by Kimbra Swain
“Oh, well they are 3-inch heels, because I didn’t want to seem taller than you,” I replied.
“Why? What does that matter?” he finally laughed.
“Male psychology,” I smirked.
“Please, give me a break,” he laughed again. He never let go of my hand. “They are nice shoes.”
“Why, thank you! I was beginning to think you didn’t even notice,” I felt myself getting way too comfortable with him considering the friendly banter. I had made sure that all my bruises were healed up right after I had grandfather remove the binding on me. Before that, I had looked like a semi ran over me.
“I noticed,” he said, “and I apologize, I should have told you earlier that you look lovely.”
“I clean up good,” I replied and he laughed again, “Thank you, Tadeas.”
We walked up a block and turned right and headed a few blocks to Central Park in Boulder. We walked in silence. He took my hand and placed it in the crook of his arm. He took position between me and the street. I had debated over my entire wardrobe that I keep in Colorado at the compound which existed in a very small closet in my office, and I made a call to my home. I opened the door to the closet portal in my office and I waited. Within a few minutes, a hanging dress bag slid through the portal. I picked out this white eyelet lace Zimmerman dress. Now, not everything I own is designer, but this was a special occasion. I matched it with a nude pair of strappy Jimmy Choo heels. I thought it looked good. I hoped to look innocence since I had none in this situation. At least I could look innocent. We walked along the Boulder Creek in the darkness. Being outside after dark always made me nervous. The bad things of the world chose the night as their playground, and I wasn’t really dressed for a fight.
“Why are you nervous? Surely you don’t think I’d hurt you,” Tadeas broke the silence.
“Ok, first of all, the fact that you know I’m nervous is a little strange. But no, I’m not afraid of you at all. I’m afraid of all the monsters in the dark,” I replied.
“You know what I am,” he half-questioned, half-stated.
“Yes, I do.”
“Then you should know I’d never let anything hurt you while you are in my care.”
“I thought this was my gig,” I responded. He played the guardian role here with me as he did with his students. It made me feel warm and safe. Probably inherent to his kind and abilities.
“You gave me authority over tonight back at the restaurant when you said you were an open book.”
“I suppose you could see it that way,” I responded with a smile. He walked over to a bench next to the water and sat down. I followed him over and sat next to him. He watched the shadows. I saw his eyes flick to the yellow I’d seen once before. “See anything?”
“No. Seems pretty quiet.” The park was well lit and there were a good number of people out walking and jogging. Several couples walked by laughing and chatting.
“So, it was a job interview,” he delved back into the situation.
“Yes, of sorts. The job is already yours. The deception was unnecessary. I see that now.”
“What is the job exactly?”
“For years I worked with a man named Lincoln, and we established the proxy system in the Western Hemisphere.” The basis of our Agency was to have a human proxy in each large city whose job it was to have an ear to the ground in the government as well as the social scene. Each proxy was assigned canvas leaders and crews based on the population of the city that they covered. These canvas crews were not much more than street gangs and other young groups depending on what was popular in the city. They would frequent the hot spots and were trained to look for rising supernatural threats in the city. There was a process of reporting these instances back to the proxy who would report back to the Agency, and the Agency would send out investigators to handle any threat they deemed to be large enough to be handled by the proxy and their crews on their own. The proxies reported to a Regent. There are 2 in the US, East Coast and West Coast. There is a proxy each for Canada, Central America and one for South America. The West Coast Regent covered the Pacific islands as well. Most of them in place today, I had a hand in recruiting. The human proxy was generally a man, but we did have a few women like Maria Espinoza in Miami. They were a wealthy and well-known business person in the community. In many cases, we would have to spend several years establishing the proxies in a city. Getting their name out to the city at large and the powers that be by attending art functions and contributing to local charities. We also had a large network of law enforcement officers who were aware of the monsters in our world who could aid us with info to help eliminate threats that arose. “Twenty-five years ago, Lincoln was murdered, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to continue that work until now. The proxy system is failing, and I’ve volunteered to revamp it. Along with how we train canvas crews. Technology is spinning forward so quickly we can barely keep up. We’ve got to become more adaptable and stop losing too many crew members on the streets.”
“You want to change how I train, how we train crews?”
“Yes, that’s one part of it. I know that you know far more than I do in that realm, and had hoped you would have ideas on the best ways to approach it. Ways we can keep these kids alive longer.”
“I have always followed the protocol set forth by the Agency, but I have a ton of ideas how we could make it better. It does need to be changed. I may put out full classes, but I know once they hit the streets their life expectancy is very low. That’s why it bothered me so much with you, with Rachel” he stopped mid-thought.
“I really hate that name,” I offered a half smile.
He looked down into his upturned palms, “Yeah, me too.”
“I’d rather not hear it again,” I said.
He looked at me and put his hand on mine, “Me too.” He paused for a minute and continued. “I knew with your situation I would be putting you out on the street, but honestly we don’t do much more for those who complete the program. The support system isn’t strong enough. They fall through the cracks. We may teach them to fight all the monsters to the best of their abilities, but they need more than fighting skills. We are failing them.”
He was passionate about this. I had hoped for as much. After watching him push through several classes, I know that he spent far more individual time with recruits than any other instructor. From being in his class, I had discovered just how much he put into each class and each student. “What else would be required of me?”
“Well, I don’t like going into situations alone. Part of why our training is bad. It’s always better to have a partner. It’s even better to have a whole team to confront issues. We need to be teaching these kids in pairs or teams. Teach them to use each other's strengths and cover each other's weaknesses. But outside of the combat training, I and my team respond to the high threats that the proxies and regents run up to the Agency. Sometimes they come across a powerful black magic wielder and need us to come in and neutralize the threat. These guys never work alone either. Most of them operate in a hierarchy system, a boss with minions. It's what makes what we do better and more effective. We work together as equals, and I prefer to have a partner, plus my team. And finally, I have to establish new proxies. Because we generally chose regular humans with no abilities because of their highly open and in the public eye positions, they age and tire of their responsibilities. We have a long list of proxies who are ready to retire. I’ve got to start choosing and establishing new proxies.” I watched him process all the information. He looked down at his watch. It was past 10pm. “I’m sorry. Do you need to get back? I didn’t mean to keep you out so long.”
“No. No, it’s fine, Abigail. I have nothing to do until Monday morning classes. It is getting late here though. We are pushing our luck sitting out here in the night.”
“I’m pretty sure the two of us could handle anything that came along.”
He smiled, “Yes, I’m sure we could, if you weren’t wearing t
hose heels. But let’s not if it isn’t necessary. I want to continue the discussion though. I feel like we’ve barely touched the surface of this conversation.”
I stood and looked at him, “If you trust me, I have somewhere we can go.”
“Where?” he asked looking up to me.
“Can’t tell you it’s a secret,” I said and winked at him. He laughed and stood up.
“Okay, but I’m driving.”
We walked back to the restaurant and across the street to the valet lot. In the midst of the empty lot sat a beautiful metallic black Mercedes S63 AMG coupe.
“You’ve got to be kidding me?” he scoffed.
“What? It’s a great car,” I said.
“It’s a $200 thousand-dollar car!”
“Yep, you should see my other car though. I think you would like it better than this one.”
“What else do you have?”
“A fully-restored steel grey 1967 Mustang Shelby GT.”
“An Eleanor? Can I drive it too?”
“Sure, if you agree to be my partner,” I smiled.
“That’s my kind of bribery,” he said.
“It’s a done deal?” I asked.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Abby. Get in,” he opened the passenger side door for me. I really didn’t like anyone driving my car, but I indulged him as much as I could. He waited until I was in and lightly shut the door. He crossed in front of the car keeping his eyes alert and searching for any threats. He slid down into the car and sat for a moment admiring the dash and burl walnut wood accents. I giggled at him.
“Push button start. Let's go,” I said bringing him back from his daydream.
“Where to?” he said.
“Let's take this thing back to the compound, and I’ve got somewhere we can go from there.”
“Can I take the scenic route back?” he asked with a youthful excitement in his voice.
I laughed at him, “Sure.” And he shifted into gear and headed in the complete opposite direction from our destination. He turned and looked at me and grinned. If I had known all it would have taken was to let him drive my car I could have saved myself a lot of bruises. I mused over this thought and several others while he took his joy ride. Hell, I could have just bought him one. But looking back, being in his class did help me to understand him better, perhaps the whole thing wasn’t a complete fuck up. Just mostly.
“I know what you are thinking,” he said as he drove.
“What am I thinking?”
“You could have just bribed me with a fancy car.”
“Ludicrous! I would never consider you to be such a simpleton, Tadeas Duarte.”
He shrugged and kept driving. The last turn we made directed us back to the main road to the compound. He took us back. He drove the car into the underground parking garage, and I showed him where I normally parked it. We both got out and he handed me the key back. “I keep the key in the top drawer of my desk. You are welcome to it anytime.”
“Still trying to bribe me?” he asked.
“No, I don’t think that will work, but the offer is there just the same.”
“Thanks, Abby.”
We entered the sparse building that was the cover for the underground compound. As we approached the elevators, I noticed that he started to tense up again. Something about being here made him feel the need to be professional. This wasn’t a bad thing, but I can’t imagine all the time he spends in the compound working with classes and whatever he did with his spare time had to get boring. The doors opened, and we stepped in. I hit the #4 which would take us down to the level housing my office with the Agency. It was a fairly deep compound, an old military installation at one time. The Agency has many offices and training facilities. This is just the main one for the Western Hemisphere. The doors opened and we approached my office. Standing just outside the door was Meredith Spence.
“Meredith, what are you doing here? Is something wrong?” Tadeas asked as he picked up his pace to reach her before me.
“I’ve tried to call you multiple times tonight, and you didn’t answer. I was worried.” He glanced down at his phone.
“No missed calls, Mere. I don’t know what happened. Why were you worried?”
“Because I haven’t talked to you since the beginning of the day, and I didn’t know how you were feeling after this morning,” she said looking over his shoulder at me. She had that whole disdain thing going on again. She looked at me head to toe, then back to him and his suit, “But I can see, everything is just fine after she lied to your face for months. You just going to head out on a date with her? What the hell, Tadeas?”
“Um, right here,” I said and waved. Honestly, I was just trying to lighten the mood a little, but she didn’t take it that way. Okay, maybe I was provoking her. But only a little.
“You shut up. I’m not here to talk to a lying bitch,” she spouted. Tadeas put his hands up between us like we were on the verge of a fight. I just laughed, and opened the door to my office and stepped inside. I shut the door behind me. I didn’t need to be in the hallway to hear what she said to him. I listened anyway.
“Meredith, really? That wasn’t very nice,” I heard him say scolding her, “We went out to dinner to talk about why she was in the class and what happened. It wasn’t a date.” He spoke kindly to her in soft tones to try to calm her down. He obviously had some feelings for her.
“I can’t believe you. Distracted by a pretty face, and she’s probably set a spell down upon you. She’s a powerful wizard. She’s heartless and doesn’t give a second thought to you and your life and what you are trying to accomplish. She came in to YOUR class and made a mess of things,” she practically shouted. No need to eavesdrop, she wanted me to hear.
“Meredith, please calm down. Let's go downstairs and talk about this. You are right on all of those counts, and it’s why we went out to talk about it. As a matter of fact, it isn’t resolved, but I do understand it a little more now. Please, Meredith. I’m fine. I appreciate your concern, but Abigail Davenport isn’t the first wizard I’ve ever met. I doubt there is a spell she could put on me that I wouldn’t know about immediately. I’ll tell her that I’ll talk to her tomorrow, and we can go downstairs and have a drink.”
“She doesn’t deserve you to have to explain yourself to her, Tadeas. You are an idiot. I can’t believe you’ve done this.”
“I haven’t done anything, Meredith. Just please wait here,” he said and I heard a light knock on the door.
“It's not locked, Tadeas,” I said. He stepped in the room. His eyes and face were filled with pain. I rose from my desk and spoke, “Look, she’s right. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. Just go see if you can get her calmed down. I’m sorry to have caused any friction between the two of you. I hadn’t realized that the two of you were together.” He waved his hand in the air and shook his head. He approached the desk and stood across from me.
“No, it’s not like that between us. She just is upset, because this morning rattled me. She’s pretty sensitive to those kinds of things. Can we meet up sometime tomorrow to finish our discussion?”
“Sure. You name the time, and I’ll be here. I wanted to take you out to my home. If we have time, maybe I can show you tomorrow.” I walked around the desk to him and took his hand. His brown skin contrasted against my pale hands. His hand felt warm, but rough and used. “I’m so sorry, Tadeas.” He squeezed my hand back.
“How about 10am? Want me to meet you here?”
“Yes, I’ll be here.” He released my hand, and turned toward the door, “You really do look great in that suit,” I added. He turned his head back to me, and I could see the light of a smile in his eyes. He just chuckled a bit and waved a dismissive hand at me. He opened the door and walked out.
I could hear his voice turn to a stern cadence as they walked down the hallway back to the elevator bank. I heard her say as they got in the elevator, “I didn’t know you had a suit like that. You look great in it.” I l
aughed out loud to the empty room and everything seemed to stand still and quiet. It was past midnight, and early into Saturday morning. I turned to the closet door, and opened it. The closet concealed the portal to my home. I stepped through regretting that he wasn’t coming with me. We still had many things to discuss. I just hoped we could pick back up tomorrow morning.
I woke up to hear voices at the end of the hallway. I woke up alone which always has a lack of appeal when you know you went to bed with someone beside you. Chito was here. I heard his deep baritone along with Mwenye discussing matters that I assumed they did not want me to hear. I listened in anyway. I tuned out everything around me and focused on their voices.
“Do you think the old man would join us?” Chito asked.
“I would think it would be in his best interests,” Mwenye replied. “And if it isn’t, we will bring his long life to an end.”
“He finds a way to survive things. Even Lincoln couldn’t put him down, although all the legends said he did.”
“Legends and stories always favor the heroes. But we all know the true endings, and we also know the heroes aren’t always who they claim to be,” Mwenye said. “For example, I know for a fact that Miss Davenport is quite well versed in the dark arts. She would put Miss Vaughn to shame. I would give anything to see her walk the edge of darkness and slip off into my bed.”
I felt the anger rise in me, but I dismissed it. I needed to know their plans. My only advantage would be to know things they didn’t know I did.
“I doubt that would ever happen, my dark friend. However, the extra materials are being stored in Boulder. We will have access to them whenever we choose to take them out,” Chito said. “In the meantime, I’m going to cause a little trouble for some of the individuals there. Hopefully I can get my hands on that jaguar. I do not have a jaguar in my collection.”
“You are repulsive, Nalusa. There are shifters who are great allies to us. You should not stuff them or cut off their heads to display on your wall,” Mwenye said. I knew he never liked Chito’s hunting practices, but he was very good at what he did.