Cherie, the voice in her head warned. This is no time to get distracted.
Oui! Oui!
She had always liked dark men, though. She found them more enthusiastic than the blond ones—like that anemic poet, Rombouillet. It was different in the north, of course. The Norse were quite strong and vigorous. But among the civilized southern peoples, she preferred dark men.
Feeling her gaze, the man stuffed something in his sock and spun about quickly. He stalked toward her, a shotgun ready, though it was unlikely he could see her clearly with the sun in his eyes and her in dappled shadow.
Ninon was not tall anywhere except in intellect. There she towered—or had until her brain had started to die off. But brains, even great ones, were not much help in certain situations, and there were many men who saw a woman alone and tended to think petite meant easy pickings. That was where they went wrong with her. She didn’t have a lot of weight, but every ounce of it could fight when it had to. As much as she didn’t care for it, there were some situations that benefited from the constructive use of applied violence. That was why she kept the nine-millimeter pistol in the holster in the small of her back. That made for a great equalizer when reason failed and one got stuck in deadly pissing contests with morons.
Innocents found the idea of preemptive violence shocking, but aggression was like a drug—the more you used it, the less it affected your sensibilities. Ninon was no longer a virgin and didn’t flinch from it. She wondered if this man was himself a habitual user, a violence addict. It was impossible to tell. The gun didn’t mean anything either way. Only an insane person would go out alone into the desert and not carry a weapon for protection.
Apparently the man agreed with her, because he carried a twelve-gauge shotgun. It went nicely with the dark sack of rocks he had dropped before starting toward her.
The shotgun would be bad news if he used it. Ninon could probably recover from a single blast, if it wasn’t to the head or heart, but it would hurt like a son-of-a-bitch and delay her for days, and would also waste precious time and energy in healing the wound.
Decision time. Hide or take the ride Fate offered?
She looked about at the available cover. Though she was small, it was smaller. Hiding in the sparse brush wasn’t an option. Merde! She was going to have to take the ride, wherever that led her.
“Hello!” she called, stepping into the sun and waving with an ineffectual finger flutter. She gave the stranger a smile she used only rarely because it caused men’s IQs to lower to dangerous levels. Stupid men and guns were a bad mix. She added quickly in American English: “Have you seen my cat?”
There was a moment of utter shock when the man’s steps faltered and his expression transformed. The widening of his eyes almost made her laugh. He couldn’t have looked more stunned if a clown had reached out and played honk-honk with his penis.
His eyes—a brown that was nearly black, she could see now—traveled the length of her body and then returned to her face. She knew what he saw: pale flesh, skintight jeans, a sheer white blouse that barely contained her breasts, and lots of loose windblown black hair. A rear view might have alarmed him, since it would have shown off more than her jean-clad butt if he looked under the ruffle of her blouse, but from the front she looked like a walking, unarmed wet dream.
His gun lowered and he started laughing. The sound was low, though, as though he were aware at some level that there could still be danger nearby and didn’t want to risk sound carrying beyond the white dunes of the Sunken Region.
“Hullo. I thought you were a hallucination.” He had a slight accent, probably part Highland Scots. The rest was black magic. Language as well as skin tone said he was not one of the proletariat who toiled in the fields—but was he a gentleman?
“Did you say you were looking for your cat?”
“Yes, he ran off after some road runners—thinks he’s a coyote or something.”
A slow blink veiled the man’s beautiful dark eyes and he started to climb toward her. He said, “I’ve seen no kitties out here.” His head tilted down for a moment and he added to himself in a voice she was not meant to hear: “But why not a cat? We’ve everything else.”
Ninon heard him loud and clear, in spite of the whispering wind, but she didn’t say anything, just kept smiling, looking harmless. She wanted to give him complete peace of mind. That was important when the other person carried a shotgun.
“Well now, I don’t suppose that you are a thief or a spy who just happens to be traveling with a cat,” he suggested when she made no more effort to engage in conversation or come any closer. Apparently understanding that a lone female might be alarmed by the gun in his hands, he slung the weapon over his shoulder and climbed the last five feet of slope slowly. He tried to look harmless but didn’t succeed. The small hairs of Ninon’s neck were standing on end.
“Not today,” she said truthfully, making sure not a bit of her French accent came through. She didn’t feel Saint Germain’s unfriendly gaze upon her, but she agreed with this stranger that there was some odd tension in the air. They were in a place haunted by something that liked to watch and listen, and maybe to act. “Were you expecting one?” She gestured at the gun, putting her back to a tree and thrusting her breasts slightly forward. She reached out a hand as though supporting herself against the rough trunk, keeping it near her pistol, though she wondered how effective the weapon would be if she had to use it.
“Expecting?” He laughed. “Not exactly. Let’s just say that I am always alive to the possibility out here. Lots of wild animals, you know.”
Many of them human. Many of them not. She understood.
“And what did you think I had come to steal? Your rocks?” she asked, pointing with her other hand at the rucksack he’d dropped by the pond. It appeared to be filled with wet stone shards.
“Well now, perhaps I was worried that you were after my heart,” he answered easily. “Men have been known to lose them out here.”
Flirtation. She had invented this game and was good at it. He seemed genuinely taken with her, too, but that meant less than nothing. Even a stone-cold killer could enjoy looking at a woman’s breasts and exchanging a few witticisms or sexual innuendos in between cutting people’s throats. Even her throat.
Before Ninon could decide how to respond to his opening gambit, Corazon appeared, stalking toward her with a confident swagger. There were light brown feathers around his mouth. She wanted to kiss him, feathers and all, for providing her with confirmation of her story. Nothing else would have been half as disarming.
“You really were looking for your cat.” He sounded slightly surprised. Actually, he sounded wonderful. His voice carried a sudden caress as he decided she was safe. It raised the tiny hairs on her arms and she prayed he didn’t notice, or if he did, that he thought it was simple attraction, arousal. “It looks like he caught his lunch too. He must be fast.”
“Of course.” She knelt carefully, pretending not to be alarmed when the stranger drew even closer. “Corazon, you bad kitty. Where were you?”
“Corazon?” He sounded amused. His voice was flexible, capable of expressing any and all emotions. She sensed he could be anything she liked. “You do know that he’s a male cat?”
“Oh yes,” she said airily, suppressing an urge to cough. Coughing didn’t help shift the weight from her lungs and it was unattractive. It made men think about tuberculosis instead of kissing. She smiled again, confident now that her cat was there. She had learned to play an American ditz really well. “I just call him that sometimes.”
Tall, Dark, and Handsome appeared fascinated, willing to fall for her conversational sleight of hand. She wanted him distracted so he wouldn’t look closely enough to doubt her contacts, makeup, and hair dye, or any of the other tools she used to dim her unnatural radiance. She was careful with her voice too. Stunning with a quick smile was one thing, seducing with a voice was another. She had been good at both before—able to use her words to assure wh
ole groups of people that they were singularly and collectively the most witty, beautiful, and insightful beings that she had ever known, and that there was nothing in the world she wanted so much as to hear their next insight, poem, song—whatever they offered at her shrine. She was even better at it now. Practice did indeed make perfect, and she’d had centuries to hone the art.
Yet, even with her amazing gifts, she sensed she wasn’t in this man’s league. His voice was inhumanly beautiful. She’d only heard one that even came close, and that man had sold his soul to the Devil to get it.
The voice in her head tsked at her irreligious paranoia, but Ninon didn’t let down her guard. Lucifer, the angel of light, had been beautiful too. That didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. No, she’d relax around this man when pigs fielded an Olympic swim team.
Shadows passed overhead and they both glanced up. Buzzards. Ninon didn’t like them and had to force herself not to frown. It was hard though. If she died out here, the vultures would rush in to pick over her bones. That’s what they did—stole from the dead. That they would see her as potential food made them seem even less attractive than they were.
“Why? I mean, why do you call your cat that?” the man asked, again moving a little closer.
“Because he annoys me.” She flicked another look up at his face and noted twin scars on either cheek right below the bone, the kind that came from a cut with a very sharp knife or a perhaps large needle. A moment later, they were gone.
“Why?” he asked again. His body took on a relaxed pose, an arm resting propped up on a knee that rested on a low boulder, but she could see that his muscles were still coiled. That was probably just the way he came; naturally wary, but she did her best to look like the kind of girl who didn’t know physical from metaphysical. “I mean, how? Chasing birds? Chasing other pussycats?”
She shook her head, both in response and also to clear it.
“He looms. When I’m sleeping. He gets on the pillow and towers over me while he breathes in my face.”
“He looms. I suppose I should step back,” the man suggested. “I seem to be looming too—though hopefully not breathing in your face.”
“Oh no.” She peeped up at him again. “You could tell me your name though.”
Her eyes lowered back to his feet, as though she were modest. The man wore dusty hiking boots and thick socks. But that wasn’t all. The additional item was not standard with most hikers, and wouldn’t have been visible to someone standing, but Ninon, still kneeling could see a blade tucked carelessly into a sheath in his right sock. It was black but not a traditional Scottish sgian dubh. It was carved out of obsidian, and had a short buttonlike handle that fit between the fingers and nestled into the palm. She had seen knives like this hidden in belt buckles, though never made of obsidian. She actually had something similar in her own sock. Her interested was piqued. Thinking back, she’d seen one almost like it in a museum in Mexico City years ago. It had been used in sacrificial rituals.
She looked at his hands. Calloused and dexterous, but covered in tiny nicks. She was betting that in a tight spot he would use the blade effectively. There were benefits to using a knife in certain situations—like a lack of ballistic evidence. They were quiet, too, in the hands of an expert. This insight didn’t make her any happier.
“I’m Miguel Stuart—Doctor Miguel Stuart. Mum was a local girl,” he explained, also doing his best to look harmless and charming. His eyes never dipped to her breasts, though she had left one too many buttons open. She returned the favor, though his bare chest was impressive.
“But Dad wasn’t?” she asked.
“No, he was a geologist from Scotland, and we weren’t around here much when I was young. I spent more than a few years with him on the other side of the ocean. It gave me an accent.”
One that clearly came and went as needed or wanted.
“Cross-pollination produces some unusual things,” she suggested, and then regretted it when his eyebrow rose. That had been a slip. A real ditz wouldn’t know a word like pollination, let alone that it could be crossed. She had to be more careful!
She came to her feet swiftly, but not too swiftly. She had learned long ago to hide how quick her altered reflexes were.
“I’m Seraphina Sandoval—of Spain and California. Mostly California.” She didn’t offer her hand. Touching might be dangerous.
“The pleasure is mine,” he said formally.
She dimpled. “Probably, but we’ll have to see.”
He gave another slow blink. The flirtation was back on. She could feel his sexual energy reach for her through the air.
“What do you call him the rest of the time?” Miguel asked, looking down at the cat, who bathed nonchalantly. He seemed intrigued by the animal’s complete unconcern with his presence. Usually predators were uneasy around one another. Put two dominant males together and they would fight.
“Oh…Soul-sucking Bastard,” she said untruthfully, but earned another surprised laugh. She liked keeping this man off balance in this dance of flirtation.
“Perhaps that is what he is doing when he sits on your pillow at night,” Miguel suggested.
Ninon shuddered. The idea of Corazon as an incubus was unappealing. He’d be entirely too good at the job.
“And why is Doctor Miguel Stuart out here?” she asked after a moment, taking a chance on the question because an innocent person would be curious, especially if she were attracted.
“I’m a researcher for the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration.”
It was her turn to blink. That sounded entirely too respectable an occupation for Miguel Stuart of the ready shotgun and obsidian knife. Also, his hair was far too long for NASA—unless they’d taken up with drug dealers to finance their shuttle program. His words sounded like a lie, or at least only a half-truth.
Still, she couldn’t condemn him for being hesitant about explaining himself completely. She herself had a biographical detail or two that she never mentioned.
“I’m collecting stromatolites,” he continued easily. “Algae gets caught in layers of silt and then compressed into rock. These rocks were around two billion years before the dinosaurs. It’s about as close as we can come to knowing what a planet’s early formation is like.”
She nodded, doing her best to look both interested and yet not quite bright enough to understand and therefore be any threat to his research—if research was truly what he was doing here. She didn’t think it was. She had seen a science show about stromatolites and these stones looked nothing like them.
“I didn’t know anyone was working down here,” she said. “The place looks deserted.”
“There’s no team this time. I’m here unofficially,” Miguel said. “I still have family in the region and I come back periodically to…renew old ties. It’s a sort of busman’s holiday.”
This, she believed. He had old ties like she had old ties, and from his expression he didn’t relish them either.
The wind kicked up suddenly. It had teeth, and was inconsiderate enough to bite at her bare skin. Usually the cold didn’t bother her, but she was getting weaker and every day grew more vulnerable. A raven flew overhead, jeering loudly as it passed. Corazon looked up consideringly, though the creature could easily be half again his size, and he had to be full from lunch.
“Damn birds,” Miguel muttered. “I hate them. In Scotland they are sometimes seen as harbingers of bad luck or even death.”
Ninon laughed and scooped up her cat, holding him in front of her, enjoying the warmth of his muscled body. Ditzes didn’t know about harbingers, and it was high time she left. She nodded.
“We should go before Corazon decides to do something really rash. I don’t think he is aware that he isn’t a puma.”
Miguel nodded. “Perhaps he was in another life. Are you staying nearby?” He asked casually.
Hide or take the ride? Ninon had only a second to make a decision. “I’m at the Hotel Ybarra.”
Miguel nodded again. “I know it. They have a fairly nice bar—if not a nice manager. Perhaps I will see you some evening.”
“I’d like that,” she said, and almost meant it. She backed away carefully, letting him think that she was reluctant to break eye contact. Really, she just didn’t want to risk him seeing her gun before she was back in the shield of agave and cactus along the road.
Miguel Stuart—if that was his real name—might work for the National Aeronautic and Space Administration in some obscure capacity, but she had real doubts that rocks were what had drawn him to Mexico. Nor was he your average man.
He wasn’t like her—not exactly. But he was something that was no longer completely human. Assuming anything that beautiful had ever been human. This was either a very good sign of supernatural activity in the area, or else a very bad one.
Corazon growled and looked up at the sky. Ninon hoped Miguel was wrong about the raven being an omen, but knew he probably wasn’t. After all, Death was never that far away.
It is strange that modesty is the rule for women when what they most value in men is boldness.
—Ninon de Lenclos
Sometimes he disappears for considerable time, then suddenly reappears and lets it be understood that he has been in another world communicating with the dead. Moreover, he prides himself on being able to tame bees and to make snakes listen to music.
—J. van Spesteyn on Comte Saint Germain, Historische Herinneringen
She rode in her carriage by moonlight, the city as peaceful and empty as it ever got near the Place d’Armes. Her driver was black but not a slave. She loved the freedom and spirit of Nouvelle Orleans, but not slavery of the dark people, so her cook and maid and driver were all free. She had even taught her maid to read since the girl had an aptitude, though this was kept secret. Actually, if anyone were to be pitied, it was the Irish who had come to dig the city’s canals and who died by the thousands of yellow fever.
Divine Madness Page 4
