"She knew she could lose you at any time. The spouse of any soldier, police officer, or fire fighter knows exactly what that's like. Are you suggesting that they shouldn't get married or have relationships?"
"Well, no..."
"You see what I mean about selfishness? Had your wife been so selfish, you would never even have had the chance to love her. You wouldn't even have the good memories. Yes, you would also have been spared the bad ones, but at what price?"
He gave her a long, speculative look. “Hmm. It seems I've misjudged you,” he said.
"How so?"
"I still don't think a lot of your management style,” he admitted. “You're more a hands-on, micro-manager than I think is appropriate, or necessary, but you pay attention to things I would never have noticed in the first place. Maybe it balances out somewhere along the line."
"Maybe it does. I'm not as easy-going as you are, Deryk. Some people need more direct supervision than others. Your methods might have worked for Shea Industries for a time, but when I stepped into the driver's seat I nearly lost control immediately because too many of your key people were used to too much autonomy and resented the idea of anyone else having a say in what they were doing.
"And I certainly couldn't let the PAC stumble around without real direction. We're under a lot of fire from people like Seymour, and Congress and the President are getting kinda antsy. They've been rumbling about disbanding the PAC itself and putting authority under the control of the Justice Department."
"That would be a mistake."
"As it happens, I agree with you. But they have some valid arguments. We are a little arrogant for our own good. We're not really answerable to anyone, except maybe the President, and the current Commander in Chief isn't exactly comfortable with the responsibility. He doesn't really understand the paranormal and I don't get the impression he wants to.
"We've been lucky so far with the media. Frankly, I'm surprised. The costumed vigilante groups have been regularly eviscerated but they've pretty much left us alone. I don't know if it's fear, or respect, or simply because they have so many more vulnerable targets. It's not easy to slip someone inside our operation to dig up dirt.
"Hell—my people barely answer to me. It's damn hard to convince Congress that they'll ever answer to it. Raven maybe the worst of the lot, as far as that goes. But we need him doing exactly what he does—we can't afford to have some jumped-up lawyer second-guessing his operations. They try to weigh him down with too many rules and we'll see rogue vampires popping up all over the place."
"Have you seen the proposed Paranormal bill they've got up there now?” Shea asked.
She nodded. “Yeah—and I'll tell you right now ... I don't like it. They're assuming too much. We're hanging on by our fingernails as it is. The best we can hope is to keep anti-social behavior to a minimum by scaring the crap out of anyone who'd consider it. If they try to put a bunch of regulations out there and tie us up with bureaucracy things are going to go to hell in a heartbeat."
"We're on the same page there,” Shea remarked absently, setting the model on the edge of her desk not presently occupied by her butt. “Best case scenario with politicians trying to make decisions about things they know nothing about is that whatever they come up with will be functionally useless. Worst case—it could cause a major explosion. The last thing we need is for the paranormals to take exception to something and go ape-shit."
"They're back to the metahuman registration thing again. This time it has a real good chance of passing. And I don't think President Walker is going to veto it."
He rolled his eyes. “Phenomenally bad idea from the get-go. What do they want us to do—hunt down and lock up any who don't comply? Stupid. They also want to ban the creation of new vampires and lycanthropes.” He shook his head in apparent disbelief. “How do they really expect to enforce that?"
"The best way to get that message across is by backing up Flynn's vampire coalition idea. Let the vampires police themselves. At least to some extent. By creating a sub-culture of their own, they can at least put pressure on one another to conform to some standard of behavior."
He grinned at that. “Why—what a remarkably libertarian viewpoint, Athena!"
"Oh, shut up.” But there was laughter in her eyes when she said it. “So what do you think we should do about all this?"
He mulled it over for a minute. “I assume they'll call upon the experts for testimony. That would mean you ... and maybe me. It's still in committee. I'm surprised we haven't heard from them yet."
"I have. I'm supposed to testify next Friday."
"Oh. They might not call on me at all. Too bad,” he added, with an evil grin.
She visibly winced. “I doubt you calling them a bunch of jackasses is going to help our case any, Deryk."
"Hey, I'm capable of being more diplomatic than that."
"Barely."
He shrugged, conceding her point. “Maybe the best option would be to draw up a counter-proposal. So far they've left a lot of it in the PAC's hands because we've been willing to spend our own money rather than theirs. But the lack of oversight is starting to weigh heavily on them, especially considering Seymour and his cronies are howling like a bunch of werewolves with knots in their tails."
"Werewolves don't have tails,” she said with a smirk.
"Hey—I know that."
"Uh-huh."
* * * *
"Wonder what they're talking about,” Amanda murmured, some moments after they'd left.
Loki gave her an unreadable look. “At first she was telling him he was a selfish bastard. Then they started talking politics. Now they're just kidding around."
"How do you know that? You can't possibly hear them."
"It's a talent,” he remarked flippantly.
"It's also annoying,” Raven commented with a wry grin aimed at the Trickster.
"Isn't it?” Loki snickered.
+
+
Six
She was frightened. Frank had come home smelling funny again. He'd picked her up from the babysitter early, leading her across the hall with a strange look in his eye. She knew what it meant and couldn't help but let out a small sob as he unlocked the apartment door and led her inside.
She sniffled as he quietly closed the door behind them and shed his trench coat. He started unknotting his tie as she crept backward toward the couch. She knew what to expect when he got like this. Nothing good. He hurt her. Bad.
He looked angry now. “What?” he asked. “You act like a dog that's been beat too much, you little snot."
She cringed as he stepped toward her, a sneer twisting his lips. “You're about a useless little bitch, aren't you?"
She'd never known her father. Her mother had married Frank right before she'd gotten sick. At first Frank was okay, but as her mother grew more ill, he'd become mean. The less her mother could do, the nastier he'd become.
Then her mother had been taken to the hospital and never came home. Frank had left her with the babysitter and come back angrier than ever. That was the first time he'd really hurt her.
She wished she was old enough to go to school. Then she could tell a teacher. She tried telling her babysitter, but the grandmotherly old lady either didn't understand what she was saying, or didn't want to believe her.
So here she was, stuck with Frank again. “Please."
"Please what, you little slut?” He grabbed her by the sleeve and yanked her to him. “Come here and give Daddy some sugar."
"You're not my Daddy!” she cried, trying to push him away. He pulled her into his grasp and forced his face closer to hers. His horrid breath washed over her and she gagged. He shoved her back onto the couch and practically leaped on her. She screamed and bit down on his hand as it clawed across her sweatshirt.
He tore his hand free and she screamed as he lifted her by the front of her shirt and swung her around toward the fireplace.
Jaz jerked her head around at the sound of a ch
ild's scream. She whirled toward the building, hand stabbing out to grasp a wayward mana strand. She had a transit tube up and was stepping through it before the cry died away.
She stepped through the heavy brick wall and into a scene of madness. A fairly large man had a little girl no more than six or seven years old held tightly by the collar of her sweater and was swinging her with great force toward the fireplace mantle.
Jaz leaped forward, hand extending as if trying to stop what she saw happening in front of her eyes. “No!"
She brought up her magesight and clawed for a mana strand. It took too long. The little girl's head hit the mantle with a sickening crunch.
Almost without thinking about it, Jaz transformed the thread into a katana and slashed it across the man's throat as he started to turn. She dodged aside as the body fell and watched it crumple to the floor with a kind of sick satisfaction. She stepped around him and crouched beside the little girl but quickly confirmed her fear that the child had been killed instantly as the base of her skull struck the brick mantle.
The cause of death was such that, had she even been willing to bring her back by binding her soul into a body that would no longer age and survive by feeding off the psychic energy of others—like the psychic vampire Gavin Chase—it would be impossible. Damage to the brain, particularly the primal brain located at the top of the spinal column, assured instant and final death for even a vampire or lycanthrope.
She took a deep breath and went back into magesight as she stood up and backed away. The little girl's soul rose from the body, a bright, amorphous mass with few distinct features about it. I'm so sorry, she told her silently. Just a couple seconds too slow.
From the man's body emerged a darker mass, shot through with red streaks and far more distinct than the girl's tender, nearly unformed spirit. He seemed to look around, then, as he spotted the girl's soul, he lunged for her.
Jaz stiffened, raising her mana forged weapon as if she hoped to kill him again. But, as she moved forward, a woman's shape appeared between him and the girl. This soul was brilliantly white, so well defined that Jaz recognized her instantly as the ghost of the woman whose picture sat on the mantle itself. She lifted her hand and a ball of effulgent power flew from between her fingers, striking the dark spirit and sending him hurtling the opposite direction at such speed that he seemed to simply vanish from Jaz's ‘sight.
The ghostly woman turned and regarded Jaz almost sadly, then reached down and took the girl-spirit's hand. She appeared to speak, but magesight didn't allow one to hear into the spirit realm. A moment later they simply grew so bright that Jaz was forced to look away. When the radiance died she looked back and saw nothing but two crumpled bodies. One small and fragile looking, the other not nearly as destroyed as she would've liked.
She dispersed the mana sword and formed a transit tube, leaping away from the apartment as quickly as she could manage and arriving at her destination with her eyes glimmering with unshed tears.
* * * *
Chaz bolted upright in his chair as she stepped out of nothingness a few feet in front of him. He dropped the object he'd been holding in his right hand as his other spasmed by his side. A long piece of surgical tubing had been wrapped just above his elbow and he had one end gripped tightly between his teeth. He sat in a wheeled office chair next to one of the lab tables, a Bunsen burner glowing fiercely beside him.
"What the fuck are you doing?” she asked in a snarl as she felt the transit tube collapse behind her.
"You scared the shit out of me!” he snapped, reaching down and retrieving the hypo from the floor where it had fallen. He held the needle over the flames of the ‘burner for a long moment, then leaned down to retrieve the end of the surgical tubing with his teeth. He tapped the hypo to clear it of air and fired the red/brown liquid through his flesh into the vein in his arm.
He shuddered and the hypo fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. “Ah, hell,” he sighed.
"What is that?” she demanded, striding over and picking the hypo up from the floor. She gave it a tentative sniff. It didn't smell like anything she recognized. “Heroin?"
He shook his head, frowning. “Of course not. I'd never touch that stuff."
"You could've fooled me,” she growled back at him. “I would've sworn you wouldn't do what I saw you doing just now. This sure as hell isn't insulin, and you sure as hell aren't diabetic."
He flinched at the rancor in her voice. “C'mon, Chaz. What the hell are you doing?"
He let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “It's called Memsher. A new memory-enhancement drug that just hit the street."
"Are you freakin’ crazy? It just hit the street?” She stepped forward and hooked her fingers into the collar of his lab coat, lifted him into the air, and then reached down and stripped the tubing from his arm with her free hand. “I ought to rip your arm off and beat you unconscious with it.
His eyes widened and he glanced down at the floor, some six inches below his dangling toes. “Christ, girl, I know you're a para, but damn!"
She tossed him back down into the chair. The impact sent it sliding back to slam into the wall behind him with a loud thud. “I can't believe you'd be so goddam stupid!” she snapped out. “You don't know anything about this drug. Did you at least take it to Loki?"
He winced, rubbing at his neck. “No. I just heard that it really works."
"From who? Some street mug?"
He shook his head savagely. “No. An attorney who works out of one of the offices across the street from the city-county building."
"A lawyer?” she groaned. “That's worse than a street mug."
"What's up with you, Jaz?” he asked, frowning up at her. “You're wound up tighter than I've ever seen you."
Oh, I just watched a kid get killed and slashed the throat of the guy who did it, she thought, but all she said was “I jumped in here to find you shooting up. Hardly surprising that I'd get a little worked up about it. I'm going to take this to Loki and see what he can tell us.” Goddam idiot. “What the hell do you need a memory enhancement drug for anyway?"
"The mobile ‘gate module calculations are busting my skull,” he said. “I can't figure out what we're doing wrong. I'm missing something and I need something to help me find out what it is."
"That's a load of crap, Chaz. Is this the first time you've shot this stuff?"
He nodded, trying out a tentative smile on her.
She didn't respond in kind. She could barely restrain her anger enough to speak intelligibly. Giving him the slightest sign of encouragement was out of the question. “So you have no idea what kind of side effects there are, or whether it's at all addictive. You're a fucking genius, Chaz—how could you be so stupid?"
"We need that ‘gate module!"
"Ain't going to do us a hell of a lot of good if you poison yourself and die before you can figure it out,” she shot back. “Stay here. If you're not sitting in that chair when I get back, I'm going to track you down and kick your ass from here to Seattle. You got me?"
Without waiting for a reply she turned and ‘tubed out.
* * * *
Shea hated crime scenes. This was only the third he'd been to with Breed since all this began, and each one created a whirling emptiness in his gut he knew he wouldn't be able to rid himself of easily. For some god-awful reason, Breed seemed to have a need to visit every murder scene personally. Not so much to supervise the detectives or the CSU, but to—as she put it—'get a feel for the circumstances.'
He wasn't even sure what that meant. She didn't elaborate. At least not at first. As Shea looked down at the body of the little girl, and the corpse of the man who'd obviously killed her lying in a deep crimson pool of his own blood, she let out a long, ragged sigh. “What's the score on this one, O'Leary?"
The primary detective, a lean, washed-out looking fellow with at least three days of five-o-clock shadow spread across his jaw glanced up from his PCD and echoed her sigh. “Strange one, boss. Downstairs neighbo
r heard a child scream, then a woman yell “no!” then the sound of two bodies hitting the floor. She had the good sense to call nine-one-one. When the uniforms showed up they had to kick the door down to get in. This is what they found."
"Forced entry?"
He shrugged. “Doesn't look like it. CSU is doing a preliminary, but no sign of it so far. All the windows are intact and well-sealed. The only obvious entrance is through the front door."
"Huh. Who are the vics?"
"Guy is named Frank Basker. Kid's his stepdaughter, Trisha. She is—was—seven and some change. I'm telling you, boss, I've got a real bad feeling about this one."
"Yeah. Me, too. Smells paranormal to me. Let me know what you find out—if you get anything hinky we'll call the PAC in."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Where's the mother?"
"Dead. Probably from a bad reaction to a metavirus about a year ago."
"Shit. Wouldn't you know it? That just sucks. A family gone to pieces in such a short time."
"Yeah,” Shea grunted. “It is indeed a shame."
She wasn't certain if he was serious or not and turned to look over at him. She hadn't expected it, but there was pain shining in his dark gray eyes. She really hadn't expected him to care that much about one mortal family, but perhaps she'd been misjudging him. It certainly looked that way, at least. “We'll leave them to their business."
He gave a single, brutal nod. “Sounds like a good idea."
He didn't wait for her, striding toward the door and out into the hall without another word.
* * * *
"I've seen this shit before,” Loki admitted, shaking his head vigorously. His wild red hair, a little longer than Jaz had grown accustomed to seeing on him, lashed at the empty air. “It does as advertised, but there's a big downside."
Her eyes narrowed. “How does it work?"
"Last I heard you weren't that interested in the scientific details, Jaz,” he said, grinning. She shot him a silent snarl in exchange for his smile.
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