Shadows (Ultrahumans Book 2) (16 page)

The image was from a helicopter flying over one of the Uptown shopping malls. There was a young woman standing on the edge of a low wall, her hands clasped in front of her chest. She was blonde and not too tall, and Andrea knew exactly who she was even before the scrolling banner at the bottom told her.

She looked back at Jacob. ‘I have to get out there. Can you drive me?’

‘Sure, but…’

She bounced off his lap, hurrying for the bedroom. ‘That’s Lena Tonaldo, David’s daughter. It’s my fault she’s up there.’

~~~

The cops had set up a perimeter and were keeping people off the top floor of the mall, which was a parking lot as was the floor below. When Andrea arrived, Jacob on her heels, Cygnus was already there, in jeans and a T-shirt, talking to a man who looked to be the negotiator. At least, he had a police windbreaker on, but he did not look like a beat cop. David Tonaldo was also there, shouting at people. Andrea ignored him and went straight for Cygnus.

‘She’s threatening to jump?’

‘Yeah,’ Cygnus replied, pointing at a TV screen which had been set up on the ground beside the door. It showed a close-up of Lena which had to be coming from a camera on one of the opposite buildings. She had been crying, but her right eye looked swollen. ‘If anyone gets near her she screams at them and backs toward the edge.’

‘This is your fault!’ Tonaldo grabbed Andrea’s shoulder and spun her around. ‘Fucking aborto whore…’ He was drawing his fist back when Andrea grabbed his wrist, twisted, pushed, and he let out a screech as he was driven to his knees.

‘It’s
our
fault,’ she spat at him. ‘But I’m willing to bet the black eye she’s wearing is all down to you. So if you want to keep your teeth in your mouth, you back the fuck off and let me go stop her.’ She leaned closer to him and added in a lower voice. ‘You don’t want anyone knowing
why
she’s out there, do you Mister Tonaldo?’

She pushed him away to sprawl on the floor looking suddenly deflated, not the vicious criminal now, but the father who was about to lose his child and knew he could do nothing about it. Andrea turned for the door of the stairwell the little scene had played out in.

The negotiator stopped her. ‘I can’t just let you–’

‘She’ll talk to me,’ Andrea told him. ‘Tonaldo’s right. This is at least partially my fault and I need to put it right. She’ll talk to me and I’ll get her down, but just in case…’ She looked at Cygnus.

‘On it,’ Cygnus said, starting for the stairs.

‘Don’t come any closer,’ Lena shouted when Andrea was maybe ten feet away. ‘And none of those shadow tricks.’

‘It’s too bright,’ Andrea replied. ‘You picked a really nice day to be standing on a roof. How did you get up here? No way was he letting you out without a minder.’

Lena gave a shrug and took a small step away from the edge. ‘He was feeling guilty. About this…’ She lifted a hand to her eye and Andrea had to force herself not to clench her fists. ‘He let me go shopping, no expense spared, like that was going to change anything. I used to slip them all the time when I was a teenager and then I stopped and they got complacent. Wasn’t even a challenge. Why did you do it?’

‘My brother.’

‘The one that died in the bank robbery?’

‘Andrew, Andy. I loved him and then he died because he was trying to prove himself to your father. I blamed David Tonaldo for Andy’s death and I was willing to do
anything
to bring him some justice. I needed information and there you were.’

‘The perfect, stupid dope.’

‘I’ve never thought of you like that, Lena. At first I didn’t think of you at all. I didn’t care what happened to you. Fuck! I didn’t care what happened to
me
so long as your father ended up dead. I knew it would end badly, but I didn’t care, and by the time I did care there was no way out that wasn’t going to end up like this.’

‘You cared then?’

‘I didn’t want to see you hurt, Lena, but I didn’t know that until…’ Andrea shrugged. ‘Maybe, if I hadn’t changed like this, I could have just vanished. You’d have been upset, but you’d have got over it. When this happened… No going back now.’

‘No.’ But Lena did step back, closer to the edge. ‘Poppa made all kinds of threats. He said I’d never have another girl. He said he’d marry me off to some made man out of town. He said he’d send me away to Italy–’

‘Go,’ Andrea interrupted.

‘What?’

‘Italy. Go there.
Volunteer
to go there. Get out of this place, out of his sight. New start, new people. I know you speak Italian. Get an apartment in Rome and some hot-blooded Italian girl with jet-black hair and eyes you can sink into. Get away from me, and him, and all this shit!’

‘I… I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

‘Yeah, well, you’re grieving for what we had. And I know I was your favourite, and I like to think I was pretty good…’

‘You were amazing.’

‘Uh… thanks, but I still don’t think I’m worth jumping off a building for.’

Lena sagged and moved away from the edge and Andrea stepped forward. The blonde did not resist as Andrea looped an arm around her shoulders, and at that point Cygnus flew up from below, dropped onto the rooftop, her arm wrapping Lena from the other side.

‘Weren’t going to let me do it anyway, huh?’ Lena asked, looking up at the taller blonde.

‘No,’ Cygnus replied, ‘but it was better if you didn’t try. I hear Rome is beautiful in the spring.’

‘I guess I’ll find out,’ Lena replied. ‘And there better be plenty of hot girls out there or I’m coming back and jumping.’

‘It’s where my mother’s family came from,’ Andrea replied. ‘They tell me I take after her side of the family.’

‘Well… that’s okay then.’

~~~

The cold woke him. David Tonaldo opened his eyes and saw only blackness around him. He was reaching for the light when hands grabbed the front of his pyjama jacket, pressing him against the mattress.

‘Don’t scream,’ Twilight said softly, ‘don’t call out. Do not make a sound.’

‘What do you want?’ Tonaldo growled back.

‘Lena out of the way, without further damage. If I hear she’s been harmed, or you’re not letting her go, I’m going to push
you
off a roof.’ She released him, stepping back, but the shadows remained thick around them.

‘You think you can just come in here, making demands–’

‘Yes. Any time I want to. Think about that.’

He did, apparently. ‘So… why haven’t you offed me?’

‘Because that is not my primary aim anymore. Don’t get me wrong, you’re criminal scum and me and Cygnus are going to pull your house down around your ears, but the man who killed my brother is dead. I thought you were responsible, but Andy was just a pawn in the war between you and Ghostfire.’

‘Huh. You actually do care about her? Lena?’

‘A lot more than I care about you, yeah. She’s a nice girl and she’s stuck in this rat hole because you won’t let her be herself. So let her go somewhere where it won’t matter.’

‘I’m… going to. I have some friends in Italian immigration. She’s going out mid-week. Six months to see if she likes it and then… We see where it goes from there.’

‘Good.’

‘And… Your brother. I meant what I said that time, in my office. I don’t like losing men and he was a good kid. I liked him. Wasn’t pushy, not too eager to please.’

‘He was an idiot. But he was my brother.’ She stepped away again and this time the shadows followed her. ‘Oh. The Excelsior. If you keep shipping that crap in, we’re going to have to get mean about it. And they gave some to me before I ended up like this so maybe you should think about dropping it before you get a lot more aborto whores after your blood.’

Tonaldo opened his mouth to respond, but the shadows fell away before him and there was no one to talk to.

22
^nd
April.

Twilight crouched on a rooftop opposite Tonaldo’s apartment building, watching the windows. There was nothing much happening and the light was out in the room Lena had occupied until that morning. Andrea had been working so there had been no way to see her off, and it would likely have been a bad idea anyway, but Heather had made a few calls to check that Miss Lena Tonaldo had, indeed, left safely and was due to arrive in Italy within the next hour.

To his credit, David had been in his office quite late and it did not seem like it was work which kept him there. He had spent a lot of time staring at a framed photograph, or the ceiling. Neither Andrea nor Twilight could bring themselves to think of David Tonaldo as a sentimental man, but family tended to be important to men like him. It was quite possible that he was missing his troublesome daughter, but they were pretty sure he would get over it.

Getting to her feet, Twilight turned… And there was someone watching her from the other side of the roof. Crouched, but from the looks of her, and it was a her, not especially tall. High boots with low heels, some form of swimsuit-style costume with a cowl and a cloth covering the mouth and nose, and a cape. There were wrappings around her arms which were likely there as bracers because she was carrying a bow, and there was a box-shaped quiver hung from her belt. The skin on show was pale and there was too little light to make out colours properly, but Twilight thought the pale eyes were blue or green.

‘Our mysterious archer,’ Andrea said.

‘So it would seem,’ Twilight replied. ‘Question is…’

The question was going to have to wait. The girl turned, ran a few paces, and jumped, clearing the gap to the next building easily.

‘Nimble little minx,’ Twilight said, pulling the shadows up around her.

The girl came to a sudden stop as Twilight stepped out of nothing ahead of her, and then bolted left, dropping to the fire escape below. Sighing, Twilight stepped through to the street, but the girl had apparently guessed that move, jumped across two buildings, and was running for an alley across the street.

‘She really doesn’t want to talk,’ Andrea commented as Twilight took them through to the far end of the alley only to see their quarry climbing up to the rooftops. When they arrived above she was nowhere to be seen. There were enough air ducts and access door structures to make it a guess which way she had gone.

‘I just want to talk,’ Twilight called out, but there was no reply. ‘Fine. If you can hear me, and you’re a good guy, go and see the Huntress. Otherwise, next time I see you we’ll have words.’ She waited a beat to be sure the girl with the bow was not going to answer, and then stepped through a shadow into nothing.

24
^th
April.

‘She came to the Den last night.’ Red was on the speaker so that both Andrea and Penny could hear her. ‘She’s calling herself Skadi.’

‘Sounds Scandinavian,’ Penny commented.

‘Very good. Norse goddess associated with bow hunting, winter, skiing, stuff like that. The goddess was a jötunn, a giant, and she really doesn’t match that part, but she uses a bow and she’s an Ultra.’

‘The jumping was a bit of a giveaway,’ Andrea said. ‘She seemed to see pretty well in the dark too.’

‘Well, she’s five-eight, copper hair, green eyes. Kind of cute. I suggested she should take more care of the people she puts down. She’s new at this. I could tell, but she admitted she’d only registered recently.’

‘Think she might be trouble?’

‘I think… she might need watching. She’ll make mistakes. June’s back in two days, right?’

Penny grinned. ‘The twenty-sixth, yes. You want me to pick her up again?’

‘No, I’ll get her this time. I’ll bring her back in the morning. Later.’ And the line went dead.

‘Is it possible to die from sexual excess?’ Penny asked.

‘Don’t think so,’ Andrea replied. ‘Well, probably not. I mean… They do take breaks.’

1
^st
May.

One of the bedrooms in the suite had been converted into a planning room. There were boards on stands with various notes pinned to them. Several of the pins had bits of string connecting them to other pins. There were three computers in use. The knaves were busy and Diamond’s mind was at work as she lounged on the bed.

‘Have we isolated the trunk they’re using for the alarm system?’ she asked.

Rex tapped one of the boards. ‘Located and we can tap in and block the call.’

‘And we’re confident of the take?’

One of the knaves, a younger one Diamond had recruited for his computer skills, looked up and grinned. ‘Oh yes. We have the deposit box numbers we need and I’ve tracked the bonds back to Tonaldo. Should net us… two million, maybe more.’

Diamond nodded. ‘Explosives, munitions?’

‘I got the explosives you wanted,’ Rex said. ‘We’re good on small arms, but I sourced a couple of rocket launchers in case we get trouble from the Ultras.’

Diamond smiled. ‘I think our deck is stacked. Rex, honey, for now we focus on playing this hand, but after that I want you to look into some outside help. I think we may need to run a bluff for Cygnus and Twilight. I do suspect they may notice we’re here after this hand and we don’t want them joining the game so soon.’

‘I think I know a few people I could get over here on short notice,’ Rex replied. ‘I’ll make some calls.’

3
^rd
May.

Grant-Bryson National was not a large bank chain, but it prided itself on having very secure vaults and a record of no successful robberies, even by Ultras. Part of that security came from a little known fact to most of the population, but a better known one to many criminals: a number of crime families used Grant-Bryson National banks to store valuables. Anyone hitting one of their branches was asking for a
world
of trouble.

Diamond stood in the foyer of its Uptown branch surveying the scene. Her red dress was fairly conservative and there was a wide-brimmed, red hat to go with it, which helped conceal her face. She had watched her boys arriving, four of them, matching the number of guards around the room, but she needed one more thing before they could start.