The Unnaturals (The Unnaturals Series Book 1)

by Jessica Meigs

  “That’s a pretty damn high attrition rate,” the man beside Riley commented. He leaned forward to look at the photos, sliding one aside to see the one below it.

  “You’re telling me,” Brandon said. “We can’t afford to lose this many agents, not in such a short time. The skills alone that have been lost are mind-boggling.”

  Riley examined the photos for faces she knew. There was a photo of a female agent with a notation saying that her throat had been ripped out; another of a male agent that Riley recognized who’d had his chest torn open; another who’d been eviscerated; yet another who had had his throat torn out; another—

  Riley jerked back from the last photo, rolling her chair backward even as she shoved the photo across the slick glass surface, trying to get away from it and it away from her. Her hands trembled as she stared at the pile of photos displaying the mutilated bodies of her fellow agents. She shook her head. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t. I don’t want to be involved. This is something you guys are going to have to figure out on your own.”

  Kevin Anderson’s face stared at Riley from the photo. She could still see it in her head: his dark hair lank with sweat and blood, his eyes empty and sightless, his skin splattered with blood and viscera. The photo merged together in her mind’s eye with the last time she’d seen him alive. She blinked as she tried to banish the image from her sight.

  “Why is his picture there?” Riley demanded. Her voice trembled, and she fought off a snarl of disgust. “Why do you have him in there?”

  “Because we believe he was the first,” Brandon said. “Riley, tell us what happened in Paris. Six months ago, you and Kevin Anderson were on an assignment in Paris. Tell us what happened.”

  “I’ve told you this before. The mission failed,” Riley bit out. “We failed. That’s what happened. And Kevin ended up dead because we apparently had bad intel that I didn’t follow up on like I was supposed to, because I was tired and hadn’t had any sleep the night before and got careless and trusted the source too much.”

  She could feel all eyes on her, waiting for her explanation. The sensation of being a sideshow for an audience was unnerving and annoying. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fingers around the arms of her chair, her knuckles blanching. “Riley, tell us what you wrote in your incident report,” Brandon ordered, his voice low.

  “Which one? The official one or the first one I filed that made you accuse me of being insane?” Riley asked.

  “The first one.”

  Riley blew out a breath and shook her head again, as if she could rearrange her thoughts with the movement. She didn’t want to talk about this. It was too painful, both the actual event and the discussions about her and investigations into her involvement that had followed it. But she was being ordered to relate the events, and she knew that no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t tell Brandon no. She averted her eyes to the tabletop, staring at the carpet through its clear surface. When she spoke, her voice was a borderline monotone, almost emotionless, a relation of bald facts as she’d witnessed them.

  “The Agency received intel that pointed to the kidnapping of Senator Douglas Whitehall’s daughter when she went to France with a few of her friends as a graduation gift from her father. As there are lucrative sex trafficking rings in that area of France, we had to act fast to get her back. We received intel that Ivan Antonov, a known organizer of sex trafficking in the area whose M.O. matched that of Miss Whitehall’s disappearance, may have been involved in her kidnapping. Kevin Anderson and I were sent in to track him down, extract the information we needed regarding Miss Whitehall, and then get rid of him. This did not…go as planned. I set up a sniper’s nest on the rooftop across the street from the apartment building, and Kevin went in like we’d agreed on. But Antonov wasn’t alone like he was supposed to be. A woman was with him, a woman that I believe is the one who took down Antonov before we could get to him.

  “It was a set up. It had to have been a set up. There was a sniper other than myself operating in the area that was likely partnered with the woman in the apartment. Kevin was shot twice in the back by the sniper, and then the woman…it looked like she ripped his throat out with her fingers, but she had to have had a knife that I couldn’t see. There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t draw a bead on her fast enough, and then she seemed like she…like she bit him. Like she was trying to chew her way right through his neck. I don’t know what I saw, but I froze, and she got away. And I know that Kevin died, and we never found out Miss Whitehall’s location. She’s still missing to this day.” Riley fell silent and tore her eyes away from the tabletop to the clear wall behind Brandon, watching the hallway beyond as she let out a pained breath. Silence reigned for several heartbeats as Riley tried to collect herself, and then Brandon spoke.

  “That was the last time the Agency worked with teams,” he said. “We disbanded all agent partnerships and teams and relied on agents working missions solo after that failure. Things ran more…efficiently after that. Except now we’ve detected a pattern of agents being killed, and we can’t trust that if we put a sole agent on the task that he or she won’t also be killed. So we’ve decided to fall back on old methods and assign you a new partner.”

  “What?” Riley gasped. She shook her head and rose half out of her chair before her back let out a stab of pain in protest. She thought better of getting up and slumped back into the chair. “You can’t do that. I work alone!”

  “Not this time, Riley,” Brandon said. He motioned to the dark-haired man in the chair beside hers. “Ms. Walker, may I introduce you to your new partner, Agent Scott Hunter.” His tone indicated that it wasn’t a question or an offer.

  Riley didn’t bother to look at the man. She clenched her fingers around the arms of her chair again, her jaw set in determined anger as she glared at Brandon and tried her damnedest to not look at the photo of Kevin Anderson’s broken body on the table between them. Throwing all caution and mental warnings to the wind and fighting to not grit her teeth, she snarled, “I don’t work with others.”

  “Well, you used to,” Brandon said, unfazed in the face of her anger. “And now you do again. Or am I to assume that you are refusing to work with Mr. Hunter in yet another act of blatant insubordination? We put up with quite a lot from you that’s quite close to borderline because of how talented you are, but I wouldn’t be able to overlook this.”

  Riley’s anger dissipated rapidly when Brandon used the word “insubordination,” and she fought the urge to push her chair back further from the table. Stiffening, she squared her shoulders and shook her head. “No, sir. I’m not being insubordinate,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I just don’t—”

  A hand closed around Riley’s wrist and squeezed. She glanced over to see her presumed new partner looking at her, eyes wide with concern and almost fear. She could understand his fear. “Insubordination” was one of the most feared words in the Agency’s vocabulary, usually preceding a horrible, violent end to whatever agent was found guilty of the association. As such, no agent ever wanted to end up in a situation where a charge of insubordination could be considered a possibility. Scott gave her a warning shake of his head and leaned close.

  “For the love of Christ, please stop talking,” he murmured, loud enough for her to hear. His fingers tightened on her wrist.

  Riley glared at him. Who was he to tell her what to do? He didn’t know her. She wrenched her arm free from his grasp and leaned back in her chair, focusing on Brandon. “What’s so damned complex that you feel the need to reinstate the Agency’s partnership program?”

  Brandon looked pleased with Riley’s change of behavior. He weeded through the papers again, ruffling through them, searching first one paper-clipped stack and then another. “Because it’s just too much and too damned difficult for one agent to handle,” he said. He settled onto a stack and set it beside the folder, then twisted his hands together and looked at both of them. “This is going to be a series of very
specialized assignments.” He pushed the stack of papers toward Riley. “What are your thoughts about…vampires?”

  Chapter Three

  “Vampires,” Scott repeated, raising his eyebrows so high that they were hidden behind the hair that fell over his forehead. In the face of that question, he could forget even the insubordination he’d witnessed. “What the hell are you on about, Hall?”

  Brandon leaned back in his seat and motioned to the papers he’d put in front of them. Scott, despite his incredulity, slid his chair closer to Riley’s and leaned over in it to get a better look at the stack of paper as Brandon replied. “You haven’t answered my question,” he said. “What are your thoughts about vampires?”

  Riley looked ready to laugh, mirth dancing in her brown eyes. Scott couldn’t blame her. He was fighting back a bark of laughter himself. “Vampires?” Riley said. “Come on, Brandon. They don’t exist.”

  “How would you explain what you witnessed in January?” Brandon asked. He didn’t sound argumentative, just curious, which puzzled Scott enough to make his interest perk.

  “Psycho crazy bitch with a knife who apparently got off on drinking blood,” Riley said.

  Brandon turned to Scott without commenting on Riley’s statement. “And you? What do you think?”

  Scott tried to consider the question carefully before he answered, but it was difficult. Vampires? Unsure of what to say that wouldn’t get him in trouble with Brandon or with the other two men in the room, he settled on, “I was under the impression that they were fictional creatures created by Bram Stoker when he wrote Dracula.”

  “Polidori,” Riley muttered. Scott raised an eyebrow and glanced at her in confusion, and she clarified. “Stoker didn’t write the first vampire novel. Polidori did, in his book The Vampyre. And it was an analogy for the poet Lord Byron, not a literal blood-sucker.”

  “Good to know in case I ever end up on Jeopardy!.” Scott focused on the papers again, even as he noticed that Brandon remained silent, as if he were giving them the chance to look the papers over and hash things out for themselves. As his eyes skimmed over the information printed on the papers, examining the photographs and details inside, his frown deepened. “Wait, are you suggesting that these things are real?” he asked as he tore his eyes away from the paper. “That there’s actually a…a vampire out there? To be honest, I find that more than just a little ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” Brandon asked. He examined Scott for a moment. Scott stared back at him, not challenging the man but daring him to prove him wrong. “We have evidence to the contrary.”

  “Do you really?” he asked. “Because it looks to me like all you have is evidence of a possible violent serial killer. Or maybe a rogue agent killing off other agents. A double agent. A mole. An agent from another government that has a problem with the United States. There’s any number of possibilities. So how does your logic go from ‘agents are being killed’ to ‘it must be a vampire’?”

  “It’s complicated,” Brandon started to say.

  Riley gave Brandon a look that Scott thought was borne of a deep, long-held familiarity. “What he means is that trying to give us a real explanation will offend our sensibilities and piss us off. Not to mention be a total waste of our skills and training. Right, Brandon?”

  “I bet you got it in one,” Scott said before he could stop himself. Rather than reprimand him, Brandon glowered and shoved a photograph across the table. It showed a close-up of the side of one of the assassinated agents’ necks. Near where the neck met the shoulder, below where the throat was torn out, were eight puncture wounds in two rows, four on top and four on bottom.

  “This was on the necks of twenty-two of the decommissioned agents,” Brandon said. Scott wrinkled his nose at the euphemism. It seemed distasteful referring to the deaths of twenty-seven capable people as “decommissions.” As if they were broken computer equipment. “Like teeth marks.”

  “Or stab wounds from a stiletto,” Riley argued. “Hell, I could make wounds like this with a sharpened pencil.”

  Brandon sighed and shoved another photograph toward them. It slid to a stop in front of Scott. He narrowed his eyes at this one and studied the slashed throat with a clinical, detached curiosity. It was a thin wound, bloody and yet surprisingly narrow. “Explain this one, then,” he challenged.

  “Filet knife,” Scott said. He didn’t believe that a filet knife had caused the wound; it was too thin for that. But considering the way Brandon was screwing with them with his vampire stories, Scott thought it fair to issue some payback.

  “Scalpel,” Riley countered.

  “Exact-o knife,” Scott shot back.

  Riley squinted at the photo again. “In all seriousness, I’d guess a straight-razor. Or maybe a plain razor blade.” Her dark eyes sparkled with mischievousness; she’d caught on to what Scott was doing and was aiding his harassment of Brandon in her own way.

  “Try a fingernail,” Brandon deadpanned.

  “A fingernail,” Scott repeated. “How the hell do you get a fingernail out of this?” He tapped the photo to emphasize his point.

  Brandon pulled a plastic evidence bag from the rest of the materials and flung it at them. “This was found in the wound during autopsy.” Scott picked up the bag, and his eyebrows rose again, this time in surprise.

  Riley’s chair creaked as she leaned closer. “Is that…?” She plucked the bag out of his hands without asking, narrowing her eyes at the contents. “This is a fingernail,” she said. “Or at least a piece of a fingernail.”

  “And the edges are as sharp as a razor blade,” Brandon confirmed. “Or so I discovered the hard way when I cut myself on it through the bag.”

  Scott took the bag from Riley and studied the piece of fingernail inside it. “So assuming we buy into your whole vampire theory—and believe me, I’m having a lot of trouble believing it, because a fingernail doesn’t prove the existence of anything but the nail itself—but pretending like we go along with this, what are you proposing we do about it? Hunt down this…vampire and kill it?”

  Brandon didn’t answer. Instead, Zachariah spoke up, leaning forward in his own chair as if confiding a dark secret to both of them. “What if we were to tell you that there’s more than just vampires out there?” he asked. “That as we discover…unnatural beings—if that’s what you would call them—that the government keeps close tabs on them? And that we’ve got quite a few, well, tagged, for lack of a better word?”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Lawrence,” Riley said, “in that case, I’d probably accuse you of being the world’s best fertilizer salesman.”

  Scott tensed, appalled at Riley’s audacity. But much to his surprise, rather than reprimand Riley for her smart-assed comment and lack of respect, the black-haired man laughed. “You were right about her,” he said to Brandon. “I think she’ll be perfect.” He turned back to Riley and added, “You sound like I did when I was told about the program, which is why I’m not saying anything about your attitude right now. I can hardly fault either of you for your disbelief. To be told that creatures from childhood storybooks and classic literature exist, well, that generally defies the rationale the human mind is capable of.”

  “You’re telling me,” Riley said with a grin.

  Scott leaned forward in his own chair and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen any real proof, aside from a piece of what you say is a fingernail and a bunch of inconclusive pictures. I’m very much a seeing-is-believing kind of man. So what can you show me that will make me a believer?”

  At that, the third man in the room, the one who had yet to speak, emerged from the corner where he’d been standing and approached the table. As he slipped out of the shadows and into the light, Scott sat back in surprise as he got a look at the man’s face. On initial glance, the man didn’t look different from any other man. He was tall, shockingly thin, with short, dark hair in need of a cut, around Scott’s age in his mid-thirties. But it was the scars that ran across his
face that engrossed Scott’s attention.

  There were four of them, evenly spaced, beginning at his left temple and terminating near his right jaw. One of the scars crossed his left eye, rendering it permanently closed. His one remaining eye was bright blue and frigid as he stared at Scott and Riley. After a moment’s study, he withdrew a business card from the inner breast pocket of his tailored suit jacket and tossed it at them. It bounced on its edge on the table before skidding to a halt at Scott’s right hand.

  “If you’re interested in experiencing the truth, be at that address at nine tomorrow night,” he instructed. His voice was as hard and cold as steel. He turned on his heel and strode out of the conference room, walking with a limp indicating an old injury. Once he was gone, Scott picked the card up. Printed in neat, black typeface against an unadorned white card were two lines bearing a street address:

  1982 S Street SW

  Buzzard Point

  “Well, I suppose we’ve got our marching orders, huh?” Riley quipped in his ear.

  Scott tapped the edge of the card against the table as he studied Zachariah. “So, tell me what the hell is really going on,” he said. “Who was that guy?”

  Zachariah glanced at the door through which the man had departed, a frown on his face. “I apologize for his behavior. That’s Ashton Miller. He’s not very good at…socializing. He’ll be in charge of your new assignments.” He moved his chair so he sat across from them. “The Agency has…groups of agents that aren’t quite on the level, if you get my meaning. There are divisions that aren’t supposed to exist, and by all official accounts, they don’t. I’m sure Mr. Hunter knows all about that, though.” Scott felt Riley’s eyes turn to him, could feel her curiosity burning into him. He tried to ignore it. “And this,” Zachariah continued, “is one of those groups that we’re bringing you into, provided you can handle the unusual work that comes with it.”