The Walls of Jericho

Diversion

Heads turn and a path clears across the gallery of the Avernus bunker as soon as we emerge into it. Almost all of the police investigators are still in the communications room, pouring through the information my magic was able to supply. That means that the gallery is almost entirely populated with fretful Avernus scientists and engineers.

Despite the feel of eyes upon us, like Channing, I don’t look back. Since it didn’t come with a user guide, I’m totally unsure how this Luna gig is supposed to work. So for the moment, I take my cues from my mate and parade through the room at a regal pace, feeling like a horrible fake.

A street urchin who spent many a night sleeping on a park bench parading around like a queen.

We’re stopped in front of the elevator, staring directly ahead at the silver doors and waiting, when something I don’t expect happens.

“Luna?” The Irish burr is male of course, since I’m the only female here. It’s polite the way the Irish are, though just a little tentative. “Ms. Jinks?”

Snarky as I can be on pretty much a full-time basis, I just can’t keep up this charade. I’m not arrogant by nature and pretending to be is too much work. I pivot on my toes to keep from falling flat on my face in these stupid high heels, and so I can see the owner of the voice. Beside me, Channing turns, but only at his shoulders.

“Yes?”

There’s a man standing directly behind us, but a few feet away. He’s left so much distance between us in fact that he has to take two steps up in order to position his extended hand within my reach. Like the intellectual Damien, he’s built tall and sort of reedy for a werewolf. Especially by comparison to the god-like build of my mate, or the burly strength of Ferdi. He has dark hair, about the color of my natural shade and an orangy-yellow hazel color to his eyes. Strangely, he also scents faintly of charcoal. The embroidered name on his white labcoat is ‘Eoin Jinks’.

As soon as he takes my hand, I feel it—the unnatural heat that’s even warmer than a divinely ‘normal’ werewolf like Channing feels.

Actually, what he feels like—or more accurately, who he feels like—is Drake.

“I’m Eoin Jinks,” he sputters nervously, shaking my hand entirely too long. “I’m the chief developer here. It’s—it’s such a pleasure to—to m-meet you, Luna.”

For years, I’ve been able to detect the loose, raggedy string doll pathways of chemielectrical impulses racing along nerves and use them to locate people in the areas directly around me. More recently, I’ve discovered that same ability allows me to see the similar structure of the circulatory system as biochemical hormones flood into it. Effectively, this allows me to assemble a cognitive map of a living body. It’s the same way the electrical wiring, metal plumbing and ducting and other construction materials allow me to diagram a man-made structure or thing, like a car or an appliance.

The preternatural heat coming off this engineer sparks my curiosity.

While Eoin Jinks is struggling to get the words out of his mouth, I glance down at his hand clasping mine gently and with an extraordinary warmth. I use the opportunity to close my eyes and extend my mage antennae. In the span of a few second long blink, the mental map of Mr. Jinks lights up inside my head.

Though it’s to my eternal shame that I slept with Drake, one thing it did show me is how his dragon body is constructed, including how it’s different from other beings I’ve ‘seen’.

Encapsulating a dragon’s lungs is a second layer of fire-resistant tissue where the gel-like fuel for dragonfire is both stored and consumed, drawing the necessary oxygen that the fire needs to burn from the lungs. This tissue is what the werewolves refer to as a dragon’s ‘furnaces’.

In Drake’s case, these same fire-resistant cells line his throat and mouth, and even form a hard, clear scale over his teeth, allowing him to breath fire without harm to himself.

And in Eoin Jinks the werewolf engineer of Avernus, those same fire-resistant cells form a patchy, incomplete spattering around his lungs and up into his throat and mouth. Residual furnaces. The source of his charcoal-y smell. This werewolf is a distant descendant of a dragon.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Eoin. Is there something I can do for you?”

“I—,” he swallows hard, flicking a nervous gaze at Channing and dropping my hand immediately, “—was wondering if you’d like a tour of the facility. I-if the Alpha is agreeable, of course.”

I grin, remembering what Channing said to me about setting a precedent. Well, let’s see what he thinks about this one. “He’s agreeable,” I state, without consulting him at all. “Please. I’d like to see more of the work you do here.”

Behind me, Channing inhales a deliberate and audible breath, then exhales an intentionally noticeable sigh of patience. Stepping up beside me, he takes my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. “It’s a good idea, Eoin. Especially since so much of the work here is based on descriptions of your Luna’s technomage abilities.”

The engineer breathes a whimpering groan of nearly orgasmic delight, a wide smile beaming across his face.

He’s pulled off a real coup in terms of power here—first, for the gamble in addressing the Alpha and Luna at all, and second, when I accept and Channing compliments him for his suggestion. If Eoin Jinks is unmated—which is a high probability based on what my mate has said about the staff at this facility, and my personal experience with the intellectual type werewolves like Damien—I’d bet odds he won’t be after word of this gets out.

Eoin has just propelled himself into the status of local studmuffin.

I give Channing’s hand a gentle squeeze that’s immediately and reassuringly returned. Then give the hovering engineer an indulgent smile. “Lead on.”

**

While the main living quarters and administrative areas are on the second level of the bunker, the third level is almost entirely laboratory space. There’s a single conference room, remarkably utilitarian with rows of chairs at evenly-spaced intervals facing a wall lined halfway up with a layered whiteboards. The room is equipped with every high-tech piece of audio-visual gadgetry—anything the senior scientist or senior engineer needs to present the requirements for the latest project, explain the present failures or brainstorm next steps with the staff.

The first two labs are dedicated to developing the launching tool for the tracker that was being developed in the third. While all three are interesting, it’s the fourth lab that makes my jaw drop.

“In this lab,” Eoin tells me, “we’re studying the data collected by Dr. Lyall in Crossroads when you were attacked by and brought down the dragon.”

“Dr. Lyall?” I arch a brow and flick a meaningful glance at Channing, one that promises a metric fuckton of static electric pain.

“Em—,” the engineer clears his throat uncomfortably, “Damien Lyall. The Alpha’s second in command.”

“And what has he collected about me?”

Eoin’s face lights up like a kid turned loose in a toy store. At an approving nod from Channing, he turns to the computer keyboard and initiates a display. “Well, you’re kind of a rock star around here, Luna,” he admits adoringly.

Upon his command, immediately, a map of Crossroads is projected onto it, with a path I recognize illuminated in red. The route we took on the motorcycle the night of our first, ridiculously short date. The night that started it all cascading at a rate I didn't think possible.

“What are the different colored sections you have highlighted?” I ask, studying the faint yellow, green and purple portions of the map that are outlined.

“They’re sections of the city’s power grid.” Eoin draws an excited breath. “Dr. Lyall managed to reverse calculate the voltage of the electrical discharge you produced to bring down the dragon using the spikes and ebbs in the Crossroads electrical grid after dragon your encounter. What we understood from the details we’ve been provided was that you drew from the electrical grid. Our measurements indicate the sections of the grid you accessed—these that are highlighted— couldn’t have supplied the necessary voltage. Even the whole of the grid couldn't have generated that.”

A wave of confusion washes over me. I know I accessed the electrical grid that night, collected the energy and directed it at the dragon when I discharged it. I also know I can draw energy from the biochemielectrial power generated by the human body, which is the only other source I can think of for the difference.

What I don’t know is whether or not that can hurt a human body.

“Since you’re here, we’re wondering if you would tell us how you supplemented or amplified the voltage to the level that you discharged,” Eoin asks, and I can feel the collection of other scientists and engineers crowding around the lab and the viewing area from the overhead gallery hanging on my reply.

I glance at Channing. You’ve known this all along?>

And you allowed it?>

.>

Does it occur to you that this theft might have been an elaborate prank aimed at baiting me here?>

It does. I can’t see Damien engineering something like that though.>

Can you see Ferdi doing it?>

His hesitation before he answers speaks volumes. I don’t believe so. I don’t think Ferdi’s smart enough to organize something so complex.>

I suppress the derisive snort that his response garners. I didn’t think my beefcake playboy mate was smart enough to get the better of me either. Look where that’s landed me.

“I don’t know, Eoin.” I hear disappointed sighs from the collected scientists around me. “I thought that all I did was collect the charge, then discharge it with direction. But if you’re telling me that there’s no way that much electricity came exclusively from the environment, I don’t know where else it might have come from.”

“Where does it come from when you zap—people?” Channing prompts, neglecting to mention he’s the ‘people’ I’ve zapped most frequently.

For the sake of his Alpha pride, I let the opportunity to humiliate him pass me by too. I lift my left hand, splaying my fingers and electricity arcs in jagged and forked lines between them, white-hot and sparking.  There’s a collective gasp from the gathered assemblage. It’s followed by an obvious widening of the space directly around me, accompanied by Channing’s entertained chuckle. “I don’t know,” I reply again.

The words spur a flurry of hushed speculation.

“Can we—uh—can we try to—to measure that?” Eoin practically begs, his eyes dilated and focused excitedly on the dancing electricity around my fingers.

I give a wishy-washy shrug and nod. “Sure, why not?”

In the next second, the lab erupts into a wild frenzy of activity. Scientists rush past each other in every direction. Some scuttle about to collect instruments. Others hurry to initiate various programs on their computers. Another small contingent scurry to adjust method and gadget sensitivities, fine tuning them to my technomagic.

Babydoll, make certain what you give them isn’t visible to the police> Channing warns unnecessarily. 

I’ve been hiding my strangeness for years—making sure there are no digital witnesses comes second nature.>

Kissing my cheek, my mate backs himself up and out of the way, leaning against the wall with his arms and ankles crossed. Thus permitted, the laboratorians in the room position themselves and their equipment around me to attempt to take measurements. Those monitoring data feeds from the various instruments recommend specificity adjustments to tweak the data they collect.

This close, I can feel every instrument, including the activity levels as they try to read my magic. Recognizing a few aren’t picking anything up, I lift my right hand, positioning the pair as if I’m holding an invisible ball.

Between my cupped hands, the energy arcs, trailing from my fingertips. Concentrating, I increase the discharge between them and a sparking yellow-white plasma ball forms.

Across from me, Channing stands upright. His scarred brow is arched as he meets my eyes over the glowing plasma ball. He watches warily but he says nothing further. I know what he’s thinking staring at the luminous sparking plasma. I’m thinking it too.

The scientists’ murmurs get louder, as do the quietly barked orders from those monitoring the instrument data pouring into the myriad data analytics programs they have running. Their voices are getting louder as their elation builds.

With my invisible tentacles extended, I feel movement begin in the communications room upstairs. The senior scientist and senior engineer are wrapping things up with the police investigators. Holding out as long as I can, I give this team of scientists every last second of data they can collect. Then abruptly, I cut the magic.

An agonized collective groan erupts from the room.

“Quiet.” Channing’s stern order silences it immediately. Put that stuff away. Now> he orders in wolfspeak through the wolf link and the laboratorians quickly oblige, unable to resist his alpha command.

The sounds of conversation overhead in the gallery grow louder as the police are escorted slowly towards the elevator to the surface.

Jericho, come here.>

I hurry towards him on my toes to silence the click of these stupid heels. Wrapping his arms around me, Channing lifts me off my feet and noiselessly backs us up against the wall, underneath the gallery above so we’re not seen.

Channing, they’ll know we’re still here the minute they see the car.>

That’s fine. They won’t know where. For all they know, we’ve taken a short walk in the forest. I don’t want them to see us down here amidst all the activity.>

I lose track of how long it takes for the troop of police officers to use the dinky three person maximum capacity elevator that’s slow as all hell and all get to the surface to leave. Which is fine. Channing sets me on my feet but keeps his arms around me possessively. It’s easy enough to snuggle up against his warm solid chest, breathe in the clean, masculine sand-salt-sea fragrance coming off of him and let his wolf senses monitor the progress of the elevator.

It’s immediately obvious when the last of the police are gone. From the upstairs gallery, footsteps pound as the two senior staff members race for the stairs to the lower laboratory levels. We both chuckle as a building roar of excited technical babble starts up over the data collected from me over the course of a few short minutes.

Releasing me, Channing takes my hand. “Time for us to go, babydoll.”

“Alpha! Luna!”

We stop our measured pace towards the stairs, both looking over our shoulders for the source of the voice that called to us.

It’s the senior scientist, aided by hurriedly whispered prompts from Eoin Jinks. “Is there any way we can run some more tests? Please. There’s so much we can do with this information if we just understand what’s happening when the Luna uses her magic. Please, Alpha, please Luna. We’re happy to work around your schedule. If you’d prefer, we can transport the equipment to a location more conducive to your comfort—.”

“Not tonight,” Channing says, and his tone brooks no argument.  

The entire room fills with despair. Shoulders slump. Expressions morph from hopeful anticipation to pessimistic frustration. Heads fall into hands.

“Will you be back?”

I look up at my mate as he looks down at me with a crafty smile.

“I don’t know.” Shrugging, Channing shakes his head. “That depends on who wins our bet on backgammon.”

“Backgammon?” Eoin Jinks seizes on the opportunity, gesturing at the group of lab-coated intellectuals around him. “We’re all fans. We play. We watch the professional competitions. Why don’t we all get dinner together? I’ll make the arrangements for a whole section. You two can play your game for a live and appreciative audience at the Tartine. Food’s incredible. Wines are incredible. Ambiance is incredible. What do you say?”

Channing’s amusement is readily apparent, even through the wolf link.

.>

Flashing me one of his blindingly beautiful lady-killer smiles, Channing replies, “Okay. Eight-thirty. We eat. We play. I’ll tell you guys when the winner is declared whether she’ll be back or not.”