This wasn’t the Gold Coast of Queensland and New South Wales. Victoria, Australia didn’t offer up cities like Sydney or Brisbane; it was not exactly the hustle-bustling heart of tourist attractions and night life that larger cities in Australia afforded visitors, and Anna had considered that when deciding whether or not to bring her friend to Victoria for the vacation stay. But the same things could be said of any city in the US that was not New York or LA. There were other places in Australia to visit – and the Great Ocean Road was absolutely breathtaking, sporting what was widely considered the most beautiful drive on the planet, with a host of snorkeling, surfing, and diving locations along the way. She’d known in her heart that Piper was going to love it. After all, they’d met at a surfing competition in LA years ago.
And Anna had been right. All her friend wanted to do was drive and walk and surf and drive and walk and snorkel and surf. There were even a plethora of second-hand surf and water sports gear shops all around that the girls could utilize to restock or replace broken or used items.
Given the amount of solar romance Piper had been partaking in, Annaleia wasn’t sure good genetics and SPF 30 were going to cut it in protecting her from permanent skin damage and possible melanoma. She was just lucky her traveling companion happened to know a few good warding spells that protected their wearer from harm – even from the burning rays of the sun.
The sun was strong here. It wasn’t to be taken lightly. She wished she’d started the wards a day sooner; that would have kept her scars from being so visible. Though admittedly, she had placed the wards over them not as sunblock, but to protect them from wipeouts. Not that she would admit as much to Piper. Or anyone for that matter. A surfer concerned about wipeouts? It might make her fodder of a different kind.
Anna took a full deep breath, sucking in the clean air coming off the ocean as they rounded a bend. She let it out in a happy sigh. Sunlight glinted like a line of diamonds across the top of the water, contrasting yellow to the clean, deep blue. Pristine gold beaches, secluded and small peeked out every now and then below the cliffs. There were no suicides here… on these beaches. Not deliberate ones, anyway.
She couldn’t wait to hit the water. These days she spent more time neck-deep in other people’s problems than in the sea, and in Philadelphia she didn’t live anywhere near the coast. It had been ages since she’d had a chance to break out her board.
These two precious weeks had been a long time coming for her. It almost felt surreal that it was actually happening. She was there, it was real, she wasn’t going to just wake up and find it was a dream.
She’d held her position at the advertising agency for what she considered a long run. She didn’t age, so staying anywhere much longer than five to ten years was dangerous, and she was fast approaching the decade mark. But she really liked the job. She was good at it.
This was her first vacation with the company. And though she’d tried hard to be centrally essential to the company, she knew deep down she’d have to quit soon. That sucked.
It wasn’t her only job, and because her second job happened remotely, it didn’t inadvertently require her to grow old like all the other humans working there. Afternoons, some nights, and almost every weekend, Anna worked the emergency suicide hotline. It was only a “job” in the sense that it required she work hard. There was no pay of course; she was a volunteer. But it was important to her, and far more important to those who called in. They were sufferers of an invisible pain, and that compounded anguish was something of which Anna knew first hand.
She could provide for the callers what far too many others could not: empathy.
And then there was Anna’s third occupation, the one that stayed off the books in every possible way. “In the shadows” so to speak, or at least away from mortal prying eyes, she was a warden. Rather, she was considered an honorary member of a warden clan. The clan was Draco and its wardens protected much of the upper mid-west United States and sometimes lower middle Canada, when our friendly neighbors called out for supernatural help.
In essence, wardens were the protectors of the supernatural world, and every continent had them. They guarded the unknowing mortal from the hunger, fury, lust, greed, and all-out madness of things that mortals chose not to believe in. Were it not for wardens, survival of the fittest would have become survival of the inhuman long ago. And humans would most likely now be extinct or living in “human farms” or working as slaves in some of the more dangerous and unsavory of the supernatural realms.
Not that these kinds of things didn’t sometimes happen anyway. Nothing was perfect and the clans couldn’t ensure that no evil deed ever took place. But because of wardens, they took place far less often.
Annaleia had become a token member of Draco when she’d been in the right time and place to resurrect one of their wardens. She hadn’t known who or what he was at the time, only that his life had been cut short prematurely, his murdered body was in nearly perfect condition – which was necessary for a successful resurrection – and she happened to be there. Like a doctor living by the Hippocratic oath, when it happened she didn’t ask questions. She just resurrected.
Anna brought the kid back, accepted the pain of the resurrection and its accompanying scar on her body with gritted teeth, and when she opened her eyes again she found herself surrounded by thirty-plus rather frightening and obviously capable men and women. She was “escorted” back to their headquarters. In essence, they abducted her. But they did it gently, and in retrospect they did it reverently.
At HQ, they questioned her. She was honest with them. They were honest right back, confirming what she’d already learned over the course of her life about the existence of monsters and magic. And in the end, their leader offered her the protection of the clan.
Annaleia hadn’t been sure what that meant at the time, but she didn’t want another job. She was quick to tell them that she didn’t do what she did for the money. She worked in her every day jobs because she wanted to. Plus, she was settled on the financial front. She wasn’t exactly a spring chicken; she was immortal. So she’d made her investments long ago, and they’d paid off.
She’d made all of this clear to the clan leader, a man by the name of Conall Tiarnahn. But when she did, Conall sat down in front of her, told everyone else to leave, and then leaned in close. He was a handsome man, probably in his late thirties, and she couldn’t deny his charisma in spades. In a soft and practiced tone, he’d said, “I get the marketing job. You’re good at it and it isn’t bloody, so it doesn’t weigh on you like some work.”
“How do you know about my work?”
He’d smiled. “I’ve done my homework on you, Miss Faith.”
She’d blinked in surprise. “Already? I only met you an hour ago.”
He’d laughed. “We work fast in this business.” And then he’d taken a deep breath. “But as far as your other work goes, I know it isn’t an inconsequential thing for you to be the crying shoulder for so many people every day. There are plenty out there who can hear horrible stories and not feel anything at all. The world is populated by these psychopaths. You’re aren’t one of them. If you were, you wouldn’t have resurrected my man. Especially when it has such obvious consequences for you.”
She’d shrugged that time, trying to brush off the attention a little because it made her uncomfortable, but it was clear he’d been looking at the line of blood across the right thigh of her jeans. That was where the wound had opened and closed again, forming the requisite scar when she’d resurrected the Draco clan member. What he couldn’t see was its twin “ghost scar,” as she called them, on the inside. But she’d always wondered if he’d known it was there anyway.
The leader had just smiled his charming smile. “But that’s exhausting, isn’t it Faith? Don’t you just wish you could go somewhere, be with some people, who already know all about your burden and will understand what you’re going through for a change?”
“Like Cheers?” she’d asked wit
h a half-hearted smile.
He’d laughed. It was a nice laugh, and it put her a little more at ease despite the situation. “Well, we do have our bars, for what it’s worth,” he reassured her. “And yeah, everyone there knows your name and they’ll take care of you. Or if you want, you can stay at headquarters and yell and scream about what’s bugging you, knowing the people you’re venting to won’t spill the beans or blow your cover.”
The clan leader leaned in a little closer. “We’re those people, Faith. Join us and you can come to us any time, anywhere. We’ll always be here for you. And what’s more, we’ll always have your back. Wouldn’t that be nice? To know that if you slipped up and maybe, say… forgot about a camera that filmed you while you were using your gift… someone here would have your back and take care of it?”
She nodded.
“Okay then,” he said. “What say you? Will you join our ranks and carry the protection of my clan name?”
She’d swallowed hard, not wanting to piss off the leader of a supernatural clan of anything whatsoever. “Conall,” she began.
“Call me Con. Please.”
She nodded, returning the smile, but she was still nervous. “I can’t quit my jobs.” What he was asking for sounded like a full-time job in and of itself.
“And I would never ask you to. In fact, join us and I will only ask two things of you, Annaleia. One, if a member of my team is killed on a mission, please consider using your gift to make things right the way you did for Elijah. I understand it won’t always be possible, and I accept that. Our job is dangerous.” He’d taken her hands in his then and placed them together with his over them. “And two – agree to let us protect you. You are the only person I have met who has the power you possess. You’re also the first female Withered I’ve come across... assuming that is indeed what you are. You have a birthmark on your temple that tells me I’m right.”
Anna frowned slightly and touched the mark.
“It’s light, but it’s shaped like a moon, or as some would say, a ‘scythe,’” he told her. “Withered tend to have that mark, but so far they’ve all been male. The males also have fangs and you obviously don’t.” He paused, giving her a calculating look. “You’re special, Faith. Very, very special. And you have no idea how many monsters out there would give just about anything to get their hands on you. Sooner or later, your secret’s gonna get out. Like it did tonight. You’re just lucky it was the good guys who caught up to you and not the other way around.” He’d let her go gently and straightened, more business. “So. Do we have a deal?”
She’d thought about it for all of ten more seconds before she finally agreed. And just like that, she was a member of clan Draco. Fifteen of the scars decorating her skin were the cost she had since paid. More marks, more pain.
And… she had a sentinel.
Chapter Nine – Australia, coastal highway
“You can read her mind, can’t you?”
Victor Maze didn’t bother looking over at the human male beside him in the back seat of the car. He kept his gaze trained on his target, who rode in the passenger seat of a white Jeep Wrangler several vehicles ahead. But the human was right. Victor was listening in on her thoughts with impunity.
“I can.”
“What is she thinking about?”
“I believe you might not appreciate the turn her thoughts have taken, Mr. Price. Be grateful you are not privy to them.”
The human fell silent beside him, and Maze sent a stronger tendril of his power out along the highway to brush against the mind of the young Withered female. Of course, she didn’t feel she was young. But to him? Her existence had not yet carved out enough space on the cosmic calendar to be noticed beneath a microscope.
Victor breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of fresh fallen rain. She smells like a storm, he thought with a small smile. He did so love storms. He was Entropy after all, and storms were organized chaos in every respect of their nature.
He closed his eyes and settled into the theater of her thoughts.
“Is she thinking about another man?”
Victor felt a muscle in his jaw tick. Interesting, he thought. The physical form he’d had to take once he’d escaped Bantariax was so much weaker than the form he had been accustomed to before his lengthy incarceration. As an incorporeal form, he never would have been bothered by such things. Interruptions were just another form of chaos, after all.
But humans were weak.
Still, he was growing stronger. A shattered coffee mug here, a train wreck there, and little by little he was regaining some of the influence he’d at one time enjoyed. His constant feeding off Price’s slow burning fury and need was helping as well. Before long, he would be strong enough to enact the rest of his design.
He’d had a very long time to scheme, sketch, plot, organize, and devise. He highly doubted the so-called Kings and Queens of the Thirteen Realms, or their precious warden clans could fathom a defense worthy of opposing him in the time they now had allotted.
The once mighty Legendaries, the three great dragons who had at one time ruled over and guarded humanity, were not going to be an issue. One was dead, one had been made idle and dull with matrimonial bliss and the business of the sovereigns. And the last, the Great Black Bantariax… well, Maze had unwittingly seen to his temporary demise.
The Legendary Black had been shattered in the wake of Victor’s escape, his essence and power cast to the four winds. Little bits and pieces of him now existed here and there, scattered across the face of the planet. And as for humanity’s last defense… the Traveler sages, the genii mages of time and space that were the only thing in the multiverse as ancient as Maze himself, well… he could only think of one that still existed.
She was strong. Katrielle was a worthy opponent. But he had plans for the chosen love of Bantariax. He had something special in mind for the mate of the one who had imprisoned him. In fact, the redheaded guide of magic and men was at the very crux of revenge.
“I take it by your silence that she is, in fact, thinking of a man?” the human male beside him interrupted again. His voice was soft, but there was a building fury lacing the torn edges of his words. Normally Victor would appreciate the evidence of humanity’s slow and careful loss of emotional control. But right now, the man was irritating him.
“If we already know where she is, why don’t we just take her? Why do we not act? What are we even doing here?”
Well, you’re here getting jealous and impatient, and I’m in turn feeding off your delicious inner chaos, Victor thought. “We’re observing,” he said.
The man fell silent, but he turned to look out the window, effectively hiding his face and what Victor guessed was an expression of infuriation.
Victor smiled because he knew that the most effective way to make the man suffer for his pestering insolence was to simply answer his questions. “As a matter of fact, she is thinking of a man, Mr. Price. Two, actually. Both are handsome and powerful, and you would do well to pray you never encounter either.”
Randall Price stiffened a little on the luxury leather seat beside Victor. Victor’s soft laughter, he felt from deep inside; if the man hadn’t wanted to know, he should not have asked. “She just finished thinking about her warden clan leader. I’m sure I’ve told you about them. And at the moment, she’s remembering her first meeting with her sentinel,” he continued freely. “A man who can be harmed by neither human nor inhuman means, and one who will always be there for his lovely violet-eyed charge.” He paused for effect and finally spared his companion a cut of his gaze. “Would you like to know what he did to her the first time they met? Alone in a public restroom?”
Price swallowed hard, and Victor thoroughly enjoyed the wave of tasty emotion that rolled off the human and blanketed the car’s interior. But Maze wasn’t finished with him.
“However, I sense your restlessness Mr. Price. You’re eager for things to progress. Since I can’t enact my plan before I am at full strength and I
only gain that strength through certain, qualifying acts of methodical bedlam, if you’d like I can hurry things along by sending her Jeep careening from the clifftops. Vehicle accidents are perfect when they occur through a driver’s attempt at engaging in a good deed. One thing leads to another, step by ill-fated step, and almost inevitably, the organized process results in pandemonium.” He shrugged and gestured to the scenic view through the window. “Besides, I’m certain the vehicle would make a breathless spectacle highlighted against the backdrop of that early morning sun, sand, and surf.”
Up ahead, a small animal darted in front of the white Jeep, and the driver swerved to miss it. The sound of screeching tires rang out loud enough that they could hear it several cars back. The animal barely escaped the encounter, and the top-heavy Jeep put more weight on two tires than was comfortable. It was a close call.
But then, Maze had known it would be. He’d orchestrated it to play out as it had, also knowing that the object of their attention had protected herself and her friend against mortal damage, such as the kind you would sustain in a car accident. He’d done it purely for show, and his efforts were rewarded when he saw that his young human companion had gone as white as paper.
“No! No,” Price interjected frantically, lifting a hand in placation. A beat passed, the Jeep leveled out to drive straight again, and the young man at once got himself back under control. But his eyes were now ceaselessly trained on the spot of white up ahead, and his jaw was clenched tight. “That won’t be necessary,” he ground out. “I can be patient.”
“Ah, I see. Very well,” Maze responded, trying not to grin. In truth, he had to admit he was impressed with Price’s patience. So far, Maze had provided the man with little to no evidence that he would follow through with his promise to deliver Annaleia Faith to him. He’d only proven that he could. And Price’s maintained submission was a sign of desperation. People didn’t buck the system when they were in urgent need of what the system promised, even if that system was highly unsound and the promise not really a promise at all. They were too afraid of losing what little they might have.
Monsters, Book Two: Hour of the Dragon Page 10