Author: Erin Klitzke

Sorry about the little-later-than-usual posting.  Time got away from me yesterday.

This chapter is from an untitled work that I pick up and put back down every so often.  It’s set in the UNSETIC Files universe, though it deals less with UNSETIC and more with a faction that’s the baby of L.P. Loudon, not necessarily me.  The Hunters first appeared in Between Fang and Claw (Maralyn Acton, Galahad Henebry, and David Tierney are all Hunters) in a somewhat ambiguous role–which fits them perfectly.

The chapter below looks into the life of one that followed a rather different calling for a Hunter: a priest and exorcist.

  

One

“Father Orestes St. Cyr?”

The hairs on the back of his neck stirred at the sound of the voice, unexpected at this hour. St. Malachy’s was busy at every time of day except nine in the morning, when most of its parishioners were either still abed after long nights or working a normal shift until their acting careers took off. He took a slow, deep breath and turned toward the sound, toward the unfamiliar man that stood near the baptismal font at the rear of the chapel.

“Father Orestes, please,” the priest said, tugging unconsciously at his sleeves. The stranger studied him for a long moment, looking doubtful, as if Orestes wasn’t quite what he’d expected.

Orestes was used to that by now. He was young, wore his hair long, and had never gotten rid of the earrings in his left ear that were an echo of long-ago teenage rebellion. The archdiocese and Rome had decided that he was appropriate for the Actor’s Chapel, and the assignment had suited him. Most of his parishioners appreciated his youth and his readiness to relate to them and their problems.

But the look in this man’s eye told him that he hadn’t come for simple confession.

“Who sent you?” Orestes asked softly.

“I—the archdiocese—they—I—”

“You went looking for an exorcist and they sent you to me.”

The man swallowed, then nodded. “Yes. Yes, that’s it precisely.”

Orestes studied him for a long moment, expression blank as his storm-gray eyes drank in details visible and unseen to all but the most discerning eye. “You didn’t come for yourself,” he said after a moment.

“How did—never mind. I came for my daughter.”

“Your daughter,” Orestes echoed quietly. That made more sense and explained the shadow of worry that hung over the man, the weariness. He wasn’t demon-ridden, but he believed someone in his life was. “How old?”

“Seventeen,” the man said. “She was supposed to start at NYU in the fall, but…” his voice faltered and he swallowed hard. “Father, say you’ll help us.”

Orestes sat down in one of the pews and waved for the man to join him. He did after a moment’s hesitation, settling on the hard wood seat next to the priest. The man stared at his hands, fingers twisting together.

Orestes waited and wasn’t disappointed. It was only a few more seconds before the man started to talk, the silence all the invitation he needed.

“She hears voices,” the man whispered. “She hears voices, but she’s not schizophrenic. Medicating her doesn’t help. She hears them whether she wants to or not. They’re too much. She knows things she shouldn’t, secrets she was never told, things she has no way of learning. She cut her wrists this past May, two days after graduation. We don’t know what else to do, Father Orestes. All we can think is that she’s somehow tormented by some demon or worse.”

His heart beat a little faster even as his lips thinned. Voices. She hears voices, but isn’t schizophrenic. Knows things that she shouldn’t. Medication doesn’t help. “I’ll need proof of inconclusive diagnosis from her doctors,” Orestes said. “And I’ll need to meet her. Does she know you’ve come?”

“No,” the man said, his voice abruptly hoarse. “My wife doesn’t even know I’ve come. I didn’t tell them. This is all I could think to do, though, the only thing that might—the only thing I thought could help.” His dark-eyed gaze met Orestes’s. “You’ll help us?”

“As much as I can,” Orestes said. He reached over and patted the man’s knee. The man stared at that hand for a moment, at the Jerusalem cross tattooed there, dark against pale flesh.

Orestes withdrew his hand and tugged his sleeve back down again to cover most of the mark on the back of his wrist. “Bring her here tonight,” he said, standing slowly. “Bring her records with you. Come after the eight o’clock Mass.”

The man nodded silently. Orestes watched him for a moment before turning away.

“Father?”

He paused, looking back to the stranger again. Hope had kindled in the middle-aged man’s eyes, a hope Orestes prayed wouldn’t be shattered.

“Can you help us?” the man asked in a bare whisper.

Orestes shook his head slightly. “It seems as if you’ve tried just about everything else. She may not need an exorcism, but there’s more to what we do than simply banish demons.”

The man stared hard at him before he nodded. “We’ll be here at nine.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

He watched the stranger go, leaning against a pew and crossing his arms. It was as if there had been a weight lifted from the older man’s shoulders, like simply saying he’d try to help was more than enough to ease the burden he felt. It wasn’t the first time Orestes had seen that look. Sometimes, all it ever took was saying he’d try to help. Usually, he could. Usually, all that was ever needed was a sympathetic ear and counseling that the modern mental health establishment didn’t seem to give to many of the men and women who sought his help.

Then again, every so often, he found someone that genuinely needed his abilities—either as an exorcist or as something more.

Wonder which one this will be. His lips thinned for a moment and he shook his head, turning away as the doors shut behind the visitor. He’d find out soon enough.

• • •

The sun hadn’t quite set by the end of the eight o’clock mass, nor had the man arrived. Orestes glanced toward the doors, the chapel quiet as the few worshipers that had come to the Tuesday evening mass drifted out into the streets of Manhattan and the twilight that settled upon it like a shadowed veil. Night would come soon and the creatures that dwelled more in shadows than in light would come out to stalk the streets in their own ways. Some might cross his threshold here, others would keep their distance. Not all had earned the right to call the young priest friend, though some had.

New York was a city of monsters and saints, of light and darkness hidden from the eyes of most. He was blessed—or cursed—to live in both worlds.

He moved to the rack of red hurricane glasses that stood before a mosaic of Saint Malachy ministering to the people of Northern Ireland, a few candles flickering in their bloody depths. He struck one of the long matches and picked up one of the remembrance candles, lighting it and murmuring a soft prayer for the souls of the departed.

One for Tom Sutherland, now gone nearly two years. One for Father Abel Mason, who’d taught him everything he’d known about being an exorcist before his death at the ripe age of eighty-three. One for his mother, another for his father, both dead since his seventeenth birthday.

The doors opened, then closed again. Orestes snuffed the match and turned, craning his neck to see the pair of shadows that had slipped through his doors. He recognized his visitor from this morning and the girl at his side—a slip of a thing, her blonde hair glinting gold in the chapel’s lights—must have been the daughter he’d spoken of.

He offered them a smile, not sure that they’d be able to see it in the shadows, then moved toward them.  He was still in his vestments from the evening’s Mass, green over white, ginger hair glinting like fire in the dim. The girl met his eyes and sucked in a sharp breath, exhaling it in a shaky sigh. Her father glanced at her nervously, then back to the priest.

Orestes inclined his head toward an alcove near the altar. “Over there,” he said. “We can talk.”

The man thrust a folder at him. “The records,” he said, nerves and eagerness mixing in his voice. Orestes took the folder, not really looking at the man.

The girl held his eye for a long moment before she looked away from him. Those eyes were a deep, dark blue, like the Atlantic before a storm. Orestes’s heart gave a strange double-beat. There was something about the girl, something he hadn’t quite put his finger on yet.

“Thank you.” Orestes turned and led them toward the alcove, thumbing through the folder as he went. There were a number of documents tucked inside, neatly arranged. The girl’s name was Nora Patterson and she’d seen no less than six psychologists and psychiatrists in the past four years. Clark, her father, was the man that had come to him and begged for his help for the seventeen-year-old girl. According to his cursory examination of the documents, the voices had started when she was fifteen and had gotten worse and worse until her suicide attempt. His lips thinned and he closed the folder. It wasn’t an unfamiliar story.

They sat down in the small alcove and Orestes set the folder to one side, folding his hands in his lap and regarding the girl carefully. Her gaze was wary as she peered at him, her lips thinning to white. Orestes could see the livid scar from her suicide attempt peeking out from beneath the sleeve of her light cardigan.

He glanced toward Clark. “Would you mind if I spoke to your daughter alone for a few minutes?”

Patterson blinked, looking sidelong at his daughter. She bit her lip, then nodded slightly.

“It’s okay, Dad,” she said in a voice that was barely more than a whisper.

“All right.” Patterson stood up. “I’ll be over there, okay?” He pointed to the mosaic and the remembrance candles. His daughter nodded, solemn as she folded her hands in her lap and her father withdrew.

Orestes watched him go, speaking softly once he was out of earshot. “Your father says that you hear things.”

“Voices,” she said, her gaze meeting his. “I hear voices. He thinks that they’re demons or figments of my imagination or I don’t know what.”

He nodded slowly. “What do you think they are?”

“I’ve got no idea. All I know is that they’re real and they’re there and I hear them all the time.” Her lips thinned to fine white lines. “They sound like people I know. Like my neighbors or my parents or the kids at school.”

Orestes took a deep breath, eyes half-lidding as he studied her. She was trying to keep the raw emotion from her voice, but he could hear her frustration, her fear and absolute exhaustion. He could hear it, taste it, like wet ashes and saltwater and cayenne pepper, which he’d never liked. There was something in her aura, something that burned bright and familiar. “Give me your hand,” he murmured. A touch might tell the tale, might tell him what he needed to know.

She regarded him warily, skittish as a newborn filly, but she unknotted her fingers from each other and slid one hand into his. The touch sent currents skittering through his flesh and up his arm and Orestes shivered as Nora shuddered and looked away.

The mother. I need to meet the mother.

“Why?” the girl whispered, then clapped a hand over her mouth. Orestes raised a brow.

“Why what?” he asked softly, fingers tightening on her hand as she tried to yank it out of his grip. She gave a quiet whimper, trying to pull her hand away one more time before she stopped trying to tug free.

“Why do you need to meet my mom?”

He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “It’ll help me confirm what I suspect.”

“What’s that?”

He squeezed her hand, giving her a warm, reassuring smile. “That you’re not possessed and not crazy,” he said quietly. That you’re special. That you’re one of us.

Nora bit her lip. “She doesn’t know Dad brought me here.”

He raised a brow. “And you don’t want to tell her?”

“She’ll freak out. She freaks out about everything. She thinks I’m faking, that I’m doing it for attention. She doesn’t understand.” Nora looked down at their linked hands.  “You believe me, don’t you?”

“I believe you more than anyone else ever has,” Orestes said softly. He gave her hand one last squeeze before releasing it. “At least as much as your dad.”

“He’s not really my dad,” she said softly, looking away and toward the man who’d brought her here. “He raised me like he was, but he’s not really my dad.”

The plot thickens. Orestes studied her. “How do you know?”

“My mom told me. I’m adopted. She had this friend in England who couldn’t keep me and she and Dad adopted me and brought me back here. It all came up when I was seeing the shrinks. They needed to know if there was a history of mental illness in the family and Dad didn’t know but she did because she knew the people they adopted me from and they were fine.” Nora blew out a quiet breath, staring at the hem of his vestments, at the black leather Doc Martens that peeked out from beneath it. Her gaze flicked back up to his face. “I’m not crazy,” she whispered. “And I didn’t do it for attention. It was just too much. I’m tired of hearing them.”

“The voices?”

She nodded, tears welling up along her lashes.

Orestes touched her cheek gently, wiping away one of the tears that slid free with his thumb. “Don’t worry,” he said to her softly. “I’m going to help you. I promised your father and I’m promising you, too. I’m the kind of man who keeps his promises.”

“Thanks.” She sucked in a ragged breath and shivered.

The door to the chapel whispered open, night air spilling into the space and making the candles flicker. There was the scent of rain on the air, heavy and coming soon. Orestes glanced past the girl toward those doors, leaning to one side to see who the newcomer might be.

She was slender, curling auburn hair pulled into a braid down between her shoulder blades, dressed in dark jeans and a tank top of wine-colored silk. Her eyes met his and a shiver crept down his spine, just like it always did.

“Father Orestes, I’m afraid I’ve need of your skills this evening,” she said, her voice softly commanding.

A frown creased his brow as he stood up, not liking the sound of that at all.

The woman’s name was Cassidy Beckett, and she was a vampire.

He looked toward Patterson, then back to Nora. “Come back tomorrow,” he told the teenager. “Nine o’clock in the morning. Can you do that?”

After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. “Yes. Yes, I can do that.”

“Alone?” Patterson frowned. “Are you sure—”

“It’ll be fine, Dad,” Nora said, her voice firm as she stood up. She gave Orestes a weak, tentative smile as she stood. “I’ll be here.”

“So will I.” He patted her shoulder and watched as she went to Patterson.

“Thank you,” Patterson said again as he slid his arm around his daughter.

Orestes just nodded and watched them walk out into the deepening twilight.

“Troubled?” Cassidy asked.

Orestes made a soft, noncommitmental noise. “What do you need, Cassidy?”

“I need you to introduce me to the General.”

He blinked at her. “What?”

“I think you heard what I said.” She crossed her arms tightly under her breasts, drifting behind him as he headed for the alcove where he could strip out of his vestments and down to street clothes. “You’re the only one I can ask, Orestes. You’re the only one I know well enough to trust with this.”

“You mean I’m the only one you know who’s got enough of his ear for this,” Orestes snarled. He sucked in a breath, trying to calm himself. “Why now? Why tonight? You saw I was busy.”

“A civil war is about to erupt,” Cassidy said, watching him with those knowing eyes of hers. “There’s no stopping it. I’ve tried. I have to warn them. People are going to die and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Not alone, anyway.”

Orestes stared at her. “And I can’t tell him this for you?”

“This is something he needs to hear from me. It’s time.” Her lips thinned. “It’s probably past time. I should have made myself known to him a long time ago. Braedon Chandler knew enough of me to listen when I voiced my warnings, though I know he never trusted me. Still, he would listen and I can’t fathom how many people may have been saved because he did.”

The priest winced slightly. “Did it occur to you that best time to make introductions might not be when you’re bearing bad news?”

“Are you going to make me approach him myself? Because I will if I have to.”

Orestes sighed, silently saying a prayer for patience. “No,” he said. “I’m not going to make you approach him alone. You’ll owe me a favor for this, though.”

“My doors are open,” Cassidy said. “Can we go now?”

He finished tucking his vestments safely away and nodded. “Yeah, we can go now. Just let me grab my phone.”

“I’ll wait outside.” She headed for the front doors and Orestes shook his head, heading for the chapel’s office to snag his cell phone from the charger. He sent a text to Father Stanislas, the other priest assigned to the chapel, letting him know that he was heading out on an errand, then punched in a text to Wes Chandler.

Need to know where you are. I’ve got someone who needs to meet you.

He shoved the phone into the back pocket of his jeans and headed out into the night.

A while back I was tooling around with some background work for the UNSETIC Files–specifically, thinking about how Mat ended up joining the organization well before anyone else connected to him did.  The scene below is rough and a little more explanatory than most, but it was a fun little write to do.

  

“For the record, I still think you’re full of shit, Surfer.”

Michael Sterling-Kanton shrugged slightly, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his working khakis as they walked down the tree-shaded pathways of the Washington Mall. “That’s your prerogative. Whether you think I’m full of shit or not doesn’t really matter because it’s the truth.” His green eyes scanned the trees along the path.

“You really expect me to believe that there’s a cult out there masquerading as some kind of charitable organization that’s using psychic kids—not that I am saying that I actually believe that there’s a such thing as psychic kids—to further its dastardly goals? How many other people have you tried to sell this to?”

“How many other roommates have I had?”

Matthias O’Brien shut up at that, blinking at him. It took Mat a moment to find his voice again. “Seriously? No one?”

“No one that wasn’t already peripherally aware.” He stepped off the sidewalk and toward the trees, leaning against an oak that was old when his grandfather had been born. “Who the hell else would I trust with this, O’Brien? Tell me that.”

“So the extra locks on the door and the phone calls you told me not to answer and the weird messages and that one time that we had to drive six blocks out of the way because you saw someone were all about…this?” Mat made a vague gesture and joined Michael in the shade of the oak, crossing his arms, pale-eyed gaze searching Michael’s face for something that Michael wasn’t quite sure his friend would find.

Michael nodded in answer to the question, glancing up the sidewalk toward the Washington Monument. “You’d do the same thing if your father was mixed up in leading the ridiculousness.”

“Your father?” Mat shuddered. “You failed to mention that initially.”

“Did I?” Michael frowned. “Sorry. I don’t talk about it much. I’m sure you can see why.”

“Because people would think you’re batshit crazy and you’d be kicked out of the Navy so fast you might break the sound barrier on your way out the door.”

“Yeah. That.” Michael shook his head slightly. “But I’m not a security threat and it’s not crazy when it’s true.” He ached for a cigarette but restrained himself. He’d quit three weeks ago and didn’t want to pick up the habit again. Stress and anticipation always made him want to light up. He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, looking up and down the sidewalk again.

Still no sign. Damn. His lips thinned. Mat raised a brow.

“What’s wrong?”

“She’s late,” Michael said.

Mat glanced around, crossing his arms. “Who the hell are we meeting, anyway?”

“You didn’t have to come.” Though I’m glad you did. Getting tired of doing this alone.

Was that why he’d finally told O’Brien about the Institute, about how they’d taken him from his mother and tried to experiment on him? Was that why he’d finally shared that secret?

He shook his head at himself, earning another arched brow from Mat.

“I’m just saying. It’s not like we’ve got enough leave for me to fly home and see AJ, but I could be at the Smithsonian right now ogling the spaceflight exhibits.”

“Sorry,” Michael murmured as he caught a flash of red hair out of the corner of his eye. He looked toward the Washington Monument again and straightened.

She was a middle-aged woman, the morning sun lending fire to the golden threads in her red hair, still worn military-short though her days in the field were long over. Dressed in khaki capris and a white sleeveless blouse with sunglasses and leather sandals, other passersby on the Mall would have easily mistaken her for something less than what she was—they’d have thought her a tourist, maybe, or some lobbyist or government worker out for a morning stroll. They would have missed the casual purpose to her stride.

Michael saw it, though he had to admit that if he hadn’t been actively looking for her, he might have missed it, too. Mat followed his gaze, half turning and studying the woman.

“Who is she?” his friend murmured. Michael killed a smile before it could fully blossom. The sum total of Mat O’Brien’s talents were probably wasted by sticking him in the cockpit of a fighter jet, but it had been what he’d wanted and no one had thought to gainsay the choice until it was far too late.

“You’ll see,” Michael murmured back, then straightened and smiled as the woman stepped off the path.

“Michael,” she said warmly, arms gathering him into a quick, tight embrace before she kissed him on each cheek. “It’s been too long.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Commander.” He fell back half a step and inclined his head to Mat. “This is Matthias O’Brien, the one I asked you about. Mat, meet Commander Kathleen Kingston McCullough.”

“Ma’am.” Mat seemed inclined to salute but Kathleen caught his hand before the gesture was completed. She shook it firmly, still smiling.

“It’s good to finally meet you, Ensign. I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

That brow lifted again, a question on Mat’s lips, but Kathleen ignored him as she turned back to Michael. Her expression grew grim, eyes darkening and the flesh around them tightening markedly.

“He’s on the list, too. I’ve made the necessary arrangements,” she said. “Both of you will be stationed aboard the USS Daedalus on-station in the Persian Gulf. That should put you both well outside of their reach.”

Michael’s stomach twisted, bile bubbling up into his throat. He swallowed it down. “Does my mother know?”

“The Gulf was her idea. It’d be difficult for them to get anyone in that deep, but it pays to be careful.” Kathleen glanced toward Mat, then back to Michael. “How much does he know?”

“Only enough to know this sounds like some kind of conspiracy relating to a cult that may or may not exist.” Mat grimaced, shoving his hands into his pockets. “What list are you talking about?”

Kathleen and Michael exchanged a look. She drew a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, touching the pilot’s elbow gently. “I have to ask that you be patient and don’t jump to denials,” she said, her voice soft, the soothing voice of a mother or a diplomat. It was a tone Michael knew she’d had ample practice at, having become an ambassador’s wife and a mother of four in the years since she’d stepped away from her previous life with the US Navy. “Can you do that?”

Mat gave her a wary nod, eyeing her like questionable sushi. “I can try, at least. Is this something we should be discussing out in the open on the Mall?”

She snorted humorlessly. “The only place that might be better for this conversation might be Arlington. No one’s going to notice us and if someone does, Michael will be able to warn us before anything untoward occurs.”

This time the questioning look was thrown in Michael’s direction and he shrugged, a vague tightness settling across his shoulders. Mat hadn’t asked what he could do and he hadn’t volunteered the information—not yet, anyway.

“Ever wonder how I always seemed to know where to be, where to shoot?” he asked.

Mat frowned, shaking his head. “Never thought about it. Just figured you had good instincts and better reflexes.”

It was probably a lie, but Michael let it go. “My reflexes are good, but not that good. I see things before they happen—usually only a few seconds before they happen, but I see them. I wouldn’t be half the combat pilot I am without that talent.”

His friend stared at him for a few long moments and a ball of dread settled in the pit of Michael’s stomach, triggering nausea he didn’t quite know how to handle. Mat’s expression was caught somewhere between blank and incredulous, but he could see the wheels turning behind his fellow pilot’s pale eyes.

“Holy shit,” Mat whispered. “You’re fucking serious.”

“As a court-martial,” Michael said, glancing down toward his feet. The grass near the shiny toes of his shoes waved slightly in the breeze. He swallowed the bile that rose again in his throat, eyes fluttering shut.

The one time I’d like to see what’s going to happen next and the ability is damnably silent.

It was like that sometimes. It seemed to turn itself on when his adrenaline was up, when it really counted. He didn’t have conscious control; that was something he’d never had the chance to learn.

Then again, having the chance to learn control meant that there had to be someone trusted enough to teach.

“What’s the list you’re talking about?”

Michael exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and opened his eyes. He hadn’t misjudged Mat O’Brien after all.

At least, I hope not.

Kathleen met Mat’s questing gaze and shook her head slightly. “There’s a list, about ten years out of date now, of men and women the Institute—the cult that I’m gathering Michael told you about—were targeting. Your name was on it.” Her nose wrinkled slightly. “Usually there’re notations about why a name’s on the list, what talent has been observed or is suspected, but there was nothing with yours. I have no explanations and not much else to tell you about that. If you accept our offer, I’ll give you access to the list.”

Michael startled, blinking at Kathleen. Wait a second, that wasn’t part of—

“Offer,” Mat echoed, tone suddenly wary, dubious. “What offer?”

“Commander,” Michael started.

Kathleen held up a hand and he shut up, her gaze focused solely on Mat. “There’s an organization that Michael’s mother founded with some of us—a university professor from England, me, an agent of the Home Office, a few others—that’s dedicated to protecting people with talents and gifts from people that would harm them but also protecting the world from threats that most people wouldn’t realize—or believe—are out there. I’ve been watching you for years, Ensign. I want you for it. You’re suited and we need more good men and women if we’re going to make the difference I know we can make in the world.”

Mat glanced toward Michael, expression starkly curious, eyes slightly wide with brows raised. Michael shrugged helplessly.

“I didn’t know she wanted to recruit you,” he said.

Kathleen snorted. “You’re smarter than that, Michael Kanton. You at least suspected.”

“I didn’t even think about it,” he fired back, glaring at Kathleen. “If I’d thought about it, I’d have told him more—I’d have explained more. He doesn’t know enough to make the choice.”

“None of us ever do,” Kathleen said, a note of sadness beneath the cold steel in her voice. “But we find our way into the ranks anyway, either through necessity or by chance. It’s better he has the choice now instead of waiting until the day he’s seen too much and there are no choices left.” Her gaze slid back to Mat and she shook her head slightly. “And I do mean that. I don’t know that there’s a way that we’ll be able to spare you from having to make this choice in the future, but I’ll be truthful in saying that if joining isn’t what you want, we’ll try to shelter you as best we can.”

“Don’t waste your resources,” Mat said, his voice thick. “I know necessity when it’s staring me in the face.” He cast a quick look toward Michael before his gaze returned to Kathleen, flat and steady. “What do I need to do?”

She smiled and grasped him by the shoulders. “You’ve already done it,” she said softly, warmth and tenderness flooding back into her voice. “You’ve already done it.”

 The Institute called them their Angelic Legion.  They expected a few hundred children, gifted with talents beyond nature, properly trained, would be able to turn back the forces of hell when the End Times came.  Ky Monroe saw them for what they were years ago–a cult masquerading as something good, something holy, something that would help and not harm.  Matthew Thatcher recognized them for what they were, too–a dangerous organization not above murder and violence to achieve their aims, and together with Ky worked tirelessly to make sure the organization died–and when an explosion ripped through the Institute’s main facility in the midwest years ago, Ky dared believe they might have succeeded.  But when an old friend reappears with a story to tell, Ky realizes exactly how wrong she’s been–and that time is running out to save the people she loves…

When All’s Said and Done is narrated by Kyle Anne Monroe (alias Kyrie Thatcher), a college student who escaped from the Institute as a teenager.  It is the major work planned for the Lost Angels Chronicles, which shares a universe (and many characters) with the UNSETIC Files (and Court of Twelve works like The Man Who Made Monsters, a project I’m working on with L.P. Loudon).

  

Three

Ridley was still sleeping when we got to Damon’s apartment and they sent me upstairs to one of Damon’s spare bedrooms to rouse him. I leaned in the doorway for a moment, staring at my old friend as he lay on his back, still fast asleep. As soon as I stepped deeper into the room, though, he snapped awake with a start, blinking blearily as he pushed himself up on an elbow. He stared at me for a long moment, then forced himself up into a sitting position. He was bare-chested and looked better than I’d expected from someone that had so recently escaped the Institute’s hold. Then again, he hadn’t been subjected to quite the same things as some of our friends.

He rubbed his eyes and yawned before he opened his mouth to speak, expression deadpan as he stared at me. “I’m not hallucinating or anything, right? Blood loss isn’t fucking with my brain?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m as real as I was last night, and seems like you’re as real as you were last night.” I straightened from my lean. “Come down. There’s bagels and stuff. Breakfast.” It was almost ten in the morning. Damon had gone down to open up the clinic hours ago, before we’d arrived. Just because he had guests didn’t mean he could put his job on hold. I turned to head back downstairs.

“Ky, wait.” Ridley scrambled out of bed and started pulling on a pair of jeans that lay tossed over a chair. I half turned back toward him, arching a brow.

“I’m just going downstairs, Ridley.”

“I know, I know.” He grimaced. “But there’s…I have to…Julia doesn’t know what they did to us, Ky. I never…I never really told her all the details. All she knows is that it was bad. I think she suspects some things, but I never…never really told her. Not details or anything.”

“I guess she and my roommate are going to get an education, then.” Two at once. This is going to be fun.

“Your roommate?” He looked suddenly wary, like a cornered animal. “Is she…?”

“She’s clean, Rid. No connection to anything or anyone except for me. An innocent.” I understood his paranoia. I’d been the same way after I’d escaped, after I’d gotten away from them. He was afraid of going back. I still was, too, but I kept that fear buried, secreted away under lock and key at the very back of my mind. “At least, she’ll be innocent for another twenty minutes or so.” I exhaled through my teeth. “Get dressed. We’ll be downstairs.”

He stared at me for a moment longer, brow creasing slightly. “Are you okay?”

I paused again, nodding. “I’m okay.” For the moment, anyway. I looked back over my shoulder at him. “He’s alive.”

Ridley exhaled, seeming to deflate, and nodded. “Good.”

I nodded, too, then headed back downstairs. Matthew and Julia were sitting at the kitchen table and Reece was making coffee. I dropped into one of the empty chairs and rubbed my eyes.

“He’s up?” Matthew asked.

“He’s up.” I leaned forward against my elbows, looking at Julia for a moment. She looked a little grim, a little scared, but mostly determined. I wonder if she realizes how much is at stake here, how deep she’s going to end up. Hell, I wonder if she realizes how deep she’s already in, if she’s here with him.  I wonder how much Ridley did tell her. I took a deep breath. “Julia, what did he tell you about the Institute?”

Reece brought cups over to the table, along with cream and sugar. The coffeemaker burbled quietly on the countertop as she pulled up a stool to sit on, leaving the last seat at the table for Ridley when he came down. She kept half an eye on the coffeemaker, half an eye on me.

Julia frowned and shook her head. “Not a lot. Just that they were bad people and that helping him could get me killed or worse. He seemed to think that if they caught us, my fate would be worse than just getting killed. That…that concerns me a little.”

“He’s not lying,” I murmured, looking at my hands and trying not to think of Hadrian. “They mostly look for the ones with gifts. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them lay hands on someone who didn’t have a gift, but if I’m following his line of reasoning…” My voice trailed away and I exhaled.

Hadrian lay curled on his side in bed, shivering under the blankets we’d snitched from one of the storage closets. His face was gaunt, eyes tired as I slipped into the room after bed checks and crawled under the covers with him, wrapping my skinny teenage arms around him.

“If you don’t have a talent that requires you to be physically active, and you’re tied to someone else, they’ll use that someone to get to you.” I couldn’t meet Julia’s eyes. “They’ll hurt them, make them suffer, so you do what they want you to do. Because they know how to manipulate people using their emotional bonds.” I looked away, at Reece, because I couldn’t look at anyone else. I also needed something familiar and warm to soothe my nerves. I hated talking about that damn place. “Is the coffee ready?”

Horror etched across her expression, Reece jerked, then looked at the coffeemaker and swallowed. “Yeah. Hang on.” She got up and turned her back on me quickly, busying herself with the carafe.

She’s smart enough to figure that one out—that I’m speaking from experience, not hypotheticals. I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, finally bringing myself to look toward Julia. Her expression was shocked, fear starting to creep into her eyes. Matthew was stone-faced next to her. He knew this. He knew all of this. My hands curled into fists. “I’m sorry,” I said to Julia. “But you’re knee-deep and you deserved to know.”

“He told me about you and Hadrian. That’s how you know what they’d do.”

I swallowed again and nodded. Of course. That’s why she was afraid. “That’s how we all knew. They wanted a lot from Hadrian and I and we wouldn’t cooperate. He’s a clairvoyant, a seer. My talents were—are—physical. He didn’t need to be able to get out of bed. Hell, I’m not even sure he needed to be able to think, just see. But they could get to both of us by making him suffer.”  My hands were shaking. “Maybe…maybe you should stop worrying about getting me out, too. I can barely sit up, Ky.” I squeezed my eyes shut against the memory. “They drugged him, mostly. Stuff I think they were hoping would punch up his abilities, ended up just making him a wreck of a human being. Beatings, sometime, but mostly just the experimental drugs. He didn’t have a lot of ability to resist after a while. I tried to resist for him, but that just made things worse for both of us.”

Reece pressed a cup of coffee into my hands, squeezed my arm. I looked at her and saw the pain and horror mixed in her eyes. I looked away, into the dark depths of my coffee mug. “Sorry,” I murmured. “I shouldn’t be scaring you.”

“No,” Julia whispered. “Scaring me is good. Now I know why he’s so afraid.”

Ridley cleared his throat behind me, his tread more silent now than it had been then. I looked over my shoulder at him. He pressed his lips together in a tight line.

“What did you tell her?”

Julia got up from the table and went to hug him, wrapping her arms around him and holding on tight. He wrapped his arms around her, brow furrowing. Her voice was muffled against his neck. “Doesn’t matter what she told me. All that matters is that I’m not going to let them hurt either of us.”

Ridley stared at me for a moment, then dropped his face to nuzzle Julia’s ear and sighed. His arms tightened for a moment, then loosened as he looked warily at Matthew. “Does he have a plan for how that’s going to happen?”

Matthew grimaced. “Well, I’m not sure she’s going to like it. Come have a seat and I’ll tell you what I have in mind.”

Ridley seemed pretty reluctant to let go of Julia, but they both came back to the table and sat down. Reece passed out cups of coffee before returning to her stool, looking at me. I glanced up at her for a moment, then concentrated on spooning some sugar into my coffee. Matthew waited until we were all settled, then spoke again, looking first at Julia.

“This plan is going to go hardest on you, because we’re going to have to make everyone think you’re both dead.”

Julia blinked at him, hand tightening on her coffee cup for a moment. Ridley reached over and tentatively wrapped his fingers around her free hand, squeezing gently. “How?” She finally asked.

“Car accident, I think,” Matthew said. I smothered a wince at the way his voice caught, at the sudden flicker of pain in Ridley’s eyes, too. We’d both lost parents to a car accident years before—they seemed to be an Institute specialty. “That should be easy enough for us to fake up. Both of you killed in a collision. We’ll get you both new identities and a place to stay here, near the city, until it’s safe for you to resurface. Until this is over.”

My heart leapt into my throat. “They gave you approval to pursue this?”

“I have two victims and a witness, now,” Matthew said quietly. “They told me to keep it quiet but keep all of you as safe as I can. I’ve got some leeway.”

“What about my parents?” Julia’s voice sounded strangled. “My dad just lost his aunt and uncle in the past year. You want me to let you tell them that I got killed? What’s that going to do to them?”

Matthew stared at her, his best this is your life not theirs that we’re talking about stare. “If everything that I have ever learned and ever known about these people is right, then if they don’t think you’re dead, then they’re in danger, too. More danger because they’re expendable. If they’re gone, you don’t have anyplace to run.”

“Julia,” Ridley said quietly, fingers tightening again. “They kill people who get in their way. I understand that, now. I’d forgotten. I’d…been willfully blind about it.” His lips thinned. “They probably killed my parents, just like they probably killed Ky’s.”

“And probably Matthew’s, too,” I said grimly. Matthew grimaced and took a long swallow of coffee, then topped off what was in his mug.

Julia stared at Ridley. “Is that why you and Addy…?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. “You weren’t acting they way they’d anticipated. Not the Reverend, anyway. And it was pushing me in directions they couldn’t predict. Was too dangerous.” He wet his lips and stared at the table, not looking at any of us. “I don’t think she was going to be able to twist their minds away from it without them realizing. I think she did it once, earlier this month, but they didn’t notice. A second time…they’d have noticed, and she’d have been back inside and trapped with no one to protect her.”

I blinked, confused. “Who?”

“The page of cups,” Ridley breathed. “Laren. Adeline Stonard, now. Another Angel, one they married off to some jackass Institute crony in Andover Commonwealth.”

I went cold. The last time I heard of Hadrian’s ‘page of cups,’ she was betraying us to the Institute. “Ridley—”

He held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say, Ky. But she helped us. She helped me. We asked her to come with us and she said no, because what happens when they send the next broken soul to the Reverend to break even more?”

“Someone has to take care of them,” Julia whispered, hand tightening around Ridley’s. “That’s what she said, when I told her to come with us, after she beaned her husband with a tire iron so he couldn’t hit me again. I hated to leave her. I’m afraid he’ll hurt her. Stonard’s made my skin crawl since I was a kid. Even before he told me God had a special purpose for me.”

A shiver went through me. Shit. She’s lucky her folks aren’t dead already. Color must have drained from my face because Matthew looked at me in concern.

“Ky?”

I shook my head quickly. She has a talent, or potential, or something. Something that hasn’t manifested yet. Maybe something that’ll never manifest, but something they managed to identify. I never could figure out how they knew, how they could figure it out. “I’m all right,” I said quietly, then looked at Julia. “You’re lucky that whatever you have never quite manifested. Otherwise, I’m not sure we’d be having this conversation.”

She went a few shades of pale and Ridley glared at me. “Kyle!”

Reece mouthed my name—my real name, the name she had never known—and then asked quietly, “What do you mean, Ky?”

I grimaced, stomach tightening. “It seems like, with some of us, they know that we’ve got something we can do before we even know we’ve got it. I couldn’t step outside of time until after my parents were killed. I figured that out a few weeks later. It wasn’t a coincidence, though. Timothy’s abilities manifested earlier, he always said, but Ridley’s didn’t. Neither did Ally’s.” I looked at Julia. “They might have seen something in you.”

Julia’s mouth worked, though no sound escaped. Ridley bore down on her hand, squeezing tightly. She looked at him, lips parting slightly. My heart ached.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, leaning in to press his forehead against hers. “It’s okay. I made you a promise.”

She swallowed hard and looked at the rest of us, finally nodding at Matthew. “If they think I’m dead, my parents are safe, right?”

He nodded. “They should be. They won’t be targets.”

She nodded slightly, lips thinning. “All right,” she said quietly. “Keep talking.”

Matthew shook his head slowly. “There’s not much more to the plan than that,” he admitted quietly. “I have an apartment for you lined up, preliminary identification documents should be at my desk at the bureau office in another few hours. I put a rush on it. Don’t try to get a job or anything with any of it for a couple of weeks until I give you the go-ahead. Lay low. I’ll be in touch.” He rubbed his eyes. “Damon’s the only one in your family that’s going to know you’re alive for a while, Julia. He won’t breathe a word to anyone.”

She nodded mutely, pressing her lips together in a line. She squeezed Ridley’s hand and he squeezed back. Julia took a breath. “Is there anything we can do to help your case?”

Matthew shook his head a little. “I’ll need the address of your place in Andover Commonwealth and the address for the Institute building there, if you’ve got it. If you don’t, that’s all right. Can’t be that hard to spot, right?

Julia shook her head slightly. “No. Big, blond stone complex outside of the village. Half the village works there. I thought it was a think tank, innocuous. Nothing really to worry about. I hate how wrong I was about that.” She frowned and looked at her hands, then looked up at Matthew. “I could call someone. See if there’s any movement at the place.”

I inclined my head. “They might try to move people, if they don’t know where Ridley’s disappeared to. Might, but might not.” I hope they don’t. We’re so close. If I could find a way to sneak in and sneak him back out again… I wet my lips and took a long swallow of coffee. “I have to get there,” I murmured, not quite realizing I was saying it aloud. “I have to get him out of there.”

Ridley looked at me. “You dreamed of him.”

“I dreamed at him,” I corrected. “And he dreamed back.”

“Dreamed at him?” Reece sounded confused and gave me a long, measuring look. “What’s that mean, Ky?”

I grimaced a little and struggled to find a way to explain it. How do you tell someone that your brain is connected to someone like that without using fluffy terminology like ‘soul mate’ or rot like that? “We…Hadrian and I…we started being able to share each other’s dreams a long time ago. Real dreams, like when we’re sleeping kind of dreams. It started as an unconscious thing and then we started to be able to consciously…I guess you could say ‘tug’ on each other. I used to think it had something to do with his abilities and something that the Institute did to us, but I don’t think that’s the case.”

“It’s not,” Ridley murmured. “If they wanted us to be able to see our partner’s dreams, we all would have been able to do it. Most of us can’t.” He smiled weakly at me. “You guys were special. I’m relieved that they never quite figured out how special.”

Maybe they did. Maybe that’s why they make him suffer so much. Righteous anger, righteous indignation. Frustration that we wouldn’t help them fulfill their so-called holy duty. I shook my head a little. “In any case, dreams were how we communicated sometimes, at night when I couldn’t risk sneaking out of my room to be with him. When they stopped…after the explosion,” I glanced at Matthew, “that’s why I thought it was over. Why I thought he was dead. I never thought he’d leave me alone like that.” Did he really think I was gone? That he’d just dreamed me up for years after I escaped, after they first started telling them that I was dead, when they started to try to kill what little hope they had left?

Matthew shook his head slightly. “I always wondered why you did such a 180 after that.”

I shrugged. “Well, that was why.” I thought losing him was going to kill me, then. But it didn’t. And I’ll get through this, too, as long as I don’t have to go through that again.

Reece was still staring at me, as if she was seeing me for the first time. I took a long, bitter swallow of coffee. If she was looking at me like that now, how would she look at me the first time I showed her what I could actually do? I looked at Matthew.

“What can we do?”

“Well, I can’t storm the gates yet, if that’s what you’re implying,” Matthew said, frowning. “It’ll have to be cloak and dagger and I don’t have any ideas yet.”

I guess I shouldn’t have expected to be able to go in guns and badges just because he’s got clearance to pursue the case. I had to suppress a sigh anyway, a ball of dread settling in the pit of my stomach. But how am I going to get him out of there if Ridley’s right about the defenses, and we can’t go in there with badges and guns blazing?

Julia frowned and got up from the table. Ridley threw her a questioning glance and she shook her head. “We don’t know enough, seems like. I’m going to call Patrick and see if he’s near Addy. See if we can find out anything.”

Matthew grimaced. “That’s dangerous.”

Julia shrugged a little. “I’m not legally dead yet, right? Nothing untoward about me calling Patrick. Not like I’d be doing it from beyond the grave.”

I looked at him. “She has a point, Matthew. And if she can find out if they’re moving anyone out of the facility…maybe we can find a way to intercept.” Maybe Hadrian would be one of the ones they’d move. Maybe. Not sure if that would be lucky or unlucky. Maybe both, depending on the circumstances. “It’d be more witnesses.”

Matthew frowned, but nodded. “Just a question of not tipping our hands. We don’t need a repeat of what happened last time we moved on them.”

A ball of ice settled in the pit of my stomach. I guess I deserved that. I nodded a little. “Well…I’m not going to do anything stupid this time.” I shouldn’t have waited. Waiting is what cost us. “Can’t afford to. The cost would be too high.”