Hey Jude

The next day started with hand to hand training. Rather than play any physical part in things himself, Wiley had rounded up a couple of volunteers.

The first was Vance, a guy in his mid twenties with light brown hair in desperate need of a cut and clothes a size too big. He was a tall guy, but somehow that didn’t make him at all menacing. The way he moved gave the impression of a puppy that didn't quite know what to do with its sudden growth. As soon as Wiley started talking he sat down on the training mats and made himself comfortable, listening diligently.

Mace, real name Macey, was just about his exact opposite. She looked like she had an Aboriginal parent or grandparent given her dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes and general features. She was a bit below average height, but unlike Vance she held herself tall, her arms crossed over her chest and her expression serious as she listened to Wiley speak. Her clothes were practical and fit her well. Thankfully the knife she'd had clipped to her belt had been set aside before she'd joined us on the training mats.

"There's no particular reason you would need to fight someone hand to hand within the confines of your job, since your job is to fight non-humanoid demons," Wiley was telling me, "but it's important to know how to use your body as a weapon should all other weapons fail you. Have you ever had any hand to hand training before?"

"Uh... not anything coherent?" I replied.

Of course, that didn't mean I was inexperienced. I was far from a master of any particular style, but I'd had a few people teach me some things over the years and I'd gotten into plenty of fights when I'd been younger. Most of those had happened before Mikey had come along and mellowed me out, taught me the value of restraint.

"Let's see what we've got to work with, then. Vance, I want you to give Jude a good test out. Don't go easy on him."

"What are the rules?" I asked as Vance stood up and dusted himself off.

"Ha. Rules." Wiley stepped away from the mat, smiling broadly. "Have fun."

I didn't know if the lack of rules were intended to be another cruelty or if Wiley simply thought it was a more effective learning method. Either way, I didn't actually find the idea of no rules sparring as off-putting as Wiley's grin suggested he expected me to. It wasn't a new concept to me. I was terrified by the idea of a demon tearing my throat out, but I'd stopped being afraid of getting the shit kicked out of me sometime around puberty.

Vance was larger than me, and possibly stronger, too — it was hard to determine how much musculature he actually had when his clothes were so baggy. Those baggy clothes would also give me something to grab hold of. His awkward gait suggested a lack of grace and, though his long legs meant he could probably outrun me, he didn't look like he had the balance necessary for quick responses in close quarters. I didn't know what skills had earnt him his job, but I doubted close range fighting was something he specialised in. I waited for him to take the first swing.

Wiley had said not to go easy on me, but Vance's first punch, a straightforward jab to my ribs, was restrained in both force and speed. He wanted me to dodge it and, if I failed to, he didn't want to hurt me too badly. I did dodge, and then struck back at him at the same point he'd been aiming for on me. Unlike him I aimed to hit and I aimed to hurt, and succeeded on both counts. The solid impact sent a shock from my knuckles to my wrist up my elbow. To Vance's credit, a wince was his only response to the pain.

"Are we counting strikes or what?" I asked Wiley without taking my eyes off of Vance. "How do we know when one of us has won?"

"I'll let you know," I heard Wiley say.

For a while longer we kept going like that, taking swings at each other and either hitting or missing before backing off and trying again. Vance ran through various types of attacks like he was going down a checklist: here an uppercut, there a backhand, now and then a jab. I politely echoed him with my own uppercut, backhand, and jab. We focused on each other's torsos mainly, I think because neither of us wanted to risk breaking a hand on a face. The damage wouldn't last long given Sal, but there were some aversions that were hard to break. Vance had a good defensive posture too, keeping his fists up and elbows in, which made it a little more interesting to try to crack through, but it was basically all very civilised. It didn't seem to get us anywhere except bruised. Wiley didn't want civilised. Of that I was certain.

"Want to just finish this?" I asked. My hands had gone past 'hurt' and 'aching', but at least my skin hadn't broken.

"Yeah, sure," Vance replied, slightly out of breath but otherwise perfectly at ease.

When we next moved in to strike at one another, we didn't back off as soon as one of us landed a hit. And... there was a side of me that really kind of enjoyed it. Hand to hand likely wasn't Vance's strongest point, but he'd clearly had the training and he definitely posed a challenge. I had been a long time since I'd done this and I'd kind of forgotten why it had appealed.

It wasn't about hurting someone else, especially not someone I held no grudge against like Vance. It was about the discipline required to move past the pain in my own body and the focus I needed to outmaneuver a skilled opponent.

When it became clear that he didn't actually have an upper hand on me, Vance stopped holding back. I forgot the outside world, forgot everything but hit, dodge, block. I took advantage of his baggy clothes and slightly slower reflexes. He took advantage of the reach his long arms provided.

It was his balance that ultimately let him down, though. After I dodged one of his strikes he was left, for a moment, leaning forward. I was in the right position to kick the back of his knees, snapping him face forward onto the mats. I was on his back before he could move, yanking one of his arms painfully behind his back, and it was over.

"Well, that was fun," Wiley said from behind me. "Now you get to fight Mace. Good luck with that."

I got off of Vance and helped him up before shaking his hand. As he left the mat, Mace came to replace him.

She was smaller than me and not as strong as me, but I was sore and she looked confident. What followed was fast and brutal.

She didn't hold back like Vance had at the beginning and she didn't let scruples keep her from targeting the points on my body that Vance had already tenderised. She was faster than me, especially now that I was tired from fighting Vance, and my superior strength didn't mean jack shit when I could hardly get in a hit.

She also, unlike Vance, had the grace and coordination to use her legs as more than just flesh pedestals for her torso. In other words, Macey kicked. She aimed mostly at the tops of my knees, angled down, to make me expend energy by dodging — because one landed kick and I could almost guarantee my entire leg would go numb — but then surprised me with a side kick aimed for my chest. I thought I dodged it just fine by simply stepping back, but then she stepped forward and into a high kick, her foot fast approaching my face. It connected. My head snapped back. There was around a two second span of pure confusion to go along with an almost complete loss of balance.

I was on my back with her forearm pressed against my throat before she'd even broken a sweat.

She let me up and I licked blood from my lip. "Rematch when I'm fresher?"

Mace smiled at me, the first show of emotion I'd seen from her. "I'd still kick your ass."

"Oh, I know." I lifted my shirt to examine the state of my chest and stomach. Bruises were starting to form. "But maybe I could hold my own long enough to learn something."

Wiley waved me over. "Come on, Jude, I'm taking you to Sal. You're no use to me all bruisey. Vance, you're not under my command so I don't really give a shit, but you can come with us if you like."

"Yeah, I think I'll come along." Vance stuck his hands in his pockets and ambled slowly over to us, apparently unconcerned by Wiley's attitude.

Mace had gone to retrieve her knife and was clipping it back onto her belt. "Lunch after?"

Vance nodded cheerfully and held up a hand in farewell as we headed for the door. "I'll meet you there."

As soon as we were out of the room Vance began to examine his body for injuries as we walked. He seemed to find each new one he discovered amusing. There were definitely no hard feelings over my beating him.

When we reached Sal's clinic, Wiley's pressed down on the buzzer and didn't release it until the door slid open. Sal made a vague attempt at a disapproving glare, but I got the feeling she enjoyed Wiley's company too much to genuinely mind. I might have appreciated his company more too if he didn't spend so much of our time together getting me hurt. Hell, I might have even settled for him enjoying it just a tad less.

Sal's eyes slid over to me and Vance. "So now you've started getting other people hurt as an excuse to see me?"

Wiley grinned. "My genius knows no bounds."

Sal rolled her eyes and stepped aside. "Come in, guys."

Once we were inside, Sal sat us both down on the examination table and had us take off our shirts.

"You're still going to be some pretty exciting colours once I'm done since I won't be wasting my energy on anything cosmetic, but the damage and the pain will be gone."

Vance admired the scattered bruises on his chest. "That's cool, I kind of like them. They're decorative."

Sal started on Vance first while I sat around being shirtless and awkward. "So, who won this fight?"

Vance jabbed a thumb in my direction. "Mace took him down after in about twenty seconds, though."

"If you want to defend your honour I'll let you kick his ass this afternoon on the range," Wiley offered.

"Naw, my honour's fine," Vance said. "Is he any good, though? Wouldn't mind a game with someone new."

Wiley leant back against Sal's desk. "Not as good as you, but good enough to make things interesting."

"Sounds fun. Jude, you up for it?"

"I don't think he actually intended for my participation to be optional, but since it sounds like fun I won't object."

"See, all you really need to do is find the fun in whatever terrible things I decide to have you do!" Wiley said. I flipped him off.

Vance invited the three of us to go to lunch with him and Mace after Sal was done and, as Vance was actually nice to me, I was glad when Wiley agreed.

I hadn't had any new stunning revelations within the few minutes leading up to getting my food this time, so I was able to pay proper attention to the selection. Wiley had been right, it was impressive. There were soups and sandwiches and salads, rice and curry and roast beef, chips and pizza and toast. It wasn't surprising, I supposed. For people like Wiley, this place needed to supply enough variety to keep things interesting and healthy.

For me, though, it was chips and pizza. Screw healthy and interesting.

By the time I had my food, everyone else was already at the table. 'Everyone else' being Wiley, Sal, Vance, Mace, and some guy I hadn't met before. The new guy wasn't paying much attention to anyone around him, just poking at his phone and slowly making his way through a chicken salad, so I wondered for a moment if he actually had anything to do with the rest of the group. Maybe he was just some poor guy who happened to have already been sitting at the table the others had decided they wanted.

Then Vance reached over and shoved the guy's arm, earning him the guy's attention and a glare. Vance pointed his thumb in my direction. "Ethan, this is Jude. Wiley's training him."

Ethan's gaze slid over me in brief assessment then he gave me a little wave and returned his attention to his phone. Well.

Soon Ethan was the only one at the table who was quiet. Even Mace, who I'd taken for the serious, silent type, wasn't above raising her voice to make herself heard. Ethan was calm and restrained in everything, even his appearance. His hair was short and dark, recently trimmed and carefully combed. His clothes fit him well, unlike Vance's, and seemed more fashion-minded than combat-ready, unlike Mace's. He wore a high collared jacket over a tight shirt.

Once he was done with his food Ethan pushed it away and occupied the hand he wasn't using to rapidly peck out messages on his phone with twirling a Celtic style ring he’d slipped off his finger on the table top.

I felt kind of out of place at the table. I tried to keep track of the conversation, but topics came and went too fast for me to grab hold of them and there were constant references to things I didn't understand. When I next looked back to Ethan, the ring he'd been twirling on the table was now hovering above his hand, still spinning rapidly. If anyone else had noticed, they hadn't thought it was worth commenting on. Huh. I was never going to get used to this place.

After lunch, we all headed down to the range. Well, except for Sal. She had to get back to work.

We started up a game with the weak stunguns on the side of the room with the barriers and obstacles. Wiley declined to join in, much to my relief. His advantage was impossibly, frustratingly great. Knowing I didn't stand a chance in hell against him, no matter how good I became, was a tad discouraging.

Ethan also declined to participate, which seemed to surprise no one. Instead he retrieved a belt with over a dozen tiny knives sheathed in it and began using his ability to toss them at targets. If I hadn't had something else to do, I would have been happy to simply sit and watch him for a while.

But I did, and I was okay with that because going up against Vance and Mace on the course sounded like a lot of fun too.

What first became apparent was that yes, Vance could definitely kick my ass when it came to shooting. He still wasn't that fast at dodging, but most of the time that didn't matter because he was fast and accurate with his stungun. He'd get the first shot in, and the weak electric pulse that went through my body when the ball of energy hit me would mess up any attempts at retaliation, allowing him time to get back behind cover.

Mace wasn't nearly as skilled, though she was certainly good. We hadn't truly worked out which one of us was better before we decided that Vance had too much of an advantage on us and started working together against him. He still clocked more hits against us than we did against him, but it evened things out a little.

For just a little while, as we played our game, I forgot to be scared. I forgot the danger I was in, forgot the danger everyone else was in, forgot responsibility and dread.

I heard a mobile phone ring on the other side of the room, and a moment later Ethan shouted over at us. "Guys! Mission!"

Vance got in one last shot at Mace while she was distracted, and then they were both running over to Ethan.

Wiley strolled up to stand beside me as they left the room. "Well, time to take you home. Actually, home time was half an hour ago, but you were just having so much fun with your little friends that I didn't want to interrupt."

"I was, actually."

"Good. I wish McCartnnon hadn't told me to do your training, or I'd let them take over some of it. They'd probably know more about how best to train someone with no special ability."

"I doubt he'd mind." I lifted my shirt to rub sweat off my face. "I mean, I think his intentions were just to get me trained quickly and effectively without getting me killed."

"But that's not what he said," Wiley pointed out.

I made a face. Ah, another uncomfortable reminder of the fucked up situation that was McCartnnon. "No, I suppose it isn't. But do you think he'd actually get angry about it? Do you think he'd punish you for disobeying?"

Wiley was frowning, and for a moment he looked genuinely confused. He shook his head. "You just don't understand how the hierarchy works around here. You'll learn."

I wanted to counter that, to tell him that maybe he was the one who didn't truly understand how it actually worked, but I kept my mouth shut. I doubted he'd believe me if I told him what I suspected.

So that was another day down with no real progress towards anything important. I was so unbelievably alone in this and it was weighing heavily on me. I was used to dealing with things on my own when they got tough, sure, but this was well out of my realm of expertise and the consequences of failure were unacceptable. I didn't sleep well that night.

#

Wiley began teaching me the basics of sword fighting the next day, something completely new to me. When and why I would ever end up fighting with a sword I didn't know, but it was an interesting change of pace and it was nice to learn a new skill. Wiley didn't even bother slicing me up or anything, just patiently showed me different ways to thrust and parry, how to hold the sword and how to brace my legs for ideal balance.

Several hours later and we'd moved on to practising the moves he'd taught me, simple attacking and defending. It was, as always, incredibly frustrating fighting against Wiley. Of course he was far more skilled at this than me so I knew at this point I wouldn't have stood a chance even without Wiley's ten second advantage, but knowing it was pretty much impossible for me to ever get through his defences definitely took some of the fun out of it.

So I was kind of surprised when he glanced away and his defensive stance loosened. I thought it was a trick, but I attacked anyway, pushing his blade out of the way and then tapping mine against his undefended chest. No response.

A moment later the door hissed open and McCartnnon stepped into the room.

"Did you not plan on feeding the boy, Wiley?" McCartnnon asked, one eyebrow carefully arched.

I glanced at my watch. Almost two. We'd been going longer than I’d realised.

Wiley was holding his sword at his side now, the tip of the blade pointed at the ground, but his grip on it tightened and when he took a step forward it was in a direction that placed his body between me and McCartnnon. "We'll finish up here and then I'll take him to get some lunch."

McCartnnon took a step closer and Wiley tensed. "That won't be necessary. I wanted to talk to Jude about his progress, and we may as well do it over lunch."

"I can write you a report on how he's been doing."

McCartnnon smiled, more threatening than friendly. "That would be nice, but I'd still like to discuss it with Jude."

"I should come too."

"That's enough, Wiley." McCartnnon's voice was gentle, but there was a growing edge of irritation. "I wish to talk to Jude privately. Jude, come with me."

I didn't move. "I'd really rather not."

McCartnnon sighed, long and tired. "Wiley, you will tell him to come with me."

For several long seconds Wiley was silent, but finally, without turning away from McCartnnon, he gritted out, "Jude, go with him."

It wasn't Wiley telling me to go with McCartnnon that made me drop my sword and obey. It was the reminder that McCartnnon could control Wiley. I was scared of what McCartnnon might force Wiley to do if I continued to resist.

I turned to Wiley as I passed him. "Fine, but I'm not doing it because you told me to."

I said it in the same tone I might have used to remind Wiley that he was not, in fact, my real father, and so I didn't have to do what he said, but my intention wasn't petulance. It was the subtlest way I could think of to tell Wiley that if something happened to me, it wasn't his fault.

He didn't respond, just stood stiff and frozen, gripping his sword so tightly his knuckles had turned white. Helplessness was an expression I'd never expected to see on Wiley's face. I turned and followed McCartnnon out of the room.

"I swear, you two are so dramatic," McCartnnon said cheerfully as we walked down the corridor.

"Nobody likes you," I informed him flatly. I'd been rude and abrasive towards him last time and it had seemed to do nothing but amuse him, so I figured there was no danger in keeping it up.

He chuckled. "They don't have to like me as long as they obey and respect me. You seem to be rather bad at both of those things, but that's okay because I like you."

"I don't think they respect you either; they just fear you."

"Fear is a kind of respect." McCartnnon shrugged. "Do you fear me, Jude?"

"You have complete power over me and you've almost gotten me killed once already. So... yes?"

"You needn't worry, Jude. As I said before, I like you."

"I'm fairly sure you're a psychopath, so you liking me probably isn't a good thing."

He gave me a smile. "Well, it's certainly better than my disliking you, isn't it? Come along, don't dawdle."

We entered the elevator and my heart sunk when he selected floor six. Housing. I'd been hoping he was planning on taking me to the cafeteria. There the worst thing that I would be likely to endure was his company. Alone, in the privacy of his quarters... I just didn't know. I wondered what would happen if I refused to go with him, but I doubted that would have a better outcome. Whatever he wanted from me, saying no was unlikely to stop him.

When we exited the elevator we went down the left branch of housing. A glance down the corridor showed the doors more widely spaced than they had been in the middle branch where Wiley's apartment was located. We didn't go down there, though, instead stopping at the first door. The metal plaque on it said '1A'.

McCartnnon was blessedly silent for once as he scanned his ID and typed in his PIN, but it just left me more room to panic. When he was talking it kept my hackles up, and anger vanquished fear like nothing else.

When the door slid open the first thing I saw was Brandon sitting on the couch. He glanced up at us, eyed us with disinterest, then returned his focus to the book he was reading.

"Brandon, you will find something else to do for half an hour," McCartnnon told him.

Brandon shrugged and set his book aside, then looked around the room in contemplation.

McCartnnon sighed. "I meant somewhere else. You will go somewhere else for half an hour."

"Okay." Brandon picked up his book, shouldered past us, and left McCartnnon's apartment.

Being left alone in the apartment with McCartnnon made my stomach dip in trepidation, but after a moment of thought I realised that didn't make sense. That I would feel afraid of being alone with someone who scared me was only natural, but under the circumstances it was actually safer for me. If there had been others around, they couldn’t have protected me. They were just potential tools for McCartnnon to use against me. McCartnnon was past his prime and had a slight gut going. On his own, he really wasn't that physically threatening. I took a deep breath in and let it out again. Half an hour. This would be fine.

"He lives with you?" I asked.

"It is convenient to have someone around when I need something. Come along, I have lunch waiting in the kitchen."

And suddenly, somehow, I actually felt sorry for Brandon. Who would have thought that was possible? But to live with this asshole, to have your brain fucked with constantly... No wonder he was such a dick. Or maybe he was just like that naturally, and that was why McCartnnon liked him.

McCartnnon's apartment was far bigger than Wiley's and had better decor. There was a little table that seemed to serve no purpose other than to hold a vase. There were paintings on the hallway walls. The doors weren't electronic, like the ones in Wiley's apartment, but wooden and ornate. There was a fucking chandelier.

The kitchen was huge and seemed to dwarf the wooden table in one corner that was only big enough for two. Clearly, McCartnnon didn't bring many people back to his apartment for lunch. Yay me. I just loved being special.

"Take a seat while I get our lunch together, Jude."

I instinctively wanted to defy his every request, but I really needed to pick my battles. I sat down at the table.

"Do you drink wine?" McCartnnon asked. He held up a bottle to show me, as though perhaps I might not know what wine was.

"No." I wasn't planning on eating or drinking anything he offered me, but alcohol was something I never touched.

"Hmm." McCartnnon opened the fridge door and peered in. "Brandon has some soft drink in here. I can't stand the stuff, but that's what kids like these days, isn't it?"

"Look, let's just be clear on all this. I really don't want to have lunch with you, but I don't know what the fuck you would have done if I hadn't gone with you. I'm not going to eat or drink anything you offer me, though, because of the little running theme we have here: I do not trust you."

And McCartnnon just looked... really disappointed, actually. It was weird, seeing genuine emotion on his face. It made him seem real in a way he hadn't before, and that made me uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, I didn't feel sorry for him or anything, but seeing him as a person rather than an abstract villain, if only for a moment, was deeply unsettling.

"That is a terrible shame. I'll serve lunch anyway, shall I? Perhaps you'll change your mind." He got a bowl of salad from the fridge and placed it on the table. "I don't mean you any harm you know, Jude. I understand that might be hard to believe, but it's true."

I made a face at the internal conflict that stirred up within me. There was a part of me that was absolutely sure that was complete bullshit, that had already firmly decided that McCartnnon had something terrible planned and that it involved me. But then there was another part of me, a part that instinctively told me he was telling the truth. Did that have something to do with what he seemed to be able to do to other people? Was I not as immune as I thought? I decided to trust the part of me that told me to under no circumstances believe a thing McCartnnon said. It was the more logical part.

McCartnnon brought over a plate of quiche and a plate of tiramisu cut into perfect little squares. He placed an empty plate and a knife and fork in front of me and one on his side of the table. He brought over the bottle of wine and a glass for himself and put a can of soft drink next to my plate. It was sealed and so probably safe, but pure spite was reason enough not to drink it.

He sat down across from me and gave me a smile that looked a little forced before pouring himself a glass of wine. "I understand why you dislike me and why you don't trust me, Jude, I really do. I can hardly blame you for it, can I?" He took a sip of his wine. "Still, I hope there will come a time when we can understand one another a little better. I'm not as terrible as you might think."

I just glared at him in response. I really doubted that was true. It seemed like the more I discovered about the man, the more I found to hate.

He sighed, as if it were just the biggest downer ever that the teenage boy he'd threatened and manipulated and almost gotten killed didn't like him. "Alex was asking about you. Do you remember, the teenage demon with the fire ability? It seems you made a bit of an impression."

That was an actual topic I was interested in, so I decided to give him a response. "Well, I doubt they get many visitors."

McCartnnon laughed at that like I'd made some kind of joke. "No, I suppose not. Even so. He's not generally very talkative. Much like you, he prefers to communicate with glares. Of course you are human and he is not so I don't have quite the same fondness for him as I do you, but I believe I will miss him when he's gone."

"When you have him killed, you mean."

McCartnnon just shrugged.

"You could just not. You do make the rules, don't you?"

He smiled and took a long swallow of wine. "Rules can't simply be broken all over the place based on my whims, no matter who the rule maker is. They exist for a reason."

"Which is why you referred to the recruitment manual when you decided you wanted me to work for you? Yeah, I doubt that was standard procedure."

"Sometimes being in charge means knowing which rules can be broken, which should, and using that information to produce the best outcomes. Soon Alex will turn eighteen and he will no longer have a place here. He will be missed. The next oldest is that wild little bastard in the cell next to him, and I doubt he will rise to the occasion and show great leadership skills."

I wasn't really listening. I'd tried to forget about Alex, his impending death, and the time constraint I was under to actually do something. This reminder made my gut tighten. If the kids weren't demons as McCartnnon had claimed, could I really just stand by and let Alex be killed? The answer was simple: no. I couldn't and I wouldn't. I needed to see the kids again. I needed to speak to them alone and decide once and for all whether or not they were evil. What I would do after that I didn't know. Perhaps the kids, if they weren't demons, would have some ideas.

McCartnnon kept rambling as he started eating and continued sipping at his wine. I was too busy plotting to listen. Was there any reason I couldn't just go on down there on my own? McCartnnon had said there were generally only people down there at feeding times, and mid-afternoon wasn't a traditional meal time. There were no card scanners, and I hadn't seen any other security features that might stop me. As long as there weren't any monitored security cameras, the kids didn't tell anyone I'd been down there, and none of the scientists were there doing experiments, there was no reason I should get caught. Okay, that was a lot of 'ifs'.

If I did get caught, though, I had the feeling I wouldn't be harshly punished. For some reason McCartnnon seemed to like me, seemed to have some purpose for me, and as distasteful as I found that it would probably work in my favour if I fucked up. Besides, hadn't Wiley said that McCartnnon was forgiving when no commands had technically been disobeyed? McCartnnon had never told me not to return on my own to see the kids.

By the time Brandon returned and McCartnnon said I could leave, I'd decided on my course of action.