Underworld Queen (16 page)

“You didn’t commit a crime. You refused on principle. That’s not criminal.”

“I caused the death of everyone I held dear. My death was just a little step further, that’s all. I already was dead inside.”

“So what has this to do with the here and now?”

“They’ve come back to claim their kingdom. They’ve been looking for me for three hundred years. They want me to give it to them, and they’ve threatened to do you harm if I don’t.”

“I don’t understand. What kingdom do they want?”

“They want your job, Audray. They want to control the Underworld.”

“Then why shouldn’t I let them take it?”

“Because they’ll never let us go, my love. They’ll use the Underworld to find us no matter where we try to hide. If they found me after three hundred years, they’d find us eventually, and they’ll make me watch while they destroy you.”

He read that she would willingly give up the Directorship. Though it came out of her love for him, he had to correct her thinking.

“We’ll only exist as long as you are the powerful Director and can call on allies. If you relinquish that, they’ll use the Underworld as a steppingstone to dominate the entire human world as well. They want it all this time, and they’ll destroy anyone who tries to stop them. This time, there’s nowhere else to hide.”

A
ll afternoon Audray
thought they had been watched. She felt it as she and Jonas sat at the pier. She felt it as they toured the Egyptian exhibit at the DeYoung Museum. Jonas had been fascinated with the weapons display, even reading about a primitive mechanism to release multiple spears invented by one of the Pharaohs, a young scientific genius.

Audray saw a strange man dressed in black reflected off the glass case covering a sarcophagus. When she turned around, he had disappeared. This alerted Jonas.

“You’ve seen someone.” Jonas’ jaw muscles tensed.

“Yes, I feel like we’re being followed.”

“We are. I saw his face.”

He grabbed her elbow and led her out of the exhibit hall so fast, she almost mistook his swiftness for anger. They hopped into a cab. Jonas gave the Middle Eastern driver instructions down to the Mission district, far away from their hotel and the tourist area. The dark blue cab lurched and sliced through traffic like a chariot.

When they arrived, Jonas searched the street through the rear view window before he exited the cab and then extricated her. They quickly ran into a narrow red building with blaring mariachi music piped from two huge speakers by the front door. Inside, it was dark and smelled of fried tortillas.

“Why don’t you let me just disappear, Jonas. I can take you with me. I have that power.”

“I’m not sure I want them to know that just now.” Jonas pulled her to a corner table, hunkering down next to her, surveying the street through the painted window.

“Who do you think it is?”

“Someone from here. Not the Underworld.”

“How do you know that?” she asked.

A heavyset teenage girl in a brightly embroidered white smock dress appeared with two waters, interrupting Jonas’ comment.

“We have especials here.” She handed them a plastic menu covered with smudges, tapping on the handwritten note clipped to the top. “You want something to drink first?”

Jonas ordered them each a Dos Equis.

“Honestly, Jonas, don’t you know by now I don’t drink beer?”

He looked at her and she melted. This man could make her eat or drink anything. Her knees quivered as the spot between her legs swelled. He smiled. She knew he felt it too.

Jonas leaned into her and after brushing her lips with his he said, “Humor me, just a little, my Queen.”

It was everything she could do not to jump on him right there in the restaurant in front of their little audience. Delicious thoughts were running through her head. It had only been a few hours since their last encounter. She missed the sex already.

Every day she got more of a glimpse of the man she thought she knew, and every day she was surprised with some new revelation.
Maybe this is what happens when you live over three hundred years.
Like he had said, life was complicated.

Their beers arrived. Audray pushed hers to sit touching his with a little clink. He ordered one
grande
tostada and two forks. His large paw dove into the chips and the red salsa the waitress brought with the beer. Audray watched the eating machine in front of her and wanted to lick the salt and corn meal remnants out of the corner of his mouth.

He smiled, in an open invitation, so she did. “Um, you taste so good. You always taste so good.” She let her tongue work over the salty goodness of her lower lip.

“Do that again and you’ll have me unable to walk in a few seconds.”

“I could relieve the pressure, if you like.” Her hands went to the zipper in his dark pants. She pushed up the long rod she felt underneath the smooth bulging leather. As the heel of her hand pressed against him, he grew even larger.

The welcome sandpaper of his cheek brushed against hers as he whispered, “I can’t wait, my love, but I brought you here to talk. We’ll do this later.”

Disappointed, she sighed and removed her hand. “Right. So you were saying about the man not being from the Underworld?”

“He had blue eyes, did you see them?”

“No. Saw his reflection, but not a look at his face. So he can’t be a dark angel, then.”

“Right again.”

“So what do you think?”

“My newly-found relatives,” he paused as he rolled his eyes at the ridiculous predicament he was in, “must have human accomplices. I’m not sure why they would have a human following us, but apparently they do.”

“What if they’re following me?”

“Not sure I understand.”

Their tostada was delivered and Jonas took no time to dig in. Audray took a sip of her water. He put a forkful of beans and lettuce in front of her mouth and gestured for her to open.

“I have need for all your strength later,” he whispered, covering her with plenty of his erotic breath. They both laughed. The beans tasted remarkably good, though Audray’s stomach was acting up. “Another?” he asked.

“No, thanks. I am not hungry. I’m having the first stomachache of my immortal life, can you imagine it?”

He smiled. “Ugh. I’d forgotten how I used to feel as a young lad after a night of drinking and chasing the lasses.”

“Maybe the whipped cream was bad.” She was serious.

“Oh, no. The whipped cream was good. Very, very good.”

She basked in the glow of his gaze, blushing at the memories of their morning together. She could still feel the slick texture of his red cock as she licked the whipped cream from him, leaving him glistening and ready for her.

But then an awkward pause returned. She scanned the room and the street outside to check for the dark man, but saw nothing. She remembered what she’d found in Bakersfield. “I still can’t get the vision of my mom out of my head. And my sister, Claire.”

“Yes, I felt some of that.” He kissed her lightly. “I worried, but didn’t feel your fear or I would have come. Your thoughts were a bit masked to me, though. Like there was a short or some kind of static connection and I couldn’t feel everything like I normally can.”

“Has that happened before?”

“Not to me. Used to happen to my dad. He used to blame it on evil spirits. Of course, he wasn’t a dark angel and knew nothing of the Underworld.”

“See, that’s what I mean. Something strange is going on. I can feel it.”

“I do too. And remember, we have to be careful. I do feel it’s more safe for you up top with everything going on in the Underworld. There at least we know who our enemies are.”

“Agreed.” She stared at her food and could not bring herself to eat. Her nerves were frazzled. She was turning her head and scanning everyone and everything around her. Perhaps she was worrying too much.

“Come on, sweetheart, have a little more.”

Audray shook her head.

“What if it was arson? What if someone deliberately killed her?”

“What do you think?”

“She was in pretty bad shape. She even passed out on the bed with a cigarette when I was there…”

“There, you see? Don’t go worrying yourself over things that aren’t real.”

“After what we’ve both lived through, how could we doubt anything being real? Would you have believed anyone if they said you could live forever, or would be able to go back and forth between the human world and the Underworld?”

“Or find true love?” He whispered through his teeth.

“That too.” Audray brushed the backs of her fingers against his cheek, glad he had mentioned it. “Do you suppose there are forces of evil here in the human world, not connected to the Underworld? And what if they’re after me, not you?”

“I don’t know, love. Possible, I guess.”

“I look at what happened to my mother. She clearly had interventions, perhaps Guardian angel interventions. But she also had other influences, evil influences that don’t have a dark angel’s thumbprint on them. Our little family of dark angels is all about the claiming, getting the job done efficiently, culling the human population for its weak links. It would have been no problem for a dark angel to send her off the deep end and make her end her miserable life. But it’s almost like something or someone wanted to prolong her pain, at least until I got to see her again. And then she was done away with.” Audray searched his face. “Do you think this is crazy?”

Jonas shook his head. “Crazy? No, I don’t think so. But I must admit I haven’t seen or felt anything like that.” He took her fingers in his large hand and kissed her palm.

“Haven’t you ever felt the presence of evil, real evil? Not in the Underworld, in the human world?” Audray asked.

“Evil on earth? I suppose so.” He chomped down on another chip laden with salsa, dripping a large dollop onto the Formica tabletop. “So, you’re talking humans, not immortals, who walk the line between good and evil, try to straddle the fence and work their magic for their own purposes?”

“What kind of creatures would do that?” Audray asked.

“Well, witches for one. But they don’t exist.”

Witches?
Had she
seen witches? Had she felt them around her? She thought not. But it would explain one of the things that bothered her about the timing of her mother’s death, the situation with Burt and the discovery of Claire’s grave. It was like someone was one step ahead of everything she tried to do in the human world. Though her experience was limited, it didn’t feel like something from the Underworld. This was something new. Someone had inserted themselves in her life. It felt like a festering wound. Her stomach lurched and she almost vomited.

They were waiting for another cab to take them back to the St. Francis. Audray was watching Jonas finish a private phone conversation with one of his men when her sat phone rang. It was from below.

“Audray here.”

“Geez, Director,” her Chief of Staff whined. “I was about to get the minions out to look for you.” Luke was beside himself, although Audray knew he could handle anything, even an attack from aliens or space monsters. He would make a much better Director than she, but like the friend who sponsored him, Joshua, he never had a desire to run for office. And that’s why he made such a good Chief.

“I told you I was spending a few personal days up top with Jonas.”

“Yeah, well we’ve been calling his phone too. I’m not going to tell you what he told us this morning, or what everyone’s thinking down here.”

“Thinking?” She smiled at the thought.

“Not funny. The boys on staff have been having a field day making up what you guys are doin’ 24/7. May I remind you that there’s a world to run? Decisions have to be made. We haven’t finished the housecleaning. People need to be fired, Director. It’s a mess.”

“I know. Look, I’m coming back in a couple of days. In the meantime, what’s so urgent you couldn’t wait?”

“Okay, well there’s a challenge to your Directorship. You know we are supposed to have free and honest elections next month to confirm your appointed position?”

“Right.” Audray saw Jonas’ arms going out in all directions, having some sort of heated conversation on his cell she desperately wanted to listen in on.

“There’s this guy, Rupert Blade, who is saying you fried his little brother, Peter, and took over. He wants a full investigation.” Audray smiled at the image of Peter being torn apart by the wrath of Father, who had descended from heaven just to take care of the former Director and his dark winged angels
. Hard to think of Peter as anyone’s little brother.
But there wasn’t much left of him.

“So, let them investigate. I have nothing to hide.” It amused her, the thought of them trying to subpoena Father.
How would they properly serve the most powerful being in the universe?

“Well, with Rupert here and you up there, he’s done a good job getting a few people riled up. I’m sorry to say, the winged ones that witnessed Peter’s death and had their wings stripped off, those miserable burnt dudes, well they’re changing their story.”

“No doubt someone promised them wings.”