Six inches shorter, fifty pounds lighter, the man blubbered, “No problem, buddy,” and returned to his drink.
Alamut sat on the stool and caught his own reflection in the mirror behind the wall. Feral, on the edge of madness, made all of him hard. He cupped his mouth and yelled at the bartender. “Can I get another one?”
He turned back to CNN, but someone had switched to ESPN. Fury filled him and he white knuckled the bar.
Kill. Them. All.
He spun around to see who whispered in his ear, but no one stood behind him. His heart raced uncomfortably. He scanned the faces of the patrons, not quite knowing what he looked for.
“Four dollars.” The bartender slapped a Heineken down in front of him.
He fished in his pocket for his wallet, his hand trembling.
“You okay, buddy?”
“Ah, yeah. I’m fine.”
Take your knife and slice this fucker’s throat.
He shoved the bills into the bartender’s outstretched hand while The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang between his ears. Ancient prayers slipped quietly from his lips as he stared into the mirror hanging on wall. In the half-empty bar, no church choir stood behind him. He sucked the bottle of beer dry in seconds.
Two isn’t enough. We want more. More pain. More blood.
The knife secreted inside the waistband of his pants burned, demanding to be drawn. His fingers reached and touched the hilt, then wrapped around the hard leather.
Do it. You want to kill them. More lives added to your name. Not Anubis’.
The blade cleared its sheath, ready to strike when a glass dropped and laughter from a nearby table broke the trance. He burst out of the bar and into the muggy night air.
A gong sounded inside his head.
“Not now,” he chanted, his body shaking. He balled his hands into tight fist to keep them from shaking, but the vibrations traveled up his arms and into his chest while a steady darkness crept over his vision.
Anubis summoned him. He darted into an alley and ducked behind a dumpster. Back pressed to the rough brick, he tried to hold onto this world. This time he couldn’t. The god wouldn’t be denied and the call started ripping his body apart. Deeper in the alley, a bottle crashed.
He wasn’t alone. Off to his right, a drunk was slumped against a stack of discarded crates on the opposite wall. He stumbled from the alley. His atoms shifted, yanking him to Duat, the Underworld of the Egyptian pantheon. In the last seconds, he heard the drunks dwindling screams. Sharp pieces of shattered bones pricked his back, offering no comfort. Above him, no stars, no sky. A void held him captive until his master released him.
Alamut rolled and pushed himself up. Bones crackled and snapped. On unsteady feet, ash churned around him, filled his lungs and choked him. The damned kept coming and the incinerators never cooled. The ground rolled and heaved beneath his feet. The beast traveled underneath, searching for the new arrival. He had to recite the incantation before he became a part of the landscape. Throat raw, he chanted the ancient words that revealed a cathedral made of twilight, midnight and dusk and raced for the opening.
Doors as tall as ancient redwoods creaked open enough for him to squeeze through. No vestibule, no sanctuary. Just a stone altar in a cavernous room made of shadowed glass that held back a tide of fermenting bodies, wailing their misery through silent screams.
Smoke rose and curled thickly in the air from rows of bitter incense lining the charred walls. Alamut crossed the room, dipped his hands into an ebony bowl and scooped up Mhurr-scented oil. The thick oil slid slowly up his fingers and arms, seeping into his pores, every strand of hair and orifice, enveloping him in its heavy scent, and pulling his soul further to the left of center. In the sealed room, the oil smoldered on his skin and rose, joining with the smoke from the incense to form the outline of a man in the curling tendrils hovering above him.
Anubis coalesced before his eyes. Eight feet tall in ink black garb, chiseled from volcanic rock. The head of a jackal, the body of a man, sharpened spikes dipped in gold crowned his head and added another three feet to his height. Not a muscle showed. Smooth, sculpted rock was his form.
Alamut heard a sound, like a dozen startled rattlers, and then a whizzing hum a second before agony crisscrossed his chest. He looked down. A deep section of flesh was missing.
“Weeks have passed without a harvest.” The god’s voice echoed in the room.
His heart raced. He couldn’t tell him about his two recent kills. The sacred knife didn’t capture their essences and send them to Duat. Too pure, those souls he couldn’t harvest.
“Master, those I hunt have been warned. They hide while I seek.” The god didn’t understand the modern world. He didn’t understand TV, the Internet phones. After he accepted his servitude, Alamut researched the pantheon and the master he chained himself to. Anubis was a lesser god, son to two elder gods. Though not the most powerful deity, he was cunning, and bitter. After living in Roman’s shadow and the rest of the brothers, Alamut respected his slyness and understood the hatred that fueled him. The god desired power, power over those that controlled him. Alamut wanted the same and through this lesser god, they would both achieve it.
“Give me the power you’ve given the hibernating Anubites.” He had no idea what power the Anubites had. The god hadn’t shared that information, but if they were strong enough to kill the rest of the Egyptian Gods, then, as General, Alamut deserved the strength and more. The floor trembled. The god approached. A wave of energy swept over him. He stiffened his spine. Anubis needed him, as much as Alamut needed the god. In fact, Anubis needed him more. He was trapped here on Chemmis, the home of the Egyptian pantheon, directing this coup from the sidelines, until he could step in and take credit.
Just like Roman. He directed and the troops followed. Not. Any. More.
Alamut lowered his gaze. “Time grows short, and our army is still small.”
“There are consequences—”
“When planning an overthrow victory goes to the bold, not the meek.” He raised his eyes and met those of Anubis’. “I am tired of waiting in the shadow of lesser men because of the circumstances of my birth.”
No sound came from the deity as he stood like a statue. This is the first time he actually looked at Anubis. He met the stone gaze and didn’t quiver. Was there a being beneath that stone? Living, breathing, fucking, like the rest of us or did this God abstain from everything human and enjoyable? And if he was this weak, trapped by indecision, could he be conquered?
The god walked behind him. “Kneel.”
His knees crashed into the floor. His back bowed and his face met the cold glass. On the other side of the transparent barrier a face pressed close. A woman. She was beautiful once. Long streaming hair, large doe eyes with generous lips. But now, she was just a face—no body—floating in a bloody sea. He stared into that woman’s dead eyes and tried to ignore the zing of a blade pulled from its sheath, except she drifted away, pulled by an unknown tide.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the jagged curve of metal reflecting the flames from the rows of candles illuminating the room. Anubis’ foot landed on his neck. Panic swallowed him. His throat compressed and his lungs fluttered awkwardly in his chest. He couldn’t breathe or move. And he couldn’t scream when the blade pierce his back under his shoulder blade and slice downward.
Rough fingers spread the torn flesh further apart and Anubis shoved something hard inside. Next to his ribs, it grated alongside the bones and merged with the surrounding structures. Changing, restructuring, transforming.
“You, my beast, will hunt and kill only at my will. Through the chemite we are linked. I will direct you to your next harvest.”
No, Alamut wanted to scream but his will shredded. He was now a puppet.
Though his features never moved, Anubis laughed, a great joyful sound.
Silently, Alamut laughed also. He would kill for Anubis until he needed him no longer. No one would control him. Not Anubis a
nd not Roman. Both would feel his rage. Instead of one enemy, he now had two.
CHAPTER 11
Stella’s words dipped Roman into an icy tornado of emotion. How did he miss the obvious when it smacked him in the face and how did she—a novice—deduce what he’d missed? Initially, an opportunistic kill, now the Strangler was targeting Stella to hurt him, or quite possibly, The Village Strangler wasn’t behind the latest attack. A new player had entered the game. Someone using Stella to get at him in a game Roman hadn’t known he played until today.
Unacceptable.
He grabbed his phone and then stopped. Who to contact? With too many unknowns, the wrong call could bring disaster. The wrong choice and Stella would die. Wrapped in her protective pink robe, her shifting body wadded the material around her upper thighs revealing shapely legs. The swell of a breast peeked through her parted collar. Beads of sweat dotted her face and cleavage. Damp hair clung to her forehead. The tiny apartment sweltered in the July heat, but that robe protected her against him. A visible barrier probably made her feel safe, even if it caused her to have heat stroke. Roman chuckled.
Stella moaned. The deep guttural sound made his blood thicken and pool low in his jeans. I can’t love you. The words banged around his head. Not this time. If he had one chance to keep her alive, he would take it and that meant keeping his heart out of it.
“Do the job,” he mumbled when she moaned again.
Save her and then leave her to live a normal life.
“It’s the only way.”
Roman flipped open his laptop. He tapped his password and entered the Nicolis database. In two-thousand years, his enemies were numerable, but the good thing about being immortal is that eventually, they died. In this current incarnation, his persona as a mercenary had generated more than a fair amount of foes. Many of them still above ground. He counted them all as cowards . . . but one could’ve grown a set. Once he discovered who suddenly had a pair, he’d crush them. Only one person he trusted enough with this info, Quin.
The IT expert of the group, Quin’s fingers dipped into many pies. He could reach out and touch friends in the NYPD, FBI, NSA and INTERPOL. Sitting in his sanctum, surrounded by computer displays, he could route through thousands of overseas servers and tap into NYPD’s database, then download all the information into an off shore server before rerouting the document a few thousand times. When completed, the file would land in his inbox scrubbed clean of any digital fingerprints. The sheets rustled behind him. Roman sent Quin an email explaining everything. Then he looked over his shoulder.
Damn, he woke her. After only a few hours of sleep, she was sitting up, her head tilted back to catch the whiffs of air generated from the ceiling fan, she pulled the collar of the robe from her damp neck.
He closed his laptop, retrieved a bottle of water from the kitchen and handed it to her. Perched on the edge of her coffee table, he waited while she rubbed the bottle across her sweaty brow and gave a throaty sigh before twisting the cap. Completely unaware of the sensual picture she presented, Stella tossed her head back, tipped the bottle to her lips and gulped until she drained it.
“How long have I been asleep?” She licked the moisture from her lips.
He ignored the lengthening poke of his cock. “A few hours. We need to talk.” Elbows on his knees, he leaned closer to her.
She paused, her eyes shifted around the room. “If not the most dreaded sentence in the world, it must be in the top five.” She took a deep fortifying breath and squared her shoulders. “Go ahead.”
She thinks I’m leaving her. He studied her until she squirmed uncomfortably under the glare. It galled to be lumped together with everyone else that hurt, left, and disappointed her.
“I believe you’re correct about the killings.”
Her eyebrows shot into her hairline. “You do?”
He nearly laughed. “Surprising, huh? Well you made a convincing argument and I’d be foolish to ignore the possibility.”
“So, you’re leaving now,” she stated flatly.
Every muscle rigid, he sat back. “Do you have a death wish? Cause if there’s someone targeting me, they’re using you to do it.”
Stella nodded solemnly while her fingers twisted in her robe. She chewed the corner of her mouth before she mumbled, “When do you leave?”
His thumb swept across her full bottom lip. When her cheek turned into his palm, his heart caved.
“I’m not leaving, Stella. I will never leave you. I said I would protect you. And I will.” He leaned closer. “With my last breath.”
Her unflinching stare met his. “I want to protect myself. Will you show me how?”
A simple request. “Yes.” He nodded. “I’ll teach you.”
She leaned in. “Thank you.”
Temptation ate at him, but he stood and walked to the other side of the room.
“Go back to sleep, Stella.” He turned off the lights, yanked his shirt over his head, and stretched out on the creaking floor.
“Why are you on the floor?” Her voice wavered.
Graced with superior eyesight, he watched her struggling with the robe twisted around her body. “My back wouldn’t appreciate sleeping in that chair and it’s cooler down here.”
“I can’t see you.” Fear etched her voice.
The mattress squeaked and he heard the soft slap of her feet on the wooden floor.
“I’m right here.” He touched her smooth foot and circled her ankle.
She didn’t pull away, but waited until he removed his hand to climb back on the futon. She punched her pillow and settled into a comfortable spot.
“Roman, isn’t the floor hard?”
She sounded like a child asking a question when she already knew the answer.
“I’ve slept on worse and in worse,” he muttered.
“Umm . . . the bed is big enough for both of us.”
Did she know she offered him exactly what he wanted and where he wanted to be? “You’re asking me to sleep with you?”
“I’m offering to share the futon with you,” she corrected.
Standing next to the futon, he whispered, “Why?”
She jumped, her hand stretched out in front of her, searching for him. “Damn, how can you move that fast? I didn’t hear you.”
“Answer the question. Why?”
“I . . . can’t let you sleep on the floor.” She scooted over and waited for him.
He should resist. The many reasons why ticked by, but the futon creaked as he lay beside her and stilled. Everything he wanted rested inches away.
“Can you see me?”
“No.” He lied, watching her bite her lip. Slowly, she relaxed, believing the darkness covered her. He sucked in a sharp breath when her hand brushed his bare chest.
“Sorry.” But a smile tweaked her lips.
Stella’s words darted through his brain. “No boyfriends,” she told McCabe. It was too ridiculous to be true. But . . . could she be a virgin?
“Roman.” She breathed his name and lust raced down his spine, igniting every nerve ending and wiping his brain clean of every thought, but one. He caught the belt of her robe and followed it up to the knot. A finger slipped in and loosened it.
“Yes.” His breath fanned her face. She tilted her chin up at the perfect angle for his lips to cover hers.
“I’ve never had a man in my home before.”
His finger stopped, and withdrew. What the hell am I doing? She drugged him with her words, frailty and covered body. He had to get out of her bed, her apartment, maybe the city, let one of his men protect her.
She touched him again, ran her palm over his stubbled jaw, then traced a finger over his eyebrows and down the bridge of his nose. She played with the shell of his ear until his chest rumbled with suppressed laughter. Then her fingers found his lips and the laughter stopped.
He opened his mouth and drew her finger in. Like a hare trapped by a wolf, she quivered, her eyes searching the darkness for him.
> Roman opened her robe, letting cool air hit her. She closed her eyes and arched, allowing him to strip the robe from her arms. Beneath the covering she wore a lace-trimmed camisole and boy shorts. Her high breasts would fit perfectly in his palms. Flat stomach and curvaceous hips, the shorts clearly outlining the juncture between her thighs.
He was hard and throbbing. “Better?” he croaked.
Stella nodded and her hand landed on the center of his chest and stroked downward, teasing, touching, torturing, until lava replaced the blood pumping through his veins. His hand snaked under the top and caressed her smooth satiny skin. He glided up her flat abs. Then stumbled over a puckered scar. She gasped.
Unsure, he hesitated.
She rolled away and shifted to the edge. A broken sob reached him. Gently, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. Spooning, he held her close and gave what comfort he could. When her tears subsided, Roman raised the hem of her top and again slid his hand under.
Stella grabbed his wrist. Her voice hitched, but a strangled, “No” escaped.
Hand on her abdomen, his thumb made soothing circles on her skin. A stuttered breath wracked her frame. He pressed tender kisses to her shoulder and nape, understanding her anxiety and fear, until her head lolled against his chest. The slim column of her neck lay exposed and vulnerable, begging him to trail kisses up to her earlobe. He obliged and the tension eased from her body and she settled against him again, but didn’t release his hand. Two scars marred the landscape of her flesh and carefully, his hand caressed both.
Once again, Stella tensed, her hand squeezed his wrist.
“These scars mean nothing other than what you let them mean. You’re beautiful. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” He stroked the damaged skin and her body quivered. “I’m sorry you’ve suffered, but I swear to you, nothing will ever hurt you again.”
Her tremors stopped and she turned her head toward him. “You can’t promise that.”
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