by Romi Hart
The faintest hint of a shadow crossed her face. “That’s odd. Mr. Novak doesn’t normally meet here.”
Those words clanged with a portentous significance that Finn didn’t like at all, but before he could say anything, she rotated to face her computer. She tapped at the keyboard and her features cleared. “Ah! Here it is. You’re meeting Mr. Novak in the partnership annex. It’s the next building adjacent to this one.”
Finn frowned. “Isn’t this the Sheraton? I was told I would find him here.”
“This is the Sheraton Hotel,” she informed him. “Mr. Novak wouldn’t meet anybody here. You want the Sheraton partnership annex. That’s where Mr. Novak conducts all his business. It’s the next building over.”
She started to turn away. Finn sensed the ground slipping beneath his feet. “Can you at least tell me how to get there?”
She beamed at him again. That glowing expression made him feel like a child on his first day at kindergarten. She got to her feet and pointed behind him. “Just go straight through that door, down the conduit to the other building, and you can check with the receptionist there who will direct you to Mr. Novak’s office.”
She stood there smiling at him with such open, unreserved delight that she put him off his game. He never met anybody, especially a white, upscale businesswoman like her, who treated him with such frank goodwill. That didn’t happen to New Breed of the Prometheus Crest, not ever, and it sure as fuck never happened to him.
She remained standing and smiling at him like she had all day to do nothing but that. She didn’t face her computer and dismiss him from existence. The light sparkled off her perfect teeth and her flawless hair. She stayed there until he turned away toward the door she indicated. He took a few steps and glanced back. She was still there, on her feet and glowing at him with undisguised pleasure.
He ventured across the lobby and entered a transparent glass tube. He got halfway down it before someone else approached the reception desk and that woman turned her attention to the newcomer. Only then did she remove her focus from Finn.
He shook his apprehensions out of his head. He could have stepped through some kind of portal to another dimension. He didn’t feel like he was on the same planet anymore and maybe he wasn’t.
The conduit, as she called it, emerged into another towering glass foyer even nicer than the hotel. No porters or bellboys or concierges attended to guests here. Businesspeople in suits scurried everywhere. They snatched moments of conversation with each other, worked on their cellphones, and darted off on their errands. They entered the elevators and streamed from them to leave the building. Finn was the only person in sight not wearing a suit.
He recoiled from the reception desk. He didn’t want another encounter like the one he just had, but he needed to find out where he was supposed to meet his contact. He couldn’t go back to Ogru-Kuche and tell Victor he chickened out because he was underdressed.
He sure wished Victor had told him to take a shower and change his clothes, though. Then again, maybe Victor didn’t know. Not many people from the Prometheus Crest left it to mix in other parts of town. Maybe their façade of poverty and squalor sabotaged them from doing exactly that. Maybe they took their efforts to mask their true nature from the human world to an extreme until it worked against them.
Sinking dread settled in his guts as he viewed his surroundings. If anyone asked him an hour ago, he would have said this building belonged to the human world. He thought all of Canal Street was human.
Now he found out there were New Breed here. They used this crazy business world as their headquarters. That fact conflicted with everything he knew about the New Breed.
He wandered between potted trees stretching into a glass-enclosed atrium. He stumbled to the reception desk where another spotless lady, this one with shoulder-length straight hair, gave him the same disquieting smile. “What can I help you with today, Sir?”
“I’m here to see Bernard Novak,” he mumbled.
She consulted her computer and beamed at him. “Fortieth floor, Sir. Can I tell him who’s coming up?”
He checked over his shoulder one more time, but he didn’t see anything but more and more businesspeople everywhere. “Finn Weeks.”
More tapping came from the keyboard behind his back. “Ah, yes, Mr. Weeks. Mr. Novak is expecting you.”
Finn whipped around and stared at her. “He is? How do you know that?”
She dipped her eyelids at the screen. “You’re on his schedule. He added a note to his docket that says he’s ready for you. Now I’ve added a note to let him know you’re in the building and on your way up.”
“Oh.” Finn cast one last glimpse around him and walked away toward the elevator. He didn’t realize until he got there that he should have said something else to her. He shouldn’t have been so rude. He should have thanked her or said goodbye or…. something.
He waited for another flood of suits to empty out of the elevator. When he entered it, he spotted the biggest bank of buttons in history. The building had sixty floors and he was only going to the fortieth.
He scraped cold sweat off his palm before he pushed the button labeled: 40. He wished he wasn’t going into this so jittery. He just wasn’t expecting this.
So what was he expecting? Was he expecting to cross South Claiborne Avenue and walk into another broken-down hovel in Hoffman Triangle? Was he expecting to bump into some greasy drug dealer on the street corner, saunter up to him, jab him with his elbow, and say, “Word, homey. How about you meet my boy Victor and work out a deal to form an alliance?”
Truth be told, that was exactly what Finn did expect. Twenty-five years in the Prometheus Crest prepared him for nothing else. He thought delivering this message would play out like all the other tasks Victor assigned to him. He expected to meet some poor chump in the Quag or in one of Anarock’s more dangerous neighborhoods. He expected to go somewhere he felt perfectly comfortable and speak to someone who spoke the language of the ghetto and the streets.
Now here he was riding in a silent elevator to the fortieth floor of some high-rise in the wealthiest part of town. Thank the stars he had the elevator to himself. That gave him a few minutes to get his head together.
The car stopped. Finn stared through the door for a second. A crystal chandelier lit up a large chamber trimmed in gleaming dark wood. Plush maroon carpet stretched to a massive bank of windows overlooking the city with the coast leading out to sea. From here, he could see all up and down the Gulf as far as the eye could stretch. The ground didn’t seem real so far out of sight.
The reception desk was a great, curving wooden affair shining with fifty layers of varnish. It resembled a vintage bank teller’s counter. Four people worked behind it—two women and two men—but none of them looked like a receptionist. They looked exactly like the businesspeople downstairs. They looked like they worked here.
Just then, the elevator doors started to close. Someone darted into view and a guy thrust his hand between the doors. They immediately opened again and he slipped inside. He grinned at Finn. “Thanks.”
He took his place against the wall and took out his phone. Finn woke from his trance and took a step across the threshold. The car closed behind him and now Finn found himself in that…..It didn’t look like any office he could recognize. It looked like the drawing-room of some mansion.
The whole place breathed money. A honey-brown collection of carved leather couches formed a seating area off to one side. Tablet computers perched on a glass coffee table in the center. Three men in suits and shiny gold watches conducted an informal meeting there. They talked in low tones and tapped at the tablets whenever they wanted.
To Finn’s left, four women and two men stood around a raised desk with a white light shining out of the middle. While Finn watched, one of the women swiped her finger across it. The diagram on the flat screen skidded aside and left a different image in its place. The group went into another discussion Finn couldn’t hear.
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nbsp; He cringed putting his boots on that carpet. Voices bubbled through open office doors all around him. He didn’t belong here. He would have gotten back into the elevator and left, but at that moment, one of the women behind the desk spotted him.
She swept around the counter and strode toward him. Her long wavy blonde hair swayed over her navy blue shoulders and startling azure eyes sparkled out of her ivory face. She cracked a big smile. Finn was starting to get used to that smile.
She stuck out her hand. “Mr. Weeks? It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Claire Novak.”
Finn froze with her tiny hand clasping around his meaty paw. He didn’t want her touching him for fear he might get her dirty. “Novak? Are you…?”
She burst into another magnificent smile. The very warmth and congeniality of that smile disconcerted him even more. “Bernard Novak is my father. Welcome to our humble establishment. Can I get you anything before the meeting starts?”
He couldn’t stop staring around him. “I…uh…. Excuse me. I don’t mean to be rude. I don’t need anything. I’m fine.”
She didn’t let go of his hand. Her mind-blowing eyes hovered too close before his gaze. He wanted to withdraw from her, not because she was repulsive—quite the opposite. He couldn’t remember seeing a more attractive woman anywhere, but she was too perfect. Everything about her struck him as impossibly exquisite right down to the exact pressure of her fingers around his knuckles.
When he surveyed his surroundings, he experienced the inescapable horror that he was dirty, that he was dressed for the slums. He was the slums. He spent his life in Central City, in the streets and buried in mud in the Quag. He didn’t belong here. The whole place wanted to spit him out and send him scurrying back to his hole in the gutter.
The place didn’t want to spit him out, though. The place and the people and the environment didn’t consider him dirty or unworthy or horrible. Those thoughts and impressions came from himself. He wasn’t good enough to touch her immaculate white skin, and yet here she was, clasping his hand between both of hers and giving it that intimate, almost erotic squeeze.
She followed his eyes and glanced over her shoulder toward the desk. Then she smiled even bigger. “We’re all part of the family business here. It’s all very incestuous so you can imagine how happy we are to meet an outsider.”
She broke into sweet, pealing laughter. That sound lit up the office and all the people at the desk and the light table turned to look at the pair.
Claire rotated around to face the desk. “This is my brother Pablo and my sister Lucy. That’s my brother Damien and my brother Conrad.”
The party behind the light table broke up and two of the men approached the pair. The others migrated to the elevator and departed.
The biggest man stuck out his hand. After so many candid, friendly smiles this morning, Finn began to recognized the family resemblance.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Weeks. I hope we can all come to an understanding with each other.”
Finn didn’t know what to say. Not one of these people seemed to notice his clothes or the dirt under his fingernails. They paid no attention to that when he couldn’t ignore it. He couldn’t help noticing the exact, meticulous cut of their shoulders inside their suits or their gold cufflinks or their shiny leather shoes. He couldn’t ignore the tablets and laptops tucked under their arms.
Lucy emerged from behind the desk and handed Claire a different tablet. “We should go in. It’s almost time.”
At that moment, a big set of double doors opened next to the reception desk. Finn suffered a moment of déjà vu remembering the double doors leading into the Ogru-Kuche war room. Right up until this moment, Finn always thought the war room was an impressive display of the Prometheus Crest’s power. Now he knew better.
These doors swung on silent hinges to reveal a large conference room overlooking all New Orleans. A huge circular deco chandelier illuminated the massive mahogany table. Black leather recliners surrounded it. A transparent wall of smoky glass offered a view of an indoor Zen garden in the center of the building. An open shaft of sunshine lit it from above and presented a mystical haven of serenity in the middle of this world of power and money.
Was this Anarock? Could this possibly be a part of the Anarock that Finn knew? He didn’t recognize it as anything on the same plane as the world where he grew up. He didn’t want to go in there. If he did, he might become something different from what he knew. It might change him and he couldn’t allow that.
Three men strolled across the room shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries before two of them peeled off and left. They all got into the elevator and Finn never saw them again.
The last man remaining in the conference room halted at the doorway. He was an exact cut-out copy of the big guy who greeted Finn. Damien. Damien Novak. This man was just as big, just as square-shouldered, and just as full of power and radiant confidence. The hair around his temples showed a dusting of grey. Other than that, no one could tell the two apart.
Finn’s stomach tightened. This must be the Bernard Novak he came here to find. Finn never doubted that for a second. No one else could command such wealth and power. No one else could direct this enormous enterprise from the heart of his own impeccable domain.
He cast his piercing blue eyes up and down Finn’s form. He came back to looking Finn square in the eye, but his penetrating gaze didn’t recognize Finn’s boots or his pants. This man didn’t give a living shit that Finn Weeks showed up to this office in a t-shirt. None of that meant squat to him.
Bernard Novak saw the man underneath the clothes. He looked right through the surface to something so much deeper. He measured everything with unerring accuracy.
Finn shrank from the unflinching stare, but before he could make a break for the exit, the man strode toward him and put out his hand. “Finn Weeks as I live and breathe. I’m Bernard Novak. You’re most welcome.”
Finn couldn’t feel his arm shaking that man’s hand. He couldn’t stop staring at everything around him, including the beauty at his side, who also didn’t seem to be letting go of his left hand. “Thank you, Sir. Thank you for meeting me.”
Bernard broke into what probably passed for a casual smile for him. That smile didn’t look casual to Finn, though. Nothing Bernard did could ever be casual. Every twitch of his eyebrow carried world-shattering significance.
He waved toward the conference room. “Come on in and have a seat. We have a lot to talk about.”
Bernard signaled him to the side of the table facing the windows. Finn entered and wheeled out one of those plush black chairs. It enfolded him in luxury, but he stiffened when Bernard and all the rest of them sat down across the table from him. They arrayed themselves in a barricade of suits, impossible influence, and magnetic power—all except Claire. She sat down next to Finn, but that only made him more unsettled than ever. It impressed on his mind more than anything else that he was absolutely alone facing down people who held every advantage over him.
3
Claire inspected the side of Finn Weeks’s face. He kept scanning the people opposite him and fidgeting in his seat. His gaze skipped from her father to Damien and Pablo and Lucy, back to Conrad and around to Bernard again. He cast the occasional glance at her before he returned to scanning his counterparts.
She had never before seen a black man as black as Finn. His skin fascinated her in an otherworldly way. She knew all about him from his file in the company records. He was a dragon shifter—a strong one, too. Pictures in the database depicted a huge jet-black monster sweeping over the landscape wreaking devastation and havoc in his wake.
He didn’t look all that dangerous now. He looked like a very attractive man with immaculate, dark-chocolate skin and velvet brown eyes. Tight black curls clung to his scalp and tiny individual curls ended against his shapely neck where it dove into his t-shirt collar.
A heavy crust of callused skin darkened his thumb and forefinger. He worked for a living, unlik
e everyone else around here. He came from another world, but he handled the unease of entering the Novaks’ domain better than she expected. He didn’t freak out or try to flee. He entered this conference room with calm, sure steps even though he was obviously unsure of his ground. He didn’t hesitate to shake hands with Bernard or Damien.
He didn’t shrink from her, either. That gave her confidence and she scooted her chair closer to his. His dark skin, his deep eyes, and his strange, alien presence tempted her in. She wanted to inspect him, to explore him. She wanted to smell him and test his reactions.
Bernard took the chair directly across from Finn and tilted it back. He rested one hand on the table and his graceful curved fingers tapped silently on the glossy surface. “I was very happy to hear from your Man about meeting a representative from the Prometheus Crest. Thank you for coming down here. I know it’s not your usual project, but I hope it will be worth it for both our Crests.”
Finn stiffened. “Does that mean you’re willing to form an alliance with us?” He stole a quick peek at Claire. “Something tells me you already know why he asked me to meet with you.”
Bernard indulged in a small smile. “You’re right. You’re sharper than most of the Prometheus Crest if you picked up on that.”
Finn braced his midsection and a faint hint of doubt crossed his face. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not unusual in the Prometheus Crest. I can assure you of that.”
Bernard confronted him. He didn’t smile at all this time. “I doubt that. Victor Griffin wouldn’t have sent you here if you weren’t.”
“You’re wrong. Victor is a hell of a lot smarter than I am.”
Bernard cocked his head and looked straight at him without blinking. “If that’s true, why do you think he sent you of all people? He could have sent anybody. He could have sent his brother Malachai. He could have sent Colonel Weeks. He could have sent anybody but he chose you. Why?”
Finn shifted in his chair again. He shot another hesitant glimpse around the table. “I’m sure I don’t know. I don’t pretend to understand his motivations for everything.”
