The Red Heart of Jade (3 page)

He had to know the risks.
All
the risks.

Dean waited, quiet. Koni studied his face, also silent, and then slowly, carefully, leaned close, studying the curving scar. He did not touch it.

Dean said, “I’m not lying.”

“I know,” Koni replied. “But it’s still impossible. I don’t see any evidence of fire. No burns. And you’re still alive. Our killer doesn’t leave anyone alive, Dean.”

“No one we know of, anyway.”

“And you’re sure it’s him?”

“I’m not sure about anything but, hello, fire? Us chasing a serial murderer who just might be a pyrokinetic? Tell me that’s not too much of a coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidence. But I had to ask.”

“Trust me, if I could have blamed the fire on a nightmare I would have. But there’s nothing imaginary about that cut”

“It’s deep. You should be bleeding. You need stitches.”

“It was a clean wound. No blood. Just the incision.”

“God. You’re screwed.”

Dean scowled. “If the murderer knows who I am, and now I’m being followed by those jokers out there—”

“Like I said. Screwed. Both of us. “ Koni pressed back against the concrete wall and closed his eyes. “I need a drink. A goddamn cigarette. I’m too tired for this shit.”

“How do you think I feel?” Dean dropped his shirt. “You think those guys out there work for our killer?”

“If they do, then we’ve got a bigger problem on our hands than simple murder.”

“We’ve got an operation,” Dean said. “Organization. Not just a psycho who likes to play with fire.”

The two men stared at each other.

“Dean,” Koni said slowly. “We need a better plan.”

“Koni,” Dean replied. “I need to get to that crime scene. Right now.”

“You’ll be bait. You won’t be able to shake those guys.”

“I got no choice. We’re not going to find answers anywhere else. “ Dean glanced over his shoulder. The men were still watching. Bold, confident. A bad sign. He felt like giving them the finger or waving them over for a thumb-wrestling contest to the death. Anything to end the mystery, the possibilities of who those men might be working for.

Don’t think about it. Don’t you dare. Not now.

Koni said, “Fine. Okay, then. Let’s go.”

“You’re coming with me? On the ground?”

“Don’t look so surprised. My legs work as well as my wings. “ And Koni pushed past him and headed out of the alley, turning right, moving quick and sparing only one hard look at the men standing on the other side of the street. The trackers did not blink, showed no reaction at all. Dean turned around to watch them, walking backward, throwing in a moonwalk for good measure, because hell, acting serious and moody wasn’t going to make much of a difference at this point. He smiled at the men. Made the sign of a shooting gun. Pointed, and mouthed,
Bang, bang. You’re dead
.

Koni, glancing at him, said, “Every time I begin to have respect for your intelligence, you do something like that.”

“It’s a gift,” Dean replied. “My powers of survival and intuition are endless.”

“Ha!” Koni sidestepped a pile of broken glass with a curious mincing motion. He was not wearing shoes. Around them, the ground glittered with yet more glass, odd bits of trash, some dark puddles fed by trickles of water streaming out of hoses where women were washing vegetables and small children. Koni did not complain, but Dean felt the debris crunch beneath his sneakers.

“You should have give me a pack to carry for you,” Dean said quietly. “It wouldn’t have been any trouble.”

“I don’t like depending on anyone,” Koni replied. “No offense. I’m just used to taking care of myself.”

“You’ve been with the agency for more than a year,” Dean reminded him. “You can rely on us, you know.”

Koni said nothing. Dean did not push. There was no formula for making a man feel at home among a crowd that clung together like family. For Dean, it was easy. Always had been. First meeting and he’d curled up like a little kitten in a warm towel. Wasn’t like that for everyone, but he had been alone too long, and recognized a good thing when he saw it. The agents at Dirk & Steele were the only people he had; the secrets they shared formed a bond no one on the outside would ever understand. Or believe.

Us against them
, he thought. Minorities, hiding in plain sight against the rest of the world. Dirk & Steele might operate in a very public setting, with clients ranging from governments to the poor, but its entire image was a bald-faced lie: that all of its agents, men and women spread across Dirk & Steele’s worldwide offices, were normal ordinary human beings.

Flesh and blood, yes. Human, yes. But not ordinary. Call it genetics, odd wiring, twists of magic and fate— but the agents of Dirk & Steele had abilities beyond the normal ken of man. And even among them, some were more extraordinary than others. Like Koni and the rest of his kind: shape-shifters, men and women who changed into animals at will. Tigers, crows, cheetahs, dolphins— dragons, too—and God only knew what else. Magic and science, coming together to form miracles embodied by flesh, blood.

Little more than a year ago, Dean would have thought shape-shifters nothing more than fairy tales, figments of some overactive and highly drugged imagination. Hell, it was hard enough for him to believe some of the shit
he
could pull off. Anything else belonged in the
Twilight Zone
. Which was... totally right on.

Dean stopped at a small booth where an old man hawked cheap clothing. He glanced over his shoulder; the men following them had fallen back, but they were still islands in the surging crowd, staring, eyes cold and hard.

Gritting his teeth, Dean turned away and grabbed a pair of large foam flip-flops from a bin. He pushed cash into the seller’s hand. No time for bargaining. He dropped the shoes beside Koni, who looked at them, and then Dean.

“They’re covered in flowers,” he said.

“Weenie,” Dean said, and then turned away, walking fast. No time to waste—none at all—not with those men following them, and a trail fading fast. He felt Koni move up close behind him, and that was reassurance enough, to have someone watching his back as he approached the apartment building where the last murder had occurred.

He split his vision, extending his fingers as he glided through the shadows, translating energies as his mind sorted and pressed and peeled, searching for anything familiar—anything at all that was reminiscent of the areas around the fourteen other crime scenes he had spent the past three days scouring. It was not enough to search inside the buildings; sometimes trails could be found outside as well, glimpses into lives that had intersected with the victims’. Sometimes he saw the victims themselves; the trails they had left before dying, not yet faded from the air. People had to go places, after all. Killers used legs. They could not fly.

Well, maybe some people could fly. But... he hoped not in this case.

The world inside Dean’s head filled with light: a tapestry, a quilt of intersecting threads, people leaving behind bits of themselves with every step, layering emanations upon emanation, trails of energy and vibration until it almost seemed the air was heavy enough to walk on; a stairway to heaven, to hell, to secrets and lies.

Dean waded through soul prints. He took measure of the adding echoes, opening himself to remote glimpses of lives that were ordinary, full of television and playing children and families at tables—a man singing karaoke like a wounded dog—a woman sitting naked in front of a computer—dishwashing and arguing and sexy ups and downs—lives that were quiet—wild—lonely—

—violent—

—deadly—

Dean froze. Just a glimpse, an awful premonition. He had walked through the thread so quickly that was all he had time for.

No
, he thought.
I can’t be that lucky. There’s no way
.

No way, not a chance, not a flaming turd in hell. Not after three days and a personal apocalypse. Dean turned, looking hard. Light tangled; it was impossible to know which thread he had touched—just that it was there, somewhere, in the mess.

He took a deep breath and cleared his mind, trying to steady his heart and hands. His chest throbbed, but he pushed down the pain, the memories attached with it, the uncertainty. No fear, no doubts. Not now. Dean swallowed hard and took a step. Looking for a victim.

The reaction was instantaneous; a punch to the gut. Images overwhelmed him. Dean forced himself to remain still, but the rush was hard, harder than anything he had ever felt, and he wanted to run, to turn away, to shut off his mind. Instead, he let himself taste ash on his tongue, and gazed upon a vision of a dark room, a body on the floor with duct tape wound all around like a mummy’s skin, bandages sticky, gray. The floor was black and wet around the body, which was mostly torso; like a potato with stumps.

Movement. A hulking body silhouetted by a window. In one fat hand, a sheaf of papers; a photograph, the face too blurred to see. In the other hand, a bulging plastic sack from a local bookstore. The mouth of the sack was open. Dean got a good look inside. He saw blood. Other stuff.

And then, light. Fire.

Dean moved. He left the thread at a run, but the echo remained with him as an imprint, a stamp upon his mind, a screaming line pulling and pulling like a rope. Koni called out, and then suddenly was at his side, racing with him down a narrow unlit walkway between a clothing shop and a DVD parlor. Instinct guided Dean, the trail inside his head tugging like a rope. The air smelled rank; it was difficult to see, but ahead of them a fluorescent bulb flickered over a wide metal door. Bingo.

Dean reached beneath his shirt and unclipped his gun. He held it out to Koni, but the shape-shifter did not take the weapon.

“I don’t do guns,” he said, breathing hard.

Dean stumbled. “You shitting me? When did that happen?”

“I thought you knew. I told Roland when he hired me on. It’s why he usually puts me on surveillance.”

“Fuck. “ Dean clicked off the safety. “No one told me. I just assumed.”

Koni flicked his wrist; the knife appeared like a bright spot in his palm. Dean did not know how he had hidden it without sleeves.

“Hypocrite,” he said.

“Differences in philosophy,” Koni replied, glancing over his shoulder. “Those men stopped following us.”

Bad. No way those men would just drop off. Not unless they had a good reason. And any reason good for them could not possibly be good for Dean and Koni.

The apartment building’s door was unlocked and they barreled through, racing up the stairs. Dean tried to catch that familiar thread, reaching out across the space between himself and the victim’s present: a remote view. He managed a glimpse, and saw their target was no longer in the apartment. Above them came a scuffing sound, large and loud.

Dean grabbed Koni’s shoulder. Both men stopped, breathing hard, listening. The person above hesitated on the stairs. But instead of coming down, he began to go up. Fast.

“Shit,” Dean hissed. His legs and chest hurt. Breathing was damn hard in this heat; running worse. Koni passed him and leaped up the narrow metal stairs four and five at a time, nimble, light-limbed. Gold threaded through his rippling tattoos, black feathers shimmering down his arms. Dean gritted his teeth and pushed harder. He did not know exactly what to do once he reached the roof, but those were the breaks. He would just play it by ear. Like always. Plans were for sissies.

Koni reached the roof access door before Dean. He waited there, crouched before the heavy metal. Sweat rolled down his skin; he tore off his tank and discarded it. His drawstring pants hung low over his hips, loose and ready to strip off in case he needed to make a quick shift.

“He knows we’re here, doesn’t he?” he whispered. His eyes glowed.

“We’re not on fire yet,” Dean replied, though that was small comfort. The both of them were going to be dead fast or find themselves very surprised.

Koni opened the door, crouching low while Dean swung past with both arms out, guns aimed high. A hot breeze clipped his face, carrying a scent: ash, bitter and metallic with blood—and there, directly in front of him, framed against fluttering laundry and a sky penned in by glittering skyscrapers and rusting clouds, was a large man, one of the largest Dean had ever seen. A white gelatin belly hung over tight shorts, propped up on legs thick with muscle, and higher, broad shoulders brushed silver hair, heaving into a rolling face wide and flat and hard with fat. A mean face, a meaner body, and for a moment Dean was once again a little kid facing up to one of the glue-sniffing, crack-smoking, steel mill bullies who used to hang out on his street back in Philly. His sight shifted; the man rippled into a thread. Quivering fast, almost double, like there were two of him at extremes, wrapped up tight, coiled, with one side dark, thicker than the other. Quantum vines tangled, maybe fighting. No harmony. Just a big damn mess of hard times.

But he had no trail. His energy was completely self-contained.

And he carried a blood-spattered plastic sack in one hand.

Dean opened his mouth, ready to make the obligatory statement of “Surrender, you asshole,” but Koni made a strange choking sound that kicked his gut into high alarm. His finger tightened on the trigger. Forget words. The white flag of peace could go to hell.