Ascendance Read Free Page A

her down,’ Trinder demanded.
    ‘Stop her doing what?’ Dave asked. ‘If she was going to do anything, it’d be all over by now.’
    ‘Mr Trinder, sir?’ It was the Asian girl. Trinder seemed even more unhappy at being interrupted than he was at finding Karen Warat in his basement. Probably, Dave thought, because he knew he could safely shift his ire on to his underling.
    ‘What?’ he snapped.
    ‘It’s Washington, sir,’ said the young woman. And then she faltered in her already nervous delivery, her eyes flicking toward the Russian spy, before being drawn to Dave. Always to Dave.
    Colonel Varatchevsky spoke before Trinder’s agent could continue. ‘She came down to tell you what I came to tell you, Hooper,’ she said. ‘The monsters are back. They’re here. In the city.’

02
    ‘B oston has been trying to reach you, sir,’ the agent confirmed. ‘And the Pentagon. And Homeland.’
    ‘I turned my phone off, Agent Nguyen,’ snapped Trinder. ‘With good reason.’
    ‘Yeah, because it’s a BlackBerry.’ Dave smirked.
    He thought he saw Agent Comeau suppress a grin. Karen Warat was eating protein bars, peeling the wrappers and inhaling the contents as though she were loading bullets into a gun. Dave wasn’t feeling all that hungry, yet, but he knew he’d burned through a lot of his reserves fighting her, and then repairing the damage from that fight. He patted down the pockets of his coveralls looking for something to eat.
    ‘What does Boston want?’ asked Trinder, with the air of a man who didn’t care for the answer.
    Nguyen tried to keep her face blank, but failed. Even the boss-looking tattoo couldn’t hide her grimace. She really didn’t want to be the messenger.
    ‘You’ve been ordered to detach Mr Hooper back to OSTP for temporary –’
    She didn’t finish. All of the colour which had previously leached away from Trinder’s features came flooding back in a hot, red flush.
    ‘The hell I will,’ he said, loud enough that it echoed around the garage.
    ‘Sir, if you would just turn on your phone . . .’ Agent Nguyen said, or tried to. Her cute little mouth froze in a perfect ‘O’.
    Dave was ready for it this time.
    ‘Will you stop doing that!’ he said, turning to Warat, the only other human being who was still in motion. She had frozen the others, or warped with Hooper, or whatever the fuck it was they were doing when they did this. He was beginning to understand how annoying it must be when he did it to other people.
    ‘We don’t have time for their bullshit,’ said Warat, tossing him an energy gel. ‘I just orbed out of the consul-general’s office while I was explaining why I had to cut the third secretary into sushi chunks. We have monsters to fight. So eat up, Super Dave.’
    He caught the packet and frowned.
    ‘You know, you really shouldn’t call me that unless you mean it,’ he said, emptying the gel with one squeeze. He didn’t mind blowing off Trinder. The guy was turning out to be even more of a pain than Heath; although, admittedly, not nearly as much as Compton had been. And since Karen hadn’t said or done anything about that little Russian woman he’d rescued, the smart money was on getting her out of Trinder’s building before she noticed Agent Madigan spiriting the girl away. He’d explain it to Trinder later. Couldn’t let big bad Colonel Varatchevsky catch them in the act.
    ‘Okay. Let’s go,’ he said. ‘Where are these critters at?’
    Dave hefted Lucille across one shoulder. She was humming their special tune again.
    ‘Forty-second Street,’ Warat said as they jogged up the ramp.
    East 91st Street looked even worse than it had before. Traffic had been piling up outside the ruins of the consulate, smoke and people pouring from the wreckage, when Karen hit warp. Dave could hear a long, unnatural wail which had to be sirens, and one police car, its flashers caught turning, threw a crazy blue glow up the side of the buildings. The cops had