B00T3PMJTS EBOK

by Tracy Tappan

  Chapter Four

  Ţărână: two and a half weeks later, November 28th, Thanksgiving Day

  Nỵko Brun leapt back as the gym locker next to his exploded, shooting out a cloud of snowy powder that engulfed the top half of his younger brother, Jaċken.

  Stunned, Jaċken just stood and blinked, two black eyes peering out of a mime’s mask.

  Nỵko snorted and quickly ducked his head to cover further laughter. Heck, that was funny as all get-out.

  The other warriors in the locker room weren’t as discreet, every one of them breaking into hoots and guffaws. The Costache brothers, Arc and Thomal, threw back their heads at the same time and roared with laughter, and Gábor Pavenic sagged down onto one of the benches, his left arm—the one with the bull skull tattoo on it—clutched around his middle. Even Breen Dalakis, who usually blank-faced most things in life, bowed his head in quiet laughter, his black hair hanging into his eyes.

  “Man, Jaċken,” Dev Nichita gasped between laughs, his teeth bright white against his black goatee. “I’ve never seen you look so…so…”

  Like a baby seal? Nỵko gulped down another laugh. Jaċken Brun, leader of the Warrior Class, was hands-down the toughest of their group. So this was just too much.

  “I don’t know…” Dev opened his own locker. “Like a—” Sh-wham. A burst of red powder shot out of Dev’s locker and splatted against his bare chest and face.

  With a ha-whoop, Gábor fell off his bench.

  Breen clunked his forehead against the locker, his shoulders full-on shaking now.

  “What the hell?!” Dev snapped.

  “Whoa,” Thomal said. “You look like an Om Rău got the squirts on you, man.” Thomal, Dev’s best friend, had tried to dead-pan that, but his lips were twitching pretty badly.

  “Okay, guys, we need to watch our asses here.” Sedge Stănescu, a better-looking version of the WWF wrestler Hulk Hogan, cracked open his own locker and peeked inside.

  “Nah, the rest of us don’t need to worry.” Arc, the older and slightly taller of the Costache brothers, threw open his locker without incident. “This is just Ãlex using his special effects skills to mess with Jaċken and Dev. His two brothers-in-law.”

  Nỵko made a ah noise of understanding. Ãlex Parthen had bonded with black-haired, sweetheart Vârcolac, Luvera—sister to Dev, who was now vaguely Clifford the Dog looking—a week ago, and Ãlex’s sister Tonĩ Parthen, illustrious co-leader of this refuge underground community called Ţărână, was wife to Frosty the Snowman over there. Guess this was how Ãlex said “howdy” to his relations.

  “I’m going to rip Ãlex’s head off,” Dev snarled.

  Arc looked taken aback. “You can’t do that. This was a prank, Nichita. You have to prank him back.”

  Dev’s eyebrows bunched together.

  Arc frowned. “Didn’t you ever joke around with Luvera when you two were growing up?”

  “She’s a girl.”

  And all but ignored in the Nichita household her whole life. Nỵko pulled on his workout shirt. Kind of wished he’d known that about Luvera. He would’ve made an effort to talk to her more, even though his vow of celibacy generally had him keeping his interactions with the fairer sex on a hi, how’re you doing today? level and not much more.

  Arc turned toward Jaċken and Nỵko. “Didn’t you guys prank each other?”

  Nỵko shrugged. “Not really.” Nỵko, Jaċken, and their younger brother, Shọn, had been born and raised in Oţărât, the neighboring underground town of the demon Om Rău race. Life had been cruddy enough there without them messing with each other.

  “Unbelievable.” Arc rolled his eyes. “Well, we”—he gestured back and forth between himself and Thomal—“used to pull shit on each other all of the time.” A light of amusement brightened in Arc’s eyes as he kept his focus on Thomal. “Remember when I put pink hair dye in your shampoo?”

  Thomal chuckled. “I looked like a punk rocker for a week. Till I got sick of it and shaved my head.”

  Arc and Thomal laughed together in brotherly camaraderie.

  Hmm. Maybe Nỵko should have pranked his brothers.

  A knock interrupted them. “Hey there,” Tonĩ Parthen called out. “May I come in?” The locker room door cracked open. “Everyone decent?”

  When no one protested, Tonĩ stepped all the way inside. She was dressed professionally in brown pants and a silky-looking blue blouse that matched her eyes. The top half of her strawberry blonde hair was tied back, the rest left to drape her shoulders. “Jaċken, I need you to—my God.” Her brows rose into a high arc. “Why do you look like you barely survived a Johnson’s Baby Powder factory mishap?”

  The warriors chortled.

  Jaċken’s voice was brittle with annoyance. “This is your brother’s idea of a damned joke.”

  “Ãlex did this? Uh, oh, you’d better not get it wet, then.”

  “Aw, hell!” Thomal shouted toward the showers. “Nichita!”

  Dev reappeared into the main part of the locker room, the sound of water running behind him. He was naked as the day he was born, except for the twinkle of his trademark gold hoop earring in his left lobe. He spread his arms to show off a soaking wet body now stained with dripping red lava-marks. “What is this stuff, anyway?”

  Another raucous burst of laughter erupted out of the men. God knew how any of them were ever going to get work done today.

  “And there,” Tonĩ sighed, “is Dev’s penis again.”

  Jaċken’s head whipped around so fast, white powder jet-sprayed off the top of his black hair.

  Nỵko snort-gulped another laugh.

  Jaċken pointed a rigid finger at his wife, the long black teeth tattoos along his forearm bulging. “Out!” he ordered her.

  Tonĩ’s lips twisted. “You can’t really expect me to take you seriously when you look like a French pastry, can you?”

  With a low, rumbling growl, Jaċken started for his wife.

  Tonĩ scuttled backward, her eyes sparkling. “All right, all right.”

  Once upon a time, back before Jaċken and Tonĩ were together, Dev had tried to seduce Tonĩ in his bedroom—naked, so the story went—and Jaċken was a little sensitive about it. Kind of understandable. Nỵko wouldn’t want his wife, doctor or not, glimpsing Dev’s, er, the size of Dev’s…you know, his, um…. Never mind. And not that he made a habit of noticing. But, heck, it was sort of like a car wreck, impossible not to at least take a glance at something like that.

  Jaċken body-blocked Tonĩ out into the hallway.

  “I’m going,” she insisted, her voice still warm with amusement. “As soon as Your Snow Whiteness can get himself cleaned up, I need you and the men to come to my office.” Tonĩ’s voice faded down the hall. “There’s something you need to see.”

  Chapter Five

  The other warriors took the time to full-on change back into civilian clothes for the meeting with Tonĩ, while Thomal just yanked on a pair of sweatpants over his workout shorts and headed out of the mansion—the warriors’ training gym was in the basement—and headed down Main Street. Now he could duck into Aunt Ælsi’s, just down the way, and grab a to-go cup of coffee.

  The TradeMark Clothing Store, his sister-in-law’s place, was right next door, and Beth Costache was also inside Ælsi’s, ordering a drink that would probably throw her into sugar-shock. Thomal secretly rolled his eyes. Women.

  As far as sweet went, though, Beth had the lock on that, with the type of ultra-nice personality that somehow shone all over her skin. If Thomal didn’t know better, he’d say Beth was one of those sparkly vampires from Twilight. He snorted. Sparkly? Regular humans got nearly everything wrong about the breed, but sparkly had to take the cake.

  Thomal chatted with Beth, then paid Ælsi and grabbed his cup, full of straight black coffee as man was meant to drink it. Meandering down Main, he came to Garwald’s Pub, located just before the road forked, and spotted Dănuţ, exiting the bar with a bag of ketchup bottles. Dănuţ wa
s manager of the community diner, and by the looks of it, he’d run out of some supplies.

  Thomal lengthened his strides, passing the pub to head down the right fork. Dănuţ wasn’t dressed in a way that was especially bleak, but Thomal still only saw a depressing blend of charcoal, black, and grey whenever he looked at the dude, and that wasn’t how he wanted to start his morning.

  “Hey, Thomal!” Hadley was just coming out of the grocery store. “What are you doing out and about?” His girlfriend drew close and smiled up at him. Her teeth were so white they seemed to catch the pretend sunshine from stadium lights overhead and reflect it back tenfold. “I thought you were training this morning.”

  “I was. We got interrupted to have a meeting with Tonĩ.” He gestured down the street toward the hospital. “I’m heading to her office now.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m glad I ran into you. I wanted to tell you something last night, but couldn’t find you.”

  He sipped his coffee, pretending great interest in it to avoid Hadley’s eyes. He’d been avoiding his girlfriend, lately, afraid he might somehow give away how frustrated he was feeling about her these days. Which made him a total dick—both the avoidance and the frustration. Because he should do nothing but count his lucky stars that Hadley was in his life.

  This community ran extremely short on mate-able females: specifically, women like Hadley who were in possession of an ancient, rare gene called Dragon. These females were the last frontier of breeding options for Vârcolac since their dying species had reached the limits of their DNA and now couldn’t procreate with their own kind. To go back to the lucky for him part, Hadley was awesome; she had a million-dollar smile, a righteously hot bod, honey-blonde hair, a very pleasant personality, and—after an initial freak-out when she found out he was a fang-bearing sub-species of human—now wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her: marriage, kids, lots of sex, the whole nine yards.

  The catch?

  She suffered from a needle phobia.

  And, yeah, to take a pit stop in Obvious Land for a moment, his fangs were much sharper than needles, more like blades, which equaled a bunch of hurry up and wait, already on his end.

  Hadley was working on overcoming her fear of his fangs with the community therapist, using some technique called “systematic desensitization.” But after six months of treatment—six long months, during which time he’d been privileged to watch warrior buddies Dev and Gábor nab wives—Hadley didn’t seem much further along than when she’d started. He was growing sick of plastering a smile on his face and pretending that dating her with no end in sight was just super-okay, and that’s where the avoidance had come from. He was also pretty damned sure that if Hadley found out how horny he actually was, it wouldn’t help his campaign to ultimately convince this woman that he and his fangs could be oh-so-sweet to her.

  “I had a B12 shot, Thomal.”

  He whipped his eyes up. “What?”

  “Yep.” Her expression glowed with pride. “I focused on happy thoughts and kept my heartbeat even, and I did it!”

  “Holy crap.”

  “I know, isn’t it great!? I need to manage a few more shots, but otherwise, I think we can be together soon.” She moved closer and widened her smile.

  Her scent—that of an unmated female—drowned him in the smell of mount-me-now-and-hard-baby, and he jolted. Grinding his teeth, he tried to pinch his nostrils off from it. And, yeah, he’d go ahead and solve world hunger and create peace for all, too, while he was about the easy shit.

  She reached up and palmed his cheek. “That is, if you still want me.”

  “Of course.” As the words left his mouth, he felt something twinge in his conscience. He had a knack for seeing the true side of people—a throwback from his days as a painter—but with Hadley, he felt like he was overlooking something. There was some kind of…essence about Hadley that pulled him toward her, but almost in a way that made him feel like he didn’t have a say in the matter.

  She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. “I’m so sorry, honey. I know this wait has been difficult for you. It’s been hard on me, too, unable to be with you when I love you so much. But…” She turned her head to whisper directly into his ear, “I promise to make the wait worth it.”

  Lights, camera, action. A porno movie instantly lit up his brain, a string of endless variations of what her promise implied parading through his mind. Hadley in a bikini shot instantly to the screen. Every time the two of them went to the Water Cliffs he just about blew his load in his swim trunks…metaphorically speaking, of course, because he couldn’t get the ol’ bone daddy going until he was a mated male. Hadley had a cute little birthmark sitting high on her left hip—in addition to the one on her back that marked her a Dragon—which for some reason he always wanted to lick. It was shaped like a lopsided “3,” and sucking on it while he peeled off her bathing suit was the movie going off in his head that—

  Prickles of pain needled his cock, his blocked-off sexual plumbing saying hey, watch it, bub in full contradiction to his mind shouting yahoo, let’s rock! Such fun to have schizophrenic sex organs. He stepped out of Hadley’s arms. “Hey, now, don’t start in on that. I’ll end up on the floor.” He was smiling, though, really happy for the first time in a long time. “I gotta go, Hadley, but let’s have dinner tonight to celebrate.”

  She laughed. “It’s Thanksgiving, silly. We’re going to the Bruns’ house, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. We’ll celebrate there, then.” What better place to raise a toast to his future than with his family and friends? “I’m really proud of you.” He gave her a quick kiss and took off down Main Street again.

  Ţărână’s hospital stood between the community grocery store and the beginnings of the residential neighborhood where couples with children lived. Every house there was painted a different bright color, but each one had a white picket fence out front surrounding a lawn of artificial turf. Various other fake plants and potted flowers littered the yards, depending on individual preferences, creating the illusion of any upper-middle-class neighborhood from topside rather than the inside of a cave. At the end of the street, there was a schoolhouse on the right, and on the left a path leading toward the Water Cliffs park, where sand, waterfalls, and pools provided for fun family outings. It was very happy-go-lucky stuff, and Thomal grinned so widely it was a wonder the sides of his mouth didn’t knock his ears in. He’d be living here soon. He knew just how he’d arrange the plants in the front yard, too…although he should probably leave that to Hadley.

  Tonĩ Parthen’s office took up a huge corner of the ground floor of the four-story hospital building. A desk of pale wood sat to the left of the door and a cluster of couch, chairs, and coffee table were situated opposite. Straight across from the entrance was a frosted sliding glass door which led out to a garden courtyard where convalescing patients could sit or hobble about. Above the couch hung a rectangular picture of one-hundred-percent girlie crap: flowers on a hillside. On the wall by the door was mounted a state-of-the-art flat screen TV.

  Raln Dodrescu, Ţărână’s media tech guy, was currently kneeling beneath it, fiddling with the TiVo. Raln was in charge of television programming for the community, which mostly consisted of him flip-flopping shows to meet Ţărână’s backward day/night cycle. Nighttime topside was daytime here, and vice versa, and it wouldn’t go down well to have primetime TV playing, like the risqué Two and a Half Men, during kids’ breakfast while SpongeBob Squarepants was the only thing available for adults in the evening.

  Raln was only a few years older than Thomal, but was of the “lost” generation of Vârcolac. He was married to a woman of his own breed and had suffered through the birth of two stillborn babies before he and his wife gave up on the idea of a family. Devastated by years of death and loss, most couples of this lost generation had stopped trying for children even long before Roth Mihnea, Tonĩ’s co-leader of Ţărână, had forbidden all future Vârcolac-to-Vârcolac reproduction
. Real tragic stuff.

  Jaċken was already in Tonĩ’s office when the rest of them arrived: Dev Nichita, who was the leader of the Special Ops Topside Team, an expert military unit created to deal with problems occurring up on planet earth, then Gábor Pavenic, Sedge Stănescu, and Thomal himself.

  “Forward to the spot when the police officer leaves the house,” Tonĩ directed Raln. “Then freeze-frame as soon as the door swings open.”

  Nodding, Raln super-slow-forwarded the picture. On the TV, a female newscaster was reporting in front of a single family home, the tag of “El Cerrito” on the lower right hand corner of the screen, indicating where she was in San Diego.

  “Who did the reporter say was kidnapped?” Dev asked, focused on the TV.

  “A young woman named Elsa Mendoza,” Tonĩ answered. “Sister to Ria Mendoza.”

  Sedge pulled his long blond hair into a ponytail. “The name Ria Mendoza sounds familiar.”

  Tonĩ nodded. “Ria’s a San Diego prosecutor. Kimberly probably knows her.” Kimberly was Sedge’s wife, a champion-class attorney who lived down here, but also practiced law topside, working cases for her own firm as well as attending to issues for the community. “In the middle of the abduction, Elsa’s live-in boyfriend came home and was killed by the intruders.”

  They all watched in silence as the TV picture moved forward frame by frame. The door to the house swung open in slow motion and a uniformed policeman moved into the entry.

  “Okay, stop there,” Tonĩ said to Raln. “Now move back to when the door first opens.” The frame click-clicked back. “There.” Tonĩ pointed at the television screen, indicating a bloody mark on the wall just inside the house: a piece of crime scene evidence TV viewers weren’t supposed to see…and nobody probably had, because the door opened and closed so quickly at normal speed.