Chapter 6
Fingerprinted, retina scanned, variant chip entered into their database, and I finally got my ID card, new badge, and was shown to the locker area which was four floors down from the main floor.
The elevator ride made me oddly queasy, and I swallowed back bile twice, worrying I’d upchuck.
Was it moving faster than I thought? How big was the fricking building?
And was there coffee somewhere?
“I will take you to Mao and he’ll give you the overview of your locker, your office, and a tour of the rest of the building,” Sergeant Hanna said.
I cringed at the idea of pissing him off again. Joe hadn’t been my first partner. In fact, I’d had two before him, neither who liked working with the queer boy. As if proximity made them gay, too. The idea that Mao already disliked me on sight didn’t bode well.
“Mao is protective of his team.”
“His team? Is he my supervisor?”
“Yes and no. Each member of the team has a different role. His is to coordinate based on strength and ability, an event leader of sorts. Out in the field, as he has the most experience, he’s your team lead and partner.
His job is to keep all of you safe and ensure you have the resources to do the job to the best of your abilities.
The rest of the time, you’ll be left to your strengths.
Yours is investigation. Angel also specializes in investigation.
Ezra is recon and intelligence. Wade is defense.
Tiana is communication and media—she’s already got your email ready and your computer set up.
Bobby is weapons and tactical equipment.
That includes magic related items like grimoires or wands. Do you have one?”
“A grimoire or a wand? I’ve always been more into metal music than fantasy novels. Unless they are romance, ‘cause dark romantic fantasy is a thing.” Even better if they were gay dark romance. We all had our reading kinks.
She smiled, showing teeth pointier than any human I’d ever met. “You’ll do fine.”
The elevator opened to a giant locker room. Signs indicated genders, and even a genderless area with pointed arrows. Mao leaned against the wall near the elevators, looking annoyed.
“Finally,” he grumbled.
“I’ll hand you over to Agent Mao now.” The sergeant raised her brow in his direction. “Reports are on your computer,” she told him.
He nodded.
I stepped out of the elevator and waited for the door to close. He straightened, pulling away from the wall, tension tight in his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “for parking in your spot. Can I buy you lunch or something? To make it up? Drive you to your car after work? Grab you a coffee or something?”
His expression cooled a little. “We have a cafeteria onsite. Food is provided.”
That was the best news I’d heard all day. “Please tell me they have coffee on tap.”
“Too early for you, pretty boy? SVs like you are rarely up before two in the afternoon. Every floor has a coffee station, even the sleeping bay.”
“SV?”
“Spook Variant. It’s what we call those with affinity for the dead. Let me show you to your locker.”
“How do you know I’m an SV? Was it in my file or something?” I asked as I followed him through a long row of lockers on the men’s side. The place looked and smelled clean and new. Better than anything I’d ever had with the MPD which often stank of BO and urine.
“Your glow,” he said, pointing at my arm.
“I don’t know much about them yet. Was just marked a week ago.”
He froze, confusion crossing his face. He stared at me in shock. “They threw you in here right after getting out of the hospital?”
“I guess. I wasn’t sick or anything. They did a ton of tests on me, but they finally had to let me go, ‘cause while I have the antibodies, they can’t pinpoint a specific ability.”
“Wait. I’m confused.”
“I think I’m confused, too. What are you confused about?”
“I thought you’d been in MPD and they finally put you over here ‘cause they couldn’t hide your variance anymore. The order came from the governor, or that’s what Sergeant Hanna said. I thought you were in hiding or something.”
“Uh, yeah, no. Never hid anything in my life. My parents kicked me out at sixteen for coming out as gay. So yeah, if you pegged me as queer emo Ken, that was me in high school. But prior to two weeks ago, I was a regular homicide detective. The variance thing is new.”
“And not now?” he parried as he turned and headed down the long row again. Wow, he had a great ass, and solid shoulders. The glowing orange band made me wonder what he was. How did I get paired with the hottest guy on SED? And how unfair was life?
“Still queer, if that’s your worry, though I consider myself more punk than emo. Haven’t dyed my hair black in over a decade. Gives hella split ends, and I look like I’m on death’s door with dark hair.”
“What triggered the mark? You worked in homicide. Were you sick one day and some dead guy started talking to you?”
“No. I can’t remember being sick. Not more than the sniffles in the past few years.
But my old partner and I responded to the daycare thing.
” I assumed, as this was the closest SED unit to the new split, that they’d been called in.
If he hadn’t been on that callout, he’d have seen it on the news.
Rich people got more media than the rest of us peasants.
“There were kid zombies and everyone thought I had control of them.”
He stopped again to turn and stare at me. “Controlling zombies is a level five SV ability.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“It’s rare. Most SVs can sense the dead or sometimes talk to them. There are, like, five in the world that can control zombies. All work for the military.”
“Maybe that’s why everyone freaked out? I wasn’t controlling them. I said stop, and they stopped, but maybe they just heard me?”
“You ever met a zombie before?”
“Before the daycare? No.” I left out what Joe had told me about my eyes turning red. Was that an SV thing? Had he really seen something, or only thought he had?
“They test you with one in the hospital?”
“Do they keep zombies for variant testing?”
“Yes. And a whole lot of other shit.”
“They locked me in the morgue.” I shivered at the memory, knowing I’d lost some time in there. “But no one stood up and did the bone dance.”
He stared at me in confusion. Didn’t he watch kids Halloween TV? I mimicked the bone dance from Disney’s black and white days, throwing my hands up from side to side and doing a little shuffle, but he shook his head. “You’re so fucking weird. I mean, all SVs are weird, but wow.”
Ouch. “Okay, yeah, no zombies on a tether or anything.”
“Strange that they didn’t test you with an actual zombie.” He led us to my locker.
“What’s the orange of your band mean?”
“Shifter,” he said. “The chip codes itself. Once embedded, based on your ability, it changes color.”
“Oh. What if no color showed up?”
“It doesn’t happen. The chip won’t work at all without the antibodies. No glow, no variance.”
I glanced at my arm and thought about the intense glow that nothing could hide. “Is there any way to hide the brightness?”
He stopped at a locker, and studied me for a few seconds, head tilted. Damn, he was hot. “The brighter it glows, the more powerful the variant.”
“But I tried covering it up with clothes, even layers of winter coats, and it still glows through.”
“Guess that means you’re not a zero.”
“You heard that?”
“My hearing is remarkably good.” He tapped the side of his head. “Shifter.”
“Must suck to hear your neighbors fart and stuff.”
“Your mind goes to the strangest places. Press your thumb to the ID grid and it will open.” He demonstrated, but it didn’t open for him.
“I better not lose my thumb,” I half joked as the door popped open when I pressed my thumb to it.
“Toys, deadly variety.” Guns and tasers.
I’d taken extensive classes in all of them.
But I’d done a few bootcamps with SWAT as I really wanted to know what happened when we called them in for an apprehend.
“Yeah, you’ll probably want to keep your other toys at home.”
“You wish you got a say on what I do with my other toys,” I snarked back.
He laughed, and it sounded good, thick and warm, like I could wrap it around me and soak in it.
I stumbled from the shock of the sudden thick, sweet sensation, tripped over the bench near the locker, and landed half in my locker and half with him holding my arm, his other around my back to keep me from dropping on my ass.
The sound dripped away and a sensation of warmth and home curled around my arm where he touched me.
An overwhelming desire to throw myself into his arms filled me, making me half hard and confused at the same time.
It was the shock that kept me from acting on the desire as I’d never felt a pull as strong from anyone before.
He ripped himself away, taking a few steps back. “Fucking SVs.”
I righted myself. “Sorry.” I studied my arm where he’d caught me. The feeling had vanished the second he stopped touching me. “I don’t know what you mean by that. I don’t know what just happened. Was that a shifter thing?”
“All shifters go through a little death with each change. Our bones break, organs shift and morph. It’s why not everyone survives the transition. You’re an SV. You’ll always be drawn to shifters because that little death is something you can call and use to fuel your strength.”
I looked at my hands and at him. “That sounds terrible. SVs can make shifters change?”
“Some, yes. If you try that shit on me or my team, expect to get knocked flat.”
“Ouch, okay. Noted.”
“But, confirms your variant type.” He sighed. “Shifters and SVs have a bad history. Your kind rose up after the Veil split, working with witches and rogue gods, enslaving my kind.”
“What? Why?”