Ancient Danger

by Jo-Ann Carson

  A third star. This time a freaking quarter inch away. The air whipped by her face, swishing as the disc sliced through it. The satyr-turtle neared.

  And why Ninja discs? Hiro shuriken were not as deadly as made out in cartoons. The Samurai used them to distract their opponents so they could move in for the kill. Move in for the kill. Was that the man’s agenda?

  Screams and shouts filled the air. In the distance a siren blared. But it was all muted. She could see and feel only her body, the banister and her stalker.

  Without thinking her eyes slid down, seeking an escape route. Damn it. She shouldn’t look. She knew better. Nausea rose in her throat like a volcano. Damn she hated heights. Slick with sweat her hands reached out into the air to steady her body, which teetered as the rush of dizziness hit her head. Escape. She had to get off the banister.

  But the wooziness in her head threatened her balance. Time to gain solid ground. Time to take the initiative. Reminding herself that when it comes to fighting nice girls finish dead, she took a deep breath and jumped back onto the balcony. She turned to face her assailant standing only three feet away. She hoped he didn’t know she had training, because her talent would take him by surprise. In street fights anything goes. And it goes fast. She pushed her body past two people in her way, wanting the first move.

  “Asshole,” she screamed as she aimed her right foot straight for his balls.

  Doubling over, he cried out.

  Her second kick aimed for his head, but his hand caught her ankle and twisted her to the ground. Pain shot up her leg and into her hip. She lay on her back, watching as he raised his right fist to punch her.

  But a large hand caught his arm.

  Behind the satyr stood Sebastian Wilde. Her Sebastian, a giant of a man who looked like a modern Viking with long, sun-kissed blond hair that fell wild and loose to his shoulders. Tonight he dressed as a genie in purple silk. On his broad face he wore a silver mask that accentuated his pale blue eyes. Blue like the morning sky, they were the most intense eyes she’d ever seen. A shiver of recognition mingled with love mingled with relief ran through her body. Sebastian.

  The satyr’s body flew from hers as Seb pulled him away. She sat up to see her assailant grabbed by two security guards. Where had they been all this time? The whole incident had taken only a few minutes, but it had felt like eternity.

  Sebastian reached down for her. “How do you get yourself into these situations?” he said. The ragged tone of his voice hit her like a ton of Ninja stars. That was the thing about Sebastian. She had to read between the lines to understand him. Torn between helping her up and kicking the shit out of her attacker, his voice took on a frustrated edge. A man of action, he didn’t like being torn.

  She let him help her up. These are the sorts of things she’d only figured out by dating him for six months. Dating? Do they even use that term these days? And if they did, did it come anywhere near explaining what they meant to each other? Why think about this now? Her body trembled.

  Once on her feet, she tugged at her dress and brushed hair away from her sweaty face. “I didn’t need rescuing,” she said, not really meaning to say it out loud. The words just slid out.

  He pulled her into his arms and his familiar scent hit her harder than a double-malt scotch on the rocks. “I did it for me,” he whispered into her ear.

  Her body continued shaking from exertion and adrenalin and the potent chemistry of Sebastian. It would be easy to stay in his embrace forever.

  She couldn’t. Not now. Pushing away from Seb, she took another look at her attacker. He’d been hand-cuffed, and the security team were marching him into the main building. Scanning his body from top to bottom she noticed something on his arm. “Wait,” she called out to them. They turned and let her catch up. “Let me see,” she said, pointing to the man’s right wrist. The satyr fought, but the men forced his wrist towards her. A finely detailed tattoo, the size of an American quarter, marked his arm, The Eye of Horace inked in black, in the center of a green triangle. She’d never seen such a tattoo.

  In one strong stroke she whipped off his mask, but she didn’t recognize him. He had a round face with faint freckles and a receding chin. He looked unremarkable and not at all like an assassin, more like an overgrown boy scout. She locked his face into her memory. “Why?” she asked.

  “We’re watching you,” he said in a staccato voice and then he collapsed. His face paled and turned pink. Cyanide! He must have had a suicide pill. The men tried to hold him up, but his body sagged between them. They helped him onto the floor of the terrace and took his pulse. It took four minutes for him to die.

  2

  Chapter Two

  Amsterdam, September

  Bakari al Sharif stared at the entrance of a rundown, hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Arabian Nights, on a seedy, narrow, back street in Amsterdam. Ignoring the rain falling solidly on his head, he studied the place. His gut twisted. Why here of all places?

  He had no moral qualms about drugs or the business of selling them, but this place with its stained windows, peeling paint and faded sign disgusted him. It looked sad, like a den of iniquity that even the devil had neglected—a lair for lost souls in the heart of a city known for debauchery. A slimy underside of life. Why couldn’t he find Khalid Badru somewhere nice? The weight in his chest grew heavier.

  His people had searched for the young man for six months. Now he stood only yards away from him. This would be their first meeting. His heart raced.

  As the broken front door opened, a middle-aged American couple sauntered out arm in arm, smiling and laughing. He envied their peace. Rainwater trickled inside the neckline of his black leather jacket and the cold soaked into the marrow in his bones. He shook his head, not quite ready to enter the building.

  Would he ever feel ready? His body, numbed with exhaustion, muddled his thinking. He hadn’t slept a full night since Djeserit had told him about Khalid. On her death bed she’d said things that echoed in his mind and in his heart like a curse. He had to go in, had to meet him, had to stop him.

  With a quick hand motion he commanded his body-guard to stay outside. This meeting would be hard enough to face alone. He didn’t want an audience.

  Bakari strode across the threshold. The small room, filled with wooden tables, chairs and droopy-eyed people interested him little. The walls were stained brown, a remnant from the days when cigarette smoking had been allowed in public places. The air smelled thick and rancid, a mixture of soured food, sweat and weed. The rock’n’roll playing through small speakers on the wall, sounded scratchy as if it came from old vinyl records fished out of a dumpster. A man in the corner strummed a guitar, as if people listened to him. A middle aged woman dressed in a long skirt danced in the middle of the room. Her hips moved to a rhythm that didn’t match the music, but called to anyone who would listen. The blond bartender with pink streaks in his hair cocked an eye at Bakari and nodded towards the back.

  Bakari had an appointment.

  He walked through the people examining them, like ants in an anthill. Khalid would be waiting. His assistant had set up a three o’clock meeting, had said it was for an out-of-town man wanting to know his future. He quickened his pace as he neared the closed, black door then stopped in front of it.

  A sign the door read in English, “Know your future.” Rusty hinges squeaked as he opened the portal. He swallowed. The man who’d haunted his mind for the last six months sat behind a circular wooden table like a regular guy.

  At last! He’d found him. The young man beckoned for him to come in. Bakari closed the door and took his first good look at him.

  The only light in the room came from a candle on the table, which cast shadows on the angular face of Khalid Badru, who sat motionless. The air seemed cleaner inside the room and the music muted, giving it the feeling of a cocoon. A cocoon in a lair of darkness. An interesting place to hide.

  Stacked beside the candle were Djeserit’s tarot cards. He’d watched her us
e them many times: a standard spirit deck she’d trimmed and personalized with an edge of gold paint. Bakari’s gut wrenched.

  “Sit down,” said the young man in a commanding voice strong enough to control an army. He nodded towards the empty seat opposite.

  Bakari walked closer and sat. Sweat sprang up along his backbone. He’d had half a year to think about what to say, and now he had no words. He just wanted to look at the young man.

  Intelligent, dark eyes probed back at him and an uncomfortable silence swallowed the room. He was seventeen, but he looked twenty-five. The small muscles around his eyes held a rigid tightness, as if he’d seen enough in his short time on this earth to make him wary. His long black hair had been pulled back into a pony tail revealing a cleanly shaved face with a firm, masculine jawline, a feature which ran in his family. Bakari’s throat constricted as he took in Khalid’s cocoa-colored skin, which reminded him so much of Djeserit.

  Bakari assessed people with speed and precision. In his business an accurate understanding of people was a matter of life and death. Khalid had a Frankenstein look about him, like a man not fully grown into himself, a man who could be dangerous, a shell waiting for its heart. Daring, possibly unstable, but surely not as dangerous as Djeserit had claimed.

  Suspicion played across the light in the young man’s eyes and he leaned his lanky body back in his chair. “My name is Khalid Badru. Do I know you?”

  The words hit Bakari like a thousand grenades, unleashing a toxic mixture of regret and anger within. “Not yet.”

  Maybe he should have just had him killed, as his brother had suggested. No. That wouldn’t be right. If anyone killed this man, it would have to be him. But the man was barely more than a boy. A boy with his blood. Bakari wanted to give him a chance.

  As if reading the older man’s thoughts, the younger man’s eyes widened. “What do you want from me?”

  The exact question he’d be asking, if he sat on that side of the table. But where to start? “A reading,” Bakari said. “I’d like to know my future.”

  Khalid nodded slowly and for a minute he looked about to say something. Instead, he firmed his lips and lit a stick of cheap, incense. The smell drifted into the air in streams of smoke. He gave Bakari a dispassionate glance. “Shuffle the cards, old man.”

  Bakari reached for the deck. Why would the boy insult him? What did he know?

  “Shuffle. Only if you dare,” Khalid said.

  A chill ran up Bakari’s spine. He looked up from the cards and their eyes caught. The room tilted, twisted and distorted like a flowing, psychedelic hallucination and the pungent smell of the incense choked him. Bakari coughed and looked away. It was better not to look a seer in the eye.

  “I mean you no harm,” Bakari said, but that wasn’t the complete truth. Maybe confronting a seer with the powers of Khalid in this way hadn’t been a good idea. The man seemed more powerful than Djeserit.

  “You are angry with me and I don’t even know you.” The words resonated through Bakari. How far into his mind could the man see?

  “I am anxious about my future. That is all.” He pulled out his wallet.

  Khalid looked him over then glanced towards the west wall. “One thousand euro.” His voice was flat and demanding.

  Bakari lifted an eyebrow and stared at the young man.

  “I am good at what I do.”

  Bakari pulled out the cash and placed it on the table. It disappeared instantly into the pocket of the seer. Then he fixed his eyes on Bakari and asked, “Are you sure you want to know your future? I cannot lie to you. I have taken an oath.”

  In answer to his question, Bakari gathered the tarot cards into his hands. He sensed their strange, ethereal warmth… and something else. The new owner of the cards had added his own power to them. They felt heavier and thicker. He shuffled the cards until his breathing returned to normal, then cut them into three piles and asked his silent question. He re-stacked the cards.

  Like a cobra, in one fluid motion Khalid rose and raised his hands to the sky. The flickering light of the candle cast long shadows on his body. His face hardened. “I, coming forth as Amen, the hidden one.”

  The hair on the nape of Bakari’s neck rose. In that moment Khalid looked so much like his mother. Had his power consumed him already?

  From his pocket the seer pulled a black wand and waved it once in the air. “I am the keeper of Akashic Records. All of which is, and which shall be. Eternity and Everlastingness, open your portals.” He put his large right hand on top of the cards. “May I fly like a golden hawk. May I see the truth revealed.” He stood absolutely still. So still he no longer looked alive.

  Bakari tried to take a deep breath, but the air came into his lungs in short gasps.

  Khalid waved the wand once between them. “Searcher of Truth…”

  Silence filled the room like a tomb. This was the moment when Djeserit would channel information from spirits on the other side, warn him of upcoming problems, tell him how his life would unfold. But this young man said nothing. Transfixed, Bakari waited.

  The pupils of Khalid’s eyes glazed over. He looked possessed. “It is you—”

  Bakari clenched his fists. “Tell me what you see.”

  Khalid’s face contorted, as if in pain. “You are my father.” His hand holding the ebony wand between them shook, “You and I… are cursed.”

  3

  Chapter Three

  Venice

  In her bare feet, Sadie stood on the cold surface of the palace terrace watching the paramedics carry the dead assassin away. His face, locked in a death mask, had twisted in his painful last moments, as if he saw hell awaiting him and wanted to turn back. But it was too late for him. Horror, shock and pain were embedded into his features. What a sad way to die.

  Who the hell was he?

  She glanced at Sebastian, who was overseeing the removal of the body. He caught her eyes but held them only for a moment. The hardness in his chin, the flatness in his pupils, the stiff movements of his body, all spoke of his seething anger, barely contained. They’d have another of their, ‘you need to live a safer life’ arguments later. This was not how she’d imagined her night with him.

  The evening had started so well, had held so much promise. When the six foot five Sebastian, built like a warrior, picked her up at her hotel earlier, it seemed nothing could go wrong. That moment crystalized in her mind. She had wanted to jump him on the spot, but they didn’t have time. They were expected to be at the opening of the charity event. People counted on them. Friends that mattered counted on them. Sex had to wait.

  That seemed to be the main problem in their globe-trotting relationship. When they were together everything rocked, but their lives kept pulling them apart. Her modeling assignments took her all over the world, and while Sebastian spent most of his time in Amsterdam his art business took him all over Europe.

  If she could freeze time and go back to the beginning of the evening she would. The night had gone to hell after that. She ran a hand across her brow, wiping the sweat away. Her breathing had slowed to normal and her shaking had stopped. The adrenalin in her system had run its course. Damn. Her eye makeup must be a mess.

  The crowds who had kept their distance during the satyr’s take-down moved in. “Signora, va tutto bene?” “Are you all right?” “Bent u goed?” Concern for her well-being blanketed her in many languages. Her tunnel vision faded and she took in the whole scene again. Someone in the crowd must have alerted security. Luckily, no one had been hurt.

  She wiped at the sweat on her face again. Under a mask and layers of dress she felt exposed. She’d love to disappear. Right there, right then, on the spot. She needed to get away and assess the situation.

  “Si. Si, grazie,” she said. “Yes, oui, ja.” Nodding, she gave them her cover-girl smile, knowing it looked haggard; but it was all she had for them and she wanted to give them something. They had saved her, after all, and being a part of humanity after someone has tried to kill
you felt good. Real good.

  She looked towards the last speaker, Sebastian’s Belgian friend Gregor who had organized the party. She had never warmed to his continental style. A GQ handsome man in the diamond business he found philanthropy good for his bottom line. Normally he looked Wall Street confident and Spanish bullfighter aggressive, but not right now. A deep line creased his brow and the corners of his straight, thin mouth quivered. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why there weren’t security men out here. His face paled. Sebastian told me…”

  Three hotel waiters encouraged the crowds to move away.

  “Told you what?”

  Sebastian walked over to them. Clearly he had heard her words. He sent his friend a dagger stare, but it was too late. His secret was out.

  “To keep you safe at all costs.”

  Sadie turned and squared her shoulders in front of Sebastian. He wouldn’t have told his friend details about her past, but he did tell him to take extra precautions, something she’d asked he never do.

  Sadie didn’t want her cover blown and besides—she could take care of herself. But Sebastian, the stubborn Frisian, was hell bent on protecting her. Why couldn’t he listen to her? Her hands went to her hips, heat rushed to her face and she glared at him. “I’m going back to my hotel. Don’t follow me.”

  “Sadie? Mijn liefje.”

  She didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. Her muscles involuntarily trembled, from the aftermath of the adrenalin, her head ached and anger squeezed her gut. Tonight, on their six-month anniversary, she’d wanted romance. Instead, she’d been hunted by a satyr and betrayed by her lover. In bare feet she waded through the throng to the staircase and made her way down to the canal. Faces turned and voices came towards her with kindness, but she kept moving. She growled as she lifted her gown and hopped into a boat taxi to make her escape.