"There are laws against breaking and entering." I didn't mention the zombies, maybe if I ignored them they would just go away. Yeah, like that would work.
The educated wrestler had got to his feet when I entered the room. He looked at me as if wanting me to take a seat before he would sit and continue.
I was going to remain standing, just to see how he would react. But this jerk had me feeling like a guest in my own apartment and he was the one who shouldn't be here.
I dropped myself onto my couch/bed and he nodded at me before he sat back down in the chair at the side of the television. The first two zombies came around and stood behind the couch. Next time I redid my decor the sofa/bed was going back against a wall. The zombie who had snuck up behind me stopped in the short hallway just in view.
"That's better," he said nodding again. The muscles in his thick neck bunched up with the motion.
I almost expected him to offer me something to eat, he was so damn comfortable. Time to put an end to that.
I kept my eyes on him and reached across with my right hand to where the telephone sat. I had just lifted the receiver off the cradle when a dead hand on my wrist prevented me moving it further.
I didn't flinch from the touch. Don't give me too much credit, it wasn't bravery that held me still, I would have flinched but the zombie's grip was strong.
I glanced at the phone and then stared at the intruder. He just looked at me like he was a professor and I was an errant student who should know better. Fair enough I hadn't really expected him to let me call the police.
I dropped the phone and it landed back on the cradle. The zombie relaxed it's grip. Now I did pull my arm back. I rubbed at my wrist, partly to get some feeling back into it but also in an irrational effort to get the dead off my skin.
"We really aren't here to cause you any problems, Miss Jones."
"Getting someone in to fix that door tonight could be a bit of a problem."
He looked to the floor between us and then back up. "Sorry about that."
I was getting tired of being a virtual prisoner in my own home.
"What do you want?"
"Where have you been today, Miss Jones?"
"I don't see that that's any of your business."
He still had a smile on his face but a tightness around his eyes betrayed the fact that he was tiring of these games too.
"Very well," he said. "We know where you were earlier today. More importantly we know where you were the other night, and who with."
He said that last pointedly, I felt I really should respond.
"And?"
"Miss Jones, are you aware of what exactly that woman is?"
As far as I knew Selena had never made a secret of her heritage. She didn't flaunt it or talk about it much but she had never tried to hide what she was. Unlike some others who might have something to loose by being revealed, Selena's work wouldn't suffer as a result. If anything her mixed heritage made her better at what she did. Selene was better than I was at ignoring the occasional bigot who tried to make her a victim.
"I know who and what she is." My voice was cold.
The educated wrestler raised his eyebrows. "And you are okay with that?"
"With what?"
He seemed genuinely surprised that he had to explain this to me.
"With some thing like that walking our streets. Passing for human."
"There are plenty of us out there." I felt vaguely wrong even talking this way. "After we have been checked and licensed we become citizens."
His eyes bored into me.
"You would place yourself in the same category as her?"
"I am not human," I said.
He nodded slowly. "Your case is a little different. You are not some demon bitch sent to lure us into hell. You are an angel sent to help us, you have just lost your way by getting involved with things like that. We can be your salvation as you would be ours."
Oh, great, religious fanatics, my favourite variety.
"I can see you are in no mood to have this discussion right now, but bear this in mind; that thing you call a friend is a killer, it doesn't think the way you or I do. It cannot be trusted to do the right thing because it lacks a human conscience. She is hell spawn and no good can come from your association with her."
The intruder stood and made ready to leave and I was glad. He waved his zombies out of my apartment. On his own way to my ruined door he set a business card on the shelf at the side of the door. It seemed to be my day for getting guys numbers.
"Keep in mind what I have said. You can reach me here when you come to your senses. We of the Temple are always prepared to fight the good fight."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I couldn't stay in my apartment after that. I am not too proud to admit that I was shaken up after my visit from the Temple's recruitment squad and not being able to lock or even close my own door left me feeling decidedly unsafe. I considered calling the regular police for about a minute and then decided against it. I phoned Detective Braun, whoever answered the phone on his desk said he was out in the middle of an investigation. I declined to leave a message.
I turned Thyme's card around in my hands and studied the two numbers. In the end I decided against calling either man and put the card away. I packed a bag with a few clothes and other things and decided to go to Selene's.
This time I carried the gun with me.
There was nobody home when I arrived at Selene's office-come-flat. I dumped my bags on the floor in the hallway and then sat myself down to wait for Selene.
I don't know exactly how long I had been waiting when I heard sounds from inside. It was long enough for my backside and upper thighs to have gone numb and that I had memorized the torn and faded wallpaper in the hall. I pushed myself up off the floor and stamped my legs to get some of the feeling back.
"Selene, is that you?" I knocked on the door.
The noise coming from inside came to an abrupt stop.
"Selene?"
The upper half of Selene's door was done in frosted glass, so I should have been able to see at least a silhouette when somebody started opening the door. But I could see well enough through the glass to know that there wasn't anybody there opening the door. Be that as it may, the door to Selene's office was still coming open whether there was anyone there or not.
I reached a shaking hand into the top of my bag going after the gun Selene had gifted me. I hadn't quite gotten a grip on the weapon when the door came fully open and a small green blur barrelled into me and took me off my feet. I lost whatever small grip I had on the weapon and dropped it with the bag.
"Och, lassie, I'm so glad you're all right."
"Get off me, Fluvius."
"But then I'd have to let go of you."
I sat up and pushed the groping gremlin away from me. "That’s the point."
"’Tis a shame. But it is good to see yea."
With Fluvius’ weight off me I was able to get back to my feet. I smoothed my clothes down and the gremlin seemed to have entirely too good a time watching me.
"You said it was good to see me the other night, what’s so special about today that you have to pull a cannonball act on me?"
Fluvius eyed me and all lasciviousness had gone out of those almond eyes. "You don’t know?"
"Know what? What’s going on Fluvius, what are you doing here? Where’s Selene?"
"Och lassie. Come in here."
Fluvius preceded me into Selene’s combined office and home. I don’t think she spent any more time here than she had to. All Selene needed was a safe spot to get some sleep, somewhere to wash blood off her body and somewhere where clients could contact her. This tiny space met all of her requirements. It wasn’t instantly obvious how Fluvius had gotten into the office, fair enough I hadn’t seen either of the two adjoining rooms but I didn’t expect that looking at them would give me any more of an idea. Being a gremlin made Fluvius as adept at breaking and entering without the involvement of any a
ctual breaking as Selene was. What was obvious was what he had been doing to make the noise I had heard from outside. There were drawers and trays on the floor. Papers, folders, stationary and even weapons were strewn about the place.
"When I got to your apartment and saw what they had done to your door I thought they must have gotten to you as well." Fluvius had perched on the edge of the desk, he had his hands together the nails on either hand nervously scratching at the skin of the fingers on the other. "I didnae know what to do. She said if anything happened I should get in touch with you. But then it seemed like they had gotten to you as well so I came here to see if I could work out what she would want to do next. I’m no good at this, I wasn’t cut out for this sorta thing."
"What sort of thing. Fluvius make sense. Where’s Selene? She’s going to be angry at you for making a mess of her place."
Fluvius raised his head slowly and stared at me. Now I was looking his olive skin seemed just a touch more drab than usual. His long pointed ears were so drooped that they were almost flat against the side of his head.
"Selene’s dead."
I’d always thought that being moved by words was simply an expression but I was literally moved by what Fluvius said. I staggered back into an office wall and sank down so that I was sitting.
"What?"
"Aye, it’s a shocker."
Surely this wasn’t right. Selene had always been so . . . so Selene. She was brash, harsh. She was my friend.
"What happened?" I could hear the words coming out of my mouth in my voice but I was amazed that I could even string two of them together.
Fluvius shook his head. "I don’t know, lassie. After you left she continued asking questions of all sorts down in the Zone. She left last night in a rush like she had learned something really important, said she was off to talk to you. Then she came around earlier today and she was scared." Despite that I thought it should be impossible, Fluvius’ stare became even more intent.
"I’ve seen Selene fighting for her life before but I had never seen her scared before. That was when she told me that if anything happened I should find you."
Fluvius went silent like he was reluctant to continue.
"And something happened to her?"
"Whatever she was onto was onto her as well. The guards found . . . pieces of her between the fences. Whatever did this to her tore her apart like she was nothing."
I think I might have blacked out somewhere. For certain my brain wasn’t processing information in the way it was supposed to.
Dead.
Selene.
Selene was dead.
Nothing seemed to compute properly. I felt like I was more out of my body at that moment than I ever had during an astral projection.
Tore her apart. Mr X equals spontaneous combustion and human torches. My case was tearing apart. It was my fault this had happened. Selene was helping me and she had gotten too close to whatever was behind these attacks.
"Do you know what Selene wanted to tell me?"
Fluvius shook his head slowly. "Not a clue."
I nodded not liking where my thoughts were taking me but determined to go there anyway.
"I need you to take me to where they found her?"
I got myself up off the floor. Fluvius hopped down from the desk.
"You don’t want that?"
I paced around the room. "I need to be there. Selene was down there looking into this thing for me. Whatever she stirred up she stirred up because of me. This is my fault."
Fluvius was hurrying after me. The office was so small that even with his much shorter legs the gremlin had no difficulty keeping up.
"Wait up, lassie. I mean the view from back here is mighty impressive, especially in that short skirt . . ."
He let his voice trail off when he saw the expression on my face. I turned back away from him and walked out. Without another word I heard him follow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Fluvius convinced me that I didn’t need to go to where they had found her body, but he had given up trying to comfort me. I prepared myself to speak to the dead the same way I had hundreds of times before. My conversations with the deceased Drazi assuring me that I should be able to make contact with Selene, and the fact that I had known Selene so well in life would make the lack of proximity to where she had died a moot point. I drew my astral form out of my body and ended up in a situation I hadn’t ever faced before.
With a jolt of pain, like muscle tearing and reforming, my heart came back to life. But it wasn’t my heart any more. Or, perhaps more accurately, it had never been my heart.
I can’t describe how I knew that I was inside Selene’s body exactly. It was just the sense of her.
By the look of the sky, and the smell and taste of the air, I knew that it was morning. Without looking at a watch I couldn’t tell exactly what time, and I couldn’t look at a watch unless Selena had done so this morning. The same way I can’t really describe how I was seeing and experiencing Selene, I can’t say how I knew that I was re-living her last short time alive on this earth. Maybe it was my empathic talent letting me draw something from the experience. Maybe this was just how this sort of thing worked. I had never been possessed by anything, or had any sort of out of body or transference experience before. I had never had any contact with ghosts or spirits and I had managed to keep my own spirit safely tucked up inside my body. Until now at least.
Whatever was going on, I was stuck inside Selene’s head but I was still very much aware of my own identity.
"Selene? Can you hear me?" I didn’t really speak the words since my body was where I had left it and I had absolutely no control over Selene’s.
I didn’t expect her to hear me. The past is past and what is done is done. If any being, mortal or immortal, had the power to change that there would have been chaos. Some powers were simply too dangerous for anyone to have.
As expected my call went unheard and Selene continued on oblivious. She was down in the Zone and she was terrified. When she had a mind to be Selene was the stuff of nightmares. Anything that could terrify her . . .
I knew, without knowing how, that she had already seen Fluvius. She knew, as I did, that he was already licensed to leave the Zone. She trusted him to find me.
I felt what Selene felt. Although she was clad head to toe in another form-fitting leather number, and although she had the comforting presence of a varied selection of weapons on her person, without her mother's ring in contact with her breastbone she felt naked.
Her hand came up to touch the outside of that empty spot and mine went with it. Her gloved hand pressed onto that spot between her breasts but only leather was pushed against the skin.
She brought her hand away and mentally chided herself. She was being ridiculous, over cautious. She had been spooked by that brief contact with . . . no she wouldn't even think it. She was away from there now and had to concentrate on other things.
She was coming up on the lycan bar. Even in daylight, in certain areas even more so, the streets of the Zone tended to the empty. One or two residents were out and about doing that hunched over walk that meant they didn't really want to interact with anyone. Selene was hoping to find Michael still at the bar, or if not him then someone who knew where he lived and could point her in the right direction with a little bit of persuasion. She could almost feel the hilt of one of her silver-edged blades in her hand with that last thought.
The door to the bar was open, I knew Selene would have kicked the door in without hesitation.
She stalked inside. There were already people in the bar. Either they made a very early start or they had been there all night. Selene took the bar in at a glance and I saw that for many it was the latter. Nobody bothered about enforcing licensing laws in the Zone.
Michael the lycan was one of those who looked like he had spent at least a few hours away from the place.
This time there was no preamble. Selene just moved up behind Michael, who was sitting in
the same seat as he had been when we went to the bar the other night, and put her hand on his shoulder.
"You've been a naughty boy, Michael. You've been telling tales out of school, and after you were so reluctant to talk to me."
I heard Selene's voice the same as she heard it and it was strange to hear what she thought she sounded like.
"I don't know what you mean."
Michael was studying a mainly full glass and studiously avoiding looking back at Selene. Through Selene's eyes I had a very good view of the top and the back of his head.
"Don't try and bullshit me. I want to know who you told and what you told them."
"I said-"
Selene leaned in so that her mouth was almost touching his ear. He smelled of musk and alcohol.
"You aren't as safe as you think. I can gut you before anyone else in here even notices."
Her tone carried with it a threat even stronger than her words.
Michael seemed to shrink into himself. "They'll kill me if I tell you anything."
"What do you think I'm going to do. Worry about me."
"They came around last night. They already knew what you had been nosing around into. All I did was confirm some things for them."
"Who is them?"
"You know who they are."
And Selene did and now so did I. A single name, Alavigne, and a thrill of terror ran through her. I knew, because Selene did, that this Alavigne was after Selene personally, had been after her for some time. Selene knew the details well enough that she didn't have to think about them again, which meant the details were hidden from me.
I did get a flash of images that didn’t make any sense to me. One thing I did manage to pick out of the jumble was an image of the ring that Selene had always worn on a chain about her neck, and something about . . . heritage?
Whatever was going on Selene was already pushing past it.
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