“Jarin indicated the devices are active. So, we eat and leave. We’ve done our bit. Next, we go and check out a couple of the estate’s lots to keep up our farce. To give our neighbors the benefit of the doubt, back at the unit we’ll stay outside as if we’re enjoying the sun, and discuss the pros and cons of two of the lots, as if we’re really interested. Then we’ll dismiss them so we have an obvious reason to return here.”
They ate and left. Outside they both lifted their faces to the sun, soaking it in after the gloom of the café. A buzz came from Xylvar’s personal link. He stopped his chair and grabbed the link, staring at the screen as if his life depended on it.
“Shit, self-delete message. Someone has three un-clanned Eli in a truck heading south to the mud. Or as they said, ‘Three silvers unconscious in truck, heading for the southern mud.’”
“What the hell is the mud?”
Xylvar shook his head and put his link to his head while using the chair’s motor to head for their vehicle. At the driver’s door, he hit the disc to unlock it. “Answer. Answer,” he growled.
Jasmine glanced at a red truck pulling into park. Through the trees in front of the truck was a parked silver car. The color, brand, and model were as common as hairs on a bear, but her gut said it was the car following them earlier.
“Xyl—Todd.” He looked over. Afraid the car was bugged, she nodded her head toward the wooden statue of the moose. “I’d like to see the plaque on that. See who carved it.” His eyes met hers.
“Sure. honey.” The word “honey” sounded strangled, and came a beat too late, but she gave him a bright, sweet smile.
At the statue, they pretended to admire the carver’s skill. Jasmine put her hand on Xylvar’s shoulder and leaned in close. “I think there’s a tracker on our vehicle. Silver car just down the road on far side looks a lot like our earlier follower.”
Xylvar’s link gave a soft hum, and he put it to his ear. “’Bout time. My scans hit a self-deleting message. Got three unwilling Eli in a truck heading south to something the message called the mud.” He moved his chair so he could see the road without appearing as if he was looking. “No, I don’t know what the fuck the mud is. Put your silvery skulls together and try and work it out.” He ended the call with a flick of his thumb. “Plate’s a different number to earlier.”
“Sorry, paranoid.”
The car in question pulled out and did a hard U-turn before taking a left and disappearing. Xylvar glanced at the large windows at the front of the café. “Let’s hit the road.”
11
Chapter Eleven
On a busy road Jasmine didn’t recognize, not far from the Loose Moose, Xylvar pulled into a drive-through vehicle wash.
“The vehicle’s not in the least bit dirty.” What a lousy time to decide to wash it. Some guys were overly vehicle-focused, though she hadn’t guessed Xylvar for the anal type.
He pulled up to the super-high-powered wash, opened his window, pulled out a bank transfer credit card, and slid it through the slot in the machine built into the bright orange metal mannequin designed to look like the creepiest clown ever. Xylvar put the thumb and middle finger of his right hand on the screen that flickered to life, selecting his preferred wash program. The green light flashed, and Xylvar drove onto the dock. He hit a button.
“Brake and idle,” he instructed the auto-drive.
“Why are we washing the car?”
“Want to keep it like new.” He put his finger over her lips when she went to speak. He leaned as close as his back and chair allowed, so she stretched closer. The soft, spiced citrus of his personal products tantalized, the long, straight fall of the hair framing his face fell against her cheek while his warm lips brushed her ear. Shivers of pleasure and startling awareness spiraled down her spine, kick-starting a sudden flame. Didn’t seem to matter the years, what the man did, who he’d become, she reacted inexplicably to him.
Her reaction to him was why she’d been ready to break up with Tony when Xylvar disappeared out of their lives. Because whenever she’d kissed, touched, or made love with Tony, she’d wished it was Xylvar.
Not the way to carry on a committed relationship.
Xylvar’s eyes, hidden behind the contacts, but still mesmerizing and eerie in their beauty and their ability, locked with hers. This close, close enough to count eyelashes, and even through the brown contact lenses, she could see silver waves rolling through his pale irises like an ocean tide on a full moon. “I’m hoping to short-circuit any tracking device.”
She broke eye contact, stared numbly at the cream-colored dash with its bright blue and green lights, and prayed the heat she felt rising stopped well before her face went red.
He shifted, and something told her he’d sniffed her hair. She turned. His pupils enlarged, then a more intense flare of silver sparked behind the contacts. His focus shifted to her mouth.
The unthinkable urge to close that gap and kiss him hit her. She moved, their mouths brushing. A party-sized bag of pleasure warmed her.
Xylvar put his hand on her shoulder. She leaned into it. Her fingers clenched, and he shoved her away to sit bolt upright. Satin silver dust coated his face. The muscles in his arms were ropes of tension. His fingers gripped the steering wheel so hard, Jasmine wondered why it didn’t crumple like last fall’s leaf.
“Don’t do that.” Soft as it came out, the tone of his voice said she’d breached the unbreachable.
Mortification, the self-serving bitch, flamed her skin to an inferno. “Mistaken identity. Your dark hair and jawline remind me of my ex-boyfriend.” She gulped for a breath, hoped her pants didn’t burst into flame. But then no one possessed the dark, hard looks of Xylvar. Or have his oh-my-god masculinity.
Chemistry did not make a man good. Chemistry did not mean love. But chemistry with Xylvar, where his merest touch ignited long-dormant flames of desire, might well poison her for other men.
The swirling cascade of water and suds over the windows, the bright blue scrubbing discs, and, finally, the red polishing strips whirling and drying and buffing the outside of the car surrounded them with noise, while Xylvar sat rigid, still gripping the steering wheel. The silver slash of his scar was stark against the tightness of his skin. “You understand there’s nothing between my legs that works? That my dick’s as useless as my legs.”
She sat back and turned to stare at him. “I hadn’t considered it. There’s more to a man than, as you put it, his dick.”
“Nothing more to me. And I don’t even have that.”
The polishing strips stopped whirling. The moment of silence almost deafening, until the blowers started. Neither spoke while the wash completed. A brush of his finger on the pad of the steering wheel. “Engage auto-drive.” Sunlight burst into the car. Jasmine flinched.
On the road, once the vehicle was safely engaged with the auto-drive airwave signals larger towns and cities had built into their roads, Xylvar pulled out his private link, hit a few buttons, then started to swing it above and then under the dash. He handed Jasmine the link, pointing to the task showing on screen. ‘Scanning battery-charged electro devices.’
She took it and started to swing it around to check her side with care. She undid her safety harness, and aimed it under the seat. “Nothing.” Xylvar took the device and slipped it into his shirt pocket.
They drove back to the unit in silence. Once he’d parked, Xylvar gave the scanning device back to Jasmine. “Check the outside of the car.”
“Yes, sir.” She gave him a sarcasm-soaked salute and scrambled out of the car. The door eased down and clicked into place with a very unsatisfactory snick. Resisting the urge the kick the car, she ran his link up and under the wheel arches, and as far under the car as she could reach, while Xylvar engaged the chair lift. Once his chair wheels hit the driveway, the driver’s door started its hydraulic-powered descent. Jasmine kept checking, and was about to give up when a faint buzz came from near the rear passenger wheel.
Her throa
t tightened. “Well, shit. I think we’ve got one.”
“Run your hand under the arch. Any tiny bump, see if you can pick it off.”
A minute later Jasmine held up a small tar-colored disc the size of her little fingernail.
At his nod, Jasmine dropped it to the concrete of the drive, and stood on it, spinning her foot until nothing remained but brown dust, and a few super-fine silver wires.
She looked up while he eyeballed the house. “Someone’s on to us.” She kept her voice soft, but it still cracked.
“Or think they’re on to us.”
12
Chapter Twelve
And hour later, the whisper of a hydro engine and crunch of tires on the recycled cemeplas drive had Xylvar rolling to the living room window. He flicked the button on the window’s dark gray privacy blind from full block to view out, so it still impeded anyone outside from looking in.
He grunted, then seemed to remember there was someone else in the room. “Normal plate.”
Jasmine turned for a better view outside. “Do you think it’s really them following us?” Or were the two of them so hung up on paranoia they considered everyone an enemy? “They could just be shady characters. Mule dealers, or that new drug, Tox.”
“Not flashing credits like your average dealer.”
“True, and they’re not regular users. No twitching, no scratching at their skin, and they don’t smell like horse manure.”
“They’re up to something, and someone is tracking us. Whether it’s our neighbors or someone else is another thing. Our car being followed could be related to them or not.”
“Excellent. Basically, we have no idea who’s tracking us.”
“No. Could be anyone. We can trust no one.”
Jasmine headed for the cooler and an ice water, passing a glass of it to Xylvar before taking her glass and sitting on a dining chair. Her legs ached, and her head throbbed. She rubbed absently at her shoulders. “Even me and the Katoom clan?”
He spun his chair. “Anyone in Katoom, clan or not, could be a traitor. Someone, somewhere, is passing on information only a few have knowledge of. Keep that in mind when you’re talking to friends and other people you feel you know.” He rolled to the cooler, selected a micro-brew beer and didn’t answer the first part of the question.
“Doesn’t mean it’s someone from Katoom. Clan’s computer systems or someone’s private link could have been hacked.”
“Normally a good possibility, but think about it. Only Kaid’s most trusted inner circle, and Zane’s know about us. Zane and Kaid each advised a select five of their closest associates of this operation. Unless someone randomly hacked into one of the clan’s cyberlinks, or accidentally ran across the information and understood the cryptic messages, then it has to be someone who is either totally in the loop, or at the periphery but with enough information to know something is going down.”
Jasmine ran her hands up and down her arms. Clan should be safe even sacred. “An uncomfortable thought.”
“A deadly one, if they know about us.”
Beer half gone, a line squeezed between his brows, he used his hands to shift his legs, then rubbed his hands down his thighs thoughtfully.
She’d seen him do the same many times. To her he appeared in pain “Is there something wrong?”
“Phantom pain. Happens a lot.”
“But moving them and rubbing them takes the pain away?” Didn’t sound too phantom if it could be soothed.
“Seems to. Docs says it’s in my head. That if I didn’t move them, then the pain will go away, but I’ve tried that, and the pain increases until it’s unbearable.”
“Have you always had it, ever since your accident?”
“Started after they put the nerve stimulator into my head, but of course that was a few days after I was first brought in. They changed the stimulator out twice, but the pains still came and went. They said it’s a pretty normal thing in cases of spinal damage that can’t be repaired.”
It might be, or the surgeons fitted the device incorrectly.
He pulled out his tablet. “I’m going to run some cyber search and facial recognition scans on our friendly neighbors. See who they really are.”
“If they’re part of a larger organization, they’ll have good fake identities, lifestyles in the cyber world, like us. Unless they’re known criminals.”
Didn’t hurt to check, since the nighttime visitors were odd. As were the little peepholes in the front of the house, the tracking device on the car, the listening device in the lock. “You know what? I was thinking you were paranoid, but now I hope you find something on them. At least then we’ll know.”
“Paranoia can keep you alive. Never underrate it.” He popped the top off another beer and took a considering sip while he watched Jasmine pull out her link.
“You plan on doing more digging?”
“I have words now, so I might be able to pull a few more messages. Loose Moose. Southern mud. With three Eli in a truck headed towards who knows what nightmare, and six Crea still missing, and probably many more, I have to try.”
“Assume they’re separate acts of hostility. Not linked.”
“I will. If they don’t kill them straight up, is there any reason to kidnap Crea and Eli, other than for their metal?” She couldn’t think of one, but sometimes a fresh, devious mind could hit on a new horror.
“Nothing more than the worth of any other human species. Slavery and rape come to mind but like all rebellions, uprisings, and other swells of idiocy, the Pures need recruits, armory, and—most of all—credits. And there they are, Crea producers of gold, and Eli, the less valuable but still expensive silver. And when you think about it, the mining is relatively simple, and cheap.”
“Yeah, and if they do it the right way, the ones who’ve been kidnapped can be milked for decades, as long as they’re fed enough to keep them regenerating blood and metal. For the rest of their lives.” Her stomach did a roll of horror.
#
Jasmine had been on her link for several hours, her usually perfect posture sagging in to an exhausted S shape. Xylvar expelled a for fuck’s sake breath. Why did he notice? Noticing something like that, or giving a shit, weren’t natural to him. Whole thing, being trapped with Jaz, feeling what he did for her still, pissed him off.
Not the way their earlier spontaneous kiss pissed him off. That blew his mind, made his chest ache for things long lost.
She suddenly jerked up. “I think I have something. Truck, white, blue stripe. The words are joined like a description.” Jasmine sat back against the dining chair and rubbed her forehead. “I’m sorry it’s not more.”
“Better than we had a minute ago.” Xylvar grabbed his link and hit contact two. “Rooster. Jasmine came up with something I think may describe the truck that transported some on the kidnapped Crea and Eli . A white truck and somewhere on it there could be a blue stripe.” He finished the conversation and disconnected.
“I also saw the words water, hot, and underground. Sorry I got so little. I’ll try again later, after I’ve eaten.” She rubbed the back of her neck, then her temples.
Xylvar pulled open a drawer and fished out a blue bottle of gel tablets. Dug out two then put them on the table beside Jasmine’s glass of water. “For the headache.”
Jasmine looked at the tablets with surprise. “Thanks.”
She put her link down, and took the tablets, then lifted her arms behind her back and arched backward into a hard stretch. The loose fabric of the white western-style shirt she’d worn to the café pulled tight. Damn, he’d love to see those breasts in the flesh, and not in a stupid dream.
On a hard swallow, Xylvar finished his second beer, wheeled for the glass recycler, and rolled in the bottle. The titanium balls quickly got to work to crush the glass as he fought the urge to grab another beer and another. Truth was, drowning his hungers in alcohol hadn’t worked to get Jaz out of his brain or heart last time she was in his life…sure wasn’t going t
o help this time. Besides, shared futures weren’t part of the crappy hand of cards he’d been dealt.
No point in thinking, let alone wishing for such delusions. Even if by some miracle they got to try, there’d be nothing but disappointment on both sides.
Focus on the task, earn the credits for the surgery. That was key. Then, if it turned out he could walk again, maybe one day he’d bed a female again, too. It just wouldn’t be Jaz. “The key words are—water, hot, and underground. Do you think those are related or separate?”
“That’s the catch with nothing more than a handful of words that may or may not really be related. Deciphering their possible context is one of the hardest aspects. Hot water, or water and hot, could mean a million things. Baths, showers, spas, kettles, coffee, tea, beaches—you get the idea. But underground came up twice. Which should mean it’s somehow related in two different ways.”
“And we have to figure out what it’s related to.”
“What usually happens after I play around with the words is I get a feeling for a phrase or two, and that’s where I focus.”
“Intuition? Or do you have a little sympath in you?”
“The smallest amount. My cousin who died in a vehicle accident was a full sympath. But the FBPI tested my skill set, but my abilities didn’t hit a viable scale for their use.”
“Eat and rest. I’m truck-hunting.” Xylvar keyed in a search. Pretending not to notice Jasmine eat an apple. Then she selected a banana. She peeled it so the peel hung in four strips from the base of the fruit. She slipped the creamy smooth, curved fruit between her dark, moist lips.
Flames of Hope Page 9
