by Layna Snow
It was obvious to Gage that Sasha’s team was useless.
“They won’t like that. No, not at all. I… think. I mean, they might, but I don’t think so. Thanatos is… thousands of years old. The Greek people saw him killing Demons and thought he was a God! He shouldn’t be working for someone. And.. er.. Adrian won’t like the restrictions. He…does what he wants.”
The tech girl had a point. Gage had seen them fight. He had been there to witness some of the carnage that the boys left behind. Thanatos was a legend. He was the best swordsman that Gage had ever met. Adrian, or Sin as he liked to be called, was close behind. The younger warrior didn’t care if he was killed. He lived for the fight. He also lived for himself. He would not follow command.
“Thanatos likes to help people. He will join us if he believes that it is the best option. He will do anything he believes is right.” That high moral ground was what Gage was counting on. He needed them to help with this fight. With two of their alpha teams down, they were left with few options. Axel was out in the field, Gage had to run the Hunters, Eden didn’t fight, and Jai worked alone. That left them with fewer alpha teams.
There were other teams. Tons of people working under them, but some missions were too dangerous, too important.
“Sir… may I ask you a question. Why didn’t Axel have them join when I made identities for them? It would have made more sense to get their cooperation when he had something to trade for. I… just don’t know if maybe.. if they would join now… I mean they don’t need to.”
Gage looked at the woman. He was sure that Eden was aware of him, even if she never actually looked. She might be shy, but she was not dumb. Gage, however, didn’t have an answer for her. “No one really knows what goes through Axel’s mind.” Not even him, and they were best friends.
It always seemed that Axel was one step ahead of everyone. He had everything figured out before all the pieces were revealed. He never did anything out of the goodness of his heart. He didn’t make rash decisions.
There had to be a reason that he didn’t sign the Fallen up right away. There was probably a reason why he let Sasha lead a dysfunctional team.
Gage was now in charge, though, and he would not let this go on any longer. It was a danger to the missions and to the other teams.
“What of the information on Tolk? Have you found anything about him?” He asked, knowing that sooner or later they would need to take the man down. They’d like to dismantle his operations first, so that someone couldn’t spring up and take over. They also had to know who his allies were, and take them down.
“No. There is some talk… They are searching for some women from Cold Wood, the place where Axel went. You know… when he wanted to try to get back into things. Um… I knew that what Tolk wants isn’t good… so I, umm, redirected things. I covered the girls’ trails. I hope that was alright. I mean, I didn’t want to assume… but I thought it would be the right thing to do.”
Gage nodded. He wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt because of what happened in Cold Wood. He knew that Axel would have protected who he could.
“No, that’s good. Keep on top of that. We will need to know if Tolk is going after anyone else. Was it him specifically?” Gage knew that Tolk used his underlings. He never got his hands dirty. He didn’t seem to care what went on, as long as he made money. Maybe that could be why Axel decided to do field work again. He might not have wanted to end up like the leader of the Alliance.
Gage turned his attention back to the group training. They didn’t have to worry about becoming like the Alliance. He was sure that they didn’t have teams this dysfunctional.
Jai stood by Marco, who she was trying to train, and nodded quietly to him. They had to remove Connor’s men from the Vampire’s training because they were not being responsible. The Humans wanted him dead, and that wouldn’t help anybody.
The Shifter jogged over to Gage, her eyes filled with irritation. “How are they doing?” he asked, dismissing the Succubus beside him.
Eden took the chance to leave, the sound of her light footsteps retreated quickly.
“Horribly. They have skills. If I tell them to do something, they will. The problem is that they can’t think to do it on their own. I had them sparring and they just stood there, waiting for someone to say something. I paired one of the women with Phoenix, and she just let him take her down. I had to stand there and yell instructions before she actually gave him a good fight. They have the instincts of a bookcase!”
Gage could imagine Connor’s communication officer fighting one of Sasha’s people. The man was fast and eager to prove himself. He wouldn’t have liked that he was paired with a girl. “What do we have to do to get them battle ready? We had them work on shooting, and learning sword fighting techniques. What is next?” He asked, trusting Jai with this decision.
She reminded him of himself.
She worked to be better than the men, more reliable. She never complained. That was probably the reason that Axel allowed her to work by herself. She was good at being a leader, however, he had no idea how she would react to being a part of a team. For now, he would allow her the freedom of the decision.
“Right now they allow themselves to get hit without doing anything. My guess is that it was trained into them. Sasha wanted them to be still when she told them to. They might have been wild before. She won’t exactly tell us how she had trained them. The best we can do is try to get them to work on reacting. Even if they do the wrong thing, as long as they know that they should do something.” The woman said, turning to keep an eye on the group.
It took a moment, but a memory surfaced of something that Sasha had been working on at the time she joined. It was a quick release chemical that burned the skin for a short period of time. Maybe a minute. The dispenser was sticky and could be placed anywhere.
“I know what she did. She used aversion therapy. She burned them every time they did something which she didn’t approve of. We could do something similar.” He was sure that they would be able to get some of that chemical. Sasha didn’t have to know what it would be used for.
“But that’s…” Jai started, her face shocked.
Yes, he knew what she was going to say. It was wrong, cruel. However, it was either that or they would be released and a new team would take their place. Maybe he would ask them. He could give them an ultimatum and see what they would prefer.
“Ask them what they would do to get better. Ask them if they would do anything to go out and fight again. Give them the choice. I will go talk to Sasha and see if I can get some of that chemical.”
Even released, the team would be in danger.
If they had no self-protection instincts, then they would not be able to live a normal life.
They would just allow themselves to be hurt. Or be taken advantage of.
Sasha had them trained to only follow orders. It was surprising that they could function in their day to day lives without her. The only person that could think on his own was Marco, and he apparently didn’t want to.
There was a possibility that the Vampire was in love with the Valkyrie, or what might pass for love. The chemicals in the brain that signaled that emotion were fickle. They came and went so easily that Gage knew that people tricked themselves into believing that it was lasting and forever.
In reality the idea of love gave someone power over you and your emotions.
Gage could not let that happen to him. He would not delude himself into believing in its existence. He knew that if his anger was stirred, people would die. That senseless carnage was the gift of his ancestors. He would not let the Demon rule.
“Alright, but I don’t think they’d say yes. If that’s really what they did, then they aren’t going to want to do it again.” She said, shaking her head. Her brown hair tumbled around her head, dark and long. He knew that she didn’t cut it into a style, or grow it out to try to fit some style of beauty. She didn’t care about things like that. She focused on her job. Sh
e was the complete opposite of Sasha.
He also knew that she knew what she was talking about. What they were suggesting was a form of torture that had been banned by the government long ago.
“Jai, I understand your limits. If you want to request a duty change, it will be granted. I can have Malyk finish with their training.” As much as he didn’t trust the Dark Elf, he would not put Jai in a situation that she would not be able to handle.
She had been tortured when she was younger. She was taken by an enemy leap—a group of Leopards from another subspecies—and hurt for over a year before she managed to escape. She had crawled back to her leap, and then had been rejected as a traitor, no matter that she had not sold her people out. She had been a child and had been rejected by the people that were supposed to protect her.
She knew torture, and although she used it on the enemy, he didn’t think she could do it to her own people.
It would be a betrayal.
Jai sighed and shook her head. When she looked up at him, he noticed that she looked exhausted. It seemed as if these last few moments took more energy out of her than she should have allowed. “No, I’ll do it. I don’t trust Malyk with this. I don’t know much about him.”
No one knew much about Malyk. He kept his life secret on purpose, Gage thought. He was the only member of the main team that didn’t stay in the compound.
Gage didn’t know why Axel trusted him. Maybe he should be watched closer. Right now he was shadowing a Fallen, the one that Axel had asked him to watch.
When he came back, they would need to do some thorough training. All the teams needed to be tested again. It might stop mistakes, like the one with Connor, from happening again.
Speaking of mistakes, Gage turned to look at Jai. In this condition she couldn’t work efficiently. There were too many errors that could be made. All the teams understood the need for self-care. If you were not in peak condition, you could become slow, or make the wrong decision. You were too easy to kill.
“Alright, as long as you are rested. When was the last time you shifted?” He asked, only too aware how an extended period of time in a Human body could exhaust a Shifter. He had witnessed when Jai went to long between shifting. He had questioned her about it until she explained to him about the cat spirit inside her and its need to be free.
“It’s like a part of me. There is the Human and the cat. She wants her freedom just like I want mine. When she doesn’t get it, she scratches me up inside, attacks the walls of my brain. She doesn’t like confinement either.” Gage remembered Jai mentioning before.
Gage knew how trying to control yourself took a toll on the body and mind. He had felt the frayed nerves as his body struggled to bulk up and shut his mind off.
He also understood the fear that you might not make it back into your body if the other side took over. That might be why he got along with Jai while the other members of the Hunters thought he was—what’s the term they used? Oh yes—a hard-ass.
They had something in common.
“My cat doesn’t trust the Human half of me. It thinks that I’ll get it captured again. It prizes freedom and I don’t have any to give it right now.” She told him, her voice pitched low so that the others wouldn’t hear. He understood her need to protect her weaknesses. There were people who would do whatever it took to expose someone’s vulnerabilities.
They fought those people every day.
She had power here, and she didn’t want to let others think that they could take advantage of her. It was why she shifted rarely. If someone saw her struggle to get back, they could exploit it.
“Shift tonight. The men will be in training still and the others are on assignment. I’ll be here to make sure that you get back.” He promised.
Jai nodded and stretched her back, her eyes moving over the group training. “Alright, I’ll do it. Now, go talk to Sasha before she leaves. She and Julian are going to some party.”
It had been a close call when Connor and Julian had practiced. He thought for a moment that he would lose one of his men.
Connor could have died that night if Gage hadn’t controlled his anger. Julian was an Animal-Shifter who was 50 years old. He healed from his wounds quickly, but if Gage had let his rage mount anymore, he would have torn the Vampire apart. It would have been simple to kill the newly created Hidden. It was not simple to hold himself together.
Then he’d, unknowingly, take the whole building apart.
He would need to be more careful from now on.
This leadership role had him too invested in what happened to these people.
Axel needed to return because Gage didn’t think that he could hold it together much longer.
24
The man in the grey suit leaned back in his chair. It was time. He didn’t want to do this, but it needed to be done. For some reason, his men were not getting the results that he needed. They had never failed before, and they will never fail again.
He brushed his expensively cut brown hair with his fingers, just in case any of it had escaped from the style that he had perfected. He doubted it had. His assistant would have fixed it right away.
He would have done anything that was needed. He was a useful piece of furniture that way.
He smiled a bit to himself. He was a business man, someone who dealt with millions of dollars every day. His company took control of others effortlessly and he held each of those lives in the palm of his hand.
He was working his way through the system, owning politicians and business men alike. None of them knew who he was. They had a name that wasn’t his. They knew a face that was often forgotten. They didn’t even know his species.
He was sure that they would be horrified to know what he really did with their money. The research facilities, the investments into enterprises that were guaranteed to make money, because there were no legalities to restrict them. He made people think that they were entering into safe business deals, but that wasn’t the case.
All those people answered to him. He had them in binding contracts that they could not escape from. When the world panicked, they would go to him for help. They would look to him to lead. He should be able to get anything he needed, from anyone around the world, except he had run into a problem.
No one could figure out who sent them the message offering a trade. Something or someone was stopping them from getting it. His assistant had been severely punished for his ignorance.
He knew that there should be an electronic trace, but his computer people couldn’t find one. There should be some evidence left behind connecting Timothy to this woman. There were suspects, but he couldn’t find them. They had disappeared.
One left the country, flying into New Mexico before she disappeared. That girl was grieving for her sister who had been in a coma for years. The other girl left after her boyfriend broke up with her. She was last seen in England.
They had both disappeared after Timothy was killed.
They should be easy to find, however his team found nothing. None of the Demons he had contacted had seen either of them. There was even a large reward for them.
He had to have them.
It was a matter of pride now. He could not be seen as dumb, ineffectual or weak.
It had been too long since he decided to oversee this project, and that was far too much time to search for two young women. He needed to use his trump card now, even if he wished not to. He had to pretend to be a loyal lapdog.
The average looking man, with above average talents, looked into the mirror which rested on his desk. Like him, it didn’t seem unusual. It didn’t call attention to itself. In fact, it was a simple mirror that could be bought from that cheap discount store that the American Humans loved so much.
He had changed it, however, to be something unusual.
On the back was a symbol, drawn in blood of a Light Elf.
She had been such a delicate creature, her long brown hair had been like silk. Her skin had glowed with internal po
wer. None of that power had done her any good, as he cut her delicate inner forearm from wrist to elbow.
He took her blood and then left her to die. Her body had tried to heal, but it couldn’t with the iron cuffs holding her to the cold iron floor. She had no chance at life.
The death was refreshing actually. It made him feel better about his past failures. He had found an elusive creature that was hunted to near extinction in this realm. He would find those two girls and figure out how they knew of the Alliance. He would find the mole!
The blood helped with that task. It imbued the mirror with magical qualities that needed the right power, the right connection, to complete the spell.
The man opened himself up, letting his power leak from his soul, up through his flesh, and into the mirror. He felt the rush of heat, like fire licking from his body into the air around him. He let it cascade out of him, pouring into the mirrored surface to mingle with the Fae blood.
At his words, things that should never be repeated, the mirror cracked wide, but didn’t shatter. The surface glowing with radiance and gold, opening in the middle to reveal a world darker than the office the man was sitting in. Rocks and minerals came into view, their dull surface a contrast to what was left of the mirror itself, until there was no mirror.
The portal was a connection to a place many feared. It connected to Hell.
“Why have you scried?” The young boy on the other end asked, his voice posh and angry.
Like himself, the boy was not what he looked like, or what he seemed. This youngster, with the average hair and slight freckles, was not a rebellious rich teenager. He was the Dark Lord.
“Forgive me, my Lord. I have asked to speak to you of an important matter.” He said, keeping his tone reverent. This was the one being that had power over him. This man was one that he had to respect and obey.
“I gave you the opportunity to fulfill your dreams, and now you are playing? You have brought attention to yourself. You have caught the eye of some powerful people. You should take care who you deal with. You should also take care of asking me more favours.”