“Don’t fucking apologize. If you were part of this team, you wouldn’t leave…wouldn’t leave us.”
“I’m an officer of the US Ar—”
“I know what you are.” Then softer, little more than a whisper. “Just go. Please.”
Silence…and then the sound of his footsteps, retreating. A door opened and closed. I was alone.
Again.
He was gone by that afternoon. For a moment I’d stood at a hall window, watching him at the end of the driveway, beyond the gate. He’d been waiting for the car Harker promised to send, all his gear in a duffel bag next to him. But I hadn’t watched for long.
I endured a parade of comrades all afternoon. Tiffany came in sobbing about it, which both amused and annoyed me. She wanted to take me out drinking, despite what had happened the last time we’d entered a dance club. Rafe gave me a sandwich—steroid and hormone free turkey breast, organic lettuce and alfalfa sprouts. Mai brought me a cup of green tea and asked if I wanted to borrow a kitten or a ferret. I didn’t. Hanzo loaned me his entire collection of Bruce Lee and Akira Kurosawa films. Vampire Stefan still slept, so he didn’t count. Even Gavin, using his incredible empathy powers, told me if I ever needed a shoulder to cry on, he was there for me, just not between seven and nine p.m. because his online MMORPG guild had a raid scheduled and he couldn’t miss it. By then I was ready to start making plans to escape to Lithuania for some alone time.
Another knock rattled the door.
“Go away!” I yelled. “I’m otherwise occupied!”
“It’s Sarge.” His deep bass rumble also rattled the door.
Oh, for God’s sake. I walked over and let him in. He had to turn slightly to fit his massive shoulders through the doorway. He wore black fatigues and an extra-large urban-camo ball cap pulled low over his forehead. I led him into the living room and offered him a seat, but he shook his head and remained standing. “Captain Sanders asked me to hold off destroying the zombie head.”
“Why?” The word came out sharper than I intended.
“He still thinks it’s the key to finding the necromancer.” A pause. “And he’s right.”
“Then why didn’t he take it with him when he shoved off outta here?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at the wall. “You have an idea though. I can hear it in your voice.”
“I think he wants to come back for it at the right time. Give us the glory.”
“Then why the fuck didn’t he tell Harker that?”
“Captain Sanders is a soldier. Harker’s a bureaucrat.”
“So what? I eat bureaucrats for lunch and shit out paperwork. Surely our resident
quiet professional
could’ve found the balls to demand more time.”
“There was more to it than that.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you know? Something I don’t?”
“Things aren’t clear cut. I talked to him before he left. This is political.”
“What? Now the dirty mercenaries are a political hot potato? They want Delta Force commandoes to grab the glory? Bullshit.”
“I can only tell you what he believed.”
“Why didn’t he just say that to me?”
“I got the impression you didn’t give him a chance.”
I didn’t answer. What could I say to that? It might even have been true.
“What do you want to do?” he asked. “He wanted to wait on using the zombie head, but I’ll have the final preparations for the spell completed tonight.”
“We aren’t getting paid. Why the hell should we do it?”
He kept silent, merely standing like a purple-mountain majesty of muscle and staring at me. Absolutely fan-fucking-tastic how a
demon
could make me feel guilty without a word, as if I shirked my duty to humanity.
“We don’t owe anybody anything,” I said. “We don’t get paid for charity work. We got overhead. Tons of it. We shank this necromancer guy and Homeland Security will bury it. I bet they won’t even bother to pay us the rest of the fee.”
Sarge didn’t answer.
“Shit, you’re worse than my mother, you know that, Sergeant? I fucking swear to Zeus’s electric prick.”
His lips quirked into a thin smile. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“I kiss lots of things with this mouth,” I said. “But I don’t kiss asses. You know, it’s a sad day indeed when demons have better ethics than the government.” I glared at him. “We’ll finish the damn job.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, great. I thought you said you needed both me and Jake to fuel your spell?”
“I think I can use Stefan instead. It’ll be tricky. His powers are drawn from the currents of darkness, same as mine. You’ll represent the nuclear fusion of the sun. The spell balance will be off a fraction with no Earth grounding. It may fail.”
“What are the consequences of failure? We open a rift to another dimension? We create a black hole that sucks in the solar system?”
He paused and considered. “We’ll fry the zombie head to the point of uselessness.”
“I expected something more dramatic, like inter-dimensional mayhem and Biblical apocalypse. At least a power outage.”
“Sometimes life is banal.”
“All right then. We’ll see what we get. But if this necromancer is a hardened target now, we’ll feed the info to Captain Sanders and let him and his GI Joes handle it. I almost lost Rafe last time out. I’m not risking more of my people for nothing.” I hesitated and cleared my throat. “Unless it’s accelerating the end of the world or something. Then I guess we’d have to do something.”
“Zombie apocalypse qualifies.”
“Fine.” I waved a hand. “Make it happen, Number Two.”
“Be at my room at nineteen-hundred hours tonight. We’ll get this done.” He turned to go, moving with a curious delicacy around my furniture for a creature his size.
“Hey, Sarge,” I called, and he glanced back. “Why the hell aren’t you a fearless leader somewhere? Why’d you join a bunch of misfits like us? I always wanted to ask you that.”
“I’m comfortable where I am.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“Trust me. You don’t want a demon running the show.” His lips split in a slow smile. “And I think you sell yourself a little short.” He paused. “Though you made the wrong choice on Sanders.”
I couldn’t help but bristle. “Did I?”
“You did.”
“He left me.”
“Not by choice. You might want to remember that when he comes back.”
My heart beat faster. “He’s coming back?”
Sarge turned and walked to the door. I stood but didn’t follow. My thoughts and emotions spun and churned inside me, so confused I didn’t know what to feel. He opened the door and faced me. “A man in love always comes back.”
He shut the door with a gentle click.
Chapter Twenty-One: Reddest Badge of Courage
Mercenary Wing Rv6-4 “Zero Dogs”
The Zero Dog Compound
NW Hilltop Drive
, Portland, Oregon
1813 Hours PST April 19th
Nothing to do but wait. I stayed in my room and didn’t even go out to supervise the second wave of Merry Maids on their extended campaign through the house waging war on our mess. I’d almost choked on a lung when I’d seen the invoice, but I sure as red hell wasn’t going to clean the place myself, so it’d been time to suck it up, grin and bear it.
I spent the rest of the time ghosting through my rooms in my bare feet, making no sound. Music drifted from the speakers. Vivaldi’s “Summer”. I couldn’t get drunk because I’d need reflexes and concentration later. Losing the job had cut the heart out of me. Hell, Jake leaving us, leaving me, had not only cut the heart out of me, it had spiked it on the sidewalk and then punted it over a rusty fence. Worse, I’d managed to convince myself Sarge was wrong about Jake. He’d only said what he had to make me feel better. I knew Jake better than he did, and Jake wouldn’t turn away from a mission—not if any hope remained of seeing it through.
Finally, the late-evening sun splashed red on the walls. I sat on the edge of my bed, drinking seltzer from a glass and wishing it were something strong, listening to haunting music and staring at absolutely nothing. Darkness would soon arrive, and then I’d be elbow deep in demon magic, in a room with a still-animated zombie head, trying to use it as a location beacon to track the necromancer. I cared. I really did. It’s just that I couldn’t seem to work up any excitement. It all seemed unimportant, even more so now, when we wouldn’t be paid for our work.
I threw back the rest of the lime seltzer. Gently, I turned the glass in my hands, admiring how the red-orange glow of sunlight frosted its rim like coals frozen in a photograph.
Maybe I’d been thinking about this in the wrong way. Wouldn’t it be something to find the necromancer on our own, with no help from anyone? To call up Jake—no, this had to be done in person. To
walk
up to Jake and tell him the Zero Dogs had located Public Enemy Number One and revel as jealousy flared in his eyes.
I hunched forward, forearms on my knees, still turning the glass. A stupid daydream, nothing more, and completely disconnected from reality. I already knew Jake wasn’t the jealous type. He’d probably smile and nod in approval, like we were hard chargers and we’d done exactly what he expected.
I missed him.
And missing him annoyed me, big time. He didn’t deserve my attention, dammit. Sure, he’d told Harker my team wouldn’t follow him, and he’d
seemed
surprised when Harker sprang the command change on us, but all the same, he hadn’t fought to stay with us and hadn’t fought to keep us on the job, choosing to run off to play with Delta Force boys instead.
My hand clamped around my empty glass, squeezing harder. What the hell was I doing thinking this shit? Being stupid and paranoid, that’s all. Jake hadn’t tried to usurp my command. From the beginning he’d been all about doing things as a team. He’d been trained that way and trained others that way. I couldn’t lay the blame for this at his feet. He’d proven himself when he’d turned down a chance at running the show. Irrational of me to blame him for Harker’s actions. Easy. Tempting. But completely unfair.
But it didn’t
matter
anymore. Even if I changed, even if I wanted to become more of a team player with him, he was gone and the job had left with him. I eased up my grip before I shattered the empty glass and set it on the comforter beside me. I sighed and leaned back on my hands and stared out the window.
Dammit. Had I been the one to blow this? Been so damn paranoid about somebody infringing on my command I’d failed to take advantage of something…something great and exciting the universe had dropped right into my lap? I stood up and paced. Jake had been right. A very real, very intense heat burned between us. Our rocky start aside, the man had adapted, even admitted when he’d been wrong. In the end, he’d seen me and my people as equals.
Which was a hell of a lot more than I’d ever done for him.
I stopped cold. My hands shook. I crossed my arms and shoved my hands under my armpits so I wouldn’t have to see them tremble.
I wouldn’t give up on my chance with Jake. No. He’d proven himself to me, and now I’d finish proving myself to him. I’d take the Zero Dogs and find that necromancer. We’d stop him, complete the mission, and after that there’d be no more of this command tension between us. My fears would go away. We’d be free to do whatever we wanted.
Somebody knocked at my apartment door. I sat up and glanced at my watch. The sun had dropped below the mountains, and the shadows had grown long and pregnant with darkness. I’d lost track of time.
That was Jake knocking at my door.
Part of me felt certain of it. It was hard not to run, hell,
sprint
out of my room, leap the couch and wrench open the door. Then I’d either play aloof and hard to get, or I’d throw myself into his arms and cover him with kisses, depending on what seemed right at the time. Probably option two. No,
definitely
option two.
No running after all because my legs wobbled, and I felt none too steady on my feet. The pound of my heart reverberated from my chest all the way down to the tips of my fingers. Finally, I reached the door and opened it.
Sarge stared back at me. He must have seen something on my face, because he got this mild, sympathetic look in his eyes—as if he knew I’d wanted him to be Jake and felt sorry I’d been let down, which must’ve violated hundreds of demon codes of conduct.
Still, I recovered well. “Oh. Hiya, Sarge. Thought you were Mai.” I glanced at my watch again. Oh shit, time for Sarge’s ritual. I’d been so busy brooding over Jake I’d almost forgotten. “I can’t believe how late it is. Time flies when you’re having fun…” I waved a hand at my empty glass, “…drinking and so forth…”
Sarge hesitated. “You okay?”
“I’m a fucking Georgia Peach.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“All right, fine,” I said. “I miss him a little. The bastard.”
“Do you want to go through with this?”
“Of course. I want to show those motarded Delta Force bastards how shit gets done Zero Dog style.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” He favored me with a slow smile. “Let’s get this over with and go kill some zombies for free.”
Kill zombies for free.
A while back I’d said the Zero Dog motto was
The First Bullet is Always Free
. Unfortunately, this would likely take a whole lot of free bullets.
So, despite my burst of enthusiasm, despite my desire to see the end of this mission, and despite my altruistic urge to save humanity from the hungry undead, the cold-eyed accountant chained to a calculator deep inside my brain was already tapping away at her ten-key pad, desperate to come up with a way I could write it all off on our taxes as a business expense. Charity was one thing, but even charitable contributions were tax deductible. It made me feel slightly skeezy, like a car salesman playing games with interest rates to fleece a customer, but I had a roof to keep over our heads and mouths to feed. Most of them weren’t even human mouths with human appetites. If that made me a mercenary bitch…well, that was because I
was
a mercenary bitch. I grinned, feeling better than I had in a while.
Sarge and I arrived at his room. He put his face against an iris scanner and the door clicked. He pushed it open, and I followed him inside. Sarge’s rooms were austere in the extreme. Chrome furniture. Glass tables. Antiseptic modern décor in white and steel, black and chrome. Yet colorful signs of life burst here and there, color touches I knew Shawn had added over the years from his good-natured bitching about how Sarge preferred to live in an ultra-modern glass display case. A Rococo painting hung on the opposite wall—somebody dying while other people, including a cherub, stood around holding halberds—a style far too ornate for my taste. My favorite
objet d’art
had always been the quirky mobile dangling in one corner made out of bright brass shell casings, seashells painted yellow and blue and red, and oddly shaped mirror shards.
With the blinds shut, gloom and shadow filled the apartment. He’d moved the coffee table and couch out of the living room, leaving a wide-open space of wood floor. Lines of glittering dust angled out in what seemed random directions. Sarge had drawn a triangle with perfectly symmetrical angles, sketched with a black substance like charcoal. Within the triangle he’d painted a perfect circle with a red liquid long since dried. Not blood, something else I couldn’t identify.
“What’s all that crap on the floor?” I asked.
“A mixture to open the connection. Fairy snot. Heinz 57 sauce. Mildew scraped from the shower grout of a fashion model living in Norway. Matsutake mushroom paste. Semen from an incubus—”
“Forget I even asked.” I felt an almost overpowering urge to go wash my hands and soak them in bleach.
Sarge walked to the edge of the outer triangle and stood staring down at it. A red craftsman toolbox sat against the wall, and a trio of glass beakers sat on top of it, with multi-hued liquids arranged in a row. He moved to the toolbox and bent down, blocking it and half the wall from my view. I heard glassware and metal clinking around as he opened the drawers.
“How’s this going to work?” Now that the time was at hand, I found myself a little nervous. Demon magic didn’t have anything close to a spotless reputation. Even allowing for all the negative propaganda, it still gave me pause. And incubus semen had me thinking twice already.
He reached into his shirt, pulled out a gold pocket watch on a chain and thumbed open the top with a retractable claw. “Stefan should be here any minute, now that the sun’s down. When he gets here I’ll arrange everything.”
“Beautiful. Demon magic, vampire magic, pyro magic all thrown together. You realize this could be the end of the world.”
“Don’t be dramatic. Something goes wrong, we’d just blow up the house.”
“How perfectly un-reassuring,” I said. “Wait a minute. Didn’t you say earlier we’d only melt the zombie head? No big deal, you said. Sometimes life’s banal, you said. I really think I remember that.”
“After I set down the spell grid, I realized I’d underestimated.”
A knock sounded at the door before I could express what I thought about
underestimating
. I headed over to answer it. “Must be our lazy vampire dragging himself out of his coffin at last.”
Sarge only leaned down and drew glowing runes along the outside edge of the triangle with his finger.
I frowned at him, then pulled open the door and found myself face-to-face with Jake Sanders.
My heart gave a crazy dismayed lurch. I think I tried to say something, but no sound escaped my lips. My hand floated toward him of its own accord, as if to touch his face, to make sure he was real. I stopped it and let it drop back to my side and only stared at him.
Dark stubble shadowed his cheeks, strange since I’d never seen him anything but clean-shaven. His army green T-shirt had wrinkles striping the front, and dust layered his combat boots. He looked like he’d just run the Baja 1000 on foot.
I swallowed and sucked in a breath. A smile started to curve its way up the corners of Jake’s lips. His gaze had locked on me as if I were some prize in a grand quest: Excalibur, the Golden Fleece or the Holy Grail. The moment drew out and became almost painful in its silent intensity.
“You forget your socks or something?” I finally managed, but my voice sounded choked even to my own ears.
His smile widened. “Hello, Andrea. Sounds like you missed me.”
“I missed you like I miss my pet rat and the bubonic plague.”
“At least we have historical precedence. I’ll take that.”
Easier to keep up the banter than to deal with my riptide of emotions. “Now that I think about it, I missed you like I miss reading Gavin’s fiction. Which is somewhere between having my skin flayed off with a potato peeler and buying a used car.”
“Thought I told you, keep it up and my ego might suffer.”
Damn I’d missed him. “How much longer will that take? Even the Titanic sank when it hit an iceberg.”
Sarge’s voice rumbled out from behind me. “Would you two mind getting over here? You can wallow in sexual tension later.”
I turned and glared at him, feeling heat creep up my cheeks.
Sarge glanced up from drawing the glowing spell lines on the floor and arched an eyebrow at me. “Tell you what. After we finish here you guys can head up to your room and do the dirty deed until you go blind. Until then, I need you both if we’re going to make this work.”
My mouth dropped open and I started working on my reply—one that would detonate like a fuel-air explosive. Jake set a hand on my shoulder and I almost leapt out of my skin.
“Come on, soldier,” he whispered. His breath on my neck sent a shiver through me. “Let’s get this done.”
For a moment—a very brief moment—I considered grabbing the hand on my shoulder and trying to flip him. Old reflexes die hard. But in the end I let him touch me. Because I liked it, and I wasn’t afraid to admit it anymore. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere? With Delta Force guys or something?”