by Z. J. Cannon
The assistant turned to face JD, arms crossed in front of her chest. “There’s a difference,” she said, her voice several degrees colder than it had been at the start, “between selling my boss stimulants at a markup and letting a stranger into a room with him, no questions asked.”
Again, she gave me a lingering look. I met her gaze impassively, and held her stare until she moved on.
“I’m the assistant to one of the most powerful men in America,” she said. “Anyone who wants to talk to him goes through me. If I put a call through to him, or schedule him for a meeting, he can trust that it’s because I’ve already decided it’s worth his time. And it doesn’t stop there. If I hire him a driver, it’s only after I’ve vetted the company’s track record and safety procedures. I go through the same process when I rent a venue for a function he’s hosting. I’m the last line of defense between my boss and the rest of the world—and this world, I’m sure you’ll all agree, is a dangerous place.”
Well, she wasn’t wrong there.
“Eddie Ellison has chosen to give me his trust,” she said. “That position of trust brings with it a certain moral responsibility. Making a little extra money on the side is one thing. He pays what I ask because what I’m offering is worth that much to him. If he wanted to make a different arrangement, I’m sure he could easily do so. I’m not lying to him, just engaging in a simple business transaction.” Her eyes locked on to mine. “What you’re asking me to do, though, is something different. You want me to go behind his back, and betray the trust he’s placed in me. At best, I would be wasting his time. At worst, I’d be putting his life in danger. But even if you don’t want his attention for anything more sinister than a timeshare pitch, the answer is still no.”
For a few seconds, the room was silent. The last words of her impassioned speech hung in the air. Mentally, I shook my head to myself. Who would have thought I would run into a human with genuine integrity, for once—and at the worst possible moment?
JD looked from the assistant to me, waiting to see what I was going to do.
“We all have to make compromises to get what we want,” I said. “So let me ask you two questions. The first is, what is it that you want? Over the long term, I mean. You must want more out of life than screening Eddie Ellison’s calls for him. And the second: what would it take to get you there? We may not be able to get you all the way, but between the two of us, I’m sure we could give you a good head start. Just name your price.”
I cast a surreptitious glance at JD, to make sure I wasn’t pushing his generosity too far. He didn’t even blink. Human fear was a powerful thing.
That reminder of how afraid he was did nothing to calm my own nerves. I would have felt better if he had pushed back. I really had to get out of here soon.
The assistant gave a tense laugh. “What is this, a deal with the devil? Are you going to ask me to sign a contract in blood next?”
That surprised a laugh from my own lips. “Now that’s a comparison I’ve never gotten before.”
“I’m surprised.” She looked like she was serious. “As for the answer to your first question, what I want out of life is simple. I want to be a good person. Someone I can be proud of; someone my parents can be proud of. Money is nice. Power would be even nicer. But at the end of the day, all I want is to be able to look my own reflection in the eye and like what I see.”
“And do you like what you see when your boss kills another few brain cells snorting what you’ve sold him up his nose?” I asked mildly. Across the table, JD wasn’t saying anything. Now, it seemed, he was the one sitting back and waiting to see how this played out.
This time, the assistant’s laugh was harder, more cynical. “Please. Don’t tell me you believe all the ‘say no to drugs’ crap they taught you in school. If you’re going to stand here and lecture me about the evils of drugs while sitting in a room that reeks of expensive beer, you’re either a hypocrite or an idiot.”
“Before you start throwing those words around,” I said, “you might want to take a closer look in that mirror. How much do you know about the boss you’re so eager to protect? I met a man named Dwight Conley the other day. He has a few stories he could tell.”
“Never heard of him.” If the name meant anything to her, she had a good poker face. But I was willing to bet she was telling me the truth. If she knew about the things Conley had alluded to, she wouldn’t be able to maintain this principled facade for long.
“I’ll give you his number,” I said. “Look him up sometime. Then tell me how easily you can look yourself in the mirror.”
“I’ll do that.” Her voice said she would do no such thing. “In the meantime, though, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell your associates to move aside. I’m going to be late for work.”
JD’s men didn’t move.
JD rose to his feet. “I apologize,” he said, almost pleasantly, “for not being direct enough with you. Apparently we left you with the mistaken impression that this is optional.”
Fear twitched across the assistant’s face. She swallowed. “I told my boss where I was going this morning. If anything happens—”
“You told him where you were picking up his drugs, which you would then resell to him at twice what you paid? No, you didn’t. You have better business sense than that, or Eddie Ellison would never have hired you.” JD motioned to his men. “Make her understand, if you would, the wisdom of accepting our offer.”
“Stop,” I said, before they could move. My chair scraped against the floor as I surged to my feet. I wobbled on my not-quite-healed leg, and quickly caught myself against the table. I hoped JD hadn’t seen.
“There’s no need to give up yet.” There it was, the desperate fear, lurking just under the surface of JD’s words. “I’ll get you your meeting.”
“Not like this, you won’t.” JD’s men had caught hold of the assistant’s arms. I stared them down, one at a time. “Let her go.”
The lackeys looked uncertainly from me to JD. They hadn’t seen what had happened in the basement, so they didn’t share JD’s fear. But I was sure they had picked up on the strange atmosphere in the room as easily as the assistant had.
Speaking of picking up on things—it looked like I wasn’t the only one who could hear the fear in JD’s voice after all. The assistant’s brow creased. She looked from him to me, no doubt wondering who I was for someone like JD to be afraid of me. Quickly, I ducked my head.
But not quickly enough. In the instant before I dropped my gaze, I saw her eyes narrow. I risked a glance up at her, and caught her staring at me with new understanding—and more than a little hostility. Apparently she had just figured out who was asking for a private meeting with her boss.
Really, I should have been surprised had taken her this long. She had to have seen the news story about me trying to break into his penthouse.
She opened her mouth. “Let her go,” I said loudly, before she could speak. If she let on that she knew who I was, JD would know there was someone who could link him to Kieran Thorne. And if that happened, I didn’t know if even his fear of me would be enough to save her.
She clamped her mouth shut. Her eyes were full of questions. I didn’t answer any of them.
“If she leaves,” JD warned, “you lose your meeting with Ellison.” His fingers trembled against his legs.
I answered the question he hadn’t spoken aloud. “You did what you could. If she leaves here unharmed, I will consider your part of our deal fulfilled.” I dropped my voice, and tried to call up Vicantha’s icy tones. “But if you lay another finger on her—now or in the future—you’ll see me again. And I won’t be interested in making a deal next time.”
JD gestured to his men again. “You heard him. Let her go.”
As soon as they loosened their grip on her arms, she wrenched herself away. She looked between us, like she was waiting to see if this was some kind of trick. When neither of us said anything, she didn’t waste any more time. She hurried for t
he door. This time, no one stopped her.
With an internal sigh, I watched her go. So much for making friends. But making friends meant making compromises, and whatever I had told Delaney, it looked like there were still some lines I wasn’t willing to cross. At least not yet. After another week of trying to get Ellison, after another month, after Arkanica was back in business again and I was still running around chasing my tail… well, then I would see whether I still thought the assistant’s life had been worth the cost.
But I already knew I would. I ground my teeth. My father’s blood could be a frustrating thing sometimes. Save lives, whatever the cost—an idea as simple as it was noble, in theory. No one had ever bothered to tell me what to do when saving one innocent meant potentially condemning thousands more.
But doing the right thing was never as simple as it seemed. For proof, I had to look no further than the human woman who was already pushing the door open, ready to walk out of the bar and take my best chance of stopping Ellison with her. It just figured—one of the few truly principled humans in this world, and she was working for Eddie Ellison.
“Look up Arkanica the next time you’re in your boss’s files,” I called after her. “Take a good look at what you find. See how you feel about your reflection then.”
She froze, still holding the door half-open.
Slowly, she turned around. “What do you know about Arkanica?”
“It sounds like I should be asking you the same question.” If she had recognized the name of the company because she was in on this with Ellison, it wouldn’t my saying it wouldn’t have been a surprise to her. She had already figured out my identity, and it was common knowledge inside Arkanica that I had made it my mission to destroy them. So if she had reacted the way she had, even knowing who I was…
“You saw something, didn’t you?” I asked, even as I tried to tamp down the sudden burst of excitement. “Or heard something. Something you shouldn’t have.”
“I saw… pictures.” All of a sudden, her crisp voice turned hesitant. “There were people… only not people. Their ears…” Her hand went to her own ear.
JD frowned. His gaze flicked to the side of my head.
“Let’s move on,” I said hastily. “I take it you didn’t like what you saw.”
Her shudder was answer enough. “When I asked him about it, he acted like he had never heard the name before. When I went looking again, the pictures were gone. But for an entire week afterward, I saw the same brown car behind me everywhere I went. I kept hearing clicking noises on the phone for weeks afterward, like someone was…”
“Listening in,” I filled in for her when she didn’t finish. Well, there went the last of my doubt that Eddie Ellison was behind Arkanica.
“I figured I was imagining it. At that point, I wasn’t even sure the pictures had been real. What else would have explained those ears? And it wasn’t just that. Their bodies were… wrong. Their blood was the wrong color.” She shook her head. “I started to wonder if I was losing my mind. Seeing things. Hearing things. But then the brown car disappeared, and the clicking stopped, and I tried to put it out of my mind.” Her eyes dug into mine. “But you know their name.”
“I don’t just know their name. I’m here to stop them. But to do that, I need a little face-to-face time with your boss.”
“And what are you going to do once you’re in the same room with him?” the assistant asked.
“Whatever you saw in those pictures, I can guarantee you, it gets much worse,” I said, instead of answering. I glanced over at JD, who was making no secret of his interest in our conversation. “But I can’t talk about it here. So how about this? You and I will go somewhere and talk. I’ll buy you a coffee. And on the way, I’ll tell you all about Arkanica. If, at the end of that conversation, you still don’t want to get me in to see your boss, you’ll be free to go. That’s a promise—and I don’t make promises lightly.” She had no way of knowing, of course, what a promise meant to me. But I hoped she could read the sincerity in my eyes. “If, on the other hand, you decide helping me is the only way you’ll be able to look yourself in the eye tomorrow morning… well, then we’ll have a longer conversation.”
Chapter 21
I was sitting on Eddie Ellison’s couch, legs crossed and hands behind my head, when he walked into his office on the top floor of the building that housed Nexegence’s headquarters. The man had a couch in his office that was bigger than the one I’d had in my living room back in my Hawthorne apartment. He had a TV in here, too, mounted to the opposite wall. And a miniature basketball hoop. With this much to entertain him, it was a wonder Ellison spent any time working.
When he saw me, he froze. I took the opportunity to get a good look at his face. If anything, he looked even younger than he had on that magazine cover. All humans were children to me—how much could someone really know about the world when they had only lived decades instead of centuries? But Eddie Ellison was a baby. His eyes were round, his cheeks plump.
The coldness around the corners of his mouth broke the illusion, though. He might have been young, but he was far from innocent.
If he had been just a little faster, a little less startled by someone invading his inner sanctum, he might have made it back out the door before his assistant—who had proved herself far more helpful than I had hoped—closed it behind him. As it was, he didn’t turn around until he heard the soft click. He jiggled the doorknob. It didn’t open.
“You won’t be getting out that way,” I said conversationally. “Until the two of us are done with our conversation, there’s only one way out for you.” I gestured toward the row of windows behind his desk.
He was still facing the door, so my dubious wit was lost on him. He kept on knocking. “Andrea? Can you hear me? Call the police. Tell them Kieran Thorne is here.”
Andrea. So that was his assistant’s name. As soon as he said it, I did my best to forget it. She hadn’t wanted to give it to me, even after she had agreed to help me. She had probably seen the wisdom of not trusting an internationally wanted criminal with her name. I could respect that. And after everything she had done for me, I could do her the courtesy of not carrying her name around with me.
To his credit, Ellison didn’t sound afraid. Although on second thought, I wasn’t sure whether that made him brave or just stupid. He knew what I had done to the people who worked for him. Doubtless he had seen the reports from the Arkanica labs I had destroyed, complete with pictures of what had been left of the scientists. After all that, he had to know why I was here.
“She’s taking a long lunch.” I patted the couch next to me. “Sit down. The sooner we talk, the sooner this will be over.” I left it up to his imagination what would happen after that.
He reached into his pocket, and then the other. He stared down at his hands, like he didn’t understand why they were empty.
“Looking for your phone?” I asked. “Check with your assistant. She’s extraordinary, by the way. I hope you’ve been paying her well. Aside what you’ve been giving her to feed your little habit, that is.”
He didn’t even react to my allusion to what he was putting up his nose. He strode to his desk and picked up the landline. I didn’t have to get close enough to listen in to know what he was hearing. Dead air. Like I said, his assistant had been very helpful.
“You may as well stop stalling,” I told him. “You and I both know we’re long overdue for this conversation.”
He reached under his desk for the panic button I knew he had hidden there. I knew because his assistant had already told me about it, right before she had told me she would disconnect it when she let me in.
“If you want to waste a few more minutes waiting for security to get here, be my guest,” I said. “But that’s going to be an awkward few minutes, if you keep on refusing to talk to me. I suggest we use that time more productively.”
Finally, he turned to me. “What do you want?”
I spun JD’s watch on my wrist. I
t really was too flashy. I was going to need to get myself a replacement as soon as possible. Something with a bit more weight to it.
But it wasn’t time to take it off just yet. I would need to put up with it a little while longer. “I told you. I’m here to talk.” I patted the couch next to me again.
I didn’t really expect him to take me up on my invitation. To my surprise, he walked right over to the couch and sat down next to me. He ran his hands down his thighs, smoothing the fabric of the pants I had to admit I envied, and turned to face me with that same damned smirk I had seen on the magazine cover.
“All right,” he said, holding his hands up in a mockery of surrender. “You win. Congratulations, by the way. I’m not an easy man to get a meeting with, at least if I’m not interested in what you have to say.”
“It’s easy enough if you have an overly-principled assistant. She was very interested in what I had to say, once I mentioned Arkanica.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “I assume we can skip past the part of the conversation where you tell me you’ve never heard that name in your life.”
His smirk grew a little. He acknowledged my words with a slight nod of his head. “The fact that you’re here tells me we’re past that. Unless you’ve decided to live up to your manufactured reputation and try a good old-fashioned kidnapping. In which case, I should warn you, my business partners have orders not to give in to any ransom demands.”
“Your business partners are what I’m here to talk about,” I said. “Well, one in particular. So let’s assume we’ve gone through the introductions and the denials, and get right to the good stuff. Charles Engstrom. Who is he, and where can I find him?”
“You know, I’m actually glad you’re here.” Ellison leaned back and crossed one ankle over his knee. “I’ve been keeping tabs on you, which I’m sure comes as no surprise. I know what you’ve been doing to our labs. A valiant effort, if ultimately futile. But I admit to being confused about your motives. Maybe you and I can clear a few things up.”