Natural Consequences (63 page)

* * *

“Coffee run,” muttered Keeley.

“Another one?” asked the guard.

“I know,” the agent grumbled back, “I’m turnin’ into a native. Want any? Gotta be tough sitting here in the dark like this.”

The guard station was just inside the first hallway intersection near the side entrance.
Frank had a large, old wooden desk to sit at, but his only light came from the laptop that showed the security cameras ringing the building. The sub-machinegun on the desk and Frank’s body armor would likely provide a good visual deterrent to any trouble, but he wasn’t there for deterrence. “Nah. Caffeine will just keep me up all night after my watch is over. I’m good.”

Keeley snorted. “Suit yourself. It’s the only way I ever got through stakeouts.”

“Doesn’t that leave you peeing in a bottle in your car all night?” the guard asked as Keeley walked away.

“Nice. Thanks for reminding me of all those good times.” He waited for
Frank to buzz the newly-installed security lock on the old, heavy door, then stepped outside.

Nighttime in November was cold, wet and extra dark. Keeley understood why Amber moved away. He shoved his hands in his pockets as he headed to the parking lot at the building across the road from his own. All he heard was his feet sloshing through wet grass left to grow wild.

The figures stalking him from three different directions never made a sound.

Keeley walked to his car with a heavy heart. He wondered if he was about to end his friend’s career. Either way, this would surely damage that friendship. Hauser was gruff, direct and often unsympathetic, but Keeley knew his boss was also a dedicated agent and a good man. He’d just lost
perspective. It happened in the job sometimes. That was why the system had so many checks and balances.

Arriving at his car
, he found himself face to face with a pretty Latina in dark jeans and a leather jacket. She seemed to appear out of nowhere. Her icy blue eyes stared into his. “Hey there,” she said with a cool, friendly smile. “I’m a little lost. Can you help me?”

His eyes threatened to close, but he managed to keep them open. Even so, Keeley’s vision blurred around the edges. As if in a dream he knew would turn to terror at any moment, Keeley felt his chest constrict and his shoulders tense. In the back of his mind, he knew he should cry out, but he couldn’t. He wanted to snap out of his reverie, wanted to flee or seize the situation, but his body wouldn’t respond. He couldn’t look away from her hypnotic eyes.

“What’re… what’re you doing out here?” he managed. His voice seemed just as weak as his muscles.

Other shapes moved at the edges of his vision. Human shapes. Humans and… dogs? Big dogs. Huge ones.

“Looking for a friend. I like you, though. Will you be my friend?”

Someone stepped up behind him.
Firm hands took hold of his arms. The Latina moved in close, intimately sliding her hands up his chest. Keeley wanted to object, but his mouth wouldn’t work. She brought her fingertips to his cheeks, then turned and tilted his head. Just like whoever held him from behind, she seemed surprisingly strong. Her body pressed up against his as she put her lips against his neck.

He felt the bite. Felt her drain him. Wanted to resist, wanted to fight back, but he couldn’t. The sensation felt so good it frightened him, and left him hating himself for even feeling that. His breath came out in short, shallow gasps as she took and took and took.

“Not too much, Rosario,” someone counseled. “Just enough to break him in.”

“We could try the other way,” growled the man holding Keeley in place.

“I’ll take it under advisement.”

“Don’t test me, Wentworth. They have my brother.”

“And we will resolve that,” said the calmer and wiser voice.

“Nuh… not gonna… no,” Keeley gasped as the kiss pulled away from his neck. Already his clouded mind longed for more. “No, don’t… no…”

“You can have more if you want it,” said Rosario as she stroked his face, “but you have to help me and my friends. Look at me, baby. Don’t resist. What’s your name?”

“Paul. My name’s Paul.”

“Hello, Paul. You’re going to be mine from now on, okay? You’re going to be mine and you’re going to help me along tonight.”

Paul’s shoulders slackened. He felt lightheaded and confused. He asked, trying to make his objection plain in his tone, “How… what do you want me to do?”

“You see, Unferth?” asked Wentworth. “She’s a natural. Cornelius chose well.”

“What’s this?” Rosario asked, pulling the gun from Keeley’s shoulder holster. She patted around his pockets, found his wallet, opened it and held it out to Wentworth. “Is this what it feels like?” she asked, her eyes still fixated on Keeley’s.

“Damnation,” Wentworth hissed. “This was only a matter of time.”

Keeley heard more dogs approach. Someone walked with them—a woman, he could tell, wearing a long skirt and a coat. It was all he could tell from his peripheral vision. Rosario’s blue eyes still held his focus.

“I’ll not share my kill with the bitch,” Unferth hissed beside Keeley’s ear.

“The bitch has good ears, you know,” the newcomer said. “Who have we here?”

“Proof that this situation is as complicated as I feared,” answered Wentworth. “Mortal authorities are involved, and doubtlessly aware of whom they hold. The entire operation must be seized. We cannot simply smash down the door.”

“Oh, I’m sure any one of mine could get through those doors,” mused the woman, “or at least the windows.”

“Not without alerting those inside,” Wentworth countered. “They may call for help before we have taken the whole building. We must keep this isolated.”

“I’ll not put my brother at risk for your hurt feelings,” Unferth added curtly. “I came here to get him out.”

“Peace, please,” Wentworth broke in. “We can work together on this. We all have a role to play, and we will all get what we want. Freeing Bjorn must come first. That requires stealth, not just brute force.”

“You have a plan for that?” asked the woman.

“Paul can help us,” said Rosario. “Can’t you baby?” her cold fingers stroked his neck again, teasing his flesh where her fangs had been. “Is there a way inside?”

Keeley held his tongue. He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t.

“There’s a keypad on the outside that door,” someone said.

“Aw, is that so?” Rosario asked. “Tell us the code, Paul.”

“No,” Keeley said.

Rosario raked his sensitive neck with her nails. The pain was so sharp he couldn’t even cry out. “Maybe you didn’t hear me the first time,” she said, her voice still distressingly hypnotic. “You’re mine now. You don’t say no to me. ‘No’ is for people who can make their own decisions.
You can’t do that anymore… can you?”

Keeley’s eyes watered. His body trembled with fear. He felt so weak. “No.”

“How long will this take?” asked the other woman.

“Not long, I think,” said Wentworth. “Rosario seems to be a natural at this.”

Rosario’s eyes wouldn’t let Keeley go. She wouldn’t even let him have his own thoughts.

* * *

Amber knocked on the door and waited for an answer before she entered. It seemed like the right thing to do. She was still part of the team, officially, and had as much right to be in the break room as the others, but at this point she wouldn’t take anything for granted.

One of the tactical guys answered the door. Amber offered up a polite but awkward smile and stepped around him into the makeshift break room. The tactical guys—those not on a watch, at least—seemed to all sit at one table. Two of her teammates sat at the other.

“You wanted to see me?” Amber asked Nguyen.

The older agent looked up from her book at
Lanier rather than at Amber. “Did you tell her I wanted to see her?”

“You said to text her,” shrugged the other agent across the small table.

“I said to invite her.”

“Yeah, by text.”

Nguyen rolled her eyes, then turned them toward Amber. “We’re bored. Matt says he’s got a deck of cards. You want to play?”

Amber’s first instinct was to decline. This couldn’t be more than a token effort. Maybe Hauser or Keeley put them up to it. Though they would never say so, both agents probably hoped Amber would just say no and leave so they wouldn’t have to go through with this.

Grown-up Amber told downtrodden teenage Amber to take a hike. “Sure,” she said, opting to see if there might be more to this. She pulled out a chair and sat down. “What’s the game?”

“Just ordinary cards,” answered
Lanier as Nguyen pulled the deck out of her coat pocket. He added with a deadpan tone, “Nothing fun or anything.”

Nguyen raised an eyebrow as she shuffled. “What other kind of cards are there? You hoping I carry around a trivia deck or something?”

“Colleen here is one of those people who hears ‘board game’ and immediately thinks of Monopoly or Risk,” Lanier smirked.

Again, Nguyen looked at the two like she didn’t understand. “
Matt knows I’m a geek like him,” explained Amber.

“Yeah? And?”

“And geeks have better games,” Amber shrugged. A smile twitched at her lips. “With, y’know, fun in them.”

“I could throw these across the room and you two could play fifty-two card pick-up like my kids,” Nguyen suggested.

“No, I’m good. Regular cards is fine.” She paused as Nguyen dealt. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“Yeah, well, I figured I know what everyone else is up to except for you,” said Nguyen, “and I didn’t want you sitting in a room alone staring at the walls.”

Amber looked to Lanier. “How many cameras have you set up here, anyway?”

Lanier
blinked. “Not that many. I’m not even watching them. She made me close up my laptop, see?”

“We’ve got a security watch going. You needed the break. Both of you,” Nguyen added meaningfully.

“Well, anyway… thanks. I kind of was just staring at the walls, honestly.”

“Feeling like you aren’t really part of the team?” ventured Nguyen.

“Kinda, yeah. I’ve screwed up enough.”

“No, you haven’t,” said
Lanier as he sorted and righted his cards. “It’s a crazy case, and it’s your first assignment like this. We’re all still making this stuff up as we go along.”

“Pretty sure what I did was bad,” Amber frowned. “And what I didn’t do. I’m the one who turned up here in the back of someone’s car with handcuffs on.”

“We got our suspects in custody and nobody on our side got hurt,” said Nguyen. “You’re the only one here who’s gone one on one with a demon woman, so I figure none of us have any right to throw stones. Things go wrong even with normal perps. And we’re not here for the normal ones.

“Besides,” she added, “this all went wrong when we arrested Reinhardt and Jones. You didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“What do you think will happen with them?” Amber asked.

“We’ll have to let them go one way or another,” shrugged Nguyen. “There’s no way to prosecute them on the evidence we’ve got. It’s just a matter of when Hauser gets that through his head. But that’s kind of why we wanted to talk to you. I figure you’ve been walking around with everything hanging over your head, and it’s time to tell you that
this isn’t your screw-up. You made some mistakes, but
you
didn’t botch the case. We all did that without you. I figure by the time all this gets worked out, any of your goofs will just get rolled into the whole big ball of ‘oops’ and it won’t even seem like that big of a deal.”

“I’m ready to own my mistakes,” said Amber.

“We know. That’s part of the point.”

Amber’s eyes came up to Nguyen’s. She understood then that Nguyen held back something significant in her reassurances. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just saying don’t be in any hurry to start checking the want ads. This isn’t over yet.” She paused. “And you’re not in the doghouse with any of us.”

Silence held long enough for the three to look at their hands. “So you didn’t call me down here to play cards.”

“No,” Nguyen sighed, “I don’t even know what we’re playing.”

“I might have a different card game in my laptop bag,”
Lanier volunteered, “but I should warn you it’s pretty offensive.”

Amber’s eyes lit up. “Do you have any of the expansions?”

* * *

Keeley’s shuffling feet brought him to the door, but his remaining will fought to reassert itself. He felt so little control… or, really, so little of anything. His numb body moved slowly as he screamed and shouted inside to stop himself
. Nothing seemed to work.

Others walked with him, but the cameras wouldn’t see them.

He saw the door come closer. His hand rose toward the keypad. Trembling fingers stretched out to the buttons, inputting the proper sequence.