The Pretender (The Soren Chase Series Book 2) (4 page)

“What is it?” Soren asked. “Tell me why I should give a damn.”

Glen met his gaze. “There was a family murdered nearby,” he said. “We think a pretender killed them.”

Silas Rakev abruptly materialized at the beginning of a long hallway, startling the guard at the other end of it. Rakev gave the man a half second to realize he was there. The guard began to raise his gun as Rakev vanished again.

He reappeared behind the guard, who was looking desperately in every direction, trying to locate the intruder. Rakev reached out and snapped the guard’s neck.

As the man’s body slumped to the ground, Rakev looked up at the security camera on the wall and smiled. At nearly six feet tall, Rakev had closely-cropped brown hair, a thick goatee, and a narrow face with a sharp nose. Only his eyes betrayed that he wasn’t human. He had no irises, just black dots that pierced through those in his path.

Alarms began to blare, but Rakev calmly reached down and found the plastic card on the guard’s body. He entered it into a slot on the wall. An elevator door slid open and Rakev stepped inside. He pressed a button and waited patiently as the elevator descended.

When the door opened again, his smile widened into a grin. He stepped off the elevator into a large laboratory, a single room packed with the US military’s experimental weapons and supernaturally-powered artifacts. Any engineers who were working there must have quickly evacuated, because the room was now filled with two-dozen soldiers wearing helmets and armor. Their assault weapons were already aimed in Rakev’s direction. As soon as the guards spotted him, they opened fire, unleashing hundreds of bullets in his direction.

Rakev lifted his hand, cocked his head to the side, and stopped the bullets in midair. It was a neat trick he’d seen once in a movie, and he enjoyed the surprised look on the guards’ faces. With a gesture, he batted away the bullets back in their direction. A couple of soldiers went down, but most stayed on their feet, protected by the bulletproof armor they wore.

Rakev disappeared, collapsing into black smoke, before reappearing behind the closest guard. Again, he gave the human a second to react, turning in his direction even as his compatriots opened fire. Rakev swiftly drew a finger across the guard’s neck, a thin line appearing above his body armor and below his helmet. Rakev vanished as blood began spilling from the guard’s neck.

Rakev weighed the most entertaining way to kill the rest of them. He was tempted to slaughter each individually, but usually after the first four or five, it got boring. As he reappeared behind another guard, he felt a sudden burst of inspiration.

He opened his mouth and sucked inward. As the guards fired at him, he let their bullets pass right through his body without harming him. The room was large and it took slightly longer than he anticipated, but Rakev succeeded in sucking up all the oxygen within it.

After a few seconds, several guards around him began clutching their throats and gasping. A few kept firing at him, their discipline apparently stronger than their survival instinct. One even managed to lob a grenade, which Rakev swatted away in annoyance. It exploded against the left wall, breaking glass and setting off sprinklers.

Rakev looked up at them in irritation. He hated getting wet. But he watched in satisfaction as every guard in the room slowly died in front of him, their faces contorted in agony. His only regret was there was no audience to witness his performance.

He looked around the complex, admiring the intriguing equipment it housed. He stepped over several bodies, and walked toward the end of the room where there were several items in glass cases. He noted a golden tablet that seemed to be glowing slightly, a sword made of a metal he couldn’t immediately identify, and a small bit of cloth that pulsed with malevolent energy. As tempting as those items might have been, he was really only interested in the object on the far right—a small silver, futuristic-looking gun.

He extended a finger to the case protecting it, vibrating it so it shattered without hurting the object inside. Smiling again, he reached out and grasped the weapon, admiring its graceful design. There was a soft ding from the elevator behind him, and Rakev turned as several soldiers wearing oxygen masks came rushing into the laboratory.

As they were raising their weapons, he extended his own. He had no idea what would happen when he pulled the trigger, and watched in fascination as a red ball of energy emerged. It flew across the room and slammed into the guard in front. The blast lifted the man off his feet, but as he flew backward, his body completely disintegrated. He was obliterated before his body could hit the ground.

Rakev looked at the gun in wonder. “Holy shit! That was neat. Let’s do that again.”

He knew from having read the specs that the gun had a limited firing capacity. It could only get off a couple dozen shots before it had to recharge. But he enjoyed using his new toy as he shot his way out of the lab and back into the elevator.

Rakev gave the guards some credit. No matter how many he killed, they kept coming, apparently determined to die. But within a few minutes, he emerged from the building he’d infiltrated without a scratch, the gun held tightly in his hand.

He could hear sirens blaring, the police and more military personnel on their way. Some of them were already moving in his direction.

But Rakev didn’t have time to stay. He ran, evaporating into smoke, and moving so fast he was a blur to the soldiers that attempted to track his movements. He traveled several miles before he arrived at the rendezvous spot. A black sedan was parked on a quiet street by the Potomac River, just where it should be. Rakev opened the passenger door and stepped inside.

“Everything go okay, boss?” the driver asked.

Rakev looked over at his companion. He was barely four feet tall and looked slightly ridiculous behind the wheel of a vehicle. He had red hair tucked underneath a black fedora and a beard that appeared unruly and untrimmed.

Despite Rakev’s requests, Lochlan never dressed in traditional green. The leprechaun wore a dark, pinstriped suit with a black tie. He looked more like a gangster than a centuries-old mythic creature, which was undoubtedly the point.

“Peachy,” Rakev replied. “I thought that place was supposed to have crack security.”

“It’s the Pentagon, boss,” he said in his Irish brogue. “It’s as good as the humans get.”

Rakev gave a short, amused laugh.

“Somebody should really tell them they suck,” he said.

He held out the gun for Lochlan to admire. The leprechaun’s eyes widened.

“It’s beautiful,” Lochlan said.

“I know, right? Way prettier in person than in the schematic.”

“I’m glad our intelligence about it was correct,” Lochlan said.

Rakev grinned. “You should be. I would have had to kill you if it’d been wrong.”

Rakev slapped Lochlan on the arm, enjoying how the leprechaun flinched. He put the gun away, tucking it into a jacket pocket.

“I found out where the gun was,” Lochlan said. “Ya gonna tell me why we need it?”

“It’s a surprise,” Rakev said. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Lochlan eased the car onto the road and started driving back to headquarters in DC.

“Now, isn’t it time we grabbed our next guest?” Rakev continued.

The leprechaun shook his head.

“Ya sure it can’t wait?” Lochlan asked. “I keep tellin’ ya this is a bad idea.”

“All of my ideas are fucking brilliant, Lochlan. And we had such a great time with the last guest.”

“That was just you, boss,” Lochlan replied.

Rakev shrugged. “Get the boy,” he said. “Do it tomorrow. I am so close to ending this.”

“And what if Soren Chase gets in our way?” Lochlan asked. “I’ve warned ya he has a way of screwing up even the best plans.”

Rakev rolled his eyes. “I thought you had a plan in place to distract him. If it works, great. If it doesn’t,” Rakev paused to flex his fingers, “then we can have a great time with him, too.”

Sara Ignatius pulled up the yellow police tape and carefully walked underneath it.

She had to remind herself she was allowed to be there. Investigating crime scenes wasn’t normally her job, but her definition of “normal” had changed dramatically in the past two months. She needed to get used to this.

She looked over at her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Ken Sharpe. She was struck once again by his size; he was well over six feet tall, and she could almost see his muscles through his heavy police jacket when he moved. With his head clean shaven, he looked a little bit like an African American version of Mr. Clean. Sara didn’t like to admit it, but she felt safer in his presence.

He caught her eye and gave her a reluctant nod to keep going. She could tell he still didn’t like this idea.

When they’d started dating a few years ago, he’d held on to quaint notions about protecting her from the kind of crimes he investigated. She’d had to convince him that she’d already seen the worst humanity could offer. Her fiancé, John Townes, had been murdered eight years ago, as had two of his friends.

Three. It was three friends.

She mentally corrected the count as they walked up to the large mansion in McLean, Virginia, one of the more wealthy DC suburbs. It was dark outside—night was the only time Ken could get away from work—but the elegant, brick pathway was illuminated by solar-powered lights. She saw her breath in the chilly air as she looked over the sprawling and perfectly manicured lawn and gardens.

The house was a beautiful Tudor with long narrow windows and a steep roof. It was usually the kind of house she felt envious of, but not today. The family who once lived there was now dead. All of them.

As they approached the door, Ken pulled a key ring from his pocket marked with an “Evidence” tag, and unlocked the door. Sara shivered under her heavy jacket, either from the cold or because she was nervous, like they were doing something illegal. But everything was sanctioned by the Fairfax County Police Department. They’d wrapped up their investigation a week ago, and as a fellow cop in neighboring Arlington County, Ken was able to pull a few strings to get himself and a “consultant” admitted to the site.

She stepped underneath another batch of yellow police tape and walked through the door. The Fairfax County police had already reached their conclusion about what occurred here: Audrey Yong, a bright, honor-roll student, had returned from high school one day, and systematically murdered her parents and sister before taking her own life in her bedroom upstairs.

The crime had shocked the community and the nation at large. It had been the top story on every major news network for days, if only because this kind of slaughter was normally committed by angry young men, not a petite girl who was universally described as happy, well liked, and an accomplished student.

The reporters who covered the story talked about all the pressure Audrey was under, and said that she “snapped.” Sara didn’t believe it. Audrey hadn’t committed this crime, but Sara had a hunch who had. She was just here to see if she could find any evidence to support her theory.

She looked around the house, and Sara wished they hadn’t had to come at night. But it was the only time Ken was available, and she couldn’t come here without him. Ken flicked a switch on the wall, but nothing happened.

“Looks like they cut the power already,” he said, and switched on his flashlight. She pulled hers out of her purse and swept the beam of light through the house, noting the gleaming wood floors, expensive rugs, and crystal chandelier.

Ken walked inside several feet and glanced into a room to the right. He shook his head and turned back.

“No need to go in there,” he said.

Sara gave him a hard stare and stepped past him, her flashlight’s beam scanning the room. It was an office, presumably for Audrey’s father, Theodore Yong. Behind a large, mahogany desk was a credenza covered in family photos. There was a sizable bloodstain splashed across several pictures and up the wall. Audrey had supposedly walked inside and shot her father in the head before proceeding upstairs.

Sara tilted her flashlight beam up to the bloodstained photo. The entire family was dressed in white and sitting on a beach. The picture was too perfect to be anything but staged, yet both of the parents and the two girls looked genuinely happy. Audrey, the youngest, smiled serenely back from the photo.

“You don’t have to do this,” Ken said behind her.

She turned back to him.

“Yes, I do,” she said. “This is my job now, Ken.”

Ken nodded, but she saw the frown on his face. He believed in the mission of the institute—he’d witnessed a supernatural event several months ago—but he’d wanted her to move on with her life rather than work for it.

“Let Soren go after the monsters,” Ken had said. “That’s what he does.”

She hadn’t explained to him that Soren
was
a monster. He wasn’t even Soren at all.

Sara had only discovered the truth two months ago when the thing that called itself Soren had saved her in Reapoke Forest. It had changed her life.

Now she thought of nothing but revenge. This creature had killed John, Mikey, Edward—and Soren himself. But if Sara told Ken the truth, he would likely try to take Soren down. At the very least, if they met up again, Ken would tip off Soren to the fact that she knew what he really was—and that she couldn’t allow. She had no intention of letting him know until she had a plan to destroy him.

Which was one reason she was here tonight.

“What are we even looking for?” Ken asked.

Sara turned from the office and started to head up the central staircase, the beam of her flashlight creeping up the next few steps ahead of her. Sara was halfway to the top when the light revealed a man’s shoes. With feet in them.

She screamed, raising the beam to the intruder’s face.

“Police! Put your hands where I can see them!” Ken shouted just behind her.

The man obediently raised his arms above his head. “Relax, guys; it’s just me,” Soren said.