Origins (A Demonkin Novel) by Sean Hayden Page A

T-shirt presented a much easier task. Once on, I walked back over to the door and turned the heavy silver knob. It clicked when I turned it so it must automatically lock. I would have to remember to grab a key whenever I left.
    I pulled the door open and Agent Walker stood there waiting. He had his arms crossed and his hands gripped his extraordinarily taut biceps. He had on sweats and an FBI T-shirt again, but with my eyes I could tell he wore a different set than he had on last night. The shirt seemed a little tighter to start with, and the pants he had on last night had a hole about the size of a match head right above his right knee. His attention seemed focused on something down the hall when I opened the door, but when he heard it swing open, he turned his torso and faced me.
    "Good evening, Ashlyn. Are you ready to go?
    "Sure, give me a minute. Come on in."
    I held the door for him as he crossed the threshold. He sat down on the desk chair and crossed his legs while I put on a clean pair of socks and my tennis shoes. I locked up my closet and turned, ready to go.
    "Do you need to use the lavatory?" I shook my head no. One of the greatest advantages of being me, is that I didn't need potty breaks and I woke up without morning dragon breath. I rarely even showered, unless I had been playing in the dirt. My body had no scent or sweat glands so it just wasn't necessary. Although, I will admit, I did like the feel of standing under the water.
    "Where are we headed?"
    "Since classes don't start till tomorrow, we're going to get you your standard issue FBI training clothes and essentials. We need to hurry though. A lot of the offices stay open all the time, such as processing and medical, but some don't. Provisioning is one of them. They close at eight o'clock, so come on."
    "Let's go, I'm ready."
    We headed out the door of my room and proceeded to leave the dorm. The provisioning department lay nestled on the bottom floor of a building I hadn't been to before. We walked in and met a middle aged man in green camouflage. Hat, jacket, and pants in olive greens and browns from top to bottom shouted military.
    "Staff Sergeant, I have another recruit for you," Agent Walker said to the man in green.
    "This little thing is your new agent in training? The FBI sure picks 'em before they're ripe. You sure you don't want to let her grow a little first?"
    "Nah, they're harder to train when they're ripe. Too set in their ways like most marines I know."
    I watched the banter between the two as it continued for several minutes. The marine insulting the FBI, the FBI making fun of the intelligence quotient of the marines, and then they switched to insulting each other's maternal lineage. I found it all quite fascinating. Then the testosterone levels became a little too high in the room for me though. I coughed just a little to "clear my throat" and they both turned their attention to me. I smiled apologetically at each of them, but my ploy worked.
    The staff sergeant turned behind him and started looking through cubbies of sweats and shirts. He found my size and plopped down five T-shirts in cellophane packaging and five pairs of folded sweat pants. He returned to the cubbies and grabbed what looked like two sweatshirts and added them to my pile. A bag of tube socks went on top of my growing stack as well as a pair of running shoes. The shoes being the only item he asked what size I preferred. He did a double take when I told him a size eight. My foot is actually a six, but if I didn't want my claws poking through the front of my shoe, I needed an eight.
    After he deposited the shoes, he pulled a black nylon shoulder holster from a storage locker. I could identify it only from watching late night episodes of NYPD Blue. I did have a problem though, I had never witnessed someone put one on in the television show. It wasn't wrapped or boxed so I had a feeling I would have to give it back after training. While I stared at the contraption, the