by Jasmine Walt
“Malina? You have to believe me . . .”
Something new and alien fluttered in my chest, expanding until my breath caught. Not remembering didn’t change the fact that I was here and looking into a face with too many familial similarities for his words to be disregarded.
This man was my blood.
“Barrett lied to me?” I whispered.
He closed his eyes briefly, his shoulders relaxing. “Barrett? Is that the man who raised you?”
“Yeah.”
Toto whined. I was gripping his fur too tightly. I quickly released him. The man I presumed was actually my biological father clenched his jaw.
“As much as I would love to exact my revenge on this Barrett, I cannot know for sure how much he was a part of their plan, and how much he was merely a pawn. But to look at you, I can see he raised you well. He cared for you, yes?”
My eyes pricked. Barrett had, in his own way. I nodded.
“At least I can take some comfort in that.”
My mind was whirring. If what he was saying was true—and my gut was telling me it was—the fact I’d been late taking my serum was the only reason I’d been found, which begged the question . . .
“What am I?”
9
“What are you?” He smiled. “You’re my daughter.”
No. There was more. I was more. The difference coursed through my veins, a simmering awareness of something new.
“Aside from that.”
“Well, you’re also heir to a responsibility critical to keeping our world safe.”
Ah, okay. That was unexpected. I waited for him to continue. In the interim, my stomach let out an almighty rumble.
“Maybe we should get you fed first, eh? The change used up a vast amount of energy. We can talk after you eat.”
I wanted to argue that I needed answers right away, but suddenly all I could think about was food. It was as if his words had activated the hunger triggers in my brain.
“Yeah, a meal sounds good.”
He moved toward the door. “You’ll need to eat more frequently from now on. High-energy foods, protein, sugar. Your metabolic rate is almost three times that of the average human.”
Great. That would raise the fast food bills.
I rose from the bed and followed him, Toto at my heels, onto a wide balcony that overlooked a huge tiled foyer below. There was a pattern—a symbol painted onto the tiles—that I’d never seen before. Sunlight streamed in from tall, slender, arched windows, bathing the strange symbol in golden light. The rest of the foyer was shrouded in shadow. We headed down the wide staircase, and I braced myself on the iron banisters. The whole staircase had a gothic sweeping appearance to it, ending in ornate balustrades at the base.
The man, my father, led me across the foyer and through a pointed arch into what looked to be a sitting room decorated with cushy couches, a television, coasters, and a coffee table. Beyond that area, a door opened into a cozy, neat kitchen. The scent of something wholesome and filling simmered in the air. Meat, carrots, and cauliflower. Granite worktops sported a set of quality cooking knives, the wooden floors were clean, and an island in its center was set out with a cutting board and partially chopped vegetables.
Something darted across the periphery of my vision. I turned my head to capture it, but it was gone.
The man chuckled. “Aria, it’s fine, you can show yourself.”
The air by the island shimmered, and a slender, pale young woman appeared. Her golden hair was piled atop her head in a messy knot, and wisps of it hung about her elfin face.
“Is this her?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes, this is Malina, my daughter.”
He infused the word with pride, and heat bloomed in my chest.
The girl smiled shyly. “Are you hungry?”
I nodded. “Starving.”
She stood up straight. “Well, we can’t have that.”
The girl burst into motion, her body a blur as it navigated the kitchen. A clink of cutlery, the slam of the fridge, and then a plate piled high with ham sandwiches appeared before me, followed closely by a huge glass of milk.
“Um, have you got anything else to drink? I’m lactose intolerant.”
The man blinked at me. “Of course you are.”
What did he mean by that? Aria replaced the milk with a glass of juice, and my stomach ordered me to focus on the food.
“Aria is our housekeeper, and a good friend,” he explained.
She blushed, her gaze falling on Toto before she glanced up at me. “Would your . . . dog like some food?”
“What do you say, Toto? Wanna eat?”
He stuck out his tongue and cocked his head.
“Yeah, he could eat.”
Aria whizzed around the room again, stopping only when there was a bowl on the floor by Toto filled with hunks of what looked like cooked chicken.
Toto set to work devouring his meal. Poor guy, how many hours had he been locked up in the flat?
“Sit. Eat.” My biological father indicated one of the high-back stools pushed under the island.
Parking my butt, I dug into the neatly cut sandwiches. Maybe it was the fact I was famished, or maybe my body had changed and my senses were even more heightened, but . . .
“This is the best sandwich I’ve ever tasted,” I said around a mouthful of partially chewed food.
Aria beamed.
I ate, vaguely aware of my father taking a seat to my right. It didn’t take me long to demolish the stack, and the juice was a welcome beverage to wash it all down. Once done, I sat back in my seat and patted my stomach.
“Man, that hit the spot . . .” I started to address him, but then snapped my mouth closed. I didn’t feel right calling him dad or father.
“You can call me Eamon,” he said.
“Please tell me you’re not a mind reader. God, I’m not gonna be able to read minds, am I?” I shuddered. “That would just be too much information.”
Aria giggled.
“No mind reading, Malina, just an educated guess based on your body language and expression.”
“Okay. Good. So you were going to tell me what I am? I’ve wondered who my real parents were for years.”
“You knew Barrett wasn’t your father?”
“It’s no secret I was adopted. I was told I walked into the dojo one day, hungry and filthy. Barrett was called. He took care of me until the authorities arrived. They couldn’t find my parents, so Barrett pulled a few strings to adopt me rather than have me put into foster care. I don’t remember anything from the time before. Barrett told me I must have experienced trauma, something to erase my memories, but now you tell me none of that is true. That I was taken, which means my memories may have been taken as well?”
He was silent for the longest time, his head bowed. His white-knuckled clenched fist rested on the table.
“Eamon?”
He cleared his throat. “All I’ve done for the past seventeen years is wonder what happened. Wondered if you were alive. Hoped you were safe, taken care of. I don’t know how they introduced you to Barrett and the guild. I don’t know how much of that is true. All I know is that one day you and your mother were safe at home, and the next, you were both gone.” His voice cracked. “All I know is that we had memories. We had love. And they took that from us.”
“My mother? They took her too?”
He nodded. “I’d hoped that finding you would lead me to her, but so far we’ve had no luck in tracing her.”
His words all rang true. My gut was silent, content with everything that was coming out of his mouth, but there were still two questions he hadn’t answered.
“What am I, Eamon, and why did they take me?”
He locked eyes with me, his expression deadpan. “You’re a hellhound, Malina. They took you because you’re my heir, the next gatekeeper to the gates of hell.”
I stared at him, unblinking, waiting for the punch line, but his expression remained stoic.
Crap.
A cup of steaming hot chocolate appeared in front of me.
“It’s soy milk,” Aria said.
“A shot of whiskey would be more appropriate,” I muttered.
The chocolate was whisked away, and a tumbler with an inch of amber fluid appeared in its place. I took a sip, reveling in the fire that raced down my throat, settling in my stomach like a warm blanket.
“Okay, go on. I’m ready for the rest.” Man, I hoped I was ready.
“After the Shaitan invasion over two centuries ago, the gods created hellhounds . . . gatekeepers to act as a supernatural lock to make sure the gates of hell stayed closed. There is one every generation, but they’re usually male. You, Malina, are an exception to the rule, but I’ll explain why in a moment. As a gatekeeper, it’s our duty to protect the innocent and fight for justice. Our souls are pure, untainted by sin.
“When it came time for me to find my mate, I ventured out into the world looking for a human who would carry my seed and birth the next hellhound—you see, human genes are recessive to hellhound genes, and any child I had with a human would have been pure hellhound.” He dropped his gaze to the table. “Then I met your mother.” He exhaled and shook his head slightly. “She was breathtaking, alluring. I was captivated. I mistook her for human, and we became close. By the time I discovered what she was, it was too late. She was pregnant, and I was deeply in love. We both were. We had no choice but to wait and pray that our love hadn’t doomed humanity. Then you were born. From the moment you opened your eyes, we knew we’d been blessed.”
“My eyes . . . I had the hellhound gene?”
He nodded. “But even more . . . you had your mother’s naga genes.”
Naga? I was part naga? Vinod’s kind eyes came to mind, his gentle smile. I’d killed one of my mother’s people. It had been an order. A valid assignment. Ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I focused on Eamon’s words.
“You showed a natural affinity for water, a sure sign that your naga genes were also prominent, oh, and an intolerance to milk.” He chuckled. “Naga are terribly lactose intolerant. We surmised that it was the unique combination of genes that had allowed the hellhound gene to be prominent in a female.” Eamon leaned closer and reached for my arm. I allowed him to trace the kill marks on my forearm. “I mentioned that a hellhound soul must remain untainted, but they took you and turned you into an assassin, Malina. With each mark, they stained your soul.”
My breath grew short. “I kill for the council—sanctioned kills. Bad guys.”
His fingers slipped from my arm. “There is magic in those marks. I can smell it. They are bound to your soul. Narada wouldn’t have gone to the trouble to do that if your victims had been bad guys.”
You. Wrong. Vinod’s last words . . .
A weight settled on my chest as a sour taste filled my mouth. No. I would not contemplate that.
“I need to go. I need to speak to Barrett.”
Eamon cupped my shoulders. “I understand you need to work through everything I’ve just told you, but you should realize that until we find Narada, until we know who he’s working for or with, you could still be in danger. All they need to do to complete the corruption of your soul is add the final mark. Fifty kills is the charm. The point of no return. Once they do, you will no longer be fit to act as a lock on the gates of hell. It will mean that once I pass on, the gates will open. Humanity will be doomed if that happened.”
Each word he uttered made it harder to breathe.
“So, no pressure then?” It came out snarkier than intended.
He pressed his lips together but didn’t rebuke my tone. Just as well, because I probably would have lost it. Everything he’d said had been a lot to take in, but I’d been handling it. And then he’d gone and added the icing, the possibility I’d been killing innocents. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t.
“Malina, I’m sorry. I’d hoped to raise you in my world, with an understanding of what to expect. I promise you, if I could have been there to protect you and your mother, I would have been, but a breach in the underground had us fighting back the demons that had slipped through.”
“The gas leak seventeen years ago?”
“Yes, that was the cover the council used. The battle waged for days. When I returned, you were both gone. At first, I thought it was the Kubera sect. After all, they are the only group who openly worship Yama, Lord of the Underworld, and are working toward reopening the gates again. I focused on them for too long. But Garuda told me Narada was present at your marking ceremony, and it all fell into place. Your mother would have trusted him. He had the means to get to you.”
“He also provided the serum for my fictional disease.”
“And is now missing. It all adds up, but to get to the bottom of it, we need to find him.”
I pushed back my seat. “I’ve been trained as an assassin, Eamon. I can take care of myself. Now that I know the truth, I’ll be wary, but I’m not going to sit here twiddling my thumbs while you guys wait for Narada to resurface. I need answers, and I know a man who can give them to me.”
“Fine, but please humor me and allow Garuda to accompany you.”
My stomach lurched. “Stalker bloke?”
Eamon’s lips twitched. “Yes, I suppose he may have come across a little strange. He is one of the oldest beings in existence, which makes him seem quirky at times, and his prices are extortionate, but he gets the job done. He found you by smelling the naga on you once your serum started to wear off. I’m just glad he’s managed to tame his impulses when it comes to naga.”
“What kind of impulses?”
He ducked his head. “The killing kind.”
Ice filled my veins. “He kills naga?”
“Used to. In the days of the old gods. Vasuki, the naga king, stole amrit—the ambrosia of the gods—and gave it to his naga brethren. It made them immortal. The gods, in their fury, sent Garuda to exterminate them. For a while, that was his sole purpose . . . until the gates opened and the game plan changed.”
“Look, I get you want me to be safe, but I’d feel safer if he wasn’t with me.”
Eamon’s brows came together, and he placed a hand over mine in a soothing gesture. “The anxiety you’re experiencing is simply residual primal survival instinct. Your naga genes are telling you to fear, to run. But I promise you, Garuda is not a threat. I sent him to find you because I would trust him with your life. He brought you back to me unharmed.”
The sick, churning feeling didn’t seem like residual anything. It was real and immediate, and man, I was gonna puke. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Focus. Eamon was right: this Garuda bloke had acted weird, but he hadn’t hurt me. And Eamon didn’t want me hurt, so Garuda was safe.
“Malina, please. If you can’t trust him, please trust me. I would never put you in harm’s way. Humor an old man.”
He didn’t look old. In fact, he looked no older than thirty, but that was beside the point. I needed to decide. There was only one way to swing if I wanted answers. Narada was a proven threat, whereas Garuda was residual primal . . . whatever Eamon had said.
“Malina?”
“If he tries anything, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
Eamon’s handsome face broke into a smile. “Thank you.”
“And if he goes rogue and slits my throat, it will be on you.”
“Trust me. You will be perfectly safe with Garuda.”
Gosh, I really hoped so, because every fiber of my being was rebelling against this scheme. Being around Garuda scared the crap out of me, because even though my base instinct was to run, there was another part of me that wanted nothing more than to press myself against him.
I ran a hand over my face. “Is it okay to leave Toto here while I’m gone?”
“Aria will take care of him.”
Aria’s gaze was fixed on Toto. She didn’t look too happy about dog sitting.
“He won’t be any trouble,” I said.
She blinked and looked up. “Of course. I know he won’t.”
“Great, so are you gonna get in touch with Garuda?”
Eamon shot me a sheepish grin. “Actually, he’s already here.”
10
We were headed across the marble foyer to the double doors that made up the exit—heavy duty looking things studded with metal, the dark wood reinforced with strips of iron in a decorative gothic pattern. A tiny iron bell hung silently above them.
I probably should have been annoyed about Eamon enlisting Garuda before getting the okay from me, but he was trying to protect me, and it felt kinda nice.
“How old was I when I was taken?”
“A few weeks away from your fourth birthday,” Eamon said.
“I wish I could remember . . . something, anything.”
Eamon turned to me, his hand coming up. For a moment I thought he was about to cup my cheek, but he curled his fingers into a fist and dropped his hand.
“I believe your memories are still there, Malina. It seems they were unable to take away your name.”
“You named me?”
He shrugged. “It was a joint effort. Your mother came up with the idea, and I agreed.”
So my mother had been a strong-willed woman. My determination and stubbornness . . . had I inherited those traits from my mother? A strange ache filled my chest.
The bell above the door erupted in a shrill tinkle and made me jump.
Eamon’s expression smoothed into something neutral yet professional.
“Who is it?”
“Someone in need of help. Garuda is outside. Go find out what you need, and then come back to me, Malina.” His tone thickened, and he cleared his throat. “I’ve missed so much. I can’t bear to miss any more.”
How to respond to that? His words held too much emotion . . . emotion that came from the fear of losing someone important . . . emotion I couldn’t echo because I had no memory of losing him. Where my past should have been, there was nothing but an empty void, one I knew now to be created by gods. I didn’t know if it was possible to hurt a god, but if I ever got the chance to test the theory on Narada, I would gladly take it. He’d ripped me from my home, taken my childhood memories, and turned me into a murderer. He deserved a shed-load of pain.