Rogue Oracle Read online

  And those security measures didn’t deter Galen. He’d slipped behind a peeled-back portion of fence to wander the streets. They were different than he remembered as a child: stained and disintegrating. Square apartment buildings had begun to shift on their foundations, gutters drizzling rain into the gravel-strewn ground. Forgotten bits of scrap metal, paint flakes, and broken glass crackled underfoot.

  Galen paused before one abandoned apartment building, remembering. He knew this place, once upon a time. A rusting padlock held the front door shut. Galen kicked the wooden door from its hinges, and the sound of it falling into the darkness beyond sounded like an explosion. Birds scattered within, and he could hear mice scurrying in the dust.

  Galen walked up the sagging steps. These Soviet buildings had not been made to be pretty, and they had not been when they had been in use. But something about the decay was aesthetically appealing: the moss that grew around the windows where water had leached; the mildew speckling the walls. It was as if Nature herself were reaching out to reclaim this place.

  Galen paused before an apartment door, placed his hands and forehead on its cold surface. It smelled like metal and mold, like nothing living. The warped wood splintered away easily.

  The apartment was smaller than he remembered. A mildewed couch sagged in the center of the floor. Dishes still sat in the galley kitchen sink, with a dishtowel disintegrating on the edge of the water-swollen counter. Water tapped steadily down the walls from a leak in the roof, and dribbled down the window frame. Galen stepped over the shattered remains of a lamp and curling tiles on the floor. He stopped for a moment to pick up a blackened piece of metal in the wreckage: a toy truck. His fingers rubbed carbon off the blistered red paint. Clutching the toy to his chest, he crossed to the window.

  He stared down at the small, overgrown courtyard with empty swings. This was where he remembered playing in the black rain as a child, where he tasted the hot metallic water running down his lips,. He could still hear the ringing of the children’s shouts in his ears as they splashed through the puddles formed in the ruts below the swings. He remembered his white shirt stained black in the rain, how the water prickled, like pins and needles, as it sank into his skin. It buzzed, almost like a living thing, as it ran down his neck.

  Now, this place was empty, empty of everything but memory.

  Galen heard the crunch of gravel through the broken window, and his gray eyes narrowed. He pocketed the toy truck, slipped back out of the apartment. He suspected that one of the stalkers had come, one of the unlucky workers whose job it was to monitor radiation levels. They wandered about in their canvas suits, as if the thin material would protect them by force of pure symbolism. But Galen didn’t want to be caught here, accused of being a looter. He slipped down the apartment stairs, stood in the shadow of the door, watching.

  The man who walked down the street was no stalker. He was an old man, gray and paunchy, in flannels and jeans and good-quality boots … a Westerner trying to blend in. An expensive camera was slung around his neck. Down the street, at the main gate, Galen could see a late-model rental car. He appeared to be alone. And he probably had money. Probably one of those journalists who popped up from time to time, clucking in sympathy while they sucked money out of the tragedy.

  Galen slid out of the shadows, stuck his hands in his thin coat pockets. He approached the old man, heart hammering. Rain tapped on his skull, nearly shaven entirely of hair. That camera alone would fetch a nice price. And those boots …

  “Hello,” the intruder greeted Galen in clumsy Russian.

  “Hello,” Galen answered, speaking slowly for the old man’s benefit. He gestured with his chin to the camera.

  “Are you a journalist?”

  “No.” The intruder shook his head. “I’m … I guess you could say I’m a tourist. I came through here many years ago.”

  “A tourist,” Galen repeated, attempting to conceal his contempt. A voyeur.

  “And you? Do you work here? Are you one of the stalkers?” The old man raised his camera, as if to take Galen’s picture.

  Galen shook his head. “No. Not a stalker. A survivor.”

  Galen lashed out and struck the old man in the face. The old man stumbled back, the camera slamming against his chest. To Galen’s surprise, he swung back though his nose gushed blood down his face. Maybe the old man was ex-military. But he was still an old man.

  Galen blocked, slugged his opponent in the ribs. The wind was expelled out of the old man’s lungs in an exhalation of red on Galen’s shoulder. Galen let him fall to the ground, wheezing. He ripped the camera strap over the old man’s head. Looming over the old man, he kicked him, over and over, until he felt the crunch of bone and the old man lay still.

  Galen rolled him over by his belt, reaching into his pockets. He found money. Lots of it, loose in his pockets, with the keys to the rental car. The old man’s American passport identified him as Gerald Frost. Frost had a lot of stamps … looked like he’d been everywhere from Japan to Spain. Galen flipped through it, calculating if the passport could be doctored. He jammed it into his coat, along with the money. He found the fat wallet molded to the shape of the old man’s rump in Frost’s back pocket. He flipped open the soft leather, finding an American driver’s license, three credit cards, and CIA credentials.

  Galen’s brow wrinkled. Interesting. He’d beaten the shit out of an old spy.

  He wanted to know more.

  He grasped the old man by the feet and dragged him through the broken pavement and grass to the old apartment building. Frost was still breathing, but Galen chucked him in the entryway, well out of sight. He turned his attention to the rental car.

  Stalkers came by once every few days. It wouldn’t do for it to be found before Galen got some use out of it. Galen popped open the door, climbed behind the wheel. He drove it around the edge of the gate to a secluded thicket. The car would be hidden from casual inspection, almost as if Gerald Frost had never been there.

  Galen returned to the apartment building. He slung the old man over his shoulder, carried him up the creaking steps to his old home. Unceremoniously, he dumped the old man on the soggy couch. Startled by the squeak of springs, a rat scurried out from beneath it.

  Fucking voyeur. He’d show him something of the tragedy, firsthand.

  Galen sat beside the old man on the couch. Blood dripped from Frost’s nose and mouth. Galen took the old man’s skull in his hands. He felt his fingers digging into the liver spots on the old man’s flesh, sinking through skin and bone. Frost’s eyes rolled back in his head. He gasped and screamed.

  But there was no one here to hear him. No one at all, no one but the rats and the sparrows, as Galen dug into his flesh and his mind, engulfing his skin and his memories. He learned all that the old man had known, how he’d come to Chernobyl many years ago to account for missing fuel rods. How the place had been indelibly stamped upon his memory, such that he’d returned like a haunting ghost many years later.

  And that had been Frost’s undoing.

  After killing Frost, Galen took his time digesting him over several days. He watched the play of dim light on the ceiling from the sun, the wash of the stalkers’ flashlights over the courtyard. He remained in the shell of his home, listening to Frost’s voice in his head and watching the fingers of Frost’s ribs dissolve into his chest, melting like ice in summer. He was now the vessel of all Frost’s memories … and all his opportunities.

  Galen jammed all that remained of Frost in the frame of the couch: his clothes, wallet, and a handful of metal fillings that Galen spat out. He kept the boots, the camera, and all of Frost’s papers. And his knowledge.

  Like a ghost, Galen let himself out of the ruined town, walked through the puddles toward the car. Frost had not only given him precious knowledge; he’d given him keys to freedom.

  TARA WATCHED AS THE WATER RINSED AWAY THE MAKEUP ON her arm, like rain eroding the façade of a building. The familiar scars emerged from beneath the camou
flage as the illusion dissipated. She felt a pang of regret, but she reminded herself it wasn’t real. Even if she went to the plastic surgeon Lockley had recommended, the scars would always remain, below the surface. And she wasn’t ready to let them go.

  She dried off the water with one of Harry’s bathroom towels and rolled down her sleeve. Outside the door, she heard the murmur of Harry’s low voice on the phone. After last night, he’d seemed … shocked to her, too quiet. And she wondered what she could do for him.

  She dried off the vanity and pulled her cards out of her purse. She picked the Knight of Pentacles out, Harry’s card, and placed it on the white imitation marble to focus the reading. Closing her eyes, she shuffled, imagining the solid, unwavering Harry she knew … not the man who’d nearly beaten the mugger to death last night.

  She plucked out three cards and laid them above the significator card. The first card she drew represented Harry’s physical needs, the body. She flipped it over, revealing the Four of Swords. A knight lay in effigy on top of a sarcophagus, holding a sword on his chest. Light streamed in from a stained glass window, playing multicolored shadows on his armor. This was a card of rest: Harry needed a decent night’s sleep and the chance to recover from the stress he’d been laboring under.

  The second card represented what was on Harry’s mind. Tara turned over the Devil, reversed. It depicted a beastly demon with a man and a woman chained to his feet. The card suggested bondage, perhaps bondage to ideals or repression of instincts. Reversed, the card suggested the need to be free of restriction.

  The third card suggested what Harry’s spirit needed: Temperance. Temperance showed a woman standing knee-deep in a stream that reflected the stars of the Milky Way. She poured the dark, starlit water from one cup to the other, and not a drop was spilled. The angel represented synthesis, the blending of opposites. Tara frowned at the placid angel. Bringing Harry around to tranquility might be almost as difficult as catching the person responsible for the Rogue Angel disappearances.

  She let that thought linger, Rogue Angel and the angel of Temperance. The goal of the Rogue Angel project had been the moderation of unchecked power. Perhaps, in the same way, her impetuous partner would need to learn to balance and synthesize his own judgments. She was reminded that Temperance always followed the Devil in the sequence of the Major Arcana, suggesting evolution. This was just something that Harry would have to get through, in his own time.

  She whispered at her deck: “What is the best that I can do for him, now?” She fanned the cards out and picked one. The Two of Cups depicted a man and woman gazing into a chalice, their fingers intertwined on the stem. Above them, a caduceus and a winged lion watched. The caduceus was a symbol of healing, and the card spoke to her of alliances, of a balanced partnership. Tara would just have to be there for him, help him carry the burden of the chalice wherever she could.

  Tara’s cell phone rang. She squinted at the caller ID and flipped it open. “Hi, Cassie.”

  “Hi, yourself. Everything okay in the big city?”

  Though the girl was forcing her tone to sound light, Tara could detect an undertone of worry.

  “As well as can be expected for chasing monsters,” Tara answered. “What did the Pythia teach you today?”

  “Well … I wanted to talk to you about that.”

  Tara froze, suspicion prickling the back of her neck. Was that bitch teaching Cassie how to rip out still-beating hearts? “She better not have—”

  “No, no. No more guns,” Cassie hastily told her. “We’re back to astrology.”

  “Oh, okay.” Tara relaxed slightly, but not much. She didn’t trust the Pythia any further than she could throw her.

  “I saw something strange when I was plotting my charts. Sort of a weird coincidence.”

  “There are no weird coincidences. Just synchronicity.”

  “But this was beyond strange … I did a natal chart for the U.S., but picked today’s date and Washington for the location for the transiting planets. I got Pluto in retrograde, plus a whole lotta other badness.”

  Tara’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know much about astrology, but that doesn’t sound good.”

  “No. But I did a data search to find any similar charts using that computer program I built. And I found a really close match: Chernobyl in Ukraine.”

  Tara’s thoughts raced to make the connections: Rogue Angel, loose and unaccounted-for nuclear matter … and Chernobyl. She plucked a card from her deck; it was one from her very first Celtic Cross reading on the case: the Tower. The Tower was a sign of total destruction, and it had been in the foundation position in her previous reading. Whatever was driving this case had come from there, from Chernobyl.

  “Tara, you still there?”

  “Yeah. Can you put the Pythia on?”

  “She’s right here.”

  Not surprising, Tara thought. She was certain that there was very little that went on in that house that the Pythia didn’t eavesdrop on.

  “Tara,” the Pythia’s musical voice filled her ear. “This thing … whatever it is you’re working on, is much bigger than you expected.”

  Tara was reluctant to divulge much information, but it seemed that the Pythia would have clearer sight than most, in this case. She sketched the case in general terms. “Several government operatives who were sent to track and recover nuclear materials in the former USSR have gone missing, and their secrets have been sold.”

  Without skipping a beat, the Pythia told her: “You must stop this. Or there will be a repeat of Chernobyl. Here.”

  Tara’s knuckles whitened on the phone. “I’m trying.”

  “I know that you are. Your cards—”

  “These don’t seem to be my cards,” Tara said coldly, “are they? You went to a great effort to put these into my hands.”

  There was a pause. “Those cards were meant to be yours.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that you’d better learn to control them before it’s too late.”

  The Pythia hung up.

  “Bitch,” Tara breathed into dead air.

  She scooped up her cards, and went to join Harry in the living room, which looked like a disaster zone. File folders with open papers were spread all over the couch and floor, circling an empty pizza box. Harry sat on the couch, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands dangling slack into space. His tie hung loose around his neck, shirt rumpled, and he stared unblinkingly at his cell phone on the makeshift coffee table of boxes.

  Tara sat beside him on the couch, touched his knee. “Harry, what is it?”

  He swallowed, stared blankly at the phone. “I’ve been … I’ve been thinking about last night. About that mugger. Called the local hospitals, just to make sure that nobody matching that description turned up dead. I couldn’t live with myself if … if …” He rested his forehead in his hands. “I got a call from the morgue.”

  Tara’s heart stopped in her chest.

  He couldn’t say anything else, blew out a shaky breath.

  All she said was: “I’ll go with you.”

  He didn’t refuse. He just silently gathered his keys and left for the car. Tara followed him, watching. He said nothing as he drove, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. All blood had drained from his face, and Tara couldn’t imagine what he was going through. Harry had always been an exacting perfectionist, had always demanded the best of himself and others. Now, he’d failed. He’d taken one step outside the lines, with disastrous consequences.

  The DC medical examiner’s office was tucked away in a complex of brick buildings across the street from a dilapidated block of row houses and an STD clinic. Harry parked the car in a no-parking space, and tossed his DOJ parking placard in the window, as if daring someone to tow the car. Tara followed him through the glass doors to the ME’s office. He rang the service bell, and Tara waited beside him as he showed his creds to the night staff.

  “I need t
o take a look at a body that was brought in early today,” he said. “This is the case number.” He shoved a scrap of paper through the window for the on-duty assistant to look at.

  “Sign in here, please.” The morgue assistant shoved a clipboard back at them to sign.

  Once the clipboard had been returned, the assistant buzzed them in through an airlock-like set of double doors. Tara wrinkled her nose at the smell and hot air. Rumor had it that the DC morgue’s air conditioners were plagued by gremlins; she believed it.

  She followed Harry and the assistant down a long corridor with faded green industrial tile. The soles of her shoes felt tacky; she hoped that it was simply wax, but she doubted it. She smelled too much sour bile, piss, and blood.

  “Wait here. I’ll get it out of the freezer.” The assistant left Harry and Tara in the main examination room. A radio somewhere played alternative rock music. Plastic buckets and steel cabinets lined the walls. The aluminum coroner’s slabs were full of figures covered in white sheets and plastic. An assistant was washing the body of an old woman with what looked like an industrial-grade vegetable sprayer. Tara realized that the music she heard came from the earbuds tucked under the woman’s hairnet and mask; she could see the wire trickling out of her collar and extending to her pocket. She picked up a bucket and sloshed away down the hall, leaving Harry and Tara alone with the bodies.

  Harry stared at the floor. Tara reached for his hand, and it was cold and clammy, like stone.

  The clatter of wheels echoed down the hallway, sounding like a shopping cart at the supermarket. The assistant wheeled in a flat cart containing a body wrapped in plastic. The assistant peered at the toe tag. “This one’s a John Doe. Inova Alexandria Hospital sent him down. Cops picked him up in an alley. Our guess on the cause of death is blunt force trauma. Somebody beat the living shit out of him.”