Dead of Night (Ghosts & Magic #1) (26 page)

I raced down a standard city street, avatars wandering the sidewalks around me, tall buildings rising up on either side. Most were nondescript bastions of steel and glass, but a few had their own personal touches, in-Machine real estate, owned by anonymous machinists. I thought about throwing myself off one, but the boring ones didn't look like they even had doors. They were just facades to lend atmosphere, flat canvasses like a movie set.

There was nothing to do but run. I knew the armored van was going to come for me. I waited for it to pull up alongside any minute, for the doors to open and for them to pluck me from the street. I moved as fast as I could, my feet pounding the ground, pushing my way past the other machinists and feeling the seconds ticking away. I was getting tired, my hands hurt, my throat was dry, and my heart was starting to throb from beating so fast for so long. I'd never heard of someone dying for real from the Machine, but it felt convincing enough.

I crested a hill, and my salvation appeared in front of me. A massive structure of steel hanging across a churning body of water. A bridge. All I had to do was throw myself off, and I'd be out.

Seeing it gave me a second wind. I picked up the pace, pushing harder to reach it before the goon squad showed up. I was half a mile away. I could run that in no time.

The van didn't come from behind me. It appeared in front of me, rocketing from a cross-street and skidding to a stop, blocking the bridge. The doors slid open and Veronica's brother got out, flanked by two remaining soldiers. They held something in their hands, some kind of weapon, or...
 

One of them fired. I saw the shot coming at me, and it broke apart and spread wide into a weighted net. If I hadn't used the agility mod already, it would have been easy to escape. Now, there was no way I could avoid it. I was caught. Done. I could only hope Dannie had somehow gotten to her chair and made it to Jin and Amos.
 

I didn't want these assholes to win.

A horn echoed right behind me, a car appearing as if out of thin air. I barely had enough time to turn my head before it hit me. I barely had enough time to see the driver.
 

Azeban.
 

He gave me a curt wave and plowed into me, and even as I flew up over the hood I could tell he was still accelerating, the car destined to reduce the three assholes in the van to nothing more than pieces.
 

I don't know why he helped me. I wondered who he even was. I wish I could have gotten the satisfaction of witnessing the collision, but I hit the ground hard, and everything went black.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Who lives forever, anyway?

I still couldn't see anything, but I knew I was out of the Machine. I could feel the weight of the helmet over my head, and the noiseless din of the real world. My heart was still going too fast, but it was nothing compared to what I had felt inside.

"Dannie?"
 

I reached up and gripped both sides of the helmet, lifting it off my head. I looked over at the chair next to me. She was still there, her helmet still on.
 

That was strange.

"Dannie?"
 

I slid off the chair and put my helmet down on it. She had died in the Machine, hadn't she? Maybe that hadn't been her? It was possible she had a mod to make her look like someone else, and make someone else look like her. Could it be that Azeban had known about it, and that's why he had saved me?

I needed to wake her up. Was it as simple as just taking the cap off? It seemed like it should be. I leaned over her and put my hands on it.

That was when I saw the blood.

"Let go of the fucking helmet and turn around," Tony said.
 

I was panicking for real now, and fearing the worst. I wanted to take the helmet off, to make sure she was okay. I took a deep breath, and turned around.

The goblin was holding the gun that Amos had given me. "Don't you try anything."

He was shaking, nervous.
 

"What did you do?"

He looked past me, at Danelle. I could see it in his eyes.
 

"What the fuck did you do?" I screamed, moving towards him.

"Don't move," he yelled back, pushing the gun forward. "I told her not to move. I told her to just sit there. She didn't fucking listen. She thought she was so tough." His voice was cracking as he spoke. "One of the admins called me. They said to keep an eye on you. If you woke up, not to let you leave. Twenty thousand, to not let you leave."

I turned around again, and reached for the helmet.

"Don't."

I lifted it up.

"Twenty thousand, just don't let you leave. All she had to do was sit there. Why wouldn't she just sit there?"

Tony was a good shot. The bullet had gone into her head, right between the eyes. It was armor piercing, I bet it was buried in the soundproofing behind us somewhere.

I looked into her eyes. Her dead eyes. My entire body went numb.

"Turn around." His voice was desperate. He was scared.

He was right to be.

I turned, throwing the long coat out around me and shifting to the side. The goblin was a good shot against someone with no legs. The bullet made a nice hole in my new-to-you trench, but it didn't even come close to hitting me.
 

One hand took the gun, the other wrapped around his narrow throat. I didn't think about the consequences, and I didn't care. I heard the fields, and I took the power in.
 

"Please. I'm sorry. Please, please, it was an accident." He was begging for his life. I watched his neck begin to turn grey, and then black.
 

"She has no fucking legs," I screamed into his pathetic face. "She couldn't hurt you." She probably called him to help wake me up, or to get her to her chair.

"Please." His voice was getting more raspy. The flesh was flaking away beneath my hand, the disease spreading.
 

My anger went quiet. "Stop whining. It's too late."
 

I let him go.
 

He fell to the ground, coughing and choking. I returned the gun to my holster, and went back to Dannie. This was wrong. This was all so wrong. I was the one who was dying. I was the one who should have been dead. If I had died five years ago like I wanted to, she could never have saved me. She'd still have her legs, and her life.

Tony died behind me, but I didn't even notice. I leaned over Dannie, the anger washing away and the pain filling the space. My eyes filled with tears, and I leaned over and put my forehead to hers. I gave myself a minute to cry, to bawl. Then I gave myself a minute to tear apart the small room, ripping at the chairs and the wires. I took my helmet and threw it at the window. It was hardened, and it just bounced off.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no." I stroked her hair. "I love you. I'm sorry."
 

This was all my fault. From beginning to end, I had caused this. I had been delusional to think I could handle the job, insane to think it wasn't a trap from the start.
 

"I'm sorry, Dannie. Fuck. I'm so sorry."

I'd blown it, and she had died sitting in a chair.
 

For twenty thousand dollars.
 

Getting killed was a risk every ghost took. If you ran as a team, or if you had a partner, having to watch them die bore the same risk. It was part of the job description, and you had to come to terms with it if you wanted to survive and succeed. It was just part of the business, and anyone who had ever had the same career would have told me not to make it personal.

Fuck that. It was personal.

I wiped my eyes on the trench and checked my watch. I had twenty minutes to get Jin out of the Greens, before this Tarakona's kill team showed up to finish this thing. I would have loved to take them all on at once, but I couldn't get my revenge if I was dead. Instead, I leaned over and scooped Dannie up, holding her corpse across my shoulder and heading for the door. It hurt like hell to use my arm like this, but she wasn't very heavy, and I was too pissed to care.

I got the door to the room open and ducked out into the hallway, sweeping left and right with the gun. It was clear. I walked fast towards the elevator, doing my best to keep my mind focused. I was guilty, sad, frightened, angry... more angry than anything else.
 

The elevator was waiting. I got in and directed it back down to the lobby. It occurred to me the guards wouldn't react too well to me carrying around a dead body and brandishing a weapon. I put Danelle down and returned the gun to its holster, and then removed the hoodie and put it on her, using it to cover her head. Then I picked her back up and re-slung her. She was drunk, I was taking her back to our hotel... It was as good an excuse as any.
 

I kept to the corner of the elevator as it hit the lobby and the doors slid open. I was glad I did. The place had been nearly emptied, with the exception of six of the armored leathers, who had Jin and Amos cuffed near the front desk. Amos was cursing and complaining about the whole thing being bullshit, and in this case I was grateful for his big mouth. They hadn't noticed the elevator's arrival.

I didn't have much time. I found the dice in my pocket, brought them up to my lips and whispered into them. "Six souls, leather and strong. A good meal."
 

I felt them grow warm to the suggestion. I don't think I ever enjoyed feeding them more.

I peeked around the corner, and ducked my head back before I could be spotted. The doors started to close, but I slammed my fist onto the open button. I didn't look into the lobby again. I didn't need to. I knew where the desk was. I stood in the corner and threw the dice backwards out of the opening. Then I pulled the gun.

I counted. One... two... three... I swung across the open doorway. I couldn't see my roll, but I saw the effects. Fire, and Daggers. It had to be. The guards were standing still, their weapons dropped from paralyzed fingers, their eyes wide with fear and confusion. I didn't shoot at them, not yet. The paralysis would spread, inward until it reached their hearts.
 

Then they would die.

The problem was that I couldn't collect the dice until they did. If the second cast had been Daggers, that could mean a couple of minutes. If we were ready to go before then, I'd have to shoot them anyway.

I walked out of the elevator. Jin and Amos saw me, and they looked relieved. They couldn't have known Dannie was dead. They would have thought I was just carrying her.

"What did you do?" the lead guard whined at me as I approached. He wouldn't be able to speak for much longer. The cuffs were fingerprint activated. I grabbed his hand and lifted it.

"Come on. We need to get out of here." I looked at Jin. "There's a kill team incoming."

"What happened?"

"Yeah," Amos said. "These assholes came up to us and said we were under arrest for illegal use of the Machine. We were just fucking standing here. Seriously. You're gonna make up some bullshit, at least make it somewhat believable. Just like these fucking dirty pricks. Too stupid to even lie right."
 

He moved so I could put the cuffs against the orc's finger. They unclasped and dropped to the ground. Jin followed after, and then Amos clocked the leather in the head. Helmet or not, he dropped like a sack of crap.

"They cleared out the rest of the people in the building," Jin said. "It was only five or six minutes after you went up. Tony got a call, and then the guards came over. All the feeds went off."

"They have an admin helping them. Said they made me as soon as I booted in, thanks to being the only necro on the grid. He probably told them the Machine was compromised. They almost had me inside, but a friend of Dannie's helped me get out." I wished I knew why. It had to be for a better reason than because they had messed around a couple of times.

Amos ran a fat hand through his hair. "This is totally fucked up. Hey, Dannie, you okay? It's not like you to be so quiet."

I looked at him.
 

He looked at me.
 

I saw the muscles in his jaw clench.
 

"Mother fuckers." He kicked the guard in the head again, and then turned to the others. He lifted the firepower from two of them, and then knocked them down. He tossed one of the guns to Jin.

"Baron? Danelle... she..." She had tears in her eyes.

"Not now. We need to get out."
 

We were ready to go. The dice weren't. The guards we hadn't dropped fell on their own, deep moans pouring from their mouths. If they could have moved, they might have screamed or begged or something.
 

"Waiting for an invitation?" Amos asked.
 

"Hold on." I walked back to where the dice were laying. I had been right. Fire and Daggers.
 

"What? Shit, Co... Baron we need to get the fuck out of here."

"We have to wait." I looked at my watch. "Ten seconds. We can wait ten seconds." It would have taken longer than that to get the helmets off to shoot them in the head.

The black energy started drifting from the dice, towards the targets. I felt the coldness of it, and it brought me satisfaction. Dannie had always loved the dice, the mystery of their creation and the power of the creature that embodied them.
 

I didn't love them, I was afraid of them. I had been since they'd called out to me. It wasn't something I liked to think about. It wasn't something I liked to admit.
 

I hadn't found the dice, the dice had found me.
 

The energy wrapped around each of the leathers in turn, collecting their souls and dragging them back into the small bone cubes. Jin watched with familiar fascination. Amos turned completely white, and looked away. A moment later, it was done.

I scooped them up and put them back in my pocket.

"Where did you leave the van?"

"At the Amore. I didn't think we'd get into this much shit an hour after you finished your beauty sleep, which, by the way, didn't help you at all."