Page 42

CHAPTER 42

JEZEBEL

T hese fucking fuckers. Everything had been under control. Until they showed up, Cole just thought I was a competent swimmer who did well under pressure, but now? Now, there was blood everywhere, bodies everywhere, the remains of my shattered heart everywhere. I’d had to shoot a man in front of him, for fuck’s sake.

Thank fuck Marcel wasn’t here to witness the demolition of my life, or the swear bucket would be overflowing.

While I was trying to decide whether to let Cole out of his cell or not, I caught a metallic clink that sounded out of place. There was no way Six hadn’t heard the gunshots. Folks in Dreadhaven probably heard the gunshots, and I suspected he’d also noticed one or two of his buddies were missing. These men weren’t organised enough to carry radios, and I’d tucked the bodies out of sight, but when a place was devoid of human life, you felt it.

I saw movement in my peripheral vision and dove to the side just before Six began shooting.

He was upstairs .

Oh, joy. There must have been two rifles on the boat. If I’d been in the movies, I would have shot through the grated walkway that ran in front of the upper row of cells. But this wasn’t a movie, and I didn’t want to kill myself with a ricochet. Six didn’t have any such qualms, and he kept firing as I scrambled into the cell opposite Cole’s. Then I heard a yelp and smiled. Stupid motherfucker.

But Six was still alive and moving, a dark shadow lit by bright overhead lights, and I was still trapped. Cole was cowering at the back of his cell, terrified, and I cursed myself for getting us into this situation. Okay, so we’d be dead if we’d stayed on the sandbar, but at least he wouldn’t be looking at me with a mixture of horror and fear.

Time to think. Time to employ my deadliest weapon.

No, not my gun. My mind. I’d spent a decade learning how to be sneaky as well as deadly, and now that I’d learned a little about my father, I suspected I’d been genetically programmed that way since birth.

As well as hostage rescue and assassination, one of the Choir’s jobs was to break the security at various government institutions. Once we identified the holes, they could be filled, either with physical measures or with additional training. A couple of years ago, Spider and I had headed to San Francisco, and after we’d finagled our way into the Federal Reserve building far quicker than expected, we’d found ourselves with a spare afternoon and taken a trip to Alcatraz. I wasn’t sure which prison had been built first—Alcatraz or the one I was currently stuck in—but one had definitely taken inspiration from the other. The location, the layout, the way the cells opened not with keys but via a complex arrangement of levers located at the end of each aisle.

I squinted along the walkway. There was a whole control panel, and I estimated three levers were in the “ down” position. Cole’s cell, the makeshift crypt with the stinking body, and one more?

I was trapped, but Six wasn’t free either. I’d passed the stairs at the end of the block on my way in, and it was unlikely there was another set at the rear. It would be a waste of space, and stairs in a prison were hardly a high-traffic area.

I took a quick inventory of the cell I was in: metal-framed bed, metal desk, metal chair, dead body in the corner huddled under an old grey blanket. While the corpse in the other cell had putrefied, judging from the stink of it, this one was desiccated like a mummy. Guess they must have died at different times of year or something. I positioned myself at the front of the cell by the door, ready to dart out if Six decided to slide his gun through the railing and spray bullets into the tiny space. If he did that, I’d run forward and shoot him while his attention—and rifle muzzle—were elsewhere.

I could feel him watching. Watching, waiting for me to move. Above, the lights glared, blinding to look at. These motherfuckers had probably been using the prison for a while, if they’d kept a generator working. The place was too old for solar power.

This was kind of like a Mexican standoff. Except we couldn’t see each other, and we weren’t in Mexico. More of a San Gallician standoff, really.

Could I throw something at the levers? If I sprinted, it would take me two or three seconds to reach them, assuming I had a death wish. Even in darkness, leaving the cell would be a risk because I’d stand out like a ghost in the gloom. What was there to throw? A bucket? Too big. An empty mug? Too small. A skull would be the right size and weight if I could detach it from the body, but I had a feeling Cole wouldn’t appreciate my ingenuity.

I glanced across at him. He was watching me warily .

An object on the wall beyond the levers caught my eye, a grey box roughly twelve inches square, twenty feet off the floor. Thick wires snaked upward from the top, and I followed one up to the ceiling.

Hmm.

If I shot the box, would the lights go out? I figured there was a reasonable chance that might happen. But I’d still be at a disadvantage thanks to the colour of my skin. Unless… I studied the blanket covering the corpse.

Man, I did not get paid enough for this.