by Aja James
But the desktop contained no personal information. No files, no pictures. The only program that got any use was the email shortcut. And the only emails he received and sent were to one Grace Darling.
Who apparently was a patient of his. And when a new email came from her a few nights ago, he’d immediately replied as if he’d known what he was doing.
Apparently, he was a psychiatrist.
Hence, his current scoping out of the psychiatry office that was only a few blocks away from his apartment.
But it gave him no further clues to his identity either, other than the fact that his first name began with E, as stated on the business card he found in a drawer of the office desk.
So what was he? Edward? Edison? Earl? Ethan?
No one seemed to know. Not the concierge, the apartment manager, the other people who lived in the same building that he managed to pull aside and inconvenience, like a homeless man begging for scraps.
After all these interminable hours of aimlessly walking around, hardly sleeping, not eating, and trashing every inch of his apartment, he still only knew a handful of things about himself:
His name was E. Weisman. He was a psychiatrist.
He was apparently very rich, to live in the penthouse of a luxury high rise.
He had no friends and no other patients save one Grace Darling.
He often passed out during daytime but remained wide awake at night.
He could survive on an empty stomach for several days; he’d only ordered room service the night before on the apartment’s credit.
And finally, an unquenchable thirst plagued him day and night, parching his throat, drying his lips and clenching his stomach. No matter how much water he drank, the thirst only got worse.
Now his upper gums were starting to hurt.
The man lengthened his strides to carry him quickly back to his apartment. Before he did something terrible.
Like quenching his thirst.
*** *** *** ***
“He’s gone.”
Ishtar stood abruptly and stared at Inanna with incomprehension.
She’d been waiting in the adjoining room to the healing chamber for some time. Inanna had not come back or called her inside after her talk with Tal.
She’d worried her stomach sick about whether she should just barge in, and once upon a time she would have.
But now she was not so impulsive. She feared more. Her heart was fettered, her soul half shriveled. She thought a lot more, perhaps too much, before she acted.
Like how she would apologize now that he was awake to hear it, whether he’d want to see her or hear from her at all.
She had so many things she wanted to say to him, ask him, but she didn’t even know what they were. Her emotions and thoughts were all jumbled together, and she couldn’t separate the lies from truths.
She knew everything had to begin with an apology, but she felt like once she started she would never stop.
For, sometime during the past day or so, she realized she’d had no right to her anger and vengeance. No right to make demands of him. To punish him.
It wasn’t the War she hated him for winning. It wasn’t the death of the Queen the Rebellion had led to.
And when she thought it all out with a clear mind for the first time in many millennia, she also recognized that he’d never betrayed her.
After all, he’d never made her promises to betray.
No, the root of her hatred was that he hadn’t loved her back when she’d loved him desperately and obsessively.
How was it his fault for not returning her feelings? How could she fool herself into thinking she’d had any real claim to his heart?
She might have been waiting thirty minutes, maybe an hour—it felt like an eternity before Inanna finally emerged.
But she didn’t come through the inner door; she’d burst through the hallway entrance to the waiting room, Gabriel close on her heels.
Inanna let out a stream of curses and self-flagellation in the old language while Gabriel zeroed in on next steps.
“You couldn’t have known he’d do this,” her Mate cut through her panicked haze. “We need to focus now and decide what to do.”
Inanna took a deep breath and willed herself into some semblance of calm.
“The Shield’s video footage indicates that he left the base forty-five minutes ago on foot,” she said, shoving a hand through her thick blonde waves.
“The outer cameras didn’t pick up which direction he went—he must have known how to avoid them.”
Gabriel nodded once.
“He’d spent a good deal of time studying the Shield’s security with Cloud and Tristan even when he was still recovering in the healing chamber a week after we came here,” Gabriel said.
“At first I thought he just needed something for his mind to focus on while his body had time to heal, but I also sensed a nervous energy about him, as if he constantly worried that we’d be under attack.”
“I felt it too,” Inanna agreed. “I figured it was ingrained in him, as the General during the Great War and after he’s been kept captive for so long—”
“What do you mean he’s been kept captive?” Ishtar interrupted, her uneasiness increasing with every passing minute.
Inanna gave her the bare bones in reply, “We don’t know how long he was held prisoner, but at least several hundred years if not millennia. If not for a newspaper clipping the Pure Seer Eveline dug up a year and a half ago, I wouldn’t even have known that he was alive, let alone where he was. He wouldn’t tell us what happened after we rescued him, but he was in…bad shape.”
Inanna’s voice had dropped an octave at the last two words, communicating to Ishtar just how bad was bad.
“The wounds he has all over his body—he had them when we found him in Japan. Since coming here, he’s healed somewhat, but not completely, and we don’t know what triggered the regression of old wounds.”
At that, Ava and Rain also burst into the room through the inner door.
“Where’s my patient?” Ava asked, an urgent note in her voice.
“He left the Shield,” Gabriel said quickly. “We need to decide what to do.”
“We have to bring him back here ASAP,” Ava said. “I don’t have a solution yet but I’ve discovered a couple of things, and he’s the only person who can answer the questions they raised.”
“What is it?” Inanna and Ishtar asked simultaneously.
“I’ve isolated individual blood cells and observed their interactions,” Ava spoke as rapidly as she could without bumbling her words.
“Within each of Tal’s cells, there’s his DNA and trace DNA from two females, one of whom is Ishtar. What I didn’t see before, because the interaction isn’t happening constantly and require lengthy, focused study, is that it’s not just the trace DNA from these individuals that’s vying for space in his blood, they also bring with them white blood cells as if…”
Ava searched for the right analogy so that her non-medically trained audience could understand.
“As if each female’s DNA is defended by white knights, and they are warring with each other for the right to bond with Tal’s DNA, if that makes sense.”
“Like one Mistress trying to break the hold of the other on Tal,” Rain reinforced.
“Which one is winning?” Inanna jumped straight to the key point.
“The one who remains unidentified,” Ava said.
She directed her next comments to Ishtar.
“Apparently, your DNA and white blood cells have been mostly dormant up to now. But your, ah, relations with Tal last night reawakened them. Because they’ve become more active, though still not very, they’ve raised the attention of the other DNA and white blood cells, which are now attacking your bond with Tal and destroying his cells in the process.”
“So I’ve done this. It’s my fault,” Ishtar whispered, the blood draining from her face.
Rain laid a steadying hand on her arm.
“Actually, it’s not that simple. While the reawakening of your bond with Tal triggered the other set of DNA to go on the offensive, we believe that Tal’s wounds haven’t healed up to this point because the other DNA is suppressing his healing factor. Tal’s own body has been trying to fight off the other female’s blood all this time.”
Ava stepped in, eyes round with excitement.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said, a mad-scientist gleam entering her eyes.
She often got so wound up in her research she lost track of everything else. It was one of the reasons she could never hold down a real relationship, and it took a unique male like Ryu Takamura to truly appreciate her and out-compete her passion and love for her work.
“It was a stroke of luck that I saw it happen to one single cell while I was looking into the microscope. I’ve never noticed anything unusual before and didn’t even know to look for something like this, having been focused exclusively on identifying the DNA.”
“Just as your DNA tried to strengthen the bond with Tal’s, the other DNA and accompanying white cells attacked the connection you made and literally tore the host cell apart in their struggle with your white cells.”
Ava took hold of one of Ishtar’s arms as if she needed Ishtar to pay extra attention to her next words.
“Your DNA is the one trying to revive Tal’s healing factor, Ishtar. The other one is trying to suppress it and destroy your bond with Tal.”
Ava looked up to include Inanna and Gabriel in her conclusion:
“There are two ways to save Tal’s life: one, we find out who the other DNA belongs to and somehow stop the aggression—”
“Meaning, we end her,” Inanna stated grimly, “for that is the only way to break the blood bond between vampires.”
“Uh…right, if you say so,” Ava concurred, not liking the “end her” part as a trained physician who focused on saving lives, but she’d realized since “marrying” Ryu that his world often required violence and death for the greater good.
“The other way, perhaps without killing anyone, is to somehow boost the, well, how should I put it? Boost the fighting power of Ishtar’s DNA to overcome the other and fully bond with Tal’s cells.”
All eyes again turned to Ishtar, expectant and hopeful.
“I don’t understand…” Ishtar whispered. “The other female must be Tal’s love, why would her blood try to destroy his?”
“If what he’s experiencing is truly the Decline,” Rain said, “then it makes sense, because she doesn’t return his love. But your bond with him as his Mistress takes precedence and your blood has been trying to protect him.”
“If I am right,” Ishtar continued, “then we can’t break Tal’s bond with the other even if we found her. It was Tal’s choice to give himself to her.”
“Ishtar,” Inanna interjected, cutting through this train of thought, “why are you so certain papa loves another? Maybe what we’re dealing with isn’t the Decline at all but something else.”
“Possible,” Ava answered as Ishtar remained silent.
“I’ll continue to study the interactions and nuances. Regardless of what I find, it doesn’t change our go-forward plan. We have to try both approaches: to identify and find the other female and to strengthen Ishtar’s bond with Tal.”
“But I don’t know how,” she said, a note of desperation in her voice. “What do I do?”
No one had the answer. A lengthy silence descended upon the room.
Finally Inanna said, “You find him. You’re the only one who can.”
“Persuade him to return to the Shield,” Gabriel added. “And if it can’t be done within the next forty-eight hours, then try to get him to reveal who the other female is and let us know.”
He took his wristband off and put it on Ishtar.
“This is a two-way communication device and GPS locator,” he told her, though she could barely follow what he was saying.
She’d avoided technology of all sorts her whole existence. The only exception she made was for electricity, plumbing and modern cooking appliances.
He caught her bewildered look and explained, “We’ll be able to track where you are at all times and come to get both of you when you find him. You can tell us what you discover at any time, and we’ll keep you updated on Ava and Rain’s progress here.”
Ishtar absorbed this and took a deep breath, nodding.
“I’ll find him,” she said, the determination and conviction in her voice leaving no room for doubt.
“But you will not come until I tell you. Tal is doing this for a reason, and I mean to find out why.”
She also wanted time alone with him. They had over four thousand years of reckoning to put to rest.
“I need another blood sample before you go,” Ava added hurriedly, herding Ishtar in the direction of the research labs.
She asked as she walked, “Have you ever been bitten by a snake by any chance?”
*** *** *** ***
Tal had a whole section of a railcar to himself on the Acela Express intercity rail service. He was on his way to a place called Baltimore, Maryland.
He had to put as much distance between himself and the Shield as possible, and he would have taken the Blue Line to Logan International Airport to fly out of the country, but he hadn’t had the opportunity to explore the airport yet. Plus, the idea of flying blind for the first time, literally, didn’t sit well with him either.
He had, however, been able to explore the various subways and commuter rails within Greater Boston on his own, after accompaniment by one of the Dozen initially. He’d even taken the same intercity rail to New York City and Providence, only to come right back the same day, because his blindness made him less confident about new surroundings.
He’d debated whether to take the train to the City instead, because at least he was familiar with a couple of places called Manhattan and Brooklyn, having stayed there recently.
But if NYC was Inanna’s second home, and Sophia had been approached by Anunit’s henchman, Lord Wind himself, while she’d been interning at the MET, then Tal would only be heading straight into Anunit’s fold. So he chose a place he’d never been to instead, despite his own misgivings, heading down the northeast coast.
The question he hadn’t figured out yet was why Anunit hadn’t made a move to recapture him while he’d been in New York, as Enlil’s presence clearly indicated that she knew where he was and who he was with.
In fact, he’d expected her to make a move every day since he’d been freed. But she’d been eerily silent this entire time, both literally and figuratively.
It wasn’t until he’d collapsed from reopened old wounds and lost consciousness that he heard her voice in his head again, merely echoes at first, nonsensical. Then the voice grew louder, closer, forming coherent words and sentences.
Return to me, she’d called to him telepathically. Remember our deal. If you break your side of the bargain, I shall feel free to break mine.
If she wanted him back, then he’d make sure all she got was dust. He’d never let her take him alive again.
But he couldn’t put his family in danger in the process. This was between him and Anunit, and he’d deal with it himself.
Tal closed his eyes and tried to harness internal energy to focus better, heightening his other senses to compensate for the lack of sight.
He’d trained himself to use his hearing, smell, sensitivity to the air around him to project in his mind his own body’s spatial orientation vis-à-vis his surroundings.
To a certain extent, when he focused enough, and if he isolated some points of reference—like the size of room he was in, markers for North, South, East and West, whether he could expect a crowd or a few people—he could form a relatively accurate representation in his mind of where he was in relation to others.
He could move through crowds without walking into people, be aware of others coming within proximity of him, avoid walking into walls and street po
sts.
When he’d first started to train with the Elite warriors that formed Sophia’s personal guard, he’d hated his clumsiness and disability more than the hard knocks he’d taken as they easily beat him in hand-to-hand combat. With more practice, and as his body regained some of its old strength, he was able to hold his own.
And now, if he’d been at full strength, he might even be a match for his younger self, when he still had sight.
A great metallic thump sounded from the ceiling of the railcar overhead, as if something heavy had fallen on top of the train.
Tal tensed and listened carefully.
Had Anunit’s minions found him already? He didn’t believe the noise to be made by a fallen branch or a random piece of debris.
If he hadn’t trained his hearing to be so acute, he wouldn’t have picked up the almost silent pads that moved across the ceiling of the railcar toward the back.
He tuned out all other sounds and honed in on those steps. They’d opened the side door by now, though it was locked from the inside. They closed the door again and forcibly reengaged the lock they’d broken.
And then, when they moved a couple of feet in his direction, he realized who it was long before they reached his seat.
He could still feel her, smell her on his skin. The phantom clutch of her around his sex.
“Tal,” Ishtar said in that hauntingly familiar voice, ever vibrating with an undertone of a purr or a growl depending on her mood, as she took a seat in the empty row across from him.
Only a narrow table separated them.
His heartbeat quadrupled, and his lungs struggled to keep up. She was the last person he wanted near him right now. He needed her gone.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he ground out, cold and unwelcoming.
He could almost see her shrug.
“No other place for me to be right now,” she said reasonably, “and I didn’t get to speak with you before you left.”
She watched him withdraw into himself, as if donning an invisible armor, even though his body didn’t move.
“I heard what you said,” he rasped so low she could barely catch his words. “Have you come to finish what you started?”
