by Beth Dranoff
“Kitchen when you’re ready,” our Pack Alpha said.
* * *
Anshell was reading the paper when we made it downstairs about five minutes later. Old school. Maybe Anshell owned a tablet, but if he did he certainly wasn’t using it to avoid getting newsprint smudges on his fingers.
Two mugs, a carton of cream along with the sugar bowl and two stainless steel teaspoons with a winding rose pattern were arranged just so to the side of the already-full coffee pot. Anshell had one of those higher-end models, the kind that grinds the beans thirty seconds before brewing. The smell alone was enough to take me to my happy place. I could almost forget the crazy that had brought me here.
I settled in opposite Anshell. Sam hooked the chair between Anshell and me with one ankle, since his hands were now full with two bowls of some kind of fruity cereal and two mugs of coffee. Somehow he managed to balance them all until after they made contact with the table without spilling anything. Impressive.
Sam nudged half of his collection over to me. Considerate. I nodded my thanks because I suddenly didn’t trust my voice. Instead I forced my eyes down to my bowl. The spoon. That growling stomach that said feed me, and getting some cereal into it pronto.
I took a sip of my coffee—bliss! —and then one more to prove to myself that I wasn’t ruled by my stomach. Point made, at least to myself; I scooped up my first spoonful of sugary crunchy bits covered in milk and started chewing.
“Dana had an interesting drive over here,” Sam said, prompting me. He gave good deadpan when he wanted.
“My father,” I started. “I don’t think he’s dead.” My coffee suddenly fascinating between my hands. “He seems to be stuck in some kind of alternate dimension. Or maybe it’s parallel.” I took another sip, grimacing at the greasy film of cream that had been so enticing moments earlier.
“Explain,” Anshell said.
So I told him. About my visit from my father. Then Ezra. Then Alina. The surprising accidental side effect of death metal music forcing her out and allowing Ezra back. The skin. The riddle of that thumbprint tattoo.
The person who’d tipped off Alina about me in the first place; about the inter-dimensional power in my blood, and my splatter-dot back tattoo.
Daddy Dearest.
“Nice,” said Anshell. Yep, that was my Pack Alpha—the Grand Master of Understatement. “And what of that job offer, the one delivered by your ex-boyfriend?” Anshell paused, waiting for me to fill in the missing name blanks. Sure. Why not hang out all the dirty laundry on the kitchen table at once.
“Owain McCready,” I said. Not looking at Sam this time. “But you knew that. And yeah, I took the gig. Ezra’s fingerprints were all over this, even if Owain was the messenger. Fastest way to figure out what’s going on is with a guided tour, a swipe badge and proper clearance.”
“You haven’t told them about being a shifter, have you?” Sam knew the answer but asked anyway. For Anshell’s sake I guess.
“No,” I said. “I like my freedom, and prefer not to be sliced open and experimented on. What, you thought I left because I didn’t like the brand of rice pudding they served?” Shook my head. “Most of the agents were good people. Or seemed that way. But the science wing—I couldn’t be part of what was going on there.” Swallowed the lump of bile that threatened to push its way up my throat and out my nose. My hands balled into fists and I dropped them into my lap so we could all pretend not to have noticed.
“Not even this Owain?” Because some of my secrets were also Anshell’s and those of the Moon with Seven Faces Pack. A moment of misplaced trust could cost us all.
“Especially Owain.”
Sam narrowed his eyes at that, recognizing my tone for what it partially was: shame. Embarrassment. Discomfort with who I was and what I’d become. Even now. And then he surprised me—reaching over to squeeze my hand.
He understood?
“What about the demon?”
Right. The one still crashing on my couch.
“The Agency wants him, the octopods want him, and they’re both looking to me to make it happen. I can’t hand Gus over though, no matter now annoying he is, because I promised Sandor. Right now, I’m avoiding all of them and pretending to have forgotten my extensive search and target retrieval skills. But it’s going to get very old very fast if I can’t think of a new storyline.” I looked at Anshell. “Any ideas?”
“Working on it,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“I’m taking a shower and then you owe me drinks, dinner and dessert,” I said, stomping towards the bathroom and dripping octo-slime all over my floor. It had been another wild night at the Swan. Celandra had been there, and Frank, and a whole lot of spewed ink from body parts I didn’t want to think about too closely.
Gus was preening in front of my full-length hallway mirror. He’d changed out of his customary flannel pants, t-shirt and hoodie for something a bit more leather daddy. Currently he was admiring the separation of his mottled ice-blue ass cheeks between the black leather straps dividing them.
“Nice,” I commented, midway to cleanliness.
“You think?” Gus angled in the opposite direction, hiking the waist and evaluating the impact of this alternate posterior vantage point when perked up from below even as the crack strap helped to lift and separate. Guess he’d decided to harness his assets for the night.
I nodded, checking out the view from a few different perspectives. “You’ve definitely got the ass for it. Where are you going?”
“It’s Pride,” said Gus. “Church Street? There’s gotta be a beer tent out there with my name on it.”
“What about the part where there are two separate contracts out on you—that we know of? You think it’s safe?”
“Well, seeing as you’re holding both contracts, I think I’m good for now.” He twisted again before leaning forward and checking himself out one more time. “Plus it’s a capture out on me, not a kill,” he said. “If it was a kill, they’d have hired someone like me rather than you and I’d be dead already.”
“And that’s a good thing?” Considering what I knew about the Agency’s experimentation techniques. “Aren’t you curious who wants you and why?”
“It’d be a long list,” Gus replied. “Life is short. I want to have fun fun fun till they try to take my T-Bird away.”
“Have you ever gotten a capture gig?”
“Of course,” Gus said. “Got my claws wet on a few. Still pick them up now and then to keep sharp. Harder than kills. All that transporting. Those octo-dorkers who caught you and Sandor for a while—they’re the go-to’s for snatch and grabs these days. It’s their thing.”
“And what about the norms?” I was genuinely curious. “Aren’t they going to notice a six-foot-five blue demon with tusks and an extra eye walking down the street in leather chaps?”
“People see what they expect to see,” said Gus. “Besides, it’s Pride. I wouldn’t be the only one in costume. With all the intoxicants floating around out there, chances are nobody would believe what I am even if they saw past the veneer.”
“Still,” I said. “I want to stop being bodily threatened every few hours because of you. I’m going to try to deal with the Agency myself.” Gus’s eyes narrowed. Whoops. Had I forgotten to mention that? “But these cephalopods,” I continued, pretending not to see his implied threat. “They’re a nuisance and they’re getting destructive. Celandra diverted the last attack, but they still broke stuff at the Swan.” I crossed my arms. “Don’t care about me? Whatever. But this is your brother. You need to make this stop.”
“Agency contract?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Remember? I’m sure I told you. The Agency wants you as well and they offered me the gig.”
“Aren’t you out of that game?” Gus started fiddling with his
crossover lace-up suspenders, all leather straps and brass rings. Somehow he kept missing the fastening. Interesting. Suddenly my proximity made his fingers twitch in a fear response he couldn’t control fast enough to hide.
“I was,” I replied. “Doesn’t mean the offer isn’t tempting.”
Gus stilled, scary silent, and I was aware all over again that I was sharing unguarded space with an assassin who’d almost ended me a handful of months earlier. Forced myself to breathe, keep my voice light. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I have enough nightmares. I took the gig to buy us time.”
Gus gave a single nod. Nightmares probably weren’t a problem for him, but I think he believed me. Maybe there was something he’d read in my file for the original Dana dunzo contract that suggested trusting me was worth the risk.
In truth, in that place deep down where I kept my secrets, I couldn’t swear that this Agency gig would be a one-time thing. Too much family history there, and I had too many questions. Just because my father had tattooed a demon bull’s-eye target on my back, and at least one version of Ezra appeared to be in cahoots with my personal nightmare Alina, didn’t mean everyone who worked at the Agency was evil, right? Maybe change could happen from the inside?
Or maybe I was spinning rationalizations to avoid the practical reasons for my decision to to take on this job. Sure, partly, it was to protect Gus if I could. But I also needed answers that Owain had hinted the Agency might actually still have. And while I was getting that information, I might as well get paid for it.
Fortunately, Gus couldn’t hear my inner monologue. “What’s the bounty?”
I walked over to my bag, found the offer and passed it to him.
What the hell. I could do full(ish) disclosure.
Impressive what a demon with such thick fingers and angled nails could do with a touch-screen tablet designed for much smaller hands. Guess it’s true what they say—it’s not the size of the appendage but what you do with it.
Gus’s eyes narrowed at something in the bottom corner of the scroll. I leaned over his arm to see. The authorization code?
“Does that mean something to you?” I’d often seen it on assignments, but always assumed it was some kind of randomly generated number like a password or an invoice.
Gus nodded once. Curt.
“Tells me who wants me. And why.”
“Show me,” I said.
A grey-blue-ridged nail tapped the first four digits of the eighteen-character string.
“SCOV,” Gus said. “That’s a requisition code. Tells you the department it came from. SCOV is Science and Covert Affairs.” My old department. I kept that part to myself. “Those next four characters—that’s the clearance level of the person initiating the request. 1103. Someone in upper middle management would be my guess.”
“Does everyone in the Agency get this kind of clearance code? I don’t remember having one.”
“Of course,” said Gus. “But until you’re at a certain level, you wouldn’t know about it. Maybe they didn’t trust you as much as you thought.”
“It’s possible.” I pointed to the last string of letters and numbers. “What about these?”
“79Z3,” Gus said. “Highest-level approval. Buck stops here code.”
“You recognize it?”
“Yeah,” Gus said. “Your old pal Ezra Gerbrecht.”
Fuck.
“I see.” I was impressed with how level I managed to keep my voice. Even though I was screaming and pounding my fists on the wall inside my head. “What does he want with you?”
Gus scanned the screen with cool eyes, crunching the alpha-numeric string into possible if/then scenarios. A decisive nod as the most logical outcomes fell into pattern spaces in front of him.
“Cover story would be genetic sample gathering,” Gus said. “Take a few skin scrapings, harvest a few of the twinkly bits. All very humane treatment for demons in case anyone checked into the records later.”
“But?”
“Animal testing. That’s what I’d be to them. Needles, cages, sharp blades and no skin.” Gus looked away. “You worked there. You know.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat as a droplet of sweat trickled its way down along the side of my neck to drip, awkward, into the crevice between my breasts. I did know. The tubes, the screams, the pleas for help I couldn’t answer without ending up in a cage myself—or dead.
“I can’t let you take me in,” Gus said.
“Even if I’d turned the gig down, which I didn’t, you know they’d just send someone else. And if that person failed, they’d try again. And again. No—we need to do something different.”
“Such as?” Gus scratched the outer nostril ridge of his nose, an unconscious tic I’d seen Sandor do more than once. “I’m not sending someone else in my place, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“No.” I suppressed a shudder, counting to five in my head as Gus watched. If he recognized what he was seeing, he kept his observations to himself. “But maybe we could negotiate an alternative, something they want more than you. Or at least that they’d be willing to settle for.”
“And that would be what?” Gus’s laugh was more of a bark. “There’s a reason I know those codes. It’s me they want, and not just for skin scrapings. There are bodies, and I know where they’re buried.”
“Then why not just put out a hit? Dead demons don’t tell secrets.” I paused, thought about it a moment. “Usually. And what about the Squid faction—are they a backup crew? Agency hedge-betting?”
“Unlikely,” said Gus. “Tentacles are too much for those pocket-protector normies. Freaks ’em out.”
“Owain seemed to be dealing with it OK,” I commented, the beginnings of an idea percolating; not quite ready to spew grounds or steam just yet.
“Your ex...whatever?” Gus chuckled.
“Shut up,” I said. I was pretty sure Owain was ex all of it, but maybe those feelings—the ones I was hoping we both still had—would convince him to help me out of this mess.
* * *
Owain was willing to meet for coffee before my shift. After I’d showered, changed and burned the clothes I’d been wearing. The octoplasm was starting to smell more like celery mixed with leeks and rotting fish. Plus it had soaked into the fibers of the fabric.
“Try vinegar” had been Gus’s parting words as he headed off to Church Street to find the fun.
Yeah, I was going to get right on that.
* * *
“So you have questions about the job?”
Owain leaned forward, playing the side of his pint glass as though holding a clarinet and not a moisture-beaded vessel of potential intoxication. Fingers thrumming across sweat and ice and dark rooms with cool kisses. No. Remember the now.
“Yeah.” I picked up the pack of matches lying on the table; Spotted Dick or Duck or Fox. Rolled them over and under and through my fingers as I rifled my brain for the words. “Do you know if this is a straight-up snatch and grab? Or could the Cinegon be good with something else. Like, instead of the target.”
Owain took a sip of his ale, watching me. “Where is he?” Reaching out a hand to touch mine; a calculated move. Or maybe he was hoping to induce telepathic connectivity between us through touch.
I shrugged, meeting his eyes even as I pulled my hands back to drop them into my lap.
“Still looking.”
“Uh huh.” He shook his head, a smirk playing on his lips before he hid it with a strategic sip of his drink. “You’re sticking with that story?”
I nodded.
“Fine. Would it help you to know why the Cinegon wants this asset?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Let me see that offer again,” Owain said. Of course I still had it with me; protocol dictated that the missive wa
s never off your person unless or until you declined, completed the job, or were dead. Even I remembered that part. Anything less and you became the target. No thanks. “Right, see here?” I didn’t, but I also didn’t stop him. “That’s the options area.” He looked closer. “It’s changed a bit since you were with us. This is a capture ‘with residuals’ job.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning you can capture all or part of the target and still have the job considered delivered in full. ‘Residual’ might mean the fee is pro-rated—” His voice trailed off as he scrolled down. “Right, yeah. Here.” Owain tapped absently on the screen as his brain processed if/then scenarios until the one that made the most sense to him clicked into place. “So this guy shoots off something when he gets cheesed off. There’s a note here about it but it doesn’t make much sense. Mice chips?”
“I’m supposed to hunt down a large rodent and scoop up its shit? I know the Agency wants me to prove how serious I am, but come on.”
Owain shook his head, a half smile tickling the corners of his mouth.
“It’s probably a typo,” he said. “Unless you have some inside knowledge of this Rodent of Unusual Size?”
I shook my head and did wide-eyed innocent. Pretending Owain didn’t know me better than that.
“Right,” he said. Playing Let’s Pretend went both ways today. “So here’s what I might do. Find the target. Get him angry, so angry he spits out whatever it is the Cinegon wants to stick in their test tubes. But angry means a fight, and maybe the guy was too much for you.”
“Ohhhh,” I said, my own smile hitting my face. “Right. Because I went after him on my own. No backup.”
“Right,” said Owain, leaning back in his seat again.
“Thank you,” I said. Raising my own glass in a toast. “Cheers.”
“Sláinte chugat.” He took another sip, casual, like the answer wasn’t a big deal either way. “Have you thought about your future plans? Career-wise, I mean.”
“Meaning?” As if I didn’t know. Owain had given me the tat, and it was time to serve up the tit in return. “You want to know if I’m thinking of coming back to the Agency full time?”
