Stormfront (Undertow Book 2) (11 page)

The part of Boston we were i
n
was not known for its stellar bar scene, but it was quite possible that Kian and I had landed in the worst dive on the planet. While I didn’t dig for details as to how he located a dealer, even Kian seemed to question the logic of where this Mortis hung out. You could probably take your pick of patrons inside and they most likely all deserved to be on the Blacklist. In a place like this, who needed a dealer?

“You know – this would be a heck of a lot easier if we just went on our merry way and simply picked off some random degenerate,” muttered Kian.

I peeled the label on the bottle of beer in front of me. Though neither of us drank, we bought the beers so we looked like we fit in.

At least, that was the intent.

We were surrounded by gangbangers, drug dealers, and a handful of bikers who looked as though they could chew the tires off my Harley. “If we’re going to start doing this, we are making sure who we target deserves what they have coming,” I replied.

Kian gave me a knowing look and gestured to the entire room, as if to say
take your pick
. I shook my head
no
and Kian growled, aggravated. “Figures you would have a moralistic psyche.”

He leaned back from the bar and scanned the dark, dingy space of the Lucky Lady. His eyes settled on three pool tables stuffed towards the back. All were occupied by various, suspicious individuals, most likely fresh out of prison or headed there.

Kian leaned closer to me, “Okay – so here’s the deal. We need to take over the last pool table on the right with the chipped leg. Once we do that, we need to drop the seven-ball in the corner pocket near the wall and wait.”

“You’re not serious . . . are you?” I asked, floored that we needed to partake in Cloak and Dagger nonsense to get our hands on some names. Kian nodded and headed for the table. I sighed and followed.

Five minutes later, the table was ours thanks to a hundred dollar bill I offered the two leather-clad players. I dropped the seven-ball in the specified pocket and Kian racked the balls. “You first,” he said, casually scanning the room for our potential dealer.

I pulled a stick from the wall and set up my shot, the smooth rock maple sliding easily through my fingers.

“Think the girls are having a good time at the game?” he asked, no doubt trying to quell his fears that Ana was alone with Eila. Of course, we did contact MJ who had gotten home earlier in the day, and asked that he spy on them.

Eila would shoot me if she found out.

“Hopefully, though Agent Howe showing up did not get the night off to the best start.”

Kian slid his
luke-warm beer farther down the edge of the pool table, “Yeah, that wasn’t such a grand development. I bet they were super pleased to see him again. What’s with the gear though?”

“My guess is it’s a remnant from the Lunaterra,” I said. “Maybe something the Rysse clan followers gave Dalca for some reason. I mean, they did entrust her with the ashes of Rysse himself, so maybe the gear was a trophy of sorts – something Rysse had that had belonged to one of the Lunaterra he killed. I guarantee the drawing was so Dalca could identify Eila as Lunaterra.”
 

Kian shook his head, “Maybe. Either way, it’s not good that the Feds found either. We need Howe getting bored, not more interested. I still vote for making him disappear.”
Kian’s pipe dream of killing Sollen and Howe was starting to become mine as well. We could absolutely make them disappear, but doing so would draw attention to all of us. Murdering an FBI agent was not an option . . . unfortunately.

Kian stretched his spine and swung the pool stick around the back of his neck, letting it rest across his shoulders as he hitched his hands over either end, making him look like a scarecrow. “I don’t know about the girls, but football ranks up there with watching paint dry for me. I’m actually glad I didn’t go to that funfest,” he said.

I glanced up at him. “Did MJ text you?”

“
Yeah – he had located them before the game had started. They were in the bleachers,” he replied as I called my shot and aimed, sinking the ball as I predicted. Pool was one of the ways I killed time over the years and as such, I could clean the table in a matter of minutes. I had used Christian’s billiard table a few times at Torrent Road, often when I was trying to keep my mind from drifting back to the boiler room in Newport.

I easily took out the next three balls when Kian finally cleared his throat, swinging the pool cue off his back. “Think I can play as well, or am I stuck here watching you all night?”

I smiled, the devil in me thoroughly enjoying watching Kian stand by like a lawn ornament. I finally stepped back and he finished off the game, an obvious pro as well.

We played for several hours and as midnight rolled around, I had just about given up hope on the dealer, but then a hand appeared on the edge of the table.

I traced the muscled arm up to its wall-sized owner. He walked the length of the cherry wood, a black wool coat fitted tightly over his wide shoulders. A navy blue t-shirt underneath revealed faded tattoos that laced his neck. He pulled the seven-ball out of the pocket and tossed it on the table with a resounding thump.

He
turned and looked at Kian and me, and Kian gave a small nod, his hand twisting tighter around his cue. It was then that I noticed the dealer had a faint scar that ran down the side of his face. I didn’t know what would leave a scar on our kind – we always healed. He pulled a cue stick from the wall and rubbed the tip with blue chalk.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked, his voice
rough as he seemed to study my face as if to commit it to memory. He seemed to focus on me more than Kian, and his weird attention made me suspicious.

“If you must,” replied Kian, with a twist to his mouth.

Our new player gave him a knowing smile as he racked the balls again, turning his attention to me. “Where you two from? Originally?” he asked, fishing for details on who he was going to do business with, and I expected the inquisition. He took his shot, the hit nearly cleaving the ball in half.

 
“Barnstable.” I replied. “What about you?”

The dealer looked surprised I asked him. “Around.”

He knocked another ball in, and then tilted his head towards the back wall and the shadows. Kian and I followed, casually pretending to take a swig of beer. The dealer leaned against the wall, pool stick still in his hand.

“Here’s how it works. However many you buy, you have exclusive rights to those names for one week. You don’t use them in the seven days allowed, the names go back on the list. No refunds. And sloppy work – anything that remot
ely is questionable by the cops – and our friendly relationship will end. Permanently. Those are the terms.”

I couldn’t believe we were discussing people like drugs. We were going to buy the names of those who deserve
d to die – people who were proven to be worthless humans and had done some vile things. Rapists. Wife beaters. Drug dealers. Murderers.

Technically we were doing the human world a messed up form of public service, but buying someone’s death sentence climbed up my spine with chilling clarity. But I needed the strength held captive in a human soul to protect Eila . . . and a long time ago, I killed humans with ease.

“Agreed,” I replied. Kian added his consent as well and we got down to the money aspect. While drugs could be bought for a few hundred dollars, a human life was at least ten-grand a hit. Kian and I decided to start with one each, and the dealer slid two envelopes with the target details inside – where they lived, worked, drove, etc.

Kian had already sorted the money into a tightly rolled wad and handed the dealer our cash. No one in the bar even cared, as they most likely were all there for various forms of illegal activity.

A few of the patrons were listening to the news that played above the bar, but I had ignored it until the word
Newport
caught my attention. On the screen was a picture of the Breakers, with a female newscaster speaking. Kian saw that I had turned to watch and he did as well. We listened to the blonde reporter as she spoke to the camera,

Authorities have yet to issue a final report on the explosion last month at the historic Breakers mansion in Newport. Billionaire Christian Raines, who federal officials questioned earlier in the month, has been cleared as a suspect. Mr. Raines, whose company North Star was using the mansion for a fundraiser the night of the explosion, has offered his financial heft in repairing the building. Mr. Raines has also been credited with saving the lives of several
party-goers the night of the explosion. In other news . . .”

I turned back to the dealer, and was surprised to see that he had also been watching the report. He shook his head slightly, as if disgusted. It was a move that concerned me. None of our names had been released to the press, thanks to the FBI and
Eila’s age, but the dealer’s reaction made me uneasy.

“Something amusing?” I asked.

The dealer just shrugged. When he realized I was looking for an actual answer, he offered up his thoughts, “I just think Raines knows what went on that night. I’m sure he does.”

Kian turned to the dealer as well, now on edge like me.

“Why is that?” I asked, trying to act casual.

The dealer eyed me carefully for a moment, obviously debating whether or not to fill us in. Finally he spoke, “He had been drugged prior to the explosion, which tells me someone didn’t want him interfering with whatever was going down.”

The dealer’s revelation was like a blow to the gut and it took every ounce of control I had to not show my utter shock. Even Kian was doing all he could to keep it together. No one knew that Christian had been knocked unconscious by one of the clan members except the five of us. We knew because we saw it happen. How the hell did this guy know?

Kian, realizing I couldn’t speak, piped up, “Seriously? How’d you find that out?”

“His dealer told me – said he was shot up with arsenic.”

Christian had a dealer? And here Kian and I were trying to sneak around, locating one of our own. We could have just asked Christian, though now we had uncovered something far more disturbing than a
soul thief who dealt in . . . souls. I looked at the dealer, “Arsenic?”

The dealer gave me a weird appraisal for a moment. “Yeah – doesn’t last long, but arsenic will knock out our kind for a few minutes. It’s an old school way of taking down a soul thief, but it works.” The dealer walked to the wall rack, pushing his pool stick back into place. “Christian is an idiot though. He should have never helped that girl.”

Kian stepped over to the table and leaned casually against it, clearly aware that I was about to lose it. “I don’t follow,” he said.

The dealer turned to us, “Think about it. He has taken some strange interest in this human. If I were a Mortis who wanted to get rich quick, I would aim for the one thing that Christian Raines seems willing to pony up the dough to protect.”

“The girl,” I breathed. The dealer nodded.

Dear god. How did we not see this coming?

“Like I said – stupid move on his part. Someone will grab her up, hang onto her for ransom, and make Christian cough up that obscene wealth he has, only to kill her in the end. I’d give her a week or two at most, before someone pegs her for the walking lottery ticket that she is.”

Kian stood straighter, “No one knows who she is. The FBI never released her name.”

The dealer slowly rolled the seven-ball into a far pocket. My nerves flamed inside my body and I dug my fingers into my palms to control my panic.

“True . . . but how long can that last?” he asked casually.

 He was right. I couldn’t hide her forever. Cape Cod was so bloody small, that her name was bound to get out. A hurricane of terror started sweeping through my body. We needed to get back to Eila’s house. NOW.

The dealer watched my reaction carefully, aware that I was a bit too interested. I needed to calm down. I couldn’t think straight. She was most likely asleep and warm in her bed.

“You feeling all right?” he asked.

“Yeah – I must need a hit more than I thought,” I replied, trying to pull it together.

The dealer nodded and extended his hand to shake mine, “Remember - you’ve got seven days, just like the ball says, or you forfeit your purchase.”

Kian and I had raced back to 40
8
, consumed by a horrific fear that we had left the girls unprotected. It was foolish and shortsighted of us both, and we drove in silence, the anger at ourselves toxic. In the dead of night, we were unable to reach MJ or the girls, all of them no doubt asleep.

We hoped.

Our belief that they were safe could have cost them their lives, Mae included. But when we finally got to 408, I saw Eila’s Wrangler parked next to the house, and relief slowly surfaced. With the key she had given us, I got into the house and flew up to the second floor.

That’s when desperation set in, hard and fierce.

Eila was not in her room.

Kian had followed me inside and checked on Ana, who slept soundly in her bed. Mae, whose suite was on the top, 3rd floor, was also asleep, but Eila was missing.

I tried not to panic, and when I heard the TV, I followed the sound of Jimmy Stewart’s voice into the living room, finally laying eyes on my E who was snuggled into the couch.

I had nearly dropped to my knees in relief.

She had drifted off in front of the TV, which played softly throwing a ghostly light over her relaxed form. A few magazines were strewn around the floor and one rested open across her stomach. Her chest rose and fell gently, and her curved lips were parted as she dreamed, probably of a world that was far safer than this one and didn’t include my kind – or hers.

I slowly walked over to her and picked up one of the magazines. She had written inside the glossy pages and circled a few items. Then I saw my name, written in the margin, and I realized she had been making a list.
A Christmas list – for me.

Some of the items she had circled, she had gone back and scratched out – a nice scarf, a pair of leather gloves – even a stuffed Elmo, though the red little monster did have a heart next to it.

I swallowed back the emotion that was beginning to crush me. I had left her alone, defenseless against the world once again. My poor planning in Newport, my assumption that we would be safe, nearly cost her everything.

But despite all that I had gotten wrong and how thoroughly I had failed her before, Eila had spent the evening trying to pick a Christmas gift for me. She had fallen asleep paging through ideas that might make me happy, when all that ever brought me joy was her effortless smile.

I looked away from her sleeping form for a moment, blinking away the building tears in my eyes, willing myself to rein in the emotions that were about to suffocate me. I was nearly two centuries old and designed to be a heartless, driven soul thief, but all of that became muddled, confused and splintered, the day I came face to face with Eila in the halls of Barnstable High School.  

Because of her
, I now ran a fine line between being a bodyguard who would kill without question, and a man who adored her like a lovesick teen. But what we had wasn’t a crush – it wasn’t even a Romeo and Juliet love. What we shared moved beyond all those human terms to something else. A fire and ice that bound us together, linked us like magnets and the polar opposites that we were, inscribed on our very DNA.

For me, the world held no other person I could ever love as much as Eila, and whether my desire to be with her was encoded during Elizabeth’s death or not, I didn’t care. I would tear down the world to keep her safe and nothing would get by me, nothing would come near her that was remotely threatening ever again.

Unfortunately, I suspected Eila would do the same for me, which made me worry constantly that she harbored a self-confidence that would get her killed. No one walked away from a Mortis who wanted them dead, and an untrained Lunaterra like Eila might as well just be your average high school girl.

My kind would kill her before she even had a chance to scream.

I heard her take a deep breath and I looked back to her, grateful beyond words that she was resting on a garish red couch and not inside a coffin . . . or lifeless on a cobblestone street like her grandmother.

I got down on my knees next to her and carefully tucked her dark hair away from her porcelain skin. She blinked and then a slow, sleepy smile spread on her face, her brown eyes warming with the life that flowed through her.
A life that I was so fearful of losing again.

“Raef?” she whispered. “What are you doing here? What time is it?”

I stroked her soft cheek and leaned close to her, whispering. “It’s late, but I just wanted to see you. I hope that’s okay.”

“You are so weird,” she mumbled, but her smile grew and she snuggled against my palm. The pain of how much I loved her cut through me like a bullet on fire and I couldn’t help myself as I leaned down and kissed her softly on the lips.

She raised a delicate hand in response, running her fingers through my hair. “Good thing I like weird,” she whispered, a sweet grin on her face.

I drew a trembling breath, trying to push away the words of the dealer as I gathered her warm body to mine. “Let me get you to bed,” I said quietly as I rose to my feet, Eila safely in my arms.

She sighed, curling into my chest as her dark hair cascaded down my forearm like a sheet of cold satin against my skin. “Thanks for coming,” she yawned as her body relaxed and drifted back to sleep.

I couldn’t help but smile and I rested my chin against the top of her head. I carried her up the creaking stairs to her bedroom, laying her down in the bed I had built for Elizabeth, and she curled her body against the cold sheets.

I wanted to climb in with her and warm her skin, but instead I stood there, watching her sleep.

Guarding her like a ghost in the darkness, even while she dreamed.