‘By exposing yourself you are heightening risk.’
‘Or keeping his defences down.’
‘And if your double-bluff backfires?’
‘It won’t. Which is why I’m limiting communication with you unless I have something to report or I need something. The less outside contact I have, the better.’
‘This was not the agreement.’
‘Three days I’ve been given. I don’t have time to argue about this. I bring the evidence, you work out what she is, work out how to get her out, or I get her out my way. Your choice.’
‘Do you know how she heals?’ the woman asked, dipping the swab samples into the array of test tubes.
‘No.’
She glanced up at him over her thick-rimmed glasses. ‘You didn’t witness it?’
‘I was unconscious.’
He heard Sharner’s sigh of disapproval.
Eden snatched his gaze to his. ‘Are you planning to get on my last nerve?’
But the woman shaking her head distracted them both. Her frown was deep as she continued to dip the samples in various test tubes and vials whilst scanning the read-outs coming from the metal case her transportable lab was carried in.
‘It’s not matching anything,’ she said. ‘Not vampire, not lycan, no sample of second species blood, not even a trace of cross-breeding.’ She looked back at Sharner. ‘Whatever she is, we don’t have another of her back at The Facility. We’ve either got ourselves a new breed here or something we’re yet to catch and identify.’
Eden placed a mint in his mouth as he masked his edge of suspicion at her claim.
‘Is there anything else you’ve noticed about her? Any clues at all?’ she asked.
He resolved to play careful – give them enough to keep him on the job but not show all his cards. ‘As well as her being able to send volts straight from her hands direct into my heart?’
The woman raised her eyebrows.
‘And what exactly warranted that?’ Sharner asked, his accusatory glare locked on Eden again.
‘Teething pains,’ Eden declared.
He almost didn’t show it to them, but this would be the clincher.
‘Oh, and there’s this,’ he said, taking the now half-empty vial out of his back pocket. He placed it on the table between them. ‘Have you ever seen anything like that before?’
Her eyes flared, then she frowned as she reached for it. ‘No.’
But he had seen that iridescent substance before.
‘What is it?’ the woman asked.
Either she was playing dumb, or secrets were rampant at The Facility.
He shrugged. ‘You tell me. I found it in her room.’
Sharner exhaled curtly. ‘Her room? You were in her room?’
This time Eden ignored him. This time Eden examined the woman’s every reaction as she extracted a pipette of the contents.
She dropped it onto the plate, taking a close look at the read-outs.
‘I have no idea what it is,’ she said, this time avoiding eye contact. ‘I’ve never come across anything like this before.’
An edge of wariness crept over him, coating the one that he constantly wore anyway. He’d hold back on the contact lens revelation for the time being. ‘Who’s taking the notes?’
Sharner pulled an electronic pad from out of his jacket.
‘As I’ve said, she’s got the strength, responses and agility of a third species, just as you suspected. Apart from those physical clues, socially she’s isolated. From what I’ve ascertained so far, she spends most of her time alone. She may as well be a ghost but, as you can tell from the physical evidence, we can probably rule that one out.’
Sharner glanced up from his electronic pad. ‘Is that supposed to be amusing?’
‘Considering I’m the one risking my arse in there, I think you can afford me some fucking humour.’
‘There is nothing amusing about the gravity of this mission – one we cannot afford for you to mess up.’
‘And as I’ve said from the outset, I do this my way. And believe me, any way isn’t easy. She is surrounded in that place, just as reports dictate. That cocoon Pummel has around her is infallible other than when she opts out of it. Adding to the complication though is that I don’t think she’s there voluntarily.’
Concern flashed in Sharner’s eyes. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Things she said. And that she was seriously panicked at the prospect of Pummel finding out she’d helped me. That girl could take him on any time, the same as she could walk out of there any time she wanted, but she doesn’t. Fortunately, the one thing that’s working to my advantage at the moment is that if she wanted to expose me, she would have. The longer she leaves it, the more difficult it becomes for her. And therein is the double-edged sword – even if I could persuade her to leave, I don’t know if she can.’
‘You don’t have long, Reece,’ Sharner reminded him.
‘You’ll give me as long as I need. You want her out alive and I want me out alive. Neither can be rushed. Pummel gets one sniff of me around her and I’m dead. If her wariness turns to panic, I’m dead.’ Removing the list from his back pocket, he threw it down in front of Sharner. ‘Pummel’s request.’
Eyebrows raised, Sharner laughed curtly. ‘That’s some request, Reece.’
‘I want it by mid-afternoon.’
Sharner’s eyes snapped back to Eden’s. ‘That’s cutting it fine.’
‘I need some sleep, and then I’m getting straight back in there. I either take that stuff with me or I might as well not go back at all.’
‘This is a test – you know that, don’t you? Pummel’s fucking with you.’
‘And I’m going to fuck with him right back. All that matters is that for as long as I’m useful, I’m in there. And the longer I’m in there, the closer I get to her. I suggest you don’t let me down.’
12
Two days previous
The buzzing from the bedside table awoke Eden from his sluggish sleep. He stretched past the woman he was still partially entangled with to reach for his pager.
He rolled onto his back, easing her smooth, soft limbs away from his. Eyes still partially closed, one fist locked to his aching forehead, he squinted at the message.
With a groan, he let his hand drop to the side of the bed, the pager thudding to the carpeted floor.
‘What was that?’ Cass asked, her face still covered by her tousled mass of blonde hair.
‘Your cue to go home, darling,’ he said, slapping her behind through the thin sheet as he forced himself to perch on the edge of the bed.
Cass groaned and nestled into the pillows a little deeper.
‘Now,’ he said, yanking the sheet off her.
She turned her head to stare at him through sleepy eyes as she brushed back her hair. ‘What time is it?’
‘Four.’ He stepped over to the window and drew back the curtains on the dominating, arched, reinforced-glass window to let in the dwindling afternoon daylight.
‘We slept all day?’
He turned to face her as he rotated his stiff shoulders, flexed one outstretched arm across his chest.
She bit into her bottom lip as she rested up on her elbow, her head in her palm as she let her gaze linger on his naked body. ‘I thought you didn’t have to be in until seven.’ She eased onto her back, her hands raking seductively up the headboard as she parted her legs, her gaze locking suggestively on his. ‘What’s the rush?’
‘Too many questions, not enough movement,’ he said, before stepping into the bathroom. ‘Now shift, unless you want to be carried into the communal hallway looking like that.’
He showered quickly and efficiently, not bothering to shave only a day’s worth of stubble.
By the time he stepped out of the shower again, she was stood leaning against the doorway, the sheet covering her modesty – whatever was left of it after the preceding few hours.
‘Daddy calls and you go running,’ she said a
s she watched him brush his teeth. ‘You could at least offer me something to eat.’
He glanced in the mirror at her before spitting out toothpaste. ‘And you can play the belligerent daughter next time,’ he said, wiping his mouth before he brushed past her. ‘Before he hangs my neck from a noose.’
‘He’s just overprotective,’ she said, watching as he slipped on his jeans, T-shirt and sweater. She leaned back against the wall. ‘I reckon he knows that I still come and see you sometimes.’ She bit into her bottom lip. ‘He knows what you’re like. I reckon we should tell him we’re getting married,’ she added, following him through to the open-plan living area. ‘Just to see the look on his face.’
He stepped behind the kitchen counter and switched on the coffee machine. He grabbed his portable mug and searched the cupboard for a spare one for her.
‘I, Doctor Cassandra Eloise Bremmer, do take Eden Reece, my favourite bit of rough and the best shag this side of Summerton, to have and to hold, from this day forward…’
She chuckled even as she said it. Because that’s all she was to him. All she had ever been to him. Bad boys got treated bad, and no less by the likes of Cassandra Bremmer with the world at her fingertips. But the social divide suited him just fine too – sexually, at least. More so for the occasional drugs she slipped him illegally – the medication he took straight around to his brother’s place.
She wandered across to the pool table where they had started last night, the toppled over side table and broken potted plant marking the route they had taken on the way to the bedroom.
‘And what if I did propose?’ he asked, placing the mugs in front of him before bracing his arms on the counter.
She spun to face him, her eyes flaring in shock.
He let her linger awkwardly in it before flashing her a grin.
She frowned. For a moment he could have sworn the thought had crossed her mind.
As the coffee machine beeped, Eden took the milk from the fridge. He poured her coffee first before making his own, screwing on both lids in succession as she wandered back over.
She leaned on the counter, that familiar smirk back on her lips – only now there was something a little defensive about it. ‘Don’t worry, my beloved, you’re great for a few sessions here and there but you’re not exactly the marrying type. And I think the leading biomedical researcher at the most lucrative medical research facility globally…’ He always loathed the way she emphasised “globally”, ‘can do a little better than a Curfew Enforcement Officer when it comes to tying the knot.’
The edge of distain in her tone, albeit laced with playfulness, still grated a little too deeply.
‘I’ll get you back for that one next time,’ he said as he slid the coffee towards her. He leaned his forearms on the counter, his lips inches from hers. ‘But, for now, I suggest you get your tight little leading-biomedical-researcher arse back into the bedroom and bring it here clothed and ready to go before every other Curfew Enforcement Officer in this block gets a good look at it from across my shoulder as I carry you down the stairs.’
She laughed as she pulled away. ‘And just remember who is protecting your arse from my father, Eden Reece,’ she called back over her shoulder as she disappeared into his bedroom.
They went their separate ways as the elevator reached the ground floor, Cass in the party dress she’d worn the night before. She’d been having drinks in the plush bars of Midtown before he’d got the text. He’d nearly turned her down, like he had on more than one occasion. Only three nights before, she’d told him to go and fuck himself. He’d fucked her instead, her breathless screams of consensual delight echoing up the dark, dank alley. Because when it came to it, behind the refinement, the privileged education, the airs and graces, Cass only got off, truly got off, when it was as down and as dirty as it could get. And she knew Eden was the man for the job.
But with her promise of more of what he needed, he went. He’d met her at her car on the outskirts of Lowtown. The car she’d since tucked away in the TSCD barrack car park. If he hadn’t known the security guard so well, slipped him the odd favour whenever he could, he knew word would have got back to his boss, her father, quicker than a bolt of lighting hitting a church steeple.
Now he crossed the car park as she went in the opposite direction. Ascending the stone steps to the overpass, he headed along the breezeblock walkway into the TSCD headquarters.
By the time he’d made his way up to the third floor and into the conference room, the rest of the team had already gathered.
‘Good of you to join us, Reece,’ Greg Bremmer said, his boss addressing him by his surname as he always did when he was disgruntled – which was frequent enough for him to only ever remember him being referred to as Eden less than a handful of times in the decade he had served with them. ‘Maybe if you were as effective with time as you are with your targets, we could have started already.’
He glanced across the table to catch Sean’s smug, coaxing smirk. Eden flashed him an insincere smile before flipping him his middle finger for everyone in the room to see. Sean responded with a chuckle as he continued to chew on his gum, sending his buddy a playful wink.
Greg glanced back over his shoulder, sent the partners in crime a disapproving glare, but was clearly too het up with whatever had required the early meeting to be distracted enough to tackle it.
Eden placed a mint in his mouth, glanced across the room, saw the female figure enter. If he didn’t know it before, he knew it now – clearly emergency meant emergency.
‘Agent Parish, I was just about to start,’ Greg said. ‘Over to you.’
Caitlin Parish, the Vampire Control Division’s best agent, the girl who had brought three of their own into disrepute for setting up the very vampire she was now alleged to still be sleeping with: the TSCD’s most wanted and still elusive, Kane Malloy.
She’d disappeared for two weeks after the trial. Now she was back at work. He’d heard the rumours of her pending return. He’d seen the bets down in the locker rooms. Odds were placed on how long she’d last. More furtive odds were placed on who would ensure she didn’t. The conversations, let alone the speculation, were rife; he’d heard things said about a woman that he never wanted to hear said. The suggestions that had come out of their mouths, in particular from those with wives, sisters and daughters of their own, had left a nasty taste in his own.
So, overhearing the hypocritical plans of three of his colleagues to take her aside and teach her what real men could do, had left two with two bloodied noses and one with several broken ribs.
Eden had been temporarily suspended again.
It was never more evident than in those locker rooms that Caitlin Parish hadn’t stood a chance from the beginning, let alone now. Firstly, she was a woman, a young woman, in a male-dominated team; secondly, she was serving in the so-called toughest unit in the Third Species Control Division, who, as far as the CEOs went, were the overpaid arrogant tossers of the establishment when they were out on the streets of Lowtown every night at the worst hours making sure anyone who belonged in Blackthorn returned to Blackthorn; thirdly, she was a shadow reader, a second species, and belonged in the interrogation rooms serving her purpose, not out on the streets; and, fourthly, the latter undeniably her own fault, she was now fucking the opposition. And everyone who believed the rumours knew what a sick, callous, twisted bastard Kane Malloy was, which raised the ultimate question of what type of woman was attracted to that?
But Eden knew only too well that reputation was one thing and facts entirely another. As far as he was concerned, especially since the trial, the moral jury was still out on the notorious vampire – not least because, despite the vocal sanctimony of too many of Eden’s colleagues, he wasn’t so sure he would have been so forgiving if it had been his sister tortured, raped and butchered in the name of law enforcement. The problem was, in their eyes, Arana Malloy was just another skanky vampire, not human – and too many in the Division served to reinforce tha
t difference.
The same Division that had resolved Caitlin deserved a noose around her reputation more than her ex, Agent Rob Doyle, did. Rob whom she’d sent down, along with her stepfather and the TSCD’s boss, for Arana Malloy’s murder.
He remembered Rob back when he was a new recruit like him – only Rob, with his privileged Summerton background, had been instantly placed in the elite force. He’d remembered Rob staring down his nose at him during one of the TSCD’s parties. He’d remembered the feel of Rob’s nose crunching beneath his fist when he’d made some comment about all Lowtown girls being sluts.
In Eden’s eyes, Agent Parish had actually upped her game.
Caitlin threw a load of photos on the table ready to be distributed. ‘You would have heard on the news that there’s been a spate of killings these past few days.’
Eden glanced around the table. Sean was no longer smiling. The glares were palpable. And, as he looked back at Caitlin, the tension in her shoulders, her downturned eyes, the way she fumbled as she tried to distribute a few more photos to the thirty pairs of male eyes scrutinising her, told him she was far from oblivious or, more relevantly, hardened to it.
‘Each of them was tortured, we suspect for information,’ she continued, regardless. ‘They were all human from varying backgrounds. We have no lead yet other than to be able to conclude that there was some kind of third-species involvement because of the nature of the killings. Interestingly, whoever committed these crimes also wanted their trail covered. Each unit is being informed to keep a watchful eye; obviously you’re pivotal in that, being in the optimum position that you are.’
One of the guys exhaled tersely, catching Caitlin’s attention, Greg’s too. But where it came from was undetectable in the sea of faces.
As Caitlin switched back to disseminating more photos, Greg’s frown reverted back to focusing on what she was saying.
Eden looked across at Alex, the chewing gum visible in his mouth as he mouthed the words ‘slut’ before picking up one of the photos.
Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) Page 13