4. Chapter 4
Crowe
I know the site’s wrong before I’m past the tree line.
New. Too quiet. Half the yard lights dark on a building that should be running a full shift this hour.
No idling engines outside, no floodlit loading bay, none of the noise a working site makes.
Two guards at the gate, neither facing the trees, one of them already out of his tactical vest with his keys in his hand.
Kent settles onto his heels next to me.
“That’s a man going home,” he says.
“It is.”
“So it’s empty.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“So she’s in there.”
“I can’t say that for sure either.”
“If there’s nobody around, then there’s nobody to stop us.” He’s quiet for a second. “You know what I think?”
“You’re going to tell me.” I’m still looking at the building.
“I think we should stop dicking around out here and just go in there.” He’s bracing to move. “They’re in the middle of a shift change or something, and they’re not expecting us. Let’s take it.”
“That’s the first useful thing anyone’s said tonight.”
“I’m full of them.”
“Wait here. Watch the fence.” I’m moving before he can answer.
The fence gives at the dark corner where the camera under the eave points at the vehicles instead of the ground. Odile goes over first, coat and all, and lands without disturbing the gravel. I follow. The kid comes after me, which was not the arrangement.
“You’re supposed to be watching the fence,” I tell him.
“Meyer’s watching the fence. He’s better at it than I am.” He’s moving without looking at me. “Also, I’ve never been inside one of these.”
“There’s nothing to see.”
“Then it won’t take long.”
Inside the east door, the hallway’s half-lit, every second fixture dark. Fresh paint over new concrete. Bleach under it. And under that, faint and warm, one thing that’s not human. She was in this building long enough to leave her scent in it.
I pause.
The kid stops with his hand on the wall. “What is it?”
“Her.”
“There’s nobody here.”
“There was. One.”
He doesn’t ask again. Somewhere deeper in, a radio’s playing in a break room, and a chair creaks.
Footsteps. We both freeze.
A guard comes around the corner with a mug in his hand, and I have him by the throat before the coffee hits the floor. Pressure, patience, his knees going. I lower him the rest of the way myself and set the mug upright on the tile beside him.
“You could have said,” the kid says, from a step back.
“Said what?”
“That you were going to do that. I had a wrench up.”
“Put the wrench down.”
Odile’s already gone toward the west wing, no sound to mark it, which is her way of telling me she doesn’t need help.
The intake room is bare aside from a desk and a chair. There’s a shelf behind it with a dozen ledgers standing on it. I take two down. Blank. Blank. Every page in both.
There’s one book open on the desk. New. First page.
Two lines written on it. A designation beside an entry date. Beneath it a transport order signed off hours ago with a route number where a destination should be. I write them down.
“That it?” the kid says.
“Check the shelf.”
He pulls one down, then another, then a third, thumbing each one open at the middle and shutting it again.
“They’re empty.” He holds the last one up. “All of them. Nothing’s been written in any of these.”
“No.”
“So where’s the rest of it? The names, the intakes, the—” He stops with the ledger still open in his hands. “She was the only one here.”
“Yes.”
“Then why keep the gate guards?”
“Because somebody’s been paying to keep this building operational.”
“That’s worse.”
“It’s better. Payments leave a trail.” I take the ledger from him and put it back exactly square on the shelf where he found it. “Leave the room the way it was.”
“You want them to think nobody came?”
“I want them to think a man came for the drugs cupboard and got the wrong wing.” I point at the hallway. “Go and open it and make a mess of it.”
He grins on the way out.
Her cell is deeper in, past doors standing open on empty rooms. I know which one is hers before I count doors, because the scent reaches the hallway. Warm. Char in it somewhere, though nothing in this building has ever burned.
I go in.
A cot. A drain. A blanket folded into a square with the corners lined up.
The scent swirls around me again. Smoke, crisp mountain air.
Flames. Heat. Fire against my skin.
I’m swaying. I put a hand on the bars.
Fuck!
I shake my head. I’m not shaking off a picture. I’m shaking off a feeling. Her.
Bullshit, Crowe. What the fuck does that mean?
I stand there a moment longer than I need to, and then I turn. And look straight into the face of a startled guard.
“What—?” He drops the folder he was holding.
I have him against the wall before he’s decided to run, forearm at his throat, not hard enough to break anything, but the threat is there. He’s breathing fast. Twenty, maybe. Barely old enough to shave, but he’s been trying.
“Here’s what happens now,” I say. “I give you two options. One: you die right where you’re standing. Two: you tell me what you know about the woman in that cell.”
His throat works against my forearm. I give him a small smile. One with just a hint of fang. His knees sag before he catches himself.
“Two,” he chokes out. “I go with option two.”
I take my arm off his throat and step back. “When did they take her?”
“Earlier today,” he says. “Not one of our usual teams. Slick. Better gear. We didn’t even know they were coming.”
“That’s unusual?”
“Yeah.” He nods, his head bobbing. “Carlisle—that’s my supervisor—likes his paperwork in order. This was something that came from higher up. No official logs. He wasn’t happy about it.”
“What do you think might have caused that?”
“Not sure. Though there was a visit earlier that was unusual too.”
“What kind of visit?”
“A…a man. Maybe a doctor, I think. He had a bag, and he examined her. Took her measurements. Checked her teeth.” He’s talking faster now, both hands going. “She didn’t like that. But he didn’t seem to be afraid of her. Everyone’s afraid of her.”
“Why’s that?” I know the answer, but I want to hear it from him.
“Because…well…she’s a dragon.” His eyes widen. “I heard she ripped someone’s arm off. Or maybe their head. Back at the old place. That’s why they moved her.”
That’s bullshit. She was moved because we took out their facility. I don’t correct him.
“So they decided she’d be easier to control here?” I glance around at the brand-new cells.
“Dunno. Maybe they just wanted to keep her away from anyone she might hurt.” He shrugs. “Odd though. She didn’t seem like she’d do that. She seemed…” He trails off.
“She seemed what?” I’m trying to build a picture of this woman. Nothing I’ve heard so far fits together.
“She seemed nice. Kinda funny. Asked me stuff about shaving. Asked if I was tired after night duty. Sometimes I’d have to do a double shift, and that left me groggy in the morning.”
“And she noticed that?”
“Yeah.” He nods. “Probably the only one around here who did.”
Of course she did. Because she was pumping him for information. Trying to figure out what happened during their night shifts. How many guards there’d be and whether they’d be hard to get past.
The woman I’m tracking isn’t waiting to be rescued.
She’s figuring out how to escape.
“So, this man,” I turn the conversation back. “The one who wasn’t afraid of her. What do you remember about him?”
“Not much. He was tall. Big.” He pauses. “And he…uh…he smelled like her.”
“Smelled like her?”
His ears go pink. “I know it’s nuts. But she had a…scent. Like smoky. He did too.”
“That’s very perceptive of you.” I keep my voice level. He’s just told me something I didn’t expect. Dragon. And a dragon in this system could only be Syndicate.
Why the fuck is a Syndicate dragon keeping one of their own in a blood trafficking pipeline?
“Uh…are we done?”
I realize I’m staring past the kid at a blank space on the wall. “Yes.” I nod.
“What happens now?”
“Now you sit down against that wall, and you stay there until we’re gone, and in the morning you tell your supervisor a man came in and you never saw his face. That’s all you have to do.”
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“No.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
“Sit down and keep your head lowered.”
He sits down against the wall. He doesn’t argue. I’m gone before he gets a chance to look up again.
This keeps getting stranger. I barely notice the cells as I pass, or the guard still out cold on the floor on my way out.
The phone buzzes in my coat before I’ve cleared the yard.
“Faine,” I say.
“Tell me what you found.” She never gives a preamble.
“The building’s empty. They cleared it and left two men on the gate. There’s a shelf of ledgers in the intake room and nothing written in any of them. Only one intake on the records.”
“One?”
“One prisoner. That’s all this place ever held.”
“Go on.”
“There’s a transport order signed off a few hours ago. Where the destination should be, somebody’s written a route number and nothing else.”
“And the woman?”
“Gone before we got here. A man came in and examined her while she was here. One of the guards stood on the door through all of it.” I stop at the fence. “The guard says the man smelled the same as she did. Smoke.”
Faine says nothing.
“He’s a dragon,” I say.
“You’re sure of that?”
“The boy doesn’t know what he told me. He wasn’t inventing it.”
The line stays quiet long enough that I check the screen.
“Then this isn’t a trafficking job,” she says. “A dragon working inside a blood pipeline is Syndicate.”
“I know.”
“Then you know why I’m taking Odile back tonight.”
“She’s in the middle of an operation.”
“She’s a rank at my table. She sits where people can see her sitting.
The night somebody notices her chair is empty, they start asking where she is and what she’s doing and who she’s doing it with.
” A pause. “I can’t have a Court rank standing in the middle of a Syndicate matter.
Not seen doing it, and not doing it quietly either. ”
“There’s more.”
“There’s always more. The Cravens want the same thing.
They’re running their own search for the girl, and they’ve been plain about the terms. They don’t want it known that they’re working alongside vampires.
This is one of their own, and they lose face if they bring us into an internal issue.
If my people are seen on this, that ends, and so does anything they’d have given us. ”
“So Odile goes home and sits at your table, and everything looks the way it looked last month.”
“Yes. Nothing is happening, and she’s the proof of it.”
“And me?”
“You keep going.” Flat. No weight on it at all. “Nobody has to admit you exist, Crowe. You’re a free agent. If you’re seen, you’re a man doing something of your own. That’s the only useful thing about your position, and I suggest you use it.”
“That’s not permission.”
“No,” she says. “It isn’t. The other three are expected back as well. Expected, not ordered. There’s a difference, and you know it.”
I do. She’s recalling her men, but not forcing them to leave me to deal with this alone. That’s as close to sanction as I’ll get right now.
Odile’s already reading my face when I turn around, which means she heard all of it from where she stands.
“She’s taking you back,” I say.
“I heard her.” Her jaw sets. “Merde. I gave my word to that Court long before I took this job. I’m going to have to go back.”
“Do what you must. I won’t hold it against you.”
“Of course you won’t.” She pulls her coat straight. “I’m to go home and play my part. That’s all I can do right now. Sit in my chair, drink what I’m given, and let the room watch me do nothing at all.”
“That’s the job she’s given you.”
“It’s a poor use of me.” She looks back at the building. “And you’ll be out here with a Syndicate dragon somewhere at the end of that route number.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“You’ve had different.”
She walks with me to the trucks. She takes her time about it.
“You still haven’t told me why,” she says.
“No.” I haven’t told her why I took this job because I don’t understand it myself.
“Then I’ll tell you, and you can stand there pretending I’m wrong.” She pulls a glove straight at the wrist. “That night at the quarry, you saw something. Something in the back of that truck.”
“No, I—”
“Don’t argue, Monsieur Crowe. I’ve known many men like you in my lifetime. You don’t freeze in your tracks without reason. And I’ve seen you do it several times since.”
“So what are you trying to tell me?”
“I’m telling you to keep an open mind.”
“I always do.”
“Mm.” She stops at the truck. Looks at me for a moment. Assessing. “Do you believe in Fate, Gideon?”
She rarely addresses me by my first name. Nobody does.
“I believe that many feel it exists.”
“It does.” She smiles. “And you would do well to take note of it.”
“I think my fate was sealed the moment a vampire chose to drain the life from me in a stinking back alley,” I say.
“That’s not the sort of Fate I’m talking about, Crowe. I mean the one that seeks you out. The one that’s chosen for you.”
“Right.” I nod and leave it there. She’s talking in riddles.
She shrugs, shoulders up, hands spread. “But who am I to instruct you on such things? You will learn soon enough.” She opens the door. “Just remember, you’re not hunting freight anymore. Try not to get the rest of them killed pretending you still are.”
She gets in. One of Faine’s men gets in after her. He was expected back, and he’s going back, and nobody says a word to him about it on his way past.
Kent is standing at my truck with his gear.
Meyer’s beside him with his arms folded and his bag on the ground at his feet.
Whoever turned Meyer caught him in his forties and left him there.
Heavy brows, a nose broken and badly set, gray coming through the stubble, and a way of standing still that most men never learn.
“Faine said we’re expected back,” the kid says. “Not ordered.”
“She did.”
“So we’re coming with you.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” He picks his bag up off the tailgate. “Where are we going?”
I don’t ask them again, and I don’t talk them out of it.
The phone buzzes twice more in my pocket on the walk to the remaining vehicle. I don’t answer either time. The Guild taught me that one. If I never take the call, nobody’s told me to stop.
I’m not planning to stop.