“I would have jumped him when he came out of the building if he hadn’t made you both disappear right from the middle of your bedroom.” I leaned forward touching his shoulder lightly.
“Vincent please, you did what you could for me and I’m all right.” He touched my hand with his. The coolness of it felt so strange. He gave me a weak smile, his eyes darting towards Aram and then back onto the road ahead.
Lance pulled up in front of my building and Aram insisted on walking me inside. I invited him in so he could double check that my apartment was indeed empty. Also it meant he got re-invited.
“I’m positive that he’s gone now. I’m going to be safe tonight,” I reassured him.
“You cannot blame me for being cautious,” he said reaching out to stroke my face. “I could not bear to lose you.” I pushed up onto my tip toes to kiss him.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night. Promise.” I shut the door after he’d gone, pulled the chain across and sealed my wards. There were two more messages from Hamilton. I called him back, leaving a message with Officer Carson to tell him that I was safe. I cleaned up the cola puddle from where the can had fallen from my hand and settled on my bed with the book. I looked at my clock to see that Aram would have had just enough time to return to the club before sunrise. I felt the first rays of light caress my skin from the east and the shiver ran down my spine.
I opened the book, flattened out the papers and turned to the first page of text. I read it out loud.
“Nu Kwa, an empress of China became a goddess when she entered the celestial plane. She created the four heavenly kings to protect and rule the heavens. These young gods divided the world between them, each choosing a direction, color and animal to be their divine symbol.
Qing Lóng – the Azure King, guardian of the east, ruler of Dragons. Bai-Hu – the White King, guardian of the west, ruler of Tigers. Xuán Wú – the Black King, guardian of the north, ruler of the black tortoise. Zhù Qué…” I paused at the name that Rin had said. She’s the daughter of Zhù Qué. The Scarlet King. I dropped my eyes back to the page.
“Zhù Qué – the Scarlet King, guardian of the south, ruler of the Phoenix.”
This couldn’t be right. I flickered further on to the picture I remembered, the image of the handsome, young man with the flame-red hair tied back with a leather thong at his neck. His face was in profile, his chin slightly raised, noble and dignified. He had something gold on his head. At first I thought it was a crown, a strange design with a large triangular point at the front pointing up. On second look I realized it was a mask, the long point like the beak of bird of prey. The ribbon that held it was the same color of his hair, but I could pick it out more clearly. His chest was bare and he wore puffy trousers of pale blue tucked into tan-colored boots, with a bright fuchsia and gold loin cloth over the top. The most stunning thing about the picture was his cloak. It looked like it was made of a thousand feathers, all the colors of a phoenix’s plume, as in my transformed shape. The eye, like feathers, stared out the page at me, and next to him on a plinth was a cornucopia of summer fruits, bountiful and overflowing. I was sure this was the same creature that Virginia had described as standing over my mother holding me. This was the image that had stuck with me and made me want to know what the book said.
I turned the translation to the matching text and read the paragraph that accompanied the picture.
“Zhù Qué. The Scarlet King. The youngest of the four brothers, represents the fire element, the direction south and the season of summer. He is both elegant and noble in both appearance and behavior. His cloak is said to be made of feathers in every shade of vermillion and legend says that it magically allows him to change shape to that of his celestial beast.”
I let the book fall closed as my mind reeled with the new information. Doctor Armitage had told me that my father was something that human machines and knowledge couldn’t identify. Was that because he was a god? Was he truly a god or just a creature so far beyond mortal and immortal that it was the way he appeared? Or did he and his brothers just have really big egos? What did that make me? A demi god? Like Hercules in the ancient Greek myths? Or was I more because my mother had not been mortal? The possibilities were mind boggling. I had no doubt that the creature in the picture was definitely that Virginia had described to me once upon a time, or that I felt a connection to this image, to him because he was undoubtedly my father. My biological father – which meant he had to be a real, flesh and blood being. Weren’t gods supposed to be omniscient? If he were omniscient, he would have found me. But Sam had claimed he’d been searching for me for more than twenty years. Did that mean gods weren’t omniscient? Or was it only some of them who were blessed like that? I laughed. Look at me saying gods like I had always been sure that the Christian god wasn’t alone. The amount of mythical tales around the world about gods made me wonder how many of these beings were out there. I’d known abstractly that to every tale there is some truth, but if I stopped to think about it, there could be a whole race of god-like creatures.
Did they live on the celestial plane? Was that like Balmoria, connected to it? The demon said that his people and my father’s people didn’t talk, but he still knew who they were. I wondered if like the demons, they could not come to our plain without a host. That thought was somewhat comforting. That he couldn’t just come here and get me. I was even more afraid now as to what he wanted me for.
I thought of Rin. He had said he was a dragon child. He would then be the son of Qing Long, the Azure king. According to the translation, he was the eldest of the four brothers. It made sense to me that he should get the direction of east, as that was where the sun rose, where the day began. Rin said he had been banished, made mortal for trying to overthrow his father. I imagined him leading some sort of coup trying to seize control of the east.
I yawned. I needed sleep more than anything. I put the book, with the notes tucked neatly inside, on the bedside table and climbed down under the covers. Sleep finally managed to claim me only a few minutes later.
Chapter Thirty
That night I dreamed about fire. I watched Rin plummet down to what I thought would be his death – except this time the flames looked like the hungry souls of the damned that had taken him, body and soul, to hell. I lay there sprawled on the floor trapped by the metal walkway. I couldn’t feel anything from my lower body again. The flames danced around me mockingly.
I heard the footsteps then. They sounded thunderous as they echoed around the room, coming closer and closer. The figure wasn’t so dark this time, but he was still blurry. I could see more color to his appearance, white and black, tan and blonde. With such ease, he threw the metal wreck pinning me and scooped me up into his arms. I could remember so much more about my rescuer now. There was so much more clarity. I saw the intense blue flash where his eyes should be, the feel of his polyester-cotton blend shirt against my exposed arm. I could hear the flap of material almost like a cape behind us as he walked. At that thought the dream shifted. I looked at my rescuer’s face to see his nose elongate and become a golden beak mask that covered the top half of his face. His hair became flaming red. What before had been a coat became a cloak of scarlet, orange, gold and deep fuchsia feathers. The fingers that gripped me were tipped with golden talons that dug into my skin, biting and clutching me close. I struggled and began screaming, hitting at the creature that would not let me go.
I woke up tossing and turning, crying out and trying to unwrap the covers from around my legs. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I forced my eyes to adjust to the lack of light. I was alone in my room that was shrouded by deep purple night. I turned to look at my clock. It was 7:00 p.m. The sun was down and I’d slept the entire day away. I cradled my face in my palms and let a few racking sobs escape while I tried to compose my brain back into order. I was even further convinced from the dream before it became a nightmare that it had been Hamilton who had rescued me and that he was lying to me. He knew much more about the preterna
tural world than he was letting on.
Maybe like Sam, he knew who I was, who my people were and where I came from but was not involved with them. I had to find out and be tricky about it. I threw back the covers and scrambled under my bed looking for a small novelty chest I kept there. I hadn’t thought about the chest in years. It contained things I’d cleared out from Nancy’s apartment that I had no intention of returning to her (even when we were on good terms). Items I knew would be too dangerous in her hands. One of which I searched for now.
The packet I pulled out could have been ordinary aspirin, except for the tight scrawl on the back that was Nancy’s barely legible handwriting.
Sodium Pentothal tweaked. Dissolve one tablet in a liquid. Say the words “tell me no lies” thrice. One-hundred percent effectiveness on humans.
I looked at her vague instructions and pulled out the baggy inside the box. There were only two tablets left. Nancy had been far more adapt at making compounds than I, but she’d been schooled in the how-tos. I’d always had more natural talent; better at using magic by will alone which had always griped her butt. I got dressed in a pair of black jeans and a V-neck sweater in a deep, woodsy green color. I pulled my hair back and put it in a tight, small braid that hugged my skull. I grabbed my winter coat and pulled my boots on leaning against the door frame.
The air whipped coolly around me and forced me to shove my hands deeper in my pockets. Winter was well on its way, my least favorite time of year as I hated the cold. I didn’t care for snow either, which would undoubtedly fall through the December and January months. I walked at a brisk pace to keep warm and made it to the main entrance of the police building. I steeled my shoulders just inside the doorway and pushed my second thoughts about what I was going to do. I needed to know the truth. I had to know what it was that Hamilton was hiding. Like a dog with a bone, I just couldn’t let it go. My conscious rebelled against my mental edict, telling me that Hamilton was my friend. That even if he were something else, he had saved me from a burning building – regardless of whether I could have survived the flames. I took the stairs up to Homicide, looking around carefully as I went in to see how many of the faces were friendly. Hamilton’s office door was shut when I approached it. I could hear him inside talking to someone else. A man, and from the emptiness of Butcher’s desk, I guessed it was him. I ducked into their small break room and started making two cups of coffee. The warm steam rose up from the dark liquid and I carefully checked no one was watching me before pulling the baggy out of my pocket. I tapped one pill out into my palm and before I could talk myself out of it, threw it into the mug I would give Hamilton. I shoved the baggy back into my pocket then stirred a spoon around and around till I was sure it had dissolved and chanted the words.
“Tell me no lies, tell me no lies, tell me no lies.”
“What are you doing here?” A voice boomed behind me. Butcher stood in the doorway to the break room, when I turned around revealing the freshly made coffee. He strode forward and snatched up the mug I’d made for Hamilton.
“Hey,” I said shocked and angry. Butcher took several long swigs of it while I fumed. He arched a brow as if challenging me to take the mug back from him. I felt my lips curls back in an unhappy smile.
“Fine you have that one, but you’re going to regret that.” He laughed and headed back towards the door. “Butcher, why don’t you like me? Really?”
“Because you won’t ever sleep with me,” he said and froze when he heard his own words. He turned back to look at me his eyes big.
“Because I won’t sleep with you?”
“Yes. I’d heard all this stuff about you, how pretty you were.”
“You think I’m pretty?” I asked, rubbing his inability to lie to me just a little bit.
“You’re beautiful and stacked. I’ve never had a witch and I wanted one. I wanted you.” His eyes looked horrified, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from going on. “I heard rumors that you and Ham were knocking boots and that you used flirty manipulation to get your way. Minute I met you, I saw it wasn’t true. You were so serious, focused. You refused to flirt with me, and the way Ham was with you, I knew it wasn’t because you were being loyal to him. Nothing like what I’d heard was going on at all.”
“So you decided you’d be gruff and mean to me because I wouldn’t flirt with you.”
“I’ve never had any trouble getting a woman to notice me before, to make her want me. Ham would kill me if he knew how many of his exes I’d banged before or after he was through with them.”
“I thought you were married.”
“Oh please, just because I’m married doesn’t mean I won’t bang some willing hot chick if she wants me. In fact, some find the whole married guy thing a turn on,” he grumbled. “But not you. Not a rise. Not even once.”
“I can’t help that. You’re really not my type. Also your more of an ass than I gave you credit for.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him. He looked at me and swallowed hard.
“What have you done to me?” I smirked.
“It appears given you an unintentional slice of humble pie. Don’t fret you’ll be you normal, vile self in a few hours, but I wouldn’t go home to your wife like this.” He growled throwing the contents of the mug into the sink and stormed away, right out of the department. I wondered where he would go to hide from the truth for a couple of hours. I looked at the coffee swirling down the drain thinking what a waste it was. At least I knew it worked. I pulled out the baggy and dropped it into the second cup I’d made. I carried it to Hamilton’s office.
Hamilton was bent over his desk, his head between his hands. I slid the mug in front of him.
“Here, you look like you need this.” I went back to shut his office door. Hamilton smiled taking the cup between his hands inhaling. He took a few sips while I took a seat.
“What’s up Cassandra?”
“I thought we should talk.” He seemed to grasp the heaviness of my words and his shoulder stiffened. He took another couple of sips of the coffee.
“What about?”
“I thought you should know that Rin isn’t coming back. Those he’d been abusing caught up to him.” Hamilton nodded his head but said nothing. He wasn’t even going to question what I meant. I could see in his eyes that he accepted I was telling him Rin was dead, or near to it by now. Part of my brain told me that I really should feel bad about that, but he had been my enemy.
“But what I really want to talk about is what happened at the warehouse.” If Hamilton had been an animal I would have said his hackles rose.
“You’d know more than I do about that.”
“I think it was you that got me out.”
He shook his head but kept his lips pressed into a tight line. I scowled a little. Why wasn’t he blurting out the truth like butcher had?
“There has been something going on, something about you. It took me a while to notice but it’s definitely there.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” he said through gritted teeth.
“Shall we look at the evidence? You pretend not to know anything about the supernatural no matter how much information is out there. You get these strange looks and give me the ‘leave it alone’ glances when I notice something weird about you. You overreacted when I told you I’d been talking to a demon. You look like you recognized Rin’s E-FIT. You were the only one able to talk me down when I lost it in PCU, and I’m positive that it was you who freed me when I was trapped in the fire. That means you’re stronger than a normal man.” Hamilton put his mug down harshly and shook his head.
“That’s a hell of a fantastical tale you’ve concocted.” He tried to smile at me but I was getting angry now.
“I was lying on your coat!” His smile dropped. I think something like regret passed through his eyes. In his natural pursuit to be a gentleman he had laid it out beneath me so I didn’t have to lie on the ground. It had given him away.
“Cassandra, honestly.
You’re making a lot out of nothing, imagining things.” I crossed my arms over my chest, angry and fighting bitter tears. I wasn’t making it up. I was positive, even more so now because the truth serum wasn’t working. It had a one hundred percent success rate on humans. I stared at his mug and he looked down at it suspiciously.
“I’m sure,” I said whisper quiet. “Why can’t you just admit it? It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone.” Hamilton ignored me, contemplating the coffee. His voice was just as quiet when he spoke.
“Cassandra, what did you put in my coffee?”
“Sodium Pentothal.” He pushed the mug away from him disgusted and pushed up out of his seat. He stomped around his desk pointing at the door.
“I think you’d better leave.” I refused and dug my heels in. We were having this out.
“I know you’ve been investigating me. I saw the file!” Hamilton dropped his arm but desperately hung on to his pissed mood.
“Just a simple background check.”
“You met me over a year ago. Why would you wait till now? Why now? Unless you recognized something in me and wanted to be sure.” I turned my own angry gaze on him. “You know something or you’ve figured out something about me, about who I am and I want to know what it is.”
“I don’t know what you’re…”
“Bullshit!” I cut him off. “That’s absolute bullshit. You know more than you’re letting on. You’re keeping something from me and I demand to know what it is.”
“Cassandra, just let it go.”
“No.” I was very close to shouting at him. “Who are you Hamilton? What are you?” I levied my accusation at him. He turned away from me, grabbed the door and wrenched it open.
“Who’s the Scarlet King?” I watched the muscles in his back bunch and his voice came barely above a whisper.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Paris, please,” I begged him. I could feel the tears coursing down my cheeks, and the look of pain on his face when he saw them warred with his desire to protect his secret. “I’m scared,” I confessed. “What if Rin was only the first to come for me? I need to know, to protect myself.”
Deadly Sin (Cassandra Farbanks) Page 25
