The shadows over the ocean seemed to swell as I stood there. “I don’t know what to do,” I mumbled to myself, not caring if any of the four heard. Not caring if Paddy appeared. Not caring about anything but figuring out how to save the only world I’d ever known from descending into utter chaos forever and not being destroyed as I did it.
A stronger breeze pushed the hair back from my face and I looked up as the black mist was building about thirty feet in, right above the surface of the water. Something was different though. It wasn’t swirls forming but what looked like the shadowy outline of a person. It didn’t look male or female but was something that could’ve been either. It didn’t have features and I could see the hint of clouds behind. It slowly started walking toward me, gliding above the water and I couldn’t figure out whether I should run or not.
It stopped ten feet away.
“Who are you?” I asked.
It didn’t respond but dropped its head. Its shadowy body dissipated back into swirls and then was gone.
“Holy shit! What was that crap?” Buddy asked, slurring and staggering as he made his way across the beach, Billy and Bobby tailing him.
I threw my hands up in the air. “Not sure.”
Billy looked like he was going to say something but it was ambushed by a belch before he could continue. “You get this type of visitor a lot?”
“No,” I said, leaving them on the beach, staring at where the shadow person had stood, and headed back to the house.
Fate was in the kitchen when I walked in. We hadn’t discussed last night yet, or, more accurately, the failure it had turned out to be. I wasn’t sure what to say and guessed he had the same problem.
I poured myself a coffee as I watched him transfer the sugar from one bowl to another. I’d known more than a few people in my life who did housekeeping when they were stressed but I’d never pegged Fate as one of them. “Why are you doing that?”
“What? The sugar?” he asked, holding the bowl up.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t like the old bowl,” he said.
He was right. I didn’t. I’d never said anything but I’d hated the shape of it and how hard it was to get my spoon in easily after it was halfway empty. He put the new bowl in its spot and walked into the living room.
I followed him, something stuck in my craw now. “Why did you buy that new comforter on your bed? That wasn’t the one you used to have before I moved in.”
“It’s a heavier down. You get cold when you sleep.”
I froze as it truly hit me for the first time. My mind ran back over the last several weeks. The sugar, the shampoo, the throw blanket on the couch that looked just like my favorite one I’d had in the condo before it burned down. Every time I turned around, there was another little mark or sign.
Fate loved me. He never said the words but he told me over and over again. I’d been too busy listening for something to be bothered with what his actions were screaming. I fell onto the couch, stunned.
He stopped moving around to look at me. “How is it that you see everything else so clearly but not this?”
“But you never say...” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word love to him.
He stood in place, the moon casting a glow around him. “I’ve seen countless wars, upheaval, the worst atrocities. I’ve known hundreds of thousands of people and watched them suffer. And yet the thought of anything happening to you brings me to my knees. Label that however you want.”
He didn’t sound like Fate anymore and that thing, that indescribable essence I’d felt before, was pouring off of him.
“You seem different somehow.”
“Sometimes I mute myself slightly around others. I’m not doing it now but I’m still me.”
“And I still don’t know what that is exactly.”
“Does it matter?”
“Don’t you think I should know who you are?”
“You do know me.”
He was right. I didn’t need a name or label for him. I did know who he was, and I loved him.
I stood, needing to be near him more than I’d ever needed anything in my life. I took several steps closer before I launched myself at him. He caught me as I wrapped my legs around him.
I was kissing him before he could speak and then he was pressing against me, a wall at my back. Then we were moving again.
“Where are we going?”
“The bedroom.”
“Why?”
“Because there are too many people in this house? And although I’m not overly modest, I can’t help but feel that you might get shy if they were to walk in on us.”
“Walk in on us making love?”
“Something along those lines.”
“You don’t like that word.”
He laughed. “That word isn’t a good fit for what we’re about to do,” he said and then he was kissing me again and I was oblivious to the surroundings.
I didn’t realize we’d made it to the bedroom until I heard the door slam and I was falling onto the bed. My hips were lifting as he tugged my pants off; my shirt was yanked over my head next.
“What about you?” I asked, breathless but wanting to see him as well. I leaned up and grabbed his shirt, pushing it upward and he quickly tugged it the rest of the way. He made haste with his pants and his erection sprang free. I only caught the quickest glimpse before he pushed me back down on the bed, following.
His mouth covered mine, his tongue plunging as his fingers plunged below.
“And I was worried you wouldn’t be ready,” he said, clearly pleased by just how ready I was.
I pushed him onto his back before I straddled him, my hands pressing his shoulders to the bed and slowly lowered myself onto him.
I rose up, holding him tight to me even shallow as he was. He groaned as his hands clenched on my hips pulling me downward and driving deep inside.
His hands held me flush to him before he drove deeper. Minutes or hours, I lost all concept of time as my senses were driven down to the pure sensation of where we connected.
Then he was over me and I was arching into him, throwing my head back as he thrust harder within me and waves of pleasure were coming so close together I didn’t know if it was one massive orgasm or I was coming repeatedly.
He rolled over as we both caught our breath. I felt like a well-used rag doll that had lost its bones as I lay there beside him.
“Was I too rough?” he asked, as his palm grazed my breast before trailing down my stomach, still slick with sweat.
“Not even a little. I should probably be asking you that question.”
His hand drifted lower still and then his finger was slipping into me as his thumb pressed against the hood of my clitoris.
I threw my head back, letting out a sigh of pleasure as I arched into him.
“Good, because I was afraid you were going to tell me you needed a break.” He rolled on top of me and was filling me again.
“How many times can you do this?”
“Let’s just say it might be a really long night.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
I woke up with my cheek pressed to an ice-cold surface and could see the bottoms of massive columns and the strange light that flowed through their floors. It was definitely Paddy’s home. There wasn’t a marble or granite supply on Earth that carried something of this variety.
The sound of footsteps echoed around me and I didn’t think they were Paddy’s. Thankfully, I’d gotten up for water in the middle of the night and thrown on a t-shirt and shorts or I’d be lying there naked before my host.
Of all the possibilities I hoped for when I looked up, Fia standing above me, and alone, was my least favorite. Paddy was willing to kill me, but Fia gave the impression she’d enjoy it. So of course it was Fia.
“You could’ve just invited me over for tea,” I said as I got to my bare feet, not feeling comfortable lying prone and helpless anywhere around her.
She narrowed her eyes as sh
e looked me over. “Don’t talk. Just listen.”
She was already pacing away from me as she spoke, which was a good thing, so I did as she asked. More distance played in my favor. I might not be able to outrun her but damned if I wouldn’t give it a shot.
“On September 14, 1186, according to astrologers at the time, the five known planets aligned. In actuality, every planet in the galaxy aligned. If the significance of this eludes you, due to your lack of knowledge, Genghis Khan, arguably the greatest Mongol leader ever to live, was born that day. I stress the fact that he was born, not created. To give you scope. Genghis had already lived several lives before that one and had an essence of greatness about him, but still had never amounted to much. It was being born on that day that instilled him with the final ingredient to become what he did.” She finally stopped walking to nail me with a stare. “Do you have any idea what you share with Genghis Khan?”
I hated pop quizzes. As far as I was aware, no one liked them. Figured it would be her style. “Shiny dark hair?”
Disdain was probably the most accurate description of her reception to my answer. I wanted to tell her it was her own fault for quizzing me on material I wasn’t prepared to be tested on but didn’t. I was actually quite curious where she was going with this.
“The date, September 14, 1186, is what you have in common. Except instead of simply being born, you were created that day. No one new was supposed to be created that day. Certain dates are strictly recycles.”
“Recycles?” I had a feeling I knew what she meant but I wasn’t leaving this place to only think later shit, what did she mean by that? I was certain if I got out of here alive, I wasn’t going to get a do-over.
“Old souls being reintroduced. As if that weren’t enough, it happened at the location of one of Earth’s most powerful chakra points, in Glastonbury, England. Some drunk slob tumbled a barmaid in a pile of hay. That was your lofty beginnings. It lasted all of two minutes and this is the mess I end up with.”
She flittered her hand toward my messy self. She was the one who’d dragged me out of bed, but again I held my tongue, wanting the information she had.
“You were always meant to exist but the when and where you came into existence was an accident. It gave you a pull in this Universe that should never have happened. That’s why you can bend things to your will. Why even Paddy’s essence is being drained by you. There is a weight to your being that acts almost like gravity. It’s why the guards react to you as they do. They think you are part of the Universe.” She snorted after this statement, marring her refined demeanor and it made her seem oddly human, if only for a second.
“Why did Paddy never tell me any of this?” I asked. And why couldn’t I beam myself out of here if I was so special? This might have been the most uncomfortable biography ever, and the orator wasn’t making it any better.
“Because he doesn’t know why you are the way you are. He thinks you’re some sort of miracle toy he amuses himself with. Only I know the details because you were my mistake.
“Every so often, windows of opportunity arise. We each took turns guarding against this,” she tilted her head toward me with a lemon face, “happening. The night you were created was my responsibility. But so many other windows had come and gone with no issue, I grew complacent and bored of safeguarding, the way only time can make you.”
She shook her head and I thought I saw some self-disgust there this time, which was a nice change in direction.
“I didn’t even realize it had happened until you’d died and been reborn a few times. I tripped over you a century later, by accident, and then put the pieces together. It was too late to kill you at that point, since you’d already been created.”
I weighed the pros and cons of interrupting again but decided the question merited it. “Why couldn’t you kill me?”
“You were already made. Once created, a soul never truly disappears.” She paused, as if her next words were much weightier than anything she’d previously said. “Except in one circumstance.”
Holy shit. The pieces started to fall into place and the larger picture was alarming. “If I were recruited. You were the one that wanted me to be Karma because it was the only way to get rid of me.” The implications made the strength disappear from my legs and I wasn’t sure how I remained standing. “The train wreck. That was you?” Shock had stolen my voice and the words came out more of a whisper.
“Yes. It was the only way.”
This whole thing from the beginning had been her. She’d stolen my life, not Malokin. If I had found out this information a couple of months ago, I would’ve tried to rip her apart even if it meant the end of me. But as I stood there, as much as part of me mourned my human life, I wasn’t as angry as I’d thought I should be. Part of me felt compelled to attack her simply on principal but then I could lose Fate.
She moved about the massive hall like structure, oblivious to my thoughts, as she started speaking again. “When Paddy was willing to bring you here, I thought that alone might kill you but he’d given you a piece of him. That was a critical mistake but he’s always had a soft spot for you. Even now that you are draining him, I doubt he’ll be able to go through with killing you, not that he could if he wanted to. And my only shot was if all four us tried. I thought I might have had Paddy convinced but it didn’t last. After the initial fear of dying himself sank in, he started rambling on about having an even stronger connection to humans because he was experiencing the fear of his own mortality.” Her hands fluttered in the air as she got disgusted. “Or some utter nonsense he was spewing. I had a hard time listening to the whole tirade.
“As if I didn’t have enough issues, Fate took a liking to you. He’s Fith’s child, if you didn’t know, conceived when Fith was going through his Greek goddess phase. It was some minor strumpet, long gone now after Hera had found out she’d moved in on Zeus. The point is, Fate kept stepping in to protect you as well and he’s no slouch himself. You shouldn’t have made it past the transition. Yours was deliberately bad on purpose. But if it wasn’t Paddy, it was Fate.
“You kept gathering up steam and I kept covering up what was going on. The longer I hid the secret, the harder it was to come clean. I’ve had to hide and cloak things about you the last twenty times you’ve been born. Burying your natural energy under tragedy after tragedy. Century after century of compounding the lies made it even harder. It was my final act of trying to hide you that threw off the balance. I’d been tweaking here and there, messing with things that I shouldn’t have, and it finally thinned the balance enough to allow Malokin to exist.”
“So you created this mess?” All this time we’d been looking outward for the problem.
“And the girl wins a prize. Took you long enough to figure it out.”
“Why not just let me be? Is it so bad that I exist?”
“Like I said before, you’re like gravity. You’ll slowly pull energy toward you until you yourself throw off the balance just by being you. You’re dead already. It’s just whether you go alone or take everything down with you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re right. And there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.”
“Then why bring me here? Why didn’t you just kill me?”
“If only. I would’ve shot you in the garage if it were that easy. I can’t. I’ve tried. But if I can’t get rid of you, at least I can use you to get rid of Malokin.”
We’d finally come to something we could agree upon.
“What do you want me to do?”
I was slammed none to gently back in bed as if the meeting with Fia had never happened, Fate staring at the place I’d just appeared.
“What just happened? You flashed in and out of sight for a second.”
“A second?” Time warp, that was interesting.
“Yes.”
“I know how to get rid of Malokin.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The office building stood before
me. I put the key into the rusty lock and left it open as I continued on towards the office.
Fate, Angus, Lars, Cutty and Bic were in the room directly above me and had been camped out there since the previous evening, in preparation for this meeting. We had to take every measure possible to make sure Malokin thought I was alone.
Everyone else had stayed behind. If it went bad, at least there would be staff to try and carry on.
We needed to get Malokin as close to the retirement door as possible. That door was the only way to strip him of the energy he’d accumulated on this Earth and dissolve what he was back into the natural balance.
This part was mine to play, much to Fate’s aggravation. The larger the entourage, the less likely we’d get him near enough. We’d thought of many different scenarios but Fate finally had to concede that we were right. It had to be me and I needed to be alone.
It was a lot easier said than done. I still had to get him in the vicinity and then hopefully, between us all, we could force him through the door. Lars had set up a trip wire of sorts that would alert them as soon as Malokin’s energy entered the inner office.
I walked over and settled down at my table, waiting with ankles crossed and my heels resting on its surface. The clock struck noon just as he appeared in the doorway, alone.
He needed to cross the room to me, where I was closer to Knox’s office. He strolled in a couple steps with his usual swagger but then stopped.
“Why are we meeting here?” he asked but didn’t seem overly worried about being in the den of his enemy.
“Because this is the place they’re most vulnerable.”
He was so calm that I wondered if I was the one missing something about what was going on here. It wasn’t like I’d expected him to show nerves. That wasn’t Malokin. He wasn’t the type to ever seem weak, but to be this calm?
“That was what you said when you called but why would I believe you want to help me?”
“If you didn’t, why’d you come?” Why had he come? Something about this felt very wrong.
Fated: Karma Series, Book Three Page 22
