Spirit And Dust Part 27

"You need to stay away from the Jackal," he said. "I heard your aunt's warning, too."

He didn't retreat from the door, which meant he didn't retreat from me. I wasn't used to having to plead my case. People either listened to what I had to tell them, or they didn't and I didn't care.

I cared a whole lot now. About stopping the Black Jackal and the Brotherhood, about protecting Alexis, and about Carson.

"You know there's got to be a double cross in the works. You need one person there you can trust. If not for your sake, then for your sister-"

He took me by the shoulders, gazing down at me with surface calm and fathoms of emotion below.

"Stop. Talking."

"But-"

"I need you to promise something. If anything happens to me, get into Maguire's house. Tell Agent Taylor that if he needs probable cause, look into the Beaumont Corporation. There's a safe in Maguire's office, behind the bookshelf. That's where he keeps my mom's soul. Let her go for me, okay?"

His measured composure frightened me more than an impa.s.sioned plea. "You know I will. But why does this sound less like making a plan and more like saying goodbye?"

My worry made him relent with a soft laugh. "I'm not planning to jump into Mount Doom with the One Ring or anything. But I might be in jail. And you probably won't want to see me again. So I'm making a contingency plan."

"Don't be an idiot." He still held my shoulders and I started to push him away but somehow ended up holding on instead, grabbing a fistful of his shirt.

"Ow." He covered my hand with his. "Johnson left some bruises there. Be careful."

"Be careful?" I socked him, in case that got through his stubborn head. "You're talking about facing an uberghost who can raise the freaking dead. Why would you not take along someone who can vanquish ghosts, you jacka.s.s?"

"I'm going to miss these pet names of yours, Sunshine."

"No you're not, because I'm going with you."

I yanked my hands from his and tried again to push him back a step. But as my fingers touched his shoulder, a shock raced along my nerves, raising gooseflesh and shivers all over me. Not good shivers, either.

Remnant shivers.

"What is that?" I demanded, with a rising note of ... of everything. Panic, betrayal, hysteria. Because I'd felt a shock like that from living skin only once before-when I'd touched McSlackerson's tattoo in the St. Louis museum.

The Black Jackal's mark.

Carson closed his eyes and sighed, an exhale of regret and inevitability. "That was a mistake I made. And it's why you can't come with me. You want to send the Jackal back to the afterlife, and I can't let you do that. Not yet."

I couldn't make those words make sense, and I couldn't make myself move away as he brushed back my hair-and I couldn't resist as sudden darkness dropped the floor out from under me.

The jacka.s.s had whammied me. There were strong arms holding me and a warm kiss on my neck and a whisper in my ear, "Don't hate me too much, Daisy. And don't forget about my mom."

And then nothing.

32.

"DAISY GOODNIGHT, YOU are under arrest for the obstruction of a federal investigation, evading custody, conspiring to commit motor vehicle theft ..."

There might have been more, but Agent Gerard's voice merged with the buzzing whine in my head. The armed response team had arrived. I was stretched out on the couch in Marian's office, and Gerard looked like the devil himself in the red emergency lights.

"You can't arrest her while she's semiconscious," said Agent Taylor. I hadn't awakened at the armed forces busting through the door, but at Taylor's hand on my shoulder. I'd nearly cried at the sight of his familiar, loyal face.

I nearly cried for a lot of reasons. The headache beating at the inside of my skull was the least of them.

I was angry and hurt and mad at myself for being hurt, but most of all, eating up all those emotions like a lion in the pit of my stomach, was worry for Carson. Almost as much worry as there was fury.

How far back had he betrayed me? If he'd been in on the Brotherhood's plan, he was an impossibly good actor. And there was no faking the animosity between him and Johnson. But all the same, he'd been keeping secrets from the start.

Don't you ever want to take that guy and boot him into an early h.e.l.l?

Carson wasn't after power. He was after vengeance.

"We need to go, sir," said one of the guys in black fatigues. Taylor and Gerard had them on, too.

"Just give me a sec," I said, sitting up slowly. More slowly, maybe, than necessary. I needed time to think.

Taylor crouched beside me, watching me like I was going to break. Behind him I could see my museum comrades closing ranks on Gerard.

"You can't arrest her," said Lab Coat. "She saved us from those mummies. And a big-a.s.s lion."

"Sir," said Captain Fatigues, intervening between the nerd and the agent, "you've been exposed to a hallucinogenic substance, and we need to get all of you out of here and to medical attention."

Gerard had already turned back to me. "Where is your buddy, Peanut? Reenacting Die Hard downstairs?"

I tried to glare up at him, but it hurt my head. "Don't. Even. Start."

"Sir," said Taylor, standing to face the senior agent, "may I remind you that Miss Goodnight has been a hostage for forty-eight hours. And that we found her unconscious in a building under siege by terrorists"-Gerard gave a snort, and Taylor ignored him-"so we might cut her some slack."

Gerard looked apoplectic, and I really didn't want to be arrested, or to get Taylor in trouble. So I played my ace. "Be nice to me, Special Agent Gerard," I said. "I can get you probable cause on Devlin Maguire."

Captain Fatigues stood in the door. "We really can't waste any more time, sir."

Gerard gave me a long glare, as if he resented me for giving him what he wanted. Finally he stalked off to join the others in the reading room. Taylor took my hand and pulled me to my feet. I overbalanced and caught myself on his chest. It wasn't on purpose, but it was convenient.

"I can't leave," I whispered.

"Daisy," he said, steadying me by the shoulders, "you have to. Once you're all safe, the armed response team is going to go in after the hostiles downstairs."

"They can't." I stepped back out of his hold. "Forget that Carson and Alexis are down there somewhere. So is a monster-a madman who can do things you can't even imagine."

"That's why the professionals are going to handle it." He was using his calm-the-overwrought-witness voice and I didn't like it. "They'll do everything they can to keep the civilians safe. We're not letting Maguire into the building to negotiate, and I'm not letting you-"

"Maguire!" I wrestled my voice down, because I did sound overwrought and I didn't like that, either. "He can't come in here!"

"That's what I just said."

"He's been involved since the beginning! He knew about the Black Jackal, and he must have known about the Brotherhood...."

"You mean the kidnappers?" asked Taylor, looking at me like I'd really gone off the rails. "You're not seriously suggesting he kidnapped his own daughter, are you?"

"Maybe." It did sound crazy, but it had gotten Carson and me on the hunt for the remnants of Oosterhouse. More than that, it had gotten me here, to open the Veil for the Black Jackal.

"But why?"

"Power. I don't know-I haven't got that all worked out yet. Something about the symbiotic relationship ..."

Now I was just babbling thoughts as they came to me, thinking out loud. Captain Fatigues appeared again in the doorway, like a dad calling curfew. "Agent Taylor," he said, in a don't-screw-with-me tone, "everyone else is gone. You're the last out."

Taylor took my arm to steer me toward the exit, but he didn't rush me. As soon as Fatigues's back was turned, I whispered, "I swear I'm not going bughouse. Bullets won't do any good here. In fact, dead people will make this about a million times worse. This is World Series weird, Jack. You have to trust me."

We had a bargain that I couldn't call him Jack until I was eighteen. This situation called for jumping the gun.

And it worked. He stopped in the doorway and faced me, grave and conflicted. "Daisy, if you don't toe the line, I'm not sure I can keep Gerard from arresting you."

"Jack." I used it again. "If I don't stop this guy, Chicago will be a ghost town. Literally."

He studied me closely, his face hard angles in the red emergency lights. "You're serious."

"I never joke about ghosts running rampant through the streets. Ghosts of mobsters, ghosts of the great fire, ghosts of Mrs. O'Leary's freaking cow. The sleeping dead pulled from their graves and every shred of their spirit erased from existence. All to fuel magic. Big, real, take-over-the-world magic."

Another too-long inventory of my face. If we weren't such good friends, if the world weren't in such trouble, I might blush.

"And this isn't just about one guy in trouble?" he asked, stabbing me in the heart.

"No! What am I?" Outraged. That was what I was. "I'm not some lovelorn twit. It's about saving the city and every remnant soul in it from a megalomaniac with delusions of G.o.dhood."

And also a guy too stubborn to admit he needed saving.

"I didn't mean lovelorn," said Taylor, proving he did know me after all. "I know that you would risk anything for just one soul in danger. But for a whole city, I'll go with you."

I threw my arms around him in a relieved and rule-breaking but completely justified bear hug. After a second, his arms wrapped around me so tightly my bruises squealed. Or maybe I'd made that sound, because he eased off, but didn't let go. "You need to stop scaring the c.r.a.p out of me, Jailbait."

Yeah, I probably needed to stop hugging him, especially if he was going to call me that. But the uncomplicated security felt so good that I let myself indulge a moment longer. It was a good thing no one else was there, or my bada.s.s image would be wrecked forever.

Wait. Why were we alone?

I straightened so fast that I almost knocked Taylor in the jaw. "Where's Captain Fatigues?"

He didn't ask who I meant. In a practiced motion he pushed me behind him with one hand, and pulled his firearm with the other. "Stay back."

Like h.e.l.l I would. I knew how many man-eaters there were out there. And that was just the lions.

The reading room was all red and black shadows, as macabre as a horror movie set. It took me a moment to realize the puddle of darkness beside the first table was a sprawled body. Ignoring Taylor's warning, I hurried toward it and found Captain Fatigues down but not dead. He was deeply unconscious, maybe even whammied.

"Don't shoot!"

The words came from the inky rectangle of the open hall door. A female voice. A pet.i.te figure stepped into the room, spiky platinum hair dyed crimson by the light.

Taylor kept his weapon trained on the punk-rock witch, even after he recognized her. "You were at Maguire's house."

"Of course I was." She took another step into the room, and as she did, she seemed to leave her skin behind. The illusion burst gently, like a dandelion puff in the wind. All that remained was the real girl, one I'd only seen in photographs.

Alexis Maguire.

"He's my dear old dad, after all."

33.

"WHAT'S GOING ON?" asked Taylor, obviously unsure if he should keep his gun aimed at her or not. "That looks like Alexis Maguire."

"I think it is." After all the shocks of the night, I felt numb, hollowed out, and spent. Maybe that was why the pieces fit together so easily. The dandelion-puff bits of illusion hung in the air, smelling of lakeside mud and blood spatter. "Did you kill your bodyguard for the power to make that disguise?"

She shrugged. "It had to be good enough to fool Carson. He can be reluctant about the messy stuff. And I figured you'd get along better if you sensed his sincere worry about me."

I allowed myself to feel a moment of relief that Carson didn't know everything, that he'd been played, too. "Was there ever a real Lauren?" I asked.

"Of course," said Alexis, with a chilling lack of concern. "But she had to go, too. She was a little too insightful."

Taylor put it together more quickly than I'd have thought. But then, I'd warned him it was world-cla.s.s weird. "So ... you faked your own kidnapping?"

"Obviously." She caught the confusion that flashed over my face. "Questions, Miss Goodnight? I'll let you ask a few."

I voiced the one foremost in my mind. "How did someone as smart as you end up taking orders from someone like Michael Johnson? He's the leader of the Brotherhood, right?"

Annoyance twisted her features. "I let him think he was. But once we'd identified all the pieces of Oosterhouse, I had my own plan. I knew that moron Johnson would make an unholy mess of things, which he has." The cool slipped back into place. "Still, it's not unsalvageable. And he has his uses. A priestess needs acolytes."

Taylor spared me the barest glance, keeping an eagle eye on Alexis. "What's she talking about?"

I fumbled for a quick explanation, but Alexis spoke first. "I'm sorry, Agent Taylor. There's really not time to bring you up to speed. Why don't you take a little nap?"

She merely nodded and Taylor collapsed, and my heart with him. I was just barely fast enough to keep his head from hitting the floor. His gun fell out of reach with a clatter.