Nocturnal (70 page)

Aggie nodded again.

“You are to find this baby a good home,” she said. “You take him out of here, find him a good home, a loving home, a
safe
home.”

She stared at him, as if waiting for an answer, waiting for confirmation.

He had no idea what he should say.

“Repeat it,” she said. “A safe, loving home.”

“Yes, ma’am. A safe, loving home. But … well, how do I do that?”

Hillary pointed a finger at the ceiling. “You live up above. Find someone who wants a baby. Someone who will stay in San Francisco, do you understand? They have to
stay
here. You
must
find someone. Do you know people?”

Aggie had zero idea of who would take in a little black baby, but he nodded. “Sure, of course. I know people just like that.”

“Good,” she said. “I knew I chose right when I chose you. When you find the people who will take him” — she reached into her sweater pocket and pulled out an overstuffed brown envelope — “you give them this.”

Inside the envelope, Aggie saw a thick stack of hundreds.

“You listen to me now,” Hillary said. “You listen
carefully
. I have people up there. No matter where you go, we can find you by your
smell
. You do what I say, and you are free. You do not do what I say? Then wherever
you go, I will reach out from here and pull you back in, and then
you
will be the groom.”

That giant slug of a woman, being tied to the dolly, then the maze, the monster children … Aggie nodded madly. If this was the price of freedom, he would fulfill her mission.

“Yes, ma’am, I understand, but …” His voice trailed off. He wanted to ask a question, but what if the answer made her change her mind? No, with all the trouble she’d gone through, she wasn’t going to suddenly take the baby away. He
had
to ask.

“Why don’t you take him?” Aggie said. “I mean, I’ll do what you ask and thank you for letting me live,
thank you
, but why wouldn’t you just take him up yourself?”

She caressed the sleeping baby’s cheek. “I can’t go far from Home. When I am away from Mommy for too long, I start to change.”

“Change into what?”

She didn’t say anything. For a long moment, it was so quiet Aggie could hear her fingertips sliding across the baby’s cheek.

Finally, Hillary looked up. “You ask too many questions. Don’t you want to help me?”

Oh shit, had he blown it? Aggie nodded,
hard
. “Yes! I want to do this for you. Never mind I asked, just let me take the boy up,
please
.” He would find the boy a home. Forget the questions, that was stupid — all Aggie wanted was to get away from this crazy place and this crazy old woman.

She reached out again, but this time her fingertips caressed Aggie’s cheek. It took everything he had not to recoil in disgust.

“Now I let you go,” she said. “I give you life. In return, you give this baby a future.”

He nodded again, couldn’t stop himself from nodding. “Thank you, Hillary,” Aggie said, and he meant it. “I’ll do it.”

“Follow me, and be very silent. I will show you the way out.”

B
ryan Clauser at his side, Pookie Chang stepped out of the elevator onto the third floor of the SFGH mental health wing. Pookie had sweet-talked their way into the building. The staff was on edge, but Bryan’s badge helped overcome initial objections.

Pookie couldn’t wait to get his own badge back from Zou.

They walked down the hallway of Ward 7A. Pookie took note of the reinforced doors with their electronic locks. SFGH was one of the few places with a “psychiatric emergency room.” The hospital took in patients with all manner of psychiatric issues, and at all times of the night. It was to be expected that some of those patients were violent and needed secure holding facilities. That made 7A the most locked-down, defensible spot in the hospital, which was probably why Zou had put Erickson here.

Pookie and Bryan turned down a hall to their left. It wasn’t hard to spot which door led to Erickson’s room — the two men in full SWAT gear standing outside of it gave things away.

They wore thick black jackets made even bulkier by the body armor that covered them. The men had armored gloves and kneepads, heavy black boots, and black helmets with goggles waiting to be pulled down in front of their eyes. Black AR-15 assault rifles hung from their necks, barrels angled to the floor.

“They look serious,” Bryan said.

“You’re just jealous because they wear more black than you do,” Pookie said. The men did look serious, though, and not at all happy about pulling what appeared to be guard duty. “I know those guys.”

“Shocker,” Bryan said.

“The one on the left is Jeremy Ellis. The other guy is Matt Hickman. Come on.”

Pookie walked toward them. Bryan followed.

Helmeted heads swiveled toward them. Hickman’s hands flexed on his AR-15. Ellis held up a black-gloved hand, palm out.

“Hold it, Chang.”

Pookie stopped. “Jeremy, my man. How’s the softball team? Still doing the department proud with that three-fifteen average?”

Jeremy looked surprised. “Uh, three-seventeen.”

“A hitting streak? Awesome.”

Jeremy smiled, but only a little before his oh-so-serious cop face returned. “I’m guessing you want in here, but it’s not going to happen.”

Pookie thought of bringing up the fact that Hickman’s son was the starting point guard for Mission High, but it didn’t look like small talk was going to get him anywhere.

“Maybe you didn’t get the memo,” Pookie said. “Chief Zou reinstated us. She told the duty sergeant.”

Jeremy shook his head. “News to me. Last word I have is you guys aren’t cops. I’m not supposed to allow anyone in this room,
especially
you, Clauser.”

Bryan looked at the door. For a moment, Pookie wondered if Bryan might rush it. Hickman must have wondered the same thing, as the barrel of his gun moved up a tiny amount.

Jeremy pointed a black-gloved finger back down the hall. “Guys, do us all a favor and hit the road, okay?”

Bryan shook his head. “We just want to make sure Erickson is safe.”

“He is,” Jeremy said. “We have three guys on the roof and four more in a ready room they made for us downstairs. No one is getting in here. I’m not going to tell you again — get out of here.”

Pookie flashed his best smile. “All right, gents. Keep up the good work. Bryan, let’s go.”

Pookie started heading back down the hall. Bryan paused; his hands flexed into fists, then he followed. Pookie stayed tense until the elevator doors shut and he knew Bryan wouldn’t try to go back.

“Bri-Bri, Zou’s got it covered.”

Bryan didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know, man. What if one of those basement creatures attacks?”

“Then those creatures get shredded. Zou mapped it out for us, Bro. This isn’t chasing shadows in a darkened alley. The SWAT boys are serious business. They’ve got this.”

Bryan chewed at his lower lip. He nodded. “I guess. I’m still going to hang out on the hospital grounds tonight. You good for that?”

Pookie shrugged. “Sure. I’ll hang out here. Got to be some hospital-centric plotlines for
Blue Balls
that I can work on. And it’s not like I have to be up early for work tomorrow, as apparently we’re still unemployed. I wonder why Chief Zou didn’t call the sergeant like she said she would.”

When Amy Zou said she would do something, you could bank on it. Whatever the reason for her dragging her feet, it was probably a good one.

C
hief Amy Zou pulled into her garage. She came out of the car with her Sig Sauer up and at the ready, sweeping the barrel in a 360-degree arc around the garage.

Nothing.

No one had ever threatened her family before. No angry gangsters trying to get her to back off, no druglord’s promise of revenge, not even some thug receiving a sentence of twenty-to-life looking at her and saying
you’re gonna pay
. Nothing. Not until today.

She couldn’t quite draw in a full breath. Her chest seemed compressed, constricted. Over the course of her career, she’d been shot three times in the line of duty, shot
at
more times than that, and yet she had never felt this terrified.

The garage’s interior door led into the kitchen. She heard a movie playing in the living room. She moved as silently as she could, not really knowing why, hoping Rex and his creatures were dumb enough to be overconfident. Maybe she could sneak up on them and end this quick.

She heard something else — her daughter Tabz, crying softly.

If they hurt you, baby, if they laid a hand on you, I’ll kill them where they stand
.

Amy Zou moved into the kitchen. Finding it empty, she followed the sound of crying into the living room, the barrel of her pistol leading the way.

Her husband was on his knees, a gag tightly wrapped around his head and mouth, his hands tied behind his back. On Jack’s left stood a whimpering, gagged Tabz, her face streaked with tears, her arms wrapped in a death clutch around a teddy bear. On his right stood Mur, head tilted down, eyes glaring out from beneath her thick black hair. Mur was also gagged, but she didn’t really look scared — her expression reeked of anger and hatred.

Standing behind Amy’s family … 
monsters
.

Two of them. The first had short brown fur and a face like a dog. He was so big his head seemed to reach up to the ceiling. His bottom jaw skewed to the right, and his long pink tongue hung down off the left side. He wore flower-print Bermuda shorts and nothing else, save for a heavy, dirty blanket draped around his shoulders. He held a stockless, drum-fed
automatic shotgun — an Armsel Striker — in his left hand. He was so big he made the bulky weapon look like a pistol.

The shotgun was pointed at the back of Tabz’s head.

The other monster had a snake face and the girth of a bodybuilder, most of that bulk hidden beneath another ratty blanket. He wore jeans, work boots and a blue San Jose Sharks sweatshirt that strained at the seams. He had a gun, too — a .44 automag, the muzzle hovering less than an inch from Mur’s temple.

In between the two hulking nightmares, standing as calmly as you please behind her bound-and-gagged husband, was Rex Deprovdechuk. Amy knew, instantly, that this boy was completely in charge.

She pointed her Sig Sauer directly at his face. “They’re going to drop those guns and
get out
of my house. Tell them to do it now, Rex, or you’re going to die.”

Rex smiled. It was a pleasant smile, tolerant but not quite condescending, the kind a nice kid gives to adults he thinks are okay but still way uncool.

“Then both your daughters will have their brains blown all over your living room carpet,” he said. “Put down the gun, Missus Zou.”

Amy realized her hand was shaking. With a flick of her wrist and a pull of the trigger, she could kill the brown-furred one, then maybe get a snapshot at the snake-man. But could she do that before either of them fired, murdering her beautiful girls? And would her aim be dead-on if she couldn’t even keep her hands still?

In a hostage situation, you were never,
ever
supposed to give up your weapon. If she did that, she had no power.

Rex sighed. He seemed bored. “Missus Zou, just put it down.”

The dog-faced man pressed the shotgun barrel to the back of Tabz’s head. She cried louder. Her little body shook with sobs.

She’s just a baby don’t hurt my baby
 …

Amy lowered her weapon.

Rex pointed to a spot in front of Jack. “Right there, please.”

Don’t do it don’t give up your weapon don’t do it

Amy tossed the Sig Sauer. It hit the carpet with a light thud. The boy calmly walked around Tabz, picked up the pistol, then walked back behind her family to once again stand between the two monsters.

Amy was naked, helpless. “What do you want?”

Rex grinned and nodded slightly, an expression that said
I really want to help you out
.

“Tell me where Savior is,” he said. “Then, I want the names of everyone who knows about Marie’s Children. Finally, I want to arrange a meeting with those people.”

She couldn’t give the boy Savior’s location. They’d attack him, kill him. And what would they do to the other people who knew about Marie’s Children? Rich Verde, Sean Robertson, Jesse Sharrow, the mayor, Bryan and Pookie, Doctor Metz, Robin Hudson — Amy couldn’t put those people in danger.

“No one knows but me,” she said. She had to buy time, get word to Bryan, maybe, see if he could move Erickson to another location. “And Savior checked out of the hospital this morning. I don’t know where he went after that.”

The boy’s grin faded. He sighed and shook his head. A put-upon, exasperated teenage killer could decide if her family lived or died.

“Choose,” he said.

“Choose what?”

The boy spread his hands, the gesture taking in Amy Zou’s daughters and her husband. “Choose which one dies.”

Amy’s throat tightened. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. Why had she given up her weapon?
Why?

“Missus Zou, we’re wasting time. Choose.”

“I … no. Please, don’t kill anyone.”

Rex shook his head. “It’s too late for that. You can either choose one, or I can choose two.”

Her vision blurred briefly before a hot tear streaked down her cheek, leaving a cool tingling in its wake. She saw no doubt in Rex’s eyes.

“No … no
please
. Kill me instead. Let them go.”

Rex held up a hand, palm toward her, fingers pointed to the ceiling. “I’m going to count down from five,” he said.

“San Francisco General.” The words rushed out of her mouth. “Savior is there. I know which room.”

The boy nodded. “That’s great, Missus Zou. But you already made me tell you I was going to kill one. I can’t go back on my word. Choose.”

“But I told you! I know access codes to the building!”

“Five …”

“No! Wait,
wait
, I can get you those names.”

He bent his thumb in. “Four …”