Ghostly Game, page 2
“Wasn’t the bullets, Gideon. I was out of my mind. Just like when I was a kid. You came for me.” Javier dropped his head into his hands and rubbed at his temples. “You fuckin’ came for me again.”
Gideon regarded him in silence for a long while, letting the breeze from the ocean cool the stench of vile gore from his mind. This rooftop was his sanctuary, his one place of peace—his only peace—and it was so fleeting. He wanted that same peace for Javier, but he knew Javier had yet to find his path.
Gideon sighed. “Javier.”
Javier shook his head and then looked directly at Gideon with his black, fathomless eyes, two dark pits of relentless agony. “Am I a psychopath? Tell me the fucking truth, brother. Should I put a bullet in my head? You’ve pulled me back more than once. What if you couldn’t get me back? What if I just stayed in that state? I would have killed everyone. All of them. Every single fucking one of them.”
“Don’t you think every single one of us would have killed them, Javier? You weren’t feeling anything different than the rest of us. Those intense emotions were triggered by the needless slaughter of infants, of children, of young and old women. What we saw was so wrong, and we weren’t prepared. We walked blindly into that nightmare without considering it would be there. Our minds weren’t in the right frame to accept it. You weren’t the only one struggling to keep it together and not take out the entire unit of . . .” He broke off for a moment, searching for a word to describe who would do such a thing.
“They aren’t soldiers. They aren’t even mercenaries. Butchers. Something is wrong with them.” Gideon tried not to see the images of the babies and toddlers strewn in the streets and playgrounds—hacked to pieces. Not shot, hacked. What kind of men did that? “Mack says we’ll find them. If he says that, you know we will. We’ll do it right, brother. As for you being a psychopath, Whitney put that shit in your head. He’s the fucking psychopath, not you. We volunteered to have our psychic abilities enhanced in order to better serve our country. Dr. Peter Whitney thought he was a god. Hell, he still thinks it.”
Gideon breathed deep to push other images crowding in away. “Javier, think about it with a clear head. You were reacting to what you saw. What we all saw. You weren’t the one chopping up children. You would never do such a thing for any reason. And before you object and talk to me about children with guns and bombs, I’ll remind you there’s a difference between saving the life of a brother with a single well-placed bullet and chopping up a child for some kind of sick amusement.”
Gideon prayed there was. He had so many real sins on his soul. Too many. Javier was his brother from the streets and from his unit. “Don’t let Whitney do that to you. He fucked us up by giving us animal and reptile DNA, or whatever the hell he decided he wanted to play around with. We were already jacked up enough and didn’t need his added aggressive DNA, but we had no say in that. Worse, he didn’t tell us. He just let us discover what he’d done. We’re still discovering it.”
Gideon felt the burn of Javier’s black eyes. They could appear like two dark holes in that handsome face. Flames could flicker there. Right now, there was intensity as only Javier could give him. Sometimes Javier looked at him as if Gideon were leading the way to water after being lost in the desert for a long, long time. Gideon wanted to tell him he was no hero. He sure as hell wasn’t the man to look up to. He was lost himself.
“I tell Whitney to go fuck himself every day, Javier. He isn’t going to win. Not ever. He isn’t going to know one thing about any gifts or curses I have. He won’t ever take a child from one of the women we protect here in our compound. He isn’t going to prevent me from living whatever kind of life I choose to live. I choose to serve my country because that’s my choice. When Mack decides he’s had enough, I’ll most likely bow out as well. We’ve always stood together. We’re family. We always will be. Stop thinking you’re on the outside looking in. Here’s a little news flash for you, brother. Every single one of us feels that way. Whitney made sure of that. For all that, knowing that, I refuse to allow him to take my family from me.”
Gideon didn’t like talking. He never had. But this was Javier, and Javier was important, and he was one fucked-up brother. He needed help. He wouldn’t go to Mack because he was afraid Mack would decide to force him to stop working with their team. It was Gideon or no one. Gideon didn’t want Javier eating a bullet. Just the fact that he’d mentioned the idea made Gideon very aware that Javier had contemplated it. So that meant talking until Javier could get off his rooftop before discovering that Gideon was in worse mental shape than he was.
“You with me on this, brother? Because I need you to be. I need you to know Whitney’s the psychopath and you’re just fucked up like the rest of us.”
Javier held his eyes for a long time. Gideon didn’t so much as blink. He had eagle in him. Harpy Eagle. He could hold that gaze until the cows came home.
Finally, Javier nodded slowly. “I’m with you, Gideon. Tell me what Doc says about the bullet holes.”
“Says I don’t see action for a while, which is fine by me. Needed a vacation and I’m taking it.”
“That isn’t what I meant. You do know I have computer skills.”
Gideon flicked him a quick, forbidding glance. Pure steel.
Javier gave him a faint grin. “I get it. Don’t eat your spinach chips all in one sitting. You might actually get an ounce of fat on you.” He stood up with his usual fluid grace and made his way to the trapdoor. He stood there, his back to Gideon, looking up at the stars while the clouds drifted across the sky.
“Don’t know why you saved my ass when I was a kid or even how you found me, brother, but I know I can always count on you. I just need to say thanks, and you need to let me.”
Gideon wasn’t entirely mobile. He couldn’t surge to his feet and wrap the kid up in a hug, not that Javier would have gone for it. More than likely, he’d shove a knife in Gideon’s ribs. They really were a fucked-up lot, the entire urban team. Poor Mack. He was stuck with them.
Gideon had excellent hearing, and he caught the whisper of emotion in Javier’s voice—sentiment his brother didn’t often let slip. That got to him whether he wanted it to or not.
“I hear you, Javier.” Gideon gave his brother what he needed to hear, and he was sincere. He watched Javier nod, although he didn’t turn around. He just disappeared into the abyss that was the dark hole where the opening to the stairs led into his home. The trapdoor closed.
Gideon stared at it for a long minute before he allowed his body to begin to relax again. He hurt like a mother—everywhere. They’d given him pain pills, but he wasn’t taking them. Now he was going to have to start putting himself in a meditative state once more. To do that, he was going to have to clear his mind. To do that, he was going to have to face those images all over again. He pressed the heel of his hand to his pounding forehead. He didn’t want to go there again.
Javier thought he was the only one who wanted to rip those sick bastards into little pieces? What did he think happened to the men who murdered Javier’s family? Did he ever wonder how Gideon had gotten to him before those butchers had finished hacking into him when he’d been just a little boy? Probably not. That was a nightmare Javier relived in his dreams but couldn’t examine in the light of day.
A groan escaped. Not one of regret. How could he ever regret saving Javier’s life? Despite the kid believing Whitney’s armchair assessment of him, Javier was invaluable and had saved countless lives. That wasn’t even counting the times he’d saved team members’ lives. The groan was for the images of their recent mission along with those of the past, pouring into his mind when he’d fought so hard to get rid of them. It wasn’t easy to force himself to breathe in and out and allow his mind to accept the horrors it had lived through, but he did it.
He built his lake in his mind, the deep, fathomless water a turquoise, the shores wide. Overhead, the skies were blue, and the clouds were light and drifted on a cool breeze. The images, when they came, tumbled into the lake and were carried away from him. He let them go, giving them up to the deep water.
A sound penetrated his concentrated breathing, that steady rhythm that brought images into the pool in his mind and allowed the ripples to carry them away. Laughter, sounding like beautifully tuned chimes skipping over water, didn’t belong in his carefully built setting. Those chimes were faint and far away, but they invaded and sent the images away faster than any meditation he’d ever done. Each individual note blew up an effigy of one of his memories. The explosion over the lake appeared as multicolored fireworks.
As far as Gideon was concerned, there was only one thing for him to do, and he did it. The psychic talent he used he’d been born with. Since Whitney had enhanced all psychic talents whether he’d known what they were or not, Gideon had discovered it was stronger than ever. He closed his eyes, blocking out everything but the sound of that far-off laughter. Even after the notes had faded away, he still had the direction, and he had the exact pitch and rhythm he was looking for. He was ready for the sound to repeat itself, and it would. He was already casting his lure, sending it out into the night like a fishing line in the direction of that enticing laugh.
Minutes crept by. Gideon would have much preferred to be on the hunt in person, but his body wasn’t in any kind of shape. He would have to rely on his considerable skills with his talent—using an invisible line with an anchor to find his prey, much like a spider might. He’d been honing this one since he was a child. It didn’t always work. Sometimes, whoever he sought was too far away, but this was worth the try. Minutes turned to a quarter of an hour. He was patient. He’d learned patience a long, long time ago. On the half-hour mark, it occurred to him he hadn’t been visited once by his past.
He opened a bag of the contraband spinach chips Javier had brought him, popped the top off a can of beer and allowed himself to indulge. Beer and chips. Not everyday fare for him. He ate the chips slowly, savored the salty seasoning on them and then washed them down with beer.
Another fifteen minutes. A whisper. Far off. A barely there thread of sound. He knew it was that same laughter. The same pitch. His hearing was acute and he was not mistaken. Those little chimes, not quite as loud this time, but he had homed in on them. Feminine for certain. Taking his time, Gideon carefully attached his thread, an anchor, much like a spider might, casting it into the air, right off the roof, sending it back along that same path to find the owner of that laughter.
Now it was another waiting game. This one wouldn’t be quite as long. Gideon changed position carefully. Moving hurt. Still, with this new intrigue, he didn’t feel it quite so much.
He felt the bump as the anchor attached itself to something solid. He found himself smiling. He was in San Francisco, and it was night. He didn’t need the Harpy Eagle or any of the large raptors for this purpose. He wanted a small bird no one would notice. The field sparrow was prevalent across Northern California. A beautiful little bird with a gray head and rust-colored crown. Small, very slender, with a pink bill and white eye-ring; the long tail was forked.
The little sparrow was reputed to be largely monogamous, and yet they sometimes had a secret, sneaking out and singing to attract another lady. Often that lady had her own male, who seemed to turn a blind ear to the new upstart singing to entice the female out of the nest to go meet with him.
Gideon sang softly, a very short whispered song to entice a female to him. The answer came immediately, as he knew it would. He’d made friends with the female, and she was nesting in the bushes he’d planted, which now grew thick on the wall farthest from him.
She came to him in little stops and starts. It wasn’t difficult to tie her to him and send her out to investigate for him. He needed eyes and information. The little sparrow wouldn’t be noticed, and if she was, no one would ever equate her with spying. That had always been his advantage. Because even as a child, he was so stoic that no one ever thought his imagination would enable him to envision calling birds to him and making them his allies.
His little sparrow flew down three long blocks on the same side of the street to land on a windowsill and peer in. The bar was noisy, packed and popular. It wasn’t one of the bars the local fishermen gathered in after coming back to the harbor. This was new, with a frenetic dance floor, mood lights and a young, hip crowd. When the bar had opened, no one thought it would do very well, but the locals hadn’t counted on the draw of the harbor and old-world San Francisco culture.
The bar was just far enough away that his team didn’t have a lock on the building yet. They could tap into the cameras easily enough, and Jaimie—Mack’s wife—or Javier could lock into the security system inside the bar. Javier might just be doing him a payback much sooner than either of them thought, because somewhere inside that building, with all those civilians drinking and laughing and hooking up, there was one woman whose laughter had the ability to erase—even if for a few minutes—the utter darkness of his past.
* * *
Laurel “Rory” Chappel lifted a hand to her fellow coworkers as she wound her way through the narrow maze that should have been a wide hallway leading to the back employee entrance. She was tired. More than tired. Exhausted. She was a night owl—awake all night and asleep during the day, except she hadn’t been sleeping much.
She was a rolling stone, a nomad, a woman who liked to travel and see what was around the next corner. She’d been drawn to the harbor, a strong compulsion that had brought her there to check it out. She loved the water, the feel of the fog and spray on her skin. The newer buildings, farther down from the actual working harbor, were clean and inviting. She needed clean. The bar, fortunately, didn’t allow smoking, so she was free to work there.
She had skills when it came to bartending, so the moment she hit San Francisco, she had researched the best-paying and most popular bars. Then she went to each district and walked around, immersing herself in the neighborhood to see if anything appealed to her. She always waited for something to click so she knew she was supposed to be there. She had instantly clicked with the harbor.
It was nice to be outside in the night air. She wasn’t someone who enjoyed being indoors, or at least in cramped spaces. The bar she worked behind was ideal for her. Long and slightly curved, it went nearly the length of the room, giving plenty of space for each bartender to have his or her own workstation. Behind the bar there was room to maneuver, so when it was extremely busy, the bartenders didn’t run into each other if they did have to step out of their own work area.
Rory thought she’d found an ideal situation. Her apartment was fairly new, in a building three stories high, and she was able to choose from several apartments. There was a waiting list for the first floor, but no one had requested the third-floor apartments. Each had a stairway to the roof, where they had their own little section, railed off from the neighbors for privacy. She was told she could put in a garden if she wanted. What she wanted most was to sit outside on her rooftop sanctuary and breathe in the ocean after the stale air of the bar.
Her apartment building was on the opposite side of the street as the bar but down two and half blocks toward the harbor. She was fortunate that across the street from her apartment, the building facing hers was only a couple of stories versus three or four. That meant she had a fantastic view of the harbor and, farther out, the ocean from her rooftop patio.
The building had a keypad to put in a code to access it, making it a safer place to live. Rory thought it was a good idea, but the manager didn’t seem to have a very good sense of safe people to rent to. She’d used the gym nearly every day since she’d signed her lease. Ordinarily, because she worked nights, she could count on any gym she used being fairly empty during the time she chose for her workout.
Unfortunately for Rory and the other women choosing to work out in the early afternoon, a few of the apartments had recently been rented to four single males who didn’t appear to work. They had money, but they hung around and leered at the women as they used the various machines. They also tended to be in the laundry room at inconvenient times.
There was no doubt in Rory’s mind that the four men who pretended to be no more than casual acquaintances were not only working together but running drugs and possibly other illegal things she didn’t want to know about. She did her best to avoid them, just as the other women in the building did. She’d learned early that there was always a fly in the ointment with any place she lived or worked. Nothing was ever perfect, and she accepted that. It was simply life.
Rory let herself into her apartment and tossed her bag onto the nearest chair as she hurried through the open living room and dining room to the door leading to her bedroom. She kicked off her shoes and unbuttoned her white shirt until she could whip it over her head with one hand, dragging in a lungful of air as she did so. Both hands dropped to the black trousers, the standard uniform the owner preferred his bartenders to wear while they were working. She peeled them down her hips and legs to kick them off. She did what she always did the moment she got home: she stepped into the shower as quickly as possible.
One of the apartment’s best features, other than her rooftop patio, was the shower with hot water. She scrubbed her skin and rinsed out her hair. Next was moisturizing her face, throwing on flannel pajamas to stay warm, wrapping her hair in a towel and rushing up the stairs to her rooftop. Her breathing machine was inside a weatherproof cabinet, and she set it up on the little table beside her favorite chair. She liked that lounge chair. No, she loved it. It was the most comfortable outdoor chair she’d ever come across, and she carted it around with her wherever she went.
