In the Wind (Out of the Box Book 2)

by Robert J. Crane

  My mind spins along at a thousand miles per second. I’m not a leader; I’m a follower. I’ve been in a few tight situations, I’m not ashamed to say, and I managed my way out of them through careful thinking and a cool head. That’s all gone now. I just had a woman with a bow and arrow nearly click my lights out, and that’s after ten thugs and a meta jumped me. My sole contact in Rome is dead, and all I have left is—

  I fish the paper out of my pocket and stare at it again. There is a long string of numerals that I recognize as a phone number. Most Americans would probably think of it as a random sequence of digits, but it’s all there—country code and number. I go to the hotel telephone and dial it. It honks at me like one of those store alarms when you walk through it with stolen merchandise. I try again and it still doesn’t like it. I use my cell phone and get an error message.

  My frustration rises, but I call the front desk. “Pronto!” A male voice answers, making me wonder what the hell that’s about.

  “Uh, hello?” I ask. Does pronto mean fast? Or now? Hell if I know.

  “Yes, sir?” the voice at the other end of the line asks.

  “I need help making a call,” I say. He talks me through it. I hang up and try again, and get the honking noise again that tells me I’ve failed at this most basic of exercises.

  The clock tells me it’s now after ten at night. I’ve got a number for a Father Emmanuel at the Vatican, but I know nothing about him. Not who he is, nor why Giuseppe wanted me to have his number. Hell, maybe Giuseppe didn’t even mean for me to have his number; maybe he was going to confession after he talked with me, to exchange his wine and women for a plethora of Hail Marys. In which case he was a little late.

  I lie down on the bed without bothering to undress. I stare at the slender bed opposite and wonder what the hell I should be doing. The answer is obvious—call Sienna.

  I sigh.

  I take a long, hot shower in the old, scraped white tub. It looks like a remnant from World War II. I don’t care. I sink down into the tub and let the hot water wash over me, trying to swallow my pride.

  It doesn’t go down easy.

  I think this is what younger siblings probably feel like. You’re always in someone else’s shadow, always in competition with them. Our parents aren’t even alive anymore—and our mothers were different people, in any case—but she’s still my fricking sister.

  My younger sister.

  I come out of the bathroom and eye the phone like it’s my oldest enemy. I taste bitterness in my mouth and curse this day, curse this moment, curse the fact that I even came to this damned country again. Then I pick up my phone and dial Sienna’s number. It goes straight to voicemail.

  I hesitate a moment then dial the agency campus. I get the switchboard operator and give her my identification number, at which point she loosens up a little. I ask for Sienna and get routed to her assistant. She’s out of town, the guy tells me. I don’t really like him all that much, to be honest. He tells me she’ll be back in a few days; she’s on assignment for some other government department. Probably a boondoggle, I know. He tells me to try her cell, and rather than shove a lot of heated words across the phone lines, I just thank him and hang up.

  I fall down on the bed, my bare ass sitting on a threadbare comforter. I feel suddenly uncomfortable wondering how many people have had sex on this exact spot, so I stand up and eye the comforter. I think of those black light investigations of hotel rooms and get nauseous—

  I shake that thought out of my head and get back on point.

  As near as I can tell, I’m screwed.

  I’m standing in the capital of Italy, and I clearly don’t know what I’m doing. Little sister is out of reach, and the bad guy has killed my only lead and then run off into the night. A mystery woman has pulled some mystery shit and then vanished, and I’m left with a phone number my tiny fricking brain can’t figure out how to dial.

  Talk about a stranger in a strange land.

  I pull the comforter down and sit directly on the sheet. Somehow this makes me feel better, thoughts of a black light aside. Besides, it’s a single bed. How could anyone—never mind. Lust will find a way.

  I’m reliving that memory of the villain at Guiseppe’s shop shouting something to his cohorts in Italian when a little bitty seed of an idea gets planted. I reject it as stupid and go on thinking for another hour, beating myself up all the while. But that idea keeps growing until I start to think maybe—just maybe—it’s a viable idea. And after another thirty minutes or so, when the clock almost reads midnight, I give up and dial the agency again, figuring I’ll at least ask. I get the operator again and make my request, having her transfer me to another number entirely.

  12.

  I open my hotel room door the next day to find Dr. Isabella Perugini looking at me over those wide-eyed, extra-dark sunglasses of the style that seems to be popular in America at the moment. Dr. Perugini would look good in those military birth control glasses, though, so this is not exactly a bold statement. She has that long-suffering look that I’ve come to expect from her, the one that drives my sister batty, but she shoulders her way into the room without so much as a “Buongiorno.”

  I am okay with all this for one reason: Isabella Perugini is, without a doubt, the hottest woman on the agency campus. Bar none.

  Not one of the guys has the balls to say it to her face—she’s pretty scary when angry—but we all talk about her behind her back. She is the perfect storm of fury when she’s mad, balancing on those heels that she wears, hiding her assets pretty poorly under that ever-present white lab coat and scrubs when she’s been at work for a long day. She can’t hide them that well, though, because she has what I heard one of the teens call—this was in the Directorate days, before the school got blown up —“a bangin’ body.”

  She sits down on the comforter of the bed I didn’t sleep in, apparently without concern that it would glow under a black light. She’s wearing a black dress so short I’m a little worried that the comforter will impregnate her, and she crosses her legs as she leans back, as casually as though I had walked into the medical unit and announced I had a rash. Which I would not do. Because … hello, embarrassing. Minneapolis has clinics for that sort of thing.

  “So here I am,” she announces, as though I might have missed her entrance.

  “I really appreciate you coming,” I say, both nervous and a little ill from all that’s happened in the last day or so. “And so quickly. Thank you again.” I feel like I’m laying it on thick, but I’m grateful both because she took a ten-hour flight to get here on short notice and also because I’ve maybe kinda got a massive crush on her. So gratitude seems apropos.

  She waves me off. “So what is this that is going on?” she asks. Her Italian accent and off-kilter syntax are ridiculously sexy.

  I explain what’s happened. She nods along, looking concerned. She doesn’t really smile. Like … ever. I haven’t seen it, anyway. Her dark hair is straight and totally in place, which I find interesting considering she’s been on a plane as long as she has.

  I get to the end of my story and she leans back, pondering. “The Vatican?” she asks.

  I nod. “No idea who this Father Emmanuel is, though.”

  She looks thoughtful. I let the doctor ponder it while I watch her in as non-creepy a way as I can. “So we should go to the Vatican, yes?” she asks.

  I freeze. I’ve considered this, but honestly, I was waiting on her to get here … and possibly to do my thinking for me.

  When did that happen? I used to work on my own, all the time. Sure, I’d take directives from Alpha HQ, but they left me alone with the run of most of the United States, and I was left to manage my own time. I took the initiative on things, dammit. I was Alpha in middle America; recruiting, keeping an eye on Omega, living the good life on the road and maybe having a one-night stand or two here and there—

  Okay. Yes. Okay, that was me at one point. I was like the James Bond of metahumans, but more sens
itive. And without a British accent. Now I find myself as the right hand man of my little sister, playing CHiPs or something with her. What was that cop show with William Shatner? TJ Hooker? I’m like TJ Hooker’s partner. Did TJ Hooker have a partner? Whatever. I might as well be riding in the sidecar.

  I blink as all this crosses through my mind, and I fear for the first time that I’ve become a beta male, a supporting character in a cast that’s headed by my younger sibling.

  How have I not noticed this? She at least had a boyfriend—two of them. Why have I been content to do nothing?

  I vanquish these wussified thoughts and nod sharply. “Yeah, let’s go the Vatican,” I say. I’m ready to charge the gates or storm the walls or something, anything to prove my manhood in front of Dr. Perugini. I know it sounds foolish, but I don’t care.

  “It will be faster if we join a tour group,” she says to me, and I frown. Alpha Male—that’s my new nickname for myself—SHUT UP I KNOW IT’S LAME—is not a tour group joiner. She bats her eyelashes at me. Seriously, she does this. I know she’s doing it. She knows I know she’s doing it.

  “Okay,” I say.

  And Alpha Male gets blown away by the winds of reason as I nod along with her plan.

  13.

  Alpha Male may not like to admit it, but the cab ride proves that Dr. Perugini is right. When we reach Vatican City, we pass by an insanely long line that stretches in front of massive fortress walls. A few times I consider asking her exactly who they’re preparing to fend off siege from, and then I remember that this city is old enough that they actually have been besieged. Then I wonder if maybe they were besieged during World War II. I can’t imagine anyone really wanting to go along with Hitler and il Douche (or however you spell Mussolini’s nickname; I think I nailed it, personally).

  The taxi makes several winding turns, and there’s still a fricking line. It’s long, like thousands of people long, and this isn’t even really tourist season. I’m not Catholic or even one of the faithful, so I don’t really understand the spiritual significance of this place. Historical, I sort of see, and cultural, even, given how much of Western Civ is driven by Biblical art and inspiration. But so far it just looks like a fortress, one of more than I can count in Europe. Though admittedly much bigger than the others I’ve seen.

  We pull out in front of an entrance that looks a lot more modern than the wall it’s built into, and I step out. The words Musei Vaticani are written on top of a stylized arch capped with statuary, and I admire the artistry for a moment. We booked the tour group at the last second, knowing we’d missed the bus and would have to meet them here. It was a case of split second timing, and the unfortunate thing about it was that it gave Dr. Perugini a chance to change into a more sensible—and less senselessness-inducing—dress. While I mourn the loss of that particular distraction—holy shit, her legs are asdfghjkl;—it allows me to focus a little better because I’m left with fewer parts of her body to surreptitiously check out.

  Elvis’s “Hound Dog” plays in my head, but “Hound” is replaced with “Horn.” Alpha Male is having some problems, y’all. He ain’t nothin’ but a horn dog.

  I can’t help but feeling that if Giuseppe had been a little more than just a mercenary information broker, I’d be more motivated to take my eyes off the good doctor. I mean, if he’d been one of those close friends like in the movies—if we’d embraced in the bro hug like the tropes say we should—I’d totally have motivation beyond horn dog ones.

  Okay, I still have motivation. But I’m suddenly acutely—and cutely—aware that I’ve somehow managed to get the most beautiful woman in the agency to come with me, alone, on a mission. If Scott could see me now he’d be like, “Dude.” And I’d be like, “Dude.” And nod my head, wide-eyed and surreptitiously, at Perugini.

  I kinda miss Scott. I should have called him after he and Sienna broke up, but I didn’t, because of Sienna. But he would totally get this.

  When it comes to motivation, this is the thing that’s on my mind. I comfort myself by thinking that if Giuseppe could see me now, he’d be pleased at the thought of me trying to impress the good doctor. Yes, let’s bring this back to him somehow. That should make me feel less guilty.

  We get sorted with our tour group, but it takes a while, during which Dr. Perugini stands there coolly with her oversized sunglasses, her arms folded across her chest as though the entire world can just revolve around her. It probably does.

  It takes our tour guide a while to wrangle twenty middle-aged and old folks—and us, because Dr. Perugini is probably like, late thirties or so? And I’m in my twenties. It takes a while to get us all moving in the same direction. I pity this guy on days when he has a full bus. He carries an umbrella as the maypole for us to all rally to, and with long, shuffling steps our group enters a modern-looking—well, circa 1960’s/70’s with giant concrete supports—lobby to begin the tour.

  This takes a while, too, because once we pass security everyone needs to use the bathroom. By “everyone,” I mean everyone but me and Dr. Perugini. She doesn’t take off the sunglasses, and I wonder if it’s because she’s using them as cover to look at everyone without them knowing it or if it’s because she wants to look cool.

  “So,” I say, dipping into my great font of conversational skills. She looks at me, waiting for me to say something else, and I falter. I run through possible responses, come up with nil that doesn’t make me look like an idiot, and shrug my shoulders.

  She looks at me for a second and then turns back to watching the lobby. As soon as she’s not looking, I grimace at my stupidity. Way to go, Alpha Moron.

  Once I’ve had enough time to transition through the five stages and come to acceptance of the fact that I’m a maroon, we start moving again. We go up an escalator that runs past a spiraling ramp into a sunlit room that’s covered by a geodesic dome type structure. Except it’s more of a glass ceiling.

  “Hm,” she says, the first words she’s come out with in a while. “Pretty.”

  “You know the geodesic dome was invented by Buckminster Fuller,” I say, and suddenly wonder why the Vatican doesn’t have like ten thousand Bibles within easy reach, just in case visitors decide to convert. Because right now I would take one and jam it down my piehole to keep myself from speaking. Praise Jesus, hallelujah. The word of God jutting out of my gullet could not be any more damaging to my cred with Perugini than my last few efforts in any case.

  If she has an opinion on my idiocy, I miss it while trying to dig a hole in the earth to bury myself in. It’s actually less that and more a hot flush that crawls up my cheeks and blots out my memory of the following crucial seconds. Probably a defense mechanism for Alpha Male’s pride. Because he needs one.

  The tour guide goes on a bit, leading us out into an expansive and sprawling courtyard. There’s something globe-like in the middle that brings to mind an Assassin’s Creed game. The day is brisk but not cold. There’s a wind, but it’s not frigid. Minnesota and Wisconsin have acclimated me to freezing my ass off at a much lower temperature than the balance of humanity would find acceptable. I don’t even have a jacket to offer Dr. Perugini, not that she’d take it at this point. Probably worried that my idiocy is contagious.

  No, of course she wouldn’t think that; she’s a doctor. She just knows it’s genetic and that she wouldn’t want to have children with me.

  See how my mind leaps, all wild and fancy free? This is how I end up on verbal cliffs.

  We step into the building that encloses the courtyard, and I listen to the guide doing his thing. I’m on hyper alert now, eyes off Dr. Perugini, because I just know I’ll look like an even bigger moron if I get caught looking at the way her posterior causes the fabric of her dress to shimmer as she walks. I think I’ve made enough of a fool of myself for today, so I focus. If only I could have achieved this state of Zen some twenty minutes and innumerable embarrassments ago.

  Part of this increased focus is because the tour guide is talking about some interesti
ng stuff. We pass through a sculpture gallery, and he talks about how all those white marble statues from Ancient Greece and Rome probably had colored paint on them at some point. I try to imagine them with purple, yellow and red hues on them and it breaks my fricking brain. (Arguments could be made in light of my missteps with Dr. Perugini that my brain is already broken, and I see the reason in them.)

  This place is art and architecture, everywhere. I’m not even that much of a fan of this stuff, and my senses are overwhelmed. There’s more statuary than in a sculptor’s shop, more frescoed or painted and gilded ceilings and crown-molding-ish trim on hallways than I imagine you’d find in the most ornate palaces of Europe. I start to make a sarcastic remark about it all to Perugini, but I remember to shut up just in time, because it’s the sort of thing that would probably be offensive to the majority of the population.

  I wish, not for the first time, that Sienna was here. Now, though, it’s just so I’d have someone I could snark freely with.

  We work our way quietly through countless displays. I see a statue by Michaelangelo that’s some of the finest work I can imagine. I keep my mouth shut, taking it all in. I pass security guards, every single one of whom is playing on a cell phone. I consider taking a sculpture off a stand just to see if they’ll notice, but ultimately decide not to commit a criminal act with my crush standing only feet away from me.

  Perugini is expressionless throughout the whole thing. She’s about the coolest customer I can imagine, outside of the bow and arrow lady last night. I try to decide whether this has something to do with her medical training or if she’s just an impassive person. I do not come up with an answer.