The Nightwind's Woman (2 page)

“One reason,” he mused. “How about one
hundred and fifty thousand tax-free dollars a year as salary from now until you
are in your late sixties? That would be roughly four point eight million tax-free
buckaroos if my math is correct.”

Kenzi’s lips parted. “Excuse me?”

As she had done with the serial murderers,
he held up his fingers, index finger first. “A rent-free luxury apartment
complete with its own lap pool, sauna and workout room.”

Her eyes widened.

His middle, ring and little fingers came up
in quick succession as he spoke. “All meals prepared by a professional
chef—again, free of charge to members of the team. A month-long, all-expenses-paid
vacation once a year to wherever you wish to travel. Medical, dental all free
of charge to our employees. “He unfolded his thumb from where it had rested
against his palm. “And last—but certainly not least—an opportunity to meet,
study and interact with creatures you have, until now, only dreamed existed.” He
laced his fingers together again. “Are those enough reasons or do you need
more?”

“I’m a physician!” she said. “Hell, I didn’t
even graduate in the middle of my class much less at the top! Why me?”

“You were chosen because you have extensive
knowledge of creatures that shouldn’t exist but actually do,” he replied.
Before she could protest, he spread his hands to forestall her objections. “McKenzi,
you are who we want. We did an exhaustive, in-depth search for just the right
person for this job and you were who we chose. You had to pass muster with five
top-ranking members of the Consortium before you were ever brought here.”

“But—”

“Do you want the job or not?” he snapped.

“You haven’t told me anything about it!”
she protested. “How the hell would I know whether I want it or not?”

“Those things I mentioned weren’t incentive
enough?” he countered. “You don’t find the pay alone enticing?”

“Actually, no,” she said, shaking her head.
“Those are really good perks but they sure aren’t enough to make me chuck my
life and move to…” Her eyebrows shot up. “To where? Where
is
the
Beermann Institute?”

“Tearmann,” he corrected, “and until we
have a firm commitment from you, your signature on the dotted line, I can’t
take you there. As for where it is, you can’t know. You will
never
know.
That’s part of the deal. What you don’t know, you can’t reveal. The world has
no need to know vampires and werewolves are real and living among them.”

“All right, I’ll buy that much but what am
I supposed to do if I do sign on?” she asked, feeling her heart pounding in her
chest.

“Take care of the human population and the
operatives who reside at Tearmann. Handle routine exams and diagnosis for the
creatures who live there,” he answered. “See to their medical and psychological
needs.”

“Operatives? You mean the otherworldly
types?” she gasped.

“Many of them were born right here on Earth
so that’s misleading, but yes you will see to them as well.”

“Without knowing anything about their
physiology?” she demanded. “That would be irresponsible.”

“There is extensive data on each species,”
he told her. “You won’t be going in blind. There will be a learning curve, certainly,
but just think of the astounding physiologies you will be studying.”

“You keep saying operatives. What exactly
does that mean?”

“The entities who are assigned to us are
there for a purpose—to patrol, control and discipline their own kind as well as
run interference on other paranormal and supernatural entities that have made
Earth their home. Sometimes it’s necessary for them to work together to bring a
wrongdoer to justice and sometimes they are required to eliminate a problem if
it cannot be solved any other way.”

“You mean kill,” she said.

“We prefer the word eliminate.”

“I don’t believe in capital punishment,”
she stated firmly.

“Let me tell you about a mission that
required four of our people to bring it to termination,” he said. “At each of
the facilities, we have an Alpha agent, a Prime. At Baybridge, our operative is
a Prime Reaper. At the Exchange, he is a Hell-Hound Prime Reaper. The
difference being one is lupine and the other canine—a werewolf and a werehound respectively.
At Tearmann, there are actually two Alphas. One is a Panthera Reaper, a
werepanther, and the other is a Nightwind, a very powerful incubus demon. Historically,
these four entities do not play nicely together. They are natural enemies but
they were required to join forces to eradicate a nest of particularly nasty
creatures called
drochtáirs
that had been found in Antarctica. Had those
fiends not been dispatched many lives would have been lost and the infestation
of the
drochtáirs
would have spread very quickly to each of the research
facilities on Antarctica.”

“You’re talking about the disappearances
from Halley Station?” she inquired. At his nod, her brows drew together. “I
read that was attributed to the researchers having fallen through the ice
shelf, the bodies unrecoverable.”

“
Drochtáirs
are blood fiends, Dr.
Delaney, and when they bite, they drain their victims and those they do not
devour, they infect with venom that turns the person into one of their kind.
There are no such things as zombies—that is a creation of Hollywood based on a
very old voodoo ritual.
Drochtáirs
are very real and very dangerous. Their
victims become nothing more than reanimated corpses with a desire to feed on
others. They are the true zombies of Hollywood fiction. The bodies of those
infected in Antarctica could not be sent back to England. It was necessary for
our operatives to incinerate them. The explanation of the researchers falling
through the ice shelf is easier on their families than being told they were
drained of blood then brought back to unlife and therefore had to be burned to
a crisp.”

Kenzi stared at him for a few moments then
shook her head. “This is so far beyond my ability to absorb,” she said. “I’m
having a hard time visualizing what you are saying.”

“There really are fiends like
wendigos,
rougarous,
ahuizotl
,
or
drochtáirs
out there running amok, feeding from the flesh of the living,” he
told her. “And those beasts are infecting others and unless we eliminate them
they will continue to do so until we have an epidemic similar to that in
28
Weeks Later
or the
Resident Evil
fiction series. Would you like to
see that happen?”

“Those are movies,” she mumbled. “Pure fiction.”

“Are they?” he countered. “Most fiction has
some basis in fact.”

She bit her lip, studying his
expressionless face for a long time, searching his eyes for the truth of what
he’d said. At last, she drew in a deep breath.

“You said you were a Shadowlord. What is
that?”

“There are four kinds of Shadowlord,” he
replied. “Each is a mage with vast psychic abilities. The lowest level is
Shadowlord then Deathlord and finally Ridge Lord. A Ridge Lord has immense
powers and he is capable of fighting the most virulent forms of evil. Now we
have the Gravelord and—as far as we know—there is only one of him. His psychic
abilities are off the chart.”

“Psychic abilities such as…?”

“I am telethetic and telepathic. Do you know
the difference?” When she shook her head, he explained that telethetic meant he
could transmit thoughts and words over great distances. “I am retrocognitive, pyrokinetic,
psychokinetic, clairvoyant and transvective.”

“I know retrocognitive means able to see
into the past, pyrokinetic is obvious, and psychokinetic must mean you can move
objects with your mind, manipulate matter, space, time and energy. Everyone
knows what clairvoyant means but I’m not familiar with transvective.”

“I can levitate,” he said simply.

She blinked. “Beg pardon?”

“I can levitate,” he repeated then grinned.
“Wanna see me do it?”

“You betcha,” she said with a snort.

He pushed to his feet, lowered his hands to
his sides, his chin to his chest and took a deep breath. She saw his eyes were
closed when he raised his head but he slowly opened them as his feet lifted
from the floor.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Kenzi whispered,
just barely refraining from crossing herself as the man before her rose almost
all the way to the ceiling then floated from one side of the room to the
other—a good foot between him and the carpet. As he slowly settled to his feet
again, she whistled.

“The Gravelord’s psi powers are stronger
than mine and my brother’s, plus he can bilocate.” At her perplexed look, he
explained it meant the Gravelord could be in two places at once.

Kenzi stared at him in awe, never doubting
it for a moment. “Well, alrighty then,” she said on a long breath.

“Psi powers are nothing compared to the
abilities of the creatures we deal with,” he said.

“Such as?”

“Imagine creatures that can shift from
human form to avian, to lupine, to dragon,” he said so softly she had to strain
to hear. “Imagine beings from worlds, from galaxies far beyond our own. Imagine
spending time with them, learning of their cultures, of how they died and came
back to life.”

“Died?” she echoed, eyebrows shooting up.

He sat on the edge of his chair, his eyes
steady on hers.

“Reapers, vampires, revenants, Nightwinds,”
he said. “All died then returned, brought back by the Triune Goddess or the
fallen angel Lilith to serve mankind, to atone for sins they committed in past
lives. The Reapers come in three forms—one of which we only recently learned
existed. They can shift to lupine, canine and feline shapes as well as bird
when they need to take to the skies. They can walk among us in the full light
of day but like their vampire and revenant cousins, need blood or Sustenance to
thrive. They also require a daily injection of a drug called tenerse to keep
from transitioning out of cycle—which is typically once a quarter.

“Vampires have a limited span of time they
can be in the sunlight before being harmed by the sun’s ultraviolet rays.
Revenants cannot be in sunlight at all. Both can shift into dragon form.”

“Not bats,” she said with a ghost of a
smile.

He chuckled. “I suppose they could if they
wanted to but they prefer dragon form.”

“And the Night people ones?”

“Nightwinds,” he stated, “are incubi demons,
very strong, very powerful and highly unpredictable. They serve the females of
a blood-sworn family of witches. Occasionally one will appear who is not
attached to a witch but he’s always looking for a connection to a human female.
Those we keep an eagle eye on for demons are not a trustworthy bunch and their
motives are generally suspect.”

“Yet one helped you with the fiends in
Antarctica,” she said.

“He did but Randon Kayle is a different
kettle of fish. As the Supervisor at Tearmann, I have worked with him for
several years now but he is as much an enigma today as he was the first time I
met him. I fear no mortal man or otherworldly creature but where Randon is
concerned, I am careful to watch my back. I don’t trust him any further than I
can see him.”

“Sounds like a real winner,” she said.

“He can be…difficult,” her host agreed.

“Any others I should know about?” she
asked.

“Oh, we have a plethora of entities at
Tearmann, Dr. Delaney.”

Kenzi left her chair to pace, something she
often did when trying to make a tough decision. Her eyes were on the sooty
brown carpet, her hands in the pockets of her slacks. She made several
traverses of the room before stopping at the door, twisting her head around to
look at him.

“You said vacations are paid and I could go
anywhere in the world I like once a year.”

“For a month, yes,” he replied. “All
expenses paid plus a vacation stipend to use as you see fit.”

“What’s to keep me from divulging where I
work and what I do when I’m on vacation?” she queried.

“Who would believe you if you did? You won’t
be able to tell anyone the location of Tearmann anyway so you would run the
risk of being locked up for being a raging nutcase. But let’s just say you did
find someone to listen and take you seriously. How could you be sure they
wouldn’t lock you away and try digging the information out of your brain? That
might prove to be a very painful experience.”

Kenzi shuddered. “Yeah, I imagine it would
be.”

“So, as you can see, it is to the benefit
of our employees of the human persuasion to keep silent on the subject. One
slip and you’re back here and you won’t be allowed to leave until it’s time for
you to retire.”

“Employees of the human persuasion?” she
repeated.

“Such measures aren’t needed for those who
aren’t entirely human,” he reminded her. “Our lives depend on our ability not
to divulge who and what we are.”

She thought about that for a moment then
cleared her throat.

“Okay, what if I ask to go to Tearmann
before I make up my mind?” she asked. “I want to take a look at the facility.” When
he hesitated, she turned to face him. “You’re gonna wipe my mind anyway if I
turn you down so what do you have to lose?”

“True,” he said, nodding slowly.

“I don’t buy pigs in a poke, Supervisor,”
she said, using his title for the first time. “I want to know what I’m getting
into.”

“That’s understandable,” he agreed then
called out to the receptionist again.

Pearl Gillespie opened the door. “Yes sir?”

“Is the chopper standing by?”

The receptionist cast Kenzi a knowing look.
“It is.”

He stood. “Tell them we’re on our way, to
go ahead and start the engine.”

“Yes sir.” She came into the room, walked
over to him, reached into her pocket and pulled out a vac-syringe.