Red Knight Falling (25 page)

FORTY-SIX

Fireflies danced in the dark. Motes of light, clustering around Jessie, pinpricks of fire on her skin. I called to my power, to the element of water, and thrust out my open palms. The air rippled, a freezing mirage streaking between Mikki and Jessie, slicing through Mikki’s attack.

Or trying to.

Jessie collapsed to her knees, sweat beading on her brow as Mikki’s psychic onslaught overwhelmed her. Fighting Mikki back felt like playing tug-of-war with an elephant. My arms burning, my shoulders straining, blood roaring in my ears as I poured everything I had into the battle. Falling back, inch by inch, as Jessie’s flesh began to glow. Nearing combustion. Only seconds had passed, but it felt like hours, and a single thought flickered through my mind: I wasn’t going to win this time.

It was just like our battle for Kevin’s life at the mall, but this time she was fueled by fury, her rage spiking her pyrokinesis to new heights, and I didn’t have a well-timed sprinkler system to save the day.

Thunder pealed in the smoky sky, crashing over the sound of Mikki’s insane laughter.

Then the idea hit me. A moment of mad inspiration, the faintest, fleeting hope. It was crazy. Something I’d never done, never even tried to do. But to have any chance of saving Jessie’s life, I had to try.

I stopped fighting.

I gathered up my last reserves of energy, feeling it swirling in my stomach, singing in my veins, and hurled my hands up to the sky. Fingers outstretched to the black clouds, calling to them, calling to the thunder and the lightning and the storm so close to breaking, sending up my power in a spiraling blue helix to pierce the night sky.

And the clouds burst. And the storm came roaring down.

I held my arms open wide, face lifted to the lightning-racked sky, and invited it in. Water crashed over the rock in a windy torrent, hammering on the roof of Roman’s oilcloth shelter, soaking my clothes and drenching me to the bone. Drenching Jessie, who gasped for breath as the fireflies sparked out and the glow of Mikki’s onslaught faded, her power doused by the storm.

I didn’t give her a second chance. Fueled by the tempest, one with the storm, I drew raw magic from the water and balled it in my hands. She turned as I thrust out my palms, elemental water lashing out like a bullwhip, striking her in the eyes. The energy coiled around her face, a glistening cage trapping her fires behind a padlocked furnace door.

“What did you do to me, you goddamn witch?” She thrashed her head wildly, clawing at her face. “Roman,
help
me!”

Roman shook his head, taking a step backward toward the motorbikes.

“You know, I’m thinking maybe it’s time we split up. Seriously, babe, you’re
really
high maintenance.”

I saw the glimmer of hard chrome as it dropped from his sleeve. As he tossed the slim cylinder to the rocky ground, turning and flinging an arm over his eyes, I had just enough time to shout a warning and throw myself at Cody.

We tumbled to the ground, rolling, as the flashbang detonated. The world turned into a wash of brutal light and noise, all the fury of the storm compressed into a single blinding instant.

I pushed myself off Cody, ears ringing, vision blurred double. Everything moved in slow motion, underwater, even my thoughts. I saw the muddy haze of Roman’s back as his motorbike kicked off the plateau, jolting down the hillside with a shrill whine. Tried to reach for one of Cody’s pistols, but my hands wouldn’t do what I told them.

My senses flooded back in. Mikki was on all fours, shrieking obscenities at Roman as she pushed herself back up, a vision of absolute rage. Jessie was on her feet, too, striding toward her with a purpose.

Mikki turned just in time to see Jessie’s fist flying toward her. She dropped to the dirt, out cold, blood trickling from her nose.

“You had that coming,” Jessie told her.

Cody had to help me up. I leaned against him, staggering, as we stumbled underneath the oilcloth tarp. Scant shelter from the rain, but I didn’t mind. The cold mist on my face, blowing in on gusts of night wind, felt clean. Pure. Distracting me from the ache in my muscles and the burning in my guts.

“You called down a storm,” Cody said, blinking at me. “You
called
a
storm
. I didn’t know you could do that.”

I tried to laugh, but it hurt too much. “Neither did I,” I croaked.

Jessie tugged the table closer to the middle of the makeshift shelter, trying to keep the laptop out of the rain. The three of us stood together, there at the plateau’s edge, as the voice on the computer’s speakers counted down.

“Twenty-five. Status check.”

“Range green.”

“Sir, with the inclement weather, recommend we postpone—”

“Negative,”
responded Bette’s voice,
“launch window is nonnegotiable. It’s now or never.”

Trails of coolant streamed from the rocket’s belly, the Atlas standing tall and proud in the spotlights.

“All green. Three. Two. One. Liftoff.”

The boosters flared, brighter than the sun.

The ground shook and the Atlas roared as it rose up, lifted on billowing clouds of white-hot steam and fire, streaking toward the storm. It was a roar of defiance, from all of us, from all humanity, a clear message to that thing that hungered beyond the stars:
Not tonight. You don’t get to win tonight.

Cody’s hand curled around mine. Our fingers twined, his grip firm and warm as we looked up and watched our steel angel fly. On my other side, Jessie put her arm around my shoulders.

Then the Atlas pierced the smoky clouds, and all we could see was the faintest pool of burning light. We listened to mission control over the laptop, the minutes ticking by.

“Booster throttled up; pump speeds are good; engine response is good. Currently accelerating at three-point-one g’s.”

“Think we made it in time?” Cody asked, gazing up at the sky.

I squeezed his hand.

“We have retros and stage separation. Slight booster roll, and . . . telemetry lock. Prepare for final separation.”

I held my breath. I think we all did.

“Orbital injection is successful,” said the voice from mission control. “Repeat, Red Knight Two is in low Earth orbit. Mission accomplished.”

Applause and cheers rang out over the laptop speaker. Kevin leaned back into the camera’s view.

“Hey. Looks like we did it.”

“
You
did it,” I told him.

He shrugged. “I had help from my friends. Why don’t you guys come on back?”

“See you in twenty,” I said, and shut the laptop’s lid.

It was more like an hour, clambering down the treacherous, rainy cliff side on foot, with Cody lugging Mikki’s unconscious body in a fireman’s carry. She woke up halfway down the slope, suddenly kicking and shrieking like a feral cat. Jessie punched her out again.

“You know,” I said, “we can just put a blindfold on her so she can’t use her powers. You don’t have to keep hitting her.”

Jessie blinked at me. “But I
want
to keep hitting her.”

I couldn’t really argue with that.

My phone buzzed as we reached the tarmac. I cupped my hand over the screen, shielding it from the downpour as I took a quick peek. A message from Linder.

Intercept data from LANYARD spy sat shows King of Silence radiation signature receding. Threat averted. Finish up, then report in for debriefing and next mission assignment.

Cody read over my shoulder. “No days off, huh?”

I gave him a tired smile and shook my head. “No days off.”

A patrol jeep eventually found us, wheeling up and giving us a ride back to the Flight Control Center. Mikki woke up again, propped up in the back with her wrists zip-tied behind her.

“Okay,” I said, “Mikki, you’ve got two options. Option one, behave yourself.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What’s option two?”

Jessie cocked a fist. Mikki decided on option one.

Down in mission control, April and Kevin were waiting for us. Jessie grabbed Kevin’s hand and hauled him out of his seat, pulling him into a hug. He murmured something I couldn’t make out, his face buried against her shoulder. I just caught Jessie’s soft reply: “I never doubted you.”

April offered me her hand. Her shake was firm and dry.

“Nice work, Agent. And I see you landed a catch.”

Mikki glowered sullenly in the corner, Cody keeping one hand clamped on her shoulder. Then she locked eyes with Kevin, and her expression, her entire demeanor, changed in a heartbeat.

“Kevin!” she cried, and Cody jerked her shoulder hard to keep her from running toward him. “Oh, Kevin, thank God you saved me. All those things I said, everything I did—Roman, he
made
me do it. I never meant to hurt you, baby, but he would have killed me if I didn’t play along. But now I’m back and everything’s going to be all right. We can be
together
again. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Murder in her eyes, Jessie got between her and Kevin. I did the same. Kevin shook his head and gently touched Jessie’s arm.

“It’s okay,” he said.

She reluctantly stepped aside. Kevin walked up to Mikki, looking her over, wearing a sad and weary smile.

“Been thinking about you a lot,” he told her. “And you know what? I think I finally realized something. Something really important.”

She leaned close, as close as Cody would let her. “What’s that?”

Kevin’s smile grew. Still tired, but the sadness was gone.

“Let’s face it, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m
way
out of your league.”

“You little
shit
,” she screeched, lunging for him, as Cody wrapped his arms around her waist and hauled her off her feet, “I’m the best you’ll ever have!
Nobody
says that to me!
Nobody!
You’re
nothing
without me—”

While she kicked and spat, her zip-tied hands clawing at anything she could reach, Cody and I dragged her out of the room. We found a broom closet down the hall. We sat her down and Cody zip-tied her ankles while I grabbed an opaque plastic trash bag and pulled it over her eyes to block her line of sight.

“Couldn’t she set the bag on fire?” Cody asked me.

“She’s not going to, not while it’s on her head.” I paused. “You’re not fireproof, right, Mikki?”

Her only response was a sullen silence. I took that as a no.

“I’ve already called for an extraction team,” April told me when we returned to mission control. “I doubt she knows much, but Mikki might have some useful intelligence about Bobby Diehl’s operations.”

“Which I hope you’ll share,” Bette said, striding up with a crisp business card between her outstretched fingers. She handed it to me. “In the interest of friendly relations.”

I tilted my head, glancing from her to the card and back again.

“And do we have,” I said, “friendly relations?”

She shrugged. “We did tonight. Next time we meet in the field . . . well, it depends on what we’re both after, doesn’t it? Let’s just leave it at that.”

She stepped around me and approached Kevin, offering him another card.

“I like your style,” she said. “If you’re ever looking for a change in employment, give me a call.”

He took the card, but he chuckled as he shook his head.

“Thanks. I appreciate that, I really do, but”—he looked from Jessie to April to me—“I think I’m right where I belong.”

“C’mon,” Jessie told me, “let’s go keep an eye on Mikki until the extraction team gets here.”

I sighed and led the way to the door. “You’re just hoping you get an excuse to punch her again.”

She thought about it, then nodded. “Yep. Sounds about right.”

FORTY-SEVEN

The sunrise found us in a greasy spoon in Lompoc, California, trying to chase away our exhaustion with hot black coffee and greasy scrambled eggs. It was a new day. No terrors to fight, no alien kings, no mission. Just breakfast, and the feeling when I slid into the booth and leaned against Cody’s arm.

It was over. And he was going home. I wanted every second we had left to stretch out just a little longer. The clock on the wall, fat black arms clicking under a dusty plastic bubble, defied me.

“I’d say we deserve a bonus for that one,” Jessie said, spearing a forkful of bacon.

April smiled, spreading a paper napkin over her lap. “Which we will not, I assure you, be receiving.”

“Linder could at least say thank you,” Kevin said, chewing. “So what’s next?”

Jessie shrugged. “We’ll find out. Flight for DC leaves at two. Once we get some free time on our plate, you feel up to hunting down Steranko?”

Kevin picked up his glass of orange juice and clinked it against Jessie’s coffee mug.

“Sure, but once we polish that off, what’ll we spend the
rest
of the day doing? I mean, it’s your call, but our team should probably be focused on the
hard
missions. We’re pretty badass.”

“Damn right,” she said, and raised her mug in salute.

Cody glanced at his phone. Then he took out his wallet and tossed a couple of rumpled twenties onto the table.

“Well, breakfast’s on me. My flight’s a little sooner than two, so I gotta get moving.” He put his hands on the table, looked around, and shook his head with a smile. “I don’t even know what to say, after all that. Not sure I’ve got my head around it. Hell of a ride, though.”

“It’s safe to say we wouldn’t have succeeded without you,” April told him. “It’s been a pleasure.”

She shook his hand across the table. Jessie leaned in and punched his shoulder.

“You’re all right, cowboy,” she said. “You ever wanna do this again, just say the word. I’ll save you a seat at the rodeo.”

I stood up to let him slide out of the booth. Didn’t want to. He shook hands with Kevin.

“E-mail me,” Kevin said.

“You know it.”

I followed Cody outside.

We stood out on the sidewalk near an overstuffed newspaper vending box. Warm air, bright sun, a clean West Coast morning. Perfect day. I took his hand, as if I could stop him from slipping away from me.

“I was talking to Jessie,” I said, the words coming out in fits and starts. “She thinks—she thinks she can convince Linder to extend our operating budget. So, you know, we could bring on another consultant. Full time.”

He didn’t answer. I couldn’t read his expression. Something soft. Something caring. Something a little sad, there, in his eyes.

“So you could stay with me—I mean, with us—and the job’s dangerous, I mean, you know that, but I also know you want to get out of Talbot Cove, and this would—”

“Harmony,” he said softly, and pulled me close to him. My heart pounded. This was it. He’d cancel his flight and come back inside the diner with me and he wouldn’t leave—

“I can’t,” he said.

I blinked. “But—but you
can
. We can make this work, we can—”

He shook his head. His fingertips brushed my lips, stilling my words. Then he pulled me close, his strong hands curled around the small of my back, and touched his forehead to mine.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” he said. “And I keep coming back to Oregon. When that mercenary had his gun to my head.”

The lodge. Watching the merc’s finger tighten on the trigger, about to put a bullet in Cody’s brain if I didn’t start talking. And the choice to hold my silence.

“I remember,” I whispered.

“And you told me later that if it came down to it, you would have let me die. Because it’d mean sacrificing one life to save hundreds. And you know what? You were right. You were one hundred percent right.”

He pulled back, just a little, to cradle my cheek against his palm.

“But that’s a choice I could never make,” he told me.

I couldn’t find my words. I just blinked, my eyes suddenly damp.

“If it was a choice between you and a hundred strangers,” he said, “I’d save you. Every time. Without thinking twice. Harmony, I can be tough, but I can’t be cold, and this job you do, the lives you’re responsible for—cold’s the only way to survive. I could never be the man you’d need me to be. Pretending otherwise isn’t fair to either one of us.”

I swallowed, hard.

“So . . . this is good-bye?”

He pulled me into a hug, my face buried against his chest.

“
God
, no. Harmony, I’m . . . I’m crazy about you. I
want
to be a part of your life.”

He eased back an inch. I looked up at him, feeling his breath.

“We just have to figure out where I can fit,” he said. “Gotta be room for me in there somewhere.”

A dusty white taxi pulled up to the curb. Its tinny horn bleeped.

“That’s my ride,” he said. “I’ll call you as soon as I get home.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Be safe, Cody.”

He pulled away slowly and walked to the car. I stood on the sidewalk, watched him get in, watched the taxi pull away. I was still standing there, alone, long after it rounded a corner and disappeared.

It wasn’t the first sidewalk I’d been left behind on. Wasn’t the first time I’d heard, “I’ll call you.” I’d learned, from experience, what that usually meant. It meant good-bye.

Still, this felt different. Cody was a man adrift. Adrift between his small town and the big, wide world beyond it, and adrift between the logical, rational universe and the realm of shadows I’d dragged him into. He could go anywhere, do anything.

And when he said he wanted to be a part of my life, I believed him. I’d wait for him to call. And then we’d figure out how to make that happen. Together.

Jessie lurked just inside the diner’s front door, nonchalantly pretending to browse a tourist pamphlet. The door jingled as I walked back inside.

“Don’t even pretend you didn’t hear that entire conversation,” I told her.

“Only most of it. You okay?”

I paused, thought about it, and had to smile.

“Yeah. You know what? I am.”

“You need to take a couple of days off, maybe fly out to Talbot Cove?”

I shook my head. “No. Cody needs time to decide what he wants, and I’m not going to push him. He’ll be back when he’s ready.”

“How about you?” she asked. “What do you need?”

That question was easy.

“I need a mission. C’mon, partner. Let’s get back to work.”