“Step away, Agent Johnson. I won’t tell you again,” the agent said, the sound of his shoe scuffing on the concrete drawing my gaze away from Johnson’s raging face for a second.
The sight of the gathered agents with their guns raised, sighted on Johnson’s back, made my heart hammer painfully against my ribs. This was so not how I had pictured being taken out.
“Come on, Harry,” Holbrook pleaded, though the aim of his gun didn’t waver for a second. “Don’t do this. Think of Cheryl.”
Something dark and vicious flickered across Johnson’s face, like a leviathan rising up from the depths for the briefest of moments, before sinking back down into the darkness—barely glimpsed, but terrifying all the same. And then Johnson spun away from me, rounding on the other agent, his shoulders rising and falling with his rapid breaths.
“Fuck you, Darius,” he said, jabbing a thick finger at his partner, before stalking past the other agents, completely ignoring their drawn weapons as if they held no more threat than a water pistol.
The agents slowly lowered their weapons as they watched Johnson stalk down the ramp of the parking garage, digging a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket. Coming to a halt at the end of the ramp he leaned against the wall of the garage and pulled a lighter from his pocket. The snick of the lighter echoed in the otherwise silent structure. He exhaled in a long breath through his nose, the twin trails looking like the exhalation of a slumbering dragon; he certainly appeared to have the temper of one.
“Should we go after him?” the female agent asked, holstering her gun, but keeping her hand close by.
“No, leave him be,” Holbrook answered, his brow furrowing as his gaze lingered on his partner.
Leaning back against the side of the SUV, I hung my head, bracing my hands on my knees as I breathed deep. “So that’s DEFCON 1.”
Holbrook shot me a quizzical look, but I just waved him off as I struggled to figure out what the hell had just happened.
Like anyone else, I’d learned the basics of human and supernatural history. Once upon a time, all the various races had existed in one unified world and we’d lived in tandem for millennia. Then there had been some cataclysmic event that no one seemed to remember which had torn the world into five separate, parallel realms. It was said that passage from one realm to another was still possible, but only through doorways where the barriers were weakest, doorways that were often secret, and always heavily guarded.
Or at least, that’s what some people liked to believe.
Others believed that we’d been created by an omnipresent God, designed in his image to inhabit the world he had made. That’s what my grandparents had believed, and the faith that most mundanes ascribed to in one way or another. As for me, I didn’t really believe in much of anything that I couldn’t see with my own eyes. I’d believe in a god made of spaghetti and meatballs if he dropped down from the sky to say hello and wave his noodley appendage at me.
Along with the various origin stories earth’s assorted races placed their faith in, I’d also learned about the evolution of rights and laws pertaining to supes. While Martin Luther King, Jr. was marching on Washington in the 1950’s, Olaf Sorenson, the pack master of Milwaukee was demanding equal rights for all Americans, be they human, were, vampire, or anything else. As many challenges as King’s campaign of equality for African Americans had come up against—and continue to run into to this day—it had still proven more successful than Sorenson’s ever did.
Supes were barred from serving in the military, law enforcement, and any branch of government. Magic users are considered somewhat of a grey area. Technically they’re still human—the genetic testing proves that—but whatever enables them to wield magic in any of its myriad forms tends to make the mundanes nervous. While they’re given all the same rights as any other human, those that choose to join the military or law enforcement often suffer such prejudice and ridicule that they either resign or elect to conceal their true nature. There’s a whole lot of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” going on these days.
They’ve made some progress since Sorenson’s time, but there’s still a lot of fear and prejudice dictating the laws. I’d never given much thought to the unequal balance of rights between humans and supes until I’d been torn from one group and thrust headlong into the other. As a supe there are a lot of limitations in place that just don’t exist for mundanes. Overstep those bounds and you’ll find yourself on a one-way trip to the afterlife, no take backs.
Living in the country meant my interactions with others were pretty damn limited. It had been a long time since I’d run across someone who was so obviously prejudiced against supes. Johnson’s outburst reminded me all too sharply of the fact that I was no longer a member of the human race. I was one of the others—one of the creatures in the dark to be maligned, restricted, and feared.