Chapter Ten

 

Fourteen days, five hours and twenty-three minutes.

That was how long, give or take a couple of minutes, it had been since Devlin had been inside Grace Darling’s apartment.

He spun a small throwing knife between the fingers of his left hand as he contemplated the giant screens of codes before him. He’d gone through 99.9% of the files Grace had given him with a fine tooth comb over the past two weeks.

Nothing.

There was no incriminating evidence that Zenn was less or more than what it presented itself to be. No cookie crumb trail that led to anything illegal, nefarious or even tangentially suspect. It looked like a perfectly legit, rising star of the tech universe, with sound financial management, operating model and steadily increasing revenues and profits.

Devlin had gone through all of its employee files, suppliers, customers, formal organizations it had any business with…everything checked out. He’d cross-referenced each of the staff members with government databases and found a few marital, misdemeanor, DUI, Internet porn skeletons in the closet but nothing that led him closer to Medusa.

He was at an impasse. Back at square one.

A throaty growl preceded Simca’s otherwise silent entry into Devlin’s tech center. And where the feline predator went, inevitably, the Chosen’s Commander was not far behind.

“Devlin, a word.”

Devlin lazily spun his swivel chair around to face the leader of the Chosen, raising one eyebrow slightly to encourage Maximus to continue.

“I depart this night to recruit new warriors into our royal guard,” Maximus revealed. “There are a few good candidates, but they are spread across four different continents. Ana has command of the Cove. You are her Second.”

“The Queen has issued the order?” Devlin was surprised.

Jade Cicada had been melancholy and self-contained ever since the Pure Ones’ Consul, Seth Tremaine, left her side. She’d become even more insular since the departure of Inanna from the Chosen and the betrayal of Simone Lafayette. Now that Ryu had moved out of the Cove with his human wife, the Chosen’s number was down to half. The Queen had not seemed eager to fill the vacancies.

In fact, despite the effectiveness of her rule, she didn’t seem to relish being Queen, not the way she used to.

“Nay,” Maximus shook his head. “I take the initiative unto myself. We cannot keep order with so few. The powerful civilian Hordes have smelled blood in the water and are circling around our Queen like piranhas. I have no doubt they are plotting to depose her and she doesn’t seem to care.”

“Then why do you care, oh fearless leader?” Devlin quipped casually, though he stiffened with alertness and anger at the threat to his Queen.

Maximus ignored his flippant question, well aware that Devlin was far more loyal and had far deeper attachments than he let on.

He cared just as much as Maximus and Ana did. Devlin was a soldier who recognized a great leader when he met one. Under Jade Cicada’s reign, the New England vampires had enjoyed centuries of peace with humans and Pure Ones alike, despite the wars and religious purges that went on in the early years of establishing the Colonies. She hadn’t led them astray yet.

“I should be gone no longer than a fortnight,” Maximus continued, “Safeguard our Queen well.”

Devlin gave a nonchalant wave and turned his chair back around as Maximus and his familiar left without a sound.

Ana was more than capable of protecting the Queen by herself. In fact, Jade Cicada was powerful in her own right, hence her unimpeded rise to the throne. Devlin would do his part to hunt down vampire rogues, of which there had been a lot fewer in the past year since they’d disbanded the fight club network.

But he had bigger fish to fry: finding and bringing down Medusa.

Which reminded him of his impasse, a depressing topic indeed.

So naturally, as he stewed over the lack of results, his mind wandered to more pleasant, more satisfying thoughts, such as a particular computer genius licking her way from his navel to his Adam’s apple, or nibbling the tender skin of his inner thighs while pressing her thumb against his perineum just so, or tickling the lobes of his ears and raining kisses along his jaw…

And then Devlin remembered that these were not pleasant thoughts at all. Because he was far from satisfied. He was, at present, and in the foreseeable future if Grace Darling had her way, thoroughly unsatisfied.

Thoroughly Grace-less.

When the emptiness and loneliness and disappointment had been the sharpest in the first few nights, he’d gone out and flirted with anyone who had a vagina. Got up close and personal with many a beautiful woman in bars and clubs and random public establishments.

Filled himself up with enough blood to last him another month or two, all with his preys’ Consent of course, as the Dark Laws dictated. Wouldn’t do to break the very rules he enforced as the Hunter of the New England Hive.

But he remained grossly unsatisfied after all the other sort of hunting he’d done, all the blood he’d gorged.

Sexually frustrated. Lonely and angry and confused.

The women were beautiful, but they hadn’t been attractive. Not to Devlin, anyway. Grace Darling was attractive, not beautiful. But apparently, at this juncture of Devlin’s accumulated experience, Grace was the only female who attracted him. That made her special. Unique.

And it made him resent her just a little. Maybe a lot.

After all, he hadn’t been the one to seek her out for two weeks of orgy. He’d been all about business, trying to make progress on the hunt for Medusa, when she derailed him into having sex with her.

And then she didn’t even keep the two week bargain! He’d asked for a little space and she severed the relationship completely! What kind of reaction was that? Blown out of proportion was what it was.

And why was he thinking like a besotted teenager, a pansy-assed, star-struck, hormonal teenager pining for his first crush? With exclamation marks and everything? What’s next? Thinking with emojis and hash tags?

Devlin abruptly slammed his head back against the tall headrest of his chair in frustration, but it was deeply unsatisfying as the well-padded cushion bounced his head back with no pain at all.

He needed to feel some pain. Find an outlet for his pent-up emotions. Exorcise this inexplicable obsession with a particularly bushy-browed hacker.

Thus decided, he shot up from his chair, secured the knife back into its hidden pocket and went out in search of satisfaction.

*** *** *** ***

The young man was deep in thought after leaving Estelle Martin’s pastry and trinkets shop, Dark Dreams.

The old lady had been out of sorts and distracted.

Usually when he visited, she devoted much time and attention to plying him with treats and freshly-brewed hot beverages. She preferred spicy teas but seemed to know that he liked strong coffee with lots of cream.

She always hung on his every word, though his conversation wasn’t the most scintillating. He didn’t have many opportunities to converse with others, after all. And when he did engage in dialogue, it was either to play a role or to dissemble. He only ever spoke the truth with Mama Bear.

Tonight she looked every one of her advanced human years. She looked listless and weary, as one who suffered from starvation or thirst would. Yet, she touched none of the cookies and drinks she set before them to share. The cookies had been well-baked, but they tasted bland, as if she’d forgotten to add some important ingredients.

Fancifully, the young man thought she might have forgotten the love.

Having arrived at his residence, he entered through the back door and locked it behind him.

The front of the street where the dance club veritably thumped with loud music and thunderous beats was lit with laser beams in the pitch black night. A long straggling line of humans waited outside the club’s doors, all vying for a coveted ticket to enter.

Here in the back, it was eerily quiet. And inside the apartment, the thick sound-proofed walls insulated occupants from all noise. Even the air was still.

Which was why at the slightest breeze, the young man knew he was not alone.

“What brings you here?” he asked into the darkness, no lights to turn on at the flip of a switch. In fact, his chamber could only be illuminated by candles and old-fashioned lamps, as it was not wired for electricity, only sound.

A white-robed figure stepped forth from the shadows. Instead of answering, his visitor made an observation.

“You seem to prefer this form,” the female said wonderingly, “You wear it often.”

The young man thrust both hands into his hair at the temples and raked his mane back from his face. As he did so, the hair lengthened and waved until it flowed thickly down his back, past his hips. His face also changed until it was impossible to tell the gender. He was simply the Creature.

Beautiful. Indefinable. Deadly.

“Better?” the Creature asked in its hauntingly androgynous voice.

The female gave a delicate shrug. “It matters not to me what form you take on. I am merely curious what your real face looks like.”

“And why should you be curious?” the Creature hissed, shifting closer to the robed figure.

She seemed undaunted by the threatening vibration within the Creature’s casual tone. For all its venom, she’d never seen this particular viper strike. It liked to toy with others, to manipulate and confuse. But it lacked the conviction and ruthlessness of its creator. Like any snake, it had a soft, vulnerable underbelly.

Abruptly, she changed topics, getting to the point of her visit.

“The fight clubs have stalled in Asia, thanks to the Dark Assassin’s network of ninjas,” she reported.

“Not my problem,” the Creature retorted casually.

“You must keep close watch over Enlil Naram-Anu,” she urged, “It is an order from her.”

“What do you expect me to do?” the Creature spread its hands wide in the universal pose of helplessness.

“He’s the Master shadow ninja. Even the Dark Assassin can’t defeat him. He can turn himself into shadows, into the very air and wind, while I can only turn myself into physical, fleshly, blood-and-bone beings. And he kills with his bare hands, while I cringe at the very prospect. How do you expect me to do anything about the great Enlil? And why does he need watching in the first place?”

The female sat upon the only piece of furniture in the cavernous chamber—the Creature’s gigantic platform bed.

“He has been acting on his own recently,” she revealed. “First, allowing the prisoner to escape—”

“You think that was on purpose?” the Creature was intrigued enough to interject.

“Then, not dealing Ryu Takamura the killing blow.”

The Creature merely shrugged.

“And pulling his shadow ninjas out of Asia, giving the Dark Queen opportunity to quell the fight clubs.”

“You mean, none of this was on her orders?” The Creature was finding each revelation more and more interesting.

“And finally, allowing the human geneticist to use the last of the serum on herself,” the female continued as if there were no interruptions, “We have no way of recreating the serum without the prisoner and Ava Monroe’s science.”

“Fascinating,” the Creature said, its tone implying the opposite. It sounded dreadfully bored, which the female knew better than to take at mere face value.

“If Lord Wind is stepping out of place, I’m sure his Mistress will tighten the reins when she sees fit to.”

The female eyed the Creature keenly. “Enlil has recently made contact with your precious Sophia.”

The absence of a ready quip from the Creature was most telling.

“She wants you to keep an eye on him,” the female persisted. “Just report back what you observe. She will deal with him accordingly.”

The Creature’s continued silence was neither compliance nor rejection, but the female knew that it would do as its liege requested.

“Now come,” she said as she beckoned it with her hand. “Take your fill of my blood before yours turn black. I know that regardless of the shape you take, despite that it’s all pretense, your favorite form has ever been human.”

*** *** *** ***

Devlin sipped his pint of specialty beer from tap in a pub filled with young, good looking people, all of whom had given him the once or twice-over the moment he entered the establishment.

For all the world, he looked like a confident, well-to-do man about town, ready to flirt, handy with compliments, a mysteriously devilish smile teasing the corners of his sculpted lips, just waiting for the right opportunity to spread wide.

This pub would be one of many stops tonight for an experienced Casanova such as he, no doubt. Wherever he went, covetous eyes would follow, hungering to catch a crumb of his careless charm.

But the good looking twenty-somethings was not the reason Devlin had chosen this particular pub. Despite his best intentions, he’d wandered onto this street and into this joint because it sat directly across the road from Grace Darling’s apartment.

He sighed into his beer glass, frustrated to no end with himself.

It was bad enough that he pined for her in his thoughts, but now he was stalking her in the flesh. Maybe not stalking per se, but venturing within proximity of her despite her very explicit request to not lay eyes on him again.

Well, if she walked out her front door and looked across the street, she’d see him right away, sitting in front of the window like a besotted, calf-eyed ninnyhammer.

Honestly, two nights of unforgettable, explosive, marathon sex should not make him this…infatuated? Obsessed? Fixated and possessed?

The irony was that it wasn’t even the sex that he couldn’t let go of—though that was rather memorable, and he feared, unrepeatable with any other female.

It was her insect-like eyebrows and eyelashes, her long, unblinking stares and stuttering conversation. Her deep, clear, innocent eyes. Her pillowy, generous, honeysuckle mouth.

That mouth. That kiss. That mistake of a kiss was what did him in.

Devlin shook himself mentally. He was starting to think with purple prose. What next? Penning desperate, badly conceived love poems and surreptitiously sliding them beneath her front door?

“Mind if I join you?”

A voluptuous brunette sidled up to Devlin’s stakeout at the counter that ran along the length of the pub’s front window.

He glanced at her briefly, taking in the self-assurance of someone who must be called “gorgeous” and “stunning” several times a day, the come-hither smile on her heart-shaped lips, the blatant sparkle of invitation in her large, arrestingly blue eyes.

She was a bona fide twenty on a scale of ten, and Devlin was not even one iota attracted to her. All she presented was a nuisance.

“Have a seat,” he invited nonetheless, the gentleman in him too well-trained to say otherwise.

She slowly maneuvered all her curves into a sitting position on the stool next to his, contorting her long, lithe body this way and that and letting all her bouncy bits jiggle and wiggle just the right amount, as if to say, “look how firm they are, my size-D boobs and peach-like bottom. Test them for springiness and see for yourself. Come on, you know you want to.”

Devlin didn’t want to. He wanted her company like he wanted a colonoscopy.

But what he said was, “Can I get you a drink?”

She beckoned an envious waitress over and submitted her order. Devlin didn’t miss the victorious grin she displayed to the rest of the pub’s occupants at large as her proprietary gaze swept across the room, both proclaiming her prize (him) and staking her claim.

Devlin turned to face her while keeping a corner of his eye on the apartment across the street. The woman liked to hear herself talk, apparently, and required very little response from him. He nodded and murmured at the right times and didn’t absorb a word she said.

Within himself, he debated whether or not to take her to bed. It went against his usual protocol—he didn’t even know her and had no interest in getting to know her. But he needed to purge this strange obsession with Grace Darling.

Maybe it was the novelty of the two-night-stand that threw him off his game. Maybe it was the fact that he’d never slept in a stranger’s bed before and he felt too vulnerable and exposed afterwards.

Whatever it was, if he repeated it with someone else, maybe he’d finally get back to his normal self: Devlin Sinclair, the devil-may-care charmer who had no attachments to anyone or anything, and therefore, no chinks in the armor through which he could be hurt.

Never again.

But then a movement across the street took him on a different course.

“This should cover it,” he said as he flipped a couple of bills onto the counter, interrupting the brunette mid-sentence, leaving her gaping as he left the pub so fast he nearly knocked down a cadre of four bubbly, eager young things that were just entering through the double doors.

Devlin just hoped he wasn’t too late.

*** *** *** ***

It was after ten o’clock at night when Grace’s cell phone buzzed with a message.

“Devlin. Door codes. Go to terrace ASAP.”

Grace looked at the strange message with knitted brows.

How did he get her number? She supposed he hacked it. And why should she leave her comfortable Westin Heavenly bed to go up to the terrace? It was in the middle of the night and she was only wearing her underwear and an oversized T.

She was snuggled comfortably amongst her blanket and pillows with a pen and her red leather-bound notebook. It was atypical of her to write in her journal at night, but she’d felt inspired to put feelings to paper.

“Grace! Let me in now!”

Was that Devlin’s voice just beyond her front door? What was he doing outside her apartment? She’d told him she didn’t want to see him again.

Well, that wasn’t precisely true. She wanted to see him again. She just didn’t think it was good for her to do so.

She didn’t want to get attached. Pet fish and chinchillas she could handle. One aunt was manageable. But Devlin Sinclair would present a different sort of attachment, one she wasn’t confident enough to take on.

In fact, she was just trying to articulate this inner struggle with words. At this rate, she’d have to get a new journal soon. Her thoughts about Devlin Sinclair were quite epic in nature.

Nevertheless. She couldn’t leave him locked outside her door in the middle of the night, could she?

“Get out of—fuck!”

What was he…

But even as Grace began the thought in her head, a movement caught her eye in the middle of the studio. Something inky slid along the sleek white quartz of her kitchen counter, then oozed down the side facing her.

Grace clutched her notebook tighter and sat up alertly in the bed. Something about that black, oily, yet semi-transparent substance looked eerily familiar. It spread like spilled water, or more accurately, spilled liquid glue, viscous and thick yet diffused and stretched like…

Shadows.

As if a gun went off in her head, Grace leapt off the bed and scrambled for the back door to the terrace. The shadow seemed to sense the frenzied attempt at escape and immediately shot forward in pursuit.

But Grace was faster, closer to her destination, and reached the door sooner, wrenching it open and dashing out, not bothering to close it behind her. If her pursuer was truly as amorphous as shadows, a solid obstruction wouldn’t deter it anyway.

She ran barefoot up the back stairs all the way to the roof of the building until she burst through the terrace door and into the balmy, summer night. The sky was covered in layers of thick, ominous clouds, preventing a wan moon from shedding any light on the concrete rooftop.

Darkness was everywhere. Somehow, the light from the streetlamps and still-open bars and restaurants below failed to reach up this high. Grace wondered whether the unsuspecting pedestrians and party-goers would be able to hear her scream from this far away.

The shadow poured through the terrace door opening and slowed in its approach, as if knowing that she had nowhere else to go. Gradually, it heaped upon itself and lengthened into the shape of a man.

Grace hoped she’d be able to scream. She didn’t recall having done so before.

For all she knew, she was one of those people who, when frightened or confronted with a nasty shock, went dumb and mute instead of using the full force of her lungs to draw attention. The most noise she’d ever made when facing something unpleasant, like a giant cockroach crawling into her shower, was squeak with dismay.

She drew breath to shout now, for whatever good it did her. She wouldn’t go down without a fight.

But before she had to exercise her vocal cords, something large and cat-like vaulted onto the rooftop and charged at the shadowy figure, slicing right through it with glinting, silver slashes.

Grace heard a rough grunt as the shadow separated into three equal parts, each elongating into a black-robed man.

In their midst, almost entirely blocked by their darkness, was Devlin Sinclair, a lethal looking curved knife in one hand, a long stiletto in the other.

Before her very eyes, the shadow men closed in on Devlin, their forms dissipating like smoke in the wind. But Grace saw the dark swirls swarming around Devlin’s person as he slashed and stabbed at them with deadly precision and speed.

There was no other noise or movement, save the strange, mortal dance that was taking place right in front of her on her rooftop terrace.

Devlin used his left arm mainly for defense and his right for attack. When he hit something solid, she could hear a gasp or expulsion of breath, but no other sounds emerged.

Once in a while, a spurt of blood or some other fluid would projectile out from their relatively contained death match to splatter onto the leaves of the potted plants or stain the gray concrete with dark red.

And of course, Devlin received his fair share of counterattacks in turn. Even under the pale, scattered moonlight, Grace could see his black shirt rip in places, his pants tear in one thigh and at the back of the knees. She could see that his arms where they were bare were coated with blood. Whether his or his enemies, she could not guess.

And then he stopped her heart by going down to one knee, his left arm falling limp by his side.

Before she knew what she was doing, Grace launched into action, using strength she didn’t know she possessed to pick up a nearby potted Fiddle Leaf Fig by its stalk and swinging the heavy steel planter with enough centrifugal force at the shadows that surrounded Devlin that they dispersed with an audible whoosh.

Clutching the potted plant firmly in both hands, Grace stood over Devlin’s crouched form like a she-lion defending her cub. She didn’t know how she was going to fend off shadowy assassins, but she was going to die trying.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to put her shot of wild courage to the test, for the momentary distraction she provided gave Devlin enough time to get back to his feet and pick off the shadows one by one, moving with a lethal efficiency that Grace found oddly mesmerizing.

Soon, each shadow collapsed into the form of a man, and each man briefly held his shape before suddenly disintegrating into specks of black debris, like ashes from a violently smothered conflagration. Until there was nothing left but dust.

And a heaving, bleeding, mess of a man.

Grace let go of the potted fig and reached for Devlin just as he collapsed heavily against her shoulder, almost knocking her to the ground.

“Can you make it back downstairs?” she asked, though she didn’t really expect an answer given his condition.

His head fell forward, and she took that as a nod.

Gingerly, supporting much of his weight on her shoulders, with one of his long arms wrapped around her, she half carried, half dragged her severely wounded rescuer back to her basement apartment.

But when she finally got him to her back door and tried to haul him inside, he shook his head and rasped, “Not safe here. Must go.”

“But where?” she asked.

She wasn’t sure if she could help him move another inch to save her life. She’d already performed a superhuman feat having dragged him this far.

“The Cove,” he breathed, his voice reduced to a croak.

With a squeak of dismay, Grace lost her footing as Devlin toppled on top of her, squashing her under his full weight.

“Ana…” he seemed to say, “…come…wait…”

And then he lost all consciousness. At which point Grace discovered that she could in fact scream.