by Jaime Rush
That he had grown out his brown hair wasn't a big deal, but he was not as tall. Both his facial structure and body mass was different. This time he opted for a look that blended in better, though women often gave him admiring looks—and feelings. The only woman who had captured his fascination was Suza. He felt something that was likely grief at the hopelessness of the situation. “I must go now, as she's in a tense situation. However, I will need to 'port to you and borrow your phone, as my brother cannot have the same number as I.”
“Sure—”
Pope stood in Petra and Cheveyo's kitchen, his hand over his eyes. “Is it safe to look?” Once he'd come in without warning and found them in a most interesting position. He'd learned quickly to alert them before popping in.
“I'm alone. Petra's with Amy, getting ready for the baby shower.” Cheveyo handed him the phone. “Which you're going to miss, by the way.”
“Tell Amy I'm sorry, but I will see her soon. Here, use my phone.”
He focused on Suza, her sunny energy that outshined the heartache she'd suffered in life. Her black hair with bangs that framed eyes the color of a storm-tossed night. The memory he visited often of her posed in her leopard underpretties. It stirred him in places he had never felt a stirring in.
In the next instant, he stood behind her truck. If he 'ported to an unknown location, he activated his visual shield in case anyone happened to be watching. People wandered along the street off of which Suza had parked. He walked around the back of the building that housed many shops and then dropped his shield.
He always felt a measure of relief when he successfully 'ported. When he'd been court-martialed for not revealing the information his government knew he was concealing—the existence of the Offspring—he was psychically handcuffed, his abilities stripped. They were slowly coming back but weren't reliable.
An odd buzzing energy thrummed through his being. Something was definitely wrong here. His body strained to run forward, put Suza in his sights. He called the number he had memorized, wanting to call it many more times than he allowed himself. “Suza, this is Cassius. Please tell me where you are.”
“You're here already?”
“I drove very fast.”
She gave him the street, and he hung up. He would question Suza and then send her back to Flag while he investigated. He didn't see her inside the truck, which worried him. She was a tall woman; surely her head would exceed the height of the headrest. He came up on the driver's side and found her slouched in her seat nervously twisting the silver and turquoise rings she wore on her long, elegant fingers. The sight of her, safe and beautiful, filled his chest with a most strange sensation.
She jerked around to face him, then rolled down her window a few inches. “And you are?”
Smart woman. He had to hide his smile. “Cassius.”
She glanced at her oversized silver watch. “Damn, you were nearby.” The odd coincidence she knew that to be was clear on her expression.
She stepped out, in a tight beige shirt that molded to the 'great mounds of joy', as Cheveyo had jokingly referred to them. The top hinted at her cleavage, clinging to her long torso, with fringe at the waist. He pulled his attention up before he strayed farther down her tight jeans.
“Nice to meet you.” He could feel her disappointment.
She took his outstretched hand, squeezing it firmly. She had the hands of a woman who used them, not rough but calloused. “Same here. You and Pope don't look a smidgen alike.” She leaned close, studying his eyes. “Except for the center of your eyes. You've got that freaky-cool violet color, too.” She glanced down where Pope was still holding her hand and tugged hers free. “Did Pope tell you what's been going on?”
“A bit. Walk with me and fill me in.”
She'd told him most of it, but he wanted to hear it again. As she talked, he watched her, taking in her hand movements, the jingle of her silver bracelets, the grace of her fingers. He figured her to be in her early thirties, more by her world-weariness than anything physical. Her skin was light, though her dark straight hair hinted of her Native American heritage.
“Why are you looking at me like that?' she asked, jarring him out of his observation. “You think I'm crazy, don't you?”
“No. You're right about something being off here. I was imagining what you must have gone through, watching your friend rob a bank.”
She was clearly used to people being skeptical of her, or perhaps her gift. Of course, he of all people believed in the ability to pick up others' feelings.
Her defensive posture relaxed. “It was horrible. Carlene has the same evil energy the other people around here do.”
“So it appeared that your friend and the other two robbers were working with this man. Or perhaps he had control over them.”
She snapped her fingers. “Exactly! You hit the nail on the head.”
“With a hammer,” he added, that being one of the phrases with which he was familiar.
They had reached the area of town where a crowd watched the police as they interviewed witnesses. Many of the spectators did have blank gazes, while others seemed to be spoiling for a fight, nudging their neighbors out of the way behind the crime scene tape. And they harbored that dark energy he too had sensed in Magnus, though it wasn't as strong. The emotions he did pick up were warped, like a song out of tune.
He turned to Suza, taken aback again by her beauty, even as her expression bore her concern. “Tell me about the man your friend gave the money to. Did he have the same dark energy?”
“You really do believe me.” Surprise lit her face. “No, he had the sort of buzzing energy I sense in Cheveyo. Pope. And you.”
Callorian energy.
She tilted her head. “Can I ask what it is you and Pope do?”
“You may.”
She seemed to wait for more, then asked, “What do you do, and why were you here in town?”
“I cannot answer that. It's confidential.”
She blew out a breath, and he sensed what he thought was frustration, something he had perceived in Petra more than once. “You said I could ask!”
“Of course you may ask.”
She just stared at him, as though he were an odd specimen. “Poland must be a strange world.”
“It is, indeed.” Being from Poland was his answer to explain why he didn't understand American nuances. Other things were harder to explain.
She started to say something else but her eyes widened as something behind him caught her attention. “That's him!” she whispered.
Pope turned his head slightly so he wasn't obvious. The blond man looked familiar; someone involved in the government in his dimension. Copeland, he thought his name was. He was observing from a distance while he talked on the phone.
Pope leaned closer to Suza, inhaling the scent of perfume and her own scent. “I need you to get closer to him, see if you can hear his conversation.”
“Me? Why me? That guy gives me the willies.”
He couldn't tell her that though Copeland wouldn't recognize him, he would know he was Callorian by his vibration. “His name is Copeland, and he's an enemy. There is a chance he will recognize me. He has no reason to harm you. Just be subtle in your eavesdropping.”
“Subtle, I'm not,” she murmured but shored her shoulders and did an admirable job of pretending to window shop as she moved closer.
Humans here were preoccupied with each other's rear ends, which they referred to as asses. Pope found that odd because asses were also donkeys as well as a derogatory term. He'd understood none of it until he watched Suza's ass sway with her gait. That it was clad in tight, faded denim only accented her curves. Despite the many hits on her self-esteem, she held herself with confidence.
He forced his gaze to Copeland. The conversation seemed tense. Then he looked at the phone's screen before returning to the call. He assessed Suza and then dismissed her. Pope soon saw why; she'd affected the same blank look as those who were infected. Amazing woman.
<
br /> She wandered past Copeland, down two more storefronts, and came back again. He headed down the length of the store and around the corner.
“Nicely done,” Pope said when she returned.
“Maybe I'll become a spy. Any job openings in whatever organization you and Pope work for?”
“None, sorry.” Nice try.
She swiped at her bangs. “I didn't hear any of the first convo other than him saying, 'I have to go. Torus is calling.”
He'd just figured out what 'convo' meant when the name struck him. “Torus? You're sure?”
“Yes, like the bull. He told Torus the natives were getting restless, that there had been a robbery, though he failed to mention he was behind it. They talked about the earthquake tremors getting more frequent, which is something my friend told me. He said, 'Fine, I'll meet him here in an hour and a half. Is there some reason you have to check for yourself? Don't you trust me?' Then his face got all serious at whatever the person on the other end said, and he ended the call.”
Pope rubbed his mouth as he considered what this meant. Torus was part of a team dispatched here years ago, ostensibly to study the energy here. The Callorian government hadn't revealed to the general public that their energy cache, buried deep in the ground, was dwindling.
What he did know was that this was bigger than a bank robbery. “Thank you for your help. I suggest you return to Flag and stay away from here for the time being. I will apprise you of—”
“Uh uh.”
He raised an eyebrow, something he'd seen the guys do when their women said something counter to their directives. Which was often. “Pardon?”
“My friend is caught up in whatever's going on here. I'm the one who called you—well Pope, but still, the only reason you're here is because of me. You're not shutting me out.”
Pope moved closer to her, bending his head so that his mouth was close to her ear. “Things are going to get very dangerous.”
Her warm breath washed over his jaw when she said, “Are you talking terrorism?”
“Yes. I know Pope cares a great deal about you. He would not want you to be exposed to danger.”
“If Pope cared that much, he'd have come here himself. He would have come to visit in the six months since we met. As it stands, we are phone buddies and nothing else, which entitles him to no opinion when it comes to my life.”
Pope recognized the hurt feelings. Petra had felt the same when she didn't know Cheveyo's dangerous work was what kept him out of her life. Pope had hoped keeping a connection via phone would be a nice compromise. It wasn't, not for him and obviously not for her either.
“So we need to be back here in an hour and a half,” she continued.
“I cannot let you get involved in this, Suza. It's beyond anything you can comprehend.”
She paused, tilting her head. “You said my name the way Pope does. He draws out the 'u'. I suppose you got it from him.”
“Did you not hear what else I said?”
She patted his shoulder, the feeling rocketing through him. “I suggest we grab a bite while we can. I'll bet the restaurants have lots of empty tables now. Let's just not go to The Purple Fox. I have no desire for tofu nuggets.”
She waltzed off, leaving him to follow. Which was exactly what he did.
CHAPTER 9
“You're an idiot.”
Both Magnus and Erica paused in their futile attempts to break out of their cuffs at Lanna's harsh statement coming through the vent.
“What happened?”
Not Copeland's voice. Erica stiffened. Nester, the brother. She saw flashes of him in her mind, holding Graham's heart, then looking at her. More. She shuddered.
“You were zapped,” Lanna said. “Probably by the woman who was with the man whose heart you ripped out. I would have let you die, but your brother insisted on saving you. Well, guess what? Copeland orchestrated the robberies without us. Which just shows him that he doesn't need us. So we miss out because of your damned addiction to Darkness, and he's going to rub his competence in our faces.”
Erica and Magnus exchanged glances, and she could see the same thought crossing his face: Lanna hadn't mentioned that the woman was in their basement.
Nester said, “Why didn't he wait? He knew I'd wake before long.”
“We've got one week to get as much money as we can and hightail it out of Arizona before what's in that tunnel blows this whole area to kingdom come. There are too many things that can go wrong, including the others finding out what we're up to and forcing us back to Surfacia. Think about having to go back to that world where we're so controlled we can't even express emotion. Even Copeland, who can't stand humanity here, hates the rigidness over there even more. And who knows what kind of punishment they'd slap us with. You have to stay away from that leak, because it's making you crazy. Reckless. When it's all over, you can go your own way and rip out people's hearts all you want.”
Erica's mouth dropped open. The cold bitch was giving him permission!
A phone rang, but the conversation was too muted to hear.
Magnus leaned closer and whispered, “It's a lot more than bank robberies.”
Erica nodded, the implications astounding. There were others, more than just these three. There would be a massive explosion, and people would die. Not to mention Nester's future victims. “We can't let that happen.”
“I'm glad to see that something's given you the resolve to fight.”
She rattled her cuff. “Hope's a tenuous thing when you're helpless.”
Magnus, still leaning very close to her, seemed to take note of the emotion that had leaked into her words. “Is that something you know well?”
She turned away, searching the basement. “That door over there.” She nodded toward a steel door with a lock that made her think of a submarine. “Maybe that goes to the tunnel she mentioned.” Her eyes widened. “That means it's under us.”
“On the upside, we probably won't be alive by then.”
“Now who's sounding hopeless?” But he was right. Because Nester was up there, and soon he would be down here. She was sure of that.
Lanna said, “Copeland said the town's in chaos in the aftermath.”
“And I missed it,” Nester said with a little boy's whine.
“He's on his way back with the money, but he has to go back to town. While he was on the phone with me, Torus called. He's sending Yurek to see what's happening here. Which means Torus doesn't trust us to report back.”
Nester's laugh was gravelly and raw. “As well he shouldn't.”
“This is all your fault. They probably heard about the 'Heart Ripper'. They're getting suspicious because you can't control yourself. You're going to blow everything for us.”
“If you held Darkness, Lanna, you would understand needing the intoxicating power of the energy inside you.”
Erica looked at Magnus, who shook his head. “It's an energy, yes, but not like that, at least for me. He's drawing it in directly.”
She heard a sniffing noise, then Nester's voice: “Someone's here. Someone with Darkness.”
“No, no one's—”
Footsteps pounded across the wooden floor that served as their ceiling, and their voices faded. A minute later, the door at the top of the stairs opened. Nester flew down the steps. His nostrils flared as he took them in.
He pointed at her. “She's the one who zapped me.” He turned to Lanna. “Why didn't you tell me?”
“I don't want you to go nuts.”
He swung back to Magnus. “But the Darkness is his.” He frowned. “He wasn't with her. I would have sensed him.”
Nester slammed against the bars, his fingers curling around them. If it weren't for the crazy light in his eyes, Erica might have thought him ordinary, a goofy guy with a too-large mouth and bushy eyebrows. She knew better.
“You put them in my cage. How nice.” He ran his tongue up the bar. “I want her. I'm going to take her, and while she climaxes I'll rip out her heart.
Doesn't that sound romantic?” That he directed to Erica, and fear washed through her at the thought of either one. Nester leered at Lanna. “Do they do that in those books you read?”
She sounded so droll when she said, “No, generally both parties are alive after the climax. It's more fun that way.”
Nester didn't seem to care about the conventions of erotic romance. His brown eyes pierced Erica's. “You shot me. You're one of us.”
“Not exactly,” Lanna said, stepping up beside him. “They both carry Callorian essence. As Torus found out recently, some of our people did the naughty with the humans here and produced offspring. I believe these two are the result of that.”
Nester took them in, his hand flexing. “Two of them. Interesting.”
“He's mine.”
“Yours? Does Copeland know about this?”
“Hands off. I'm sure you can have her, but wait until he returns.”
Magnus stiffened at those words even more than at Lanna's earlier assertion. He was protective, probably an innate thing.
Nester chuckled. “Maybe you do understand needing the intoxicating energy of something. For you, it's lust.”
A door closed upstairs. Lanna snapped to attention, and for a moment Erica actually felt sorry for her. She was obviously dominated and abused by her husband.
“Nester found our guests!” Lanna called up the stairs. “We're down in the basement.”
There was some shuffling, and Erica hoped they didn't realize how clearly sounds traveled through the vent. Hadn't Nester noticed when he was kept down here or was he too mad with Darkness?
Suddenly the whole place shook, sending her stumbling and making the cuff pull tight against her wrist. Lanna and Nester grabbed onto the bars to keep from falling. Magnus pushed against the wall, his hands flat to steady him. The shaking went on for twenty seconds.
