“Rodger that.”
Jerry only nodded and put the radio back on his belt, raising his eyebrows at the girl questioningly.
“Okay. So I’ll come in and notify Peter about your arrival. Then he’ll tell me if I should let you in or not. See? Following rules is easy,” he said slowly, standing in front of her with his arms crossed. He was of medium height and build, but even his stature and swift, careful moves gave out that he was a skilled fighter. He wore the same gear as the girls: a black jacket and pants of thick, matte leather alternated with stripes of flexible fabric of the same color. From under his unzipped jacket stood out a white T-shirt with a thick silver chain over it. His face was fine-featured, but there was something unpleasant about his eyes: they were of a very light color and looked almost translucent, like water. He was no more than twenty-five, and his fair hair stuck out in different directions; only his heavy, massively looking sword kept him from looking careless.
“Go ahead,” the girl replied, rolling her eyes.
He went to the other door, but just as he opened it, she slipped inside right before him.
“Hey! I thought we came to an agreement!” he exclaimed, frustrated.
Jane followed, glancing at him with an apologetic smile and leading the guys after her. The office looked a little ascetic: the same dark wood floor, same wall panels, only it was painted white, and there was a big window across from the door. This room was much wider and longer, but it looked empty, save for a few black cabinets with neat rows of books and folders, and a long conference table of the same dark wood. There were a few frames on the walls, too, only instead of paintings they had photos of places around the world.
As they crowded at the door, a big leather chair at the far end of the table spun around. A man in a blue shirt and black pants got up from it, putting away the papers he had been reading. Peter was about fifty years old, but it was only his fully gray hair and deep lines on his face that gave away his age. He was a big man, tall and broad-shouldered, and he stood straight and square. With a curious, ironic look he came out from behind the table and leaned with his side against it. His features were sharp and stern, but his short gray beard and graying eyebrows made him look softer somehow. The girls were silent, so he raised his eyebrows in a question, looking from one to another.
“We brought you something interesting,” the older sister said at last. Jane glanced at her quickly, but didn’t add anything. “We stumbled upon these two just when Eugene’s men were about to finish them, but got into an argument at the last moment. It’s likely that Eugene wants them alive. Actually, one of them,” she added. “We thought that you might be interested. And well, we couldn’t just leave them out there.”
“Probably, you know something about them or Eugene’s plans,” Jane said. Her sister nodded.
“Anyway, to get them out of there was our job, and yours is to decide what to do with them. You can…” Pain shrugged, “sell them into slavery, I don’t know.”
Peter grimaced and speculated for a second, eyeing the guests. A strange look passed his face – in fact, two different expressions – as he glanced first at one, then at the other. As if he recognized them, but wasn’t quite sure of it. He unfroze off his spot and paced across the office, reaching out his hand.
“My name is Peter. I’m the head of this organization, and I want to tell you first of all that you’re absolutely safe here. I hope you won’t mind answering a few questions before we decide what to do next.” He shook their hands with a polite smile and stepped back.
The guys considered his words – both silent – and then nodded carefully. Jerry was still standing behind their backs, arms folded on his chest. But it wasn’t like they had a reason for rejecting Peter’s suggestion or for not trusting him. His fighters did save their lives just a few minutes ago, so there was no point in backing out now.
“David Forrester,” Dave said at last. “And this is my friend Chad,” he jerked his chin toward him.
“David Forrester!” Peter exclaimed, relieved. “I thought you seemed familiar. I’m glad to meet you both. Why don’t you have a seat?” He pointed to the chairs that stood in rows on both sides of the long table.
They followed without another word: Chad sat on the left side with Jerry next to him, and Dave in the opposite seat. Only the girls remained standing, looking at Peter with expectation.
“I’d prefer you to stay, too. Sit.”
Jane nodded, coming to sit beside Dave without a word, but her sister apparently couldn’t hold back a loud sigh as she dragged herself to the table. Peter ignored that and cleared his throat.
“Let’s get straight to business. Do you know what Eugene Zhorr could want from you?” he asked, giving Dave and Chad a pointed look.
“No,” Chad answered instantly.
“We didn’t even hear about him till tonight! We were heading to a bar, didn’t bother anybody, and all of a sudden those guys in leather, real cutthroats, rounded us and said they had some business with us! Shoved us into that alley…” Dave fidgeted in his chair, glancing at the girls uneasily. “And started to discuss some nonsense about killing and everything,” he spilled it all in one breath, gesticulating with both hands nervously. Indignation boiled inside him, making his hands tremble a little, and he clasped them together so that nobody would notice.
Peter’s face darkened with every second of Dave’s speech.
“David, I know your father and I met him once,” he began, but Dave interrupted him.
“Oh, please just call me Dave.”
“Alright, Dave. So, your father is a well-known man. Have you heard anything about his business with a man named Eugene Zhorr? Maybe Eugene wants to kidnap you so he could use it against him?” Peter raised his black-and-gray eyebrows and stared at Dave.
He contemplated it for a few seconds with a troubled expression, worrying on his bottom lip. Peter’s idea seemed pretty logical, but Dave wouldn’t agree with anything unless he was one hundred percent sure it was true. It didn’t seem even one percent possible: in his life he or his father never had to doubt his safety. He had never used bodyguard service, never had been threatened or stalked. And he didn’t think his father would keep secret if someone was a threat to him, either.
“No, honestly saying, I haven’t heard anything about him, and I don’t think my father wouldn’t tell me if there was something…” he said and rubbed his chin with his hand, turning his gaze to Peter. “I don’t know whether you’re aware or not, but my father’s been in Germany for a year now. He’s there for treatment. He’s managing the business remotely, and I’ve been there a few times, but never heard a word about either Eugene or Zhorr. And before Germany, too.”
Peter exhaled loudly, switching his look to Dave’s friend.
“What about you, Chad? Is there anything in your life that could be connected with Eugene? In your relatives’ lives?”
Chad quickly shook his head.
“I can’t imagine that. I’m just an auto mechanic, and my friendship with Dave is probably the most outstanding thing in my life. I can’t think of one reason why would anybody want to kill me or anything like that,” he said calmly, but his face was frowned again as he finished talking.
“What about your relatives, what do they do?”
“I have only my father. He’s a farmer and lives far from here. I doubt that he has any common business with this Eugene,” Chad answered with a shrug.
The door cracked open – it was the second guard coming to replace Jerry. He peeked inside, looking for Peter. His boss waved for him to join them, so he came in, getting full attention of Chad and Dave immediately.
The fighter was at least seven feet tall with shoulders about three feet wide. He had dark eyes that looked black from the distance, and the hard line of his jaw was framed with dark stubble. It had been long since anybody used his name because his specific appearance had earned him a fearsome nickname: Skull. His head was shaved and had a big tattoo of a skull on
the back, and though in battle he was the Devil himself, usually Skull was unexpectedly amiable. He didn’t look scary or ugly, though. His features were fine with a Latin look to them, and there was only one striking detail – a long scar that ran diagonally across his left eye. He wasn’t as young as the other three fighters in the room: he could be thirty or older, it was hard to guess. Hanging from a thick leather belt on his hips, there was a heavily looking sword in a scabbard. Skull wasn’t wearing a jacket, preferring just the gear bottoms and a black T-shirt, but he didn’t need the full gear to send chills through Dave’s veins as he watched the giant look over the gathering with apathy and come to one of the chairs. His look was heavy as his eyes traveled slowly around the room. He sat across from him and laid his hands on the table, and Dave couldn’t help but glance downward, at those huge tattooed fingers. For some reason, he imagined those fingers wind around his neck and strangle him. His stomach churned.
“Dave, where is your mother now? Other close relatives?” Peter asked, unaware of his uneasy reverie.
Dave turned back to him and sighed: he could almost see himself in a bar, enjoying his beer, chatting with his friend, telling him all about his trip to Bangkok and the crazy days there. Such an unfortunate turn of the events, he thought grimly.
“Mother is in Germany with my dad, and my sister lives in London with her husband,” he answered.
Peter looked at Chad with his eyebrows raised.
“I’m in the city by myself. Again, I have only my father, and he lives at the farm upstate,” he said.
All this time, the girls were silent. Jane watched the men talk with a curious frown, braiding her long black hair idly, her eyes resting mostly on her boss. The situation seemed to be of interest for her, which couldn’t be said about her sister. Pain sat sprawled in her chair and looked from one to another with martyred boredom. Every now and then, she glanced at Jerry in front of her and grinned, all teeth, her expression predatory. Dave wondered if she was doing it to annoy him, and if she would rather be out on the streets, chopping heads off.
Peter’s voice roused him out of his reverie once again.
“Very well, I’ll send someone to look after them. I suppose you can stay here for a while.”
At that, Dave’s eyes fluttered wide open, but his friend was the first to reply.
“I don’t understand, what’s in it for you? These two,” Chad pointed his finger at the girls, earning an aloof, disdainful glance from the big sister, “have risked their lives tonight to get us out of there. What’s all this for?” He shrugged and flicked his hair out of his eyes, a question in his look.
Peter looked at him for a moment, as if contemplating how much he should tell them, though maybe just choosing the right words.
“First of all, I just can’t let you go, knowing that Eugene’s men are looking for you. Trust me, you won’t go far. Second, I’m really, really interested in what he wants from you. If those guys were talking about killing, it means he has some reasons for it. One of you has got to be standing in his way somehow. The fact that you don’t even know him only makes it more interesting for me. Now, I don’t really know anything about either of you, but I guess you pose as a threat to some of his businesses; otherwise he wouldn’t bother. And I know it may sound selfish of me, but if he has a weakness, I want to find out what it is. So, since we have a common enemy, we’re ready to help you as much as we can, and consider your cooperation a payment for this help,” Peter explained. “We can give you shelter, food, clothes, and most importantly, the best protection in the world. Protection of which very few people know,” he said, looking at them meaningfully.
“Since we’re talking about this, maybe you will tell us who you are?” Dave put in, finally feeling like the conversation was heading in the right direction.
Peter clasped his hands, turning back to his chair.
“Unfortunately, now I have to get back to my work. I’m sure any one of the girls will do it even better than me.”
At these words, the sisters’ heads snapped up simultaneously, their looks surprised.
“What?” Jane muttered.
“Chad, Dave, this is Patricia and Jane. They’ll guard you from now on and introduce you into the life of our organization,” Peter said, pointing with his hand at the girls, but was cut off with a sharp sound of the older sister’s hand slamming into the table.
“What the hell, Peter!” Pain got up abruptly, her chair giving an awful screech, and Dave jumped in his seat. Everyone was looking at her now, except for Skull, who was examining one of his knives, humming to himself quietly and seeming oblivious of the quarrel next to him.
“No hell, just your new assignment,” Peter objected, his brown eyes fixed on her black ones with authority.
“It’s no assignment, it’s a sentence!” she complained. “Don’t you have anyone else for this job? I’m a bodyguard, not a babysitter!”
While she went on and on, describing all the bad things she thought about this idea, Jerry winked at Chad and leaned closer, his watery eyes mischievous.
“She hates her name, so we call them Jane and Pain.” He grinned, and Chad smiled politely in return, trying to listen to what Pain was saying to Peter at the same time. He thought it was something about tying them up and locking them inside her wardrobe, though he wasn’t sure. “It’s not just that she’s lethal – it’s for her temper mostly.” Jerry grimaced. “I really wouldn’t recommend getting in her way if you’re not a fan of dislocations… You know, your fingers, a wrist, maybe… a- ” he broke off mid-sentence because Pain was glaring down at them, her look withering. She had obviously heard him speaking, no matter how madly she was arguing with Peter. Chad wasn’t sure if Jerry was kidding or serious, but she looked pretty capable of those things at that moment.
With an apparent effort of will, she tore her gaze off the guys and turned to Peter again, who said, “Calm down, please. Sit,” and pointed to the chair.
For a long moment she just stared at him, as if frozen to the spot. Then she sat down reluctantly, crossing her arms and looking at her boss with challenge.
“You have to understand that you two are the only ones whom I can trust with this,” he said in a calm tone. “It’s very important right now.”
She only snorted, resting her gaze on Skull while her boot tapped on the floor irritably. She glanced sideways at her sister, looking for some support, but Jane was silent, no matter how unhappy her expression was. Desperate, she turned back to Peter with a resigned sigh.
“How do you imagine a pair of our cutthroats would deal with these two? Who else if not you can find a common language with them? Who will go on patrols, you? You know that our agents don’t patrol, and tonight was an exception. And even this one night hasn’t passed without an incident,” Peter continued, looking more weary than angry. “Out of all our agents, you’re the ones who have always dealt with delicate assignments and never backed out until now,” he added, and now it sounded like a covert attempt at praising her. Pain just snorted again.
“You can assign them to Ryan and Marco. They’re all dudes, they’ll find a common language,” she said with a wave of her hand, taking the last attempt to get away from the job.
“Marco?? Wh-Why, so they would die of alcohol poisoning in a day? There isn’t anything that I can trust Marco with lately! By the way – thanks for bringing him up – did you know he was growing pot on his windowsill?” he asked in an accusing voice.
At that, she made an astonished face, too theatrical to be genuine.
“No-o-o… Pot, really? No, I’ve never seen it in his room. In fact, I’m not sure I know what pot looks like. Do you by any chance have some here, so I could take a look…?” She blinked with a speculative face. Peter just gave a weary sigh.
“Listen, I’m not making you do something out of ordinary. All that’s needed is to be near and look after them so that nobody would break their necks. To keep an eye on them every minute. I don’t think you’ll even
need to go out. We’ll do everything to make you all comfortable in your room. I bet Eugene already knows they’re here, and soon he’ll contact us. When we find out whom he wants and why, we’ll decide what to do next.”
“Our room?” she asked incredulously, clearly not paying attention to whatever he had said after that.
“Yes, your room,” he answered with finality. “You can stay there, or we can find you another, bigger one.”
“Or,” she raised her index finger, “we could just strap them to our backs so they would be both safe and warm.” She looked at him with dismay. “This is bullshit, Peter. I’m sorry, but I don’t like this plan,” she said as her hands went up helplessly. There was some urgency in her tone, not just resentment, but something more than that. Even Jane, who didn’t like the plan either, glanced at her with surprise. She decided to remain silent, though: as much as she disliked the idea, she didn’t want to argue about it. They would do what Peter said anyway, so there wasn’t any point in wasting time and effort. She had always been much more capable of adjusting to the way things were than her sister, who seemed to believe that she could control everything.
Peter shook his head.
“I don’t see any other choice.”
A moment passed in silence before Dave looked up at them.
“Why can’t we just go home? And they could guard us there…” he suggested.
“Because I know Eugene. The moment you cross the threshold of our building, his Beasts will cut your throats or grab you and deliver to him. Trust me, he won’t back off if something went wrong with his plan. He’ll do whatever it takes to get you, and your apartments will be the first place he will search,” Peter answered.
Dave had nothing else to say. The idea of staying here, of some inexplicable danger hanging over him and Chad seemed so bizarre that he was dumbfounded into obedience. His mind was blank, whether from shock after what he had seen or from trying to comprehend all that happened. He caught a questioning look of his friend, and just nodded, accepting Peter’s words.
Sky Ghosts: All for One (Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure) (Sky Ghosts Series Book 1) Page 3
