The Debt Collector (Season 1)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  “You want to tell me what’s going on, Valac?” I ask. Pawel’s gun still points at the murky rafters of the shop.

  “Well, that would spoil the surprise, wouldn’t it?” Valac says.

  I glare at him. The thug holding my right arm grins. He’s the one with the burn mark still on his forehead. He grasps my arm at the wrist and elbow and wrestles it flat on the bench top. I’m leaned over, but two-pints-of-ice-cream thug grips my other arm, so I’m stretched awkwardly between the two of them.

  I feel sick. “Valac—”

  “Just hold still, little bird,” Valac says softly. “It’ll be over quickly.”

  I try to jerk my arm out of the thug’s grip, but I can’t budge. Pawel skirts around my back and worms his way in between the second thug, me, and the bench. He holds the gun directly above my arm, hovering over my shirtsleeve.

  Over my tracker.

  “Wait—” A red light flicks on, and my words are cut off by a blinding flash of pain in my arm. A guttural scream ricochets around my head and escapes through my mouth. Electric shocks and white-hot burning pulse deep inside my arm. By the time the scream carves all the breath out of my body, it’s over.

  Pawel dances back, taking his gun with him, and the thugs release me. The pain is still there, but it’s not arcing fresh agony through my arm anymore. I clutch my arm to my chest and stumble back from the bench. It’s bad. It hurts like hell, actually. But I manage to keep the moaning inside me.

  Ophelia has one hand against the wall, holding herself up. One of the thugs stalks toward her. I fling myself in his path, grunting “No!” at him, but I’m one-armed, and I know it’s useless as soon as I try. He shoves me into a box of parts, and fresh pain slices up my arm as I use it to keep from falling. I look back, but Ophelia isn’t resisting at all. Her face is deathly pale, but she lets the thug take her arm and bring her to the bench.

  “Valac!” My voice is still rough from the scream. “You can’t…” I struggle up, but the thug is ready to shove me again. “Valac, she can’t take it. She’s too weak.” I have no idea why I’m trying to appeal to his decency, when he just tried to kill her last night. I try a new tack. “If she dies, Kolek is going to be pissed.”

  Valac rolls his eyes. “No one’s going to die, Lirium.” Then he crosses his arms and taps his chin. “At least not in the next five minutes.”

  “Do you really want to take the chance that this won’t put her over the edge?” It’s desperate, and Valac is unimpressed. He ignores me and offers a hand to Ophelia. To my surprise, she takes it. He walks her the final step to the bench and lays her collecting arm on it, still holding her hand. He whispers something in her ear, and she nods. Then Valac tips his head to Pawel, who’s still standing back from the fray, eyes wide, microwave gun trembling in his hand. He skitters forward, points the gun, and zaps Ophelia’s tracker. Her body goes rigid, and a whimper of pain escapes her. The thug has to hold me back, because I’m surging toward her, even though I can’t do anything to stop it.

  Then it’s over and Pawel steps back.

  Valac places his hand right over the spot where Pawel just burned her tracker. He holds it for a few seconds, and when he releases her, she tucks it in, but she doesn’t seem as pale as before.

  I push past pints-of-ice-cream thug and put my uninjured arm around Ophelia’s shoulders. Valac makes a face as I gently pull her away. I don’t know what he has planned for us, but the two thugs are heading toward the door, so I assume we’re done with Mole Man and his microwave gun.

  Valac holds the car door open, and I let Ophelia climb in first, mostly because I want to keep her as far from him as possible. He eases in behind me, and the three of us fill the back seat. I want to put my arm around Ophelia, but I hold it close to my chest instead, like I’m crossing my arms. It’s the only way I can keep it from shaking. Her hands rest in her lap, and she stares out the window. The pain from the burn must be less for her. Maybe something Valac did.

  “Lirium,” Valac says softly next to me. “Give me your arm.”

  I look at him only long enough to say, “Screw you.” I catch his smirk before I turn my head back to watch Ophelia look out the window.

  “Not right now, little bird,” he says in mock chastisement. “We have work to do.”

  I want to punch him. I would, except with my burnt tracker and still-split knuckles, I’m sure it would hurt me more than him. I settle for glaring. If he makes a move to touch me, however, I might have to get in a few shots before the thugs up front can stop me.

  Valac reaches across me, holding his palm out to Ophelia, and I almost knock his arm away. But her hand is already out, meeting his halfway. They press palms together, his long fingers curling down to meet her shorter ones, fingertip to fingertip. The pale skin on the back of Ophelia’s hand turns pink.

  He’s transferring to her.

  Ophelia’s gaze is steady on Valac’s. It feels weirdly intimate to be sitting between the two of them. My head starts to pound in time with the pulse that’s beating through my injured arm. I can’t figure out Valac. Last night he nearly killed her. Now he’s feeding her own life energy back to her. She’s not surprised. More like… resigned.

  They break apart, and Ophelia puts her hand on my knee. “Give me your arm, Lirium.”

  I hesitate, only because I’m confused. Once we’re alone again, I really need to get the full story of her and Valac. For now, I untuck my arm and twist to lay my hand, palm up, across the lap of her shimmery silver dress. She carefully unbuttons my shirt cuff and rolls up the sleeve. A burn mark has welled up, an angry red strip across the width of my arm. Her hand rests lightly on it, and she pulses life energy into me. It heats up the contact point on the surface, which hurts a little more, but down deep, where the burning is still happening, there’s a rush that feels like relief. I let out a small sigh, and my shoulders relax as the pain steps down a couple notches. I’m buzzing from the transfer, too, which doesn’t hurt with the feeling-less-pain aspect.

  Ophelia stops the transfer and gently rolls my sleeve down again. Then she lifts my other hand. The bandages are gone—Kolek’s bathroom didn’t have any replacements, and the old ones from the hospital were dirty and falling off. She lays her fingers across my knuckles and gives them a hit of life energy as well. The cuts swell and seem to close before my eyes.

  “How…” I stop. I know life energy can do amazing things. I also know it’s not a cure-all for disease or injury. But I’ve begun to question everything I think I know. I look Ophelia straight in her dark eyes, less dull now that Valac has pumped some life back into them. “Tell me how this works.”

  “It’s just your body’s response to the infusion of energy,” Ophelia says, as if it’s no big deal that she’s curing my injuries right in front of me. “The point of entry has an especially large dose of it, and the body responds. It’s not doing anything it wouldn’t do normally, just at an accelerated pace.”

  “It’s like steroids,” Valac offers. I ignore him.

  “So you’re speeding up my recovery,” I say to Ophelia, “by moving the point of entry to where the wound is. Could you…” I think of Dr. Brodsky and his transfer device. The room full of Tillys at Madam A’s brothel. “But you’re not curing me. You’re not healing something that wouldn’t already heal on its own.”

  “That’s right.” Ophelia draws her fingertips away, trailing them softly across my hand. If we were anywhere other than a mob car with a mob debt collector and mob henchmen watching my every move, I’d chase after that soft touch with more of the same.

  “There are a lot of things that life energy can do,” she says, “but curing people isn’t one of them. Or bringing them back from the dead.” She glances at Valac, so I finally spare him a look. The smirk is gone. His stare is as cold as a grave. So, their past was deadly. Someone—maybe someone Valac cared about—died. I don’t know if that will help us escape or not, but Ophelia needs to come clean to me, and soon, so I know what we’re dealing
with here.

  Valac’s stare doesn’t let up, and it’s all for Ophelia. “Make sure Lirium is ready to collect. I’d hate to have to use extreme measures to ensure he’s a functional debt collector for Kolek. And if he’s not useful, then… we’ll have no use for him.”

  I don’t care for the way that sounds.

  Ophelia turns away without answering and stares out the window again.

  The sedan pulls to a stop in another seedy neighborhood, like the one we left, only there are no boarded-over shops. Just apartments sandwiched together like children’s blocks, each grimier than the next. Before we get out of the car, Valac reaches for Ophelia’s palm. She lets him take it, and he taps in something. I frown, not liking how compliant she is with everything he wants.

  When he’s done, he turns to me. “Give me your palm.”

  “No thanks.”

  His blue eyes stare steadily into mine. “Ophelia, please tell your puppy what will happen if I don’t disable the locator in his palm screen.”

  “Someone might come looking for us, Lirium.” Ophelia’s voice is heavy. “If they find us, they might send the police. And that won’t end well.”

  I think of Candy and her inept police contacts. They may be ineffective bringing us back in from the mob, but the worst that would happen is we’d be right where we are now.

  “I’m thinking anything is better than being stuck here,” I say, directly to Valac.

  He flicks a look to the thugs, who have already climbed out of the car and are waiting for us. “What do you think would happen, if the police showed up right now?” Valac says to me. “Do you think Kolek is going to let his debt collectors fall into the hands of law enforcement?”

  A chill runs down my back.

  When I don’t answer, Valac voices my thoughts. “They have orders to shoot us before letting us anywhere near the police. The last thing Kolek wants is one of his hitmen to turn state’s evidence.”

  Hitmen. Of course, that’s what all debt collectors are. Except mob collectors do illegal transfers, which means they know a dangerous amount of information.

  “Give me your palm, Lirium,” says Valac. “We don’t have all day.”

  I reluctantly put my hand up. He rapidly swipes and taps a sequence. When he’s done, I check my screen. It shows a message, Encryption Complete. He’s locked me out of my own palm screen.

  “I might need to use this again someday,” I say, glaring at him.

  “I’ve only locked out your locator.” Valac pulls down the handle on the car door. “But if you have a girlfriend, I wouldn’t recommend calling her—not unless you want her to join us on a more permanent basis.” He pauses once he’s stepped outside the car, holding onto the upper edge and leaning in. “And I wouldn’t call anyone else, either, just in case you’re tempted.”

  I’m not. The only person I can think to call is Candy, and even if she knew where we were, I doubt she’d muster much of a rescue party. She’s already written off Ophelia. Once she realizes I haven’t checked in, she’ll assume the mob got me too. She’ll scratch me off her list of difficult debt collectors and move on.

  We climb out of the car. Our high-end clothes look out-of-place and menacing on this down-on-your-luck street. Valac nods to Kolek’s henchmen. They take the lead, swiping open the door to one of the tenements and marching in like they own the place.

  Do these guys have swipe cards for the entire city? Is that how they got in so easily to my apartment? I glance at Ophelia with raised eyebrows, but her face is blank. If she’s putting it together, she’s not interested in talking about it right now.

  We hike up two flights, Valac bringing up the rear, in case we decide to make a run for it. A mother pulls her child inside when she sees us, but the rest of the floor is closed doors, piles of trash in the corners, and slitted, smog-filtered light from a window with broken blinds. By the time we arrive at the apartment door, the thugs are already inside. One has a hand around the throat of a scrawny man who looks two seconds away from wetting his pants.

  Valac spreads his hands wide. “What are we going to do with you, Renald?” As if he’s a kid who’s broken curfew or a been caught sneaking out. From the ghost-white look on Renald’s face, I’m guessing his offenses are much worse than that.

  “I… I didn’t do nothin’,” Renald says around the choke-hold. The henchman with the burn mark on his forehead looks like he enjoys choking people far too much.

  Valac crosses his arms. “I don’t think that’s quite true, Renald. Mr. Kolek thinks you’re an informant for the FBI’s rather incompetent Organized Crime Division.”

  “What?” Renald’s eyes go wide, and he struggles in Burn Man’s grip. The thug lets him go and steps back. “No way! No way I’m working for the Feds! What do you think, I’m crazy or somethin’?”

  Valac throws out his hands in feigned exasperation. “That’s what I said to Mr. Kolek! I told him you’d have to be crazy, because you were nowhere near smart enough to pull something like that off.” Valac strolls a few steps closer. Renald stumbles back into an armchair that’s torn and bleeding stuffing. Valac looms over the shorter man and pats his cheek. He visibly shakes, his eyelids blinking together with each of Valac’s touches. I glance at Ophelia, but she’s fascinated with a side table holding a collection of tiny glass cats on a mirror plate.

  “I don’t know if you’re crazy or not, my friend,” Valac says to Renald. “I honestly don’t care. But Mr. Kolek cares a great deal that you’re not meeting your quota of donors. And it’s hard to believe that the east side’s source of runaways and addicts has suddenly dried up. So, Renald, if you’re not setting up some kind of life force sting operation with the feds…” Valac leans in close, and the man bends backward over the armchair. “Tell me. Are you trafficking donors to Mr. Aleksky or Mr. Emeryk?”

  “No! No, I swear—”

  “Because you know how Mr. Kolek doesn’t like to share with his brothers.”

  The man quakes, and my stomach curls into a knot. This isn’t going to end well for him. Everyone in the room knows it, including him.

  “I would never—”

  Valac holds up a finger that comes very close to touching the man’s lips. “Don’t lie to me, Renald. We’ll find out the truth, anyway, and it will go easier on you, if you just tell us now.”

  His eyes cross as he looks at Valac’s finger, regarding it like the weapon it is. “I… I just…” He shifts a pleading look to Valac’s eyes. “They made me do it.”

  My throat tightens. Ophelia finally pays attention, her hands clasped calmly in front of her.

  Valac straightens and laces his fingers. “Made you do what, exactly?”

  “They threatened me. Said they would send their debt collectors here.” He nervously glances at Ophelia and me, as if seeing us for the first time. “They… they said if I didn’t report to them, they would—”

  “What did you tell them?” Valac asks, patience draining from his voice. “Exactly.”

  “They wanted to know how many collections you were doing. I… I said I didn’t know! All I know is my ward. Just mine. I don’t know how much you guys are doing in other wards!”

  Valac nods. The knot in my stomach cinches tighter.

  Renald keeps spilling. “Then they wanted more, you know, said they wanted a cut. And I… I couldn’t say no, right? I mean…” His gaze flits like a fly, buzzing around each of our five faces. “I had to. Right?”

  Valac nods. “I completely understand.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “None at all,” says Valac, shaking his head. “How long, Renald?”

  “How long?”

  “How long have you been sending donors to Mr. Kolek’s brothers?” Valac draws his words out, like he thinks the man is mentally impaired. And maybe he is: befuddled with fear. My injured arm starts to ache. I realize it’s locked with my other arm tightly across my chest. I release them.

  “Just for…” Renald’s gaze sweeps the room ag
ain. I’m not sure he even remembers. “A month?”

  “Okay.” Valac pats the man’s shoulder. “Thank you, Renald. I appreciate you being honest with us.” He steps back and turns his head to the side. “Ophelia, would you do the honors, dear?”

  She steps forward, her shimmery silver dress moving like a gentle breeze over a lake. Small ripples in the fabric catch the dim light from the windows. Renald smiles uncertainly as she approaches.

  “Please have a seat, Mr. Renald.” Ophelia’s voice is soft and deep. Sexy. I cringe and pray she’s not doing what I think she’s doing.

  His lips quirk into a spasmodic smile. “It’s just… Renald. No… no mister.”

  “Renald then.” Ophelia holds up her fine-fingered hand and gestures to the chair. He shuffles sideways to get to it without bumping her.

  As soon as he’s settled, he twists to look up at her. She smiles and lays her palm on his forehead. His eyelids jerk open and freeze there, his face twisted into a mask of belated fear. I’m momentarily transfixed by what she’s doing, then I lurch forward. Valac turns and plants his hand on my chest, shoving me backward so hard I nearly lose my balance. I right myself, one hand on the table with the glass cats. They all tumble over, a rain of broken glass tinkles on the mirror.

  Valac follows up the shove with a steely-eyed look. “She needs it.” His voice is rough.

  This flares something inside me. I straighten and get in his face. “Because you drained her, asshole.”

  Something shifts on his face that I don’t understand. “She attacked me.”

  I don’t respond. Because it’s my fault. I came in, naïve in trying to rescue her, and Ophelia attacked him to protect me. Something I’d rather not admit to Valac, if he hasn’t already figured it out for himself.

  “Besides,” he says, the steely look returning, “she needs to prove her worth to Kolek.” He gives me a pointed look before turning back to watch Ophelia. Our altercation hasn’t distracted her. She’s settled on the arm of the chair, her hand lightly resting on Renald’s forehead, still pulling life energy from him. She leans over, draping her other arm behind him and almost snuggling with him on the chair. Her face is flushed, her lips parted, like she’s breathing hard. The same look of fear is frozen on his face.