The Seer

by Marie Johnston

  The Seer

  New Vampire Disorder Novella 7

  Marie Johnston

  LE Publishing

  Contents

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  About the Author

  Also by Marie Johnston

  The Seer © 2018 by Lisa Elijah

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  Developmental and Copy Editing by Razor Sharp Editing

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  Proofreading by HME Editing

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  Cover by Mayhem Cover Creations

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  The characters, places, and events in this story are fictional. Any similarities to real people, places, or events are coincidental and unintentional.

  Created with Vellum

  Over a century old, Isabelle is under lock and key—and the watchful eye of her burly guard, Scurn. Her premonitions make her a target, but she’s no good to her people in hiding, watching reruns of reality TV. And crawling through ductwork to escape supervision is getting old. So when she gets a vision of another seer like her, one who’s still a child and in danger, Isabelle has to find her.

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  After so many years protecting her, Scurn discovers Isabelle missing within minutes—only to be fired from his duty as her guard. Job or no job, he swore an oath and he’s not leaving her side. As they embark on a search and rescue mission together, the boundaries between them drop. Closer than ever, she and Scurn could make a formidable pair…if they can get past the traumatic history between them.

  To my kiddos. You like being around me when I can’t stand being around myself.

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  For new release updates, chapter sneak peeks, and exclusive quarterly short stories, sign up for Marie’s newsletter and receive download links for the book that started it all, Fever Claim, and three short stories of characters from the series.

  Chapter 1

  “Those from below come up, and those from above go down below.”

  Isabelle Devereux sang as she dusted her bookshelves. She plucked one off the shelf and stroked the spine. “My beloved books. You don’t expect anything from me, do you?”

  She put her vintage copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies back and ran her rag along the edge. Every day for over a century, she’d dusted this bookshelf.

  It was the best time to talk to herself.

  “I cannot be one. I cannot be the one. But one at a time.” She switched to a hum. I cannot be one. I cannot be the one.

  I am not one.

  Isabelle gasped and dropped her duster. That was a new premonition.

  Although, were they really premonitions if she knew them to have happened? They were the antonym of premonition. Yet, they weren’t visions. They came as words. Statements in her head. No, vision wasn’t correct either.

  It was a common debate she had with Scurn.

  That frustrating male.

  She tore her mind off her bodyguard, a task that was getting harder to do as the years passed. She bent and snatched her rag.

  I am not the only one.

  She straightened, her eyes wide. There was another like her.

  No. Nononononono. That poor soul.

  Isabelle chewed her lip. Another one. Another one.

  Another seer out there like her. How soon before someone figured out what he or she was?

  Isabelle cocked her head and concentrated. A female. Five years old.

  At five, a kid could talk. At five, a kid wouldn’t know not to say what came to mind. At five, the child would be vulnerable. At five, the child’s family wouldn’t know the danger they were in.

  Isabelle had to help her.

  Darting into her room, she glanced down at herself. Her shift and slippers weren’t going to cut it. If she was to leave the compound undetected, again, she needed to change into her cat burglar outfit.

  She didn’t steal anything—usually. But if she were to intentionally, or sometimes unintentionally, take something, this was the outfit to do it in. It was the only time she wore pants and…she hadn’t come up with a better name.

  Digging through her drawers, she pulled out black leggings and a black turtleneck. In her closet, she crawled around on her hands and knees until she found her soft suede black boots.

  She yanked off her pale-yellow shift, tossed it to the floor, and threw on her burglar outfit. It got dusty crawling through her escape-without-notice route—the ductwork. Usually after a good brushing off and a few sneezes, she was fine.

  Too bad she couldn’t go out the front door like everyone else under this roof. She could, but there’d be questions and chaperones and doubtful glances. The compound was full of warriors who were the Synod’s personal demon-fighting team. She wasn’t one of them, and while they no longer thought she was crazy per se, they didn’t believe she was in full possession of her faculties either.

  She said what was on her mind and if they couldn’t figure it out, then she wasn’t going to take the time to explain when there was a five-hour Bachelor finale to catch up on.

  She stopped in her tiny kitchen first and grabbed a drink of water. As she crossed to the fridge, she caught her reflection.

  Oh. Her hair.

  It wouldn’t do to have it in her face, and it wasn’t dark enough of a brown to blend into the shadows. She went to the bathroom and tied her long hair into a topknot. Treading to the guest room, she went straight for the chair she kept under the vent opening. The compound had been built for industrial use and it had industrial-sized bones to go with it.

  Very fortuitous for her.

  She put her foot on the chair to jump but caught her reflection again.

  Right. Her hair.

  Going back to her room, she went for a different dresser drawer. Her black stocking hat was inside. She fitted it over her head.

  This time, she took a second to evaluate herself in the mirror. The placard above caught her eye.

  Where’s your wallet?

  Oh yes. Money. It used to be the root of evil for her kind, but demons had rightfully taken that spot. Hard to be more evil than a demon.

  She’d told her brother and his team once, Money is now rootless. The blank looks she’d gotten would’ve been infuriating, but they’d all found out soon enough when the demon infestation became obvious.

  She dug through the end table she kept by the chair to find her black satchel. If she ever got a visitor other than her brother, all they’d see was a stark room with an end table, a mirror, and a chair. They’d look no farther, thinking it was a product of her kookiness.

  And it was, but not in the way they assumed.

  The few times Scurn had stepped into her apartment, he’d never said anything. He never did. He should be the worst offender of all, only he blamed himself for her oddball nature, but he actually heard her—with more than his ears.

  She’d told him once “The thing about nature is that it is nature.” He’d just shaken his head, and she’d waited for a follow-up inquiry that never came. Had he figured out she was talking about balance and how balancing itself was what nature did best? Or did he no longer care what she meant? Or was he just messing with her and pretending not to care?

  That male. Made her blood boil.

  But what was the heat source? Anger? Frustration? It couldn’t be another feeling, one that left her breathless—

  I get to choose. Scurn was not her choice. Totally not. He would be the first to go home without a rose.

  She scowled and stared at the satchel in her hand. Her world without Scurn… Shaking her head, she brushed off the thought. The night wasn’t getting any youn
ger.

  She produced a small switchblade from her wallet and unscrewed the already loose fastenings around the vent. Since moving to the compound, she’d gone through this routine a few times each year. Except during the last year, the frequency had increased to a few times a month. Life was much more exciting on the other side of this grate.

  Easy access to the ductwork was the main reason she’d picked this apartment. When they’d first moved to the compound, it had been her and Demetrius and the other five on his team. He’d had first pick. Her brother was across the hall, but he was hardly around. He could come and go without question, but oh, would she get questioned if they discovered her absence. If only the first question wouldn’t be about her ability or her sanity.

  She laid the rectangle of metal by the chair and hauled herself into the vent. The main drawback of her plan was that it was almost impossible to get the vent screwed back on from inside. It was the biggest risk she took when she ventured out.

  But it was a small risk compared to what that child would face if her parents didn’t understand the danger and talked to others about the girl’s special talents.

  Isabelle had a mission. She was going to give that girl’s parents a firm talking-to and that would be that.

  It should only take a night, and no one would know she was gone.

  Though she had to find the child first. One whose identity she didn’t know. One among the hundreds of thousands in Freemont.

  Yes, it should only take a night.

  Each year that ticked by brought with it more restlessness. There was more to life than staring at the door of a young female.

  Scurn snorted. Young. She was a full-grown adult, had been for a while, a fact he had trouble ignoring more and more.

  When she would peek from behind a crack in her apartment door, he’d notice how bright her pale green eyes were and how cultured her voice had grown. The occasions she scooted out to sit with her back against the wall and her knees drawn to her chest, the curve of her hips couldn’t be hidden. The billowy dresses she wore, “shifts” she called them, showed little but suggested the body underneath would be as arresting as Isabelle’s face.

  Scurn adjusted his shoulders and tried to find something else to think about. That was the danger of his self-appointed position as Isabelle’s bodyguard. He stood post. No radio. No TV. Just her periodic chats and his memories.

  Those memories were the worst. They haunted him with images of Isabelle’s broken body, the streaks of her blood on the floor staining his brain. All my fault.

  He’d dedicated himself to her that day. One hundred five years, three months, and two days ago. Sometimes he counted the seconds. It gave him something to do.

  He dropped and banged out twenty push-ups and jumped back up, barely breathing heavily. A few burpees and his heart sped up another couple of beats per minute. He’d run in place, but that’d look stupid as fuck.

  Naps were never an option. Sleep was for those who weren’t paying penitence for their past.

  But he was tired. Years of sleeping sitting up or stretched out on the floor had taken a toll, no matter how guilty he felt.

  What was she doing in there?

  Had she remembered to eat today? He often had to remind her. When she did cook, she brought him a plate. Sometimes the food was excellent; other times he couldn’t gut through the charred bits. What did she do in there to distract her so much?

  She hadn’t popped out tonight yet, either. Should he remind her to eat?

  He should remind her to eat.

  His pulse sped up. Yeah. Minutes of physical exercise hadn’t had the effect on his heart rate that one thought of seeing her did. It was getting difficult to control his all-too-male reaction around her. She didn’t deserve his attentions. He’d made her suffer enough.

  He listened to the goings-on around him. The compound bustled with all the new people living under the roof and the renovations taking place to accommodate them. But Isabelle’s apartment was in a secluded area and no one was coming. Demetrius and Calli lived across the hall but had left their apartment an hour ago.

  Scurn crossed to Isabelle’s door and knocked. It wasn’t unusual to knock two or three times before getting an answer. Sometimes she made him wait for a commercial, even though she recorded her favorite shows.

  “Isabelle?” He knocked again. “Have you eaten since you woke?”

  He waited a minute and stretched. He wore the same clothing Demetrius and his team did, black tactical pants and a long-sleeved black tech shirt. He carried fewer weapons than the others. Adjusting the ones he did wear on the belt around his waist, he frowned.

  Rapping on the door, he barked, “Isabelle.”

  She didn’t answer.

  He let himself in. Maybe she was still asleep. One evening, he’d awoken on the floor of the corridor outside her apartment and she had been asleep across from him, her arm curled as a pillow for her head. Her lovely feminine shape had refused to be shadowed in the soft hall lighting. He’d stared at her for far too long before he’d cleared his throat five times to wake her up.

  A guy could get used to those exotic eyes opening up to him each evening.

  The place was quiet. The silence that of an empty apartment.

  He stepped inside. “Isabelle?”

  A glass sat on the counter. No plates. She’d forgotten to eat.

  A dusting rag lay on the floor and her bedroom door was hanging open. He drifted into her bedroom, trying not to feel like a pervert for spying in such an intimate place. Perhaps it was not having a bedroom of his own for over a century that made his presence feel so much more intrusive.

  Her vanilla-citrus scent surrounded him as he surveyed the area. Two drawers hung open and shoes scattered the floor of her closet. She never wore shoes.

  “Isabelle?” It was useless. No one was here, but he couldn’t help the pleasure saying her name gave him. When had the guilt left his every thought of her?

  Where else could she be? He had to search the place before he called Demetrius to admit he’d lost the guy’s sister. Scurn went to the guest bedroom next and stopped. A chair was placed under a gaping black hole in the ceiling. The drawer was open in the end table by the mirror, and the vent’s cover rested against the legs of the chair.

  “What the ever-loving hell, Isabelle?” he muttered. He crossed to the opening and peered up.

  Isabelle’s scent was strong in this room, too. Vanilla citrus was as ingrained in his smell receptors as the smell of her blood that one fateful night.

  He ran a hand over his bare scalp. Isabelle always said I see myself in you and he never asked if she meant that she was the motivation behind every decision he made, or if she just saw her reflection in his bald head. He didn’t want to know.

  Had she snuck out? And why? She could leave whenever she wanted. Scurn would clear it with Demetrius, find clothing for them both to blend into modern society, and accompany her.

  Was it him she didn’t want with her?

  A sharp pain stabbed his chest. He reprimanded himself. Just because he’d given up his whole life for her didn’t mean she was obligated to him.

  On that note, she could demand he leave her be forever and he’d be gone. Demetrius was more than capable of finding a new guard.

  Scurn’s fangs throbbed. He didn’t want to be dismissed. It was his duty and she’d never protested his presence. Those first few years after the attack on her, she’d start shaking whenever she looked at him, yet she’d never asked him to leave. Her parents had. Many times. But after the attack on her life, he’d parked himself outside her door and refused to move. The rest of the family had been immersed in their own healing, as well as managing their panicked staff, otherwise Scurn would’ve been killed or booted within the hour.

  And he wouldn’t have protested. He’d deserved either one. But they’d all needed protection that night and for several nights thereafter, and Scurn had seized the job. It helped that he’d been the only one around.
The Devereuxes had come to rely on him more and more each year after.

  Scurn had his phone out to text Demetrius, but he only stared at the black screen. It’d been assigned to him, just like his weapons. A tool to use just in case. This was the first time he’d ever really needed to use it beyond the hours of Clash of Clans he played on it.

  He inhaled. There was no scent of another; therefore, he had no reason to think she’d been abducted. Would he needlessly worry the others if he called now? Isabelle was an adult. And it didn’t shock him that she used a quirky exit rather than the front door.

  But she was a closeted vampire, unused to the ways of the world. She knew of pain and cruelty, but did she know about pickpockets and sex traffickers and…how to pay an Uber driver?

  Did he? Since he’d been sequestered to her side, he only ventured into the world to feed, and each time he couldn’t wait to return to the world he knew. The speed of cars increased every time he went out, the drivers looking like they were fresh off the milk bottle. Then there were the lights and the noises when nights used to be dark and quiet in the human world. It simultaneously fascinated and terrified him. Freemont was like every other city; it either lived or died, and Freemont was thriving.

  He narrowed his eyes on the vent opening. How often had she been doing this?

  A slow boil burned through his blood. Isabelle had never told him how she fed. Who had she been feeding from? What if she didn’t want him along because she’d met a male and was exploring the pleasures of the body?

  He snarled. It was just his protective instinct. He should vet the people who surrounded her. She was unique, and in a way that there’d be a line of vampires seeking to use her for their gain.