Hunters in the Night (11 page)

“I
didn’t mention that? Damn. I was sure I did.”

Dominique
gave me an evil stare that could have turned a pint of apple juice into piss.

“Look,”
I said, “obviously this could have gone better. But this was the first time
anybody has ever tried anything like this.
Ever.
Yeah it was dirty, but I got the job done, and I’d appreciate it if
you’d get off my back about it.”

“You
have an attitude problem,” Dominique said.

“Getting
bitched at tends to bring out that side of me.”

“That’s
all you have to say for yourself?”

“Yup.
So am I fired, or what?”

“The
thought did cross my mind,” Dominique said. “But I’m feeling generous today. We
will proceed. But you have new constraints on your activities. I’m requiring
you to be more careful in your spell selection. No explosions.”

“No
explosions within a hundred yards of a residence,” I said.

“Deal,”
Dominique said. “Now let’s talk about what you actually did accomplish. This
young lady you captured . . . do you think she’ll be a useful asset?”

“For
now,” I said. “I figure she’ll be good practice as far as keeping nightcrafters
captive. She’s an amateur like me, so she won’t be an impossible challenge. But
she should put up a good fight, and that will give your guys some useful
experience. That kind of information will come in handy when we start bringing
in the heavy hitters.”

“I
only want Kellar,” Dominique said.

“I
understand that. But we have to take baby steps. Go too far too soon, and we
could end up unprepared with a master nightcrafter on our hands. Those guys are
more trouble than a sack of angry badgers.”

Dominique
leaned back in her chair and contemplated my words. “We’ll learn as much as we
can from her. Obviously, we’ll need more input from you on methods to keep her
where we want her. We have her sedated now, but she’s of little use to us in
that state. I want to be sure we can contain her once she’s awake.”

“I
have some ideas on that,” I said. “I’ve already sent them to Newton. He’s
working on it. You know how he is. He’ll probably have something amazing built
in less than a day.”

“Good,”
Dominique said.

“How’s
Brody?” I asked.

“Alive,”
Dominique answered. “Once your binding spell wore off, he was conscious long
enough to tell the doctors what you did. They figured out the rest on their
own, and finished the process. His lungs are fine.”

“Glad
to hear it,” I said.

“Have
you done something like that before?”

“Never.
That was one hundred percent improvisation. I hope the doctors were able to do
a better job at it than I did.”

“You
cut a man open without the slightest idea of what you were doing?”

I
shrugged. “It was either that, or watch him die.”

“I
see,” Dominique said.

“Well,”
I said, “I’m glad that all worked out. But I need to recover. I’m gonna take a
sick day . . . or two . . . or three.”

“You’ll
take
one
,” Dominique said. “No more. By the way, we’ve identified your
captive. Her name is Madison Finnestra. Ring a bell?”

“Nope.”

“She
was a graduate student studying physics at Columbia up until about six months
ago. Her instructors said she gradually missed more and more classes, until
eventually she stopped showing up at all.”

I
shrugged and said, “That’s a pretty standard story for new recruits.”

“She
has a family,” Dominique said. “They’d be happy to have her back.”

“She
will be back. When she’s done with her training.”

“Her
training
is
over, as far as
we’re concerned.”

I
shook my head and said, “We can try to keep her here, but I make no guarantees
she won’t be able to get out. I’ll do what I can, but . . .”

“But
what?”

“Honestly,
she may be out my league.”

“You
captured her.”

“Yeah,
but that’s not all there is to it. You ever caught a rattlesnake?”

Dominique
looked at me, confused. “What?”

“A
rattlesnake,” I said. “Have you ever caught one?”

“What
the hell? Of course not.”

“I
have,” I said. “Before he died, my uncle on my mom’s side had a ranch in
California. He used to catch rattlesnakes there. He took me along a couple
times when I was kid. The thing about catching rattlers is that it’s
surprisingly easy once you get over the fear of them. You don’t even have to be
in the vicinity of the snake to catch it. Just go where you know he lives, set
up some traps, and wait. But keeping that snake caught is an entirely different
story. Each minute you keep that thing captive is another chance for you to
slip up, make a mistake, and have the damn snake end your ass.”

Dominique
pursed her lips and stared at nothing in particular. “I’ll think about that.”

“You
do that. Well, I’m out. I gotta get some sleep before my head explodes.” I got
up and made my way to the door.

“Before
you leave,” Dominique said. “Did the girl see your face?”

“Yes,”
I said without looking back. “Why?”

“Just
curious,” she said. I left her office, went home, and passed out.

Madison
tried to escape that night. I got the alert via an email written in cryptic
code phrases. I’m not sure what spell she used, but whatever it was left a
basketball-sized hole in a wall of her cell. That was about as far as she got
before Dominique turned the pain ray on her.

The
pain ray is a clever piece of work developed by the Army a few years ago. It
emits a low-frequency microwave blast that basically sets your skin on fire —
or at least that’s what it
feels
like.
In actuality, the weapon operates at a specific frequency that only affects the
surface of the skin and doesn’t do any serious long-term damage. I don’t have
first-hand experience with its effects, but I hear it gives you an overwhelming
desire to run the hell away from wherever the thing is pointed. Madison didn’t
see it coming the first time, and that’s what slowed her down long enough for
Dominique’s people to get her re-contained, but we all knew that trick wouldn’t
work again. Still, they managed to keep a nightcrafter imprisoned for a whole
day. That’s a pretty big accomplishment.

I
spent my off day sleeping, eating, and generally recovering from my “hangover”.
It takes a while for my body to get back to normal after that much time in the
Rift, but by the next morning I was feeling about halfway recovered.

Then
Dominique called me.

I
saw her name on the caller ID, and for a long moment I seriously considered not
answering. Then I remembered that she had goons who would show up at my
apartment in five minutes if she really needed me. To her credit, she at least
left me alone for almost twenty-four hours.

So
I answered the damn call.

“What?”
I grumbled into the phone’s speaker.

“We
need help with Madison,” Dominique said.

“What
kind of help?” I asked.

“She’s
getting more resourceful. We almost lost power in the entire detention facility
today.”

I
sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know how she’s doing it. I’d be pretty helpless if I
was in that kind of environment.”

“It
would seem we all need to step up our game. I’ll see you here in an hour.”

“Fine.”

I
showered and got dressed. I was just about to head out when I stopped for a
moment and considered where things were going. I turned out the lights and shut
the blinds, blotting out the morning sun. For the first time since capturing Madison,
I reached out into the growing darkness and felt the Rift there, strong as
ever. In fact, it was even easier to slip into that vast lake of power than
before. Things were different. Something had changed, and change in the Rift is
rarely a good thing.

I
had my suspicions about the cause of the change, but I had to deal with
Dominique and Madison first. Everything else would have to wait.

* * *

Madison
sat in a room overflowing with brilliant white light that beamed from lamps in
the floor and walls. The lamps themselves were placed behind thick panes of
bulletproof glass. Madison wore only a skin-tight white leotard made out of a
flimsy translucent material that let plenty of light flow through the fabric.
It was enough to allow her some modesty, but not much else.

There
was no furniture in the room besides a clear plastic table with matching
transparent chairs, and an inflatable transparent bed in a corner. Every part
of this room’s planning had started with ideas in an email I sent out yesterday,
and Newton had made sure that no detail was overlooked.

I
had originally lobbied for Madison to be moved to a location completely outside
the Rift zone, somewhere where there was no magic. But Dominique vetoed the
idea. She said we needed to learn more about the true capabilities of
nightcrafters and how to detain them regardless of where they were. She was
willing to risk the possibility that Madison might attempt to escape as long as
we got valuable information on her abilities in the process. It was very much
like keeping a live rattlesnake in a cage. The scientists who keep snakes do it
to get venom to make precious anti-venom that will save lives. I knew our goals
were just as noble, but the danger was just as great too.

Dominique
and I were currently behind the two-way mirror that served as one of the walls
of Madison’s cell. She stared at the mirror like she knew we were there, and I
felt like her bloodshot eyes were fixated on me.

“How
does she go to the bathroom?” I asked.

“There’s
a specialized room on the other side of the cell door,” Dominique said. “It has
similar security measures as this room, but allows her a modicum of privacy for
a brief time.”

“That’s
surprisingly decent of you,” I said.

“This
isn’t Abu Ghraib,” Dominique said with a sneer.

“Good
to know,” I said. “I still have questions about the legality of it all.”

“Unwarranted,”
Dominique said. “Madison was caught in the midst of an act that endangered
innocent people. Her detention is quite legal. We had the local police in Long
Branch file formal charges . . . without mentioning our involvement, of
course.”

“Those
records are public,” I said. “That will certainly get the attention of the
nightcrafters.”

“Yes,”
Dominique said. “I am counting on it. Hopefully her caretakers will reveal
their presence.”

“Careful what you wish for,” I said. “So what
do you want me to do?”

“Talk
to her.”

I
laughed. “What good will that do?”

“You’ve
been through the NATO course on interrogation,” Dominique said.

“You
mean that two week basic training thing?” I laughed again. “I don’t think that
really prepared me for this. I couldn’t get a confession out of a girl scout.”

Dominique
shrugged. The gesture momentarily made her seem less like a government robot.
“Give it a shot,” she said. “Every minute we keep her talking is a minute she’s
not figuring out another way to escape. Maybe you’ll even manage to get some
useful information out of her.”

“Fine,”
I said. “How do I get in there?”

“Go
outside and make two right turns,” Dominique said. “We’ll open the door for
you.”

I did as she said and found myself staring at
two armed guards in front of a massive steel door. It looked like it had been
acquired from an old bank vault. One of the guards fiddled with it and it swung
open, revealing the brightly lit chamber beyond. Madison was waiting. I could
tell she recognized me from our little encounter. She threw me a vile look that
reminded me of the glare my mother had once given me when I had called her a
bitch during a hormone-induced teenage rage.

I
hoped this encounter would end up better than that one did.

I
went into the room, took a couple steps forward, and immediately bumped my nose
on something I didn’t even know was there. I put a hand up and felt a
completely transparent Plexiglas wall in front of me. When the massive vault
door closed behind me, the wall automatically slid into the floor.

“Hello,
Madison,” I said.

“Eat
a dick,” she said.

I
allowed myself a tiny smirk. “Well . . . that’s not a very nice way to talk to
someone who’s trying to help you.”

“Help
me?” Madison said. “You’re the asshole who put me in here in the first place.
Who the hell are you anyway?”

“Me?”
I said. “I’m nobody special.”

“Then
why are you here?”

“Just
to talk.”

“Is
that why you kidnapped me?” she asked. “To talk? Is your social life that
messed up?”

“We
didn’t kidnap you,” I said. “You’re just here temporarily.”

“Why?”

“You’re
a nightcrafter,” I said.

“So
are you, apparently. So what?”

“You
were out doing some dangerous things. You put lives at risk.”

“You
mean yours? That was self-defense. ”

I
shook my head and sat down in one of the clear plastic chairs. “Did your
teacher ever tell you about the long term effects of the Rift?”

“The
hangover?”

“I’m
not talking about the effects on yourself,” I said. “The effects on everything
else. The power we use has a cost, and we ask others to pay it.”

Madison
just stared at me.

“The
Rift-kind,” I said. “They’re getting loose, and causing trouble. People like
you have changed their environment.”

Madison
smiled and leaned back in her chair. “So you’re some kind of weird
conservationist protecting the Rift?”

“You
might say that,” I said.

“Who
the hell are you? I mean, really. I’ve heard about some rogues in our ranks,
but this?” She moved her arms in a sweeping gesture towards the intense lights.
“This is insanity. This is
criminal.
”