Wicked Creatures

by Jessica Meigs

  That had barely crossed his mind when there was a soft knock at the door. Brandon started to rise from the desk chair, but the door opened of its own accord—inexplicably, since it required a key card to do so. A tall, statuesque woman strode into his room, looking like she owned the place. Her hair was pure black, so dark it looked like it swallowed all the light that touched it; it was thick and bountiful and fell to the small of her back in curls and waves that could only be described as luscious. Her skin was pale, like cut marble. Her curves qualified as ample yet perfectly proportioned to her overall frame, and she drew attention to them with a tailored skirt suit. Of course, the fact the suit was crimson red, the exact same red as arterial blood, didn’t help keep her low key, either.

  Her red-painted lips curved into a smile as she stopped beside his chair, and she looked him up and down with a curious expression on her face as he rose from his chair to greet her. “You are Brandon Hall,” she said. She had an accent, one that he’d never heard before and could in no way place.

  Brandon bobbed his head in a single nod, rendered speechless by her very presence, and surreptitiously flicked his eyes past her. Someone else stood in the short hallway that led from the door to the bedroom area of the room, a hulking mass of a man whose muscles strained against his t-shirt, who had a cold look in his eyes that spoke of a burning need to break something. He must be her muscle, he assumed. A woman like this would have bodyguards; he was just surprised that there was only one.

  He took a closer look at the man as the thought crossed his mind, and his eyes widened in surprise. If he wasn’t mistaken, the hulking figure was a werewolf. And he was at least ninety percent sure that not only was the man a werewolf, he was an Alpha werewolf, one of those über-strong, nearly impossible to kill ones that were tougher than the average werewolf. With this realization came a sudden, driving urge to dive for cover.

  He cleared his throat and returned his gaze to the woman, trying to quell the fight-or-flight instinct that had welled up in him. “Maybe I ask why you called me, Miss…?” He trailed off in an indication for her to offer her name.

  The woman’s smile widened. “Just call me Ahm,” she said. “And I wanted to meet with you because I hear you need my help.”

  “I don’t know where you heard that—”

  Ahm interrupted him. “With a certain woman named Riley Walker.”

  Brandon’s gut clenched, and he straightened, squaring his shoulders. He’d been having trouble with Riley, yes, but he had been so careful, doing everything he could to make sure none of them heard her name. He wouldn’t allow them to lay a hand on her, not if he could still figure out a way to turn her to his side; he still, despite it all, needed her help. The fact that this Ahm woman knew it disturbed him to no end. “Where did you hear that name?” he demanded.

  Ahm tilted her head to the side, her inky hair spilling over her shoulder, her smile softening. “I have my sources. I hear she and her friends have been causing quite the amount of trouble for you.” She stepped away from him and sank down onto the lounge chair in the corner languidly. Brandon took that as his cue to also sit, and he dropped into the desk chair he’d spent most of his day in a lot less gracefully than Ahm. The hulking man of a werewolf stayed standing near the door, his massive arms folded over his chest, making his biceps bulge even more.

  “Who are these sources that have been telling you all of my business?” Brandon asked before realizing it was probably a terrible question to ask the woman who apparently knew more about him than he was aware of. He picked his pen up again and twirled it between his fingers, trying to read the woman. It was impossible. The only expression she seemed capable of making was that annoying smirk.

  “Your boss,” Ahm said simply.

  “Hartley?” Brandon said. “Somehow I doubt he knows anyone like you.”

  Ahm laughed. It wasn’t a melodious laugh, not by far. It wasn’t even an ugly laugh. It was a laugh that cut like knives, that felt like someone was trying to dig an icepick into his ear. He involuntarily flinched back from the sound; his pen tumbled onto the carpet and underneath his desk. “Oh no, not that boss,” she said. “Your other boss. Your real boss.”

  The blood in Brandon’s veins turned cold. “Was he the one who sent you to meet with me?”

  “Of course,” Ahm said. “He sent me to help you take care of your little situation, most specifically Riley Walker and her brother.”

  “Take care how?”

  “In the permanent way, obviously.”

  A surge of anger welled up in him, and he slammed his fist against the top of his desk. “He promised me that I could have Riley. Alive.”

  Ahm leaned forward and plucked the pen out of Brandon’s hands. She twirled it as if it were a knife then rested the tip lightly against the pad of her index finger. Her fingernails were black. Brandon didn’t think it was nail polish. “Things have changed since he made that promise,” she said. “Things have changed significantly.”

  “Changed how?”

  “The Witnesses have risen,” Ahm said, a little tweak in her voice making the words sound oddly resonant, despite the fact that she and the Witnesses would be on opposite sides of whatever fight ensued.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So one of them is Riley Walker. Though I suspect you already knew that. As long as the Witnesses never meet, they stand no chance against him.” Ahm sat forward again and tapped a fingernail against his arm. Definitely not painted, Brandon observed; it was naturally black, like a claw. “But they’ve met. Not only have they met, they’re working together.”

  He frowned. “Scott Hunter?”

  Ahm huffed a laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s Zachariah Lawrence.”

  He sighed and flopped back in his chair. “Of course it is.”

  “I’ve been sent to deal with the Witness problem,” she continued. “I’m going to take care of it for you, since you seem incapable of doing so yourself. I’ve been instructed to use whatever means are at my disposal. And I have a lot of means at my disposal.”

  “How are you planning to find them?” Brandon asked. “I know where Zachariah is,” still in his apartment in D.C., last time he’d checked, “but Riley took off after what happened with Ananael, and I haven’t managed to track her or Scott down since then. Though I think I’m close. Facial recognition and traffic and security cameras put the two of them here in Baton Rouge a week ago shopping at a Walmart.”

  Ahm twisted in her chair, just slightly, and indicated the man standing near the doorway. “That’s what I brought Timothy Chambers for,” she said, and his heart skipped a beat at the name. Three years before, Timothy’s brother Nathan, an Alpha werewolf and drug kingpin, had not only held Zachariah prisoner and tortured him for over a week, he’d nearly killed Ashton afterward. It had been an ugly, messy assignment, and the two of them were lucky they’d come out of it alive. “Timothy is an excellent tracker,” she continued. “We’ll find them and take care of them so you don’t have to. Since the Witnesses are, I presume, in different cities, they will be easier to kill while they’re separated, and then we can move on to the more important aspects of our jobs.”

  “If you manage to track them down before I do, get in touch with me, and I’ll come help you,” Brandon offered in a last-ditch tactic to figure out a way to extract Riley from that mess.

  Ahm stood, smirking and shaking her head. “What makes you think I’m leaving you here?” she asked. “You’re coming with us.”

  Two

  For reasons unknown to him, Ashton had always had the strangest dreams, vivid ones, ones that seemed so real that, on waking, he sometimes had trouble telling whether or not they had been dreams. This one was no exception. They always started the same: him sitting alone on a bench in a park in the mid-afternoon, staring up at the sky as a flock of birds flew past in an almost perfect V. It was a beautiful day, a comfortable seventy degrees, a slight breeze rustling the leaves of the tree that overhung the bench, not a single
cloud marring the clear blue sky. It was a wonderful, spring-like day.

  But there was something off about it, though Ashton couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. Maybe it was the lack of people; for such a pretty day, no one besides himself was visiting the park: there were no joggers making their ways around the dirt track, no people tossing tennis balls or Frisbees for their dogs, no children playing on the nearby playground equipment. It was like the park had been declared off limits to all humans but him.

  “It’s a beautiful park, isn’t it?” a woman’s voice said from behind him. He startled and twisted around in his seat in alarm. This was something new. He’d never had someone else show up in this particular dream before; in the past, he’d always sat there quietly, alone, until he’d woken up feeling somehow unsettled and tranquil at the same time.

  She was beautiful, though. Ashton couldn’t help but admit that her features were striking, the same sort of striking he’d always associated with Zachariah. Her hair was a shining gold, the purest blond he’d ever seen, tumbling down around her shoulders to the middle of her back, her skin was pale almost to the point of translucence, and her cheekbones were high and sharp like a model’s. Her eyes were blue, an almost startlingly clear blue, close to the color of his own eyes. She wore all black, which made her look even paler: her pants were a dull black leather, her boots were scuffed as if they were very old and well loved, and her top was a black sleeveless vest that zipped up the front. Overall, she made for an unusual figure.

  “Can I help you with something?” Ashton asked cautiously. It would be his luck that he’d get murdered in a dream.

  “Hi,” the woman greeted. “Do you mind if I sit here with you?”

  Ashton was so caught off guard by the question and the pleasant smile on her face that he found himself nodding before he realized he was doing it. “Uh, sure,” he said, sliding over to make room for her on the bench beside him. She sat down, relaxing back with a happy little sigh.

  “I’m Sera,” she greeted. “Thanks for letting me sit with you.”

  “It’s no problem,” he replied, though he hadn’t made up his mind for sure on that point. “My name is Ashton,” he told her.

  “That’s a nice name,” Sera commented. “Do you come here often?”

  Almost every time I fall asleep, he almost said, but then he thought better of it. The last thing he wanted to do was sound crazy. “Yeah, pretty often,” he settled on.

  A strange look crossed Sera’s face, like he’d said something that bothered her. She stood from the bench abruptly and said, “I’ll see you some other time, Ashton.”

  Confused, he frowned and twisted around to watch as she walked away. “Wait,” he said. “I, uh…did I say something wrong?”

  But Sera was already gone, vanished as if she’d never been there.

  Ashton didn’t want to wake up. He knew, logically, that he needed to; hell, some little voice in the back of his mind had been letting out a pretty steady stream of curses directed at him for wallowing in the trauma of being possessed. What the fuck do you think you’re doing? that voice demanded. You are not like this. This is not you. You do not act like a fucking drama queen when bad shit happens to you. Besides, you’re scaring Zach.

  It was that last thought that did it for him. He opened his eye and blinked.

  He was in Zachariah’s room. He would know that generic ceiling anywhere. For a minute, he wondered how he’d gotten there; the last thing he clearly remembered was breaking down all over Zachariah at a hotel in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Well, how else do you think you got here, you idiot? Zach obviously brought you back from Alabama and let you wallow and act like a miserable little girl. It’s about time you manned up and got your ass out of this bed.

  He almost wanted to slap himself for his own ridiculousness.

  He blinked a few more times then rolled his head to the side in the direction of the bedroom door. Sitting in a chair just inside the door with a magazine on home do-it-yourself improvement techniques—probably Zachariah’s; he had a weird thing about buying those things—in his hands, looking as out of place as an elephant in an Apple store, was Damon Hartley. The man’s hair was a bit rumpled, as was his business suit, but he looked completely unperturbed by the fact that he was sitting in his son’s bedroom, watching over his male lover, like it was an entirely normal thing to do.

  He rubbed at his eye, cleared his throat, and asked, “What are you doing here?”

  Jesus, was that his voice? He sounded just this side of pitiful.

  “Keeping an eye on you,” Damon said. He didn’t look up from his magazine, just turned a page. The cover said something about brightening your home in three easy steps.

  Ashton glanced around the room. He vaguely remembered seeing Zachariah recently, leaning over him, speaking to him softly. He couldn’t remember what he said, though. Something about a shower and cooking. Regardless, Ashton couldn’t see him, which he didn’t like in the slightest, so he asked, “Where’s Zach?”

  Damon still didn’t look up from his magazine. “He’s out doing something for me.”

  “What sort of something?”

  “An assignment. Angelique needed a hand with an investigation, and he was available and not doing anything else.” Damon finally looked up from his reading material and frowned. “How are you feeling? Because, no offense, but you look like shit.”

  “Oh, you’re such a confidence booster, Damon,” Ashton muttered. “I’m just tired. I feel like I can’t get enough sleep.”

  “That’s called depression, Ash.”

  Ashton scowled. “Don’t call me Ash,” he said, barely keeping his voice away from a growl of annoyance. “And it’s not depression. I know what that feels like, intimately, and it’s certainly not that.”

  “Well, what is it then?”

  He shrugged and pushed himself into a sitting position before scooting back to recline against the headboard of the bed. “I don’t really know,” he admitted. “Like everything else I’ve been through the past three and a half years, it defies explanation or description.”

  Damon closed his magazine and set it aside then leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows against his thighs and giving Ashton an assessing look. Ashton wrinkled his nose and almost folded his arms but resisted, instead assuming a posture of relaxation as he waited for Damon to speak. Finally, Damon cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry about all of this. If I’d known that everything that has happened was going to happen, I’d never have recruited you and Zachariah into this life. The Unnaturals is a lot more difficult to handle than the Agency, and it isn’t something I’d wish on anyone. If I’d had the choice, I would have left it in charge of me, Tobias, Brandon, and Henry.”

  “Yeah, but then you wouldn’t have had much help available to you if Brandon decided he was going to go Dark Side on you sooner,” Ashton pointed out.

  Damon bobbed his head, conceding the point. “Even so, I still regret how everything has turned out.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Why do you say that?” Damon asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Well, if you hadn’t recruited me and Zach, I’d never have gotten the chance to get to know him as well as I have,” Ashton tried to explain, but as usual, his feelings defied explanation. Besides, it was hard talking to the man that wasn’t just his boss but his lover’s father. It was like trying to talk to his mother about sex, he figured, though he couldn’t remember his own mother, and he had no memories of ever talking to one about his love life. But, if he had to imagine it, he thought maybe this was what it was like. “I think my whole life would have turned out a lot differently, but not in a good way. Even though I’ve been through hell, I don’t really regret any of it.”

  “Have you told Zachariah any of this?” Damon asked.

  Ashton snorted. “Like hell. He doesn’t go in for the whole getting-in-touch-with-your-feelings shit, and neither do I.”

  “You should strongly consider takin
g the time to talk to him about it,” Damon said. “Tell him how you feel.”

  Ashton felt a surge of anger flare up in him then, and he flung the blankets off and stood. “No,” he bit out. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to give your son away and then, twenty-eight years later, decide you want to start playing dad. I’m not playing into that damn game, and I’m sure as fuck not letting you play it with him. You don’t get to take an interest in his life just because you suddenly find it convenient to do so.” He picked up the magazine Damon had been reading and flung it at him. It smacked him in the chest and fluttered to the floor, its pages splayed like the limp wings of a dead bird. “Get the hell out of my home.” When Damon continued sitting there, not moving, he barked, “Now!”

  Damon stood, slowly, like he was recovering from a punch to the gut. He straightened his shirt, smoothed out his tie, and scooped his suit jacket off the back of his chair. “Just think about what I said, okay?”

  “I’m not thinking about shit,” Ashton snarled.

  Damon nodded and turned away from him, stepping out of the bedroom and into the hall. Ashton followed at a slow limp, one hand braced against the wall for support, if only to make sure the man left like he’d told him to. Once the door was shut behind Damon, he slouched against it, breathing a sigh as his anger drained out of him. He suddenly felt exhausted, like the anger he’d thrown at Damon had used up every last reserve of energy he had. But he wouldn’t go back to bed like he wanted to. He’d remembered what Zachariah had said to him before leaving earlier: if he took a shower, he’d cook dinner for him.

  Ashton had every intention of holding him to that statement.

  Riley couldn’t get used to the heat and humidity in New Orleans, even after spending two weeks here, she reflected as she and Scott left the small café they’d had breakfast in. it wasn’t just hot; heat she could deal with. She’d spent quite a bit of time out in New Mexico at one point in her life. But there, it’d been more of a dry heat, unpleasant but not totally unbearable. Here, it was a wet heat, heavy on her like a soaked blanket, and sweat beaded up at her hairline before they’d been outside for five minutes. She scowled and wiped her forehead with the palm of her hand.