The Darkening (Immortals)

by Robin T. Popp

  The kiss rocked Darius to his core. When this is over, I’ll be back for you. He didn’t say the words out loud. He couldn’t. Not when there was a chance he might not survive the weeks to come. But the gods had brought him to this woman for a reason, and he was beginning to think he knew why. It wasn’t just because she could put him in contact with his brother. He looked down into her face, saw her dazed from his kiss but not angry. He couldn’t stop the small smile that touched his lips. “About the plane reservation,” he reminded her gently.

  She blinked several times, as if trying to bring the world back into focus, and then nodded. “Right.” She stepped away, and he reluctantly let her go. “You should eat while I jump on the computer.” She fixed him a plate of food, and he ate while she worked.

  Twenty minutes later, Darius was on the phone, explaining to Adrian about his memory loss and missing the flight. He purposely omitted his newly discovered vulnerability. Adrian would refuse to let him help if he knew Darius’s life was at risk.

  Once Adrian had all the new flight info and they’d hung up, there seemed to be no more reason to linger at her apartment, so they caught a cab to the airport. Lexi helped him check in and then, because they still had a little time to kill, she stood with him outside the security gate, going over the directions one more time with him.

  “No matter what, don’t take off your tattoos. If you do, they’ll not only kick you off the plane, they’ll arrest you.” She waited for him to nod that he understood and then went on. “You don’t have any luggage to worry about, so just follow the flow of people getting off the plane and eventually you’ll reach a public access area where Amber and Adrian will be waiting for you.”

  He gave her a patient smile. “I’ll be fine. The airport can’t be worse than the demon wars of the mid-twelfth century.”

  “No, I’m sure it’s not,” she agreed. “I just don’t want you getting lost or feeling like you don’t know what to expect.”

  “I like that you worry about me,” he said, stepping closer to her. “I like knowing that you care.”

  He watched her lips form a denial and saw it fade. She was a study of contradictions. One minute she was acting as if she couldn’t care if he lived or died, and the next, she was standing by his side like a protective mother, making sure he came to no harm in the strange, new environment.

  Her appearance was another contradiction. From the way she dressed, one would assume she was cold and hard. Yet in his arms, when his lips touched hers, she turned warm and compliant. He didn’t let himself think about whether she did that with every male. What was important was that she did it with him. He wondered if she’d do it now, there at the airport.

  Looking down into her upturned face, he felt himself getting lost in those light gray eyes. He lowered his head, noticing that she wasn’t trying to move away from him. He was so close, he could practically taste her lips already.

  Then he caught a flash of neon pink out of the corner of his eye. It was so unexpected—and yet familiar—that he turned to get a better look and saw a young woman wearing a bright pink hat walk by. The image triggered the last of his missing memories and they came rushing back.

  “I know where he is,” he told a stunned Lexi.

  “Who?”

  Darius watched the woman in pink disappear into the crowd, then turned back to Lexi, who was not looking very happy. He wondered why until he remembered that he’d been about to kiss her. He was still holding her too close for polite conversation. The moment was over, though, and there were more important things to demand his attention.

  “You remember the first night I was here? You walked out after we danced. I stayed behind. I remember now. I went into the back rooms with a woman. She had bright pink hair—like that woman’s hat.” He pointed in the direction where the woman had vanished from sight. “You can’t see her anymore, but she’s not important. This woman I was with was a demon.”

  “So?” Lexi growled, giving him a dark look. “There are as many demons in these nightclubs as vampires, and almost all of them run the back rooms.”

  Darius was shaking his head. “I know the demons you’re talking about. I saw them there, but those are lesser demons. They feed off living magic, but never take more than they can digest at one time. They’re relatively harmless. This woman I was with wasn’t one of those. I don’t know why I didn’t recognize her for what she was the minute I saw her, except that maybe my ability to sense the magical auras in others is as dysfunctional as the rest of my magic.” He was rambling, but now looked at Lexi, wanting to make sure she caught the full impact of his next words. “She was a succubus.”

  “A succubus—in the Crypt?” Lexi asked, sounding incredulous. “I thought all the incubi and succubi were destroyed ages ago.”

  “They were,” Darius said. “Or at least I thought they were. This one must have survived somehow.”

  “Is she the Big Bad that you’re supposed to be fighting?”

  “No. I remember Adrian saying that the ancient demon was male. While most demons can shift their sex, the incubi and succubi are gender specific and can’t change.”

  Lexi gasped. “You’re lucky she didn’t kill you—isn’t that what they do? Kill their partners? Why didn’t you get out of there the moment you realized what she was?”

  Because that was when he’d climaxed and Sekhmet’s spell had gone into effect, he thought derisively. But his being killed by a succubus wasn’t nearly as important as his other discovery that night. “Because she said that she thought the back of the neck was a better place for the pentacle tattoo than on the cheek.”

  She gave him a confused look. “No offense, but so what?”

  “Don’t you see? She was talking about Tain. He must be there, at the club—and I have to rescue him.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Settled into a cab racing back to the city, Lexi turned her attention to Darius. The mere sight of him drove her nuts. One minute he was about to kiss her, and the next, he was immobilized by the sight of another woman walking by. One minute they’re making love, and the next, he’s fallen asleep. She was starting to detect a pattern here, and it all pointed to the same conclusion: Darius found her boring.

  The thought was depressing, so she turned her attention to the matter at hand. “Adrian is convinced that Tain has turned rogue,” she said. “What makes you so sure he’s in need of rescuing?”

  “Tain finds joy in every aspect of life,” Darius said. “I refuse to believe that he now wishes to destroy it.”

  “Centuries of torture would affect a man’s mind,” she reminded him.

  “Not Tain’s,” Darius said adamantly.

  Lexi saw no point in arguing with him. “We should call Adrian and Amber and tell them you missed the flight,” she said.

  “Fine. Do that, but don’t say anything about Tain.”

  She tried not to take offense at his abruptness, knowing that despite what he said, he must be troubled with doubts regarding his youngest brother.

  After her call to Seattle, Lexi punched in Mai’s number, hoping her friend might have gained some info for her article that they could use. But, strangely, there was no answer on Mai’s cell phone. Lexi shrugged it off and disconnected.

  Thirty minutes later, they were standing outside the front door of the Crypt. In daytime, the place looked innocent enough, but she knew that looks could be deceiving.

  Just for the hell of it, she tried the door, but as expected, it was locked. “Now what?” she asked. “Technically, breaking and entering is against the law.”

  He looked down at her. “You think I care about your laws?”

  She glared at him. “Being arrested wouldn’t exactly do wonders for my career—and a stay in jail with some of the skips I brought in wouldn’t do wonders for my health. Besides, there’s a security system. If we try to break down the door, we’ll have half the police force here before you can say ‘bad idea.’”

  “You worry too much,” he t
old her, sounding much too calm. “I’ll have it open in no time.”

  “Yeah?” she snarled. “Do you have a battering ram tattooed on your dick?”

  His eyes momentarily widened in shock, but then he smiled and casually reached inside his duster and touched his back. There was a telltale shimmer of magic, and when he pulled his hand out, he was holding a small gold key. “More like a key tattooed to my ass—well, slightly north of my ass if you want to get technical.”

  He held it up, and she saw that it looked like an old-fashioned skeleton key, with a long, cylindrical barrel and a couple of teeth at the end.

  “That’s not going to work,” she pointed out.

  “Have a little faith.” When he held the key to the doorknob, it shimmered and changed its shape until it resembled a modern-day key. To her further amazement, it slid easily into the deadbolt, and when Darius turned it, she heard the sound of the lock sliding back, and the light on the security system flashed green.

  Totally amazed, she shook her head as Darius returned the key to his back. Then, glancing up and down the street to make sure there was still no one about, she pushed open the door. Inside, the place was empty, and the silence echoed eerily.

  “Any idea what we’re looking for?” she asked him, letting her eyes shift to wolf form, so she could see into the darkest shadows as she moved through the room.

  “I’m thinking they’re probably keeping Tain underground, or maybe in a parallel dimension linked to this building. What we need to find is the door or portal leading to it.”

  Lexi looked around and saw several doors leading to the restrooms, the sex rooms and the offices. “These doors all look pretty ordinary,” she said. “How will we know we’ve found the right one?”

  “It’s not going to be any of these,” Darius told her. “The doorway will most likely have a spell on it to keep it hidden.” He glanced at her. “How are you at detecting spells?”

  She gave him a dour look. “Maybe we should call Heather.”

  He shook his head and tapped his chest. The air above the Fury tattoo began to shimmer, and slowly the demon dragon emerged. This time, instead of becoming the size of a pony, Fury remained fist-sized and hovered quietly in the air.

  “I’m looking for the mark of demon spell. Can you help me?” Darius asked.

  Lexi saw Fury blink both eyes once, and then he zipped about the room faster than either she or Darius could have walked on their own. On his second circuit, he stopped before one of the red panels of drapes. Darius and Lexi quickly went to see what he might have found.

  “There’s a door here,” Darius told her after they both looked.

  “I don’t see anything,” she said.

  “Trust me, it’s there.” He reached beneath his duster, and when his hand re-emerged, he was holding the skeleton key. He slowly waved it before the panel, and each time it passed over a specific spot, Lexi thought she saw the key shimmer, but it never changed its shape.

  “It’s here,” Darius said. “But the spell is too strong for my impaired magic.” He turned to her. “I wonder…if you were to generate one of your magical balls of fire, maybe I could tap into your energy.”

  Lexi was curious to see if it would work and immediately summoned her magic, creating a small fireball in her palm. Unsure how Darius planned to tap into her magic, she was surprised when he held the key near her. She immediately felt the magic in her hand being pulled toward the key. As the pull grew more powerful, the shape of the fireball distorted, stretching and twisting until the tip of the elongated sphere touched the key. Then the key sucked up the fireball and Lexi was left holding nothing but air. The key, however, was now glowing brightly.

  Darius held it over the area where it had shimmered earlier, and this time, the key’s form shifted, growing smoother, rounder, longer.

  Lexi stared at it in surprise. “Did your key just turn into a wand?”

  “Don’t the witches and wizards in the modern century use wands anymore?”

  Lexi frowned. “Actually, I don’t know. I’ve not seen any. I thought they were mostly used as theatrical props.”

  “Well, this one is quite real.” The key had completed its transformation, and Darius stood back. He sharply pointed the wand at the area of the panel where the key had shimmered. A flash of light shot out of the end of the wand and exploded against the panel in a shower of red, green and white sparks.

  Lexi stared at the spot, positive nothing had happened, and then…“I’ll be damned,” she muttered as the panel of drapes vanished and in its place stood a door.

  “Thank you, Fury,” Darius said, and with a quick dip of his head, Fury flew to Darius, stopping to hover in front of the tattoo-free portion of his chest. Then the air began to shimmer, and when it stopped, Fury was a tattoo once more.

  “Shall we?” Darius asked, grabbing the doorknob and opening the door.

  Inside, they found a nice cherrywood desk, floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with books and mementoes, and a credenza with a decanter filled with a bloodred liquid and glasses sitting on top. It was entirely too corporate-looking for a vampire-owned nightclub, in Lexi’s opinion. Except for the artwork. The two graphic vampire-human orgy scenes were exactly what she’d expected.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked Darius, who was studying the pictures. At her question, he turned, and she thought she detected the barest hint of a smile on his face, but, fortunately, he didn’t make any suggestive remarks.

  “I don’t really know,” he told her. “Anything that might tell us more about the demons holding Tain.”

  Lexi looked around the desk as it occurred to her that there was no computer. No one did business these days without one, and it didn’t make sense that they would carry a laptop back and forth each day. As well hidden as the office was, there would be no need. They couldn’t have anticipated someone having access to an Immortal’s magic key.

  The more she thought about it, the more the office looked fake, like this was yet another illusion.

  She took another look at the layout of the furniture in the room. The two floor-to-ceiling bookcases flanking the credenza were piled high with books of varying sizes, stacks of papers and folded newspapers, most covered with dust.

  The entire left wall was one large bookcase. The shelves of it were neatly lined with leather-bound book collections, and there was little dust on these books.

  “How many demons do you know who read Tolstoy?” Lexi asked.

  Darius looked at her and then at the bookcase she’d been studying. He moved to stand just before the wall and raised his hands, trailing them over the shelves and books. Then she heard a click and the bookcase split in two, with the top half rising up into the ceiling while the lower half disappeared into a space that had conveniently opened in the floor.

  Lexi was left looking at six small screen monitors, one larger one, a panel of dials, switches and a central keyboard.

  “Nice trick,” Lexi said, impressed.

  “Any idea what this is—or how it works?”

  Lexi pulled the desk chair over and sat down. “An idea is about all I’ve got. I’m guessing that each of these screens is linked to a camera and depending on where these cameras are located, this is either a security system or an entertainment system.”

  She ran her hand across the panel, making note of each one. When she found the power switch, she turned it on. Immediately the six smaller screens flickered to life. “Entertainment system,” Lexi said when the images cleared and she found herself looking into four different private sex rooms and two views of the group sex room.

  She looked around the control panel and noticed a second power switch, so she pressed it and soon saw a sequence of boot-up commands flickering across the larger screen. She’d found the computer.

  “Surprise, surprise,” she said derisively a minute later. “They’re mostly video files stored here.” She randomly selected one and played it.

  An image of a private room fille
d the computer screen, and she watched as a male vampire and a human female walked in. It was with a kind of stunned fascination that Lexi watched the vampire undress the woman and carry her to the bed. Soon he had her beneath him on the bed and they were vigorously getting it on. There was no sound, for which Lexi was grateful. It was bad enough to watch without the accompanying animal-like, rutting noises.

  “Mother Goddess,” Darius swore as he stood behind Lexi and watched the screen.

  Feeling extremely self-conscious, Lexi closed the video file and selected another. This one showed two same-sex couples performing. Lexi closed it and opened another. This time, she got footage from the main bar area. She was about to close it when a familiar face appeared on the screen—Mai.

  Lexi quickly checked the date of the video—it was from the night before. She turned back to the video and saw that Mai was no longer alone. Lexi zoomed in on the image, hoping to get a better look at the man she was with. He seemed to be in his mid-thirties, had short blond hair and was very clean-cut, different from the type Mai usually chose. Lexi fast-forwarded the video and saw Mai and the man disappear into a back room. Thirty minutes later, they reappeared together, walked to the front door of the bar and left.

  Lost in thought, Lexi let the video run. She wondered if the reason Mai wasn’t answering her phone had anything to do with the blond. He’d been very attractive.

  The reappearance of the man on screen caught her attention. This time, he was alone and he walked through the bar straight to the back rooms.

  When he came back out, he was accompanied by a petite woman with bright pink hair. Beside her, Lexi heard Darius gasp. “That’s her,” he said. “That’s the succubus.”

  The couple on the monitor seemed barely able to keep their hands off each other as they walked through the bar. When they reached the front door, they stopped to talk to the bouncer. Lexi watched the bouncer pull out a card and pen from his pocket and hand it to the man, who scribbled something down before handing both back. The bouncer in turn took the card and tacked it to the wall, next to a series of other cards tacked there.