The Seventh Immortal (Hearts of Amaranth #1) (6 page)

Suddenly, they were interrupted by flashing
lights. A police car had parked at the edge of the alley and had
spotted them.

“
I'm sorry,” Silvi said, stroking Kait's cheek. “We'll have
to continue this later.”

With a quick motion, Silvi knocked the
kickstand out from underneath the motorcycle. Before Kait could
even recover and brace herself, Silvi accelerated out of the alley
onto Grand Avenue.

Kait held tight to Silvi as she made a sharp
turn towards Downtown St. Louis. She could still feel the tempting
vibrations of the bike against her, but they were overwhelmed by
the fear of the police cars chasing them. Her heart pounded, but
not in the way she wanted.

The streetlights flew past them at blinding
speeds. Kait closed her eyes as Silvi weaved between cars to lose
the cop cars. She thought she was going to be sick. Going from such
pleasure to such terror was very unsettling.

After a few minutes, the sirens grew soft.
They were losing their pursuers. Kait opened her eyes. They were
downtown. She didn't even want to think about how fast they had to
drive to get there.

Silvi pulled the motorcycle over near a
large skyscraper. Kait would later learn that it was One
Metropolitan Square, the tallest building in St. Louis and the home
to the Fractal Capital Management corporation.

“
We're here,” Silvi said.

Kait perked up her ears. The cops were gone,
and she felt like they still had unfinished business. Pushing
herself against Silvi's back, she tried to turn the girl around to
face her. She wanted to kiss her again. She wanted to taste her
again.

“
Oh, you are going to be fun,” Silvi said, slipping her hand
between their lips. “But Christa would kill me if I took any more
of your time.”

“
Just a few minutes...”

“
Don't be so spoiled,” Silvi teased her. “I can do more for
you later... But now, just be happy I got you somewhere the mayor
can't reach you.”

Kait laughed. “I thought you were listening
to my conversation. Apparently you weren't listening well enough.
The police are a problem, but the mayor's not. I killed him.”

“
I wouldn't be so sure.”

“
Why?”

Silvi dismounted the bike. Kait hated that
she was so far away. “Because it's impossible to kill him.”

“
What?” Kait asked. She knew what was coming, and it already
felt like a punch to the stomach. All of her sensual desires
disappeared in an instant.

“
Mayor Levin is
one of us.
”

Chapter Five

Christa Xander was a dreadfully imposing
woman, with dark brown hair that hung around her pale face in long,
perfectly-straight chunks. Her black eyes seemed like long tunnels
into another, frightful world. She dressed in a sharp burgundy
pantsuit that clung to her sinewy, muscular body. Her age was
impossible to discern, both because of the heavy makeup caking her
face and the singular fact that united her with Kait on this dreary
night: Christa Xander was immortal.

She wasn't the only one. Daniel Levin was
also an immortal, as was Silvi Park. Pastor Eve Weisz was among
their number, and there were two more than Kait had yet to meet.
Grant L'Enfant was the chief of police for the city. Thomas Kemp
was the leader of the Obshina organized crime family, who ruled
over north St. Louis like a separate fiefdom.

Kait didn't feel special any more, though that
disappointment was vastly
outweighed
by relief. She wasn't alone in her strange
condition. She was also no longer guilty of murder. That was a nice
bonus.

Christa Xander was the CEO of Fractal
Capital Management, a private equity firm that incorporated in St.
Louis around the same time as the rest of the immortals arrived in
the city—ten years ago.

“
It has been over a hundred and fifty years since another
one of us has turned up,” Christa said, staring at Kait with cold
eyes. “You can see why you have caused such a stir. I'm sure we all
have many questions for you.”

Kait fidgeted nervously with her hands. Even
though it was better than being outside, running from the police,
she didn't feel comfortable in Christa's office. She wished that it
was Silvi giving her this talk. The young woman was much
more...approachable than the intimidating CEO of Fractal Capital.
“I don't know how much help I can be,” she replied. “But I'd much
rather answer a few questions than be drugged in a hospital
room.”

Christa smiled. Her teeth seemed sharp.
“Rest assured, Miss Selias,” she said. “That is not how we operate
on this side of the divide. We hold freedom and choice in very high
regard.”

“
Good to hear.”

“
So, Miss Selias, tell me... What are we? How did this
happen to us?”

Kait reeled from the question. Her mind
raced as she tried to understand Christa's question. It felt
backwards. Christa shouldn't have been asking Kait what she was. It
should have been the other way around.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Kait
realized the horrible truth: Christa didn't even know what they
were. Silvi had promised—or at least suggested—that the Fractal CEO
could explain everything. In truth, she was just as clueless as
Kait.

“
I'm... I'm sorry,” Kait said. “But I don't
even know who I am, let alone what I am.” Christa recoiled, as if
stung, and slumped down in her chair. “To be honest, I
thought
you
would be able to tell
me
what I am.”

Christa considered this. She folded her
hands in front of her and leaned forward. “We are the last relics
from the age of fate,” she replied.

Kait raised an eyebrow. Christa's response
was poetic, but it didn't really tell her anything. “Is that all
you have?”

“
Read the books of old and they will talk of God as if he
were a tangible force—something that could be felt and heard.”
Christa stood up. She began to pace around her desk. “Think, Kait,
do you feel God in this room? Did you feel him out on the street
today? NO! You did not, and that is because he is gone. He has
passed from this world, but he has given a select few of us a gift.
It is the gift of his memory, and his voice. I remember what it was
like to know that God was there—to know that he was
real.”

Kait was unsettled by Christa's sudden
fanatical turn. If she wasn't immortal, she might have been
frightened of the powerful woman. As it was, her strange condition
gave her surprising courage. “There's a problem with your theory,”
Kait said. “If we were given immortality to remember God, why have
I forgotten everything?”

Christa smiled a sick, twisted smile. “And
there is the problem. When I heard about you, Kait Selias, I
thought you might be the one we've been waiting for. The one of us
who has been hidden since the beginning who could explain what
happened two hundred years ago, and what we are meant to do with
it.”

“
Sorry I'm a disappointment,” Kait replied.

“
You're worse than that. Not only do you lack answers, but
you have no message. You cast doubt on the one thing that the six
of us were absolutely certain of: that we we are the last
messengers of God. We are his final Gospels to the world, destined
to spread his word until the end of time. But what word can you
teach, Kait?”

Kait's heart began to race. She finally
understood what the message in her passport meant. These six
immortals—Christa, Silvi, Eve, Grant, Thomas, and Levin—were the
Gospels she was supposed to seek out. They believed that they were
the messengers of God. That was why they installed themselves in
positions of power—CEO, pastor, police chief, mayor—where they
could spread their personal ideologies.

While this was all enlightening, it was also
frightening. Christa wasn't much different from Mayor Levin. She
just had a different ideology. Just like Levin, she saw herself as
one of the last of God's messengers left on Earth.

“
So I don't know anything. What do you want with me now?”
Kait asked. “You wanted to talk, but once you found out I didn't
have any answers, you just started yelling at me. Where do we go
from here?”

Christa stopped pacing. She took a deep
breath and tried to calm herself. “I am sorry,” she said. “It is
just that you revived a long-dead hope in my heart. Much like you,
I want to know the truth. I want to know what I am, and why I was
chosen for this role. I let myself forget that while I may have
this one question, you have two hundred years worth of questions
for me.”

“
So, that's how long we've been alive?”

“
That is how long we have
been
immortal
,” Christa corrected her. “It happened in the year 1803, in
the Russian city of Kurgan. I assume the same is true for you,
though it is remarkable that it has taken us so long to find
you.”

Kait met Christa's stare. “Maybe I didn't
want to be found,” she replied.

“
Why are you so hostile?”

“
I don't know what you want with me! I don't have the
answers you're looking for! But...” As Kait considered her own
questions, she began to understand the heart of the matter. She
knew why Mayor Levin was so desperate to keep her unconscious. “I
think I'm starting to figure it out.”

Christa was quick to own up to the truth.
“There are three of us who fight for freedom: Silvi, Thomas, and
myself. There are three of them: Pastor Eve, Mayor Levin, and Grant
L'Enfant. They fight for the oppression of everyone--”

“
They probably see it differently.”

“
Of course they do. They believe they are creating
order.”

“
And you resist that order. How long has this been going
on?”

“
How long do you think? Since we all met. Since battle lines
were drawn. Over a hundred years.”

“
In St. Louis?”

Christa laughed. “No, of course not,” she said.
“Eventually, the people would notice that we
don't age
. We have fought the same
battle over the heart of half a dozen cities. Soon, it will be time
to move on. One of us will make the first move and begin a new life
in a new city. He or she will gather followers, begin forming a
center of power. And the rest of us will follow. The balance will
be maintained. It always has been.”

“
Until now.”

“
You can tip the balance of power, Kait Selias.”

Kait was silent. She didn't want to tip the
balance of power. She didn't know enough about the situation hold
that responsibility. These six people, the self-styled Gospels, had
been fighting this battle for over a hundred years. She couldn't be
expected to decide between the two sides after only half a day, no
matter how much she currently hated Mayor Levin.

“
I have to think about this,” Kait said. “I can't
just...choose. That wouldn't be right.”

Christa tightened her jaw. Kait could tell
that she was trying to hide her frustration. She wasn't doing a
very good job of it. “I see,” Christa replied. “Even after
everything that happened today, you're not willing to fight against
the city government.”

“
I... I don't know,” Kait replied. Her mind was filled with
all sorts of confusion. She didn't know how she fit in this strange
world. And as much as she hated Mayor Levin, she couldn't shake the
feeling that Christa Xander wasn't much better.

Taking a deep breath Krista walked over to
her desk. She opened the top drawer and reached inside. “I wish I
could just let you go,” she said. “But you have to understand what
I am thinking. If you make the wrong choice, everything I have
worked the last two hundred years to accomplish will
disappear.”

Kait stood up. She wanted to leave. She
wanted to go back to her hotel room but she suspected it wouldn't
be that simple. “So, what are you going to do?”

Christa looked up at Kait and narrowed her
dark eyes. “God has made me his Gospel of Pandemonium, and I will
do whatever it takes to spread his word.” She pulled a tablet
computer out of her desk. “Join me or face the consequences.”

Tapping the power button, Christa slid the
tablet across the desk. Kait picked it up. It flickered to life.
The screen displayed a camera feed from outside One Metropolitan
Square. Police cars surrounded the building. Cops were stationed
around the vehicles. They crouched behind their vehicles and hid
behind open doors, guns drawn.

One man stood away from cover, near the back
of the blockade. He was tall and he wore a long, tan coat. He had a
shock of brown hair. Even from the distant camera feed, Kait could
see that there was something odd about his face. The upper left
side of his face was swollen. His left eye was pale and
ghostly.

“
That's Grant L'Enfant, isn't it?” Kait asked, pointing at
the eerie figure.

Christa nodded. “The chief of police
himself. The government knows you're here, and they're willing to
start a war.”

“
They're just going to attack the building?”

“
It's happened before.”

“
And people die?”

“
It is unavoidable.”

As if on cue, Kait noticed movement on the
corner of the screen, inside the building. There were people
mobilizing to fight the police if they decided to storm One
Metropolitan Square. Some of them were well dressed, in flashy
suits and well groomed. But others wore jeans and t-shirts, sweat
pants and St. Louis Cardinals jerseys. They were disorganized, but
they all had something in common: these men and women were members
of the Obshina. They were organized crime—gangsters led by their
boss and Gospel Thomas Kemp.