“Is everything okay, Ms. Flynn?”
“Yes. I’ll be right down,” said Junie Flynn, and disconnected the call.
They waited there for almost three minutes. Saying very little. Talking nonsense stuff. The weather. The terrible events in Philadelphia. Like that. Then the elevator doors slid open and two figures stepped out. A Japanese man with a hard, flat face and eyes that appeared to be absolutely lifeless, and a woman with wild blond hair and blue eyes that were filled with light.
And with pain.
The blonde spotted the woman at once and immediately rushed toward her. She saw the dog and her stride faltered, but the blind woman held out her hands and took the other woman into her arms. They embraced like friends who loved each other but had been apart for far too long. It was so genuine a thing that Carol the receptionist and Myron the guard smiled at each other. The dog sniffed the blonde and turned away, as if to say, “Noted and filed away.”
“God!” said Junie, “it’s so good to see you.”
“Sorry it’s for this reason.”
“I know. But thanks for coming. It means a lot.”
“Anything for the family.” She glanced toward the elevator. “I can’t stay long—I’m in the middle of something that won’t wait—but I brought a friend. This is Banshee.”
Junie bent and ruffled the head of the gigantic dog. Most people would never dare do something like that. Not to a dog who looked like she would not enjoy that sort of thing from strangers. But the big wolfhound gave a couple of brief wags of her tail.
“She likes you,” said Ms. Mandocello.
“I like her. She has a big spirit.”
“She does.”
“There’s a lot of light around her.”
Ms. Mandocello only smiled at that.
Junie turned to the receptionist. “It’s okay, Carol. I’ll take her up.”
“She’s not on the list, Ms. Flynn,” said Carol hesitantly.
Junie flashed her a big smile. “Check again.”
“Don’t bother,” said the Japanese man. He opened his identification wallet and flashed a National Security Agency badge. The name on the adjoining card read SPECIAL AGENT SAMUEL THOMAS IMURA. “Ms. Mandocello is approved.”
Carol nodded. The security guard relaxed.
Agent Imura shook hands with the visitor, then held his hand out to the dog.
“What was her name again?” he asked.
“Banshee,” said Ms. Mandocello.
“Nice.”
“She isn’t.”
Sam smiled. “I mean the name.”
Ms. Mandocello smiled, too. “It’s good to see you again, Sam.”
“Good to see you, too, Violin.”
He did not say that name loud enough for anyone but Junie to hear.
The two women, the DMS agent, and the Irish wolfhound named Banshee headed over to the elevators.
Chapter Seventy-five
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
March 31, 9:14 A.M.
I tried checking myself out of the hospital, got as far as the nurses’ station, and then the shakes hit me. I staggered, dizzy and sick. Nausea was like a fist to the gut, and when I opened my mouth to tell the nurse I wanted to leave, I vomited all over the counter.
The nurses hustled me back to bed, cleaned me up, and, despite every protest I could make, shot me up with something that dropped me into a big, dark hole.
I slept badly and dreamed of monsters. Of fleet-footed scavenger animals that ran wild through the brush. Of a man with the body and clothes of a priest and the laughing head of a demon.
I dreamed that everyone I loved was dead. Not dying … already gone.
I woke in the dawn’s early light, shaken and afraid.
When I got out of bed, I expected to fall down, but even though the floor did an Irish jig for a wild moment, the world steadied. My stomach no longer felt like it was filled with greasy dishwater.
So, I found fresh scrubs in a hall closet and this time managed to convince the nurse that I was leaving. They can’t legally keep me. They tried, though. Got to give them that.
I grudgingly accepted a wheelchair ride to the front door, then tottered to the front door like an old man who’d lived a hard life. Every single inch of my body hurt. My hair hurt. My shoes hurt.
My heart hurt.
Top was waiting in the lobby, scowling and chewing on a wooden matchstick.
“Bunny’s bringing the car around,” he said, then gave me a sour up-and-down appraisal. “You up for this, Cap’n?”
“Sure.”
“You lying to me?”
“Sure. Still going, though.”
“Okay. But if you look like you’re going to fade on me, I’m going to put you on the bench, you dig?”
“Yes, mother.”
Top showed me his teeth. Not sure if you’d call it a smile.
He smile faded as he studied my face. “What is it?” he asked. “Did something else happen?”
It was a simple question with a terribly complex answer.
“Not here,” I said. “In the car.”
Black Bess pulled up outside and Top helped me into the back. He climbed into the shotgun seat.
“You guys have your go bags?” I asked.
Bunny ticked his head to the back bay. “Always. Where we going?”
“Airport first, then Florida.” I licked my lips, which were as dry as my throat. Then, as Bunny pulled away from the curb, I laid it on them. Rudy and Nicodemus. Aunt Sallie. Bug’s mother.
Regis.
My fears about Davidovich and the Seven Kings.
All of it.
They’re good friends, and this was a bad thing to do to them. I watched what it did to their faces, how it changed them. Bunny’s face fell into sickness; Top’s turned to stone. We all have our own ways of processing hurt and anger.
Top, Bunny, and I—we were all feeling it. We grieved for Bug and feared for Auntie, but none of us knew what we could do to help them. We were killers, not healers. And as much as we wanted to, we couldn’t raise the dead.
They asked a lot of questions as we crept through traffic. I gave them what few answers I had. Then we fell into a bitter silence that lasted from when Bunny got onto I-95 in Old City to when we pulled into the security lot at the airport. I saw my jet on the tarmac and a smaller one standing apart, waiting for Top and Bunny. I saw Birddog standing by my ride, and there was Ghost sitting beside him. Battered and bandaged but alert.
Bunny killed the engine and we sat for a moment longer, saying nothing, thinking bad, bad thoughts.
Nobody wanted to say it, so I said it. “We’re going to find these sons of bitches, and we are going to wipe them off the face of the earth.”
Bunny grunted. A low, dangerous sound. “For Bug, for Aunt Sallie. For Circe and Rudy. For everyone at the ballpark.”
Top said it best. “We been sidelined watching the world burn, Cap’n. That shit’s got to stop.”
“Hooah,” I said softly.
“Hooah,” they echoed.
“Nico-fucking-demus?” said Top slowly. “Shee-e-e-e-e-et.”
“How’d he get to Rudy?” said Bunny. “Cowpers said he cleared the chapel?”
“That’s what he said,” I said. “Our guys are reviewing the hospital security footage. So far, nothing. He slipped past us.”
“I’m going to have me a long and meaningful chat with Cowpers,” Top said. “I’d like to know how the fuck he could miss someone hiding in a room as small as a hospital chapel?”
“Cowpers is pretty sharp. Wouldn’t be like him to miss something like that.”
“All I’m saying,” muttered Top, “is he better have a damn good explanation, or I’m going to put my whole foot up his ass.”
We got out of the car. They took their gear and headed toward their jet. I leaned against the fender and dug my cell phone out of my pocket.
Called Junie.
I needed to hear her voice. Not only to know that she was okay, but because she was my tether to hope and optimism and all the things I fight for.
“Joe!” she said as she answered. I could tell from her voice that she’d been crying. “I just called your room, and they said that you were discharged. What are you doing?”
“It’s okay, baby,” I soothed. “I’m fine. Dented but that’s all. Look, Junie,” I said, “Church told me about what happened to Rudy.”
“Oh God, I know. Poor Rudy!”
“How is he?”
She told me everything she knew, but it didn’t add much to what Church had said. The same with Circe. No changes. No news.
No goddamn answers.
Junie started to cry again. Deep sobs that threatened to break my heart. Unlike me, Junie got along with Auntie. They often spent hours talking on the phone. And, like me, she loved Bug.
“I’m coming out there,” I told her. “Until I do … who’s there with you? I mean right there, right where you can see them?”
“Montana’s here. And the rest of the team is patrolling the hospital,” said Junie, sniffing. Montana Parker was the second woman on Echo Team. She’d joined a year ago during the Mother Night operation. A former member of the FBI’s hostage-rescue team. Tough as nails. I trusted her to look after Junie, and felt relieved that she was on the clock.
“Good. You don’t go anywhere without Montana, you understand? Not even to the ladies’ room. Nowhere.”
“I know how this works,” said Junie.
I had to smile. Junie looked like a throwback to the era of flower power and love beads, but she had a complicated history that had made her neither naive nor weak.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Tell Rudy that I’m coming out there, too. Let him know.”
“I will, Joe.”
When the call was over, I limped toward my jet. Ghost broke from Birddog’s side and came limping toward me. I knelt and hugged him to me, buried my face in his fur, and tried very hard not to weep like a child.
Chapter Seventy-six
Third and E Streets
Chula Vista, California
March 31, 11:44 A.M.
Jorge Quiñones dug a fresh beer from the fridge, used his retro Star Trek Enterprise bottle opener to pop off the cap, took a long pull, and sighed. Life was good. So good.
He opened the sliding screen door and stepped out onto the concrete pad that served as a deck. His girlfriend, Jill, was stretched out on a chaise lounge, earbuds in, sunglasses on, little rubber things separating her freshly painted toes. Jorge turned around and went back inside to fetch her a beer, too. He came up on her blind side and began to move the icy bottom rim of the bottle down onto the bare brown skin of her thigh.
Jill had great thighs. She had great everything. She was far and away the best-looking girl he’d ever dated. Maybe the best-looking girl he’d ever spoken to. All the goodies in front and in back, eyes as black as coal, and lots of wildly curly hair. Greek-Spanish. Real Spain Spanish, too. Not the Mexican Spanish in his genes, which was probably half Indio anyway. She was fine.
He tried to see through her sunglasses to tell if she was asleep or not. If she was asleep, then she’d jump ten feet in the air when the glass touched her. It was hot for late March. Some kind of global-warming thing, according to the news. Eighty-five degrees, and tomorrow was supposed to be eighty-seven. Nice.
Jill wore white short-shorts and a bikini top that was so skimpy he could see the little ladybug tattoo she had near her right nipple. He loved that tattoo. She had a hummingbird on her lower back. Jorge would never call something so delicate a “tramp stamp,” though sometimes Jill joked around and called it that. He loved that hummingbird, too. He stared at it when she was on all fours and he was kneeling behind her. Her skin flushed when she was ready to come, and that changed the colors in the hummingbird’s wings.
Thinking about those two tattoos made him hard, and he paused in the act of commission, the bottle not yet touching. She would be furious with him. No doubt about that. Yeah, he could charm her and they’d laugh about it, but was the laugh worth the yelling?
Nah.
He began to lift the bottle when Jill spoke, “And now I don’t have to cut your balls off while you sleep.”
He jerked backward. “Oh. You’re awake.”
She raised the sunglasses and squinted up at him. “You know I’d kill you, right?”
“I wasn’t going to do it.”
“Yes you were, bastardo.”
“I swear,” he protested. “I changed my mind.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She glared at him, but she was smiling, too. “Anda que te coja un burro.”
“Hey, you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“That’s not all I do with that mouth,” she said, and darted out a hand, hooked a finger in the elastic waistband of his sunflower-pattern swim trunks, and pulled them down far enough so the tufts of his pubic hair popped out. He danced backward, pulling them up, flushing red, spilling a little beer down his thighs.
“Crazy bitch,” he said, but now they were both laughing. “This is a family neighborhood.”
She batted her eyelashes at him. “How do you think families are made, Romeo?”
Jorge shook his head and circled the chaise so he could sit down on his. He handed her the beer, tapped his bottle against hers, and they drank.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“I know. Me too. I ordered some stuff, though.”
“Oh?” she asked, interested. “Did you try that new place?”
“NachoCopter? Yes, ma’am. Couple of beef and bean burritos, nachos and salsa, and four fish tacos. Got two wahoo and two tilapia.”
“Jeez, are you trying to get me fat?”
“More cushion, less pushing.”
“Ugh. That’s crude.”
“Says the chica who tried to pants me in my own yard.”
There was a buzz high away and to their left, and they both turned, shading their eyes with their hands, looking for the delivery drone. It came wobbling through the sky on four small rotors. It was an ungainly device, but it buzzed along at a good pace.
“It’s stupid-looking,” said Jill. “Looks like a lawn mower had sex with a helicopter and this is what came out.”
“Can’t argue with that,” agreed Jorge. “But it’s bringing us our lunch. We don’t have to drive anywhere.”
“Works for me. Now if you can get one that delivers ice cream, I wouldn’t care if it looked like a Decepticon.”
He grinned at her. “You made a pop-culture reference. You made a correct pop-culture reference. I think I love you.”
She snorted. “You love me for my tits.”
“You have great tits.”
“I do.”
“Great tits on a gorgeous girl who can drop Transformers references while wearing a bikini … that’s pretty much my definition of heaven on earth.”
She returned his grin, looked around for a moment, then hooked her fingers in the cups of her top and flashed him. Just for a second. Two beautiful brown nipples.
“Oh, mama!” he said as he set his beer down and leaned over to kiss her on the lips and the side of the throat. “You are in so much trouble.”
“I’d better be,” she purred.
The NachoCopter soared toward them. Jorge’s cell phone buzzed to indicate a text. It read:
NACHOCOPTER™ IS HERE!
Please wait for the NachoCopter™ to land and release the package.
Do not approach the package until NachoCopter™
has taken off and is at least fifty feet in the air.
Your credit card has been billed for $32.18.
Reply if you received this message.
Enjoy your food and dine with us again!
It was the same every time. The little drone began flashing red lights on each of its four whirling blades. It hovered for a moment until Jorge replied.
Jorge did exactly as requested.
He waited until the machine descended to the grass on the far side of the yard, released its clamps on the canvas carry bag, then rose slowly, exposing the cardboard delivery container. With the empty canvas flapping, the drone rose into the air, buzzing like an overgrown bee, and headed back to the store ten blocks away.
Jorge retrieved the food, which was so fresh that the cardboard was almost too hot to touch. He carried it to the picnic table, and when Jill joined him, they clinked bottles again and dug in. They ate almost all of it.
They slept in the sun for a while.
Then they went inside and made love for a lazy twenty minutes before falling asleep.
It wasn’t until the sun was sliding down over the western horizon that the convulsions began.
Jill fell out of bed, naked, shivering, her body covered with furious red welts. She tried to scream, to call out his name, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a torrent of dark red blood.
Jorge could not help her. He couldn’t reach her. All he could do—the very last thing he could do—was to dial 911.
He said one word, “Help.”
It was wet and thick and nearly unintelligible. But it was enough to get the machinery in motion.
However, when the police arrived, there was nothing to do but wait for the EMTs.
When they arrived, the EMTs immediately backed out of Jorge’s house and called their supervisor, who called the doctor at the local hospital. And it was the doctor who called the Centers for Disease Control. He forwarded a cell-phone picture of the two bleeding, nearly shapeless lumps that had been Jorge Quiñones and Jillian Santa Domingo.
Chapter Seventy-seven
Philadelphia International Airport
March 31, 2:07 P.M.
Top and Bunny flew out, but I had to wait several hours for my pilot to replace some pain in the ass little part and then get the jet fueled.
I watched it roll along the tarmac. It wasn’t a fighter, but it looked sleek and somehow dangerous.