Darkening Dawn (The Lockman Chronicles Book 5) Page 8

Jessie puffed out her cheeks and let out a long breath that riffled her bangs.

  Silence stuffed the room, as loud as if the TV were cranked to the highest decibel. Silence drove Jessie into fits, would make her chew off the black polish from her nails, send her pacing the room, make her squirm if she tried to sit still.

  Except for tonight.

  Tonight she couldn’t so much as stomach a Nine Inch Nails song or a cheesy ’80s comedy. No amount of Anthony Michael Hall, Corey Haim, or Molly Ringwald could shove out the malaise that had taken out a thirty-year mortgage, moved in, and furnished her mood.

  Things couldn’t get much worse in her life.

  Of course, the second she thought this, someone knocked on her door.

  Jessie tensed all over. As if she still had a hint of her old powers, she sensed whoever stood on the other side of her door was about to make things worse.

  She hauled herself off the couch with a groan, like an old lady on the verge of needing to check into a home because getting off the couch on her own wasn’t in her future for much longer. At the rate things were going, Jessie wouldn’t have to worry about getting put in a home. She doubted she’d live long enough to grow old and infirm.

  Jessie had forgotten, in this place she didn’t have to bother answering her door. Most everyone went ahead and let themselves in.

  When the door swung open and Ree stepped inside, Jessie felt a scowl pinch her face. She wasn’t in the mood for any more pep talks.

  But there was something different in the way he held himself, all stiff and formal, chin up and eyes forward. Then there was the way he was dressed. A freaking military uniform. Jessie didn’t know enough to recognize which branch. Blue jacket and pants, a mosaic of buttons and medals pinned to the jacket’s breast. Crisp white shirt with a tie underneath it all. Everything looking starched three times over.

  It made sense that the Agency—even though it wasn’t supposed to exist—would recruit some of its Agents from the military. But none of them ever showed any outward association with a particular branch, as if they had forsaken that past like a Shaolin monk severs his old life to become a Kung Fu warrior.

  (Yeah, too much TV and movies knocking around in her head.)

  So what was up with the uniform? To Jessie it felt like Ree was breaking an Agency code.

  It shouldn’t have surprised her then to see the dude who strode in past Ree as if Ree was nothing more than a doorman at a fancy hotel, invisible to the upper class. Without barely a glance at the man, Jessie already didn’t like him.

  He stood almost seven feet tall. Jessie didn’t really have a knack for judging actual height measurements, but Dad had been over six, and this guy had at least a half foot on him. Despite his height, he didn’t give up anything in bulk. He filled out his dark blue uniform so that the seams in the shoulders of his jacket looked ready to rip. Medals filled out both sides of his wide chest, the display so tight it might have been bulletproof. His salt and pepper unibrow made Jessie think of Burt from Sesame Street, although instead of a cone-shaped head, this guy’s looked like an upside down triangle, eyes wide apart, chin pointed and jutting.

  All in all, he looked like a grumpy old man, frowny-faced and primed to shout for Jessie to get off his lawn.

  Trailing behind Grumpy Gramps, a petite woman, also wearing a blue uniform except with a knee-length skirt and hose so thick they might have been as bulletproof as Grumpy’s medal armor plating.

  I’m so damn puny.

  The woman’s hair was cropped an inch away from a crew cut and thick with gel, which made it hard to tell if she had blonde or brown hair. If she’d had longer legs, she probably could have snagged a spot on America’s Top Model. She had a soft-featured face that reminded Jessie of Grace Kelley. If Jessie weren’t straight, she just might have drooled.

  The thin frown on her face kind of ruined her look, though.

  Even Ree frowned slightly.

  Was that a requirement for military personal? Part of the uniform?

  Grumpy Gramps walked right up to Jessie and took a wide stance with his hands clasped behind his back.

  Little Grace followed formation, striking an identical pose to one side and two steps back from Gramps.

  Ree closed the door and stayed there. Again, like a doorman.

  Jessie was a little annoyed with Ree, but he didn’t deserve third-class treatment.

  Grumpy’s chest expanded with a breath as if he was setting up for a long lecture. He had that I’m going to drone on now about stuff you don’t care about look Jessie remembered from school. Mr. Eggan, her seventh-grade Health Studies teacher, got that look right before he went on a diatribe about unprotected sex and STDs.

  Not interested in lectures, Jessie spoke out before he had his chance to start bleating.

  “Let me guess,” she said, “you’re here to send me to Gitmo until I shape up and become a good soldier?”

  Grumpy’s big breath stuck in his throat. His face scrunched up as if he’d tasted something sour, the unibrow settling down above his eyes like a hairy awning.

  Nice. Jessie had managed to render some military big shot speechless. She smiled, and only felt a tiny bit bad about it.

  Little Grace didn’t get flabbergasted so easily, though. Her lip curled, totally turning the pretty princess into an ugly ogre. “You’d do well to have more respect for your superiors.”

  Jessie snorted. “Last time I checked, the Agency didn’t report to the military.”

  “Then you best check again, because things have changed.”

  Grumpy raised a hand to call off his attacked dog.

  She obeyed like a good bitch.

  “Ms. Lockman,” Grumpy said with a deep, craggy voice that sounded more like a kindly grand pappy than a grumpy grandfather. “I understand your reticence.”

  Don’t let your guard down because of a pleasant voice. This whole presentation stinks like shit in an overflowing outhouse.

  “Due to recent events,” Grand pappy continued, “the Agency has undergone some organizational shifts.”

  “Recent events? You mean like yesterday? That’s pretty damn recent for a whole agency like this one to undergo organizational shifts.”

  “Again, I understand this will take some getting used to—”

  “What exactly am I getting used to?”

  He took another one of those damn lecture breaths, his medals pushing out on his chest.

  This time, Jessie let him go ahead, gut tensed for the verbal punch she expected coming.

  But he sighed out the breath and turned to his lackey. “You want to fill her in?”

  Forcing his underling to deliver the bad news. Not that she felt sorry for the little wench. But looking past them at Ree standing at attention by the door did stoke her sympathy. She hated seeing him like that. He was a fucking warrior. He’d faced things these two douches had probably never seen in their lives.

  The woman stepped forward, yet still kept herself ever so slightly to Grand pappy’s aft, as if he had an invisible force field cutting the room right behind him.

  “Introductions should come first, I should think.” The woman gave Jessie a pointed look. “I can only imagine the pet names Ms. Lockman has already assigned us.”

  A cold shiver ran from neck to tailbone along Jessie’s spine. Was this woman magically sensitive? She hadn’t made any cuts to herself that Jessie could see. But the woman’s hands were still clasped behind her back, so who knew?

  “My name is Kinga Kowalski,” she said with a half smile, knowing she’d taken Jessie off guard.

  Jessie wouldn’t let her stay smug for long.

  “Kinga Kowalski? Really? Sounds like a comic book name. Maybe something out of Archie.”

  The smile slipped as quickly as it had come. Kinga narrowed her eyes, color rising in her cheeks. “Making fun of my name. That’s original.”

  Grand pappy cleared his throat. “Ladies, let’s stay on point here. We have a lot of ground to cover before our ne
xt op.”

  Jessie didn’t need introductions. She knew where this was going, and it made her queasy.

  “I am General Borscht’s Executive Assistant.”

  “You mean secretary?”

  Ree’s soft groan traveled from his post at the door. He gave Jessie a pleading look.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not for her quip, but for Ree having to endure this farce, stuck in the background. Kinga didn’t need to know that, though. “Go ahead.”

  Kinga inclined her head, somehow making such a slight move look pompous.

  Jessie jammed her hands in her pockets and clenched them into fists.

  “This,” Kinga said while gesturing to General Grand Pappy, “is obviously General Borscht. As part of the Agency restructuring, he will now assume the position of CO.”

  Seeing the announcement coming didn’t make it any easier for Jessie to swallow. Barely twenty-four hours had passed since Wertz died, and already they had brought in an outsider to replace him. She didn’t care if Borscht was a general or the crowned emperor of the universe, he couldn’t fill Wertz’s shoes. He wouldn’t even stand up to Kress’s qualifications. She didn’t need to see a resume. An outsider was an outsider.

  She could only imagine what Dad would have said had he been there to hear this bullshit.

  “I know this is sudden,” the general said. “But I assure you, Kinga and I have been fully briefed. We’re confident we can make this transition smoothly.”

  Jessie drifted away back toward the couch. She must have stopped breathing for a bit, because dizziness made her unsteady on her feet. She concentrated on getting oxygen back into her system while she leaned her hip against the couch.

  “You’ve been briefed?”

  She meant it as a rhetorical question.

  Borscht decided to answer it anyway. “There was obviously a lot to take in, but I was not completely ignorant of the sorts of things this Agency contends with.”

  “Ever been possessed by an evil spirit and then turned into a vampire who had to feed on her own father to keep from losing your soul?”

  Borscht cleared his throat, as much of an answer as he could muster.

  Never fear, though. Kinga could do the talking for him.

  “We’re familiar with your history. While we don’t have firsthand experience with the supernatural, we are prepared—”

  “No,” Jessie said and turned to face them. “No one is prepared for this shit. I’m the so-called Chosen One, yet everyday I’m not prepared for what might come next. This outfit has existed in some form or another for over a century. They still don’t know it all. What the hell makes you think you do?”

  “No one claimed we knew it all.”

  The more this woman spoke, the uglier she looked to Jessie. Kinga’s chances at a top spot on the runway had bottomed out less than a minute after she opened her mouth.

  “You don’t know any of it. You’ve been briefed? Really? Who for fuck’s sake thought of putting the Marines in charge of the most special of special ops groups in the world?”

  Kinga arched one of her neatly plucked eyebrows. “The president personally chose General Borscht for this assignment. And, as an aside, we’re army, not marines.”

  “All the same to me. You—”

  “Jessie.”

  Ree. The doorman speaketh.

  They all turned to him.

  Kinga’s expression in response to Ree’s interjection made her look like Mother Superior with square ruler in hand, ready to crack some knuckles.

  Borscht, on the other hand, raised his unibrow, appearing open to Ree’s input. “Captain Ree, have you any thoughts on how we can bridge this unfortunate gap between us here?” He glanced at Jessie. “Something that may convince Ms. Lockman of our good intentions?”

  Jessie raised her own eyebrows, neither uni- nor plucked. Yeah, Ree, got anything? Like something that may convince these two they’re in way over their heads.

  Ree nodded. He looked Jessie in the eyes. She could see his discomfort, knew he had to feel the same way she did.

  Until he opened his mouth, that is.

  “General Borscht has a storied career. He has overseen dozens of covert operations. He’s helped put down a number of terror cells across the world. He’s stopped some bad stuff from happening on American soil without anyone ever knowing or thanking him for it. This nation is a safer place because of the general.”

  Jessie was still stuck on “storied career.” That didn’t sound like Ree at all. Of course, what did she really know about him? She hadn’t known he was a captain in the army. A minor detail, maybe, but it got her thinking about how little she knew about any of the agents she worked with. Ree had initiated more contact with her than any other agent. The rest of them treated her fine, but always seemed standoffish. Certainly no interest in getting to know her.

  Face it, girl. To them you’re just another piece of equipment, a weapon, or a convenient means of transportation for the stranded supernaturals. Whatever they need at the moment.

  “Do you understand, Jess?”

  It was too weird talking to Ree across the room. If his boss wouldn’t let him come over to join the conversation, she would go to him. She slipped right between the general and his lackey like they had walked past Ree when they came into her suite. She stepped up to Ree. She had to tilt her head back to keep eye contact so close to him.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t understand. You know as well as I do that chasing bearded nut jobs out of their caves is nothing like what we do.”

  Ree pressed his lips together, turning the skin around his mouth from its normal caramel color to more of a latte.

  Jessie realized she’d put him on the spot. He couldn’t say what he really thought in front of the general. But she needed an ally here. She had no one else left to back her up. If she felt like a mere tool now, she would only feel less human if the military took over.

  “You have the wrong idea,” Ree said. “This isn’t a hostile takeover. We’re lucky to have the general.”

  It actually sounded like he meant it.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely,” he said with a straight face.

  Jesus Christ. He did mean it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE TEAM OF SIX MEN sat around the old poker table in the kitchen. The felt on the table looked more mint green than the dark grass color it should have been. And to Earl it looked like it had more worn-out spots, more tears in the fabric exposing the wooden surface underneath, than it had just yesterday.

  Roddy sat directly across from Earl. He was staring at Earl as if Earl had told him he’d met God. Well, in a way Earl supposed he had.

  Roddy said, “What did he look like?”

  “I already told you it don’t matter. Was just a reflection of my own making.”

  “I don’t care.” Roddy was the rookie in the crew. He was one year away from buying his own beer, but he had a baby face any momma would love her boy to have. Right now he practically bounced in his seat. The folding chair under his ass creaked with all his fidgeting. “Tell me anyway.”

  Earl sighed. He understood the boy’s enthusiasm. Just sometimes he didn’t know where to focus it. “He looked like a king, dressed in royal purple, with a massive belt buckle that would make any Texan weep.”

  Roddy’s teeth showed through his dopey grin. Kid looked like he had discovered his daddy’s porn collection for the first time.

  “What’s the next move, then?”

  This came from Art, to Earl’s right. The shadows from the clip lights they had attached to the exposed rafters in the rotted out ceiling made Art’s pockmarked face look like the dark side of the moon. He had deep eye sockets, which had dark circles under them as if he was always tired. But Art had the sharpest reflexes Earl had ever seen in a man. The slack way he carried himself hid the snap in his tendons. He could slit a throat with his bowie knife before you blinked.

  This was why Art sat at Earl�
��s right.

  “It’s complicated,” Earl said as honestly as he could. He tried to never lie to his team. Keeping your crew in the dark might give a commander an advantage in the short term, but it would always come back to bite you in the ass. Better to suffer the gripes and doubts up front so they knew what they were getting into.

  “Complicated how?” Lazarus asked.

  Laz had the second chair to Earl’s left. Rumor was Laz used to do some street preaching in New York City before traveling to Chicago after he killed a man for telling Laz God was a lie. Wasn’t till later, when Laz met his first vamp, that the preacher realized the man had been right.

  Poor Laz wore that disappointment like a scar across his face. He had a resigned look about him, as if just waiting to die and discover nothing but darkness.

  Only there was more than darkness after death. The master, Mr. Dolan, proved that. Even the obliteration of your soul couldn’t always destroy you. Sometimes, if you were special, a piece of your soul would survive in the Inbetween. A prison, maybe, but still eternal life in a way.

  Real eternal life.

  And, according to Mr. Dolan, even some could escape the Inbetween and become whole again.

  Earl looked at Laz straight. “It involves a ritual. A big one.”

  Laz narrowed his eyes. “Not a one of us is a sensitive.”

  Earl curled his lip. Not this doubt again. Just because Laz’s precious God turned out a lie, didn’t mean everything he couldn’t see was a lie too. But that was all right. Laz’s skepticism kept the team sharp.

  “You know I’ve got a touch,” Earl said. “How else could I talk to the master?”

  “How do we know you actually did?” Laz looked around the kitchen, mouth set as if it was full of a bad taste. “We’ve been camped in this condemned house for almost a month after we got evicted from our last headquarters. We got a generator growling in what used to be this place’s living room, stinking up the place with exhaust. We live on noodles cooked on a hot plate.” He closed his eyes and paused.

  Earl sat back and let Laz say his piece. Funny, Earl had gotten used to the sound and smell of the gennie. He hardly noticed it anymore. Now that Laz mentioned it, though, Earl caught the scent of gasoline and heard the guttural rumbling.