Out of Sight (23 page)

“Y
ou can’t go on any longer,” Ben Fortune said.

Sykes wrenched his arm from the grip of Poppy’s oldest brother, who had accomplished, as only he could, an almost immediate transfer from Kauai in Hawaii, to New Orleans, together with his wife, Willow. Willow was Sykes’s younger sister.

“Please sleep for a little while,” Willow said softly, her red hair caught back in a band and her green eyes luminous in an unnaturally pallid face. Even her weeks in Kauai hadn’t been allowed to tan her skin. She was naturally very slight and ethereal but her appearance made her look ill today.

Sykes sat on the edge of a couch in the living room at his St. Peter Street house. He couldn’t face the chaos at the Court of Angels anymore. He covered his face with his hands, scrubbed them back over his hair and looked up at these two frantic people.

“She’s been gone almost twenty-four hours. With every hour we’re less likely to find her alive. I need to do my own thing and that doesn’t include sleep.
Please give me a little space. I’ll join the rest of you soon.”

“You’ve got an idea,” Ben said promptly. Another big, dark-haired man with navy-blue eyes that could skewer you, he moved in closer to Sykes. “Come on. Don’t keep anything from me.”

“Just accept what I’m asking, okay?” Sykes said. “There’s something I need to do on my own.”

“Dammit!” Ben shouted.

“No, no.” Willow found her husband’s hand and pulled him gently. “We’re not helping. Come on.”

Ben looked ready to argue some more, but instead he turned on his heel and left the house hand-in-hand with Willow.

Waiting only long enough to hear the front door close, Sykes shot to his feet, went to lock the door and ran to his studio at the back of the house.

He arrived in front of the angel on her plinth. Each time he looked at her, she appeared more detailed, more finished. Frustration overwhelmed him, brought a film of sweat out on his exhausted body.

Yanking the respirator over his head, he went for a fine-point chisel with a carbide tip and a hammer, pulled on shock-resistant gloves and leaned over the little figure. Almost all of her appeared perfect, all but the tips of the fingers on her right hand and a shapeless mass above this area.

Why was it so resistant to his efforts?

He took up a hammer and began work on the hand.

Twenty minutes later there was almost no change.

Sykes’s heart slammed in his chest. The thud echoed at his temples. It all took too long and told him nothing.

He took the hammer and smashed in down on the rough piece of stone above the hand. Immediately he stood back, horrified. The piece cracked. As he watched, part of it began to break away. He tore off the respirator. The beautiful figure was nothing like the pieces he chose to make, mostly for private consignment, but she was exquisite.

It was there. The ball that could only be the Harmony balanced at the end of the now-completed hand. Step by step he drew close and stared down on it. There was no angel in the courtyard like this. No ball all but suspended in air above an elegant hand.

Bringing his face very close, he examined the ball and almost stopped breathing. A single digit curved down from the top of the ball. Closer, he looked. What he was seeing was a claw with a talon and he could tell that the rest of whatever should be above the ball lay in crumbled pieces on the floor.

He had probably destroyed the final clue to what they must have to find the Ultimate Power.

The sound of quiet whining broke through the churning of his mind.

Mario sat looking up at him.

“They left you behind,” Sykes said. The dog had come with Ben and Willow. “I want you to go. Go home.” He heard his own ridiculous rant at a dumb dog and shut up.

The dog whined again and Sykes saw something glitter in his teeth.

One of the keys? He checked the pouch he now carried in his pocket at all times, praying Mario had the seventh and final one they needed. “Damn you,” he hissed. “How did you get it.” One key was missing from the pouch.

“Give it to me.” He made a grab for Mario and missed. Kicking up his feet, breaking into a run fast enough to make his legs resemble locomotive wheels, he took off.

“Stop! Right now. Right where you are.”

Mario didn’t stop, and he didn’t make for the locked front door. Instead he leaped from chair to counter in the kitchen and launched himself through an open window.

Sykes tore after him, dashing to the front of the house and down the lane after the little renegade, pelting through the streets and dodging people who grumbled at being shoved out of the way.

Then he knew where Mario was going.

Back to the Court of Angels. The gate would stop him.

The gate wasn’t closed, dammit. And Mario leaped through a gap that should have been too small. Going after him so fast he would have fallen if he had tried to come to a halt, Sykes yelled at the dog repeatedly, tracing him between the planting beds, the angels, the fairies, the rustling bamboo—and the excited and unmistakably familiar whispering of the Ushers.

The entire courtyard took on a hazy mauve glow.

Pascal, David and Marley came from the back of the shop. Sykes saw them from the edge of his vision. Liam Fortune was there, then Ben and Willow. But Sykes didn’t stop—until Mario leaped at the patched wall in the row of storage spaces at the back of the courtyard. He planted all four feet, fell down and made another jump as if he were trying to batter the wall down.

“Got you,” Sykes said, reaching to snatch up the dog.

Too late, Mario rushed into the storage room to the right and before Sykes could make any headway, the red monster had disappeared behind the wall that hid the entry leading to the hidden room.

“What the hell’s happening?” Ben cried. “Why are you chasing our dog?”

“Your damn dog has stolen one of the keys. If he loses it, we’re finished. More finished than we already thought we could be.”

Sykes made for the gap but when she saw him squeezing in there, Willow went after him. “Let me go first. I’ll be faster.”

He stood back and then followed her.

All but Marley made the trek through the narrow tunnel and down into the foul-smelling room on the other side.

“Don’t you frighten him,” Willow said, facing them all. “If you do and he drops it we could lose it anyway. And you’re not to frighten Mario anyway.”

“Patience,” Sykes muttered to himself.

He stood quite still, his hands to his head, and closed his eyes.

“My God are you ill, man,” Ben said.

“Sit down,” Liam commanded. “Take some deep breaths.”

Sykes waved them away. He heard his name, very faint, very distant and in a cry begging him to hear. “I think Poppy’s trying to reach me,” he said and sent an answer.
Poppy, where are you?
If she was as far away as he thought she might not have the power to keep the channel open.

All the others remained silent, watching him.

He kept his eyes closed and concentrated. The hand that settled on his arm squeezed tight, a very big hand and he knew it was Ben.

“Nothing,” Sykes said. “But if I did hear her, she’s…” He couldn’t finish.

“She’s alive,” David said. He had shed his sunglasses and, with a fine brush of auburn hair showing, there was little doubt about his identity.

“Yes,” the rest of them chorused.

“The Ultimate Power could be all the help we need now,” Pascal said.

Sykes turned back to the dog. “Get the key from him,” he said.

“Not that it’ll do any good,” Liam said. “Not without the Harmony.”

Mario leaped to the ledge where the box of papers had been. He began to scratch at the wall. His move
ments became frenzied and he barked, and barked, gouged at the plaster and howled.

“Get that key,” Pascal said. “Before he swallows the thing.”

Liam took hold of Mario to pull him away, but claws on one of the dog’s paws were stuck into the plaster. Prying open Mario’s jaws, Liam reached inside his mouth. Slowly, he removed his fingers. “He’s already dropped it. Or swallowed it.”

And the claws remained stuck in the plaster.

Pushing her way past the men, Willow put an arm around her dog to support him and worked his foot free—and with it a chunk of wall.

“Mario,” Willow reprimanded. “Naughty boy.”

Sykes aimed his flashlight on the hole Mario had made. “What if he’s managed to get the key in there?”

“It was probably gone before he made the hole,” Liam pointed out.

David went closer and looked. “There’s glass in there. Colored glass.” He hooked out more plaster, but carefully, making sure nothing fell inside. “There’s those lead lines. Stained glass.”

On his hands and knees, Sykes searched among the debris on the floor.

David continued to break away the wall.

“Sykes!” Liam said urgently. “Look at this. Have you seen anything like it before?”

Liam focused his flashlight on the big opening David had now made.

Getting up slowly, Sykes went to stand beside David. What he saw, created in vivid green, purple and gold, was a stained-glass window depicting an angel, the angel standing in his studio.

“She was meant to show me what to look for,” he murmured of the piece in his studio. Carefully, he broke away more pieces of plasterboard until a full view of the angel came into view. Liam and Ben went to help and gradually the whole piece was revealed.

The claw Sykes had seen in his studio belonged to a red griffin.

“A griffin?” Willow said. “I don’t understand.”

“I do,” Sykes and Ben said together and they raced to get out of the room with the others scrambling behind them.

Leading the way, Sykes went to the stand of bamboo and parted it, pushing his way through. “There it is,” he said, pointing at the red stone griffin.

He scraped soil away from its base and others joined him. The statue was buried deep and they worked frantically.

At last it came free of the earth with a sucking sound. The light was failing yet a gold ball attached to the base of the griffin glowed.

Sykes carried it into the shop, into Pascal’s office and put it on its side atop the desk. He took out the bag of keys while Ben worked the Harmony loose. “They moved it,” he said. “They were afraid it would be taken so they hid it.” He shook the five keys he still had onto Pascal’s blotter.

A clink at his feet made him look down into what looked like Mario’s grin. His mouth was open and he panted as if laughing. On the floor lay the key he’d swiped earlier.

“Don’t you say anything mean to him,” Willow said. “He wanted us to see the window.”

“Or smelled a mouse in there and fancied a snack.” Sykes gave her a small smile. “I’ll have to wait to congratulate him.”

The keys fitted into tiny locks at the top of the ball and had to be moved from one to another to find the right ones, the ones that clicked open specific segments.

“Will we break open the last one?” Pascal said.

“We could jeopardize something.” Sykes clicked another key.

“But—” David came closer. “Those are the keys? I didn’t see them before. I thought they’d be big.”

Sykes sighed. He began to struggle against defeat.

David reached inside the neck of his sweater and pulled a leather cord over his head. On the cord hung a key that matched the other six. “My mother gave this to me years ago. She said Dad gave it to her the night I was…that night. When I came here, she said I could show it to him if he didn’t believe I was his son, but he does.”

With a long look at Pascal, Sykes fitted in the final key that clicked smoothly in its lock.

“You gave it to her,” David said to Pascal in a very small voice.

Pascal put an arm around him and didn’t say anything.

“T
hank you,” Sykes said quietly, watching the segments of the ball fall open in his hands. “Just let us know what we’re supposed to do next.”

“We’ll know,” Marley said. “It will show us.”

Inside the ball lay yet another box, this one deep purple velvet and oval. Willing his hands to be steady, Sykes picked it up and snapped it open.

Empty!

He looked at the ring of blank faces, watched horror fill every pair of eyes.

“It’s been stolen,” Sykes said.

“W
hatever it takes, we’re getting out of here,” Poppy said. She walked the edges of the padded room, pressing the walls. “How did you find me?”

Poppy looked over her shoulder at Wazoo who sat on the floor staring straight ahead—lost in thought.

“Wazoo?” Poppy said. “How did—”

“I was going to see if I could find you—to talk to you about—something. I was almost at Fortunes and a van came past. You were in it.”

Poppy frowned at her. “I was on the floor in the back. You couldn’t have seen me.”

“Show me the velvet bag around your neck.”

Patting absently, Poppy closed her fingers over the bag and pulled it from the neck of her dress.

“That’s how I knew. I felt you. It sent your fear to me, and when the van slowed down I jumped on the back and held on.”

“And nobody tried to stop you?”

“In the Quarter at night?” Wazoo laughed. “The bumper dropped down but that only made it easier for
me to balance and hold on. That and our connection. You held me to you. You have to get Sykes to come. He’ll bring Nat…and all the others.”

Poppy leaned against the wall. “I heard him,” she said, dejected. “I called Sykes and he answered. Then I couldn’t concentrate and he went away.”

“You can talk to him?” Wazoo stood up, her dark eyes blazing. “You
will
talk to him. You’re going to guide him here.”

“I don’t know where we are.”

“I do. Concentrate. Speak to him.”

“You’re psychic,” Poppy said. “You try, too.”

“Psychic but not telepathic.”

Turning away, afraid to fail, Poppy reached the door. She peered through the window and recoiled. “There’s someone out there. I think he’s dead.”

As she watched, the figure sprawled on the floor of an otherwise empty corridor shrank. It coiled like a spent firework and Poppy saw little pieces break off. They were hairy and she realized this was the shape-shifting spider they had seen earlier.

“Wazoo,” Poppy said urgently, “I think they’re in trouble. I think they’re being overtaken by some sickness.”

“Let me see.” Only Wazoo wasn’t tall enough to see through the window.

“Here, jump.” Poppy caught her under the arms and hoisted Wazoo.

She sailed past the window and rose all the way to the
ceiling. Grabbing her before she could fall, Poppy lowered her carefully. “It isn’t that bouncy,” she said, shaken.

Wazoo screwed up her eyes to study Poppy. “I didn’t even get to jump, girl. You threw me up there. You don’t know your own strength.”

Turning back to the door, Poppy slid her fingers under the padded edge to peel a piece back. The entire door covering stripped away.

“Holy Halloween,” Wazoo said.

Poppy cleared her throat. “I’ve always had strong hands.”

“That’s more than strong hands.”

There was no knob on the inside of the door. Expecting nothing, Poppy worked the fingertips of her right hand into the crack between the door and the jamb at what she thought was the level of the bolt.

A deafening sound of metal tearing made her stop. She turned around to Wazoo who said, “You’re gaping. It’s not pretty.”

The edge of the door had buckled and they could both see where the wide bolt slid into its deep slot.

“Can you get at it?” Wazoo said.

Hooking two fingers under the steel bar of the bolt, Poppy worked to get enough purchase to slide it undone.

The entire bolt snapped free, the sound like a bullet in a confined space, and Poppy grabbed at her hand muttering, “Ouch, ouch, ouch.” The ring Pascal had given her had dug into her finger.

She shook off the discomfort and they eased open the door.

“Where is everyone?” Wazoo whispered. She looked at what was not a small pile of spider detritus and sucked in a breath. “What did it do, eat itself?”

“Anything’s possible with this group,” Poppy said.

“Now we find a hiding place and you start talking to that scrumptious man of yours.”

Poppy looked at Wazoo and felt helpless.

“Or I can just send you running through this place tearing everything up,” Wazoo said. “Shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

“I want to know what’s going on here before I start knocking my brains out.”

She slipped from the room with Wazoo behind her. They passed through empty corridor after empty corridor until Poppy heard a mounting sound in the distance and flattened herself to the wall. She shot out an arm to halt Wazoo who immediately yelped.

“What?” Poppy said.

“You nearly knocked me out,” Wazoo said, rubbing the back of her head. “I hit the wall.”

“Sorry. Can you hear the noise?”

“Sounds like a riot,” Wazoo said. “I think it’s coming from that great hall.”

They crept around another corner but drew back again. Pouring from somewhere they couldn’t see, a whole army of people, or part people, part bizarre creatures in many cases, advanced through the massive
double doors Poppy recognized as the entrance to the hall.

“I want to see in there,” Poppy said.

“Not until we establish contact with Sykes, or anyone else you can talk to.”

“They’re coming out again,” Poppy squeaked.

“Start talking.”

Slipping out of sight of the jostling Embran, Poppy slid to the floor with her back to the wall and tried to concentrate.
Sykes, I need you. We need you. Wazoo is with me.

Wazoo knew enough to sit and listen to Poppy’s silence.

Poppy heard nothing and began to sigh, letting her head hang forward.

“Dope,” Wazoo said. “You don’t just give up. Keep at it.”

Poppy?

She jumped and her eyes flew wide open.
Sykes?

Where are you?

“Where are we?” she asked Wazoo.

“In a compound by the river. A big warehouse. Near Algiers Point. There’s a building with C & O Mills on the front. It’s written all the way across. The compound is huge. We’re in the big building.”

Very carefully, Poppy kept still, tried to relax, and repeated Wazoo’s directions.

She waited for a response but none came.

Her eyes felt moist.

“No losing your nerve now,” Wazoo said. “Answer me one thing first. Do you think Nat and I should try to be together? That’s what I was coming to ask you.”

“Of course,” Poppy said.

Wazoo nodded. “Get back on the job, then. Concentrate. Go inside your mind or wherever it is you talk to each other.”

Sykes, please hear me.
Poppy strained, her head beginning to ache. Again she gave him their coordinates.
And Wazoo’s with me.

Don’t let it be too faint for him to hear this time.

Good. Now, be quiet until you hear from me. Stay hidden. No heroics and that’s an order. I love you.

Poppy almost collapsed. She told Wazoo what Sykes had said.

“I told you that was one outstanding example of the male of the species,” Wazoo said. “Too bad he saw you first. I’d have snapped him up.”

“Nat—”

“Not if I’d already seen Nat, of course. We gotta make sure a bunch of those turkeys don’t suddenly come on us. But I want to see what they’re all up to.”

“How’s your sense of direction?”

“Fantastic. We’ll see if we can get around from the other side of the hall. There has to be another way out of this place.”

Crouched, they began to move again, away from the front of the building. “If we could get outside our chances of not being seen might be better,” Poppy said.

“You’re not hearing her right,” Nat said, for Sykes’s ears only. “What would Wazoo be doing with her?”

“And I should know?” Sykes stared at him. They were driving in Nat’s unmarked car toward the waterfront. “She told me twice, so I don’t think she’s making it up.”

He looked in the rearview mirror. Spread out behind them, more vehicles converged on the directions Sykes had given them.

“That place always looks well maintained,” Nat said. “Polite watchmen. Trucks coming and going. No problems. Never a call about any trouble. I hope they’ve got the right place.”

“They have,” Sykes said, and he was convinced.

He flexed his hands and rotated his shoulders. The sensation traveling through him was new. If he didn’t know it was impossible he’d say they had somehow come upon the Ultimate Power even if they hadn’t seen it. He felt invincible—and his nerves leaped about at the same time. He wanted to see Poppy, to touch her.

Sykes. There are many, many of them here. They don’t all look the same. Can you hear me?

Yes!

Something’s gone really wrong with them. They’re dying, I think, but a lot of them are still very strong. Let Wazoo and me try to find our own way out. It’s too dangerous for you to come in here.

He looked sideways at Nat.
Stay out of sight. Don’t try being heroes.

“They’re telling us what to do,” Poppy told Wazoo.

“And that surprises you?”

“There’s a door ahead. I don’t see anyone.”

When they reached it and pushed lightly, the door cracked open and the moist warmth of the night hit their faces. The sound of many shouting voices came from the distance. Poppy inclined her head at Wazoo and they slipped outside.

Dodging from one hiding place to another, relying on shadows, they made their way to a back corner of the building, then, very cautiously, around the side.

Wazoo pulled Poppy’s arm and whispered in her ear. “Those big drums over there. If we could get behind them we could see the front of the building and stay out of sight.”

Nodding, Poppy set off, racing to a stack of crates, then a Dumpster, a parked truck. The drums were actually just beyond the side of the warehouse and Poppy knew the last leg to get there would be dangerous.

I wish we could be invisible like you can,
she communicated without thinking.

What are you doing?

Getting where we can see what they’re doing. And we’re going no matter what you say, so don’t try ordering us around.

She listened to heavy silence and knew he was deciding what to say next.

We’ll talk about this later,
he said.
Put your arms around each other and hold on tight. Look at the place you want to be and put your faces on each other’s shoulders. Do it now.

Poppy grabbed Wazoo. “Don’t ask,” she said, holding her close. “Keep your face down on my shoulder.”

There was no sensation, other than disappointment.

Poppy opened her eyes and almost gasped aloud. They were next to the drums. Wazoo caught her hand and hurried them both completely out of sight.

“Neat trick,” Wazoo said.

“It was Sykes.”

“Surprise, surprise. Now we can see everything. Look between these things.”

Poppy peered between the oil drums at a gathering in front of the warehouse.

Under the standard lights it was Zibock who commanded the center of the scene, his carrot-colored hair aflame, the gold on his hands flashing. He stood twice as tall as the rest with his silver robes shining almost white. And he bellowed at all around him.

“Now is the time to test you all. We must call in all our resources and correct whatever we did not expect to encounter.”

A blue glow, shot with green, illuminated the space around Poppy. She blinked, expecting her eyes to react, but there was no discomfort. “Do you see that?” she asked Wazoo.

“He is a pompous bag of disgusting waste,” Wazoo said, staring through at Zibock.

“No, this. The light.”

Wazoo looked at her. “Out there you mean.” She pointed toward the overhead lights.

“Okay.” So Wazoo couldn’t see it. The colors radiated out from Poppy and stained everything around her.

Another vehicle arrived, this a familiar, long black limousine. Ward erupted from inside and marched forward, only hesitating when he saw the masses in the compound. He frowned around. “Who are they?”

“Ward,” Poppy said. “I thought he was tied in with Zibock.”

“They are my subjects,” Zibock thundered. “Why are you here? You were to wait until I contacted you again.”

“Wait while I was blamed for the murders of women I hadn’t touched?” Ward said. “Hadn’t killed?”

“Sounds like there’s a distinction to me,” Wazoo said quietly.

Zibock had no immediate answer. The gaggle had grown much more quiet.

“He isn’t worthy!” Bart got from behind the wheel of the limo. “I am the one who should be your representative. He makes mistakes. Let me go back and wait in his place, Protector.”

“You are Embran,” Zibock said in a low, fearsome voice. “I need a human as a placekeeper until I can take over the place of power. We are to get him elected—”

“He never will be,” Bart said. “They have released him only on what they call a bond. I made sure both women were found dead at his home. Joan helped me with the second woman.”

“Shoot,” Poppy muttered. “They’re all crazy. We gotta get out of here.”

Ward launched himself at Bart and began to fight with his fists while the other one darted out of his way, laughing.

“Look,” Poppy whispered loudly. “Outside the gates.”

“What?”

“They’re all coming. Sykes in the front, and Ben, Liam, Ethan. There’s Nick Montrachet and his brother and Pascal with David. Willow, too. She must have sneaked out. Gray. They keep coming, fanning out. All the paranormal families. Some I hardly recognize, I haven’t seen them for so long.”

And around the advancing army of friends, the same light that enveloped Poppy also glowed. She could see Sykes’s eyes, gleaming, deadly, as if he were only an arm’s length away. He swept ahead, looking from side to side, searching.

He was searching for her but she dared not draw attention to herself.

Poppy glanced at Wazoo and realized she couldn’t see their own people coming. But then she smiled and said, “There’s Nat. What is he doing?”

Poppy saw him, too. Hanging back, speaking into a collar mic, he crouched, absolutely still.

“He can’t come in here on his own,” Wazoo said, her voice rising.

“Don’t worry, he won’t.” She squeezed Wazoo’s arm. “Just be ready to run when and where I tell you.”