The Stone Warriors: Nicodemus

by D. B. Reynolds

  “Hardly,” he scoffed. “But you’re no Tasmanian devil, either.”

  She laughed at that, having been very fond of Saturday morning cartoons a while back.

  “Besides, she has four kids, and a retired Navy SEAL husband who’s now a vicious corporate attorney. My attorney, actually.”

  “I wouldn’t care if you had dated.”

  “Of course, you would. You’re an intelligent woman. Just as I hate the lawyer from your past.”

  “Who’s almost ninety now,” she commented..

  “There is that.” He grinned.

  Lili and Maeve returned then, passing behind them while Lili was assuring the pregnant woman that the morning sickness would pass soon.

  “That’s what they all say,” Maeve replied. “Until some poor woman’s sick for nine months, and then they’re all, ‘Oh no, it’s not just morning, and it’s not just three months,’” she said in a chiding falsetto.

  Lili stifled a laugh as they reached their seats, where Dragan stood and hooked a careful arm around Maeve’s neck, pulling her in and kissing the top of her head. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She lifted her face and kissed him back. “Well, I’m not. You’re worth that and more. I wouldn’t trade this”—she patted her belly,—“or you for anything or anyone in the world.”

  He dipped his head, and Antonia would swear the big warrior was blushing. But where the others might have teased Damian or even Nico, they only smiled at Dragan and Maeve.

  Their restraint told Antonia that Maeve’s reassurance was more important to Dragan and to the others than any joke at his expense. And it made her wonder about his history before he’d joined Nico.

  Dessert appeared before she could ask, along with coffee, tea, and more wine for those who wanted it. Though most didn’t, because the video conference was coming up, and every one of them wanted to be clearheaded when it came to getting ready for the battle that they all knew was coming.

  Chapter Seven

  THE CALL TOOK PLACE in the conference room, which was about the same size as the dining room, but with a longer table so people could spread out devices and papers as necessary. It was also a completely interior room, which made it more secure from electronic snooping—on top of various safeguards installed in and around the room itself. The Florida contingent was ready and waiting at the appointed time. Everyone had agreed that the call would be initiated by the California group, since the vampires had specific requirements related to the time of day.

  As planned, Kato and Grace had driven to Raphael’s estate for the meeting and were in the room, along with Gabriel and his mate Hana, when they came on-line on the large HD screen on the Florida conference room wall. Nick and the four warriors all exchanged cheerful and profanity-laced greetings. The women joined in with somewhat less profanity, mostly. Once the initial exchanges were over, the “meeting” devolved into a verbal cacophony as several conversations filled the room, with no one complaining that they couldn’t hear, until Nick finally used his battlefield voice to rise above the others and shout, “Can I have a minute here?”

  “Our California colleagues,” he said into the ensuing silence, “don’t know everyone at this table.”

  The California group seemed puzzled as they searched the faces in the Florida conference room. But then several mouths opened in silent “ahs” and they smiled, waiting. Nick had no doubt that they knew who was sitting next to him, but Antonia deserved a formal introduction, not merely an unspoken, “Oh, yeah, that’s her.”

  Placing an arm around her, knowing she’d be embarrassed by the attention, he said, “This beautiful woman is Antonia Dellakos. My Antonia.”

  She slanted him a scowling look, but didn’t say anything, not in front of these people she barely knew. No, she’d wait until they were in bed later. The knowledge that he could count on them being in bed together at the end of the night made him smile. It was a luxury and a privilege that he’d all but given up on so many times. He tightened his arm around her, and she patted his thigh under the table.

  “Gabriel, Kato,” she said meeting their eyes over the internet connection. “I’m so happy to finally meet you. I heard so much about both of you back then, and I’m still hearing it now. All good things, of course. I only wish the circumstances were better.”

  “Lady Antonia,” Gabriel said, his resonant voice seeming to vibrate over the connection. “Everyone here”—he glanced around the room to include the others—“was delighted to hear you’d been found. Especially when we learned that your memories had returned along with your magic.”

  “When the fuck did you become so eloquent?” Damian demanded.

  “Hana probably wrote it for him,” Dragan said quietly.

  Damian laughed. “You’re right. I bet she did. Did you practice that, you vamp fucker?”

  Hana pounded a hand on the table in protest, but Gabriel covered her hand with his and with a pitying look, said, “Ignore them, älskling. They’ve been in Florida too long. It’s sad, but . . . the humidity, it rots the brain.”

  “Fuck you,” came from too many throats for Nick to identify. The whole exchange made him laugh, though, and broke any awkwardness that might have followed Antonia’s appearance. They all knew his story—at least the rough outlines—so they knew he’d been searching for her for as long as he’d been looking for them. They might even have suspected that as genuinely overjoyed as he’d been when the four warriors had been freed, he’d begun to despair of ever finding Antonia. He hadn’t even known if she was still alive, or if Sotiris had cursed her to a completely different time period, or even a different world.

  Fortunately, a bigger and far more annoying distraction entered the California conference room at that moment. Which only made sense, since it was his conference room.

  “Is that the fucking vampire?” Antonia whispered against his ear.

  “Yeah,” he growled back.

  “Then that must be Cyn with him. Oh my, you said she was beautiful, but Nico, she’s stunning.”

  “I told you—”

  “That you never loved her. I know. I’m not worried. But you have to admit . . . they make a gorgeous couple.”

  “Yeah, I— What? What do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s as beautiful as she is, don’t you think?”

  He stared at her. “No. I don’t think. What the hell are you talking about?”

  Leaning across Damian, Casey whispered, “Think of the children those two could produce.”

  It was Damian’s turn to scowl. “There will be no children,” he whispered in turn. “He’s a fucking vampire.”

  “I know that,” Casey said, trying to control her grin. “But they would be gorgeous.”

  The two men exchanged “what the fuck” looks while the women shared a laugh at their expense.

  “Great,” Nick muttered, then louder, he said dryly, “Nice of you to join us, my lord.” He was disappointed when Raphael did no more than glance at the screen, then leaned over to whisper something to Cyn when she sat on the chair he’d pulled out for her.

  When Cyn glanced up with a smile, Nick called, “Good evening, Cyn darling.”

  She rolled her eyes, familiar with the routine, but then focused on Antonia and asked, “Is that—?”

  “Antonia, yes,” he interrupted.

  “Oh Nick, we heard. I’m so happy for you!” Her smile was huge and genuine, but he’d never doubted it would be. She touched Raphael’s arm and said, “Raphael, that’s—”

  “Antonia Dellakos, yes. A pleasure, Miss Dellakos.”

  “Antonia, please,” she replied, her blush a little high for Nick’s taste. Although, he had greeted Cynthia with his usual exaggerated endearment.

  Raphael looked around his conference room, then the one on the screen and said, “My ap
ologies for being late.”

  Though he didn’t offer an excuse, Nick noted . . . but only to himself since he knew it was an asshole observation.

  “Shall we begin?” Raphael asked.

  Malibu, California

  WHEN NO ONE objected, Raphael looked up at the screen and focused on the woman he’d been told was Nick’s long-lost love. While he might wonder if she’d have preferred to remain long lost, he understood that love was not just blind, but often completely unfathomable. He also understood that he was far from unbiased when it came to Nick Katsaros.

  “Miss Dellakos, I understand you are likely to have the greatest insight into our mutual enemy. I’m uncertain of your relationship to Sotiris, but I, and I’m sure others, would be very interested in anything you can tell us that would help in the coming battle. I don’t believe anyone among us doubts that there will be a battle, and soon.”

  “Thank you, Lord Raphael. And please call me, ‘Antonia.’ There’s no need for such formality among . . . allies.”

  She’d probably been about to say, “friends,” Raphael thought, but didn’t want to offend the fragile ego of her lover. Nodding in acknowledgement of her courtesy, he replied, “Thank you, and I am ‘Raphael.’”

  “Raphael, then,” she said, smiling. “A bit of background first. After I was cursed by Sotiris—much as Nico’s warriors were, although my own punishment was far less dire—I was initially unaware of anything about my own identity or past. Sotiris was the only person familiar to me, since he traveled with me when I was thrown into the maelstrom of time and space. More accurately, I traveled with him. I know now that he’d just lost that final battle with Nico’s armies, though I didn’t then. I was sitting in the kitchen garden on Nico’s estate, when Sotiris suddenly appeared and simply took me. I don’t remember anything before arriving on this continent, though I’m certain that this wasn’t the first place we went. And I didn’t remember even that much until about two or three years ago, when the effects of his curse began to weaken more rapidly.

  “But it did begin to weaken, which is the critical point. And as it did, both my memories and my magic began to return. It was a steady progression, though frustratingly slow, and the more I learned, the more I knew I was missing. Sotiris visited on occasion, checking to see how much I recalled, I’m sure. But eventually the visits became less frequent, while I did everything I could to prevent him from realizing that I was recovering from the restrictions of the curse. His confidence, or more accurately his ego, was his undoing, because he believed me.”

  “Did you have any warning of when he would visit?”

  “No. Though as my own magic returned, I had a steadily increasing interval of warning, since I was able to sense him coming.”

  “That must have been so stressful,” a woman from the Florida group gasped, one hand to her lips.

  “Maeve,” Cyn identified in a voice low enough that no one but Raphael would hear it. “She worked directly for Sotiris until she freed Dragan. They’re married now, the guy to her left. He’s the one—”

  “Who flies,” Raphael interrupted, using telepathy since her hearing lacked the acuity of his own. “I’m not totally uninformed, my Cyn,” he added, flavoring the comment with humor.

  “It was stressful,” Antonia admitted, unaware of the private conversation. “But the same ego that let him believe I was still fully under his curse was of great benefit to me, when I decided to pursue some manipulation of my own. I have a significant magical talent. I’m not a sorcerer—” She held up a forestalling hand when Nick seemed about to interrupt. “I’m not,” she told him, before continuing. “My power is of a different nature. But I do excel in the design of spells and devices. I can power most of my own spells, although not battle spells. And with most devices, it depends on the complexity of the design. In this instance, however, my plan didn’t require anything complex or violent. My plan was to spy on Sotiris, and discover anything and everything I could, because by then, I believed that one day I’d be strong enough to escape him altogether.

  “I should mention that even as my magic returned, I still had no memory of Nico or the others, until the moment he walked through my front door just over a week ago now. That part of the curse was in full effect. So my escape plan was based solely on a desire to get away from a domineering parent.”

  Raphael looked around the table as some of those in his Malibu conference room were registering startled surprise. Kato finally broke the moment to demand, “Wait, what?”

  “Oh yeah,” Damian chimed in. “I probably should have given you the heads-up on that.”

  “Sotiris is your father? Did you know?” Kato demanded, looking at Gabriel and then the group on the screen.

  Gabriel was shaking his head, while Damian said, “We just found out, too.”

  “We all thought they were married,” Gabriel telepathed to Raphael, who kept his expression impassive while sharing that detail with Cyn.

  “I don’t know where you all got the idea that we were married,” Antonia snapped. “Did you think I was cheating on him with Nico?”

  “Yeah,” they answered in unison, and then all laughed.

  “Shall we continue?” Raphael said, finding Antonia’s marital fidelity, or not, unimportant, since either way, it had taken place before even he was born, and in another fucking world.

  “Yes, please,” Antonia agreed. “Where was I?”

  “Your memory and power began to return, though you still had no memory of me or us,” Nick provided.

  “Right,” she agreed, smiling at him happily.

  As if she was delighted to discover he’d been listening, Raphael considered. Maybe she really did like the fucker.

  “Anyway, at some point I either slipped up, or the increase in my magical power became so significant that Sotiris detected it on his own. He asked me about it, and there was no point in lying, since he knew already, so I admitted it. But I did so in a way that let me conceal the fact that my memory had returned, as well. His immediate response was to tell me I would be leaving Chicago and going home to live with him.

  “When I balked at the command, and asked where ‘home’ was, he refused to tell me. So, I refused to go. I knew he’d keep pushing for the move, not because of any affection for me, but because he either needed, or simply wanted, my particular skills. Over the years that I’d served as his student, and then his assistant, I’d designed and written many of the spells he’d used. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it himself. He just didn’t want to take the time. So he’d tell me what he wanted, and I’d create it. It was the same with the hexagon—”

  “The hexagon?” Raphael asked.

  “One of my best creations, and now, Sotiris’s biggest nightmare, and his most serious weakness.”

  “What is it? And if you have possession of it, why did he not take it from you by force?”

  “Antonia doesn’t have possession. I do,” Nick said. “And yes, the bastard did try to take it from me, in Florida, a few months ago. He went to a lot of effort, even putting several thousand human lives at stake simply as a distraction. While all four of my men, plus Casey and Hana, were with me trying to save those lives, Sotiris attacked the house, going after the damn thing. Fortunately, my people at the house got word to us about the attack in time to get some of us back there, and for Kato and Grace to escape with the hexagon, while the others fought him off. They injured him badly enough that once I reached the house, he was forced to retreat.”

  Raphael nodded. “Yes. Gabriel and Hana briefed me when they returned here. I knew you’d fought, and that Sotiris had been after some magical device. I didn’t know it was referred to as the hexagon.”

  Antonia waved her hand dismissively. “That’s what I called it, instead of just the ‘rock,” which it really is. A big rock that’s roughly hexagonal in shape, that I used as th
e medium to hold a spell I’d written.”

  “What does it do, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  She gave him a smile that was both beautiful and smug at the same time. “It reduces a sorcerer’s power by half. But it can only be primed, or targeted, at a single sorcerer. Sotiris intended it to be used against Nico, who was his only enemy who’d ever posed a real threat. He assumed that Nico would automatically be my enemy, too. Which goes to show how utterly blind he was to my true feelings about him by then. Anyway, once I realized Sotiris’s intent, I visited Nico, whom I’d never met before. I wanted to evaluate him personally before deciding what to do. He had a reputation for being a more benevolent ruler than Sotiris, which wouldn’t have required much, but also for being more loyal to his people, and they to him. I wanted to judge for myself.”

  “And upon meeting me,” Nick interrupted, “she was completely dazzled and within moments, half in love. She saw at once that my reputation was a shadow compared to the truth.”

  “Uh huh,” she said in a monotone. “That’s one version. But I did know after that first meeting that I couldn’t turn the hexagon over to Sotiris.”

  “And you still have this weapon?” Raphael asked Nick.

  “Yes, and it gets better. She—”

  “I primed it against Sotiris,” Antonia said, before Nick could steal the moment. “He knows it, too, which is what made him decide to curse me the way he did. He already had a plan to curse Nico’s warriors before the battle started, and believed that, between the hexagon and the loss of his warriors, Nico would be so weakened that Sotiris would easily kill him during the fighting. As the most powerful sorcerer left alive, Sotiris would then have ruled our world. What he hadn’t counted on was that I would betray him.”

  She shrugged. “He found out before the battle started, but I think he waited to curse me, hoping Nico would sense my fear and sudden disappearance, and be distracted, or weakened even further. But despite everything he’d done, Sotiris lost that battle. And so, he fled, taking me with him.”