The Mark of Cain (11 page)

She had the sudden urge to kick him; an urge she
wouldn’t submit to. She had never been a violent person and would hate herself
later if she succumbed to it now.

“Me?” she asked, not believing him in the slightest;
especially after he’d seen her go all nutso.

“Yes, Hara, you,” he said, his tone lacking any
guile as he stepped closer to her, the corners of his mouth upturned in a
charming grin. “You think I’d get shot for just anybody?”

The way he was talking was going to melt her into a
puddle right here and now. Out of all the emotions she’d seen him have,
gentleness had never been one of them until now—it didn’t count when he was
trying to woo her in front of her date the other night. He was acting just like
she’d fantasized. She could almost feel one of his hands on her face….

No! He wasn’t just going to come in here acting all
sweet and having it work on her. She was sick of him playing with her. Did he
really think it would work?

“Well too bad you came all this way for nothing,”
she said, letting an edge creep into her words that had never before been
present.

Anger welled up in his black pits for eyes for a
moment. An anger that was hidden so quickly that she wasn’t sure whether or not
it had really ever been present. But, if it had, it was an anger that scared
her. A primeval rage she had never seen before. Not even in the man’s eyes who
had mugged her and Eric….

“Now you’ll have to excuse me,” she said, pushing
down her icy fear and turning back to her job. “I have work to do. You can
leave now.”

Inac didn’t say a word before she heard him turn and
leave. Once he was gone, she let out a shaky breath.

“Girl, I cannot
believe
you just yelled at
the boss-man like that,” Crystal said, approval radiating from her eyes.

“I know. He just…. Ugh! He’s just so
frustrating
!”

“That’s what happens when you fall for someone.”

Shooting her friend a look that she knew would
scream of her annoyance, she said, “I don’t even know him.”

“Doesn’t mean you don’t
want
to get to know
him.” Hara couldn’t help but laugh at that. Leave it to Crystal to cheer her
up.

“Come on,” she said, eager to change the subject,
“let’s finish this so we can go home.”

Most everyone had walked off after the show had
ended, all shaking their heads in wonder while mumbling under their breath.
Besides Crystal, the only one still right there was Tracker.

She looked over at him, giving her old friend a
small smile. Usually Track would’ve smiled back, but tonight—or really this
morning—he just looked at her with worry all over his face. And not just worry that
her heart would get stomped on, but a real,
tangible
worry and fear for
her life. He looked as though that icy fear she’d felt momentarily had left her
and gone into him. He was scared to death.

She looked down at the barstool she was placing on
the bar, trying to think of what to ask him to get him to tell her the truth
about what was going on with him, but when she looked back up, he was gone.

***

Inac walked into his apartment, throwing his keys in
the little steel key tray on the rectangular glass and steel entryway table.
His apartment was large and cold; all metal, concrete, and glass. That’s what
he loved about it.

It was minimally furnished in blacks and grays, not
a friendly touch in sight. If Hara ever saw it, she would probably say that
sentimentality was lost on him; that he was as cold as the dark gray shiny
concrete flooring. He would agree with her. The only sentimental items he owned
were in the vault the size of two apartments hidden behind a Jackson Pollock
painting. In it he kept things from every life he’d lived that he wanted kept
safe and private. Most items were small—like the swords he’d carried in each
life he’d been a warrior. But others—paintings and other artwork—were larger.

Historians would have a heart attack seeing that
room, for it held so many precious items. In there, he had the
real
spear that had pierced Christ’s side, not the fake Spear of Destiny that had
floated around for years. He also had the sword that had started the mythology
surrounding Excalibur. That sword, which had been before its time, he had forged
himself with ingredients and methods of working the metal that nobody but him
knew, even to this day. With it, he had felled many a man. So many, in fact,
that it had become a legend itself from the fear its very name instilled in all
who heard it. Only later did it somehow get mashed into the stories of Merlin
and King Arthur, morphing from a symbol of terror into one of hope.

The vault held so many invaluable objects that would
be worth a lot of money. He didn’t care about the money, though. What he cared
about were the memories that came with each item. Underneath his tough exterior
was a surprisingly sentimental fool.

He wouldn’t usually call himself a fool, but he’d
obviously done something wrong with Hara. She was going to be more difficult
than he’d thought. When he’d gone to pick her up to take her to an early
breakfast, he’d been cocky; so sure that she would jump at the chance. But she
hadn’t.

He was sure that that was the first time she’d ever
felt anger in her life, so he couldn’t blame her for not knowing how to control
it.
He
didn’t even know how to control his all the time, and he’d been
working on it for millennia. Luckily, he’d controlled it this morning. If he
hadn’t, he would have broken her pretty little neck right there in front of
everyone.

However, at the same time that he was thinking of
ways that he could kill her, he was also silently impressed. He hadn’t thought
she had that in her. She was the first person he’d ever met who had the guts to
yell at him.

Instead of yelling back at her like he’d wanted to
do, he had become gentle, watching as her anger slowly began to dissipate. But
still, she’d have nothing of it. He was proud of her for finding her inner
hostility. And the fact that he was the one to bring it out of her had only
proven to him that she felt strongly for him. They would probably have a lot of
passion. Now he just needed to get her in a situation where he could harness
that passion for his own taking so that he could kill her and move on to
something else more gratifying.

***

“Hara? Can I talk to you for a minute?” Professor
Sampson called as she was making her way down the steps of her classroom’s
amphitheater.

She really didn’t want to talk to him because she
hadn’t yet been to sleep since work last night and, quite frankly, she was
exhausted. She was going to be smart fall semester and not schedule any classes
for Monday mornings.

“What can I do for you, Professor?”

“I heard that you were writing your paper on the
Mokolios?” he said, his thick sandy eyebrows drawn tight in worry. It was the
first time she’d ever noticed that his light chocolate eyes had the same warm
undertones as his hair.

“Is that a problem?”

“No. Not if you can find enough information about
them to write an entire paper. Are you finding information okay?”

She sighed. She’d searched the library and Internet
what felt like a hundred times over. “Not really. But I figure if their mark is
all over history then I should be able to find
something
.”

“And your mind is set?” he asked, looking her
directly in the eye as though this was a matter of grave importance.

She nodded.

“Okay. Perhaps this book will help you some,” he
said, pulling out and handing her a thick brown leather-bound book that looked
and smelled positively ancient.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” she said as she delicately ran a
finger along its cover, which had the Mokolios’ insignia branded into it.
Suddenly, the gore had her praying that the book wasn’t made of
human
skin.
The thought had her quickly pulling her finger away. To cover her unease before
Professor Sampson noticed it, she said, “I’d probably ruin it.”

“Are you sure? It has the most information regarding
that sect that I’ve ever found. Besides, it’s survived a few hundred years. I’m
sure it will survive a few more,” he said, throwing her a boyish grin that she
couldn’t help but return.

“I’m sure,” she told him, no longer creeping herself
out. “Thank you, though. It’s really very kind of you.”

He nodded and set the book back down on his desk.
Again, she was surprised at how young he was. Not even the nice shirt and tie
he wore could make him look older.

“Well, if you change your mind…” he said, his tone
kind.

“Thanks, Professor. I appreciate it.”

He just continued smiling as he nodded. She could
tell that he was disappointed. He’d obviously really wanted her to take him up
on his offer. Come to think of it, he acted very fatherly toward her compared
to his other students. Crystal would probably say that he had a crush on her,
but Hara knew differently. Professor Sampson treated her the same way Father
Carroll did.

She walked down the hall and outside, still thinking
about Professor Sampson’s kind offer.

“Hey,” a voice said from behind her, scaring her out
of her thoughts.

She looked behind her to find Tracker walking up to
her, pulling his pants up because they were too baggy around his waist. She
would never understand boys who wore pants too large for them. Tracker said he
just wore what “all skaters wore,” but, as far as she knew, he hadn’t
skateboarded in years.

“Sorry I’m late,” she told him. “Professor Sampson
stopped me to talk about my paper.”

“I like him,” he said. “He’s a good professor.”

“Yeah, he is,” she said, looking sideways at him.
Tracker hadn’t ever taken a class from Professor Sampson, so how would he know
that he was a good professor?

She didn’t get to ask him before he said, “You
should listen to him. He knows what he’s talking about.”

It was such an odd thing to say that she stopped
dead in her tracks.

“What’s wrong?” Tracker asked, stopping a few steps
in front of her when he finally seemed to realize that she was no longer beside
him.

“I just….” For some reason, she couldn’t help but
think about Saturday morning when Inac had come to the club. Track had been
acting weird then too. “Track? Do you remember when Inac came by the club?”

Just as she’d thought, open hostility took over
Tracker’s features.

“Yeah. What about it?” he asked, his blue eyes
sharpening into silver razorblades.

“You looked scared of something.”

“So?”

“Why don’t you like Inac?” she asked as delicately
as possible.

“Because he’s not a good person, Hara. You shouldn’t
get involved with him.”

She couldn’t help but feel her own rising anger, her
face becoming hot as its pressure climbed.

“You don’t even know him. How can you say that he’s
not a good person?”

“Because he isn’t.”

Before her anger could reach the peak it had with
Inac, she said, “Whatever. I have to go home. I’ll talk to you later.”

Tracker didn’t say a word as he watched her get into
her car. After she closed the door and rolled down the window because it was
blazing and the air conditioning didn’t work, he leaned in.

“I mean it, Hara,” he said, one hand on the window
frame. “Mr. Adamson’s bad news. I’ll prove it to you when I can.”

She ignored him as she pulled out. Sometimes he
could be such a child.

***

Hara pulled into her parking space at home. It was
now Thursday and she still hadn’t turned much up in the library regarding the
Mokolios—she’d given up on the Internet; it was like someone with access was
making anything other than basic facts about them disappear the moment it was
posted or something. Not to say she had any proof anything other than that had
been on the Internet in the first place, but if they were that powerful, then
it
had
to be.

Maybe her professor was right and she should borrow
his book. Really, with how top secret they really did seem to be, she wasn’t
sure how Professor Sampson had even come across the book, or why he had thrown
them into the curriculum in the first place. Ugh, she couldn’t think of it just
now. Once she got up to her apartment, she only had a couple of hours to get a
huge list of things done before her study group came over.

She climbed the stairs, silently whining about all
she had to do. Next summer, she wasn’t going to take any classes at all. It
just wiped her out too much to work the crazy hours she did plus be a full-time
student all year long.

When she got to the last flight of stairs, she found
Inac patiently stooped on the top stair in his usual slightly baggy dark jeans
and T-shirt that was tight around his arms and chest, but loose at his waist.
He really looked good in them, too….