by Rob Cornell
“Trust me,” he said. “You won’t regret this.”
No. But you will.
Chapter Eight
ONCE AGAIN, LOCKED IN HER room. She had learned enough in the years spent with people who had special ops training that she could pop the cheap lock on the hollow-core door. But then she would have to deal with her armed “escorts,” a.k.a. guards or, as Jessie would say around Wertz to get a rise out of him, babysitters with guns.
The room was so incredibly ordinary and unadorned, if not for the bed and flimsy chest of drawers, it could have passed as vacant. She never took time to decorate or personalize her rooms, because they so often moved from house to house. Not that she had many personal items to decorate with anyway. A life on the move didn’t lend itself to collecting stuff.
A look out the window through the Venetian blinds wouldn’t tell anyone where they were if they didn’t already know. This suburban street looked the same as so many of the others they had “lived” on. Manicured squares of lawns and sculpted shrubbery in front of every house. Flower boxes below windows or hanging baskets above porches. The façade of each house a Xerox copy of the one before.
Not too unlike the last place she’d lived in Michigan with Mom.
Another lifetime ago.
Now she didn’t have a mom or a dad. She had a gnome for a legal guardian.
She snickered to herself while she stood staring out the window. The sun had reached high noon, the concrete street shimmering under the August heat. Cracks in the street were filled with black tar that looked freshly wet, softened in the cooking blaze. While inside the house, the air-conditioning brought on a bad case of goose bumps.
Jessie wanted out in that heat, wanted to feel it sting her skin and warm her dark hair. She’d never been one for sunbathing. She didn’t have the complexion for it for one thing. But sunbathing was something the preppy girls at school did—though a good portion of them fake-and-baked courtesy of their parents’ outrageous allowances.
She turned away from the window and sat on the edge of her bed. The springs made a groan like a dying farm animal. However they furnished these safe houses, quality did not factor in the process.
Since her vamp days, sun had a lot nicer feel to it than she had ever noticed before. Unfortunately, while Wertz continued to treat Jessie like a freaking toddler, he never let her go out and play. As a compromise, because he knew her obsession with movies, he made sure each safe house had a large screen TV with Blu-Ray player. Never the same one, either. She didn’t know if they had to buy a new set after each move or what, but it was the one place Wertz splurged.
The bitch of it was that they kept the TV in the living room, and right now the gnome had confined her to her room. She had a ratty paperback of Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, but she had read it a thousand times at least. This left Jessie with two options for entertainment—stare at the wall or stare out the window.
The window had lost its appeal. The visible brushstrokes in the wall’s paint had more variations than the suburban tableau outside.
At some point—time had a way of warping in the midst of a cloud of such immense boredom—Jessie started singing under her breath. A song she hadn’t heard in a long time. One her and her old boyfriend, Ryan, listened to often enough to warrant an intervention and twelve-step program. “Patience” by Guns and Roses. They had called it “their song” like the geeky dweebs they were, as if Jessie had understood anything about love at that age.
That wasn’t fair to her or Ryan. Ryan had risked his life and given up his sanity to protect Jessie. He spent years in a psych ward until she was able to cure his insanity with magic.
What else was love if not the willingness to put someone else before you?
Like Dad, letting the wolves tear him to pieces to save her.
A rap at the door pulled Jessie out of her memories and stopped her singing.
“Don’t want to hear it unless it’s an apology,” she shouted.
The door swung open and Wertz strolled in. Jessie caught a glimpse of one of her babysitters out in the hall before Wertz closed the door. He had a crew cut and dark skin, as if he fake-and-baked like those chicks from school. He looked younger than most the agents she worked with. Guarding her was a task for those with the lowest seniority, apparently.
The door’s latch clicked once it engaged and clicked once more as the lock was engaged from the outside.
Jesus, they were treating her like Charles Fucking Manson, for crying out loud.
Wertz clasped his hands in front of him and took a moment to stare at Jessie. She stared back. He had a hard stare for a three-foot-tall dude, but Jessie held her own and didn’t look away.
When he spoke, his voice was soft, maybe even a titch apologetic. “What’s happened with us?”
She had prepped herself to spout some sarcastic comeback to what she had been sure would be another accusation or criticism. The open, honest question knocked her silent. She sat on the bed with her mouth hanging open like a total doofus.
Wertz grinned, but his eyes looked sad. He shoulder hung as if he had lugged a heavy load for the last three hours out in the hot sun. Jessie noticed his dress shirt wrinkled and his suit rumpled. Normally he looked like he ironed the creases in his pants and steam cleaned his jacket every hour. This disheveled look did not sit well with Jessie at all.
“Werecat got your tongue?” he asked.
She was still stuck on his initial question. What’s happened with us? She didn’t know, so she didn’t know how to answer.
Wertz sighed and came over to the bed. He planted one foot on the frame and hoisted himself up onto the mattress to sit beside Jessie. His legs dangled like a little kid wearing Gucci loafers. He looked down at his feet as he spoke. “You’ve been through a lot. More than any kid your age. Losing your mom, your dad, friends. Getting turned into a vampire—”
“Don’t forget the possession by an evil soul.”
Wertz nodded. “And that.” He turned to her. “Now you’re saddled with this massive responsibility. You’ve been working nonstop for three years. And any downtime you get is spent with schooling. It’s a tough life.”
Jessie cocked an eyebrow. “Are you just rubbing it in, or is there a point here?”
“My point is, no matter what you think, I understand how difficult all of this is for you.”
A wave of heat rose in her face. “That’s where you’re wrong. You don’t understand. No one can understand.” She popped off the bed, started to pace, then stopped and spun on Wertz. “You want to know what’s happened between us? You tricked me, that’s what. You tricked me and I finally figured it out.”
“What are you talking about?”
His confusion sounded sincere, which only pissed Jessie off that much more. “You took me in. You treated me like your own daughter. I came to trust you when I was at my most vulnerable. Then you turned around and used that against me.”
Wertz held up a hand. “Wait a damn minute. That’s not fair.”
“Fair? You want to talk fair?” She pointed toward the door while keeping her gaze locked on Wertz. “What kind of guardian locks his kid in her bedroom with armed guards outside?”
Wertz stood up on the bed. He shook a finger at Jessie. “You forced my hand. Again and again you’ve defied the rules, disregarded my wishes, and put yourself in danger needlessly.”
“I had to defy your rules—”
She curled her fingers into air quotes.
“—because you treat me like a fucking possession, not a person.”
“That isn’t true.”
A minivan rolled by outside, windows tinted. Some soccer mom trying to soup up her grocery getter.
“No? You store me in a box.” She swung her arms wide, indicating the room around them. “Then, when you need me to Return, you take me out of the box, use me, then put me back for next time. I’m nothing but a damn tool to you.”
Wertz pinched the bridge of his nose. “Again, I ha
ve to do these things because otherwise you do things like sneak out in the night and end up sleeping with a gods damned fairy.”
“I didn’t sleep with him.” Her voice came out ragged and husky, as if she’d spent all night smoking.
“That doesn’t change anything. You still compromised our entire operation. What would have happened if, instead of a fairy, you went home with a vamp?”
Jessie curled her lip. “I’m not fucking stupid.”
The same minivan with the tinted windows drove by again in the opposite direction. Mom must have forgotten to pick up the milk.
Wertz covered his face and sighed against his palms. After a second, he dropped his hands. His cheeks had turned a deep shade of red. He looked like a drunk leprechaun. “I never said you were stupid.”
A ghost of Jessie’s headache from that morning came back to thump between her temples. She pressed the heels of her hands on either side of her head and tried to squeeze the pain away. She took three measured breaths, eased her hands back to her sides, and met Wertz’s eyes.
“I want to quit,” she said.
Wertz’s eyes went wide. “What?”
“I don’t want to be the Return anymore.”
His brow creased. The red drained out of his face, leaving behind a sickly greenish shade. “You can’t be serious.”
Was she? Could she be? Did it mention anywhere in the prophecy some contractual obligation, some divine consequence of her ceasing to continue the work? Would she get struck by lightning or swallowed by the earth?
Tears filled her eyes. “Three years, Wertz. Three fucking years of my life doing nothing but Returning, and for what? We’ve hardly made a scratch in the number of supernaturals here. It doesn’t make any sense.” She shuffled to the bed and sat back on the edge, rested her hands in her lap, and started scraping off flakes of her black nail polish. “I can’t do this forever.”
The mattress creaked as Wertz stepped over to her. He rested his small hand on her shoulder. He hadn’t touched her like that in…forever. The comfort of that touch untied all sorts of knots in her muscles she hadn’t even realized had been tied.
“You’re right,” he said. “We have to take a second look at this. Maybe we can—”
An explosion rocked the house. The sound of shattering glass and the roar of fire filled the air. The smell of smoke soon followed.
Jessie glanced out the window and spotted the minivan with the tinted windows stopped in front of the house. The sliding side door hung open. Inside crouched someone wearing a rubber Ronald Reagan mask with a grenade launcher balanced on his shoulder.
She had enough time to register this, and then Reagan fired another grenade at the house, straight toward the bedroom window.
Chapter Nine
ONLY A COUPLE HOURS INTO Elka’s shift, Kenny called her back to his office.
First, she had to run an order of burgers and beer out to a table of guys with guts so big, they barely fit into the booth. Their Chicago accents were thick; the shit they shoveled even thicker.
“Hey, sweetness,” one wearing a Cubs hat and a mustache said as she passed out their plates and mugs. “You know who this guy is?” He pointed to the man across the table from him. They could have been twins, except this one wore a White Sox cap and had a goatee.
“No,” Elka said, playing along like the good waitress she was supposed to be. “Who is he?”
“He used to be a linebacker for the Bears. He’s single, ya know?”
She smiled. “That’s nice.” How she hated this job. Though she knew she would feel better at the end of the night when she counted her tips.
Of course, Kenny ruined that when he called her back.
A bit out of breath, Elka rushed into Kenny’s office. “What’s up? I have two four tops and three twos out here. I don’t want to get in the weeds.”
Kenny sat at his desk in his creaky swivel chair. He leaned back in the chair, somehow making the move look lewd. He had the schedule pulled up on the computer in front of him. “Forget about them. Wendy’s just come in. I’ll have her take over.”
“Wendy’s not scheduled today.” The muscles in Elka’s shoulders tensed. Something was up.
Kenny shrugged. “I called her in.” His jackal smile broke across his face. “I couldn’t stop thinking about tonight. I figured, why wait?”
Because what she had planned for him would go a lot easier in the dark of night than the midafternoon sunlight. It took all she had to keep her voice even. “Kenny, I can’t afford to skip a shift. I need that money.”
He waved a hand and made a why worry face. “I got you covered.”
She took a step back into the office’s open doorway. She gripped the metal doorframe, cool against her hot palm, and squeezed until her knuckles ached. “What’s that mean?”
“It means, when you’re with Kenny, you don’t need to worry about money.”
Her skin crawled. She had to remind herself that the end game in all this belonged to her, not him. Still, she had a hard time ignoring his sickening insult. Did he really think she would willingly serve as his personal whore?
“I don’t know,” she said, hoping he bought the fake innocence she pushed into her voice. “I don’t want to be a mooch.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m sure I’m getting the better deal here.” He stood. The chair squealed as his weight came off of it. He sidled in close to her, ran the back of his knuckles across her cheek. “Let’s blow…”
He smirked.
“…this joint.”
Elka gagged, but recovered by turning it into a laugh. She took his hand in hers, imagining the sound his bones would make if she squeezed her hardest—tiny cracks and pops like fireworks under his skin.
“Let’s,” she said.
They left out the back door. The Red Line El train rattled along its tracks a block over as Elka climbed into Kenny’s Charger. Something about its rhythmic clatter soothed her even though she hated riding the train. Too many mortals pressed against her, their various smells so thick she could taste them. She had only eaten human meat once when her father had prepared some for Christmas dinner when she was twelve. Afterwards, Elka threw up on and off for the next twenty-four hours. That had ruined her taste for mortal meat for good.
It had not, however, affected her taste for killing the stupid creatures.
Kenny worked the stick shift and revved the engine as if starting a race. From the look on his face, Elka gathered she was supposed to be impressed so she flashed him a fake smile.
Briefly, she wondered who would replace him as manager. Hopefully someone a little lower on the imbecile scale.
Chapter Ten
SOMETHING GRABBED JESSIE BY THE collar and yanked her back. She scampered backward on her heels, but the grenade hit before she could be dragged out of the room. The explosion shattered the window, blowing glass inward like a sparkling rain, only these raindrops had deadly sharp edges. The drywall around the window cracked in a wide arch over the window as if a giant fist had punched it inward.
Somehow, it didn’t blow to pieces.
Glass shards sliced at Jessie along her arms, imbedded themselves in her black jeans, and caught in her hair. By some miracle—maybe the same one that had kept the wall intact—the glass didn’t cut her face as far as she could tell.
Whoever had her by the collar kept tugging. The collar of her T-shirt tightened against her throat, the fabric rubbing her skin raw. It felt like a noose closing around her neck.
Once she stumbled through the doorway, the pulling stopped.
Jessie gasped for air and spun toward her rough savior.
Agent Ree stared back at her, his face shiny with sweat, which made his dark complexion shimmer in the hallway light. “Shields won’t hold long. We have to get you to the basement.”
Shields? Now that was some handy mojo.
Ree grabbed Jessie’s arm and started his yanking routine again.
“Wait.” She pulled
free and looked into the bedroom.
Wertz had rolled off the bed and crouched behind the foot, out of the trajectory of any debris from the explosion. He waved a hand at her. “I’m good. Downstairs, now.”
Ree put a hand between Jessie’s shoulder blades and pushed instead of pulled. Pushing didn’t hurt as much, but it still felt like bullying. Didn’t these guys think she could walk on her own?
She didn’t protest, though. She knew better than to start pointless arguments while some dudes were shooting grenades at your house. She just tried to keep up as they rushed through the kitchen and to the door to the basement.
The whole house shook again, a sonic boom echoing through the walls. The impact knocked both Ree and Jessie off their feet. A gust of wind blew through the kitchen. A stack of papers and a map fluttered and sailed off the counter. The wind carried with it a metallic smell that reminded Jessie of the old radiator in one of the many apartments she’d lived in with Mom until they finally settled into their house.
Jessie rolled onto her knees and looked in the direction of the wind. Her stomach shrunk to a knot. Her whole body turned cold.
The entire front of the house from the door to the end of the living room had been obliterated. Jagged teeth of wood and drywall hung down from the opening’s top edge and stuck up from the bottom, making it look like the house had a huge-ass and hungry mouth. Through the mouth, Jessie saw the minivan. The Ronald Reagan-masked dude had ditched the grenade launcher. She didn’t recognize the thing he held on his shoulder now. It looked made of a purplish metal with a high gloss, yet the weapon had an organic shape, like something you’d normally find swimming around in the ocean.
“What the—”
Ree jumped on Jessie, knocking her onto her side. He covered her body with his and wrapped his arms around her. “Close your eyes,” he whispered.
Jessie’s pants felt wet and cold—the blood from the glass wounds. But something inside of her, her primal core, felt even colder. “Why?”
