Chapter 98
When I returned, Miles didnt ask any questions. That felt significant somehow. Either he was committed to his own plausible deniability, or he already knew. Normally, Id say I was confident he hadnt been watching me, but considering his background and skill set, it wasnt a safe assumption.
Before we started to climb, he grabbed me by the arm. Look. I know youre trying to limit casualties. Its part of why I felt comfortable signing on, considering who youre working with.
I raised an eyebrow. Sensing some history there. Something about Roderick I should know?
Miles pressed his lips together and shook his head. Let's just say I can see the two of us working together in the future. Which isnt something Id say about him.
This unspoken business, the real reason you took a house in the neighborhood?
Pressing me for info isnt going to get you shit. Miles looked me point-blank in the eye.
I held my hands up defensively. Fine. Cant blame a guy for trying.
I dont.
You were working up to something?
Right. Miles ran a hand through his hair. Its fine to give most of these people a pass. Theyre obvious amateurs being kept in the dark, getting bossed around by idiots who dont know how to set up a basic perimeter.
I studied him. You want to kill the necromancer.
Want has nothing to do with it. Miles shook his head. Remember the one I told you about?
The one living in the sewer, yeah. I also remember you saying he didnt pose much of a threat.
No, Miles corrected, His creations didnt pose much of a threat. The necromancer himself was a different story. Shadow hands that came out of walls, tore through flesh like paper. Took down a half-dozen cops and several agents from my department before they got him. Reports from the survivors indicated that they heard the voices of friends and loved ones distracting them, trying to lead them into traps.
Kind of buried the lead earlier, didnt you? I asked.
Miles shrugged. Had to know you werent going to spook. Im good, but its a numbers game and the numbers arent in our favor. I doubt I could do this on my own.
Noted, I said, not thrilled with the turn of events. Miles had been reasonable and even-handed up to this point. Now he was trying to prime me to kill on sight. If what he was saying was true, it was a reasonable stance to take. Even logical.
But it was idiocy to trust a liar without knowing their agenda. Doubly so when you were talking about a fed.
Let me be clear. We found a loner in a tunnel, luring in the elderly and the impressionable, and he still gave us hell. Imagine how much more dangerous hed have been if he had organizational support and dozens of people to work on?
I get it, enough with the hard sell, I snapped
Okay, Miles said. He didnt seem particularly confident, but also seemed to realize hed pushed things too far, and that pushing harder would be counter-productive.
We scaled the outside of the storage building with no issue. Miles used a small red-glowing blade, no bigger than a scalpel, to cut through the glass silently on the upper window, carefully placing the pane inside to give us an entry point on the seventh floor.
Lacking any other choice, I barreled through them, shutting the doors behind me and backing away slowly as I watched the outline of the door. The shadow didnt follow.
It did what it intended to do. Funneled me here.
The sharp artificial lemon scent of disinfectant reached my nose.
I wasnt sure what I expected to see. The image Miles had painted, along with my recent experience in region six, had primed me for something horrible, something macabre. Vivisected bodies hung by chains above trenches of blood. Fingers and other extremities suspended in jars of fluid.
Somehow, that couldnt have been further from the truth.
I found myself in what looked like the wing of a medical facility. Unconscious patients wearing blue gowns were tucked into high-end hospital beds lining each side, most hooked to monitors that measured their pulse. There were more than ten on each side. All of them had well-defined musculature, meaning they were likely Users.
Wake up, dammit. Come on. A voice called out.
I drew my crossbow and held it in front of me, pointing at the ground as I moved slowly, my imagination running wild. Maybe one of the Users regained consciousness and was trying to rouse the others.
What I found was not so simple.
Instead of a panicked User, or a necromancer adorned in black robes, I found a doctor. Or, at least, a man who appeared to be one. He was wearing a white coat with a stethoscope draped over his neck. His dark hair was receding severely and thinning on top, and his blue eyes were exhausted.
Id never seen him before. But something about the way he set his jaw was familiar.
He was leaning over a User on an operating table. If the monitoring device next to the table was correct, the man had flatlined.
The doctor rushed away in a controlled panic, returning with a long needle in his neoprene-gloved hands.
Step away. I pointed the crossbow towards him, aligning the bead on his eye.
The doctor raised his hands in the air, but didnt move. Sizing me up, he looked back and forth between me and the body on the table.
Step. Away. I repeated, giving each word more emphasis.
Listen to me, The doctor said. That man has been dead for more than two minutes. Serious brain damage starts
At three. Im aware. I interjected. You killed him?
The doctor held his silence, but guilt, clear as if it were written in neon, clouded his face.
I pointed my crossbow towards the syringe. Whats in the needle?
Adrenaline, the doctor answered. My companion, says youre here to cast judgment.
Shadow monster in the hallway?
Yes. And thats fine. I dont care what happens to me. God knows I deserve it. Just let me try to save him.
