Dealers of Light

by Lara Nance

  Desmond hoped his demonstration of power was enough punishment to keep them from making mistakes in the future and a reminder he was capable of killing them at any time he chose. He rubbed his fingers, relishing the last smolder of tainted Light.

  Carlton returned after a few minutes holding a slip of paper. “I have a message from Richmond.”

  Desmond studied his right-hand man for any sign of weakness or doubt, then walked to the window of his second story study and gazed on the quiet, tree-lined street below. Soon, he would control this city, and many more besides. Delicious energy there for the taking, any time he wished, and millions of people to do his bidding. But it would only happen if he controlled his men, and Carlton was integral to holding them together.

  “They await only your message. They have people prepared to place in the government, military, and police.”

  The time was not yet ripe for activating the Net. It had to occur when the cosmic energy aligned perfectly with the waning of the moon. Also, for the moment, the only person he completely trusted in this city was Carlton. He needed assurance the others here had become totally addicted and obedient. “Send them word the time is coming soon. They must be patient. How many converted Dealers do they have now?”

  “Five.”

  “With the four older Takers, it puts their ayllus at nine. It will be sufficient for the power we need. The other cities stand ready?”

  “Yes, ready and waiting for a signal.”

  Desmond turned from the window to face Carlton. He strode toward him until they stood a foot apart. Carlton’s breath quickened and his eyes shone. “It is time to send the rest of the converts out on their own to reap the Light. I have to know if they are capable of practicing restraint and avoiding detection without our supervision.”

  Carlton’s head dipped, but his gaze remained fixed on Desmond’s face. The tip of his tongue flicked out to wet his parted lips.

  “If there are any more mishaps, I hold you responsible.” He reached out and ran a finger along the base of Carlton’s neck. The younger man inhaled sharply. “Deal with those two in lock up and test the others.”

  “I understand, Master. There will be no more mistakes. I’ll see to it.”

  “Excellent,” Desmond whispered. “You may have a little Light.”

  Carlton gasped and his hand trembled when he raised it toward Desmond’s outstretched wrist. Desmond suppressed a chuckle at Carlton’s wide-eyed desperation. The younger man’s fingers clamped on the underside of Desmond’s wrist. The connection sucked tight, and Carlton moaned. He sank to his knees, mouth open and eyes closed in ecstasy. Desmond’s upper lip quivered and he unleashed the torment of his past to allow the ultimate tortured Light to flow into his slave. A rare treat, for no one had suffered more than Desmond.

  Chapter Eight

  “Cara, honey, I just had to call. You’re never going to believe what happened.” Amber’s voice was fast and high pitched, far removed from her normal southern drawl.

  “Calm down. What’s going on?” Cara shifted the cell phone to her other hand to keep her right on the steering wheel, dread curling its fingers around her heart in a stony grip. Dusty barked from the back seat.

  “My friend Jenny just came by the store. You know she has a health food store over at Hilltop?”

  “I remember her.” She stopped at a red light and waved a hand into the back seat, snapping her fingers to stop Dusty’s barking. Damn it, he was drowning out Amber.

  “She’d called earlier and asked if she could buy some crystals from me. When she got here to pick them up she said some man came in and bought every crystal she had. Over five hundred dollars worth. Hold on a sec.”

  In the background, a customer asked Amber something about tofu and Cara’s mind wandered for a second, hoping this wasn’t about finding another body.

  “Okay, I’m back. Sorry. Anyway, I had this funny feeling, so I asked her what he looked like. She described him wearing all black and having black hair. It has to be Rolf.”

  “Holy crap! You’re right. It means he came to your store and left when he found we were Light-dealers.” Cara tapped her wheel with her fingertips. Why had discovering Light-dealers disturbed him so much?

  “I know, I know, and I can’t imagine what he wants with all those crystals.”

  “You’re the expert in that area. I use a stethoscope, remember? Can you think of any particular use?” She steered the car into the parking deck at ODU and found a nice shady spot where she could safely leave Dusty.

  “Gosh, we must be talking about eighty to a hundred in this case.”

  “Maybe he makes jewelry out of them.”

  Amber laughed. “That’s an awfully big necklace, honey.”

  “Well, make sure you tell Tor. I’m at ODU right now on my way to see Alistair. I hope he’s found some good information.”

  After ending the call, she patted Dusty’s head and rolled the windows down a crack. It was nice and cool today, so he’d be fine there, taking a nap while she visited the professor.

  The door to Alistair’s office stood open, the smell of stale coffee wafting from the small room. Alistair stood behind his desk, his jacket hanging halfway on the back of his chair and his shirt unbuttoned at the throat. His normally neat gray hair was disheveled, and the shadow of a beard frosted his jaw line. Several books lay open among a mass of scattered files with Styrofoam cups half full of coffee perched precariously nearby. Papers littered the floor like fall leaves. He leaned over one volume, a finger following the text.

  “Alistair?” She stepped into the room.

  He raised his head, eyes glazed with creases along their sides. He blinked twice and gave her a brief smile. “Ah, Cara. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve found a few items of interest.” He motioned her to a chair beside his desk.

  “About the BD’s?” She moved a stack of leather-bound books off the chair to the floor, their musty smell tickling her nostrils. The old wooden frame of the chair creaked as she sat.

  “BD’s?” The smile slid from his face as his brows went up.

  “Bad Dealers. Shana came up with it, remember?”

  “Ah, yes. Shana. Quite right. Well, what I wanted to show you is this.” He scooted a large, leather-bound book across his desk and opened the worn, yellowed pages to a place he’d marked with a sheet of paper. “This drawing is the artist’s rendition of a painting in a cave near some Incan ruins. Quite interesting.”

  A simple pen and ink sketch occupied the right hand page. In it, a tall man with fierce eyes in a feathered headdress and white tunic stood behind a stone altar with a body draped across it. He had one hand on the prone man’s chest and the other hand raised high in the air. Two men in decorative loincloths held the arms and feet of the figure on the altar. The victim’s face contorted in fear, fingers spread wide on hands raised to the heavens, and legs twisted at odd angles.

  A surge of stinging bile rose in Cara’s chest. Her heart hammered. This was the slaughter of an unwilling, terrified victim. She glanced at Alistair. “It’s a sacrifice.”

  “Yes, I found this while genning up on Incan history sometime in the past. It didn’t mean anything at the time, just another generic picture of sacrifice. But, last night, I studied it again and I noticed something missing.”

  “What do you mean?” She leaned forward for a better view.

  “Take a closer look, my dear. What’s conspicuously missing, given the theme is sacrifice?”

  She studied the man with the raised hand and the victim. Her heartbeat paused. “There’s no weapon.”

  “Exactly. In similar pictures of sacrifices throughout history there is always a weapon. If this man is about to be killed, the man in the headdress should have something in the hand raised in the air. But, I believe, the real weapon is elsewhere.” He pointed to the hand on the victim’s chest.

  The killing hand, fingers spread wide, pressed in the center of the chest. Little jagged lines, like a child would draw lightening,
radiated out from the hand. A shiver of fear puckered her skin into gooseflesh.

  “It’s Light. Those lines are indicating a transfer of Light.”

  “Yes, and we don’t need to guess to know which way the flow is going, given the expression of the sacrificial victim.” Alistair flipped to another page. “Here’s a brief account of a group who existed at the periphery of the Incan nation in the area near these ruins. The leader was called the Huaca, which means quite literally stone but also meant sacred or holy in some parts. There’s not a lot of information about them. I did find some vague implications this Huaca figure was immortal, but he needed sacrifices to survive. So, his followers would kidnap people from the Incan nation and bring them to him.”

  “He would take Light from them and they died?”

  “Precisely. A bloody energy vampire.”

  She grabbed the book and flipped back to the picture. The Huaca’s features were harsh with high cheekbones. Dark hair strung with beads and feathers hung past his shoulders. An elaborate feather headdress sat on his head with a large carved setting holding a fist-sized stone in the center. Rays of light, depicted as squiggly lines, ran out from it. Black, merciless eyes nestled under dark, angled brows. She imagined facing such a creature, stretched out on an altar, knowing her end was near. A shudder of horror ran through her.

  “Huaca,” she whispered his name. “Do you think this is what’s going on here in Norfolk?”

  Alistair plucked off his glasses and tossed them on the stack of disheveled papers littering his desk, rubbing his eyes. He picked up one of the Styrofoam cups, sniffed it then tossed the cup in the trash, nose wrinkled. “Either this evil still exists and has come here, or someone is copying the tradition. In any case, it’s bloody bad.”

  “What can we do to stop it?”

  “I haven’t found any specific details yet. Just have a care, Cara, and tell the others, too.” He placed a hand on her arm. “If this is true, we’re all in danger.”

  She patted his hand. “I will. Take care of yourself…and get some sleep.”

  He gave her a wave and immediately buried his nose in a book again.

  She emerged from the building into the afternoon sunshine, and heard the beep of her cell, signaling a text. Stopping under the shade of a tree so she could see the screen, she checked her messages. A new one popped up from Tor, and her breath caught in her chest. What now?

  Tor texted: Clue! Common tattoo found on three victims. A gang sign. A picture was attached. She clicked on it and bit her lip waiting for it to download. When it popped up, she gasped and nearly dropped the phone. A snake curled around the hilt of a dagger—Nicki’s tattoo!

  Chapter Nine

  Cara sucked in a deep breath and grimaced when her GPS indicated they had arrived. The mechanical voice almost seemed to announce their destination with a groan. Nicki’s contact information had led her to this dilapidated project apartment building. Screens hung lopsided in some windows and the yard around the brick building was more dirt than grass. She steered the car to a curb and stopped.

  “Great, just super, fantastic, great.” Her chest tightened at the prospect of entering the building, but Dusty didn’t show any concern they were about to go into a questionable area. Some guard dog.

  Dusk approached, sending tall shadows of telephone poles across the street. Dear God, she had to find Nicki before it was completely dark. To be on the safe side, she texted Tor that she was going to warn a girl who had one of the gang tattoos and sent him Nicki’s info. At least someone would know where she was.

  “All right, buddy. We have to do this.” She released Dusty from the back seat and wrapped his leash around her hand twice. They walked up the cracked sidewalk to the three-story brick building. The air echoed with cries from babies, TV noise, stereos and yelling. A skinny boy in low-rise jeans, arms covered in tattoos, strutted by and gave her a hard stare. A wave of his cheap cologne slammed into her.

  A group of young men loitered on the steps just inside the double door entrance, smoking and laughing. Several squatted on the floor rolling dice. The door closed loudly behind her and all eight people in the group turned their gaze in her direction. Silence descended as they gave her the once-over, scowling. One stepped forward, tall and muscular. A two inch scar puckered the left side of his pale face. His eyes might once have been brown but the left one had a blue haze to it.

  “Hey, rich bitch. What you doin’? Slummin’?” He swaggered toward her and she wrapped Dusty’s leash around her hand a third time, thankful he wasn’t growling or barking.

  “I’m trying to find Nicki Petroski.” Sweat trickled down her back under her jacket and into the waist of her jeans.

  The leader glanced at one of the others and pushed his hands into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt. “She’s our homie. You lookin’ to cause trouble for her?”

  “No, I’m a friend. I want to help her.”

  His brow wrinkled. “I don’t think she needs your kind of help.”

  “Someone may be trying to hurt her.” She gave the group a sweeping glance. “In fact, this danger affects all of you.”

  “Danger?” He crossed his arms and laughed. “Yeah, well, bring it, sister. We love danger. We eat danger.” He snapped his teeth at her, and the others laughed.

  She fisted her hands. “Look, someone is targeting people in gangs and killing them.”

  The group shuffled and mumbled. The leader spread his feet in a wide stance. One man flipped a knife over and over in his hand.

  “I just want to help Nicki.” Cara stared at the weapon and her knees trembled.

  The leader hitched up his low hanging pants and the others exchanged glances.

  “My name’s Mambo, bitch. I take care of my own, see? We don’t need no rich slummin’ bitch lookin’ down her nose at us.” He leaned forward and pointed a finger in Cara’s face. “Be smart and walk away.”

  She swallowed and stepped back. Dusty growled, and she tugged on his leash. The three kneeling men came to their feet, and the entire gang glared. Boy, were they experts at glaring. Scared the hell out of her. She continued to retreat until she reached the outside.

  Damn it. How was she going to get up to Nicki’s place with those hoodlums guarding the entrance?

  She led Dusty away and headed down the sidewalk. Looking up at the plain rectangular brick building, she figured there must be a stairway on each side of the place, so she continued down the sidewalk to the far end. She paused at the corner and snuck along the edge of the building to a metal door with dark blue paint peeling off it.

  She cracked open the door and peeked through. The stairwell at this end was empty. Thank God. She pushed through the door and glanced at the address on her note again. It indicated the second floor, so she and Dusty crept up the steps. The reek of urine and the sour smell of old trash stung her nose. They continued down a narrow, ill-lit hall, and she scanned each side of the hall’s doors for numbers. They approached Nicki’s, and a rumbling noise stopped Cara. It came from Dusty. The hair on his back stood on end. His ears pointed forward and he stared at Nicki’s door, straining on the leash.

  “What’s wrong?” A chill enveloped her, and her knees trembled anew. He’d never behaved this way before. Even when people came to her door, his actions were more of an alert than an aggressive response.

  Dusty dragged her forward, and she lifted one hand to knock on the door, but it was ajar. A faint sound of a scuffle emerged from inside then a moan. Dusty jerked at the leash, his rumbles now a full-blown growl. Fear momentarily immobilized Cara, but then concern for Nicki kicked her into action.

  She thrust open the door. Inside, shadows filled the small, cluttered space, with only the glow of outside street lights to slice through the darkness of the room. Across from her, thin curtains around the open window swirled in the evening breeze. Nicki lay on the floor with a dark, male figure straddling her, one hand pressed to her forehead. Her legs kicked and her arms flailed, penned beneath the
heavy body. The floor creaked when Cara stepped inside, and the man turned his head to the door with a sneer. Dusty broke from her grasp and flew at the dark figure.

  “Dusty!” she screamed. The man rose and lifted an arm in time to deflect Dusty’s attack on his neck. Dusty, snarling, teeth bared, lunged again. The man kicked out and caught her dog in the chest, sending him spiraling across the wooden floor. At Dusty’s whimper, a jolt of anger pulsed through her and, relinquishing logic, she charged toward the man, her hands out like claws. “You asshole!”

  Nicki scrambled backward on her elbows. Her head met the wall with a thud.

  The man’s sidestep brought him into the faint light from the hall to reveal a face reddened and twisted, with dark soulless eyes, hooded and eerie in the dimness. He blocked Cara’s assault with his arm then grabbed her by the throat. One toss and her body slammed against the unforgiving drywall, sending spasms of pain down her spine. Flakes of plaster rained over her, and a picture from the wall fell to the floor, spewing glass shards.

  “So, two for the price of one. Fine with me.” He advanced on her, feet crunching on the pieces of glass.

  “No!” She clawed at his face, but his hands locked onto her throat again. Her eyes bulged out at the pain and her vision blurred. The man squeezed her windpipe, stifling her yell for help. Instead, only a squeak leaked through.

  His other hand pressed against her forehead. That must be his portal. He was about to take her Light. Frantic, she grabbed his wrist, but his force overwhelmed her, and lack of oxygen sapped the strength from her arms. He knocked her hand away and planted his fingers against her forehead, pushing back so her head banged against the wall. A gasp exploded in her chest and pain seared through her skull. She panted, panic stealing her breath when his connection sealed tight.

  His greedy eyes glittered in the pale light from the window, and an evil smile curled his lips. The Light in her center flared and she moaned. “No, no, no.” I’m about to die at the hands of this monster. But her flicker of Light protested, curling in on itself in a tight ball. She blinked. Nothing happened.