by Raven Steele
From somewhere within the house, a new sound reached his ears. Lucien crossed the street and easily hopped her neighbor’s tall fence. From a small window on the side of the woman’s house, he spotted her shadowed form running on a treadmill. What time was it?
He glanced up. Having experienced what felt like an eternity of nights, the shade of black against the night sky and the position of the pregnant moon told him it was almost three in the morning.
Something about the way the woman ran, the way she pushed herself, reminded Lucien of himself. When he was younger, his father, a strict disciplinarian and a captain for the Irish army, pushed Lucien and his older brother, Aiden, beyond what any normal children should have to endure. Because Aiden was smaller in stature than Lucien, he received the brunt of their father’s obsessive need to dominate and control.
Aiden had nothing in common with their father. He preferred books to brawn, studying everything from plants, insects, animals and even human behaviors whenever their father was gone, which was entirely too frequent and yet in some ways not frequent enough. Lacking a mother and love from a father, Lucien tried to get close to Aiden, but Aiden wanted nothing but his experiments.
Lucien and Aiden’s mother had died giving birth to Lucien. Their father, afraid their mother’s frail health would pass to his sons, demanded they go with him to battle. He would make them watch from a distance and, afterwards, if they couldn’t recount every vivid detail of the brutal skirmish, he would tie them upside down to a tree for the remainder of the night.
There were many times when Lucien feared, due to the loss of blood from his nose, he’d not live to see the sunrise. Aiden only had to endure a night like this once. His mind had an uncanny ability to pick out the most gory and horrific details that appealed to their father’s nature.
Because Lucien’s mind did not work like his father’s or Aiden’s, he was forced to prove himself physically, hoping to win his father’s approval. He continually pushed himself beyond what he thought his body could handle, making him one of the strongest and fastest boys in the region. Though he never heard it directly from his father, the fact that his father trained Lucien to fight at age ten was validation enough.
Watching the woman through the window, Lucien wondered what she was trying to prove and to whom. He looked back to the city, trying to decide if he should return to the hotel for a few hours or stay in front of the woman’s house. It wasn’t a hard decision. He climbed the Oak tree again until he was hidden from view. He stretched out one leg upon a thick tree branch and let the other dangle while he propped his back against the trunk. It was uncomfortable, but he’d endured much worse.
Thirty minutes later, the house fell dark. The woman breathed peacefully in a rhythmic pattern without the usual sleep restlessness of most humans. There was no tossing and turning, no troubled dreams. Why did her life seem so worry free? There must be something that caused her pain or sorrow. He vowed to find out what it might be, and then never return again, for surely she was just like the rest of them.
In just a few short hours, the woman woke just before sunrise. Lucien didn’t like to be outside when the sun came up. Its rays made his flesh itch and gave him a horrible fever. But he preferred that to not being able to go out in the sun at all, like other vampires. He had yet to meet one who could withstand the sun like him, a gift that had developed after many decades of being a vampire. He didn’t know why he had this ability, and for this reason alone, he kept it a secret. Other vampires might want to study him to replicate the power.
But today was different. He had a mystery to solve.
The woman showered quickly, faster than he thought possible for any woman, and stepped out into the early morning light, looking radiant. Stray honey curls escaped her loose bun and relaxed around her face, and a dark blue business pantsuit followed the soft curves of her body. She carried a small briefcase in her hand.
Lucien expected her to open the garage door and get into a car, but instead she walked down the sidewalk. A few houses down, she said “hello” to a female neighbor who rushed to get into her car. The neighbor gave her a weak smile and a brief nod in return. The woman continued walking, but stopped abruptly and turned back around, staring at the neighbor with an expression Lucien couldn’t read.
“I think there’s an alarm going off in your house,” the woman said.
The neighbor flashed her a frustrated look, but then glanced toward her own house as if deciding what to do.
“Really, I hear an alarm. You better go see what it is. It could be important.”
“Um, thanks.” The neighbor shuffled back into her house.
As soon as her neighbor’s back was turned, the woman reached into her purse and pulled out a switchblade. She crouched down and with one fluid motion, jammed it into the back tire of the neighbor’s vehicle. She stood up just as the other woman came out of her house.
“There was no alarm,” she said, her voice cold and callous.
“I could’ve sworn I heard it. Sorry to trouble you.”
The neighbor lady jumped in her car but not without glaring at the woman who hid the knife behind her back. As she drove away, Lucien could hear the air hiss from the vehicle’s tire.
The woman stood on the sidewalk with a satisfied smile as if she’d just cleaned up a big mess. Lucien couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed. She didn’t seem the type to do something so malicious, but at the same time, the incident didn’t feel malicious, either. Then what?
Lucien leaned forward carelessly and lost his balance on the tree limb. He caught it with one hand on his way down, his legs dangling beneath him. He waited until the woman had disappeared around the block before he let go of the branch and dropped to the ground.
Her lilac scent made her an easy target to follow from a distance, but after only a mile of walking, Lucien took a guess as to where she was headed. He took a different route through the city that involved a lot less sun and moved quickly, unnoticed by humans, until he was back in front of the door labeled “Deific.”
He ducked inside the coffee shop across the street and sat by the streak-free window. Several heads turned his direction, but he ignored them, his usual response. Lucien stared through his reflection toward the Deific door and waited for the woman to appear. He guessed he was maybe fifteen minutes ahead of her.
It used to bother him to be near humans, but after centuries of living among them, it no longer disturbed him. Even the smell of blood did nothing but tease his senses. When he was first turned into a vampire, he spent years unable even to be them without wanting to tear them apart. His blood lust had proven too great. Eventually he learned to appreciate blood the same way humans appreciated aged wine, as a fine and rare delicacy.
Across the street, several people entered the black door. They looked like regular, predictable people: same worried expressions, same nervous habits and the same smell of fear for the future. Humans always feared the future afraid time would bring them misery. He used to sympathize with this fear when he could still remember what it was like to be human. Over time, however, he came to resent their fearful nature, along with their inability to simply accept whatever fate life had in store for them. It was a pointless waste of time.
Another worried face, a blond-haired man, opened the door to the Deific and held it open while he talked to a woman who was also entering the building. Beyond them, just inside, was a black counter manned by two large men. Security guards. Lucien also took note of the cameras both outside and inside the building.
Within a few minutes, the strange woman appeared, walking alongside a tall, thin man with short curly brown hair. The curly-haired man opened the door and watched her as she passed through it. His look was full of emotion beyond mere friendship. This man had feelings for the woman.
Once the door closed, Lucien removed his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the only number he ever called.
Chapter 3
“How can I help you, Lucien?�
� a man’s gruff voice answered.
Lucien eyed the building across the street. “I need you to find out what you can about a place called Deific.”
“How’s that spelled?”
“D-E-I-F-I-C.”
“Are they here in Seattle?”
“Yes.”
“Call me later today. I should have what you need.”
“Thanks, Scott.” Lucien hung up the phone.
Scott Clark was as dependable as both his father and his grandfather had been. They’d been Lucien’s attorneys for decades. Lucien knew he would need some connection to the human world, and after watching Scott’s grandfather for almost a year, he knew he’d found a man he could trust.
The Clarks were shrewd businessmen but unfailingly honest. Lucien entrusted his entire fortune to them, and as a result, each Clark generation had tripled his fortune. But Lucien didn’t care about the money. He only worked with the Clarks because they never asked questions and were hard working.
After the woman disappeared inside the Deific, Lucien walked back to her house and used the hidden key in the siding to open the door. The inside of the home was abnormally simple. No pictures hung on the walls or lay on tables. The living room consisted of one couch, a small end table and a black lamp. There was no television and no dining room table. In fact, most of the rooms were empty except the bedroom upstairs, which was completely opposite from the rest of the house.
The entire upstairs had been made into one giant bedroom. Dark, paneled walls were ornately decorated with works of art, some of which he recognized from famous painters. A four-poster bed rested in the middle of the room; a shear black curtain hung around its top rail. The room reminded him of an eighteenth century manor. The only item out of place was a treadmill resting in the corner.
He searched the drawers of a heavy curved desk and found a letter with her name on it: Eve Andrews. After looking through several more personal papers, he discovered she had no debt and appeared to be extremely wealthy. He could find no personal letters from family or any work-related documents. She was as much a mystery to him as the first day he’d met her, but at least he knew her name now.
He walked to the window and peered out. Eve. He pulled out his phone and called Scott again.
Before Lucien could speak, Scott said, “It’s only been a few hours, Lucien. I need a little more time.”
“I need you to look up something else.”
Something shuffled in the background. “I’m ready.”
“I need you to find out what you can about an Eve Andrews. She lives at 141 Rose Ave, and I believe she’s an employee of the Deific.”
“You got it.”
“Could you also have a car pick me up at the address I just gave you?”
“Of course.”
“Call me when you have something.” Lucien hung up the phone. Of all the things he’d ever asked for, it was never information about a human.
When a driver arrived twenty minutes later in a black Mercedes, Lucien instructed him to drive to the Fairmont hotel. He wanted to stop by before he returned to the Deific.
Scott had purchased the historical hotel for Lucien over twenty-five years ago and had invested a lot of Lucien’s money into bringing it back to its former glory. It was now one of the most popular hotels in Seattle.
Lucien pushed his way through the rotating door. The hotel manager, Ronald, gave him a thin smile. Ronald was a small man with balding brown hair. He stared at Lucien with beady, hateful eyes, reminding Lucien of a hungry vulture waiting to devour him the second the hotel failed. Ronald clearly thought he would be a better owner.
Lucien kept walking toward the elevator, only giving Ronald a simple nod of his head. Lucien would’ve fired him years ago, but Ronald was Scott’s cousin, so he kept him on as a favor. Gratefully, there was no personality resemblance between the two.
Lucien approached the front desk. Molly, a reservationist with red hair and freckles, smiled at him as she leaned over on the desk, exposing cleavage.
“How are you doing today, Lucien?”
“Good. Any mail for me?”
“Just one. Brought in this morning.” She handed him a manila envelope.
“Thanks.” He turned to leave.
She called after him, “Don’t be a stranger!”
He raised his hand goodbye without turning back around.
Inside his hotel room on the top floor, he dropped the envelope onto a small dining table. He liked his penthouse suite. The walls were a dark olive color with black wainscoting. A black leather recliner sat in front of a huge flat screen television hanging on the wall and beneath it was a long bookcase that held his favorite books. The penthouse had two bedrooms, but he rarely used them.
After showering and changing into jeans and a t-shirt, he walked into the dining room and tore the top off of the envelope. Inside was a piece of paper with a single address on it. He would visit it later.
Lucien grabbed a black beanie off the counter and pulled it down over his head before leaving again. In the parking garage beneath the hotel, he unlocked the car door to his ‘98 military issued Hummer. It still had canvas seats and the inside was stripped of all personal comforts. The only change he’d made to it was to tint the windows. It was his favorite vehicle.
He turned the key in the ignition and pressed on the gas. A short time later, he parked near the coffee shop where he had a clear view of the Deific across the street.
It was three o’clock p.m. The inside of the car was hot from the beating sun, but it didn’t faze him. Over time, he’d trained himself to block out all outside stimuli. He could hold completely still for hours if needed.
Some time later, Eve left the Deific. The man who’d opened the door for her that morning walked with her. They moved side by side but did not hold hands. They looked like nothing more than coworkers, but Lucien couldn’t help but notice how the man’s eyes lingered on Eve. She, however, failed to notice.
Lucien shifted his weight on the leathered seats, feeling oddly uncomfortable. He swallowed and wiped at his forehead with the back of his hand.
The two crossed the street to the coffee shop and disappeared inside. A few minutes later, they reappeared and continued down the sidewalk toward him speaking about someone named Michael who lived in Coast City. Lucien also learned by listening in on their casual conversation that the man walking with Eve was named Charlie.
As they passed by Lucien’s car, Charlie stopped suddenly and gripped Eve’s hand. She stopped and looked at him questioningly. Then, as if nothing had startled him, Charlie continued walking, taking Eve with him.
Lucien started the car and pulled away from the curb. He didn’t like the way the man had stopped as if he’d sensed something.
What I am doing?
His phone rang. He answered on the first ring. “What do you know?”
“Not a whole lot,” Scott’s voice said. “The Deific is registered with the state as an accounting agency. They also have offices in Wildemoor, Irondale and Coast City. They are also in Japan, Paris, London, Ireland—”
“Ireland?” Lucien asked, his heart skipping a beat.
“Yes, all over.”
“Is that normal for an accounting agency?”
“Not any that I know of, but that’s not the strange part. I couldn’t find the name of the person who started the Deific.”
“Isn’t it registered somewhere?”
“Yes, but by another corporation called McCullin Industries based out of London. I called my contacts there and they said McCullin Industries started in 1845 or at least, that’s when they officially registered. And back then, it wasn’t required to list the owner.”
“Do you know what type of business the corporation is?”
“Unavailable.”
“What about Eve Andrews?”
“Even more strange. The address you gave me for her home was purchased by a woman with that name. She has a social security number and a passport, but no cr
edit history except for the house. I couldn’t find any school records, employment history, or even a social media imprint. It’s as if she was born a year ago.”
“Has she always been in Seattle?”
“She only just came here a month or so ago. Before that she was living in Coast City in the same building as their Deific office.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s it. I wish I could be more helpful.”
“Thanks for trying.”
Lucien hung up the phone and continued to drive through Seattle toward White Center, knowing he would eventually end up at the address written on the sheet of paper. Twenty years ago, White Center had been a hot bed of drugs and crime, but after enough time and a community who finally decided to fight back, the neighborhood once again became a fairly nice place to live. Part of White Center still had its problems, but overall, the large urban area thrived.
As Lucien drove down Roxbury Street, he thought about the Deific and the possibility of it being a legitimate accounting firm. There was no way an accounting firm would have the type of security he saw earlier. Living for over three hundred years had taught Lucien many things, one of which was, if something didn’t make sense, there was a problem. He didn’t try to justify the possibility of an accounting firm having security guards and offices all over the world. It would be a waste of time.
Somehow Lucien needed to find a way in, maybe from the roof. He decided to go there as soon as he completed this job.
He glanced down at the slip of paper resting on the passenger seat. It wasn’t the best employment, but he’d volunteered. The work was often dangerous and illegal, but most importantly, it satisfied several of his needs. And for a vampire, that was number one.
Lucien located the address. He slowly drove past a small, bright green house that was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. One of the home’s glass windows was broken and the other two were covered in tin foil. Three cars were parked in the driveway. One of them was a brand new mustang, way too nice for this place.