29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

Whilst our eyes were fixed on the papers, Thorsen was struggling to sit up. His hands being cuffed behind him made it hard for him to gain purchase – but not impossible. His eyes fixed on the papers that we were poring over. ‘Put those down! Our papers are not meant for your eyes!’

Our papers? Things were going from bad to worse. I dropped the files back into the case. ‘You’re MIB?’ I asked incredulously. Suddenly it made sense: he could be an ass and a bully because he wasn’t attending the academy as a recruit, he was a freaking spy! That’s why he was never told off properly for his bullshit: he was from one of the alphabet agencies.

His terrible temper seemed real enough, though, so clearly that part wasn’t pretence. His face mottled purple again, except for the nice swollen part that was already starting to show a sizeable bruise where Sidnee had decked him.

He sneered. ‘Don’t you dare talk to me! Don’t you dare even look at me! I am worth a hundred of you! You’re little more than beasts, and like any animal population spiralling out of control you need to be monitored – and then culled.’ He smirked. ‘I’m all too happy to do the culling.’ He met my gaze. ‘And I’m more than happy to start with you.’

My fangs dropped. They still had a mind of their own but for once they were appearing at the right time. I bared them in a fake grin. ‘You want to say that again?’

His gaze flicked down to my protruding canines and I saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. Even so, he kept up the bravado. ‘You drink blood to survive. You disgust me – you, and the others like you. You should all be wiped off the face of this earth.’

He had a set of brass ones, that was for sure, and he was as stupid as two planks of wood, but he was certainly bold.

I looked at Danny’s angry face, then back to Thorsen. ‘This extraction plan. Is that what happened to Liam Smith?’

Thorsen looked blank. ‘Who?’

‘The recruit that went missing last cohort,’ Danny snarled from between clenched teeth.

Thorsen smirked. ‘Aw, was he your little best friend?’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t know him, but if he was a filthy supernatural then yeah, he’ll have been taken for some experimentation. Like you guys will be. You’ve sealed your fate now.’

‘Is Liam alive?’ Danny pushed.

The twat shrugged. ‘How should I know? Each course has different MIB operatives enrolled on it. We can’t have people cottoning on to what’s happening. The MIB targets someone supernatural, usually a species that’s been requested.’

‘And who’s your target this time?’ I asked.

Thorsen grinned. ‘Why, it’s you, my little rodent. You and your charmed necklace that tells anyone in the know that you’re a filthy vampire. I knew what you were from the moment I set eyes on you – I didn’t even need to be told you were supernat.’ He stared at us. ‘Now, untie me and I promise I won’t arrest your families and loved ones and take them to a detention centre. Leave me tied up for one more fucking minute and I’ll personally see them all in chains.’

He said it with absolute authority and my stomach knotted. For most supernats that would be a crippling threat, but I didn’t have family in the US and I wasn’t scared of him. I pulled out my phone out, thankful that I had a signal even down here, and called Connor.

‘What are you doing?’ Thorsen asked, his voice growing shrill as he realised I wasn’t kowtowing to his demands.

Connor answered promptly. ‘I need your help,’ I said before he could speak. ‘Can you talk me through how to mind control someone?’

Thorsen’s eyes went wide. ‘No! Don’t you dare!’ Danny cut him off by putting his large hand firmly over his obnoxious mouth.

‘We call it mesmerising,’ Connor said. ‘It’s not usually something we teach on the fly, but I’m assuming there’s an emergency since you’re calling me at one in the morning.’

‘You bet.’

‘Okay. Is your target human or supernat?’

‘Human.’

‘That’s good.’ He sounded relieved. ‘Humans are a lot easier to mes because they have virtually no defences to speak of. The process starts with you. You need to search inward. Close your eyes and turn your attention inside your head.’

I closed my eyes and did as he directed.

‘You should feel a power inside of you like a cold ball of ice.’

I had only ever felt heat within me but, sure enough, when I looked inside more carefully I felt an area of dense cold.

‘You need to reach out to it and pull the power out from it,’ Connor went on. ‘Look into the recipient's eyes and release the magic, then tell them what you want them to do or remember.’

‘Okay. Thanks.’

‘If that doesn’t work,’ Connor said, ‘you can try hitting them repeatedly on the head. A concussion will do the same thing in a pinch, at least until I can get to you.’

I found myself grinning. ‘Aw, thank you.’

‘And Bunny?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You’re going to feel drained afterwards. Have you got someone there to help you get to bed?’

‘Sidnee and Danny are with me.’

‘Danny?’ he asked lightly.

‘He works for the Nomo in Ugiuvak. He’s undercover, investigating Smith’s disappearance. The problem is that the MIB are undercover too – but they’re here to expedite disappearances.’

‘Fuck,’ Connor said. ‘That’s not good. Find out if the MIB prick has sent a report with your name on it. We need to know if you’re a target.’

I swallowed. ‘He’s already said he was targeting me.’

Connor swore colourfully and extensively. ‘All right. We need to do some damage control. Gunnar has a guy in the MIB. Leave it with me. Let me know if you can’t mesmerise the MIB guy and I’ll sneak in to join you.’

‘Security is too high,’ I warned. ‘It’s impossible.’

He snorted. ‘I’m a vampire, Bunny. No security is good enough to stop me if I’m determined – and I’m very determined. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect you.’ With that modest comment, he hung up.

I pocketed the phone, closed my eyes and reached inwards for the cold ball of ice inside my brain. I pulled it upwards and out, then opened my eyes and met Thorsen’s panicked ones. He didn’t know enough to look away; thank goodness for small favours.

I stared into his eyes. If he hadn’t been such a bastard, I’d have thought they were nice eyes. They were blue, not Connor’s ice blue but a faded blue grey. They complemented Thorsen’s whole ‘master race’ look – the pale skin and blond hair.

I held his eyes with mine and I somehow felt that he couldn’t look away. Once I was sure of the connection, I spoke. ‘You did not see the three of us tonight. You will not remember anything from after dinner until you wake in the morning. You will go to your bed and go to sleep. When you wake, you will be sympathetic to supernats. Now leave.’

Danny cut through the ties and heaved Thorsen to his feet. He swayed but then, without further ado, he turned and headed to the stairs. ‘Wow,’ Sidnee said, impressed. ‘It actually worked!’

‘Beginner’s luck,’ I noted drily. I didn’t point out that her surprised tone revealed that she’d had precisely zero confidence in my abilities. Frankly, that was fair.

She stared down at the still-unconscious Miller then shoved him with her foot. ‘Let’s see if Thorsen was a fluke.’ He groaned and she gave him another gentle kick. ‘Get up, you ass.’

He rolled over. This time, the kick was a little more serious. ‘Ow!’ He came to, sat up and looked around wildly. ‘What did you do to Theodore?’

‘Absolutely nothing. He went to bed. As will you.’ I met Miller’s eyes and searched again for the cold spark of power. ‘You will go to bed and you will forget everything from dinnertime until you wake up in the morning. You will be sympathetic to supernats from this moment on. Now go.’

Danny cut through Miller’s ties and pulled him up. Freddie turned and headed for the stairs. ‘I guess I won’t make you mad anytime soon,’ Danny told me with a grin.

Suddenly I felt drained – it was like being hit by the daylight exhaustion but times a million. Even breathing felt like hard work. ‘I don’t want to do it again right now,’ I said drily. ‘So you’re safe.’

Aoife was still floating a foot off the ground where she’d been speaking to Petty. She was watching us. I turned to her. ‘Thank you, both of you.’

Danny nodded. ‘Petrovich Peril, you have done a service to all the supernats that will pass through this academy and probably to all those who live in the great state of Alaska. Thank you.’ He gave a sharp salute. I needed to learn how to do that.

The air around us warmed and for a second a young man appeared in the corner dressed in his state-trooper uniform. He smiled and snapped back a salute, then his image blinked and a brown bear appeared in his place before fading from view.

‘Has he left forever?’ Sidnee asked Aoife.

Aoife shook her head slowly. Not yet, she mouthed. Whatever: he was obviously calmer now that we’d understood what he’d been trying to tell us.

‘Petty was a shifter,’ Sidnee said wonderingly.

Evidently so, which made me wonder how a bear shifter like him had supposedly died of exposure in the woods. Had it been foul play? A dark thought came to me: how long had the MIB been operating out of here? How many recruits had been kidnapped or killed? The supernats’ natural suspicion of each other and their total lack of information sharing made them vulnerable.

Aoife faded soon after Petty and we stood alone in the plant room. ‘I’m exhausted,’ I managed.

Sidnee yawned. ‘Yeah, me too. What are we going to do with that?’ She pointed at the attaché case.

Danny frowned. ‘We need to read the contents and copy them, if we can. We can take turns snapping some pictures of the pages. Once it’s in the Cloud, it doesn’t matter if anything happens to this lot.’

Or us , I thought darkly.

‘That’s a lot of pages,’ Sidnee sighed.

‘We’ll have to go through them tomorrow, see if there is any dirt on anyone else at the academy,’ I suggested. ‘We need to know who the enemy at our gate is besides Thorsen and Miller.’

Danny lugged the case back to our room and I buried it in my closet. Sidnee and I said our goodnights then collapsed on our beds.

Tomorrow was going to suck.