Bleak History Page 20

  The woman climbing the stairs on all fours stopped, lifted her head, like a dog hearing a distant call. “Gandalf?”

  Bleak saw him then. Gandalf was standing on the stairs—no, he was floating a foot above the stairs—right next to Lucille Rhione. Looking just as he had in life, except he was missing the gun. But he had his hand held up, pointing at Bleak as if there were a gun in it. He probably thought there was.

  Lucille looked around, not seeing him. Her voice rose in pitch. Her lips quivered. “Gan-dallllllf?”

  She could tear her dead boyfriend, Bleak realized—her intuition stimulated by the intensity of the moment—but she couldn't see him.

  “I'm gonna kill you, you fucking bounty vulture!” the ghost of Gandalf snarled.

  “You're a dead guy yourself, man,” Bleak pointed out wearily. “You're not in a position to kill anyone.”

  Should he try the street or try to get away on the roofs? There was one way he might make the roofs work....

  “I was just going to close a major deal, I was getting it all together, I had the shit to pay for everything. “

  “You got some money from CCA, and you bought some dope, and you thought you were going to become the Porn King,” Bleak said, starting up the stairs. “But they would have killed you, or gotten rid of you somehow. Probably put you two away in some nut house somewhere. Keep you quiet about this operation. So it wouldn't have worked out, Gandalf, or whatever your name was when you were a living asshole instead of a dead one.”

  Bleak took two steps at once to get past Lucille—and the snarling ghost leaped at him. Roaring right for his eyes, mouth open, to take a bite of his face.

  The way someone else would have tensed the muscles of their stomach to absorb a blow, Bleak intensified the field of the Hidden around himself, and the ghost bounced off, spiraled away, howling, swirled around, started to come back at him.

  Then Greg was there, stepping out of the wall—and hit the ghost in the face. Purple sparks flew from the psychic impact, and Gandalf squealed and retreated, whimpering, babbling madly, into a corner.

  “Thanks, Greg,” Bleak said, hurrying up the stairs. The ghost of Gandalf couldn't really have hurt Bleak—but he could have temporarily blinded him. Tormented him. “I should have listened to you, Greg, you tried to tell me he had some bulkiness about him, should've figured from that there was a vest. Which would have been a clue. Been good if I'd paid attention.”

  Bleak banged the roof door open, ran out into the bright sunlight. And saw three choppers flying overhead—and two CCA agents climbing onto the roof from a fire escape. One of them he recognized as Drake Zweig.

  And nine or ten more were on adjacent roofs. Closing in on him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Agent Loraine Sarikosca watched Gabriel Bleak from the adjacent roof. He was crossing to a corner of the roof opposite the agents coming off the fire escape. She saw him look up at the choppers, and at the drone darting between them.

  He was about a hundred feet away. He turned to look at her as he ran...

  To look right at her.

  For a moment it was as if he were much closer to her—in that brief glance it felt to her as if he were standing in front of her, the two of them outside of time, gazing at one another in warm curiosity.

  Then the contact was broken—and the agents were running at Bleak, shouting, and he was throwing energy bullets at them. One of the men yelled in pain and dropped his gun. The other one ducked the sizzling energy bullet—and Bleak ran past them...heading toward another fire escape.

  Suppose he was killed, trying to escape? The thought made her clutch up, inside.

  She was no longer sure of her footing in CCA. What she'd seen in the north, and the hints Helman had dropped, made her wonder if any of them knew what they were doing. She was still scratching mosquito bites, still tired from the long trip down from the arctic circle, and she'd had only one fitful night's sleep.

  The artifact. Nothing seemed to quite make sense, anymore. The implications stretched too far— beyond the limits of human perception. Spying on terrorist cells in Syria seemed simple in comparison.

  She shook her head glumly. She had asked Helman if in some way they could bring the suppressor to use on Bleak, and temporarily neutralize his abilities. But the effective range of the suppressor was only about five feet. And getting him within that range in a situation like this—and with a device that required a great deal of energy—was not practical. Not yet.

  Helman had another plan for neutralizing Bleak. Sharpshooters with tranquilizer guns were taking up positions nearby. She doubted that was going to work.

  The lead agent pursuing Bleak had a handgun out. Not a trank gun. The man aimed it...and Bleak snapped an energy bullet at the gun. It struck true and the agent shouted, dropped the gun—its bullets going off. Rounds whizzed, a window broke somewhere.

  And Bleak was running full tilt to the rim of the roof.

  Loraine caught her breath when she realized that he was running past the fire escape and seemed to be about to leap into empty space between buildings. He couldn't hope to jump the thirty feet, maybe thirty-five, to the next roof. Surely he couldn't cross so wide a gap the way he'd risen over the car in the alley.

  “No, don't!” she shouted involuntarily, her heart thumping. Aware that Arnie, standing on her left, was looking curiously at her. Bleak stepped out into space—

  And ran on air, across the space between the two buildings, defying gravity to the next, slightly lower roof. Where no agents had been assigned—because no one thought Bleak could get there. But he could. His bridge reached just far enough.

  He'd done it again—some kind of invisible force holding him up, drawn from the Hidden, giving him a bridge to the next roof. It had never occurred to them it could reach so far.

  She watched him running across the lower roof—she heard a pop, saw a glint tracking toward Bleak from another roof, to Bleak's left—and saw the projectile turn from him at the last moment, as if it had changed course on its own. A tranquilizer dart. He'd blocked it somehow. Another pop—and this dart too turned away at the last moment.

  Then Bleak was rushing down the fire escape of the other building—Loraine noted that he hadn't tried to “walk on air” off the top of the roof, though that would've been faster. Which suggested his power had limits—and he'd probably reached them.

  She was already moving as these thoughts came to her; she rushed toward the door to the stairs of the tenement they had set up on, ran ahead of Arnie and the others, taking two and three steps at a time to get down.

  Because if CCA got desperate enough, they might order him shot down with real bullets. He couldn't hit every gun trained on him with an energy bullet.

  Which meant that Gabriel Bleak's best chance of survival was capture. This time he wasn't going to get away from her.

  I'm not going to let her go this time, Bleak decided. She can tell me about Sean.

  177

  He was darting across the street, through traffic, with his senses fully alive, using the Hidden to make him hyperaware of the vehicles, the necessary timing. Someone else would probably have been hit. But he slipped between a fast-moving cab and two smaller, frantically honking cars, and the agents coming behind him had to wait till there was room to get through. A drone was watching him, and people in the choppers—he felt someone else watching from a rooftop nearby. Saw himself from above, for a moment, from another point of view...

  It was her.

  Then he darted between two tenements, with just room enough between them for a fire escape and trash cans. His boots crunched over chips of plaster and flakes of old paint. He felt it when they'd lost sight of him for a moment. But Bleak knew they'd be on him in seconds. To the right was a door leading into a tenement. It had a padlock on it—the tenement was empty, condemned, scheduled to be torn down. It was the work of a moment to charge the lock with energy, make it burst apart.

  Bleak pushed into the dim, small room
smelling of mold—once a kitchen. The appliances had been pulled out, their shapes were dimly visible, outlined in brown on the walls. He hurried through, into a dark hallway—made an energy bullet in his hand and held it up for illumination. Heard voices outside. Footsteps.

  He came to a cavernous space where two walls had been knocked down; living room, dining room, bedroom, combined into one space. There was a door opposite. He ran to it, used the energy he'd gathered for light to break its lock, and left it slightly ajar. Then he went to the darkest corner of the large room and stood stock-still. He pressed into the corner, reached into the Hidden, and began to weave darkness around himself...around his entire body.

  You needed a big space for this, and a dim room—he hadn't had either when they'd chased him in Seamus's place—and he had both here. He gathered energies around him that caught light and turned it to the sides. In moments, just as they entered the room, small flashlights flickering in their hands, he'd cocooned himself in darkness.

  He couldn't see them; they couldn't see him. If they looked closely at his cocoon of shadow, they'd realize it was unnatural. They'd have him. But the eye tended to slide past it in a dark room.

  Bleak knew this wasn't going to work if they had that detector with them. But he'd thrown a monkey wrench in their plans—they hadn't anticipated his getting off that rooftop. Probably figured he couldn't make an air bridge that stretched that far. Chances were they were scattered all over looking for him. Did they all have one of those detectors?

  “The son of a bitch came through here.”

  “We should have brought that Krasnoff character, Arnie.”

  “Can't trust Krasnoff enough, the doctor says.”

  “Or one of those detectors.”

  “They don't work all the time. Some isotope-leakage problem. Just one that's good—and it's with Sarikosca.”

  “Unit Three? He out there on Sullivan?...Yeah, we did. No. He's not in here. You had to have missed him.”

  “The door's open here—he came through!”

  “You hear that, Unit Three? The door's open, looks like he busted the lock.... Well, you looked away, then. Maybe he used some trick to get past you.”

  There was a pause. Bleak felt strength draining from him. He drew energies from the Hidden for his workings—but he needed the strength of his body to direct them. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep the cocoon of shadow up. Maybe another twenty seconds, at most.

  He concentrated to keep it steady—especially when a flicker of light showed through. One of them had swept his flashlight across the dark corner he was in.

  “Naw—I'm looking at the room, it's empty, there's nothing to hide behind in here. He's gone out that door somehow.... Yeah we've got people checking upstairs too.... I'll look but I don't think—”

  Footsteps.

  “You guys find him up there?”

  “That's negative, there's a big metal gate blocking the stairs going up and the lock's on it, hasn't been broken.”

  “You copy that, Unit Three? He's not upstairs.... Okay we're coming out, he had to have slipped past you.”

  They left the room; Bleak felt them go. He waited as long as he could, then with a sigh of relief he dropped the cocoon of darkness and sank to his knees to rest.

  All he had to do now was wait—they'd move on, searching for him. “Greg?” he whispered. He'd asked the ghost to stick close. “You there?” “I'm here. “

  “There's a woman agent—only one I've seen in this crowd. You see her?”

  “I do. Black hair? Really cute broad? “

  “That's her.... Want you to do something for me.”

  ***

  EARLY THAT EVENING, in Brooklyn Heights. Murray grinning at Loraine from the door of his condo as she came wearily up the steps.

  “Knew you were coming,” he said, opening the screen door. “The cats got up in the window, meowing like crazy. 'She's here!'“ He was a plump man with rosy cheeks, big brown shoes, exactly combed short brown hair, a tendency to wear golf shirts with little alligators on them, and creased khaki pants.

  The big, old, shingled house had been divided into two condos. Loraine had persuaded Murray to take the one next door. They shared the garden. She was glad to get home and pick up her cats.

  “They're glad to see you,” Murray said, smiling. “But I spoil them. I don't think they want to leave me.” He was her neighbor and the closest thing she had to a friend in New York, now that

  Chelsea had gone to Afghanistan. When Loraine had a day off, she and Murray would go to museums together—he loved classical art, and impressionism—and to flower and garden shows. And, now and then, to a musical. “What good is having a gay friend if you don't go to musicals with him?” Murray had asked, one day, bringing her the tickets.

  When she was away, he watered her plants and fed her cats. An orange tabby and a Siamese, the cats paced sinuously around her ankles, meowing furiously, rubbing their heads on her.

  “They sound like they're mad at me,” Loraine said. “They're always mad when I've left them any amount of time. Even though I know they have a great time with Uncle Murray.”

  “They haven't had their dinner yet, that could be the big issue here.”

  She let them into her place, and Murray came in for tea. They drank tea, the cats taking turns in ISD her lap, and she talked of everything but what was really on her mind. Asking him about the classes he was taking at the Art Institute of Brooklyn, whether his boyfriend's father was willing to meet him yet; Murray's thoughts about helping her decorate her place. Loraine making herself talk.

  “There's something bothering you, girl?” Murray asked, at last, glancing at his gold Rolex watch. A gift from his boyfriend, Ahmed.

  If only she could talk to him about it. Okay, well, I know I told you I work for the State Department, but in fact I work for a spin-off organization and we monitor supernaturally gifted people.

  Not likely. “I'm fine,” Loraine said. “Just tired. Diplomatic stuff. People angry on both sides. You get very frustrated. But I can't talk about it, corny as that sounds.”

  Murray grinned. “Ten-four! Then I'm gonna go and make dinner for Ahmed. He likes you, wouldn't mind at all if you came.”

  “That's sweet but I just want to veg...and think.”

  '“Kay.” He took his teacup to the sink, washed it out, came back to kiss her on the cheek, and went home to make dinner for his boyfriend.

  “Must be nice to have someone to make dinner for,” Loraine said, patting Mongy. He yowled with full Siamese dissonance. His full name was Mongkut, named after the Thai king who inspired The King and I. The meeting of the values of Western civilization and the exotic culture of the East. Like forcing containment on magic?

  She thought, CCA: The Musical. She laughed. Then she shook her head sadly. Thinking of the man strapped to the concrete chair.

  But what's your excuse?

  Loraine looked around and thought that she'd never quite moved in, though she'd been here more than a year. She had one brown leather sofa, a big-screen TV she almost never used, an MP3 player that wasn't hooked up; an old record player purchased at a flea market that was hooked up, with vinyl records stacked beside it. Books piled on their sides against the wall, waiting for the bookcase that Murray was going to help her pick out. A Rembrandt print Murray had bought and framed for her over a brass-mantel fireplace. The cream-colored walls seemed sterile and boring. Dusty silk flowers drooped in a crystal vase on her little dining room table, just off the small living room. Her bedroom was even sparser. And the house smelled of used cat litter even though the cats hadn't been here for days.

  Loraine sighed and went to check her e-mail. Afraid there might be an order for her to return to work. Maybe they'd caught Bleak. They'd want her there for the interrogation.

  No, she thought suddenly. They haven't caught him. I'd know if they'd caught him. Absurd. How would she know that?

  Loraine went to her bedroom, trailed by the cats. She
sat at the little redwood desk, booted up her computer. She would have to hold at least one cat on her lap while she checked her e-mail. Mongy got there first.

  She was hoping for an e-mail from Chelsea, who was close as Loraine had to a best girlfriend. Chelsea was a DIA crypto specialist in Afghanistan. Lately they'd been losing helicopter gunships and Chelsea had been assigned to—

  “Hello, Agent Sarikosca,” said someone, behind her. A man's voice, familiar, speaking softly.

  Where was her purse?'Her gun was in it. She realized she'd left it in the living room.

  Feeling stiff with fear, Loraine turned slowly in her swivel chair—Mongy on her lap swiveling with her—and caught her breath.

  Gabriel Bleak was leaning against the bedroom doorframe, holding her purse up by the strap, with one finger. He wore jeans, boots, a black T-shirt for some rock band, the name largely obscured by the unbuttoned, white overshirt. “Looking for your purse?” he asked lightly. “You left it in the other room. You shouldn't be that far from your gun...Loraine.”

  She swallowed. Feeling strange. “How'd you find me?”

  “Oh, you were followed home. By a friend of mine. Since the guy following you is dead, and invisible to most people, you didn't notice you were being followed. He actually sat next to you in the agency car, in the back. Nice guy, name of Greg.” Bleak delved through the purse, came up with her pistol. “I'll hold on to this. Just don't want to be shot today. I almost was, earlier, and that was unpleasant enough. You ever been shot?”

  She shook her head.

  Bleak chuckled grimly. “Ruins your whole day, let me tell you.” He tossed the purse on her bed. “I was looking at some of your records. Mostly old ones. Vinyl. I bet your mother gave them to you.” She nodded numbly. Then shook her head. “My aunt.”

  “Procol Harum, Cream, the Supremes, Janis Ian, Simon and Garfunkel, Moody Blues, Rolling Stones, Beatles, early Tom Waits...some good ones. You listen to any of those? Pretty old-school.” “What do you want?”