His words sparked me. I’d been struggling with the separate pieces for ages, and it finally clicked. Before, I’d wondered what kind of operation would use a fleet of trucks, warehouses, and a landing strip. I’d guessed smuggling of some kind, drugs being the obvious choice, but between our trip to the zona, what I’d learned about the flesh pipeline on the Internet, and what Booke had said about the prisoners, the truth coalesced for me.
“That’s it.”
“What is?” Chance crept toward the corrugated steel structure, only half listening to me.
“The connection. Southern Sanitation is a front for IBC, right? Importaciones Bonitas Corporación?” I shook my head in disgust. “Pretty Imports Corporation. What’s prettier than young women?”
Chance’s gaze kindled with realization. “They’re trafficking women. According to what I read about the sex trade, Mexico is often the first point of entry from the East. Sometimes the victims remain there, where they’re put to work in an Asian themed brothel.”
I nodded, remembering the red pagoda in Boys Town. “Then they ship the women in from Nuevo Laredo, if they’re intended for local use.” Saying it aloud sent a cold shiver of horror through me. “That’s where the fleet of trucks comes in. And if they’re meant for other ports of call, they use this hangar—”
“And the landing strip,” Chance finished.
“I’d guess the warlock procures for them and offers another valuable service.” When he regarded me blankly, I added, “The girls are drugged and shipped in crates like animals. He takes care of the ones who don’t make it. That’s how he conjures those shadows at will. How else could he kill so many people and go undetected?”
I wasn’t positive I had the whole picture yet, but that was most of it, I thought.
“You’re right,” he said. “You must be. Maybe my mother stumbled onto it? Maybe one of the women she used to treat in the zona came to her with information?”
I didn’t know about that, but my gut instinct said no. It was something more, something else. That might play a part, but the story didn’t end there. Why else would Min have gone with her captors willingly? But I couldn’t even guess.
“Do you have a bolt cutter?” I asked as we came up to the padlocked door.
Chance had packed a messenger bag full of God knew what. He’d spent hours in the garage last night, going through the remnants of Chuch’s former life. I definitely liked his current dishevelment more than the coifed perfection he had sported when we were together. Between the black leather bag and the weapons on his back, he made for a pretty vigilante killer. Was I irredeemable because that sent a tiny thrill through me? Maybe.
He might be that, soon enough.
“I think so.”
Chance cut the lock and we stepped inside, paused on the threshold to let our eyes adjust to the dim interior. I thought I heard something banging around near the back. Someone who needed help? Instinctively I started that way.
As we sprinted for the far corner, a scream echoed off the walls. Forty souls keened their anguish and then fell silent. I didn’t know whether we’d set off a fail-safe that executed the prisoners in the event of an unauthorized entry or if Ferguson had triggered a trap somewhere.
Either way, it didn’t matter.
“We’re too late,” I whispered.
The shadows rose.
Out, Out, of This Damned Spot
The hangar pulsed with a pale, unwholesome light.
The space looked large enough to house a plane, but right now it contained only row after row of crates containing the bodies of dead women. It was our fault. We hadn’t been fast enough, careful enough.
But I couldn’t let myself think along those lines. We hadn’t kidnapped them.
Later I could drown myself in guilt, drink Irish whiskey, and brood over my role in this mess. Right now I had to focus on surviving. If I didn’t, then the people ultimately responsible for this would get off scot-free.
I should be manning a cash register, damn it. Instead I hefted a grenade that wouldn’t do shit against these things. Southern chicks who couldn’t remember their natural hair color weren’t meant to fight monsters. But I’d stand for those who couldn’t fight back. Like these poor women, like Maris, like Lenny. Maybe I hadn’t been born to the task or even chosen for it by Powers That Be, but I wouldn’t back down. A need for justice drove me on.
That was the reason I’d accepted Chance’s terms, left my quiet life, and climbed on this roller coaster in the first place. Back then I just wanted the people who killed my mother to account for their crimes. Now I wanted the sick bastards who’d stolen these girls to pay as well.
Smoke writhed all around us, coalescing into spectral forms. I actually saw it when they recognized their altered states, ruby red eyes fixing on us with the hungry, envious rage only dead things feel for the living. Guns and grenades wouldn’t work against creatures of pure will and darkness.
And we’d sent God’s Flashlight off to break some statues.
If we could do it over, I might go another way. As they closed on us, I backed off. Their proximity chilled the air, so that I saw my breath when I exhaled in a demon sigh. Tendrils snaked toward us, tasting us. I could almost hear them keening in anticipation.
They flowed between us and the door, circling with slow but inexorable intent. Shit. I wished I could call Booke, but it was down to Chance and me. We’d live or die together.
“Ideas?”
Chance shook his head. “I’m fresh out of holy water. We shouldn’t have split up.”
“How thick are the walls?”
We were too far from the door, and the shades were trying to encircle us. If I could blow a hole in the wall, we might get out of here.
“Good question. What do you have in mind?”
“Just trust me and get down.”
Rather than waste time we didn’t have in explanations, I pulled the pin on the grenade in my hand and hurled it. Chance hit the deck and rolled as debris showered down on us. The entire hangar groaned and shuddered, but when the smoke cleared I saw I’d blown a small hole, maybe big enough to crawl through.
I could feel the cold of the shadows closing in on us. Any closer and we’d start to freeze up. I remembered the agony from the cemetery.
“Hurry up!” Fear made my voice sharp.
He caught my urgency. On hands and knees, we scrambled for the makeshift exit. Ragged metal sliced my palms and my knees as I pulled myself past just in time. Dust ground into the open wounds, and I couldn’t restrain a moan of pain.
As we fell back into the grass, the spirits slowed. Maybe they couldn’t tolerate the sun? I guess I’d seen too many vampire films. They didn’t disintegrate or catch on fire, but they hesitated before boiling out of the ragged hole in the wall.
The light wasn’t enough.
Ragged arms reached for us, smoky and nebulous things that contrasted unnaturally with the chill in the air. The light hurt them as they pursued us even into the sunshine. Oddly, they seemed to be holding back, as if waiting for confirmation of their desire to suck the life out of us.
I stumbled to my feet and tried to decide what to do. Chance didn’t look sure. His nose bled, no longer a single drop but a steady stream.
“Ease up,” I begged. “He already knows we’re here.”
Grimly he shook his head. “That’s not what I’m concentrating on anymore.”
Before I could ask, things got worse.
A lightning bolt split the sky, and thunder clouds boiled up from nowhere. Eerie and unnatural, the sky beyond showed pearly gray that would ripen into blue as the day went on. We stood in the heart of unnatural night, carrion winds rising around us, and still couldn’t see our enemy.
From everywhere and nowhere, a voice boomed out. “Finish them.”
Unbound by the close confines of the hangar, the specters spread into a writhing wall before us. Through their shifting mass we saw movement—the stiff, pale forms of dead women lumbered toward us. Not even the twilight of the rising storm could hide their pallor and wounds, the charged shimmering air making the scene even more surreal.
Jesus, that wasn’t even fair. With the murder of one human being, the warlock could create two enemies: their transformed spirits and their dead flesh. I slanted a quick look at Chance, who had taken a position at my back.
Somehow I managed to smile as I said, “Seems like overkill, doesn’t it?”
“I guess we pissed him off with our persistence. Lion, thorn in paw.”
Chance and I had been backed into more than a few tight spots, but this qualified as the worst. I recognized the chill creeping over me as the wave of shadows crept closer. Overhead, the sky boiled with unnatural clouds. We needed light, but I didn’t think I could count on a stray sunbeam, especially when Kel had called the one in the cemetery.
Where the hell was he anyway?
Then the entire upper story of the house exploded, smoking splinters and glass glittering through the darkened air as fire burst the windows. The impact sent me face-first into the dirt.
The shadows hesitated, no longer bound to their purpose. Beyond them, the corpses showed the same undirected confusion, shambling steps taking them away from us. Some drifted toward the back of the house, now licking with flame. I heard the screams of Kel’s combat with the warlock, but I couldn’t think about him. Other shadows stalked us still: dead things affronted by the heat and vitality of the living.
Screw it. I wouldn’t go out quietly.
I’d practiced last night. Press down with my thumb and slide the pin out, then let fly. I’d done it once already, against the hangar wall. With fingers gone numb, I pulled the pin on a grenade and pitched it at the advancing shades. The explosion roared in my ears, threw dirt, and did nothing to the shadows. Except make them recoil.
“Heat,” I called to Chance. “They’re afraid of fire. We should head for the house!”
His look said I’d gone insane. But I’d lived through conflagrations that killed other people, and these things couldn’t take heat or light. When Clayton Mann lit his own lair on fire and I fell three stories, I’d proved I could survive my worst fear. I could do it again.
I spun and staggered toward the burning building. I wasn’t sure how I felt when he followed me without another word. It did something crazy to my insides.
I could hardly make myself move, already chilled and sluggish. Deadly frost whispered at my heels as I made for the porch. At this point I felt like I might be seeking the least objectionable way to die.
All around us, the storm roared with insane fury. The warlock wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long with so many factors draining his strength. That was assuming Kel didn’t slaughter him outright, incinerate him in holy fire.
Pure heat roared over me as I coiled myself under the windowsill. Chance tried to wrap himself around me, but the closest shadow snatched at my arm instead. A wave of blackness washed over me like an oil spill.
It wanted me. Maybe they recognized my taste now. And I couldn’t fight back this time. Nowhere to run. The fire wasn’t enough. Too slow, not quite hot enough.