J Duncan - Deadworld

“You in the right frame of mind to be leading this now?”

She slid into an empty parking space too fast to avoid crumpling the bumper against the concrete barricade. “Shit. Sir, with all due respect, unless I’m dead, don’t take me off this.” How could he dare think it?

“Not off the case, just off this. You are too close on this one, Jack. Laurel is more than just a fellow agent.”

“You worried I’ll go ballistic on whoever grabbed her?”

“I’m concerned your judgment may not be optimal, Jackie. Give me a fucking break. You know as well as I what the deal is here.”

Jackie took a deep breath and let it out. She knew, but if something happened, it was her responsibility. It had to be. “I have to take this, sir. You want me off, you can take my badge.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say,” he said, not bothering to hide his annoyance. “Fine, just don’t make me regret the decision.”

Up at Nick’s cell, Jackie had security release the bolt. She opened the door and found him lying peacefully on the small bed that occupied one wall. He actually looked pale. “Come with me. Shelby insists we need you to get Laurel back.”

“Ms. Rutledge,” he said, his voice sounding strained. “I won’t be much use to you unless you get me some of the synthetic I’m sure you have down in a lab being analyzed as we speak. I’m about two hours past due.”

“What? Why?” She tossed his things at him and turned around. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. I’ll find it. Get ready.”

On occasion, being known as a ballbuster had distinct advantages. Jackie marched into the lab room and demanded to know where the synthetic blood was. She took a bottle and marched right back out. One raised finger of warning was all it took.

Nick downed the contents in a few seconds, wincing as he finished it off. “Okay. One minute and I’ll be ready. How do you know he has her?”

“Shelby called-said some girl in a mini mart saw her walking out with an older man in a blue suit. They got into a Rolls-Royce and drove away.”

He nodded. “That sounds like him.”

“It’s him,” Jackie said back and grabbed his arm. “Let’s go. She’s been gone nearly three hours now.”

“We have any leads?”

“Ms. Fontaine said West Central and Pine.”

“Ah. We’ve been driving around him the whole time.”

Encouraging words. She led him down to the garage, feeling his presence next to her the entire time. The irrational fear that he would grab her and bite into her neck would not go away, and for a four-floor ride, the elevator sure ran out of air fast. Apparently, she had not completely forgotten about the incident in the restaurant. So much for wishful thinking.

She stepped away from him quickly when the doors opened and walked to the car. He remained thankfully silent, but once on the road, Jackie felt his oppressive form taking up all the clean, breathable air in the car. She was forced to roll down a window on the graying evening. Rain was coming off the plains, the air thick with the smell of moisture. Finally, Jackie could no longer tolerate the silence.

“What’s the deal with the room over your garage?” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the penny. “This look familiar?”

He continued in silence, staring at the penny, his face unreadable as always. “Memories, Ms. Rutledge. So I don’t ever forget.”

“You believe you’d forget your own family?” Sometimes Jackie wished she could forget hers. “Given what happened, I find that hard to believe.”

“Never forgotten,” he replied, his voice quiet. “A hundred and forty years tends to dull everything.”

She glanced at him, avoiding his curious stare. Yeah, in a perverse sort of way, that made sense. He wanted to keep the pain fresh in his mind. He didn’t want to lose his edge for catching Drake. “And the penny? I’m really curious how you managed to get it out of our evidence room.”

“Reggie,” he said, the hint of a smile on his weary face.

“Who?” Why had this name not come up before?

“He’s a ghost, Ms. Rutledge. One of my former associates from long ago who stuck around to help me out. He’s good for… special projects.”

“You lead a very strange life, Nick.” Her cell rang again before he could reply. It was Shelby.

“Can you call off the damn cops? I’ll never get a solid bead on him if I have to keep sidestepping the law.”

“It’ll take a while to filter down to them, Shelby.”

“Just do it, please. How close are you?”

They were crossing over the river now. “Not far.”

“Okay, I’m south of Central and Pine, and the feeling is getting weaker. So head north. Nick with you?”

“Yeah, you need to talk to him?”

“Nope, just call if he gets a hit on him.”

Shelby hung up, and Jackie called in to have the cops quit looking for her. North of Central and Pine did not narrow things down much.

“Anything?” Nick wondered.

“North of Central and Pine.”

“Okay, we aren’t far. Slow down a bit so I can concentrate. A bit of luck, and we’ll triangulate somewhere nearby.”

“You can feel Drake around here?”

He nodded. “Yes. When he’s ripe with blood, he’s difficult to miss, but he’s been harder to pinpoint this time. Keeps fading in and out. I haven’t figured out what he’s doing yet.”

Ripe with blood. “Can you tell if he’s fed on Laurel?

“He hasn’t yet.”

Oh, thank God. Laurel was a smart cookie though. If anyone could deal with something like Drake, it would be Laur. She knew all about that supernatural shit. “Did you know Laurel is thirty-one?”

“I’d have guessed as much now,” he replied, leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes. For all Jackie could tell, he was going to sleep. She checked in on her phone, but nobody had come across anything. Shelby had been spotted, though the story of her leaping over moving cars stretched the limits of believability.

“How much stronger are you when you drink real blood?” Morbid curiosity kept her brain churning and helped to keep it from preoccupying itself with Laurel.

His head turned, a softly glowing eye shielded by heavy lids. “Much. The strength of ten men probably. The mind-control thing is even more easily done, and control over the body is such that you can make your skin knit itself up from wounds, mend bones, and the like. The power of the dead, Ms. Rutledge, is not human. It’s an otherworldly thing.”

Hard as it was for her, Jackie kept the car at the posted speed limit of thirty-five miles per hour. Her stomach was nothing more than a squirming bucket of worms now, every minute leading closer to a fate so incomprehensible her mind refused to acknowledge it.

Reality snapped back like a broken rubber band for Laurel when Drake let her go at last. She had not been oblivious to him and had in fact been aware of his every action. The ride in the Rolls had not been long. She even knew where they were but had missed the exact address. The decaying sign over the doors had said FITZSIMMONS FURNISHINGS. It was a warehouse, or used to be at some point in time. The windows had been boarded up, and most of the inside was scattered with refuse, clutter, and fallen ceiling tiles. Three floors up, the entire floor had been converted into a living space. Of sorts.

Upon entering the room, nothing had been visible other than the stainless-steel table in the center of the room. A dangling fluorescent lamp illuminated it and provided the only light in the cavernous room.

“Please, Ms. Carpenter. Have a seat upon the table.”

The slight British accent might have had charm under other circumstances, but now, feeling trapped within her own body, she could only think of Hannibal Lecter. She obeyed like a mindless zombie and sat on the edge of the table, noticing the raised lip around the edges and the hole in the corner. She had seen tables like these numerous times in the past, generally in unfavorable conditions. A cadaver’s table.