Chronicles of Gabriel, page 7
It isn’t fair.
His fingers drummed with manic energy on the wheel as he flew through the English countryside and headed back towards the city.
When the dust had finally settled from the sugar factory and Carter had offered him a job, he’d been dubious at best. The man had hounded him for the better part of two years before he finally signed the contract, and even then, he’d done so with a pair of strict conditions:
A clean slate. And a guaranteed lack of Devon.
For all his dark imaginings, he couldn’t begin to fathom what a mission with such a man might be like. How would Devon have filled out his case reports? Perfectly. That’s how.
He rolled to a stop with a faint smile.
Fair? When did I start expecting things to be fair?
He’d only just stepped inside, when there was a knock on the door. He tensed a moment, wondering if the fox had come to shoot him after all, then opened it a second later to find Julian.
“Hey,” he said in surprise, “I figured you’d be a while.”
The psychic slipped through the door. “Rob’s taking the jet to Norway. Carter figured he should authorize it before the guy started collecting heads. Besides, you’ll never guess what I heard in the locker room...”
Gabriel rolled his eyes, swinging it shut. “Lewd propositions and talentless tears?”
“I can’t believe he’s actually doing it.” Julian paced into the kitchen, then turned around with a bemused smile. “Carter must really be scrambling. Makes me feel better about the shit-show in Georgia.” He started to say more, then glanced up in surprise. “You guys moved the table.”
Julian had a far better memory of places than most people, probably because he spent so much more time looking at them—whether he happened to technically be there or not.
“Yeah, it was submerged in wedding nonsense.”
The usually immaculate house looked as though it had been struck by a festive bomb. Boxes of whiskey tumblers and gourmet chocolates had inexplicably multiplied to cover the entire mantle, while samples of tulle and fairy lights cascaded down the stairs. The table itself was half-covered in a wilted array of paper lanterns that had been briefly considered, before Lily sneezed cherry Kool-Aid and gave them such a gruesome appearance, the others had been forced to throw them away.
The men stared a moment, then shook their heads.
Molly’s out of control.
“I was actually wondering if you could show me that trick you did in the Oratory,” Julian continued suddenly, tearing his eyes from the room. “But I didn’t know you were getting sent back out on another assignment. If you need to pack—”
“No, I’ve got some time. Come here.”
Gabriel lifted a hand, beckoning him forward.
It was another thing he admired about his new brother—the man was unfailingly sincere. If something had truly impressed him, the psychic was able to put ego aside to learn it for himself.
The pair met in the middle of the floor.
“Inside?” Julian asked curiously, glancing around.
“Yeah, it’s meant to be done in close corners.” Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder, getting into position. “Internal security, elevators, that sort of thing.”
To kidnap a sheik on the way to a cigar room. Not that I’m speaking from experience.
Julian nodded, standing perfectly still.
“Now this part you know...” Gabriel moved abruptly closer and looped a leg behind him, tilting the psychic off balance. “But it’s the turn that does it.”
In slow motion he took a step forward, forcing Julian to stagger back. At the same time, he tightened his grip on the psychic’s shoulder and spun him around—half-collapsing his knees, while breaking the momentum of the fall, by lodging a firm arm beneath his chin.
Julian hit the ground with a stifled gasp.
“That’s incredible,” he panted. “They should teach us that.”
Gabriel helped him up with a smile. “That’s why your council hired me.”
The psychic chuckled, tying back his dark hair. “I knew there had to be a reason. Can you show me again?”
The men went through the exercise several more times—discussing the different ways to counter, as they gradually picked up speed. Considering the potential damage of each repetition, they were actually having quite a bit of fun, despite the psychic’s inexplicable efforts to keep things quiet.
When their legs knocked into a box of stemware, and Julian cast a nervous look outside.
“Just, be careful...”
At first, Gabriel thought he simply feared the unparalleled wrath of Molly. But his eyes weren’t drifting towards the penthouse. They were drawn somewhere closer instead.
He pulled away suddenly, fighting back a smile.
“Does Devon know you’re here?”
The psychic tensed in spite of himself. “I don’t, uh...what do you mean?”
Classic.
“Does he know you’re here?” Gabriel repeated slowly, savoring every hint of panic that washed across his friend’s face. “Does he know you came over this afternoon?”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Julian answered tightly. “I come over here all the time.”
Not for something like this.
Gabriel nodded innocently, reaching into his pocket. “Then you won’t mind if I text him—”
The phone was slapped out of his hand.
The two men stood in silence as it clattered to the ground between them. Gabriel tilted his head with a little smile, while Julian flushed and kept his eyes firmly on the floor.
“It’s just this once,” he muttered. “He doesn’t have to know.”
Gabriel folded his arms, regarding him sternly. “That’s what cheaters say, Julian.”
“Could you just—”
There was a knock at the door.
Well, that’s some truly impressive timing.
Julian flashed a startled look to the future, then his face went pale. For a split second, it looked like he was actually considering climbing out a window, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to withstand his brother’s perpetual teasing, and at any rate, the damage was already done.
The door pushed open as Devon rapped politely on the frame.
“Alden—you home?” he called tentatively. “The door was unlocked...” He trailed into silence, staring at the pair in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Julian froze in a moment of sheer panic, then elbowed a porcelain vase off the table. “He broke one of Natasha’s heirlooms—needed help destroying the evidence.”
You saw it fall. That can’t possibly work.
But considering the fox’s keen observations skills, he could be exactly as distractible as the others. He glanced at the jagged fragments before rolling his eyes with a grin.
“Clumsy idiot.”
Julian laughed nervously. “That’s exactly what I said.”
...unbelievable.
“I was actually hoping to talk with you,” Devon continued suddenly, catching Gabriel’s eyes and tilting his head towards the porch. “Do you have a second?”
“Sure. I’ll meet you there.”
The fox vanished and the men turned back to each other. Gabriel folded his arms slowly while Julian stared guiltily at the remains of the vase, determined not to meet his eyes.
After a few seconds, he knelt beside them.
“I’ll just...clean this up.”
Gabriel regarded him coldly, then headed to the porch.
Despite the awkwardness of their last encounter, Devon seemed determine to make things right. At the very least, he seemed determined to try. He even tried for a smile.
“Hey, sorry for just dropping—”
“What’s up?”
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“So about this mission...” Devon raked back his hair, shifting nervously on the steps. “Do you want to get some dinner? Talk it out? There’s this new curry place—”
“Can’t tonight. I have plans.”
He took a quick step back, walling up before Gabriel’s very eyes. “Cool. Then I’ll just...I’ll just see you tomorrow.”
Gabriel tightened his grip on the door. “Looking forward to it.”
He watched as the fox backed swiftly off the porch, forgetting his own rules about using powers in public and crossing the park to his own house in a blur of unnatural speed. Their doors shut at the same time, and Gabriel turned around just as the white faded from the psychic’s eyes.
“You have plans, huh? I don’t see any plans.”
Gabriel snapped his fingers, beckoning him forward. “Eyes on your own work, Decker.” He placed a hand on his shoulder, preparing to run the exercise again, but he paused at the last moment. “This thing tomorrow...it’s going to be bad?”
Julian flashed a prophetic grin. “I see nothing but great things ahead...”
Chapter 7
Gabriel got up the next morning, well before the sun.
He showered quickly, dressing in the same nondescript clothing as every other intelligence operative, then grabbed a pair of water bottles and ghosted back down the hall.
Natasha was submerged in the blankets, having gotten home late from a rehearsal the night before. She made some vague sound as he kissed her, but never opened her eyes. He stood above her a moment, softening with tender affection. How very badly he wanted to put that ring on her finger. Since returning from Cuba, it had yet to leave his pocket. It was there now, burning a hole.
Almost...not yet.
He kissed her again, then drifted to the room across the hall.
The bed was a tangle, but this time, not a person could be seen. Gabriel had to dig around a moment, before he glimpsed a wisp of blond hair. He rummaged a little further, unearthing his son with a tiny smile. At this point, he should be happy that Jason was sleeping inside the bed at all.
In the weeks immediately after the fire, he would open the door to find the boy pressed flat against the ground, hidden beneath the wooden frame. It was the same place he’d found him that fateful day—hands clamped over his mouth, half-choking on the smoke. Trying not to scream.
The smile faded as he remembered.
The first few times, he’d lifted him onto the mattress, only to return an hour or so later and find him right back on the ground. When that didn’t work, he simply joined him—slipping a pillow beneath his head and lying down himself. Eventually, Jason found his way under the blankets, but Gabriel continued to sleep on the floor beside him, one arm stretching up to hold the boy’s hand.
They’d never said a word about it. To that day, it had never been acknowledged. But Jason had clung onto him, even when he was sleeping. That hand would tighten if he ever tried to leave.
My son.
If it was possible, the word struck him even harder than father. The faintest whisper was strong enough to shake him to the core, yet he felt completely separated from it at the same time.
How could he be a father? How could he claim to have a son?
This beautiful child, this bright-eyed miracle who had somehow dimmed everything that came before...already belonged to someone else.
This was Wyatt’s child. One of his oldest friends. A man who’d been recently murdered. A man who he was almost painfully jealous of at the same time.
He had the title. He had the claim.
And just because he wasn’t there...
Gabriel stopped himself with a sigh, the same way he always did. With the gentlest of hands, he smoothed back Jason’s hair and kissed his forehead—eyes lingering with concern on the bruise.
He should have asked Julian about it. When he got home, he’d do exactly that.
Sleep tight.
He swept out the door and locked it carefully behind him, taking in a deep breath of the crisp London air. Devon was already waiting by the curb, a bag slung over each arm, a pre-validated parking pass in his pocket, his phone set to keep him appraised of the weather in two time zones.
A virtual poster-boy of preparation.
Prick.
“Good morning,” he greeted Gabriel with a tight smile, waving his hand at the car. “Since we’ll be parking near the loading docks, I thought we could take yours. In case it gets stolen.”
At that point, Gabriel didn’t even have the heart to argue. He simply fired up the engine, waiting with increasing impatience as Devon loaded the bags into the trunk.
“Relax, Alden. This won’t be so bad.”
The fox had spent the previous evening getting talked down by his wife, and was making a valiant effort to shift his perspective on things. It helped a great deal that he was armed.
He slid onto the passenger seat, flashing another smile. “Just think of it as more continuing education.”
Even Gabriel had to chuckle at that, easing them off the residential block and onto the busier streets. He might have had a few conditions before accepting Carter’s offer, but as it turned out, the illustrious Privy Council had a few conditions of their own. Before being sanctioned as an official operative, he’d been required to undergo the same basic training course that each of the current roster had completed upon their graduation from Guilder.
There had been the usual classes, the usual evaluations. Target acquisition, coding and ciphers, interrogation 101. But there had been field work as well. He’d been required to shadow a ‘real’ agent on a ‘real’ mission before the higher-ups would grant him an assignment of his own.
Carter had apologized profusely. Carter had then sent him out with Molly.
Once he’d gotten past the debilitating blow to his ego, it was actually rather fun.
Despite being regarded by the entire agency as a bureaucratic joke, she’d decided to take her newfound role very seriously—stretching with him beforehand and lecturing about the singular importance of ‘shaping young minds.’ After graciously providing a notepad and pencil, she’d walked him through each step—bestowing little gems like, “Always check the locking mechanism on your guns, Gabriel,” and “Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey,” before finally pulling into a Starbucks parking lot.
“At this point, I generally like to hydrate,” she’d said.
That was when he’d realized the actual mission wasn’t until the following day. It had become clear around the time she pulled out a stack of wedding magazines and gestured for him to sit.
Party favors and mocha lattes. A ‘real’ Privy Council mission.
“Do you have supplies for that sort of thing?” Gabriel asked lightly, keeping his eyes on the road. When Devon threw him a questioning glance, he added, “Molly brought writing materials.”
And stickers.
Devon shook his head with a wry smile. “I’m afraid not.”
Gabriel snapped his fingers, steering them onto the freeway. “Another opportunity wasted.”
“I guess so.”
THE MEN DIDN’T SAY another word the entire way to the airstrip—staring through the window in stony silence, as Gabriel slid the car between two abandoned pylons and rolled to a stop.
They got out without speaking as well, boots crunching on the gravel and duffel bags slung over their arms. It certainly wasn’t the first time two such men had been spotted walking towards the docks. If any of the people working at the glass company or the transportation services across the road had bothered paying attention, they might have thought it was highly suspect indeed, how pairs of grim-faced, identically-dressed adolescents kept vanishing into the cargo holds and never coming back. If they’d looked any closer, they might have even noticed the million dollar cars.
“There’s a guy here I use sometimes,” Devon murmured as they approached, “but I don’t think he works any shifts on the weekends. We might have better luck just slipping into the—”
“Clancy!” Gabriel threw his arms open with a smile. “Comment ça va?”
The pair stopped in the middle of the pavement as a barrel-chested man lumbered from the ground controller’s office and embraced Gabriel like a brother, lifting him right off his feet. Devon watched in silence a few steps away, hoping very much he wouldn’t be greeted the same way.
“Gabriel, mon cher ami! Maintenant, je suis merveilleux! Et toi?”
“I’m doing all right,” Gabriel answered with a grin, landing back on the pavement. “The practice is going steady. Madeleine and the twins send their best.”
Devon flashed a strange look in his periphery.
“Listen, I actually need a quick favor...”
The man threw back his head with a guttural laugh, frightening a pair of disgruntled pigeons into the air. “Really? You need a favor? What a complete surprise.”
Hilarious.
“That’s hilarious,” Gabriel said dryly, nodding his head towards the office. “Is that what you’ve been doing in there? Practicing your jokes? Whatever happened to Minecraft?”
“What is this favor? Since you’re putting me in such an obliging mood?”
...good point.
Gabriel slowed the pace of the conversation with a smile. “That plane over there, The Reconciliation, it’s heading to Burundi?” He waited patiently for the reluctant nod. “I was hoping it had room for two more passengers.”
The man’s eyes flashed across the tarmac, settling on the plane in question. “Not in the cabin, Gabriel—”
“The cargo hold is fine.”
There was a moment of silence during which all three men considered what might happen if the favor was refused. After a few seconds, Clancy decided he didn’t want to find out.
“I think she could hold a few more...but what about your friend, eh?” His eyes narrowed ever so slightly as they swept Devon up and down. “You know I don’t like meeting new people—”
“I do know that,” Gabriel interrupted with a smile, “but you don’t have to worry about my friend, and I’ll tell you why.” He draped an arm around the fox’s shoulder. “The man is a mute.”
At that point, Devon decided to embrace his original misgivings after all.
