Mark of Cain (Immortal Mercenary Book 1)

by Conner Kressley

  I never understood why the Big Guy had such a visceral reaction to someone addressing me. It’s not like I was the only Cain in the world anymore, or that my name wasn’t plastered across every copy of the Bible in circulation, or used as cautionary tale every time two brothers had so much as a slap fight in a park.

  Still, anytime someone called me by my name to my face, bad shit went down.

  Another reason Callum was a good choice.

  “How are the girls?” I asked, changing the subject. “Hell, I haven’t seen them since they were kids, have I?”

  “They’re better than her,” he answered, looking down at the body on the floor and gently reminding me why he called me here.

  “What’s her story?” I asked, peering down at her. Her eyes were open and seemed to be staring off into a distance she’d never reach.

  “Annabelle Winters. Twenty four, daughter of one of the biggest textile magnates in the Southeast. She moved to the city three months ago to start graduate school. Her parents hadn’t heard from her in a couple of days. They called a family friend in to check on her. This is what he found.” He sighed, “Third this month, all matching this description.”

  “Sounds like a serial killer,” I answered. “What I don’t know is why you called for me. I’m not a detective.”

  “That’s not what my father told me,” Andy answered.

  “What your father and I did was a long time ago, Andy. And you saw where it got him.” I shook my head. “I hung that up. I’m not looking to start it again.”

  “I’m not sure you’ve got a choice,” he answered, moving to the edge of the kitchen. “Come with me.”

  I followed Andy, apprehension rising up in my throat.

  “I don’t blame you for what happened to Dad,” he said, settling front of a door at the end of the hallway. “He made his own choices.”

  “I appreciate that, but he only made those choices because I was there and pushing him toward them.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for everything, Uncle C.” Andy answered.

  “I don’t see why not,” I muttered. Shaking my head, I added, “I should have never brought your father into all that garbage. I wasn’t myself back then. Or maybe I was too much like myself. I think that might have been the problem. Death follows me, Andy. Like a yapping puppy trailing behind its master. It kills everyone I’ve ever cared about, everyone who isn’t smart enough to get the hell away from me. That’s what killed your father.”

  “A bullet to the head killed my father. If you happened to be there, well, that makes you unlucky. But, it doesn’t make you responsible.” He twisted the doorknob. “It doesn’t make you responsible for this either.”

  He pushed the door open, revealing a large bedroom. It had an enormous California king at its center covered in fancy throw pillows and a couple of scattered teddy bears.

  But that wasn’t what he wanted me to look at, and it wasn’t why he brought me here.

  Over the bed, framed like it was worth something, sat a painting of a black eye with a red pupil.

  My heart dropped out through my stomach.

  “I’m guessing you recognize the artwork,” Andy muttered.

  “It’s not artwork,” I answered, my jaw locking up. “It’s a fucking death machine. And of course I recognize it. I created it.”

  2

  “Get out of the car, Andy,” I said for the third time, watching as he sat stalwart in my front seat.

  “Not a chance in hell, not as long as you’ve got that thing in the backseat,” he said, his eyes cutting back to the painting. I jerked it off the wall the instant I laid eyes on it. No one else was going to die with it in their presence, not when a match and a jug of gasoline made such an affordable combo. “What is it anyway? You’re going to have to tell me eventually.”

  Physicality played such strange tricks on people. I had known Andy since his mom popped him out back in Cleveland. I remembered drinking bourbon with his father as his mother changed his dirty diapers in the backroom. I taught him to throw a football in his backyard. He always treated me like an uncle, because that’s the way I looked to him.

  But that changed once his appearance started outrunning mine. He got older and I stayed the same age. I went from an uncle to an older brother, and then from an older brother to a friend. Now, regardless of the way he addressed me, I could see the rings of fatherly concern starting to creep up in his eyes.

  But he wasn’t my father. My father was dead, and that was the sort of shit that got his own father killed. “Since when did you start telling me what I was going to have to do?” I asked. Turned sideways in my seat, I leaned back far enough so that my head rested against the window. It was cold tonight and the chill felt good against my head.

  “Since something you painted started killing people in my city, Uncle C. Three corpses, that’s what I’ve dealt with. I can’t afford another one.”

  “The painting didn’t kill her,” I answered, as sure as anything I’d ever said in my thousands of years on this rock.

  “Unless I’m not mistaken, you called that painting — the one that’s sitting in your backseat, just a couple hundred feet away from the house where my children sleep — a fucking death machine. Am I mistaken, Uncle C?”

  “You are not,” I answered, grinning because that spunk reminded me of myself. “But it didn’t kill her. It didn’t kill any of them, and I know that because I stripped it of that little add-on at least a hundred years ago. And I promise you, Andy, that’s the only reason this self-indulgent piece of shit is sitting anywhere near your kids.” I shook my head, hating to lift it from the chill of the glass. “Somebody left this here for me. The same person who took the cat, I’d imagine. They’re trying to tell me something, and unless I’m reading this situation wrong, it’s not something good.”

  I leaned forward.

  “So that’s why you need to get the hell out of my car. Don’t forget to take your coffee with you because I don’t want it splashing all over my upholstery, and have lasagna or whatever that long suffering wife you conned into marrying you has decided to cook tonight.”

  “Salisbury steak,” Andy answered, pursing his lips.

  “Tell them I said hi,” I said, waving him on.

  Andy opened the door and climbed out. Closing it back, he stuck his head through the window. “I don’t want to see anymore dead brunettes.”

  “That’s a pretty universal statement,” I answered.

  “I’m serious, Uncle C,” he said, glaring at me.

  I glanced back at the painting, remembering the night I whipped it up and what I planned on doing with it. “So am I.”

  “Fair enough,” he said, nodded at me, and went off toward his house.

  I watched him until I was sure he made it in, something I used to do when he was a kid, right after his dad died.

  Once he’d closed the door, I threw my car into drive and squealed off.

  Time to get some answers.

  When I moved to Savannah, it was to keep an eye on Andy and his mother. To say I felt responsible for what happened to his father would have been the understatement of my very, very long lifetime.

  That’s not to say that I wasn’t aware of the extremely rich supernatural community and heritage this river city had.

  I had been here a thousand and a half years ago. St. Patrick had driven all the snakes out of Ireland along with the witches, and they set up shop down here.

  The entire place was wilderness back then, but the Irish witches didn’t care. They did their rituals, had their children, and built up a society that more or less got obliterated along with everything else when the white man came over to colonize.

  They were still here though, lesser in number, but no less in spirit. And I mean that as much literally as figuratively. The whole damn city was lousy with the ghosts of dead witches who — even though they were predated by both me and the Native Americans — floated around like they owned this place and everything in it
.

  I hated witches almost as much as I hated werewolves, which was almost as much as I hated angels.

  And I hated nothing more than I hated angels.

  But witches, especially the dead ones, kept tabs on the stuff that went down in Savannah. And, if I was going to figure out where my painting came from and what it had to do with the dead women piling up at Andy’s feet, I was going to need to hit them up.

  I wasn’t facing them without at least one drink in my system though.

  The War Room moved every night and was covered by a mystical blanket that you couldn’t see though, unless you happened to be a witch, lycan, wood nymph, or some other supernatural creature. My particular malady, as unique as it was, didn’t fall under the guidelines for entry. Lucky for me, I had met a rather domineering Persian witch back in the 50s who taught me (among other things) how to peer through simple glamours.

  So, after a little detective work and a few minutes of searching, I found the bar stuffed into a corner right by the public toilets on River Street.

  Classy as ever.

  I pushed passed the layer of magic and stepped into the bar. It was particularly busy tonight, with a coven of witches in the corner and a pack of Were-somethings gathered around the pool table.

  None of them paid me any mind as I strode in and took my usual seat at the bar.

  There was a time when I used to keep a low profile, fly under the radar as they say. But I got sick of that, pretending to be a normal human being all the time. Sooner or later, a guy has to let his freak flag fly. And there was no better place than the War Room to make that happen.

  “Callum, sit your skinny ass down. It’s good to see you,” Ralph said, smiling at me from across the bar. He was cleaning a glass as the gray tips of his hair shone in the dingy orange light, highlighting his age.

  Fae lived a long time. Not as long as me, of course. But the fact that Ralph here had survived long enough to get that salt and pepper thing going for him, told me that he had lived through a hell of a lot. He probably had some damn good war stories floating around in that fat head of his. Another night, and I might even take the time to ask him about some of them. But tonight was not that night.

  “Whiskey or bourbon?” he asked, placing the now clean glass on the bar and reaching for a bottle.

  “Scotch,” I answered flatly.

  “Rough day?” he asked, changing directions and picking out one of the bottles of Scotch.

  “Gonna be a rougher night. Better make it a double,” I answered, tapping against the bar with my knuckles.

  “Girl troubles?” he asked, sliding the glass over to me and pouring one for himself.

  “What am I, twelve?” I responded, downing the glass and sliding it back to him. “Pour yourself another too. I’ll pay for it.”

  “Better not,” he answered, filling my glass but leaving his untouched. “Those dogs have been pretty rowdy tonight. I need to be on top of things in case one of them gets out of line.”

  I turned back to the Were-people at the pool table. The tattoos on their arms told me they were of the wolf variety and I could have built a fort with the amount of empty bottles surrounding them.

  “It’s not even a full moon,” I said, as if the fact that they were fit, seven foot tall muscle men was somehow negated by the lunar cycle.

  “Still rough enough,” Ralph said. “You ever tried tangling with one of them? Ever without the full transformation, they don’t fucking play around.”

  “Not much I haven’t tried tangling with, Ralphie,” I answered, polishing off my second glass. “But suit yourself.”

  I could have probably ran them off if I needed to. After all, who was going to take a swing at somebody when they knew without a doubt that they were going to get it back times seven? And worse than that, they had no idea when it was going to happen. Sometimes it took years for my particularly potent karma curse to catch up to people. Other times, it happened all at once.

  You could never tell. It was like some mystical slap bet.

  A beat or two of silence passed between us, not odd, considering how much time we spent together these days.

  Finally, giving me a once over, he added, “You’re cut off.”

  “What?” I asked, eyeing my glass.

  “You heard me. I said you’re cut off,” he repeated.

  “I’ve got a couple thousand years of tolerance built up, Ralphie. I promise, it’ll take more than two glasses of Scotch to get me hammered.”

  “It was two doubles, and that ain’t got nothing to do with it,” Ralph said. “I know you. I know that look in your eyes.” He nodded. “You got a bad case of the melancholy, my man.”

  “Shut up,” I answered, tapping my knuckles against the bar again. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Ralphie answered. “When you live as long as people like you and me, getting lonely is just part of it. But I’ll be damned in a ditch if I’m gonna let you sit here and drink yourself depressed about it.”

  A sharp chuckle escaped my lips. Lonely? Was that a fucking joke?

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, slumping lower in my chair. “Though, if you’re not going to pour me another drink, I’m not sure what the hell I’m still doing here.”

  “And here I thought you came here for the sparkling conversation,” Ralph snorted.

  “That too,” I replied. “You want me to tell you about the dinosaurs again?”

  “Showoff,” Ralph grinned.

  I shook my head. This is why I came here. Andy aside, there was nobody in my life who I could really talk to about things. But, whenever I set foot inside The War Room, I could be myself, or whatever version of myself I happened to be this century. I could unwind, and for at least a few minutes, forget about all the shit that brought me here in the first place.

  “You know, Ralphie, I never quite-”

  I heard a loud shuffle in the back and then a growl.

  Somebody, a kid of no more than 18 bolted toward the door. He had a wallet in his hand, and judging by the looks on their faces and the eye teeth that were beginning to jut out from their mouths, it likely belonged to one of the wolves.

  The boy had fear in his eyes as he darted past me, but that wasn’t what turned my head.

  I felt it again, the pull of death, the sting of murder.

  He was about to die. Ralph was right about these wolves. They were going to kill him.

  I jumped out in front of the encroaching pack. The one in the lead, obviously the Alpha, glared at me with an ‘I don’t have time for this punk’ glare. But I had seen worse than that, and whether he believed it or not, I had dealt with way worse than a pack of righteously indignant werewolves.

  “You got a problem, bitch?” the Alpha sneered at me, baring his teeth, a direct threat.

  I steadied myself. Sure, if he dug into me with those incisors, it would eventually come back to bite him in the furry ass. But that wouldn’t make it hurt any less.

  “Depends on what your intentions are about the kid that just ran out of here,” I answered, staring up at him and not giving an inch.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” he said, slobber rolling from his mouth in sheets. “It’s half of what I’m gonna do to you if you don’t move your ugly ass.”

  “Ugly?” I balked, feigning hurt. “There’s no need to be nasty.”

  Fed up, the Alpha leaned toward me, blowing disgusting hot breath all in my face. “Move or I will move you,” he warned, baring his teeth at me again.

  Instead of pulling back, I moved closer. Our faces were nearly touching when I asked, “Do you know who I am?”

  He stared at me for a long moment. Slowly, Alpha dude reached into his pocket. Pulling out a lighter, he struck it and placed the flame below my face.

  Fire was the only way my mark was visible, and as he laid eyes on it, his scowl melted away and his face went pale.

  “The mark of-”

  “Don�
��t say it!” Ralphie yelled. “Not in my bar.”

  Alpha dude straightened up. Realizing he was about to lose face in from of his pack, he cleared his throat. “I can’t have witches stealing from me.”

  “I get that,” I said, putting my hands up and stepping back for the first time in our little war of words. Without saying it, he was calling a truce. And I was down for that. “But, that kid’s hardly a witch. He’s a first year mage at most, and hunting him down won’t help anything. Let me go get the money back. I’ll bring an apology with it. If you need to hear it from his lips, I’ll bring the little piss ant here with me. But, only if you promise not to hurt him.” I stared up at him. “Sound fair?”

  “Just this once,” Alpha dude said, looking down at me with angry eyes. “But don’t go making a habit of this, with your fake ass name and your fucked up face. You might be somebody’s big brother, but you ain’t mine.”

  “Lucky you,” I answered flatly. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  I shot Ralph a look. He nodded at me, letting me know he had things in hand until I got back. I nodded in return and walked out.

  Time to find an idiot.

  3

  When you get to be as old as I am, you watch the world go through changes. I’ve lived through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Gold Rush. Hell, I even lived through the Ice Age, which wasn’t nearly as fun as the animated movies lead you to believe.

  In all that time, I’ve watched the people and the societies they’ve created change and bend.

  In the Stone Age, power was very much reliant on physical strength. A millennia or so ago, curves were king in terms of physical beauty. And, just thirty years ago, you couldn’t walk into a room without having to worry about tripping over the cord of a landline phone.

  But, through all those changes, given every possible way the world has bent and shifted, one constant fact has always been true.

  You don’t ever, ever fuck with werewolves.