Authors: A.J. Aalto
“I don't give a plague rat's turn-and-cough what anyone approves of,
Doctor
Edgar,” I warned him.
“Oh, you mean
that
sarcasm. Yes, I heard it, just now.” A nod. “Vexing.”
I couldn't imagine being stuck in an elevator with this guy, even for just the two-floor trip, so I turned on my heel and went towards the stairs. He matched me stride for stride. “Listen, I'm here for a while, Dr. Buzz, and if all goes well, I'd love for SSA Chapel to keep me on permanently. It would be in the best interest of everyone involved if we work amicably.” He stuck out a bare hand to shake.
He must have known I was a Groper. Everyone knew. Declan was either testing me or, if he was also a Groper, swinging his big balls in my face, showing off how the risk of image influx didn't bother him one bit. Whatever it was, I didn't like it, and I felt my eyes narrow to slits.
“Dude, I'm not here to be your gal pal.” I whipped off a glove and stared back at him, sure my glare wasn't half as piercing as his limeade laser beams. “I'm here to fuck your shit up.”
He didn't look in the least bit intimidated as he shook my hand, once, firmly, not wimpy like he thought I was a girly girl, but also without the strength I suspected he could have used. I blocked a faint whiff of psi as it began to swirl between our palms and thought:
What
are
you, Declan Edgar?
With unexpected speed, he broke contact by drawing the back of my hand to his lips, placing a chivalrous kiss there. If his smile against my knuckles was irritatingly triumphant, his fluttering lashes as he peeked up at me were doubly so. I whisked my hand away from his, shoved my glove back on, raised my chin, let out an angry snort, and turned on my heel to go down the stairs.
The sole of my Keds caught the rubber safety treads the wrong way, refusing to turn and join the rest of my body. Until, that is, the rest of my body went sailing down the stairwell. My shoulder caught a tread, my hips bounced off several others. A brief, screaming flight and what felt like twelve jaw-jarring somersaults later, I jolted to a stop in a crumpled heap.
A startled cry of agony drifted from behind Chapel's closed door.
Heads appeared over the railing as several agents rushed to the top of the stairs to see what had happened. Because the universe hates me, Batten was among them, his dark eyebrows pinched together.
“Stuck the landing!” I called up at him, de-crumpling from my mound of limbs into a spread-eagle while I re-learned how to breathe. To Declan, I said, “This is no biggie. It's how I get my exercise. Be afraid.”
Batten pushed through the gathered crowd and bounded down to join me at the bottom of the stairs. “Gonna live?” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Break anything?”
I groaned, “Better ask Chapel.”
“Release him from this bullshit bond.” Batten clenched his jaw in a ripple of unhappy muscle. “Before you get him killed.”
“I'll figure it out today,” I promised, “assuming I can walk.”
He turned his face up at the crowd that had assembled at the top step. “Anyone here a new hire who might earn brownie points doing a really unpleasant chore?”
Swell; from dick-hardening hottie to unpleasant chore in under five minutes. That was a new record for me. Maybe. I glared at the side of Batten's face. Declan remained alone at the top of the stairs as laughter drifted down from the dissipating crowd. Irish looked concerned, at least, but it was a brief flicker, swept away by what I suspected was the same enviable self-control that Gary Chapel had at his command.
“Guess you win, Doctor Edgar,” Batten told him, jerking a thumb down the hall at the front door. “Escort Baranuik home.”
“She's only human.” Declan's shoulders were loose as he came down the stairs. “I've handled worse.”
Batten barked a doubtful laugh, his only reply. Both men offered me a hand up, which I ignored, hauling myself up on my own; my left ankle felt a little wobbly, but there was no pain, and I didn't hear a scream from Chapel's office when I put my weight on it, so it wasn't broken.
Trembling from the residual adrenalin from the fall, I tried to hide it by making clothing adjustments. “That was fun.”
“Is it the pain that makes it fun?” Batten lowered his voice. “Was this my fault?”
“Sure. I was too distracted to walk, daydreaming about all the sweet things you do for me. Oh, wait.” I gave him my Sarcastic Eye Roll, the Extended Version.
“I meant—”
“I can read a text without keeling over. I can even do it while walking.”
“Can you?” he challenged, watching me hobble.
“Hey, do me a favor: shut the fuck up.”
“And you do me a favor: don't hit Agent Golden again. She's already reported you to me and I don't want to hear it.”
“What the? I didn't
hit
her. For fuck's sake, it was a tap.” I heard it, and it sounded lame even to me. “I won't come anywhere near her, ever. Done.” Then I remembered: “Crap. The Kawasaki.”
Batten's face went through a range of emotions as though he were trying to figure out if I was firing on all cylinders. “Is that why you're wet?”
“The rain,” I said emphatically, “is the
only
reason I'm wet.”
“You drove Harry's motorcycle,” he clarified, “in the worst thunderstorm of the season.” He paused to plant his hands on his hips in exasperation. “Along some of the worst roads in Colorado?”
“They're not that bad.”
I only almost-died twice.
“Got a license?”
“Well, wouldn't I need one?”
Annoyance brewed along his jaw line. “Do you even know how to ride a motorcycle?”
“Could I have driven it if I didn't?” I demanded hotly.
He exhaled hard, as if that could expel his frustration. “I'll bring the bike back to the cabin after I wrap up here.”
I wondered if I was only imagining the hint of carnal promise in his voice; being pissed-off and being aroused should be two entirely separate things if you're sane, but irritation seemed an aphrodisiac for Batten. Or maybe I always imagined carnal promise in Batten's comments. It was bad enough that I was already picturing him astride the powerful motorcycle, taking control of it, riding it hard. I bit my bottom lip hard to keep from saying something stupid and nodded in my most professional way.
He looked me over again and shrugged out of his nylon jacket, tossing its body-warmed weight in the direction of my chest. His irritation made him sloppy, and I had to snatch at it as it flapped aside
“We'll take care of the monsters, Baranuik. You just try to make it through the parking lot without killing yourself. And cover up; the office doesn't need your light show.”
Dr. Edgar was watching the two of us with interest, as though he'd discovered a complicated knot which had to be teased out into orderly filaments for closer examination. Choosing not to touch his staff, I snatched the umbrella from Declan's arm, flushing away the frustrated lust in my veins by focusing on how much Jerkface Batten irritated me. That was easy. The fact that I was thinking in terms like
teased, touching his staff, snatched, flushing
, and
frustrated
told me all I needed to know about how well that bit of self-delusion was working.
I drew in my breath, summoned a scathing retort, and then let it simmer unsaid. Bottling up this sort of bitter tonic was not in my nature; it was bound to come out somewhere else. I hoped my pillow didn't disintegrate under the acidic torrent of foul language later. “Helmet's in my office. Don't crash. Harry would be miffed if your death scratched his bike. He might kill you for taking another of his toys for a joy-ride anyway.”
Oh, jeez, I really need to get my mind out of his gutter. Or his head in mine
.
Fuck
.
Defiantly popping my chin up, I used the umbrella as a crutch and propelled myself out the front doors and past the smirking junior agent at the front desk.
“
Now
you'll remember me, right?” I fired at him over my shoulder.
The junior agent gave me a casual salute, still grinning.
When my new assistant paused by a car in the back lot, swinging his keys on his forefinger, I found a reason to dislike him just a little more. Declan Edgar, that lucky jerk, drove a rented Buick.
C
HAPTER
13
THE TRIP BETWEEN BOULDER
and Ten Springs was mostly trees and jutting red rocks. Since Declan drove like someone's grandmother (not mine, because according to Harry, Grandma Vi had been a leadfoot) I had plenty of time to admire the scenery and inspect his “new to him” wheels. I laid my damp gloves across the dash to dry and curled my bare hands together in my lap, careful not to touch anything.
The Buick may have reminded me of myself, but it smelled like him. There was cologne that I didn't recognize, something heavy on the musk that was altogether wonderful; even though I was still determined to dislike him, I had to admit he smelled pretty good. In my experience, that meant he was single. There was cinnamon chewing gum in the console, the smell of which the sweltering summer heat had spread throughout the car. There was no extraneous travel garbage, but there should have been, I thought. Where were the fast food wrappers, or the extra pair of shoes, or the pens? Where was the old drive-through coffee cup? When I glanced in the back seat, I saw a small hard-sided cooler and a brown leather doctor's bag, which was kind of cool. I needed to know what was in it. There was a shopping bag on the floor behind the driver's seat from a local wilderness outfitter. The box peering out from it proclaimed a pair of size eight hiking boots. Outside, it had finally stopped raining, but the forest still dripped, pressing in against the road. The tree branches encroached closer to the right of way as we passed Ten Springs, until they were avidly reaching for the car with every wet branch, twig and flittering leaf.
“So, was your flight okay?” I asked, trying for some small talk.
He shook his head. “I never fly, Dr. Buzz. I come by sea.” He smiled, privy to a secret. “All the best by sea and sail.”
“You think you're better suited to this job than I am?” I challenged, looking at the side of his face. He was clean-shaven. I could find no pimple or skin tag or hairy mole. He wasn't particularly handsome, but even plain-faced, he was without flaw. Any small blemish, at this point, would have given me a faint hope that he wasn't perfect.
He shrugged. “I'm only here to assist you and write my report.”
I folded my arms and stared across the dash at the GPS. Batten had told him where I lived, and he'd input my home address from memory, without having to double check with me. One problem: my road wasn't on GPS, it was small and insignificant. Declan didn't look worried about it; he seemed confident he'd find it. I didn't like that one bit.
“What exactly makes you better?”
“I never said I was better,” he said.
“You didn't say it, but you think it,” I retorted.
He had the grace not to deny that. “I've had extensive training with Scotland Yard and the OSRA. I've got PhDs in both preternatural biology and paranormal psychology, and a Master's degree in preternatural anthropology, which is where my interest in the Dreppenstedt history comes into play. Besides English, I speak four languages fluently. Throughout the United Kingdom,” he pointed out, “I have no peer.”
I felt my eyebrows touch my hairline. “If you're so special, why come be my assistant? Why not head up a lab yourself, somewhere in the UK where you ‘have no peer’?”
A twitch, just around the corner of his eye. A sensitive subject. He summoned his calm demeanor, and damned if it didn't return at his beck and call. How'd he do that? When I got upset, I wanted to deck people.
“Can I let you in on a little secret, Dr. B?” he said, glancing sidelong.
“As long as you know I can't keep a secret to save my life.”
“We have something in common,” he confided. “I have the irresistible urge to punch everyone I meet, too.”
My lips worked away the reluctant smile that wriggled in them. “You don't show it.”
“I have had the need to master my emotions, and master them I have.”
“Well, aren't you special.”
“Maybe I am. Maybe this special man can help you in your work. Is that so hard to believe? Maybe we can help each other.”
“Doubt it.”
“Try me,” he countered easily.
I thought about my ever-lengthening To Do list. Had I left myself time for something like “hide smug assistant's body”? I decided to change fronts. “What can you tell me about Waterloo teeth?”
“After the battle of Waterloo, tooth hunters would take the teeth of corpses on the battlefield to sell to dentists for use in dentures; the hunters often didn't wait for the injured soldiers to expire, and would pry out the teeth as the men lay dying. Next?”
“Can you turn back time to two minutes ago and
not
tell me about Waterloo teeth?”
“That, I can't do. Next?”
“Can you break a witch-walking spell with a paintball gun?”
His brow creased. “Why wouldn't I break it with ashes of pickled toad livers on heated slate?”
I didn't have an answer for that. I had no idea you could break witch-walking with toad livers. Until last December, when I was the victim of the incredible invisible psycho-geezer, I didn't know witch-walking existed; I still knew bupkis about it, but I wasn't about to broadcast that fact.
Except, judging by the light in his eerie Lime Jell-O eyes, I just had. He was one of those people who missed nothing.
Oh, lucky me.
“Oh yeah? Well, can you roundhouse kick the head off a rapidly-charging Type R zombie?” I quizzed.
“That's a trick question.” He smiled over at me as though he were starting to enjoy himself, then returned his attention to the road as it curved into a mountain pass. “There are no rapidly-charging Type R zombies. Next?”
The lights inside the pass blazed across the darkened hood, lighting his face in flashes. For a moment, my eyes played tricks on me, and his visage seemed to change shape and size, jerking up and down in his seat. The road was smooth, but his face looked as if it were bouncing. I squeezed my eyes shut against the nauseating sight.