The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(73)

Caitlin sat down on the edge of the bed. She tugged my hand, pulling me to sit beside her.

“I can’t be there when you face Lauren,” she said. “My prince’s orders. Thanks to Case Exodus, my job is to watch from a distance, sound the call to action if you fail, and leave this world. Immediately and forever.”

I reached up and stroked the curve of her cheek. She gave me a little smile.

“Be prepared for a boring night,” I said, “because I’m not going to lose.”

“You have to promise me one thing,” Caitlin said.

“Name it.”

“Whatever happens, no matter what…don’t let her take you alive.”

I couldn’t hold back a shiver, thinking of that thing at the clinic. Wondering what worse nightmares Lauren could conjure up with the power of a goddess at her fingertips.

“Don’t even worry about it,” I said. “I’ve gotta get some sleep. Okay if I crash here tonight?”

She reached over and untucked my shirt, undoing the buttons one by one.

“You say that like you have a choice.”

? ? ?

I woke up on an airplane.

The lighting was all wrong, like I was a bug inside a chunk of amber, and there was nothing outside the porthole window but smoke. The smoke roiled in thick black clouds.

“I’m sorry about this,” Bob Payton said, sitting next to me.

I squinted, trying to focus. It was a full flight, but everyone around us was sound asleep.

Asleep. Dreaming. You’re dreaming.

“I didn’t have any other way to reach you,” he said. “You have to come to New York, right away.”

I tugged at my seat belt. It didn’t budge. There was no reason for the latch not to work. It just didn’t want to.

“I don’t have time for this,” I told him.

He leaned in and grabbed my arm. His eyes were manic.

“I caught one. One of the smoke-faced men. Trapped it.”

“What part of ‘no time’ are you not understanding?” I said. “There are bigger problems to deal with—”

“That’s the point! I did more than trap it. I can weaponize it.”

That caught my attention.

“Against Lauren?” I said.

“Against the Garden and anything touched by it. Unchecked life meets concentrated occult entropy. Boom. Or more likely, a faint hissing sound as it just…boils away. Come to New York.”

“Why New York?” I said. “What’s there?”

“Our laboratory, the off-site facility Ausar set up for Nedry, Clark, and me during the Viridithol experiments. I needed some of my old equipment. The old girl’s in lousy shape, and I had to bring in a portable generator for power, but it’s good enough for my work.”

“I’m up against the wall here,” I told him. “Flying across the country and back is going to cost time I can’t afford to waste. You are absolutely, completely, one hundred percent certain you can do this?”

He took a deep breath and nodded. The mania in his eyes faded to steely determination.

“I want to make amends,” he said. “This is how. Just come as soon as you can.”

The smoke cleared outside the window, ripping apart to show the skyline of New York City directly below us. Then the plane’s nose wobbled, tilting like the first car of a roller coaster at the top of its peak, and veered straight down. The plane plummeted from the sky.

I clutched the armrests, gravity forcing me back into the seat, my heart pounding as we went into free fall. A crowded city street lined with cars came racing up to greet us with the speed of a cannonball. I didn’t have the breath to scream or time to think. At the last second, I caught a blurry glimpse of a street sign and a string of numbers. An address.

Then I slammed into the ground at four hundred miles an hour.

I shot bolt upright in bed. My skin was clammy, slick with cold sweat. The scarlet letters of the bedside clock read 3:18. I stumbled into the hallway. Caitlin was already awake, sitting at the glass kitchen table and puttering on her laptop. She glanced over, her eyebrows lifting.

“Go back to bed,” she said. “You need more sleep.”

“No time. Bob Payton dreamwalked to find me. He might have something. I’ll explain in a minute, have to get cleaned up.”

No sooner had I cranked up the twin heads in Caitlin’s shower, filling the chamber with billowing steam, than the frosted glass door swung open and she joined me inside.

“If things are that urgent,” she said, holding up a loofah, “you can tell me now. Turn around.”

“He snagged one of the smoke-faced men. Says he can turn it into some kind of weapon.”

Caitlin’s hand slid over my back, followed by the plush, wet touch of the soapy sponge, milking away the tension in my shoulders.

“Can he do it?” she asked.

“He thinks he can. Look, he knows I wouldn’t have any qualms about killing him. He’s putting his neck on the chopping block, reaching out to me like this. If he didn’t think he could deliver, he wouldn’t have done it.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“If all goes well, I’ll be back by sundown,” I said. “I know Pixie needed a little time with the recordings we made of Roth’s voice, to get the next part of the plan ready. I also need somebody to rent the motel room for that part, and basically to make sure everybody’s on call when and where I need them. I know you’re busy planning for Case Exodus, so I hate to ask—”