The Debt Collector (Season 1)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  She nods and holds up her palm. “Here. Give me a copy. I’ll upload it to a secure grid.”

  I smile and touch my palm to hers to transfer the record. “Afraid I’m going to lose it?”

  “It’s always good to have a backup,” she says. “Besides, you want to have multiple copies, in case someone tries to destroy the evidence. That way they never can get all of it.” She taps her palm, looking at the recording, and I second guess whether I should have given it to her. I stopped it before Moloch’s death, but I’m not sure I want her to see the parts before that either.

  Well, it’s too late now.

  “I’m going to call Flitstrom,” I tell her as I punch in the number into my phone.

  It takes a couple rings, and when he answers, his voice is hushed. “Flitstrom.”

  “It’s me, Lirium.”

  “How did it go?” He sounds nervous.

  “There were some… complications,” I say. “But the girl is fine, and I have the evidence we need. You should come get it soon. Like now. We might be on a bit of a time table here.” I watched the news on my palm on the metro ride over, but so far, no breaking news flashes about dead interns in alleys.

  “Where are you?” he asks.

  I give him the coordinates, then say, “Look. This thing may be bigger than I thought. Are you sure the DA is the right guy to take this on?” I don’t want to give Flitstrom any more to worry about, but I also don’t want all of this to be for nothing, if the DA is going to be easily intimidated.

  “I’ve already talked to him,” he says. “He’s aware of the situation. Once I get him some real proof, he’ll be ready to issue warrants and move quickly.”

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Okay. Good. That’s good to hear.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he says and hangs up.

  I close my phone and look to Elena. She’s watching me with a strange expression. Intense, but not serious the way she is sometimes. And there’s a hint of a smile that makes her face light up. It makes me smile even though I’m not sure why.

  “Your mom is doing well,” she says, the smile getting clearer on her face. “Dr. Brodsky says the life energy is healing her. At least, her heart is stronger now than any of their other readings.”

  I take a deep breath and let it out. Relief makes my head dizzy. “Thank you. For staying with her for me.” I step closer to Elena, but don’t touch her, even though I’m dying to run my fingers along her hair. “Did you tell her what I said?”

  “That you’re proud of her for risking everything to help others?”

  I smile and give in to the urge to touch her hair, just skimming along the edges that frame her face. “I don’t think I said it exactly that way.”

  “No.” She moves closer and looks up into my eyes. “That’s what she said about you.”

  My fingers stop. “She said that?” My voice is thick.

  “Yes.” She’s so close we’re almost touching. “I told her you were reckless and kind of an idiot for going off unarmed.”

  “Thanks for having my back.” I smile. “And I’ll have you know I’m never truly unarmed.”

  “I know.” Her voice is soft.

  I can’t help staring at her lips and wondering if I can get away with kissing her for no reason other than I desperately want to.

  “And I told her that, in spite of your being somewhat foresight-challenged, I was very proud of what you were doing. And I just wanted you to come back safe so I could tell you...” Her lips stop moving and stay slightly parted.

  “Tell me what?” My words are almost nonexistent, because I’ve forgotten how to breathe.

  “That you’re much more than I expected.”

  My heart pounds. She should know better by now about saying things like that. I lean in to kiss her lightly, and whisper, “I like exceeding your expectations.” My lips hover over hers as I speak, brushing them, and I feel her smile curve up. I kiss her for real this time, my hand slipping around her back to pull her close, my lips working against hers, saying things I can’t put into words. I want it to be sweet and tender, but the way her hands dig into my shoulders and pull at my clothes, ignites a fire deep inside me. It’s clean and hot, like a mercy hit, only so much sweeter and filling me with life instead of taking it. My hands slide under the back of her t-shirt, and the softness of her skin makes me ache. My fingers find all the small dips and curves of her body as I work her shirt off. She tugs at mine, and I release her for a split second to lift my shirt free, but that’s all I can stand before I pull her against me again. My hands bunch in her hair, and my mouth is on hers as I breathe in the apple scent that’s released from her hair. Her bare skin against mine sends shivers through my body.

  I don’t realize we’ve backed up to the mattress until she bumps into it and tumbles out of my arms. She gives a half-laugh, lying half-naked on the mattress. The thing is old and musty, but at least it’s better than the carpet. I stare at her for a moment, not quite believing this is happening. Then I hurry to kick off my boots.

  She’s up on her knees, her hands tugging at my clothes, which I shed as fast as possible. I make quick work of hers as well, craving the moment when there will be nothing between us, just skin and air. When we get there, I’m all hands and mouth, touching and tasting her like she’ll disappear if I don’t map out every square inch of her body.

  I take a couple gulps of air and pause my frenzied pace.

  I want to do this right. For all the women I’ve had, for all the moments of ecstasy I’ve had with girls I can’t even name, I’ve never wanted so badly to get this right. Elena deserves better than me in so many ways, I don’t want to give her anything less than the best I have to give.

  I slow my caresses, but hers have picked up speed. She’s touching me and making sounds that override any thoughts of slowness in my brain. I move on instinct now, responding to her as she moves with me, a give and take that soon has us joined together, rocking on the mattress, a tangle of limbs and sensation so complete I don’t know anymore where I end and she begins. I have a faint notion that I should slow down, draw it out, make it better for her, but her soft sounds of pleasure are driving me mad and coiling tension deep within me. When she grabs at the mattress, gasping in air and calling out my name, it tips me over the edge.

  A white rushing noise of pleasure blanks my mind, and the intensity of it stretches, lasts, makes me whole. I’m immersed, floating in a haze of happy. The first sensation I have of the real world again is her fingers digging into my back then releasing, again and again, like she’s trying to pull me closer, even though we couldn’t possibly be any closer than we already are.

  I can’t imagine anything better than this moment. Holding her. Shuddering with the pleasure of being with her. Feeling her tremble around me. I hold onto it as long as I can, afraid to move and disrupt the spell… but eventually our bodies cool. Our breathing slows. The pounding of her heart, which I feel pulsing through me, steadies out.

  When I allow just a whisper of air between us, it’s like being separated from half of myself. I immediately want to press against her again, but instead, I shift so our embrace is more cuddle than heat. I silently curse that our first time together is on a moldy mattress in Madam A’s safehouse. Elena deserves better than that, and I vow to give her better.

  In everything. All the time. As long as she’ll have it from me.

  Her eyes are closed, but her lips are parted. The glow of our lovemaking is on her, and it steals my breath. She makes the dinginess fade, and there’s nothing but her deep brown eyes lazily opening to look up at me.

  “You are so beautiful.” My voice is a reverent whisper, like I’m in a church, worshipping at the altar that is Elena. Something I would happily do again and again.

  “Isn’t that the line you’re supposed to use before you get me in bed?”

  I laugh. It’s a deep, mattress-shaking movement. I have to hold onto her in order not to roll off the edge of
the three-inch-high springs that are all that separate us from the floor.

  “Damn!” I say. “I knew I would find a way to mess this up.” I smirk and shift again so that I’m in no danger of sliding off, then gently smooth down her passion-mussed hair. “Let me start over. Hi. My name is Joe.”

  “Hello, Joe.” She smiles wide. It’s the most gorgeous thing.

  “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Will you come to bed with me?”

  She ducks her head into my shoulder, and her soft puffs of laughter tickle my neck. It gives me a warm glow feeling inside that rounds out the settling heat of our bodies. She runs a hand up my neck and into my hair. It’s a caress and a tug and makes me think of her fingers dancing in the air and how that made me ache for her touch on my skin. I lean in for a kiss, thinking less about tickles and more about all the ways I want to make her ache as well. Then I remember…

  Shit. “Flitstrom!” It’s a curse that I whisper into her neck where I just kissed her.

  She pulls back, the same look of alarm dawning on her face that I feel running shock waves through my body. “When is he supposed to be here?”

  “He was coming right over. I don’t know! He could be here any minute.”

  She scrambles for her clothes, and I scoop her t-shirt off the floor and toss it to her. As she catches it, I point to the back. “There’s a bathroom over there.”

  She scurries off, naked and clutching her clothes, and disappears behind the bathroom door. It’s cute and funny, and I can’t help chuckling as I hastily pull on my pants. I’m half-way through buttoning my shirt and have one boot on when there’s pounding on the door.

  “Shit!” I say under my breath. I step into the second boot and grab Moloch’s trenchcoat off the floor, hoping that my half-unbuttoned shirt won’t stand out so much if I’m dressed like a collector ought to be. I shuffle to the door and punch the button to open it.

  It’s not Flitstrom.

  I don’t know these two men.

  I fling a hand toward the taller one’s face, but just as I make contact with his forehead, something explodes. The sound cracks the air in half. Then it’s like the world’s most powerful fist punches me in the side. I curl into the man. Twin pains hit me simultaneously: a searing burn from my hand on his forehead where I’m pulling life energy from him, and a wave of pain in my side that reaches my brain like a second bomb going off. It turns my vision into a crazed circus of stars and light streaks. The man and I both crumple to the ground. I have a brief realization that he’s not a debt collector, and that I’ve been shot, but then his body pins mine down, and the crush of pain makes it impossible to think. Everything goes black, then the circus of light surges again. I blink through it to see the second man’s gun pointed at my head. He grabs his partner’s jacket with his gun-free hand and tries to wrench him away. We fight for possession of the body. I vaguely sense the only thing keeping him from firing is that he’d have to shoot through his partner to get me.

  Pain kicks my brain like a bronco. My grip weakens, and the second man wrenches his partner’s body free. Just as he swings his gun to me, a high-pitched scream jerks his attention away. His gun jumps toward the sound and fires. The sound cracks through me, and my body jolts from it, but I take that moment of distraction to reach toward him and shove my hand up his pants leg. I find bare flesh and pull hard. The fresh pain from the burn brings back the dancing lightshow, but I keep hold of him, draining, as he slumps to the ground.

  I pull until he’s dead.

  When I release him and roll back, my hand instinctively goes to the wound in my side. Everything is wet. Too wet. Like I’ve turned to liquid, and I’m melting in the middle. I can’t pull in a breath, like the weight of a hundred feet of water sits on my chest.

  A thought fights through the suffocation and pain. He wasn’t pointing the gun at me. And I can only think of one other person he would shoot.

  Elena.

  No! I don’t say anything out loud, because my lungs aren’t working, but a moaning sound echoes around my body as I twist on the ground. I see her, lying with one leg sticking up from the floor, bent from when she fell.

  When she was shot.

  With a bullet meant for me.

  An animal sound crawls from the very depths of me and gurgles up through my throat. Pain eviscerates my stomach, but I pull myself across the carpet toward her. Each motion of the crawl is a fresh lance through my body, but I get closer. There’s nothing but silence and the wheezing gasps of my own half-breaths. My vision tunnels to her. My arms weaken and shake, but I reach her.

  Her eyes are closed, her face scrunched, and there’s a dark, wet stain spreading underneath her right shoulder. I pull aside her bloody t-shirt and see the hole, neat and round. A black, bloody mark that doesn’t belong. It’s close to her chest, and there’s so much blood already… I cover the hole with my uninjured hand and pulse a trickle of life energy into her. I can feel her energy well just beyond my hand. It’s there. Draining rapidly, but there.

  She’s still alive.

  I put my scorched hand to her cheek, flat for the most contact, and press my face into hers, touching her wherever I can to speed the transfer without burning her. But the energy dissipates, fleeing away and draining as soon as it enters her body.

  A wash of weakness makes me tremble. Pain is a lion roaring in my head. There’s an answering blast from the heat of the mercy hit. I keep pulsing energy into her, and soon the clean burn wins, dimming the pain and making my head swim.

  Dr. Brodsky’s words float up from somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind and dance around in the shimmering heat of the mercy hit. What we need is not to pour more life energy into the reservoir, but to stop the leak.

  I need a cage to contain the life energy where she needs it most: her gunshot wound. I imagine a cage, but it gets me nothing. I focus on my hand over the bullet hole and close my eyes, because the strength to keep them open is more than I have to spare. Her life energy well is gushing, draining away fast with the blood that’s leaking out of her body. I can’t stop it. I can’t push back against it, any more than I could push my hand against a waterfall.

  I have no idea what to do, and my body weakens even more with that thought.

  I reach further into the wound, and I feel the edges of the bullet’s path: it’s a tunnel of destruction through her body. I picture Dr. Brodsky’s creepy flesh-device, reaching its many fingers around my mother’s heart, and I can feel my reach enclosing Elena’s wound in a protective shield. I pulse more life energy into her and… it stays. It swims around and around the damaged flesh, like a cyclone trapped in a bottle.

  I slump into her chest, no longer able to hold up my own weight. Every bit of my concentration focuses on her, feeding in life energy until the cage brims with it, burning bright. Darkness crowds my mind. I don’t know how much life energy I have left to give. I don’t know anything at all, except that if I can stop the leak, if I can hold on long enough to do that, then maybe she’ll make it.

  Her life is worth it. Worthwhile. Worth everything to me.

  I picture kissing her one more time, because I can’t lift my head to do it for real.

  The mercy hit burns brightest right before the darkness closes in.

  Oh, Lirium. I have so much to teach you. It’s Ophelia’s voice, but her lips don’t move. They’re red and full, but there’s no blood, just her dark hair flowing down her back like a cascade of shadows. But you always were a fast learner. Then she becomes the shadow and disappears into darkness.

  Another form emerges. Valac’s hair is slicked back, as sleek as his clothes and the smirk on his lips. An altruistic debt collector? You’ll get yourself killed with that kind of thinking, Joe. Then his smile fades, along with the rest of him. He’s just a vapor, and he speaks without air. I’m going to let go of you now, little bird.

  The vapor whisks away, and in his place stands Elena. Her face is bright like the sun, so bright it should burn my eyes
to look at her, but it doesn’t. I stare at her lips. They’re moving, but no sound comes out. I yearn for whatever she’s saying, lean toward it, but there’s nothing but silence and a small, distant beeping sound. Steady. Keeping time with the movement of her lips.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Then she dissolves into mist. It swirls and swarms toward me. Engulfs me. I’m surrounded by the tiny bits of her, a bright glow of whiteness and light. Her soundless words rush around me. You were much more than I expected.

  Blackness falls over me like a blanket, cutting off the distant beeping sound along with everything else. New sensations flood my body. Slivers of light stab through the darkness. A thousand pound weight on my chest sinks me into something soft. Numbness holds back a disembodied pain, like a foot that’s fallen asleep, just waiting to be woken into pinpricks of agony.

  My throat is dry.

  A breath of life fills my lungs, and my eyelids drag apart. I’m blinded by overhead panels and silver cabinets, and white, everywhere white, glowing like in my dream. Only now I think I might possibly be awake.

  Alive.

  I’m not quite sure how that’s possible.

  Out of the whiteness and glare, I see Elena’s face. She smiles. I force my eyes to blink, once, twice, but I’m still not sure.

  “Are you real?” I ask, but only a croak comes out. She frowns and disappears into the glare. I wonder if I’ve frightened her away, but she’s back an instant later, holding a cup to my lips. I must be sitting up, because it doesn’t choke me, just slips smooth and cool into my mouth. My tongue is freed by the water, and I manage to swallow, but some liquid slides down my chin. I lift my hand to wipe it, embarrassed that she’s seeing me like this, but my arm is a dead, inert thing that only manages to flail against my chest. I use my shoulder to wipe my chin clean instead and vaguely notice that my hand has bandages across the palm and wrist.