“Yeah
right.” He glanced over at Charisse’s admirers, the one on the ground had
curled up into a ball and appeared to be fast asleep, the remaining one just
stood there swaying, hand outstretched towards Charisse, a thin line of drool
dripping down his chin. Maat, anyone and their sister knew that boating
and drinking were not a good combination. Here were the poster boys for
abstinence if he’d ever seen them.
Sighing,
Charisse brushed past her visitors, picked up some rope keeping one of the
fenders secured to the rock and tied up the sinking boat. At least this
way the insurers could collect the wreckage and the motor.
“What
do you want me to do with these two?” Nate gestured towards drunk and
drunker.
Goddess,
it was nice for once to have someone else offer to clean up Bettina’s
mess. Still, these men were her problem, her responsibility. “I’ll
put a call into the marina. They’ll send a boat over to pick them up.”
Nate
nodded, that sounded like a sensible plan and it wasn’t as if either of these
two were a threat to Charisse’s safety, not in their condition. Glancing
towards the horizon he tensed, noting the low position of the sun. Where
had the day gone? “Well it’s been… interesting Cyd. Thanks for the
drink. I’ll catch you around.”
And
just like that he dove into the water, trousers, boots and all. Striking
off in the direction of… well, she supposed it was his beach now since he’d
bought Kaleidoscope Folly.
“Umm,
bye.” She muttered, though he was long gone. She looked over at the
one guy still awake. “That was weird right?”
“Pretty…”
Was all he managed to mumble before collapsing to his knees and then onto his
back.
“Typical
man.” Charisse glared down at him. “When I’m finally ready to talk
all you want to do is sleep.”
Then
she directed her glare at Nate’s retreating form, the real person she was angry
at. Why had the Council allowed him to buy property in the
Sanctuary? Oh sure Vaughn and Drum may have recently married into the
family, but that didn’t give the rest of Maat’s warriors the right to just move
in, buy up homes and roam the countryside and seas being all buff, half-naked
and frustratingly distant… did it?
Chapter
Five
For
the fourth morning in a row Nate watched the sun rise. He didn’t sleep
much these days, often he found himself working deep into the night on whatever
project he’d chosen to keep his mind off his problems; sawing, hammering,
stripping, sanding, ripping, destroying. Anything that would keep him
physically occupied as he slowly went out of his mind, driving himself to
exhaustion but then, instead of climbing the stairs to the reasonably habitable
master bedroom, he would find himself settling into an old, uncomfortable,
dusty armchair that someone had forgotten to throw out. He’d positioned
the chair at the bay living room windows, it was a perfect spot, as it afforded
him a view of the town and beach off to his right and Charisse’s little
artistic rock habitat directly out to sea in front of him.
The
top half of the sun had barely cleared the horizon when he caught sight of
activity on the beach to his right. Charisse was leaving her beach front
home, moving across the sand, no paddleboard this time as she waded out into
hip deep water before diving under a medium sized breaking wave. Then she
struck out to sea, using a quick, clean, economical stroke that she made look
effortless. In hardly any time she was at her rock, pulling herself out
of the water with ease, this close, he could tell she wore a sunshine yellow
bikini. And knowing her, she probably wore it damn well.
Maat,
what he wouldn’t give for a pair of binoculars. He had some in his
kit.
For a moment he was tempted to
fetch them but that would take this habit he’d recently picked up of checking
up on Charisse’s well-being every ten minutes or so, to a whole new
uncomfortable stalking level that his pride wouldn’t let him succumb too.
Okay,
she was safe on her rock painting for the day, what he needed was a
distraction, something that he could preferably take a sledgehammer too.
During daylight hours he made it a rule to find a project working outside under
the hot Australian sun, loving the feel of the warm rays as they sank through
his skin to recharge his very soul.
Maybe he should consider clearing away some of the overgrown greenery
that surrounded the house. Of course, doing so would allow him an even
better view of Charisse on her rock, just happenstance, he assured
himself.
But
first, something to eat.
He’d
no more had the thought when the cloak room door located just under the main
staircase slammed open and Marcus backed out, wheeling a trolley loaded with
supplies. Gotta love the Southern Sanctuary portal system Hadleigh had
set up for them.
“Good
timing.” Nate strode over to help his friend and fellow warrior.
“Love
what you’ve done with the place.” Marcus drawled, noting that despite all
Nate’s hard work the house continued to look a daunting project, especially now
that it had been stripped back to its barest bones.
The
majority of furniture, old, dusty and beyond repair had been thrown outside,
waiting for Nate to have a spare minute and a desire to visit the local
dump. Faded worn sections of carpet, ripped up and torn into pieces were
piled high in every other corner of the house. Bare lighting fixtures
dangled from the ceiling.
Several large
gaping holes appeared in walls where electrical junctions met. Wallpaper
and paint alike peeled off in flakes and long strips from various walls and
cracked ceilings. And the floorboards under foot were fractured in
several places, many sagging in the middle.
Everywhere
there were signs of Nate having started on a project, ripping up a few
floorboards in one corner, stripping off several rolls of wallpaper in another,
sanding almost a third of the right hand bannister of the main staircase.
Considering the size of the place the amount of work Nate had managed to
achieve in just over a week was quite impressive. Even more so when you
factored in that during daylight hours he worked on the exterior of the house.
“It’s
not like I have anything else to do.” Nate grumbled, leading the way into
the out-dated but still functional kitchen. Grabbing the coffee pot he
poured two mugs, handing one over to Marcus. “What’s the news on Vivian?”
Marcus
took a seat at the wobbly old kitchen table that had been left behind by the
previous occupants. “Good, but slow. Nell’s pleased, but says it
will take time... a lot of time.”
“Damn
that vamp’s - catsuit wearing - hide. Any sign of her?”
“I
was about to ask you the same thing. There haven’t been any more gifts
arriving so we think she knows you’ve moved out.”
“I
still say I could help with tracking the bitch.”
“Hard
to be bait and track at the same time, besides you’d only get in Drum’s
way. And though thanks to Nell’s influence the big man is slightly - and
I do mean by an infinitesimal degree - more tolerant these days, he still
wouldn’t pull any punches if he thought you were letting emotions cloud your
good judgement.”
“I’m
fine… my judgement is fine.” Nate assured him.
Marcus
gave him a dubious electric blue look. “Okay, so you meant to pull that kitchen
bench off its supports?”
Nate
glanced down, damn. “Sure, ripping out all the fittings in here is next
on my list.”
“Yeah
right.” Marcus sipped some more coffee. “You’ve spoken to Serena?”
“First
thing I did after the Council approved that I could buy the house. Advised her
and Locke to lay low.”
“Good,
it would be beyond stupid for us to go to all the trouble of faking Serena’s
death only for vamp Queen to bump into her and decide to tell her former
employers that she isn’t dead.”
“Locke
quite happily overshared with me that he would tie Serena up each night until
this whole thing with the vamps is resolved.”
Marcus
winced. “The man always knows just what to say to press our
buttons. Are they getting married… melded, or whatever, any time soon?”
Nate
shrugged. “They’re trying to come up with suitable date. Serena
says Spring is the most optimal time for an Earth witch to meld.”
Marcus
smiled. “Well Serena usually gets what she wants.”
Nate
shook his head. “Not this time. While I was there Locke was working
on some very persuasive arguments. I think his winning front runner was
something along the lines of, no child of his, was going to be born out of
wedlock.”
“Serena’s
pregnant?” Marcus blinked.
“No,
not yet according to Serena but I draw your attention to my earlier comment
about Locke being willing… eager even, to tie her up each night to keep her off
vamp Queen’s radar.”
Marcus
shook his head. He’d seen Locke’s gorgeous immaculate home, the cream sofas,
the carefully chosen fragile knick knacks, pristine wooden floors and decorated
rooms. It did not strike any one as being baby friendly. “How the mighty
have fallen.”
“Yeah.”
Nate grinned. “He still winces every now and then, you should see the number
of pot plants Serena has in the house. But it’s pretty clear he loves
Serena more than he loathes, and let me quote here;
those bug infested
nightmarish pots of dirt and disease
.”
Marcus
laughed, raking his overlong fringe out of his eyes. “So what’s it like living
at the Southern Sanctuary?”
“How
would I know? I’m basically a prisoner here.”
“Which
is self-imposed. It was Vaughn’s decision to get you out of Atlanta and
send you here, but this whole idea of isolating yourself from everyone was your
choice.”
Nate
heaved a sigh. “She’s crazy Marcus. Not just power mad or blood thirsty,
she’s out and out Queen of the Crazy. Her logic, it’s not our
logic. I’ve looked into Destiny’s shrivelled soul and we can’t second
guess what’s going on in her head. Can’t plan ahead or understand what
emotions drive her, what she loves or what she loathes, because it all changes
in a flash. She’s vicious, driven, cruel, self-absorbed and nuttier than
a snickers bar. The one thing… the only thing we know that interests her,
that might be used against her at this moment in time, is me. And I’m all
for acting as bait… don’t get me wrong. And I understand why here… I need
a threshold to call my own, some place her vampire ass can’t access. And
the isolation of the house works. I might even have a chance of seeing
her coming. But what I won’t do is risk any more innocents in this fight.
All her henchmen might be dead but we don’t know that she hasn’t collected
fresh ones to do her bidding since our last encounter. Or, you saw the
lair, they had surveillance equipment there. I don’t want anyone seeing
me helping a little old lady across the street or buying a girl a drink in a
bar, and it coming back to haunt me.”
“Vivian
wasn’t your fault. Like you said… you can’t second guess crazy.
What I don’t like is that you’re basically going up against her by yourself
Buddy.”
“Between
chasing down leads on Sek and Mot, trying to identify any long lost relative of
Apep in order to protect them and our normal case load of magical bad guys gone
off the rails… we only have so much manpower. How is the search going
regarding Apep’s descendants?”
Marcus
shook his head curtly. “Annoying. Xander was an only child and orphaned
in his late teens, so no leads there. His father however, did have a
brother.”
“Children?”
“No,
married for forty-four years, now deceased. But I think there’s something
there. The marriage was a rocky one, lots of long breaks.”
Marcus drummed his fingers on the table in a
steady rhythm.
“You’re
hoping he had other women?”
“Hoping
is perhaps the wrong word, but I need to dig deeper. If there is a
possibility of a long lost relative out there, we have to get to them before
Sek and Mot do. I think I might have a lead regarding the blood.”
“The
Blood?”
Nate frowned.
“Xander’s
blood. It’s been bugging me why the gruesome twosome wanted all of
Xander’s blood. Why drain him dry?
They had trained assassins on the job, if all they needed was enough of
his blood to wake Chaos God Daddy, why not be sneaky about it, steal a small
quantity, inject Xander with an air bubble and make a discreet exit?
Who knows if we would have ever worked out
there was any blood missing or that Xander didn’t die of natural causes.”
Nate
nodded. “And?”
“I’ve
been doing some deep background checks on Xander and I came up with something
interesting. Since he was about nineteen, Xander was having blood drawn
every second week and sending it off to a clinic… in Texas, for testing.”
Nate’s
attention was captured. “Texas. Where those two assholes have been
known to hang out masquerading as Sheriff Deputies? Hey, didn’t Xander
say something about meeting his long lost relatives just after he left
school? That would have made him eighteen… nineteen.”
“Exactly.”
Marcus nodded.
“And?
You wouldn’t have just left it there.”
“Of
course not.” Everyone knew Marcus never left a puzzle unsolved.
“The mailing address to the so-called clinic in Texas was a P.O.Box. I
slipped one of the mailroom guys some money and he told me that nothing has
been delivered to that numbered box for about seven months now.”
“Makes
sense. Xander went gah-gah six months ago and now he’s dead.
Anything else pop?”
“Maybe,
the guy had no idea who owns the P.O.Box but he remembered the packages
arriving every two weeks, labelled with an Atlanta address.”
“Xander’s
blood.” Nate assumed.
“Yeah.
But more interesting than that… my source recalled that there used to be a
second lot of packages arriving on the same two week delivery schedule.”
The
hairs on the back of Nate’s neck stood up. “And?”
Marcus’s
electric blue eyes filled with frustration. “Mail dude said the other
packages stopped arriving over a year ago.”
“Damn.”
Nate hissed the word. “So it’s a dead end?”
“Not
quite. Dude thought he recalled a Vermont return address on the second
lot of packages.”
“Vermont?”
Nate frowned. “Who the hell is in Vermont?”
Marcus
shrugged but couldn’t wipe the devilish smile off his face; he did love an
intriguing puzzle. The more complex the greater satisfaction he received
in solving it.
“Hell if I know.
But it gives me a place to start looking for some answers.” Marcus drained the
last of his coffee and rose. “Speaking of which, I need to get
back. I have some updates due in soon.
I don’t want to jinx anything but I think we
may have just found the beginning of the trail that will lead us to the last
remaining living descendant of the God of Chaos.”
After
Marcus left, Nate unpacked the supplies he’d bought, grabbed a quick shower in
the only bathroom that actually still had running water and then headed outside
for a day of back breaking physical labour that he was hoping like hell would
keep his mind from dwelling on the lunatic vamp Queen or straying to an all too
tempting, but exceedingly off limits, yellow bikini wearing artist.