by Nancy Madore
As Amanda attempted to soothe herself with this most logical explanation, she kept an uneasy eye on the shadows lurking all around her. She felt disproportionately unnerved—all the more so because she wasn’t prone to bad dreams or wild imaginings. Something had spooked her out of a deep sleep, and whatever it was seemed to be lingering, like an ominous presence. She had the distinct and persisting impression that someone was there, watching her.
“Tommy…?” she called out weakly, but the preposterousness of this struck her before the word was even out of her mouth. Tommy would not waste his time!
This involuntary thought brought Amanda up short. Why had she thought of it like that? Suffice it to say that Tommy wasn’t the sort of man to watch a woman sleep—nor was he the type to lurk around in the dark playing tricks. He was too time conscious for that.
And much too self-absorbed.
Amanda huffed at herself testily. She hated it when she got like this. It was his leaving so soon after their lovemaking. He’d said it was because he needed to get up early, but her alarm clock worked just as well as his. What did it mean? Was it possible that Tommy was tiring of her already?
Amanda instantly rejected this possibility. She’d given him a night to remember if Cosmo could be trusted (and Amanda had been relying on their advice for too long to consider that they couldn’t). She’d deliberated over every detail, from the long, false eyelashes to the back breaking stilettos. She shuddered with pleasure, recalling his expression when he saw her in the little pink lace teddy that left nothing to the imagination. He’d responded like a wild boar at a picnic. But then he left so quickly after! She couldn’t help feeling a little resentful. Here she was, working her ass off (literally) to make each and every encounter more exciting for him and what, meanwhile, was he doing for her?
Yet Amanda was confident that she would win him over in the end. Oh, she was well aware of that dowdy little waitress in Delta Junction who was after him but, compared to Amanda, she was merely ridiculous. Of course looks weren’t everything, but in this woman’s case they amounted to nothing. Amanda and her best friend, Catherine, had become regulars at the restaurant where the waitress worked, solely for the pleasure of picking her apart. Amanda couldn’t even remember the woman’s name; she began calling her ‘Flo’ early on, and it stuck. How could Tommy settle for a washed up old waitress named ‘Flo’ after having Amanda?
Amanda was starting to feel better. Even though he wasn’t good at showing it, Tommy had to be falling in love with her. She knew he was proud of her—she could tell by his self-satisfied expression whenever people watched them come into a room. She stood out in every crowd, with her long, blonde hair and voluptuous figure. In addition to being one of the best looking women in the region, she loved him, blew him and made him laugh. Really, what more could a man want?
Amanda rolled over in her bed restlessly. Normally, thinking about Tommy could soothe her no matter what was happening around her, but she was still feeling uneasy. She sat up, glancing at the clock. It was three in the morning. She looked around the room again, examining every shadow scrupulously. She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was there in the room with her, watching her. She snapped on the light and fished through the top drawer of her bedside table for a small bottle of pills. Finding it, she dropped one of the little blue pills on her palm, tossed it in her mouth and swallowed it, washing it down with water from a glass on the table. Then she shut off the light and lay back down, trying to think happy thoughts about her future with Tommy while waiting for the pill to kick in.
But her eyes kept wandering back to the shadows hovering all around the room. Had they changed position since she’d looked at them last? Amanda chided herself inwardly. When had she ever been afraid of shadows? Yet she was afraid. The room suddenly felt too close. She recalled turning up the heat before going to bed—perhaps the room was too warm. She threw back the blankets and snapped on the light once again. She walked to the window and paused uneasily before raising the blinds. She turned, looking around the room again in an effort to get a reign on her fear. Failing this, she turned back toward the window and jerked the cord, making the blind fly up with a loud clang. Her heart stopped. There were two faces reflected in the window—hers, and…something else!
Amanda spun around, a small, involuntary shriek escaping her lips. There was nothing behind her! She turned back to the window, dreading what she might see, but now there was only one ghostly white image reflected there, and that was her own. She turned back toward the room again, scanning every nook and cranny.
“Who’s there?” she croaked, too terrified to move. The image—though she’d only seen it briefly—was still fixed in her mind. It was too terrible to forget. And it had been hovering so close to her—almost touching her! She shivered at the thought. The large, dark eyes—and those teeth!
The better to eat you with, my dear.
Amanda made a little sound, like a whimper, and leapt from the window to her bed. Very slowly, with dread, she bent down over the side of the bed to look underneath.
All she saw were shoes and dust bunnies.
Amanda got back out of bed and crept, on tiptoe, through her apartment, turning on every light switch she passed as she made her way to the living-room. Making it there in one piece, she picked up the remote and turned on the television, stealing anxious glances around the room. The apartment immediately came alive with the comforting sounds of what appeared to be a talk show. Amanda sat on the couch, feeling a little bit calmer as she absently began flipping through channels. She had the sudden urge to call Tommy but decided against it. Like Cosmo pointed out, she didn’t want to appear ‘needy.’
A familiar scene from the movie, Pretty Woman, flashed on the screen, and Amanda put down the remote. She’d seen the movie a hundred times before, but the sight of Julia Roberts flinging an oyster across a crowded restaurant was strangely comforting. Her little apartment seemed unnaturally bright with all of the lights turned on, and the blue pill was definitely kicking in now. Amanda stared dully at the television until she eventually drifted back to sleep.
Chapter 1
Manhattan, New York
He was there, and the sight of him filled Nadia with joyous relief. His expression was the same as always; intelligent, kind, content. His green eyes—so like hers—shone with pride as he gazed at his daughter. He seemed particularly youthful for his years, although there were creases at the corners of his eyes when he smiled, and his chestnut brown hair was peppered with gray. Yet he was still a handsome man.
There were so many things that Nadia wanted to say to him, but she couldn’t seem to remember any of them at that moment.
“It’s a perfect autumn day,” he told her. “What would you say to a walk on the beach?”
Memories came rushing back of autumns past, and Nadia could almost feel the lusty warmth of Indian summer and smell the rich, sea air. This was their favorite time of year. Feeling like a child again, Nadia took her father’s hand. As she leaned into him, a distant pain was lifted and seemed to float away. She had the sense that everything would be all right.
Nadia drew back to look at her father—almost as if to confirm that he was really there—and gasped. It was no longer her father who had hold of her, but a horrific, two headed monster. One of its heads was glaring down at her with wild, angry eyes and a vicious scowl, while the other gazed despairingly at her from where it hung to one side. The first head was that of a savage, lion-like beast, while the other appeared more like a growth, a kind of half-man, half-lamb that seemed to be making a silent appeal with its dark, sorrowful eyes.
Nadia tried to pull away from the creature but it held her fast, and she realized suddenly that she was actually dangling, way up in the air, in the clutches of the giant monster. Panic rose up in her as she continued to struggle. It was not fear of being devoured by the first, vicious head that terrified her, but the pain she perceived in the eyes of that second, dangling head. It seemed to b
e beseeching her, even as its pain attempted to penetrate her. Nadia screamed.
“Hey!” Nadia continued to thrash against her captor, even though it was Will who now had hold of her. “It was only a dream,” he said, tightening his hold. “It was only a dream.” And even after she stopped thrashing he still continued to hold her, gently rocking her back and forth in his arms, and reassuring her that it was, in fact, only a dream.
Nadia blinked furiously in an attempt to halt the tears that were flooding her eyes, and she actually had to bite her lip hard in order to stifle her sobs. The moment seemed far too intimate, and she wished Will wasn’t there to see it. God forbid he ask her what she’d been dreaming about. Though—she supposed he already knew.
Will kept gently rocking her, and Nadia couldn’t help feeling grateful for the time he was giving her to compose herself. When she felt sufficiently calmed she nudged him lightly and he released her.
“Good morning,” he murmured. The stubble on his face tickled her skin as he brushed his lips against hers, and she felt herself melting into his strong, masculine body. She was acutely aware of his nakedness, and hers, beneath the blankets. Glad for this distraction, she wound her arms around his neck and pressed her body against him. She could feel him getting harder and was a little surprised to find that she, too, was becoming aroused. She continued to rub herself against him seductively.
“Mmmm,” he moaned, spreading bristly kisses along her neck and shoulder. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
Nadia giggled self-consciously, but she grew serious when her eyes finally met his. She stared thoughtfully into those blue depths, as if mesmerized.
She couldn’t help noticing how much Will resembled her father. It wasn’t just his brown hair and the deep, penetrating eyes. Will had her father’s disposition as well; ever thoughtful, always wanting to do the right thing—and always so certain about what the right thing was. How had two such similar men ended up on opposite sides?
“Did I neglect to mention how much I missed you the last few days?” Will asked. “It was so late when I got in last night…I’m afraid I might’ve had a one track mind.”
“Mine was running on the same track,” she admitted. “And I missed you too.”
“Strange, huh?” he mused.
“Why strange?” she asked.
“Well, for one thing, we’ve only known each other a week,” he replied.
“Has it only been a week?” she asked, genuinely surprised. “It seems so much longer!” She pretended to consider this. “I guess it just seems longer to the kidnapee.”
Will laughed. “Well, let’s see now. We kidnapped you Friday afternoon, saved the world that following Monday, then took a few well deserved days off…” He paused here to add meaningfully—“And I’ll never forget those three days for as long as I live.”
This struck Nadia as an odd thing to say, given all that she’d gone through in those three days (on the third day she’d buried her father). And yet, it truly had been an amazing three days, because, somehow, her heart had remained open in spite of everything that had happened. Love had flourished in the harshest climate. Will had helped her through the worst period of her life, comforting and distracting her in turns, dulling the pain as effectively as a morphine drip.
Seeing Nadia’s expression turn melancholy, Will quickly returned to the original topic. “Then Friday morning the guys and I headed back to Saudi for the debriefing—where I suffered miserably without you—and then I ravished you the minute I got back last night—which brings us to today. Hmph! I guess you’re right. It has been longer than a week. It’s been a week and…one, two…almost three days.”
Nadia couldn’t believe how much they’d been through in such a short time. “I guess it is pretty strange at that,” she admitted.
“Oh? Why’s that?” he asked, making her laugh.
“I’m gonna need coffee for this,” she said, evading his avaricious advances to slip out of bed.
Nadia knew that all this joking around didn’t come natural to Will. He was trying to cheer her up, and her heart swelled in gratitude. She marveled at the intensity of her feelings for him. Was it too soon for her to feel this way? When she first started identifying with him—while she was still his captive, no less—she’d feared she was suffering from Stockholm’s syndrome. But as it turned out, her instincts had been right. All three of her kidnappers were good, decent people.
So why was she still so conflicted? What was that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach? Was it simply grief? Or was it guilt?
She watched the coffee machine as it dribbled and hissed. How could her father have been the mastermind of such a brutal attack? To kill so many innocent people—when the man she knew as her father wouldn’t kill a fly! But the man who planned this terrible thing wasn’t really her father.
Or was he? It was all so confusing. Asmodeous wasn’t Edward, but then again, Nadia had never really met Edward. Asmodeous was the only father she’d ever known. He was the one who married Gisele and decided to have a child with her. If not for Asmodeous, Nadia would never have been born. In that sense, he was certainly her father. And wasn’t he also the one who raised her?
She would never be able to repay Will for keeping her father’s involvement in the disaster out of the media. With the attack at the forefront of everyone’s attention, Edward’s “stroke” had gone practically unnoticed. Flowers and gifts had poured in from all around the world of course—Edward had been a highly respected professor and activist, after all—but with travel so limited in the aftermath of the attack, the funeral had been a blessedly quiet affair.
And through it all, Nadia had found a peculiar comfort in the belief that he wasn’t really gone. He was captured, to be sure, but at least he was still there. The debriefing seemed to prove this, and, although Nadia had been prohibited from attending, she realized now how much she’d been clinging to whatever that debriefing might bring. In a haze of expectation she’d endured everything—the arrangements, the funeral—knowing that in a few short days the individual that she’d known as Edward Adeire would be forced to explain, once and for all, why he did what he did. Though it pained her to think of him as a prisoner bound to a ring, she understood the necessity of it and awaited the enlightenment the debriefing was certain to bring. She had counted on it.
But the debriefing had failed. Asmodeous had somehow eluded the power of the ring. And now he was gone from her life forever. She was left with nothing but the legacy that she had been raised by a cold blooded killer.
Why didn’t he tell me who he was?
But she knew why. They had to remain ‘hidden’ if they wanted to survive. They were outcasts with nowhere else to go, despised by all, even the angels. Their circumstances made them what they were, and what they were was deplorable. Had she expected Asmodeous to vindicate himself?
Nadia brought the entire coffee pot into the bedroom, along with cups and condiments on a tray. They poured their coffees in silence.
“Can we talk about the elephant in the room for a minute?” asked Will.
Nadia turned her face away but the little sigh that escaped her lips was one of relief.
“I can get a warrant,” he said, not unkindly. His look was beseeching. “Please don’t make me do that.”
“No,” she said quickly. “Of course I won’t make you do that. I just…I don’t understand why everything is falling on me.”
“He left everything to you.”
The coffee was too hot and Nadia burned the inside of her mouth. “Damn!” she exclaimed, and, suddenly angry, she added—“I thought the ring was supposed to be fool proof!”
“So did we,” he said, apologetic.
“Are you sure it wasn’t tampered with?” she asked, although she had come to know them well enough by now to realize how unlikely this was.
“I don’t see how it could have been,” he said. “We have a protocol that never failed before. That ring went from Gordon’
s finger to a wet pile of clay, which was then signed by all of us in attendance. From there it went straight into an oven. The minute it cooled down, the clay tablet was then placed in a box with six inches of cushioning all around it. The box was sealed and placed in a fire-proof safe, where it stayed until it was flown with the rest of us to our headquarters in Saudi Arabia. The safe wasn’t opened until the debriefing, when we all identified our signatures on the clay tablet, and then broke it open and retrieved the ring. I’m certain it was the ring that Gordon used to conjure Asmodeous.”
“And yet Asmodeous wasn’t in it,” she reminded him.
“Something was there,” Will told her. “Some kind of dark …something. Gordon said it seemed about the right shape and size of Asmodeous, but it never materialized into anything more than just a mist. It definitely wasn’t the creature Gordon described seeing with you last Monday.”
A strange antipathy came over Nadia at the way he said ‘creature,’ although she herself couldn’t help shuddering whenever she thought of the thing that emerged from her father’s body. She recalled thinking that the bizarre forms these hidden souls took must reflect their true selves. But that was before she’d seen the ghastly form that her father’s soul would take. She shuddered again as she recalled the two opposing heads, both so terrifying in and of themselves, sitting atop the body of a dragon. What did it signify? Wouldn’t she have known if her father was truly such a monster?
“What do you think it was?” Nadia asked, referring to the mist he described.
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Something was there. It may have been Asmodeous. But we couldn’t get it to fully materialize or speak.”
“Do you think this could have something to do with the strange language Asmodeous was speaking as Gordon pulled me from the house?” she asked, recalling the revulsion she’d felt upon hearing it. It was unlike anything she’d heard before, more terrifying than the cries of a wild animal. It was completely alien and agonizing to human ears. “Gordon said he’d never heard a djinn speak like that before.”