by Ebony Olson
Henry took the papers from me and read through it. I could tell when he read the description. “You said you pulled the beast out of the man. It was Spectra?” Henry looked to me for confirmation.
I met his eyes unflinchingly. “How on earth would a human girl be able to do that, Henry?”
Henry scoffed at me. “You know very well she's not human, Bay, don't give me that. You're not stupid. I dare say you know exactly what she is by now.”
I let one eyebrow lift. “Enlighten me, Henry.”
Henry huffed. “She's a balance. Nephilim of the third generation most likely. Not powerful enough to marry even the weakest of our kind... unless this is true?”
I relaxed back against the sink and shook my head. “She can't do what is claimed here. She got scared and just happened to run the same instant this happened.” It was an easy lie. Spectra couldn't do it again, so there was no point admitting she ever did it in the first place. “That's not going to stop them coming after her though.”
Luke's phone rang. He stepped outside the bathroom to answer it.
Henry stood straighter. “I'll have Alexander pick her up.”
“No, you won't!” I growled. “You may as well put a neon sign pointing to her if Alexander makes any move to protect her. I've already arranged for her and her boyfriend to leave town for a while. What you need to do is use your son's bride-to-be as a way to misinform our enemies.”
Henry read through the emails again. “I don't even understand how she got this information. He's feigned amnesia since the event each time we've questioned the man.”
“Possibly he's only spoken to those he knew were of Essence. Like Alexander's girlfriend.” I tapped the papers he held. “We can use her and when we're done with her...” I shrugged. “Let Alexander marry her.”
Henry glared at me. “She's not strong enough. For me, yes maybe, but not for him.”
I smiled. “Oh, I'm very sure of that.”
“You would let Alexander kill the woman he loves?” Henry's eyes went dark, his power swirling to a focal point.
“God no! Spectra is far too good to deserve that. The one he intends to be his wife? Yes.”
The side of Henry's mouth lifted slightly. “Spectra is his, Bay. Even if she separates herself from him, he owns her heart and soul.”
I leaned forward slightly. “But not body.”
Henry's brow dropped in confusion. “They've been sleeping together for nearly eight years, Bay.”
“Spectra is paranoid about getting pregnant out of wedlock, Henry. She's never let her lovers claim her, and that includes your son.” Luke came back into the room. He looked pale and worried. I stood straight immediately. “Where is she?”
Luke shook his head. “They must have gotten her name before we could stop them. They had three hours on us. They killed a nun when they took her. The Angelis is going nuts. It looks like she tried to make a run for it, but they got her. They found her bag stuffed with clothes and her laptop halfway across the grounds. Calin is trying to track where they took her. He's called some of his students to help and added it as extra credit.”
I was heading for the door. “Henry, you need to head this off at your end. Make sure the Nephilim finds out I have a ghost, but it was just coincidence that she passed through the beast the same moment Gina hit him with the antidote. Maybe, if we're lucky, she'll pass it on quickly that it was misinformation and they will release Spectra.”
“If we're unlucky?” Henry grumbled, following me back to my office.
“Your future daughter-in-law is taking out the competition while she can, and we find Spectra dead by morning.” I walked into my office, opened a Word document, and started typing furiously.
“What are you doing?” Luke queried.
“Writing a statement that Henry is going to leave with the Nephilim bitch for Alexander to read.” I finished typing a plausible explanation for what the beast saw. “It might be good to make a scene with Alexander, too.”
“What about?” Henry was tapping into his phone.
“As far as everyone is concerned, Spectra got married to her Angelis boyfriend of four years last night, and they were leaving on their honeymoon this afternoon.”
Henry stopped. “Did she marry an Angelis last night?”
“Not your priority concern right now, Henry.” I pressed print and stood up, grabbing my jacket.
“Did she marry last night?” Henry pressed angrily.
I met his eyes. “Yes.” Henry stepped back like I'd punched him. I wasn't going to explain that it wasn't a legal marriage and it wasn't the Angelis, but last night Spectra had naively married her body to mine. That was close enough to the truth to cause the stir I needed right now. Spectra would marry Mercury now anyway, so if the rumor made its way back to them before it happened, so be it.
“I have contacts to run down if we're going to save her, Henry. You do your bit, I'll bring her back safe.” I stormed towards the door as Claire came in. I grabbed the document and held it up against the door as I signed it. “Copy that for me and give the original to Henry, Claire.”
“Yes, boss.” Claire ran, well the equivalent of it in her heels, off to the photocopier.
“Luke, let's go.” I walked out of the office, slipping into my jacket as I made my way to the elevator.
When the doors closed, Luke looked at me. “You didn't tell me you married her last night.”
I kept my eyes straight ahead. “She doesn't know what she gave up last night, Luke. They kept her ignorant in the hope Alexander could manipulate her every step of the way. They weren't going to give her a choice if she proved strong enough.”
Luke met my eyes in the reflection of the elevator door. “Which she is, isn't she? You would have killed her last night if she wasn't.”
I watched the numbers count down to the ground floor. “She was using me to build her resistance so she would be strong enough for him. He'd given up on her because they didn't know who she is. Until last night, she'd wanted to prove herself worthy of him.”
Luke bowed his head. “And she is.”
“No.” The elevator counted down to P. “She's too good for him.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Spectra
I ran up the stairs to my bedroom and started throwing clothes in my bag along with a few other items I was going to need. I stripped out of the suit I was wearing and pulled on my favorite lace and velvet long sleeved dress. I folded the suit neatly and placed it on top of the bag along with my laptop and heels.
I was just zipping up my faux lace up knee-highs when someone knocked at my bedroom door. I pulled on my jacket as I considered the two shadows under the door. The nuns rarely ever trudged up to the third floor. “Who is it?”
“Spectra, it's Penelope. There's a phone call for you downstairs.” Penelope was one of the newer nuns. Still young at only twenty.
I hesitated. I couldn't remember any one time I'd ever been called on the convent phone. Nope, not one. “I'm just getting changed. I'll come down in a second.” I pulled my bag across my body and moved to the window. Pushing it open, I climbed out onto the roof and gently closed the window again, then slid to the parapet. I moved quickly across the roof to the other end of the building.
At the far end, I prayed my clothes would shield my laptop and dropped my bag over the edge. I heard it hit and winced. The one downside to becoming insubstantial, I couldn't carry anything with me except the clothes I was wearing or what was in them. I breathed out to become incorporeal and stepped through the stone parapet, floating down to the ground.
I felt when I hit. It wasn't the same as falling whole-bodied, but you still felt the impact. Breathing in, I collected my bag and started running across the grounds. I wasn't going to exit via a gate, they might be at either of them. Instead, I went for the caretaker's cottage. There was a wood pile stacked against the six-foot stone fence.
Halfway across the grounds, a man
stepped in front of me from out of nowhere. I felt his power wrapping around him like a ball of fire. Stupid sorcerers and their ability to travel through the ether. I came to a halt as he looked me over.
“Do you know who I am?” I shook my head, taking a step back. “I am Paul Samus. And you...” he smiled at me, fresh blood still clotting in his mouth. I thought I was going to puke. “…are the ghost who can cure the beasts. I thought I was being sent to collect a talented hacker till I saw you jump off that roof. Turns out it's a two-for-one deal.” I shook my head. His smile dropped away. “You should be proud of your gift.”
“No, really. I can't do what you say. The ghost bit, okay, but I can't cure anyone.” My heart was thudding in my chest. I was oath bound. They could torture me and even if I wanted to, I could never do that again.
“But you were there when it happened?” he asked. I swallowed then nodded. “Did you see it happen?”
“I saw a panther change back to human in mid-attack. I was scared and ran. That's all I saw, I swear it.”
I heard a snarl and turned my head in time to see a wolf beast racing for me. My eyes went wide as I realized it meant to attack me. I breathed out, becoming incorporeal as it sprang for me. The bag I was carrying dropped through my incorporeal body to the ground. The beast flew through me and landed with a growl on the other side. It turned back and watched me through its animal eyes.
Paul Samus chuckled. “Well, look at that, he's still a beast. So you aren't the cure. Sadly, I expect he intends to kill you, just to make sure you can't cure him. I do hate when a good pet turns feral.”
I started moving to the fence again, the beast's eyes tracking me. The sorcerer flung out his hand toward me, releasing some sort of magic, and hit me with enough force that I sucked in air as I fell to the ground, becoming corporeal. The Changeur sprang but the sorcerer flung out his other hand, and the wolf burst into a ball of howling flames. I watched, wide-eyed, pain in my chest at whatever I'd been hit with forcing me to breathe.
The sorcerer strode towards me. “A hacker of your skill will be of great value to us.” He swung his hand and pain impacted the side of my head, stars shooting across my vision, then darkness closed around me as I fell to the ground. The cold press of the ground on my cheek the last thing I felt.
* * *
I woke on a bed with white Egyptian cotton linens. I touched my hand to my head and winced. Whatever he hit me with left a bump and bruise. I pushed up to sitting and realized I was naked. I grabbed the sheets to cover me while I looked around the room to find my clothes. Long curtains were drawn across the windows so I couldn't see out. Among the few plush furnishings of the room, I couldn't see anything that resembled my clothing.
A cat sat on the settee at the end of the bed, watching me with interest. “Wouldn't happen to know where my clothes are by any chance?” The cat's head turned to the only door in the room. I doubted it was telling me that was the wardrobe.
The door opened, and the sorcerer stepped into the room with a tray containing a teapot and two teacups. “You're conscious.”
Well, at least he didn't try and pretend I'd fallen asleep happily. “I'm naked.”
He smiled, placing the tray on the settee before shooing the cat and taking its place. “Yes, you are. I wanted to see if you were food.”
“No!”
His eyes creased with humor. “Yes, the lack of scarring on your body told me that. You only have the one bite, but that was a very long time ago, over a decade I'd say. Is that what killed you?”
I sat, staring at him. “I'd prefer to be dressed for any conversation.”
“Are you always clothed when you talk with the distinguished Mr. Ryder?” I continued glaring. Paul smiled. “You don't like my kind, do you?” I gave a slight shake of my head. “Understandable. You were a child when you were attacked. That sort of thing leaves a bad taste in your mouth.” He poured two cups of tea. “Milk and sugar.”
“I don't drink tea.”
“How very un-English of you.”
“My mother was French.”
“And your father?”
“A one-night stand, so I really have no idea.”
Paul simpered and lifted his teacup to his lips. “Why were you at Bay Ryder's house when Falon Lore attacked?”
“Who's Flon Lore?”
“The sorcerer who led that attack. He died. Tripped and fell, hitting his head before falling into the pool. I guess compared to the Changeur de Corps he took with him, it was a pleasant enough way to die.”
“He was mortal?” I wrapped my arms around my bent legs and engaged in the conversation.
“Yes. We hadn't felt the need to take him yet. He wasn't really powerful enough to bother.” Paul took another sip of tea. “Bay Ryder is a different matter. Sadly, he stands opposed to our cause. What is your connection to him?”
“What cause?” I asked. “You are both the same. Condemned sorcerers. What could you really oppose each other about? A preference for blood types maybe?”
Paul quirked a brow. “Have you never heard of Essence?”
“Of course, I have. It is a philosophical term for what invariably makes up the nature of a thing or entity.”
Paul's smile died as he assessed me. “Hmmm.” I guess that wasn't the answer he was after. He put down his tea. “You're not food, it's well known Bay Ryder does not partake in the physical pleasures, and you are not involved in his Nachtwelt business. However, you were at his company today, and you did use his network to hack the NSIO and steal emails from L'Ordre’s assistant’s computer.”
“Wait. Ryder owns Pendant Security?”
Paul's brows shot up. “You didn't know?”
“No. I've just graduated. A recruiter offered me a job. I was there to interview, and they asked me to access a database. It seemed an obvious choice. I used the activity to highlight a weakness in their security.”
“You sent the email to Ryder?”
“Yes, but to his personal email account. He was a client of mine...” I stopped and swallowed.
Paul stalked forward. “Ryder hires you to hack other secure databases?”
“No.”
“But you are a hacker?”
“I did that today to satisfy my own curiosity. I didn't expect to find anything of interest, but when I found that stuff about the attack, I forwarded it on.”
Paul sat at my feet on the bed. “So, what work does Mr. Ryder normally require of you?” I glared at him. He laughed. “Are you really going to claim client confidentiality?” I gave the slightest nod. Paul sighed. He watched me, almost analyzing me. “Did it involve the antidote?”
I had no idea what this guy was on about. He sighed, reading my reaction, and stood up, walking back to collect his tea tray. “Well, it appears you really are just a hacker. However, Mr. Ryder obviously finds your skill valuable and may be willing to exchange something for you. After all, it's not every day you find a wraith.”
My blood ran cold, being identified for what I am now. There was a knock on the door and then a piece of paper was slid underneath.
Paul put the tray back down and collected the piece of paper, reading it. His eyebrows shot up, and he looked back to me. Paul waved the letter. “Everything this says I'd already determined. But I'd like to ask one last time. What were you doing at Bay Ryder's estate the night Falon Lore attacked?”
“Delivering what Bay Ryder wanted from me.”
“And I bet that something required your wraith skills. Right?”
I blinked. “Can I get my clothes now, please?”
Paul picked up the tray and walked to the door. “I promise you will have them when it's time to leave here.”
“Will I be alive when that happens?”
Paul smiled at me and gave the door a tap with his foot. It opened, but I couldn't see who was in the hallway. Paul looked up to the corner of the ceiling, and I followed his gaze. Hidden there was an infrared came
ra. They'd be able to see me even if I was incorporeal. Paul laughed. “Your eyes could freeze boiling water, my dear. I guess I've really pissed you off now.”
As soon as the door shut, I tugged the flat sheet from the bed and turned it into a makeshift dress. I made my way to the windows and threw back the curtains to find a blank wall. “Oh god!” I stepped away as I turned to look at the door. “Don't focus on that, Spectra. You could still be above ground. You're not buried. You can move around.”
I walked to the blank wall beside the bed and studied it. Eventually, I saw the seam, and I pressed on the opposite side. A hidden door opened to reveal a bathroom, also with no windows and its own infrared camera. “Well, that's just rude.”
Moving back into the bedroom, I lay down on the bed and practiced the meditation Alexander taught me when we were growing up. I focused on my breathing and my heart rate, slowly blocking every other noise out till my breath and heartbeat were all I could hear. I felt myself growing lighter with every breath until I felt like I was floating above the bed.
I opened my eyes to look at the ceiling and watched it coming closer. Turning, I saw myself still lying on the bed as if asleep. I smiled and closed my eyes, concentrating on Mercury. I felt the pull easily. As I started to move, I opened my eyes and caught a glimpse of the outside of the building before I sped across the rooftops and came to a stop in a cafe. I looked around and saw Mercury sitting a few tables away, playing with his food, while Calin and some other predators inhaled their meals.
I went to the table and waved my hands at Mercury. One of the predators decked out in a SWAT team outfit said something as he turned pale. Mercury and Calin looked up instantly. Mercury stood and looked me over, his mouth moving too fast for me to catch a single thing he was saying.
“Slow down, I can't hear you,” I tried saying, and then realized if I couldn't hear him, he possibly couldn't hear me. “Shit!”
Mercury stopped. Apparently, he'd caught that word. Calin was saying something to him. I looked around, trying to find a way to communicate to him, but it felt hopeless. Mercury stood there, staring at me like a small child, and finally, he spoke slow enough for me to read his lips.