“You sure don’t sound as if you like people much,” Justin muttered. “In fact, you sound just like a predator.”
The man finished off the bottle. “Go ahead, tell me—how does a predator sound?”
“Oh, you know, they talk of their prey with a certain amount of contempt.” Justin’s smile was edged, his dark, intelligent eyes hard. “It’s like how abusers justify their actions in their head. It’s never the abuser’s fault. They like to maintain the fiction that they are victimized and put-upon. Those they abuse are too fat, or too stupid, or too infuriating, or unworthy for one reason or another. That makes it all okay for the abuser to crack someone across the face, or to attack someone verbally.”
The man’s eyebrows rose. “You have a point. Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety.”
“You’re what, all of twenty-eight?” Justin laughed.
The man said in a soft voice, “I thought Sodom and Gomorrah were kicking towns. I helped to destroy the city of Troy, and I taught vivisection to the Babylonians. I’m probably the only person left alive in the world who could be called an expert in ancient Egyptian torture techniques.”
Justin’s eyes had widened as the man spoke. “Ooh-kay.”
“You got to love that Middle East,” the man murmured. He licked a smear of chocolate off of one thumb. “Those folks know how to put a special spin on their cruel streak.”
“I tell you what,” Justin said. “I’m going to write a book. Forget about Interview with the Vampire. I’m going to entitle mine Drunken Binge with a Murderous Whack-Job. Think that could sell?”
The man considered. “I think it has a certain ring.”
“When I hit the New York Times bestseller list, I’ll style my hair in a pageboy and wear lots of black and lace. We’ll have to sell the condo and get something with more atmosphere so I can drape myself broodingly around on the furniture. Tony should start writing poetry. We’ll be all the rage, new to the literary horror scene, you know, yet somehow soothing in our familiarity.”
The man threw back his head and burst out laughing. “Damn, I do like you.”
“That is not as reassuring as one might think,” Justin said.
As they talked, the limousine had reached Grand Rapids. Guided by GPS, the car cruised through the streets in the quiet predawn. It pulled into a motel parking lot and stopped outside the office.
“Excuse me,” the man said to Justin, who had turned silent and grim. He reeled out of the vehicle. The nausea grew worse, so he stuck his finger down his throat and vomited the contents of his stomach by the back wheel. Once he was sure that he had his equilibrium back, he walked into the office, while his driver waited with the engine running.
Inside he hypnotized the sleepy desk clerk and rifled through her memories. He was still too drunk to be as careful as he should, so unfortunately, she might end up with brain damage after he was done. Once he determined which room was farthest away from potential witnesses, he took a master key and walked to it. Tame as a housecat, the limousine purred behind him as the driver kept pace.
He was so close behind Mary, he could taste it. He hated to take time away from the direct hunt, but it couldn’t be helped. He had been expending too much energy. He had coordinated the hunt for her on several different levels, sent two dreams and committed various murders, and he hadn’t rested in over a week.
Originally he had wanted to keep Justin as leverage, but the kind of marathon output he had been engaged in took its toll. He had to use whatever means he could to recoup his flagging energy.
At first running into Justin at Mary’s house had appeared to be a windfall. It seemed like a sensible strategy to take Justin hostage, and to throw his old dead host into Mary’s house and set it on fire. The news of her burning house should have brought her racing back home, where he had been waiting, ex-husband in tow.
Things hadn’t gone as planned. Mary had not only been acting unpredictably, but she was now reunited with the warrior. Worse, they were moving faster than he had anticipated. With the first dream, he had been keeping his promise to Astra. That second dream he sent to Mary had been a judgment call in terms of energy expenditure, but if he had managed to rattle her enough to slow her down, it might have been worth it.
In the meanwhile, he needed to take some much needed time to recoup.
He had learned a lot by experimenting in the early years.
In more mellow times he could inhabit a healthy adult body with relative safety for up to twenty or even thirty years. When he was able to take his time, he could groom a future host and harvest not only a body but also the host’s finances and resources at his leisure, adding them to his own separate estate, which he maintained with numbered Swiss accounts, property managers and accountants.
In periods of crisis he rushed through his hosts at a more precipitous rate, especially when he indulged in his tendency to overeat and drink during times of stress.
He found that the ideal method was to take over a body and rest for a few days or a week, to let the meat recover from the death of its natural spirit and adjust to its new owner. When that couldn’t happen, the body didn’t have time to adjust properly and tended to fail at a faster pace, especially when he was involved in strenuous activity. In fact, the more energy he had to expend, the faster the meat deteriorated.
Everything came with a price, but it was still worth it. By taking over a body, killing its native spirit and inhabiting it through its prime years, he avoided the cycle of death and rebirth. He bypassed that very critical, vulnerable period of forgetfulness involved in starting a new life. He reduced the risk of forgetting his own identity and the identities of those who hunted him. It gave him an edge.
He had suffered through some tough times and narrow escapes, but he had managed to leap from body to body for most of the last six thousand years. He had only gone through a natural birth three times.
The first time had been the inevitable result of his escape from his home world. Once he had been killed, and the last rebirth had happened when he had died by accident. Each birth and new life had involved years of dreams and confusion, ambitious study, the single-minded pursuit to understand his nature, and to recover his memories and his power. They had been harsh vulnerable times when his enemies had come closest to annihilating him. He didn’t like to think about them.
When he had reached the motel room he wanted, he used the master key to open the door. In the meantime, his driver parked the limousine, pulled Justin out of the backseat and force-marched the male to the room.
“Let him loose,” he told the driver, who did as he ordered.
The man looked in a mirror to bid adieu to his current body. His host had been a handsome young computer salesman and a fitness fanatic, perfect for his purposes. He strolled over to Justin as the young man shook free of the driver’s hold and rubbed one wrist.
“Wait outside,” he said to his driver.
The driver left the room, shutting the door gently behind him.
Justin’s clever, narrow face was tight with tension as his gaze darted around the room and settled on the bed.
The man sighed. “No, we’re not here for that. I already told you, there’s no time.”
In the end Justin looked at him, all satire and mischief gone. It was clear that the young man knew what would happen, as most prey did.
Justin said, “You don’t have to kill me.”
The man felt an unexpected pang and tilted his head in acknowledgment of it. He said in a gentle voice, “But it is to my advantage if I do. I do like you, but players of the shadow game cannot afford to make decisions based on sentiment. I wish I could promise this won’t hurt, but the truth is, I just don’t know. No one has ever survived to tell me. I will try to be careful though.”
He shot out a hand before Justin could reply. His host’s har
d, strong fingers gripped that clever face as Justin fought to punch him, and he sent out a black spear of energy that impaled Justin’s head. Justin’s body convulsed as his spirit died.
Timing was crucial when he took over a body. He had discovered there must still be a spark of that mysterious, vital thing called life, or his own spirit couldn’t take hold. It was impossible to inhabit a host that was already dead, futile to inhabit one that was dying. In the process of experimenting on how to transfer from body to body throughout the centuries, he had discovered how to create his drones, killing off just enough of a body’s essential spirit to allow for his control yet leaving enough of a life spark so that the body could continue to behave like a normal human.
He lowered Justin to the bed, slipped out of his old host and into Justin’s body. The body of the computer salesman fell discarded to the floor.
He had to ride out the last of the convulsions. Uncomfortable, but necessary. The meat always sustained some trauma at the death of its original spirit.
After the convulsions had run their course, he took a power nap. Then, although he could have wished for more rest, he made himself sit up and get out of bed. He had too much to catch up on, phone calls and e-mails to make to various employees, and then he needed to redouble his efforts on the hunt. Plus, he was happy to discover that he felt hungry again. Justin had been careful not to overindulge in what he ate.
He didn’t bother to glance at the computer salesman’s body that lay sprawled by the bed like cowboy Woody from Toy Story. Instead he went to the mirror again and inspected his new residence with the clever, narrow face, and the well-kept body.
He tried out one of Justin’s charming smiles and felt another pang. Whatever had caused that adorable, mischievous twinkle was gone. Still, he did like the result.
He widened the smile to watch the dimples deepen. This could work out better than he had expected. Justin cared about his ex-wife. Depending on what abilities and memories she recovered, Mary might actually trust him for a short, critically important while.
“Man, you’re hot,” he said to the image. If he ended up occupying this body for any length of time, he would have to visit his tailor.
He had a particular style he favored. It was killer chic.
Chapter Sixteen
MARY WOKE UP hard from her dream. She sucked in deep, ragged breaths as she stared at the battered interior of the car, at the grim man beside her, at the highway.
Memory settled into place. She scrubbed her face with both hands. Christ, she was getting tired of being tired.
“What’s wrong?” Michael asked. He shot her a sharp, pale-eyed glance.
She shook her head, not wanting to answer him. She looked instead at the bags of fast food on the seat between them. “Is some of that for me?”
“Yes. The coffee in the holder is yours too. It’s probably cold by now. I didn’t want to wake you. I figured you needed to sleep.” His mouth tightened, a pale, grim line. “What’s wrong?”
To avoid answering him, she ducked her head and rummaged through the contents in the bags. There were a couple of large lukewarm hamburgers, French fries that had congealed and stuck together, and a piece of cardboard with a picture of apple pie on the outside. She opened the plastic lid on the coffee cup and sipped at it. The brewed liquid tasted harsh. It was cooler than the food. She sighed.
“I want a month in a hotel by a beach,” she said. “I don’t want dreams. I don’t want to ask a single scary question, and I don’t want anyone to tell me anything useful. I plan on practicing the art of cheerful incuriosity. And I want room service to bring me a mushroom and asparagus omelet, a fruit salad and fresh-ground French roast with cream.”
Steel entered Michael’s voice as he repeated, “What’s wrong? If you dreamed it might be important.”
She snapped, “I’m sure it is important, but I’m not ready to talk about it. Quit pushing me.”
He blew out a breath between his teeth in a sharp, impatient sound but fell silent. She forced herself to eat some of the starchy food while she thought. Then she drank all of the coffee, grimacing at the bitter taste.
She could no longer summon even a pretense of disbelief at what was happening. A bleak resignation settled in her chest. It rested in a lump where the assassin’s sword had cut into her, all those many centuries ago.
“There isn’t going to be any month on the beach, is there?” she said. “This is the sum of our existence. We’re born, we’re haunted, we work to understand what has happened to us, to remember and to find each other, and we try to destroy the Deceiver. Then we die and are reborn, and it starts all over again. Over and over.”
Michael gave her a long, thoughtful glance, clearly assessing the change in her attitude, although he didn’t remark on it. Instead he said, “That’s not quite true. There can be years of peace at a time. It’s possible to have a good childhood. This life has been harsh for a lot of reasons.”
She thought of the sprawling, gracious home in that ancient city by the sea, of the people who had been so mystified by her and who had loved her anyway. Her eyes pricked with tears. “Yeah,” she said, her voice thick. “When was the last time you knew peace?”
He remained silent. Somehow she knew he would.
She said, “I need to go to the bathroom. Can you stop as soon as possible?”
“We’ll make a quick stop at the next rest area. It should be in about ten minutes.”
“Thanks.” After a few minutes she said, “Do you even think it can be done? Destroying him, I mean. It’s been such a long time.”
“It can be done,” he said. “He’s powerful, but he’s not a god. This world is a big place, and he has gotten talented at hiding. We spend a lot of time just hunting him. And not all of us have been involved in every conflict. I was alive when the Deceiver destroyed two of the group in the fifteenth century, and Astra’s told me something about the other two and how their lives ended. She doesn’t know for sure exactly what happened to Gabriel and Raphael, only that they died together.”
Shadowy memories of people ghosted through her head. She asked in a hushed voice, “How did they die? But I guess that’s the wrong way to ask the question, isn’t it? How were they destroyed?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, and the lines of his face settled into that habitual grimness. “One of his favorite tricks is to capture one mate and use torture to try to control the other. Ariel and Uriel were the two he killed when I was alive. He caught Uriel while Ariel was imprisoned by the English. It—the local politics of the time don’t matter. He destroyed Uriel, and Ariel’s spirit dissipated as well. I couldn’t get to her in time. I couldn’t get to either one of them.” The bones of his face stood out in the dim light of the dashboard. “They both died alone.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. The back of her throat felt thick with unshed tears.
He glanced at her. “This situation we’re involved in right now—it’s important for a lot of reasons.”
Then he fell silent. She didn’t ask anything more about the other pair, rubbing her arms as she thought. “Is it important because the four of us are all in one geographical area?”
He nodded. “That’s part of it. You’ve managed to resurface, which is another part. Also, early yesterday morning one of our allies in the Secret Service was assassinated. That means the Deceiver is preparing to try to take control of the U.S. Presidency.”
“Good God,” she uttered. She stared at the lines of his hard-edged profile. “You can’t be serious.”
Michael said, “It’s another one of his favorite tricks, to either assume the identity of a head of state or, failing that, to control one. He’s not yet in a position to make his play, but it won’t take him much longer to get there. The good news is that he has to try to take control in person. The bad news is, we no longer have someone
in the White House with the ability to sense his presence and with the authority to act on it.”
Maybe a month on the beach had happened in other lifetimes, but it didn’t sound like it would be happening here soon, or even in this lifetime. She let her head fall back on her headrest.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary. You’re bleeding again.
And it’s been over nine centuries.
A wound of the spirit as deep as yours can only come from your mate.
The black diamond man was such a liar. Of course he was. He was a mean-spirited malcontent who used words to manipulate and wound. She couldn’t let him worm his way into her head.
But there was Michael who had just hours ago rubbed at his temple with the barrel of his gun. Michael had looked like a man standing at the edge of a precipice, like a man bereft of a single reason not to plunge over that edge and shatter himself on the jagged rocks below.
She held herself tense, closed off from the occasional searching glances that he gave her, until he slowed the car and turned onto an exit ramp. Then she looked around.
Dawn had begun to turn the eastern part of the sky rose-colored while the western horizon darkened to a royal purple. Close by, a cluster of gas stations, fast-food restaurants and diners huddled together. The buildings looked dingy and tired of their codependency. Michael pulled into one of the gas stations and parked in the lane closest to the road.
“I’ll get gas since we’re stopping.” He spoke in his terse voice. “Don’t take long.”
“I’ll take as long as I have to.” Her reply was just as terse. She could feel him looking at her but she refused to turn her head. She got out and walked inside, feeling as tired and shabby as the buildings looked.
The station attendant was a pimply young man wearing earbuds. Mary could hear the rap music from across the counter. She struggled to find a friendly smile and asked in a loud voice, “Where are your restrooms?”