Chapter 2

The lyrics in the song seemed to reflect someone completely different from Julian Vaughn. It was another song about a boy longing for a girl, pining after her with all his being and feeling dejected and depressed by the lack of affection returned. Of course, it was a popular song, played on the radio at least fifty times a day. Just once, though, Julian would have liked to have woken up to something other than some whiny kid using poetry to get into the collective pants of his hoard of screaming female fans.

The song ended mid "Bay-beh" as he flicked his alarm clock off and rolled back over, blanket pulled up over his head to shut out the light filtering in from the streets. The only thing worse than a Monday morning was a Tuesday morning and tomorrow, no doubt, nothing would be worse than a Wednesday morning. Still, he clung to the hope that if he closed his eyes and got five more minutes, it would be that much more bearable.

An hour later, that early start he had promised himself he would get was long forgotten and his cheek had an imprint from his braided hair. Slowly but surely the guilt began to mount until there was no longer any gratification in being cocooned inside his blankets. With great effort, he threw aside the warm comforter and swung his legs over the side of his bed, wincing at how cold the slated floor felt against his feet.

Lazily, he padded to the restroom, rubbing his tired eyes as he shut the door with the heel of his foot and walked over to the shower stall to flip the water on. While it warmed up, he undressed and began un-braiding his hair. The plait kept him from waking up a prisoner to his own hair, not only wrapped in its tangles but forced to spend hours making sense of it all. Free from it's confines, it swung gaily at his hips. He shook his head to relieve the tingling sensation the braid always left in his scalp.

Julian smiled at his reflection as the steam from the shower began to make the mirror hazy. Conceited or not, he took no small amount of pride in his appearance. In the mirror stood a relatively tall man with fair features, deep red eyes under dark brown bangs. Muscular shoulders tapered down a toned chest and taut abs, with defined arms and legs to complete an almost picture-perfect physique of a man in his early twenties. There was not a single blemish on his skin; nothing that did not seem, for lack of a better word, perfect. Lithe and athletic, he was a model of health and well being. And he had a good excuse..

Satisfied that his appearance still had not altered, Julian stepped away from the mirror and quickly into the flow of scalding water, where he stayed until it ran cold, washing and enjoying the warmth and the massage setting on his showerhead.

Nearly an hour had passed when he emerged, smelling of vanilla beans and honey suckle. He dressed in his casual attire, which consisted of tight fitting pants that hung low on his hips and a tight shirt that clung close to his skin. With some black fuzzy house shoes on his feet to combat the cold surface of the floor, he was ready for another boring day of waiting for a client.

Originally the plan had been to get up at five, finish up the last of the paperwork from his most recent job assignment for tax purposes and other miscellaneous, pain-in-the-ass legal bullshit, and then out to the streets to solicit his services to the wealthy and often-targeted high profile residents of the upper levels. Their type was often in search of that under-the-table kind of backup Julian supplied, and it would be hard to find anyone else in his field with his merit and skill. Still, competing with agencies and public enforcers, who were more visibly on the up-and-up was a constant drain on his customer base. With no scandals to cause a backlash of fright or any heated campaigns to warrant extra care, there wasn’t much work to fight over, though. Some days it seemed like the only person with any sort of job security was The Surge.

With a few scraps of paperwork still waiting to be done, Julian headed to the kitchen for a quick meal and some liquid energy. As he scooped dark grounds into his black plastic coffee maker, the phone began to ring. He let it go unanswered for a moment, finishing the task at hand before turning the machine on and crossing to his phone. The caller ID read "MAXWELL" in clear, bold letters; Julian paused, his hand inches from the receiver. The phone rang again, sounding more insistent, if that was possible. He let it ring once more, if only because he could, then pressed the phone to his ear and said in his most annoyed and unimpressed tone, "Hello?"

"Julian. It's Maxwell. Sorry, did I wake you? I understand it is not uncommon for unemployed people to spend most of their time in bed. I wouldn't know, personally. Must be nice."

"There's a difference between being unemployed and being a mercenary. Besides, I've been up since five this morning," he lied out of spite. "Paper work to fill out and the like. You have to do that kind of stuff when you're handling a legitimate business. Not that you would know, personally."

The laughter on the other line was charming but felt like acid dripping through the holes in the receiver. "You're a whore and a handyman. I should think mercenary is a somewhat misleading title."

"I'm a bodyguard and a veteran Military Police Captain with marks as a sharp shooter. I suggest you either get on to what you called here for or get a new hobby that doesn't include calling me up to exchange witty banter." Julian pressed the phone between his ear and shoulder and went about pulling his toaster out of hiding and un-tangling the twist tie on the loaf of bread's packaging.

"It was entirely pertinent to my request, I assure you. The last thing I want to do is spend more time than necessary with you, in person or otherwise." There was a shifting in the background, perhaps papers being flipped through. "I have a job for you of a completely legitimate nature that will pay handsomely once completed. A sum of ten thousand creds, three thousand up front to certify a contractual binding. Whether you are interested or not, it hardly matters. You and I both know you could use the money and the subject matter hits rather close to home."

Julian bit his bottom lip, pressing the power switch on the toaster down. "Ten thousand's a lot of creds. Doesn't sound like the kind of money you're used to paying for legitimate business ventures. I know for a fact that's practically a third of what you pay your body guards annually and I'm not so sure there's anything else you can ask of me that could be considered legal in regards to your business needs."

"Your brother is missing. I need you to find him and bring him back home."

"Phineas?" Julian shook his head as his younger brother's face, topped with red hair that stuck out of his head haphazardly, came to mind. "How the hell did you, of all people, manage to lose track of a fifteen year old boy?"

"How is not of consequence; the ten thousand creds for your services are. You say you are a mercenary and I am offering to hire you. Take the job and let us go back to our personal business."

Julian hesitated for a minute, pretending to mull over the idea, though they both knew full well he was going to accept. It was a game, one of many that they played. He hummed loudly, as though uncertain and forcing himself to choose between the lesser of two evils, tapping his fingers against the plastic receiver. "Alright. Forward the initial amount. I'll let the paperwork sit for now and get right on it."

"A pleasure." The click of the other line terminating cut into silence as Julian followed suit and hung his phone back on the wall.

The toast popped up, golden and brown, announcing its turn for attention along with a simultaneous growl from Julian's stomach. He placed the toast on a plate and took a seat at his table, his mind wandering as he buttered the tops of his breakfast.

Phineas was eight years his junior and his half-brother on their father's side. Standing side by side, one would never know they were related. Julian took after their father--was practically the man’s genetic twin--while Phineas took after his own mother, pale as milk but with hair like wild flames. He was short and thin, almost unhealthy-looking. though he consumed more in one sitting than some families could manage in a day. His hair was always unruly, as incapable of staying put or being confined as the boy himself was, and his golden eyes were full of mischief. He was a prodigy, the family favorite.

They didn't get along.

Julian bit into his toast, feeling the crumbs fall to the table while he relished the buttery flavor. It wasn't that he disliked his brother; resented him, perhaps, but there had never been any animosity between them. Julian had never been able to live up to their father's expectations of what a son of his lineage should be. Phineas, though, was extraordinarily intelligent, quick to grasp ideas and improve upon them even though his methods seemed more like madness then genius. At five he was at a college reading level and his schooling was done privately, granting him college degrees in engineering and in physics by the age of ten. He was the Isaac to Julian's Ishmael: the son their father had always wanted.

Where would a fifteen-year-old, sheltered genius run away to?

Julian grabbed his thermos and filled it with coffee, deciding it would be best to take it to go. Phineas was not someone who blended in well and Maxwell had enough connections that having to outsource to complete a relatively simple task for a large sum of money was starting to give him a cold feeling in his chest. Either Phineas had become very good at laying low or he was in a great deal more danger than Maxwell made it sound like.

Unfortunately, the first place to search for a missing child was the black market. As cheap labor or compact and easily detained sexual servants, children age five and up could be bought and sold in deceivingly nice establishments. Whole businesses could be run on the sweat and blood of the underage and underprivileged and entire brands of brothels existed for their pedophile clientele. There were plenty of adults who, through debt or abduction, were forced into the same position, but where it accounted for less than half of Solace’s missing adult, almost three fourths of missing children could be found in such hell holes. It was the best place to begin, even if it was the last place he wanted to discover his younger brother. The sooner he had ruled it out, the better.

Changing out of his black fuzzy slippers and into his black boots, Julian slipped out of his small apartment and down to the busy streets of Solace. It was time to see Riley.