The Darkling Hunters_Fox Company Alpha

by Rhiannon Ayers

  His bright, silvery-gray eyes met hers immediately. He lay stretched out on top of his blankets, already fully clothed. Dex snored blissfully onward, most of his face buried in a pillow, with only his upper back and arms poking out of the nest of blankets they’d built around themselves. Still, that bit of exposed skin looked far too tempting. She tore her eyes away and smiled at Sam.

  “Morning.” Her voice stayed just above a murmur. “Did you sleep?”

  “Some,” he rumbled in what passed for his whisper. “You know me. Can’t sleep past the bell.”

  She chuckled. “No kidding. Well, I hope you got enough of a recharge because today is going to be…interesting.”

  He sat up, eyebrows quirked. “Why do you say that?”

  She pulled her duffle bag out of the small closet. “Intuition. I’m going to get a shower. Then I’m going to go snooping. Make sure Dex gets up before I get back. We may need to move fast.”

  “You say the sweetest things to me,” Sam said with an ironic snort. “I did you scavenger hunt, by the way. You hid a gun in a Kleenex box?”

  “How many did you find?”

  Sam grimaced. “Eleven. Still looking for the last one.”

  “Check the box of tampons under the bathroom sink,” she said with a cheeky little grin. “That’s the last place guys ever look.”

  Sam groaned and started muttering curses. She grinned, twiddled her fingers in a sassy goodbye, and disappeared into the bathroom. A quick shower and shave later, she pulled on a pair of tight jeans, a black sweater, and a thick, black, over-sized shrug for good measure. She would have preferred a snowsuit and ten layers of long-johns, but the locals didn’t consider late autumn to be cold enough for winter gear. Easier to blend in if she pretended it was just a bit nippy, rather than cold enough to freeze a woman’s tits off.

  The shrug, which looked like a cross between a half-poncho and a short jacket, wasn’t just for extra warmth. It hid her personal arsenal. A brace of handguns, six throwing knives, two pairs of brass knuckles, and a bowie knife decorated the harness she secured just over her sweater. She slipped a knife in each boot, secured two more in the flick-trigger wrist sheaths that were hidden by her sleeves, and lastly stuck a pair of sharpened knitting needles through a messy bun at the back of her head.

  In her world, stylish and deadly went hand-in-hand.

  She walked out of the bathroom just as Sam was pulling his iPad out of his go-bag. “And that’s my cue to exit stage left,” she said with a grin. “Back in a little bit.”

  He frowned at her, but she shouldered her duffle bag and made a beeline for the door, not giving him time to question anything. Letting the door slam behind her—Dex’s cue to wake up, hopefully—she took a deep breath of the rancid, freezing cold air outside. A quick check of both parking lots revealed only what she expected to see: Dex’s Galaxy, parked near the office, and two motorcycles parked in front of the bar. The huge trucker’s parking lot behind the motel had mostly emptied out, leaving only a few bob-tails and one late-riser still rumbling its engines off in the distance.

  Good. The only people around were the ones she needed to eliminate before moving on to the next target.

  Affecting a sassy sashay, Sydney headed for the bar. It looked even more dismal in the mid-morning sunlight, a pathetic heap of siding and brick that was badly in need of a paint job. The beer lights were off, thankfully, and the front door had been barred shut. She headed for the back entrance, senses on high alert, and felt eyes trace her every movement. Perfect. With a practiced twist of her wrist, she broke the pathetic lock, eased the door open, and slipped inside.

  Dark, dismal, and disgustingly dirty. Alliteration aside, the place needed a good once-over with a power washer. Or a chainsaw. What looked homey and inviting under dim fluorescent lights looked sickly and decayed in mid-morning sunlight. Sydney wrinkled her nose at the stench of stale beer and old sweat, made her way to the storage cellar, and eased her way down the stairs. There were two long, rectangular windows on the far wall; ground-level from outside, ceiling-level from inside. Just enough light spilled down for her to set about her business.

  Not ten minutes later, the wooden stairs creaked.

  Sydney kept right on working.

  “Oh, Snoopy!” A man’s high, nasally voice rippled through the room. He let out a series of three sharp whistles, the kind used to summon a favorite dog. “Come out, come out, Snoopy. We know you’re in here.”

  That was the plan. Sydney crouched behind a pallet of beer cases and said nothing.

  Another sharp whistle, followed by successive creaks from the rickety wooden stairs. “Come now, Snoopy. No need to cower. If you come out like a good little girl, I’ll give you treats.”

  Sydney set the last wire, shoved the small gray package under a convenient shelf, and stood up. “Uh…Hi, Reggie.”

  A gaunt, greasy-haired, unshaven man stood on the bottom step. He kind of looked like Bono, if Bono let his hair grow long, forgot how to wash it, and did meth for thirty straight years. Despite the cold, he wore nothing but a thin, stained wife-beater and a pair of ragged cargo jeans. His hands were tucked in his oversized pockets, his shoulders rounded and slumped like an angsty teenager. He looked like a typical, drugged-out stereotype, complete with ratty tennis shoes. But his unkempt appearance wasn’t what drew Sydney’s attention.

  It was the dead black void behind his eyes.

  Darkling.

  “Why, hello, Damsel.” Reggie tutted as he stepped off the last stair, watching her with his head cocked to one side. “Funny. I thought one of the regular pussy pushers was sniffing around for a quick fix. But in all the time you’ve been here, I’ve never seen you trade twat for tweakers. Makes me wonder what you’re doing down here, all alone in a dark and dangerous place.”

  Guess the alliteration thing is contagious. Sydney backed away a step, crouching down a little as she did so. Reggie, the moron, took it as a sign of fear. He grinned, showing nicotine-stained teeth, and tutted again.

  “Be a good girl, now. Tell me what you’ve been snooping around for. I recognize that expensive perfume—it’s all over the office upstairs, too. What are you looking for, I wonder? What brings such a darling damsel to my dungeon door?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t hurt me, Reggie. Please. I didn’t see anything.” Her voice wavered pathetically.

  He chuckled and took a step closer. “Or perhaps you’re snooping for those two cops you brought in last night.” His eyes gleamed like obsidian. “Is that it, Damsel? Your officer friends wanted you to find some ‘evidence’ to get you off a jail stint?”

  Sydney hid a sigh. Damn it, she was afraid her men had been spotted when they returned last night. At least she’d already planned for that contingency. She backed away from Reggie, positioning herself in a blind canyon made from towering storage shelves and the back wall of the cellar. Reggie took his time, probably assuming she was trapped, strolling around the beer pallets and affecting casual nonchalance.

  She crouched even further, making it look like a defensive cower, and held up both hands. “I got nothing, see? I promise I didn’t see anything, either. Just let me go. I won’t go snooping again. I promise.”

  He chuckled—a black, horrid sound. “Of that, my dear, I am quite certain.”

  With that, he extended both arms, opened his mouth in a menacing snarl, and lunged for her.

  That’s when the translucent, needle-thin razor wire she’d strung between the shelves caught him right in the throat. Reggie gasped as it sliced through his Adam’s apple and blood sheeted down his neck. He jerked his head backward, and Sydney used the distraction to rise to her feet, whip out her bowie knife, and slam the blade through his chest in one fluid motion.

  Reggie blinked, shock turning his mouth into an oblong O. He stumbled backward, scrabbling for the knife’s hilt with enfeebled fingers. But she was too good with her blades; it was buried square between his ribs, stuck tight. She stood there, impassive, as he
fell to his knees, still blinking up at her.

  “Not your fault, Reggie,” she said in a quiet voice. A froth of bloody bubbles slipped between his lips as he tried to speak, but no sound came out. She smiled a sad smile and nodded anyway. “I know, I know. You didn’t ask for this. But it’s okay. I’m going to find the man who did this to you. I’m going to find the man who made you a darkling.”

  Reggie convulsed, hands tightening around the knife hilt. His head eyes had gone wide. Questioning.

  Sydney squatted in front of him, careful to avoid the pooling blood, and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you’re wondering why I didn’t just stab you in the heart. Why I didn’t just finish you, quick and clean. Well, Reggie, the thing is, I’ve seen what you did to those so-called ‘pussy pushers’ in exchange for those quick fixes. I saw how you tortured them, manipulated them, drove them to perform more and more degrading acts.”

  He convulsed again, tipping over on his side. Sydney tilted her head to match his new, horizontal position. “It may not be your fault you were made into a darkling, Reggie. But everything you did to those women? That still deserves justice. Since you no longer possess the ability to feel remorse, there’s no sense in asking you to repent or make amends for your sins. All that’s left is for someone to witness that justice was done. And in this case, justice requires that you die slow.”

  His feet kicked feebly. His soulless black eyes twitched and bulged. Sydney crossed her elbows over her bend knees, waiting patiently, as his blood pool widened. After several long, torturous minutes, Reggie let out a final groan—and went still.

  Sydney unfolded from her crouch, raised the bowie knife, and cut the nearly invisible line of razor wire. If the boys had been here, the probably would have demanded to know why she didn’t just shoot the bastard the moment he appeared on the stairs. But again, that would have been too easy. Too swift.

  Too merciful.

  Reggie might not have been born a darkling, but he still deserved punishment. She would have preferred something more appropriate than a slow death by exsanguination—peeling his skin off layer-by-layer, for example—but time was running short. That thought in mind, she cleaned the knife on Reggie’s cargo pants and sheathed the blade. Grimacing at the mess, she tip-toed through the last remaining blood-free zones, found a clear spot beside him, and squatted down again.

  She laid her right hand on Reggie’s filthy, grease-encrusted bicep, took a deep breath in—and let the power flow out. Trickles of translucent, flickering white light danced around her hand, expanding outward in a ring. As the circle expanded, it molded itself to Reggie’s body, slowly engulfing him in a sheen of feathery luminescence that sizzled and popped in the cold mountain air. Once the glow completely encased his body, the light flashed bright—

  And Reggie’s body disintegrated in a pile of fine white ash.

  Sydney stood. She wiped her hand on her pant leg, grimacing at the greasy smear left behind. Then she checked her wires one last time, made sure the timer was set appropriately, and left the scene of Reggie’s long-overdue execution.

  ◆◆◆

  A door slammed.

  Dex sat bolt-upright, heart jackhammering, and looked around. The dismal little motel room didn’t improve with daylight leaking through the curtains. Ratty green wallpaper sagged behind generic painted landscapes that overlooked the threadbare carpeting. The particle-board chest of drawers and TV stand looked flimsy and pathetic, and so did the tiny, two-seater dining set beneath the single window. Sam sat calmly on the edge of his bed, dressed in a pair of fitted, dark-blue jeans and an old Metallica t-shirt. He raised an eyebrow at Dex’s questioning look.

  “Syd went to see what she could see. Said to get dressed and get ready to move.”

  Dex nodded blearily. “How long have you been up?” The guy was a living alarm-clock—awake at 5:00AM, no matter the time zone. Drove Dex absolutely bonkers.

  “Not long,” Sam replied, a sideways smile indicating he knew what Dex assumed. “Syd let us sleep in late. No worries, though. Life probably doesn’t start up around here until noon.”

  “For the first time in my life, I’m around normal people,” Dex grumbled as he slid out of bed, making Sam chuckle. Since his original clothes were still in a wet pile on the floor, he took one of the thin sheets with him, wrapping it around his hips in a half-toga. Sam snorted softly, clearly amused by his sudden modesty—they’d stripped down in front of each other on numerous occasions—but Dex didn’t care. Syd’s lust-soaked words had invaded his dreams last night. Right now, he didn’t trust his body not to react when and if Sam got an eyeful of Dex’s dick.

  Grinding his jaw, Dex snatched up his go-bag—still damp from last night’s rain—and hustled into the bathroom. After flipping the shower on full-blast, he stood in front of the mirror, let the sheet fall to the floor, and braced his hands on the countertop.

  Best night of his life—soon to be followed by the most awkward day. He’d known, of course, that Sam would need to be brought into things sooner or later. They were partners. Connected at the hip. Dex couldn’t exactly run away with his sweetheart without causing a few raised eyebrows. Not that he’d planned to run away; his whole strategy centered around bringing Sydney on board with the DEA, helping her become an agent so they could hunt darklings as a threesome. Sam’s assistance—and approval—would be critical for that endeavor to succeed.

  He just hadn’t planned on Syd’s ultimatum on top of everything else. Okay, fine, the whole “wait one week” thing had been his idea, but still. The ticking clock put a rush on things he hadn’t intended to rush.

  And now there was this whole…other element. Despite his best efforts, Dex could not shake the ideas that Sydney had planted in his head. His dreams last night had been filled with three hot, sweaty bodies all tangled together in the same bed—with Dex’s hands, mouth, and tongue heavily involved with the other two occupants. He’d had a few wet dreams before that involved Sam, but nothing, nothing, like that.

  Her fault, all of it. If she hadn’t brought up her crazy notion that Dex was in love with his partner, his dreams wouldn’t have become X-rated versions of the Three Little Pigs. And why would she want to go there, anyway? He well appreciated her honesty in admitting that she wanted Sam, too, but why did she have to imply that Dex was on the same page?

  A threesome he could get behind. But a three-way?

  Not ready to go there.

  Yet.

  Dex cursed his reflection and hopped in the shower, letting the blazing-hot water drench his head and neck. He soaped up, scrubbed, and rinsed with military efficiency—all while avoiding the temptation of a quick stroke-off. No telling what the day would bring now that Syd was well and truly with them.

  Or, now that Sam was jumbled up in it.

  Grumbling to himself, Dex dressed in black jeans and an Oscar the Grouch t-shirt Sam had gotten him for Christmas. He snorted as he pulled the fabric over his head, remembering Sam’s smirk when he gave it to him. Inside joke, there. Of course, Dex’s gift to Sam that year had been a giant alarm-clock shaped like a snooze button, so they were even.

  Back in the motel room, he found Sam sitting at the tiny dinette table, one ankle braced on the other knee as he read news articles on his phone. A familiar iPad sat in a shaft of sunlight on the table.

  “What’s the word from Boss?” Dex used a towel to fluff his short blond hair into spikes as he spoke. “I’m assuming you actually checked the Com-Sat, rather than giving it time to sunbathe.”

  The Com-Sat was what they called their official government communication device, which was really just a tricked-out tablet computer. Sydney, the smart-ass, called it their Super-Secret Spy Notebook. It had enough gadgets and gizmos crammed inside it to control a military satellite or communicate with Washington DC from a cave in Botswana. It could receive messages, but those messages could only be read after a ten-minute decryption process. Boss used it to send them intel and instructions when they were away from a field o
ffice. The thing could last for eight weeks without a recharge and carried triple encryption backed by facial, voice, and fingerprint recognition software.

  Talk about government paranoia.

  “Boss asked for a sit-rep,” Sam said, sipping something from a plastic foam cup. No coffeepot in here, so it had to be water. Or Jack Daniels. “I told him we might be in deeper shit than previously assumed.”

  “What’d he say?” Dex plonked on the other chair, yawning hugely.

  “He said ‘duly noted,’ and for us to be on the lookout for other regional anomalies.” Sam grimaced when Dex scoffed. “Yeah, I know. Means he did know something was off about this gig. He just didn’t bother to tell us.”

  “Great,” Dex grumbled sourly. “What about Syd? She say anything before she left?”

  Sam’s expression went dark and cold. “She told me everything, Dex.”

  For half a heartbeat, Dex almost believed it. But he was too used to interrogation games to fall for Sam’s play. “Yeah. Right. Because that’s Syd’s M.O.—complete and total honesty.”

  Sam grinned. “Hey, man, I had to try. All she said was we need to be ready to run. She hinted there was more she hadn’t told us, though she refused to cough it up in typical Syd fashion. But considering her lack of detail in her story about how she’s planning on taking down this Big Man character, we already knew she was keeping secrets.”

  “Yeah…about that.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow in invitation. Said nothing.

  Dex cleared his throat and rested his elbows on his spread knees. He spoke to his clasped hands. “Last night, when I…barged my way in here, Syd wasn’t exactly keen on the idea. You know, of us being together.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Sam said quietly.