Darkness Girl: Trickster God

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Failed Dreams

No one had asked her about the sword when she got into the car, but there was a hint of recognition in Latimer's eyes when he saw it. 

Regan adjusted her seatbelt around the hilt and saw Latimer looking at her in the rear vision mirror. She stared back at him. 

'What?' 

'You seem preoccupied.' 

'Worry about your own problems.' 

'The Silverwater transporters are already in place at the meeting point, and Trevellian is there to intercept his informant. By the time we arrive, there should also be an investigator assault team on call if we need them.' 

Regan looked out of the window at the city. The sun was already starting to slip towards the horizon, tinting the sky above the buildings a dirty rust colour. She shook her head. 

Latimer's brow furrowed. 'I know this isn't how silencers usually work, but this might be our only opportunity. I refuse to let it go to waste.' 

Latimer drove them out of the city and through the industrial district. They passed auto shops with indistinguishable functions and furniture warehouses with peeling signs and depressingly upbeat names. Eventually, the shops gave way to junkyards and empty lots, where high fences topped with barbed wire protected mounds of rusting scrap metal choked with weeds. 

'How far is this place?' said Forester. 'We're almost out of the city.' 

Latimer didn't look at him, but kept his eyes on the road. 'It's a fair way to go yet.' 

Regan leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes as Latimer took the exit for the highway. His car smelled like stale cigarettes and coffee. The smell had soaked into the seats so that every time she moved, another wave of scent washed over her. She tried to ignore it. 

It was almost two hours later, and the sun had set, when Latimer stopped the car outside a roadside motel that looked like the type of place where you'd push the bed against the door. The lights were out in the plastic sign that towered out the front, but Regan was able to make out the name Pheasant's Rest Motor Inn. 

The motel itself was a low, three storey building that had been painted a mixture of off-white and pastel blue that was supposed to give it a tropical feel and failed miserably. The whole structure was built around a central carpark; a flat expanse of concrete stained with dirty coffee-coloured patches where water had collected after rain. One side was given over to a petrol station that had been built to serve passing tourists in better days. The motel and petrol station now stood dark and derelict. Plywood boards covered the doors and windows, and scrawls of graffiti crawled across the walls like a disease. There was a temporary chain-link fence surrounding the building, but large portions had collapsed. Latimer aimed the car towards one of the gaps. 

Forester groaned. 'Why couldn't the meeting be anywhere nice? I thought infiltrators were supposed to be classy.' 

'I hate places like this,' said Sarafina. 'Someone probably had a dream about owning this place once.' 

The headlights seemed unnaturally bright against the bare concrete of the motel carpark. Regan looked at the dilapidated hulk in their white halogen light. 

'This place is a death trap.' 

'Trevellian picked his meeting spots well,' said Latimer. 'They built a bypass about thirty kilometres north of here a few years ago. The old highway is littered with little roadside stops like this one that went bust after their business dried up. Almost no one has a reason to come down here these days.' 

'So you can see someone approaching long before they even arrive?' said Sarafina. 

'If you're the first one to arrive, it's the perfect place for an ambush.'