“Oh, that’s nice,” Reaper said with genuine enthusiasm.
“Yep. Also, I added in a new stun feature.” He pointed at me. “Try it on her.”
“Yeah,” I glared. “I don’t think so.”
Pecker grinned. “Right. Well, it should work. Just point your hand at whomever you want to stun, press these two gears at the same time and it’ll send a shockwave out that will freeze them for a minute or so.”
Okay, that could be handy, especially when it came to snagging full commissions. It was really a shame that the rest of us couldn’t get this kind of technology. Our jobs would be a hell of a lot easier if we could.
Still, there was one thing that could possibly help me. “Any chance you can make it so Reap can transport us around faster?”
“Not likely,” Pecker answered, frowning. “The energy requirement for that is high. It is less now with the changes I just made, but two successive jumps would still knock him on his ass, especially if he brought you along.”
“But we come down here all the time without a fuss,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, because that’s part of the main portal network. His tattoo provides a personal portal system. It’s powered by him, not our network.”
I sighed and gave up.
Portals for a Retriever are a key component of our ability to do our jobs. If we had to travel to the various places in the Overworld in any other way, it’d take too long to accomplish anything. Unfortunately, we couldn’t just jump back and forth at will. When we hopped from the Netherworld to the Overworld, there was a fifteen minute delay between that transport and the next time we could use the portal. This had something to do with the dangers involved with using the system. I honestly didn’t understand the complexities, but Dr. Hale had once said that it would cook us from the inside out, so the system had failsafes added to block the possibility. Reaper’s personal portal didn’t impact us the same way, but draining him of his power wasn’t good either, especially when we were in need of his shield skill.
“Oh well. Anything else you got for us?”
“Just my offer to provide you with an evening you’ll never forget,” Pecker answered, turning on the charm.
I rolled my eyes in response.
“Come on, Reap,” I commanded, “let’s get out of here.”
“That’s it,” Pecker called out as we headed to the elevator, “struggle against me with all your might.”
We got in and I pressed the button to go back to our level.
“I know you have particular tastes, Piper,” Reaper said quietly, “but I really think you should give Pecker a chance. You may like it a lot more than you would imagine.”
I squinted at him. “Reap, you should really record yourself speaking now and then and just give it a listen.”
“Why?”
“Never mind,” I sighed. “Listen, I think I’m going to head back to my place for a change of clothes and a quick shower.”
“Same here,” he said. “I need to feed Agnes, too.”
Agnes was his pet turtle. I thought it was odd for a reaper to own a turtle, but apparently it had been suggested that Reaper get a pet so he could better understand the emotions of supers and normals. He chose a turtle because it was one of the easiest pets to maintain.
I had to meet this turtle.
“Mind if I stop over after I get cleaned up?” I asked.
He glanced at me in surprise. “Certainly.”
“Great. I’ll be over in about a half hour.”
Chapter 4
After I’d showered and put on a fresh set of clothes, I caught the Line across town to Reaper’s apartment. He lived in the Diamond District, which explained the reason he was always worried about his rent. It was called the Diamond District for a reason, after all.
The complex was beautiful and the Line went right through it like the Monorail system at the Contemporary Hotel in Disney World.
“I’m here, Reap,” I called through the connector as I cleared the ramp.
“I’m in apartment 613,” he replied. “It’s on the sixth floor.”
“Yes, that’s what the first number tells me.”
“Really? Hmmm. I’d never considered it.”
I snagged the elevator and was up to the sixth floor in a few seconds. This was definitely a nicer lift than we had at the station.
Reaper was waiting for me when I got to his apartment.
“Welcome,” he said with a smile, wearing a fresh shirt and his trench coat. It was also a different hat. Same style, but it had a different band on it. “Come on in.”
His apartment was not at all what I’d expected. First off, again…Diamond District. That meant it was quite posh. Secondly, the actual decor in the apartment took me by surprise. I truly thought there’d be one chair, one table, and one bed that had a single beige sheet. Reaper didn’t exactly strike me as a guy who went in for anything beyond that. Boy, was I wrong. There were two leather recliners and a large leather sofa. All white, by the way. A widescreen TV hung on the wall and the speaker system looked like the real deal. But all that aside, the paint colors, drapes, and artwork were simply stunning.
“Reap,” I said, almost breathless, “did you do all this yourself or did you hire a designer?”
“I did it myself,” he replied with apprehension in his voice. “No good?”
“No good?” I laughed. “It’s flippin’ amazing. Jeez, Reap, if I actually gave a shit about my place, I’d hire you in a heartbeat to hook me up.”
“Seriously?”
“Totally.” I was seriously awestruck. “If you ever decide to drop Retriever work, you have a future with interior design, especially if you flash those magic eyes of yours.”
He frowned. “How would my eyes help?”
“Are you kidding? While they’re not much good when we’re sneaking around, they’d be a hit with people seeking a designer.” I scanned the room again in admiration. “You’d have people knocking down your door, Reap.”
“Thank you,” he said and then raised his finger. “Oh, but you have yet to see the best part.”
He disappeared into his room for a moment and then came back out with a turtle in his hands. It had a dark shell with hints of golden brown. Its head was darker still, but there were two reddish-orange stripes running down each side.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A turtle,” Reaper replied.
“I know that, Reap. I mean what kind of turtle is it?”
“Oh, right. It’s called a red-eared slider.” He was holding the thing like it was his most prized possession. “Do you like her?”
“Uh…” I wasn’t one for pets, to be honest. “Sure, I guess.”
“I was speaking to Agnes, Piper,” Reaper chuckled. “She says she thinks you are strange.”
I blinked at him with concern. He lifted up Agnes and looked her in the eye and then smiled and nodded. He giggled a few more times.
“Are you actually talking to your turtle, Reap?”
“Of course,” he answered. “Doesn’t everyone speak to their pets?”
“I guess so,” I said. “But they don’t typically talk back.”
He straightened and tilted his head, glancing up as if thinking. Then he looked back at Agnes and pursed his lips.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
I nodded. “Quite.”
“Well, that’s peculiar, then.”
“It probably has to do with you being a reaper,” I suggested. “I would imagine that—”
“Pardon my interruption,” said Roger, the AI dispatcher at the Netherworld PPD, “but Chief Carter is requesting your presence in his office immediately.”
“Did you hear that?” I asked Reaper, not sure if Roger had me on a direct-connection or not.
Reaper nodded and moved to put Agnes back in her…well, whatever it was. I wasn’t going to follow him into his bedroom to find out. My assumption was she was going in a tank of some sort, though.
&nbs
p; “On our way, Roger.”
“Acknowledged.”
Chapter 5
Chief Carter had set up a full conference room and there were a number of Retrievers inside. It was so packed that it was standing-room only.
“I wonder what’s going on,” whispered Reaper.
In response, the chief stepped up to the front of the room. He was an older mage with gray hair that matched his beard and mustache. He was also somewhat plump, making you think of Santa Claus when you saw him.
Today, though, he didn’t look jolly.
“Quiet down,” he said, hushing the chatter. “We’ve got a bunch of reports coming in from various parts of the world regarding attacks. Now, these happen all the time, as you know, but this is different because it’s all happening at once.”
“You think it’s coordinated?” asked one of the Retrievers at the front. I couldn’t see who it was.
“I don’t want to jump to that conclusion just yet,” answered the chief, “but I’ll just say that I find it rather peculiar.”
The chief wasn’t one who was prone to conspiracy theories, so if he had suspicions about these attacks, there must be information he wasn’t sharing. I glanced around the room at some of the veterans. The looks on their faces said they agreed with my thoughts.
He started doling out locations to each unit as they moved to the front.
I was looking up at the digital map on the board behind the chief, watching as each assignment was handed out. Every time one area got placed, it turned green. The rest were in red. I had my eye on the Bahamas. It’d been a while since I’d been to an island, and I wouldn’t mind some downtime after we finished killing whatever we were assigned.
Unfortunately, that one got snapped up two rows in front of us.
We were the last ones in line, meaning we got a werewolf den that was run by one Lucien Bane near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Fransisco.
I liked the area well enough, but it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind for getting away. But who was I fooling anyway? The likelihood of me and Reaper landing some downtime was remote.
“Listen,” the chief said after the room cleared out, “I don’t know what’s going on beyond what I’ve told you, but I have a feeling that it’s more than just a simple attack.”
“You alluded to that before, Chief Carter,” said Reaper. “May I ask what your hypothesis is?”
“It smells like it’s connected to the prison break that landed a bunch of djinn in Vegas,” he answered.
I tilted my head at him. “Why do you think that?”
“Because that break took away a lot of my Retrievers,” he replied. “That gave someone the time to coordinate this spread.” He’d motioned toward the map after his last sentence.
“Any idea who might do that?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said with a slow nod, “but I’m leery to believe it.”
“Who, Chief?”
“Keller,” he said, looking up at me.
There was that name again. He was the mage that Jax had mentioned moments before I killed him. It was a name that was familiar to both me and Reaper.
Apparently, Keller had caused a bunch of havoc in the late eighties and early nineties.
When I first heard the guy’s name, it resonated, but I didn’t know why. My guess was it had to do with some documents I’d been forced to read during my staggered training. I didn’t go through the standard Retriever Training Program, but there were still classes I had to take and such. During those times, I was forced to read numerous cases so that I could familiarize myself with how the Paranormal Police Department and Retriever system functioned.
Reaper was the one who gave me the details originally, but even he didn’t know that much about it. Since Reaper had spent all of his time working in the records room, up until being assigned as my partner, I just deferred to him on the subject.
Still, there was something about the name Keller that wanted to click with me. It was like a song you couldn’t quite remember. You knew the song, but your brain wouldn’t feed it to you fully. You’d get slivers that would jump to the front of your thoughts, only to fade away a split-second later. Eventually it surfaced and you felt accomplished, but until then it plagued you.
“Why do you think Keller is involved, sir?” asked Reaper.
“It’s how he does things,” the chief answered, holding up a folder. “Look back during his reign of terror and you’ll see that he did something like this before. Of course, back then he was one of the escapees.”
“He’s a mage, though, right?” I asked.
Chief Carter looked at me. “What’s your point?”
“Why release a bunch of djinn?” I replied. “Why not bring out mages instead?”
“Keller isn’t one who plays nice with others, Piper,” the chief answered. “He’ll manipulate any race he can to do his bidding, and he’ll even work with wizards because they’re notoriously slow, but mages are competition in his mind.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding. Then a thought hit me. “Wait, where has this guy been since the nineties?”
That’s when the chief closed up the folder and started gathering things up. He obviously wanted us to get on our way topside.
Finally, he said, “He got away.”
“Got away?”
“Yes, Piper,” the chief replied more curtly than usual. Then he grimaced. “Sorry. I was one of the Retrievers on his trail at the time. He had done some terrible things to many people, killing and maiming anyone who got in his way or who may have any incriminating evidence against him.”
“That makes no sense, Chief,” I pointed out. “If he’s killing people, that should be enough—”
“Evidence against him,” the chief finished for me. “I know, Piper. I know. The problem is that Keller is a bit insane.”
“Obviously.”
Chief Carter gave me a serious look and said, “He believes that he is a god.”
“A god?”
“You heard me correctly,” he said as he started walking from the room. “Worse, he convinces others that they are descended from gods so that they’ll feel empowered to do his bidding.” He pointed at our orders. “That likely goes for Lucien Bane, too. I’ve no doubt Keller has messed with his head too.”
Okay, that was pretty warped, but it wasn’t the first time some maniac used religion for nefarious purposes.
“So, are you saying he thinks he’s Thor or something?” I asked.
“Odin,” the chief said, stopping at the door to his office. “He also believes he’s the only remaining god. He claims to have killed the rest because they were all wicked.”
“Right,” I said. “Wicked.”
“Don’t try to rationalize the thoughts of a madman, Piper,” the chief warned. “Just get to work and stop whatever is going on at Fisherman’s Wharf.”
Chapter 6
Since the pier may have been teeming with bad guys, we set the portal to drop us off on Beach Street. I’d learned long ago that showing up in the middle of the action was never a good idea.
“Have you ever been here, Reap?” I asked as we made our way across.
“Thousands of times,” he replied, “especially across the bay.”
He was pointing at Alcatraz. I couldn’t help but shudder at the thought. That prison wasn’t exactly known for being a fun stay, and escape had been nearly impossible. If the guards didn’t get you, the frigid waters or the rocks or the sharks would.
“Right.”
We went in the main way, up toward the end of the pier. It was actually a decent-sized wharf with many shops and restaurants, including an upstairs area. I’d been here a couple of times on calls, but nothing relaxing.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
I scanned the area for anything out of place. While I could see things that others couldn’t, it didn’t mean I could sense people or anything. That was Reaper’s department.
“Do you notice anything wrong?” I aske
d.
“It’s quiet.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “There’s nobody here. Usually there’s at least a vagabond or some security guards or even just people strolling around.”
Based on the portal when we were heading out, local time was a little after 11 p.m., so it wasn’t completely odd that the place wasn’t teeming with activity, but there still should have been at least someone around.
“Can you sense anything, Reap?”
He paused for a moment and his eyes dimmed. Then he began moving his head around as if searching for something. Finally, he stopped.
“No,” he said. “There is nobody around. We’re alone.”
“Then why would the chief send us here?”
“Maybe we just didn’t arrive in time,” Reaper replied. I looked at him and he put up a hand. “I know our perp’s a werewolf, and that they tend to do their worst in the middle of the night, but it could be that he’s already fed in this area and has since moved on.”
“Fair enough,” I acquiesced. “Let’s pull up a full track on him, then, and see what’s up.”
I tapped on my tattoo and ran a full check on him.
Lucien Bane worked in the tech industry as a software architect. His record showed he’d been topside for the better part of twenty years, was forty-two years old, and had a record that was squeaky clean. No missed Netherworld returns, never had the need for a deep reintegration, and even acted in the role of liaison for new supers who were becoming acclimated to living with normals.
“Did you read this guy’s record?” I asked Reaper.
“Of course,” he replied. “I did so before we portaled here. Did you not read it?”
“I knew his name,” I replied, recalling how that had gotten me in trouble the last time I’d done that. “Anyway, he seems like a decent guy.”
“I would agree.”
“Then…” I paused and looked up. “Keller?”
Reaper nodded at me. “If he’s truly involved, Mr. Bane wouldn’t have had a chance.”
This Keller guy seemed like more of an asshole every time I heard his name.
Bane's Edge: A Piper & Payne Supernatural Novel, #2 (Netherworld Paranormal Police Department) Page 2