Page 15 of The Firebrand
“Unfair, though.” Rein tugged on an ear. “Us and only twelve of them.”
For a brief stint, the two warriors had fought side by side, Kole being at least a century older. Rein admired the commander’s strength, his passion for the win. Besides, his boss’s skills were legendary. Rein couldn’t help but wonder who’d come out top dog in a real one-on-one between them.
“That’s true. Damn, I miss it. Fighting. My fists pulverizing flesh.” He waved a hand over his desktop. “This is horseshit sitting here, reading reports, writing updates. The best days of my life were when I was a grunt, slaughtering law breakers for sport. Treasure the good times.”
“Join us again. Leave this job to somebody else.”
“You want it?” Kole raised his eyebrows.
“Fuck, no!”
“Then who gets it? Some asshole who was never a top-notch Firebrand? Someone who has no idea what’s going on? You know that’s what could happen. The guy before me. Neron. You remember him? No. That was before your time. He almost got us killed with his warped ideas on how to protect Scath.” Kole shook his head.
“Is that why you took the job?” Rein flopped into a chair and thumped his boots on the edge of Kole’s desk. He adjusted his chest harness.
“Kinda. The high commander called me into his office. Said me or Dax. Can you imagine that suckhead in this position? No offense.”
“None taken. Damn. He considered Dax?”
Though a feared, bold-but-reckless Firebrand with well-honed skills, Dax was not commander material. He was aloof, damaged goods, a loner who waged war against his own sadistic vampire nature as much as he did against the enemy.
“I don’t think it was a serious consideration. I think he played me. He knew I wouldn’t let the job go to Dax. Fuck. I was so stupid. But who else could command this ragtag bunch of roughneck assassins? Screw my problems. Do you have the portal jumper?”
Rein jimmied it out of his pants pocket, flipping it across the desk to Kole, who caught it in his massive, battle-scarred hand.
The commander leaned back in his chair, examining the device, turning it over to inspect the other side. “Looks legit. Most likely, it belongs to someone else. I’m betting Malok stole it because not even a fuckhead gives this to a Kalli. If somebody at Boden’s Ministry of Compliance did assign him one, the shit will hit the fan.” Kole guffawed. “Wouldn’t that be a dick kick to watch? We’ll get it out of the hairy asshole soon, though. Chay and the gaffers are with him now in the Cubes below.”
Drawn from all Aeternal breeds, the gaffers were not only Scath police who handled the day-to-day problems, but they jailed, guarded, and interrogated prisoners before turning them over to the Temple of Justice. Rein had confidence in their ability to extract information. By any means necessary. They weren’t sissies when it came to thumb screwing.
“Yeah,” Kole said, flipping the jumper over in his hands again. “I’ll have someone deliver it to Boden at his Ministry. Anyway, it’s not your business now.” The commander switched subjects. “We have a problem that’s raging out of control on Darque. The gagans have been raiding a forest protected by the yetis. Those gray-skinned, tuft-headed bastards do nothing but start trouble. Somebody ought to clip their claws. If the yetis don’t do it soon, we could have another Darque-wide war in the making. One every fifty years is enough. I may want you and Chay there as backup.”
Rein stared at Kole. Aware he was his commander’s most efficient, most brutal killer, he figured the guy was fed up with the gagans. So, he was sending him in for a little bloodletting.
“Got a small hiccup,” Rein interrupted, trying to squeeze in the bad news, knowing Kole was likely to go nuclear. Though animus demons were famous for their tempers, his commander had picked up an extra dose of red-hot wack-jack at birth.
“Yeah? What’s that?” The commander returned to studying the piles of papers on his desk.
Bite the bullet.
“After Malok made the jump to Seattle, I had his ass against the wall, about to send him back into the Whorl when I heard a noise. A human female eyed the whole cluster fuck from the end of the alley. I sent the fur ball across to Chay while I went to scrub her. The short of it is, I couldn’t.”
Kole looked up from his desk, his nostrils flaring. “Couldn’t what?”
“Mindwipe her.”
“Not possible. You’re my best. You sick or something?”
“Don’t think so. I tried several times. She still remembers.”
“So, what’s the wrap-up to this snafu? I’m busy.”
“I made a snap decision. For now, she’s here.”
Kole’s brows clamped tight. “She’s where?”
“At this minute, in the gathering area with her butt on the couch.”
When Kole popped up, his desk chair banged into the wall with such force that two of the weapons fell off. “Take me to her.” Sparks flew off his fingers, a side effect of being a wigged-out animus demon.
