She nods once, ducking her head and studying our hands, mine still gently holding hers. When she looks up, the fierce seriousness is back. I think it’s my favorite look on her.
“No matter how this turns out, Joe, you’re a good man for trying.”
A rush runs through me, like a burst of life energy coursing up through my body and flooding my brain. My mouth hangs open for a second, unspoken words filling the space, wondering if she knows what her words mean to me. Her deep brown eyes are a well that I’m all too ready to tumble down. How can she look at me like that, say those words, and expect me to resist kissing her?
So I don’t.
I slip a hand to the back of her neck and bend down. Her silky hair brushes my hand, and her lips are soft against mine. She’s surprised by it. I should stop. Even though it’s the last thing on earth I want, I start to pull back. She lifts up on her toes to chase after my retreating kiss. Her fingertips find my face and dance across it to weave into my hair. All thoughts of gentleness sweep out of me. I crush my mouth to hers. My hand slides around to her back and presses her body into mine. There’s no air left between us as every pent-up desire I have welds her to me. Her hands skim my hair, roam my shoulders, press their fingertips into me, and I’m just as hungry for her. Her mouth opens to me, and she tastes of sweetness and goodness and light. I’m starving for this, for all of it—her lips, her approval, her body—in a way that feels wild and freeing.
I ease my grip on her and run my hands up to her face. I cup her cheeks and cool the fervor of our kiss with half-dozen smaller ones. She’s breathing hard. I’m hardly breathing at all. I’m lost in her, completely. All I want in the world is to stay and explore all the ways I can kiss her.
But I can’t. I have to go.
Ending that kiss ranks as one of the harder things I’ve ever done.
Our faces still close, it feels as if something new has sprung into being between us, fashioned from thin air and a hot kiss. Something alive and filled with potential. I peer into her eyes to see if she feels it, too.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” she whispers, avoiding my stare. Her hands retreat from my neck to rest lightly on my shirt.
It’s not quite what I was hoping for, and I pray this wasn’t just a good luck kiss. I take a chance, kissing her one more time, soft and longer than I should. Her lips are still eager, and the temptation to stay surges like a physical thing that wants to bind me to her.
I force myself to stop, turn, and walk away.
I’m dressed in scrubs and lurking in the dark recesses of the pediatric ward.
If I’m caught, I’ll probably get arrested for being some kind of pervert. At least I should be. It almost annoys me the ease with which Elena’s nurse-friend was able to procure a cover for me as an intern from another hospital doing charity visits with the kids. If there were tighter security in pediatric wards with dying kids, maybe a debt collector wouldn’t be able to slip in and kill them.
Sophie, the ten-year-old heart patient on Candy’s hit list, sleeps in her bed nearby. Luckily, the second bed in her room is empty, and with the curtain drawn between them, I have a convenient hiding place, wedged between a rolling cart of supplies—anti-viral gloves, wipes, and a bin of puzzles and toys—and a highly polished metallic bank of instrumentation at the head of the bed. The lights in the room are dimmed so Sophie can sleep, but I can still see my reflection in the silver surface next to me.
I look startlingly normal. The scrubs hang on me, because they’re a bit oversized, but the usual bags under my eyes are missing, and I’m clean-shaven for once. Even my eyes look like they’ve finally got some life behind them. I stare at my reflection, wondering in what alternate universe I could have been this image of a caring pediatric intern, visiting kids to brighten their final days with magic tricks and clean jokes.
Instead, I’m a debt collector here to record one of my own attempting to kill Sophie.
I check my palm screen for the tenth time, partly to see the time, and partly to make sure it’s muted. I don’t want it to make any sounds when I start to record. Stealth is imperative, at least until I have my recording. After that, this Moloch character will definitely be aware of my presence.
I shift from one foot to the next, flexing out the cramp in my leg from standing in one position too long. I’ve already been here an hour. I’m afraid the wait will be so long my feet will fall asleep just when Moloch arrives. Or I’ll be forced to take a bathroom break, and he’ll slip in to kill Sophie during the twenty seconds I’m gone. Elena’s records showed the collection—albeit for a “ghost” patient who doesn’t really exist—was scheduled for 10 am. It’s my fault that I arrived an hour early, but I’m only going to have one shot at this.
I start to contemplate how I’m going to feed myself if the wait goes on for hours, when I hear the slightest whisper of fabric and a familiar squeak—the kind that collector boots make on the scrubbed-clean tiles of a hospital floor. Every nerve in my body jolts fully awake, and I slip my hand, recorder started, to the thin crack between the curtain and the wall. I checked the angle before, to make sure that I would have Sophie in the recording frame. I glance at the blacked-out wall screen opposite Sophie’s bed and see him in the reflection on the dark glass: a thin figure in a trenchcoat that drapes like a shroud to the floor behind him. He stands at the foot of her bed and checks her chart.
Making sure he has the right child to murder.
A gag starts in my throat, and the compulsion to rip aside the curtain and stop him before he can step closer to her is stronger than I expect. But I hold my position and carefully control my breathing, mouth open, to leave no sound that will give me away.
The reflection of the debt collector moves from the foot of the bed and quickly takes the two strides to the head. His hand is on her forehead, and I physically flinch with my need to stop him. I have no idea how fast he’ll pull. There’s no reason to go slow, and I don’t know how much life she has left. I wait one second more, just to make sure I have his attempt at murder on record, and then I move.
I rip aside the curtain and lunge toward the bed. I aim for his hand on her head, partly to break that connection as quickly as possible and partly because I need solid skin contact. He’s fast; his hand slips away. Sophie falls limp, and she looks like death, but I can’t stop to check. I reach across her and grab at the collector’s coat. I just catch the edge of it and yank him back toward the bed, but now I’m awkwardly sprawled across the girl and the bunched blankets. The collector is still startled by my sudden appearance, but he quickly recovers and attacks.
His hand latches onto my wrist, but I’m ready for him. I pull life energy through the contact point at a scorching pace. It feels like his hand is a pair of red-hot tongs locked on my skin. I bite down hard to stifle the scream. He fights the pull of life energy I’m draining from him, but his eyes are wide in horror at a battle he surely didn’t expect. In spite of springing out of the shadows, I’m dressed in scrubs and look like a well-meaning intern, not a collector.
His knees buckle, but his grasp is still firm on my wrist, and he drags me across the bed. I have to go over the side and tumble to the floor with him or risk losing contact. I expect my fall to be cushioned by his body, but he rolls fast to the side. The floor hits me hard, and my grip on him is lost. The space between the bed and wall is crowded, but he has the advantage now. I curse and struggle up to lunge for him, but he smacks my arm away and follows it with a fist to my face. My head whips to the side, pain lashing across my jaw. I kick blindly at him and hear a grunt as I connect with something. I turn back and sail a fist to follow up the kick, landing another lucky hit, straight to his face. It knocks him back against the wall. I take that split second to lunge for his throat. His hands find my face, but I tighten my grasp, pulling life energy and choking him at the same time. His eyes bulge. I can feel him fighting my life energy pull—through my hands and his—and we’re close to evenly matched.
But I
have my hands on his throat.
The more I pull and choke, the more he weakens. The more his eyes bulge.
I’m going to win.
I know it. He knows it.
He stops gripping my face to claw at my hands around his neck.
I can kill him. He deserves to die. Who knows how many children he’s murdered—he deserves something much worse than being choked to death on a hospital floor. If I don’t drain him of his life energy first.
Something inside me hesitates. I slow the pull, but keep my hands at his neck. His lips turn blue, and his clawing at my hands slows. He deserves to die, I tell myself. There’s no question in my mind about this. And for him, I hope the other side is the cold, dark place that Valac tasted. This child-killer deserves that, too.
The problem is he’ll take everything he knows with him.
I push past the contact point on his throat into his well of life-energy. He has a lot, but it’s draining fast as I choke the life out of him.
I wait. I keep draining. I wait some more.
When his life energy level starts to rocket down, and his eyes roll up in his head, I release him, shoving him against the wall hard. He slumps, choking in air, his hands weakly holding his throat, as if he can force the air in that way.
I stand up and tower over him. He’s half-dead and propped against the wall.
“I could kill you.” My voice is harsh with the fight and the pain still throbbing in my jaw and my wrist. “I will kill you, if you don’t tell me what I want to know.” I want some answers, something I can take to Flitstrom besides just the recording. As I think of it, I swipe my palm and hold it up to him. Whatever he says is going on the record. This is probably an “illegal” interrogation, and Flitstrom won’t like it, but I really couldn’t care less.
Whether I’ll kill him when I’m done is still up for debate.
He stares up from the floor, and I finally get a good look at him. He’s older, maybe thirty, and his debt collector attire has seen years of use, just like his hands, which are scarred with a multitude of brands. They make me think about the girl, Sophie, and I spare her a glance. Her face is gray and more haggard than any ten-year-old’s should be, but her small chest moves. She still has life in her.
I swing back to the collector. His blue eyes are fixed on me, but he hasn’t moved. He rubs his throat, but doesn’t say anything.
Then again, I haven’t asked him any questions. “What’s your name?”
“John Hancock.” His voice is raspy, probably from me choking the life out of him.
“Your collector name.” Asshole.
“Did you want to invite me to tea?” Now I can hear it: a British accent. It’s faint, but it’s there.
“Are you sure you want to make this difficult?” I ask. “Because I would really enjoy draining the life out of you.”
He peers at me, his blue eyes narrowing. “Who are you?”
I step closer to him, just out of reach, and hunker down. “You really don’t understand how this works, do you? Let me explain: answer my question or I’m going to finish what I started.” I’m within striking distance. All I would have to do is land a hand on him now, and drain the little he has left. He knows this—I can tell by the way his back presses into the wall just to gain that extra inch of space.
“Well, I’m glad you cleared that up,” he says, his face grim. “My collector name is Moloch, if you must know.”
“Who do you work for?”
One corner of his mouth quirks up. “The Department of Life and Health, Agency of Collection. Just like you, I imagine, although…” He gives a look to my scrubs. “It would appear you’re doing a bit of freelance work as well.”
“Who do you work for in the Agency?”
He lifts one eyebrow. “Candy Kane Thornton. But then, if you’re here, you must know that already.”
I do. But now I have it on record.
“Who else within the Agency is involved?”
He narrows his eyes. It’s obvious I’m fishing. “I’m not sure.” He shrugs. “I take my orders from Candy and do my work.”
“Transferring out kids.” I don’t even try to hide the venom in my voice.
He glances at Sophie on the bed. “These ones aren’t going to recover. You know that as well as I do. Might as well have their life energy go to some useful purpose.”
I curl up a fist. I may need to beat him for a while. Just because. Then I remember what Flitstrom said. The payouts have to go somewhere.
“What useful purpose?”
“I doubt you really want to know the answer to that question.”
“Should I convince you of my sincerity?” I lean forward a little and ready my palm. He doesn’t say anything, so I reach for him.
His hands fly up to protect his face. “Wait! All right.”
I wait. “Where do the payouts go?”
His gaze lingers on the flaming burn across my wrist which matches the stripes across my palm. “We are called Gehenna,” he says quietly. “And you, my friend, might be just the kind of collector who would find a place among us.”
Anger tightens my throat. “Gehenna,” I repeat. “Sounds like a fancy name for asshole child-killers. Thanks, but I think I’ll stick with killing collectors like you.” But my mind is spinning. So this isn’t just an Agency thing. This Moloch character is a collector for Candy, but he’s also part of some crazy group that’s putting a hit on these kids. I still don’t get what they’re using the payouts for, though.
“Are you quite certain about that?” His gaze is steady on me now. “You might find our purpose more similar to yours than you think.”
I highly doubt that. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”
Moloch heaves a sigh. “Aren’t you tired of the Candy Kane Thornton’s of the world pushing around debt collectors like yourself? You have the power of life and death in your hands, and yet a bureaucrat holds the reins of power? Don’t you think that is out of the natural order of things?”
“I don’t think there’s any natural order to things.” And I’m not interested in a philosophical discussion. “Just tell me who you make the payouts to. Is it to this group, Gehenna? You said it’s a group of collectors. Are you simply hoarding up the life energy for yourselves?” I give him a disgusted look, thinking he might be on the plan Valac talked about—living forever. But why would a rogue group of collectors need to go through the Agency to steal life energy? I frown as I try to puzzle through it. Maybe they need someone to cover their tracks.
He gives a sort of laugh, but it’s choked, coming out of his still-rough throat. “No, we put that life energy to much better use. Forget all that Agency propaganda about making the world a better place by feeding life energy hits to the high potentials of the world. Do you want to really make a difference in our world?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Now I’m genuinely confused.
“I can see it in you—you’re the kind of person who wants to change things. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here in a wrong-headed attempt to interfere with my work.”
I’m thinking Moloch is the one with something wrong in his head.
“But if you want to change things—truly change the world—you have to go the source. The power. The people who have the ability to make change happen.” His voice has turned far too confident, and it raises the small hairs on the back of my neck. I get the distinct feeling that I’m being lured into something—or at least that Moloch is trying to manipulate me.
“And who would that be?” I feel like I should be more demanding, but this “interrogation” is slipping away from me.
Glints from the low overhead light panels show in his blue eyes. “The Governor. A key congressman or senator on an important piece of legislation. And for particularly important measures, even higher.”
“You’re selling life energy to politicians?” I flash back to the congressman buying hits from the mob and taking it in the sleaziest possible way from Ophelia
. “So Gehenna is a mob family.”
“No,” he says. “We are a family, of sorts, now that you mention it, but we’re not mafioso. Not as you think of them, at least. We don’t exchange life for anything as simple as money.” He has that oily look to him again. “We ask for something far more important.”
“Power,” I guess, and it’s starting to come together in my head. A group of rogue debt collectors, corrupting the Agency to pull life energy from places no one will suspect, or even be able to track, and then using it to manipulate politicians to do their bidding. But to what end? That part still doesn’t make any sense to me.
Moloch watches me process it. “Do you recall a piece of legislation that recently passed, tightening regulations on assessors?”
I don’t follow politics, just what I see on the news. And even then I don’t pay attention. I shake my head slightly.
“Those regulations were supposed to make it more difficult for people be transferred out. In fact, they contained several loopholes that will allow for even more people to join the transfer rolls. Several key congressmen were persuaded of the importance of this legislation, and to overlook the loopholes, by some discreet donations of life energy to themselves or members of their families.”
“Why do you care what legislation passes?”
“Gehenna cares a great deal about laws that impact debt collectors,” he says. “Or the general pool of life energy. But we have more than small-time legislation in mind. That was just one of our more visible achievements.”
Shit. Gehenna is some kind of crazy, world-domination group. Made up of rogue debt collectors. Ones that apparently have access to government records and high-ranking politicians. My stomach turns sour. There’s no part of this that’s any good at all.
“So… what’s your grand plan?” I ask.
He nods slowly, like he thinks he has me on the hook. “Why don’t you join us and find out?”
And there it is: the sell. Moloch wants to sign me up for his collector cult, or at least convince me to lower my guard, so he can find a way to kill me before I kill him. Although, for a man whose life I hold in my hands, he seems strangely unconcerned.
Passion (Debt Collector 9) Page 2