The Last Raven: An Urban Fantasy Noir (Riftborn Book 1), page 20
“Ji-hyun?” I asked.
“Ji-hyun hasn’t contacted us,” Gabriel said. “No one has heard from her in several weeks.”
Ji-hyun was probably one of the toughest people I’d ever met. If anyone was going to survive whatever Mason had concocted for the RCU in LA, it would be her. “Once we’re done here, I’ll find out what happened,” I said. “Any other teams attacked?”
“Not that I’d heard of,” Gabriel said. “But if Dan was involved in the attack on the New York branch, he was definitely involved with the LA attack, too. He’d done work for both of them. And it gets worse. Dan is now officially in charge of the RCU New York office. Rumour has it his agents are made up of Sky-High Security rift-fused personnel.”
“He did all of this just to get the boss’s job?” I asked. “One of his allies said that Dan was meant to lead the RCU into the ambush and make out that Sovereign Humanity had done it, which in and of itself is stupid, but Dan stepped in and said as much. He took the FBI agents with him, set them and his own team up.”
“Anything else?” Gabriel asked.
“Brad said that Mason was working for an organisation,” I said. “No idea who they are or what they’re called, just that they’re higher up the pecking order. Sounds like Mason is just one of the cogs in the machine. I think Dan is working for them rather than Mason himself. He told me he was involved in the murder of the Ravens. Said he’d made sure to keep me alive.”
“Seriously?” Gabriel asked. “So, he’s been working for these people for at least a decade.”
I nodded. “Long time to move pieces to the right places, to make sure things are going the way you want them to. The question is, how did Dan coordinate everything? Did he have a secret phone? Did he do it over email? How does someone spend years setting up the RCU, and what did he hope to gain from it? He included the FBI agents because they were investigating Sky-High. They had whistle-blowers who were murdered.”
“Hannah has been looking into the computer stuff,” Gabriel said. “Dan has a town house in Rochester. Might be worth a look. Hannah’s been trying to find anything that might give us a clue as to what Dan’s plan is. Apart from trying to kill us all. He’s been put in charge of the New York RCU branch, but that can’t be his plan. To kill everyone just to take Isaac’s place.”
“Why attack the LA branch, too?” I asked. “Why not kill all the RCU agents in every branch?
“He worked for the LA and New York branches,” Hannah said.
“You think it was just petty grudges?” I asked. “That feels like a leap. Whatever the reason he did this, he must have known that someone would have his back. Otherwise, he’s just waiting for the Ancients to send a Guild after him.”
“An Ancient working with them?” Gabriel asked.
I shrugged. “No idea. But Mason wants money and power, not a fight with Ancients and Guilds.”
“What about Booker and Zita?” I asked. “They okay?”
“They’ve been left alone,” Gabriel said. “I think whatever links they have with us aren’t enough to get them put in the crosshairs. Thankfully.”
“I might need to pay them a visit,” I said. “Maybe they can find out something the rest of us can’t. Maybe one of their customers knows him, or works for Mason, or something. Anything we can actually grab hold of and work with.”
“Literally?” Gabriel asked.
“If I get to punch someone in the face, I’m not going to complain,” I told him.
“Mason never mentioned Dan,” Nadia said from the doorway as she stepped into view. “But Mason did take phone calls from someone. Wouldn’t say who. Alexis and I were just there to keep him safe, and to liaise with Dr Mitchell.”
“What was Dr Mitchell doing?” I asked.
“We didn’t know about the hybrids until after the attack on the RCU and FBI,” Nadia said. “Dr Mitchell keeps her research very quiet. We just provided protection, although there were several rumours about her. About her using prisoners for experiments, about her taking homeless people for the same reason. I tried to find out what she was doing for Isaac but couldn’t. Nothing concrete. Mason and Dr Mitchell are very good at keeping their . . . proclivities to themselves.”
“You had no interactions with Dan?” I asked.
Nadia shook her head. “Never even heard of him until a few weeks ago. Sorry, I can’t help.”
A woman’s head poked out of the curtain before it was pushed aside, and she stepped into view. She was Black, with long dark hair, and she wore jeans and a T-shirt. She was just over five and a half feet tall, and looked like she hadn’t slept in some time. Ruby kept rubbing her thumb over her wedding ring. She glanced down at the watch on her wrist, which sat next to a bracelet that appeared to be made of some kind of cord.
“You must be Lucas,” she asked, in a Southern drawl.
I offered her my hand, which she shook. “I am,” I said.
“I’m Ruby,” she told me, looking back at Isaac, who was lying in bed, hooked up to several machines, although none that I saw were to help him breathe.
“I’m sorry about Isaac,” I said. “And your family.”
“Thank you,” Ruby said. “I miss my children.”
“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” I said. “Gabriel knows good people.”
“Isaac told me about you,” Ruby said. “Told me that you were a Raven, that your Guild was destroyed, and that you had issues dealing with it. Told me you went to a dark place, did dark things. He loved you. Sorry, he loves you. You know that, right?”
I nodded. “I love him too. He’s like a brother to me. He’s a man who just helps people. No complaining. I think he enjoys it.”
“He does,” Ruby said. “He missed you, I know that. He would often talk about you to our kids and to me. He would tell them stories about the things you did as a Raven. Cleaned-up stories.” Ruby chuckled.
“Yeah, I didn’t always do nice things,” I said.
“But you tried to,” Ruby said. “I think that was what Isaac likes about you the most. You try to do the right thing. He told me that some people don’t even bother doing that. The easy thing is just too damn tempting.”
I smiled; it sounded like something Isaac would say.
“What happens to Isaac when he dies?” Ruby asked. “I mean, I know what happens to revenants when they die; they get taken to the rift to live out the rest of their days there.”
“They’re essentially ageless in the rift,” I said. “They can live there a long time. Eventually, revenants will die in the rift, but it takes a long time. Maybe a thousand years, maybe more. Depends on the person.”
“But he was cut with a tempered blade,” Ruby said. “Gabriel won’t say, beyond the normal church spiel about how his light will transcend us all. Hannah is too angry all the damn time. What happens now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Riftborn, revenants, fiends, anyone who dies at the hands of a tempered weapon doesn’t go into the rift. They just . . . go.”
“What do you think?” Ruby pressed.
“I think those who don’t go to the rift just go to nothing,” I said. “I think their energies are sent out across the world to inhabit someone else, maybe several others. I think that once Isaac goes, someone else will be born a revenant in his place. Maybe two or three more; Isaac had a lot of power.”
“He had a lot of years left,” Ruby said, staring at her husband. “He raised our kids like he was their biological father. I know that rift-fused can’t have kids on Earth, but he was never concerned about that. He had a family and he loved us. Are you going to find the man who did this?”
“Yes,” I told her. “And I’m going to kill him for it.”
Ruby stared at me for several seconds. “Just like that?” she asked.
I looked from Isaac to Ruby and back again. “Easily,” I said. “I’ve been killing since I was fourteen years old. And that was over two thousand years ago. Killing people was never the problem. Losing myself in the need for vengeance, in the need to validate why I got to live while my friends didn’t, that was the issue. It helps when you have something to fight for. Killing for the sake of it isn’t something I want to do. When you reach that point, you’re just a murderer, a monster, or usually a combination of the two.”
“I don’t think it would be very nice of me to wish pain on those who did this,” Ruby said. “I was brought up to turn the other cheek, to live and let live.”
I remained silent.
“But fuck ’em all,” Ruby snapped. “Burn them to the fucking ground. For Isaac. For all of us.”
I didn’t bother replying; there was nothing more that needed to be said.
“I have a favour,” Ruby said as I turned to walk away.
I stopped and looked back at her. “Of course,” I said softly.
“Is there anything you can do to help him?” She asked. “You’re a riftborn. Can’t they do amazing things?”
I walked back over to Ruby and stood at the foot of the bed, looking at Isaac. “There is something that can be done,” I admitted. “I can take him into my embers.”
“That will heal him?” Ruby asked. The hope in her voice made me wish I wasn’t about to shatter it.
“No,” I said, barely a whisper. “Nothing can do that.”
The deflation of barely concealed hope on her face broke my heart. I would have given anything to be able to make Isaac better, to give him back to his wife and children.
“I can take him into my embers,” I said. “I’d be able to talk to him, heal him to a degree. He might be able to come back, to give you a few days, maybe a week.”
“Or?” She asked.
“Or it will flay his mind like peeling an orange, and his screams of agony will be all you remember until he dies a short while later.” There was no nice way of putting it. This was an all-or-nothing situation, and the nothing part was not something you soon forgot.
“Have you done it before?” Ruby asked.
I nodded. “Three times in my entire life. Twice it worked. Once it didn’t. The once is the one time I remember the most. I’ll do this; I don’t want to, but I will. But only if you agree to it. If it works, then you get a few days with him. He can see your kids, he can die peacefully, and just maybe he’ll return to the rift. If it doesn’t work, he won’t go to the rift. That much is a guarantee.”
“You can remove the taint of poison from the blade?” Ruby asked, the hope back once again.
“Sort of,” I said. “I’d take the poison on myself, into my embers. I would need to heal while there.” I didn’t tell her how horrific it was to do, or just what we’d both have to go through for it to be completed, but some hope was better than none.
“I’ll consider it,” she said. “How long do I have to agree?”
“Twenty-four hours,” I said. “After that, I’m not sure whatever I did would make much difference.”
Ruby hugged me. I hadn’t expected it, but I found myself hugging her back. “Thank you,” she whispered.
I nodded and left Ruby to make her decision, while I went back to find Gabriel, who sat with Hannah and Nadia, the latter of whom appeared to be trying not to get close to Hannah.
“I called Booker,” Gabriel said. “He wants to meet. But we also need to get hold of Emily and find the missing RCU agents.”
“Is she okay?” I asked.
Gabriel nodded. “Think so. Her team was stood down, no explanation. Just someone high above her boss decided enough was enough.”
“Despite the dead FBI agents?” I asked.
Gabriel nodded again.
“Okay, arrange the meeting with Booker,” I said.
“We might be able to kill two birds with one stone,” Gabriel said.
“Do we know where Emily is?” I asked.
“No,” Hannah said. “Like I said, her team was stood down, but no one has heard from her or anyone else in her team. Sounds like they’ve been told to keep quiet. I spoke to a few friends in the feds, and either no one wants to get involved, or no one knows more than that. But I’m thinking that this guy does.”
Hannah turned the laptop around and showed me a photo of William Stone, the guard in Dr Mitchell’s employ back at the asylum. He was stood outside of Sky-High Security, talking to a Mason Barnes.
“How’d you get that?” I asked.
“Took it myself,” Hannah said. “It’s not like we’ve been doing nothing since you vanished. We started watching.”
“I know,” I said.
“I tagged his truck,” Hannah said, showing me a map with coloured dots to show where his truck stopped for longer than an hour.
“They’re all over the place,” I said. “He runs errands.”
“Yep,” Gabriel said. “There are six places he runs to a lot.”
Hannah hit a key and only four dots remained. “That’s Booker and Zita’s,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” Hannah said. “The others are a bank, his home, a grocery store, a warehouse complex with maybe a dozen large warehouses, and two other houses. We think one is his . . . lover.”
“So, the warehouse, then,” I said.
“Yeah, but it’s huge,” Gabriel said. “Too large to search every part of every building before we get spotted. We need it narrowed down.”
“And we need him to talk to us so we can do it,” Hannah said.
“I’ve seen him around,” Nadia said. “He’s . . . creepy. I saw him at Booker’s; he likes the fights. Never takes part, only watches. Watches the women maybe a little too closely. He’s there every night. Or every night I was, which was most nights.”
“We might be barking up the wrong tree here,” I said. “Hannah, can you take me through each of these places?”
“I can,” Hannah said.
“Arrange a chat with Booker,” I said to Gabriel. “One way or another, our friend William here is going to help us out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
We drove George’s car across the city of Hamble, stopping at each of the destinations in turn, parking far enough away that it didn’t arouse suspicion. I wasn’t sure if Hannah or my IDs would be out in the world to spot, but we already knew that Hamble PD were on Mason’s books, so it was better to not take any chances.
The RCU had tagged William’s car with a tracking system that gave us a little blue dot to follow around until he stopped his car outside of his lover’s house.
We waited outside, parked up, as his BMW SUV arrived and stopped outside of the two-storey town house.
William Stone, looking much like he had at the asylum, bounded out of the car like he was taking part in a hurdles race and took the steps two at a time to the front door. He stood there, bottle of wine in hand, and knocked.
“Smooth,” Hannah said.
“If you’re working for a big shot like Mason, he’s not going to want you to keep all of your exceptionally criminal enterprises on your phone for anyone to see,” I said. “Right?”
“You’d assume so,” Hannah said. “It would be pretty stupid to openly talk about illegal stuff on your everyday phone. You’d want encryption software at the very least. Probably a burner phone.”
“Would you carry your burner phone around with you?” I asked.
“Probably, yes,” she said. “Just in case the boss messages you something urgent. I’d make sure of it. If you’re thinking of going in there and stealing his phone, don’t. I’m pretty sure if we get caught, we get to find a bunch of dead agents.”
“Why would you kidnap RCU agents?” I asked. “What’s the endgame here?”
Hannah shrugged. “You’re kidnapping rift-fused for what end? Highly trained rift-fused, too. I don’t see the end goal either. If you’re going to kill them, why not kill them all at the same time?”
“There’s a lot weird about this whole thing,” I said. “You got any idea where Callie Mitchell is?”
Hannah shook her head. “Not a clue. This is why we haven’t been able to do anything. We don’t know who is alive, or where they are, or who we can trust. We’re treading water here. No Ancients are helping, either, in fact; even though we put through a distress call to them, they haven’t even contacted us.”
I checked my watch; it was 9:22 p.m. “Looks like the warehouse might be our best bet. Let’s check that out.”
The drive was short and I parked the car in a car park behind some shops across the street from the warehouses. It was one massive plot of land, with four large warehouses on it and a few smaller buildings. There was an office building attached to one of them.
“Who works there?” I asked Hannah as we stood a little back from the fence, letting the shadows of the nearby trees help keep us hidden.
“Officially? A shipping office,” Hannah said. “William goes in there sometimes. Occasionally arrives with something, occasionally leaves with something. Haven’t been able to get into the buildings, as there are too many guards. I’ve tried making a lap of the building, but if anyone is being held in there, I have no idea where. Guards are armed, too, and they look professional.”
“You think this is a giant waste of time?” I asked. “That they’re already dead and this is just a way to drag us out from hiding?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah said. “I just know I don’t want any more people to be killed by these assholes.”
“Up to three weeks as their prisoner,” I said. “Can’t be good.”
My phone started to vibrate. “Booker,” I said, answering.
“Are you doing something stupid?” Booker asked me.
“Define stupid,” I said.
“You’re outside the warehouse right now, aren’t you?” Booker said. “Those hostages are still there.”
“And you know this because?” I asked.
“We got a friend in Sky-High,” Booker told me.
“You have an informant?” I asked.
“You remember those two hikers killed?” He asked me.
