Body Master

by C. J. Barry

  Someone yelled out, “Does that mean they can change their dick size?” The room erupted in laughter.

  MacGregor pointed to him. “Leave it to the small-dicked man in the back to ask that one.” The laughter got louder.

  Max crossed his arms, not laughing. He wondered what humans would think if Shifters had meetings about them. We’ve ascertained that the vast majority of humans are arrogant, greedy, and completely intolerant.

  “The research boys have recalibrated all your disrupters with new patterns,” MacGregor continued. “They should work like a charm for a few weeks. After that, we’re back to square one.”

  The agents clapped in response, and MacGregor raised his hand. “You’re going to like this one even better. I have it on the best authority a state job can buy that you’ll be getting your hot little hands on a new weapon. As you know, Shifters are sensitive to UVC light. Screws with their ability to shift and turns them inside-out, which means they can’t shift in sunlight. So some pointy-headed lab coat finally figured out that we can exploit that. We’re going to be the test agency for a new UVC grenade.”

  A roar of approval went up as Max’s gut tightened.

  “Well, don’t get too excited,” MacGregor said. “Effects will only last about fifteen seconds. The good news is that unlike our disrupter weapons, it affects every Shifter at once in an unobstructed area. It should incapacitate them long enough for you to tranquilize or take them out, whichever comes first.”

  A knowing chuckle went around the room.

  Max let out a long breath. Nice.

  “Can’t wait to try that out,” Seneca said.

  He turned to find her smiling. “Remember, it only works a few seconds. And then you might be in big trouble.”

  She laughed.

  MacGregor held up his hand. “Don’t forget that Riley’s funeral is tomorrow. The policy is that we aren’t supposed to attend our fallen agents’ funerals—”

  Boos filled the room, and he waved them off. “I know it sucks. So all I’m saying is that he’ll be buried tomorrow at noon in Woodland Cemetery.”

  Max realized that no one had mentioned it to him, not even Seneca. Her jaw was set and she blinked furiously as she listened to MacGregor. The shock of her vulnerability wiped away his annoyance at being shunned.

  Then MacGregor pointed to Max and announced, “You may have noticed the new guy. Max Dempsey. Introduce yourselves to him and try not to act like idiots doing it.”

  Seneca eyed him, and any vulnerability vanished. It was intriguing while it lasted. MacGregor updated them on the rest of the announcements and information. The meeting was adjourned, and Dempsey led the way out and back to their office.

  Seneca followed and closed the door behind them. Dempsey ignored her as she leaned back against the door and crossed her arms. “Ready to quit yet?”

  He checked the mail on his desk in all seriousness. “I’ve heard worse.”

  Seneca didn’t doubt that. So what would it take to make him quit? Dempsey knew he wasn’t wanted or welcomed here. In fact, if anyone found out, he’d be run out of the agency or worse. What would make a Shifter risk that? He was hiding something.

  He looked up at her, his expression humorless. “MacGregor didn’t mention Skinman.”

  “Probably waiting for some confirmation aside from our informant.”

  Dempsey nodded and went silent. What is going through his head right now? she wondered. Skinman? Dillinger? Quitting? That would make her entire year.

  He dropped the mail and walked around the desk to come face-to-face with her. Her pulse jumped as his eyes flashed iridescent. It was never far from the surface.

  “What happens to the Shifters you capture or kill?” he asked softly.

  She blinked at the off-topic question. “The cleanup crew takes care of them.”

  “Which means what?”

  She shrugged. “They bag them and take them away. I don’t know what they do with the dead ones, but they put the live ones on ice. Freezing them is the only safe containment solution we have right now.”

  Dempsey’s tone turned bitter. “But they don’t have any problem developing new weapons. Jail cells must be low on the priority list.”

  Seneca studied him and realized that he was furious. What did he expect? “It’s the best we can do.”

  She watched as Dempsey moved closer. His eyes were dark and unfriendly. “Then how do they know that their new weapons will work on Shifters?”

  For a moment, she went blank. Then her mind kicked in. “Wait, you don’t think they’re using our captures for experiments or something?”

  “How are they testing the weapons?” he pressed.

  She put her hands on her hips. “Maybe they use rats.”

  “Works for human testing, why not?” Then Dempsey smiled, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “Do you really think it’s that hard to come up with a cell for a Shifter?”

  He was trying to confuse her. “Yes, I do.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’d like to think that. It’d justify your job.”

  She said, “It’s not my decision whether or not to make cells a priority.”

  “No, but it is your decision to work here.”

  “If you Shifters weren’t here, then I wouldn’t be here,” she snapped back.

  “Do you think XCEL will stop at the bad Shifters? What about the others? The ones who want nothing more than to be left alone?”

  Now he was pissing her off. “I don’t know. All the Shifters I meet tend to kill and maim. Maybe deep down you’re all bad.”

  His gaze held as if he was going to say something, and then he shook his head in disgust.

  “My mistake,” he said. “I thought you were different.”

  You have no idea. “I guess not.” She shoved Dillinger’s folder into his hands. “We’re working late again.”

  He shoved it back. “Can’t. I’m taking the night off.”

  She gaped at him. “You just started here.”

  He walked back to his desk. “Prior engagement.”

  “MacGregor—”

  Dempsey cut in. “MacGregor knows.”

  Sonofabitch, he went behind her back. “Got a hot date or something?”

  He grinned, and she could have sworn she heard a growl. “Or something.”

  For some reason, her gut tightened and her interest took a mean turn. “So you are blowing off work for date?”

  Dempsey pulled on his leather jacket. “It’s personal.”

  She waited but he didn’t elaborate, and she wouldn’t ask. No, she’d just stand here and fume. It would be petty to pry. She crossed her arms. Fine, she was petty. “Does your date know what you are?”

  He hesitated just long enough for her to know she’d hit her mark. “Believe it or not, I have Shifter friends. Some of them don’t even murder people.” He fixed his sleeves. “Are you done?”

  Seneca felt the heat rise in her face. “Be home by midnight.”

  Dempsey gave her a long, lingering look that made her want to squirm. She could only imagine his effect on other women. Thick hair, square jaw, intense eyes, and a body made for long, hot nights. How hard would it be for him to get a date? Seconds.

  “Think you can stay out of trouble until tomorrow?” he asked.

  She smiled. “I’m sure I’ll find something to do.”

  “That’s what worries me,” he said, and then he brushed by her and left.

  Seneca sat down at her desk and tossed the file on the desk. The last five minutes felt like three rounds in the ring. Working with Dempsey was exhausting.

  She drummed her fingernails on her desk. So what exactly did Dempsey do in his free time? Besides dating unsuspecting women. Did he have a circle of friends? Go out to dinner? Did he have hobbies? She couldn’t see him painting or playing chess or collecting stamps. Or even hanging around a gym. He’d scare all the other customers away.

  And why would MacGregor be willing to give him the night off so soon after
joining the agency? She could ask MacGregor but he wouldn’t tell her. That man could keep a secret.

  Curiosity gnawed at her until she finally got up and grabbed her coat. “Screw it.”

  She raced to the elevator and out into the parking garage just in time to see him pull out.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Max found Carl Hannaford in a booth at the far end of the Bronx bar. The place was dark, and smelled like stale beer and urine. There was a battered pool table in the back under a bare lightbulb. Country music squawked from speakers overhead. Two men hunched over the long bar, looking like permanent fixtures. A lone, homely bartender seemed annoyed at his intrusion.

  Max got a beer at the bar before sliding into the booth across from his longtime friend and the man secretly responsible for getting him into XCEL. “Your meeting places get worse every week.”

  Carl grinned under carefully sculpted black hair. His blue eyes pierced the dim light. A scotch on the rocks in front of him looked like it hadn’t been touched. He shook Max’s hand. “It’s all about the atmosphere, my friend. I don’t think we have to worry about anyone catching our conversation here.”

  “Well, next time you might want to dress down for the occasion,” Max said. He noted that the bartender kept glancing at them. The man was definitely curious.

  “So,” Carl said. “How’s it going?”

  Max took a long draw from the bottle and set it down across from Carl’s drink. “I have a partner who doesn’t trust me as far as she can throw me. MacGregor wants me to finish my business and leave. And I’m no closer to the killer than I was when I started.”

  Carl laughed. “That good, huh?”

  Max eyed him over his bottle. “That was my best day this week.”

  “And no one else knows you are a Shifter?”

  “Just my partner and MacGregor. The rest of the agents don’t know, but I’m betting that day comes soon enough. They have their own brotherhood. What about you? Still keeping under the radar?”

  “So far.” Carl nodded. “No one suspects that I’m not the real Carl Hannaford.”

  Good, Max thought. Then they were both safe for the time being. Carl had managed to infiltrate the government branch responsible for XCEL and helped shape policy to put Max in a position where he could find the traitor responsible for betraying the Shifters on their last planet before escaping in their ship and landing here along with them. And then murdering Ell.

  “How’s Apollo?” Carl asked out of the blue.

  Max thought about their argument last night. “He thinks I should give up looking for Ell’s killer.”

  “He doesn’t understand. He didn’t lose what you did.” Carl took a sip of his drink. “Remember the old days when you, me, and Apollo used to do this for fun?”

  Max smiled. “And one of us would always end up saving Apollo from himself.”

  “I thought we’d be doing that forever on Govan,” Carl said. “I guess it wasn’t meant to be there.”

  It wasn’t meant to be anywhere. The shapeshifter race had been refugees for the last six generations after their own home planet had become uninhabitable due to climate change. Finding a new home, a place where they could resettle in peace, had proven impossible. Govan had nearly wiped them out.

  “I miss the old days, as bad as they were. My family,” Carl said after swirling his drink.

  He didn’t have to elaborate. They had both lost their entire families. All because one Shifter had decided to help the Govan government get rid of them all—the traitor, and ultimately, Ell’s murderer. Apollo just wanted to move forward and forget the past. But Max and Carl couldn’t. It was that simple.

  “Anything I can do to help out with the agency?” Carl asked.

  “You got me this far and that was enough, thanks. I won’t risk you being discovered. Besides, I’m the only one who can find him at this point.” Max watched the bartender watching him. “What you can do is find out what happens to the Shifters that the XCEL teams capture.”

  “The policy is cryogenics,” Carl said with a frown.

  “At the rate they are developing new weapons? I don’t think so. And I seriously doubt they’d put weapons in the hands of XCEL agents unless they’re absolutely positive they’ll work on Shifters.”

  Carl shook his head slowly. “It was only a matter of time before they started experimenting on Shifters.”

  “Live Shifters,” Max corrected. “And one of them just might be me someday.”

  “I’ll definitely check into that. Not that I can stop it, you realize,” Carl said.

  “At least I’ll know what to watch out for.” Max glared at the bartender until he looked away. “Amazing how much this planet is like Govan. Same small minds, same paranoia, same bullshit.”

  Carl shrugged. “They aren’t all bad.”

  “Right,” Max said. Just the ones he came into contact with. “Doesn’t matter that we try to fit in. Doesn’t matter that we adopt all their million rules. Doesn’t matter that I know more about their history than ninety-nine percent of them. It never changes, Carl. We’ll never be welcomed anywhere.”

  “Ell would have disagreed with you,” Carl said.

  Max stared at his beer bottle. “She was too soft.”

  “She had faith,” Carl corrected.

  And it killed her, Max thought.

  As if reading his mind, Carl asked, “So what are your plans after you catch her killer?”

  Max took a big swig and caught the scent of something else. Then he lost it in the smell of the beer. “Does it matter?”

  “XCEL could still use you. He won’t be the last bad Shifter.”

  “Probably not.” Max pushed his bottle aside and inhaled, just catching a wisp of scent he recognized all too well. Ivory soap. “I have to go.”

  Carl frowned as Max got up and tossed a few bills on the table. “Problem?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  Carl glanced around and got to his feet. “You sure?”

  Max grinned. “Oh, yes. This one is all mine.”

  Seneca ducked into a storefront doorway after sneaking out of the bar and watched for the two men to exit. This was not what she expected. Who was the guy in the nice suit Dempsey was talking to? In a dump like that? And even worse, the suit was a Shifter. Okay, that wasn’t weird, but she had expected a woman.

  Personal, with a guy in a suit? Didn’t make sense unless Dempsey wasn’t into women. It could be possible. He never said who his date was. Or maybe it was business, which would really piss her off because she hadn’t been invited to the meeting. She peered around the corner at the stairs. No sign of them yet. First thing tomorrow, she was going to see what MacGregor knew—

  A hand clamped over her mouth, and she reacted with an elbow to the gut. She heard a pained oomph, but the hand held and her elbow hurt like hell.

  “You can’t do it, can you? You can’t stay out of trouble.”

  She froze at the voice rasping in her ear. Well, crap. He wasn’t kidding when he said he could pick her out in the city. How the hell was she supposed to spy on him if he always knew she was there?

  Then Dempsey spun her around to face him and pinned her against the brick wall with a hand on each side of her. Even in the darkness, fire burned in his eyes. Anger simmered in his soul.

  No surprise, he wasn’t happy to see her.

  “I was just providing backup,” she said, lying through her teeth.

  He chuckled low, sending a shiver down her spine. He was way too close for comfort, and she tried to slide away from him, but he wasn’t having any of it, boxing her against the wall tightly.

  “Is that right? You think I need a bodyguard?” he said. “Or were you jealous?”

  She gave a little laugh. “Jealous? Please.”

  “I don’t need a bodyguard, and you aren’t jealous. What does that leave us with?”

  Busted. She never got busted. If this got out, it would ruin her kick-ass agent reputation. “Fine, I was curio
us about your personal life. I didn’t realize you had a guy . . . friend.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Guy friend?”

  She should shut up, just drop it. But the suspense was killing her. Why else would he take the whole night off ? “You know, guy friend. Boyfriend.”

  She sensed the change in him almost immediately. Or was it her? Well, one of them was changing because she was feeling way too warm for New York City in December.

  “Boyfriend. As in lover?” he asked as he stroked the exposed skin on the side of her throat with his thumb. One thumb. It was distracting as hell. She started to sweat under her long coat.

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said.

  He grinned. Just grinned. And that damn thumb. Every stroke sent electricity down her spine. And unfortunately, it felt amazing.

  “You think I’m gay,” he said, and this time he moved closer.

  She swallowed. That damn thumb. And what could she say to make him stop? Your thumb is driving me crazy? “The suit in the bar?”

  “Is a business associate,” he said smoothly. She could feel the warmth of his breath, the heat of his face inches from hers, and the weight of his eyes as they watched her every move. They were gray with a little silver around the edges.

  Concentrate, Seneca, you’re supposed to be pissed here. “You were the one who said it was personal.”

  “If I had told you it was business, you’d have followed me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. What kind of business?”

  Dempsey leaned closer, and Seneca sucked in a breath as he whispered, “My business.”

  And then all she could hear was their breathing. The city seemed to fade away as their eyes locked. Bursts of vapor curled in the cold air. He smelled like beer and the night.

  “And I’m not gay,” he said softly.

  Her body agreed wholeheartedly despite her best efforts. But he was a Shifter. Not to be trusted. She should move away, should do something besides fall prey to the heat.