by Danica Avet
“Not like it’s hard to read your mind, toots. You’re not exactly Einstein,” he told her despairingly, though Ruby was too stunned and in pain to really take offense. “And I’ll tell you who I am just as soon as you tell me what an Amazon is doing in seclusion.”
She gaped at him. An Amazon?
He’s crazy, logic told her.
I wouldn’t be so hasty to judge, a new voice said in her mind, startling her to her feet.
Pygmy man’s gaze started at her feet and looked up, and up, and up. “Jay-zus…” he whispered. “I thought I was just imagining how tall you were.”
Blushing with embarrassment, Ruby cleared her throat and tried not to pay attention to the morbid curiosity on his face. She was quite used to the attraction she gathered everywhere she went, which is why she’d stopped going places.
“Look, mister, I don’t know who the hell you are or what you want, but this is private property. I’m asking you nicely to leave before I call the police,” she told him, tucking a strand of her wavy hair behind her ear.
“You’ll do no such thing,” he said sharply, snapping out of his awe-inspired stare. “You need to know what’s going to happen before I die, girl, so just sit quiet for a minute.”
“Shit, did I hurt you?” Ruby immediately forgot about her embarrassment and his attack, reaching for him to help him to her house.
“No!” he shouted, stepping away from her before she could so much as touch the fabric of his robe. “You can’t just touch people, you fool! God!” He panted, grabbing his chest as though it hurt.
Ruby bit her lip and wondered what his problem was. “Are you having a heart attack?”
“What?” he asked in surprise. “No! Stupid females. Why did I think I could do this?” He paced around, flapping his arms and muttering to himself.
“You said you were dying,” Ruby began quietly, trying to figure out what was going on. She felt like she was on a roller coaster with no discernable end in sight.
“Well, yeah, we’re all dying,” he told her sarcastically. “As it is, I’m going to die before you are, so there are a few things you need to know that’ll keep you alive. So just sit down, shut up, and listen to me, okay?” When she attempted to ask him something else, he exploded. “Do it to make me happy so I leave you the hell alone, okay?”
“I’m still calling the cops,” she warned as she pulled a chair out of her shed and sat down to humor him. This had to be the most bizarre day she’d ever had. She pondered the possibility that this wasn’t, in fact, real. She didn’t do so well with strangers, and this man was stranger than the usual. The only answer she could come up with to explain this weird turn of events was that she was dreaming. She’d fallen asleep after the cougar scare and was now dreaming the day away. She was so lost in thought she missed half of what the man said until he suddenly popped up in front of her face, demanding an answer.
“Yes,” Ruby said immediately, having no idea what he wanted but guessing he would be happy to hear an affirmative.
She guessed wrong.
The little man’s face turned purple and, for a second, she thought he was going to have a stroke right in front of her. “You haven’t been listening! Not to a single thing! That does it!” He stepped up so close to her it would’ve been termed ‘invading her personal space’ and hissed, “What is your name, human?”
“I’m not telling you my name! You’re intruding on private property—” Ruby began before she was cut off.
“I don’t give an elf’s ass. What is your name!”
She glared at him, but after several long minutes of the silent staring contest she caved. “Ruby Fontenot.”
Raising his arms to the sky and throwing his head back, he shouted at the top of his lungs, “As of today, I, Lineage Chieftain Julius Blue of the Elkfire Line, declare Ruby Fontenot to be my heir. She shall hold the position of Chieftain for all of her immortal life, guiding the Veil in its responsibilities, advising The Council as it requests, and aiding all who need it. Ruby Fontenot Blue of the Elkfire Line shall pass on the responsibilities and duties of her position to he who is most qualified when she begins to fade,” Julius said, giving Ruby a dirty look. “I declare it as the Chieftain, and so shall it be!” He finished with a sharp clap of his hands.
His words and clap echoed in the still afternoon. Ruby’s forehead furrowed as she looked at Julius. His breathing grew labored, and his body was suddenly bathed in sweat that seemed to sparkle in the sunlight.
He looked almost magical, even though she didn’t believe in any such thing. Julius probably wasn’t even his real name, Ruby rationalized. Besides, she lectured herself as she watched the gold beads of sweat roll down his face and neck, there had been no clap of thunder or lightning accompanying his freestyle monologue.
Just when she’d convinced herself he was normal, Julius lifted his eyes to her face. They were no longer black, and his face no longer stretched tightly over his bones. He looked as though he’d aged fifty years while she watched. Cataracts lightened those snapping eyes while creases lined his face as though drawn by an invisible hand. She gasped.
Ruby jumped to her feet and caught him before he fell to the ground, careful not to touch his bare skin. “What the hell happened?”
He laughed dryly. “Women. Never just accept something without a thousand questions, do you?” he asked, his voice a pale comparison to the rich timbre it had been before. He coughed softly, his tiny rib cage lifting valiantly as he strived for breath. “I told you, Ruby Blue, you’re my heir. Ruby Blue,” he said musingly and laughed again. “What a stupid name for the last Lineage Chieftain.”
He fell silent, his eyes closing as his fragile body seemed to collapse. Ruby looked around desperately, wishing for once she didn’t live so far from civilization. He might be a weird little guy who’d tried to kill her and mocked her at every turn, but he didn’t deserve to die here.
“Mr. Blue?” she asked quietly, gently jostling him in her arms. Each movement of her body made his undulate as though on an ocean, which showed just how much body mass he’d lost in the last twenty minutes. If she didn’t get him out of here and to a hospital soon, she feared he wouldn’t be much more than a bag of bones in an hour. “Mr. Blue?” Ruby asked again.
His eyes blinked open slowly. “Dammit,” he wheezed. “Woman, you need to—” He struggled to get the words out, the effort painful for Ruby to watch. “Need to get out–out of here. Coming for y–you…soon…last Chieftain.”
“What are you talking about? Who is coming? Your family?”
The hatred and fear on his face froze Ruby’s breath in her lungs. For the first time, she feared he wasn’t insane because something in his face spoke of real horror and pain.
“She is coming…will want…to possess the…last Chieftain. Can’t let her. Beware the eye. Hide…” he hissed, his body deflating as his breath rattled out in his very last expulsion.
Julius’s breath exited his body in a burst of red mist that hovered over them.
Completely stunned and unsure what to do, Ruby sat there with his body in her arms, staring at the mist. It was probably some kind of gas being used in biological warfare and if she breathed it in, she’d be infected too. So she held her breath.
The red rippled, showing deeper tones of burgundy and some dark oranges in the center. It was beautiful in a faintly menacing way, she thought uneasily. She moved her feet, tensing her legs to spring up and away if it moved closer. No sooner had her body obeyed her commands did the cloud of red envelop her, coating her from head to toe.
Cool, peaceful, and tinged with a hint of some exotic scent she couldn’t name, the mist crept into her body, saturating her every pore. Ruby wasn't an overly spiritual person, but feeling the vapor seeping into her skin was like being dipped in a river of peace.
Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back, letting it overtake her. She braved a deep breath and it rushed inside her, filling her up. The taste was akin to cotton candy and the m
ost sinful chocolate, sliding down her throat and warming her from the inside out. With that breath, she knew things about the body in her arms.
She knew his name was Julius Blue and he had once been a young Chieftain apprentice who was chosen as successor to the previous Elkfire Chieftain, Mahlaan. Ruby could see where each and every Chieftain joined the line, where they came from, where their families came from, until she saw the first Chieftain whose name had been lost. She saw every limb, every branch, and every twig all interconnected like a great tree. They were all humanoid, though some had special extras like horns or pointed ears. Ruby moaned, her mind bombarded by images and impressions.
The line sped up, flipping through each person again until it came back to Julius and showed her a younger man named Norman. This was Julius’ heir, she knew.
Norman had known he was going to die because he refused to give up the location of his mentor and the secret to a Chieftain’s transition. His eyes rose and seemed to stare directly into Ruby’s even though she was seeing everything from his future. His lips moved, and she read “Don’t fail us” right before a blue light surrounded him.
First, nothing happened, and then she could see the pressure closing in on him. He gasped for air as great bands of some invisible force tightened around his torso. Bones began to snap and that’s when he began screaming. Norman threw his head back and screamed until he could no longer get air. He writhed in pain until he was dead, until there was nothing left of him.
“Oh, God,” Ruby breathed, startling herself out of the trance.
Suddenly, she knew what Julius had done to her. She’d seen how he used the last of his strength to bestow his powers onto her. The Chieftain. She was the Lineage Chieftain, and she alone had the ability to determine the perfect leaders of the Veil. She was also on someone’s shit list because Julius had given her his Instinct, a wordless voice that urged her to run. Now.
Waking to find that she still sat in front of her shed filled her with relief, but seeing that Julius’ body had disintegrated down to dust while she was in the trance shocked her.
“Oh, God,” she said again and tried to get to her feet. For some reason, her knees wouldn’t support her weight, so she collapsed back to the ground amid Julius’ dusty remains. “Oh, God!”
Panic began to well up inside her. The…Instinct told her to run. Danger was near, and she needed to get the hell out of Dodge right now or she’d be joining Norman and Julius. Remembering Norman’s demand that she not fail them, Ruby forced her knees to lock when she stood, wobbling on her feet like an ungainly colt.
She didn’t remember the trip to her house, only that she ran inside and began throwing clothes in a suitcase. Ruby had no idea where she was going, who she was going to run to, or even who she ran from, but the Instinct told her to flee for her life. Fear nearly choked her, and she heard herself gasping for breath, nearly sobbing in terror.
Ruby stopped with a bra and panties set in her hands. She needed to calm down or she’d hyperventilate. She tried deep breathing, but that was so not working. The fear roiled in her stomach, tearing its way up her body.
In the bathroom, she ran the cold water and began splashing it on her face when she noticed she had dark red and orange markings the size of half dollars on each of her palms. Using the tip of one finger, she traced the marking on her left palm. It didn’t hurt. The marking seemed to be embedded deep in her flesh, just a little lagniappe to top off her sterling day.
Ruby snorted loudly. It looked like a tribal wreath, all sharp lines and exaggerated curves. She laughed loudly, the sound more than a little hysterical. She needed to calm down and think rationally, she chanted over and over, but another voice inside her said, “Fuck rationalization. Get your ass in gear!”
She closed her eyes and braced her hands on either side of the sink, trying the deep breathing thing again.
By the time her heart calmed down and she didn’t feel as shaky, she was lightheaded. It would have to do because the hair on the back of her neck prickled in warning. The Instinct said to leave, and she would follow it.
Nodding to herself, she blinked open her eyes.
Everything was normal, structure wise. Untidy brown hair straggling into face. Check. Sharp cheekbones and stubborn chin. Check. Long, straight nose and thick, naturally arched eyebrows. Check. What was out of place? Her once brown eyes were completely blacked out like some kind of freaky monster in a horror movie. There was no telling where the iris began or ended, just solid black. Exactly how Julius’s eyes had been before he completed the ceremony. As she got more freaked out, red flecks began to simmer in the depths of the black.
To put the proverbial cherry on top, she had a tattoo on her face. The design looked a bit like the marking on her palms except it wasn’t circular so much as curvy and on only one side of her face. Deep red with dark orange shimmering around the edges, it curved up from her neck to the left side of her face to frame her eye. The tattoo design flowed down her neck where it was thin in the front, but got bigger on either side. She frowned recognizing the shape. It was the exact same spot Julius’ hands had been when he’d strangled her.
She screamed.
“Oh, my God, what happened to my face?” she screeched at her reflection, causing Briggs to woof from the other room.
“Oh, God,” she moaned at herself. “I look like a circus freak…where the hell am I supposed to hide looking like this?” she wailed at her reflection.
Ruby looked around her comfortable little bathroom, sniffed at the homey touches she’d put on the antique cottage, and knew she’d never step foot in her comfortable world again.
Chapter Three
“Pagan has a lead.”
That was all the warning Lucian got when Chieftain Julius came out of hiding.
He’d been sitting in a dark corner of the notoriously raucous metal bar called The Pit when word came down. Jackson St. Marie passed the message along and blended back into the crowd. The only beings around him were all human females, and the ladies were eyeing him like he was their favorite candy.
Lucian ignored them and looked at his message. Just four words, but they changed his entire weekend. He would’ve spent most of his time following leads, but he would’ve rather spent the daylight hours trailing a few femoral arteries and having a lot more fun. Now he’d be chasing down the last Chieftain and trying to get the git to the Council’s Region Five safe house, as directed by his mentor before the Eturi got to him first. At least, that had been the plan before Pagan got involved.
He stuffed the message in the pocket of his jeans and paid his tab. The blondes who’d been eyeing him most of the night looked anxious to see him standing up. If he thought for one minute he would be back in town, he’d chat them up for an address and phone number, but as it stood he had a feeling this assignment was going to take him to hell and back.
Lucian knew his appeal. Hell, having lived for nearly three hundred years, he was pretty comfortable with his masculinity. He didn’t understand it, but he went with the flow. Women seemed to love the black-red hair he refused to cut falling to his shoulders, honoring his deceased brother’s memory, and they went weak-kneed over his height, which he found to be a pain in the ass when he wanted to walk through normal sized doorways. More than a few women had even said they fell in love with his bedroom eyes, whatever the hell that meant. He just knew they were green and he saw perfectly in absolute darkness with them.
None of those human women knew he was a vampire or the heir to the Oculum, or “eye,” of Council, the ruling body of the Veil. Hell, there weren’t many humans still alive who knew anything about the supernatural community that existed parallel to their safe little mundane world. The Veil had been so named because it was hidden and would remain so forever as long as the Eturi didn’t screw it up for everyone.
That’s where Lucian came into the equation. As the Oculum-se, his sole purpose was to spy out problems for Council and see if things were going to develop in favor of t
he Veil or the Eturi. If things weren’t looking so good for his people, then his job was to either end the threat on his own or send in the Guardian Elite. Most of the time, he ended the threat on his own. His mentor, Oculum Bianca, appreciated his skills, and if she sometimes thought his duties should include a little one-on-one time with her, he didn’t let it bother him. He’d even taken her up on the offer more than once.
Jackson appeared on the opposite side of the bar, nearly as tall as Lucian, and signaled that Pagan would be waiting at their prearranged destination with the information he needed to make the grab. Lucian gave a nod before giving the blondes one last wistful look. Ah well, there were women all over New Orleans and if he were lucky, he wouldn’t be on this assignment much longer.
As he made his way to the designated drop-off, he sent Pagan a message. ‘How in all the nine hells did you figure out the Chieftain will be at the d’Ours?’ he asked in complete bafflement.
‘It’s simple,’ she snorted to him. ‘I talked to Kali. She said the Chieftain was loaded for bear and headed east. Then I realized if I were the Chieftain, I’d go for the most populated area around, which is New Orleans. Then, it was just a simple matter of canvassing all the hotels in the area for things involving bears, and that’s when we came across d’Ours.’
Lucian’s head was hurting by the time she finished her explanation. He didn’t see how anything she’d learned from Kali could lead to that particular hotel, but he decided to go with the flow. Pagan’s hunches were usually right.
Heading down Royal Street, he knew that convincing Council to hire Pagan and her team had been the best two hours in bed with the Oculum he’d ever spent.
* * * *
Ruby meandered her way across South Louisiana, sticking to the back roads and away from people if she could. The constant feeling of being watched hadn’t entirely left her since she’d run from her house. She’d packed as much as she’d dared, took her emergency cash out of the freezer, and hit the road. For once, Ruby was thankful she was alone in the world.