A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle) (16 page)

Trusting is weakness!
Of course Michael was lying. Strike before he does! Your foes are mounting. Gideon's back and you couldn't stop him. You barely got away before the cops came. For all you know, Michael works for Gideon just like the woman!

Diomedes picked up an auto-pistol from the table.
It was heavy. Comforting. His foes
were
mounting. They had him cornered. If he couldn't stop them, they'd win. He'd have to leave the city. He'd have to abandon the opportunities he was waiting on.

You need allies
. Find out what he wants.

It's a trap!

It's Michael.

HE'S A LIAR!
The large voice drowned out any response. Diomedes was midway to the door again when he stopped in realization.

Confronting them at
their car was dangerous. He'd need to approach across the open street. If it was a trick, they'd have him. He couldn't make a move until they came back to the door. That gave him time to plan. Consider his options. Once again he sat. Thinking. Waiting. Weighing.

An hour later
, he was still waiting, switching back and forth between the camera views and the news reports. The tickers and talking heads were talking more about celebrity crap and some "grey goo" cover-up supposedly going on in Denver, but the assassination still got slight mention. They still wanted him.

His phone rang.
The name on the screen triggered a rush of anger. "Bout damn time," he growled in answer. "Where the hell've you been?"

Fagles's voice slithered down the line.
"
I would have thought,
"
he answered,
"
that you'd be a little more pleased to hear from me.
"

Diomedes whispered through clenched teeth.
"I called you over a week ago. Four fucking times."

"
Obviously I've been keeping my distance. You're not the most reputable person to be associated with these days.
"

"
That's why I called! You're going to help. You can't turn your back on me."

"
Things are a bit more complex now, aren't they?
" Fagles said coolly. "
Been pursuing a few side projects, have you? You've been busy.
"

"Hell yes, I've been busy!
Dodging cops and every bounty-hunting jackass in the goddamn city! You turn your back on me and I won't be the only one with a price on his head, you get me?"

"
My friend, I think you need to calm down.
"

"Fuck your calm down!" D
iomedes stood in the darkness and fought the urge to crush the phone. Smug. The man was always smug! But Fagles could also make him money.

"
. . . 
Are you finished?
"

Diomedes let him eat silence.

"
I can help you,
" Fagles said. "
But I'm no longer certain that I should.
"

"You need me.
You need me for your little 'project.' If I'm out, so's your secret."

Fagles smugness shattered.
"
You've already jeopardized the project!
"

Diomedes gaped at the lie. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"
What I can't decide is whether you meant me to find out what you did, or you just didn't expect to get caught.
"

"What. The hell. Are you talking about?"

"
Or is there a third option? Is it possible you didn't even know what you'd done? But no, you couldn't be that foolish, could you?
"

You are NOT a fool.
Diomedes was midway to declaring as much when movement on the screen caught his eye. Michael and the other man were getting out of the car. Diomedes watched them cross the road.

"
Ah, now you see, this is the point in the conversation where it's your turn to—
"

"Shut up," Diomedes ordered.
They'd entered the parking lot. He had just enough time to hang up on Fagles before he saw the second car pull up behind Michael's.

Michael heard the slam of the second car's doors just as he and Marc rounded the building on the side of the basement
entrance. "Go over the fence," Michael whispered.

"What?"

Two freelancers were walking into the parking lot. Michael ducked back around the corner from where he'd spied them and pushed the car keys into Marc's hands. "Behind the building. Get to the car and I'll meet you back at your place."

"But I can't just
—"

"Go!" He tried to make the order as firm as possible without letting his voice carry.

There was no time to wait for Marc to comply. Michael stepped around the corner to find the freelancers midway across the parking lot. Their weapons were holstered or slung. Their backs were to the road. They stopped immediately once they saw him.

Michael eased toward them, hands out t
o his sides. "Hello!"

The newcomers, a man and a woman, let him approach. He
stopped about ten feet away and felt their gaze as they sized him up. Both stood six feet tall. With the same sharp features, the same dark eyes, and nearly identical weapons, the only thing that really stood out as different was the length of their auburn hair: hers long and pulled back tight, his receding and cut short. They could have been twins, and the matching leisure armor and Aegis Security patches did nothing to lessen the impression.

They were the same pair
he had seen that morning coming into the 'Pyre.

The man's eyes didn't let Michael go for a moment.
"Hello," he answered.

The woman said nothing, instead glancing first behind her
, and then over Michael's shoulder in a way that had him fighting the urge to glance back himself. With any luck, Marc would escape undetected. Michael didn't want to give them cause to think he was there.

S
ilence echoed between them. The two seemed unwilling to speak more before he did. At a loss for words himself, Michael finally tried, "Do I know you?"

The man gave a
dismissive smile. "No reason you should." Again, he said nothing more and simply remained where he was, somehow seeming both expectant and unobtrusively content.

The woman
was looking everywhere the man wasn't, and in a much more agitated fashion.

"Is there something you want?" Michael tried.

"I was about to ask you the same question."

"Is this your property?" Michael asked.

The man shrugged. "Nope. And since you asked, I'd guess it's not yours either."

Michael gave a shrug of his own.
He had a clear line of sight across the street to the hood of the car he and Marc had come in, so the woman ought to be able to see at least the driver's door if she looked back from where she was. Trying to give Marc a window of escape, he fought to think of a way to focus their attention on himself that wouldn't also result in violence.

The man took a single step forward.
"So," he spoke again, "here we are the three of us spending a pleasant evening standing around on someone else's property. How'd you suppose that happened?"

"What do you want?" Michael
tried again.

"Where's your friend?" the wom
an asked. Her hand had shifted to her sidearm holster, though her attention was on the building.

Unable to think of a direct answer that didn't give away more than he wanted to, Michael ignored the question.
"I'm looking for someone."

"So I've heard," said the man.
"Is he here? If you're just one guy, maybe you need a hand or two?"

"I think I'll be alright on my own, thanks."
Unsure of where Marc was, he stopped just short of asking them to leave. The woman had all the carriage of a coiled spring.  Michael doubted they'd just go away for the asking.

"Oh, c'mon," cajoled the man.
"Sure, you look like you know your stuff, but he's in there, you're out here. He's got the advantage on you. Little help evens the odds."

Were they really there for Diomedes, or was it just an angle to get to Marc?
The other ESA assassinations were made to look like accidents. "I don't even know he's in there. I've been here over an hour and he's not shown himself."

"Well something brought you here.
We know you're looking for him. Now we're willing to be reasonable but that bounty splits two ways just as easily as it does three. You either work with us or not at all. Read me?" His contented expression from earlier was gone.

Michael reflexively frowned and had to stop himself before it
became a scowl that the two might take as prelude to a fight. He couldn't take them both, not out in the open. If they attacked, things would go bad very quickly.

"Say he is here," he said finally.
"You have some sort of plan?" Marc should be gone by now. Why was the car still there?

The woman interrupted her companion before he could speak.
"This is a bad idea, Jer. Where's the other one?"

As if in answer, Marc peeked around the corner
of the building behind the freelancers, by the road. Michael glanced at him before he could stop himself, and then everything happened at once.

R
eacting to Michael's gaze, the woman spun to see Marc and yelled "Gun!" before pulling her own and rushing for the cover of the front doorway, firing as she went. Marc ducked back around the corner and Michael barely had time to wonder if Marc had drawn a gun at all before Jer swung at him.

Michael dodged the punch, but before he could close the distance to the woman and pull a gun of his own, Jer grappl
ed him about the waist and tried to pin his arms. Somehow Michael managed to maneuver in his grip and force the man's arms away as the woman fired two shots at Marc's corner. Marc fired back as Michael struggled; Michael was paying more attention to Marc's plight than his own, focused on the guns. Marc's shots went high—he'd barely turned his aim around the corner—but the woman ducked back into the doorway alcove regardless.

Jer spun
Michael around by the arm and flung him against the front of the building where the side of his head smacked against the wood. Michael's vision and stomach swam, and he barely ducked the blow that followed. He drove his fists against Jer's ribs before catching him in a grapple of his own to force them both away from the wall. Jer grabbed back and shoved. They tumbled to the gravel.

More shots exploded behind him, but Michael
could only focus on keeping Jer's hands off his throat. The man's strength matched his own. Dust choked his lungs and they struggled until Michael forced a knee to the other's chest and shoved him away.

By the time he could spare a look in Marc's direction, Marc was
facing Michael and standing out from cover, feet planted, with his gun aimed straight at Jer. "Let him go!"

He
was making himself a target!

Michael was halfway to his feet when the woman
burst from the alcove again, gun in hand, about to have a clear shot at Marc. Michael scooped up a handful of gravel and hurled it at the woman's face. It hit her an instant before she fired. Her shots went wide and Marc dove back around the corner.

T
he effort left Michael sprawled forward and on one hand and knee. Before he could right himself, Jer slammed him to the ground completely. Face down in the gravel, Michael fought to get up against the freelancer's weight. It wasn't enough. Jer caught his arm in a flash and twisted it behind Michael's back so sharply that he'd have yelled in pain were there any air in his lungs.

Then
the woman was standing above him, her auto-pistol trained at his head, her face streaked with dirt. Though her left eye was clenched shut and bleeding, her right glared down at him all the more violently.

"If he moves again, Jer, I'm gonna shoot him! Punk got me right in the eye!"
She turned back to Marc's corner to shout, "We've got your friend! Come out and drop the gun!"

"Ah, now you made my sister mad, guy," Jer scolded.
"Do you have any, any idea what a pain in the butt she's going to be now?" Michael raged against Jer's grip, but the man wrenched his arm further back. "Hey! Cool it."

Michael fought to calm down
. What could he do? If Marc had any sense, he'd make a run for the car.

"Now!" the woman shouted again.
"While he still has a head!"

"M
arc, run!" Michael yelled. Jer wrenched his arm further.

"You run and he gets it!"

Michael lay with his eye on the corner of the building, willing Marc to make a run for it and waiting for Jer's grip to relax.

Neither happened.
Marc's gun landed in the gravel a moment before he took two shaky steps into the open. Marc swallowed and licked his lips. "Okay, let's all just— Let's just be reasonable here, okay?"

The woman shifted her aim to Marc so
fast that Michael flinched with him in anticipation of a shot. "I say we grease 'em both right now."

"Shit,
" Marc whispered.

"C'mon, ease off, Susan
. They're not going anywhere," Jer said. "Give them a chance to help."

"My brother the optimist.
They ambushed us! I told you they wouldn't share!"

J
er's reply never came. Something landed with a crunch on the gravel behind Michael and Susan yelled in surprise a second before she hit the ground in front of him. Jer was off his back a moment later. Michael wasted no time scrambling to his feet. He turned around in time to see Diomedes smack the other freelancer across the temple with the butt of the assault rifle Susan had worn slung. Jer dropped like a brick.

Di
omedes whirled on Michael. He barely had time to brace for an attack before Diomedes spoke. "Your car. Let's go!"

Michael stood rooted in wordless uncertainty.

"Move!" the other shouted before running across the street. Realizing Diomedes meant for him to follow, Michael started after him and pulled Marc along.

Diomedes stood by the car
and looked up and down the empty street. He had a duffle bag over his shoulder and one hand on the handle of the back door. "You!" He pointed at Marc. "Drive." His pale eyes flicked to Michael. "Front seat. Now!"

Michael found himself sliding into the passenger's seat before he knew it.
Diomedes climbed in behind him as Marc slid the key home and started the engine. Diomedes pulled his door shut and sat low in the seat. "Get on Davis Avenue. Take it south out of the city."

Marc was visibly sweating as he sped the car into the road, pressing them back to their seats.
Michael had only a moment for a last look at Jer and his sister lying motionless in the gravel.

"They're not dead," Diomedes muttered as if reading his mind.
"Not hit hard enough."

"I'm surprised," Michael said before adding, "
that you came out." The amendment wasn't what he'd initially meant, but it was no less true. He struggled to catch up to the situation.

"I don't care about your
opinion
," Diomedes growled. "Tell me why I shouldn't kill you."

Even after six months, Michael could still read the tone of his voice.
He didn't need to look around to know Diomedes had a gun on him.