by S. L. Eaves
Crina stands staring at Marcus’s blood, unable to move. She’s broken, but there’s nothing in this room that can fix her. We need to get moving.
“What do we do about his hands? They’re just…sitting there…”
I give her arm a gentle tug towards the door. “I don’t fancy a souvenir. Do you?”
She snaps out of her daze and turns away from the table.
We leave the room and I’m relieved to be free of the stench of his blood.
“Is Brixton dead?”
“Yes. We’ll bring you up to speed. And I’m going to need your help explaining Marcus’s actions to the others…”
“Xan!” The shock is subsiding, memory returning.
I start to explain, then realize she’s not asking.
Dade and Malik appear at the end of the hall. Dade is holding Xan. Malik is holding a jar.
Xan jumps out of Dade’s arms. “I can stand, I can stand,” he insists.
Crina hugs him. “What did they do to you?”
Xan points his thumb at the jar Malik’s holding.
“Fuckers started harvesting my organs. Like, I don’t need my liver anymore, but I’ve grown rather attached to it, you know?”
“They took off Marcus’s hands,” Crina sighs, looking at Xan’s liver suspended in a gel-like substance.
“Shit. Really? Can we sew them back on?” Crina and I exchange glances.
“What? What am I missing?”
“Marcus is dead, Xan,” Crina shakes her head.
“What?!” he gasps.
“Not Marcus!” Dade’s eyes go wide.
“Brixton? I’ll kill her with my bare hands.” Xan takes off down the hall.
“She’s already dead,” I call after.
At that he’s in my face. I step back.
“You have anything to do with Marcus’s death? What’s you angle, Lori? You playing us?” Xan’s eyes glow as he breaks contact and looks to the others. “She with us now? What am I missing?”
“I can explain everything, Xan, but—”
Crina puts a hand on Xan’s shoulder. “Marcus was playing us; it wasn’t her.”
“I don’t believe it,” Xan protests, but his stance relaxes.
“Neither did I at first. We’ll bring you up to speed.”
Malik’s phone buzzes; he checks it. “The others are at the van; we need to go.”
Dade leads the way, his arm around a distraught Xan. I hear Crina begin to explain what she had to do. Why she had to do it. Xan repeatedly shakes his head in disbelief.
I turn to Malik. “Sorry about Javier.”
Malik pulls a bronze chain with a round talisman from his pocket. “I found this on one of the guards. It was his.” He gives a grunt. “I never cared for him much personally, but he didn’t deserve to go out like that.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m sorry we couldn’t save him in time. Him and Nicholas.”
“It wasn’t on you. Their fates were already sealed. You can’t save everyone, Lori, the pressure will drive you mad. Sometimes what you see isn’t meant for you.”
“But I didn’t see their deaths…” I give him a perplexed look before I realize he’s talking about himself. “But you did, didn’t you?”
“You’re not the only one who sees,” he whispers in my ear before breaking away to join the others on the dock.
Rex waves me over from the driver’s seat. “Hop in the back; it’s going to be a tight squeeze, but I’ll have us back in Fairbanks before you know it.”
Malik walks over to Vega and hands him Javier’s amulet. Vega nods solemnly, pats Malik on the back. My mind is racing. The first time I met Malik he was carrying out instructions; a request from Adrian. He’s close with the Purebloods. They trust him. He’s quiet and he hangs in the background unless he’s called on, a dispassionate observer. I wonder what his story is. What he sees.
I walk up to Rex’s window.
“What’s up? You want to sit in my lap? Might make steering a little tricky.” He gives a wink.
“Where are the scientists?”
“In the cell, like you suggested,” he confirms.
I wasn’t sure Vega would let them live.
“Good. Thanks,” I nod, turning away.
“Hey,” he calls after. I look back at him. “You’re not coming with us, are you?”
I shake my head. “I have to see this through.”
“Burning moonlight here; let’s go!” Quinn calls from the back of the van.
“Yeah, okay.” He starts the engine. “I get it, Lori. Just be careful, alright?”
“Careful? What’s this careful you speak of?” I joke, walking back up the loading dock.
Rex begins to pull out of the garage when suddenly he slams on the breaks. Crina jumps out the back door.
“What the hell, Lori. Get in the van.” She walks up to me as if she’s going to punch me.
“Nah, Crina, I can’t. I’ve got a job to finish.”
“The DIA.” She’s not asking.
“I’m done working with them after this. But I want to make sure this debacle gets sorted out right. I have a file to close.”
“Everything in there—you handing it over?”
“No, that’s the main reason I need to go back in there. Can’t let humans get their hands on that technology. I’m asking you to trust me to take care of it.”
She sighs, crosses her arms in displeasure.
“Yeah, okay, but you’re coming back after?”
“Back where? Home?” I give her a look that says what home?
She hesitates. “I—I’m no good at apologies, and we’re short on time, but you’re one of us. Give us a chance to make things right.”
“Thank you.” I don’t know what else to say. I’m not one of them. Not in the way she means. And deep down we both know it.
I wave to the others who are sticking their heads out of the van, give Crina an appreciative nod, and turn to head inside.
“I’m sorry,” she says as I disappear through the door. I know she is and I’ve already forgiven her. The only one I really blame for any of this is Marcus. Though the truth is, we’re all here right now because of me. It’s not just on Marcus. Still, it’s good to know my clan doesn’t want me dead anymore.
I shield my face from the snow as the helicopter whips ice into my eyes. The chopper lands, its rotor blades slow, and I can hear myself think again. Agent Sullivan is the first to emerge.
“Agent Black.” He shakes my hand. “Good to see you.”
“You as well. You guys made good time.”
I was still dropping weapons down the incinerator when I heard the chopper’s approach.
“What are we walking into?” Sullivan loads a clip into his handgun. Three men file out behind him, four humans in tactical gear. They do not know how lucky they are.
“Nothing that requires that, I don’t think. You’ll find a holding cell full of scientists, engineers, and doctors…next to a cell with a few bodies. My kind cleared out. We tried to keep the damage to a minimum. And anyone who was wearing an ankle bracelet was unharmed.”
“Ankle bracelets?”
“Abrams didn’t brief you? Most seem to be here against their will.”
Sullivan whistles through his teeth. I lead them through the access door and down the stairs.
“All the security doors have been disabled, so you’ll all be able to move freely throughout the compound.”
“Good. And Brixton?”
We’re on the floor with her office and I’m leading them to her body as we talk. The amount of blood increases as we approach. Sullivan’s men stop periodically to take photos. When we reach Brixton’s office I gesture at her body.
“Oh.” Sullivan doesn’t hide his disappointment.
“She didn’t leave us much choice, trust me on that.”
“Damn…” I hear one of the men utter as he steps inside the remains of her office.
I’d opted to leave her in her
suit. Granted, it wasn’t much of a suit when I was through with it. I’d broken off the stake, the defibrillator, smashed the transformer, cut the chords, ripped off the tubes, shattered the LED screens…it’s a mess of wires and metal. The DIA is welcome to have it.
“There’s a computer built into her desk. Might be something worth extracting.”
Sullivan nods at one of his men and he wades gingerly through the glass over to the remains of her desk. I move towards the door.
“The cell blocks are on the basement level. I’ll take you to them.”
“Yeah…okay…” Sullivan is crouched over Brixton’s body, a grim expression on his face. I’m not really sure he heard me, but I make my way down and at some point he falls in stride behind me.
When we reach the cells he immediately reaches for his radio.
“Call HQ get them to send out a couple more choppers, Chinooks if they can spare them.”
“Roger that.”
“Don’t let the ankle bracelets fool you. Abrams suspects some of them are in league with terrorist groups. And they were working on some pretty messed up things. Which you’ll find evidence of in this building, so I’m not exactly advocating their innocence.”
They’ll discover some evidence. I’d either deleted of destroyed as much as time would allow, after I filled up all the flash drives I could find with data. I don’t know what I have, I just know I don’t want humans to have it.
Sullivan nods. “We’ll prosecute any that deserve it, return the others home.”
“Good.” I can’t for the life of me explain why that seems important.
“Wait, where are you going?” Sullivan asks as I make my way down the hall.
“I have some bullets to dig out.”
I wave him off as I head off in search of surgical equipment. And blood. Both of which I’m sure there’s no shortage of here.
“You coming back with us? Abrams will want to debrief you,” Sullivan calls after.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll work my way down to his L.A. office, but no need for a lift.”
I figure I’ll take one of the vehicles I saw in the garage. I need some time to clear my head and I don’t fancy spending hours cooped up in a helicopter with a bunch of mad scientists.
Chapter 30
Three Days Later
Abrams walks into the windowless cell and a cloud of smoke exits. He waves his hands to clear the air.
I sit up from the cot.
“Sorry, been stuck in here with nothing but a pack of smokes for hours.”
He sets a stack of paperwork on the table and motions for me to take the chair across from him. We sit down in unison.
“Thanks for coming in. You need blood?”
“You offering?”
He looks unsure how to respond for a second and I smile. “Kidding. I’m good.”
“Sorry about the accommodations. You being here needs to stay off the books and we don’t have many rooms devoid of sunlight.”
We are sitting in the Los Angeles office. I’m in the same room they’d stowed me in last time. Abrams looks the same, too, if not worse. The bags under his eyes have darkened and he looks like he’s lost weight. Someone’s been making this guy’s life hell. If anything, he should at least be pleased about the Trion takedown, as it were.
“You mean these aren’t your VIP suites?” My second attempt as lightening the mood also falls flat.
Abrams removes a thick manila envelope from his suit pocket and slides it across the table.
“What’s this? Hush money?”
He shakes his head. “Payment for a job well done. Figured I’d treat you like any other contractor. Your kind still needs cash, right?”
“Not as much as you’d think.”
I stare at the envelope. It would buy me a nice stash of blood.
Abrams pulls out his tiny digital recorder and I raise an eyebrow. “You want me on record explaining how a bunch of vampires did your job for you?”
He gives me an annoyed look and I shrug. “Fine, whatever; record away.”
“We were unable to recover any of the camera feeds from the compound. Do you know anything about that?” he begins, and I can tell this is not going to be an appreciative, “job well done” type of conversation.
“I do. I deleted the footage.”
“Why?”
I look at the recorder and lean forward. “Why do you think?”
He exhales deeply. “What happened to Brixton? I mean, that led to her…demise.”
“You saw the suit, right? She tried to take us out. She nearly succeeded. Look, I didn’t kill her—well, not the second time. The first time was self-defense. Then her suit resuscitated her. Patched her up, pumped blood, and I dunno, gave her CPR or some shit. Next thing I know she’s trying to fry vampires with a bionic arm.”
“The suit’s a mangled hunk of garbage. But I will concede it looks like it was at one point a pretty impressive contraption.”
“Bottom line is, I handed you the mad freakin’ scientists that engineered that suit. Get them to tell you what they were working on.”
“I don’t mean to sound unappreciative, it’s just a little tough to sell to the department right now. It looks like I sent a team in to slaughter Trion’s staff—Brixton and crew—and destroy all the evidence. You didn’t leave us much to work with here.”
“What did you expect when you brought a vampire into the mix? You didn’t hire me to steal a computer, let’s face it. You needed someone to do your dirty work for you and I brought a small army of undead soldiers to fit the bill. You’re welcome.”
Abrams turns off his recorder and leans over the table.
“Speaking of which, Agent Turner had two puncture wounds in his neck. Can you explain that?”
“Who?”
“Owen.”
“Oh. You still calling him ‘Agent’? Shouldn’t it be former? Double?”
Abrams sighs, “It wasn’t departmental knowledge that he was a rat. I just declared him dead. I had enough heat internally without that egg on my face.”
“Well, that’s understandable.”
“So Sullivan’s men found a body that looks suspiciously like a vampire killed one of their own…”
“Oh. Right. Well, hell, I can explain that. I mean, I killed the asshole. I thought that’s what you wanted.”
Regardless, it was going to happen.
“What I wanted was to have at least one person who I could flip, someone to testify against the Trion group. You did not leave a single guard alive to question. Owen would have been a gold mine of information.”
“Seriously? The guy was ex-special forces; you really think he was going to spill? You have all their captives.”
Abrams flips through the mass of papers on the table. I slide the last cigarette from the pack and light it.
“What’s in the pile?”
“Statements from the scientists, those who would cooperate.”
“But you seem dismissive…You don’t care about any statements, you wanted someone you could pin the whole ordeal on; you wanted a Trion employee you could parade around as a terrorist you nabbed. Give legitimacy to your operation. What about the investors? The clients? She was working for someone.”
Abrams remains quiet.
“I get it. You caught a lot of heat for the failed operation; now you’ve got dead bodies, including one ex-agent to explain. It doesn’t look good. But you have these Dr. Kevorkians to corroborate my story. That should count for something.”
He nods. “They can tell us what they were working on. Testify to being held there against their will. Their families are thrilled to have them back.”
“See, there you go—you get to play hero. That’s got to go over well with your agency. Great for public image and all.”
“Yeah…but they weren’t privy to any of the juicy details. Be nice to have insight into her operations. We recovered some data about the work being done there, but…”
“It’s no
t enough,” I mutter.
“We needed something more than a pile of dead bodies and clueless doctors. We have evidence of abduction, coercion…if there was anyone left there to charge. Thing is, what we needed was someone to lead us to the head of the snake. I think we may have cut off the tail, but we suspect Trion is part of a larger holding company oversees. Remember the original mission? Were we after Brixton? Sure. Did we want to put a stop to their operations? Definitely. We were just hoping to get more out of it; evidence that would lead us to the bigger fish, so to speak.”
“Well, what you got was a significant blow to their operations. That should count for something.”
Personally, I felt like I avenged the deaths of the men I failed the only way I knew how. The rest doesn’t concern me.
“Heard there was a little incident in San Fran.” He shifts gears. “Shooting near EVO left a pile of bodies, but you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Right…”
“You find anything there? Anything useful?”
I think about the blood and shake my head.
“Didn’t have the chance to; they were on me the second I walked in there,” I lie.
“That’s a shame.” He rubs the stubble from his ever-growing five o’clock shadow.
“Do you regret it? Bringing me into this?”
He shakes his head. I point to the recorder, not sure if it’s still running. “Off the record, you and I both know you didn’t recruit me to recover incriminating intel. You wanted Brixton gone and I was happy to do it.”
“I recruited you to protect my men from what was in that compound.”
I stub out the cigarette, my eyes not wavering from his. I can tell he instantly regrets saying it, but it’s the truth. I stand up.
“I’m sorry I let you down, but I’m done serving as your dirty hands.”
He nods, “That’s probably best. After Owen, I’ll have a hard time convincing my men to work with a vampire.”
“If it weren’t for Owen, your men would still be alive. You tell that to your agents. Tell them the truth about what happened in there. Despite how badly the mole infiltration reflects on you, the lie looks even worse, don’t you think?”