“You’re ignoring the fact that that’s worked out pretty well for him in the long run, considering how good Riley’s turned out to be,” Vanessa reminded him.
“Doesn’t matter. He still broke the rules, and he should be disqualified from consideration.”
“Despite your opinion on the matter,” Vanessa said, with emphasis, “he’s definitely in the running, probably neck and neck with you. Seems that Director Hartley might be willing to overlook sections of his past record.”
Henry scowled and shoved a few stray papers aside, trying to clear his desktop of everything important. “I find that very hard to believe,” he said. “Hartley’s never been one to let stuff like that go. He’s tenacious.”
“I thought it was weird too, which was why I brought it up,” Vanessa said.
“Where did you hear this from?”
She shrugged. “Here and there,” she replied. “A lady never reveals her sources.”
Henry knew better than to press her any further on that point. She had, in fact, never revealed any of her sources, and it was useless to get her to try. “So what else did you find?” he asked, combing his hand through his hair and fighting back a yawn.
“Mm, that’s where things get juicy,” Vanessa said, a small grin on her face. She stood and stepped into the foyer of the office suite, and Henry heard her rummage into one of her desk drawers before returning with a folder. “I don’t know exactly what’s up, but I caught wind of Brandon and his secretary arguing. Apparently, Ashley isn’t in total agreement with him over the handling of something, and that something has to do with Riley Walker.” She dropped back into the chair across from him and opened the folder. “I did some digging, trying to figure out what in the world they were so pissed off at each other about—”
“Ashley Greene has zero love for Riley Walker,” Henry pointed out. “It’s called professional jealousy. So of course she’s not going to be pleased about Brandon having anything to do with her. And how do you know it doesn’t have anything to do with Brandon signing Riley’s handling over to Zachariah?”
“Think about this logically, Henry,” Vanessa replied. “Why would Ashley be pissed because Riley is going away? She wouldn’t be. Besides, they kept talking about assignments in the past tense, which means old ones. So I went digging.” She held two-page typewritten list out to him, and he leaned across the desk to retrieve it. “This is a list of all the assignments Riley has done in the past year. I didn’t go back any further, but it won’t be a problem to pull the rest up for you if you need them.”
“No, I think this will be fine for now,” Henry assured her. He scanned the list, which was a simple spreadsheet detailing dates, locations, targets, and who had requested her services. “What exactly did you hear them saying? And, for that matter, how did you hear them saying it?”
“I was lurking outside Brandon’s office door,” Vanessa said shamelessly. “And they were mostly talking about Riley’s past assignments. I wasn’t able to hear the entire conversation. Too many people were in the hallway at the same time I was trying to listen.” She shrugged. “Anyway, Ashley was saying something about how sending Riley to Zachariah wouldn’t do anything but get them found out because Zachariah is too smart to overlook ‘it,’ and Brandon seemed completely unperturbed, telling her that she worried too much and that everything would work out perfectly in the end.”
“So what’s that got to do with this?” Henry waved the stapled papers in Vanessa’s direction.
“I don’t know, but I’m hoping we can find out,” Vanessa said. “I’m thinking a bit of research is in order. Maybe we’ll find something that will give you a better idea of what Scott has gotten himself into.”
Henry had to concede that point to her. Scott was like the son he’d never had, and he would hate to see something happen to him while working with Riley Walker. The woman was dangerous--not intentionally; she had a careless streak a mile wide in her enthusiasm to get her job done, and Henry worried that she’d drag Scott into something that would get him killed. And if that happened, suffice to say that Henry would not be happy.
“Do you think we should warn him?” Vanessa prompted when Henry didn’t reply right away.
“Warn him? About what?” Henry said. “That Brandon might be up to something? Brandon is always up to something.” He shook his head and scanned the list again before pulling his computer keyboard toward him. “No, I think we should wait until we actually have something concrete to warn him about. There’s no sense in stirring up an anthill unnecessarily.”
Vanessa uncrossed her legs and sat up straighter. “What do you need me to do in the meantime?”
“First, go get us more coffee,” Henry said, keying in his login information on the computer as he spoke. “And then come back here and help with this list. Let’s see if we can figure out what Brandon is or was up to that could interfere with Scott’s assignment.”
~*~
Ashton sat in his desk chair, his hand pressed to his mouth as he stared at his computer monitor, eye wide with disbelief. The fingers of his free hand rested against the keyboard, hovering over the command keys he’d need to rewind the security footage to watch it. Again. And again.
Zachariah stepping into the frame. Killing two vampires. Yelling something to Riley and Scott. The two new recruits running off-camera, Scott forcing Riley along as she resisted. Zachariah taking a knee instead of fighting, instead of trying to fight. The elder appearing and speaking to him, her lips moving but her words inaudible. Then her touching the back of his neck and him collapsing onto the pavement. Then the security camera going offline in a cascade of digital snow.
Ashton’s fingers danced over the keyboard, restarting that segment of the security footage. He magnified the video and leaned closer, trying to read the blond elder’s lips. It was difficult, as her thick hair partially blocked his view of her mouth and the video’s quality had degraded when he’d zoomed in, and he had to rewind several times. But once he’d made out a single, desperately important word, he sat back in his chair, letting the footage play to the end as he contemplated the possibilities.
“Consort,” Ashton murmured. “She said fucking ‘consort.’”
With that, he shoved his chair away from his desk and rose to his feet, limping to Zachariah’s desk. He started pulling drawers open, shoving through office supplies inside, moving around notes and scraps of paper and old receipts, searching for the relevant files that had crossed his mind with that word. When he turned his attention to the largest drawer in the desk, he discovered it was locked. Zachariah never locked drawers, never kept him from being able to access whatever he needed in his paperwork. The other man was hiding something from him, and he hated the thought, but he pushed it aside. He tried to trust Zachariah implicitly; after the man had saved his life two years ago, he owed him that much.
Ashton abandoned his attempts to open the drawer and stalked across the office, flinging the door open. The warehouse was in an uproar. Word had spread that there had been a fight with vampires outside their back door, and an elder had been sighted. Ashton had scrambled to get his hands on the footage from the official security cameras and had deleted it to prevent Zachariah’s kidnapping from being known, and as such, his disappearance had yet to be connected to the attack; the most prominent rumor held out that he was attempting to track the vampires back to their lair for tagging and destruction. Ashton scanned the agents present, and his eye landed on a slender black woman near the armory cage, arguing with one of the arms-keepers inside.
“Angelique!” Ashton bellowed. All chatter among the agents and scientists ceased as his shout carried across the cavernous room. As the woman turned toward him, breaking away from her argument, he added, “My office! Right now!” He didn’t wait for her to acknowledge his order.
“You wanted to see me?” Angelique Rousseau asked as she peered into the office. Her French accent was heavy today, something that usually happened when she was irritated.
“Get in here and shut the door,” Ashton ordered. He waited until she’d obeyed, and he straightened and moved to his computer. “I have a new assignment for you,” he started. “And I can’t begin to stress how important it is that you keep it a secret.”
“Is this about Zachariah?” Angelique asked.
“Perceptive,” Ashton commented. He motioned her over and restarted the footage of the fight. “Watch this and tell me what you make of it.” He moved away to resume his attempts to get into Zachariah’s drawer as Angelique studied the footage with the sharp eyes of the sniper she was trained to be. It took her only one viewing before she looked at him.
“So it’s true?” she asked. “There was an elder involved in the fight?” Ashton nodded, and she added, “It’s obvious that the rumor about Zachariah tracking it isn’t true.”
“No. That part’s not true,” he admitted. “As you saw, Zach’s been captured. He’s likely dead.” Ashton hoped he was, anyway. Because if he wasn’t, then Ashton was going to have to put the man down himself. The thought made his heart hurt even more than the hope. “I need you to track the coven. Find where it is and bring the information back to me. Do not try to engage on your own. Once we know where it is, I’ll be assembling a team to take care of it.”
“Any ideas which elder it is that’s involved?” Angelique asked.
“No idea,” Ashton admitted. “Keeping tabs on the elders was Zachariah’s assignment. I handle the administrative things.” Never had words tasted bitterer to Ashton than they did at that moment. “As it is, I don’t know as much about the elders as I should.”
“I find that hard to believe, considering you two are sleeping together,” Angelique said. “You mean he doesn’t tell you anything about his assignments?”
Ashton shot her a look so cold that, could it have killed, would have left her on the floor in a pool of blood. How dare she talk about him and Zachariah so flippantly? How dare she even mention them at all? While he was well aware of the fact that his and Zachariah’s long-standing relationship was an open secret in The Unnaturals, most agents weren’t stupid enough to bring it up, because it wasn’t any of their business what he and Zachariah did behind closed doors. But rather than comment on her statement, he pushed his anger aside for now and instead continued. “If you can identify the elder without putting yourself at risk, do so, but that’s not a priority,” he said, not bothering to reply to her statement. “Do whatever it takes to find the coven. They’re probably going to relocate, since they’ve played their hand and made a move tonight. They’re going to be a problem, and we need to handle it before it gets worse.”
“And meanwhile, you’re going to be doing what exactly?” Angelique demanded.
Ashton rolled his eye and returned his focus to the desk drawer. “I am going to be trying to get this damned drawer open. Go get me a hammer and a screwdriver.”
“Why don’t I just get my lock picks and—”
“I said, hammer and screwdriver. Now,” Ashton snarled.
Angelique searched his face before she nodded and started for the door. She paused at it, her hand resting on the knob, and looked back at him. “You know, if he’s not dead, he’s probably fine,” she said. “I know Zachariah. He’s tough. He’s one of our best agents and has so many tricks up his sleeves that he’d qualify as a magician in any other profession. Hell, he trained me, and I’m not stupid enough to think I’m half as good as him. I know for a fact he didn’t teach me all of his tricks. I think he’ll be okay.”
Ashton gritted his teeth. He didn’t need Angelique’s platitudes. All that did was piss him off more than he already was—he’d heard enough of them after his accident two years prior. That wasn’t a reason to be rude to her about it, though. “If you say so,” he said, forcing the words out through clenched teeth. “Now, do what I said and get me the damned tools. Then leave me alone. I have work to do.”
Once Angelique had returned with the tools, it only took him two strikes of the hammer against the screwdriver to break the lock on the desk drawer. The sight of thick file folders greeted him; a quick count revealed fifteen red folders and a single blue one, stuffed to bulging with papers. Ashton pulled a random red folder free and flipped the cover opened, thumbing through the pages. Much to his surprise, the majority of the materials were handwritten, pages and pages of lined notebook paper, unlined copy paper, and even sticky notes, covered in Zachariah’s familiar cramped handwriting. The words ran from margin to margin, taking up every available square inch of each sheet, as if he could leave no white space untouched by ink. Ashton set the folder aside and checked inside the next one. Then the next, and the next, methodically skimming the contents of the fifteen red folders. Every one of them had been treated much like the first, packed with similar documentation. None of the folders were labeled. It would take weeks for him to weed through the information and assemble it into something coherent.
Ashton had saved the blue folder for last. The blue of the folder signaled that it was a completed mission, and considering what was inside the red folders, Ashton already had an idea of what was inside it. He pushed the drawer shut with his foot and sank into Zachariah’s desk chair. He set the folder on the messy desktop and folded the cover open, smoothing it out before turning his gaze to the folder’s contents.
The first thing Ashton saw was a thin packet of photographs of an upscale hotel room, taken after a fight. The bed was shredded, feathers and strips of cloth littering the floor, blood staining the sheets. A room service cart lay on its side at the foot of the bed, dishes scattered and broken and a bottle of wine spilled on the cream-colored carpet. A man was sprawled on the floor in front of the dresser holding the broken television, his head separated from the rest of his body. A silver-coated machete lay nearby, its blade stained with black blood. And on his back beside the bed was Ashton himself, Zachariah leaning over him, a blood-soaked pillowcase in his hands as he pressed it to Ashton’s bare chest, where blood poured from deep slashes over his chest and stomach and sides. And his face.
Ashton slammed the folder shut. The responding Unnaturals agents had thought it was a foregone conclusion that he wouldn’t survive his injuries, and they hadn’t waited to get him medical attention before they’d begun to take pictures for their investigation. He remembered the camera flashes going off behind Zachariah like a halo of lightning. And he remembered the pain all too well.
Ashton shoved the folder aside, not wanting to look further. It was the one elder-related assignment that he’d been personally involved with, and he had no desire to relive it. Instead, he turned his attention to the red folders, starting to search through them for evidence of what Zachariah had been doing.
Chapter Ten
“Oh Jesus Christ!”
Riley’s screech echoed through the bathroom, amplified by the marble and tile lining the bathtub, reverberating back into Scott’s face like an auditory slap. He flinched, unable to cover his ears, as Riley thrashed in the bathtub, trying to avoid the liquid he poured over her wounds.
“Geez, Riley, it doesn’t hurt that bad,” Scott said. He emptied the plastic bottle, letting its contents spill over her skin and run into the bathtub underneath her. The clear liquid bubbled and boiled, turning a red-pink color as it worked its way into her wounds.
“Doesn’t hurt that bad?” she repeated. “Doesn’t hurt that bad? It’s fucking rubbing alcohol! Are you trying to kill me, or is that just a fortunate side effect?”
“Oh come on, you can’t tell me you haven’t been through worse,” Scott said. He tossed the empty bottle into the metal trashcan with a loud clang. “I mean, hell, judging by that scar on your shoulder, you’ve been shot before. That can’t possibly feel better than what you’re going through right now.”
Riley gave him an evil glare. “Give me my gun. Let’s test that theory out, shall we?”
“That’s probably not a good idea,” Scott said. He leaned over the bathtub and offered her his hand. “C
ome on, sit up. Let’s finish getting you patched up and get you into some clean clothes, yeah?” Riley shot him another glare and grasped his hand, letting him help her sit up in the bathtub. Her face paled as she changed position, and she grabbed the edge of the tub with her free hand. “Are you okay?” Scott asked, feeling a pang of worry roll through him again.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t get peroxide instead of rubbing alcohol,” Riley grumbled. She hauled herself out of the tub and sat on the edge of it. A mixture of water, alcohol, and blood oozed down her bare side, and Scott snagged a towel from the towel bar beside him and shook it out. He passed it to her and tried to ignore that she was sitting in front of him in only her wet, bloodied jeans and a black bra. It wasn’t like he’d never seen a woman in her underwear before. Hell, he’d seen women in less. Didn’t make it more comfortable for him to see Riley half-undressed, though. Riley folded the towel into quarters and pressed it to the wounds in her side with an audible groan as she breathed in through her nose.
“Peroxide isn’t good for deep wounds,” Scott said. “You know that, Riley. And betadine was out of stock. Otherwise, I’d have gotten that instead. I’m not intentionally torturing you, you know.”
“You keep saying that,” Riley replied. “I don’t think that means what you think it means.” She eased the cloth away from her side and grimaced at the blood on it before mashing it back to her ribs. “Looks like two of them need stitches.”
“Which ones?”
“The ones in the middle,” she said, moving the towel aside so Scott could see.
Scott let out a low whistle as he got his first good look at the wounds decorating Riley’s side. Four clean slices had been gouged into her left side, right over her ribcage, the top and bottom ones thin but the middle two wider. Blood welled in the cuts, despite their attempts to stop the bleeding. If the vampire had struck her lower, the creature’s razor-sharp claws could have eviscerated her. Scott swallowed as bile rose in his throat at the thought, and he forced himself to nod. “Yeah, definitely need stitches in the middle two,” he agreed. He turned away to dig into the shopping bags on the sink, searching for and finding the travel sewing kit he’d picked up from the drugstore and the fishing line he’d found at the sporting goods store next door to it. Riley grimaced at the sight.
The Unnaturals (The Unnaturals Series Book 1) Page 14
