Rachel Caine: Devil's Due

McCarthy, for answer, unbuttoned his flannel shirt to show the vest underneath. He had his old badge on a chain, and he pulled it out so it showed on top of the black ballistic nylon. "Show your Kevlar," he said. "Get out your guns and follow me."

They hit the stairs, and were two flights down before they heard the sound of running feet headed up. The fire alarms were pulsing again. The building was a kicked ants' nest, people flooding in from every floor, confused and afraid.

"Make way!" McCarthy yelled. "Move right! Move right! FBI! FBI!"

And, miraculously, it worked. In the confusion, nobody had time to question; even uniformed guards pressed to the side as they plunged down another flight, then another and another.

They burst through the stair doors onto the server floor and headed for the room at a dead run. It didn't matter now who saw them; everyone was running, clutching purses and briefcases and laptops. Yelling questions and panicked instructions.

When they opened the server room door, Ken Stewart was standing there, swaying, with the EMP. It was dead, of course. But it was physical proof of what had just happened, and it had Lucia's fingerprints on it.

Their guns leveled on him. "Drop it," McCarthy said. "I mean it, Ken.”

"You're going to jail." He looked feverish, spots of color high in a chalk-pale face. He coughed, and there was blood on his lips. He wiped it off on his sleeve. "I'm dying, but I'll still see you in hell."

He could barely breathe, Lucia saw. He'd looked sick before, every time she'd seen him—progressively worse, in fact. Coughing. Taking pills.

Taking antibiotics .

"Oh, my God," she said. "Anthrax. It was you ."

Stewart dropped the EMP. It hit the floor with a heavy boom, and McCarthy edged forward to pick it up. "Watch him," he warned, and holstered his gun. Jazz and Lucia kept their aim steady, but Stewart just stared down at McCarthy with furious, glittering eyes. "Why? Why try to kill her?" Ben asked.

"Because it got to you."

McCarthy's back was to them, but Lucia saw rigidity in his shoulders, down his spine.

"Where'd you get it? The anthrax?"

Stewart grinned, showing bloody teeth. "Amazing what you can find, working anticrime task force. Bullshit redneck biochemists all over the place these days. Think they're saving the world from whatever it is they hate. You were right, Garza. I'd been to that lab before. Bought myself a nice little present."

"You stupid, twisted bastard," McCarthy said. "How long have you worked for Eidolon?"

"Since they told me you shot three people in the head. I trusted you, man. I liked you."

"I liked you, too," he said, and backed up. "But you got played, Ken. Just like I did. Only you got played a hell of a lot worse."

"And he's about to get played one more time," Lucia said. "Surveillance was digital, and it's as trashed as everything else. All that's left is physical evidence." She tossed Stewart his gun, careful to keep her hand wrapped in the sleeve of her shirt. Even sick as he was, he caught it out of the air, steadied it and instantly focused it on her.

And fired.

Click.

"Thank you," she said. "I removed the rounds, obviously, before I returned it to you. And by the way, those two men on the floor? They're on your service weapon. Just like the three bodies in Kansas City were on Ben's. I hope you have better luck explaining it."

McCarthy had bagged the EMP, and now zipped the backpack shut with a decisive jerk. Stewart was staring uncomprehendingly at the gun in his grasp. He coughed again, and more blood spattered his hand as he tried to cover his mouth.

"Oh, man," McCarthy said, watching him. "I hate you, Ken, but I don't hate you that much. Get some help."

He shouldered the backpack.

They joined the rush downstairs.

Lucia sold the van for cash at a sleazy-looking, no-questions-asked lot on the outskirts of town, and used the money to buy them plane tickets. They shipped the guns and bulletproof vests to a dead drop that Manny had set up in Kansas; they could retrieve them later. The journey back to Kansas City was short and uneventful, and Lucia managed to sleep most of the way.

Before they landed, she pulled out the red envelope she'd retrieved from the roof and read the words that Max Simms had left them as a legacy.

EVERYTHING YOU DO MATTERS. PROTECT YOUR CHILD.

And, scrawled apparently in haste, P.S. — TRUST BORDEN

She showed it to Jazz, and saw some inner tension finally relax. That had been hard on her, not trusting Borden.

Manny picked them up at the airport in his new red Hummer. It was so outrageously attention-seeking that Lucia had to laugh, wearily, at the sight of it. She curled unconsciously into McCarthy's warmth on the way to the warehouse, and the weight of his arm around her shoulders felt like the best safety she had ever known.

"We need to get you to a doctor," McCarthy said softly, just for her ears. "Have you checked out."

"I'm fine."

"I mean—"

"I know what you mean. I'll go and let them do the poking and prodding, but everything's okay."

Talking in code. That would have to stop soon; they'd have to tell everybody the news of her pregnancy. Probably not the details, but the fact, at least. Uncle Manny. Aunt Jazz. The kid would, at least, have a colorful childhood.

They were pulling into the armored ground-floor garage when Manny suddenly said, "What do you want to do about the guest?"

"Guest?" Jazz looked blank for a second, then chagrined. "Oh, shit, I forgot. Susannah, right? She's still here?"

"She's upstairs. What do you want to do with her?"

Jazz sighed long-sufferingly. "I guess I'll take her for the night. Tomorrow we can figure out a long-term solution. New identity, new life—"

"Let's just get through the rest of the day without anybody else dropping dead," Lucia said.

"Sounds like a good plan."

They trooped wearily up the stairs, pausing for the obligatory code entries, and as he opened the top door, Manny said, "Pansy, we're—"

And Susannah Davis shot him.

The sound of the hot crack echoed off of concrete and steel. Manny staggered back into Jazz, who caught him reflexively, yelling something Lucia couldn't catch because she was already moving past Jazz and Manny, cutting behind a concrete pillar.

Susannah Davis had a gun, and she had Pansy as a shield. She was holding Pansy's silky black hair in one hand, pulling her onto her tiptoes to keep her in place. Pansy appeared terrified, eyes round in horror. Susannah jerked her backward, moving fast, trying to keep the killing angle.

Lucia instinctively went for her gun.

Empty holster. They'd shipped their guns back. Damnation. There would be a small arsenal in the Hummer, but there wasn't time to fetch it. Manny had been hit in the stomach, and he needed a doctor now. He was propped up against Jazz in the doorway, holding his hands over the wound, staring at Pansy and Susannah. God, there was a lot of blood.

"Don't you dare," he whispered. "Don't you dare hurt her."

"I don't want her," Susannah said. "Callender. Garza. Out here, now. I'll let her go if you step out."

Lucia exchanged a quick look with Jazz. There was desperation in Jazz's eyes. Think of something. Anything.

McCarthy was even more helpless, trapped behind Jazz on the stairwell. Unarmed.

Lucia didn't see any way out of it.

"Seriously," Susannah said. "I'll blow her head off. I swear." She sounded so very different from the beaten woman Lucia had rescued in the parking garage, and the scared one who'd talked about her abusive husband. Even from the manipulative fragile one who'd talked about the SubTropolis conspiracy.