by Claire Davon
Phoenix’s hands curled and flexed with the urge to shake her. “More than likely,” he said, and she relaxed as he accepted the change of subject. “Blockers are rare. We need to find him or her.”
She laced her hands together, her expression distant. “What do blockers do?”
He wanted to pull her body against him and force the truth out of her. Alternatively, he could kiss her until her eyes went blind with desire. The urge, dark and hungry, beat at him under his skin. Fire danced on him, threatening to spread, before it died away. Rachel’s gaze followed the flame, a look of longing on her face.
He settled for moving to her, stopping a foot away from her place at the window, trying to see the same view she was seeing. Her mind had never been so closed. Phoenix tried to see past the wall to what was inside her, but her wall was frustratingly smooth. “Blockers are similar to shields, but for those with no ability. They take away the mental signals the person emits, that daily chatter you hear, and show a blank wall to anyone who probes.”
“Nice to have.”
He let out a low, harsh sound. “You don’t need it. You’re a blank wall right now.”
She rounded on him. “Am I?”
There was no question she wanted a fight. Her fists curled and she breathed heavily, as if she had run a long race. The primal part of him wanted to give her that fight. He wanted to tangle with her until their bodies were slick with sweat, and then give her another kind of fight. A mutual one. Fire playing along their skins while they moved together, him buried so deep inside her they were one person.
Her wall slipped, showing visions of death, mayhem and destruction. There was also hurt, anger and fear behind the wall before she slammed it down again.
“It was awful,” she said on a cry, her composure evaporating. “It was so dark, so awful. I hate it, I hate it!” Her wall shattered, her hatred now a tangible thing. A fire arrow of anger launched on the mental plane toward Haures from Rachel. There was a hoarse shout in the distance as the arrow had found its mark. It singed across their minds before it died away.
Rachel had a triumphant, self-satisfied smile on her face. Then her brows knitted.
“What?” she said, her smile slowly fading. “I found her and warned her. I used my power. Isn’t that a good thing?”
“Hate and anger are powerful weapons,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “But they leave you vulnerable.” And yet, he had felt them far too many times. Why should it be different for her?
Because you don’t want her to slip into darkness.
“Oh hell,” she said. Her anger dissipated. When she turned to him again, the darkness was gone from her face. “How very Star Wars Yoda of you. ‘Luke, don’t give in to hate. That leads to the Dark Side.’”
Phoenix held her gaze until she looked away. “Where do you think Star Wars got it from?”
Tears were running down her face and she made no move to check them. They fell over her cheeks, onto her chin and down her neck before disappearing into her shirt. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
He yanked her into his arms, more roughly than he had intended. Her body was stiff for a moment and then she yielded, collapsing against him. “You can do it. You are strong. You can be stronger.”
She said nothing, clutching at him. He let her cry, wanting all the dark energy washed out of her. Her body was supple in his arms. The burn of desire started again, more quickly than he could have believed.
Eventually her tears slowed. “Why didn’t he help me?”
Phoenix said nothing.
“The Ifrit. In my visions, my grandfather, I think. He looked like something out of Arabian Nights. He was big and menacing and had wings. He could have helped me.”
“I don’t know, Rachel.” The thought of her grandfather tugged at him. Her family. He wanted to know more about them.
“Why didn’t he help me? Why didn’t he stop it? Why can’t I remember?”
Although they were rhetorical questions, it was safer to answer. “You had a block on your memories, and with it your fire. I think it was designed to dissipate, perhaps at a certain age, like now. Perhaps that is why you were having fugues as your fire began to manifest. We need to know. It’s important.”
From far off, he heard an unfamiliar voice. “I am coming. Soon.”
Chapter Nine
Ron writhed in his bed, the nightmare vivid. Death. Destruction. Mayhem.
Excellent.
Then a winged man, and a guy who looked like a lion, a couple that had catlike qualities, and the last, a freaky fish person who appeared to have gills, collectively appeared. They fought on the opposite side and stopped the war, driving back forces that would have taken over the entire known world at that time, and changed the course of history. There would have been bloodshed everywhere, the victors killing most of those who didn’t look like them, and keeping only a few as short-lived slaves. Half the world would have fallen to their blades, if not for the do-gooders who stopped it.
The blood would have been beautiful. The massacres would have been epic. The humans’ world would have descended into chaos, all progress halted.
The voice of his customer echoed in his mind. “Pity we lost that one. The Elementals won that time. They won’t win this one.”
Ron bolted upright, shaking his covers off, the dream lingering. He wasn’t sure if the dream was real or not, but he discovered he was grasping the necklace the being had given him when he/she/it had hired him.
He wanted to rend, to destroy something. He wanted to kill.
Ron flipped on a light in the living room of the subletted apartment. To calm his edgy nerves, he checked each of the weapons he had acquired over the last weeks and found all of them to be in perfect working order, just like they had been yesterday.
It soothed him to know his guns would fire flawlessly. He checked the bombs and the grenades and was pleased to know all was in order. Perfect.
This jangled emotion wasn’t common to him. Ron prided himself on being cool under all circumstances, no matter what shit storm was going on around him. The anger he was feeling was almost visceral, primal in a deep-seated way he never allowed himself to feel.
It would be unwise to go out in the early-morning hours and find a transient to kill. It would be satisfying, but it would be a mistake. He wasn’t paid to do anything more than the tasks handed to him. The being had made it very clear that he was to do exactly as instructed, and no more.
Killing a transient was out. Unfortunately. He would be able to kill soon enough. The need to take a life beat against his skull, begging to be released. Who would know? If one more person died, who was to know that hadn’t been part of the plan? That it hadn’t been necessary? He didn’t think his employer would mind a few extra bodies, as long as the goal was accomplished.
An image of the couple he had followed the other day swam into his mind.
Them. Assholes.
Now he recognized the man as the same one from his dream/nightmare. The fucker who had spread his wings and stopped the primitive arrows from reaching their destination. That had been part of the reason the tide had turned against the warring tribes, and that failure had made their resolve nosedive, shattering their ranks.
The abnormal thing was good-looking too, if you went past the wings. He hadn’t had them the day Ron saw him, and Ron wasn’t sure what the deal was. He had wanted to be handsome like that jerk when he was younger, but he had been doomed to be small and nondescript. It had taken years to be glad for that plainness.
Who the fuck had wings, anyway? The anger surfaced again. Ron took several deep breaths to calm himself. A thing like that didn’t deserve to live. It wasn’t human.
The girl, that woman with him, she was clearly into the freak. She had been giving him that doe-eyed look, the one that said, “Oh fuck me, please fuck me now.” He could tell
by the look in the guy’s eyes that he was thinking the same thing.
Ron’s cock sprang to life. Sex would be amazing right now. He could find a hooker to fuck, make it rough. Maybe kill her.
No, damn it, he couldn’t kill anyone. He couldn’t bring attention to himself now.
Torching the place had been fun, but not enough. He didn’t understand why the being wanted it burned…or maybe he did know. It had to have been the place of the freak’s woman, he knew, and Ron smiled in satisfaction.
In the end, she could die. She deserved it for hanging out with that thing. He could make sure she went down when the politician did. A twofer. A searing hate went through him at the thought of the woman, hate he rarely allowed himself to feel.
She would die. That was all there was to it.
Yeah. That would satisfy him.
Too bad he had to wait.
* * * * *
Rachel was trying to make sense of their notes the next morning when Phoenix came padding out of his bedroom, dressed only in faded black sweatpants. His hair was tousled and there was the beginning of a five o’clock shadow on his jaw.
She turned back to the notes she wanted to transfer to the whiteboard, her mind still a jangle of emotions. She could feel his similar feelings. He wanted to do something, to act, not write names on boards. He wanted to lay a stream of fire on wood until it erupted into flames and they basked in the red-orange glow.
“Does that make any sense to you?” Phoenix said, his voice rough but with a smoky edge. She understood. The itch along her skin and in the center of her palms let her know that her fire too yearned to break free.
Rachel shook her head. “We need to get it all up where we can see it. There’re too many possibilities.” She pointed to one sheaf of paper, a printout of the countries in Eastern Europe. “You seem to be concentrating on Eastern Europe. Any reason?”
He shrugged. “Just a hunch. Nothing really concrete. There’s always turbulence in those regions. The others feel it too. Griff and Sphynx and Hip…”
“You don’t talk much about Hippocampus. He’s your water Elemental, right? Stuck with a name like that, I might spend all my time on the water too.”
If he smiled, it was a faint, fleeting turn of the lips before it was gone. “Hippocampus means sea horse in this context, but the confusion with the human name for brain case decided it for Ondine. She said she didn’t want to go around being called something that was located in the temporal lobe. When she assumed the mantle of the water Elemental ten years ago, she insisted on being called ‘Ondine’ instead of ‘Hippocampus’. The name took some getting used to, but it still fits. She was—I guess is—a marine biologist. She’s new to the Elementals. We’re all still getting used to each other. I told you this. Our old Hippocampus died ten years ago. Sharks got him. We think.”
“It still doesn’t seem real that you guys can be killed. You seem impervious to harm.”
His Adam’s apple worked as he swallowed. “It’s rare but it happens. None of us are the Elementals who began this journey, except for Sphynx. They were there at the beginning, I think. Hip was torn apart, so shredded there was no way to repair the damage. It was…gruesome. The only explanation we could think of at the time that they had been provoked by blood in the water, which was weird because Hip had a good relationship with the sharks. The water Elemental always has a connection with the life in the sea. But the sharks were there, and his body was fragmented. We were so unprepared for a new Challenge that it didn’t occur to us that it could be anything besides a strange accident, but now I wonder.” He spread his hands. There was fire at his fingertips. “Lara, the new Hippocampus—rather, Ondine was given the role immediately, to her surprise. We don’t know how we are chosen. She hasn’t completely adjusted to this role.”
Rachel snorted. “I can understand that.”
“We should have known it was something more. That was devastating. Sphynx usually knows these things. They’re the senior Elemental among us. They always have been. They’ve been alive for…I don’t know. Maybe as long as humans have been. They’re a paired couple, and together they are the earth Elemental. Their separate names are Masud and Shani. You will need to know that for the future.”
His eyes grew distant, as if he was seeing something far beyond him. The fire faded from his hands. She wanted to go to him and soothe the ache that the old Hip’s death had clearly left.
It didn’t seem right that they could be killed. Still, Phoenix was only a thousand years old, so there had to have been one before him. Then she laughed at herself, her body moving with the quick sound. “Only” a thousand years old. Her life was measured in decades, and the centuries Phoenix had lived seemed like a wonderful luxury. “Can the Demonos be killed?”
“They can, but like us, not easily. Many paranormals can kill those like us, especially the gods and demigods, but we don’t go around killing each other. The object is to win Challenge, and by extension, defeat the Demonos.”
“Have you ever killed a Demonos?”
“Of course. Casualties happen.” He paused. “Hippocampus’s failure in our last Challenge started the events that led to World War II. He was killed ten years ago, but he was never the same after our devastating loss.”
There were circles under his eyes. His shoulders drooped, making his chest slightly concave despite the muscles. Although the early morning was uncharacteristically bright, the rays of sun streaming through the large sliding door, he appeared shadowed, as if the day weighed heavily on him.
She put her hands on his chest. He raised his eyes to hers, hurt and pain in them. He made a muffled sound and closed his arms around her, pulling her against him.
“He was my friend,” Phoenix said finally, and his voice broke. “The three of us—me, him and Griff—went all around the world. We were a merry trio for centuries. When Hip died, we all felt it scream across our minds. He winked out, like a door slammed shut. Gone. It is horrible when any of us die, but Hip…” He shuddered.
She held him, murmuring soothing words against his neck and stroking his skin until the shudders slowed and then stopped. “Well.” She met his eyes. The shadows had lifted and she was glad for that. “We just have to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Come on, let’s see about these notes.”
He breathed out. Gathering up the papers, he squared the corners and fanned through them. He took the notes and flipped to a fresh page, writing with a back-slanting script.
“You’re left-handed.”
Phoenix grinned, and if it was a pale shade of his normal smile, she opted not to notice. “I’m ambidextrous. It’s useful in a battle. I can use both equally.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Can I see those?” She took the notes from his hands and studied them again. “We can start with eliminating countries. It might narrow the list down.” Rachel grabbed some clean sheets and wrote the different continent groups—Europe, Asia, South America, North America, Australia and Africa—putting them on the floor in a row.
Phoenix stared at the papers and said nothing.
“It could be any of them,” he said after several heartbeats. “Or it could be none of them. We think that Challenge may be designed to upset alliances and send the world into another World War, but we don’t really know.” He pointed to the Europe paper. “Each one of these countries has a reason to get involved in a conflict, given the right set of circumstances.” He then toed the Australia paper. “They are isolated, but who is to say that they wouldn’t react if threatened? We just don’t know.”
Knowing her dismay was plain on her face, Rachel looked at each of the papers with the continent names on them, wishing she knew more about global politics.
“How did you face Challenge in the past?”
His gaze moved to her. “When it happens, we will know.”
“But you’re here. I’m here. The shadow people an
d wolves freaked out. Doesn’t it make sense that your Challenge, whatever that means, is here in San Francisco?”
He shook his head. “It’s not that simple, Rachel. Challenge has taken place all over the globe. It doesn’t have to be here just because we are. It could be anywhere.”
It seemed to Rachel that he was making it too complicated, but she remained silent. She would learn more about the world, she vowed, if they got through this.
JT picked that moment to rub against Rachel, meowing up at her. He dropped a toy at her feet, giving her an imploring stare. They played fetch for a few minutes, and Rachel caught Phoenix smiling at the catch and return. He might not like cats, but he didn’t seem to mind this one.
Finally JT tired of the game and, leaving the toy halfway across the living room, licked his torso a few times before plopping down on the edge of the rug. She smiled at Phoenix, her mood lightened. He was expressionless except for a crinkle of amusement around his eyes.
“Hey, any chance he is…” Her voice trailed off, and she jerked a thumb to her cat.
Phoenix followed her motion with his eyes. “Paranormal?” he asked. He shrugged, shaking his head at the same time. “Sometimes a cat is just a cat.”
Disappointed, Rachel turned back to the task at hand. Joining him at the computer, she studied the pieces of paper on the floor. The names of continents and countries seemed to mock her.
From what little she knew about the world there was any number of ways that things could explode. They would need to study further. Phoenix was right. There were too many possibilities.
“Let’s see what we can find out online,” he said. “Perhaps we can track down some likely candidates. We may have to arrange for an overseas trip.”
She glanced at his back muscles and then at him.
After a slow grin, he shook his head. “That’s far even for me, and complicated by a passenger. Modern air travel is a wonderful invention.” Then he rose. “I will go get our supplies. Wait for me. Lock the door.”