Dark Sins and Desert Sands
Page 6
“I don’t know who gave evidence against you. I don’t remember.”
“Maybe you don’t want to remember,” he snapped.
She shrank away as if she thought he might strike her, or ravish her, or worse. Though it scalded his tongue to comfort her, he found himself saying, “Look, you don’t have to be afraid that I’m going to…take advantage of you.”
Her green eyes looked haunted and lost. “Maybe I’m afraid I want you to.”
What kind of game was she playing with him now? It was like a matador snapping a red cape in front of a wounded bull. Heat seared through his body and tinted his vision with scarlet need. It’d been one thing to meet the alluring lioness in her mindscape, the one who tempted him with her blatant sensuality. But to see the confusion of the buttoned-up woman in front of him was an entirely new kind of torment. One that dizzied him.
“You’re bleeding again,” Layla said softly as Ray swayed on his feet.
He’d obviously used his powers too many times in the past few days. It was all catching up with him. There was never a time when he hadn’t experienced pain and blood in the aftermath, but Layla was harder to control than anyone he’d encountered before. Keeping her here with him was taxing him beyond endurance.
“You should let me go, Ray,” she said softly.
“I didn’t just snatch you off the street for my own reasons, okay? You’re being followed.”
He could see that she didn’t believe him. “Those men that you yanked me away from, they looked like federal agents. Which makes me think they aren’t after me. They’re after you.”
Ray shook his head, hand coming to rest on the back of his neck. His control over her was fraying. “No, Doc. I’m telling you, they were watching you.”
“Well, I’m not afraid of government officials.”
“Goddammit, Layla! People with badges aren’t always the good guys. Do you think that with skin like yours, with a last name like yours, that professional courtesy is going to save you if they’ve decided you’re a threat to national security? Did the fact that I fought for my country matter a damn when I was being tortured?”
Suddenly, he was breathing faster. The world seemed to narrow into some dark tunnel, and if she gave any answer to his question, he didn’t hear it.
Layla watched him collapse. He toppled like some felled animal at sacrifice. He fell hard, his head bouncing when it struck the floor, his mouth going lax. Instinctively, Layla rushed to his side, stooping to feel for a pulse. She found one, but he didn’t respond when she said his name.
What was wrong with him? She remembered that he’d suffered a nosebleed the first time she saw him in her office. He was bleeding from the nose again now. Maybe he was suffering from high blood pressure or some far more serious ailment.
She should call an ambulance. No. He’d kidnapped her. She should call the police. But if she did, it was all going to come out. All of it. They’d find out that she’d been hiding her amnesia for two years, and no one would believe her when she told them about the mental powers that Rayhan Stavrakis had exerted over her. They’d think that she’d gone crazy.
Maybe she had.
This was her chance to escape, but she couldn’t just leave him here bleeding on the floor. She pushed on his shoulder, trying to roll him over. He was brawny, heavy, hard to move. She managed to angle his mouth toward the ground so that he wouldn’t choke on his own tongue but she didn’t know what else to do. She had a doctorate in psychology; she wasn’t a medical doctor.
But Nate Jaffe was.
Layla fumbled for her cell phone in her purse and dialed. After five rings it went to voice mail. Why wouldn’t he pick up? Okay, he was obviously still smarting from their breakup. She’d just have to go get him. Nate’s apartment wasn’t far from here and her captor didn’t look like he was going to regain consciousness anytime soon, so Layla bolted for the door. If there really were other men out there following her, then she’d just have to risk it.
Chapter 5
A barren woman with skin cracked and dry, still enchants men though none know why.
Though Seth was a desert god, he hated the Mojave. Not just because it was a New World desert, far and remote from his own Egyptian home. He also hated the Mojave because as a war god, he believed that a desert should devour. A desert should destroy.
A desert shouldn’t give birth to a neon monstrosity like Las Vegas.
The city was like no proper desert metropolis of old. It had no citadel; it sent no chariots into the sands to conquer. It didn’t join with the sand and sun and powerful ring of mountains. Instead the Vegas architecture was a blend of archaic myth with modern excess—an adult fantasy-scape at the very edge of reality, where magic blurred with the mundane. With its garish lights and glitter, the city beckoned visitors and residents to worship the myriad relics of man’s gloried past. It became a fertile oasis for washed-up immortals. And why not? Where else but Vegas could deities walk comfortably amongst the mortals without fear of discovery? Here a primitive goddess of dancing could easily take on the guise of a showgirl. Where else but Vegas could a trickster god hide in plain sight, running a casino? Where else could a god of revelry gorge himself in an actual bacchanalia, but at Caesar’s Palace?
This is what made Las Vegas the singular, perfect refuge for the old immortals.
Except for Seth. He’d never make his home here. He still had his pride. He had his powers too—some of them anyway—and there were still wars for him to feed upon. He still enjoyed the look in the eyes of men as he parched their tongues and stole the breath from them, leaving them to gasp, choking on their dry mortality.
Crouching by the road where it met the desert, the once mighty war god let sand slip through his hands. It felt like the hair of the woman who belonged to him. It felt like the silken sheets she used to lay upon in their cold, cold bed. He had only come here for Layla, and she had already betrayed him. Again.
Layla knocked on Nate Jaffe’s door. He didn’t answer. She rang the bell. She couldn’t blame him for not wanting to talk to her right now, but this wasn’t about her. “Nate!”
She rang the bell again and knocked at the same time. Then Layla remembered that he kept an extra key under the mat. She’d never used it when they were together, but while Rayhan Stavrakis lay bleeding, now wasn’t the time to worry about emotional boundaries. What’s more, the door wasn’t even locked….
The apartment was dark and Layla felt foolish. Ridiculous. Maybe he wasn’t home.
A sliver of light cut across the floor from under his bedroom door. “Nate, I’m really sorry about tonight, about storming into your apartment, about everything, but—”
Her words cut off as she swung open the bedroom door and saw the swaying shadow pass over her feet. A moment later, she realized that she was staring at a dead body.
This time Layla did call the police.
Now she sat in Nate Jaffe’s kitchen wrapped in a blanket because she couldn’t stop shivering. Yellow crime-scene tape cordoned off the bedroom but forensics were on-site. They’d offered to call a grief counselor, but Layla asked them to call Isabel instead. Her assistant was the closest thing that she had to an actual friend.
While she waited, the police officer sat beside her, a notebook in hand. “Dr. Bahset, can you tell us why you let yourself into the apartment tonight?”
“I already told you,” Layla whispered.
“Ma’am, you said that a guy with mind control powers abducted you, then passed out, and you were coming to get him help. Is that really the story you’re sticking with?”
“Dude, she’s in shock,” one of the younger officers said.
Fine. Let them think she was in shock. She probably was. But that didn’t mean Ray Stavrakis didn’t need help. She’d already let one man die tonight. She wasn’t going to sit idly by while another suffered. “You have to listen to me,” Layla insisted. “Send paramedics to room 513 at the Golden Calf. You’ll find an unconscious man, bleeding
from the nose.”
“We already sent an ambulance over there,” the officer said, slapping his notebook shut in frustration. “There’s nobody in that room and it’s registered to an elderly gentleman.”
Layla put her face in her hands. Maybe she’d imagined everything. Maybe she’d had a complete breakdown. That was the joke about mental health professionals, wasn’t it? That they were the real crazies of society.
“Looks like suicide,” someone said, coming out of Nate Jaffe’s bedroom, and Layla swallowed the anguished sound in her throat. That he was dead was horrifying enough, but that he might have killed himself was unspeakably so.
She’d seen him hanging there in his closet at the end of a rope, his eyes bulging and his face discolored. She’d never be able to shake the image of his arms so limp at his sides, gently swaying with the rest of his body. If she could have burst into tears at the memory of it, she would have. Grief and guilt lashed violently against her insides, but no tears would come.
She hadn’t loved Nate Jaffe, but he’d been good to her. He’d been gentle and patient. What’s more, he’d been a good therapist. He counseled people who were unwell and made them whole again. And yet, no one had helped him. She certainly hadn’t. She hadn’t seen a single clue that he was capable of this. What kind of therapist did that make her? What kind of person did that make her?
“We just want to know what kind of frame of mind he was in,” the police officer was saying. “Did you quarrel at dinner?”
Layla groaned, not even wanting to speak the words. “We ended our relationship.”
And he’d seemed hurt, yes. But enough to take his own life?
Sitting in the passenger seat of Isabel’s car, Layla watched the city skyline pass by in a neon blur. For two years now, she’d perfected the ruse that she was a competent psychologist. The cold truth was that she was a fraud. How could she help patients when she hadn’t even been able to help the man who shared her bed? When she couldn’t even help herself?
Fingering the sixpence coin at the end of its chain, Layla took a deep breath. “Isabel, I have something to tell you, and it’s important. It’s just really hard for me to say.”
“¿Por qué? What could you say that would shock me?”
Oh, after tonight, Layla could imagine a thing or two that would surprise even Isabel. But the words of her confession stalled on her tongue. Isabel was the only friend she had and Layla was fairly certain they wouldn’t be friends anymore once she told the truth. Nonetheless, the truth was what Isabel deserved. “Isabel, I don’t have any memories of my life before I came to Las Vegas. I woke up in a car in the desert with this coin in my hand…”
Isabel gave it a glance, then her eyes went back to the road.
“I also had my wallet, a checkbook and a few boxes of my belongings. The diplomas and certificates I found told me that I was a psychologist, and as it turned out, I had enough money in the bank to open a practice, but I don’t know who I am.”
“You just don’t know who you were,” Isabel said quietly, without any show of surprise. “There’s a difference.”
Layla felt herself blink. “You knew?”
“Do you think you could’ve pretended without me?” Isabel asked.
“But why? Why would you help me to pretend that everything was fine?”
“What harm were you doing to anyone?”
Layla squeezed her eyes shut. She felt certain that the life she’d led here in Vegas was a better one than she’d been living before, but now her past was coming back to haunt her. “The stranger who came to the office the other day. He’s a man from my past. He’s stalking me. He’s left threatening messages in the office, and tonight he grabbed me off the street and…” Did she dare tell Isabel what she’d told the police about Ray’s abilities to control her? They hadn’t believed her and she couldn’t bear to hear Isabel laugh at her. “The point is, I’m no good to my patients like this. I need to find them new therapists and make sure that they’re cared for. Then I have to close down the practice.”
Isabel looked dismayed.
Layla rushed to add, “I realize this puts you in a bad spot, but I’ll have a generous severance package for you and a glowing recommendation.” After all, Layla had money—lots of it—and she’d make sure that Isabel wasn’t out of a job for long.
“But you love what you do, no? It’s your calling. You were becoming your own woman.”
Becoming was a strange word. One that felt as wet and salty and unfinished as the tears Layla couldn’t cry. Maybe Isabel was right, but she couldn’t go on like this.
“You were like a butterfly just coming out of her cocoon,” Isabel continued. “You were just starting to find yourself….”
Maybe so, but Rayhan Stavrakis had found her first. Now everything had changed. “Isabel, I just need a few days to get everything in order. I’m going to attend Dr. Jaffe’s funeral. Then I think I’ll need to check myself into a facility for evaluation, and maybe I can get my memories back.”
“Lo siento,” Isabel said softly. “I’m sorry. If that’s what you need to do, I’ll help you, but be sure you want to remember…”
That night, Layla was afraid to sleep. Afraid that she’d dream of the way she’d found Nate’s body hanging in his closet. Even more afraid that Ray would enter her mind, and that this time, he’d leave more than her headboard in shreds.
Chapter 6
It screams with no voice, and when it ends we rejoice.
Pain. Ray was holed up in his motel-room-by-the-hour with a bottle of bourbon, a handful of aspirin and a crushing headache. He’d managed to slip out of the hotel room before the cops showed up, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if they broke down his door any minute now. Ray swallowed the pills down with a big swig of liquor in the vain hope that it would at least take some of the edge off the agony.
“Thanks for following Layla to the Luxor,” Ray said to Missy. “Now get the hell out of here.”
“It’s Layla now, is it?” The teenaged hooker whistled. “Do you really think you should be taking the booze and the pills together? Maybe you should stop using your powers so much. It’s like, you know, maybe you’re burning your brain out.”
Maybe. Or maybe Layla was killing him. It wasn’t just that her mind was different than anyone else’s. It was that controlling her was a struggle every time…as if she had powers of her own. “I’ve got no choice,” Ray decided. “She’s the only one who can help me clear my name.”
Missy shrugged. “Did you ever think about maybe just taking her to lunch and asking her some questions like a normal person would?” He shot Missy a look and it actually shut her up for at least one whole minute before she added, “You still need me to spy on her?”
It’d probably be smarter for him to get out of town, but now that Layla had called the police, time was running out. He’d try to get to her, at least one more time. “Yeah. Go to her office. Make an appointment or whatever. She counsels troubled youth, and you definitely fit the bill.”
“You’re a real ass, Ray,” Missy said, but he knew she’d do what he asked.
The war god found the atmosphere of Layla’s office to be utterly detestable. The sterility of the place was marred by burning candles and vibrant pots of flowers. As water bubbled over a faux rock garden, the war god tried not to scowl. Seth couldn’t abide the shabby-looking young man with paint on his fingers sitting in the waiting room next to a girl who looked like a streetwalker. It didn’t better his mood to see that Layla’s choice in associates hadn’t improved.
As the two teenagers flirted with one another in the waiting room, Seth furtively glanced down at the folders on the receptionist’s desk, looking for names. Carson Tremblay. Artemisia Sloan. No one he should know or care about. Instead, he centered his attention on the receptionist, whose lush curves annoyed him. The sign on her desk said that her name was Isabel.
Her pupils widened as if she took pleasure in just the sight of him. “I was just gonn
a tell the kids over there,” she said. “Dr. Bahset isn’t seeing patients today. She’s having a rough week.”
“I’m afraid it’s about to get rougher,” the god said, flipping open his wallet. “I’m Seth Carey. I work for the U.S. government.”
“¡Qué interesante!” Isabel smirked, standing up to get a look at his identification. “Scorpion Group? Like Navy SEALS?”
As she drew close, Seth was disturbed by the scent of her, so feminine and fertile. He was even more disturbed that he’d come here himself, in his mortal guise. Normally, he had minions to do these kinds of things, but this matter with Layla was very personal. “Scorpion Group is a defense contracting firm. We work in counterterrorism alongside the Department of Homeland Security.”
Isabel looked less impressed than she ought to have been. When she brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes, a red bracelet fluttered down to her elbow like a butterfly in flight. He noticed that her blouse was patterned like snakeskin, and fell open to expose the tops of her breasts. He shouldn’t have noticed either of these things, but there was something potent about her. Something powerful. Something not entirely…mortal.
He knew most of the old gods, but Isabel was a stranger to him. Could it be? Had Layla somehow acquired herself a divine companion? Shaking off his curiosity, he assured himself that it was of no consequence. Las Vegas was filled with cast-off deities of bygone eras; he ought not ascribe too much significance to Isabel, so he continued the ruse. “Dr. Bahset may be in danger, ma’am. That’s why I’m here. It’s important that I speak with her.”
“Maybe you can come back mañana,” Isabel said, leaning provocatively across the desk to reach her calendar, briefly exposing her belly. “Let me write your name on her schedule.”
Again, her sensuality shouldn’t have caught his attention. She had some powerful magic indeed if she could make anything stir inside him at all. This intrigued him because most of the old gods had lost all their powers altogether. Even the once great Osiris now lived amongst the mortals as a funeral director and Horus had become an ordinary airplane pilot. Unfortunately, Seth couldn’t even take pleasure in seeing his old rivals reduced to such circumstances; he feared becoming like them. It was bad enough that he’d been forgotten, but as long as wars were fought he still had power. There was just no one left to appreciate it anymore, no challenges for him, which was why he wanted his minion back….