Jackson instinctively made the sound he used to recall Sargent, which brought the dog quickly to his side. The recall wasn’t just about commanding the dog to come, it was about releasing him from his well-trained position. It was a strange house with strange smells and rules, but Sargent, who was always brimming with curiosity, had stayed exactly where Jackson had left him, not even trying to climb up into bed with him like he usually did.
“Hungry? And I bet you gotta pee, too. I’m with you on that one, my friend.”
Jackson opened the door, hesitating a moment because he didn’t have “I know.”. iSargent’s leash any longer. It had gone up in flames along with everything else from his original uniform. There was a snapping piece of leather on his gun belt made specifically for carrying the coiled up leash, much in the way Wonder Woman wore that golden lasso of hers, freeing up his hands for other things. But the belt and all else were gone.
After he had taken care of their most immediate need, Jackson started to look for a pantry or cabinet that might have food stores. He opened the refrigerator to find it completely empty and even unplugged. The first thing he had noticed while walking Sargent was that they were really secluded, since he couldn’t see another sign of humanity in any direction, and quite possibly completely off the grid. He didn’t see any elevated wiring and there had been a series of powerful-looking solar panels at the edge of the northwest corner of the clearing the cabin was nestled in.
“Ah! Here we go,” he said with triumph a moment later when he opened the door to a small walk-in pantry. It had to be the neatest pantry on the face of the earth, with multiples of each can, and, oddly enough, each label was perfectly aligned in a forward-facing direction like a neatly ordered phalanx of aluminum and glass soldiers. The sight made him a little sick in his gut. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she did have a lover. It would be just like her to pick a man exactly like she was. Perfect. Neat. Every last damn duck in its precisely designated row.
The thought made him so surly he had an extremely powerful urge to shove everything off the shelves. My god, he thought with shock at the wave of wrath that had washed quickly through him. Why am I so hot-tempered all of a sudden?
Not universally, Menes said to him quietly, but whenever you feel your Marissa in threat … in one form or another. Jealousy is to be expected, Jackson, when the winning prize is so exceptional.
Jackson had to grudgingly admit that there was some truth in that. Perhaps even more so now that he’d kissed her … since he’d learned what she’d tasted like on his tongue and felt like in his hands. Since he’d gotten a glimpse of what she was capable of when she let her hair down.
He found a can of stew and pulled the tab up for it. Sargent started to whine eagerly in the back of his throat as Jackson searched for a bowl. He found two, dropping the first in front of Sargent immediately after dumping the stew into it and filling the second with water. He dropped down onto his haunches and scratched the animal that was the pride and joy of its breed. Chico had been a good dog, a dependable dog. A loyal one. He’d never given Jackson a lick of trouble. But neither had he learned so quickly. And Sargent, pound for pound, packed a serious bite. Those padded suits weren’t foolproof when it came to protecting the wearer, and a few of his volunteers had come out of training with a good show of bruising.
“Sorry about that, boy,” he apologized, still feeling pretty crappy about the dog going hungry all day long. He would have to start paying much closer attention to this weakness he was vulnerable to, start planning ahead and making provisions for all circumstances. He had to heed the lightening sky and not push it to the limit. After feeling that horrific and hot petrification clawing over him he had known it was not something he would ever willingly let happen to him again. And the vulnerability hadn’t been the worst of it. The whole time it had hurt, like someone was scraping up the length of every long bone in his body, the nails on the “I know.”. ichalkboard kind of pain taken to the nth degree.
“You could have warned me about that,” he said dryly to himself … or rather Menes.
It seems to me that I did. On many occasions.
“I guess words can’t quite convey the honest intensity of the matter. I know I share your memories, but I can’t access them yet. I guess … I guess I thought I knew.”
You never know, Menes murmured quietly in his brain, until you experience it for yourself. As is true of most things.
Jackson nodded even though Menes didn’t need the gesture to know he agreed and understood. But whether the Blending was complete or not on a physical level, there was still a lot of space between them on a spiritual level. As he had many times over the past three weeks, he wondered just how much of himself he would end up losing in order to make them a single individual.
Nothing, Menes assured him. Nothing of your soul, your memories, or the essence of who you are. But in the physical world … I am asking you to sacrifice a great deal, I know. I sometimes think we ask too much of our hosts. That asking permission in the Ether is such an inadequate way of preparing a human for what is about to come.
“Yeah, I have to agree with you there. And I understand what it is I have to do. I understand who it is we have to become,” Jackson said, a wistful sigh leaving his body. “There’s just things I’m going to miss,” he said as they scrubbed at Sargent’s ruffling fur.
“You know, normally if I entered a room and heard someone holding what seems like a detailed conversation without anyone else there they either have to A) be on the phone, or B) be a schizophrenic.”
He looked up, a smile touching his lips at her words. It grew as he took in her tousled and rumpled appearance. She looked like she’d just been engaging in bed-sport, her hair victim to the ravaging stroke of his fingers as he held her in place for—
No, no … bad thought, he told himself hastily. He absolutely could not let himself run wild with that thought or he’d get hard, he’d start craving things, and start wanting to kiss her lush mouth all over again. Bad enough that he still hadn’t erased the taste and feel of her from the front or the back of his mind.
“Good morning. Or … well, I guess it’s goodnight at this point.”
“Yes we’ve been here all day.” She frowned as she watched Sargent lick the bowl so enthusiastically that, now empty of food, it was moving across the floor with Sargent hot on its heels. “I called Landon on the way here last night. I told him my thoughts on the likelihood of finding the boy. Since Sargent isn’t a cadaver dog, do you think you’ll still be needed?”
There was a hell of a lot Sargent could do to help find that boy despite his training limitations. But …
“I won’t be going back out. Not after what happened. It’s time for me to leave town. Pack up my shit, quit the force, and just go.”
“Quit! Why would you quit? Where are you going? I mean … can’t you just work third shift? It’s at night—” are you talking about?”s danger
“In the summer it’s light until nine p.m. Third shift starts at midnight, sure, but it runs well into sunrise. It’s just not possible. And Marissa, even if it were, I couldn’t bring my enemies into a place where innocents could be harmed as they try to take my life.”
“But …” It was a weak word, with her so obviously wanting to argue and yet her logical and reasoning self already knew it was an argument that could not be won. “Do you mean … forever? You can’t just … I mean you have to be able to come back at some point. You can’t possibly run away from creatures like that. No matter where you go they will find you and—”
Apparently she realized what she was saying because her eyes went wide with no little horror over the situation.
“Oh my god, it’s true isn’t it? No matter where you go those … those monsters will find you. And with all that power gunning for you, how can you possibly survive such relentless targeting? And don’t you think the best place for you to be would be familiar territory?”
Jackson straightened to his full height, lean
ing back against the counter and folding his arms over his chest.
“Why, Doc, I’m touched. You’re practically heartbroken about this.”
She gasped in a startled breath, her cheeks pinking up and her eyes brightening fiercely in all of an instant. “You’re an ass,” she spat.
“Yeah, but I’m good-looking so, it kind of evens things out.”
God, he loved poking at her to see what kind of quills she’d shoot at him next. There was something about seeing her in full glorious temper that really turned him on.
All right, you bastard, are you some kind of sadist or something? he demanded of Menes.
I’m not the one who traded desks after Sargeant Kanus retired so I could see right down the hall to her office door, Menes was quick to single out.
Well, shit. The man had a point. At the time he’d told himself the desk had more room and a better filing cabinet. But the move had definitely put her and a really good perspective of her ass right in his line of sight dozens of times a day.
“Stay or go, it makes no difference to me,” she snapped at him. “I just … I mean to say,” she said, her hands suddenly becoming busy smoothing out the wrinkles in her sweater and skirt, “that wherever you go you should make certain you don’t isolate yourself. A-and perhaps you should find another counselor as well. I’d be more than happy to forward any records you might need.”
Officer Waverly. She didn’t say it, but it was right there. Sergeant Waverly and Doctor Anderson. He’d brought them to a personal level by taking her out of her comfort zone and forcing her to break all of her own rules. Now she was backpedaling, trying to find strength in the familiar and in the methods she used to distance herself from others.
“I think you’re missing part of the point here, hummingbird. Before you go flitting away, if you recall someone got a good look at you and saw me protecting you. If they think they can use you to get to me they will. So, you’re coming with me. For a little while anyway.”
“I am not going with you! I have a job! I have family!”
“Yeah. And if you want to keep them safe you need to leave them for a little while until I’m sure that no one is focusing on you. Think of it like the witness protection program. How many people have you had to coax and counsel to relocate? To change their identities in order to keep themselves safe? Why would you do anything less than that for yourself?”
“It’s not the same! Those people were witnesses to terrible crimes and had to testify—”
“Ohne side, you t
CHAPTER EIGHT
Leo clawed his way to consciousness, the cacophony of agony screaming through his body almost too overwhelming and the gritty taste of bile sharp at the back of his tongue. He struggled, tried to push or pull or move in any way possible, even though he knew it was going to hurt like hell the instant he achieved any of those goals. But there was no movement to be had. Something was different. Anything different had to be an improvement over the last time he’d been conscious in the world. Didn’t it?
“Well, it is good of you to join us at last.”
The greeting was cordial. Almost refined. Or maybe it sounded that way because anyone with that particular kind of accent couldn’t help but sound as though he breathed slightly better air than the rest of the world. It wasn’t exactly a British accent, but it was foreign. Perhaps South African. However, placing it wasn’t the first thing on Leo’s mind.
No. The first thing on Leo’s mind was the shriek of new pain that tore through his shoulder as he tried to move again.
Breathing. I’m breathing.
That was different. This was a difference he had to responsibility when that, count as an improvement. At first. But each breath hurt like hell and any move he made was like nails from a finishing gun punching down in rapid succession, rather like a dotted line that demarcated one territory from another on a global map. The light hurt his eyes, but it didn’t escape him that it was probably shining directly into his eyes precisely for that reason. It wasn’t the first time he’d been on the opposite end of that kind of tactic … and he supposed he knew where this was headed.
“Sorry I kept you waiting,” he said. Wow. He sounded like hell. And talking made him cough and … oh yeah, that was a whole new world of hell right there as well.
“Somehow I doubt that. You aren’t at all apologetic. Not yet anyway. We might get to that eventually.”
Leo fought with the grit scraping between his eyelids and the resolution of his focus. The image that finally crystallized for him was of a tall, athletic man with russet hair that was emboldened by the nut-brown color of his skin. He was seated in a metal chair, some ancient relic from an old office-supply dungeon.
Leo then took note of the fact that he himself was bound at all four points, each wrist wrapped up tight in a leather bracer that not only immobilized his wrist, it immobilized his entire arm. He couldn’t bend or so much as flex any of his arm muscles and the same was true of his legs. Leo fought down a wave of panic, knowing that the feeling would weaken him. And he knew by looking into the cold clear irises of his jailer that he was going to need all the strength he could possibly muster.
“Let me explain something to you. Because,” he injected in a conversational tone, “it occurs to me that you may not even be aware of the curse you have brought down on your own head.”
“Play?” The plaintive word was almost like a pleading whimper off to his right. Leo jerked his head to look in that direction, the sound and tone of that voice sickeningly familiar. It was the voice he had heard giggling over him as he’d been slowly and methodically stabbed to death.
Only somehow he wasn’t dead. His body burned with the memory and pain of each of those injuries, as if he’d had surgery and was in a state of healing, but not far enough in to have found relief from the damage. How long had he been unconscious? Had they repaired him only to—
“I want to play,” Andy hissed, his feelings of impatience coming through loud and clear, his eyes alight with the fire of his desires.
The desire to cause pain. The fire all too easily defined as psychopathic elation. The very same expression that had been on his face with every slow stab wound he’d created. All of it simmering behind the face of innocence, the sweet roundness of a Down syndrome man. A young man, nearly a boy. Leo had never known that a Down-affected adult could exhibit such violent, lunatic tendencies. It just didn’t make sense.
But Andy still had Leo’s knife in his hand and he leaned forward now to poke Leo with two fast, sharp stabs aimed for his left biceps. Leo gritted his teeth against the pain of it, the tensing of his body ripping at all the original wounds he sported. Healing but not yet healed.
“In a moment, Chatha,” the other man said dismissively. And as if Chatha were a dog on a leash, he subsided and sat, waiting with avaricious impatience for his master to let him loose. “Now, I will sum the situation up as efficiently as possible. You see, y around him and huggedupiou have taken something very precious away from me, and while I wait to get her back, I am going to content myself with watching you suffer the death you consigned her to over and over and over. Do you understand?”
He didn’t need details. Leo understood. He was going to be tortured. It was clear he was going to meet death in the process. But he was going to damn well make it as unsatisfying for them as was in his power to do.
Then the man nodded to Chatha and Chatha pounced, grabbing Leo by the hair and pulling hard until his neck was stretched to the limit. Leo struggled to not make a sound as pain and anxiety scraped through him.
And then Chatha used his hunting knife to cut his throat, the knife so sharp it severed everything with ease and purity, like spreading soft butter on bread.
Now Leo couldn’t scream even if he wanted to.
Hours later, Leo woke up. His throat, cut nearly to the bone the last time he was conscious was back in working order. He could breathe and swallow, although both acts felt like he was swallowing razor blades. How w
as this possible? How was he even alive? Twice now he had experienced what should have been his own death, only to wake up once more …
To the same nightmare. The calm, regarding eyes that were so eerily light blue they bordered on colorless, like the facets of diamonds. His expression was equally as hard and as cold as that particular stone.
“Where were we?” he asked aloud, clearly rhetorically speaking. He didn’t want Leo’s input. “Oh yes. The reason for all of this. You slit the throat of a woman, a very powerful woman whose gloriousness and magnificence so outshines the dingy, pissing existence you call a life. You nearly killed her. Not an easy trick, to kill one of us, and I suppose on some level you are to be commended for your strength and prowess.
“But on the other hand … you have sinned grievously against me and mine and I cannot let that stand.”
“Somehow I knew you were going to say that,” Leo croaked out. Hearing himself was a shock. Maybe it was because he’d worked so hard at his speech and its patterns, worked to rid himself of the barrio influences that could make him a caricature of his heritage. He was an intelligent Latino and he damn well wanted others to show him the respect he deserved. Hearing himself sound so rough hit him on a level that he would never allow this pendejo to ever see. “Anyway, you’re going to have to be more specific. I’ve slit a lot of bitches’ throats in my day. Just which bitch is yours?”
That was a ballsy bit of lying, but he could play this game, too. He’d shot a woman once. Punched one once, too. But in all fairness to him, one had been holding a gun to his head and the other had tried to stab him. Not that he’d blamed them. After all, in both cases he’d just killed their husbands. But hey, that was the risk you took when you hooked up with a drug kingpin and a sadistic mercenary, respectively. The only time he’d cut a woman’s throat had been in his dreams. A very vivid dream at that, he thought with a frown. It’d been a hell of a piece of fantasy fiction with spell-casting bad guys and himself, Ram, and Docia cast as the good guys. That dream had creeped him out in huge ways, mainly because in it Jackson had died.