Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara (32 page)

Outside the club, dozens of kicked-out revelers complained, along with the club owners. He saw them through the entrance window but couldn’t hear them since no one had figured out how to silence the stereo system and blaring techno rhythms continued to blast through the club.

“What the hell did you think you were
doing
!”

Agent August was furious. He glared at Deven over the dead body.

Deven realized he was still in a state of shock. He felt lost in time and space.

A growing sickness filled the pit of his stomach. He should have never agreed to do this job. What the fuck did he think he was doing, pretending to be a normal person?

In the chaos of the crime scene, Deven waited until few were looking their way and bent down to reclaim his knife.

August looked ready to strangle Deven. “What were you thinking, you idiot? You aren’t a fucking assassin anymore.
You can’t just kill people here
.”

“I know.” Deven swallowed. “It was instinct. I didn’t think.”

“And because you didn’t think, a fucking
child
who might have had information for us is dead!” He paused suddenly, glancing over the body. His eyebrows came together and he knelt by the corpse’s head.

“I’m sorry.” Deven meant it. He believed in doing what he was told and now he’d failed. He’d been employed by the Irregulars for less than twenty-four hours and he’d already broken a cardinal rule.

He didn’t know how punishments were carried out in NIAD. In Aztaw the penalty for failure was swift and brutal. But he deserved it in this instance, so he steadied his resolve.

“I apologize.” Deven swallowed. “However I can amend—”

“Shut up.” August fumbled for something in his inner jacket pocket. “No blood.”

“What?”

“No blood on the body. You stabbed him in the neck and he’s not bleeding.” August pulled out his utility knife and split it open, turning the ends and reattaching them in a configuration that made the device resemble a flashlight. August turned several rings around a small bulb at the base of the knife, and as he adjusted the rings, the light shifted until it was very bright white.

He shone the flashlight over the dead boy, making slow sweeps from head to toe.

“Under a street lamp, I thought he looked Aztaw for a moment,” Deven told him. “But I don’t know how that would even be possible.”

“Masking spell,” August answered. “It conceals the true form of those from other realms by transforming their outward appearance. It’s a way to make them look human. We often use them in the division.” He kept fiddling with the flashlight settings. As he moved the light back over the corpse’s face, instead of skin and hair, Deven saw the faint glimpse of an Aztaw skull.

Deven tensed. August made small adjustments to the rings around the light. Now the part of the body under the beam of light was clearly Aztaw.

August seemed to sigh out in relief, and he glanced up at Deven with a small smile. “Lucky for you, kiddo. Aztaws don’t investigate deaths of their own here.”

“Stop calling me kiddo. I’m only a few years younger than you.”

August’s eyebrow quirked up, but he didn’t respond. Instead he shone the light back in the corpse’s eyes. “Aztaw indeed.”

“What does that light do?”

“Every type of being has a unique visual spectrum, and this light cuts through transformations and masking spells. I’ve never seen an Aztaw before, but now with this calibration I’ll be able to detect one anytime.” August cocked his head and turned the light on Deven, fiddling with the rings until the light burned bright as he shone it on Deven’s face.

Deven covered his eyes with his hands, wincing. “Asshole.”

“Yep, human.” August’s mouth quirked up. “Barely.”

The music kept thumping, a quick-paced drumbeat that rattled Deven’s teeth. His hip hurt badly.

Horrid electrical pulsing screeches emanated from the speakers and someone chanted a word over and over and Deven felt like he would drown in lights and sound. He crouched down, eyes pressed shut, hands over his ears.

Through the noise he heard August bellow, “Somebody cut the goddamn A/V system!” Then after a pause, August’s voice again. “Just find the damn plug and kick it out of the wall.”

Seconds later the music blissfully stopped. Slowly, Deven uncurled and stood upright.

August was on his phone again. “...at the Cazador,” August said. He hunched over the body protectively, other hand covering his exposed ear to hear the phone better. “Most only saw the fall, not the knife!”

August finished his call and frowned. “The director said she hopes he isn’t some sort of dignitary in Aztaw that might further sour relations between us and their underworld.” He rubbed his hand over his face.

“Do dignitaries often make hotel deliveries?” Deven asked.

August snorted. “Not usually, but when it comes to Aztaws, I’m out of my depth.” He stared at Deven for a moment. “I have to stay until the cleanup crew arrives and takes over.”

“All right.” Deven grit his teeth.

“You wait outside.”

“Thank you.” Deven gratefully rushed out the doors and pushed his way through the frustrated crowd of spectators.

Outside, the air was still warm, but a light breeze wafted down the street. He leaned against a dirty wall and realized how tired he was. Adrenaline still coursed through his body from the chase, but as soon as that ran out he knew he would crash.

Luckily, it took less than ten minutes for the Irregulars’s mortuary team to arrive. They came dressed as a local ambulance crew, but Deven saw the warped, refracted images as they flashed their badges and knew they were more than they appeared to be. Deven remained outside, too afraid of the dance club to return indoors, despite his curiosity. A few minutes later, the dead Aztaw was wheeled out to a waiting ambulance on a stretcher and August followed behind. He didn’t look much better than Deven felt.

“All cleaned up?” Deven asked.

August nodded. “Yeah, no thanks to you.”

Deven took a deep breath. “What will my penance be?”

August shot him a glance. “What?”

Deven motioned toward the ambulance. “I have failed you.”

August rolled his eyes. “Christ. Just don’t throw the knife next time, all right?”

Deven nodded. “I promise to do better.”

August sighed. He gave Deven a thorough looking over. “When was the last time you ate?”

“I don’t remember. This morning? Maybe yesterday.”

August grabbed Deven’s arm. “Come on. We both need to recuperate somewhere normal.”

***

The Barracuda Diner was Mexico City’s best approximation of an American diner, according to August. And there Deven found himself, at eleven o’clock at night, considering various burger options.

August probably assumed Deven would feel comforted by the familiar food of the American menu. The agent was clearly in his element, a small smile softening his features. But burgers and milkshakes weren’t any more common in Aztaw or Friday Harbor than tacos.

Still, if the place relaxed Agent August, Deven was happy to be there.

Besides, it felt good to sit down. Deven’s hip protested painfully, but he grit his teeth and soldiered on.

August slid onto the turquoise faux-leather bench seat across from Deven. In the harsh bright lights of the diner his blue eyes appeared ghostly in contrast to the dark curl of hair falling on his forehead. He slumped against the back of the bench seat and glared at Deven. “We need to get you a different weapon of choice.”

“I’m good with knives,” Deven said.

“I didn’t ask your opinion.” August frowned. “If your instinct is to defend yourself without thinking, then you need something less deadly than a blade.” He cocked his head. “Have you ever used a freeze ball?”

“No.” Deven studied the menu, unsure of what to pick. All the choices sounded equally baffling.

“You’d like it. You can throw it, but it instinctively targets living beings and paralyzes them. Works on all but the revenants, of course, and buzz bugs, since they aren’t much more than pinpricks of light.”

“I’ll try it, I guess,” Deven said, privately thinking that he would never get rid of all his knives.

“There are other resources we have that are less pointy. I’ll show them to you in the armory.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll have to go tomorrow though. The pixie in charge of the armory is particular about odors and you smell.”

Deven knew he blushed. He studied the menu intently, but out of the corner of his eyes could see August smirking, missing nothing, taking in the red color on Deven’s cheeks without a word.

“Aren’t you going to look at the menu?” Deven asked, hoping to distract from his own humiliation.

“I already know what I’m eating.” The waitress approached, and August glanced up at her. “Mushroom Swiss, no pickles, fries, Corona.”

The waitress wrote this all down.

Deven glanced quickly down at the menu. “I’ll have uh...the chicken ranch burger.”

“Bad choice,” August said.

“It’s my dinner,” Deven snapped. “And a chocolate milkshake,” he added, on a whim. He’d never had one but had seen one advertised on television the other day.

August shrugged, turning to watch the patrons of the restaurant through the mirror on the wall beside them. “So tell me what that was all about.”

“What?”

“You freaked because the Aztaw left us a statue. Why?”

“It was a death threat. In Aztaw, soldiers are cremated and their ashes stored in clay funerary figures. The figure resembles the Aztaw soldier and there’s a cavity in the back of the skull of the statue to store their ashes. That statue was of me. It was a threat against my life and I had to act.”

“I wonder why he threatened only you.”

“It may not be related to this case,” Deven suggested. “It may be personal.”

August’s eyebrow raised.

“I told you I don’t get along with Aztaw lords,” Deven said.

“Enough that they’d actively pursue you if they knew you were here?”

“Perhaps.” Deven shifted in his seat. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to tell Agent August.

August scowled. “You knew there’s a chance you’d be hunted if you took this job, and you returned here anyway?”

Deven shrugged. “I need something to do now that I’m back in the natural world. It’s a worthwhile cause.”

“One worth dying for?”

Deven paused. It hadn’t occurred to him that a person could engage in something
without
planning it to be one’s last act.

August shook his head. “Kiddo, there’s very little in this world worth risking your life for. If I were you I’d have stayed tucked up at home.”

“You know this job is dangerous, and yet you do it,” Deven pointed out.

“Yeah, dangerous, but not guaranteed
deadly
.” August frowned. “Nothing’s worth dying for, trust me. Life is all you got. You should take better care of it.”

“You should write poetry,” Deven mumbled, but August just laughed at him.

Their drinks arrived. Deven felt foolish ordering a massive, creamy brown milkshake, while Agent August cradled a beer. It made Deven feel less masculine.

August took a long pull of his beer. He sighed contentedly. “So why are these Aztaws after you?”

“Shortly before Lord Jaguar was murdered in the revolt, he gave me something of his. The revolutionaries, as well as the other lords, want it.”

“What were the revolutionaries fighting for? Power?”

“Aztaw soldiers and their families were tired of serving and expending such great resources to keep the lords housed in luxury. Besides, the cost and effort of hunting and keeping human beings to fuel the lords’ spells was a great burden on the soldiers, so they rebelled. In the process they killed not only the lords themselves but also the house powers of the lords. The magic was lost forever.”

“House powers?”

“Each dynasty had its own house power. It is sacred and unique to each lord. It represents the lord’s history, his dynasty and purpose in the universe. The power is tied to a physical object but is sustained with blood. If it is allowed to drain completely it will lose its power and break forever.”

August eyed Deven. “Lord Jaguar gave you his house power.”

Deven was surprised August figured it out so quickly, but he didn’t deny it. “Yes.”

“And that’s why they want you dead. They want your power.”

“More than that.” Deven stirred his milkshake. “A house power has never been given to a human being before. Lord Jaguar’s gesture upset the natural balance of things in Aztaw. It put me in a position that the other lords feared greatly.”

“Why?”

“I’m human, as your flashlight demonstrated. It means I don’t need any messy sacrifices to use a house power. I fuel my own spells.”

August blinked. “Christ, that makes you stronger than all of them.”