The Debt Collector (Season Two)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  “You knew I was far too crazy to ever be turned?”

  He huffs a light laugh. “I knew you were too good to be turned.” His face loses the humor. “And I didn’t want you to die for it. Not when it was my fault you were brought into Gehenna in the first place.”

  “How was it your fault?” I ask. “Moloch was going to kill me anyway.”

  He nods, but he doesn’t look happy about it. “That’s true. But I could have walked away from finding you… I could have let you go on living your life until… until Moloch decided to end it.” He frowns at the sheets again. “Instead, I brought you inside. Made you jump through his hoops. Forced you to dirty your hands and… like I said before, it served my interests.”

  I’m not buying any of this, because even if I didn’t know all the backstory on how Zachariel got here, I know the man who just saved my life. I touch his cheek, which brings his gaze back up to mine. “And how did saving my life serve your interests?”

  “That… was different. You reminded me of something I used to have. Before Gehenna. Before the mob.” He gives me a small smile. “It’s been a long time since I gave a mercy hit. I’d forgotten how good it feels… to be good.”

  I grin and ease closer to him. “You are so very, very good.”

  He laughs. I kiss him before the laugh has a chance to die away. Then our kissing gets more serious. Before it can devolve into more lovemaking, I pull back. Because I have one more question that needs answering first.

  “I can’t believe Moloch let you save me just because you’re in love,” I say. “That seems so… not like him.”

  Zachariel grimaces. “He let me save you, but only for the moment. He thinks you’ve done something he hasn’t accounted for.” He cocks an eyebrow at me. “You’ve intrigued him every step along the way, you know. He likes his games, and he was appalled when you didn’t play. And now… well, I’m afraid he wants you to live so he can figure out what you’ve done. And make you pay for it.”

  That runs a chill through my heart. Because there’s something worse Moloch could do than simply kill me: he could hurt the people I love.

  “I don’t want other people to pay for my sins,” I say to him, propping myself up in the bed.

  “I know.” He cups my cheek with his hand. “Which is why I’m going to help you get out of here. And take Moloch down from the outside.”

  My eyes truly go wide then. “You can do that?”

  He smiles. “I’m going to try.”

  I grab him and kiss him fiercely. I will tell him everything—all my secrets, all my lies, every thing I’ve done that I regret, and all the things that I don’t. But first I’m going to make love to him again in the seconds that we have.

  In case we don’t have many more.

  I’m starting to believe I have actually died and gone to heaven.

  Only it’s a black-sheeted heaven filled with life energy hits and amazing sex. Not that I did anything to deserve going to heaven. But it’s hard to dwell on the original sin of being a debt collector when Zachariel is feeding me non-stop life-energy hits while instructing me on the finer points of sex between debt collectors. I’ve spent the night getting educated in feats of pleasure, all without the side-effect of killing the handsome man who shares my bed.

  This is a school I never want to leave.

  Not that I could, at the moment. Zachariel’s quite adamant that Moloch has essentially confined me to quarters. Between bouts of sumptuous sex and drowsy naps with tangled limbs, the night has passed with a perpetual sameness in Zachariel’s bedroom. Our clothes remain motionless on the coal-black carpet, the bed is securely anchored to the heavy carved-wood headboard, and the crushed velvet drapes on the wall mute the sounds of our lovemaking. It’s as if the world has telescoped down to this small room inside Gehenna’s subterranean hideout beneath the streets of LA.

  There are no windows in our room. The only sign of morning came with breakfast, which was delivered via a light tap at the door and a brusque minion of Moloch’s. We gobbled the food like ravenous wolves, then went back to our playground on the bed. The only time we stop is when my body can’t take any more—the pleasure or the life energy buzz.

  If I’m not already dead, too much of this just might do the trick.

  We’re taking a breather at the moment. Zachariel plays with my palm screen, his light taps on my skin a pleasantly innocuous change of pace.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, but I’m still coming down from the latest infusion of life energy, so I’m not overly interested. In fact, I’m quite content to let him play to his heart’s content while I stare up at the ceiling and count the number of times it spins.

  “Just a little slash work.” The tapping stops, and he swipes my screen closed.

  I retrieve my hand and rest it on my belly. We haven’t worn clothes in so many hours that I’m starting to loathe the idea of ever dressing again.

  “Did you lock Moloch out so he can’t track me?” I’m still staring at the ceiling, but the spins are slowing down.

  “No. I can’t do that until we’re far enough away that he can’t touch us, but I’ve set it up to make it easy for your screen to go dark, once we’re ready.”

  I let my gaze drift from the ceiling to Zachariel’s unshaven face. I reach up to stroke the bristles, marveling at how sensitive my fingertips have become—it’s like the extended high and all the life energy he insists on pumping into me have permanently heightened every sense.

  Then again, reality feels very altered right now. I’m sure I’m too high to really know anything with certainty. I drop my hand.

  “Are you ready for more?” he asks.

  I think he means life energy this time, not sex. “I can’t believe you still have more life energy you want to give me.”

  “I have plenty, and you need all you can get,” he says. “You have to be stronger, in case things get… tricky.” He’s talking about our escape, which we have barely discussed with all the sheet-tangling and high-making.

  But now seems like a good time. I prop myself up on my elbows so I can look into his eyes more easily. They’re deep, dark brown, like warmed chocolate. Zachariel’s face is flushed as well. Even though, on balance, he’s been trickling more life energy into me than I’ve been cycling back, the process has kept us both pretty high. Which adds a certain enthusiasm to the lovemaking.

  “Even if you lock Moloch out from my screen,” I say, “he’s still going to find me, if he wants. I can’t imagine he’ll let us just walk away.”

  “No, he absolutely won’t,” Zachariel says. “You know too much, and I know even more. If we make a run for it, he’ll hunt us down. And dying won’t be a simple energy drain. I’ve seen Moloch kill when he’s significantly displeased, and it’s not a pretty sight.”

  I frown. “Maybe you should let me do this on my own.”

  He runs a finger down my bare shoulder, then kisses it lightly. “You won’t have a chance without me.”

  “I don’t like the idea of you getting caught just because I make a run for it.”

  He grins. “Then I’ll have to be sure not to get caught.” He brushes his hand across my cheek and brings me in for another kiss. It’s just a light one, though, not the beginning of something more. When he pulls back, his face is serious again. “Which is why we need to extract completely from Gehenna. I’ve dropped a note for my handler here in LA. As soon as he can arrange it, they’ll find an exit situation for us. Then we’ll scrub your records, and you’ll go into Witness Protection. Moloch won’t be able to find you because officially Alexandra Morgan Sterling will no longer exist.”

  That jerks me out of the hazy veil over my mind. I lean away from him, pulling out of his grasp. “Witness Protection?” My voice has hiked up.

  He frowns. “I know it sounds bad, but it’s really the only way. I’ll have to leave LA as well. There’s no way either of us can stay here and hope for Moloch not to catch up with us.”

  “I can’t jus
t leave.” I scoot away from him on the bed, but when I swing my legs off the edge, I have to stop. The room is threatening to tip sideways. I close my eyes and breathe deep, willing away the high that’s flooded my body for hours. Zachariel has flushed me with untold years of life energy, accumulated during in his time in the mob and Gehenna. I feel stronger than I ever have, including having the stamina to stay up all night with the sex and the hits. But my brain is awash in the effects, and it has me off balance in more than just a physical sense.

  How can I run away from everything my father has built? Everything I’ve built? And for what? Simply to save my life? Given that every ounce of life I have inside me is now stolen… my brain is in no state to untangle the logic of that. All I know is that for the first time in a very long time I actually want to live.

  Funny how that makes things so much more complicated.

  Zachariel’s hand slips around my chest to hold me. His bare skin presses against my back, and he whispers in my ear. “I know it’s going to be impossibly hard, Alexandra. But you can do it. We can do it… together.”

  I just shake my head: at his words, at my situation, at being trapped by all of it.

  “Let me tell you something.” He gently urges me to turn to face him. When I refuse, he shifts to sit next to me and draws me closer. I let my head fall against his shoulder, and he rests his chin on the wild sex-mussed curls of my hair.

  “I’m very good at lying, Wraith,” he says quietly. “But I’m going to tell you something that’s true. For a long time, I’ve given everything I have to stopping the bad guys. I became one of them so I could stop them… a logic that only makes sense because it actually works on occasion. There were mob hits I stopped, and Gehenna schemes I foiled, and lives I managed to save along the way. But each hit I couldn’t stop, each homeless man I was forced to drain, each time I had to prove my loyalty with yet another life taken…” He pauses, and his grip on my shoulder tightens for a moment. Then he breathes out, and it relaxes. “Each time was a strike on my soul such that after a while… I wasn’t entirely sure I had one left. Eventually, I realized the bureau wasn’t going to bring me out. Ever. I was too well placed. Too valuable. I kept thinking if I made it to Moloch’s inner circle, if I unraveled his grand plans, whatever they are, then I could finally go home. Or at least over somewhere with a real life.”

  I place my hand on his chest, and the thumping of his heart reaches out to my sensitive fingers. The idea of him being trapped by his own heroics pricks tears to my eyes. I keep my face pressed into his shoulder so he doesn’t see. Then I realize: I was supposed to be his ticket out.

  “That was me, right?” I ask. “I was your chance to finally get inside Moloch’s ring so the bureau would let you leave?”

  He gives a small laugh. “Well, that was my plan. But then the cost of that… the cost of ruining you to get there… it suddenly didn’t make sense to me anymore. I finally found the one thing I wasn’t willing to do. And, strangely enough, that was when I realized I might still have a soul worth saving as well.”

  I blink back the tears so I can look up at him. “I ruined your plan.”

  He smiles. “You are my plan. Getting you out of Gehenna is a legit reason for the bureau to extricate me. So, you see, I really do need you to go into Witness Protection. I should be able to arrange for both of us to go in. If you can stand to be around me that much. I promise all the free life hits you could want.”

  The hazy night of sex and life energy takes on a little more clarity: this is Zachariel’s way of convincing me to go along with his plan. It’s his pitch for a life on the run, in Witness Protection, getting high and having great sex.

  I can imagine worse lives, to be sure. Including the one where I don’t live past tomorrow. But I also can’t see running away from everything that is my life.

  “There has to be some other way,” I say. “Some way we can bring Moloch down so he’s not a threat to us any longer.”

  “Well, I’m certainly going to try that as well,” Zachariel says. “I know about a few of his operations in play right now.”

  I pull back to look him in the eyes. “You know about the plot against Lifetime, don’t you?”

  He leans back and does a serious double-take. “You know about that?”

  “Seth told me.”

  Zachariel frowns like I’ve just told him the worst news possible. “He told you? Why? Did Moloch let you into his confidence when I wasn’t looking?”

  I can see the gears spinning in his head as he processes this. “No. Seth wanted me to try to stop it. That way Moloch would turn against me.” I smirk. “Turns out I washed out of the Moloch-testing program before that could hit the fan.”

  Zachariel’s not smiling. In fact, his frown is getting much deeper. “I can’t believe Seth would tell you about this.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Did you notice he doesn’t care for me much?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He would never risk one of Moloch’s plans that way.” He shakes his head. “I’m missing something here.” Then his eyes light up. “Did Seth tell you when they plan for the attack to trigger?”

  “No. Only that thousands of records would be shifted red, all at the same time. Why?”

  Zachariel gets up from the bed, paces around the room, picking up his clothes, then slowly putting them on. I can tell he’s thinking, so I don’t ask, I just gather up my clothes as well.

  Finally, as he’s buttoning up his shirt, he says, “Seth wouldn’t tell you unless he expected you to fail to stop it. Try yes, but fail.”

  “Right.” I slip the red camisole of my suit on over my head. The silky fabric feels foreign, like I’m putting on armor instead of a tiny slip of blouse. “And I doubt I’ll succeed, but I did try.” I step into my skirt and pull it up.

  Zachariel freezes mid-button. “What did you say?”

  I stop with my skirt half around my hips. “What? I couldn’t let all those people die, Zachariel.”

  His eyes go wide. “The labs at Sterling.”

  I give him a small scowl. “You didn’t exactly give me much time.”

  He strides over and grabs hold of my shoulders. “What did you do?” He’s holding me a little too tightly.

  I wrench free and glare at him. “I passed on a message to someone who might have a chance at stopping it.”

  “Who?”

  “Why does it matter?” His sudden seriousness and alarm are finally killing the buzz that’s swarmed my head all night.

  “There’s no way they can stop it.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I would have trouble stopping it, and I’m a slasher and know what I’m looking for.”

  “So we get your handler to pull us out of Gehenna, you use your slasher awesomeness to stop this terror plot, and then… well, then we can talk about Witness Protection. But I’m still not sure—”

  He raises his hands, like he wants to grab hold of my shoulders again, but refrains. “You don’t understand, Alexandra. Your friends are in danger. If they go after this and try to shut it down, without knowing what they’re doing…”

  What Zachariel is saying finally soaks into my life-energy drenched brain. “They’ll trigger something.” Oh no.

  “You’ve given your friends dangerous information.” Zachariel gently touches my cheek. “We’ve got to stop them before they do something with it. Because once they try… Moloch will know exactly who you trust.” He pauses and says softly. “He knows now that you’re not afraid to die. He’ll have to find something else—someone else—to use against you. To force your hand.”

  “Oh god.” The words barely escape me. Wyatt and Miral and Jax… Moloch would have no problem sending any of his minions against them. “I thought he just wanted to kill me.”

  “This was never about killing you, Wraith,” he says. “It was about eliminating the threat you and Sterling and Lifetime pose.”

  I close my eyes briefly. No matter what I do, it all comes back to that. “Maybe I should go int
o Witness Protection.” I can hardly believe the words are coming from my mouth. “That way he won’t have a reason to go after them.”

  “Now you’re thinking,” Zachariel says. “We just need to buy some time until my handler finds an exit strategy for us. Hopefully before Moloch figures out what you’ve done.”

  I frown and glance at the rumpled bed. “Is that what we’re doing here? Buying time?”

  “Among other things.” He smiles and gives me a light kiss. “For now, our story is simply that you’ve died, and I’ve brought you back. You’ve learned your lesson, and now you want to live. Moloch might even believe it. In the meantime, we need to figure out what his plan is for you.”

  “I thought he spared me because you loved me,” I say with a small smile.

  Zachariel doesn’t return it. “He didn’t let you live out of the goodness of his heart, because trust me, there is no good there. He has a reason. I didn’t have time to figure it out before—I was a little preoccupied with trying to bring you back from the dead.” He takes a breath. “We need to figure out why Moloch let me save you, and then get you out of here before whatever he has planned for you comes to fruition.”

  I swallow and nod. Maybe Zachariel’s right and Witness Protection would be the best choice. To simply disappear and live a life with no worries. No responsibilities. It’s very attractive. But in spite of what Zachariel thinks, disappearing doesn’t solve my problems. Moloch will continue on with his plans, and if that meant hurting the people I love, he would do it without hesitation, whether I was here or not. Leaving would just mean they would be unprotected. And as much as I’d like to live that fantasy, the truth is Moloch won’t stop until I stop him.

  My red power-suit has seen better days, so I’m back into my skin-tight collection suit, courtesy of Zachariel miraculously bringing it to the bedroom while saving my life. I had a moment of privacy in his bathroom to test out Miral’s enhancements. It wasn’t a spectacular test, lacking an opponent, but the way the tiny wrist activation tab made the suit buzz and all my hair stand out from my head was encouraging. Anyone trying to grab me will likely get enough of a shock to wish they hadn’t.