Chapter 2
Cyan stared at her chalkboard and growled in frustration. None of her calculations were correct. Again.
Son of a bitch.
Viciously, she erased her pretty, blue, yellow, and red formulations to upgrade the comms implants that could translate demonic languages. When there was nothing but a blurry blackboard, she cursed and hurled the eraser to the floor. A rainbow cloud of colored chalk dust poofed into the air and left a coating of pigmented dust on her desk.
She took a deep, calming breath and turned her attention from the board and back to her actual job at DART—one she loved, which allowed her to afford a nice apartment in an upscale Brussels neighborhood. Except, now that her roommate and best friend was dead, Cyan would have to tighten the purse strings.
Which made her want to cry. Not for her new budget since Shan had been in the middle of moving out to go live with her fiancé anyway, but for the loss of her friend.
Blinking against the sting of the tears in her eyes, she grabbed a plastic evidence bag off her freshly sanitized lab table and dumped a comms unit into her palm. According to her boss, Kynan Morgan, the thing was possessed by a demonic spirit. Usually, the souls of dead demons were handled by the Spirit Management division, but not even Logan, who had the extraordinary ability to expel demonic souls from physical bodies to trap them, could force this spirit out of its home. Kynan hoped Cyan’s ability to manipulate electronics would allow her to exorcise the demon ghost.
Cyan charged up her powers, pulling from deep inside her to pierce the bit of tech. Instantly, the circuitry and programming codes popped into her head. From here, she could do almost anything to the comms unit with a tech spell. By simply reimagining the programming, she could turn it into a device that could immobilize a pickpocket or boil the blood inside a rude waitperson. Or she could turn it into a ticking time bomb for the wearer. Just a little tweak in the coding, and she could make it connect with the user’s implant chip and cause a life-ending shock.
Not that Cyan had ever done that. But it was sometimes fun to think about.
Today, she wasn’t running hypothetical scenarios through her head. She was looking for a literal ghost in the machine.
“Cyanide?”
She jumped at the sound of her boss’s voice on the intercom. He always called her by her given name over the comms systems but used her nickname in person. He had some odd quirks.
“Yes, Mr. Morgan?” She powered herself down, and the inner workings of a very expensive communications device faded away.
“I need to see you in my office. Got a minute?”
“Sure thing, boss. I’ll be right up.”
She hurried out of her lab and took the stairs to DART’s main floor, where she returned waves and greetings as she slipped inside the elevator. When the door opened on the second floor, she stepped out into a massive atrium with a spectacular view of the main floor fountain below.
She loved the design, openness, and modern touches of the old building on the outskirts of Brussels’ historic center. Kynan had hired her just after the renovations on their global headquarters had been finished.
Nineteen years ago.
Almost two decades with DART, and she still hated the freakishly beautiful broad-leaf plant outside Kynan’s office. Watered with blood and fed bits of raw flesh, its crimson and black stalks vibrated as she approached, its lacy leaves rattling whispers that sounded like voices. The thing sensed what those nearby were thinking, serving as an early warning system. If anyone intended to harm Kynan, the plant would screech like a banshee.
Since she wasn’t planning to kill her boss, the plant merely said things like “ angry ” and “ sad .”
What an asshole.
She glared at the stupid bush as she walked past and heard Kynan’s voice call out as she reached his open doorway.
“Come on in.” He waved her over, and she took a seat across from him. “Thanks for coming.”
He said it like she’d had a choice. “No problem. What’s this about?”
“A couple of things.” He braced his elbows on the surface of his polished oak desk and leaned forward. “First, how are you doing? You didn’t take any time off after…”
After Shanea was gunned down in cold blood in this very building.
It had been barely a month since The Aegis murdered Shan, and Cyan still wasn’t dealing well. Heck, she wasn’t dealing at all . She’d buried herself in work, unwilling to return to the apartment they’d shared except for essentials.
Shan had been in the process of moving out, but she hadn’t boxed up everything yet, and the reminders lying around their place ripped Cyan open, refreshing the pain every time she saw them.
“I’m fine.”
Kynan nodded as if he bought it. “Xoei told me you’ve been sleeping here for weeks.”
“That little snitch.” Cyan clenched her fist as if it were wrapped around her lab assistant’s neck.
“Cyan,” Kynan said gently, “I know how close you and Shan were. And I know how you felt about Draven too. You lost your best friends, and I don’t think you’re dealing.”
“You don’t know anything,” Cyan snapped. He was right, but she wasn’t ready to hear the truth. She was too angry, too hurt, and too stubborn. But Kynan was also her boss, and she shouldn’t go off like that. Exhausted and frustrated with herself, she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“I get it,” he said. “But DART has people you can talk to if you need to, okay?”
“Thank you.” She forced a smile to assure her boss that everything was hunky-dory. “Why else am I here?”
He shoved a packet of papers across the surface of his desk. “These are some design ideas and notes about a weapon StryTech will be working on for us.”
The very mention of StryTech put a knot in her gut. She’d be happy to see that place burn to the ground—and its CEO with it.
Although a new weapon would be nice.
Curious, she pulled the papers over and scanned the diagrams and notes. “So, this new weapon…looks like a device that would allow anyone to capture souls.”
“Exactly. We wouldn’t be limited to only having Logan and a handful of his people doing it. Anyone who popped one of those projectiles into a demon before it died would be able to capture its spirit.”
That was fucking awesome. A huge advantage for Team Good. She flipped the page. Blinked in surprise.
“Wait.” She held up the packet of papers and peered more closely at a sketch and specs of a microprocessor. “This weapon would also have a guidance system?”
He nodded. “It could be programmed to seek out the demon closest to death.”
“Wow. That’s innovative. So, again, why am I here?”
Kynan leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers over his flat abs. “Because I don’t want this to be like everything else we get from StryTech.”
Ah. “You mean hampered by its rules and accountable to the Almighty Stryke?”
“Exactly. I’m sending you to work on their team.”
She inhaled sharply. Managed a hoarse, “What?”
“The weapon will contain ensorcelled microchip electronics,” he said. “Your expertise makes you the perfect choice for the assignment.”
Oh, hell, no. Kynan was wrong for so many reasons. “I wouldn’t be a good fit. Send Xoei.”
He pulled the papers back across the desk. “Xoei is talented and smart, but she doesn’t have your experience or innate skill with electronics and weapons. I want our best on this, and you’re it. I’m sure—”
“I can’t,” she blurted, not caring that she’d interrupted her boss. “I can’t work with Stryke.” She swallowed and took a moment to temper her voice, if not her words. “I think I’d want to kill him.”
“You and everyone else,” he muttered. But Kynan didn’t get it. He hadn’t worshiped the ground Stryke walked on, only to have his idol prove to be a disappointment at best and an accessory to murder at worst. “You probably won’t even see him. And I don’t need to tell you how much of a game changer this weapon would be for us,” he said, echoing her earlier thoughts.
“And the Smiter was a game changer for The Aegis.” She closed her eyes as if doing so would shut out the mental image of Shanea, her body torn apart by The Aegis’s new demon-shredding firearm. It didn’t, and she reluctantly looked back at her boss. “I’m sorry, Kynan. I can’t do it.”
He tucked the papers into a folder and stuck them in a desk drawer. “I wish you’d reconsider, but I understand.”
“With all due respect, I don’t think you do.”
Yikes . Instant regret. She shouldn’t have said that, especially not in that bitchy tone. Fortunately, Kynan was the most even-tempered human she’d ever known in her thirty-seven years of life, and he merely sat back in his seat, his expression contemplative.
“I’m not going to get into a pissing contest over who’s gone through the most shit,” he said quietly. “I know Shanea’s loss is still raw, and you’re grieving. Maybe you should take some time off. Isn’t Benjamin Franklin Day coming up? It’s a big holiday for your species, right? Go celebrate.”
She stiffened. “Is that a suggestion or an order?”
“It’s a suggestion, Cyan. Nothing more. I won’t force you to work with StryTech’s team or take a vacation. But doing one or the other instead of hanging out in your dark lab might be a good idea.”
“My lab isn’t dark.” At his steely don’t-fuck-with-me stare, she relented, knowing she’d pushed him about as far as was wise. “Fine” she said. “I’ll think about it. Is there anything else?”
He shook his head as if she were a lost cause.
She probably was.
She stood, intent on returning to the lab, but Xoei was probably back from lunch, and Cyan didn’t want to deal with her lab assistant’s super positive, upbeat energy or questions right now.
Maybe Kynan was right. Perhaps she needed a break.
But taking a break from work meant facing her empty apartment. It meant dealing with her loss.
And, unfortunately, there was no tech spell to make it any easier.