by Kim Fielding
Chained
Kim Fielding
A Bureau Story
Copyright © 2019 by Kim Fielding
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
www.kfieldingwrites.com
Cover Art: Reese Dante http://www.reesedante.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted on the cover is a model.
CHAINED
Chapter One
Los Angeles, 1989
Edge’s brothers were fighting again. Right now there were raised hackles and low growls, but soon enough blood would flow. Edge snarled at them both and stalked out the door and onto the lawn, where the grass felt cool under his feet and the stars overhead tried to shine through the LA smog. He walked the length of the guest house to his favorite spot, a sort of cave between the building and some bougainvillea. His brothers could find him there easily enough, but they probably wouldn’t bother—too busy scrapping over which of them was in charge. As if it mattered. The boss was in charge, not them, and he always would be.
The dirt in Edge’s little hideaway was soft and smelled of mice and lizards. He circled a few times before lying down, sighing when the chain around his neck jingled.
He’d been so tired lately. He was still fairly young, still in good condition, and the boss made sure all of them were well fed. His duties weren’t usually onerous either: Keep an eye on the estate and anyone who entered. Report to the boss if anything was out of order or if anyone did something they shouldn’t. Neither of those things happened often; the boss ran a tight household. Edge supposed people were paid well if they pleased him, and if they didn’t, well, they were gone in a flash. Since maintaining security took so little effort, Duke and Holt had time to squabble over dominance and Edge often felt restless and at loose ends.
But his boring responsibilities didn’t explain why he was exhausted. Not physically exhausted—he could run as fast as ever and hadn’t lost any of his strength. But… mentally. Emotionally. And that was stupid, because his kind wasn’t supposed to be susceptible to that. Such fatigue was for complicated people like the boss and for the movie stars and directors and producers and other famous and wealthy people who flocked around him. Not for simple beings like Edge, who didn’t understand why he felt this way and had no clue what to do about it.
Endure. That was his choice: endure or die. And he wasn’t ready to die yet.
He’d almost dozed off when a familiar whistle cut across the grounds. Three sharp notes that compelled him to his feet immediately and set him tearing across the lawn at full speed. Holt and Duke ran ahead of him, their dispute temporarily forgotten.
The boss waited for them in a pool of light just outside the main house. He had a cigarette in one hand and a lowball glass in the other. Edge tried to judge his mood, but the boss was a hard man to read. Unless he was truly furious—an event that was blessedly rare—he usually appeared either mildly interested or mildly annoyed, depending on the circumstances. Right now he was tending more toward annoyed as he looked down at Edge and his brothers.
“Change,” the boss ordered. “I wanna have a discussion.”
Edge and his brothers exchanged a quick glance of mutual empathy. Changing fucking hurt, and they all preferred to do it in private. But the boss had given an order, and he was waiting for them to obey.
At first it felt like being skinned alive, with every one of Edge’s nerve endings screaming in shock. But the worst part came next, when bones reshaped and sinews and organs repositioned themselves. When Edge was young, he’d howled in agony during the process. But he’d since been trained not to do that, and now he suffered almost silently, although a few moans still escaped.
The change felt as if it lasted for hours, but in reality it took only a few minutes. When it was complete, Edge and his brothers stood panting and naked—except for their collars—in front of the boss, who had finished his cigarette but not his whiskey. Although Edge was used to nudity in both of his forms, he had to force himself not to fidget under the boss’s cool scrutiny; Duke and Holt stood more confidently. While the boss owned all three of them, he didn’t use their bodies the way he used Edge’s.
“Got a new one coming in tomorrow. You know the drill. If he passes my initial inspection, I’m gonna stash him in the guest house.”
Edge and his brothers nodded their understanding; this was the usual procedure with fresh prospects. Having them nearby allowed the boss to keep a close eye on them and to more easily draw them into his web. It also meant that the three brothers would be busier, security-wise, which they generally considered a good thing. It made their jobs more interesting. Duke and Holt looked eager to begin. But Edge had been losing his taste for this kind of excitement. He tried to tell himself that the boss’s fresh meat deserved what happened to them—they came almost begging for it, really—and if they didn’t fuck up, they reaped all the benefits they’d hoped for. None of them gave serious thought to the costs until it was too late, however, and the knowledge of what would happen to them turned Edge’s stomach. He didn’t know why he gave a shit.
The boss focused intently on Edge, as if he’d read Edge’s thoughts. His eyes were black and shiny, and one corner of his mouth twitched into something resembling a smile. “This one’s going to be your responsibility, Edge. Sleep in the room next to his instead of the kennel. Let him fuck you if he wants. In fact, encourage him to fuck you.” He nodded to himself. “That always helps.”
Edge gave the only acceptable answer: “Yes, sir.”
After a brief pause, the boss nodded again. Now his smile spread into something frightening, like a death’s-head grin. He pointed at Edge with his free hand. “Come with me, pup.”
Ignoring his brothers’ worried looks and the roiling in his own gut, Edge trotted after the boss into the main house.
By the time Edge limped out onto the grand lawn, dawn was only a couple of hours away. Despite the burning and aching of his body, he changed back to his canine form. It always felt a little easier to deal with discomfort and unease in that body, and he healed quicker too. Besides, the boss would want him looking like a dog when the new prospect arrived in the morning.
He walked slowly over the grass, his tongue out and tail hanging low. He briefly considered sleeping in his spot behind the bougainvillea, but rejected the idea quickly. Duke or Holt—whoever was on duty tonight—would come looking for him and would be pissed off if they found him there. He went to the kennel instead.
It encompassed a large space on the ground floor of the guest house. Edge didn’t know what its original purpose had been or whether the boss had ordered it custom-built for the three of them. Four of them. There had originally been four. In any case, the big room had tile floors and four large steel cages, each with a dog bed inside. The cages almost always stood open, but there had been occasions when they were closed and fastened with padlocks. One set of doors led out into the center of the estate grounds, where the lawn and pool were located, and another set opened to the back of the building. They were motion-activated, which meant Edge and his brothers could come and go regardless of whether they had hands or paws. The rest of the room was sparsely furnished. A low-set sink could be turned on and off with a foot pedal, and a TV sat along one wall. Another door—this one with a regular knob—led to a toilet and shower they used when in human form. A closet an
d dresser held their meager allotment of clothing.
That was it. A space not suited for humans, yet not exactly a real kennel either.
Holt lay inside his cage. He opened his eyes when Edge came in but didn’t otherwise react, and Edge was thankful for that. He paused to drink some water from the sink, gave himself a quick shake, and settled into his own bed. He still hurt, but the familiarity of the worn fabric carrying his own scent comforted him.
Dogs didn’t worry much about the future; Edge had been around enough real dogs to know that. But humans did, and sometimes he thought there was too much humanity inside him. Instead of falling asleep, he fretted over what would happen the next day. The boss’s new prospect. What would he be like, and how long would it take the boss to destroy him?
Chapter Two
You weren’t supposed to make noise in the hallways of the Bureau’s West Coast HQ. That was the unwritten rule. Agents and admin staff crept, scuttled, or stalked, depending on their mood and inclination, but they kept their shoes quiet on the hard floors, and they didn’t talk. They certainly didn’t whistle or hum.
Except for Terry Brandt. His footsteps echoed, and whatever song he’d been listening to on the car radio tumbled out of his throat and rolled down the corridors. But today he’d been given a good assignment—a great assignment—so he sang at the top of his lungs.
A secretary stuck her head out of a doorway to scowl at him.
“Hey, Nadine! It’s Love Shack, by some group called the B-52s. Number three on the Billboard charts today, according to the DJ.”
“People are trying to work.”
“Aw, lighten up. It’s Monday and we’ve got the best jobs in the world.” He banged three times on the door beside her as he sang the corresponding lyrics, then continued the song as he jangled his car keys and made his way to the parking garage.
Although Terry had an office at HQ—a narrow, windowless space he shared with two other agents—he rarely used it. He spent most of his time out in the field, and when the time came for the torture of writing up his reports, he’d sit in a coffeeshop and scrawl them in longhand, later reading them into a Dictaphone for the steno pool to deal with. No way was he going to spend hours pounding away on a typewriter or, even worse, a computer. In his opinion, those glaring screens were more evil than any of the monsters he confronted at work.
Some assignments required him to drive one of the Bureau vehicles, but Townsend had told him that this time, Terry’s own IROC-Z Camaro would be perfect. Good. Terry stroked its bright red roof before climbing inside. As soon as he started the engine, the Fine Young Cannibals blared through the speakers, and Terry sang along with them as he exited the garage.
A lot of the people at work complained about the LA traffic. There was even a small contingent—mostly the nerds in the lab—who had been lobbying to have HQ moved somewhere quieter, like Sacramento. They’d never get their wish, though, and that was fine with Terry. He liked to roll on the Ten even when everything was stop-and-go, listening to his music and scoping out the other drivers. He wasn’t usually in a rush to get anywhere, not with the kinds of assignments he usually pulled, and his apartment in Culver City held little allure.
Traffic at this time of day—midmorning—wasn’t actually that awful, and Terry made it from downtown to Beverly Hills in less than forty-five minutes. He had to pull over twice to consult his map, but he found the destination eventually, on a narrow street lined with tall shrubbery that obscured any view of the houses. Old cars and pickup trucks were parked up and down the street; they undoubtedly belonged to the staff who worked in the hidden mansions. Housecleaners, groundskeepers, pool cleaners, repairmen… it probably took a small army to take care of the fat cats who lived here, and the millionaires in question apparently didn’t want to sully their precious property with inferior vehicles.
Terry, however, drove to the gate. His car was good enough for this guy, or else Townsend would have told him to take something else. Terry stopped the car and got out, smoothing his cream-colored jacket as he walked to the speaker. “Terry Brandt here to see Mr. Whitaker.”
After a brief pause, a buzzer sounded and the gate slid smoothly to the side. Terry hopped into the car and drove in, following a driveway around a curve and down a hill, then whistling when he caught sight of the house. It was enormous—a long two-story structure of pale stone that looked as if it belonged to French nobility, although several towering palm trees served as a reminder that this was California. The driveway ended in a semicircular area that could have fit a dozen cars with room to spare but was currently empty except for a large fountain in the center. He parked, checked his hair in the mirror, and got out.
Before he had a chance to decide whether he was supposed to just walk up to the front entrance and knock, a woman appeared atop the small flight of concrete stairs that led to the house. She was in her late thirties, beautiful enough to be a model, and wearing a white suit with wide shoulders and a slim, short skirt. She’d smoothed her dark hair into a poufy bun, and her heels were sensibly low. She smiled at him. “Hello, Mr. Brandt,” she called.
He took a step toward her—then froze as three gigantic dogs materialized behind her and trotted past her down the stairs. The creatures had short, fawn-colored fur with black masks, and their powerful muscles rippled as they moved. Mastiffs, Terry guessed, although he wasn’t sure. Whatever their breed, each of them weighed more than he did, and those jaws looked heavy enough to take down a triceratops. The metal chains around their necks were oddly delicate for such large animals.
Terry remained very still as the dogs surged closer, although he couldn’t stop his heart from racing and his breaths from coming faster. The dogs weren’t growling or acting aggressive—just intensely interested—and after a few sniffs, they stood back and scrutinized him with exceptionally intelligent eyes.
The woman had come down the stairs and now held out her hand. “I’m Brenda Stroman.” After a handshake that was almost uncomfortably firm, she said, “Come with me, please.”
She walked at a fast clip, Terry at her side and the dogs close behind. They went up the stairs, along a wide walkway of patterned concrete, and through a set of carved double doors. Based on the house’s exterior, the foyer looked more modern than he’d expected—black and white marble, a sleek curved stairway, an asymmetrical crystal chandelier. The dogs’ nails clicked on the floor as the entourage passed through a series of rooms full of couches, chairs, and large abstract paintings. Aside from the colorful artwork, everything was in shades of gray, cream, ecru, white, or black. Terry wondered if Ms. Stroman had dressed to coordinate with the décor. He marveled that any person could need so many rooms with places to sit. His own apartment had a tiny bedroom and a small living room with a kitchenette, and that was plenty for him.
He expected they’d end up in an office of some kind. Instead she took him into a large room dominated by a chrome-edged billiard table centered on a chevron parquet wood floor. One wall held shelves filled with a variety of glasses and bottles of liquor, fronted by a bar with four stools. The other walls were painted steel-gray with glossy black wainscoting.
“Wait here, please,” Ms. Stroman said. “Mr. Whitaker will be with you shortly.”
She left, closing the door behind her, but the dogs remained with Terry. Two of them sat flanking the doorway, which made him uneasy, while the third took a spot at the opposite end of the room. Again, none of them seemed hostile, but they weren’t relaxed either. Vigilant. That was the word for them. They suddenly reminded Terry of his early years with the Bureau, when he’d been far too green to be trusted with assignments like the current one. He’d worked with a few other agents, providing security when sensitive items needed to be transported or when an agent wanted an extra set of eyes—and an extra weapon—to back them up.
“Don’t worry,” Terry said to the dogs. “Just here for a job interview. I’m not gonna steal anything.”
They didn’t react.
After a few minutes of enduring their scrutiny, Terry grew bored and restless. He walked over to the bar and peered at the bottles on the shelves. Twenty-five-year-old Chivas. Eighteen-year-old Macallan. Amber cognacs, clear vodkas, and dozens of others. Terry had never been much of a drinker even when he used to go clubbing, but he recognized the brands and knew every one of them was top-shelf.
“Does three-hundred-dollar booze really taste that much better than the twenty-buck stuff?” he asked the dogs. If they had an opinion, they didn’t share it.
There wasn’t much else to look at, not even a painting. He carefully opened a door near the bar and discovered a bathroom with gilded fixtures and a mirror with an ornate gold frame. He shut the door.
That left him with not much to do except stare back at the dogs. And since they might interpret that as a threat, he stared at the wall instead as he listened to the dogs breathe. They weren’t panting, but he imagined that they’d probably drool when they did, and then someone would have to clean up after them. Maybe there was a special servant for that purpose.
Terry had owned a dog when he was a little kid, a medium-sized mutt of unknown parentage that his father had found as a stray. Her name was Wilma because Terry was a big Flintstones fan at the time, and in Terry’s memory, at least, she was the smartest, best-behaved, most loving creature ever to walk the face of the Earth. In reality she was probably entirely ordinary, but she was certainly his best friend and loyal companion. Three or four years after they’d adopted her, Terry’s parents died. His aunt had taken him in but wasn’t willing to deal with a dog as well as an orphan. Terry never did get a straight story regarding what happened to Wilma. He liked to think she’d found a new family.
“Maybe someday I’ll get a dog,” he said. “When I have time for one. Wouldn’t work now, because you can’t just leave them at home all day. I bet even when your owner’s gone, you have plenty of other people around. Ms. Stroman, the housecleaning staff. And you have each other for company too. That’s good.”