There had to be a different kind of hell, ready to receive souls that were self-centred to the point everything became about them and what they wanted. There had to be. After the events of the past hour, where she was suffering from labored breath and sweat clogging her skin pores, seeping from the cracks in her body, Evan hadn't yet trusted her with a weapon. It also had been flimsy eighteen hours since she was presumably missing. Clavin wouldn't start looking for another twenty. She doubted she'd be here by then. Or alive. She was trailing behind him but couldn't shake the feeling that if she swayed an inch out of line, he'd handcuff them together.Jodie had seen crazy alright. Evan was paranoid and crazy. What made him that way? Past the hedgerows and a column of teak benches stocked to one side of the footpath, she wasn't ready for what lay beyond the clearing. Teak was expensive and so was the marble with Persian slogans embedded in it."Junkyard," she grumbled, "you had us walk
The cathedral below the kasbah was a castle built of earth. One of the hundreds that stayed hidden under newness of Nova Scotia with blinding lights and car spewn roads. Morocco had left some of its parts, like old lovers leave fond scars. Silas looked up, marvelling at its architecture. High gothic arc, semi circles of tiles on the roof, sound of water weeping through the stone.Intense pillars stood on all four sides like watchful eyes with broken chandeliers-made for candle sticks, not bulbs- hung like wormy bats. Disgruntled, frowning. If inanimate objects could frown. He dropped his bag and plopped down in the middle, felling the cool breeze making its way from openings in the cavern. Same old. Same old. These walls had been home to warrior clans and their retinue back in the days. He knew because he had come from long line of the clan royalties. They had kept secrets- wolves, cats, sorcerers-although countable sorcerers existed now, he had been an apprentice of one. Secrets of
To see them together they looked like the photocopier, an accountant and a desk clerk of a branch office on their way to sales convention. They didn't stick out like a sore thumb. A dark small man, a middle-aged white man, and a the one wearing sensible Birken-stocks despite the city pavement heat, the sort of millennial who tries to be cool. And all of them wore a bored, harassed expression that city dwellers are born with. No one would think they didn't belong here. One of them carried a satchel, fixing his time every now and then. They all looked like normal pedestrians, except three pairs of eyes were set on an old man. Maybe sixty, medium height, bulky. A doctor would've called him on the heavier side- after the BMI calculation but really his muscles had aged gracefully holding onto some fat. Light gray pants, wide at the top, narrow at the bottom, off white shirt with open collar, no jacket. The three men following him, not to his knowledge, weren't surprised he didn't wear a j
The hatch stayed open and even from the doorway he could smell two things-cleanliness and blood. Blood had spilled then been vigorously cleaned. The small handprint on the back of the door suggested the door had been used for support by whoever entered before shutting themselves inside. Long slender fingers, iron and wild flowers, both the image and scent imprinted on his mind. It'd take a long long time before he could forget about it. Mikhail reigned in his temper. And the snarling urge to call Noah and ask him how had he known Beatrice would be here- in one of the abandoned shipping yard. The small cabin lay down few stairs on the boat. And the boat was big enough to accomodate three people. His wolf had pre calculated the risk from the bridge across. The boat had been parked, no one had visited in past eight hours. The wait to get to Beatrice had nearly killed him but he couldn't risk her life for his impatience. He was buying time. He didn't know what he'd do once he found her.
Back in the cabin, where he had been almost a week ago with Vanessa, Noah had washed off her scent- scrubbing the place down himself and changed the interior to look like his office. Rhys had covered the roof with plenty of foliage to deter the use of hover-facalities, in case someone had an aerial eye on them, and to make sure no one can sneak upon them. Beside the briefcase containing the archives of every law passed, every meeting held stood a sleek computer screen pinging to be recieved. Rhys sat out of the line of sight when Noah accepted the call, but the man appearing on screen was so familiar, Rhys had no trouble recognising him. He broke out in cold sweat, a rebel to Noah's composed form. The man was Van Arik Leichtenberg, the notoriously famed second-in-commad of of Orgur Kosotva. Orgut Kostova was the most influential member of communion, his brand on all eastern European territories remained a token of his power. He was very passive too. Because Van Arik saw to it. Leicht
"I had Ashleigh create a lab-controlled DNA copy we found in those dead bodies. Remember when that creature attacked us? It looked gnarly, grotesque and not itself. The deformation had already begun. They were never going to be able to create a stable prototype because the ones injected with mutated blood were unable to survive. Desmond gave away his plan the moment he let that creature attack us, whatever it was." Noah shuddered in phantom disgust."Children adapt to new changes better than adults. Our priority is to keep them safe. And hold onto what our enemy wants the most. So I simply passed on the blood samples made in the lab to the members high up the chain. Greggory delivered it. That's why I could never tell you or Evan. You had Vanessa's best interest at heart. Evan is very…… fond of her. Secrets weigh a lot, Rhys. How can you carry them when I barely can? For what it's worth, I am sorry." Rhys swallowed another shot of rum. Noah had kept them in dark. All of them. He sud
"Most likely. He knows too much. Once his work is done, this person he considers to be his partner will end him. He is also a liability because he had promised his employer rogue children to. He can't deliver them since we moved them to Alaska." Inimical colourless tone in him suggested he was done talking about Desmond. But he was still sitting, and hadn't walked out. Rhys thought, 'Maybe he needs to say these things out loud as much as I want to hear them.' "So Desmond's work is done. You think he won't go against us to get to the children?" Their evacuation plan had been perfect, Rhys recalled with pride. They had moved children in tunnels, the majority of them. They had sent smaller groups of those children with fully trained mercenaries to protect them. Visac had distributed their scents all over America, different states, different clans, successfully throwing Desmond and his minions off the trail. And Alaska had clans the mainlanders didn't know about. Noah knew because his m
She should've visited this place in the morning. Lower Manhattan was vividly occupied by pedestrians even at this time of night. Five students-they looked students sat at the turning of the curb discussing Ophelia, their bandanas and tie-dye t shirts looked approachable but as she drew near, she realized she didn't have to. Across the street in typical New York style, made of red-pink bricks with hedgerow growing on either sides, filling up the lane, the Rattlestick theatre was a far cry from furnished. Vanessa darted around, a quick scan later she tried the door with her foot. The students might not see her now but they would if the damn thing creaked. They were theatre students doing a gothic version of Ophelia, how they were going to pull it off-she had no idea. Her thoughts scrambled like chicken at the barn. She had hid for the entire in set of public washrooms. Making sure she sat on the closed toilet lid, knees to chest and not on the floor. Because anyone would recognise her sn