Once Darkness Falls (Preternatural Affairs #7)

by SM Reine

  Just because the demons hadn’t been able to fuck with me the day before didn’t mean I’d escaped the thrall entirely.

  Once I was awake, I was awake. I tossed my clothes in the hamper and put on a Union-issue sweatsuit. It felt even more gross to wear Union black with the white letters on the chest, but it was either that or working out naked, and I didn’t think anyone would appreciate that.

  Well, Krista might have appreciated it.

  I’d have appreciated showing her.

  The training room was empty when I’d arrived. Even kopides don’t get up at four in the morning to work out unless they have to. I had shown up in the middle of the night shift, when graveyard was still patrolling the warehouse and perimeter, and I had the power rack to myself.

  I don’t usually spend a lot of time with strength training. I’m a buff guy, but I’m still more of a nerd. I want to spend my free time with comic books, not barbells.

  There were no comic books at the Union base. I also hadn’t brought strength poultices. I’d had no time to pack.

  The only way to drive the nightmares out was to sweat them from my pores.

  I loaded up the barbell and got to work. I was used to working out in gyms occupied by mundane people, where I had to scrounge for the big plates nobody used en masse. In a gym for kopides, there was nothing but the big plates. More weight than a single bar could hold without bending.

  For now I stuck to bodyweight, just to warm the joints. Did a few warm-up squats, some rows.

  A door creaked open at about the time I was loading up the bar to do some real pulling.

  Instinct had me turn with a forty-five-pound plate lifted.

  A foot connected with my forearms, and the blow was hard enough that I went numb to the shoulders.

  I swung the plate like a weapon, but missed.

  “Good instincts,” Fritz said, leaping out of range.

  “Are you trying to make me kill you?” I dropped the plate with a thud. “Warn a guy before you sneak up on him!”

  “What are you bitching about? It’s not the first time I’ve done it.”

  “True, but it’s the first time you’ve done it when I’m in a fucking Union base,” I said. “I’m a little on edge, man.”

  “Noted. The day you can kill me is the day I deserve to die, though.”

  Because that would be a great idea. Killing my kopis would be about as good as slitting my own throat.

  It looked like Fritz was ready for a workout, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He always was. It seemed like he even looked forward to waking at the butt-crack of dawn for our daily workouts. I had a private theory that he was a masochist, but I didn’t ask because he’d tell me the truth.

  “Want to spot me on my bench?” I asked.

  Fritz smirked at the sight of the power rack. “Oh, I suppose I can do that. I can’t imagine why you’re bothering, though.”

  “Unlike a kopis, I have to work for my muscles.” I settled on the bench, scooting until my eyes were under the bar.

  “You usually don’t.”

  “Well, I don’t have any poultices with me.”

  “I heard you were planning on finishing the investigation in Reno as quickly as possible so you could get home to Los Angeles—and your poultices.”

  I gripped the barbell. “Yeah, well, then I got to Reno and started digging around. It’s going to take a while.” I wasn’t even sure if it was possible to save Suzy from herself, but I sure as hell was going to try.

  “On that note, I spoke to Lucrezia after my rehabilitation yesterday,” Fritz said. He kept his hands hovering nearby as I lowered the barbell to my chest and pushed it up again.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Lovely. As always.” He couldn’t have been drier if he’d been a martini. “She’s looking forward to your report so she can begin reorganizing.”

  I almost dropped the barbell.

  The only thing that I had to report so far was the fact that I might have been indirectly responsible for the fall of Reno. And that Malcolm was definitely on some kind of substance—probably alcohol, possibly half-succubus thrall, considering he was doing illegal favors for her. Oh, and I could report that Suzy was trying to stir up mutiny.

  I lost all energy for more reps. I racked the bar and sat up with a groan. “What’s she going to do when I tell her who needs to be reorganized?”

  “I’m not sure,” Fritz said. “I’m interested to see her reaction. It’s half the point of the investigation.”

  “I thought she assigned this investigation to us.”

  “That’s why it’s only half.”

  Fritz was fucking with me somehow. I was sure of it.

  “You know what? I haven’t had nearly enough coffee to work out,” I said. “I’m going to hunt up some Folger’s.”

  “I have an espresso machine and fresh-roasted beans in my room.”

  “And Isobel?” I asked before I could think better of it.

  “Yes, and Isobel,” he said. “She told me that she ran into you.”

  I wondered if she’d told him that she wanted me to fuck with his investigation, too. “She shouldn’t be here.”

  “I agree,” Fritz said. “But once Belle heard about the devastation here, she wanted to help. I’ve never been able to stop her from doing something when she sets her mind to it.”

  “You should have tried this time. It’s not safe for her. Really not safe.” The kind of not-safe that might land Isobel in a Union detention center right across the hall from me.

  “I know.”

  How could he be so goddamn calm about it all? I’d thought that if Fritz and I had one thing in common, it was the urge to protect Isobel.

  I toweled off my neck and pits and headed for the locker room.

  Fritz followed. “I told you something when we were in the helicopter on the way here. What was that?”

  “You want me to be the best man at your wedding,” I said.

  Fritz’s mouth slanted into an unhappy smile. “Something other than that.”

  “Don’t trust anyone.”

  “Especially me.”

  “That kinda goes without saying, doesn’t it?”

  “How’s Agent Takeuchi’s investigation going?” The change in subjects was instant, like that was where he’d been planning for the conversation to go the entire time.

  I opened my mouth to tell him the truth—that she was only using her investigation to springboard an assault on the Union from the inside. But then I closed my mouth. Fritz had just reminded me not to trust him. What if he already knew what was going on?

  All I said was, “You should ask Suzy about her case. You put us on separate jobs, and I took that to mean that you don’t want us crossing the streams.”

  “Since when have you listened to my orders about that?”

  Since approximately never, and this case was no exception. I wished it were. I didn’t want to know about Suzy’s rebellious streak. “You’ll have to get updates from her. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Fritz knew me well at this point. For fuck’s sake, we’d shared blood, and we occasionally shared a consciousness. He heard the emphasis in my tone. He knew I wasn’t saying things that I was thinking about. Heavy things. There weren’t secrets between us—at least, not on my side, not at this point. I’d tell him if he asked me what was up.

  But he didn’t. If anything, he looked satisfied.

  “Keep me updated,” he said, and he returned to the power rack.

  I almost wanted to call him back and order him to order me to talk. That was stupid, though. Fritz and Suzy weren’t tight. She was just an employee. And he was a director in the organization she wanted to dismantle.

  For a minute, I stood in the doorway to the locker room, watching as Fritz racked up one forty-five-pound plate after another. He loaded twice the weight that I had. And then he started doing barbell curls. Fucking curls.

  Fritz seemed hell-bent on reminding me that he wasn’t
just my best friend and partner—far from the average billionaire next door he seemed to be when we hung out back home.

  I couldn’t tell him about Suzy, or any other parts of the investigation where we colored outside the lines. Just in case.

  But there might have been someone else I could talk to.

  Malcolm Gallagher’s quarters smelled like the toilets at my old UCLA dorm the morning after a party: a cocktail of piss, bile, and booze. It was about as cluttered as the dorms had been, too. Junk everywhere. Pile of clothes in front of the door, books scattered by the wall, guns all willy-nilly.

  We hadn’t had guns at the UCLA dorms though. Copious amounts of weed, yes. Guns, no.

  I found the commander himself curled up on the bathroom floor by the shower. Looked like he’d been trying to pray to the porcelain gods and missed. His ten o’clock shadow was caked in vomit.

  “Dammit, Malcolm,” I muttered.

  It was looking likely that whatever I reported to Lucrezia de Angelis, it would need to be “get Malcolm out of command.” And that was a conversation I wasn’t looking forward to at all.

  I turned the shower on—not too hot, not too cold. Then I was extra nice and stripped Malcolm down to his skivvies before tossing him in.

  He didn’t even wake up when the water hit him. I propped him against the side of the tub so he wouldn’t drown and watched him for signs of life. His eyes were closed, but he was breathing. Better still, the shower coursing over his skin was cleaning off all that nasty crap.

  While he rinsed off, I did a quick sweep of his quarters to bring them up to regulation. Dirty laundry in the hamper. Trash in the can. Liquor emptied into the sink, bottles emptied.

  That mostly left books behind—a collection of palm-sized volumes. I picked one up. “The Prophecies of Flynn?” I read aloud with a frown. “Volume…ninety-six? Jesus.” It was bound in black with text in white, so it was obviously a Union thing.

  We dealt in weird shit in the OPA. But prophecies?

  I shoved all the prophecies in a corner and decided I was done cleaning.

  Malcolm still hadn’t stirred when I got back to the bathroom. I slapped him across the face a couple times. Hard.

  He sat up with a flail, spraying water everywhere. A wild fist caught me on the jaw. I reeled back on my heels, catching myself on the sink.

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  Malcolm’s eyes focused on me. Then he shut them again, plastered a hand over his face, leaned back. “When I ask why the hell I’m wet and naked, the answer needs to involve a wet t-shirt contest in Florida.”

  “You’ve got your briefs. You’re not naked.” I rubbed my aching chin. Damn. Even drunk and unconscious, Malcolm packed a mean punch.

  “I’m naked enough to get on the sex offender registry, and that’s naked in my book.” He peeled an eye open again. “Turn off the lights, Hawke. What have you got in here, spotlights?”

  I turned off the lights so that the only illumination came indirectly from his bedroom. “How much alcohol does it take to get a kopis blackout drunk, considering his preternatural liver?”

  Malcolm tried to stand. He slipped. I supported him as he climbed gingerly out of the tub.

  “Fuck,” he said. “Too much alcohol. Not enough alcohol. I don’t know.”

  I slung his arm around my shoulder and helped him to the bed. I’d have thought the commander would have a better sleeping arrangement than mine, but he didn’t. Standard-issue Union shit. About an inch thick and a recipe for serious back problems.

  Malcolm yanked a pillow over his head. “You want something out of me, or else you wouldn’t be treating me like a bitty babe. Tell me what’s going on and do it quiet-like.”

  “We’ve got a major problem, sir,” I said.

  Even trashed, he didn’t miss the formality. “I’m too sober for this. Where’s the vodka?”

  “Big glass of it here,” I said. I’d thought ahead and poured a glass of water, which I now handed to him.

  He took a sip and shot me a murderous look over the rim. “Keep talking.”

  I drummed my thumbs on my knees. “It’s related to mutiny in the organization.”

  “Wait, no, stop talking.” He took a long drink, set down the glass, got back under the pillow. “Don’t talk about that again.”

  “Do you already know?”

  “Mate, we work for a company that has its employees sign contracts that will wipe out their memories if they get fired. Of course people hate it.”

  “This is different. It’s organized.”

  “Why you making it my problem?”

  “Because…” I glared at the Prophecies of Flynn all piled up in the corner. “Look, you’ve been breaking rules left and right. If you can help me with these rule violations, then I won’t have to report yours.”

  Malcolm heaved a sigh. “You know there are some things surrounded by mandatory reporting rules. I hear of this kind of thing, I’m supposed to run it up the food chain.”

  “But I just told you—”

  “I heard you trying to blackmail me. You’re too nice to pull that shit off. Believe it or not, the Union only cares if some rules get broken. Drinking, carousing—they couldn’t care less. Mutiny’s something else entirely.”

  Frustration balled my hands into fists. “Okay, run it up the food chain. But do it delicately. Don’t let the information bump into the wrong people.”

  “Everyone here is the wrong people. You got stuff to make wards?”

  As a matter of fact, I did. I’d made another trip to the supply closet before visiting him.

  Malcolm didn’t move while I threw wards up around his room. It only took a few minutes, but by the time I was done, his eye was a little clearer and he was actually focusing on me.

  “Spill it,” he said.

  “People have been going missing in the Reno area. Certain OPA agents believe that the Union’s behind it, and they want to find proof so that they can—fuck, I don’t know. Whatever they’re going to do, it can’t be good.”

  “That hot friend of yours is in on it, isn’t she?” Malcolm asked. “Suzume.”

  “Suzy,” I corrected automatically.

  “I’m gonna give you advice, mate. The last advice I’ll ever get to give at this rate.” He fixed me with a bloodshot glare out of his remaining eye. “You want her to survive this, you deal with her directly. Make her keep her head down. Stay out of it.”

  “You clearly haven’t met Suzy.”

  “Okay, let’s say the Union is behind the disappearances. What do you think anyone can do about that? And do you really think that’s the worst thing happening in the organization?” Malcolm rubbed the heels of his palms against his temples. “This place is a fucking powder keg. Pressure from all sides. Everything’s about to blow. Even if you stopped the mutiny, it wouldn’t stop the explosion.”

  My blood felt all cold. “What could the Union be doing that’s worse than making people disappear?”

  “Ask yourself where they’re making people disappear to, and why,” Malcolm said.

  I couldn’t begin to imagine. “You know something, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know a fucking thing, mate. Haven’t you heard? I’m delusional. Filing false reports. Hopped up on lethe and succubus pussy. I’m one visit to the Union-appointed therapist away from getting tossed into rehab in a psych ward.”

  If Malcolm was delusional, then what did that make me? I’d gone to him hoping he could help and I’d been wrong. So fucking wrong. “Damn.”

  “And for fuck’s sake, don’t breathe a word of this shit where anyone can hear it again. Especially not a commander, even if I am about to get kicked out of the organization. Fuck! Are you daft?”

  That grim feeling I’d been carrying around ever since I visited Ann’s place was growing a whole lot grimmer. “Word on the streets is that I’m an oaf.”

  “Do what you came here to do. Investigate the organization. Find a scapegoat for the MOAD incident. And go home,
Hawke. It’s only going to keep getting worse in Reno.”

  There was a lump in my throat. “I think I’m the scapegoat. Track things back, and I might have accidentally triggered this apocalypse—unless I can find someone who’s gone missing, probably six feet deep by now.”

  I’d expected that confession to cause damage. But Malcolm only shook his head. “Friederling wouldn’t have brought you if that were the case. Investigate, Hawke. Investigate!”

  “I’m doing what I can,” I said. “I must be doing something right because I’ve pissed off Zettel and Allyson. Do you know they’re out to get you? You have got to watch your back around them.”

  “Oh yes. I know,” Malcolm said. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about them. Just dig through the evidence.”

  “Zettel told me all the evidence is leaving,” I said. “It’s gone.”

  “Not all of it.” He sighed, dropping his face into his hands. “It’ll be my head if anyone realizes I’m going to do this, but…what the hell, I’m fucked anyway. I’m going to unlock evidence for you. But whenever you dig up whatever bodies you’re looking for, whenever you learn the truth—don’t come crying to me, all right?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  WHO HAD HIGHER SECURITY clearance than Director Fritz Friederling?

  At least two people: Commander Malcolm Gallagher, and now me.

  I walked out of his room stinking of sweaty drunkard and holding a flash drive that gave me special credentials. All I needed was a Union terminal—not an OPA laptop—and I’d be able to get into the nitty-gritty of their database.

  It was not an exciting thought.

  It felt like all eyes were on me as I walked past the formerly empty gymnasium, where kopides were now running drills.

  In reality, nobody was watching me. Having so many kopides exercising in one place was a thousand times more interesting. They were graceful cheetahs who would have made Olympians seem as fumbling as toddlers by comparison.

  One cheetah in particular caught my eye, mostly because he wasn’t as liquid-smooth as the others. Fritz was still in the gymnasium. He’d left the power rack to train with the Union employees, and he stuck out as the oldest of their number.