The Postcard Killers Read online

  Leaving the bike and the groceries in the driveway, she came over to the steps.

  “Mr. Crebbs? I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Dessie and Jacob’s friend shook hands.

  “Nothing but crap, I hope.”

  Dessie smiled at Jacob.

  “From a romantic guy like this? What’d you expect?”

  Acknowledgments

  Liza’s thanks:

  Tove Alsterdal, Thomas Bodström, Kent Widing, Eva Marklund, Peter Rönnerfalk, and Neil Smith for their professional advice and great patience. And the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, its staff and website, for information and theories about famous works of art.

  Jim’s thanks:

  Liza, for jumping into this book with stunning enthusiasm, skill, and no ego. And Linda Michaels, for getting us together, and just for being Linda.

  The world’s two deadliest assassins must hunt a diamond-loaded fugitive—and each other…

  Please turn this page for an exciting preview of

  Kill Me if You Can

  Available in August 2011

  SOME PEOPLE are harder to kill than others. The Ghost was thinking about this as he huddled in the deep, dark shadows of Grand Central Station. A man named Walter Zelvas would have to die tonight. But it wouldn’t be easy. Nobody hired the Ghost for the easy jobs.

  It was almost eleven p.m. The evening rush was long over and the crush of commuters was now only a thin stream of weary travelers.

  The Ghost was wearing an efficient killing disguise. His face was lost under a tangle of matted silver and white hair and a shaggy beard, and his arsenal was hidden under a wine-stained gray poncho. To anyone who even bothered to take notice, he was just another heap of homeless humanity seeking refuge on a quiet bench near Track 109.

  He eyed his target. Walter Zelvas. A great hulk of a man with the nerves and reflexes of a snake and a soul to match. Zelvas was a contract killer himself, but unlike the Ghost, Zelvas took pleasure in watching his victims suffer before they died. For years the ruthless Russian had been an enforcer for the diamond syndicate, but apparently he had outlived his usefulness to his employer, and the Ghost had been hired to terminate him.

  If he doesn’t kill me first, the Ghost thought. With Zelvas it was definitely a matter of kill or be killed. And this would surely be a duel to the death.

  So the Ghost watched his opponent closely. The screen on the Departures monitor refreshed, and Zelvas cursed under his breath. His train was delayed another thirty minutes.

  He drained his second cup of Starbucks cappuccino, stood up, crumpled his empty cup, and deposited it in the trash.

  No littering, the Ghost thought. That might attract attention, and the last thing Zelvas wanted was attention.

  That’s why he was leaving town by train. Train stations aren’t like airports. There’s no baggage check, no metal detectors, no security.

  Zelvas looked toward the men’s room.

  All that coffee will be the death of you, the Ghost thought, as Zelvas walked across the marble floor to the bathroom.

  A half-comatose porter, mop in hand, was sloshing water on the terminal floor like a zombie tarring a roof. He didn’t see Zelvas coming.

  A puddle of brown water came within inches of the big man’s right foot. Zelvas stopped. “You slop any of that scum on my shoes and you’ll be shitting teeth,” he said.

  The porter froze. “Sorry. Sorry, sir. Sorry.”

  The Ghost watched it all. Another time, another place, and Zelvas might have drowned the man in his own mop water. But tonight, he was on his best behavior.

  Zelvas continued toward the bathroom.

  The Ghost had watched the traffic in and out of the men’s room for the past half hour. It was currently empty. Moment of truth, the Ghost told himself.

  Zelvas got to the doorway, stopped, and turned around sharply.

  He made me, the Ghost thought.

  Zelvas looked straight at him. Then left, then right.

  He’s a pro. He’s just watching his back.

  Satisfied he wasn’t being followed, Zelvas entered the bathroom.

  The Ghost stood up and surveyed the terminal. The only uniformed cop in the area was busy giving directions to a young couple fifty feet away.

  The men’s room had no door—just an L-shaped entryway that allowed the Ghost to walk in and still remain out of sight.

  From his vantage point he could see the mirrored wall over the sinks. And there was Zelvas, standing in front of a urinal, his back to the mirror.

  The Ghost silently reached under his poncho and removed his equally silent Glock from its holster.

  The Ghost had a mantra. Three words he said to himself just before every kill. He waited until he heard Zelvas breathe that first sigh of relief as he began to empty his bladder.

  I am invincible, the Ghost said in silence.

  Then, in a single fluid motion, he entered the bathroom, silently slid up behind Zelvas, aimed the Glock at the base of his skull, and squeezed the trigger.

  And missed.

  Some people are harder to kill than others.

  WALTER ZELVAS never stepped up to a urinal unless the top flush pipe was made of polished chrome.

  It’s not a perfect mirror, but it’s enough. Even in a distorted image, he could see all he needed to see.

  Man. Hand. Gun.

  Zelvas whirled on the ball of his right foot and dealt a swift knifehand strike to the Ghost’s wrist just as he pulled the trigger.

  The bullet went wide, shattering the mirror behind him. Yet its now-webbed surface remained miraculously intact.

  Zelvas followed by driving a cinder-block fist into the Ghost’s midsection, sending him crashing through a stall door.

  The Glock went skittering across the tile floor.

  The Ghost looked up at the enraged colossus who was now reaching for his own gun.

  Damn, the Ghost thought. The bastard is still pissing. Glad I wore the poncho.

  He rolled under the next stall just as Zelvas’s first bullet drilled a hole through the stained tile where his head had just been.

  Zelvas darted to the second stall to get off another shot. Still on his back, the Ghost kicked the stall door with both feet.

  It flew off its hinges and hit Zelvas square on, sending him crashing into the sinks. But he held on to his gun.

  The Ghost lunged and slammed Zelvas’s gun hand down on the hard porcelain. He was hoping to hear the sound of bone snapping, but all he heard was glass breaking as the mirror behind Zelvas fell to the floor in huge fractured pieces.

  Instinctively, the Ghost snatched an eight-inch shard of broken mirror as it fell. Zelvas head-butted him with his full force, and as their skulls collided the Ghost jammed the razor-sharp glass into Zelvas’s bovine neck.

  Zelvas let out a violent scream, pushed the Ghost off him, and then made one fatal mistake. He yanked the jagged mirror from his neck.

  Blood sprayed like a renegade fire hose. Now I’m really glad I wore the poncho, the Ghost thought.

  Zelvas ran screaming from the bloody bathroom, one hand pressed to his spurting neck and the other firing wildly behind him. The Ghost dove to the floor under a hail of ricocheting bullets and raining plaster dust. A few deft rolls, and he managed to retrieve his Glock.

  Jumping to his feet, the Ghost sprinted to the doorway to see Zelvas running across the terminal, a steady stream of arterial blood pumping out of him. He would bleed out in a minute, but the Ghost didn’t have time to stick around and confirm the kill. He raised the Glock, aimed, and then…

  “Police. Drop it.”

  The Ghost turned. A uniformed cop, overweight, out of shape, and fumbling to get his own gun, was running toward him. One squeeze of the trigger, and the cop would be dead.

  There’s a cleaner way to handle this, the Ghost thought. The guy with the mop and every passenger within hearing distance of the gunshots had taken off. The bucket of soapy mop water was still there.

/>   The Ghost put his foot on the bucket and kicked, sending it rolling across the terminal floor right at the oncoming cop.

  Direct hit.

  The fat cop went flying, ass over tin badge, and slid across the slimy wet marble.

  But this is New York: one cop meant dozens, and by now a platoon was heading his way.

  I don’t kill cops, the Ghost thought, and I’m out of buckets. He reached under his poncho and pulled out two smoke grenades. He yanked the pins and screamed, “Bomb!”

  The grenade fuses burst with a terrifying bang, and the sound waves bounced off the terminal’s marble surfaces like so many billiard balls. Within seconds the entire area for a hundred feet was covered with a thick red cloud that had billowed up from the grenade casings.

  The chaos that had erupted with the first gunshot kicked into high gear as people who had dived for cover from the bullets now lurched blindly through the bloodred smoke in search of a way out.

  Half a dozen cops stumbled through the haze to where they’d last seen the bomb thrower.

  But the Ghost was gone.

  Disappeared into thin air.

  YOU WANT A FAIRY TALE, DON’T YOU? YOU’RE NOT GOING TO FIND ONE HERE. AND THERE IS NO HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

  WITCH & WIZARD

  THE FIRE

  THE END IS COMING DECEMBER 2011

  TURN THE PAGE FOR A SNEAK PREVIEW!

  WHIT

  My lungs are bursting, and if she dies, I’ll die.

  We’re tearing through the cramped, dank streets of the Capital, running for our lives from The New Order police and their trained wolves. My calves are burning, my shoulders ache, and my mind is numb from all that’s happened.

  There is no more freedom. So there is no escape.

  I stumble through this strange, awful world we have inherited, past a mass of the sick, who are shuddering from more than just the cold. A man collapses at my feet, and I have to wrestle my arm away from a woman holding a baby and pointing at me, shrieking, “The One has judged! He has judged you!”

  And then there’s the blood. Mothers scratch at open pustules, and children cough into rags stained red. Half of the poor in this city are dying from the Blood Plague.

  And my sister is one of them.

  Wisty’s slight frame, even paler than usual, is curled over my back, her thin arms wrapped around my neck. She’s in agony; her breath comes in gasps. She’s murmuring about Mom and Dad, and it’s ripping my heart right out of my chest.

  The street pulses with waves of vacant-eyed citizens scurrying to work. A guy in a suit shoulders me to the curb and an old man who seems to recognize me slurs something about “dark arts” under his breath and hurls a glob of spit at my cheek. Everyone has been brainwashed or brutalized into conformity. I can hear the shrieks from the abused populace as the goons hammer through them just a block behind.

  They’re gaining on us.

  The wolves strain against their chains, foam building on their jagged teeth as they yank our pursuers forward. All missing fur and rotting flesh, they’re Satan’s guard dogs come to life. Something tells me that if—or when—the New Order police catch us, they aren’t exactly going to go easy.

  There’s got to be an open door or a shop to slip through, but all I can see are the imposing, blaringly red banners of propaganda plastering every building. We are literally surrounded by the New Order.

  The cop in the lead is a little zealot who looks like a ferret. His face is beet red under an official hat with the N.O. insignia on it. He’s screaming my name and wielding a metal baton that looks like it would feel really awesome smashing across my shins.

  Or through my skull.

  No. I will not go out like this. We have the power. I think of Mom and Dad, their faces as the smoke streaked toward them. We will avenge them. I feel a rush of rebel inspiration as lines of a banned poem thunder in my head along with the soldiers’ boots.

  Rise like Lions after slumber. In unvanquishable number. I put my head down, hike Wisty up, and surge forward through the Plague-ridden crowds. I won’t give up.

  Shake your chains to earth like dew. I break away from the crowd, seeing an opening at the end of the street. Which in sleep had fallen on you. Ye are many—they are few. We used to be many, when the Resistance was thriving. Their faces flash before me: Janine, Emmet, Sasha, Jamilla. And Margo. Poor Margo. Our friends are long gone now.

  Now it’s just me.

  I burst through the mouth of the alley into a huge square. A mob of people gathers, looking at one another expectantly. Then a dozen fifty-foot-tall high-definition screens light up, surrounding us and broadcasting the latest New Order news feed. With everyone distracted, this would be the perfect time to find a way out of this deathtrap. But I can’t tear my eyes away from this particular broadcast.

  It’s replayed footage of my parents’ public execution.

  My head swims as Mom and Dad look down from all around us, trying for bravery as they face the hateful crowd. And as I watch the people I love most in the world go up in smoke for the second time, I hear Wisty’s hysterical, delirious ramblings.

  “NO!” She flails in my arms, trying to reach out for them just like she did that day. “Help them, Whit!” she shrieks. “We’ve got to help them!”

  She thinks she is watching our parents’ actual execution again.

  Before I soothe my sister, she’s hacking and I feel something hot and wet oozing down my neck and shoulders. I gag back my own bile, but the most horrific part of all is that the mess that is dripping down my sides is full of blood.

  She hasn’t got much time left.

  I’ve got to get Wisty somewhere safe—like, NOW. We seem to have lost the club-wielding pigs for a few precious seconds behind the crowd, so I whirl around to find another alleyway… and nearly run smack into my own face. I stumble backward, chills running down my spine.

  And then I see them.

  A hundred posters, or a thousand, on every pole and window. Wisty and me.

  WISTERIA ROSE ALLGOOD AND WHITFORD

  P. ALLGOOD.

  WITCH AND WIZARD.

  HIGHLY DANGEROUS CRIMINALS.

  WANTED ALIVE.

  MOSTLY DEAD ACCEPTABLE.

  I whip around, hyperventilating. I feel eyes on me everywhere. An old woman grins up at me with a mouth full of missing teeth. A couple of suits trot down the white marble steps of the Capitol building, their cigars pointed our way. There’s a little girl standing off to the side boring into me with her wide, gray eyes. She knows.

  They all know.

  Right on cue, the squad storms through the entrance to the square, heads flicking around in search of us. And then, like something out of a horror movie, the zombie wolves start to howl.

  There’s a little partially bombed-out stone building half-hidden by N.O. flags just off a side street that I can spot from here, and it looks promising. Or at least more promising than the jaws of the half-dead mutts. I slink over there as inconspicuously as possible, and slip in through a side door.

  A gargantuan painting of The One Who Is The One greets me, his bald head and Technicolor eyes bearing down, and a sign on the wall reads CONFESS YOUR CRIMES TO THE NEW ORDER AND YOU WILL BE SPARED. THE ONE ALREADY KNOWS ALL. There are bullet shells on the floor.

  This could be… really bad.

  But there’s no one here. We’re safe—for now.

  My shoulders and lower back muscles are screaming, so I finally slide my sister down to the floor. “Come on, Wisty,” I plead, wiping her face with my shirt. “Stay with me.” She looks like the image of death.

  I sit Wisty up in my lap. Her short red hair is matted with sweat, but her teeth are chattering. I hold her clammy hand, whisper the words of some of my surefire healing spells over her, and add every ounce of hope I have into the mix.

  Only… nothing works.

  How can my power be bone-dry? I’m a wizard, but I can’t even save my sister. She’s my constant, my best friend. I can’t just sit h
ere and watch her get weaker, watch her eyes puff up as the blood leaks into them, watch her float in and out of consciousness until her world finally goes dark. I can’t keep watching the people I care about most die.

  I already did that.

  Twice.

  I wince, thinking of Mom and Dad. If they’d only taught me a bit more about how to wield this power before… I can’t finish the thought.

  It’s not just a problem with my power, I’m sure of it. There’s something in the air here in the Capital—like The One poisoned it or something—and it’s turning the New Order followers into empty, nodding pod people and the poor, potential dissenters into writhing, moaning Blood Plague victims.

  The survival rates haven’t been high.

  “Why did you have to volunteer at that stupid Plague camp and get sick, Wisty?” I whisper-shout at her through angry tears. “We’ve seen what The One can do, and if he wants every single free-thinker in the ghetto sick, no amount of healing spells are going to make you immune!”

  I need my sister, the often-annoying know-it-all, rebel leader, greatest threat to the New Order, unexpectedly rockin’ musician, witch extraordinaire… I can’t do this alone. No—I can’t do this without her. She was the only one I had left in the world.

  My breath catches in my throat. I’ve already been thinking of Wisty in the past tense.

  I feel everything within me explode at once. I smash my hand into the painting of The One, but it’s as if it’s made of metal, and my hand throbs in agony. I groan, but I’ve got even more pressing things to worry about.

  Like the teen soldier dressed in his daddy’s clothes who’s pointing a gun at me.

  “Freeze, Wizard,” his adolescent voice cracks. Aw. Been there, dude.

  I freeze, but look behind him. No one else seems to have followed him into the building.

  “On behalf of the New Order and in the name of The One Who Is The One,” he looks up at the painting reverently, “I demand that you surrender your power and turn over The One Who Has The Gift.”