Friday Nights Lights

I never made a move because she always did. Maybe others in the Cabal knew, but I didn't care. I didn't kiss and tell, and I assume she didn't either.

The moment my apartment door slammed shut behind us, and I turned to face her and see her in the dim half-light, her eyes always captured me first. The naked lust, and desire, as if I was something taboo that she shouldn't have.

The dancing, the sweat, the alcohol, all of it put her in the mood. The music from the club seemed to be echoing in my ears. Her touch was direct and bold, intoxicating in its sudden rush. Her kisses were as sweet. I remember a mix of her, chocolate, smoky heat, and this smooth amber richness that I can't define.

Sex is like an outlet, a pressure release from the nightmare that is our day job. Sarah always wanted it rough, and she liked it borderline violent. Sometimes against the wall, on the couch, or even on the floor, her nails raking furrows down my back. It was always raw and powerful how I would take her and claim her as mine.

There were nights, though few, that she wanted a second round. All the aggression and rage she kept bottled up was gone, and she just wanted to be loved. As if she was living a fantasy of slow, sensual lovemaking, the near exact opposite of the opening act.

We'd find a rhythm that worked best for us, various positions, some that had her biting the sheets. Some that had me riding the edge. We made that second round, especially about us both, the closest we would ever come to admitting to there being a relationship between us.

Then we'd ride the lightning to the very end, falling asleep in a tangle of sweat-soaked limbs and sheets until sunlight crept through the curtains and dragged us back to the harsh realities of the world and our lives.

Please make no mistake: Legionnaires live violent lives, and we expect it to end in the same way that we live it: Violently.

She would wake, giving me one of those winsome smiles of hers, the kind that could and did melt a man's heart. I don't know how to explain the relationship that Sarah and I shared. Was there a relationship? Beyond just the physical? I don't think there was one.

I learned she loved wake-up sex, which meant a third time on the bed. This was always a slow sensual build-up, light touching teases, agonizing minutes of build-up. Most of the time, she would wake up in the middle of an orgasm as I selfishly claimed her one last time before we would go back to being professionals.

We were a good match for each other, physically at least. We never said anything about feelings or lack of emotions about what we are to one another. Neither of us wanted to ruin the good thing we had going.

"Don't get emotionally involved, Alex. Take what you need and leave. It's kinder for both of you." Lukas's own harsh and honest words were always straight to the point. Legionnaires don't have romantic relationships because they are likely to die.

I heard her bare feet touch down onto the floor, pattering over to the kitchen, and I lay there for a few minutes, listening to the faucet run, a dainty gulp of water. She was on the phone, the professional dulcet tones a sharp contrast from moans and cries of pleasure I'd heard the night before.

I glanced at my phone and instead just felt a familiar stirring in my loins. We, I was still going. I rose and made my way to the kitchen. Her eyes found mine through the reflection on her phone, and she gave me a grin, "11 am. Cabal."

Thank the Gods. Lukas is not an early-morning person.

I deliberately took her phone and set it down on the counter, letting us both see the time. It was barely a quarter past seven as she turned and leaned against the countertop. The sunlight made her naked skin glow. I ran my tongue across chapped lips.

She offered me the cup she was drinking, and we shared it, refilling it with flirty eyes over the rim.

Less than five minutes later, Sarah was bent over the sink, begging me to fuck her until she couldn't walk straight. I rutted her with a force that made her hold on to the counter's edge. It was louder here, and I liked how it echoed when she'd squealed my name as she came. Multi-orgasmic women are the most fun.

We wore ourselves out before the hour ended and started acting like a married couple. I turned on the Nespresso machine as she slid into the shower. She'd come out, and I'd go in. When I emerged, we'd share coffee as the early morning sunshine slashed in through the kitchen window blinds.

We rarely said anything at this point - we just sat and enjoyed the silence and afterglow of a good night. I would arrive a few minutes after she did at HQ. She would be the consummate professional; the carefree party animal has gone on holiday until Friday Night rolled around again.

For her, it was as simple as changing from hipster jeans and a tank top to standard Legion fatigues with the 9mm Beretta riding on her hip. I found it utterly unfair as she sat at the opposite end of the table and teased me with a little cat-got-the-cream smile.

Kirsten had probably worked through the night to unlock the case and analyze its contents, all scattered across the table. I looked at the items recovered and frowned. I could not understand what I was looking at: Pieces of mirror and fliers for a carnival along the banks of Lac Leman?

But somehow, Kirsten had pieced something together. She had an excited sparkle in her eyes, with a little twitch in her fingers and slightly faster than normal breathing. I suddenly understood what Watson somehow saw when Sherlock Holmes put it together.

She gestured, the lights dimmed, and a map of Switzerland blinked onto the wall. Using her hands, she focused on the Suisse Romande – French-speaking – areas of Switzerland. Starting from Yverdon-Les-Bains, a route appeared on the map. It traced North passing through Neuchatel, stopping at numerous smaller towns and communities rarely marked on larger maps as she began her briefing.

"I've run them through the usual battery of analytical tests. They are just the regular posters and fliers for a new hall of mirrors attraction that eventually joined the carnival. The mirror isn't glass. It's some reflective plastic with a hollow space or opening in the centre between the reflective layers that also serve to trap light. I don't know what it does yet."

On-screen, the path continued to wind through Switzerland, passing through Delémont and a string of smaller cities and then into Basel. From there, it trailed down through the Canton of Jura, Morat and Fribourg, and several more towns before ending in Lausanne. That was convenient.

"The carnival has travelled the same path it's followed for the past few years. No changes or deviations." She executed some complicated hand motions, causing a series of markers to appear. Each had a photo, name, date and cause of death. "When I cross-checked their route against local and federal databases, things lit up like a Christmas tree."

Over thirty-five small circles appeared, some overlapping the arrows already visible. "The carnival is headquartered in Lausanne and returns to Lausanne for its summer stay of three months this week – till June and then goes on the road again." She gestured to the map, "Black means somebody died, grey is presumed dead, and white is missing."

There were more circles than there were right to be along the carnival's path. I kept quiet but noted my questions on a pad of paper. Kirsten was as efficient as ever, "Confirmed twenty-three dead, forty-six missing presumed dead, and seven missing for between eleven and twenty-one days."

"Any other connections or points of commonality between victims?" asked Lukas. The only connection across such a vast distance was that all of them had visited the carnival.

"Do any victims fit a specific physical profile?" asked Russell. Young, old, middle-aged, infants and children Blond, brunette, dark brown, auburn, red, Russian, Swiss, German, Italian, French, Chinese, African-American, Swedish, Finnish. There was no specific physical profile.

Sarah frowned at the map on the wall and then at the gallery of faces displayed in the top right corner of the screen, "Causes of death?"

"All classified as death by natural causes," she replied, "Six heart attacks, four strokes, terminal or otherwise undetected cancers. Sickle cell anaemia and related complications account for four more victims. There is one case of necrotizing fasciitis and dozens of other CODs." She went on for several minutes, but it was clear that there were just too many cases for everything to be pure coincidence.

It's a truism that when things appear too chaotic or too random, there is a pattern that someone was trying to hide in the chaos of apparent randomness. It seemed appropriate to step back into the War, and Kristen had provided that point of entry.

Lukas felt the same way, "Pull up everything we have on the parent company. Inform Lausanne Operations Center of our interest in the Fiesta Carnival."

One sentence, spoken casually, was an order, and everyone seated at the table knew what it meant: We were returning to our War.