by TR Cameron
She exchanged a glance with Rodriguez, and his face registered the same bemusement.
What the hell?
Diana shook her head, counted down from three on her fingers, and moved.
She thrust into the exhibit room at a full run and immediately broke left along the wall. The space was wide and open, which meant she would have to move quickly to avoid any risk that she might be shot herself. Her training kicked in and her mind categorized the scene in flashes. There were nine students in total, exactly like Rodriguez had said. All were bound and one slumped forward, bleeding from his forehead. A wooden lectern stood on the opposite side, to which the professor was secured by black rope. The man looked half a decade older than his picture on the university website.
An elf lurked in the shadows at the corner of the room nearest to her. This was not the beautiful glowing, friendly elf of Middle Earth.
Tolkien would spin in his grave if he saw this.
Poorly healed gashes ran down the dark skin on the left side of his face. The right side was a mass of wrinkles and scars that could only have resulted from a terrible fire. He had no hair, and his one unburnt ear tapered to a graceful point. It was possibly the only attractive thing about him. He wore a black cloak or robe of some kind that covered him from the neck down and obscured his limbs.
Diana took advantage of the situation to try to intimidate the elf into submission as she leveled her gun. “Down on the floor, sleazebag. Now!”
He laughed at her. The bastard actually laughed at her. His voice dripped condescension. “Aren’t you precious? It’s about time you got here. We’ve been waiting.”
Everything slipped into slow motion. She felt danger to her right and twisted to face it. Her gun tracked toward the opposite corner. A robed figure emerged from behind the professor and gestured with a hand. Anger shot through her and she extended her left hand and squeezed it into a fist. The wizard’s arms snapped to his sides and effectively wrecked whatever spell he’d attempted to cast.
Diana smirked.
You didn’t expect power from a “precious” human, did ya, asshole?
The pistol barked twice, and scarlet blossoms appeared on his leg and on one of his locked arms. Time returned to normal as he screamed and fell, dropping the wand he’d held in his other hand. Bound though the professor was, he had the presence of mind to kick the instrument away from the downed wizard. With the first target effectively neutralized, she jerked the gun back to face the scarred elf.
She vaguely hoped that Rodriguez had remained vigilant against the possibility of more enemies and thus hadn’t seen her perform the magic, but she couldn’t risk checking. Thrusting the thought aside, she raised her pistol to eye level, sighted down the barrel, and advanced one slow step at a time toward the dark figure. “Nice try, asshole. But I said get your face down on the floor.” Her voice was reasonable, calm, and nonreactive.
If you can’t avoid the conflict, attempt to defuse it.
Annoyance had replaced his condescension. “No. I shall not. And what will you do now, little avenger?”
On the one hand, she hated it when people mentioned her height. Yes, at five-three-and-three-quarters, she was on the short side of normal. That didn’t make it right to judge her for it. On the other hand, he had more or less given her superhero status. She smiled.
“Okay, let’s talk about this.” Her gaze remained locked on his as her arms relaxed slowly. The gun lowered. She fired two rounds at his thigh without even blinking.
The perpetrator’s robe opened as a scarred left hand extended between the arcs. The bullets slammed into an invisible barrier and clattered to the floor.
Diana growled under her breath. “Damn shields.” She fired twice more and lurched into a run. She registered gunfire behind her and figured the rest of “we” had joined the party. Another pair of bullets flew, this time leveled at the elf’s chest. Once again, they were easily deflected but the tactic had worked. Now, she was only a handful of feet away. She threw the gun at his head and added a telekinetic burst to hurry it along. He flinched in mid-cast and flicked a hand up to deflect the weapon. It was enough to distract him from the left hook that closed at high speed with the force of her forward jump behind it.
His eyes widened as he registered the threat and his mouth formed a word that he failed to finish before her knuckles smashed it away. Blood flowed as his lips split and he stumbled back. His head struck the wall behind him with a resounding crack. Diana used her forward momentum to launch her right knee into his solar plexus. The elf dropped and gasped raggedly for breath. With the threat effectively neutralized, she turned to survey the room.
There were no civilian casualties. A third suspect lay on the ground in front of Rodriguez, bleeding from a hole in his thigh. The sight of her partner in this op reignited her fears.
Please don’t have seen my magic.
She retrieved a set of zip ties from her back pocket and trussed the elf’s hands and feet, then hogtied him for good measure. She knelt and tapped him on his bald dome. “Hey there, dumbass. Just a warning. If I hear anything out of you, I’ll assume you’re casting and kick you in the head until you’re unconscious. Nod if you understand.”
He nodded.
There was a shift of energy in the room, and she looked up through the skylight to see twilight transform into night. The broken elf at her feet laughed in a way that sounded both happy and relieved. She thought about it for a second, then reluctantly decided to let him have the moment.
I probably can’t kick him for laughing.
Rodriguez approached and returned her fallen weapon. She popped the magazine and ejected the chambered round in case the pistol’s brief life as a missile had damaged it. The grin on his face said it all.
“Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you supposed to shoot him in the leg?”
Diana scowled.
I wonder what the penalty is for accidentally shooting a fellow officer in the leg.
Chapter Two
The light turned green at the perfect moment, and the tires squealed as Diana flowed from the offramp onto Pennsylvania Avenue. The stingray’s transmission was as smooth as new ice and she shifted gears easily. Everything faded away behind the wheel to leave only the currents of the road and the sensation of raw power at her fingertips.
Her eyes flicked to the glowing clock which matched the one in her head. 8:12 PM. Barely enough time to get to her date before the venue closed. She saw a ripple in the traffic ahead, courtesy of a meandering minivan, and switched lanes in a burst of speed. The defensive driving courses she’d taken at the academy had added a layer of polish to her natural ability, and the stingray allowed her to use all of it.
Diana pulled into the parking lot five minutes later and bounded into the building. The worker at the desk waved her on, and she thrust open the door to the back at an excited jog. She spotted him immediately, and he was as handsome as ever. “Maxie!”
The young Borzoi barked and gave a doggy bow, his front paws on the ground, and his tail circled wildly. His long nose was almost comical in that position.
An amused Doug spoke from her left. “I thought you wouldn’t make it today.” The man was well past retirement age. He’d worked at the shelter forever and was an absolute treasure, or so the other members of the staff had confided.
She answered without so much as turning aside from ruffling the dog’s ears through the bars of the gate. “It would take a lot to keep me away from visiting with my Max.”
Doug moved into her line of sight and leaned his back against the wall that separated Max’s living space from the rest. “You know, we appreciate your sponsorship, but wouldn’t it be easier to adopt him?”
Diana shot him a grin and finished the ritual they enacted at least once a week during her many visits. “He’d be lonely. I’m never home. Here, he has you and the other dogs to play with.”
The man held out the customary leash. Diana unlatched the gate and Max
bounded out, put his paws on her shoulders, and licked her face once. That was their agreement. She couldn’t break him of the habit, but it stopped at one.
The shelter sat on a commercial block that sometimes attracted folks looking for trouble, but no one ever bothered her when she had Max by her side or vice versa. They started with a slow jog and sped up with each circuit of the block to take the last in a full run that left both of them panting. She perched on the front steps of the facility, and the dog lay beside her, his chin on her thigh. Soulful eyes gazed up at her with that same question.
She sighed. “I’d love to take you home, Max. But you’d be alone for most of the day, every day, not counting the out-of-town trips.” She rubbed his velvety ears and the smooth fur on his head, then traced her fingers down his nose. This garnered a sigh of pleasure from the canine. “It’s simply not the right time.”
He barked at her and wagged his tail, and she felt forgiven. Momentary sadness was replaced with joy, and they went inside for the second part of their playtime—an elaborate game of fetch and wrestle.
A half-hour later, Max lay resting in his den. With the stress of her day’s work partly burned away, Diana waved at the night guard and departed the shelter. The year and a quarter of donations since she’d met Max had earned her a few privileges, one of which was the right to stay past closing time. When she asked why the dog hadn’t been adopted after so long, Doug would only shrug and answer that he seemed uninterested when other people greeted him.
“The right person will come eventually,” he’d say. Then he would add, “Then again, maybe he’s already found the perfect one.”
Diana sighed as she drove home and wished as she always did that her life would allow her to bring Max along.
The brownstone had been in her family for three generations. When they retired early to Florida, her grandparents had turned it over to her parents and their new baby. Halfway through her childhood, they’d moved to a research facility in Colorado, and the house became a rental. Her parents never returned to it and were comfortable in the centennial state, but she reclaimed the home when she joined the FBI. Restoring the damages inflicted by time and the occasional out-of-control tenant was a work in progress. Her mother and father had offered to pay, but she preferred doing it herself when time permitted.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t very often. So far, she’d fixed only the kitchen, her bedroom, and the basement. She had the bathrooms redone by professionals, knowing her own limits, but there was still a long list left to repair.
She hung her keys on a hook near the door and threw the deadbolts. A quick code armed the security system again, which assured her that no one had been in her home while she was away. She reached for her gun to stow it in the hidden safe in her hall cupboard but remembered that she was weaponless until they verified that she hadn’t damaged the gun in the fight earlier that evening. Diana sighed.
Stupid elf. I should have shot him in the mouth.
The wood floors made every sound echo but the creak that accompanied each step sounded like home. Her next stop was the traditional rotary thermostat, which she spun up a couple of degrees on her way to the basement.
Unlike the old-world allure of the rest of the house, the bottom floor was clean and modern. She pulled off her brown shin-high harness boots and set them carefully aside. They weren’t her favorites but definitely fell in the top five. She peeled her shirt off, threw it in the laundry hamper, and followed it with her socks and pants. A pair of lime green shorts, a remnant of poor sartorial choices in days past, hung on a hook and she slipped them on. Even the fact that they didn’t clash with her black sports bra couldn’t save them. There was a reason they lived in her basement, where only those closest to her were ever allowed.
She lit a cone of vanilla incense and crossed to the ballet barre attached to one wall to stretch. A well-worn teal yoga mat and mounted television stood on the other side of the room. The screen was large enough to keep her focus when she attended yoga classes via YouTube. The back half of the area was her second favorite spot on Earth after the animal shelter. The Wing Chun dummy she used to preserve muscle memory for blocks and strikes stood in the far right corner. She’d bought it new and looked forward to the day when the wood would show some palpable sign of her labors. After two years, all she really managed was to trade a number of bruises for a little polish on the protruding arms.
A heavy bag hung from a frame on the other side. Unlike the dummy, this particular fitness device showed damage from countless punches and kicks. Silver duct tape covered the places where she had kicked it in a rage after she’d forgotten to remove her boots first and thus doomed the bag to rip open. After today’s action, though, neither of those could meet her need for release. That required the best training tool in the room.
The combat mannequin stood in the center of an open area, which allowed her to attack from any side. It was little more than a human figure posed in a combative stance with its fists raised like a boxer. It had been mounted on a turntable that would randomly reposition it when activated.
She started slowly and threw jabs and the occasional reverse punch into its solar plexus. At first, she winced when she felt the fleshy resistance. Once she warmed up, she forgot the pain and added hooks to the head, knees to the midsection, and kicks to the legs. Fully engaged and breathing hard, she tromped on the pedal to activate the turntable and circled to launch kicks and punches at the resistant material of the dummy. After ten minutes, she added shouts to her hardest blows and practiced spinning moves. She finally gasped twenty minutes later, unable to keep her guard up, and called the exercise done. A brief yoga cooldown completed her workout.
Diana left the basement, grabbed a Cherry Coke from the fridge, and guzzled half the can. She trudged upstairs on legs of lead and started the shower. A short blast of music sounded as she was about to step in, and she flicked her sweaty hair out of the way to lift the phone to her ear. Her playful growl was all too appropriate for the caller. “What?”
Lisa’s familiar and equally mischievous voice shouted to be heard over the radio and engine of her car. “I’ll be at the Beagle in forty-five minutes. You know you don’t want to leave me alone in such a dangerous place,” her friend teased.
She smothered a yawn. “I think you’ll be okay this once.”
Lisa’s voice was filled with theatrical sadness and regret. “How will you feel at my funeral? Is that really how you want things to end between us?”
I’m sure you’ll be okay.
Still, despite the creeping exhaustion, she burst out laughing. “Okay, you win. Forty-five minutes.”
The call dropped. Lisa never said goodbye on the phone.
Diana shook her head and stepped into the shower. Her usual soothing soak had to be abandoned for a speed prep to get to the Beagle.
I’m going to need way more Cherry Coke to get through this night.
Chapter Three
The Legal Beagle bar was only dangerous from a relationship-mistake point of view. It was within walking distance of her house, which was a plus. It was also convenient to the houses of many low-level politicos. Unfortunately, despite its weathered exterior, simple signage, and lack of windows, they still flocked to it, which was a definite minus. She pushed through the ever-present crowd of smokers on the street and slipped through the dilapidated door.
The inside was warm and inviting as an upscale restaurant blended with the comfortable vibes of a neighborhood hangout. Tables to the right held couples and groups indulging in late-night snacks—some for business, some for pleasure. A long polished wooden bar sat to the left. Its many tall barstools had been claimed by men and women in cheap versions of power suits with accessories in red, white, and blue. On the far end, Lisa waved and pointed to the empty seat next to hers.
Diana shoved through the crowd standing around the high tops that made up the middle area, dodged some, and gently repositioned others. The bar was always hopping into the early morn
ing, having adapted to the extensive and strange working hours required of those on the bottom rung of the government and the professions that catered to it. She avoided a broad gesture from a blond man who looked like he was barely out of his teens and slipped onto the stool next to her best friend.
Lisa made a point of checking her smartwatch. “About time.”
She awarded her a ferocious fake scowl. “I’ll have you know that I beat the getting-ready-for-a-night-out speed record.”
Her friend raised an eyebrow and scrutinized her carelessly. “You call that ready for a night out?”
Diana couldn’t help laughing. “Wench.”
“And proud of it.”
One of the three regular bartenders came over. Jason was a hipster who had given in to the allure of capitalism. His earlobes featured large spacers and his eyebrow a small barbell. A nose ring complemented the trimmed hair on his face and the stylishly long beard below. He slid a Dogfish Ninety Minute IPA to her with barely a hint of foam at the top, and she traded him a ten with a nod of thanks. Among the best things about the Beagle was its unadvertised “regulars” discount, which took a couple of bucks off the price for constant customers.
She sipped, sighed in pleasure, and swiveled her body toward her companion. “You’re suspiciously bubbly.”
Lisa grinned. “Starting next week, guess who’s not a junior associate anymore.”
Diana made a show of thinking. “Your boss?”
The other woman smacked her on the arm with a strong backhand. “Witch. Me, stupid.”
She took a long sip and beamed. “It’s about time they recognized your value. It’ll be no time at all before they add ‘Crawford’ to the end of the firm’s name.”
“That’s doubtful. A few years, anyway. But it’s good to be on the way up. So good that tonight, I’ll buy the next round to celebrate.”