May start putting up some of my uni work stuff on here. Rest assured it will still be creative.
Anyways, this chapter is more in the works than the previous ones I've put up, so it may change at some point. I like it a whole lot more than the next one I'm working on so... yeah. I'm sorry, my brain is addled by energy drink and I'm on a serious come down so words aren't working so well.
Please by all means ignore me and read the chapter. Click on the linky link :)
A Skeleton Duet
Chapter 5
Not long after his discussion with Gregory, Hades’ other teammates entered. Laura came down to join him reclining at the back of the room. He was doing his best to act casual, when he knew everything was about to explode, especially when Dirk found out that Hades would be co-leading the mission. The team leader gave him a funny look when walking down the table to pick a seat in the middle.
“You finished your reports?” he frowned, looking at Hades.
“With time to spare,” Hades replied flatly, throwing his gaze somewhere over Dirk’s shoulder – anything not to challenge him too soon.
Dirk huffed and sat down. He didn’t say any more, because he, like Hades, had completely failed to notice Gregory sitting in his chair at the top of the table, until now. The agent was leant back in the chair, his elbows propped on the rests and fingers tented up before his face. He looked like a tiger waiting to pounce. That was more than enough to still Dirk’s tongue. After all, he lived and breathed for the appreciation of his superiors.
Once everyone had settled, Gregory stirred, leaning forward in his seat.
“Good afternoon everybody. My name is Gregory. I will be your new head agent from now on,” he said.
There was a stirring of confused looks amongst Hades’ teammates, because up until now there’d been no sign that their head agent would be changing. However, Hades had pretty much deduced that the change was entirely because of him. Gregory wanted to keep an eye on him and what better way than to become his direct superior?
“I understand you have been a complete unit for two months now and up until now you have been given fairly simple assignments, but we feel you’re ready for some more high risk field work,” Gregory continued.
At this, Dirk sat a little straighter, his chest puffing slightly. Hades scowled. It was embarrassing; the man probably thought their successes rested solely on his own shoulders, when his view of teamwork seemed to consist of delegation and little else.
“However, Agent MacKenzie has been identified as one of the stronger members in the team and because of the dangerous nature of your next mission, he has been instructed to co-lead the operation with Agent Thornton,” Gregory said in a flat tone, as if to demonstrate his complete lack of bias. Nonetheless, Dirk exploded, exactly as Hades had predicted.
“What?!” he said, as if the very notion was comical. “You can’t be serious.”
Gregory turned to him with icy grey eyes and replied. “Agent Thornton, I am nothing other than serious.”
And it was believable. Gregory seemed to be the kind of person that wouldn’t notice a good joke even if it were right in front of him; he seemed to be an agent twenty-four seven. Dirk held his tongue and stared at the table morosely, a slight red flush filling his cheeks.
“Now, the mission at hand,” Gregory continued, whilst sliding identical grey folders out to each team member, “is to detain an escaped convict. She escaped yesterday and is considered to be highly unstable, so beware. She is an angel of light and her magic can melt the flesh off your face if you’re not careful.”
Here, Gregory paused for his warning to sink in and it didn’t go unheeded. Both Clancy and Dom shifted uncomfortably and it was understandable, what with them being only two months on the job. But the other four had seen the effects of an angel’s light magic in more than just lecture slides and they knew this wasn’t going to be an easy mission.
“I want you to take Level 2 detaining gear from the armoury. You’ll find the clearance in your folders. That means with this mission you have the permission to shoot to kill, should the wielder pose any mortal threat to the general public. Are there any questions?” Gregory finished.
Hades’ eyes flitted over to Dirk and sure enough, the man looked like he was bursting to challenge Gregory’s decision to make Hades co-leader, but his previous failure to do so was enough to make him settle sullenly in his seat and shake his head.
“Good. I expect results on this ladies and gentlemen and I expect them soon. You are dismissed,” Gregory said.
Dirk was up like a shot and out of the room before anyone said another word. The others left ahead of Hades, Clancy and Dom mumbling to each other. Just as Hades was about to exit the room, Gregory called him back.
“Agent MacKenzie, I believe you have something to give me?”
Hades froze. Yes, of course. In the shock of his salvation, he’d completely forgotten about the guilty pendulum hanging in his jacket. He thrust a hand into his pocket and handed the teleport device to Gregory, eyes downcast. He added a quiet “Sorry, sir,” for good measure.
“Thank you,” Gregory said, his tone even and serious.
Hades couldn’t help but rush from the room. Something about that man had alarm bells ringing in his head. Hades couldn’t explain the sensation, not even to himself, but for some reason, Gregory didn’t seem like a safe person to be around.
He jogged a little down the hallways to catch up with rest of his team. In the end, he found them back in the office. Dirk was sitting in his own cubicle, talking in a hushed voice with Melissa. Clancy and Dom were in the next cubicle along, with Laura hanging outside. At Hades’ approach, they all fell silent and Dirk glared up at him accusingly. Hades noted that he wasn’t the only one; everyone’s eyes were on him.
“Go on then, how’d you do it? What did you say to that man when we weren’t there, huh?” he said bitterly.
Hades eyed all of them. They weren’t fuming like Dirk, but they definitely had a mistrusting look on their faces.
“I didn’t say anything,” Hades said.
“Oh come on, be honest. You musta said something; promotions don’t just drop out of the sky like that,” Dirk snarled.
“I said nothing,” Hades repeated stonily, but it didn’t do him any favours, the team just shifted uncertainly and Dirk shot out of his seat.
“What did you say about me?” he snapped, increasing dangerously in volume.
“I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. Sometimes actions speak louder than words you know?” Hades said, keeping calm. He needed to be calm more than anything else right now. If he revealed even a hint of what he’d done and where he’d been last night, he wasn’t sure if even Gregory could protect him. Dirk would take that sort of information to the Director if he could.
“Now, don’t you think we should start tracking that angel down?” He said, turning to his own cubicle. He was quite keen to hide his face, in case it gave anything away.
Thankfully, the others took his cue and returned to their own computers, leaving Dirk standing there in the middle of the aisle, looking and probably feeling quite foolish. It didn’t take long for him to set feverishly to work.
Hades knew that Dirk would do everything in his power to outshine him in this mission. He would pull any stunt he could to put Hades down, but he would just have to rise to the challenge. He didn’t have much of a choice, after all.
***
It didn’t take long to track the angel down. All wielders were fitted with tracer chips once they arrived at the detention facility, so it was simply a matter of putting her identity number into the tracer software and the network did all the work.
The tracer software was another technological advantage the Authorities had developed over the years. It worked by transmitter, which meant every thousand miles there had to be another headquarters. In the case of the Kimony Isles HQ this was particularly well suited because the nearest mainland was just over one thousand miles away, meaning that wielders had a lot of open sea to cover before being lost to their pursuing agents.
The Kimony Isles was a ring of five islands. Rilidey had the largest business district and was home to the Authorities HQ. Etholme had more industrial businesses and housed many of the working class, as well as having the highest crime rate and concentration of magic wielders. Mildey was a mix of built up and rural areas and was also home to the detention facility. Deltai, being the furthest south, had more of an agricultural background and a vast spread of mountainous, unspoilt countryside. And Astern retained the most thriving creative district; it was second only to Deltai for its beauty.
Deltai was also the most logical destination that wielders might escape to from the detention facility, because it was the nearest island to Mildey and furthest from the Authorities HQ in Rilidey. And sure enough, the angel had been traced to a park in Aberling, Deltai’s capital city.
All the capital cities of the Kimony Isles were united by an express underground shuttle service and by ferry. It was possible that the angel could have taken either form of transportation, but she certainly wouldn’t have flown, not if she knew what was good for her; it would have made her far too easy to spot.
Unfortunately the ferry took twice as long to travel between islands than the shuttle, but it was the only way the team could transport their van and all the gear inside to Aberling. Thankfully by the time they got to the park, the angel hadn’t moved. Hades figured she was probably tired from travelling all morning. She had escaped from the detention facility at half four; about the same time he’d managed to escape from Blackburn.
Very rarely would wielders escape from the facility and it was only the stronger or more evasive ones who succeeded, which didn’t make their odds as a newly formed team look too great. If Gregory hadn’t expressed otherwise, Hades would have suspected this was some sick form of punishment, where he risked the lives of his teammates for his foolish blunder. All Hades had to do was ensure the safety of his teammates, make sure they didn’t do anything stupid and hope the angel didn’t do anything stupid either.
Upon arriving at the park, they scanned for the wielder and located her near the kids’ play park - a typical evasive tactic; she was hiding in plain sight, where there were bound to be loads of witnesses. The agents would have to think twice about pulling guns on her.
Dirk had suggested that two of them approach from her right, two from the left and push her south with the other two, towards the playing fields where there were far less witnesses. It was a basic formation but Hades had agreed it would probably do the trick. So they’d geared up with handguns, dart guns and earpieces to keep in contact.
Hades went first to scout out the area. Walking over grassy fields, he could see the kids’ play park get closer and closer. The day was overcast, throwing everything in a grey, dull light. Thankfully, this meant there were only a handful of young children running around the play park. They were screaming and laughing as they crawled over the wooden fort, shot down the slide and spun on the roundabout. There were a few of them playing tag on the spongy tarmac and his eyes fell on one girl - she had to be about ten - dressed in a pink coat, with long brown hair whipping about her as she ran. Hades realized with a pang in his gut, that his unborn sister would be ten this year. She could have been one of these kids having fun at the play park. She should have been.
“You seen her yet?” Dirk’s voice crackled in his earpiece.
Hades flinched and scanned the area hastily. It didn’t take long for him to notice the angel. She was dressed in a long brown trench coat, sat hunched over on one of the benches on the other side of the play park, her tangled blonde hair obscuring her face. It was funny, but when you knew wielders existed, when you started looking at them, they couldn’t stand out more. It was the way they held themselves, the way they looked over their shoulder too many times and the way they attempted to hide in plain, nondescript clothes.
“Yeah,” Hades mumbled into the mic hidden underneath his jacket collar.
“Keep an eye on her then. I’m coming over,” Dirk’s voice replied.
Hades surveyed the area again. He counted sixteen children, seven adults and one angel. Feeling the adrenaline pump into his bloodstream, he walked slowly to the empty bench nearest to him. He sat down, keeping his eyes on the angel, who had barely moved an inch. She obviously hadn’t realized her freedom was in jeopardy yet. But how could a single man dressed in black seem like a threat? Especially when his concentration was lost to the little brown-haired girl that ran straight across him. The distraction was too much to bear. His older sister, who he hadn’t seen in five years, had brown hair and he’d always assumed that his younger sister would have looked like a miniature copy, all too much like this girl running and laughing in front of him.
The minutes passed and Hades struggled to keep focused on his target. He couldn’t help but drift into thoughts of how and when he could access that case-report to find out what really happened on the bridge where his baby sister died. He was sure that once he had the answers he was looking for, he would know exactly what to do, whether the Authorities were to be trusted and what to do if they weren’t. It seemed that his chances for promotion were imminent, but whether that increase in rank was enough to access the files was something he’d have to find out when it happened. That thought was frustrating to say the least.
“Having a nice little rest are we?” a snide voice said behind him, causing his shoulders to hunch.
Shaken from his reverie, it took Hades a few seconds to realize the voice he heard was Dirk’s and it wasn’t crackly, which meant the team leader was standing right behind him.
“Just blending in with the environment,” Hades muttered tersely, as if he’d never lost focus at all.
“Cute. Now, where is she?” Dirk said, walking round to the end of the bench, stopping in the corner of Hades’ eye.
Hades desperately wanted to ridicule Dirk for having to ask. The man’s instincts were virtually non-existent, how could he not notice the angel straight away? His eyes flitted to the park bench across from them, but what he saw made him stop dead. Any thought of bickering with Dirk had vanished. The angel was talking to a young boy with curly brown hair. She was leaning forward and apparently engrossed in whatever the boy was saying.
“Talking to that human boy over there,” he said, his voice strangled.
“What?!” Dirk exclaimed. “Since when?”
“Since now.”
“Why didn’t you say sooner?” Dirk snapped, starting forward.
“I said, since now,” Hades stressed, jumping to his feet and catching Dirk’s arm. “Continue as before, there’s an even better reason not to rush in now.”
“I know that!” Dirk snarled, yanking his arm from Hades’ grip. He lowered his head to his collar and Hades’ heard him both through his earpiece and in the background. “Proceed as planned, but be on guard. This could be a hostage situation.”
Hades swallowed. He didn’t really want to admit it, because he probably should have noticed the boy sooner, but Dirk was right. This whole situation was set to unravel very quickly if they didn’t execute it just right.
His eyes darted to his teammates. Their expressions were grim, but they weren’t shaken. No one was about to make any mistakes. Perhaps if the angel kept her focus on the boy, she wouldn’t even notice them until it was too late and this would all go down without a hitch. But then again, that suggested that her instincts were as ineffectual as Dirk’s and Hades highly doubted that Dirk had the ability to escape the detention facility like this angel had.
His suspicions were confirmed when the angel’s eyes flicked upwards and he was caught in her feral stare. His heart skipped a beat.
Straight away, the angel came to her feet. Her hand was placed on the boy’s shoulder, who had now noticed her terror and had turned around to look at both Dirk and Hades. There was fear and confusion on his face. Hades ground his teeth. There was no knowing what the angel had said to him.
The angel began to back away, with the boy shuffling in step. Bad, this was bad. Hades knew, without a doubt that Dirk had sent some sort of signal to Dom and Melissa, who were nearing in behind the angel, because straight away she spun around to detect them. Hades groaned inwardly. The angel scanned for other threats and inevitably noticed Clancy and Laura closing in from the other side of the play park. She turned heel and ran, dragging the boy by the hand. Hades cursed.
This is what they’d intended; to get the angel away from potential witnesses, but not with so much distance between them. They would have penned her in between them when the opportunity arose; however, she was too far ahead. They gave chase, but the angel stooped to pick up the boy and increased speed.
The team thundered across fields of muddy green behind her. Hades could feel the pounding of blood in his head and the increasing tightness in his chest. He felt the weight of both his handgun and dart gun knocking against him from the holster under his jacket.
With a large distance between them, it seemed the angel would easily outrun them, but then suddenly she stopped. She turned on them. Hades’ instincts were screaming at him and he reiterated. “Stop!”
His feet came to a jolting halt. His handgun was in his hands and pointed at the angel before he’d really noticed doing it. Unsurely, the rest of his team froze. Dirk was the last to stop.
“What!” he shouted.
“Look!” Hades’ replied and sure enough the angel was making her move.
Letting go of the boy for one second, she threw her trench coat down. Underneath it, her naked body was bruised and dirty. She grabbed the boy’s hand again, whose attention seemed more fervent on the agents as the imminent threat than the angel.
Hades’ had just a moment to study her frightened and determined face, before she flung her arm out in front of her. A blinding white light filled Hades’ vision. Hastily, he screwed his eyes shut behind the sleeve of his spare arm.
When he dared look up again, he focused blearily on a massive winged shape in the sky.
“She’s getting away!” Dirk shouted, aiming and firing his pistol.
Hades’ eyes focused more clearly and the shock sent him flying forward. He grabbed Dirk’s arms and thrust them down. The agent reeled on him, his expression livid.
“She’s got the boy!” Hades explained.
“All the more reason to shoot!” Dirk snapped back.
Hades recoiled, his grip on Dirk’s arms loosened.
“You’ll kill him!”
“You don’t think she will?” Dirk snarled. There was a wild look in his eyes.
“No, he’s a hostage, she’ll keep him alive for as long as possible.” Hades said, his voice lowering.
“But he’s seen her now, he knows what she is!” Dirk replied, he wasn’t going to let this go.
“We can make him forget. We can still save him.” Hades forced calm into his voice. The strain was evident on his face.
Dirk looked at him with distaste. “He’s collateral damage.”
And with that, he looked back up and raised his gun.
But the angel was a mere dot in the sky now; it was too late to shoot. Hades felt a wave of relief. It was followed by an explosion of pain on the side of his face.
The next thing he knew, he was crumpled on the ground and the sound of feet thundering was closing in. He looked up and Dirk was being restrained by Dom and Clancy.
“You happy now? She’s gone and that was the best chance we had!” Dirk roared, pulling at the men’s grip.
Hades raised a tentative hand to his cheek; it was stinging badly. Dirk had hit him. He wanted to jump to his feet and start pummelling the idiot for being so irrational, but there was no use in it; he knew there wasn’t. Their mission had failed. He had failed Gregory and as a result his position at the Authorities was now in serious jeopardy. He’d probably be dismissed, or worse, all because he’d wanted to protect the boy. He’d let his personal issues get in the way, again.
Laura placed a hand on his shoulder, “Are you ok?” she asked, her expression full of concern.
“I’m fine,” Hades scowled.
With a little help from Laura and Melissa, which he admittedly didn’t need, he rose to his feet. Just before pulling away, Laura lent in and mumbled under her breath. “You did the right thing.”
Hades blinked at her. He did? But how could he have? It wasn’t protocol and it was going to lose him his job. How could it have been the right thing?
He glanced at Dirk again, who was quickly regaining his composure. It didn’t look good to assault your own teammates, not when word got around. He couldn’t risk the diligent persona he’d spent so long working on, not over this.
“There’s nothing else we can do here. We’d better go back to HQ and report the situation,” he huffed. Pulling away from Dom and Clancy’s loosened grips, he turned on his heels. “Let’s go.”
Numbly, Hades followed, but he couldn’t help but feel like a man walking to the noose. The minute Gregory found out about this, he was as good as dead.
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