by I. T. Lucas
He charged his expenses to the Brotherhood's American Express that was covered by his account, but as it was routinely monitored, all he could use it for was to buy himself fancy shit and pay for his use of the island's whores. Cash withdrawals were limited to no more than five thousand dollars at a time, and only when going on missions. A detailed account of what he spent it on was required upon his return.
To most of Navuh's fighters, it was more than enough. The simple-minded, brainwashed morons couldn't conceive of using the money for anything else.
Navuh's system was brilliant.
He paid his soldiers well so they felt rewarded and stayed loyal. But by limiting their access to their own money, he ensured they always had to come back. If they didn't, they were presumed dead and the money reverted to him.
Win-win for Navuh.
Dalhu lifted his hand and stared at the Patek Philippe watch on his wrist and the five-carat diamond ring on his index finger. Just these two pieces alone were worth in excess of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He had another Patek Philippe and two Rolexes, each in the hundred thousand range.
Strutting around and showing off the stuff, he pretended to be a consummate connoisseur of fine jewelry... Dalhu couldn't have cared less for the ostentatious shit.
But it provided the means to an exit in case he needed one.
Like a cunning mistress to a rich man, he was accumulating a wealth of marketable goods under the guise of vanity. He had to be smart about it, though, waiting years between each purchase to avoid suspicion. Navuh executed men at a mere hint of sedition or suspected desertion.
It wasn't much, and Dalhu wasn't planning anything yet. But he liked to be prepared as best he could for anything life might throw at him; be it an unforeseen calamity or a great opportunity.
One never knew what tomorrow might bring.
"Sir, we are ready to place the call." His second bowed politely, jarring Dalhu from his thoughts.
Pushing off the couch, he stretched his big body, then jutted his chest out and his chin up. Dalhu was ready for his reward; the rare praise from Navuh.
As he entered the mansion's sophisticated media room, Dalhu nodded to the assembled men, then walked over to the equipment to make sure they set up the wiring correctly for the scheduled teleconference.
Inspect, don't expect—was a good piece of advice for any leader, more so if one had morons for underlings.
The equipment worked fine and everything else was ready as well. His men had already cleared a large carpeted area in front of the screen by pushing the overstuffed recliners all the way against the side walls, and were now taking their places on their knees in a compulsory show of respect and devotion to their master; Lord Navuh.
Dalhu took hold of the keyboard and knelt facing the screen with his men at his back, waiting for the exact time to make the call. Sending the request, he waited for it to be acknowledged.
Several long minutes passed before the face of Navuh's secretary finally appeared.
"Greetings, warriors, please get in position for his Excellency, Lord Navuh."
The men prostrated themselves with their foreheads touching the floor and their hands beside their heads, palms down.
"Our exalted leader; Lord Navuh," the secretary announced, signaling they could begin the devotion.
Ten strong voices sounded the chant.
Glory to Lord Navuh the wise and the just
In his guidance and mercy we put our trust
With his bounty we thrive
By his will we live and we die
We are all brothers in
the Devout Order of Mortdh
In his name we wage this Holy War
As always, the devotion was repeated three times. When it was done, the men held their position while Dalhu pushed up to his knees and faced his leader.
"Tell me your mission was a success, warrior!" Navuh commanded.
"It was, my lord, an unparalleled success. We infiltrated the enemies' secret organization and took out their number one asset, effectively halting any further progress their technological mastery could produce for the foreseeable future. But the victory is even greater than the one we set out to win. The programmer we killed was an immortal. At long last we succeeded, taking out one of our true adversaries. I believe we are closer than ever to uncovering the hornet's nest. It would be a great honor for my team and myself if your lordship would allow us to stay and hunt them down." Dalhu bowed his head, touching his forehead to the carpet as he anxiously awaited the praise that was his due.
"You have done well, as is befitting of my scions. It is a great victory in our ancient war against the corruption and depravity of our mortal enemies. You are to be commended for your bravery and your loyalty to the Holy War. May Mortdh strengthen your hands and harden your hearts, to go forth and deliver his vengeance to the vile and the wicked."
Basking in Navuh's lavish praise, Dalhu and his men commenced the devotion.
Glory to Lord Navuh the wise and the just
In his guidance and mercy we put our trust
With his bounty we thrive
By his will we live and we die
We are all brothers in
the Devout Order of Mortdh
In his name we wage this Holy War
As the screen went blank, the men rose to their feet. With pride shining on their stupid faces, they embraced and clapped each other's backs.
Dalhu joined in reluctantly. As their leader, it was unavoidable. He didn't share in their revelry. He was already thinking and planning ahead, something the mutts were incapable of doing.
It was all good, though. He was the brain and they were his feet and his arms. He led and they followed. He wasn't one of them, not in his heart or his mind. They were beneath him. His to use or dispose of.
Navuh had not asked about casualties, and Dalhu hadn't volunteered the information—it wasn't important—no one cared. But he was short on fighters if he was to go on a hunt for immortals.
Their kind was notoriously hard to find.
In close proximity, an immortal male was relatively easy to detect by the tingling awareness that alerted the males to each other's presence; a built-in warning mechanism that competition was near.
A female, on the other hand, was nearly impossible to discern.
Dalhu never met one. He heard rumors, though. Supposedly, when aroused, an immortal female emitted a unique scent that was distinctly different from the one produced by mortal women. But that necessitated that he found her while she happened to be in that state... and what were the chances of that?
No wonder one was never caught.
Fuck! How was he going to do it? Where would he start looking?
He had deduced already that the enemy had a presence in California; in the Bay Area as well as in Los Angeles. The programmer and the professor had to be part of a larger nest. But both areas were huge and densely populated by millions of mortals.
Hopefully, the stuff his men had collected from the professor's lab would provide him with a clue.
Earlier tonight, he had sent them back to the lab with orders to break into the university's computers and search through the desks and filing cabinets. As instructed, they hadn't left a drawer closed or a piece of paper untouched while searching for anything that he might use to find the professor.
CHAPTER 25: SYSSI
The morning came all too soon for Syssi.
Tossing and turning for hours after waking from that dream in the middle of the night, she had finally fallen asleep when the sun had come up. Her alarm had gone off in what seemed like only a few minutes later.
She felt groggy.
The headache that had begun in the lab must've developed into a full-blown migraine with the symptomatic confusion that came with it because as hard as she tried she couldn't remember how she had gotten home.
There was a vague memory of Amanda or someone else driving her, and she must've collapsed on her bed straight away
because she was still wearing the clothes from the day before.
Shuffling to the bathroom, she took them off and dropped them in a dirty pile on the tiled floor, then stepped into the shower. With her head hung low, she let the water soak her hair.
What the hell is wrong with me?
That numbness refused to wash away. Feeling as flat as the two curtains of dripping wet hair at the sides of her face, she found it a strain even to reach for the shampoo. She went through the motions, working it into her scalp and watching the foaming clumps wash down the drain as she went through the laborious process of shampooing her mane, twice, and conditioning it, once, then soap, then towel.
Blow-drying all of that hair was exhausting as well. She loved it, but sometimes it was just too much work. Chopping it off would have made her life so much easier.
Right. Like there was a chance in hell she'd ever do it. It was the one feature that she was sure was beautiful. The rest? It depended on her mood. Some days she thought she looked pretty good; others? Not so much.
Eyeing the pile of jeans, she grimaced—too constricting. Shifting her gaze to the comfy yoga pants she grabbed them instead. Not exactly stylish or appropriate for work, but whatever, she had no energy for anything tight.
Finishing her unprofessional attire with a plain T-shirt, she plodded barefoot to the stretch of counter that was her kitchen and made herself coffee.
As she sat at her dining table, still feeling lethargic from the lack of sleep, the prospect of leaving the house and walking to work seemed daunting. She couldn't bring herself to get going. For some reason, an unpleasant feeling in her gut warned her to stay away from the lab.
And it had nothing to do with Amanda's bitchy mood from yesterday.
Maybe it wasn't about work at all, perhaps she was just tired because she hadn't slept well...
Or maybe it was the sense of loss that had come on the heels of her dream, still clinging to her and weighing her down like a wet, sticky sludge.
As she sipped her coffee, images from the dream were pushing their way into the forefront of her mind, but she pushed them back, trying to ignore them. What was the point of dwelling on something that could never be? The fantasy was better forgotten; else real life would always pale by comparison.
Still, that erotic dream had come out of nowhere and had shaken her conviction that she just wasn't all that sexual...
Syssi sighed, she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt even a spark of desire for a man. Was it possible that she had been repressing her needs while subconsciously yearning to be touched?
Oh, well. She didn't have time for all that self-analytical nonsense. She needed to get going or else she'd be late.
Reluctantly, Syssi pushed up from her chair, rinsed out her mug in the sink, and headed to her closet for shoes. But as she reached for a pair, she froze, suddenly seized by an overwhelming sense of dread.
There was no way she was going out that door.
Something dark and dangerous was looming outside, waiting for her to leave the safety of her home.
What the hell?
Trying to overcome her panic attack, she looked for a reasonable explanation for what might've triggered it. The wolves chasing her in the dream, the grueling workday she had yesterday, the headache...
But all along she had known none of these were the real reason. That kind of panic had seized her only once before.
On the night her brother Jacob had died.
She had been living in the dorms at the time. Jennifer, her roommate, and Gregg had been there when the panic attack had struck.
Syssi still remembered that when her phone had rung, she had had her head down between her knees struggling to breathe. Knowing with complete certainty that nothing would ever be the same once she answered that call, she'd let it ring, trying to postpone the inevitable.
Eventually, Jen had answered it for her…
"Syssi, sweetheart, it's your brother..." Jen handed her the phone.
Andrew's voice was pained..."It's Jacob..." he managed to croak through his choked up throat. "That damned motorcycle... he was killed on the spot..."
Syssi sat there, frozen, not really listening to the rest of his words. Her eyes staring into nothing, she felt like all life had left her, and the cold was spreading from the center of her heart to the rest of her shaking body.
She was going into shock...
It had happened over four years ago, and she had spent most of the first two crying.
It still hurt like hell. Heaving a sigh, Syssi wiped away the few tears that escaped her tightly squeezed eyes.
If it hadn't been for Gregg, she wouldn't have made it. He had been wonderful throughout that ordeal, a real lifesaver. Syssi shivered as she imagined going through all that pain without his help. He had held her for hours while she'd cried, had arranged for someone to take notes at the classes she'd missed, had fed her, had talked to her, and somehow had managed to pull her out of the dark abyss she had sunken into.
She wondered if it hadn't been too much for him to bear at such a young age. Maybe the erosion in their relationship had started then. Could she really blame him? What twenty-year-old wanted a girlfriend who was perpetually sad? Was it possible that he had stayed as long as he had out of pity? Or some misplaced sense of guilt?
Be that as it may, she would forever be grateful to him for standing by her side at her time of need.
Plopping down on the couch, Syssi covered her eyes with her hands, and taking a deep breath, thought back to all of her other premonitions—big and small. There were none she could remember that in one way or another hadn't come to pass. With that in mind, she decided not to fight it and stay home, and the panic eased, leaving behind only a vague sense of apprehension.
A fresh cup of coffee spiked with Kahlua helped to calm her some more.
And after an old episode of Scrubs and two spiked cups of coffee, she felt even better...
CHAPTER 26: AMANDA
Amanda's phone was dancing the jig on her kitchen counter, buzzing and chiming at the same time. Reaching for it, she smiled at Onidu's quirky face on the screen.
The picture had been taken during last year's trip to Hawaii, capturing perfectly his look of repugnance at the shorts and T-shirt she had insisted he should wear in place of his habitual suit. It was the best picture she had of him; with his expression so close to the real thing, she could almost believe it was genuine.
"Yes, darling."
"I have grave news, Mistress. It seems your laboratory has been ransacked by vandals. All is in disarray, with pieces of equipment strewn about and loose wires dangling precariously from what is left standing. Every last drawer has been pulled out of its place and its contents lie torn to pieces, littering the floor. But the worst are the disgraceful, hateful words—which I am too much of a gentleman to repeat—scribbled all over the walls. It is terrible! What should I do, Mistress?"
Onidu sounded truly distraught, and Amanda had to remind herself that it was nothing more than his programming providing the appropriate tone for the situation at hand.
"Onidu, sweetie, can you record what you see with your phone and send it to me?" Amanda knew it was no use trying to persuade him to recite the graffiti. His programming prevented the use of profanities; her mother's work no doubt...
"Yes, Mistress, right away."
WHORE, SLUT, HARLOT, TART, DIE... were some of the endearments scribbled with a black sharpie on the walls, and a sloppy drawing of the Doomers' emblem ensured she knew whom the message was from.
Very creative boys. Nice vocab. Amanda's face tightened with distaste as she turned off the phone and dropped it on the granite counter. Shaking her head, she crossed the kitchen to pour herself more brew. But then, as she lifted the carafe, she froze with the thing suspended in midair.
What if she had left something behind? The thought sent a cold shiver of unease up her spine. What if the Doomers had found something?
Chewing on her lower l
ip, she tried to remember if there had been anything left in the lab that the Doomers could use. The test results from her pet project were safely stored on her laptop, which she remembered taking with her. And the small notebook with her hastily jotted ideas and random thoughts was always in her purse, ready for whenever and wherever inspiration struck...
That uneasy feeling gaining sudden momentum, Amanda raced to her bedroom and started rummaging through the multitude of pockets in her purse. Getting frustrated, she upended it, emptying the whole thing on her bed.
The notebook wasn't there.
Running back to the living room, she repeated the routine with her laptop case.
It wasn't there either.
Oh, shit, shit, shit... Amanda raced back to the kitchen for her phone.
"Kian, we've got a big problem," she said the moment he answered.
"What's going on?" He tensed, picking up on her urgency.
"I left something behind in the lab, and if the minions-of-all-that-is-evil have found it, we are in deep shit!" She relayed Onidu's report, telling Kian about the break-in and the graffiti.
Kian wasn't interested in the details. "What did you leave in the lab, Amanda?"
"Look, I'm sorry! I thought I had it in my purse, but I didn't... I must have left it somewhere... It's not like we had time to double check...." She was on the verge of tears.
"Just tell me what the fuck it is, Amanda!" Kian lost his patience.
"I can't find my notebook, the one with all my great ideas and all the other stuff I like to keep handy... The thing is, I wrote in it the first names and cellphone numbers of all my paranormal test subjects..." She sighed. "And the rankings I assigned to them. Most are between one and three, Syssi is a ten, and another boy is an eight. If the Doomers have half a brain between them, they'll go after these two, but if they are all morons, they might go after each person on that list."
Amanda paused, waiting for Kian to explode. When all she heard was his heavy breathing she continued, offering what she believed was a slight glimmer of hope. "It's only first names and phone numbers, maybe it's not enough for the Doomers to go by?"