Sanctuary

[Natalie Grey]

The list of individuals with access to this number was short indeed. Ryker himself only shared it with exceptional rarity. When the wallet alerted him to a caller, one assumption tipped his mind toward answering habitually. Until he saw the country-code of origin. More curious than anything, he muted all sounds of his environment and entered the call in safe mode. Visuals were minimized and the periphery obscured should the caller enter screen-connection. "It must be middle of the night for you," the depths of his voice answered.

---

“It is? I hadn’t noticed.” She smirked, not that he would see it. The dry cut of her humour was indolent, her gaze brushing against the shadows whizzing past Cay's face, or what she could see of it. Not exactly where she expected to be in the early hours of the morning.

Visual connection did not engage automatically, a setting she adjusted as standard (much to Eleanor's chagrin). But he would hear the purr of the engine, currently rolling at a smooth cruise, and beneath that the bare murmur of piano music soft through the speakers. She wasn’t sure she had truly expected him to pick up, perhaps because this wasn’t a contingency she had imagined actually using when she had asked Alvis for the information back at the diner.

“Apparently you weren’t easy to find.” No external sounds muffled around his voice, no incidental noises like one might expect. He might as well have been in a vacuum. Unusual security procedures, for a simple phone call, but then she did not suspect him of ordinariness. Her intention hinged on the fact he was a Custody man, albeit one with shady connections. Though it wasn’t like Natalie had ever made a habit of shying back from the darkness. The duality was precisely the lure that stuck her hand into such a maw, hopeful the bite would not be too hard. All men had a price. The foreign trill of Brandon's laughter echoed in the back of her mind.

She did not offer her name, though she had no reason to expect him to remember her, let alone recognise her by voice. Part of that coyness was of power for power's sake, meaningless repartee for yanking her hand at the ball. The rest was curiosity. He did not strike her as patient.

---

"And yet you found me," he responded, a twinge of amusement on his voice. Either the caller was abundently resourceful or had friends in high places. "I'm flattered you put forth the effort, Miss Northbrook." Certainly he recognized her voice, and there were few of such posh accents likely to reach out from the United States. The departure of Jay Carpenter wasn't top-secret, either. He noticed the salivating fury seething from Zacarías Amengual the moment he laid eyes on the American. As remaining in the drug lord's good graces and ridding himself of the complication that was Jay Carpenter from the inner rungs of Ascendancy's channeling pool was advantageous to his desires at the moment, awareness of their movements was informative. In his vocation, information was power.

He remembered her at the ball, hovering and watching like a tigress lazily stalking boring grass. They clasped hands upon introductions. He could still feel the velvet of her arm when his hand slid up the wrist; the tension in her muscles as she retracted from his reach. He'd cross the ocean if finding her again duplicated the shadow of disgust in her eyes that he found compulsively addictive. Maybe he should journey abroad. He loathed the United States. .. Aid Amengual in his efforts in Texas... 

"What can I do for you? And what do I get in return?"

---

“You should be, actually.” The effort had not been without a cost, after all. The dry hum of her laughter held little amusement for such a transactional world, a dismayingly clear reflection of the way her father had always seen things. She’d wield those cynical tools if she had to, but it didn’t gladden her to do it.

Brandon did not care much for morality. If he was aware of Ryker’s interest in the cartel it was unlikely to matter to him on anything but a hierarchical level. Legality was but a whim for those who made the rules, after all, and Amengual’s ticket to the fundraiser spoke of a sanction that did not suggest the endeavour was considered clandestine. But Natalie had yet to meet a man who took kindly to the undermining of his authority, least of all when that authority peaked an empire.

Jay hadn’t been plucked from obscurity like the other dominions, and by the way they had worked at the ball she guessed he was the only trained soldier among them. It made him valuable. Such marked elevation caused ripples like a stone chucked unceremoniously into a pool of still water amongst the elite gathered that night. The vultures lined up to tear him bloody from that new perch, and climb themselves upon the bones of conquest. She doubted Ryker was any different; such were the people Brandon so often chose to surround himself with. But they were firm foundations, at least, to build upon such a fragile house of cards. Firm enough for the risk, anyway.

“Nothing, I suspect. At least nothing you’d part with willingly.” More to the point, she had nothing he could possibly want enough to give her anything she needed in return. Pride stung the steel of her spine, but no hesitation would have prevented such desperation if she’d thought it might have fallen on receptive ears. Probably he would just enjoy the begging.

“Rather I thought you might consider the possibility we’re sharing the same sinking raft.” The appearance of divided loyalties carried a weight Jay knew all too well himself. She had watched Ryker guide Zacarías’s gaze. She had watched the burn of that stare, wondering why at the time it boiled so furiously. Hindsight unravelled that mystery at least. “Nikolai threatened my family should I return without his weapon. Imagine the wrath he would rain down upon the man he discovered to have tied the noose around Jay Carpenter’s neck. A valuable asset to the Custody, given up in a bid to curry another’s favour. You two seemed close. It’d be a long fall from grace.”

---

Ryker’s voice purred enlightment. “Ahh. I see. Helping you is to help myself, and an arrogant son of a bitch like me is only out for himself.” Humor lilted his tone, but the directionality darted like the arrows stuck in the necks of unwitting channelers, and she was a pretty target. 
 
He was quiet a moment, seeming to contemplate the notion. Traitorous blood coursed Natalie’s veins; a trait she seemed to share with her new companion. Ryker cared nothing of betrayal to the Custody. They already burned the end of his rope and let him fall helpless from the frayed ends. Scars coursed his body as proof. His motivations were already a cauldron of lies, discord and betrayal. For all his hatred of Nikolai Brandon, there was admiration as well. “You think Brandon doesn’t already know that? You think he isn’t allowing this to happen to you both? He was the one that sent you abroad, yes? Only by his grace did he allow the departure; arranged it, even. So seemingly easy to attain, wasn’t it?” 
 
“Missiles are spent in war. Make no mistake about his altruism, Brandon wages war. The loss of one walking weapon is a sacrifice if it wins him the territory he wants. Look around you. What do you see? Who are the combatants on the field? Now toss a walking bomb into the middle of it. What do you think will happen?”
 
He gave her a moment to do just that. They were exactly where Brandon wanted them. Jensen James, on the other hand, was probably the greater value than ten Carpenters, the gifts rarer. 
 
“What do you need? Maybe I’ll give it to you because the cause aligns with my own; maybe I won’t, but I will listen to you ask nicely.”

---

“You’re suggesting yourself to be an exemplary model to the rest of us?” Doubt circled sharp amusement. She didn’t spare herself the aspersion. Natalie would watch everything burn before she let go of her ideals, consequences damned to ash, forgiveness never sought. She’d suffered too much loss to truly fear the blade of repercussion, at least when it tested the flesh of her own neck. If anything he said was true, it didn’t glimmer much surprise. Maybe she’d been sitting so long behind the bars of a cage that the sense of a trap bounced dully off her skin. It was something to parse through, but later.

“I think Brandon knows the value of honey before vinegar. We’ll find out, I suppose.” Truthfully she didn’t care for the toxic spread of the Custody’s domination, nor Brandon’s machinations. Hers was not a tireless climb to the top of the pile. The hint of a larger picture was periphery; fact to wield as weapon or shield, maybe. But the precious line of her horizon was much nearer.

She had no premeditated demand. Something so simple as a transaction was not why she had called; rather, it had been a fumble into darkness, seeking a match struck against the possibility of mutual convenience. But he was being difficult, and she didn’t have time for the game. Quiet reigned for a moment of consideration. Need was a weapon he asked her to arm him with under a thin guise of hope, dangling like a string for a kitten. At best it was pointless to ask anything at all. At worst it was dangerous.

“Then I would ask you nicely to convince Amengual to spare Jay’s sister. I’ve seen enough of dead children, Ryker.”

Even if he possessed such a leash to control the senseless revenge of a bloody predator, he had no reason to do it. She might as well fling that wish into the void and wait for intervention from the divine as to ask it of him. But the bounty had already been set. The score of those last words cut like a scrape against bone, though if it was a vulnerability she revealed of herself it was hardly a secret.

---

In the end, she asked nicely. Ryker mused over the tone, sparse of desperation as it was. Background noises filled their microphones in the absence of speech. The purr of a modern engine, the ventilation of air, the thrumming of piano chords. Conclusions implied a vehicle, logic pieced together the circumstances. He thoughtfully rolled his fingers, seconds ticking away with indecision.

"I'll ask him," Ryker finally said, but where humor drained away like the slow drip of a bloody wound, something more sinister filled the void. He began to laugh.

From his end of the line, silence reigned until exactly that moment when safe-mode was lifted. Noise suddenly muffled the background - clinking of dishes, voices, laughter. His own laughter dominant.

"Better yet, ask him yourself."

A velvety voice joined the call like a demon summoned from their convocation. 
"Buenas noches, señorita."
----------------
wirtten with Ryker