“Because we’re partners?”
“And friends.”
“Yeah. That, too.”
“Now it’s time to start paying it back. I’ve asked you a question and I want an answer.”
Falcon stared at Wakey for a minute before running his hand through his damp hair. “You want coffee?”
“If it comes with straight talk, yeah.”
“Sit.” Falcon gestured toward the little dinette.
He made two mugs with his podbrewer, set them down on the table and slid onto the chair across from Wakey.
“Well?”
“I needed to shut it down.”
“Shut what down?”
“Any possibility of her being interested in me.”
Wakenmann barked out a laugh. “Well, if that was your goal, I’m guessing you succeeded. That was messed up. First you ordered all that food like you were throwing down some kind of challenge. Then you called her fat in front of a table full of guys she’s just met. You humiliated her.”
“She’s not fat.”
“That is not the point. With women, whether or not they are fat is never the point. The point is the fear of fat, not the reality of fat.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil.”
“You’re not helping your case.”
“My case?”
“Yeah. That’s what you’re acting like. A head case. And it’s time to snap out of it. Here’s what you’re gonna do. Tomorrow you’re going to show up at the Operations Office with one of those big ass bunches of flowers and a sincere heartfelt apology.”
Falcon was shaking his head. “No. I’m not.”
“Yes. You. Are. You owe it to her. To me. And to your other teammates. You shamed everybody at that table tonight.”
Falcon slumped down in his chair. He hated to admit it, but he knew his partner was right.
The florist where Falcon used to have a standing order was surprised to hear from him. It had been a while. He was very specific in his instructions. Salmon-colored roses. Salmon-colored calla lilies, no matter how hard they’d be to find. Wax leaf lugustrom for greenery. And trails of yellow orchid arranged like tendrils.
He could see the arrangement in his mind and knew it would say, “I was a 2XL asshole. Please accept my apology.”
The florist texted when he arrived. Falcon met him outside and took delivery. The flowers were every bit as gorgeous as he’d hoped.
Gretchen did a double take when she looked up from her desk to see Falcon approaching the counter with the prettiest floral arrangement she’d ever seen. She rose from her desk, walked over and stood behind the counter ready to help the Jefferson Unit employee with whatever needed doing.
As she looked at Sir Falcon her face was carefully expressionless and completely unreadable.
He set the heavy vase down on the counter next to her. “These are for you.”
She didn’t glance away at the flowers nor did she say anything. She simply stared at Falcon.
“I apologize for what I said.” He paused. “Last night.” He paused again. “And the way I acted.”
Gretchen continued to stand with her shoulders back. Her face was blank as she stared at him, but said nothing. It seemed he’d met his goal of killing her interest. He saw nothing in her beautiful eyes. Whatever had been there was gone. Good job. His self-congratulations felt hollow.
“Well,” he said. “I guess I’ll go now.”
He turned back at the door to find her still standing in the same place. She didn’t appear to have touched the flowers or even looked at them. So he went on his way knowing he could tell his partner that he’d delivered both the flowers and the sincere apology.
The minute Falcon was out of sight, she gathered the stems of the flowers up in a two-handed grasp like she was strangling them, lifted them out of the vase and dropped them into her trash can unceremoniously. Instead of looking ruined, the result was a gorgeous arrangement of flowers in a hip unusual container. It looked like modern art.
“Ugh!” She verbalized her disgust then kicked the trash can twice for good measure before grabbing a roll of paper towels to clean up the trail of water dribble she’d left on the floor.
An hour later when Breax, her trainee assistant, came on duty, the water-filled vase was still sitting on the counter. It was square, made of heavy thick clear glass and too nice to throw away, but what else could she do with it? She started to tell him to empty the water and dispose of the vase, but stopped when a better idea began to take form in her head.
She didn’t want to just refuse the flowers and make a trash can demonstration of that. She wanted Falcon to know it.
“Hey, Breax. Would you please take that vase and clean it up so that it’s spotless? Then bring it back to me.”
Twenty minutes later he returned with a vase so perfectly clean it looked as if it had never been used.
“Wow,” she said. “Looks nice.”
She placed a sealed handwritten note in the bottom of the vase. It had Falcon’s name on the face of the envelope.
“Deliver this to Falcon’s apartment door. Number three-twenty-two. If he’s not there, just leave it on the floor outside.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Breax started away as if there was nothing unusual about the errand requested.
At four o’clock Wakenmann strolled into the O.O. whistling something familiar, but not recognizable.
Gretchen looked up and smiled. “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself.”
She came to the counter to help, but saw him looking around. When his eyes landed on the flowers in the trash can, she made a point of turning to look in the direction of his gaze. When she brought her smile back to him, she was silently daring him to say something. When he didn’t, she said, “You put him up to that, didn’t you?”
“I suggested that he’d been out of line and that the offense required something more than just a sincere apology.”
“I figured it was something like that.”
“I take it you either don’t like flowers…”
She shook her head. “They’re beautiful.”
“Or you didn’t like what he had to say…
She shook her head. “He was very polite. He even sounded, as you say, sincere.”
“Or you’ve decided my partner is a first class bastard not worthy of notice, much less forgiveness?”
“Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Bingo, Sir Wakenmann. Now, what can I do for you?”
He sighed. “There’s so much you don’t understand.” He set the bait then waited to see if she’d bite. She was bright, alert, and seemed like the curious type.
“What do you mean?”
He smiled. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Bingo, indeed.
“A lot happened that’s not in the file.”
“Everything goes into the file.”
“Wrong. Everything goes into some file, but not the file that you have access to.”
Sensing Falcon’s friend was about to make a play for her sympathy, she said, “Look, Rolfe, I…”
“Oh gods,” he looked at the ceiling, “will it never end? Will I have to hear that for the rest of my life? No reprieve for good behavior?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Please. I’m begging you. Don’t call me that. Everybody calls me Wakey. It may sound juvenile, but I’m used to it and manly enough to withstand the stigma of a name that ends in ‘y’.”
The corners of her mouth twitched before spreading into a full-blown smile.
“Okay. Maybe I’ll call you Manly.” He chuckled. “No. You’re right. Wakey it is. Not that you’re not manly. Because I agree. You definitely are.”
“So you’re interested in me now?”
“No. I’m thinking about trying girls.”
“Hel. I just got an image.” The smirk she gave him was worth a thousand words. “That aside, I was saying, something happened that… and I’m not saying that his behavior wasn’t deplorable, not saying that at all, but you don’t
have enough information to judge.”
“Well, since there’s nothing I can do about that…”
“Maybe there is. Can you take a break? I’ll tell you a story about this guy I know and what happened between him and the last woman to hold the position you now occupy.”
“Farnsworth?” She pulled her chin back and raised an eyebrow.
Wakey shook his head. “Not Farnsworth. She’s already retired. When you arrived she was filling in for the last director.”
Gretchen frowned. “I didn’t know that. What happened to her?”
“Take a break?”
“Can’t right now. Without a trained assistant I’m basically pulling double duty. Maybe after I hire somebody.”
“Okay then. Let me know.” Wakenmann turned to leave, but stopped. “Purely out of curiosity and just for my own edification, what was it about Kris that sparked your interest?”
She smiled. “Like you just said, I thought there was a spark.” Her smile faded. “I think I was very, very wrong.”
“You weren’t wrong.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I know him better than anyone. He doesn’t normally act like that. Correction. He never acts like that. He must have had a strong reaction to you.”
“Obviously. Did it occur to you that he hates me? Maybe I remind him of somebody he dislikes in an intense kind of way. Subconscious and all that.”
Wakey was shaking his head. “That’s not it.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But I have to work sooooooo… Have a nice day?”
Wakey took the dismissal goodnaturedly with a smile and a salute.
Falcon had been in the shower and hadn’t heard Taunton’s knock. So when he opened the door to head down to dinner and patrol, he almost stumbled over a large square glass vase with a note in the bottom.
He picked it up, carried it back into his kitchen, set it on the counter and withdrew the note from the envelope that bore his name. It was heavy cream vellum paper with rag edges, engraved with her initials. A first class act.
It read, “Unfortunately the flowers fell into the trash. I thought you’d like to have the vase back.”
He stared at the note for a few seconds before he felt something foreign erupt behind his well-sculpted abs. A laugh burst outward and startled him as much as if it had been a minor earthquake. It felt good. Really good. And he wanted to experience that again.
CHAPTER SIX
Patrol that night was uneventful. Time and time again his thoughts wandered to the new head of Operations. He realized that she must have been really good at her job to score lead position at J.U. when she couldn’t be more than mid twenties. Every time he thought about opening the note, he smiled to himself.
“What’s up with you?” Wakey asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You keep getting this goofy smile on your face.”
Falcon slanted his eyes toward his partner as they walked. “Your imagination.”
“No. It’s not my imagination. Nice try though. So okay. If you don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. Just wondered if you were sick or something.”
“Why would you think I’m sick?”
Wakey looked at him with open mouth. “Seriously? You don’t realize that getting a smile out of you is a damned special occasion these days?”
Falcon huffed and scowled. “Whatever.”
“Oh good. There’s the face I know and love.”
“Zip it.”
“It’s a public street in a free country. I can say what I want.”
“Not unless you want to be throttled.”
Wakey barked out a laugh. “Throttled? By who?”
Falcon stopped walking. “Did you see that?”
“What? No. I was looking at you.” Wakey scanned their surroundings. “You wouldn’t put me on alert just to change the subject, would you?”
“Shhhh. I thought I saw something in the shadows up this alley.”
Wakey lowered his volume to just above a whisper. “Let’s check it out.”
Falcon nodded. He ducked behind a garbage bin at the head of the narrow throughway and texted Spaz.
Falcon: Alley exit.
It was a brief message and one that wouldn’t make sense to anybody else, but it was a code K Team used to alert the pair of knights working the block parallel to block the opposite end of an alley and be on the alert.
Kellan felt his pocket vibrate, took a quick look at his phone, and told Sin, “Heads up.” Sin looked toward the head of the alley just a few yards away and nodded. The two of them jogged the last few steps to the entrance, or exit, depending on how you looked at it.
Spaz took the right side as he always did. Sin took the left. Several of the store back doors had blue halogen fixtures lighting the immediate area, a few feet beyond the door. The effect was darkness broken up by a few intermittent spotlights. They couldn’t see their teammates at the other end, but took it on faith that they were advancing toward the center.
The next few moments were characterized by tension and adrenaline, both courtesy of evolution, making sure the knights’ attention and reflexes were at their very best.
Kellan Chorszak (aka Spaz) and Sinclair Harvest (aka Sin) were the first to hear it; the sound of vampire snarl. Though it defied logic, Black Swan hunters could only guess that the new breed of vampire that had emerged after the virus mutated enjoyed not just feeding on blood, but destroying their prey as well. Unlike their predecessors, whose only interest had been the consumption of blood, those infected with the new virus were vicious. The new behaviors gave the appearance of enjoying maiming and fear as much as the sustenance their reformed constitutions required.
Whereas vampire used to kill their victims quickly, often before drinking, the new vampire were the very definition of monster. They took care to keep their victims alive while they engaged in abominable activities that could only be described as torture.
Black Swan knights had found out the hard way that the latest version of vampire also had heightened senses. So they had given up the uniform choice of boots in favor of soft-soled black runners that could be counted on to be silent and non-slip in any conditions other than snow.
Even so, with all the stealth that athletic bodies could muster, even in the prime of life and peak of physical condition, the two vampire heard the hunters approach in time to register fight or flight response. They’d been ripping at a young woman with nails that hadn’t been cut or trimmed since they’d been infected, which meant some nails had broken off and were short or jagged while others were long and sharp on the edges.
The vampire didn’t retain enough humanity to recognize Black Swan knights as such, but their instincts knew that they were being hunted by men who weren’t afraid of them. They went with the typical response. Flight. Vampire weren’t known for a willingness or readiness to stand and fight. In fact they rarely did unless cornered.
That was the main reason why hunters had developed the standard practice of covering both ends of alleyways. It was a perfect system. One pair would intercept fleeing vampire, always knowing that the other pair of teammates wasn’t far behind. Back up was always near and on the way.
When the vamps became aware of Sin and Spaz, they dropped their victim and ran. Wakey had pulled his pistol, attached the silencer, and was ready when the vampire rushed toward them. Falcon held stakes in both hands, a technique he’d learned from many hours with Rammel Hawking, spread over not weeks or months, but years. But even as he held the stakes at ready, he knew that, given this particular situation, it was unlikely he’d need them.
Although he wouldn’t gush to Wakey about his skill, Falcon harbored a secret pride in his partner. Wakenmann was getting a reputation for “gun slinging”. Some said he might be as good as Storm.
Sure enough, Wakey dropped both the biters with two clean pops to their hearts, with yards to spare before he or Falcon were in danger of being infected by tooth or nail.
; As Spaz approached the scene he already had his phone out calling for cleanup. When he gave their location and got confirmation, he pocketed the phone and smiled at Wakey. “Wake Man, you’re a machine.”
“Sin with the vic?” asked Falcon.
Spaz turned his head to look back up the alley. “Yeah.”
Falcon left Wakey and Spaz to wait for cleanup and walked up the alley to where Sin was standing over a crumpled form.
“What’s the word?” he asked Sin.
Sin kept his chin down when he looked up at Falcon. “Alive.”
Falcon looked down at the bloody, half-clothed mass. “Why do they do it? Come out late at night when they know how many are going missing? Why do they all think it won’t happen to them?”
Sin shuffled and sighed. “Maybe they do it because they’re hoping it will happen to them. Maybe she has a shit job or a shit boyfriend, or a life as rank as that garbage behind you. Maybe she wanted it over.”
“That’s deep, Sin.”
He shrugged. “How I’m feeling. Maybe she wanted it. It’s still a waste.”
“Want me to do it?”
Sin’s head jerked up. “Honestly? I want anybody who’s not me to do it. But am I going to do it? Yes. I. Am.”
Without further commentary, Sin pulled his stake, nudged the body until it rolled over so that she was lying on her back, and drove the wood through her heart with all the force and speed his anger could put behind the thrust. He stood over the corpse for a few seconds breathing heavy, before bending down and jerking the stake free.
Without looking up, he said, “I’m done for tonight,” and walked off toward the lights illuminating the street at the end of the alley. Leaving Falcon alone to guard the remains of somebody’s daughter or sister or friend until cleanup arrived didn’t violate regulation. But it was unusual.
Moments after Sin had left, Falcon felt a fear response spread through his whole body. Nipples pebbled, every hair standing on end, he squinted, searching the shadows for something that might have triggered the unpleasant chill that had settled in.
FALCON: Resistance (KBS Next Generation Book 1) Page 5
