Chapter Thirty-Six – Carter

 

Zoey stayed in the car as I jumped out of the truck and opened the fence. I stared down the grill of the big Draco Construction work truck we’d taken from the office for a moment before turning around and beginning to work at the lock with my automatic lockpick. The snow piled up on the ground, covering the world in a blanket of white. Making it look almost pure, instead of just rust and concrete.

Out in the distance, the factory loomed over the giant, empty parking lot, a Goliath that had fallen to the earth and taken an entire local economy with it. A pile of rubble near the entrance was already beginning to have heavy accumulation, making it look like the beginning of the neighborhood’s biggest snowman.

As I turned my back to the truck, it wasn’t lost on me for a second that she could just hop over into the driver’s seat and floor it. Could run me down before I even knew what was happening. I’d never been hit by a car before, so I wasn’t exactly sure if something like that would kill me. Massive trauma could bring me down, of course, but it would have to be pretty significant. More so, even, than falling out of a third story window.

Finally, I got the lock popped, and I unchained the gate. I walked back first one side, then the other, my eyes on her the whole time as the chain link fence dug long furrows through the fresh snow, a perfect quarter of a circle on each side.

I’d frisked her before we got in the pickup, and searched the vehicle before we took off from the work site. But, still, I didn’t trust her. Not entirely. All I could tell was that she wanted Winters dead. Or out of the picture.

What she’d told me about wanting a pass? I bought that, too.

But something just didn’t feel right, still.

All I knew, though, was that Lucy was here. Somewhere. Even over the cold snow, which dampened the smell, I could detect her scent. Raspberry and vanilla. It hung in the air, as clear as day to my frosted nose. And the trail led straight to the massive, tumbledown factory, which stretched out nearly a football field’s distance away.

I tramped back through the snow to the pickup, and climbed back up in the driver’s seat.

“Ready?” I growled as I put the truck in drive and began to trundle through the gate.

“Yeah. You?”

“As I’ll ever be.” I glanced over. “What are you doing? Who are you texting?”

She had her phone out in her hand, and she was rapidly typing out a message to someone. “Relax,” she said. “Just Lazarus. Letting him know to meet us just inside. Unless you want us to have to go find him inside before we go take care of Winters?”

I shook my head. “No. You’re good.”

I pulled the pickup around the big snowman-in-training, and found the other work truck. Snow piled high on the trunk and the roof, and there weren’t any tracks leading to it on the unmarred stretch of white.

“This them, I guess?”

“Who else?” Zoey asked. “Doubt it’s anyone pulling overtime. Whoever put Winters up to this job fired everyone at the company to make room for us.”

“Shit,” I said, shaking my head as I peered out the window at the concrete structure, with its giant faded sign sitting right over the front entrance like a Cyclops eye. “Just before Christmas, too?”

“Cheer up, Carter. I’m sure they got a nice severance package.”

“You think?”

“I was really just trying to make you feel better.”

I growled as we climbed down out of the truck.

Silence reigned like a hidden king over the abandoned factory’s parking lot as I leaned over the side of the pickup bed to grab my duffel bag from where I’d tossed it when we left Draco Construction. I unzipped the plain black bag, pushed aside the half-filled canister of salt, and grabbed my sawed off shotgun again. It had worked well enough on Zoey, so why not?

“Well?” Zoey asked, her voice nearly a whisper, as if she didn’t want to disturb the world any more than it wanted to be disturbed.

“Let’s go,” I replied, my voice just as quiet in the muffled silence of the fallen powder. Shotgun in hand, I joined her on her side of the pickup, and we headed for the front entrance, side by side.

“You and the fire inspector been together long?” she asked as we slogged through the flurry of snow, flakes swirling around us like a winter wonderland, rather than a post-apocalyptic hellscape straight out of Mad Max or The Road.

I cleared my throat. “Just met last night. When your partner took a shot at me in the gas station.”

“Former partner,” she corrected.

“Whatever.”

Ahead of us, I heard footsteps inside the building, just on the other side of the door. Men’s footsteps. And a woman’s? Lighter, more delicate. But, still, from a taller woman. We kept going, but I pulled up about ten feet short of the door as it began to open, brought up my shotgun.

Lazarus’s face peered out from behind the heavy door, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the snow. “Fuck, it’s freezing out here.” He stuck out a hand from between the gap, waved us in. “Get your asses inside, before I lock this damn door. Hurry!”

I let out a breath, the air pluming in front of my face like the smoke in front of Kris’s when she got really mad.

“Nice to see you, too, dear,” Zoey said through clenched teeth as I lowered my shotgun and we kept moving. As we finished our approach, Lazarus threw the door open wide enough for me to fit inside.

“Carter? Oh my God, it is you!”

My eyes didn’t even have time to adjust before Lucy had embraced me, wrapping her arms tightly around my torso as she put her head against my chest.

As if by instinct, my arms were around her, the shotgun banging against us both.

“My God,” she whispered, “I thought you were dead!”

“I’m not, babe.” I kissed the top of her head, squeezed her more tightly. “I’m not.”

She tilted her head back, and those beautiful gray eyes of hers, damp and shining with tears, looked up into mine. With my free hand, I brushed a lock of chestnut hair from her face. Even though I shouldn’t have, not with an audience full of shifters who’d already shot at me twice before, I couldn’t hold myself back. I leaned down, pressed my lips to hers.

And, God, it was worth it. The warmth and strength of her body as she pressed herself against me, the feel of her soft flesh under mine. Bliss. Absolute bliss, like standing in the eye of a hurricane as the madness of this crazy, shitty world swirled around us both.

She kissed me back just as hard, her lips like fire as her hand came up to the back of my head, her fingers through my hair. “God, I’m glad to see you,” she whispered as we finally broke apart.

I smiled a little, just at one corner, as I looked down into those beautiful eyes of hers. As I inhaled deeply, took in her fragrance. The uniqueness that was her.

“Well, ain’t they fucking sweet,” Lazarus growled behind us.

“I know you’re being sarcastic,” Zoey said, with what sounded like a tinge of wistfulness in her voice, “but you’re actually right. Fresh love is always nice to see.”

I kissed Lucy again, just a peck on the lips this time, before we broke apart. I turned back to the two rat shifters, gave them a nod. “You two ready?”

“Oh?” Lazarus asked, arms crossed over his chest. I was a little surprised he wasn’t tapping his foot like an impatient schoolmarm. “Back from cloud nine, are we?”

Zoey elbowed him hard in the side, knocking him out of his pose. “Leave ’em alone, you old asshole. We used to be like that once, you know.”

Lazarus winced at the blow, rubbing the spot where Zoey had gotten him. “Too damned cold to be like that, is all. Besides, we’ve got your friend in the east wing of our little manse. Plan was to have Winters coax her away, like he did, then get her settled and away from you. Case anything happened, or the phoenix started to come early, before the spell was ready.”

I sniffed the air, nodded tightly. The faintest smell of sulfur was below everything, so faint I hadn’t noticed when I’d first stepped inside. Maybe that was a key to the spell?

“All right,” I said. “Let’s get a move on, then.”

Lazarus glanced to Zoey, giving her his own little nod. “Let’s go, then.”

The two of them brushed past me and Lucy, turned down a hall to the right, and started to move.

I took off after them, almost stopping when I realized I was holding hands with Lucy. I couldn’t help but smile a little at how my hand knew exactly where my heart was, even if my brain didn’t always.

“What’s wrong?” Lucy asked, clearly noticing my moment’s hesitation.

“Nothing,” I replied, shaking my head. “Nothing at all.”

We followed after them down the wide hallway, one with an industrial feel, our footfalls echoing hauntingly throughout the building. The barest of ghostly light filtered in through open doors we passed every ten feet or so, both broken and whole windows allowing the gray light in from the snowy fields outside. And, with every step we took, every piece of rubble we avoided, every pile of ceiling tiles we danced around, the smell of sulfur grew stronger and stronger.

“God, that’s awful,” Lucy said, pinching her nose closed with her free hand. “What the hell?”

“Magic is weird,” I replied. “Like affects like, is my understanding. Sulfur is key to the phoenix, which is why the hosts all smelled it, so I’m not really surprised it’s an ingredient in the spell.”

“Why couldn’t the phoenix have chosen something more pleasant, though? Like lavender? Or, I dunno, burning tires?”

“Hear that?” I asked as we drew closer.

Lucy stopped and cocked her head to the side. “Enya?”

Vocal intonations could be heard coming from down the hallway, but the number of voices were too various to have been just Winters. Instead, it was probably a recording.

“Gregorian chant,” I replied with a small smile. “I think. Might be using it for a meditative thing, I don’t know.”

Up ahead, Lazarus and Zoey pulled a little away from us, their strides confident and matching. There was a set of two swinging doors at the end of the hall, which looked like they led to an old cafeteria. With the light flaring in the smoky windows, I was willing to bet Winters was in there with Amber.

I squeezed Lucy’s hand as I pulled her to a stop.

She looked up at me with surprised, wild eyes. “What’s wrong?”

I yanked her into my arms, pulling her close as I brought my lips down to her ear. “You trust these two?” I asked in a near-silent whisper. No way was I trusting myself not to be heard with two shifters just down the hall. Even being this quiet, I wasn’t entirely sure they couldn’t hear me.

“No,” she whispered right back. “Do you?”

“God, no,” I replied, squeezing her more tightly. “Be careful in there, okay?”

“You too,” she whispered, embracing me harder for a moment before her release of my chest. “You too. And, one other thing…”

“What?” I asked, looking down into her eyes again as she remained close to me.

“I love you, Carter Grant,” she said, smiling a little. “No matter what happens in the next five minutes, just remember that. I want you to remember that. Okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, beaming back at her, a feeling of warmth filling my being. “I love you, too, Lucy Skinner. Now, you ready to get Amber?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

We joined Zoey and Lazarus, our most unlikely of allies, at the end of the hall. Quietly, the four of us exchanged looks, gave each other a quick nod as the sounds of Amber’s quiet crying drifted to my ears.

“Let’s go,” I mouthed, not wanting to alert Winters of our approach, before pushing open the door and leading us all inside.