The Debt Collector (Season Two)

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  Man, this guy is good. Offering to give us exactly what we want… for a price. I shake my head a little and give Zachariel a look that says, Can you believe this guy? He’s been under my palm and half-choked to death in less than a minute, and he’s still calling the shots. I can’t help but be a little impressed. Even if he’s an amoral asshole.

  But as cool as he’s playing it, I know the truth: the man’s an addict, and I’ve got what he wants more than anything in this world. In fact, I’m sure the moment he saw me walk through the door, he started thinking of ways he could get me to part with that thing he loves most: the sweet, sweet life energy high.

  I wave Zachariel back, and thankfully, he takes my cue and gives me some room. I step closer to InTense, and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t lick his lips. He’s hungry for it. I can practically see the need crawling up his back.

  I place a hand on the burning hot glass he’s pressed up against and lean in. “I know what you need, Rifton,” I say softly. “And I’ve got more than you’ve ever dreamed of having. That two year payout you had before? I can triple that. Easily. You’ll be so high you’ll have to clear your calendar because you won’t come down for days.” It’s a little bit of exaggeration, not least because I have no intention of paying out that much, but his lips have parted, and he’s practically drooling onto his black silk shirt.

  “Would you like that?” I ask.

  He licks his lips again and swallows. “Yes.”

  “Then be a good boy and do your trick.”

  His eyes blaze again. “Payment first.”

  I give a short laugh. “I’m not an idiot, Rifton.” I push away from the window, like I’m going to turn away and let Zachariel have another go at him.

  “Wait,” he says, slightly breathless.

  I turn back with arched eyebrows, but I know I have him.

  “Just a taste first.” He’s practically begging. “Then the rest afterward.”

  “I don’t have all day,” I say, calmly swiping open my palm screen.

  “The trick won’t take long.” The need is crawling back into his voice.

  I look up from my palm. “And I want Zachariel on your shoulder, watching it all.”

  “Sure. Of course.” He runs the back of his hand across his mouth, probably wiping away the drool at the prospect of getting this once-in-a-lifetime hit. “Taste first,” he insists.

  I nod, step up to him again, and put my palm on his forehead. As I start to trickle in the life energy, his hand reaches up to hold my palm tighter against his head. He lets out a low sigh, the kind that comes straight from the addict getting his fix. I step up the pace. I want to give him enough to have him buzzing, happy, and not complaining, but not so high he can’t do the trick. Half a year should be plenty. My hand quickly curls up with the gut-wrenching agony that goes with the payout. No matter how many times I do it, I still see the abyss. The darkness still carves into my soul.

  As soon as I’m done, I yank my hand out of his grasp and break the connection.

  I edge away from him, not wanting to be anywhere near him when the shakes hit. They shouldn’t be bad—another reason I only paid out six months—but it will still take me a few minutes to recover. An arm goes around my waist, holding me up. I expect it to be Zachariel, but it’s Wyatt with a dark-storm look in his blue-sky eyes. I can’t tell if he’s angry with me or concerned, but fighting the nausea takes all my attention. I curl over my stomach a little. He pulls me closer and draws me away from the window and InTense.

  I hear Zachariel taking charge. “Let me tell you how this is going to go.” His voice is traveling; they must be walking to find a screen. “You do your trick. I watch. The faster you get this done, the sooner you get your payout.”

  “You can watch,” InTense says, a lazy arrogance back in his voice, mixing with the floatiness of the high. “But I doubt you’ll be able to keep up.”

  “You pull any shit with me, and I’ll take that hit right back out of your worthless bag of flesh.” Zachariel’s not messing around. “Are we clear?”

  “Perfectly.” I can hear the smirk in InTense’s voice.

  The nausea is starting to pass, but I don’t really want to open my eyes and face Wyatt, who’s still holding me in his arms. With my eyes closed, I can pretend he actually wants this rather than just holding me so I’m not a shaking wreck on the floor. I take a few extra deep breaths then open my eyes and hold up my hand to show him I’m okay. The storm is still in his eyes, but he releases me. I glance at Zachariel and InTense—they’re at the window holo-screen. InTense’s hands are flying over it, pulling up and discarding data faster than I can track. Zachariel’s staring at the data streams as they whiz by.

  Wyatt draws me back into his arms again, and I like that too much to resist. He puts a hand on my cheek and ducks his head to whisper to me. “Are you okay, Lexy. You look like… did that hurt you?”

  I smile a little. Wyatt’s never seen me pay out. Before, with Tilly, it was a mercy hit, and not a very big one. I have to look like death to him now.

  “I’ll be fine. It’s temporary. But yeah… it’s not the best feeling in the world.”

  “Why didn’t you just let Zachariel threaten him?” he asks quietly. “You didn’t have to…” He seems at a loss for words to describe the whole process.

  I look up into his concerned eyes and smile a bit more, trying to reassure him. “We’ll get there faster this way, and we don’t exactly have time to waste. He’s more likely to do the actual work if he’s hoping to get his fix out of it.”

  Wyatt glances at Zachariel and InTense by the window. “Is he really going to do it? I mean, do you think he’ll really stop the attack?”

  “Zachariel will be able to tell,” I say. “He’s a slasher, too.”

  Wyatt looks impressed—probably the first time I’ve seen him look at Zachariel with something other than a scowl or a carefully neutral look. It makes me smile even more.

  Then the door of InTense’s office slides open, and the smile on my face dies as two men in black business attire stride in. I think perhaps we’ve taken too long, that Rifton’s next appointment is already here, but it’s much worse than that.

  Seth and Moloch slide the door closed behind them.

  The guns are out before I can even think of attacking Moloch and Seth.

  The door to InTense’s office is closed, so they’re not starting a riot in the exec suite of Quarry, Inc., but there’s a full-blown panic going on in my mind. I step in front of Wyatt, as if that will somehow protect him from Seth’s gun, which is pointed at my head. Zachariel’s hands are up for Moloch’s gun trained on him.

  InTense gives Moloch a nod before calmly turning back to his holo-screen. He must have messaged Moloch when we arrived, but I’m still stunned. How could they have gotten here so quickly? They had to have been nearby, but why? I realize too late that all of this was simply InTense stalling—and a free getting life energy hit—while waiting for his patrons to show up to save the day.

  “How are tricks, Mr. Mark?” Moloch asks him.

  InTense’s hands are still whipping across his screen with lightning speed. “It will only take a minute to undo the damage.”

  My heart is pounding. But I’m starting to wonder why they haven’t already shot us.

  Moloch gives me a lazy but malevolent glance. “Oh, how I wish I had left you dead, Ms. Sterling. But I must say, I’m rather surprised to see you back up North. We’d quite given up on finding you in LA, and here you are, stumbling across our path again.” He scans my sexy-business suit from Madam A and gives me a tight smile. “Glad to see you’ve left that nasty electric suit of yours behind. Although I suppose that would have been difficult to get through the weapons scanners, wouldn’t it? Very considerate of you to bring your own hostage this time.”

  He tips his head to Seth, who quickly crosses InTense’s spacious office toward us. I hold my hands out in a defensive pose, not sure what he’s planning. Or what I think I might
do about it. He stops just out of my reach, gun squarely pointed between my eyes.

  “Step aside. Mr. Ashworth is coming with me,” Seth says.

  “What?” I’m actually confused as to what’s going on.

  Seth’s cruel smirk twists up one side of his mouth. “Please give me a reason to pull the trigger. Please.”

  But he’s not pulling the trigger. And my panic-fueled brain can’t figure out why. Before I can think of what to say, Wyatt steps around me, hands up.

  “I’m coming,” he says. “Don’t shoot.”

  I watch helplessly as Seth walks Wyatt to the door, holsters his gun, and taps the button to slide the door open. In a moment, they’re gone. My heart is frozen in my chest. I can’t breathe. My mind can’t make any sense of what just happened.

  “What is Seth going to do?” I ask Moloch.

  “Nothing,” he says calmly. “Unless we don’t all walk out of here in the next five minutes. In which case, he will kill Mr. Ashworth. And come back for us.”

  I’m struggling to pull in a breath, but it suddenly makes a kind of sense to me. “You don’t want a scene.”

  “Not in the executive suite of Quarry, Inc.,” Moloch says. “You’ve already caused me quite a lot of trouble, Ms. Sterling. Explaining a massacre is an inconvenience I’d rather avoid at the moment. Especially given that I value Mr. Mark’s services and would rather not bloody his carpet.”

  “You’re taking us somewhere else to kill us,” Zachariel says, lowering his hands. He’s saying it for my benefit, not Moloch’s. Zachariel still has Jax’s gun—I’m sure he’s waiting for the right moment to pull it.

  “Well, yes,” Moloch says, as if this is painfully obvious. “Mr. Mark? Are we all set?”

  InTense swipes the holo-screen clear then turns to face Moloch. “Yes. And I’m ready for our appointment as well.” He throws a hungry look across the room to me. “Although Ms. Wraith promised me a payout. I don’t suppose we have time for that? I think, perhaps, I deserve a little something for my trouble here today.”

  “Agreed,” Moloch says. “But I’m afraid we’re on a bit of a schedule. I’ll be happy to have her pay out to you once we’ve reached our destination and finished our task together.”

  InTense sighs, but says, “Very well.” He eyes me like I’m a giant reservoir of his favorite drink. “I’m sure it will be worth the wait.”

  My stomach churns. I can’t think of any reason for Moloch not to let InTense have every drop of life energy I possess.

  “Excellent.” Moloch holsters his gun and holds his hand out for InTense to lead the way.

  I flinch and throw a panicked look to Zachariel. If he pulls his gun now, we could both escape… but Wyatt would die. Zachariel gives me a small shake of his head—he may not like Wyatt, but he’s not going to risk getting him killed. I let out a shaky breath of relief as Zachariel follows InTense to the door. I hustle over to fall in line. Moloch brings up the rear.

  We march out of Rifton Mark’s office as if we’ve just finished the pitch session we signed up for. Simply a troupe of high potentials leaving the CTO’s office for lunch.

  Only I don’t know where we’re actually going or how long any of us have to live.

  Wyatt and Seth are waiting for us outside the lobby of Quarry, Inc.

  Seth glows a little, and I’m afraid it’s with Wyatt’s life energy—he has dark circles under his eyes that weren’t there five minutes ago, up in Rifton Mark’s office. It ties my stomach in knots. I catch Wyatt’s gaze across the twenty foot span of sidewalk that separates us, and he gives me a small smile, which only clenches my stomach tighter. I want to go to him, but Seth has a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder, a hair’s breadth away from skin contact with his neck. Seth might as well have a gun to his head.

  At least Wyatt’s alive.

  Zachariel and I left the building willingly with Moloch and InTense, aka Rifton Mark, in order to keep Wyatt breathing. But now that we’re on the street, I’m not sure what the plan is. Moloch wants us all dead, but he hasn’t killed us yet. InTense is going with us, but I don’t know why or even where we’re headed. And the ticking bomb we tried to diffuse—Gehenna’s orchestrated shift of debt records set to claim thousands of lives—is proceeding on schedule for tomorrow, the anniversary of the first mass debt collection.

  At this point, I’m not sure if we’ll live long enough to see that happen.

  Moloch gives Seth a nod, apparently a signal of some kind, because Seth hauls Wyatt toward one of the cabs waiting outside Quarry and shoves him inside.

  “Where is he going?” I ask Moloch, not even bothering to hide the fear in my voice.

  “You’ll see him soon enough.” Moloch hails a cab for us as well. “Assuming you don’t do anything excessively stupid before we meet up again.”

  Zachariel and I exchange a look, but I don’t think either of us knows what’s going on. We could make a break for it—Zachariel’s gun is still holstered under his suit and undetected by Moloch. We might even succeed. But if we don’t show up wherever Seth is going, he will just dispose of Wyatt’s body in a convenient dark corner of Silicon Valley.

  The cab ride is short but horrific. Moloch rides up front, and InTense is sandwiched in between me and Zachariel. Moloch insists that I pay out a few hits to InTense on the way to wherever we’re going, which leaves me wrecked and InTense grinning like the blissed-out addict that he is. After I’m done paying out, his hand idly plays with my unbound hair. I shove it away. Zachariel’s hands are clenched so tight on his knees that they’re turning white.

  The cab drops us in front of the same abandoned warehouse where we first met InTense. Last time, it was packed with slashers and groupies for an underground party that set the whole debt record attack in motion. Now, there are no maglev scooters or motor trikes parked out front, just the weathered sign over the rear door that reads Vigilance Electronics. The bright California sunshine casts shadows on the side of the corrugated metal building as our group of four walks the length of it.

  Moloch leads the way inside with InTense by his side. Zachariel and I follow close behind. The last time I was here, there were holo-cages and banks of screens for slash work. Now, all of that has been cleared out, and the far end of the abandoned electronics warehouse has been turned into a recording studio, complete with a pair of interview chairs in a halo of spotlights and a trio of holo-imaging cameras arrayed around them. A giant screen behind all of it plays vids of patients in hospital beds, close-ups of debt collectors performing collections, and pages and pages of hospital bills and debt records.

  It’s a montage of debts being paid with lives. It’s horrific. And it could easily be one of Lifetime’s promotional vids.

  Moloch strides across the slightly squishy black flooring left over from the slasher party. A gush of relief washes through me as I spot Wyatt standing near one of the side holo-cams. Seth hovers next to him, while Ishtar stands by the chairs, draped in a movie-star-level black gown. One of the seats is occupied by a young man dressed in a t-shirt and black jeans. A third debt collector, judging by the trenchcoat and boots, flits between the three holo-cams and the bright floodlamps, making adjustments. A bank of servers, blue boxes stacked one on top of another, stands next to the main camera in the middle.

  I hang back slightly from Moloch’s determined stride up to the cameras and hold Zachariel’s elbow, so I can lean in close. “What’s our play here?”

  He just shakes his head, and no wonder—Moloch quickly turns to scowl at us. He pulls his gun, which gets everyone’s attention.

  “If you would, Ms. Sterling, I’d prefer if you came and took a seat.” He gestures to the chairs in the middle of the spotlights but keeps his gun trained on Zachariel.

  I hold my head up and stride over to the center of the studio. Ishtar gives me a cool stare but steps back from the seat I’m supposed to take next to the young man. As I get closer, I recognize him, in spite of the wide-eyed look of fear on his face: he’s a low-leve
l director of operations at Lifetime. He’s only twenty-five or so, and he’s one of the recruits Wyatt brought on board recently. Another friend from college, only instead of sneaking us in to see a famous slasher, this one has landed in a nest of collectors. His face is pale with extra sheen in the bright-white lamps beaming down on us.

  I ease into the seat next to him. “Your name’s Scott, right?”

  He dips his head in acknowledgment, but it’s jerky. His whole body is shaking. “You don’t know how sorry I am to see you here, Ms. Sterling.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask, but I’m keeping my eye on Moloch. His gun is still pointed at Zachariel, who remained where I left him, just outside the circle of cameras.

  “I don’t know,” Scott says, gripping the edge of his seat. “They forced me to come with them. I swear I didn’t want to, but they—”

  “It’s all right,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm. “I know. There are no good choices in any of this.” I’m speaking of our situation at the moment, but it strikes me that this could have been my motto since the first moment I met Moloch.

  Scott lowers his voice and leans closer. “They’re all debt collectors.”

  As if this isn’t something I already know. A thought drifts through my head that Scott might not lean so close if he knew I was one of the debt collectors in the room.

  Zachariel’s running surreptitious glances around at all the players: me and Scott sitting in the interview chairs; InTense striding over to meet up with Ishtar, behind us; Seth holding Wyatt hostage by the side camera to my right. Seth’s just using his palm, but I’m sure he has a gun tucked away somewhere. Moloch’s still holding his gun on Zachariel, next to the main camera, where the other debt collector is fussing.