I had found the one used for my prison on the first floor. One of the fleeing Hollow Men had thought he would be safe inside.
SFD had three engines on-site, and snakes of white hose were strewn about the red trucks. Lines of steaming water soaked the old bricks of the warehouse, playing a game of tag with the red and orange flame in the shattered windows. Yellow-suited figures ran along the raised concrete dock like ants trying to salvage their queen from the inferno inside.
"Looks like a good-sized fire." The waitress had a double order of sausage and cheese omelets, toast, and home fries. She put the plates down, one of them at the place setting across from me as if someone else was going to join me. I didn't bother to correct her assumption. I was going to wolf down the first plate in short order. The second one wasn't going to have time to cool. "Ketchup?" she asked.
I shook my head, and with a final glance toward the fire, she wandered off. I focused on the omelet in front of me. While I was filled with etheric energy, taken from the Hollow Men, it wasn't the same as real food. The material body needs material fuel-one of the inescapable rules of the Universe-and it had been four days since I had eaten. The waffle at Minnie's, early Wednesday morning.
The newspaper in the rack outside the restaurant said it was Saturday. The fire had cut through the morning fog blanketing the industrial district south of downtown Seattle, an early morning glow that must have confused drivers on I-5 as if the sun was rising in the west instead of the east. A single fire engine had responded initially but, after a rapid assessment, the on-site commander had called for backup. The fire was in the walls and floors.
The Arena had been in a subbasement, several floors below the ground. The conflagration had started there, with the immolation of the first Hollow Man. There were those who had just watched-Witnesses, not participants-and I had let them go. The others, the eight who had given Doug magickal aid, they had been my prey.
Four died in the subbasement; one in the eastern stairwell; one hid in the shipping container, and I had closed the door a moment before I set off Julian's ward; one tried to fight back, thinking he could ambush me on the second floor; and the last one tried to fly away. Filled with energy stolen from the others, I had given him a boost. He turned into ash, a black smear across the damp rooftop.
You have to fill the void.
It had been easy. A bright burning fury encapsulating a decade of pent-up helplessness. Years of fear. All focused through a need for vengeance, to take from them what they had taken from Kat.
The void in my soul. I poured energy into it because that was the way I reacted to a Universe that made me afraid. Its nihilistic enormity. What were we in this vast emptiness? I killed, not because of the Qliphotic taint, but because it was the only way I knew how to be a Creator.
"Nice of you to order me something."
Nicols sat down across from me. He turned over the nearby coffee cup and placed it near the edge of the table where the waitress would spot it. "There any ketchup?" he asked, unrolling the silverware from the paper napkin.
"I'm sure she can bring some," I said.
He did a good job of appearing to be noncommittal in looking at me, but I knew there were physical differences from the last time he had seen me. Unlike other scars, I had no desire to keep marks from the last few days. I had wiped away the pattern of burn marks on my chest, fixed the torn ligament in my knee and regrown my burned hair. The body is mutable if the Will is strong. The braid of Reija's hair was a stark white band about my throat. I had also acquired clothing before leaving the warehouse, replacing my blood-stained pants with a nondescript blue track suit I had found in a locker. Nicols noticed the reverse haircut, surely, just as he noticed how rested I looked compared to him.
The jeans and hooded sweatshirt augmented his exhaustion, failing to disguise the slump of his shoulders and the unhealthy tinge of his skin. The disheveled arrangement of his hair suggested he had been sleeping in his car. Smoking there too. His clothes reeked of musty tobacco.
He looked out the window at the fire, not unaware of the view afforded this table. "You're very shiny," he said. "I Saw you from the street." I heard his emphasis. In my absence, he had come to believe in his Sight.
And I was very shiny. Filled with the light of the Hollow Men, I knew I'd be hard not to spot from the street. I wasn't ready to flush all that energy; it was a ready reservoir of useful power. The increased visibility was a trade-off I could live with in the short term. Besides, all the wrong sort of people already knew I was here.
"You happen to be in the neighborhood or do you have a fetish for fire?" I asked, nodding toward the excitement down the block.
"Very funny. Thanks for hanging around at the hotel. I appreciate the concern for my well-being. It was just a Taser, after all. I suppose you get shot with that sort of thing every day."
"Not every day. I'm sorry about that. You were right. It was a trap. But not one of Pender's design."
"Yeah," he nodded. "I figured that out when he arrived. He was convinced you had orchestrated that mess: shot me, taken the girl, and made a run for the border."
"What did you tell him?"
"Nothing. He was eager to have me corroborate his story." He shrugged. "So I did." He leaned forward. "I met your friend."
"Who?"
"Antoine."
He was here. My insight into the Weave had been correct. There was a larger game afoot, and we were being moved about in accordance with a coordinated plan. "So Pender's act was for his benefit."
"Yeah, that's what I figured. He was trying too hard to sell his story."
"Did Antoine buy it?"
Nicols settled back in the seat, exhaling noisily. "He's. . ah, 'inscrutable' is a good word. He's not fucking there when you try to look at him. And forget trying to read his body language. It's like trying to read patterns in running water. He knew I could See and the fact that I couldn't read him at all may have amused him. Or maybe not. I just don't know."
"Antoine was always good at hiding himself."
"He's more than good." Nicols shook his head. "Pender wanted to hold me for questioning. 'Observation' was the term he used. But Antoine-Jesus, he barely said anything and Pender was still ready to shit himself-wasn't going to have any of that. He told Pender to leave me alone."
I smiled. Nicely done. My abduction had been meant to be a distraction, but Antoine had simply brushed the misdirection aside. He left Nicols in play, knowing the detective would look for me.
"What about Kat?" he asked. "Did you find her?"
I looked at the fire, at the cloud of black smoke rising from the ruined warehouse, before I nodded.
The waitress wandered over with the coffee pot. She poured Nicols a cup, and while she refilled mine, he talked her out of the ketchup bottle in the pocket of her apron. He smothered his omelet and I looked away, my stomach churning. Too much like blood.
"Where is she?" He hacked off the end of his omelet, a clean slice done with an executioner's precision. Like a sword through a limb.
"I don't know." I hadn't found her body: not in the container, not in the interrogation room, not anywhere else in the building. Kat was gone, and a part of my heart told me-over and over-that she was already dead. She had been broken and the invasive darkness would devour her. Even if I had been able to find her immediately, how was I going to save her? I hadn't been able to save my own soul from a tear more imagined than real. What was I going to do for someone who was actually missing part of their soul? And now, three days on, how much could possibly be left? How much of Kat was left, and how much was turned into something else.