Page 37 of Concluded (The Bureau #13)
Dee grasped his hand across the table. “It’s fine.
I enjoyed chatting with Jerry.” Dee had told a few little tales from his life, while Jerry taught him about some of the local flora and fauna.
He seemed especially fond of some nearby ravens and was confident he’d recently discovered a new subspecies of lizard.
It was a balm to listen to someone so enthusiastic about matters most people would consider trivial.
Achilles, uncharacteristically hesitant, looked down at their clasped hands.
“Art wasn’t a field agent—not normally, anyhow—but he ran the lab for years.
He’s smart and knowledgeable and… I don’t know.
Analytical? He thinks carefully about stuff.
None of those things are my strengths, so I’m glad to have him as sort of a sounding board. ”
“For what?” Dee wanted to know, although he dreaded the answer.
“I feel like, with our enemies, we’ve been purely defensive and piecemeal. Putting out their fires. Which makes sense, because that’s what the Bureau has always done. And man, there’s a lot of fires right now.”
He paused again, and a large black bird—probably one of Jerry’s ravens—landed on a nearby branch.
It stared at them, ruffled its feathers, and uttered a long series of varied croaks and trills, some of which sounded as though they’d been borrowed from other bird species.
It seemed to be trying to communicate something to them, although sadly neither Dee nor Achilles spoke its language.
Dee remembered Achilles saying that there were no bird shifters and wanted to ask if Achilles was positive about that.
Might Achilles wish to become a bird temporarily?
And bring Dee along too? That would be pretty cool.
Something to think about in the future. But he didn’t say any of this aloud because he didn’t want to sidetrack the important conversation.
“I think,” Achilles said, “we need to be proactive. I know we can’t defeat evil forever, but if we could at least face these particular antagonists head-on, maybe we’d get somewhere.”
“Who are these particular antagonists? Aside from Ashley Dunn and some bears and maybe a good chunk of Washington, DC? Who’s in charge?”
“That’s part of the problem. We have no idea.” Achilles’ shoulders slumped.
“You could… wish that you knew.”
Achilles widened his eyes. “Would that work? That seems too easy.”
Dee felt it out. It was an odd sensation, a bit like checking to see whether a limb was asleep, only in his head.
And maybe he was simply still drained from transporting them here, but nothing clicked.
He knew that if he leapt off a cliff he wouldn’t sprout wings and fly, and he knew that he couldn’t help Achilles gain knowledge via wishing.
“Sorry,” Dee said. “No.”
But Achilles didn’t act disappointed. “Everything has limits. Even superpowers. But, um, I had an idea for what might work. Art agrees that’s it’s viable. It’s just incredibly dangerous.”
Not so long ago, Dee would have refused point-blank without even asking what the plan was.
Hell, he’d kicked Abe Ferencz out of his apartment, never considering even a simple talk with the Bureau.
And that version of Dee, ironically, had nothing much worth protecting other than his own unhappy existence.
Dee decided that he was glad that old Dee was gone.
“What do I need to do?” he asked. And then added, with a grin, “Master.”
Achilles groaned. “Jesus. My libido wasn’t this ramped up when I was eighteen—and I never had this many kinks.”
“Are you upset about that?”
“The only thing I’m upset about is all the time we wasted not knowing each other.” His expression grew more serious. “And that our best option right now will probably end up cutting our short time together even shorter.”
“What’s our best option?”
“Instead of running and hiding like scared rabbits, we draw them out. Then we see exactly who—or what—we’re dealing with, and act accordingly. Knowing that once we do draw them out, we might very well discover we’ve bitten off more than we can chew.”
The raven had commentary on this, although Dee couldn’t tell whether it was supportive or derisive.
Hell, maybe the raven knew who their enemy was, but neither of them could ask it.
Maybe the raven wouldn’t be all that helpful anyway; Dee recalled reading that in many cultures, ravens and crows were both creators and tricksters.
“It may be more than we can chew, but I’ll bite anyway,” Dee told Achilles. “Even if we can’t destroy it, we can make it hurt. You?”
“My namesake chose a short life and glory over long obscurity. Me too, I guess. See, I was thinking about how we’ve been stymied by our weaknesses, but we have strengths too, and we need to use them.
We can draw out the enemy by capitalizing on one of those strengths: we have something they really want. ”
As the raven croaked again, sounding as if it approved, Dee understood what Achilles was asking of him. It was, predictably, a big ask. In some ways, bigger than any of the wishes he’d granted thus far. But the new and improved Dee was willing to say yes.
Sure, he now had a lot to lose. But he had the world to gain.
He looked steadily into Achilles’ eyes and squeezed his hand. “Our strength is that we have a good bait to hook them,” Dee said. “And that bait is me.”