We found the Nail Barrel inside a ring of empty cars that were full of bullet holes and shattered safety glass. I flicked off the headlights and put my trust in my inhumanly acute night vision and the faint green foxfire glow of the clouds overhead. Lights were on inside the store, but only in the rear of the building. The front of the store was dark, giving the shattered plate-glass windows in front a yawning, toothy look.
I nosed up against the closest wreck and killed the engine. Silence pressed in on us, disturbed only by random bursts of gusty wind in the street and the ticking of the cooling engine.
Anne’s head swayed left and right as she tried to peer across the street and into the store. “Looks deserted.”
“Still have to check.” I reached into my pocket and fished out the little lock-blade folder that I carried. I snapped it open and looked at Anne. “Give me your hand.”
She immediately balled up her fists and stuck them in her lap. “Why?”
“I want to introduce you to Mr. C, so he can find you if we get separated. A drop of blood is all I need.”
“Ugh, creepy.” She stuck her hand out and turned her head away. I nicked her palm as gently as I could, and then squeezed the little cut until a dark drop welled up. I dipped a finger in it, and then smeared it down Mr. C’s back while he sat on the dash. He remained perfectly still, but the shiny streak vanished into the dull wood of his back as though absorbed by a sponge.
“Now you,” I said to Chuck, turning towards the back seat.
“Here.” His hand was already out, palm up, with blood on it, a fancy stainless steel pocketknife in his other hand. I dabbed a different finger in it and repeated the process. That blood, too, sank out of sight.
“Okay, that should do it. Now he can find you wherever you go, no matter the distance.”
Chuck wiped his hand on his jeans. “You sure? How do we know if it works?”
I shrugged. “We don’t, really, but that’s all I know how to do, so if it doesn’t work, it’s not like I can fix it or anything. I only know what Henry told me about working with Mr. C, and that’s pretty much it for introducing him to new people. Now, let’s see what’s going on in that building.”
I picked up the little wooden spider, rolled down the window, and tossed him out into the darkness. I left the window down and leaned back in my seat to wait. The smell of damp and mud and vegetative rot swiftly filled up the cabin.
After ten long minutes, a tic-tic-tic on the hood of the truck heralded my scout’s return. Mr. C flowed across the hood, dipped onto the side of the door, then over the sill of the window in a flash, legs a blur of motion. He dropped into my lap with the tiny impact of a matchbox. I picked him up and held him in my hand.
“Okay, show me.” Instantly, the spider dipped and sank his tiny steel fangs into the flesh at the base of my thumb. Impressions and images lunged and jostled for attention in my head. Bodies on the floor, a lot of them, seen from twenty or thirty feet up in the air. A towering, shadowy mountain of guns thrown into a corner seen from an inch off the floor, then a head-level view of people sitting on the floor, Mazie and Greg right in the front of the crowd. One of those big helmeted bags with a shotgun and a companion, a regular bag by the look of him, standing over the group. A portable CB on a desk, looming high. All of this was interspersed with rapid-fire flashes of hallways, doorframes, and window corners.
Mr. C stood up, pulling his fangs out of my hand, and then sprang to my shoulder. He stood stock still for a moment, then his legs snapped up around his abdomen, and he slid down my shirt to land neatly in my pocket. I took a deep breath and focused on settling my queasy stomach. There was no doubt about the usefulness of Mr. C’s scouting reports, but the dizzying succession of views and angles was nauseating to say the least.
“Looks like they made their last stand, and they lost. The weird part is that they’re still alive and being guarded by a couple of bags, two or three at the most, and one of those helmeted fuckers thrown in for good measure. They don’t seem to be out of their minds like the rest of them, no clue why.”
Anne raised an eyebrow. “Why take hostages?”
“Piotr’s not one for leaving things to chance. I imagine he has a good reason.”
“Like using them as bait to lure us in?”
“That would be my guess.”
Chuck leaned his head into the space between the front seats. “So, if those guys are bait, then all we have to do is to ignore it and go after Piotr himself. Problem solved.”
I looked back over my shoulder at him. “One question. What do you do with your leftover bait after you’re done fishing and you don’t need it any more?”
Chuck’s cheeks reddened. “Yeah, good point. What’s the plan?”
I started the Rover and backed away from the cars in front of us, lights still off. “The plan is we go in and rescue some hostages. We’ll figure out the rest after that’s done.”