Chronicles of Julian, page 9
“Could you give that back?” Julian snatched it away, dropping it back onto the mattress. “And what’s that supposed to mean? A guy like me?”
Micah only smiled. “When I got word they were sending someone from the illustrious Kerrigan Gang, I was actually hoping for someone different. Had you guys ranked in order of preference.”
“Oh yeah?” Julian replied with a faint grin. “Which one did you want?”
“Rumor has it there’s a girl who usually takes cases like this. Some explosives-happy assassin with a face like a goddess and a body to match.” He glanced over suddenly. “You know her?”
There was an awkward pause.
“That’s my wife.”
Silence.
“Cool, well...I should probably get some sleep.”
“I think that’s best.”
Julian walked him slowly to the door, reclaiming a pack of gum that had been swiped from his bag. It was a lot to process for a single day. The ambiguity made it seem even heavier than that.
Could this really last seven weeks? Almost two full months away from home?
“One last thing,” Micah said suddenly, pausing by the door. “Ilya likes to share the merchandise.”
Julian went abruptly still.
“How do you mean?”
“Rewards, for the men.” Micah’s lips twitched in a hard smile. “You don’t want to get put in that situation, you better think of a reason to avoid it.”
The psychic nodded faintly.
He wanted to ask, what did you do, but he couldn’t bring himself to say the question. Instead he merely opened the door, watching in silence as the man vanished down the hall.
He closed it a moment later, then remembered the broken lock.
Unable to screw it back into place, he merely wedged his bag against the frame and lay down on the bed. A second later, he winced and rolled onto his side. His arms curled up beneath his head as he stared unblinkingly into the darkness, looping the same unending question in his mind.
What have I gotten myself into?
Chapter 8
When Julian was a child he used to resent the forced conformity of his circumstance, how the loss of parents made every orphan dream the same. But the children of Guilder shared the same dream as well. And he truly could not believe when he and Devon finally got the PC’s call.
Of course, things were different when they met their trainer.
“Let’s pick up the pace!”
He and Devon let out a simultaneous gasp, digging their feet into the gravel as they threw all their weight against the rope wrapped around their arms. When they’d heard that Carter had dragged an old fighter-pilot out of retirement just to coach them, they’d been excited. When they’d met him that first day in the Oratory, they were convinced he hated them on sight. When he’d taken them to the parking lot that morning and told them to drag his car to London, they’d thought he was joking.
Then he handed them the rope.
“Come on, sweethearts! You can do better than that!”
Julian could no longer tell if he was moving. It didn’t seem likely. Odds were, he had died several hours before. The first few miles had been borderline manageable. The car had been placed in neutral, it was hard work, but the two boys were able to inch it along the road. But the further they got, and the longer the sun beat down on their shoulders, the more it seemed impossible. There were almost forty miles between Guilder and London. Forty miles and they’d been given nothing but a cheerful command and some rope. It didn’t help that the guy was blasting Tom Petty.
The car honked behind them, and their feet scrambled against the gravel.
In the beginning there had been a few soft-spoken encouragements between the teenagers, mutterings of mutiny to boost morale. But they’d long since passed the point of speaking. Such things required breath and energy, and they had none to spare.
At least in theory.
“How’s your ankle?”
Julian threw a quick look at his partner, seeing tiny ribbons of sweat trickle down the side of his face. The psychic had suffered a sprain during their session the previous evening. It was the kind of thing they were learning to live with, but circumstances had exacerbated that quite a bit.
“Devon...it’s so good.”
There was a breathless gasp of laughter and the fox flashed a grin—angling his body almost completely parallel to the ground as they dragged the car behind them.
The radio got louder. By this point, the man had started singing along.
“And I’m free—free falling!”
“Son of a bitch,” Julian muttered.
“Don’t let it get to you,” Devon panted. “Just keep your eyes on the road.”
At several points, a passing vehicle had stopped to help them. At several points, Julian had stared in quiet desperation at the drivers, praying they would take out their phones.
Call for an ambulance. Or maybe just skip ahead—call for a hearse.
They toiled away in silence, forcing one foot after another, mile after mile, as their beloved city loomed somewhere up ahead. At the time, they were trapped only in the moment, unaware of the legend their little exercise was creating—unaware of the whispers already flying at the school. It would be enough simply to complete the task. It would be enough simply to survive it.
But after about fifteen miles, Julian collapsed along the side of the road.
“I can’t do this,” he panted, cringing against the asphalt. “This is crazy.”
There was a honk behind them.
“On your feet, Decker!”
He threw a quick look over his shoulder, voice cracking with exhaustion.
“The man is insane!”
“Yeah, he’s a little crazy. But we’re a little crazy ourselves.” There was a crunch of gravel, then Devon knelt down beside him—placing a hand on his back. “Come on, we can do this.”
Julian pulled himself away, wondering vaguely if the car had enough momentum that it was still drifting forward, preparing to run them both into the ground.
That’s fine. It’s a quicker death than this.
“It’s not the same for you,” he panted. “You have a bloody strength tatù. You can probably do this all day...”
He trailed off in astonishment as Devon lifted an inhibitor from his shirt. For a split second, he merely stared. Then his eyes drifted higher to his partner’s face.
“...why would you do that?”
Devon took his arm, pulling him to his feet. “Because we’re in this together. You and me.”
Julian blinked. “No, I mean...you could have taken so much more of the weight.”
“RISE AND SHINE!”
Julian jumped in his skin as the door to his room flew open—swinging with an impressive clatter into the adjacent wall. A second later, Micah popped his head inside with an apologetic look.
“Guess I don’t know my own strength,” he murmured, staring with a slight frown. “Aren’t these things supposed to come with locks?”
The psychic hitched onto his elbows, blinking himself awake. “The last guy broke it.”
And you’ve all been living in this bloody warehouse too long.
“Oh,” Micah replied brightly, “well, in that case...”
He fluttered his fingers and the deadbolt rose off the ground—twisting slightly to amend its shape before fitting itself back onto the door. The screws whirled in, then he flashed a quick smile.
“Get up. It’s time for work.”
With a tired sigh, Julian pushed out of bed and got dressed quickly—arming himself with everything the gang had allowed him to keep before making his way down the hall.
There was a tension in the air—one that preceded all such assignments, whether they were sanctioned or not. He and Devon had made little rituals to get them through it, ones that mostly involved music, coffee, and a shocking number of terrible jokes. The men here had similar strategies.
“Does anyone know why this damn machine won’t turn on?”
He glanced across the room to where Jozsi, one of the men who’d introduced himself at the bar, was battling what looked like the world’s oldest espresso-maker. He and his friends often found themselves shouting similar things when Rae was sent out of the country and they were forced to rely upon seldom-used electronics to conjure the amounts of caffeine they’d come to need.
With a faint smile, he crossed the room to join him—taking the battered machine from his hands and setting it back on the counter. The lights were flickering, like it had suffered a stroke.
“You just need to reset it,” he murmured, pushing the correct sequence. “It must have come unplugged from the wall.”
The man watched as it flashed back to life, throwing up his hands in delight. “It’s a miracle! How did you know all that?”
“It’s why you hired me,” Julian replied seriously.
They shared a quick laugh and pulled down some cups for the others as a door swung open on the far side of the building and Ilya swept into the room. Unlike the rest of his crew the man had been up for hours, micro-managing the details and making the decisions that set him apart from the rest. He glanced around a moment, doing a silent headcount, then banged his hand against the wall.
“Everyone to the cars. It’s time to go.”
Julian set down his cup slowly, glancing around the room as the rest of them began zipping up their jackets and following the man outside. He was tempted to scan ahead to the future, try to see exactly what kind of situation they’d be walking in to, but considering how much time and effort went into the logistics these kinds of things seldom went to plan.
“Alexi—you coming?”
He lifted his eyes to see Micah standing by the door.
They shared a quick glance, both thinking of how quickly things could go wrong. Both thinking how hard it would be to find their remains if they were to be recognized, or come up against a set of ink that could expose them, or simply piss off the wrong guy.
Then Julian nodded swiftly, zipping up his coat. “Right behind you.”
EVEN THOUGH THE WAREHOUSE was sitting alongside the river, the caravan of cars drove someplace else. It was another clever move of Ilya’s to keep the actual shipment far away from where it was meant to be stored. Those were the kinds of things that had kept him in business so many years after his competitors and companions had been locked behind bars.
He was patient. He planned things out.
And he brought plenty of security.
“They’re all coming?” Julian asked softly, twisting around to see the row of cars driving behind their own. “No one stays behind to watch the warehouse?”
Micah nodded curtly, following his gaze. “There’s nothing there of value, and no way the women could escape.”
So how are WE going to get them out?
“With a lot of guns,” Micah said abruptly, guessing his train of thought.
The two locked eyes again, then pulled suddenly off the frontage road and began winding their way across the wet slabs of pavement that led to the docks. The river was visible now, along with several huge cargo freighters that were tilting lazily against the side. Inside one of those was a series of storage containers packed to the brim with terrified people. Fifty more than expected.
“Here we are,” Micah murmured, rolling to a stop. “Ship’s called The Tranquility.”
Julian shot him a look.
“You’ll find this job is full of things like that.”
In perfect unison, the two men left the car and joined the others on the shore—watching as they filed up the gangplank onto the ship. Julian hadn’t expected to go with them. While the rest of them went to check the cargo, he’d turned automatically towards the office instead.
But Ilya caught his eye, waving him closer.
“First we check the product. Only then do we pay.”
The psychic nodded quickly and followed after him, shifting to the side as Micah jogged past him and started working with the others aboard the ship. The sun was just starting to peek over the distant horizon, rolling little clouds of mist atop the sparkling waves. In any other place, he might have thought it was beautiful. But only then did Julian suddenly realize what he was about to see.
Check the product.
They might not have been his favorite, but he’d worked on many trafficking cases. He’d seen those storage containers open and had witnessed the trembling people inside. But it was always at the end of a mission. They were always breathless with relief, in the process of being freed.
Never had he seen those stricken faces...and been forced to walk away.
“You need me for this?” he asked in spite of himself.
Ilya glanced over in surprise. “Tell me you’re not squeamish.”
He shook his head, fixing his eyes on the waves. “It’s just not my area.”
The man studied him a moment, then flashed a grin. “Fear not, fortune-teller. They don’t bite.”
They stepped onto the deck a second later, taking an extra step for balance as the ship bobbed slightly in the waves. It was an ancient model, the kind that was usually decommissioned and sold for scrap. Even with the wind blowing in his face, Julian could smell the stench of mold and stagnant water drifting up from below deck. The cargo hold itself must have been terrible.
“I’m surprised she’s still afloat,” he said lightly, kicking a spot of rust as a container was dragged to the center of the ship. “Looks like these masts have been salvaged a couple of times.”
Ilya followed his gaze, keeping an eye on the others. “Whatever gets the job done. Are you a ship aficionado as well?’
Julian shook his head. “Just don’t want to lose anyone on the way.”
The man clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s see what we have first. Then we can decide if it’s worth saving.”
The rest of the men were already hard at work—eager to get the crates off the ship and out of the open. There were screeches of metal as they heaved them to and fro, along with the faint sound of whimpering voices echoing from inside. One of them had been left on the deck.
“Open it up,” Ilya instructed.
Julian sucked in a breath as one of the crewmen stepped forward, wedging a crowbar into the metal seam and prying it open. A spattering of light fell upon a sea of frightened faces. They retracted away from it with a collective gasp, too afraid to venture forward.
All except one.
Where she came from was anyone’s guess. Her skin was a smooth brown and her eyes were large and dark as a midnight sky. She glanced at the huddled figures behind her, as if assessing how far she could stray, before taking the slightest step forward—lifting a hand to shield her eyes.
“Stay.”
Julian didn’t know whether she’d spoken out loud, or if he’d merely imagined it. There was something so haunting about the sound of her voice, it didn’t seem like it could be real.
Their eyes met for a suspended moment.
Then the door slammed in between.
“Load them up.”
The rest of the men surged forward as Julian staggered back—still feeling the burn of the woman’s eyes upon his own. She must have been half-blind, locked in a dark room, never seeing the sun. But he could have sworn that she saw him. He could have sworn she looked right through.
“Alexi—let’s go.”
Somewhere in his periphery, he was vaguely aware the man was calling for him. Their surly enforcer, Viktor, was already waiting on the steps. Only a few seconds had passed, not enough for anyone else to have noticed. But Ilya was studying his expression with a strange tilt of the head.
“Yeah, I’m...I’m coming.”
Micah was right in the thick of things, flashing that same easy smile as back at the bar, making jokes with the others in Hungarian. He glanced up for a split-second, just long enough to catch that expression as well. Then, as they were turning to leave, he twitched his fingers.
A clamp loosened in the wiring above them. One of the twisted cords strained against the pressure, then popped free. It snapped down like a whip, hissing in the air above their heads.
There wasn’t time for anything but a vision.
The psychic’s eyes swirled white, and a fleeting glance into the future told him that their monstrous leader would not survive. The cord was travelling with lethal force. It would cut right through his chest, severing an arm in the process before burying itself in the ship. He would be gone. Izsak would take his place. The crew would continue on as it always did.
Unless—
Julian glanced up at the last possible second, then tackled Ilya to the side.
There was a metallic shriek as the cord sliced through the deck beneath them, writhing a moment before going abruptly still. The rest of the ship went instantly silent, staring in shock.
Please...please don’t make me regret it.
Ilya was breathing heavily, Julian was still gripping the sides of his coat. For a few seconds, they merely stood there. Then the man swallowed hard and pulled himself free.
“A salvage-job, huh? You may be right.”
The psychic nodded silently.
“Come on, they’re waiting for us inside.” Ilya took a shaky step towards the ramp before doubling back at the last second and clapping his cheek. “Thank you, my friend.”
Julian nodded again.
The rest of the crew was still in shock, but they were shaking past it quickly—many had already gotten back to work. He caught Micah’s eye for a split second, and a silent look passed between them. Then he pulled in a deep breath and followed the men inside.
CONSIDERING THE DEALS that happened there, the harbormaster’s office was relatively plain.
There were schedules pinned to the wall, along with tide charts and calendars, and some kind of yellowing certificate that had been given to him by the Chief of Police. The dock was most often a place of legitimate business. The trafficking of human lives was just a small part.
The harbormaster himself wasn’t there. He had been replaced with two others. A pair of men who looked up with identical smiles the second they stepped inside.
