"Normally I'm not—but I find this memory enhancement crap a little difficult to swallow."
"Believe it. The memsher binds to the neurons in the brain and helps catalog information where it can easily be located and retrieved. Problem is that the binding is permanent. All information taken in by any of the senses is bound with a memsher molecule. Without a continual supply of it, the brain simply shuts down."
"Wait—you're saying it's addictive?"
"Severely. As far as the effect goes, it's the best drug I've ever seen. But as far as side effects go, it's also the worst."
When I told Chaz he was being stupid, I had no idea how accurate I was. “So where's this memsher coming from?"
"Something I'm sure Nemesis Breed and the whole of the TPD would like to know. Not to mention the Seattle PD and the DEA, for that matter."
"What—it's already illegal?"
"It falls under the Dangerous Chemicals Act of ‘06. Congress's attempt to stay ahead of the designer drug market, remember?"
She shrugged. That was not only before her time, it was something she wouldn't have paid any attention to. She'd never been into drugs—illegal or otherwise. In fact, as far as she knew, she'd never known anyone that used before she'd stumbled into Chaz's guilty little secret a few hours earlier.
It couldn't have been something relatively harmless like pot, cocaine, or crystal meth, she thought sardonically. No—it had to be this shit.
The one mortal whom they could least afford lose his marbles was the one putting them at risk. “Great. Just great. Well, Loki, you might want to have a long chat with Chaz about this. And start trying to come up with some sort of antidote to it."
"Antidote? This isn't a poison, Jaz. It's not that simple."
"Well. You'd better figure it out. Or the whole worldgate project you all have been working on is going to be at the mercy of this unknown chemist.” She found herself almost shouting this last and was jerked upright by the sound of a rumbling bass growl behind her.
She turned slowly, expecting to see Ben or another lycanthrope, but, to her surprise, found herself looking eye-to-eye to the biggest damned American Staffordshire Terrier she'd ever seen. It must've weighed at least three-hundred and fifty pounds, and stood, literally, as high at the withers—do dogs have withers? she wondered crazily—as a Shetland pony. It regarded her with huge brown eyes that appeared far more intelligent than any dog's eyes had a right to look. “Holy shit,” she murmured. “What is that?"
"Jaz—meet Cerberus. It's okay, boy. She's a friend."
The monstrous dog actually seemed to smile at her. “Damn, Loki. What have you been up to? That thing is bigger than a Neapolitan Mastiff, for crissakes."
"He's Raven's,” Loki answered from behind her. She didn't look around. The last thing she planned on doing was taking her eyes off the dog. He was magnificent, she had to admit that much. Powerfully muscled, with the black and gold tiger striped markings she'd referred to as ‘brindle,’ he looked twice as formidable as any other dog she could remember. “He's a para-dog."
"A what?” This time she did glance over her shoulder, her incredulity writ large across her face.
"I modified the para virus for canines,” he replied off-handedly.
She turned to face him, nearly forgetting the giant canine at her back. “Tell me you're kidding."
"Okay. I'm kidding."
She breathed an audible sigh of relief. “God, I thought you were actually serious there for a minute."
"I was."
She stared at him, confused now. “Wait—were you kidding, or are you serious?"
"One or the other.” He replied, voice as dry as a handful of ash. “You ought to meet Dormarth."
"Dormarth?” He'd been messing with her again, but, that was Loki.
"Cerberus's soul-brother,” Loki replied, by way of explanation. Not that it really explained anything.
"You've done this with more than one dog?” She gave a nervous look over her shoulder at Cerberus, who'd occupied himself by gnawing at his right haunch while they were talking. He lifted his head and regarded her with a distinctly amused glint in his eye.
"Two. They're to be unofficial PARD agents, assigned to eliminate dog fighting as a sport in the region."
"Dog fighting? Doesn't Raven have more important things to worry about?"
Loki lifted one feathery brow. “I doubt he'd see it that way. He's got a thing about dogs, remember?"
She nodded. Not that she didn't like them herself. From what she knew of them, at least. She'd never really had the opportunity to spend time with the creatures. She knew next to nothing about them. Except, perhaps, she now knew that she didn't like intelligent dogs staring at her like this one was. It's actually a little creepy.
Not that she'd say that out loud to a creature capable of chasing cars and bringing them back. “Does Athena know about this?"
Loki's hastily erected expression of injured innocence told her all she needed to know. Athena didn't have a clue.
There's a lot of that going around. She suppressed the thought with a tiny growl of her own. She didn't need to be thinking about that right now. “Never mind,” she chuckled, the laugh sounding a little forced in her own ears.
In normal circumstances, she found it a challenge not to find Loki's expressive face and dramatic contortions at least a little amusing. At the moment, neither he nor his dog were enough to distract her from her mission. “You need to figure out something,” she said, reiterating her earlier comment. “Chaz is on the stuff and, unless I'm greatly mistaken, that's not a good thing."
Loki flinched, just a little. “It's too late to stop him, then?"
"He shot it into his arm. Does that make sense to you?"
The Trickster shook his head angrily. “Hell, no. I never would've expected him to get involved with any kind of drug. Though, in all honesty, this one isn't like your average street poison by any measure. How'd he get a hold of it, anyway?"
"He said a lawyer hooked him up."
"That figures,” Loki snorted. “They'd need it, too. Hell, maybe even more than a scientist. More stupid shit to remember."
Loki despised the breed in general. He considered them, collectively, to be the bane of society. Lawyer jokes never failed to amuse him and considered judges lower than single-celled organisms, generally referring to them as ‘jumped-up lawyers too big for their robes.'
What he called politicians as a matter of course was nothing short of unprintable.
Jaz shook her head and opened up another transit tube. To her surprise, Loki reached out and shut the ‘tube down. “Oh, no,” he said. “I'm not having you leap in and out of my lab via ‘tube any time you want to."
"Maybe you should consider warding the place,” she remarked with a quick grin that she didn't truly feel.
The last thing she wanted to do was engage in any introspection. She'd killed a man. Not her first, admittedly, but the first one she'd slain out of reflex. She wasn't certain she liked the implications of that. She didn't enjoy losing control, mindlessly loosing the darkness within her. It went against her whole self-image. And maybe, just maybe, I'm not who I'd like to think I am.
"Maybe I should. C'mon. I'll let you out the front door."
"Spoilsport."
He snickered, gently shaking his head. “I can honestly say that no one has ever called me that before."
At the front door, he pressed his palm against the lock-plate and stood aside as the door slid silently to the side. They stepped inside the tiny chamber beyond and he repeated the process at the outer door. “Next time you want to visit, Jaz, just ring the buzzer."
She sighed and nodded, then, as she glanced around the alley, snatched a passing mana strand and threw out a transit tube. She gave a jaunty wave and vanished.
As he turned to go back inside, he caught a brief suggestion of movement out of the corner of his eye. As he turned to look, something struck him in the side of the head. Recoiling, his head s
truck the door frame and stars exploded behind his eyes. He managed to catch sight of a flurry of blows, felt the impacts, then—trying to blink away the shock—someone doing what looked like a handstand an instant before a foot caught him between the eyes and sent him spiraling into a vast well of darkness.
* * * *
He woke with the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. Something was tied around his eyes and his hands were securely bound behind his back. He could hear someone moving around. “Hey!"
"Oh, you're awake. Was wondering how long you'd be down. You're a tough bugger, aren't you?” It was a woman's voice, husky, and lightly accented with some Latin flavor. Brazil, perhaps? The use of language indicated some time spent in Britain, and obviously here in America. Not quite a native speaker, but close. She'd learned English at an early age.
"What do you want?” Loki asked, in a calm, slightly edged voice. Loki might have been among the most easy-going of all the immortals, but he had a dangerous side as well. This woman had landed squarely on his list of people to screw with and she was dangerously close to finding out exactly what that meant.
"I heard you had the latest bio gear here in your lab and I figured I'd come in and have a look around. You made it so easy by opening your doors for me."
"Do you have any idea who you're fucking with?” he asked casually, flexing his arms and feeling the nylon cord wrapped around his wrists tighten accordingly. They were good knots. He'd lose considerable circulation in his hands before he managed to snap the cord. Not that it would stop him if he decided he wanted to be free. But he was curious. And curiosity had always been one of his major personality flaws. If flaw it was.
"I know you're a bio-researcher who does a lot of black bag stuff for Shea Industries and AthenaCorp,” the woman replied, through the muted sound of her rifling through equipment. The sound of a keyboard rattling told him that she'd sat down at his system console. “What's your password?"
"Fuck you."
"No thanks. You don't do anything for me. Sorry."
"I said ‘fuck you,’ not ‘fuck me.’ You have a problem with English comprehension? Maybe I should rephrase. Go fuck yourself."
He didn't even hear her move but her fingers tangled in his hair as his head was jerked backward. “You're a brave little geek, aren't you? Hello—what's this? An empty memshar hypo? Are you on the juice, Loki?"
He let his face fall into his most irritating grin as he gazed up at her. “What do you care?"
She flung him away, sending him rolling across the concrete floor until the chair banged into one of the stainless steel counters. He gave a surge of his limbs and felt the nylon cord snap and fall away. He stood, tugging at the blindfold.
"Ah—you're a freak. That's not common knowledge."
He sensed her coming close—far faster than he would have expected—and lashed out with a barely adequate kick. Combat had never been his specialty. He heard no end of crap from Shea and a couple of the others about it on a regular basis.
His foot was slapped aside as the blindfold came free. She effortlessly shrugged off a couple of attempted punches and kicked him in the chest. He stumbled back, tripped over the chair, and banged his head off the steel counter.
He scrambled back to his feet and faced the woman, an attractive, dusky-skinned woman with long, kinky hair. Her full lips twisted into a smirk as she dragged her gaze over him. “Sturdier than you look,” she observed.
"So are you,” he replied, eyes growing hard. “You're not going to find what you came for without my help, and I sure as hell aren't going to roll over for you."
Her eyes—an odd golden color—locked onto his for a long moment. She glanced away first, looking distinctly disturbed. “Who—what—are you?"
"That's for me to know and you to wonder about,” he answered. “Go stand over there.” He pointed to a bare corner of the lab.
She drew back her lips into a snarl, revealing sharp, gleaming canines. She was a vampire. He almost laughed at the irony of it. Assaulted by a vampire in the very labs where he created the goddam monsters in the first place.
Not that he'd ever call Renee a monster. She was more human than half the people he knew—including the woman who'd just left. Jaz scared him a little. When he'd started the vigilante group now known as the Crimson Sash he'd made it clear he wouldn't tolerate killing or unnecessary destruction in general.
His conversations with Renee led him to believe that Jaz would kill, and, as far as he was concerned, an executioner was the last thing any of them needed to become. Raven he tolerated—liked, even—but he'd never been particularly comfortable with his chosen method of dealing with rogues.
She lunged at him. Predictable. He could see it coming before it happened. He stepped aside, and she ran straight into the counter. As she bounced off he slid his foot behind her ankle and watched her topple backward.
"Clumsy much?"
She hissed as she turned the fall into a back flip, landing lightly some feet away. “How'd you do that?"
"What? Dodge you?” He laughed. “My wife is the first vampire. I created vampires. I told you that you didn't know who you were fucking with."
"You created vampires? Then why don't you explain how this happened to me?"
"What? That should be obvious—you were bitten by one and either drained to the point you couldn't resist or were already ill to begin with."
"I was never bitten. I just got sick and before I knew it I was this thing."
He frowned. “I don't see how that could have happened. It doesn't make any sense. You were never bitten and died from something else—or did the nosferatu virus kill you?"
"Kill me? I'm not dead."
He gave his head a small, quick shake. “What? You're not dead. You have to be. You're a vampire."
"Believe me—it's not a requirement. You want to test me for a heartbeat? It's still here. Hell, I still eat solid food. I need to supplement it with blood, but I still need to eat, breathe, and urinate."
"Not all the way dead,” he murmured disbelievingly. As impossible as it seemed, he had to believe her. It was too easily checked to be worth lying about. “Can I have a blood sample?"
She shrugged. “Sure. Why not?"
He glanced past her at the two huge dogs standing in the doorway, watching the exchange curiously. “Stand down, boys. She's harmless ... more or less."
Seven
"What—you stopped answering your PCD?” Athena's glare could peel paint.
Jaz met her gaze with a blank expression. “I was busy,” she growled in response. “What did you want?"
"We've got a murder attached to a sex crime,” the Amazonian immortal replied tersely, leading her into her office. She shut the door carefully and motioned to the chair across from her own behind the broad oaken desk. “I want you on the case.” She walked around the desk and slowly lowered herself into her black leather chair. It made distressed creaking sounds as she settled her bulk into it.
Jaz let Athena cover the details and held up her hand when she reached the point about the autopsy of the girl. “I'm not doing it,” she said. “The bastard was raping a seven year old child and finally killed her. Someone cut his throat? Who cares? He got off easy."
"That's not your call,” Athena replied. “It's mine."
"Think again. I told you I'm not doing it."
Athena's jaw tightened and she nearly spat the words out. “You. Will. Investigate."
"No,” Jaz replied, growing calmer, yet more resolute, each time she answered. “What are you going to do if I don't? Fire me? Kill me?"
Athena surged from her chair, striking the desk with her muscular thighs and shoving it several inches across the floor in Jaz's direction. She leaned over the desk and snarled. “Don't tempt me, woman. I know what you went through and I've given you a lot of slack because of it. But I need you to do your fucking job."
"Piss off,” Jaz told her, pushing herself to her feet. “I don't give a damn who killed him. If I fo
und out who it was, I sure as hell wouldn't tell you so you could prosecute him ... or her. If I believed in hell, I'd hope that bastard was burning in it right now.” She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out her wallet. She flipped her PAC ID onto the desk, where it skittered across and fell off the other side, careening off Athena's leg on its way to the floor. “I quit."
"The hell you say,” Athena said, reaching her fingers around one edge of the desk and heaving it out of her path with one sweep of her arm. She strode forward, sinking her fingers into Jaz's shoulder as the raven-haired woman started to turn away. “You can't quit. You have a contract."
Jaz reached up and calmly pried Athena's hand away. “You really don't want to do this, Athena. I'm done with this goddam office, with all the politics, and with you. You got a problem with it—too fucking bad."
Athena's gaze swept to her wrist, which Jaz was holding away from her body. “How did you do that?"
Jaz's lips curved into a spare smile. “Ancient Chinese secret. Now, unless you want to participate in a brawl that'll destroy your office, I strongly suggest you let me go."
Athena jerked her hand out of her grasp. “Fine. But you need to leave your PCD, too."
"Fine.” She reached up and pulled one of her wristbands off. “Don't need you tracking me anyway."
She tossed the device to Athena and walked out.
Athena sagged back into her chair and hit the call button on her desktop PCD. “Get me Deryk Shea."
* * * *
"She what?" Breed set her cup of coffee down hard, the hot liquid sloshing over the side and painting the white surface of the table. “She quit? I don't understand."
"Apparently Jaz felt pursuing whoever killed the guy to be a morally repugnant idea,” Shea replied with a snort. “I happen to agree with her, as a matter-of-fact."
Breed shook her head. “We can't have vigilantes killing people, Deryk. That totally undermines the rule of law."
"Screw the rule of law, Sarah. People like that deserve death—if not worse. We sure as hell can't give them what they deserve. Why pursue someone who can and did?"
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