungon. I tried to take aim, but they were spinning around so fastthat there was no way to get a clean shot.

Dropping the gun, I yanked my knife out of my pocketbefore charging at the pair of them. Vincent had his ownknife out—a K-Bar like mine, from the looks of it—and wasjabbing it into whatever spot he could nail. He was using hisother hand to fend it off from his neck, which gave the redasshole some finger food to munch on. All the blood loss wasmaking Vincent’s stabs less and less accurate. Twice, I sawhim jab his own shoulder instead.

The twirling had slowed to a stately pace in the fewseconds it took me to catch up. That gave me enough of awindow to jab the Nain Rouge right in its shoulder. I hit ithard enough to pry it off Vincent, but it flew out of myreach in the process. As Vincent fell to the floor, I used myfree hand to yank out my Sig. I squeezed off shots in itsdirection, none of them coming even close. While it wasdodging bullets, the red bastard flew back to the nearestopen bolt hole, right under the lever Vincent had flipped.Before I knew it, the Nain Rouge had scampered off,leaving a thin trail of blood—someone else’s, this time—behind it.

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I scanned the room to make sure there wasn’t a thirdcreature ready to attack us.

A strangled gasp made me look down at Vincent. Theblood coming out of him was anything but thin. Three of hisfingers were gone, and he was trying to use his still-intacthand to stop the geyser gushing out of his neck. I yanked atthe collar of my shirt to tear it in half. He was going to go intoshock if I didn’t tie off the wounds.

I’d gotten the tear halfway down my chest when his eyeswent glassy. Years of training and honed instincts allowedme to push aside the gruesome sight and carry on. I got to myknees next to the man, shirt rag in hand.

I slapped him on the cheek. “Don’t you die on me, youmiserable bastard!” He didn’t respond to that slap or the oneafter it. I pressed the tissue to the side of his neck, but theblood was coming out too quickly for a bandage to do anygood. I closed my eyes and sighed, “Dammit, Vincent…” Itwasn’t long until the merc stopped moving altogether.

I looked over at Zian. The young man stood rooted to thesame spot in front of the relay; his face was ashen, and hisgaze carried a different kind of shock. His breathing wasshallow, and his eyes as wide as the little girl who helped kickthis whole thing off. As I watched, I saw his jaw try to move,but no words came out. Then they did. “Oh…oh, greatZeus…is…is he…?”

I took in a deep breath and nodded. That simple gestureseemed to open the floodgates. Not only did he start movingmore than his mouth again, but he started pacing back andforth in a state of panic. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…he’s dead.” He kept saying either “oh shit” or “he’s dead” atirregular intervals as his pacing got faster and faster.


The crackup I’d been afraid of had arrived. The onlysaving grace was that nobody but me was around to see it. Ilet go of the bloodied tissue and used my cleanest hand toclose Vincent’s eyes.

When Zian started pacing in my direction, I got in frontof him and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Hey, hey! Panicisn’t going to help us here.”

His mouth went back to trying to say things that itcouldn’t get out. “You…I mean…you saw what…he’s dead!”

“But we’re not, and we’ve got a job to do, right?” I saidwith as much gravitas as I could. Five more minutes of thisand I was going to have to slap him too.

Zian’s eyes started to come back into focus, but hisspeech was fluent word salad. “I can’t…I mean…why did…Inever wanted…”

His gaze crossed mine, and it was hard not to breakunder the ache I saw there. If we weren’t in mortal peril, I’dbe willing to share his pain and guilt, but now was not thetime for it. Instead, I fixed him with a hard, emotionlessstare.

It seemed to do the trick. Zian bent in half as heheaved in several steady, slow breaths. When he spokenext, he was talking straight, albeit in a shaky voice. “Inever wanted to be in charge of any of this! Father said Ineeded to grow up, interact with the real world, and takeresponsibility. He suggested this job, and I thought… Ithought it wouldn’t be any different than any RTS game.But this is…”

His mouth went back to moving without sayinganything. I guess his coherence tank had run dry again.Then he looked at the red corpse Vincent and I had made

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before the attack, and his words returned as his analyticalmind kicked back into gear. “Wait a minute; that’s not…?”

I shook my head. “Yeah, no way. That one was dead bythe time Vincent turned the lights back on.”

Zian licked his lips, getting himself back under control ashe focused on solving the mystery at hand. “So…so there wasmore than one.”

“Yeah, looks that way,” I agreed, deciding not to tell himthat I suspected there might be more than two. “What elsehave we got to do down here?”

The kid took a deep breath through his nose, which hadthe added bonus of closing his mouth. When he spoke again,his voice was back under control. “We need to check theserver. If I’m right, the cables or their hookups have got somedamage we need to undo.”

“What’s the worst-case scenario if we decide to bug outright now?”

Zian blinked hard at me. “You’re not thinking of leavingme down—”

“Not a chance in hell of that, no. But we gotta face thefacts. There’s just the two of us left, backup is too far away,and we don’t know what other kinds of surprises yoursquatter can spring on us. So…if we walked away right now,what’s the worst that could happen?”

Zian had to pause to consider his answer. “Worst-casescenario is that the entire western seaboard loses its Interneton Christmas Day. Employees on holidays will have to becalled back to work, and it will be several days before theauthorities figure out what caused the damage, much less fixit. During that time, a third of your national economy will beput on hold, and stock markets everywhere will plummet.”


He took in a breath. “In a nutshell, the resulting economicchaos will make the Great Recession look like a bad day atthe office.”

I nodded. “Okay, we don’t want that.” I pointed at thetunnel ahead of us, “So I guess we’re going that way, yes?”

Zian’s eyes locked with mine. “Are you willing to followme to the end of the job?”

I dropped my hands. “As you said, ain’t nobody else to dothe job, so…let’s Charlie Mike.”

Zian frowned at me as I cleaned my hands on my pantsbefore retrieving my Sig. I guess he wasn’t up on all the mili‐tary terminology. “It means ‘continue mission’, which we aredoing, right?”

While he nodded, I went over to grab the spare MP5clips from Vincent’s corpse. It’s not like he was going to needthem now.

While the tunnels were better lit than before, I keptsweeping them for trouble. To be sure of Zian’s position at alltimes, I made him keep a hand on my shoulder as hefollowed me. I was dead set on bringing that kid back to thesurface once the job was completed, or I’d die trying.

Though I was doing my best to hide it, Vincent’s deathhad shaken me, too. Sure, he’d been a piece of shit in terms ofhis attitude and somebody I would have clocked if I ran intohim on the street. But I never doubted that he’d have seenthe job through. And maybe he had a family that would misshim like I missed mine. That thought opened the door to afamiliar dread as I realized that I might be joining mine soon.

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Zian and I were going down the last tunnel when I heardloud, strange noises: chittering, growling, and what soundedlike claws against rock again. Zian tightened his hand on myshoulder to get my attention. I turned my head back to facehim. When I saw his freaked-out face, I moved my indexfinger to my lips to signal him to keep quiet. He nodded, andI tilted my head toward the right side of the tunnel to indi‐cate the next step. When I saw that he didn’t get it, I movedto stand close to the wall and placed my back against therough rock. I started to shimmy my way across it. Zianfollowed suit an instant later. Sure, the overhead lightingmay have chased away all the shadows. But this way, wewouldn’t be walking through the front door with our asseshanging out.

One little side benefit from the racket around the cornerwas how it covered up the little noises our rubbing wasmaking. I prayed to God—or whoever was in charge—thatit’d give us some kind of edge over the opposition. When wegot to the mouth of the tunnel, I had to conclude that Godwas either not taking my calls or laughing himself silly.

The place was swarming with Nain Rouge. They wereeverywhere: on the block of heavy equipment that had to bethe server, going into the water that led to the sea tunnel onthe other side of the cave, popping in and out of more ofthose damned little crevices.

There were bundles of mismatched tissues and drapesnear the group of large computers at the back of the cave. Itmade me wonder if the crimson hobgoblins had been drownto camp next to those because of the heat they produced. Forthe life of me, I couldn’t figure out why else they werestaying away from the entrance we were skulking around.


I got my answer on that when I looked ahead of us. Abundle of thin cables—all of them, say, the size of a MagicMarker—was snaking its way out of the water and straightinto that sophisticated-looking block of computer equipmentright in the cavern’s center. But all the cables weren’t in onepiece. Pretty close to where we were, part of them had beencut through like the world’s biggest rat had decided to gnawon it. The barbequed body of a Nain Rouge was lying rightnext to it. The lines themselves were sparking around the cutarea, throwing up little blue arcs of electricity daringanybody to get too close.

Hoping these little bastards didn’t have sensitive ears, Iwhispered to the kid, “Just a guess, but I think we found yourtech problem.”

Zian gave the damaged lines a critical eye. “Does go along way to explain the power spikes and connectionissues…”

Then he grunted loud enough for me to worry about usbeing found out. I kept the MP5 ready to fire for two longminutes until it was clear none of them had heard us. WhenI relaxed again, I muttered, “Patching that thing up willmake sure the local Wi-Fi stays on?”

The kid had the good sense to keep his voice down thistime. “If I can stabilize the power flow, absolutely. Of course,there’s the small problem of all those little red devils betweenit and us.”

I shrugged. “Guess that one’s on me.” When he shot mea disbelieving stare, I added, “Oh, c’mon, kid. Out of the twoof us, who knows how to use a gun, and who’s good withcomputers?”

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He rubbed his face in frustration. “Need I remind youthat you’re outnumbered fifty to one?”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Never tell me the odds, kid.Some things are unlikely, but they’re a long way fromimpossible.”

I wished I was feeling as confident as I sounded. For all Iknew, I’d managed to convince my patroness, LadyMcDeath, that today was the day I needed to die. But thatdidn’t change the situation or our need to handle it.

Zian didn’t look happy as he pulled out a pair of rubbergloves that he got from his jeans pocket. “I’m going to need atleast five minutes to do the proper repairs.”

I flicked the safety off on the MP5. “I’ll see if I can giveyou ten.” I took a deep breath and flew around the cornerand into the chamber.

I didn’t fire straightaway. I waited to see which of thesecrimson carnivores spotted me first. That turned out to beone little bastard squatting on top of the server. I fired athree-shot burst that caught it in the head and chest. Theechoes weren’t as loud as in the tunnels, but they were loudenough. I felt more than saw all those beady, yellow eyesturn on me, looking at me in shock. That lasted all of twoseconds before I heard the first growl. Swinging my gun atthe noisemaker, I perforated it with another three-shotgrouping and then yelled, “Guess who’s on Santa’s naughtylist this year?”

By this point, I was firing the MP5 on full auto, sprayingthe crowd around me while keeping them away from theserver. The first shots had been to get their attention. Thesecond round had been to establish me as a threat. Now I


had to sow as much confusion as possible with some seriousfireworks.

Mostly, that strategy worked. The chaos of gunpowderand bullets made most of them fall back, retreating into theseawater so that they could get some protection from the9mm rounds. But that also got me some pissed-off NainRouge coming at me for daring to violate their adoptedhome’s boundaries. And my shots weren’t hitting all of themor even most of them.

I felt my heart stop as the gun clicked empty. One ofthose red midgets chose that exact moment to aim its bigteeth at my face. In a panic, I whacked its face with the buttof the MP5. That sent it barreling backwards into thebunched-up crowd of his fellow attackers. The force of theimpact scattered them like bowling pins, giving me enoughto pop out the clip and stick a fresh one in.

Before I could chamber in a fresh round, a Nain Rougetried attacking me from behind, tearing open my pocket. Byamazing coincidence—or more likely, my death insurancepolicy kicking in—that happened to be the pocket that I keptthe Sig in. It fell into my hand, and I used it to shoot myattacker in the head. Not wanting to waste any time, Iemptied the rest of the clip into the bowled-over midgets.Nearly all of them were screaming when that gun ran dry.Dropping the Sig, I chambered that round into the MP5 andkept shooting.

No sooner had I dispatched that bunch when more NainRouge started pouring out of the crevices on all sides. SinceI’d lost the element of surprise, I was back to plinking themwith three-shot bursts. But there were way too many of them,more than I had the ammo to put down. I kept firing anyway,

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hoping against hope that there was some other way that’d getme out of this mess.

When the submachine gun ran out again, they were tooclose for me to have time to reload. Leaving the gun hangingaround my neck by its strap, I yanked out my knife. Ballingmy free hand up into a fist, I started punching with it whileslicing away with the knife in my other hand. Both my handsfelt the bite of way-too-sharp teeth cut through the skin. Ibegan to wonder if I’d have any fingers left even if I didmanage to survive.

The homicidal midgets drove me back toward thecomputer server. Now that I was close to it, I could see it wasa little higher than me and looked like it was stable enough tosupport my weight. Fueled by desperation more thananything, I risked turning my back on the swarm so I couldjump up and grab the edge of the block. As I did, I could feelthe little bastards tear at my legs, my hips, and my lowerback. I ignored the pain so I could haul myself up. However,that pain got a lot less easy to ignore when I reached the top.

The change in locations didn’t stop them from coming atme. The Nain Rouge started piling on top of each other sothey could join me up there. I heard something falling fromthe ceiling, which made me get out of its way. When the redmidget landed on the server instead of me, I kicked it off itlike he was a soccer ball. On the way down, it took one of itsbrothers with it, but there were way more besides those, too.I swung my foot at them, singing “La Cucaracha” at the topof my lungs. No matter how many I knocked off, stabbed orbackhanded, the bastards kept coming…and coming…andcoming.

“Got it!” Zian’s voice announced from the other end of


the cave. I didn’t dare look to see if any of these beasties werecoming for him, but it wouldn’t have been the wildest ofguesses.

“Little help?” I called back, looking on in dread as I gotswarmed on all sides.

“Got that, too!”Next thing I knew, a wave of blue surged its way

through the horde I was dealing with. The Nain Rougescreamed in agony before their bodies were burnt to a crispor vaporized. I looked around for a safe place to get out ofthe mysterious blue force’s way and decided to stay put forthe time being.

That ray caused an even bigger panic within the group ofred devils than my little bit of gunplay had. Every last one ofthem was stampeding their way to the sea, in the hope that itwould give them some kind of cover like it had with thebullets. The blue surge followed them the whole way, hittingthe water and frying them where they swam. It was onlywhen I saw those blue arcs that I realized I’d been looking athigh-voltage electricity the entire time.

As the last of them howled its death screams, I lookedover at Zian. He was holding up one of the loose cables like itwas a firehose, which it kind of was with all that juicerunning out of it. The blue surge petered out, and he startedreattaching the cable to its proper place.

I heaved a sigh of relief and frowned when my nose gothit by the smell of the impromptu barbecue. “Hells, thisplace stinks.”

“300 volts will do that to a human body,” Zian noted, nottaking his eyes off his work. “Apparently, it does much worseto a Nain Rouge.”

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I reloaded the MP5, keeping my knife in the hand that Iused to slam the clip in. “Think we got ’em all?”

The kid shrugged. “I daresay we got most of them. I’llhave some sweeper teams come in for any stragglers later.”

I jumped down from the server, my landing softened bya couple of fried corpses. I couldn’t help making a face. Mylate grandfather once told me that the smell of cookedhuman meat stays with you. I wonder if it smelled as bad asthese Kentucky-fried fiends.

“And done,” Zian said as he finished reattaching thecable. He looked up and put a rag over his mouth. Before,he’d acted like he gave monsters the deep fry treatment everyday. Now that he didn’t have his precious tech to focus on,he looked like he was two seconds away from puking his gutsout. I could relate.

He spotted something in the mass of corpses. He walkedpast me to grab it and handed it back to me…my Sig. “Itwouldn’t do to leave that down here in the sea air.”

“Not to mention the carnage,” I added, putting the gunback in my intact pocket. I glanced over at the patchedcables. While they were holding, it looked anything butsecure. “No disrespect to your tech skills, but that looks like atemp fix to me.”

Zian nodded, looking greener by the second. “Should belong enough to…clear the…bodies…and…and reboot the—”

He tore his rag away in time to empty his guts. He fell tohis knees and threw up to the point of dry heaves. I let theMP5 hang around my neck while I grabbed both his shoul‐ders from behind. “You’re okay…you’re okay… let it do itsthing.”

When he started moaning, I knew the worst had passed.


He panted, trying to get ahold of himself. “Oh, Zeus…oh,sweet Hera…”

I gave him a hand up on getting back to his feet. Stillhaving the rag in his hand, he used it to get the few flecks ofpuke off his lips. I patted both his shoulders. “If there’snothing else we need to do down here, let’s get back to thesurface.”

He nodded. “Best idea I’ve heard all night.”With shaky steps, he took the lead for our return trip up

the tunnels.

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W

8

CHRISTMAS BONUS

e’d made it back to the command center when weheard a phone ring. And I don’t mean a cell. I

mean an authentic, landline-based telephone was ringingsomewhere. Thanks to the weird acoustics of the place, ittook me a minute to realize that it was coming from Zian’soffice. The kid sighed in resignation as he walked overtoward the phone.

For a second, he thought about picking up the receiveron his desk. But a quick wipe of his mouth made him thinkotherwise. He pressed a button to put it on speaker. “MerryChristmas, Father.”

The cultured English voice on the other end wasseething with barely-restrained rage. “Do not dare ‘MerryChristmas’ me, Zianyon. I have been informed by some ofyour employees that you have a major crisis at your location.”

“Had a major crisis,” Zian corrected his father, walkingaround the desk. “It’s been taken care of as of…” he checked

his computer screen before finishing with “…ten minutesago.”

Zian’s dad didn’t sound amused, reassured or calmer.“And may I presume that you will now tell me what in thename of Hades happened?”

There was no denying that Zian looked scared to answerthat question. When he glanced over at me, I gave him anencouraging expression and nodded my head. He’d kept hiscool while surrounded by underground cannibals. Surely, hehad more than enough steel to tell his old man what neededto be told.

Haltingly at first, but with his conviction growing, thehacker told his dad more or less what had happened. He didchange a few details around, such as my never having beenthere and Vincent dying right before he used his personalElectric Kool-Aid Kit to sandblast the Nain Rouge. I dideverything I could not to give any hints that I was even in theroom. That would have led to awkward questions, and Zianwasn’t having any fun answering the big ones from hisfather.

By the time father and son finished talking, I’d almostconvinced myself that I’d gotten away with it. And thenDaddy Dearest blew that one out of the water. “And what isyour account of recent events, Mr. Vale?”

I looked around for cameras I hadn’t caught the first timein this kid’s office. “You needn’t bother looking for additionalsurveillance,” the voice continued. “Between the search ofyour records from this very office and the testimony of theinjured bodyguard, I had a strong suspicion that you werealso in the room.”

Maybe he already knew what he’d been told was bullshit

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but damned if I was going to rat the kid out. “It happenedpretty much the way he told it.” Give or take a few bitemarks, I thought to myself, feeling the sting of those teeth.Damn, I was going to need to do something about those soon.

Zian’s dad wasn’t satisfied. “And you played no role inevents working out for the best?”

Though he couldn’t see me, I raised my hand to thephone anyway. “A very minor role…your son’s the real herohere. If it hadn’t been for his quick thinking and tech skills,half the country would have been reeling from a lack ofInternet by now.”

Zian looked at me in surprise. I shrugged my shoulders.After all, I was telling the truth about that part.

A heavy sigh came through the phone. “I think I mayhave miscalculated the amount of responsibility you areready for, Zianyon. I want you back in London via the firstnonstop flight you can get on.”

Zian was upset over that order. “But I thought that yousaid—”

The answer was as hard as steel and as logic-based as acomputer. “I am aware of what I said, son. But no one, noteven me, ever said that the Trismegistus was infallible.”

Something about that title scratched at the edge of mybrain. I recognized it but couldn’t place it. While I waspuzzling that out, Zian leaned into the phone. “While Iknow this answer will upset you, Father, I’m staying righthere.”

There was a stunned silence before his father answered.“Come again?”

Zian’s voice got an unmistakable air of authority thatmatched his posture. “Yes, there was a crisis. Yes, it was a


volatile situation that could have ended badly. But the factsare that, in the end, I resolved it with the best possible result,rather than the best result possible. Doesn’t that prove I havea place here, just as you told me all those months ago?”

This time, the answer to Zian’s statement came muchquicker. “Is this your doing, Mr. Vale?”

I laughed a little. “Hey, don’t look—or I guess, talk—atme. I’m a bystander who got swept up in all this.”

The growl on the other end made me a little nervous, butthe answer took the edge off. “Very well, Zianyon…for thetime being, I shall agree with you remaining the Indigo’sproprietor and guardian.”

Just as Zian grinned, the voice added one last warning.“However…should you ever falter to the point of compro‐mising my access or your own safety, I will revoke yourcharter and send you to a place of my choosing. And we bothknow where that will be. Do we understand one another?”

The grin stayed in place. “Yes, Father.”Another sigh. “Why did I have to have such clever

children?”The grin turned into a laugh. “Said the guy who came up

with a harp supposedly for his half-brother.”That’s when I knew who we were talking to. The harp

had been made from tortoiseshell. The half-brother wasApollo, God of the sun, healing, and prophecy. And Tris‐megistus is what our harp inventor had been called byalchemists. That meant the caller at the other end of the linewas none other than Hermes, the messenger of the GreekGods.

That shock stayed with me as father and son said theirgoodbyes.

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After Zian hung up, he got his first good look at the bites theNain Rouge had left on me. At his insistence, he drove meover to St. Andrew’s in his cute little Prius. When I lookedaround the car in bemusement, the young hacker raised afinger at me. “Yes, yes, chuckle all you like. But Father appre‐ciates the fact that not only does it help the environment toown this car, but it also cuts down on expenses relating to mygas consumption.”

While I couldn’t stop being amused, I held up my handsin surrender. It’s never a good idea to piss off the guy doingyou a solid.

We bypassed the emergency room, heading straight togeneral admission so that I could be tested. My bites wereexamined, samples were extracted, and medicines andbandages applied. Since the tests would take some time, theydecided to hold me for overnight observation. I was a littleworried about that last part until Zian assured me that hehad a man on staff who was padding his retirement fund bybeing on his father’s payroll. I was soon stuffed into a roomby myself, wearing an unflattering hospital gown mydaughter would have laughed at. Not a great way to spendChristmas, but I’d had worse times this past year.

It took me a minute to realize that this was the first timeI’d thought about my family and not wanted to collapse intears of self-pity. Maybe it was getting easier to deal with it.Maybe I was just too grateful to be alive. Or it may havebeen the drugs kicking in. Either way, I closed my eyes andslept the rest of the afternoon away.


The sun was going down when I woke back up. The reason Idid was that someone was coming into my room: my doctor. Ifroze at the sight of him—not that he was creepy or menac‐ing. With his glasses, dark complexion, and bald head, helooked like Central Casting. But it hadn’t been that long agosince I’d seen him in another hospital, working on anothercase near and dear to my heart.

Doctor Menendez acted like he didn’t know me,focusing on the look on my face. “Are you feeling okay, Mr.Vale?”

It took a few seconds for me to speak. “Just…a littleshocked is all. I don’t know if you remember me, Doc, but—”

Underneath the professional distance, I saw his eyes geta little sad. “Even for someone in my job, your daughter’scase was a very hard one to forget. I wish I could say it wasnice to see you again, but…”

I held up both of my bandaged hands. “Honest to God,Doc, I was swept up in the middle of this one.”

He nodded and glanced down at my chart at the foot ofthe bed. “There are no judgments here, Mr. Vale. Your busi‐ness is your business. My main concern is your continuinghealth.”

It’s always good to be dealing with a focused profes‐sional. “Speaking of which, how is that looking?”

He put the chart down and came around to give me anelectronic thermometer, which I put in my mouth. “Consid‐ering what happened to the other men with these kinds ofbites, remarkably well. The poison in them has a nasty habit

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of causing the loss of digits and even limbs. But something inyour immune system seems to be beating it off.”

I felt a faint ray of hope dawn at his words. “So if I’dnever come in, I’d be okay?”

Menendez shrugged. “That’s what the initial findingsseem to hint at. Still, there’s an upside to getting treatmenthere, too. We can cut down a week of recovery to one night.”

He took the thermometer back out, checked the reading,and nodded. “If you’ll just roll over so I can examine the restof your wounds…?”

I did what I was told and felt the sting of the bandagescoming off. A few minutes later, he’d applied some freshones, and I’d rolled back over. “So, Doc, is it looking good?”

“Looking excellent,” he assured me while applyingreplacement bandages for my fingers. “You seem to healfaster than most. Assuming no relapses overnight, you’ll bereleased in the morning.”

“Great,” I said, feeling a little sadness pass through me.Who did I have to go home to on the day after Christmas?

Doc must have caught that look. “Is there someone youcan call to pick you up?”

I thought about it. “There’s the guy who brought me in,but I don’t have his number.”

Without missing a beat, he dug out a card and put it onthe table next to me. “I imagine that he won’t object toohard.”

Guess Menedez was the guy Zian had on the payroll.Just before he stepped out of the room, he stopped andlooked over his shoulder at me. “Mr. Vale…I know this isn’tmy place to say this…”


I shrugged. “Just speak your mind, Doc. Like you said,no judgments.”

A slight smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “If you takeon any more work from our mutual friend…please be careful.I’m not sure you’re going to be as lucky a second time ifthings get this bad or worse.”

His piece said, he walked out.

Since I hate reality TV with a passion, I turned the room setto HDL, the Headliner News Channel. A cute little blondewas reporting on the “Real-Life Nightmare Before Christ‐mas”. It was detailing all the travails I’d gone through withthe little girl and the Nain Rouge. Apparently, I wasn’t asunobserved as I’d thought; two other eyewitnesses cameforward to talk about the red devil and me. The little girlherself wasn’t talking, though. Nobody had been able todetermine who the child was.

I was chuckling at the on-air speculation when the roomphone rang. I frowned as I picked it up. “Hello?”

“Bell, it’s Zian. I’m calling to see how you’re feeling.”I rolled my shoulders a little. “I think I’ll live. Doc says I

should be released in the morning, no muss, no fuss.”The hacker’s tone got suspicious. “No complications?”“No, all my fingers, toes and limbs are to be leaving with

me. Puzzled Doc pretty good too, I might add.”“Well, here’s another puzzler for you…what’s a freshly-

minted P.I. doing with an ancient Greek symbol branded onhis shoulder?”

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I felt my jaw tense a little. Looking at the blonde on TVmade it a little better…a little.

I had a black tattoo on my shoulder that was mypatroness’ equivalent to cattle branding. “Doc passed on thereport to you, huh?”

“Let’s say that some information, you don’t even need toleave your laptop to find. I’m assuming you know whosemark that is.”

I did. It took some digging, but I found out early on thatit was the symbol of Hades, Greek God of the Underworld. Ialso knew I wasn’t allowed to talk about it, so I decided to trya variant of the truth. “Would you believe me if I told you Igot drunk one night and woke up like this the next day?”

“Not a chance in Hades’ realm,” he said in a tone thathinted he knew of the murky waters I delved in. “Going bythat, I’d say you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

“You volunteering, kid?”He chuckled on the line. “I’m not putting you on the

payroll if that’s what you’re asking. Father was very explicitabout that. Just the same, if I’ve got a problem that soundslike it’d be in your skillset, I’ve got you on speed dial.”

I’d planned on calling him for this next part, but whatthe hell…I already had him on the phone. “Would I bepushing my luck if I asked one last favor?”

“Depends on the favor.”“I’ve…kind of got nobody to take me home tomorrow. So

I was hoping—”“Say no more. I’ll schedule my first break to coincide

with your release.”“Thanks for the solid, Zian. I appreciate it.”


“Eh, least I can do for the guy who saved the WestCoast’s Internet.”

We then talked about the blonde on TV, seeing as he wastuned in to the same channel. We both had a good laugh atall the details they were getting wrong. Alligators in thesewers had more believability. Both of us admitted theblonde was pretty hot, though.

At the close of the call, I asked, “So now that we’refriends, can I get one of those golden pins you are all wear‐ing? You know, so I can feel like I’m part of the band?”

“Goodnight, envoy,” Zian said before hanging up. Istared at the dead phone in my hand. That name told meeverything that I needed to know about how clued in to mysituation Hermes’ son was.

The investigation into the mysterious red creature officiallywent nowhere. After a couple of weeks of speculation, itdisappeared down the memory hole at the start of the NewYear, as forgotten as last year’s Christmas tree. None of thefew concrete details uncovered by that nosy journalist wasever linked to the Indigo, Zian, or me.

Speaking of the Indigo, it had a grand opening about fourmonths later. It turns out that its façade hadn’t been a night‐club after all. It was an arcade that appealed to bothnostalgia game players and trendy MMO gamers whowanted Wi-Fi to hook up their laptops up to. I went there acouple of times, but it wasn’t my scene. The only times I goback now are strictly on business…and no, I never got one ofthose gold pins.

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Zian and I have only gotten friendlier. In addition tocovering my hospital bills, he threw in a generous payout,which floated me through the rest of the winter. I sometimesthink he looks up to me as a substitute daddy figure, whichgives me mixed feelings. It’s not that I don’t want to offendhis Greek God papa, but I’m not sure if I’m up to being afather after all this time. But I help him, and he helps me. Somaybe it’ll all come out in the wash.

I made a full recovery from the bites. They itched andstung until I woke up one morning, and all traces of themwere gone. It made me think about all the other little waysLady McDeath was keeping me alive…and what I’d have todo to make her retract that protection. Fingers crossed thatI’d never have to find out the answer to that question.


NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Thanks for joining Bellamy Vale’s team!

If you loved this book and have a moment to spare, I wouldreally appreciate a short review where you bought it. Yourhelp in spreading the word is gratefully appreciated.

Did you know there are more books in this series?

Hostile Takeover #1Evil Embers #2Avenging Spirit #3 (coming 2020)Seasons Bleedings (Christmas Special)

All the books are available in ebook and print.

FURTHER READING

The Neve & Egan Cases Series.

Described by readers as ‘a refreshingly unique mysteryseries’.

Russian Dolls #1Ruby Heart #2Danse Macabre #3Blind Chess #4

All the books are available in ebook and print. There’s alsoan ebook Box Set, with the complete series, at a bargainprice.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cristelle Comby was born and raised in the French-speakingarea of Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva, whereshe still resides.

She attributes to her origins her ever-peaceful nature andher undying love for chocolate. She has a passion for art,which also includes an interest in drawing and acting.

She is the author of the Neve & Egan Cases mysteryseries, which features an unlikely duo of private detectives inLondon: Ashford Egan, a blind History professor, andAlexandra Neve, one of his students.

Currently, she is hard at work on her Urban Fantasyseries Vale Investigation which chronicles the exploits ofDeath’s only envoy on Earth, PI Bellamy Vale, in the ficti‐tious town of Cold City, USA.

The first novel in the series, Hostile Takeover, won the2019 Independent Press Award in the Urban Fantasycategory.

KEEP IN TOUCH

You can sign up for Cristelle Comby’s newsletter, with give‐aways and the latest releases. This will also allow you todownload two exclusives stories you cannot get anywhereelse: Redemption Road (Vale Investigation prequelnovella) and Personal Favour (Neve & Egan Casesprequel novella).

www.cristelle-comby.com/freebooks

season’s bleedings bleedings... · 2019. 10. 25. · also by cristelle comby the neve & egan...

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