Page 43 of Concluded
“Never tried it before.Would be amenable.”But when Achilles shifted slightly, the resulting twinge was enough to reconnect him with reality.“But not tonight.I’m not physically up to it.Besides, I’m not sure how our hosts feel about that sort of thing and I don’t want to be rude.”
Dee looked disappointed, and Achilles didn’t want him to think he was just making up excuses.So he patted Dee’s knee, even though it hurt Achilles’ chewed-up wrist.“If we come through this and you still want me, I’m yours.It’ll give us an extra incentive to win.”
“Hope for sex is hope?”
“Definitely.”
Later that night, as they lay in separate beds, Achilles regretted being an adult about this.He heard Dee’s soft breaths and remembered what those little puffs of air had felt like on his nape.Gods, Dee waswarm, like a comfortable seat in front of a crackling fire, like a bellyful of hot soup.Like a fever.
Achilles sighed, rolled over to face the wall, and tried to sleep.
* * *
“You look better this morning,”Grimes pronounced, sweeping into the room as Achilles and Dee ate breakfast.Dee had grumbled about a lack of sausage, eggs, and cheese, but had made a tall stack of pancakes instead, along with sliced strawberries and scrambled tofu with salsa.Achilles was definitely making up for those missed meals.
But now the chief and Tenrael were hovering nearby, so Achilles pushed back his plate.“I feel better.”
“Good.I don’t think it’s safe for you to go home now, but you can stay here indefinitely, or we have some other safe houses if you’d prefer to be closer to civilization.”
“I’dpreferto be on assignment,” said Achilles, fully aware that he’d attempted to resign from the Bureau just a short time ago.
Grimes looked at him with something that might have been sympathy, and when he spoke, his voice was softer than usual.“I know.But you need more time to heal, and things are, well, a little chaotic at the moment.”
“Is this your polite way of telling me I’m fucking useless?”Achilles wouldn’t normally have been quite so blunt, but technically Grimes wasn’t his chief anymore.And whatever patience Achilles had once possessed was long gone.
“I’m not a polite man.”
They glared at each other for a moment, but Achilles was the first to back down, in part because he knew he wasn’t at his best.He wanted to be a help, not a liability.
Dee, who’d been watching this interchange with interest, spoke into the silence.“What about me?Do I go to the safe house too?”Judging from his expression, he knew what the answer was going to be.Achilles knew too.Dee was potentially too valuable to sit on a shelf.
“You’re coming to San Francisco with us,” Grimes announced.
“Why?”
“We need to ascertain exactly what you’re capable of.”
Dee set his jaw.“I’m not going to do any testing.No floods, no houses in the desert, no snakes.”
“No,” said Grimes, shaking his head.“None of that.Our archivist is conducting more research on genies and hopes to be done soon.We’ll go from there.”
That answer seemed to mollify Dee a bit, and although he still looked unhappy, his posture relaxed.But Achilles, who was clearly not a part of this particular discussion, decided he wasn’t in the mood to keep his mouth shut.“What is it you want him to do?Because I’m guessing he can’t just give you world peace or something like that.”
Grimes didn’t look as though he intended to answer, which would be just like him.Tenrael, however, had been standing slightly behind him, wings furled.Now he took a step forward and set a hand on Grimes’s shoulder.“You should tell them.”
Everyone was silent during what surely qualified as a pregnant pause.Tenrael didn’t remove his hand.They were quite a sight: the thin, pale man in the suit; the darker more muscular demon wearing nothing at all.Both of them quietly fierce and, in Achilles’ estimation, as solid as the ground beneath his feet.Maybe more so.
Finally, Grimes gave a jerky little nod.“Last year, Agents Clark and Gale encountered a… being who we believe was allied with Ashley Dunn and her compatriots.During this encounter they learned that our enemies are capable of creating portals between places.Also during this encounter, Gale sensed an entity trapped and held captive between these portals.We believe you were also trapped in such a space, Spanos.Perhaps the same one, but more likely another space of the same nature.”
Achilles shuddered.He didn’t want to think about that place.Being there had been worse than the physical torture.
“For the past months, Clark and Gale have been trying to find this captive or gain access to them so they can be freed.”
“Oh!”said Achilles, remembering.“Ralph Crespo was helping them.”
“Yes, but they haven’t been successful.What I’d like is for you, Mr.Martell, to get me there.”
“And back,” Tenrael added gently.
