True Dark Page 9

  ‘Detectives went over this place last week,’ the officer accompanying them said as the two ex-agents stood in the lounge, looking around.

  ‘And I’m sure they did a really good job,’ Heather replied. ‘A fresh pair of eyes, or two pairs, never hurt anyone and, let’s face it, if we don’t find her soon, we’re looking for a body, not a missing person. We may already be too late. Unless she’s in Mexico with a cabana boy.’

  ‘That’s fair.’

  ‘It’s… messy,’ Jacob said. The room was not exactly a place of chaos, but it was not especially tidy either. There was not much furniture – a sofa facing an entertainment centre, a small desk beside the window which had a cheap computer on it – and there was a shirt thrown over the back of the sofa, an open magazine on the seat cushions, and various sticky notes attached to the side of the computer’s monitor. ‘Everyone said she was a bit of a clean freak. If she’d gone off on an unplanned holiday, I think she’d have put that magazine away, for instance.’

  Heather nodded and wandered off toward the bedroom. Jacob set off into the kitchen. ‘Another note saying she needs milk,’ Jacob called out.

  ‘No clothes missing from the bedroom,’ Heather replied, ‘but there are some on a drying rack in the bathroom.’ Heather reappeared in the bedroom doorway, frowning.

  ‘So, she didn’t go somewhere of her own volition,’ Jacob suggested.

  ‘No, but there’s nothing here to suggest where… Something’s bugging me, and I can’t figure out what.’ She closed her eyes, still frowning.

  The cop looked at her, then at Jacob. ‘What’s she doing?’ the woman asked.

  ‘She’s got a photographic memory,’ Jacob replied. ‘She’ll be going over what she’s seen and trying to figure out what’s not right.’

  ‘Yes,’ Heather said, ‘and I figured it out.’ She pointed down toward the wall between the two doors to the bedroom and kitchen. There was a vent there which had to be for the heating system, but now it was an open hole. The slats in the vent had corroded. ‘Do you think a fairly meticulous woman like Janice Harper would have let that sit there for very long? I mean, corrosion like that has to take a while.’

  ‘Maybe she reported it to the building manager and it hadn’t been repaired yet,’ the officer said.

  ‘Let’s check.’

  ‘Not sure what good it’d do. I mean, how could that be related? It’s not like anyone could get through it.’

  Heather smiled and vaguely pointed at Jacob. ‘He’s in that suit because if he gets above about fifty Fahrenheit, his body starts cooling the air around him. He can suck the heat right out of you or encase you in ice. I know a woman who can walk into one shadow and come out of another one a thousand miles away. Squeezing through a small gap like that? It’s not outside the bounds of possibility.’

  ‘You… You think there’s an Ultra involved?’

  ‘I am not saying that. And you are not repeating it when you get back. If we say an Ultra kidnapped Harper, the UID will get involved and none of us want that.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, no, we don’t. Let’s go see the supervisor.’

  King County, WA.

  The cabin Janice Harper’s parents had owned was still there – about two miles outside Skykomish – but there did not look to be much chance that Harper was staying there for some reason.

  ‘If anyone’s been here in the last five years, I’ll be amazed,’ Heather said as she looked up at the boarded-up windows. The boards had not stopped the weather getting in. Part of the roof looked like it had collapsed at the apex, maybe from the weight of snow in the winter.

  Jacob climbed up onto the small porch and the boards under his feet groaned alarmingly. ‘I think we’re wasting our time here, yeah.’ He stepped down, rather gingerly.

  ‘That vent is still bugging me.’

  ‘The rusted one?’

  ‘Yeah. It wasn’t rusted. Aluminium doesn’t rust. And the super said it hadn’t been reported, so I think it must have happened recently.’

  Jacob took one more look at the decaying cabin and started for the helicopter which had brought them there. ‘If it was used as a way in, it doesn’t get us much further. We need to know where she is now.’

  ‘Yeah. I know, but…’ Heather shook her head. ‘Let’s get back to the Watchtower and go over the police reports again. I’m running out of ideas.’

  ‘Same here. Back to the reports and… hope.’

  New Millennium City, MD, 9th July.

  The Kearney family had been in retail for three generations. Patrick Kearney’s father had run a shop in New York’s Brooklyn, until half of Brooklyn and the whole of Vinegar Hill had been submerged under lava. Pat had been a kid then, and now he ran the family shop in Churchton. Churchton was not the best of locations, but Pat’s store provided food to the locals, so he was rarely troubled. He and his shop had come through the riots relatively unscathed – there had been one broken window – and business had actually got a little better thanks to being an open shop rather than a trashed one.

  There were, however, things that Pat watched for. For example, when the kids got out of school, Pat paid particular attention to them because they had a habit of lifting things. He watched drunks around closing time for the same reason. When he spotted two kids in their late teens entering the shop, his attention fixed on them. They were nervous and excited at the same time. They were busy working themselves up to something and Pat suspected it would not be something good. Reaching under his counter, he punched nine and one into the phone.

  The two boys waited until they were the only customers left in the shop. Maybe if it had taken longer for that to happen, they would have lost their nerve and left. But it did not and the next thing Pat knew, he was looking down the barrel of a snub .38 revolver. The weapon looked old and badly cared for, but it also looked lethal.

  ‘G-give us all the money in the t-till,’ the owner of the pistol said. This was almost certainly the first time these two had ever tried to rob a store. Pat could not be sure, but he suspected they were from the northern part of Churchton where things were still a little rougher, even after the efforts to start redevelopment.

  Slowly, Pat lifted his hands up where the kid could see them. ‘Now, just stay calm,’ he said. ‘You don’t really want to shoot me, and I don’t want to be shot.’

  ‘Hurry up, man,’ the second boy said, tension in his voice.

  ‘Money!’ the gunman almost yelled.

  Pat moved toward the till. ‘Okay. I’m getting the–’

  There was a flare of light, a bar of incandescence which flashed into being between nothing and the arm the kid was holding the gun in. It was there, and then it was gone, and then the pistol, still held in a hand which was attached to about half a forearm, was falling to the ground. The gun’s owner followed it, eyes wide. He let out an uncomprehending wail as he stared at the stump of his arm. Pat was too busy trying to work out what had just happened to do anything.

  The second kid, however, was a little faster on the uptake. He pulled a flick-knife from his windbreaker and turned to what he thought was where the energy beam had come from. ‘Where are you, fucker?! I am gonna cut you g–’ Another blaze of light filled the room. This one hit the boy in the chest and passed clean through his body to explode a couple of boxes of breakfast cereal across the room. The boy just crumpled, falling to the linoleum without another word.

  ‘What?’ Pat stared at the space where the light beams had come from, but he could see nothing. ‘What just–’

  Something black appeared out of thin air and landed on the counter. Pat looked down to see what appeared to be a business card, black across the entire surface. ‘You can thank Blacklight for the save,’ a voice said. Pat looked up at where he thought the voice had come from, but there was still nothing to see. He reached for the phone.

  ‘Yes, I need police and an ambulance. I think a vigilante just killed someone in my shop.’

  ~~~

  Cygnus dropped on
to the sidewalk outside Kearney’s General Store. There was a police car and an ambulance already there along with a small crowd who had gathered to gawp but were staying back at the moment. A couple of cameras flashed, even though it was daylight. Cygnus ignored them and walked into the shop.

  Paramedics were working on one man who looked to be seventeen or eighteen and was missing about half of his right arm. Cygnus grimaced, but she left them to work and looked over the second victim. He looked younger – not much, but some – and he was never going to get older. There was a burn in his chest, right where the heart would be. The linoleum beneath him was just visible through the hole.

  Cygnus turned to the two cops and the shopkeeper. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I was just telling them,’ the shopkeeper said. Presumably he was Mister Kearney. ‘The kids were trying to rob me. One had a gun. Then… I don’t know what it was. Some kind of laser, maybe. It blew that kid’s arm off. The other one pulled a knife and, well, you see what happened to him.’

  ‘Did you see who did it?’

  Kearney shook his head. ‘Guy was invisible or something. It was a guy, because he spoke. Said I should thank Blacklight for the save. If you can call this a save. Damn. This kind of thing never happened when Twilight was around. Uh, no offence.’

  ‘None taken. I want her back too.’ Cygnus glanced at the cops. ‘Anything else?’

  One of the two men held up an evidence bag. ‘This “Blacklight” left this behind.’

  Cygnus looked at the black card, picking out the embossed logo. Skadi had said a starburst, but given what had happened to the two robbers, Cygnus suspected it was more like a laser blast. A beam came in from the right edge and then exploded into multiple beams about two-thirds of the way across the card. ‘He left the same at the last site. Blacklight, huh? Okay.’ At least they had a name for their vigilante.

  There were footfalls and two men in suits appeared. Cygnus figured them for UID before the badges appeared, but then she knew one of them. ‘Special Agent Caldwell,’ she said to the taller, darker of the two. ‘No Brent?’

  ‘Senior Special Agent Brent has been transferred to the DC office,’ Caldwell said. ‘This is Special Agent Halliwell.’ Halliwell was not an especially tall man but made up for it with muscle and hair cropped so close to his skull that it seemed to be scared to show itself. His blue eyes were cold. To Cygnus, it looked like they had replaced Brent with a near copy.

  ‘We’ll take things from here,’ Halliwell said. ‘We don’t need outside help to find this vigilante.’

  Cygnus flashed a smile and started for the door. ‘Good look with that. You’re looking for an invisible man who shoots laser beams at people. I know how good the UID is at handling things like that because they didn’t even know the last one existed until I stopped him.’

  Halliwell opened his mouth, but Caldwell got in first. ‘Don’t make yourself look any more foolish, Sean. She’s right and it cost her a boyfriend.’

  Cygnus smiled as she stepped out through the door and took off. Sometimes she had to remind herself that not every UID agent was an asshole.

  ~~~

  ‘Invisibility and energy blasts,’ Heather said over the speakerphone. ‘That’s not an especially good memory.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s dead,’ Penny said.

  ‘And this isn’t his style,’ Jacob added. ‘A vigilante is a criminal, but a criminal with the right sort of idea. That’s not exactly right, but you get my point. Ghostfire was just a criminal.’

  ‘He fought crime,’ Penny replied. ‘He just made sure that his people didn’t end up getting caught very often. But he’s still dead. I was the one who had to pull her fist out of his ribcage. I just find the similarity… disturbing.’

  ‘Well,’ Heather said, ‘if anyone can find this Blacklight, you can. You can see invisible things when you need to.’

  ‘Maybe. How’s your case going?’

  ‘Not too well. We suspect there could be an Ultrahuman involved. Miss Harper’s disappearance may have nothing to do with her inheritance.’

  ‘Or someone employed an Ultra to vanish her,’ Jacob said. ‘But, our leads have dried up. We’re taking a day to consider our options, but if we can’t think of something soon, we may have to give this up.’

  ‘Oh,’ Penny said. ‘If you think of a way I could help, let me know. You know how fast I can be there. Otherwise, good luck.’

  ‘Yeah. We may need it.’

  ‘I’m trying,’ Heather said, luck being her thing. ‘Sometimes it doesn’t matter how lucky you are. Sometimes it just takes skill.’

  Seattle Watchtower, WA.

  ‘I did a little data mining,’ Patterson said. He shrugged. ‘I had some spare time. I don’t think the various police agencies have noticed it, but there’s been a distinct upswing in missing persons around Kirkland, Bellevue, and Redmond over the last… two months. Depends how you look at the figures, but about two months.’

  ‘Odd,’ Jacob said, ‘but not unheard of.’ He was sitting with Heather in the common area, going over their notes and the police reports, again, before they gave up on the idea that they would ever find Janice Harper.

  ‘Yes. This rise in numbers is demographically interesting. All among young women, living alone in a multioccupancy building. From the pictures, they’re all attractive too. No detectable pattern to the dates. Some are a few days apart, some more like a week. There’ve been none of this type since Miss Harper, however.’

  ‘I don’t like that pattern,’ Heather said, ‘but it doesn’t get us closer…’

  Jacob raised an eyebrow as Heather trailed off looking thoughtful. ‘I know that look.’

  Heather shook her head. ‘I keep coming back to that corroded grating.’ She looked up at Patterson. ‘All in multioccupancy buildings?’ He nodded. ‘So… So, centralised air conditioning?’

  ‘Not sure,’ Patterson replied, ‘but it’s not impossible. Maybe even likely. What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking we need to go check the basement in Harper’s apartment building.’ She got to her feet.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Call it a hunch, but I think the longer it takes us to find her, the less chance there is we won’t find a corpse.’

  Redmond, WA.

  The building manager looked kind of impressed to have Vindicator on his doorstep. The armoured man had come to smooth things over with both the super and the local cops. It was working too: Heather certainly doubted that things would be going as well if she and Jacob had turned up on their own. It was eleven o’clock on a Thursday night, but Heather felt sure they should not wait until morning.

  One of the patrol officers who had turned out was left standing at the top of the stairs into the basement while Jacob led the way down, Heather on his heels. It did not look like anyone went down there unless they really had to. There was dust everywhere and tracks in the dust.

  ‘Rats,’ Heather commented.

  ‘And humans, but those could be the super,’ Jacob said.

  ‘Does the dust look… brushed about to you?’

  Jacob dropped to one knee and examined the grey-brown layer of filth on the concrete. ‘Could be. Someone covering up some of the tracks?’

  ‘Maybe. We need to find the heating system.’

  They threaded their way through the maze-like structure of the basement, looking for the heating system. Someone had decided to put in extra brickwork between the concrete columns supporting the floor above. They divided the basement up into sections which, it seemed, residents could use for storage. Entire sections seemed to be filled with boxes and crates and random bits of furniture. There were fuse boxes and the like on walls, presumably distribution points for the mains, pipes of all sorts, and then, right at the back, there was a boiler and a bunch of vents and ducts.

  ‘There,’ Heather said, shining her light on a section of vent.

  Jacob frowned at it and then reached out to peel the duct tape off it. Maybe a six-inch section of
the vent had been carefully taped over, but under the tape, the aluminium had been corroded away. ‘Just like the vent,’ Jacob said.

  ‘Yeah. Our proposed Ultra corrodes away the side of the duct there and then slides up to Harper’s apartment. There, he works through the vent and incapacitates her somehow. Then he takes her out, but he comes back down here to cover up the hole he made.’

  ‘Which seems like a waste of time if he’s taken Harper somewhere else.’

  Heather took her pistol out of her shoulder rig. ‘Does, doesn’t it.’

  ‘So you’re thinking…’

  ‘That we take a look around, yeah.’

  Jacob took one side of the basement, Heather the other. Heather did the classic search thing with her flashlight bracing her pistol as she moved down, peering into the gaps between boxes in the storage areas. Jacob just had a flashlight; he rarely carried his pistol when he was out because he had other ways of incapacitating people now. It also made things easier when it came to shifting boxes to look behind them. That was how he was the first to spot something: something which looked a bit like Janice Harper, but after she had spent the last week on a deserted island with no drinking water. Her face was drawn and her skin had a grey taint to it, but her eyes closed as the light hit them. She made no sound because her mouth was taped over.

  ‘Heather!’ Jacob called out, and that was when something else behind the boxes moved. Jacob swept his flashlight around in time to see something sliding between the crates forming the opposite side of the storage area, but he had no idea what.

  On the other side, Heather turned at Jacob’s shout, and then she froze. Something was sliding out between two stacks of crates, only to reform into… Well, he looked human, but a sort of sagging kind of human. A man, not old, maybe late teens or early twenties, but his skin seemed to be hanging from him which aged him considerably. His cheeks formed jowls, but there seemed to be no spare fat on the man. In fact, he seemed rather thin, almost emaciated. Dark, glassy eyes glared at her and he lunged forward.