Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Gile tapped on the glass right in front of them. His face was oddly expressionless, although his irises turned in slow circles, as though the parasite had eaten out his entire body, and now every part of him was an alchemy circle, kept alive by the centripetal force of the circles.
“I’m right here,” Parker said.
Nick caught the narrow-eyed look that Rios gave Parker, the confused look that turned to Tate when Parker ignored him. Tate shook his head once, mouthing, Later.
“No…” the creature using Gile’s voice said. “No, not you. I want to speak to the god killer.”
Gile dragged his nail across the glass, the scratching turning into a shriek as he scraped the one-way mirror. He stopped in front of Nick, tapping his finger once, twice, three times, until the whole pane of glass vibrated, shaking in its frame.
“I see you. I see you, god killer.” There should have been a grin, a malicious expression, something that matched the tone of Gile’s voice, but instead, his face was vacant.
His veins were turning green, pulsing.
Nick opened his mouth, and Parker grabbed his arm tight, squeezing his wrist. “Don’t you dare, Nick. Don’t you dare.”
Nick raised his eyebrow, and Parker shook his head. The expression on his face was horrified, terrified for something that Nick hadn’t even done yet. He was always so scared for Nick, his adoration of Nick the missing puzzle piece.
Parker worried about Nick with the ferocity that Nick worried about Parker, and they went round and round with it, each caring more about the other than they did themselves.
Nick turned back to the glass. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you, god killer,” Gile’s mouth said. “In here. Not there. Here.”
“No,” Parker said immediately. “No. Not happening. He’s not going in there when you’re giving away parasite infections like it’s a toaster for opening a new checking account. You can hear him fine from here.”
“Here, or I will kill Redmond Gile, 32 years old, who takes care of his mother, volunteers at a pit bull rescue, has one sister, two nephews, and three dogs. Their names are—”
“Okay,” Nick said. “I’ll go. But if you kill Gile before I get in there, deal’s off.”
Nick reached over and turned off the intercom, then the lights.
“No,” Parker said. “No, Nick. Not happening. This is not happening. I don’t care if he tells me that Gile donates his whole salary to prevent child hunger and spends his days off running errands for Mother Teresa! No.”
“King,” Rios was still frowning. “Why does the parasite call you a god killer?”
For a second, everyone froze, even Tate, whose expression dropped into a deep, unhappy scowl. Nick knew the reports. He knew what had been written down and what hadn’t. He knew how both he and Parker kept their freedom.
He also knew that, as Parker would say, some cats couldn’t be contained in bags, no matter how good the lies on the paperwork were.
“When the Sun god’s attack on San Amaro happened, I was involved personally in killing some of the attacking gods,” Nick said. “So was Parker. The report should be available from the BPT.”
“Yes, I’ve read the redacted version,” Rios said. He looked between them, then back at Tate. “I’m sure the un-redacted version would be fascinating.”
“King, you think it’s a good idea going in there?” Tate asked.
“No, it is not a good idea, which is why he’s not doing it,” Parker said sharply. “He’s staying right here, and we’ll…”
“What would you do?” Nick asked him. “We need to know what the thing wants.”
“What it wants is irrelevant if it attaches itself to you!” Parker said. “I don’t care if it will go away if we give it a parking validation stamp! You are not—”
“Would you go in?” Nick waited, both eyebrows raised. “Because you’d go in there. Don’t pretend that you wouldn’t.”
“What I do—” Parker wet his lips. “What I do is different.”
“No,” Nick said. “No, it’s not. This thing is going to kill him, and I’m not going to stand here and let him, not without trying to find out why.”
“Why did I have to marry a guy who’s so good?” Parker said. “Be a little more selfish! Don’t be so heroic—it makes the rest of us look bad.”
“If all it needs is parking validation,” Nick said. “I’ll bring the stamp with me, but this is something you’d do, and I have the receipts to prove it.”
“I distinctly remember telling you not to do things I’d do.
I said, ‘If I’d do it, you turn around and don’t do it.
’” Parker put his hands on his hips, but he was glaring at Nick’s chest as though working through a tough problem.
“Okay, so if you’re going in, we need to figure out a way to make sure that no alchemy circle can get on you. Options?”
“Shields,” Zahide said immediately.
“Personal shields,” Nick said, nodding. “Maybe even multiple layers.”
“Knives,” Parker said, blinking. He grinned fiercely. “Lots of knives.”
Zahide and Nick looked at each other, and Nick winced. This was probably going to be painful.
As Zahide got to work on a couple of shield spells, Parker herded Nick into a bathroom.
“Private magical practice,” he said to Rios. “Protected by the first amendment.”
Inside, Parker checked all the stalls before locking the bathroom behind him. Then he touched Nick’s chest, the flash of gold on his skin visible and then gone. If Nick didn’t know to look for it, he never would have seen it.
“Wow, man, this is expensive,” Parker said.
“I mean, it’s not my most expensive suit,” Nick said, frowning. That had been a relief after being in the blood-soaked break room earlier.
Parker shot him an exasperated look before turning back to Nick’s suit. “You are incredible. I didn’t even know that they could make threads as sharp as you. It’s like someone sewed knives together, silver knives that could slice through any spellwork coming at it. Luckily, you don’t cut skin.”
Nick felt a distinct sense of relief, even as he was amused to listen as Parker continued to coax his suit into believing it was made of pure, alchemy-destroying silver blades.
“So sharp,” Parker said, like he was reassuring someone. “The sharpest I’ve ever seen, but only in one direction. Outside in, you know? Inside, you’re still the expensive…”
“Cotton,” Nick supplied. “Broadcloth.”
“Fabric,” Parker said. “Expensive cotton broadcloth fabric Nick bought.”
After another beat, Parker withdrew his hand and examined the suit.
“Will it work?” Nick said.
“Yes,” Parker said, the confidence in his voice almost convincing enough for both of them.
“Okay.” Nick shook his head. “Please don’t turn the rest of my closet into knife suits. I like most of them, and I can already feel that the fabric is more itchy now.”
“Can’t have you dancing like ants are in your pants,” Parker agreed, still frowning. “Nick…”
“Do you trust me?” Nick asked.
“Yes,” Parker said immediately.
“Then trust that I can do this.” Nick caught his eyes and held them until Parker rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. “Okay. Fine.”
Nick reached out, pulling back at the last second before his sleeve could slice Parker’s chest open. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Parker went to the bathroom door, holding it open for Nick.
His eyes trailed Nick as he walked to Zahide, who provided him with three picture-perfect circles, then Lawless, who provided him with a respirator that she triple-checked before gesturing to the portable decontamination room.
“Find out what it wants and then get out,” Rios said. “We’ll be watching from the observation room. Don’t make any promises. Treat this like a hostage situation.”
Nick nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Then he unzipped the door, closing it behind him before opening the interview room.
Gile stood in the center of the room, eyes fixed on Nick. “God killer.”
“Detective Nicholas King,” Nick corrected. “Who am I speaking with?”
“Unimportant,” Gile said. “I always wondered how you did it. Would you tell me?”
Nick swallowed. “Did you know Darkness?”
“I knew of him,” Gile said. “We all did. He was the best of them.”
Nick still woke sometimes, clawing at bedsheets too close to his skin, panicking in the middle of the night. Not as often now, but in his nightmares, he was caught back in the time when all he saw was the gray inside people, inside Parker.
His therapist said that trauma didn’t have an expiration date. His understanding of what happened would change over time. His emotions about what happened would change over time.
“Who’s ‘we’?” Nick asked. “Are there more like you? More parasites?”
“There are as many of us as is necessary,” Gile said. “And we will do what is necessary.”
“Necessary for what?” Nick asked. “What are you after?”
“You will help me.” The intensity on Gile’s face was twisted, as though he was saying something else with the words. “Five million dollars.”
Nick blinked. Of all the things he thought the parasite might want, money had never even been on the list. “Why do you want money?”
“Five million dollars,” Gile said. “Or I will kill ten people.”
“Okay.” Nick held up his hands. He could see the faint green of Zahide’s magic on his skin. “You can do it—I’ve seen your work—but why do you need money? And why did you want to talk to me?”
“Who else should we talk to who has the power to do it?” Gile asked. His eyes raked over Nick. “You killed a god. Surely coming up with what we want should not be a problem. Paper costs much less than the blood we will answer with if we do not get what we want.”
“We?” Nick asked again. “Others like you?”
“We”—Gile’s voice was a sneer—“will not be questioned.”
“What are you giving us in return?” Nick said. “You want five million dollars, we need something to know your word is good.”
“You want him.” Gile shook his head. “No. But I will give you time.”
“Time,” Nick said.
“Time,” Gile hissed. “I will give you time to get the money. If you do not do it in a reasonable amount of time, Redmond Gile will be among the first ten. Then there will be another ten and another and another until I get what I want.”
“Let me talk to my bosses,” Nick said.
Gile turned away. “Yes. Talk. Then money.”
“And while I’m talking…” Nick trailed off. He didn’t want to force the parasite to put him under a clock, but he wasn’t sure what time spans the parasite considered “time.”
“While you’re talking, Gile will live. But then ten.”
“And then ten more,” Nick nodded. “Okay. But right now, zero.”
“For now,” the parasite agreed. Gile turned away, and Nick backed out of the room.
Once outside, Zahide checked him for spellwork, narrowing her eyes when she ran a hand over the fabric of his suit, like she could tell Parker’s magic was there, but had no idea what it did.
“Five million?” Rios said skeptically. They had retreated to a conference room, one wall taken up by case notes about a string of robberies and a massive map of San Amaro.
“What does a parasite need with five million?” Tate asked.
“I don’t know, but we have more information than we did before,” Nick said. “And we have some time.”
“What are you thinking?” Tate asked.
“I think we need to figure out who the other nine people infected are. Because he’s the only one we’ve found in the building. They must be outside. In the city.” Nick crossed his arms.
“Not necessarily,” Rios said. “All ten could be here in the station. We haven’t finished checking everyone.”
“No.” Parker shook his head, eyes locking on Nick’s, the way they did when he and Nick were so in sync that they were practically thinking the same thoughts.
“Because if they took over two cops, they’d know that the station would get immediately locked down, then they could only have one round of their Who Wants to be Bloody Goo reality show.
He said ten and ten and ten… The other nine are out in San Amaro. ”
Parker’s eyes went wide, and he looked back at the map of San Amaro. “They could be anywhere.”