Agents of DEATH

Chapter 17 - Don't Be Afraid Of A Guy In Shades

“You live in the same building as Neil?” Nico asks.

“Yeah,” Payson says. “You got my threads to give back? I noticed you’re not wearin’ ‘em anymore.”

Nico grins at Payson. “Nope. They’re not exactly me, you know what I’m sayin’?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

A few minutes later, we’re back in Neil’s apartment, with Payson walking in just long enough to collect his clothes. After he and Jessica both leave, Avalon, Cress, and Lukas start pelting us with questions. We do our best to answer them, but with our information woefully incomplete, we’re not as much help as they would like.

“You think they’re gonna give up Zeus’s Taser to these guys, then?” Avalon asks.

“Doubt it,” says Nico. “If they’re anything like the US government, the Agency’s probably not in the business of negotiating with terrorists.”

“Unless they feel they’ve got no choice,” Lukas says. “Haven’t you guys seen 24?”

“They’ll have a choice,” Cress says. “My mom’s always told me that the Agency cracks down a hell of a lot harder on its enemies than any other group in the world.”

“Which means we can expect this whole mess to be taken care of quickly, right?” I say.

“I hope so,” Nico says, a steely look in his eye. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look like that before. Then again, this is the first time something has affected him this personally.

Neil opens the door at this point, carrying an armful of rolled-up sleeping bags. There are at least three of them, and considering how skinny he is, I’m surprised he can lift them all at once like that. “All right,” he says, dropping the sleeping bags on the floor. “Okay, so you guys are gonna be sleepin’ here at least for tonight. So, well, obviously there’s not a lot of room in this tiny apartment for so many people. Um, maybe we’ll have the girls take my bed, and-”

“No,” Avalon says. “Then where would you sleep? On the couch?”

“Hey, I’m bein’ nice here,” Neil says. “The first thing I’m gonna want to do is give up my bed. I think you two girls can share it just fine. And then the guys can have a sleeping bag each in the main room while I crash on the couch. Everybody wins.”

“One question,” Lukas says, holding up a finger. “Where’d you get the sleeping bags?”

“Just bought ‘em off a guy in the market,” Neil says. “Chris and Rafe came with me - they’re doin’ the same thing I’m doing, ‘cause their apartments are all full now too.”

I take a sleeping bag and unroll it. It’s six feet long, maybe two feet wide. The way I see it, there’s not gonna be much room for three of these on the floor of the main room. Neil, apparently thinking along the same lines, has me help him move the coffee table closer to the couch. Now there’s a much wider space for three sleeping bags to be laid out in a row. “And hey,” Neil laughs, pointing to the coffee table (which is now touching the couch), “I have a little more room to roll around without bein’ afraid of fallin’ off. So, bonus.”

“You roll around a lot in your sleep?” Lukas asks.

“Yeah. And the funny thing is, I tend to be a heavy sleeper.” Neil sighs. “Maybe not tonight, though. Not with that Church Under Thanatos out there.”

“Any of you guys ever read the Emberverse books?” Lukas asks.

Avalon makes a gagging noise. “Oh my gods. Lukas, if you talk about those things again, I’m gonna start throwin’ bricks through the walls.”