Infinitely Human

by Candace Blevins

  Rinaldo crossed his arms. “You’ve spoken with someone who’s rented him?”

  Ryan didn’t answer. Slayers must work on their poker face too.

  A good two minutes of silence ensued, and Rinaldo finally said, “She does business on Milos, pleasure on Ibiza, for the most part. If she’s using him herself more than renting him, he’ll be on Ibiza. If not…” He shrugged. “I’m not sure I can make an informed decision between the two at this time. What makes you think she doesn’t have him on Gran Canaria?”

  “Of the three,” I asked, “Milos is the one without the protections? Unless she’s recently had them made, in which case ya’ll might not know?”

  They both looked at me, but neither answered.

  I crossed my arms. “Three people I know have a specific place on their property I can flash into. Anywhere else, and I find myself in a locked room I can’t escape from. If I had a property I used for mostly business transactions, that’s what I’d do.”

  No one spoke. I tried again.

  “You both think it’s an island not too far from Europe and Africa. I’d be willing to bet that if you compared notes, you could narrow it down to which island. Triangulation only works if you have at least three points. Something tells me you both have two, but not the same two.”

  Nothing.

  “Is there a neutral third party you’d both share your information with?”

  Another minute plus of silence, and I looked to Xaephan. “Why are you here?”

  “Rinaldo is playing a dangerous game.”

  “Dangerous for whom?”

  “Everyone.”

  I sat between Xaephan and Ryan, across from Lorenzo and Rinaldo.

  “Who’s driving?” I asked.

  “My regular driver,” said Rinaldo. “He’s also a pilot, and will be flying us once we arrive at the plane.”

  “I trust I’ll have my bag once we’re on the plane? I’d like to change clothes.”

  “We still need to figure out where we’re going.” Ryan crossed his arms and gave Rinaldo an appraising look. “At least two humans were puppets. Yours?”

  “Are you going to try to kill me if I say yes?”

  “Probably not today.”

  “Enough!” Neither of them looked at me, so I said, “If you both want to whip them out, I’ll be the impartial judge to decide whose is bigger.”

  Xaephan chuckled from beside me. “Ryan’s is bigger. A lot bigger.”

  I didn’t want to know how he knew.

  Actually, yes I did, but not enough to ask.

  “If that’s settled, let’s get back to where we’re going. If we arrive somewhere, how will we know if Lepori is there?”

  Rinaldo finally answered a question. “I’ll scan brains.”

  “Is that foolproof?”

  “There won’t be a false positive, but if they have him deep enough underground there could be a false negative.”

  “Or if they have his mind shielded by another vampire,” said Ryan.

  Rinaldo nodded agreement.

  “Once I’ve been on all three islands, I can flash us back and forth between them if needed. I’ll need to find a place no one’s likely to be, but if we can arrange that, we should be good.” I’d pulled my phone out and opened a map while I talked, and now I considered the most timesaving way to hit all three islands. “Milos, Ibiza, and then Gran Canaria?”

  21

  I changed into jeans and a loose tee when we boarded the plane. It was a fancy jet with sofas and recliners, and I stretched out on a sofa and fell fast asleep within moments of takeoff.

  Rinaldo was able to get into people’s dreams, but there was nothing I could do about that. I was not going to be the only person to not take a turn on night watch again. I needed sleep, so I took it while I could.

  I tried my best to set my subconscious to alarm me if someone tried to fuck with my dreams, or with anything else, and then meditated myself into sleep.

  Xaephan had said goodbye to us at the airport before disappearing into thin air. He’d likely learned more than he should’ve from us, but I think I’d learned a few things as well.

  We arrived in Athens three hours later. Ryan woke me to sit up and put my seatbelt on before we landed and I blinked myself to awareness while I fumbled to get the male part into the female part. A deep breath, I tried again, and it clicked into place.

  “Where’s Rinaldo?”

  “It’s daylight. He went below. I assume he’s in some kind of luggage unit his people will move him in. There’s a lot of staff on the plane, but they didn’t make themselves known until we were airborne.”

  I blinked again. “What time is it?”

  “Six thirty. We’ll be taken to a home on the coast, get a few hours’ sleep, and then board a boat. We didn’t fly into Milos because Katerina apparently has people watching the island’s airport.”

  “What are the odds we’re walking into a trap?”

  “About twenty percent.”

  “I wish I knew what Xaephan really wanted.”

  “I have someone watching Katerina. She’s in Belgium, visiting one of her offspring.”

  “I’m along for the ride with you. If you feel we’re on the right track, I’m here. It just feels a bit like we’re taking action before we have enough intel, and I don’t think we actually learned anything in Copenhagen. Katerina did, but I’m not sure we did.”

  “We’re grabbing whatever leads we can find and hoping they show us something.”

  The pilot brought us in for a smooth landing, and we were once again directed from plane to limo without having to deal with customs or security or parking or anything else. I could definitely get used to traveling this way.

  We passed orchards and small towns, but didn’t actually go through Athens on our way to the coast. Eventually, we traveled along a coastal road with white stone, very little vegetation, and beautiful blue sea. I enjoyed the views, but was disappointed about not seeing Athens.

  The meandering road took us to a picturesque little hamlet, and we finally turned off the road onto a smaller one. A half-dozen tuns later, we were on a narrow road with high fences and armored gates. You couldn’t see the houses — these people clearly valued their privacy.

  The limo pulled up to one of the gates, and twenty seconds later, we rolled past the fence and into a gorgeous garden.

  The house was concrete and square. It looked more industrial than homey, but it came with a beautiful view of the Mediterranean Sea. Another limo followed, and men rolled a long, sleek piece of luggage out of the back. I was certain Rinaldo was inside.

  “This home belongs to one of Rinaldo’s progeny,” said Lorenzo. “He isn’t in residence at the moment, but he keeps a small staff here who’ll see to our needs. Come.”

  The three-hour nap on the plane had been enough to tide me over, so I spent some time researching.

  In my experience, most coincidences aren’t accidental. They are co-incidences that point to something we should pay attention to. The necklace had once chosen Queen Boudicca, now it had chosen me. Why?

  Katerina hadn’t started out evil, and there was no proof she was evil now. She’d been merciless, but she was fighting for her freedom, and her people’s freedom, against an invading army. Mercy hadn’t been called for.

  I liked her. I didn’t want her to be the bad guy.

  I’d offered to stay awake while Ryan slept. We were probably safe, but there were a lot of shifters here. Ryan’s phone chimed every so often. He’d wake, look at me, and go back to sleep. I knew Slayers don’t need as much sleep as humans, and interrupted sleep apparently works for them too.

  I was just thinking I wouldn’t mind going to sleep, but pushing to try to look everything up I wanted to research, when his phone chimed again, he looked at me, but didn’t roll over and go back to sleep.

  “Your turn. I’ll take the watch now.”

  “Your special Slayer powers tell you when humans are sleepy?”

 
“Something like that. What did you learn?”

  “I liked Katerina. Are we sure she’s a bad guy?”

  “No, but Rinaldo thinks she owns Dwight Lepori, who seems to be killing people the way he did when he was free.”

  “Has anyone picked up on his scent? Couldn’t someone just be killing like him to try to send us on a wild goose chase?”

  He put a finger over his mouth in the universal be quiet sign, and I stopped breathing and listened. I didn’t hear anything, so I stretched feelers out. Someone was just outside our door. I stepped into the nothingness and came back so I was standing behind the person in the hallway, and he spun to face me shifter-fast.

  I formed a light-staff when I realized I didn’t recognize him. He went from attack mode to oh fuck in a heartbeat.

  Ryan opened the door behind him, and I motioned the shifter into the bedroom.

  “I don’t suppose you speak English?”

  “I do. I was coming to see if you need refreshment.”

  “You were spying on us because I fried the surveillance equipment in here,” said Ryan.

  I hadn’t realized he’d done anything, but I didn’t ask questions.

  “Your name?” asked Ryan.

  “I am Basil.”

  “Wolf?” I asked.

  Ryan nodded. I was getting better at figuring out what kind of shifter, but I wasn’t always right.

  Also, Ryan didn’t have to follow the “you can’t tell secrets that aren’t yours to tell” rules.

  “Who do you work for?” I asked.

  “The owner of this home.”

  I sighed. We weren’t getting anywhere, and probably wouldn’t. “We would like some fruit that hasn’t been cut, please. Apples, oranges, grapes, berries. I’m not picky about what you bring, but I’d like it to be in its original form.”

  Basil bowed low, turned, and closed the door on his way out.

  “It’s harder to poison uncut fruit than most other foods,” said Ryan. “Not impossible, though.” He stepped back to the door — a soldier on sentry duty. “I think perhaps you’re right, and we need to rethink our strategy.”

  “Rinaldo wouldn’t have forgotten about me getting trapped if I flash into the wrong place. It’s possible he didn’t know if I would, but…” I shrugged. Everything felt off. “This feels like a trap, and my instincts tell me Katerina is more trustworthy than Rinaldo, but I’m still pissed at him for going into the dreams of Lauren and the triplets, so my instincts probably aren’t calibrated right for him.”

  Ryan crossed his arms. “Do you need the fruit before you sleep?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll step to a convenience store and buy some stuff with cash. I know of one back home I can pop into without being seen. I won’t be gone five minutes. Fruit isn’t going to do it for me, and I don’t trust it anyway. Do you want anything?”

  “A cinnamon roll would be nice. Thanks.”

  22

  Despite the fact Ryan may one day kill me if he thinks I’m so far from human that I must die, I trusted him to watch over me while I slept.

  I awakened refreshed and alert, and I looked at my phone. Three o’clock, which meant it was ten at home.

  “I need to check in with Lauren.”

  He nodded, and I went to the app he’d told me to use to text people. We had a ten-minute text conversation that looked like it came from my phone, and she said she’d let Cora know she’d heard from me and I was fine.

  “Shower, then food, then what?” I asked Ryan.

  “Let’s ride the boat to the island and scout while it’s daylight. We can send it back for Rinaldo to join us after dark.”

  “Shower, boat ride, then food?”

  “Yes. Works for me. Can you flash somewhere and leave our bags? I don’t want to leave them here, but we want to walk around the island like we belong, and we won’t get that by wearing backpacks.”

  “Yeah. I can put them in my closet.”

  Lorenzo insisted on coming with us, but I argued that Ryan and I could look like a couple and blend in better, and we finally convinced him he should stay with Rinaldo and meet up with us later.

  I’d expected the Mediterranean to be like the Gulf of Mexico, but it was more like the Tennessee River on a slightly windy day. The ride was exquisite, and over long before I wanted it to be. I knew it was around seventy miles away, and had expected it take at least two hours, but we were there in a little over an hour. Our driver had insisted I wear sunscreen, and Ryan had handed me some sunglasses, for which I was grateful.

  I’d brought a thin purple sundress, and I paired it with Tevas for a cool, casual look. Ryan wore board shorts and no shirt, and looked like a surfer dude instead of a sociopathic vampire slayer. I was beginning to learn he could morph into whoever or whatever he wanted.

  And when he was around outsiders, he pulled off normal, which in some ways was more frightening than his emotionless persona.

  And for an hour, even though we had to be on guard, it felt a little like we were tourists. We ate Greek food at a little restaurant on the banks of the Mediterranean, in a little bay. We pretended to flirt. We held hands.

  People brought us two scooters, and I didn’t ask how Ryan had made it happen. We hopped on, and I followed him down the streets of Milos.

  How had I become the person who ends up on a paradisiacal island in the Mediterranean, riding a scooter?

  We stopped and bought bathing suits. Ryan used a credit card to purchase them, and I didn’t argue. He had a wallet, a knife, a gun, and goggles in the pockets of his board shorts, but they didn’t look full. I had some cash stuck in my bra, but I didn’t have a spot for anything else.

  Ryan didn’t explain what we were doing until we’d changed clothes in a bathhouse and were in the water.

  “The goggles have a scope feature. If we swim about a half mile west of here, we’ll be able to get a good look at her house. You can’t see it from the road, but you can from the water. Her people keep an eye out for boats and single people swimming, or a group of men, but mostly ignore couples.”

  “You’ve shifted your facial features again.”

  “You aren’t supposed to notice.”

  “You do it slowly, but I notice you look different.”

  “Most don’t. Also, any pictures taken of me will be slightly blurred, so there’s no photographic evidence of the shift.”

  I started to ask how he knew I could swim, but then I remembered him bodyguarding us while I swam with Lauren.

  We took our time swimming to the right spot. We were a long way out, but he assured me shark attacks are rare in the Mediterranean, and unheard of in the Greek Islands. He didn’t know why.

  He also found it ironic I was afraid of sharks but comfortable around ancient vampires.

  We stopped swimming and pretended to make out, except it didn’t feel like pretending. Ryan wasn’t the cold fish I assumed he’d be in bed, and he took control right off the bat.

  I’d like to say I was just playing along, but my inner submissive wanted to kneel for him, and I forgot to kick my legs to stay afloat.

  We laughed when I nearly pulled us under, but when I apologized, he merely said, “It isn’t that deep here. You can levitate yourself instead of kicking, and it’ll work for both of us.”

  I felt for the ground and cautiously reversed gravity. I’d eventually figured out how to do this so I could hover over water, and I didn’t want to push us up and out.

  Once I had us stable, I wrapped my legs around his waist without thinking, but then felt his hard cock against my girly bits and wished I hadn’t — but it was too late to move away without making it even more awkward.

  “I feel I don’t want to apologize, though I probably should,” he said, his voice deeper than I’d ever heard it.

  I snuggled into him more in case people were watching. “Just engage the goggles. Tell me what you see.”

  “More people guarding than in previous surveillance video, which tells me there’s
something to guard.” He kissed me again and took my breath away. I’d resituated so his cock was against my thigh instead of my pussy, but I still felt it throb

  I couldn’t blame him though, because my clit was doing the same.

  I rested my chin on his shoulder while he looked again, and then gasped when he shifted us in the water and kissed me again. My heart thrummed in my chest, and I pulled away from the kiss because it was too much.

  “That’s good,” he said. I hadn’t realized my goggles were special too, but his finger stroked the top of my ear, and then pressed the goggles near the spot where the strap attaches to the face part. “Talk to me. Tell me what you see. Angle your face up or down to bring it into focus.”

  It’d been blurry, and I angled my head down so I looked out of the goggles at a different angle, and suddenly it was as if I was holding high-dollar binoculars.

  “Damn. Okay. Are these picking up on heat signatures, too? I see people in foliage I don’t think I’d be able to see even with binoculars.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re right. Way too many outside guards to call this normal. I don’t know what it was before, but there’s something important to guard.” Something else caught up attention, and I took a few seconds to scrutinize it.

  “Beside the… I dunno, maybe a gas tank? There are animals. I assume shapeshifters, and I can’t be sure, but I think they’re honey badgers.”

  “They are. It’s a diesel tank for her backup generators, but if she’s using a lot more electricity than normal, she’d use them to keep from drawing attention to herself.”

  “Why would she need more electricity?”

  “I don’t think she has Lepori here. I think she has someone much more powerful — someone she can only imprison with an electromagnet.”

  A Faraday cage, which would also hold me.

  “Does Rinaldo know? Is he trying to trick us into rescuing someone else?”

  “Excellent question. I wish I had an answer.”

  “Any guesses about who she’s kidnapped?”

  “Godnapped might be a better word.”

  “Do we need Mordecai?”

  “I’d rather have Apollonius.”