Circle of death, p.7
Circle of Death, page 7
Victim A is a teenage boy. He’s lying on a patch of dirt with tracks from heavy equipment running beneath him. There’s a painted wooden survey stake showing in the upper corner. A construction site. His body is splayed at an odd angle, arms and legs bent. His skull has been cratered by a massive blow. His eyes are open and staring.
And his face has been painted with garish green paint. Like some kind of monster.
Margo spreads out the rest of the pictures. The other boy. The two girls. Similar locations. Identical head wounds. Same green faces. Like some sick ritual.
“Is it a copycat?” asks Margo. “Somebody imitating an old Shadow enemy?”
I’ve got a pretty good memory for crimes, and I’d never forget something like this. I shake my head. “No. This is somebody new.”
We both look up as the front door opens. Maddy walks in with her backpack over her shoulder. She looks exhausted, and her hair is wilder than usual. Margo quickly slides the pictures back into the folder, but Maddy picks up on it. She stops at the bottom of the staircase.
“What’s that?” she asks.
“Nothing,” says Margo. “Just a local case we’re looking into.”
“Another case?” Maddy shakes her head. “Do you two ever stop?”
“How are things going with Dache?” Margo asks.
“Pain in my ass,” Maddy replies. “But interesting.”
Interesting? I’ll take that as progress.
Maddy grabs the banister and propels herself upstairs. Margo slides the folder into a drawer. I follow Maddy and catch up with her in the hallway.
“Maddy. Hold on. I need to tell you something.”
“Can it wait?” she says, sniffing her shirt. “I really need a shower.”
“No, it can’t. This is important.” I take a step closer. “Listen. I want you to stay away from the World’s Fair, okay? Promise me.”
Maddy looks at me like I’m out of my mind. “Why the hell would I ever go to the World’s Fair?” she says. She turns and heads off down the hall, calling back over her shoulder, “Grandma’s right. The whole thing feels like a creep show.”
CHAPTER 26
LATE THAT NIGHT, Moe weaves the limo through Manhattan traffic. His grip on the wheel is tighter than usual.
“Don’t be nervous, Moe,” Maddy calls out from the backseat. “I’ll never tell.”
“Maybe you haven’t heard,” Moe replies, glancing in the rearview mirror. “The Shadow knows! He always knows.”
Maddy is sitting next to Deva on the plush gray leather. And she understands why Moe is so anxious. It’s because she’s talked him into sneaking the limo out of the garage and being their chauffeur for a girls’ night out.
“Where is this place?” asks Deva. Moe turns onto the West Side Highway and heads north.
“It’s a secret,” says Maddy, trying not to show how excited she is. It’s rare that she finds a place that Deva hasn’t heard of.
“Are you going to get into trouble at home?” Deva asks.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” says Maddy.
She’s borrowed another one of Deva’s dancing dresses, this one even more sparkly. But tonight she’s wearing shoes of her own—a pair that actually fits.
After a few minutes’ drive, Moe pulls off the highway onto a circular road running around the tip of Fort Tryon Park and heads up a steep hill. At the top is a dramatically lit building that looks like a medieval monastery.
Moe pulls the limo to a slow stop in front of the entrance. Maddy leans forward. “Thanks, Moe. You can scoot now. Sneak back into the garage. We’ll find a way home.”
“Like hell you will,” says Moe. “I’m waiting right here.”
Deva and Maddy slip out of the backseat and join the stylish crowd on the front steps. Maddy flashes her invite at the door and pulls Deva through the arched entrance, where the experience hits them full force.
“Holy shit!” Deva shouts.
The interior is a dazzling maze of exotic galleries and richly decorated chapels. Gothic. Romanesque. Spanish. The lighting style changes from space to space—from a soft amber glow to pulsing laser beams in neon colors.
Maddy and Deva follow the throbbing music to the central dance floor, set in a room surrounded by marble arches. The walls are marked with huge, pale patches.
“Where the hell are we?” Deva shouts.
“Used to be a museum,” Maddy shouts back. “But the last regime stole all the art!”
The swell of the crowd pushes them forward. The energy is insane. The sound bounces off the stone and vibrates through the floor. Maddy is thinking this is what it must be like to be inside a jet engine. Or an active volcano.
Some dancers move in pairs, but most are just soloing, gyrating and grinding with anybody and everybody in proximity, forming a living mosaic of faces and bodies. Maddy closes her eyes and spins next to Deva, arms over her head. She jumps and bounces and tosses her hips. When she looks again, Deva is several yards away, spinning in an adjacent vortex.
Now a new group swings into Maddy’s orbit. A tiny girl with maroon-tinted hair pulls a guy by his belt. She moves with the grace of a ballerina. He’s thick and muscle-bound, and taller than his partner by half a foot. His sweaty face is just inches from Maddy’s. She can feel the heat radiating from his torso. She tries to avoid his pumping arms, but he takes up a lot of space. Then Maddy realizes that he’s looking at her. Staring at her.
The guy grabs the maroon-haired girl by the waist. He pulls her close, yelling into her ear. Now the girl is looking at Maddy, too. Maddy spies Deva across the floor and tries to slip through the crowd toward her.
“It’s you!” the guy shouts. He’s pointing at Maddy, jabbing his finger toward her, almost touching her head. “I knew it!”
Now he’s tugging at other dancers. They start looking, too. The guy won’t let up.
“It’s her! Right?” Slowly, the crowd starts to circle around Maddy. She’s feeling trapped.
“Times Square!” a girl shouts.
“Lightning!” shouts another.
Maddy spins left and right, feeling the pressure all around her. Now she gets it. The battle with Khan. The spectators. Hiding in buildings, cowering behind cars. Some of them saw her face. It was the most spectacular event of their lives, and she was at the center of it.
The music is still pulsing, but the dancing has just about stopped. Now people are reaching for Maddy, grabbing at her. “We love you!” She feels like she’s about to be torn apart for souvenirs. Deva is just a few feet away now. Maddy grabs her hand. Deva looks excited, then terrified.
“Shoot a bolt for us!” a man yells.
Maddy ducks her head, hooks Deva’s arm, and spears her way through the crowd. Behind her, the shouts grow. “Light-ning! Light-ning!”
Maddy shoves her way to the door and pushes it open. The cool night air hits her like a blast. Deva stumbles along behind her.
Maddy looks left, then right.
Moe! Where’s Moe? Did he wimp out and head home after all?
The crowd surges out of the club behind them. Maddy pulls Deva down the driveway, just a few yards ahead of the crazed fans. Suddenly, they’re hit by the glare of headlights heading right toward them.
The limo pulls up and stops with a jolt. Maddy yanks the rear door open and shoves Deva onto the backseat, then jumps in after her. She slams the door as the crowd surges around the vehicle. She kicks the back of the front seat.
“I hear you’re a great driver, Moe! Prove it!”
CHAPTER 27
PLAY. PAUSE. REWIND. Replay.
I’m in my study on the second floor, looking at the Destroyer video again, searching for clues. As if I’m going to see something I missed the first hundred times. It’s no use. Same blood. Same bodies. Same horror. I click the player off and rub my eyes. I look up at the clock. Two a.m.? Is that possible?
I turn out the lights and walk upstairs to Maddy’s room for a bed check. I open the door gently and peek in. The bed is empty. I’m irritated. No. Angry. This is the second curfew she’s blown through in a week. Where is she this time, I wonder. I close the door and step back into the hallway.
Wait. Now that I think about it, where is everybody?
I left them all down in the parlor a few hours ago, but I never heard anyone coming upstairs. Margo never goes to bed without telling me. Never.
As I start down the main staircase, something makes my neck hairs start prickling. I can’t explain it, but something’s off. That’s not a secret power. Just simple human instinct. I jump down the rest of the steps and head into the kitchen. Empty. When I turn the corner into the front parlor—my heart stops.
I spot Margo first. She’s lying on the floor, not moving. There’s a shattered martini glass by her hand. I swing right. I see Jessica. She’s lying on the carpet by the fireplace next to Bando, both of them as still as death. Burbank is slumped in a chair in the corner, with a shiny stream of saliva running down his chin.
I kick the broken glass away from Margo and drop to my knees. I pull her onto my lap and turn her face toward me. “Margo! What happened?” I run my hands over her neck, her back, her legs. No marks. No wounds. I put my arm under her shoulders and raise her partway up. Her chest is moving, but barely.
Suddenly, there’s a deep voice from the entryway. “Sorry, boss.”
I swivel around, shielding Margo with my body.
It’s Jericho. He’s pulling a respirator off his face. “I was mixing some knockout gas downstairs. I guess some of the vapors came up through the parlor vents.” He waves his hand in front of his face. “Should be gone now. Short half-life.”
Across the room, Bando shudders and staggers to his feet. Jessica coughs and raises herself onto her elbows. Burbank blinks and wipes the drool off his chin.
I can feel Margo stirring in my arms. She shudders, then slowly lifts her head.
“Wow,” she mumbles. “That was some cocktail.”
CHAPTER 28
“I’M FINE,” SAYS Deva. “You should get home. Really.”
“I know you’re fine,” says Maddy. “I need the air.”
It’s no more than a dozen yards from the street to Deva’s front door, but Maddy insists on walking her anyway. As soon as they pulled up, she understood why Deva asked to be picked up near school instead of at home.
This is the first time Maddy’s seen where Deva lives. And it’s depressing. Deva’s house is a battered brownstone across from a massive abandoned public housing project—a haven for squatters and worse. It’s one of the many pockets of the city that the restoration has skipped over or ignored.
Most apartments in this sector of the city have only one or two working lights. Everything else is dark. No traffic lights. No streetlights. The small patches of greenery are overgrown with weeds, and bins of refuse fill the yards. In this part of town, garbage doesn’t get collected; it gets burned. The acrid smell hangs in the air. Maddy can hear the echoes of guard dogs barking down the street.
Deva is clearly embarrassed. “I’m sorry that this is me.”
Maddy brushes it off. “Are you kidding? You should see some of the places I’ve lived.” She squeezes Deva’s arm. “They’ll get to this block eventually. You’ll see. Just be patient.”
Deva reaches for the doorknob.
“Deva, wait.” Maddy doesn’t want to ask, but she has to. Deva turns around.
“Did you know?” Maddy says.
“Know? Know what?”
Maddy folds her arms over her chest. “About my powers. About what I did. About who I am.”
Deva glances down for a moment, then looks up to meet Maddy’s eyes. “Of course I knew,” she says. “I was there. In Times Square. That day. I saw you. I saw the whole thing. Lightning bolts and all.”
Maddy gets a twinge in her belly. She runs her fingers along a rusted railing. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
Deva takes a step toward her. “Because I didn’t want you to think that’s why I wanted to be friends.”
“Are you sure it’s not?”
“Yes,” says Deva firmly. “I’m sure. It was never about that.” She leans in and cracks a smile. “It’s because you let me cheat off your Criminal Procedures quiz.”
Maddy laughs. True or not, she’ll take it. “Okay,” she says. “That’s definitely a solid basis for a friendship.”
“So, we’re good?” asks Deva.
“Absolutely,” says Maddy. “I’m sorry. It’s stupid. I just had to ask.”
“No problem,” says Deva. “I wouldn’t want you to feel I liked you for the wrong reason.” She moves a step closer.
Before Maddy realizes what’s happening, Deva moves in tight and kisses her on the mouth. Gentle, but passionate. Maddy freezes for a second, then starts to pull away. Then her arms wrap around Deva’s shoulders and she starts to kiss back. Her heart is racing. She’s surprised. Excited. Confused. Has she been missing signals this whole time? Or maybe ignoring them?
Deva gently breaks off the kiss and cups Maddy’s face in her hands. “Great night,” she says. She quietly opens the door and slips inside. Maddy just watches. Her heart is pounding. Her head is swimming.
She turns toward the street. In the glow of the limo’s dome light, she sees Moe’s head whip around to face front. She walks down the sidewalk and reaches for the front passenger door. She pulls it open and slides into the front seat, then just sits there for a few seconds, breathing out and breathing in.
“Home?” asks Moe.
Maddy nods.
Moe eases the car slowly away from the curb. Maddy can still feel the blood flushing her cheeks. “Not one word,” she says.
“About what?”
“About what you just saw.”
Moe shrugs. “My eyes aren’t what they used to be.”
CHAPTER 29
DAWN IS BARELY breaking when I walk out of my bedroom in my robe the next morning. I heard Maddy come in at four. She’ll get a few choice words from me when she wakes up. Margo is still sound asleep. As I make the turn toward the stairs, I see Burbank pacing in the hall. He looks nervous or happy, or both. Burbank is a hard man to read, even for me—and I consider myself an expert. He looks up when he spots me.
“I need to show you something,” he says.
“Pre-coffee?” This better be important.
He nods. Clearly, it is. At least for him.
I follow him down the hall and up the back staircase to the third floor, where my live-in help used to reside. Cook. Housekeeper. Valet. Those were the days.
“So how do you feel?” I ask. “After the accidental sedation?”
“Fine. No cobwebs.”
I can’t remember the last time I was on the third floor. Probably a hundred and fifty years ago. Burbank shows me toward a cramped space under the attic stairs—an architectural dead end. Always bothered me.
I stop in the doorway and look in. I was not expecting this.
Burbank has made the place his own.
There’s a metal table with a desk chair against one wall. On the other side, the wall is lined with heavy-duty shelves, packed edge-to-edge with electronic devices. Controllers. Monitors. Meters. Scanners. The room is glowing from dozens of blinking LEDs. Wires and cables poke through ports in the walls and loop in fat coils on the floor.
“What do you think?” asks Burbank.
I take a step inside. “Where did all this come from?”
“The basement. It was a gold mine.”
“What about the power?” Residential voltage is still being rationed, even on the better streets like ours.
“I’m siphoning off the main municipal feed,” says Burbank. “I doubt we’ll trip any alerts. This stuff is pretty light on amps.”
“What the hell is this?” It’s Jericho, peeking in from the hallway. His room is directly underneath us. He must have heard our footsteps.
A few seconds later, Moe pops in right behind him. “Jesus! I wondered what Burbank was hiding up here,” he says. “I thought it might be a blow-up doll.”
I can see that Burbank isn’t happy about Jericho and Moe intruding. He seems to get anxious in close quarters—and this room is barely big enough for two people.
On the other hand, he clearly wants to show off. I think he wants to prove that he’s every bit as sharp at communications as the original Burbank.
I wave my hand toward the wall of gear. “Okay. I’m officially impressed. What have we got?”
Burbank adjusts his glasses and checks off the devices, shelf by shelf. “Alarm system. Comms panel. Video decks. Police channel. International tap. Network interface…”
“You’ve got internet up here?” asks Jericho, incredulous.
“Rudimentary,” says Burbank. “I can probably hack into the few networks that are still functioning, depending on signal strength and bandwidth.” He rattles on with a bunch of terms that are just gibberish to me. Transmission protocols. Packet-switching. Asynchronous transfer mode. But Moe and Jericho know exactly what he’s talking about, and I can see they’re amazed.
“And check this out,” says Burbank.
He taps a few buttons and a panel of video monitors lights up with rotating views of my whole property—from the front entrance to the back garden. On a monitor covering the rear lawn, we can see two figures clearly. One is Jessica, leaning on a stone railing. The other is Bando, forcefully relieving himself.
“You better not have a tap in my bathroom,” says Jericho.
From what I can see, this has to be one of the most sophisticated comms setups in the city. Definitely the best I’ve ever seen.
“Nice work, Burbank.” I pat him on the shoulder. He flinches slightly.
Suddenly another monitor sounds a chirping alert. Our heads swivel to a screen on the top shelf. It’s showing a bird’s-eye view of the front driveway. As we watch, three armored vehicles pull in around the paved circle, leaving a wide space in front of the door.
