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DAISY LAZARUS
Daisy strodeinto the Lazarus House garage and surveyed the performance vehicles. From Parker’s Bugatti to Wyatt’s Ducati, every vacant spot in the garage was filled. Most were black armored vehicles except Liza’s and Joe’s sedans. And then there were just the flashy, useless cars. Axel whistled through his teeth at the extravagance.
“Jeeze, Louise,” he said, scratching his head. “Talk about a billionaire’s wet dream. Shall we take the Lambo?” He pointed at the sleek, low car.
She shook her head and pointed at the black motorcycle. “That one.”
Axel straddled the bike and put a helmet on.
“Hold my bat,” she said, then swung her leg over before him, essentially pushing him backward.
Axel didn’t complain as she fitted herself between his legs, put her hand on the throttle and fired her up. Ninety decibels of horsepower roared to life, shaking the walls. There was only one helmet. She gave it to Axel. He protested but she wouldn’t accept his misplaced chivalry. Daisy walked the bike backward until they were at a position where she could angle out of the driveway.
The sound of the motorcycle was the only sound on the drive back across town. The curfew had begun and, surprisingly, the citizens stayed in. But the worst of them would lurk in the shadows, and any corner they rounded could bring trouble. The journey took less than ten minutes, but in that time, Axel’s grip on her waist slipped in his exhaustion.
The Tower was at the southern end of the Quadrant, right up against the city highway. Julius enjoyed looking out over Mid-Town and further down to the Southside slums. He liked to see the wealth of a city on one side, and the shit on the other.
He used to say it reminded him of his mission, but she always thought it made him feel like a king when he wasn’t. He was just a desperate madman who missed his family.
Daisy wasn’t sure what she’d find when they arrived. Days ago, Parker and Alice had chased Julius into the basement here where they thought Daisy was being kept prisoner. But it hadn’t been the basement. She had been in the sewers beyond.
She took the bike to the underground lot and forced her way inside through a half-lifted metal door. The building used to be filled with offices for dummy corporations they’d used as a cover. They’d run most of their high-level Syndicate strategy from there—well, Daisy and Julius had. It had also been where Daisy laid her head to rest. Most nights, Julius also slept in his office on a couch. He hadn’t returned to his family home for years.
Too many painful memories, he’d said.
Somehow, she didn’t think he was talking about how he locked her in the attic to “protect” her. She now knew it was to stop her from roaming about and touching his dead family’s belongings. And she supposed, there would have been an element of not wanting Daisy to discover the truth about the world—how not all of them were falling under the influence of sin, how her family was still alive, how there was hope.
They parked the bike and walked into the basement lobby entrance. Glass sliding doors were locked. Crime scene tape covered it from side to side. She pulled it down and then pried the glass door open with her fingers.
“Slot the bat in when I open it,” she said to Axel.
“Won’t the alarm go off?”
“The Sinners will have it disabled.”
After they opened the doors, two women in black skin-tight clothing, hoods and red scarf-masks emerged. They dropped their scarfs and hoods to reveal their identities. One was an Asian brunette, and the other was a Caucasian blond. They took in every inch of Daisy’s and Axel’s body, checked behind them to see if anyone else followed, then waved them in.
“I’m Tawny,” said the blond. “Alice said you were coming. Leila and I have been guarding the gate.”
“The gate?” Axel’s brows lifted.
“The gate to Hell,” Leila replied, matter of fact.
“It’s not Hell,” Daisy said to Axel, placating him. “Julius is a madman. Don’t listen to them.”
Both Sinners pivoted and glared at her.
Leila said, “Hell, the Afterlife, another dimension. Whatever you want to call it, sin-sensing replicates want to go there because it’s where they sense the largest concentration of sin. If Julius succeeds, there’s no telling what will come through. Raven foresaw demonic forces in her psychic visions. She said the gate has evil mystical energy. If it opens, the replicates and the state of this city will be the least of our problems.”
Axel visibly paled. Daisy rolled her eyes. “It’s not true.”
“How do you know?”
“I know because he spent his life working on replicates so he could bring his wife and daughter back to life. This other nonsense isn’t what he does. His original plan failed, and rather than accept defeat, his pragmatic mind took a sidestep to come up with this cockamamy plan to bring his wife and daughter back.”
Tawny folded her arms. “We saw the replicates target that spot ourselves. We saw their ripped to the stumps as they tried to dig through. Julius killed his lead geneticist right there.”
Leila added, “All of our occult research mentions sacrifices. Well, one was already made.”
