MORTAL COILS (14 page)

“A
low-level surveillance operation. A dead end. Two little nobodies.”

“Oh?”
She released her grasp and ran her index fingernail up his arm, tracing a
bulging vein—then dug it into the crook of his elbow joint, breaking the skin,
but not the blood vessel.

“Then
why,” she purred, “is it in your oh-so-important black-operations book?”

He
fell to one knee and the impact sent a tremor through the sand. To his credit,
however, he did not cry out in pain.

So
Sealiah twisted her grasp—squishing vein and nerve bundle.

“A
far-fetched clue,” he grunted. “We thought it might lead to our long-missing
cousin.”

She
released Uri. “Ah, yes, I recall. Something about a trust fund?”

“Yes,
m’lady.” Uri held the inside of his arm; a trickle of blood oozed and dripped
upon the sand.

He
stared at her navel and the emerald there; the glint of it reflected in his
eyes. He coveted her power, of course; it was the way of her kind to take
whatever they had the strength to hold. But couple such a gaze with the
obfuscation of these Post children . . . and she smelled treachery. It made her
pulse pound with anticipation.

Uri
looked away, his face burning.

Or
perhaps, to her great disappointment, there was no conspiracy. Nothing on Uri’s
part but a moment of wishful thinking. What a pity that he would ever only be
her faithful lapdog.

“What
about them?” she asked.

“We
intercepted a money transfer from what we thought an old double-blind account
of Louis’s. We were able to trace the originator of the transfer: a lawyer’s
office in central California. I retrieved the pertinent files personally. Trust
fund for two children. It is unrelated to our case.”

Uri
reached deep into his windbreaker and drew out a slim laptop computer. He
opened it, turned it on, and presented it to Sealiah.

She
sat, waiting for the file to open.

Uri
rifled again through his jacket, deeper, losing his entire right arm into its
folds, and removed a card table, which he set up and placed before her.

She
set the computer on the table. On-screen, two high-resolution scans appeared. A
boy. A girl.

They
had smiles as if someone had a knife at their backs and had forced them to
grin. Siblings obviously. Possibly twins.

Uri
fumbled about within his windbreaker, and there was the clink of ice in crystal
and the slosh of liquor. He set a Bloody Mary on the table.

Sealiah
took it and sucked the salt off the rim.

“There
was only one minor complication,” Uri admitted. “A Driver appeared at the same
office. I made sure these files were destroyed before he got there . . . but
still, the coincidence is interesting.”

“Driver,”
Sealiah whispered. “What would a Driver be doing fumbling about on this
matter?”

“He
could not. If I understand the pact correctly, they are not allowed to
interfere with our affairs. As we cannot theirs. As I said, a mere
coincidence.”

“Indeed
. . .”

She
looked again at the children. There was something familiar.

Sealiah
increased magnification on the boy’s eyes. Mixed in with the swirls of gray,
blue, and green, a hint of nobility was reflected in the windows of his soul.

She
returned to normal magnification and squinted so her acute vision blurred.

Yes,
the boy’s eyes, the slender but strong bridge of the girl’s nose, the high
cheekbones and arching brows on both. How could she have missed it? Whoever had
camouflaged them had done a masterful job: they had transformed divine into
dull.

She
looked up and pinned Uri with a hard stare. “And is there any update on the
whereabouts of Louis Piper?”

“Nothing
after the last sighting in Albuquerque. He was living in a cardboard box.”

“Yes
. . .” She traced her fingernail over the girl’s strong chin. There was
something else about these children. Something not connected to Louis, but an
influence just as powerful.

They
were not two little nobodies. These two were definitely involved, and possibly
of great value.

“Is
he connected to this?” Uri moved to get a better look at the computer screen.

It
was an outside, remote, astronomically distant possibility. But when any such
possibility was the only one that accounted for the known circumstances—a boy
and a girl that bore no small resemblance to the man who had been her most
powerful adversary, and a Driver who worked for those wielding power equal to
her own—such things could simply not be ignored.

Nor
could such a possibility be confronted alone.

“Summon
the Board of Directors.”

“I’m
sorry, m’lady,” Uri said, coughing a slight chuckle. “For a moment I thought
you said ‘summon the Board.’ ”

She
narrowed her green eyes to slits and looked deep into his so there could be no
miscommunication. “That is precisely what I ordered.”

Uri
backed away three paces. “I shall do as you command, as ever, but I remind you
that the Board will demand tribute if so summoned by a non-Director.”

“Yes,
and you will see to that personally.”

Uri
bowed so she could not see his face, but Sealiah nonetheless sensed his
apprehension.

“It
shall be as you say. And the children?”

“Find
them,” she said. “Shadow them. Report to me the moment you see or hear
anything.”

Uri
was as loyal as any of their kind could ever be. As tribute to the Board, he
would be her eyes and ears to its inner workings . . . losing him, however,
would be like cutting off a limb.

She
had to send him, though. Whom else could she count on to double-deal and
backstab on her behalf?

Meanwhile
she had to prepare for the gathering of the Board. There were weapons to
sharpen and armor to mend.

She
looked back at the smiling children on the computer screen.

Indeed,
one did not face one’s brothers and sisters without taking careful precautions
against carnage and bloodshed.

SECTION
II

FAMILY

10

A
DOG IN THE ALLEY

The
paramedics closed the back of the ambulance and pulled out of the alley behind
Ringo’s. Eliot and Fiona stood to one side, staying out of the way. They
watched it roll around the corner and then were alone.

Eliot
felt sick. He swallowed, but it did little to help.

There’d
been a crowd of customers at first, but they’d left after they had seen Mike
writhing on the gurney, saw his gauze-swathed arm . . . and got a good whiff of
deep-fried flesh.

That
smell was stuck on Eliot, too. That’s what was making him sick. Oil permeated
his shirt and pants—all of it laden with the burned-skin and french-fry scent.

Johnny
pushed through the back door, balancing a load of abandoned pepperoni pizzas
and fettuccini Alfredos. He tossed them into the Dumpster and slammed shut the
lid with a bang.

He
turned to Eliot and Fiona and said, “I called the owner. He’s going to the
hospital and then coming here to check the kitchen . . . see exactly how this
happened.” Johnny took off his gloves. Emotions quavered over the large man’s
face and he looked exhausted. “You didn’t see what Mike slipped on, did you?”

Did
Johnny think they had anything to do with the accident? Eliot had wanted
something bad to happen to Mike. But wanting something to come true was a lot
different from making it happen.

Besides,
Mike had gotten exactly what he had coming to him. Eliot’s mouth went dry and
he felt ashamed, but that didn’t change that he also considered this poetic
justice.

Fiona
moved to Johnny and set a hand on his shoulder. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

Eliot
then understood Johnny’s question. Johnny thought he was to blame, that Mike
had slipped on a grease spot on the floor because he hadn’t mopped it up.

“There’s
no way anyone can blame you,” Eliot chimed in. “You keep everything in the
kitchen, well, clean enough to eat off of.”

Johnny
nodded, but the large man looked on the verge of crying.

If
this was anyone’s fault, it was Mike’s, hustling Johnny out of the kitchen
before he could clean up the very grease Mike had slipped on.

Johnny
shuddered out a huge sigh. He focused on Fiona and then Eliot. “You two go
home. I’ve closed the place for today.” He wandered back to the kitchen door,
paused as if he wanted to say more, but instead just slammed the door shut
behind him.

“Poor
Johnny,” Fiona said.

“You
don’t think anyone’s going to get into trouble?”

Fiona
turned to Eliot and slowly shook her head. Was she thinking it, too? That they
were to blame? Eliot couldn’t stop remembering the pictures he’d seen in the
soap suds before this all happened—a smile, a flock of crows, a hand that
writhed in pain and then melted.

“We
better get home,” Fiona said. “Grandmother’s going to wonder why we’re late.”

Something
behind the Dumpster moved: with a rustling of clothes, a man stepped from the
shadows. It was the bum with the violin; although to Eliot’s disappointment, he
didn’t have his instrument. The old man opened the Dumpster, rummaged around,
and retrieved a slice of pizza.

Eliot
had never seen him standing before. He was taller than he thought he’d be.
Despite the rag of a trench coat he wore, he stood straight, even looked regal
somehow as he brushed aside the tangles of yellowed-white hair that fell upon
an acne-scarred face and the cold pizza he munched.

Fiona
snorted with disgust and started back to Ringo’s, but Eliot stayed. He wanted
to talk about music. Maybe even hear more.

“You
know,” the old man said, and paused to swallow, “you two were very brave.”

Fiona
halted, turned, and crossed her arms over her chest. “That pizza you’re
eating—that’s stealing.”

“I’m
sure the landfill will miss it.” The man ripped off a hunk and admired the
sardines and crust. “Ah, bread and fishes; there is no finer meal.” He chewed
and mumbled around the food, “Did you know pizza comes from Naples? Originated
in the 1800s?”

“That’s
not right,” Fiona said, slipping smoothly into her lecture voice. “Cato the
Elder in his Histories of Rome wrote about flat bread baked with olive oil,
herbs, and honey.” One of her brows arched. “That was the third century BC.”

“Or
seventy-nine AD,” Eliot added, not wanting his sister to show off without him.
“There were shops in Pompeii that were supposed to be pizzerias.”

A
flicker of annoyance crossed the old man’s face, then his blue eyes sparkled
with amusement. “Marvelous. You are both so smart.”

He
took another bite. “Do you suppose while Pompeii was being covered with
scalding ash”—he threw one arm over his head—“her citizens engaged in one last
orgy of pizza consumption?” He dramatically flared his fingers upward.
“Before—poof! I have seen the body casts. No one was eating.”