Anna made another soft sound, burrowing deeper into the covers. The gangly shadow-intruder swung a leg over the windowsill and ducked gracefully in. The scratching noise continued, then stopped dead
You son of a bitch. Josiah’s finger tightened on the trigger. Coming in for a midnight rendezvous, are we?
The only thing between Anna’s being at this man’s mercy was a half-drunk liquidation specialist, who had let his better judgment get besotted one time too many. Great.
The new player was slim but tall, moving fluidly and noiselessly along the periphery of the room, avoiding the squeaks and bumps in the floor as if he had spent years living here. Josiah, in his pool of deep shadow, kept the gun down only because if he squeezed a shot off now he couldn’t be completely sure.
Also, something bothered him. The shadow was a glitter of eyes and a shock of hair; the man didn’t seem to be in camo or have any nighttime gear.
Nor did he have any shoes. His bare feet glimmered pale as he drifted. Pale, and oddly thin, malformed in some way.
Josiah’s brain struggled with this. What the fuck?
The man reached the nightstand. He was less than three feet from Anna, who murmured again. A pale misshapen hand reached down, touched the stack of paper.
Eric’s files.
Josiah lifted the gun.
“I can hear your pulse.” The voice was male, flatly accented, and stilted. There was a terribly wrong quality, a dead bell struck at midnight. It was barely a whisper, insinuating itself into cold night air. “And smell the liquor on you.”
The words dried the inside of Josiah’s mouth and made his stomach clench around alcoholic warmth. “Get away from her.”
A glitter of sharp white. The man pulled his lips back in a snarl, visible in the reflected moonlight. A slow, deadly, liquid hiss filled the room.
Josiah barely thought about it. His own lips peeled back, an animal’s instinctive baring of teeth, but he didn’t echo the sound. The man studied him, thin shoulders hunching as if he expected a blow.
Just wait a second. The same instinct, born of years of working the edges of violence and death, made Josiah wait. The attackers at his house had been geared to the nines, in tac and black webbing. This guy was barefoot.
“Where is the ring?” The man’s voice didn’t improve the second time. It was even worse. A hiss like that belonged in dank underground cells, water dripping down crumbling stone walls and rusted chains still warm from the last prisoner to die in them.
What? “What ring?”
“Eric was to bring me my ring.” The creature held up one thin, pale-glowing hand. Three of the fingers were missing, only thin, spidery stubs remaining. The shape of the man’s bare feet was odd, too, because he was missing toes, and livid dark weals stood out on the fish-belly-white flesh, visible in the moonlight. Either Josiah’s night vision had gotten better, or the moon had come out from partial obscurity. “He promised. He did not return.”
“Eric…” Get the fuck out. No way. “Eric Caldwell?”
Anna’s breathing changed. She moaned, softly. The man looked down at her, an oddly reptilian movement of scrawny neck and dark-haired head. “Eric,” he breathed, and bent down.
“Get away from her!” Josiah’s voice rose sharply, and he took a single step forward. Nine and a half pounds of pull would squeeze off a shot, and he was at eight and three quarters. Body shots, because he wanted to ask this motherfucker some questions—but he could change that, if he needed to.
If the situation required.
The man hissed again, taking a single step back. He didn’t totter on his mutilated feet, and that was wrong, too. Nobody should be able to balance so lightly on such damaged appendages.
“Eric Caldwell’s dead, my friend.” Josiah’s voice was absurdly steady. “Someone slit his throat and is trying to kill his sister, too. Who the fuck are you?”
The scarecrow cocked his head. He glanced down at Anna again, who stirred and turned over onto her back, pushing the covers down. Innocent as a fucking little lamb. A bomb could go off outside and she’d probably sleep right through it. Once she passed out, she was gone until morning.
He adored her for it, even while he cursed inwardly.
Josiah took another step, the gun trained on the man’s head. He felt a lot better about his shot chance now. “I said, who the fuck are you, and what are you doing in my fucking house?”
“Sister.” The hissing freak shook his head, greasy matted hair falling forward to curtain his expression. “Sister…” The word trailed, away, turned into a long, sibilant exhale.
“Jo?” Anna, pushing herself up on her elbows. Just like Sleeping Beauty, blinking prettily at a prince.
Only this woman didn’t have the prince she deserved. All she had was him.
The intruder twitched. Josiah squeezed the trigger and kept shooting, moving forward, knowing he hit the man who scrambled for the window. The gun muzzle flashed with each burst of noise, and he cursed being in stocking feet as he slid on hardwood. Glass shattered as the pale, misshapen streak launched himself out into the night, and Anna let out a short cry as Josiah got to the bed, grabbing a fistful of her shirt and dragging her out. She hit the floor and he pushed her head down, sure that would provide her with a little cover, and he went over the bed and ended up next to the window, waiting for return fire.
None came. He risked a glance.
A stick figure lay spread-eagle below on the leaf-strewn ground, dappled with moonlight through the bare grasping branches. Broken glass glittered, and splotches of weird fish-belly skin gleamed. As Josiah watched, the man rolled onto his side and up to all fours, shook himself like a dog, and darted away into the underbrush on pale, mutilated hands and knees, so fast he almost blurred. His bare white feet flickered.
All the breath left Josiah’s lungs in a walloping rush. He leaned against the wall, the cold breeze touching his face, and felt utterly chill-cold sober.
Footsteps behind him. He heard Anna’s harsh breathing, and his own. He’d shot the man four times, and the bastard had just gotten up and run off. Barefoot. Missing toes and fingers.
Jesus. Jesus Christ.
Hassan burst into the room.
“Check her,” Josiah snapped, pointing at Anna, who was peering up over the side of the bed. He sounded like he’d been punched.
I suppose I have. He would have checked Anna himself, but his legs didn’t seem to want to behave. Silver bullets and crucifixes. Jesus.
It was time for a radical rethinking of just what Josiah was willing to believe.
“What’s going on?” Anna sounded terrified. He didn’t blame her.
“Wolfe, get out of the goddamn window!” Hassan barked. “Josiah!”
“In a minute.” Josiah looked out over the moon-dappled ground. A two-floor fall and four bullet holes. I know I hit him. Kevlar? But he was barefoot, goddammit, and missing fucking toes as well. “Is she all right?”
“Right as rain.” Hassan’s accent wore through. “A little shaken up, but all right.”
“Jo? Josiah?” She gasped, and he wanted to look across the room. He didn’t; he kept staring out the window at the silver-dappled shadows. The other ones exploded into dust. This one didn’t. Because it wasn’t head shots?
You know, another drink would go down real well right now. His mouth was still dry. Think, goddammit. If you act like you’re scared she’ll go right over the moon. “It’s all right, Anna. You okay?”
“Let go of me! Let go!” There was the sound of tearing cloth, and Hassan cursed.
“Just be bloody calm, you heard the man! Someone could be out there with a rifle. Get out of the bloody window, Josiah!”
He did. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. Be calm. Anna’s here, she needs you, be calm.
It did manage to keep him from the edge, but only just. He opened his eyes to find Hassan with his arm over Anna’s throat, holding her back; she struggled uselessly and tried biting him again.
The sight of someone holding her while she struggled, even Hassan, threatened to tip Josiah over the edge.
Be chilly. Nice and cold. Josiah kept the gun pointed down and away, but he pointed his chin slightly at Hassan. “Let her go. Anna, there’s glass. Be careful.”
She flew across the room and almost collided with him, flung her arms around Josiah, and squeezed. Rewarded with a faint huff of breath, she squeezed harder; he kept the gun free and found his other arm around her shoulders. “Jesus,” he whispered into her hair.
On the one hand, her closeness reassured him she was safe. On the other, it made his hands shake just a little, the trembling working through his bones, as he thought about how fucking close it could have been.
“What the fuck is going on?” Hassan sounded just two short steps away from opening fire.
Josiah hugged her, unsure of why she was clinging to him but happy for it all the same. “I think one of Eric’s contacts just visited us. And shook off four direct hits, right before he flew out the window.” He met Hassan’s worried dark gaze as his skin prickled with gooseflesh.
This is like that woman with the rats. Remember that? Her eyes, and the way they all looked at her, right before she gave that little whistle? And the bones in her hair, click-clack.
You saw a lot of weird shit when your job was liquidating troublesome people. The world was much, much stranger than nine-to-fivers assumed. All sorts of rumbling strangeness snuggled down in the cracks between the daylight surface and the gray world of infiltrate, doublecross, liquidate, intel, vanish.
He took a deep gasping breath, and her softness pressed against his body. There was a good way to make everything inside a man settle down and behave reasonably. Unfortunately, now wasn’t the time. Down, boy. You’ve been a bad agent, no cookie for you.
“This is getting Hollywood weird,” Willie remarked from the shadows just on the other side of the bedroom door. Dark hair shawled her shoulders, and the rifle in her capable hands was a blessing to see. “Is everyone all right?”
“I’m not,” Hassan said glumly, letting out a gusty, deflating sigh. “I’m miserable. Can’t we have one bloody night without gunfire and broken fucking windows?”
“You are in the wrong line of work for that,” Willie observed, reasonably enough, and the twinkle of merriment in her gaze was even more welcome.
“I was dreaming,” Anna said into his chest. He closed his eyes again, resting his head against the wall and feeling her in his arms. “What happened? Josiah? Are you all right?”
I don’t know. “Just a little snag in our plans, baby. Nothing we can’t handle.”
Lying to her. Again. For the moment, he simply held her, and was glad to do so. She was warm and safe and alive, willingly touching him. He was just enough of a bastard to be happy about it, even though his legs wouldn’t quite hold him up.
* * *
The files sat on the table, and Anna held up the flat key with its trace of blue paint. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a key in there?” She’d pulled her legs up and hugged her knees, bracing her heels on the lip of the chair. It was a familiar pose, one Josiah recognized. “And the note.”
“We had other things to think about.” Hassan, his hair a wild mess, flipped a knife over his hand, caught the handle, repeated the motion. The glitter of the blade threw a random reflection of candlelight onto the roof. The candle wasn’t for romance. It was easily snuffed, and wouldn’t destroy Josiah’s night vision or give someone with a rifle and scope a clearly lit shot.
Willie rubbed at her upper arms, her palms rasping on heavy navy wool. She’d pulled her hair back, and her felted boots held traces of floor dust. “Gott in Himmel. This is ridiculous.”
“I’m not that drunk.” Josiah finished pulling his boots up. He’d been lucky to avoid a foot full of glass. “I know what I saw. He took four bullets and scurried off into the underbrush like a cockroach.”
“Kevlar?” Hassan hazarded.
“After falling out the window, two stories down?” He set his boots on the floor. “What’s the key to, Anna?”
“A post office box.” She stared at the table, closing the key in her fist. “Eric had it under another name—Sebastian Knight, he was so amused by it. It was for his contacts. If anything…I didn’t know he had an extra. Or maybe this is his first one. I don’t know.” She hugged her knees harder, not looking at him. “He called it mailing to Nabokov. After the novelist, you know? Because…because he’s dead.”
“Very touching.” Hassan spun the knife again. “What the fuck is going on, Wolfe?”
Josiah sighed. “Isn’t it obvious?” He pulled his chair up to the table. “That was one of Eric’s contacts. And I don’t think he’s strictly human.”
This extraordinary statement was greeted by silence. Hassan stopped tossing the knife, which was good. Willie sighed, leaning back in her chair a little. Anna made a little movement, as if shaking away water. Her eyes widened.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Josiah continued, “but I’m fairly willing to start believing in a little weirdness here. Like the rats in Tunisia, Hassan.” Or that snake-dancer in Moscow, the one with the strange eyes. Another weirdness tucked in a corner, the crackling sound behind a frosted glass pane as the man’s jaw distended, and Josiah’s target—the petty criminal lord he was to deliver alive to Evgeny—began to whimper like a child instead of a grown man who had ordered beatings and killings for a good fifteen-plus years in the sub-Arctic cold.
“Don’t remind me.” Hassan outright shuddered. He hadn’t been in Moscow, but could probably hear that low, whistling exhalation from Tunisia in his dreams just like Josiah could, and the scratching of tiny feet, the dragging of naked tails…and bones clacking, click-snack, in a woman’s tangled hair.
“Rats?” Willie raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t ask.” Hassan scrubbed at the back of his left arm, where the faint scratching scars were often hidden under his sleeve. “God’s breath, Wolfe. You expect me to believe…” He didn’t finish the question. It would have been idiotic, because Hassan sounded like a man convinced.
Still, someone had to say it out loud, and it looked like Josiah was nominated. “You cut a throat and got a shower of grit, so did I. Willie shot them and got ash, or dirt, or whatever. We just had a barefoot man, shot four times, launch himself out the window and run away. I might be a little buzzed, but I’m not nearly fucking drunk enough to be hallucinating. We have witnesses missing, a dead reporter and editor whose murders are not being investigated, we have assassins who turn into ash, and we have this new wrinkle, this asshole who claims Eric was going to retrieve something for him.” He set the gun on the table, with a slight click. “I say we retrieve whatever is in Eric’s PO box and take a look around this brick place on Morris. And I’ve got a friend or two I need to meet up with.” Although “friends” might be stretching it a little. More like “non-enemies so far.” That might be more precise.
The shaking in his hands had gone down, so he popped the clip out of the gun and racked a new one in. Always better to have a fresh clip; sometimes you couldn’t stop to reload.
Better not to take the chance. Much of his life had been lived according to that maxim.
Most of the parts that hadn’t were enough to give anyone normal nightmares. Then there was Anna—the flip side, maybe. A good dream, one he didn’t deserve but was selfish enough to want to keep anyway.
“Wait a minute.” Anna, not staring at her knees anymore, the bruise glaring on her cheek and her sandalwood hair mussed. She only looked puzzled, not frightened out of her wits. “Witnesses? Not human? What exactly are we talking about?”
“Well, we’ve had two suggestions: silver bullets and crucifixes. This guy didn’t explode in a shower of dirt like the other ones—”
“Dirt?” Her eyes were very wide, and very green. “I thought you were joking. They really turned to…” She let out a short, sharp breath. “Jesus.”
He looked at the bruise, at the heavy circles under her eyes, and the vulnerable, breakable curve of her wrist. I thought she’d be safe here. Safer than this. Still, he didn’t hurt her.
The reptilian little movement the pale barefoot man had made was enough to make Josiah’s stomach twist against itself, and he pushed the sensation away. I’m really doing very well with this. I should be going crazy by now. Hands aren’t even shaking.
Much.
“What we have here are some odd occurrences,” he continued, pedantically. “The last of which is the barefoot man who in all likelihood floated up to your window tonight and broke in like a bad Romeo. There’s no ladder there, no marks from a grapple, and the angle’s wrong from the roof, again. If he used some trick to get up there I can’t figure out what it is.” He slipped the gun back in its holster. “Plus, our little friend didn’t trip any of the alarms or anything else I had set out there on the approaches to the house. Not a single one, coming or going. Either I’m getting sloppy or we’re looking at something weirder than snake shoes. If there’s a rational explanation, it’s escaping me right now; I’ll be damn happy when it finally presents itself. Until then, I’m going to take a few irrational precautions. Hassan, you’re going back into town tonight to set up a meet with Chilwell and another with Vanczny.”
“You want to meet with Van?” Hassan’s jaw all but dropped.
“That’s right. And I’ll be taking her with me. Willie, I want you to run backup on Hassan. Get a room in town. We’ll rendezvous at fourteen hundred tomorrow, past that restaurant on Clark Street going east. I’ll make contact. If not, we’ll try in twenty-four, on Lasko, then it’s the regular protocol. You know where I mean?”
“I know.” Hassan gained his feet in one smooth motion. The knife disappeared. “Dammit, I wanted some sleep tonight.”
“You’ll need clothes for her.” Willie sighed. “And what will you do, cook for yourself?”
As if that was the worst thing she could think of. An unwilling smile twitched at one corner of Josiah’s mouth. “Don’t you worry about her, she’s in good hands. I’ll just have to rough it without your soup for a while. You’re already packed, that’s the beauty of it.”