Angel - Shakedown Part 8

"I can see how the current case might stir up a few memories. You want t'talk about it?"

"Not really. It was . . . monstrous. Maybe not the worst thing I ever did, but definitely in the top ten. It was my first real exploration of psychological torture as opposed to the physical kind, and I took to it like a duck to water. I don't think you want to hear the details-especially not what I did at the end."

"Angel, you're still a genius at psychological torture- y'just switched to the self-inflicted variety. You're like the Jedi master of guilt."

"I know, I know. It's just that all this talking aboutgroups has gotten me to thinking . . . maybe I shouldn'tbelong anywhere."

"Why? Because y'don't deserve to? Angel, everyone deserves a little joy-"

"Doyle, for me a little joy equals a lot of ma.s.s murder."

"Oh. Right." Doyle nodded. "Forgot about that whole a-single-moment-of-true-happiness-and-youloseyour-soul-again business. Gypsy curses are a b.i.t.c.h, aren't they . . ."

Angel looked around and sighed. "It's almost closing time. I don't think he's going to show."

"I think you're right. Just let me hit the john and we're outta here."

"I'll wait in the car."

Angel was just about to unlock his door when he heard them. Four young men, approaching from the shadows. Baggy jeans, plaid s.h.i.+rts, expensive sneakers. Their colors marked them as Bloods.

"Nice ride," the shortest gang member said. One glance at his eyes told Angel he was the leader.

Angel slipped his keys back into his pocket. "Thanks-but my ex-wife dumped a load of rotting fish in it during the divorce, and I still can't get the smell out."

"The only thingIsmell is B.S.," the largest one said. His arms could have been an ad for a prison gym.

"Give it up," the leader said. Suddenly there was a gun in his hand.

Angel sighed. "Great. Now I'm going to get shot. Ihategetting shot. It hurts, you know? And it puts holes in my s.h.i.+rts."

"You got a strange set a priorities for a dead man. The keys, if you please."

The front door of the bar banged closed as Doyle left. He froze when he saw the scene across the street-and the short one's eyes flickered to him for just a second.

Angel grabbed the gunman's arm, clamping one hand between his elbow and his shoulder and one over the top of his gun hand. He bent the arm back and suddenly the g.a.n.g.b.a.n.ger found his own pistol jammed under his chin.

"Hold it," Angel said.

Two of the others pulled guns of their own. One was aimed at Angel, while the big guy covered Doyle.

"Let him go or I'll drop your friend," the big guy growled.

"With that?" Angel said calmly. "I don't think so. Snub-nose thirty-eight isn't much good past thirty feet, and he's at least forty feet away. I doubt you could hit him once out of a full clip."

"I may be forty feet away but I can hear you just fine!" Doyle said nervously. "Some of us aren't quite as lead-resistant as others, you know-"

"Give it up," the leader hissed.

"Now, all I have to do to turn your friend's brains into a colorful fountain is twitch," Angel continued.

"And considering that he's between me and you, we're going to get his brains all over both of us. Now, that doesn't bother me because I know anexcellentdry-cleaner, but maybe it's an experience you don't really want to go through."

The one without a gun was looking more and more nervous. His shaved head gleamed under the streetlights. "Hey, maybe we should just go, huh?"

"You cap him, we cap you," the big one said.

"Your friend might get away, but that ain't gonna doyoua whole lot of good, you know?"

"True," Angel admitted. "Except for one thing."

"Which is?"

Angel let the vampiric persona he normally kept suppressed rise to the surface.

His irises went from black to bright yellow. The ridge of bone over his eyes thickened. He grinned at them with a mouth full of teeth that had just gotten a lot longer and sharper.

"Which is the fact that bullets only annoy me. And when I'm annoyed, I rip people's throats out. You'd be amazed what a stress-reliever it is . . ."

The g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers met his gaze. They all lowered their weapons.

"s.h.i.+t," the big one said. "You avampire."He sounded disgusted.

"Uh-well, yeah," Angel said.

"Why didn' you say so, homes? We got a treaty with the vamps around here. They don' feed on Bloods, we don' drag their pale a.s.ses out inta the sunlight. We cool." He lowered his gun, and the others did the same.

"Right," Angel said. He released his grip on the leader, who glared at him but stepped back.

"Watch your a.s.s around here, though," the big one said. "Lotta demons don' respect our turf. Can't be responsible if one of 'em whacks you."

"I'll . . . be careful," Angel said. "Thanks."

"No prob. Later, fangs." They strode off down the sidewalk.

Doyle walked up to the car. "Y'know," he said, staring after the departing Bloods, "just when I think L.A. can't get any weirder . . ."

"Kate won't have the breakdown on other possible victims for me until tomorrow," Angel said. "So all we have to work with is the attack on the Serpentene woman-and this."

"A firehouse," Doyle said. They were parked across the street from it. "Where this woman Fisca worked. You think she was number one on the Tremblors' shoppin' list?"

"Maybe," Angel said. "According to Kate, she vanished sometime between getting off work and walking to her car, which was parked in the lot right next to the hall. I thought we might have a look around."

They got out of the car and crossed the street. The parking lot was well-lit, with spots along one brick wall markedRESERVED FOR MEMBERS OF THEFIRE DEPARTMENT.

"Not a lot of places t'hide," Doyle observed. "Coulda been between two vehicles, I suppose."

"Or below one," Angel said. "These are subterranean creatures, after all . . ." He walked down to the end of the parking lot. "Look at this," he said.

Doyle joined him. "New asphalt. Like the ground was dug up and paved over again."

"The city repairs sinkholes all the time. If this was being worked on the night Fisca disappeared, the ground could have been exposed."

"And one of our rocky friends coulda been just below the surface." Doyle nodded. "Okay, but that still leaves a few questions. Like, how does the Tremblor know his victim is an actual firefighter and not someone who just parked here? For that matter, how does he knowanythingwhile he's underground?

Does he poke his head up from time to time like a gopher?"

"I don't know," Angel admitted. "I didn't get that good a look at the one that attacked me. It could have had some special kind of sensory organs that weren't obvious."

"Let's try and re-create the situation," Doyle suggested. "The kidnapping, I mean, not your premature burial. Kinda put ourselves in the Quake demon's place, try and figure out what he was thinkin'."

"All right. Well, the Tremblor had to have been waiting for his victim, maybe for some time-"

"Okay. So he's been waiting' here awhile. He's gettin' jumpy, nervous."

"Maybe," Angel said. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.

Doyle started pacing back and forth. "He's all charged up with earthquake energy, right? Like that whammy he used on you. He's practicallyvibratin'. He's ready and rarin' to go . . ."

Baasalt waited.

Waiting did not bother him. He reckoned time by a geologic clock; he was older than most countries.

Waiting was only stillness, and stillness to a Tremblor was like suns.h.i.+ne to a lizard.

Not that it wastruestillness. The filth still flowed past his knees, slos.h.i.+ng and gurgling its way downthe tunnel; rats rustled and squeaked and gnawed at garbage; and that was just within the tunnel itself.

Outside was pandemonium.

Giant metal bugs roared around at insane speeds. Footsteps clattered on concrete. Voices yammered, dogs barked, birds shrieked. At least it was no longer the period called "day," though that would come again soon enough.

Baasalt's world was largely a silent one. Even the murmur of underground rivers did not reach his realm.

Years sometimes pa.s.sed between one audible sound and another; his people communicated directly from mind to mind.

How he missed it . . .

"And then," Doyle said, "Fresca comes out."

"Fisca."

"Yeah, yeah. But what if Mr. Shake-and-Quake screws up? Could be all us surface types look the same to him; moles and worms aren't exactly known for their great eyesight . . ."

Baasalt's pale white sensory tuber quivered slightly. It was actually a separate organism, a kind of symbiotic fungus that would only grow in one environment: the tail slit of Tremblor warrior-priests. It was a delicate and sensitiveinstrument, able to detect the tinest amount of any chemical compound and convey that information to its host. To Baasalt's sensory tuber, identical twins were about as similar as black and white.

"So it's not even the right person," Doyle continued. "But the Quake demon don't know that. It probably just hears footsteps, knockin' on its roof. It's not too bright, so it doesn't waste a lot of time thinkin'. It wants someaction. It erupts outta the ground," Doyle said, throwing his arms in the air. "Right in front of her, probably. She turns to run, but it's too fast. It grabs her from behind . . ."

Angel sighed.

The one he had been seeking drew near.

He could taste her, molecule by molecule. The scent of her perfume, her clothes, her hair, all these were just distractions. It was the other, secondary essences that clung to her that told him she was one of the Four.

A complex petrochemical tang that spoke of metal birds screaming through the Void. A faint miasma of elements that underlaid that, the kind of collective stink produced by a group of Skin Dwellers trapped together for a short period oftime. A subtle wrongness in her biology that indicated a confused internal clock.

More important was her lifeline, an energy signature that ran through time the way light traveled through s.p.a.ce, and just as visible to Baasalt. Its regularity told him that she was not merely a sometimes air-traveler; it was her profession. She was connected to the Void that Screamed as surely as he was connected to the Body of the World.

He shuddered, trying not to think about it. He would have to proceed carefully with this one.

The flower growing out of the storm drain was the oddest one Sarah Clark had ever seen.

The stalk was pale white, but that was practically normal compared to the bloom. It looked like- well, like a volcano, Sarah supposed. It had a cone that was jet-black, with red edging around the top that suggested molten rock, and incredibly long, scarlet stamens that projected almost two feet into the air from the top of the cone, the ends curving in gentle arcs like lava falling back to earth after shooting out of the ground.

Actually, it looked more like a mushroom, but not any mushroom Sarah had ever seen. And mushrooms didn'thavestamens, did they? They gave off spores, not pollen.

And they didn't smell like summer camp.

Sarah stopped dead. Her job as a flight attendant took her all over the world, and her nose had encountered many an unusual aroma: she had wandered around open-air bazaars in Morocco, strolled past cooking stalls in Hong Kong, stuck her head in spice shops in the Philippines. She loved the sense of the exotic strange smells induced.

But there was something to be said for the familiar, too, especially for those smells that called up memories. What she was smelling now was something from her twelfth year, the last year she went to summer camp. She remembered it as a haven, of a place removed from the problems of her everyday life; it was the last summer of her childhood, and she'd spent it having fun and making friends. She learned important things, not about archery or swimming or canoeing, but the things young girls always discuss: getting your first period. How to kiss a boy. Trying beer or a cigarette to see what all the fuss was about. Training bras and makeup.

And somehow, even from twenty feet away, that was what this flower smelled like. The sweet scent of pine trees, underlaid with that musty smell her cabin had. That cheap perfume EllenFingerhoff had spilled.

The smell of warm, weathered wood and creosote that rose off the dock while she was sunbathing. The slightly marshy aroma of the lake. And wood smoke, of course . . .

She approached the flower with a half-smile on her face. As she got closer to the storm drain it was growing out of, she saw that the sewer grate was missing, leaving a dark, empty hole. Empty except for an unusual flower, swaying slightly back and forth.

Sarah put her face close to the bloom, closed her eyes and inhaled.

And fell, backward, through time.

"Comeon,"an excited voice yelled. "Look at this!"

Sarah opened her eyes and straightened up.Cool-looking flower,she thought.Doesn't have much of a smell, though.

Her best friend, Cindy Lillinett, was standing beside what looked like-a cave! It had been covered up by bushes, but Cindy had pulled them aside. "Isn't this great?" Cindy asked her. "I bet no one's been in here for a hundred years!"

Sarah grinned and ran over. "But it's so close to the camp. You think maybe this is where the counselors come to make out or something?"

"Maybe," Cindy said. "Let's go inside."

"You first," Sarah said.

Cindy smiled and said, "Chicken?" then ducked into the cave.

Sarah was right behind her.

"Would you like a trampoline?" Angel asked.