The Secret Countdown – Chapter 01

An insane nightmare—I was trapped in an insane nightmare with no way out.

I had returned to the new penthouse apartment only a few minutes before. Just long enough to hear the pounding of the storm currently raging over Dallas as it beat against the floor-to-ceiling windows, and to find, on the kitchen island, a lone black feather that soon dissolved into nothing.

All of that I could have dealt with. All of that was nothing when compared to what came next.

As deafening thunder boomed just outside, my spidey sense started tingling. I couldn’t tell what had set it off. My pulse raced while my heart violently pumped in my chest, the dead certainty that something terrible had happened making me feel faint. Then more lightning ripped down from the heavens, showing me that my brief respite was over and things were now worse than ever before.

Lightning forked through the sky outside, once more revealing the impossible. On the other side of the floor-to-ceiling window of my new home was an anomaly, a thing from myth and legend, but oh so very real. A yeti or abominable snowman—a creature about eight to nine feet tall, with white fur, who was said to live high in the Himalayas. It was a sight that would send my roommate Penny out the door in a hair-pulling panic.

But I suspected—no, I knew who this was, and it made my heart feel as if someone had wrapped a hand around it and squeezed.

The yeti didn’t move. He just hung there, his long ape-like arms raised above his head and fettered to metal manacles. His fur was drenched, the water running off him in tiny rivers as the storm that raged over the city continued to pelt him.

I took a couple of manic steps toward him, a scream trying to bubble up my throat, but I clamped my mouth shut to hold it in. Waking up my roommate was the worst thing I could do right now.

The creature trussed up outside my window was an ally, perhaps even a friend, and someone had hung him there as some kind of macabre warning. My hands quivered as I pulled out my phone, my eyes burning. I may not have ever seen him in his secondary form, but I knew this could be no one but Councilor Karki: a Buddhist monk who served on the Council of Purpose, and a member of the race called the Paphal Saĝiga, or the Secret Humankind.

I stared at my phone, a roaring sound pounding in my ears, as my suddenly-numb brain refused to remember how to use it.

Karki had to still be alive—he had to be.

A snippet of a past conversation whispered through my stunned thoughts—one about how, once dead, an SH would no longer keep its secondary form. The words were clear, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember who had told me that. My brain finally shifted into gear, and I opened my contacts list and then hit the call button for Rafael.

“Chica…”

That one word and the warm playfulness behind it almost undid me. For the merest moment, I relived the shivers of delight from our first kiss, which had occurred just minutes before in the elevator. I siphoned whatever strength I could from it before shunting it aside. “We have a situation. Can you come back upstairs? Please?“

I don’t know what he heard in my voice, but a surprised puff echoed from the other end. “Be right there.”

Like me, Detective Rafael Ruiz worked for and with the SH when necessary, as part of our daily lives. Since secrecy was paramount, we each worked the late shift at our respective jobs, even though the need for special services was supposedly few and far between. But with the secret project we were still trying to stop, and all the attempts on my life in the last couple of weeks, Rafael had been neglecting most of his non-SH-involved cases. I’d not been able to do my job at all.

With unsteady steps, I made sure Penny was asleep and that her bedroom door was closed. Fortunately, once she fell asleep, she could stay under through almost anything—one less thing I would need to worry about. I let myself out of the apartment and paced in the hallway. Should I call my boss, Anghelescu? Put a warning into the anonymous chat that Karamel, the company’s receptionist, had rigged for us? I rubbed at my numb face with my hands, drowning in indecision.

Our enemy was surely watching to see what I would do and who would show up once I found his or her little gift—an easy way to find out who was “in the know” about their illicit activities. That our enemy was more than likely a member of the Council of Purpose or someone very close to them was a given. The information they had access to, and the fact that they’d kept an SH child off the register and groomed him into an assassin to better serve their purposes, screamed as much.

With access to the security feeds of Remington Safe and Clean and the other businesses housed inside the same building, our enemy would be aware the moment my boss left her protected rooms on the thirteenth floor. The paranoia of the council and their decision to implant their human allies with a tracker bomb in their necks would make it difficult to ask Stan, my work partner, to help out.

I couldn’t be tracked anymore, my body having rejected the tracker and pushed it out. The reason for that was one I was still battling to wrap my head around. Something inside me had changed—or, more accurately, been fully activated—when I had almost died. A tenuous connection I didn’t even know I’d had to what the SH called the Energy of Life had broadened and given me the power to heal myself. My ‘spidey sense’ had always been with me, but it, too, seemed to be evolving. That, or I was finally started to use it the way it had always been intended. It was only a scant few days ago that Anghelescu and I learned I wasn’t strictly human but rather the result of illegal experiments, putting me in the ‘abomination’ column as far as most of those in the council were concerned. This was something I’d not yet shared with the rest of my friends—not even Rafael.

Especially not Rafael.

And how fair was that to him, when I’d been the one to initiate our first kiss? You’re a selfish one, Xero.

In case I’ve yet to mention it, my name is Julia Xero, the last name having the same pronunciation as ‘zero’—probably someone’s idea of a little joke when picking a name for the foundling.

I shook my head to dislodge the depressing train of thought. Best to stick to the craziness of the present.

The elevator’s ding heralded the detective’s imminent arrival and helped me push everything but the current mess firmly to the back burner.

Seeing his handsome face with its light bronze colored skin, thick dark brows drawn together in concern while his deep brown eyes locked on me, eased the grip of the fist still clenching my heart. Only a little relief, but just enough to remind myself I wasn’t alone in this, that I no longer had to face things on my own.

Rafael’s usually bright blue and green aura had darkened. Have I mentioned yet that I can see auras?

“Chica, what’s going on?” he asked.

I took a deep breath to steel myself for what was coming next. “Someone left me a warning outside my window.” I tried to say the rest, but my mouth wouldn’t do it. Saying it would make it real.

Rafael blinked several times. “Outside? In this storm?”

“Yes.” I grabbed hold of his coat sleeve. “It’ll make the explanation easier if you see it for yourself.” I half-led, half-followed him back to my door, the dread building at having to see that horrid image again. My hand shook so much that I needed his help to get the keycard into the slot. His brow grew more furrowed by the moment.

Having him close gave me the strength to walk in the direction of the open study and the window Karki had been suspended over.

“I… I wouldn’t have even seen him if not for the lightning,” I said. As if to move things along, several bolts flashed nearby, highlighting the suspended body.

“¡Dios mio!” Rafael crossed himself, something I had never seen him do before.

“I think he’s still alive and needs our help.” Watching the dawning horror on his face somehow made mine more palatable. “And we definitely want him down from there before anyone else spots him.” I swallowed hard. “Do you think we can use the Sky Lounge to get to him?”

Rafael dragged his gaze from the now-dark window before slowly shaking his head. “No. I visited up there once, and it’s not open to the outside.” He spoke barely above a whisper, his expression a mix of shock and worry. He looked to be having as bad a time with this as I was. “Is anyone else coming?”

I shook my head. “No. It would take too long, and…” I couldn’t bring myself to voice my suspicions.

Rafael’s brow rose, but he didn’t press me. “Then our best bet is the BMU, the Building Maintenance Unit,” he said.

My confused expression got him to add, “The angled top of the building rises up and has a telescopic crane that can be used to install glass replacements, but mostly to move a window washer gondola up and down so the glass can be kept clean.” He turned his back to the window. “One of my uncles used to work for the maintenance company. He took several of us up to check it out when it was the talk of the town.”

That made sense, especially since Fountain Place was in the shape of a crystal. “Do you know how to get to it?”

“There’s access via the maintenance elevator, though I doubt it’s kept unlocked.” He gave a half-hearted grin. “It’s time to flash my badge around.” His attempt at levity tripped and died, his whole face turning grim. “We’re going to have to be quick.”

Bringing attention to ourselves wasn’t the best idea, but we were low on options. I nodded, and the two of us rushed back to the elevator. And down we went.