“Amazing.” His grin brought a queasy quiver to Loti’s stomach. “I am duly impressed.””
Chapter Ten
Loti’s mouth hung open at the swirling vortex that was his aura. It rippled and spun in on itself, disappeared and then surged out, spinning in the opposite direction. She blinked saucer eyes at the man.
“I’ve never seen anything like you. What are you?”
“Oh, my dear. That’s not true. You have definitely seen at least one other soul like myself.” Roger, if that was his name, took a step toward her.
Wolf shoved him back and hissed through bared fangs. “Let her be. Not like this.”
The man’s classically handsome face screwed up in consternation and he shook himself. He dropped his chin a fraction and with what seemed like monumental effort, toned down the glint in his eyes. His smile softened, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dupree. I was so excited to meet you and see what you were capable of, I forgot myself.”
Loti took a step closer to him, but Wolf put out a hand to stop her. She grabbed it, but didn’t back away. The excited flutter in her gut drove her forward. This man was human, but he had something, some ability and there was more. He felt familiar and it made her breath catch in her throat. He was more than human and she swallowed back inexplicable sadness.
“You’re an extremely old soul, aren’t you? You’re a—” She squeezed Wolf’s hand hard as the feeling morphed into a word she once read in a college textbook. “Holy shit!” She looked to Wolf for confirmation as the thought passed between them. When he gave her a curt nod, Loti froze where she stood.
“A mahatma,” she squeaked out.
Roger beamed at her like a teacher proud of his student. “A Great Soul, yes.” And he laughed like a kid in a candy store. “Yes.” He clapped his hands together.
Lily stood quiet by the desk with pursed lips and arms crossed over her chest. Loti didn’t need to sense her emotion to know the fae disapproved of her director’s game playing, and she didn’t need to look at Wolf to know he was seething. But his anger was a cover for other emotions—worry and fear for her. Why is he so afraid for me? Loti wondered.
“Roger, it might be a good idea to give these two a chance to unwind from their long drive and freshen up a bit before you start testing her abilities.” Lily’s tone mildly rebuked.
Her eyes softened into an unspoken apology at Loti as she released her arms to her side and bit her bottom lip. Loti suddenly understood that Lily’s earlier attitude was not about her, but the result of building apprehension over her boss. Now that Roger had pulled whatever stunt he was planning, Lily emanated an embarrassed sense of relief. Wolf curled a protective arm around Loti and pulled her close. She glanced up with a wrinkle between her eyes as his apprehension pulsed in her neck.
“You’re right, Lily. I cannot apologize enough for my indiscretion.” He sounded sincere, but a pleased smile played at his lips. “I will give you a moment to regroup and we can meet in my office.” He turned to Wolf with an air of back to business. “You remember where the director’s office is, I trust?”
“Yes, of course.” Wolf’s jaw flexed, but that was his only emotional tell.
“In an hour?” Roger glanced at his platinum watch. “And I’ll need to see you alone, first.” He glanced at Loti, then back up at Wolf
Wolf nodded, and Lily let out a controlled breath.
* * *
Wolf knocked on the director’s unmarked office door. He glanced around the basement hallway. It was unlike any basement one would expect in a one-hundred-year-old mansion. Recessed lighting glowed over a sleek, modern scene of smoked glass walls with stainless steel accents, and grey immaculate carpeting. None of the office doors were marked. You had to know where you were going and who was behind those doors. If you didn’t, you didn’t belong there.
“Mr. Arrighi. Come in. Please.” Roger Wheaton held his office door open.
Wolf glided past the man like only a vampire could. The walls were mostly bare, except for some diplomas and a few pictures—one of Mr. Wheaton and the current President of the United States. A large portrait of Paul Revere dominated the wall space behind his desk, so that when he sat down it hovered over his head. He gestured for Wolf to have a seat.
Wolf stared at the director, and then sank into the chair. “You have a particular fondness for Paul Revere?” Wolf asked with a flippant tone.
Mr. Wheaton glanced over his shoulder. “From what I’ve read, he was quite the patriot.”
“He was a self-serving opportunist.” Wolf leveled his gaze at the director and crossed a booted ankle over his knee.
Wheaton blinked, but to his credit, didn’t take Wolf’s bait. Instead, he reached into a file drawer and pulled out a hefty folder.
“So, it’s been twenty-five years since you’ve checked in. What have you got to report?”
Wolf shrugged, taking in the man’s calm exterior, wondering for a moment at his status: a mahatma. He hadn’t encountered another since the early 1900s—also a Culper Ring Director. The powers that be must think the position required whatever abilities a mahatma possessed. Mahatmas, as far as Wolf understood, were very old souls who kept being reincarnated regardless of their karma—never seeming to reach nirvana and released from the cycle of birth and death. They were human, like witches and healers, but with the ability to veil themselves with a glamour-like magic. They couldn’t actually change their appearance, but they could make you think they looked different than they were.
“I’ve nothing to report.” Wolf wiped an imaginary smudge off his engineer boot, and glanced up at Roger as if just noticing he was there.
Roger Wheaton stared back in disbelief. “Nothing?”
“Nothing.” Wolf returned a bored expression, never blinking.
Roger Wheaton set the file on his desk, but didn’t fidget with it. He regarded Wolf for some time. If the digital clock on his desk could have ticked, it would have done so in a loud and obvious way. Wolf didn’t move. It was part male, part leader, and a part pure ego stand-off. Both creatures refused to give—to acquiesce to the other’s authority. Wolf knew his comment about Paul Revere, obviously a significant figure to the director, had set the tone, and wondered if he had chosen the right tactic. Too late now. His eyes never faltered from the man’s face.
“Then, why don’t we start with some concerns the Ring has regarding recent events.” Roger focused on the thick file as he flipped it open with a deliberate hand. “First, let’s start with the disappearance of our undercover agent.” Roger glanced up, his eyes narrowing, “He was assigned to watch Mrs. Loti Dupree after the death of her husband, David.”
Wolf didn’t so much as twitch at the confirmation of his suspicions. “Why would I know anything about that?”
Without a pause, Roger said, “Because he disappeared around the time you met her.”
Wolf’s stony expression held, but inside he made the connection. Modore had hinted at the possibility. “Are you saying that you have reason to believe I would know his whereabouts?”
Roger pulled a stapled stack of papers from the pile. A picture was paper-clipped to the top. He tossed it at Wolf who caught it one handed and flipped it so he could study the image. He recognized the picture immediately but made no outward sign that it meant anything to him. He laid it on the table.
“Your point is?” Wolf leaned back in the modern grey and steel chair.
Roger spent about twenty seconds considering, his eyes wavering between a stiff inner focus and annoyance. When he broke, it was clear in his tone he was ceding the battle, but not the war.
“He disappeared around March. We never found his body, but the last time he checked in with us he was on his way to your ashram.”
The two men exchanged raised eyebrows.
“What were his orders?” Wolf broke the silence.
The director retrieved the papers Wolf had discarded and placed them neatly on top of the file. “That’s irrelevant.” Roger closed the file.
Wolf leaned forward, his eyes sharp. Now that he had the advantage, he could afford to offer some information in return. “No, it’s not. I do recognize your agent.” Wolf sniffed as he shifted back in his seat rubbing his nose. “I killed him.”
Roger’s composed demeanor flickered, not much, but enough for Wolf to notice. The man’s eyes vacillated from angry to cool, back to angry. When he settled on cool, Wolf leaned forward and laid a hand on the desktop.
“He tried to kill Loti. I stopped him.”
Roger’s face locked down into a too-hard expression of indifference.
“You know what I think?” Wolf shifted to the left, leaning his arm on the armrest. “I think you gave him orders to watch Loti and if he determined she was a danger to ‘national security’ to dispatch her.” Wolf shifted to the other side. “Am I right?”
Roger picked up the file and tapped it twice to even out the two-inch thick stack.
“That is a matter of—”
Wolf leapt out of his seat and leaned over the desk with his nose millimeters from Roger’s. “Bullshit. You didn’t bring me here for a briefing. You brought me here to meet Loti. You wanted to know what she was capable of so you could decide if you needed to finish the job your agent failed to complete.” Wolf’s fangs elongated. “Well, I’m here to tell her that you have as much chance of that as the devil has of walking through the pearly gates.”
Roger’s smile spoke of practice and politics. “We’ll see.”
The vampire hissed and the mahatma narrowed his eyes. When Roger blinked, Wolf backed off, but hovered over the man, not quite ready to give up on the idea of tearing his head from his body. “You think you have some advantage behind your desk? Just remember that in the real world, you hold no special position. The Ring has a way of walling you off, making you forget what it’s really like out there.” Wolf straightened and stepped back. “You may be mahatma, with some cosmic responsibility that I’m sure you’ve already warped, but you do not get to play with her life or mine like some Greek myth of a god.”
Wolf strode toward the office door, not waiting for Roger’s reply. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he had a very bad feeling all of a sudden. He began to wonder if he had brought Loti into the lion’s den. Certain missions over the last one-hundred eight-five years of the Ring’s existence came to mind and something clicked. One in particular, one that failed. He didn’t look back as he stepped out of the office, letting the door click shut. His hands trembled with more than anger, but he breathed himself into a calm state. He didn’t lock the anger down; he breathed it away.
“Wolf.” The door behind him opened and Roger Wheaton emerged.
Wolf waited with his back to the man, not wanting the director to see on his face what was going through his mind, despite his instincts screaming at him to turn around.
“Would you please come back in? I think I may have gone about this the wrong way.”
Wolf snorted, but he faced the man for a moment and then brushed passed him. He stopped by the chair with clenched fists, willing his racing mind to calm down. Roger didn’t go back to his seat on the dominant side of the desk. Instead, he sat on it, facing Wolf with his hands clasped in his lap. Wolf wasn’t obtuse about the meaning of the gesture.
“The agent was given orders to terminate the subject if he determined she was a threat. It was his decision.”
“Don’t treat me like an asshole.” Wolf ground his teeth.
Roger’s lips twitched and his eyes were wary. “He was following his orders.” Wolf worked hard at swallowing the urge to kill the man in front of him. It helped not to look at him and Wolf’s eyes wandered over the portrait of Paul Revere.
“If a Light Walker of Loti’s potential fell into the hands of Modore, then we would be at a significant disadvantage. It was a tactical decision, Wolf. No more, no less.” Wolf knew like only a vampire can know that Roger meant what he said, and that was the scariest thing.
“You think you know what you’re doing, don’t you?” Wolf walked around the desk and stood with his hands clasped behind his back, studying the portrait. His stomach roiled with a sick dread. Had he been an unwitting participant in similar twisted missions in the name of national security? It’s why he left—the doubt had festered and oozed back then. He had been against the deep level of secrecy, so deep that the agents didn’t even know what their missions were about, but other’s had dismissed his fears. Roger’s eyes followed Wolf with a watchful coolness.
Wolf had left the Ring over such twisted reasoning. When had they first crossed that line? Wolf was one of the original Culper Ring spies who came together to help win the war. Their hope had been to save lives and bring about a new democracy, one that cherished life and freedom, not systematically snuffed it out. And after the war, their mission had been to protect that philosophy and preserve the lives of its citizens. What had happened? When did they lose their way? But Wolf already knew the answer, if he was honest with himself. It hadn’t happened over night. It had happened one day at a time.
“You think you can see into the future, or something, yes?” Wolf swung around with an expression of despondency that smacked the director in the face. Roger’s eyes widened and he recoiled, but quickly composed his expression and adjusted his tie.
“No more than you may believe yourself capable,” he replied.
Wolf laughed: a full, throaty, harsh laugh. He shook his head and wandered around the room, stuffing his hands into his jean pockets. His black leather jacket creaked in the ultra-modern office. He studied the hallway, clearly visible from inside the office. It was empty, devoid of life. Only the quiet thrumming of the central air and the laptop on the director’s desk broke the silence. Wolf looked back at Roger.
“I don’t pretend to know the future, Roger Wheaton.” He motioned to the ceiling. “But what I do know is that no one really knows what a Light Walker is capable of—what Loti Dupree is capable of. You don’t even know what your purpose is, do you? No one knows for sure what a mahatma is, for that matter. Or a vampire or a witch. Healers are a little more understandable. We know their skills serve a valuable purpose. But us,” he gestured with two fingers between them, “what are we good for?”
“We are good for whatever purpose we set ourselves to.” Roger’s answer smacked of underserved certainty to Wolf’s ears, but certain he definitely was. Roger’s jaw flexed as he rose from the desk with a determined bent to his mouth. “We choose our purpose. I know that.”
Wolf nodded, a subtle smirk blooming. “Yes, I agree. We choose.” He stepped up to the director, “As far as the universe allows for choices.” His eyes returned to studying the portrait.
“Do you know what he did? Really?” Wolf’s tone was soft, reflective.
“He warned the populace of the coming invasion.” Roger’s voice was sure.
Wolf laughed softly as he faced Roger. “And you know that how?”
Roger hesitated, his eyes narrowing. “I read it.”
“And you believe everything you read?” Wolf folded his hands in front of him, his eyes hardening. Roger adjusted his cuff links and straightened his tie.
“Point taken.” He stalked around to his desk chair. “But you should read this file before you dismiss our concerns.” He grabbed the file and held it out to Wolf. “We know what Modore is capable of. We know Loti is capable of more than you could ever imagine. I know you studied the legends and all the available data when you were working for us, but I’m sure we have surpassed your research. And if Modore had access to her.” The unspoken hung between them.
Wolf glanced down at the thick file. “This is all on Modore?” Wolf took it and thumbed through the stack of papers.
“It’s not all available data. Just the most recent.” Roger sat down and leaned his elbows on the desk, running his fingers through his short hair. “There’s more in the database. We believe he has captured a Light Walker in the past, used her blood to attain powers and elongate his l
ife.”
Wolf snapped his head up. “Elongate his life? He’s vampire. He’s immortal.”
Roger sat back in his chair with a huff, resting his hands limply in his lap. “Did you ever wonder why you don’t meet many three thousand year old vampires, Wolf?” Wolf stared, unsure what to say, so he said nothing. “Because they don’t live much past that... It’s a myth that vampires live forever.”
Wolf shifted through the papers, his eyes flitting from their contents, to Roger’s smirk, to the portrait of Paul Revere. “Don’t believe everything you read, Wolf.”
Wolf closed the files, tucking them under his arm. “What do you want, Roger Wheaton?”
“Call me Roger, please.”
Wolf rolled his eyes. “Roger, what the hell do you want?”
“I want your help tracking down Modore and dispatching him once and for all.”
Wolf stared at the man. “And?”
“And we want you to bring Loti in on this. “ Roger straightened in his chair and neatly folded his hands in his lap. His cool demeanor settled over him.
Wolf’s eyes narrowed. “Loti?”
Roger threw both hands out. “Or we kill her.” He said the words like he was offering Wolf coffee or tea. A cold smile locked into place. “Your choice, of course.”
Chapter Eleven
Wolf laughed like it was a joke, but his eyes were cold and dark. “You can try.” He shifted the files to his other arm. “But I can promise you one hell of a fight.” And he stalked out of the room.
Out in the cool hallway, he jerked his neck to the right with a loud crack. He took a deep breath and marched off to the elevators. The doors slid open as he approached.
“Destination,” a pleasant female voice asked.
“Third floor, top side.” Wolf rumbled.
“Welcome back, Mr. Arrighi,” she replied.
Shattered Page 11
