Mortal Brother

by Teyla Branton

  He shook his head. “I’ve mainly worked with groups on the West Coast, though the guy with the hat does look familiar. I’ve at least seen his picture before.”

  The Unbounded bodyguard’s presence was definitely something we’d have to look into further. Hunters had kept records of Unbounded genealogy since their mortal ancestors had been abandoned by the Emporium during their early phases of genetic experimentation. If this guy was working for the Emporium, we couldn’t risk him infiltrating far enough to get the records that might also contain information about our descendants. Like it or not, we were often linked by blood to the Emporium.

  “Copy that,” Cort said in my earbud. “Describe them, and we’ll start Stella researching their identities.”

  I did, beginning with the purple dress and the cowboy hat that would likely be mentioned by gossip bloggers covering tonight’s event. “Maybe one of us should follow them.”

  “No,” Ritter said. “Stay together. Keep your mind on the mission.” It was difficult to believe he’d be willing to risk losing this lead. Maybe he planned to track down the bodyguard after we cleared the party and question him personally. That would be just like Ritter. He didn’t kill Hunters except in self-defense, but his mercy wouldn’t extend to an Emporium agent who had helped murder Renegades.

  Anger radiated from Keene at Ritter’s order. “Easy,” I murmured.

  Keene frowned, his frustration quickly vanishing as his mental shield strengthened. Now his barrier was tight, but his lapse worried me. I hadn’t spotted an Emporium sensing Unbounded nearby, but that didn’t mean much because anyone with the sensing ability could mask their life forces completely.

  As if feeling our gazes, the middle Hunter paused at the door and turned in our direction, scanning the room. I caught a glimpse of light red hair peeking from under the cowboy hat before I casually allowed my gaze to slide past them, pretending I was simply enjoying the crowd and the commotion. At the same time, I reached out mentally to the man. His shield was poorly erected, filled with gaps as though he didn’t quite believe anyone could delve into his private thoughts, and despite the space between us, it crushed easily beneath my onslaught. There was no sign of suspicion. He’d stopped only because his Unbounded bodyguard had paused.

  My thoughts shifted to the bodyguard, who was searching the crowd. He was several decades younger than his employer, a handsome blond who looked smart in his tux. Not your typical uneducated Hunter. He has to be an Emporium agent, I thought. Yet his shield was as poorly constructed as his boss’s, and I swept it aside to find that he was simply searching for a fifth member of their party—a young lady, if I had it right—to make sure she was safe. Even as I found the answer, a red-haired girl detached herself from a young man and made her way over to the woman in the purple dress.

  The others turned to enter the next room, but the bodyguard’s attention drifted to the reception room exit, pausing on the Unbounded in the black tux. A signal to a cohort? I started to check the bodyguard’s thoughts, only to find him now staring at me. My heartbeat increased, the pumping loud in my ears. If he recognized me or Keene from his Emporium briefings, he might choose to point me out to the Hunter, which would endanger our mission. Before I could decide what his gaze meant, he smiled and I received a strong impression of eagerness and curiosity. Nothing more. With a nod in my direction, he turned on his heel and followed his companions.

  Keene gave a little chuckle. “Look who has an admirer. Do you think you could lure him into a dark room for me?”

  “No!” The bark in my ear came from Ritter and caused me to wince.

  That made Keene’s grin stretch wider. He put his hand up to the side of my face, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, and said, “Emporium agent or no, I don’t blame that bodyguard one little bit. For the record, I’d go into any dark room with you.” His hand left me as he stepped forward with the suddenly moving line. “Hey, we’re almost there.”

  “Stop it with the feedback,” Cort crackled in my ear. “Remember, you have to keep the earring and the ring apart or all we hear is static.”

  Keene gave me a wink. I glanced back at the bodyguard, who passed through the double doors, disappearing from sight, his thoughts fading. My range still wasn’t as far as I’d like, though it had improved drastically since Mexico. If I pushed, I could follow him a bit longer, but I needed my full attention for the task at hand.

  “I’m pretty sure he didn’t recognize me,” I said. “But the way he was staring could have been a signal of some sort to the guy near the door.”

  Keene’s eyes went past me. “Uh, speaking of the guy at the door, where’d he go?”

  Sure enough, the Unbounded in the black suit was missing. Keene turned his body slowly, casually searching the room.

  Ahead of us, the woman with the pointed nose uttered a soft exclamation and lifted a hand to wave at someone behind the backdrop. I stepped forward to see who she was looking at, and finally a balding Vice President Mann came into view. He was smiling widely for the camera, his arm around one of the guests like a best friend. His wife stood on his other side, her gaze leaving the woman who’d waved and going back to the camera just in time for the bright flash. Tonight, apparently, the pictures were a two-for-one deal: the Vice President and Mrs. Mann.

  Next to me Keene’s body radiated readiness, but I shook my head. Whoever the vice president might serve, the man himself wasn’t Unbounded. Neither was Mrs. Mann with her pale, regal face, wide-set eyes, and chestnut hair. Both of their life forces also gleamed brightly, without any sort of barriers, so it was likely they’d never heard of mental shields. Of course, that didn’t mean the vice president was innocent of all connection with the Emporium. I pushed my thoughts toward the couple.

  He was thinking about his speech and wondering why his son had been acting so strangely the past year—and if there was any way to fix whatever had gone wrong between them. She was wondering what the daughter of the woman in front of me was up to these days, and if she still had a habit of chasing older men for their money. While the vice president exuded strength, weariness leaked from Mrs. Mann like water from cupped hands. She wasn’t going to last the whole night, not without the help of drugs. Maybe her doctor was here somewhere behind the half dozen Secret Service agents.

  “Keene?” I asked, wanting to know if he’d spotted the Unbounded in the black tux.

  “No sign of him.”

  I nodded, trusting Keene to keep watch while I did my job. I tried to delve deeper into the vice president’s mind, but the cacophony of voices and thoughts around me made it difficult to distinguish his thoughts from the others that pushed in around me. “I need to get closer.”

  “The line should move soon,” Keene said.

  I joined him for a moment in scanning the room but refocused on the vice president as a small group of friends finished their individual pictures and left together, leaving a large gap in the line. We stepped forward.

  I pushed harder, and a throbbing began at the base of my skull, something I hadn’t felt in weeks. It only meant my brain was tiring from all the scanning, but I was nowhere near ready to give up. I began absorbing from the air, regaining my strength. A posh hotel right before dinner was a great place for absorbing, all those molecules with expensive, organic nutrients floating about begging to be taken in through my pores. In seconds, the throbbing eased.

  Focusing more tightly, I watched the vice president shake hands with another couple and smile for the camera. More worry seeped from him. Something wasn’t right. The fact that he worried so much about his adult son, who was supposedly holding his own in politics, seemed to underscore our intel.

  “Erin!”

  Keene’s voice, but the warning came too late. Hard fingers bit painfully into the flesh of my shoulder.

  END OF SAMPLE. Click here to purchase a copy of The Escape on Smashwords. Or continue to the next page read a bonus preview of Set Ablaze, another novella in the Unbounded world. To learn more
about the author and her books, you can visit the About the Author page.

  Bonus Preview

  THE LITTLE PORTUGUESE TOWN OF Monte Vinha was strange. I couldn’t put my finger on what bothered me about it, but the feeling was in every smile directed our way, the stares that followed us down the nearly deserted streets, and even the air we breathed. Yet the quaint buildings, the rich food, the friendly people—everything appeared normal, similar to the other small towns we’d passed.

  But I knew something in Monte Vinha wasn’t right.

  A hundred and eighty years ago, I’d been born in this country, and though I’d returned only a handful of times since after my parents’ deaths, it was still my homeland. Even before London, where I’d lived most of the past century, or America, where I had spent the rest of my boyhood and early adult years with my foster father, Ritter Langton.

  “It’s like we’ve stepped into some kind of comic horror movie,” my partner Kenna Murray said, the lilt in her Northern Irish accent making it sound like a question. “And they’re all waiting for night to turn into psychopathic killers and chop us up into wee pieces.”

  “Exactly,” I agreed. “And where are all the tourists? There should be more walking around. They do have a castle here.”

  Even though I was driving, I didn’t miss the roll of Kenna’s eyes. “Practically every little town here has a castle,” she said. “We’ve passed a dozen at least.” A gross exaggeration since we’d only seen four or five on our drive from the airport. “Seriously, though, it’s getting late in the season for tourists.”

  “Not here, it isn’t.” Mid-September was still prime tourist season. “The sudden decline in population could be keeping them away. Rumors do travel.” I glanced over my shoulder as I turned off the main street, following the directions given us at the café where we’d eaten lunch.

  Monte Vinha had plunged from five thousand residents to nearly four thousand in the past five years alone. That abrupt change and the chatter our Renegade technopath had intercepted about Emporium land purchases in the area was the reason we were here. Portugal had a history of remaining untouched in our battles with the Emporium, but after a thorough reconnaissance of the town, I guessed that was about to change.

  “Could just be the younger generation moving away for better jobs in the city,” Kenna suggested. “And at the same time the aging population slowly dying off.”

  The youth in these small cities had historically left for better opportunities, but many returned later in life to take over small businesses from their parents and grandparents as the older generations retired and passed on. “If that were the case, wouldn’t there be more older people here? I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone over sixty, have you?” I’d have to check the data we’d been given to see if the population ages matched up with similar cities.

  Kenna thought for a moment before shaking her head. “No, I can’t recall seeing any really old people. Maybe they had a mini flu epidemic, or some kind of disease the elderly weren’t inoculated for. A few hundred dying over several years might not have set off alarms until now. Either that or the Emporium has discovered the fountain of youth and is passing it along to the town, so the old people are leaving in droves for new careers too.” We shared a laugh at the implausibility of the Emporium doing anything to help mortals.

  Whatever was going on here, I planned to find out exactly what the Emporium was up to—and put a stop to it. That is, unless our initial report made Greggor recall me to London. I didn’t fool myself into thinking that I’d been our leader’s first choice for the assignment.

  Only two days ago, the Emporium had slaughtered twenty of our people during a Renegade meeting in New York City, and our London cell was down five of our strongest Unbounded, four permanently dead and one missing. No, I was by far not the first choice, at least not without more backup. My abilities were extremely useful, but things tended to explode when I was around—literally. Our leader was making the best call he could with the personnel he had left. I just happened to speak the language, and as half-Portuguese, I blended in.

  Kenna, by contrast, was a brilliant operative, always near the top of Greggor’s list. After two hundred years of life, her fighting skills were impressive even among Unbounded with the combat ability. She spoke as many languages as I did and could lose most of her Irish brogue when she concentrated, though her red hair and all those freckles would be a drawback here without her disguise.

  “Oh, wait, remember that old guy we passed in the park?” Kenna said. “He had to be a least seventy.” She gave me a grin that twisted something in my gut. “Guess that takes the fountain of youth idea off the table.”

  I turned our rental car down a short dirt road, which should lead to our vacation rental. I’d have preferred a bed and breakfast, but a villa meant no prying eyes as we came and went, and no neighbors to run into at mealtimes. We couldn’t risk Emporium agents hearing through casual conversation that we were here.

  Dust billowed up the sides of the car, mostly kept out by the closed windows. A little whitewashed villa with a tiny patch of grass in the front yard appeared in the distance.

  Kenna squinted through the dust. “Look, someone’s waiting for us.”

  She checked the mirror and adjusted her long, dark wig. I could still see her myriad freckles under her thick makeup, and every one of them fascinated me.

  I pulled my mind away from those thoughts. I was so far out of her league that even thinking about her that way was a waste of time. As a combat Unbounded, she was disciplined, unforgiving of weaknesses like the one that was already making my hands start to shake. I’d have to do something about the unsteadiness sooner rather than later, but I would put it off as long as possible.

  I wasn’t wearing a wig, but I’d grown my hair several inches longer, and let three days of beard cover my normally clean-shaven face. For an Unbounded, that meant I looked like I hadn’t shaved in three or four weeks. I could pass for a thousand different Portuguese men.

  Bringing the car to a stop in front of the villa, I jumped out and made my way to the narrow cobblestone pathway leading to the porch. The stocky woman sitting on a chair came awkwardly to her feet, smoothing her dress and the apron she wore over it. Her hair was still mostly dark, but her face was wrinkled by long exposure to the sun. I guessed her age to be mid-fifties.

  “Boa tarde,” she said with a smile, ducking her head slightly.

  “Good afternoon,” I repeated, slipping easily into the language of my youth. “I guess we’re your tenants for the week.”

  “Ah, I can tell by your speech that you are Portuguese,” the woman’s smile grew wider, her Portuguese flavored with the accent of the Alentejo. “Welcome. I am Dona Mafalda.” Dona meant missus, but as was often common, she’d used it with her first name and not her last. Hearing it reminded me of long sunny days and simpler times.

  “My husband and I take care of this house for the owner,” she continued. “There are clean linens on the beds and more in the cupboards if you need them. I brought bread, cheese, ham, and the other things you requested and put them in the refrigerator. Keys are on the table. If you need anything, please call the number by the phone.”

  She glanced at Kenna and added, “If your wife doesn’t speak Portuguese, my daughter knows English, and she can call to tell me what you need. Her number is also by the phone.”

  “I speak Portuguese,” Kenna said, her accent passable, but with a hint of her Irish brogue. “But thank you for your kindness.”

  “Good, good.” Dona Mafalda said. “You live in Portugal then?”

  “In Leria.” I chose a significantly larger city farther north, one definitely not close to where I’d been born in nearby Évora.

  “Ah, that’s good. It’s so nice to have young people here. Monte Vinha is so beautiful, but our youth don’t see that. They always want to leave.”

  At first, I suspected Dona Mafalda’s remark was a subtle jab at our youthfulness—an illusion sin
ce Unbounded age only two years for every hundred we live—but there was really nothing in her tone to indicate this, and her semi-vacant smile never faltered.

  The woman leaned over to scoop up a very large cloth shopping bag. “I hope you will enjoy your stay. There are two bicycles on the back deck, a soccer ball, and inflatables for the pool. Let me know if you need anything.” Tipping her body forward in a partial curtsey, she stepped past us and hurried down the cobblestone path to the dirt road.

  When her figure disappeared, Kenna drew one of the guns we’d picked up at the safe house in Lisbon this morning. I did the same. Opening the door to the villa, we stepped carefully inside. The entryway opened into a large sitting room, featuring an aged floral couch, two matching chairs, a long black coffee table with a stack of magazines, and an oversized TV. Kenna motioned that she’d check out the two bedrooms, so I ducked into the kitchen. The room took quaintness to a new level, every gleaming surface decorated with hand-crocheted doilies like my grandmother had once made. No sign of danger.

  Kenna met me back in the sitting room and together we headed for the large cobblestone deck off the back of the villa. She checked the perimeter, while I gazed at the glittering water in the pool. The water beckoned, promising to soothe the growing ache inside me, but I knew it couldn’t. There was only one thing that could stop the ache.

  “Let’s bring in the equipment.” Kenna returned to my side, holstering her gun.

  “Yeah, right.” But I didn’t move to join her as she started to leave. The cobblestones, the whitewash of the house, the red tiles of the roof, and even the interior setup was very like the house my parents had owned in Portugal—the house I still owned—passed down first to my parents and then to me by a great-grandfather I’d never met.

  The water in the pool undulated with a light breeze. I’d been swimming in the river with my friends the day the gardener had brought the awful news that my Portuguese mother and English father were gone. Killed in a fire on their trip to Lisbon, he’d said. That was long before I’d heard of Unbounded, or learned my parents’ deaths weren’t accidental.