The park itself was a rundown vestige of a bygone era. On the far side, a group of transients huddled around a fire, hunkered in dirty coats near a collection of stolen shopping carts containing all their earthly possessions. While the immortal in me applauded Ian’s pragmatic decision to purchase a ready-made cattle pen, the humanity bleeding from my psyche frowned. The populace was an unwitting food source with predators in their backyard.
It made the hotel itself stick out much like a sore thumb.
The monolith at the center of well-groomed grounds loomed imposingly above the city block. The hour had long-since eclipsed midnight, and yet the activity thrumming through the building bore just as much vitality as it must have an hour past sunset. A car pulled into the long, circular driveway and idled by a set of large glass doors. Two guards protecting the entrance stepped closer before nodding their approval at whoever must have been seated in the car’s interior. The gilded framework adorning an edifice of marble and stucco at least bore testimony that, regardless of the neighborhood’s aesthetics, Ian still bore expensive tastes. For once, I was apt to grant Wesley his point.
“It does seem endemic in their nature,” I said, pulling out my cigarettes and lighting the tip of one. I exhaled a cloud of smoke prior to continuing. “Immortality brings out one’s vices and makes their indulgences all the more a pressing concern. It is simply the manner in which it expresses itself I find fascinating.”
“What do you mean?” Wesley asked.
I shifted from my crouched position, extending my legs to sit properly on the ground. My gaze remained fixed on the car parked in front of the hotel, tracking a pair of vampires who emerged from the back seat. Something about the action struck me as odd, almost orchestrated. If Ian informed his coven of our meeting, they were already exhibiting the signs of putting on a show for us. “I have seen vampires who favored fancier clothing, and ones who adorned themselves in the finest jewelry. Some prefer the arts, but everything they do, it tends to be in excess.”
“The more dangerous are the ones who come armed,” Mark said.
Perking an eyebrow, I shot him a quick glance, noting the smirk curling the corners of his mouth again before peering back in the other direction. Mercifully, I was spared replying as Jesse snickered and imbibed another swallow of his coffee. “You ever encounter a few of those, Flynn?” he asked.
“More than a few, I am afraid. And Mark is correct in that they are lethal.”
I saw Jesse turn his head to regard Mark in my periphery. “Mark here’s got a few stories like that. He was the only one of us out on the field before getting kicked out of the Order.”
His comment stood unacknowledged for a few lingering moments. Reflexively, I frowned. Part of me wished to keep the vampire coven as my point of focus, because of what it inspired the longer we watched – gnawing seeds of doubt which had started to germinate. Each time I watched a vampire leave or one arrive, something stuck out about the entire action bearing a hint of being wrong. I could not yet put my finger on what. It might have been the vampires themselves, or something else. My gaze did depart from the vampire coven, not shift to toward the amateur vampire hunters. It drifted to my fingers, then to the ground below as my hand found the hilt of my sword.
Another part of me listened to the tense silence and recognized it for what it was. Wesley, Jesse, and Mark had developed a rapport throughout their exploits and now, I stood as the interloper while I was apt to eye them in the same manner. Of anything stated since we left Monica at the apartment, though, Jesse’s comment was the first which bore the sense of being an olive branch extended in my direction.
Sighing quietly, I cursed my watcher for forcing me into this position.
“What were your duties when you assisted the Order?” I asked, looking at Mark again. Bringing my cigarette to my mouth, I drew from it again and waited.
He did not respond right away. His binoculars rested by his side, his attention rapt on the goings on before us as well. Just as I thought I had missed the opportunity, he cleared his throat and turned his head to regard me. “Mostly information gathering and research. Sometimes, I would be asked to read through books for historical background, and other times I would have to track down a specific spell. When the watchers and the seers were too busy to scout out their missions, I accompanied a few other sorcerers in field assignments.”
“Which required you to perform reconnaissance?”
“Yes.” This time, when he grinned, it was in a much more genuine manner. “Well, sometimes it wasn’t so quiet. I was given an assignment once to accompany a watcher and her seer and take notes for the Council. We were ambushed by a vampire patrol who found us despite the cloaking spells we cast. The dark magician turned out to be more powerful than we thought. He saw through our defenses. Fortunately, the seer was able to fight through the attack and got us all to safety, but I pulled away a valuable lesson.”
My interest was piqued despite myself. “Which lesson was this?”
His smile broadened. “Never go out unarmed.”
Wesley snorted, interrupting the exchange and drawing the collective gaze toward him. “You keep trying to teach us how to use those damn sai and I can never get the hang of it.”
“You’re too impatient.” Mark winked at Wesley.
“Yeah, well, he ain’t the only bloody one,” Jesse said, shifting the way he leaned his weight on the ground. He sighed. “Not a fucking thing going on across the street but the Vampire Academy Awards.”
“I’m noticing that,” Wesley murmured.
Mark caught my gaze, directing my attention toward him. “What do you sense from them, if anything?”
Shrugging, I fought the urge to echo Jesse’s comment and looked at the front entrance again. While I saw nothing more than the same guards and the same architecture, I could not help but to experience the notion that there should be more; that I possessed the capability to see beyond what my eyes beheld. Not merely thoughts and intentions. Monica had taught me as such even when I was her antagonist and the concept had not been difficult to grasp. This was another layer and it alluded me as of yet.
My thoughts returned to Monica.
The memory of our first caress blossomed into the entire experience of making love to her. There had been a sickness racing through me ever since I suspected might mean the death of me. It would have been easier to surrender every vampire impulse within me, though, than to disavow the humanity thrumming through my veins. Did the mortal man I once was lay buried beneath the debris of five blood-spattered years? It might have made me a fool to become so enamored and blind, but I wished to hear her say it again.
Peter. Peter. Peter.
“Flynn?”
The sound of Wesley’s voice broke me from my trance. I sighed and finally shook my head. “I am afraid I do not sense anything other than the obvious,” I said, resignation heavy in my tone of voice. My eyes strayed heavenward. “And the hour grows late. I would assume we have a few embers remaining, but they shall be seeking shelter soon enough from the dawn.”
“Well then, gents, let’s get comfortable again,” Jesse said, polishing off the rest of his coffee. “The night shift is almost over.”
***
It did not make any sense to me, no matter how many times I turned the thought around in my head. I heard Wesley’s car depart, feeling no concern for the incidents which had transpired, and not merely because the last few hours had proven more amiable than I anticipated. I was troubled to the pit of my being, and had come no closer to determining from where the premonition came.
Trudging up the stairs, I walked with pensive slowness while patting the pockets of my coat. As I approached the apartment door, I withdrew the keys while staring at the obstruction in front of me. My eyes settled on the bolt, the idle thought occurring that I might have been tempted to experiment with telekinetic lock picking, if only my mind was not so lost in exhaustion. The metallic object slid in seamlessly, the door swinging open when
I twisted the knob. Inside, the stillness was deafening, a silent scream assaulting my ears.
I drew near to the bedroom, pushing the door ajar and pausing when I caught sight of Monica. Her face was pressed against the pillow, her hand positioned near her mouth with a blissful expression on her face. Walking closer to where she laid, I reached out and brushed a strand of her hair away from her cheek. The corner of my mouth curled upward, in defiance of my unsettled spirit. Here it was before me, the emotions both of us had needed to express out in the open. It coiled around me as though to choke me all the more inside its grip.
Freeing a blanket from a heap at the foot of the bed, I draped it across her body. As I turned away, I lifted a hand to rub my face and adjusted my glasses when they became displaced. The pull toward rest had become overwhelming, but my mind was not ready to be quieted just yet. Instead, I walked from window to window, ensuring the drapes were shut tight enough for me to linger in the room.
I unstrapped my sword and sat on the edge of the bed when this task was completed. My skin prickled as I held it, once again left with the impression that something had changed without knowing what. Laying the sword atop my lap, I tugged it from its sheath. The metal still gleamed in much the same manner. It had been recently cleaned, but an invisible aura radiated from the surface, telling me the answer to the riddle would be more metaphysical than visual. Its unblemished sheen and pristine features gave further testimony to that fact. It was not the sword which was different. I was. Something about me had changed. But what?
Slowly, I slid the blade back into its cover and sighed. “What the devil is happening to me?” I asked, not expecting an answer.
One presented itself to me anyway. “What’s wrong?” the sleepy voice of my watcher asked. The covers rustled and I felt the weight on the mattress shift until she settled behind me in a seated position. Her head rested on my shoulder and hands settled on my upper arms. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.
“I know.” I sank into the comfort of her embrace. “You were asleep.”
“I hope that means you were going to stick around.”
“I do not think I could have stayed away.”
Her head lifted, lips touching my cheek before her chin came to rest on my shoulder again. “Thank you.” Both of us fell silent. I continued examining my sword in the same manner as I had the door’s lock, seeing before me a riddle I was too tired to solve. I did not have to look at her to know when Monica frowned. “What happened out there? I’m trying to read your thoughts, but you either have them extremely scrambled, or that’s really what it’s like inside your head. What’s this about a lock?”
“More about the puzzle than the lock itself.” I sighed, finally lowering the weapon onto the ground. My movements forced her to break her hold, but enabled me to turn and face her once my hands were freed. Monica placed a hand on my shoulder, soothing me with her touch. I closed my eyes. “I am not keeping you from my thoughts. They are truly that discordant. It is as though a madman is running loose in my mind. Nothing is clear.”
“I know.” Her voice was soft; entreating. Her fingers lifted in favor of running through my hair. “You opened a door and now it’s all coming through, isn’t it?”
“There is more to it than that. Albeit, it is as though there are two beings inhabiting my body now, one named Peter, the other Flynn.” I opened my eyes to regard her again. “I think there is something I should be paying closer attention to, something invisible nipping at my neck. Tonight’s outing only served to confound me further.”
Monica furrowed her brow, but remained silent. I paused to gather my thoughts, and then continued speaking. “It could be Ian. We know he is up to no good, but this is an urgency far beyond any I experienced even with Sabrina. It could be Wesley and the others, as I know I have not fully won their favor. Or, for all I know, something else could be in the wind and Ian and Wesley are not the real danger. It could also be nothing at all.” I placed a hand on her cheek and sighed. “I worry for you without knowing what I should fear.”
She frowned. “Don’t let yourself go crazy thinking about it. Everything happens exactly how it needs to happen. You’ll figure it out when you’re supposed to.”
Monica’s words sparked a bitter memory to life. “Lydia used to constantly speak of something dreadful happening to her. She never how it would manifest itself, but she was right even if neither of us expected I would be the villain of that tale. And now, the same thing is happening to me. What good is being warned if we cannot do more about it?”
“Besides staring dumbly at the universe, I don’t know.” My hand fell from her face, intertwining with hers as it settled on her lap. She glanced toward the floor and furrowed her brow. “Is that the big thing bothering you?”
I followed her gaze, seeing the katana laid where I had left it. “Oh, right, that.” My gaze shifted back to Monica. “For the lack of a better way of putting it, my sword has begun talking to me.”
Her face contorted first before a stream of uproarious laughter poured from her lips. I smiled sheepishly and watched as she collapsed onto her back and clutched her stomach. “I’m sorry, I…” Monica continued indulging the fit of hysterics before starting to compose herself. Marginally. Just enough to finally speak. “You said your sword is… talking to you?”
“Yes, when I picked it up last night, I could detect a strange aura emanating from it. I have studied it since then and had the same thing happen each time. Perhaps it is some form of energy, but I cannot tell what that means.” Checking first to see where my much-calmer watcher laid, I fell onto the bed. A tremendous surge of exhaustion crashed into me once my back hit the mattress. “Monica, I am slipping into madness,” I said. “Stake me now before I become unhinged.”
She chuckled and rolled to her side. Rather than reaching for a means to my end, she curled up beside me and rested a hand on my chest. A grin tugged at the corners of my mouth. I turned my head to look at her and played idly with the blonde strands in her hair. “I have always found this curious,” I murmured. “I have never known anyone to have a completely different color in one section of their hair. Has it always been like this?”
She smiled. “It happened when my father gave me my abilities. Some people wondered if it was The Fates’ way of saying they set me apart. Like I was born to be a watcher and got the talents a little late.”
“I find it remarkable.” My fingertips slid down her face and caressed her cheek. “A gift for a gift. A touch of the miraculous onto a miracle. Bastards such as I receive pain and saints such as you receive beauty.”
My eyes drifted shut. I felt her warm breath tickle my face before her lips met mine in a soft, short kiss. The lingering sensation tingled on my skin, even after she moved away and settled her head on my shoulder. I wrapped an arm around her, and for a moment, the chaos of the world fell silent and into tranquility again.
Chapter Sixteen
Ghosts whispered in the dark, drawing my eyes away from battle.
A long, sterile corridor surrounded me, something patterned in mimicry of an industrial setting. I stood opposite another vampire, taken aback by both the suddenness of the encounter and the fact that my sword was drawn. His hand also held a blade, one he swung before I could fully register the threat, forcing me to stumble backward and dodge out of the way. If I had a pulse, it would have been pounding in my chest. I could not recall how long I had been fighting, but felt it had been five minutes too long. A voice was calling to me from the expanse behind the other vampire, the urgency in its tone a grave understatement toward the danger we faced. Somehow, I knew I was running out of time.
“Monica.” I spoke her name just as my nemesis took another swing at me. I parried the maneuver and lifted my sword in time to block his counter-swing. When I stole a quick glance down the hall again, I saw her materialize as though summoned by that mere invocation. She rounded a corner and disappeared as quickly as she had been conjured. “No…” I murmured. My
stomach twisted for no apparent reason. I simply knew I had to stop her.
My opponent furrowed his brow. He gripped his sword tighter, but I narrowed my eyes and lifted one hand, palm pointed toward him in a flash of vehemence. Telekinetic energy threw him back and against the wall. I leaped to close the distance and with one glorious arc of my sword, severed his head. His ash descended to the ground as I sheathed my katana and ran for where I had last seen my watcher.
As I reached the intersection of the corridor, though, a disquieting chill afflicted me. I clutched onto a wall for support while the shiver worked its way out of my system, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I drew a deep breath inward to steady myself, but lingered in place as a voice whispered in the back of my mind. ‘She is delectable, Flynn. A bit of a burden on your conscience, though, wouldn’t you agree? ’
I advanced forward two paces before being forced to pause again. ‘You leave her the fuck alone or risk coming face to face with the angel of death himself, ’
‘We will have our battle, but later. When you recognize I am not your true enemy. ’ The sensation lifted abruptly. I straightened to a full stand once it passed, but the swiftness with which it departed only made my stomach sink. I ran, not knowing what I sought or where, but compelled to do something – anything – before it was too late.
Coming upon one door, I kicked it open, but was rewarded with nothing on the other side. I dashed to the second, doing the same thing with similar results. As I approached a third, however, crimson droplets marked a path to the other side and my shoulders slumped as I could not help but to stare at the ill harbinger before me. This time, I did not kick the door open, but lifted a shaky hand to twist the knob in a painfully slow manner.
Rebirth of the Seer Page 21
