Ardeur

by Gavan, Danielle

  Several hours later, I was dressed to kill and hustled in to the backseat of a car looking nothing like the nineteen year old I was underneath all the window dressing. The red dress hugged every inch of me like it was a second skin. My breasts were thrust upward and on display for all to see thanks to the unnecessary push-up bra my captors forced me to wear in order to achieve the effect of even more cleavage - as if I didn't have enough already. Strappy black stilettos that scarcely covered my bare feet and a small clutch purse completed the outfit. Boyd and Wesley had told Shade no weapons were needed on this job; all he needed was my pretty face and the strength that lay hidden below the deceptive surface. Could I lift a car? No, but I could kill the biggest of men with my bare hands and not break a sweat doing it. I could also yank a soul straight out of someone's body and according to the mission plan; this is what we were doing today.

  I sat behind my shields and waited, watching for the moment when I could put my plan into action and run for my life.

  The target on this mission was a politician visiting from the United States whose wife had caught him cheating, numerous times, with an intern on his staff. The Missus had contacted the powers-that-be and here I was, half an hour after being dropped off, with the wayward husband in the bar of his hotel. Dressed as I was, there was no way the philandering bastard would fail to make a move.

  Reeling the victims in was the part Shade enjoyed the most about our missions. The flirting, teasing and sexual tension created by the mannerisms he used were all perfected via his hours upon hours of porn. A hair toss over the bare skin of a shoulder, a coy smile or even running my hand down the man's arm; all of it designed to lure the target in and make him feel safe, wanted.

  Within minutes of having sat down, the bartender had placed a glass of white wine in front of me and directed my attention to a tall, well-dressed man approaching from the left side of the bar. Graying, light brown hair feathered back from his temples and he wore a cocky, self-assured grin as he approached to introduce himself as Senator So-and-so. I wasn't paying attention to the name and Shade didn't care. He was a target and we had a mission to complete.

  Shadekar took his time chatting with the Senator, luring him in with the occasional sweep of my tongue across the fullness of my lower lip and frequent touches to his arm while laughter, husky and feminine, slipped from my lips. I watched as lust and calculating greed crept into the Senator's gray-blue eyes and listened while Shade crowed with success when the older man asked if I'd like to come up to his room for another drink in a more private setting.

  Sir Cheatsalot leaned in to whisper in my ear and I caught the woodsy scent of his expensive cologne when his lips brushed my ear and he inhaled my own citrusy perfume. “You smell delicious. Are you ripe for plucking sweetheart?” The clock on the wall in the lobby told me we'd been in the bar no more than half an hour. We were well ahead of schedule as we waited for the elevator to take us up to the suite. The ding of its arrival would spell out freedom for me and death for the man standing next to me in the expensive dark blue suit.

  Finally, the elevator arrived and we rode up to the fourteenth floor while the cheesy instrumental music played quietly in the background. I felt sorry for the man who stood next to me, an unwitting victim walking straight into his very own death scene. The soft ping indicating we'd reached our floor had me jumping on the inside but with Shade in the driver's seat the rest of me was cool as a cucumber. We exited and walked passed a series of nondescript white doors until we reached the one bearing number fourteen-eleven in elegant lettering on a shiny gold plaque.

  I stepped inside once the door was unlocked and held it open in invitation. My shoes sunk in the plush tan-colored carpet and the fuzz of the fibers was a pleasant tickle against the tips of my toes. I walked across the room and pulled aside the heavy velvet drapes to gaze out the window. A large hand reached out and pulled my hand away from the burnished gold fabric and it swung closed, re-establishing the shadows in the corners of the room where the lamps couldn't reach them. “Come sit with me, take your shoes off and relax a bit.”

  We sat together on the smaller of the two couches and before I knew it, my feet were in the Senator's lap and my sandals were being cast to the floor. It took every ounce of willpower I could muster to stop myself from running victory laps around my shelter as my plan fell into place bit by bit. I needed to focus because my turn was coming and shredding the soul out of a living body was never an easy task even when I was calm. My life, my escape, depended on getting this right and I couldn't afford to screw this up.

  Shadekar's voice snapped me back into focus at the same time the Senator's greedy hands found themselves full of a breast in the one and the top of my thigh high stocking in the other.

  “Ardy, baby, any time you wanna kill the idiot is fine with me. You know I'm not in to men.”

  My shields dropped and I stepped out, ready for action and the freedom it would bring. The Senator's mouth was coming down toward my own when I placed a hand against the soft cotton of his shirt, just above his heart and opened my eyes to look up at him with the black, empty voids they'd become. I flexed my metaphysical fingers against his chest and reached in to grasp his soul and pull it free. The soul quivered like jelly in my hand, terror the emotion at the forefront of everything as I squeezed and began to separate it from its owner.

  I watched dispassionately while the face hovering inches from mine convulsed and registered the pain that came with having your soul shredded. What he was feeling in that moment was the most excruciating pain a human body could experience. The heart beating beneath my fingers sped up as the adrenaline brought on by the fear of what was happening coursed through his veins. His mouth was working to form words, call out for help but none came out and I smirked at him.

  “You didn't really think you could have me, did you?” I tsk'd at him and laughed. “Come on, you cheating bastard, give up the ghost.”

  Never before had I needed to use both hands to rip out a soul, but it was becoming clear I was going to have to do it now. I brought my other hand up, pressed it to the Senator's chest, and thrust my energy inside to wrap around his dark soul and pulled with everything I had until the whole shrieking mess came screaming out of the body.

  I murmured binding and banishing spells as fast as I could to get rid of the soul before the body hit the floor. Shadekar was cackling with glee at the success of our mission and the extra show of force I'd displayed and I took advantage of his gloating to start putting the shields up around him while I picked up anything that could be traced back and identify me. Shoes, clutch, even the two long strands of my golden hair that had gotten caught in the dark, chocolate brown upholstery of the couch. I emptied the cash from the dead man's wallet and put the leather rectangle neatly back inside his pocket. No need to wipe it down for finger prints, I didn't have any.

  By the time my hand pulled open the suite door, I had erected my shields and Shade was unknowingly trapped in the back of my mind. I called the shadows of the hallway to me and cloaked myself in them as I walked down the hall in my stocking feet and headed for the stairwell. It was then Shade realized something not in the plan was going down and tried to take over, put me back on track for the elevator and the lobby where the driver would be waiting for me.

  “Ardeur. Where in the hell do you think you're going girl?” He hit the wall of shielding and bounced back screaming as he tried to break free. “What is this? What the hell is this, Ardeur?”

  My shoulders shook with suppressed laughter and I flew down the stairs as fast as my feet could take me. “I'm taking my life back. No more killing, no more missions, no more Wes and Boyd. By the time they realize I'm gone it'll be too late.” I started reciting the last, and strongest shielding spell as I rounded the corner of the final set of stairs before flying out the back door of the hotel and finding myself in an alley filled with dumpsters and startled hotel employees. A few of them gaped for a moment but returned to work with a shrug. To them
I looked like any other high-paid prostitute in my short dress and tousled hair.

  I tossed my shoes inside a nearby dumpster and continued down the street until I cleared the hotel and found myself behind another and then another as I worked my way down the alley.

  A uniform company truck was parked, its rear door wide open and inviting, behind one of the hotels toward the end of the street. I ducked inside after checking to make sure the coast was clear. Luck proved to be on my side when I found not only a pair of dark blue scrubs, but a pair of white nurse's shoes in my size. I slipped them on and jumped out, dress and brassiere in hand to find the nearest trash can and toss them inside. It felt good to finally be covered and comfortable.

  Quickly pulling the pins from my hair and twisting it into a bun as I walked transformed me from hooker look-alike to young nurse in a hurry to get to work. Never once did I look back to see if anyone was following. I would have lost any of the courage I'd mustered to see my plan through and I was determined to get myself free no matter the cost.

  Six

  Shade battered at the cage I had pinned him in and screamed incessantly as I walked farther and farther away from the hotel and the life I refused to live anymore. The obscenities he hurled at me would have made even the most seasoned trucker blush a deep scarlet; but they didn't faze me one bit, I'd heard them all before and most of them on a daily basis.

  I was not a stranger to crude language before Shade was forced upon, me but the level to which he took it was a new one that had shocked and stunned me with its ferocity.

  The ululating of sirens sounded in the distance and caused me to speed up my pace in order to put the maximum amount of distance possible between me and the dead man lying in the hotel room I'd vacated minutes earlier. My demon was freaking out and throwing everything he had at the shield barrier I'd erected around him. If an ambulance was headed toward the hotel, chances were someone had gone to the room to retrieve the Senator and found I'd killed the man.

  “Ardeur, get your ass turned around and back to that hotel. NOW. Turn around you stupid bitch or you'll pay the price when I get loose.”

  A short bark of laughter burst from my lips and I began to walk even faster as police sirens joined those of the ambulance. “Um, no. There is absolutely no frickin’ way you are going to get me to go back to that hotel or shit ass life. As for you getting loose? Never gonna happen. Your ass is locked inside the strongest shields I could throw up. There's no getting out of there.” Shade threw himself against my shields with renewed vigor and the force of his attack gave me an instant headache. I winced at the pain but my feet kept going in the opposite direction of the emergency vehicles.

  Pedestrian traffic grew heavier the farther I walked and I let it carry me along until it came to a set of stairs leading below the sidewalk. A sign with a symbol displaying two T’s and a C stood next to the staircase and I recognized what the stairway led to. I'd found the Toronto Subway System and certain escape.

  I waded into the sea of people making their way underground and stopped at the bottom of the stairs to marvel at everything. Billboards, posters and flyers lined the walls on each side of the platforms. The smell of cinnamon, burnt coffee and hot grease from various food vendors permeated the hot air. People played music; others meandered about or sat and watched the flow of traffic. A queue had formed by what appeared to be a ticket booth and, after a moment of watching to see what the line was for, I added myself to the end of it.

  The money I'd taken from the senator's wallet was put to good use as I paid my way through the turnstile and found myself faced with another set of stairs leading to a loud rushing sound. People bustled up and down the stairs, which led me to surmise the trains must be down at the bottom. A loud grinding squeal of metal on metal and a sudden whoosh of air that blew back the few loose strands of my hair confirmed my assumption.

  My eyes found a map posted farther down the way and I walked over to inspect it. I realized that I would need to figure out where I was going if I was truly going to make my escape a successful one. An arrow pointed to my current location, which proved to be St George Station, and showed me I could go in any direction I chose. The decision to head south wasn't hard to make since I knew I wanted to get as far away as possible from Boyd and Wesley. Far away meant out of the country, and for that I was going to need money.

  I withdrew the one other thing I'd taken from the senator's pocket and gazed down at the small plastic rectangle of his credit card. The Visa symbol was one I recognized from commercials Shade had watched over the years. Those same commercials had also taught me I could use an ATM to withdraw money from the card and at that moment, I was glad that the memories of any soul I shredded stayed with me for several hours before fading away. I flipped through each memory carefully while I walked until I found the one with the information I needed and inserted the card in the machine.

  Minutes later my white nurse's shoes were shushing down the stairs, my pockets - the four on my pants and the one of my shirt, were filled with crisp bills. The credit card was neatly discarded in a nearby trash can. I thanked my lucky stars for the genetic anomaly that accounted for my lack of fingerprints and made me untraceable should anyone find the card and try to identify me. Even if they were able to identify me, there were no records of my existence after the age of twelve when my parents had sold me off like cattle to the highest bidder.

  I hadn't realized how important having proper identification would be until half an hour later when I tried to buy a bus ticket and cross the border. The clerk glared at me from the other side of the glass and tapped her nails on the Formica countertop. “You need a driver's license and birth certificate or a passport to cross the border, Honey. Everybody knows that.”

  Everybody might, I thought, unless you've been living in captivity for seven years. “Right. Thanks.”

  My original plan to take a bus into the United States was clearly not going to pan out and my mind began to ponder new possibilities while I wandered through the streets.

  The mast of a tall ship caught my eye as I scanned the horizon. An idea began to form that made my feet pick up the pace and turn toward the ship. Where there were ships, there was water and, possibly, a means of escape.

  “Ardy, no. You know I can't go out on the open water.” The slight edge of panic in Shade's voice as he tried to coerce me to not get on a boat and sail out brought a smile to my lips. The closer my feet got to the edge of the dock, the more he pled with me to turn around. “Tell you what - turn around and I'll tell you where to find Brody. I know how to find him and I'll give you that information if you just promise me you won't get on a boat.”

  The words were another false promise in a long line of them that Shade had made in our time together. Whenever the demon wanted me to do something I found repugnant, he would use the Brody lure to get me to do his bidding.

  “Not falling for it, Shade so just zip it and be a good boy while I see if I can find someone to take me with them.”

  Laughter echoed through the halls of my mind and caused me to wince with the realization that what I'd just said was highly unlikely to happen. With everything that had happened in my life, trusting people was not easy for me. Trusting complete strangers to not only allow me onboard their boat, but to then take me across the lake and smuggle me in to another country was more than a stretch of the imagination. This nugget of truth left me with the only other option available if I wanted to get across the lake. I was going to have to get myself onboard one of those boats and stay hidden until it docked on the opposite shore. Finding the right target was next on the plan of action I'd decided on and I scanned the people getting off the various boats along the dock.

  Strands of pink, yellow and gold stretched across the sky above the dark blue waves of the water. Dusk had fallen while I'd been busy devising my escape and the shade of early evening stretched the shadows of the buildings across the waterfront. The ghost of a smile played over my lips as I stepped into the sha
dows and wrapped myself in them. If this was going to work, I would need to be able to slip through the crowd and onto the boat unseen.

  Death, its scent heavy, cloying, and oh-so-familiar, tickled my senses. It drew my attention to a couple who were stepping onto the planks of the wharf. They were leaving a large craft with the name Persephone emblazoned on the bow in elegant blue and gold lettering.

  I focused on the couple, my senses and power flaring. My eyes swept over the young blonde - not much younger than myself - and the middle aged man whose aura was dimmed by the death waiting to claim him. A snatch of conversation floated on the warm summer breeze to my ears as they passed me by in my shadowed hideaway.

  “Thank you for taking me over, Daddy. Toronto is the only place I can get…” They continued down the street, their words becoming muffled by the noises of a busy waterfront, and my eyes turned toward the boat and my salvation - provided I could get aboard and find a spot to hide in. Judging by the scrap of conversation I'd overheard, the father and daughter were headed for a bit of shopping and would be gone for an indeterminate amount of time.

  Another five minutes of quiet observation and it was time to put my feet in motion. Shadows wrapped tight around me like a second skin as I made my way down the dock toward the ladder up to the deck of the boat. I clamored up the rungs like a spider making its way over the sticky threads of its web and swung my legs over the rail, wincing when the rubber soles of my shoes squeaked on the polished wood of the deck.

  Minutes passed and no one came running to investigate the noise, which told me it was safe to get up and search out my hiding spot. I took my time getting up, on the off chance someone was looking. No point in getting caught now that I was mere feet away from the open hatch to the living quarters which promised fresh clothes, food and escape.

  I took the nurse shoes off and picked them up. I then walked barefoot across the deck and bolted down the stairs into the galley at the bottom. The hallway that stretched ahead ended in what appeared to be the girl's bedroom. A pair of black leather boots lay haphazardly at the foot of the bed, which was strewn with several pairs of jeans and other articles of brightly colored clothes that drew me like a magnet.