“You’re serious,” he said slowly, not entirely trusting his voice.
“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. As you’ve pointed out, this is out of routine. You interested?”
To have his own squad, run his own missions, be the brain. Hell yes, he was interested. But not enough to plunge in without all the facts.
“What are the terms?”
“Usual. You’d be subject to Council oversight during your probationary period. Prove yourself, and you’re free of restriction in six months.”
“Where would I be stationed?”
“Wales, to start.”
Within spitting distance of home. “Apollo being replaced?”
“Apollo is dead.” Matthias’s voice betrayed no emotion at this fact, though Ian knew the two had been friends for more than a century.
“How?”
“Unclear. The reports from the surviving squad members are inconclusive. Your first mission would be to get to the root of his murder.”
“When?”
“As soon as you agree, a replacement for this post will be appointed and dispatched to relieve you. Twenty-four hours at the most.”
To be back in the field, performing the work he’d trained for was a gift he couldn’t ignore. Ian met his former ops commander’s gaze head on and held out his glass. “I’m in.”
Matthias clinked his low ball against the edge of Ian’s. “I’ll make the call.”
Chapter 3
Impatience gripped her in its teeth. It was broad daylight and here she was behind all her locks instead of out enjoying the glorious spring weather. Last night had shaken her. That sense of being followed when nothing was really there. Part of her was still a little girl who believed in monsters, and monsters could hide in plain sight. She knew that better than most.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she admonished herself.
Before she could change her mind, she grabbed the messenger bag holding her sketchpad and charcoals, then locked her apartment and headed down the central staircase of the converted old brownstone, out into the sun. Sucking in a determined breath, she paused, wondering where to go today. Traces of exhaust and garbage from the cans at the curb tinged the sweet spring air, but it wasn’t as bad as usual. School wasn’t yet out, so the streets were fairly quiet. Up the block, she could hear the steady thump of a basketball. Marley opted to turn in the opposite direction, knowing the less than savory element who’d be hanging around the concrete court at this time of day. It wasn’t paranoia, she convinced herself. It was just prudent.
The park was mostly deserted but for a Latina woman pushing a little girl on the swings. The girl’s bubbling giggle rolled out and she kicked her little legs, crying, “Mas alto! Mas alto!” Marley felt her posture relax, her lips curving at the sound. Not wanting to intrude on their play, she skirted the play area, which was due for its annual repainting to cover up graffiti. The fountain wasn’t running yet. Marley wondered if it would get turned back on at all given the number of times it had been soaped last year. She glanced in, grimacing in disgust at the layer of scummy green algae and pollen floating atop the few inches of dirty rainwater.
Crossing to a bench, she settled in the shade of some overgrown holly bushes and pulled out her sketchbook. Turning to a fresh page, she did a series of quick action sketches of the girl, studies of a child in motion, before turning her attention to the mother. It was her face that arrested Marley’s attention. Cautious joy with watchful eyes. The kind of expression Marley used to imagine on the face of her own mother—whoever she’d been. As she worked, the tension seeped out through her pencils and covered the paper, until her mind was full of nothing but light and shadows, crosshatching and bleed.
“Papa!”
At the delighted shout, Marley looked up. The little girl leapt down from the swing and ran on short, stubby legs toward a man at the edge of the playground. A smile flashed white in his bronzed face, and he bent to scoop up the child. Her laughter rang out as he swung her high, bright bubbles of sound that at once made Marley smile and her heart ache. The girl chattered in rapid-fire Spanish as her father listened attentively, interjecting a question or comment here and there as he held out an arm for the woman. She was at the edge of a laugh herself as she stepped into his embrace and accepted a kiss.
Something flickered in Marley’s mind and was gone, leaving behind a sharp stab of yearning for something she’d never had, probably would never have. She shut down that train of thought. It wasn’t productive or helpful. She had to make her choices from the available options, and she couldn’t pull new ones out of thin air. She was just fine on her own.
After the family left, Marley finished her sketch from memory, adding in the faint curve of a smile on the woman’s lips and the bright laughter in the child’s eyes. Pleased with the result, she flipped back through her sketchbook. She mostly drew what she thought of as character sketches. Faces. Expressions. Bodies with suggestion of emotion in their posture. In her mind, she made up stories to go with them, easily able to imagine a snapshot of the lives she captured in black and white.
She came to the series of sketches of Ian. She had no story to go with him. He didn’t fit into her world, not like the poor and the downtrodden, the elderly and the young, the bullies and the weak. He was strength, she thought, her eyes tracing the sharp lines of his cheek and jaw. Despite whatever injury laid claim to his leg, he embodied power. In her experience, such men were ruthless, using that strength, to rule, to bully, to take whatever they wanted, as all predators did. And yet Ian had used that power. To protect her.
Marley still couldn’t understand why.
She was nothing to him. A stranger. No one worth the risk of getting involved in a fight. Which just went to prove, yet again, that he wasn’t from around here.
The thought left a strange, hollow feeling in her chest, a faint taste of regret and loss. For what, she didn’t know. They were two strangers, connected by a random act of violence. Nothing more. Marley sighed and stroked a finger down the side of the sketch.
Her thumb froze on the side of the sketchpad at the sudden sound of cascading water. Had they turned on the fountain? She glanced up, and her heart began to pound. Something moved in the fetid water, rising up from the shallow depths as if there were more than mere inches of liquid in the bottom. As she stared, something bulbous emerged above the ledge of the fountain wall. It was completely translucent, as if made of the water itself, and yet the nasty, polluted water sluiced off of it as it continued to rise and take on a vaguely human shape. Shoulders, back, arms. Higher still until a pair of legs emerged.