The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(84)

“You mean three hundred,” Meadow said.

That was when I knew we had her.

“You’re asking a lot,” Caitlin said.

“No,” Meadow said, “you are. Just asking me to set foot in that tower again is worth a hundred easy, let alone taking the risk of crossing Lauren. I can get you in. I can tell you everything you need to know. Nobody else can. I want three hundred thousand dollars. I’m betting the First Bank of Hell is good for it.”

“One hundred and seventy-five,” Caitlin said.

“Two seventy-five.”

“Two hundred and ten thousand dollars.”

“Two thirty,” Meadow said.

Caitlin nodded. “Agreed. But you do everything you’re told, when you’re told to do it, or the deal is off. Until Lauren is dead, we own you. Understood?”

“I just live to make people happy,” Meadow said. “Where do we start?”

She held out her hand. I gave her the USB stick. She clutched it tight.

“We start with Lauren,” I said. “When’s the attunement ritual?”

“Any time now. She’s been pent up in the Enclave with her little mad scientist nerd buddies, getting ready for the big day. The killing cells below are all stocked with only the finest and ripest of unbathed street trash, just waiting for the sacrificial knife. Figuratively speaking. I mean, knives? You know how long that would take?”

“Are there any traps?” I said. “Anything that would kill the hostages if an alarm sounds, like the tanks of lye at the New Life building?”

Meadow smiled. “Did you like that one? My idea. I would have loved to see that thing go off. But no, Lauren wouldn’t let me touch shit at the Enclave. Something about misaligning the ‘perfect occult circuitry’ of the walls. Besides, with all the work it took to snatch that many people off the streets, can you imagine if they all got smeared by accident and we had to start over? Timing is kind of a thing here.”

“So how does the sacrifice work?” Jen asked.

“Funneling glyphs set into the cell floors in mosaic tile,” Meadow said. “Huge ones. Those Xerxes *s are gonna do the job when Lauren sends the command down. They’ll just open up with assault rifles and shoot through the cell bars, gun ’em all down. Corpses drop, souls fly up to the penthouse. Crude, and not much fun, but all Lauren needs is one big-ass harvest of life energy. That’ll do it.”

“Lauren’s in the penthouse?” I said.

Meadow nodded. “Top floor is all penthouse. It’s this big open space tiled with invocation patterns on the floor, windows all around. Nedry and Clark have a space set off to the side for all their science-geek shit, but they spend most of their time downstairs near the cells. They don’t want to be near Queen Bitch any more than the rest of us do.”

“I’m going to need a floor plan,” I said. “Hand drawn is fine, whatever you can remember. How about those mannequins of yours? You have any left?”

“I keep a few in a storage locker, in case of a rainy day. And no, I’m not telling you how they work. That secret isn’t for sale.”

I shook my head. “No need. Just get ready and do whatever it is you do to make ’em jump up and boogie. Oh, and I’m going to need you to do one other thing before we go in.”

I told Meadow my plan—the part she needed to know about, anyway—and she nearly tried to walk out right then and there. It took twenty minutes of arguing and Caitlin bumping the payment back up to two hundred and fifty grand, but finally Meadow came around.

She held on to my collateral as she sauntered out the door, brandishing the USB stick like a schoolkid with a permanent hall pass. Out front, Bentley, Corman, and Margaux stood close and talked in low tones. They glared daggers at Meadow as she strolled by, and she responded with a sneering wave.

A bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin, Bentley’s brand, sat on the counter next to a couple of empty glasses. Some people drink to celebrate, some drink to numb the pain. There wasn’t a celebratory face in the room.

“Ta for now, kids,” Meadow said. “I’ll call as soon as Her Highness summons me to her royal court. You miss the call, it’s not my problem.”

“Yeah, it is,” I said, following her out of the back room. “You’ve got your instructions. Follow them.”

“Long as I get paid,” she said.

She let herself out. The door swung shut, and the bookstore fell into a hard silence. I felt the weight of every eye in the room.





Forty-One



“I don’t like it any more than you do,” I said. I didn’t have to direct my words at anybody in particular. Everyone in the room was thinking the same thing.

“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” Corman said.

“Hey, don’t I always?” I said. Nobody wanted to touch that, so I let it drop and moved on. “Jen, how are we looking on the explosives end of things?”

“Boom boom check,” she said. “Already got Winslow sourcing it for us. Speaking of, he wants to know when you’re gonna pay him for the car and the piece. He’s gettin’ a little itchy.”

“Least of my worries right now. Okay, everybody, Lauren could make her move at any time. The second she does, things are going to happen very, very fast. Be ready for it.”