The Darkening (Immortals)

by Robin T. Popp

  “I would appreciate it if I could deliver my prisoner in one piece,” she told him. “Preferably still alive.”

  “Why take him in at all?” Darius asked. “You’re wasting your time.”

  Taking out her cuffs, Lexi tried to grab Paddy long enough to secure his wrists, but he wouldn’t stop thrashing against the cord. “What do you suggest?” Lexi asked between clenched teeth, giving Darius a frustrated look when she couldn’t grab the little man’s hands.

  Darius shrugged. “I could let Fury eat him. I doubt anyone would miss him.” At the suggestion, Fury swooped down, pinning the leprechaun to the ground.

  Darius noticed that while Lexi kept a careful eye on Fury, she took advantage of the situation to move slowly toward the leprechaun. When she was close enough, she snapped the cuffs around his wrists. “Call off that thing,” she ordered him. “I’m taking him in. He’s not worth much, but I do have bills to pay.”

  Darius made a small gesture with his hand, and Fury shrank down to the size of his fist. Then he floated to the place over his chest where he had been moments before and slowly fused with his skin.

  When Darius looked up, Lexi was glaring at him. He smiled—he couldn’t help it. He enjoyed pushing her to get a reaction. Like the other time…he shook his head to clear away the fog and let the faint memory grow stronger.

  “We’ve done this before, haven’t we?”

  Surprise lit Lexi’s face.“Yes—I guess we did.Yesterday. You remember that? It was right after you appeared.”

  “Some of it.” The memory of pain flashed through his head, and he remembered the Calling spell that had signaled the need for him to come to Earth. He remembered fighting with Sekhmet, then being pulled away to appear before Lexi. There were still some gaps, though.

  “The rest will come,” she assured him as if she’d known he was worrying about it. He gave her a grateful smile and walked with her to the end of the alley, pulling the leprechaun behind them. When a cab pulled up, he, Lexi and their prisoner squeezed into the backseat.

  “I’ll make it worth your while to let me go,” Paddy Darby said after they’d been riding in the cab for several minutes.

  “What?” Lexi looked at the leprechaun curiously.

  “Ye said ye had bills to pay,” he explained.

  Lexi glanced at Darius, but he kept his expression bland, waiting to see if she could be bribed.

  “I suppose you’re offering me your pot of gold?” she asked. “No, thanks. It’s probably Irish mob money.”

  “I don’t have a pot of gold,” the leprechaun mumbled so softly that Darius almost didn’t hear him. He didn’t try to make Lexi another offer, but fell sullen and silent, leaving Darius to wonder what kind of trouble he must be in.

  More serious than simple public intoxication, he thought. A leprechaun’s pot of gold was his life’s fortune and so much more. It represented what it meant to be a leprechaun. A leprechaun who had lost his pot of gold was a failure and a disgrace.

  Darius would have liked to question the little man about it, but just then the cab pulled in front of a large building and came to a stop.

  “We’re here,” Lexi said, opening her door to get out.

  “Where’s here?” Darius asked her.

  “Jail. We’re going to leave our friend here, so he can think about whether or not he wants to jump bail in the future,” Lexi said, pulling the leprechaun out of the car.

  “I won’t be here long,” the little man said. “I have friends—powerful friends—who will get me out.”

  “Maybe so,” Lexi said, pulling him up the steps of the police station. “Let’s hope they like you enough to be willing to post bail again.”

  At that, the leprechaun’s face paled considerably. Darius had seen that look before on men’s faces. It was the look of someone who, given the choice between the task before him and death, would have chosen death.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sun was just starting to go down by the time Lexi finished the paperwork at the station and she and Darius were able to catch a cab to her place.

  Lexi had no sooner walked in the door than her cell phone rang. She answered it and heard Mai’s voice.

  “Hey,” Lexi said. “How are you?”

  “Great.”

  Lexi heard the satisfied smile in her friend’s voice. “Good time, was it?”

  “Oh, my God. It was fabulous.”

  She sounded so excited that Lexi was actually surprised. “Really? You got a lot of good stuff for your article?”

  “Well, no. That’s why I have to go back tonight. Want to come with me?”

  “Can’t,” she said, sneaking a look at Darius, who was walking around her living room, inspecting the knickknacks on display around the place.

  “Why not?” Mai asked. “The full moon is less than a week away—I know you need to relieve some of your magical angst.”

  Mai was right. Lexi could feel the pressure building inside her. It was bad enough trying to function in a state of extreme arousal all the time, but now she’d compounded the problem by bringing Darius home with her. Although maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. “Not tonight,” she told Mai. “I—”

  “You can go if you want,” Darius interrupted from across the room. Lexi clamped a hand over the receiver, but it was too late. Mai had heard his voice.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “I, uh, have company,” Lexi admitted.

  “That’s my girl,” Mai exclaimed. “Who is he? Is he hot? Did you meet him last night? He must be good in bed. I bet he’s hung like a—”

  “Good night, Mai.”

  Lexi disconnected the call, looking at Darius, who was standing across the room, giving her a knowing smile. She felt her heart speed up and found herself thinking that Mai had a point. A man who had centuries of experience under his belt, so to speak, would have to be good in bed, wouldn’t he?

  She tried to rein in her thoughts, but it was useless. Darius had a definite bad-boy aura with the duster on, but she was afraid to invite him to take it off because then he’d be half naked and that was too much temptation for her to resist right now.

  Not wanting to be rude, but needing to put a little space between them, she headed into the kitchen and started searching the pantries for food. “Are you hungry?” she called to him, opening the fridge door to look inside.

  “Famished.” His low voice rumbled from right behind her, causing her to jump. She turned and saw that his gaze had been focused on her rear, and he was a little slow in raising it to her face. That show of interest kept her off balance.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have anything,” she said hurriedly, closing the fridge door. “We can either go out or order in.”

  He gave her a slow smile. “If ‘order in’ means staying here, I choose that.”

  She thought about suggesting they go out anyway. She knew that as tempted as she was, and the way he was looking at her, if they stayed in tonight, they were going to end up between the sheets—assuming they even made it to the bedroom. As much as she wanted the sex, she really didn’t want to make him even more egotistical.

  As if he knew she was about to protest, he added, “I wanted to ask you more about some of the things I’m remembering. It’s hard to know what’s real and what isn’t.”

  Damn it, she thought. How could she refuse a plea for help without coming across like a total jerk? “All right,” she agreed. “We’ll stay in. What do you feel like eating?” Between his knowing smile and her raging hormones, she heard the answer: you.

  Ordering herself to get a grip, she tried for a casual tone of voice. “How about pizza?”

  Without waiting to see if he agreed, she picked up the phone. It was a reflection of just how pathetic her life was that she knew the number by heart.

  It didn’t take long to place the order, and when she hung up, Darius had disappeared. She went looking for him and found him standing naked to the waist, his back to her, in the middle of the living
room. She saw that even his back was tattooed. A broadsword angled from his right shoulder blade to his left hip was the most prominent image, though there were others as well.

  At her gasp, he turned, and the sight of him left her totally speechless. She’d seen most of the tattoos despite the duster, but without it on, they were so much more obvious to her: the golden serpent over his heart, the dragon, the golden rope, the Chinese throwing stars and the various daggers and axes along his arms. The tattoos were the first things she saw, but then she saw the contours of a well-muscled chest that tapered to washboard abs and slender hips. He reminded her of a football player or that wrestler-turned-actor The Rock. “The pizza will be here shortly,” she said, trying to stop staring. “Do you want to sit in here and watch TV?” She paused.“You’ve heard of television, haven’t you?”

  He smiled. “I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it.”

  “Then come on.” She gestured to the couch. “You’re in for a treat.”

  She turned on her television set and found something to watch. Darius sat next to her on the couch, and she was able, for a while, to pretend that this was an ordinary evening spent with a casual friend.

  When the pizza came, Darius ate with enthusiasm, making her glad she’d thought to order two large instead of her usual one medium. “I guess they don’t have pizza where you’re from,” she commented, feeling a little silly to be so delighted that his first experience with pizza should be with her.

  Darius, whose attention had been focused on the TV show, glanced at her and swallowed the bite he was chewing. “No. In fact, they don’t have a lot of things in Ravenscroft.” His voice held a note of bitterness. “I’ve only been here two days, and already I can under stand why my brothers left.”

  “Do you have just the four brothers?”

  He nodded. “What about you? Any brothers or sisters?”

  “One sister. Beverly. We were twins.” She felt the familiar ache she always felt when she thought of her sister.

  Darius put down his pizza and gave her his undivided attention. “Were?”

  “Yeah. She died a year ago from complications during surgery.” She hadn’t planned to say any more about it than that, but he listened with such empathy and attention that soon she was pouring out the entire story. Before long, she even lost her resolve not to cry, and a single teardrop rolled down her cheek.

  Embarrassed, she brushed it aside and took a breath. “Wow—I bet that was more than you wanted to know. Tell me about you. These tattoos, for instance.” She reached out to touch the dagger on his arm and then stopped short. “Is it safe to touch?”

  “Probably not.”

  “I’m sorry?” He’d spoken so softly that even with her lupine hearing, she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

  “Nothing,” he told her, holding out his arm. “You can touch it.”

  She laid a finger against the blade of the dagger tattoo. Part of her expected to feel cool metal, and she was a little surprised when she felt the warmth of his skin instead. Intrigued, she traced her finger along the length of the blade until she heard his quick intake of breath. She looked up, and the heat of his gaze nearly singed her.

  She had to try twice before she could find her voice. “How do they work?”

  “They morph into the real thing when I need them to. My mother, Sekhmet, has a bad temper, which makes for many enemies. For her, every day has the potential to be a battle, and she doesn’t believe in going unprotected. She wanted me to always be prepared, so she made me a gift of these tattoos.”

  “Do they hurt?”

  “You mean when they morph and become real? No. I hardly notice it.”

  She picked up his arm, wanting a closer look at the dagger. As she moved it this way and that, she was barely aware of how intimately she was touching him.

  “Do you want to hold it?” he asked her, his voice sounding strained.

  Her gaze snapped to his, wondering if he was actually referring to the dagger—or to something else. She decided it was only her depraved mind that gave the question double meaning.

  “Yeah,” she replied, unable to keep from sounding just a little breathless.

  He chuckled at her reaction and placed his hand over the handle of the dagger. She noticed that the air above it shimmered slightly right before the image sharpened. Then he was suddenly holding the actual dagger in his hand. He flipped it around and handed it to her.

  Its weight surprised her. Flipping it over, she watched the light play off the metal blade. It was as real a dagger as she’d ever seen, representing lethal power, danger and excitement all in one. Just like the man.

  She knew it was the influence of the full moon making her all too aware of the man, but that didn’t mean she could stop noticing.

  She handed the dagger back and watched as he touched it to his skin, where it shimmered and faded until it was the tattoo once more.

  “What exactly is that dragon on your chest?” she asked, when her gaze traveled over the small tattoo. “I think it scared Paddy sober.” She gave a small laugh, but then saw him looking down at her with slightly raised eyebrows. “Okay, okay. It scared me too,” she admitted. “A little. What is it?”

  “It’s Fury.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He smiled. “That’s what I call him.” He turned toward her so she could get a closer look at the tattoo. Sitting this close to him, she was overwhelmed by his strength, his vitality—in short, by him.

  She tried to hide her reaction by examining the tattoo. Looking closer, she was impressed with its detail. Even when it was small like this, no bigger than the size of her closed fist, it was intimidating.

  “It’s a demon.”

  Her eyes snapped up to his face in surprise. “A demon?”

  “His real name is Fuhramek. He’s the last of the Bocca demons. About six hundred years ago, he was terrorizing one of the Immortal realms, so I went to get rid of him. We were locked in battle for close to a year.”

  “What? Do you mean you fought off and on for a year?”

  “No, I mean we fought—no breaks, no food, no sleep, no nothing—for a solid year.”

  “But how can that be? Without food or water you’d…” She suddenly realized how it was possible. “You were both immortal, so you couldn’t die.”

  “Being immortal doesn’t mean that by the end of a year of fighting we weren’t in bad shape. We became too weak to fight any longer. We agreed on a temporary stay so we could recuperate, after which time we would return to resume the fight.”

  “You trusted him to show up?”

  Darius smiled. “The Bocca demons aren’t like typical demons. They lived by a very strict code of ethics. If Fuhramek said he’d be back, then I knew he’d show up.” His eyes took on a distant look. “I left—went home, ate, slept and regained my strength. When I went back to resume the fight a year later, I found Fuhramek looking worse than I’d left him. He told me that when I left, the portal had shut, and because it had been created from the energy of living magic, he—a death-magic creature—couldn’t open it without expending great energy—which he didn’t have. He’d been stuck there the entire time.”

  “So you killed him and turned him into a tattoo?” Lexi asked.

  He gave her a sharp look. “I too live by a code of ethics. No, I didn’t kill him. I freed him from the dimension so he could regain his strength.”

  “Why? If you were just going to try to kill him, why help him get stronger?”

  “Destroying an enemy too weak to fight is a slaughter—there’s no honor in that.”

  She felt the conviction behind his words, appreciating for the first time what a man of conviction and morals he really was.

  “What happened?”

  “The extra year had made him too weak to travel home. Because all demons feed off the energy of living magic, I allowed him to feed off me to regain his strength. I knew he wouldn’t try to kill me by taking all my energy, because there wo
uld be no honor in it for him. It was a slow process, and as time passed, we forgot our differences and talked. I guess we became friends. I learned that he was in that other dimension because he was trying to get home. So, in the end, instead of fighting him, I helped him get home. Only it turned out there was no home.”

  Darius took a deep breath as if remembering that time. “Sometime while he and I had been fighting, another demon race came along and destroyed his home dimension, leaving Fuhramek the last of his kind. I took him back home with me, but he wasn’t comfortable being among the gods and goddesses of Ravenscroft. He was going to leave, and that’s when we realized the harm I had done by allowing him to feed off my energy. Instead of restoring him back to health, I’d given him a life-long addiction to my immortal life force. Though he tried, he could no longer exist on his own. After a while, he started taking the form of one of my tattoos just so he could stay in contact with me.”

  Lexi stared at the tattoo. “Doesn’t it hurt to have something that is death magic fused to your body?”

  Darius smiled. “After all these centuries, I don’t think there’s much death magic left to him.”

  She mentally shook her head. It was just so different from anything she was used to. She dragged her attention away from his mouth and moved on to the coil across his stomach. “What about this? This is the rope you used on Paddy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. The magic behind it allows it to assume and retain the shape I want it to, despite what others try to do to it.”

  “And this one?”

  One by one, she touched the tattoos on his chest, listening to the stories behind their origin, though she was only listening with half a mind. The rest of her thoughts were focused on the feel of his skin, his scent and the sheer magnetism of the man himself.

  “What about these?” she asked, touching the lightning bolts on his shoulder, unknowingly leaning toward him as he faced her on the couch.

  His gaze met hers, and she could barely focus on his answer. “Those are a gift from the sun god, Re. They’re some of his fire bolts.”

  Aware of just how close they were sitting, she wet her lips and tried to refocus her thoughts on the tattoos. “What about this one?”