Authors: Nina Bangs
There was only one door at the top of the stairs. Al pulled it open. He motioned her into the room. Inside, all she saw was one towering space—several stories high and spacious enough for a marching band to practice in. No windows.
Al led her back outside. “Fin makes sure every condo he buys has one floor he can remodel. We use it as a cooling-down area. Anyone whose soul gets out of hand is kept in here until things return to normal.”
The rest was obvious to Jenna. No dinosaur—it was hard to even say the word—would be able to escape from this room to tear up Tokyo. She’d watched all those corny monster movies; she’d just never thought she’d be playing a part in one.
Monster. She slid a glance at Al. Big, hard, and so sensual he made her teeth hurt. Did she think of him as a monster? Jenna hoped she was more rational than that. But her job had taught her that sometimes seemingly rational people could act in weird ways.
“Okay, I’m going into the room. Close the door behind me and keep it closed. No need to lock it. I can’t get through it when my soul’s running the ship.”
She could only nod. What was she doing? What in the name of God was she doing?
For the first time, Al reached out to her. He rested his hand on top of hers. She closed off all thoughts, only allowing herself to absorb the heat and texture of his skin.
“Everything will be cool.” Turning, he strode into the room and didn’t stop until he reached the middle. Then he turned to face her.
Drawing in a deep breath for courage, she shoved the door shut. Then she stared through the small window at the man still standing in the middle of the huge room.
Deep inside where small hopes still lived, she prayed it wouldn’t happen, that this whole thing had been one gigantic hoax. A stupid hope for someone who chased the impossible on a daily basis, who made her living by giving people something wild and weird to read with their morning coffee.
When the change happened, it was so fast she would have missed it if she’d blinked. One minute Al was standing there and the next an Allosaurus filled the room.
For a few too many heartbeats, Jenna didn’t breathe at all. And when she finally did resume breathing, it was with hard gasps of panic she tried to hold down and control.
Big.
He was so damn big. From head to tail he had to be almost forty feet long. With a massive head, S-shaped neck, and short arms that ended in long claws, he was a primitive killing machine. Then he opened his mouth and roared. She stared in unblinking terror at his lethal serrated teeth. Every primal instinct in her body screamed, “Run, run, run!”
She fought down the need to flee and looked, really looked, at him. There was something strange, something not quite right. Then she spotted it. Within the body of the animal was a faint human form. She couldn’t make out features, but she knew it must be Al.
“Do you believe now, Jenna?”
Fin’s voice behind her drew a startled squeak. She didn’t take her gaze from Al though. “Don’t ever creep up behind me like that again.”
“I don’t creep.”
It wasn’t worth arguing the point with him. “Yes, I believe. That’s Al inside the dinosaur, isn’t it?”
She sensed rather than saw his nod. “His soul isn’t strong enough to completely overwhelm his human form.”
“He has to have a human essence. A dinosaur couldn’t act human, even with a human body.” Jenna turned over all the impossibilities of Al’s existence.
“When Zero and his immortals returned to Earth sixty-five million years ago, I took the souls of the Eleven from their bodies and placed them in safe places, places of great power. Al was beneath Machu Picchu in Peru. They remained there until a few months ago when I called them forth again. I gave them all the knowledge they’d need to function in this time.”
“That doesn’t really answer my question. No matter how much knowledge you gave them, it wouldn’t do a bit of good if they had the brain of a dinosaur.”
“Maybe I gave them a new brain too.” His words were a soft murmur, and she didn’t imagine the humor in them.
She didn’t believe the brain claim. It was just too great a leap of belief for her human mind to grasp. “You know, you sort of give me the creeps.” Okay, so he was her host. “In a good way, of course.”
His quiet laughter was really scary. “Your intuition serves you well, Jenna Maloy.” Something about the cadence of his speech seemed wrong, not the same as his usual way of talking.
Now she did turn to look at him. Chills danced along her nerve endings. “What are you, a god? Or maybe you’re not one of the good guys at all. Do they think you’re one of them?”
His expression never changed, but Jenna got the feeling that danger stood only inches away.
“Not a god. If I were, I’d get rid of the immortals and be done with them. Good? Bad? Who knows? It’s all in your perspective.” Fin shook his head and walked away.
Bemused, Jenna turned back to the window in time to see the Allosaurus body literally dissolve in a cloud, and then Al was standing there. He started walking toward the door.
At that moment, Jenna snapped. Al was literally the last straw, or in this case, the last dinosaur. Events and voices from the past two nights were a kaleidoscope of mind-blowing, panic-inducing sights and sounds in her head. She pressed her palms against her temples to keep her brain from exploding.
He was coming. She stared as the door opened, saw him standing there, watching her, waiting for her response. Then he reached for her hand.
No, she wouldn’t let him touch her. To let him touch her was to admit that everything was true, that he harbored the soul of a millions-year-old predator, that immortals were planning to destroy mankind as a preholiday treat, that vampires and other assorted things that went chomp in the night really existed.
Jenna backed away from him, shoving her hands out in front of her to stop him from touching her. Shaking her head, she wordlessly turned and hurried away from him. This was the second time to night she’d fled. It was becoming a habit. Instinctively, she took refuge in her room. She locked the door. Not that it would stop anyone in this condo from getting in.
Time crawled. Kelly called Jenna from her cell phone, and Jenna calmly lied and said she was fine. She spent some time Googling all she could find about the Allosaurus. Her journalistic mind turned up one discrepancy in Fin’s story. He said he’d taken the souls from his dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Sure, that was the right time for the extinction event, but the Allosaurus had disappeared from Earth 145 million years ago. There was a bit of a time lapse between those two dates. Out of habit, she wrote it down in her notebook for future investigation.
She spent some more time trying to match up the names of the Eleven with their dinosaur counterparts. After all, time used on research was time
not
used thinking about the unthinkable.
Then she sat by her window gazing out at the real world until Kelly rapped on her door. She’d barely gotten the door open before Kelly rushed in and yanked her into a bone-crushing hug.
“I’m so sorry this all happened to you at once, sis. I should’ve stayed here, but I had to go out to night with Ty.” Something in her sister’s eyes said whatever had happened to night had been bad.
When Jenna was able to disentangle herself from Kelly, she wandered over to plunk herself on the sitting area couch. Someone had started the fire in the fireplace before she got to the room. It should’ve made her feel all cozy, but she couldn’t look into the flames without seeing the Allosaurus staring out at her, its eyes dark and predatory. She tried to see Al in those eyes, but he wasn’t there.
Kelly sat beside her but wisely remained quiet.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” Sighing, Jenna finally looked at her sister.
“How, sis? How could I say that I’d fallen in love with a guy who had the soul of a T. rex? And that he’d risen from some sort of stasis so he could save mankind from a group of murderous immortals who intended to kill all humans on December twenty-first of 2012?”
Jenna nodded. Kelly was right. She wouldn’t have believed her.
“I wanted to tell you and the rest of the family, but I didn’t know how.” She looked away, her trembling hands the only clue to her emotional state.
“Al said you were the key in Houston. What did he mean?” Jenna had an idea what it meant, but she wanted to hear the full explanation from her sister’s lips.
Kelly looked at Jenna. “I don’t know how much Fin told you, but I assume it was enough for you to get the general idea of what’s at stake.”
“Yeah, between Fin and Al I know pretty much everything.” Jenna wasn’t sure she believed her own statement. Even though she worked for a tabloid, she was a good journalist, and her intuition was telling her there were still secrets to be uncovered. For example, she could’ve sworn that Al didn’t know anything about Fin’s power to wipe her memory before she’d told him. Why would Fin not tell his men
that
little fact?
“Back when the men were dinosaurs, Fin had these visions.”
Jenna nodded. “He told me.”
Kelly looked surprised, but then she went on. “In each vision, he saw a possible way to defeat the immortals.”
“Where did the visions come from?”
“I don’t know.” Kelly looked impatient. “Now let me finish.”
Jenna subsided.
“One of his visions showed me playing my flute, and he knew that was the way Nine could be defeated. He wasn’t sure what tune I was playing, but he knew it was music from inside me, not an ordinary tune. He finally realized it was my brain music.”
“Brain music?” Okay, this was officially at the upper end of weird.
“I had a scan made of my brain waves, and Fin had someone make it into music. Only that music would send Nine back into the cosmos.” She smiled. “In the end, it didn’t play out exactly the way Fin saw in his vision. Anyway, I was the key to Nine’s defeat. I guess there’s a different key for each of the immortals. Fin’s heavy into the power and symbolism of numbers, so each key’s success is bound up with a certain number pattern.”
In a night filled with breathtaking events, this newest revelation left Jenna speechless.
Kelly filled the silence. “The only thing that worries Fin is that his visions didn’t show the outcomes. Plus things didn’t work out with my flute exactly like his vision predicted. Fin’s a control freak—he doesn’t like the unpredictable.”
“I feel for him.” When in doubt, resort to sarcasm.
Her sister sighed. “What’re you going to do?”
Jenna countered with a suggestion. “Come back to Houston with me, Kelly. Stay with me until Ty gets this immortal problem straightened out.” Her plea would probably fall on deaf ears, but she had to ask anyway.
“I love him, sis. No way would I run and hide when I might be able to help him.” She bit her lip in concentration. “But I think you should go home. There’s nothing you can do here. And I’d feel guilty knowing you were in danger.” She offered Jenna a shaky smile. “I have Ty to protect me. It doesn’t get safer than that.”
Jenna nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
Kelly rose, gave her another hug, and walked to the door. She turned. “Tell Mom and Dad I’m happy, because strange as it may seem, I am.” Then she left, closing the door quietly behind her.
Jenna turned off the lights, got undressed, and climbed into bed.
“Sixty-five million years ago, I had a series of visions. You were in one of them. You’re very important to the Eleven, Jenna.”
She spent the few hours left of the night staring into the darkness and thinking about Fin’s words.
Just before dawn broke, someone banged on her door. She crawled out of bed to answer it. When she opened the door, Al stood glaring at her. He’d pulled on a T-shirt, and his jeans rode low on his hips. She sighed. This wouldn’t be a happy visit.
His hair was a tangled glory falling over his shoulders, and those hazel eyes had a wild look to them. “I’ve done some heavy thinking, and I’ve come to a conclusion.”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me what it is.” No, she wouldn’t invite him in.
He leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his spectacular chest. “You need to go home.”
“No.”
“You won’t be safe here.”
“No.”
“We can take care of your sister.”
“I’m sure you can. But the answer is still no.”
He was all frustrated male. “Why the hell would you want to stay?”
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Let me count the reasons. First, my sister. Second, my sister. And last, umm, my sister.”
And maybe you.
Now where had that come from? He was a great-looking guy with a predator’s soul. Incredible in an alpha kind of way, but not the man she was looking for. There wouldn’t be any steady job or home back in Texas for him. Life with Al would be unpredictable, dangerous, and…exhilarating. No, scratch the last. She didn’t want that kind of excitement.
“There’s nothing I can say to change your mind?”
“Nope.”
With a muttered curse, he pushed himself away from the doorjamb and walked off.
She smiled as she crawled back into bed. A magnificent ass. But he wasn’t much of a persuader. He could be, though. Once he learned how to use all his assets.
Well, that had been a half-assed job of persuasion. He should’ve tried harder. He had a tough job concentrating, though, when he was so hot for her that he probably melted Fin’s damn security cameras at the end of the hall with the heat generated by 65 million years of sexual abstinence.
Al needed to cool down. Climbing the stairs to the roof, he stared out over the sleeping city. Fin had raised all of the Eleven back on November eleventh of 2011. Eleven, eleven, eleven. Their leader’s obsession with the number eleven never ended. He’d brought them straight to Houston where they’d gotten rid of Nine. They’d spent December cleaning up the mess that Nine had left behind him before moving on to Philly.
He shivered in the January dawn. Not the temperature he was used to. Houston had been a lot warmer. But the cold sure cleared his mind.
Al’s thoughts returned to Jenna. Okay, cooling-down period was over. Houston might have had warmer weather, but it didn’t have Jenna. And she heated things up just fine.
Leave it to him to decide he wanted sex with a female who not only feared him but also didn’t like him much. Now he’d be babysitting her until she
did
decide to leave. Then he brightened. His first night on the babysitting brigade had sort of sucked. Maybe Fin would stick someone else with the job.
Fin
. Thinking about Jenna had taken his mind off the bone he had to pick with their freaking fearless leader. Now was as good a time as any to confront Fin with what Jenna had let slip. As he headed for the stairs, he reviewed the implications of Fin’s power.
All the way to Fin’s office he reminded himself to control his temper. Fin wouldn’t let him hunt again until he showed he could hold it together.
But as he stood outside the door, his rage was close to liftoff. He raised his fist to knock, not for a minute doubting Fin would be there. Al didn’t think the guy ever slept. He knocked. Not a pounding, just a plain knock. Al was proud of that.
“It’s open.”
Al didn’t need more of an invite. He turned the knob and stepped into Fin’s office. Fin was seated behind his big-ass desk, but he’d swung his chair to face the windows. He didn’t invite Al to sit down.
“Every time I see you, you’re staring out those windows.” Not what Al had thought he’d say first.
Fin didn’t turn to look at him. “The sky never changes. Yes, I guess stars come and go over millions of years, but who’d notice? When I look up there, I can pretend everything’s the same as it once was.”
That observation silenced Al for a moment. It had never entered his mind that Fin might have feelings about his past. Fin wasn’t a nostalgic kind of guy. Come to think of it, he didn’t have a clue what Fin’s past was. Al had been an Allosaurus with a dinosaur’s needs, and he hadn’t wondered about much of anything beyond his next meal, his next mating, and his pack. Fin had been nothing more than a voice in his head that he’d obeyed.
“What were you back then?” Why hadn’t Al ever asked that question before? Probably because he’d assumed Fin was a dinosaur like the rest of them.
Fin finally swung to face him. “I was a voice.”
Al grunted his disgust. A typical Fin answer. But he wouldn’t let Fin get away with it this time. “What was your physical form?”
“My form doesn’t have a name in this time because my fossilized remains were never found. There were only a few of us, so chances are they’ll never be found. But I was big, bad, and liked to kill.” He shrugged. “Not much different from you.”
Hah. Al would bet that whatever Fin was, he wasn’t like anyone else. But enough small talk. Time to get down to business. “Jenna said you could wipe her memory. You never told us you had that power.”
“She didn’t waste any time telling you that.” Fin sounded mildly surprised.
“Stuff the surprise. You can jump into any of our minds. Are you telling me you didn’t know she’d told me?”
Fin pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. That very normal sign of weariness shocked Al. Twice now in the last two days Fin had looked tired. If Fin felt normal emotions like everyone else, he’d never before shown them to his men.
“Here’s the deal, Al. Zero is headed for Philadelphia. I can’t stop him from coming. The best I can do is annoy him with a few psychic jabs to the brain. That takes more energy than you can imagine. Then I have to keep track of everything that’s happening out on the streets, especially when some of you get too enthusiastic about your job.”
Al glanced away. Fin would never forget the demon thing.
“So I don’t use my spare minute or two checking into everyone’s thoughts.” His smile was no smile at all. “I even sleep once in a while.”
Al refused to admit he’d thought of Fin as this all-seeing omnipotent godlike figure. No, he’d always believed their leader was just like the rest of them only…more so. He scowled. Lying to himself left a bad taste in his mouth.
Al got himself back on track. “If you can wipe minds, why didn’t you wipe Jenna’s? That way you wouldn’t have to worry about her writing about us for her tabloid or telling me things you don’t want me to know.”
“First, I don’t think she’ll write her story. Yes, the temptation will be there, but it would put her sister in even more danger than she’s in now. Jenna’s a smart lady. She’ll figure out that her sister and the future of mankind are a little more important than a byline. Once we take care of all the immortals, I don’t care what she writes.” He shrugged. “And maybe I don’t care if you know.”
That all sounded great. Too bad Al didn’t believe it. Fin always had layers and layers of motivations. He’d just given Al a peek at the top layer. Not good enough.
“Now what’s your real reason?”
Fin actually laughed. It sounded pretty normal to Al. But he’d never make the mistake of believing that laugh.
“You’re a suspicious son of a bitch. That’s a mixed bag. You’re always looking for a reason to nail me. So that makes you a pain in the ass. On the other hand, suspicion is one of the most important survival skills. You’ll live when others around you die because you don’t believe anyone.”
Al frowned. It sounded like Fin had just complimented him. A moment to be savored. Okay, moment over. “I’m waiting.” He did some virtual finger crossing. Fin didn’t have to tell him anything, and they both knew it.
Fin shuffled a few papers around on his desk. Al decided Fin was trying to decide what lie to use.
“I didn’t wipe her memory because she’s the key to Eight’s trip home.”
Fin’s admission was a fist to Al’s jaw that rocked him back onto his heels. He didn’t ask if Fin was kidding because Fin never joked about the immortals. Al’s instant reaction was disbelief followed closely by fear and then anger. And wasn’t that a freaking shock. All those emotions centered on a woman he hardly knew. Warning bells almost deafened him.
“Getting rid of Nine came close to killing Kelly.” Al clenched his fists at his sides, digging his nails into his palms to keep from lashing out at Fin.
Fin’s expression was calm, detached. “We all do what we have to.”
“Kelly won’t let her sister walk into danger.”
Neither will I.
“What’s meant to happen will happen. Kelly can’t stop it.” His gaze clawed a ragged hole in Al’s gut. “You can’t, either.”
Cold bastard.
Only a brief twist of Fin’s lips acknowledged that he’d heard Al’s thought. “I know you tried to get her to go home. If you’d succeeded, I just would’ve had to go after her myself. She can’t leave until we take care of Eight.” Fin abandoned his papers to stare at Al. “You have no other job from now until Eight is gone except to keep Jenna safe. When she’s not in this condo, you’ll be with her.”
“What about Kelly and Ty? Kelly will tear your head off if you try to keep her away from her sister,”—Al paused to enjoy the mental picture—“and Ty can take care of them both.” Jenna wouldn’t need him. Why did that scenario bother him? And why did he hope Fin rejected it?
“I’ve found an apartment for Ty and Kelly in the same building with Q. Partners need to stay together for mutual protection. Besides, North Philly will keep both of them busy.”
Way to go, O Great Dispenser of Bullshit. Remind me that I don’t have a partner.
Fin’s stare was one part amusement and two parts frustration. Good, he was still tuned into Al’s thoughts.
“Kelly will want Jenna to stay with her, but I’m giving that a thumbs-down. She’ll be pissed, but it can’t be helped. This condo is a lot safer than any apartment. And by the way, why don’t you stop blaming me for everything you think has gone wrong with your life? If you weren’t here with us, you’d be dead.”
Al’s impulsive side wanted to throw the I’d-rather-bedead line at Fin, but the honest side of him admitted he
didn’t
want to be dead at all. In fact, since Jenna had arrived, his interest in living had improved a whole lot. He wasn’t sure if that was because she drove him crazy in a good way or because he wanted her body. Maybe both. So Al decided to ignore Fin’s challenge.
“What if Kelly refuses to accept your order?” Ty’s wife was a force to be reckoned with.
Fin’s gaze grew intent, the silver going molten and the hint of purple darkening. Without moving a muscle in his face, Fin suddenly became frightening enough to give even Al pause.
“I lead the Eleven. I protect the Eleven. And I make the final decisions.”
Al nodded. Okay, he had two more questions and then he was outta here. “You can erase memories. Why didn’t you ever tell us?” How many times had Al seen bits and pieces of things half remembered only to have them fade away? He asked the second question before he could lose his nerve. “Did you ever take away any of
our
memories?”
And in the silence stretching between them was the understanding that Fin could take away Al’s memory of even asking the question. Al waited to see what Fin would decide.
Finally, Fin answered. “Yes.”
Yes? Just
yes
? “What memories?”
“Ones that are better left forgotten. Right now we have one goal—to save humanity’s butt.”
Al was too mad to stop his question from popping out. “Why? I don’t think you give a crap about saving humanity. I think all you care about is bringing down the immortals. You’re all about revenge.” He waited for the fist of Fin’s anger to drive his ass into the floor. Nothing happened. Figured. Fin didn’t react to insults.
“Wrong. I care a lot about humanity’s butt, because no matter what our
souls
are, everything else about us is human. From here on, it’ll always be human.” He held up his hand to stop Al’s denial. “And here’s a secret. In the end, your soul is what you want it to be.”
That didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. He’d always want his soul to be Allosaurus. He couldn’t imagine anything else. “Forget the humans. Who gave you the right to take my memories?”
“I don’t need permission from anyone to do what I think is right. The memories I hold might well tear us apart. I won’t sacrifice that for you or anyone.” There was no give in Fin’s gaze.
As much as Al might rage against Fin’s arbitrary decision, he knew he couldn’t force him to explain. “Will you ever let us remember?” Al felt like a guitar string being tightened and tightened and tightened. At any moment, he might snap and catch someone in his whiplash.
“After it’s all over, if that’s what you want.”
Why the hell wouldn’t he want his memories? Good or bad, they were his. “Does anyone else know this?”
“Ty and Kelly.”
“And they never told anyone?” He worked to control his surge of anger. Ty was one of the Eleven. He should’ve shared what he knew.
“Ty didn’t share because he knew how the rest of you would react. We’re not fighting an ordinary enemy. A moment’s distraction could be your last. Sure, you won’t be dying from natural causes anytime soon. And yes, you’re pretty much invulnerable when your soul’s in control. But if someone takes your head while you’re in human form, you’re dead. Or at least your body is.”
Al noted the distinction Fin made, but he didn’t bother commenting on it. Turning, he headed for the door. “I need some space.” He didn’t offer a good-bye as he left the office, but he didn’t slam the door behind him either.
He made note of two things: Fin had let him keep the memory of their conversation, and he hadn’t made Al promise not to tell the others what he’d learned. Right now, Al wasn’t sure what he intended to do beyond falling into bed.
A short while later, as Al hovered between waking and sleeping, he thought about what it would take to keep Jenna safe from the immortals. He also wondered who would keep her safe from him.
His soul had never denied itself anything in his former life. It was into instant gratification. Sex had been a violent mating. Tenderness and caring were foreign concepts. How would he keep his soul from being the third party in any bed he and Jenna shared? He’d work on that problem. Sleep ended his planning session.
Jenna opened her eyes to late afternoon sun. A glance at her clock verified that fact. She never slept this late. But as the events of last night leaped gleefully into her memory, she decided she deserved that extra time.
Crawling out of bed, she staggered into the shower. A short time later, dressed and awake, she went in search of caffeine.
No one had told her when meals were served, so she figured she’d just slip into the kitchen and grab something from the fridge. Unfortunately, a tiger was guarding it. What Greer lacked in body size he made up for in ferociousness.
“Make some coffee? Fix a sandwich?
Yourself?
” Greer’s glare said to get her hand off his fridge or lose it. “Go.” He pointed in the direction of the dining room. “Sit.”
Beg, roll over, jeez. Jenna huffed and puffed herself to the dining room table and sat down.
A short time later Greer emerged with a huge plate of sandwiches complete with pickle slices, chips, and potato salad. He held a pot of coffee in his other hand. “I’ll be back.” He disappeared again.
While she considered drinking the coffee directly from the pot, Al walked in.
Forget the coffee, she’d just gotten a sensual jolt of wake-me-up. With all the excitement of the past few nights, she hadn’t had much time to sit quietly and study him. She did that now.