"What about the woman who was with me? Did they ask about her?" Selene was terrified but it wasn’t her own safety that concerned her the most. It was mine.
"They only asked about you. Why was you in the Zone? What were you looking for?"
"And you told them."
Michael nodded even though the question had been purely rhetorical. "They didn’t seem interested in your concerns, like they thought they were well above that sort of thing. They did wonder whether you would come back in here. I told them we don’t usually tolerate your kind in here. They didn’t take that as a no."
Selene seemed to read something from Michael’s words or his face that I would have missed, indeed I did miss it. Selene was suddenly on the alert. Her first glance at the bar on her way in had taken in much more than I would have given her credit for. She instantly locked on to the table where a young looking man, though he wasn't a man or wasn't just a man, had been sitting. The table was empty now, but a barely touched drink and a folded newspaper attested to the fact that it had been occupied until recently.
"They left a watcher."
I have never seen Selene back down from a fight I have never seen Selene voluntarily skip out on a battle before it has begun. I got the sense that if this had been any other foe but Alavigne and her ilk that Selene would have stood her ground and taken them all on. Somehow I got the sense that it wasn't the combat that Selene feared, she wasn't afraid to die. Whatever this Alavigne had planned for her Selene considered it a fate worse than death.
I had never thought it would be a word I would ever use where Selene was concerned but she fled the bar. She ran as though she was prey instead of a hunter and I knew that in this case that was an accurate description. Because I already knew how this would end.
Like a movie, or a book, where the ending is a sad one and you wish you could just stop it before it gets to the part with all the heartache and let everyone live happily ever after, I wanted to get out of Selene's head. No, it was more than that, I wanted to steer her down another path than the one she had already trodden. But it was futile, just as you know that whether you stop that movie or put that book down it will make no difference, the characters will still suffer whatever they were intended to suffer, I knew that this was the path Selene was fated to travel.
Selene wasn't enough of an optimist to let the sight of the twin fences that marked the boundary of the Zone buoy her up. She knew that for Alavigne the boundaries of the Zone made no difference. What did a ruler in an alternate realm care about human imposed boundaries in the mortal realm?
Selene was up and over the first of the fences in almost the blink of an eye. If I hadn't been stuck in Selene's body my heart would have jumped into my throat because I knew we were getting close. I wanted to be looking around to see where the attack would come from.
"Selene. Hear me!"
I was yelling in her head but she couldn't hear me. Perhaps if I tried something more direct? I strained with everything I was to make it different. If I could take control of Selene . . .
I was too late. In truth I had been too late since I first experienced this, whatever it was. But living this through in Selene's head everything seemed immediate and I had just run out of time.
The first impact hit on the hip. I felt it at the same time as Selene. I screamed out even though I had nothing to scream with. Selene remained silent.
The bounty hunter dived for the ground. Twisting about in mid-air she had weapons in her hands and I had no idea how she could have armed herself without me noticing. Her reactions were just that fast. She opened up with twin machine pistols before she hit the deck. There was no time for me or her to notice the pain of that impact before another trio of hits like the first caught her low in the body.
Selene might have been able to handle the pain but it was too much for me. Selene had her eyes open and she was firing back at her attackers. She knew she had suffered mortal wounds and her only thought was to take as many of the fuckers that had done this out with her. For my part I was still trapped in Selene's head. But worse than that I was trapped in her pain. I felt it like it was mine. I felt like it was my life's blood flowing out of me with every beat of her heart. I felt like it was my lungs that were being overwhelmed by fluid so that I was drowning ion dry land. And I didn't have the strength that Selene had to fight back. Whatever fuelled her and made her strong it just wasn't there in me.
I tried to fight back. I tried to make myself see who was doing this to my friend. This had to be why Selene had willed the ring to me. So that I could see her last moments and get her revenge on the people who had killed her.
But I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't even close to seeing when I felt something in Selene change. It was as sudden as hitting a switch. Selene had come to the point where even she couldn't hold off the inevitable anymore.
Her last thought as she succumbed was of me.
And then there was nothing.
I came to flat on my back with Fluvius standing over me. I don't recall ever having had occasion to look up at the gremlin before. He looked very different from this perspective. I could see all of the white hairs in his nostrils that matched those from his ears.
"Are you all right?"
I was amazed to find that nothing hurt. At the least I should have been feeling the pain of being blasted across the room. But the only pain I felt was emotional. I would have traded the emotional for any amount of physical pain in a heartbeat.
"I was there. I re-lived Selene's death." I was also amazed to find my voice working. “We need to go there, we need to look for her ring.” I couldn’t explain why, but a desire to locate Selene’s ring was the strongest feeling I had carried with me following the vision.
Fluvius looked at me questioningly and drew a silver chain out of his pocket. Selene’s ring caught the light as it spun close to the ground in the gremlins hand.
“Selene always said if anything happened to you she wanted you to have this,” he said. “But the way you asked about it . . .”
I took the ring from his hand, too confused myself to really acknowledge the question implicit in his statement.
Fluvius cut back to the more important part of my vision. "So you saw who did it."
There was no mistaking the anger in his tone. I hadn't realised he and Selena had been that close. For a fleeting instant I wondered whether they had ever . . . I dismissed it as none of my business.
Almost absentmindedly, as though it was an action I had done a million times before even though I never wore jewellery, I unhooked the chain that Selene's ring was attached to and fastened it around my neck. Without looking I tucked the chain so that it was out of sight under the collar and front of my blouse. It felt natural to have the cold silver resting on the bone between my breasts.
"I didn't see them. But I know Selene was on to something. She had discovered something about my case but that isn't what got her killed it just brought her to the attention of some very bad things she had been doing her best to avoid."
"So we can't get vengeance for her?"
Vengeance, another thing the elders didn't tolerate. Another thing I was unused to. Another urge I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep apart from myself. With a start, not quite an epiphany but on the same frequency, I realised that I didn't want to keep fighting against these urges anymore. Whoever had killed Selene deserved to have some major vengeance wreaked on their asses. And I suddenly knew that I was just the girl to wreak it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I got someone around to fix my door, after they were through I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get rid of the graffiti from the front of my apartment. I just wanted to get on with something. Something mundane to occupy my body and take my mind off things.
I succeeded at only the first of those. Still, half a victory was half a victory.
"You look busy. I hope I'm not interrupting."
I dropped the stiff brush I was using to clean some of the pa
int from my wall back into the bucket at my side.
Agent Frost walked along towards me. The afternoon sun made his white shirt glow with an almost ethereal light, and I knew ethereal. The shirt was mainly tucked into a pair of light grey trousers with just a flap to the side having come loose. His tie was just a little too loose to be smart but it seemed to suit him perfectly. It matched the lopsided smile he flashed at me on his approach.
I didn't know whether I was really up to it, but I managed a smile of my own in response.
"Have you been having trouble?"
Hah, how do I respond to that? I went for partial honesty. No need to volunteer everything, especially not with Selene being a witness/suspect in a case Frost was investigating.
"Just some graffiti. Not very pleasant but nothing serious."
"You sure? Something seems to be bothering you."
"You don't know me, Agent Frost. How would you know if something was bothering me?"
I spoke more harshly than I had intended. For all that I had only met the man twice I liked Frost. The way he had affected me at the club there was every possibility that I more than liked him.
Frost's smile faltered and I could see that he didn't know how to look at me as I got up off the floor. "I . . ."
I shook my head and picked up my bucket. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that."
"Something is bothering you," Frost spoke softly.
I nodded but didn't elaborate.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
With Selene gone I was down a friend. Frost couldn't take Selene's place but he could be another kind of friend. But not if I pushed him away even before we had gotten to know each other.
I shook my head. "It wouldn't do any good."
We were standing outside my apartment. Frost glanced over the edge of the balcony and at the sun.
"It's a nice day, but . . ."
He let the word hang. I'm not overly used to entertaining normal human company so it took me a second but then I got it.
"Sorry," I pushed my door open. "Would you care to come inside?"
"Thanks."
As soon as we stepped inside I wished that I had invited him to go for a stroll or something instead. My apartment wasn't up to much at the best of times, but if I had known I was going to be entertaining company, and company who I might like to impress I would have done something with it first. But by then it was too late.
Frost was the perfect polite guest. He made no comment as I hurried past him to adjust the sheets on my bed. There was no way I could make it back into a sofa without a load of hassle, this would have to do. Besides there were other things I had to do. I went to the back of the room and closed my wardrobes. It wasn't just my clothes I was bothered about him seeing. I had brought a selection of the weapons that Selene had had at her office away with me. If I was going after revenge I had to have the proper tools. Revenge, that would was still bitter in my mouth but there was something deep inside that took a certain satisfaction from thinking about it. No-one really likes to acknowledge that dark part that lives inside, if we angels truly were as divine as certain believers would have of us I wouldn't even have one. Perhaps Halberd was right and I had been living here too long, I already admitted that there were ways that living here had changed me. Not all of them for the better.
I was snapped out of my ignorant introspection by Agent Frost."
"If I had called ahead, I would have to ask if you were trying to tell me something. This wouldn't exactly be the most subtle of hints. Although it would be pretty hard to ignore."
"What . . ?" My voice trailed off when I turned away and I saw what he meant.
He sat on the bed, where I had motioned for him to sit. In my rush I hadn't realised that I had put him up at the pillow end and that I had left my night clothes on top of the pillow. Frost was sitting there holding a sheer white negligee. Okay, so a negligee is more the sort of nightwear associated with impressing a partner rather than for a single woman to wear for comfort. But the same way that I liked to wear attractive underwear when I was the only one likely to see it I liked to make myself look good when I went to bed. Some might try and say it was some sort of misplaced vanity. For me it gave a different sort of comfort. Back home everyone always looked good no matter what they were wearing even though we lacked the impulses to act on it. Making myself look and feel attractive reminded me of home.
I couldn't help but blush when Frost looked from the skimpy garment to me and raised his eyebrows. "Forget hard to ignore and think impossible to resist."
If I had been new to the realm I might have gotten the hint but it wouldn't have affected me like this. I checked my shields and they were up. I wasn't getting anything from Frost and I had done my best to cut myself off from my own feelings. So why was my body reacting in the most exciting ways to his mere words and a look in his eyes?
"I'm sure you didn't come around here just to tease me." I was too confused to come up with some flippant comeback. I smiled to make sure he didn't mistake my words as meaning I was angry at him for his joke.
He didn't and the lopsided smile was back. "But it's so much fun."
"Do I get an invitation to come around to your place and poke fun at your choice of night wear?"
"Only if I'm in them at the time and you don't poke too hard."
I grabbed the negligee out of his hands and stuffed it down the side of the bed where I was sitting. "I'm sure I'd need a good aim to be in danger of hitting anything important."
"Maybe one day you'll get to test that theory, but only if I get to see you in that as well."
"When that day comes I would have thought it would be you who wanted to do the poking."
I couldn't believe I had just said that. This was only the third time I had seen the man and here we were sat on my bed flirting like crazy. Selene would have been impressed. Fluvius would probably have thought we were being tame.
Frost looked shocked, but in a good way. "You aren't exactly what I would have expected from an angel."
"I can do wings and a halo if you like but I'd like to wait until the third date before we get into anything kinky." I could almost here the words as if Selene were speaking them. This was so much more like her than me.
"Not that this. You know in Sunday school they used to teach us that real angels were all sweetness and light, that sort of angel wouldn't be sitting here flirting with me."
"Would you prefer that I sit here and act all frigid and aloof?"
"It might make it more of a challenge."
I laughed. "You think I'd be easy."
"Umm . . ."
"I'm just messing with you. But seriously what brings you around here? I can't imagine Agent Stern would be best pleased to learn that you had paid me a social call."
Word and thought of the senior NIRU agent killed the sexually charged atmosphere dead.
"This isn't exactly a social call." Frost was serious again.
"You have a lead in your investigation into that spontaneous combustion thing."
"Sort of."
Frost was being more than serious, he was being reticent. "Sort of?"
He couldn't look at me. Not a good sign. "You didn't tell me that you knew the woman on that security tape."
I had no problem looking at him. "You never asked."
Frost shifted on my bed and forced himself to look at me. "We know she wasn't human. What I need you to tell me is whether she was involved in what happened to those people."
I shook my head. There was no point in denying anything, besides Selene hadn't been involved and even if she had been they couldn't do anything to her now. I gave him the story of what had happened as Selene had related it to me.
"And you believed her?"
"She agreed to help me in exchange for my help looking for her Mr X."
"And that's why you accompanied her to the SNQEZ?"
This had gone someway past simple business. "Is this an interrogation, Agent Frost?" I used his formal t
itle to put back the distance our earlier play had stripped away. "Do I need to get myself a lawyer?"
"I just needed to get you to confirm a few things. For what it's worth I believe you believed your friend."
He hadn't said he thought Selene was telling the truth just that I believed that she had done.
Also; "You know she's dead don't you?" I kept my voice completely empty because I refused to break down in front of Frost. We might still end up as friends or something more. "You keep referring to her in the past tense."
"I'm sorry."
I couldn't really tell from his tone but he might have meant it. "Thank you."
He was watching me for my reaction when he said; "Agent Stern is investigating her death. There are signs that indicate it could be related, a part of the same investigation. We found . . ."
I spared him the trouble of telling me. "You found her cut up, in pieces."
"Yes. How did you know?"
I ignored him. "I want back in to help."
Frost shook his head before I had finished. "Stern will never go for it. He didn't trust you before and if I go to him now."
"I didn't lie to you."
"But you didn't tell me everything you knew and Stern is fast enough that he will catch on to that."
"I have to help."
"I know she was your friend and you want justice for her."
I shook my head. "It isn't just that. Stern was right. Anything that could get Selene can't be human. You are hunting a non-human, something so bad it could tear a demon bounty hunter into shreds."
He shook his head again and tried to give me sympathetic eyes. "You're personally invested in this now. You would be too close to be objective."
I stood and Frost did the same, he'd been in this line of work too long to let someone try and intimidate him by standing over him. "I have access to lines of inquiry that would be closed to you. Just let me come to where you found her and see if it feels like the same killer did this. You at least need to know if there's more than one butcher out there cutting people up."
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