Freak City

by Saje Williams

  "If I had've given you a clue, it might have tipped him off."

  Ben could tell they knew each other. Not surprising, really. Raven had spent a long time here, more or less under Hades’ thumb. It only made sense that these two would have crossed paths on occasion.

  "Hate to break up the reunion, boys,” Athena interrupted, “but the PARD team's here. And I'll give even odds that the press won't be far behind."

  "We weren't exactly quiet, were we?” Dusk laughed. “Did I hear someone say earlier that there was a boat cruising the Sound below the cliff?"

  Athena nodded thoughtfully. “Good thinking. We can transit down there and cruise into the city harbor with no one the wiser. You up to it?"

  Dusk considered for a moment, then offered a single, brief nod. “I'm strong enough."

  She aimed a look at Chase, pregnant with possibility. He met her gaze and shifted his eyes away a touch uncomfortably.

  Ben nearly laughed. It's not going to be easy for him to come to terms with the fact that a beautiful giant demoness has fallen in love with him. But to make it even more difficult, that very same demoness saved his life.

  He was almost sure he wouldn't want to be in Chase's shoes. Where's Quickfingers? he wondered, quickly scanning the room. The imp had vanished again. “Where's the imp?” he wondered aloud.

  Jaz covered the room with a glance and shook her head. “I don't know. “Quickfingers!"

  When the imp didn't return she got a bit of a panicked look in her eye, casting sidelong looks at Athena, who was watching out the back window. She threw open the back door and stepped out, raising her hands. “Stand down! Everything's under control!"

  She reentered and closed the door behind her. “Not thanks to you,” she muttered irritably. “Well, Ben, it looks like it's back to school for you. You too, Jaz. So—Raven, isn't it?—ever thought about a career in government service?"

  The vampire shrugged. “Hadn't really thought of it, to be honest. I haven't been able to make any choices on my own for the past couple years. Why—what did you have in mind?"

  "Renee doesn't want to run our PARD unit. I don't have time, and Ben isn't ready yet. I'm offering you the job, if you're interested."

  Raven frowned. “You want to offer me a job as a team leader?” The idea seemed to take the vampire aback. “Wait a minute—what's the PARD unit?"

  "Stands for Preternatural Action Response Division,” Athena informed him. “Its made up of predators and its primary function is hunting down other predators."

  "Sounds like it's right up your alley,” Chase told him.

  "Good idea,” Deryk Shea put in, trotting back into the room with a large flat black box in his hands. “I heartily agree with your choice."

  "You don't know how much your approval means to me,” Athena muttered dryly.

  "Make up your mind,” he growled back disgustedly. “Five minutes ago you were looking for my advice."

  "And you pointed out how stupid that was of me,” she replied with a tight smile. “I'm just following your advice."

  He gave her a long, lingering stare and winked broadly. “Okay. You got me on that one. So you run the agency however you want. If you need my advice, you can ask."

  "Thanks for your permission,” she answered back, smiling sweetly.

  "Dammit,” Jaz growled. “Where is that imp?"

  "Time to go,” Athena told her. “He'll catch up."

  Jaz nodded, obviously quite annoyed. “Okay. Let's get out of here."

  The mages all slipped away, vanishing one by one. Dusk carried Chase away with her. Athena stepped out, taking Shea along in her wake. Eventually only Ben, Raven, and Mandy remained. Raven lifted his gaze and smiled at the woman. “You don't have to wait for us."

  "I know,” she said. “But I don't like boats. I'm wondering if there's another way for me to get to where you're going."

  "Oh. You can string a four strand tube together and aim for downtown, but if you don't have a destination in mind, you could end up just about anywhere. And with you not knowing our Tacoma, you might have a few problems finding us again."

  "Can you dump him down on the boat and help me get back to the city?"

  He looked over at Ben, who shrugged. “Hey, man, it's not like I care. If you want to, go spend some time alone with her."

  Raven shifted his gaze back to the child-woman and visibly swallowed. Oh my God, Ben realized, he's actually nervous about being alone with her.

  Then again, they were both virgins, weren't they? Back in school they'd both been gamer nerds and had about as much chance of attracting women as the pocket protector crowd. Except for the few girls as weird as they were.

  But Ben also got the impression that her interest in Raven wasn't quite returned in kind, but he couldn't have said what had given him that notion. It wasn't as though the vampire hadn't treated her like a complete gentleman when he'd seen them together. He'd brought her back from the dead, after all.

  Not nearly as impressive a feat as what Dusk had done at Jaz's instruction. How that girl came up with that little trick he had no idea. Somehow he didn't get the feeling they'd expect the repercussions that would come down from that little bit of magic. Death wasn't supposed to be reversed that easily.

  Of course he could be wrong about that. What he knew about magic could be written on the head of a pin with room left over. It struck him as awfully strange, though.

  He glanced down at the corpse of the dark immortal once before following Raven's out-flung arm into the mouth of the transit tube. A split second later he was standing on the deck of a boat. He staggered slightly, disoriented by the sudden transfer. I don't think I'll ever get used to that.

  He bent his gaze to the top of the cliff as the boat pulled away. They'd been lucky to get away without losing anyone. Hell, we did lose someone. But, amazingly, they managed to bring him back.

  It would take him a while to get past that little fact, he decided. The absolutely weird he'd gotten used to. The impossible—well, that would take a little longer.

  * * * *

  Quickfingers showed up in Jaz's room a couple hours after she got in. He looked inordinately pleased with himself. “Where were you?” she asked him irritably, switching on her bedside light.

  His grin spread even farther across his broad face than usual. “Sorry—I heard you but I was a little lost. It took me this long to get back."

  Jaz opened her mouth to ask, but stopped herself at the last second. When it came down to it, she wasn't sure she even wanted to know. “I guess it's enough to know you're safe."

  "I'm glad you're safe too, Boss. Now get some sleep. You had a hard night and I'm sure Athena will be quite happy to chew your ass into so much hamburger in the morning."

  "Oh, thanks for reminding me,” she replied sarcastically. She flopped back down on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. The imp was right, of course. She was going to get a serious chewing out in the morning. And she was pretty sure she deserved it. She should never have gone back. She'd jeopardized everyone with her rash action. And she wasn't even sure why she'd done it.

  She was thinking this over as sleep stole past her defenses and enveloped her in a warm, comfortable blanket.

  The imp watched her sleep for a long moment before reaching up and turning off the lamp. Then he settled back in the bedside chair, staring at the two glowing gems embedded in his hands. His grin lapsed for a second, then returned full force. He'd really have fun from now on.

  * * * *

  "She should be your adopted daughter, Loki,” Athena grunted with a grimace. “She sure as hell doesn't take after any of the rest of us."

  "Oh, you're telling me you've never done anything impulsive?” The redheaded immortal chuckled wryly as he took a long drink from his mug. He shot Shea a sidelong glance. The squat man leaned forward against the bar on the other side of Loki, big fist wrapped around a half-empty bottle of beer. He'd seemed distracted all night. “You okay, Deryk?"

  He'd bee
n stunned at first that he'd actually survived, but, the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He was just too damn stubborn to lay down and die. “Yeah,” Shea replied absently. “I'm fine. Just thinking about what happened at Hades’ house."

  "What about it?” Athena asked, leaning back to look around Loki. “We went, we saw, we kicked his ass."

  "We damn near lost everything,” Shea growled. “If Hades hadn't alienated his people as far as he had, we'd've screwed the pooch."

  "And you're blaming me, aren't you?” Athena asked angrily.

  "Oh, give it a rest, Athena. I'm really not in the mood to deal with your neurotic bullshit right now. You've done a fine job since I've been gone—much better than I had any right to expect, considering everything you had to deal with. I'm not trying to bust your balls, so to speak, so stop assuming I'm going to. It's just getting old."

  Her jaw snapped shut and she nodded once, apparently accepting his words at face value. “Sorry, Deryk. I guess I'm just a little over-sensitive."

  "Apology accepted. A few things have occurred to me, but whether I say anything about them depends on whether you can handle constructive criticism."

  "Try me."

  "Communication protocols, for one. You should never have been left standing outside the estate wondering where your people were. As soon as they were delayed, they should've called in."

  She nodded. She'd already thought of that, though she wasn't quite sure what to do about it. “Anything else?"

  "Stop trying to do everything yourself. You need to delegate more effectively. Part of it was that you handed jobs over to people who didn't really want them. Renee should never been placed in charge of PARD. If you didn't have anyone to run it, you should've assigned all the preternaturals to a general action team and left it at that until Ben was ready—or until you found someone else to take the job.

  "And you need to step back from running the MAD Squad, too. As soon as Amanda recovers, give it over to her and let her do the job she's been trained for. You need to concentrate on the PAC itself. You're not going to be able to keep magic, vampires, and lycanthropes secret from the general public much longer."

  That much seemed obvious. They'd managed to sidetrack the media for this long, but that wouldn't last.

  Athena stood up, polishing off her beer and nodding congenially. “I'll think about what you've said,” she told him. “In the meantime, I think I'm going to jump home and catch a few hours sleep."

  "You're still wasting your time sleeping?” Shea seemed more amused than anything else, but she heard the tone of disapproval hidden within his words.

  "Only a couple hours a night,” she answered testily. “Being able to dream helps me to focus sometimes. You should try it."

  "I don't think so,” he said. “There aren't enough hours in the day as it is."

  "Like you have anything in particular to do right now anyway. Your students at the Academy need to sleep, after all."

  "Well ... that might be changing sometime soon,” he told her with a casual shrug. “We'll just have to wait and see."

  She didn't ask him what he meant by that. Instead she touched her fingers to her forehead and sketched a mocking bow. “Until later, you two. Have a good night.” She glanced at her watch. “Or a good morning, as the case may be.” She cast a tube and stepped away.

  Loki turned to regard the other immortal with a curious expression. “What do you know that we don't?” he asked.

  "I'm sure I know plenty,” Shea told him, taking another swig of his beer. “But if you're asking after something specific, I can only say I don't know anything in particular."

  "But you expect something, don't you?"

  Shea cocked his head and smirked. “Well, let me ask you this. What do you think Amanda Keening is going to do now that she's inherited her grandfather's company? You think she has any ambitions to become a corporate tycoon?"

  "Uh ... no."

  "Right. So what do you think she's most likely to do? Don't bother—she's going to end up giving it to Athena, which means she'll have to step down from chairing Shea Industries. That'll open up my old job for me and make everyone happy."

  "I thought you didn't want your company back."

  "Not at all. I just didn't want to throw Athena out on her ass, especially not with her thinking I was judging her harshly. This will work out best for all concerned. She can retain her position as de facto head of the PAC and leave me the hell out of it."

  "No political ambitions for you, then?"

  "Hah! You're kidding, right? I'd rather suck vacuum."

  "I'm sure she'd appreciate you dealing with that ass Seymour for her, though."

  Shea chuckled nastily. “Yeah, I'm sure she would. But we both know he's dirty as a pig farmer's galoshes, don't we? Now that Hades is out of the way, we'll be able to concentrate on lesser threats like Seymour."

  Loki lifted his glass of rum. “Here's to getting the job done,” he said.

  Shea glanced his bottle off the Trickster's glass. “And here's to everyone with the courage to see it through to the end."

  Twenty-three

  A few hours earlier:

  The silence was oppressive as Hades lifted his head from the cold tile, amazed that he wasn't dead. Carth had thrust the crystal katana straight through him. He tried to draw his legs up to climb to his knees, but his legs didn't respond. Fear raised its ugly visage and stared him in the eyes.

  He lay in a deep pool of blood, sticky, cold, and smelling of copper. He pushed himself up on his arms and dragged himself across the kitchen floor. “Hades, you old fool. You're lucky they didn't kill you."

  His voice was nearly as low as his spirits had sunk. He'd been a fool. Carth had been right—how could he honestly have expected anything but their fear and hatred? He certainly hadn't given them any cause to feel loyalty toward him.

  He pulled himself through the house, dragging his useless legs behind him, wincing in pain as he lifted himself up high enough to open the basement door. He snaked his way down the stairs, pausing every so often to catch his breath and wait for the pain and dizziness to pass. He was still bleeding out, he realized, but his immortal healing factor was keeping him alive longer than he'd expected, despite the fact the wound had been inflicted by a crystal weapon. He'd only been lucky the Fey hadn't shoved the blade in higher between his shoulder blades and out his chest instead of through his lower back.

  He made his way to the bio lab and pulled himself up to the palm reader. A moment later he was crawling slowly and painfully across the concrete floor, intent on reaching the lab fridge. He pulled it open and lifted one of the ten one liter bottles of clear liquid from the top rack. He popped the cap and drank half of it down in a single swallow.

  Warmth suffused his spine and abdomen as the bio regenerative tonic healed the wounds in his organs and flesh. It didn't banish the numbness in his lower extremities, though. It might be that nothing ever would. He didn't know. No immortal had ever suffered a crippling wound from a crystal weapon. That he knew about, at least.

  What puzzled him was that they hadn't sealed the house off yet. The place should have been crawling with PAC agents. Or at least cops. He flopped over and sat back against the fridge door, gaze scouring the room.

  He shrugged and crawled over to Grey's wheelchair. He pulled the case from the hidden rack beneath the seat, popping it over and peering inside. He quickly shuffled through the papers within, a grim smile spreading across his features. Two million dollars in bearer bonds would go a long way. It was time he made himself scarce. He didn't want the other immortals to know he was alive, and preferred the Centians forgot who he was as well. If he could arrange that, he would.

  He replaced the case, crawled up into the chair, and opened a transit tube. He reached into the arm of the chair and withdrew a cell phone, dialing the cab company he found there in its memory. “Yeah, I'd like a pickup at this address.” He rattled it off. “Going to SEA-TAC airport. Twenty minutes?
All right. That'll be perfect."

  He rolled through the transit tube into the upstairs office, retrieving his passport and other identification from his desk. He waited about twenty minutes and opened up another mana tube, rolling out onto the driveway just outside the front gate.

  Three minutes later he was on his way to the airport, and out of the country. It was time that Hades turned over a new leaf, he decided. How many times could a man lose without finally realizing he wasn't meant to win?

  Never again. He'd had enough.

  * * * *

  Some twenty-four hours later:

  "How you feeling?” Amanda glanced up to see Ben filling the hospital room doorway and felt a heavy thud in her chest that nearly stole her breath away. He looked amazing, she realized. His blond hair, shaggier than she'd ever seen it, hung just over the edge of his brow, prompting him to brush it away with the back of his hand. Of course it fell right back down, but the whole image was extremely endearing.

  "Not bad,” she answered, “but I'd really like to go home now. They won't let me leave until they've got my blood tests back."

  "Makes sense,” he told her. “You were drugged for several days—no one knows what drugs they used, or what their long-term effects will be. You haven't felt any cravings, have you?"

  She shook her head. “No.” Thankfully.

  He walked up and set a vase of flowers on the bedside table. The scent of roses filled the air as she stared at the twelve ripe red buds in the clear crystal vase. She grinned up at him. “That's really not necessary, you know."

  "I'll decide what's necessary,” he retorted with mock sharpness, meeting her smile with one of his own.

  "I hear you slept in the room all night."

  "They didn't want to let me at first, but I convinced them it was the safest thing for everyone concerned."

  She laughed aloud. “I don't even want to guess how you managed that."

  "I didn't do anything too terribly intimidating."

  "I'm sure."

  They let the conversation lapse and waited in pregnant silence for a long moment, both wanting to say something more but not knowing how to approach it. Finally Ben broke the silence. “I don't see you like a little girl, you know. I know you think people do, but most of us don't. You're just a very small woman. You're too damn tough to be mistaken as a kid, Amanda."