The Seeker

by Elizabeth Hunter

  Max sighed. “Don’t ask me. You’re the archivist. That’s why Damien sent you on this job instead of me and Renata. Sort out truth from legend, talk to this woman in New Orleans, and find out if the Wolf is still living. She and her brother were the most feared Irin warriors in North America. Atawakabiche’s magic destroyed an archangel without the use of a heavenly blade. If she exists, she could change everything.”

  “Who is Sari’s contact?” Rhys asked.

  “An Irina named Meera.”

  “Meera? Who is she?”

  “I don’t know anything about her except that she’ll meet you in New Orleans in three days. Go to Jackson Square on Saturday morning, and she’ll find you.”

  Rhys groaned. “She wants to meet me among the heaviest tourist traffic in New Orleans on Saturday morning? Is she serious?”

  “I don’t make the decisions here, brother. I’m passing along information. Be there by nine.”

  “In the morning?” Rhys curled his lip. He was a night owl.

  “Nine in the morning, my friend.”

  Rhys’s eyes locked on the dark-haired man walking out of the diner with a woman on his arm. It was the Grigori and the young waitress. He opened his car door and spit the toothpick on the ground. “Max, I have to go. I’ll call you when I get on the road.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Rhys slid his hand into his pocket, his fingers curling around the hilt of a silver dagger. “Just a little hunting. No need to be alarmed.”

  “Be careful. The Houston house thinks you’re a mild-mannered scholar on vacation.”

  “Of course I am,” Rhys muttered. “Goodbye, Max.”

  He hung up before his brother could say another word. He tossed the phone in the passenger seat and closed the car door. The Grigori and the woman had disappeared to the back of the parking lot. Perhaps the Grigori had convinced the woman to give him a ride to a more secluded location where he could feed from her.

  Grigori were soul hungry. Human mythology called them incubi or vampires. Even cannibals. They fed from the soul energy that all human beings possess, though most preferred women. Women they could lure with their looks and their scent. They were born predators, dark sons of heaven made to seduce and feed.

  In a shadowed corner of the back parking lot, Rhys saw the Grigori pressing the woman against her car, kissing her neck as her head was thrown back. She was panting, her breasts heaving in a macabre imitation of pleasure. In reality, there could be no pleasure for her because the Grigori’s bare hands were pressed to her stomach and back, his touch robbing the waitress of her will. She was putty in the creature’s hands, willing to do anything he asked, his touch more effective than a drug.

  Rhys approached quietly, but the Grigori sensed him. The creature spun, keeping one hand on the woman.

  “You,” he hissed.

  “If you were smart,” Rhys said, “you’d already be running.”

  The Grigori’s eyes were cold and blank. No hint of conscience warmed them. “She wanted me. She said yes.”

  “She doesn’t know what you are.” Rhys glanced at the woman. Her eyes were closed. She was still panting. Her moans of pleasure scraped against his ears like nails on slate. “Get away from her.”

  The Grigori hesitated, his eyes narrowed in growing panic. Rhys noticed the second the man decided to run. He broke away from the woman and lunged to the left, dashing between cars as Rhys caught the human woman and laid her on the ground. Then he shot to his feet and ran after the man who was running toward Kirby Drive.

  The older waitress walked out of the restaurant just as Rhys ran past.

  “Your friend is in the back,” he yelled. “She’s hurt!”

  Rhys left the humans and sprinted, waiting for the traffic to pass so he could follow the Grigori. Cars honked and drivers rolled down their windows to yell.

  There.

  Rhys caught a glimpse of the monster as he darted between two parked cars in a multistory parking garage. The Grigori might have been running to his own vehicle or simply trying to lose Rhys. Either way, it was going to die.

  He paused when he entered the garage, brushing a thumb over the talesm prim on his left wrist and waiting for his senses to sharpen. In seconds, his eyes adjusted to the darkness, his heart rate steadied, and his ears picked up the footsteps running up the ramp and toward the roof. Rhys followed the sound, drawing the silver stiletto from its hidden sheath and gripping it tightly.

  He reached the top of the garage and was barely breathing harder. The moon had disappeared behind a blue fog that drifted over the city, but yellow lights buzzed on the roof, casting strange overlapping shadows between the parked cars.

  There were several rows, and Rhys walked among them deliberately, waiting for a sound, a scent, anything. He sorted through the acrid smells of burning sulfur, exhaust, and mold.

  There.

  A row of pickup trucks caught his eye, every one of them a potential hiding place for the Grigori.

  “Who do you belong to?” Rhys asked. “Who commands you, Grigori?”

  A creak near the blue truck.

  Not the blue, the red.

  “There are ways to live without killing,” Rhys said.

  A shuffle and a break in the silence. The Grigori took a running leap from the top of the parking garage to the office building on the other side of the alley.

  “Are you joking?” Rhys grumbled. He hated to jump, and he didn’t particularly like heights. “You fecking knob!” Rhys gritted his teeth and ran toward the edge, concentrating on the burst of magical energy as he leapt into the darkness.

  A fall from four stories wouldn’t kill him, but it would hurt like hell.

  He landed and rolled on the gravel roof of the office building just as the Grigori slipped over the side. Rhys needed to get to the ground fast. He spotted a drainpipe and ran toward it, shimmying down the dirty pipe until he was close enough to fall. He ran around the corner of the building and saw the man dangle from the fire escape before he dropped.

  Rhys grabbed him by the neck while he was still catching his balance and shoved him face-first against the brick wall of the office building.

  The man was smaller than he’d appeared on the run. Rhys was tall, over six foot, with a runner’s build and a long reach. The Grigori was far from bulky, but Rhys dwarfed him.

  He gripped him by the neck. “Who do you belong to?”

  The man’s shoulders slumped. “Bozidar.”

  “The archangel?” Not likely. Bozidar’s sons would have more natural magic than this.

  The Grigori began to laugh. “Our fathers are waking, scribe. The Fallen have only been sleeping, resting in their victory. Now you’ve roused them.”

  “Have we?” Rhys leaned in. “I look forward to the fight.”

  The man laughed harder. “You have no idea! How many of your women did we kill? How many of your men died of despair? The Irin are pathetically weak.”

  Rhys curled his lip. “You call me weak? How many unsuspecting women have you fed from like that waitress?”

  The man froze. “Not enough.” Then he turned and snapped his teeth at Rhys’s left wrist in a last-ditch effort to damage the scribe’s magic.

  Without a second thought, Rhys plunged the silver stiletto into the base of the Grigori’s neck and waited. Within seconds, the body began to shimmer and disintegrate. Rhys stepped back and wiped the dust from his blade before he returned it to the sheath, watching silently as dust rose through the heavy night sky, disappearing into the darkness and mist.

  Under his breath, Rhys said a prayer. He’d slain a son of the angels. Fallen angels, yes. But the same blood ran in his veins. The same magic fueled him. Grigori were the dark shadow of the Irin. Without knowledge and training, scribes could turn feral too.

  The lone Grigori had been no challenge, and Rhys felt no satisfaction in the kill, no sense of righteous anger or vengeance.

  Bozidar.

  The archangel from Saint Louis
. It hadn’t been the whole truth, but there had been a ring to it. Perhaps the young man had belonged to one of Bozidar’s lesser Fallen allies. He’d report the incident to his watcher and let Malachi decide if he wanted to pass the information along.

  After all, Rhys was nothing more than a visiting scholar from Istanbul.

  Rhys slept until noon the next day, waking only when the housekeeper tapped on his door. He’d checked in with a Spanish passport, so Rhys called out in Spanish, asking for a few minutes more. He threw off the sheet that covered him and took a moment to enjoy the cool breeze on his bare chest. He rubbed the unmarked skin over his heart, wondering for the thousandth time what it would feel like to put a needle into it.

  His first marks had been made at the age of thirteen by his father, a stern man who impressed on Rhys the importance of history and legacy and tradition. Those talesm ran down his back, covering the magic his mother had spoken over him from the time of his birth.

  “When you find your mate, then you will know true wisdom.”

  His parents still lived, still tended the library in Glast as every scribe in his family had done since the beginning of time. Rhys was a direct descendant of Gabriel’s line in Glastonbury. His father had been the chief archivist as his grandfather had been. Rhys’s children—if he ever had any—would be expected to follow in that line.

  In the early days, the scribes in his family only took trained Irina librarians as mates, so the Great Library at Glast had been one of the rare joined archives of their race. Rhys’s grandfather had met his reshon and broken that tradition, but no one had blamed him for it. A reshon was a rare and beautiful gift, the single perfect soul created by heaven to be your equal.

  In his rare optimistic moments, Rhys hoped for a mate. A reshon was likely too much to ask. Of course, it wasn’t easy finding any mate when eighty percent of the women in your race had been killed.

  He hadn’t given up hope. Not… entirely. After all, his brothers in Istanbul had found mates. Malachi, his new watcher, had mated with Ava, an American with unique Grigori blood. Leo had mated with Kyra, and Rhys was fairly sure Max and Renata were finally together, though the cagey Irina had led his brother on a fifteen-year chase.

  There was hope. Possibly. If those bastards could find women to put up with them, there had to be someone who could keep his interest for more than a single conversation.

  Rhys groaned and rolled out of bed. He could feel the onerous heat pressing against the windows and creeping under the door. He showered and threw on his spare change of clothes, unconcerned about covering his talesm that morning. Americans were easy about such things. Tattoos were so common now; he’d noticed professionals and grandmothers inked with them. The neat rows of intricate writing covering his arms were unlikely to raise more than casual interest.

  He stood at the door of his motel room, enjoying the brief moment of being perspiration-free before he slid on his sunglasses and walked outside.

  Ah yes. Covered in sweat again.

  Walking quickly down the stairs, he found his compact blue rental car and threw his backpack in the passenger seat. Then he drove two blocks away and returned the car at the rental agency before he called for a taxi. He took that car to another hotel and walked from there to a national car rental.

  If he was going to take a road trip, he wanted the right car, and it needed far better air-conditioning than the blue compact. He took off his sunglasses and scanned the lot.

  A salesman walked up to him. “Can I help you, sir?”

  Rhys spotted it, a silver Dodge Challenger with tan leather interior. “That one.” He walked over to look inside.

  Legroom. Glorious, glorious legroom.

  “The Challenger?” The man appeared to be excited. “An excellent choice. It has—”

  “Would it be possible to return it in New Orleans?”

  “Yes, sir. There would be an additional charge.”

  “Not a problem.”

  He slid his sunglasses back on. Yes, this one would do nicely.

  Within minutes, he was driving on Interstate 10, “Way Down We Go” blaring from the speakers, crossing the channel and heading east to New Orleans and a legend lost for three hundred years.

  Chapter Two

  Meera watched the Englishman from behind her sunglasses. She licked powdered sugar from her fingers as he wandered aimlessly around Jackson Square. He tried to avoid the crowds, but it was impossible. She knew he was looking for her, but… she didn’t get beignets anywhere but Café Du Monde. They were sin in pastry form, and Meera believed in indulging.

  “You’re a mean woman.” Zephirin reached for a beignet from the paper bag Meera carried.

  They were sitting on a shaded bench in a corner of the square. Zep had patrolled all night with no Grigori spotted. Far from satisfied, it left the scribe edgy, like a tiger waiting to pounce. Lazy on the outside with all that coiled energy within. Meera offered him sugar to appease the beast.

  “I’m not mean,” she said. “Watching how someone navigates tourist traffic is very telling.”

  “So this is a test?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look at this girl.” He took a bite of the powdered doughnut. “She’s so damn cute. Little bitty thing with all that hair and all those curves, that sweet face…”

  “You know you love me.”

  “Poor scribe doesn’t know what he’s in for getting within reach of her claws.”

  Meera cocked her head. “I’m trying to decide if I’m insulted.”

  Zep smiled. “You’re not.”

  “You’re right; I’m not.” She watched the man navigate through a crowd of Chinese tourists and claim the corner of a bench. Meera had a clear view of him from her shaded seat. His eyes were covered by dark aviator glasses, but she could see annoyance in the lines around his mouth.

  She smiled. “This is so amusing.”

  “Why do I like you?” he said.

  “Because I am delightful and dangerous.”

  Zep shook his head. “Yeah. You are.”

  Meera crossed her legs, the flowing coral dress she wore brushing her calves. The sensual brush of fabric and humid breeze off the river enveloped her, feeding her energy like the humans that surrounded them. She was enveloped by humanity, the scent of coffee and the sound of jazz musicians filling the air. Vendors and artists set up their tables, and shopkeepers were opening their doors.

  It was all so rich. The first time she’d stepped into Jackson Square four years before, she’d been entranced. Everything about the old French city felt like an indulgence. It was a million miles from the quiet and ascetic compound where she’d lived for the first part of her life as the long-awaited heir of Anamitra, wisest of singers.

  Meera closed her eyes and took off her sunglasses, letting the morning sun heat her gold-brown skin. “You didn’t have to stay if you didn’t want to watch me torment him.”

  He finished the beignet in two bites. “I came to protect this poor scribe from your wiles.”

  “My wiles?” She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “I never use my wiles on hapless scribes.”

  He muttered, “Not even when we want you to.”

  “You know, when I came to this country, I was told it was a place to be free. To break with traditions and push boundaries.” She finished off her beignet and brushed her hands together before she put her sunglasses back on. “But every scribe I meet just wants to lure me into mating.”

  He crossed his arms, the black ink of his talesm swirling over light brown skin. “There something wrong with wanting a mate?”

  She almost gave in. Almost. Zephirin was a very handsome man, an attractive blend of Native American, European, and African blood like so many Irin in this part of North America. In addition to his looks, Zep was kind, funny, and respectful. Her father even liked him. When Zep had first asked Meera out to dinner, she’d been tempted.

  But only tempted.

  Meera bumped his shoulder. “Don’t
be cross. I just got out of the haven. I don’t know if mating is right for me.”

  “So only human dates until you figure it out?”

  “None of your business.” She nodded at the Englishman who was still sitting across the square. “He’s handsome, isn’t he?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “You have eyes, don’t you?”

  Zep squinted at the other scribe. “He’s thin and pale and looks like a buzzkill. Like a cranky professor.”

  “According to my mother, his name is Rhys of Glast. He’s a renowned archivist of Gabriel’s direct line.”

  “That sounds… not fun at all.”

  Meera pursed her mouth. “I think he looks amusing. And he has beautiful hair.” And lips, but she didn’t mention that. In fact, Meera found the Englishman highly attractive, with a tall, lanky build that caught her eye and a wide, expressive mouth that hinted at sinful things. He had blue-black hair and pale skin, high cheekbones and a sharp jaw.

  He looked… severe. But the mouth distracted her. She wanted to muss that dark hair and wrinkle his collar. Knowing he was a “renowned archivist” intrigued her and concerned her, all at the same time.

  “He’s pale as shit,” Zep said. “Looks like he never leaves the library.” He stretched his arm across the back of the bench, resting his skin against hers. It was a natural affection Meera had grown to enjoy.

  “Well, he’s here now,” Meera said. “So clearly he leaves it sometimes. He’s supposed to be brilliant with computers.”

  “That so?” Zep’s interest was piqued. He had an interest in technology, though he was the only one in his scribe house who seemed attracted to it. He idly brushed a thumb over Meera’s shoulder. “Are you going to keep him locked away while he’s here?”

  “Maybe.” Meera relaxed at Zep’s touch.

  Casual affection between friends in the Irin world was valued and necessary. The contact allowed singers to release energy they gathered from spending time around humans and gave scribes a boost of power. They were people of community, never meant to be isolated or alone, a tricky proposition for someone like Meera who guarded her privacy fiercely.