by Aja James
But now she was restless, and she wanted and wanted and wanted. Endlessly, frustratingly wanted.
“What are you thinking right now, Grace?” Dr. Weisman asked.
She continued to stare out the window. “I thought you were omniscient.” Or something close to it.
She didn’t see his lips quirk at one corner.
“No one is omniscient. I am simply well-trained in discernment. I thought I saw your face darken for a moment, but perhaps that was the shadow from the clouds out—”
“Shadows,” Grace suddenly interrupted, turning to face the shrink and looking him straight in the eye.
“There were shadows in my recurring dream. I’d forgotten about them. I saw them again today in a little girl’s drawing. The shadows that had moved across the walls in my home when no object had cast them.”
She stared unblinkingly into Dr. Weisman’s opaque obsidian orbs.
“The day my parents died.”
*** *** *** ***
“How was work today?” Inanna asked over a light dinner, as their party of five sat around a glass-top dining table in their rented apartment.
“I made a lot of progress,” Sophia said around a forkful of greens, “worked mostly by myself. Only one more chest of artifacts to catalogue. Then I can get started on detailed descriptions for each item.”
“Did that man visit you again?” Gabriel asked, “The one called Enlil?”
Gabriel had berated himself for not having been on hand when Sophia received her unexpected visitor.
He’d been her protector that day but wanted to give her some space and was biding the time working on his laptop in the MET’s cafeteria. Now that he’d recovered memories of his past life, he was helping the Pure Ones identify possible candidates to recruit into their Dozen; they were still missing one Elite warrior and one Circlet member.
He would have volunteered himself, having been one of the fiercest Pure warriors in ancient times, but he was now a vampire and Inanna’s Blooded Mate.
Tal was the next logical choice, but Inanna wouldn’t hear of it. Although Tal could still whoop any of the Elite warriors’ ass in training, she worried about his blindness and the virulent pain he constantly suffered. One nanosecond lapse in concentration during battle could mean the difference between life and death.
Sophia shook her head. “I haven’t seen him again since that one time weeks ago. I asked Mr. Sims, my manager, about him and I asked other employees at the MET, but no one knows a Mr. Enlil. At least not in the flesh.”
“Mr. Sims has never been in direct contact with the benefactor of the collection,” she recounted. “I pointed out the initials on the chests to him, but he just shrugged, saying they could mean anything, a trademark from where the chests were made, engravings to keep track of cargo on ships…They could have nothing to do with a man’s initials.”
“Sounds like Mr. Sims either didn’t believe your story or didn’t believe the man you met is legitimate,” Inanna surmised.
“What’s le-ji-mit?” Benji chimed in.
“Legitimate. It means real or true,” Inanna enunciated precisely and patiently supplied, then spelled out the letters for him.
Benji was expanding his vocabulary at an astounding pace. They enrolled him in a highly-reputed Gifted Center for the majority of the year in Boston, where Inanna, Gabriel and Tal now made their home, in a relatively separate wing of the Pure Ones’ Shield.
Still, the six-year-old outpaced quickly everything the school taught him. He was an insatiable sponge for knowledge.
Sophia shrugged. “Maybe I conjured him from my imagination after all. He truly did disappear that day. One moment he was there, and the next he wasn’t.”
She paused her chewing in memory. “Though I do recall seeing shadows spreading down the corridor from my office, but there was no one there.”
Inanna and Gabriel exchanged a brief look, which Sophia did not miss.
“What?” She looked from one to the other. “What did I say?”
“You mentioned that this Enlil looked like Ryu Takamura?” Gabriel inquired.
Sophia gave this some additional thought. “Yes. I mean, I don’t know Ryu very well. I’ve only run into him a couple of times at the Shield when he came to visit with Ava, but yes. Mr. Enlil reminded me of him, close enough in resemblance to be brothers I’d say.”
When the two ancient warriors shared another weighty look, Sophia blurted, “What’s going on?”
“He is dangerous,” Tal spoke for the first time in this discussion. “Stay away from him.”
“Papa?” Inanna inquired.
He’d never said a word before now. When they liberated him from his imprisonment, they’d fought against shadow ninjas led by a tall, dark-haired male whom Ryu called the Master.
Inanna suspected that this Enlil and the Master could be one and the same, given Sophia’s description of him.
But when they researched the Pure and Dark archives for more information over the last couple of weeks, they came away with nothing. There was no Enlil mentioned anywhere. If he’d been recorded in the Dark Ones’ history, then the chapters must have been lost in the War. His only tie that they knew of was to Ryu Takamura.
A tie that Ryu refused to discuss.
As four pair of eyes regarded Inanna’s father expectantly, the warrior closed in on himself.
Inanna knew her father well enough to understand that he would reveal no more tonight on this subject.
For reasons she did not comprehend, he was keeping the history of his imprisonment secret. He refused to discuss any aspect of it. What he suffered, who his captor was, why he’d been held prisoner, and now, how he knew this Enlil and what role this man played.
“I am tired,” Tal said, getting to his feet, taking his dishes to the kitchen sink without hesitation, having memorized the layout of the apartment to a T.
“I bid you all good night.”
After his departure, conversation started up again on lighter topics, engendering much laughter and warmth, as if Tal had physically taken the cold, pain and darkness with him when he left the group.
The only one who was not the slightest disturbed by his reticence was Benji, who requested “Uncle Tal” for story time when his parents tucked him in that night.
Gabriel supposed he should feel slighted since he used to be Benji’s bedtime story-teller extraordinaire, but he was just glad that his precocious little boy could bring some light and carefree innocence into the General’s spartan existence.
“Tell me about the boy and his pet leopard, Uncle Tal,” Benji wheedled, scooting closer to the wall on his full-size bed to make room.
“What’s the boy’s name, by the way? You never said.”
Tal sat down beside him against the upholstered headboard and folded his hands in his lap.
“His name is…Lark,” he said, recalling what Inanna called Benji on the rare occasions that he got in trouble—“Benjamin Larkin D’Angelo!” she usually began.
“That’s like my name!” Benji noticed happily.
“Indeed. Lark also looked something like you when he was a boy, based on how your mother describes you. Pale blonde and blue-eyed. But without the curls.”
Benji shifted excitedly, barely able to keep still.
“When did Lark get his leopard, Uncle Tal? Did he always want to be a warrior?”
Tal answered Benji’s second question first.
“Lark never dreamed that he would be a warrior. His father was the village blacksmith, and his mother took care of the home, their small farm, and of course, Lark, until he was old enough to look after himself. Lark loved carving wood, making things, and helping his papa in the forge.”
“He wasn’t a prince or a demi-god or something?” Benji asked, “I just finished re-reading all of the Greek and Roman mythologies, now starting on the Norse ones. The heroes are always princes or demi-gods, and they have special powers or special friends—like Perseus’ flying horse Pegasus.”<
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“Well, I don’t know that Lark set out to be a hero, so maybe that’s the difference,” Tal theorized. “But he does have his magical leopard.”
“What’s the leopard’s name?” Benji asked, always attentive to details.
“Her name is Star,” Tal answered. “She’s white all over with black spots, a long, thick-furred, curling tail and ears like so that were also thick with fur.”
He made two small ears on either side of his head with his index and middle fingers and twitched his nose at Benji, making the boy giggle.
“Star has special powers, doesn’t she?”
“Of course,” Tal indulged. “She could turn into a little girl, the prettiest girl in all the land.”
Tal sensed Benji’s deflation rather than saw his look of disappointment. A leopard who turned into a girl was definitely a lot less awesome than a winged horse to a six-year-old boy.
“And, she could also turn into a giant leopard with paws bigger than my head, teeth as thick around as your calves, sharper than swords, and whose roar was so mighty it made houses tremble.”
Tal roared mightily and held his clawed hands above Benji’s head, making the boy shriek with excitement.
“That is so cool! Like Power Rangers that morph when they fight the bad guys!”
Tal gave Benji a blank look. He was not anywhere near well versed on modern pop culture, much less the various fascinations of children.
“So the giant leopard fought alongside Lark and protected him?”
Tal nodded. “The leopard saved Lark once from a fate worse than death. She battled a venomous serpent with black eyes, monstrous fangs and spiked tail.”
“Ooohh,” Benji enthused.
“But we will have to save the battle for another day,” Tal said, re-tucking Benji beneath his blankets.
“Tomorrow night?”
“If you wish.”
“I love you, Uncle Tal. Good night.”
A surge of tenderness nearly overwhelmed Tal as he bent over the boy and kissed his forehead.
This moment. This was his light in the darkness.
Chapter Ten
Fourteen days, five hours and twenty-three minutes.
That was how long, give or take a couple of minutes, it had been since Devlin had been inside Grace Darling’s apartment.
He spun a small throwing knife between the fingers of his left hand as he contemplated the giant screens of codes before him. He’d gone through 99.9% of the files Grace had given him with a fine tooth comb over the past two weeks.
Nothing.
There was no incriminating evidence that Zenn was less or more than what it presented itself to be. No cookie crumb trail that led to anything illegal, nefarious or even tangentially suspect. It looked like a perfectly legit, rising star of the tech universe, with sound financial management, operating model and steadily increasing revenues and profits.
Devlin had gone through all of its employee files, suppliers, customers, formal organizations it had any business with…everything checked out. He’d cross-referenced each of the staff members with government databases and found a few marital, misdemeanor, DUI, Internet porn skeletons in the closet but nothing that led him closer to Medusa.
He was at an impasse. Back at square one.
A throaty growl preceded Simca’s otherwise silent entry into Devlin’s tech center. And where the feline predator went, inevitably, the Chosen’s Commander was not far behind.
“Devlin, a word.”
Devlin lazily spun his swivel chair around to face the leader of the Chosen, raising one eyebrow slightly to encourage Maximus to continue.
“I depart this night to recruit new warriors into our royal guard,” Maximus revealed. “There are a few good candidates, but they are spread across four different continents. Ana has command of the Cove. You are her Second.”
“The Queen has issued the order?” Devlin was surprised.
Jade Cicada had been melancholy and self-contained ever since the Pure Ones’ Consul, Seth Tremaine, left her side. She’d become even more insular since the departure of Inanna from the Chosen and the betrayal of Simone Lafayette. Now that Ryu had moved out of the Cove with his human wife, the Chosen’s number was down to half. The Queen had not seemed eager to fill the vacancies.
In fact, despite the effectiveness of her rule, she didn’t seem to relish being Queen, not the way she used to.
“Nay,” Maximus shook his head. “I take the initiative unto myself. We cannot keep order with so few. The powerful civilian Hordes have smelled blood in the water and are circling around our Queen like piranhas. I have no doubt they are plotting to depose her and she doesn’t seem to care.”
“Then why do you care, oh fearless leader?” Devlin quipped casually, though he stiffened with alertness and anger at the threat to his Queen.
Maximus ignored his flippant question, well aware that Devlin was far more loyal and had far deeper attachments than he let on.
He cared just as much as Maximus and Ana did. Devlin was a soldier who recognized a great leader when he met one. Under Jade Cicada’s reign, the New England vampires had enjoyed centuries of peace with humans and Pure Ones alike, despite the wars and religious purges that went on in the early years of establishing the Colonies. She hadn’t led them astray yet.
“I should be gone no longer than a fortnight,” Maximus continued, “Safeguard our Queen well.”
Devlin gave a nonchalant wave and turned his chair back around as Maximus and his familiar left without a sound.
Ana was more than capable of protecting the Queen by herself. In fact, Jade Cicada was powerful in her own right, hence her unimpeded rise to the throne. Devlin would do his part to hunt down vampire rogues, of which there had been a lot fewer in the past year since they’d disbanded the fight club network.
But he had bigger fish to fry: finding and bringing down Medusa.
Which reminded him of his impasse, a depressing topic indeed.
So naturally, as he stewed over the lack of results, his mind wandered to more pleasant, more satisfying thoughts, such as a particular computer genius licking her way from his navel to his Adam’s apple, or nibbling the tender skin of his inner thighs while pressing her thumb against his perineum just so, or tickling the lobes of his ears and raining kisses along his jaw…
And then Devlin remembered that these were not pleasant thoughts at all. Because he was far from satisfied. He was, at present, and in the foreseeable future if Grace Darling had her way, thoroughly unsatisfied.
Thoroughly Grace-less.
When the emptiness and loneliness and disappointment had been the sharpest in the first few nights, he’d gone out and flirted with anyone who had a vagina. Got up close and personal with many a beautiful woman in bars and clubs and random public establishments.
Filled himself up with enough blood to last him another month or two, all with his preys’ Consent of course, as the Dark Laws dictated. Wouldn’t do to break the very rules he enforced as the Hunter of the New England Hive.
But he remained grossly unsatisfied after all the other sort of hunting he’d done, all the blood he’d gorged.
Sexually frustrated. Lonely and angry and confused.
The women were beautiful, but they hadn’t been attractive. Not to Devlin, anyway. Grace Darling was attractive, not beautiful. But apparently, at this juncture of Devlin’s accumulated experience, Grace was the only female who attracted him. That made her special. Unique.
And it made him resent her just a little. Maybe a lot.
After all, he hadn’t been the one to seek her out for two weeks of orgy. He’d been all about business, trying to make progress on the hunt for Medusa, when she derailed him into having sex with her.
And then she didn’t even keep the two week bargain! He’d asked for a little space and she severed the relationship completely! What kind of reaction was that? Blown out of proportion was what it was.
And why was he thinking like a besotted te
enager, a pansy-assed, star-struck, hormonal teenager pining for his first crush? With exclamation marks and everything? What’s next? Thinking with emojis and hash tags?
Devlin abruptly slammed his head back against the tall headrest of his chair in frustration, but it was deeply unsatisfying as the well-padded cushion bounced his head back with no pain at all.
He needed to feel some pain. Find an outlet for his pent-up emotions. Exorcise this inexplicable obsession with a particularly bushy-browed hacker.
Thus decided, he shot up from his chair, secured the knife back into its hidden pocket and went out in search of satisfaction.
*** *** *** ***
The young man was deep in thought after leaving Estelle Martin’s pastry and trinkets shop, Dark Dreams.
The old lady had been out of sorts and distracted.
Usually when he visited, she devoted much time and attention to plying him with treats and freshly-brewed hot beverages. She preferred spicy teas but seemed to know that he liked strong coffee with lots of cream.
She always hung on his every word, though his conversation wasn’t the most scintillating. He didn’t have many opportunities to converse with others, after all. And when he did engage in dialogue, it was either to play a role or to dissemble. He only ever spoke the truth with Mama Bear.
Tonight she looked every one of her advanced human years. She looked listless and weary, as one who suffered from starvation or thirst would. Yet, she touched none of the cookies and drinks she set before them to share. The cookies had been well-baked, but they tasted bland, as if she’d forgotten to add some important ingredients.
Fancifully, the young man thought she might have forgotten the love.
Having arrived at his residence, he entered through the back door and locked it behind him.
The front of the street where the dance club veritably thumped with loud music and thunderous beats was lit with laser beams in the pitch black night. A long straggling line of humans waited outside the club’s doors, all vying for a coveted ticket to enter.
Here in the back, it was eerily quiet. And inside the apartment, the thick sound-proofed walls insulated occupants from all noise. Even the air was still.