Changeling (10 page)

It was the last sentence that made Professor’s blood run cold.

Ihara is believed to be in Scotland, near Glasgow.

He jumped to his feet but before he could turn toward the door, he felt a sharp stinging at the back of his neck. He jerked away reflexively, spinning on his heel even as the sting transformed into a spike of cold, like an enormous icicle stabbing through his upper torso. He whirled around to face his assailant, but whatever Sousa had injected was already robbing him of motor control. Professor’s legs collapsed under his weight and he crashed into the wall.

He clung desperately to consciousness but knew that it was a losing battle. The last thing he heard before the fog closed over him was the distant sound of someone speaking. It was Sousa’s voice, but without any trace of an Australian accent.

“I need a replacement… No. Take him to the facility. We’ll get what we need from him there.”

Kilmaurs, Scotland

As her flashlight
beam illuminated the face of the man standing in the passage, Jade managed to stifle her shriek of alarm. The noise that issued from her sounded more like a burp of displeasure.

“Kellogg! Damn it! What are you doing here?” She paused a beat, though not nearly long enough to allow him to respond. “Wait, did you…follow me here? You did, didn’t you?”

A guilty look flickered over his face, but it was replaced almost immediately by an expression of triumph. He pointed a finger at the object peeking from Jade’s clenched fist. “You found it. Roche’s book. I knew you would.”

She jammed the thumb drive into a pocket and took a step toward him, hands on her hips. “You followed me,” she repeated. “What the hell?”

“I didn’t follow you. But when you kept asking about Mr. Roche’s hunting lodge, it wasn’t hard to figure out that you would come here. And I realized that it was the obvious place to look for his manuscript.” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I do hope you weren’t trying to cut me out of the picture.”

“I didn’t keep asking and I never told you about the fogous, so how did you find me
here
?”

“The innkeeper said I’d find you here or at the tavern. You weren’t at the tavern.”

“He just told you where I was?” Jade stopped herself, realizing there was nothing to be gained by hammering at the issue. “Never mind. I wasn’t trying to cut you out of anything, Kellogg. Roche wanted me to find this. That’s what I’m doing. As soon as I figure it out, the book is yours.”

Kellogg spread his hands as if genuflecting. “That’s all I wanted. That, and for you to start calling me Jordan.”

“Quit while you’re ahead.” She shone the light up the length of the tunnel. “Come on let’s get out of—”

She broke off abruptly as she spied movement directly ahead. Something—an animal perhaps, or possibly a person—had drawn back into the shadows at the first touch of light, like a sea anemone shrinking from contact. She turned to Kellogg. “You saw that, yeah?”

“I didn’t…I wasn’t really looking.”

Jade frowned. Another ghost? She didn’t think so. Whatever she had spotted had seemed more substantial. More
real.
“You bring a date, Kellogg?”

Kellogg’s only answer was a bewildered stare.

Jade was pretty sure no one had seen her enter the fogou, but she doubted Kellogg had been as discreet. Maybe a local farmer or shepherd had spotted him tramping through the woods and followed. She waggled the light back and forth, creating a stroboscopic effect. “Hey you,” she called. “Don’t be shy. Come and say hi!”

Several seconds ticked by. After half a minute, Jade was starting to believe that she had imagined it but then a man stepped fully into view. At least, she assumed it was a man. The build looked decidedly masculine, average height and weight, not overly muscular, but definitely not dainty. The facial features would probably have resolved any remaining doubt about the gender of the new arrival, but those remained mostly hidden behind a black ski mask. That, and the two-foot length of steel pipe in the man’s hand, told her this was no mere curious passerby.

Jade kept her light pointed at the man’s face. The flashlight was an older, low intensity affair, bright enough to irritate but not blind the would-be attacker, but in its glare, Jade could see the man’s eyes, and read the fear written there. This man was no killer, had probably never even been in a serious fight.

Why’d you pick today to start something
? Jade thought.

Another figure, similarly attired and equipped, stepped into view behind the first. The second man’s eyes were harder than his companions but only a little. Of the pair, the second man was clearly the instigator, pushing his timid friend forward to ensure that he would not run away.

Jade took a deep breath. “Okay, boys. I’m not sure what this is about…”

She trailed off when she realized that the first man was muttering something. She could just make out the outline of his lips moving under the fabric of his mask, but the words were nonsense. “La-la-la…”

The man abruptly lurched forward, raising his cudgel even though he was still a good ten steps away. Jade took an instinctive step back and bumped into Kellogg who was also retreating. She didn’t need to look behind her to know that there was nowhere to go.

Okay. Fight, then,
but with what? It wasn’t like she could just pull a weapon out of thin air.

She straightened her back and widened her stance, trying to remember all the self-defense courses she had taken, all the martial arts instruction Professor and her ex-boyfriend Dane Maddock had tried to impart to her.

Maddock’s new girl was some kind of professional cage fighter.

She’d know what to do
, Jade thought mordantly.

The man seemed to be moving in slow motion, as if every step, every action, was being stretched out deliberately to accentuate the dread Jade now felt. She saw his muscles tensing like a clockwork spring being wound tight, and then the subtle shift in his balance as he reversed direction and swung the cudgel at her.

Jade easily side-stepped the attack and thrust outward with both hands, planting the heels of her palms in the man’s chest. A hard shove sent the man stumbling back, his cudgel swiping empty air, yet even as he went reeling, the second man moved in, aiming his pipe at Jade’s head. She tried to duck away, but inertia conspired against her. She had invested too much momentum in repelling the first attacker to change course now. The bludgeoning instrument swung toward her cranium with the precise angle and timing required to deliver a crushing blow, and there was nothing she could do to avoid it.

Something clamped onto Jade’s wrist, pulling her arm taut with such ferocity that Jade thought her shoulder would be dislocated. The violence of the unexpected seizure caused her head to snap sideways. The sound of cracking vertebrae was so loud, she didn’t ever hear the length of pipe whooshing through the space where her head had been only a moment before.

It took her a moment longer to realize what had just happened. Kellogg had yanked her out of the way of the crushing blow. Unfortunately, in so doing, he had also whipped her around and sent her careening into the wall of the fogou.

The impact shuddered through her, rattling her teeth, but it wasn’t as bad as hitting solid stone. The battered rocks shifted like a pile of gravel, and then something broke under her and she spilled forward into a cavity that had been concealed behind the wall. Kellogg, his hand still locked around her wrist, was pulled along with her into the newly opened hole. The flashlight tumbled from her grasp and hit the ground with sufficient force to snuff out the light, plunging the cave and all its newly revealed secrets into darkness.

The darkness offered only a brief respite. A light, probably from a smart phone, flared to life in the circular main chamber, revealing the irregular break in the wall through which Jade and Kellogg had crashed. The light shifted, filling the opening with blinding radiance, forcing Jade to look away, but as she did, Jade realized that the space beyond the wall kept going.

“A tunnel,” Jade gasped. She hoped it was a tunnel at least, and not just a dead end passage. “Come on!”

Jade thought about digging her own phone out for light, but doing so would have served only to give the club-wielding men something to focus on. As long as she and Kellogg could avoid being illuminated, they would be safe.

She started forward, one hand stretched out before her in order avoid colliding with another wall, the other gripping Kellogg’s hand and pulling him along. After a dozen steps, her groping hand encountered something. A wall, but not the dead end she feared. Instead, it was merely the oblique angle of a bend in the tunnel. She shifted direction and continued forward, following the turn. For a few seconds, the darkness was absolute, but then a faint glow from behind signaled that the two attackers were still in pursuit.

The retreat, fumbling along one cautious step at a time, gave Jade time to process what was happening. If the third time was enemy action, then this could only be construed as a declaration of war, yet something about that explanation didn’t ring true. She did not doubt that the disparate events were somehow connected, but each successive link in the chain seemed weaker, as if the enemy was intentionally deescalating the conflict.

The enemy.

Who the hell was the enemy? Islamic extremists? Changelings? Neither felt plausible, but regardless, it was hard to believe that all of the incidents were being carried out by the same group. After disappearing an entire jet full of people, a couple of thugs with crude clubs was almost embarrassingly unsophisticated.

Jade came to an abrupt stop.

“What is it?” Kellogg hissed.

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

“What?”

Jade turned, pushed past him and started back up the tunnel, toward the diffuse glow of her attackers’ light. “Hey! Who the hell are you, huh? What do you want?”

She knew she was shouting but could barely hear herself over the sound of blood rushing in her ears. Every step forward brought her closer to what might very well be a fatal encounter, but instead of fear, she felt only anger. She had faced life or death situations plenty of times before. She could handle the threat, but she absolutely hated not knowing why.

“What do you want?” she repeated.

The light bobbed uncertainly, shifted away as if the man holding it was thinking about turning to flee.

“Answer me, damn it.”

She thought she heard him say something, not words, but the same nonsense chant she had heard before. “La-la-la-la…” Then the light shifted toward her again and she knew that the man was about to make a move. Jade threw an arm up to ward off the expected blow and charged toward the light.

The impact wasn’t as bad as she expected. Her shoulder caught a glancing blow to something relatively soft—probably the guy’s gut—and then she rebounded away like a pinball, striking the second man solidly.

The darkness concealed most of what happened, but the grunts of pain and sounds of bodies hitting the ground painted a vivid enough picture. There was a loud clank as one of the men dropped his pipe, and then a scuffling noise. The light bobbed and then went dim as the man holding it turned away and shone it back up the tunnel. Jade scrambled back to her feet, fists raised, but the light was moving away.

The men were fleeing.

Jade stared at the receding glow, too astounded at the unlikely victory to even think about what would happen next.

Another light flashed behind her. She whirled, fists still up but it was only Kellogg holding up his own mobile phone. “You…” He swallowed. “That was incredible.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Kellogg brought the phone close to his face. “No signal. We need to get out of here.”

“Right,” Jade’s answer was automatic but then she realized what Kellogg was trying to do. “Are you calling someone?”

“I should say so. I’m calling the police.”

She extended her hand, palm out. “No. No police.”

“In case you weren’t paying attention, we were just assaulted.”

“Yes, and in case you weren’t paying attention, I sent them packing. But until we know who’s behind it, we don’t trust anyone. Got it?”

Kellogg snorted. “Oh, it’s obvious who’s behind it.”

The only obvious thing about the attack, as far as Jade could tell, was that the perpetrators would eventually figure out that they had left the job unfinished. “No police,” she repeated. “Now come on. Let’s get out of here before they realize they just got their asses kicked by a girl.”

As she started forward, her toe struck the discarded metal pipe and sent it rolling down the tunnel. She scooped it up and hefted it in her right hand. “That’s more like it.” She half-expected Kellogg to lecture her about destroying fingerprint evidence but he thankfully remained silent.

With the cudgel held in both hands like a baseball bat, Jade moved back up the passage to the break in the wall of the fogou. There was no sign of the two men. She turned back to Kellogg. “Turn off your phone,” she whispered. “No light, and not a sound. But stay close.”

He nodded and then vanished along with the rest of the fogou when the screen went dark. Jade picked her way slowly through the breach, and then began walking stealthily, rolling her feet forward heel-to-toe with exaggerated slowness so as not to betray their presence. She strained her ears, listening for any noise that might indicate the two attackers were returning or lying in wait at the entrance to the chamber, but all she could hear was the sound of falling rain, growing louder with each step forward.

When she could just distinguish the outline of the tunnel mouth, the stormy night sky a faintly lighter shade of darkness than the subterranean depths, she stopped and listened for a full thirty seconds. It was the perfect place for an ambush. She leaned back until she felt Kellogg’s chest against her head. “Stay here,” she whispered.

Before he could reply, she leaped into motion, sprinting to the far end of the stone-lined trench and scrambling up the slick stone surface. If the men were waiting to attack, her best chance at surviving was a dynamic exit. She heaved herself onto the damp earth above ground, and rolled forward in a somersault twist that brought her up in a crouch facing back toward the fogou, the pipe held up and ready to parry any attack.