Box Set: The Fearless 1-3

by Terry Maggert

  She stood uncertainly at the edge of the parking lot, her hands clutching a small purse and looking to all the world like a lost soul. Kevin walked briskly to her, and even from a distance, brimming tears were visible, and her eyes were rimmed red.

  “You came back,” he stated, simple but warm. Delphine nodded and said nothing, craning her neck to look up at him and squinting slightly in the sun. Her eyes were deep blue and there was something beyond simple exhaustion within them. Though bedraggled and gripped with melancholy, there was a poignant beauty to her that tempted even a man of God. He accepted her embrace and realized how small she was, then felt her give a single, shuddering sob only to fall still in his arms.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you.” Her voice was flat, lifeless. There was nothing of what he knew of her personality in the words, only an utterance that was mechanical and painted grey with morose inflection.

  Kevin drew back and held her at arm’s length. “Lied? About what?”

  She looked past him, staring at a place that was either nowhere or everywhere. After a brief, watery grin, she said, “I promised I would come to confession. I promised I would work to redeem my soul, and I lied. I left. Ran, actually, but I found that once I got to my own home, I was not fast enough to outrun the truth. The truth of me, and what I am.”

  Kevin listened intently. He knew grief; it was a large part of his daily life, because sadness was a near constant in the life of a priest. It was his business to seek and counsel against the type of despair that was unfolding in front of him at that moment, and he considered himself an expert at distinguishing between passing trials and deep, longstanding issues that threatened to push souls into a gulf from which they would never return.

  In his estimation, this was one of those moments. Wild, exuberant sobbing was, in his experience, a good thing. It was when the crying stopped that he became fearful for the lives of his parishioners who dealt with loss and pain. Silence was anathema to healing, and Delphine stood, quiet, dulled by pain, and beaten by her ordeal in the ground and her own ghosts. This was a woman without purpose, who could not find a direction in which she could work to grant herself absolution. Never mind that, God had already done so, for Delphine, her sins were such that she felt herself to be a woman eternally trapped by her own existence, and in a terrible sense, she was. She was a succubus, a creature of eternal life and unending desire, capable of inflaming humanity to lust and crime with the touch of her hand.

  For this, she hated herself. It made no sense to the pragmatist in Kevin, who saw Delphine as a brave woman who had endured millennia of calamity and fear only to find, at the end of it all, that she was afflicted with a condition that both elevated and damned her simultaneously. For that, Kevin had no answer, but as to her lack of purpose, he had a long history of guiding those lost souls into harbors where they could seek and develop a cause, a love, and hopefully, in the end, a reason for their life that made them value the time they had on the earth. For Delphine, it would be a challenge of unusual proportions, given her seemingly unending life, but Kevin regarded it a supreme challenge to his abilities as a servant of good.

  He pulled her face upward to look at him, and regarded her with a kind smile. “You could have lied, and in fact, you told the truth.”

  “I did? No, I left, I lied to you, and I came to apologize . . .” Delphine’s voice, while still somber, had a spark of interest brought on by her confusion.

  Kevin laughed and pointed at her. “I present evidence to the contrary. You’re here, so you could not have lied, you just went to recuperate after a horrible violation which you were lucky to survive. And then, you worried enough about your own soul that you came here, in spite of the fact that it’s probably too soon. That speaks very well to your intentions, in my opinion.”

  A dawning turn of her lip betrayed her, and she hugged him again, thanking him over and over, her voice muffled by his chest. To Kevin’s approval, the sobs began, but only for a moment. Then she regained herself, stepping back to wipe her eyes and grant him a small, genuine smile. It looked awkward on her at first, but then her radiance shone through.

  “Where are you staying?” he asked, as they turned and began walking toward the parish hall. The sun was brilliant, and Delphine looked upward as if it was something new to her.

  “Nowhere, yet. I flew in, called the management company to ready my yacht, but I don’t have any staff, and I’m not sure I can tolerate clattering around out there all alone. I called Wally to apologize in person for . . . I don’t even know what for. For something, even though they saved me.” She grimaced at the image of walking the silent deck and carpeted halls, left only to her thoughts.

  “Wally called me. They expect you.” When she began to protest, he squeezed her arm. “No, they won’t hear of it. You can’t stay with me, I asked my bishop and he said no.”

  Her eyes opened wide as she twitched at the scandalous statement, then she smiled and slapped his arm playfully when she saw how smug he was at the subtle joke. “You should not tease a woman in my condition. It’s unseemly.” She said this with as much dignity and false umbrage as she could muster, but he smiled winningly at her, and she laughed again for the second time. It felt good.

  “Back to your accommodations. I’m to personally deliver you to Wally and Risa. Ring is going to grill lobster and they’ve informed me that there is an excellent bottle of Bordeaux Graves chilling even as we speak. Oh, and while Ring readies the boat, they’re taking you to pick out clothes for this evening, because you are going to be on the water and Risa knows you won’t have anything with you.” He delivered her evening plans with the gravity of a man who has been chastened to report the news, and only the news. He grinned wryly as she smiled in return at the prospect of being welcomed by people who increasingly mattered to her.

  “Thank you. I would like to continue my confessional, if you will have it, but only when convenient, Kevin.” A hopeful note crept into her words, and she paused, unsure of herself.

  He acquiesced and hugged her again. “I would consider it my honor and my duty. Your soul is well worth it, Delphine, and I suspect that there is a purpose to your life under heaven that is soon to be revealed.”

  They moved off toward the parking lot, unaware that their entire interaction had been watched with great interest. Red picked up the stack of palm leaves he had gathered, and stood silently, naked rage on his face.

  She moves like one of them. His thoughts and his gaze followed them until they were lost to his sight. I am truly in the perfect place, he mused, and then returned to his work. He had nowhere to go, and now, there was no need to seek. He had already found.

  * * *

  “So, what do we think?” Risa asked, looking at her laptop screen with a mixture of revulsion and curiosity. Contrasting victims lay supine, one pale, and one overcome with lassitude, both very dead indeed. Everything about the scene bespoke the handiwork of a powerful Undying, right down to the careless way the bodies were left. Whatever did the deed, it wasn’t afraid of being tailed. Or harmed.

  “It is true. It looks like all of the others we have seen.” Wally issued her snap decision with a frowning shrug. “The only thing I do not understand is why these hunters are telling us.”

  I nodded at that. It raised several questions about the senders, not the least of which was their name. “What is a Chanticleer?”

  Risa spoke. “Two definitions that I know of, one of which is the word for a little rooster.”

  “Like a chicken?” Wally frowned, but smiled a bit, too. She was as amused as I at that definition.

  Risa nodded, and then elaborated, “The really archaic definition is someone who declares something, like a newscaster. I guess that would make sense if they were in the business of sharing information, sort of like what we received. If that is, in fact, true, then we may have answered our own question as to why they sent it to us. Maybe they only handle intelligence gathering, data, or things like that, and leave the killing to s
omeone else. I mean, technically, Ring does all of our killing, even though we all get our hands dirty, but I think we’re smart enough not to take on too much by ourselves. If they’re reaching out, it brings some uncomfortable things to light.”

  “Like what?” Wally asked, and folded her legs up, getting comfortable in what I knew was her thinking position.

  “Well, how did they find us? If these people are capable of finding out information from Interpol, why didn’t they know about us until recently? It isn’t like we were hiding.” She finished with a rueful grin.

  “I think they’re surprised that we haven’t been trying to hide. Hell, it never occurred to me that we should be hiding our online presence. I thought that just keeping a low profile out here in the world would keep us a bit on the quiet side, but I was wrong,” I admitted.

  Wally hmphed and said, “If we send them a message telling them they have the wrong number, then they will know we are who they think we are. But if we ignore them, then, even if they believe we are not hunters, they will still have pointed us in the direction of something bad, coming our way, yes?”

  “Like a gun. Yes, we will have been pointed, and if these Chanticleers have done research about us, then they know we will take an active role in finding this . . . whatever it is.” I slumped against the wall, feeling more than a little victimized by my own hatred for the Undying. Some of the Undying, I mentally corrected myself. I counted immortals among my true friends, and it didn’t hurt to remind myself of that fact on occasion.

  Sighing, Risa stood and held a hand out to Wally, who took it and grunted as she clambered up from the floor. For her height, she was incredibly limber, but she took great pride in being as noisy as humanly possible when getting comfortable or changing physical positions. Wally was clearly not cut out for stalking, unless it involved sneaking up on a steak. At that, she excelled.

  “So we send a response,” Risa said, in a statement more than question, and Wally and I gave our assent. “But we ask a few questions, too, since we’re giving up whatever anonymity we still hold. I’d like to know who they are, and I’d like to know if they hunt, or just disperse information. What else?” Her fingers were poised over her keyboard, but she had not typed anything. She looked expectantly at me, and then Wally. “Well?” she prompted.

  I spoke first. “Find out where they are, and if they are hunters, what they have been doing, for how long, things like that. A basic resume, so to speak. Then, ask them why they felt the need to alert us to this new thing. What do they know about it? Why do they think it will be coming here?”

  “West is a big direction,” Wally stated quietly. She was right.

  “What she said,” I agreed, and pointed at Wally with my chin. “Are they asking for help, partners, or a hired knife? There’s a lot of vagueness here. I would feel better knowing more.”

  “About everything.” Wally concluded, and Risa smiled, nodded once, and began to type.

  14

  Lampedusa

  It was still as windy as he remembered. A hot, arid breeze swept across the white rocks and curving crescent of the beach, relentless and eternal as the shallow sea surrounding the oblong, table top of an island that rose defiantly over the rolling waves. Stratified cliffs nearing a hundred feet in height stood sentinel over the low, cracked spits that jutted around beaches like stone picture frames. Layers of time stacked upon one another in thin bands of gritty deposits, some gray, some coppery, others creamy yellow, but even their erratic pattern was riven by occasional lines of brilliant white limestone. It was ancient, but then, so was he, and his purpose was not tourism, but an errand of sorts.

  One did not survive to great age without planning, and he was nothing if not thorough. Islands were more than a mere dot of land in the sea, they were repositories of things, items he needed when he awoke from his forced slumbers. Lampedusa, small by any standards, would have been a challenging hunting ground for even the most subtle of hunters. With his burgeoning needs edging into the territory of frenzy, feeding would be virtually impossible without drawing too much attention too soon. In a month? He would gut the populace of an island twice the size of this fetid rockpile, and he would do so without raising his pulse one beat. He looked at the chaos of the normally placid beaches and realized that something was wrong. The feel of simmering discontent pervaded the wind itself.

  I could hunt here, easily. Oh, immigrants. How I dearly love your faceless masses. Africans, busily pushing their way on towards Europe, now crowded areas that had only recently, at least in his mind, been completely uninhabited. Disorder is the best camouflage, he thought, and then continued on his way. Amidst the bustle, he walked at a sedate, rolling amble, savoring the rowdy dust and letting his instincts return to him. Memory trickled back, reluctantly, but then enough of his past surged into the present to turn his feet north for a few moments, then turned west for a few steps.

  He slowed to a stop in front of a square monolithic block of sandstone, white and squat, and too heavy for a human or humans to move easily. With a grunting shove, he had willed the stone upward and back, to fall with a deep thud and expose a small brass box, embossed into the sandy loam underneath. Money. Gold. Identity. Some things are a constant necessity, he sighed, ashamed to be bound by such menial items. His action unseen, he emptied the box and replaced it in the outline, then redoubled his efforts to move the enormous stone back into place. Preparation was the mark of the truly elite Undying, and he was always careful to keep such grottoes available. His was a dangerous line of work, and the hounds were sure to find him again, just as certainly as he would, in a quieter time, refill the cache while on a more leisurely visit.

  Running his tongue over his teeth, he saw that nightfall was still many hours away. I will need shelter and passage on a boat. But first, he mused, as he passed a trio of tall Africans, talking quietly amongst themselves, I shall select a secluded place for later.

  Chaos. It lent itself to rich herds from which he would pluck his guest. He sniffed the wind, again, and turned to look for shelter. His nose caught the shift in the wind, and he drank it in greedily, thinking of his claims that awaited him there. Westward, indeed.

  15

  Virginia

  “That was quick.” He sipped at a coffee that had grown cool after reading and then re-reading the response to their inquiry. “We know they aren’t shy, at least. I was on the fence about whether they would respond at all.”

  Dawn bloomed over the eastern hills, growing upward and out as the sky turned from iron to blue. She sat on the counter, listening for the first customers of the day, some in their rental cars, others in trucks and SUVs of various makes, all giddy with their oncoming brush with the more exuberant side of nature. They would return later in the day, many bedraggled, beaten, even scared, but underneath it all would be the residual charge of danger, which, on this particular river, was very real indeed.

  “I think there is more to them than meets the eye. In fact, I think that they might be some kind of savants, but they didn’t just blunder into this type of work. They’re too good at it to be gifted amateurs, and we would’ve heard of them if they were pros. They’re something new, I think. Something that the oldest immortals don’t know about, or if they do, they aren’t paying attention.” She sipped her own mug of coffee and admired the day. They never tired of the view, or the river, or the valley.

  He snorted, agreeing. “Damn straight. If some cadre of immortals caught wind of them, they would be on the next jet to Miami. There’s no way that they’ve been killing for this long without some sort of screening, but I think that their kill record speaks for itself.”

  “Me, too.” She cut her eyes at him and asked, slyly, “If they fight this thing that is coming, what do you think their chances are?”

  He hesitated, opened his mouth, and closed it again, then lifted his shoulders and grimaced. “I wouldn’t have thought that any human could kill Elizabeth, but they did it. That makes me hesitate to write them
off, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know.” She sounded bitter, but it was professional jealousy speaking just then. It was hard not to be impressed. “I’ll email them back right now, before we open. I don’t think”—and she drew the word out, forming her decision—“that they asked any unreasonable questions, do you?”

  “Nope, it’s what I would have asked. So, I guess we answer?” They hadn’t contacted a new player in the hunting trade for three years, primarily because the last time had ended very badly. The newbie assassin was inadvertently outed on a recipe message board, of all places, and then stalked and disemboweled by a demon within sight of his own front porch. The beast had then hung him up like a curing ham for his family to find when the sun rose the next day. It had been humbling and frightening to think that, had the dead hunter been given another day or two of unchecked chatter on the internet, they could have been the next to hang. In the long, harrowing day it had taken them to lose the shakes at a brush with such a gruesome fate, they drastically changed their policy then and there, determined to maintain some form of tradecraft even when dealing with rank amateurs. The chilling lesson made certain that they were never loose with personal information, nor did they take anything as dogma until they were absolutely certain, even if it meant innocent people died while they verified. Since they were, in their hearts, hunters, that kind of patience had been hard won. It was easy to maintain, however, because the alternative of being reduced to a hysterically desecrated corpse assured their aloofness among the curious.

  In their experience, someone asking questions was almost always a bad thing. In this case, the questions being asked were valid, and if sharing information led to stopping an ancient, powerful immortal, there was never a better time to suddenly loosen their ordinary reticent tendencies and open a dialogue.

  The sun was full up, now, and the first car doors began to thump shut as customers disembarked in the gravel lot, stretching and chatting as they anticipated their oncoming brush with what they thought of as real danger.