Page 35 of Wrong Door

Cord took a moment to think this through. His car was in the opposite direction. If he wanted, he could follow Sterling. And if he got the chance, he could kill Sterling. Oh, wouldn’t that make the Elementalist happy?

He stood at the corner for a moment. Sterling loaded the cases into a car, got in, and sat for a few seconds before starting the engine. The interior of the car was dark, and Cord could not see him clearly, but he could see the shape of him as he walked closer. Seconds later, Agent Stone showed up and got into the passenger seat.

The car started and pulled out of the parking structure. They turned north, allowing Cord to watch them as he hurried to his own car. He started it and pulled out, hoping traffic would allow him to spot Sterling’s car. It took just a single block before he did indeed see their sedan. Then he pulled out and followed, keeping the distance consistent. He intentionally let a car pass him, not wanting to seem too obvious. Really, though, he was not particularly concerned about being identified. At this point, he didn’t feel any of that mattered; it was all coming to an end, one way or another.

He followed Sterling through the downtown grid, north and then east, and when the car turned into the lot of a hotel on Liberty Street and parked, Cord drove past without slowing. He continued for another two blocks before he turned around. And this time, when he came to the Liberty Hotel, he pulled into the lot.

He sat in his car for a while and waited, coming up with his next steps.

He was already envisioning how the Elementalist might reward him for killing Miles Sterling.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Miles and Vic had their debrief call with Hayes at 11:20, which was earlier than Miles had expected. They’d had it in Vic’s room, and they spent the next fifteen minutes walking Hayes through how things had gone down. Hayes responded in his usual manner, which was to say without drama and without mercy. Miles had sat on the edge of Vic’s bed and taken it, answering each question directly, not minimizing and not elaborating. The operation had been his idea, his design, his call. The wasted time and money could be pinned on him.

Hayes had not raised his voice. He rarely did, which somehow made it worse. Still, he and Vic insisted that yes, it was his call, but several others had signed off on it. The full blame could not be placed on him. Still, the mayor's office had already been in touch with the bureau, and the resources committed to the operation were going to require documentation Miles would need to provide. Miles knew that if that was the worst of it, he was coming out of it mostly clean and bruise-free.

When the call ended, Miles returned to his room ready for a shower and bed. And maybe a call to Sarah. He wasn't angry at Hayes, and he knew he had no right to be anyway. This entire day had been a waste. That was the worst part. Not the money wasted, not the resources piled up.

Back in his room, he slipped out of his clothes and took a shower. When he was out and in his pajamas, he went to the window and looked out. The city below was quiet, their little display now nothing but a memory within the city’s streets. He had been standing there for perhaps ten minutes when there was a knock at the door.

He assumed it was Vic. The call had been a bit rough, as had the night, he supposed, and she was probably just coming to check in on him before they settled into bed. He appreciated the gesture but was also starting to realize that Vic maybe thought he was a bit too fragile for this job. And hell, maybe he was.

He crossed the room and reached for the handle and was turning it, getting a partial look through the peephole as the door came open. He realized his mistake too late as the door came whooshing open with an enormous push from the other side.

The kick was direct and hard. The door's edge caught him in the shoulder and chest, and he went backward hard. His back hit the foot of the bed frame as he fell, and he rebounded from it in a painful and awkward way. He had enough time in the fall to register the figure in the doorway, and he wondered for one disorienting moment if he had already gone to sleep and this was a dream.

Russell Cord came through the door in two steps. He held a small aerosol canister in his right hand and was levelling it at Miles's face from less than four feet away. He was slighter than the faculty photograph had suggested and faster than his build indicated. In fact, he was moving faster than Miles’s currently disoriented mind could keep up with.

Miles didn’t think about the canister. He thought about his weapon on the nightstand and understood immediately that it was the only thing between the next few seconds and death. That was where his focus went. He got his left arm up across his face and turned his head hard into his shoulder in the moment before the spray discharged.

He took most of it on his forearm and the left side of his neck. Enough caught the lower half of his face and the inner corner of his left eye that his throat locked immediately. He gagged and a bout of intense coughing drove him to his knees on the carpet. It hurt to breathe for a moment and his vision was blurring at the edges. His left eye streamed. He could also feel the compound on his neck, the metallic heat of it stinging in an odd and distant way.

Cord was on him then, the can forgotten. He was wiry and his grip was stronger than his frame suggested. He got his knee into Miles's left side and his hand into Miles's collar. He pulled Miles’s head up and he spoke in a low, even voice. It was almost conversational, the register of a man who might even be speaking to himself.

"You've been taking it from the world," Cord said. His knee was still in Miles's side and his voice was completely calm. "Every one of them…every one of us trying to…just trying to restore order. I was just trying to punish those taking color from the world…helping like all of the others you’ve closed t off one by one. But you can’t stop it. You can’t stop the work."

Miles got his right hand to the floor as the maniac spoke and pushed.

"They were restoring it." Cord's grip tightened on his collar. "Do you understand that? Every person you stopped was giving it back. The color, the vibrancy of the world and all we are due. They were putting it back and you shut them down like lights."

Miles got his knees under him, preparing to make a move that might get him to his gun.

"Kane sees what you've done." He was still speaking in that quiet, conversational tone, as though they were discussing the weather or a good book. "He's been watching you do it for months. Case by case…and he’s going to reward me beyond measure when I kill you. You can’t—”

Miles stopped listening and focused on the hand holding the canister.

He drove his elbow back into Cord's ribs at an angle that cost him leverage but shifted the knee off his side. He got his right hand to the floor and pushed upward as hard as he could. When Cord grabbed for his collar again Miles turned into it and got his left forearm across Cord's right wrist. He drove it down and outward as Cord let out a yell of pain and surprise.

The canister hit the carpet and bounced against the base of the nightstand.

Cord came back with his left hand and connected twice, one glancing off Miles's cheekbone and one that landed fully on his jaw with enough force to send pain ringing through his ear and down into his neck. Miles took both punches, absorbing them as he drove forward. Using his weight and height, he pushed Cord backward across the room. He screamed in frustration as he pushed the man, pushing hard until Cord’s back slammed into the dresser hard enough to crack the mirror above it.

He got his forearm across Cord's chest and pinned him against the dresser. He delivered a brutal punch to Cord’s ribs. Cord grunted and went still with a completeness that was more unsettling than continued resistance, his breathing hard but controlled, his eyes on Miles's face with no fear in them. He was looking at Miles the way he had probably looked at every subject he had ever documented, with precise and uninterrupted attention.

He then tilted his head, smiled, and spit in Miles’s face.

Miles stood there with his forearm across the man's chest and his lungs burning and his left eye streaming. The spit in his face tugged at the anger; it came up from under the adrenaline, old and specific and without a bottom to it. He was aware of exactly how badly he wanted to hurt this man.