Chapter Four – Kris Cole

 

“Ready?” Hunter asked from the office door as Kris finished zipping up her canvas duffel.

She looked back over her shoulder, took in the handsome dragon shifter standing behind her. “As I’ll ever be,” she said. She stepped out from behind the big mahogany desk Colonel Harrington had left to her when he’d dropped off the face of the earth nearly a year before, and crossed to Hunter in long-legged strides.

“You ready for this much time off?” he asked as she stepped out and began to lock her door behind her. Not that it would do much good to keep anyone out, of course. The dragon standing beside her, with his almost black hair and agile fingers, could have picked the lock in no time at all. He was, after all, one of the greatest cat burglars the world had ever known.

Until, of course, Col. Harrington got hold of him and forced him to work for the PRB.

Kris snorted. “Time off? You’re kidding, right? We’re going to try and hunt down whatever Colonel Harrington was working on. How the hell does that register as time off to you?”

Together, they walked down to the elevator. All around them, the office was silent, with all the shifter agents out on jobs, or gone home for the evening. Even Tabitha, their resident witch, had called it a night. “Wide open spaces, fresh air, a chance to not hear a ringing phone?”

Even Hunter’s casual wear was designer. Wool slacks, thousand-dollar Italian boots that came just up to his ankles, tailored shirt. And, of course, that chiseled chin of his.

Kris looked practically homeless compared to him, with her blouse, old jeans, and old, worn-down-at-the-heels combat boots.

She looked him up and down, eyebrow raised as he punched the down button for the elevator. “You? Wide open spaces?” she asked, chuckling. “Figured you’d be the type who only wanted to vacation in London or New York.”

He put a hand over his heart in mock injury. “I’m hurt, Kris. I’m a dragon, not a human. What about this fetching duffel bag doesn’t say I’m prepared to brave the frozen wastes?” He hefted the bag in his hand, illustrating his point. “Besides, I enjoy the wilds as much as any of us. Why wouldn’t I be excited to stretch my wings?”

Kris chuckled again, flicking her long auburn hair back over her shoulder. That last part was certainly true. Over the last few months, they’d both been practically crammed into the little storage unit the colonel had left for her by way of a bag of random keys stuffed into his home office’s desk drawer.

It had taken Hunter to find the facility where he’d had a unit rented, but when they did, the attendant showed up and let Kris know she was already on the list as the authorized person.

Even now, as they prepared for their flight out to Anchorage, it boggled Kris’s mind to think about all the research the colonel had stashed away in that little, barely secure unit. Ancient maps, old history tomes, translations of texts that were a thousand years old, or older. Three months of solid sleuthing later, and they didn’t even have much to show for it. Just a location in the distant north, somewhere in Alaska on the border of the Canadian Yukon territory.

Hunter pressed the button for the ground floor, and the two of them settled into the ride down.

If you’d told her a year ago that she’d be flying to quite literally the middle of nowhere with Hunter, she’d have called you crazy. And an idiot. Now, though, as they stood about a foot apart from each other, she wasn’t so sure.

Sure, he got on her nerves sometimes with the way he seemed to be overcompensating with all his posh tastes, but he wasn’t a bad guy. At least, not after you’d spent a solid four months working side by side to decipher a trail of clues left by the J. Edgar Hoover of paranormal detection and combat.

They settled into an almost companionable silence as, above the door, the number on the elevator began to change. First six, then five, then four as their elevator car began to descend to the lobby.

A silence that Hunter was the first to break. “Think we’re on a wild goose chase?”

“I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind,” Kris admitted after a moment. “No satellite imagery to prove the existence of anything doesn’t exactly engender confidence.”

“But, it makes sense. That’s where everything is leading us, Kris. That’s where this archive thing is. It has to be.”

Along with all the ancient texts and maps had been files taken from some government agency, either the CIA or its World War II era predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services.

“I still don’t understand why,” Kris said. “That’s all. Why was he tracking this thing down, why does it even exist? What’s in there? Some kind of doomsday device? An ancient relic?”

“Maybe he just wanted to know?” Hunter asked. “You know how curious the colonel always was.”

The elevator came to a slow halt, rising and falling a little as it settled down on their destination floor, before the little bell chimed, and the doors opened.

“Oh, believe me,” she said as she walked out into the lobby. “I know how he is.”

The reception area of the office building was quiet, with just the middle-aged overnight security guard behind the oaken desk. Granite covered the walls, and a set of revolving doors was in the far wall, leading out onto the busy street.

Larry, the security guard for as long as Kris could remember, glanced up from the desk as they exited the elevator, and gave them a wide smile from within his bushy beard. He was a little heavyset and paunchy, but his eyes were at least gentle.

“Have a good night, Larry,” Kris said with as a nod as they walked straight past him and headed for the front door.

“You, too, Ms. Cole,” Larry replied.

“And Larry?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I’ll be leaving my car in the lot for a bit? Make sure it’s not towed?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, nodding intently. “I’ll make personally sure it’s safe and sound when you come back for it.”

“You know Larry always checks you out every time we come through here,” Hunter said as they went through the revolving door with Kris in the lead.

Kris grinned as she looked back over her shoulder at the other dragon. “Sure he’s not giving you the once-over? You don’t know which way he swings.”

“Oh no,” he replied, his eyes flickering down to the backside of her tight jeans, “I think he’s a fan of the color red. Can’t say I blame him, either.”

A little bit of color rose to her cheeks as she stepped out onto the street. Had he really just said that? Not that she wasn’t flattered, of course, but this was work.

He must have caught the meaning of the look on her face as she turned to him, bag still over her shoulder. “Sorry,” he said with a wince. “That was probably inappropriate, wasn’t it?”

She cleared her throat, nodded. “Probably, yeah.”

“Apology accepted?”

She pressed her lips together, her eyes searching past him for a moment farther down the street, about six blocks down. To a black sedan with two men sitting in front. A human would never have been able to see the binoculars they brought to their faces as Hunter and Kris appeared on the street, not at this distance with the naked eye.

But a dragon trained to be a spy? To be a commando?

“Kris?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said with a little wave of her hand, “apology accepted.”

Hunter frowned, cocked his head to the side. Almost like that was too easy of a response to be the one he was actually expecting. A moment later, recognition dawned on his face, and he smiled. “There’s someone following us, isn’t there?”

Her smile widened. She knew he was good. “Sure is. We should probably get to the car and head for the flight.”

“Think it’s related to our little trip?” he asked as they walked down to the intersection. They didn’t have a protected light, and cars zipped, zoomed, and roared past, their headlights bright and shining in the St. Louis night.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” she asked as she tapped the toe of her boot. “Any reason they’d be coming after you?”

“Moi? You know I’ve kept my snout clean since Harrington laid that blackmail folder down in front of me.”

“Well, Harrington’s been away. And you know what they say about mice when the cat’s away.”

His voice sounded full of genuine hurt when he replied. “And where would I have found the time? You’ve monopolized it just as thoroughly as your predecessor.”

The light changed, and, without a word, they crossed over the ladder-painted white crosswalk and headed for the covered parking. Kris was careful to keep her eyes straight ahead, to not let it divert towards the men following them.

“You know,” she said as they finished crossing to the other side, “pretty soon we’ll find the dossier he has on you. It’s just a matter of time till you’re free.”

That had been their agreement. He’d help her find what Col. Harrington had been hiding, and where it led. And she’d help him find the blackmail material the old man had used to get Hunter to work with the PRB and, later, Full Moon Security.

Hunter sniffed. “Well, it won’t come soon enough. I know I joked earlier about not needing to vacation in New York or Paris—”

“London, if I remember correctly.”

“Fine, New York or London. But, I’d still like a chance to travel again. St. Louis’s food just isn’t on par with my usual tastes.”

“Noted,” she said as they entered the nearly empty parking garage. She turned to him. “Where’d you park?”

He came to a stop. “Where did I park?” he asked her back. “Why don’t we just take your car?”

She turned back to him and held up three index fingers. And ticked them off as she went down the list. “Because, one, you hate my car. Two, I already told Larry my car would be here for a while. And, three, I’m not paying the fucking parking fees at the airport. That’d be my whole goddamn treasure horde.”

“So I get stuck with the fees?”

“I’m the boss here, aren’t I?”

“How is that fair? Haven’t you considered the impact those will have on my own treasure horde?”

She crossed her arms and smiled. “Bosses determine fairness.”

“Fine,” he said, gesturing down one of the nearby rows with a sigh. “Over this way.”

As they approached the row, Hunter fished for his keys in his pocket and pressed a button on his key fob. An electronic beep boop sounded on a nearby sleek black BMW.

She stopped in her tracks and gave him a look. He was parked even closer than she was, and she was the head of FMS.

“What?” he asked, looking from her to the car and back again.

“Nice parking spot,” Kris said, pointing to his Bimmer. “You pay extra for that?”

He just grinned and popped the trunk. “Come on. We’ve got a tail to lose.”

“Why bother?” she said as she hefted the duffel bag and stuffed it into the trunk alongside his. The sports car’s storage space left a little something to be desired. “If they’re here following us, they probably have an idea of where we’re going. I didn’t use aliases for the tickets.”

“No change in plans, then?” he asked as he slammed down the trunk with a certain finality, the sound echoing through the cement garage.

She shrugged, stuffed her hands in her pockets. For a moment, she considered diving back into the trunk and going for her sidearm, but figured it wasn’t worth it. After all, if they’d wanted to go after her, they’d have come up into the FMS offices. And, from the looks of them, they weren’t exactly supernatural threats. Just plain, black-mirror-shade-wearing spooks.

“No change,” she said. “First things first, we get to Anchorage. After that, we’ll look at our options.”

Hunter made a face as he shook his head.

“What?”

He went to say something, but bit it off at the last moment.

“What?” she asked, taking a step towards him. “Come on, Hunter, tell me.”

“You’re just a real piece of work, Kris Cole. You know that?”

“I know,” she said, going over to the passenger side and gripping the door handle. “Now, you gonna let me in, or not?”