Jackson

Jackson wanted to shift to his wolf or grab his cruiser (a now-ancient, clanky thing that miraculously still chose to start on occasion) to get himself down to the concrete jungle, where Violet said Clio was located. His old coworker seemed to have other plans and insisted that he ride with her in the back of a clean, nondescript white van. She refused to disclose the exact location of the ‘the target’. It had Jackson instantly wary. 

Another fucking carrot.

Still, even if Violet had shared details about the destination, he still couldn’t fully trust her and her organization. Delta had too many secrets. Just because they didn’t show their cards didn’t mean they didn’t have a ball and chain jangling around up their sleeves, ready to latch to him.

Though her vivid explanation had been precise in painting a gruesome picture as to why the PCA could not meet their goals—the last of their horrific testing labs to be razed to the ground with colossal finality—it was nearly all just propaganda to him. 

After all, he thought, looking sideways towards Violet as the barn doors to the back of the van swung open, what is Delta’s goal? What do they get out of all of this?

“What, no puppies or candy on offer?” he asked as he glanced around the inside of the cargo bay before hopping up into it. He’d fully dressed and geared up with his old M16, fifteen rounds of star bullets loaded in his magazine. He wasn’t sure what he would run into along the way. In truth, all paranormals could potentially die by holy substances, though some worked better for certain types of paranormals. Stakes and holy water worked well on vampires, while silver seemed to do well for werewolves. Though any substance could effectively dispose of any paranormal. 

Apart from one.

Inside the van, there was a bulkhead, a wall that separated the cargo bay from the cabin, so Jackson couldn’t see the driver. But he’d glimpsed a man, as unremarkable as the van itself, in the driver’s seat. Human, by the lack of vis.

The bay was full of computer screens neatly arranged, displaying various data graphs and camera feeds that may as well have been a spaceship’s cockpit dashboard.

He whistled low. “Mind if I play solitaire?” 

“You can take a seat, Agent Jackson,” Violet said, calmly. She climbed in after him, shut the doors, and tapped twice on the ceiling.

The van began to move.

“All right.” Violet wasted no time. “We’re gonna need you to gear up. First, we’ll start…” She shifted through a box and pulled out a familiar-looking device complete with a strap and a screen. A task-watch.

When she handed it to Jackson, he turned it over, assessing it in his palm with mild interest. Then he crushed it in his grip.

“Jackson!” Violet gasped disdainfully. 

He handed the broken bits back to her. “Hope you’re insured.” He shrugged. “I’m not wearing any devices. You can tell your accounts payable team to see if they kept the receipts to their underground cool-gadgets-for-spies purchases. Maybe they take returns.”

“No. No,” Violet denied firmly, stumbling as the van swerved, ultimately taking a seat in an empty side chair. 

Jackson continued standing to feel tall and superior.

Violet rolled her eyes at him. “You can’t go in there empty handed! Not even you can … Even if you have ‘badass motherfucker’ tattooed on your ass, it doesn’t make you an all-competent super-wolf. You have your limits, we all have our limits. You need to wear something in case you need to call for backup. This isn’t negotiable.”

He raised a brow. “‘Badass motherfucker’ on my ass?”

Evenly, “I won’t believe it’s not there until you show me.”

“You’ve seen my ass.”

“Did I?”

With a groan, Jackson collapsed down next to her into another seat. “Why don’t you tell me more, and I’ll consider a mic.”

“A camera feed. We have—”

“A mic.”

“Fine! We have something that will clip to your shirt collar…”

“Violet,” he cut in, his tone just to the side of a growl. “Where are we going?”

Violet stopped her shuffling, slowly pausing her task to finally confront what needed to be addressed. “We’re going to Bushwick. There’s an old speakeasy there. His circle of paranormals…they’ll be in the back. He’ll be in the back,” she corrected. Something about her careful pauses, her dainty selection of words, like taking careful steps through a sensitive landmine. Already, he knew that she was hiding something and he wanted to take her brain and squeeze it out. 

“Circle of paranormals?” he pressed.

He knew his tone was dangerous, and if Violet was wary of it, she didn’t show it. “He’s made…friends. Since leaving the PCA. He’s not the boy he was, Jackson. You need to be prepared for that.”

Jackson wanted to scoff, like he already knew that, but of course he couldn’t. He didn’t know any of it. His mind had not been creative enough to allow any change—to somehow challenge the figure and face of the kid he recognized from his gruesome past. The angelic face of his brother’s murderer. The small object of his obsession that, by the end of this, he would surely reckon with.

Changed. Jackson tried to picture it. Clio at a fucking speakeasy. He tried to imagine an adult incubus, slouched on a stool, arms resting on the top of a bar as he drank … what? Jack and coke? Draft beer? A Shirley Temple? Were his eyes on his drink, or the people around him? Was he alone, or with others? Did he drink too much, or did he nurse a glass all night?

None of it fit. 

Not a single image worked to create an accurate vision of what could be anywhere close to reality. It was like trying to imagine what his reflection did all day without him there. There wasn’t one. It couldn’t exist without me. 

Jackson clipped on the mic, as well as an earbud, as promised. He could just tear the gear off later if it became a nuisance. 

“The goal is to lure him out, not to engage with him,” Violet clarified, over an hour into the drive. They were getting closer. “This is important, Jackson. Don’t make him angry. If he uses influence on you, you might be a lost cause.”

“I’m not letting that happen,” Jackson snapped, fuming at the thought.

“It’s cute you think you’ll have a choice. We do have a drug that will momentarily cause inner ear hearing loss, and will disorient your mind so that it’s less likely to be influenced by an incubus. But we’d like to not send in a useless zombie, if we can.”

Jackson sat back, unbothered, and listened to the sounds of the approaching city from outside the metal bounds. Though there were no windows, he could practically smell the stench of the Manhattan sewer from where he was. The traffic that never seemed to have a quiet hour. The endless construction, as though the city wanted to metamorphosis over and over again, never satisfied. 

Jackson hated the city. 

He tolerated the ride until the sounds grew and quieted a bit once more, letting him know that they’d crossed the bridge and were in Brooklyn. Gooseflesh pricked his arms. They were approaching vis users. Many of them.

He felt his heartbeat choking itself in its rapid beat, his wolf unfurling. He was approaching his maker.

No, those thoughts weren’t his. The primal, instinctual grip that Clio had over him was his war. He was approaching the battlefield. 

He cracked his knuckles, tensing when the van pulled to a stop.

“Wait in the car, mom. You’ll embarrass me.” Jackson made to leave the van.

“Wait, Jackson.” Violet measured a meaningful look, just as calculated as the rest of their cryptic interactions. “I know what you’re thinking. You’ll find Clio, do what you want, and leave us here, sitting around like assholes, while you sneak away like a thief in the night. Black bandit mask and all. It’s not happening. He’s too powerful. In order for this to work, you’ll need to trust us. You’ll need to bring him back.”

“I don’t trust you,” Jackson said immediately, knee-jerk.

“Then trust that you will fail.” She shrugged. “Keep us updated on your mic.”

Jackson paused, wanting to say more, though he wasn’t sure what. Maybe to call her out on her blatant secrecy, though he wasn’t sure what good it would do him. So he hopped out of the van and slammed the door shut. 

In his ear, Violet relayed the address. They’d parked a block away, so as to not draw attention. He’d woken hours before the sunset, and now, the cool light showed that the day had fallen to the bleakness of dusk. The time of day to remorse for something ending.

As he approached, the press of vis was nearly overwhelming. There were many users in the area, crowded around this place. Jackson saw them immediately: witches, warlocks, vampires, shifters, every sort of vis user imaginable seemed to be present. They crowded outside, standing in the glow of the streetlight. Casually smoking and talking, without seeming to have a care in the world, just like any normal clubgoers. Made invincible by the buzz of alcohol and the veil of night.

Jackson was immediately uncomfortable, shoulders hunched, wondering if he would be … recognized.

Spotted for the monster he was: the demon who had killed their family members, their dear ones, or just someone they knew. But something else told him that, no, he wouldn’t be remembered and made a pariah for his past sins. Jackson didn’t leave survivors to relay tales of him. Loose ends had been knotted tight. It was what made this encounter so disorienting. He wasn’t used to letting other vis users just be; let them walk about unmolested, without calculating how to terminate them all where they stood. If he were here on PCA orders, he already would have reached for his weapon. The PCA had trained him to regard these creatures as prey that needed to be hunted down and killed for numbers on a screen, and they had trained him well. 

Much had surely changed, for these paranormals to so openly congregate without fear of retaliation from the PCA.

No one said anything to him, or seemed to notice the weapon on his back. These paranormals were all weapons, in reality. Though they probably couldn’t tell that his weapon had star bullets, which could effectively end any one of them.

Jackson found where the crowd was thickest, in front of an old black door. Above it, the street number matched the address Violet had given him.

“Entering,” he murmured into his mic, and did just that.

There was no bouncer that made an obstacle. The moment he entered, the attack of vis met him inwardly, cutting paths to deeply seat itself in him. It reached out in tendrils, reaching for some innate ghost within him, egging him forward. It did not come from the mass of paranormals present, no. There was something greater in these weak walls.

He’s here.

Jackson wondered if Clio, in return, could sense him as well. His inner malicious monster drew cozy satisfaction from that possibility, practically purring at it.

The inside of the establishment was unexpected in that it was exactly what someone would expect upon entering a typical bar. Hasty bartenders, twisting dancers, and stationary observers off to the side, conversing.

“I don’t see him,” Jackson said into the mic, frustrated more by the second. He should be here. Right here. To greet me. Welcome me—

“The back. Remember?” came Violet’s reply.

Jackson moved through the crowd, feeling as though he were floating. The world peeled away, like waking from sleep paralysis, as he came closer to what he sought. His sensory signals went into overdrive. 

Clio. Clio. Clio.

“Agent Jackson?” came the buzz from his ear.

It took him a moment to respond. “Approaching. A door.” His feet carried him there while his agency-trained, analytical mind took a backseat to the whims of the monster within him. The wooden door was aged, and with it closed, possibly locked. But a simple turn had it swinging open.

Jackson was faced with the mouth of a staircase leading down, barely a watt of corridor light to illuminate the way. As he took the first step, he felt like he was descending deep into a tunnel leading to some netherworld that finally opened up its portal to claim him.

The sense grew and grew. By now, because of what Clio had done to him by providing his sacred gift, the gift of his blood, he felt like he could sense Clio’s emotions from this distance. At least, he thought he could. He sensed a calm, a tired dullness. He obviously wasn’t excited or surprised by Jackson’s presence. 

He doesn’t know I’m here yet, Jackson concluded.

He would soon. The weapon on Jackson’s back felt hot.