“Did you get it!” Several of the council members demanded all at once. Her gaze traveled along the row of chairs facing her. Each face peppered with excitement. She’d made no waste of time to get to the council chamber. Maybe thirty minutes had passed since she’d ridded the planet of the creature.
“What, no how are you? Are you hurt?” Delilah dragged her battered body into the council chamber, trying to ignore the pain rippling through her flesh. With each step and she swore her bones rattled. She braced her body against the pain slamming through her body and attempted to ignore the trembling of her muscles and the dizziness that threatened to knock her on her ass.
“Are they safe?” Said the Counselor Excelsior.
“No, damn it. They are not safe.” Her gaze trailed across each face starring at her. “They traveled through before I could destroy them.”
“Then the decisions made.” The high councilor’s voice bellowed. “You will…” he stood, walked over to where she stood and glared down into her eyes. “You will find them by what ever means necessary and destroy them.”
“Don’t you mean bring them back?”
Shaking his head, “They are too dangerous. Destruction is the only--”
“So be it.” Turning, Delilah limped to the door.
“For the goddesses sake, get yourself checked out and healed first.”
***
Standing naked in front of the medical scanner was not her idea of foreplay. She turned her body so all surfaces were scanned before stepping into her designated cubby. Poked and prodded, scanned, wrapped and rubbed, she didn’t know how much more of this she could take. Time was of the essence. With each second they detained her from her task, the farther the crystal got and the colder its trail grew.
Everything had been programmed into the transport portal. Her cover was in place and language chips were imbedded into her cerebral cortex. The general location of the Cerulean Crystal was planet Earth, circa 2012. She only hoped the gate was right this time. The previous times she spaced walked through the portal and entered earth’s atmosphere the gate had been off by twenty-four hours. The first time, Kennedy was already dead and the second, she propelled through on September twelfth not eleventh and the Al-quadians had already succeeded in their threat and thousands of humans had been killed. Disgusted and beaten because she felt the failure was hers for not getting to the planet on time, she’d vowed to never return to earth, now knowing that was a threat she was unable to keep.
Readying herself, she stepped up to the gate and waited. Glancing over her shoulders at the centurions standing behind the protective glass, she closed her eyes, tightened her fist around the protective crystalline sapphire dangling around her neck and sucked in a breath and waited for the pain to be over. It hurt for a second before it stole her breath and not once has she landed on her feet.
The gravitational pull of the portal itched along her skin, reminiscent of a thousand kunzite bugs crawling along her arms. Shivering, she tired to relax her arms and knees. Stiffening up would not make her landing easier.
The air dissipated around her head, grew hot, burning her lungs. Before she could object she was propelled through. Damn, she hated her job.
***
“What the hell happened here?” Jordan Samsons stood over the corpse of what he thought was a body. It was hard to tell since it appeared to be turned inside out. Blood. Gore. Death. That was his job. He’d been a homicide cop for as long as he cared to remember, but never had he seen anything like this. Stepping to the side when the assistant medical examiner tossed his lunch, Jordan shook his head and turned away from the mass of flesh contaminating the alley.
He stepped over to his car, leaned his body against the side door and pulled his cell from his pocket when it started to ring. “Talk.” His voice came out hard and cold. Listening to the voice on the other end, he allowed the frown tugging at his lips to surface. “No.” He listened further, swallowing pass the disgust churning in his gut. Not from the death he’d just played witness to, but to the request of his supervisor to come in to the station house to meet his new partner.
“Can’t.” He added. “I’ve got a possible murder on my hands.” Possible my ass. No way could this happen to a body by accident. “Alright! Give me an hour to wrap up here.” He slammed the phone shut before the caller said anything more. Damn.
A partner.
Whose cheap idea was it to give him a partner? He hated partners. He hated having someone tag along with him. He hated having to answer questions, hated having to give explanations and worse yet, he hated having to baby sit. He’d been a loner for almost ten years and he planned on keeping it that way. Forget what his captain said about some police exchange program they were participating in with another country. The last thing he needed was some, stupid ass bloke who could barely speak English hanging on to his pants legs, trying to figure out why our security is better than theirs.
Fuck.
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