FALCON: Resistance (KBS Next Generation Book 1)

by Victoria Danann

  “Go on.” Jax smiled. “No one’s going to know you broke mushrooms with a vampire.”

  Falcon thought the supreme devil of myth couldn’t have looked more pleased about tempting him with stuffed potato skins, little shish kabobs, stuffed mushrooms, tiny spinach and cheese quiches, and spicy chicken wings. After running through the potential ramifications in his head, he didn’t see the harm. So he reached for a boneless chicken wing and popped it in his mouth.

  Jax looked delighted as he took a quiche.

  As Kris Falcon chewed he was thinking that life was indeed strange. He’d set out to avoid karaoke by going to the movies and ended up sharing appetizers with a vampire, a variety of vampire The Order didn’t even know existed. At least they hadn’t shared that information with him.

  Perhaps someone up the pay grade chain knew about Jaxon’s kind. He supposed he’d be finding out soon enough. After all, he didn’t see how he could keep the meeting to himself.

  “Good?” Jax asked.

  Falcon nodded.

  “So where were we? Oh. I was protesting your use of the term ‘victim’.” He shrugged. “We may have to agree to disagree. Nice modern concept. Love the phrase. Love the sentiment.”

  “Putting the issue of consent aside for the moment, again, for the sake of discussion, what’s your plan?”

  “You mean how I’m going to help with the deadheads?”

  “Deadheads. Yes.”

  “Well,” he pushed back from the table, “it’s too late to go back. The mutated virus is like the proverbial genie you can’t get back in the bottle. There’s no return to status quo, keeping the numbers manageable. The only thing we can do now is wipe them out. All of them.”

  Falcon blinked slowly while he let that sink in. “You’re offering to help us kill vampire?”

  “Deadheads.”

  “Yeah. You’re offering to help us kill deadheads. Just you?”

  “Well, no. If you agree that you, meaning The Order, need help and you choose to accept my offer, I’ll need to hunt down some others and show them the wisdom of joining forces. Even if I’m able to persuade others to come out of the shadows and the comfort of anonymity long enough to save humans, I’m not saying it could be done overnight. It would take a while, even with our help. The buggers are good at finding hidey holes. And they’re reproducing at alarming rates.

  “I don’t think it would be hard to find others to help. After all, humans aren’t just our pantry. There’s sex, which goes without saying, but there’s also all the fun stuff they make. Food like ambrosia. Wine that could be the nectar of gods. Silky sheets, sleek cars,” he looked down at his clothes, “sweet threads. I could go on.”

  “No need. I get the picture.”

  “Well, then. What do you say?”

  “I’ve seen the trick with the teeth, but that’s hardly proof that you are what you say you are. Going a step further. Even if you are what you say you are I have no proof that you represent to be the perpetrator of a victimless crime.”

  “How would you like me to provide proof?” Jax looked over his shoulder toward the section of the bar where Gretchen and her friends had been sitting. “You want to see a demonstration? Buffy! You devil. You’re a watcher!”

  “What?”

  “You want to watch me seduce, imbibe, and reveal my technique for leaving a lady completely satisfied, but blissfully devoid of the memory?”

  Falcon looked a little scandalized. “That is not what I…”

  “Then what are you suggesting? Hmmm?”

  Confronted with the task of coming up with a plan on the fly for Jax to prove that he was who he was, what he said he was, and did what he said he did, Falcon was completely tongue tied.

  “You might have to take a couple of things on faith.”

  “I’m not big on faith.”

  “When I told you that I’d meet you here, what happened?”

  Falcon scowled. “You disappeared?”

  “That’s what it looked like to you. I didn’t really disappear. I can just move faster than your brain can follow my movement.” The vampire waited for a response. When none came, he said, “Whether you understand it or agree to it, I’ve been helping for a couple of weeks.”

  “How?”

  Jax sat back in the booth and gave Falcon a look that was a cross between smirk and disappointment. “You know how. I make just enough noise or create just enough of a movement of shadow to bring attention to a place where deadheads will be found.

  “It’s working to an extent. You’re getting more kills, but your resources are getting depleted. After all, you’re only human, an affliction from which I no longer suffer. There’s also the fact that, by the time you get my message and act on it, the girls that are deadhead targets are… well, dead. If they were with males who tried to stop them, well you know the end of that story. Deadhead exponential.”

  Falcon swallowed. “Save the slide show presentation. I know what we’re facing.”

  Jax smiled. “Then you probably recognize that my offer is mutually beneficial. Your kind and mine want to see an end to the plague.”

  “Spell it out. Exactly how are you proposing to help?”

  “I can be your bird dog, take some of the guess work out of whether or not there are deadheads in the alleys. But I can do more than just let your people know where and when to look. I can also improve your chances of staying alive by helping with dispatch. A deadhead could get his teeth in me and it would be irritating, but it wouldn’t infect me. Or kill me. I can get close and take them out in ways that would be too risky for you. But only if you boys have all agreed not to shoot me.”

  Falcon searched Jax’s eyes. “That’s an attractive offer. But you already know that.”

  “I do.”

  “I will discuss it with my superior.”

  “Your Sovereign.”

  It bothered Falcon that Jaxon Kell the Vampire seemed to know so much about them. It also bothered him that Jax and his kind had been clever enough or gifted enough to elude detection for centuries.

  “Yes. My Sovereign. He may want to meet you in person. He’ll probably have questions I wouldn’t think to ask. Needless to say, he’s the one who could give clearance to talk further.”

  “Sure.” Jax shrugged. “Do you want to set a meet?”

  “Monday night. Here. Midnight.”

  Jax smiled. “I’ll be here.”

  “By the way, how many of you are there?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea. I know there are at least twenty, but there could be a hundred.”

  “We’re talking global?”

  “Of course. So far as I know, I’m the only one in New York at the moment. I would know if someone else was here.”

  Falcon nodded. “That helps to put things in perspective.”

  “I aim to please.”

  Falcon shook his head slightly, slid out of the booth, and left without another work spoken, but with a lot of questions swirling in his head. On the way out he looked to see if Gretchen and the nurses were still there. They were gone. He hoped they hadn’t stopped until they were all the way back at Jefferson Unit snuggled safe in their beds.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Gretchen had been back at J.U. in her apartment for twenty minutes, but she was still shaking. She didn’t know what was going on. She’d apparently been sitting next to a vampire who was indescribably good at flirting, but so good-looking he didn’t need to be. It was just icing.

  The problem was that he wasn’t anything like her understanding of what it meant to be vampire. She washed her face then pulled on yoga pants and a cami with built-in shelf support. Ten minutes later her phone rang and she made a dive for it.

  “I’m here,” she said.

  “Where’s here?”

  “My place. At J.U. Where are you?”

  “On my way back. You want to sleep or talk?”

  “Talk.”

  “On the phone?”

  There was a pause befor
e she said, “No.” She looked around at her pretty English floral print furniture and decided that her apartment made a personal statement. It was more than she wanted to reveal about herself at that stage of acquaintance. “Your place?”

  Falcon was so surprised by that suggestion he’d gone slack jawed, but he wasn’t about to say no. “Fifteen minutes. I’ll text you as soon as I’m there.”

  “Okay.”

  She ended the call and felt calmer, though she didn’t know why. She’d stopped shaking and didn’t feel compelled to walk the floor.

  Falcon’s apartment contained all the essentials, but little else. He wasn’t a collector of art, knickknacks, doodads, or clutter in general. It was also presentable.

  One of the perks of knighthood was cleaning service, but the cleaning crew never had much to complain about because, while the knights were treated like royalty, the trainees were not. Among other things, they were trained to keep their space clean and orderly and, after years of doing that every day in their formative years, the habit was set.

  He pulled the hood back from his head, unzipped his hoodie, and texted Gretchen.

  Falcon: Come on up.

  Gretchen: Coming.

  It was common knowledge that people who work Operations pretty much know everything there is to know about everybody unless it’s classified. Falcon knew that Gretchen would know his apartment number, but the word ‘up’ indicated that he knew where she lived, too. Two floors down.

  She put on a soft hoodie meant more for loungewear than streetwear, flip flops, and headed toward the elevator.

  When he opened the door, she watched as Falcon’s eyes took her in from head to toe before coming back to rest on her face, and she had to admit that she liked the pleasurably distracting moment when she saw appreciation in his eyes.

  He opened the door wider, and peeked out into the hall, looking left and right to make sure no one was witnessing her late night visit. He knew firsthand that J.U. was an excessively gossipy place to live and didn’t want to see Gretchen become the victim of speculation.

  When he was satisfied they were unobserved, he stepped back and gestured for her to enter. She stepped in and looked the place over while he closed the door.

  “Is that coffee?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that percolating I hear?”

  “Yes to that, too. I’m old-fashioned about coffee. Want some?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sit.” He waved toward the sofa and she sat at the end nearest the big chair that he apparently used for TV and reading and such.

  He could tell by looking at her face that she’d been shaken by what had happened. Well, hel’s bells. So had he.

  “Coffee’ll be ready in a minute.” She nodded as he sat in the big chair. “It’s been quite a night,” he said.

  “I can see you’re given to understatement. My hands just stopped shaking about fifteen minutes ago.” He glanced down at her hands as if to satisfy himself that they weren’t shaking anymore. “So. What was that?”

  He shook his head slightly and blew out a big breath. “I can’t say my hands are shaking, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shaken by the whole thing. Before I start talking though, you’ve got to understand something. Right now you’re the only person besides me who knows that creatures like the one you saw tonight exist.

  “Normally you wouldn’t be in the loop on something like this. At least not at first.” He chuckled. “Not for a century or more maybe. Gods. I might not even be in the loop. But for some reason Fate has seen fit to put you and me in the path of this biggest breaking news… well, ever.

  “So here’s the deal. After you and I talk, I’m going to be making a call to the Sovereign and getting him out of bed if needs be. He’s going to be the third person to hear about this. Are you getting my drift?”

  She nodded. “I’d better keep my mouth shut.”

  “I would think that would be in the interest of your upwardly mobile career and your spectacular rise to Operations power.”

  She barked out a laugh. “At the moment, I’m not feeling powerful. I’m feeling lucky to be sitting here without bite marks. Did you see those, uh, what would you call those? Fangs?”

  “That’s what I’d call them.”

  “And he was so beautiful.”

  “Hold on…”

  “Sorry. It’s just. I don’t know. Maybe…”

  “Maybe his kind come with an attraction booster.”

  She looked at Falcon. “Not going to argue. After what I saw tonight, I’m not in a position to be cynical.”

  “So you agree? To keep this under wraps until such time as you would have learned about it through normal procedural channels?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The percolator stopped thumping and gurgling. Falcon glanced toward the kitchen. “Coffee’s ready. What do you take in it?”

  “What do you have?”

  “Raw sugar, Baileys in the refrigerator, and powder creamer that tastes like hazelnut.”

  She smiled. “What are you having?”

  “Raw sugar and Baileys.”

  “Make it two.”

  He smiled, grabbed two mugs, two spoons, the box of raw sugar out of the cabinet, and Baileys out of the refrigerator. “Hope not fancy is okay.”

  “Fine. I like not fancy.” Although she loved fancy, she found that she wasn’t lying about being okay with sharing raw sugar from the box. Being with Falcon was a lot more comfortable than she would have guessed.

  He walked back to the kitchen to retrieve the pot, unplugged it, and was halfway back to the coffee table when someone began pounding on his door. His brows knitted together partly because of the interruption and partly because the pounding had made Gretchen jump.

  Still holding the coffee pot in his hand, he opened the door just far enough to see who was there. Wakey pushed past him. Without looking away from Falcon, he made a one-eighty turn and began walking backwards in the apartment.

  “Man, that party was a graveyard. So we headed into the city, but the only unattached ladies who were born in a century beginning with the number two, looked like they were hungry for dick and didn’t care if it came with a person attached. Who wants to be used like that, you know? Makes me shudder to think about the filthy things going through their minds when they undressed us with their eyes. I’m telling you. I need a shower.

  “So we decided, fuck it, we’ll come on back and hang out. Maybe play some…” He glanced behind him and saw Gretchen sitting on the sofa. She watched his expression morph from shock to Cheshire cat grin with lightning speed. “Oops.”

  “Wakenmann,” Falcon began. “Did someone invite you in?”

  “Well…” Wakey began.

  “No. They did not. Now you’re going to turn your overstepping meddlesome ass around and vacate the premises, but not before you assure Director Galen that you understand this is not what it looks like.”

  Looking from Falcon to Gretchen, Wakey nodded slowly, with the soberest of demeanors and repeated, “I understand that this is not what it looks like.”

  “And you will not mention that I’m having a guest for coffee to anyone.”

  “What do you take me for?”

  “A gossip to rival any old woman anywhere.”

  Wakey’s shoulders shrugged. “You wound me.”

  “I also tell the truth. Say it.”

  “You’re having a guest for coffee.” He grinned at Gretchen with a conspiratorial wink. “And I will not breathe a word to anyone.”

  “Or communicate it in any way.” Wakey screwed up his mouth. “That’s right. I know you really well. You won’t write it out or pantomime it or play twenty questions or use any means to convey my business, or Director Galen’s business, to any other person.”

  “You’re mean.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Wakey looked at Gretchen. “You, too.”

  “I don’t care either,” she said.

  “Alri
ght. I’m going. But you have to agree that, if you decide to share truthful details about late night caffeine alone in your apartment, I’ll be the first to know.”

  “Agreed,” said Falcon.

  Wakey looked at Gretchen, who nodded.

  “Very well. I go from whence I came.”

  Falcon opened the door, still holding the pot of coffee. “Bye.”

  Wakey looked at Gretchen again as if he was hoping she’d invite him to stay. Instead she waved goodbye. He stepped to the other side of the door, but turned, opening his mouth as if to add a verbal postscript. Falcon closed the door on whatever he was going to say.

  “Your partner is a character.”

  “You can’t imagine,” said Falcon.

  “But you could do worse.”

  Kris grinned. “Wouldn’t trade him for all the other knights put together, past and future.”

  “Wow.” Gretchen appreciated the subtle passion underlying that statement along with the loyalty expressed. She also appreciated the way Falcon’s face transformed into museum quality male beauty when he grinned.

  “Yeah.” He poured coffee into both cups then held the raw sugar box open so she could get her spoon inside.

  “The combination of sugar and caffeine. I’ll be up half the night.”

  “You were going to sleep?”

  She shook her head and smiled. “Probably not.” After she finished stirring, she said, “So, after the extraction of my vow of silence and before Sir Wakenmann’s nocturnal visit, you were about to tell me what exactly I’ve promised to keep secret.”

  “Yes. I was.” He stopped stirring, put his spoon down, and taking his mug with him, sat back in his chair. After a sip of dark nectar and a hiss of approval, he looked up at Gretchen. “My team was off tonight. My friends had plans involving parties and such.”

  “I heard.”

  “I wasn’t into what they were doing, but I didn’t want to stay around here tonight either.”

  “Karaoke.”

  He grinned again. “How did you know?”