Wanted: Undead or Alive

Orange Is The New Black

With the sun still low in the western sky the next morning, we bumped over the steel and wood that made up the railway crossing that cut across West Maumee Avenue. Moose swung the Rubicon into the parking lot of a one-story red brick building approximately the size of a football field, but a little narrower on the near end and wider on the far. A single door and three tiny, narrow windows faced the street. Black tinting covered the glass. The tracks ran near enough to the back of the building that it would be impossible to drive anything larger than a golf cart between the wall and the raised rock bed.

I eyed the diesel engine idling there with a low, vibrating rumble. Three slatted freight cars waited behind it, each covered in beautiful, complicated graffiti. Anyone who didn't know would never guess what it was. They would just think it was gang symbols or geometric nonsense. "They're warded."

Moose hauled his bulk out of the Rubicon. "Of course. How else would they contain people with abilities?"

"They..." At the thought of people like Nick being loaded into freight cars, the chills came back, raising goosebumps along my arms. Eesh. "Where do they take them?"

He glowered at me. "Away."

With that chunk of fetid information sitting uneasily in my gut, I followed him along the narrow, cracked sidewalk to the front door. He pulled it open and held it for me, and I stepped into the strikingly sterile interior. White chairs with gleaming steel legs stood in neat rows with their backs pressed against white walls. Silver flecks shone on the white floor tiles. Bright white bulbs buzzed in cage-style fixtures overhead.

To my left, a white sign with red letters read: Anyone entering beyond lobby may be subject to a search of their person or possessions. To my left, another informed me that beings of all races have a right to legal representation. If I had questions about that right, there was a number to call. Straight ahead was a metal door covered from top to bottom in teeny, tiny, etched runes and beside the door, a tall man with buzzed hair and a chiseled jawline stared at me with solidly jet-black eyes through a thick window. When he blinked, I had a sudden memory of the pet hamster who'd lived in my bedroom for a brief time when I was eight. It had escaped one night by chewing through the cage door. I'd always hoped it had met a cute mouse in a nearby field and made thousands of hybrid rodent babies, but probably it had been dinner for some larger, faster creature.

A fancy little guy about a foot tall in tails and a top hat sat cross-legged in one of the chairs. His gossamer dragonfly wings were folded neatly behind him. He had an itty-bitty monocle, and a cane fashioned from a plastic swizzle stick. "I remember you."

I remembered him, too. He would have been hard to forget even if he hadn't been the first visibly non-human creature I ever encountered after surviving an altercation with a fugitive Moose had been tracing. "How's it going?"

"Every time I'm having what I believe to be the worst day of my life, you seem to show up."

Unjustified guilt welled up in my chest. "Sorry."

"Can I help you?" Chiseled Hamster Man asked via a speaker.

Moose flashed his badge. "We're investigating the Nick Adamos case on behalf of The Organization. Someone called ahead to tell you—"

"Yeah, I got it." His beady eyes turned toward me. Quick blink. "You have ID?"

I tugged my badge from my back pocket and held it up for his inspection. "Come on through."

The door buzzed. Moose opened it. 

Cold—fierce, brutal, marrow-freezing, skin burning, breath-stealing cold—ripped through me for a split second and then I was standing on the other side of the door, gasping and blinking up at the black-eyed man.