5th Pentagram: The sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 3 of the Darc Murders Trilogy) (Book 3 of the Darc Murder Series) (13 page)

Darc turned and observed the whole thing.

Trey loved Darc, he really did. But if his partner kept giving him judging stares like that, he might just have to kill him.

“Okay,” he said, clearing his throat. “Where do we go from here?”

Darc scanned the darkness around them. “There,” he said, pointing up to one of the steel girders. On it was etched a symbol that looked like a fish. “Alpha.” He peered at Trey as if that should explain everything.

“Right,” Trey agreed, nodding his head. “And that’s important because…?”

“It is a Greek symbol that means
beginning
,” Darc clarified. “The killer wants us to go to the start.”

“Sure. Start. Why not?” Trey stopped. “Wait. You mean like the first murder?”

Darc shook his head. “We are being directed to the beginning of the metal fabrication process.” He pointed to the far end of the warehouse. “The dumping tables for the raw iron and bronze should be located back there.”

“Through the insane house of horrors here?” Trey asked. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” He shook his head in disgust. “Could we maybe run into a serial killer once that just likes to come after us with guns or chainsaws or something like that? You know… normal psychotic stuff?”

They moved through the dimly lit aisle, doing their best to avoid coming close to the rivulets of molten metal that streamed through ceramic channels throughout the complex. Trey was looking at one of them when he felt a tug at his foot and fell to his knees, almost doing a full-on face plant. He had tripped over what looked like super fine fishing wire that had been pulled taut across their path.

A trap.

Just as the thought ran through his head, he looked up to see an acetylene welding torch fire up, sparking something beside it. There was a burst of light as whatever it was caught.

Darc reached down and pulled Trey up by his armpit, setting him on his feet.

“Run,” his partner intoned.

They sprinted toward the back of the warehouse as the world behind them exploded. Shards of metal whizzed past, one of them imbedding itself into the fleshy part of Trey’s shoulder, another nicking Darc underneath his left eye socket. Darc pulled on Trey’s shirt, leaping underneath one of the tables for shelter, dragging Trey along behind.

Glancing back, Trey could see that several fires were raging, one of them very close to a suspicious looking metal tank. That couldn’t be good.

“We need to move,” Darc said, pointing to the threat behind them. “Are you hurt?”

Trey tried to move his left arm and felt the heat of a thousand suns sear him from the inside. “Uh, yeah. A bit.” He pointed to his shoulder with his other hand.

“Can you run?”

“Do I have to?” Trey asked.

Darc seemed to process that. “No.”

“No, I don’t have to run?” That didn’t make any sense. Trey looked deep into Darc’s face. Well, as deep as he could in the near-dark.

“No. There is no danger,” his partner responded.

“But the tank back there… and you said that we needed to move… and…”

Darc sighed. “You said that I should occasionally not tell you when there was something dangerous.”

“What?!” Trey screamed. “Not when I’m about to
die
! Get me out of here!”

Grabbing Trey by his shirt once more, Darc yanked him out from under the table and down the aisle once more. The shirt pulled against the wound in Trey’s shoulder; the pain was excruciating.

They had made it halfway through the warehouse when another, larger explosion ripped through the air, sending them flying forward. They landed in a heap next to some gnarly machinery that Trey couldn’t have identified even if it would have saved his life.

At least the earlier blow seemed to have gotten rid of the small pieces of shrapnel lying around. This larger explosion had, however, collapsed a part of the ceiling. Beams and girders poked up through the wreckage, illuminated by the exterior light that streamed in through the hole in the ceiling.

But even that light was dim. What had started as a sunny morning had turned into a typical Seattle overcast day. All the light served to do was cast a pall over the scene, making the destruction somehow that much more sinister.

“We have no way of knowing if there are more tanks remaining,” Darc said, standing once again and pulling Trey back up beside him.

“Right. So we need to get out of here. Again.”

Darc paused.

“Dude.” Trey placed his right hand against Darc’s chest. “Imminent danger. No lies. Deal?”

Darc nodded. “Deal.”

“I’m proud of you, though. That’s… what… two lies in two days? Impressive.”

They moved to the end of the warehouse, finding a door at the end that was slightly ajar. On it was etched another symbol. This one looked like a weird rounded
w
. Trey turned to Darc for an explanation.

“That is Omega. It is the Greek symbol for
the end
.”

Well then. At least that was one that Darc wasn’t going to have to explain to him.

* * *

Janey looked out of the window at the street in front of her.

Usually Mala didn’t let her ride in the front with her, but this time she’d said that she wanted Janey to be able to see. Mala was
stressed out
.

Mommy and Daddy had sometimes talked about being
stressed out
. It was usually when Popeye was being especially bad and trying to get Janey into trouble. Then Janey’s parents would get that look on their faces and they’d talk loud and they’d be
stressed out
.

Mala had that look on her face right now.

But Popeye hadn’t done anything this time. At least that’s what he said. And for once, Janey believed him. She and Popeye hadn’t argued once today. Well, except for that one time when they were talking about grilled cheese. Janey said cheddar was better, but Popeye insisted that it was American, all the way.

Silly bear. American cheese tasted like plastic.

Anyway, Janey was pretty sure she knew why Mala was stressed out. Darc was in trouble, and Mala didn’t know what to do about it. Mala loved Darc, even if she didn’t really know it right now.

Janey was worried too, but not as much as Mala. She wasn’t as worried because she knew something that Mala didn’t know. Just like she had known something that Darc hadn’t known. Sometimes kids knew things. Especially kids like Janey.

What Mala didn’t know was that Darc wasn’t really in danger. Oh, it would be scary and he might get a little hurt, but he would be okay. The streams of light had said so, and she was learning to always trust the light. The threads of different color wrapped themselves around her, like shoestrings that were tying themselves into a really tough double knot. Double knots were nice, because they didn’t come untied and then make you trip on the laces. The lights were like that. Safe.

But there was a color that was running through the strands that was dark red. Janey didn’t like that strand. She tried to avoid it, to keep from seeing what it was trying to tell her, but she couldn’t. The other threads kept her in place. Tied down.

There was something else here that she already knew about. Something that she had tried to make herself forget. But she had put it in the drawing.

She thought about the picture. Darc and Trey. Trey and Darc. Lots of red everywhere around them.
Both
of them.

Darc was going to be okay. That was true. She knew it.

But what about Trey?

The lights swirled around her, telling her things she didn’t want to know. Trey wasn’t safe. Not at all.

It wasn’t just that he might get hurt. He might end up like Mommy and Daddy. And Janey wasn’t sure she could handle that.

She glanced over to the side of the car and saw herself reflected in the side mirror. Her expression was familiar. It was the same as Mala’s.

Janey was
stressed out
.

* * *

Darc pushed the massive metal door open. Just beyond the entryway was a cramped aisle created by conveyor belts right next to one another. The belts had been turned on, and chunks of twisted metal streamed past them on their way to the nonexistent workers in the other room.

There was only room for them to do single file into the space, which stayed narrow there below, but was open above them. The ceiling was high enough that Darc could not make it out in the darkness. It gave the space an infinite feel, and the lines of logic danced in the black non-light surrounding them. Here, there was not even the glow from the metal and the fires to give them illumination. Instead, they had to rely on what they could see with their night vision only.

Creeping forward step by step, Darc felt the presence of the glowing strands of light around him. They led him, guided him, and yet…

There was something he was not seeing here. Some piece of this puzzle that was undiscovered by the threads of light. All the variables seemed to be accounted for, but there was an empty hole where a pathway should be.

A blind spot that Darc’s preternatural intellect could not penetrate.

What was it?

He was missing something.

Things of a logical nature rarely escaped his notice. Something was escaping his notice. Therefore, what was missing was more than likely something that was not of a logical nature.

It was something that had to do with motivations, personalities or emotions. One of those empty dark places in Darc’s inner landscape that remained so terribly impenetrable to his senses.

And it could very well get them both killed.

A dripping noise, soft but steady, filtered in through the other stimuli he was taking in. Each individual color, scent, pattern and sound making a distinct thread of a different intensity and shade of light and color. What was that? And from where was it originating? The pathways of light triangulated and told him. From above.

Was it a leak in the roof? Was it now raining outside? The streams replied an emphatic no. The viscosity was unlike that of water. It was something else. Something thicker. Something…

Darc continued to inch his way forward, doing what he could to use the illumination from the other threads to light the dark area. Find a way to penetrate the darkness with the only light he could find and use.

But the threads shed so very little. The information they held was applicable only to itself. Together they could find connections and correlations, but not to anything that didn’t fit the logical parameters by which those pathways worked.

There was no light for them to give.

Darc felt, more than saw, the switch that was hidden along the side of the conveyor belt. He was pressing up against it as he moved forward, his motion forcing the switch forward with him.

Light flooded the warehouse space, illuminating the air around them, reflecting off of a huge hoop of flattened, shining metal suspended above them. Inside the circle, a body was stretched, head downward, wrists and ankles attached to the circumference. Blood dripped from a gaping wound in the figure’s breast, from which protruded a sword.

Darc received the information in a millisecond thrust of data fed to him by the overactive strands. And in that moment, the dark space burst into clarity.

The trap was for Trey.

Rushing back and pushing with all his strength, Darc shoved Trey onto the conveyor belt, using the force of the push to propel himself onto the opposing one. They both ended up sprawled on the moving belts, shards of metal poking into their backs.

It was not a moment too soon.

From above, there was a
crack
, and the hoop detached from the ceiling, speeding down towards the space that Trey had occupied a brief moment before. The sharp edge of the metal disk landed with a thud in the ground between them, the force of the impact wedging the circular blade deep in the concrete of the floor.

If Trey had been there still, he would have been bisected from head to groin.

CHAPTER 9

Trey had spent the last few minutes hugging everyone he could get his hands on. Nothing like almost getting killed by a falling metal circle-corpse-holder-blade-thingy to make you appreciate who your friends really were. Even if you hadn’t met them quite yet.

He and Darc had emerged from the warehouse to find the place surrounded. Police cars, ambulances, the CSI team including Cody. Even Mala and Janey were there.

“How…? What…?” Trey gibbered, blinking at the sun, which had apparently decided to come back out from behind the clouds again now that they were no longer in the dark warehouse of exploding, slicing and dicing metal. Seriously, it was like that giant ball of gas was just messing with him.

Janey came forward and gave him a huge hug. Wait. Janey was hugging him
first
? Before Darc? That never happened.

“Hey, kiddo. I’m okay.” Trey winced as he tried to hug her back. That shoulder was going to have to be looked at. He swept his gaze over the scene, looking for Mala. She brightened when she spotted him.

“Trey, I’m so glad you’re…” She stopped, staring at his shoulder. “What happened?”

“Oh, you know. The usual. Exploding tanks of noxious gas, flying shards of red-hot metal, falling disc blades with corpses inside. Nothing to write home about,” Trey said in what he thought was his best nonchalant tone. The effect was soured somewhat by his knees giving out on him right at that point.

Mala rushed to his side to prop him up, and he leaned on her with gratitude. Janey had made her way off to greet her favorite autistic detective. Ah, well. The attention had been nice while it had lasted. The little girl looked like she was handing Darc something. Another picture, possibly?

And then, from around the corner of the coroner’s wagon, came someone that Trey was certain he did
not
want to see. Mr. APA himself, Carson Speer. He was grinning, and it was all Trey could do to keep himself from leaping up and taking a swing at him. Stupid lawyer with his stupid smiling face.

“Detective Keane!” the man called out, oblivious to the scowl Trey was directing at him. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” He got closer, saw the blood on Trey’s shoulder and stopped dead in his tracks. “You
are
okay, right?”