Whisper of Shadows (The Diamond City Magic Novels) Read online

  “Because I know. Get in.”

  I glanced around. I didn’t see any of the goon squad, but that didn’t mean they weren’t hunting for me. I got in. I had a gun and a knife. Having her hands on the wheel meant Arnow couldn’t do much to me. Plus she wanted me to help her. That meant she wasn’t going to turn me over to Morrell. Not right away, anyhow. I had to risk it.

  I sighed as warmth hit me. The heater was blowing full blast. Arnow hooked a U-turn and pulled back out onto the road.

  “How did you find me?” Would she lie? Tell me she was just in the neighborhood?

  “I followed you from FBI headquarters.”

  “So you you’re saying you didn’t have anything to do with those goons hunting me.”

  “Would you believe me if I said no?” She shot me a sideways glance.

  “Probably not.”

  She shrugged. “It was Savannah Morrell.”

  “You’re on her payroll.”

  Another shrug. I took that as confirmation. I’d already thought she was. When I’d been trapped in Touray’s warehouse, the FBI had attacked at Arnow’s instigation. We’d escaped, but ended up ambushed by Savannah Morrell and her Tyet cronies. I’d always thought Arnow had a hand in it. This just made me more sure.

  “You told her Touray and I were at FBI headquarters.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  It wasn’t a denial. I glared. “Am I wrong?”

  “I didn’t tell her.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Why would I? I need you free and alive.” Arnow dragged her fingers through her hair, pulling strands out of her already-messy ponytail. When she gripped the steering wheel again, I noticed that her hands shook. Both gestures were totally unlike the cool and collected control-freak agent I’d come to know and hate.

  “If not you, then who?” I asked, still not believing.

  “Another agent, maybe. Maybe one of your bodyguards. Maybe she’s having you followed.”

  The last one was more than a little likely. Even so, I wasn’t sure I believed Arnow. Still, it was true that if she really needed me, then she didn’t want Morrell to get her claws into me.

  “You could have stepped in to help me sooner,” I pointed out.

  “I figured Touray would travel you out.” She shook her head. “He had a window of opportunity. He should have taken it. What was he thinking by running into that mess?”

  What she didn’t know was that the one and only time Touray had taken me through dreamspace, I’d nearly died. Even if he hadn’t gone on the rescue mission to help the injured in the accident, he wasn’t in a hurry to try again. He needed me for his plans. Not to mention he claimed me as family now, though I wasn’t sure that was nearly as important to him as my trace talent was.

  “And yet you followed us anyhow,” I said derisively.

  “You don’t always do what’s expected,” she said. “Plus I didn’t have anywhere else to be. I figured I’d hang around just in case. Lucky for you I did.”

  “And Touray?”

  “They got him.”

  “Dammit.” What would Savannah Morrell do to him? She wasn’t exactly known to be Glinda, the good witch. She was more the psychotic witch from the land of We Are So Fucked. She’d probably enjoy torturing him. At least she’d keep him alive. He had some of the Kensington artifacts, and she wanted them. Until he gave them up, she wouldn’t kill him.

  Zachary Kensington had formulated a magical weapon in the early days of Diamond City, when the place had been an Old West-style Tyet war zone. Though no one now knew what the weapon could actually do, supposedly it had allowed him to establish order in the city and bring the other Tyet factions to heel.

  At some point after that, Kensington had broken up the weapon into different pieces and hidden them. He’d thought the weapon too powerful for anybody else to use. Or maybe he thought someone else would use it to become the next Hitler or Caligula.

  I’d stumbled across three of the pieces while trying to find my almost-brother-in-law, Josh, when he got kidnapped. Touray had ended up in possession of those pieces. He was determined to find the rest and repeat Kensington’s feat. In the last ten years or so, the violence and killing had increased exponentially in the city. Just last year, the New York Times or Time Magazine or some other news outlet had declared our fair city the murder capital of America, and well on its way to becoming deadliest in the world. Touray’s mission was to stop the eruptions of violence. I’m not saying he was Martin Luther King Jr. or Gandhi—peace and joy weren’t exactly his hallmarks. Touray just wanted to bring the death toll down to a tolerable level. Whatever the fuck that was. I wasn’t so sure that having the Kensington weapon was the best plan. Let’s face it—that kind of power, if it was true, would seriously tempt a saint. Touray was anything but.

  He also wasn’t the only one after Kensington’s weapon. All the bad guys were, too. I groaned inwardly. Since when was Touray not on my bad-guy list? I gritted my teeth, disliking my train of thought. Maybe since he ran into an ambush to help people trapped in an ambulance.

  I sighed and turned my attention back to Arnow. It annoyed me that she had been just as surprised as I was that Touray had jumped into the Good Samaritan role without thinking about his own safety. No, that wasn’t true. It was worse. He had thought about his safety and totally disregarded it. I didn’t like that she and I shared anything, even a little bit of surprise. It made me want to reconsider my opinion of him, which irritated the hell out of me. Because if he was a good guy, if his default reaction was to run toward the fire, he was actually going to do good things with the weapon, which meant I was going to have to help him.

  I decided to jump off that cliff when I came to it.

  “I could have used a hand in the restaurant. They almost had me.”

  “Couldn’t risk it. I’m supposed to be in Denver. Anyhow, you’re not stupid. I figured you’d worm your way out. You’re good at that.”

  “And if I didn’t? What about these people you want me to find? What happens to them if I don’t help you?” I wanted to yank the question back. I didn’t want to know, because then I’d feel guilty, and then I’d have to help.

  Arnow’s chin jutted, and she punched the gas. The car skidded, and she took her foot off the accelerator and steered into the slide until she had control again.

  “Looks like I hit a nerve,” I observed.

  “With or without you, I’m going to find them,” she said.

  “That’s good, because I wouldn’t spit on you if you were dying of thirst.”

  One corner of her mouth lifted. “And yet you are going to help me.”

  “Like hell.”

  “Where do you want to go? Back to your stepmother’s?” she asked.

  I flinched. I hated that she knew where Mel lived. Not that it was a secret. Not that the FBI hadn’t broken down the front door. Arnow was FBI—finding Mel’s address would have taken a couple of keystrokes.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You aren’t going to ask why you’re going to help me?”

  I shook my head. “Not interested in fairy tales.”

  “Sure you are. Here’s a good one. Once upon a time, a princess fell in love with a dark prince. One night, bad men took the dark prince and locked him away. The princess was heartbroken. She had no idea where to find him. Then a mysterious stranger shows up promising not only to guide the princess to her lover, but help her rescue him. In return, the princess helps the stranger locate her missing friends.”

  She flashed me a sharp grin. “You don’t know where your boy toy is. The agents nulled him the moment they put him in the car. Standard operating procedure. But I know. I can take you there.”

  “Fuck you,” I said. “I can find him myself.” I wished I sou
nded more certain. I could do things no other tracer could do, and my ghost mom had told me that no trace could ever really disappear for me—if I was as strong as she thought I was. If. But I didn’t know for sure. So while there was a possibility I could find Price without help, there was a decent chance I couldn’t. I also couldn’t afford to waste time looking.

  Arnow snorted. “Right. How are you going to do that exactly?”

  “I’ve got my ways. Anyhow, I wouldn’t trust you to take out my trash.”

  “No? Think about this, then. These are the stats the public never gets to hear about. Nine out of every ten people interrogated under the Rice Act have ended up in jail, dead, or in a loony bin. Are you going to find your precious boyfriend before he’s toast? How long after you find him is it going to take you to break him out? I know where he’s being held and I’ve got clearance inside the facility. So make up your mind. Even trade. My services for yours, or you jump out and take your chances. Just remember, if you’re not going to help me, there’s no reason for me not to turn you over to Savannah Morrell and earn my brownie points. So either way, Price has close to a 100 percent chance of never seeing the light of day again.”

  She flexed her fingers on the steering wheel before shooting me a dogged look. “So what’s it going to be?”

  I didn’t have to think. I couldn’t risk Price’s life or sanity. “I’m in.” I paused. “But we free Price first and then Touray. Only then will I help you. If you betray me in the slightest, you’ll be on your own.”

  Her jaw knotted. “That’s fair.” She hesitated. “I hope it’s not too late.”

  I knew she was talking about the people she wanted me to find, but my mind flew to Price and the ugly statistics Arnow had quoted at me. I prayed we wouldn’t be too late for him.

  Chapter 7

  “WHERE IS HE?”

  “Facility up in the mountains. Maybe an hour away, depending on roads and snow.”

  So not far away. Relief made me slump in my seat. Here I had some resources. If Price had been taken far away, I would have had far less to work with. Then I remembered Gregg had said they might move him.

  “Will they keep him there? Or take him somewhere else?”

  “The local agents want a crack at him. It would be worth a commendation, if not a promotion. So they’ll work on him here, at least for a few days, or until the sharks up the food chain hear about the arrest. Then the bigwigs will move in and take over. Whether they decide to question Price locally or not is anybody’s guess.”

  “So we should hurry.”

  “Faster the better. Could be only hours before the news gets out.”

  I sat and stewed about that for a few minutes. Anxiety made me want to fidget. Finally, I pulled out my phone and sent a text to Taylor to meet me at Mel’s, then sent a message to Mel to tell her we were coming. I didn’t mention Arnow. That would be better explained in person. I tabbed my phone off and stuck it back in my pocket.

  The silence in the car ate at me. It was late enough that traffic wasn’t that heavy, but Arnow drove like a granny on her way to Sunday church. I mentioned this.

  “Don’t want to call attention to ourselves,” she said, glancing in the rearview. I looked over my shoulder. Lights turned off in another direction. I faced back around.

  Before the silence could settle again, I spoke. “Who are these people you want me to find, anyhow? What’s the story?”

  “It’s going to take longer than a short car ride to explain.”

  “Give me the nuts and bolts.”

  She blew out a breath. “All right. The nutshell is this: I’ve discovered that there are two levels of Tyet organizations. Hell, there’s probably hundreds. But you know how there’s the internet and the dark web underneath that’s tons bigger and a lot more powerful? The Tyets are like that. There’s all the stuff we see day to day, the players in the papers and on the news, and then there’s a deeper, bigger, stronger, more dangerous level where the heavyweights play in secret.”

  I frowned. I didn’t know what to think of what she was telling me. I hadn’t been expecting anything like it. Not that I knew what I’d been expecting, really, but this surprised me.

  Seeing my frown and taking it for confusion, Arnow continued. “Think of the Tyets here in Diamond City and everywhere else as local clubs. Small fry, bush leagues, mom-and-pop organizations. That sort of thing. The deeper level is muscular with tentacles everywhere. They are far more organized and run everything. Not just one group, but hundreds. Maybe thousands. They have factions, too, but they run countries. They have the real power. I’ve been trying to tap into them for a few years now.”

  The idea that there were deeper and bigger Tyet groups made sense. It also made my blood run cold. Weren’t the ordinary Tyet factions bad enough? Arnow had called them mom-and-pop organizations. Next thing you’d know, they’d be sponsoring Little Leagues and bowling teams. The Savannah Morrell Killers against the Gregg Touray Kneebreakers. I swallowed a giggle. I was losing it. I needed sleep. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to get it.

  “You’re doing this on your own?” It made sense, I supposed. The FBI was as corrupt as any organization in Diamond City. She wouldn’t know who she could trust, and worse, who she couldn’t. The Lone Ranger thing would be safer. Plus she might not be able to get official permission. “Being in bed with Savannah Morrell gives you credibility for getting in, I take it.”

  She nodded. “Something like that. But yeah, I’m off the reservation. The FBI doesn’t know I’m working on this, which is why I can’t call in backup. Savannah would slit my throat if she knew. She doesn’t mess with the deepwater Tyets.”

  I had a hard time picturing anything that would scare Savannah Morrell. I wonder if Price and Touray knew about these so-called deepwater Tyets. Of course they did. How could they not, in their line of work? Arnow kept speaking, and I turned my attention back to her.

  “I put together a team for a mission. Five of us. It was supposed to be recon at an industrial complex. The next thing I knew, three of them disappeared. I’ve got to find them, without letting anybody know my fingerprints are on this.”

  I smiled without any humor. That gave me a lot of power over Arnow. It also showed how committed she was to her team. I had to respect her for that. A little.

  “Who took them?”

  She shook her head. “I wish I knew.”

  “I hope you’ve got more details than that.”

  Her hand tightened on the steering wheel. “There’d been a string of ritual murders. The local LEOs focused on nailing the killer, but I was sure it was bigger than one person. I thought it had something to do with the Consortium.”

  “Consortium? What’s that?”

  “One of the deepwater Tyet groups. It does a lot of business in the US, Canada, and has interests in a lot of other places.”

  “I take it you decided to investigate these murders?” I asked.

  “Unofficially. My team is civilian, so it’s been totally off the books.”

  “Civilian? That’s not cheap.”

  “They have their reasons for working for me,” she said.

  “Everybody has to eat,” I pointed out.

  On the other hand, if you’d lived in Diamond City for at least two years, you qualified for the diamond dole. It was enough to cover most of your basic living costs, with emphasis on basic. That and a job made sure you could afford to live in the city and work, which was the whole point. The wealthy needed employees. Of course, wages were higher in Diamond City than anywhere else, so the diamond dole often served as a bonus.

  “They get paid.”

  Something in the way Arnow said it caught me up short. Then I put two and two together. “Bounty. They get some kind of a bounty on what they do for you.”

  She shrugged. “It works out. Bad
guys get stopped and the team stays happy. Since we’re off the books, we can’t report what we confiscate anyhow.”

  “I expect there’s a lot of money to be made.”

  She nodded. “It’s good incentive.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I did a little digging in our systems about the murders. Next thing I know, there’s nothing there anymore. Everything gets wiped clean. Big-time cover up, like the murders never happened. Even the other investigators weren’t saying anything.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Anyway, I decided to check out the crime scenes. See what we could find. Ran into trouble at the third one.

  “The place was an old machine shop. Big. Several buildings. Since we came to the investigation secondhand, we didn’t know exactly where the murder site was. We split up to search. Me and Kelsey found the killing room. The walls were covered with arcane symbols painted in blood. Other than that, the room was empty—except for a ping-pong table.”

  That startled me. “A what?”

  Arnow snorted. “Not what I was expecting either. On the table were two paddles and three balls. Each of those sat in a pool of fresh blood. The names of my other three team members were written on each. There was also a note. It said, ‘Welcome to the game. Take up your paddle and play.’ Kelsey and I searched the rest of the place and it was empty, no trace of foul play. I had the three blood pools checked. They came from my people.” Her voice dropped into a rasp. “I have to find them.”

  “You think they are still alive?”

  Arnow hesitated. “I’m hoping you can tell me for sure.”

  I didn’t like her. In fact, I hated her. But I was feeling a little sorry for her, or at least for her team members who’d gotten captured. I knew more than I wanted about being a prisoner of the Tyet. I sighed and put out my hand. “Give them to me.”

  “Give you what?”

  “The ping-pong balls, or whatever else you’re carrying around that has their trace on it.”

  She eyed me sideways, then reached into the inside pocket of her coat and pulled out a plastic baggie containing three rust-colored plastic balls. She handed them to me.