A Very Alpha Christmas

by Anthology

  He sighed. “She can control elements, or she could at one time. Not sure if she still can. Power like hers feeds off of belief, and with the jumps in science, well, not many believe someone can control the weather. Back then though, the old world was transitioning from superstitions to enlightenment. It was the late sixteen hundreds. She killed, we hunted—with a priest mind you.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes, but he found us fascinating. Believed God had a higher calling for us than mere mortal men. Thought we still had our souls or some such.”

  “To which Bianca solidified that belief. Otherwise what was her purpose? What did she devour if not souls?”

  He shrugged. “I know what they are called. Father Rene and I had many a conversation. In fact, we all did with him. Conversations on how soul eaters or thieves, that’s just what she was called through the stories, actually devoured a soul. None of us had any idea if the soul was lost or if she just took the power and took it in a way that killed us. We can all die, but usually the power dies with us. They, soul thieves, fed off the power or something.” He leaned back and rubbed his eyes again. “I don’t know. So little is written about them in ancient texts; if you can even find the texts anymore. Legend said there were many references in Alexandria.”

  “And those are gone.”

  He nodded. “I only know Father Rene blessed us all before every hunt and we finally found her. We wanted to kill her, but Father Rene was worried about her powers. Not that she was more powerful than his god, but that if she had all the souls, where would they go? He wanted to learn more about her kind, he said. The Order agreed with him—we needed to learn more, document more in the event there were more soul thieves. She was left, walled in a dungeon basically, in France. Bound and powerless.”

  She listened but studied the dates. Nineteen-thirties. World War II. The autumn when she stopped believing in dreams.

  “What?”

  She shook off the thought. “If she was bound and powerless, then how is she here? I can see escaping and with all the bombings that happened during the war, it’s conceivable something was damaged and she escaped. But that doesn’t explain how she came to be free and powerful, does it?”

  “No. I think not. Someone had to feed her.”

  “Like a vampire?” She really didn’t understand these thieves, as there was so little about them.

  He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “No. No, though I don’t know that for a fact. If they can devour a being’s power, then do they also develop said being’s way to thrive?” He shrugged. “Still so little about these cursed creatures. I meant someone had to give her, or she took, their power, their soul, which would enable her to be free and unbound.”

  “So either she seduced someone and she was set free,” she said thinking that the most likely scenario.

  “Or someone was stupid and set her free while trying to learn more of her kind. It could have happened before the war. She might have used the war to cover some of her kills.”

  “Given the time it all happened, maybe during the war? Something was bombed, the wall loosened and she was free.”

  “But she was bound.”

  “If she was as powerful as you claim, then maybe it was nothing more than killing a more powerful being to set her free. She would already know the spells or chants or whatever she used. What do Druids use?”

  He just stared at her.

  “It’s a valid question.”

  “As they’re all dead, it’s irrelevant.”

  “Unless their descendants are using those words to conjure powers to use in gaining more power.”

  His dark gaze narrowed on hers. “I’d forgotten you could also be annoying.”

  She ignored him. “Maybe one of the Order let her go. Or an elder or whatever the old world peeps are called.”

  He laughed. “Old world peeps. I’m going to have to share your term with some of them.”

  “Or maybe it was an enemy to one of you.”

  He nodded. “Okay, and who would be so vindictive to unleash a soul thief onto the world, especially on others?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they just didn’t think it through? Maybe they thought they could control her.” She frowned. “Too bad.”

  “What’s too bad?”

  “Well, I know she’s evil and has her own agenda, but I can sort of see why they chose to keep her alive. I mean, there’s a few questions I’d like to ask her if this is Bianca and—”

  “You are not going to talk to her. Ever.”

  His stare burned into her but she studied the notes she’d been making on the edge of one of her maps, then she looked up at the larger U.S. map they’d tacked onto one of his previously unmarred walls. The pale cream and white were not what she’d have thought he’d have chosen for a wall color, but it worked. Went with the whole historical feel. Her, she liked more modern streamlined decor.

  The deaths scattered from New York and the East coast to Chicago, to Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Amarillo, to Dallas, then Houston.

  “She’s getting closer to here. I think she knew or learned where you were,” she told him.

  “To what end?”

  She just looked at him. “You know, you are a rather old other, in cases of others.”

  “I’m not that old. There are some older than I.”

  “Yeah, someone who remembers the Great Charlemagne, isn’t old at all.” She opened her mouth to ask him, then shut it again. How did he remember it all? “Sometimes I feel old. So much has changed through the years. In comparison to you, I’m not really so old, am I?”

  “You have much to learn young grasshopper.”

  She flipped him off and stood, stretching. “You should get some rest.”

  “Only if you get some with me.”

  She snorted. “I don’t think so.”

  He grinned at her. “You know you want to.”

  “In your fantasies, maybe.”

  “You’ve no idea what I fantasize about.”

  “Thankfully.”

  He stood and strolled to her. She wanted to back up, but she stood her ground, catching the slight uptick of the corner of his mouth. “You might enjoy them.”

  “Says who?” she asked, as her heartbeat kicked up. Which she knew he could hear.

  “You forget, I know you, Devon McClane. I’ve known you a long time.”

  She tilted her head and stepped toward him. “You used to know me.” As soon as he was close enough, she tapped his chest with her fingers. “You don’t know me now. You think you do. But you remember the girl I was before.”

  “You were never a girl to me,” he said softly, placing his hand on the wall beside her, the other at her waist.

  “Fine, the sprite then.”

  “She’s just a memory. A lovely one, but I admit,” he leaned a bit closer, his gaze sliding from her hair, to meet hers, to her nose, to her mouth, as if he was relearning her. “I find this you, this woman with new edges and a darkness about her, intriguing,” he whispered, his breath warm against her cheek. “Even as I can still see the dancing, laughing free spirit from before. You’re both.”

  She shook her head. “Wishful thinking.”

  “Not about that.” His eyes met hers.

  Devon fisted her fingers in his shirt and tugged him even closer, leaning up just a bit so she could kiss him.

  His lips were cool beneath hers, as they had always been.

  She felt his inhale, as he shifted and moved closer so she leaned back against the wall. Devon didn’t want him to kiss her. No, this was her kiss. Not his. She opened her mouth and nibbled on his lower lip, still surprised how plump it was. He’d always had a completely kissable mouth.

  He’d always been good at reading her, even if he couldn’t read her as well as he could other people. But with this, between them, they’d always just…

  He pressed her harder against the wall but didn’t deepen the kiss…

  Fit.
/>   They fit. They understood each other.

  She opened her mouth and teased his lips, first with hers, then with her tongue. He tasted of champagne and the pomegranates they’d had earlier. She slid her palm up over his shoulder to tangle in his hair at his nape.

  He moved ever so slightly against her.

  She tugged on the hair, scraped her nails on the sensitive skin at the back of his neck and deepened the kiss, pulling him closer to her.

  His lips gave under hers, his tongue met hers, parried and retreated.

  More. She wanted more from him.

  She wanted…

  Her phone trilled out a movie tune.

  They broke away from the kiss, both of them breathing hard. His gaze burned with an inner fire. She’d forgotten how his eyes would do that at times. A dark fire almost.

  “You do want me,” he said softly.

  “Maybe.” Devon licked her lips and still tasted him. Again her phone rang.

  Stepping to the side and away from him, she pulled it from her pocket and answered. “Devon.”

  “Devon, there’s something you need to check out,” Theo’s voice said. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been texting and calling and you haven’t answered any of them.”

  “I was following a lead.”

  “With one Francisco Beauxchamp.”

  She didn’t see any reason to say anything. He’d probably known immediately who she was seeing when she came here.

  “Beaux’s okay?” Theo asked.

  She frowned. “Yes. He’s standing here. We’ve been going over old events, and trying to find people and hopefully figure this out before the thief takes another soul.”

  “You might be too late.”

  She listened to him, walking from the attic room and down the stairs to the lower levels. She stopped in her room, grabbed her double scabbard holster with her short swords and a leather jacket. She slid both on while Theo continued to complain about her lack of communication.

  She slid into the jacket and walked out of the room almost running into Frankie on the landing. Hurrying down the stairs where the sunshine slanted across the floor, she took a deep breath. She knew Frankie could hear well, but his powers were often dampened during the sunlight hours. He could probably still hear, but there was little she could do about that.

  “When?”

  “Sometime last night. I called someone else I knew since I couldn’t get in contact with you. I wanted them to check out other older immortals in the area, in particular those who were in Europe during the same time as your vamp.”

  “He’s not my vamp.”

  “There’s only two,” he said ignoring her other statement. “One was fine and well as of three hours ago. The other they found about an hour ago. A really old soul. No one was actually certain what he was. An old Viking whose dossier is sketchy but claims he’s a warlock. Anyway, I want you to check it out.”

  An old Viking warlock. She only knew one. A distinguished gentleman named Henri who had been a friend to Frankie and to her. Definitely to her after she’d been lost when her supposed lover and mate to be had abandoned her. She sat down on the bottom stair.

  Please don’t let it be Henri.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. Grayson just said you might want to get over there.”

  “Grayson’s here?” she asked. Damn it. She wasn’t in the mood for a fight. Or no, actually, she really was.

  “Yes, and be nice. He’s uncovered a few things himself. We believe this soul thief is a woman known as Bianca, no last name or rather a string of last names when we could find them.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of her. A Celtic priestess or something? Descendant of a Druid or two and realized she could open the secrets of old to eat another’s soul and their power?” she added.

  “You already suspected?”

  “Yeah, it’s why I came down to talk to Frankie. Something he’d told me once and I wanted to double check before I came to you guys and—”

  “I don’t care. Just get over and check it out before Grayson finds you and causes trouble.”

  “Which he will do.”

  “And you’ll be completely innocent as well. Rule,” he snapped. “You answer your damned phone.” He disconnected before she could say anything else.

  She glanced up the stairs to see Frankie watching from the top in the shadows. “You need to wait until sundown.”

  Shaking her head, she walked back up the stairs until she could meet him on the landing. “No. No I don’t. I can take care of myself, Frankie.”

  “I don’t want you going off alone. You have no idea what this soul eater is capable of.”

  She arched a brow. “After listening to you and the others, seeing the photos, I’ve got an idea.”

  “She’s really powerful, Devon.” He fisted his hands at his side.

  “I’m not going to challenge her to some duel or something. I can handle myself. I’ve been doing so for the better part of a century.” She crossed her arms. “I’m not the girl anymore who needs to be taken care of.”

  He took a deep breath. “Please, for me, wait.”

  She shook her head and stepped back down a step, then another even as he reached for her, but she’d already stepped into a stream of sunlight from the tall front windows.

  “I can’t. I have a job to do.”

  “It can wait.”

  “No.”

  “Bloody hell. I liked you better when you weren’t so stubborn.”

  “I like you better when you’re the devil-may-care. We’re both at a loss today.” She grinned at him. “Get some rest. Sounds like it’ll be a bad evening.”

  “Who did she take?” he asked her.

  She didn’t know for certain. “I don’t know. They just told me to meet a member of our team. I wouldn’t be surprised if the boss man comes down as well.” At the door she turned. “I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything.”

  “You already suspect.”

  “I have your number. I’ll call.”

  “You better. I won’t be happy if I have to hunt you down.”

  “Oh games. I like those.” She shut the door and took a deep breath in the bright light of day.

  6

  Devon stood in the doorway of the room. Grayson stayed in the hallway.

  “I’ve already contacted someone from the Order. They’re sending a representative, but he’s busy tracking someone in Mississippi so it might be awhile before he gets here or sends his flunky, which he didn’t want to do with someone this old,” Grayson told her.

  The woman had done her work. He still hung from the stupid shackles. “Can’t we get him down? Will it really matter at this point?”

  Grayson stepped up beside her. His brown shaggy hair still needed to be combed, and his perpetual five o’clock shadow dusted his square jaw. Hard bicolored eyes stared at her for a minute. One was pale gray, the other a brown hazel. Grayson lifted weights. She’d seen others turn from a fight with the man. He was muscled, but not bulky. Too much mass slowed one down. He studied her a minute more. Finally, she drew her own short sword.

  “Fine,” he grumbled, his voice low and deep. “If the inspector from the Order gets irritated, you can take the heat. I was just following procedure.”

  “Procedure would be to inform local authorities.”

  “Procedure is answering your phone or email or however the boss chooses to get in contact with you. A sacred rule.”

  “Which you always follow.”

  He shrugged. “Mostly.”

  She snorted.

  “When it suits me.” He stepped around her and quickly released the wrist restraints on Henri. “You knew him, huh?”

  “Who?”

  “The victim.”

  “He was a friend. A long time ago.” She shrugged. “He helped once when things all changed, fell apart, and there were no answers.”

  Grayson, for all his bluster and bullshittery was always ho
norable. He gently laid Henri down on the floor. She grabbed a blanket from the bed and opened it, but Grayson took it from her and covered him with it carefully straightening out wrinkles.

  “You have any idea what he had planned? In terms of his remains?” he asked as he knelt beside the body.

  Many of their kind were cremated and scattered ashes hither and yon. Others chose to be buried in old customs befitting their oldest beliefs or newest ones.

  “I don’t know. Last time I knew him, he was with a woman. Anna, I believe was her name, though I was lost in myself at the time. I know he really cared for her, loved her. I’d heard she’d died a while back. He stayed here, so perhaps she’s here and he wants to be as well?”

  Grayson looked from her to the man lying on the intricately woven rug, dark blood spattering across the cream-colored decorations and chairs. At least with the covering, she no longer had to see the ‘B’ carved into his torso.

  “He deserved better than this,” she said.

  “Yes, he did.” Grayson stood. “I’ll contact Theo and see if he can find out what Henri would have wanted.”

  “They were friends,” she whispered. “Good friends. Henri and Francisco. He might know what Henri would want. Though I can’t make any promises.”

  “What did your Francisco say?”

  “You can call him Beaux. Anyway, I wasn’t sure it was Henri, so I left. Didn’t say who I thought it might be when Theo told me. I just came over here when he texted me the address. This isn’t the same house he had back in the day when I was seeing Frankie, who has stayed in his same building. Henri had had a lovely house in the Garden District. Maybe it had been Anna’s, I don’t know. Maybe he still has it.”

  Grayson was still staring down at the body. “This one is different.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, the other kills were either cut or branded, the ‘B’ thing. We couldn’t figure out which. I think it has something to do with the power, or soul, transfer. This one isn’t that way. This one appears to be a regular bladed cut.”