Dead Harvest

  I lay there a while, occasionally loosing a round or two on the poor innocent door to keep this standoff going. I wanted desperately to retreat and check on Kate and Anders, but they couldn't have been taken or I would've heard it over the radio. No, the best thing I could do for them was to stay put and give them time to run. When this was over all I had to do was find a quiet corner while they stormed the place and walk right out that front door. No one would be the wiser.

  It was a decent plan. A solid plan. And all it took was a creaky floorboard to let me know it was never gonna happen.

  The floorboard in question was about five feet to my right, just three steps up from my second-floor perch. By instinct, I rolled away from it, bringing around my gun – incessant yammering aside, this guy sure beat the last meat-suit for handling – but I was too late. It was the rookie, his face stripped of his gas mask, his eyes wide and frightened. He had his 9mm trained on me, the barrel bobbing between my head and chest in his shaky, unsure grip.

  "Drop it, Mike."

  I did what he said, setting the rifle on the floor beside me. I wasn't wild about my odds, lying flat on my back as I was, so I rose slowly to my knees, my hands raised in what I hoped was a placating gesture.

  The rookie said, "Stay put, Mike – I don't want to have to use this."

  "And I don't want to make you. Why don't we talk about this?"

  I stepped toward him. He retreated.

  I reached for the rookie's name. It wasn't hard to find – old Mike here was shouting to him at the top of his imaginary lungs. I said, "C'mon, Owen, it's me – why don't you put that thing down, and we'll walk out of this together."

  "But you – you attacked us!"

  "I'm sorry. I wigged. I thought they were behind us. This is all just a big misunderstanding."

  Owen looked incredulous. "You wigged?"

  "That's right."

  "You wigged and took out your team?"

  "Look, it was an accident. I said I was sorry." Again I stepped closer. This time, he didn't back away. "Just put down the gun. I mean, you're not really going to shoot me…"

  I took another step, made a play for the gun. Owen screamed and backed away.

  The last thing I remembered was a flash of white light, and the thunder of gunfire.

  And then falling.

  And then nothing.

10.

"All right, Mike. Why don't you walk me through this again?"

  I was sitting chained to a table in a Tenth Precinct interrogation room. The fluorescent light overhead was making my head throb, and my chest was fucking killing me. Of course, it could've been worse – the way that rookie's hands were shaking, I'm lucky he didn't put a bullet in my head instead of my vest.

  "I've been through this all a dozen times, lieu," I said, affecting a tone of weary resignation. "When we took the door, the room was quiet. I entered first. The gas was so thick, I couldn't see a goddamn thing. Something musta gone weird with my earpiece, 'cause I swore I heard movement behind me. I thought we'd been outflanked, and I panicked."

  "You panicked."

  "That's right."

  The lieutenant gave me a look like I was something unpleasant he'd just stepped in. We'd been going around like this for hours, he and I. At first, I figured I could wait him out – after all, this particular meatsuit was a cop in good standing; they had no reason to suspect he was involved. But as the night wore on, it seemed less and less like they were just gonna cut me loose. Of course, I could've just pulled a little body-swap and left poor Mike sitting here while I walked right out the front door, but that plan came with a big fucking catch. See, a demon takes a body for a ride, all the vessel's left with is a blur of disconnected fragments and images; the demon's thoughts remain occluded. Me? I don't have that kind of power. Just one more reason I prefer the dead: I jump ship now and Mike starts singing. They'd mostly think he'd gone off his nut, I'm sure, but they'd probably send a couple cruisers to the park regardless. My guess is they'd have Kate in custody before I could get within ten blocks of her. So for now, at least, there was nothing I could do but wait.

  "Listen, Flynn, I want to believe you, but honestly, I don't know what the fuck to think. I got a kid out there who swears up and down you turned around and popped your team just as cool as can be. I got a body on the scene that matches the description of the perp who marched the MacNeil girl out of the hospital two days ago, and I got a coroner who tells me he collected the same body damn near a week ago from the same goddamn apartment. I got a little girl who butchered her goddamn family slipping past the best-trained unit in the country. And in the middle of it all, I've got you, telling me it was all just a big fucking misunderstanding."

  "So where does that leave us?" I said.