She battled her nature and this time won. She sighed as she broke contact with her fangs. Her tongue darted out to swipe the two small holes, and they vanished.
She lay her head on his chest, enjoying the afterglow and the heat. One of his hands rested on the curve of her hips and the other in her hair. She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the feeling of being close to another human.
***
“Are you sure,” Alexi asked him again. Connor sighed, it’s not like he thought he could beat her. But, if they didn’t practice against someone faster and stronger, how would they ever be ready?
Monique had thought it was a good idea, or she would never have signed off on it. The Arcanum's gym was located in the same private building along with their new Seattle HQ. Connor was stuck on training duty while Sing recovered, and that could be a while. He had figured now was a good opportunity to introduce Alexi to the rest of the Arcanum, get her some good will, especially after how she saved the world…. again.
Thirty agents, some new some not, stood in a circle in their work out clothes. A mix of men and women, all of whom could handle themselves against ordinary opponents. Former Seals, CIA, Mossad, GS7, no one was turned down who could pass the entrance exam. The fight against evil was universal to all men and women, and the Arcanum would take all the help they could get.
“They need to see it Alexi, then we can move on to more practical things,” he said.
Alexi was dressed in a pink sports top and black yoga pants. She looked stunning to his eyes. She had tied her long blonde hair behind her in a pony tail. Even with it in a band her curls bounced around her face. Her eyes burned with a light that Connor found hypnotic. He could tell he wasn’t the only one mesmerized by her, it was at least half the room. Vampires and their glamour… how could they not be irresistible, he chuckled, it was a good object lesson.
“Okay, I’m…” he didn’t get to finish. He heaved his breath out as she slammed him against the floor mat. The lights on the ceiling wobbled. No, that’s my vision. Then she was there, grinning above him, holding out her hand.
“You didn’t see her move, did you, any of you,” he asked the room as she helped him up.
A chorus of silent head shaking, and open jaw amazement was his answer.
“Were lucky that she’s on our side. Thanks Alexi. Would you mind sparring with anyone else?”
She nodded, “That’s fine, I’ll take it easy, I promise,” she said with a smile.
“I’ll go a round with her,” a huge black man from South Africa said. Connor had just met him, but he’d hoped that the guy would volunteer. His hand to hand marks were the highest in the room, and that included Connor. He was a pugilist by training, but had branched out into Judo and Karate. That and the fact that he was six feet six inches tall, made him imposing as all hell.
“Agent Jadarian Osei, this is Alexi Creed. Remember, this isn’t about winning, but preparing your mind for what can happen when you face a vampire on equal footing.”
The two took to the mat. Connor turned away to glance at Savanna. She sat in the corner reading what was obviously a very old book. He walked over to her. The ground shook slightly from Jadarian slamming onto the mat where Connor had been moments before. He winced. He hoped it wouldn’t hurt the man’s ego too much to get trounced by Alexi.
“Hey beautiful, you missed me getting my ass kicked by your girlfriend,” he said with a chuckle as he slid down the wall next to Savanna. It wasn’t any book, he realized, it was the book on zombies, the one her mother gave her. The page she was on had a drawing of a vivisected person, in excruciating detail.
“You didn’t get enough of that last week,” he asked.
Savanna looked up to him. Her eyes were tired, and her color was off.
“Honey, are you okay,” he asked.
“Yeah, just tired,” she smiled, “and yes, I got enough to last a life time, but I’m concerned about how it started. The thing, he mentioned his creator and how his creator hated Alexi. I don’t think it was a coincidence.”
Connor let his hand drift to Savanna’s side. He didn’t want to be unprofessional, but damn if he wasn’t falling in love with the girl. She smiled at him as their fingers touched.
“Anything in there that can help?”
“What does the Arcanum know about the Fae?”
That surprised him.
“What have they got to do with it? They’re dangerous, unpredictable, and rare. A strict hands-off by agents.” He remembered the training course and it wasn’t pretty. Unlike the rest of the supernatural world, the Fae had powers that were not grounded in the physical. To some degree vampires and werewolves and the rest of the lot were bound by physical laws. Maybe not the laws humans had to adhere to, but laws none the less. Vampires couldn’t abide a cross, silver hurt werewolves these were consistent. With the Fae, nothing was ever the same twice.
He glanced up to see Alexi as she laid out Jadarian with one blow. The man fell back like a tree and slammed into the ground. She stood over him like a victorious general.
“Next,” she said. Twenty-Nine hands went up. It made him smile knowing his people were so well represented.
“They’re dangerous, possibly the most dangerous, and we don’t deal with them, not ever. Even if we did know how to contact them. What’s the book say about them?”
Savanna turned several pages back. The pictures Connor could make out, but the words, it was all garbled nonsense. It wasn’t even a language, at least, not one Connor had ever seen.
“It refers to a source of magic, the Well of Eternity. Have you ever heard of it?”
“Can’t say that I have, though magic artifacts are rare enough that if we knew about one with a name like that, I would know about it. What’s the Well do?”
Savanna turned the page, the drawing shifted from the zombie to an ancient looking well. One that he could imagine being in the center of a medieval village.
“A long time ago, it doesn’t say when, the Unseelie turned an ordinary well into a birthplace of magic. From there, wonders and horrors were born.”
Connor nodded. Savanna turned the page, more magic incantations that he couldn’t read.
“You can read that?”
“Yes,” she said without looking up, “It doesn’t say what they made, but if it is the birthplace of magic—then maybe it can cure this strain of magic.”
Connor’s eyebrow went up at that.
“Cure? We killed them all didn’t we?”
She didn’t answer.
“Savanna, we killed them all?” he asked fervently.
Savanna closed the book and stood up.
“Tell Alexi I will meet her at home, I have something to do.”
Connor watched as she walked out. He wanted to run after her, but his caution held him back. Their relationship was new, he had to trust her or they wouldn’t have a relationship.
“Next? Anyone?”
He turned around to see Alexi standing in the middle of five fallen agents.
***
“Why am I different?” Savanna asked her dad.
“It makes us strong, little one. Some people are white, black, Asian. It’s our differences that give us strength. Your mother is from Europe. I’m from New Orleans. You get to be from both!”
Savanna smiled. She licked her ice cream and watched the other children play. She knew she couldn’t play with them, mother would not allow it. Her blood was special, and there was power in it. If she spilled it, even accidentally, it could trigger her power.
“How come I look more like you than her?”
He laughed. “Oh, baby girl, that’s just genetics. Your skin is dark, your hair and eyes are light. But don’t worry, you’ll always be my little girl.”
Savanna laughed. The day was hot, the ice cream tasted good. She looked to her dad with a smile. She froze. His shirt was open, a small splatter of blood on the top. The shirt opened down to his waist revealing more blood. The beating of his heart fi
lled her ears. Blood poured out of his mouth.
“You have no choice, baby girl. I was dead the moment you were born.”
Savanna woke with a start. It was dark outside. Only the street lights could be seen from inside the dimly lit bus. She checked her phone, the bus had entered Federal Way a few minutes earlier. She was almost there.
The hard seats were not comfortable. She grabbed the bar above her to stretch. Her hand slapped against the metal, but wouldn’t grasp it. She tried again. Her fingers wouldn’t bend.
She sat back down and put her hand in her lap, the fresh wound from healing Sing lingered on her palm. The bandage came off in a sticky, puss-filled mess. A fast as she could she cleaned it and re-bandaged it. A quick look told her no one on the near empty bus paid her any mind. The skin around the wound had turned pale and flaky sometime in the night. It hurt all the time.
A few stops later her phone beeped, letting her know that this was her stop. She smiled to the bus driver as she climbed off, clutching her satchel in her good hand.
The dance studio looked as it had before. Quiet and unassuming. The light was out in the ‘w’ on the sign, but everything else looked to be in good repair. Savanna couldn’t help but feel like a petulant child who broke something and now had to face her mom.
This is such a bad idea. You should have told Alexi.
She shrugged her backpack over her shoulder. Now wasn’t the time to doubt her course of action.
Alexi never does.
The door was open, she didn’t have to knock. Her mother, in all her twenty year old glory, was on the floor leading a series of less than ideal candidates through yoga moves. She was patient, kind, understanding, all the things Savanna remembered about her growing up. Right up until she commanded her to plunge a dagger into her fathers heart.
Savanna ran her hand through her black hair while she waited. She found a mirror to look at, not wanting to stand there watching her mother. She remembered her brown hair, and how her eyes used to be green. Then she murdered her father, and summoned the most powerful demon she could think of. She was never quite sure what made her eyes change or what turned her hair so black it absorbed the light around it. Perhaps it was summoning the demon, but deep down she wondered if it wasn’t the taint of having murdered her father.
“You look a lot like him and that is a compliment. Something about his skin I think,” Illyana said behind her as she walked past to her office.
“Is that why you chose him? His skin,” Savanna followed her as she spoke.
“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not that shallow. No, he had no choice. He was dying and I offered him life, well sixteen years plus nine months, give or take a few sweaty nights,” she almost purred as she spoke. Savanna rolled her eyes in disgust.
“But you’re not here to reminisce about your late father. What do you want?”
Savanna choked down the anger in her. The way her mother said ‘late’ father made it sound like he was killed in an accident, or died of natural causes.
“I need to find something called ‘The Well of Eternity’, it was in your book…” she let her voice trail off. Illyana went deathly still. Her pupils dilated so big Savanna thought they would encompass her entire eye.
“Why would you need that… thing?” Illyana spoke, seeming to avoid the name with care.
“It’s complicated. Just tell me. Do you know where the W—”
Illyana raised a hand so swiftly it startled Savanna into silence. “Don’t say it,” Illyana whispered fiercely. “Don’t say it, or they will hear. You don’t want them to know why you need it.”
Savanna stared at her mother. “Who?”
“The Fae.”
There was a chill in Illyana’s eyes that Savanna had never seen before—not even when she had tried to sacrifice her only daughter.
ELEVEN
Her face taunted her. The way it looked, how her cheekbones met her eyes and the way her nose fell. How her lips pursed when she pouted? Was it real? She hadn’t thought about it much, until recently. Now that she had, she was having trouble focusing on anything else. Was any of her real?
She looked down to her neck and picked up the dog tags that hung from them. She rubbed her thumb and forefinger over them in slow circles. It was the key, or a clue, to who she was. A person she no longer was or could be was on those two small pieces of aluminum. She may never know about her face, but her past, that she could find out about.
It wasn’t fair, not to them, and not to her. She couldn’t remember anything about her life. The part of her brain that contained all those memories was bashed in by a metal baton. All the things that made Alexi Creed a human being, were gone. What remained was a collection of autonomous responses on how to dress, drive, and take a shower.
Life wasn’t fair, she knew it was true. If it was, she wouldn’t have woken up in a metal box, she would be with her daughter, doing mother-daughter things—not that she knew what those would be.
She looked down at the dog tags clasped in her hand. The serial number etched on it was a key to finding who she was. Savanna’s laptop sat quietly in the corner of the room. Its blue light blinking patiently. Alexi wasn’t sure what to do, or if she could even find anything on it. She reached over and pulled it into her lap. The screen flipped open easy enough, but then… she found herself not knowing what to do.
She could do everything, it seemed, but use a simple computer. After a few moments of searching, she found the little multi-colored circle that brought up the search page. The cursor blinked, patiently waiting for her input. One letter at a time she punched in her name.
Thousands of results came back. None were her. Most were about a game she’d never heard of.
“Well that’s not going to work,” she muttered to herself. She reached over to the table where she had left her glass of partially drunken vodka and sipped. It was still the best bang for her buck when it came to feeling things. Other than feeding on people.
Next, she put in ‘Army Ranger’. Page after page showed her everything she could want to know about the Rangers, from how they got their motto on Normandy Beach, to what their mission was today. But no lists of names, no unit information. Nothing available to the general public. She remembered back to meeting Connor and Sing the first time. She hadn’t known she was a Ranger. She just knew.
She tried the hospitals next. Connor said her girl was four—nothing.
She closed the laptop in frustration. There had to be a way. Someone somewhere had to know where her parents were, where her daughter was. Someone could just open a computer and—She flipped open her phone and scrolled through the contacts. The highlight rested on, ‘Yu, John, Det.’ She depressed the call button.
“Detective Yu, Missing Persons. How can I help you?” His voice was calm, even though she could hear his heart race through the phone, and the noise of his department in the background. They would still be dealing with the aftermath of the explosion and putting faces to names. How many people had the zombie king stolen? Fifty? A hundred? She opened her mouth to speak and found the words wouldn’t form. Finally, when she was sure she could speak, she tried again.
“Hi, this is… um, the girl from the hospital,” she said awkwardly, suddenly realizing his line could be monitored. Either by his own department or the Arcanum. She wasn’t sure why but she didn’t want them knowing she was in contact with him.
“Oh,” he said suddenly, his heartbeat spiked and she could almost feel the blood rush to his face, among other places.
“Hi,” he said his voice dropping into low tones, “I didn’t expect you to call.”
“I need your help, nothing urgent but, I need help.” It was all she could think of to say.
“My shift is almost over, what is your address?”
Thirty minutes later he knocked on her door. He had obviously gotten a few good nights of sleep. His clean shave and short cut hair did him justice. His eyes lit up when she opened the door. He had appeared when she needed
an ally, and thankfully she had something in return to give him. It was intimate, and she didn’t want to confuse feeding on him for feelings, but seeing him standing in her door brought all of it front and center.
“Come on in,” she waved him in. He held up a six-pack of beer and a large pizza, “I didn’t know if this was a social call… but my mom always said never show up at a house without an offering.”
She smiled, “Offering accepted, put it on the table,” she said. He moved past her. His physical proximity sent little sparks flying through her stomach. Was it just the feeding? She couldn’t tell.
“I didn’t get to thank you for the other night…whatever you did. I haven’t felt this good in years. It’s like all the guilt and pain of life just,” he wiggled his fingers in the air, “vanished,” he finished with a grin. It was contagious, she couldn’t help but follow suit.
He put the food and beer down on the table and shrugged off his long coat. As he moved, the muscles in his arms and shoulders rippled and she became supremely aware of her own state of dress. Suddenly she found herself wishing she had done something with her hair, makeup, and wasn’t wearing her baggy clothes.
“This is our house, it isn’t much. Um, make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”
She ducked into her room. Her closet was a mess, and she hadn’t been able to replace her favorite outfit that was destroyed by the zombies. She stripped down to her panties and bra, grabbed her brush and went to work on her hair while she gargled mouthwash.
“You mind if I make some coffee,” John’s voice came from the living room.
“Go ahead,” she smiled, that bought her some time. Black slacks and a gray turtleneck that clung generously to her curves were next. Then she went to work on her face. She applied pale pink lipstick with a deft touch, followed by her eyeliner, shadow, and finally her mascara. Her skin wasn’t alabaster, as she had fed less than a week ago, but it was approaching abnormally pale. With how her skin tone shifted she had no choice but to keep to the basics when it came to makeup.
As she finished up, the aroma of coffee wafted through the house. She felt it supremely unfair that she could still smell food, only to have it turn to ash in her mouth.
Blood Sacrifice (Faith of the Fallen Book 2) Page 9
