Dead of Night (Ghosts & Magic #1) (35 page)

They were cold.

Shit.

I reached into the inner pocket and pulled out the mask, sticking it against my face. It wrapped around, leaving me feeling more secure with my identity concealed.

"A soul, a good soul," I whispered.

He is old and weak.
 

Damn it.
 

"I want him. You owe me."

It is not his time.

"What does that mean? You take them when you want. When we want."

Not before their time.

I was crouched behind a car in a parking lot, arguing with myself. The guy in the suit was getting closer. He would be able to hear me in a second.

"Give me a fucking break. How many souls have I fed you over the years? How many have I offered, and gotten nothing back in return."

Silence.

"Please. There has to be some kind of bargain." I didn't know any other way in. Prithi was our only lead.
 

One that I choose, for one that you choose.

I balked at that. It could choose anyone. Jin, me ... fuck. I didn't know what to do. He was getting closer. I could hear him talking.

"We've got her in one of the offices, just waiting for you to send someone to pick her up... I couldn't just kill her in front of all her co-workers... Yeah, she's kind of stupid, thinking she could do something like that and stay alive, she doesn't seem to know how these things work."

He reached the door of his car, a Range Rover. I was crouched behind it. His conversation made my decision easier.

"Fine. Bargain made. I choose this asshole."

The bargain is made.

The dice grew warm in my hand. I rolled them under the Range Rover. They popped out at his feet.

"I'm on my way. Be there in thirty." He lowered the phone and looked down. "What's this?"

Fire, and Fire.
 

Was it random good luck, or had it given me exactly what I needed?

The man in the suit dropped in a paralyzed heap. The dark energy pulled its soul in, and I heard his screaming voice in my mind.
 

"Him," I said.

The power of a soul for the power of a soul.

I felt myself grow healthy again, though I could also feel the age of the man in my muscles and movements. I crept around the corner, took his keys from the ground next to him, and opened the back door to the car. I stood up, secure that I looked like him, and lifted his body up and in. Then I headed back towards the building like I forgot something.

He was talking about killing someone. It made my decision and action a lot easier to take. It allowed me not to feel sorry or guilty. What the hell had he been talking about?

I moved through the doors, into the lobby. A woman was sitting behind the reception desk. She was pretty, and she had a confident look about her. I was guessing she was a user. A uniformed guard stood next to her.

"Forgot my wallet." I heard the guy's voice come out.
 

"I can have Rose bring it to you, Mr. Campbell," the receptionist said.

"No, thank you, Claire." Her name was on a small placard on the desk. "I'll get it."

I kept walking, to a solid wood door with gold inlays. It had a retina scanner next to it. I leaned in, let the laser pass over my right eye, and smirked when the door clicked open.
 

I was in.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

The greatest escape.

The place was nothing out of the ordinary. Lines of offices along the windows, cubicles in the center. There were maybe three dozen people inside, most sitting at their desks pounding away at keyboards, or watching data stream through monitors. I skirted the edge, looking for Mr. Campbell's office. My office.

On the way, I crossed a schematic of the building. It was constructed like an iceberg, with the small office topside, and multiple floors of servers buried underneath, using the cold ground and circulating the rainwater that fell into it to help keep the system cool. There had to be a dozen levels, thousands of servers. How much of the Machine did this one building actually represent?

I passed three people while I was walking. I was going to say hello, but by the way they cast their eyes down when I approached, I decided Mr. Campbell wasn't too friendly to the lower class. Instead, I moved past them, bumping their shoulders without an excuse me. I was feeling better about offing the guy by the second.

My office was next to the corner, which belonged to Desmond Carlyle, VP of Operations, Acton. The door to mine was open. The door to his, closed. I leaned over so I could see in the window. There was only one person in the room, and I doubted their name was Desmond.

She was eighteen, or twenty-two at most. She had long, shiny black hair that fell in a wave to her shoulders, dark skin, and a thin, delicate face with long eyelashes and deep eyes. She was wearing a colorful thin silk blouse buffered by a white tank and cropped cargos.
 

She was shivering, and crying.

Prithi Sharma, if I had to guess.

I reached for the door.

"Colin. I thought you were headed out?"
 

I turned around. Mr. Carlyle, I presumed. Another older guy in jeans and a polo shirt. He was holding a glass of water.

"They told me to bring her," I said, quietly enough that no one else would hear.

His smile faded, and he looked concerned. "I thought they were sending a patrol car, so we could avoid a scene."

Real police, or fake police?

"There's no time. There have been some complications."

I could see his tongue moving behind his lower lip. "That damn necromancer? Tarakona is going to have someone's ass."

"Tell me about it. I need to get her out of here and buried before that asshole can get to her. Can you cover for me?"

"I'll think of something. You think he'll be able to trace the lock back to this farm?"

"I would say no, but he's done a great job fucking things up so far. They don't want to take any chances, not when we're so close." To what, I didn't know. It sounded good.

"Okay. Go on in and grab her. Give me a few minutes to gather everyone up so I can make a speech about... something. I'll figure it out." He clapped me on the shoulder, and handed me the water.

"Thanks." I opened the door, and ducked inside, closing it behind me.

Prithi looked at me without saying anything. I took a breath in and tried not to get embarrassed. She had wet herself. This was the bitch who had screwed us?
 

"Mr. Campell, please, please, please don't do this. I only did what Mr. Carlyle asked. I did what he told me to do, that's all."

I knelt down in front of her, and handed her the water. "Have a drink."

She threw it in my face. "I'm not stupid. He went to get it. I know it's drugged. Mr. Campbell, he's setting me up. He's blaming me for altering the Machine. He made me do it."

I believed her. I needed to get her out of here, and then we could talk.

"I'm sorry, Prithi. Someone has to take the blame."

"No," she shouted. "Help-"
 

I put my hand over her mouth. We didn't have time for this. "Be quiet, damn it. I'm not fucking Campbell. You want to get out of this building alive, start pretending you drank that water." If I had to guess it would have been a sedative, to make her more cooperative.
 

"What?" she asked below my hand. I took it away.

"I said, I'm not Campbell. Those assholes took my boss, and killed my best friend. You're going to help me find them."

She started to speak. I put my hand back on her mouth.
 

"Listen to me. You're saying Carlyle told you to lock me in the Machine?"

When I said 'me', she got a better understanding. She nodded.
 

"Who told him to do it?" I took my hand away.

"I just work on the Machine. I don't know anything about what the execs do."

"Right. You work on the Machine. That means you're good with computers." I turned my head. Carlyle's laptop was resting on his desk. "If we take that, can you get into it?"

"I... I can't... I mean... my job."

"You don't have a job here anymore. The only way you get to live past today is to come with me, and break into that laptop."

"It... It's not enough. You need his phone. They may have called him, not e-mailed. You can't risk it."

She was right. I went over and peeked out the window. Carlyle had everyone gathered up in the back corner, and they were clapping while he spoke.

"Fuck. Okay." How was I going to get it from his pocket? Be bold. "Grab the laptop and anything else you think might be handy, and wait near the door. I'll come back and get you."
 

"Where are you going?"

"I have to get the phone."

I left the office and headed towards Carlyle. I kept my posture confident but concerned. He was talking about profit sharing and quarterly results. He saw me coming. I was damp from the water.

"Excuse me one second."

He took a few steps towards me and wrapped his arm over my shoulders, huddling me close. "What's up?"
 

The initial contact was the best chance. I brushed my hand over his pockets, finding the cell in the front of his pants. I was quick and precise as I lifted it.
 

"She wouldn't drink it. Do we have more?"

"That little bitch. No. Just drag her out if you have to. I'll make something up. At the end of the day, all these people care about is their paychecks, not if one of their nerd peers goes psycho."

"Okay. Two more minutes."

"You got it."

I walked back to his office at top speed. By the time I opened the door, Prithi had a Prada messenger bag over her shoulder. I took it from her. I wouldn't be able to get it out without Carlyle noticing. "We're going to need to make a run for it. I have a car waiting outside. If you hear gunshots, don't look back, don't stop running. Got it?"

She nodded, her growing resolve to stay alive settling on her face.

"Come on. You first. I'll act like you slipped away from me."

I pulled open the door holding her arm. We moved out into the office. She squirmed against me, shaking her arm and pulling. As soon as we were both clear, I let her go. She bolted for the door.

I glanced back at the same time I started chasing. Carlyle had seen, and he was pausing his speech again to aid in the chase. I had been hoping he wouldn't want to be so obvious.

Prithi reached the door ahead of me, and went to open it.
 

"Stop."

She stopped.

I caught up, pulling my gun from under Campbell's suit jacket. I was hoping to get in and out without these kinds of problems.
 

"Campbell, what the fuck are you doing?" Carlyle shouted behind me. I opened the door, and we passed through together.

The desk had already been alerted. I shot the guard in the shoulder, and the receptionist in the head. I hated to have to kill her, but she was too dangerous to simply wound. I heard gunshots behind us. Carlyle was packing too.

"Keep going. Get to the Cadillac."

I turned around, facing Carlyle old-west style. I would have loved to drop the mask's illusion just then, to see the look on his face. I had to settle for shooting him in the chest. He was still firing as he dropped. He was a lousy shot.

I regained the chase, following Prithi out the front door. I was breathing heavy, Campbell's old body not suited for running. We crossed the ground towards the parking garage. There was no sign of Amos.

Where the fuck did he go? He'd survived the weres at the Golden Sun. He was too good to have just driven off and left me here.
 

A police car appeared in the garage. It came to a stop in front of us, the doors opening. I reached out and grabbed Prithi's arm again, jerking her perpendicular to the law enforcement.
 

"Stop and drop," one of them shouted. "Now!"

"Keep going." I fired two shots at the car. They weren't close to hitting the crooked officers, but they kept them under cover.

"You said you had a car."

"I did."

There was more motion coming from the buildings. It was like a swarm of angry ants, the secondary security, the hidden security beginning to pour out to take on whoever was threatening the Machine. This had gone really bad really fast. I was going to kill that fat-ass if I ever saw him again. He had the easy part of the job.

We were out in the open, quickly getting surrounded. I expected to be shot any second.
 

He came flying out of the garage, through the front-end of the squad car, slamming it into a spin that collided with the officers. He jumped the curb, headed our way, his window down and one of the rifle ends hanging out of it. He drove and fired at the same time, keeping the oncoming guards back. The Cadillac skidded to a stop next to us.

"Someone call a cab?"
 

I opened the back door and practically threw Prithi in, sliding behind her, and then reaching over her lap for one of the rifles.
 

"Where to, Mac?" Amos leaned back to look at us. "Famous Amos' House of Pleasures?"

"Just drive," I replied.
 

He laughed and hit the gas, kicking up dirt and heading away. We weren't safe yet, we still needed to get through the gate.

"What is that smell?" Amos asked, bringing the rifle back in and concentrating on driving. "Did you piss yourself? It's kind of hot."

Disgusting. "Can you shut the hell up for two minutes?"

"Let me tell you, Baldie... Holy shit that match was unbelievable. I've got the whole thing playing in my mind right now."

I swear Prithi looked like she would rather have been dead. She was tucked between the rear passenger seat, her eyes closed tight.
 

"Do you mind? Guard at twelve o'clock."

I leaned out the window with the rifle. He was standing in firing position, the way they teach it at the range.
 

"He'll move."