The Unleashing Read online

  Still, there was a “comfy” feel to it that Kera liked.

  She stopped and randomly opened a double set of closet doors. She stepped back and stared at the floor-to-ceiling lineup of makeup, lotions, cleansers, and hair products. All from the same brand name, too. June Beauty.

  “You need something, hon?” Annalisa asked from behind her.

  “I’m just looking.”

  “Take what you need. It’s for the girls here.”

  “June Beauty is a little out of my price range.”

  “It is expensive. A quarter-ounce of the eye cream is about the same as an ounce of gold.”

  “What kind of idiot would pay that kind of money for an eye cream?”

  “A rich idiot. And Junie does love them for that flaw.”

  “Junie? You mean Mitzi June the owner of June Beauty and former supermodel?”

  “That’s the one. She’s a sister-Crow, loyal to Skuld until Ragnarok comes. Plus she has a mean back kick. Anyway,” Annalisa went on, “anything in this closet is yours to take. Has Erin shown you around yet?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Come on. I’ll show you around. Introduce you to the others. And Paula.”

  “Who’s Paula?”

  “The Crow money bitch. She’s really important to get to know.”

  Annalisa hooked her arm through Kera’s. “So,” she asked as they walked, “tell me about your mother.”

  “Why?

  “It tells me so much about a person,” the ex-sociopath and forensic psychologist surmised.

  “Oh. Well then . . . no.”

  Annalisa grinned. “Interesting.”

  “And this is our playroom,” Annalisa announced as she steered Kera into a room filled with women. There were three big, flat-screen TVs. One had on a Spanish-language soap opera, the other two had video games. The women lounging on the couches and chairs were in the middle of different tasks. Some were reading what appeared to be scripts, others giving themselves or others mani-pedis, and at least eight were murdering others in online video games.

  “Hey, everyone!” Annalisa announced, her arm around Kera’s shoulders. “This is the new girl. She’s on my strike team, a former Marine who says she left the military because she wanted to give the private sector a try although I really think it was the loss of love of a man.” She paused, glanced off, then added, “Or a very masculine woman.”

  “It’s Kera,” she sighed out. “My name’s Kera. ‘New girl’ makes me sound like the latest virgin at a whorehouse.”

  The women paused in what they were doing, all of them, as if timed, turning to look at Kera. They stared at her a moment, eyes blinking, faces blank. In a way, they really did remind her of crows watching Kera from light poles in her old neighborhood.

  After they gazed at Kera for a few seconds, they went back to what they were doing and, as one, said, “Hey, new girl.”

  Kera began to ask if that had been planned, but Annalisa steered her out of the room and into the hall. As they passed a couple of other Crows, dressed in crop T-shirts to show off their abs, the tightest sweatpants Kera had ever seen, and running shoes, Annalisa stopped to introduce them. But other than a passing “hey,” they kept moving and showed no interest in meeting Kera.

  Yet as they passed, the two women stopped and spun around. “Oh my God! Look at the cute doggy!” one of them squealed. Her voice was so high that Kera actually winced.

  “Oh my God!” she said again, hitting even higher notes this time, and running over to Brodie. She knelt down and began petting Kera’s dog. “You are the cutest thing! Just the cutest thing ever! What’s your name?” she said in a voice one might use on a baby. “What’s your name? You must have a cute name! I bet it’s the cutest name ever!”

  The other Crow gazed at Kera and finally asked, “Well . . . what’s her name?” Kera felt her eye twitch at the woman’s tone. It was unbearably haughty and annoyed all at the same time.

  “Brodie Hawaii.”

  “I knew it!” the one kneeling by Brodie squealed. “I knew you’d have a cute name! You are just the cutest thing ever!”

  Letting Brodie lick her face, the woman asked, “Can she come running with us?”

  “ No. ”

  It was like the world stopped at her one word answer. The three women focused on Kera, their mouths open in shock. Then Kera realized that Brodie was staring at her, too. As if the dog couldn’t believe she’d just told them no.

  Good God, what was happening?

  Feeling pressure, Kera quickly explained, “She doesn’t have a leash or collar, and I don’t feel comfortable just letting her—”

  “Oh, no problem.” The woman stood, smiled. “We’ll get her everything she needs.”

  “I—”

  “Would you like that, beautiful Brodie Hawaii?” she asked the dog. The dog. “Would you like to come with us and get a pretty new collar and leash and yummies? Would you like some yummies?”

  “I would rather that I choose her—”

  “Please?” the woman begged. “Please? We promise to take good care of her. We won’t let anything happen to her. And there’s this great place on PCH that sells the best designer dog stuff.”

  “She doesn’t need—”

  “Thank you!” the woman cheered, gripping Kera in a bear hug. “Come on, Brodie! We’re going to have so much fun!”

  She walked off and Kera’s dog followed. Without question. Not even a look back at Kera like, “Is it okay, Mom?” She just followed the high-pitched female. Maybe that was it. The woman’s voice was so annoying and high that dogs were forced to follow.

  The other woman gazed at Kera for a moment and asked, “Are you planning to go into acting?”

  Kera shook her head, not sure why the woman was asking. “No.”

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t. You have a great, exotic look that could probably get you some work in rapper videos. But those thighs, sweetie.” She bared her teeth in a grimace that Kera could feel nothing but insulted by. “It’s probably for the best,” she finished on a whisper. Then she followed her friend who’d just stolen Kera’s dog.

  Kera turned and stared at her teammate until Annalisa said, “How about I get you to Paula so you can get moving on the money issue. That process can be time-consuming.”

  “Those two women have my dog . . . and they insulted my thighs.”

  “They’re casting directors. That’s why.”

  Kera took a step back. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

  “That’s why they asked you if you wanted to act. A lot of newbies come here and that’s what they want to do with their second lives. Become actors. But some of them think that they may have the look for the new action movie filming in downtown L.A., but they really don’t.”

  “I don’t want to be an actor.”

  Annalisa shrugged. “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I don’t need anybody insulting my thighs while stealing my dog.”

  “They’re breaking it to you now so that you don’t have to hear about it from some other casting director who won’t take the time to be nearly as nice.”

  “They weren’t nice.”

  “Of course they were nice. They didn’t say a word about your square-shaped body.”

  “My square . . . what?”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal.”

  “But they stole my dog!”

  “They’ll bring her back. Are you always so distrustful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Name’s Paula,” the older woman told Kera as she sat behind her big mahogany desk. She had long gray hair that she wore in a braid down her back and a small tattoo under her eye that suggested she’d done prison time. “I handle the day-to-day business of the Crows.”

  Kera sat down on the other side of the desk. The office was big but stuffed to the ceiling with boxes filled with—Kera assumed—paperwork. It was like being trapped
in a hoarder’s house.

  “So,” Paula began, “how are you fitting in?”

  “Well—”

  “Great. Now, we retrieved your backpack from that coffee shop. Don’t ask how,” Paula barreled on, dropping the black backpack onto the desk. “It still has your ID, credit cards, and such. Also some cash.”

  “You went through my bag?”

  “Yeah. To see what you need, which is apparently a lot.” She opened a folder and took out papers.

  “Here’s the info for your bank account with Malibu Central. They’re about five miles from here, right off PCH. It’s part of a Crow-owned and -funded bank system. All stateside Crow money goes through there so we don’t have to worry about losing it if there are any more federal bank problems. Plus, we’re connected to the Swiss Crow banks, so we’re covered internationally, too. You have your own account. Here’s a debit card and a credit card. This paperwork has your passwords and PIN numbers. Please don’t carry that with you as some of our sisters have done. They freak out when they lose it and we have to change everything. It’s a pain in the ass—don’t do it. And since you seem to be the paranoid type—”

  “I’m not para—”

  “—I’ll tell ya up front that the Crows won’t be looking at what you got in your account or involving themselves in your business unless you want them to.”

  Kera glanced down at the paperwork shoved in front of her, looked back at the woman, then immediately looked back at the paperwork.

  “I think there’s a mistake here,” Kera said, pointing at the papers.

  “Mistake?” the woman asked, her attention now on her computer screen. “I don’t make mistakes. Not where money is concerned. That’s why I worked for the Russian mob for more than twelve years. Now, you already got your weapons, right? From Ludvig Rundstöm? If you don’t want to work with him for some reason, there are other blacksmiths we use. But I must admit, he’s one of the best. But if you did get your weapons from him, let me know so that I can pay him. He forgets to submit invoices and then six months later we have a bunch of Valkyries here, led by that sister of his, screaming that we’re trying to cheat him. It’s a pain in the ass. I don’t want to deal with it.”

  “Yeah. He gave me my weapon.”

  “Great. I’ll get that money out to him today then.”

  “But wait . . .”

  Paula finally looked at her. “What?”

  “I don’t . . .” Kera shook her head, pointed at the paperwork. “This says I have seventy-five grand in this account. That can’t be my account.”

  “Of course it’s your account. Whose account could it be?”

  “Anyone who actually has seventy-five grand to their name. I don’t.”

  “Well, you do now.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We start each Crow off with her own cash.” Paula turned her office chair so that she stared straight at Kera. “Every Crow comes here differently. I mean, we all died to get here, but some are given new lives and identities. For instance, we had a gal who worked with the CIA. When she died, she didn’t want to go back to the CIA, so her body was never recovered, so to speak, and Padma Shakofski—”

  “Padma Shakofski?”

  “She’s half East Indian, half Polish. You’ll hear that a lot when you meet Crows. ‘She’s half this and half that.’ ”

  As someone of mixed origin, Kera felt the need to ask, “Why is that something that needs to be pointed out?”

  “Just get used to it. Anyway, her body was never recovered and Padma Shakofski was born. And because she left everything behind, we had to give her what she needed to get started again. Now you, of course, are nobody—”

  “Excuse me, but—”

  “—and your body was taken by Skuld before anyone found it, like the cops. Or EMS. So you’re keeping your name and previous life connections. But you still have nothing, so we need to give you a strong enough base to get started.”

  “Well . . . do I pay rent here or something?”

  “Why would you pay rent at the Bird House?”

  “Okay, but . . . will I work for the rehab center or—”

  “That’s up to you. Uh, your team leader, Tessa, right? She works for Giant Strides. She manages all the nursing staff at all the locations. She loves her job and it nets her well into the six figures territory. If you want, you can go to one of the locations and see if that’s something you’d like to do. Or you can go back to school. We’ll pay for it.”

  “You’ll pay for it? Then what am I supposed to do with all this money?”

  “Buy a wardrobe. Invest in bonds. Buy a robot. One of the girls bought a robot.”

  “A . . . a robot?”

  “Sure. That’s an option.” When Kera only gazed back at her, the Crow asked, “I doubt you planned to spend the rest of your life at that coffee shop, right? So what were you going to do?”

  “Re-sign with the Marines.”

  “Well, you can’t do that now.”

  “I can’t?” Because Kera was ready to sprint back to the Marines like the devil himself was on her ass.

  “Because it’s not like you can be shipped off to Afghan-a-wherever—”

  “Afghanistan.”

  “Yeah. Right. Go to Afghanistan, then fly back here every night to do a job, and then turn back around and head back there. Even if you caught the right tailwind, that would still be too much traveling.”

  “Of course it would,” Kera said flatly.

  “But there must be something you’ve always secretly wanted to do. Maybe acting . . . ?” She suddenly looked Kera over, her eyes focusing on her legs. “Your legs are a little short for that, so maybe voice acting?”

  “Okay then,” Kera said, standing, unable to have that particular discussion again. “Thank you.”

  She picked up all her papers and her backpack and walked to the door. That’s where she stopped and turned back to Paula. The woman was already focused on her computer again, Kera immediately forgotten.

  “Uh . . . excuse me?”

  “What?” Paula asked. She didn’t even bother to look at Kera this time.

  “Do you guys have office supplies?”

  Paula glanced at her. “We can get you an office. Do you want an office?”

  “No. I don’t . . .” Kera shook her head. “I just need supplies. Pens. Notepads. That sort of thing.”

  “Oh sure. Second closet on the left in this hallway.”

  “Great. Thank you.”

  “Just let me know if you change your mind.”

  Kera stopped again. “Change my mind about what?”

  “Needing an office.”

  Kera scratched her head and finally asked, “What?”

  Paula relaxed back in her office chair. “Look, kid, you’ve gotta do something with your life. You can’t just sit around here during the day doing nothing.”

  “I just saw a room full of women doing absolutely nothing.”

  “They’re all actors and models. They’re waiting for callbacks and job offers. But with your thighs—”

  “Yes! I know!”

  “So you need to find something to do. Maybe when you were a kid you wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer. So be a doctor or a lawyer. We don’t give a shit. We’ll pay for it. All you gotta do is help a sister-Crow out when she needs it and be there for your night job.”

  “And when would I sleep?”

  “Crows need two to four hours’ sleep. Tops. What I’m saying is, the world is your oyster. Fucking shuck it already.”

  “I just got here!”

  Paula rolled her eyes and went back to her computer. “Like that’s an excuse.”

  Fed up, Kera walked out of the office, slamming the door behind her.

  She stood in the middle of the hall for several minutes, her mind all over the place, anxiety creeping up on her like a vicious house cat.

  It suddenly occurred to Kera she had no control. Not of her life. Of her situation. Of anything. And that r
ealization led to the realization that she was about to have one of her panic attacks.

  Unwilling to let that happen, Kera did what she did so naturally. What she’d done for ten years while in the Marines. What she’d threatened Amsel with.

  She got organized.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Erin was happily lounging by the pool, her body slathered in a lotion with the highest SPF she could find on the market and two giant standing umbrellas protecting her from the harsh rays of the Los Angeles sun.

  She’d cleared her schedule at her shop for the next week so that she could work with the new girl, but since the new girl was off . . . doing something, she’d decided to relax. Erin loved to relax. And she was really good at it.

  Even better, she wasn’t the only one relaxing. Three members of her team were relaxing by the pool as well.

  Leigh was a painter and a really good one. She had a show coming up soon in Santa Monica, which meant she was doing her best to procrastinate until the gallery owner called her in a tizzy. Then Leigh would bang out the most amazing paintings in three weeks instead of using the two years she’d originally had.

  Maeve, convinced she was dying, was taking her temperature at ten-minute intervals and noting the tiniest changes in her laptop. Now, to the layman, that might seem like Maeve was doing nothing, but she actually was. Because Maeve owned and ran a medical blog that tracked deadly diseases across the world and her site was huge. Absolutely gargantuan. She made a fortune off her site, too, although Erin didn’t really know how any of that worked. But Maeve was rich, and she’d used that money to build a medical fortress about ten miles outside of Malibu. There she was hoarding all kinds of medication and the latest medical equipment in a panic room under the house. Word was she’d just gotten a standing MRI machine. From money she made off her blog.

  The whole thing was bizarre, but in Maeve’s weird way, she was really happy. Disturbed and a clinically diagnosed hypochondriac convinced that zombies would be taking over the world in the next twenty years . . . but happy.

  Alessandra Esporza came from family money that she still had access to, despite her death six years ago. But like most Crows, she didn’t just sit on her money and do nothing. Three years back, with the help of some other Crows, she’d bought a Spanish-language TV station and began producing Mexican soap operas. They’d become so popular in the States, Mexico, and Central America that Alessandra made it to the cover of Fortune magazine as the new face of television.