“Angela,” Key sniffed. “Nice.” He reached into his light jacket and removed his CID badge and identification. “Yes, Doctor, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Dearden looked down at a digital tablet on his desk, taking a moment to tap it twice. “Why on Earth should I allow that?” he asked, not even looking at Key.
“Because you don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
That brought his eyes up to meet those of Key. It did the same for Rahal.
“Don’t I?” Dearden inquired.
“I hope not,” Key answered bluntly. “This child, if that’s what it is anymore, has been infected by something way beyond any known disease. As near as we can tell”—he looked pointedly and a bit reprovingly, at Rahal—“it has little blood and is fueled by the full potential of the body’s electrical power, to the point that it can summon enormous strength both physically and mentally.”
“Mentally?” Dearden echoed noncommittally.
Key sniffed at what he obviously considered Dearden’s disingenuousness. “She can, and has, clouded people’s minds. She can even render herself invisible to cameras.”
Rahal looked wide-eyed at the man she had chosen months ago to be her lover. Then she looked at the man she hoped would be her new mentor, waiting for his disbelief.
But Dearden only laughed. “Oh,” he said. “Children’s stories for a sick child? So, like many of the ignorant villagers I have had to contend with, you believe these legends and myths?”
Key was unfazed. “Yes,” he answered flatly. “And I think you do too.”
That stopped Dearden’s laughter—replaced, instead, with incredulousness. “Why?” he exclaimed. “Why, in the name of all that is sane—why?”
“Because you’re laughing about it,” Key accused him. “That’s not a normal reaction. If you thought I was serious or nuts, you would be disbelieving or concerned. I’ve got a badge. I’ve got a gun, for what that’s worth. But you’re behaving in a condescending way, which means you not only believe in them, you know they exist.”
Rahal’s eyes shot back to Dearden, waiting for any reaction Key might find credible. She found a man who was watching the Cerberus agent like a stubborn student.
“Do you know that if you cut down all the nerves going to the human heart from the human brain,” Dearden said calmly, “the heart will still beat? Do you know that if you dissect the brain, heart, and lungs, you will find cells that are capable of independent existence?” Key didn’t bother answering, knowing Dearden didn’t expect him to. “In a world like this, what need do I have of myth and legend?” The doctor shook his head. “Now, especially, I’m afraid you won’t be allowed to take Angela from us.”
“Afraid?” Key echoed with raised eyebrows.
Dearden smiled sadly again. “Perhaps ‘afraid’ is indeed ill-chosen,” he agreed. “In this case, ‘unlikely,’ may be more apt.”
To any witness other than Rahal, it would appear that the two men were completely within their rights and characters, with no hint of anything more sinister. But to her, the two seemed to be wrestling for her soul: one representing rationality and the other spirituality. Now she was waiting to see which one would overturn the chessboard first.
To her disappointment, it was Dearden. “I am obviously forced to remind you, Agent Key, that to claim custody of a child that has been removed or retained in breach of custody rights, one must first supply the identity of the applicant, of the child, and of the person alleged to have removed or retained the child—in order to prevent further harm to the child, or prejudice interested parties, by taking, or causing to be taken, provisional measures.”
“No,” Key said diffidently. “You do not.”
Dearden raised his hands in the most apologetic way he could. “Now we could call the local authorities and start this long, drawn-out process, but, really, would that be in the best interest of the child—and interested parties?” Dearden seemed as if he was about to continue, but then did not—instead looking at Key as if the doctor was a cat that had just eaten a veritable flock of canaries.
Key grimaced, then looked at a spot on the wall between Dearden and Rahal and muttered, “Chuck?”
“Between Cerberus and the Frontage Medical Institute?” Lancaster said in Key’s ear. “No contest.”
“Did you say something?” Dearden asked Key. Key held up a cautioning forefinger.
“I’m sure you agree his reference to ‘interested parties’ could be a veiled, effective, threat,” Lancaster continued quickly. “But since you wouldn’t want to say this aloud in the present company, I will. If he is something other than a doctor, the clever bastard has not conclusively tipped his hand. But if he is actually who he says he is, it’s best C1 stays.”
Key lowered his finger. “I’m afraid,” he said, using the word knowingly, “we don’t have the time to pursue a legal course, do we?” He emphasized the last inclusive word in the statement.
Dearden looked as if Key had just given him a prize. He spread his arms. “I’m always here,” he said munificently. “And I can go anywhere.”
To Rahal’s renewed surprise, Key barked out an amazed laugh at the possible shamelessness of the statement. He lowered his arms and stared at him in something close to admiration.
“I have no doubt, doctor,” he said. “I have no doubt.”
He stepped over to take Rahal’s arm, then stopped and sardonically looked back to Dearden for approval.
“Are you willing to go with him, my dear?” the doctor asked solicitously.
More than anything else, it was his dry, almost patronizing, use of “my dear” that suddenly made Rahal see him in something less than a heavenly light.
“Yes,” she said resolutely. She stood unsteadily and allowed Key to help her. “Thank you, doctor. You will keep me apprised of Angela’s condition?”
“Oh,” Dearden answered, sitting behind his desk as if they were already gone. “Most definitely. You can rest assured of that.”
At this point, all Key wanted to do was get out of there. But just as he guided Rahal out the door, Dearden called to him. “Agent Key?”
Key stopped in the doorway and turned.
Since there was just the two of them now, there was no longer any doubt. Key saw, and felt, the human-shaped thing that could have been a doctor ten times over. And the human-shaped thing wanted him to see, and feel, it.
“I rarely get the opportunity to talk to someone like you, Josiah,” Dearden said honestly. “I truly enjoyed it.” Key waited, robbing Dearden of the opportunity to stop him short again—a fact that elicited an even wider smile from Dearden as he looked pointedly at Key’s left ear. “And you may rest assured that I will be learning even more in the unlikely event we ever get to do it again.”
Chapter 18
A solo Safar was waiting on the roof, the F. B. Law motor running, since Gonzales was busy back at headquarters.
He hardly waited for Key to swing over—after all but throwing Rahal in—when he launched the thing into the sky. As always, Lancaster had already done his magic to clear the multiple countries’ airspace for Cerberus’s fast, powerful, unusual conveyances—giving the team plenty of planning time.
“Shouldn’t we just mount an offensive—go in there and take this smug bastard down?” Daniels immediately suggested in Key’s ear.
Key replied as he nimbly cupped Rahal’s head in one hand and popped a specially made EQ device into her left ear with the other.
“He’s already gone, Morty,” he said, managing a smile at Rahal’s look of growing, mind-clearing, awareness. “And I bet so is his nurse, the ambulance driver, and Angela. General, if you have any agents nearby, feel free to have them check, but wasting our time on an offensive would be just what they want. The worst thing that could happen is that they’d still be there. Pardon the cliché, but it would be verit
able lambs to the slaughter. Comes under the category of standing on a railroad track with your arm out.”
“I don’t get it, Joe,” Nichols chimed in. “Why didn’t Dearden just kill you both?”
“Damn good question, Ter,” Key replied as he stared off toward the international airport where the Lawgiver waited. “I’m guessing he couldn’t take the time, or risk, to hide our bodies. Whatever this guy’s end game, it’s coming rapidly to a head. He obviously can’t afford any distractions or roadblocks.”
“What is the end game?” Lancaster wondered.
“That’s the best question, sir,” Key told him. “He gave me a pretty impressive stink-eye at the door that didn’t just say ‘I know something you don’t know,’ it said ‘I know a shitload of somethings you don’t know.’ He seemed to be looking forward to screwing with us in general, and me in particular.”
“Aw, Christ,” Daniels groaned. “What is that all about?”
Key sniffed, going over the confrontation in his mind for the dozenth time. “He was clearly puzzled when he couldn’t get in my head, but then seemed to take it as a welcome challenge. He really came off as a bored brainiac, general. Someone who’s seen it all, done it all, and now just gets his jollies tearing the wings off flies.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Daniels complained, “but couldn’t you be mistaken, Joe? Couldn’t this guy just be some mad scientist on a power trip? I mean, it’s one thing when we’re dealing with killer babies and monosyllabic monsters without clothing, but this oily sonuvabitch? Let me add that I really, really want you to be mistaken, Joe.”
“Maybe he’s the Renfield,” Gonzales mused, “and Z1 is actually the Nosferatu.”
“What?” Daniels demanded, befuddlement being piled upon confusion and concern. It was a wicked stew for a man easily unfocused.
“The servant,” Gonzales clarified in dead-earnest. “The fly-eating domestic serving the vampire lord.”
“Stop it,” Key snapped. “He wanted to spook us. He succeeded. Let’s just stick to what we know without the fiction. The only thing that’s obvious is they wanted Angela, and used Eshe to get her.”
“But why?” Nichols wondered. “Why Eshe?”
“No,” Key informed her. “The proper question here is ‘why Angela?’ Eshe was just a means to an end.”
“To clean up the evidence Z1 left behind,” Daniels said as if there weren’t any doubt.
But there was. “No,” Key disagreed. “Then they’d just destroy her.”
“You mean, they can destroy her?” Daniels retorted.
“Probably more than we can,” Nichols muttered.
“Look,” Key interrupted impatiently. “It doesn’t matter, okay? What matters is that whatever they are, they still got something bad going down, and now we know that they know that we know, and they are not happy.”
That quieted everyone, and in the verbal silence, Key realized how much the race to find Rahal had taken out of him.
“All right,” Key sighed. “There’s a couple of hours before we can get back. Morty, Terri, use this time to rest. Can’t be sure when we’ll be able to do that again.”
“Gladly,” Daniels said.
“Speedy, Faisal, you know what we need and want. General, has Lailani arrived?”
“Here, Joe,” he heard her shrill Filipino tone.
“Good,” Key said. “Lailani, if you would compile and cross-reference all the information you know or can find on life and blood feeders—concentrating on the powers that most of the myths share—”
“Already started, Major,” Lancaster informed him.
“Yes, Joe,” Lailani laughed, sounding like she was really enjoying herself. “When you land we’ll have everything in one place for you, okay?”
“Okay,” he said with relief. “Now, general. Let me talk to Dr. Helen. Private line, please.”
He turned to see if Rahal was listening, but she had already curled up on the seat beside him and was fast asleep.
* * * *
Key had wanted to get a head start on his own Vampires’ Greatest Hits once they got back on board the Lawgiver but just couldn’t muster the concentration. Like almost all the Cerberus air fleet, the Lawgiver had a crew section, with a kitchen, bath, shower, and bunks far beyond the norm. Lancaster took advantage of his myriad industries to stock all his places with advances unavailable to the general public—from bed sheets to toilets.
Key saw to it that Rahal managed to make it to one of those luxurious bunks before he retired to one of his own. Although he was tempted to join Safar in the cockpit, he knew his priorities. But those priorities went out the window as soon as he lay back on the sumptuous sheets and laid his head on the amazing pillow.
He was only wakened by a sensation he recognized—the silken feel of Rahal’s naked body sliding next to his. The first time it had happened was when he had found a similar moment of rest in the Hispanic Mechanic’s Thumrait Workshop just before he was set to do battle with the Arachnosaurs. Then, like now, it was Rahal who made the decision to share herself with him.
Until then, she had been a young, sheltered medical student more devoted to science than sins of the flesh. But in Key’s arms she had learned quickly of its honest pleasures. Using his own strength and experience, combined with her knowledge and love of biology, they reached heights of sensual satisfaction neither had experienced before or even knew were possible.
Rahal had to admit that Key had an optimal body, and Key had done the same in return. Although covered in floor-length abayasare sheaths, head scarves, and even masks most of her life, the body beneath, through no plan of her own, had developed its own natural shape without fault—resulting in seemingly perfect breasts, shape, legs, and flanks, all wrapped in soft, buttery flesh the color of café au lait.
Since that first time, they had shared a bed whenever they could, collaborated beautifully in their mutual ecstasy, then slept peacefully and soundly in each other’s arms. And because both were dedicated to their important work, it was the most mutually beneficial and appreciated relationship either had ever had, with no emotional fallout, ramifications, or complications. To Key’s satisfaction, Rahal didn’t even know what those were.
She didn’t have to stimulate him now. Her presence alone was enough. All she had to do was slide herself on his firm shank, seemingly fitting as certainly as a Yemini jambiya dagger in a specially made, perfectly sized scabbard. The head of his member moved unerringly to her G-spot as his fingers found her clitoris. Her pleasure was his as she undulated, and rode, atop him.
“Thank you,” he heard her whisper into his chest when they were done. “For saving me.”
He shifted, feeling her firm, teardrop breasts swell against his torso, as her splendid back pressed into his hands.
“Oh, don’t think you can bribe me with just your beautiful body,” he teased, his hands lowering to her rear. “I’ll want a piece of that beautiful mind, too.”
He looked down to see she was looking up at him with deep, glowing, haunted eyes. “I hated it,” she immediately informed him, surmising what he wanted. It would be what she would want to know if the situation were reversed. “I thought I was thinking clearly. I thought I was myself. But with each illogical moment—when I left without detection, when I went through passport control—I ignored the cries in the back of my mind. Those were the cries I attributed to C1 and even Z1. Those were the cries I thought were trying to hurt me, not help me.” Tears began to form at the corners of her eyes. “I was so certain!”
He held her as she quaked against him. As usual, her sobbing was short-lived. The scientist mind took over. “It’s an immediate, more effective, more concentrated and focused kind of brainwashing,” she decided, wiping her face in his chest hair. “They must have an encyclopedic knowledge of exactly where in the mind to stimulate, and where to dampen.”
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“Like the Chinese scholars who spent centuries testing every pore with their fingers or needles to find how the nerves all interplayed,” he suggested. He felt her stiffen in disagreement and certainty.
“Yet even those scholars were like blind men trying to comprehend an elephant,” she said. “They could only feel. Even the ones who could see were outside the mind. These”—she tried to think of what to call them—“these demons are on the inside looking out. We are on the outside looking in. They know things we will never know.” She smiled mirthlessly. “The Daoists say that what we do not know can affect us as much as what we do know—and what we do know is infinitesimally small about all things.”
“I don’t like those odds,” Key said.
“They are meant to inspire you to engage more with the unknowable.”
Key gave her ass one sharp spank, eliciting a look of surprise, then a knowing, accepting, smile.
“These beings—not the Daoists—may know stuff,” he said, “but they’re turning it into shit.”
Her smile widened as her eyes closed, and she laid down on him. “Yes, yes, I know,” she breathed. “Villains are stupid, because if they weren’t stupid, they wouldn’t be villains.”
“That’s right,” he drawled as he held her close. “Anyone who attacks is an idiot, and has already lost. Then it’s just a matter of knowing enough to take advantage of it.”
Suddenly she pushed up off his chest to stare directly in his eyes. “How do you do it, Joe?” she asked intently. Knowing he rarely responded to rhetorical, baiting, or unfinished questions, she elaborated. “How can you be so warmhearted and loving, but sometimes so cold-blooded and unemotional?”
He smiled as if he had been waiting for that question all their lives. “Seemingly cold-blooded and unemotional,” he corrected. “It’s just that I know the—”
He was interrupted by the “prepare for landing” alert. The bell was pleasant; less so the sound of the engines decreasing. The respite was ended. They could feel the sensation of the jet losing altitude. Key slapped Rahal’s other butt cheek.
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