Scarlett Undercover (12 page)

T
he dog from Calamus was in front of the Laundromat when we pulled up, watching Mrs. Soo waddle past in knee-highs and a lime-green housecoat.

“That dog is following me,” I said.

Mook didn’t say a word. Hadn’t, in fact, since I’d taken the real
Shubaak
out of
Abbi
’s safe deposit box and put it in my backpack. It seemed right, having it with me, though I couldn’t say why. Maybe I really was an
Abd al-Malik
and needed the bottle to feel like I was doing my job. Or maybe I just wanted it in case I needed leverage to keep Gemma safe. After all, no antique was worth a little girl’s life.

But I had no intention of giving the
Shubaak
up easily.

“Did you hear me, Mook? I said that dog is following me.”

He motioned for me to stay put, got out of the car, and came around to my door. When I looked up, I saw the Mook I used to know—the one who’d sit next to
Ummi
on a park bench while I ran around the playground, just because. The one who snuck date-stuffed
maamoul
cookies to me when
Ummi
wasn’t looking.

He opened up his coat and motioned toward his chest. I threw myself up and against him with enough momentum to bring down a linebacker. His thin body held, his arms wrapped the duster closed over my head. I smelled leather and cigarette smoke, felt the wiry muscles of his chest under my cheek.

He took off fast and hoisted me over the curb with barely a break in stride. A few steps later I heard the bell on the Laundromat’s door, smelled soap and heat and stale coffee. The duster opened. We were facing the back bank of washers, with Mook’s body between me and the window. Mrs. Soo’s lips mashed together in disapproval. She muttered something in Korean and went back to folding the pair of tighty-whities in her hands.

“I’m going to my office,” I said, making for the back stairway. Mook pulled me back by my bad wrist.

“It isn’t safe,
akht
.”

“But we ditched them. They don’t even know we’re here!”

He gave me an annoyed look. “Do you honestly believe I haven’t noticed the two women following you?”

I was still too worn out from the bridge to pout.

“You mean Shorty and Blondie?” I said. “They’re just keeping an eye on me. Or trying to, at least.”

Mook frowned. “We’re going to my apartment.”

Mrs. Soo’s mouth pinched so tight that the rest of her face puckered in around it. If I hadn’t caught sight of the hooded shape outside, putting a long cylinder to its mouth, she might have made me laugh. Instead, I clotheslined Mook across the chest and dropped both of us to the ground.

“
Ibn il-kalb!
” he cursed as a dart
tunk
ed through the window.

“Sorry.” I rolled over and stared up at the thing, sticking out of the wall, dead-on at head level.

“Move!” he barked. “Stay low and get to the supply closet.”

I dragged myself across the floor, Mook close on my heels. He reached up when we got to the door, turned the knob, pushed me into a tiny room stacked high with little boxes of detergent and fabric softener. Beyond that was a metal door, triple-locked and heavy enough to keep out a zombie apocalypse.

Mook kicked the first door shut behind us and made quick work of the locks on the second. It swung open into a black, lightless space.

“Go!” He shoved me inside.

“What about Mrs. Soo?”

“They don’t care about her. She’ll be fine.”

I felt blindly for something, anything, to help me get my bearings.

“You’re in my apartment,” Mook said. “There’s a light switch on the wall above you. Bolt the door as soon as I’m gone and don’t open it for anyone.”

“Wait… where are you going?”

“Back,” he said. The door thudded closed. I slammed the three locks home, one after the other. Sank to the floor. Let the numbness in my heart spread to skin and muscle and bone. The dark was empty. Quiet. I willed myself to be the same. My eyelids sagged. Right
up until the ring I’d set for Gemma’s phone split the silence in two.

“Gemma?” I said, too loud.

“Iblis is not pleased with you, girl,” came the spear-tipped response.

I sat up straight against the wall behind me. “Who is this?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already. We only just left each other on the bridge.”

Blondie.

Knowing she was out there, that she had Gemma, gave me the kick start I needed to flip back into detective mode.

“How’s the head?” I said, channeling my inner smartass.

She gave an ugly laugh.

“I know you think you’re funny, but Hashim will take care of that soon enough.”

“Is he tougher than the guy on the bridge?” I asked. “Because that guy’s lucky I let him keep breathing.”

“That
was
Hashim.” Her words curled at the corners like toxic smoke. “And you’ve made him very, very angry. He’s coming for you, girl, even though Iblis
ordered him not to. In fact, you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t tear your little friend apart.”

The last bit hit me like a quick left hook. “Where is she? Where’s Gemma?”

“Safe. For now. But if you cross us, we’ll kill her.”

“What do you want?”

“Personally? You. Dead.”

“Too bad your boss doesn’t have better aim, then, or I would be.”

Her throaty giggle made my skin crawl.

“Iblis never misses, fool.”

“Well, he did today. Now tell me what
he
wants.”

“You are an
Abd al-Malik
. Guardian of the
Shubaak
. What do you think he wants?”

I felt my backpack for the outlines of the decoy and the real
Shubaak
inside.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a poor liar, and the little girl will die a bad death because of it. Good-bye.”

Panic ripped at my gut. “Wait!” I shouted.

“Yes?”

“I can get you the
Shubaak
.”

“That’s better. When?”

My head spun.

“Friday,” I said.

“Friday is fine if all you want for your trouble is a corpse.”

“Tomorrow, then. Midnight.”

“Better.”

“At Woolrich Station,” I said, thinking there were always people at the city’s main train depot. “Under the clock in the main concourse.”

“The Parker,” she countered. “Midnight. Oh, and Scarlett?”

“What?”

“Do look out for Hashim.”

The line went dead.

I thought about screaming. Hitting the walls. Weeping. Problem was, I didn’t have the energy for it. Or the time.

Instead, I dug around for Quinn’s phone and pulled up Iblis’s photo stream. Gemma was there in a new post, face streaked with tears, eyes terrified. They hadn’t added a caption. Hadn’t needed to. Iblis’s message was perfectly clear.

And I was going to make him regret it.

As I sank into the cushions of Mook’s couch, my aching brain warned me not to go to sleep with a concussion. I told it to shut up and leave me alone. Fortunately, it did. And when I came to five hours later, it wasn’t holding a grudge.

The apartment was small and windowless, with furniture salvaged from street corners and a thick, permanent cigarette fug. A pizza box sat on the coffee table next to me.
Didn’t want to wake you. Bon appétit
was scribbled on the box in Mook’s messy hand. Inside, the pie was almost warm. My stomach balked when the yeasty, cardboard smell hit my nose. Then it remembered I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and reconsidered.

Turned out not getting killed was hungry work.

Once I’d wolfed down three slices, I went into the bathroom and found jeans, an oversize men’s oxford shirt, and polka-dotted boy briefs draped over the edge of the tub. The shirt was Mook’s, the rest had come from the load of clothes I’d left in the Laundromat’s washer earlier. I brushed my teeth with my finger. Took a bath so hot it nearly made me cry. Then got dressed and called my sister.

“It’s about time, Lettie,” Reem said over the hospital’s background music of voices and beeps.

“Sorry. I was sorting through some stuff over at the office and forgot to look at the clock. I should probably just sleep on the couch here.…”

“I know,” she said. “Mook phoned to tell me you were there. Is the laundry done?”

I looked down at my jeans and smiled to myself, thinking Mook might not be such a bad guardian angel after all.

“It’s done.”

“Good. Get some sleep,” Reem said. “I start a double shift tomorrow, so I won’t see you till Friday.”

“I’ll sleep if you do,” I said.

Reem laughed. “Of course. Oh, and, Lettie?”

“Hmm?”

“We’re going to
Jumu’ah
prayers together.”

“I’d like that,” I said. And it was true. Because even though I wanted Gemma home safe and Solomon’s ring in my pocket and the Children of Iblis destroyed, what I
needed
more than anything else was to stay alive long enough to pray with my sister on Friday.

“Good,” she said. “Love you.”

I started to say the words back, but they caught in my throat like oversize pills. By the time they came out, Reem was gone.
Tell her yourself at the mosque
, I thought. Then I checked to make sure the
Shubaak
and its decoy were still in my backpack, put on my boots, stepped into the supply closet, and braced to face down whoever—whatever—was waiting for me outside.

T
he door to the Laundromat opened an inch and stuck. I pushed harder, felt whatever was blocking it give just enough for me to slip a hand through.

“Mook?”

I pushed harder. Visions of my friend, dying in agony like
Abbi
had, poison shutting his organs down, flashed through my head.

“Mook!” I slammed my hip into the door over and over until the resistance gave.

It wasn’t Mook on the other side. It was the dog.

By the chilly light of the bare bulb over the laundry sink, I could see her broad head and brindled coat. Her
bad ear hung at a crazy angle from its stump of connective tissue and skin, and her single, smart eye was too human by half.

I shrank back.
Ummi
had taught me dogs were dirty and dangerous. They were fine for sniffing bombs and guarding sheep, but keeping them in the house was out of the question. I’d never been allowed to pet them at the park. Not even the little fuzzy ones with bows on their ears.

This dog didn’t have bows on her ears.

“Go away.” I pressed my back against the doorframe.

She didn’t budge.

I took a step out of the closet.

She growled, low at first, then louder. I moved back. The growl stopped.

“I have to leave,” I said.

She shifted, toenails clicking against the linoleum floor. There was something sympathetic in the gesture. Sympathetic, but unyielding.

I tried going forward again. She growled again.

“Fine.” I retreated into the closet. “Be that way.”

She sank to her haunches, calm as a four-legged Buddha.

I waited.

She dropped to her belly.

“Stupid dog,” I said.

Her muzzle settled onto her paws.

“You suck.”

I wasn’t going anywhere.

It stung, calling Deck for help, but with the dog on guard outside and Mook gone, I had no choice.

“You have to stay there,” he said as soon as he picked up.

“How did you know what I wanted?” I was angry he’d gotten a jump on me already.

“Mook told Ma what’s going on. He said you’d try to get me to help you tonight and…”

“And what? What else did Mook say?”

“He said if I did, they’d kill you.”

“He’s full of shit.”

“He’s your
mu’aqqibat
.”

Mook had come through for me. Wait. Scratch that. Mook had come through for me huge, saving my ass and helping me get the real
Shubaak
from the bank. But Deck’s words still chafed like burlap pants.

“With all the awful stuff that goes on in this world,” I said, “all the nasty ways people suffer and die, you’re telling me you believe in guardian angels?”

Deck didn’t answer right away. I thought about his lips, how close they must be to the phone, how they’d feel against mine.

“You can’t die,” he said. “You and Manny are the
Abd al-Malik
. You’re too important.”

“That’s crap,” I shot back. “Any East Side gun thug can guard an old bottle. Call one of
them
. Because, to tell you the truth, I care a hell of a lot more about my client right now than about some stupid hunk of metal.”

Deck was quiet.

“Are you even listening?” I said. “She. Will. DIE. And you know what? I won’t be able to live with myself if I let that happen.”

“Then you understand exactly how I feel.”

The slow smolder behind his words caught me off guard. I hated being caught off guard.

“Just come distract the dog,” I said. “Bring a steak or something. Gemma needs me.”

“That’s her name?”

“Yeah. She’s nine, Deck.”

He chewed on that awhile before he came out and said what he wouldn’t before.

“Mook told us they’re watching you. Two women, waiting outside. If I go over there by myself in the middle of the night, they’ll try to kill me.”

It was my turn to chew.

“Mook knows you can’t stay in the apartment much longer,” Deck said. “He wants me and Ma to get you out.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow. You just have to be patient.”

“Sure,” I snorted. “That’s really my thing.”

“For tonight, it has to be,” he said. “We’ve got stuff to get, things to arrange. It all takes time. Just give us until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Too long. Not an option.”

Deck sighed. “Of course not. Nothing ever is unless you’re in charge, right?”

I didn’t answer. The silence between us grew dense. Stubborn.

Deck broke first.

“You know that thing I didn’t say last night?”

My pulse sped up.

“I meant it.”

I broke back.

“I know. So did I.”

“I’ll get you out as early as I can, okay?”

I took a deep breath. “This isn’t just a case, Deck. It’s my life.”

“Mine too,” he said quietly.

“First thing tomorrow. Promise me.”

“I promise.”

We left the rest unspoken and hung up at the same time, together. Then I lay back down on the couch, and waited to see whether sleep or dawn would find me first.