Chapter Text
We had him. We goddamn had him. I wanted to scream in glee. And I did, a few times, through the megaphone, and a cheer went up from the boys in blue that weren’t off running down diversions and Jigen. The energy of my fellow law enforcement men and women was incredible, and the media too; for once, I felt the whole world knew I was the hero in this escapade.
As I ducked into the squad car and resolutely slammed the door—that thick, reassuring clunk far too cathartic—I wondered if this was what it was like to be the quarterback on a Superbowl team. The whole world cheering with me, hailing down shouts of congratulations and screams of ‘go go go’ while the flash of paparazzi cameras lit up the night like a sea of stars.
That’s what the helicopter blades had felt like, while I was running across that rooftop—the pulse of a crowd’s heartbeat, as it waited to see if the runner could catch the hailmary pass.
I had been the runner then; and Lupin, the flying ball, launched to great heights, great hopes. He was certainly fast enough. If I could just intercept him and hold him close long enough, the game would be won for all to see....
But when that bomb had gone off, not only had the pass been dropped, it had disappeared in a gulf of dragon flame that lit up the night.
I buckled the seatbelt, sighed the ragged edges of adrenaline out and lit a cigarette. I was used to this sort of thrill-shock, but the shakes were worse these days in their aftermath. Age was catching up with me, it seemed; I had to admit, the skin on the back of my hands was a little thinner than it had been in years past. Today, though, the issue of concern was more the fresh burns and the melted hair on the back of them.
The engine thrummed to life; a local crew made up my ferry men tonight. Head on the back of the seat, I chanced a look out the window—snow, gently falling, dyed blue in the French street lights. A forest of bodies flanking the car, doing damage control, their backs wrapped in shadow. Beyond them, everything disappeared into black, as if it didn’t exist at all—save for flicker of the fire.
A raging inferno was burning a medieval townhome, eating the guts that hadn’t already collapsed. There was no saving the building; all that remained at this point was a few pillars and slabs and a two-story pile of rubble where a five-story building should have been. Its ominous, looming skeleton disappeared in and out of thick black smoke while eruptions of flame burned up the sides of its neighbors, occasionally illuminating the police. To the side, firefighters were rushing in.
With a grunt, I tipped my hat down and tapped on the plexiglass. In a moment, we were off.
There was a beautiful cigar and bottle of whiskey waiting for me back in the chief’s office, but that would have to wait. Before or after the paperwork, though, that was the big question; only the mood of the office would dictate that, and this wouldn’t help. Collateral damage...how many lives had this cost? How many was it going to cost, before the fire was out? I would have stayed to assist—this kind of fire could easily take over the entire neighborhood—but I had to admit that I was more useful elsewhere.
Dammit, Lupin....
Still, this was years of work coming together. Years. Tonight and well into next week, the ones that were left were going to celebrate like there was no tomorrow. What a Christmas present, indeed.
I crossed my arms as the flash of press cameras went by; no doubt more than a few of them would catch a scowl instead of the smile they were hoping for.
As we left the alley and got onto the road, I acknowledged that this was where the truly hard part began. Lupin was the slipperiest cat alive, and worse, there was never any shortage of people around that wouldn’t have minded relieving some frustration on him, deserved or simply for prestige. Lupin himself rarely helped such matters, what with his penchant for poking tigers.
He could take some bruising, I assumed—he wasn’t that prissy of a man, despite the Italian shoes—but there were probably broken bones in his future that I would prefer to protect him from for as long as I could, on my honor in the job.
Not to mention the fact that Jigen was still out there. Assuming he wasn’t caught tonight, and we could keep the pressure on enough to keep him on the run, he’d be forced to duck into a safe house and wait out a few days. However, while Jigen was not the flashy type, he was dependable to a fault, and a mob hitman too. He knew how to hide in the truest sense of the game and also how to show up out of nowhere as a one-man death squad. Finding him before he left town or came for us had to be my focus once Lupin was processed.
There was every chance he could reappear as we drove: in a helicopter and a sniper rifle if we took the freeway, or a motorcycle and a magnum if we went through the streets. So despite the reenforced steel carriage and bulletproof glass, I was not easy, not by a long shot. It wasn’t Jigen’s style, instant-reply ambushes, but still, it was Lupin’s, and Jigen worked for Lupin. He was an extremely dangerous individual, and seemed to lose some balance whenever he and Lupin were apart. However, he also had standing orders from Lupin not to kill me—I assumed that was still in place, anyway—so putting the thief and me together in close quarters was actually our best defense at the moment against Jigen’s available tactics.
It was imperative to catch Lupin’s accomplices, though; no doubt he had some sort of contingency plan left with them for every prison in the world, should he end up in it. And it probably involved the first few days there, or transfers, which would be soon to come; Interpol had some impressive prison facilities attached, particularly to avoid outside contact, but this was Lupin’s gang we were talking about... they took down security systems for fun.
It was as I was mulling this over that we reached the halfway mark of the journey. The main drag of the seaside town was empty, thanks to the time of night and the police barricades further afield, but the lights of the town glittered on above us, warm and—for once—with all their treasures safe.
Our car’s route didn’t involve waiting for traffic lights, as it made us sitting ducks, but we also didn’t have the sirens on—just the flashers, though at this time of night it was hardly necessary. The moon was out over the water, and now, away from that hellish fire, what could be seen out the far passenger window was the heavy darkness of water stretching out to the horizon, topped by streaks of silver repeating endlessly into the distance, like a runway for the nearly full moon setting above. It seemed the snow hadn’t quite reached the sea yet, or perhaps was being held back by it—the air currents from the water forcing it to hover right at the edge of land and sea. It was an odd thing: Snow, graceful and soap-sud like, on one side of the car, with a clear moon and a glittering sea on the other.
A shift of clothing, and moan from the seat beside me.
The slender stick of a man was leaning against the side of the other door, tucked in via seatbelt, cuff, and chain. He moaned something about “everything hurts” in two different languages at once, dipping his head with a heavy groan that was rife with mental confusion—it had that unusual undulating quality that indicated it wasn’t a fully conscious noise.
Then, suddenly, my prisoner popped wide awake and promptly banged his head on the doorframe.
“Careful now,” I said around my cigarette, taking it out of my mouth for clarity’s sake. When Lupin started to struggle blindly, I added, “‘S just a seatbelt, take it easy, you’re not gonna die.”
As I continued to expound upon the subject in calm, dry tones, the man’s hummingbird breathing slowed; his wild black eyes regained some composure, though everything else was still a mess. “Oh!” he acknowledged abruptly. And then: “...Oh.”
There was a definite air of excitement to the first, and gloom to the second.
It was truly amazing that this man was a successful confidence artist when he needed to be; he couldn’t possibly have a poker face of any worth at all.
A pause came next in the Lupin’s Facial Expression Show, in which he was totally still and his eyes glazed over—either about to pass out or thinking very hard about something. But then, a conclusion apparently arrived at, he blinked hard and started looking around the squad car again, rather confused. “What happ—AHG?”
It wasn’t seeing me that caused the strangled cry of alarm, or suddenly realizing I was even there for the first time; it was how I was sitting, or rather, what I was holding as I did so.
I had my standard-issue handgun casually tucked under my folded arms, finger loosely and pleasantly resting on the side of the trigger casing. The barrel pointed directly at the thick part of his gut.
I followed his eyes down to the piece with a musing hum, then shrugged. “Good to see you know what this is for. You took a nasty tumble; wasn’t sure you were gonna remember me or anything else when you woke up.”
“But a silencer, really?” Lupin gulped. Looked like he still had his words all right—though his voice was tight and rasping.
“Doesn’t burn me if I have to use it, that way.” I took a drag on the cigarette, and then flipped him a coy grin. “Besides, it would be so loud, in a cramped little space like this. And so much less splatter this way....”
I smirked, and Lupin, looking a little sick, just rolled his eyes with a sigh that sounded like he wanted everything to disappear. He stared at his feet with a groan.
The thief was not, by any stretch of the imagination, in the best shape—nor were his clothes. The right half of his jacked was burned to a ragged cinder, and his clean white shirt had turned half black. His trousers were covered in mud where they weren’t scraped and showing gashes in his legs. However, that paled compared to the amount of dust that was all over him; he looked more like an earthquake building-collapse victim than anything else. His hair, too, was covered in grey powder in a tangle between a Jew fro and the worst hat-head ever and just ended up looking tumble-weed esque. Still, his youthful face shone through, and all the streaks of dried blood, soot, and concrete dust caked on his cheeks just made his dark eyes—the only clean bit of his face—shine that much more vividly.
But he did not look at me; no doubt, he was either thinking over his life choices or how to escape to get them back. I left him to it; he wasn’t going anywhere.
It was as I was considering the poor shmuck who had to clean out the squad car’s interior after this ride that Lupin seemed to come out of his stupor a little more and notice his restraints for the first time; he twisted his wrists and inspected the chains.
It was so easy to tell that he was intelligent; even with the fog of head trauma around the edges of his focus, the gears were visibly whirling as he looked the setup over in the streaking blue lamplights. The thief had heavy-duty shackles on his wrists like out of the middle ages, and twenty-pound chain between them that linked to a bolt in the roof of the car. After the frown of concentration ended, Lupin fingered the bolt with a long arm and murmured, “Damn, what do you people do if one of these cars goes in the water? Your prisoners would die.”
“I think that’s the point, really,” I returned, deadpan. Lupin raised an eyebrow at me, but was smirking queerly anyway—probably his defensive reaction to looking sick again, when he realized I wasn’t going to play his game.
“I see,” the man managed softly, “little less money, little more paperwork. It evens out, huh?” He rubbed his head—or tried to, at least, before discovering he had to maneuver oddly to get it done. For a while after the clink of the chains turned into a gentle sway with the motion of the car, the thief just left his head between his knees.
Though I watched his hands carefully, it seemed he was just sitting there with his eyes closed. He was probably in pain; already I could see a deep bruise forming on the back of his neck in a rather suspicious shape.
The blue lights of the city went by, stroking the four of us in and out of darkness as it infiltrated the windows. The sea outside was ever present, along with the hum of the road. I checked the time; only a few more minutes to our destination. Unfortunately, this town was fairly big, and its roads, while mostly deserted, were far from direct.
“God, my head hurts,” came the hiss from the other side of the car. For the first time, his voice was sharp; he finally sounded like he was talking to me, rather than to himself. It seemed he was coming around fully. “What happened?”
“No matter how much you bitch, I’m not letting you out of those cuffs,” I threw back, feigning disinterest. Still, after a sidelong glance, I offered, “What do you remember?”
“You’re a real piece of work...” Lupin grumbled half-heartedly, opening his eye a crack to glare.
“Yeah, yeah,” I rolled my eyes and settled in. If he was well enough to complain, he was well enough to be interrogated. “Well?”
His mouth twisted down in thought and his eyes closed again. I thought he was going to whine, but instead, he simply took a deep breath, massaging his browline with a heavy hand. “Running...I think. Yeah, and some lights...the helicopter lights. Running. That’s about it.”
Lupin paused at that, frowning even though his eyes were still closed. It was mostly lost in the whine of the road, but his breath sounded a little off; sharpening my ears, I could tell it was shallow, and rasped a bit. He winced every time he inhaled fully, and his right hand pressed into one spot in his head decidedly. His arms were held in tight against his body too, like he wanted to hold that too, though the cuffs didn’t allow it. “Did I fall or something?”
I shrugged and kicked back. I’d been chasing after him on the flat roof top of that townhome-turned-apartment building, and just as Lupin, ahead of me, was about to jump to another—
“You fucked up, that’s what.”
That eye reappeared, more angry this time. It matched how I felt, so I had absolutely no sympathy for it.
“One of your bombs blew a little too close and too soon, far as I can tell. Whole roof collapsed, you got caught up in the blast and fell right off the damn path.” I glanced out the window, hand over my mouth. “Almost hung yourself too, you little shit.”
“What?” Lupin hissed incredulously. “How?” His hands slid off his head and touched at his throat awkwardly when the last word cracked; he swallowed hard, and seemed to realize for the first time that something there was off.
Slowly, I came to side-eye him. “Telephone wires and attic junk.”
I’d always wondered what it would look like when Lupin’s luck ran out. I had assumed it would look like a man in an expensive sport coat lying face-down eating pavement and spitting insults with a black eye, with me or someone else zealously handcuffing him. Or maybe—maybe—a jealous lover with a vial of poison or a shotgun.
Instead, it had been scary as shit, watching a man’s black silhouette be illuminated, and then swallowed up by, the hellish light of a raging fireball. And then, when it had passed, there being nothing left—no building, no man. Just my outstretched hand, and a space where a man had been.
And the look in his eye at it happened....
But outside my thoughts, my prisoner stared at me, smudged and dirtied face scrunched up in disbelief—and perfectly full of life. “Telephone wire? I almost got killed by telephone wire?”
The image flashed through my mind: throwing myself forward through the flames, stumbling back at the suddenly-appearing edge of the remaining structure; trying to stay upright as three other bombs went off in a quick succession. The heat and light roaring upward, stealing my breath. Looking down and seeing—
It was my turn to scrunch up in distaste. “You could have picked a better place to die.”
The whistle of the road hummed in the space between us, filling the car, and slowly absorbed the sound of the conflagration in my mind. The blue lights of the road strobed over us, alternating between cloying black and attentive blue.
Lupin laugh’s cut through the air.
I whipped my gaze over to him, but under the scrutiny, he just laughed harder, eyes a little apologetic. “You have to admit pops, it’s pretty good.”
He hugged his sides—as much as he could with the cuffs, anyway—and laughed in between hisses of pain. “You caught me?” he squeaked through tears of laughter. “Because I fell unconscious. From telephone wire.”
“Your unlucky days are shit,” I added, to push aside the rising feeling of frustration. By now, the back of the car was drowned out in the sound of the prisoner laughing, and the deputy in the front passenger seat gave us a queer look over his shoulder. Looking at Lupin like that—covered in white like a bad impression of a ghost, cut and singed and burned, and still a free spirit laughing uncontrollably—I had to admit the ludicrousness of it all, as well as the futility of trying to control him.
Gently, I maneuvered my handgun between my knees so that I wouldn’t accidentally fire it if ended up chuckling too. A grin was growing at the side of my mouth, though I hated myself for it. Lupin’s ridiculous laugh was infectious. It just was.
“TV cameras caught it all too,” I continued wryly, trying for cruelty to stamp down the mirth. “There’s gonna be pictures of you ‘hanging’ for years. Think we might put it on the wall.”
“Oh, shit, really?” But Lupin’s face just split into a grin in between the laughs, and his giggle pitched higher. “Oh God, that’s good. Jigen’s never going to let me live this down. Ever.” He started swearing jovially in different languages, several of which I was unfamiliar with. “I’m gonna need to buy the poor guy some roses, Jesus, I must have scared him half to death!”
Not that the man would have been able to see through all the smoke and flame, though Lupin clearly didn’t remember it, or he wouldn’t be laughing. Still, I must have been eyeing the thief suspiciously, because he waved me off. “Oh, don’t look like that! I could always comp his bullets for a year. Y’know, whatever. Jigen’s just a guy you gotta romance a little.”
At my resulting flinch, Lupin cackled anew, and doubled over for a good minute or two.
By the end of it, he was completely out of breath, crying, and muttering “ow, ow...” while holding different parts of him in turn.
“Shit,” the spindly thief continued good-naturedly, wiping at his eyes and gasping for air as he leaned against the cool window. “No wonder I can’t hardly breathe. A goddamned noose of telephone wire.” He shook his head, still coming off the giddy high. “Inspector, if you lot ever hang me, please do it with telephone wire.”
There was a beat of silence, filled by my heart sinking.
Goddammit, stop that. You’re not supposed to care like that.
I would have punched my heart if I could have. But after a moment, I unclenched my hand, and tried to force calm through instead.
No, it’s okay to care. Just not to believe you can save them from themselves.
The sound of the street rolled along and another half dozen streaks of blue zipped by, flinging Lupin and his range of emotions in and out of the darkness.
“I hope they don’t hang you, Lupin. I really do.”
The thief didn’t look at me, though; he was gazing out the window. When there was darkness, I couldn’t see a damn thing but his outline against the water beyond. And yet, when the street lights flashed over them, Lupin’s eyes were slowly losing their glitter.
A few more beats passed before he said, solemnly, “...Where is Jigen, by the way?”
I leaned back in the seat loosely, considering the ceiling. “He’s not dead as far as I know, if that’s what you mean.”
Lupin sighed in relief, audibly—and visibly. With some interest, I watched his shoulders rise and fall against the view of the water. “Good to know,” Lupin offered, turning his face away fully.
Another few pulses of blue, and I was struck by how small his shoulders looked, even with the shoulderpads of his jacket.
“Probably feels the same way about you right now, you know.”
“And you, Zenigata?” Lupin asked, turning to me suddenly. “How do you feel about me right now?”
There was...something, in his eyes, when they had the light. Smart, piercing eyes, usually so jovial and shallow, were completely open windows to his soul for a split second. They looked...lost? Afraid? No... craving.
It was so unexpected I hadn’t processed the shift before they went half lidded and hard, commandeered into aiding a forced smirk.
I raised an eyebrow, considering him for another second, trying to figure out who had been taken captive underneath that ridiculous sex-pistol exterior that was half burned and covered in bruises. “I think you look like shit and a lot of goddamned paperwork, ‘s how I feel. Oh, and a hundred-dollar bottle of aged scotch whiskey. You look like that too, courtesy of the commissioner.”
Lupin snorted once, mouth twisting down in an attempt to bite down a smile. But, apparently satisfied, he returned his gaze out the window without comment, onto the dark sea and its peaceful silver waves.
Even in chains, he managed to be graceful, somehow.
No wonder the ladies’re into him.
I found myself looking at my hand again, and the thinning skin. And then the burns...
Why a kid, full of youth and brains and with his whole life ahead of him, would fall to this.... And so near the holidays, no less?
I stubbed out my cigarette in a grunt and, bringing my hand back to rest on my thigh, closed my fist.
I was going to pin his balls to the wall for all this, when I got the numbers. The rage would be back then, no doubt. But...not right now. There was hardly enough room to beat him around, anyway, and besides: witnesses.
After a bit of watching his back and gleaning no further insights, I grunted and lit another cigarette, drawing it from an exterior coat pocket. A flame of orange and red ignited against the pulse of the dark and the blue, and left a small cinder of red between them to hold off the night.
“I’ve always liked the sea at night,” Lupin muttered suddenly, voice soft, if ripped up from the trials of the last few hours. “This is a nice ride, Pops.”
“Here.” I handed over the newly lit stick, and when Lupin looked over he gave a happy chirp, bending to take it. It said something about us, that I didn’t use it as an attempt to smash Lupin’s head into something, and Lupin didn’t even worry about the possibility—and vice versa.
The young man sighed after the first drag hit his lungs; I watched his profile, and then lingered on the back of my fingers, considering the momentary touch of skin to his lips. Given the mood lighting we had, it struck me if this wasn’t something close to what Lupin’s lovers saw of him. What Jigen saw in him, perhaps, on quiet nights alone together, staking out job sites.
“Lupin,” I began, flexing my admittedly meaty hand, which was covered with scars and worn from guns and batons alike. “How many women have you slept with, would you say?”
“What?” Lupin sputtered around the cigarette, confused. He nearly swallowed the paper, and his thick eyebrows tipped down. But, with effort, he shrugged himself back on track, albeit a little less animatedly than he normally would, given his injuries. The thief leaned back and, all gangly legs trying to find room, tipped his head onto the headrest, rearranging the cigarette in his mouth, hands-free.
Dextrous lips. Goddamn. That was what I got from that.
Along with Lupin’s good (well at least, better) looks, dextrous lips and fingers were something I could never compete with, not at my age, anyway. I liked to think my technique could be referred to as ‘steady and determined’, at least, though, when playing the field.
Though maybe that was the problem? I didn’t know anymore. The things I’d been brought up with hardly mattered these days. I shouldn’t have to think about being obsolete before sixty, but here I was anyway.
“Well?” I pressed, resting my elbows on my knees and folding my hands over the back of my handgun.
“Hold on Pops, I’m doing math.”
I nearly kicked the seat in front of me as I lurched forward. “Math?!”
But Lupin’s innocent gaze was focused on the ceiling, peering into his thoughts with scrutiny. “I mean...probably about...three hundred?” his voice lowered to a whisper, unsure. “Three-fifty maybe...?”
“THREE—” I roared so loud that the deputy in the passenger seat checked back with alarm. I coughed and waved my hand at him; Lupin, smartly, just sat there nonchalantly, watching me. “And you’re how old?” I spat.
“What?” Lupin asked, youthful features genuinely perplexed. “I’m twenty-eight and that’s no where near dad’s record. No where near.” He glanced back at me, almost embarrassedly. “I’m not tryin’ to be my dad, you know.... Oh, I shouldn't have mentioned my a--”
“HOW?” I continued, ignoring his response. I pulled forward to the edge of what my seatbelt would allow.
“I...uh...?” Lupin shrunk back against the car door, feet up, a little like he was readying to be attacked. A couple seconds ticked by, in which I stared Lupin down while breathing hard, Lupin licked his lips unsurely, and the deputy watched us both with an incredulous stare through the plexiglass, shotgun in hand.
“...You looking for girl advice, Pops?” Lupin hedged, glancing at the deputy, who was definitely giving us the “how much can I let my boss get away with before I have to stop him” look. But never off his feet for long, the thief looked back at me with his trademark grin. “Cuz I mean, I can give it to you, but ‘s not a ‘to-the-station’ length of conversation....”
That was when the car finally stopped. In that ridiculous position, Lupin tipped his head down to give our visitor a loopy grin. A uniformed man in his early twenties looked through the glass with a high-powered flashlight, the beam zipping by me and hitting Lupin’s splayed legs.
I rolled my eyes and tipped my hat down. Our driver rolled down the window, exchanged a few words and handed the man ID. He was a booth guard, and in just a few moments—just long enough for cool air to seep into the car and give me goosebumps—the gate in front of us opened. The car went through, and Lupin and I both put our heads together to look at the scenery ahead through the front window.
At the end of a long promenade, there were lights. Lots of lights. And not just from buildings.
“Shit, how did they get let in here?” I hissed.
Lupin grinned at the swarm of lights that littered the way ahead. There was a decent-sized gathering of people on the stairs of the four-story building we were aiming for on the far side of the lawn.
It was paparazzi. But at least it wasn’t Jigen.
Still, this was a mess in and of itself, with definite complications. I sighed.
“Hahaha, oh good, the welcoming committee’s here!” Lupin declared with delight, sliding back to sit properly, albeit with a few hisses. He turned to me excitedly, which was an odd thing, considering there were chains four inches in front of his face, all the way up to the ceiling. “I was afraid it wouldn’t be much since it’s like, three in the morning. Pops, how’s my hair look?”
“Like a bomb hit you.” The car came to a halt, Lupin’s side of it facing the stairs and the press. After checking beyond his window at the lights descending upon the car and nodding to our driver and my deputy, I gave the thief my best unimpressed look. Lupin’s child-like happiness crashed off his face in a way that was incredibly satisfying. A little bit of concrete dust slid down his bangs to punctuate the sentiment.
I might have felt a little bad at that. But only a little. The littlest little bit.
“Okay, make you a deal,” Lupin said, quickly rebounding with a bright smile and far more energy than he had up till now, to the point that he was practically effervescent. It reminded me a bit of an extremely happy puppy, and I backed away in annoyance, wondering in the back of my mind if his performance till now had all been an act.
But Lupin, bright-eyed and giddy, leaned in to follow me, not letting me finish the thought. “You fix me up to either look really vicious or real nice,” he chirped with a pearly-toothed smile, “and I’ll tell you how to get girls as soon as your paperwork’s done, okay?”
My previous thought disappeared like smoke, replaced with a most vicious hope. I immediately dragged him closer, finger-combing his hair. “Done.”
He giggled under my hands, and maybe it was just the unusual sensation of having the kinetic warmth of another human’s skin under my hands that did it, but for a second, I was suddenly reminded of one of the rare times when I’d been tasked with taking my daughter to school. She was six years old, and neither of us could find her hair brush. Her mother had been furious once she found out what had transpired, but Toshiko had been beside herself with the attention as I combed through her hair with my fingers and talked her through how cute she was, and how proud of her I was. “You’re the best, Pops. I knew I could count on you.”
His voice, despite its usual bullshit words, lacked its usual bullshit tone. I scowled down at him.
You are such an odd creature.
Under my hands, pliant and peaceful, he smiled faintly, eyes closed.
How does something like you even exist in this ugly world?
“Shut up,” I snapped.
“Aww, you know you love me.” There was the bullshit tone.
And yet, it was hard to hate. “Don’t push your luck.”
“I don’t push my luck, Pops. It pushes me.” Dark eyes glittered up from between my hands. “Don’t you know that by now?”
Startled, I paused with my hands drawn back a little. He took it as his cue to sit up. He passed through my hands and straightened with a breath; he hissed badly, but bit it back in the end.
Lupin suddenly seemed as tall as he truly was, or even more so; his head nearly hit the top of the little European squad car. He turned to the window, and when he looked back, he was smiling, hard and determined. “Where are we?”
The driver tapped on the glass with a knuckle. I undid my seatbelt and nodded at them, before undoing Lupin’s. He let me, patiently, but I left the chains locked up to the bolt at the top of the car. The deputy would get it after I got out, from a button on the dash.
“The navy hospital, obviously,” I said, undoing the silencer on my gun and holstering the rest. “Where else can we house you that has cells and a full medical team?”
He frowned, checked back, and then stared at me, all composure gone. The human was back, and the god of thieves, gone to whatever cloud he slept on when he wasn’t possessing people.
And then, a light dawned on the man named Lupin’s face. He grinned, a terrible, ruthless, and utterly delighted grin. “So you prefer a man in uniform, eh?”
I might have fainted then, had I been the one that had lost blood that evening.
Or threatened to beat him to death, if he hadn’t.