The Shibboleth (20 page)

“Shreve, what are you doing?”

I keep my body pressed against the drawer, keeping her hand inside. She hasn't lowered the phone.

“It's Quincrux. He's got her. Programmed and now he's
in her.
Don't you understand? I told you about this!”

“But how … why would he?”

“Because he wants me.” I try to calm myself, but my voice still sounds high-pitched and terrified. Deep breaths. Miriam—Quincrux, really—squirms against me, trying to withdraw her hand. “Jerry, what's in this drawer? Knives?”

She's still moaning, but the sounds are quieting now. I can tell by his expression that, yes, this drawer is full of slicers and dicers.

“Quincrux wants me. And he'll hurt you to get to me. So, go to your room or the bathroom and lock the door.”

“I can't. Not with her like that.”

Miriam says, “Yes, Mr. Cannon. Not with her like this. Did I ever tell you that I can stop my vessel's heart?”

I don't believe it for a second.
Because I can't and I should know.
But the demon inside her is a damned good liar.

I say, “Jerry, he lies. He can't. And she can't drop the phone or he'll lose the connection with her. So go lock yourself up, and I will yank the cord from the phone before she can go all stabby on you. Okay?”

He's shaking his head. So I really put my back into it and grind her wrist in the drawer. Miriam screams. Her nicely tanned wrist has some breaks now, and for that I'm truly sorry. But damn. She's possessed. There's gotta be some dispensation for those of us just doing what we have to do, right?

Miriam doesn't drop the phone.

“Okay, Jerry?”

He nods and takes a step backward, toward the living room and the hallway to the bedrooms. And another. Another until he's out of sight.

When he's gone, Quincrux says, “Nicely done, Mr. Cannon. You have removed a pawn from the board. But I am still in possession of this one.”

“Yeah, well, don't get too comfortable, boss. Did you get my message?”

Her face clouds a bit. Then brightens. “‘I am coming for you'? Of course I did. But, my dear boy, I
want
you to come to me. It is time you join our ranks. We will welcome you.”

“You know what?”

She cocks her head slightly, phone cradled in hand. “I do not ‘know what.'”

“I just don't like how you asked, asshole.”

It's stupid. It's risky. But I'm always stupid and risky.

I shoot forward out of the meatsuit. I go in fast, not trying to drive him out. Not trying to hurt him. I'm trying to catch his scent. Catch his trail. To snatch up the invisible tether.

And maybe that's the trick. Not to go in to destroy, but to suss out. To trace. He can't stop me, and I feel his mental fingers scratching at my ethereal body. I feel his mind trying to grapple with the greased pig of my psyche.

He's my truffle.

It's a golden filament I see, stretching off out of the kitchen, into the west wall of the apartment. And right then, I'm gone, off into the wild blue yonder, into the etheric heights, following it home. The earth, the ground, the sky, the water. All a blur. Racing home.

A flash of light and the jolt of breath. The weight of arms and legs and balls and the scent of tobacco on my breath and the tang of addiction. There I am in a small, bare office, sitting at a desk with a phone pressed to my ear. An open laptop flickering and displaying data. There's a green blotter in front of me on the desk, papers stacked to the right. A coffee cup full of pens.

My leg aches. My heart hammers in my chest.

Quincrux's chest.

Across the desk, set at an angle and illuminated by a computer screen, is a woman in a business suit that isn't a uniform but could easily pass for one if you squint. She has short-cropped, almost white hair and glasses. Bluetooth headphone set. Nose ring, eyebrow ring. Tattoo on her neck. She's thickset but not fat. From where I sit in Quincrux's carcass, I can see that she's almost half tits.

Quincrux, you dog.

Face intense and staring into the monitor, she says, “Red Team is en route to Gramercy location. Orange Team on standby with stasis bomb, should things go pear-shaped. Give the order to intercept?”

Stasis bomb?

I try to sit forward, but my damned leg doesn't move like it should, and it is seriously making it hard to think. I have a choice, dive into Quincrux's memories and take everything he's got but—

Something rattles the psychic chassis. Quincrux. It's like the Hulk and Mr. Hyde have been snorting crank for a week and decided they want inside Quincrux's skin. Except it's already got a squatter. Me.

He's too strong for me to keep out of his own meatsuit. But I can hold on for a moment.

Leaning forward, I shuffle through the papers on his desk, until I find an envelope.

“Director? Is there a problem?” The white-headed woman asks, index finger on her Bluetooth headset.

I try to remember all the ways military people in movies sound when asked similar questions and can't think of one way, for the life of me. Maybe because I'm not in my body and I can't make the connection to those far-off chemical memory banks, or maybe because I'm under pressure. So I just say, “No.”

“You sure?”

“One moment.” I hold up Quincrux's finger in a shushing motion.

There's another shuddering jar in the ether, and the crushing pressure in my head almost snuffs my consciousness like wind extinguishing a candle. But I have time enough to pick up an envelope and read what the front of it says. #15, Old US Highway 10, Montana, 59759.

Another huge push against my—or Quincrux's—cranium, like water building behind a dam, and I have time only to snatch
up a pencil and scrawl across the papers lying there—

You don't have to be such a tremendous DICK

—before I'm kicked out.

It's only moments of dislocation and bodilessness and the rush of travel before I'm back in good old Shreve, still holding Miriam's hand hostage in the drawer. She's howling and obviously not chock-full o' Quincrux, so I let her go, grab the phone she's still holding at her ear, and toss it away.

“Jerry!”

I move Miriam, cradling her arm, to a stool. Jerry pops into the kitchen as if he's been waiting, moving quickly. I can't imagine how hard it was for him to back out.

I let Jerry take over, helping Miriam, who's stopped howling and begun to ask over and over, “Why? Why?”

The weight of that question tears at me.

I know. Why?

I put my hand on Jerry's shoulder. Squeeze. Try to put what I'm feeling into it. “Jer, I'm so sorry. So very sorry. And I have to go.
Now
.”

He looks away from Miriam, to me, his face streaming. “But, wait, you must—”

“I'm gone,” I say after one last squeeze. I run out of the kitchen and into the living room. I hurdle the sofa, and at the front door, crack it open and peer down the hallway toward the elevators and the other way to the stairwell.

No one. Yet.

Whatever I do, I sure as hell ain't going up to the roof.

I can't imagine what the “capture team” might be holding—guns? Brainiacs? Knuckleheads?

A bunch of explodey people?

The Witch?

Oh no. It'll be the Witch.

I run back to the kitchen, where Jerry looks surprised to see me again so soon. Some guests just never take a hint, I figure. Miriam's face is contorted in pain, and she's cradling her mangled hand.

“Jerry, where's your car?”

“In the building garage.” His mouth stays open. Stupefied, really. I can see this whole morning has been too much for him.

“I didn't want to, Jer-bear, but I gotta take it,” I say, grabbing the keys from where they still sit on the counter. “Go ahead and call 911 for her. She's gonna need it.”

He blinks. Digs in his pocket for his mobile as I race back to the door and burst into the hall. For a moment I consider taking the stairs, but it seems like that's what everyone does when trying to escape, so I run down to the double elevator bays and press both the up and down buttons.

My heart is like two jackrabbits humping away in my chest. It's hard to wait and watch the LED number indicators count up from 1 and down from 13, but I manage to do it without my brain exploding.

There's a
ding!
and one of the steel elevator doors slides open. Nobody's home. I jump in, press all the buttons above my current floor—six—and then jump out just in time to hear another
ding!
as the opposing elevator opens. There's a young bearded man in it, dressed in what looks like black military garb, lots of doohickeys at his waist. He's thick around the middle, and he's got a small Bluetooth headset on, like the white-haired woman in Quincrux's office. He looks surprised to see me.

He looks even more surprised when I kick him in the nuts with everything I've got. His body reacts to the blow, dropping to the floor, curling up. I press the button marked G—I have to assume that's the garage—and then reach down and snatch his headset from his ear, drop it to the floor, and stomp on it.

“What the hell?” he says, miserable. “Why'd you have to—”

There's a Taser right next to the handcuffs. I slide that away from its holster with my foot before kicking him in the head. Once, twice, three times. Until he stops moving.

I check his breath. His pulse. It'll be a toss-up if he'll need more ice on his balls or his brains.

On the second floor, the elevator shudders to a stop. The doors slide open to reveal a young woman—apparently well rested, thank you very much—in expensive jogging clothes, holding a lapdog in her arms. They both look from the unconscious guy on the floor to me and back to the guy with the same alarmed and rather goofy expression. I don't say anything. What's there to say?

The moment hangs until the doors slide shut. They do not get on the elevator.

The elevator passes the lobby without its doors opening. The only thing that could make this ride worse would be some light jazz, but there's no Kenny G on the way to G.

The garage is very small, damp, dimly lit. It smells of mildew and concrete, the exhaust and fluid leaks from cars. There's a steep ramp leading out to the street. At the top of the ramp is a closed metal garage door. I can only hope there's a radio-controlled trigger for it in Jerry's ride.

I leap from the elevator carriage, pulling the keys from my
pocket, mashing the unlock button. I hear a chirp.

It's a sweet chariot, this BMW. The leather seats kissing my ass are totally cherry. Jerry likes nice things, that's for damn sure.

The car roars to life and thrums underneath my hands. I whip it out of its parking space and up the ramp, stopping at the garage door, which begins to open without any help from me. The light brightens as the door opens and reveals a black van half blocking the drive and exit to the street.

The driver—another Bluetooth-wearing young man—glances at me, surprised. He's got partially hydrogenated corn syrup for blood and was born and bred on the backs of Oklahoma football players. I slip from behind my eyes and take a short, sharp stab at his head. He's walled up tight, but I'm desperate and I blow past his defenses in a heartbeat. My nose begins to trickle blood.

Solomon Blackwell, this is your life.

I can't banish him totally from his consciousness—he's that gristly and strong—but I can get enough of a hold to make him shift the van into gear and mash down the accelerator. The van careens forward, banging into a sedan parked in front of it with a massive
crunch
that sounds like the rending of the world. The steering wheel explodes into silvery white air bag goodness, smacking his face so hard it knocks him unconscious and knocks me all the way back out of his head and into the BMW. Which I now gun out onto the street and down the block.

Only to be stopped at the traffic light.

There are a lot of folks out this morning, most looking happy. Apparently, when people sleep well, they want to get out and drive around.

It's hard to stay calm waiting for the pedestrians to pass and the light to change. When it does, it's not like I can race forward, seeing as there's some sort of small delivery truck in front of me.

It's the slowest chase scene I've ever witnessed.

In the rearview, I can see the van behind me. A couple of black-clad people are pulling Mr. Blackwell from the wreckage and pointing in my direction.

Oh no. One of them—a girl—takes a few steps in my direction and jumps. It's like she's disappeared. But it doesn't take a mind reader to guess she's got twelve fingers. She's somewhere above me now. Flying. Glommed onto a building maybe.

Torpedoes be damned, I whip the Beemer out and around the delivery truck and almost run smack dab into a Yellow Cab that veers to the right just in time for me to pass between and shoot in front of the truck. Then down two blocks at a fast clip until I hit a large avenue. I can't get any idea of where I am and the traffic is crowded around me, so I cast out my awareness and snag a police officer and go behind his eyes.

Bruno Conti, you aren't the nicest guy in New York, that's for sure.

I shuffle through the memory banks, trying to avoid the lawsuits and alimony payments and the pulsing urge for a drink and/or sex and dredge up the info I need.

First Avenue. Take a left, then a right, and head to the FDR on-ramp going south toward the Williamsburg Bridge. Which will, eventually, take me east onto Long Island through Brooklyn-Queens Expressway unless I head north through construction.

Being stuck on an island is like being back on the roof again.

Bruno, despite being a brute and as corrupt as they come, has 20/20 eyesight, so it's no problem picking out the black SUV muscling its way down Twentieth Street toward me. Bruno also spends time in the gym, when he's not drinking and hound-dogging underage girls, so I set him off jogging back the way from which I came in the BMW.