Chapter 14
I came to a stop a couple hundred yards from Kappie’s crumbling elementary school headquarters and took my time putting on my brand-new flak vest and checking my Glock. I didn’t think they’d help all that much, but every little bit counts, doesn’t it? Once I’d finished that ritual, I took off through the underbrush around the perimeter of the school parking lot.
This is a terrible plan, Maggie said.
But it is a plan, which is more than I had before. You sense anything?
No, she said. But the ghoul might be actively trying to mask its scent now. It’s still sort of a jinn. It has access to powers similar to mine.
The school was home to Kappie and dozens of imps. The chances of it actually being empty were slim to none, which told me that I’d come to the right place. I reached the rear of the school and watched the windows for a few moments before turning my attention on the loading bay. A semi was parked at the bay – a different truck than last week – but the area looked abandoned despite the door being open.
Here goes nothing. I broke into a sprint, clearing the parking lot and reaching the side of the truck. I checked the cab, then worked my way down the side of the trailer. Weapon at the ready, I rolled into the loading bay and cleared the storage area and then the trailer. There was nothing except a couple of pallets of DVD players, probably stolen.
No one demanded to know what I was doing there. An imp didn’t emerge from the school to tell me off. The place was eerily silent.
Do you smell something? Maggie asked.
I sniffed. There was a hint of gasoline. Semi might be leaking, I said. Moving quietly, I opened the service door leading away from the storage and was immediately hit by a much stronger, more immediate smell. I took a step inside and found myself in a long, industrial-style kitchen. The place was filthy – pots, pans, and dishes stacked high; old food on the floor; pots of grease discarded beneath stainless steel prep areas. Never mind, I said. The semi is not leaking.
The reek of gasoline was so powerful that my eyes began to water. My feet splashed, and it took me half a second to realize I was standing in a puddle of the stuff. This is not good, I said to Maggie. My first instinct was to get the hell out of there, but I forced myself to keep walking. I rounded the first prep table only to find the gasoline mixing with a pool of blood on the floor. The blood streaked out through the front of the kitchen, as if something had been killed and then dragged elsewhere. There were footprints in the blood.
Big, taloned footprints.
I blinked through the fumes. You’re going to tell me if someone lights a match, right?
If I say the word hop, I want you to dive through the closest window, Maggie replied.
Got it. I followed the trail of blood through the cafeteria and out into one of the main hallways. It continued a few dozen feet, then took an immediate left through a door marked Boiler Room. It wasn’t the only trail of blood, either. Streaks and drops filled the hallway, all leading to the boiler room. The smell of gas wasn’t as bad out here, but I could see that the trail of yellowish liquid lead in the opposite direction. He’s going to burn the place down.
That’s my guess, Maggie agreed.
It’s cinder block. What does he expect to accomplish?
He can still gut the place – blow up the kitchen, bring down the roof. It’ll be enough to slow down an OtherOps investigation. I eyed the trail of gas but turned to follow the blood instead. I reached the door to the boiler room, the bottoms of my boots slick with crimson. When my hand touched the doorknob, Maggie said, You don’t want to go in there.
I ignored her and opened the door, stepping through and onto the same catwalk that Kappie had stood on when we’d spoken last week. I had a pretty good idea what to expect, but I made myself look anyway. Beneath the catwalk, at the bottom of the boiler room two stories down, was a pile of very fresh-looking imp corpses. It was the same modus operandi as the meth houses: bodies mutilated beyond recognition, killed quickly and brutally by something much bigger than them. It looked like a scene from the bottom of a butcher’s slop bucket.
Somewhere in the distance, I thought I heard a voice. Carefully, I closed the door and returned to the trail of gas, following it down one long hallway, then another. The voice grew louder as I progressed, and I soon realized that someone was singing.
“Taaaaake meeeee oooooon! Iiiiiii’ll beee gooooone!”
I reached the propped-open door to the school gymnasium and stopped just outside, peeking around the corner. The gym was full of pallets of stolen goods, from electronics to toilet paper to power tools. Kappie – or, rather, the ghoul wearing his Kappie suit – stood in the center of the room, gleefully tearing open a pallet of paper towels before dousing the whole thing with fuel from a large gas can.
I could sense Maggie holding her breath.
Anything you want to say before I kick this off? I asked her.
Don’t get yourself killed, you big dummy.
Right. See you in a few.
I leaned against the gym door and called out, “Hey, Kappie.”
The ghoul spun toward me with a decidedly un-implike growl. Its eyebrows rose, and the side of its face twitched at the sight of me.
“You know,” I said, “I would not have expected an undead desert spirit to be a fan of eighties Norwegian synth-pop.”
The ghoul discarded the gas can and turned toward me. I noted that it had an intact left hand. Either the shapeshifter was able to cover up its wounds in a different form, or the limb had regenerated. The second thought did not appeal to me. The creature frowned at me, then seemed to remember what it had been singing. An embarrassed, strangely human smile flickered across its face. “You pick up the strangest things over the course of time.” The smile disappeared. “You, Alek Fitz, do not take a hint.”
“It’s why I’m the best.”
“How did you figure out what I was?”
“Because I’m the best.”
The ghoul rolled its eyes. “Are you? If you’re so smart, why are you still after me?”
“I said I was good, not smart,” I answered.
“I let you live last night. I even killed someone you hate.” It gestured at the face it was wearing and ran its tongue over its lips. “I saw his memories. I watched him drag little-kid you across a parking lot and shove him into a car. I watched him take the money from your boss. I even felt it when you broke his nose. Kappie was a piece of shit, and you should be thanking me for taking him out of this world.”
I fought to suppress long-buried memories and looked toward the ceiling. “You know what? You’re right. Thank you.”
The ghoul seemed taken aback by my response.
I continued, “I gladly would have crushed his skull myself, if I’d been allowed. I would have drawn the line at eating his brain, though. Imps are nasty.”
“You’re mocking me?”
“Only a little. I’m genuinely pleased that Kappie is dead. But this thing between you and me has nothing to do with Kappie.”
The ghoul took a step back, tensing up, and I realized it was seconds away from shifting into some speedy animal and taking off like it had last night. “There’s nothing between you and me,” it said.