The Walls of Jericho

Challenging

Damien’s chair swivels to face the rest of us in the room. With a deliberately dramatic flourish, Ferdi relinquishes it to me and I take the seat, still warm with his residual body heat.

An adrenalized rush spikes and swamps my system with the powerful hormone, and I feel not merely awake, but suddenly, vitally alive with a heightened sense of anticipation that leaves me light-headed.

When I look up at him, Ferdi’s predator cold eyes bore into me, piercing and shrewd. If what I understand from Channing about their wolf-enhanced senses is correct, the three of them can probably smell my excitement.

Probably the metallic-y tang of ozone like after a lightning strike. Poor guys. That must be kind of gross.

What they won’t be able to discern is the reason for it.

Which means welcome to big time trust issues.

Despite Ferdi’s stony expression, I’m not confused about what he sees when he looks at me. In his mind, I’m the dragon’s former tool—something that was leveraged against wolfkind. His wolfkind. Now that I’ve fallen into their hands, I’m a new weapon with which to fight back—one he doesn’t wholly understand or trust—but he’s willing to use if there’s no better option.

Having been generously gifted a few excruciating early days in the second body of this technomage, Damien has a new respect and sympathy for what it took for me to survive. Not merely as a premature and sickly newborn, but through the lifetime of servitude and misery as the prisoner of the dragon. He watches me with a complex concoction of awe, resignation and the thing I hate most, pity.

Finally, there’s Channing. If there was a word to describe his expression, it’s grave.

For the longest, most silent minute, he stares at me solemnly. Somberly. Grimly. Maybe even fatally—I’m not fully committed to that last one though. There’s an intensity in his blue eyes that’s simply conflicted—his personal desires war with his responsibilities as Alpha.

With Damien and Ferdi standing right here, translating magic to wolfspeak is the only private way to address the yawning chasm opening between us.

His fine mouth sets in a firm, stoic line.

His alpha voice is soft with mild amusement and fierce with love and loyalty.

Ooh, I'm in trouble. He’s been keeping notes.   I retort immaturely. Why not? Clearly, he’s already expecting that.

The ghost of a grin flits across his handsome countenance. He heaves a deep sigh.

That’s an unsettling truth.

My conviction starts to waver. What if he’s right? What if I’m not as in control as I think? What if I’m blindly bulldozing my way into peril with nothing but my patiently-nursed hatred and no real power at all? Over my head and too vindictive to swim to safe waters? I close my eyes, suck my bottom lip between my teeth.

When I open my eyes, nothing soft or calming about him greets them. He’s a warrior. An Alpha. Mine.

“You’re sure then? You want me to use my abilities?”

A lopsided smile curls one side of his mouth. “Technomage the crap out of it, babydoll.”

“Gross,” Damien mumbles. He takes a step away to lean against the wall. “Now that the lovebirds are done talking, tell Daniels, Ferdi.”

He flips the headset mic down, positioning it before his mouth. “Thank you for being so forthcoming. We’d like to review the data you have. Would you plug the drive into the computer, please?”

“If I do that, how do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?” Charles Daniels looks and sounds anxious. “I want some kind of assurance you’ll keep my family safe.”

“You have our assurance. We could have taken the device the instant we picked you up at the diner,” Ferdi advises him. “At any point since you’ve been in our safekeeping, we could have taken it. We’re preparing to move you and your family to a new location and life within the next forty-eight hours. We’d like to see what you brought before then.”

The database architect glances behind him towards the door and the sounds of his family beyond. He swallows hard, clearly reluctant to give up what he considers his only bargaining chip before he’s assured his family’s safety. “God help me,” he whispers softly, reaching for the USB drive, then he plugs it into the computer’s receiving port.

Time to get this show on the road.

I close my eyes to block out distractions, then let my consciousness reach towards the Avernus server.

As humans, we don’t really have an intuitive sense for relative size of things without being provided a basis of comparison.

One of my favorite stories as a child was The Little Prince. In the story, the protagonist prince must contend with baobab trees, which start as tiny seedings but grow into menacing trees with vast networks of roots that might destroy his world. Since the baobab trees in the story are a metaphor for the challenges in life, they’re described in the book as kind of cute, but spiny.

A little like rose bushes.

In reality, baobab trees can grow nearly nine stories tall, with a three and half story diameter tree trunk. My personal sense of betrayal by the book’s author aside, that’s a humongous tree, with an equally humongous root system. You don’t get that perspective from the story.

By the same token, the human nervous system is comprised of one hundred billion neurons. Were its component neurons stretched end to end, they’d circle the earth more than twice. That vast neural network is all contained in one human body. That’s a lot of miles of chemioelectric signals to provide the body’s sensations, and they’re rocketing along at around one hundred meters per second.

That’s the equivalent of traveling over twenty-two thousand miles per hour.

Crossroads communication network is much like the human nervous system. Not quite so sophisticated and in some places kind of sketchy. Still, traveling along the four-hundred-thousand volt underground cables that are about the breadth of my hand, I’m in and out of the safehouse computer across from Charles Daniels in a matter of seconds.

I open my eyes.

Channing’s brows twitch together. “Jericho?” A cautious question.

“What?” I shrug. “The USB drive is what he says it is. It’s safe. There’s not much on it. I can’t imagine it being of any value unless we can trace it inside the KDS building to a specific personal computer.”

“You’re done already?” Channing looks stunned. “That wasn’t more than a few seconds. Like a long blink.”

“Electrical impulses are traveling at thousands of miles per hour, beefcake.” I give him a wink and a tender smile before focusing on Damien. “If you want, I can copy what’s on the USB to a clean drive—one of yours here. Then Mr. Daniels can feel like he’s been allowed to keep his safety net.”

“Do it,” Channing orders.

Immediately, Damien jumps forward. It takes him longer to insert a USB drive into the computer than anything I did.

“It’s done.”

“What?” Now Ferdi’s staring at me too. “He just plugged in the thumb drive.”

I shrug, extending a hand to Channing who pulls me out of the chair. “It’s done. See for yourself.”

Navigating with the mouse, Damien opens the file explorer and verifies there’s something on the new USB drive he just gave me. “Jesus, Jericho.” He looks over his shoulder at me, this time with a little fear.

“The technology’s in place, Damien. It’s just not as efficient as me.” 

“Ferdi, tell him we’ve changed our minds. Reassure him, like Jericho said,” Channing directs. “If you can give him a rough timeline for when we’ll be moving their family, do. We’ll go get dinner started.”

Taking my hand, he leads me out of Damien’s office and into the labyrinthine tunnel hallways of Avernus. There’s a slight tension in his shoulders that drains the elation I felt after stretching my abilities and leaves me feeling edgy.

I ease myself up just behind his shoulder. “Channing, is there something wrong?”

He glances at me, but his face is a mask. “No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Is this a multiple choice question? Am I supposed to pick an answer?” I chuckle, hoping to make him lighten up a little.

Instead, he stops in the long boring gray hallway and faces me. “It was so fast.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? In. Out. Undetected.”

“At the risk of sounding annoying and wishy-washy, yes and no.” He studies my face and the frustration softens. “God, I love those freckles. It’s so fast, as in incredibly powerful and efficient and simultaneously, so fast there’s no time to intervene if there’s danger. I wasn’t kidding that you’re a magnet for trouble, Jericho. I don’t know how to protect you.” He shrugs one shoulder.

With my free hand, I rub my brow with my fingertips. “This is about your ego again. Has it occurred to you that maybe you’re not meant to protect me? It doesn’t sound all that partner-y, if you know what I mean. Or was all that stuff you said in my head just a sales pitch?”

“That was a mate vow, Jericho,” he snaps, offended. “From my kind, it’s the most sacred vow. I understand you’re only human, but a wolf’s vow isn’t like human ones. You’re it for me. For my whole life. The most valuable person, place and thing on the planet. You’re my One. If even having that information you still believe this is about my ego, well, I guess there’s not much I can do about it, but I think you better reconcile yourself to the fact that the urge to protect you isn’t going to change.”

That staticky buzz of energy between us crackles so fiercely that it sends a hard shiver over me. A serene warmth blossoms inside my chest, filling me. “If you only get one, then why did you do that? Why would you make your vow to me?”

“Because you’re perfect for me.” His lopsided, heart-warming smirk spreads across his face. “I knew that the instant I found you sleeping with Eric the—”

“—park bench,” we finish together.

“What was I supposed to give you in return? Because,” I offer an apologetic grimace, “I sort of forgot most of the words. I did keep the concept.”

Channing snorts a laugh. “Just stay.”

“That’s it?” I arch my brows. “You saw how that’s worked so far, right?”

The white-blue whorls have kicked up in his eyes. “I didn’t say it wasn’t going to be challenging.”

“And you’re worried I’m a danger magnet? We’ve got a lot more to sort between us than that.” I tug his hand. “Come on. You said you were fixing dinner.”

He holds my hand, smiling, but doesn’t budge. “It’s this way, Jericho.” He tips his head the opposite direction.

I draw a deep breath and let it out over a five count, summoning some patience. “Challenging doesn’t begin to cover it, Stark. Let’s go, beefcake.”

**

When we reach the kitchen, I stop short. “I’m going to check on Mr. Adriani. I’ll be back in just a few.”

Channing keeps hold of my hand. “It’s only been a couple hours since we got here, Jericho. You usually leave him all day by himself and he’s fine.”

His comment fills me with guilt. When I first took the in-home caregiver gig six years ago, Mr. Adriani had been better able to manage himself, with far more lucid moments than those when he was confused. Though the degradation had been slow, I’d known for a while he needed better care than I’d been giving. I’d never known where to find it, and I guess a part of me always hoped his son would step up in his father’s last years. Even rough as it could be some days, at least he still had his father, right? Some of us aren’t so lucky.

I sigh and can’t keep the exhaustion out of my reply. “That was in his own house. With his own belongings. This is a strange place for him, even if he does have Richard Simmons and Lucille Ball.”

“Come here.” He gives a little tug on my fingers still held tightly in his.

His careless comment had stung, but I can’t hold it against him—I can’t imagine someone like him ever becoming so infirm as Mr. Adriani, and I suspect he can't either. He hadn’t meant to be cutting. I draw closer to where he stands, gasping when he catches me to him and wraps his arms about my waist. “Channing—.”

He smiles down at me, one of those lazy grins with his blue eyes focused and intense. My words fail and my knees get melty. I sink into his chest, then moan softly. One large warm hand drifts up my spine to massage my nape gently and the other travels to the small of my back where his thumb traces a delightful mind-erasing pattern. It sets the electric hum between us rumbling pleasantly.

“You need more help. I’ll make sure you get some,” he tells me softly. Dipping his head, he brushes the sweetest kiss on the tip of my nose, then almost reluctantly, he releases me. “Go on. I’ll get dinner started.”

Mr. Adriani’s parked on the tan ultra-suede sofa that faces the giant, wall-mounted flat-screen television in the shared lounge room. With one bony hand, he strokes the sofa’s arm distractedly, his eyes wandering the room. Much to my surprise and alarm, the television isn’t on.

“Mr. Adriani?” I move deeper into the room so he can see me head on. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, hi Michelle.” He gives me a bright grin.

I wonder who Michelle is, but it’s not likely I’ll get the story. “Hi. How’s everything going?”

“It’s just great. I haven’t had a cat in years,” he tells me, stroking the sofa arm some more with a slow gentle rhythm, “but yours is really nice. I haven’t gotten him to purr yet, but at least he likes attention and doesn’t use his claws. What’d you say his name was again?”

My guilt surges as my eyes follow his hand petting the sofa arm for a few seconds. It’s abundantly clear he should be better supervised.

Plus, I have no idea what Michelle’s cat’s name was, or if she even had a cat.

Winging it, I toss out the first cat-type name that comes to mind. “It’s Tiger.”

“That’s a good name.” He looks down at the sofa arm again and nods, then his head pops up and he scents the air. “What’s that smell?”

A savory, mouth-watering blend of pure deliciousness is slowly filling the room. I’d been so guilt-ridden, I’d completely forgot about Channing in the kitchen. In this second, I wonder how I could have managed that.

“I—well, I don’t know. I think it’s dinner.”

He peers at me with his milky tainted eyes. “Who’s cooking?”

“A friend. We’re having dinner here. Is that okay?” His next words stun me.

“It’s about time you got yourself a boyfriend, Jericho.”