A cold wash of numbness began to rise up from the bowels of my stomach, filling my chest and spreading to my hands. “Could you tell me what they looked like?”
“One of them, the one who did the talking,” she said, “I don’t remember what… what he looked like. When I try, my memory gets fuzzy, it’s like a blur stopping me from seeing his face.”
“What about the other on?”
“Him I remember. It’s difficult to forget him.”
“Why?”
“He was tall, taller than the other one, and he had large arms, a stout face. He never smiled, and his eyes never stopped searching.”
“Searching? For what?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know, it looked like he was watching for someone.”
I took a deep breath through my nose to calm my nerves. This was all sounding too conspiratorial for my liking. “What is it about this man that made him so memorable? Was it just his size?”
“No… he had a tattoo on his face; a spiderweb on one of his cheeks.”
“Spiderweb?”
She nodded. “It was difficult to miss, and it looked old.”
“Do you have any idea where they went? Did they say anything?”
The woman considered this for a long moment, maybe trying to piece her memories together. I didn’t think that was easy for her right now, considering how scared she was. “This man, the one with the spiderweb, tapped the other on the shoulder and pointed in that direction. The other man then nodded, and told him to go back to the church and wait for him while we finished up.”
“What church?”
“I don’t know which. There are three nearby; it could have been any of them.”
“And that’s it?”
“Yes, once I placed the jewelry on display, he paid me and left. I haven’t seen them since.”
“And did they tell you anything else? Did they threaten you with what might happen if you told anyone about them?”
“No… not that I can remember.” Contrition, worry—blotches of light reflecting these emotions became slightly visible as ghostly mist rose from her shoulders and the nape of her neck. “Why did… they want me to give you those items?” she asked.
I swallowed. “That isn’t something you should worry yourself with,” I said.
“I just want to understand.”
“I know you do, but you wouldn’t even if I told you the whole story. I’m not even sure I understand what’s going on myself.”
I turned around and started to walk off, ending the conversation before I could say anything that would lead to more questions, but the woman called out to me, and I stopped to look back. “I hope you weren’t… hurt,” she said. “I didn’t have a choice.”
I nodded. “I’ve been put in a similar position before. I understand. But if anyone comes asking for me again, I want you to lie to them like you lied to me, okay?”
She nodded in agreement, “Look after yourself.”
I pushed into the rush hour foot traffic of commuting workers and made my way to the train station. When a man grabbed my arm, I jumped and could have punched him, but he immediately whispered in my ear that he was Raphael. It was definitely Raphael’s voice, Spanish accent and all, despite him looking a little like Clark Kent with his side-parted hair, spectacles, and buttoned-down shirt.
“You scared me to death,” I said.
“I’m sorry, but I needed to speak with you.”
“What is it?”
“The woman was not lying about the men she spoke with. I peered into her mind and saw the scene she was describing to you.”
“And?”
“One of the men she was talking to must have been using some kind of power to protect his face. Not from her sight, but from her memory. His features are just not there, as if they have been erased from her mind.”
“A power he used?”
“It is possible, but it’s too early to tell.”
“Then we need to go and find the others. We have to search three churches for two people.”
“Yes, but I think I have a strong enough impression of the man with the tattoo that I may be able to track him down.”
“Really? That would be incredible.”
“Let’s get to the first church and see if I can sniff him out.”
I nodded. My heart was racing from the excitement, my fingers tingling with nervous energy, but I wanted to keep going. We were closing in on two men who wanted to have me killed, and they had no idea we were coming. This was going to be fun.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Churches
“Churches?” Dante asked.
We had gathered outside of the train station, tucked away in an alley between low-rise residential buildings, making sure to leave the station at different times and arrive separately to ensure we weren’t being followed. The sky had darkened, clouds blotching the sun and threatening rain—cold, hard, icy rain. I tucked my hands into my jacket for warmth.
“That’s what the woman said,” I said. “The men had talked about going to a church, or something like that. Do you have any idea why they would have said that?”
“No. I don’t know of any organization, besides the obvious one, operating out of churches.”
“Obvious? Maybe to you, but not to me. What are you talking about?”
“The Catholic Church itself. Do you really think they’d be happy letting demons and werewolves run around, discrediting the validity of their product?”
“Uh, wouldn’t the sight of a demon give more credibility to the Catholic Church’s product?”
“You’d think so, but people are much less inclined to believe in God when they’re being faced with a creature from a nightmare realm.”
I shrugged. “Anyway, according to the woman, there are three nearby churches. I’ve done a map search, and I’ve figured out their locations.” I showed Vikram my phone with the three pins highlighting the churches.
“Good,” Vikram said. “These churches are within walking distance of each other.”
“Really? You call three miles walking distance?”
“I grew up in London; we say everything is within walking distance because we have the underground.”
“Maybe,” Dante said, “but there aren’t any underground tunnels here. You see walking distance, I see us walking in a town potentially filled with enemies who may know what we look like, waiting to catch us crossing the street.”
“Right,” I said. “That’s why Raph and I are going to be the ones looking for the churches—not you.”
Dante tilted his head to the side and arched an eyebrow. “Explain.”
“Well… Raph has the power to make people around him think he’s someone else, tricking their mind. And I’m a shapeshifter, which means I can actually make myself look like someone—or something—else. You can too, but Vik can’t, which means he can’t be seen with us, snooping around.”
“Can’t you use your power on me too?” Vik asked Raphael.”
“Myself, I can take care of,” Raphael said, “but another… that’s probably too much.”
“It is too much, especially considering we’d have to be hidden for hours. We need to travel to each church and sniff the guy out, but it’ll take hours.”
“I can see that,” Vik said, folding his arms in front of his chest. “While you’re out looking for these people, Dante and I can try and find out as much as we can about them, see if we can figure out what we’re dealing with.”
“And I can shapeshift to look like someone else so I don’t stick out like a sore thumb,” Dante said. “I don’t like the idea of splitting up either, but we’ll be in teams of two… we’ll be alright.”
I looked at Dante, who seemed to be either considering this plan, or tearing it apart. The plan was paper thin, and I knew it. If he wanted to poke holes in it, he could have done so with his pinky, but instead he ran his hand through his hair, took a deep breath, and said, “I hate this plan, but I can deal
with it as long as you keep your phones somewhere you’ll hear them.”
Raph and I started walking toward the mouth of the alley. “We’ll give each other hourly reports,” I said, walking off. “If anyone misses one, call for rescue.”
“Rescue?” Raph asked as we headed into the street. “Do you really think we’ll need rescue?”
“No. I think we’ve got this. C’mon, this way; as much as I hate the idea of walking, if we’re gonna walk, we should probably start now.”
I let my phone’s navigation system guide me through the winding streets of Teisendorf. These old European cities weren’t like American towns. Their architecture and city planning techniques were hundreds of years older than ours, and that meant the alleys were narrow and crooked, and the buildings always seemed to arch over you as you walked past them, but none of this was off-putting.
In fact, I found myself often times just enjoying the sights, staring into little shop windows at whatever happened to be on display—dolls, wrapped candies, clothes. We passed an art shop where several abstract oil paintings sat on display next to equally abstract clay sculptures, each priced way above what I would have expected to see in a small place like this. In New York, a 750-dollar price tag would have been normal, but here?
When I found a quiet alley, I snuck into a nook of one of the old, stone buildings and relaxed my mind.
“What are you doing?” Raph asked.
“Hold on,” I said, and I cupped my hands in front of my face, then moved them over my head and through my hair, as if my hands were filled with water and I was washing my face and hair. My skin prickled over, each follicle in my hair began to buzz, and when my fingers slid off the tips of my hair, I shook my head as if I were shaking off a momentary daze. When I saw the look on Raph’s face, I knew my magic had worked, and that all of those hours suffered under Leo’s tutelage had been worth something.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“You’re… different.”
“Yeah, that’s the point. Do I look like me?”
“You have red hair, and… freckles. So, no.”
“Awesome,” I said, grinning. “Let’s go.”
The GPS on my phone buzzed as we arrived at the first church, a redbrick structure in the center of what looked like a small clearing in the forest of buildings. A red tower topped with a black cross rose up from one side. While the tower itself was tall enough to allow the cross to rise above the other buildings, the church itself wasn’t a particularly impressive thing. It was kinda cute, in fact, this church with a black fence around it. When I got to the front door, which was shut, I noticed a glass case next to it containing what looked like notices of service times.
I wasn’t sure since I couldn’t read German. But I did catch my reflection in the glass. I didn’t look like myself. My hair was copper red, and my skin was pale. I had to admit, I liked the person I had shapeshifted into, but even though wearing this different skin didn’t feel weird, it was strange to look into a mirror and not see the same girl I had seen staring back at me all of the twenty-five years of my life.
Turning to Raph, who had made sure I could see him as he was instead of as a stranger, I asked, “What do you think?”
His brow furrowed as if stuck on a thought, and he looked around. There was a tree sticking out of a small patch of grass between the church’s front door and the perimeter of the black fence surrounding it—an old, immovable tree, probably an oak, with many thick, knotty roots and branches. I wasn’t sure why this tree had caught my eye, but it had, and it kept my gaze until Raph, shaking his head, stole my attention again.
Maybe it was the overcast gray sky, or maybe it was the fact that, for the first time, Raph and I were alone, but I found myself admiring his features: his beard, his brilliant, hazel eyes framed by dark eyelashes, his long hair caught up in a man bun, even the bracelets on his wrists, each multi-colored and probably meaning something deeply personal to him. Though I was sure at least two of them were from going to music festivals. I knew because I’d gone to music festivals before, and you usually didn’t take your bracelets off for an entire year after, until the next festival came along. And that was if you decided to take it off at all.
They were like badges of honor among music lovers of all kinds.
“Nothing,” he said. “I don’t think the man has been here.”
“And you’d be able to tell if he had?” I asked.
“I would be able to pick up the vibrations left by his passing, yes.”
“Do you need to go inside, or get closer, maybe?”
“Unless the church is blocking me from sensing him, which I don’t think it is, then it doesn’t matter. I think we can rule this church out.”
“Okay,” I said, sighing. “On to the next one.”
It felt like we had been walking for hours by the time we reached the second church, this one more like a large cathedral, with two tall steeples adorned with crosses and cherubs. The gate surrounding this church, as well as the grassy grounds, was much larger than the last one we had been to. This one also sported a graveyard—a collection of tombs running along the building’s right side. Although it seemed like the kind of place a group of religiously motivated hitmen might hang out, again, Raph sensed nothing; not a trace of the man with the spiderweb tattoo on his cheek.
The rain caught us as we made our way toward the third church, and since we didn’t want to get caught out in it, we took shelter at a small restaurant. We used the opportunity to have something to eat. Dante had checked in with us and told us he and Vik were waiting by the town library and were ready to pick us up whenever we wanted to be picked up.
“Do you think the rain will stop?” Raphael asked.
“The weather app says it won’t,” I said. “What do you think the odds are that we’ll find this guy at the third church?”
“Slim. This is the church furthest from the train station. I don’t know if that makes a difference, but in the stall owner’s memory, the man without a face told the other one to wait for him at church. To me, that says this church should have been close to the station. Close enough to walk to comfortably.”
“You think so? Because we just walked to both of those churches.”
“Yes, but did we do so comfortably?”
“Yeah, I guess not.” I sighed. “So, are we giving up the search?”
“If I thought there was a chance we would find what we were looking for at this last church, I would say no, but I don’t think we are looking in the right places.”
Dante’s car pulled up in front of the small restaurant where Raph and I had found a bite to eat, and the two of us made the dash from the restaurant door toward the safety of the car, getting partially soaked in the process. Once inside, Dante wasted no time in getting us moving, just in case. As I rested in the passenger’s seat, I let my concentration on the visage I was holding up slip. I watched myself become me again in the side mirror, the red-head melting away to nothing.
“I gather the search was a failure?” Dante asked.
I nodded. “My feet are tired, and we found nothing.”
“I dug some old newspaper articles up in the library that might be relevant, but I think I’m having more luck Googling information on my phone—at least I can auto-translate websites.”
“That’s progress, at least. But we’re still going back to the mansion empty handed.”
“We aren’t going back to the mansion,” Dante said. “Remember?”
I looked at him. “What are you suggesting, then?”
“I think we should stay in the city. I’ll book us some rooms. We can regroup, learn what we can with those books, and start again in the morning. It’s been a week since you were last here. I think the people who tried to get those jewels into your possession will still be here tomorrow, assuming they didn’t leave town days ago.”
“You’re serious, then?” I asked. “About not going back.”
“I told you. I don’t wa
nt to go back empty-handed. If you all want to protest and overrule me, then go ahead. Take a vote.”
I didn’t raise my hand. Glancing back, neither did Vik or Raph. “Looks like we’re staying in the city, then,” I said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Raphael
Despite it being early afternoon, and with no prior reservation, Dante was able to quickly secure two last minute, booked-at-the-counter rooms for the four of us at an antique looking hotel near the center of the city. The large, townhouse-like building appeared to be several hundred years old—the kind passed down through generations where entire families may have lived, and loved, and died. It sat on the corner of a well-lit street alongside many bars and small eateries. A public enough place.
Inside, the corridors were narrow, but well decorated, and cozier than they were claustrophobic. Soft music played from speakers embedded into a wall somewhere, and the air smelled like morning dew on spring flowers. The reception area was quaint and charming, a little slice of antique Germany brought into the 21st century by the flat-screen computer sitting on the desk. As I walked along the counter, I noticed a small bar and restaurant in the adjoining room. Inside, a few people were enjoying casual conversations over an evening drink.
When Dante, who apparently spoke fluent German, made payment and grabbed our keys, he offered one to me, and kept one for himself.
“Only two rooms?” I asked.
“We’re doubling up,” he said. “There aren’t any four-person rooms, so you’re sharing with Raphael; I’m sharing with Vik.”
I glanced over at Raph and showed him the key. “That’s cool,” I said. “I’m beat after all that walking, so I’m going to head upstairs and have a shower, maybe a nap.”
“Doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Dante said. “We’ll be in the room next to yours if you need anything. Vik has a lot of reading material to go through, so if we figure anything out, we’ll let you know.”
Something about the way Dante was talking didn’t quite seem entirely… right… but I wasn’t sure what it was, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get his emotions to show themselves to me. I headed up the narrow staircase, deciding it best not to prod and poke; I was too tired for that.
Serpent's Desire: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (The Last Serpent Book 2) Page 7