The Bubonic Plague outbreak in California had disappeared as quickly as it had come. There were lots of dead squirrels, a few other dead animals, and four humans that had lived through it. The potential epidemic had quietly been swept away, but it still held a spot in my mind. I scanned the news regularly for it.
Halloween had brought trick-or-treaters. The children of law enforcement officers had rang my doorbell well into the night. One of the advantages of living in a gated community like ours. Nyleena had dressed up as a witch and come over to hand out candy. She was a good witch, of course. Trevor had found me a pirate’s costume and I had donned it all night without a single complaint. She and I had taken turns handing out candy. We had ooh’ed and ahh’ed over the costumes of both the children and the parents, who had gotten into the spirit. A dozen or more parties had been in full swing. One had gotten slightly out of control, but it seemed silly to call the cops when the party belonged to the head of the SCTU.
Nyleena and I had both been invited to the party. We had both decided handing out candy and watching cheesy horror movies sounded better. We’d had a Vincent Price marathon and then topped it off by watching Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.
The first week of November, I had been cleared to go back to work. The same was not true of Lucas or the SCTU. We were short two men without Lucas. Also, we’d lost two Marshals in less than a year. While Lucas and I had been recovering, Gabriel and Xavier had been working with the VCU. However, even the VCU was very slow at the moment. Not because crime was dropping, but because the powers that be thought we weren’t being given enough down time. As far as they could tell, the only time off any of us had taken in the past year had been for recovery from physical injury, unless it had been forced on us.
This was entirely possible. I knew I hadn’t taken a vacation day and couldn’t remember anyone else taking one either. We were never sick or never sick enough to not work. They were trying to implement a new rule, work a case and be off for a number of days in correlation to how long the case had lasted and how bad it had been. I wondered who would be in charge of judging the severity of each case.
Trevor had taken it upon himself to fix Thanksgiving in a week. My family had been invited as had Gabriel’s and Xavier’s. More importantly, Alice had been invited. I wasn’t sure I was looking forward to seeing her again, but I wasn’t dreading it like I did most social encounters.
Today, I was alone, in my house, enjoying reruns of Waiting For God. A bone-chilling cold had settled over Missouri and we’d already had a few snows. It was uncommon for heavy snow to fall in November, but it wasn’t unheard of. The seventeen inches that covered the ground outside gave me an excuse to stay indoors. I got up and made a cup of hot chocolate, added marshmallows and went back to the couch.
“Ace!” Gabriel opened my door.
“Here,” I answered, turning around on the couch. He had someone new with him. I cocked my head to the side and stared at the stranger.
“This here is John Bryant,” Gabriel brought the stranger further into the room.
“Um, ok,” I frowned at Gabriel.
“John is our newest team member, we’ll be going back to work in December. He’s moving in this week.”
“In the snow,” I said.
“In the snow,” Gabriel confirmed.
“Poor guy,” I turned back to the TV and paused my show. I didn’t want to miss a joke I’d heard at least a hundred times because I was talking to the newest team member.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you Marshal Cain, I’ve read a lot about you,” John extended his hand.
“I don’t actually touch people I don’t know,” I said. “I’m rude and stand-offish when you first meet me. If we survive together for a few weeks, it’ll get better. If we survive a psychopath together, I’ll warm a little faster.”
“I heard you were hard to get to know,” John said.
“Talking to Lucas I see.”
“Yes, you were the last one for me to meet,” John had the grace to look sheepish.
“Well, then,” I stood up. “Do you guys want hot chocolate or coffee?”
“Sure,” Gabriel made his way into my kitchen and started coffee. I stood there looking for something to do other than get to know the new team member.
“I like books, fishing, and anything with chocolate in it,” John told me.
“I like history and work,” I answered. “I’m a very boring person.”
“Ace can literally bore people to sleep,” Gabriel shouted from the kitchen. “Her brain is like an encyclopedia of everything dark that has ever happened in the world, especially if humans did it to other humans. She’s also my point man. Lucas may bust down the doors, but Ace goes in first. She can subdue a bad guy like no one else. Half the time, they see her and surrender.”
“The other half?” John asked.
“She kicks their ass until they do,” Gabriel handed John a mug. I kept coffee for other people, I didn’t drink it myself. “Before John came to work for us, he was working for the Secret Service in Treasury as a computer tech.”
“And you moved here?” I asked, the first interesting thing all day to be said.
“It sounded like a nice change,” John answered.
“What really made you move?” I pressed.
“My daughter was kidnapped three years ago. She was found beaten, raped and murdered a week later in a ditch. SCTU caught the guy that did it. So I applied. Sorry to come in under these circumstances.”
“Life expectancy isn’t real high for a member of the SCTU,” I tried to wave the comment away. “Two or three years is the best we can hope for. Xavier and Lucas are both going on four years, but they’re the exception, not the rule.”
“And they’ve definitely gotten their fair share of scars to show for it,” Gabriel sounded a touch distant. “We have lots of rules, none of them pertain to the handling of killers. The primary one is that we watch out for each other, in the field and at home. Ace has a stalker or two. She also has a fan club in The Fortress. The new president is Brent Timmons, The Tallahassee Terror. He killed the old one and took over after meeting her. They have supervised club meetings where they follow her cases and do scrapbooking. The Marshals allow it because it serves a purpose, we have the ability to better understand those we’ve caught as well as those we track. Their meetings have actually led to different ways of thinking and helping on unrelated cases because they think like killers. Lucas gets transcripts of them and goes over them for important information. Malachi Blake is dangerous, but technically still a good guy, so don’t kill him, but don’t let your guard down completely when he’s around. If we and VCU are both home, you’ll see him often. He lives a block down, but hangs out here. Don’t sneak up on Ace or Lucas, they’ll kill you without realizing it. Sneaking up on Xavier is also not a good idea, but he’ll just maim. We all have designated jobs within the unit. Stick to your job and you’ll do just fine. Screw up and things will not go as well.”
“Got it,” John said.
“Also,” I looked at him. “I’m a sociopath. My fan club isn’t the only place where we have people that think like killers. We’re all damaged goods, accept that and respect the boundaries. We won’t pry too hard into your life, if you don’t pry too hard into ours. What I did earlier is actually a no-no among us. But it gives you an example of the reason behind it. It’s uncomfortable and most of us don’t want to talk about it.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t a great feeling,” John admitted.
“No, no it wasn’t and some of us have more secrets than others. You’ll learn them slowly. Are you good with a gun?”
“Proficient,” John said.
“Get better,” I told him. “Also, learn to use a knife if you don’t already know. Sometimes it is the only weapon available.”
“I can fight,” John told me.
“So can Gabriel and Lucas and Xavier.” I answered. “Now ask them who would win a fight.”
“Who would win a fight?” John asked.
“Ace,” Gabriel’s answer was immediate. “And it has nothing to do with her being a girl. You’re going to encounter some seriously bad killers who are so far gone they don’t feel any pain. Psychopath 101: they don’t feel pain the way a regular person does. They won’t go into shock from pain or be stopped by it. If you shoot them and don’t hit something vital, they just keep coming. And if you see Ace struggling to take someone down, you can bet your ass he’s a true psychopath. Offer help, sometimes she takes it, sometimes she doesn’t. It depends on the situation.”
“Why do you do that?” John asked.
“I’m a sociopath, it’s like half the perks, half the side effects. My pain tolerance is about fifteen times that of a normal person. I can’t feel guilt, empathy or sympathy, so if I kill one, I’m not going to lose sleep over it at night. Most of the team will. I don’t fight like a girl and I don’t fight fair.”
“Which is why sometimes it is just better to stay out of her way,” Gabriel said. “You’ll learn the signs.”