Ness nodded her agreement. "How soon can you be ready to roll out?"
"It's eleven-thirty now…I could have everyone assembled by two, but it's several hours to Pasadena, and it'll be sunup before we get there. We'll have to take one of the blackout vans and then wait for dusk."
"Right. I'll have rooms secured for you at a local hotel by the time you reach Houston."
Rowan spoke up again. "I want to go."
"Absolutely not," Jason said without even thinking.
Rowan started to protest, but Ness was shaking her head. "I don't think so, Rowan. You're still not cleared for this kind of mission, and I can't run the risk of you having some sort of flashback in the middle of the operation. As far as we know all the victims are human except for the Naiad. There's no reason for you to go."
"I can help," Rowan insisted. "I know what these people have been through."
"You'll make it personal," Ness said. "I don't want you going in there armed and vengeful."
Rowan shot Jason a look of entreaty, but Jason resisted; he had to act as an Agent, and as a leader, not as a lover—although it helped that both leader and lover were in perfect accord on this one. "She's right."
The Elf's face went stony, as did his voice. "Fine. Ness, if you'll excuse me, I can see I'm not needed here."
He rose and swept out, leaving an uncomfortable silence in his wake until Beck made a clicking sound with her tongue and said, "Looks like you're sleeping on the couch, bubba."
Ness looked at Jason seriously. “SA-7, is this going to be a problem?”
“No, ma’am. I agree with you one hundred percent—he has no business going with us. If he’s angry at me personally, we’ll deal with it personally. Don’t worry.”
"Good. I trust you both to be professional, relationship or none. I can understand his anger given the situation, but that's all the more reason he should stay here."
"Again, agreed."
"All right, then. Have your team assembled and ready to leave at 0200."
*****
“You’re really pissed off,” Sara observed, watching him jab his spoon into the non-dairy ice cream the cafeteria had started carrying that summer.
“Thank you, Empress of the Obvious,” he snapped, then relented. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this angry. Why did you want to go with them so badly? Wouldn’t it just bring up old trauma you don’t need to go through again?”
Rowan abandoned his dessert, no longer able to taste it, and didn’t answer right away. She slid his bowl across the table to herself and picked up the spoon. “You know, this stuff’s pretty good—is that coconut?”
He nodded absently. “Yes. The base is coconut milk instead of soy. I guess…I’m just tired of being stereotyped and overlooked. We’re not all tree-hugging pacifistic hippies, you know. Well, we are, but we have our warriors.”
"But you weren't a warrior. You were a rethla, a healer. That's every bit as important."
He sighed, leaned on his hands, and looked around the room at the handful of other people up late enough for a midnight snack. "I suppose I'm being an ass. An impatient ass. I just…I'm getting better, but I still can't do what I once did. There's no place for rethla here, but I don't know what else to be now that I'm not so broken anymore."
“And you think that going out on the case with the others would prove that you’re recovered?”
“I don’t know.” He looked down at the table, tracing the pattern on its surface with his index finger. “I had an attack tonight.”
Her face changed completely, from critical to concerned. “Oh, god, honey, I’m sorry—are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m all right, I just…it was bad. The worst it’s been in a long time. I thought…I hoped…that it was over now. Next thing I knew I was on the kitchen floor with broken glass in my hands.”
She raised an eyebrow. “It didn’t happen right after sex? That’s new. Or were you having sex in the kitchen?”
“No…we were on the couch, watching TV and napping after dinner.”
Sara nodded, thoughtful, and mused, “Maybe it was just an aftershock. You were so hurt for so long, you can’t expect it to just go poof overnight, right? There are bound to be tremors for a while. From what you’ve told me they’ve been decreasing in frequency; maybe in another few months they’ll be completely gone.”
“I hope you’re right. That would be wonderful.”
“Aside from that,” she asked, “how are things going with you two? Still jumping each other like rabbits on speed?”
He finally smiled. “Maybe not that often, but…it’s going quite well. Phenomenally well.”
She sat back, whooped, and punched the air. An R&D tech walking by started at the noise, nearly dropped his stack of notes and books, and gave her an aggrieved look as he passed. Rowan nearly inhaled his iced tea laughing.
“He hasn’t mentioned the ‘m’ word, has he?” she wanted to know, licking her purloined spoon.
“Michigan? Masonry? Ménage a trois?”
“No, dumbass. Monogamy.”
Rowan shook his head. “Not once, thank god. And none of that crazy human stuff like cohabitation or matrimony—there’s another ‘m’ word for you. I love him, but I want my own bathroom.”
“So how would you feel if he slept with someone else?”
“I don’t know,” he replied truthfully. “I could hardly expect him not to, if I can. In theory I would be fine with it; I’ve never had one person all to myself before, but then, I’ve never done anything like this before at all, so who knows? I guess we’ll deal with that when it happens. If it does. He doesn’t seem to be as restless as I am.” He offered her a wry smile. “Did you really mean to ask if he’s said anything about you?”
“Well…yeah.”
“We talked about it. He said he has no claim to me, no say over what I do with my body, and he knows you and I care about each other. I made him promise to speak up if his feelings change. I can’t intuit everything, after all.”
“You immortals,” she said, shaking her head with a grin. “You’re so much cooler than we are.”
He shrugged. “As with anything, what’s important is to talk about it before there’s a chance for resentment to build.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil,” she replied, sticking out her tongue. “Now…I seem to recall that Pasadena is several hours from here.”
“It is indeed.”
“Which means that your plans for the evening are effectively derailed.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Pasadena’s a shithole,” Sara commented, standing up. “Serves him right for running off in the middle of the night and leaving such divine hotness at home alone.” She quirked her eyebrows suggestively. “I happen to have a bottle of Captain Morgan in my quarters. Shall we retire to my place where I can show you my etchings?”
“Terrible, terrible come-on,” he told her. “You might as well ask me for my sign.”
“I already know what your sign is: ‘Parking in Rear.’”
He groaned. “Even worse. Are you trying to talk yourself out of sex tonight, or what?”
She offered her hand, and he took it, giving it a squeeze; he stopped long enough to drop the empty ice cream bowl and their glasses off at the conveyor belt, then followed her agreeably out of the cafeteria and down the hall toward her quarters.
“Honestly,” she said, “I’d be happy just to watch a movie and get liquored up. I hardly see you anymore, what with my training and you in a relationship and all. Don’t be surprised if my cat pretends not to know you.”
She paused outside the door to her quarters to dig out her badge, and by way of response to her words, Rowan moved up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and leaned in to nuzzle the back of her neck.
She dropped her badge, but instead of bending to pick it up, she turned halfway against him and smiled. He smiled back and kissed her, sliding his hands down her arms and around her
waist, and they ended up pressed back against the wall, her nimble fingers already seeking his buttons, one leg wrapping around him to pull his hips against hers.
Sara breathed into his neck, “I realize I’m probably a poor substitute…”
He pulled back and frowned at her. “Don’t be ridiculous, woman. How long do you seriously think I could survive without this mouth…” He ran his tongue over her lower lip; “…or these shoulders…” He bit her hard on the left, “…or, mother of God, these breasts…”
His hands sought beneath her shirt, and she moaned. “Good point…most men are lacking in the breast department.”
“…and thighs…men are many things, but they aren’t soft, like you are right here…”
“God…damn it…where’s the badge?”
“Here,” he said, sinking to his knees to fetch it, handing it up to her while he stayed where he was, busy unzipping her jeans, chuckling at her cheerful blue panties with the Scotty dog pattern.
She groped backward and got the door open, then all but tumbled into her quarters, hauling him up and against her long enough to clamp her mouth to his while she kicked the door shut behind them.
As she dragged him toward the bedroom, both shedding clothes along the way, Rowan glanced over at the couch, where Pywacket was curled up glaring at them, and he could have sworn he saw the cat roll his eyes.
Part Three
It was very, very difficult to shock a vampire, especially one who had been working for a secret government organization that hunted demons and investigated paranormal crimes.
On the other hand, vampires did have an attribute that was both a significant advantage and disadvantage: heightened physical senses, especially smell.
A room that had held ten starving, naked people for over a month chained to the walls in their own filth would have been more than enough to send even the most stoic Agent back outside to retch into the gutters. Several of the Agents did just that, and so did Beck—Jason heard her boots clomping on the sidewalk, heard her empty her stomach violently into a trashcan under the watery pale December moon.
He would have liked to join her, but he couldn't move.
He couldn't move because the second the interior door was thrown open, the second stench froze him in place.
Overpowering the piss and shit and god knew what else in that room was a smell he knew far better than any breathing creature on the Earth should ever know.
Decay.
"SA-13," he rasped out, "distribute ventilators. I'm going to have a look."
Every atom of his being begged him to stay in the outer office, but he had a job to do.
He stepped over the bodies of the guards and crossed the threshold, reaching out sideways to hit the overhead light.
Oh, God.
There were, as reported, ten people in chains, most of them so weak and emaciated they barely seemed to notice anything had changed.
There were also at least that many corpses scattered in amongst the living, still chained to the walls, some in an advanced state of decomposition that meant they had been here just as long as everyone else. Some of the bodies already had exposed bone, but most were still mid-putrefaction, green around the abdomen, swollen. Flies choked the air, swarming all around the bodies and the victims.
Most of the bodies, live and dead, were naked at least from the waist down.
Half of them were children.
Jason turned on his heel and walked back out, through the office that had served as the operation's disguise, back out into the night, where an Agent was holding the one remaining member of the ring still alive.
"Stand down, SA-21," he said quietly. The Agent quite willingly let the man go and stepped back.
"Why are those children dead?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.
The man didn't look especially upset, and replied, "We couldn't sell them. Too risky with the police onto us. Management said to stop feeding them, so we did."
"By management you mean Derrick and Chelsea Cole?"
A nod.
"What were the captives being sold for?"
Jason knew the answer, but he had to hear it.
The man looked at him like he was an idiot. "Fucking, of course. Kids are worth six figures these days, especially clean white ones. The women were all ethnic, that's popular here in the South, the rich bastards like to dress them up all tribal and make them talk like they're from Africa and shit. But once word got around with the cops about the merchandise, nobody was buying. The only one we had an offer for was the little one in back."
"In back where?"
"The back store room. It should still be alive. They kept us feeding it. Worth a million, easy."
"All right, Mr…"
"Smith," the man said, lying. "John Smith."
"Right, Mr. Smith. You've been a tremendous help. One more question: did you and the rest of the staff ever use the merchandise?"
"Sure we did. Who's gonna turn down free pussy?"
Jason nodded and took three steps back.
Then he pulled his gun and shot the man six times, including twice in the crotch.
Jason breathed through the rising tide of rage, allowing the feeling of righteousness, of vengeance, to banish it one breath at a time. He looked over at SA-21, who had jumped back in shock but was now staring down at the body, smiling grimly.
"Let the record show that John Smith was killed while resisting arrest," Jason said as he holstered his weapon.
SA-21 nodded. "Yes, sir."
Jason turned back to the building and went into the office again; medical teams were already inside, using the confiscated key ring they'd found in the office to unchain the prisoners.
A few had realized what was happening, and were sobbing. Most were unresponsive.
It was eerily like Pentecost, and yet so much worse.
Jason's memory took him, and one of the victims' gaunt, hopeless faces was suddenly Rowan's, his slender hands shaking as they held the gun, standing in a pool of blood, about to shatter into a thousand jagged pieces. Jason found himself fighting back either a scream or a banshee wail of mourning—lost souls, more lost souls, and they'd been too late to save them. Starved to death, raped to death, abandoned and forgotten, locked away in their private hell, forever and ever, amen.
It hadn't been so long ago it had been Rowan, his Elf, in those chains, and even now he still suffered, the luminous wonder of an immortal reduced to pills and needles because of people like the Coles…
Beck touched his arm. "You okay?"
"No," he said where only she could hear. "I'm very much not okay. You?"
"I wish there were more of those motherfuckers alive so I could shoot one too."
"Yeah. Is CPS here?"
"Outside and waiting."
"Don't let them come in. We'll bring the living out to them. They don't need to see this. Get the ME to bring in sterile evidence bags and body bags; we'll need IDs for all of these people, even the living, if they can't speak for themselves. Radio Sergeant Grant and let him know what we've found so his boys can keep the area secure while we clean up this mess." He fought away another bout of nausea at the stench. He could handle the smells of death up to a point, and corpses were easy enough to handle one or even two at a time, but this…this was straining even his limits.
Jason looked around at the derelict, hopeless building whose floors would be forever stained with the blood and dissolution of innocent human bodies. “When all the evidence has been collected, burn it.”
"Yes, sir." Beck started to walk away, then said, "I'm glad you didn't let Rowan come." The disgust and pain on her face was clear; she looked around at the scene, then said, "And they call us monsters."
Jason couldn't look any of them in the faces. He'd seen all of this too many times. Instead he walked among the bodies and helped smash out the boarded-up windows, allowing in desperately needed air and moonlight, and allowing him to channel some of his anger into splintering wood and shatterin
g glass.
A hollow voice at his ankles said, "Thank you."
He looked down and saw not a child, but a woman in her early twenties, lying on her side, looking up at him through haunted dark eyes with huge black circles around them. She must have been beautiful, when she was brought here—there was dried blood on her thighs, a lot of it, and she'd been beaten recently enough that her torso was mottled with bruises. But she was smiling, just barely smiling, as she patted the top of his boot.
The Agency, Volume II Page 8
