by J. K. Beck
That, of course, was an illusion, and she wasn't foolish enough to share the fantasy with the man in her bed. She'd made no noises about future dates, suggested no plans for dinner or coffee. If she didn't ask, he couldn't make false promises. He knew where she lived. Where to find her.
And when he'd left before dawn the next morning, she'd sent him off into the world with a kiss, but with no request for promises of a future, no matter how much her body still craved him.
She'd shut and locked the door, then succumbed to the girlish angst that inevitably followed a night of passionate sex with a perfect stranger. By the time she'd showered and dressed for work, she'd convinced herself that theirs had been a singular encounter. The kind of night she would remember and hold up to judge other men by. The kind of memories that would keep her warm at night.
But she didn't expect to see the man again.
28
Then she grabbed her briefcase and opened her door. There, lying on her mat, was a bundle of perfect tulips, their stems tied in a blood-red bow. She'd never been given flowers before, hadn't even realized there was a hole in her heart until his gift had filled it.
There was no note, but it didn't matter. Somehow, she knew. They'd marked each other. Gotten in each other's heads.
And, yes, she would see him again.
The thought had been enough to keep the glow all day yesterday. Even now, she could feel the tingle of pleasure running through her. And, yes, she'd been sappy and girlish enough to tuck the red ribbon that had bound the flower stems into the pocket of her suit jacket.
She slipped her hand in now, twisted the satin ribbon around her fingers, and lost herself to a wave of sweet anticipation and contentment.
He'd moved her. And damned if she hadn't wanted to be moved.
"Sara?"
With a start, she jerked her head up and found herself looking into Sergeant Pearson's worried eyes. "You okay?" the bailiff asked.
"Yes. Fine. Just tired." She gathered her papers, hoping she wasn't blushing, and hurried to stand.
"Judge wants you inside. He's ready to start back with the arguments." She nodded, trying her best to appear confident despite having blown off her case review in favor of an X-rated rerun of her night with Luke.
A pleasant diversion, but somehow she doubted that her ruminations on sex with Luke would prove useful in arguing her case.
In other words, time to march into court, face the judge, and wing it. 29
Chapter 5
"Thank you, Counselors. I've heard enough." Judge Kelly rapped the gavel on the polished oak bench. "You'll have my ruling in the morning." Sara rose along with everyone else in the courtroom as the judge stepped down and disappeared through the door to his chambers. As soon as he'd cleared the room, she exhaled, then dropped into the chair.
It had been brutal, but at least she hadn't made a complete fool of herself.
"Good job, Counselor," Dan said. "For a moment, I didn't think you were going to raise the jurisdictional question, but then you snuck it in at the last minute. Really caught Kelly's attention. And pretty much blew my argument out of the water."
"For a guy on the opposing side, you're far too nice to me." He grinned. "You caught me. Let me make it up to you with a coffee. Hell, let me make it up to you with dinner."
She shook her head, unable to fight her smile. "You never stop."
"That's why they pay me the big bucks." He nodded toward the door. "Seriously, a coffee? I promise I'll keep my hands to myself and my conversation on the law. My thoughts, however, might drift."
"I've got work," she said. "But thanks." He nodded. "Another time maybe."
"Sure," she said, but they both knew she didn't mean it. He left ahead of her, and as he stepped out past the heavy oak door, Martin Drummond, the senior assistant district attorney, stepped in. "I caught part of your argument," he said, his voice level.
"Oh." She swallowed, noting how quickly the glow faded. True, she hadn't been at her best, but she hadn't sucked. Even Dan had paid her a compliment, though he'd also admitted to ulterior motives. Even so, surely Marty wasn't about to call her to the carpet for not being better prepared.
Was he?
"I'm pulling you off the case."
Apparently, he was.
Her entire body went cold, most likely the result of all the blood draining out of her. "What? But--"
"You're being reassigned."
"No! I mean--" She felt the hot sting of tears and hated herself for it. She would not cry. She'd argue her case. To the district attorney himself if she had to. One time--one lousy time--she wasn't completely on her game, and she was being punished this severely for it? It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. It wasn't--"Hell of a promotion, actually," he said, smiling now. "Looks like you've been plucked from the obscure ranks of the ADAs."
She stepped back, her body backtracking as much as her mind. "Wait. A promotion?"
30
Marty chuckled. "You're doing a great job, kid. Guess it got you noticed by the right folks. You've heard of Division 6?"
"Sure. I don't know a lot about it. Their offices are upstairs, right?" She hoped that made her sound at least somewhat on the ball. The truth was, she didn't have a clue about Division 6. On occasion, late at night, she'd run into someone with a Division 6 badge in the lobby. She knew the group was under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security. And considering the shady edge to the few employees she'd bumped into, she tended to think the division specialized in undercover antiterrorist ops. But other than that, she knew next to nothing.
"No one knows much," Marty said. "But I guess you're about to." He took a few steps and then stopped, turning back to her. "Only the best get the opportunity to work for Division 6," he said. "Great for Division 6, not so great for the District Attorney's Office. You decide the job's not for you, and you can have your old position back. Any day. Anytime. No questions asked."
"Thank you," she said. "I appreciate that." All the more so since Marty wasn't the type who bothered with niceties or compliments. He'd bothered today, though, and that made her even more curious about this mysterious position for which she'd been chosen. He was walking again, and she followed him through the halls to the elevator. He slipped a key into a slot, then pressed the button for the twentieth floor. Authorized Access Only. Sara had to smile. Apparently she was now authorized. The doors opened on a reception area with a lanky receptionist sporting spiked orange hair. Not the generally proper demeanor most courthouses tried to convey. The Division 6 crew, it seemed, was a little wilder.
"I've got Sara Constantine for a meeting with Nostramo Bosch and Alexander Porter," Marty said. He turned to Sara. "Here's where I leave you. I don't have authorization beyond the reception area. Good luck."
And then he was gone, and she was all alone, staring at the unremarkable reception area and the completely remarkable receptionist.
"Water?" the girl asked.
Sara shook her head, wondering if she ought to sit down. But there wasn't time. A pair of frosted glass doors opened, and District Attorney Alexander Porter stepped inside, his hand out in greeting. "Sara," he said. "Good to see you again. You've been doing excellent work. Coming up fast through the ranks."
"Thank you." Technically, Porter had been her boss for the three years she'd been working at the District Attorney's Office. But the job was a huge one, and Porter knew how to delegate. Which meant that Sara's day-to-day contact had always been Marty. And now he'd gone and abandoned her, leaving her to the mercy of the big man himself.
"Um, Marty didn't know a whole lot about what I'm going to be doing."
"No, he wouldn't. Walk with me." He headed back through the doors, and she followed him. "The truth is, I don't know a lot about it myself, though I am the liaison between Division 6 and the District Attorney's Office."
"Homeland Security," Sara said. "Terrorists."
"Something like that," Porter said, but Sara had the feeling he was smiling at her, though she wasn
't at all sure what was funny.
He stopped inside the doors, bringing Sara up short. "I actually owe you an apology. On any other day, you'd be sitting in the conference room with an orientation 31
packet and a rep from Employee Relations giving you an overview of how things work here. The PowerPoint presentation is actually quite interesting. I'll make sure you get a copy."
"But today?"
"Charges were filed this morning in a new matter, and Bosch thinks you'll get more out of sitting in on the initial interview with the defendant." The corner of his mouth lifted. "To be honest, I think Bosch wants to gauge your reaction. Throw you into the deep end of the pool and watch you swim."
"I can understand that," she said, determined not to drown. After all, she was a trained prosecutor. It's not as if there was much that could surprise her. "And Mr. Bosch is ..."
"He's the subdirector of the Violent Crimes Division. He'll be your immediate supervisor."
"Got it. Thanks." She cleared her throat, not inclined to rush her boss, but still anxious to know the details of the kind of matters she'd be handling. "So, what's the nature of this new case?"
Instead of answering, he started walking again, and Sara noticed that the hall didn't actually go anywhere. It was simply a hall, and it ended at an elevator.
"Mr. Porter?"
"The truth is, I don't know. But I can tell you generally about the type of work you'll be doing for the Division."
She nodded, hoping she didn't look too eager.
"Again, bear in mind that under normal circumstances, you'd have the benefit of an orientation day."
"No problem. I'm sure that moving straight into a case will give me a much more solid understanding of the job than any orientation video ever could."
"Probably true." He punched the down button and turned to face her. "But I think the point is to ease new prosecutors in. To reduce the shock."
"Shock?"
The elevator arrived and she followed Porter on, noting that there were no buttons for floors nineteen to one, or for the basement and courthouse parking levels. Simply labels. But there were seven sublevels she'd never seen before, as well as P-Sub-10, which was apparently a parking level below the final sublevel. All in all, very mysterious, and Sara had the sense she was about to get sucked into the world of international espionage where she'd find James Bond's full-out tech center accessed through the back of a broom closet.
Porter pushed the button for Sub-7. "Get ready, Sara. You're about to go down the rabbit hole."
She cocked her head, considered her response, and decided on complete honesty.
"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know what you're talking about."
"No. You wouldn't. Not without seeing it." He grinned. "Or seeing the PowerPoint." He paused. "The truth is there's an entire world out there that most of us never see."
"You're talking about the criminal underground?"
"I'm talking about the stuff of human nightmares." She nodded, hoping she looked as if she was following. "Right. Like ...?" 32
"Like vampires. Demons. Werewolves. All those beings you thought were only myths. That you thought were the stuff of nightmares or stories told to scare children or populate horror movies. All those things are real. They're real, and they're out there, and some of them are just as evil as Hollywood has portrayed them."
"Some of them?" she asked, because it was the only question she felt competent at the moment to form. Was this a big joke? Some sort of test of how well she handled the absurd?
He nodded. "The breakdown percentages are quite similar to our world. Most of the Shadow creatures are law abiding. It's the ones who break the law that Division is concerned with."
"You're serious," she said, trying to imagine Count Dracula on the stand. But he can't be serious.
The elevator lurched to a stop, and the door slid open. Sara stared out into the cavernous room and took an involuntary step backward, not able to believe what she saw, but also unable to deny her own eyes.
Outside the elevator lay a whole new world. A world where wolves slunk across a reception area. A hulk of a man with pale orange skin and cloven feet stood at a granite counter calmly filling out a form. And the woman behind the counter seemed to have some sort of mist swirling around her.
There were humans, too. At least they looked like humans. But they really weren't the ones drawing her attention.
"A little overwhelming the first time, isn't it?"
Hell yes. Her heart was pounding so loud she could barely hear herself think, and her palms had started to sweat.
The rabbit hole, he'd said? Try a wormhole to hell.
She looked at Porter, calling on every ounce of self-control to keep her voice from shaking. To keep from revealing how much her world had just tilted. "This is for real?"
"You okay?"
She smiled, bright and perky. "Absolutely." And then, just to prove the point, she stepped out of the elevator and took a deep breath. Since nobody with fangs rushed to assault her, she took another tentative step, then boldly looked around. And the truth was, that despite the rather bizarre appearance of some of the beings occupying the space, the room had a familiar feel. The hustle and bustle of the judicial system at work. "This is a reception area?" she asked.
"You got it, but there's no public access. That's on sublevel four, which can be accessed from the main reception area we came through, or the secondary reception on the Division's primary parking level." He shot her a wry smile. "As you might imagine, a number of the creatures who work here or are brought in for questioning or detention would cause a bit of a stir if they marched through the building's main lobby."
"Yeah. I guess they would."
"Bottom line is that no one comes past reception without an escort." He pointed to a long, dark hall. "Investigation to the right. Prosecution to the left. Detention and Security section are accessed through Sub-9."
"I didn't see a Sub-9," she said.
"You wouldn't have. Highest security--some of these creatures are quite the escape artists. Sub-9 is accessed only through an elevator across from Leviathin's office." 33
"Who?"
"Nikko Leviathin. My counterpart down here." He looked at her. "You ready to keep going, or do you need to take a minute?"
She scanned the room, her mind processing. As unbelievable as this was, Marty had been right--this was one hell of a promotion. More than that, it promised to never be dull.
She looked at Porter. "I'm ready," she said. "Lead the way." His quick smile included a heavy dose of pride, and she was glad she hadn't hesitated. For the first time, she realized how much was riding on her successful insertion into this world. Clearly, Porter had recommended her. If she froze up, her failure would reflect badly on her former boss, as well as on the entire District Attorney's Office. Political games.
They moved swiftly through the lobby and underneath a stone archway into which two words had been carefully carved: Judicare Maleficum. "To judge the evildoer," if her Latin was correct. "We'll introduce you around later," Porter said. "Right now, Bosch is waiting."
Sara followed, a million questions still swirling through her mind. Always go back to the basics. "So what am I going to be doing?"
"Exactly what you're trained for." He flashed a badge at a security desk. A set of steel doors swung open, revealing a hall that could have been in any law office. Doors on one side, cubicles for support staff on the other.
She tried to peek inside one of the cubicles and caught a glimpse of blue skin. Definitely not in Kansas anymore.
"And here we are." They'd reached a corner office. Porter knocked, and Sara held her breath, wondering what they would find behind that door.
"Enter." The voice was low, clipped, but sounded entirely human. When Porter pushed open the door and they stepped inside, Sara saw that the man looked as human as his voice sounded. About sixty years old, with salt-and-pepper hair, Nostramo Bosch exuded the air of a distinguished elder statesman. He stoo
d, and when he came around the desk to shake her hand, she caught the subtle scent of cinnamon.
"Sara Constantine. I'm Nostramo Bosch."
"Nice to meet you."
"We're very excited to have you on board. I've been monitoring your career for quite a while. I hope you decide to accept the position." She had absolutely no intention of walking away. But she couldn't help but wonder what would happen if she did.
Bosch chuckled, as if he could read her thoughts. Then again, Sara supposed that maybe he could. "Don't worry. You have a perfect right to say no. And if you do, you'll simply go back upstairs and slip back into your old job."
"No way," she said, then realized she'd blurted the response out far too quickly for propriety. She turned to Porter. "I didn't mean--"
"I understand," he said, amusement in his voice.
"But I'm curious," she admitted. "I could just go back? After having seen all of this?"
Bosch waved his hand, as if dismissing that complication. "We have creatures on 34
staff more than capable of adjusting your memory. At most, it would seem like a very vivid dream."
She was digesting that tidbit of information when Bosch's phone buzzed. "Mr. Porter's needed back on the main floors," a melodic voice announced. "And the suspect is settled in Interview A."
"Thank you, Martella."
"I'll take my leave, then," Porter said. He turned to Sara, then took her hand in his, giving it a friendly pat. "I'm the only one in my office who knows the true nature of Division 6. You're welcome to speak with your friends, of course, but don't forget the cover story. A division of Homeland Security, and you're not at liberty to share any more information."
"Right. Thank you." She smiled politely, surprised to find she wasn't nervous about him leaving her alone down here. Just the opposite, actually. She was eager to get on with it. To find out the details of this strange new world. Bosch was watching her face, his expression approving. "We'll walk out with you," he said to Porter.