Authors: Lara Nance
“Alistair,” she said,
breathless. The door stood open, and he sat at his desk with his long legs crossed, reading. He wore his habitual Saville Row type suit with a crisp white shirt. Bookcases lined the walls, filled with neatly arranged stacks of books and ancient artifacts he’d picked up while actively involved in archeological digs years ago.
“Why, Cara,
what a pleasant surprise.” He rose from his chair, removed his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. “Here, take a seat, my dear.” He adjusted one of his side chairs closer to the desk. “All right, then?”
“No, not all right. I had to come and tell you what’s happened. We need some answers, and you’re the one who can make sense of this ancient stuff.”
Alistair
’s brow wrinkled. He returned to his position behind the desk and rested one hand on an orderly stack of books beside a perfectly aligned pile of papers. The only other objects on the polished desktop were a few picture frames and an onyx obelisk paper-weight covered in hieroglyphics. “You seem a bit knackered, my dear.”
“I am. I had all that drama yesterday, and today, Tor’
s on patrol and found a body completely depleted of Light. He says the body is less than twelve hours gone. Something bad is going on.”
Alistair replaced his spectacles and patted the thin gray hair on the sides of his head
. He stared at her without answering, but his lips twitched nervously.
“And that’s not all. Wh
ile I was at Amber’s store, a man came in. He was so out of place. I can’t explain it exactly except to say it was like he was from another time, almost courtly. When I came within three feet of him, I felt intense heat radiating out.”
At this last sentence, Alistair’s eyebrows shot up and came back down in a c
rashing frown. “Blast, he’s a Dealer.”
“Oh, yeah. In a big, huge, enormously gigantic way.”
“Sarcasm isn’t necessary.
I get your point. What else did he say?”
“Not much really. He asked about a book on crystals and
, when I gave him one, said it wasn’t what he was looking for. He left abruptly, and we didn’t see a car or anything.”
“Didn’t you ask him anything
useful, such as where he came from?”
“No. We were too shocked when he turned up
out of the blue.”
“
A beastly development. I was hoping Tor’s conjecture was merely fancy.” Alistair rubbed his temples.
“To say the least, I’m worried.
What if that stranger is the one causing the deaths?”
Alistair’s eyes narrowed. “
I doubt it. He’d hardly chat you up then take off. But I really must gen up on this. Now I believe what has occurred is more than just a few unexplained deaths.”
“You do?” Her heart picked up its pace.
She didn’t want to believe this was organized serial killings, done by people who dealt the Light as she did. Such a scenario was too horrible to imagine.
“I need to go home. Most of my research
on our kind is there.” He gathered his keys and a file spilling over with loose papers.
She
stood and put a hand on his arm. “Can’t you tell me anything?”
“Not yet.
”
“T
his is all very frightening. What are we going to do?”
“
I’m not sure, and it’s best not to speculate.”
“
Please
, speculation would be better than nothing.”
“This may be worse than I imagined.” He stuffed the papers and folders into a leather briefcase.
“Alistair!” Cara tugged on his sleeve. Fear of the unknown chilled her to the core. She needed answers.
“I’ll call you later.” He rushed out the door and left her standing in his office with her mouth open.
###
Cara and Dusty returned from a run and her cell rang. She slammed the door behind her, unhooked the leash, and grabbed the phone.
“Cara?
Alistair here.”
“Yes? What’s going on?”
“I’m on my way over. Call the others to meet us.”
“Alistair
—” The phone went dead. “
Dammit
.”
Th
e phone rang again. She was ready to give him a piece of her mind, but it was a text coming in from Shana.
Marc
had another one in the ER! WTF?
She
fell back in her comfy chair and Dusty came to lick her fingers where they dangled over the arm. Another one. What was out there killing people? She texted back:
You and Marc come over now—prof on the way.
Shana replied:
Half-hour
.
She called Amber and gave her the message,
and leaned back in the chair, her head spinning with thoughts of dead, tortured bodies. Mixed up in it all were images of Emmie, Marc’s white face, and Rolf Van Harding. At least all this drama kept her from feeling sorry for herself about the breakup with Tom. She snorted at the idea such distractions could have a silver lining.
Her thoughts gravitated back to the mysterious strange
r. The smooth, menacing way he walked and those ice blue eyes consuming her.
Brrrr
. In the back of her mind, Emmie’s words repeated,
I’m giving you my gift
. The evil she’d warned Cara about might be out there killing people by draining their Light.
A
jittery fizzle grew in her stomach the longer she waited. She blew out a breath and jumped to her feet. Carrying her cell, she struggled past Dusty and out the door. The nip in the evening air became a welcome balm to her frazzled nerves. She punched in Nicki’s number again and tapped one foot as the ringing continued on and on. Still no answer. Tor and Amber pulled up and she hit the END button. Alistair was right behind them in his BMW. He stepped from his car, mouth set in a grim line.
“Alistair,
Marc had another drained person show up in the ER,” Cara said.
The professor
paused, then motioned them through the front door, his brow furrowed. “Let’s get everyone together. Any brandy about, Cara?”
“What’s going on?” Amber whispered
, following Cara into the kitchen.
“I haven’t a clue.” Cara frowned. “Shana texted me and said
Marc had another drained patient show up in the ER right before I called you.”
Amber sucked in a breath. “No.”
“Yes, and thank God, he didn’t try to save this one.”
“
That poor person, but still, I’m glad Marc’s learned his lesson. Some people are just too far gone to save.” Amber rubbed her arms. “This is getting scary.”
“Why don’t you bring the wine and glasses
?” Cara gestured to the bottle and glasses at the end of the bar. “I’ll get some brandy for Alistair, and we’ll see what he has to say.”
Alistair took his snifter and
his lips twisted in a brief smile, but he didn’t meet her gaze. The doorbell rang, slicing through the heavy, tension-filled silence. Dusty barked while Cara hurried to let in Shana and Marc. Behind their backs, Cara gave Amber a ‘thumbs up,’ seeing the two were holding hands. Maybe they were getting back together, after all.
“Hey, guys, a
ny more wine left? I can use it.” Marc pushed his sandy blond hair out of his eyes. His face was pale and there were lines around his eyes with shadows under them. The incident with the girl had taken a lot out of him. He flopped into the comfy chair across from Tor and Amber on the sofa. Shana leaned against the arm of his chair.
“Help yourself.” Cara pointed to the glasses Amber had placed on the coffee table.
“So,” Alistair said from the wing chair. “I suppose you’re all wondering why I asked you here.”
Shana snorted at the campy phrase
, and Cara put a hand over her eyes.
Alistair’s brows went up
. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be funny, quite the opposite, in fact.” He pushed his glasses higher on his nose and stared at the group from beneath bushy gray eyebrows.
“
Okay, dude, what do you know? We’re dying to hear.” Tor rose and took the bottle to pour more wine in everyone’s glasses.
“The description of the deaths you have
discovered sparked a memory last night, and, today, when Cara talked about the man at Amber’s store, I remembered something I uncovered many years ago.” He paused and cleared his throat before taking a swallow of brandy. “At the time, there was no evidence to make me think it might be true, but now…I reviewed the information this afternoon, and my hunch was right. I believe it explains recent events.” He extracted a wad of papers from his jacket pocket and smoothed out the folds, the paper crackling beneath his bony fingers.
“You mean there are records of this type of activity in the past?” Cara pressed a hand to her chest, horrified this wasn’t just some new aberration.
“
That’s exactly what I mean. I passed over this initially because these beings were known as ‘energy vampires’ or various other barmy terms. It was thought they were undead, and required the energy of others in the way traditional vampires require the blood of the living.”
Cara bit her lip as a flash of
Nicki talking about vampires popped in her head. Something that sucked the life out of you.
“At first
, I didn’t think there was any connection to what we are. But, given all the recent activity, I revisited those accounts. Most of these stories come from South America. Tales of beings who fed off the energy or life force of others and killed them. There are even accounts of ritualistic tortures—a sort of sacrifice to a being of great power. It seems the, uh, pain of the victims enhanced the energy-taking experience.”
“What?”
Marc scooted to the edge of his seat. His face blanched to flat white and his eyes popped wide. “That’s—that’s appalling.”
Shana put a hand on his
arm. She whispered in his ear and rubbed his shoulder. He nodded and sat back.
“Go on, Alistair,” Shana said, keeping
her hand on Marc.
“
There were also stories of battles, although this is not clear. It seems there were conflicts between people like us who use the flow of energy to heal and those who use it to kill. There were clans, what they called,
ayllus
. Each
ayllu
owed allegiance to either the healers or the takers.”
“But why is this happening all
of the sudden?” Cara fidgeted with the stem of her wine glass. “If these…
beings
existed hundreds of years ago, haven’t they existed all along? Why have they just surfaced now?”
Alistair
adjusted his tie. “I’m not certain.”
“I bet I
know,” Tor said. “Think about it, guys. These types of deaths have to cause some attention and questions—people dying without obvious reasons. A few might go unnoticed. There are deaths of all kinds in large cities every day, so every unexplained death can’t be investigated to resolution. When a pattern develops, though, departments allocate more resources to investigate. More intense scrutiny might lead to discovery.”
“You’re right,”
Marc said. “The same’s true about deaths in the ER.”
“My bet is these
dudes go from city to city. They kill up to the point the deaths start causing more than normal attention then move on.” Tor placed his index finger against his bottom lip. “If they stick to large metro areas they stand even less chance of being discovered. If we did some research, we might find deaths of this nature in other large cities.”
“
Is it all about the kicks?” Shana took her hand from Marc’s shoulder and sat forward on the arm of his chair, grasping her knees. “The thrill of sucking the life out of someone who’s in pain? That’s it?”
“I’m not sure.” Alistair rubbed his chin. “I have
further facts to investigate, but it seems there is a more involved picture. A large scale battle of good against evil. Evil is constantly trying to grow and overcome good; good is always attempting to wipe out evil.”
“
Really? The Bad Dealers versus the Good Dealers in a fight to control the world?” Shana’s voice rose. “
Please
.”
“Shana!” Cara
snapped. They didn’t need Shana’s sarcasm right now.
“Well, come on, this is just crazy.” Shana stood
, hands on hips. “Some evil guys from ancient South America come here to suck Light out of people?”
Marc
flopped back in the chair and put a hand over his eyes. “Shan—”
“
Why do you find it so hard to believe?” Alistair fingered the stem of his brandy glass, staring at her over the rim of his glasses, unmoved by Shana’s outburst. “You have a power few people have and you accept it. Why is it such a stretch to believe bad people might turn such power to evil?”
Shana
whirled, directing an appealing gaze at each person, braids flipping about. “I’m not some superhero. I’m just a normal person with a gift for healing. That’s how I see it. Don’t you?”