by L. K. Below
“Who, me?” Heaven’s blue eyes were wide, rimmed with thick blond eyelashes. They were much darker, not as bright a blue as Terrence’s. Wait–why was she comparing the two?
She glared at them both.
Heaven leaned in with a smirk. Her voice wasn’t quite low enough to stop Terrence from overhearing. No doubt he would notice the accompanying look of bald interest as well. “I’m not gonna lie–he’s nice. I wonder how loyal he is to you.”
Lori would be willing to pay her to take Terrence off her hands, but unfortunately, the vamp stepped close. He put a hand possessively on Lori’s waist. Sighing, Lori plucked his fingers off of her one by one. “It seems very.”
When she looked up again, Heaven wore a serious expression. The kid jerked her head at Terrence. “Is he a Member?”
Lori didn’t hesitate. She unsheathed her dagger and offered it to Heaven hilt-first. “No. Go ahead.”
The blonde shook her head. “Not here. I don’t want to get blood on the carpet.”
Behind her, Terrence stiffened. He nearly growled as he said, “You would have her kill me?”
Lori ignored the twang of guilt inside her. She stepped away from him. “I warned you I might have to.”
“But you didn’t tell me anything.”
“Your presence here might be threat enough in itself.” There, maybe that would persuade him not to follow her anymore. She pulled the golden book from her pocket, wondering what to do with it.
Her phone vibrated.
Recruit: Terrence Welsh.
“Son of a...”
He grinned, reading the screen. “I take it this means no more death threats?”
Lori flashed the screen toward Heaven before stuffing it away. The girl held out her hand. “Since you’ve got another mission, I’ll take that book.”
Reluctantly, Lori placed it in her palm. Even if it wasn’t any use to her now that she had gotten her vision, it belonged to the Spenta Michos. “He was taken, you know,” she warned. All hint of their usual rivalry had left her voice.
Heaven’s cheerful smile slipped for just a moment. “I know.”
Lori glanced around the room. Should she touch a few more items–the overturned table, perhaps? Unfortunately, she couldn’t pick and choose when she received a vision. With Heaven around, she doubted that she would–it was miracle enough she had gotten one with Terrence hovering over her shoulder. He got on her nerves more than any three people combined. Including Heaven.
Why? She sighed inwardly as she turned to Terrence. No point in dwelling on it. “Did you leave the window exactly as you found it?”
He nodded.
“Then come on,” she muttered. She led Terrence from the house.
As they stepped onto the street, he asked, “Who is ‘he’?”
Lori was in no mood to answer. However, she knew he would only ask again. “The Spenta Michos.”
He waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, he added, “Would you mind explaining?”
“Another time.”
Her tone did not deter him for long. Unfortunately. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I gathered that you’re supposed to tell me.” His words were spoken low, dripping over her skin like a shower of warm water. He stood far too close.
“I will, just not now.” With a hand, she pushed on his chest until he stood a pace away instead of at her elbow.
“When?”
She pushed him away again. He was worse than a leech. “I’ll meet you on Tuesday at Underground. Seven o’clock.”
“I hoped we could meet someplace more private.” His eyes were warm, but they didn’t meet hers; they were locked on her lips. She resisted the urge to scrub her hand over her mouth.
“We’ll meet at Underground, then go somewhere private,” she growled.
“Seven o’clock?”
She nodded.
He smiled triumphantly. “I’ll see you then.” Without lifting his gaze from her, he backed away.
At least he seemed to know enough to not press his luck.
Chapter 3
The tight feeling in the pit of her stomach, the one that told her something bad had happened or would happen, roused her from sleep on Tuesday afternoon. She rolled over in bed and reached for her phone. The screen read just after three o’clock. She didn’t have to meet Terrence for another four hours. And she wasn’t looking forward to seeing him today; her Terrence-free day yesterday had been bliss. Sighing, she buried her face deeper into her pillow. Ignoring the tension in her gut, she settled back to sleep for a few more hours.
She woke much later to horrid scenes of her own death. Lying limply between her clammy sheets, she gulped in air. What did it mean? A vision–or just a nightmare? Unfortunately, she might not know until it was too late.
Groping for her cell, she opened it–7:03. Already late for her meeting with Terrence. Still, as she stretched her arms over her head, the image of her corpse lying facedown in a pool of her own blood swam before her eyes. Her stomach twisted into a pretzel. Before she stumbled to Underground, she needed to rinse off the sweat from her nightmare.
The warming spray of the water soothed her, and the mechanical act of getting dressed kept her mind busy. As she applied her makeup, though, her mind wandered. Every time she blinked, she saw her mangled body. She couldn’t seem to shake the eerie feeling it would happen soon.
In a daze, she meandered across town to Underground.
“Oh my God! Lori!”
Before she could unfreeze, Scissors launched herself across the strangely empty nightclub and threw her arms around her. Lori stiffened. What was going on? She never hugged.
“Thank God you’re all right!”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked warily.
Scissors stepped away to wipe her eyes. “You don’t know?”
Lori didn’t answer. The bartender’s eyes were round, her face even whiter than usual.
She took Lori by the hand. “Come with me.”
Lori inwardly braced herself as Scissors led her through the club into the alley behind.
Instead of being deserted as usual, the alley teemed with people–mostly, Lori noticed with a sickening lurch, police officers. Scissors shoved her way, Lori in her wake, to the line of yellow tape at the front of the crowd.
As the gnawing sensation in her stomach evaporated, Lori froze in place. A vision. Her nightmare had been a vision after all. Only she had dreamed of someone else’s death.
“Lori!” Terrence elbowed his way toward her.
She didn’t pay him any attention. She was too engrossed with the scene in front of her. On the pavement, facedown, was a woman who looked almost exactly like her, down to the gray tips on the ends of her black hair, and her black fake nails. She wore gothic clothes, and was similar to Lori in size and build. Most disturbingly of all, however, were the words spray-painted onto the wall:
MIASM
Shade
Shade was Lori’s codename among the Order. This murder was meant for her.
Her heart thundered, drowning out the gasps and whispers, the questions from the police officers, Terrence’s answers, and his eventual plea to conduct the interrogation the next day, when she recovered from shock. “I don’t know anything,” she croaked. She couldn’t tear her gaze away.
This murder had been meant for her.
She closed her eyes, concentrated, and when she opened them colors overlaid her eyesight. Auras.
The auras around the dead girl were strong. Black was predominant; hatred. Strong and unfaltering. It was laced with bright colors, oranges and reds. Pain and fear. They seared her eyes.
When she turned her back to the carnage, Terrence moved before her, glowing aquamarine with concern. He circled her with his arms–she trembled too hard to push him away. She blinked once, banishing the auras. A long shudder crawled down her spine.
“How did someone find a girl who looks so much like me?” she whispered.
“They didn’t.” Terren
ce’s voice was as hard as rock. “I can smell the dye from here. She must have been blonde for the gray to come out so well. Her eyes are probably different, or her face looks nothing like you, because she’s facedown. The clothes, the shoes–even the fingernails he must have had beforehand.”
Lori risked a glance back at the scene. What he said seemed plausible.
But it didn’t ease her thoughts.
“Come. Let’s go,” he said. He removed his arms from around her, though he kept one large hand on her back as a guide. “You don’t need to see this.”
Terrence steered her from the club. Once she got her bearings, she shook off his arm and walked on her own. He allowed it, though he continued to hover a step behind her, guiding her with one hand whenever she turned a corner or stepped off a curb. It slowly grated on her nerves, shredding them like cheese until her anger burned her lingering shock.
Although her hands shook with fury, she contained herself as she showed him into her dorm room.
His blue eyes glowed with concern as he crowded her. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
“Of course you’re not,” he said under his breath.
He was ignoring her. And that annoyed her just as much–if not more–than everything else he did.
“That woman was arranged to look like you.”
She tried to glower at him, but the reminder of the danger to herself made it rather watery. Resolutely, she took a breath. She could handle this. Glancing up, she caught Terrence’s concerned gaze, and the annoying expression on his face. He looked like a mother cat who had just fished her wayward kitten out of a rain barrel. Eyeing her pillow, Lori briefly considered smothering herself with it. Faux vampires were not supposed to be this wishy-washy. Or this clingy. But unfortunately, she had more important matters to consider than how perfect her life would be if Terrence would only vanish into a puff of smoke. When she slumped onto her bed, he claimed the seat beside her.
“Do those words mean anything to you? ‘Miasm’ and ‘shade’?”
She wanted to lie to him. It would solve all her problems. The words were on the tip of her tongue, too. But he was an Order member now, or would be soon. He deserved to know the truth.
“Shade is my codename in the Order,” she admitted. Those two words, dripping down the brick wall, flashed before her eyes as though she stood in the alley behind Underground again. Blinking to clear the vision, she explained, “The Aka Druj Spenta Michos–more commonly known as the Order–is an organization bent on protecting the Spenta Michos. The Holy Michael. We watch him, guard him, sometimes make his life a little easier. He’s a remarkable man, the Spenta Michos. His real name’s Michael, but to the Order, he’s the Spenta Michos, SM if we’re in a hurry. He’s just a man, but he’s an extraordinary one. A teacher, and a very wise man. I wish I could do what Rosland did with me and show him to you.”
“Rosland?” Terrence interrupted.
“My mentor,” she explained. “As I am yours.”
Slowly, he nodded. “But you can’t show him to me? This Spenta Michos?”
“No. He…went missing.” The words felt alien in her mouth. “We learned about it last Saturday. Nobody knows where he is. Everyone’s looking.”
“That’s why you wanted the book.”
She nodded. “He writes everything in it–quotes, ideas, lunch dates. It might be able to tell us who he’s associated with recently, give us clues as to who took him.” Actually, Lori doubted it would lead them anywhere. She had only wanted it to see if she could get a vision off it, which she had.
Fat lot of good that had done her.
As Terrence pondered the information, she waited. She scanned his features. His eyebrows knitted in a frown as he thought. Wouldn’t her life be great if he remained this silent all the time? If she had been ten years younger and several degrees less mature, she might have tried to glue his mouth shut. When he wasn’t talking, he was attractive.
Very attractive. With his clean-shaven face, now dark with his five o’clock shadow, his short, thick hair, and his broad shoulders, he was exactly the sort of man she might have chosen for a wild romp.
Except for the faux-vampire bit.
To take her mind off that uneasy thought, she added, “And it’s not ‘miasm.’”
His eyes were sharp as they shot up to meet hers.
Swallowing, she admitted, “It’s M-I-A, S-M.”
Am I really going to reveal my suspicions to him? He doesn’t need to know.
But even as she had the thought, the words slipped out of her mouth. “Missing in Action, Spenta Michos. God, I hope I’m wrong, but whoever kidnapped the Spenta Michos killed that girl.”
And they were gunning for Lori.
As though he had heard her inner thoughts, Terrence said, “Why is he coming after you?”
More than anything, she wondered that herself. Her stomach tightened at the thought. “I don’t know,” she said quietly, without meeting his gaze. Then, “Maybe I came too close to discovering who it is.” But her only clue had been a vision the murderer couldn’t possibly know about.
The only people who knew her codename were other Order members. If her theory was correct, a member of the Order had kidnapped the Spenta Michos. To harm the Spenta Michos in any way was akin to a Christian crucifying Jesus Christ. Blasphemy.
If an Order member had betrayed them, the future of the Order was in peril.
But how did she fit into this? Aside from being in the Order, she didn’t know why she would be targeted. Unless… She had been the only person at Shark’s meeting to suggest the Spenta Michos had been kidnapped. Had the killer been there, among them, trying to lead them astray? A disturbing thought.
Could Heaven be the kidnapper? Sure, Lori hated the snotty-nosed brat, but she couldn’t really picture her doing such a thing. Then again, this was a crime she had never thought any Order member would commit. Setting aside her own loyalty to the Spenta Michos, she tried to think objectively. Could Heaven be the kidnapper? She’d had the opportunity–she’d been on watch at the time. And as soon as Lori had laid hands on the notebook, which might have held clues as to the Spenta Michos’s whereabouts, Heaven had waltzed into the room to take it from her.
Unfortunately, Heaven could all too likely be the kidnapper. Despite the nagging sense which told Lori all Order members were loyal to the Spenta Michos. Clearly, in that, she was wrong.
When she realized Terrence had spoken, she shook herself. “I’m sorry–what did you say?”
He calmly repeated his question. “Who knows Shade is your codename?”
“Just about everyone in the Order who knows me.” And any other Order member could easily find out.
“Who knows you?”
“I–I’m not sure about all of them.”
In the face of the threat, his eyes had turned from amused to hard, glittering pinpoints of ice. When he stared at her with those eyes, fear stirred in her heart. He had accepted her offhand dismissals before, playfully persisting, but now his eyes told her he was serious. As did his tone when he said, “Tell me the ones you know.”
Without hesitation, Lori recited, “Rosland. Heaven, Shark and Byte. Matheson, Heathcliff, Garcias, Tree, Sanders.” Her forehead furrowed in a frown as she tried to think of other names. Finally, she gave up and said, “The rest of Shark’s circle. I can’t remember all of their names.” If she’d even known them to begin with.
Thinking again of the dead girl, Lori felt like she was drowning. Ignoring Terrence’s concerned look, she lifted her head, gasping for breath. Someone had killed an innocent person and posed the body to look like her. Why me? While the aching in her stomach had lessened, her instincts still told her the world was off-kilter. Something was not right. Desperately, she glanced around her room, searching for something solid to focus on. As Terrence reached out to rub her knee, her eyes fastened on a slip of paper lying on the floor by the door.
That hadn’t been there w
hen she’d left.
Wrenching away from Terrence’s touch, she stood, wobbling over to the door. As she crouched, her stomach flared in warning. This was no cheap flyer. Slowly, she unfolded the paper. It read:
Shade,
You, Lori Skein, are evil. I will see you get what you deserve.
Her ears roared as she stared at the page. Evil? She felt like she had an ocean in her head, trying to break free and spill onto the ground. Witch. The note didn’t say as much, but she could read between the lines. If she was so evil, the Spenta Michos’s disappearance might be her fault. The murderer might have taken him to separate him from Lori. Or use him as leverage. Was the killer still sane? Pressing a hand to her mouth, she leaned against the dresser.
Terrence jumped to his feet. “What? What is it?”
Although she felt tears in her eyes, she met his gaze. To be safe, she blinked, bringing on her aura vision. He still glowed aquamarine. Only concern, no malicious intent. As she tried to stem the shaking in her hands, she held out the note. “This shouldn’t be happening anymore,” she whimpered, more to herself than to him.
“Anymore?” he barked, glancing from the note to her again. “What do you mean?”
That note–like the dead girl’s body–was precisely the reason she had left home, and never told anyone about her visions. While the Salem Witch Trials had always morbidly fascinated her, she had never wanted to reenact them. If the public knew of the truth to her powers… Witch hunt. The world hadn’t changed that much in three hundred years. But who had found out? Had someone from her hometown caught up with her? She’d only been a teenager when she’d left–and only faced persecution by other cruel but disbelieving teenagers at the time–but if one of them had harbored a grudge, she hadn’t made it difficult enough for them to find her.
But to her knowledge, none of her old acquaintances were in the Order. And they would need to be, to know her codename. So who was behind this?
Terrence’s hands closed around her shoulders. “Lori!” he said, shaking her roughly. Numbly, she looked him in the eye. “What’s going on? What shouldn’t be happening?”
“Somebody must have found out,” she murmured. Her voice was thick. Each word a challenge. She blinked, shaking her head as if by doing so, she could shake out her fears. When she met his gaze again, she hesitated.
