Kevin Donohue looked more bloated than before, sitting behind his desk, his sausage-like fingers resting on the ziplock bag containing the latest message. He held up the bag. “Unfortunately,” he said, “my brilliant associates here got their fingerprints all over it before they showed it to me.”
“These notes never have any fingerprints,” she said, taking the bag. “Whoever sends them is far too careful.” She looked at the photocopied side. It was the identical Boston Globe obituary of Joey Gilmore, published nineteen years ago. Flipping it over, she read the message, written in block letters: IT’S COMING FOR YOU.
She looked at Donohue. “What do you think the it refers to?”
“Are you a retard? Obviously, it’s that thing running around town, playing vigilante with a sword.”
“Why would this vigilante come after you? Are you guilty of something?”
“I don’t have to be guilty of a damn thing to recognize a threat when I see one. I get enough of them.”
“I had no idea that shipping fancy cuts of meats was such a dangerous business.”
He stared at her with pale eyes. “You’re too smart a girl to be playing dumb.”
“But not smart enough to figure out what it is you want from me, Mr. Donohue.”
“I told you over the phone. I want this crap to stop, before any more blood gets spilled.”
“You mean your blood, specifically.” She glanced at the two men flanking her. “Looks to me like you’ve already got plenty of protection.”
“Not against that—that thing. Whatever it is.”
“Thing?”
Donohue rocked forward, his face florid with impatience. “Word around town is, it sliced up those two professionals like lunch meat. And then it vanished without a trace.”
“Were they your professionals?”
“I told you the last time. No, I didn’t hire them.”
“Any idea who they were working for?”
“I’d tell you if I knew. I’ve put out feelers, and I hear the contract went out on that cop weeks ago.”
“A contract on Detective Ingersoll?”
Donohue nodded, his three chins jiggling. “Soon as that offer hit the street, he was a walking dead man. Must’ve made someone really nervous.”
“Ingersoll was retired.”
“But he was asking a lot of questions.”
“About girls, Mr. Donohue. Girls who’ve gone missing.” Jane stared straight into his eyes. “Now, that’s a subject that should make you nervous.”
“Me?” He leaned back, his massive weight setting off a loud creak in the chair. “No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Prostitution? Trafficking underaged girls?”
“Prove it.”
She shrugged. “Gee, now that I think about it, maybe I should just let the monkey creature do its thing.”
“It’s coming after the wrong guy! I had nothing to do with the Red Phoenix! Sure, Joey was a weasel. I didn’t shed any tears when he got whacked, but I didn’t order it.”
She looked down at Joey’s obituary. “Someone thinks you did.”
“It’s that crazy lady in Chinatown. Gotta be her behind it.”
“You mean Mrs. Fang?”
“I’m thinking she hired Ingersoll to ask those questions, to find out who killed her husband. He got too close to the truth and that’s how this war got started. If you think the Irish play rough, you haven’t seen what the Chinese can do. They have people who can get past anything. People who can practically walk through walls.”
“Are these people or fairy tales we’re talking about?”
“Didn’t you see that movie Ninja Assassin? They’re trained to kill since childhood.”
“Ninjas are Japanese.”
“Don’t split hairs with me! It’s the same skills, the same training. You know who she is, don’t you? Where Iris Fang comes from? I’ve been looking into her background. She grew up in some secret monastery up in the mountains, where they train kids for that sort of thing. Probably could snap a man’s neck by the time she was ten. And now she has all those students working for her.”
“She’s a fifty-five-year-old widow.” An ailing woman with sad delusions of grandeur, thought Jane. A woman who believes she’s descended from a mythical general and has a fake sword to prove it.
“There are widows, and then there’s her.”
“Do you know for a fact that Iris Fang is threatening you?”
“That’s your job to prove it. I’m just telling you what it smells like to me. She lost her husband that night, and she figures that I ordered the hit. I’m being blamed for the Red Phoenix and for once, goddamn it, I didn’t do it.”
A loud bang suddenly rocked the building. Jane caught a glimpse of Donohue’s face, frozen in surprise, just before the room went pitch-black.
“What the fuck?” yelled Donohue.
“I think the power’s out,” one of his men said.
“I can see the power’s out! Get the generator going!”
“If I can find a flashlight …”
A noise overhead made them all fall silent. Jane looked up as a rapid thump-thump-thump pattered on the roof. Staring up at the darkness, she felt her own heart thumping, felt her palms slicken with sweat as she reached down to unsnap her holster. “Where’s the generator switch?” she asked.
“It—it’s in the warehouse,” one of the men responded, his voice close to her and thick with fear. “Electrical box is against the back wall. But I ain’t gonna be able to find it in the dark. Not with that thing—” He stopped as they heard the sound again, light as raindrops skittering across the roof.
Jane dug in her purse and pulled out her SureFire flashlight. She clicked it on and the beam landed on Donohue, his face gleaming with sweat and fear. “Call nine one one,” she ordered.
He grabbed the portable phone on his desk. Slammed it down again. “It’s dead!”
She pulled her cell phone from her belt. No signal. “Is this place lined with lead, or what?”
“These walls are bulletproof and blast-proof,” said Donohue. “It’s a safety feature.”
“Great. The ultimate dead zone.”
“You’ll need to go outside to get a signal.”
But I don’t want to go outside. And neither does anyone else.
It was getting warm in the room, the walls trapping both their body heat and their fear. We can’t stay in here forever, she thought; someone has to step out and make the call, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be anyone but me.
She drew her weapon and went to the door. “I’ll lead,” she said. “Stay close.”
“Wait!” Donohue cut in. “No way are my boys going with you.”
“I need backup.”
“They’re paid to guard me. They stay here.”
She turned, aiming the light straight into his eyes. “Okay then. You go out there, and take your boys with you. I’ll just hang out here and wait till you get back.” She grabbed a chair, sat down, and turned off the flashlight.
A moment passed in darkness, the building silent. The only sound was Donohue’s panicked wheezing.
“All right,” he finally said. “Take Colin with you. But Sean stays.”
She had no idea whether she could trust Colin; she only hoped he had enough functioning gray cells not to accidentally shoot her in the back. At the door she paused, listening for sounds beyond it, but the barrier was too thick. Bulletproof and blast-proof, Donohue had said.
She slid open the dead bolt and pulled the door open a crack. The darkness wasn’t as deep outside the office; through a high warehouse window shone the dim glow of the city, just enough light for Jane to make out dark rows of hanging meat, like shadowy warriors in formation. Anything could be lurking in that gloom, posing as one more silhouette among those sides of beef.
Jane turned on her flashlight and quickly scanned the perimeter. In one sweep she registered hanging carcasses, the concrete floor, the fog of her own
breath. She heard Colin standing right behind her, his breathing shaky with fear. An armed and terrified man was not the sort of backup she’d had in mind. I could wind up with a bullet in my spine, she thought. If the creature doesn’t slice off my head first.
“Where’s the closest exit?” she whispered.
“Straight ahead. Far end of the building.”
Swallowing hard, she started down the row of carcasses. She swept the light back and forth, scanning for movement, for a glimpse of a face, the flash of steel. All she saw were the products of the slaughterhouse, living creatures reduced to hanging muscle and bone. The flashlight felt slippery in her trembling hand. Whoever, whatever you are, she thought, you spared me once before. But that didn’t mean it would repeat the favor, not when it saw the company she was keeping.
More carcasses loomed ahead. Aiming her light straight ahead, she could not see the end of the row. Abruptly she halted, trying to hear through the thunder of her own heartbeat.
“What?” whispered Colin.
“Listen.”
It was just a faint creak, the sound that a tree makes when a rising wind causes it to sway. But the creak rose to a rhythmic groan, as if that tree were swaying with ever-building violence. It’s coming from above us. Jane lifted her light toward the ceiling and saw a suspended carcass swinging back and forth, as if shoved by an invisible hand.
They heard another creak, this time to their left. “There!” said Colin, and Jane swung her light toward the sound. Found herself staring at a second swaying carcass, moving like a giant pendulum back and forth across the narrow beam of her flashlight.
“Behind us!” said Colin, voice rising to shrill panic now. “No, over there!”
Jane spun, her light catching movement everywhere as the darkness came alive with a noisy chorus of clanks and groans and squealing metal.
“Where the fuck is it?” yelled Colin, whirling beside her, wildly swinging his weapon as carcasses swayed all around them. He fired, and somewhere in the darkness metal clanged. He fired again, and the bullet thunked into cold meat.
“Will you stop it, before you kill us both!” Jane yelled.
He ceased fire but was still jerking one way and then the other, in search of a target. No doubt he imagined the creature everywhere, just as she did. Over there, was that the flash of a face, the gleam of an eye? How could anything move so swiftly, so soundlessly? Suddenly she remembered the illustration in the book of Chinese folktales. The Monkey King, clutching his staff, his long tail curling like a serpent. She thought of a sword whispering through the night, the blade slicing through her throat. Her gaze shot upward and for an instant she thought she saw it perched above, its feral eyes shining from the darkness. But there was no creature there, just an empty steel hook awaiting a fresh side of meat.
Slowly the groans and creaks faded to silence. Yet she and Colin stood in place, backs pressed against each other, both of them frantically scanning the shadows. In every direction that Jane aimed her flashlight, she spotted no intruder, yet the darkness seemed to be watching them. And with this light in my hand, she thought, whatever is here knows exactly where we are.
“Keep moving,” she whispered. “To the door.”
“What is this thing? What are we dealing with?”
“Let’s not wait around to find out.”
He was not about to be left behind. As she moved toward the door, she could almost feel his breath on her neck. For a man like Colin, a gun was fake courage, enough to transform a coward into a bully and a killer. But put that man in the dark where he can’t see the enemy, where blindness is the equalizer, and the coward is stripped bare again. Only after they’d reached the exit and stepped outside did she hear him give a relieved sigh. The air smelled of the sea, and in the sky, circling jets glittered like moving stars. She pulled out her cell phone, but hesitated before making the call. What would she say? The power failed and we all freaked out. Heard things in the dark and imagined monsters.
“You gonna call or what?” said Colin. The coward was gone, and the bully was back.
She lifted her phone to dial and went instantly still, her gaze riveted on the warehouse rooftop. On the figure squatting there, silhouetted like a gargoyle against the night sky. It was watching her, just as she was watching it. Does it see me as friend or enemy?
“There it is!” yelled Colin.
Just as he raised his gun to fire, Jane grabbed his arm. The bullet went wild, flying harmlessly into the sky.
“What the fuck?” Colin yelled. “It’s right there, kill it!”
On the rooftop, the figure didn’t move; it simply sat staring at them.
“If you don’t take it down, I will,” said Colin. Once again he lifted his gun and suddenly froze, scanning the rooftop. “Where is it? Where’d it go?”
“It’s gone,” said Jane, staring up at the empty rooftop. You saved my life once; now I’ve saved yours.
DONOHUE’S A DIRTBAG,” SAID TAM. “I SAY WE JUST LET THE THING take him out. Let it take them all out.”
The thing. They had no other name for whatever it was that had perched on the warehouse last night. No one had seen its face or heard its voice. They’d caught only glimpses of it, and always in darkness, where it was little more than shadow moving across shadow. In the battle between good and evil, the thing had clearly staked its position. Already it had cut down two hired killers. Now its gaze was fixed on Donohue.
But it spared me, thought Jane. How does it know I’m one of the good guys?
“Whatever it is,” said Frost, “it’s pretty damn clever at avoiding surveillance cameras.”
The three detectives had spent all morning in the second-floor conference room, reviewing video footage from cameras mounted throughout the Jeffries Point neighborhood where Donohue’s warehouse was located. The feed from one of Donohue’s cameras was now playing on the monitor, and it showed an evening view of his parking lot. Jane watched her own car pull in through the gate and park in the stall next to Donohue’s Mercedes.
“Smile. You’re on candid camera,” said Frost.
On the video, Jane stepped out of her car and paused to look at the sky, as though sniffing the wind. Is my hair really that messy? she thought, wincing at her own image. Do I really slouch that badly? Gotta learn to stand straight and hold in my stomach.
Now Donohue’s man Sean appeared, and they had their conversation about Jane’s weapon, Sean insisting, Jane squaring her shoulders in resistance.
“Why didn’t you ask us to go there with you?” said Tam.
“I was just there to pick up the note. It was nothing.”
“Turned into a lot more than nothing. You could have used us.”
On the screen, Jane and the bodyguard disappeared into the warehouse and the view went static. There was no movement, no change in the parking lot except for the transitory glow of a car’s headlights as it passed by on the street. Frost fast-forwarded the video five minutes. Ten minutes. The image suddenly flickered and went blank.
“And that’s it,” said Frost. “The same thing happens in all four of his surveillance cameras. The power cuts out, and the picture goes blank.”
“So we don’t have a single shot of the thing,” said Tam.
“Not on Donohue’s cameras.”
“Is this thing invisible?”
“Maybe it just knows what it’s doing.” Frost brought up thumbnail photos of the warehouse exterior. “I brought my camera out there this morning and took these pictures. You can see where all the cameras are mounted. As you might expect, they’re focused on entrance points. The doors and the truck bays. But the back side of the building is just uninterrupted wall, so it wasn’t under surveillance. Nor was the rooftop.” He looked at Jane. “So it is physically possible to evade the cameras. Which means this doesn’t have to be some supernatural creature.”
“Last night, it was easy to believe it was,” said Jane softly, remembering the eerie creaks and squeals of the meat hooks swayin
g around her in the warehouse. “He has a security system and bodyguards. He’s armed to the teeth. But against this thing, Donohue has no idea how to protect himself and he’s scared shitless.”
“Why should we care, exactly?” said Tam. “The thing’s doing our job for us. When it comes to cleaning up the bad guys, I say let it rip.”
Jane stared at the photos of Donohue’s warehouse. “You know, I have a hard time disagreeing with you. I owe that thing my life. But I want to know how it penetrated the building. I was right there, yet I didn’t see it until the very end. When it allowed me to see it. When it sat up on the roof long enough for Donohue’s man to see it, too.”
“Why would it do that?” said Frost.
“Maybe to prove to us it actually exists? Maybe to scare Donohue, show him it can take him down anytime it wants to?”
“Then why didn’t it? Donohue’s still alive and kicking.”
“And scared to death,” said Jane. “Funny thing is, I’m not afraid of it anymore. I think it’s here for a reason. I just want to know how it does what it does.” She looked at Tam. “What do you know about wushu?”
He sighed. “Of course you’d turn to the Asian guy.”
“Come on Tam, you’re the logical man to ask. Seems like you know a lot about Chinese folktales.”
“Yeah,” he conceded. “Courtesy of my grandmother.”
“Donohue thinks that ninja warriors are after him. I looked it up last night and I found out ninja techniques actually come from China. Donohue says these guys are raised from childhood to kill, and they can penetrate any defenses.”
“We both know half of that is fantasy.”
“Yeah, but which half?”
“The half that made it into Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
“I liked that movie,” said Frost.
“But did you ever once believe that warriors can fly through the air and fight in treetops? Of course not, because it’s a fairy tale. Just like all the other tales my grandma told me about monks who could walk on water. Immortals who came down from heaven to mingle with men.”