Eldritch Ops: (From the Secret Files of the Red Room) by C.T. Phipps

Author:C.T. Phipps [Phipps, C.T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amber Cove Publishing
Published: 2018-07-16T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

The blackness parted, and I was in a metropolis I’d never much cared for: New York City. Plenty of local agents and non-House personnel would hang me from my toes for suggesting it wasn't the greatest place on Earth, but that didn't change how I felt. There was just something about the Big Apple that left me feeling cramped and paranoid.

I blamed it on the fact that I was used to looking at everyone as a potential threat, be they disguised monsters or humans who'd somehow decided today was the day they'd take me out. Being in the city with a million stories, I felt like I was surrounded by twelve million potential attackers. Either that, or it was because I was from Massachusetts.

Yet it was New York City I was assigned to. One didn't get to choose where one was sent on a job when one was a newly promoted senior agent. Besides, Christopher seemed to love the place, and his presence helped take the edge off.

The two of us were eating hot dogs in a subway station the House had cordoned off for repairs. It was a cold day in late December, and the two of us were wearing winter coats, gloves, and scarves while we waited for our contact to arrive.

“So, you want to pick up a couple of hookers after this?” Christopher said, taking a bite out of his hot dog.

“Thank you, but no. I've never felt the need to pay for my company.” I looked at my hot dog, disgusted with its taste.

“I don't need to pay either, but it's a service like any other. It cuts down on the hassle of who, what, when, where, and calls.”

“You'll forgive me if I still decline. I've seen too many rings of mesmerized girls and boys to trust anything is consensual.” I threw my hotdog into a nearby wastepaper basket before changing the subject. “I'm sorry, but I don't know how you can eat those things.”

“I'm sorry they didn't have tofu dogs, Mister Daoist.”

“Please don't mock my religion.”

“I'm just saying you kill people. A lot of people. Daoism is a passive, life-affirming religion. You're not going to balance your chi or whatever by not eating meat when you carry around a sniper rifle in your luggage.”

“The sniper rifles are usually provided for me on site.”

“It's a metaphor, Derek.”

“It's a poor one. I choose clean living as part of a larger attempt to bring myself in harmony with the universe. The Dao is individualistic and cannot be defined, my path being different from everyone else's.”

“Says the white man to the Chinese guy.”

“That joke would be hilarious if the kids in the Hamptons didn't call me and my sister the Mutt twins.”

“That joke is hilarious because you grew up in the Hamptons.”

He had me there. “Do we have any idea when our contact is going to be arriving?”

“Should be any minute now. You've been on edge since we got here. Do you have a problem with the mission, or is it just my rousing rendition of ‘New York, New York’?”

“A little of both.

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