Premonitions (23 page)

“Yes.”

“And?”

Brown pointed at a door barely fifty feet away. “There.”

“Hm. I would have hoped she’d have better taste. Ah, well. Reconnaissance?”

“None yet. This is the first we’ve been here.”

“Well, then. Let’s have a look around. Slow and steady wins the race, eh? One thing, though—I very much need Ames alive. Her companions, well, feel free to kill any or all of them if they’re in the way. Just don’t hit Ames. It’ll piss me off.”

“Got it.”

“And—oh, hell.” Sobell inclined his head toward the door. “Here they come.”

The door opened and two men stepped out. They exchanged a couple of words, and one of the guys pointed at the other. Even from here, Sobell could see by the buzzing white light outside the door that the second guy had blood on his face. The guy wiped at it, smearing it around some. Then the other guy pulled out a set of keys and, oddly enough, opened the door to the unit right next door.

“What is—”

“Shh,” Sobell said. He leaned forward eagerly. The two men were backing up as a woman emerged from the room, gun in hand. It wasn’t Ames, but almost as good. Ruiz might have answers, and she would surely know where Ames was.

Brown frowned. “I don’t think those are her friends.”

“I concur,” Sobell said. “Shoot both of those men.”

* * *

“Drive!” Karyn yelled.

Genevieve floored it. The car leaped forward with a wail of burning tires.

* * *

The two men backed up out of Anna’s way, but not before sharing a glance. When they backed up, they moved in opposite directions, apparently figuring that one of them could rush her if she turned far enough to shoot the other. She hoped they wouldn’t be stupid enough to try that.

Anna stepped outside. The quartet of black SUVs in the parking lot registered immediately. They didn’t belong in this neighborhood.

Oh, shit.

The doors of the SUVs flew open, disgorging a dozen or more men.

The loud, dry crack of a gunshot echoed through the courtyard. One of the guys in front of her staggered and fell.

Out of reflex, she crouched, getting as low as possible. A moment later, it seemed the whole world erupted in gunfire.

* * *

“One down! Hit ’em, hit ’em!” Brown shouted. He had a lot of enthusiasm for this kind of work, Sobell noted. He had formerly been part of the army or the marines or some ridiculous, testosterone-laden enterprise like that, if Sobell recalled correctly, and this sort of absurd, unsubtle action must have given him the chance to relive his glory days, however briefly.

He was good at it, Sobell had to admit. And Ruiz had done them a favor and dropped out of the way. The guy on the left had been killed immediately, and the other was still moving, stumbling around but filled with holes. Sobell grinned as the guy pulled a gun from his belt and fired a random shot into the air.

A bullet hole appeared in the windshield of Sobell’s vehicle, and the window next to him blew out. He watched, bemused, as the guy fell down and Ruiz started running.

“Well, that’s that,” he said to himself. “Time to go get—”

Another shot, and one of Brown’s bruisers fell backward.

Where did that come from?
Sobell wondered, but then he saw a glint of light on a rifle barrel sticking out of a window in the next room over from the one the woman had recently vacated.

Christ, there’s another one? That’s tiresome.

“Mr. Brown, would you—”

Another motel window exploded, then another. A door swung open. The night came alive with noise and blood. Two more of Brown’s men went down before they even started shooting back.

Huh. I think they have more guys than we do,
Sobell noted with calm surprise.

He thought it prudent to get down on the floor.

* * *

Bullets smashed into the wall behind Anna, shattering glass and punching holes in wood. Nearer to her, the hail of answering gunfire sounded like an entire invading army had just dropped in. Her first instinct was to stay down, no matter what—most of the shooters were aiming high, and maybe she could stay below the exchange and somehow survive this. Then the body in front of her jumped a couple of times as stray slugs pounded into it.

Too close. Time to go!
She started moving in a low, fast crouch. The light fixture overhead exploded, showering glass over her.

The screech of wailing tires cut through the sound of the guns.

Anna blinked. At the end of the row of motel units, not a hundred feet away, Nail’s van came to a shrieking, juddering stop. The side door flew open.

Karyn was there, beckoning to her.

I’ve lost my mind,
she thought—but she was already running, bent low and staying as close to the wall as she could manage. A bullet hit the sidewalk ahead of her and chips of cement flew. Two steps past that, she stumbled and nearly fell. Somebody to her right shouted.

She ran past a second door, then a third. There were four more before the car, and she thought her heart might burst from an overdose of adrenaline before then, but she ran.

One of the doors opened, and a man jumped out, seizing her by the arm. She pulled and struggled, she kicked at him, but he was much bigger than she was, and he dragged her toward the door.

* * *

Karyn watched in horror as one of the Brotherhood grabbed Anna’s arm and started hauling her away.

“No!” she screamed—and then she saw. The guy had a bullet wound in his neck.

“Shoot him!” she said.

Nail held his gun, steady as always, but he didn’t pull the trigger. “I got no shot! She’s in the way!”

“Shoot him!”

Nail’s finger tightened, but he still didn’t shoot. He shook his head from side to side. Sweat poured down his forehead, down his face. “She—she ain’t clear!
I got no shot.
”

“Now!”

He squeezed the trigger. The hammer pulled back.

For the first time ever, Karyn saw Nail’s hand tremble.

The guy behind Anna jerked. His hand flew to his neck, where bright blood quickly flowed through his fingers, and he fell.

No sound had come from Nail’s gun, and his finger was still frozen on the trigger. He hadn’t fired.

He looked at Karyn, eyes wide and spooked. “I woulda hit her. I
know
it.”

* * *

The hand on her arm abruptly fell away, and Anna ran. The car seemed a thousand yards away, and the war around her went on endlessly, and she ran harder than she ever had. Her legs burned, and the impact of each footfall on the cement traveled up her body and jarred everything loose, but she pushed herself even harder.

A small explosion came from the parking lot, and she flinched as tiny, stinging fragments of metal cut her neck and legs.

Then she was at the car. Karyn reached for her, pulled her into the backseat, and slammed the door shut. Instantly, the war zone became muted, a TV program in the apartment next door instead of lead-filled reality.

“Go!” she yelled, laughing crazily. “Christ, just go!”

Well.
This has gone rather astonishingly sour.
Sobell peeked up over the seat. Sure enough, the firefight was still raging. Half of Brown’s guys, give or take, were down on the ground, either not moving or moving in a way that suggested their moving days had a very limited time horizon remaining. The others had wisely taken cover behind open vehicle doors or the vehicles themselves. The motel, Sobell noted with some satisfaction, was shot full of holes along a fifty-foot stretch, and more appeared every second. Sadly, the people inside were still shooting back.

Of even more concern, it appeared that the front of the vehicle Sobell was in had caught fire.

That’s my cue.
He crawled toward the door and slipped awkwardly out, keeping low as he did. Ahead of him, Brown was still returning fire over the burning hood of the vehicle.

He wondered what it took to blow up a car in real life. In the movies, it seemed they’d explode if you sneezed on them particularly violently, but he didn’t think it actually worked that way.
How is it that I’ve never found
that
out in all my years on earth?

Now was probably not the time, he reflected.

“Mr. Brown!”

Brown squeezed off two shots, sending one of the enemy ducking below a blown-out window frame. “Sir?”

“A strategic retreat is in order.”

“What?”

“We need to go!”

Brown, bless his heart, didn’t take much convincing. He made some arcane hand sign for the benefit of any of his men who were looking, shouted for the ones who weren’t deaf yet, and began backing up. His guys followed, keeping the bulk of the vehicles between them and the army of maniacs in the motel. Sobell did likewise, taking the extra precaution of keeping the bodies of Brown’s men between him and said maniacs.

A few more shots were fired, but even the madmen over there didn’t seem to relish the idea of breaking cover and coming after them. Sobell, Brown, and the remaining men backed away to the other side of the motel. One guy took a rifle round in the chest. Sobell picked up the pace while the others fired back at the rifleman. Either they hit him or scared him off, but that was the last they heard from him.

Sobell dashed around the corner of the building. Six men followed, including Brown.

“What the fuck was that?” Brown shouted—not precisely
at
Sobell, but vaguely in his direction. “A handful of cheap thieves, and they have a fucking army now?”

“Put your gun away,” Sobell said. “The police will be along shortly, I would imagine, and while I’d like to be long gone by then, we don’t need to draw any additional attention.”

“More attention than that? I have eight dead guys back there!”

“
I
have eight dead guys back there.” Sobell checked the lines of his suit. Not bad, all things considered. “Don’t worry—I won’t send you a bill.”

Brown was a soldier, not really much of a criminal at all, Sobell realized, and when he considered shooting Sobell dead, it might as well have been written on his face in DayGlo magic marker. Sobell merely watched, though, as Brown made his decision.

Soldiers did have the benefit of being predictable.

Brown put his gun in his shoulder holster. “Where did they get all those guys?”

“I suggest we get off the street. They might have cars.”

Brown glanced toward the road behind them, satisfied himself that an army of crazed gunmen wasn’t driving toward them at that very moment, and nodded.

Sobell walked into the alley adjacent to the motel, Brown by his side.

“It appears I underestimated the number of parties involved in this proposed transaction,” he said.

“What? Who else is there?”

“The Brotherhood of Zagam,” Sobell said. “It was their damned old bone to begin with.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, sir.”

“Sometimes, incredibly, even my reach exceeds my grasp.” He considered this. “But probably not this time. We will, however, need to revise our strategy.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed his driver.

While the phone rang, he gave Brown a thin smile. “Let’s get back to my office and do some planning, shall we?”

* * *

“Anybody behind us?” Nail asked as Genevieve pulled the van into a sharp turn, tires shrieking.

Karyn took a stray elbow in the shoulder, and Anna’s bony hip dug into her side, but she craned her neck around to look behind them. She couldn’t make out anything—the night was a blur of flame and police lights, strange buildings and monstrous shapes, and she had no idea which of it represented current consensus reality. At least everybody in the van had returned to normal, though. No more corpses for the nonce—always a good thing.

“Nothing,” Genevieve said, glancing at her mirrors. “No one. Better get back to the ’burbs, though. If anybody survives that mess, you can bet your ass we’ll be the top item on their shit list.”

“Punch it, then,” Nail said. The van surged forward, jostling everybody in back again.

“You guys rule,” Anna said. “Incredible timing.”

Genevieve glanced up and grinned at the mirror. “That’s right, babe.”

Next to Karyn, Drew shifted. “Lucky you,” he said.

“What the hell is he doing here?”

“I just saved your ass, but don’t thank me now.”

“Nobody likes a whiner,” Anna said, and she laughed. It was an honest, for-real laugh, a loud, rapid flight up the scale that even made Karyn smile.

“Does anybody know where that fuck Greaser is?” Anna asked, the humor abruptly gone from her voice.

Genevieve sighed. “Dead, last I heard.”

“Bullshit. He took off with the bone and our money, and he set us up to take the heat.”

“I’m glad somebody knows what the hell is going on,” Nail said, his voice underscored with sarcasm.

“No, actually, that makes total sense,” Genevieve said. Karyn was inclined to agree, but she kept still. Her initial enthusiasm at reuniting with Anna had dimmed, and she couldn’t help remembering the last words Anna, hands wet with Tommy’s blood, had said to her.

Didn’t see this coming, did you?

Except she had, hadn’t she? And—

Fuck that noise. None of that now.
She looked out the windshield, trying to lose herself in the weird scenery before her, but the only thing that registered was Anna’s shoulder, stiff and unyielding next to hers.

“Why else would Sobell be gunning for us?” Genevieve continued. “I thought he was cleaning up the evidence, but that’s not really his style. If he didn’t get the bone, he thinks we screwed him.”

“I don’t even know if he wanted the fuckin’ bone,” Nail said.

“What?” Anna said.

“Somebody told me he was there, at Mendelsohn’s, the night all that shit went down. That he had business with a demon. Didn’t say nothin’ about a jawbone.”

“‘Somebody’?” Genevieve asked. “Like who?”

Nail shifted. “Like, a guy.”

“This guy reliable? How the fuck would he know?”

“I don’t know.”

“He tell you anything else?”

“Not really.”

“There was a demon there, though,” Anna said. “Something awful, anyway.”

“He wanted the bone,” Genevieve said, and though Karyn couldn’t read her face in the rearview mirror, her voice had a strained note in it. “I know he did. He had to.”

“Watch the road, huh?” Nail said.

“Is Gresser dead or not?”

“That’s what I hear,” Nail said. “Word is definitely that we killed him and ran off with the goods. Whether he’s actually dead or not, who knows? Doesn’t really matter at this point.”

Genevieve nodded. “So, regardless of what he wants with the bone, Sobell’s got reason to be pissed at us.”

“Him
and
the Brotherhood,” Anna said. “When we make enemies, we don’t mess around.”

“How’d you end up with
them
?” Nail asked.

Anna crossed her arms. “Adelaide,” she said, the word clipped and brittle. Karyn tensed even further, her shoulders drawing in until she had to take short, shallow breaths.

Nail frowned. “Anybody going to explain that?”

“No,” Karyn said.

The remainder of the ride passed in uncomfortable near silence, with only the occasional passing car relieving the drone of the engine. Karyn’s neck ached, and the wonders and horrors around her had lost their ability to either charm or distract. She closed her eyes and tried not to feel Anna’s movements next to her.

The hell of it was, Anna had been right. Right about Tommy, right about Karyn’s responsibility, even right to be furious. Soon they’d get to the safe house, and Karyn would have to face her in the light, to look her in the eye and read the recriminations—all true, all accurate, but only all the more painful because of it.

I got Tommy killed,
Karyn told herself, as she had a hundred times, either in an effort to accept the idea or, more likely, to flog herself for it.
I’ll spend the rest of my life dealing with that.

Genevieve pulled the van up in front of an empty
house, lights off and the yard bare in the gray-yellow light reflected from the dirty sky.

“No,” Karyn said. “Not tonight. If we need to get out in a hurry, I don’t want to have to run four blocks to the van. Can you bring it around back of the place?”

“You know something about something?” Nail asked.

“No. Just don’t feel good about not having wheels tonight.”

“I hear that.”

Genevieve took the van down the street and eased it into the narrow alley behind the row of houses. Chain-link fences protected the yards on either side and hemmed in the alley. “Nowhere to park,” she said.

“Block the alley. Nobody comes through here at this time of night.”

She turned off the van. They got out, and Karyn led them through the back gate. A motion light came on next door, but the houses stayed dark. Karyn stopped in front of the back door, waiting. Had the curtain twitched over there? She tried to remember anything she could about the neighbor, and came up with a total blank.

Who cares if somebody’s looking? This is your house, basically. You’re stalling.
A few more moments, and they’d all be inside, face-to-face, nothing to hide behind and no way to avoid each other. No way to avoid Anna, more to the point.

She squared her shoulders, unlocked the door, and went in.

* * *

“Leave the light off,” Karyn said just as Anna reached for the switch. “In case the neighbors are nosy.”

Anna put her hand in her pocket, feeling like a dumb kid.
Where’s my head at? I know better than that.
Low light came through the thin curtains, enough to illuminate the bulk of the couch and coffee table. Nothing had been moved. The safe house looked the same as always, the same as it had a couple of days ago when she’d swung by looking for Karyn, the same as it had the last time she’d scoped it out with Karyn, shortly after they’d moved Karyn’s aunt into the home. Years ago, now.

“So what happened?” Genevieve asked, worry in her voice.

“I was looking for Karyn,” she said, unable to keep the bite out of her tone as the hours of frustration and worry boiled off as anger. “The phone was dead, and she never came back to the apartment after Tommy, so I settled for the next best thing—her pusher.”

“Don’t,” Karyn said softly.

“Don’t what? You bailed on us! You fucking disappeared, and I wouldn’t have even known you weren’t dead if you hadn’t taken your bag from the apartment.”

“Anna, don’t—” Genevieve began, but Anna cut her off.

“Stay out of this.”

Genevieve looked at Anna for a long time, then finally nodded. “Anybody got a Sharpie or something?”

Everybody in the room turned toward her. “What?” she asked. “Whatever else is going on, Enoch Sobell is looking for us, and you can bet he’s not staking out random street corners waiting for one of us to walk by. He’s breaking heads, and trashing our homes, and he’s probably whipping out arcane shit I never even heard of. If he’s got so much as a hair off one of our heads, we’re screwed. Gimme a couple hours and a marker, and I can hide us.” She surveyed the room one more time. “Chalk would be better, but I know enough not to expect miracles.”

“Try the junk drawer in the kitchen,” Karyn said.

“Yeah. OK.” Genevieve turned to Anna. “You sure you’re all right?”

Anna nodded. Genevieve studied her face for a long moment, then nodded once in return and left.

“Oh yeah,” Nail said. “I could eat a goddamn bear, so I’m gonna check the fridge.”

Nobody moved for a moment, and then Nail put a heavy hand on Drew’s shoulder. “My boy Drew here is
starving
.”

“Uh, yeah. Starving,” Drew said.

“We ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Nail said as he walked into the kitchen. “Take your time.”

Karyn nodded. “Thanks, guys.”

The silence thickened, became something almost perverse. Every sound seemed overloud in Anna’s ears, from the clank and rustle of Nail pretending to raid the refrigerator in the next room to the obnoxious chirp of a cricket that had gotten in under the baseboard somehow. And yet she couldn’t even hear Karyn breathe.

Anna sat on the chair in the corner, taking a strange sort of comfort in its stubborn uncomfortableness, and watched Karyn across the room on the couch, pressed against the far end like Anna might suddenly leap forward and attack her.

Anna wished she could see Karyn’s face. She’d started adjusting to the dimness, but being unable to make out details made any conversation even more difficult. “You sure you don’t want a light? Maybe just the hall light or something?”

“I’m sure,” Karyn said. Her voice held notes of weariness deeper than Anna had heard in a long time. Maybe ever.

Low murmurs from the kitchen. Distant sound of the highway, a river that slowed but even at this hour never dried up.

“You’re all scratched up,” Anna said.

“Yeah. Running around in the dark.”

“You went to see her.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She hook you up?”

“No.” Karyn’s figure slumped, a low heap in the darkness. “I’m . . . I’m totally out. Couple days now.” Motion, and Anna thought she might be chewing her fingernails. “Another good reason to keep it dark in here.”