Afterburn by Karen L. Abrahamson
* * *
She was so cold even the afterburn couldn’t warm her. Fear could do that.
Vallon keyed her car open before she got there, fighting the need to run. She slammed herself in and locked all the doors. Only then, did she allow herself to breathe. She inhaled the scent of new leather, tried to feel safe. But that was an illusion, wasn’t it?
Whoever—whatever—she had followed down that street could probably blast right up through her floorboards if what she suspected were true.
If she hadn’t just lost her mind.
Because nobody—nobody—could do what she thought she’d just seen. The figure she’d seen as flame down the street had led her—no, make that lured her—away from the well-lit streets into the darkness that verged the reservoir.
So just what had she seen? A flash of dark leather coat over a single, square-shouldered figure. Man then.
Okay. That slowed her pounding heart a little. It was a man. A person.
Just a person with more power than she’d ever seen, felt, or heard of, and something about it brought up an old terror she didn’t want to feel again.
Even her instructors at the Academy hadn’t been able to do what she thought this guy had done. Disappear.
Or else she was losing her mind.
It was as if suddenly, when she’d been about to catch up to him and confront him with his actions, he’d blown apart into a dark vortex that contracted into a single black point that had hung in the air for a moment. It had been suspended long enough to turn golden, and then was sucked into the earth.
The force of energy had almost blown her over, but she’d stood firm. Sometimes feeling the backlash of power could tell you about the user.
But this hadn’t told her anything except that there was more cedar and incense-scented power here than she’d ever felt before. Power enough to easily transform a house into a parking garage—or one house into another. Power enough to wipe Vallon Drake—or anyone else—off the face of the earth in an instant.
The fact he hadn’t bothered just said she wasn’t even worth the effort.
She fumbled the keys into the ignition, turned on the engine, and the smooth, powerful purr helped her settle. Dropping the clutch into gear, she pulled away from the curb and glanced at the cops still working the scene and—what the hell—did a ‘U’y to head down Denny to the highway.
The car’s rumbling engine, as usual, helped steady her and helped her think, but it was still hard to head for the office instead of just giving into the self-preservation instinct and heading north-south-anywhere on the compass on I-5 and away from what had just happened. She took I-520 across the muffling waters of Lake Washington and took the first Redmond exit, tooling through the tall trees up onto the AGS Campus.
Her car slid into the parking space reserved for the night watchman—as she’d come to call the desk job—behind the low brick bunker that held the AGS and the small apartment complex where the Chief lived. When she stepped out of the car into pine-scented air, the only sounds were the ticking of the Subaru’s engine, the light patter of rain, and the soughing of the wind in tall cedar. But the silence belied the shadows on the sound-proof windows. Just about all the building’s offices showed occupied, a fact that indicated just how serious the situation was.
Someone had taken out an agent. Again.
She carded her way through the locked door and into the recycled, purified air. It was one of Gregor Gleason’s bugaboos—had to be clean air for pure creative thought, he said.
Privately Vallon thought Gleason’s need for cleanliness went a tad too far, including the shaved pate he sported because it was easier than trying to make sure nothing got caught in his hair. That was Gleason—smooth and squeaky clean.
The entryway to the bunker was functional, with a reception desk for the daylight hours. A ‘T’ intersection joined the entry with a long hallway that bisected the long, narrow building from end to end. At the far end, away from the prying eyes of the public, waited the operatives’ main, open-concept office, overseen by Gregor Gleason’s executive assistant. Gleason’s office itself had a panel of one-way glass that allowed him to keep an eye on his ‘minions’. Vallon turned towards it, but stopped. Then she spun on her heel and headed the other direction.
If she were going to write her report she needed quiet and not Gregor Gleason breathing down her neck.
The AGS research library was a better place to compose her thoughts. Always had been. She knocked once on the door, didn’t wait for an answer, and entered into the nether world of Landon Snow.
As usual the light was dim, a single reading lamp buried in the rear of the large space barely providing enough light to illuminate a path through the maze of glass-fronted bookshelves and tables covered with arcane implements. How and why Landon came to be part of the AGS was something lost from before Vallon’s time. He’d been here when Vallon was a child and, given his ageless appearance, she had little doubt he’d be here after she was gone, even though he wasn’t an Agent—or at least not Gifted like Vallon or the others.
The air carried the musty scent of old paper and plant matter and the acrid scents of formaldehyde and ether and alcohol. Each table carried the detritus of partially completed experiments—beakers slowly evaporating to salts, others awaiting the liquid condensing in long coils of glass tubing. Vegetation mashed and boiling over small gas flames. Small glass bottles of almost preternaturally clear water—precious, virgin dew. All not part of the research library, but the product of Landon’s personal passion for Alchemy. The fact the AGS put up with it in order to keep Landon ‘in the fold’ only increased the man’s mystery.
On the walls, in the dim light, glowed what Landon had named the ancient symbols of Thoth, Azoth, Ouroboros, and hermaphrodite. The latter was particularly appropriate given London Snow himself.
He looked up from reading one of his antique tomes, his albino hair almost shocking in the darkness, his odd, sharp features captured in a startling frieze of black and white shadows that only made his pink eyes that much more surreal.
But not to her. Though what he did for the AGS wasn’t clear, she was glad he was here. Had been since the horrible day when her father died. Then Landon had been the one to comfort a distraught twelve-year-old. Now Landon Snow was the closest thing she had to a father—closer even, because her father had never had time for a troublesome daughter. Landon didn’t have a lot of time either, but he was as close as she’d allow anyone to get.
“Well, hello, Pigeon.” He set the book down. “I’ve been wondering when you’d show up. Gleason’s on the warpath and you’re enemy numero uno. Seems you were supposed to be here—oh,” he checked the wide face of his analog wrist watch, “I’d say about ten minutes ago, and you know him. Stickler for details.”
“He’s on the warpath because I left, so he’ll just have to wait, won’t he?” She shook her head. “He’ll get his report soon enough, but him standing over me isn’t going to make it come any faster. I was hoping I could hang here ‘til I get it done.” She cocked her head in question, could see Landon consider, his fine lips almost translucent over his neat row of small teeth.
“So you really have something to do with Lamrey’s death?” Genuine interest and that was what she loved about Landon. Good or bad, he was actually interested in her.
She settled herself across the table from him and clicked on another reading lamp. Raised a brow at him. “What do you think?”
“Well, I’d say ‘no’ if it was anyone but you, darling Pigeon, but you’ve been surprising me since you were this high.”
He held his hand as high as the tabletop, and Vallon grinned.
“That long, huh?”
“That long, and through how many desperate calls from the headmaster at the Academy?”
That broadened her grin. “Too many. But to answer your question, I didn’t kill him. Might have thought about it a few times, though.”
“La la la la la.” L
“Like you would. You know how good I am at my job.” She shook her head, because she was good—even if Gleason rode her ass all the time. “Nope. Didn’t kill him. Weirdest night I ever had, though. And that’s going some.”
“But you might have killed him, given how well your relationship was going?”
“And I think you’re taking just a little too much pleasure out of all this.” She held up her hand. “I know. You warned me about Simon. Too old for me, too much a ladies’ man, and too set in old-fashioned ways.”
“Well, you will do things your way.”
He met her gaze and all the fun suddenly went out of his eyes so they were almost the deep red she remembered from the day her father died. Well, disappeared would be a better way to put it.
Landon had picked her up from the Academy on Friday, as usual, because her father never had time to do it himself. Bright sunny day, new leaves unfurling on the poplar and oak, and daffodils and tulips blooming in all the yards. She’d planted some at her house, too, in hopes her father would approve, and she was hoping they’d be there this weekend when Landon brought her home. Except home wasn’t there when they arrived.
Nice middle-America neighborhood was the same, but her house—that had been another matter. Landon had pulled up without a second look and Vallon had jumped out, then turned to the house on the corner. Heritage-blue, two-story stood there. She stopped. Looked around the neighborhood. There was Mrs. Krieger’s place to the right. Behind it, the overgrown lot that would become a bookstore.
She bolted then, for the front door screaming for her Dad, who was supposed to be working at home that day.
Landon had caught her as she pounded up the hollow-sounding front porch stairs and had dragged her back to the van fighting a screaming, kicking girl until he could get her some place safe. That had ended up being back at the AGS Academy of Geological Science dormitory.
She nodded. “Like that,” she said softly, thinking of Landon’s eyes. Around her the room hissed and gurgled and the old, cold fear struck her core again and caused a sick reaction with the afterburn. “I hadn’t thought of it in years.”
Just had nightmares about it that woke her sweating into the night. It was why she volunteered to put the blue house back every time the darned bookstore owner changed it into a store annex. Confront your fears.
“But it was just like that the first time, Landon. The blue house gone. A parking garage, of all things, in its place.” Shook her head trying to focus on the case, not ancient history. “Why the hell a parking garage?”
Landon looked back at his book. “Because it’s probably one of the most mundane places in the universe, and nothing stays the same inside. It’s only a shell.” He sighed. “This research is going to be even more important for Gleason, and I better get at it. You better get your report done and make it a good one. I’ve a feeling it’s going to get a lot o’ reading.”
Vallon knew dismissal when she heard it. Landon was good at it, just like her father had been, and she bit back a smart answer. There were times she felt as if she were only an experiment to Landon. She reached for her black leather case with its pens and selection of paper, and swore.
“You got a pen and paper I can use? Mine’s evidence.”
An arch of Landon’s faint brows and he nodded at the computer humming quietly in the corner. She swung her chair around and brought up a blank page, then stopped.
“Landon?”
“Hmm?” Just like her father, barely attending.
“This couldn’t have anything to do with Dad’s death could it? I mean, it’s the same piece of ground and a house disappeared in both cases. It’s got to be more than coincidence, doesn’t it? Houses don’t just disappear—not often anyway.”
“I seriously doubt it, Pigeon. Now get to your report, would you? I’ve got work to do.”
Dismissed and hating it, Vallon closed her eyes and tried to focus through the drumbeat of the afterburn on what needed to be done. The trouble was, telling the whole truth could be even more career-limiting than the simple matter of abandoning her post. Unsanctioned change—using unsanctioned equipment. Heck, revealing what had made her late in returning to the office would be about the stupidest thing she could think of until she had evidence that what she thought she saw was real.
Relegated to her fate, she sketched out the facts of her decision to go after Simon, knowing Gleason wasn’t going to be pleased. Simon and she had started their relationship after they’d been on a job together, and dealing with the afterburn of the work had led to a typical agent’s tryst in a hotel next to Boeing field. Unfortunately, that tryst had led to other meetings as well—totally against the rules. Although the AGS didn’t mind agents dealing with the afterburn together—heck, it was expected, even though the AGS had a nice little arrangement with a local brothel—but for some reason longer-term relationships had to be approved.
When the inevitable breakup came, Simon had been less than adult about the whole thing. He’d refused to take direction from her when she was on the desk—to the point she had been going to confront him.
And that worked so well.
She blew her bangs up over her forehead and considered what she’d written, then hit the print button.
“Bad?” Landon. She’d almost forgotten he was there.
“Bad enough. I figure Gleason could use this to keep me on desk for—oh—the next ten years.” She told him what had happened.
“Ten years at least. Well, at least it means we can have coffee together.”
“And here I never thought you were a cup half-full kinda guy.” She pushed her chair back and tapped together the pages of her report. “Thanks for the hospitality. I figure it’s more than I’m going to get inside.”
“Don’t sweat it, pet. You just need to look deeper: Gleason likes you.”
“Like hell.”
A small smile from Landon and she wandered back out of the labyrinth of tables to the door and into the hallway’s synthetic air. At the door to the offices she sucked up her trepidations and stepped inside the hall she had dubbed the war room.
It was large, filling one entire end of the low-slung building, and the two-level space stank of stale coffee and overworked air filters. The outside edges, the upper level, were crammed with desks pushed back to back, the chairs filled with men and women who should have been out in the city. Now they worked at computer screens showing close-ups of sectors of Seattle topography.
The center of the room held a large pit that contained a map unique in the U.S. A massive, moveable topographic map of the country. Right now it was focused on the Pacific Northwest up to—and rumor had it, beyond—the Canadian border. Suspended over it like a dragonfly head hung a single mechanized chair on a long metal stanchion—the dragonfly body—that connected the chair to the upper level. The chair, or desk, could be shifted to swoop in to closely study features of the map. Right now the map chair was empty—graphic reminder that Vallon had abandoned her post.
And Simon had died.
All the activity in the room ceased at her entrance. The hum of voices went silent.
Then Janet Hunt came pushing out of the gathering of agents. Short and stout, and wearing a flowered dress that gave her a housewife image, Janet had been the one to provide a milk-and-cookies greeting when Vallon first joined the team six years ago.
“My god, Vallon. Are you all right? It must have been horrible.” Breathless little voice. Concern on her face that Vallon just might believe was sincere. Janet had always been nice before. Approachable, even, though Vallon had never taken Janet up on her offers of friendship or guidance.
She went to place an arm around Vallon’s waist, then stopped herself. “Ouch, girl. You’ve got afterburn like crazy.”
Vallon nodded and tossed her damp, b
“Thanks for the concern. I appreciate it.” She bit her lip and Janet jerked back——possibly from the ugly pain Vallon felt.
“Well, well, well, nice of you to join us, Drake.”
She turned, found herself facing the narrow column of Gleason’s chest so close she could smell his faint spiced aftershave and had to step back to see his face. A good thing. The scent sent the afterburn thundering into high gear.
It must have shown, for Gleason grabbed her arm and started to drag her across the room.
“Moore!” His shout for his E.A. cut through whatever conversation had resumed. “We need some inhibitor, pronto.” With that he slammed into his office and shoved her into a chair, then scrubbed his hands on the draped, grey flannel trousers that proved he had no ass.
Vallon struggled to her feet and tossed the papers she held onto his desk. “Your report, Sir. I just needed a quiet place to write.”
“Landon,” he swore. “I told him to let me know if you dragged your sorry ass home.”
“If?”
Gleason shook his bullet-shaped head and ran long fingers through non-existent hair. “How the hell do I know what you’re going to do anymore, Drake? You’re a fuck-up. The worst I’ve ever had to deal with, and I’m about to give up hope we can make an agent out of you.”
She drew herself up. “Sir, I came back as you ordered.”
“And didn’t report in.” Another shake of head. “I need to be kept apprised, Drake. That’s what a good agent is supposed to do.”
Vallon’s jaw clenched. She was a good agent. She’d done as ordered—unlike Simon. She’d topped her class in the Academy. She just wasn’t going to do the little dances everyone expected her to. “There’s nothing anyone else could have done to save Agent Lamrey, Sir.”
Gleason threw his leg over the corner of his desk and sat down as he considered. His pale grey eyes lanced into her as she returned to her chair, and she knew Landon was wrong. Gleason despised her and always had.
“Does that include not getting involved with him in the first place?”
Not what she expected. A little shiver ran through her. “You knew?”
A knock came at the door and Moore, a slim woman with sleek black hair coiled on her head and tilted Eurasian eyes, bustled efficiently inside. She carried what looked like a typical eight-ounce bottle of water, but this was anything but. Gleason nodded at Vallon, his lips a tight line.
Vallon accepted it, both resentful and thankful, and sipped as Moore backed out of the room in the silent way that seemed to make Gleason so happy.
She sipped again, thankful for the cool liquid against the heat burning inside her.
“All of it. Now.”
“What? You want me to choke?” What he really wanted was for her to be off her game, unguarded as the inhibitor made her.
His scowl said he just might, but Vallon tipped the bottle back and let the cool, minted liquid pour down her throat. Almost immediately the heat that raged diminished. Ice laced through her veins like frost on a window, dampening the afterburn into a dull, duller, dullest glow, but taking with it her Gift as well.
Everything became muffled, and the chill set her shivering—something she fought against. Then the cold transformed to a warm glow that unclenched all the muscles she’d used to hold back the lust brought on by the use of her talent.
She fought against the drowsiness that made her want to close her eyes.
When she looked back at Gleason his face had gone kind, reasonable. Son of a bitch expected her to fall for that in her weakened state. She forced her face still, because she wasn’t going to fall for any of his ‘I’m your pal’ speeches. She’d had enough of those for a lifetime already. Case in point being Simon Lamrey, who’d gotten her into this mess.
“I know everything about my agents, Drake. Everything, and don’t you forget it.”
Her gaze locked on his and she registered his surprise that she could maintain the focus. “But if you knew…?”
“Why didn’t I break it up? There are reasons. Simon and you—there was something there. But the reasons don’t concern you—now.”
He plucked her report off his desk and anger followed her incredulity, burning at the injustice of it. Here she’d tried to keep things low key to stop Gleason from worrying when all along he’d known. Hell, he’d practically set her up for tonight.
“What if something had happened tonight, Drake? You weren’t at your post.”
“Something did happen. I responded.” She set her jaw.
“You were supposed to be in the chair, monitoring and directing from a distance. In that chair you’re the first line of defense against illicit change. What if this had all been a ruse to distract you from some terrorist attack? Or if the Canadians proved to be cannier than our intelligence suggests and shifted the border? You weren’t here to warn and respond, were you?”
His voice was quiet, but that was when he was at his most dangerous. The warm drowsiness totally disappeared and she saw Gleason’s gaze flicker as she fought off the effects.
“Something happened, didn’t it?”
Gleason’s face was carved of stone. “Whether something happened doesn’t concern you, Drake. It’s bad enough you leave your post—I should have your badge for that alone. But then you perform an unsanctioned change with unsanctioned equipment and leave a mess at the scene. What were you planning to do? You know there are people out there with enough gift to notice changes, and yet you purposely perform one without going through the proper procedures.”
His voice had increased in volume. He’d leaned forward until he was shouting her back in her chair. Finally the injustice of it made her fight back.
“Enough!” She stood up, leaning on his desk for balance. Stared him down. “I’m sorry I left my post. As I say in my report, when I detected the house’s change I immediately called for the nearest agent—as the protocols demand. That was Lamrey. I instructed him to check in within ten minutes of arrival. He didn’t. He’d been playing silly bugger with me all shift. So I went after him myself rather than bring in another agent. My mistake. Okay? I’ll eat that one. Now why are you focused on me when you should be focused on investigating Simon’s death?”
Her chest was heaving. Gleason stared up at her more amazed than he should be, because they’d argued before. Maybe it was that she could do it even when inhibited, because frankly that surprised her, too. But she was not going to let him deride her for her decisions. Too many people had done that in her life.
“When I found him, he was in the wall. I had two choices: leave him to die or try to help the poor bastard. So I used my instruments. Last time I checked, a pen and ink aren’t illegal. And as for the change, hell, there was an entire parking garage to notice—what was my small change going to do?”
Exhaustion made her legs wet noodles under her and she slumped back into her chair clinging to her anger at the injustice. “I would have saved Simon, too—if something hadn’t blocked me. If he’d lived, you’d have thanked me.”
She rubbed her eyes. The damnable inhibitor headache had started, doubling the pounding already there.
Gleason remained seated like some great Sphinx, but his jaw worked over his anger. Finally he swallowed and his gaze flicked down to her report. Scanned it and came to the end. Brows arched above his hard eyes.
“What’s this about another Gifted being nearby?”
What should she say? All she wanted was this over with because Gleason really didn’t have much choice but to sanction her in some way. It was just a matter of how. Telling him what she thought she saw would just prolong the interrogation and make her even more suspect in his by-the-book eyes. It had always been like that—even with her Dad.
“It was after you left, Sir. I was headed for my car and you’d already pulled away when I became aware of someone else standing eastward on Denny. I decided to
“Eluded you.”
Now came the hard part, because she might be trouble in Gleason’s eyes, but she sure as hell wasn’t crazy.
“Yes, sir. It was dark and rainy and the rain distorted things and made it more difficult to follow. I think perhaps he circled around the reservoir. You know how hard it is to spot one of the Gifted across bodies of water.”
She held her breath, feeling the beat of Gleason’s regard, and suspected he knew she wasn’t giving him the whole truth. When he looked back at her report she dared to breathe again.
“Not a very good job with the wall, Drake.”
“The wall?” For a moment she didn’t follow the leap in the conversation—the darn inhibitor made it more difficult to track. Then: “As I said, Sir, I had no time to do anything pretty. It was all about trying to get Simon—Agent Lamrey—free in time. Unfortunately, whoever made the garage wasn’t about to let it go without a fight. It took a stage-two attack to change the wall and when I had Agent Lamrey free I simply let my control go and got him out.”
Gleason’s regard had gone deathly cold. “You expect me to believe that this was a conscious change? That whoever did this had the strength to challenge one of my most Gifted agents?”
Vallon held firm before his disbelief, but didn’t fail to notice his description. One of his most Gifted. That had to be the only reason he kept her around.
“Sir, that’s exactly what I think happened. Now I realize I screwed up leaving the desk, but I’ve investigated these things before—the accidental changes.”
“Drake, don’t go off on some tangent just because your lover died.”
“Sir, this has nothing to do with Simon—or too much to do with him, as the case may be. Heck, Simon was a fully trained Gifted. A dreamer shouldn’t be able to take him out.”
“Where do you come up with these ideas?”
She had to stifle her anger even through the inhibitor. And her confusion. Why wasn’t he willing to even discuss the possibility someone had purposely taken out Simon? “I know I had a reputation as a wild card at my first posting, but I’ve investigated enough of the usual cases.”
“Reputation? Drake, when I open the manual about problem employees it’s your face in print. You don’t follow orders. You don’t keep your bosses informed, and you are constantly pushing the envelope beyond what’s considered safe use of the Gift.”
“Sir,” she continued. So much for Landon’s assessment of Gleason’s regard. “I’ve seen the usual cases. A wish for a bigger house that comes true. A Gifted works at a company and suddenly the company parking lot accommodates a personalized parking spot. All of it’s accidental and it’s easy to undo because the maker hasn’t set it down anywhere and it hasn’t been around long enough for everyone else’s awareness to make it permanent. But this parking garage wasn’t like that.”
“Don’t be an idiot. No one—I repeat, no one—outside of the AGS knows how to create the changes you’ve outlined in this report.”
Vallon squeezed her eyes shut and then had to jerk herself back from the swift verge of sleep. All the adrenaline had seeped away along with the sex drive. Now she just felt exhausted and hollow. How the heck was she going to get him to understand?
“Sir. You just hypothesized that external forces could have attacked. Maybe they did this.”
“Hogwash. Pure speculation and you know it. If it was an external attack, we’d know.”
In passing she wondered how, but didn’t have the energy to go there.
“Sir, would you please listen? You saw the detail on that place. Did you notice the date on the cornerstone? Nineteen seventy nine—and the garage looked like it could have been that old. And then there was the stink of urine in the stair. Those are details way beyond an accidental or a dream-change. Just like Simon’s death. As Gifted as he was, he should have been able to protect himself…and then there’s how I had to fight to free him.”
She swallowed, because the too-familiar tick of Gleason’s left brow—sign of being close to a blow—was vibrating like a kite in a Puget Sound wind. It didn’t make sense that he denied her observations.
“Sir, on the way over here I was thinking. We’ve lost two agents in the past month. Lamrey makes three. Is there any chance the deaths could be connected?”
At that Gleason stood. He circled his desk and sank into the custom built over-stuffed chair that was the only thing that could have comfortably seated his fleshless frame. His gaze, when he finally looked at her was so soullessly calculating that she shivered.
“Agent Drake, you are treading on thin ice here. I know the use of your gift has probably impaired your judgment, so I’m going to cut you some slack. I suggest you go home and sleep it off and tomorrow we’ll finish our discussion and decide what to do with you. In the meantime you will not discuss this with anyone. You hear?”
Vallon fought the urge to just tell him what he could do with his job then and there, and wondered for a moment just what was in the inhibitor. But even if she did, Gleason wasn’t going to let her off the hook. She knew too much and had too much Gift. They weren’t going to just let her walk away.
She shivered, wondering what that would entail, even as she knew she couldn’t leave.
Gleason might not admit it, but Agents were dying; and from what she’d seen, someone was hunting them one by one. She shivered again.
And only she knew just what kind of enemy they faced.
Chapter 4—Black and Slick and Glistening