The Darkling Hunters_Fox Company Alpha

by Rhiannon Ayers

  “What’s this about?” Dex said sharply. He’d noticed the map, too.

  “I already told you: commendations are in order,” Boss said with a too bright smile. He waited for both men to settle in their chairs before continuing. “You know, we always knew you were among the finest of our agents, but we never expected you to succeed so spectacularly. This is a day of celebration here at the DEA. You’ve both outdone yourselves.”

  “Boss, I told you, our mission was a failure,” Sam said gruffly. “We only managed to kill one of the darklings—”

  “Oh, I’m not talking about that,” Boss replied, far too cheerfully, “I’m talking about the woman.”

  Sam’s heart skipped a beat. “The…woman.”

  Boss beamed at him. “Yes, of course! I couldn’t believe our luck when you told me you found her.”

  “You what?” Dex looked at Sam with an expression of absolute horror.

  Sam scowled back at Dex. “Come on, man you know me better than that.” He whipped around to face Boss. “What the hell are you even talking about? What woman?”

  “Why, the hooker,” Boss said pleasantly. “Sydney. Sydney Carpenter.”

  Sam’s chin almost hit the table. “How…the fuck…did you know her name?”

  Boss chuckled. “Come now, Mr. Spencer. The DEA has always known about her and her kind. She has been one of our primary targets since the Agency’s formation.” He gestured toward the map wall. “We’ve been tracking her movements ever since she showed herself to you in that incident in Arkansas. Very clever, by the way—pretending to be friends so she would trust you. None of our other agents managed to get nearly as close. Pity, she always managed to escape before we could close in. But, we knew she trusted you two. All we had to do was bide our time until a proper moment presented itself. Happily, last night’s warehouse incident proved to be the perfect setup. Not only did you manage to distract her with that fire, but you also managed to take out some of her top lieutenants at the same time. As I said, commendations are in order. It was all truly well done.”

  A glacier moved from Sam’s heart to his stomach, freezing everything inside him along the way. “You…you’ve been using us to…”

  “Track her while we figured out a way to defeat her,” Boss finished for him. He nodded, still beaming. “Oh, don’t look so shocked. Of course, we didn’t tell you. That would have given the game away. She had to trust that your intentions were good. It was the only way to make her let her guard down.”

  “Why…why would you use us like that?” Sam grated, throat raw. “Why did you want her in the first place?”

  “Why?” Boss looked honestly surprised by the question. “Because she was the source of the darkling infestation. We’ve known that all along.”

  “Say what?” Dex bounced out of his seat, looming over the table with fists balled at his sides. “Where the fuck did you get that idea?”

  “Calm down, please,” Boss said with a chuckle. “I know it’s a shock, but I promise, you’ll understand everything by the time we’re finished here.”

  “Start explaining,” Sam growled. He joined Dex in standing. “Sydney wasn’t a darkling. Women can’t be darklings. Why would you think she’s the source of the darkling infestation?”

  Another breezy chuckle. “We have our sources, Mr. Spencer.”

  “That’s insane!” Dex howled. “How could you even think that? Doesn’t the DEA believe all darklings are born that way? You’re not seriously saying you think she gave birth to all those men!”

  Boss laughed outright. “Oh, please. The DEA has always known most darklings are made, not born. We only tell our field agents darklings are born that way so that they don’t fear becoming darklings themselves. You wouldn’t believe how gutless grown men become when they’re told they might lose their souls in the fight for the greater good. Why, if we told our agents the truth while they were still at the Academy, we’d have no darkling-hunting unit at all.”

  “You lied to us,” Sam said, almost dizzy from the shock of it.

  “Of course, we did. Just as we’ve lied to the rest of the world about the existence of darklings. People aren’t prepared to accept such knowledge, Mr. Spencer. It’s one thing to think demons exist in the pages of a sacred book. It’s quite another to believe your soul is actually at risk. We learned that in the early days of the DEA.”

  “So…you sent men out there, knowing they might get turned into—”

  “A necessary risk,” Boss said, waving a dismissive hand. “To have any hope of finding the source of the scourge, we had to have foot-soldiers on the ground. You and your fellow Fox Company men were just the latest crop of soldiers sent to fight the good fight. You should be happy right now, not upset. You’ve done your country—and the world itself—a great service.”

  “No, we haven’t,” Dex said acidly. “Not if you think killing Sydney solved all our problems.”

  Boss beamed at him. “Oh, I didn’t say that. You simply helped us remove one of the biggest players from the board. Our job now is to clean up the mess she left behind.”

  “This is insane,” Sam said, shaking his head. “You can’t possibly believe that. Seriously, you can’t possibly believe Sydney was—”

  “There would be no darkling infestation in this country if not for her,” Boss said flatly, losing any semblance of his former forced joviality. “That is absolute fact.”

  “How can you know that?” Dex demanded. “Where the fuck are you getting these facts?”

  “Sydney Carpenter wasn’t human. That’s all you need to know.”

  “What the hell does that matter?” Sam asked. “Just because—”

  “This Agency was created to eradicate all non-human entities,” Boss interrupted him. “She and her kind are a bane on all humanity. We have an obligation to snuff them out for the sake of every living being on this planet. Darklings are but one aspect of the scourge. Getting rid of them may be our primary goal, but it certainly isn’t the only one.”

  “Human or not, that doesn’t mean she was responsible for the darkling infestation,” Sam pointed out heatedly. “I still don’t understand how you came to that conclusion.”

  “And I told you, we have our sources.”

  “What sources?” Dex cried. “Who told you that?”

  “We have it on the best possible authority. Now, sit down, please, or—”

  “What authority?” Sam slammed a hand down on the table. “Come on, man. She killed more darklings than the entire DEA combined, for fuck’s sake! She was helping us!”

  “I’m sure she made it look that way,” Boss said with a chuckle. “But, believe me, she was very, very good at hiding her true intentions. Now that we’ve removed her from the board, we’ll start seeing fewer and fewer darkling nests. I guarantee it.”

  “That’s not true,” Sam snarled. “If anything, it’s going to get worse!”

  “And what makes you believe that?” Boss asked, voice still irritatingly pleasant.

  “Because she told us—”

  “Ah, well, that makes her a reliable source, doesn’t it?” Boss shook his head, chuckling again. “And I suppose she always told you the truth, didn’t she? Always upfront and honest with you?”

  Sam snapped his mouth shut. Dex started spitting strings of curses.

  Boss gave him a knowing look, almost as if he could see through those thick glasses even though the lenses distorted his eyes to the point where they barely looked human. “I’m sure she told you many things, Mr. Spencer. Truth and lies mixed together to form a cocktail so addictive, you just couldn’t wait to hear more. What other lies did she tell, I wonder?”

  “She didn’t lie about killing darklings,” Dex shot back. “We watched her do it. She saved our asses—and hers—over and over again after those bastards tried to wipe us out. If she was the one making darklings, why the fuck would she have to kill them to save herself?”

  “To make herself look good, obviously.” Boss snorted a lit
tle. “She needed you to trust her so she could milk you for information about the DEA. She used you to get to us the same way we used you to get to her. She was a conniving, manipulative creature who lived and breathed deception.”

  “That’s not true!” Sam said heatedly.

  But Dex jerked back as if he’d been slapped. He gave Sam a heartbroken look. “She did lie to us, Sam. About a lot of things. Maybe…maybe he’s right.”

  Sam rounded on him, intent on defending Sydney’s honor—but then he noticed the hand signal. To a casual observer, it looked as if Dex were just making a random movement of his fingers, something like an upside-down version of a Vulcan greeting. But it wasn’t random—that was a signal they’d developed in the field, a way to communicate with each other while masking their true intentions. That gesture, the split fingers turned upside down, meant good cop, bad cop.

  No question who’s playing who.

  “How the fuck can you say that about her?” Sam cried, lunging forward like he wanted to take a swing at Dex. “After everything she did for us, after everything she sacrificed—”

  “She lied to our faces,” Dex said, managing to sound both angry and hurt. “She lied about everything—who she was, how she got here, what she was doing—”

  “She did it to protect us. She did it to help us!”

  “She did it to protect herself,” Dex said dully. He took a step back, looking down at the floor as he hooked his thumbs in his belt. “I think…I think Boss might be right…”

  “There now, see? Once you accept how devious she was, it’s easier to see through her lying little schemes,” Boss said, sounding pleased.

  Sam rounded on him. “I don’t believe it. Not for a second. She saved our lives!”

  “Mr. Spencer, be reasonable. She would have said anything to make you trust her. I suppose she even told you there was someone else out there making darklings, so you wouldn’t suspect her.”

  “She saved our lives more times than I can count,” Sam repeated through gritted teeth. “We know for a fact she wasn’t the source of the darkling infestation.”

  “And we know for a fact that she was.”

  “How do you know that?” Sam shouted.

  “That intel is above your pay grade, Mr. Spencer.”

  Sam loomed over the table, slapping his hands down on the polished wood surface and leaning toward Boss. “How, the fuck, do you know that?”

  “We have sources.”

  “What sources?”

  “Reliable sources.”

  “What sources?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “You used us to track and kill an innocent woman,” Sam roared. “You’re damn sure it is our concern.”

  “Mr. Spencer—”

  “Who told you Sydney was the source?” Dex asked, coming to stand on Boss’s opposite side.

  “Gentlemen, please—”

  “Who told you?” Sam shouted.

  “Gentlem—”

  “Who told you?” Sam and Dex shouted at the exact same time.

  “Her husband told us! Leviticus Rex!” Boss roared at the top of his lungs, lurching up from his chair to put his face within inches of Sam’s. The jerkiness of the movement caused the coke-bottle glasses to slip down his nose, so that he was meeting Sam’s gaze over the top of them.

  And that’s when Sam saw it. The blank, dead, black nothingness behind the man’s eyes. No emotion. No humanity. No nothing.

  Darkling.

  Boss glared at him for a long, breathless moment—then let out a humorless laugh. “Very good, gentlemen. Here I was, trying to get you to reveal whether she’d told you about Levi. Instead, you manage to make me reveal myself to you. Very good. Very good indeed.”

  He sat back down, primly smoothing the lines of his lab coat, while Sam and Dex just stared at him, frozen in horror. Boss made a gesture toward their empty chairs. “Sit. You might as well. Considering you might never leave this room again.”

  Chapter 27

  “Guess I don’t need those anymore.” Boss tossed the heavy glasses onto the table with a hollow, metallic thunk. “Sit down. You’re making me tired.” He heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Sam found himself sinking into a chair without realizing he’d done so. Dex appeared to be in the same state, staring at Boss with a horrified expression. Boss rubbed his eyes, then blinked at them—and chuckled as he noticed their expressions.

  “Yes, well. Now you know why so few field agents are allowed to visit DEA headquarters.”

  “You…you’re…” Sam couldn’t even get the words out.

  “Yes. Most of the managing directors are. All those who were part of the same graduating class, anyway.” An ironic smile twisted Boss’s lips. “Class of ’86. The so-called Golden Boys of the DEA Academy. The men who collectively formed the backbone of the Agency and molded it into the darkling-hunting powerhouse it is today.”

  “You…h-how…” Dex stammered.

  “Levi. Who else?” Boss shrugged, dead eyes going distant. “It wasn’t that hard for him, really. He’s not a darkling himself, so he passed all the tests the agency had devised to prevent outsider infiltration. He simply joined the other young applicants who were so eager to prove their mettle. He was a nice man, too. Pleasant to be around. We all became friends with him.”

  Sam felt the world do a long, slow spin around him as Sydney’s voice echoed through his head. Simply being around Levi is enough to lose part of your soul…

  “He always made time for us. Me, in particular. I think he saw great things in my future—that’s why he spent extra time with me. Took me about five years to realize something was…different. About me, I mean. I don’t know, it just seemed I woke up one day and…realized there wasn’t as much color in the world.” Another shrug. “Even then, I didn’t suspect him. I thought it was just a natural consequence of being around so much darkness and death. I just sort of…put it aside. Ignored it. It didn’t even occur to me to wonder why things had changed.”

  He let out a sardonic little laugh. “By the time Levi told me what he’d done…well, let’s just say I didn’t have it in me to care.”

  A memory popped in Sam’s mind. Sydney, standing in the bathtub, while Sam held a Dixie cup full of water in one hand.

  She dipped the end of a straw into the cup and pulled it back out.

  “Did the weight change? Can you tell the difference?”

  “No. Did you do anything?”

  In answer, she held the straw over the tub’s drain and lifted her finger. A single drop of water fell out, splashing the tub wall.

  “How long do you think it would take for me to get rid of enough water for you to feel the difference? An hour? Two?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “Now, imagine I spread that out over weeks, maybe months. Even years. Do you think you’d still remember what it felt like when the cup was full? Would you even be able to tell the difference?”

  “If it was spread out over a long period of time like that? I doubt it. I guess I’d just…get used to it.”

  No wonder Sydney went out of her way to show them the different types of darklings. No wonder she’d spent so much time on that little water demonstration.

  No wonder she’d always expressed so much loathing for the man Sam and Dex called “Boss.”

  The Lost. That’s what she’d called them. Levi had gotten to them, turned Boss and all the other managing directors of the DEA into darklings. Worse, he’d done it so slowly and so carefully, they hadn’t even realized what had happened to them.

  And by the time they knew, it was already far, far too late.

  “Why?” Sam croaked. “Why would he go to all that trouble, only to leave the DEA intact? Why do it at all if he wasn’t planning on destroying the Agency from within?”

  “I think that’s what he intended when he set out,” Boss said, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest with his head cocked at a thoughtfu
l angle. “I believe he wanted to corrupt us so that we would destroy the Agency ourselves when we finally came into positions of power. But, I think after a while, he realized it would be far more useful to keep us in place. It just…made more sense.”

  “Darklings managing the agency that’s supposed to hunt down other darklings?” Dex snorted derisively. “Oh, yeah. Makes perfect sense.”

  “We’re not all cut from the same cloth,” Boss said, lips quirking. “Much of Levi’s influence is…unintentional. He realized he could use the DEA to clean up after himself, so to speak. Get rid of those nasty byproducts that escaped his direct control.”

  Sam felt as if he’d swallowed a porcupine. “I’d always wondered where our intel came from. It’s not like we could put out BOLO’s for guys with no light behind their eyes.”

  Boss inclined his head, just a little. “Well, now you know. Look, despite what you may assume, Levi does not want to turn the whole world into a darkling nest. He does regret the ones who lose their souls through no fault of their own. He’s just made peace with the fact that he cannot stop it from happening, and therefore must do what he can to keep those…outliers…from destroying the rest of us. Rather altruistic of him, to be honest. Besides, using the DEA to do his clean-up work tweaks his sense of irony, which I believe amuses him no end. Although I only say that as a passing observation. I can’t remember what amusement felt like.”

  The porcupine was now halfway down his throat, making his insides bleed. “Why are you telling us this?”

  “I don’t know. Boredom, I suppose. Or perhaps so you can understand why Sydney Carpenter had to be removed.”

  Sam’s heart shuddered as phantom quills punctured through it. “Why?”

  Boss met his eyes. It was like looking into the dead eyes of a shark. “Levi only wanted to protect himself. That’s why he made so many darklings so fast. The more darklings there are, the more of her power drains away. So, as you can see, she really was the source of the darkling infestation. Had she not turned on him, there would have been no need for him to turn his power against the humans. We’d all have been left alone—well, except those who had the misfortune to spend time with him.”