Page 133 of American Hellhound
Ghost opened one of the bricks and licked a tiny spot of white powder off his fingertip. “Not ours. They’re bringing it in from somewhere else.”
“What is it?” the woman called nervously from the door.
“You don’t wanna know,” Roman called back to her.
Ghost took the brick he’d opened and stuffed it into his cut pocket. “Leave the rest.”
Walsh sent him a questioning look.
“Tell the woman not to come down here again until we give her the all-clear, no matter what.”
~*~
Roman’s kid, Boomer, was big and strong – albeit, the top of his head only came up to Mercy’s chin, but hey, that was true of most people – but he was so outwardly nervous Mercy couldn’t decide if he was just a wimp, or if this Reese person was something to be concerned about. The guy had killed a dog – that spoke ofassholeand notdangerousin Mercy’s book, but again, he didn’t exactly judge things by normal standards.
They stood in the cracked-up parking lot of the old Johnson & Sons factory, and the storm clouds had rolled in so thick it was nearly dark as night by this point. Nervous tongues of lightning chased each other in the distance, creeping closer. The wind kicked fast food wrappers past their feet.
Mercy felt the first raindrop splash against his forehead and he rubbed it away with the back of his hand.
“You’re sure he’s here?” Aidan asked skeptically. “There’s not even any glass left in the windows.”
Boomer’s expression was pained. “Reese doesn’t exactly care about being comfortable. There’s offices and bathrooms up on the second floor. If he can hunker down and keep to himself, he’ll think it’s great. This is the last place he told us he was camping out.”
“Why wasn’t he staying with you guys at the cabin?” Tango said.
“He, uh, doesn’t really…like to be crowded.”
Aidan and Tango exchanged a look, a silent conversation of raised eyebrows and head tilts.
“Okaaaay,” Aidan said.
“Go get him,” Michael said. “We ain’t gonna stand around here ‘til it gets dark.”
“And rain’s coming,” Tango said, tipping his head back to frown at the clouds.
“Um,” Boomer said.
“You’re afraid,” Mercy guessed, and the kid blushed. “What for? You’ve been working with him.”
“Yeah, but he’s…not right.”
Michael glared at him, and Boomer seemed to shrink down into his collar.
“I mean,” he said in a hurry. “He’s, like, not been raised up like a person, you know? He doesn’t act normal.”
“He’ll be in good company, then,” Mercy said, taking him by the beefy shoulder and shoving him toward the building. “We’re all fucked up. Let’s go. We’ll back you up.”
“Damn,” Boomer swore, but he led them toward the factory’s door, just as fat raindrops began to fall in earnest.
The door was sticky thanks to the humidity, and finally opened with a pop and a gasp and a shower of paint peels. They were assaulted with the scents of mold, and damp brick, and rotting wood. Feeble daylight fell in through the windows, revealing a graveyard of old office furniture, all of it coated in inches of dust. Mercy spotted fluffy piles of insulation spiked with pine straw, where rats and squirrels had built nests.
Their footfalls – crunch of grit and dirt grinding between their boot soles and the concrete floor – echoed loudly off the brick walls.
“Dad said he and Roman had a deal go bad here, way back when,” Aidan said, voice hushed. “Kinda…I dunno, what’s the word?”
“Ironic?” Tango asked.
“Prophetic,” Mercy suggested.
