“Nah. I work for the FBI. Longer hours, worse pay.”
He rolled his eyes. “Sure. Should we play the game of denial about why each of us is here, or can we cut the crap and get right to the truth?”
“I will if you will.”
“You’re here because of the guy, right?” He stared me down. “The guy going around treating convenience store clerks like he’s Chris Brown?”
I started to lie, but he was watching me. I’d known Reed longer than just about anybody, though I hadn’t spoken to him in months. “Yeah. We figure this is a new meta, just manifesting, that needs a serious reining in.”
“Yeah?” He tugged on the front of his shirt. He was wearing a nice one, a white dress shirt that was untucked, with a suit coat over it and dark jeans. “You talk to the guy in Owatonna?”
“You mean the guy with a big hole in his memory?”
“He was kind of a dead end, wasn’t he?” Reed smiled. “The ones in Wyoming and South Dakota had the exact same problem, oddly enough. How big of a believer are you in coincidence? Because I’m not much of one; and head traumas don’t typically cause that much memory loss.”
“What kind of meta would be able to do that?” I folded my arms, felt the familiar lump under my left arm as I rested my hand on my pistol.
He shrugged, looking for all the world like he was a man unconcerned with anything. “Well, the beatings could be caused by just about any type…as for the other, there’s a few that could cause that, but one in particular I’m thinking of.”
I waited a minute for him to answer. “I thought we weren’t gonna do the mystery game.”
“I said we weren’t gonna do the denial game – I never said I was gonna tell you everything I know.” He turned and pushed the button to call the elevator and stared at me, puzzlement brewing on his face. “Why Clarke? Why not just go with Nealon?”
I rolled my eyes and lowered my voice. “Because if you’re going to commit a felony, it’s best not to use your real name, especially if said name is being entered into the FBI database as an agent. That tends to leave a pretty exact record if anything goes wrong.”
He frowned. “Well, wouldn’t they have had to put a picture of you into the database in a personnel file?”
“I—” I stopped and thought about it. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not planning on making a major problem of it.”
“Huh.” He stared back at me with cool amusement. “I might worry about that a little bit if I were you, especially given who you work for.”
“Oh yeah?” We both looked up as the elevator dinged. “Care to share what you mean by that?”
He smiled as he stepped into the elevator. “Nope.” His hand reached out to hold the door as Kat came up to join us. “What’s the word, blondie? Does this guy have a swiss melt for a memory too?”
Kat had the rarest of expressions cross her face, irritation, as she shot me a look, as though she were asking permission before speaking in front of him. I nodded at her. “Yeah,” she said. “He’s perfectly healthy, his brain is fine, but the memory’s just gone, like it never existed.”
“Same old story.” Reed pulled his hand back and the elevator door started to close. “See you ladies down the road. Oh, and Sienna? You smell like whiskey. Just FYI.”
The elevator doors closed before I could snap back a reply. I looked to Kat, who was slightly flushed. “Of course I smell like whiskey,” I said. “I’ve been drinking whiskey.” Kat shrugged as I pushed the elevator button to call another one. “Ass,” I said, lowering my voice.
“Who was he?” Kat waited until we were walking across the parking lot to ask.
“Him?” I chucked a thumb toward the hospital building. “When Zack and Kurt came to my house for the first time, they ended up drawing guns—”
“What?” She looked at me with incredulity. “Really?”
“Really. I kinda got into a scuffle with them first. Anyway, I ended up running when Kurt started shooting, and Reed was waiting outside and offered me an escape route, so I took him up on it.”
“They shot at you?” She stopped and grabbed me by the arm. I felt the strength in her grip; it wasn’t quite as much as I could bring to bear, but the girl was no slouch. “With real bullets?”
“Tranquilizer darts. But I didn’t know that until later.”
“So who is he?” She stared at me evenly, and had the slightest smile. “He’s kinda cute, you know.”
“I had noticed that, yes.” I pulled my arm gently from her grasp. “And if he’d ever stick around for more than five minutes without disappearing, that might matter.”
“Oooh,” she said in a somewhat high and floating voice. “A man of mystery?”
“The very definition of it.” I opened the passenger door to the SUV and climbed in, tossing a glance back to confirm Scott was still snoring softly in the back, head against the window and mouth open wide. “I bet you could do with a little bit more of that in your life right about now.”
“Huh?” She cocked her head at me, question written on her face, then swiveled to look when I indicated the backseat. She saw Scott, shook her head and stuck the key in the ignition. “So what did he tell you?”
“Not much. Said he’d interviewed the victims out in Wyoming and South Dakota, that they had the same memory gap as the guy in Owatonna.” I leaned back against the headrest. “So now we’ve got four people who got the holy hell beat out of them and they don’t remember a thing about it. We’ve got no idea where they’re going and no clue who’s doing it – except…” I frowned.
“What?” She was at rapt attention, looking at me.
“Reed confirmed one thing.” I chewed my lip. “He said a meta was definitely causing the memory loss – and I think he knew which kind of meta it was.”
Kat looked at me blankly. “So what kind of meta causes memory loss when they attack you?”
I looked out into the black night, and I racked my brain for something, anything, I’d learned in my studies, anything at all about metas that could make memories disappear. Without that clue, we were without anything to do or any lead to investigate until the next call came in. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t know.”
Chapter 9
Someone Else
The heat was near unbearable. Somehow I’d done it again, scored the crappiest possible car I could get my hands on. I’d stopped in some half-assed town called Ellsworth just over the Wisconsin line and stolen an old Dodge that was sitting overnight in a grocery store parking lot. The reeferhead’s Honda had started making gawdawful grinding noises in southern Minnesota. I tried to make it last, filled it up in Red Wing, but no, it started going into catastrophic failure mode after I crossed the river. This is what happens when you have to choose between buying weed and performing regularly scheduled maintenance, I suppose.
I thought maybe I’d get lucky this time, but I wasn’t. The Dodge was older and the air conditioner didn’t work, which might explain why it was left in a parking lot. It was after midnight, and still pretty damned stifling out. I wished for the millionth time that I had made this little trip in winter, then remembered what winters were like in the upper midwest. Spring would have been the time for this. Or fall.
My shirt was dripping with sweat by the time I hit the first exit ramp in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The home of pretty near nothing, the city of Eau Claire had still somehow managed to attract over sixty thousand people to live within its limits. I’d been here before; I couldn’t see the appeal.
The night was dark, but the yellow light of the moon was in the sky as I rolled through a commercial district. There were a line of little stores and I followed the thoroughfare until I reached Fleet Street, where I turned left. I was going by directions I had memorized before I left Gillette, but they were as fresh in my mind as if I had them with me on a piece of paper. I eased the car down the road, squinting to read the house numbers by the moon and the streetlights.
8453. I stopped when I saw
them on the front of a white house, the little bronze numerals barely visible in the dark. I climbed out of the car two blocks down and started to walk back. I felt a grin split my lips and I barely restrained myself from wanting to run.
The house was older, built in the seventies, a little one-floor rambler on a city lot, the grass now overgrown by a week or more, weeds sprouting up all over. The aged wooden siding looked like I’d get splinters just from touching it, and I had a suspicion that the dark lines on the roof meant that this place couldn’t hold its water. A red door was the single spot of color on the exterior and a wooden fence higher than my head partitioned the backyard off, hiding it from view.
I cleared the fence with a jump, felt the shock through my knees as I landed and cursed under my breath. I’d been jumping through a lot of hoops the last few days, had been on the receiving end of some rough luck, and whoever crossed my path next was going to be the recipient of all my frustrations for those setbacks and reversals. It was going to be sweet.
I walked slow, letting my eyes make sure the path in front of me was clear. I could see a light on in the back of the house as I came around the corner, crouched in a defensive posture in case someone was waiting for me out back. It never pays to be surprised.
The back of the house was one long, straight line, and I could see a couple people in the kitchen window, having a conversation. Both were men, one older than the other. The younger one looked to be in his late teens, while the older appeared to be in his forties. Looks could be deceiving, though, because I knew he was at least a millennium old if not older. Franklin Beauregard, he was named. He was the reason I was here.
I ducked under the kitchen window and crawled through the grass on my hands and knees. The wet of the dew was the only coolness I had felt since I left the Honda in Ellsworth. I felt it on my knees and the temporary pleasure of the temperature change gave way to annoyance at getting wet – those fellas inside were really gonna suffer for all this crap.
I stood once I was clear of the window and climbed the step to the back door. I braced myself and took a deep breath before lifting my foot and kicking. I hit the door and felt it splinter as my momentum carried me through, breaking it into four pieces. They should have used a steel door; that would have at least slowed me down as I ripped it from the hinges.
I heard raised voices and the young man who I assumed was Franklin’s son entered the back hallway first. He uttered a cry of warning when he saw me and whipped a fist through the air. I reached out, caught it and tugged him forward, ramming his head into the wall.
I was past him in a half a heartbeat, looking through the narrow kitchen at Beauregard, a smirk on my face. “Hello, Franklin. What brings Omega to Eau Claire, Wisconsin?”
He clasped one hand over the other at his midsection and I watched his face become calm resignation. “As if you don’t know.”
“Oh, I know. I just wanted to hear you say it.” I took two steps toward him. He didn’t move. “Tell me where Site Epsilon is.”
His eyes widened and I watched his aged hands turn white as they clenched each other. “How…?” His face went back to relaxed. “You…are batting at shadows.”
“Nah, I’m batting at the things that cast shadows.” I took another step. “Site Epsilon. Andromeda. Where? Last chance.” I angled a hand toward him in warning. “And don’t even think about coming at me with those—”
His battered jacket burst open, the ripping of the fabric like a thunderclap in the quiet summer eve. I jumped forward and hit him three times in the face before he landed the first attack, a hard bite on my shoulder. I grunted in pain and slammed his head against the wood floor. Two gargantuan snakes extended from his body, one from behind each of his shoulder blades. I snatched a butcher knife from the block next to the sink and cut into the first as it struck at me, splitting the head from its body. It went limp and dropped, flopping on the floor behind him.
I got to my feet, knife in hand as Beauregard struggled to his knees, the remaining snake head giving him license to do so. It extended five feet from his body, keeping out of range of the knife, hissing and striking every time it got close to me. I feinted toward him and it snapped and came at me. I reached out with my free hand and wrapped my arm around it, trapping it in a headlock as I drove the blade through the top of its skull, slicing the head off. Without so much as another sound, it fell still and quiet, and I turned to Franklin, who was on his knees, both snake bodies limp and hanging from his shoulders.
“Andromeda,” I said as I dangled the knife before his eyes. “Would you care to guess what you lose next?”
He bowed his head, and I heard a whisper. “Decorah, Iowa. It’s in Decorah.”
I knelt and dropped the blade to the ground, clucking my tongue. “Why do you have to lie to me, Franklin? It demeans us both.”
“I’m telling the truth.” He looked up at me, his fingers resting on the floor as though he were drawing strength from it.
I reached up and my hand wrapped around his neck, applying only the slightest pressure, forcing him to look me in the eye. “Site Epsilon is not in Decorah, and we both know it. You’ve certainly got an Omega safehouse there, but that ain’t where Andromeda is.” I smiled at him. “So…the hard way, then.”
He gasped as the pain began, my other hand holding him tight on the cheek. “But…you…would have done this anyway…”
“Of course,” I said, my hands holding him as he started to grunt, then let out his first scream. “It’s not like I trust you.” I felt the surge begin as his life, his soul, drained out of him, my hands pressed tightly to his cheeks. His memories flooded into me, into my mind, causing it to swirl, a fresh infusion of life into my brain. I let his body drop to the floor and I stood up, looking down on him in pity. “Now that you’re in here,” I tapped the side of my head, “you can’t lie to me anymore, Franklin.”
I heard something move behind me and I turned. His son (I knew because of his memories now in my head) was stirring, moving from where I had put him down against the wall. I walked to the back door and knelt next to him, flipping the boy over. He still looked young, but I’d put a nice gash on his forehead. His eyelids fluttered and he mumbled something. “Shut up,” I said. I stared at him for a minute, then shook my head, letting out a sigh of impatience. Too young.
“This is your lucky day,” I said as I pressed my hand against his face. Even unconscious, I felt him squirm when the pain started. I held contact for another couple of seconds and then pulled my hand away. I could see the rise and fall of his chest, the regularity of his breathing a sign of the mercy I didn’t even know I had in me. “Don’t worry,” I said. “You won’t remember any of this.”
Chapter 10
Sienna Nealon
I awoke to a headache that felt as though a lumberjack had decided to chop down my skull. Light was shining through a window and there was a faint rattling that I was sure was between my ears, the remnants of my brain trying to escape its own stupidity for drinking too much last night. I groaned and realized that the buzzing was not in my head: it was in fact to the left of it, on the nightstand next to the hotel bed I was sleeping in.
I rolled over and grabbed my phone, slapping the talk button without bothering to check the display. I wondered for a half-second if this was what life had been like before Caller ID. “Hello?” My voice was little more than a croak.
“Hey.” I heard the quiet voice of Zack on the other end of the line and sat up, far too fast for my own good.
“Owww,” I said, my hand rushing to my temple, which felt as though it were about to explode.
“You okay?” Zack sounded a little resigned. Or cautious. Actually, it was hard to tell because the pain in my head was so sharp.
“Yes. Just…have a headache.”
“Hm. First night on a mission, away from the Directorate…” He sounded like he was brainstorming. “Let me guess, they gave you cover as an FBI agent, complete with an ID that said you were over twenty
-one.”
“Should I worry that you immediately assume the worst about me?” I tried to cram some reproach into my words, but I’m pretty sure it failed. I dangled my legs over the edge of the bed. Apparently I hadn’t managed to shed my suit before I passed out.
“You should assume that I’ve been a college student at roughly your age. My fake IDs weren’t as realistic as what the Directorate can produce. Also, I’ve been on some of those ‘sit around and wait’ assignments. They’re moments of excitement followed by long stretches of boring nothing.”
“That sounds familiar.” I stood up and hung my head, because it felt better for some reason. I paused, trying to string together some thoughts. “About last night…”
“It’s all right, you don’t have to apologize. I know it’s been tense for you lately.” His voice was soothing.
“Yeah, I…wait, what?” I bristled, every muscle in my body tensing as the meaning behind what he said made it through my fog-addled brain. “What did you just say?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I…I said…”
“Did you just say ‘I don’t have to apologize’?” I felt my jaw clench. “I know damned well I don’t have to apologize. I was just minding my own business in my room when you came in and we had a lovely conversation about how you secretly resent the fact that I can’t put out, which is something that you’ve never had the balls to say to my face.”
I waited for a response, and when it came, there was a little heat on it. “This isn’t the time to have this conversation.”
“Really?” I almost yelled at him. “When’s a good time to discuss the fact that we’ve been dating for months and can’t touch for more than two seconds per day? Wedding night? Golden Anniversary? When would be the appropriate time to talk about the fact that we can’t have sex, Zack? Please, tell me so I can write it into my schedule!”
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