Sanctus

Chapter 124

The moment Gabriel saw the open fire door at the back of the room he knew something was wrong. He raised his gun, crunched towards it and looked outside. The Inspector was lying on the ground. Liv had gone.

He stepped out, checking along the perimeter fence for the patrols then grabbed the Inspector under his shoulders, leaned back to drag him inside, and nearly dropped him again when he let out a low, ragged moan.

He hauled him inside, closed the fire door and felt for a neck pulse. He found one, and frowned at the two bullet holes in the front of his shirt. They were ragged and closely grouped. He poked his finger through one of them and touched warm metal. He dragged his finger towards the second hole, tearing the shirt material between them and revealing a black body armour vest beneath with two flattened bullets at the spot where the heart should be. The impact would have been enough to knock him out, crack the ribs maybe, but not kill him.

‘Hey,’ Gabriel said, slapping him sharply on both cheeks. ‘Come on, wake up.’

He slapped him harder until Arkadian’s head finally rolled away to one side and his eyes struggled open. He looked at Gabriel. Focused. Tried to get up.

‘Take it easy,’ Gabriel said, resting a hand on his chest where the bullets had struck. ‘You’ve been shot. If you get up you could pass out again and crack your head. I need to know what car you came in.’

‘Unmarked car,’ Arkadian rasped in a dry voice he didn’t recognize.

‘It’s gone,’ Gabriel said, reaching into his pocket and taking out his mobile phone. ‘Whoever took it is probably the same guy who shot you and left you for dead. I want you to call it in as stolen. It’ll be on the road somewhere between here and the Citadel. But advise caution. The girl’s in the car with him.’

Arkadian looked at the phone and remembered the officer he’d left sitting behind the wheel. ‘The driver?’ he said.

Gabriel looked at him, his face blank. ‘He’ll be in the car too.’ Arkadian nodded, his face darkening. He reached out with his good hand and took the phone. He started to dial the number for central dispatch but managed only the first three numbers before both men froze as something moved, outside in the warehouse.

Gabriel surged forward, moving low across the floor towards the open door, keeping below the line of the windows. The sound came again. Like electrical static, or the crinkle of heavy plastic. He realized what it was a split second before he reached the door and a terrible sound tore through the air — the banshee howl of pain and lament.

His mother was standing just outside the door, holding the tarpaulin in her hand, and staring down at what was left of her father’s body.