The Gifts of Fate

by David T Myers

  The Keres Ter Nyx? Dusk was part of the war against her sisters.

  Shilpy fled the room and slammed the door behind her. Seizing a wine bottle from the fridge, she took a long drink and didn’t stop until she almost choked.

  It couldn’t be. Dusk couldn’t be working for the Erisians. She must have misunderstood.

  Shilpy didn’t know anything about the Erisians except what Denise had told her: they worshipped Eris and their mission was to disrupt the status quo by weeding out corruption.

  Was this vision from the past or the future? If the events were yet to happen, would the conversation she’d just witnessed take place tomorrow, next week, or next year?

  Her phone buzzed to life, startling her. She glanced at her watch—six o’clock. Unsure whether to answer it, or what she should say if she did, she let it ring. The ringing continued insistently. Finally, she couldn’t bear it any more.

  “Hi, baby.” Dusk’s deep baritone caressed her ear.

  “Hi,” she said, in a guarded voice.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, instantly sensing something amiss. She struggled to pull her wits together. He was with the Erisians. It made no sense.

  “You left without any real explanation,” she said. “With your colleague.”

  The phone was silent for an eternity. “I guess I did.”

  Shilpy swallowed, trying to form words but not sure which were the right ones. There was just too much to process.

  “Hond is someone I’m working with, but I—”

  “Dusk, don’t! Please don’t tell me you can’t talk about it. Or that you’re bound by some non-disclosure agreement. I’m tired of secrets. You have yours and I have mine. But I’m sick of them.”

  “You’re keeping secrets from me?”

  “No. I mean, yes. I mean . . . my past is complicated. I’m sure yours is too. I haven’t told you everything about me, but I want to. I think we need to be open and transparent with each other,” she said in a rush.

  Dusk exhaled heavily. “Where is this coming from?”

  “I feel like I don’t know you.”

  “What does that mean?” he said, raising his voice to a shout. “I don’t need this right now. My work is in Melbourne. This is where I have to be. I’m getting tired of everybody accusing me of letting them down.”

  Shilpy chewed on her bottom lip. “Dusk—”

  “I can’t talk about my work.” His voice was quieter now, more measured. “There are other things I can talk about when I get home. But if you’re keeping secrets from me then I don’t know why you think you have the moral high ground.”

  “I don’t,” Shilpy said. “This isn’t about you letting me down. It’s just this . . . us . . . isn’t going to work if we’re leading different lives. I want us to come together. Both of us. Except, I’m not sure if we can.”

  “I see.” There was a pause. “I’ll be home tomorrow night. I’d prefer to have this conversation then.”

  “I look forward to that.”

  Neither said anything for a long moment.

  “Be careful,” she said, finally.

  “I will,” he replied. He sounded as though he was just about to hang up, but she quickly jumped in before he could.

  “Dusk.”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t bring Hond. I want you all to myself.”

  Chapter 7

  The vision that night was different. What was dream and what was curse was difficult to distinguish. This time, Shilpy didn’t shy away from it. Driven by a need to understand, she allowed, no, leaped into the mind-mirage.

  Loud trance music reverberated off the walls of a darkened nightclub. A sea of bodies writhed and twisted to the pounding sounds. Each beat carried the sea forward on a wave of abandonment. Couples locked in embraces ground against each other, small circles of people swayed like charmed snakes, and the occasional lone dancer moved to his or her own beat.

  A blonde woman in black leather pants, a tank top, and a push-up bra stood to the side of the dance floor talking to Hond. Her make-up was impeccable, and some men dancing nearby glanced her way. Shilpy frowned. Why was a girl like that talking to Hond, of all people?

  Terry stood near the two, casting dark looks towards the small booth where Dusk was deep in conversation with several other men.

  “What do you desire to know, my friend?” Hond asked the woman with a sly smile.

  “Is he seeing anyone?” she asked. “Does Dusk have a girlfriend?”

  Tension built in and around Shilpy’s mouth, and she realised she was grinding her teeth. She tried to ignore the burning sensation in her stomach. A turmoil of emotions raged against this slut in black.

  Hond smiled to himself, and a calculated look glided over his face. Shilpy could almost see one wicked thought after another running through his head, each delighting him more than the last.

  “Yes, he is seeing someone,” Hond said. “I wouldn’t call it serious, though. In fact, they’ve been having some trouble.”

  What the hell was this? Had Dusk told that back-stabbing son of a bitch about their fight?

  “He planned to move to Melbourne,” Hond continued, “but she won’t follow him. In fact, he told me he was more interested in someone else.”

  Shilpy was 90 percent sure Hond was lying, but it didn’t stop something inside her from dying. Could Dusk be interested in someone else? It was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  The blonde leaned forward with interest and inadvertently provided Hond a better view of her cleavage.

  “Really? Who?”

  Hond laughed. The sound was playful, mocking. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen the way he stares at you.”

  “Me?” To her credit, the blonde appeared shocked, but she quickly recovered. A small smile built on her lips. “I hadn’t, no.”

  Her head turned towards Dusk’s booth in the corner of the club. Dusk was still deep in conversation with the men from the boxing gym. The woman pursed her lips, excused herself, and quickly checked her appearance in a hand mirror. Then, with languid and sensual movements, she glided across the dance floor towards the booth. Shilpy wanted to elbow her from behind and send her sprawling in those stupid high-heel shoes.

  Shilpy stepped forward, but a moment later everything shifted and she was sitting across from Dusk and the woman. The men had disappeared, but it was the same nightclub. Whether it was the same night, she couldn’t tell.

  The smug bitch was seated a little bit too close to him. Two green cocktails in martini glasses rested half drunk on the table between them. The blonde uttered a soft, musical laugh to something Dusk had just said. She had her chest thrust out and was playing idly with a medallion, which rested just above her cleavage. Her body undulated slowly with unabashed sexuality.

  Dusk smiled a patient, knowing smile. Taking it as an invitation, the blonde rubbed herself up against him and leaned forward. Her hand advanced to his leg. He placed his hand on the back of hers, stopping it from moving up his thigh. Then he returned it to her lap. His eyes turned hard.

  “I’m spoken for,” he said, in a quiet, serious voice. Shilpy’s heart nearly leaped from her chest. Blondie stared at him in confusion and retreated.

  “Oh, I didn’t realise. I thought—”

  “I’m sorry if I led you on,”

  “You’re sure?” she said. She raised her eyebrows, and her body language became seductive again. She teased the martini glass, rubbing the stem with long fingers. “People talk about you, you know.”

  Dusk’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”

  “They say you’re special. Extraordinary. I think so, too.”

  “That’s kind of you,” he said, with an edge to his voice.

  “You know what they say. What happens on out-of-town business trips . . .” She gave him a sideways look.

  Dusk stood. “Thank you for the company.” His eyes locked onto hers, and then he strode away. Everything shifted again.

  * * *

  Dusk stood i
n the middle of a street. At the other end stood Wolf, holding a sword in both hands. He swung it back and forth experimentally and then looked up at Dusk.

  “Where did you find it?”

  “That isn’t important,” Dusk replied. Each word was measured and clipped. “You lied to me.”

  “Yes,” Wolf replied, after a significant pause. He appeared outwardly calm, but there might have been a small note of fear behind his words. “Where is Anderson?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “Believe what you want, my friend.” Dusk paced back and forth like a caged lion. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “That is the question, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  Shilpy spent the whole day agonizing over her conflicting emotions.

  On the one hand, Dusk had proved himself and his fidelity the previous night, or he would, depending on whether the vision had revealed current or future events.

  On the other hand, he was helping the Erisians. Assisting them in the war against the Keres Ter Nyx. He may have fought Aaliyah. Had he injured her? Or worse? Dusk was a big man, and could no doubt hurt someone badly if he wanted to. Still, it was one thing to know you could hurt someone else—quite another to actually do it.

  But someone from the Keres Ter Nyx had killed one of the Erisians. Dusk’s former boss by the sounds of things. She tried to recall everything Wolf had said. Firstly, the Keres Ter Nyx had attacked them without warning, after agreeing to peace. If what he’d said was true, it meant the Keres Ter Nyx weren’t quite the victims Madame Jessica had made them out to be.

  Secondly, Wolf had seemed more interested in protecting his people than seeking revenge, and Dusk had agreed with him. So Dusk was capable of violence but had chosen not to use it.

  Lastly, the vision of Dusk standing across the street from Wolf indicated that the Erisians were going to betray him. The mothers with the Keres Ter Nyx kept control through lies and half-truths. Lies that made it more difficult for people to escape. Dusk obviously wanted out. Shilpy wondered what lies he’d been told to keep him in? An extended contract; Wolf’s guilt trip that he hadn’t lived up to expectations; Hond’s allusion to Dusk being something more, something special; the slut’s clumsy attempt to seduce him: was it all one giant manipulation?

  Shilpy pulled the sheet Hond had used on the couch from the dirty-clothes basket. She hugged it to her body, inhaling the stale smell it had inherited lying next to all the other clothes. The faintest scent of the thin man lingered, but when she reached out with her mind, nothing happened.

  She sat on the couch for ten minutes adjusting and spinning the sheet, trying to feel or sense some trace of the man’s past or future, but her curse failed her, just when she needed it most.

  When she heard the sound of keys fumbling in front door’s lock, Shilpy sat bolt upright. Dusk’s eyes were bloodshot, and he was wearing the same clothes he’d had on at the bar in her vision.

  “Hi, baby,” he said, before crossing the room and placing a light kiss on Shilpy’s lips. She knew they needed to talk but found her hand lingering on the back of his head. He paused, his face hovering only a few centimetres away. They kissed again, and a third time. Each kiss drew her further into him, and she felt light-headed. He lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

  He buried his face into the nape of her neck, and she moaned with pleasure. They moved to the bedroom, pulling at the other’s clothes. In short order they were naked, and then he was inside her.

  In the aftermath, Shilpy nestled into the sweat-drenched muscles between his shoulder and chest. Their heavy breathing was the only sound in the room. The moment stretched out one second at a time, with no concern for past or future.

  Then slowly, the world crashed back in like the tide on a beach. All the noise and worries and concerns of the past few days, and the days to come, piled on top of her.

  Somehow, they had to return to this. Their safe, boring lives. It’s what they both wanted. She chewed on her bottom lip, considering what to say. Dusk’s eyes were nearly closed, and he looked ready to fall asleep.

  “About our chat,” she said, the words tumbling out.

  Dusk sighed in exasperation and rolled over onto his side to face her, pulling her naked body into a tighter embrace.

  “Go on.”

  “Who is Hond? Why did he come here?”

  “Melbourne can be like the Deepwater Horizon spill,” he said. “While Mestor knows I’m finishing once the project is over, Hond will stay on in some capacity and may need to clean up the mess.”

  “You’re not like him.”

  “In some ways, I’m not, but in other ways, we are very alike,” he said, stifling a yawn. “The man is fearless and committed. He would lay down his life for me. People underestimate him, and usually live to regret it. Although I will admit, he does make the Melbourne situation more complex.”

  “How did you meet?”

  “Why the sudden interest?” he asked, a little guardedly.

  Shilpy looked up into his eyes, feeling his breath on her face. She traced her fingers across his skin and over his lips. “You keep your worlds separate. I understand, and I’ve tried to respect that. But it’s difficult because there’s so much about you I don’t know. I don’t like Hond. I don’t trust him. I don’t think he has your best interests at heart.”

  Dusk sighed again and shifted so he was lying on his back. His dark eyes searched the ceiling. For a moment, Shilpy wasn’t sure he was going to say anything.

  “My mother died when I was nine years old. The military attacked our village. Men with rifles, machetes, and tanks slaughtered farmers, shopkeepers . . . and even my three-year-old sister.”

  Shilpy sat up in surprise. She’d expected him to talk about Melbourne. She’d had no idea about this.

  “I was sent to an orphanage in a neighbouring town. The woman who ran the house beat us regularly.” A small crack found its way into his voice, and he paused. “I stayed until I was eleven, and then they sent me away. There were too many of us. Every day there were more people found homeless because of the civil war. The town couldn’t cope with us, and certainly not a bunch of homeless kids. They sent us to the city where it would be safer. We didn’t make it.”

  Emotion built behind his eyes like an angry storm cloud. In all the time they’d known each other, Shilpy had never seen him look so vulnerable.

  Dusk took a deep breath and continued.

  “The back of the truck was sweltering. All the children, me included, were dehydrated. At some point, the truck stopped. We sat in the back, confused. There were people outside. Men started shouting and then a gun went off.

  “We cowered together. Girls started crying, which set others off until everyone was in tears.

  “Soldiers opened the back of the truck and forced everyone onto the dirt road. They separated the girls from the boys. The captain wandered up and down the line, past each of us. They examined me like the farmers used to inspect livestock. They asked me who I followed, and I said no one.

  “‘Then you will follow us,’ they said. That day, I joined the ALA, the African Liberation Army. They taught me how to fight, how to kill my enemies with no mercy. Hond and I served together.”

  Shilpy stared at Dusk in mute horror. How could she not have known this about him? She’d known he had secrets, but not one this big. If she’d been honest with him about her own past, would he have trusted her sooner? She’d thought they were good together, but it was becoming clear they didn’t know each other at all.

  A child soldier. What did something like that do to a person? She placed her hand on his chest, searching for something to say. Every empty platitude she could come up with seemed wholly inadequate.

  “He and I were manipulated by the ALA,” Dusk continued. “We thought we were part of something bigger and important. That we’d been chosen by the gods themselves. We did things. Horrible, unspeakabl
e things . . .” Dusk’s voice trailed off. “I vowed that no one would ever control me like that again. That I would become strong enough to stop them.”

  “Do you think it’s that simple to walk away from the past?” she asked.

  “You can if you can make it right. Hond saved my life more times than I can count, and I his. He is my brother. I couldn’t abandon him, any more than I could abandon you. I hope one day you can get along.”

  Shilpy pressed her lips together, but didn’t say anything. Even if she wanted to, how was she supposed to get along with Hond if he was trying to break them up? Except she couldn’t tell Dusk that. At least not yet. It would raise too many questions.

  Chapter 8

  Dusk’s face contorted in pain as he kneeled in the street. Evening shadows fell over his broad chest, which rose and fell with heavy, panting breaths. Every muscle in his arms bulged and strained as if trying to burst free from his skin.

  Dog-shaped shadows prowled around him. Their black forms slinked about, seemingly waiting for the moment or the command to strike. Their growls echoed off the nearby buildings.

  Shilpy had never been fond of dogs, and these monsters—there were few other words to describe them—didn’t improve her opinion of the creatures. Some primal instinct urged her to run, but she couldn’t. That would mean abandoning Dusk.

  Wolf stood opposite Dusk with a revolver in one hand and the sword from the previous vision in the other. He pointed the sword towards his opponent, and the creatures surrounding Dusk grew louder.

  The shadows rallied in response to Wolf’s command. En masse, they gathered a few metres in front of Dusk and then descended on him. Blood flew from Dusk’s mouth and hit the concrete in front of him. Dark shape after dark shape leaped forward, shrinking and merging onto and through a ball of green light hovering at Dusk’s chest. Like a drill the shadows passed through the ball and bored into his body.

  Dusk’s mouth went slack, and he tilted left and right like a reed in the wind until the last of the shadows disappeared. For a long moment, Dusk almost dangled in place like a puppet, before collapsing to the concrete. The green ball fell, bounced off the ground, and rolled into the middle of the road.