Licensed To Thrill

by Gemma Brocato

“Come on, Jayne! Wake up.”

  Lucien’s voice was more urgent this time.

  “Go away, traitor,” I rasped out.

  I tried to will my hands to rise and shove him away, but they were as disobedient as I’d been.

  A breeze of cool air danced across my hip, followed by a sharp jab. My body shook as someone massaged my muscle.

  “Ow!” My head lolled the opposite direction.

  I was as weak as a newborn kitten. I abhorred weakness.

  “Jayne, open your eyes,” Lucien commanded, the order in his voice undeniable.

  I cracked open my gritty eyelids and peered at his unfocused face.

  “There’s my girl.” His smile lit the dim space.

  “Not your girl,” I protested.

  “Jayne, you didn’t give us a chance to explain.” Baxtard’s disloyal mug appeared in front of me, his shaggy hair dark with moisture and slicked away from his forehead.

  I formed a gun with my thumb and forefinger and pointed it at him. “Bang, you’re dead to me, Baxtard.”

  Hurt bloomed on his face. “Baxtard? Is that how you think of me?”

  Guilt was a funny thing. I could hide from it only so long. It wasn’t well done of me to nickname him so rudely. But the knowledge he spied on me nagged like a hangnail.

  “If the Jimmy Choo fits.” I was lying prone on the floor, my wetsuit trousers lowered on my hip.

  I struggled to pull my pants into place and sit up at the same time. I didn’t want to die with my bum hanging out. Every inch of me felt woozy from the lingering effect of the toxin.

  However, I couldn’t deny I already felt stronger.

  I drew my brows together in a fearsome scowl. “What did you do?” Baxtard started to answer, but I flashed my hand in front of his face and cut him off. “Not you. You don’t talk to me. Lucien, what the bloody hell did you do?”

  “We took a chance and doubled the dosage on the injection. Tam—uh, we figured out you’d missed several rounds. How are you feeling?”

  “Better. But I’m still annoyed.”

  My head reeled when I sat upright. I batted away Lucien’s help and put a hand to my forehead, taking deep, slow breaths until the dizziness faded.

  “Justifiable,” was Lucien’s only comment. He dropped to his ass next to me and pegged me with a bold stare.

  “How’d you get here so quickly?”

  “The helicopter pilot from our reconnaissance trip was available and had dive gear. We offered him a sizeable bribe to keep his mouth shut about us. His only other option was certain death.” He smiled cheekily. “We took off less than three-quarters of an hour after you. Thanks for leaving the door open for us. That saved our asses since you had the only acetylene torch on the plane with you.”

  “Welcome.” I leaned my head against the rough rock wall.

  Lucien touched his finger to my carotid. “Still a bit weak. We should wait for the serum to get fully into your blood stream. While we’re stuck here, would you listen to Tamsyn’s explanation?”

  I refused to look at the sodding man in question. “He doesn’t have a damn thing to say to me to make me even halfway want to dig for the ability to forgive him.”

  “It’s worth a listen, Jayne. His story is good…great, in fact.

  “I really am on your side, Solo,” Tamsyn said.

  I rested my palm on the wet floor and syphoned energy from the water element. Use of this sense, along with the double dose of serum, would speed my healing with pinpoint accuracy. Already, I felt a lessening of the burn in my veins, replaced by a tingle as the water element flowed through them.

  Time was getting away from us, and every moment we stayed here we risked discovery. To be safe, I cast a weak glamour over us. Any soldier who came upon us would see an unexplainable blank space where our bodies were. I simply didn’t have the strength to mask us completely. “I’ll listen.”

  Lucien settled next to me, his knee nudged under my thigh, his hand wrapped around my wrist and finger on my pulse point. Still mad at him, I judged the action as purely medical. Otherwise, I might soften too much.

  Relief swam over Baxtard’s features. He drew his body up, sitting tensely across from me.

  Smarting from his betrayal, I said nothing to ease his nerves.

  He sighed. “I started working for MI6 in my early twenties. I scored well on their loyalty and personality tests, so I was tapped by the VIS to become their first human operative. I’ve been with IA for about five years. They like that I look outrageously young and dumb, so they think it is easier for me to earn the trust of my vampire counterpart. For the record, I hate these assignments. I prefer to think all our agents operate above board and with integrity.”

  I sniffed but held my peace. Most of our supernatural agents were beyond reproach. But even I knew some were bad eggs. Me going rogue to save humans fell far short of the typical dishonesty of those individuals. But a memory surfaced…of T mentioning the possibility of a mole, a sodding traitor in our midst.

  Baxtard continued, “I could lose my job for telling you any of this. But you deserve nothing less than the truth. You’re under investigation for going off the books, for being suspended far too many times. You should know you aren’t the only vamp IA is looking at. I can’t tell you much more about that. Those vamps aren’t my cases.” He fidgeted with the cuff of his dive suit. “The Director doesn’t want anyone to retain a shred of their soul…of their humanity. Thinks you all make better agents if you don’t value human life. And based on your actions, that’s exactly what you’re struggling so hard to do.

  “They don’t know why you still retain a soft spot for mortals. Frankly, they don’t care. But neither do they suspect the degree to which you still have the essence of your former, mortal self.”

  “They never will. I could have gone on stage. I’d have been a premier actress. I hide my emotions quite well,” I huffed.

  Lucien laughed. “Darling Jayne. You’re not that great of an actress. It’s widely known, at least at the DIA, that you’re as human a vampire as there ever was. But that’s why we like working with you. You reason out the impact on human existence before acting.”

  I tipped my chin at him.

  “My reports to headquarters have been fact-light,” Baxtard resumed his explanation. “The murder of one of Viktor’s goons at the airport went into my report, but any mention of the reason—because you helped a human—was, uh, redacted.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I believe all vamps would be better agents if they held onto their soul. The training you all get does little except turn you into monsters with a license to kill.”

  “Sounds like you have a bit of a soft spot too, guppy.” I couldn’t bring myself to call him Baxter yet.

  Even in the dim space, I saw color splash up his cheeks. “Let me just say, I’d have done exactly what you did. In every instance. At the airport—on the street in St. Petersburg. The way you avoided that biker was masterful.”

  I nodded, uncomfortable with his praise and surprised by his admission.

  Lucien interrupted at this point. “How are you feeling, Jayne?”

  “Better. Stronger,” I replied, surprised by the truth of it. But it didn’t matter. I would have lied just to get back to the mission.”

  “Good on you, then.” Lucien squeezed my shoulder. “Tamsyn, do you suppose you might hurry this up?”

  Duet nodded, scrubbing a palm over his face. “Two years ago, I noticed a trend among missions undertaken by those agents pegged as ‘likely to go rogue.’ Their assignments were completed with minimal fuss, but in almost every case, a mortal disappeared, along with a good-sized sum of VIS or their personal funds. Not enough to draw intense scrutiny, but enough of a pattern to grab my attention. I didn’t immediately report this to my supervisors because I wanted to do some digging. In fact, I haven’t reported it yet.”

  “For two years you haven’t found time to say something about this disturbing
trend to anyone? Now who’s the rogue operative?” Just the fact that he’d kept a vamp’s secret would definitely jeopardize his job.

  Not as much as my tendency to go off script endangered my own job and life.

  “Granted. But the deeper I dug, the more organization I found. I began to believe there was a brotherhood among our spies. Jayne, there is a loosely woven group, a coven if you wish, of men and women just like you, vampires desperate to keep some shred of their soul.” He bowed his head then glanced up at me. “I’m working with them now. I’m aiding their cause by not reporting my findings.”

  I wasn’t alone? Excitement caused my heart to knock against my ribs like a native drum. My journey had been solitary and so blasted lonely. But wait…

  “Why haven’t they contacted me to join them?” The exclusion stung.

  “Consider this, Jayne. You’re the best operative in the agency. T’s favorite, in fact. They couldn’t know if you truly were holding on or if you were just acting a role.”

  I beamed. “See there, Lucien. I told you I was an excellent actress.”

  “Anyway, they’ve brought me into the fold, so when I received the assignment to spy on you, I was able to act as a double agent. Each side only gets the information I’m willing to give them. And my details have been sketchy at best. At least in my updates in my direct report.”

  Warmth spread through my body. Baxter hadn’t betrayed me.

  I swiveled my gaze to Lucien. “Where do you land in all this?”

  “I’m just the lucky bloke who gets the pleasure of working with you on occasion.”

  “But…why did you know and I didn’t? About Baxter’s assignment, I mean.”

  “While you were in the infirmary in London, I caught him filing a report on the operation at the Barrier. I didn’t like the look of it and threatened him with eternal damnation if he didn’t confess his role. Humans tend to get squeamish when you mess with their eternity. Fire and brimstone can be very convincing.”

  “Oh, you didn’t?” I sputtered.

  “Yeah, I did take him on a short jaunt to Hell.”

  I scanned the look of horror on Baxter’s face. “First time?”

  He nodded, his deep blue eyes earnest. “And I hope the last.”

  I pulled up my knees. “So now what?”

  “The vamp in charge of the coven would like a word with you in the very near future. But you’ll need to stop your tendency to go rogue for the duration of this mission.”

  My pulse kicked. “What about the stunt I pulled today? My trip off the reservation is sure to get back to HQ. And you activated my tracker not once, but twice in the past six hours. They’ll learn of my actions.” And I couldn’t meet with the ringleader of the coven if I was terminated in the most final way a vamp could be.

  “Between Lucien and I, we concocted a plausible explanation of why you went ahead. We told them we had to wait for diving supplies and opted to send you ahead to scout the location.”

  I touched his forearm, surprised by the ingenuity the pair of them had displayed.

  “Okay, I can stay on script for the duration.” I loved my work with the VIS, but the ability to help humans, to retain my own humanity, was too attractive an offer. I was all in.

  Lucien touched the back of my hand. “Are you feeling up to moving forward with the mission, or shall we wait a little longer?”

  My future looked shinier than it had six hours ago. At that point, I truly was solo, forging ahead on my own.

  Now, I had two men I considered friends and peers at my side, people who’d just displayed they had my back.

  I rubbed my palms together, eager to put a stop to Viktor and his quest. “Let’s do this.”

  19

  Mission Day 16

  The Underground Laboratory On Rapa Nui

  “How do you want to handle this?” Baxter’s question put me firmly back in the leadership role on the mission.

  “I’ve been thinking about redundancy. If the explosives fail, Viktor could still move forward with his plan to commit mass murder, take over the planet, and install himself as king.”

  “And if we do blow the lab and the unthinkable happens, Viktor or Gregorie escape, they’ll live to try another day,” Lucien mentioned.

  “Agreed. So I believe a couple things need to happen for me to sleep at night. One, we need to be sure the facility is blown up, but we need to be sure to minimize the risk of an earthquake caused by the explosion. Two, we need to wipe his files. I’m talking everything…every workstation, every back-up system. We can leave nothing to chance. And three, T told me lethal force wasn’t sanctioned for Viktor.” Baxter opened his mouth, but I shook my head. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want my intention to kill him to blow back on you. He has to die.” The last was a given, and I planned on the task falling to me. But killing him would put me in the position of going rogue again. I could always claim it was an accident.

  Baxter scrubbed his knuckles over his jaw. “Okay, so again, how are we going to handle this?”

  “Don’t be so impatient, guppy.” I smiled as I said it, knowing the name was meant as a term of endearment now, more than an insult. “You hack.”

  “Huh?”

  “I know you can hack your way into a system. So your job will be to erase every bit of data in Viktor’s mainframe. Here at this location for certain, but if you have enough time and can delete every shred of information you can find on his servers and clouds, then I want that gone as well. Lucien and I will deploy the explosives.”

  “One problem, Jayne. We’ve seen the control room in the schematics. I’m sure it will be heavily guarded. I won’t be able to avoid discovery.”

  I pondered that for all of one point two seconds. “We’ll be splitting up, and that will make glamouring all of us an impossibility, given my weakened condition.”

  Lucien stopped preparing the explosives. “I could go with him to hold an anti-detection spell in place. I am a demon. I do have some very particular skills.”

  “It will take both of us to deploy the explosives.”

  “I can’t break code and shoot at the same time.” Bax stood up to pace. Not an easy feat in the cramped space we were in.

  “I’ll glamour Bax. I can render him invisible to the human eye.” He could sneak right in under their noses, break into the server, and they’ll never know.

  “How long will you need?” Lucien asked as he fastened a comm link around my neck.

  His fingers caressed my skin, leaving a warm streak that trailed along my shoulders and back.

  I leaned in toward him, tipping my head to grant better access for him to buckle the apparatus into place. Really, what I wanted him to do was trace his lips over my jaw and down the tender skin of my throat.

  Get a grip, Jayne. You need to stay on task. Sexy time could come later. Maybe. I wasn’t sure I’d forgiven him yet, even if he’d given Bax a personal tour of Lucifer’s domain.

  Bax answered the question with a shrug. “Can’t tell until I get in and see for sure what kind of code they might be running.”

  “What about what you learned while we were in Essex? Any clues from that intel?”

  “It doesn’t hurt. I have a solid idea of the quirks they’ve written into their sites. I’m a bit worried about any hidden subroutines designed to trigger alarms.”

  “Just don’t trip them then.”

  “Not helpful, Jayne.” Bax shot me a tight grin and jammed his fists on his hips.

  I checked the spring action on the spear gun. The first task for Lucien and I was to raid Viktor’s armory and beef up our supply of guns and ammo. Thanks to the schematics, we had the exact location.

  “Ready?” Lucien asked once we were all kitted out.

  I nodded and hoisted the spear gun onto one shoulder and the explosives bag onto the other. Lucien firmed his grip on his own spear gun.

  “Glamour me!” Bax demanded with glee in his eyes.

  It occurred to me that he mig
ht have too much fun with this assignment. Nevertheless, I cast the magic over him, feeling a residual drain on my newly restored powers. I wobbled, but corrected my stance quickly before either of them noticed.

  Bax lifted his hands in front of his face, disappointment flitting over his expression. “Are you not powerful enough to do it?”

  “What are you nattering on about?”

  “Well, I can still see myself. And you can still see me, too.”

  IA had it right when they said he seemed young and dumb. “Of course we can, you dolt. You’re invisible to other humans. The glamour doesn’t affect you, and supernatural beings can see through a glamour.”

  “Oh.”

  “Baxter, don’t look so nervous. This will work. Even Viktor himself won’t be able to detect if you’re around.”

  Lucien barked, “Enough, now. Let’s go kill a monster.”

  Without waiting for a response, he cracked open the door to the holding chamber and led the way out.

  The three of us hurried down the hallway to an intersection that branched to the right and left.

  “Comm check,” I whispered into my lip-mic.

  Both my companions signaled A-OK, and I pointed to Bax and motioned him to proceed along the left-side tunnel. Lucien and I would go right toward the stairwell located halfway down the corridor.

  Baxter took off at a trot, heading confidently away from our position. I hoped he could maintain that level of trust in himself. The pull on the glamour increased as he receded away. It was only then that I realized the extent of the power drain needed to keep the magic in place long enough to allow him to accomplish his task. This deep in the Earth, and surrounded by steel, concrete, and recirculated air, I couldn’t restore my energy via the elements. Distances were always tricky, and with my energy level already compromised, holding Bax’s cloak of invisibility in place might be more than I could handle.

  But I’d do what I had to do. Lucien and I could use our supernatural speed to finish our assignment quickly and regroup with Bax to protect him while he completed his job.

  I nodded to Lucien to go first then put on a burst of speed to keep up. The concrete walls blurred as we raced down the tunnel. As we approached the staircase, Lucien dropped his speed and assumed stealth mode.