Agent down region two se.., p.4
Agent Down: Region Two Series Book Two, page 4
“Not until after New York,” Kimi signed. “I like the first dress best.”
“The second or this one.” Liv added her vote.
I checked over my shoulder with the owner, who took stylishly polished to a new level, and was thus our de-facto expert.
“Any of the three are absolutely appropriate.”
Once she heard I was looking for a meet the boyfriend’s parents look, she had pulled dresses, jackets, and entire outfits for me.
“Okay.” I headed to the dressing room. I’d spent longer exploring the racks of treasures than I’d intended. “Gotta go meet B.”
“Bakery, then Bruce,” Kimi ordered.
“Uh, yeah.” I closed our connection and changed back into jeans.
When I came out, the owner asked, “Have you decided?”
“All three dresses, please. Do you mind wrapping them up while I run down the street?”
She smiled and took the dress I’d changed out of, then pulled the other two winners from the rack of try-ons. “They’ll be ready by the time you have your pastry boxed—I overheard your sister. Try the pain au chocolate. They are divine.”
“So I’ve heard.” I pocketed my phone and wove through the rows of fashion history. I glanced at the street. Then dumped bakeries to the bottom of my priorities.
Many of the shops on this street were older, and had once had living areas overhead. The tiny areas between the buildings were probably meant for stoops. Most were now either gated off as areas for owners and employees to take breaks, or equipped with a bench for the public.
The niche directly across from me only had a pair of ornate trashcans. Between them, in the shadows cast by the building, silver flashed at human head height.
The unearthly molten quicksilver of a vampire’s gaze. Positioned like it meant to catch my attention. Hairs rose along my arms.
I hit the door, the alert chime still tinkling as I stepped from the street into the road. I tried for casual, angling as if I was headed for a gallery to the left. Monitoring the alcove from the corner of my eye.
The silver winked out.
I bolted for the spot, pulling my small back-up Glock from the bellyband holster and keeping the weapon down by my hip. I slowed at the entrance. Took a breath, and back to the wall, eased in. Weapon up, sweeping the narrow alley.
Empty.
The wall at my back was a solid stretch of brick, no doors, no windows. The opposite had a plain metal door, possibly for deliveries. I slid across to it, and tried the crossbar. It rattled, but remained closed, locked from the inside.
Brick scraping my back, I sidled to the end of the alley, and stepped out. A small parking area, holding a couple of cars, greeted me. I dropped into a half-pushup, checking under the cars before approaching into grabbing range in case anything lurked underneath.
All empty.
I stood and checked car windows, gun level. All were as empty as the underneath. Another solid block-long expanse of brick hemmed in the lot, the rear of the shops on the other side of the square.
Hairs on my arms rose. The exact same feeling as at the park, after I ended the vampire in the block building, and glimpsed another flash of the same silver by the exit.
I scanned the roofline of the two buildings in front, then whirled and repeated it on the rear building. Nothing moved. No shadows slanted from the flat roofs to provide a shadowy hiding spot.
Prowling the edges of the lot, I triple checked, then backtracked. I stopped just inside the alley. Exactly where—whatever it was—had stared out at the eclectic shops and relaxed shoppers.
Swapping the gun for my phone, I punched Liv’s number, not waiting for a hello. “Send a drone up now, at my location.”
For? Kimi’s text popped up.
I answered them both. “Anything larger than a firebug or ‘chupe.”
Walking as I gave orders, I watched the light crowd that would swell soon as people arrived for lunch. “Text Bruce and tell him to stay inside the office until either I arrive or he hears from one of us. Non-negotiable.”
I hung up, and quartered the few remaining blocks of the district. Searching for that eerie sensation as much as for a suspicious figure or an unnatural eddy in foot traffic, humans unconsciously avoiding a cryptid. A door ajar that shouldn’t be. A parent glancing around for a kid who wasn’t where they’d been a moment before.
Turning up nothing, I branched out, crossing to the private lots, and finally, the parking garage. Weapon out again, I climbed the levels, circling the top deck, surveying the district spread below me. Life continued on, civilians on street corners, talking and waiting for the light to change, dining at outside tables. Oblivious.
I jogged down, barely slowing as I entered the populated street, dodging around slower groups and into the medical building. Bruce stood as close to the office door as seating allowed, like he could stare a hole through the buildings to where I’d gone.
The hard line of his jaw relaxed when I tilted my head toward the outdoors.
He joined me as I called back. “Anything?”
Liv’s tone was collected and precise, completely in lieutenant mode. “Kimi hasn’t found anything on visuals or infrared from the drones. I’m monitoring LEO scanners and chatter, but nothing there either.”
“Josh?”
“Nothing from our street contacts on his end.”
“Same for foot patrol here.” I still hesitated, giving the street a last look.
From beside me, Bruce demanded, “What the hell was it?”
That was an excellent question.
“Silver?” Josh sprawled at the kitchen table, poking at the remaining lettuce leaf in his bowl. According to him, it was weird, frilly lettuce. He wasn’t wrong.
Kimi leaned over him and nabbed it with her fork.
From her spot at the eat-in bar, Liv watched me circle and gather everyone’s empty bowls, stacking them on my full one.
“Silver. And it wasn’t stationary,” I repeated for the second time, as much to convince myself as my audience.
“It could’ve been some civi’s drone,” Kimi signed. “The cheaper ones aren’t coated and can reflect the sun or other light sources.”
Her theory was plausible. More so than mine. Plausible or not, it felt wrong.
Doing what a good lieutenant did, Liv correctly read my silence as disagreement. Her fingers drummed out a pattern against the antique counter tile. “Things have been wild, wild west around here.”
“Exactly.”
“I meant that we’ve been working more call-outs than we’ve been sleeping. Adding in the random spate of incidents when we were out socially…” She shrugged.
I didn’t miss her emphasis on random.
“We’re all twitchy. It’s normal to be on edge,” she finished.
Kimi tapped the table for our attention. “Seriously. I dreamed we had a call-out last night, and had BDU pants on before I completely woke up.”
“C’mon, Vee. Vampires are the only entities with silver eyes.” Josh jumped firmly on the Vee-is-imagining-it train.
“The alley was in the shade. An old vampire could handle that. Probably.”
“Was there any place it could have come from to access that shade?” Liv asked.
She knew there wasn’t. We’d both poured over building blueprints and underground city water and sanitation schematics. The only option would have been the building with the locked door. That site turned out to be a very active glass-blowing studio.
Vampires weren’t fond of fire, a close cousin to sunlight. The virus created nocturnally adapted predators, period.
I’d still double-checked that their employees were all accounted for, no disappearances, no one calling in sick.
“I’m hitting the gym.” Since running through hand-to-hand moves was my go-to stress buster, the announcement was as good as verbally admitting they were right, and I was wrong.
Our room was empty when I went in to change from street clothes to workout gear. So much for my second favorite stress relief.
After I’d paid for my dresses and thanked the slightly confused shop owner, Bruce had gone straight for the car, cancelling our lunch plan. When I asked about the doctor’s visit, he’d flashed a prescription for cough syrup, and jerked the band-aid from the crook of his arm. He had dropped it in the pretty trash receptacle where I’d imagined a sunbathing vampire standing, and barked about yearly blood work.
He grabbed his sketchpad as soon as we got back, and vanished. Which was his as good as verbal request for a few hours of privacy.
I hoped one of the new dresses I’d bought had both impress-the-parents and get back in your boyfriend’s good graces mojo.
Chapter 6
Vee
I smoothed my skirt—the Pucci dress, which I’d looked up and discovered was collectible. I was about to discover if it had the good mojo or not.
Bruce held open the door of our rental car, and I took his hand, stepping out into the suburban Westchester evening. He let go, but immediately put his hand in the small of my back, keeping us connected. He leaned in enough that his breath tickled my ear, his voice rumbling through me. “You are fucking gorgeous, fucking brilliant, and kill monsters as easily as I attract fans.”
“Do I look nervous enough for a pep talk?”
“Not one damn bit, and that wasn’t a pep talk. It was a statement of fact.”
I smiled, which was probably his intent. The driveway in front of his parent’s house held two cars, and I assumed the garage held more. We got the last few feet of space.
I wasn’t nervous, though. I was excited to finally meet Bruce’s family. To see his room, and hear stories about him.
Kimi, Liv, Josh, and I had binged date movies, analyzing the parts with families. I’d also brushed up on notes from our old classes, especially the semester on passing in civilian social situations.
Bruce mostly swore, and walked out. However, he had been in a good mood all day, restaurant snafu corrected, and the drive here event free. While Bruce did his thing that morning, I’d walked the neighborhoods around the restaurant, and video chatted with the team so that they could experience it with me.
I wished I could include them in this adventure, too. Pausing before climbing the steps to the big powder gray and white home, I admired green grass, and trees wider around than Bruce and I combined. The place was landscaped with bright flowers Kimi would have loved.
The way she’d bring an object into focus, I leaned and took in the house. Imagining Bruce coming into it every day after school or a job or whatever civilian kids really did.
When I finished, Bruce was waiting, more patiently than with most side-trips and delays. “Did you get your fill for now?”
“For now.” He understood me. “I’ve never been in someone’s home before. I mean, as a guest and not an agent on a cryptid crime scene. Or cryptid related, like when I took you home post-anangoa.”
His lips thinned, pressing together. Then he took a deliberate deep breath of the cedar mulch and evergreen scented air, and let whatever had annoyed him go.
He opened the door. The chatter of multiple conversations, and the scent of lemon polish, cooking beef, invited us in.
“Where’s my welcoming party?” He raised his voice over the noise, his specialty.
The light, fast patter of multiple feet on wood sounded, then kids came into view. All three racing down the stairs to our right.
Variations of ‘Uncle Rob’ hit in a squealing cascade.
“Favorite rugrats.” A smile split his face, the kind of pure joy he rarely let people see.
“What did you bring us?” One girl planted herself in front of the other two. Her hair was the same medium brown as Bruce’s, and she had that same try to impress me look he automatically directed at people.
Meaning this ringleader had to be Amanda—Mandy—his sister’s oldest. I’d created a dossier months before, so I would understand what and who, when he talked about the people that mattered to him.
“I brought me. What else could anyone possibly want?”
“Uncle Rob-Rob.” The smallest, Mandy’s little sister, threw herself at him, grabbing his leg like they’d done this before.
Miss Ringleader only rolled those expressive brown eyes. “He doesn’t mean it, Essie. Duh. Gifts are in the car.”
Wow, was she related to Bruce.
“Mandy’s right. If you want whatever is locked in my trunk, you’re going to have to convince me.”
The three girls tackled him, hugs all around.
Happiness came off of Bruce in waves, like heat off a pan. You couldn’t necessarily see it as more than a haze, but you felt the impact.
He disentangled himself. “C’mere.”
They squished in, ready for whatever came next.
“This is Vee. I like her. So be nice.”
Three pairs of eyes drilled into me.
“The girlfriend,” Mandy said. They shared a moment.
Exactly the way Kimi, Liv, and I did.
“Hi.” I ignored the undercurrent of girlfriend. His family had discussed me, no surprise. Which? Kind of nice. Almost like I already belonged.
“Why is your name a letter?” Essie, the smallest asked. She was the only one in a dress, and the kind of cute that probably let her get away with lots. Like Josh had.
“Lucky.” The older girl, the quietest, who had to be Shoshonna, finally spoke. Her hair was the same deep walnut as the polished floors, one side of her curls clipped back, the way Kimi sometimes did. “You don’t have to spell your name out for everyone all the time.”
“It’s not her name—it’s a nickname. Like Rob-Rob isn’t Uncle Bruce’s name.” Mandy re-took her spot as leader.
“True. My name is Victoria.” I spoke to Shoshonna. “My sister always has to spell her name for people. She usually goes with Kimi instead of Kimora, because she gets annoyed, too.”
Shoshonna’s eyes widened. “Whoa. Cool.”
“If they’re your sisters, why do you all have different last names?” Mandy asked, not giving up her spotlight to anyone else. And obviously having listened to the adults talk, at least once.
She was a mini-Bruce.
“Jesus H Christ,” he muttered.
I didn’t see the problem. She was curious, and he’d told me to never apologize for wanting to learn. He never apologized.
“We just do—it’s what we were born with. My brother and his twin have their own last name, too.”
“Robert.”
The girls and I looked up. We were now in the middle of a double crescent, kids in the closest arc, adults ringing them.
“Marissa.” Bruce answered in the same kinda exasperated tone she’d used. “Vee, my sister.”
She didn’t really resemble Bruce, from her sleek, dark hair to her hazel eyes. Until you got to her expression.
Bruce nodded to the man beside her, the one with the kind of lines that meant he laughed a lot. “My long suffering brother in law, Isaiah. The tall one beside him is my brother Kenneth, and his even longer suffering wife Hannah.”
She was the only one to give me a real smile, her hair a longer version of Shoshanna’s curls.
I retuned her smile, as Bruce motioned to the last two adults on the end. “My mom, Donna, and dad, Levi.” He narrowed his eyes at the distinguished-looking pair, the way he did when warning Josh about contraband sports drinks, and warning me and my sisters not to buy him gifts. We always ignored him.
So did his family.
His sister and brother crowded closer to me. His parents converged on Bruce.
I assumed parents had seniority over siblings when it came to catching up, and turned to my welcome committee with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you and put faces to Bruce’s stories. He talks about you guys all the time.”
His brother and sister shared a look, and his sister grimaced. “I can only imagine. I’m surprised you agreed to visit our den of domestic responsibility.”
Since I wasn’t sure what that meant, I went with one of the fail-safes Kimi and I had put together in case our social training proved inadequate for extended civilian social interactions.
Rule One—people always enjoyed talking about themselves.
“Bruce was excited about your partnership. Weren’t you one of the youngest lawyers in your firm to make partner?” I asked his brother. “Congratulations.”
“Actually, yes I was.” He blinked at me. “Thank you.”
“He also mentioned you were chairwoman for the charity drive this year. Please don’t let me forget—I have a check from my group for you, but I think I left my purse in the car,” I said to his sister. I wasn’t accustomed to carrying one, and kept misplacing or forgetting it. I should have bought the cute round one when I bought the dresses. It was more toy than bag and I might’ve kept up with it.
“My charity? The Maimon Home?”
“Yes.”
“You aren’t Jewish. Are you?”
“No, but, B—sorry, Bruce—told me about it and how it helps kids.” The idea of children orphaned, sometimes siblings separated, and all alone…That was the worst fate imaginable, and the whole team had offered to contribute when Bruce had explained.
Shrewdness very like her brother’s peered out from Marissa’s eyes. “Do you support children’s aid groups due to your background?”
“Stop grilling people.” Bruce turned to our group with a frown. “You’ve picked up Mom and Kenny’s interrogation habit and you aren’t a lawyer.”
“Anyone who knows this family expects a mild grilling,” Bruce’s father said. “They also expect excellent hor d’oeuvres and wine.”
When he turned down the hall, the rest of the group followed.
Bruce’s mom hung back with us. She eyed Bruce critically, another mannerism Bruce had inherited. “You’ve lost weight. I don’t think I like it.”
“Mom, don’t feed the Jewish mother stereotype.” Bruce reclaimed my hand.
“How am I a stereotype when I’m making a factual observation? You’ve lost weight since I saw you last, although it’s been so long I’m surprised I remembered what you look like.”
