The pit had exploded. Every desk that was accessible had someone madly hammering at the keys or intensely staring at the screen of a computer. Cell phones rang incessantly, and Starks’s voice could be heard bellowing orders. I sat burrowed in the darkest corner, wishing I was anywhere but where I was.
After I had noticed the escaping Prius, it had roared into life and shot down the street without giving me a glimpse of the driver. I chased it for a good six blocks before doubling over, gasping for breath. The call I had to make next was the worst I had ever had to make. Delilah had sent out the alert, and ten minutes later I was riding in the back of the surveillance van careening through the streets, with Levins screaming at me through my cell phone speaker. Three hours and multiple interrogations later found me holed in the corner of the pit.
O’Meara appeared at the top of the steps. “Local police have tracked the car, it’s parked on Fifth and Valley near the hospital,” he said.
Everyone stopped and looked at Starks. “You.” He pointed at another half-daemon agent. “Go with him.” His eyes darted around the room. “Levins!” he barked. “You need to get out of here for some air, go with those two, keep them in line.”
Levins stalked through the room, and everyone fell back to their tasks. I shifted in my chair. Stark’s gaze fell on me. I appealed to him with my eyes.
Levins caught the interaction. “Don’t even think about it,” she growled. Starks shrugged and turned away. I sagged back into my chair.
After Levins left the room Starks approached me.
“I can’t believe I fucked this up.” I said my words heavy with guilt. My heart was cold thinking about poor Kels and how terrified he must be.
Starks patted my shoulder awkwardly. “Look Connelly, you did what most would do. That was one hellavu a trick move.”
“Levins doesn’t seem to think so,” I muttered.
“She’ll get over it. I know that woman, she’s blaming herself and this is her way of channeling that guilt.”
He looked down on me kindly. “Why don’t you go home, get some rest?” It was a request, but by his tone, not one that could be refused.
I looked up angrily. “So that’s it? I’m off the case? Do you honestly I can go home and sleep? I want to help, to do something! That poor kid is out there in the hands of sick twisted fanatical murderers and you want me to get some rest?” I could feel the heat of my anger in my cheeks. Something had to be done. I couldn’t just give up.
Starks sighed. “Connelly, I get that you feel bad, but there is nothing to be done at this point. All we can do is sit tight and wait for a lead. I promise, if anything comes up I’ll have Delilah notify you. Now go home, Galina can give you a ride back to your bike.” He walked away nullifying any argument I could make.
Not even Galina, dressed in her usual sleek sexiness, could lighten the shadow that surrounded my thoughts. She seemed to understand I didn’t feel like talking and walked ahead of me to the parking lot, long sinuous tail moving with the curve of her butt. I gave her directions and slouched down low in the passenger side of her beater car, taking a second out of my depressed state to admire that she drove a manual. We clunked our way out onto the streets.
Galina interrupted the silence timidly. “So crazy; that poor little kid being kidnapped right?”
When she said it, I felt the day’s tension and worry implode inside me, and tears leaked down my cheeks.
Troubled by my silence Galina peeked at me and caught my tears. Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. “All right, you shouldn’t be driving a motorcycle in this condition. How do we get to your place?”
I sniffled. “I’m fine.”
“You know if you’re not careful you’ll turn into Levins.”
Too choked up to argue more, I accepted her offer. Turned out she was more mature than the rest of us. “Get off on Baker St.”
I stifled my tears and directed her to my apartment. She parked the car and followed me inside. I was too tired to protest her invasion of my home, even though it was a disaster. On a normal day I would be embarrassed that anyone saw it, let alone her.
“Do you have tea?” She immediately filled the space as if she were the inhabitant and I the guest. I nodded mutely and pointed to the kitchen.
“You go change into pajamas and I’ll fix us some tea,” she said and gently steered my non-protesting frame toward my bedroom. All illusions of my cool agent veneer were gone, and it didn’t even occur to me to try and find sexy sleepwear. Dressed in an oversized t-shirt and loose sweats, I collapsed on the couch. I pulled out the picture Kels had drawn for me and stared down at it, guilt washing through my veins. The kettle screamed and was quickly silenced. Minutes later Galina reappeared with two steaming mugs.
The door framed her black suited height, the six inch heels boosted her to Goddess-like stature, and the soft lighting captured the gold playing in her sleekly straightened hair. I wondered what she would look like if her daemon’s natural curls were allowed to break through the styling goo and heat of the iron. I remembered Kels’s bouncy hair and the tears threatened again. Galina saw me crumple and smoothly slid onto the couch next to me, her long tail curling around my waist, one arm wrapped around my trembling shoulders and the other placing a mug in my hands.
The unfamiliarity of the warmth of another adult pressed against me in comfort, and the sweet scent of steaming tea broke the last remaining barrier on my emotions. I collapsed into sobs.
“Shhh, there you go, let it all out.”
In the haze of my emotions I knew Galina was rocking me as gently as I had rocked many a crying child, and although it was weak, I didn’t pull away. It felt so good to be cared for. I continued to cry, making incoherent statements in between sobs, accusing everyone and everything, mainly myself for the kidnapping. Aaron and Levins were blasted by angry accusations, not even Shirako was safe. Finally, just like a child I wore myself out, my head settling slowly in the crook of Galina’s arm and drifted.
The room was dark when I woke. Somehow Galina had turned off the lights and squeezed herself between me and the back of the sofa, without waking me up. She grumbled softly when I shifted her arms and tail off of me to sit up, but didn’t wake. I could see my phone vibrating where I had left in on the table next to the front door, the glow of the screen flashing. Carefully I unwrapped her tail from around my waist and got up.
The missed call was from SITO. I went into the kitchen and closed the door to call them back.
“Connelly.” Delilah answered. “Starks said to let you know Levins and crew picked up Gaap and if you felt up for it you could come back quietly.”
Translation, don’t stir up shit with Levins. I asked, “What about Kels, is he okay?” My hopes betrayed my voice with a tremor.
“The kid, Subject 342? No he wasn’t with him.”
My spirits sank, if Kels wasn’t with Gaap it meant Aaron has the child. How had I been so conned?
“Okay Delilah thanks, tell Starks I’ll be there soon.”
“Ten-four.”
I blundered through the dark living room and into my bedroom. My jeans were right where I had left them, in a pile on the floor. Yanking them back on, I stubbed my tail stub and cursed. I tiptoed back into the living room. “Galina?” I whispered.
“Mmph.”
“Galina wake up.” I felt a considerable amount of guilt flicking on the light. She sat up slowly, blinking rapidly, her hair disarrayed, suit wrinkled. “I’m so sorry, but I need to get back to SITO.”
“Oh, of course, not a problem.” She was instantly awake and standing, the sweetheart.
“You can just drop me off at the Smyths’ and I’ll grab my bike. It’s a lot closer to here and then you can go home and get some real sleep.”
She nodded, still blinking in the light. I grabbed the piece of ripped orange construction paper with Kels’s drawing and stuffed it in my wallet before we stumbled out the door.
The ride was awkward. I wasn’t sure what to say. Eventually Galina turned up the volume on a late night rock station, and we settled into that quiet haze that envelops the mind after only a few hours sleep in the dark early morning hours.
We arrived at the Smyths’. The silence stretched.
I put my hand on the door handle. “Thank you for staying with me.”
She smiled sleepily and my stomach flipped. “Anytime,” she said.
Her smile lingered in my head as I rode my motorcycle back to SITO.
I entered the main office carefully. The hallways were silent and dark, except for the dim glow coming from under the double doors of the pit.
The pit was also eerily empty. Spooked, I crept down the shadowy stairs to the interrogation room.
I knocked softly on the door. Dead quiet followed. I thought my heart might explode from the rhythmic pounding. The door opened a crack. From the absolute dark Shirako’s nose appeared, illuminated in the dim glow of the hallway.
“Let her in.” A hoarse whisper came from behind him, Starks’s voice.
The door widened enough to allow me to slip in. My vision was encased in pitch black, and my ears were assailed by low tones of a speaker. I orientated myself as the shapes of the other observers came into focus. Their faces were etched with the harsh glow of the florescent light of the interview room on the other side of the one-way mirror. I acknowledged O’Meara next to me, and turned my face to the scene playing in front of us.
The interrogation room I was looking into was different from the soft welcoming room Aaron had been in. This room was stark and cold, resembling what I originally thought of as a typical police interrogation room, complete with bare walls, metal chairs, and a heavy metal table. Two figures sat motionless across from each other. Levins, her back to the mirror, leaned back casually in her seat, her booted heels flung up on top of the table. Like an old man watching the world go by on his rocking chair, she sat at ease in her chair. A stream of speech, interjected with bitter questions, flowed from her mouth.
Not so at ease, a sullen angel sat at the other end.
I stared at the enemy. Gaap was to Aaron as this room was to the other. Although, like all angels, Gaap had the same powerful build and same dark, burnished skin, where Aaron seemed to fill a space, Gaap shrank from it. His black eyes roved around the room with a disdainful leer, and his disgust with Levins was thinly veiled.
“I won’t talk to a halfer.” Gaap interrupted Levins, looking into the mirror and spat. There was a grumble from our side and a move toward the speaker button. The speaker crackled. Levins held up a warning finger and we settled down.
“Shirako get me Old Abe.” Starks’s low order punctured the tension in the dark room.
Collectively everyone in the room turned toward him in surprise.
“Fatty Abby?” someone muttered.
“Just do it,” he growled.
Shirako shrugged and slipped out.
I wasn’t sure what Starks was thinking. Abe was the angel that had replaced me on the Code Green cases. Besides being ancient and grossly overweight, he was seen as a bumbling moron by most of the office.
“Connelly.”
“Yeah boss?” I straightened, wondering what Starks could want.
“Get us some coffee.”
I glowered at him. O’Meara smirked.
“O’Meara, go with her.” Ignoring O’Meara’s attempt to argue, Starks jammed his finger on the speaker button. “Levins, get in here.” When he saw that neither I nor O’Meara had moved, he shooed us angrily out of the room. “Don’t forget the cream, just because Levins likes to burn her insides, does not mean the rest of us have to.” His parting words followed us out the door.
I wondered if he was trying to get rid of me before Levins came back in.
We returned half an hour later, laden with coffee, a pint of cream, and convenience-store crinkly plastic-wrapped goodies. Everyone had moved up to the pit. A sleepy and bemused Abe sat on a backless stool, his wings a step away from being wilted leaves on the floor. Abe was huge, but in that used-to-be-a-body-builder-and-now-all-that-muscle-mass-has-turned-to-jelly way. Levins was pacing in front of him, her mouth pursed in a firm line, and Starks was addressing him softly. They looked up as we entered, and Abe’s expression brightened at the sight of powdered donuts. By the time we had passed around the late night, perk up food, Abe had been briefed, and everyone headed back to the hallway.
As the old angel waddled stiffly down the stairs and into the interrogation room, powered sugar kissing random places, I doubted Starks’s judgment. Looking around I could see we all did, but nobody dared say anything with the stormy expression on Starks’s face, so mouths were sealed shut. I wasn’t about to speak up, the scathing look from Levins as I handed her a cup of coffee was enough to keep my lips glued together for life.
Once the door was shut behind Abe, Levins and Starks went into the back room and took their places behind the one-way mirror. The rest of us silently and eagerly jostled and shoved our way in after them, hoping for a good view.
“Hail brother, I am Abe, first rank of Moloch.” Abe’s booming voice startled us frozen. On the other side of the mirror Gaap jumped up. The rest of us turned to stare at Starks, his grim smile reflected by the light from the other side. Levins hissed under her breath. Old Abe was an Anakite?
The fat angel moved laboriously around the table to reach the chair. A bewildered Gaap made way for him. Abe settled into his chair, arranging his drooping wings around the back. Gaap slowly sat back down. His eyes glared across the table.
“You dare call me brother? You traitor who works for these halfers, these tainted people?”
Abe fluttered a hand. “I have learned we are all brothers, but I was once one of you, a believer of the purists.”
Levins stiffened. I reached my hand out and placed it lightly on her shoulder. She shot a quick glance at me before shrugging my hand off. Her eyes had been soft though, maybe she was cooling down.
“But you are not one of us, now you are one of them,” Gaap responded. “Look at you, you are fat and disgusting, Moloch would laugh at you and then spite you down.”
Old Abe was unruffled. Fingers laced over his prodigious belly, he calmly stared back at Gaap.
Gaap’s eyes dropped first. “You have nothing on me,” he whispered.
“Ah my brother, there you are wrong.” Abe tossed a brown envelope on the table.
I heard someone catch their breath on our side. Levins leaned closer to the mirror eagerly.
“What is it?” I whispered to Shirako.
Starks hushed us before Shirako could answer.
Shirako shrugged at me after Starks had turned back to the mirror.
Gaap reached for the envelope.
“There are multiple copies of these if you get any ideas,” Abe said.
The younger angel pulled a photograph out of the envelope. His face crumpled. I stretched onto my tiptoes to catch a glimpse of the pictures.
After a lengthy pause Abe broke the silence. “Why did you take the child?”
“I will not betray my brothers.”
“Where is Aaron hiding?”
Gaap’s nostrils flared and my stomach lurched, at the mention of Aaron, but the prisoner didn’t say anything.
“I suppose your esteemed leader would be interested in these photographs. To know what his faithful servant is doing during his time in California.” Abe reached over and took the envelope back from Gaap’s unresisting fingers.
“I will not betray my brothers,” Gaap’s voice was weaker.
“I know the penalty when you break the way of Moloch.” Abe held the photograph up, examining it casually. On our side Starks folded his arms in satisfaction. The rest of us craned over him to see.
“Is that what I think it is?” A whisper floated into the air, the speaker hidden in the dark.
“Quiet,” Starks hissed.
“I will not betray my brothers.” The detainee’s voice was weaker.
“WHERE IS THE CHILD?!” Abe slammed the photograph onto the table, startling everyone with his loud booming question.
“SOMEWHERE YOU WILL NEVER FIND HIM!” Gaap leapt up and screamed back.
At a hurried signal from Starks, O’Meara and Shirako raced out of the room to help Old Abe.
“HE IS THE CHOSEN ONE, THE MARK OF MOLOCH WILL FIND HIM!” Gaap was still screaming hysterically as he was subdued by the two burly half-daemons.
“YOU WILL SEE, OUR BLOOD WILL BE PURE!”
“PUT HIM IN SOLITARY!” Starks roared over the noise. “Connelly, call the national headquarters, tell them we have an acknowledged terrorist. Levins, go get Abe, bring him to the pit. The rest of you, get your asses online, find out where they could have taken Subject 342, close off all angel and daemon friendly travel ports in the Bay Area. And somebody get me more coffee!”