by Kim Faulks
The hairs on my arms stood on end. My heart picked up pace, thundering like a runway locomotive as I scanned the doorway. Something was coming…
Redemption turned, giving me one last glance before he headed for the doorway.
Stop! Redemption…stop!
The words filled my mouth and then plunged, ramming back down my throat. I stumbled forward, breaking the line, but he was already gone, stepping outside the building. There was something coming, something that brought with it a promise of destruction.
“Hey, Lorn. You’re up.”
I turned at the voice and stared at Glory. He took a step, reached out, and brushed my arm. “Girl, you okay? You don’t look so hot.”
I tried to nod…tried to speak. Tried to do anything but stumble back in line and wait for the receptionist to wave me forward.
One motion of her hand and I was sidling up to the counter. “Lorn Payne.”
“Lorn…” she scanned the list… “Oh, here we are. You’ve been assigned a red.”
I nodded weakly. I didn’t care…not anymore. The switch was unexpected, and yet I didn’t care about the assignment, didn’t care how fucked the system was. A system created to pit one hunter against another in an endless battle to do better…to be better.
I sucked in a breath, and the air left on a shudder. Don’t play their games…don’t ride their never-ending wheel.
“Here’s payment for the Lawson job.”
She slid across a cashier’s check. Ten dollars and sixteen cents. I lifted my gaze to the terror in her eyes. Ten dollars for one job, ten for the other…last week was only five jobs. Fifty bucks to last me a week…I tried to force a smile, but…couldn’t.
“They can cash that for you at the front.”
I grabbed the check and the file with its cherry red job card and headed for the door.
Break the wheel.
Break…the wheel.
Break that fucking wheel…
The thud of my boots resounded, slamming the thought through my head. I strode past the elevators and punched through the door to the stairs. They thought they could break me, thought they could push me into either walking out or losing my temper.
I gripped the steel railings and raced down the one flight of stairs to the front. My breaths were harder as I punched through the doors and headed for the front desk.
“Lorn,” Melanie shoved to a stand behind the desk.
I turned, eyeing Gerald, as he waved people through.
“Sorry about Gerald before. He gets a little overzealous on assignment days.”
“It’s fine,” I muttered and slid the check across the counter.
She grabbed the slip, eyed the amount and sighed. “They do this on purpose, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”
Voices drifted down from the floor above. I lifted my gaze and caught Redemption deep in conversation with Veronica, and he didn’t look happy.
He leaned forward and gripped the bannister at her side. The move looked seductive at first glance, but I stared a little longer.
His face gave little emotion, and that’s where it ended.
Redemption as deadpan as a zombie? Never. The sonofabitch exuded confidence. He was sex on two legs when he wanted to be, charming the pants off anyone—including me.
But this…whatever this was…wasn’t charming. He leaned close, whispered something in her ear, and leaned back. She didn't answer, not for a second or two, and, when she did, it was with a nod of the head.
What the fuck were those two cooking up?
As though he'd heard the thought, Redemption turned his head and found me. Coins clattered against the marble counter. I wrenched my focus from above to grasp the money in one fist.
“Thanks…thanks, Melanie.” I took a step backwards.
“Wait!” she called, and shoved up from her seat. “My cousin’s first gig is Saturday at a bar downtown. I know you liked his music before.” She shoved a ticket my way.
Hopeful eyes….always so damn hopeful. Humans were always the same, and yet, for the life of me, I couldn’t shatter that look. I gave her a smile and snagged the ticket from the counter.
Wicked. I stared at the print. The bar…the damn bar was called Wicked? “Thanks,” I raised the ticket. “I can’t wait to be there.”
Her smile lit up the damn room. Brown eyes sparkled. “I’ll see you there,” she gushed. “I knew you’d come…I told him…told him you would.”
Oh God, she was ruining it now…smashing it into the damn mud under the heel of fucking enthusiasm.
I backed up slowly, not risking a glance at the first floor, and then turned for the door. The money crumpled in my grasp. Rent, food…fuel. I tried to make the numbers—but whatever way I worked it, something had to give.
Gerald gave me the damn stink eye as I passed. I didn’t even acknowledge him, only hightailed it out of that damn place as fast as I could.
I winced into the sun and dragged my hand high. Where was the damn solace of the night when you needed it? I made for my car, taking one long look at the black Maserati, while inside my head the snide damn comment surfaced…You wouldn’t like it. It’s last year's model.
It must be worth what? One-fifty…two hundred? One look at my pathetic ride was all I needed. Last year's model, huh? Not only was the smarmy bastard quick to rub my nose in his money, but he was prepared to sacrifice me at the damn meeting…and what for?
To save face.
Break my damn back to climb a little higher up the ladder.
I kneeled down at the front tire. I’ll hit him where it hurts, the only place it does fucking hurt…in his over-inflated ego.
I skimmed the heel of my boot and pressed the outer curve of the base. A section popped out, enough for me to snag the end and yank the short double-edged blade free.
I jabbed the blade into rubber. The tire hissed, and then slumped to the ground in a huff. The front corner of the car dropped hard as I stood, watching. Something fluttered free from the grill to catch a tiny breeze.
A square…transparent.
The drug.
A sting raced across my palm as I lunged, grabbing the square before it hit the ground. Oww. Goddamnit. My fingers unfurled, I stared at the small sleeve as it melted into the long gashes from the night before.
Fuck. I flicked my hand, casting the fragment free, and stumbled.
But it was too late…far too late. I could feel the drug slipping into the wounds, finding a way through flesh…hunting for the one thing it wanted.
My pulse raced, throbbing with a thunderous beat. The sound shattered my mind, booming and banging, pulsing the point in between my eyes.
Clouds shifted in the sky, stealing away the sun.
Darkness that devoured the light…
Darkness that seemed to swell inside me, and out of the darkness came the faint flicker of flames.
“Lorn?”
Flames that engulfed the sides of my vision.
Flames that roared inside my head.
“Lorn, it’s Titus…” Desperation etched his voice.
Hands gripped me…squeezing, lifting, as the words tore from my lips. “Drug…accident. Help me.”
I caught the faint turn of his head. And that throbbing…bones pulsing, pushing all the way into the back of my skull as the flames turned into an inferno.
Screams filled my head. Screams and terror as pain flared, carving all the way along my spine. And out of those sounds came the vision. Flames and torture and terror…I was in a cavern. Shadows clung to the rock walls. I glanced to the light…to the red and orange glow from the fire.
And out of the darkness came a sound…a voice, deep, masculine…calling—calling for me.
“Jesus Christ…Lorn…Lorn.”
My knees buckled as the fire bled away, but it wasn’t the ground that hit me…it was the night. The night with all its terror. The night with all its pain.
And as the flames swallowed me, I felt his
hands under my body, lifting, cradling as he growled. “I’ve got you. You hear me, Lorn? I’ve got you!”
Chapter Four
I inhaled and rolled. Softness under me moaned until a spring gave a twang. I crawled my fingers along the soft blanket and tried to reach for my head. Agony beat a damn drum between my ears, clustering along the top with a savage bite, and carried all the way down.
“Hey…hey, there. I wouldn’t move if I were you.”
Something soft pressed against my forehead. I hissed at the cold and tried to open my eyes. Too bright…sunlight speared through the cracks.
“Turn off the damn light,” I moaned, and slammed my eyes closed.
The surface under me dipped and then rose…a mattress. Someone’s bed…The clatter of blinds echoed before the blinding glare eased. Better…so much better.
“You okay? Had me worried there for a moment.”
His voice seemed to close in from all sides. I opened my eyes, blinked into the faded light, and stared at an empty bedroom.
“I think the worst has passed now.”
Worst? I tried to remember, tried to think, but the beat of the drum in my head was an unseen nail, pushing all the way through. “What the hell happened?”
A shadow moved as Titus Banks sat on the edge of his bed. “You, my friend, ingested Sigil.”
I wrenched open my eyes and shoved upwards on one elbow. The room spun, sparks ignited in my head like damn flash bombs. “Ingested…no fucking way.”
“Way,” he murmured and reached for my hand. I wanted a warm caress, and all I got was a hard grip as he tuned my hand palm up. “You grabbed the damn drug with bare hands, and it bled into your cuts. Don’t they teach you anything in that damn place? Never, ever touch a drug without gloves. Now, what I want to know is, where the hell did you get it?”
Where did I get it? I tried to remember, tried to think. The Circle…the meeting…getting rammed up the ass by Director dickhead Horton…and Redemption.
Redemption…black car…punctured tire.
I dropped my head at the scolding and looked to my boot as the rest came to me in a rush. The drug came from the grill when the tire deflated.
Drugs hadn’t been a problem before, not like this. It was a human thing, not a supe thing. All us freaks needed was a drop of damn pure blood, or a good incantation.
Not this…
“It was on the ground, that’s all I know. I went to check out Redemption’s car and saw it there. I thought…hell, I dunno what I thought. Shouldn’t have picked it up.”
“No, you shouldn’t have…but you did. I’m expecting the worst is over, but you’re going to have some residual effects.”
And now he sounded like a pain in the damn ass. Where was the fucking good news in all this? I glanced at the neatly made bed, and then the empty room. There wasn’t a nightstand, not even a damn dresser. The place looked hollow. Where the hell was I? Not my place, that’s for damn sure.
“How about some coffee, and then you can tell me about the effects?” Titus leaned backwards as I gave a weak nod and then stilled.
This was his place…he brought me to his damn place. His eyes glinted as though he was waiting for me to say something about the lack of furniture. “Black,” I muttered. “I take it back.”
One nod of his head and he was gone, striding from the room. The clatter of cups came a second later. I collapsed my arm and hit the mattress. What an idiot. What a damn idiot. Touching the damn drug like that. What a rookie move. I lifted my hand and stared at the long gouges on my palm.
The flesh itched, and not the niggling, healing wound type of thing. It was a bone-deep nagging, like a junkie on their last fix, already looking ahead to the next taste. I clenched my fist and then relaxed. Something flared under the skin…a mark, cutting across the flesh of my palm, and then up toward the wrist. I swallowed, stared at the mark as the mark took hold…like a…sigil. A whimper savaged my throat as I shoved from the mattress and gripped my hand.
“Lorn?” Titus called. Heavy footsteps raced, and he was there, standing in the doorway. He shifted his gaze to my hand and took a step closer. “What’s going on? What do you see?”
“There,” the whimper was weak and pathetic. I didn’t care… “Can’t you see it?”
His touch was so gentle, unfurling my fingers, bending down to peer at my flesh. “I see the cuts from your nails, that’s all.”
Concern filled those eyes as I pointed to the mark as it slowly faded. “See there, it’s a triangle, upside down, and a cross through it.”
He peered closer, following the damn lines in my palm. That wasn’t it…that wasn’t the damn thing I saw. I stared at the flesh, and found nothing, no mark, no damn sigil. No triangle with a cross.
“I don’t see it,” he murmured, and then lifted his gaze. “But I believe you. I don’t understand this drug yet. I’m not sure if what it’s showing you is real, or imaginary. So if you saw that on your hand, then it could be important.” He straightened and held out his hand. “Coffee is just about done, let’s drink and try to work out how we’re going to tackle this…sudden change of events.”
I stared into his gaze. He was talking weird, what’s with all the we and let’s. My throat tightened as the meeting reared in my head. Policing duties…isn’t that what that toupee-wearing, trash-eating Director wanted?
Was this what Titus had in mind? The bullshit cases, well…this one, anyway. Load her up with a rigged workload and then give her a knight in shining armor?
He gave me a weak smile and turned. This time I followed, shoving my way to the side of the mattress, and slipped from the bed. There was a photo sitting on the a set of drawers a wedding photo of a young couple in love.
I stared at a younger, more alive, Titus. He even smiled into the camera, arms wrapped around his new bride. Jealousy flared as I stared at the young blonde. Red lips were curved, the beauty spot above her upper lip made her a little glamorous. She was pretty, with an honest face and dark eyes. But there was something about her. Something about the smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was hiding something, keeping a secret from her husband.
The clink of a cup wrenched me back into the moment. It was none of my business…not Titus Banks, or his damn marriage.
The rest of the house looked even worse than the bedroom. The living room was empty, except for a milk carton doubling as a TV cabinet and a small, ancient TV.
“Black, right?” He muttered, eyes down, focusing on the damn coffee.
But I could tell he was embarrassed, stealing glances along the counter, but unable to meet my eyes.
“Just like my soul,” I answered, and stepped around to the two high-backed chairs under the breakfast counter. “Man, she really did a number on you, didn’t she?”
There was no answer, not that I expected any. “The sink? At least she left that.”
The tight curl of his lips was all the answer I got. “Basically, anything that wasn’t grouted in or nailed down was fair game.”
I turned my head to find an empty dog’s bowl in the corner of the room. Man, she even took the dog. That’s cold…
He slid a mug across the counter and motioned toward the open bowl of sugar. I leaned across, grabbed the teaspoon, and heaped three teaspoons into the coffee before I stirred.
“So, the drug, can you explain the effects?”
He took a sip and then leaned forwards.
I wanted to answer, give him all the details I could. But the meeting and the sudden increase in duties just stuck in my throat. "First, let’s clear the air. You asked…no, you demanded Director Horton release me to you to do…whatever it is you human investigators do."
“I asked for assistance, not specifically you, to be exact…but I was hoping.”
“And this was after last night’s epiphany, was it?” I mean, the guy's emotions were giving me whiplash. “So now, thanks to you, I’ve got this as well as my own bullshit case to close. You want to sit here and drink co
ffee like we're both cool, then that’s fine. But you screwed me, Banks, and it wasn’t as enjoyable as I'd imagined.”
“It was supposed to be in lieu of your normal duties,” he muttered. “That was the arrangement, three days with me trying to get a handle on this damn drug, and a clear workload for you.”
I flinched with the sincerity. Even if you didn’t know the guy, one look at his face and you knew he was telling the truth. He didn’t know…I mean, how could he? Sonofabitch Horton was just itching to bring me down. I lifted the mug, took a long draw, and winced.
“Not the best, I know. But it’s hot and there’s plenty.”
Yay for me. I glanced around the kitchen, eyeing the hanging copper pots and muttered, “So, you what, brought me here, to your house? Your damn bed?”
“I had nowhere else to take you, unless you prefer I'd left you wailing and thrashing in the goddamn street. You were on fire, Lorn, well, you thought you were on fire. And you were, and summoning something, or someone. You almost incinerated my damn car.”
Incinerated? I stared into his eyes and tried to remember. The feeling was slow, building like a tempest on a hot summer’s day.
“What did you see…tell me, and then maybe we can try to get a handle on this.”
“It was like nothing I’d ever experienced before.” Fire and flames…hot…so damn hot.
A bead of sweat broke out at the back of my neck. I lifted my hand, finding corded muscles all the way to the base of my skull.
“You were calling for someone. Do you remember? Do you remember anything at all…any person, any thing?”
“Calling? Calling how…”
“Latin…I’m pretty sure it was Latin, you were calling a name and then repeating ego inferia sum…ego inferia sum. Over and over.”
Ego…means I. I…something. I shuddered with the thought of summoning someone or something and took another gulp of this stuff he called coffee.
“This drug is dangerous, and I’m not talking demons-who-commit-mass murder dangerous. I’m talking on a global scale. I want to know who’s selling it. I want to know who’s making it, and I want to shut the entire thing down. That’s where you come in.”