Beneath the Skin

11 A NIGHTMARE BEYOND IMAGINING

OUTSIDE DAMASCUS, OR

THE WELLS/LYONS COMPOUND

March 25

EMMETT STEPPED PAST THE headless body on the dirt-streaked bed, his gaze drawn to the photos thumb-tacked to the walls. The same photo over and over. Dozens, maybe a hundred. Pictures of Dante Prejean in night-vision green/gray. Emmett studied the image, the vampire’s rapt face, his closed eyes, the rays of pale light whipping around him. From him.

Emmett’s skin prickled. What the hell was that?

What the hell. His new catchphrase, used ad nauseam throughout the day. A catchphrase he heard repeated every few minutes by the jumpsuited techs prowling the compound grounds.

Emmett caught another rank whiff of decaying flesh, of mud and clotted blood, and his stomach rolled. Pulling out a stick of Vicks VapoRub from his pocket, he smeared more underneath his nose. The sharp scent of menthol burned through the stench—for now. No matter how many bodies he’d dealt with throughout his years in the SB, the smell always got to him. Sometimes it lingered in his nostrils for days, effectively murdering his appetite until the stench no longer haunted him.

“Where’s the head?”

Emmett turned around to face Gillespie. The chief stood beside the bed, his gaze on the headless body dolled up in a blue, dirt-streaked nightie. A small black beetle scuttled from beneath the nightgown’s neck.

“Damned good question,” Emmett replied.

Gillespie’s jaw moved as he chewed a wad of gum. He studied the dirt clods leading to the mud-streaked bed and the headless body that rested on it. “Looks like she was in the ground first. Someone dug her up.”

Emmett took in the body’s withered arms, the wasted flesh, the bony fingers half-curled into claws. “Doesn’t look like any of our perps.”

“I heard that Lyons’s mother had cancer,” Gillespie said.

Emmett nodded. “Could be her body, yeah. But I get a feeling it wasn’t the cancer that killed her.”

Gillespie sighed, scrubbing a hand back and forth over his scalp. “I get the same feeling.” His hand dropped to his side, balled into a fist.

The chief looked tired, his eyes bloodshot behind his glasses. He chewed his gum with grim determination. Emmett wondered how much booze Gillespie had downed before being ordered to Damascus. Not enough, judging by the chief’s weary expression.

“Looks like a high tide of madness rolled in over this place,” Gillespie said.

“More like a goddamned tsunami of crazy, Chief. A tsunami of monumental proportion.”

Gillespie’s gaze skipped past Emmett to the Dante Prejean pinup-fest on the wall behind him. He nodded. “Yeah, you can say that again.” He waited a beat before adding, “Where’s your partner?”

“Outside,” Emmett said with a nod toward the door. He knew Merri was watching the crew load up the stone-trapped Fallen for transport—to Alexandria, most likely. The Virginia facility was the SB’s largest and best, equipped with state-of-the-art labs and detention facilities.

Gillespie’s attention shifted back to Emmett, his gaze sharp. Might be tired, might even be a bit soused, but looks like his mind’s working fine. “Do either of you have any theories about what happened here?”

“Nope. Wish I did.”

“Any thoughts about the statues?”

“The level of craftsmanship is amazing,” Emmett said. “But I haven’t a clue on where they came from or who played Stonehenge with them.”

“What does Goodnight think?”

Emmett trailed a hand through his hair and ordered his thoughts. Kept his voice thoughtful. “She thinks the statues are supposed to represent fallen angels. Something about the wings. But other than that …” He shrugged.

Merri’s words, spoken while standing in front of the white stone angel kneeling among the pines, sounded loud and clear in Emmett’s mind.

Let’s keep this just between us for right now. I’d like to talk to my mère de sang first, get her advice. This is huge, Em.

I know it’s huge, but why keep it a secret from HQ?

Uncertainty flickers in Merri’s eyes, her expression shadowed beneath the brim of her straw hat. She shakes her head, her words low, almost whispered: I don’t know. I just feel it in my gut.

And that’s all Emmett needs to know. He nods. Good enough.

Gillespie looked at Emmett for a long moment, his jaw working his gum fast and furious, then he said, “Walk with me. I’ve got an assignment for you and Goodnight.”

“Sure, Chief.”

Emmett followed Gillespie from the bedroom, through the cottage, and out into the gray morning drizzle. Gillespie paused on the front step, just underneath the roof overhang. Rain misted the air, fragrant with pine, and Emmett sucked in deep draughts, trying to clear the stench of death from his nostrils and the back of his throat.

A couple of techs walked the cave’s perimeter, tapping in data on their handhelds. A semi with a WE MOVE U! slogan painted on the trailer was parked ass end toward the angelic Stonehenge, its doors wide open, a ramp extended from its interior like a metallic tongue.

A forklift loaded one of the stone angels into the trailer. Two yellow-jumpsuited men wrestled it into place inside the trailer.

Merri stood beside the ramp, her back to the cottage, her weight slung on one hip. Rain dripped from the brim of her hat, darkening the shoulders of her suede coat. She looked even smaller beside the semitrailer and the circle of stone angels, like a child. Smoke curled up into the air from the cigarette held between her fingers.

As though sensing his presence, Merri swiveled around in a graceful little twist of motion, her gleaming gaze catching his. Emmett tilted his head—C’mere.

Merri nodded, took one last drag from her cigarette, then flicked it onto the wet grass. Breathing pale smoke into the air from between her lips, she strode across the ruined lawn to the cottage.

“Chief,” she murmured as she joined them. “What’s up?”

“The two of you will be escorting Sheridan to Alexandria for debriefing,” Gillespie said. “A plane’s waiting at Portland International. The sooner you get going, the better. Things are starting to heat up around here. Reporters. Nosy neighbors.”

Emmett studied the camouflage netting strung over the entire site. “What about Sheridan’s injury?”

“A medic will be flying with you,” Gillespie said.

“The statues going to Alexandria too?” Merri asked.

Gillespie nodded. “Why the interest?”

“Plain ol’ curiosity, Chief,” Merri offered with a half shrug. “Never seen anything like them before.”

Gillespie grunted, crossing his arms over his chest, Gore-Tex jacket rustling.

From the cave mouth a now-familiar song swirled into the air: Holy, holy, holy. A chill breathed against Emmett’s neck. The techs circling the cave’s mouth stopped, their bodies still and straight as they listened.

“What the hell is that, anyway?” Gillespie asked, voice tight.

Merri hugged herself as if cold. “Whatever it is, my advice is to leave it alone.”

Gillespie looked at her. “Leaving it alone isn’t one of my options, unfortunately. So if you know anything I don’t, I want to hear it.”

Merri’s arms dropped to her sides. Leather creaked as her gloved hands curled into fists, then relaxed. “I saw something move down there,” she said quietly. Her gaze slipped over to the cave’s ragged rim. “It … humped along like a slug or something. But large, y’know?” She looked at Gillespie. “It was just a glimpse.”

“Duly noted,” Gillespie said. He didn’t look any happier now that he had additional info. He nodded toward the driveway. “Get going before more civilians stumble across the scene and Sheridan.”

“We’re on our way.” Emmett glanced at Merri. “Ready, partner?”

“To get out of the rain and into a comfy jet with a wounded and whacked-out fed?” she murmured. “Bring it on, baby.”

“Roger that,” Emmett said, bumping his bare knuckles against Merri’s gloved fist. A weary, buzzed-on-goddamned-stay-awake-pills smile brushed her lips.

He stepped out into the rain, Merri beside him, somehow managing—as always—to keep up with his long-legged stride. Cold rain trickled down the back of his neck as his windbreaker decided to prove it wasn’t waterproof.

“Hey, let me have one of those clove cigarettes of yours,” he said.

Merri snorted. “Man, it’s gonna take more than that if you’re hoping to go all hip and cool,” she drawled. But understanding softened her expression and she handed him a slim, brown cigarette.

After it was lit, Emmett drew in a deep breath of spiced smoke. But beneath the smoky taste of cloves, tobacco, and caramel, he still smelled the greasy stink of death.

Even though he was glad to be getting out of the wet and the weird, his internal alarm system was still on a hair trigger, just a mispunched number away from an earsplitting siren wail.

Gut feeling: They weren’t escaping. Not in time, anyway.

The weird’s coming with us, and a nightmare beyond imagining is riding hard on its twisted heels.

GILLESPIE WATCHED THIBODAUX AND Goodnight walk down the driveway until they disappeared from view. He pulled his nearly empty jar of Vicks from his jacket pocket and smeared a dab beneath his nose. The pungent scents of camphor and menthol iced his nostrils. But his mind wasn’t fooled.

Whenever he caught a whiff of Vicks, his thoughts automatically flipped to images of bloated bodies, mummified bodies, bodies in every stage of decay. He’d never allowed Lynda to use Vicks at home; if the kids were sick, she could use anything else as long as it didn’t contain menthol.

Dropping the jar back into his pocket, Gillespie turned around and strode into the cottage. Clumps of dried and flaking mud led across the living room carpet and down the hall like a trail of bread crumbs in some dark fairy-tale forest.

Gillespie’s gaze settled on the coffee table in front of the green vine-patterned sofa. A tray holding a bottle of alcohol, cotton balls, and sealed syringes cluttered its surface along with a spiral-bound notebook, two Bic pens, an empty glass, and a CD or DVD glinting beneath the overhead light like a sunstruck rock in a river.

Stepping to the table, Gillespie bent and picked up the disk. A red stripe banded its outer and inner edges; black letters edged the red stripes. His heart kicked hard against his chest as he read the disk.

MED UNIT I SECURITY CAM BUSH CTR

Gillespie’s thoughts flickered back to a conversation a few weeks ago with Prues, an East Coast section chief:

Word on the grapevine is that Bureau ADIC Johanna Moore vanished from the center along with security-cam footage. Word is the powers that be are pissed as hell. They want both back and I wouldn’t want to be Moore when they find her.

Gillespie unzipped his jacket to mid-chest, then slid the disk into an inner pocket close to his hammering heart.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind being the one to stumble across her, know what I mean?

Gillespie rezipped his jacket. He’d known exactly what Prues had meant—finding Moore or the disk would be career gold, a way to heave Underwood off his back, a way to ease fingers between his throat and the stranglehold of the past so he could finally breathe without guilt.

Still blaming yourself? After all these years?

And maybe it wouldn’t make a difference; nothing would change and Lynda wouldn’t come back. But he’d be a fool—well, okay, a bigger fool—if he didn’t try.

Someone walked into the cottage, jumpsuit crinkling with each step. “Chief, what’s the scenario?”

Gillespie swiveled around, pulse racing.

FA Kaplan, wheat-blonde hair pulled away from her face into a ponytail, waited. Rain beaded her jumpsuit. Nothing in her expression or her gray eyes suggested she’d stood at the open door watching as he’d pilfered the disk; nothing suggested she’d just scooped up a lovely pile of dirt against her SC to store for a rainy day.

Relief cascaded through Gillespie.

“We’re staging this as a natural disaster,” he said. “Sinkhole, noxious and lethal underground fumes, tragic loss of life, including an FBI agent and his family.”

Kaplan nodded. “How long will the fumes scenario be played?”

“Let’s plan on a few days. Detained any looky-loos?”

Kaplan nodded again. “A curious civilian from up the highway, a local reporter checking up on calls about lights in the sky just before dawn.”

“Lights in the sky?” Gillespie asked. “Like UFOs?”

“More like the aurora borealis,” Kaplan said.

“Okay, that works—we can use it. We’ll say that the lights were a result of noxious fumes as the sinkhole opened up—the initial release. Maybe an interaction with the rain or something. Have the science brains whip something up.”

“Will do, Chief.” Kaplan’s gaze skipped past him and around the room. “Clean up everything in here?”

Gillespie pulled another stick of Juicy Fruit from his pocket, the foil crinkling as he unwrapped it. “Everything that contradicts the scenario.”

As if to underscore his words, two techs rustled down the hall, carrying the headless body between them in a black body bag marked with a bright red biohazard symbol.

Kaplan’s face tightened and her gaze shifted to the techs and the body bag they carried through the room and outside, a fetid odor trailing in their wake.

“Like that,” Gillespie said dryly, then stuffed the stick of gum in his mouth to join the old wad. He shoved the balled-up piece of foil into his pocket. “Everyone you detain here will have to go through a medical exam—tell them it’s necessary to make sure they haven’t been exposed, work hard on the fear factor.”

“Got it. Make them feel like they’re lucky we detained them. Do we also hold them for observation?”

“Yeah, twenty-four hours sounds good. Keep them on edge by checking their vitals every hour. Oh, and put them in scrubs. Contaminated clothing, our apologies, it’s for your own good, yada yada, the usual.”

“When do we break the news to the media?” Kaplan asked.

“As soon as the truck is loaded and out of here,” Gillespie said. “Keep the perimeter guard strong. If anyone actually sneaks onto the scene, they’ll have to become another casualty of this tragic, but natural, disaster.”

Kaplan blinked, sucked in a breath. “A … casualty, Chief?”

“Absolutely. To keep others from sneaking onto the site,” Gillespie said. “It’s one thing for a person to risk possibility of arrest for sneaking into a quarantined site, another thing altogether to risk the possibility of death.”

Chewing her lower lip, Kaplan looked away.

Gillespie waited for her to reconcile her duty with her conscience. He wished the process was as easy as syncing an iPod with iTunes. Wished it wasn’t necessary. “Keep the perimeter strong and it won’t even be an issue,” he said quietly.

Kaplan’s attention returned to him and her gray-eyed gaze was steady. Grim, but steady. “Understood, sir.” Turning around, she walked out of the cottage.

Gillespie smoothed a hand over his head, his buzz-cut hair soft beneath his palm. What if the techs and science brains couldn’t figure out what had happened at the compound in between one satellite scan and the next?

House. No house.

And the reported lights in the sky? Was that even connected?

What if they never found Prejean, Wallace, or Lyons? What if they just faded away into law-enforcement myth like D. B. Cooper and all his money, and the mystery of the cave and the statues was never solved?

He could live with Wallace and Lyons wriggling away from justice. He wouldn’t like it, but he could live with it. But Prejean? That was another matter.

The memory of Rodriguez dead on the floor of his blood-spattered office while the coffee cooled in his GROUCH mug prickled, a burr stuck in what remained of Gillespie’s conscience.

This mystery would be solved, his perps—mortal and vampire—found, and the dead avenged. But to do that, he needed more information about his perps than he’d been given. What was Underwood hiding?

He patted his jacket, imagining the disk tucked inside. Just might be the pry bar he needed to leverage enough truth from the Special Ops director to do his job.

Wishing for a frosty-cold Pacifico, a lime slice wedged into the neck of the bottle, Gillespie strolled out of the cottage and into the chilly March rain.