Irregulars - lanyon Josh - Страница 51
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The boy tripped over a pile of garbage bags and darted to the right, slowing his pace. Deven gained on him. As they passed under a street light the image of the boy rippled, and for a moment, he looked like an Aztaw—glowing spine and skull visible under a thin layer of translucent skin, teeth gnashing—but as they passed back into darkness he once again appeared as a panicked, out-of-breath Mexican child.
The boy burst into a crowded intersection and Deven had to dodge to avoid being hit by a taxi. Car horns blared all around him. He bolted across the street and was clipped by the side mirror of another car. Pain burst across his hip and he spun to the pavement, a moment of agony searing through everything.
“God damn it!”he heard August roar. August leaned over him, offering a hand. “Are you all right?”
“Hurry!” Deven cried, using August’s hand to pull himself up. The first few limps jarred his hip, but he regained his pace, blocking out the pain.
He’d lost valuable time but managed to catch sight of his target darting into a night club. Deven pushed through a crowd of revelers awaiting entrance. He charged into the club.
And instantly froze.
He covered his ears, choking on a cry of fear. The noise was unbearable. A thumping beat reverberated through the two-story dance hall so loudly he could feel it in his chest like a second, frantic heartbeat. The room writhed with wall-to-wall people, arms in the air as they danced, their faces bright and then disappearing in the constant churning glitter of a disco ball, lasers shooting green and red beams of light over the crowd.
Deven stood stock-still, unable to process what this was or understand what to do. Seeing a crowded club like this on television could not have prepared him for the chaos of being inside one. If he couldn’t think with such an unrelenting noise beating in his ears, how on earth was he supposed to see?
“Up there, on the balcony,” a voice said in his ear. Agent August grabbed Deven’s arm, just for a second. “By the DJ.”
“Where?” Deven had to shout to be heard. He blinked and tried to focus, but everything was chaos, shooting lights and flashes of skin and sparkling clothing.
“This way.” August pulled him to the right. Deven blindly followed, his heart racing. His throat had gone dry in the terror of the moment, but now he forced himself to calm down. The room swarmed with people.
A black metal catwalk formed a square above the dance floor and this was where a man sat behind two massive thumping speakers. Dozens more people crowded the metal walkways and stared down at the revelers. Deven followed August up a black flight of stairs, pushing past women in short skirts and men who reeked of cologne. Deven’s arm brushed loose someone’s drink and the person shouted at him in Spanish, but he didn’t stop. At the top walkway it wasn’t any easier to see, but August’s body tensed and he threw himself forward. Deven kept up.
At last Deven spotted the boy. August pushed Deven to the left and he went to the right. Deven forced his way through a crush of sweaty bodies.
The boy saw them flanking him on either side and must have realized he was trapped. He grabbed the banister of the walkway and swung himself over, making as if to jump twenty feet down into the crowd below.
Deven would never be able to find such a small kid in that seething mass. He threw his knife before he had a chance to reconsider. The knife embedded itself deep into the boy’s throat. If he gagged, the sound was lost to the pump of the music. The boy fell backward off the balcony and landed on the dance floor below with a muffled thump.
Chapter Five
Deven thought the night club had been packed before, when it had been full of young dancing couples. But now the place swarmed with Federales, embassy staff, and NIAD agents. With all the lights on, the flashing, colored lasers were less of a distraction and he could see just what level of chaos he’d created by killing the delivery boy.
Outside the club, dozens of kicked-out revelers complained, along with the club owners. He saw them through the entrance window but couldn’t hear them since no one had figured out how to silence the stereo system and blaring techno rhythms continued to blast through the club.
“What the hell did you think you were doing!”
Agent August was furious. He glared at Deven over the dead body.
Deven realized he was still in a state of shock. He felt lost in time and space.
A growing sickness filled the pit of his stomach. He should have never agreed to do this job. What the fuck did he think he was doing, pretending to be a normal person?
In the chaos of the crime scene, Deven waited until few were looking their way and bent down to reclaim his knife.
August looked ready to strangle Deven. “What were you thinking, you idiot? You aren’t a fucking assassin anymore. You can’t just kill people here.”
“I know.” Deven swallowed. “It was instinct. I didn’t think.”
“And because you didn’t think, a fucking child who might have had information for us is dead!” He paused suddenly, glancing over the body. His eyebrows came together and he knelt by the corpse’s head.
“I’m sorry.” Deven meant it. He believed in doing what he was told and now he’d failed. He’d been employed by the Irregulars for less than twenty-four hours and he’d already broken a cardinal rule.
He didn’t know how punishments were carried out in NIAD. In Aztaw the penalty for failure was swift and brutal. But he deserved it in this instance, so he steadied his resolve.
“I apologize.” Deven swallowed. “However I can amend—”
“Shut up.” August fumbled for something in his inner jacket pocket. “No blood.”
“What?”
“No blood on the body. You stabbed him in the neck and he’s not bleeding.” August pulled out his utility knife and split it open, turning the ends and reattaching them in a configuration that made the device resemble a flashlight. August turned several rings around a small bulb at the base of the knife, and as he adjusted the rings, the light shifted until it was very bright white.
He shone the flashlight over the dead boy, making slow sweeps from head to toe.
“Under a street lamp, I thought he looked Aztaw for a moment,” Deven told him. “But I don’t know how that would even be possible.”
“Masking spell,” August answered. “It conceals the true form of those from other realms by transforming their outward appearance. It’s a way to make them look human. We often use them in the division.” He kept fiddling with the flashlight settings. As he moved the light back over the corpse’s face, instead of skin and hair, Deven saw the faint glimpse of an Aztaw skull.
Deven tensed. August made small adjustments to the rings around the light. Now the part of the body under the beam of light was clearly Aztaw.
August seemed to sigh out in relief, and he glanced up at Deven with a small smile. “Lucky for you, kiddo. Aztaws don’t investigate deaths of their own here.”
“Stop calling me kiddo. I’m only a few years younger than you.”
August’s eyebrow quirked up, but he didn’t respond. Instead he shone the light back in the corpse’s eyes. “Aztaw indeed.”
“What does that light do?”
“Every type of being has a unique visual spectrum, and this light cuts through transformations and masking spells. I’ve never seen an Aztaw before, but now with this calibration I’ll be able to detect one anytime.” August cocked his head and turned the light on Deven, fiddling with the rings until the light burned bright as he shone it on Deven’s face.
Deven covered his eyes with his hands, wincing. “Asshole.”
“Yep, human.” August’s mouth quirked up. “Barely.”
The music kept thumping, a quick-paced drumbeat that rattled Deven’s teeth. His hip hurt badly.
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