Avenger of Sins (SPECTR Series 3, #6)

Chapter 9

NINE

It was dark by the time they parked the SUV off to the side of a winding road disappearing off toward the mountain. Caleb had steered it off the road onto what looked like no more than a deer path, in hopes it wouldn’t be seen by any passing vehicles.

“So what now?” Caleb asked as they got out.

John looked around. The woods were silent except for the lone call of an owl: Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all? In summer there would be cicadas and crickets, small animals rustling in the leaves. For now, winter spread a quiet blanket over the hollow.

There was no snow at least, except for a dusting on higher peaks. Nothing to betray footsteps, if Ryan had passed this way.

Was Ryan already here? Or had they beat him? And what should they do in either case?

“We walk,” John answered.

“And if there are cameras in the woods?” Caleb asked.

John began to walk, and Caleb fell in beside him. Night drifted off to one side, vanishing from sight in the shadow of every tree. If not for the scent of night-blooming jasmine and copal, mingled with the crackle of etheric energy, John wouldn’t have even known she was there.

Would she show up on camera, even one with night vision? He didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter, since he and Caleb certainly would.

Last fall’s leaves crunched under their feet as they made their way through the trees a few yards away from the road. John had brought a small flashlight, which he used to keep from tripping over fallen branches and winter-dead briars.

“I have my SPECTR badge,” John said. “Hopefully, if we do get caught, they’ll listen to a federal agent when they wouldn’t an ordinary trespasser. Harlow used to work for SPECTR, after all.”

“True, but he refused Kaniyar’s offer of help,” Caleb said. His long hair whispered over the elk hide of his coat, and he moved with the confidence of someone who didn’t need a flashlight to see.

“If I’m standing right in front of him, offering a solution, he might be more amenable to assistance.” John ducked under a branch, felt a twig grab at his hair. The chill soaked into his skin through the thin jacket he’d worn in New Orleans, but Caleb’s thicker coat was too slim in the shoulders for him to wear comfortably.

Caleb was silent for a long moment, before saying, “And if we do end up standing in front of him? The sick fuck who thought up Operation Mephisto in the first place?”

John’s stomach did a slow roll. He had no memory of the man, and sure, it might be that there were still memories he’d never get back. But men like Harlow tended to be hands-off in his experience. Walsh, Lydell, Foster, and others had been the ones to do the dirty work and write the reports.

Was that better or far worse? Harlow hadn’t overseen their suffering directly, only handled bloodless reports. He was fine giving the orders, but when it came to seeing the results of those orders, was he squeamish? Disinterested? Just too busy with Goddess-knew what other projects and operations?

“I don’t know,” he said after a few minutes filled only with the rustle of leaves under their feet, the hoot of the owl growing fainter. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Caleb took his hand, and their fingers curled together. “I’m glad you’re here,” John said, squeezing Caleb’s fingers. “You and Gray. And you, too, Night. Thanks for seeing this through.”

“It is mortal nonsense,” Night replied, her glowing pupils the only thing he could make out in the darkness. “But it is…interesting. A diversion from the hunt, but unique in my experience.”

Caleb snorted. “Glad we can keep you entertain?—”

He stopped abruptly, head turning in the direction of the road. Night did the same. John strained his ears, but heard nothing. “What is it?”

“A vehicle. Something bigger than a car.” Caleb let go of his hand. “Stay here.”

He was gone in a blink, vanishing in the trees. Night might have gone with him; it was impossible to tell. John stood perfectly still, listening, until at last the distant rumble of an engine came to his mortal hearing.

“It’s a laundry truck,” Caleb said from the shadows beside him.

John startled, swinging the flashlight around wildly. Caleb blinked in the light. “Sorry—didn’t mean to surprise you.”

“It’s fine.” John lowered the light. “You said a laundry truck?”

“Yeah. So I’m thinking we reverse-prison-break this thing. What about you?” Caleb arched a brow.

John hesitated. Instinct whispered that this was too convenient, too cliche.

But that was ridiculous. Harlow knew Ryan was after him, but he wouldn’t suspect one of his other victims and two drakul would also be trying to get inside. Let alone to stop Ryan and save him, as bitter as that saving tasted. This was no trap set for them.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Caleb nodded. “Turn off your flashlight and climb on my back.”

John did so, wrapping his arms around Caleb’s neck and his legs around his waist. As soon as he was secure, Caleb set off at a run, easily dodging trees and leaping over obstacles John couldn’t see in the blackness.

The headlights of a truck appeared, the engine growling as it hauled itself up the hollow. John caught a glimpse of the logo painted on the side as it rumbled past: Laundry Strategies, Inc.

Caleb leapt, John clinging on for dear life. A moment later, claws caught in steel and etheric energy bloomed around them as Gray emerged.

A flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye; then Night was hauling up the roll-up door on the back of the truck, having broken the lock. Gray swung them inside, followed by Night, who closed the door again behind them.

John flicked his flashlight back on. The back of the truck was packed with hampers filled with folded sheets, uniforms, and towels.

Gray receded, and Caleb lifted one of the sheets. “Well,” he said, “at least it’s clean.”

The ride in the truck, hidden beneath a layer of laundry, seemed to take forever. Caleb listened intently to each shift of the truck’s gears, noted when it slowed to a stop, then sped up again. Waved through a checkpoint? Were they inside the Armaros compound now?

“Calm”, Gray said. “These humans cannot harm us. And we will not allow them to hurt John.”

It wasn’t that easy, and they both knew it. You’ve learned to lie to yourself. Good job; you’re becoming more human all the time.

“There is no need for insults.”

The truck slowed again, and his sensitive hearing picked up the groan of motors and the creak of moving steel. Heavy doors of some kind? Where the hell was the truck taking them?

The truck moved forward again, but this time the engine raised a strange echo, as if they were in an enclosed space. A garage? If so, it was an awfully big one.

Eventually, it came to a stop. The engine shut off; the driver’s door opened and then shut again. Footsteps walked away…then silence.

How long to wait? Presumably someone would be coming to unload the truck soon. On reflection, it seemed a weird time of night to get a delivery of clean laundry…but what the fuck did he know about it? He’d never worked in laundry services; maybe this was perfectly normal.

Either way, they shouldn’t dawdle too long. Once the driver’s footsteps had faded into silence, he tossed the folded sheets aside.

“Let’s go,” he said.

Night emerged from wherever she’d been hiding, and John rose from the hamper beside Caleb. As he helped John out of the oversized hamper, Night rolled the back door up.

The sight outside the truck was unexpected to say the least. Caleb had assumed they’d be in some sort of garage, pulled up to a loading dock. Instead, the truck sat within a cavernous space that appeared to have been carved out of the mountain itself. Rough rock walls formed an enormous tunnel, running from a pair of huge steel blast doors—currently closed—to a distant dead end, barely perceptible even to his enhanced sight. Pipes and conduit ran along the walls in neat rows, and some kind of bulkheads segmented its vast length, though all appeared to be open at the minute. Smaller doors led off the massive tunnel, regularly spaced across from each other.

“What the fuck?” he breathed. “This can’t be right.”

Gray stirred. Memories flickered behind their eyelids, gray and faded. Men, donkeys, mining carts, coal dust heavy in the air.

“A mine?” Caleb asked aloud for John’s benefit.

John slid down from the back of the truck to the concrete floor. “I think you’re right. They took an old mine and modified it for their use.”

“And what use is that?”

John’s mouth thinned. “Nothing good.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong about that. Caleb couldn’t think of anything a private military contractor would need a mountain fortress for that would qualify as “good.” Especially one headed by assholes like Harlow.

Sodium lights cast a strange orange glow over the scene. Another truck sat nearby, this one belonging to a food service company. Its rolling door also stood open.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled. “Why are there two service trucks just parked here, with no one else around? For that matter, why are they parked here in the first place? There’s no loading dock, so no way is this their usual stop.”

John pulled out his badge and clipped it to his belt. “I’d suggest heightened security procedures of some sort, but then we’d already be swarmed by guards.”

“This isn’t right.” Caleb took a step back, staring at the food truck. “Ryan must have come in the same way we did. This was all a trap, and we’ve stumbled right into it.”

Horror washed over John, threatening to make his hands shake. Kaniyar had warned Harlow that Ryan was coming, but instead of trying to keep him out, Harlow had seen it as a chance to recapture the only known telepath.

They’d thought they needed to save Harlow from Ryan…but it was the other way around.

“He wants Ryan back in a lab,” John said.

“And us?” Caleb looked worried. “He couldn’t know about us. Kaniyar wouldn’t just blab to someone outside of SPECTR that there are a pair of drakul on the way. You know, just in case Harlow wants to add us to his fucking menagerie. She’s the one who took down Forsyth for trying to pull this sort of shit.”

“There’s a leak.” His heart sank, though he didn’t know why he even bothered being disappointed in people anymore.

Night cocked her head. “Surely there would be mortals attempting to capture us if that was so.”

The enormous tunnel was still and silent, except for the occasional tick-tick from one of the pipes as it expanded or contracted in response to whatever flowed through it. Steam? Water? Something else he couldn’t guess?

Night had a point. Maybe there was no leak; maybe they’d sent a whole series of trucks waiting for Ryan to jump on one, and no one had realized they’d snuck in too. “We have to save Ryan,” John said, straightening his shoulders. “Whatever happens, we can’t let Harlow disappear him into this fortress, never to be seen again.”

Caleb didn’t look thrilled by the prospect, but he nodded. “Fine. What next?”

John scanned the walls. A number of smaller doors led off the main tunnel. They all looked sturdy, had electronic locks, and were inconveniently unlabeled.

No cameras, either, or at least none that he could see. They had to be there somewhere, though, right? Except as Night had said, no guards had rushed out to stop them from penetrating further into the base.

Something was wrong. No—everything was wrong. Everything had been wrong, for longer than he’d ever guessed. He’d come here to save the man who’d ordered him tortured, and now they were standing in a trap, and…

He took a deep breath, trying to dispel the bands of panic closing around his lungs. He was no longer an unhoused child who could simply be disappeared; he was a SPECTR agent with a gun and a badge. Not to mention, he was backed up by two of the most powerful NHEs to ever walk the earth. Harlow should be the one afraid, not him.

“There aren’t any answers in this tunnel,” he said. “We should start trying doors, see if any are unlocked.” It seemed unlikely, but he didn’t want the drakul to start tearing the place apart until they had to. Hopefully he could talk to Harlow and get them all safely out of here; destroying the facility unnecessarily wouldn’t help with that. “I’ll check the couple back toward the entrance; you start on the others.”

“All right,” Caleb said. “Come on, Night.”

The two drakul drifted down the corridor, Night flickering from shadow to shadow. John turned from them and started back toward the closed tunnel entrance. Just as he reached for the first door, he heard a clunk from high overhead.

Faster than he could react—faster than even Gray could react—an enormous blast door slammed down just behind him, cutting him off from the two drakul.

It nearly knocked him from his feet, the enormous crash ringing so loudly in his ears he couldn’t hear anything else. The door had been in freefall; someone had disabled the safety features. He stumbled to the door, shaking his head as if that would clear it.

He was cut off from the two drakul. He looked around frantically, but spotted no way of raising the solid wall of steel again. The thing had to be two feet thick. Even Gray couldn’t easily get through it.

He’d been right; there was a leak. The trap hadn’t just been for Ryan—it had been for them as well.

One of the side doors opened behind him.