Invincible (A Centennial City Novel) (28 page)

Were there any humans in this building? Coldness seemed to emanate from the marble floors and seeped through my clothes, making me shiver intermittently.

Amaryllis stood by the front doors, hands held decorously at her waist and her eyes widened as she saw me step out into the foyer. “Ailward, did you require something you could not find in your room?”

I didn’t have to fake my reticence, as I truly had my doubts as to what sort of status we held here in Noir’s stronghold. Were we guests or prisoners? I supposed I would know in the next moment or so. “Not exactly. I’d like to leave for a while. Maybe get some fresh air. Is there some kind of car I can borrow?”

Her pretty light brows creased upward. “A car? You will be needing transportation, Ailward?”

“Yes.”

She nodded once and curtsied. “One moment, Ailward, whilst I see if I can procure a vehicle for your use.”

She smelled like rose water and lemon verbena as she walked past me, a sprightly step to her walk that made it look as though she was dancing to music only she could hear. Cute and sweet, but again, she was, for the lack of a better word, dead.

Why did I keep on forgetting?

It didn’t take that long for the sound of keys to reach my ears and my shoulders relaxed. It was good to know, at the very least, we had an escape venue. Or I did, at the very least. Perhaps they were focused on Jason, and not so much on the woman standing at his side.

She pressed the keys into my hand, a strange circular plastic thing with three buttons, one for the car door, one for the trunk and the other for...something. Two more keys completed the keyring, although I had no idea what they were. Judging from the way she held them out to me, as though it was something slightly disgusting, I didn’t think she was aware of what they were for, either. “Milly already had the car pulled around to the front, Ailward,” she said. “Is there anything else you will be requiring, you or your Master?”

I shook my head, relief making it hard to keep my features even. “Not at all. Thank you.”

A faint blush rose on those white cheeks as she curtsied, as prim and proper as anything that must have seen the insides of a French king’s salon. “It is only as my duty demands.”

“Er. Right.” She sounded a bit too biddable and I found myself wondering just how docile she truly was. “Thank you.”

“Not at all. Have a pleasant drive, Ailward.”

I was halfway down the drive when I turned around.

She was still there, in the open doorway, waving.

“Amaryllis?” I called out.

“Yes, Ailward.”

“Do you always smile?”

Something flickered in her eyes, something familiar, something that reminded me of Shannon. “Most of the time, Ailward. Sometimes, I find it hard.”

I believed it.

I just wished I didn’t.

16

Chapter Sixteen

I left the car half an hour away from the Sanctuary, just in case. I didn’t trust anything Noir would give me and besides, it seemed in bad taste to show up at the front gates in a vehicle provided by the vampire I was supposed to eliminate.

When I knocked on the large wooden doors, I expected the inevitable clank of metal against metal and the rectangle of wood to pull back, exposing light brown eyes I didn’t recognize.

“Yes.”

I tugged down the neckline of my shirt and let them see the brand above my collarbone. “Fellowship.”

The doors should have opened then. I never had reason to believe otherwise.

The doors did not open.

The eyes narrowed. “Yeah? So what?”

Momentarily surprised, it took me a moment to respond. “So what? You’re supposed to let me in. Or has protocol changed since the last time I was here?”

The person chuckled, safe and secure behind a six-inch thick doors. “Things have changed. They called in all hunters. All hunters came. You’re not one of them. Nice try. Now piss off.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been treated like that. As a hunter, there was a certain measure of respect accorded to me and for this person to use such language with me...it was a new experience and not one I was willing to get used to. “My name is Hwang. My handler is Adrian. My contact is Chang. Let me in.”

The eyes narrowed even more until they were just slits. “Or what?”

Flabbergasted didn’t even begin to cover how I felt. “Is my handler there or isn’t he?”

The man sighed. “Wait.”

There was a hurried, whispered discussion made all the more evident due to the fact he didn’t shut the peephole, and I heard the sounds of footsteps leaving the doors.

The eyes returned, still suspicious. “We’ve sent for the handler. Step away from the doors. Don’t come back. They will come for you.”

Whatever that meant.

I held up my hands and took a step back, just as they asked. Something had happened, that much was certain. Feeling curiously empty and somewhat apprehensive, I leaned against the wall, noting with some surprise that mine were the only footsteps to disturb the snow that had fallen since two days ago.

Two days was a very long time for people to neither leave nor arrive.

What the hell was going on?

My answer came half an hour later when the eyehole slid back again and the same person hissed at me.

“Hey you.”

I merely looked at them, not feeling particularly like replying.

“We’re letting you in.”

“Took you long enough, didn’t it?”

“Shut up,” he snarled and then vanished again.

But the doors were opening with a shuddering sound, knocking the snow off the high concrete walls.

I fought to keep the surprise from my eyes. “A welcoming party? You shouldn’t have.”

A few of the face I recognized, but most of them were unfamiliar. No smiles, just a blank solidarity that made the pulse beat faster in the back of my head. “What’s going on?” I asked, voice shaking.

“Come with us.”

A slightly built figure detached herself from the crowd, two burly Hunters standing aside to let her pass.

Williamson. She had always been somewhat frail, but those scars were fresh. One particularly horrendous one looked as though it had very nearly taken her left eye.

“What’s going on, Beth?” I repeated myself, slowly, carefully.

Her lips thinned. “I think we should be asking you that, Hwang.”

Beth had never called me by my last name before. We just were never that formal, in fact if I’d ever had anything remotely close to a friend, she might have been it. “Where’s Adrian?”

She turned. “Come.”

The guard, for how could they be anything else, swallowed up her again and swallowed me up as well. Being this close to people armed to the teeth made my skin feel as though it would jump off my bones and quietly, I let them lead me through the outer courtyard, past the training fields and into the inner sanctum, where the Elders resided. An attendant dressed in their somber black and gray pulled open a shoji door and I watched, utterly nonplussed as boots tromped on the floors, the snow and dirt creating a mess I had never seen before. It was tradition to take off your shoes before stepping into the living quarters of the Sanctuary.

Just how much had changed since I had left?

I hesitated at the edge of the upraised floor, years of tradition keeping my feet on the snow-covered ground.

A rough shove sent my knees careening into the wooden edge. “Get up.”

This, this was a face I recognized. “Mac. Nice to see you haven’t lost that edge of yours.”

The darkly tanned Scotsman grinned at me. It was not a friendly one. “You’re lucky you’re not dead. We don’t suffer traitors easily.”

We don’t suffer traitors easily.

I blinked. “Are you calling me a traitor?”

Instead of replying, he grabbed me by the arms and physically lifted me off the ground, setting me firmly on the wooden inner walkway. Inwardly, I cringed at the mess I was leaving on the polished wooden floors that should have never seen a scuff, much less the mess everyone else was making.

Stupid thing to worry about, really. Especially when it seemed as though everyone I knew had this strange misconception that I was a traitor.

Painfully aware of just how easily someone could slip a dagger through my ribs, fully aware of just how the Fellowship treated traitors, I let my hands dangle by my sides, trusting in the Hunters sense of honor. Or something like that.

The group stopped, but I could not see over the heads of those taller than I. Considering I was taller than average, it did not escape my notice my guards had been chosen for the express purpose keeping me from seeing outside, or people from seeing in.

A door opened and I followed a tall brunette with a ponytail longer than mine. The broad shoulders as well as the crisp smell of Old Spice told me the person was male, that and the exposed forearms were covered with curly hair, slightly darker than the hair on his head.

The Hunters spread along the small concrete room, bare with a single chair in the middle, a swinging light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

I was very well acquainted with the interrogation chamber.

Although I never thought I would sit in the wobbly chair that very desperately needed a wad of paper underneath the back right leg. It was interesting to see the room sitting down. A completely different point of view, so to speak.

Beth paced in front of me, hands held behind her back. “Why did you come back?”

Painfully aware of the eyes on me, I shuffled my feet on the concrete floor. All the nervous energy in my body needed some place to go. “I told Adrian I’d be back. I thought Chang would need some kind of status report.”

The first slap took me across the face, catching me completely by surprise. Beth was small, but in her case, small did not equate with little strength. She was rather infamous for her punches and the slap took my breath away.

Blinking blearily through the hair in my eyes, I tried to catch my breath. “That was...unnecessary.”

“Isn’t it?” Teeth bared, she stared down at me. There was something in her eyes, something I couldn’t trust. On anyone else, I would have said she had grown power drunk, but not Beth, not the orphaned girl who came to the Fellowship at the age of fifteen, half crazy from an inhuman strength that only the Elders could harness and turn into something useful, something needed.

This person in front of me was not the girl I remembered. “No. I think I deserve an explanation.”

She sat back down on her haunches in front of me, hands dangling in the air. I thought about how easy it would be to reach down and break her wrists. Then I thought about how easy it would be for the fourteen Hunters to take the head off my shoulders before I even took one step off the chair. “An explanation? I think we should be asking for one.”

“Then ask for one.”

Her face hardened. “Who are you working for?”

“Elder Chang.”

The second slap was even harder than the last and darkness sparked at the corners of my vision.

“Liar.”

I shook my head, almost hearing loose bearings rolling in my mind. “You know, this is starting to get really old, Beth.”

She stood up to her full height, which admittedly wasn’t that much. It had always been something of a sore subject with her. We Hunters were not known for our subtlety.

“You think I like doing this?” The look in her eyes betrayed her. Something had happened while I was gone. Something...wrong. For Beth to inhibit such wanting for violence and bloodlust, even to members of the Fellowship...suddenly, I felt cold, colder than I had in a very long time. “You think I like beating up people I thought were my friends?”

I didn’t bother answering. She wouldn’t have liked my answer and I didn’t feel like getting slapped again by a woman who once punched a hole through a foot thick brick wall.

“We have heard the most disturbing rumors,” she said and even though I tried to maintain eye contact with her, she was having trouble meeting my gaze. Her gaze kept going all over the place as though she was high on something. “Something about you joining the other side. Heard you became an Ailward.” She tsked, somewhat more dramatically than was necessary. “Really, Ran. I thought you were better than all that. It’s such a shame to be proven wrong.”

My tongue probed what felt like a loose molar. Damn. “I was under orders by Elder Chang to eliminate Noir.”

A hand reared back. “You going to continue to lie?”

I stared at her, outwardly calm but inwardly already flinching. “Slap me again and see what happens.”

Not the smartest thing to say, but maybe there was some brain damage to blame for such impetuous words.

The hand wavered in the air and she smiled. It was not a pleasant sight. “Oh? Are you going to kill me, too?”

“Kill you too? I haven’t killed anyone.”

And vampires didn’t count.

She exchanged a look with someone standing next to me, a rather tall, spare man dressed in motorcycle leathers and enough piercings to make airport travel an impossibility. I didn’t know who he was, but that was not surprising. Most Hunters I knew via reputation, not exactly by appearance. “You killed Adrian.”