Flying fluke, p.23
Flying Fluke, page 23
“Portal. Angry Viking.” Ivan grunted.
Sam shook his head. “No. I’ll get Blue. The portal needs to stay here in case you guys need to evacuate. Moving a dozen people would be a strain, even for her.”
“You guys?”
Sam radiated irritation. “Right tool. Right job. I make people talk. I need you here to keep everything running.”
Nisha scoffed. “Ivan can keep everything running. I’m going. Who else do you want to take?”
Everyone stood in uncomfortable silence, listening to the argument. Ivan fought not to smile. Their squabbles amused him but he rarely showed it so freely. “Protocol.” Ivan did smile when he delivered that nugget.
Her mind went blank at that word. “What are you talking about?”
Finn stepped back and ducked his head. “Paragon and Regent shouldn’t go on the same mission. I advise against it.” He peeked up like he was afraid to see her reaction.
He meant her. Nope. She wasn’t staying on the sidelines. Sam could find a new Regent.
“Paragon doesn’t go on missions.” A smile rippled just under the surface of Ivan’s stony expression, fighting to break free. That was better. Now she didn’t have to be mad at Ivan.
“This one does.” Sam said the words with the confidence of a man well aware that nobody could argue with him. He would not budge on this. So she would not argue that point.
Devon held up a finger. “Captain doesn’t go on away missions. Never both commanding officers, either. Haven’t you ever watched Star Trek?”
Finn sent her an incredulous look. “Are we really talking about Star Trek right now?”
“I have watched it. With you. Remember, you had that crush on Jordi.” Roane chortled. “And they did it all the time.”
Devon’s face flamed, and she pinned him with a hard stare, daring him to say more. “The point is, they weren’t supposed to.” Devon threw her hands up in the air, reaching her limit. “Come on, people.”
Screw old Cahlad protocols. If the crew of a fictitious space federation broke the rules, so would they. Hell. They would change the rules. She tilted her head in Sam’s direction in a question and used words that had flitted through his head in the hours he struggled to get a handle on the strange magic he inherited. He no longer cared about the Cahlad as an institution. He only cared to use it as a tool to stop the current spiral into war and build something inclusive that protected and accepted everyone. No more forcing people into the shadows simply because the world didn’t understand them. If he couldn’t change it, he was going to burn it to the ground. To ashes. And start over. Even if it put a target on his back and infuriated the magic in his head. “We are burning it down, right?”
“To the ground.” Sam nodded.
Mitch blanched. Devon was completely confused. And Ivan’s smile exploded, half of his face bright white teeth now. Finn’s face filled with dread.
Nisha nodded her head in satisfaction. “Good. New protocol?”
Sam gave her a thumbs up.
She, Sam, and Ivan had been a fully functioning team for years. That didn’t change with the addition of a few titles. “We go where we need to go when we need to go. As of now. Somebody want to write it down?”
Finn dropped his chin to his chest, brain buzzing with scenarios. Their new rule made his perceived task exponentially harder. She pointed in his direction. He needed to haul his scope back in. “Your job is the Paragon and Zella. Don’t worry about me.”
His brain screamed bullshit, but he filtered his verbal response despite his scowl. “But Herne’s interests involve keeping the remaining members of the cabinet alive and in charge, per our deal. That includes you and Lacroix.”
Nisha waved her hand dismissively. “Then try to keep up.”
Now Sam was smiling as big as Ivan. Internally, Finn lamented he was dealing with an entire team of Blues if she cared about making people think she was respectable.
“I’m going to take that last as a compliment. I think we all do.” Finn’s lips grew thin and his mind turned into the white room he used when he didn’t want her in his head. Done with him, Nisha pointed at Ivan. “Will we have one of your people with us?” If Blue accepted his offer and she was their mode of transportation, they had at least one Sentinel going with them.
Ivan nodded quickly. “You will.”
“Excellent.” Nisha pivoted and marched out of the room. “Roane, you are with us! Torrin, stay here, monitor that challenge. Start working the problem. We’ll get you details.” Her feet hit the top of the stairs and she stopped to grab the handrail, taking a moment to compose herself. Stairs with a dozen voices bouncing around in her head had proven disastrous on more than one occasion.
Sam moved past Nisha and tapped her shoulder. “Put your necklace on for stairs.” Then he bounded down the stairs two at a time.
Nisha shoved the necklace under the shirt and rolled her eyes. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
#
#
30
Sam
Sam walked past a bar named after a Beastie Boys song two blocks off Bourbon Street in New Orleans with the hood of his sweatshirt up and a large pair of glasses on his face. Although it was a weeknight in April, the Quarter still bustled with activity.
Despite the beautiful night, he fought to control his temper. He walked next to Blue, who wore a fluffy hoodie, knit beanie, and gloves, sipping scalding coffee. “Can you explain to me what on earth you were thinking?” He tried to control the tone of his voice but failed miserably, earning a scathing glare.
“That I had to try.” She rubbed eyes puffy from sleep. Her skin and lips were tinged blue from cold, but not from the jump to bring them here. He found her that way, passed out on Zella’s bed, so still and cold he feared for a heart stopping moment she had died again. So had Ben, so Sam’s reaction wasn’t unreasonable as Blue insisted it was. She tried to heal Zella and over extended her magic after it literally killed her yesterday. And now they were all about to get into an SUV driven by the employee of a man who amounted to a crime boss when she was clearly not one hundred percent. It all fueled his irritation, and her answer made it worse. “You couldn’t wait?”
She stared straight ahead to where Mullet Roane walked in front of them, talking to one of his men on the phone. “No.”
“You were dead.” A memory of her lifeless body flashed through his mind. “Not unconscious. Dead.”
She stopped in the middle of the alley and turned to face him, fed up and showing a rare display of anger. “I am aware. Even if I could forget, nobody will let me. But I’m still me. I didn’t change. Your perceptions did. Deal with them.”
She sounded like she was trying to convince herself. Sam shoved his hand in his pockets and took a moment to shove all of the other problems aside and focus on her. “Something has changed.”
She scoffed and sent him a look that could peel wallpaper. “You think? I get keeping secrets, Sam. But having somebody else in your head is maybe something you should tell your…” She stopped short and jerked her head to the side, nostrils flaring when she caught herself before she said something Roane might overhear. “Whatever I am. Especially since it’s my fault it’s there.”
His head reared back at her words. “Did you just say whatever you are? We both know what you are." Sam took a breath and waited for her to agree. She didn't. She just stared at him, blinking slowly. “And it’s not your fault.” This is exactly why he didn’t tell her. “Who told you?”
Blue tugged on the sleeve of the oversized sweatshirt she wore. “Devon. When she brought me the hoodie.”
His irritation showed because her eyes narrowed, and he anticipated the throat punch. He crossed his arms and tried to squash his temper and his worry. It was more of a struggle than usual, with half of his attention focused on the damned new magic in his head. “Can you work with me? Do you have to take giving it everything you have so literally?”
Face shuttering, she looked through him and her voice went flat. “Amber says the future always finds a way to be what it wants, right?"
His brow furrowed. She was sound asleep when he had that conversation with Amber. At least he thought she was. "You heard that?"
She gave him the smallest of nods, but refused to meet his eyes. Then she kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk with the toe of her shoe. "The dragons fell out of the sky, Sam. I have to do what I can before the future finds a way.”
That had never occurred to him. Her words sent a chill from the top of his head to his toes, and any irritation or anger he harbored fizzled out. Even the strange new magic grew silent. “You always find a way, too. The future doesn’t stand a chance against you.” Blue pushed another pebble around on the sidewalk with her foot. Her free hand pressed into the center of her chest and tapped. When she lifted her head, here eyes were full of fear and desperation. “I’m…” Her words dried up and she grimaced, looking down once again with a sad shake of her head. How had he missed all of this? He saw the funny looks, the emotional distance, the deflection. He saw it. But he wrote it off as adjusting to reintegrating with their old lives and dealing with extreme circumstances. He should have known better. “You think you are on borrowed time?” She turned away to hide her reaction, but not before he read the truth on her face. She was rattled. Scared. And everyone missed it. “Zella’s prophecy came true. You died. It didn’t say you stayed dead.” He stepped forward and reached out, but she took a step back. His hand fell back to his side. He almost told her not to shut him out, but that would only blow up in his face. “Angel?“
Her face pinched in a tight smile, and she huffed out a breath. Squaring her shoulders, she schooled her expression, but she couldn’t hide the hopelessness in her eyes or the tears that threatened to spill over. “Forget I said anything. You can’t afford to worry about me right now. You have enough to deal with.”
“There it is.” They were both keeping secrets, trying to protect the other.
Her eyes darted behind him, and she looked relieved. “I think the Regent needs a word.” Raising her coffee cup in a salute, she walked away.
Sam glanced over his shoulder. Nisha, wearing a hat and glasses to disguise herself, had stopped several feet behind them, far enough away to give the impression of privacy but close enough to provide security. He was still getting used to that dynamic. Blue caught up with Roane starting a conversation like nothing was wrong. The man cast a quick sympathetic look down at her and dropped an arm over her shoulders and squeezed slightly in an almost protective manner as he gestured to a corner a few blocks away. Sam scrubbed a hand down his face and his shoulders slumped. Roane hadn't missed it. But Sam had. He sighed and waited for Nisha to catch up. “You needed something?”
“Nope. I think she just wanted an excuse to escape.” Nisha fell in step beside him and looked around the old city, taking it all in. She had the grace not to say I told you so. She advised him to fill Blue in on the hitchhiker problem. It felt like they were back to square one, only he was on the other side of the freeze out this time and he didn't like it. “What else is she thinking?”
“I don’t think so, Samuel. Not even if I could.” Nisha tapped the spot where her necklace rested under her shirt. She planned to leave it in place until they were in a less populated area. That thing was a godsend, and he needed to thank Greenlee for it personally. He had never seen Nisha so relaxed in a city. Before that necklace, he or Ivan might have had to hold her arm to keep her from face planting on the uneven cobblestone sidewalks. “But I heard some things I can share before we left. Just a heads up. We will stop at some little mom and pop place she knows about to get beignets. And Roane is on the up and up. Or he was when we left.”
“You are both here. Of course we are getting food.” He glanced sideways. “How did you know I was worried about Roane?”
“Your face is talking. I never realized how much it does that.” A large bright red SUV with blacked-out windows rolled up to the curb in front of them. Roane opened the back door and Blue climbed in without hesitation. “Here we go.” Nisha climbed in right behind her.
The vehicle pulled away from the curb the minute all the doors were closed. Blue shifted on the far side of the car, handing Nisha her coffee cup to shrug into a thick sherpa lined coat and crack hot packs to activate them. They must have been waiting in the car for her. Maybe Roane wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
Roane twisted in the seat. “This is Silas.” He gestured to an older man wearing fishing gear and a trucker hat, thick beard covering half of his face. The man reminded Sam of the men in that show about the family that made duck calls for a living.
“Silas, these are my new business associates, Blue, Nisha, and Sam.”
Silas glanced at them briefly in the rearview mirror. “Pleasure to meet you folks. Be there in about twenty minutes. Traffic is light tonight.” As pleasant as Silas seemed, Sam suspected he had at least one gun stashed somewhere.
Roane reached into the floor in front of him and both he and Nisha tensed, but a white bag with grease staining the bottom appeared. Roane handed it back to Nisha. “The scary one told me it was best to keep you fed.”
Sam shook his head and finally relaxed back into the seat. “Suck up.”
“Which scary one?” Nisha took the bag and peered inside. “Oh. Beignets.”
Blue perked up and leaned over to inspect the contents of the bag. “Can I have one?”
Roane laughed. “The one with the purple flames for eyes.”
Fishing a powder covered beignet out of the bag, Nisha handed it over to Blue. “Dr. Chuthulu? He’s not so bad, really.”
Before Roane turned away, he made a face that said he doubted Nisha’s sanity. “If you don’t have a soul, maybe.”
Nisha spoke around a mouth full of food. “So good. I need something to drink.”
Blue handed over her coffee cup. They rode in relaxed silence for a few more minutes until they entered a high end corporate industrial complex. They drove past building after building featuring the same white stucco painted concrete exteriors, loading docks in the back and walls of tinted glass hiding the office spaces up front. Their vehicle eventually stopped in front of a building that looked just like the others, marked only with street numbers above the front door.
A few cars dotted the parking lots of surrounding buildings, but this one was empty. A petite man wearing a sharp business suit emerged from the door and approached them. He opened the rear door and offered his hand to help Blue out of the vehicle. She glanced at it and climbed out, leaving his hand extended and unused. Nisha ignored him as she exited, too. They were both on full alert as he and Roane climbed out of the car. Nisha pulled her necklace over her shirt and swept the area with her eyes. She winced but didn’t appear alarmed. “Four inside. One is Roane’s.” She fell back and walked behind him, and he almost corrected her. “Don’t. We aren’t changing that protocol.” Her words were sharp and to the point referring to his insistence for years that he cover Mitch’s back while Ivan took the lead. Nisha was always at Mitch’s side. He didn't like it. “You made the rule.”
“I’m going to change it.”
“Then I’ll break it.”
Blue tossed an amused look over her shoulder and followed Silas and the short man in the suit inside, holding up her fist in a silent instruction to wait. They did, Roane stopping with them. A moment later, Nisha received Blue's initial report and relayed that the front was clear, and Blue was sweeping the back. They filed into a large, well-appointed lobby with a reception area. A hallway revealed a few offices on one side and a large laboratory or clean room on the other. At the end of the hallway, the window in the door revealed a cavernous warehouse space housing floor-to-ceiling metal racks filled with shrink-wrapped pallets.
The quiet clicking of fingers on a keyboard sounded from one of the open doors to the right. Nisha pointed toward the noise and wandered into the room. Sam stood in the doorway regarding a man weighing at least three hundred and fifty pounds sitting in a small rolling chair. His bald head gleamed in the fluorescent light and reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. His fingers were so large Sam didn’t understand how he only hit one key at a time. Nisha walked his way, leaning over and observing whatever was on the screen.
“This is Mason. He is the one that found the real books. Encrypted, but he is pretty good at what he does. The buyers are using shell companies,” Nisha clapped Mason on the shoulder. “Show him the formulas, Mason.”
Mason glanced over his shoulder as Sam approached and moved his fingers across the keyboard. He was one of those that didn’t use a mouse. A list of formulas with street names and properties flashed on the screen. Something called Emerald Dust caught his eye. Sure enough, it neutralized magic. Many of the formulas were treatments to ailments incurable with modern medicine. Others were far more sinister. Mind control agents, invulnerability, element control. All with short effective periods, but that was all it would take if used correctly. Mason opened a manifest of transactions on the second monitor on the desk. Line after line of bogus product names and purchasing companies filled the screen. They needed to crack that list and figure out what shipped where. “Anything on those companies?”
Mason lifted an eyebrow. “Isn't that why Mister brought you in?”
“Touché, Mason.” A large door closed down the hall, and Sam walked back to the office door. Nisha left Mason to his work and joined him.
Blue approached, green around the gills. She pointed between her head and Nisha’s several times. “That is really handy. Saved me a trip.” She motioned for everyone to follow. “Hope you didn’t have a heavy lunch.”
They trekked through the warehouse to a small breakroom where the tangy smell of blood overwhelmed the underlying aromas of stale coffee and tuna. That must have been why Nisha winced in the parking lot.
Three men sat duct taped to chairs in various stages of looking like someone had run them through a meat grinder. Their faces were pulps, teeth missing, fingers broken, no fingernails to speak of. One was barely breathing. One wore his own vomit, and the other whimpered softly but lifted his head. The entire scene sat atop several tarps spread across the floor.
