Chapter 2
1885 Words
2
Nena stepped inside and Peter followed her. The conference room had white walls, a floor and a ceiling, but in the center was a long blood-red table around which were positioned thirteen black, high-backed chairs. On either side were six chairs, and at the head was the largest of the seats. In that seat sat Scratch, and on his left was Azazel. In front of her on the table was a black briefcase.
Standing behind one of the lower chairs on the right was Jack. One of his arms was draped across the back and half his gaze lay on the door while the other half watched the two other occupants.
Scratch stood at Peter and Nena’s coming, and smiled at the pair as he gestured to the unoccupied seats. “Welcome. Please take a seat, we were just about to begin.” Peter took a seat at the far end of the table opposite Scratch while Nena sat between him and where Jack stood. Scratch looked up at his rogue agent and frowned. “Do you care to sit?”
Jack smiled and shook his head. “I’m fine.”
Scratch pursed his lips, but turned his attention to his assistant. “If you would begin, Azazel.”
“Of course,” she agreed as she clicked open the briefcase. She drew out a disk about a third the size of a normal CD. “I have finished my analysis of the data recovered at the Corrupted’s apartment-” Nena noticed Peter stiffened, “-and found this-” She slipped the disk into a nearly invisible slit in the table on her right.
An image flickered into view in the center of the table and a half foot above the surface. The picture was grainy, but the viewers could make out a large office building some eighty stories tall that was surrounded by other, shorter commercial enterprises. Roads and elevated walk paths surrounded its foundations. Some thirty wide stairs led up to the pair of double doors that adorned the front of the building.
Nena’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as she half-rose from her chair. “Oh my god. . .”
Scratch glanced in her direction and a sly smile slipped onto his lips. “Do you have something you wish to share with us, Miss Tacita?”
She sat back down and swallowed the lump in her throat. “My dad works there.”
Azazel drew a slip of paper from the briefcase and looked over the typed words. “Rogue Rouge, Incorporated, is the name of the company. It was established seventy years ago and sells feminine beauty products such as lipstick and mascara.” She raised her eyes to Nena. “In their employ is one Mortimer Tacita, father of Nena Tacita. He’s been employed with the company for some thirty-one years and currently works in the accounting department.”
Nena frowned at her. “You dug into my life.”
Scratch leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “Think of it more like an employee background check. In your case, the check was particularly important. Without such a check it would have taken infinitely longer to find you at your friend’s-excuse me-your former friend’s apartment.”
Nena leapt to her feet so quickly that her chair flew back and clattered to the floor. She slammed her palms on the table and glared at the pair, master and demon. The image of the office building flickered and was nearly drowned out by a soft glow that appeared around her hands. “You leave my dad alone!”
Azazel’s eyes widened and she shrank back from the light. Scratch’s own eyes narrowed. “Control yourself, Miss Tacita.”
A pair of hands settled on her shoulders. She whipped around and found herself staring into Jack’s eyes. He smiled at her before he turned his attention to the demonic pair at the head of the table. At them his expression hardened. “What does this Rogue business have to do with the Corrupted?”
Azazel gathered herself and tapped her fingers on the table in the same motion as one would a keyboard. The image rotated to show all angles of the building. “From the data collected we have surmised that the source of the Corrupted and the Project Endzeit has something to do with this business. On its face it appears to be a general chemical firm, but we believe that is a front for human test subjects, but for what purpose we have yet to decipher.”
Nena spun around to face her and shook her head. “My dad would never be a part of this kind of business.”
Azazel glanced at her and a sly smile slipped onto her lips. “Perhaps he is oblivious to the true nature of the business. After all, one can’t expect a bean counter to know the inner workings of the projects.”
“Or a lackey,” Nena shot back.
Jack squeezed her shoulder and his gaze settled on Scratch. “Is that all your tech monkeys could find?”
Azazel’s smile didn’t falter as she popped the disk out of the slot. The image disappeared. “Yes, besides what you already learned about the virus and Project Endzeit.” She slipped the disk back into the briefcase and smiled up at him. “Fortunately, we have your ‘talented’ group to find out more for us.”
Jack held out his hand to her. “Mind giving that to us? For reference.”
She clacked the briefcase shut and stood. “As a matter of fact, I do. The information on this disk is too important to hand to just anyone. Besides-” her gaze fell on Peter, “-you should have made a copy.” Peter narrowed his eyes, but didn’t reply.
“The contents of the disk are unimportant compared to what may be hiding in that building,” Scratch spoke up as he swept his gaze over the companions. “I want you three to investigate the matter tonight and report your findings to Azazel. Leave nothing behind and-” his eyes flickered to Jack, “-leave nothing in your coat. Do you understand?”
Jack grinned and bowed his head. “Perfectly.” He glanced at Nena and Peter. “All right, talented group, let’s get going.”
Peter stood and walked toward the door, but Nena was slow to follow. Her gaze was glued to where the image of the building had floated. She could almost see where her dad’s corner office had stood.
Jack grasped her arm and leaned toward her so he could lower his voice to a whisper. “Cui bono?”
She shook herself and glanced up at him with a blank expression. “Say what?”
He grinned and jerked his head toward the door. “I’ll explain outside.”
Nena followed him out into the hall where they regrouped with Peter. She turned to Jack and frowned. “What the hell does ‘quee bono’ mean?”
“Cui bono, and it means ‘who benefits,’” he told her. He nodded at the closed conference doors. “You weren’t going to help your father by telling them off, but you could tell them a lot by showing how much you care about him. That makes you vulnerable, and to them vulnerability is like blood to a shark. They’ll know where to circle if they need to use you.”
Nena pursed her lips. “They didn’t have a right to look into my life like that.”
“Your life is finished.”
She glared at Jack. “But not my dad’s, so they need to back off. I know him well enough to know he’s not going to end up on Scratch’s list.”
Jack sighed as he dug into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “That’s something that’s decided between Scratch and God,” he reminded her as he tapped a cigarette out of the pack.
She arched an eyebrow as he lit up. “Is there even a God? I mean, I’ve seen a lot of the Devil and Death, but not a damn thing from him.” She balled her hands into fists and looked at the floor as her body trembled. “And He let that happen to Matt when all he did was try to help me.”
Jack tucked his lighter back into his coat pocket and looked down at her with a soft gaze. “I’m not going to tell you I don’t think God’s a bastard for the things he does or doesn’t do, but now’s not the time for theological discussions.” He set his hand on Nena and turned her down the hall before he glanced at Peter whose unblinking eyes were fixed on the young woman. “Let’s go for a walk and discuss a few things.”
The silence was heavy between them as Jack led the group down the hall. They were half the compound away before Jack glanced at Peter and spoke in a low voice. “What do you think about that info they gave us back there?”
“She is lying,” Peter replied.
Jack looked ahead and smiled. “I wouldn’t expect any better from her.”
Nena lifted her eyes from the floor and glanced between the pair. “Who’s lying? About what?”
“Azazel,” Jack told her. He looked back to Peter. “What’s she lying about with this info?”
“There were several batch files that contained information on the Project Endzeit and its particulars. From the information I gleamed prior to their removal of the equipment taken from the apartment I surmised that the project involved the Ley Lines.”
Nena hurried to Jack’s other side and glanced across him at Peter. “And those are what exactly?”
“They’re kind of the roads that lead across all the realms,” Jack explained to her. “From hell to heaven, the Ley Lines connect them. They’re how the souls are able to move from earth to where they need to go.” He flashed a grin at her. “I like to call it the Avenues of Anima.”
She blinked at him. “‘Anima?’”
He sheepishly grinned at her and rubbed the back of his head. “It’s another name for the soul. I couldn’t really get ‘soul’ to sing-song with anything else.”
“That is a foolish name,” Peter spoke up.
Jack spun around to face both Nena and the vampire, and his attention lay on the former. “Come on, Pete, you know it wasn’t my idea to let her get her claws on that info.”
Peter frowned at him. “You were careless in its storage.”
Jack’s shoulders slumped, but he nodded. “I know I shouldn’t have left it on the table like that, but come on. It’s not like I knew they wanted a personal look at it. That’s not how they usually work.” Peter continued to glare at him. Jack’s eyes lit up and he dug in his coat. “Wait a sec. I’ve got something-ah-ha!” He drew out a small, clear plastic bag. The contents were a bright red liquid. Jack dangled the bag in front of Peter. “Your favorite, o-negative.”
Nena’s pale face grew paler as she stared at the bag. “Is. . .is that blood?”
Jack shook his head. “No, it’s fresh blood. The donor just came in yesterday.”
Peter narrowed his eyes at Jack. “You believe a bribe will subdue my anger?”
Jack swung the bag from side-to-side an inch in front of Peter’s face. “You know you want to be subdued.”
Peter’s hand whipped out so fast that one moment Jack held the bag and the next Peter was tucking the blood package into his own black coat. Peter’s eyes flickered up to Jack as the cigarette dangled from his lips. “This will be an appropriate start to your apology.”
Jack tightened his hold on the cigarette as he grinned. He jerked his head over his shoulder. “Good, now let’s get going.”
“To the Rogue Rouge?” Nena asked him.
He shook his head. “Nope, to Archimedes. I’ve got something to pick up.”
- Writer
