by Carol Roi
I'm trying to get everything taken care of at the office before I head home for the day. Tomorrow, I get to go to Rochester Airport to pick up Azir when he returns from his business trip to Cascade, Washington. I had spoken to him a few minutes ago, he's in Seattle, a little side trip for me, and I'm more than looking forward to being in his strong arms again.
Finishing the last report, I stand up to work kinks out of my back (I really need to work out more with Azir. I'm wound up tighter than a cheap watch). I toss a smile at LaFollet as I cross the Persian rug-covered floor to the credenza and the fresh pot of coffee waiting for me there. "Just about done, Jan-Michel. Sorry to have kept you cooped up all day."
The man's smile is quite nice; he should smile more often. Of course, then he'd be beating off the women in WindHawk's employ with a baseball bat. "I don't mind, Mrs. Sadih. After all, it's in my contract that I accompany you at all times when Mr. Sadih is away."
I fill my oversized mug with the dark brew, pouring one for my bodyguard as well, and cross over to where he sits at his own desk. "Maybe, but you really don't have to stay in here to cover my back, do you?" I pointedly look out the large window at the bright moonshine outside. "I wouldn't be in here if I had a choice. Seems like I've been here all damn day." I hand him the extra coffee cup, nearly dropping it.
"Mrs. Sadih? Lee? What's wrong?"
"NO! Oh Gods, NO!" I collapse, the pain ripping through my heart and soul like an explosion, my hands going to my bare neck.
"Lee?! Are you all right? What's happening?" I can barely feel LaFollet's hands on my shoulders. Searing pain shoots through me as my connection with Azir is being torn asunder! I know not how long I lay there, curled into a tight ball, tears falling down my face while Jan-Michel tries to figure out what's happened to me.
I feel battered, as if I had stood, naked, in the path of a hurricane, but I finally pull myself off the floor. I rise unsteadily to my knees as the ancient prayers fall from my lips. "Hades! Hear my plea, take my husband unto your bosom. Grant him a place of honor in your hallowed halls! And prepare a place for me as well!"
"Lee? What language is that? What's going on?" I grasp Jan's hands in mine and stare into his worried hazel eyes.
"Jan, Azir is dead."
His cell phone rings right after I say those dreaded words. Not his WindHawk phone, but the one that I know he carries as my Watcher. "LaFollet. Yes. Oh dear, God! Are you sure? Could you tell who he was? Damn! No! Get out of there! You know the rules!" He shuts down the connection, and I see tears starting to build. "Lee, I don't know how you knew, but Azir was just taken out of the Game."
I nod, swallowing hard to try to loosen my throat enough to speak. "How?" The word comes out in a strangled sob.
"Immortal. Shot him, then took his head while he was out." He kneels beside me, hugging me close to him, offering comfort. "It was a head-hunter, Lee."
The trilling chirp of my satellite phone interrupts my fruitless search for Bradley Ventriss. I just don't know this city like I should. Pulling over to the shoulder of the road, I answer the phone just before my voice mail could pick it up. "What?"
"Bad day, Eolia?" The voice of my other boss, the Deputy Director -- Operations, Llewyllyn Huddleston, comes over the line.
"Lew. You could say that. What do you need?"
"I found a place for you, a post that fits the requirements you asked for. I need you to report for duty at The Farm in two weeks. We need to upgrade your status and check to see if you still have current knowledge of the language you'll need."
Leaning forward until my head rests on the steering wheel, I sigh, accepting the inevitable. "Two weeks, the Farm. Just where are you sending me, Lew?"
"Bonfarkar, Egypt." There is just the slightest trace of a smile in his voice.
"Christ! Lew, when I said BFE, I didn't mean it literally!"
"You didn't?" He chuckles. "Then it's a quirk of fate that the opening there came up and the position needs someone with your skills to fill it."
"My skills? Oh great! So just who am I supposed to get close to and worm information out of?" To be honest, that is only one of my skills but it seems the most likely one Llewyllyn would have need of.
"Not those. Be prepared to get 'wet' again. You'll be part of a team that will be going into Israel -- if needed -- in about a month."
A month? The President was talking about going to Israel in January; guess that means I'll be doing front work for the Secret Service again. "Fine, Lew. I understand. I'll see you in ten days. Thanks for the assignment."
Before the man can respond to my sarcastic tone, I shut down the link between us. I'm not happy. I never should've volunteered to go active again -- especially once I realized that my heart was turning traitor on me. Damn it! Checking to see that the traffic is clear, I pull back out on the road. I need to go back, to face Diandra and Sandburg, to find Jan-Michel and let him know that he cannot follow me to Egypt. And I need to talk to Jim.
Nearly an hour had passed before Blair felt the rush of warmth through Diandra's body that signaled her return. Her head went back in an autonomic response, air filling her lungs with a gasp. Her eyes snapped open, and she struggled in his arms before his voice reassured her she was safe. "Dee, baby, it's okay. You're safe. You made it to the loft."
"No! Immortal! I need to--" Her hand went inside her tattered coat for her katana. "My blade! I need my sword!"
"Easy, easy, it's right here. I've kept watch. He hasn't come back. We're safe." Her gaze finally focused on his face, the confusion clearing from her eyes. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she hung on with a death grip, and he could feel her shaking against him. With a jolt, Blair realized she was afraid, and with good reason. The other Immortal's attack on her was probably the closest she'd come to losing her head in years.
She clung to him for a few minutes, then he sensed her steel herself, forcing her fears down as she exhaled and let go of him. "Oh, goddess, Lobo, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, taking a good look at him.
Blair glanced down at himself, realizing for the first time he was covered in her blood. "Oh, god... " He fought down the urge to be sick.
Getting to her feet, Dee held her hand out to him. "Come on, let's go get cleaned up." Taking her hand, Blair let her pull him up from the floor. As she tugged him gently toward the stairs she asked, "Where are Lee and Jan-Michel?"
Sighing, he answered, "I'll tell you in the shower."
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"So you threw her out?" Dee asked as she ran a brush through her wet hair.
"Yes, I threw her out. I was scared, Dee, and she's been lying to us all along. I couldn't let her hurt you, or Jim, or Megan. So I did the only thing I could think of, I told her to leave."
Turning around on the vanity stool, Dee gazed up at her lover, trying to imagine him with her katana in hand, screaming at Lee to get out. It wasn't a big stretch. And it touched her deeply. "Thank you," she finally managed. "I know how difficult this has been for you. I'm sorry my past has come back to hurt you, to hurt us."
Shaking his head, Blair approached her, laying his hands on her shoulders. "Shit happens, Dee. This time it was someone you knew. Last time it was my enemy. Hell, it was Brad who shot you, so I don't think we can totally blame this on Eolia. She's just guilty of the sin of omission. He was the one who got this whole ball rolling when he attacked her at QuestScape."
She planted a kiss on the inside of his wrist. "Then in order to end this, we have to find him." Looking up, she caught his eyes. "You think you can handle that?"
"Yeah, but first, I think we need to handle a little cleaning. Jim's gonna freak if you left as much blood in the hallway as you did in the studio."
Dee chewed her lip and dropped her gaze. "Uh, actually, I came in through the window in your bedroom. Your place is pretty much trashed."
"Oh, man, Dee! Jim's gonna blame me, you know that!" She knew he was teasing from his grin. "Com
e on, let's get dressed and get started. I think there's some plywood in the basement."
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Pulling into the parking area, I realize I'm not picking up a buzz and Diandra's Jeep is missing. But where the hell is LaFollet? Unless he called a cab, or boosted a car, he should still be here, waiting for me to return to grab our stuff and get the hell out of Diandra's life. And what is Jim doing home at this hour? I pull into the vacant spot next to the detective's classic Ford.
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Jim Ellison slowly pulled his body up the stairs towards his apartment, the day having taken its toll on him. The city had requested that all available personnel come into their offices as soon as they could. When Jim had reported in at seven AM, Captain Simon Banks had assigned him to assist Communications by taking all the lesser 'incident' calls that had started to flood the switchboards before the early morning news had been broadcast. For five hours he'd taken down the information from callers who had tried to drive on roads not yet cleared by the city's road department and had gotten into minor fender-benders with fellow daredevils. Then there had been the calls from people who wanted to know what roads were cleared and if they could make it to the local malls for their last minute Christmas shopping.
He'd protested the assignment, asking Simon to let him go out with the patrols that had to work the streets undermanned. He'd been shot down when he was forced to reveal he didn't know if Blair was coming in to the station, and Simon had informed him that Megan wasn't sure she'd be able to make it in herself until the afternoon. Without a Guide, the man reasoned, he couldn't allow Jim to work in the field. The clouds had cleared away, making for near white out conditions, and Simon just hadn't been sure his detective could handle the potential sensory overload without a guide. And he was just too busy himself to help him, so Jim had gotten stuck on the phones.
The metallic, cloying smell of blood assailed him as he approached the last few stairs leading to the third floor. Instincts taking over, Jim pulled his sidearm and cautiously took the remaining stairs, his senses wide open, looking for the source of the odor.
Focusing in on the floor that ran between his loft and Diandra's, he found the minuscule remains of blood. Someone had tried to clean it up, but he not only saw it, he could smell it, and judging by the smear of nearly invisible blood on the brass handle of Dee's place, it looked like who ever had been bleeding like a slaughtered animal had come from his place.
Dialing up the sensitivity of his hearing, he listened for signs of life in either apartment and found none. Sliding up to the door to 307, he saw it hadn't been properly shut. Toeing the door open, he waited to see if anyone responded to the creaking of the hinges, then entered.
The trail of blood, and there was a lot to follow, showed the halfhearted attempt someone had made to clean it up, but what chilled him is where it led him to: Blair's room. Fear took a firm grasp on Jim's heart and all reason flew out the window.
Entering the room through the closed off French doors, the Sentinel nearly gagged from the odor of the spilled blood saturating the glass-covered floor. Swallowing hard to keep the bile from triggering his gag-reflexes, he spotted the obviously hurried patch job that had been done to the window that led to the fire escape. Plywood covered the opening. "Dial back, Jim. Sift through the data that your senses are supplying and disregard what you think you know." The voice of his Shaman rang through his head, automatically centering the Detective, allowing him to open up his onboard Forensic Lab.
The blood-smell didn't have the unique tinge he associated with his Guide, therefore it had to be someone else's. For that person to have made it from the fire escape, through plate glass, then across the hall to Diandra's place, the victim had to have been an Immortal. Changing his focus, the soft sound of footsteps reached his ears and Ellison came out of his partner's room, gun up and automatically tracking the intruder.
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Looks like someone, probably Sandburg, tried to clean up the mess Diandra left behind when she dragged her dying body across the hall from Ellison's apartment. Oops, he missed a spot, on the door. Speaking of doors... The one to Jim's loft is open. No warning tingle of Immortal pings on my nerves. Maybe Jim forgot to close it.
Nah, even as I think that thought, I'm pulling my Lady Smith from its holster and creeping towards the door. Jim's a cop. There is no way he'd leave his place open like that. Revolver in my off hand, I carefully push the door open further with my right, scanning the room beyond as it comes into view. In the periphery of my sight, I catch movement and centuries of training take control of my body. Ducking into a roll, I end up behind the couch, coming up on my knees with the gun held in a two handed grip, pointed directly at Ellison's chest.
"Jim!" I pull the gun up, the weapon spinning around on the index finger of my right hand, falling into a 'safe' position. I pray to the Gods the man's own training and instincts don't take over, causing him to shoot me. Not the way I want to tell him of my Immortality.
Ellison waited patiently as the door to his home was slowly opened. The flash of auburn hair as the intruder did a tuck and roll evading maneuver to the other side of the couch made him think of Megan, until the subject came up on their knees with their gun pointed at him.
"Jim!"
Reflexes almost made him pull the trigger, which would have placed a 9mm shell directly into the heart of Lee Eolia. Bringing his own gun back up towards his shoulder, he watched as the small woman let go of her revolver, letting it spin downward on her trigger finger. "Lee? Damn it I nearly shot you! Why did you come in like that? What happened here? Where the hell is Blair?"
The recipient of his rapid-fire questions rose to her feet, sliding her handgun into the 'fanny-pack' strapped to her waist with one hand, while brushing loose hair from her face with the other. "I wasn't sure what to expect, Jim. Not after someone tried to kill Diandra earlier."
"WHAT?" the irate detective yelled as he made his way across the floor, intending to brush aside the security consultant on his way to the door, but the firm grip on his forearm stopped him.
"Jim! She's okay, so is Sandburg."
Focusing tightly on the petite redhead, Jim started to use his senses, checking her reactions to her statement and the questions he was about to ask her. "Fine. So tell me, Lee. What the hell happened?"
"I think who ever it is that has been targeting me since Friday night tracked me and/or LaFollet here, and Diandra got in their way. Luckily, she managed to get away, but... " She dropped her eyes. "Oh, Goddess! Jim, Blair watched as Diandra died in his arms."
Jim felt his heart nearly crash to a halt. The pain his Guide must have gone through, even knowing that his lover couldn't really die, must have nearly killed the empathic young man. Shaking his head, he directed Lee to sit on the couch. "What happened next?"
Biting her lip, Lee explained how LaFollet had bolted out of Diandra's loft, hoping to catch the person who had shot the older Immortal, and how, in a classic fight or flight response, she herself had taken off before Diandra had recovered. "I was upset, thinking that I had somehow brought harm to Diandra's doorstep. And in doing that, I nearly caused your partner to lose his lover."
Gently reaching out to brush away the few tears that had fallen from Lee's eyes as she told the story, Jim made a decision. "Lee, I doubt that Diandra would hold what happened to her against you, but let's practice a little common sense here." He waited until she nodded, then dared to look him in the eye. "First, let me call my Captain. Then after I talk with him, we'll go over to Diandra's, pack a few things for you, then get you to a safe house."
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The words echo through my head, and I cringe inside. "I doubt that Diandra would hold what happened to her against you..
. " No, but your partner does. And damn well he should! I'm really starting to hate myself. I've slipped back into the game I was trained in by the Company. Lies fall from my lips so easily. I sit back on the couch while Jim places a call to his Captain, making the necessary arrangements to set me up in a safe house for at least one, maybe two, nights.
"Thanks, Simon. Before I let you go, Sir, I have a request... " I watch as Jim suddenly pulls the receiver from his ear, then winces as if he could still hear something over the phone, even though he's holding it at arm's length. Finally, he places the phone back to his ear. "I know, Simon, I owe you and it'll be a big one for the favor I'm about to ask. Don't tell anyone, and I mean anyone, where I'm taking Ms. Eolia." The Captain must have yelled again, Jim's face just screwed up into a painful grimace. "No, I'm not suggesting that there's a leak at the station. I'm just saying that the fewer people who know about Eolia's whereabouts, the safer she'll be. No, sir. I hate keeping anything from him, but it's for Sandburg's safety as well. Yes, I realize the spot I'm putting you in... Thank you, Simon. I'll be by to pick up the keys in about half an hour." He hangs up the phone.
