Connected (Bureau #12)

Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

I t wasn’t much fun to drive through the gusting wind and torrential rain, but at least nobody else was crazy enough to be out on the roads tonight. And there were no tornado warnings, so far. Keaton wanted to race to the tipple at top speed but had just enough brains to proceed cautiously. It’s only a few miles , he kept reminding himself. You’ll never get there if you crash the car .

Honestly, though, worrying about the weather was more soothing than worrying about Owen—and also better than reflecting on the fact that Keaton had no clue what he would do once he arrived. If Owen was unharmed, he’d probably be pissed that Keaton was getting in the way of his investigation. He’d probably also conclude that Keaton was a stalker, or at least overprotective. On the other hand, if Owen was in trouble, what the hell was Keaton going to do about it? He wasn’t a cop. He’d never even played one on TV.

“Pep talk,” he said to himself as he steered north. “I need a fucking pep talk.”

When he was a kid, his mother had enrolled him in an acting class where the instructor had made the students read various Shakespeare plays, an assignment of dubious usefulness for a ten-year-old looking for a television role, but whatever. Now, decades and many miles away, Keaton remembered a famous line from Henry V and he said it out loud. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or close up the wall with our English dead!”

He wasn’t about to invade France and he had no army, but he felt a tiny bit better nonetheless. Sometimes you just had to do what was necessary and throw caution and common sense to the wind—and there was a good wind tonight.

He was terrified: heart racing, blood rushing, gut clenching. But it had been a wrenchingly long time since he’d felt much of anything at all. In his need to isolate himself from others’ emotions, he’d muted his own as well. So in a weird way, it felt good to be scared. It was like watching a really good horror flick or riding a roller coaster.

Well, except in this case the danger was real.

Owen’s SUV was in the small gravel lot next to the tipple, a simultaneously worrying and comforting sight. Keaton spent a few moments in the downpour, trying to get inside the vehicle, but the doors were locked. Which was ridiculous, really. Had Owen been worried about car thieves in the middle of a storm, miles from anything resembling civilization?

It took a few moments before it dawned on Keaton that there were no other vehicles, at least not that he could see. If someone—or something—had attacked Owen, either they had already left or the attacker hadn’t arrived by car. And maybe wasn’t human. He wished he’d asked Owen what types of NHSs lived around here.

Keaton had taken a few steps toward the tipple when he remembered the heavy-duty flashlight in his truck. Once he’d grabbed it, he headed for the spot where, eight years ago on his previous visit, the fence had been broken. As it turned out, it still was. A testament to how little anyone cared about this place.

Loose rock skittered under his feet, and tiny rivers of rainwater ran down the slope, soaking his tennis shoes, already so wet that it didn’t much matter. He was cold and the flashlight was heavy, but he shone the beam around the uneven shape of the tipple, trying to see how Owen had gotten in. He was halfway up the slope to the topmost part of the building and had almost resigned himself to walking down the rest of the perimeter, when he spied the open door and scurried inside.

For a few moments he stood there, dripping onto the concrete floor and wondering what the hell he was doing here. He wasn’t a Bureau agent; he was a middle-aged washed up actor in recovery, a nobody. Well, he was an empath, but what possible use could that be right now?

Ya ain’t got much, Gale, so use what ya got .

He opened himself wide to emotions.

And he gasped, because he’d immediately sensed Owen—in pain, frightened, angry. He thought that Owen was very close, but it was hard to tell for sure. The feelings were recognizable as Owen’s, but they were also… warped, like looking through old wavy glass. This was a new experience, and he disliked that he didn’t understand its meaning.

But wait. There were other entities here as well, although their emotions were all so badly twisted that he couldn’t tell how many there were or whether they were human. He couldn’t quite identify the emotions either. He thought he caught a hint of anguish, a taste of dread, and a tinge of satisfaction. That wasn’t a combination that made much sense, though, so he might have been wrong.

Stop procrastinating .

It wasn’t easy to pick his way through the building. The darkness seemed to swallow the beam of his flashlight, and there were so many things to trip over or walk into. He wasn’t at all confident that he wouldn’t simply fall through a weakened floorboard. And the farther he went, the stronger the scramble of emotions became—including Owen’s—until Keaton felt so dizzy and sick that he had to stop and puke. The odors of vomit and coal dust did not a pleasant mix make, and he didn’t feel much better afterward.

He wanted to go home. To lock himself inside his half-renovated house. Blast music. Never interact with another person again.

But he kept on going.

He slowly worked his way down to the bottom of the building, until all that lay in front of him was a broken window looking out into the night. He hadn’t passed anyone or seen any signs of life along the way.

“Not possible,” he whispered. “He’s here. I’m certain.”

So he did the worst thing imaginable, which was to turn around and retrace his steps, this time more slowly, concentrating all the way on that barbed-wire strand of emotions. They definitely grew stronger as he neared the building’s center.

Was Owen under the building? Or on the roof? Neither seemed likely. The roof, steeply sloped and made of metal, would be nearly impossible to scale even in calm, dry weather. And if someone did manage it somehow, Keaton would hear their footsteps even through the storm. As for under, the first and last sections of the building had chutes in the floor for filling the old coal trains. The center didn’t, however, and if he remembered right, this part of the structure was built into the ground rather than perched on supports.

There didn’t seem to be any smaller rooms or closets or other hiding spots. None of the machinery in this part was big enough for a man to fit inside; mostly there were just long conveyer belts.

I’m not in the mood for hide-and-seek, Agent Clark.

He couldn’t simply leave, even if that was the most logical course of action. Instead, he stopped in the middle of the room and listened, trying to tune out the noise of the wind and rain and to concentrate instead on sounds originating inside the tipple. He would have assumed that rodents had made their homes there and that birds had flown in through the busted-out windows to nest in the rafters. However, nothing skittered or shuffled or scurried or flapped. Aside from Keaton, there was apparently no living creature in the building.

Except he still felt them. Owen’s pain and fear, coupled with a fierce, stubborn pride that almost made Keaton smile. Another person’s satisfaction and amusement. And more: from a third party, or maybe more, howling despair and fathomless sorrow. Keaton had to blink back tears. Good god, what was going on here?

A sound reached him so faintly that at first he thought he’d imagined it. As he strained his ears, the sound seemed to strengthen a bit. It was a voice. Not only was it very quiet, but it also faded in and out as if someone were speaking into a faulty microphone. He couldn’t make out the words. Was someone laughing?

Then someone screamed; Keaton heard that clearly. And he was fairly certain the scream came from Owen’s throat.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Keaton suddenly remembered the way he’d sometimes turn down the volume of his car radio when he was searching for an address. If reducing auditory input helped his vision, maybe it would work the other way around. He’d give his poor beleaguered brain a little break. So he closed his eyes.

The voice, although still faint, became clear enough for him to recognize that it was a man speaking and to discern the words.

“—few more hours yet. I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. I have a lot of experience at this game.”

“Fuck you.” It was jagged and broken, but that voice was Owen’s.

Keaton had to cover his mouth to muffle a cry.

“I would hope you’d be able to come up with something more creative than that, Agent Clark. Use your mouth well while you still can. If you refuse my offer, I’ll eventually cut out your tongue. Among other parts.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Understand what?” the other man asked pleasantly.

“Why people like you get joy from suffering. There are so many good things in the world.”

“Oh, I see we’re back to puppies and sunsets. Those things never did anything for me. To each his own, right? Or, as the kids today like to say, don’t yuck my yum.”

Owen screamed again. Howled, really, and although the volume still wasn’t loud, the room echoed with it. Keaton wanted to scream too, in secondhand pain and firsthand frustration.

A third voice shouted something, but it wasn’t in a language that Keaton recognized.

Then for several minutes everything was quiet—except, of course, the storm.

Owen spoke again, sounding as if he were talking through tears. “I’ve listened to the gratitude of a parent after I saved their child. Nothing you do to me can change that. I’ve visited beings from another planet. I’ve heard a demon describe what it was like to watch the Egyptian pyramids being built. I’ve been serenaded by a water spirit.”

Keaton’s tears escaped but he managed to remain quiet while Owen recited these things. It reminded Keaton of Roy Batty’s speech in Blade Runner , just before Roy died, and he wondered whether Owen had ever seen the film, had enjoyed it, had reflected on its themes about the nature of humanity. God, Keaton would have loved to cuddle up on the couch and watch it with him. Maybe they’d both lust a little over Harrison Ford. Maybe they’d have a mini film fest of sci-fi noir.

“I’ve ridden on the back of a dragon,” Owen said. “I’ve kissed the man I’ve had a crush on since I was a kid.”

Oh no. That wasn’t fair. Keaton didn’t deserve to be on Owen’s list, not when he stood here so uselessly, listening to Owen cry out in agony.

Acting purely on instinct, Keaton opened his eyes—and turned off the flashlight.

The rain and wind muted at once, and instead of coal dust and wet stone, he smelled sweat and blood. A glow began, at first so dim that he thought he’d imagined it, then gradually brightening until suddenly there was a flash that blinded him.

Two voices called out at once: “Keaton, no!” and “Who is this ?”

The room had changed completely. Everything was clean, bright, and shiny. Several metal tables—like doctors’ exam tables—were scattered around.

Owen— attached to a metal framework, naked, hair lank with sweat, blood streaking his torso—stared at Keaton in horror. Between them stood a thin, nondescript man in a suit. He looked like the type who had a boring job involving spreadsheets and would soon have a midlife crisis that involved buying a Corvette and cheating on his wife.

His eyes, though. They were the scariest things Keaton had ever seen.

Keaton stood frozen in shock as he took in all of this.

“Run, Keaton,” urged Owen, his voice reduced to a rasp.

But Keaton couldn’t move, not even when the man in the suit cocked his head slightly and turned to Owen. “Who is this, Agent Cook? Do you have a friend?”

Keaton rushed forward, swung the heavy flashlight, and clocked the man in the side of the head as hard as he could.

It was glorious—briefly. The metal made a solid thunk when it connected with flesh and bone. The man grunted in surprise and stumbled, almost falling to the floor. Blood gushed. For the first time in his life, Keaton felt strong and heroic.

Unfortunately, his psychic defenses failed in the heat of the moment and the man’s emotions flowed into him. They were… putrid. The man’s inner self was a seething mass of infection, like a pool of pus and rotting corpses.

Keaton fell to all fours and puked until it felt as if his stomach was inside out. When he glanced up, still retching, half-mad with the abhorrence over what he was sensing, the man smiled and made an odd gesture with his hand.

Keaton writhed and shrieked and, finally, lost consciousness.