 
## **Contents**

Title Page

Previously on The Undergods

CHAPTER ONE PHI

CHAPTER TWO OMEN

CHAPTER THREE ASH

CHAPTER FOUR SWISS

CHAPTER FIVE OMEN

CHAPTER SIX DOM

CHAPTER SEVEN ZERO

CHAPTER EIGHT BACH

CHAPTER NINE ZERO

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THE UNDERGODS

Episode 4

Eva Kane

Copyright © 2015 Eva Kane

All rights reserved. This book is a work of fiction. Any portion thereof, may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Distributed by Smashwords.

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www.EvaKane.com
Previously on The Undergods:

  * Swiss headed out on her own op while fighting to adapt to Phi's new upgrades. 
  * The rest of the undergods held their tongues and played their parts as Dom tortured and killed the eighth man on his kill list, Arman Aldo. 
  * Bach cleansed his palette after a bloody day by leading foreign authorities to a shipping container of girls slated to be sold into slavery. He vowed never to allow another sadist into the undergods on his watch.

CHAPTER ONE

PHI

Phi frowned at the data points graphed out on his display. Yet again, Swiss's field performance had proven unacceptable.

Her battle with the alter had been brief, but in those 14.28 seconds the alter had outperformed Swiss on every metric. Even after the alter had taken her to the ground, Swiss had refused to go on the offensive and put her upgrades to task. She relied on a commercial piece of tubing to incapacitate the alter while she bided her time and allowed herself to be dominated.

Her insistence to continue with this passive approach to victory frustrated Phi to his core.

No living, breathing creature on the earth surpassed Swiss in form or function, and yet the competition continuously outshined her in the field.

On average, Mike's attacks had been 0.007 seconds faster than Swiss's responses. If the fight had continued 20, or even 30, seconds Swiss would have been overcome. She just didn't have the heart to make the most effective move, and she hesitated before making what few moves she did make.

Phi suspected that the chasm between Swiss's actions and those of her opponents came down to one thing: memory. But suspecting what needed addressing and effectively addressing it were two different puzzles.

Erasing memory led to intractable and essentially incoherent subjects, like Mike and the other alters. Retaining memory resulted in a willful and ego-driven subject, like Swiss. At present the latter was preferable, but there had to be a middle ground somewhere. Phi hadn't uncovered any such middle ground yet but he was reasonably certain he would find it in the realm of memories and their resulting self-identity.

Yet as Phi was learning from Subject I77, memories were an inexact science, at best.

Subject I77's body was sound and fit despite being attached to life support for over six years. Its pod catalyzed all needed function, while regular stimulation served to keep Subject I77's muscles healthy and mobile. The body shell itself was actually healthier and infinitely more pure than when it had housed Leo, yet Phi could not yet find a mind that could reanimate it...other than Swiss's. Something about Swiss's mind adapted to new hosts in a way that other minds did not. Subject I77 was unable to accept clones of its own original brain. Each brain had died on the vine, so to speak. Even when Phi cloned his personal brain, all memories included, Subject I77 exhibited no motor function whatsoever. Scans indicated that audio waves were received but not necessarily processed in any comprehensible way.

Memory had to be the stumbling block. But if that was so, why was Swiss the exception? Why could her mind adapt? What, specifically, was different in her makeup? If Phi could find out why Swiss was the outlier and how she assimilated then he could recreate the effect in subjects of his choosing.

The computer gave Phi a warning beep, letting him know that Swiss had begun attaching the leads to Mike's unconscious body over in Memphis. Phi frowned, preparing himself for the futility of the next few hours. Reprogramming Mike constituted an utter waste of time and resources, but it was part of Swiss's pathology that could not be reasoned with.

Swiss had the memories and mindset of a medic. She saved people—even the guinea pigs like Mike, who would be better served through termination. Devising means to sustain Mike's life may seem a humane choice on a short-term timeline, but leaving known alters in play was criminally reckless. Even after reprogramming, an alter presented exponentially more risks to society than benefits.

But the pitfalls of reckless assumptions were difficult to explain to someone like Swiss. Life had trained her to do what appeared best in the moment and to let the future unfold how it would. And she wasn't alone in this mindset. The majority of humans shared similar short-sighted morals, which was why the planet was on the cusp of crisis. Nearly everyone was living in the moment and basing decisions on emotional sensations...what felt right.

Phi suspected this same emotion-based decision making was what handicapped Swiss in battle. She resisted playing the role of aggressor because she feared becoming like her father. Swiss's memories of watching her father kill her mother had left Swiss with a deep-seated need to protect. It was, of course, far too late for Swiss to save her own mother. She'd died long ago. But memories had the ability to overlay the past onto the present and influence current action. So as long as the trauma of the past overshadowed the threat of the present, Swiss would continue to relive the attack on her mother again and again, her adult self always choosing to protect her mother and condemn the actions of her father.

Memories and emotion were what kept Swiss from being the omnipotent creature she was. As long as Swiss kept living in the past, she would never be what Phi needed her to be. And that was unacceptable.

CHAPTER TWO

OMEN

The front door of the St. Vincent mansion unlatched and opened at Omen's approach.

"Good evening, Hale," the home's automated hostess greeted through his comm. "It's good to see you, although it's a little late for you to be working. Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine, Mavis," Omen said as he crossed the threshold into the vaulted entryway. "I'm just making sure everything is all set for tomorrow."

"You mean for Sam's return home? How exciting!" Mavis replied. "It's been 452 days since Sam walked through that door. I've planned something special for him."

"I'm sure he'll love it," Omen said as he paused, listened, and took a sniff at the air. It smelled of William's custom-made cleaner with a hint of a spaghetti dinner sneaking through.

Omen could almost see the evening's events playing out in his mind—Demi laying out an assortment of ingredients and coaxing William to deduce what they would they would be making. William not even looking up from his tablet as he guessed correctly on his first try.

Then Demi would have gotten William to put down his tablet by threatening to cook for him. That always got his attention. It wasn't that Demi was a bad cook. She was, in fact, one of the few housewives in Reno who cooked at all. But William was a bit of chemist in the kitchen. For some reason, he took food very seriously. He always obsessed over proportions down to the granule and measured cooking time by seconds, not minutes. Demi would have prepared the spaghetti ingredients for William then watched him redo everything she'd just done to meet his own personal standards. Then Demi would have started asking him questions about his process.

How long until we add the tomatoes?

Does it matter which direction we stir?

How many flakes of oregano should we add?

How much pressure can build up in the pressure cooker before it requires decompression?

Demi would have asked any and every question she could think of just to get her boy talking. And all the while she would be smiling and singing under her breath, happy for the sense that she and her son were in the same place at the same time, doing the same thing together until the meal was complete and William unceremoniously excused himself.

Cooking. Eating. Cleaning. William was passionate about all three, which meant Demi was passionate about doing them every day with her son.

A dull ache formed in Hale's chest, and he swallowed back the bitter taste of jealousy creeping its way up his tongue. He was a grown-ass man. It was utterly useless for Hale's innerchild to be jealous of the maternal affection William barely tolerated.

Omen took a deep breath to clear his mind and refocus it to the task at hand. He was here on business. He should probably get to it.

"Don't worry, Hale," Mavis said, breaking Omen out of his thoughts. "The mansion is secure. William is in his room working on something that is beyond my processing capacity, and Demi is trying to decide what to wear to pick up Sam tomorrow. Do you want me to alert either of them of your presence?"

"Not this time," Hale said. "I'll make myself known."

"Okay. Is there anything I can do for you while you're here?" Mavis asked.

"I think I have everything I need, Mavis."

"You always do," Mavis replied, her tone cheeky. "But one of these days you're going to say yes and let me do something for you, Hale. So I'll just keep on asking until that day comes."

Omen smiled. "Well, until then, just keep taking care of the St. Vincents."

"Of course. We have each other's backs when it comes to that."

"Good night, Mavis."

"Good night, Hale."

Without another moment's pause, Omen made his way to the curved staircase, jogging his way up and turning down the hall to the right. He moved right past William's door and into the master bedroom, where Lou was adding a dress to an already substantial pile of dresses on the bed.

"I mean, I like it," Lou was saying as she eyed the dress. "But I don't think it's your winner."

Movements stealthy, Omen came up behind his apprentice and whispered, "Gotcha."

Lou's elbow shot back to hit him in the midsection, but Omen used the momentum to spin Lou so they were face-to-face.

"Feeling comfortable, are we?" he asked, knowing that his eyes showed disappointment. Lou opened her mouth to apologize, and Omen stopped her with a gesture. "I need two minutes with Demi to discuss tomorrow. Close the door behind you."

Saying nothing, Lou gave him a nod and left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Omen considered how easily he had come up behind his newest employee, and he fought back a sigh. Lou was good security in general, but she was distractable. Omen wasn't sure he could train that out of her. He wished he could so he could trust Lou to watch over Demi full time. But the woman just wasn't ready.

An instant later, Demi stepped out of her closet and moved into the 360° mirror. Her eyes skeptically regarded the front of her reflection before she rotated out the carousel view of the mirror to see how her ass looked in the dress.

From his vantage point, Omen had a perfect profile view. The cocktail dress fit Demi like a royal blue condom, hugging every curve to show off the silhouette that had gotten nearly a dozen overly attentive bodyguards fired. Demi was that fucking perfect.

Omen fought the urge to press his hand to his chest to ease the ache that built up whenever he looked at her.

Not for me, he reminded himself.

Of all the women in the world that Leo could have had a kid with, why did the condom have to break on this one? Why not some other fling? There had certainly been a long list of affairs to choose from, and Omen could have handled shadowing any of those other woman day in and day out, no problem. But Demi? Never in all his life had Omen wanted a woman so badly. Every sound, every word, every look, every perfume lured him to touch...to taste.

Demi made him weak. She made him want, and Omen hated her for it. He had to.

"What do you think?" Demi asked running her hand over the curve of her own ass without enthusiasm. "How does it look?"

Omen swallowed the lump developing in his throat so it wouldn't get in the way of the disdain he was replacing it with. "I wouldn't buy it."

Demi literally jumped, her eyes locking onto Omen before darting around the room, looking for Lou. "Where's Lou? She was just here."

"I asked her to give us a moment to discuss how things will go with Sam tomorrow." Omen stepped away from the bed, keeping his eyes locked firmly on Demi's as he spoke. "I got you your wish. You can drive yourself tomorrow, and there will be no visible manpower. You and William will arrive at the café alone, where you will join Sam and me."

Demi's eyebrows drew together, a frown marring that perfect mouth of hers. "That's not what I requested—"

"My presence is not optional," Omen said over her. "But the benefit to you is that I will be there to remove William from the equation when you and Sam head to the hotel."

Demi hesitated. "The hotel?"

"Of course." Omen kept his expression neutral. "It's been fifteen months since you two lovebirds saw each other."

He studied her expression closely, watching for her anticipation...for her desire. There was no doubt Sam had found someone to suck his dick behind bars—Sam was flexible like that—but it had definitely been fifteen months since Demi had gone skin-to-skin. She'd been faithful to Sam, which meant she had to be excited to get her man back.

She hid it well, though, dropping her eyes before looking back at the mirror.

"It's the wrong dress," she said and walked back into her closet.

The move pissed Omen off. He was trying to get a read on her, and she just walked off like he was nothing.

"Pick anything," he snapped at her. "You could put on a paper bag and look fucktastic."

She didn't respond, which only made Omen all the more aware that he had no business calling his employer fucktastic. Where the hell had that come from? Lou wasn't the only one slipping that night.

Omen got back on track. "So tomorrow I will pick up Sam alone at the prison, and you and William will meet us at the cafe. William and Sam will have a brief reunion, which will be documented by fellow diners. Then I will remove William from the cafe and take him home before media arrives. Two other bodyguards will show up in a town car. The first bodyguard will take your car and follow behind. The second bodyguard will chauffeur you and Sam to the hotel in a separate town car. You two can stay there however long you need. William will be occupied at home until the two of you return."

Silence answered Omen, agitating him further.

"Demi?" he said. "You copy all that?"

Demi walked out of her closet wearing matching violet panties and bra. Lace. For a moment, that was all Omen saw until he noticed she was holding out a casual full-length dress with a slit from ankle to hip.

"How about this one?" she asked, holding the dress to the side so she could examine it while she stood all but naked in front of him. "It's sexy without trying too hard. It's modest, but all you have to do is pull the slit to the side and you've got full access."

Demi turned to the mirror, holding the dress up under her neck. A few shreds of strategically placed violet lace accented Omen's view of otherwise-unclothed perfection.

Demi pulled the slit to the side and frowned at the view she saw in her reflection. "No panties, though. I'd need to go commando underneath."

The mental image her words drew in Omen's mind knocked the air right out of him. It took him a moment to find his voice again. "I'll let Lou answer that one," he managed. "In the meantime, I'm going to assume you heard everything else I said. Correct?"

"Don't I always?" Demi said, glancing his way.

Yes. She did. "Good. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

Omen didn't waste a moment getting to Lou on the other side of the bedroom door.

"I'm offsite from here for the rest of the night," he said to Lou without preamble as he distanced himself from the bedroom. "But I'm available if you need me."

"I'm so sorry about when you came in," Lou said in a rush. "That was unacceptable. I have no excuse."

Omen nodded. "We'll work on it. But not tonight." He gestured to the bedroom. "Help her figure out what she wants to wear, then bow out. We all start bright and early tomorrow."

"Will do, boss," Lou said, heading back in. "Have a good night."

"You too," Omen said before escaping the house.

CHAPTER THREE

ASH

Catering to the intellectually elite came with its pros and cons.

Pro: The Aqueduct's usual crowd was quite tidy.

Con: The Aqueduct's usual crowd was quite tidy because a good percentage of them were clinically OCD. At least half of Ash's patrons would take one glance at the mess the bounty hunters had left in their wake the night before, spin on their heels, and not look back. That meant Ash had to pull up her sleeves and help the clean team get scrubbing if she wanted to open on time for the evening's private event.

The bounty hunters would have to find a new source of secure FiWi. The only people who would be inside The Aqueduct that night were the hackers who could hack themselves in. Once again, meticulous and compulsive patrons would fill the bar tonight—something Ash felt very good about after seeing what she could see under the UV cleaning lights.

Where the hell had all these fluids come from, and what were they?

No, scratch that. She didn't want to know. She just needed to get them all gone before her high-tech patrons came in with the hi-tech spectra-light equipment that would reveal anything she'd missed—which would be nothing, thanks to her business partner's foresight.

Ash didn't know how she had scored such an amazing partner, but the man had foreseen the fastidiousness of their clientele and insisted that the entire space be covered in a glass glaze that allowed actual waterfalls of cleaner to spill down from the top corners where the walls met the ceiling. With a simple flip of a switch, the walls and floors self cleaned and became pristine under the microscope of more revealing light spectrums. This process left only raised flat surfaces like the table screens to be wiped by hand.

And to think that Ash had initially argued that the waterfall cleaning design was overkill. Oh, how naïve she'd been back then. It was a good thing Ash's investor had exactly zero respect for her opinion. He did exactly what he wanted, and from what Ash could tell, he made a habit of getting everything he asked for.

Things like her.

For some reason the mysterious investor had wanted Ash running his place. He'd known all the right buttons to push to get her to sell her bar in Colorado and move her ass to Reno. Ash still hadn't figured why he'd chosen her. If she ever met the guy it would be one of the first questions she'd ask. In the meantime, she and three members of the cleaning team were under the glow of black light, wiping everything down as fast as they could.

"Hello?" a voice called from the front doorway.

Ash froze and looked over her shoulder. They were closed. The door was locked. How had someone gotten in?

"We're closed," she called out.

"I can see that," the man's voice said. "Although this almost looks like a real bar at the moment. You had me fooled last night."

That voice. Ash recognized it. So even though she could see only the glow of the man's teeth in the black light, she knew who she was talking to. "Ah, Deacon. Did Titan let you in to get your stuff?"

Because he shouldn't have. They'd have to have a talk about that unilateral decision.

"He did," Deacon replied, stepping forward. "Hope you don't mind, although it looks like I came at an inopportune time."

"Just cleaning up after last night," she said with a smile.

"No kidding," he said, having the grace to sound a little stunned at what he saw. "All this is just from last night?"

She nodded as she walked up to meet him. "We clean every day, although it usually isn't this...coated. How are you doing? Everything work out with the EMTs?"

Deacon let out a little laugh. "Well, let's just say I don't think your computer is so stupid anymore. Doctors say if I would have waited much longer I wouldn't have liked the results."

"But you're okay now?"

Deacon nodded. "A little tender, but better than last night for sure. I came here for my—"

"Possessions," Ash said over him as she motioned for him to follow her to her office. "I had to put it in the lost and found when you didn't claim it before closing."

"The item?" he asked, his voice suddenly sounding quite cold.

"No," she replied easily. "The whole box. As you noticed, it was programmed to open only with your fingerprint. I can't open the box itself, but I can remove the box from the stand if something is unclaimed."

"Oh," he said, sounding less hostile. "Okay."

Ash patted a stool at the bar. "Wait here. I'll bring it out."

"Actually, I'll go in with you, if you don't mind."

Ash stopped and faced Deacon. This time it was her voice that dropped a few degrees when she spoke. "Actually, since I don't really know you, I do mind. So you'll wait out here."

Deacon looked like he wanted to fight her on the issue, so she silently armed her comm's stun feature. "Have a seat. I'll be right back with your lockbox."

Deacon didn't follow her, but he didn't sit either, as Ash stepped into her office—door locked behind her—to retrieve the lockbox.

Who was this guy and why was he suddenly in Gunnar's life?

A man that swung between cordial and willful that quickly in a conversation was dangerous. Some might even call Deacon's behavior a bit sociopathic. Add that social oddness to what the man had stashed in the lockbox, and Ash wasn't feeling so hot about the whole Deacon situation.

She hadn't been lying when she'd told Deacon the lockbox was totally secure. Ash hadn't opened it. She hadn't needed to. Her system could scan anything inside a lockbox down to a molecular level, so Ash hadn't needed to open the box to learn that it indeed held a gun with very unusual ammunition.

With the same dispassionate analysis that her computer had used to diagnose Deacon's allergic reaction the night before, Ash's computer had informed her that the life expectancy of an individual once the fluid in the bullet of Deacon's gun was introduced into the bloodstream was six seconds. It didn't matter where a person was hit, only that bullet and blood made contact.

In six seconds or less, the heart would stop and that person would be gone. Permanently. No antidote.

And Deacon was carrying these bullets around as he tailed Ash's only brother.

How could that possibly equate to anything good? More importantly, how could Ash send a message to Deacon about how important her brother's security was to her without pissing on the ego of the entire McGee clan?

Ash had given that topic a lot of thought throughout the day, and she still wasn't sure what the best answer was. But for now, she had little choice but to return the gun.

When Ash opened her office door, Deacon was standing right at the threshold.

"What took so long?" he asked, voice flat.

Adrenaline gushed into Ash's system at the abrupt confrontation, but she did her best to look unfazed. "Deacon? This is the part of the conversation where you get the fuck out of my personal space and go sit on that bar stool over there so I can hand you this lockbox, like I would do with any other customer."

When Deacon pushed Ash back into her office and stepped in after her, Ash had a moment of panic. She wasn't sure what Deacon's motives were, but Titan was still at the front door and one of the three cleaners had to have seen what he'd done. In the meantime, her comm band was armed to stun and she had secondary self-defense measures behind her desk. Next time he touched her, she would make her move.

"Let's have a little talk," Deacon said just before he grabbed the office door and swung it shut behind them.

Only it didn't shut.

Mid-swing, the door switched trajectories and before Deacon could turn to investigate, his entire body stiffened and dropped unconscious to the ground. To Ash's surprise, standing over Deacon's body and holding a stun stick was none other than her faithful bar back.

"Gideon?" Ash breathed in relief. "Your timing literally could not have been better."

She hadn't even known Gideon was in the building. He wasn't on the schedule for three more hours. But Ash wasn't going to argue with providence. Whatever Gideon's reasons for coming in early, he'd just saved her ass.

Gideon stepped over Deacon to get to her. "Are you okay?"

Funny he should ask, because Ash suddenly felt quite...off balance. She gripped the edge of her desk as an anchor point. "Well, that situation escalated quickly."

Gideon held up the stun stick. "And we're going to have company soon."

She blinked, not catching Gideon's meaning until she saw the light blinking on the stun stick. Deployed stun sticks automatically alerted authorities. They had minutes, at most, before investigators came to their door.

"Shit," Ash breathed. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

"What is it?" Gideon asked. "Who is this guy?"

"He's a McGee enforcer," Ash said, too caught off guard to lie. Holy shit. Poor Gideon had just zapped a McGee enforcer. Would the McGee come after Gideon for something like that? Did the McGees let things like this go?

Ash couldn't think about that now. First things first. What to say to the police?

She dialed Gunnar.

"Who are you calling?" Gideon asked just as his own comm pinged with a message. Gideon was distracted for a moment as he sent a reply, so Ash purposefully ignored his question.

One ring. Two rings. Then, "I really don't have time right now, Ash. What is it?"

Thank God! "Gun?" she said. "Remember that asshat you brought in with you last night? The one who stashed his gun in a lockbox while he went to the hospital?"

Her brother's tone turned cautious. "Of course."

Ash glanced at the still-motionless body lying on her office floor. Stun sticks knocked a person out, but not for long. She wasn't sure how much time they had.

"Well, he just came back for his gun. And when I went to get the lockbox out of my office, he assaulted me. It was out of nowhere, too. He'd be all over me right now if Gideon hadn't knocked him out with a stun stick, which means the cops are coming. What the hell do I do?"

"Fuck!" Gunnar cursed. "Are you kidding me? Ash—"

"Gun," Ash interrupted. "I get that this was a very bad thing to have happen, but there's something we don't know here. He was way too aggressive. He came in all nice and conversational, and the second he had me near my office he started acting like I was a prisoner of war. It was bizarre. Gideon saved my ass, but now we have cops coming, and McGee owns half of them. Everyone knows that. So do I turn this guy in? Tell them the truth?"

Before her brother could respond, a female voice spoke from behind Gideon. "I've found the truth to be a good place to start."

Ash looked over at the doorway and felt her stomach sink. She'd never seen the woman before, but she knew the badge reflecting in the black light.

"Never mind," Ash muttered and hung up as the woman stepped into her office and turned on the overhead lights to see the scene with something more than black lights. The officer looked like a full Native American with a curvy body that was more healthy than fashionable. One look into the other woman's dark, piercing eyes and Ash knew there was no bullshitting her way through this one.

"My name is Detective Waters," the woman said. "I happened to noticing that someone had knocked out your bouncer outside when your alert came through." She looked down at Deacon's unconscious body. "You aren't going to try to tell me that this is all just a false alarm, are you?"

The words were more of an unspoken challenge than a question, and Ash immediately knew that she was not talking to an officer who was loyal to McGee. Detective Waters would book Deacon and put him on the record no matter what Ash did, which left Ash with only one question to answer: Did she want to make one enemy that day, or two?

Without hesitating another moment, Ash handed Detective Waters the lockbox in her hand and told her the story from the beginning.

CHAPTER FOUR

SWISS

Swiss stared at her reply from Gideon and tried to talk herself out of overreacting.

Situation: Green. That's what the message said, yet something had happened on Gideon's side to trigger a stress response that sent Swiss an alert. That had never happened before. Ever. Not in two years.

"Gideon has it covered," she said aloud to herself, rolling her neck back and forth to try to release the tension that had gathered there in the past few seconds. "It's what you pay him for, and he's more than capable. Besides, you've got things to do here."

Her pep talk didn't help. Not really. Only the fact that Mike was strapped down and procedure-ready in front of her got Swiss to refocus. It was best for her to focus on the here and now in Memphis and let Gideon do the same back in Reno.

Swiss took a deep breath and double checked her work.

A religious person might consider what happened next a bit like an exorcism. If such were the case, then Phi would be almighty God, Swiss would be the priest, and Mike would be the possessed. But the truth was that Mike wasn't possessed. He'd just had a separate personality, or alter, built into him by scientists. Those scientists had chosen Mike for his powerful body and high-level military training. Their goal had been to program a hyperviolent and animal-like alternate personality into him that could wreak havoc when triggered and continue creating chaos until he was dead.

Having faced off against nearly three dozen of these men firsthand, Swiss had to confess that the scientists had done their jobs well. Up close the alters were terrifying. No normal human stood a chance in any kind of fight against them. Short of a bullet to the head or a vice grip around the neck, nothing stopped them.

Why Phi had recruited Swiss into the undergods to help deactivate these soldiers was still something Swiss didn't fully understand. She'd been a combat medic, not a soldier. Sure, she was no slouch in a fight, but still...out of all the people on the planet Phi could have chosen, he'd chosen her.

The only thing she did know about Phi's motivations was that they weren't altruistic. Phi didn't give a damn if these men lived or died. He wanted to steal everything that was worthwhile in Mike's brain and destroy anything that had value to Mike's original programmer. That was Phi's goal in all this, and Swiss was about to provide him a twelve-hour research window. In that time she wouldn't object to Phi trolling Mike's mind to see how he had been programmed to access such superhuman strength and coordination, as long as Phi finished up by destroying the pathways that accessed the alternate personality and returned Mike back to his normal self.

That was what Swiss cared about, and it was the one and only reason she'd joined the undergods—to ensure that honorable men did not leave behind legacies of dying as monsters against their own will. Especially guys like Mike, a good friend who'd managed to give her one hell of a shiner when he'd pinned her to the ground earlier. The bruising was fading fast, but the fact that it was still visible at all was evidence to the power he'd possessed.

Swiss smoothed some topical ice over the injury and was reaching for her medic bag when she heard steps approaching...from the outside. Even with her hearing turned way down, Swiss could tell it was a woman, wearing heels and walking quickly. Swiss inhaled, her brain filtering through all the elements in the air until she homed in on Fendi perfume.

Tara.

Closing the bag, Swiss walked over to Mike's bedroom door and glanced in. He was right where she'd left him, strapped down like a mental patient and bathed in the projected glow of TV static.

Swiss closed his bedroom door and turned her attention to the front door, hearing the jingle of keys moments before Tara let herself in.

"Mike?" Tara called out, stepping in.

Swiss moved toward Tara, tapping her forefinger against her lips. "Shhh. He's sleeping."

Tara jumped at the sound of Swiss's voice then faltered when they made eye contact. "Uh, hi... What do you mean asleep? It's only 8:30."

Swiss kept her smile casual. "Long story. But trust me, he needs the rest. A good sixteen hours."

"Sixteen?" she balked, clearly skeptical. "What did you do to him?"

Swiss let her smile shift to a playful smirk. It was time to turn on the distraction tactics. "Nothing he won't recover from as long as he remains undisturbed for a while."

Tara did not smile back, her eyes focusing on the left side of Swiss's face. "Your eye. Did Mike do that?"

Swiss sent the woman one of her more disarming smiles. "He and I might have gone a round, for old times' sake."

"My God!" Tara stepped forward, her hand reaching out to cradle Swiss's fading bruise. Then her eyes narrowed and glanced the direction of Mike's bedroom door. "Wait. Who won?"

Tara's sisterly concern wasn't easily bypassed, it seemed. Swiss would need to be a little less subtle with the distraction tactics.

"Mike's fine. I promise," Swiss said as she brought her hand up to gently cover Tara's hand on her bruised eye. The other woman's breath halted at the contact and her eyes dropped. Swiss ran her fingertips lightly across the back of Tara's hand and quietly asked, "Why do you like me?"

Tara's eyes came up at the question. "What?"

Swiss brought her other hand up to Tara's bottom lip and traced the base of it. "You're beautiful."

Tara blushed, clearly flustered, yet she didn't step away. Interesting.

"You're also straight," Swiss added. "I would guess that you've been with many men, but never a woman."

The blush in Tara's cheeks paled a bit, her eyes darted to the side, and Swiss literally smelled the change in Tara's body chemistry. The woman was suddenly very afraid.

Swiss brushed Tara's hair away from her face, then pulled her hands away and tucked them in her own pockets. With awkwardness achieved, it was time to let Tara eject so Swiss could watch over Mike in peace. "You should go. I'll have your brother call you around noon tomorrow."

Tara glanced toward his closed door. "And you're going to stay here until then?"

"Yes. I'll watch over him."

Tara hesitated. "Alone?"

Swiss nodded.

Tara made no move to go. "Or...you could not be alone."

Swiss blinked back her surprise at the forwardness of what Tara seemed to be offering. The woman was afraid. Afraid people usually ran when given the choice. But Tara was digging in her heels for some reason.

It was decision time. Technically all Swiss needed to do was watch over the body while Phi did a reboot. It was like babysitting someone in a coma. Swiss could easily multitask, but Tara had "hot mess" written all over her. The list of things that could go right while letting Tara stay in the house that night was miniscule. And the chances of ensuing clusterfuck if Tara stayed? High. Really high.

"I've just heard a lot about you," Tara said after the long pause. "I would love to hear more."

Uh-huuuuuh. That wasn't what Tara was offering, and they both knew it.

"Well, I'm not that interesting," Swiss said. "My night is going to consist of icing my eye while having a drink."

Tara perked up. "I have beer in my car. I could join you."

Swiss inhaled, noting Tara's change in body chemistry from fear to anticipation. And damn if that change didn't have the primal part of Swiss's brain tickled awake enough to speak without her conscious consent. "Why not? Go grab it."

Tara didn't hesitate. She walked out the way she'd come in and Swiss waited for her to move through the front door before zipping across to grab the medic bag and searching for the best place to stow it. Kitchen? Laundry room? Bathroom? Mike's room?

Mike's home was military clean. There was pretty much nowhere to hide anything, but the last thing Swiss needed was for Tara to peek inside the bag out of curiosity. That would open a Pandora's box of questions.

When a car trunk closed outside, Swiss made the impulse decision to simply place the bag next to the couch. Putting the bag in plain sight would cut down the intrigue of what may lie within it while simultaneously keeping it in Swiss's view at all times. She could stop Tara from getting too close, if it came to that.

Besides, Swiss was staying overnight. It made perfect sense to have a bag.

By the time Tara walked back in, Swiss was opening the freezer for ice. She didn't physically need it, but she needed something to credit when her eye started looking better rather than worse in an hour or so.

"It's a local beer," Tara announced as she walked in, and Swiss replied by tapping her index finger to her lips and pointing to Mike's room. "Asleep."

Tara's eyebrows furrowed. "Sorry. But..."

"But?"

She shrugged. "It's just weird. He rarely sleeps. He usually goes down around two in the morning and wakes up about six."

Swiss nodded. "Occupational hazard. But don't worry, tonight he'll sleep. And he might even get more shut eye in the future, too. We'll see."

Tara set the beer down on the table, her expression giving Swiss a peek into what seemed to be very somber thoughts.

"You worry about him," Swiss said, stating the obvious.

Tara blinked back to the present and looked a little flustered. "Silly, I know. It's not like there's really anything I can do for him."

"Quite to the contrary," Swiss said, moving to the other side of Mike's table. "I think you're a key part of his functionality. I meet a lot of vets, and most of them don't have things together like Mike seems to. I'm betting you're a big part of that."

Tara shook her head, reaching into the carton and grabbing a bottle to slide across the table to Swiss. "He just has the big-brother syndrome. Ever since our parents died..."

Swiss kept her eyes on the beer so Tara wouldn't catch anything in her expression. "Yeah. When did they pass again?"

"Three years ago," Tara said softly.

The pattern fit. The final test to verify the full installation of an alter seemed to require having the alter kill the primary identity's parents. That was something that could not be faked, and once it was done the primary identity, or Mike in this case, retained no memory of the event.

Mike had killed his parents, and he didn't even know it.

"I'm sorry," Swiss said to Tara. "That must have been really hard."

Tara's voice went flat. "Yeah."

The moment of silence that reigned while they popped the caps off their beers was revealing. Memories seemed to swim through Tara's mind, and judging by her scent they weren't positive. Swiss was still learning what secrets smelled like on a person, and all she could tell was that Tara seemed to have hundreds of anxiety-inducing memories bubbling right below the surface.

Swiss couldn't help herself. She had to poke.

"So tell me," Swiss said, taking a seat at the table. "Do your brother's Marine buddies visit him often?"

Tara shrugged and sat in the seat adjacent to Swiss rather than across. When they bumped knees, Swiss was certain it hadn't been an accident. So odd. "Sometimes. Although it's usually pretty different than whatever you two have going on here."

"Yeah?"

Tara nodded, looking down at her beer. "They usually go out. Drink. Come back. Drink. It's the only time Mike really gets drunk."

"Or gets mean?" Swiss added.

Tara's eyes darted up. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't need to." Swiss studied the other woman for a moment. "And his friends? Do they get mean?"

Tara's lips pressed together, and she stalled by taking a sip. "They're just being guys. And soldiers, I guess. The conversation always comes back to war and ops. I'm pretty sure I've heard a lot of things I wasn't supposed to hear."

That wasn't good...for anybody. "And you said they've talked about me?"

This time a corner of Tara's mouth came up. So did her eyes as her expression changed from frown to Mona Lisa smile. "Sometimes."

"What did they say?"

Both corners of her mouth came up in a full grin. "That you're a badass. They call you a lot of things. Some nice, most not-so nice. But I can tell that they respect you...even though they don't want to, you know? But they do."

"They'd better," Swiss said, taking her first sip and then checking the label. Milk stout. Not bad. Nothing she'd buy, but not bad. It needed to be about ten degrees colder.

Tara spun her bottle in her fingers, her eyes staying safely focused on the bottle as she battled to say something on the tip of her tongue.

Swiss waited her out.

"They don't like women in the military," Tara said at last. "None of the guys. Not even Mike—and they especially rant against women in Special Ops. They think women are a liability." Her lips pressed together, and she dropped her voice down an octave, clearly imitating a man when she said, "Women are for fucking. Men are for fighting."

Swiss nodded. "Yeah. A lot of men share that sentiment."

Tara nodded slowly and downed half her beer as if trying to drown a memory with the liquid. Swiss watched, her eyes moving over the younger woman. Perfect skin. Luxurious, long hair. Shy, gorgeous eyes. Plumped lips. And those breasts...damn.

Young, gorgeous perfection with a torn-up soul. Wasn't that always the case?

"Personal question?" Swiss said, leaning forward and very purposefully gazing into Tara's eyes.

Tara shrugged again, her eyes dropping. "Why not?"

Swiss used a finger to tilt Tara's chin up. "I need you to look me in the eye when you answer, okay?"

She swallowed nervously. "I, uh, okay."

For a moment Swiss studied Tara's faltering gaze and the fear beneath it. "How old were you the first time someone had sex with you?"

Tara flinched back, blinking. She hadn't seen the question coming, which was good. Her eyes moved down to her beer, then over to Mike's door, then to the kitchen and front door before remembering that Swiss had asked to look her in the eye when she answered.

"Uh, fifteen, I think?" she said. "Somewhere around there. The guy's name was Jeff. He was older, but...yeah. He was my first real boyfriend."

Swiss nodded. "Okay, and that's the first time you sought out sex on your own, but how old were you when sex found you?"

Tara grew very still.

"I wouldn't ask," Swiss added, "except for the fact that you seem to think you want to sleep with me. And while I get why you think you want me, the question is: do you know why you've talked yourself into sleeping with a lesbian?"

Tara started to stand, but a simple, soft touch from Swiss stopped her. Swiss slowly brought her other hand up so she was holding both of Tara's hands in her own. "You need to say it, Tara. Not for me, but for you."

Tara stayed frozen.

"Your parents died by murder-suicide. Very traumatizing deaths that should have left you horrified, but you're relieved instead. I saw it when I mentioned it a minute ago. Was your dad the first one to seek you out?"

It took a second for Tara to nod, but she did.

"And there were others who did the same to you before you found Jeff, right?"

Tara had stopped breathing, and every other part of her body stayed petrified as she nodded her head.

"And Mike's buddies? When they come and they drink?" Swiss let that one hang out there.

Tara grew defensive. "It's not rape. I don't say no!"

"Because you don't know how," Swiss said softly. "You were trained to submit to force as a child, so why would you start refusing forceful men as an adult?"

Tara stood, sending her chair skidding backwards with the suddenness of the motion. "It's different!"

"Different only in that you've learned to invite what you see to be the inevitable," Swiss countered, staying in her seat. "If someone is strong enough to force you, they will force you, right? That is your experience. But if you lure them in maybe you can control the situation—maybe it can end up being something that doesn't end in threats of death. Am I right?"

When Tara didn't move—didn't even breathe—Swiss knew she'd nailed it.

"Maybe if you beat the aggressor to the punch the experience could even be pleasant, right? Even with a woman like me? Flirting is how you've come to handle the powerful people you cross paths with in life. Get them on their back before they get you on yours."

Tara was visibly shaken. "I...how can you know this?"

Swiss stayed where she was, keeping her body language as nonthreatening as possible. "Four out of five girls I knew growing up were molested or raped. Or both. The aftereffects are fairly easy to spot."

"I need to go," Tara said as she took a step back, yet she didn't leave. She stayed right where she was as Swiss leaned forward.

"Just so we're clear, I hope you don't leave," Swiss said softly. "Because part of me wants to give you an orgasm and show you what sex is supposed to feel like."

Tara's chin came up. "Orgasms? I've had plenty of orgasms. "

Swiss stood and purposefully stepped into the other woman's personal space. "Yeah? Describe one to me."

"I...uh, I mean, good. It feels good."

"And?"

"And...safe."

"Safe?" Swiss echoed, arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah. Like everything's going to be okay, if only for a minute."

Swiss considered that. "And what does your body do?"

"Your body?" Tara echoed, swallowing nervously.

"Yeah. Your body. What does it do when you come?"

Tara shook her head. "It's the guy who does stuff. For girls sex is more emotional."

Swiss nodded, her eyes studying Tara's face and especially her lips. "Tara, we don't have much time here, so I'm just going to cut right to the chase, okay?"

Tara's breathy exhale was involuntary. "Okay."

"You're straight," Swiss said, letting her eyes roam over Tara. "Even with the line of guys who have fucked you over, you're straight." She returned her gaze to Tara's eyes. "I'm not."

Tara took a slow breath. "Yeah. I'd heard."

"Yeah. And when you heard I was coming, you got yourself mentally prepared for what you considered to be the inevitable. You're young, you're beautiful, and you figured I'd do what Mike's other buddies have done in the past—that I'd somehow force you." Swiss paused to let that sink in before adding. "I won't. Nothing happens between us tonight, unless you ask."

Tara's eyes narrowed as if looking for a trick.

"I didn't come here to have sex with you, which means you can walk right out that front door and go home if you want. No one's stopping you, and there are no obligations here."

Tara didn't respond, and Swiss didn't blame her. The conversation was beyond blunt and odd. Even for her. And yet it somehow felt necessary.

"On the other hand," Swiss added. "You are a grown woman and fully capable of making your own decisions. And if you want to have sex with me, I might just be able to improve your taste in men. I can teach you what your body can do and what a true lover can do for you. Because, girl, your body is begging for someone to pop the top and let out some pressure. I can feel it from here. And I can do that for you, but I'm going to require that you ask."

Swiss stepped away then, gripping her beer and taking a drink while she gave Tara some space.

For a while Tara didn't move.

"Mike says he's never seen a woman say no to you," Tara said finally. "That they all find you irresistible. I never understood how that could possibly be."

Well, Mike had painted an overly flattering picture, but Swiss let it slide so she wouldn't interrupt Tara's thought process.

"I mean, you're a girl," Tara added. "What do two girls even do in bed?"

Swiss couldn't help it. She smiled. She definitely wasn't in Reno anymore.

Tara took a nervous breath. "And yet, I'm standing here and..."

"And?" Swiss prompted.

"And...I'm..."

Swiss grinned. "You're...?"

Tara pressed her lips together, her chest moving noticeably with each breath. "I'm..."

Swiss waited until Tara looked her in the eye before finishing the sentence for her. "You're wet. You're slippery and twitchy, and you have no idea why, do you?"

Tara's inhale came quickly and for a moment Swiss thought she would run. But as Tara reached for her keys, her hands stilled. "How can you tell?"

Oh, a mad scientist is slowly granting me super powers. That's how. "Is that really the question you want to ask right now?"

Tara shook her head.

Swiss stepped forward again. "You deserve a good man, Tara. Someone who treats you well. Someone who will marry you. Someone who will be a great father who protects your children—not one who hits them or even fucks them. But that's not the kind of guy you're going to get if you keep lying down for men before they can throw you down." Swiss put her beer down, freeing up her hands. "Let me show you how it can be when you're with someone who cares about how you feel. And maybe I can open your eyes to the fact that there may be some gentler partners out there who are worth your serious consideration."

Tara shook her head. "They're not my type."

"Maybe, maybe not." Swiss smiled and dropped her gaze to Tara's lips. "Ask me to kiss you."

Tara licked her lips and faltered, eyes dropping again. "You don't have to be asked."

"Yes, I do."

Swiss could hear Tara's heart pounding with nerves. "I...I like it when the other person makes the first move."

Swiss smiled. "How do you know? Have you ever made the first move? Sure, you lay out the red carpet, but do you ever lean in first?"

For a moment Tara almost looked mad. "You like the mind games, don't you?"

"If that's what you want to call them," Swiss said, reconsidering her approach. Tara's heart was hammering, and her skin was screaming to be caressed. Tara wanted to be touched; she just didn't know how to ask for it.

Swiss held out her hand out between them. "I want you to put my hand wherever you want it," she said. "You can push it back towards me, you can leave it where it is, or you can place it somewhere on your body. Anywhere. Just as long as that's where you want it."

Tara said nothing and for the longest time simply stared at Swiss's outstretched hand, contemplating.

"Do you want to be touched?" Swiss asked softly. "It's okay if the answer's no. It's okay if the answer's yes. And if the answer's yes—where would this hand feel best?"

Tara's lips parted slightly to allow for deeper breathing, and Swiss heard Tara's heartrate start to pound double-time. When Tara's answer came, it wasn't in the form of words. In the place of words, Tara stepped forward, lightly gripped Swiss's wrist, and guided Swiss's hand to cup right between her legs.

Well, Swiss hadn't been expecting that—at least not out of the gate.

Swiss didn't move as Tara arched against Swiss's hand and took a slow, deep breath. When Tara's eyes opened to look at her, the pupils Swiss looked into were all but black with arousal.

The first orgasm would take next to no time at all.

"What else do you want?" Swiss asked.

Tara rocked Swiss's hand back and forth, her breath coming out unevenly as she did so.

It was so hard not to step in and take control. Tara's parted lips all but begged to be kissed, and the nipples clearly outlined against the fabric of her shirt needed some serious attention.

But Swiss held steady.

"I don't understand," Tara said on a shallow breath. "How can I feel what I'm feeling? You're a woman. I don't like women that way."

Swiss grinned. "You're body just really wants to come right now, and it will take anything it can get. Even me. But that doesn't suddenly make you gay, Tara. Falling in love with only women makes you gay."

Tara's heavy-lidded eyes watched Swiss, her tongue darting out and absently wetting her lips as she continued to rock against Swiss's hand.

"What you're feeling now is just overdue pleasure that your body is willing to take any way it can get it," Swiss added, remaining statue still. "If you choose to feel pleasure with me, then you'll wake up tomorrow very interested in finding a man who makes you feel the same way, because that's how straight women work. You will want men for as long as you live, Tara. But tonight you need to decide if I might be the right person to teach you all about pleasure."

Tara let out a half whimper. "I really like your hand where it is, but..."

"But?"

Tara licked her lips. "But it's not enough."

Thank God! "What do you need?"

"More pressure," she said grinding harder. "Just...more."

It was getting extremely hard not to make a move. "Do you want to take off your pants?"

Tara shook her head, which wasn't a surprise. She would have to be a little bit closer to coming to beg for that, but the idea had been planted.

"Okay," Swiss prompted. "Do you want my other hand somewhere?"

Tara rocked again, biting her bottom lip and shaking her head before pointing to the chair. "Sit down."

Swiss complied, fighting a smile when Tara straddled her face-to-face, just like she would a guy. Then Tara ground in against Swiss's stomach, seeking a pressure that didn't really exist given their angles and anatomy.

"We need a different position to get what you're looking for," Swiss coached. "Mind if I move us to the living room?"

Tara tried one last grind then nodded. "Do it."

Swiss didn't let Tara dismount. Instead she gripped the woman's ass and held Tara in position as she stood and walked them both to the other room. It was tempting to press Tara into the wall and get things started, but Swiss knew the woman had been pressed into walls before. She didn't need that. Not tonight. Tonight Tara needed to do the taking.

Swiss chose the carpet rather than the couch. It left more room for error and less room for awkward fumbling—although she did grab the blanket off the back of the couch and throw it down beneath them.

Tara watched Swiss closely, her eyes unreadable as Swiss brought the two of them to the ground, scissoring their legs while keeping Tara on top. She then repositioned Tara's hips and pressed up lightly with her own.

"This is what you're looking for."

There was no more beautiful sight than the expression that passed over Tara's face next—the way her eyes lost focus, the breathless pant that escaped her lips, the way her body both sagged and tensed at the same time. Her next move was tentative, as if testing to see if the previous moment had actually happened. Then a switch flipped in Tara's brain and she got greedy. The woman was all enthusiasm and no grace as she tried to do everything at once. Writhe, grind, ride, stroke, and feel up her own breasts.

"Do you want your top off?" Swiss asked and was answered with a feverish nod as Tara started the job for her. A second later it was gone.

"Your bra?"

"Off," Tara said with a good amount of authority, and Swiss had no sooner removed it than she found her mouth pressed to Tara's breast by Tara's hands. "I need..."

"You need?"

The woman gave her a look of impatience that could kill. "Suck it, bite it, lick it. Something!"

Swiss grinned before leaning in, finding Tara's right nipple and doing all three in the sequence requested.

"Oh. My. God!" Tara panted, running her hands over Swiss's too-short hair then down to trace her muscular arms. Suddenly Swiss was feeling a little less like a therapist and a little more like a partner in crime.

"These pants," Tara mumbled, fumbling with her belt. "They're in the way."

Yes, they were.

"Mine too?" Swiss asked and held her breath as Tara hesitated, then nodded.

"But keep your top on."

Noooo problem. Tara rolled on her back and slid off her pants while Swiss raised her hips off the ground and got naked from the waist down in one motion.

Swiss had definitely not planned on the night going like this, but damn...it was going to be fun.

When Tara straddled Swiss again, this time skin-to-skin, all timidness was gone. To Swiss's surprise the woman kissed her—really kissed her—while wrapping her legs around Swiss's waist and rolling them both so Swiss was on top.

Then Tara uttered two words that set the tone for the rest of the night. "Show me."

CHAPTER FIVE

OMEN

Omen parked his solar-cycle in its usual spot and vaulted off the seat in a beeline to the front entrance.

Why violet?

Why the hell couldn't Demi have been wearing black or red or something cliché? Why a color that stuck in the mind so easily...so specifically.

Well, not for long. He'd called ahead. Reba would be waiting—in violet lace.

His long legs crossed the parking lot in record time. Teddy was working the front desk and greeted him with a coy smile.

Keying in to the FiWi, Omen found his invoice and paid it. "Is she ready?"

Teddy gave him a slow once-over. "Well, someone's ready to unload. She's waiting for you—lucky her. You know the room, honey."

Yes, he did. And while Omen usually liked to make the walk to it with a little more dignity, his restraint was all burned out for the day.

May Reba forgive him.

The hall was empty, so he stripped off his riding jacket to get a head start. And since he had the time, he went for his belt, too. The moment he pushed through Reba's door he tossed the items on the loveseat and tugged his shirt over his head.

"Hey, handsome," Reba cooed from the bed. "Someone looks impatient."

"Very," he said, glancing her way and growing still for a moment.

He'd said violet, not lilac.

Sure, most men didn't know the difference. Maybe it made him fruity that he clearly did see the difference, but his eyes were not fooled by the cousin color. The lilac might as well be white compared to what Demi had been wearing, but he was far too pent up to nitpick.

"Stand up," he said, stepping out of his boots as he undid his fly.

She ran a finger across her cleavage. "You don't want me on the bed?"

"Later," he said, pushing his pants over his hips and stepping out so that he was fully naked. Reba caught sight of his already aching erection and sat up.

"Oooh. What's the occasion? I usually have to work you up to that."

Omen didn't answer. He just held his hand out for a condom. Reba reached down the front of her g-string, pulled one out, and stood to give it to him.

"Unless you want me to put it on," she offered.

"No," he said, snatching it out of her hand. "But fair warning: Your back is about to hit that wall and it's not going to leave it until I hear you scream with pleasure and mean it. We clear?"

Reba smiled. "God, yes."

She stood, picking a good spot against the wall while Omen rolled the latex on. He knew some men hated condoms, but Omen had never known anything but the tight lubricated fit of latex. And feeling the embrace—the safety—of a condom on his shaft was exactly what he needed to let go.

No kids would ever be calling him daddy. No fucking way.

When he turned to Reba, he was past ready, but the lilac wasn't doing it for him. He needed violet—vivid violet or nothing at all.

"Lose it," he said, motioning to her lingerie.

Her eyes were on his cock. "I thought you said—"

"The color's wrong," he said and crossed the room to her. While she reached up to undo her bra, he gripped her g-string and ripped the delicate fabric off her body. When she tossed her bra to the side, Omen lifted her off the ground, positioned himself between her splayed legs, and sunk in as she wrapped her legs around him.

"God, you're huge," she moaned into his ear. "I never get used to it."

She was wet, but not as wet as he liked her to be. Keeping them joined, he moved them over to the nightstand, opened the drawer and reached in for the lubrication that was packed in with Reba's toys. Bringing the two of them back to the wall, he leveraged Reba up so he could pull out of her, drizzle lubrication on the condom, and rub it around. Then he covered his fingertips with lube and coated her entrance before tossing the bottle to the side.

The next time he pushed inside Reba, the path was smooth and slick. He closed his eyes, imagining violet lace and the heartbreaking woman it had barely covered. Then he went to work.

"What do you need?" he said against her ear. "Tell me what you need to blow your top."

Reba bit down on his earlobe, and Omen could tell her panting wasn't faked. "More grind with the thrust. More pressure on my clit."

Her wish was his command, and when a high moan started escaping her lips Omen closed his eyes and let his mind go back to that walk-in closet as if twenty minutes hadn't passed.

In his imagination, he was still in Demi's bedroom...with Lou just on the other side of the door, so they needed to be quiet. And Demi hadn't been trying on those outfits for Sam. She'd been thinking of Omen the whole time. Wanting him. Getting wet imagining him filling her.

And now he was.

Omen hadn't walked out of that room twenty minutes ago. He had pushed Demi into the privacy of her own closet and was finally giving them what they'd both wanted since the day they had met.

Completion.

But she was being too loud. Her little whimpers were turning into soft screams...Lou might hear, so he gently covered her mouth to muffle the sound even as he changed his angle to match the one she seemed to be pushing for.

"Right there," Reba said against his hand, pulling his head out of the fantasy with her non-Demi voice. "Like that. Don't change. Please, god, don't change a thing."

He did change one thing, bringing one hand down to hold her weight and using the other hand to massage her clit as he watched himself thrust in and out of her. She reached up and tried to push against the wall, which he took as an invitation to drill harder. She took it, arching away from him as she climaxed then draping her arms around him as she descended from the high.

"You're so strong," she panted in his ear as he continued to thrust. "I love how easily you take my weight. No one's ever held me against a wall with that much control. Ever."

He'd given a prostitute a first. Hot damn. Now he just needed to get into a position where he had enough friction to come himself. He was close, but he couldn't quite get there. He moved them both the bed and fell back with her on top of him.

"Do your worst," he said and let her go to work this time. She was even wetter now that she'd come. Her fit was smooth, and damn if she wasn't pulling out some new moves. But every time he looked up and realized who she was, he felt himself losing his erection. He wanted to come more than anything, yet the longer Reba pounded on him the less he wanted to finish.

Something had to change.

With no advance warning he flipped them over, putting himself on top with Reba's knees hooking over his shoulders. He was in deep now, her entire body on full display as she took him, and yet his cock was still losing interest.

"C'mon," he muttered, picking up his force and pace.

"Goooooood," Reba moaned, and while she wasn't coming again, he knew she was building up to it. He moved up to his knees, raising her hips to go as deep as possible. He was hitting the end of the line now, which he knew couldn't feel good for her.

"All fours," he said right before helping turn over. She did so without question, her hairline sweaty now and her body glistening. When he entered her from behind he saw a glistening brunette on the verge of coming and suddenly things were interesting again.

He drilled in, leaning over the top of her and letting his tongue taste the sweat beading on her spine as he reached around and found her breasts. Round...full...with tips like beads. He gripped them between his fingers and twisted. She cried out and reached between her legs—fully focused on her own pleasure, not his. She was on the verge.

Omen let her take responsibility for her own pleasure and focused on his own...on the angles he needed to hit to make his balls tighten and spill.

"Beg me to come," he told her, and Reba immediately complied.

"Fill me up, Hale," she panted. "Come with me. Right now, Hale. Please god, fill me up now. You. Only you."

The last two phrases got to him and finally he lost it, spilling his load into the condom. He felt Reba follow close after him, using her hand to finish herself off right before he pulled out and fell sideways onto the bed.

She rolled on her side to face him, still panting. "Well, that was new."

"I guess it was," he agreed.

She studied him. "Dare I ask?"

He shook his head. "No point."

Reba stood up, walked over to her portable refrigerator and pulled out two coconut waters, throwing one to him before grabbing a towel. "Here's some electrolytes for round two."

"Thanks," he said, catching the bottle and removing the cap.

"Whoever she is, she's missing out," Reba said, sauntering back his direction.

He sent her a look. "No matter how many times you bring it up, I still won't want to talk about it."

"True. But that doesn't change the fact that I do." Reba crawled up on the bed, bringing her hand up to cup her own breast. "That was some great nipple play you whipped out just now. Never gotten that from you before. What inspired it?"

He shook his head and took a swig. "That's the problem with you women. You think we men think everything through—that we have a plan. We don't. We're all just winging it."

She started playing with her nipple. "Well, if you remember what you did there, do it again. It was intense, but awesome."

"Note taken."

Reba pushed him onto his back, rolling the condom off, disposing of it, and then toweling him off. Omen laid back and enjoyed the attention. If there was anything Reba was a master at, it was cleaning up cum in a way that made you dream of round two even if you weren't ready for it yet.

"You're an incredible lover, Hale," she said softly.

"Thanks."

"And I know I said I was fine coming out of retirement for you, but..."

That didn't sound good. He opened his eyes and watched her. "But?"

"I'm human."

What the fuck was that supposed to mean? "Yeah."

She leaned down and licked off some fluid she'd left on the tip of his dick. "And...I'm having trouble compartmentalizing these days."

Omen propped himself up on his elbows. "How so?"

She set the towel to the side and let a hand wander up his torso to trace his tattoos. "When you're with me, I know you're imagining someone else. It's part of how I've justified you to my husband. I mean, thanks to you our kids go to the best of private schools, but..."

"But?" he prompted.

"But...my husband doesn't know that between you and him, you're the only one I want anymore. And that's bad, Hale. I want you. I dream of you. And a marriage can't survive like that."

Well, shit. Why was it that women always tried to put bad news in a pretty package and pretend like it somehow made things better? Reba was breaking up with him—no, not breaking up with him. She was dropping him as a client because she had some damn fantasy that he was somehow a better man that her husband.

If only she knew.

In the meantime, all Omen could see was that his outlet for sex was drying up right as Sam was getting out of jail and back into Demi's bed.

Worst. Timing. Ever.

"I see," he managed.

"I mean, it's been over five years," Reba said without meeting his eyes. "You'd think the novelty would have worn off and I'd be bored with you by now. But instead I find myself waiting for you to make a call just like you did tonight. And while my husband thinks I'm giving a quickie to some old money bags, I'm getting more and more certain that if he saw what we just did my whole marriage might explode."

Great. Just great.

"There are plenty of younger girls, Hale." She looked down away as she spoke, hiding her eyes from him. "And trust me, they want you. So next time you need to pick one of them."

They wouldn't work. They were all wrong. Even Reba was wrong, but she was the closest.

"Don't get me wrong," she added. "I still plan on finishing off tonight. You paid for a double-tap, and that's what you're going to get, but next time..."

She let the words hang in the air.

"Yeah, I get it," he said, pushing her hand off of him and standing up.

She sat up. "Wait, I wasn't telling you to go."

"Yes, you were," he said, stepping back into his pants.

"No. I really wasn't."

He sent her a look. "Reba, I'm not some first-timer. You and I can be real, and I understand that your marriage comes first. It has to. So do your kids. But if you're telling me we're done now and we go another round, then it'll be personal. It won't be fucking, it'll be a goodbye. It'll have some heart in it, and that's not what this is about. It can't be."

She dropped her eyes. "No. It can't be."

"So I need to go."

"Shit," she muttered, then got up to take the towel into the bathroom. When she came back out she was wearing a silky coverup. She watched as Omen put his shirt back on. "I'm going to miss those tattoos."

He didn't reply except to shrug into his jacket and cover them up. Reba walked over to him.

"Since we're not going to be seeing each other again, can I ask you one last favor?"

Omen sent her a neutral look. "You know I don't do favors, just transactions."

Her lips pouted out. "Even for me?"

"Even for you."

She took another step. "Well, I'm going to ask anyway."

"It's a free country...at least for now."

Reba ignored the comment and brought her finger up to his lips. "A goodbye kiss? In five years you've never once kissed me. Can I have a kiss before you go?"

He looked her dead in the eye. "No."

Omen saw the hurt in her eyes and ignored it. He needed to make a clean break if Reba's marriage had a shot. And heaven knew he hoped she worked it out, because he wouldn't be waiting in the wings for her. No chance.

He reached for the door and Reba grabbed his wrist.

"Tell her," she breathed. "Whoever she is. It's only fair to both of you that she knows how you feel."

"She's happy where she is," Omen said, opening the door.

"How do you know?"

"I know. But I appreciate the sentiment, Reba. I really do." He reached out and gave her arm a squeeze. "Now go take care of your marriage."

Then he left.

CHAPTER SIX

DOM

Dom made the sign of the cross over himself, taking a seat in the confession booth. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. My last confession was two days ago."

"I repeat my objection to this stop," Bach said in Dom's ear. "None of the three mercs in the pews has moved yet, but they're too close. That priest pings and you're done."

"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them," Father Matthew said from the other side of the screen. "Otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven."

Dom crossed himself again.

Father Matthew continued. "Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward."

Dom pressed a kiss to the cross his mother had given him on his eighteenth birthday then recited the scripture that let Father Matthew know who he was talking to. "For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops."

"Amen, my son," Father Matthew replied through the screen, his voice hushed. "You risk much in coming here."

Dom had only one friend from his life before the undergods. It was the man who had baptized him, given Dom his first communion, and even married him. Hearing Father Matthew's comforting voice was worth the risk three bounty hunters posed.

"My soul is damned, Father, but I will never hide my face from God. The scriptures tell us not to fear those who can kill the flesh. Because after that, what can they do? We should fear the Lord, who has power to cast into Hell."

"Well spoken, my son," Father Matthew said. "What would you like to confess before God this day?"

"I have blasphemed countless times," Dom began. "I've also had carnal knowledge of a woman who was not my wife, and for these sins I am truly sorry."

"If you are sorry, why do you persist in engaging in these sins?"

"My flesh is weak, Father. And..."

"Yes?"

Dom cleared his throat. "I...I miss my wife." His voice cracked as he said the words, and he fought to swallow back the lump in his throat. "She helped me see the world differently. And my daughters...helped me watch my words. They were all so soft and delicate. I was careful not to let anything of the debased world I knew touch them."

But not careful enough. Dom had been the one to fail, and his family had suffered and died for it.

"I have also committed unpardonable sins these past two days, Father," Dom added. "I lured an evil man to his death yesterday. And today I tortured and murdered one of the men who enslaved and slaughtered my late wife and daughters. Once he was dead, I fed his flesh to beasts so that God might venture to start over with the pile of shit he will soon become. For these sins, Father, I expect no forgiveness or absolution because I am not penitent. I do, however, wish to acknowledge my guilt before God for my actions and promise that when His judgment comes I shall not hide or shirk. I shall accept God's justice for my actions when I join my victims in Hell."

"I pray God's judgment surpasses my own in this matter," Father Matthew replied. "And while I cannot speak for the Holy Father on this matter, know that I do not condemn you, my son."

"Thank you, Father. I also came to tell you that my time is short. Things are moving quickly."

"May the Holy Spirit guide your steps."

Dom crossed himself. "Thank you, Father. And so long as your hands remain blameless, you will receive what has been promised to you. It has all been arranged. When I pass, you will be visited by a lawyer who will see to it that this cathedral withstand the real estate grabs that have been threatening you recently."

"Bless you, my son, but I must remind you that a soul cannot buy its way into heaven. This final act of benevolence will not justify your murders at the judgment seat."

"I am aware, Father," Dom said, kissing his cross again. "Yet the fifth commandment admonishes us to honor our mother and father. This was my mother's cathedral, and I would see it remain standing in her honor. What better use is there for my ill-gotten profits when I am gone? This whole city is going to hell in a hand basket, Father. You must know that better than most. It needs a church. Whether the people enter it or not, God needs a house here."

Father Matthew sighed. "Truer words were never spoken, my boy."

Not my son. My boy. Dom felt tears sting his eyes. "If we never speak again, know that none of your efforts were wasted on me, Father," Dom said. "I may be going to Hell, but you did everything you could to show me another way. And for that, I thank you."

There was a long pause before Father Matthew spoke again. "God be with you, my son. If you must walk this path of yours, I pray you find success that your soul may rest in peace. May the Lord bless and keep you."

Dom crossed himself one last time. "And the Lord bless and keep you, Father. Till we meet again."

"Till we meet again," Father Matthew echoed.

Without another word Dom stood and stepped out of the booth. All three of the mercs looked his way as moved into view, but what they saw was a vamped out man with a comm unit that identified him as Victor Gibson.

Nothing to see here, folks, Dom thought silently as walked out of the cathedral and on to his next stop. Dom had come clean about his sins, but there was one more thing he needed to get off his chest. But for that visit, Dom needed Jack and a good amount of alcohol.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ZERO

Zero tracked the jeep in his scope until it stopped about a mile away. Then the headlights went dark, allowing the vehicle and everything in it to fade into the dark foreground of the glowing neon cityscape.

Zero's night vision scope allowed him to watch Dom get out of the jeep along with Phi's franken-fuck of a science experiment. That cat—or dog or jackal or whatever the hell it was this time—freaked Zero out. But Dom loved it. He talked to it like a human and everything. And now the damn thing was off a leash and coming straight up the hill to him.

It was all Zero could do not to just shoot the walking atrocity where it stood.

Word on the street was that Jack could sniff out one gram of C4 from 1,000 yards, but Zero would believe that when he saw it. He knew the creature was a piece of work, but nothing was that good. Yet as he watched the creature approach through his scope, he could have sworn it locked eyes with him and stared back.

Not possible. The thing was still 1,500 yards out. There was no way it could see him. Although the unerring path it was taking straight to him without pausing to sniff once was a bit eerie.

Soon after they breached the 400 yard line, Jack disappeared and only Dom continued Zero's way, although a little less directly without Jack's guidance. About a minute later Dom flashed a signal light, and Zero returned the flash even as he searched the horizon for Jack's body-heat signature. It was nowhere to be found. A few seconds later Dom started flashing morse code: She's catching dinner.

Fine. So now Zero knew what the thing was doing, but it still pissed him off that it was out there somewhere and he couldn't see it.

When Dom was 100 yards out, Zero decided to let it go and crawl out of his nest. He and the creature may not be friends, but the thing was loyal as hell to Dom. If something approached from any which way Jack would let them know, so Zero sat on the lip of the hill and waited for the man he called friend to join him.

Dom was still a ways off when Zero recognized the bottle in Dom's hand.

"Maker's Mark, eh?" Zero called out. That was Zero's brand.

"Yeah. We're going with 46 tonight, if you don't mind."

"Not a bit," Zero called back. He hadn't had anything since the op and was teetering dangerously close to lucid. It would be good to knock a few back.

Dom's city shoes didn't make for the most graceful ascent ever. It was just one of the ways Dom was different from the rest of the undergods. Omen had a net worth on par with some countries, yet he still dressed in very inconspicuous clothing. Same with Bach. Swiss had style, but nothing about it screamed money. And Phi wore the same damn thing every day.

But Dom flaunted his money—custom shoes, high-end suits, watches that cost as much as cars—never a stray hair, never a stain or scuff. Zero waited to see if the man would sit in the dirt or if he'd carted in some yuppie yoga mat or something in the bag he had strapped to his back.

Sure enough, as soon as Dom got to the top of the hill he motioned for Zero to stand.

"I'm not getting up," Zero said. "You sit."

"Just for a second," Dom said, handing off the bourbon bottle and sliding the pack off his shoulders. "I brought a blanket."

"A blanket?" Zero nearly laughed. "Are you fucking kidding me? We going to have a picnic and make out or something?"

Dom shrugged. "If that's how you want me to say thank you, we can Dutch rudder all night, man."

"Fuck you," Zero said, standing.

"Or that," Dom said, removing the blanket and spreading it out. "I did bring dinner, though. Steak, loaded potato, the works. Figured you had to be hungry."

He was, but that was not unusual. Food usually didn't become a focus for Zero until the lack of it interfered with his motor skills. But steak was steak. It was going down the hatch.

Mildly fascinated with Dom's intricate packaging of the meal, Zero cracked the seal on the bottle of Maker's Mark and watched Dom unload boxes and cartons onto the blanket before pulling out plates and utensils.

"You've got to be shitting me," Zero said, taking a swig. The liquid tasted like home, not even needing to take the trek down his throat before cooling the temperature of his brain and helping him not to freak out every time a cricket stopped chirping. In an instant the world felt calmer, warmer, more normal. "We're up in the mountains, man. We can eat out of a box."

"Or we can eat off a plate," Dom corrected.

Zero shook his head and took another drink. "It's a waste of boxes."

"You'll thank me when you eat and everything is the temperature it should be and you're not dealing with a soupy mess."

There were some things in life you just didn't argue about. If the dude wanted to have a princess picnic and do the cleanup after, Zero wasn't going to stop him. So he'd eat with a knife and a fork off of a plate for the first time in recent memory. Why not?

"Are we celebrating the fact that you're down to your last target?" Zero asked. "We don't usually have picnic dinners after an op."

Dom hesitated, then nodded. "I guess it's something like that."

"You guess it's something like that, or it is like that?"

Dom grew still. "Turns out things are moving faster than expected."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He took a slow breath. "Bach intercepted some stuff. Baran already knows about Arman and knows their infrastructure is going to shit. He's going to cut a deal to get out of prison. Bach says Baran called his lawyer and the lawyer's going in tomorrow to strong arm authorities into granting Baran a new location. If that happens, it's possible Baran could be off radar by tomorrow night."

Zero grew still. "Are you serious?"

Dom nodded.

"Well, that means that..."

"This may be my last supper," Dom said, then sent him a knowing look. "I know. I wasn't expecting it either. Thought maybe I'd have another week or so, but it looks like tomorrow may be it."

"Damn." Zero knew there was something more that should be said, but he wasn't sure what. It was just too soon. Besides, Zero had always assumed that when push came to shove they would all find a workaround that would allow Dom to walk away after the nine men died. Sure, Dom was willing to die, but there had to be a workaround.

"Yeah. Still wrapping my head around it myself," Dom said, as if reading his mind.

Zero looked down at the city lights. "What the hell are we doing out here then? We should get you into the city. Find you a woman!"

Dom shook his head. "I know that sounds like what a guy should do on his last night, but to be honest, having a kickass dinner with you while looking at the city feels like a much better use of what may be my final hours. Besides, I've already gone to confession. I should try to keep my sins to the unpardonable ones from here on out."

Dom seemed to use setting up the food as an excuse not to look at Zero as he continued.

"I know we're not all necessarily friends in the undergods. We do what needs to be done and go our separate ways, but since I'm on death's door I'm going to keep it real and say that you're the best friend I've ever had, Zero. Not many people get me, but you always have. As much as I'm pissed we didn't know each other longer, I'm also glad that I'm dying before you because I don't know how well I'd handle it if you died first."

Zero eyed Dom for several moments. "You know that sounds gay as hell, right?"

"I might be dying tomorrow. I'll say all the faggoty things I want if it helps me die with a clear conscience." Dom stopped messing with the takeout boxes and looked Zero in the eye. "I know you think you're a walking sack of shit, but you're not, man. You're the most honorable and loyal and skilled man I've ever known. You kick ass, and I'm telling you that you deserve to be happy. I'll be very pissed if you go out in a fire bomb of your own making. You don't have to die with your enemies. I know there has to be another way. Find it! Do it. Then go be happy for once in your life. You deserve it."

Well that was uncomfortable. And not knowing what else to do when faced with such praise, Zero deflected. "Thanks, Mom."

"Nuh-uh," Dom snapped. "These are basically my dying words to you, man. You don't get to brush them off. Live! Find love. Have kids. Be the dad you never had! You can do it."

"No. I really can't."

"You can!"

Zero debated arguing further before simply shrugging. "Fine. I can."

Dom's eyes narrow. "You're going to insist on being an asshole about my dying wish for you, aren't you?"

Zero shrugged. "The normal train passed me by long ago, man. That stuff ain't happening for me." He opened up the takeout box on his side of the blanket. The glorious aroma of meat soared out and enveloped him. "You'd better tell that creature of yours to stay away, because I will shoot it over a meal like this."

"No worries," Dom said, reaching for his own box. "Jack's more interested in the other animals that will smell the steak and come looking for it. She'll make sure they don't get close."

"Handy," Zero said, pulling out his service knife and getting ready to saw in.

"Uh-uh," Dom said, holding out a rolled napkin. "That's a work knife. No need to be a heathen."

"I don't use plastic shit."

"Well, that's good because that's not what I brought," Dom said, jiggling the rolled napkin before urging Zero to take it again.

It was as Dom glared at him in frustration that it struck Zero that none of this would ever happen again...a meal on a mountain, being called out for eating like a primate by some dude in $2,000 shoes, or someone just giving a shit about him in general.

All that would die with Dom.

Zero unrolled the silverware, picking up the knife and fork and leaving the napkin and the spoon lying on the blanket. Dom watched him as he sawed into the T-bone and took a bite.

"Good?"

"Wars have been started over less," Zero said, savoring the melt of the meat on his tongue. Perfect cut, perfect cook, perfect bite. He pointed to the bottle between them. "I hope you're planning on getting shitfaced with me."

"Oh, you can count on it."

CHAPTER EIGHT

BACH

In his pre-undergod life, Bach had been a hacker with a fearsome reputation. Yes, he still hacked in his day-to-day work, but there was no one to brag to when he took down a firewall or needled his way into a space he shouldn't be.

Except for Phi, the undergods didn't understand the nuances of hacking. They all just assumed Bach had access to everything like they had access to the radio. Just like Swiss could take down an army of men, Bach could take down technological giants. No one really understood the difficulty of what Bach accomplished on their behalf. They just accepted it and moved on.

But sometimes—just sometimes—Bach needed a little applause for his genius. And a six-figure payout in a white-hat hacking competition was just the place to test his savvy against his peers.

First you had to hack yourself onto the guest list. The Aqueduct posted a message that read simply: New 31337 Contest. The details of time and date had to be discerned by hacking the message. Once you did that successfully, you were allowed to place one name on the guest list as either an onsite or remote participant. Then you showed up—virtually or physically.

Sitting in the comfort and anonymity of his van, Bach felt The Aqueduct's countdown clock tick down to zero under his fingertips and then lock, closing the window to opt into the competition. Bach knew at that very moment the unofficial competition of the night had begun amongst hacking purists who would try to hack their way into the database after it locked. That was a hack that wouldn't be happening any time soon. Not in a bar owned and managed by Phi the Freak. A man would sooner ride a teaspoon to the moon than breach Phi's coding algorithms.

But Bach wished the diehards luck all the same.

Ever punctual, Ash didn't waste any time officially getting things started.

"Welcome," Ash's voice called out in the bar, her tone an endearing mix of everybody-is-my-friend and don't-fuck-with-me. She was like honeysuckle meets jalepeno. Bach had never been in the same room as Ash, but he'd bet her fragrance was bright and distinct. He'd have to find out one day.

As he rolled shoulders and stretched his wrists in anticipation, Bach heard those in attendance give Ash a callback.

"First off," she began. "A few numbers for you. We have one R&D product this evening, 78 hackers present live, 609 hackers logged in remotely, and 250,000 Liquid Karat up for grabs from DRUID Electronics for the hacker who can take their system down first."

Bach grinned. DRUID Electronics was a worthy adversary. Tonight would be good. Long but good.

"I see there are five first-timers here," Ash continued. "So I will lay down the rules. There aren't many." Several men in the bar chuckled. "If you are present in the bar, any cocktail or state of mind is allowed as you hack. If you are hacking remotely, you're just going to have to deal with that."

God, the woman made everything sound sexy. Even rote instructions.

"Second," she continued. "There is a twelve-hour limit to this challenge to earn the reward. Once the countdown clock hits zero, all the money is off the table. And third, proceed with caution on this challenge. DRUID's most recent development has some bite to it. It's designed to reverse-hack hackers. It's expecting you. So three words for you: Cover. Your. Asses."

Bach heard chuckles from inside the bar and knew that none of the competitors were taking that warning too seriously. Luckily for Bach, he didn't have to take it seriously. He had Phi's fail safes in place. If DRUID tried to make an attack, DRUID's servers might quite literally melt.

"So let's meet tonight's product, shall we?" Ash called out.

The chorus cried out in the affirmative, and Bach felt the screen change under his hand, revealing the product and its specs. He ran his hand over the information, reading it as Ash spoke.

"Ladies and gentlemen, tonight you will have the honor of trying to corrupt DRUID's newest security product: Aurora," Ash said, her voice filled with its usual intrigue and allure that made Bach speculate about the curves of her body for the thousandth time. Ash had to be attractive. The simple fact that a room full of egomaniacs gave her their full attention when she spoke pled that case pretty darn well. One of these days he was going to give in to his curiosity and print out a 3D model of all her dimensions so he could get a sense of what he was missing. It would be a creepy move. He had no illusions about that. But sometimes a blind man needed to be creepy if he wanted to see what everyone else was seeing.

"As you all know," Ash continued. "The Northern and Southern lights are beautiful to behold from a distance. Yet the man who ventures into the beauty of the aurora will not survive the experience unless he takes extreme safety measures. Expect this same experience from DRUID's latest security service, Aurora. The sales brochure promises to provide customers with an unbreachable data cloud that is unreadable by any third parties."

"Yeah, right!" a voice called out, and a chorus of laughter echoed his disbelief.

"Your challenge, my friends," Ash called out over them, "is to change the text on the main screen here at The Aqueduct. I have connected the Aurora system to a basic consumer computer. And as you can all see, that computer monitor is currently displaying the message: AURORA IS THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL DATA SECURITY SYSTEM."

"Oh, they're going down!" someone called out. A few whoops followed.

Ash was quick to take control of the room again. "The hacker who changes the screen to display their handle and any message of their choosing wins. But remember, to collect the bounty, you must send a full recording of your hack approach to be analyzed by the programmers back at DRUID. You show them how you beat them, and they pay for a year's vacation. You keep your secrets, and they'll keep their money. That's how this works!"

Bach was so ready for this. He'd taken six of the past nine contests. Tonight he planned on bumping that up to seven wins while fattening his pocketbook yet again.

"So are you ready?" Ash called out.

Rather than cheering, the sound of everyone hunkering down served as Ash's reply.

"Good," she said. "Because we start NOW!"

Bach felt the countdown clock make its first tick down from twelve hours, followed by the tap-tap-tap of fingers working in the bar. He didn't silence the noise. Hearing the taps gave Bach a sense of the approaches his competition was using, and knowing that might come in handy later.

In the meantime, Bach started at square one: getting to know the enemy. Or, maybe more accurately, finding the enemy.

Orienting himself in the Aurora programming was a bit like standing a thousand feet in the air in a snow storm and being asked to build a snowman with the flakes as they fell. It had to be possible. The Aurora system was doing it, so it could definitely be done.

Bach just had figure out how.

Bach hung out in the metaphorical snowstorm for the first thirty minutes, feeling his way around and trying to get a sense for its rhythms and flows. None were forthcoming. The pings the system was broadcasting were easy enough to pick up on in real time, yet with the constant motion of the algorithm, pegging one down was like catching a snowflake on his tongue. The moment the snowflake touched, it melted and disappeared. And such was every snowflake—simply one among the innumerable, but each one unique.

Bach had his system take snapshots of Aurora's pings, analyzing their anatomy and their demands. Billions upon billions of ping snapshots populated Bach's display, each one unique in the moment in time it was captured. Now that Bach had captures of pings, and not the live versions of them, he could poke around a bit to see what made these unique little snowflakes tick.

His findings were not encouraging.

These weren't Mother Earth's homemade flakes. They were brass-knuckled badasses that demanded you speak in tongues within a centisecond of making contact. They asked a question, and if you answered correctly, you were granted a centisecond inside that single snowflake's one-time pass token before it expired and was replaced with a new question that needed to be answered correctly within the next centisecond. And so on and so on.

To hack the system, Bach would need to formulaically answer each snowflake's uniquely pinged question in the language it would recognize. Answering even one snowflake's question incorrectly, or in the wrong language, would identify Bach as an enemy and send a command to flood his system with malicious code.

And to add joy to the equation, it seemed the only way out of the system after making contact with even a single Aurora snowflake was to stop speaking to all of the snowflakes at the exact same centisecond. Any staggering of contact resulted in the same flag that launched the intruder defenses.

Well, damn.

Twelve hours wasn't even close to enough time to handle that level of insanity. Twelve months? Maybe. And that was a huge maybe that would require sacrificing an unforeseeable number of computers to the cause.

Over his headphones, Bach heard someone gave a cry of dismay back at the bar. It seemed Aurora had claimed her first hasty victim. As Bach listened, all hands stilled on their keyboards while the other hackers waited for the downed hacker to share how he'd been burned. Hackers were collaborative like that after they were out of the game.

"The key isn't coded in binary," a man's voice said, and Bach shook his head. He could have guessed that much. Or at least he would have guessed that only a small portion of his little metaphorical snowflakes spoke binary in any given centisecond.

Things were very still at The Aqueduct after the ousted hacker's confession. No doubt most of the contenders were coming to a similar conclusion as Bach. Based on the sounds at the bar, the drink orders were really starting to come in.

It wasn't the worst idea in the world to approach this madness in an altered state of mind, but Bach seriously doubted that there was a drug in existence that made Aurora's level of complexity comprehensible to the human mind. Organic matter wasn't built for situations like this. Machines were.

Bach leaned back in his seat, debating his next move. It had been a while since he slept. But some shut eye would be his only prize if he walked away from this challenge.

On the other hand, winning the competition might be hopeless, but was that any reason not to give it his all and see what he gleaned? If nothing else, he could take a zillion shots of one-time tokens to analyze later. Because even if Bach couldn't hack the system now, he'd have to hack it once it hit the market. If Bach didn't figure it out, then Phi's computer would have to figure it out and school him. And that would just burn.

So, yeah. Bach needed to stay in the game, if only for recon purposes.

Bach dove back into the Aurora, observing but not touching, as he heard hackers back at The Aqueduct start forming teams. It was fair play to collaborate. It just meant the reward needed to be split, if won.

Noise-cancelling barriers started going up around the tables, allowing teams to discuss their approaches as Bach listened in. Two men, clearly under the influence, started philosophizing about vibrational manifestation. Another group, quite sober, was taking a more systematic approach. Others were making a show of sticking it out, even as they quietly agreed to get wasted.

No one was optimistic. DRUID had taken the best of the best and left them twiddling their thumbs.

But was anyone going to say it?

There was nothing for Bach to do as his computer took trillions of captures he could later analyze for patterns, but given that the contest lasted twelve hours, Bach was pretty certain that no pattern repeated within those twelve hours. DRUID would have prepared for someone with Bach's exact motives to be in this competition.

He really should just sleep. Yes, he had sleep alternatives that kept him moving from day to day, but nothing replaced true sleep, and it had been a few days. He should just do it.

Bach let his eyes drift shut even as he kept his hand on his input pad for updates. His breathing was just starting to even out when he felt The Aqueduct's main screen text change and fill with binary.

01001111011101110110111001100101011001000010000001100010011110010010000001001100

Bach's eyes popped open as his fingertips double checked that he was indeed feeling a change made to the Aurora-controlled screen. It was.

What the hell?

A moment later, more binary was added.

010010010010011101110110011001010010000001101110011001010111011001100101011100100010000001110111011011110110111000100000011000010110111001111001011101000110100001101001011011100110011100100000011000100110010101100110011011110111001001100101001011100010000001010100011010000110100101110011001000000111011101100001011100110010000001100110011101010110111000101110

All of Bach's muscles froze in disbelief, and he realized he wasn't the only one stunned into inaction. The entire bar had fallen silent. No cries of dismay at being cheated, because no one had even been close to getting anywhere. They'd all deemed it impossible, and suddenly it was done.

Everyone seemed to still be processing that when Ash broke the silence.

"Okay, someone's going to have to help me out here," she said, her voice colored with a nervous laugh. "I'm not used to reading binary. Anyone here want to help me out?"

Bach felt over the code, annoyed that the hacker hadn't helped them out with spaces to indicate letter breaks. The binary was written exactly how a computer would write it.

"Owned by L," a man translated after several beats. The next line took the man just a half a second longer than it took Bach. "I've never won anything before. This was fun."

L? Bach pretty much knew everyone in the hacker world, but he'd never heard of anyone named L.

Bach immediately pinged Phi.

"Phi?" Bach said into his comm. "Did you see what just happened at The Aqueduct?" Of course he had, but Bach wanted to know his reaction to it.

Phi's reply was instant. "Affirmative. I'm aware of the contest results."

"And are you L?" Bach asked.

"Of course not," Phi replied, sounding annoyed.

"But you know who L is?"

"Yes."

No elaboration. No explanation. Just of course, and Bach knew that was all he was going to get. "So you're okay with what just happened?"

"Indeed," Phi replied. "It is an exciting development occurring ahead of schedule, for once. I'm following the subject's progress with interest."

And Bach was left with that to chew on as all the programmers back at The Aqueduct began putting their heads together to try to figure out who L might be and how in the world he or she had hacked the most effective white-noise security screen any of them had ever seen in less than two hours.

CHAPTER NINE

ZERO

For once Zero wasn't the one sucking the last drop of liquor out of a bottle. Dom beat him to it, eyelids heavy and body loose as he plopped the bottle onto the picnic blanket. He hung his head back and swayed. Zero knew exactly what he was feeling.

"You going to puke?" Zero asked.

Dom blinked at the sky. "I feel the earth move under my feet. I feel...the sky tumbling down." He laughed, put his voice into a falsetto and sang, "Tumblin' down."

"Okay, Carole King," Zero said, reaching out to steady his friend. "But are you going to hurl?"

Dom stared. Blinked. Contemplated. "Not yet."

"Well, let me know and I'll get you off this blanket."

"You're a good man, man."

"Right back at you."

"Nah," Dom objected. "You're, like, way better than me, you know? Like, in every way. You're like...Superman. Faster than a speeding bullet. Able to leap...uh, trains, planes, and automobiles."

Zero closed his eyes and fought the urge to sway himself. "I think that's more Swiss's thing."

"Swiss...yeah," Dom agreed. "She's fucking amazing."

"She is," Zero agreed, checking the time. It was 2:30 a.m. and Dom was a few breaths from passing out. Not the best shape to be in the night before you faced off against your arch enemy, but who was Zero to judge? As the resident alcoholic, he couldn't.

Although the true fact of the matter was that Zero wouldn't mind all that much if Dom slept through the next day and missed his window to take out Baran. They could hunt the asshole down and take him out undergod style. There was no need for Dom to walk into a one-way, self-imposed trap and take a bullet. There were options.

But in the end it was Dom's call, and he seemed dead set on taking the bastard down before Baran walked into the warm embrace of government protection.

"Poor thing," Dom mumbled next to him.

"Poor who?" Zero asked.

Dom stared at him for a moment, blinking like a baby fighting off sleep. He wobbled, recovered, then tapped his band. "Turn off your comm."

Zero hesitated. "Why?"

"I have a favor to ask you. Private shit. Now turn it off."

Zero reached for his armband, found the concealed switch, and flipped it. "You know Phi hates that."

"Phi can fuck himself."

Zero couldn't help but grin. "I'm pretty sure he's his only option in that department."

"He probably built a machine for it...printed out a 4D deep throat or something," Dom laughed then sombered. "I need you to do something for me."

"Okay."

"S'Jack," Dom slurred.

Loose as he was, Zero tensed and looked around. "What about Jack?"

"Take care of her? Take her out? Be her friend? Promise me? Don't let Phi just keep her in that lab and poke her until he burns her to dust."

Before Zero could respond, Jack appeared out of nowhere, its predatory glare fixed on Dom as it bared the tips of its teeth in warning.

"What?" Dom yelled at it. "You want to stay in that cage after I'm gone?"

The franken-beast seemed to consider that, although it did not lose its predatory stance.

"I'm telling him!" Dom yelled at the creature and the dog-thing hissed, its teeth distinctly un-dog-like.

Zero knew he should reach for a gun...a knife...a something, but he was too transfixed by what appeared to be actual communication. And while Dom's bond with Phi's science experiment was commendable and all, Zero wanted no part in it. Zero ate animals. He didn't hang out with them.

"Dom, I get where your head's at," Zero said. "But I don't think I'm the right guy for this favor."

"Y'r perfect," Dom said, then laughed. "Purrrrrrfect."

"Ask Bach," Zero pressed. "Let Jack pose as a service animal. That'll get it out of the kennel."

To Zero's surprise, it was Jack that glared at him over the suggestion, not Dom. And what a compelling glare it was.

Dom laughed. "Bach is too proud to even pretend to need a service animal, and Jack...would be bored out of her mind. 'N it can't be Omen. Omen doesn't work because...Omen."

Zero was surprised at how much sense that statement made.

"What about Swiss?" Zero offered. "She's a way better fit."

Jack and Dom both grew still and shared a look.

"I'm gonna to tell you something," Dom began, and Jack let out a warning growl, the hair on its back spiking up in warning. Dom was apparently not impressed because he snapped back. "Hiss all you want, bitch. I trust Zero, okay? He's my best friend 'n he'll take you hunting. Outside. Here in foothills like this. Don't you want that?"

The beast seemed to consider that.

"For the record," Zero said. "There's no way in hell I'm taking this freak hunting."

Dom nodded. "You will."

"Sorry, dude—"

"You will!" Dom roared, then slow-blinked and wobbled a bit as he recovered from his exertion. When he was centered again, Dom reached out and gave Jack a gentle stroke. "She can't help what's being done to her. She has no control."

Zero shook his head. "Why do you always call it a her? It's genetically modified to be nothing, Dom. It's got no dick. It's got no vagina. It's got no sex. It's a fucking it."

Dom tapped his finger to his temple. "But her mind..."

The comment earned a high growl of warning from Jack, which Dom again chose to ignore.

"Think about it, asshole," Dom continued. "Phi takes the best of everything he can find and frankensteins it together into one specimen, right? Best sense of smell, best eyes, best...who the fuck knows what else. He upgrades it and upgrades it and upgrades it, then turns around to Swiss and fucking does the same thing to her, with all the confidence in the world that her mind can handle it. You ever asked yourself how he's so confident? Huh?"

This time it was Zero's turn to do a slow blink. He looked at Jack, look back at Dom, then returned his gaze to Jack. "No fucking way," Zero breathed.

"Believe it, man. Why else would Phi have an animal in the lab except to have a lab rat he can practice on? Jack is his fucking beta tester for upgrades before he forces them onto Swiss."

Zero felt relieved. "Oh, I get that. I thought you were saying that—"

"Swiss's mind and consciousness are in Jack?" Dom interrupted. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

The dog-thing watched Zero closely. The intelligence behind the animal's eyes had always made Zero uneasy, but if what Dom was saying was true, a whole lot of things would make more sense. In fact, pretty much everything about Jack would start to make sense if...

"Holy shit."

"Yeah," Dom agreed. "And you know Swiss. She can't hack it in a cage."

Zero could only stare at the hybrid that was staring right back at him, lightly sniffing the air between them.

"Does Swiss know?" he asked.

Dom shook his head with big, emphatic swings. "No, and Jack doesn't want her to either. Not yet. Not until after Swiss's last op. Then...maybe."

Zero's eyes stay locked on Jack's. "Just when I thought things couldn't get more fucked up."

"No kidding!" Dom said then abruptly laid back, reaching for one of the carryout bags. "Ah, man. I'm gonna yack."

Dom's hand moved to his stomach as he tried to roll over. Jack stepped back, sniffing the air above Dom before looking at Zero as if to say, This is your problem.

"Yeah? You're a big help," Zero said and watched the corner of Jack's mouth curve up in a very human way. Then the dog-thing approached and tapped a paw against Zero's wristband before running the same paw over her ear—yes, her ear. It was a she. Zero could concede that now.

"You're right," Zero said to Jack. "Phi will want my comm back on. I'll do it after Dom passes out on us."

Jack actually nodded before trotting back off into the darkness. A tail swish was the last thing Zero saw before she disappeared from view. Just like Swiss—one moment there, one moment gone, with no effort whatsoever.

Zero was still wrapping his head around the possibility that this wasn't all just a fucked-up dream when he heard Dom give a heave and heard the slap of liquid inside the bag. At least the man aimed well.

"Let it out," Zero said absently, giving Dom's back a light tap.

And, boy, did he.

Zero let the man purge while putting a silent prayer up to whatever god might be listening that his friend would pass out, sleep through the next day, and be forced to choose a different path to take George Baran down.

Not that any god had ever listened to Zero before, but a Hail Mary was a Hail Mary. And as had just been evidenced, impossible things were clearly happening every day. If a human mind could be implanted into a franken-jackal, then by the gods, a solid hangover was a perfectly reasonable—and even karmic—request in the current situation.

All Zero could do was pass out along with his friend and hope that the gods—the real gods, if there were such a thing—were feeling reasonable in the morning.

Coming Up in Episode 5

Dom's plans are knocked off course when George Baran rallies the troops.

Demi is reunited with Sam, prompting William to voice his opinion on what the future should hold.

Swiss receives an unexpected visit from a being that may not be entirely human.

Phi offers to become Dom's right-hand man if Dom will agree to alter his game plan.

BACH (Sneak Peek)

Bach had maybe two hours of sleep under his belt when he walked into Hell. The underworld of Reno and beyond had experienced tectonic shifts overnight. Bach had done his best to tune in live, but their was far too much information to process in one sitting.

One thing was clear, however: Going after Baran as planned that day would be suicide. There were too many boots on the ground and too many heavy hitters in the game. The chances of all of Baran's allies failing all at once? Not even worth considering.

The only real question now was how Bach could explain as much to Dom in a way the man would hear.

DEMI (Sneak Peek)

Sam leaned forward and tried to sneak a peek at William's tablet screen from across the table. "Are you playing a game there?"

Demi bit her lip and accidentally caught Hale's gaze, knowing that her expression mirrored the look in his eyes. Then the connection was gone. Hale glanced at his watch as an excuse to look away from her, just like he always did whenever they were on the verge of a "moment."

William did not look up. "I am monitoring social media updates regarding you and mother, including the photos the customers around us are uploading to different networks."

Sam's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah? Which software are you using?"

William didn't answer.

Demi cleared her throat. "William? Your dad asked you a question."

"We really should focus more on creating better photo opportunities here," William said, ignoring them. "Eighty-seven percent of comments currently focus on Hale's 'fuckability factor'. It is my understanding the focus should be on Sam, yes?"

"William!" Demi gasped, fighting the urge to reach across the table an snatch his tablet away. "Where did you hear that word?"

William didn't look up and when he spoke he sounded bored. "Mother, I am familiar with 373 euphemisms for copulation. I am also aware that fuck is still considered a term too vulgar to be used by pre-pubescents. But the tagged terms currently most associated with Hale in reposts is indeed fuckable. I simply added the verbal alliteration of factor."

Demi's face had to be glowing red with mortification. She just knew it. Next to her Sam's jaw was literally hanging open and when Demi stole a look at Hale he looked as if someone had wired his jaw shut so he couldn't speak.

But damn if that tension in his jaw didn't make him look intense and broody. And yes, supremely fuckable. How could a woman not wonder how it feel to have all that intensity aimed at her...focused only on pleasing her?

Demi's breath caught and she quickly cleared her throat to cover it up.

"The tags associated with you and dad are more troubling, however," William added. "Your reunion is being categorized as 'tepid.'"

SWISS (Sneak Peek)

Swiss had just settled into position when everything around her grew still, the very air with its refracting light freezing in place.

"No, no, no," she muttered, holding up her hands and looking at them. She hadn't activated her speed. It was too dangerous with so many cameras hunting for Dom. Yet somehow she was slowing time without meaning to. But how? And how could she stop it?

"It's not you," a female voice said, and Swiss got a taste of her own medicine when she looked up and saw that a woman had magically appeared in front of her. She hadn't sensed the woman's at all and even now, looking at straight her, Swiss could detect no scent to identify the woman.

Phi would shit his pants if she told him such a thing was possible.

Thank you for reading Episodes 4 of The Undergods.

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As a reminder, this series is intended for Mature audiences (18+), and does contain graphic sexuality, violence, language, and other adult themes.

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All the Best,

Eva Kane

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