by I. T. Lucas
A friendly game could provide the perfect opportunity for a casual discussion about the judge and her relationship with his lieutenant. Except, they were leaving shortly after dinner, so it wasn’t going to happen during this visit.
“I didn’t get the chance to play chess with Turner yet.” He lifted his glass and took a small sip of the superb whiskey. “Could you arrange it for our next visit?”
“Sure. Do you want to do it before or after the wedding?”
“Whatever works for both of you is fine with me.”
60
Rufsur
“I thought that we were invited to dinner,” Rufsur grumbled. “No one said anything about mingling for an hour before the food was served. I’m hungry.”
Dalhu just nodded.
The guy wasn’t much of a talker, which Rufsur usually appreciated, but right now, he would have loved to have Ruvon and Atzil entertain him with their stories about the fine clan ladies they’d met, or anything else for that matter.
He was in a nasty mood, and the bits and pieces of Kian and Kalugal’s conversation he was overhearing were not encouraging. The two were leisurely discussing hypotheticals like city-states and private islands.
It was nothing more than idle talk.
Kalugal had been almost dismissive of his problem, and the solution he’d offered wasn’t going to cost him a thing. After all they’d been through together, his so-called best friend wasn’t willing to bend even a little to help him.
“Are you usually so irate when you’re hungry?” Dalhu asked.
“It’s not the hunger.”
“Then what is it?”
“My boss is a selfish asshole.”
Raising a brow, Dalhu glanced at Kalugal. “Keep your voice down. He might hear you.”
“I don’t care. I’d say it to his face.”
“What brought this about? I thought that the two of you were friends.”
“We are, which makes it worse. I expected him to bend over backward to solve my problem. Instead, what I got was a shitty compromise. He graciously agreed to give me long weekends off so I could spend more time with Edna. But I know what will happen. There will always be something important for me to do that will make it impossible. I wonder what he would have done if our positions were reversed.”
“Is Edna your mate?”
Rufsur nodded. “I think so. We haven’t had enough time together for me to be sure of that, but I’ve never felt about a woman the way I feel about her.” He looked at the sliding doors, but the sun was reflecting off the glass, and he couldn’t see inside. “When I first saw Jacki, I flirted with her. I even competed with Kalugal for her attention. When she didn’t give me the time of day, I was disappointed, even a little angry. I thought that I had feelings for her. But after meeting Edna, I realize how shallow those feelings were.”
“It’s understandable. Jacki is very pretty, and she seems like a nice person too.” Dalhu glanced at Kalugal. “How did your boss react to you flirting with his mate?”
“He didn’t like it.”
“That’s all?” Dalhu snorted. “Then he must like you a lot. You might not realize it yet, but immortal males get extremely possessive. If anyone looks at Amanda with lust in their eyes, I feel like tearing him limb from limb. That’s why I don’t visit her at the university. It’s not safe for her students.”
As the guy talked, his eyes started glowing, and his fangs elongated, both giving credence to his claim.
“What if a good friend of yours looked at your mate with appreciation? Would you have reacted like that too?”
Dalhu nodded. “It’s not voluntary. That’s the way we are wired. Unless your flirtation with Jacki was more friendly than lustful in nature, Kalugal must love you like a brother to react so mildly to it.”
“I doubt it. He just has great self-control.”
“He is three-quarters god, which makes him as close to the source as it gets. His predatory instincts must be incredibly strong.”
“If he loved me like a brother, he would have done more to accommodate me. He could have at least promised to give it more thought instead of just saying no.”
“Maybe he thought it through already? He’s a smart guy. He must have known that you would come to talk to him about Edna.”
“That’s possible.”
As Rufsur's anger slowly dissipated, it left in its place a despondency that felt much worse.
Surprising him, Dalhu put a hand on his shoulder. “If Edna is your one, perhaps you should just quit your job and join the clan.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not? You’ve just accused your boss of being a selfish jerk.”
“I owe him my life.”
Dalhu looked at him with a pitying expression on his face. “The moment I saw Amanda, nothing else mattered. I decided right then and there to leave the Brotherhood, snag her, and run. The option of joining the clan wasn’t available to me, but that didn’t matter either. I was willing to spend my life on the run to be with her.”
“Did she feel the same way?”
Dalhu snorted. “Of course not. All she saw was a big scary Doomer, an enemy of her people. I pounced on her, bit her to get her loopy and compliant, and kidnapped her. I took her to a remote cabin and then did my best to win her heart. Luckily, the Fates must have been in my corner, so it all ended well.” He squeezed Rufsur’s shoulder. “The moral of the story is that what seems impossible now might become possible if you are willing to give it your all. The Fates demand sacrifice for their gift of a truelove mate. Perhaps yours is Kalugal and your lifelong friendship with him.”
61
Kalugal
The atmosphere around the dinner table was tense. Rufsur and Edna both looked despondent, Syssi and Amanda were doing most of the talking, Kian interjected here and there, and Dalhu only talked when someone asked him a direct question.
Kalugal was doing his best to keep the mood light with stories from his archeological digs and his translations of ancient tablets, but he kept getting distracted by the somber mood of the two lovers.
With Edna, it might have been her normal stern expression, and perhaps she was the type who didn’t talk unless she had something important to impart. But Rufsur was a social animal, and the usual trouble with him was keeping him from taking over the conversation, not coaxing words out of his mouth.
“What are you hoping to find in your digs?” Kian asked.
“Clues to our past, more information about the gods.” Kalugal put his wine glass down. “Now that I can talk with my mother, I’m finding out much more than I ever hoped to, but her knowledge is also limited. I think that the original gods who arrived on earth from somewhere else in the universe kept their children ignorant of their past and their origins on purpose.”
“Why would they do that?” Syssi asked.
“When I was still a member of the Brotherhood, I had a pretty decent relationship with my father.” He chuckled. “It wasn’t what you would imagine a relationship between a father and his son should be, and it wasn’t an easy task to stay in his good graces, but I did my best because he was my only source of information. Here and there I managed to lead him into revealing tidbits that he’d learned from Mortdh. His father had a temper problem, and when he got angry, he would sometimes blurt out things about the gods’ origins. My father collected those nuggets like the treasure they were and committed them to memory.”
“What did you learn?” Kian asked.
“From what I managed to piece together, the gods were banished to earth because they revolted against their father. Wanting to appear a benevolent ruler, he sent them to earth on a gold-mining expedition. At some point, though, communications with the homeworld were severed, and they were left to fend for themselves with no further support. They had no replacement parts for their advanced technological devices, and in time most of them were rendered useless. They couldn’t make new parts either because earth lacked the materials needed, o
r because they didn’t have the knowhow.” He leaned back and smiled. “What I hope to find are the remnants of that technology. Most of it has probably turned to dust by now, but perhaps a few relics were preserved in sealed off tombs or chambers that protected them from the elements.”
“So basically you are looking to confirm your theory about the gods' alien origins?” Kian asked.
“I want to find out where they came from and what kind of technology their homeworld had at the time. The Sumerian legends talk about the boat of a million years. I wonder if that means that their home is an enormous spaceship that travels through the universe, seeds worlds, collects materials, etc.”
“Maybe it’s a rogue system?” Amanda asked. “A red dwarf with its own orbiting planet that is not part of any galaxy and has its own orbit through the universe that takes millions of years to complete?”
Kalugal was impressed. “I see that you are also interested in the subject.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “I read Nature, Science, and other scientific publications. Sometimes an article on a topic that is unrelated to my field catches my interest.”
He was about to tell her about his own investigation into the phenomena of red dwarfs when his phone rang. “Excuse me.” He pulled it out. “Phinas wouldn’t call me unless it was an emergency.”
“Of course,” Syssi said.
“I’ll take it outside.”
As Kalugal pushed to his feet and walked toward the door, Rufsur followed him out to the backyard.
He accepted the call only after Rufsur closed the sliding door behind him. “What’s going on, Phinas?”
“We had another snoop make rounds in front of the house and then in the back. Normally, I wouldn’t bother you with something as trivial, but after what happened at your wedding, I’m not taking any chances. It started the same way.”
“Did you get a look at the snoop?”
“She opened her car window to take photos of the property, so we caught her face on camera. But she was wearing big sunglasses.”
“Send it over. Did you check the car plates?”
“Naturally. It’s a rental. But if you want more information about who the renter is, and where it was rented, you’ll have to call the place yourself and use your mental tricks. I tried to reach the hacker that we usually use, but he’s not responding.”
“He doesn’t work on Sundays. Text me all the information you have, and I’ll see what I can do. Did you send anyone to follow her?”
“By the time I was told, she had driven off already.”
Kalugal rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “It might be nothing. She could have been a real estate agent taking photos for clients or a prospective home buyer. But I’m not taking any chances this time. Put everyone on high alert. Until I come back, I want you to have two men on the street waiting outside for her in their cars. If the woman returns, or any other suspicious activity is noticed, I want that vehicle stopped, and the driver thralled for information.”
“Got it, boss.”
62
Kian
Kian, along with everyone else at the table, watched Kalugal and Rufsur through the living-room sliding door. Their somber expressions indicated that something had happened back home, and Kalugal was on the phone for at least half an hour. But as they walked back in, neither seemed in a rush, so it wasn’t an urgent matter.
“We had another snoop.” Kalugal handed Kian the phone. “Does she look familiar?”
The image captured by the surveillance camera was pretty clear, but since the woman was wearing big sunglasses and her hair was gathered in a ponytail, she was difficult to identify. Something about her looked familiar, though, the way her narrow lips were pressed tightly together, the shape of her nose, but it wasn’t enough to jog his memory.
“Can I see?” Syssi asked.
He passed her the phone.
She shook her head. “I can’t even tell how old she is. She could be twenty or forty.” Syssi handed the phone back to Kalugal.
Returning to his seat next to Jacki, he let out a breath. “Normally, I would have dismissed it. But as Phinas pointed out, a similar thing happened before the wedding attack. The only difference is that this time it's a woman.”
“They might use a woman because females look less suspicious,” Rufsur said.
“The question is, who are they?” Syssi asked. “Is it possible that Roberts overcame your compulsion? You told him to destroy all the documents regarding your house and the other locations the trackers transmitted from, right?”
Kalugal nodded. “Of course. But perhaps he had it written somewhere and forgot about it when he followed my instructions, only to find it later when the compulsion started to weaken. Perhaps reinforcing it over the phone is not enough. I probably need to pay him a visit.”
Amanda crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe it’s not Roberts. What if Simmons didn’t keep what he found a secret and told someone higher up about his suspicions? Or, maybe he planned to sell us to someone outside the government? A potential cache of paranormals would be attractive to a lot of people.”
Kian shook his head. “He would have told Roberts. Kalugal and I interrogated him extensively. He couldn’t have kept any secrets from us.”
“I don’t think Simmons told Roberts everything,” Jacki said. “They were good friends, but they were very different people. Simmons was a risk-taker, while Roberts was more conservative.”
“We should go home,” Kalugal said. “If any of Amanda’s suspicions are right, I need to be there.”
“No.” Syssi lifted her hand. “I have a bad feeling about this. Stay a few days longer.”
“I can’t. Phinas is a capable man, but I can’t leave everything on his shoulders. Besides, I’m not going to run and hide just because of some woman taking pictures of my house.”
Kian sighed. “I sympathize, but my advice is to listen to Syssi. When she has a feeling about something, all of us pay attention. I suggest that you heed her warning as well.”
Syssi put a hand on his arm. “It’s not a foretelling. It’s just a bad feeling, and it could be the result of what happened to us.”
“Did your men check the car plates?” Kian asked.
“It’s a rental. I called the company and compelled the receptionist to tell me where and when it was rented and by whom. It was rented at the San Francisco airport an hour prior to its arrival, and the name of the renter was Alice Mann. Perhaps your hacker can look into it. Mine doesn’t work on Sundays.”
“There are probably thousands of Alice Manns between the ages of twenty and forty.” Syssi looked at Kalugal. “And it’s probably a fake name anyway. Stay at least one more day. It will give Roni and William time to track down the rental and find the address of that woman. You can then send your men to investigate her.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I don’t like the idea of hiding somewhere while my men are exposed.”
“Then leave Jacki here,” Kian suggested. “There is no reason to expose her to danger.”
Jacki shook her head. “If you are going home, I’m going with you. You are not leaving me behind.”
Letting out an exasperated breath, Kalugal nodded. “We can stay one more night.”
“I’m so happy that you changed your mind.” Syssi pushed to her feet. “Who wants cappuccinos?”
63
Edna
“Are you worried?” Edna leaned her head on Rufsur’s arm.
The news might have been troubling to everyone involved, but Edna was selfishly happy to walk home with Rufsur and spend another night with him.
The evening air was warm, but the slight ocean breeze blowing through the village was enough to cool it down, and having Rufsur’s arm around her felt very pleasant.
“About the snoop?”
“About a potential raid on your home.”
“Frankly, I’m not. But I didn’t say anything because I was happy to stay another night. If we are luck
y, that woman will do more snooping around the mansion and not get caught. The longer this goes on, the longer I can stay.”
Edna chuckled. “I have an idea. Let’s hire a different snooper every week, someone good who will be careful not to get caught. Perhaps that will convince Kalugal that he is safer here.”
“He’s not worried for himself. He’s staying only because of Jacki.”
“I guess that the attack was a wake-up call for Kalugal.” They climbed up the stairs to her front porch. “He discovered that his ability doesn’t protect him and those he loves from everything.” She pushed the door open. “And the thing is, unless all of you wear earplugs twenty-four-seven, you are still vulnerable to the same kind of attack.”
“I know. We figured that with Simmons dead and Roberts under Kalugal’s control, we have nothing to worry about, but we should employ safety measures that address that particular threat.”
Edna walked up to the fridge and pulled out a pitcher of chilled water. “Perhaps you should ask William to make earpieces for all of your men.” She poured the water into two tall glasses and handed one to Rufsur. “While on duty, your men should wear them.”
Rufsur sat on the couch and crossed his legs. “I doubt Kian will agree to that.”
“Why not?” She sat next to him on the couch. “You can pay for the parts.”
“It’s not about the money. Besides, I’m sure we can find someone other than William to make them for us.”
“I know that William is busy now with the cuffs he’s making for the rest of your men. But after he’s done with that, he’ll have time to assemble several pairs for you.”