The Nine Read online

  We got to our locker, and I suited up in my homeless garb again with one improvement: I managed to find a rain boot that fit my right foot, though it was still a different color than the left.

  I walked around the corner of the lockers and found Alex tucking her little Derringer into her boot. She glanced up at me and shook her head. “You look ridiculous.”

  It was my turn to return her deadpan stare. “If you have a problem, I suggest you speak to the designer of this particular ensemble.”

  Alex rubbed her chin and gave me a once over. “This served its purpose last time, but people could see us on this mission. Look at me. I can’t be seen with—this.” She motioned toward me, head to toe. “We have to find you something else to wear.”

  Alex turned, and we headed for the elevator room. “Come on, let’s go shopping.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Splice Alex chose for this trip turned out to be a half-full fast food dumpster. My foot slipped, and I went down in an aromatic pile of rotting grease and faux-vegetable matter. I tried to stand, but I felt like a cat trying to gain traction on buttered linoleum. The bottom of the dumpster was coated with a substance slick enough to solve every friction problem NASA and the porn industry ever had. I grabbed for the edge of the dumpster and noticed Alex perched on the corner beneath the night sky, one foot balanced on each rail.

  “What are you, a ninja or something?”

  She grinned and held out a hand. “You could stand to work on your balance.”

  I reached up and pulled myself to the edge, abandoning any hope of staying out of the greasy mess. “Well, I definitely need a change of clothes now. I smell like a french-fry street gang took a dump on me then flushed me into the sewer.”

  “Thanks for that visual.” Alex hopped off the edge and landed on the asphalt without a sound.

  I threw my weight over the side of the dumpster, smacking my foot into the plastic lid on the other side. The thing banged and vibrated like a bomb going off, then my pant leg caught something sharp on the dumpster’s rim, and I went over head first with a grunt. My body dangled upside down for a moment, then made an ungraceful splat landing on the ground when a section of my pant leg tore loose and let me go.

  “Wow,” Alex said. “Did you take dance when you were a kid? That was really…something.”

  “Parkour, actually.” I reached up, jerked the length of fabric my pant leg left on the dumpster, and put the strip in my pocket as if it were an important part of my ensemble. “You know that thing where all the kids run around flipping from building to building?”

  Alex looked stunned. “How do you know about parkour, but you’ve never heard of a GPS?”

  I made a show of brushing myself off. It did no good whatsoever. “I met a guy in Scrapyard City. He did all these crazy flips and jumps all over the place. Wasn’t very good though. Missed a jump and ...”

  “I get the picture.” Alex held out a hand to stop me then made her way toward the street.

  “You asked. I gave you an answer. Where are we anyway?”

  I followed her as she walked along the grungy cobblestone alley, headed for the bright lights and asphalt of whatever town we had landed in. She disappeared around the corner and when I got there, I discovered the streets were deserted. It must have been late because there wasn’t a soul to be seen. The dusty old town had quite a bit of life in it. At least during the day. The buildings were occupied with merchants, and not tourist traps, pawn shops, and run-down liquor stores. There were clothing shops, a large tack and feed store, and a couple of nice restaurants. I even noticed an old-time drugstore with a huge picture window. If you gave the fifties a modern makeover, this would be Main Street. The sign in the drugstore said they sold something called a fifteen-dollar burger. Guess prices from the fifties got a makeover too.

  The town hadn’t celebrated their first stop light yet, but we seemed to be on the main drag. Alex led us past a number of small shops, peering at each window display as we walked by. Something at an outdoor sports and hunting shop caught her eye, and she stopped to look inside. I pulled up next to her to see a bright silver mannequin posed before a fake fire and surrounded by midget trees, plastic bushes, and Styrofoam logs. The chrome model sported a gawk-worthy outfit the likes of which I had never seen. From the knees down, the pants were made out of some sort of grey rubber. Above that, the left thigh was cut from a slick brown fabric while the right came in a rusty orange. A patchwork of pockets covered both legs and closed with exposed yellow zippers. The moron ensemble was rounded out with a matching jacket and a silky long sleeve pullover.

  I snorted. “That might be the most ridiculous outfit I have ever seen. Rodeo clowns dress with more dignity.”

  I stopped laughing. When would I learn?

  A wry grin grew on Alex face, and I shook my head. “No.”

  Alex nodded and grabbed my arm. “Oh, yes.”

  She pulled me around to the back of the store, and within a few seconds, we were through the delivery door and inside. After twenty minutes of my whining and her laughing, the mannequin was naked, and I had a new set of clothes. The pants fit so tight I had to tuck them into the ankles of the matching lightweight boots. Alex said they were called skinny pants, but they looked like something out of a woman’s fashion magazine and felt like wearing wedgie specialized sausage packaging. The whole outfit was ridiculous.

  “You look fabulous, darling.” Alex grabbed my arm and spun me around in a circle. “Trust me, this is way better than that old rain jacket. And this is all waterproof.”

  I touched the slick fabric.

  “Something called Gortex,” Alex said before I could ask. “Same thing my jacket’s made out of. Way better than plastic.”

  I sighed. “Whatever, as long as Gortex keeps me from melting.”

  “It will. Now let’s go, we’re running out of time.”

  “Time for what?”

  I followed Alex out the door and through the alley to the street again.

  “You didn’t think we were just out on a shopping trip, did you?”

  I shrugged. “I’m trying to go with the flow. You said we were going shopping, so I thought we were going shopping.”

  Alex huffed and turned off the main drag, entering the outskirts of the little town. The places reminded me of the old neighborhoods I hung around growing up. Small and square with friendly looking porches and unfriendly looking fenced-in yards. They weren’t run down, but no one in this town got rich either.

  We passed a row of bright colored houses converted into businesses. The only one not spreading the spring painted cheer was the office of an accountant who chose to keep his home a brown as staunch as his profession. I could almost picture a wrinkled, yellowed eye peering at me from behind the darkened curtains. The absence of even a cricket’s chirp began to work at my nerves. Before long, I imagined eyes all around us. Alex opened the rear gate to a little white house with a gigantic swing set in the yard.

  “Here we are.” Alex stepped onto the grass, shattering the night with her whisper. “Keep your eyes peeled. We don’t want to be seen messing around in a local’s yard.”

  Adrenaline spiked every hair on the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure what to look out for, but if this were a horror movie, this would be prime time to bring on the zombie dinosaurs.

  My breathing got faster, and I tried to close the gate without making any noise. A squeak reminiscent of a 72’ Monte Carlo’s worn out fan belt echoed through the neighborhood anyway. Alex didn’t seem to take notice, but the deafening screech seemed to be a dead ringer for a zombie mating call. If my nerves got worked up any more, my heart would pass out from exhaustion.

  I took a deep breath and tried to calm down as I followed Alex up to the back porch of the house. Alex was a pro. She wasn’t going to get us caught. I just needed to shut up, follow her lead, and make sure she wasn’t doing anything I needed to run interference for.

  Alex opened a wooden box set to the side of
the door on the porch. The inside contained three plastic half-gallon jugs of milk. I tried to work out what she had in mind. Alex painted a pretty clear picture when she reached for an inside pocket and pulled out a small case containing a syringe. It was drawn to the top with a cloudy white liquid. The perfect implement to spike the milk, and I could make a good guess as to what the ominous liquid had been derived from.

  The poo prize we had collected the night before must have been distilled into the mystery substance Alex carried in her little care package. I had no idea what the sample had been turned into, other than a disgusting poop cocktail, but that’s not what bugged me. The question that really made the sweat beads crawl down my neck was, do I need to stop her?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alex reached for the syringe, but I grabbed her wrist. She looked at my hand and then into my eyes, her mouth twisted into a sneer. “I do not like when people grab me.”

  “I’m sorry.” I couldn’t quite make myself let go even though I had a feeling holding on much longer would be tantamount to suicide. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “I am going to jab it into your neck and use the needle as a stir stick if you don’t let go of my wrist.”

  Definitely suicide. I let go, but I didn’t back off. Alex relaxed her shoulders, her hazel murder eyes not leaving mine. “We are here to do a job. If you don’t have the stomach for this, you better call it quits now. I can promise this is about as G-rated as things get around here.” Alex uncapped the needle with her teeth and held the syringe up high, like a serial killer.

  “Do you know what’s in that thing?” My body vibrated with apprehension. It took considerable focus to calm down enough to hide it.

  Alex parted her lips and caught the cap in the case with her free hand. “Yes, I know what’s in here; it’s the sample we picked up the other day. Now back off so we can finish what we came for.”

  Something in my head screamed for me to stop her. I wondered if Alex had any real idea what the substance would do. Uncertainty fogged my mind and turned my arms to jelly. I couldn’t decide what to do. Short of pulling down my pants and mooning her, a decent distraction didn’t even come to mind. I considered the possibility for a moment, then decided my butt would be too tempting a target for her syringe.

  Alex stared at me, her eyebrows knitted together as if she had just seen a lunatic. My internal dialogue left me standing there, staring at her like a wide-eyed idiot. She probably wondered if I had lost my mind.

  She crouched down, moving slow and keeping her eyes on my face as if she were afraid she might spook me or something. I dropped down with her and flipped the lid to the milk crate closed with a thump, catching my thumb under the rim.

  “Are you serious right now?” She went to open it again, but I jerked my thumb free and slapped my hand on the top, ignoring the throb that now pulsed with my heartbeat.

  “How can you just follow orders without knowing what you’re doing?” I said. “You don’t even know what this stuff will do to these people. They could be good people. A family. Geez, there could be kids in there, and we’re going to pump them full of bat crap and see what happens?”

  “Look, you’re not going to screw this up for me. It’s a miracle that I got a second chance at this, and I’m not going to blow it because my new partner has a conscience.”

  I narrowed my eyes and cocked my head to the side. “Wait, go back. What do you mean you got a second chance? Do you mean you got in trouble, and they gave you a second chance? Or that this is only your second ...”

  Alex’s face went from badass to looking like a toddler with her hand caught in the candy drawer.

  “It is.” I smacked my head with my palm. “This is only your second job. And you screwed up the first one. You’re almost as green as I am in the field.” I let out a cynical laugh.

  “This is my second op,” Alex said, “but I am nowhere near as clueless as you are. I’ve been a Topside courier for the Agency for a long time. I know how things work up here.”

  I laughed again. “Great. I’ve been getting my balls busted by the mail girl. This gets better and better.”

  Alex recovered her murderous stare and leaned toward me. “Remember when I told you water was about the only thing that could hurt us up here? Well, our powers can do the job pretty well too.” Alex’s hand flared to life and bright orange flames consumed her wrist and hand. The heat was so intense it forced me to lean back. “If you like, I can fry you to a crisp and carry you back to The Nine looking like an overdone marshmallow.”

  I put my hands up in surrender. “No need to get nasty. A little honesty would have been nice though.”

  Alex extinguished her inferno hand and stared at me for a moment. “We’re here to test a simple contagion, that’s all. This is done all the time. The people who live here are supposed to possess some sort of genetic immunity to the stuff in this syringe, but there is only one way to find out for sure. The powers that be don’t like to waste time with medical trials on rats and monkeys. They go straight to the source. I can’t tell you exactly what’s in this syringe. But I can tell you, they would not entrust a couple of rookies with the modern introduction of the Black Plague—especially on their maiden voyage. Nor would they do it in some hayseed town in the middle of nowhere.”

  I nodded. “Thank you. Was that so hard?”

  “More painful than you could imagine,” she said. “Now are you going to take your hand off the top of this box, or am I going break it off and leave it inside as a parting gift?”

  “That’s ridiculous.” I pulled my hand away and tried to massage the throb out of my aching thumb. “They would never drink milk all covered in severed hand. It’s unsanitary. Think through your threats a little bit, will you?”

  I tried to appear nonchalant while Alex examined the milk containers for the most inconspicuous place to use her syringe. I didn’t like what we were doing, but I couldn’t argue with her logic either. Why would they send a couple of know nothing rookies on a crucial mission? The price for failure would be too high. Testing a new flu virus on an innocent family wasn’t all that ethical, but they were supposed to be immune. If I let her do this, I gained her trust and the Agency’s trust. I’ll be set to stop bigger jobs down the line. It was a dangerous risk, but no one said this would be all peaches and cream.

  Alex found a good spot and punched the small needle through the plastic. I watched the cloudy liquid pervade the fresh white milk as Alex pushed down the plunger. Doubt raised a chill of goose bumps on my skin. I stood there watching Alex do the very thing Judas had hired me to prevent. As mistakes went, I hoped this wasn’t a big one. She sealed the tiny hole with a heated finger and stood up. My chance to stop her with any sort of subtlety had passed. If I wanted to prevent anything now, nothing short of picking up the jug and smashing it on the ground would do.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you,” Alex said.

  I peeled my gaze away from the milk box and looked at Alex. A pang of guilt twisted my stomach. “We all have secrets. Let’s just try to keep them—and dismembered hands—to a minimum from now on.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Getting back to the shop that night proved to be an even bigger challenge than the day before. I got out of the Agency late, and it was dark. In The Nine, nighttime was never a good thing. Hell was bad enough during the day. At night, all the things that went bump came out to play. The Nine transformed into an evil comic book mashup of Hollywood Boulevard and Saigon Alley. Desperate Woebegone walked the streets, offering lewd acts to low level demons in return for trinkets or protection.

  Laughter erupted from inside a building to my left, and a Woebegone man flew out of the window three feet in front of me. He cleared the drug coma flesh pools slumped against the corrugated steel wall under the window and landed with a thump on the street. He rolled, flopping his limbs as if he’d jumped off a moving truck, and came to a dusty halt in a position reserved for pretzels and freaky Asian contortioni
sts. This guy didn’t look like either.

  Two young Woebegone women appeared at the window, their expressions as naked as they were. They stared at the man in the street with perplexed horror, but neither made a move to come out or run away. They were confused and innocent. The real bad guy, err … bad girl, appeared behind them. A female Hellion wearing nothing but a sharp toothed grin.

  “Don’t worry, ladies.” She wrapped her hands into the Woebegone’s hair and jerked them back until they pressed against her dusky grey skin. “We’re going to have more fun without him.” The Hellion’s yellow eyes shot toward me. “Unless you’d like to join us.”

  I stared at the terrified looking girls. My hand found its way into my pocket and my Knuckle Stunner. Attacking any Hellion was suicide, but if she’s alone ...

  The hellion giggled and disappeared into the dark confines of the sour smelling hovel. I took a step forward, but a professional wrestler/burn-ward crossbreed stepped out of the shadows and stood in my way. He looked like he had gotten into a fight with a meat grinder—and lost. He didn’t bother to glance in my direction. The message was clear. Move along or I would find my own meat grinder to wrestle with.

  I sighed and kept walking. There were hundreds—thousands—of other matchups like the one in that dark hovel, and they were all organized and run by Woebegone like that meat grinder.

  They were called Disposable dealers, scum who trolled the outskirts of the Gnashing Fields for fresh born to kidnap and lease out as their newly acquired slaves. They sold fresh born Woebegone like disposable property. Buyers would use them to do dangerous or ill-advised jobs, use them in graphic or violent sex shows, or as a toy for themselves. When the buyers were done, they cut the Woebegone’s throat, if they weren’t dead already, and sent them back to the Gnashing Fields, never regaining their memory or becoming the wiser when the Disposable dealer showed up to collect them again.