Once Lost Lords (Royal Scales, Book 1) (2 page)

Julianne half turned and I saw her face in the mirror that stretched
along the back of the bar.

“Busted.” A patron near me muttered around his glass. He
drank his liquid while I downed both of mine. The burn sent a gasp
through me.

I reached for the locket of hair. Who it belonged to was obvious.
Hell. I should have contacted the owner a long time ago. After all,
we broke up rather abruptly. Mostly because she bit me. The
remembrance made me back up a step in my readiness meter.

“Do I have to?” This situation reduced me to whining.
Julianne came back with a final shot glass.

“Last one.” She said. I knew where our conversation was
going. “Seven, seven drinks to get you to talk to her! If I
didn’t know any better I would swear you were a little boy.”

Little was a term that rarely applied to me. My body housed more than
my fair share of muscle. The best part of being this big was the room
people gave me at the bar. Seats on either side stayed empty even
when the place was busy.

“Heh, if you’re looking for a man I’ll offer my
services.” My earlier eavesdropper opened his mouth again. He
had a hat on still and a belly that gave up trying decades ago.

“Honey, if I was after a man I would have had him.” Tiny
Julianne could have her pick of any drunk in the city, and some part
time drunks like myself.

“Sweet little thing like you, bet you could at that,” He
responded.

“Flattery will get you nothing but a refill.” Julianne
humored him with a smile and slid another drink over before wandering
off.

“That’ll do fine,” He responded, hardly noticing
the bartender’s absence.

Me and the lock of hair stared at each other for a moment. I had fled
from the owner, then once half the Western Sector was between us it
seemed safer to stay gone. But home was always here, always pulling
me back. I grabbed the hair and looked outside at the setting sun.

“Can I wait until morning?”

“Only if you want her to be mad.” Her being the person
this hair belonged to. “She knows you’re back and is
expecting some sort of explanation.”

“I don’t want to talk to her.”

“You two were good together.” Julianne’s head
rocked back and forth as she spoke.

“Maybe for you,” I responded. “Why this way? Why
not a phone?” Or a letter, letters required no actual contact.
Or a telegraph. Or smoke signals. Anything that wasn’t so
personal.

“I don’t know. Either way, do it now or the deal’s
off. Easiest money you ever made, for basically a phone call.”

“It’s more than a phone call.” My protesting
sounded defeated.

What she wanted me to do was natural yet more personal than anyone
knew. Julianne and I had an agreement. She gave me things to find and
bring back, people, objects, and whatever. I found them and got paid.
People I generally returned, items didn’t always find their way
back to their owner. In fact, some of my ‘unsuccessful’
fetches could be found in the apartment I rented from Julianne.

My ability to track usually worked best with something tied to the
main object. For people, hair or nail clippings became fantastic
links. Clothing was more difficult but depended on the style, size,
and mostly how attached the person was. The hair and the ribbon were
put together with my needs in mind. Recently.

Touching the link and changing my point of view was enough. Viewing
the object as mine, completely, with the intensity a two-year-old
ripping their favorite toy out of a parent’s hands. Even if my
belief was temporary. Those two elements would form a connection.
From there I would hunt down the object. Tracking was easy when
someone gave me the item, easier still when I claimed it myself.
Ownership by conquest.

If I completed things fast enough she, the person this hair had come
from, might be none the wiser to my actions. Sunset was soon and I
would need to move quickly. The hair itself wasn’t the danger.
Holding it and remembering more than a few nights together, holding
her, the moments where I truly believe we had a real chance.
Together. Us. Those thoughts were dangerous. It was very, very easy
to think of her in that way, a way that wasn’t healthy for my
well being. Thinking of her as…

Mine

I closed my eyes for a moment and let the connection come. It had
been awhile since I tracked anything. Each moment a brief capture of
feelings. Connections forming between myself and everything nearby.
Feeling each item’s weight, density, pressures, all the sounds
passing through them. Anything that might disturb an object. All of
it serving to outline the world as I passed through.

Eyesight fails. Touch expands. Back itches. Then twitches.
Great limbs reach out. Feel air pass by. Swirls and eddies. The world
leans against itself. Each weight an object. Each sensation a
movement. A voice.

I always felt an itch on my back while tracking. As if I was
spreading out something other than a set of arms, other than legs.
The sensation felt so commonplace that I put out of my thoughts
almost instantly. Mentally I grabbed the cord of energy connecting
the hair to its owner. I imagined it as a crimson and purple chain.
It slowly pulsed in time with a heartbeat miles away. Soon my mind
was spiraling across miles at incredible speeds. A world went by
shoving snapshots of sensation into my head.

A world lay below. Around. Passes quickly. Walls denser than
air. Concrete indifferent to the weight pressing down. Feet press
against floors. Air stirs in response to moving bodies. Each motion a
ripple.

My senses slipped away from the bar towards the north across the city
in a dreamlike rush of movement. Each movement brought a new rush of
sensations. Feelings that brushed against me like I stood in the
middle of a whirlwind of feedback.

Sounds assault objects. Vibrations outline the world.
Conversations dull quick. Babies cries pierce heavier. Honks shake
metal and flesh. Pulses jump in reaction. Living creatures warm the
air with each puff. Bloody cord pulls still further.

These senses could extend up to roughly sixty miles but the distance
was more than a day's walk. Travel speed slowed down as my mind
approached one dark mansion in a rich neighborhood. This was
certainly posh compared to what I remembered of her. Lights were
slowly flickering on in conjunction with a sunset in the background.

Mine. Closer. Down. Through sheets of grainy wood.

Traveling through objects is the most disorienting portion of a
normal trip. It feels like moving through panes of flowing water
while senses flickered off and on. The denser the object, the more
intense the shock. But until the link was released it would be
difficult to stop drawing closer.

As my senses passed through layers of the building to the core I
could feel myself growing both resigned and apprehensive. The final
layer was a dense floorboard. Passing through this material was akin
to a painful belly flop from the high dive. Hinges could be felt on
one side, all the locks on the bottom. She lay in a dugout area
barely big enough to house a high-quality mattress and ten feet of
clearance. This was a small room designed to be hidden and protected.

No light. No warmth. No whisper of air. Difficult to feel the
differences. Wood to one side. Fabric surrounds slumbering flesh.
Resisting urge to feel more.

Her black skin melded in with the darkness of the hiding space. I had
practice at finding her. Here just before nightfall, from this sort
of remote viewing, she felt almost peaceful. Too bad the sun was
setting.

I watched her in my intangible form. Not hard with this many drinks
in me. Her hair was carefully maintained, tonight it was straightened
out. Clothes were tantalizing and failed to cover slender shoulders
and legs. Not an unhealthy anorexia, she had toned muscles across a
tall frame. She dressed in fabric that felt purple, even at night she
wore her favorite color. Purple also carefully wrapped around her
wrist in a bow, something that covered an old scar which would never
heal.

Air shakes. Vibrates me like rock tumbler. Energy surges
through, magnetized, from somewhere else, towards female’s
body. Her eyes flutter. Open. Unaligned. Unfocused. No light.

The tint of her eyes wasn’t tangible. Her irises should be a
deep ruby color, surrounded in a pool of pure white. If I didn’t
know who she was, or what she was, I might have guessed her eyes were
a dark brown like the rest of her skin. Her gaze stayed unfocused for
only a moment, then locked onto the area where I floated.

Words brush by. Shudder against walls confines. Sink in.
Meaning lost at first. Then vibrations of sound are understood.

“Welcome home, Cat-nip.” The curve of her lips as they
moved. Her words triggered flashbacks of kissing her lips and
nuzzling the space between ear and neck. The memories were intense
enough to smell a teasing scent of peppermint.

It was impossible to tell if she was angry or excited, her
expressions for both were often the same. A hungry smile framed
exaggerated incisors. Those very teeth had nearly killed me years ago
yet somehow I was conned into looking her up again like nothing had
happened.

Distress laced throughout my body while a panicked heartbeat grew in
intensity. My incorporeal mouth wouldn’t move. Here I was,
watching over her like a love struck dope. What a joke. No part of me
wanted to get sucked back into whatever we had been. To risk that
result again. She knew I was back and that was enough for Julianne.
Every thought of belonging shattered and I mentally snapped across
the distance back to my body.

Senses shatter. Last glimpse of her face. Trail a finger down
her jawline. Feel her smile. Last touch of lips. I am drawn in even
as link falls. Eyesight returns.

The aftereffects of a return trip were terrible. I could feel myself
winding back onto my frame. Those extra limbs settled down along my
back. Folding up and under each other. Tactile senses were on
overload giving feedback from everything around me.

Creature down the bar feels cool wetness on calloused hands.
Pool balls slam into each other. Collisions crack spikes through air.
Heels tap concrete near front door. Voices chatter, too many voices.
Building walls alive with sound. Music thumps under everything.
Pulses realign to heavy noise.

“Janne!” I was angry and using a nickname that would get
me punched. The others in the bar were either too polite to notice,
or knew better than to make eye contact.

“What, Jay?” Which was an older name of mine.

“The other one. Now. I’ll do it.”

“Running already?” She asked. There was a mocking smile
on her face. Julianne had won whatever battle we were having.

“Hell yes.” My head hurt.

The phone behind the bar started ringing, the number that only those
close to Julianne knew. She eyed it for a moment and then pulled out
the other velvet pouch and tossed it at me. I felt for a moment at
what was inside, not a lock of hair certainly. Round, cylindrical,
hard. A lipstick container?

“You’ll be coming back, right?”

I nodded. It had been bad enough leaving the first time, leaving
again would be worse. Even after four years I never felt like I
belonged out there. Only here was close enough to call home, to call
mine.

“Usual percentage of whatever you manage to bring back.”

“How
much?” I asked.

“Over ten.” Thousand, not a huge debt, but enough to make
someone’s night bad. Hell. I really wanted to ensure someone
else was having a worse night.

“Done.”

My percentage wouldn’t cover rent for the extra month she
promised. Julianne had been trying to sweeten the pot in order to
make me contact my almost, but not officially, ex-girlfriend. Because
four years of no interaction hadn’t been clear enough.
Vampires, even partial ones, didn’t track time the same as
normal people.

Waiting around the bar or quibbling over the price of rent was no
longer an option. Distance, quick distance, was required at this
stage. Kahina, my ex, could cover ground a lot faster than I if she
felt inclined. Living with that kind of money meant she could have
someone drive her down here first thing.

My surroundings were still overdosing tactical senses with feedback.
Bits of movement here. People rearranging in seats, sliding coins
into a machine. Beyond that, I felt Julianne’s words. “Yeah,
he just left.” Controlling my drunken swerve was difficult as I
sped for the door.

Kahina would take thirty minutes if she was serious. That provided me
twenty to get clear. An unheeded voice nagged at me. Part of my mind
thought that avoidance wasn’t an answer, that perhaps we should
sit down, say hello, and catch up. Such a wonderful idea would never
occur to sober me. Maybe with a regular girl I could have done it,
but she was far from regular. Regular girls were human.

The first stop was home. There was no use hiding where I lived from
her, and it was worth the trip. I wanted a little protection against
my ex’s anger if things went south. Getting home required
travel through a coded security gate. Numbers were easy for me. My
door was the third one down. I opened the front and received a rush
of cool air. The place was a tiny two-floor apartment. Up top was a
kitchen and living room that made sparse sound like an overstatement.
There was a couch, workout bench, and a privacy screen that ran along
ceiling hooks. There used to be a grill on the back porch, but it had
been stolen during my travels. Eventually, I would track it down.

Near the sliding door that went to the back porch was another
cubbyhole that could be mistaken for a closet. It led downstairs. I
opened this door only enough to slip into the stairwell. Opening it
too far would knock over a rock set on the top stair. My simple and
hopefully clever trap would let me know if my inner sanctum had been
invaded during an absence. I flicked the light switch on without
hesitating and looked at the wall.