Forgotten Enemy (The Powers of Influence Book 1)

by C. B. Haight

  He walked to her until he stood nearly right in front her. She felt her heartbeat quicken. With a deep and quiet voice, he replied, “You are doing the right thing.”

  “I pray you’re right. I couldn’t live with more deaths because of me.” She whispered without meeting his eyes. Then turned her back to him and strode from the room, with her stocking covered feet barely making a sound.

  Now what did she mean more deaths? Cade thought to himself.

  Chapter Eleven

  New York, NY

  The throbbing, heavy-metal music pumped loudly from the speakers placed throughout the gothic club. It was so loud you couldn’t hear the person next to you, unless they shouted near your ear. All was as it should be.

  Men and women jumped up and down. Moving and gyrating in frenzy with the quick rhythm pouring into the room. Vibrations echoed throughout the packed crowd letting the people feel the thumping sensation in their chest and stomach.

  The painted graffiti glowed bright with the help of black lights placed strategically throughout the club. Strobe lights blinked wildly in tune with the pulsing, manic beat of music. People crowded the bar, pushing and shoving their way in, wanting to be served. The patrons shouted out their orders hoping to be heard correctly. Men hit on women way out of their league, and women continued to prowl for a handsome companion to offer them company for the night.

  Nodding in satisfaction, he thought to himself, yes, all was just as it should be.

  He was lord of this domain. He sat in the back corner blending in with the painted black walls and darkness, as he observed the frantic happenings of this place, His place. He blended into this room so well no one chose to notice him. No one wanted to notice him.

  As a part of the darkness surrounding him, his shadowed, feral appearance gave the impression to everyone around, Stay away, and that’s the way he wanted it. If one was brave enough to move in to get a closer look, they may have mistaken him for a demon in human form. They would be wrong though, because many could attest that he was much worse than the demons of the abyss.

  He wore his usual black silk suit, with the black button-up shirt open at the collar. His eyes seemed dark and merciless from a distance, and very few had ever been close enough to see their true color. It was a sure bet that those few had never forgotten the sight of them. Also, his semi-long, obsidian hair almost seemed an unnatural color. As if the glossy obsidian color had been a curse from a god, to ensure his place with the wicked creatures of the night. Everything about this man spoke of Danger. He was, “The Hunter.”

  Scanning the crowd carefully, he watched for potential problems. After seeing all he needed, The Hunter pushed up easily rising to his full height, which was substantial, and made his way smoothly through the teeming crowd, mostly because people gave him a wide berth.

  When he made it to the stairs leading to his office, he took them effortlessly two at a time. Before he even opened the door, The Hunter knew company waited. He recognized the smell of his visitor right away. The pungent odor was like that of a burnt fungus, overpowering any other smells around. It wasn’t intolerable just horribly obnoxious.

  Opening the door, The Hunter gave the intruder a sharp glare. The scrawny half-man, half-demon, stood, but his shape remained somewhat bent over as usual. Under the unwanted visitor’s coat, The Hunter knew he had some thin, bat-like wings. The imp’s skin held a sickly, grayish pallor, and the dark hair on his head appeared thin and greasy looking.

  The Hunter tipped his head and ground out, “What do you want, bootlicker?” He moved past the imp to his desk.

  The intruder, Finnawick, replied with a sinister smile, “Oh now, you might hurt my feelings talking like that.”

  “We both know you don’t have any, so we know that won’t be a problem.” The Hunter stated factually, “You have one minute to tell me what it is you want then I’ll remove you from my club.”

  The scrawny thing that looked like a man hissed, “Now, that’s why I have always liked you. Fear is just not in your make-up. So many of your kind and others like you, cower at his feet. They fear him, as they should. You… no, you have never feared Him. Have you?”

  “You have to give a damn about something to be afraid, and I just don’t give a damn. You’re down to 30 seconds. You better start talking.” The dark hunter finished by dropping his clipboard with the current liquor orders on the desk with a harsh slap.

  Finnawick, the imp, was no fool. He knew how to play his cards, it remained the only reason he’d stayed alive so long. “We need you for your… expertise. The pay is better than he has ever offered.”

  Propping his hip on the desk and folding his arms over his chest, The Hunter pretended to consider the imp’s words. Truthfully he was uninterested. As he said before, he cared about little in this life.

  “The job?” The Hunter asked

  “It doesn’t matter how it’s done; have fun with it.” The imp said handing over a file with his long boney fingers.

  Finnawick’s wicked smile reminded The Hunter of a hyena waiting for his turn to tear into the meaty flesh of a stolen carcass. “He wants this one eliminated. The pay is 500,” the imp hissed.

  The Hunter gave him a cold, callous smile. It was the kind of calculating smile that would’ve sent chills through normal man’s soul, giving them the feeling death was not far off. “To people as old as he is, five hundred thousand isn’t much. I have that much invested in this club, and I’ve got time to wait for the return. Besides, if you’re here it means no one else could get it done. We both know how much you loathe working with me. So, I think one million should do it. We both know he can afford it. That is if I feel inclined to take the offer.”

  Being no normal man, Finnawick looked at The Hunter with a droll stare as if he was bored. He knew that to do otherwise would reveal too much. In truth, Finnawick did fear the monster that stood a few feet in front of him, but he feared failing his master even more. Finnawick straightened his crooked spine and uttered, “For one million it will have to be done by the end of the month.”

  Flipping open the file, The Hunter looked at the picture stapled on the inside of the cover. The face of the striking woman staring back at him, felt slightly familiar. He studied it for a while longer than he needed, so long in fact, that he knew Finnawick considered the long silence as a sign that he would take the job.

  However, unwilling to give away any of his own thoughts, The Hunter lifted his left eyebrow at the picture, “Pretty, not his usual query. Why is it she makes him so nervous?”

  “He is never nervous, just very cautious. You of all people should recognize the difference.” The imp was starting to get irritable. “Just do the job and I’ll put the money in your regular account.”

  He flipped the cover closed with little concern, “You’re right. I do know the difference, and the fear in your voice tells me something is off here. So the answer is, NO.” The Hunter straightened to his full height, and then moved around the smelly imp to the door leading downstairs.

  “What do you mean No? You don’t get to tell him no! No one tells him no!” He rasped out, his pitch rising, anger and worry lacing his words. Finnawick did not want to be the one to tell his master he failed.

  The Hunter actually laughed. Not a happy laugh, but a cold, mean chuckle rolled past his lips. Everything about him was cold, and his cruel laugh was no different. “I thought someone as old as you would know what that meant. Well maybe I should put it another way…Let’s see, here is one you may understand, if you don’t get out of my bar in the next ten seconds I will tear out your throat, dismantle your skinny, deformed body and mail it to him in pieces. Then he’ll get it. The question is, do you?”

  The Hunter’s look turned dark and menacing, much like his feared reputation. He stepped up, getting right in the putrid- smelling imp’s face. His deep voice vibrated, “I told you once before, I am not his lap dog that comes running whenever called. I am done. Out. If I change my mind, then I will come t
o you, when I want. I decide which jobs I take and the ones I don’t. DO NOT, Ever make that mistake again.”

  Turning his back on the nasty errand boy, the Hunter opened the door that led down to the club. The imp felt fear rise within him. He needed the Hunter involved on this. Though Finnawick hated dealing with him, The Hunter never failed. All the others he sent so far were unable to get the job done, and only managed to make it worse, making it necessary for Finnawick to escalate matters now.

  Failing his master was not an option that one would want to live through, if you lived through it. Finnawick also knew his master would come calling soon, expecting the job done. Suddenly, the fear slightly ebbed, the other information the imp found clicked in his brain. Information Finnawick knew The Hunter would not want shared.

  The imp let out a cruel cackle. The sound of it grated on The Hunter’s angry nerves, and he stopped. “He should have killed you the first time he met you.” Finnawick said. “Although, I have to admit, keeping you alive continues to have benefits. This time will be no different. Your existence will again pay off. You and I both know once you’re in, there is only one way out.”

  Finnawick kept speaking to The Hunter’s back with his sickly, rasping voice. “You see, I make it my business to motivate people. You could say it is my job. It’s why he has kept me around so long. I believe it is important to take pride in your work. You are no different than the rest of them my friend. You merely need… shall we say, proper motivation.”

  The Hunter turned around with a cold, deadly stare, a look befitting the rumors told of him. “Tell me, just what do you think would possibly motivate me away from tearing you to little bits right now, friend?”

  The imp returned his stare measure for measure. Then he stammered with false confidence, “I know you won’t…because you hate me too much. You would never attack me unless you were sure you could kill me. You know my master would not send me here unless I was protected.”

  The Hunter saw the bluff for what it was, but wasn’t willing to deal with the consequences of killing this inconvenience in front of him… for now. “One day I will kill you, remember that bootlicker. You and I, we both know it is just a matter of time, and I… I have all kinds of time.” He promised.

  The imp stared at the man before him. Finnawick knew The Hunter spoke honestly and wasn’t willing to chance his death today. He also knew one good look in the file on his desk would ensure The Hunter’s participation.

  To make sure The Hunter viewed the contents of the file, he threw out some enticing information “We already have Jeffery working this one. You remember Jeffery don’t you? Nasty little magic user, a bit hard to control though…Oh, that’s right, you two haven’t met. Oh well, never mind. Anyway, last I heard he was somewhere in Colorado.” He paused to let that sink in, “Remember Hunter, we don’t care who dies in the process, just as long as she is handled. Hurry! You know the rules, first come, first serve. Oh, and remember, life is all about the proper motivation, and trust me, right now Jeffery has plenty of motivation.”

  He blinked from the room with one last hissing comment, “Is that fear I see in you, Hunter?”

  The Hunter slowly walked over to the file and opened it. He knew from the imp’s words exactly what he was looking for. Running over the pages of info on the target, he looked for it. When he got to the second to last page, he saw what he knew would be there. There in black-and-white print he found his motivation spelled out for him in a single four-letter word. A word that might as well be the four-letter curse he was thinking in his mind.

  Expressing the foul curse out loud, he dropped the file, and then stomped from the room, knowing with angry frustration that he was on his way to Colorado.

  Chapter Twelve

  Four days. It had been four days, and still nothing new came to her memory, thought Collett. She sat in what Cynda referred to as the workout room, though it was far more than that. Frustration kept brewing in her these past days. She felt trapped both inside and out. She kept her hands propped palms up on her legs, with her ankles upon her knees in a classic meditation pose. She breathed in and out slowly, keeping her eyes closed, but relaxation eluded her.

  One of the things they decided over the last few days was to be proactive. This in turn, meant finding a way to restore her memory. At that very moment Collett tried to do just that, with meditation. Then maybe, just maybe, she would remember something.

  She repeated this process every day since Cynda showed her how to do it four days before. Collett came up here to this room, and every day she left without success. She was truly beginning to despise this room.

  The room received a large amount of natural light. It leaked in through the three huge windows on the wall behind her. Despite the sunlight, the room felt cool. The light also trickled down from the large skylight above her, and Collett could see the bright light through her closed eyelids and feel it on her skin. She could smell the subdued aroma of the lavender candle she lit earlier.

  Thinking about the candle, her thoughts drifted to the room itself. The cool, teal color of the walls gave the room a tranquil feeling. The workout room, the largest on the third floor, was devoted to training. A treadmill and an elliptical took up a corner of the room, and a flat screen on the opposite wall provided visual stimulation to those who wanted it. Several yoga DVDs lined the shelf below it. It seemed, at least to Collett, that it was one of the largest rooms in the house. Though, the reason behind its size was likely the specific purpose it served for training. Collett sat in the large space in between the machines and the TV on a soft mat for stretching and yoga.

  The black matted sparring circle, taking up most of the room, impressed her the most. Free weights of all shapes and sizes ran along the wall behind it. At the back of the circle there was a weight bench holding a long bar with more than a few sizable, round weights on each side. A large mirror covered the wall behind the weights. Collett assumed the mirror made it easier to keep one’s form in mind when lifting weights, or sparring with an opponent. The other wall held several styles of poles and weapons used for sparring. Between the cardio area and the sparring/weight side of the room hung a large, black punching bag. Over the last few days, she’d often heard Cade working the bag in the evenings.

  As she tried to relax she could admit she felt thankful to be wearing her own clothes again. During breakfast, the day after revealing what she knew of her vague past, they all had decided it would be safer if she stayed at the estate for now. Wanting to make Collett comfortable, Cade went to her apartment and retrieved most of her clothes and shoes. Collett felt better, more like herself with her own belongings. Even if the thought of Cade rifling through her underwear drawer was incredibly unsettling, she was very grateful for the gesture.

  Now she sat in her own yoga pants and white tank top, trying without success, to reach into her mind for small pieces of the large puzzle that was her life. As each day passed with no progress, Collett felt as though frustration would be her constant companion. Not to mention the guilt she continued to feel for the extra workload her presence created for everyone here. Even Jenny, the family housekeeper, had more food to cook and one more place setting she had to clean. When Collet offered to help her, Jenny would refuse in her sweet southern manner shooing Collett away, telling her, she liked to keep her hands busy. She felt like a burden, and she wasn’t sure if this would work. Though, she wanted it to, badly.

  Rederrick and Cynda were balancing time between their law firm, and helping her. They all agreed that it was too dangerous to return to work at the firm for now. It was yet another way she was inconveniencing them, but she did not intend to endanger any more lives than necessary by appearing in a place full of office personnel.

  Rederrick had promised her in a kind fatherly way, “When this is all over, and we’ve beaten them, and Collett, we will beat them.” he assured, “If you still want to stay here, I’ll still have a job for you. There will be no more running for you, no more forced d
ecisions. Only choices about what you want.”

  Then the next day, using his resources, Rederrick began to research the hurricane in the Gulf two years ago. He did find out the storm had appeared from practically nowhere. Generally, people got a few days’ warning when a tropical storm turned to a hurricane while moving toward a coastline. This storm simply appeared hours before it hit the Texas area. Even stranger, it only affected a small area, and within 24 hours it was gone. Also, the storm was registered as a category two. With more warning, it could have given people more time to prepare properly, keeping the damage limited.

  The storm. Collett began to try concentrate on the storm, breathing in and out slowly, as Cynda had taught her. She focused, trying to pull forward something, anything. Thinking about wind and rain, she meditated for more than an hour. Collett strained her mind until she felt a dull throb in the back of her head, moving down her aching neck. Nothing. She couldn’t remember anything, and frustration built within her.

  Giving up for now, Collett opened her eyes and huffed out a breath with her upturned bottom lip, causing her bangs to flutter softly up. Today would be no different from any other day this week, she thought to herself. Tipping her head back and looking up at the skylight put in the middle of the tall ceiling, Collett again tried to calm herself. She remembered Cynda telling her days before, “Frustration would just make it harder.”

  Had it not been for Cynda’s encouragement, Collett probably would not have even tried today, wouldn’t have bothered to even come up to this room. Cynda was right, though. Her frustration was beginning to affect her ability to relax at all.

  Trying to think of the positives, Collett reminded herself, thankfully there was a significant lack of bad dreams, thus allowing her to feel better rested lately. Although, Collett reflected, she would like to be rid of the sight of a certain person’s liquid gold eyes, appearing occasionally in her sleep. Aggravated, she tried to steer her thoughts in another direction. She found herself thinking of Cade all too often these last few days. She wasn’t sure just what to do about her newest annoying habit either.