“Yesss,” he hisses, his eyes brighter than a lighthouse beacon.
“This isn't over, Venix. Not by a long shot,” I huff, stepping out of his home, back into mine.
Arelstin, you here?
Yes, answers softly.
How's Ellie doing?
She's asleep, in my arms.
Smiling at what a good guardian he makes, I nod to myself, heading to the kitchen to pour a drink, thinking to him, Seithe's hopefully going to be okay. That poor boy has had the weight of everyone's care and worry on his shoulders, and on top of all of that Venix sends him to an insane ocean to hunt for halos, and sent him to fight an entire vamporium full of rogue crimisupernals. I could kill him for laying so much on that poor grieving boy's developing shoulders. Seriously Aree, I could kill him.
But you won't.
Ha! Don't be so sure, I snap back, filling a goblet with bloody wine.
You love him, and love doesn't hurt Selene. Love never hurts.
Chapter 20
Tasmin:
Consciousness slips in and out of my grasp. I feel so heavy, like something's holding me down, or the grim deathdreamer is sitting on my chest, hovering over my face.
Unable to force my eyelids open, I focus on the smell. Someone right here smells like cigarette, strong alcohol or cologne, and peppermint chewing gum.
Immediately I think of Carrie, but for some reason this smells masculine to me. It's warm, oddly intimate, and familiar.
It's so close it's on me, feeding from me, sucking on my lips, searching for the buried secrets in my soul.
Stale cigarette mingling with fresh strong ashtray, the cologne has a hint of nutmeg and marjoram... Leather.
Dust.
Cold dust.
Crumbling musty wet cement.
Rum. Tongue warmed rum exhaled into my mouth like seductive nectar.
Creaking spring.
Familiar hold, warm on my neck, comforting.
*
Seithe:
Hitting the beach with our surfboards tucked under our arms, I spy the guys out on the ocean.
I nod to Jo, “Should we just appear out there and forego paddling out?”
He gives me a gleeful grin, “Okay.”
Agreed, we appirate to thirty feet from the wave walkers, paddling sedately to them.
Kevin and Dave are floating together watching the swells, counting sets, when Kev spies us, “Yo! Dudes!”
Waving frantically with a lot more urgency than I associate with him, I speed my paddling. “What's up?” I ask as we pull aside the duo, sitting upright to lazily bob on the saline surface.
“The cops are looking for you,” Kevin says to me, worry evident.
“Why?” I ask, immediately scanning the beach, looking for the law.
“You were the last person seen with Tasmin before she disappeared.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask Kevin, panic gripping a cold brutal hand around my heart.
David is watching me with sharp scrutiny. “She never made it home from Andi's party and you mysteriously disappeared after punching the daylights out of John.”
Kevin nods, “Oh yaah. John's family are pressing assault charges too. Everyone's looking for you chinas. We've all been questioned about where you live, and like we realized we don't know. This is serious hey, they want your neck in a noose.”
I don't give a damn about John, and ask, “Stuff John. What happened to Tasmin? What the hell man.”
Kevin shrugs, “Her scooter's gone, she never made it home. They want to question you about your whereabouts and all that jazz.”
“Maybe she was in an accident. Did they check the hospitals?” I say, trying not to freak out.
“No accident was reported and she's not in any of the hospitals,” says Dave.
“Guys, I thought I'd pissed her off and she left without me, without saying bye. And then finding John on top of Ellindt completely distracted me. I had to get Ellie home, but Taz hasn't answered any of my messages.”
“So you're like, not guilty?” says Kevin, visibly relaxing.
“Seriously? You guys think I'm a nut job? I'm not into kidnapping.”
Kev laughs lazily, “I tuned them you were a stand up guy, but John and his crowd painted you blacker than black.”
Dave nods, “Yeah, they made you sound violent and unbalanced.”
Sighing, no longer in the mood to surf, I wonder how we're going to get out of this one. “Thanks guys, I appreciate the head's up,” I nod.
Looking at Jowendrhan, I think, Let's swim further out and lose them. We need to get home.
He shakes Kev's hand by leaning over me, “We're going to paddle out further down the beach. See you guys later.”
“Shot,” nods Kevin, doing the magic handshake with my brother.
I nod to them, lying flat on my board and paddling, waiting for them to lose interest in us and focus on catching waves.
The second they do I grab Jo and space hop us miles out to sea.
Sitting up on my board, I freak out, “She's missing! Kidnapped! I knew something was wrong.”
“Who do you think it is?” he asks, sitting up and looking around.
I follow his example, for safety's sake, as these waters do have predators. That's when I notice the lazy swimming far beneath us of a mammoth white creature that can only be ningen, circling like a guardian angel protecting its territory. Its long arms cut through the water like rotary fan blades shredding paper.
Looking back at Jo, not wanting him to see it, I grip him, “We need to get home.”
Without giving him a chance to object, we vanish, reappearing in the lounge dripping sea water into the carpet, abandoning the boards.
“Venix!” I yell.
“Over here,” grumbles from the study.
Rushing in, I blurt everything, looking to him for guidance on this. I've never been wanted by the police before.
He waves his hand, “Don't worry about it. I can call in a few favors and have the neuri help us out. They can wipe memories.”
Screwing up my eyes, I can smell a missing link in this agenda. “Why would they offer to help us?”
Venix gives me a generic smile, “It has to do with prophecies. Don't you worry about why, just be grateful they can do this, and will.”
“What about Tasmin?” I blurt, unable to squash my worry.
“Did you bite her?”
I shake my head, guiltily breaking eye contact with him.
“Then hopefully she'll eventually think of you, and hopefully say your name. Right now that's our biggest hope for finding her. Until then she could be anywhere, and we can't get to her unless she speaks your name.”
“Why will that work?” I ask, unwilling to tell him about what happened when she did say my name.
“You're half angel. When you bond with a human you have no choice but to respond to their call. It's coded into your spirit.”
I nod, “Get the neuri on this issue fast. I don't want to be the object of a manhunt.”
He stands. “Consider it done,” and he vanishes.
Belatedly I realize he got all the information he needs from my loud thoughts. He knows about John pressing charges for assault. It must be so cool being a mature vampyre. I can't wait to be that badass.
Unable to calm, I jump to the roof, sitting on the tiles, staring out at the day until day turns to twilight, which is swallowed by despairing darkness.
No news, nothing.
*
Tasmin:
Groggy, the sensation of something tracing my neck drags me out of the haze, making me blink in the dim, the flavor of cigarette lingering in my mouth.
I don't smoke.
Awareness slams into me and I brush frantically at what can only be a spider on my skin, squealing, scrambling back, my heart racing, I bang my funny bone against jagged wall, instantly turning my right arm into limp and useless.
With my chest heaving, panic guns my pulse into overdrive. “H
ello?” Clearing my parched throat, I try again, without the huskiness, “H-lo?”
Looking around quickly, I'm in a block of unplastered brick, a chamber with very little light, musty dust thick in the air. I can taste it, cloying to my tongue in what tastes like moldy bread.
The black ink at the far end of the room moves, scraping hard heels across concrete in foreboding footfalls, the hulk of a tall person standing there in nothing more than warped black.
“Finally, she wakes.”
His voice rasps, like he's smoked too much and needs a drink too. But it resonates with gravelly familiarity. I know him.
“What do you want?” I stammer, hugging the wall defensively, rubbing my elbow.
His cruel laugh rattles my battered nerves, clanging them in sharp warning. “The eternal question. The answer should be obvious considering your predicament.”
“Ross?”
The shadow stays immobile and silent.
“Ross, is that you?”
He never speaks with any intelligence, so the words he uttered do not match the guy I know.
Boot heels land heavily, filling the small room with jarring thuds, until he's standing in the only pocket of barely available light. Illuminated weakly from above all I can see is a dark hoodie over black jeans.
Oh heck!
“Who are you? What do you want?”
His face is concealed in shadow and he slowly, deliberately, continues his stroll to me, until I have knees inside jeans directly in front of my face.
My heartbeat is jackhammering so fiercely I can barely think.
Leaning his arm on the wall, he stoops, grabbing a fist of my hair and yanking me so it pulls with excruciating stabs, “You're the last one. The very last female to think she's too good for an average guy. Stuck up will be stuck into.”
Unclenching his hand dramatically with open splayed fingers hovering over my face, I'm staring up at the arm obscuring his eyes when his hand whips into action and slams my head in a violent slap. Banged into the wall behind me, the agony pulls a hood of pain over my head, stinging both my face and my cranium.
Tears are running, my breath serrating in horror and fear, scorching my shaking insides with quivering pokers.
Trembling violently, I'm desperate to make sense of it all.
What did I do to him? Where am I? Who is he?
Stooping lower, his hand shadows my face and I flinch automatically, expecting a repeat, trying to think of self-defense moves I've gleaned from movies.
Long fingers slowly trace my cheek, rubbing fingertips over my lips, and he says softly, “I've been waiting for this.”
The invasive hand traces lower, tracking my manic pulse, sinking to the V of my cardigan, and I can't take it, slapping the offensive touch away.
“Body language never lies, yours tells me all I need to know.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” I stammer, blinking furiously, trying to see in the dark.
“If you were a lesser individual, you'd be thinking that the way to stay alive and unharmed is to go along with your abductor's agenda. Keep me happy and you may live. Make me angry and I may kill you. You're female, you have an advantage in that, and yet you didn't rise to the invitation. That means you are exactly what I thought you were, chaste, virginal, pure.... perfect.”
A needle longer then my forearm glints in a momentary flash of warning, and it's impaled so fast into my arm I don't have time to react, searing torture blasts brutal shock waves through my body.
He laughs, low and deeply amused, standing erect and strolling the way he came, disappearing into the darkness, leaving me here with a spike in my arm, squealing in paralyzed whimpers.
“A lesson for you sweetheart, roofies isn't an urban legend. You're an idiot for drinking it, your loss, my score.”
Staring into the monochrome gloom, the harsh clang of a metal door slamming closed shatters my fragile sanity, pulling a terrified sob from me.
Rattling with uncontrollable shakes, I snivel, holding a careful hand around the wound, squeezing to subdue the throb, cringing away from the damp wall which looks like black mold has scribbled Arabic script between the cracks in the bricks..
Metal on metal clashes, scraping and sliding like jousting jesters playing the xylophone with the locks on the door, severing my precarious hold on courage, forcing a sob into the sudden silence.
Quietly crying, sniveling in self-pity, I peer into the dark prison, making out shapes in shades of charcoal. A pillow and blanket are next to me, with a big black shape perched on the pillow like a tarantula ready to jump.
My inhalation freezes as I watch it wide eyed, afraid to blink.
It stays motionless, and we have an interminable Mexican standoff, until unable to bear it a second longer I inch off my shoe, lifting it up to thwack the life out of the predator. It doesn't run, move, flinch.
Paused an inch above it, I carefully lean forward, wondering if it's a macabre gift, like a body part, or something gross.
Tentatively poking it with my finger, soft velvet kinks, depressing under the scrutiny as delicately as tissue paper.
Now curious, my breath still gusting out of me in stress, I touch it again, screwing up my eyes to examine it. It's a flower!
A big black flower.
That's disturbingly romantic.
What kind of weirdo slaps you, sticks a pin into you like a living voodoo doll, but leaves a flower on your pillow?
Lifting it, trying to see it, it's unlike anything I've ever seen. It's big enough to fill my hand. Left behind, a note stains the cushion. Gulping, I pick it up, the light too dim to read a word, and after a quick check, my phone is no longer in my pocket.
Softly ambiance filters into the hovel and I twist instinctively to watch the source with wary caution. A lone flame hangs in an old glass lamp, the pressured rush of gas easy to discern in the absolute silence of my tomb.
He's watching me somehow.
Blinking nervously, my one nasty habit, I look around with the eerie light, noting a fluid filled goblet, a makeshift toilet, and a red teddy bear with the eyes missing.
Reading the note, all it says is; Rare. Like you.
I feel like an experiment.
Chapter 21
Seithe:
Pangs of guilt haunt me and I can't shake the funk I've fallen into. Despair paints my world in despondent watercolors, smearing the wounded and anguished across all beauty.
I'm tired of trying to find the silver lining in a society rife with injustice, where deluded control freaks hold all the cards. My heart needs baking soda to put some happy lightness back inside it.
I miss Ellindt so much I'm tempted to beg Venix to let her return, but my pride stands like a military blockade between me and that last resort.
Swallowing the anvil lodged permanently in my throat, I shift upright, pawing through the bedside drawer, looking for the phone I chucked into it.
We really need to set up email accounts.
Finding it, I take it out, tapping out a text to Ellindt.
Please forgive me. I miss you. S
Sending it to her number, I hope it gets through.
Then I spot Tasmin's last text, telling me she'll meet me at Andi's at nine. Worry chalks my mouth.
“Regret burns like a red hot poker, doesn't it?”
Bolting off my bed defensively, I face Ellie's guardian. “Yes,” I manage to stammer, wishing I could hear when angels sneak up on us.
“Sitting here worrying isn't going to solve a thing. It's time we had a chat.”
“About what?” I ask defensively, watching him with wary caution.
“You have a riddle to solve. That'll help get your mind off your problems.”
“What riddle?” I ask.
“The eagle feather,” he smiles. “Let's go to the mountain and discuss it there.”
Without waiting for my permission or consent, he grabs me, transporting us to the far end of Table Mountain, far away from the tourist cent
er.
He sits down on the low stone wall with a flourish, waiting for me to join him. Sitting next to him, I'm shocked at how late it is. Venix must have sedated me to keep me asleep for so long.
Arelstin holds the eagle tail feather, twirling it idly between his fingers, “Seithe, start with the basics. What does this feather teach you? What does it tell you?”
Huffing moodily, I glare at the perplexing object. It's almost black, that means it retains heat. It's also the color that sucks as camouflage when in flight, but works when nesting at night. And I say as much.
He nods, looking out into the hazing distance, “Good point. So when they need to rest, to rejuvenate, in a place of refuge and safety, the eagle is not only isolated and hidden where few can climb, but it's also hidden by virtue of its plumage.”
Arching an eyebrow, I'm wondering what the point to this exercise is.
Looking at me, handing the feather over, he says, “What about flight?”
“What about it?” I grumble. We all know eagles can fly, you don't need to be a genius to fathom that ounce of information.
“The feather, if nothing else, symbolizes flight. So discuss that aspect. Tell me your thoughts,” he says.
Staring at the feather, I wrack my brain for the obscure. Speaking aloud, I mumble, “The feather has a waterproof sheen, protecting it from rain, acting as a solid shield to ride wind, the wing shaped to carve through air currents the way a surfboard rides waves.”
He nods, smiling encouragement for me to go on.
So I do. Staring up at the sky from our lofty vantage, I'm picturing what an eagle would look like out there. “It's a predator, it has very few enemies because it's at the top of the food chain. So when it takes to the sky it's threatening, rather than stealthy. It's a black circling raptor with sight so keen it sees the smallest prey shivering in grass or running over the landscape.”
Arelstin nods again, “Precisely. It's king of the sky. It fears nothing, not even mankind. It can carry and kill prey up to thirty-seven kilograms, much larger than itself. And it's undaunted when faced with conflict. What do you know about eagles mating and fighting?”
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