by Naomi Martin
“I’m sure by now you’re both wondering what’s happening,” Villa starts. “And what our plans for you are.”
I shrug. “I couldn’t give two shits about your plans,” I snap. “Just get on with them already.”
“Hasty, hasty,” Villa says with a chuckle. “Are you in that much of a hurry to die?”
I shrug. “I’d think if you were going to kill us, you would’ve done it by now,” I tell him. “So, whatever you’re going to do, get the fuck on with it already.”
Villa looks over at the blonde and grins. “He’s brighter than we gave him credit for.”
She says nothing and her face registers no expression whatsoever. She looks like a fucking android. Villa turns back to me, a malevolent grin on his face.
“Shall we get to work, gentlemen?”
* * * * *
I’m strapped to a table in what looks like an operating room. The table, though, is on a swivel, and it’s flipped so I’m in a standing position. All around me are computers, what looks like medical equipment, and tables covered in a selection of collars, bracelets, and tools.
Villa is in the corner, leaning against one of the tables with his arms folded over his chest. The blonde bustles around the room, checking on various monitors, and pushes a few buttons on a couple of machines that I can’t even guess their function. That done, she returns to a worktable and picks up what looks like a tiny screwdriver in one hand, and some sort of a metallic… bracelet, I guess, in the other. I can’t tell exactly what she’s doing to it, but she looks incredibly focused on her work. I have no idea, but I’m sure it doesn’t bode well for me.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“We are tasking you with a very important mission,” Villa says.
“Yeah, good luck with that. The day I work for you is the day I chop my own nuts off,” I spit back.
Villa pulls a long, serrated tactical knife from its sheath on his belt. He pricks his finger with the tip and shows me the spot of blood welling on the pad. His smile is reptilian and malevolent, and even though a cold fear is rippling through my belly, my desire to rip him open from nuts to chin has never been stronger.
“We can have Jenni force you to do that… cut your own nuts off,” Villa says. “If you so desire.”
“Fuck you,” I hiss.
Villa laughs and re-sheathes his blade. “I didn’t think so,” he says. “You should be honored. You’re part of a plan that will usher in a brave new world.”
“If you’re part of that world, I want nothin’ to do with it.”
He chuckles as I cut a glance over at the blonde and find her looking back at me. She quickly looks away, though, and back to the bracelet on the table before her. She’s holding her hands just above it and starts to focus like Raven does when she’s using her ability. As she manipulates the energy, the hair on my arms stands up like I’m in range of some massive amount of static electricity.
A moment later, that feeling passes and Jenni holds up the gleaming bracelet. It crackles for a moment with a blue and white electric light, but then even that is sucked down into the metal until it looks like nothing more than a dull, flat copper bracelet. Nothing special about it. I struggle against the bonds holding me as she approaches, but I can’t break them.
She looks at me, an apologetic smile upon her lips. “This will be… uncomfortable,” she says. “I apologize in advance.”
“He’s a big boy. He can take it,” Villa commands. “Just do it.”
A dark look crosses her face, but Jenni controls herself and it’s gone in the span of a heartbeat. She bends down and clasps the ring of metal around my ankle, and I’m suddenly filled with a feeling like liquid fire flowing through my veins. I open my mouth and let out a blood-curdling scream. The pain is so intense, tears spill from my eyes as I buck and thrash against the board I’m shackled to.
It’s only minutes, but it feels like hours until the pain finally fades. And when it does, I feel wrung out. Completely spent. I sag against my bonds, my breathing labored, my heart thundering inside of me.
“That looked really painful,” Villa mocks.
I narrow my eyes and glare at him, the hate I feel for the man flowing every bit as hot as the pain that racked me a moment ago. He grins and shakes his head. My throat is raw. Sore. Dry. I desperately need something to drink. And, as if she’s reading my mind, Jenni appears with a cup in her hand. She raises it to my lips and helps me swallow it all down, the cool liquid dousing the fires burning inside of me.
“That’s enough,” Villa snaps at her. “This is what we call ‘priming the field.’ And I fear it may be more uncomfortable for you before it’s done.”
“What are you doing to me?” I croak.
“Turning you into a weapon,” he remarks, then turns to Jenni.
“I don’t care what you do to me,” I hiss. “You’ll never get me to kill Raven for you.”
He cocks his head and looks at me. “Who said I was going to have you kill Raven?” he asks, then turns to Jenni. “You can move on to phase two.”
She gives him a curt nod, then stands before me, looking deeply into my eyes. With her hands cupped in front of her, she channels a flow of white energy that pulses between her palms. White is for Spirit. I remember Raven telling me that.
“Try to relax,” she says.
“Yeah, that sounds reasonable,” I groan.
“Don’t fight it,” she goes on. “Just don’t fight. It’ll be easier if you don’t.”
“Enough,” Villa roars. “I want it to hurt. This animal—this filthy piece of garbage—deserves every last ounce of pain we’re doling out.”
I can smell the anger wafting off Jenni, and I can see it in her clenched jaws and tight body. But she starts to move one of her weaves toward me. I shrink back against the table, trying to turn my head, but it presses forward anyway. A moment before it pierces my head, though, I hear a crackle on Villa’s radio. He mutters under his breath and rips the radio off his belt.
“Go for Villa,” he snarls.
“Sir, it’s Major Soames. we have an incident with a couple of prisoners in the intake pod,” the voice comes back. “The situation is in hand, but we could use your assistance.”
Villa growls and looks at me, a deep scowl on his face. He grabs a small jar from the desk beside him and hurls it across the room. Jenni flinches when it hits the wall and shatters with a high-pitched ring, spraying glass everywhere. He raises his radio to his mouth again.
“On my way,” he says.
He clips the radio to his belt, a frown of disappointment stretching his face. He shakes his head.
“This is my favorite part, goddammit,” he says with a dramatic sigh. “There’s something about watching one of you freaks be completely broken down that’s just so… satisfying.”
“You’re a sick fuck,” I tell him.
“Maybe,” he replies with a shrug, then turns to Jenni. “Break him down. And make it hurt. I want it to hurt really, really bad. You got me?”
Jenni nods and Villa laughs as he leaves the room. My heart is hammering in my chest. Looking at her, I can see the conflict in her eyes and know she’s the key to me getting out of this mess.
“You have to let me go,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I can’t.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask. “Why are you letting them do this to us? We’re your people, Jenni. Why are you helping them?”
“Because our people are monsters,” she says. “Our people do terrible things, and—”
“And Villa and his men don’t?” I cry. “Maybe you haven’t seen the things they do, but I can introduce you to scores of people whose families have been butchered by that asshole.”
She looks down at the ground, a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth. Jenni walks back to the table, puts her palms flat on the surface, and leans against it. I can see that she’s tormented. Conflicted. I just need to push her harder.
“You heard w
hat Villa said. He loves seeing us in pain. He gets off on this shit And for what? Because we’re different than they are?” I press. “Jenni, this sadistic bastard enjoys torturing and killing us. I think you know that isn’t right.”
She rounds on me, her eyes blazing with fury. “And was it right when a pack of werewolves slaughtered my family?” she spits. “And you dare say we? Where was this camaraderie between our groups then? Where was this unity then?”
“I’m sorry for what happened to your family, Jenni,” I say. “I truly am. But helping Villa slaughter all of us—shifters, vamps, and Elementals alike—isn’t going to bring them back. All it’s doing is causing more needless death.”
She shakes her head, her eyes brimming with tears. “I still hear them—the wolves. I hear the way it sounded when they ate my family,” she cries. “I still hear my mom and little sister screaming…”
“And I still hear the voices of my friends when Villa and his men tortured and murdered them,” I say softly. “I was a prisoner here. Did you know that? I’m guessing you weren’t, because if you were, you’d know what sort of evil happens here.”
“All I know is some of you blew this place up trying to escape,” she says evenly. “Killed a lot of innocent people.”
“There were no innocent people here, Jenni,” I tell her. “You never saw the mass graves here. Hundreds—maybe thousands—of bodies filling giant holes in the ground outside. The stench of death out there was horrific.”
“I’ve heard the stories,” she shoots back. “I am not convinced of their veracity.”
“Maybe you should look into it. Bad shit happened here, Jenni. Really bad shit. Ask Villa,” I tell her. “See if he can convince you that everything here was great and he wasn’t murdering people by the score.”
“Supernaturals need rules,” she insists, her voice growing hard. “We are different than normal people and because of that, we need to be constrained.”
“I don’t necessarily disagree, in theory,” I allow. “But carrying out a genocide is not the way to fix things. And I think you need to know that.”
“A genocide? Isn’t that being a little melodramatic?”
“Nope. If anything, I’d say I’m understating the case,” I reply. “You’ve not seen the fields of bodies. If you had, maybe you’d see things differently.”
She shakes her head. “I cannot abide people like us slaughtering innocents.”
“But you can abide people like Villa slaughtering innocents?”
“I’m sorry, but this has to be done,” she says.
“It doesn’t have to be,” I offer. “You could—”
“No, I can’t,” she cuts me off.
She channels her power again and I watch as the flow of Spirit snakes toward me. And as it enters my head, I instantly feel a searing pain. It feels like somebody has their fingers digging into my brain, and I’m instantly inundated with a non-stop flickering parade of images—death, Raven, bodies torn and broken, Raven, bombs exploding, Raven, children being slaughtered, Raven…
The scream that fills my ears is shrill and inhuman, and I only realize it’s coming from me when I feel my throat growing dry and raw once more.
Chapter Nineteen
Raven
I sit at an outdoor café across the street of some fancy Italian restaurant, sipping my cappuccino, ostensibly looking at my laptop. I have an eye on the door of the restaurant, though, keeping a lookout for Cook and his entourage. My stomach twists and churns as I think about the reason I’m here. I feel like a second-rate Jason Bourne or something, out here skulking in the shadows.
While I realize this needs to be done, that doesn’t mean I feel entirely good about it. I’m not a big fan of killing to begin with. Though, I have come to the practical conclusion that it’s sometimes necessary. It’s distasteful and unfortunate, but the same can be said for a lot of shit in this world.
The sky is littered with patchy clouds and it’s a cool day. Around me, the sidewalks are bustling with people. I hear a dozen different languages being spoken, bad music that’s cranked up way too loud; the air is saturated with the smell of gasoline, a hundred different restaurants, and guys who’ve put on way too much cologne. It’s the smell of civilization.
Though, to be honest, I don’t particularly consider Washington, DC to be particularly civilized. Here on Dupont Circle, the movers and shakers do business. They sign off on assassinations, bombing raids in foreign countries, cutting off funding to children’s lunch programs, and a thousand other atrocities over scotches in the comfort of upscale restaurants, far from any of the people their decisions impact.
I’d hardly call that civilized. And they have the nerve to call us abominations and animals.
Right now, just beyond the glass doors of Buon Cibo, Senator Alton Cook and his merry band of anti-supernatural, genocidal maniacs are discussing the best way to wipe us off the face of the planet over tiramisu and port wine. We’re not that far off from him taking control of this new committee and Cook is doing his last-minute vetting of the other members he’ll appoint to the committee along with him.
He doesn’t get to appoint them all, though. My understanding is that they’re still paying lip service to democracy in that each party will nominate members to the committee. Our allies will appoint the other half of the committee, and when Cook suffers his fatal heart attack, they’ll move into position to assume control—at which point they’ll defund the Cleansers and shut them down entirely. In theory, anyway.
But that’s the plan, and the pool of eligible committee members is very small, strictly limited to those who are in the know about supernaturals to begin with. And that’s a tightly guarded secret—for now, anyway. It’s a secret Cook is going to expose, though, and when he does, he and his committee are going to impose some truly draconian measures on us. All of his efforts will be aimed at driving us to extinction. And if he wins, he’ll have the full backing of the US government.
Unless I finish this task and take him out.
Yeah, no pressure or anything. It’s only the fate of every single supernatural in the country resting upon my shoulders.
As I sit here watching the doors, I’m letting my mind play this all out. There are some things that haven’t lined up for me since Dora gave me my first briefing on this. Things that just haven’t quite fit. But I’ve been so busy and preoccupied with everything else that’s happened lately, I haven’t been able to pay it much mind.
Now that I’ve been shadowing Cook around the city, though, I’ve had time to think. And I’ve started figuring out some of the things that have been bothering me on a subconscious level all along. I don’t yet have all the answers, but I’m starting to ask the right questions. Or, at least, I think I am.
The doors across the street open and I sit up. Senator Cook and a few other men in suits filter out and onto the sidewalk. They stand around talking for a few minutes before a black car pulls to the curb. I’m already moving by the time Cook separates himself from the group and heads for his vehicle.
I climb in and start the engine quickly, then wait. I watch as the Town Car pulls away, then makes a U-turn. I wait and wait until it passes by, then give it another beat before I pull out into traffic. The Toyota Camry I was given when I got here is pretty nondescript and definitely doesn’t stick out in a crowd. Which is a good thing. Not one to take chances, though, I keep a couple of cars between me and the Town Car; it’s what they always did on the cop shows I used to watch.
I discreetly follow the car into a neighborhood in the Georgetown district, find a spot on the curb, and park. Cook’s driver gets out and opens the door for him. Grabbing the binoculars from the passenger seat, I watch as he gets out of the car.
He’s tall. A little more than six feet, with a sharp, angular face, broad shoulders, and short, salt-and-pepper hair. He’s remarkably fit for a man his age and is not a bad-looking guy, if you’ve got some severe daddy issues.
I recall from the dossier D
ora gave me that he’s in his fifties, is a former Marine, and hates supers with the intensity of a thousand suns. Why he hates us so passionately, nobody seems to know. But his opinion on the topic is pretty common knowledge among those in the know. It’s apparently one reason he is so amped up about leading this new committee. Its formation was actually his idea, for the sole purpose of eradicating supernaturals. It’s like a murder club for sociopaths.
Cook bounds up the steps to the brownstone and the door opens. A woman who looks young enough that I’m not sure I should be calling her a woman throws herself into his arms. I swear to God, I’m almost certain the scotch he just had with lunch is probably older than this chick.
“That is definitely not Mrs. Cook,” I mutter to myself.
They share a brief but passionate kiss, and then he hustles her inside. His driver and another man I recognize stand near the car, which is parked about seventy yards or so up the street from me. I’ve done my homework on Senator Cook and know that he usually only rolls with two bodyguards at any one time. It would be more ideal if he had none, but I guess a man in his position, with so many people who hate him, is probably wise to have some men willing to take a bullet for him nearby.
I glance at my watch. Judging by the fact that bodyguards are waiting with the car, I’d say it’s highly likely he’s just stopping for a quickie with his looks-to-be-barely-legal girlfriend.
“Gross.”
I know I need to pick a night to do this. I can’t keep tailing him around DC forever. I know where he lives. I know how to get into his house; I even know how to get into his house without involving his bodyguards. All I need is to work up the nerve to do it. I have to do this. It’s for the good of all of us in the super community. Cook is an existential threat to our very survival and for that, he needs to be removed from the board.