Opportunities for Bonding

Adrian sat on the hood of his car outside the police precinct, working up the nerve to confront the cop he’d bound to his service. He knew what he needed from her, but he wasn’t sure exactly how to go about getting it.

“That won’t be too hard,” one of the spirits whispered.

“Why’s that?” Adrian asked, mentally.

“Because of your bond,” answered a different spirit.

“Let’s assume for a second that nobody went over any of this with me,” Adrian thought dryly.

“Your squires are bound to you by the energies of your pact,” they explained.

“As your powers grow, the bond and its effects grow too, providing you influence with your squires.”

“Although different squires will have different bonds of different natures.”

Adrian had picked up on some of this already. “Like how you gave Ivy a crush on me,” he replied, unable to keep all of the bitterness out of his tone.

“The bond is as unavoidable as the transformations,” the spirits defended themselves.

“If not a crush, something else.”

“We do not understand your resistance.”

“You did not object to Christine's bond. Is there a difference?”

Adrian paused in shock. “What?”

“The scholar’s bond is like the girl’s,” a voice replied, sounding like it should be obvious.

Adrian’s mind reeled. “Christine has a crush on me?” It sounded absurd to even think it. He had a hard time picturing Christine with any degree of emotional vulnerability or sensitivity.

“As of the other day, when you were in your apartment together, yes.”

Adrian did his best to process this new information. He had known that the spirits expected him to sleep with Christine eventually, and had been more than willing to disappoint them. That Christine might want to sleep with him eventually, though, was not something that he had ever considered. Thinking about Christine having sex was like running into your teacher outside of school. He’d been vaguely aware that she probably had a sex life, but it was strange to actually encounter it.

He would have to grapple with the consequences another time, though. Today, his focus was on a different squire. “What about Amira?” he asked, recalling the officer’s name from his ticket.

“She is different,” the voices told him.

“She is like the girl-boy.”

It took Adrian a moment to realize what they meant. “Like Rhys?”

“Yes,” they answered.

“They are Followers.”

“When you give them orders, and they obey, their brains supply them with reward chemicals.”

“More onerous orders give larger rewards, but are also easier to resist.”

Some of Rhys’s behavior over the past week suddenly started to make sense. More than once, Adrian had noticed him being strangely at peace in situations where he should not have been. Adrian realized he had been inadvertently conditioning Rhys for days, giving him little boosts of positive reinforcement here and there each time Rhys had obeyed a command.

“You could have told me this sooner,” Adrian thought, annoyed.

“You did not ask,” was their simple reply.

Adrian massaged the bridge of his nose. Sometimes talking to the spirits could be like trying to convince a bull to do a trick. “And the cop. Her bond works the same way?”

“Yes.”

It was something to work with at least. It felt underhanded, coercing her like this, but Adrian needed to play with the cards he was dealt. He sighed and got up off his car. There was no point delaying any longer.

Walking into the precinct, Adrian was met with the sounds of muted conversation, a ringing phone, and the static hiss of an officer’s radio. A pudgy-looking cop sat at the precinct’s front desk, typing something at her computer. Behind her, separated from the lobby by a wooden balustrade, was the bull pen, a collection of desks where the officers could do their paperwork.

“Hi,” Adrian said, approaching the woman at the receptionist’s desk. “I’m looking for Officer Zare.”

The woman made him wait while she finished her task before looking up at him. “I can’t disclose the location or details of individual officers,” she told him in a monotone voice.

With a thought, Adrian tapped into his powers. Like with Rocco, a small beam of light connected him and the cop. He mentally took hold of that bridge between them, keeping her locked into the conversation and giving him some room to interrogate her.

“I was just hoping to have a quick conversation with her,” Adrian said. “Is she in today?”

“I already told you that I can’t answer that,” the woman replied.

Unfortunately, while Adrian could compel her to continue talking to him, he couldn't make her answer his questions.

“It’s very important that I speak to her,” he pressed on. “Do you know when she’ll be in?”

“No,” she told him flatly. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

This was going nowhere fast. “Is it alright if I wait for her here?”

A stranger waiting for an officer would probably not have flown under normal circumstances, but Adrian was able to suppress the officer’s suspicion by keeping a tight rein on her leash.

“Do whatever you want,” she said, seeing no reason why she should be concerned.

Adrian let his powers fade and took a seat in one of the uncomfortable, blocky chairs in the precinct’s lobby. He hadn’t expected the job of hell knight to involve so much waiting around.

---

“Hey Amira!”

She kept walking, trying to pretend that she hadn’t heard him.

“Amira!” he called out again.

She stopped in the middle of the hallway, taking a moment to put a friendly smile on her face before she turned around. “Andres,” she said, trying to keep her voice neutral.

The man walked over, all smiles, to stand in front of her. “I haven’t seen you around,” he said.

It was no accident. Amira had been avoiding him, spending as little time at her desk as she could get away with, and only when she knew he wasn’t in the precinct.

“Yeah, I’ve been out on patrol a lot recently,” she lied.

“Sergeant Hudson still holding that grudge?” Andres laughed.

“Yep,” she told him. It wasn’t exactly untrue. The sergeant was still pissed about her mouthing off to him, but he wasn’t responsible for her workload. She’d been volunteering, hoping to avoid Andres for as long as possible. Her luck had run out.

“So I was wondering,” Andres said, doing his best to sound suave. “You, me, dinner this Friday?”

There it was. Amira had needed a couple of days to take stock of her feelings. Their date had gone better than she’d expected, but she had to admit that whatever she was looking for, Andres wasn't it.

“Listen, Andres,” she began gently. “I had a lot of fun, but I don’t think we should see each other again.”

There was the slightest slip in Andres’ machismo. “Why not?”

“You’re a great guy, but, for me, personally, I just didn’t feel a spark, you know?”

“I don’t,” he said, looking a little bewildered. “You just said you had fun, isn’t that a spark?”

“I’d like to get drinks again if you want, but as friends,” she explained.

“Friends?” Andres spat the word out. “Is that how it is? You’re such a fucking tease.”

Amira had been trying to let him down easy, but now that was over. “I don’t owe you anything,” she barked back.

“Whatever,” he said snidely. “Why would I want to be with a whore like you, jerking people off in cars like a high school slut.”

Amira saw red. She couldn’t believe that just a few days ago, she had had this man’s cum in her mouth. Couldn’t believe that she had liked it.

“You seemed real interested a second ago,” she said with a mocking laugh.

That only pissed him off more. “I was just going to throw you a pity fuck, then dump you. But you missed your chance.”

“You can’t dump someone you’ve only been on one date with. Especially when you just got turned down for the second.”

“Fuck you, bitch,” he growled, looming over her.

Amira wasn’t intimidated. Even though he was almost a head taller than her, she glared right back at him, not conceding an inch. “Are we done here?” she asked dismissively. “I’ve got work to do.”

Andres’s eyes bulged in his head. For a second, Amira thought he might hit her, but in the end, he backed down. “See you around whore,” he spat, turning around on his heels.

“You already used that one,” Amira said, affecting a bored tone. Inside, though, she was raging. Guys like Andres were a dime a dozen, and she was glad her instincts had warned her before she got involved. If there were any justice in the world, Andres would be getting his sooner or later, but she knew he’d just put the mask right back on and try again with the next woman. Someone needed to kick his ass.

As much as she would like it to be, though, it wasn’t going to be her. Doing her best to put the episode behind her, Amira went downstairs to the bull pen. There were things she needed to get done, and she wasn’t going to let some manchild’s hissy fit derail her day.

“Officer Zare?”

Amira had been halfway to her desk when somebody called out her name from the lobby. Amira groaned. What now?

She walked over to the balustrade, on the other side of which he stood, and crossed her arms. He seemed vaguely familiar, but Amira couldn’t place him. He had short black hair, a strong jawline, and was in decent shape, but she couldn’t say how he might know her.

“Can I help you?” she asked, making it clear that she’d rather not.

“Actually,” the man said, “I was thinking maybe I could help you.”

Great. A concerned citizen. “If you have a report to file, speak with the front desk.”

“It’s more of a tip,” he explained.

“Also something you can bring to the front desk.” She tapped her foot impatiently.

“I know you must be busy,” he told her, “but I promise this is worth your while. Step out here so we can talk.”

Amira couldn’t care less about whatever this guy had to say, but if he had somehow managed to get his hands on useful information, and she turned him down, she’d feel awful. Resigning herself to what was sure to be an annoying conversation, she walked out of the bull pen’s gate and joined him in the lobby. Her mood improved almost imperceptibly, but Amira didn’t notice.

“So what’s this about?” she asked.

“First things first,” he started, “I have to admit something. You and I have met once before. You pulled me over a couple of weeks ago.”

Oh shit. So that’s how he knew her. She didn’t remember him, but people tracking you down after you ticketed them wasn’t uncommon, and it was rarely good.

The man must have seen the look on her face because he rushed out an explanation. “I’m not here to start anything. Actually, I was pretty rude to you, and I was hoping to make it up. I’m Adrian, by the way. Tell me your name.”

He held his hand out and Amira eyed it with suspicion, but couldn’t detect any insincerity in his voice. She shook it, ready for him to pull her in or swing a fist, but he just shook it back.

“Amira,” she said, and her caution began to let up a little.

“Nice to meet you again,” he said with a disarming smile. “The thing I wanted to talk about is, I stumbled across some information regarding the 14th Street Bangers. Stop me if you’ve heard of them.”

They were a low-level street gang, mostly involved with dealing ****. “Yeah, I know them,” she said. The last traces of her sour mood lifted, her earlier argument with Andres forgotten.

“Good,” he continued. “There’s a nightclub named Gilt just east of downtown. I’m pretty sure the owner is using it to launder money.”

“Pretty sure?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Very sure,” he said more strongly, offering her a manila folder. “Here. Take this.”

She did, and as she started leafing through the papers, a small smile played at her lips. She told herself it must be because this conversation was turning out to be more interesting than she had expected.

“As you can see,” Adrian told her, “the business should be underwater, but somehow it's staying afloat. I guarantee you that if you checked their books, there’d be more income declared than they’re pulling in.”

From her brief inspection of the material, it looked like he might be right. The club was near the edge of 14th Street turf, and if the numbers were accurate, it should have closed down years ago.

“Unfortunately,” she told him, “I’m not seeing anything here that’s actionable. You may have a point, but right now it’s just speculation. You don’t have any proof?”

“Just what you see,” he said, looking a little disappointed. “Tell me what you’d need.”

“A copy of their books would be best,” Amira said, launching into an explanation. “Any kind of transaction history would do it, too. Or even just the dates and times of when they drop off the cash. Do you have any of that?” She hadn’t meant to be so thorough, but Amira found herself strangely invested in the conversation. It felt good to help him out.

“No,” he answered. “But couldn’t you go in there and get the books yourself?”

She shook her head. “Not without a warrant, and a judge isn’t going to sign off on one with just this.”

Adrian grew pensive. “What if you had testimony from someone who had seen the books?”

Amira raised an eyebrow. “You know someone who would talk?”

“Sure,” he said with a cocky grin. “Me.”

“If you’ve seen the books, why not lead with that?” she asked sceptically.

“I thought hard numbers would be more convincing,” he said. “But I was in there the other day, making an offer to buy the place. The owner, a man named Rocco, showed me some of his records. That’s when I noticed the discrepancies.”

“Is any of that true?” Her bullshit meter was usually on point, and something was off about his story. For starters, nobody would show off their books so early into the proceedings of a sale.

“Sure,” he replied. “I have a friend who was there with me who’ll corroborate the story if you need him to. And I’m sure there’s security footage of the visit.”

“Footage of you and ‘Rocco’ looking over his books?” she prodded.

“Hard to say,” Adrian told her. “I don’t think there were any cameras in his office.”

“Convenient,” Amira said glibly.

Adrian shrugged. “It is what it is.” He looked around, then motioned her forward with his hand. “Come a little closer.”

She took a step forward before she knew what she was doing, and a little jolt of electricity shot through her system.

“This guy’s guilty,” Adrian said in a hushed tone. “I’m hoping that you can see that that’s the most important thing here.”

“Not you buying his club?” Amira asked.

Adrian smiled sheepishly. “If I get the club, so much the better. But either way, the owner’s a criminal.”

Amira thought it over. “You’d be willing to sign a sworn testimony with your story? You understand that lying under oath is perjury?”

Adrian nodded. “Not a problem.”

Amira held no illusions about Adrian’s motivations. He was getting something out of this, but whatever it was, he was right that it didn’t change the facts. She looked down at the evidence he’d brought her. All circumstantial, nowhere near enough for a conviction, but hard to ignore nonetheless. That, she rationalized, was why she was doing this, not because it felt weirdly nice to do what he said.

“Alright,” she agreed. “You sign the testimony, I’ll use it to get a warrant.”

“Perfect,” he smiled. “Do we do that here, or…?”

“At my desk,” she told him.

“Lead the way,” Adrian ordered.

---

Adrian strolled out of the police precinct an hour later. He was taking a big risk, lying under oath like that. He didn’t think there was any way that they could prove it was perjury, but there was no way to be sure. If somehow Christine was wrong, and there was nothing to uncover, he could find himself in a lot of trouble. It had to be done, though.

Then there was the other matter. Amira. She hadn’t been quite what he’d expected. From his one brief interaction with her, she’d come off as stuck-up and condescending. He’d seen a little of that, but not much, and mostly at the start.

The entire time she’d worked with him, he’d been sure to pepper in little commands here and there. He’d tell her to hand him a pen, or to repeat something, or to slide a piece of paper over. Such small orders had only a tiny effect, but they added up. By repeatedly giving her little hits of dopamine, he’d managed to not only lighten her mood but also begin to condition her to obey him reflexively. By the end, she was almost jumping at the chance to do the favors he'd requested. Then, as he left, he’d baited the hook.

"Arrest Rocco," he’d told her. She’d only promised to do her best, but when she came through for him, the reward was going to be much larger than any she’d had before. He was betting it’d be enough to get her into his corner and hoped that, if worse came to worst, it’d be enough to earn him her protection.

Assuming everything went according to plan, he now had four squires in his pocket. That meant there were two to go, and he’d left them for last for a reason. Not a good reason, necessarily. If he was honest with himself, they were the ones he was most worried about, and he’d been avoiding them out of anxiety. As Rhys had so helpfully pointed out, though, there was no point waiting any longer. He needed to finish what he’d started.

Gritting his teeth, Adrian fished his phone out of his pocket and scrolled to Opal’s contact information. “Looking to book something this Friday,” he typed. With a sigh, he hit send. He sat there anxiously for a minute, waiting to hear back, but his phone was silent. Just as he was starting to worry, it vibrated in his hand.

“Sorry,” her reply read, “all booked up. Maybe another time.” She’d ended the message with a kissy emoji.

“Shit,” Adrian mumbled. He had no other way of meeting up with her. If he couldn’t even get in the same room as her, how was he going to get her to the squire meeting?

“You are her master,” whispered a spirit.

“Masters do not ask,” added another.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Adrian asked aloud, alone in his car.

"She is a Servant,” they clarified.

“Her bond is unlike the others."

“Less subtle.”

“More direct.”

“Get to the point,” he told them.

“Your other squires are merely incentivized to listen to you, but not made to.”

“She is.”

“She is what?” he asked. “Made to listen to me?”

“Yes,” the spirits answered.

“Direct orders will be hard for her to contradict.”

Adrian blinked. “So I can just tell her to do things, and she has to do them?”

“The more she dislikes the order, the easier it will be for her to resist…”

“…but in many things, she will need to obey.”

“If you can do that, why not just make all of my squires have to obey me?” As soon as he’d asked the question, he winced, scared that they might take him up on it. He didn’t like the idea of Christine, Rhys, or Ivy being **** to comply with his every mandate. He’d hurt them enough already.

Fortunately, the spirits didn’t seem to want that any more than he did. One of them chuckled lightly. “It is more fun this way.”

Adrian thought that was a little sick, but he wasn’t about to talk them out of doing what he wanted. He looked down at his phone and keyed in Christine’s address, then added, “Friday. Five o’clock. Be there.”

He hit send and waited again, but there was no reply. He couldn’t just sit in the precinct parking lot all day, so eventually he started up the car and began his drive home. The spirits had better be right about Opal, because otherwise, he was out of ideas.