Mark of Cain (Immortal Mercenary Book 1)

by Conner Kressley

  “They were going to find him for me. They said that, if I brought you to them, they’d take me to her father’s people.” Merry threw her hands into the air. “That’s the truth. I know it sucks, and it probably makes me a crappy person. But that’s what happened. You said it yourself, these bastards don’t like people.”

  “You’re not people,” I answered. “At least not in the traditional sense. You’re an outsider and your daughter has Romani blood. And, to the Romani, blood means everything. It’s where their power comes from; not from practice or purpose. Just from blood. That means not only would they despise you, they’d consider the kid direct threat to them. They’d either want to control her or, a more likely scenario, they’d want her dead.” I sighed. “Which is a long way of saying that I doubt you’d be getting a vital organ from them anytime soon.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said, swallowing hard. “You might be right. The gypsies might hate my guts and want my little girl dead. But not her father. I just-I can’t wrap my head around that. How could a father look at his child suffering and not want to help her?”

  Her question hung in the air like a threat, and I found my own eyes drifting up toward the stars, toward Heaven.

  “Her father will be different. He’d want to help me, to help her. I believe that. I have to.” A single tear streamed down her face. “It doesn’t matter now. I’m never going to find him. Those goddamn witches were never going to help me anyway. They just wanted me dead too.” A bitter chuckle escaped her lips. “The ironic part is, if not for Amber, I honestly wouldn’t have cared what happened to me.”

  My hands balled into fist at my side because, not only did I know that what I was about to do was stupid, but I also knew that I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself from doing it.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I said, pulling my phone back from my pocket.

  “Warn me about what?” she asked, like she didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “Those witches couldn’t have found the Romani, even if they had been serious about helping you out.” I shrugged. “And it’s not about power. They were obviously strong enough to get me to play my ‘Gabriel’ trump card. But, it takes more than that to find the gypsies. Their magic is old. It clings to them and wraps itself around them. They have to want you to find them. And to get to their stronghold, for lack of a better word, you either have to be one of them, and — half your daughter’s DNA aside, you’re not — or you have to have to know where you’re going. You have to have already been there, which gets tricky, given that only a handful of outsiders in the entire history of the world have ever been behind gypsy lines.”

  “Oh God…” she muttered, her eyes widening. “You’re one of the handful.”

  “I usually am,” I answered. “But, you have to make me a promise. After we do this, regardless of how it goes, you get yourself out of here. Witches, especially witches who would resort to murder, know how to hold grudges. So I’ll get you in there. Assuming they don’t try to kill us with fire or anything, I’ll even get you to the kid’s father if I can. Either you’re right and he’ll give you the kidney. Or — and this is the more likely option — I’m right and he’ll run us out of there with pitchforks. Either way, you haul ass. That way your daughter can live out the rest of her life in peace, with her mother by her side and not off chasing shadows. Deal?”

  She glared at me for a long time, like she was surprised that I would actually help her. It made sense, given that — earlier tonight — she had basically handed me over to my enemies. But what can I say? Reputation aside, I’m a softie.

  And, even if I wasn’t, I had never been able to say no to a pretty girl.

  It was my curse. Well, one of them.

  “Deal,” she answered, and offered me her hand to shake. I took it, pulling up my phone’s dial pad with my other hand and called Andy.

  “Change of plans,” I said when he answered. “Gas up your car. We’re going to Augusta.” I paused, glaring up at Merry, my hand still in hers. When Andy asked why, I sighed hard. “Because, against my better judgment, we’re about to go kick a gypsy nest.”

  16

  “There’s got to be another way,” Andy said from behind the steering wheel of his car. Watching him drive like this, as slow as molasses in January, made me feel even older than I had felt before. If somebody whose diapers I had changed was old enough to be driving like a decrepit old fart, then I was really getting up there.

  It also made me miss my convertible. That thing had been with me for nearly half a century now. The fact that it met its end as a result of a failed country singer’s slip of the tongue and a falling tree branch, depressed me more than I cared to admit.

  “Because of all your bad ideas, and you’ve had a bunch Callum, I think this might be the worst,” Andy said, shaking his head, but hitting the interstate toward Augusta just the same.

  “Maybe,” I said. “Then again, you didn’t know me during prohibition.”

  Andy stole a glimpse up into the rearview mirror. I could tell that me speaking like this in front of Merry wasn’t sitting well with him, and who could blame him? He had spent his entire life guarding my secret like it was one of his own. His father drilled that into him since the minute he could talk. And, aside from a minor discretion or two along the way here and there, we had been a pretty tight little circle.

  It was different for me.

  Even though he meant the world to me, Andy was the latest in a long line of people who knew my secret.

  It was easier back in the day. People were more accepting of the whole ‘God, magic, supernatural curse’ thing. Everyone’s all about science now. They like explanations for their phenomena, and I’ve never been easily explainable.

  Still, Andy was important to me, and that was why the next couple of words came out of my mouth so easily.

  “How much would a taxi cost back to Savannah?” I asked, looking over at him.

  “From here?” he asked, cutting his eyes over at me. “More than either of us make in a week.”

  “Technically, I haven’t been employed since the ‘60s, but I get what you mean,” I answered. “Get off the next exit and call one anyway.”

  “And why the hell would I do that?” Andy asked, purposely blazing the next exit ramp and looking over at me. I knew him well enough to know that he knew me well enough to know where this was going.

  Also knew that, more than likely, he was going to be pissed about it.

  “You’re not doing this Andy,” I said, nodding firmly like I had already made up my mind. “You’re not going to Augusta.”

  “That’s weird,” he scoffed. “Because it looks to me like I’m in the driver’s seat of a car that is headed to — wait for it — Augusta.”

  “I’m serious,” I said, letting any hint of playfulness drop from my voice. “Gypsies don’t play, especially with people who intrude on their turf.” I motioned back to Merry in the backseat. “I tried to convince this one of that, but she’s as stubborn as they come, it turns out.”

  Merry blinked, but didn’t deny it.

  “That makes two of us,” Andy answered, leaning heavier on the gas pedal, so that the car barreled fast down the interstate.

  That was the thing about cops. They never really watched their speed, because they never had to worry about getting a ticket; brotherhood of blue and all. Still, it was nice to see Andy drive like something other than an arthritic grandfather with chronic vertigo, even if it was just to prove a point to me.

  “I told you, gypsies are serious business,” I said.

  “So is Savannah PD,” he shot back.

  “I made a promise to your father,” I said, pulling out the big guns. “I promised I’d keep your stupid ass safe, and this ain’t doing it.”

  “You made that promise when I was a kid,” Andy answered.

  “You still are. At least compared to some of us,” I said. “And promises don’t stop being promises, just because the
guy you made them about gets older. Especially, when it turns out that same guy never learned not to throw himself at every train that speeds down the track.”

  “You’re one to talk,” Andy answered, hands tightening around the steering wheel.

  “Different rules,” I answered. “I can’t die.”

  “She can,” he answered, nodding back in Merry’s direction.

  “And don’t think I didn’t tell her that a couple of dozen times while we were waiting on you,” I said, looking back at her. “But she has circumstances, family to think about.”

  “So do I,” he answered. Then, cutting his eyes over at me before I could answer, he added, “And if you start with that, ‘I’m not your family’ garbage again, I swear to the God that scolded you, I’ll run every one of us headfirst into that gypsy camp.”

  “Family is family,” I answered. “I won’t fight you on that. But you’ve got daughters. You’ve all got daughters,” I said, realizing I was the only childless person in this car; ironic given the amount of women I’ve bedded over the centuries.

  “Daughters that would miss their Uncle C,” he said.

  “Those girls haven’t seen me in years,” I answered. “They wouldn’t recognize me if I was standing across from them.” I shook my head, “I just don’t want you to get into this and not realize what you’re risking.”

  “Goddamn it, you ignorant sonofabitch!” Andy screamed. “I’m starting to understand why the Doc back there felt like she needed to drug you!”

  “Thank you,” Merry muttered from the backseat.

  “Shut up!” Andy and I said in tandem.

  “Andy, I get why you’re mad. I’m just trying to-”

  “You’re trying to make a damn martyr of yourself is what you’re doing,” he snapped back. “You think that, because you’re you and you’ve had a longer road than most, that you’re the only one who knows pain.” He huffed loudly. “My dad died in front of me. My mother was a basket case after that, good for nothing for the rest of her life. My marriage is a joke, and I haven’t seen my little girls in months now. I know hurt, Colton or Callum, or whatever the fuck you’re calling yourself these days. And you’re not the only one who has promises to keep either. I promised my father wouldn’t die for nothing. I promised that his son wouldn’t let the world beat him. I promised that I’d be the kind of man he’d be proud of, the kind of man who wouldn’t turn tail and run when the right thing needs to get done.” He looked up in the rearview back at Merry. “You’ve got a daughter right, a sick little girl?”

  “I do,” Merry said, nodding at him.

  “Then we’re going to fix it.” Andy nodded. “The three of us.”

  I could tell from the look on his face that there was no need to continue. There’d be no taxies called, no rides taken. Andy was coming with us, and there was nothing I could do about that.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, a leaf of pride sprouted. He might have been an idiot, but he was brave idiot. And I, at least, had something to do with that.

  “Fair enough,” I said, slumping lower in my seat and settling in for the rest of the ride.

  17

  It took two more hours to get to Augusta; two hours of silence, and sleepiness, and Bob Seger on the radio.

  When we finally got there, it was coming on morning, which was good. None of us were in the mood to get a hotel room, and as crabby as the Romani would likely be to see us infiltrating their home, watching us do it in the dead of night would make it doubly bad.

  As it was, all we’d have to do is pull into a diner and nurse breakfast and black coffee until a reasonable hour.

  We walked into an establishment a lot like the one where Mimi spends her days. Though, it wasn’t nearly as crowded and lacked the true country flair of that place.

  Augusta, Georgia; a river city that’s been flourishing for the last half century or so is more country adjacent than actual backwoods. While it still holds the flair of the Old South, with plantation houses, bar-b-cue pits, and enough overt hospitality to make honey seem bitter by comparison, it also has all the modern conveniences you’d expect from a city that regularly hosts the biggest golf tournament in the world. There are three Starbucks, four movie theaters, and a curiously high number of Japanese steakhouses if you ask me.

  Still, they all serve sweet tea and call you y’all when you walk through the door. All the bluster with none of the blisters. That’s Augusta for you.

  Well, that and the gypsies.

  We took a seat at a corner booth near the diner’s window and ordered coffees. Merry slid in next to me because, though she had just drugged me and offered to trade me to witches, she was still more comfortable around me than the irritable man with the badge who drove us here.

  In my long life, I had learned that people were weird like that. Any interaction, even bad ones, form a bond. For whatever reason, most people would rather be around a person they hated than one they didn’t know.

  Human beings. I’d lived around them since their utter beginnings and I still didn’t really understand them.

  Andy did the opposite of surprise me though, when he asked the waitress for a double order of hash browns and a side of bacon, extra crispy.

  He’d been ordering that breakfast since he was a little kid. His dad ordered it before him.

  Merry asked for French toast, hold the whipped cream. And I settled on coffee and a couple of minutes to think.

  “How is this possible?” Merry asked, cutting a square out of her toast, but leaving it to set on the plate.

  “What?” I asked, staring out the window. The sun was starting to peek out over the tree line, and after people other than night shift workers and insomniacs were beginning to mill around town. It wouldn’t be long now.

  “There’s an entire supernatural community here, and these people just walk around like everything’s normal. How is it possible that they have no idea?”

  “They know,” I answered, shaking my head. “They might not say it out loud. They might not have a word for it, but they know something’s not right. It’s the same back in Savannah. People feel things, and just because they can’t explain it, doesn’t mean they don’t acknowledge it.”

  “It’s the same way you can feel a storm coming,” Andy said, finishing his breakfast and pushing it out of the way. “No, there’s not a damn thing in the world you can do about that either.”

  There was a look in his eyes that set me on edge. I leaned forward in my seat, turning my attention from the window to him.

  “You’re not telling me something,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

  “It can wait,” he said, taking a drink of his coffee. He didn’t try to deny it. We were passed that, the two of us.

  “You sure?” I asked, letting my fingers fall across the table, making a drumming noise.

  “We have enough on our plate for the moment,” he answered. “Or, have you forgotten the reason we’re here?”

  I looked back out the window. Kids were on their way to school, assuming it was a school day. It was hard to keep track of stuff like that, given that I didn’t really have a day job.

  Maybe they were headed to the park or gymnastics or whatever other stuff children do to pass the time these days. Either way, they were young, and innocent, and free of all the crap that bogged the rest of us down all the time.

  “No,” I answered, finishing the rest of my coffee in one esophagus burning gulp. “I sure haven’t. Which reminds me, we need to get moving. Andy, grab the check and you can meet Merry and me outside.”

  “Me?” he balked. “You’re the one sitting on enough money to buy a basketball team.”

  “I’ll put you in the will,” I answered, guiding Merry toward the door.

  “Fat lotta good that’ll do me,” Andy muttered as we walking away, grabbing for his wallet.

  But money wasn’t the reason I left Andy holding the bill. I needed a minute alone with Merry, a couple of seconds to temper her expectations ab
out what we would find here, and more importantly than that, give her a couple of pretty important warnings that I picked up along my very long road.

  “Do you have a cigarette?” Merry asked, leaning against the diner and staring at me like some bad girl love interest in one of those horrifically awesome 80s teen movies.

  “No,” I answered. “I haven’t smoked in about 70 years. You shouldn’t either.”

  “I don’t,” she answered flatly. “I’m just nervous, and I need something to take my mind off things.”

  “I’ve got gum,” I answered, pulling the pack out of my pocket and throwing it at her. She caught it and pulled out a stick, tossing it into her mouth and chomping on it furiously. “But, your mind shouldn’t be off things. It should absolutely, definitely be on things. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”

  “I’d answer you, but something tells me you’re going to explain no matter what I say,” she responded. “After centuries and centuries, don’t you get sick of talking all the time?”

  “After centuries and centuries, I get sick of living all the time too, but there’s nothing I can do about either thing. So focus on your gum and listen to me.”

  A beat of silence passed, just enough for me to make sure she obliged. Then I continued.

  “Dangerous things, by definition, are dangerous. And while I can’t die, other people can. See that out of shape bastard in there cursing under his breath because I made him pay the check?” I asked, motioning to Andy through the window. “He’s the closest thing I’ve got to family in this big, wasted world.” I move closer to her. “I’m doing what I can to save your family. You will repay the favor or this road trip ends right now.”