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“...any of the majority could institute a full review, with conditional bracing: a predilection which excludes, but doesn’t necessarily include any of the following conditions...”
Gabriel set down the papers he was holding, and banged his forehead repeatedly onto the desk. For the last two hours, he’d been slogging through the same dense report he’d picked up that morning—something that had been labeled as urgent, though he now suspected that to be a darkly ironic joke. The sun had risen somewhere above him, and still, he’d yet to clear page five.
His eyes lifted, bleary and red. They made their way gradually to the stapler.
Maybe I could just bash myself in the head. It would be approximately as productive.
The tunnels that ran below the PC had already been opened by the time he got there, at a little after six in the morning. The secretaries might grumble about the long hours and endless filing, but they were bloody good at their jobs. He’d greeted them politely, then locked himself in the office, turning on the newly-discovered fireplace and shivering as the room filled slowly with heat.
He’d let it continue until he was sweating through his sweater, then peeled it off and heated it some more. It had warmed to the point where he was officially lightheaded. It was quite possibly the reason he was incapable of understanding anything he’d attempted to read.
Maybe the next one is easier.
He set down the stack he’d been holding and picked up a smaller file—one that had been labeled with an odd classification he’d yet to see. He stared a moment, considering with a frown.
“Hey, Haley?” he called, leaning over his desk. The other secretaries had been exiled further down the hall, but she maintained her station by the door. “Do you know what a Braxton-315 is?”
They had been forbidden from asking questions, but he sometimes bent those rules.
“There’s a booklet that tells you all the codes,” she called back. “It’s under the desk.”
He glanced at the ten-inch binder with a flicker of dread.
“Yeah, but do you happen to—”
“It’s in the booklet!”
He let out a sigh, feeling as though he’d aged about nine years. His fingers were cracking and his muscles were stiff from lack of use. There were parts of him that had melded permanently to the chair. For a fraction of a second, he considered heaving the booklet onto his lap, but the thought alone was too depressing. He tossed the confusing file onto Devon’s side of the desk instead.
One problem down, another thousand to go—
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” he called without looking.
It cracked open a second later, and a young man stuck his head inside. He was a recent graduate, one of the new recruits Gabriel hadn’t gotten a chance to spend much time with yet. A whole group of them had come at once, and his tatù had gotten lost in the shuffle.
He was a shifter, maybe? Or a conjurer?
“I’m sorry to bother you—” he said preemptively.
“You’re saving me,” Gabriel interrupted with a welcoming smile. He gestured to the papers in front of him, heavy enough to creak the desk. “If you hadn’t come, it was death by carpal tunnel.”
The guy grinned in spite of himself, slipping inside.
“Yeah...that’s a lot. I always imagined the presidency to be more glamourous than that.”
You and me both.
“I’m Robbie,” he added with a flush. “We met a few months ago after orientation, but you’d just gotten back from some mission and there were a bunch of us. I’m not sure if you remember.”
The assassin didn’t remember.
“How can I help you?” he asked, gesturing to a chair.
The guy was nervous, that much was clear. The toes of his shoe were bouncing, and one hand kept running manically through his hair. Instead of sitting down, he lingered in the center of the room—like at any second, he might decide to bolt back through the door.
“It’s really not a big deal,” he answered, twisting his fingers. “It’s just that...well, Carter said if we were ever having trouble with our ink, his door was always open.” He started to say something else, then changed course with a flush. “You know what, don’t worry about it. I can figure it out—”
“Tell me what’s going on,” Gabriel said again, leaning forward onto his arms. He surveyed the man with a thoughtful expression, eyes sweeping over his face. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, pale and grimacing. “Carter’s right—this door is always open. And you’re not the first person to have trouble with your ink. It’s the entire reason this place is here, to help you learn.”
The young man nodded quickly, but said nothing further. His cheeks were stained with large blotches of pink, and his eyes were fixed on the floor.
Time for a little nudge...
“What’s your ink?” Gabriel asked casually, eyes flitting reflexively to the guy’s arm. It made little difference. It was winter, everyone was in heavy jackets.
“Invisibility,” Robbie answered without hesitation, glancing up for the first time. There was something expectant about it, like he was waiting for a reaction. It was a rare tatù, in a place where ink was the highest paying currency. He flushed with pride, as Gabriel nodded in appreciation.
“That’s quite a tatù,” he replied graciously, warming to the kid on the spot. Truth be told, he reminded him a bit of Jason. “I’m not surprised you’re having a time with it—those ones are usually some of the hardest to develop.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone. “Fortunately, one of my best friends has that set of ink. I can text her—”
“Please don’t call Rae Kerrigan,” Robbie interrupted with a surge of panic. His cheeks flamed bright red the second he said it, flushing at the assassin’s look of surprise. “Sorry, I just...” He let out a defeated sigh, visibly wilting. “This was a mistake. I can figure this out on my own—”
“What happens when you try?” Gabriel asked patiently, bringing him back on point.
His eyes lifted slowly. “...it goes terribly wrong.”
The assassin nodded again, keeping a neutral expression. Truth be told, there weren’t too many ways invisibility could go wrong—other than the terrifying prospect of not being able to turn back. Inhibitors were a good safeguard, but the guy was clearly visible. It must be something else.
“How does it go wrong?” he asked gently.
A throbbing silence fell between them.
“Maybe it’s better if I just show you.”
In the blink of an eye, the room and everything in it went abruptly still. The sounds in the hallway seemed to quiet, and the air was lit with a kind of charge. More times than he was able to count, Gabriel had experienced such a sensation. It was the sort of anticipation he’d never found anywhere else in the world. It only came from the buildup of ink. Then suddenly, it happened.
One moment, the young man was standing right in front of him.
The next...he was utterly naked.
Bloody hell!
“Oh...uh...okay.” Gabriel pushed hastily to his feet, the chair scraping behind him. His first thought was to throw the guy something of his own, but he’d stripped off nearly everything he was wearing upon the completion of his fireside sauna. “Let me just—”
“I’m sorry!” Robbie wailed, cowering behind a chair to hide himself. “I’m sorry, I knew I shouldn’t have come. To be honest, I thought I’d be so nervous that it might just push things over the edge, and I’d actually be able to—”
“It’s okay,” Gabriel said quickly, taking care not to look at him. “It’s totally okay. Let me just try to find you something to—”
In what had to be the world’s worst timing, the door opened suddenly and Molly Skye swept inside. She froze a split second, staring between the two of them, then planted a hand on her hip. “It’s not that hot in here.”
Robbie let out a squawk of horror, and managed to turn invisible after all—but not before he grabbed a book to cover himself off Carter’s shelf. They saw it bobbing frantically through the air as he rushed into the hallway, calling out a final “I’m sorry” as he fled.
She peered after him, trying to read the cover. “Moby Dick?”
Gabriel crossed his arms furiously. “Molly Elizabeth—”
“I kid you not.” She settled into the opposite chair with a smile. “Hey, it could have been worse. Grapes of Wrath. Great Expectations.” She considered a moment. “Eat, Pray, Love.”
He regarded her coldly. “That’s a bit on the nose, don’t you think?”
She winked. “One can only hope.”
He chuckled in spite of himself, sinking into the chair across from her. One of the things he’d learned early on: it was impossible to stay furious with Molly Skye. She liked to be the furious one. And aside from the meteorological ramifications, even that was a little bit fun.
“What can I do for you, Skye?”
Please tell me you’re not having problems with your tatù.
In a flash, the humor faded and she flushed ever so slightly, eyes dropping to her lap. It was a strange look on her. One that didn’t seem to belong on such a happy, smiling face.
“I actually need a little favor,” she replied. “It’s about Benji...”
He leaned forward at once, eyes bright with attention. “What happened?”
“You remember he and Arie went to Belgrade?” she asked quietly, he nodded. “Ever since he got back, he’s been a little...a little bit off. There was apparently an explosion at the factory they were infiltrating. He caught trapped under some debris. The other night, when he and Sofia came over for dinner, a car backfired outside. He jumped so hard, he dropped a stack of dishes he was carrying—wasn’t fast enough to catch them.” A kind of spasm passed across her face, as she met the assassin’s eyes. “Benji hasn’t dropped a dish since he was sixteen years old.”
He nodded slowly, holding her gaze.
In a way, it wasn’t surprising. At some point, the same thing happened to every agent—no matter how long they’d been working in the field. A person simply couldn’t operate at such a level, without experiencing repercussions. The stakes were enormous, the job came with scars.
“You want me to talk with him?” he asked, already pushing to his feet.
“I want you to spar with him,” she replied.
His eyebrows lifted in surprise.
“Me?” he asked incredulously, waiting to see if she was joking. When it became clear that she wasn’t, he proceeded forward with great care. “Doesn’t Luke want to—”
“He needs Luke to think this isn’t a problem,” she interrupted. “And he needs me to be his mom.” Their eyes locked. “I need you to be the person who gets him past this.”
Why me?
It seemed like he’d been asking that question a lot lately, more than perhaps any other time in his life. He was flattered, to be sure. Just...surprised. The Fodders were like family, but there were still other people who might have been better suited for such a task.
One of them happened to work in the same office.
“You weren’t looking for Devon?” he asked in spite of himself, unable to keep the question back. “He should be here any minute.”
She smiled, pushing to her feet. “I was looking for you.”
* * *
THE FRIENDS LEFT THE stifling office and headed towards the locker room—a place that felt as familiar as the assassin’s kitchen, though he hadn’t been there in a long while. Without considering the hundred other tasks he was supposed to be performing that morning, he slipped into some workout clothes and paced towards his locker, wrapping his knuckles carefully with long strips of tape.
Shell-shocked or not, Benji was a difficult opponent. He would need to prepare.
Molly lingered absentmindedly beside him, leaning against the metal cages and complaining occasionally about the smell. Out of all the friends, she was arguably the best at setting aside her personal feelings in order to focus on a task—rather ironic, given that she lived in such a heightened state of emotion, the students at Guilder had coined the phrase to-go Molly on someone.
It could mean several different things.
“Those are cute,” she murmured, smiling at a few pictures of a younger version of Jason that had been taped to the door. His hair was curlier then, and he was usually missing a few teeth. Her eyes drifted farther, catching onto a tiny box, sealed in duct tape. It had been shoved into the back and hastily labeled don’t touch. She stared a moment, then tilted her head. “Do I even want to know?”
He shook his head, tossing the tape inside. “You really don’t.”
Together, they made their way into the Oratory.
While most of the students had left for winter break, the room was still packed with agents who’d returned home for the holidays—their voices swelled and echoed beneath the giant vaulting dome. There was a roughness to their training that often vanished around the younger recruits. The ground shook with violent impacts. Sharp cries and bursts of laughter bounced from wall to wall.
To Gabriel’s pleasant surprise, Alexander was among them. The shifter stood in the middle of a practice circle, clapping his hands with a serious expression, as he guided a small clutch of people around him through a series of drills. It was a slow start, but at least it was a beginning.
Elise was nowhere in sight.
“Thanks for doing this,” Molly murmured, squeezing his hand.
He squeezed back, without a shred of expression. “Just part of the job, ma’am.”
She chuckled quietly, sliding a jacket over her arms. “Look at you, being all official. I scarcely recognize you.”
I scarcely recognize myself.
As she slipped out the door, he spotted another head of red hair in the crowd.
Benji stood a bit away from the crowd, throwing spears with pointed determination at the wall. His eyes were dilated almost black with focus, and every so often, a ripple of electricity would shimmer across his bare arms. The mannequin he was targeting would not be salvageable.
“Hey, Ben!” Gabriel called across the room, waving him over.
The young man lifted his head, glancing around to find the source of the noise. When he spotted the assassin, he dropped the spear he held and blurred with sudden speed across the room. There were few things faster than a cheetah, as he often delighted in telling the rest of them.
Gabriel’s hair flew back, as he abruptly reappeared.
“You need me for something?”
He tilted his head towards the door. “Let’s spar.”
Benji’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Right now?” he asked, a little breathless.
For that reason alone, Gabriel would have insisted upon it. There was nothing the kids loved better, than testing their strength against the older generation, or preparing for the inevitable revolution, as Aria liked to say. Meticulous mental records were kept of who got to spar with whom, and when. They hounded their aunts and uncles with cheerful smiles, trying to goad them into one more round.
Benji was arguably the most fanatical of them all. But he didn’t look eager for it today.
“Are you sure?” he stalled, throwing a bracing glance towards the spears. “I’m going to my parents’ this weekend. We could do it then.”
Gabriel studied him a moment, then cocked his head towards the door. “Come with me.”
* * *
SOMETIME DURING THE hours the assassin had been toiling away below ground, the sun had broken through the clouds and risen into a beautiful winter morning. The air was fresh with the scent of newly-fallen rain, and the lawn was glittering with a diamond-dusted seat of dew drops.
Gabriel paused a split second, catching his breath.
It’s lovely.
Benji paused beside him. “It’s cold. Why are we doing this outside?’
The assassin grinned and took him by the wrist—towing him forcefully across the sweeping grounds. They passed by the school and the cottages, and came to a stop by the pond. Five times, the school had torn it down, in an effort to dissuade student pranks. Someone kept re-conjuring it.
I think it’s James.
“So why are we out here?” Benji asked again, squinting against the morning light. “Are you finally going to punish me for that little mishap with the school librarian? Or is this the latest in a series of increasingly desperate attempts to avoid doing your new job?”
Gabriel chuckled in spite of himself, tying back his golden hair. “Little mishap with the school librarian? Is that what we’re calling it these days?”
The cheetah shrugged, pawing restlessly at the grass. “We have to call it something.”
The words came out a bit sharper than he’d intended, a bit sharper than he’d realized. His mother had been right. It was nothing overt, nothing that might be detected by anyone outside the family. But the boy was high-octane sunlight. Something was definitely off.
“So where’s your better half?” Gabriel asked casually. “She’d usually be throwing spears right there with you. Or maybe at you—depending on whether you’ve quarreled.”
Most people might have assumed he meant the cheetah’s girlfriend. But agents of the Privy Council had been trained to think a slightly different way.
“Arie’s home for the day. She’s not feeling well.”
Gabriel glanced up in surprise. “Can’t she just heal herself?” he asked with a touch of confusion.
For the first time all morning, Benji flashed a grin.
“Those kids aren’t as omnipotent as they lead people to believe,” he answered slyly. “Aria never really got the healing gene. She tends to favor the action-packed explosives.”
That makes a depressing amount of sense.
“Should we call Alicia—” Gabriel began.
The cheetah shook his head, shaking out his wrists. “I was over there this morning, she’s just got a little bug.” He straightened up suddenly, eager to be done. “How are we doing this? Powers? Weapons? Don’t say inhibitors.”
The assassin flashed a grin. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
That was the last thing he managed to say. A second later, the cheetah was gone.
There was a great rushing of things—that was the only way to describe it. A swelling of color, a slanting of earth. The air itself seemed to thrum with anticipation, the way it did before a lightning strike. Then, before Gabriel could possibly prepare for it, there was a searing slice of pain.
Bloody hell!
If the strike hadn’t come from his nephew, the assassin would have cursed him. If it hadn’t been for his decades of training, he would have gone flying off his feet. As it stood, he settled for something in the middle—letting out a vile profanity, and grabbing the kid by the throat.
“I bet you think that’s really funny,” he panted, lifting his boots off the ground. That kind of thing had grown harder once the boy matched him in height, but was still remarkably satisfying. “I bet you’d be laughing about it right now, if you could breathe.”
Benji laughed anyway, hands wrapped around the assassin’s wrist.
“What’s the matter?” he panted. “Is that desk-job slowing you down?”
Gabriel threw him into the pond. “It’s actually given me time to reassess my priorities.”
Like killing you.
Benji caught himself by the tips of his fingers, dangling precariously over the water. Waves of fiery hair spilled into his eyes, as he righted himself with a grin.
“Some people call that a mid-life crisis,” he teased.
Gabriel nodded without expression. “Some people never make it to middle age.”
They clashed again in the center of the lawn, wrestling together for the briefest moment, until the assassin came out on top. He pinned the boy lightly, cuffing him upside the ears, before shifting his weight just enough that the cheetah could make his escape...if he’d been thinking clearly.
He was not.
The instant Benji’s shoulder blades touched the ground, it was like a part of him just stopped working. His muscles seized up, his breath caught in his lungs. His eyes, bright as a lightning storm, lifted without any kind of plan—locking helplessly on his uncle’s face.
All right, now we’re getting somewhere...
Gabriel leaned back on his heels, offering him a hand up. “Best out of three?”
The cheetah was already pacing away, facing the school as long as possible, before turning back to the fight. There was a slight change in his expression. A tightening of features, designed to mask trouble, was stirring underneath. It was a face the assassin knew as well as his own.
Instead of answering, he threw himself back into the fight.
They tangled together again, raw and undisciplined, a whirling spiral of knocking impacts and flailing limbs. It was nothing like what his uncle had come to expect from him. None of his usual finesse. There was an underlying recklessness that drove things forward. An almost desperate need to end things on his own terms, on his own feet. Never, never again on his back.
The world narrowed into a series of snapshots, then narrowed again. Soon it was nothing but a flashing series of sensation. The swing of an arm, the sharp impact of breath. At one point, Benji’s palm lit with a reflexive burst of electricity, but he doused it quickly in his first.
“Watch your balance,” Gabriel warned, keeping an eye on the boy’s feet. Back and forth they shuffled across the grass, so quickly, they were blazing a little trail. “Watch the left—”
But the cheetah had already flipped skyward, rotating his body in a lethal spiral, before touching down exactly where the assassin had said. His boot caught the wrong angle, and he went flying, coming down hard on the grass. The impact rattled up his uncle’s boots.
“That’s all right,” Gabriel called encouragingly, waving him back. “Shake it off.”
Benji paced away with a scowl, nursing a bloody lip. It wasn’t until a few seconds had passed, until the words had a chance to settle, that he threw a sudden look over his shoulder.
“Did someone tell you about Belgrade?”
His uncle stared back with quiet concern. “I heard there was an explosion.”
“Did my mother tell you?”
The words shot back almost before the assassin had a chance to finish, clipping the end of his reply. They were just as scattershot as the way the boy been fighting, flying out in a manic burst.
“I heard things got pretty dicey,” Gabriel answered gently, trying to keep things on an even course. “There was an explosion, some burning debris—”
“Did she tell you it was my fault?” Benji interrupted, eyes burning like he was trapped in that factory still. “The fuel tank caught fire, and the roof was caving in. I saw it was happening, everyone saw it was happening. Aria was already at the chopper, screaming for me to get in. But the suspect was still in the building and I thought...I thought I had more time.” He flinched ever so slightly, the same way he’d been doing every unguarded moment since he got back. “I was wrong.”
There it is.
There was a reason that at six in the morning, the giant building behind them was already packed with men and women training. There was a reason the parking lot was always full. It was a dangerous game they were playing. A game none of them could afford to lose. You learned to trust your instincts, to lean into them above everything else. When those instincts failed you...?
It felt like the earth itself had been ripped beneath your feet.
Gabriel let out a slow breath, closing the distance between them. The session was essentially over, it had been over before it began. For a long time, they just stood there—not facing each other, not speaking. Just lingering in companionable silence, staring over the dew-tipped grass.
“I keep hearing the sound of it,” Benji whispered, “this rushing in my ears.” His eyes were wide and unblinking, seeing smoke instead of fog. “Sometimes I think—it’s never going to stop.”
It was quiet another moment, then Gabriel circled in front of him, placing a gentle hand on his chest. The boy was trembling, unable to look at him. He waited until they finally locked eyes.
“It will,” he answered, quiet but sincere. “It will stop. That pressure you’re feeling?” He tapped his fingers lightly, coaxing a reluctant nod. “That pressure will go away.”
It was quiet a few seconds longer, then Benji lifted his eyes. “...you swear?”
Gabriel stared back at him, warming with an affectionate smile.
How many times had he been asked the same question? At how many stages of life? At first it had been standard childhood quandaries—Santa and the Tooth Fairy. Then came alcohol, then came girls. The cheetah had always demanded certainty. His uncle had always given the same reply.
“Yeah, I swear.”
The pair stared at each other, long and appraising, unwilling to break the spell until they both were satisfied. It took a few seconds, then Benji nodded. A quick dip of the head, a bashful smile.
There was movement in their periphery, a lone figure coming up from the parking lot. He spotted them as he walked towards the Oratory, and called loudly across the lawn.
“You coming inside, Alden? Or am I running this place all by myself?”
Gabriel flipped him off without looking. “Duty calls, I’m afraid.”
In a shrill, irritating voice.
Benji smiled again, squinting across the lawn. “I’m surprised you two haven’t poisoned each other.”
His uncle smiled in return. “There’s still time.”
They knocked each other’s fists, then the assassin turned and started walking back across the lawn. He’d escaped for a short time, but those files were always waiting—they’d begun slipping into his dreams. It wasn’t until he’d cleared the cottages, that Benji called a parting farewell.
“Thanks, Gabriel.”
He glanced over his shoulder in surprise. It was the first time the boy hadn’t called him uncle. Any other morning, it would have broken his heart.
Today, it made him smile.
