Malachai

by Romi Hart

  Isabelle rotated around not seeing anything but her own astonishment. “Are they all like this?”

  Victor laughed. “No. This is just ours. The others are a lot more comfortable.”

  Riley spoke up. “Don’t worry about Isabelle. Tessa and I will take care of her. You two go along.”

  “Thanks, baby.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “See you around. Let me know if you need anything. Make yourself at home, Isabelle.”

  He stood up and strode past Malachai. He clapped Malachai on the shoulder walking out of the apartment. He left Malachai no choice but to follow.

  Malachai cast one last glance over his shoulder before he abandoned Isabelle to Riley and his mother. She sat on the edge of the couch enveloped in comfort and hospitality, but she didn’t soften. She blinked at nothing. She was in shock.

  When he checked Riley, she gave him a subtle nod of encouragement. He trusted her to take care of Isabelle. He could relax his vigilance over Isabelle’s safety. He trusted Riley above everyone except maybe Victor, but he didn’t like walking out of that apartment. Any distance between him and Isabelle was too much.

  14

  Riley touched Isabelle’s shoulder. “Are you okay? Are you sure you’re not hurt anywhere?”

  Isabelle shook her head, but she couldn’t stop blinking at everything like a stunned mullet. “I’m…I’m okay.”

  “You don’t look okay.” Riley got up and came back. She pushed a frosty glass of something into Isabelle’s hand. “Drink this. You’re shaking.”

  Isabelle did her best to drag her shattered consciousness back to reality. She still found it difficult to accept that she was in this magnificent apartment with all that squalor and devastation outside.

  Tessa moved into Isabelle’s line of sight. She set a plate on the table. “Here you go, honey. I gotta go out for a while, but you’ll be in good hands with Riley. You know where to find everything.”

  “Thanks, Mama,” Riley replied.

  Tessa kissed her on the cheek before leaving the two friends alone. Isabelle spun around and stared at Riley. “What’d you call her that for?”

  Riley blushed and plucked a piece of okra off the plate. “She loves it. She lost her husband and her son a few months ago. She needs more family and she’s the sweetest mama anyone could ask for. It’s more of a title to me. We both know she’s not really my mama, but it sure does make her feel good.”

  Riley reclined back on the couch and propped her feet on the coffee table. She put the okra in her mouth and sucked the sauce off her fingers. That simple, casual movement struck Isabelle as so comfortable and informal. It conflicted with everything Isabelle thought she knew about this family.

  She shook her head and blinked. Her brain didn’t seem to be working very well. “I don’t know if I can ever get used to this.”

  “You will. I was in shock when I first came here. Now I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”

  “Yeah, but you’re married to Victor.” Isabelle waved at the apartment. It didn’t seem real at all. “This is your home.”

  “Anarock is my home,” Riley corrected. “I wouldn’t mind living in one of those houses out in Central. I’m only here because Victor’s in charge. I know he wouldn’t mind living somewhere a little more…you know, homey.”

  Isabelle couldn’t stop shaking her head. “This is nuts. I don’t think I can do this.”

  Riley pushed the plate of food away and took Isabelle’s hand. Everybody kept taking her hand. They treated her like a fragile child and maybe she was one. Riley towed her to her feet. “Come with me. I’ll show you a room where you’re gonna stay. You can take a shower and changed your clothes and get some sleep. You’ll feel better.”

  Isabelle jerked around. She heard Malachai in those words, but all of a sudden, she couldn’t resist Riley’s ministrations. Riley led her down the hall past bedrooms standing open.

  Riley waved into the master suite. “This is mine and Victor’s room. That’s Courtney’s room.”

  Isabelle couldn’t resist peeking into these people’s private lives. Courtney’s room looked like a train hit it. Clothes, books, drawing pads, and makeup boxes littered the floor, dresser, bed, and night table.

  Riley snorted when Isabelle peered inside. “You do NOT want to go in there.” Then she burst out laughing.

  She continued on down. “Here’s the bathroom. This is Victor’s home office, although he almost never uses it. I use it more than he does when I want to get some work done without getting interrupted by everyone else in the whole damned Crest. That’s Malachai’s room and….”

  Isabelle stiffened. The door to Malachai’s bedroom stood open. She half-dreaded seeing a mess like Courtney’s room, but the bed was made perfectly. A mountain of tan and white cushions rose from the chocolate-brown bedspread. A collection of random objects lay in some mysterious order on top of a tall, wooden dresser across the room. An oil painting of the Louisiana bayou covered most of the wall above the headboard.

  Isabelle felt eyes boring into her and turned around to find Riley observing her. Riley smiled. “He’s a great guy. You really hit the jackpot when Victor assigned him to guard you.”

  Isabelle flushed and looked away. “I didn’t ask to hit the jackpot.”

  “I know you didn’t. I’m just saying he didn’t have to bring you back here. He could have taken you to another safe house. He brought you here because he cares about you.”

  Isabelle couldn’t look at her. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Anyway, you can see he really likes brown.” She laughed again. “No one’s implying he makes his bedroom look like himself. No one would dare.” She proceeded down the hall chuckling to herself. She opened the last door. “This is the guest room. You can stay here.”

  Isabelle walked into another immaculate bedroom decorated in modern style like the rest of the apartment. She turned in a complete circle, but she didn’t want to touch anything. “Is…..is Anarock…..?”

  “I know what you’re going to ask,” Riley interrupted. “I asked the same question when I first moved here. You want to know if all Anarock is living in poverty and distress while the leadership rides off into the sunset in luxury and wealth. Isn’t that what you were going to ask?”

  Isabelle nodded down at the creamy, perfect carpet. “You must think I’m really ungrateful for wondering that after they brought me into their home to protect me from my own stupidity.”

  Riley laughed again. Isabelle couldn’t remember her friend laughing so easily. Riley sat down on the bed and leaned back on her elbows. She even put her shoes on the bedspread like she owned the place. In a way, she did own it.

  “I couldn’t exactly blame you for that when I just admitted thinking the same thing when I first came here. I didn’t want to stay here. I wanted to move somewhere else. Then I realized the rest of the Crest wanted Victor to stay here. Even the rest of Anarock expected it. They wouldn’t really take him seriously as their leader if he was living in some shack across town, now would they?”

  Isabelle didn’t know what to say.

  Riley kicked off her shoes and flipped over onto her stomach. “A lot of people in Anarock live like this. Some are even richer. You can believe me on that. The Griffins aren’t the richest by a long shot. This apartment—it doesn’t belong to the family. It belongs to the Crest. It’s one of the perks of the leader’s job. That’s all. If Victor or the Griffins or whoever is in charge doesn’t work to keep the leadership, it will pass to someone else. The Prometheus Crest would throw them out on their asses. That’s the ultimate truth. They don’t own this apartment or anything else in Ogru-Kuche for that matter. You can’t look at this apartment and think the Griffins are in charge because they’re rich. Things don’t work that way around here. It’s kinda like those people out front. They’re not there because they’re poor or dying or because they have nowhere else to go. They’re there to protect their Crest. They’re there because Ogru-Kuche needs
a veneer of poverty and horror to fool the humans. None of those people is really poor or dying or drunk or toothless or whatever. You have to look beneath the surface.”

  Isabelle blinked at her. “That’s what Malachai says.”

  “Well, Malachai’s a smart guy.” Riley swung up to her feet. “He’s also a very sweet and considerate and highly respected guy. If you’re gonna listen to anybody, you should listen to him.”

  She headed for the door, but Isabelle didn’t want to let her go. She didn’t want to be alone, but she also didn’t want to stop talking to someone for whom this world was all normal. “You respect Malachai, too, don’t you?”

  Riley spun around. “Fuck, yes! He’s the best—second to Victor, of course.” She giggled at her own joke.

  “Seriously,” Isabelle insisted. “He thinks the world of you. You must know that.”

  “Well, I think the world of him, too. I mean, what’s not to respect?” Riley rotated toward the exit. She pointed at Isabelle before she scooted away. “Get some sleep, will you? You look like death warmed over.”

  She shut the door behind her and left Isabelle all alone in that room. That room made her feel like she just checked into the Hilton.

  She sat down on the bed. She made absolutely sure she sat in the same spot Riley impressed on the bedspread. She didn’t trust her senses to touch anything else. She didn’t want to mess anything up.

  She kept scanning her surroundings. She could hardly get her brain to register where she was. One minute, she was living in her own apartment and driving to work at the lab. She got into a fight with those men in the parking lot and Malachai almost lost his life saving hers.

  She spent one night above the whorehouse. Then that beautiful little cottage went up in flames and….

  That dragon loomed over her. It glared down at her while he……That dragon was Malachai. That was the sweet and considerate and respected guy everyone equated with winning the lottery.

  She shuddered thinking about that huge reptile piercing her with his brutal eyes. His monstrous form glowed with heat. His scales raked through the coals and his body gleamed. That was Malachai. That was the creature whose DNA she tested at the lab. That was the winged dragon in the picture, only about a thousand times the size.

  She kissed him. She got turned on by him. She spread her legs for him. Her skin crawled when she thought about it, but the next instant, she remembered him outside the Sheraton.

  She never met a more put-together, polite, attractive, attentive man in her life. She never expected to meet anyone again who could come near him. Riley was right about that.

  She pulled herself together and got to her feet. Sitting around dwelling on it wasn’t getting her any closer to settling in here. When she searched the room, she discovered a bathroom adjacent to it that exactly matched the décor. A huge tub and walk-in shower invited her to wash away all the soot and terror of the past few days.

  In an instant, she felt the dirt, the grime, and the taint of the outside world. This hidden society—this was the clean place, the right place. People cared about each other here. People protected each other here. They did the right thing here. They didn’t go hunting down innocent people for finding out something they shouldn’t have.

  This was the real Anarock. It had nothing to do with poverty or wealth. It had nothing to do with shifters or magicians or invisible kids materializing out of thin air or whatever else. Anarock meant doing the right thing. It meant protecting the innocent from the ravages of a wider world that wanted to wipe them all out.

  Anarock was the only place on the face of the Earth these New Breed could find shelter. Anarock was the only place Isabelle would find shelter, too. Did that make her New Breed, too? How could it?

  She might always be an outsider. She might be an alien in her own country, but she was in the right place. She knew that now.

  She peeled off every stitch of her clothes. She didn’t feel right walking into that bathroom unless she was absolutely stark naked. She shed the outside world along with the clothes she had on when she walked through that gate. She left them in a pile on the floor. She would never put them on again.

  She crossed the threshold and switched on the shower. A deluge of scorching hot water doused her in cleansing freshness. It washed away the dirt and blood and smoke. It left her clean, as clean as any human could be.

  That water poured through her hair, over her eyelids, and down her legs. It washed away everything, even the disastrous mistake she made kissing Malachai. She was starting over here and she would start over with him, too.

  She dried off and wrapped up her hair. She returned to the bedroom, and this time, she didn’t shrink from touching things. She padded barefoot to the dresser and found clothes inside. She put on a pair of fresh white panties and pulled a white cotton tank top over her torso. She didn’t need anything else.

  She folded down the bedclothes and slipped inside. She sank on the pillow and closed her eyes in peace and safety for the first time since she first met Riley and Malachai in front of the Sheraton.

  15

  Malachai entered the Ogru-Kuche war room and walked into a flurry of noise and activity. Victor waved him toward a table where he stood with Colonel Weeks, Riley, and a few other staunch supporters.

  “Good. You’re here. We tracked four other teams to different locations. They all returned to this central point.” Victor pointed to an intersection in Gentilly.

  Malachai scowled. “That makes no sense. What are they doing there?”

  “From what our people can figure out, they’re reporting to some central command authority. It looks like the operatives who hit the cottage were just one team of five. They surprised you and decided to take matters into their own hands. After reviewing some of the witness reports, I don’t believe they had orders to attack you. They were tracking Isabelle. My guess is they were hoping she would lead them to us.”

  Malachai froze staring at his brother. “If that’s true, then we fucked up big time bringing her back here—I fucked up. I told you you shouldn’t leave the decision to me.”

  Victor laid his hand on Malachai’s shoulder. “Hold it right there, man. You and Riley said she got your home address and showed up here unannounced. Is that right?”

  Malachai nodded hardly daring to look at his brother. Victor glanced at Riley and she nodded, too. “That means they already knew where we are, but that’s nothing we didn’t already know. Somehow, they must have found out what she knew and then they saw her leave with you. They knew we had her, but they also knew we didn’t have her here. Now they know we do.”

  Malachai mumbled into his collar. “I’m sorry.”

  “Cut it out,” Victor snapped. “You didn’t do this. We could say that Isabelle did this, but that wouldn’t be right, either. We had the military on our asses long before this. She’s just the catalyst, and now that she’s here, we just have to deal with the situation as we find it.”

  Malachai peeked up at him. “What are you gonna do? Are you gonna move her away from Ogru-Kuche?”

  “Why should I? She’s already here. Whatever damage might or might not have been caused by her coming here, it’s already done. We won’t throw her out. That’s certain.”

  Malachai didn’t want to ask any more questions. He didn’t want to hear the answers.

  Fortunately for him, Victor didn’t give him a chance. He turned back to the table and pointed at the map. “Todd, you take your people around over here and see if you can flush ‘em out. Lincoln, you take everything west of Esplanade Avenue.”

  “You got it, Boss,” Lincoln replied.

  “Riley and I are going into the Quag with Colonel Weeks. I can’t say when we’ll be back, so the rest of you will hold the fort in our absence. I don’t think those fuckers will be coming down here for a while, but if they do, I trust you to handle ‘em.”

  Malachai gulped. “What about me? What do you want me to do?”

  Victor turned around and
locked his eyes on his brother. “I’m leaving you in charge of Ogru-Kuche. You’re responsible for protecting everything we hold dear. I wish I could stay to help out, but this situation with the mysterious Special Forces team is more pressing at the moment. If we can get that under wraps, we stand to gain some very important allies. There’s no one I trust to run the store while I’m gone. You know everything I know about this situation. Deploy your search crews as you see fit. If the shit hits the fan, don’t spare the lead. Come on. Let’s go.”

  Malachai could only blink in shock when Victor, Riley, and the Colonel all walked out of the war room and left him—him! —in charge. Finn Weeks went with them.

  That left Lincoln Manning, Todd Strauss, and Jackson Ripley all staring at Malachai like they expected him to just step up and take over for Victor fucking Griffin.

  Malachai took a firm grip on himself. Victor left him in charge of Ogru-Kuche’s defense. He wouldn’t let his brother down. He would do his worst and let the chips fall where they may.

  He faced what remained of his people. “Well? What do you got for me?”

  Lincoln stepped forward first and pointed at the map. “The first team reported from here.”

  “That’s only a few blocks from the spot Victor said they were using as a hub. What could they hope to accomplish there?”

  Jackson interjected. “Victor assigned my people to track the teams. We followed them there without being seen. Then we handed over to Matilda Robinson. She sent her three kids inside to eavesdrop on their conferences. It was little Tobias who heard them, so it took some time to get the information out of him as you can imagine.”

  Todd snorted with laughter. “That’s putting it mildly.”

  Malachai bit back a grin and held up his hand. “Stick to the facts, boys. What did he hear?”