by Dakota Banks
“Hey, I’m sorry. Let’s get off that topic.”
Maliha’s face must have given away the bad memory. “Good idea. How did you become Ageless?”
The change of topic was good for her, but now it was Jake’s turn to reflect on events he’d rather forget. His mouth pinched into a straight line and his eyes grew troubled as he put his thoughts together.
“Do you know the name Taddeo Gaddi?”
“An Italian painter, I think. Before my time.”
“Fourteenth century. He did a lot of work in Florence. I was apprenticed to him at the age of twelve. That was in 1332. He had several apprentices, but I was the best of them. I was his favorite, and he made that very clear. Lots of praise. I traveled with him—he even let me do brushwork on his frescoes after he injured his eyes studying eclipses.”
“I can see where this is going. The other apprentices were jealous.”
Jake nodded. “Then came the perfect opportunity to get rid of me. It was in 1348.”
“The black death.”
“The city had a high death rate. The others locked me in a small room and told the master that I had taken ill and it wasn’t safe for him to see me. At least I guess they did, because I cried out for him and he never came. After a few days, they all came into the room while I was sleeping and stabbed me. I screamed that I would take vengeance, but I died, or nearly died. The demon pulled me to Midworld and I was so angry I took his offer.”
“Let me guess. Your first assignment was to kill the other apprentices.”
“Broke their necks. I put them out for the pickup of the dead. They went to a mass grave. I told Master Taddeo I was frightened of the plague and was leaving the country. It was hard, especially when he called me a coward, because I loved that man. But I had to get away from there. I learned later that he made it through the plague, and that helped some.”
For a while, the crackling fire was the only sound in the room.
“Your turn,” Jake said.
Maliha sighed. “Depressingly like yours, based on betrayal. I was a wife and healer in Colonial Massachusetts. In 1692, the witch hysteria swept through my area. A young woman named Alice, who’d been spurned by my husband, accused me of witchcraft. She hoped he would marry her after I was out of the way. I was dragged out of my home in the middle of the night and thrown in jail, where I…I gave birth to a stillborn daughter. The trial was a farce. Alice accused me of causing afflictions to her and of plotting to kill my husband with my ‘witch’s potions,’ which were nothing but healing herbs. I wasn’t allowed to speak in my defense for fear I would utter curses, and my husband wasn’t either, since he was presumed to be bewitched by me. The usual penalty for witchcraft was hanging, but since I was found guilty of both witchcraft and plotting murder, the judge decided I needed something more than a quick snap of the neck. I was burned at the stake.”
“I’m sorry that you had to go through that.”
“To this day I like my fires confined and controlled.” She gestured at the fireplace. “I took Rabishu’s deal and my first assignment was to kill Alice. After that, I left town. I had nothing there. My baby daughter was dead, I’d killed my accuser, and my husband had turned against me and tried to stone me.”
The emotions came swirling back, and Maliha quickly swiped at the tears that were forming. She lowered her eyes. It was the lowest point of her life she was talking about and it was never easy. Jake started to rise to come over to her, but she raised a hand to signal him to stay put. It was her story. She would deal with it.
“I killed innocents for over two hundred years. I didn’t think about it much, just did my work and enjoyed the other part of my life. I took men on my terms and became fabulously wealthy by buying land and collecting gold and rare items. I traded in world markets—London, Paris, Amsterdam—when Wall Street was just a street next to a wall built by the Dutch to defend against attacks by the British. I presume you’ve done the same, over a longer period of time.” Jake nodded. “Then I had some assignments that made me question what I was doing. I started to see the targets as real people whose families grieved for them. I finally got to an assignment I couldn’t carry out.”
“I never reached a questioning stage,” Jake said. “If Idiptu had stayed active and had been giving me assignments for over the full six hundred and fifty years…” He shook his head. “I think I would have killed myself.”
Been there, tried that.
“I have new goals now. If you don’t work for your demon, what do you do with all your time?”
“Study. Travel. Take jobs like the one with the DEA from time to time.”
“You don’t use your Ageless abilities then.”
Jake considered. “Mostly the immortality part. I have my own moral code I’ve developed, and when that code’s being stepped on, I’ll do something about it. Can’t say it always lines up with the legal codes of the time and place, but it’s meaningful to me.”
That moral code must be what I’m seeing when I read his aura—that strong desire to help people, but not pure goodness. More like a gray area where the outcome is good but some of the steps along the way aren’t. That describes me, too. Sometimes I have to kill people to save others. That’s as gray as it gets.
“I think we’re alike in that. Jake, I have to ask. What about your missing five years?”
Before answering, Jake put more logs on the fire.
“Easy there, you’re going to make it too hot in here,” she said.
“I have an ulterior motive. You’ll get too hot and take off all your clothes.”
In answer, Maliha stretched and pulled her top up over her head. She was wearing a camisole underneath. Jake followed every move closely but didn’t budge from his chair.
“I can’t tell you about the five years. I’d be breaking too many sworn confidences. I hope you can accept that.”
“Then tell me you weren’t doing something evil,” Maliha said.
“I can say it concerned my moral code.”
Can I live with that or not? It comes down to the whole issue of trust. Do I think he’s been telling me the truth about everything else? How slippery is this moral code? With my past, I can’t exactly demand purity in someone else.
“I can live with that, I guess. Now you have to tell me how you got past my security measures into my private place.”
“I love it when you talk dirty. I followed you after you first contacted me about the drug-smuggling scheme. I found out that sometimes you went to one condo and sometimes to another. Who has two places in the same building? Someone who’s living in one and doing something drug related in the other one, I figured. Since one condo had a simple key and I’d been inside it already with you, I concentrated on the other place. I was in the emergency stairway watching you when you went to that door. You did a retinal scan, and when the door opened, there was a blinding flash of light.”
“How often did you follow me?” Maliha was chagrined that she hadn’t noticed him tailing her. She had a tendency to relax when she passed the doorman and went into the lobby of her building.
That will have to change.
“Only a few times. I lucked out that you went to your hideaway so soon after I started.”
“How did you get into the building? It’s supposed to be a secure building. All the residents think so, anyway.”
“The loading dock in the back. I showed the man there my government ID and he let me go right in. Retinal scanners I was familiar with from my work. A microprocessor compares the live retinal scan to a stored eye signature, and a match opens the door. Since your retina was a bit hard to come by, I used a different angle. I know a guy named Stone, a tech genius for hire who doesn’t ask questions about how the gadgets he designs are used. Stone’s gadget reset the scanner to learning mode so I could add my own eye signature to the scanner’s storage. I’m a legitimately enrolled person, just like you, so I can get past the scanner whenever I want.”
“Does the scan
ner still accept you as legit?”
“As far as I know, it does. I came by when I knew you weren’t home. I’d seen the bright flash, so I brought a welder’s helmet with me to get a better look at what was going on. When the door opened, I saw a switch on the wall across from me. I figured it was a trap and I had to press that switch within a certain amount of time. I opened the door again, made the dash to the switch, and got in. Once I was in there, I wasn’t exactly sure how to get out, so I made myself at home. You know the rest.”
Maliha thought it over. It seemed doable, even reasonable, the way he explained it. I’ll have to get Amaro to install a high-speed camera in there, one that has a chance of catching the motion of an Ageless.
Jake rose and came to her chair. He extended both hands to her, and she took them and stood facing him. His hands started to roam.
“Wait a minute! What happened to that breakfast invitation?” Maliha said. “I’m famished.”
Jake fixed something for her in his kitchen. She watched him at the counter, slicing fresh mushrooms, sautéing them, then cracking eggs into the skillet and stirring.
This is the man I love and he can cook, too.
He divided the eggs onto two plates and she chided him for salting his. They left the dishes in the sink and went to his bedroom.
Jake was the only single man Maliha knew who believed in the restorative powers of clean sheets and a blanket that smelled like it had been dried outdoors with a pleasant breeze and exuberant sunshine.
The clean linens didn’t block his intriguing male scent that stirred her desire. She ran her hand lightly over his chest and abdomen and felt his muscles tighten in the wake of her fingertips. Leaning in close, molding her body to his side, she gently licked the side of his neck. The effect was electric. The hairs rose on the muscular arm that held her.
“Love you,” she said. It felt so good to be free of the restrictions she’d placed on herself for so long. Jake was someone who could understand. She didn’t have to conceal the kind of person she was from him. She had that freedom with Hound, Yanmeng, and Amaro, but they were family in a much different way.
“I love you, Maliha.”
It was a thrill to hear him say it. She could see his face and his eyes totally focused on her, totally desiring her. His hand moved over her body, languishing on the curves of her breasts and hips. Her nipples hardened under his tongue as he gently licked and sucked them. His hand cupped her mound and then his fingers explored the warmth and wetness inside. She slid her leg over his hip, getting so close to him that she could feel the warmth radiating from his groin.
She lay against him and he kissed her deeply as her hand moved to encircle and stroke his erection. Pushing him back against the sheets, she straddled him and took him slowly, deeply inside her, then raised and lowered herself on his shaft. Jake’s breathing came faster and faster and then he grasped her hips with both hands and wouldn’t let her rise. Unable to move upward, she rotated her hips instead, bringing moans of pleasure from Jake.
He rolled on top of her. He teased her by pulling out and rubbing the head of his shaft against the pulsing nubbin that guarded her entrance. She shuddered with pleasure and anticipation until she couldn’t stand it another second, and then pressed her hips up against his. Jake began thrusting hard. Maliha felt her excitement rising, rising, and then an explosion of release as Jake throbbed within her. Waves of pleasure radiated from her groin, traveling up her spine and blocking out every other sensation. She panted wildly, her chest heaving against his.
Jake then supported himself on his elbows, keeping his full weight off her, and when her panting had slowed, he gave her a lingering kiss and moved off to her side.
Maliha had never made love to an Ageless man before, and she hadn’t known what to expect. When Jake fixed her breakfast the next morning, she’d learned what it felt like to have his fierce power focused on her. She also had a nickname à la Randy for him: Repeater.
Chapter Eight
The next day passed quickly as Maliha turned over in her mind the events with Jake and added words to her book Too Big To Be True. Amaro called her with three suggestions for her new car: another black McLaren, a silver Zonda F, and a black Zonda F with red interior. The black with red interior caught her attention.
“Where’s that last car located?”
“In Naples.”
“Florida or Italy?”
“Italy.”
“Set up an appointment to test-drive it. I know it’s used, but I expect a like-new condition. If you like it, call my customizer.” She gave him the name and number. “Ask if the car’s suitable for Marsha’s package. He’ll know what you mean. If it is, buy it.”
“Me?”
“Who else? Ignore the asking price. Decide on a price and make one bid. If it isn’t accepted, walk away.”
“Uh…okay.”
“Don’t worry. The sales consultant will know there are other cars on the market now. If no better offer comes through in a couple of days, he’ll call you back. He won’t want to lose you. To make it interesting, you keep the money between the asking price and the purchase price for going through all this trouble.”
“I don’t need any incentive. This is a blast.” He hung up.
She called the Rainiers’ numbers once more and tried not to grow impatient. Often they turned off their phones while working. Finally, she was ready to visit the professors’ lab.
At various times in the past, her fighting outfit had been made of loose cotton, silk, or leather, but it had always been black.
Black to hide the blood, as Master Liu said.
Tonight she slipped on the black cotton trousers of the ninja and tied strings around her calves, nipping in the wide material. The top wrapped around her and secured with ties, and she filled the hidden pockets with throwing stars. Tabi socks and boots, with their traditional split toes for better gripping, followed. The bottoms of her trousers tucked neatly inside her boots, and at the top of each boot she fastened a sheath with a short knife for close-up fighting.
Maliha braided her black hair into one heavy braid down her back, and then tucked it inside the back of her top. She wasn’t ready to use the mask and hood, so she put them up her sleeves, held them in place by forearm ties.
With her throwing knives strapped to her thighs, she moved through the lobby of the building and tossed a wink at the wide-eyed door attendant.
“Costume party,” she said.
“Uh…” he said, and she was out the door into a night with a sliver of moon in the sky.
It was exhilarating to be out on the streets dressed to kill.
Even now I understand the temptation to be Ageless. The power, the fearlessness, the decadence—answering to no mortal, suffering no consequences…To be able to turn that on and off like a switch would be interesting, to say the least. Black Ghost on demand.
She shook herself before those thoughts could take hold.
Moving rapidly, her cold breath trailing behind her, she headed south to the University of Chicago. Flitting through the parks that lined the lakeshore, she came to Jackson Park, in the Hyde Park neighborhood. From there it was a straight shot west along the Midway, a large grassy area that was the site of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition, an event Maliha remembered well. She’d ridden the first Ferris wheel there and ridden the same one again at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.
The route of the lakeshore to the Midway wasn’t the most direct way to go, but she felt like running and she liked to stay to the green areas whenever she could. When she passed the crenellated towers of Harper Library, she left the Midway. It was only one long block past the hospital to the Pritzker School of Medicine.
The Rainiers’ lab was located in an older stone building with gothic arches. Maliha knew of a window with a broken lock above a side doorway that projected out from the building like a LEGO block stuck onto it. The window had been that way since Maliha moved to Chicago, although it had been fixed
twice in the interim—and Maliha had promptly broken it again to preserve her access. Because of the Rainiers, the building was a useful place to her, and it was, after all, in her backyard.
Now for the tricky part.
She climbed the outside of the building, using the ridges and curves of the gothic features as handholds. She didn’t have far to go, about ten feet to a flat section of roof atop the projecting doorway. The window was topped by arched glass; she was interested in the bottom panes. She lay down on the rough, gravelly surface and placed her rubber-soled boots on the glass. Pushing up with her legs, she expected to raise the heavy window enough for her to slip underneath it, but it didn’t move.
The window’s lock had been fixed again.
Impatient to get inside, Maliha didn’t want to try anything else, like breaking in through the door. There was an electronic lock on the door, and it wouldn’t yield without time and tools. Glass, though, yielded to many things, among them a swift kick from one of her boots. She swept the glass out of the way as best she could, put on her mask and hood, and dropped ten feet to the floor inside the building, landing with the relaxed knees of a trained parachute trooper.
Maliha made her way carefully through the halls, dimmed except for security lights every twenty feet or so. Professors Ty and Claire didn’t rate prime facilities, which for Maliha’s purpose was fine. Larger, better-equipped labs were crowded with grad students who worked all hours of the night. Most of the time, the Rainiers worked alone.
As she approached the door, she heard noises coming from the lab. The sound of glass breaking was followed by a muffled scream. She ran the last fifteen feet and went flying feetfirst toward the door. She crashed through, tearing the door off its hinges. She landed with a roll, ending behind a solid lab bench.
