name,
“It’s a warehouse that used to belong to an import company, but it’s been abandoned for a few years now. The people who are squatting there have a wooden box in their possession. I’m told the box has an old metal crest on its lid. A couple of lions and a shield. That’s how you’ll recognize it. Get the box and bring it to me.”
“How big is it?” I asked.
“About the size of a suitcase, two feet long, a foot wide. It’s big, but it won’t be too heavy for you to carry.”
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“Just bring it to me. This one’s a game-changer, Trent. I already have a buyer lined up for it, one who’s willing to drop so much cash for it that I could
“Got it.” I put the paper with the address in my pocket and stood.
“One more thing,” he added. “This won’t be a simple in-and-out job like the others. Whoever has the box won’t be stupid enough to leave it unguarded, and they’re not going to give it up without a fight. Things might get hairy, but if anyone can handle it, it’s you. That’s why I wanted you on this. You’re my go-to guy. I’m counting on you.”
I nodded and pulled on my leather jacket. “Anything else I need to know?”
“Yes,” Underwood said. He picked casually at his teeth with a fingernail. “Once you’ve taken the box from them, kill them. No survivors. I don’t want anyone left alive who can trace this back to me. There’s too much at stake.”
My throat went tight.
“Something wrong?” he asked. He must have noticed me tense up.
“It’s just that you’ve never asked me to kill anyone before,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t like having my orders questioned,” he said. “And I don’t like doing favors for someone who questions them. Is there going to be a problem?”
In the reflection of his black sunglasses, I saw myself shake my head.
“Good. Now go bring me that box.” Underwood stood up from the table and started toward the other room, where the dark-haired woman sat staring into space.
I rose and followed him. “Underwood, wait.”
He turned to face me, impatient. “What is it now?”
“Have you found anything new? About me, I mean?”
His scowl became a grin. “You better believe it. And it’s big. All those inquiries I’ve been making have paid off in spades. Believe me, you’re going to be very happy with what I found.”
“What is it? Tell me.”
“All in due time,” he said. I stared eagerly at him, waiting for more, but he just smiled. “When the box is in my hands, and the ones you’ve taken it from are dead, then I’ll tell you everything you want to know.” He nodded toward the corridor that led to the exit. “Better get a move on, Trent. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
I felt like I was going to explode. I wanted to know
“Nothing.”
Big Joe pulled back the bolt on the door, unlocking it. “You be careful out there, T-Bag. Nobody lives forever. Not even a freakshow like you.”
I parked the Explorer on 49th Street between 11th Avenue and the West Side Highway, then walked the rest of the way. The nighttime chill had settled over the city, and I pulled my leather jacket close around me for warmth. The address Underwood had given me was a two-story brick building in an enclosed cul-de-sac on the other side of the highway, flanked on either side by piers that stretched out into the dark waters of the Hudson River. The walls of the cul-de-sac hid it from the streetlamps and the blinking lights of the piers’ freight cranes. And from witnesses. A faded sign on the building’s facade read BALAKIER IMPORT & EXPORT. I waited for a break in the West Side Highway’s traffic, then hurried across.
The closer I got to the warehouse, the less I wanted to go inside. It felt like hundreds of tiny, imaginary hands pushing me back, trying to stop me. I didn’t like this job. A simple in-and-out collection was something I was used to, but this was a whole other ball game. It was enough to make me want to turn back. But Underwood had answers, finally. Answers I’d waited a year for, and if I wanted them I didn’t have a choice. I had to see this through.
I crept around to the side of the building, keeping to the shadows as I slid my back along the graffiti-covered wall. There were four big windows on the first floor. Their glass panes had been smashed long ago. Now the windows were boarded from the inside with sheets of plywood. Light bled out through the corners of the boards and from under the wooden double doors in the middle of the wall. I pulled my gun. A muffled voice came from inside. I couldn’t tell what it was saying, but one thing was unmistakable. It was a woman’s voice.
Damn. Underwood hadn’t told me who would be inside. On the drive over I’d imagined it would be men like Tomo and Big Joe, thugs who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot me dead if I didn’t shoot them first. But a woman?
No survivors, that was what Underwood said. So be it, then. Whoever was in there probably had it coming anyway. I wasn’t about to let my first shot at getting some concrete answers slip through my fingers.
I gripped the gun tighter and tried the handle on one of the doors. It was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped through.
Inside, the warehouse was a single enormous open space. The hardwood floor was bare and scuffed. Two rows of thick, wooden floor-to-ceiling support beams spanned the room like carefully arranged dominoes. Saucer-shaped metal light fixtures hung on long chains from the ceiling—or what was left of the ceiling. There was a wide, gaping hole in it that looked like something heavy had broken through, and recently. The floor below was littered with debris, chunks of cement, and large pieces of wood and tar from the roof. Old wooden crates and heaps of broken, waterlogged furniture had been pushed against the walls in stacks, forming a makeshift circle around the center of the room. What I saw within that circle stopped me in my tracks.
I noticed the woman first. She was short, not more than five feet tall, with long, thick black hair. She wore jeans and a bulky cargo vest over a plain long-sleeved shirt. She held a wooden staff horizontally in front of her with both hands in a defensive stance. Mounted at the end of the staff was what looked like a small black ball. Whoever she was, she didn’t see me. She was too focused on the six men in front of her.
They had their backs to me so that all I saw was their long, slate-gray trench coats. They didn’t have any weapons that I could see. They advanced on the woman, forcing her back toward the crates behind her, penning her in. Six big men against one small woman. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but I didn’t like those odds. It was clear from the look on her face that she didn’t either.
I raised my gun and took a cautious step closer. My foot accidentally kicked a small chip of fallen cement and sent it skittering loudly across the floor.
Shit.
The six men stopped moving. Their trench coats split apart down the middle and blossomed out to their sides. Too late I realized they weren’t trench coats at all.
They were wings.
All six of them spun on me. I’d expected to see the scowling, beefy faces of mob enforcers, but these weren’t men. They weren’t even human. Their faces were gray, craggy, and elongated like the snouts of hairless dogs. They had long pointed ears, short stubby horns that sprouted from their brows, and black, deep-set eyes that fixed me with a glare that said I was about to become dinner. One look at their wide, tusked mouths and ivory dagger teeth and I was sure there was room enough on the menu for me and the woman both.
Too shocked to move, I blinked instead, which wasn’t much help.
The woman saw me then, and shouted, “Run!”
The winged creatures shrieked, a sound as loud and piercing as a siren. They launched themselves into the air, wings flapping, and as they came at me I had just enough time to wonder what the hell I’d walked in on.
