Invincible (A Centennial City Novel)

by Fionn Jameson

  I was lucky.

  But how long could my luck hold out for?

  And how long could I think of them as monsters?

  Frightening thought, really.

  The front doors opened and a lovely, pale girl who would stand forever at the cusp of womanhood peered up at us, a curious expression on her fine featured, almost porcelain perfect face. “Yes?”

  Jason looked at me. It was like being looked at by a stranger. I didn’t like it. If he didn’t like me, what would happen to the deal? “This is Jason. I am his Ailward. We were told Noir would be expecting us.”

  She curtsied, low, holding out a sprigged dress that looked like a relic from the Revolutionary War. She even had a small cap tied over her sausage-curls. “Of course, Master Noir is indeed expecting your presence. If you would but follow me?”

  She was dressed like a colonial, but spoke with a fine, cultured British accent. Then again, I supposed those colonials spoke like the British, for was their origin not of that country? Perhaps it had made the revolution that much more painful, that much more of a betrayal.

  I followed Jason into the house, the foyer lit up by a large chandelier, the crystals sparkling like precious diamonds. My heels clicked on the parquet wooden floor and I watched our reflections in the mirrors on either sides of us as she led us into the main hall, a staircase extended up to separate into the two wings. There was much similarities between this house and the last mansion. Was it simply the style of the times or was there some kind of vampire architect that all vampires of money hired for their abode?

  Questions after questions filtered through my mind as she took a right at the staircase, the dress flowing gracefully around her slim form. “There is a suite prepared for you underneath the house. I was told darkness would be preferred?”

  Not for me.

  But Jason spoke then, his voice low and rusty as though he hadn’t spoken in a very, very long time. “That would be preferable. Thank you.”

  She nodded and led the way through an open doorway and those steps, those cursed steps down, down into the bowels of Hell.

  Or perhaps I was just being needlessly dramatic.

  But I really hated going to a place without any natural light. Although, in all honesty, it really wasn’t that dark going down. With a light sconce situated every couple of feet, there was a surprising amount of light in the lower levels of the building. With the walls wallpapered in a calm shade of blue and the plush white carpet underneath my feet, I could have fooled myself into thinking we were merely in a hotel, a hotel that had a strange aversion to windows.

  There were a few doors, all of them closed and I was reminded of the lower levels of Vincent’s club. Was this how it was with most of the vampires in Centennial City? Did all of them live with patrons? Did any of them strike out on their own? Was it even allowed?

  It hadn’t escaped my notice there were far less doors down here. Then again, perhaps those under Noir’s care preferred the upstairs, and actually liked having windows.

  She stopped in front of a door at the end of the hallway and curtsied again, bowing so loud it was surprising to see her stand up straight without wobbling. “My Master hopes you find this room to your satisfaction.”

  Jason nodded. “Thank you...I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name?”

  Twin spots of red rode high on her cheeks. Was it embarrassment? Or pleasure? Either way, it had seemed she had fed and fed well recently. Vampires couldn’t blush unless they had human blood running through their system. “Amaryllis, sir. But most everyone calls me Mary.”

  A vampire called Mary and looked like she was fourteen. Christ.

  He smiled. “Just call me Jason. No need to stand on ceremony here, is there?”

  Her eyelashes fluttered up and down as though she couldn’t stand to look at him straight in the eyes. Bashfulness from something that was at least two hundred years old...this was new to me. And somewhat terrifying at the same time. What sort of beast was this girl when her bloodlust was unleashed?

  Actually, I didn’t even want to know.

  She curtsied again and glided back up the hallway, her footsteps silent on the carpet.

  Jason had a hand on the doorknob, although he did not turn it.

  “Ran.”

  It was the first time since killing Shannon he had spoken to me, even acknowledged my presence. I didn’t know if I should have felt suspicious or relieved. “I’m here.”

  He laughed, softly, barely even a murmur, but a laugh it had been all the same. “You are, aren’t you?”

  To say I was confused would have an understatement. “Is there something you wanted to say?”

  He let out a slow, shuddering breath and then opened the door. “No. Never mind. Forget it.”

  “Jason, please.”

  “Just get in.”

  “We need to talk.” I hated that I sounded so whiny.

  “Later,” he said blankly.

  I hoped so.

  The suite was suitable enough, I supposed. Spartan in its decoration, with the walls painted an unassuming beige, it really did look like a hotel, minus the windows and the complimentary coffee machine with the stack of thin coffee cups that almost always leaked after fifteen minutes.

  There was a door set off to the side, which I assumed was for the bathroom and I stared at the bed. Large and covered with satin gold sheets that probably felt like sin against the naked skin, I became almost painfully aware of Jason closing the door behind him.

  “That’s it?” asked Jason as he took off the coat with the dried blood. I tried not to think about it, too much. “Not exactly the height of elegance, is it?”

  I didn’t consider myself a prude. It was hard to think of myself as a sexual being when I’d never had a date, but I was really hoping the small sofa in front of the large plasma TV next to the bed was a pull-out one. I wasn’t so sure how Jason would feel sharing a bed with the woman who had killed his ex fiance.

  “I’ll take the sofa.”

  I don’t know if I expected him to argue, but he nodded and tossed his coat across the silky sheets and I watched as a fleck of dried blood peeled off and landed amongst all that golden threads. It looked dirty, obscene, even, but you couldn’t pay enough to move his coat. I’m a bit of a neat freak, but I wasn’t that bad. “Fine.”

  I stood around feeling like an idiot as he walked around the small room, touching the top of an empty dresser, one hand trailing along the bed clothes, even opening the door that indeed was a small but shining bathroom that smelled like lavender bath crystals and the faintest tinge of bleach. “What’s wrong?”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to kick myself in the face. I’d never been much of a talker, but that just sounded terrible to me. How would Jason take it?

  He shook his head and took a seat at the foot of the bed, hands laced and eyes down. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  Being blunt was always a specialty of mine. “Shannon’s dead.”

  “I know that,” he said quietly. “She died two years ago.”

  I hated feeling so guilty. “Is that how you need to see this? Is this how you’re going to cope? Don’t you blame me?”

  He lifted his head, watched me with those endlessly black eyes that seemed deeper, darker than any night I had ever encountered. “Do I blame you? Don’t be stupid. You did what you were hired to do. You protected me.”

  Voice harsh and unrelenting, he couldn’t have sounded any less thankful. Not that I was looking for it, but the words did not exactly match the face. “I did do that.”

  “You saw a threat and you eliminated it,” he said and then snorted. “Although, I hadn’t expected things to plan out the way they did. I thought it would take longer to find Shannon, to find the bastard who took her away. I had no idea you two had met.”

  I didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. “Look, I had no idea she was your fiance. Maybe I suspected but that was all.”

  “W
hen did you first meet her?”

  If I tried hard, I could still remember the way the night smelled, like trash and urine, still hear the sound of newspapers blowing in the wind. “The night I met you. She was the vampire who warned me away from you.”

  “I see.”

  When was the last time I’d felt so damn uncomfortable? And why did it bother me so much? “So, what happens now?”

  He smiled. “You do what you were told to do.”

  I looked around the room. It seemed benign enough, but I knew Vincent didn’t trust us. Noir seemed mild enough, but the look in Ryder’s eyes when he mentioned the other side of Noir very few people knew of...I was not willing to take any chances. “Would you like to go for a walk?”

  He made no move to get up from the bed. “No. Not now. I’m sorry, Ran.”

  “I understand.”

  “No,” he said after a moment of silence seemed to stretch on for almost too long. “No, I don’t think you do. I think you ought to leave now.”

  A command not entirely unexpected. “What about you?”

  Sighing, he pulled the coat into his arms and I could not stop staring at the dark splotches marring the light gray woolen fabric. “I need some time, Ran. This...this entire affair has been...startling, to say the least. Too much has happened and now I have to think on what needs to happen. I’m sure you’re aware everything has changed now.”

  He laid back on the bed, one arm over his eyes and I took that as a signal to leave.

  Finding my way back to the first floor was no trouble, although the lack of any sort of presence was mildly disturbing.

  Were there any humans in this building? Coldness seemed to emanate from the marble floors and seeped through my clothes, making me shiver intermittently.

  Amaryllis stood by the front doors, hands held decorously at her waist and her eyes widened as she saw me step out into the foyer. “Ailward, did you require something you could not find in your room?”

  I didn’t have to fake my reticence, as I truly had my doubts as to what sort of status we held here in Noir’s stronghold. Were we guests or prisoners? I supposed I would know in the next moment or so. “Not exactly. I’d like to leave for a while. Maybe get some fresh air. Is there some kind of car I can borrow?”

  Her pretty light brows creased upward. “A car? You will be needing transportation, Ailward?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded once and curtsied. “One moment, Ailward, whilst I see if I can procure a vehicle for your use.”

  She smelled like rose water and lemon verbena as she walked past me, a sprightly step to her walk that made it look as though she was dancing to music only she could hear. Cute and sweet, but again, she was, for the lack of a better word, dead.

  Why did I keep on forgetting?

  It didn’t take that long for the sound of keys to reach my ears and my shoulders relaxed. It was good to know, at the very least, we had an escape venue. Or I did, at the very least. Perhaps they were focused on Jason, and not so much on the woman standing at his side.

  She pressed the keys into my hand, a strange circular plastic thing with three buttons, one for the car door, one for the trunk and the other for...something. Two more keys completed the keyring, although I had no idea what they were. Judging from the way she held them out to me, as though it was something slightly disgusting, I didn’t think she was aware of what they were for, either. “Milly already had the car pulled around to the front, Ailward,” she said. “Is there anything else you will be requiring, you or your Master?”

  I shook my head, relief making it hard to keep my features even. “Not at all. Thank you.”

  A faint blush rose on those white cheeks as she curtsied, as prim and proper as anything that must have seen the insides of a French king’s salon. “It is only as my duty demands.”

  “Er. Right.” She sounded a bit too biddable and I found myself wondering just how docile she truly was. “Thank you.”

  “Not at all. Have a pleasant drive, Ailward.”

  I was halfway down the drive when I turned around.

  She was still there, in the open doorway, waving.

  “Amaryllis?” I called out.

  “Yes, Ailward.”

  “Do you always smile?”

  Something flickered in her eyes, something familiar, something that reminded me of Shannon. “Most of the time, Ailward. Sometimes, I find it hard.”

  I believed it.

  I just wished I didn’t.

  16

  Chapter Sixteen

  I left the car half an hour away from the Sanctuary, just in case. I didn’t trust anything Noir would give me and besides, it seemed in bad taste to show up at the front gates in a vehicle provided by the vampire I was supposed to eliminate.

  When I knocked on the large wooden doors, I expected the inevitable clank of metal against metal and the rectangle of wood to pull back, exposing light brown eyes I didn’t recognize.

  “Yes.”

  I tugged down the neckline of my shirt and let them see the brand above my collarbone. “Fellowship.”

  The doors should have opened then. I never had reason to believe otherwise.

  The doors did not open.

  The eyes narrowed. “Yeah? So what?”

  Momentarily surprised, it took me a moment to respond. “So what? You’re supposed to let me in. Or has protocol changed since the last time I was here?”

  The person chuckled, safe and secure behind a six-inch thick doors. “Things have changed. They called in all hunters. All hunters came. You’re not one of them. Nice try. Now piss off.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been treated like that. As a hunter, there was a certain measure of respect accorded to me and for this person to use such language with me...it was a new experience and not one I was willing to get used to. “My name is Hwang. My handler is Adrian. My contact is Chang. Let me in.”

  The eyes narrowed even more until they were just slits. “Or what?”

  Flabbergasted didn’t even begin to cover how I felt. “Is my handler there or isn’t he?”

  The man sighed. “Wait.”

  There was a hurried, whispered discussion made all the more evident due to the fact he didn’t shut the peephole, and I heard the sounds of footsteps leaving the doors.

  The eyes returned, still suspicious. “We’ve sent for the handler. Step away from the doors. Don’t come back. They will come for you.”

  Whatever that meant.

  I held up my hands and took a step back, just as they asked. Something had happened, that much was certain. Feeling curiously empty and somewhat apprehensive, I leaned against the wall, noting with some surprise that mine were the only footsteps to disturb the snow that had fallen since two days ago.

  Two days was a very long time for people to neither leave nor arrive.

  What the hell was going on?

  My answer came half an hour later when the eyehole slid back again and the same person hissed at me.

  “Hey you.”

  I merely looked at them, not feeling particularly like replying.

  “We’re letting you in.”

  “Took you long enough, didn’t it?”

  “Shut up,” he snarled and then vanished again.

  But the doors were opening with a shuddering sound, knocking the snow off the high concrete walls.

  I fought to keep the surprise from my eyes. “A welcoming party? You shouldn’t have.”

  A few of the face I recognized, but most of them were unfamiliar. No smiles, just a blank solidarity that made the pulse beat faster in the back of my head. “What’s going on?” I asked, voice shaking.

  “Come with us.”

  A slightly built figure detached herself from the crowd, two burly Hunters standing aside to let her pass.

  Williamson. She had always been somewhat frail, but those scars were fresh. One particularly horrendous one looked as though it had very nearly taken her left eye.

  “Wha
t’s going on, Beth?” I repeated myself, slowly, carefully.

  Her lips thinned. “I think we should be asking you that, Hwang.”

  Beth had never called me by my last name before. We just were never that formal, in fact if I’d ever had anything remotely close to a friend, she might have been it. “Where’s Adrian?”

  She turned. “Come.”

  The guard, for how could they be anything else, swallowed up her again and swallowed me up as well. Being this close to people armed to the teeth made my skin feel as though it would jump off my bones and quietly, I let them lead me through the outer courtyard, past the training fields and into the inner sanctum, where the Elders resided. An attendant dressed in their somber black and gray pulled open a shoji door and I watched, utterly nonplussed as boots tromped on the floors, the snow and dirt creating a mess I had never seen before. It was tradition to take off your shoes before stepping into the living quarters of the Sanctuary.

  Just how much had changed since I had left?

  I hesitated at the edge of the upraised floor, years of tradition keeping my feet on the snow-covered ground.

  A rough shove sent my knees careening into the wooden edge. “Get up.”

  This, this was a face I recognized. “Mac. Nice to see you haven’t lost that edge of yours.”

  The darkly tanned Scotsman grinned at me. It was not a friendly one. “You’re lucky you’re not dead. We don’t suffer traitors easily.”

  We don’t suffer traitors easily.

  I blinked. “Are you calling me a traitor?”

  Instead of replying, he grabbed me by the arms and physically lifted me off the ground, setting me firmly on the wooden inner walkway. Inwardly, I cringed at the mess I was leaving on the polished wooden floors that should have never seen a scuff, much less the mess everyone else was making.

  Stupid thing to worry about, really. Especially when it seemed as though everyone I knew had this strange misconception that I was a traitor.

  Painfully aware of just how easily someone could slip a dagger through my ribs, fully aware of just how the Fellowship treated traitors, I let my hands dangle by my sides, trusting in the Hunters sense of honor. Or something like that.