When we left Harley Pierce, he was screaming that we were all crazy. None of us argued this, after all, we had used a few unconventional means to get him to start talking. Unfortunately, we were no closer to knowing about our band of organized serial killers than we were before we arrived in El Paso. The only names he could give us were either dead or working on it. He’d been recruited by a man named Enzo Brand, who had died during the LA uprising. Killed by none other than Malachi Blake. After Enzo’s death, his contact had become Mitch Holgram. Holgram had been killed two years ago while being taken into custody by the SCTU, it was before my time. After that, Christian Hunter had become his contact.
Christian Hunter was technically still alive, but that was a temporary state of being. He had a long list of enemies both outside prison and inside of the Fortress. If my brother hadn’t been taken into protective custody, Hunter would already be dead. So far, he’d proved uncooperative. That limited the number of reasons he deserved to live.
My trip to El Paso had been a bust. We hadn’t arrested Harley Pierce, for now. He could remain free as long as he pretended we hadn’t visited and he didn’t kill anyone. He was very aware of the terms of his freedom. I was sure he would keep his end of the deal. I knew he never wanted to see Malachi or me again. I couldn’t blame him for this, we were not exactly nice people, even by serial killer standards.
“Well?” Gabriel asked as he pulled away from the curb of Harley Pierce’s house.
“Well, I guess I go home and wait for this suspension to be lifted.” I didn’t look at him. I was a little pissed off that he had brought Malachi after I told him not to. It had proved useful. I tried not to torture people and Gabriel wasn’t like us.
“I think a few of us could stand to be in Kansas City,” Malachi chimed in from the back seat. He was sitting sideways because he had very long legs, but I refused to sit in the back just because he was there.
“Think we should nab some of the killers working there?” I asked.
“Cleaning up our city might not be a bad thing,” Gabriel shot me a sideways look. “Think you can handle helping with training?”
“Sociopath. Not people friendly. Not really leader material. I mostly just beat serial killers up after breaking down their doors.” I told him.
“You did fine in Detroit.” Gabriel answered.
“And in The Fortress,” Malachi agreed.
“Also, I think Rachael would be more comfortable with you on her first case than with the rest of us. You, Fiona, Rachael, Xavier, and Caleb,” Gabriel told me.
I gave a small growl. I hadn’t actually met Rachael. Her file was mostly redacted, much like Vlad Daniels’ files, which meant she was some sort of bad ass with an alphabet agency that was more secretive the FBI. Gabriel and Malachi had top secret clearance and knew what it said. The rest of us were a little lower on the totem pole, so we only knew what they told us. Leading a unit was not my idea of a good time, but it would mean an early release from my suspension. I could work and I really loved my job, possibly a little too much. Plus, I agreed with Gabriel and Malachi, we needed to clean up our own city before we could be seen as effective again. They were busy with a cannibal in California.
“Giving me Rachael is trial by fire,” I told them. “You know how I am with new people. Give me Xavier, Caleb, and Vlad. You guys keep the others.”
“Rachael needs a little trial by fire,” Gabriel told me. “Besides, Fiona and Caleb can act as handlers if you need it.”
That was true. Caleb had helped calm me down a few times in the past. He’d also Tasered me once when I wouldn’t. Fiona could usually talk me down. If that failed, Caleb was used to controlling Malachi.
“Fine,” I answered.
“Take the Cleaner first,” Gabriel said as Malachi pulled out some files. “No help from special friends on these.”
“He’s busy trying to figure out how high this thing goes,” I answered. “He needs it solved as much as we do. There are a handful of people who know his real identity. He needs to make sure they can’t come after him just as much as we do.”
“People like,” Gabriel didn’t finish his sentence. My mother knew who he was. Once upon a time, I had thought my mom was just a librarian. Now, I knew she was either CIA or NSA, I wasn’t sure which. She’d spent time in the Department of Justice trying to help build the foundation for the SCTU. She’d helped place a few strategic assets like Apex in this world. She had met my dad at a special seminar on serial killers in the 1950s, before the rise of the serial killer. In the late 1970s, she’d become a librarian so that she could be home with her children more and then I came along. The woman had known Lucas and Xavier’s families. My family was full of secrets, most of them dark, violent, and bloody.
“The Cleaner is the one that’s been leaving bone piles around the city, right?” I asked, acquiescing to the request. I could either do what I was asked or spend a few more weeks trying to figure out what to do with my house. Since I was about as likely to go furniture shopping as I was to take up nude sunbathing, work was the much better option.
“Yep,” Malachi handed me his tablet and I handed it back. I couldn’t read in a car. I had trouble reading in an airplane.
“I’ll hope a commercial flight this afternoon,” I told them.
“You get to take one of our planes back. Malachi and I will return to California and then send team members to you. Expect them tomorrow,” Gabriel said. “Do I need to tell you that he cannot be on one of our planes?”
“We have a working relationship, nothing more. We need to take out the heads of this circle and so does he. Once that stops being a mutual goal, we’ll go our separate ways and I will not be using him for official SCTU business.” I continued to stare out the window.
“My concern is for you,” Gabriel pointed out. “I do not want you in trouble or worse. He can only be trusted so far.”
“I think that’s true of most people,” I finally turned and looked at him. “One day, soon, you and I are going to have to have a chat about who you trust.”
“You’re talking about Turkish Jack,” Gabriel’s lower lip quivered.
“It doesn’t stop there,” I told him.
“You’re right, we need to talk,” Gabriel answered and we both dropped the matter. I wasn’t going to rake Gabriel over the coals with Malachi in the car. In reality, I wasn’t going to rake him over them regardless. Gabriel had seen some scary men in his life. Like me, it had started with his childhood. I didn’t know why he wasn’t a sociopath or a psychopath or suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but he seemed to cope fairly well. Then again, he did imagine that he had been attacked by a Native American demon, so maybe coping was the wrong word.
At the airport, we went our separate ways. I boarded our plane alone and with more luggage than I had come to El Paso with. Eventually, I’d be back for Harley Pierce and maybe a few others that jumped the border to kill. The drug cartels were too afraid to work out of Juarez at this point, so crime had dropped, making the city safer. Unless you were in the victim pool of a serial killer, then it was just as dangerous as ever.
My disgust and understanding of those that preyed on the average person had increased in recent months. However, it had made me realized that I would never be like them. If one day, I lost it and started killing, I would be preying upon the killers, not the populace. Their sense of entitlement and narcissism was too much for me anymore. I had spent too much time trying to save people like my mom and Nyleena from them. My bloodlust had become a little harder to control in the presence of people like Harley Pierce.
Xavier had found a chemical compound in Malachi and I’s blood after the Fortress. Once it was gone, Malachi’s psychopathology had balanced out some as had my own. We’d been dosed. The entire FGN had been dosed, it had literally been in the water. Most people had not felt any different on it. People like Malachi, Caleb, and I, we had. It had done something to the chemistry of our brains that made us unstable. Xavier was still working to track down a manufacturer for it, but he had to do it very quietly. Patience was one of the many virtues I was lacking.