Page 9 of The Wickedness of Man

Since her house was already being surveilled by a secondary agent, there’d be no need for me to follow, and therefore, no chance of me leaving this tiny apartment for at least another thirty minutes to an hour. I could have done with a run, or even just a light jog to burn off my excess energy. Being cooped up in here practically glued to my chair for ten or more hours a day was torture. I wasn’t sure why the hell they’d picked me of all people—the organization’s fucking attack dog—for a recon and surveillance team, but I was going to have some strong words for Jax when I got back.

I shot off a quick text to the contact listed as “home” in the burner phone I’d been given for the assignment:

En route.

I had no pictures… again. No proof of anything the organization would be able to use to prove what it was they suspected her of, and I’d been watching this demon fortwoweeks. I leaned back in my seat with a sigh and stared down at the empty containers of old Chinese food on the foldout table beside me. The budget for this assignment had been frail to begin with, and I’d blown through most of it in the first three days, even buying the cheapest food and supplies I could find. I wasn’t sure if there was a cheaper toilet paper than one-ply, but it might be my only available option shortly, as it wasn’t exactly like I had a bidet handy.

“If I have to eat one more pot noodle, I’m going to have a sit-in protest when I get back,” I swore, swiping my hand over my eyes. At least now I could stop watching the window, given that my quarry was headed into another agent’s monitoring zone.

The cell phone buzzed with a simple reply from “home,” the only other number in my phone:

Noted. Standing by.

I stood and stretched, working the kinks out of my muscles. Sitting in front of a window for hours wasn’t the type of work I was normally employed for, and certainly not what I’d get paid for, either—if I ended up getting paid for this case at all. The orders had been simple: we were to document irrefutable evidence of our target harming a human, or we’d get no authorization to eliminate the suspect or bring her in for further evaluation. I was normally part of the team that handled the latter—not the evidence gathering. Hunters and other low-level agents such as myself did not typically get assigned recon duty on high-threat level demons.

“What the hell were you thinking, Jax?” I muttered.

I was used to working in a squad where we all knew each other, trained, practiced, and fought together as a team, since it was necessary to know you could trust one another; to learn how to fight as a single group, rather than as individuals. It was the only way we’d survived some of our worst scrapes. My unit hadn’t lost a man in four years—even when we took on a slew of shapeshifting demons the previous month. They’d eluded us for days; one of them pretended to be the priest we were supposed to be working with, and it took longer than it should have to suss the bastard out.

When we later discovered his body in the basement of the graveyard church, we stealthily went after the fake priest. Judging by how long the real one had been dead, it was likely the shifter demons killed him and assumed his form shortly after he contacted the organization. My team and I hunted them down one by one until the last, while pretending to be the dead priest, knew he’d been found out and transformed into a giant scorpion.

Given a choice between fighting the giant scorpion again or sitting here, watching a woman from a little room, I’d take the scorpion. If I didn’t come up with whatever evidence the organization was looking for, I’d get sent home, granted a single day of rest and a small stipend—somewhere around a hundred-fifty bucks—and then get reassigned to another case.

My jaw twitched in irritation. We—that is, myself and the other unnamed agents who’d been on the conference call the day the assignment came down—had been told how important it was to stay low profile on this one. No information as to the type of demon; no idea what we needed to be watching for. We couldn’t employ the typical snooping tactics, either. We were ordered to stay out of the entire business park across the street, and to never enter her home unless approved by the higher ups—and even then, only the special investigators were allowed in to eliminate or capture the target. Hell, the recon team had evenbeen instructed not to search through her trash—homeoroffice. I didn’t know if this meant she was more dangerous than the normal monsters we dealt with—imps could be a real pain in the ass when they wanted—or if this woman was a capture target.

I’d heard rumors of some of the investigators trying to hunt down a particularly elusive demon, but as one of the org’s hunter agents, I may as well have been a janitor when compared to their precious “special investigation” teams. Every guy I’d ever known who got onto that team turned into the biggest asshole I’d ever met. I’d had yet to know of a single agent thathadn’tlet becoming an investigator go to their heads. To be frank, I was glad not to be a part of it. Sometimes, flying under the radar was best—especially when you weren’t looking to grab the attention of the higher ups.

All I knew was that this recon order had been approved by the archdiocese—perhaps even Archbishop Benedict himself, so while I might not be happy about surveilling an unknown demon for two weeks, I was going to keep my mouth shut and do the job.

I might be lower level, but I wasn’t an idiot… At least, not when it came to my job.

I turned and stared at the bleak little studio apartment I’d been stuck in since the start of this case. It had been selected solely for the proximity and surveillance options, but I’d have happily opted for a shitty motel at this point. At least there I wouldn’t have to do my own laundry and might even get some free cold cereal in the morning or snag a squidgy apple or orange or two. The apartment held a bare mattress with a couple thin pillows and a threadbare blanket about two feet from the tiniest bathroom I’d ever seen in my life. I’d been in European hotel elevators that would have seemed roomy by comparison. The kitchen—if it could in fact be called that—held only a small counter, a mini fridge, a tiny stove, and a hot plate. There was adish drying rack screwed to the wall above the sink that was the closest this place came to having cabinets.

I toed my folding chair out of the way and tried to do some warm-ups and stretches, but the space, limited as it was, didn’t really allow for much. The urgency to get this entire affair over and done with was building in me by the day. Inactivity was not something that suited me well, and until the agent I’d mentally dubbedHometexted back and confirmed they had eyes on the target, I couldn’t so much as leave the damn apartment to get food. I paced back and forth, running my fingers back and forth along my hair as if trying to shake my irritation straight from my head.

I checked the cell phone. Fifteen minutes since I texted. Her drive was about twenty, if she didn’t stop anywhere—and we hadn’t even been allowed to tag her car either, so it was anyone’s guess what she was up to when we didn’t have her physically in our sights. I threw myself backward on the bed, halfheartedly doing a couple of crunches until it got boring and let my mind wander. What had made the higher ups so tense on this one? I knew better than to judge a book by its cover—after all, I’d hunted down some real monsters in the past that had seemed like perfectly innocent people—but this woman appeared, by all means, just that. An ordinary, innocent person.

At some point, I had drifted into a light bit of sleep, and was awoken by the buzzing cell phone on the bed at my side. I pulled it up and squinted in the glare of the screen. Home had texted three simple words as a reply.

Got eyes on

“Finally.” I sat up and grabbed my wallet, shoes, and coat, and then headed out of the apartment in search of a cheap, warm meal.

Who could have guessed that monitoring a woman who ran a sex therapy business would be one of theleastexciting jobs I’d ever done in my life?

I sprinted down the street; there was a little Chinese-owned store nearby that sold delicious hot dumplings, but they operated erratically, I’d discovered. Even if the posted sign said it was open ’til nine, they might be closed now, even though it wasn’t seven yet. The jog felt good, and the wind on my face was delicious. There was a slight bite to the air, like a storm was coming in, and I reveled in the cool breeze. The apartment only had a broken window unit and no central AC, so it got stuffy in there real fast.

I saw the open sign neon was still lit as I approached the store and stepped inside, thanking my lucky stars. The old man who operated the dumpling counter-slash-cash register smiled at me when I took a seat on one of the ancient, wobbly stools over on the right side in front of the hot bar. Behind me was the rest of the tiny convenience store, where chips, small medicine items, candles, knickknacks, and the like lined the shelves in an orderly fashion. There was a cooler at the back wall that held sodas, water bottles, and a few cases of beer.

I’d been in a few times—largely for the dumplings, but also for the occasional diet soda and some water bottles since I didn’t trust the smell of the tap water in the apartment. Everything in there reeked vaguely of mildew and was a little swampy, so I relied on the available water only for showering.

The old man moved over to the other side of the hot bar and gave me a little nod of acknowledgement.

“Usual?” he said. “Or different?”

“Different?” I asked.

He nodded again, clearly taking this as my answer. “Okay. Good. Is good.”

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