by Jen Kirchner
I was well aware of Ruairí O’Bryne’s family tactic. That’s how he got to Mikelis—by killing everyone Mikelis loved.
“If you help me find her, we can get your money back.”
“How?” He didn’t look convinced. “What are you going to do with her when you find her?”
“I don’t know, probably Mindwipe tonight’s event from her memory. She’ll be okay when it’s over,” I assured him. “Plus, I’ll be safe, and you’ll have your savings back. Of course, you’ll have to agree not to tell anyone about me.”
He held my gaze for a few seconds. The look on his face was unsettling. “A Mindwipe is a powerful second-channel spell. Only an immortal can perform one without causing brain damage.”
I hadn’t thought of that. Having access to the most powerful second-channeler on the planet is something I lived with every day. Sometimes I assume my life is normal when it’s far from it.
“I’m sure there’s a second-channeler available for a fee… that won’t ask questions.”
Luucas’s eyes attempted to bore holes in my skull and read my thoughts. “What immortal would do that for you? Does he know you’re a necromancer? What’s his name? Does he live nearby?”
“Why do you care?”
“I want to know who’s been harboring a necromancer for all these years. Did Mikelis arrange it?”
“Maybe he did. Why don’t you go ask him, if you’re brave enough?”
“Maybe I will!”
While we lay there slinging idiotic verbal challenges back and forth, Nadia crept into the room and jumped onto the bed. She cautiously padded over to where I was lying and peeked over the edge. She’s normally scared of strangers, so it surprised me when she hopped down and started sniffing Luucas. When she flopped onto the floor and started rubbing her head vigorously all over his jeans, Luucas and I fell silent. It’s hard to act tough while a cute cat showers her affection everywhere. The sound of Nadia’s enthusiastic purring filled the room.
Luucas’s angry expression broke first. He smiled down at Nadia, then up at me. “What is your cat doing?”
I laughed too. “I have no idea. Strangers usually terrify her. Apparently she really likes the scent of your jeans.”
“Does she like Mikelis?”
I had to think about that. “I’m not sure. She was intimidated by him at first, but I haven’t paid attention lately. Next time he’s over I’ll have to check.”
Luucas reached down and gave Nadia a little scratch behind the ears. She responded by purring even louder and mashing her nose into his leg.
“What’s her name?” he asked.
“Nadia Boulanger.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Who?”
“She was a famous composer.”
“And what’s your name?”
I opened my mouth to respond and caught myself before betraying my immortal name. “Kari Hunter.”
“Nice to meet you, Kari,” he said. “I'm Luucas Mikkelson—but you knew that already.” I nodded once, and he continued. “If you think you can help me get my money back, I'll help you find Veronica.”
“And you won't tell anyone about me,” I added.
“I won't tell anyone about you if you don't tell anyone about me.”
He extended a hand toward me. The motion was the first I had seen from him since he fell on the floor. It looked painful for him.
I reached down and shook his hand. “Deal.”
When our handshake was finished, the excitement seemed to go out of the room; Luucas just lay on the floor looking uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to do either, so I twiddled my thumbs. I wasn’t sure what to expect now that we had agreed to find Veronica, but it had to be more than lying around my bedroom in the middle of the night.
“Are you going to get up?” I asked.
“I can’t.” He smiled sheepishly. “I used a lot of energy to walk up here.”
“Didn’t you see the elevator?”
“Yeah.”
His response was conspicuously vague.
“You wanted to use the secret bookcase, didn’t you?”
His eyes lit up. “I couldn’t resist.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Mikelis loves it too.”
I rolled off the bed and stood up. That’s when I became acutely aware that I wasn’t wearing any pants or a bra. I went straight to the dresser and started grabbing for clothes. In my panic, I grabbed a pair of green plaid flannel pants and an orange sweatshirt. Chic.
“Uh,” I said, trying to stuff myself into the clothes all at once, “just a second.”
I was in such a hurry that I put on the pants backward and the sweatshirt inside out, but it was better than nothing. I ran out to the hall and pressed the button for the elevator. The doors opened. My office chair sat inside. I rolled it into the hall and down to my room. As I wheeled it around the bed corner, Luucas nodded his appreciation.
“We used this to get you into the basement.”
“Smart.”
“If you don’t mind, I’m going to take you back down there, since it’s the easiest place to hide you.”
There was no telling who might pop over to check on me without warning. Between Dad’s friends and Mikelis, I had to be cautious.
Luucas had to do most of the work to get into the chair since I couldn’t manage it alone. After we got him up and took a five minute break to recuperate from the strain, I pushed from behind while Luucas steered with his feet. We maneuvered into the elevator. Just before the doors closed, Nadia ran inside and launched herself into his lap. I pressed the button for the basement and turned the chair to face the door. I stood behind Luucas while we made our descent.
“So,” I said, “are you going to tell me the real reason you have a bone to pick with Ruairí O'Bryne?”
His hand paused mid-pet, causing Nadia to go into a frenzy and rub her head on his hand in a form of self-service affection.
He shrugged and resumed his petting. “Ruairí killed my son.”
The words sounded much more abrupt in the small space.
“What?”
His story flowed out as if he had told it a million times before. His accent became a little more pronounced.
“Before I was immortal, I had a family. My wife and I had three sons and a farm.”
“Where are you from?”
“Finland.” The way he said it made it sound like a distant, wistful memory. “One night, my youngest son didn’t return from his evening chores. I went to look for him.” His tone became sour. “I found him in the barn, unconscious, with a black fluid smeared on his skin and forced into his mouth.”
I shuddered.
“I didn’t know what it was then, but now I do,” he said. “It was immortal blood. Before I could call for help, a man with red hair attacked me.”
“Ruairí,” I whispered.
Luucas nodded. “He was much smaller than me, but I was no match for his immortal strength. He easily overtook me. When I awoke, my son and I were many miles from our home, in a small cottage with nine others. We had all been attacked by Ruairí. We were also no longer human—exactly what we had become, we didn’t know. We hadn’t heard of immortals, since they all lived farther south in those days.”
Sickness filled my stomach. Something about his story sounded familiar. “So did you all just wake up and go home?”
He shook his head. “The town had a strange containment spell placed around it. In the house, we had first- and second-channelers, aside from myself, and none of us knew the spell that kept us there.”
Voodoo. It had never been popular in Scandinavia.
“Let me guess, you weren’t affected by it.”
“No, but my son was, which is why I stayed. I tried hard to free him from the town, but I failed.”
The elevator glided to the bottom, buoyed for a second as it came to a stop, then the doors slid open. I was so engrossed in Luucas’s story that I forgot to push him out.
“What happened
to him?”
“He died.” His voice softened. “Everyone in the house died.”
I realized he was referring to the unauthorized communities, an issue that had been a problem for the Immortal State for nearly five centuries. They always died from a strange energy surge, but no one knew how it was happening.
Luucas’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Are we going out?”
I blinked and came back to the present. I had been standing there for so long the elevator doors had closed again.
“Oh,” I said, reaching for the panel, “sorry.”
The doors slid open and I pushed Luucas out. “I’m sorry,” I said. “No wonder you hate Ruairí so much.”
“Yeah,” Luucas said, as we rolled through the dark hall. “I hate him enough for the both of us.”
TEN
In my dream, the sound of my own voice called to me from far, far away.
“Hi, this is Kari…”
Is that how I really sounded? Was I a munchkin in this dream? I sounded two feet tall.
My voice ended with a click and an annoying beep. Pasha’s voice echoed around my floating consciousness, growing louder and more panicked as she spoke.
“Kari? Are you there? I'm almost at your house and I hope you're awake because we have a slight schedule change that we need to talk about. Kari? I talked to Brad this morning and he said if you didn’t answer I should call the Marines. What does that mean? Kari?”
The loud, high-pitched squeal of my answering machine forced my eyes open. Awake but not yet coordinated, I tumbled out of bed and onto the floor, where I half-crawled, half-jogged downstairs to the front door. My fingers, still numb with sleep, fumbled with the deadbolt. When I finally managed to unlock the door, I leaned my forehead against the foyer wall to wait.
Two minutes later, Pasha swept through the door. She had a gigantic designer purse slung over one shoulder and a tray of lattes in her hand. Her hair was swept up in a stylish knot, her makeup perfect, and her outfit rocker-chic, right down to the tight, leather pants and cluster of silver bangles clanging around her wrist. She looked fantastic.
She propped her sunglasses up on top of her head so she could inspect me more clearly. “You look awful. Was Rick’s girlfriend really that bad?”
“Let’s just say she didn’t pass Brad’s test.”
“I could tell. I saw Brad this morning and he didn’t even want to talk about it.”
She handed me a latte. I attached my mouth to the plastic lid and sucked like a starving vampire. Pasha knew me well enough that she never skimped on coffee. She knew where to get the good stuff. I obediently followed her down the hall. We sat down in the family room to review today’s itinerary.
“I canceled our plane tickets,” she said.
My mouth was still attached to my cup and I had a mouthful of latte and foam. The best response I could manage was a startled “Mmfph!”
“Get ready for this!” She scooted to the edge of her seat, her eyes wide with excitement. “Cody Springer’s sending his jet to pick us up!”
I choked and sputtered, “Why?”
“Maybe to apologize. Maybe because he likes you. Who cares? It’s free.”
I eyed her suspiciously over the lid of my coffee cup. “Is it? Or will he expect to cop a feel before we get a ride home?”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you need anything before I head to Ryan’s house?”
“Actually, I do.” I reached behind the couch and grabbed a plastic hamper filled with Luucas's dirty, tattered clothes. I told him I was going to wash them, but after he had dropped them in the basket and slid it out into the hall, I could see that no amount of washing could save them.
I dropped the basket at Pasha’s feet. “A friend is staying with me for a few days and could use a few things.”
Pasha's eyes narrowed. There were two things she didn’t like: surprises and being left out of the loop. This request contained both.
“It’s temporary,” I explained. “He was mugged last night and his ex-girlfriend ripped him off.”
Her angry expression disappeared. She gasped and pressed her hand dramatically to her chest. “And you’re letting him stay with you? That’s sweet!”
“He’s coming with us tonight. Hopefully there’s room in Cody’s jet.”
“We’ll make room,” she assured me, and proceeded to pick through the clothes. She lifted his t-shirt. Her upper lip curled. “This is what he wears? On his body?” She pulled the jeans free and shook them out. “They don’t fit,” she said expertly, pointing at the worn spots on the crotch and thigh. “These look like a hand-me-down from someone shorter and bulkier.”
I showed her the jacket, which I thought wasn’t nearly as bad.
“Disgusting,” she said. “He can’t wear this.”
She grabbed the basket and stood. It didn’t look like she planned on giving it back.
“I just bought Brad a bunch of new things he hasn’t worn. They might be a little long in the legs, but it would be better than this. What about underwear?”
Thankfully, those weren’t in the basket. Whether Luucas was a boxers, briefs, or commando kind of guy, I didn’t want to know. That would have to be up to Pasha. I gave her a pleading look.
“Leave it to me,” she said, the Mother Theresa of fashion. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
After I walked her to the front door, I returned to the family room and found Nadia pacing around her empty food bowl. I gave her new food and water, then provided the obligatory scratch behind the ears. She dismissed me after a few minutes of affection.
I showered and dressed, ready to find some clues on Veronica’s whereabouts. Thanks to Luucas, I knew exactly where to start. When he threw his clothes into the hamper last night, he forgot about his wallet and keys, stuck in the pockets of his jeans. Sadly, there wasn’t a lot to be found inside the wallet; he didn’t even have ID. All I found was a five dollar bill and a property management card with an address neatly written on the back—as if he had just moved in and hadn’t yet committed the address to memory.
I was certain Luucas wasn’t telling me everything about Veronica. There had to be more clues to her whereabouts in his apartment. Normally I would be opposed to breaking in, but I wasn’t stealing anything. All I wanted was information on how to find her—and that was a good cause if I ever heard one.
I ran out to the garage. I had a typical two-car garage, connected to the house through the kitchen. Three colored plastic bins stood near the kitchen door, each one designated for a different type of recyclable. Yeah, it’s nerdy, but I like to recycle. Being called a destroyer of life causes an adverse reaction in me to the point where I like the idea of rescuing everything—especially the planet. That explains my little green hybrid car. The Prius wasn’t fast, but it was fuel-efficient and earth-friendly. It also had a large trunk, so I could easily drive all of my recyclables from the garage to the curb.
The second spot in the garage was occupied by a red Audi TTS coupe. I loved the car, but I made the mistake of lending it to my parents once. And, of course, it didn’t go unnoticed. A pricey new sports car is unheard of among thrifty immortals, even if it’s only a rental. Now that it’s known as my parents’ car, I can’t drive it. It just sits under a tarp.
I hopped into the Prius and drove to the address on Luucas’s card. It took me fifteen minutes. I had been here a few times before: the Richmond Meadows apartments. Mikelis had lived here for as long as I could remember, in a three-bedroom apartment at the very back. The cool, dark, basement-level apartments were popular with immortals and had a long waiting list. I was surprised Luucas had managed to get one. Most people needed to pull strings to get ahead on the list, and few immortals moved out. I had been here a few times before, though only briefly, to do things like toilet-paper Mikelis’s car.
Unlike most apartment communities, Richmond Meadows lived up to its name. The landscaping had been given great importance, with lush, green grass flowing throughout the prop
erty.
A large parking lot separated the three brick apartment buildings. All of the uncovered spots in the center were empty. I rolled into one by building A, the building closest to the street. Death Radar told me all the bottom apartments were occupied except one. I checked the address on the piece of paper: Apartment A-5. I looked around to make sure no one else was in the parking lot, then grabbed my purse and got out of the car.
The entrances weren’t locked, so I slipped inside the building and jogged down the stairs. I opened the door to the basement apartments and looked in. The hallway was dim, with sparse lighting on either end. Judging by the number of doors, this building housed all of the one-bedroom units.
Apartment number five was in the back. I crept to the end of the hall and grabbed Luucas’s keys out of my purse. Three keys were all that hung from the plain loop; one was for an old Volvo and the other two looked like regular keys, made at any hardware store. I brought one of the keys up to the deadbolt and set it lightly against the keyhole.
The door swung open a few inches on its own. The deadbolt was still in the locked position and the wooden door frame had splintered. Through the open space, I could see a dim mess of debris that covered the floor. The carpet wasn’t even visible. I pushed on the door, but it soon met resistance and refused to open further.
I squeezed through the opening. If this was Luucas’s apartment, there wasn’t much left to come home to. Furnishings had either been smashed into pieces or knocked over on their sides. The sofa had been systematically shredded from one end to the other. End tables had been broken and their drawers pulled out and upended. Everything Luucas owned had been shattered and scattered from the back of the living room, through the kitchen, down the hall. I climbed over some of the mess and worked my way toward the sofa. I couldn’t see around the corner into the bedroom, but I assumed the debris continued on. What saddened me the most was that, from the bits that remained, it was clear Luucas’s belongings weren’t even secondhand quality. Homeless people collected better from dumpsters.
As I turned to leave, I heard an exultant cry from the bedroom. I was so startled that I tripped and almost fell.
