Sanctuary in Antwerp, Belgium.
The red lights made it hard to relax, as if the color itself could put an edge on his anxieties. Alex squeezed his eyes shut against them, but it didn’t much help. Even when his eyes were closed, he knew the lights were there and why. It made his mind wander to the darkness they were meant to help him see through and the things that lurked there. Somehow, it was worse without Noah. After tense goodbyes and the solid, surprisingly fortifying hug Noah had given him, Noah had left them well and truly on their own, with only a short list of Sanctuary locations. He missed Noah’s quiet knowledge and calm confidence in them, even when it wasn’t deserved.
The first few nights without Noah, they didn’t hunt at all, but despite himself, Alex had pressed. It was what they were supposed to be doing, and not doing what Noah had said had only ever gotten them in trouble. That didn’t mean he wasn’t as terrified as they were. Just thinking about it, gooseflesh raised on his arms, making the hair stand on end. He pulled the musty smelling blanket up further, sinking into that child-like feeling of safety that comes with a blanket tucked in tight.
Cover your neck with your blanket and the vampires can’t get you.
Why was it that all children seemed to inherently have that quiet, unspoken knowledge?
Alex shifted onto his side and curled up. The couch was lumpy and old, and one of the cushions beneath him was flatter than the others. He’d slept on worse, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He couldn’t decide if he was grateful not to be out hunting tonight or if trying to sleep in the dark was worse.
He could feel Reeve’s mind gently resting in his own, a presence like a big cat—or at least that’s how Alex always thought of it. That’s how it felt. He let his mind brush against it and took comfort in its purring-pulsing familiarity. They’d both drawn the short straws tonight and took on the task of house-sitters while the others went hunting dogs. It was nice for once to be able to stay with one of his own. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be thinking that way—Noah cautioned against it all the time—but he couldn’t help it.
The pressure in Alex’s head eased back with a start, and he realized that he’d probably woken Reeve up by pushing in closer. Reeve had insisted he’d prefer to squeeze into the smaller but lumpless love-seat across from Alex’s couch. The cushions were all uniform. Alex heard him sit up.
“You still awake?” Reeve’s voice was gravelly with sleep.
“Yeah,” Alex said, not yet opening his eyes. “I can’t relax. I just keep seeing...” He couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. Since that first hunt, the image of that head stuck with him. The way it reached out to the body like a magnet, and the way the thick, black blood had smelled on his hands and clothes. Reeve would know what he meant.
Reeve made a small sound of acknowledgement and Alex heard him stand up and shuffle to the kitchen. Eyes still screwed shut, he listened to the squeak of the faucet turning on, the delay as the water chugged to a start, the splash and gurgle of water filling a glass, and the drip-drip-drip after Reeve shut it off. Footsteps coming towards him. Reeve’s familiar weight sinking down onto the couch near Alex’s feet. He opened his eyes and propped himself up. Red light flooded the water in Reeve’s mason jar as he gulped it down, making it glow bright and deep. Reeve’s freckles looked dark in that strange light, and the wisps of his fine hair caught the glow like a crimson halo.
“Sorry I woke you up,” Alex said. “I just. It’s comfortable when you’re in my head and I wanted that. It’s comfortable.”
Reeve nodded, “It’s okay. I wasn’t really sleeping all that well anyway.”
Alex knew he was lying. He’d been sound asleep for the first time in weeks, if you don’t count being unconscious. “Yeah.”
Reeve finished his water and put the jar down on the old pressboard coffee table. “They’re okay out there. They’ll be back soon, I’m sure.” Alex wasn’t sure which one of them Reeve was trying to reassure.
Alex sat the rest of the way up, tangling himself in the blanket. He wrestled with it for a moment, swearing under his breath before giving up and just scooting over to sit beside Reeve. “This is pretty weird, huh?” He rested his head on Reeve’s shoulder. “I miss Beatty.”
“I know,” Reeve said, a hand raising to brush his fingers through Alex’s mussed hair, just for a moment, before falling again and finally resting around Alex’s shoulders. “I’m really sorry I got us into this mess.” His voice was quiet and earnest.
It was the first time Alex had heard Reeve apologize without a hint of annoyance or defensiveness. There was vulnerability in Reeve’s voice that made him hold his breath for a beat, as though he might scare this moment of rawness away.
Reeve said, in the same small voice, “I really am.”
Alex nodded, feeling the subtle friction of his cheek against the sleeve of Reeve’s shirt. “It’s okay,” he said, and meant it.
“I really screwed up,” Reeve said. “I dragged you all into this mess with me, and I didn’t mean to. I’m an idiot. I didn’t think I’d get caught, you know? God, that sounds stupid when I say it out loud. ‘I didn’t think I’d get caught.’ What a stupid thing to say.” His voice maintained its quiet, steady monotone. He sounded tired.
Alex pressed his face a little closer to Reeve’s neck, let his nose brush against the hair that just grazed Reeve’s shoulders. It tickled a little, but he didn’t reach up to scratch it. Reeve smelled of turmeric from the meal they’d eaten earlier that night. “It’s really okay,” he said. “I mean,” he gently knocked Reeve’s knee with his own, “It’s not. But it is. You know? This whole Church thing is a trip, but I can’t say for sure that it isn’t better than the Neptune team I’d have been shipped off to if we’d stayed.” He sniffed and wrinkled his nose a little, trying to ease away a lock of tickling hair. “At least this way I get to stay with you.” He paused, then caught himself and hastily added, “Stay with everyone, I mean. You know?”
Reeve’s thumb rubbed a little circle on Alex’s shoulder, and he said, “Yeah,” and breathed out through his nose. Alex noticed he and Reeve had both been holding their breath.
“I’d hate Neptune,” he said into Reeve’s neck. They sat in silence for a beat, and then he said, “Not that this is all peaches and cream, but...” He trailed off. He felt Reeve nod. “They seem like jerks.”
Reeve laughed at that—not loudly, and without much animation, but the quiet snuff of his mirth made Alex smile.
“I’d have fought for you to be placed elsewhere, you know,” Reeve said.
“Yeah. But it doesn’t matter now.”
---
Sol LAHQ. Neptune Department.
Freddie rolled her shoulders in her chair. The Neptune conference room furniture looked stately, but wasn’t built for ergonomics. She looked around at the others, each with their own brand of sour expression as they looked over whatever notes they’d made for the department meeting.
If Casper’s brow was any more furrowed, it would break through into his brain cavity. Penn had the dour expression of a man trying to maintain some sort of dignity as he walked the plank to a watery death. And Sage, well, Sage was Sage. She could read him better than she could five years ago, so she knew now that his hard, jaw-clenched look was hiding a wide-eyed, heart-palpitating anxiety. He’d push through. It was when he looked relaxed that she had to worry, because that meant he was too depressed to properly hold the facade.
She knew what her own expression was. She worked in a damn glass office when she was in the basement and Uranus polished that thing to within an inch of its life. Her resting face was flat and mostly unreadable. She’d been told once that, between her bangs and the way she maintained her brows, her expression always looked as if she were raising her eyebrows to scrutinize you. She’d taken that feedback and made sure to never change up her grooming habits ever again.
Gerrit walked into the room and the weekly departmental meeting set was complete. He looked nervous, and the fact that he’d come in under his own power rather than teleporting didn’t speak well for his mood, either.
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“Alright,” Sage sighed as Gerrit took his chair. “Penn?”
Penn nodded and cleared his throat. “It’s been a quiet week for student or undiscovered knack exposures. A good dozen minor Phagi exposures managed.” He glanced down at his notes. “We’ve been keeping up with post-mission cleans, but we did have one near-crisis with a moon who seemed to have taken one look at their assignment and just willfully fucked it up beyond recognition.”
Freddie gave a snort of a laugh and choked it back.
“My apologies, sir,” he grimaced and went on. “In my defense, it was that bad. We had to briefly crash two social media sites while we purged the data and got things under control.”
Sage exhaled. “Don’t make a habit of it or else I’m going to have Mercury on me.”
“Yes, sir, but any chance you can get on Uranus about doing some mass recertification on exposure control protocols with all these Moons?”
“I can bring it up at the next department heads meeting.”
“Because it’s not going to get any easier,” Penn pressed. “It’s not like the world is going to look at technology and suddenly decide, ‘no that’s enough.’ There are only going to be more cameras and more ways to disseminate information in real-time. One of these days—”
“Yes, Penn, we know,” Freddie interrupted, folding her hands in front of her. “The end is nigh.” It was the dead horse he’d been beating to a pulp ever since she’d met him. That there would be one tweet too many and suddenly there goes the neighborhood. She got that as time went on, Cleanup’s budget and resources were going to have to rise exponentially to keep up, but his nightmare scenarios didn’t keep her up at night.
“You’ve made your point,” Sage said in his firmest voice as he took back control of the conversation. Sometimes, she wasn’t wholly sure if he appreciated or resented her instinct to jump right in and herd their people into place. “Is that all?”
The tension in Penn’s face could be felt across the room. “Yes, sir.”
Casper shook his head into the following silence. “Can I say—Just listening to you call that a “near” crisis is giving me an ulcer.”
Penn shrugged, looking hopeless, and Sage turned to fix his gaze on Casper.
“Yeah,” Casper replied to the look. “We currently have fifty two active cases on our plate—many of them are relatively low level. I closed twelve in the past week, the majority of those being folks who were cleared or being given a stern warning. There are two cases, however, that mean I need to hook up with you, Gerrit, because I think I know how they’re going to go, and I want teams positioned and ready when the call gets made.”
Gerrit smiled an uncharacteristically thin smile. “Can do.”
Sage turned again. “Gerrit?”
He sighed. “The Icarus roster is mostly holding steady. This morning, a team out of Panama picked up an Icarus they’d been tracking who ran from the Philadelphia office, so she should be incoming.”
“You’ll get me that info?” Freddie asked. She’d need to go over the file in order to choose the best Reintegration agents for the job.
Gerrit nodded and brought one hand up to his face. Then, noticing it, forced it back to the tabletop where one finger tapped aimlessly.
“As far as a report on 37A’s team, we’ve lost them.” It sounded like it hurt him to say it. “It’s been weeks since our last sighting and my teams in South and Central America are all run down, pulling twenty-hour days. I think it’s safe to say at this point that they haven’t gone to ground. I want your permission, sir, to move 37A to priority one for Retrieval teams, active and passive, worldwide, not just South America.
“Worldwide?”
“Yes, sir. I acknowledge that it will compromise other tracking efforts, but I don’t even know where to start looking. It’s been too long. They could be anywhere.”
They all turned to look at Sage, who she expected to be doing his best not to shrink, but instead his head was angled at the table blindly, eyes moving back and forth as if he were reading something. “Pacific is too wide. Has to be Africa or Europe. His telepath score isn’t good enough to smuggle that many people onto a commercial flight. Cargo plane? No, it’s too big.”
Sage looked up, face calm and set. Mission-mode. She didn’t see it on him often, but when she did, it made her sit up straighter. “The team in Natal made a report before they engaged, right? Bring a copy to Mars, redacted as needed, and see if that plane description can narrow down the actual type. They might be able to give us more of an idea of their range. Tell us if they’re still on the continent. And send a couple of teams to check out islands that could act as stepping stones, just in case. Ascension comes to mind. See if you can get anything from that. Those islands are isolated enough that locals would notice anything out of the ordinary.”
“Thank you, sir,” Gerrit managed, looking sheepish.
“And yes, you have my go-ahead. This one is smart, but they’ll mess up somewhere. They always do.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Frederika?”
She raised her eyebrows and stretched her mouth against the tension in the air. “I’m fine.” She exhaled and went on. “Steady progress continues with all our wards. We’re prepped and ready to do post-grad integration for the students graduating into Neptune. And I need your sign-off to move 17B’s residence from Icarus containment into a reentry support team for the remainder of his Reintegration. He’s ready.”
“You have a team picked out?”
“Yes, but I should probably run it by Gerrit first, because it’s going to fuck up their availability.” Reentry teams were typically Retrieval teams based in LA. It was a tricky middle point in an Icarus’ recovery, but a good sign that they’d have their name back soon and be off her radar.
Gerrit nodded. “I’ll find you later today.”
Sage waited a moment to see if she was done and then nodded. “Okay, keep me looped in.”
The three others left and she stayed, sitting with Sage at the table. When they were alone he deflated slightly. “What a mess.”
She gave him a sardonic grin. “It’s a real shame we didn’t suck at our jobs when we were coming up, huh?”
He grunted and stared at the door. “Did I pick the wrong person?”
She balked. “Gerrit?”
“He’s nowhere with these Icarus. Was it the wrong call for Retrieval and now this is my fault? I did it so fast. I should have—” He was blinking too fast and his voice was getting that breathy sound to it, huffing out at awkward moments. Those were ingredients for a panic attack and she needed to get him off the heat.
“Easy.” She put her hand up. “Slow it down. Kinda pissed at you for making me defend a choice I didn’t agree with, but no one would have these Icarus nailed down. Not you, not anyone. How many times in your career have you tracked an agent who knew ahead of time to prepare because they knew they’d be declared Icarus?”
“Never,” he admitted.
“Yeah, it’s fucking unheard of. I want you to cut everyone, including yourself, some slack.”
“I want to call Rich.”
Freddie dropped her chin in her hand, glumly. “Rich also couldn’t magically locate four people holed up somewhere. You said it. They’ll fuck up and then Gerrit will be on them.” She groaned. “As much as he’d like to, Gerrit himself is not about to catch these people with his own two hands. It’s the teams on the ground, and if Will had tried to push those teams as hard as Gerrit has, they’d have mutinied. The dude can galvanize people. He’s not the wrong choice. Now please stop making me tell you that.”
He nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m fine.”
“Okay.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I’ll get you the info on 17B. That one’s good news.”
“Yeah.” His tone was about as far from jubilant as could be.
“Eat something.” With a deep breath, she headed back to her office. What a mess.
---
Sanctuary in Brussels, Belgium.
Their burner phone rang for the first time in two weeks. Reeve was busy sleepily frying up a giant pan of eggs. It was a familiar smell and sound, a comforting constant in different kitchens and countries and company. The sound of the ringer made him freeze, his muscles locking.
“Can you watch these?” he quickly asked Peter, the only other current occupant in the Sanctuary. He looked up blearily from his coffee and nodded. Reeve ran to the small room he was sharing with Alyosha and Gareth. Hannah and Alyosha were already there, eyes wide. Reeve tore through his bag to get to the phone and hit the answer button the moment he had it in hand.
“Hello?” he asked, a little breathless. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alex tumble into the room.
“Reeve?” came the voice on the phone. “It’s Noah.”
Reeve blew out a breath and mouthed his name to the others. “Good to hear from you.”
“How are things going?” he asked.
“Fine. We’re on a routine. Not a lot of successes, but no major incidents.”
“Can you be in Nuremberg in five days, max?”
“What’s in Nuremberg?”
“I am.”
Reeve held the phone to his chest. “Shvedov, can we get to Nuremberg in under five days?”
Alyosha’s eyes darted back and forth as he did the calculation and Reeve sensed him come to an answer. He told Noah, “Yes,” just as Shvedov gave him a thumb’s up.
“Good. How are you on funds?”
Reeve scratched his head. “Getting tight but, with my knack, it’s never that tight.”
“Good. Come to Nuremberg. Call when you’re close and I’ll give you a location. I have news.”
“News?” Reeve scrunched up his face and shook his head at the others when they looked at him questioningly.
“I’ll explain when you get here. Be safe.”
“Yeah, you too.” He hung up and sat down on the bed.
“So what’s going on?” Alex urged. Reeve saw he had hold of Hannah’s shirt sleeve. Their thoughts were a steady flow that pricked at his anxiety.
“How quickly do we have to leave if we want to get to Nuremberg?” he asked Alyosha.
“Right now.”
“Right.” Reeve sighed. “Someone tell Peter we’re leaving him high and dry. Tell him… Leave him one of the shotguns.”
Hannah nodded and left the room.
“Did it sound like good news or bad news?” Alex pressed.
“I don’t know. Get your things together.” He saw Shvedov give Alex’s good shoulder a squeeze and leave down the hall. Alex didn’t move.
“Did we pass?”
Reeve looked at him, unsure what to say.
“Does this mean we’re Church-approved now?”
“I think we’ll find out in Nuremberg.” He went back to shoveling his clothes back into his pack. Alex didn’t leave to go to his room, where his things were. Reeve felt the cloud of Alex’s mind, loud and persistent, wrapping around himself like a thick blanket, pulling inward. Reeve resisted the urge to meld into the weave of it, tempting like warm water, to see what Alex was holding back. Instead, he kept packing without turning around. Alex’s eyes felt like heat on his shoulder blades and the scar on his side stung when he breathed. Each second that passed, Reeve fully expected to hear Alex’s voice, maybe angry and annoyed, maybe scared. After another moment of silence, he heard Alex leave the room.
Reeve deflated, dropping the shirt he was folding. He stared at it, crumpled and creased. He tried to explain to himself why he had just done that, why it had made his heart race. Running his fingers over the buttons and stitching, he searched the shirt as though it might hold answers, but only found stains on the cuffs that nothing could get out.
***