by S Mays
“Now, now, don’t go asking a girl personal questions on a first date, hon. That’s just bad manners,” she replied.
“Seems kind of unfair that you know everything about me.”
“I just broke your butt out of jail and saved said butt from one grade A bad-ass mofo, so I don’t think I owe ya too much.”
“Who the hell was that guy?”
“Code name’s Reaper. He’s a top Slayer for the Order. I’ve got no clue what he was doin’ there, because he wasn’t on any of the lists, and guard duty is definitely below his pay grade.”
“What do you mean by Slayer? I’ve heard that term before, I think.”
She gave him a disbelieving sideways glance. “You really don’t know much, do ya? Stalkers infiltrate or gather data and eliminate light to medium threats. Slayers assassinate top-level threats. They don’t come much nastier than those guys. Fortunately, there ain’t a lot of ’em.”
“How did he do those things? The swords he had…the fact he could block your shots?” Sverre asked.
“Slayers have their own gifts, just like you and I do. Honed to perfection, and always wearing the latest and greatest tech the Order has to offer, just like James Bond. Reaper hails from Japan, so there’s no tellin’ what he’s got under that cloak at any given time.”
“How did he stop me with that sword of his?”
“Don’t know. What am I, Wikipedia? You’re lucky I know as much as I do about most of this crap, because you seem to know two things, jack and shit.”
“Where are we going?”
“Sheesh, enough with the questions, already! We’re headin’ to Chicago, where I can dump this crate, make some scratch and check in with some of my contacts. I’ve been out of the game for too long, but, you know — things never change.”
“I’ve got to get back to my friends.”
Izzy burst out laughing, glancing at him several times, checking to see if he was joking. “Not sure if you realize this, bud, but you ain’t got no friends. Your ‘friends’ are the ones who locked you up in there. Hell, I’m all you got now. You try going back there, and you’ll be right back at Inquest in a day, if they don’t liquidate you on the spot. You are going to be a renegade the rest of your life, hunted by that agency no matter where you go.”
“We’ll see,” he said, determination in his voice.
They arrived in a wooded area miles away from the city shortly after. Izzy was a very skilled pilot. She slowly brought the craft through an opening in a canopy of trees and landed. She typed a few commands into the console, and the exterior of the craft faded away, resembling the foliage around them. Noting Sverre’s interest, she explained.
“There are hundreds of miniature projectors and cameras on the hull. The cameras capture the environment from all angles, and the projectors display that image on the exterior. Almost as good as invisibility, but not quite. Makes it impossible to spot by satellite, and you’d have to be within about twenty feet of it before your eyes noticed somethin’ was off.”
“What about tracking devices?” he asked.
“Oh, shit! I never thought of that!” she said in a panicked voice, opening a small hatch and looking around it in an exaggerated manner. “Of course I already disabled those, before we even left. The false flight pattern I loaded into their radar system shows us heading for Mexico.”
Sverre was becoming slightly annoyed that every question was being met with such hostility.
“I said to trust me. I’ve been at this game before you were in junior high,” she said, walking off through the trees.
“How are we getting into the city?” he asked, wincing that he’d asked another question. She didn’t mock him this time.
“Well, we walk three miles this way, and I call a cab to pick us up at a rest stop. Car trouble, you see.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Heh, don’t worry, I think I can scrape together cab fare,” she said, smiling as if she knew something he didn’t.
At the rest stop, they hid in the bushes while Izzy patiently waited. Cars, trucks, and RVs came and went. When one parked close to their location, she rushed out and snagged a suitcase from the top of it or out of the back of a truck. After two or three attempts, they managed to cobble together some not-too-conspicuous outfits.
“Can’t be riding around town in those prisoner outfits from Inquest. All it would take is one suspicious cop or meter maid, and we’d be flagged in an instant.”
They arrived later on the outskirts of the city, in a rather mundane-looking suburb. The house was a nondescript brick ranch that looked like it would house a blue-collar family with three kids.
“This is your house?” he asked.
“It’s one of my houses. Or safe house, rather. Can’t have too many. This one has the best shower, though. Brand-new water heater and deluxe rain forest spout.”
“We came here so you could take a shower?”
“Gotta have your priorities straight, Sverre,” she said as she pulled a key from under a fake rock in the garden.
The inside of the house was as generic as the outside. Perhaps a bit more run-down than he’d expected.
“I’ve got a lot of things on my to-do list, so housekeeping tends to go on the back burner,” Izzy explained, checking each room to make sure no squatters had moved in.
Sverre flopped on the couch and stretched out. He hadn’t been this tired in ages. Numerous bruises and cuts covered his body from the breakout. The idea of a nice long nap was extremely appealing. Izzy started the shower. He closed his eyes, but a loud gurgle from his stomach caused him to open them again.
“You got anything to eat?” he shouted.
“Help yourself. Not sure what’s in there, though.”
The cabinets were surprisingly well-stocked, but box after box was a disappointment. Many of the expiration dates were from two, three, even five years ago. The freezer foods had similar dates, but there was one frozen dinner that was only six months expired. The frozen chicken patties looked like the most appetizing thing he’d ever seen in his life at this point.
Honestly, it wasn’t half-bad, he thought to himself fifteen minutes later. He lay back on the couch and flipped on the TV, but apparently the cable bill hadn’t been paid in a while.
He found a local broadcast channel. It was a talk show, and a scummy one at that. The episode was about brothers and sisters who married but were cheating on each other with their own parents. They can’t think anyone believes this crap, he thought as he started to doze off.
“Hey! I love this show!” Izzy shouted.
His eyes focused slowly on the figure standing in front of him, blocking his view. There was a profoundly naked ass mere inches from his face.
He scrambled to the other end of the sofa. “What the hell, Izzy?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, hon, didn’t mean to block your view,” she said, sitting down without taking her eyes off the screen.
“No, I mean — you’re naked!”
She looked down, then back at him. “Yeah?” she replied, starting to dry her hair.
“Why don’t you have any clothes on?” he cried.
“Say, why don’t you hop in the shower and clean yourself up?” she suggested. Her demeanor had changed for some reason, as if an idea had just occurred to her.
What is wrong with this girl? Sverre thought, getting up and heading to the bathroom. A long, hot shower did sound great, though. After that, he was going to sleep for ten hours straight.
Although the house was plain, the shower was anything but. It was one of those standing units that didn’t have a tub. Large glass doors. There was a wooden bench built into the wall. The walls and floor were lined with expensive-looking tile. It was the type of shower you’d find in a house costing three times what this house cost. He found a bottle of men’s body wash among a dozen other bottles of various products.
The water was very comfortable right from the start. Probably one of those auto-sensing
valves. He stood in the flow, which cascaded gently from the ridiculously oversized shower head, letting it rinse the grime and blood away for long minutes. His tense muscles relaxed. He breathed a giant sigh of relief.
Maybe things would work out. He wasn’t sure if a life on the run sounded agreeable. Maybe he could move to another country and hide out. No, the Order was worldwide and well-connected, more so than any other agency, like Interpol. What about moving into the wilderness and living in a log cabin or something?
He lathered the body wash in his hands and scrubbed all over. A sharp pain radiated from his shoulder as his hand passed over it. He looked down to see a small shard of something like white ceramic embedded in his flesh. It must have been from when Izzy blew the doors. Wincing, he pried it out and set it on a shelf. Blood oozed out of the small crater. Since it felt like he’d been beaten like a piñata, what was one more injury?
He poured the soap onto his head and used it to wash his face as well as his hair. He could feel tiny bits of dust and rubble, which he worked loose.
A slight click sounded from his right. “Hello?” he called out. As he wiped the lather from his eyes, they teared up. He swung his arm and hit someone.
“OW! Watch it, ya big oaf!”
Sverre rubbed his eyes again as water trickled down, washing out the soap. “I-Izzy?” he stammered.
She stood about two feet away from him, rubbing her temple. She was still naked.
“What are you doing in here? Get out!” he said, covering his nether regions with a loofah while backing up against the wall.
She smirked, her gaze following from where his hands were and up to his face. “Too late, I already saw.”
“What the hell! Get out of here!” he said, his face turning beet red.
“Don’t be so uptight!” she said, moving forward so the shower began to run down her damp hair, matting it. Sverre watched as the flow of water trickled, traveling around her ample curves.
She noticed his gaze and smiled more broadly. “So, you do like girls.”
“What? Of course I like girls, but, but…just get out! Don’t be weird!”
“What’s weird about this? It’s just natural. A young, handsome, strapping man and a sizzling-hot girl just getting clean together. Sounds like one of the most natural things in the world to me,” she said with feigned innocence.
She took a bottle of body wash and popped the cap, then looked back at him. She then drizzled the purple liquid all over her body. She flipped the cap back on and set the bottle on the shelf again. Then she began rubbing it over her chest, squeezing her breasts together. Sverre marveled at the fluid dynamics unfolding in front of him, his mouth agape.
“You…already took…a shower,” he said, his mind fumbling for words.
“I just felt like getting wet,” she said, turning her back to him. “Be a dear and scrub my back, would ya?”
He looked around the shower and noticed there were no other washcloths. He looked down at the loofah in his hand, then at her naked back. Water trickled down, a rivulet running between her cheeks. He swallowed hard and stepped forward.
He kept the loofah where it was and used his other hand to gently pat her back.
“Now, c’mon, it’s not going to get clean like that,” she complained.
He swirled his hand slightly harder, in a larger pattern, but making sure to steer clear of any controversial areas.
“No, use that thing between your legs,” she said. It sounded like she was giggling.
He hesitantly brought the loofah up and began to wash with both hands. He noticed with panic that he was becoming aroused very quickly.
“That’s better!” She unexpectedly turned around and looked down. “MUCH better!” she said, looking back up at his face with a devious grin.
He backed up as she moved closer. “Izzy, I don’t think…” he stammered. He bumped up against the wall as she inched closer.
“That’s your problem, hon: you think too much.” She stopped a few inches from him, then slowly leaned forward. He tucked his butt up against the wall so he wouldn’t touch her.
She brought her chest forward until her soapy nipples brushed against his chest and whispered, “Sometimes, you just have to do what ya wanna do.”
She grabbed his head and pulled his face forward, smashing her mouth against his. He dropped the loofah.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Sverre awoke later that day in a daze. He didn’t recall falling asleep. Images flashed in his mind: of the shower, the living room, then finally the bedroom. The things she’d done, the things he’d done… He wasn’t even sure if those acts had names.
He heard movement from across the room as Izzy entered, putting an earring in. “Oh, hey, there’s my marathon man,” she said, smiling. “I’d like to try that again once you are healed up. Not bad for a first time.”
Sverre sat up and argued, “That was not my first time!”
“Don’t get upset. Not bad for a second or third time, then,” she teased, looking in the mirror while brushing her hair.
“I’ve done that lots of times!” he protested.
“Don’t get too upset, boo-boo. You did great. I’m just playing,” she soothed, pulling on some leather boots.
“Look, I don’t think we should…” he started.
“Don’t sweat it. A roll in the hay don’t mean we’re engaged,” she said, finally turning to look at him. “We had some fun, probably will again.”
“Where are you going?” he asked, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The world spun for a second, causing him to steady himself. He wondered if it was caused by the fights at Inquest or his encounters with Izzy last night.
“Gotta head out to meet up with a dude about hiding that ship we flew over in, then meet up with a few contacts to see what’s what,” she replied.
“I’ll come with you,” he said, standing.
“Whoa, there, boy. No, you aren’t. First, you might be my new muscle, but I don’t need a novice messing up my business deals and making me look bad. Second, you don’t know anything about trying to live life avoiding the Order. You’d give us away in about five minutes. Third, you can’t go out in public in pants that are four sizes too big for you, a wife-beater, and sandals we stole out of some tourists’ bags. You stay here, rest up, and I’ll be back before night with some nice threads for you, dinner, and our next move.”
After thinking it over, he said, “Can you at least get the damn cable turned back on?”
“Now, that, I can do. There’s a Gamestation under the TV too, if you want to play some games.”
“Gamestation? That thing’s five years old!” he whined, following her into the living room.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she said, grabbing her purse from the table and heading out. “I’m serious. Don’t leave the house, don’t browse the web, don’t order a pizza, or you will screw us,” she warned, pausing in the doorway.
“Alright, alright, I got your damn rules,” he argued, plopping down on the couch.
It was around three o’clock when the cable was restored, forcing him to entertain himself with the ancient gaming system in the meantime. Graphics really had come a long way in the past five years, but at least she had pretty good taste in games.
Izzy returned at seven. He’d eaten another one of the TV dinners; this one wasn’t nearly as good as the mediocre dinner from the previous day. Izzy carried several bags, as well as a box that smelled heavenly.
“Sixteen-ounce prime rib, loaded baked potato, and all the trimmin’s,” she explained, placing the white takeout box in front of him. She went back out and brought in some bottles of beer and tossed one to him.
“You’ve got expensive tastes,” he said, looking at the bottle and the dinner in front of him.
“Nothing but the best for my employees,” she answered, holding up a suit that looked like it cost more than Sverre’s family car.
He wolfed down his current bite of food in ord
er to retort, “I’m not your employee!”
“Okay, we can go with partner for now, if it makes you feel better,” she said, pulling out several other bags of clothes, for both him and her.
“And I don’t wear suits!”
“When we are out on business, and with me, you will,” she stated firmly.
“You know, I don’t remember saying I’m going to be doing anything with you,” he countered in between shoveling food into his mouth.
“I don’t think you’ve got a lot of say in the matter. I can make it worth your while. Hell, with my contacts and know-how and your abilities, the world’s our oyster, bucko.”
“What exactly is it you do?”
“A little of this, a little of that. Corporate espionage, sales, theft, information brokering, payday loans…assassinations.”
Sverre choked briefly at that last statement. “Um, this sounds like the mafia or something. I don’t have any interest in being a thug for your little operation, and I definitely don’t kill people for money. Also, how do payday loans fit into any of that?”
“You haven’t even seen the checks yet.”
“I don’t care how much it is! I’m not getting caught up in this crap and ending up in prison,” he protested.
“Oh, prison isn’t a worry for us. You get sloppy in this business, you’d spend about thirty minutes in the local jail before Order goons pick you up, or else someone like Reaper shows up in the middle of the night and you disappear.”
“You sure paint a lovely picture. Very enticing.”
She pulled out her phone, tapped a few times, then showed him a picture of an underground garage somewhere. The garage contained thirty high-end luxury and performance cars, each costing around a million dollars or more. “That’s my garage under a building I own in Dubai,” she said.
“How the hell do you have so much money?”
“Stick with me, and I’ll show you how. You’ll be wealthy, have any woman you want, do whatever you want,” she cooed. “You could even get revenge on those nasty werewolves.”
Sverre briefly thought of Jessica at the mention of “any woman.” “How do you know about that?” he asked.