One week to feed, drink deeply of this city, and then move on. He would assess his progress at the next island, but the tingle within his muscles revealed the truth. He could smell the hints of spices in his skin and it tantalized him like no maidenhead ever had. This time, when he ripped the head from that swaggering oaf who he’d hunted through time, there would be no limit to his ascension.
This time, he would pierce that once proud head, letting it blacken with flies and shame, and spike it on the verge of his empire—which he would rebuild on the bones and organs of those who dared meet his eyes. With that victorious proclamation, his blood would run as pure as the streams of heaven. Godhood was only a sword stroke away.
26
Florida
There is a distinct moment when it is not only prudent to reveal the goddess, but necessary. This was not that moment. She sat in her car again, with the delectable chill of air setting her skin to tingling. In the late afternoon heat, even the glare from the concrete was punishing. She was easily capable of tolerating such discomfort, but it was the remembrance of home she could do without. The water that abounded in this place was an unexpected pleasure. Sweetwater canals ran everywhere, it seemed, their shallows lined with hydrilla and lily pads. Maidencane hemmed the banks and caught the litter that signified humans were present, but still, there were egrets and herons fishing and breeding, mere feet away from speeding cars.
One hand absently rubbed a foot, which had slipped almost of its own volition from the tasteful heel she wore. Women’s shoes are an encumbrance here in the West. They’re really quite barbaric, she thought, continuing the massage to no avail. She noted that today was the third visit the blonde woman had made to the church, or more specifically, to see the priest. Each time she had emerged perfectly groomed and without any state of dishabille, free from scandal, and in good spirits. Whatever was happening between her and the handsome priest, it wasn’t sexual. That was nothing short of astonishing, given that every motion of the blonde’s lush body was charged with an eroticism that was beyond the capability of mortal women.
More to the point, the fact that the succubus could quell her feeding instinct in the vicinity of such a temptation was rather troubling. A priest? On his own grounds? To resist causing a spiritual fall, while gaining a rich harvest, would be unthinkable to any succubus she had known. They simply weren’t gifted with temperance, and that meant that something unusual was occurring here. Perhaps she is something else? A recent disciple of the Mysteries, and not fully formed? But no, there could be no doubt of her true nature. It fairly oozed from her even at a distance, and her confidence was that of an old immortal who had seen and lived many lifetimes.
No, this sublime creature was ancient, and clearly at ease, even glowing, but free of the predatory slouch that so many feeders adopted while skulking away from their prey. Her musings were interrupted when the boy appeared, as if he’d been summoned. Rigidity underlay his casual, friendly appearance, and she began to think that he really was quite the amateur. Enthusiasm aside, he would have to be dealt with, more likely sooner than later, given his icy stare as the succubus parted ways with the priest and went to her car. For long, unblinking moments he stared at the place she had been, and then dropped his eyes, blinking furiously.
Yes, sooner, she thought, watching him cast about for something to distract him from his rage. I cannot allow a spiteful beginner amongst things beyond his grasp. And with that, Red’s die was cast, as he stood rooted in anger, unaware of his impending fate.
* * *
“May I come in?” Delphine stood at our door, cycling between looks of hopeful innervation and a timid smile. Neither looked good on her, so I welcomed her with a hug, which she lengthened by holding me like a long lost friend. Her lips brushed mine and she took my face in her hands, a feat, given her lack of height.
“Thank you. For everything, Ring. Are the girls here? I’d like to speak to them as well.” I ushered her in and she sat at the edge of the couch, as if on the verge of flight.
“They’re in Wally’s room doing a little data mining.” I looked back to the hallway where Risa was emerging, Wally following behind her. “Delphine wants to talk to us.” I said briskly, and stopped in my tracks on the way to the kitchen. “”What can I get you to drink?” There are times when someone wants a drink, and times when someone needs a drink. I could tell which this was by her body language alone, and she held up three fingers. “Scotch?” I confirmed, a bit dubious, but when she nodded sharply and stood to greet the girls, I pulled the bottle of Highland Park single malt from the bar and poured the only way whiskey should be served, neat and generous. On a whim, I pulled three more glasses since it was technically evening, and twenty-five year old whiskey from the Orkney Islands isn’t an everyday thing for me. When I handed Delphine her glass, she nearly squealed with delight, and her entire mood lightened.
“Oh, Ring. It’s like home, I swear it is.” Her nose was buried in the tumbler and for a long, smiling moment, she let the vapors do their work before actually tasting. “Ah, even better on the tongue.”
Risa grinned amiably. She, too, knew what it was to miss your home, and she commiserated by lifting her glass in a silent toast. Wally sat holding hers, unsure of what was happening. The air was charged with an aura that was far more complex than that of a social call.
“Are you alright?” I asked, because that seemed to be the best opening I could come up with under the circumstances. Delphine being clothed and in need of something had a disquieting effect on me, but I smiled and gave her my undivided attention. It must have helped, because she sat her tumbler down with exaggerated care and regarded me evenly. There was kindness in her eyes.
“I think that for the first time, yes. I will be alright, and I have you to thank . . . all of you, really.” She sipped nervously, returning to her earlier uncertainty. “I’ve been in counseling with Kevin.”
The Catholic in Wally perked up at the distinct word use, and she asked, “Counseling?”
We knew how intelligent Delphine was, and her choice of terms was curious. Risa shrugged, too, and we waited again until our guest had composed herself enough to go on.
“Yes, not Confession, as you might think—although God knows I’ve been doing a lot of that—but counseling. I don’t want you to think that I don’t value Kevin’s more conventional approach to the morally bereft, but for me, we were in agreement that something a bit more intense might be in order. So, counseling.” Her blue eyes were very still and she reached out to Risa, taking her hand in a companionable grip. “I have discovered a great deal of myself through discussions with Kevin. I am now moving beyond simple admission, and looking to be something more than content to sit on my money and think about resisting my own nature.”
Wally spread her hands and said, “What can you do?”
“Excuse me?” Delphine’s brow furrowed. She looked as confused as I felt. Risa nodded in understanding.
Risa put a hand up to silence any further discussion. “What Wally means is, do you have any skills that are, well, not marketable, because you don’t need the money . . . I guess we’re asking what jobs you’ve done that you can take up again?”
“Other than being naked.” Wally grinned.
Delphine laughed grandly, and with the abandon of someone who felt they were among friends. “I cannot imagine that there is much demand for wool carding or harvesting clams, at least not here, and I simply refuse to haul dung for fires. It’s bad for my hands.” She held her delicate fingers out for inspection, smiling cheerily. “Kevin pointed out something that I may be able to do that will actually help people, and it doesn’t require anything different than what I am doing right now.” She paused, and the cryptic statement hung for a moment, until I remembered an earlier idea that I’d flirted with.
I stated, “You’re going to teach immortals how not to kill.”
Delphine’s smile was stellar, and she put her fingertip on her nose with a wink. “Precis
ely. How, I do not yet know, but I think that you three will be heavily involved. I can’t stalk Undying, I’m too visible and the older ones might actually know me. I need to reach younger immortals, before they become jaded and embittered beyond the point of rescue.”
Risa said in a very soft tone, “But we saved you.”
That brought our jubilation to a halt, but Delphine was unfazed. “True. But I have come to know that I’m an exception to the rule, not a member of a large minority. I wasn’t a sociopath when Elizabeth butchered my captors and set me on the path to immortality. I was a wife, a loving wife, truly, and I would have opened my own veins to protect my children. I didn’t have a choice, and I’m not sure many Undying are given options. They just become something guttural, something devoid of morals and shame. They morph into things that may be outwardly exquisite, but inside, they are fangs and claws, and pitch made of hate. That was never me, just as I suspect that none of you have the ability to be unduly cruel.”
She took a drink, and we were silent, so she continued, “I want no part of killing someone who can be redeemed. Thanks to Kevin’s patience and advice, I trust my own instincts well enough to live with the guilt of being a judge of sorts. If I can shepherd youthful Undying away from their baser desires, then I am reborn. I am new. And I need your help to do it.”
I rubbed my hands on my legs, thinking that I would help, but it was a team decision. Wally jumped the fence first and said, “We will help. What do you need us to do?”
“I guess we’re in,” Risa quipped.
When I shrugged, she put her feet on Gyro, who had spent the entirety of the discussion stretched out on the cool tile. The air of confusion had left Delphine, who now sat fidgeting as if she needed to get started saving souls immediately.
Wally patted her stomach and announced, “I could eat. Stay for dinner?”
Delphine enthused, “Love to. And there is something you can help me with. Despite what your experiences with me have been, I’ve not chased a man since . . . well, since the fall of Rome, I think. But in any case, if I’m going to identify young immortals, I’m going to have to develop a social life. Where there are men, there will be a succubus hunting them. I’ll begin with what I know, and if this works, I can always expand into other types of immortality. For now? Show me to the men!”
Wally giggled. “Oh, I already like this job. We will go out tonight. Ring must stay at home, and Risa and I can show you where the men are.”
Risa held her hands out, helpless under the weight of such enthusiasm. When I offered no resistance, the three women stood as one, and departed for Wally’s closets.
I looked at Gyro, knowing I’d been cut out of the deal, but determined to salvage my night. “Pizza, big guy?”
It was a rhetorical question.
27
Virginia
“Boots! Did you forget to stock cokes?” Bella yelled from the front of the store. She sounded rather normal, which was to say she seemed pissed. Sighing, he went to the front to help her, if he didn’t it might become a national crisis, and he frankly wasn’t in the mood for her bitchiness. He thought one of the part-timers had done it two days ago, which mean that the cooler should still be fine, since they’d been closed.
Whatever. He picked up a flat of plastic coke bottles and lugged them along, barging into the front area with a frown on his face. “Move. I’ll do it.”
She made as if to bitch at him, but his anger was palpable, so she thought better of it and held her tongue. She knew he hated starting days like this, and a lot more of them seemed to get off to shitty beginnings lately. It was the waiting, really. They’d been waiting for three days for a reply, and in the meantime, the target could be damnably close to the Americas by now. He hated not knowing. Information was their currency. They rarely killed, because deep down he knew they were frightened. Not just scared. That was a part of even knowing that those things out there existed. It was thinking about the actual moment of dying that scared, that made his bowels turn to water and his heartbeat race. He looked in the direction of the river. It tumbled and roared in places, and between those pockets of turbulent anger, there was a placid, flat surface that seemed inviting, perhaps even playful.
He knew better. Ella did, too. Near the bends and the blow downs that constantly crashed downstream, he knew there were dark, frigid pits of water where you would circle forever until the river tore you apart and decided to let you go, piece by piece. All in good time, said the water, keeping counsel with a clock that only it could know. That was why he was scared, and he knew his sister felt exactly the same way, but the murder of their parents was still so near, even all these years later. He thought of the tense, sickening week of waiting, and then the terse phone call from an exhausted sheriff, so tired from searching in frigid waters that he slurred his speech on the phone.
Yes, we can come to you. Of course, we’ll identify the bodies. No, we don’t need a ride. They had driven in the kind of silence that he imagined death would sound like, still and unforgiving and broken only by the singing of tires. Hurry, hurry. Technically, the bodies had been his parents, but the broken bones had pulped them to a state that it was his mother’s wedding ring, cutting into her finger like a garrote, that finally convinced him to nod his head, if only so that he and Ella could go outside. They leaned against the square, charmless building, gulping in heaving breaths of anything that didn’t reek of chemicals, water, and rot.
It had been the longest day of his quarter century, and he lived it anew during quiet moments when the remaining husk of his life could not keep the wolves of memory far enough from his door. Ella heard it when he cried out at night, and in turn, he knew when she hadn’t slept, which were many nights indeed. So they sniped at each other in a constant flutter of wings that assured them of only one thing: they would never heal, and never rest.
He began stacking the bottles in the cooler, making a note to order more, but for today, they had enough. Ella seethed as she wiped down the counter getting ready for the day. They’d done huge business the previous day, and hadn’t finished everything last night, so they played catch up at six in the morning.
“I’ll check email every half hour. They’ll respond soon,” he said in a conciliatory tone. It was the most he could do by way of an apology. Neither was flexible when it came to the other. Her noncommittal grunt was short and rude, but at least it was an answer.
She stopped and looked at him with residual anger. “You have to keep up with this little shit, Boots. Cokes? Little, petty shit. I’m too tired to pick up this slack.”
“Ella, I told Kasey to do it. She didn’t, I’m sorry. Stop bitching about it, okay?” He returned her anger with a volley of his own, and she stood up, putting a hand on her hip.
“Kasey? That redhead can’t get anything right, always staring at the water like she’s a retard. Whatever.” She resumed wiping the counter and finished, tossing the paper towels in the trash can. “Wasn’t she supposed to be here today?” she asked with a snort that summed up her opinion of all hired help.
Boots looked around, thinking. “Yeah. And two days ago, too.”
That brought a wicked smile to Ella’s face. “Well, she’s fired.” Victorious, she stomped past him to unlock the door. It was time to open, Kasey or not.
28
Kentucky
A light sheen of sweat danced in the light of the oncoming cars and her lip quivered just enough for him to see she was in real discomfort.
“Not far now, half a mile.” Ethan gripped the wheel with a solidity he did not feel. For two days, they’d made slow progress south and east as Esther’s growing hunger went from a concern to a problem. She was curled in the seat next to him, and for once, he was thankful that the car wasn’t a rental. It looked like she was going to be copiously sick, but her throat contracted again in a series of barking dry heaves that made him stare at her until she could regain control of herself.
She must feed. But what? Since her regre
ssion into a more human form, Esther had ceased being a simple cannibal. Now, after weeks of sipping wine and experimenting with foods, the hunger returned in her, and the effects were tearing her apart at the seams. It pained him to see her in such a state. The entire ascension toward humanity had been her idea alone, and yet here she lay, enfeebled and in a disastrous state of pain. He touched her forehead and rested his hand there, reassuring her as best he could with a simple physical presence. His palm came away slick with milky sweat and she looked at him piteously, licking lips that were growing drier by the minute. He whipped into a parking spot and twisted the cap off their last bottle of water, holding it gently to her lips. The tip of her tongue darted out and she sipped experimentally, then with more vigor, and then, for the first time in thousands of years, Esther cried.
“I am s-sorry. I think I must stop here, I cannot go further.” A chill wracked her frame and he realized again how small she was. She looked like a child to him, swimming in clothing that was already sized petite.
“If you must kill—if we must kill, we will, don’t worry. If I have to, I’ll feed you myself, whatever it is that you need,” he said with conviction, even though he wasn’t certain he even had what she needed. Esther was something new, now, and her needs were different. He regarded her again, and the apparent youthfulness of this ancient woman him. He reached out to her delicately, knowing that the crime he was about to commit would sicken everyone involved, but seeing no way around it. For survival, there was only action. He could justify his plans if she was restored, and if not, then he would answer in the afterlife.
Box Set: The Fearless 1-3 Page 59