Kill Switch (23 page)

Except that it wasn't a storm cloud.

No. It was something far more dangerous. Something far worse.

Joe ran in a blind panic toward it, and the cloud—that shapeless mass—lifted itself from the horizon and rose into the sky. Silent, powerful, indifferent to gravity, acknowledging no physical laws at all. It rolled backward, exposing a face. Eyes that burned with black fire and a snarling mouth wreathed by wriggling tentacles.

As it turned its face upon the world, every single creature below, from the shape-shifting monsters to the sentient trees, screamed out in a language that did not belong in this or any world.

She screamed herself awake.

 

INTERLUDE FOURTEEN

OFFICE OF DR. MICHAEL GREENE

EAST HAMPTON, NEW YORK

WHEN PROSPERO WAS FIFTEEN

Dr. Greene was not expecting visitors and it was too late for clients. His secretary and nurse had already gone home and the office was locked. He liked working into the evening because the quiet gave him time to reflect on his day's sessions and dictate case notes. His iPad was snugged into the speaker dock and Miles Davis was blowing soft, sad, complex jazz and blues at him.

When the door to his inner office opened, Greene yelled in shock. A high, sharp, almost feminine sound. He half jumped up but succeeded only in shoving his chair back so that it struck the wall hard enough to knock a framed certificate from its hook.

Two men stepped into the office. One was black, the other was white. They were both in their middle thirties. Tall, fit-looking, and wearing identical black suits, white shirts, black ties. Both of them had wires behind their ears.

Neither of them was smiling.

“Who the hell are—?” began Greene, his anger shooting up to match the level of his shock. But the black man silenced him by placing a finger to his own lips in the kind of shushing gesture an adult might use on a child.

The white man raised his hand and pointed a gun at Greene. Or, at least some kind of gunlike weapon. It had a handle and trigger, but instead of a barrel there was a blunt snub of an end with no opening, and around it were four steel prongs that curved inward so that the metal balls on the end nearly touched.

“Dr. Michael Greene,” said the man with the gun. It was a plain, uninflected statement, not a question.

“Who … who are you?” gasped Greene, his voice subdued as much from the shushing finger as the strange weapon. “How did you get in here?”

“Dr. Greene,” said the black man, lowering his hand, “we need you to turn over to us all of the materials you have on one of your patients.”

Greene bristled. “That's absurd. Are you with the government? Let me see your identification. Let me see a warrant.”

The white man and the black man said nothing, did nothing except stare at him. They both had brown eyes that were as flat and uninformative as the painted eyes of mannequins.

“Doctor-patient confidentiality is—”

And that was as far as he got.

The black man suddenly raised his foot and kicked the side of the desk. Greene's office furniture was all made from heavy hardwood, seasoned and sturdy, with steel reinforcements and a dark cherrywood glaze. The desk weighed nearly 350 pounds. So when it shot backward, propelled by that single kick, the desk struck Greene with shocking force. The desk's legs were buried deep in the carpet, without casters or wheels, and yet that kick moved it like it was made from balsa. The footwell engulfed Greene's knees, but the desktop crunched into his gut so forcefully that it snapped the doctor forward with such speed that he had no chance to get his hands up to protect his face. His nose, chin, and forehead slammed down. Pain exploded in his head and blood splashed outward to form a rude Rorschach pattern on the open file folder for one of his newest teen patients.

Greene rebounded from the desk and sagged into his chair, bleeding and dazed. The lights in the room seemed to flare to white-hot brightness, but that was only in Greene's head because immediately darkness seemed to cover him like a blanket.

Then the desk was gone. Through a haze of blood and stars, Greene saw the black man grab the corner of the desk and yank it out and then shove it sideways. Both men closed on the sprawled doctor. The prongs of the gun dug into the soft palate under his chin. The men leaned close. He could smell their breath. It was like smelling the heated breath of a pair of predator cats. Foul and fetid.

“Dr. Greene,” said the black man in a voice that was somehow more frightening than the violence for its softness and lack of emotion, “you will give us all of your files—hardcopy, digital recordings, and computer files—on one of your patients. You will do it now and you will hold nothing back. If you have any duplicates of this information you will tell us where it is and how we can obtain it. You will not hide anything from us. And when we are finished with this transaction, you will never speak of this to anyone. You won't mention it. You will not tell the police, your family, your rabbi, or your friends. You will tell no one. If you need medical assistance, you will tell the doctors that you tripped and fell. They will believe you because you will want to be very convincing. If you fail to comply with us now, or discuss this incident with anyone later, we will kill you, your wife, your children, your parents, and both of your sisters. Do you understand me, Dr. Greene? No, do not nod. Tell me that you understand. Tell me that you are willing to comply with all of these requests. Assure me that you will obey every rule we have set forth.”

Blood ran down the back of Greene's nose, filling his throat, making him gag and choke. The pressure of the prongs eased so that he could turn his head and spit blood onto the carpet. He coughed and spat again. Fireworks seemed to detonate all around him and he was nauseous and dizzy.

“Dr. Greene,” said the white man, “my associate has asked for your compliance.” He placed the prongs against the top of Greene's left knee. “You do not need either of your legs in order to assist us. A legless man can still direct us to the information we request. So can a man with one hand and one eye.”

His voice never rose beyond a soft, conversational tone.

Greene began to weep. But he also began to nod.

“Don't,” he begged. “Please … don't.”

“Will you cooperate, Dr. Greene?” asked the black man.

“Y-yes!”

“Will you obey all of the rules we have agreed upon?”

“Yes.”

“Good. And you will hold nothing back? You will give us every bit of information, every record, every copy of tests, and all case notes on this patient?”

“Yes.” Greene was trying not to sob. Failing. Bleeding. Losing himself into this moment. “Which … which patient?”

The pressure of the strange gun left his knee.

The black man said, “Give us everything you have on the patient coded in your case notes as number three-three-six-P-eight-one.”

Greene stopped breathing for a moment and stared at them, and in that moment he knew what this was about.

“Give us everything you have on Prospero Bell,” said the white man.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

NOWHERE

I don't know where I was. Or if I was anywhere.

I've always wondered what happens to our minds when we die. People talk about seeing their life flash before them. That happened to me, but not in the right way.

It wasn't my life I saw.

It was the people in my life.

*   *   *

I saw Junie. My lady, my best friend, the love of my life.

She was in our living room in our condo in Del Mar. I watched her drop the phone and slide off the couch onto the floor. She was screaming.

Screaming.

I could hear the voice on the other end of the phone.

Rudy Sanchez.

Junie's screams drowned him out. Drowned out the world.

Ghost was there. My big white shepherd. Fierce combat dog, veteran of many of this world's killing fields. He came to her, whining, his tail drooping, pressing his muzzle against her as she curled into a ball, knees up and arms wrapped around her head.

A man came rushing down the hall. Slim, young, scarred, familiar. Alexander Chismer. Known as Toys. Her close friend. My former enemy and now a kind of ally. A man who had saved the lives of Junie and Circe and maybe a good portion of the world. He still held the hand towel with which he was drying off. He hadn't even dropped it when she screamed.

“Junie!” he yelled, and vaulted the couch rather than run around it. He dropped down beside her and pulled her into his arms. Like a friend, like a brother. “What is it, love? What's happened? Jesus Christ, tell me what happened?”

She kept screaming a single word.

“No!”

Over and over again. Ghost howled every time she did.

No.

Or maybe it wasn't “no.” Maybe it was a name, something that sounded similar.

Joe.

When someone screams like that it's hard to tell.

I heard a sound. No, sounds.

“He's coding, damn it.”

Another voice. A stranger's voice.

“Charging … charging … clear…”

And then my mind and my body and my soul were filled with hot light.

I stood on a hill that swept down toward a mansion that had been built to imitate an English manor house, though I knew I was in America. Somewhere.

The house was burning.

Bodies littered the lawn.

I saw Ghost. His white fur was splashed with blood and he was limping badly. Some of the bodies down there were dressed in the unmarked black battle-dress uniforms that we wear when the DMS goes on a job. The clothing was badly torn. The bodies inside had been ripped up by shrapnel and gunfire.

Suddenly there was a man standing next to me. Tall, strong. Familiar in a way I couldn't quite place. He wore the same thing as me. Exactly. Even down to the bloody bandage wrapped around my upper arm.

His face, though …

Even though he was three feet away I couldn't see his face. It was blurred, indistinct, like the face of someone who moved at the wrong time when a photo was being snapped.

He spoke to me.

“Did you honestly think you'd win, Joe?”

I tried to speak, to tell him that of course we'd win. That I would win. But the only thing that came out of my mouth was a torrent of dark blood.

He stood there and laughed as I sank down and died.

I felt a needle go into my chest.

And I was somewhere else.

I stood in a darkened room. Another living room. Sea air blew through the window and cold moonlight traced the edges of another man and woman who huddled together in their grief. A big dog whined and howled.

Not Junie, though. Not Toys. Not Ghost.

Dr. Circe O'Tree-Sanchez sat on the couch and held the weeping form of her husband, Rudy. Their dog, the monstrous wolfhound Banshee, sat by the window and howled at the moon. In a bassinet ten feet from them a baby slept through it all.

Circe said, “I'm sorry, my love. I'm so sorry.”

I tried to say something. I couldn't let this moment stand. The script was wrong and the actors were all reading the wrong lines. I yelled at them. Rudy and Circe did not hear me. Could not. Of course they couldn't.

But Banshee …

The big dog stopped howling and turned her head toward me. Toward where I thought I stood. Or hovered. Or whatever a dead man does.

Banshee's eyes met mine.

She
saw
me.

They say that dogs—some dogs—can see things in the unseen world. Junie tells me that kind of thing all the time. Dogs can see spirits. And ghosts.

Banshee could see me.

Me.

I screamed.

And a voice said, “Hit him again.”

“Charging … charging … clear!”

I blinked and it was bright daylight.

Mr. Church stood in the shadows thrown by a huge old oak tree. Autumn leaves blew gently across the tops of the autumn grass and between the rows of headstones. In the trees, birds sang songs of leaving and of farewell; the songs they sing before they all fly away because winter is coming.

The cemetery was quiet and still green. Church wore a topcoat and he had one gloved hand in his pocket. The other held the hand of a tall, stern-faced woman who wore a ruby red cloth coat and a broad-brimmed gray hat.

Lilith. She looked older than I remembered. Not much, just a little. Not Church, though. He never seems to change. His face was hard, though, without trace of humor or hope.

They stood looking down at a gravestone. I didn't need to read the name on it to know what I was seeing. They did not speak for a long time and I thought they wouldn't. Then Church broke the silence.

“I did not see this coming,” he said. “I should have. This is my fault.”

“How many times will you be betrayed before you realize that you should never trust anyone? You believe in people, St. Germaine. That will always get you hurt. It always has.”

“This war is to protect people.”

“We'll never agree on that,” she said.

Church looked at her. “What can we agree on?”

“The war is the war,” she said softly. “No matter how many of our family we have to bury, we still have to fight.”

Church drew in a breath, sighed, nodded.

Then he stiffened and turned, his eyes searching the graveyard as if he'd heard something.

“What is it?” asked Lilith, releasing his hand and reaching under her coat, half-drawing a concealed pistol.

Church said nothing. His roving eyes stopped and fixed on one point.

He looked directly at me.

Like Banshee, I think he could see me.

But how? What did that mean? What does something like that mean about a person? How could any ordinary person see me?

I was dead, after all. I was dead and time had passed. The grass on my grave looked old.