Chimera (21 page)

Except the knob turned freely in his hand.

The door swung open. It wasn't locked.

Something here was
definitely
not right.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+19:12

Chapel drew his weapon and stepped inside the dark house. He motioned for Julia to follow him, then pulled the door shut behind him. “Look for a light switch,” he told Julia. Then he turned to face the darkness and called out, “Mr. Funt? I'm a federal agent. I'm here to protect you.”

He didn't expect a response, and he didn't get one.

Behind him he heard a click, and then the lights came on.

The house was tastefully, if plainly, furnished. The front door opened on a living room with a large television set, a comfortable-looking sofa, and a beaten-up coffee table that might have been an antique, once. Bookshelves lined the far wall, but they were half empty.

Two archways led off the main room, one to what looked like a kitchen—he could see a refrigerator and a stove through the arch—and one to what presumably was a bedroom. A curtain of beads hung down from that arch. Chapel pointed his weapon toward each arch and called out Funt's name again.

It was possible this was a colossal waste of time. Maybe no chimera had come to Atlanta at all. Maybe all three of them were in Chicago already and were beating Eleanor Pechowski to death while he stood here, wondering what to do next.

That kind of thinking didn't help at all. “Stay close to me,” he told Julia, but she was already walking over to the coffee table.

“Does this guy look like a slob to you?” she asked.

Chapel wondered what she was getting at, but he glanced around the room. There were coasters on the coffee table, and no empty cans or glasses lying around. “Not at all,” he said. “The opposite, in fact.”

Julia ran one index finger along the top of the coffee table. She held it up where he could see it—it was covered in dust. “He hasn't been here in a while.”

Chapel frowned. That had to mean something important, but—what? Even if Funt had vacated the house as soon as he got the call from Angel, that was still less than twenty-four hours ago. Dust didn't accumulate that quickly.

“You have a list of addresses for the people the chimeras want to kill,” Julia said. When he started to protest, she held up both hands. “I'm not asking any questions, don't worry. You can keep your secrets. I just wanted to point out that maybe your list isn't up to date. Funt might have moved out of here a while ago.”

“Maybe,” Chapel agreed. “I'm going to check the kitchen. Stay here.”

Julia looked annoyed at being ordered around, but there wasn't much he could do about that. He didn't have time to ask her permission every time he needed her to do something. Civilians were fine in principle, he thought, until you needed them to follow orders.

He went into the kitchen and found another light switch. The kitchen was as Spartan as the living room, with a small table pushed up against one wall and only one chair. There was thick dust on the table, but when he checked the stove and the countertops they were clean. No dust on them at all. Funt might have moved out weeks ago—but he had come back at least once.

“I'm going to check the bedroom,” Julia called.

“No! Wait for me,” he shouted back, but he knew she wouldn't listen. He turned to leave the kitchen when he caught another look at the table—and the dust on top of it.

Someone had written a message in it, presumably using his finger. Chapel bent low to get a look at it in better light.

IF YOU WANT TO FIND ME

I'VE GONE UNDER

THE UNDERGROUND

“Oh shit!” Julia called.

Chapel ignored the message in the dust and raced back into the living room. He saw Julia standing in the beaded curtain, holding it back with one hand.

“I think we're too late,” she said. “I think he's dead.”

ATLANTA, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+19:46

Chapel raced over to her side. He put an arm out to stop her from going any farther, then peered into the darkened bedroom. Like the rest of the house it was only semifurnished. There was a single bed up against the far wall, and a dresser standing next to the window.

The sheets of the bed had been pulled up over a human-sized form. It looked very much like someone had died in their sleep and had the sheets drawn over his face.

Chapel noticed a strange, acrid smell in the air. At first he thought it had to be the stench of decay, that the body had been left there long enough for it to start rotting. But he knew the smell of death, and this wasn't it. This smelled more like benzene or maybe diesel fuel.

“Just like my mom,” Julia breathed. She sounded like she was close to going into shock—or maybe like she would start screaming.

Chapel stepped toward the bed, intending to throw the sheet back and see if it was really Funt lying there. Something about the position of the body seemed wrong. The body had been lain out carefully, its legs together and its arms at its sides. The way bodies looked when they were lain in their coffins.

The chimera he'd fought in New York wouldn't have bothered to do something like that. He'd made no attempt to pose Helen Bryant—he'd just killed her and then left her in a heap.

That smell. It was very strong over by the bed. Chapel reached down and touched the sheet near the body's head. He grasped the edge of the sheet and started to pull it down.

Behind him he heard a click as Julia switched on the bedroom light.

Two things occurred to him in that moment. One was that the form under the sheet was too lumpy. Up close it didn't look so much like a human being anymore.

The other thing was that he distinctly heard some kind of fizzing sound. It had started the same moment Julia switched on the lights.

He yanked the sheet back and saw what was really there.

Red plastic canisters, the kind used to store gasoline. Or diesel fuel. There were eight of them in the bed, grouped together to resemble a human body. They had yellow plastic screw lids. Chapel unscrewed one and the smell nearly overpowered him. It wasn't just diesel fuel in there—the diesel had been mixed with fertilizer.

He was looking at a homemade bomb.

That fizzing sound . . .

It had to be the noise of a burning fuse, which was lit when Julia flipped the light switch.

“Get out! Front door! Now!” Chapel shouted, turning around and pushing Julia ahead of him, through the beaded curtain. He caught her wrong and she nearly went sprawling, nearly fell right onto the coffee table. Chapel grabbed her around the waist with his artificial arm and bull rushed the front door, slamming up against it because he'd forgotten it opened inward.

Behind him he heard a
fwoosh
as the fuse burned down and set the first canister alight.

The bedroom window exploded outward in a gout of flame and smoke, glass and wood bursting outward in a cone that shredded the hedges and set fire to a tree ten feet away. A billowing wave of smoke came rushing out the front door, and with it a shock wave that smashed Chapel's face to the side as pieces of burning and broken furniture stormed past him. He slammed his eyes shut to protect them even as the heat hit him, making him feel like he was being roasted alive.

In a moment it was over except for the smoke and the car alarms and the ringing in his ears. He looked down and saw he was lying on top of Julia, his artificial arm wrapped around her head, presumably to protect her from the blast.

“Are you okay?” he asked her.

She nodded. Her eyes were very wide. Clearly no one had ever tried to blow her up before.

Chapel wished he could say the same.

He looked up and saw every light on the street was on now, every house awake and alert. People had come out onto their porches to see what was going on. Some of them were standing in the street, watching Funt's house as it went up in flames.

He looked down and saw he was still lying on Julia. He released her head from his cradling arm, and she pulled herself out from beneath him. Carefully he got to his feet, then helped her up as well.

“I get the feeling Jeremy Funt was expecting us,” Julia said.

Chapel shook his head. He felt a little dizzy from the blast, still.
If you want to find me I've gone under the underground. . .

Who the hell was this guy, and what game was he playing?

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA: APRIL 13, T+21:02

Policemen in fireproof suits climbed over the remains of the charred house like ants on a discarded candy bar. Fire engines were parked three deep in front, their engines idling noisily while water leaked from their hose connectors. Up and down the street the locals were leaning off their porches, trying to get a better look.

Tom Banks watched it all on a fifty-inch screen. The image was grainy, especially blown up that big. It was coming through the lens of a cameraphone and the resolution just couldn't keep up. Every time Laughing Boy moved, the view distorted and broke down into pixels as big as Banks's thumb.

“Fertilizer bomb,” Laughing Boy confirmed. He'd been on the scene just minutes after the explosion and he'd been liaising with the local cops the whole time. “You know what that looks like. Heh. Domestic terrorism.”

“I thought you took your medication,” Banks said, annoyed as always by his underling's constant giggling.

“Oh, I did,” the operative confirmed. “Just thought that was funny.”

Banks poured himself a scotch and soda. It looked like he would be up all night. “I don't suppose we got lucky and they pulled any bodies out of there? Say, a one-armed gimp and a redhead with a nice ass?”

“They made it out. Cops are looking for 'em right now,” Laughing Boy replied. “Jeremy Funt, too. They want to know why he would blow up his own house.”

“Figures. Hollingshead will make that heat go away,” Banks said. He sighed deeply.

“You want me to help the cops out? Or maybe make this problem go away by myself?” Laughing Boy asked.

“Not yet,” Banks told him. “There'll be time for that after Chapel leads us to Funt. The chimera might do it for us, too. Chapel's gotten lucky so far, but luck runs out.”

“And if it doesn't—”

Banks frowned. “When I give the word, you can kill Chapel. Not before.”

“Yes, sir,” Laughing Boy said.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA: APRIL 13, T+24:43

Orange light touched Chapel's eyes. He opened them and looked around, uncertain for a moment where he was. He was lying in a bed, covered by a thick blanket. He was wearing nothing but his pants.

Motel room,
he thought. That was right. He and Julia had checked in last night. He had said he would lie down for a little while, expecting his racing thoughts to keep him awake. Then . . .

His mouth tasted awful. Slowly he sat up and looked around. He heard water running, and decided that Julia must be taking a shower in the bathroom. Her clothes were draped over the back of a chair. His were folded neatly on top of a dresser.

He must have been so tired he just passed out. He couldn't remember undressing. He reached up with both hands to rub at his face. His right hand touched his cheek. He felt his left hand moving, but it never made contact. He tried to lift it to his face again, and it felt like it went right through him. He had the unnerving sensation that it was passing right through his flesh.

With a start he looked down and saw that his arm was gone.

Chapel was no stranger to the phantom limb effect. Before he'd been fitted with his prosthesis, he'd constantly felt like his arm was still there and he just couldn't see it. He'd been able, in his mind, to move his left hand, to make a fist. For the first few months after the amputation, he'd experienced severe pain in that hand. That was normal, they told him. The body's image of itself wasn't based on present reality but on muscle memory, and his brain was just having trouble remembering that part of his body was missing. He often woke up in the morning thinking his arm was still there. Each day brought a fresh shock when he recalled what he had become.

He had a brief moment of panic until he saw the arm, sitting on a coffee table near the room's door. It was plugged in and charging. So were his and Julia's phones, and his hands-free set.

He didn't remember doing any of that. He didn't remember taking off his arm. He couldn't imagine doing it in front of Julia.

And yet here he was.

Another moment of panic came when he looked at the clock. It was nearly seven in the morning—he must have slept until the dawn light came and found him. He stared at the curtains over the room's single window and saw the light coming through was strong and clear. He had been asleep for more than four hours.

Plenty of time for the chimeras to find their targets. Plenty of time for people to die.

He jumped out of the bed and grabbed his hands-free set. Shoving it in his ear, he called, “Angel? Can you hear me?”

“I'm here, sunshine,” she said. She sounded almost as tired as he felt. Had she spent the entire night reconfiguring her servers?

“Thank God you're back,” Chapel said. “I've missed you. Are you okay? You sound like you didn't sleep at all.”

“Aren't you sweet?” she said, with a little laugh. “I didn't, but I popped a few energy drinks and now I'm fine. This wasn't my first all-nighter. You'll be glad to know I'm back up to full speed. Rebuilding my system took a little longer than expected, but we should be safe now—no CIA sneaks listening in. Are you ready to get back to work?”

“Yeah. Listen, the first thing we need to talk about—the police here might be looking for me. I managed to blow up Funt's house last night.”

“I've been keeping an eye on you,” Angel said. “You do know how to have fun, sugar. As for the police, they were looking for you, yes. I took care of that.”