The Wicked (A Novella of the Elder Races)

by Thea Harrison

  The library would be transported in custom-designed, hermetically sealed containers. Sebastian passed around photos. Olivia studied them curiously when the Light Fae woman, Bailey, handed them to her. She couldn’t imagine what the cost of the expedition was, with the legal battle, the highly specialized team, the security, the yacht, supplies and equipment, including wet suits and diving gear, and now these containers, but the running total had to be in the millions. Carling really wanted her property back, which did not surprise Olivia in the slightest, since the library itself had to be priceless.

  After the question and answer session, Dendera stood and said to Olivia and Steve, “Let’s meet at the empty table in the back. I’ll be with you in just a few minutes.”

  Sebastian had sat down again. He didn’t look up or otherwise acknowledge that Olivia left the table. Feeling oddly let down, she shrugged it off and moved to the back of the plane where Steve had already slid into a seat. She chose the one across the table from him. Dendera had disappeared in the direction of the lavatory, so at the moment she and Steve sat alone.

  The other symbologist was tall, around six feet or so, with a lanky build and large, long-fingered hands. Trying to guess a Wyr’s age without any knowledge of his animal form was an exercise in futility, but if Steve were a human male, she would have pegged him in his late thirties. His dark hair had receded somewhat from a high forehead, and he wore a speculative expression on his thin, rather bony face as he considered her.

  How did your first meeting with his lordship go? Steve asked her telepathically. Did he give you the same ‘my way or the highway’ speech that he gave the Djinn?

  Taken aback, Olivia said the first thing that popped into her head. His lordship?

  You know what they say about short men and Napoleonic complexes, Steve told her. He glanced toward the head of the plane, his eyes filled with a sharp gleam and his expression cynical.

  She had been so focused on how people would react to what she had done, she hadn’t given a thought to how different someone else’s perspective might be. And she was immediately convinced she did not want to have this talk with Steve.

  She leaned back in her seat as if trying to put more distance between them, as she said cautiously, I don’t know what you mean.

  Steve might be intelligent, but he did not appear to pick up on her verbal or nonverbal cues. His lips twitched into a thin smile. As soon as I heard that the great Sebastian Hale himself would be leading the expedition, I did a little more research on our fearless leader. He has quite the reputation for being aggressive and dictatorial. Just like I said, Napoleonic complex.

  The “great Sebastian Hale”?

  What was great about him?

  Don’t ask. This conversation was a minefield. She rarely developed a dislike for someone as quickly as she did for this symbologist, and she fought again the impulse to squirm.

  Steve looked at her expectantly. She wanted to stay silent and ignore him, but he was one of the two people she would be working with daily for the next few weeks, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to shut him down so flagrantly.

  Fumbling for a neutral, diplomatic response, she said, I’ve never heard of him before. I didn’t research anybody who came on the trip.

  Though she hadn’t intended for him to, Steve took that as a request for more information. He said, Hale runs one of the best security companies in the world. They’re based in Jamaica. He won’t have anything to do with Dragos or the Wyr demesne, but word is, he could have been a sentinel if he’d wanted to. He’s supposed to be that good.

  There were seven demesnes of Elder Races in the United States—Wyr, Elven, Light Fae, Dark Fae, the Nightkind, Demonkind and the human witch demesne, which was based in Louisville, Kentucky.

  Dragos Cuelebre, ancient dragon and multibillionaire, governed the Wyr demesne in New York. At the core of his governing structure were his seven sentinels who were reputed to be the strongest Wyr in the world. She didn’t want to be impressed by anything Steve told her, but she couldn’t help it. She glanced over her shoulder at where Sebastian sat, deep in his work. The hard planes of his face were as remote as ever.

  Steve continued, Not that Hale would be a suitable choice any longer as a sentinel in any case. As an owl shifter, his lifespan is only around two hundred and fifty years, and he’s grown too old. When she turned around to face the table, Steve’s expression had turned calculating. Of course, if his eyesight is so sensitive that he can’t even take off his sunglasses in daylight that might have disqualified him too.

  But Steve was wrong about that. Despite popular belief, Olivia knew that owls could see perfectly well in daylight, and in fact their vision was extraordinary.

  Sebastian wore his sunglasses for an entirely different reason. Not for the first time, she wondered why.

  Chapter Four

  Thankfully at that point, Dendera returned from the lavatory and put an end to Steve’s unwelcome gossip. The three symbologists spent the next hour discussing how they would approach safely packing the most fragile items in the library, which included a rich collection of works on papyrus.

  “Carling said she kept a handwritten catalogue of items in her office,” Dendera told them. “Unfortunately, it’s not based on a professional library catalogue system, but we’re not to reorganize anything. Our job is to simply keep the collection structured the way it is, and make sure it’s all packed properly. We also need to make sure that the magical works are safely contained, so that they don’t cause damage to anyone when they’re shifted.”

  When Olivia thought of the work ahead, her excitement rose all over again. As a private collection, not many people beyond Carling herself would have viewed the contents of the library. Perhaps assistants had gotten the opportunity through the centuries, or protégées that Carling might have taken on. This opportunity really was the chance of a lifetime. Of several lifetimes.

  The rest of the day sped away in a flurry of activity. When the plane landed in SFO, more Cadillac Escalades were waiting to take the group to the Marina Yacht Harbor, just east of Chrissy Field and the Presidio, at the northernmost tip of the peninsula.

  The private yacht was massive, with plenty of space in the cargo hold to transport the collection. As soon as Olivia saw it moored in its slip, her mental tally of the cost of the expedition shot higher. A crew of six waited on board for them, each one of them members of Sebastian’s security company. From the snatches of conversation she overheard, apparently Sebastian owned the yacht—or at least his company did.

  As soon as they boarded, Sebastian disappeared. Olivia found herself disturbed by how disappointed she was at his absence. She had all too quickly developed a fascination for him. Making a determined effort, she managed to banish him from her mind and concentrate on the tasks at hand.

  The crew showed the newcomers to their tiny cabins, which were little more than glorified closets with bunk beds built into the walls. Olivia and Dendera were to share one cabin.

  She didn’t mind the lack of space or privacy. They would only spend one night on the yacht and cross over the passageway first thing in the morning. After they had finished on the island and the library was safely stored in the cargo hold, the yacht would set sail for international waters, at which point Carling could take possession of the library personally, while Olivia and the others could fly home.

  They checked food supplies and containers, tried on wet suits to make sure of their fit and ran through the procedure for crossing over. All members of Sebastian’s team were experienced scuba divers. Dendera, Steve and Olivia were not, and they would use a buddy system for the crossover itself. Each of the three symbologists would make the journey with one of the security team. After the run-through a nearby restaurant delivered supper, which was a simple fare of deli sandwiches and potato salad, along with a yeasty, golden beer from a local microbrewery.

  Finally, around nine thirty, Bailey, who had assumed command in Sebastian’s absence, declared t
hat they were done for the day. Everything was packed with precision, and all the equipment had been double-checked. Bailey gave permission for shore leave for what remained of the evening.

  Steve, Dendera and half of the security crew disembarked, while the other half remained on duty. Phaedra disappeared too, although Olivia could still sense her presence. She thought the Djinn had not actually left the yacht but instead had merely chosen to let go of her physical form. Olivia couldn’t know for sure, but she guessed that the Djinn had dematerialized to avoid any more need to socialize.

  Having no interest in exploring the San Francisco nightlife, Olivia chose to remain aboard. Her body clock was acclimated to Eastern Standard Time and insisted it was past midnight. She was both tired and wound up.

  Unwilling to crawl into her cramped bunk, she pulled on a sweater and her jacket and took a second bottle of beer with her up to the deck. Within a few moments, she was shivering. She had packed with the island weather in mind, which, Carling had informed her, was consistently mild. The bottle of beer, while excellent, was chilled, and a frigid wind blew off the Bay and pierced through all of her clothing.

  But the view was so stunning it held her at the rail. The illuminated Golden Gate Bridge arched high over silver-tipped, black water. Traffic wound along the bridge in a long, undulating ribbon of incandescence. Lights blazed everywhere on both sides of the Bay underneath a night sky draped with moody clouds. She could feel the magic of the Other land shimmering in the distance, and she was so happy to be exactly where she was in that moment, all of her senses were wide open.

  She felt Sebastian’s forceful presence a moment before a wool blanket settled around her shoulders. He moved to stand at the rail beside her, and she grabbed at the edges of the blanket before it could slip to the deck.

  He asked, “You weren’t interested in going into the city with the others?”

  “Not in the slightest,” she said. She made a conscious effort to relax her jaw so that her teeth wouldn’t chatter. “Especially not when there is a breathtaking view like this one. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. When you’re through with the blanket, you can fold it up and put it back in the storage box.”

  She looked where he pointed at an oblong white container set in the shadows behind a steeply slanted ladder that led to the pilot’s cabin. Then she glanced back at him. He had slipped on a worn leather jacket but hadn’t bothered to zip it closed. Underneath he wore the same gray T-shirt that he had earlier, the thin material molding against his muscled chest and flat abdomen, yet he appeared perfectly comfortable in the chilly night.

  He still wore his sunglasses. As certainty settled into place, she felt an unexpected pang. She had seen him do any manner of tasks that said he was sighted, such as reading off his laptop, but something must be wrong with his eyes.

  She turned to face the water, pulled the blanket tighter around her and said, “It’s so beautiful out here, I don’t want to go in.”

  He stayed silent for so long, she began to wonder if he was through interacting with her. When he finally replied, he sounded reluctant, almost as if he spoke against his better judgment. “There are deck chairs in storage too, if you want.”

  She decided she was being too fanciful. After all, he didn’t have any reason not to speak with her, and he had, after all, been the one who approached her with the blanket.

  She gave him a sidelong smile. “Would it be too odd for me to huddle under blankets and sleep on the deck all night?”

  His hard-planed face turned toward her. “I have done so many times.”

  Her smile turned wistful. “How lovely. I imagine you’ve traveled all over the world.”

  “I’ve spent most of my life traveling for one reason or another.”

  Even though she barely knew him, once again she heard layers of nuance in his voice. Not regret, necessarily, but some emotion close to it.

  He shifted into a more casual stance and rested his weight on both hands as he gripped the railing. Surreptitiously, out of the corner of her eye, she studied the hand that rested closest to hers. It looked strong and as beautifully proportioned as the rest of his body, broad, with long fingers, and a tracery of veins along the back.

  “I like home life, and I like to nest,” she said. “I don’t think I would be happy living a life like yours, but it’s fun to hear stories and to daydream.”

  “It gets tiring,” he said. “You can have too much of any one thing, and then it all runs together into sameness.”

  Ah, she recognized the emotion in his voice. Resignation.

  “I think so too, which is why I want to make a point of traveling a bit more. I don’t want to look back on my life and have any regrets.”

  “Good for you,” he said. His head turned as he looked out over the rippling water of the Bay. “You should make a point of doing things that you want to do. Regrets can be a bitch.”

  She remembered her bottle of beer, finished the last few swallows and set the empty bottle at her feet to dispose of later. Then, because he seemed halfway approachable, and she enjoyed standing beside him and talking, she confessed, “I’ve been so excited at this trip, I don’t think I’ve slept a full night in months. As much as I love my job, I spend most of my life in a library. I’ve never traveled down a crossover passage or been to an Other land.”

  He turned back to her, frowning slightly. “If I recall correctly, none of you have much experience scuba diving.”

  She knew he was talking about all the symbologists, because his crew was highly trained for everything they needed to do. He hadn’t been present for any of the evening’s activities, so either Bailey had briefed him or he remembered that detail from their individual files.

  She said, “That’s right. I went into a practice tank a couple of times to get ready for the trip, but I’ve never actually been diving.”

  His frown deepened. “It’s too bad that this will be your first time for both diving and crossovers. They can both be terrific experiences, but I don’t think you’ll be getting the best of either this time around. Travelling underwater through the passageway will probably be disorienting. It’ll be dark, and the magic will shift as you travel. You might find it uncomfortable.”

  Bailey had said the same thing earlier. Olivia shrugged. “I’m not claustrophobic, and I think the buddy system for the crossing is a good one. And the actual underwater trip isn’t supposed to last long. This trip is more than worth a brief amount of discomfort.”

  He turned to lean back against the railing, arms crossed. He said, “I’ll partner with you for the crossover.”

  Once again she reacted physically, as surprise throbbed through her.

  Surprise, and something else.

  They would be swimming together in dark water with magic swirling all around them. She thought of his forceful, steady presence alongside hers. His hard, powerful body would move through the water with the same effortless grace he had bounded up the stairs with before. Her mouth went dry.

  She managed to clamp down on the, “Yes, please,” that was ricocheting around in her head. Instead, more or less calmly, she replied, “Thank you.”

  And, damn him, he picked up on her reaction for a second time, despite the wind blowing off the Bay and the indirect lighting from the yacht and the lampposts that dotted the length of the slip.

  His attention sharpened on her. She could see it in the shift of his expression, and the change in his body stance. His already forceful presence became so intense she could not take a steady breath. It shuddered out of her, another telltale reaction.

  She did not feel that she was in control of her own body.

  He was.

  He pulled this response out of her without ever touching her.

  Her composure started a long, slow slide down an unknown hill, to an unseen destination. Still facing the railing, she leaned against it to steady herself as she huddled in her blanket, averted her gaze and pretended to look out over the water. E
very nerve in her body turned on until she felt ablaze with some kind of light.

  In a liquid glide filled with predatory grace, he turned fully toward her and moved closer until he stood at her shoulder, and a shiver ran along her skin. Angling his head, he pushed into her personal space. Not much, not so that their bodies touched, but just enough.

  Speaking quietly, almost in a whisper, he asked, “Are you warm enough now?”

  The warmth of his breath curled against her chilled cheek, and her shivering turned convulsive.

  This was a man who knew exactly what he was doing, each movement choreographed down to the millimeter. That should have turned her off. It always had before. But it didn’t this time. Where was her turn off switch?

  With lightning speed, her mind tried out and discarded several answers in an effort to find one that sounded normal. The problem was, they all sounded suggestive.

  I’m warm enough now. Oh, thank you. (Don’t even.)

  I could be warmer. (No. It doesn’t matter if it’s the truth. Just NO.)

  The decision was too difficult. She couldn’t figure out what to say, and the mounting pressure of the passing seconds got to her. She muttered, “I—I don’t know.”

  His hand clamped down on her shoulder, the grip punishingly tight. It jolted her so much, she jerked her head up and stared at him.

  He wasn’t looking at her. His attention had turned to the dock. She looked in the same direction.

  Several Nightkind creatures walked toward the slip where the yacht was moored, including two trolls, four ghouls and five Vampyres. Ten of the Nightkind, including the trolls, wore black Nightkind uniforms. The last of the Nightkind strode at the head of the group.

  Even for someone like Olivia, who did not live or socialize in elevated circles, he was a very recognizable Vampyre. He wore tailored evening clothes that fit his tall, powerful frame superbly. He had short black hair that was streaked at the temples with flecks of white, a rough-hewn, aquiline face and a piercing, wolfish gaze.