Broken (6 page)

“
She is innocent,” Old Man Winter said, his eyes slitting at Zack. “I doubt you will need to do much to gain her confidence other than show her some attention and perhaps some minor affection. Keep in mind that you will be the first person other than her mother to try and establish any connection with her.”

“
All right,” Zack said, and his voice was a little stronger now. I could see the doubt percolating behind his eyes, but he nodded. “I can talk with her, try and … sway her decision to stay, or at least try.”

“
Excellent,” Old Man Winter said, cocking his head, blue eyes glaring with cold. “I had heard … that you would be a reliable person in this matter. Someone we can … count on.”

The world of Old Man Winter’s office faded, slipping away as surely as if I were falling through the floor. Everything went black around me, and I awoke with a sharp intake of breath, the cold air frosting in front of me. The temperature had dropped before I made it to the car, and by the time I had driven back to the farmhouse and raided Parks’ stash of weapons it was well below freezing. I blinked the spots of light out of my eyes; I was still parked just outside the back door and the light was shining down on me. I took another breath, felt the cold air fill my nose and lungs, and realized that as I awakened, I could feel Zack recede to a dark place in the back of my head. I wanted to reach out to him, to bring him forward like the others, but I couldn’t figure out how.

I lifted my head off the headrest and saw my new, pay-as-you-go cellphone sitting where I had left it in the cup holder below the front seat. I picked it up, watching the little blue LED indicator blinking to tell me I had a message. I thumbed it on and saw the time—four-thirty in the morning. I had been asleep for hours, and the chill had seeped in, and I realized that I felt it all the way through my aching body. I flipped to the message, which was a simple text, from Kurt:

Tomorrow. Nine AM
.

He followed it with an address in St. Paul which was north of downtown, about a thirty-minute drive from my house. I cursed under my breath. I had an hour’s drive just to get back home, and unless I wanted to go to bed covered in mud I’d have to shower. I’d be lucky to make it to bed before six a.m. I sighed and leaned my head against the headrest and shut my eyes again, just for a minute.

This one was for you, Zack
, I thought. I felt the stir of the other three, but not him.

It was a very good job, Little Doll. A very good first step
.

“
Thanks for nothing.” I fumbled and stuck the keys in the ignition, whilst trying to rub my hands enough to create some warmth. I eyed the light above Parks’s door one last time as I shifted the car into drive. I ignored the groans of protest from the cold car as I turned around in the frozen driveway and headed up the dirt road back to the highway.

7.

“
He’s gonna be a tough one,” Kurt said, squinting his piggy eyes in the glare of the sunlight.

“
Always has been,” I said. I wore dark glasses, not only because of the sun shining overhead but because I didn’t feel like having people look me in the eyes right now. “Why should it be any different when the time comes for him to die?”

There was a grunt of almost-amusement from the big man, and he nodded toward a building in the distance. The air was cold but not bitterly so. The sun had warmed it, and temperatures were back above freezing. We stood in a vacant lot, the ground soft beneath our feet as we stared at the ramshackle brick building across the street. It was a bar, an old one, and it looked as though it might fall down at any given moment. The decaying red brick looked as if it had been built a hundred years ago and repurposed into a bar in the last twenty or so. My eyes swept the street and found more of the same. The whole avenue was near-empty save a few parked cars, one of which was sitting on concrete blocks. In a parking space. Parallel parked. I shook my head at that, wondering if it had been the owner’s choice and somehow doubting it. The whole place smelled of old diesel exhaust and oil, as if all the years of being near a major thoroughfare had left an olfactory mark on the neighborhood.

“
Wanna go over it again?” Kurt asked, jamming his ham-like hands deeper into the pockets of his brown trench coat. A fedora was all that was missing to reinforce the illusion that he was a first-rate private eye from the thirties. I scanned the street again; the neighborhood was only helping that illusion.

“
Simple enough,” I said, throwing a hand out to point at the bar. “He’s got a night off, he gets hammered in there, stumbles out around one a.m. if the pattern holds.” I glared at the front door of the bar, which was red. “After that, it’s all up to me.”

“
So, what are you gonna do?” Hannegan stared into the lenses of my glasses.

I felt a flash of annoyance but kept myself level. “Let me worry about that. What about the next one?”

He shook his head. “Eve’s still in the Cities, but I’m having a harder time tracking her down because she’s not hanging out with any of the guys. Same with Bastian. Not exactly buddy-buddy with Jackson or any of the others.”

A cold wind whistled through, loud enough to blot out my hearing for a minute. “And Winter?”

“
Working on it,” Kurt said brusquely. “But trust me, you don’t wanna even think about going after him until you thin out the M-Squad ranks a little more. Taking out Parks didn’t really do you much good, though, since he wasn’t even working for Winter anymore—”

“
It did me worlds of good,” I said, and stared at the front door of the bar, off in the distance. “Trust me.” I held the glare on the bar. “One other thing.”

“
Hm?” Kurt had started to turn away, to head back to his car. “What?”

I licked my lips. “Did Zack ever say anything to you about Old Man Winter making him an offer when I first got to the Directorate?” I watched Hannegan’s reaction; the big man froze in place, his whole frame stiffening. “Something about getting close to me in exchange for more money and a promotion?”

“
I … uh … “ Hannegan opened his mouth slightly, and turned his big body away from me to face the alleyway that we would have to walk back down to get to our cars. “He … might have mentioned something like that at the time, but I don’t know that he went through with it.”

“
Then why are you cringing, Kurt?” I stared him down; he wouldn’t have been able to see me flinch under the dark glasses I was wearing anyway.

“
You know, he’s dead,” Hannegan said abruptly.

“
I did notice that, yes,” I said coldly.

“
Might wanna just let that one lie.” Hannegan looked back at me, stared me right in the sunglasses. “The man wasn’t a saint, you know.”

“
That’s interesting. He’s as dead as one.”

Hannegan took a deep breath. “I just meant … for what you’re doing now, it might not bear a lot of deep scrutinizing about how the Directorate ran. You know what they did to him was meant for you, anyway, right? It had nothing to do with him. He was just … “ Hannegan’s voice trailed off, and a look of disgust cropped up over his blighted features, “… a human. Expendable. In the way.”

“
I know what they did,” I said, looking back to the red door of the bar, “and I know how he felt, however we might have started.” I said the words, trying to believe them down the core of me, “and I know what’s going to happen when I meet Clyde Clary, when he stumbles out of that bar.” I looked back across the deserted urban blight, only a few blocks away, as something I had seen on the satellite view of the map stood out to me. It was a crane, with its hook hanging high above the small buildings that dotted the landscape around me. “I know just what to do with … him.” And I smiled.

8.

The night was warmer, which fit well with my plans. The temperature was above freezing, but I still remained bundled in my coat as I lingered close to the alley entrance where Kurt and I had watched the bar. The chill had seeped in after a while, numbing my skin. I took a sniff and caught the smell of oil, though it was mixed with smoke from people who had stepped out of the bar for a quick cigarette before dodging back inside. Every time the red door opened, loud music echoed down the quiet street. A dog barked in the distance. I pulled my coat tighter. I could feel the anticipation in my mind—not mine, but that of the others.

When is the rock man going to come out, Little Doll?

“
Why don’t you try calling me something else for variety? Like Precious. I could hear you saying Precious and making it sound appropriately Gollum-y.”

Wolfe senses that you’re making fun of him, Little Doll
.

“
You have a good sense—in that area, at least.” I peered at the red door, willing it to open, to discharge the one stupid soul I wanted to spill out onto the sidewalk. I hoped he was especially drunk tonight; it would make my job easier.

Not very nice, Little Doll.

“
I remember when I used to be nice.” I took a sniff of the cool air then almost snorted it out. “I think it ended the day I watched a psychopath squeeze the life out of a man in a parking lot while he choked the hell out of me.”

Was that first time you saw death, Little Doll?

“
It was.” I blotted it out of my memory, the thought of that day. Two men had died, two young ones, in their twenties or so, just for trying to keep me from being killed. “It feels like I should remember them, remember their faces, but I can’t. They died for me, the first of so many, and I can’t even remember them.”

It gets easier
, the voice of Wolfe, dripping with sweet malice, came to me.
So much easier with time … and practice
.

“
You would know.” I sucked in another breath, and the red door opened as though on cue. A bulky figure staggered out onto the broken pavement in front of the bar, a shoulder slumping as though he were ready to fall. He caught himself in time, steadying, before executing a sloppy turn to his left and taking a few staggering steps down the sidewalk. I felt myself smile, then let it disappear when I realized there was no joy behind it at all. “Showtime.”

I crossed the street without fear; a car hadn’t come by in the last hour I had been here, at least. Every step was heavy for me, and time was dragging slowly past. I kept focused on him, Clyde Clary, his bulk stumbling down the street with every sauntering step. He looked like an ape, shambling along, the missing link in the evolutionary chain. He had steadied himself a bit and was almost walking upright now—quite an accomplishment for him, I figured. I took in cold breaths of air, thankful once more that the temperature hovered above freezing. I stepped over a patch of brown grass as I mounted the curb and stepped onto the sidewalk behind him.

His steps were slow, shuffling, but when I was two feet behind him, he spun, faster than I would have thought possible in his present condition. “You picked the wrong guy to mug and on the wrong night,” he said, throwing a hand out at me.

I backflipped into the air and landed ten feet from where I started. He stood there, staring, open-jawed, a blank look on his face as I landed delicately and stood straight up again. “What the?” His tone was dull, almost disbelief.

“
Hello, Clyde,” I said, still wearing my sunglasses. I was wearing a shorter coat now, a leather one that reached only to my waist. Between it and the seething rage I was carrying, I felt like a little bit of a badass. “It’s so good to see you.”

He blinked at me, standing slack where he’d been when I approached him. His hands were at his side, and he was flat-footed. “What are you doing here?” He slurred his words and there was a tinge of innocence to his question, as if he was genuinely curious.

“
Why, Clyde,” I said, noting he didn’t seem upset by my using his first name, “are you surprised to see me?”

“
Well, yeah.” The look on his face was so dull, I realized he hadn’t come close to working out why I was here. Not yet, anyway.

“
You shouldn’t be.” I cracked my knuckles and his eyes darted down to where my hands rested in front of me. I saw the slight widening of his eyes and I smiled in acknowledgment. “That’s right,” I said as I raised my bare hands up in front of my face. “The gloves are off, Clary.”

He let out an almost weary sigh. “Girl, you know you can’t hurt me with those.” His head turned back toward me and in an eyeblink his skin had turned metal, as if liquid steel had been poured over him and conformed to every bump and scar on his bulky frame. “Just go on, now. Go on back home.” He waved a hand at me like he was shooing off a wayward dog.

“
I don’t have a home anymore,” I said, glaring him down behind my sunglasses. The lenses were tinted enough so that he couldn’t see my eyes, but they were shaded in a way that I had no problem seeing everything around me. “Don’t you remember? You took it from me.” I slowly took my first step toward him.

He shook his head at me. “Girl—”

“
My name isn’t ‘Girl’.” My voice crackled with quiet fury down the abandoned street and Clary took a step back. “You’ll remember that before we’re finished.”