CHAPTER III

“CONNELLY!”

My name roared down the hallway. Galina flinched.

“His bark is worse than his bite,” I whispered to her. I hadn’t told Starks yet about my potential position with the Smyths, probably from his yell someone else had.

She giggled. Her horns were painted a sexy pink color today that matched her silky pants suit. I regretfully pulled away from the counter, sorry to leave. I had spent most of the morning finding excuses to linger around the front desk. I wasn’t the only one; Shirako and O’Meara had popped in more often than usual from their fieldwork, and Levins seemed to need to come by my office often for no apparent reason. A classy sexy full breed that flirted shamelessly with us halfers was a rare sight, and we were all a little smitten. I just happened to be the lucky one with the office closest to reception.

A low growl rumbled. I winked at Galina and sauntered down to Starks’s office.

He was not at his desk; instead his lean figure was pacing around the bare room. He looked much better today, his leathery wings strapped down across his back, his hair in tight smooth curls against his scalp, and his tie solidly tied around the collar of a fresh button up shirt.

Taking a deep breath I mentally ran over the argument I had practiced last night. “Yes, Boss?” I asked wide-eyed.

He stopped pacing. “Connelly, you are a pain in my ass.”

I stared back at him, all innocence.

“So, I was just informed by one of the surveillance team of an interesting conversation they overheard in the house of Case 342.” He glared at me.

“What conversation,” I remained calm, not letting this chance slip away.

He started pacing again. “Apparently Mrs. Smyth met a fabulous childcare specialist yesterday afternoon at the park,” he said imitating Mrs. Smyth’s high pitched voice. It was pretty good, enough I had to control my face from twitching into a smile.

“Now I wonder who this absolutely amazingly qualified specialist could be?” he asked, his eyes glued to me as he stamped back and forth behind the desk.

I gazed at him with as modest an expression as I could muster. “She asked me if I was available to babysit. I figured it was a good solution to your understaffing issue.”

Starks threw his hands up in aggravation. “Unbelievable Connelly. I specifically told you under NO circumstances were you to mess with this case.”

“I didn’t!” I protested. “We happened to get in a conversation about it, and she genuinely is looking for a babysitter.” I moved inside and shut the door. “Boss, you know I try to do the best job I can. I just want to help you and SITO,” I pleaded with him, allowing the tiniest voice tremor to escape.

Starks stopped pacing and stared at me. “Bullshit,” he said.

I stared back at him, my eyes wide and clear. I couldn’t back down, not now, not when I had the Code Red in my grasp.

The room was quiet, heavy with the force of our stares.

Starks broke first. “Fine!” He sighed. “Levins is going to kill me.” He stalked around his large oak desk, sat down and loosened his tie.

I contained my crow of triumph.

“You do realize this means I have to put Old Abe back on Code Greens.”

My triumph was curtailed. I thought in dismay about Old Abe taking over my casework. Every time he sat in for me the paperwork that got done had to be all resorted and done again and half the time he sent runaways back to the wrong house. Old Abe was a fat, ancient angel who had been with SITO for almost fifty years. These days, even though he was a full angel, he didn’t garner much respect around the office. He was pushing seventy-five, but he had no family. His office was on the far end of the second floor beyond Delilah’s, and it was an unspoken universal knowledge that he slept there too. Starks seemed to be keeping him on more out of pity than need.

“What about Hassan or Danson or Shirako?” I volunteered.

“Shirako is on this case. Hassan has to handle the Code Yellows and Danson will be helping Old Abe. I need all three of them to replace you. Like I said, Kid, you were the best.” Starks gruffly tapped at his computer.

I was touched but not enough to give up my chance at a Code Red, especially now that I knew Shirako was on it. If Shirako could work it, then so could I.

When I didn’t crack Starks shook his head and stood up again.

“All right Connelly, you wanted to be a part of the Criminal Investigative Unit? Let’s go to the pit.”

I shivered with anticipation. Most of SITO’s local benign operations occurred on the first floor of our office building where the secretary, currently Galina, greeted us every morning. Stark’s office was on the first floor along with mine, and a variety of others, from information clerks and accountants to historians and one medical expert. On the second floor were the switchboard in Delilah’s office/apartment, Old Abe’s office/apartment, and most of our paper records. Both floors were carpeted, their offices clean and organized, and mild conversation could be heard floating through the hallways. On occasion during a slow day one could even hear soft music and smell fresh baked goods coming from Delilah’s.

The CIU pit was a different story. It was a warehouse-sized room in the basement; there was no carpet, no offices, no organization; just desks jammed around filing cabinets and white boards. The conversation was anything but mild, and often the smell of greasy food and late-night, unwashed bodies permeated the air. There were jail cells and a weapons cabinet down there too. Most of our field agents worked from out of the pit, and CIU’s most clandestine operations as well as violent crime investigations were managed there.

I followed Starks out of his office and down the hallway. He threw open the double doors at the end of the hall and led me down the creaky metal steps. It was still early for most of our detectives, so the dimly lit space was empty except a few red-eyed, bent forms furiously absorbed in their laptops. The holding cells on the other end were also empty, except one. I stared curiously at the lone figure of the tattered angel squatting with his back to us in the furthest cell. I assumed he took no notice of our entrance, until his upper wing knuckle rose up off of his back in curiosity, like a bug’s antennae.

One of the bent forms looked up from her laptop. “Balls!” Levins blinked at the sight of me standing with Starks. “Fucking caved did you?” she asked him.

He ignored the comment. “Levins, Connelly somehow managed to get herself a gig babysitting Subject 342.”

There was an intake of breath from the cell in the corner. I darted a glance in that direction, as Levins glared at Starks. The angel in the cell swiveled his dark head and eyeballed me. The cold steel of his gaze made my stomach do a flip-flop.

“Fucking Connelly,” Levins said wryly, pulling my attention back to her. She acknowledged me with a nod.

“Get her up to speed would you? I’m going to question the detainee again.” Starks clapped me on the back, half shoving me toward Levins.

“Right Boss.” Levins was all business. Maybe I had been wrong about them hooking up.

“Shirako, O’Meara!” Starks roared over the desks. Two monstrous half-daemons peeled themselves away from their laptops and up from their desks.

“Ya Boss?”

“I want to put the detainee in interview room two. Think you two can handle him?”

“Sure Boss.”

I envied Shirako and O’Meara and their thickness. Daemons and angels alike were somewhat bigger and taller than the average sapiens, maybe because the fetal gestation time was six months longer, and so a woman had to be bigger to survive the birth. The long pregnancy was another reason normals had out-populated the other two species much quicker. It was like pitting rodents against kangaroos to see which one produced the most offspring.

The extra muscle strength didn’t necessarily translate down to halfers, as I was so luckless to discover with my five-foot-two sapiens mother and my subsequent five-foot-five frame. It seemed to be totally random, as Shirako’s mom was a tiny Japanese woman, but he had inherited his daemon father’s enormous bulk. I watched Shirako quickly restrain the large angel in the cell and wondered how the hell I could ever do that. Even though the angel did not resist, I experienced the first doubt in my eagerness to be on the Code Red cases.

Levins, watching me, grinned. “Don’t worry about your size Connelly. You learn other tricks to bring down a full breed. For example, wings are extremely vulnerable.” Standing on her tiptoes she grabbed Starks by the shoulder blades.

“FUCK, MISHA!” Starks howled. Startled by the force of his yell and by the use of Levins’s first name, I took a hop back from the fuming half-angel.

“Hold still,” Levins said to Starks, unnecessarily: he was frozen in place. Levins motioned to me with her head. “Come here Connelly.”

Tentatively I stepped forward.

“Closer,” she said, impatient.

I moved where I could see her grip on Starks’s wings. Her fingers were wrapped around the bone that ran from the armpit up to the top of the wing. The pinkies lay flat against his inner arm, the thumbs pressed against the smooth membrane of the wing. It looked painful, and I didn’t even have wings.

“You see where my thumb is?”

I nodded mechanically.

“He can feel that like a thumb pressed against his nuts. It’s extremely sensitive. He is also aware how easily I could press my thumbnail into the membrane, potentially tearing it.”

Starks grimaced. My respect for Levins increased tenfold.

“This is why most of us have hand grips in our desk drawers,” she said, releasing her hold on Starks. I noticed her squeeze his hand, and that changed my mind again. Yeah, they probably are hooking up.

Starks stalked away. “What?!” he yelled at Shirako and O’Meara, who followed him expressionless, the unresisting angel smirking between them.

“Daemons have sensitive spots too but you already know that.” Levins turned back to me with a wicked grin.

I stepped back hastily, my hands unconsciously going to cover my horn stubs. Homo daemonis horns had small lobes at the bottom of their horns. The lobes were a fluid filled sack that had a small amount of sonic sensitivity. It was not as highly tuned sensitivity as that of dolphins or bats, but it did help our ancestors navigate during avalanche seasons in the high mountains. I found it convenient in the Bay Area, allowed me at least a half an hour before an earthquake hit. Full daemons could guess up to three hours before depending on the size of the earthquake. The idea of someone grabbing those sensitive parts had never entered my head; it would be like me literally grabbing Starks’s nuts. Again, one of the reasons why Mrs. Evans had to be crazy to lop off her horns.

“You want to be in the pit Connelly? You’re going to have to get tougher. Come on I’ll show you what we’ve got on Subject 342,” Levins said. She returned to her desk, her tiny form almost disappearing behind the stack of papers next to her laptop.

I swallowed a retort that I was tough enough and silently pulled up a chair next to her desk.

“All right Connelly, we’ve all heard of the Angelus Purists and the Daemonis Orthodox groups. They blather on about the need to purify our bloodlines, how we should colonize isolated areas close to our respective motherlands, how our species are in danger of becoming extinct or discovered by Homo sapiens with all of us little half-breeds running around the planet, and so on and so forth.”

“Sure.” Working for SITO meant personal run-ins with the purists groups on a regular basis. The Daemonis Orthodox group had bothered my father about marrying a sapien woman for years They claimed because he was so high profile that he was supposed to set a better example. Unfortunately a lot of that rhetoric had rained down on me when I was a child.

“Well you know about the extremist sects that have grown from those groups, some who have even split off from them?”

“You mean like terrorists?”

“Well,” she paused, uncomfortable. “If you want to get technical about it they are terrorists, but not in the way normals have been running around shouting about terrorism. These guys are actual terrorists, up there with the sapien Bin Laden. I know you now know about what happened to my wings. That was an extremist group that was dissolved by SITO about a decade ago.”

I detected a note of pride in her voice and dutifully asked. “Did you help with that?”

“You bet your ass I did. It was my first job in the CIU with SITO. I had the advantage being personally connected with the group.” Levins sneered at no one in particular.

I waited until she mentally shook herself out of it. Extremist groups were the biggest thorn in everyone at SITO’s side, because half the time they actually acted on their prejudices, which meant more work for us, but Levins’s hatred for them was far more personal.

“Anyway back to Subject 342, this extremist group is old-fashioned. They look up to old bible greats like Jephthah, the guy who sacrificed his daughter to appease God,” she said, pulling out a drawing of a human prostrating himself in front of a giant man with wings. “You’ve heard of this myth?”

I stared at the drawing. “No.”

“These are the Nephilim, the sons of fallen biblical angels.” Levins read the back of the drawing. “Our historians credit the presence of the Nephilim in the bible to the period of time when Homo angelus mixed more freely with the Homo sapiens before the Bronze Age collapse and the advent of the Iron Age. The Nephilim are also called Anakites in the bible. The Anakites reference a gigantic, long-necked people that supposedly occupied Canaan in the Old Testament. Historians also believe the Anakite myth stems from angel populations living amongst sapiens as well.” Levins paused to make sure I was still with her.

I was into it. “I got it,” I said. I didn’t own that worn out bible to simply decorate my living room. The twisted mythology of the normals was a fascinating study for almost every daemon and angel on the planet, considering we were the central players. I continued, “I’ve also heard the term Anakites before, but I can’t remember where.”

“SITO anthropologists date one of the first migrations of Homo angelus to the area known as Canaan in the bible, or modern day Israel, around the beginning of the Early Bronze Age in the fourth millennium. They did not mingle with the early Homo sapiens until the Middle Bronze Age when a half-breed angel-” Levins raised an eyebrow at me. “-used the physical advantages of his Homo angelus genes to become leader of the weaker Homo sapiens. He seized a throne and then once he became king revealed his identity and called on both his bloodlines to mingle. Sargon of Akkad, also known as Sargon the Great the first emperor of the Middle East, was the first emperor to bring together Homo sapiens and Homo angelus, and the first recorded mixing of the two species occurred, resulting in most angel mythology in sapiens culture.” Levins stopped reading.

“Wait, you’re telling me that Sargon the Great was a half-breed angel?” I interrupted. I didn’t believe it.

“Hell yes he was. Do your research, you’ll see. All those asshole full-breeds have a hard time swallowing that one, believe me.” Levins glared at me, daring me to argue with her. I didn’t.

“So, Sargon goes all humanitarian and tries to create peace between species. But of course angels and normals could never fully get along. And you know how high and mighty angels are. So post Sargon, the angels started to claim they were gods. Adonis, Berith, Elyon, Moloch,” she paused again.

“Moloch? Really.” Even I, a half-daemon, had heard of the legend of Moloch, the crazy angel who loved to convince sapiens they could fly like him if they just leapt off a cliff holding his hand. He let go as soon as they were in the air, and the poor things would plummet to a certain death in a large bonfire waiting at the bottom of the cliffs where it was rumored he ate their charred remains. It was the stuff of horror stories kids told each other at sleepovers. Most angels said Moloch was a total nut; but there were still a few out there that worshiped him, claiming he was an original purist because he believed all sapiens should be wiped from the face of the earth.

“Yes, Moloch.”

“Jephthah, Anakites, Moloch...” I said slowly. “These names all seem like they go together somehow.”

“They do,” said Levins. “Modern Anakites are an extremist sect of the Angelus Purists. These guys are so extreme a lot of the Angelus Purists will have nothing to do with them. They worship the Way of Moloch, which is some fucked up religion that they are super secretive about. What we do know is that the Anakites believe the world needs to be cleansed of all other species. That means no more half-breeds, no more Homo sapiens, probably even no more Homo daemonis.” Levins leaned in close and whispered, “some say the cleanse starts with a sacrifice of their own offspring, just like Jephthah. Jephthah is one of their idols.”

“Okay thanks for the added creep factor,” I said dryly. It still didn’t make sense, “Why tell me all of this, how does it have to do with Subject 342?”

“We’re not sure, but for starters.” She pulled out three mug shots of fierce looking angels. “This is Rahab, Gaap, and Aaron. All are big names in the Anakite world.”

I peered at the portraits and pointed at the last one. “That’s our guy?” In the photo he appeared much younger, younger than me even.

“These are old photos from a dead end case a few years back but yes, that’s the detainee we’ve got here that you saw at the park. He has enough marks on his record that we can hold him for a little while, but not much longer. His hands are pretty clean. But he is the reason we believe the Anakites are interested in the kid, and why the case was brought to Code Red level when you clawed your way on board.”

I ignored her reproving glance.

Levins pointed to the second photo. “Gaap is usually tied in with these three, but we don’t have any information on his location currently. And Rahab,” She pulled up the first photo, letting the other two fall onto the desk, and rested it against her laptop screen. Rahab’s powerful, cold, black eyes stared at us; it reminded me of the way the angel had looked at me from the cell. Goosebumps tickled my forearm, the photo gave me chills.

“Rahab is the leader. Our prisoner has been linked to this guy in the past. Brilliant organizer and a nasty bastard, wanted for all kinds of shady underground dealings. Kidnapping, murder, you name it. He usually hides out in the main Anakite Temple and runs all of his business from there, because he knows if SITO ever got a hold of him he’d be put away for life. All SITO has been able to do is narrow down the temple’s location to somewhere in western Egypt.”

“Somewhere? You don’t know where?” I asked.

“No one has been able to break through the Anakites. Not a single undercover agent has made it into the higher Anakite ranks, even the full breeds. Their security is tighter than Starks’s asshole.”

I choked back my laughter and sat back, it really wasn’t that funny. This case was turning out to be far bigger than I had imagined. How was it that these guys all the way on the other end of the globe had targeted some random kid in a town in Northern California?

Levins continued, “So Rahab hasn’t made a move, which hopefully means he’s not involved in this situation at all. But if he is not, we have no idea why the detainee was hanging around Subject 342, or what he’s even doing in the U.S.”

“Levins, you update Connelly yet?” Starks appeared up the stairs in the doorway to the pit.

“Yes, you crack the detainee yet?” Levins shot back.

“You are both giant pains in my ass. Come on, let’s introduce Connelly to our new friend.”

Levins stacked away the papers and photos she had rifled through. I stood up nervously, this was it, I was going to be a part of this case. I tried to hide my anxious excitement as Levins and I trooped after Starks.

He led us down another flight of stairs to a dark cement hallway. The rooms were buried deep underground. I shuddered to think about the characters that had been through this hallway. The air was heavy and cool and dank in the indescribable way underground places are. My heart pounded in my ears. The concrete walls pressed in from all sides. My horns tingled from the intense vibrations of the earth around me and the weight of many late nights and profound emotions that had passed through here. Steel doors lined the hallway, oddly shiny in the water-stained gray space. We paused in front of the last one.

“Where are we?” I whispered to Levins.

“These are our interrogation rooms,” she responded in a normal tone.

My stomach squeezed, as I looked at the half-angels next to me. Starks and Levins were no longer just the goofy halfers I worked with, whose main goal was to annoy me. Their expressions were cold, and they looked dangerous in the dim light. I must seem like a green rookie to these hardened agents. Determined to prove myself, I squared my shoulders for whatever came next.

There were four doors, two on each side of the hallway. We entered one that lead into a dark room, lit only by the light coming from the one-way mirror on one wall. O’Meara was inside watching Shirako talk at the prisoner on the other side of the mirror. The prisoner was ignoring Shirako, lounging in a large stuffed armchair. I was surprised by the chair and what else was in his room, a coffee table held old plates with food scraps and there was even a rug under the angel’s bare feet.

“Aren’t these kind of rooms supposed to be,” I started to ask. Levins turned to me, the glow of the other room reflecting off one side of her dark face. “Well, colder.” I finished lamely.

“You’re thinking too Hollywood. We do have one like that, but it’s on the other side of the hallway. We use it for short-term interrogation. This one is for long term. Human rights activists would be down our throats if we tried to keep them in the cells overnight, so this is where he sleeps.” Levins indicated the cot and the small toilet in the corner. I wrinkled my nose in distaste.

“And it’s for the more dangerous prisoners, the one’s we don’t want to be inside with.” She pointed out a chain link wall and padlocked gate that separated the angel from the outside door. Shirako stood on the other side of the chain link. He had given up talking and was scuffing the floor with the toe of his shoe.

“He’s that dangerous?” I asked looking at the angel who paid no attention to either Shirako or the mirror, instead gazed at the blank wall, completely at ease as if he wasn’t locked up under arrest. It was my first look at the prisoner I had helped capture, up close. I studied him carefully. His sharp beauty caught me by surprise. His finely molded face was so dark it looked more like velvet than skin. The trench coat had disappeared leaving a simple tunic shirt that rippled in tune with the muscles laced across his shoulders and back. This angel was like the heavenly beings drawn by the Renaissance masters; that is if the artists had shaded the skin several tones darker and erased the feathers on the wings. Michelangelo would have swooned.

“Connelly, quit drooling. And yes, he’s that dangerous!” Levins hissed.

Embarrassed, I asked Starks. “Now what?”

Starks pressed a button on the intercom. “Shirako, get in here.”

Startled the burly half-daemon looked up. The angel didn’t move as Shirako left the room.

Shirako joined us on the other side. “Nothing yet Boss,” was all he said.

“Alright, let’s give Connelly a chance to cut her teeth on this,” Starks said.

All four agents clustered around me. I suddenly noticed how small the room was and how low the menacing ceiling was. I felt like a kid in the locker room being taunted by the older kids.

“Now we see if you can get him to talk.” Starks folded his arms, watching my reaction.

“You mean about the Anakites’ plan?” I whispered.

“Ha!” Levins snorted. Shirako grinned. I wanted to smack the superior look off of his face.

“Sure, talk about the Anakites’ plan, about Subject 342, hell, talk about the weather, just see if you can get him to speak.” Starks rubbed the back of his neck. “The guy hasn’t said a word since we brought him in.”

“He ain’t said nothing since you’ve been gone either Boss,” O’Meara piped in.

I looked around at all of them in disbelief. “You mean you actually want me to see if I can get him just to talk, literally?”

“Welcome to Code Red investigations kid.” Starks slapped me on the back, Levins snickered. Their hardened agent exteriors had faded back to the goons I was familiar with. They were insufferable. It was obvious they thought I would fail.

I straightened my shoulders. “Fine. You’re all jackasses you know that right?” I pushed my way through them and back into the hall.

Shirako let me into the interrogation room and slammed the door behind me. I took a deep breath to calm the heavy beating of my pulse. I was reassured by the heavy chain link that separated me and the coiled body of this powerful being. His head swiveled around and his dark brown eyes fastened on my face. The air seemed to ripple with heat, and I understood the term, brutally handsome. God it was cheesy, but so true.

“Hi Aaron.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

He didn’t reply. His head turned back to face the wall again. I sat down in the plastic chair on my side of the mesh partition and stared at the angel staring at the wall. I wondered why Starks and Levins couldn’t get him to talk, and how I could. I studied the position of his body, the easy swing of his arm over the side of the chair, the hunched back, the dark wings curved around the shoulders, the firm set of his jaw.

I sat there for awhile, the silence becoming heavy. This was getting nowhere. I got up and began poking around the room.

“Not bad for a prison, huh?” I asked, feeling ridiculous. He didn’t move.

Slowly I walked closer to the mesh, ignoring the mirror in the back. He watched me from the corner of his eyes, following my movements, like the way Johnny would watch me in the middle of a tantrum. I stopped moving. That’s it! He’s sulking. Pouting like a little boy.

I grinned and relaxed. This was familiar territory. All I needed was a toy to play with that he couldn’t have. I pressed the intercom speaker button. “Shirako could you have someone get me Subject 342’s file?”

“Now?” His voice crackled back.

I could feel the angel’s eyes boring into my back. “Yeah, I just want to take a look at it.”

It was Starks who entered with the file, questions written on his face.

I smiled sweetly at him. “That’s all, thanks.”

Starks pursed his lips, glanced at the angel who had returned to gazing at the wall, and shook his head. “You had better know what you’re doing,” he said, glowering at me before leaving the room.

I pushed the plastic chair out of the way and settled gingerly onto the floor, my back against the wall, my little tail tucked carefully under my butt, my legs stretched out in front of me. I sat like this facing the angel and buried my head into the file. Unconsciously my hand went up to my hair and began rubbing my horn stub.

Half of an hour went by, and I still hadn’t so much as glanced in his direction, although I had managed to rub off some of the black paint on my horn. Finally the sound of a body rising and soft footsteps reached my ears. I had to give him credit; a five-year-old would have cracked long ago.

“You know maybe if you didn’t act so stubbornly suspicious, they wouldn’t be so suspicious of you.” I remarked casually, not looking up.

“Well, maybe if they had had the courtesy to ask me what I was doing, before throwing me into the back of a vehicle and locking me up for no good reason, then maybe I would not be so stubborn.”

I felt a little thrill from the silky accent in his voice. I wondered where he was from.

“Touché,” I responded quietly.

The angel squatted down to my eye level, his entire body rigid. “Is that really Kels’s file?” he asked, hesitant.

I detected genuine concern in his tone. Intrigued, I tilted my head and peered at his watchful expression.

“What’s it to you?” I asked.

“What’s it to me?” Aaron wrapped his long fingers around the holes in the chain link and stared at me. It took all of my courage not to shy back from the intensity of his bearing. His nostrils flared and I could see a tremor in his arms as if he fought to maintain control.

“To me he is more than Subject 342, as you people keep calling him. He’s a child, a living, breathing child, not some file in the computer. His name is Kels. He is in extreme danger, and he must be protected, which is what I was doing before you devils picked me up.” He kept staring at me, the urgency in his eyes boring into mine.

I felt the burn of the insult, devil was not a term daemons took lightly, but I remembered the number one rule in agent training. Don’t let emotion get to you in a case. I calmed my burning indignation with a few slow breaths. Still smarting from the devils comment I considered what else he had said.

“Protected from whom?” I asked.

“From people who think they have the right to play God,” he whispered so low it came out a growl.

“You mean like the Anakites?” I asked. Bluntness was my best weapon.

Startled by my statement. Aaron let go of the chain link and sat back on his heels, wrapping his arms around his knees. His tattered wings unfolded to help him balance. They were almost beautiful on the inside, the membrane glossy and dark, exposing what they could look like if he took better care of them. His entire presence felt like that, almost beautiful, if it had been taken care of better. He radiated heat, mesmerizing me with the barely contained rage in his expression.

I put the file down and scooted closer to the mesh barrier. Even without the experience of a veteran agent, I knew I was on to something.

“Aaron.” I said. “We are on Kels’s side. I am on Kels’s side. I work under the child protection unit for SITO, he’s my responsibility now. So if he needs to be protected I need to know from whom.”

He was silent, watching me. If any internal struggle to come clean was occurring, his expression wasn’t giving it away. I was good at reading people, especially children, but reading this man felt as reliable as reading a captive tiger’s expression before it mauled you. I moved a little away from the mesh, sweating with the force of my own effort not to run panicked out the door. Something darkened in his eyes; I was losing him. I could not show weakness.

I leaned forward again and pleaded, “Aaron, please help me on this. As an Anakite, only you can tell me what they want and how Kels is in danger from them.”

His eyes went blank, the veins in his neck throbbed, and he growled, “I AM NOT. AN. ANAKITE.”

He leapt up and his wings snapped open. They were massive, twice the length of his arm span. I cringed from the force of his reaction.

I had lost him. His nostrils flared, and his chest rose and fell heavily as he began slamming his fists against the mesh.

I scrambled up, but said nothing, waiting for him to collect himself. The intercom buzzed, and I held up my hand toward the mirror, signaling for them to wait. I sensed something in his outburst, something deeper than anger, almost a kind of anguish. Finally his body relaxed, his wings drooping down.

He lifted his eyes to mine. The shame in them burrowed into the depths of my heart. “That is in my past,” he said quietly. “I no longer follow the Way of Moloch nor am I a part of the Anakites’ worship.”

I held his gaze. It was as open as a child’s. This man was a good man, I could feel it. I placed my fingers lightly upon the mesh. The intercom buzzed frantically, but I ignored it.

“I believe you,” I said. The world paused. In the moments without time, truth is established, and in this moment, I knew him and knew what he was telling me was true.

The intercom buzzed again interrupting us. The clearness in his eyes gave me a peculiar feeling in my chest, and instinctively I broke contact.

“Are you hungry?” I asked gruffly. “I’ll have someone send in some food.”

“It does not matter.” Aaron stalked away from me. He flopped down on the armchair. The careless attitude had returned. Our interview was over.

“SITO detectives are just a little rough around the edges, but they do have good intentions.” I said quietly.

Aaron looked up at me then looked away again, but his shoulders relaxed slightly.

It was a start.

The intercom squeaked.

I slammed my thumb on the button. “Okay, I’m coming!”

Shirako opened the door, and I left the interview room thoughtfully. The cold dank air of the hallway swept over me, bathing me in the chill of my own sweat. Starks and Levins met me out in the hallway.

“Not bad Connelly,” Starks said, patting my back.

“Mmph.” Was the only noise that came out of Levins, but I could see a new respect for me shining out of her eyes. I felt the tension in my body from the interview finally loosen; my muscles felt like putty.

“I’ve got to go pick up the kids from school,” I mumbled. “Make sure he gets some food.”

They were quiet as I stumbled up the stairs and back out into the pit. The stale air was a welcome relief from the claustrophobic atmosphere.

Halfway up the second flight of stairs to the main office hallway, I realized I still had Subject 342’s file clutched in my hands. I hurried to my office and shut the door. I leafed through the file until I found the page I had been examining while sitting with Aaron. I picked up the phone and dialed Ireland.

After the tenth ring my dad’s voice came on the line, groggy with sleep. “Hello?”

“Dad, it’s me.”

“Sarah? Is everything all right?” His voice sharpened.

“Yeah Dad, everything’s fine. I just have some more information on that half-angel kid I was telling you about the other night.”

My father was fully awake now. “Let me start my computer.”

“No time Dad, I’m at the office, and I can’t take this home. I’m going to fax it to the post office there. Pick it up first thing in the morning; I’ll write a cover page for Bernie pretending it’s just more of your boring research crap.”

The postmaster in my father’s little Irish town was nosy, which was why he became postmaster, but I knew the technicality of my father’s research was over his head, and he wouldn’t bother to read it.

“Okay Sarah, call me later.”

I was already dialing the numbers on the fax machine before he hung up. I rubbed my horn stubs impatiently while the fax machine slowly ate the classified extensive lab reports on Subject 342. Although we could get the same information from SITO’s lab reports, my father would work through it much quicker and without a lot of the red tape. My instinct told me there was much more going on beneath the surface of this case, and it should be looked at closely. I swear I had never seen a fax machine so slow. I was technically sharing classified information with the outside. I wasn’t sure how Starks would react, and I didn’t want to give them any reason to take me off the case.

“Connelly?”

I flinched when the door opened a crack. Galina’s rose-colored horns poked through the crack.

“Yeah, Galina?” I quickly made my way to the door, effectively blocking her view.

“Some of the staff is going out for drinks tonight, I wanted to see if you were going,” she said shyly, towering over me in her six-inch heels.

“Oh shoot, I would love to, but I’ve got to pick up the kids I babysit for,” I said.

She looked confused.

“It’s my cover,” I explained hastily. “Plus this Code Red has really got me all tied up, so rain check?”

“Sure, a Code Red. Gosh that’s intense.”

My chest puffed out a little bit. “Well we can only take it one step at a time.” It sounded ridiculous, but she nodded, wide-eyed.

“Well next time.” She lingered along with her intoxicating scent. It was flowers, or vanilla, or something, whatever it was it muddled my brain. I stood torn between my hormones and my head, listening to the fax machine finish its snail’s journey, until the sound of Starks returning to his office made my decision for me.

“Yes definitely next time!” I smiled at her and regretfully shut the door.

Moments later I set Subject 342’s file on Starks’s desk.

“I forgot to give this back to Levins,” I said, hoping I didn’t look guilty.

“Sure, I’ll take care of it for you.” Starks waved his hand absorbed in his computer. “Oh and Connelly.”

I paused in the doorway, my heart pounding. Was it noticeable the papers had been faxed?

“Good job today, Kid.” He looked up from his desk, his eyes full of warmth.

I let out a breath. “Thanks Boss,” I said, surprised and grateful for the unexpected compliment.

That night, as I sat on the couch smoking a blunt, trying to unwind from the tough day, I reflected on my triumph. Somehow it didn’t make me feel as proud as I had expected. I had thought entering the world I wanted so badly to be a part of was going to make me feel grown up, motivated and mature. Instead I felt confused, small, and still lonely. There was so much about Case 342 that did not add up, and I was extremely aware of my inadequate ability to even begin to put the pieces together. Maybe Starks had been right this whole time not to put me in the CIU. Maybe I was just an amateur playing at being a SITO agent.

Most of all the oppressive weight of what that angel had said about Kels being in serious danger, weighed on my mind. And the only person who had any idea how to help the child was locked inside the interrogation room like a wild beast locked in a cage. His face haunted me.

Even more terrifying was the knowledge that I was not afraid to go into the cage with the beast.

What was wrong with me?