“They’d need to get a judge to sign off on a no-knock warrant,” Izzie said, “assuming that they haven’t already, and by then it could be too late.” She was considering some of the worst-case scenarios herself.
“We could bring Gutierrez in on this,” Daphne suggested, but even as she said the words Izzie could tell she knew that the Senior Resident Agent would be unlikely to be of much assistance at this point.
“Well, we can’t just stand here talking about it,” Joyce said, pounding her cane on the hardwood floor. “Patrick’s life could be in danger.”
Izzie thought about what G. W. Jett had told them about Parrish and the Eschaton Temple, and about Alistair Freeman writing in his journal about the menace of the Guildhall cabal that he would one day bring down in flames. That same darkness that bubbled up time and again in Recondito had once more taken root, and Martin Zotovic was at the heart of it. If Patrick was being held there, and they weren’t able to rescue him soon, then death might be the least of his worries.
“We need to get him out of there, now.” Izzie bent down and picked up one of the shotgun shells that Daphne had packed, and hefted it in the palm of her hand. “Enough of these for three full magazines, you said?”
Daphne nodded. “Shouldn’t take but a couple of minutes to get them loaded.”
Izzie walked across the floor to the far wall where the tactical shotguns were sitting beside Patrick’s hardshell gun case.
“Wait,” Joyce said, “you’re going to go in yourself? Without backup?”
“Hell, no,” Daphne put in before Izzie could answer. She bent down to pick up the box of shells. “If she’s going, I’m going with her.”
Daphne turned to Izzie, who was kneeling down beside the gun case.
“You are going, right?” Daphne asked.
Izzie pulled out the stun baton and pistol-gripped Taser that Patrick had brought home from the station house the day before, and set them on the floor beside her.
“Yeah, I guess I am,” she answered, and reached into the case. “When Alistair Freeman brought the Guildhall down on top of himself and everyone inside, he ended the incursion of the Ridden for at least a generation. Then when G. W. Jett took down Jeremiah Standfast Parrish at the Eschaton Center, the Ridden were off the streets again for a good long while. If we can get in there and take out Zotovic, then maybe we can do the same.”
“You’re just going to kill him?” Joyce sounded shocked. Even as worried about Patrick as she was, there were some lines that she wasn’t comfortable crossing.
“Like I said, it was our fault that Nicholas Fuller didn’t finish the job five years ago,” Izzie said, her jaw set. “We have to finish it for him.”
“And any Ridden that we run into along the way, I assume?” Daphne shook the cardboard box so that the shells clattered inside of it. “But there have got to be employees in that building that aren’t Ridden. Cleaning staff, security guards, that kind of thing? How will we know the difference before it’s too late? Because while I’m all for taking out the undead monsters possessed by alien entities, I’m not crazy about the idea of shooting innocent bystanders.”
“For the bystanders, or even anyone mixed up in the Ink trade who isn’t one of the Ridden, we use these.” Izzie nodded to the stun baton and Taser. “As for the Ridden, your silver and salt shot should be enough to slow them down, and hopefully sever their connection to the loa. Whether they just fall down dead like the guy Joyce stabbed in the alley last night, or we end up with a bunch of formerly Ridden but still mostly alive people with shotgun wounds and a bunch of empty holes in their heads, I’m not sure. But either way, we take the shots and hope for the best.”
“So how will you be able to tell the difference?” Joyce asked. “What’s to stop you from shooting someone that isn’t possessed by mistake?”
“We use these.” Izzie straightened up, and held out both of her hands, a glass vial resting on each palm.
“Oh, right,” Daphne said, “isn’t that the . . .” She trailed off for a second, searching for the name. “The ilbal? Patrick got that out of the Reaper evidence, right?”
“Wait,” Joyce said, her eyes widening. “You’re not thinking about taking that stuff are you?”
Izzie nodded.
“Nicholas Fuller thought this was the ‘key’ to seeing the Ridden for what they really were. With any luck, it will work for us, too.”
“So that’s the plan?” Daphne sounded skeptical. “Tool up, take some weird jungle drug, and go in guns blazing?”
“That’s the plan.” Izzie held up one of the vials to the light, and saw the fine powder glinting within. She had wondered what she would see when she took it. Now she’d get to find out.
“You know how crazy that sounds, right?” Daphne said, resting the box of shells against her hip. “And even if we should somehow manage to survive, what then? Two FBI agents go rogue and shoot up an office building. How exactly are we supposed to explain that? ‘Sorry, officer, we had no choice, they were all possessed by an alien mind from another dimension’? We’d be lucky if the worst they did to us was lock us up in a home for the criminally insane.” She paused, and then added, “I mean, if you’re going, I’m still going with you, but let’s be honest about our chances here.”
“What about wearing a mask?” Joyce suggested, hand on her chin thoughtfully. “Fuller wore one, right? And so did that Freeman guy back in the thirties, if his journal is anything to go by.” She turned to Izzie. “Probably even the same one, right?”
Izzie bounced the vials on the palms of her hands
