by Logan Jacobs
“Damn, what is with you? I just want you so bad.” One of her warm hands slid up my shirt and lightly traced the lines of my abs in a way that made me shudder. I slid a hand over her back to squeeze her butt, and I relished in the feeling.
As her hand started to make its way underneath the waistband of my pants, we heard voices enter the bank building. We jumped apart, and I quickly fixed my shirt as a group of elves dressed in all black rushed into the vault entrance with guns drawn.
“Uh, hi, can I help you?” Ariette demanded as the elves looked around the room.
“You two need to leave,” one of the elves in the front of the group said gruffly. He was wearing tight black jeans and a black tank top, and an old-fashioned comms unit hung from his ear. Cradled lovingly in his well-muscled arms was a sniper rifle.
“Excuse me!” Ariette challenged as she took on a fighting stance, her arms crossed and legs spread apart. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“Black Ops, ma’am,” the first elf responded, and two more elves emerged from the crowd of soldiers and headed straight to the spot where the portal had been. “We had been told you would be expecting us.”
“Black Ops?” Ariette scoffed. “Where were you lazy fucks half an hour a--”
“We need you to leave now, under orders of the guild master,” the original elf commanded again. “If you don’t wish to leave of your own accord, I can have my agents escort you out.”
“That won’t be necessary,” I said as I put up a hand to calm him down. Then I grabbed Ariette by the forearm, and she followed me out of the vault reluctantly.
As soon as we exited, the entire team of agents poured inside the vault and slammed the door shut behind them. With nothing else to do, we continued on outside the bank.
The street was completely deserted now. The canopy tent where the human police had been set up was gone, and the only intact thing in sight was our van.
“Fantastic,” Ariette grumbled. She glanced back through the shattered glass front doors at the vault more than once like she expected an agent to open it suddenly and invite us back inside.
“I thought we were the highest ranking special ops group in the guild,” I questioned as we approached the Van of Death.
“So did I,” Ariette responded. “Black Ops doesn’t normally work in the city. Hasen’s really worried about this getting out, I guess.”
Ariette threw her arms up in the air and stomped up to the door of the van. It slid open to reveal Kalista in the desk chair with one arm behind her head and the other with a gun pointed straight at the door. The moment she saw it was us, she put the gun down.
“I thought you guys were more of those stupid black ops agents trying to take more of my stuff,” she grunted angrily. “I swear I’m going to kick all their asses from here to Kaul if they come back in here with their holier-than-thou attitudes and orders from on high.”
“Maybe don’t kick the asses of highly trained and higher ranking officers, Kal,” Ariette responded as I shut the door behind me.
I looked around the inside of the van, but everything seemed to be in perfect order except for the angry dwarf with a gun, of course.
“What happened?” I asked her.
Kalista stood from the chair with a loud huff and stomped over to the weapons cabinet to put her gun back.
“That stupid elf, with his all-black outfit and fancy rifle,” she started as she waved her arms wildly, “knocked on the door and then just barged in like a freaking human cop, and he was all, ‘I have orders to take your information,’ and I was like, ‘uh, no you don’t, you random elf that I don’t even know,’ and he was all, ‘you can sit quietly or be restrained,’ and I was like ‘bitch, please, try me.’ And so they did.”
Kalista paused and looked at us sheepishly before continuing. “Then I had to sit there and watch as they wiped my entire computer system clean of all the info I had on these monsters,” she whined. “The damn idiots didn’t even know what the fuck they were looking for, so I had to tell them where all the data on the attacks were stored. Then they uncuffed me and left like it was a totally normal day. Stupid bureaucrats.”
Kalista sat back down in the desk chair with a crash and pouted like a small child.
“They kicked us out of the vault,” I mentioned as I leaned against the desk next to Kalista. “They said we weren’t supposed to talk about this with anyone.”
“And we spoke with the guild master,” Ariette added.
“You spoke with Hasen about this?” Kalista exclaimed as her eyes popped open. “Shit, this must be serious.”
“So serious that he wants to put us on this case,” Ariette responded as she looked at the two of us. “He said he’s got some information and a mission for us.”
Kalista thought for a moment before she stood up to head to the front of the van.
“Where are you going?” Ariette asked her.
“We’re going to park somewhere else because I don’t want to run the risk of that asshole elf interrupting us,” she responded.
“Why?” I questioned.
“Because we’re going to look up all the information we’ve got on dark portals and see if we can figure out how someone’s making one,” the dwarf stated before she ducked into the driver’s seat and revved the engine.
We drove about a mile away and parked in the lot of the local library. The three of us grabbed snacks and water from the kitchen before we settled in front of the computers, with Kalista at the keyboard.
“Where should we start?” the dwarf asked.
“Uhhh, I don’t really know anything about them,” I said. “So, I think we should start with the history. How they came to be, what’s their purpose is, that stuff. So then we know what the likely motivations of the people behind this are.”
“So, basically, why is a dark portal dark?” Kalista clarified. When I nodded, she set to work on the keyboard and pulled up an article from the database. It was written in Elvish, so Ariette paraphrased it for me.
“It says that the first dark portal was created when a dark wizard named Martimus broke out of jail over two millennia ago,” she read. “The story goes that his anger at his imprisonment was so strong that it shattered his evil soul, and a piece of his soul left his body and formed the portal. So, in order to create a dark portal, you need powerful magic, and every time you call for one, your soul leaves a piece of itself behind. The more you use, the more soulless you become, but a dark portal will take you anywhere you need to go, and it will be untraceable.”
“That sounds fun,” I interjected with a smile.
“The spell for creating the portal lies in section three of the dark texts,” she continued, “but can only be used by someone ready to give their entire being over to evil.”
“So,” Kalista said slowly, “I get why they’re being used, but by who?”
“That’s the real question,” I agreed with a nod. “Are you guys sure the guild is the only place where the dark texts are?”
“The original ones were destroyed when we took down the Unseelie,” Ariette explained. “I mean, it’s possible there’s another copy somewhere, I’m not going to rule that out at this point, but there is no possible way a dark wizard exists. We killed all those members of the Unseelie court.”
“We should get going,” Kalista sighed with a shake of her head. “We don’t need to risk Hasen calling us to ask where we are.”
Ariette and I nodded, and then Kalista disappeared back into the driver’s seat, and the van rumbled to life beneath us.
Thankfully, and surprisingly, we arrived back at the guild relatively uninjured, no thanks to Kalista’s driving. I made a mental note to figure out how to un-paint the windows so that the hacker could actually use her eyes to see.
We wound through the guild quickly and climbed up the stairs to the very top of one of the towers. Ariette led us into a huge office with a giant wooden desk and chair in the center. Aside from a computer and a few papers on t
he desk, the room was completely bare, and it looked lonely.
The walls were just as barren as the floor. The only piece of decoration, if it could even be called that, was a marble fireplace that was set in the center of the right wall. Red and orange flames flickered inside of it as they ate away at a pile of wooden logs.
In front of the fireplace stood Danira and Hasen. Both were in the middle of a hushed conversation and didn’t turn our way until Kalista let the huge door slam shut behind us with a loud crash.
“Sorry,” the hacker muttered with a shrug that said she was anything but sorry.
Danira shot her a glare.
“Good of you to join us,” Hasen said sarcastically as he eyed the three of us. “And so timely, too.”
I stood straight and tall under his piercing gaze. To my surprise, the corners of his lips quirked in a strange little quarter smile.
“You are powerful indeed, Mr. Bailey,” he announced after a moment. Unsure of what to do with that, I nodded and dropped my gaze away from those wizened eyes.
“What can we do for you, sir?” Ariette asked abruptly as she brought us back to the task at hand.
“Yes, Ms. Dieyre,” the guild master said as he cleared his throat. “I have called you three here because I would like to help you track down these monsters.”
“How are you going to help us?” I piped up.
“That is the question, isn’t it?” Hasen said. He tilted his head and surveyed us for a long moment before he continued. “You see, I have an agent, my best agent, on the case. And there is information that she has that could help us crack this wide open and arrest the person responsible, but she needs some help to do so.”
Silence hung in the air, and anger boiled in my veins. This entire time he had someone on the case, and this woman had information that could lead us directly to the murderer? And no one had thought to tell our team?
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Kalista demanded before I could form my thoughts into words.
“I had hoped my agent might be able to take care of the problem herself,” Hasen responded calmly as Ariette snorted, “but, as you can see, that has not been possible. She needs help.”
“Alright,” I replied diplomatically, “so what does she know?”
“I believe it would be best if she informed you of that herself,” the guild master said as he turned toward his desk, picked up a scrap of paper, and handed it to Ariette. “She has requested you meet her at this address in one hour. We want to keep this discussion out of the guild to make sure that no information leaks out.”
It was silent for a moment before Hasen sat down at his desk and made it pretty clear we were no longer needed there. Ariette turned to Kalista and me with a shrug.
“Thank you, sir,” she muttered as she led the way out of the room.
“Man, he needs an attitude adjustment!” I exclaimed as soon as we were out of earshot.
“Or three,” Kalista grumbled as she marched ahead of us and then turned down a different hallway than the one we’d entered through.
“Uh, where are you going?” I asked as Ariette went to follow her.
“To get our reward, HC,” the elf laughed at my bewildered look. “Remember?”
“Yeah!” Kalista smirked. “It’s not like there’s a monster attack going on right now, and mama has got to be paid.” She rubbed her hands together while Ariette rolled her eyes and muttered something about gold and dwarves.
As I moved to follow them, my heart leapt in my chest. The prospect of more gold made my stomach do flip-flops, and by the time we were near the control room, I was practically salivating at the prospect of all the things I could buy.
We met up with Ekador back in the control room, and he handed each of us another sack full of coins. I weighed the brown cloth bag in my hand and smiled when I noticed it was a good bit heavier than the first reward. Pretty soon, I’d be a rich man.
Hell, compared to only a few days ago, I was already an incredibly rich man.
Ariette and Kalista both laughed at the wide goofy grin that adorned my face.
“What?” I protested at their glittering eyes.
“You’re going to keep the gold, aren’t you?” Kalista asked as she stuffed the sack into a pocket.
“Uh, yeah, what else would I do with it?” I shot back.
“Fae don’t care about gold,” Ariette replied as she took stock of the contents of her own bag, “but we could trade this in for some seriously cool upgrades. I think I’ve got enough coins now for a bathroom upgrade. Jacuzzi tub, here I come!”
I looked at them as they high-fived and remembered what Ekador had said about the car. I could just imagine myself, pulling up to my old job in a yellow convertible, revving the engine as I pulled to a stop. Bill’s face popped into my head, and I almost laughed out loud at the bewildered and jealous expression I knew my old boss would wear.
“How many credits do I need for the car?” I asked my teammates.
“Keep fucking up evil plots to destroy half a city block, HC, and you’ll be there in no time!” Ariette exclaimed with bright eyes.
“Come on guys,” Kalista pushed past us as she bounced out of the room, “let’s go meet up with this special agent and take this guy out. I want a Jacuzzi tub, too!”
Chapter 13
We all jumped back in the van, and Kalista took off instantaneously with a loud screech of the tires. After a few nasty turns that almost gave me a concussion, Kalista’s driving finally slowed enough for me to take a proper seat in a chair next to Ariette. She leaned her head on my shoulder as I leaned back gently against the computers. One of my hands involuntarily went to stroke the side of her face, and she pressed her cheek into my touch.
“I never thought I’d be dealing with this kind of stuff on my second day,” I chuckled. “I mean battling monsters and saving women, sure. But now we have these Black Ops watching everything we do?”
“Hasen prefers to control every part of a situation,” Ariette replied with a frown. “I’m still relatively new to the guild, but even in that short time, I’ve realized he can be a bit… overzealous.”
“You’re ‘new’ to the force? What is that, like, two hundred years, you elf,” I joked as I swatted the back of her head lightly.
“Nope, more like twenty,” she responded. She dug her elbow slightly into my pelvis and then winked at me as if to say that I was in no position to aggravate her at that moment.
“Wait,” I said as I tried to do the math. “You’ve only been in the guild for twenty years?”
“HC, how old do you think I am?” Ariette gasped in mock offense. Then she put one hand over her mouth and looked at me with wide, innocent eyes.
I froze.
If there’s one thing I knew about women, it was that age is a very touchy subject.
“Uh,” I stuttered, “I don’t know, like, uh…”
“Uh-huh.” Ariette laughed as she watched me struggle to find a good answer. “Careful with your words there, buddy.” She nuzzled into my neck again, and her hand fell back into my lap.
But now I was curious.
“So, Ariette, like--” I started before she cut me off.
“Seventy-two, HC,” she responded as she opened her eyes again. For a moment, she looked at me in anticipation, like she expected me to push her away and never sleep with her again.
This gorgeous creature was absolutely wrong.
“Cool,” I said before I cradled her face in my hands, bent to the side, and engulfed her lips in a deep, long kiss.
“Good,” she said when I pulled back, “I don’t have to kill you now.”
I laughed and ran a hand down her soft cheeks. My fingertips danced across the tops of her breasts as they rose and fell with her breath. We locked eyes and stayed there for a full minute.
“So you’re younger than the interns,” I teased softly.
“That’s what happens when your dad is a war hero, and you’re a super powerful elf.”
She shrugged. “The guys at the top want you out in the field.”
“What’s your score, then?” I asked in reference to the tests they had put me through yesterday.
“Why?” she shot back as she raised a delicate eyebrow at me. “Are you afraid I’ve got you beat?”
“Nah, I’m sure of it,” I replied with a smile.
“Twenty-two, HC,” she said as she ran both of her hands up and down my thighs.
“Ah, so, I’m your competition.” I smirked. “Guess I have to get that twenty I scored up to a twenty-three.”
“In your dreams, Milton Bailey,” she whispered as she leaned in close to me. For a moment, she didn’t move, just sat there with her lips a centimeter from mine. Her blue eyes took in my face like she wanted to memorize it.
“Damn,” she muttered. “Why am I so hot for you? We just finished a mission, we have important work to do, but all I can think about is ripping your clothes off and riding you right now.”
“Uhh,” I gulped. “I’m not going to complain. Honestly, I can’t really get you out of my head either. You’ve got this like… beautiful light to you, and--”
Before she could actually rip my clothes off, Kalista banged on the van wall.
“Hey, guys,” came the dwarf’s voice, and she sounded extremely stressed.
“What’s the matter?” I called back to her.
“We’ve got a problem,” she replied.
Suddenly, the van jerked to the side hard. The tires screeched as the vehicle spun around. Ariette and I looked at each other frantically, and then she dove toward the curtain to open it.
“Kalista, what’s going on?” the elf demanded.
We could see Kalista in the driver’s seat now. She had propped herself up on one leg so that she could yank the wheel from side to side faster. Her eyes were focused on the black window to her right.
“We’re being followed,” the dwarf responded ominously.
“By who?” I yelled as my body was thrown about again.
“Um, a large flying… thing?” Kalista grunted in reply. “I don’t know, it’s big, and it’s got wings.” The van swerved again, and I held on so I wouldn’t be tossed across the interior.