#sevon

And then the doorway to his office slammed open.

“Dooooogwooooood, darling.” Dogwood jumped and sent the .22 LRs he was blessing skittering across his desk. He had two options: accept the tempting pillowy-softness he knew was coming, or jump out the window now and head for the state line. In his moment of paralyzed indecision, a pair of thin, strong arms caught him squarely around his shoulders. “Dogwood, mon amour, my dearest.” A sultry voice purred into his ear. Too late. Dogwood seriously considered playing dead until she released him. “H-hello, Aishe.” He answered, and cursed his treasonous tongue. He would teach it a lesson later. In a brief moment of panic, he watched as one of the bullets tipped and skittered off the edge of the desk, no doubt in a fearful bid for freedom. He felt for them; demons were scary business. Doubtless they were frightened of the life to come. “I th-th-think I need to g-g-get that.”

“Don’t worry, dollface. I’ll grab that for you.” His worst nightmare appeared like a vision of gold silks and ink black, every tiny fragment of her jewelry sparkling the way he knew she had to from head to toe. God help him. He’d repented so much and still he couldn’t stop sacrificing himself to her attentions. “You have to scoot back your chair, though. Did you get the update on Link?”

“The update?” He managed dryly, sliding back from the desk. “What update?”

“We have a meeting, dollface.” She dropped to her knees and Dogwood wondered why God was testing him. “New guy arrived yesterday. His name is Anthony. Seems like a real sweetheart. Did you meet him?”

“O-o-oh? N-no, I didn't.” Talking about other people was safe. “To t-t-take Vince’s p-place?”

“Mhmmm. Yeah, he’ll be good at point.” She slipped back out and her butt brushed against his shin. Dogwood wondered if dying was a reasonable reaction. “Come on. You want me to help you put all these crates on a cart?”

Please. Never leave. “N-no,” he managed thickly, doing the sign of the cross a thousand times in his head. “I’ll b-be just fine. Thank you for your offer, Aishe.”

She grinned and set the bullet on his desk, dusting off her knees. “Well, at least now I can say I’ve been under your desk for you.”

Oh. Dogwood’s brain-selves screamed and tried to force the unbidden mental image into a very small box in a very small drawer in a very small chest in the back of his mind where only spiders lurked and like hell he was going back there. He had vows to take. A deep breath, and he reminded himself of his future. Unfortunately, Aishe was extremely commanding. She stood there still, a lioness over her prey, a finger curling her hair and biting her lip way too enticingly at him. “I’ve been a bad girl, Father,” she giggled. “I need confession.” “I’m n-n-not ordained yet, Aishe.” He adjusted in his chair far too quickly and it tipped, crashing to the hard floor with a teeth-chattering thud. She yelped in surprise. “Are you okay?” Rushing to his aid, she helped him right himself and inspected his head carefully, long black nails dancing over his skin and feeling him out. “I th-think so,” He responded, comfortable in her presence at last. “You’re just bumped.” Aishe peered carefully into his eyes and touched his hair, trying to straighten it. “If you get a headache, please see Rose, okay?” “Okay.”

Once more she smiled at him, and he wondered--not for the first time--if her golden lipstick washed off under holy water. “Well, I’m gonna go get the new guy and squirrel him into the meeting room. See you then, dollface.”

“R-right.”

She’d been right. He checked Link, the Agency’s communication bulletin, and there it was: they had a four o’clock meeting. He didn't bother reading the details. It was already three forty-eight, so he wheeled out his cart and dragged each of the crates onto its wobbly surface. The wheels rattled ominously, but he was so used to pushing it that the creaking and banging hardly bothered him. After seven years he still was not used to the discomforting smallness of the through-ways in the Agency. Security had assured him several times the design was purely strategic, but that did not stop him from scurrying as quickly as possible through them.

Aishe and someone he assumed was the new guy emerged ahead of him. The comment she’d made about him serving well as ‘point’ made sense now; he was a wall of muscle, towering above the others even as he tried to make himself smaller. His hair was a sandy brown, thick eyebrows set over equally dark eyes. Dogwood wondered for a half a second what it felt like to be powerful.

“Dogwood! My boy!”

The priest lurched as another man joined him. Jeremy grinned and wolfishly clapped him on the back, his curly hair bouncing. “It’s all good, dude. Just me. No girls. What’s happening?”

“N-n-nothing much.” Jeremy loved the gym and it smelled like he’d just been. Dogwood did his best not to breathe too deeply.

They bustled past the garage doorway just as a young Korean girl burst through, Biggie Smalls blaring through earbuds flapping out of her purse.

“Tiffany!” Aishe purred, latching onto her. “Not late yet?” She asked breathlessly. “I just came from the restaurant.” Their youngest member at only nineteen, Sun-Hi Tiffany Yoo split her time between the Agency and her parents Korean grill down in Richmond. Her long, thick black hair was wound up in a bun, and she had short nails with chipped blue polish and thick, clog-like shoes. She usually wore skinny jeans or capris and a plain t shirt. Today she wore dark denim pedal-pushers, a grey v cut and a blue windbreaker. “No, not yet. We’ve got maybe thirty seconds.” “Oh good. I can’t be late again.” “Darling, you have the best excuse to be late. You’re the busiest of all of us.” “Yeah.” Tiffany huffed and nearly found her foot under Dogwood’s cart wheel. Gasping, she skittered along the hallway closer to Jeremy. “Bro, why do you smell!? Haven’t you taken a bath?” Dogwood tuned them out. It was hard to hear over the rattling of ammo anyway. Into the meeting room they turned, the large, dark carpet inside absorbing all the light. It was a suffocating room with only a large, round, black table and plush chairs that rolled. Xi was already inside. “Xi, doll!” Aishe laughed and slid from Sawyer’s arms, bounding over to hug him. The older man smiled and placed his hands high up on her shoulders. “How are you, Daddy?” “Be professional, Aishe,” Xi warned her kindly. Dogwood’s eyes strayed to a darker corner of the room where another man sat. His dark, shaved head glinting in the light, Joshua Marcus III never looked friendly. On paper he was another agent just like them. Officially, he held the ominous position of their Agency’s Watcher.

His presence was a necessary precaution. Only once in the history of the Agency had a branch gone rogue; a Demon infiltrated the ranks of the Western branch and used their Chief as a puppet until its discovery nearly a decade later. Ever since then the Outside Agent was a requirement. Usually a failed FBI recruit or particularly promising trainee at a police academy, an agent was assigned from D.C. after rigorous mental testing. They were required to report back to the federal offices (referred to as the Rock) once every week--once a day if anything suspicious or even slightly ‘off’ happened. Often the Watcher lived near the Agency rather than inside, and reported back to D.C. monthly for additional testing, training, and reevaluations. Joshua had been with them for six years and had yet to soften his relationship with his peers. The only person he even seemed to like was Desch--and Desch, for his part, didn't seem to like anyone. The seniormost agent leaned in a chair beside his spotter Christiane, the two as mismatched as could be. He was slanted and bore an almost frightening resemblance to a hawk, and she looked very much like a golden retriever made human and sour, her silky blonde hair tied back behind her nape.

“Christiane!” Aishe cried out enthusiastically. Christiane tried to shrink behind her partner. He was not sympathetic. “Comment allez-vous?” “Ça va,” she murmured, sinking further into her seat.

Fortunately she was spared by Verna’s arrival. She barged in the meeting room with a gym bag slung over her shoulder, still dressed for her workout and somehow smelling better than Jeremy. Flinging her stuff to the side, she eyed the clock and managed a fist pump. “Just under the wire. And if I’ve made it on time, then the unlucky bastards today are…”

“Rose and Cass aren’t coming today,” Xi answered her.

“Alright, fine, then that just leaves--”

Their mechanic Sevon Williams hopped through the door, the only one aside from their leadership who’d made any attempt to look nice. His long dreads were tied back, a clean button up and some jeans the perfect accent. Verna checked him in the side with her gym bag anyway.

“That guy! Lucky you weren’t in basic with me, Sevy, or you’d be doing burpies ‘til you cried.” She bore down on a chair fearlessly close to Joshua and Xi and dropped her bag under the table. “Please,” Xi motioned for some order. “Everyone have a seat. Thank you for the ammo, Dogwood, I’m sure everyone will help themselves to their share.” “Ammo? Thanks! I was thinking of running by to ask you about that.” “Verna, please.” He stretched in his seat and sighed, pulling his long black hair back into a ponytail. “I called this meeting because I wanted to talk to you all about a very serious spike of activity in the area.” A rustle passed around the room. Most of the scanners had been quiet for close to three months. Activity was bad, but lots of it was worse--and likely meant something nasty was happening. Xi drank heavily from a water bottle and rocked back in his chair. “I just returned from a crime scene, and I have something to show you all.” Reaching into his pocket, Xi withdrew a small black box. Designed by their R&D specialist, it was a reader that they set on the scenes of crimes wherever they were called. It read levels of otherworldly interference in the air (most of them had no familiarity on what exactly that meant), analyzed them, and shot back a small glow on the front. Different colors all signified different species: green was for Sirens, red was for Vampires, and so on. The front of the box he withdrew was a bright, sickening purple. Demons. “This isn’t the first one, either. Our readings from the perimeter instruments have picked up at least two in the immediate area.” Rubbing his tired eyes, Xi finally added, “And a third one. But Cassidy thinks it might be a Level Three--a demon Prince.”

“Has Miss Begbie gotten that mass tracker working?” Joshua asked thinly. “She stated last quarter she would have it operating within two months. Last I heard, it still wasn’t functional.”

“Seeing as she is creating a brand new piece of equipment, I would give it time,” Xi answered, his voice equally tense. “She’s doing as well as she can with her responsibilities. Point being, we are all going to up our training and defenses. No one is going out on a mission without a partner, alright?” Xi rubbed his tired eyes, a long, drawn out pause following. “I’m not losing any of you to possibilities.” “Level Three, huh?” Aishe asked finally. The sultry smoothness of her voice slid into an equally unreadable neutral. “Alright then. I wonder what they want here?” “Do they ever want anything specific?” Jeremy scoffed. “Oosually,” Christiane murmured, her accent thick. “Zey oosually ‘ave some sort of plan.” “I can still strip on Tuesdays and Thursdays, right?” Aishe interjected, playfulness seeping back into her voice. “I don’t need an escort for that, do I? Some of you all might scare the patrons, unless it’s my lovely Dogwood, who might need a little show. Seen tits, honey?”

“I can do it,” Verna responded, sparing the terrorized Dogwood the ordeal of conversation. “And I’ll bet big and burly over there wouldn't mind either. Right, Anthony?”

Joshua rapped his knuckles on the table impatiently for attention. A huge purple welt marred his forehead. It looked painful.  “So what’s the plan for dealing with these threats. You know, our job?” “We haven’t even located the threats yet,” Xi answered patiently. “We need a location.” “You’ve got at least one hell of a hunter.” Joshua motioned at Desch, who did not look happy at the call-out. “Send them hunting.” “I’d rather not send any agents into the potential gaping trap of a Level Three, thank you,” the Chief answered testily. “I think I’ll wait until--” “Until we’ve got a situation?” “Well then!” Tiffany clapped her hands together, “Look at that ceiling. What a lovely ceiling. Do we have someone cleaning that? They do a great job.”

Sevon smacked his palm on the table. “If we have any spare monitors, Chief, I could put them in the cars. That way our patrols could have more than eyesight to give them a little warning, if you feel me. How about I install monitors in the car, we figure out where the hot spot on all these energies are comin’ from, and we can triangulate a plan from there? Seems more solid than just doin’ a crazy hunt is all, and safer.”