by Honor James
Biting the pencil again she began to think of the life of the woman and then stopped, frowned, and turned on her heels. Going to her computer she pulled up the files she wanted and leaned back. “Huh. Guess I am two monkey’s uncles,” she whispered.
Grabbing the phone at her desk she made a call to the Luhpyne who dropped this on her desk. Using the phone because she had never been able to be chipped. She was one of the strange ones that gave off a weird magnetic vibe that fried anything electronic.
“Hi. This is Luna Black from Cryptology. I have an answer,” she said simply when the voice mail picked up. “I am at the office for another hour. Its 19:00 right now. After that I am going home and don’t return for a week. Forced vacation,” she grumbled. Everyone laughed at her because she was the only one who had to be forced to take vacation. “So call me back or you will have to wait.” She ended the connection and leaned back in her chair. Her light brown eyes sparkling in the delight that she had finally figured it out.
Now she just simply had to get the Luhpyne there so that she could tell him. Once she had that out of the way it was up to him or her if he wanted her to, to start to backtrack who had the abilities and knowledge to program someone like Lilly. Then again, they would have to start where Lilly came from since that was more than likely where the programming was put into place and all that fun stuff. She sighed, frowned and cocked her head to the side. Huh, now that she was thinking of it, how would they have had the woman long enough to program her and her not be missing days?
Chapter Two
The sound of the shot was a long time coming. The burn from the bullet tearing through his arm was felt long before he heard the crack of the weapon.
Whipping around he cursed, pressing a hand to the line of fire on his flesh. Crouching he pressed his back to the boulder he was using for cover. Lifting his hand, he checked the wound and cursed again. It wasn’t too bad, just a scratch really, but bleeding like a busted faucet.
Tearing his sleeve off he used it to bind the wound and staunch the blood. He needed to find his partner and fast. With a sniper out there trying to thin their forces this could get ugly. Thankfully the sniper had shit aim, at least for him. The next guy might not be so lucky as to be only winged.
A flash of something to one side, a Spiryte he recognized, was moving up. His lips were moving which meant he was starting a spell. Gods only knew what he was about to do but if he was going to distract the sniper, all the better for them.
Shifting to the balls of his feet, he kept his eyes on the Spiryte until he vanished from view. Inhaling the scents on the breeze he let his lip curl. More blood, more death, these damned humans just wouldn’t learn.
A series of explosions sounded, startled shrieks quickly following. Apparently the Spiryte had some serious power.
Pushing up he raced through the trees, straight for where the sniper had been. He wasn’t there any longer, he would have moved right after the shot, but he wouldn’t have gone far. Not given the amount of cover he had readily available in the immediate area.
If he could just get there, get to him, then they’d have one less threat out here to worry about. Another shot, but not at him, shit! The sniper was after the Spiryte, but had missed, thank the Gods.
Head down, arms pumping, he raced straight toward the human. And the human saw him coming, eyes going wide, hands shaking as he racked another bullet into the chamber of his rifle. The rifle that was already turning toward him. Spreading his wings he growled at the human and struck…
* * * *
June 10, 2035
Jerking awake at the sound of the phone ringing he groaned. Reaching out blindly he grabbed it, answered and stuck it to his ear with a grunt. In the next moment he snapped upright to a sitting position. “When, where?” he demanded.
Tossing the blankets aside, he headed for the bathroom. “Be there in fifteen,” he said. Hanging up, he dropped the phone to the vanity before jumping into the shower. Five minutes later he was out the door, his mid-back black hair still damp from the shower.
Jumping into his agency issued SUV he cranked the engine, hit the lights and tore off up the street. Using the siren when necessary he skidded up to the front of the AEDA, Alien and Earth Defensive Alliance, nine minutes later. Just making it in his time frame.
The passenger door opened and his partner, his complete opposite in so many ways, jumped in. Giving him a nod Kristjan pulled back out into traffic. This time the siren was on the entire drive.
“So, what do we have?” he asked, not sparing his friend and partner a look.
“Two dead, apparent suicides except for the fact that where they are, there’s no way they could have gotten themselves there and hung. The Captain thinks it’s a message and I think he’s right given the preliminaries from the uniforms on scene. The site’s been cordoned off and uniforms have a few possible witnesses being held there.”
“What do we know about the victims?”
“Both are male, approximately twenty-five to thirty years old, roughly five foot nine to six feet on the one and six foot one to about six foot four on the other. Briar’s on her way to the scene with Danel, once we get there and do our preliminary we can get them down and let her do her part.”
“Good.” Briar Sapphire was their ME, medical examiner. She was thorough, compassionate when needed and had a spine of steel. She’d been hurt in the past but was getting through it with her mates, whom she’d finally given into, thank the Gods. If they’d had to put up with Byrne, a Luhpyne, and Danel, an Ahnjel, moping around after their mate for much longer there likely would have been bloodshed. “Anything else?”
“No, they didn’t want to contaminate the scene so that’s all they could tell us,” Volker said, leaning back in his seat and looking out the window.
Throwing his partner a look he nodded and focused back on the traffic he was weaving in and out of. They were definitely an odd pairing. The fact that they liked one another, respected each other and got along was very strange, at least to the humans.
Volker was Vhampire while he, Kristjan, was an Ahnjel. The humans figured that Vhampires were either evil soulless beings or sparkly creatures who were just so emotional. And Ahnjels, well, they were viewed as being Heavenly beings sent by the humans one God to watch over them. Yes, Vhampires had a dark side to their personality, but so did Ahnjels. The Ahnjels were just better at hiding their dark cravings and urges, a lot better. Besides, with the faces most Ahnjels bore, not a soul would ever think they could do anything bad. Idiots.
Tossing another look at his partner he gave an internal snort. They weren’t just opposites race-wise, their looks were total polar opposites. Kristjan was six foot nine, long black hair, with silver eyes ringed in black in a classically beautiful face. High cheekbones, straight nose, perfectly balanced symmetry that gave him the “look of an angel.”
Then there was Volker. White hair, not blond but straight white, hanging to the small of his back. Black eyes with a small outer ring of gold. Only an inch taller than Kristjan he had the nearly same face, angelic in appearance, and yet so many said that they just knew looking at him he was thinking of nothing but sin.
Other than those marked differences, they were practically identical. Nearly the same build, though he was a bit heavier in his arms, chest and legs muscle-wise than Volker. He was a little more tanned, but not much.
Of course he had that weird shimmer to his skin that all Ahnjels had, likely why folks just seemed to think he was all good and Volker was all evil. In reality, Volker was probably the lesser of two evils between them. Kristjan had a lot of darkness inside, and a very dark side that liked to come out to play, sexually at least, more often than not.
They made good time to the crime scene, practically on the ME’s heels it appeared. Briar was just getting out of the medical examiner van with an assistant. Danel was lounging at the hood of an SUV parked close by as he pulled in. Parking, he killed the siren and lights and hopped out.
Nodding to the other Ahnjel he went straight for the uniforms on scene, the ones who had secured and reported it. Volker would check with the uniform with the potential witnesses and pass on instructions. Then, then they would enter the scene.
* * * *
They’d been on scene, getting photos and checking the perimeter for about twenty minutes by the time they entered the building. They went in cautiously and slowly. They knew what had happened to other AEDA agents on other cases before when it came to warehouses. No sense taking a risk and getting blown up for their efforts.
They fanned out and did a thorough, but careful, search of the interior, always mindful to not destroy any evidence. Given where the two victims were hanging, they’d damn well need every bit they could get.
Moving in closer Volker stared up at the two bodies. They were swaying ever so slightly in the night breeze coming through some torn-away siding into the building. “How far up do you figure they are?”
Kristjan was on one side of him and Danel on the other, all three of them staring straight up. “It’s gotta be at least twenty, twenty-five feet up,” Danel said.
“At a guess, I’m thinking so,” Kristjan muttered. “How the fuck would a killer get them up there? That’s a hell of a lot of dead weight to be slugging around. There’s no catwalks, just a few beams holding this piece of shit together.”
The “piece of shit” was the warehouse they were standing in. It was a four-story building that had been gutted leaving only the cross beams that held it together and up behind. “We all know that with the right motivation you can pretty much do anything. Besides, even if it’s not a human killer, any of the other could have done this without even batting a lash.” Kristjan waved a hand upward. Other, one of the terms for his people and all the others from beyond the Veil. They weren’t human so therefore they were other.
“Be nice to have a Luhpyne here to get a sense of this all before we moved them,” Volker murmured.
“Ansell’s on his way,” Danel said. When he and Kristjan shot him a look he just gave a lazy shrug. “Figured it would be better to be safe then a smear on the wall. That’s why Briar’s all the way over by the door and not budging until I say otherwise.”
Made sense now why the ME and her assistant were hanging back. “Good call,” he commented.
“I have my moments,” the other Ahnjel smirked.
About to comment, he paused at the sound of gravel crunching under wheels. A door slammed a few minutes later and then in sauntered the Luhpyne. “Greetings, feathered and fanged friends,” he said, a toothy grin on his face.
Pausing next to Briar, he leaned in and murmured something that had the woman’s eyes going wide and then bursting out into laughter. Shooting a look to Danel, Volker was actually a bit stunned to see nothing more than a bemused expression on the man’s face.
“He tells her dirty jokes every time he’s around,” Danel said. “I have no idea what most of them are but as long as she laughs like that, I honestly don’t give a shit. Byrne usually can pick up on what he says and therefore knows, but I don’t truly care one way or another. I just love to hear her laugh.”
Made sense to him. Shaking his head Volker looked to where Briar was whispering back to Ansell, who had an intense look of concentration on his face that quickly morphed into a grin and then he was the one laughing. “Good one, doc.” He chuckled. Shaking his head, he moved toward them, stopping a couple feet away. “Gents.”
“Anything you can tell us?” Kristjan said, waving a hand to encompass the interior.
Tipping his head back, Ansell lifted an eyebrow. “Two dead males hanging in the middle of the room.” Shutting his eyes, he inhaled, his nostrils flaring. “Humans. They’re both human,” he murmured. Inhaling again, deeply, he shook his head and looked to Danel. “No explosives anywhere,” he said.
“Good.” Danel looked beyond the Luhpyne. “It’s safe to come in, Briar.” Smiling at the woman as she got closer he brushed his fingers to her cheek and then stepped out of her way. Hell, they all got out of her way and went about doing their jobs.
* * * *
Back at the offices six hours later, he and Volker were busy digging into the lives of their victims. Johnny Markson and Davey Scottfield, both humans, both twenty-four years old and both from the same bad neighborhood. They’d been neighbors once upon a time and then best friends throughout school. They’d skipped classes together, done B&E’s together and had even done their first hold-up together.
Seemed rather fitting, in a morbid manner, that they had died together.
From Briar’s preliminary report it looks like they were both hit over the head with something heavy and oddly shaped. On Johnny it had knocked him unconscious while with Davey, it had caved the back of his skull in. Davey would have died immediately, but Johnny wouldn’t have died until the noose tightened.
Ansell hadn’t picked up any trace of “other” in the building, just humans and a lot of them. Given the neighborhood though, that wasn’t surprising. It was a well-known drug area and, given the paraphernalia they’d found in the warehouse, obviously a hangout for those who liked to use.
So, for the time being, it looked as though humans had killed Johnny and Davey. They weren’t ruling anything out though, not given where the two young men had been found. How any human had gotten them up there was still the big question.
Rubbing a hand over his face he leaned back in his chair and stretched. Looking out of the office he frowned and got to his feet. Moving to the door he snagged one of the other workers, “What’s going on?” he asked quietly. Everyone seemed to be in a sudden rush. Which, as it was well after midnight, seemed more than a little odd.
“Break-in down in cryptography. Someone smashed a lot of computers and there’s a fire that’s being put out.”
Fire? “Why aren’t the alarms going off then?” He felt Volker move to his side.
“Someone tampered with the sprinklers and alarms on that floor. If not for the security guard doing a sweep we wouldn’t have known until it was too late and might have lost the building.”
Letting the woman rush off, he shared a look with Volker. What the ever-loving hell was going on? And on their own fucking turf no less!
Chapter Three
Luna had been enjoying the first hours of her forced vacation, not, when she received the mandatory call to check in. Shifting from foot to foot as she listened in on the old fashioned phone receiver she frowned. “No I left the office at twenty-hundred hours on the dot.” And she still hadn’t heard from the man that had brought her the puzzle to work out, which pissed her off.
Listening even more, she felt sick. “No,” she whispered softly. “No I didn’t keep anything of a personal nature at work.” Because she didn’t know who she was, but that was neither here nor there. She looked at her pack, at the information she had brought home with her and wondered now what had made her do it. What had made her bring the work she was doing for Byrne, and in a way, Artaxias.
“Thank you, sir. No, no I’m fine. I’m on vacation.” She snarled the last word. “Unless of course you will resend that demand so that I can come back to work?” Hearing the snarky comeback from her boss she sighed. Dammit. She wanted to work, not sit at home thinking of all the things that she couldn’t recall. Wonderful.
“Of course, sir, I will be home and if I happen to be out I do have a voice recorder hooked up to my phone, you can leave me a message.” She had to listen once more to the man bitch because she wasn’t chipped, but she ignored it like she always did and said her goodbyes.
After hanging up she made another call to Artaxias, leaving another message for him to call her this time at her home. She really, really hoped that he would soon because she had a very, very bad feeling that this had something to do with what she was working on for him.
A knock at her door just as she hung up had her jumping. Opening the door she found Byrne standing there. He looked pissed off, and for a Luhpyne to be pissed
off or angered was not always a good thing. “I’m guessing you managed to find something, Ms. Black. So, what did you find out that can help us stop whatever the fuck is going on?”
Luna looked at him and nodded. “Holy shit,” she whispered and shook her head. “Sorry but you are like supermassive.” The hair on her arms was standing on end, she was afraid to touch him because she was sure if she did that there would be some serious electroshock from her to him. “I would have thought that Artaxis would have come. I didn’t think that you would be the one.” She stepped more into her home and added, “Come in.”
“It’s my case so of course I’m here,” he frowned at her. Stepping inside, he shut the door quietly behind him. “I’m keeping Ax and Gav in the loop but it’s on my plate and keeping me up at night so, here I am. I would have gotten back to you before your vacation but I was on an undercover op so I didn’t get the chance until you were well gone. What do you have by the way?”
“Of course. Sorry. It’s just. Never mind.” She waved her hand in front of her face. “Okay. I do have something and I’m actually glad that I brought it home with me because I was just told that there was an attack in cryptology. I guess the whole floor burned to the studs.” She shivered.
“Yeah, something like that,” he muttered behind her.
Taking a seat at the table she pulled out the information she had been working on and said, “Sorry, I can’t do computers. I’m sure that you know that already and all that but I was just explaining why the handwritten notes.” She added quietly and gave him the notepad and the images she had chopped up. She then went to get the book she had dug up from her collection and said, “Whoever is doing this, whatever their game is, they are going very old school. They have hypnotized Lilly. It had to have been a time when she wouldn’t have missed. Maybe in her move here?” She shrugged. “They basically programmed her to see these images, but see the full images and not the chopped up ones. Depending upon how it was cut off on the tattoo is how she would react,” she explained.
