by Leji Albano
En used his staff to mercilessly cane the back of the man who lay before him, the heavy strikes raising bloody welts with each blow. The general suffered this abuse in silence, knowing that to show any sign of weakness would only lead to more pain and possibly death.
When the god had exhausted his anger on the helpless figure that lay before him, he walked the few steps necessary to collapse onto his throne, his hooded eyes burning with satisfaction as they surveyed the damage he had inflicted.
“No. Your death would only provide an easy escape from my righteous wrath. Instead, you will continue to lead my armies. But know this, you miserable worm, fail me again, and there is no punishment too harsh for me to levy onto your head.” He threw a highly decorated clay drinking bowl full of wine at the man still sprawled out on the floor. “Get out of my sight. You sicken me.”
The following morning, Alexander cautiously stepped out of the private elevator that connected his office to his personal quarters above. Unbeknownst to virtually anyone, he owned this entire building, leasing out all but the top two floors, which were reserved for his use only. When he had purchased the building, which had been constructed in the 1920s, it had needed a lot of renovation. The penthouse occupied the entire rectangular seventh floor, and while the space required for operating Destination Unknown Antiquities was just a portion of the sixth, he had reserved the remainder for future needs and storage.
Crossing the vast expanse of oaken flooring and the tasteful area rug, to stand in front of the large double-paned tinted windows that dominated the back and right side of his office, he gazed out at downtown Spokane. Many would question why he would choose to base his operations out of such a small town rather than Seattle or Portland, Oregon, but he loved this city. A glimmer of humor shone in his eyes as he admitted if only to himself, that he really, really hated rain. It wasn’t like he’d chosen to live in the back-woods—Spokane had around 250,000 people who called it home, and if you counted the surrounding areas, you could probably push that number closer to half a million. Besides, you could get to almost anywhere within city limits in no longer than twenty to thirty minutes, something that could not be said for more substantial metropolitan areas. He shuddered, thinking of the I-5 commute in Seattle.
He could hear Tina in the front office, which until yesterday had been the domain of his closest friend, Maria. Sighing deeply, Alexander walked over to the espresso machine that sat on the wet bar along one wall of his CEO suite. He took a few minutes and made a doppio espresso for both himself and his newest employee. As he hesitated, he could hear Maria’s voice in his head, ‘Stop being a pussy and just get it over with’. He grinned, and strolled out to where Tina was reorganizing things to her liking.
She looked up as he set the saucer and cup on the polished wooden surface of her desk, a quizzical look on her face. Tina knelt next to the open bottom drawer on the right side of the desk, the chair pushed back to give her room to maneuver.
“It's black because I wasn’t sure how you take your espresso.” He pursed his lips in thought. “There’s cream and sugar if you want?”
“Black is fine,” she replied while pushing from her eyes a strand of brunette hair that had fallen forward. Then she grinned impishly up at him. “I thought I would be getting your coffee since you’re the boss. Isn’t that how it’s normally supposed to work?”
His face took on a sheepish look, along with a slight blush she found endearing. “Ummm, I’m kind of anal about my coffee…among other things. So, I tend to make my own, and it’s not that much harder to make it for two.” Shrugging that off, he continued, “Did you get moved into the loft, OK? If there’s anything you need or want to change, just let me know.”
As she stood, he noticed for the first time that she was taller than he had expected. Maria had topped out at 5’5”, but Tina appeared to be about 5’10”. Given that he stood 6’3”, that meant he didn’t have to look down as far while they chatted. He decided that he liked that.
“Oh, everything is perfect. I feel like a pea rattling around in a pod, though. My last apartment was barely 800 square feet.” Her cheeks dimpled as she smiled at him, distracting him momentarily.
Alexander took a good look at her for the first time. Her brown eyes sparkled with excitement as she regaled him with additional detail. Still, truthfully, he didn’t hear a thing she said. Long, wavy brunette locks that cascaded to the middle of her back made him want to run his fingers through them. The white blouse she was wearing did little to conceal the fact that she was very well-endowed, and her slim, athletic waist and the long legs that emerged from her grey pencil-skirt were consuming all his attention. Mentally slapping himself for acting like a teenage school-boy, he tuned back in to what she was saying.
“…and the car is fantastic. I’ve never driven anything so responsive or powerful. There’s no way I would ever have been able to get something like that straight out of school.” Her hands were waving around erratically as she spoke, and he could swear that the floor was vibrating from her enthusiasm.
He cleared his throat, nervously. “Excellent. I’m glad you like it. Your aunt was pushing for something more sedate…like a MINI Cooper.” He smiled slyly. “But I overruled her on that. Executive privilege, don’t you know.” The resulting smile took his breath away, and he decided to make a strategic retreat before he did something stupid.
Sitting behind the broad flat surface of his desk, Alexander silently panicked. What. In. The. Actual. Fuck had just happened? He needed to get his shit together because he could not fuck this up. His reaction to Tina was wrong on so many levels, and not only because he was her boss. He fired up some music and closed his eyes as he tried to purge his mind of inappropriate thoughts. Unfortunately, the song that was playing didn’t help matters, Foreigner’s Spellbinder was probably not the best choice given his current circumstances. He quickly pushed the button on the controller to go to the next random song in his library, then sighed deeply in defeat as Black Sabbath’s Country Girl began playing. Even his electronics were conspiring against him.
Making up his mind, he decided to remove himself from the situation entirely; a workout was just what the doctor ordered. Calling out, he said, “I’ll be upstairs working out. If you need anything, please call my cell.” Tina just waved in response, and he hurried to the elevator and escaped upstairs.
Sweat streamed down his naked torso, and he desperately forced himself through kata after kata. His retreat—and he was honest enough with himself to acknowledge that he had, in fact, retreated from Tina’s distractions—had not worked out nearly as well as he had hoped.
Alexander came to a stop, breathing heavily, and knelt on the padded surface of the dojo, legs tucked beneath him, trying to calm his racing mind. After a minute, he gave up on any hope of centering himself and grabbed a towel to dry off, then cracked open a cold bottle of water and chugged half of its contents.
His troubled gaze slid to the windows. Early afternoon sunlight streamed through and dappled the interior of his apartment. The attraction he felt for Tina, while typical for any healthy male in the presence of a beautiful woman, was something he needed to throttle now. Not only was it inappropriate in the professional sense—workplace romances were always a bad idea—but it was even worse when it was between a boss and an employee. Or a monster and a Normal.
Alexander had lived by his own Golden Rule over the years, and that rule was ‘You never, ever, shit in your own pool.’ Allowing any hint of his feelings, much less encouraging any sort of non-professional interaction with her, would only lead to trouble…trouble he could ill afford.
He had managed to walk that tightrope with Maria for nearly forty years. Surely, he could continue to do so with her niece? Alexander sighed, frustrated with the whole situation.
All the usual reasons still applied. Tina was a Normal…and he was a monster. It was bad enough that he would outlive her by centuries, but inevitably, as she aged and he didn’t, she would grow rese
ntful. Maria had managed to navigate that particular thorny issue, although not entirely successfully, but could Tina? No. It was far better that it never even reach that point, and getting romantically involved would only hasten such a confrontation.
Besides, not getting mired in relationships with the people around him had served him well over the years, and likely had kept him sane. Regular humans just didn’t live very long in comparison with his kind, and to make matters worse, they were all too observant and noticed that he wasn’t aging as they did, nor was he prone to any of the diseases or disabilities that seemed to plague humanity. And it was too damn hard when someone he had gotten close to died.
Having made up his mind, or at least attempting to steer clear of any complications arising from his new hire, Alexander finished his water and headed to the shower.
3
“…Feeling as if I was losing my mind, I decided to go back to the University and bury myself in the work of getting my degree. Over time, the visions slowed to a trickle and eventually stopped…more or less. Determined to retain as much of this stolen knowledge as possible, I began to keep a diary, a journal if you will, that would contain everything I knew or could learn about the Anunna and their world.
I had a new mission. I would travel the globe searching for clues and artifacts. Doctorate in archaeology in hand, I set about learning languages that might assist in my efforts. Oddly enough, the changes that had been made to my body seemed to make this significantly more straightforward than it would have been otherwise. I also tackled a second degree in anthropology….”
An excerpt from the diary of Alexander Matthews
September 1922, Spokane railyards across the river from Gonzaga University
Alexander eased the Colt M1911 out of the shoulder holster snugged under his left armpit. He raised his nose into the air and took a quiet but deep breath. The vampire was close. He could smell her…and the blood of her victim. His eyes peered suspiciously into the deep shadows that dominated this part of the railyard, actively seeking movement.
He was seriously pissed off. It seemed he had only just cleaned his city up and gotten rid of all the undesirables, and now this. When would they learn? The large Covens and Packs from Seattle and Portland seemed determined to keep pushing the limits, trying to see just how far they could probe before he inevitably snapped. He had purposefully shipped the last few mangled bodies back to their masters as warnings, but it would appear that they had not heeded them.
His ears caught furtive movement off to the left, and he shifted his body to face that direction. The gleam of fangs gave her position away, and Alexander cautiously advanced toward her. She clutched a torn and dirty figure in her clawed hands as she hissed at him in warning from where she crouched over the body. The vampire wasn’t much cleaner than the hobo she had just fed on. Her blonde hair was filthy and matted, the clothes draped loosely around her body more holes than fabric, and she was barefoot.
He considered her disheveled state and then holstered his pistol. The young woman before him, her apparent age around twenty-one, was definitely not from an established Coven.
Alexander shook his head sadly. “Who are you?”
Her eyes darted around anxiously, looking for an escape route that didn’t exist.
“Look, you can talk to me willingly…or I can put a bullet in your head. The choice is yours.” He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.
She seemed to deflate when she realized he meant it. “Melinda,” she mumbled.
“Melinda.” He tried the name on for size. “And where is Melinda from? I can tell by looking at you, not to mention the horrible stench that surrounds you, that you are not from a Coven. So, what’s your story?” His wrinkled nose and pursed lips showed precisely what he thought of her hygiene.
The vampire stood slowly, her hands self-consciously trying to smooth out her tattered clothing. “I’m from Seattle…or I was. I am a trained typist and worked at a law firm for a while, but then I got attacked and turned one night.”
“And?”
“When the Coven found out, they labeled me as having been turned by a rogue, and they forced me out of the city. I’ve been on my own ever since, and as you can see,” Her hands gestured at her body disdainfully. “I haven’t done too well.”
“How long have you been in my town, Melinda?”
“A couple of days. I rode one of the trains in and hid.”
Alexander looked at her curiously. “Why did you hide?”
The vampire looked at him like he was crazy. “Because of the monster. It’s all anyone talks about on the West side of the state. He’s supposed to be ten feet tall, has skin like an alligator, and eats vampires.” She shivered in horror as she recounted the story.
He burst out laughing, which only got louder when he saw her outraged look. When he finally was able to stop, he grinned at her. “I’m only 6’3”, and my skin is the same as yours…except cleaner. And, in fact, I haven’t eaten a vampire in years. You all are far too gamy for my tastes.”
Melinda was looking at him skeptically. “You are the monster?”
His eyes narrowed, and all the humanity they had contained drained away in a fraction of a second, then he shifted into his Battle form. A deep rumble rattled from his chest, and his fanged maw moved down to within an inch of her now-terrified face.
Tears were running down her cheeks, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the end. She heard a loud chuff, and then his tongue gently licked the tears from her left cheek. Her eyes popped open in shock, and he shifted back to a now-mostly naked human. “Here’s how it’s going to work, Melinda….”
It had been a month since Tina had started working for Alexander, and she was…conflicted. She absolutely loved the job and the challenge it presented. There was far more to running this operation than she had initially believed, but she was fairly certain that once she had performed the tasks enough, she would find a rhythm that simplified everything. No, that wasn’t the issue at all. The fact that she found herself strangely attracted to her boss was.
Sighing quietly, she looked through the door to find him staring out the windows of his office, and as usual, listening to music. This morning it sounded like hair metal from the ‘80s, but it was a band she was unfamiliar with. Tina acknowledged that he was an attractive man, taller than her, but not excessively so, and very well-built. He moved with a grace that she had seldom seen, and while muscular, he didn’t have a gym-rat’s physique. No, he was powerful, but like a swimmer or a gymnast, perhaps.
What really bothered her, though, was the fact that she was even having these thoughts. He was her boss, and if she was honest with herself, definitely out of her league. Tina decided she needed to schedule lunch with her Aunt Maria, so she could apologize. The slap Maria had delivered when Tina had denigrated Alexander had been well-deserved…she could finally acknowledge that. He was not at all like her preconceptions of him. His demeanor to her had been nothing less than entirely correct…and that bothered her greatly.
Tina didn’t date much. Dating usually ended in messy disasters. She knew she was attractive enough, but she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Her waspish personality chased away most men, and for the most part, she was OK with that. If they couldn’t handle it, then fuck them. She had been raised in an Italian family, and strong personalities were not just normal, they were essential. The difficulty was that she was even more abrasive than anyone else, except possibly her grandmother. And…she had a temper. Deep inside, she knew it would take a strong man to not only put up with her shit, but to see past the prickly exterior to the lonely woman inside. So far, she was batting zero in that regard.
Alexander was nothing less than a complete gentleman with her, and kept everything on a professional level, reserved even…and she wished he wouldn’t. Tina had gone so far as to push the limits of what would be considered acceptable business attire, but he hadn’t seemed to notice. One time, she had asked if he wanted to get a drink
with her after work, but he had graciously declined. She knew there was a different personality that he mostly kept well-hidden, but on occasion, she would get a glimpse of it when he slipped up. Like yesterday. He had surprised her by asking her to meet him in the conference room. When she walked in, he was serving up salad and lasagna, and to be fair, it was the best lasagna she had ever eaten. When she told him that, he just shrugged and said he had been working on the sauce recipe for a very long time. That man deflected better than most people she had ever known, and actually seemed embarrassed when complimented. While this was an endearing trait, it was also highly frustrating.
In desperation, she had asked a couple of friends over to her place, and after several glasses of wine, vented her frustrations at them. While sympathetic with her plight, they also thought dating the boss might not be such a good idea. So not what she wanted to hear, and less than helpful. Both opined that if she ever decided to quit, she should hook them up because the perks were freaking amazing.
Thus, she found herself in the current situation. Her brain agreed that staying strictly professional was the best thing to do, but somehow, she just couldn’t let it go. There was something about the man that drew her to him, but she couldn’t pin it down. It had almost become a game for her…a dangerous game, to be sure, but a game nonetheless.
The door to the hallway and the elevators opened, surprising her. Not once since she had been hired had anyone actually come by the office. In fact, Tina wasn’t even sure why they had a conference room, since it never got used. The woman who walked through the door was…hot. Annoyingly so. A petite, 5’6” tall blonde, with streaks of crimson in her straight collar-length hair, flounced in and stopped in front of Tina’s desk. Snug black leather pants, stylish short boots, and a tight tank that emphasized her lack of a bra, all packaged up with a healthy dose of attitude. Tribal tattoos peeked out from the minimal coverage her shirt provided, and she was smacking gum like she was trying to chew through a wall. Tina instantly disliked her, knew she was just being a bitch, and totally felt justified in her appraisal.
