Generation 18: The Spook Squad 2 (6 page)

So why wouldn’t he talk? The budgie, maybe?

“That your girlfriend up there, Max? Why don’t you invite her down for a chat?”

His gaze jumped to the ceiling, and his growing look of horror was one she didn’t understand.

“What do you mean?” he whispered.

“I mean that mean-looking blue bird who keeps trying to shit all over me. She the jealous type, perhaps? Or doesn’t she know about the sidelines you have going?”

“Yes. I mean, no.” Max hesitated, licking his lips. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

But they were involved at a basic level, at least. Why else would he smell of sex?

“The sooner you tell me what you know, the sooner you and your girlfriend can get back to business.”

His cheeks reddened slightly, and he looked like a kid caught lying to a teacher. “I can’t tell you anything, Officer.”

“Then maybe I’ll have to interview your girlfriend.” She clicked the safety off and aimed the stun gun at the ceiling. “I’ll shoot every one of them if that’s what it takes.”

She wouldn’t, but Max didn’t know that. And he’d seen Jack in action often enough to think she meant what she said.

Max sighed and rubbed his eyes, looking suddenly defeated. “She means it.”

For several seconds nothing happened. But the birds flying above her head seemed less frantic. Something blue and green fluttered to her left, briefly catching her attention. But it was only a couple of the birds coming to rest on the edge of Max’s desk. Actual birds, not a shapechanger.

Power ran across Sam’s skin, a faint tingle that burned a warning into her soul. The shapechanger was on her
right
.

She turned, stun gun rising. But she wasn’t fast enough by half.

Something smashed into the side of her head and the lights went out.

E
RROL
S
TREET SAT IN THE
heart of government-owned housing. Gabriel slowed the car, searching for numbers on the shabby-looking brick-and-concrete residences.

Twelve…fourteen. He stopped and climbed out. The wind swirled around him, thick with the scent of rain. He glanced skyward. The clouds were black and looked ready to burst. He reached for his coat, shrugging it on as he walked across the road.

Number fourteen was different from its neighbors in that no one had tended the garden for at least a month. Weeds twined their way through the imitation picket fence, crowding the sad-looking roses, and what there was of the lawn had died some time ago.

The house itself was little better. The porch drooped at one end, as if the foundation had given way. Several of the front windows were smashed and had been roughly boarded up. The second story looked thrown on, and sections of the tin roofing rattled noisily in the wind. Gabriel walked up to the front door and rang the bell. He waited several minutes for someone to answer. When there was no response, he knocked loudly. Still no one came to the door. He stepped back and studied the second story. No lights; no sound.

The house looked and felt deserted.

He walked around to the back. Several sweaters and skirts hung on the line, flapping forlornly in the wind. If the bird shit caking the side of one navy skirt was any indication, they’d been there for a while.

The back door was locked. He stepped back and kicked it open. The handle gouged out a large chunk of plasterboard from the wall behind the door and dust flew high, making him sneeze.

Clothes lay scattered on the laundry floor—whites separated from colors, but both piles gathering dust. He stepped past them and into the hallway.

The air smelled stale, as if the house had been locked up for a long time. He turned right and found himself in the kitchen. A loaf of bread sat on a board near the sink, so green it was almost unrecognizable. A carton of milk sat nearby—and even from where he stood, he could smell its pungent sourness. Someone had prepared breakfast and not come back to clean up.

Both the dining room and the living room were empty of life. The stairs were at the back of the house, but on the first step, he stopped. No light filtered down from above. Darkness hunched at the top of the stairs like some demon waiting to pounce. But it wasn’t the lack of light that stopped him. It was the smell. Meat, long gone rancid.

Death waited above.

He slowly climbed the stairs. Darkness wrapped around him, as heavy as a cloak. On the top step, he hesitated, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Shapes loomed out of the blackness—several bookcases lining the walls on either side of the doors.

The odor came from the room on his left. He walked through the doorway.

Emma Pierce sat up in bed, her body supported by several cushions, watching a TV that no longer worked. Her eyes were still open, her jaw hanging loose. Her skin had a waxy look to it, pale cream in color tending to green near her neck. A tray, containing a half-eaten slice of molding toast and a cup of what looked to have been coffee, sat by her side.

Her death obviously wasn’t recent. And given how cold it had been lately, she could easily have been dead for over a month. Bodies tended to deteriorate far slower in lower temperatures. While her death appeared to be natural, he couldn’t take any chances. Not when Emma Pierce was related to at least two murder victims.

He called in an SIU cleanup team, then put on some gloves and walked over to the window, opening the blind. Light flooded into the room, highlighting the decay—human and otherwise. Several envelopes sat on top of the drawers next to the bed. He picked them up. Bills, mostly. But one envelope caught his eye, because the return address was Hopeworth.

He tore it open. It was a letter from Dr. Frank Lloyd, asking Emma to contact him immediately. The request was dated August 17—the day after the first murder. He wondered if there was a connection—and if Hopeworth knew anything about it. Not that they were likely to tell him. The people at Hopeworth were something of a law unto themselves. He put the letter in his pocket and opened the first of the drawers. Neither the drawers nor the room itself gave up any further secrets.

In the second bedroom, he discovered a wardrobe full of clothes—modern stuff, not the type worn by most women in their fifties. Someone else had stayed in the house with Emma, and for some time, if the range of apparel was anything to go by.

So where was that person now? And why hadn’t she reported Emma’s death to the authorities?

He searched the remaining bedroom, but he didn’t find anything else, so he went back downstairs.

He was in the kitchen when the pain hit. Fire flashed through his brain and sent him stumbling forward. He grabbed the counter, holding on as the kitchen danced around him. Sweat rolled into his eyes, stinging, blurring his vision. For an instant, everything went black.

Then it was gone, as swiftly as it had come. Leaving him with the certainty that Sam was in trouble.

“Assistant Director, are you okay?”

He swung around. Michaels stood in the doorway, regarding him with concern.

“No. I think the smell finally got to me.” He took a deep breath, fighting the urgency beating through his veins. “The body’s upstairs.”

“Foul play evident?”

“No, but look for it. I want cellular analyses included.”

Michaels frowned. “That’ll take some time.”

“Emma Pierce has nothing but time. Get the sweepers into the second bedroom, too. Someone else has been staying here, so see if you can pick up any DNA traces.”

Someone had cared enough to stay here and look after Emma as death approached. So why hadn’t she cared enough to report the death and bury her?

Michaels nodded. “You want us to contact you if we find anything?”

“Yes. Send the results through as soon as you have them.”

“Right.” Michaels headed for the stairs.

Gabriel tapped the wristcom’s contact button, then said, “Place a call to the SIU.” The screen went blank for a moment, then the SIU’s digital secretary answered.

“Christine, have we got a location signal on Agent Ryan?”

“Sector Five. One-five-six George Street, Fitzroy.”

“Anything of importance at that location?”

“It is commonly known as the rave district.”

Gabriel swore softly. While he’d asked her to investigate who might have supplied Jadrone to Harry, he hadn’t expected her to practically run out the door the minute he’d left her office. “Any reports of trouble in that area?”

“None, sir.”

No reports of trouble, no indication that Sam herself was in trouble. So why was he so certain that she was? “Christine, send someone to collect my car. I’m heading out to join Agent Ryan.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the connection broke, he walked outside and called to his alternate shape. Power surged, burning through his body, snatching away sensation and pain as every nerve ending shuddered, twisted, to find new form. Then the sensation died, and an odd sense of emptiness followed. A heartbeat later, he was a hawk soaring skyward, heading toward the city.

Smoke tickled Sam’s throat, making her cough. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry, empty of saliva. Her throat felt raw, parched, as if she’d scalded it. Even her lungs burned.

She groaned and rolled onto her back. Moisture ran past her ear, tickling her scalp. She swatted at it and her fingers came away damp. It was a sticky dampness, like blood.

Why was she bleeding? Had someone hit her over the head? Maybe the budgie had been armed with a big brown club. The image made her smile, but only for a second. Smoke swirled, thicker than before, catching in her throat.

Urgency began to beat through her, but it was distant, muted, as if fighting its way through a veil.

She opened her eyes. The budgies flew above her, their movements frantic, panicked. High-pitched cries of terror itched at her ears as they desperately sought an exit. One that the shapechanger must have blocked after her departure, because there was no trace left of a changer in the room.

Frowning, Sam turned her head. Across the room fire roared, gold and red. It not only reached bloody fingers toward the ceiling, but was spreading swiftly toward the desk and the fat man. A fat man whose shoes had started burning.

“Please,” Max said, his voice a mix of hysteria and urgency. “Help me.”

The flames were beginning to reach his trousers. His legs jumped and twitched, as if in time to the silent music of the fire.

“Officer Ryan! Get up! Help me! Please!”

The desperation in his voice bit through the fog enveloping her mind. She groaned and rolled onto her hands and knees. Her stomach heaved, jumping into her throat, and sweat beaded her forehead. Heat flashed across her skin, followed quickly by an icy chill.

Swallowing heavily, she inched forward. The flames raced up Max’s trousers.
Too fast,
some dim part of her mind protested. Max wore only natural fibers—wool usually. Only some form of accelerant would make his clothes burn so quickly. She sniffed the air and caught a trace of gas.

She swore and reached the wall, inching herself upward. It was like moving through glue, as if her mind and her limbs were on separate planes. Snagging the fire extinguisher from the wall, she pulled out the safety catch, then pressed the lever and turned. Foam gushed from the nozzle—a blue-white cloud that arced across the room like cannon-blasted snow.

Max screamed when it hit him—or maybe he’d always been screaming and it just hadn’t registered until now. The flames hissed as they died, and the smoke in the room became thicker. She coughed, her vision blurring with the tears streaming down her face. When she could no longer see the flames eating Max, she turned the extinguisher on the rest of the fire.

The door behind her flew open. Men dressed in black and gold ran in, hauling silver snakes that reared up and spewed water at the flames. Her vision wavered. She dropped the extinguisher and reached out for the wall. It danced away, laughing.

Then the floor rushed up to greet her.

Outside the darkened ambulance in which Sam sat, someone slammed a car door. The noise vibrated right through her, then reached into her brain and squeezed tight. She groaned and held her head in her hands. Any minute now, it was going to explode. A head could take only so much pain, and hers had surely reached saturation point.

She wouldn’t mind so much if it were only her head, but her whole damn body ached just as fiercely, and her stomach felt about as steady as an umbrella in a windstorm. If she moved, she’d puke—no doubt about it.

Footsteps approached the ambulance. They rebounded through her brain like a freight train. Then the rear door opened and light flooded in.

She hissed and squeezed her eyes shut. “Shut the door, damn you.”

The door closed softly. She took a deep breath, waiting for the pain behind her eyes to subside a little. The ambulance creaked as someone sat on the seat opposite. The earthy scent of exotic spices, mixed with the warm freshness of the sun and the wind, washed over her.
Gabriel
, she thought, and bit back another groan. That was all she needed right now. Her damn partner, here to witness the mess she’d made of a simple questioning.

She leaned back against the ambulance’s cool metal wall, not opening her eyes, not wanting to see the anger in his.

“You okay?” His voice was little more than a whisper, devoid of emotion.

“No,” she muttered. “I feel like shit.”

He was silent for a second, but she could feel his gaze on her. Assessing. Watchful.

“The doctor said he wants you in the hospital.”

“The doctor can go to hell.” And she’d told him as much, several times already. She needed rest, not endless pokes and prods from curious medical staff.

“He says you’re lucky to be alive.”

She didn’t feel lucky. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and opened her eyes. He was leaning forward, chin resting on his interlocked fingers, regarding her with an odd expression in his warm hazel eyes. Had it been anyone else, she might have thought it was concern.