by I. T. Lucas
51
Lokan
As Lokan’s clan-issue phone rang, he took it out onto the balcony before answering.
“Is that Kian?” Carol followed him out.
“Who else?” Lokan accepted the call. “Hello, Kian.”
“Good afternoon, or good evening your time. I have news from your brother. He wants to meet you.”
Lokan tensed. “Did you tell him about me?”
“Your mother did. She wants her boys to meet and hopes that you’ll become friends and allies. In her words, and I’m quoting, ‘Maybe one day the bonds of friendship could blossom into brotherly love.’”
Lokan plopped down on the lounge chair. “Did Kalugal say how he wanted to do that?”
“He left it up to me. I think we should meet him together. That way, I can extend Guardian protection to you.”
“Much good that will do if Kalugal decides to compel us.”
“You should be immune to his compulsion. If your father’s didn’t work on you, Kalugal’s shouldn’t either. In fact, I’m counting on that. If he overpowers my men and me, you can help.”
“I’m not at all certain that he can’t compel me. I couldn’t protect your people from his compulsion, which means that he is stronger than me.”
Carol leaned over him and kissed his forehead. “Don’t worry. I’ll get a taser gun, and if he tries anything, I’ll zap him.”
Kian chuckled. “That’s funny. Wonder had a similar suggestion. Your brother seems to court female aggression.”
“That’s because he’s a threat to our men,” Carol said.
“Syssi came up with a better solution. It’s not perfect, but it could work. We put in earplugs and communicate with Kalugal by typing on tablets.”
Snorting, Carol sat on Lokan’s lap. “That’s ridiculous. He is going to feel so damn superior.”
Lokan pulled her against his chest. “Do you have a better suggestion?”
“Not off the top of my head, but I’ll think of something.”
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Kian said. “Our mothers are anxious for us to sit down and talk.”
“If no one comes up with a better solution, the earplugs could work.” Carol tucked a stray curl behind her cute little ear. “When and where?”
Lokan stifled a chuckle. His mate might look like an angelic pixie, but she was a fierce fighter and one of the bravest people he’d ever had the honor of knowing.
“San Francisco. It’s better that we come to Kalugal and not the other way around. I’ll rent a house for the occasion, so we can all stay over and talk freely away from human ears and eyes.”
“How many men are you bringing with you?” Lokan asked.
“I didn’t make any arrangements with Kalugal yet, but I’m going to insist on a maximum of three bodyguards for each of us. He doesn’t need to know that yours are actually mine. That will give us a slight advantage. Six of ours against three of his. One of mine is going to be Turner, though, and he is not a Guardian, so it’s five to three.”
“What about mates?” Carol asked. “I want to come.”
“Sorry, Carol. I don’t want to endanger you or Syssi. But this could be a good opportunity for you to visit the village and spend time with our friends while Lokan is with me at the summit.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really. There is no way I’m exposing Syssi to Kalugal, and I’m sure Lokan feels the same about you.”
“I do.” Lokan kissed the top of Carol’s head, hoping to stave off a tantrum.
“Can I come with Lokan to San Francisco and stay at a hotel? You can bring Syssi along, and we can hang out together. Maybe you could rent a conference room in the hotel instead of a house, and at the end of the day, Kalugal will go home while you and Lokan will stay in the hotel. I think it would work better. Maybe Callie and Wonder can come too. That would be fun.”
Kian let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ll give it some thought.”
“Thanks. That’s all I’m asking. Now that we covered the where, what about the when?”
“Annani and Areana are pressuring us to hurry up, so this weekend would be best, but I need to check with Kalugal if it works for him.”
Carol shifted in Lokan’s arms. “If it’s going to happen over the weekend, you absolutely must include the mates. Right?” She lifted a pair of guileless eyes to Lokan.
“I’m all for it, love. But it’s Kian’s show, and he makes the rules.”
“I’ll let you know. In the meantime, make the appropriate arrangements. Reschedule meetings if you need to.”
“I don’t have anything scheduled for this weekend. The question is, how long will it take? I have meetings on Monday and every day for the rest of the week.”
“Let’s see how it goes. We might be done in one day, or we could keep talking without reaching an agreement for weeks. But none of us has the time for that. If it seems like it’s going to drag on, we could schedule another meeting for the next weekend and so forth.”
“Sounds good. I’ll make flight arrangements for Carol and me to arrive Friday night at San Francisco.”
Smiling triumphantly, Carol pumped her fist in the air.
Kian chuckled. “I didn’t decide on including the mates yet.”
“You will.” Carol pushed off Lokan’s lap. “Say hi to Syssi for me.”
52
Jin
Jin waited for the door to Wendy’s room to close before turning to Bowen. “Thank you for sticking around. I think it’s good for Wendy to see familiar faces.”
“Not mine. All she’s getting from me are scowls.”
“I know that you are angry and disappointed.” Mey put her hand on his arm. “But try to be a little nicer to her. She is just a young girl who thinks that she’s alone in the world, and that no one cares about her.”
He huffed out a breath. “I’ve already gotten the same speech from Vanessa, and I’ll tell you the same thing that I told her. I’m not a good actor, and I’m not the forgiving type either. The best I can do is ask Onegus to replace me.”
Mey patted his arm again. “Just make a tiny effort to scowl less. Can you do that?”
Rolling his eyes, he nodded. “You are all getting sucked in by her innocent-poor-me act. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”
The guy was a lost cause.
“We should go.” Jin threaded her arm through Mey’s.
“One second.” Mey resisted Jin’s pull. “How is Richard doing?”
“He is with Vanessa. She came to talk to him.”
“Why? Is he having a breakdown too?”
Bowen shrugged. “She said something about making an assessment.”
“So you didn’t call her?”
He shook his head. “Richard is doing fine. He is the reason I stayed on. I don’t think it’s fair to let the guy feel like he is getting punished for Wendy’s crime, so I figured I’d stay and keep him company when Ingrid is not here. I’m training with him in the gym.”
“That’s very nice of you. Do you know when Vanessa is going to be done? I would like to say hi to him.”
“Let me check.” He walked over to Richard’s room and punched in the code. “His door is not usually locked. I just closed it so they could have privacy.”
When it opened, Bowen poked his head inside. “Mey and Jin are here. Can they come in?”
“Sure!” Unlike Wendy, Richard sounded happy to see them.
“I hope we are not interrupting,” Mey said.
Vanessa smiled and waved them in. “Richard and I are done.”
“I heard that you got sick.” Richard pushed to his feet and pulled Jin into his arms for a quick hug. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better, but I still get tired doing nothing.”
“Come.” He guided her to the couch. “Sit down and tell me how you’ve been.”
They spent a few minutes chatting, with Jin making up half of the details of what had happened
with Kalugal.
When she was done, Richard let out a breath. “I’m glad that it’s over and that no one got hurt. How are things going with Arwel?”
“Great.”
“Is he the one?”
Jin nodded.
“I’m happy for you.”
“I need to get going.” Vanessa rose to her feet.
“Yeah, we are leaving too.” Mey followed Vanessa’s example and then offered Jin a hand up. “We can walk together to the parking garage.”
As they entered the elevator, Jin turned to the therapist. “So, what do you think about Richard? Did he pass the test?”
Vanessa chuckled. “The reason I came to talk to him wasn’t to test him. I wanted to get a feel for him, so I could match him with the right female.”
“What about Ingrid?”
“She bailed.” Vanessa punched the button for parking level three, which wasn’t the one connecting to the tunnel. “I’m going to grab a cup of coffee from the vending machine. Care to join me? You could tell me more about Richard.”
“We would love to.” Jin glanced at Mey. “Is that okay? Or are you in a rush to go back home?”
“No rush.”
“Awesome.”
To get to the lobby, they had to exit the clan’s dedicated elevator at the parking garage level, go through another room marked as storage, and then enter one of the regular elevators the rest of the building’s occupants were using and take it up. It was a long roundabout way to get to the café.
“It used to be reserved only for us,” Vanessa said when they got there. “But Nathalie decided to open it to the other occupants. So it’s no longer as private as it used to be, but it seems that people are not too crazy about a coffee shop with no servers, so most of the time, there is no one there.”
They found one guy sitting at a corner table and typing away on his computer.
Jin leaned closer to Vanessa. “He’s not one of ours, right?”
“He’s not.”
After getting their coffees, they chose a table that was the furthest away from the human.
The irony of grouping herself with the immortals wasn’t lost on Jin. She was still human, but she was already thinking in terms of us versus them.
“I understand that you and Richard dated for a while,” Vanessa said. “Any insights about him that you would care to share?”
“He is okay.” Jin tore open a sugar packet and emptied it into her coffee. “He is not very romantic, and he is not a great conversationalist, but he was a pretty attentive boyfriend. He also has a decent sense of humor, and he doesn’t take himself too seriously. That being said, he thinks that he is a hunk and that most women find him desirable.”
“He’s not bad looking,” Mey said. “He has a certain charm.”
“Not everyone is a heartthrob.” Vanessa removed the lid from her black coffee and took a sip.
“What’s the deal with Ingrid?” Jin asked. “Bowen said that she still comes over.”
“I talked to her about joining Richard in the clan’s cabin, and she declined. She said that he’s fun to be with, but he’s not the one.” Vanessa took another sip and then put her cup down. “I have someone in mind for him, but I don’t know if she is interested.”
“Anyone I know?” Mey asked.
“I don’t know if you’ve met her. Stella is Vlad’s mother, and she is a costume designer. She doesn’t hang out in the village café, and she spends most of her time working at home.”
Jin grimaced. “I don’t think a creative woman would appreciate Richard. Someone who is business-oriented might be better.”
“Stella is a businesswoman too. To get design projects, she needs to advertise and submit bids and make budgets. It’s not just about the artsy side of things. The best part is that she works from home, so she could go with them to the mountains and work from there. Also, as Vlad’s mother, she could go as a kind of chaperone, and if she doesn’t like Richard, she doesn’t have to engage with him.”
“I like it.” Jin leaned back. “I wish Arwel and I could join them.”
Vanessa shook her head. “The cabin only has two bedrooms and a loft. Wendy can take one bedroom, Stella the other, and Richard can take the loft. The Guardians will have to take turns on the living room couch.”
“That’s not going to work,” Jin said. “The sofa needs to stay clear for romantic evenings. What do you think about the Guardians sleeping in a motorhome?”
“That could be a solution.”
“Or, Arwel and I can get one, and Arwel will do the guarding. A head Guardian can count as two regular ones, right?”
Vanessa laughed. “I don’t think Kian will go for that.”
“We could have two motor homes,” Jin offered.
“First, I need to talk to Stella and see if she is game. If she’s not, I’ll have to find someone else.”
Jin felt a little offended on Richard’s behalf. He was a decent guy and fairly good-looking, and he might be the one for somebody.
“I would have thought that the clan females would jump at the opportunity to snag a dormant male.”
“You are right. But I can’t post an ad on the clan’s virtual board and ask who wants to go. There would be a stampede. I need to approach one female at a time and do it discreetly.”
53
Director Simmons
“Come in, Elijah.” The director opened the door and ushered his old friend in. “How is the new recruit doing?”
“I gave him the full battery of medical tests and implanted him with the nano-trackers. Eleanor took care of his mental adjustment.”
“Excellent.”
The nano trackers were Doctor Elijah Roberts' biggest achievement. They had their limitations, with their short range being the major one, but what they lacked in that area, they more than compensated for with their incredible miniaturization.
Smaller than grains of sand, they were impossible to detect because they didn’t show on any imaging equipment.
The recruits had no idea that the so-called flu immunization shot, which they got their first day on the base, was actually a shot of tiny trackers. Those formed a detectable grid that had been personalized to each of them.
As long as they didn't leave the base for more than three days, the nanos remained inactive. But after seventy-two hours without the inhibiting chemical that was added to the trainees' meals, the nanos activated, formed the grid, and started transmitting. Because of the short range, the trackers were useless to anyone other than the government with its wide network of receivers and amplifiers.
The whole ingenious system was still in development, but Roberts was an old friend, and he had no qualms about testing his inventions on Edgar’s trainees.
“What are you going to do about the escapees?” Elijah pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Hold on.”
As he always did while talking business with his confidants, the director activated the noise machine to cover up their conversation.
Roberts crossed his arms over his chest. “It has been almost two weeks, and you haven’t done anything to retrieve them yet."
“There is no rush. The missing recruits are not as interesting to me as the organization that helped them escape, and I wouldn’t have known about them if my darling niece hadn’t called and told me about them. I have a guy in Los Angeles snooping around.”
Roberts shook his head. “Do you know the proverb about a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush? You’re trying to catch too many fish with one net.”
Elijah was fond of his proverbs.
“Since when are you the voice of caution? You were the one who came up with the idea for a paranormal talents department. We knew there would be risks involved and that most of what we wanted to do would never get approved.”
They had come up with their plan more than fifty years ago when they were both young students. Back then, paranormal phenomena and mysticism had been in vogue, and they both had been fasc
inated by the possibilities. It hadn’t been frowned upon as it was now, and even the first mission to the moon had incorporated mystical and mythological elements. Scheduling it for July twentieth hadn’t been a random choice. It coincided with the birthday of the goddess Isis, the Egyptian goddess of the moon.
“We did that together, but you were always too gung-ho about things. I like to take my time and make sure I’m not caught with my hand in the cookie jar.”
Edgar laughed. “Especially in today’s world. We’ve stuck our hands in the wrong jars for many years.” He sighed. “Ah, those were the days.”
Roberts nodded. “Chasing skirts around the office used to be a favorite pastime of mine. Now you can’t even give a chick a compliment without her running to Human Resources to complain about harassment. Remember Joe? He was forced into early retirement because some broad accused him of pestering her.”
“It’s a sad state of affairs when a decorated soldier like Joe gets the boot because of a petty grievance from an insignificant underling.”
Roberts pursed his fleshy lips. “I hope that you are keeping your hands to yourself with Eleanor. She could turn on you without batting an eyelash.”
“I wouldn’t touch her if she was the only female on the base. The woman is useful, but she’s a bitch on wheels.”
The one who whetted his appetite was sweet, juicy Wendy, but he wasn’t going to touch her either. It was beyond the pale even for an old lecher like him. Edgar drew the line at female family members, especially since Wendy was the only one left.
“Good. We need her, and she is not easily replaceable.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“Your guy in Los Angeles, I hope he is a private contractor.”
“Of course. We don’t want to attract too much attention to our so-called pilot program. The last thing I need is for internal affairs to start asking questions and breathing down my neck. I told him to snoop around and see what he can find. The problem is that our escapees are scattered in several locations, and my guy is a small operator. I told him to hire one more man, so he can keep tabs on each of them.”
