Cara Mia

by Denise Verrico

  “It’s a big town.”

  She stood perfectly motionless, her control already finely honed with the kind of eerie stillness that usually takes decades to develop, not an errant muscle twitching in her chiseled face, long hands hanging at her sides. “We need to talk,” she said.

  “Shoot.”

  She looked around. “Can we go somewhere out of this rain?”

  I shook my head. “Brovik’s dogs, they’re watching me but I gave them the slip. They don’t like the rain but we can duck under that bridge for a minute. Make it quick if you want to live.”

  Annoyance flashed over her. She nodded and we both slipped under the sheltering underpass.

  “You won’t turn me in to your little boyfriend, will you?”

  “Why should I protect you?”

  She looked as if she wanted to say something nasty but changed her mind, appealing to me instead, “I never wanted this.”

  “Ethan gave you the history lesson?”

  “Just when I thought nothing could be worse.”

  I was tired of games and wanted her to spit it out. “You want something from me?”

  “I need your help.”

  “I’m the absolute bottom of the social order. What in hell’s name can I do?”

  “Kurt’s real sweet on you, but I’ve never been able to win his trust. Always checking up on me, spying, sent dogs to follow me when I went out, sneaky little thing.”

  “Brovik’s orders obviously.”

  “But his loyalty is only up to a point. Kurt fought with the old man for months before he first let him come here. Now every time Brovik wants him to do something ugly, he pressures Kurt with threats to your safety. Your boy is stretched.” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “I’ll lay it out to you. Got a chance to acquire a small biotech firm. I need money, big money. Brovik has the numbers. It can be diverted, a little here, a little there. Kurt knows everything about Brovik’s little enterprise—has the scientific contacts—but most importantly he goes to Zurich once a month. Lots of money passes through his lily-white hands.”

  “Kurt’s life wouldn’t be worth a dime. Neither would ours for that matter. Besides Brovik is already a step ahead of you.”

  “He can be taken out. There has to be a way. In the meantime, I’d hide you both somewhere. We’ll be partners. Anything we eventually make we split.”

  “Kurt isn’t in this for the money.”

  “He likes to live well Mia.” She looked at my muddy knees. “I know for a fact he doesn’t like to see you scrounging in the pockets of dead mortals.”

  “That’s all over. Ethan’s back.”

  Now her face registered genuine shock. “You’re shitting me? You aren’t back with him?”

  “No, he just gave me what he owed. I couldn’t do that to Kurt.”

  She raked her eyes over my face. “The boy’s got it bad, but somehow I figured it wasn’t the same for you.”

  “At first, Ethan had such a hold on me. You know how it is.”

  She shook her head. “I had a life, Mia. I’m a damned good attorney and I worked like hell to get where I was. Filthy bastard stole all the things I’d achieved. Maybe you can’t appreciate just how much that means for a woman like me—but I’ll find a way. And let me tell you something, I always get what I want.” Her face and voice suddenly softened. I didn’t trust it. “What about you Mia? It’s a chance for you and Kurt to really break free. He’s about to fall apart, girl. A little nudge is all he needs.”

  The thought was tempting but I couldn’t see Kurt betraying his master for anything. “He’s tough. It’d take a miracle to push him over the edge.”

  Her long soft fingers smoothed a lock of wet hair away from my face. Her velvety voice turned maternal, very seductive, “When I first saw you, I was shocked at how small and young you looked—like a beautiful child. When I learned you were still alive, I thought, how did she survive? Kurt told me how you’ve been abused out here. But you survived Mia, you’re stronger than anyone knows. But I can see how tired you are of it all. I can shelter you, take you someplace safe, none of them will ever hurt you again.”

  Pheromone perfumed the air. She took my face in her hands and gently kissed me, tongue sliding softly into my mouth, over the tips of my fangs. Distant voices made the hairs on my neck suddenly prickle.

  I pulled away. “Leave! Don’t come back! I won’t rat on you. Go!”

  Her eyes registered pain and loneliness. The bronze goddess was actually flesh and blood? She pressed a card into my hand. “My cell. Call, if you ever change your mind.”

  “Go, the rain’s letting up. They’re looking for me.”

  She rose, scanning, a tigress scenting the air. Dangerous. Unpredictable.

  “I’ll draw them downtown. Careful.”

  “Always am.” She opened her coat to show a concealed pistol. “You do the same, little sister.”

  She melted into the trees and disappeared. Moments later, I scented my watchdogs on the bridge above my head. I set off running opposite Leisha’s direction. They shouted curses, jumping down to follow me out of the park. I laughed. I’d dodged another bullet so to speak, but my luck was rapidly running out.

  NINETEEN

  New Years Eve. The last of the millennium arrived. Although Kurt wanted to spend it with me in New York, Brovik, worried his systems might crash, kept him home to troubleshoot.

  Weird night, unseasonably warm and all this talk about the turning of a century and a new millennium was unsettling enough, without Sanjivani’s ghost whispering in my brain. I needed to walk and walk, away from crowds to clear my head. I gave Brovik’s dogs the slip in the throng milling around Times Square, and headed east toward Fifth Avenue.

  Along the way, I passed one of those small exclusive hotels Immortyls tend to frequent, where one of my suitors had once taken me for his recreation. I glanced warily into the lobby window as I passed, wondering what might be lurking there.

  I was horrified to spot a familiar figure seated on a small sofa, toasting champagne with a group of academic types.

  Someone opened a door. He caught my scent immediately and looked up. I’ll never forget those yellow-green eyes, even disguised with steel-rimmed glasses. The metal briefcase in his lap abruptly snapped shut as our eyes locked. Dirk smiled slowly, rising to shake hands with the mortals.

  Sloughing off my shock, I bounded away, but he caught me at the next corner, backing me up against a building with a knife against my throat.

  “My, what do we have here?” He tugged my short-cropped hair.

  “You’re the proverbial bad penny.”

  “I’ve a string of beauties at home. Chasing self-important tarts isn’t my line these days. But why not avail myself of the convenience?” His finger hooked the butterfly around my neck. “Brovik’s monkey gave you this? The diamonds in this case are much nicer.” He pushed himself against me.

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Cunt.” Dirk clapped his hand over my mouth, dragging me toward a car waiting at the curb. He pushed me inside, ordering the driver to floor it. I bit his hand. He yelped and slugged me hard. That was the last thing I heard. A needle jabbed my thigh and everything went black.

  Severe hunger pangs woke me up but full consciousness eluded me. I kept falling and falling into darkness. He’d bled me. I was chained to a huge old four-poster in a darkened room, overhead track lights spotlighting me. My throbbing head was securely fastened to the headboard.

  Dirk moved toward me, his huge naked frame covered in knotty muscle, reddish hair and bizarre tattoos. Lightening symbols decorated one arm and a death’s head the other. Serpents twined around swastikas on his chest. The shining stainless steel contents of a small case he held glittered in the light. Small liquid-filled bottles stood in a row on the bedside table.

  His skull face loomed over me. “Awake?”

  I gasped, “Blood.”

  Dirk selected a silver scalpel from the case. A beam from the track light
struck the surface and bounced off the wall. His unzipped my jacket and idly caressed my breasts.

  “Here’s my proposition, Mia. Fucking Brovik’s monkey makes you very valuable to us. Gaius pursued him for years but he remains loyal. Think of the wealth of information in that golden head. He’d be far less pretty without it, don’t you agree? Just work it out of him to give me, or…I’ll make him quietly disappear. Perhaps when he makes one of his jaunts to Zurich? Brovik will never know what happened.” He held the scalpel to my neck. “How will the arrogant little cocksucker’s death taste?” He trailed the slender silver blade over my breasts and down my belly, slicing a red thread on my abdomen. “Will he beg for his life like all the others as I carve his carcass up slowly, still alive, with this scalpel, bit-by-bit to put him into these little bottles until there’s nothing left but his bones? Then, I’ll tear out his heart to keep in a jar beside my bed to remind you.” He licked my blood off the scalpel. I started shaking as he sat down on the bed. “Funny, I can’t taste his taint. I really should kill you too for contaminating yourself, but if you do exactly as I say, perhaps I can forgive.”

  Dirk licked his lips. He wasn’t bluffing. He was a sociopath before taking the blood and ten times more twisted and powerful now. Kurt was in serious danger. There was only one way out.

  To kill a cast-off like me is no crime. A slave would be bad enough, requiring compensation for damages. But a cast-off kill a full-fledged alpha? A death sentence, self-defense or not, Gaius could take my head.

  Light glinted off the shining surface of the blade. If only I could get my hands on it.

  He caressed my breast. “I’ll burn my mark here.”

  I swallowed my revulsion and tried the submissive tack. “Please Dirk,” I whispered. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just promise you won’t hurt him.”

  He grabbed my chin. “You’ve never shown me proper respect.”

  I had laughed at the bastard, too much to be smart. It was pay back time for him in a big way.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. It was no work to look scared.

  “Not good enough,” he breathed into my face. He sank down next to me on the bed, pressing the scalpel to my throat. “You understand what I’ll do to your Jew if you trick me?”

  I bit my lip and nodded. He unchained me, cutting my clothes off with the scalpel, nicking me every so often until I was naked and bleeding. Finally he set the blade back down on the bed table. I cried with relief as he climbed onto me. Rape was better than death. The yellow eyes looking down were loopy with dilated pupils. When he’d bled me he must have injected himself with some of the narcotic he’d given me. Ethan told me in that in Kalidasa’s court the famed adepts of the ancient arts used hallucinogens in their erotic rituals, and other’s used recreationally, but he’d had taught me it was very dangerous as it compromised one’s reflexes. As you know Joe, it’s difficult to judge how much can be tolerated since our systems work so rapidly. It was obviously affecting his judgment or he’d never have set that knife down. I took advantage and played along, fighting the urge to rip out the slimy tongue he forced into my mouth. I urged him on, maneuvering into striking position just as he pushed my thighs apart.

  Noiseless butterfly’s wings swept over to the bed table, touching cold metal. I pulled the sharp deadly little blade against my thigh just as he was poised to enter. I struck, cutting his throat in one neat movement as Ethan had taught me. His face froze in a look of surprise, the body still twitching as it collapsed on top of me. Arterial spurts of blood gushed out soaking the pillows and blankets, bathing my face and body. I hacked his head off and buried my face in the ragged stump, gulping down as much of it as I could before it grew too cold to restore me.

  The entire collection of demons lurked in that abyss, all the tortured souls he had taken, pain he’d reveled in. A wasteland, inhabited by howling fiends with eyeless skulls—it had lived too long.

  I had to get out fast but I was covered in blood and still flying from the narcotic. An ice-cold shower cleared my head. I found his discarded clothes, several sizes too large for me, thrown in a corner and dressed as well as I could. No time to waste on looking good. Gaius’s dogs were sniffing outside. I spied Dirk’s metal case. He was bound to keep a gun in there. I tried to open it but it was securely locked. I fished keys out of Dirk’s trousers and a wad of cash that I stuffed into my leather jacket.

  I unlocked the case and opened it. A loaded Glock sat atop a small velvet bag filled with diamonds. Beneath, I found a pile of computer discs in plastic boxes. They were labeled with a picture of Romulus and Remus. The wording said: Romulus Laboratories Corp: Confidential.

  I grabbed the gun and snapped the briefcase shut. I was in huge trouble. Gaius would come looking for answers and I was the first place he’d look. Grabbing the case, I made my way into the hallway, scanning for the dogs. I couldn’t smell them but heard their voices from a distance. I slipped out of the house and toward a converted carriage house that served as a garage. I ducked into the bushes and peered through the window. Three huge dogs sat inside playing cards and smoking. I had less than a second to plug all three. I held my breath and took aim, praying I could remember all Ethan had taught me. I squeezed the trigger and fired off six rounds into their heads.

  In the garage, I found a can of gas and dumped it over the corpses. I threw a lighted match, and went back to do the same to the house. Stealing one of the three dark sedans, I sped off with my plundered treasure toward Manhattan.

  TWENTY

  It was well past midnight when I hit Manhattan. No planes dropped from the sky and city lights still glittered in front of me. So much for all the millennium panic.

  I abandoned the car on Eleventh near Fiftieth. The smell of horse was strong in the air. The slow, hollow clopping sound of a very tired coach horse returning to the stables came toward me. The female driver waved and called out Happy New Year. Well, it was in one sense. I’d just ripped out a big fat malignancy growing on the earth.

  I pushed my way downtown through throngs of inebriated mortals around the Port Authority bus terminal, glancing behind, expecting Gaius’s dogs already tracking me. There was no doubt in my mind Gaius would call for my head and Kurt would be the one dispatched to bring me to Brovik for questioning. Maybe we could run away together. Sell the diamonds. Go somewhere—maybe Leisha could help us.

  When I finally returned home, Brovik’s watchdogs were parked outside my building. I walked by them with a little wave. “Happy New Year, fellahs.”

  The car drew alongside me as the window rolled down. “Where you been, missy?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  The dog stuck his face out of the window. A network of old knife scars seamed it like a baseball. Brovik sure didn’t choose ’em for looks. “Don’t get fresh. You know—when the boyfriend is too busy to get away—old Cash could keep you company.”

  “Behave yourself, or I’ll tell him you’ve been fresh with me.”

  Cash licked his thin lips, tossing long, pale hair back from his face. “We don’t work for that arrogant little prick, and the Northman’s going to want to fucking know where you been for six hours. Sweet dreams, doll.” He laughed as the car pulled away.

  Shit.

  I went inside and pulled up a floorboard and hid the evidence inside. I was in deep trouble now.

  Two nights later Kurt was dispatched in Brovik’s private jet to fetch me. He appeared unexpectedly at my door, no rose in hand this time. He stripped off his jacket and gloves, tossing them on top of his laptop. “Mia, what happened? Tell me the truth! This is very serious!” He took me by the shoulders with less than his accustomed tenderness. “Don’t lie to me! Gaius is out for your blood. Did you do this?”

  “Do what?” I broke away to hang up his butter-soft brown calfskin jacket.

  Kurt grabbed me by the arm and spun me around to face him. “Don’t play with me! Someone set fire to The Wolf’s compound in the Hamptons. Dirk’s bones were
found in the wreckage. Three dogs were murdered as well. Cash says you went missing for six hours on New Year’s Eve. A girl matching your description got into the car with Dirk outside of the St. Regis.”

  I couldn’t lie to Kurt. “He dragged me into a car, bled and drugged me, chained me to a bed. He threatened me with a scalpel, said he’d cut you into little pieces if I didn’t spy for them.”

  Kurt’s ivory face went alabaster. “Oh Mia, he didn’t! How did you manage it?”

  “Fucking idiot was high. I played along until I got my hands on the knife, cut the bastard’s throat and hacked off his head, shot the dogs then set the place on fire.”

  “You killed him to protect me?” He gripped my shoulders harder. “You must swear you never saw him. Mortal witnesses saw a girl with short dark hair outside the hotel. It could have been any girl, perhaps a call girl he’d engaged. You understand? They’ll put you to torture. Trial by ordeal.”

  “I’ve been bled before.”

  He winced. “Not like this. It can go on for hours. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Gaius is suspicious of his Alphas as well. They all despised Dirk, but they have more convincing alibis.”

  I clung to Kurt, needing his calm logic so badly at this moment. “I had to do it!”

  “I don’t blame you, I’d often wished to do so myself.” Kurt held me tighter. “Find the courage, Mia. Stare them down and you’ll live. I’ll do all I can. Ultimately, it’s you they must believe.”

  “Fat chance of lying to the Wolf and getting away with it.”

  “They have no real proof.”

  “If it wasn’t for you, I’d say why not just end it?

  He held me very close to him. “Don’t say that. Not now when we’re so close. Mia, we’re on the very brink. The organism is isolated!”

  “Organism?”

  “A symbiotic life form that inhabits our blood stream and invades our cells, mutating them. All we need to know is how this agent works.”

  A chord sounded deep within. If my suspicions were correct, those discs I stole held an answer. “Where’s your laptop? You need to see something. When I wasted Dirk, he had this briefcase with discs inside, marked confidential. Something there is important enough to bring him here on New Year’s Eve in the middle of all this millennium bullshit.”