I ran my hands through my hair, wondering what I looked like—probably like a tumbleweed who’d lost a fight with a porcupine. "So what happens now?"
Jason considered that, absently scratching Py’s chin; the cat was in heaven. "I'm giving you three days' leave to get yourself together. I'll file it with Nava; we can blame it on your foot if you like. You'll resume training on Thursday on the schedule we discussed already. I'd recommend that you get the hell out of this building. I'll let Personnel know that you're to be granted a three-day pass to come and go, as long as you take an emergency transmitter. Go into town, see a movie, go to the park. Anything to get you away from all the responsibility you've quite foolishly shouldered at a time when you already had enough on your plate."
"You would do the same thing," I pointed out, "if you could."
"Of course I would. But I'm older than you, and stronger, physically."
"Not just physically."
Another smile, and was it affection I saw, or at least appreciation? "Don't underestimate yourself, Sara. But you still shouldn't be doing this alone."
"Dr. Nava knows," I said, rubbing my eyes wearily. "She's been giving us drugs. When he has an…episode, there's really intense nerve pain, and it was hard for them to find stuff that works on Elves."
"All right. So we should consult with her on this, and possibly with Dr. Cunningham; she's one of the psychologists on staff, and an expert in PTSD. I can arrange for you to talk with her yourself, too, whenever you feel overwhelmed and need someone. It's important that our Agents maintain their emotional and mental balance.”
“So what are we now, Team Punani? I don’t know how Rowan’s going to feel about so many people knowing what’s going on, like he’s some sort of science project.”
“He doesn’t have to know.”
“Have you ever tried to keep a secret from someone you’re empathically linked to?”
“If anyone can manage it, you can.”
He tipped Pywacket out of his lap and stood up, brushing off the mat of cat hair that had formed. Py made an exasperated noise and walked away with his tail in the air.
Jason reached into his coat and fished out something that turned out to be a small silver card case. He handed me a card with his apartment number, cell phone number, and private office extension printed alongside the Shadow Agency emblem.
“You’ll need this eventually,” he said. “If things get out of hand, or there’s some kind of emergency with him, or if…if you need anything at all.”
I nodded, not quite able to process one more surprise on a heap of surprises. “Thank you.”
“Keep me updated on your progress,” he instructed. “Here and elsewhere.”
He started to leave, but I asked hesitantly, “Are you sure you’re going to be all right…with this? I know it can’t be easy, knowing we’re…”
He bowed his head. “This isn’t about what I want. It’s about Rowan, and I know in the end it’s for the best.”
“I don’t think anyone is that selfless, immortal or otherwise,” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, I fully intend to drink myself to sleep tonight,” he replied matter-of-factly. “And I imagine it will happen a lot for a while. Despite my reputation I am not, in fact, made of stone. I can’t guarantee I won’t act like an ass. But perhaps…perhaps since there are two of us now, you and I, it will be easier.”
“What will?”
“Loving him,” Jason answered with a smile that showed every last minute of his age. “Now go to sleep, Sara Larson.”
Between one breath and the next, he had vanished, and I heard the door close quietly in his wake.
*****
"My brother says that I should be nicer to you," Beck informed me as she laid out the weapons and ammo for our session. "He says, in fact, that if he weren't up to his ears in casework right now, he'd take over your training himself."
"He said that?" I asked in amazement.
"Yeah."
"And you don't believe him. About being nice to me."
"Look," she said, snapping a clip into her own gun almost viciously, "People who hurt my stupid brother tend to end up wishing they hadn't. Usually with a few broken bones for their trouble. You come sashaying in here with your gorgeous tits and those big innocent eyes and start boning the guy he's all twitterpated over, and I have this funny urge to break my foot off in your ass."
"I know," I began, but she kept right on talking like she hadn't heard me.
"So he says, leave the girl alone, she's trying to help, and I know that underneath all those guns and that cast iron shield he's got a heart like butter, and I don't really believe him. He's a moron and I love him. Same with Rowan. So if you know what's good for you, you won't fuck this up."
I looked away, down the range, at the target. "I don't want to. I want them to be together. And I'm…I'm scared that I am going to fuck it up, Beck. But when someone needs my help so badly, what else can I do?"
"Right. I bet you'd be a lot more inclined to delegate if this wasn't getting you laid."
She handed me the ear protectors, and I held them a moment, staring at them, before replying. "Have you ever had sex with someone, and afterward, they started screaming in pain?"
Beck stared at me, her blue eyes hard, and she sounded almost hesitant as she asked, "Does that really happen?"
"Yeah. You can ask Dr. Nava. Every time he uses his powers he has flashbacks. Sometimes they're not bad, but sometimes…sometimes I have to drug him. The people that hurt him screwed him up permanently. He may not ever be able to make love without it hurting. But he says he has to get past the emotional trauma, has to be able to stand the physical pain, because…"
"Because he wants to be with someone," Beck said, and for just a second I saw the glitter of actual emotion in her eyes. "He doesn't want to be alone."
"Because he loves your stupid brother," I corrected gently.
Now she looked away. "God damn it. I really didn't want to like you."
"You don't have to." I shrugged. "As long as we can get along. But I can't help it—I like you."
"That's because I'm awesome," Beck pointed out, as if the point were self-evident. I guess it was.
I grinned. "Exactly."
"This is just twisted and fucked up," she observed, watching critically as I put on the protective gear. She handed me the 9-millimeter and its bullets, and I loaded it. "You're fucking my brother's not-quite-boyfriend, and not only am I supposed to cheer you on, I'm also supposed to teach you how to aim."
I turned my head toward the target, raised the gun, and fired.
Beck's eyes went wide.
"I'm learning," I said, and smiled.
Pentecost
Part One
Austin sweltered in mid-July, heat shimmering off the concrete downtown and baking all the grass into hay. Without iced tea and air conditioning the whole state of Texas would have been uninhabitable for three-quarters of the year.
Even sunset brought little relief; this year temperatures had only climbed to the upper 90s so far, but a bout of summer storms had left humidity in its wake and it seemed everything was stuck to everything. Most people, when they absolutely had to leave the house, did so in as little clothing as possible.
The young blonde in the black wife-beater and tight jeans stood up a little shakily, sweat running down both sides of his face and gleaming in the neon lights from nearby 4th Street. He pulled a rumpled napkin from his pocket and wiped his mouth, then his face, grinning from ear to ear, a dimple showing in his left cheek.
He leaned on the brick wall of the building, reaching up to touch his companion’s shoulder. “Anything else I can do for you, beautiful?”
The man in the long black coat ignored him, zipped up his fly, and walked away.
[Anything yet?] he asked, tapping his Ear. Behind him the boy in the alley was saying something, but he pretended not to hear, concentrating instead on things that mattered.
Tanya’
s voice was staticky; the system had been having some glitches lately, and the techs were working on it, but the Ears had a tendency to drop out for a few seconds here and there. Data transmission was still working fine, though, so when something vital had to be communicated they used a sort of telepathic text messaging, writing down the info and scanning it into the system to send to the Agent.
[We’re working on it,] she said. [We think it’s a bug from the software upgrade. How are you receiving?]
Jason smiled grimly. [In a back alley, how else?]
Tanya cleared her throat and went on as if she hadn’t heard; in theory at least he could be reprimanded or even fired for the shit he’d been pulling lately, but the reality was nobody in the SA would say a word even if they did find out. It was commonly believed that he had impeccable ethical standards with regard to his work, and it was commonly known that he was not a person to cross.
[We’ve got a location for your rendezvous. Sending.]
He nodded, examining the map in his head. [I’m on my way.]
The informant was supposed to meet him at a bar on Colorado, a nice seedy place without a sign above the door. He’d been there before on a bust when the previous owner was caught selling vampire-grade absinthe to humans. The bar had passed to the man’s daughter, who was at least smart enough not to get caught at whatever she was doing to keep a place like that open when by all rights it should have been turned into a Starbucks years ago.
“Hey, Sev.”
Jason turned and saw the man detach himself from the shadows near the door. “Doyle.”
Doyle, an enormous bald man with fifty or more tattoos, took a long drag off his cigarette as he came forward. “You alone?”
“Always am.”
Doyle gestured toward Jason’s head with the cigarette. “That your conscience whispering in your ear?”
Jason reached up and removed the Ear, tucked it in his pocket. “Better?”
“Boy, you are one crazy motherfucker wearing that coat in July. I thought you people were supposed to blend in.”
“I need the pockets,” Jason replied. “Buy you a drink?”
Doyle walked past him into the bar, sniffing. “You smell like come,” he grunted. “Redhead?”
“Blonde.”
"Didn't think you went for blondes."
"I was in a hurry."
The bar’s interior was about what one would expect—dark, smoky, and in sad repair. The smoking ban had been in effect for years, but in places like this it tended to be ignored. Jason could have busted them, but he had better things to do with his authority.
They sat down at a table, and two beers appeared out of nowhere. Jason did a quick inventory of the other patrons: five total, all human, four men and one women. No overt threat from any of them, but as was the way of a place like this, they all looked at him with hooded eyes, trying to feel him out the same way he was them. Of the pair of them Doyle looked like the man to reckon with, having about a hundred and fifty pounds on Jason and the appearance of someone who had had his face smashed by more than one beer bottle over the years.
Unbeknownst to Doyle, the Earpiece on Jason’s belt was recording; he was still telepathically linked to the system without the second half of the device.
“What have you got for me?” Jason asked.
Doyle ground out his cigarette on the table. “Word is there’s a new drug syndicate in town, out of Los Angeles. They’re pushing something called Pentecost.”
“So tell the DEA.”
The bald man shook his head. “No, this is more your territory. People who take it report the usual—euphoria, hallucinations—but forty percent never come back. They claim they see God, and sometimes the Devil, and they’re gone. Bodies still ticking away, brains in heaven. Just before they shit their mental gasket, they start babbling. Speaking in tongues.”
Doyle pulled a mini recorder from his pants pocket and handed it to Jason. “Maybe your boys can nail it for sure, but from what I’ve heard, it’s some kind of incantation. As in, a summoning.”
Jason slid the recorder into his coat. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a sample.”
“It’ll cost you.”
SA-7 smiled, and a hundred-dollar bill appeared in front of Doyle. “How much will that get me?”
Doyle reached into his pocket again and produced a small glass vial. Inside were four hexagonal white pills.
“Anything else? Any idea who the dealers are, or where I can find them?”
“They’re way underground. Maybe even literally. The rumor is the guy in charge isn’t human, but that’s what they always say. I say maybe the guy is, but whatever he’s calling up isn’t. And I wouldn’t normally tell you this, but…” Doyle’s voice dropped until Jason could barely hear it. “The chick I was talking to, the one that got me those pills, hasn’t been heard from for a week now. These people aren’t fucking around.”
“Well, they’re stupid if they think they’re going to set up shop in my city,” Jason said.
“Everybody in the underworld knows about the SA, and most of them know about Austin. And about you, Sev. You got quite a reputation down here, and there’s a lot of vamps in particular who wouldn’t mind seeing you turning over a spit. But they’re moving in, in spite of all that, which means either they’re stupid, or they’re strong enough to think they can’t lose.”
Jason snorted softly. “I don’t associate with other vampires and I don’t care what they think of me. They know to stay away, that’s what matters. These Pentecost pushers are going to learn it too.” He stood, held out his hand. “Thanks, Doyle. Stay safe out there.”
Doyle clasped hands with him briefly, and let Jason leave first. “You too, Sev. Watch your back.”
Once outside, Jason clipped the Ear back in place. [Did you get that?]
Again, static, but Tanya answered, [Affirmative. I’ve got a search running on Pentecost—get the samples back here ASAP and we’ll see what the hell it is.]
[I have one last stop to make, but I’ll be back at the base in an hour.]
[Acknowledged.]
Jason headed up the darkened, empty street, headed for the much better-lit and more populated stretch of Lamar Boulevard that would lead him to his destination, the gigantic Whole Foods flagship market at the corner of 6th. He had just enough time to stop in before they closed.
“Hey! Hey, you!”
He paused. Voice: human. Not Doyle. Footsteps coming up the street, three sets, all male, heavy boots. A smell hit him: alcohol. Whiskey, beer. One of them had a blunt instrument…bat? Yes, bat. He stretched out his telepathy, scanning for surface thoughts: they thought he was a junkie, and had money. They’d been in the bar watching his exchange with Doyle, and while usually the clientele at this particular place didn’t concern itself with the other patrons, apparently the siren call of a slender young man in a nice coat who bought drugs with hundred-dollar bills was too much to resist.
[We’re going to have to find a new rendezvous,] he told Tanya, starting to walk again.
“Hey! Hey, faggot, I’m talking to you!”
Jason stopped.
Slowly, calmly, he turned to face the three men, who were laughing, anticipating an easy score. The same man, a beefy fellow about three feet wide, repeated the epithet, this time with an added instruction for Jason to “hand over the cash.”
“So, if you don’t mind my asking, how could you tell?” Jason inquired politely. “Is it the way I walk? Is it the coat? The hair? Or,” he said, smiling, “is it the fact that you’re about to suck my dick?”
The man yelped when he felt the cold muzzle of the gun pressed into his forehead, and he fell to his knees, blubbering, all pretense gone. “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, no, no, no—“
One of the other two raised his bat, but next thing he knew there was a second pistol, this one pointed at his nose, even though Jason’s attention had not left the first human. He held both guns on the men calmly, and before he could say anything to the third,
the man sprinted off the way he’d come without a backward glance.
“Now, forgetting the fact that you just threatened a Federal Agent,” he told the quaking, crying man with the bat, who immediately dropped said sports equipment, “I think your friend here owes me an apology.”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
“Good boy. Now, you too.”
The second man followed suit. Meanwhile a dark stain was spreading over the front of his pants.
“Now,” he continued, “I’m going to give you both exactly ten seconds to run away from me and not look back. If I ever see either of you again, I will blow your left ball off with this gun, and your right one off with this gun. One...”
The Agency, Volume I Page 17