Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

  9

  At the onset of night, the Greenland Plaza, Zhengzhou’s tallest building, was literally impossible to miss; the aluminum screens on the exterior of the building reflected the light of the setting sun until it practically glowed in the dark. Danyael stepped out of the limousine and tilted his head to stare up at the 55-story structure. His lips tugged into a half-smile. “Does it look like a radioactive, overfed leech, or is it just me?”

  Xin chuckled. She smoothed her red silk gown before slipping her hand through the crook of Danyael’s offered arm. He too had dressed for dinner, and in a suit and tie, his health better than it had been for a long time, he looked like Galahad. She winced at the absurd thought. Danyael was Galahad’s genetic donor. In theory, they were physically identical, yet for the past three and a half years, Galahad’s physical beauty had outshone Danyael’s. Now that Danyael was regaining his health, the physical differences between Danyael and Galahad had diminished into hairstyles and the scarcely visible scar on Danyael’s right cheek from the top of his cheekbone down to his chin.

  And the eyes. Equally black, equally beautiful, their eyes were, nonetheless, different. Danyael’s eyes were fathomless pools of pain and power, tightly leashed through flawless self-control and subtly gentled through compassion. They were unmistakably the eyes of an alpha empath.

  If she had anything to say about it, she would do her damnedest to keep Danyael in good health. A man could only make so many sacrifices without souring permanently on life.

  Besides, she owed him. She could never allow herself to forget that.

  The private elevator took them straight up to the penthouse where a uniformed butler escorted them to the sitting room. “Sir, your guests are here,” he announced.

  “Ah.” Brandon Richards rose from his seat and strode across the room to shake their hands. “Ms. Mu Xin, it’s a privilege to meet you, and Danyael, it’s good to see you again. Come in, please. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Can I offer you something to drink in the meantime? A cocktail perhaps, or an excellent glass of chardonnay?”

  “I’d appreciate the chardonnay, thank you,” Xin said.

  Brandon’s glance shifted to Danyael, who smiled but waved the offer away.

  The attentive butler walked over to the bar to pour a glass of wine for Xin and to refill Brandon’s glass. He offered the glass to Xin as the door chimed.

  “That would be Dr. Shen,” Brandon said. “She called to say she was held up at the lab today.”

  “Danyael tells me you’ve done amazing work at Excelsior.” Xin stepped into that convenient opening. “I believe you have research centers in America and the United Kingdom, too. What inspired you to set up additional laboratories in India and China?”

  “The abundance of talent. More than half of my staff at my London and San Francisco locations is Indians and Chinese, so I thought, why not? Here, I’m close to the talent, and we benefit from the perceived prestige of being an international company. The top students from China and Indian’s best universities are beating down our doors. We have the crème de la crème, as they say, and here’s one of them now.” He looked up with a smile as Dr. Shen walked into the living room and rose to his feet. “Yi, allow me to introduce Ms. Mu Xin; she’s the clone of—”

  “Fu Hao, the Shang dynasty queen.” The words dribbled from Dr. Shen’s lips. Her eyes were wide in her pale face.

  Brandon chuckled. “It’s not every day, I suppose, that we come face-to-face with a queen.”

  “It was three thousand years ago.” Xin laughed. “My life is less eventful these days.”

  Brandon offered his arm to Xin. “Shall we go in to dinner?”

  The dining room provided stunning views of the city parks scattered around Zhengzhou, and the table had been set for five. “My son was planning to join us. In fact, he should already be here.” Brandon’s tone was apologetic. He glanced over his shoulder at the butler. “We’ll begin dinner, and he can join us when he’s ready.”

  Brandon took the seat at the head of the table, with Mu Xin on his right and Danyael on his left. Dr. Shen sat next to Danyael, her back stiff and her gaze fixed on the table.

  Interesting, Xin thought. It almost seemed as if it were Xin Dr. Shen was trying to avoid, not Danyael, yet Xin was certain she had never met Dr. Shen in any professional or personal capacity. A fragrant winter melon soup was set in front of them. Xin picked up her spoon and turned to Brandon. “It appears that your investment in China has paid off splendidly for you.”

  Brandon’s shoulders lifted in an elegant shrug. “The money comes when it comes. Fortunately, I am the primary stockholder in Excelsior Enterprises, and we can afford to be much more patient than the clamoring masses out there screaming for a return on their investment.”

  “Up to a point, though.” Xin smiled.

  “Research takes time. Thirty-second commercials and 140-word tweets, not to mention Wikipedia and Google, have trained us to expect immediate answers to our questions. No all life works that way, wouldn’t you say, Danyael?”

  Danyael’s smile was wry. “Three decades into my life, I’m still trying to figure out my purpose, so yes, I’d say some things just take more time.”

  Brandon nodded. “I’ve always believed that the ease of finding one’s purpose is inversely proportional to one’s power. A powerless man’s purpose is simply to survive in whatever way he can. A powerful man—” He looked at Xin. “—or woman, is compelled to a greater purpose. To whom much is given, much is expected.”

  “And what is your purpose, Brandon,” Xin asked as she reached for her glass of wine.

  “To change the trajectory of our lives. Dying of old age is so twenty-first century. Galahad’s projected lifespan is three hundred or more years, isn’t it?” Brandon glanced at Danyael, who nodded his agreement. “Why Galahad? Why not the rest of us? We know at least one of the secrets of long life—”

  “Eat, drink, and be merry,” Xin added cynically. “Those people who live past one hundred usually swear to a steady diet of everything that nutritionists tell you not to eat.”

  Brandon laughed. “That is life’s way of thumbing her nose at us. Galahad’s secret—although it’s no longer a secret—he was designed with extended telomeres. There are other ways, of course, to rejuvenate the mind and body and to keep crippling degenerative diseases at bay. That’s my purpose.” His eyes gleamed. “To defeat death.”

  Danyael looked away.

  Xin’s eyes narrowed. Of course Danyael, who could unleash death with little more than a nudge of his darkest emotions, and who could, at a significant cost to himself, heal the dying, would have a different perspective on death. He neither feared it nor challenged it. In fact, Xin privately believed Danyael considered death more of a friend than an enemy.

  She unleashed a smile on Brandon before he could notice Danyael’s slight. “You’ve taken on a worthy foe.”

  “None better. Imagine it…Excelsior could transform the life of thousands.”

  Danyael frowned. “Not millions? Billions?”

  Brandon bared his white teeth in a perfect smile. “I am patient, but I don’t run a nonprofit. The advances in health care trickle down, as they always do, accessible first to those who can afford it.”

  Xin nodded her thanks to the uniformed employee who removed her bowl of soup and replaced it with a watercress salad drizzled with mango dressing. “Where do I sign up?” she asked Brandon, her tone light. “I hope your anti-aging advances will come quickly enough to offset the rising costs in my skincare regime.”

  “Ah, I suspect the peddlers of beauty products will not be happy with me, but we are not here to please everyone.” He glanced up as a younger man stalked into the dining room. “Ah, Leon. We’re so glad you finally decided to join us.” The cool, hard light in Brandon’s eyes did not match the geniality of his smile.

  Leon’s scowl deepened as he claimed the empty seat next to Xin. “I couldn’t get the blasted orphanage director off t
he phone. She was warbling on and on about budgets and menus.”

  Across the table, Dr. Shen’s hand trembled. Xin allowed her gaze to drift up. Their eyes met, and the doctor’s taut expression smoothed back into impassiveness.

  Leon glared at his father, apparently oblivious to the tension his presence or his conversation topic had introduced. “I didn’t realize I had to deal with all those tiresome details when you appointed me the director in the foundation.”

  “Life is made up of tiresome details.”

  Leon’s lips thinned into a smirk. “And all this time, I thought the point of wealth was to insulate you from them.” His eyebrows arched at his father’s frown. “Oh, am I making your guests uncomfortable? I’m sorry; we haven’t met.” He extended his hand to Xin. “I’m Leon Richards, black sheep—and unfortunately the only sheep—of the esteemed Richards family.”

  Xin laughed. Leon’s manners were abrupt, but the wink in his eye and the wicked twist of his smile were charming. “I’m Xin, and that’s Danyael.”

  “Galahad’s physical template.” Leon nodded across the table. “I’ve met Galahad. Arrogant bastard. Are you anything like him?”

  Danyael shrugged. “Only on a good day.”

  Leon grinned. “You’ve got a sense of humor. I like that.” He dug his fork into his salad. “So, what did I miss?”

  “We were talking about the work Excelsior ARTS is doing on longevity.”

  “Ah.” Leon’s smile twisted back into a sneer. “The fool’s errand…finding answers through science. When science finally scales that mountain, it will find that religion has been sitting at the top all the time.”

  Brandon gave Xin an apologetic look. “As you can see, we disagree on our approaches to eternity.”

  “It’s that, or football teams, or how to season and grill the hamburgers.” Xin set her fork down. Moments later, an employee whisked the salad bowl away and replaced it with a generous portion of Chilean sea bass atop a bed of miso-flavored cucumber strands sliced as thin as angel hair pasta.

  “Some disagreements actually have right and wrong answers, and permanent implications.” Leon snorted. He looked at Danyael. “What do you think?”

  “I think the world might be a better place if we lived our lives as if it were the only existence we could count on.”

  “How noble.”

  “Practical,” Danyael corrected. “What about you, Dr. Shen?”

  “Change happens in the present day. Eternity is too uncertain to count on,” Dr. Shen said.

  Brandon laughed. “And eternity is not likely to boast of research facilities as advanced as Excelsior’s.”

  Danyael’s jaw tensed. “I’ve always found that the real challenge in research was not knowing what to do but what to not do.”

  Brandon looked at him. “Boundaries exist to be crossed, Danyael.”

  “Boundaries exist for a reason.”

  “Usually reasons based on incomplete facts. You’ve seen it time and time again in medicine—bleeding patients to drain their sickness away, just to name one of many such examples. The belief, the reason for doing something may seem immutable, but time and facts prove it wrong. Those boundaries should never have been there.”

  “And who makes those decisions?”

  Brandon chuckled. “We all do. Society does. If men never crossed any boundaries, we’d be practicing stone age medicine.” His voice hardened. “There are no uncross-able boundaries. In fact, there are no boundaries…only the frontier.”

  Danyael shook his head sharply.

  “You disagree? Name one such boundary that shouldn’t be crossed.”

  “Live blood transfusions.”

  Brandon’s smile thinned. “Ah, I heard about your run in with Dr. Seth Copper. It’s no surprise you’d feel as strongly as you do about live blood transfusions, but you’re allowing your negative experiences to color the many positive benefits of live blood transfusions.”

  “They’re illegal.”

  “Ah, that’s an entirely separate matter.” Brandon chuckled. “We’re meticulous about obeying every letter of the law here at Excelsior. It wouldn’t do to cross the IGEC; they’re finicky bastards.” His gaze was direct. “If that’s your concern, Danyael, you needn’t worry. We cross boundaries here at Excelsior, but we don’t break laws. You’re welcome to visit our facilities to inspect the correctness of our claim; in fact, we invited you here for that reason.” His smile vanished, and his eyes were intent on Danyael’s face. “May I suggest you proceed on facts rather than embark on a witch hunt?”

  Xin would have to have been both deaf and blind to miss the threat in Brandon’s voice. Not yet, Danyael. She cut in. “I’d love to see more of Zhengzhou, but I’m afraid laboratories aren’t quite my thing.”

  “Excelsior’s offices are in this building on the twenty-seventh floor,” Leon said. “They’re pretty, but not all too exciting. The orphanage isn’t particularly exciting either—unless kids are your thing—but it’s a breath of fresh air in the concrete jungle.”

  Xin smiled. “As you say, a welcome change. Where is it? Are visits allowed?”

  “Of course. It’s often held up as a model for how orphanages should be run. It’s a huge favorite with couples looking to adopt a child, and leads in the number of adoptions each month.”

  High volume. High traffic. How hard could it be for a child to disappear in that mad swirl of paperwork?

  Not hard at all.

  By unspoken agreement, Xin and Danyael did not speak of any consequential topic in the car. In theory, the driver worked for Yu Long and the Chinese government. In practice, Sir Brandon Richards was wealthy and could own the loyalties of anyone he wished.

  Danyael broke the silence when the car pulled up in front of the villa. “Shall we go for a walk?”

  Xin glanced at the dark woods beyond the lighted safety of the villa’s walls. “I suppose an alpha empath would have no fear of non-human monsters.”

  “These days, humanity, as a whole, worries me a great deal more than monsters.” He offered her his arm, and they walked down a barely visible path together. “And then I attend a dinner where all my worst fears are confirmed.”

  “It’s the orphanage, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Dr. Shen couldn’t have made the point any louder if she had screamed it.”

  Xin tugged her smartphone from her beaded handbag and searched for online access to the orphanage’s data files. She shook her head. “The orphanage’s records aren’t networked.”

  “What does it mean? That we have to break in and rifle through a filing cabinet?”

  Xin laughed. “Nothing so old-fashioned, but it does mean that we have to pay a visit to the orphanage, and I have to get close enough to their computer to place a tracker on it. Once the tracker is embedded, I’ll be able to access anything on the computer.”

  Danyael’s gaze was thoughtful. “You can probably access more information than any alpha telepath on the planet, can’t you?”

  Xin smiled faintly. “Maybe.” Actually, yes, most certainly.

  He shook his head. “I’ll call the orphanage tomorrow morning and arrange for a visit. I don’t think they’ll say no to Sir Brandon Richards’s guest.”

  “We know Dr. Shen’s involved. Do you think Leon and Brandon are, too?” Xin asked.

  “Leon? I don’t think so. And Brandon…” Danyael’s face tightened. “His emotions say no, but logic says yes.”

  “How so?” Xin asked. Her voice remained even, but her eyes narrowed in the darkness. How closely would Danyael’s perspective align with hers? His consensus from the start would save her the trouble of convincing him or the risk of manipulating him.

  “He owns the company.”

  Object. Push back. Test his conviction, his certainty. “Excelsior Enterprises is a two-hundred-billion-dollar company. Cutting-edge research on longevity isn’t the only thing they do; far from it.”

  “But Brandon’s vision to defeat death is driving Exc
elsior’s research on longevity.”

  “It doesn’t mean he authorized those specific studies. He’s not a scientist. He’s an entrepreneur.”

  Danyael grimaced. “He’s detail-oriented; he said so himself. Something like this couldn’t possibly escape his notice. And Dr. Shen… I don’t think she’s running the show; someone else is calling the shots.”

  “But is it Brandon Richards? You’re an empath; your emotions are your strongest sense, yet you’ve said that his emotions show no sign of guilt or any wrongdoing.”

  “Empathy’s not great at picking up on sociopaths.”

  Xin tilted her head. Danyael was rarely that blunt. “And you’re convinced he’s a sociopath, with no evidence to go on.”

  “Nothing, other than the same bad feeling that brought me here in the first place, and that feeling has gotten worse.”

  Xin drew a deep breath. His firm stance confirmed his belief and affirmed hers. “I’ll concede that fact.”

  “So, what should we do about Brandon?”

  “We follow the evidence, for now. Dr. Shen’s guilty twitch is the only connection between Excelsior and the orphanage. From there, it’s a logical leap to the dead children. None of that evidence will hold up in any court of law. The answer, or at least our next lead, is in the orphanage.”

  “Are you going to bring Yu Long up to speed on what’s happening?”

  “Only on a need-to-know basis. When you trust someone, you’re trusting everyone he trusts, and that’s just too much trust for me.”

  Danyael chuckled, the sound soft and—to Xin’s ears—ironic. “You’re thinking of Zara, aren’t you?”

  “It sounds like something she would say. Of course, if she were here, she would have held her gun to several temples, squeezed out the truth, and gotten to the bottom of the mess by now.”

  “And a half-dozen people or more would be dead.” Xin had few illusions about the collateral damage Zara spewed along the way.

  “People are already dying,” Danyael murmured. “Children.” His dark eyes gazed into the distance, glazed with heartache Xin knew he had to be feeling. “I never thought the autopsy would affect me this badly, but after Laura…I see children differently.”