Collector: City In Embers

Collector.

City In Embers.

Stacey Marie Brown.

For my readers.

I hope you enjoy this new series as much as I"ve enjoyed writing it.

Thanks for riding this crazy rollercoaster with me.

ONE.

The pavement came up, slamming against the soles of my shoes. My legs stretched farther, leaping over a garbage can. Trying to slow me, the ent.i.ty I ran after hurled another container to the ground, which crashed loudly in the narrow, grimy lane. My breath held in my lungs as I sailed over the bin, keeping my pace through the dark, shadowy maze.

"Zoey!" I heard Daniel call my name. My head swiveled to see his outline point down an alley, splitting off from the one we were in. I gave a nod and turned my focus ahead. We had been working together for almost three years, and I knew even by the lift of his eyebrow what he meant. We knew every inch of the alleyways in downtown Seattle by heart. The one he went into now eventually turned and intersected this one.

Breath pumped radically in my lungs as I sprinted after our target. This one was faster than most. He slithered around a dumpster, veiling his position. My fingers wrapped around the grip of the gun harnessed on my right side when the guy came back into my view. It was a dart gun, filled with a high dose of chloroform. The real gun loaded with special fae-designed ammo was attached to my left side and was only used in emergency cases. In my three years, I only used it a handful of times. Hopefully, tonight was not one of those occasions.

The long, lean body cut around a corner, disappearing from sight once again. I rounded the bend and down the alley in pursuit when a trash lid came hurtling at my head like a Frisbee. With a squeak, I threw myself onto the uneven terrain. The metal rim grazed my head, hitting the wall before it clattered to the pavement.

The man"s lip twisted in a scowl as he took off running. Scrambling up, I tore after it. It. Him. Whatever. In reality, he was fae. And fae meant vile, threating, loathsome creatures.

"Dammit," I mumbled as the figure hopped onto a dumpster and bounced up to grab the building"s escape ladder. Aiming my dart gun at his back, my fingers twitched on the trigger. I only had one dart. If I missed, it would be all over, and Daniel was too far away. Our target would slip through our fingers. Shoving the weapon back into my holder, I scrambled up the bin. My jeans tore on a bent piece of metal, slicing deep into my knee. Sucking in a hiss of pain, I jumped for the fire escape, climbing the rungs to the roof.

A ma.s.sive element came rushing toward my head. What the h.e.l.l? First a trash lid. Now a satellite dish? This guy really wanted to decapitate me. I dipped below the building as the object skimmed my hairline, tumbling to the ground with a loud crack. Pieces of plastic, metal, and wiring scattered.

I peeked over the ledge. The spot where he had been standing was empty.

h.e.l.l...

My arms pulled me onto the roof, my feet scaling over the last two steps. I had barely landed when something sprang at me, knocking me down. A fist came for my face. I twisted, his hand grazing my ear, hitting the surface.

"I know what you are." His voice was more high-pitched than I expected. A forked tongue darted between his front teeth. The canine teeth had grown into long, spiky points, dripping with venom. Great. A snake shape-shifter.

No wonder Dr. Rapava was anxious for us to collect this fae. It was a rare find. Being close, I could see his eyes were a bright golden brown, his nose was stumpier than a normal man"s would be, and his skin had a smooth, scaly look to it. Like a reptile"s. His hair was black on top and tan on either side of his head. A tattoo of a cobra was inked on his neck.

"And I know what you are, too. Awesome. Introductions are over." I kneed him in the groin. Snake or not, he was still a man. He wilted, contorting, giving me time to scuttle back onto my feet. He spit on the ground and curled up, striking out for me. His mouth open, his teeth ready to sink deep into my skin. Why couldn"t he be a cute garter snake?

I ducked, hitting him in the stomach. A long hiss broke from his lips. He spun and lunged for me, his knuckles contacting the side of my mouth. Pain burst up my jawbone, traveling behind my eyes. I stumbled back, my ankles knocking into some piping, and I fell on my b.u.t.t. His tongue darted, venom seeping out of his mouth. "This should be extremely painful." He snapped his teeth and jumped for me, aiming for my neck.

A whoosh sound disturbed the air, resonating in my ears. Snake-man"s body stilled before crumpling onto the roof, revealing Daniel standing on the building across the narrow alley, his dart gun pointed in my direction.

"About time." I smiled coyly, trying not to show the relief sliding off my shoulders. I got to my feet.

Daniel tilted his head and shook it slightly. "How many times have I told you not to engage without backup?"

"Today? Or a general roundabout number?" I blotted at the blood pooling on my lip. A strand of my long chestnut brown hair escaped its ponytail and clung to the wet matter.

"Zoey, I am serious." Daniel holstered his weapon. "You are young and think you"re invincible. We aren"t dealing with normal humans here. They"re fae. They have powers and strengths we don"t have. Some we might not even know about yet. You can"t simply take them on by yourself."

My eyes rolled as he lectured me. I"d been hearing this type of speech since I began training with him. I wasn"t very good at listening, but I"d gotten much better. I used to be extremely resistant and hot tempered, but those qualities didn"t work in a business where those behaviors could get you killed. In the moment it was hard for me to remember. "I know. I"m sorry."

"Let"s get him out of here before someone discovers us." Daniel walked to the ledge of the building where the ladder hung. "I"ll get the van and back it up below you. He should stay unconscious..."

"Yes, Daniel, I know the drill." I grinned and waved for him to go.

A smile stretched across his handsome, clean-shaven features, his blue eyes catching mine. My heart fluttered in my chest. This man had me so twisted inside I didn"t know which way was up. The fact he was almost twenty years my senior didn"t alter my feelings for him. If anything, it made me like him more. Experienced in life. I usually got along with people older than me.

My life hadn"t been easy. I"d been raised in foster care, growing up tough and fast. My experiences made me relate to people not in my age group. I never dated guys who were my age. They always were five to ten years older.

Daniel didn"t seem to feel the same. From the beginning he shut down any advances I made. He stressed our age difference or commented on my youthful twenty-two years. He could discourage me till he was eighty, but it was too late. I was already in love with him.

I watched his body easily scale down the fire escape and jump to the ground. At the age of forty, he was more fit than most twenty-year-olds I met. With his military background and present training, he cut a nice figure. He was about five-eleven, but his trim muscles made him appear taller. Perfect for me since I was only five-five.

A groan came from near my feet and broke my attention away from Daniel and back to our captive. We referred to them as the collected. For the last three years, I worked for a secret branch of the government, the Department of Molecular Genetics-DMG. I also called it HQ for headquarters.

During my first semester at college, we were given a test in my psychology cla.s.s. To the teacher and most students, it looked like a quiz on social behaviors and mannerisms. Pictures were flashed on the screen, and we were asked to describe what we saw. I learned later the government was testing us for "the sight" and to see if we were sensitive to the paranormal-humans who could see through the veils of glamour fae put around themselves to blend in.

Seeing creatures was always something I could do. When I was a child, I thought it was normal. It wasn"t until I was seven when I found I was different. People around me never experienced what I saw. I blocked it and turned away when I saw a glow or a creature. I got so good at obstructing my sight I started to think I made it all up-that my imagination, in desperate need to escape my own reality, caused me to see things. With my past, it was believable I would make up another world.

Over time, I let my walls slip. It was probably why I hadn"t obstructed my sight during the test in cla.s.s. When they showed a woman sitting on a lawn, I saw a leopard with glowing brown eyes. I didn"t know till later when I was brought in to the DMG I was the only one who saw it-a shape-shifter. Fae.

Fae was the general term for them, like calling all of us human. There are different races and species under the fae umbrella: shape-shifters, fairies, demons, incubus, leprechauns, gnomes, sprites, and the list goes on and on. There were the Dark side (Unseelie) and the Light (Seelie). They once lived among humans until the world turned against magic, saying it was the devil"s work. Some fae went into hiding in the Otherworld, but other fae inhabited the Earth, as they needed humans to live. Humans were a buffet to the Dark. They stole our life forces through s.e.x, dreams, sins, and other ways humans expended energy. There were even some who ate us. We were nothing more than food to them.

Learning of fae and their existence had not been a simple switch but probably easier for me than most because I"d been seeing things since I could remember. It was like finding out The X-Files was really a doc.u.mentary, and the government really had been hiding the existence of another species. Fae were not aliens in the way people thought. They were not from outer s.p.a.ce. No little green men with large eyes poked you in the b.u.t.t, although there was a fae species with a green tint to their skin. If caught without glamour, they could easily be mistaken for aliens, which is how I feel the whole alien thing started.

Understanding the information I acquired about fae was important. I needed to know what I was dealing with to collect them. The more I learned, the more I hated them. They treated humans like nothing more than cattle and used us for their own benefit. We were an endless Mickey D"s drive-thru to them. Easily discounted and tossed aside. Their disregard for us made me feel the same about them, if not stronger. What the DMG performed benefited humans. We captured fae to test and research.

Dr. Rapava, the director of DMG, had made a discovery fifteen years earlier showing the value of fae cells in helping humans. Our testing had advanced finding a cure for things like cancer and birth defects. Imagine someday no child would die from cancer or suffer from a birth defect.

Like my sister.

Lexie wasn"t my real sister. She was a fellow foster kid, but the closest thing I could ever imagine to having a sibling. The thought of her stuck in a wheelchair the rest of her life made me crazy. It was not her fault her mother was a druggie, which may have been the reason Lexie had been born crippled. If there was a chance I could help her walk someday, there wasn"t anything I wouldn"t do.

Tires crunched as Daniel backed the nondescript, black windowless van down the pa.s.sageway. As I watched him, I thought how much my life had changed. Three years ago I would never have imagined I"d be hunting and collecting fae, going to college, and working for the government. Actually earning money legally.

It had taken Daniel a long time to break me of old habits and reactions. Stealing to get by was normal to me. It was an adjustment to b.u.t.t heads with an ex-special ops military man who didn"t look kindly on breaking rules. When you grew up on the streets, it was hard to see beyond what you knew. But he made me look at life differently. Want more. I could escape the harsh world and free myself from poverty and the dark events from my past.

The brakes squeaked as he halted the van next to the ladder. Daniel quickly got out, his short dark brown hair streaked with silver glittered under the streetlight. He jumped onto the dumpster, climbing his way toward me. His arm muscles flexed under his black sweater. d.a.m.n. I shook my head, looking away. I turned and gazed down at the body at my feet. The thin, lengthy form stretched out. Getting this fae back to ground level was not going to be easy.

Daniel"s head popped over the rooftop. My foot tapped, peering angrily down at the creature. "Yeah. It would have been nice if he stayed below. If we could only throw it over the side." He sighed, climbing over the wall. "But you know Dr. Rapava would be mad as h.e.l.l if we brought the specimen back damaged."

"It will heal." I shrugged. I was only half joking. It was true. Fae could mend wounds and broken bones in a matter of hours.

Fae were virtually immortal. They weren"t immune to death, just extremely hard to kill. If you wanted to exterminate a fae, and make sure it stayed that way, it was safest to slay it with a special fae-welded metal, like the bullets in my gun. Goblin-crafted weapons were the best. They were poison to them. I heard rumors that at certain times of year, when the layer between our worlds was at its thinnest, fae were susceptible to both human and fae ways of dying. I also heard beheading, breaking their necks, or continuously cutting them so their skin never has a chance to heal and they bleed to death, were others.

But our job didn"t entail dispatching them. We were here to collect.

Daniel frowned as he squatted next to the creature. "Don"t tempt me."

"Whatever we do, we need to do it quick. With the racket this guy made, I"m sure someone called the cops."

Three years after I left my shady lifestyle, my name was still on many police lists. At the age of nine, I was recruited to be in a group who liked to unburden people of their personal items: wallets, phones, credit cards. I was little and cute with big eyes. No one suspected me until it was too late. Pickpocketing was my introduction into the unethical world I became a part of. It was survival of the fittest, and I had to work extra hard because I was a tiny sweet-looking girl.

The police never caught me, and I didn"t want them to now. Avoiding the cops at all costs was still a mantra I lived by. The DMG would get me out, but I still had a natural fear and avoidance of law enforcement.

Daniel nodded at my comment. He sucked in a deep breath and slung the fae over his shoulder. "Good thing this one isn"t too muscular. Tall but thin." His voice still strained under the weight.

"He"s a snake-shifter. Be careful of his mouth," I warned.

Daniel frowned with disgust at the fae. Keeping the shifter"s venomous fangs away from his skin, he lifted himself and the fae over the wall. With a grunt, he slowly moved down the metal rungs. With one last look around the rooftop for any evidence left behind, I swung down, following close behind Daniel.

TWO.

Dr. Boris Rapava looked up from his desk as we entered his office housed far below the city streets. "Mr. Holt. Ms. Daniels." He gave a curt nod. "Excellent job, as usual. The specimen you retrieved tonight was one I have been hunting for years."

Dr. Rapava was born in the territory of Georgia, but his family moved to Russia when he was young. When he was twenty, he came to the States to further his education in genetic science. He had always done research in the unknown and unexplained, basically X-Files type of exploration. Twenty years ago, when a secret branch of the government discovered his work in fae mutant genetics, they came to him to officially ask him to head the DMG in Seattle.

For some reason, Seattle had continuously been a hotspot for the fae. Dr. Rapava once explained to me about these doors or windows connecting our world with the Otherworld. It was how the fae traveled between realms. I didn"t understand the nuts and bolts of how they worked, but the gist of his statement was Seattle, Sedona, and New Orleans had the highest number of these "doors" and magical presence per square mile than New York had rats. European cities, like Prague, Edinburgh, London, Paris, and all of Ireland had the greatest quant.i.ty in the world, but in America, Seattle ranked extremely high.

When they recruited me, the DMG only had thirty employees, but something changed in the last year. Rapava heavily recruited anyone with the sight. Like me. He never told me what had made the government so nervous, but I sensed if they were recruiting and expanding, there was a larger level of threat coming from the fae. My mind kept picturing Independence Day, and we were being invaded by these creatures. The ones I"d come in contact with thought themselves superior to the human species. Their arrogance was probably how we captured a lot of them. Fae didn"t believe we could match them.

I"d been trained to treat them as creatures and beasts, to see past the human form some portrayed. They were not sweet fairies but threats to humans. Very few people could see through fae glamour. Fae come in all shape and sizes. Some created animal illusions like rats or mice to hide in plain sight. Some had human forms. Some were shape-shifters. But there was something making them different from humans-eyes, hair, horns, something that would tip me off. Most of the time it was their aura. Fae auras are extremely different than those produced by humans. Humans have a simple mix of colors. Fae not only glinted with magic but were substantial in heaviness, and they released colors and energies not existing here on Earth. When I first started, it took me more than six months for my eyes to get used to experiencing their images and understanding them.

"Kate would like your brief on the collected on her desk tomorrow." The doctor clasped his hands and leaned back in the chair. His dark skin contrasted with his white lab coat. He was in his mid-fifties with silver-white hair and hazel eyes. He was lean and tall and looked to be in good shape, but I knew he probably didn"t own a pair of running shoes. He practically lived at DMG. He had to. There was not one time I came in he wasn"t here, usually in his lab, testing and studying.

"Of course." Daniel nodded, which made me smile. He knew I hated doing the reports on our collections. He usually gave in and did them. His excuse was I already had enough papers to write for my college cla.s.ses, and I should focus on those. I understood he did the reports to limit my stress so I could get an extra hour of sleep. I studied his profile as he continued to talk with Dr. Rapava. My heart twisted in my chest when his eyes flickered to mine, feeling my stare.

"Check with Kate before you go." Dr. Rapava dismissed us. He was efficient and to the point. He didn"t dally or make small talk.

Kate, on the other hand, liked to chat.

Both Daniel and I groaned as we stepped out of the doctor"s office into the hallway. It had to be nearing dawn.

Kate Grier was also in her fifties. She had gorgeous long snow-white hair and sparkling brown eyes. She was short and more on the round, curvy side. In personality she was Dr. Rapava"s contrast. She was a brilliant scientist, but when she was out from behind her microscope, she was flighty and hyper, like the absentminded professor on espresso shots. She was often getting distracted mid-sentence and constantly losing things, like her reading gla.s.ses, which were usually on her head. She was sweet, but sometimes I wanted her and Dr. Rapava to take notes from each other. He could stand to relax, and she could get to the point quicker, especially at four in the morning.

As we walked down the hall to her office, a man called from behind. "It"s the Daniels." Only one person seemed to take pleasure joking about my last name and his first. With a sigh, Daniel and I both swiveled to face him. Liam and Sera stood down the hall. They were another collector team. Liam seemed to have some kind of complex and thought of Daniel as a threat. Liam was constantly trying to one-up us or brag about their collection of the night. You know-those people who have to be the best and try to outdo everyone else? That was him, and Sera was even worse, instigating Liam"s teasing. They had to let everyone know they were better and faster than the rest of us.

"Butch Ca.s.sidy and the Sundance Kid. How did your night go? We collected two fae tonight." Liam tried for a good-natured smile but fell short. He was African American and in his early thirties. Fit, trim, tall, and looked like he should play for the NBA. He spent five years in the military before he came here. He kept his hair close to his scalp and wore the tightest T-shirts known to man. He had an incredible body, and he did not shy away from showing it off.

Sera was in her mid-twenties and barely reached the middle of his chest. She said her ancestry was Siamese (now called Thai), but she was born in America and raised here in Seattle. She was pet.i.te with dark hair and almond-shaped eyes, pretty but cold and unfriendly. I knew if I were as small-boned as her, they would have teased me about it. But any negatives they found in other people were pluses for them. She could get in and out of tiny places and surprise fae when she took it down. My developed frame was a hindrance. Daniel"s and my age difference was also a constant target for them as I was the youngest seer, and Daniel was one of the oldest hunters.

There were currently eight of us. There used to be more, but not all came back after the last group hunt. We were paired off: Daniel and me, Liam and Sera, Hugo and Marv, Peter and Matt. Each pair had one with the sight, a seer, and one with military training, a hunter. We were called the collectors.

Marv and Matt had the sight, but Sera and I were the dominant seers. Women and children tended to be stronger and more open to the sight, but Sera and I possessed above normal sensitivity. Because of this, we were usually the ones they called on to work.

"We got our job done, Liam." Daniel was not one to brag. Secretly Daniel wanted to punch Liam most of the time, but he never let it show and never gave in to their taunts.

On the other hand, I had trouble disguising my dislike for them. My fists clenched at my sides, begging to be introduced to their faces. Daniel"s hand lightly touched my back, trying to ground me. It wasn"t working. These two seemed to trigger my well-buried violent nature.

"Looks like it." Sera smirked as she nodded toward my swollen lip and ripped jeans. Her meaning was clear. She was evidently too good to get beat up by a fae, but I wasn"t.

Daniel"s hand pressed harder into my back as my body grew tight with anger. Liam"s brown eyes glinted when he watched me tense up.

"Think the kid needs a timeout. Did she miss her nap today?" Liam smiled, his perfect teeth shining under the fluorescent lights.

My foot only took one step toward them when Daniel grabbed me around the waist, spinning me to face the opposite way. "We have to check in with Kate. We"ll see you guys later."

Laughter broke out as Daniel forcibly guided me toward Kate"s office.

"Why do you let them get to you?" Daniel spoke low as we turned the corner of the extensive underground headquarters. I"d yet to find the end, or maybe the beginning, of this building. It looked like how you would picture a secret government building: no windows, fluorescent-lined hallways, and offices with cheap linoleum flooring and stark white walls. The only areas where I forgot it was deep underground were either in the training room or the cafeteria. That was only because my mind was solely on kicking a.s.s or getting mine handed to me or food.

"How do you not?" I growled.

He took a breath. "Zoey, you need to learn more control. You cannot go off and hit people, especially coworkers, because they upset you."

"Why not?" I snorted.

Daniel"s head slanted to the side. "Because there are rules. They are not our enemy."

"Could"ve fooled me."

"We need to save our energy for the real threats." His voice constricted in an odd twinge. I stared at him, but he kept his eyes forward.

"Well, I think it would do Sera some good to show her what "the kid" can do." My lips curved up in a smile as I imagined kicking the s.h.i.t out of her. She was excellently trained in karate and other forms of combat, but she didn"t grow up on the streets. I could take her.

Daniel opened the door for me, his free hand still on my lower back, and ushered me into the office. His touch was the only thing leveling out my temper, but it accelerated my heartbeat.

"Daniel... Zoey!" Kate sat on the floor, books and notes spilling from the cupboard and fanning out on her lap and the linoleum. "I was looking for the notes on the specimen you caught back in November. He has similar qualities to the one you got tonight... or so I thought. Can"t seem to find the paperwork."

Daniel breathed in. "You are looking at November from three years ago." He pointed to the binder label, displaying the month and year.

"Right." She waved her hand. "Silly me. Now where is last year?" Her head went into the cupboard, knocking more binders onto the floor. She hummed as she searched, seeming to forget we were in the room.