by Kimbra Swain
However, I had no idea what wielder he had on staff, but I was sure that there was one. Next, I pulled up the file for Nickolai Costa Palladino.
“Is this your proxy?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“He had to be good looking,” he smirked.
“It’s part of the job,” I said.
“Is that why you picked Lukas?” he asked.
“No, I originally picked Lukas because Ashley told me to pick him,” I explained. I told him about when I met Lukas as a stinking street kid, and within a couple of months he ruled Los Angeles. I was apprehensive telling him the story. I stopped just before I told him about the fight at Stardust Hall.
“What about Ashley?” he said. “You have to tell me what happened to her?” I knew if I went any further my thoughts would tell her secret.
“Ashley is special,” I said.
“I know she is. What secret?” he asked.
“Damn it, Tadeas. This is one of those moments when I need you not to read my thoughts,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because Ashley’s secret is hers to tell, not mine,” I said.
He picked up his phone and dialed. “Hey Ash, can Abby tell me your secret?”
“Bloody hell, Jag,” I groaned. He handed me the phone.
“What?” I said.
“How did we get on this subject?” she asked.
“I showed him Nickolai, and then we started talking about Lukas. And I started telling him about Los Angeles and how the vamps took you,” I said. “And now that he can read my damn mind, if I go any further with the story, well, he will know.”
She laughed. “The sex was good, yeah?”
“Damn it, Ash!” I exclaimed, and he laughed, now knowing both sides of the conversation now through me, which was really strange.
“Tell him Abby. That way I don’t have to. Never hold anything back from him. By the way, what’s with the freaky glowing rose in your room?” she asked.
“You both irritate me to death,” I said.
“We will tell you about the rose when we get back,” Tadeas said.
“All I can say is it’s about time the both of you followed my advice. Maybe I’ll quit getting visions. Yuck!” she gagged.
“Bye Ashley!” I said and hung up the phone.
“You are such a pain. You can’t let anything go. Its impulsive,” I ranted.
“No, there is just no reason to hold back or wait on these things. I’ve been sitting around in the basement of a compound for decades waiting on things to happen. I’m not waiting anymore, especially when it pertains to us and our team,” he told me.
“Don’t act like this impulsiveness is something new. When I was in your training classes, how many times did you have to stop yourself from coming after me?” I asked.
“Well, I didn’t, until I did.”
“Ha! I see it much more clearly now,” I laughed at him.
“Finish the damn story!” he shouted. I kept laughing.
“Did you really just roll your eyes at me?” I asked.
“See how it feels?” he joked.
“That is my move, and you can’t have it!” I protested.
“Abby, finish the story,” he tried to be firm. I relented after having my fun.
I started the story back up with me begging Lukas to wait the fight out in the car. Tadeas gave him props for going in anyway. I finished the story with Ashley getting the dose of serum from Dr. Maki. I didn’t feel the need to tell what happened later that night.
“You were already in love with him then,” he said.
I shook my head in frustration. His intuitiveness was annoying. “Yes, I was,” I admitted.
“He proved himself that night though, and he stood up to you. I can approve of that,” he said, and I elbowed him in the ribs. “I see a pattern.”
“What pattern?” I said.
“Lukas stood up to you. I stand up to you when you get these crazy notions in your head,” I said. “Lincoln did it too, didn’t he?”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I said.
“The answer is yes,” he said.
“Fuck off!” I said.
“Gladly, but I think we are too close to New York now to make it worth
the effort,” he teased.
“I hate you.”
He laughed. “I’m sure you do.”
I gritted my teeth because he was right. Every man that I loved had stood up to me, except one and that was a special situation that I didn’t want to bring up now. Every one of them had the backbone to put me in my place. It was something I rarely came across in men. Tadeas, in fact, with his persistence was the most adept at standing up to me. Women fought for rights all over this world, and this wasn’t a male dominance thing at all. I needed a confidant that would ground me, and Tadeas kept my feet on earth and my focus on the goal. I admit that I have weaknesses just like anyone. Tadeas complimented me in ways I never imagined. In turn, he had the pleasure of me dragging him through hell and back. It was an equal trade.
“I don’t hate you,” I said sadly.
“Aw, Abby, I know you were joking,” he said kissing the back of my hand.
“No, I don’t want to leave it like that, in a joke,” I said.
“From very early on, I knew you liked to deflect tension. I make you uneasy with my directness, but I don’t mean any harm by it. I just don’t want to beat around the bush about things,” he explained.
“One of my more endearing qualities,” I joked again.
“It absolutely is,” he replied seriously. “It’s what gets you through. You’ve seen infinitely more wickedness and destruction in your life than I have. You have a coping mechanism for that, deflection. I love it about you. It’s how I know you are still fighting.”
I leaned over to him and kissed him. “Thank you, Dr. Tadeas Freud.”
“See! It’s great,” he said kissing me back. The airplane shifted, and I knew it was time to land.
“You ready?”
“I’m with you,” he said. “Vampire, huh?”
He finally got back to Ashley. “Dormant vampire,” I replied.
Two long weeks went by, and I had talked to Abby on the phone when she had time. The situation in Guatemala fell apart with her down there. She had to pick a new proxy. His name was Lucio Hernandez. He was already well known and wealthy, so she didn’t have to spend as much time establishing him as she did when she trained me.
The phone on my desk rang, “Good afternoon, this is Mr. Castille.”
“Hello Proxy Castille,” said the sexiest voice on earth.
“I miss you. Please tell me you are coming home,” I said.
“The plane lands in an hour,” Abby said.
“Are you joking?” I asked her looking at my watch. I would have to leave now to fight the traffic out to Santa Monica.
“No, sir, I was just going to surprise you, but I decided a warning might be nice,” she said.
“I’m leaving here now. I’ll meet you there,” I said.
“If you are busy…”
“Nothing else matters right now,” I said interrupting her, and her laugh floated through the phone receiver. It was so good to hear her laugh. When she had called during that last two weeks, she sounded stressed.
“See you soon, Lukas,” she said.
“I’ll be there,” I said, hanging up the phone. I tore out of the office and mumbled something to Mrs. Lambert as I passed her. I was driving the red Mustang, but I knew all of us couldn’t get in it. I took one of the company’s large SUVs. Of course, traffic in Los Angeles was horrible, and I thought I’d be late.
I pulled into the small airport and tried to straighten my suit. I went into the terminal to inquire about the flight. They told me it should be landing in about five minutes. I went to the lower floor and out the back of the building, waiting for the plane to land. The longer I stood there, the more nervous I got. We had been together for over a year, bu
t this was the first separation, so I had fears that she would remember her life on the go and decide to move on, leaving me to govern Los Angeles. The supernatural scene in the city had been calm except for a few incidents. I knew we had at least one powerful wielder in town because some of the crews interrupted a ritual in an abandoned warehouse down near Reseda. We took a lot of photographs of the remnants, since I wanted Abby to look at it as soon as possible. However, I put my personal agenda before work. I wanted her in my arms, on my lips, and in my bed as soon as possible.
I could see the plane coming in for a landing. I watched it slow down to a stop not far away from where I stood. The grounds crew secured the gear, and a staircase folded out of the small private plane. The moment the stairs were in place, she ran down the steps to me. My heart stopped beating for a moment. She jumped me, and her lips met mine. By the time we stopped to take a breath, Ashley was standing behind us laughing.
“You missed me,” I told Abby.
“Was there ever a doubt of that?” she asked.
“Maybe a little. I still think it’s all a dream,” I said.
“Don’t wake me up!” she said, kissing me again.
We piled into the SUV and drove back to the lofts. “If you two make out all the way back, I’m going to walk home,” Ashley said.
For her sake, I refrained. We talked about their trip. Apparently, the former proxy managed to get himself involved with a drug lord down there. When he tried to get out of the deal he made with the criminal, they started burning his assets, which were essentially the assets of the Agency. Abby brokered a deal with the drug lord and released the proxy from his duties. I wasn’t sure what that meant for his future.
I didn’t fear that happening to me. Six months ago, Abby surprised me with an envelope. I opened it up to find a check for $750,000. She managed to obtain the remaining assets from my parent’s estate. The state had taken everything when they died because they didn’t have a will. She was able to prove that I was in no condition to claim the assets, and through some legalese that I didn’t understand, I possessed my rightful inheritance. She immediately showed me how to invest it. I started buying properties and businesses outside of the assets of the Agency. If anything, ever happened, I would be self-sufficient.
When we got back to the lofts, I thought I’d be the impatient one, but she dragged me to the elevator. She looked back at Ashley and said, “Do not bother me until tomorrow.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Ashley said.
I blushed at the conversation, but it excited me as well.
“You okay?” I asked.
“No, I hated being away from you. It’s insane,” she said. She was a ball of energy. I pulled her close to me, and she stopped fidgeting.
“There is no way you hated it more than I did,” I said.
She put her arms around my neck and pulled her lips up to mine. As the elevator doors opened, we stumbled out of the elevator into the loft. She had already removed my jacket and tie. We left them in the elevator. We left a trail of clothes to the bed.
Being with her was like stepping into the sun after two weeks of darkness. It hurt my eyes a little at first, but the sun was warm and welcoming. The initial pain was only that she had been gone so long. The absence in my heart hurt until the moment she filled it back up. After that I only felt the warmth of her love. I never imagined myself as a married man, but those thoughts overwhelmed me as I made love to her. I wanted her to be mine for the whole world to know, and I wanted her to have my name. She told me that she made up her last name as a child. She had many aliases as well. Lincoln didn’t have a last name. He was a supernatural creature, and he only went by Lincoln. From what she told me, he didn’t believe in marriage, anyway. They had some sort of Native American bonding ceremony. I wanted her name to be Abigail Castille. I started making plans in my head. Honestly, I wasn’t sure she would say yes, but I was going to ask anyway.
We laid in the bed together, and she finally started asking about the city. I gave her a rundown of all the incidents since she left.
“Looks like you handled things quite well without me,” she said.
“Yes, I can handle the city, but I need you for my own personal attention,” I said.
“I suppose I could make time in my busy schedule to see to your needs,” she joked.
“Thank you, Miss Davenport. I will make sure you are compensated,” I laughed back at her.
“I do want to see the pictures from the ritual though. I’ll make some calls to headquarters to see if we can find out who is in town. A wielder conducting blood rituals is not something to sweep under the rug,” she said.
“I’m just glad you are back, so I didn’t have to run it up to headquarters myself,” I said.
“Grandfather would have sent Lincoln. I don’t need him here,” she said.
She told me very little about her break-up with Lincoln, and I didn’t need to know the details. She would tell me one day if she wanted. It was abundantly clear from her stories that they were both extremely stubborn. I knew she still loved him though. Anytime she mentioned his name, I could see the hurt in her eyes. You can’t hurt if you didn’t love or didn’t care.
“If you ever want to talk about any of that, I’ll be happy to listen,” I said.
“Lukas Castille, we are naked in the bed together. There is no way I’m going to start talking about my ex-partner!” she teased.
“I didn’t mean right now,” I retorted.
“There is nothing to talk about, besides he might not be the one that Grandfather would send. He’s out looking for his daughter,” she said.
“Looking for his daughter?” I asked.
“Yes, he had a child with a woman after we broke up, and the woman took the child from him,” she explained. “Grandfather said he spends most of his days looking for her. I don’t know all the details, but we aren’t talking about it anymore. I missed you, Lukas. I thought that I could go off, and it wouldn’t bother me. However, it did more than I ever expected. I’m more attached to you than I thought. I love you so much, and it’s so wonderful to be back here with you.”
I played with her hair and ran my fingers down her face, “I missed you as well. I feel like I can breathe again.” We made love, then she fell asleep curled up next to me.
The next day we headed into the office together. She walked with me instead of in front of me. We always kept the front that she was in charge, and that I followed her orders. Her reputation went a lot further than mine. We got to my office, and Mrs. Lambert brought in some bagels and coffee. She handed one cup to Abby, which we all knew had tea instead of coffee. I pulled out the photos that we took of the ritual. She flipped through them, and her face grew dark.
“What is it?” I asked.
She looked up to me, “It is bad, and I need to call headquarters immediately.” She walked over to the phone and dialed the number. I got up offering her my seat. She sat down and nodded to thank me. I took a seat in the leather chair across the room. Ashley sat on the couch that she and Abby had shared looking at the photos.
“Hello, yes, this is Abigail Davenport. I need to speak to Mr. Theodoard. The matter is urgent,” she spoke, waiting for the response.
“That is unfortunate. Who is working the Action Center? No, wait, don’t transfer me,” she said frustrated and shot Ashley a look. Ashley grimaced.
I knew the moment I called headquarters, by some twist of fate, I would have to talk to him.
“Lincoln,” he simply answered.
“This is Abigail Davenport calling to report an incident in Los Angeles,” I kept it business like. He paused, and I heard him sigh. Something inside me ripped. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Lukas.
“Ajéí, it is good to hear your voice,” he said. His tone was steady and strong.
“Are you going to take the report, or do I need to talk to someone else, Lincoln?” I didn’t have time to reminisce.
“Forgive me. What is your re
port?”
“A blood sacrifice was made in Reseda two days ago in a warehouse. I need all intel regarding any Mayan or Aztec related shamans or the like. The symbology leads me to believe it was Mesoamerican. The complete run down, please,” I requested.
“I will come out,” he said simply.
“No, you will not,” I replied. “Please gather the information.”
“You are too stubborn. Abigail, a blood sacrifice is serious. You need to have the crew search for additional sites. You know there will be more than one. Who was the victim?” he said.
“I know my part of the job. The crews are already searching for secondary sites,” I said and made eye contact with Lukas. He stood up and left the room. “The victim is unknown. The blood remained, but the body was gone. Our crew kept out of sight until it was over. They were trained that way,” I explained. I knew they had been, because once they left the new facility in Boulder, every crew member that came into Lukas’s territory went through my training as well.
“I’m still coming out. We need a whole team there. I promise to stay out of your way, if that is what you want,” he said sadly. I gritted my teeth and steadied myself.
“Lincoln, please, I will call you if you are needed,” I said.
“A shaman and four priests. You are looking for five,” he stated.
“I know how many there will be,” I said remembering the significance it played in my own death.
“And you expect to take all five of them yourself?” he started to lose his cool demeanor. It was extremely rare that he did. Dealing with me frustrated him from the moment I met him. That didn’t change even when we were together.