13. Nick

THIRTEEN

NICK

Is the special agent gig living up to expectation? The jury is out.

Nick opened his eyes. At least, he thought he did, but he couldn't see anything. For a millisecond, he was disoriented by the odd darkness and by what appeared to be some sort of musty old cloth covering his head and face.

What the actual fuck?

Events came back to him in a rush. He'd been hanging out in the parking lot with Tim, waiting for him to do his tortoise business, when all of a sudden, two men had appeared from around the corner of the building and rushed him.

He'd tried to fight them off, but one of the bastards had jabbed something sharp into his biceps and that was the last thing Nick remembered. And to be honest, physical fighting was not one of Nick's strong points.

No …

Nick recalled that he'd been kicking a loose pebble around the lot, wondering if it was a waste of his time to tell Doug that he—he, Nick, not he, Doug—was pretty sure he was falling for him. Doug would hate that Nick had feelings. They hadn't talked about anything, and what was happening firmly fell into the hooking up category, not the lifelong partners category or even the casual dating category. And probably SPAM had some kind of rules about fraternizing anyway.

Regardless of the fact that Nick could picture himself with Doug for the long term, retirement was calling Doug's name. Sheesh, even Nick could tell that Doug would be bored out of his mind doing nothing. Maybe he needed a break, but he didn't need to retire.

So, there he'd been in the parking lot, mentally kicking himself for being a fool. A fool who was falling for Doug Swanson. Not only was the older agent subtly funny and obviously smart, but the sex was also mind-blowing.

Right, Sedgewick. Focus on the fact that you aren't where you're supposed to be , not the sex.

That's why Nick hadn't been paying enough attention to his surroundings in the first place.

"He's still out cold," an unfamiliar voice said.

"Whatever The Undertaker uses is strong shit. That last one never woke up."

The last one?

Inadvertently, Nick flinched, his foot bumping against something. He stilled and forced himself to think about nothing. He was definitely in a car; he could feel the rumble of the engine.

"What was that?"

Crap, they were talking about the agent who'd been found a couple of days ago. At least he thought so. Schoen-something?

There was a shuffle sound as probably the passenger turned in his seat to check on Nick. "Nothing."

"You sure he's not awake?"

"No way is that guy awake."

Nick was a tad groggy, but he was definitely awake. Whatever they'd given him had worn off for the most part. Not a surprise, considering his metabolism. But it would be a surprise for the bad guys if he could make it work in his favor.

He wished he knew where they were going. How long would it be before Doug realized Nick was missing? And what about Tim? Would he be okay out in the dusty parking lot?

Tim originated from an African desert region, Nick reminded himself. He would be fine.

It seemed like forever before the car finally slowed, turned, then stopped. He had no idea how far they'd driven, but he didn't think he'd been out that long.

The Undertaker. What kind of name was that anyway?

One that didn't bode well for Nick. Even before the bad guys wrestled him out of the car while Nick pretended he was still unconscious, he'd suspected he'd already met The Undertaker. The image of an odd man who wore a dated suit and porkpie hat popped into his head.

The assholes were not gentle with him. It took everything he had not to tense and cry out when they banged his head against immoveable objects, first the car doorframe and then possibly a doorjamb.

"Put him there," a third voice said.

They laid him down on his back. Nick's shoulders rubbed against something unforgiving on either side of him, and his feet bumped against something too, as if whatever he was on— in —wasn't quite large enough to hold all of him. Already creeped out by being drugged and kidnapped, this additional information was extra-creepy. Nick had the horrible feeling he was lying in a coffin and it took literally everything he had not to scream.

"How much did you give him?"

"Exactly what you told us to."

"Take the covering off his head."

It was impossible for Nick to fake being unconscious any longer. The sack was dragged off his head. Nick blinked and shook his head, doing his best to pretend that he'd only just woken.

"You are awake," said a familiar-looking man.

"Um, I guess so?" He didn't have to pretend that his voice was raspy.

Nick really wanted to squeeze his eyes shut again. He was, in fact, inside a coffin. A bubble of hysterical laughter tried to escape him as he briefly imagined his Aunt Kat admonishing him for being late to his own funeral—he was early, and she would never believe him.

"Who are you?" the strange man asked.

"Who am I?" Nick retorted, his anger rising and giving him energy, "Who are you? And why did you go to all this trouble to grab me? You could have just called or sent me an email." Nick struggled to sit up, but one of the muscle-bound henchmen placed a meaty hand on his chest, forcing him to lie back down.

Recognition dawned. "You're the creep who was in the bathroom at The Ace of Clubs. I didn't recognize you at first. Where's the hat?" Nick probably shouldn't call the guy a creep, but for crying out loud, he'd been abducted, and before he'd had a chance to get a cup of coffee.

This was turning out to be a Very Bad Morning indeed.

"Doug is going to be worried about where I've gotten to. He'll be here any second."

Porkpie Man glanced around himself and bent down. When he stood back up, he had his signature hat firmly placed on his head. "I am not worried about Agent Swanson."

"Okay, that's fair." Especially since Doug had no idea where Nick was. Nick didn't even know where he was. And the guy knew Doug was an agent. Interesting. "Where am I and why did you kidnap me?" he demanded.

Admittedly, it was hard to demand information when he was lying in a coffin, but he did his best. The two henchmen had moved away from the death box when The Undertaker moved closer to it. Maybe they didn't like their boss either.

"I couldn't feel how you die."

Nick stared at him, replaying what he'd said in his mind.

Just. No.

"Excuse me? What?" Nick wanted nothing more than to scramble away from The Undertaker. He'd been creepy enough in the restroom the other day, but now he was downright frightening.

"You heard me the first time. I don't like repeating myself."

"You… don't like repeating yourself. Okay. Now what?"

"Now what, you ask. Hmm."

The Undertaker tapped his bottom lip in what Nick thought was supposed to induce fear. Spoiler alert, Nick was already scared. The Bloefeld imitation sans scar and cat was enough. Who knew, maybe the guy did have a cat hidden away somewhere.

Regardless of the fear and panic threatening to overwhelm him, Nick stared back at his captor, memorizing what he could see of him. The man seemed to be average height, maybe a little thick around the middle. Physically, he was nothing like Doug but possibly close to the same age.

Aside from the ridiculous hat and suit he was—undistinguished. If not for his unconventional choices in haberdashery, Nick might never have noticed him. His voice was neither high nor low. His eyes seemed to be a vague color of pale brown along with what hair Nick could see under the hat. Boring.

"Are you sure your moniker isn't Bland Man?"

Nick hadn't intended on saying that out loud—the words had just slipped out like they so often did. Seriously, now his filter was going to fail him? Behind The Undertaker, one of the henchmen pressed his lips together as if he was trying not to react with a chuckle.

The Undertaker hissed at Nick, revealing a set of very straight, boring teeth.

"Did you just hiss at me?" Nick was astounded. Who hissed at people? Toddlers, that's who.

"Stop. Talking."

"See, this is going to be a problem for me. When I'm nervous, I talk," Nick babbled. "I can't stop myself. The words just flow like the Mississippi under a flood watch. And right now, having been abducted and deposited into what seems to be a fucking coffin, I am very, very nervous, so I'm channeling the Bard. That's Shakespeare, in case you didn't know."

"Stop. Talking."

"Why? What's it to you? You clearly have the upper hand. The upper hiss." He laughed because his mouth was absolutely out of his control. "Is hissing a thing for you? Like your signature?"

Nick was really wishing he could roll back the last few hours and that none of this kidnapping bullshit had happened yet. But he could only manipulate small amounts of time, and he'd rather this experience was over—with him alive—rather than have to relive it.

For fuck's sake, he hadn't been serious when he'd mentioned getting himself kidnapped at The Ace of Clubs. This was not part of the plan.

One of the henchmen moved. Nick couldn't see where he went but heard the shuffle of his very large feet.

"Boss, there's someone outside," said Henchman Number One.

The Undertaker scowled. Wherever they were, having someone arrive was not part of the plan. That was good, right? It meant that this pathetic gang of three was it and he possibly had a chance of escaping. He wasn't tied up or held down in any way. Really, Nick felt, this was a second-rate abduction.

If he got the chance to escape, he was taking it.

In the meantime, wasn't this the part where Nick learned the sad life of The Undertaker and why he'd resorted to a life of crime?

"Why are you doing this?" he asked. "The kidnapping and killing?" He took a wild guess. "Are you a failed agent? Like that Rodney the Rodent guy I learned about earlier in the week?"

"I am not a failed agent," The Undertaker responded. "I am unrecognized genius."

"Oh." Nick nodded within the confines of the coffin. "Unrecognized genius. So you retaliate by kidnapping and murdering people? It was you who killed Agent Schoenhut, wasn't it? The coffin is a dead giveaway."

"Agent Schoenhut proved to be weak, just like the others. But his power could have been useful to me had I been successful."

Nick wasn't sure if he was glad or not that he'd gotten the creep to start talking. This talk of powers was creepy.

"Um, weak? How so? Why would you want to kill people? I just don't understand." For now, he was ignoring the harvest bit. And he wasn't about to ask where "the others" were. A flash of Billy Mumy and the cornfield from that ancient Twilight Zone episode went through his head.

"I'm just… hurrying the process along. That's my gift, you see. I can feel how you die."

Nick thought about this for a moment.

"That's why you touched my arm at the club. You wanted to know how I die. But… you said you can't tell with me."

The Undertaker shook his head, his eyes narrowed. "I can always tell. You are the first I have not been able to."

"So, wait a minute here. How was Agent Schoenhut supposed to die?"

"Of old age, I believe. I saw what looked like a private room in an assisted-living facility."

"So, instead of living to an age old enough to deserve a nice quiet room with light pink walls and fresh flowers every day, you took it in your hands to move up the timeline? What are you, some kind of freak?"

The Undertaker stiffened. "He did not deserve his power. He did not use it for what it was intended. And anyway, he never woke up."

"You still killed him! Okay, wait just another minute before we get into the power thing. If you saw him experiencing a nice, peaceful death surrounded by loved ones, how come you didn't see him being offed by you? Isn't that a flaw?"

The Undertaker looked as if no one had ever asked him that question before. Nick didn't give him time to answer it.

"You call yourself The Undertaker and yet you kill people. Okay, okay, I realize it's just semantics, but as far as I understand, an undertaker deals with already dead people, but you're killing agents so you can… what? What happens when you kill them? What do you gain?"

The man stared at him. Nick thought back to what he knew about the dead agents, which wasn't a lot. No one had discussed the first two with him. Agent Schoenhut's power was magnetism. That was a nice thing in Vegas for sure. What had Doug told him about Agent Carroll? She could smell lies.

"You're trying to collect powers, aren't you?" Nick asked. "And it's not working."

The last bit was a total babbling guess. Actually, everything Nick had spouted was a guess, but from the expression on The Undertaker's face, he'd at least found the outer edge of the target.

"You are," Nick gasped. "You're trying to collect powers for yourself. I bet that's not even possible. And what about your flunkies over there? What do they get out of this, this scheme?"

"It is so possible, I've seen it done. And those two get a lot of money."

"Pffft. If you had a lot of money, we wouldn't be in some derelict strip mall on the edge of town. That's where we are, right? The Lonely Pine."

"The Lonely Mine," The Undertaker corrected.

Why was that important? It wasn't.

"Right, The Lonely Mine."

"No. That is not where we are."

Damn. Nick snapped his lips together. He'd gotten the guy talking, but now his brain was catching up with his mouth. Luckily, he had an idea. He'd never tried this before, but it was worth a try.