The Stone Warriors: Nicodemus

by D. B. Reynolds

  “I’m leaving London tonight,” he told her. “Would you like to come with me?”

  “Tonight? You would take me where you’re going?”

  “Yes. I don’t require sex from you, don’t worry about that. But where I’m going . . . it might be frightening for you. But I’m—” He hesitated then thought, hell, if she was a vampire, why couldn’t he admit to being a sorcerer. “I’m a sorcerer, Lilia. I’ll keep you safe no matter what happens.”

  She took two steps away from him, head bent, as if considering what he’d said. When she stopped, she turned and looked back at him, meeting his gaze without fear. “This city holds nothing good for me. Only more danger. I will go with you.”

  Nico’s soul lightened unexpectedly. “You have courage, Lilia. It will serve you well in the coming years.”

  PART THREE

  Chapter One

  1963, Chicago, Illinois, USA

  ANTONIA WOKE TO sunshine filling the room on a beautiful spring morning. She hated the isolation of Chicago winters, that trapped her in the house, with nothing but her precious greenhouse plants to keep her company, while others waited in the frozen ground for the sun to return. She’d have sworn she could feel every one of her trees and shrubs, and even the hibernating bulbs of her perennial flowers, all warm and cozy and waiting.

  She’d never have said such a thing out loud, lest the neighbors think she’d gone mad in solitude, or at the very least, become eccentric—like old man Conroy down the block, who sat on his porch and yelled at every car that drove by at what he considered too fast a speed.

  She stretched her arms over her as she sat up, and decided she didn’t care about the neighbors or Mr. Conroy. She wasn’t going to entertain any negative thoughts this morning. She’d rested well, with no strange or frightening dreams to trouble her sleep, and her mind felt clear and refreshed. She had a list of chores she wanted to accomplish on this sunny day, because tonight, for the first time ever, she was entertaining a gentleman guest.

  Antonia wasn’t altogether sure how old she was. She was strong enough to spend a day in the garden, digging and planting, without aching for days afterward. And she always walked to the grocery to do her shopping, carrying the bags home herself, rather than relying on a delivery boy. Her father said she was twenty-six, and that age seemed to match what she saw in the mirror, as well as pictures of other people in the magazines she read. But she wasn’t altogether sure about the man who told her how old she was, who visited rarely, and who had until recently managed her accounts and paid her bills . . . . She grimaced, thinking about it. She just wasn’t convinced that man was her father.

  For one thing, she should have some feelings for him, shouldn’t she? Everyone she knew had feelings for their parents, if they had them. Sometimes the feeling was hate, or intense dislike, rather than love. But hate was an emotion. On the other hand, when her father—if he was that—visited, she felt almost nothing. And what she did feel leaned more toward the intense dislike end of the spectrum. Goodness, she had warmer feelings for the checkout clerk at the grocery than she did for her father.

  She got up, brushed her teeth, and washed her face, then pulled on what she considered to be her work clothes. She kept her house clean, and she was by nature a tidy person, but she wanted everything to be perfect for her date. It still felt odd to call this evening a date, but what else was it? Mr. Boyd had been her attorney as long as she could remember, though he’d been a very junior partner the first time she’d met him, which had been soon after her move to Chicago. The move had been her father’s idea, though he’d never lived in the house they had been meant to share. She managed her finances now, paid her own bills, and took care of the mortgage, along with all the other expenses that came with owning a house. The money to do all of that came from a trust fund in her name that had been established by her maternal grandmother, and had become hers to manage when she’d turned twenty- three. Before that, the income from the trust had gone through Mr. Boyd’s law firm, as managing trustees.

  She herself had no memories of buying the house, or even of moving into it. Her father said it was because she’d been in a terrible accident and had suffered a severe concussion, which had taken every memory she’d had before then . . . including any recollection of her grandmother or even her mother who, according to her father, had died in the same accident. But though he also insisted she and her mother had been very close, she didn’t have a single photograph of them together, or even one of her mother alone.

  “Stop,” she scolded. She had the bad habit of dwelling on matters she couldn’t change. She might never recover the memories she’d lost. And while she had a deep conviction that her mother had loved her, she never spoke of it, especially not to her father. He became agitated whenever she asked or even mentioned the past, and she’d learned to avoid it altogether. Which, considering he rarely visited, didn’t require much effort.

  It was much healthier for her to focus on the present, which she did now as she looked over her menu for the evening, double-checked to be sure she had all the ingredients she needed, then pulled out the vegetables and began chopping. It was something she could do well in advance, to make the night’s preparation go more smoothly.

  Mr. Boyd was very handsome, in addition to being kind and oddly charming, and he’d been patiently courting her for over a year, before she’d finally invited him to dinner. Until now, they’d met only at parties associated with his law office, and had never been alone, except for a single moment during the New Year’s party this year, when midnight had struck and he’d kissed her. Her cheeks still flushed at the memory, though their lips had barely touched.

  That touch, though, the brush of his lips on hers, had triggered something in her brain, as if she had kissed someone before, but had lost the memory of it, along with all the others. Though she’d asked her father about anyone she’d dated in the past, he’d dismissed the idea, telling her she’d attended a private, girls’ preparatory school, and that there’d been no contact with boys at all, much less any dating.

  She wanted to believe him. But just as she wondered why she didn’t at least like him, if he was her father, she also held that deep conviction that there was more to her past than her father knew. Or was willing to tell her.

  “Stop it.” She scolded herself out loud this time. Whatever the truth about her mother, her schooling, or anything else from her past, it no longer mattered. She had a date this evening with a handsome man who laughed at her jokes, who discussed serious matters of finance, and even politics, with her, and who seemed to value her opinion. She was lucky to have survived the accident that had killed her mother, and she intended to make the most of the life she had.

  Chapter Two

  Present day, Pompano Beach, Florida

  NICK LEANED BACK, his legs stretched out in front of him, and soaked in a scene he’d never thought to see again. His warriors sat around him in the big living room at the back of the house, all of them alive and healthy and free. It hadn’t been easy for any of them, not even when their curses had finally been lifted, and they’d been released, one by one, from the stone prisons that had trapped them for millennia. But even then, they’d continued to fight, emerging only to find themselves caught up in the ongoing war against Sotiris, the same sorcerer who’d cursed them in another world so long ago.

  But today wasn’t for memories or regret. Today was the first time in all those centuries, the first time in this world, that Nick and his four warriors could sit together, could share a drink and after all the horror, could laugh. That the four amazing women who’d made this day possible sat next to them was a miracle in itself. They were the ones who’d freed each warrior from his curse, and then remarkable as it was, they’d fallen in love, and joined their warriors in the battle against Sotiris. They sat now with their warrior mates and lovers, quiet or laughing according
to their personality, and all of them now a part of the family Nick had thought lost to him forever in another world, another time.

  Damian’s phone chimed where he sat next to Nick. He glanced at it, then slapped Nick’s shoulder and stood. “Come on, dinner just arrived, and I’m starving.”

  Everyone rose at the same time, but Nick raised his voice, stopping them when they would have trooped out to get the table ready and let the delivery guy through the gate with their food.

  “Just one more thing,” he reminded them. “We have a huge advantage, now that chance and Maeve’s curiosity—he smiled at the quiet woman who sat so close to Dragan—have returned the hexagon to where it belongs, to us, to those who fight against Sotiris. Its creator never intended it to be displayed under glass for Sotiris to gloat over. It was designed and built at immeasurable personal cost for one purpose only—to destroy Sotiris. And I will not let that sacrifice be in vain.

  “All of us are finally together again,” he continued. “He can no longer hold your lives as blackmail to get what he wants, to hobble our efforts. We are the hunters now, and he is the prey.”

  There was still no rousing cheer, because there was still no victory, but there were subdued kisses from the women, hugs and claps on the back from the men. Until Damian’s phone chimed again, reminding them that dinner awaited.

  Nick lingered after the others left, wanting a few more minutes before he joined the others, a few more minutes to remember the one person who was still missing from all this. The one who might have made their future victory possible. He sighed, and was about to rise, when he looked up to find Maeve standing on the other side of the coffee table with a laptop case under her arm. It almost made him smile. The damn computer was attached to her hip. But she was good on it. No question of that.

  “Nick? Can I show you something?” her voice was soft, her manner hesitant, but she stood her ground and met his gaze evenly. “I’ve found something that I think might be important. Something I think you should see.”

  Nico had been feeling sad, and maybe more than a little sorry for himself, but he smiled and waved a hand in invitation to Dragan’s mate. “Of course. Join me.”

  She walked over and sat next to him on the couch, placing her laptop between them. While unzipping the computer case, she explained. “When we were going through the files I copied from Sotiris’s computer, Lili found something interesting. It was in the trash can—on the computer, I mean—an email that had been read and deleted. Lili said it had nothing to do with Sotiris, and to let it go, but—” she shrugged. “I’m not very good at letting things go.”

  Maeve had been Sotiris’s assistant before she’d saved Dragan from his stone prison, and then stolen the hexagon from Sotiris’s showcase in the moments before they’d made their escape. Her inside knowledge of Nico’s greatest enemy had proven priceless more than once, and he was inclined to trust whatever instinct or intuition she thought worth mentioning. Right now, her head was bent over the case, but she looked up through her lashes, waiting for him to comment. When he only waited for her to explain, having no idea what she was talking about, she continued.

  “Anyway, last night I needed something to turn off my brain, and the email was still sitting there, pinned to the top of my inbox, so I did a little searching. Long story short . . .” She took a small square of paper from the inside compartment of her laptop case and handed it to him.

  Nico glanced at what she’d written on the paper, not knowing what to expect. But what he found had him staring in wordless shock. It was only two lines, but it was the most important two lines of his life.

  He read, “Antonia Rosales,” and on the second line, an address. Gods save him, an address. He’d spent a thousand lifetimes searching for any sign of her, had almost given up more times than he could count. And she’d been found by such a slim chance. There were so many ways this could have been lost. Antonia could have been lost.

  He didn’t join the rest of his family for dinner. He ran, instead, to his office to call the airlines. And the next morning, he flew to Chicago to discover just how much the fates had been willing to hold onto for him.

  Chapter Three

  Chicago, Illinois, present day

  NICK DROVE ALONG the wide streets of an upscale Chicago suburb, barely noticing the graceful curves, the long lawns, and elegant mansions behind gates of every size and design.

  He watched the house numbers flash by, though he didn’t need them. Antonia’s magic had been diminished, but she would still be who she’d always been. Born of magic, with magic. She didn’t need great power, or the ability to cast spells to be what she was. Every bit of her being—body and soul—was intrinsically magical.

  He was nervous when he left his car and climbed the few stairs to a wide front porch, the door framed in gracious plants that spoke of someone who understood what made a plant thrive, and offered a warm welcome. He rang the bell and wondered if that welcome would still include him.

  The door opened, and she stood there, a figure out of his dreams. Her dark beauty was as stunning as ever, her warm brown eyes just a little cautious, and more than a little startled until he spoke to her and they filled with tears.

  “I found you,” he said simply. And walked into her arms.

  TWO HOURS LATER, Nick tightened his arms around Antonia where they lay on the couch together. He was so hungry for the warmth of her flesh, the sweet scent of her hair—simple things that he’d feared he’d never have again. None of it was quite real to him yet. He was more than half-convinced that he’d wake up and find it had all been a dream. That Antonia was still lost to him, while he scoured the world, never finding her.

  His saying the words, “I found you,” had broken the spell which, until then, had kept her from remembering most of what she’d known of their world, and everything about him specifically. Neither one of them had known that a specific phrase was even required, much less what it was. Nick was haunted by what might have followed if he hadn’t just happened to say those specific words. Would she have been lost to him, to her own memories, for another century or two? Could even Sotiris have been that cruel?

  Antonia reached her hand around to caress his neck. “He’ll never get between us again, my love. I’ll kill him first.”

  “I’ll kill him,” he growled, resisting the idea that she might endanger herself on a task that he was, quite bluntly, better qualified to execute. Ha, good choice of words.

  “I can get closer to him than you can,” she said.

  “I’ve been plenty close to him over the last few years. We’ve battled more than once, and he’s run every time. Besides, I don’t trust your safety anywhere near that monster.”

  “He trusts me more than . . . . No that’s not right. He doesn’t trust me, but he’s become used to the me he created, the one who’s lived where he put me for so long.”

  “He’ll know the curse is lifted. He won’t expect you to be that person anymore.”

  “No, but if I play it right, he might believe that I’m not myself yet, either. That the shock was so much that I didn’t believe what you told me, and threatened to call the police.”

  “And I ran?” he asked dryly.

  “And you left, rather than see me so upset.”

  Nick rolled his eyes, but said, “Fine. Then, we’ll kill him together.” He’d meant it as a jest, but as soon as he said it, he knew it was true. They would kill Sotiris, but they wouldn’t be doing it alone. His warriors, and their mates, would want a piece of their tormentor’s flesh.

  Nick reined in his anger, reminding himself that the nightmare hadn’t come to pass, that by some freak chance he had said the right words. Antonia’s memories of her life, both before and after the curse, had come roaring back in a flood of image and emotion, and only his arms had kept her from falling. She’d been shocked to the point of pas
sing out by the overload of memory and sensation. Nick had scooped her up and carried her to the couch, and they hadn’t moved since, other than to tighten their embrace and combine their magic to weave an impenetrable web of protection around the house.

  Sotiris was sure to sense the collapse of his curse soon, if he hadn’t already, and it would be just like the evil bastard to attempt a fresh curse that would cast them away from each other once more.

  The incredible serendipity of how Nick had found her—through the determined efforts of a computer geek who’d found Antonia without even knowing who it was she’d been looking for. And then to find her in Chicago—a city Nick had visited a hundred times or more, without ever knowing Antonia was close. He’d always known the fates were capricious bitches, but this . . . . If he’d had the power, he’d have strangled every one of them with his own hands . . . even if, in the end, they’d delivered her to his arms.

  “How long have you been here?” Nick asked her on that thought, regretting that he had to lift his mouth from her hair to do so. “Have you been living in Chicago the whole time?”

  It had taken them a while to speak of serious matters, to ask where they’d been and what had happened in all the time they’d been apart. He’d related his story first, since it was longer and more complicated, and also because he remembered every day of it, though he didn’t know if that was an advantage or not. He’d started with the day of that final, fateful battle in their own world, and worked up to his arrival, with Lili, in what was then the post-colonial United States.