Steven James - The Rook

Then Melice grabbed her arm, slammed her into the wall, and yanked her backward by the hair to smash her head into the mirror hanging beside the closet, but she sensed him standing behind her just to her left side. It would be a tough kick, but she’d done it before. She kicked up, doing the splits vertically, and slammed her foot into his face. She heard the crunch of impact but no cries of pain, though his grip did loosen and she was able to twist free.

He faltered backward, and she faced him, kicked him once in the side of his left knee, and as he crumpled, she connected another kick to his head, and then she felt her legs giving way, her strength seeping.

“Don’t fight it, Lien-hua,” he said as he shook off the kick and readied himself to come at her again. “It’s better if you just let yourself go. Only a few more seconds and you’ll be like me. You won’t feel anything.”

She took two quick steps, kicked, caught his chin, sent him flying.

Her thoughts stumbled over each other, looking for a place to stand, but found no footing. Lien-hua rushed him, gave him a front kick to his abdomen, and a roundhouse kick to the ribs, and he was down. Still conscious, though.

And now he was getting up.

If you can get to your gun, if you can just get to your gun.

But a smothering weakness washed over her. The world around her turned in a wide, hazy circle for one lingering moment that was somehow both slower and faster than real time. Then, despite her best efforts to stay standing, she began to drift to the ground.

Melice rose to his feet, retrieving her gun and sliding it beneath his belt. “You can feel it, can’t you? It’s taking over everything. I’ll bet you’re wondering what we’re going to do with you when you finally pass out.”

Lien-hua’s legs melted, and she collapsed onto the carpet. She blinked. Tried to focus. The paralyzing sedative was climbing over her quickly. She couldn’t move. Too weak. Powerless. Melice walked to her, stood beside her. Leaned close. “Do you feel like a victim yet? If not, you will. I have quite an evening planned for you.”

He stepped out of the edge of her vision, and Lien-hua tried to rise to her feet, but it was all she could do to roll her head to the side. She saw Melice bend over a chair in the corner of the room and pull something out of a garment bag.

“She’s almost ready, Shade,” Melice said.

Then, a shadow fell across Lien-hua as someone else approached and stood behind her.

The world was being swallowed by a hungry, sweeping numbness. But before the gray sleep could cover her, she saw Melice turn and step toward her.

A red, silk evening gown in his hands.

Tessa and Riker talked for a while at the bar, then danced some more, returned to the bar, then danced again. Time meant nothing in here. Only moments mattered. Shared moments.

And so, Tessa had no idea how long they’d been in the club when Riker led her up a wooden staircase located in the belly of the building. She found that she needed to use the railing to keep her balance. It’d only been a couple of drinks, but still, the world seemed to be slowly tilting to the side.

With every step, she could feel the music pulsing through the floor, but more distant now. The top of the stairs was another world.

They arrived at a hallway lined with doors, high above the throbbing club.

Now alone and no longer under the pounding spell of the music, Riker grinned. “It’s quieter up here, huh? This way we can talk.”

For a moment she was afraid he was going to direct her into one of the rooms, but he just sat at the top of the stairs and patted the floor beside him. She joined him.

“So, if you go to school in Denver,” he said, “what are you doing here in Diego, anyway?”

The music. The world. It was all slightly askew. A little off balance. “Um. Just visiting some friends at SDSU.”

“Oh. Well, you should have told me. They could have come too.”

Her heart was beating. Beating.

Pulsing music rising through the air. She was alone with a guy.

An older guy. A cute guy who liked her.

She let her gaze climb his chin, his cheek. Until her eyes found his. “Maybe I didn’t want anyone else around.”

Then she closed her eyes and kissed him deeply, and as she did, in the back of her mind, far beneath the thrill of the moment, a little girl felt the ice cracking underfoot.

I sprinted through the hotel lobby. Too many people waiting by the elevator. I flew up the stairs.

Fifth floor.

Then into the hall. Drew my gun. Room 524.

Key out, I slipped it into the lock. “Lien-hua?” Gun ready.

Door open.

A broken vase on the floor and a scattering of dead flowers on the damp carpet. A Sabre 11 military issue dart beside them.

“Lien-hua!”

I scoured the entire suite. Empty.

They had her and they had the device.

No!

I grabbed the room phone.

Earlier in the day when I was in the evidence room, I hadn’t thought to stick some kind of tracking device in the bag with my contraption. But now, I called Angela Knight to have her track the GPS for my cell phone, which I’d left in the laundry bag.

Let it never be said I don’t learn from my mistakes.

She told me it would only take a few minutes, and then put me on hold before I could tell her I didn’t have a few minutes.

As I waited I had a disturbing thought. I remembered the video Melice had made of Cassandra. What if he made one of Lien-hua?

I flipped open my computer to see if Shade or Melice had emailed me anything. I found nothing except a message from Calvin: Couldn’t reach you on your mobile, my boy, but you mentioned that radioactive isotopes had been found at the arsonist’s apartment. I’ve been wondering if perhaps the fires were never intended to cover up a crime at all, but maybe the smoke was. Call me.

— Calvin.

The smoke?

I thought about the device, the fires, their locations. Why there?

Why then?

What about this: Drake’s men would test the device, emitting trace amounts of cesium-137. And after they’d left, Hunter would arrive. That’s why he didn’t know about the tests… But since Drake’s men had used the device, when Hunter arrived at the arson sites he would be exposed temporarily to the cesium-137, and that’s why MAST found the traces of it at his apartment…

The smoke.

Yes, of course.

The smoke would disperse the radiation so MAST wouldn’t be able to identify the tests during their radiation sweeps of the city.

Yes. I could finally see it. The fires weren’t meant to distract, the smoke was meant to disperse. It made sense. It fit, but in that moment I didn’t care.

All I cared about was Lien-hua.

And Angela was taking too long, way too long to help me.

Lien-hua shook her head. Everything was bleary, dim. The world lay shrouded in a misty dream. Her hotel room. She remembered that. Melice. The dart. And now, she was lying on her side, that much she could tell.

But she wasn’t on a bed. No. Something else. Something stiff and cold.

She took a quick inventory of her body, moving her limbs slightly. Nothing seemed broken. She wasn’t tied up. That was good. But where was she?

She shook her head again, tried to clear her thoughts. Opened one heavy eyelid. Bleary. Bleary.

Blinked twice.

No, not a bed. She wasn’t on a bed; it was concrete.

She slid one tired hand along her leg but didn’t feel the fabric of her jeans. Instead she felt the silky grace of the evening gown.

Both eyes open.

She saw what she was wearing. Elegant and red.

Lien-hua’s head still pounded. Dizzy. So dizzy.

She eased her hands forward, and as she began to sit up she felt a cold ring encircle her left ankle and then heard the sound of a lock snapping shut.