Rogue Spotter Collection

by Kimberly A Rogers

  I couldn’t speak. I could only shake my head before I bit my tongue to keep from screaming as my wrist burned hotter. The sensation of my jacket being pulled back on my arm made me look down. The tattoo looked nearly molten, a mix of red with orange and even hints of black, against my skin. I was almost more surprised that I wasn’t on fire than at the sudden change to the tattoo, but the pain made it difficult to think clearly.

  Mathias cursed under his breath and picked me up. He didn’t quite run, but he still moved fast enough that it seemed no time at all had passed when the pain eased just enough for me to become aware that we were now in a tiny cabin. Mathias set me down on the narrow bunk, and then dragged my jacket off before also slipping the satchel with the Girdle off. I started to protest only to gasp and then choke, as the tattoo seemed to burn hotter, the reds and oranges shining.

  I collapsed on the bunk writhing in pain. Mathias pinned my shoulders and was talking to me, but I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying as I kicked and thrashed while pinned down. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t even tell if I was screaming as pain overwhelmed all my senses. Darkness hemmed the edges of my vision, expanding rapidly, as I reached up to clutch at Mathias’ jacket. I could see my hand against his shoulder, balling up his jacket, but I couldn’t feel the leather beneath my fingers. The hot molten glow of the tattoo was the last thing to fade as agony chased me into utter darkness.

  * * *

  Lauren

  The absence of pain was the first thing I noticed. Then, the sensation of a damp cloth against my skin, patting against my forehead and sending droplets of water running down my temples into my hair. The cloth was moving, gently brushing against my cheeks, then moving down to press against the underside of my jaw. As the cloth moved down my neck to brush over the hollow of my throat and my collarbones, I opened my eyes.

  Mathias was looking down at me, sitting back with a sigh as tension drained from him. He rubbed a hand over his jaw before he leaned forward again. “Feeling better?”

  I blinked and managed to offer a slight nod. “How, umm, how long was I . . .” I trailed off, frowning, then asked, “What happened?”

  “I was hoping you would tell me.” Mathias removed the cloth, dropping it in a bowl I could just barely make out from where I was laying. “I was coming to find you to tell you about this little gem of a cabin when I saw you on the deck. Your whole body was shuddering, Lauren. Then, I saw the tattoo had . . . changed.”

  The mention of the tattoo made me blink again, and I raised my right arm. A bulky bandage, stark white against my olive-toned skin, was wrapped over the tattoo. Mathias gently took my fingers and guided my hand back down as he said, “It was the only thing I could think of and, sadly, my field dressing capabilities never graduated to anything above functional.”

  “A poultice?”

  “Cold compress,” he replied, patting my hand awkwardly before he brushed damp strands of hair back from my face. Concern softened his icy blue gaze and added a pleasant tinge to his delicious accent as he asked again, “Feeling better?”

  I really do love your accent.

  The stray thought crossed my mind, but I shook it away. At least, I thought I did. Until a slow grin curled Mathias’ mouth and he chuckled. “I will take that as a yes.”

  A low groan escaped me, but it was due to my desire to curl up in a ball and pretend that I hadn’t embarrassed myself. Again. Scrambling for a change in topic, I grasped at the only thing I could think of in that moment. “How long before we dock?”

  “A little while yet.” Mathias checked his watch then added, “It’s a little after four now. The schedule indicates we’ll dock shortly after six.”

  I stared up at the plain white ceiling and the knotted webbing supporting the mattress of the top bunk still secured against the wall as I tried to remember what I had done to trigger the burning. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what, love?”

  Glancing at Mathias, I stated softly, “I don’t know what I did to cause this.” I raised my right arm slightly. “I thought only negative reactions to our potential for success would cause it, but this was so much worse. Even the pain was different, worse, like someone was placing a white-hot poker against my skin instead of just brushing it with nettles. And the color, it changed, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.” Mathias opened his mouth to say more, then he stopped. He looked away from me, jaw working.

  I forced my limbs to move instead of pretending they were overcooked pasta and slowly sat up. “Okay, I’ve seen that particular look more than enough times. What do you know, and how bad is it?”

  “It’s only a guess. I don’t know anything for certain.”

  “Then, why won’t you look at me?” I patted the bunk and ordered, “Sit.” When he actually listened, I took advantage of the fact that he was sitting on my left to wrap my fingers around his right hand. “Okay, now you have to talk. What do you think is happening to me?”

  “The burning has stopped?”

  I glanced down at my bandaged arm. “Yes.” Glancing back up at him, I added, “The fact that I’m not writhing in pain should’ve indicated that clearly enough.”

  Mathias slipped free of my grip and held his hand out. As soon as I placed my right hand in his left, he held his free hand over the bandage before asking, “May I?”

  “Yes.” The word slipped out just above a whisper as tension and anxiety coiled into a knot in the pit of my stomach. Despite my best efforts to hold completely still, I flinched when he started to undo the bandage.

  “Steady,” he murmured as he continued unwrapping the outer layer of bandages. When he reached the inner layer, his gaze darted to mine but he only offered a firm nod. Then, he peeled off the inner layer of the bandage along with the soggy compress.

  I sucked in a breath as I stared at the tattoo. The color change hadn’t been a hallucination from the pain after all. Even now, what had been a pale gold was now marbled red and orange with hints of black along the edges of the spirals. It was like someone had dipped a brush in lava and painted over my skin. The only change was that the agonizing pain from before hadn’t returned. Something for which I was extremely thankful.

  Looking from the transformed tattoo to Mathias’ grim expression, I took a deep breath before forcing a calm I didn’t really feel into my voice as I said, “Okay, umm, this is unexpected. What do you, umm, what is it exactly that you think caused this change?”

  Mathias lightly touched my fingertips as he replied quietly, “You remember the death curse.”

  “Of course.” I tensed catching on to what Mathias was avoiding actually saying. My gaze drifted back to the tattoo’s altered appearance as my mind spun. “There’s a quite literal deadline on the Trials, isn’t there? Even though . . . even though they didn’t tell us as much, there’s a time limit on when I can finish. I’ve, well, I must have crossed the limit for, umm, f-for probably the last third of how long I can take on the Trials.”

  I stopped talking, knowing I was on the edge of giving in to despair or panic, probably both. Taking a deep breath, I blew it out slowly as I reached up out of habit to touch the sapphire pendant, but my fingers only brushed against bare skin. Slowly returning my hand to my lap, I took another deep breath and let it out slowly before I felt I could try to continue the conversation. Tucking my hair behind my ears, I shifted to sit more at an angle with my knee brushing against Mathias’ before I darted a cautious glance up at him. He looked . . . worried. “Lauren, I . . .”

  “It’s okay,” I stated firmly. The words came faster as I kept talking trying to keep both our spirits up. “It’s okay. It may have been completely underhanded of them not to tell us from the beginning that there was a true time limit, but we’re in good shape, right? I mean, we, uh, we already have the Girdle. All that’s left to do is return it to Penthesilea’s tomb in Abydos, which we should be able to do today, right? Because it won’t take even half an hour to cross from the European side of the Hel
lespont to Abydos, which means we just need to find the tomb, and we could be done by noon if we don’t have to wait in lines for the ferry crossing. There will be another elder somewhere because they will need to give me the third task, and n-now I know to ask how much time I actually have to complete the third task so we will have that information. Then, all we . . . all we have to do is finish the Trials in that time period.”

  “If anyone can do it, it’s you, love.”

  I swallowed hard, fighting back ridiculous tears, as I nodded. “I’m not going to let this win. We will simply be more conscientious of our time.”

  Mathias leaned forward, resting his hands on my shoulders, and then bent his head to touch our foreheads together. “I will be very conscientious of our time. Our biggest concern when we get off the ferry will be getting to the other side so that we can finish the crossing. We’ll take a bus. It will likely be faster than trying to rent a car.”

  “Okay.”

  He left right after that to try and find some food, which meant I had far too much time on my hands to question everything that was happening. The urgency to finish the Trials had been growing steadily, but this . . . threatening reminder of how tightly my own life was tied to the success of the Trials was quite frankly ticking me off. I had already been on the run, hunted by Weard Enterprises for the better half of a year, then my life was tied to the Trials. Now . . .

  Those pretentious Thracian elders to the Myrmidon people had the gall to set a time limit without even bothering to mention it. Where was the fairness in that? Completely and totally nonexistent is what it was. I had never been particularly prone to cursing, it wasn’t exactly a safe habit to develop when trying to avoid attention, but in that moment there were a number of choice words I would have gladly said to the elders.

  I rubbed my forehead trying to stave off the ache building there. So many problems. So many threats. One would have thought I’d be happy that there were only three tasks making up the trials. On the one hand, certainly that was true. On the other, I would have happily accepted the notion of only two tasks. Because then, I would be at the end instead of the two-thirds mark.

  By the time Mathias returned with a warm pastry, I had reached the only possible solution. Anger was all well and good in the fact that it fueled my determination. Awareness of the massive amounts of issues I had to solve or at least try to get into a better position to address was less helpful since it only made me feel overwhelmed. The only thing I had any control over right now was my reaction to these developments. I was determined not to die, not to let Mathias be taken over by the cold, and not to let the Trials defeat me. All of which meant my primary focus had to be on completing the remaining tasks, starting with returning the Girdle.

  As I polished off the last of the pastry, Mathias broke the silence. “What happened to your necklace?

  My hand went to my neck before I caught myself. I glanced away from him as I said softly, “I traded it for the Girdle.”

  “What? It was your mother’s. Why would you do that?”

  “Because it was my mother’s.” I sighed as I added, “It was the only item of great value and importance to me that I had. The only thing that would be an acceptable trade in the griffin’s eyes. It was that or leave the Girdle of Hippolyta where it lay, which was not an option.”

  “You could have offered something else.”

  A faint smile curved my lips. “I don’t think you would have appreciated being placed in the sarcophagus, dear.” I shrugged, trying to think of a way to get him off the subject. “It hardly matters now. It was a necessary sacrifice, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. We needed the Girdle and a sentimental trinket wasn’t going to stand in the way of that. Not to mention the fact that I left my go bag outside so I didn’t have the option of offering one of the figurines.” I paused, thinking about the jade fox that I loved the most of the three, and then shook my head. “And even if I had the figurines, I still would have needed to offer the necklace because I valued it most of my possessions.”

  “You should not have needed to do so.”

  I shook my head again, smiling sadly. “The point of the Trials is to test how willing I am to sacrifice for you. A trinket, no matter how old or precious, does not compare to your life, Mathias.”

  “It was the only link to your past, your history.”

  “A past and history that had already severed itself from my life, long before we met,” I pointed out. I stood, placing a hand on Mathias’ arm, before I added, “One day, maybe, I will have a chance to find out why things happened the way they did. I don’t need the necklace to do that. But for now, my focus is on these Trials.”

  Before he could argue further, the crackling voice of the captain came over the loudspeakers positioned in the hall outside. I could only make out that he was speaking in Greek. Mathias looked like he heard much more clearly, which he probably did. When he looked down at me, I asked, “Have we arrived?”

  “We’ll be docking in ten minutes.”

  “Good.”

  After covering my hair once more with one of my shawls, this one a dark forest green, and slipping on my leather jacket to cover up the tattoo, I was ready to reach the next stage of our journey. Mathias and I were the second set of passengers to disembark from the ferry. We wasted no time in forging through the crowd milling around the docks. I clung to Mathias’ hand watching the numbers warily as he forced the crowd to part for him. We were able to board a bus right away and set off for the opposite shore of the Dardanelles. We seemed to be on a tour bus again as the passengers around us chattered in English flavored by Australia. They were probably norms based on their chatter and the fact that their numbers didn’t rise above a 5.

  It was almost too easy. We disembarked the bus without incident, and once more joined the crowds heading toward the port. We were still a couple of streets away when my grip on Mathias tightened as I caught sight of an 8 blazing above the other numbers. The crowds parted at the wrong moment, and I was caught by the stare of a slender man dressed in a nondescript shirt and jeans whose hard eyes belied his unassuming appearance. Eyes that suddenly changed to orange. Dragon or dragon-born.

  Mathias pulled me abruptly to the left, and we joined the crowd crossing the other street, moving at a run. Once we reached the far corner, I risked a glance back over my shoulder. The 8 was shoving people out of his way as he charged after us. “Mathias,” I gasped.

  “I know.”

  That was the only thing he said before we were running again, down the sidewalk and then through a market, dodging around people and merchandise alike. We sprinted down a smaller side street and I nearly fell when my left foot landed wrong, rolling my ankle to an alarming degree before I managed to recover. Mathias pulled me along, forcing me to run or be dragged so I kept going.

  It wasn’t until we reached the docks that I realized he had guided us back to the port. He didn’t slow either. Not until we had run up the gangplank of a ferry just as the crew prepared to close the gate. When I looked back, I could just barely make out an 8 on the far side of the crowded docks. I blew out a breath, praying that meant he hadn’t seen us actually board the ferry. It would only take one phone call for an ambush to be assembled on the Turkish side, after all.

  As we moved to a more sheltered area of the boat, I was painfully aware of the twinge throbbing through my weak ankle. I didn’t mention it to Mathias. No reason to worry him now. I’d rather take the risk of running than the chance of him getting into another fight and possibly falling into the inescapable grasp of the Biting Ice.

  * * *

  Mathias

  The encounter with the hunter had been far too close for comfort. The hunter, a dragon-born, was one I knew by sight only. I didn’t know his name, only that he ran with the hunters whose methods had always been far too reckless for my tastes. Unfortunately, he clearly recognized me. The odds of us reaching Penthesilea’s tomb unscathed shrank dramatically with that little encounter. If he wasn
’t too fixated on the glory of the hunt, to utilize the support of other hunters.

  The ferry was docking when Lauren’s hand brushed against my back, and I stepped forward allowing her to emerge from the relative shelter of the corner I had been blocking. I noted with approval that she had changed her dark green shawl for one that was the same bright red as fresh blood. An interesting choice, but it was different from past colors and that was all that mattered. As we stepped off the ferry, I noticed more of the women in Abydos were wearing similar bright colors for their head coverings although there were also white and black coverings. Lauren blended in with the majority even more than before. However, being of Turkish descent, it was already a given that she would blend in unlike myself, since I was both noticeably European in descent and towered above the assorted crowds in the absence of any of the more distinctive paranormals.

  I didn’t spy anyone behaving in a suspicious manner, but there was no way to guarantee the hunter at Hellespont had failed to contact his fellows on the Turkish side of the strait. Placing a hand at Lauren’s back, I guided her toward a pocket forming around a man calling out in Turkish a promise for the finest tour to be had of the beehive tombs of Abydos. A mix of foreigners and locals were flocking to him, so we did not stick out quite as sorely by slipping among them.

  We were weaving our way through the market when Lauren tensed and grabbed my hand. Even before she squeezed my fingers, I was searching the surrounding crowds. There were two men standing in the shadows of a fruit stall locked in a heated debate. One of them was the same man who had chased us at Hellespont. So far they hadn’t noticed our presence, too busy arguing with each other . . . most likely over hunting rights.