Firebrand (5 page)

Chapter Three

Amber stepped into the gold colored smoked glass elevator in the lobby of Sinclair Tower headquarters for the premier land holding company where she had worked alongside her father until his retirement. She closed her eyes and leaned against the rear wall, waiting as the compartment rose carrying her up and away from street-level and the park where she had seen her best friend and the man she loved talking about some sort of covert plot that seemed to involve her. She pressed her fingertips to her temples to try to ease a building headache just as the elevator stopped at the fifteenth floor and the doors slid open with a graceful whoosh.

She walked down the richly carpeted hallway to her office, the heels of her shoes sinking into the taupe colored thick wool. At the door she paused, unsure of whether to go in or go back. Through the large glass panel that made up part of the outer office wall, she could see her assistant Susan, on the phone gesturing, her long slim hands flying through the air.

Although contradictory and very unsettling thoughts flooded her mind, she would not walk into her office looking anything but composed. She straightened her shoulders into the jacket of her navy Donna Karan suit and tossed her head to send any wayward strands of auburn hair back into place. Then she pushed open the door.

“You’re late,” Susan said when Amber entered. She held out a handful of pink telephone messages.

“I ran into a problem on the way here,” Amber countered.

Susan looked out the window. “The weather is backing up all mass transit. Weird stuff. You know, my grandmother told me that things haven’t been right since the astronauts walked on the moon.”

Amber furrowed her brows.

“You know, moon, tide, weather. Gram says they were all affected when Apollo landed. She believes that the landing shifted the orbit and this is what we get from time to time.”

Amber smiled. “Your Gram may be right.”

“Nahh, just old wives tales. But you accumulate a lot of wisdom in eighty-four years, so we just don’t write her off,” Susan said handing Amber a cup of coffee and taking one for herself. She glanced toward the window in reaction to a flash of light. “Probably just a weird dip in the jet stream or global warming.”

“Probably,” Amber agreed, taking a sip.

“I know you have a ton of things today but before you do any of them, Mr. Sinclair wants to see you,” Susan said, sinking back down into the richly padded black leather of her chair. She angled her head toward the phone. “He sounded a little…” she raised her eyebrows, “shall we say, tense.”

Amber took another sip of coffee before looking at Susan over the rim of the mug. “So what else is new,” she said walking down the hall then, pushing the door to her private office open with her hip and stepping inside. Once the door closed she slid the coffee mug onto the nearest empty space on the bookcase, then dropped onto the sofa next to the door and fought her frayed nerves for control of her shaking hands.

Battle won, she walked to her desk just as the phone rang. The caller ID flashed David’s cell number. She let the Voice Mail System answer it.

“Honey, call me as soon as you get this. We need to talk. I love you.”

Amber looked at the blinking light, pressed the red button on the console and erased the message.

* * * * *

Eric G. Sinclair stepped from around the corner and stood in the hall outside Amber’s office. He ran the fingers of his right hand through his dark hair, catching his reflection in the tinted windows. Smiling, he slowly lowered his hand to the cuff of the left sleeve of his Armani jacket and removed a wrinkle near the elbow with a sharp tug.

Trailing his fingers down the lapels and angling slightly, he admired the body he had so carefully sculpted. He was tall and lean. Too thin to some but he preferred the hungry look, knowing it made his rivals feel as though he would pounce on them at any moment. His impeccably styled salt and pepper hair and stylishly trimmed beard completed the look — the perfect specimen of a successful fifty-five year old man.

His cynical laugh came out in a rush of breath. Too bad this would be the last time anyone saw him this way.

He stopped admiring his reflection and returned to the reason he had been lurking the hallways of the company he’d built almost three decades earlier. He’d been persistent, unethical at times but the information he’d been able piece together through the years led to Amber Drake. He snarled, angry at himself for the time wasted. He had become so distracted by the pleasures of the upworld that he had not read the signs. That would not happen again.

He’d been outside Amber’s door since six a.m. waiting, taking great pains to mask his presence from the morning cleaning crew and the early risers. He had watched her carefully over the past weeks, probing her mind with his, waiting. If she indeed had the key for which he had been searching, she did not know it. That made her ripe for the taking and that would work to his advantage. Surprise was always his biggest ally. It would be no different this time.

In calculated silence, he had watched Amber walk down the hallway, take a few unsteady steps toward her office, grab the doorknob and then stop. She’d lowered her head, letting her hair fall forward so he couldn’t see her face.

Today when he closed his eyes and reached to her, she felt different. There was something new about her, something that now made his skin prickle like static electricity..

She made a sound, like a sob that had caught in her throat and he snapped his eyes open. A snarl curled his lips. The Guardian was supposed to be strong, defiant. Not like the weak human women who let him take over their minds and bodies when his blood boiled and he felt the sexual need of upworld men, only more insatiable..

He grinned sardonically. He had waited twenty-five years, he could wait a little longer.

* * * * *

Serina knew she was running out of time. Having Amber live among the humans in plain sight rather than under the constant protection of a dozen bodyguards, was the correct decision she reaffirmed. Right up until the break-in. Now she was forced to admit that the anonymity was over and Amber would become the most hunted person in the world. Any world. Every world.

Serina had been her guardian since the day Amber had been given to Marcus and Erin Drake. She had been the gentle breeze that moved the baby’s blanket back into place, the whisper that suggested the child tie her shoes, the playmate only the child can see. The Fairy Godmother, which was she. Serina Ward, her human name. But no more. The time of Serina was nearly over. The time of Teezal Thistlecomb, her true identity was at hand.

She paced the floor of the home she shared with Amber. The difficulty would be to protect her charge until the Cipher was in place and the Triad began. It would be a problem. But with David’s help… She paused. Poor David. He loved Amber so and yet he would have to bring her to her death in order to save three worlds from oblivion.

But would he?

Still wrestling with the answer, the flash of an anomalous face in the mirror near the door caught Serina’s eye. She turned her back to it and made an irritated face. It was a troll. She could tell by the dank, mossy odor that filled the room. If he came any closer she would pummel him until his eyes rolled and then she’d make him wish he had never left the caverns he called home. She turned back toward the door and walked slowly toward the front of the house. Closing the front drapes, she casually ruffled the fabric before tucking it neatly into place. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another movement and stepped closer to the wall. She almost laughed out loud when a bulging nose followed by a pair of hooded eyes protruded out of the mirror. With a movement too quick to be seen by a human eye, Serina reached inside and pulled out the interloper by his neck with both hands.

“Jolinax.” She held him up so his toes barely brushed the floor. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your slimy company?”

Jolinax’s legs bicycled in the air. His arms flayed as he tried wrest himself free.

Serina laughed in response his efforts. “You want me to let you go? Then I will.” She released her hold on his neck. As he began to drop to the ground, she pointed at him and he rose in the air until she pinned him to the ceiling.

“Perfidious Pook!” Jolinax spat out at her. “Carpet Rucker.”

“False fairy, am I?” Serina challenged, moving Jolinax across the ceiling with just the motion of her hand.

“Yellow Blurker,” he screamed as his shoulder bounced off the side of the ceiling fan.

“If you’re going to keep calling me names, I may get really angry.” She flicked her wrist and let him fall. When he was five feet from the floor, she shot out her hand and caught him with a bounce in mid-air. “Now, can you be civil? Well, as civil as a troll can be. What are you doing here anyway?”

“I was just looking,” he answered, his eyes wide as he remained suspended in the air.

“It was you who broke in here last night, wasn’t it?”

Kicking his stubby right leg downward, Jolinax tried to touch the floor. “Maybe.”

“I don’t have time for games,” Serina shot back, her voice laced with impatience. With a crook of her finger, she moved him closer. “I’ll give you one more chance to tell me voluntarily. Were you here last night?”

Jolinax’s shriek rose and faded in a crescendo of panic as Serina alternately raised and lowered him in the air. “Okay, I did it. I broke in. Now let me down.”

Serina let him drop to within three feet of the floor this time. He screeched as he fell. “Stop,” she asserted, her voice tinged with disgust, “You’re drooling all over the oriental rug.” Careful to hold him immobile with one hand, she gestured toward the kitchen. A row of paper towels floated out and promptly cleaned up his mess.

“Let me go,” he demanded tugging at the invisible bonds that held him in place.

“In a minute.” Serina sat on the couch and dialed David’s cell number. He answered on the second ring. “Sugar, get over here. We have a problem.” She listened to his concerned voice. “No, Amber’s fine. She’s still at work. Just get here as fast as you can.” When she flipped closed the lid, she heard Jolinax laugh.

“Too late,” he cackled.

Serina was on him in a second. She put her finger under his nose and raised him in the air until his eyes were even with hers. “You little gnome. Unless you want to dust the ceiling again, you’d better tell me what you know.”

“Gorash will kill me if I do.”

“Not if I kill you first.”

“You cannot Teezal Thistlecomb. Fairies do not kill for sport.”

“Okay maybe not but that I can make you wish you never left your cave.” She muttered ancient words into the air rendering Jolinax rigid. Slowly she lowered him to the ground.

Grabbing a throw pillow from the sofa, she ripped it open and dumped the batting on the carpet before turning the pillow inside out.

“What are you doing?” Jolinax asked, panic in his voice.

“You know exactly what I’m doing,” Serina countered, digging into the potpourri in the dish on the counter dividing the living room from the kitchen. “Rose petals.” She held them out so he could see. “Mint, clover, lavender and a milkweed pod.” She tossed them into the pillow cover and shook it.

“Stop! Stop!” Jolinax shouted, still unable to move.

Serina sat cross-legged in front of him and set the pillow between them. A chant rose from her like a silver ribbon, curling and twisting in the air.

From the center of the pillow, a light emerged, swirling and shimmering with flashes exploding like tiny sparklers. Each time an ember hit the ground, a tiny creature appeared, sometimes male, sometimes female. Each one ran to Jolinax until a ring was made around him. The bell-like sound of fairy giggles assaulted his ears

“Twilks,” she said clapping her hands, “How they love causing mischief on troll skin.” She watched as the little creatures, poked, prodded and teased the agonized troll.

“You know what happens when they tire of play don’t you?” She eyed a particularly stout bunch of Twilks as they bared their teeth and gnashed them hungrily as advanced toward the cowering troll.

“Make them go away,” he pleaded as the circle began to close on him. “I’ll tell you everything!”

* * * * *

Eric Sinclair stared out at the New York skyline in his penthouse office and looked in the direction of his homeland. He couldn’t see it of course, blocked by towering skyscrapers and miles of distance but it was there, waiting for the Triad to begin.

The Triad. The Coming. The Prophecy.

Whatever each world called it, it was either the beginning or the ending. The snowballing change of events in place would now only culminate with either obliteration of three worlds or the creation of a new order. Only one person would make that decision. Amber Drake — a woman who could be as much as within his reach as she was beyond his grasp.

He dropped his pen onto the richly wooded mahogany desk and leaned back into the curved leather chair that had been designed and built just for him, a chair that fit his body so close to perfection that he scarcely noticed its existence. He ran his hands over the leather armrests. Someone was going to have to order another one soon. The time of Eric Sinclair Sr., a name he had created for himself in this world was at an end. Perhaps the time for all men was at an end.

He got up and walked to the window. His eyes scanned the street below. “Little people, with little ideas,” he thought as a sneer curled his lip. He raised his hand into the sunlight.

“Ilmkgoh,”
He said in the ancient language of the trolls. “Younger,” he said in the language of the humans.

He watched the skin on his hand tighten and the brown spots dotting the knuckles disappear as the excess flesh and wrinkles vanished. He brought it up to his eyes, pleased with the result. Then throwing back his head he held his breath, allowing the change to complete itself.

When his skin stopped tingling, he walked to the closet and pulled open the double doors. He pushed the coats hanging there to one side and looked at his refection in the mirror attached to the back wall. A smile curled his lips.