Mia's Return (6 page)

Almost floating, Mia hurried to clean
away any evidence of their afternoon tryst before her mother
returned. Then she started dinner for the family while slowly
putting into place her part of their escape plans.

But Alexander didn’t arrive that night
as planned, nor did he return the calls she made the next day, at
any of the numbers she had for him.

It hurt but that was nothing compared
to the pain she felt two days later when Juan came home rolling
drunk, to tell her Alexander had been killed by the gang
commission. A single shot to the back of the head. Payback for
transgressions and a warning to others not to fuck with them as he
had.

Mia wiped the tears from her eyes and
looked around the marbled foyer. Her glimpse of Alexander in the
elevator had been shocking, not least of all because she had
thought him dead and buried these last ten years. That could be
explained a couple of ways, though explanations would have to
wait.

She had stared at him across the
elevator car and despite ten years, her lust and arousal had
bloomed as hot and hard as ever. That was truly scary, for she
hadn’t felt as much as a stirring of desire for a man since
Alexander’s death.

The irony was hysterical, to her mind.
Most men trailed after her with their tongues dragging in the dirt.
They found her Latino looks, her hourglass figure and her love of
sensual fashion an almost irresistible combination. She constantly
had to fight off not just expressions of interest but physically
insistent men who couldn’t take “no” for an answer and thought they
could force the issue.

Since Alexander, she’d had sex with two
men who friends of hers had rated as superb in bed. The sex had
been successful for the men. She had been pretty much unmoved.
Neither man had noticed.

Then there was the fact that Alexander
hadn’t aged at all. He had been in his mid–thirties, she guessed,
when she had known him in San Diego. That put him in his
mid-forties now. He should at least be graying around the temples.
Even with the most effective and expensive cosmetic procedures
available today, there was always evidence and signs and she knew
them all. She had been standing very close and had looked for them,
right at the end when her brain had finally begun to work despite
her body’s overwhelming lust. Alexander had the skin of a thirty
year old and there was no cosmetic procedure in the world that
could achieve that.

What had happened to him?

She straightened up from the wall. She
had to find him. She couldn’t allow him to walk away from her
again. He may have temporarily dodged her but her resources were
far more complex and her skills honed now. She also knew from what
floor he had stepped onto the elevator.

Diego was a crack shot and known for his
pair of pistols which he could fire simultaneously, one in each
hand, and hit a one-inch target from one hundred feet away.
However, for inner city work, the sound of gunfire brought police,
so he used twin knives instead, happily beheading vampeen with a
cross-bladed motion much like a pair of giant shears. In the eight
months since the Grimoré war had begun, only Diego found much joy
in the constant incursions of the vampeen in the human cities and
spaces.

Lindál and Zachariah worked grimly,
more a team than either of them realized, despite being physically
apart. They worked more effectively than Diego’s random slaughter.
Despite their combined inroads into the vampeen numbers advancing
down the alley between the trucks and Dumpsters, they were forced
to fall back steadily toward the lane the alley opened into.

Lindál glanced at Zachariah. “This is
wrong,” he said. “They’re too strong.”

“They’re fighting in formation, like
they’re trained. Diego, watch out!” Zack jumped forward and so did
Lindál, both of them dealing with a vampeen, protecting Diego’s
back.

Diego whirled, surprised. “They’re
getting smarter,” he commented as he realized what the vampeen had
been doing. “Thank you, my mutant friend.”

Lindál nodded his head stiffly.

The three of them blocked the alley,
studying the vampeen as they snarled and drooled and gathered to
charge once more.

“I’ve never seen them do that before,
either,” Lindál said. “Pull themselves together for a charge.”

“Lindál, Zack, Diego,” Seaveth said
quietly. “We have your backs.”

Lindál glanced over his shoulder.
Seaveth stood directly behind them, dressed ready for combat in
boots, leather pants and jacket. Behind her ranged a full elven
troop, in human garb. She had called the elves with her mental
shout and had them teleport her here, sensing something was
wrong.

Snow touched Lindál’s face. He resisted
the need to turn his face up to it.
Not now.

“Who the hell is
that
?” Diego
breathed, pulling Lindál’s attention back to the vampeen. Behind
the seething mass of vampeen was the shadow of a very tall man,
nearly seven foot high. He was dressed in black and had the whitest
skin Lindál had ever seen. The paleness wasn’t from a lack of
sunlight. It looked more like the guy had been immersed in liquid
for eternity. The paleness was unhealthy and made Lindál uneasy
just looking at it. The creature’s eyes were red-rimmed and red at
the core, with black irises.

“Those that need a reference for me
have called me Helidoro, in the past,” the creature said. Its voice
issued from its mouth but the lips did not synch with its words. It
shifted in space, like it was slipping out of phase with the real
world.

The elves behind Seaveth muttered and
Lindál felt his heart grow colder. Helidoro, the agent for the
Grimoré. His name had been written more than once in the ancient
manuscripts and books Zack had been poring over lately.

“I see you know the name. Good.”

“You have something to say, or you
would not have engineered this moment,” Seaveth said. “Speak,
creature.”

Helidoro inclined his head. “It is a
wise queen who sees a moment for what it is. I bring you an
opportunity.”

“And that is?” Seaveth said with a
chill in her tone Lindál had never heard before.

“Stand aside. Let us take what we seek.
Offer no hindrance and we will leave you in peace, you and your
kind. If you do not, we will regrettably annihilate you all.”

“What is it you seek?” Seaveth
asked.

“The puny ones on this planet. Fodder
for our mills.”

“I am one of them, Helidoro,” Seaveth
said.

“Ah…but no longer.” His mouth stretched
in an expression Lindál realized was supposed to be a smile. “We
are aware of many things, yes? Just like his kind began as ’human’
too.” He lifted a long finger to point at Zachariah.

“What is your purpose, Helidoro?”
Seaveth asked.

“Purpose?”

“Your role?”

“Ah. In this case, to carry a
message.”

“Our role, in any case and at any time,
is to protect humankind. We will not abandon that role. Tell your
masters that threats just make us more determined. They have to be
smarter than that.”

Helidoro nodded. “I will pass your
message along.”

“Are you a Grimoré, Helidoro?” Lindál
asked.

Helidoro’s eyes focused on him and
Lindál felt the creature was looking through him and into him at
the same time. Was he rooting through his memories and mind right
now?

Helidoro replied; “Like you, I am
something other than the creatures I live among but I have found an
uneasy acceptance, nevertheless.”

He turned and walked away but before he
reached the corner of the alley, he turned again and seemed to step
into
the building. Teleportation?

The vampeen ran, scurrying between
Dumpsters, melting away like snow under rain.

“Was he even here?” Zachariah asked
Seaveth.

“Astral projection?” She slid her long
knife back into her boot. The elves gathered around her, the tall
one at the back dropping his hood. Lindál was astonished to
recognize Amrod, the senior senator.

Diego, at the edge of the group,
cleaned his knives on a rag. “He kept flickering, like a bad
movie.”

“A movie projection wouldn’t need so
many to protect it,” Zack said, pushing at a dead vampeen with his
foot.

“They were just to get us all here,”
Seaveth said. “Out in the open and in one spot together.”

Amrod said quietly, “It appears your
theory about the Grimoré is correct after all. He did not seem
puzzled by the name when Lindál spoke it.”

“You
doubted
her? After all this
time, you still doubt Seaveth?” Lindál could feel his ire flaming
deep in his chest, gripping his throat.

A hand curled around his arm and
squeezed warningly and another one caught the back of his neck
under his hair. The second had to be Zack’s. The first had to be
Seaveth. He could feel her next to him.

Shut up
, she told him silently.
The mental command was rich with compulsion, forcing him to clamp
his jaw shut against the need to tell Amrod what an asshole he was,
along with all the strong human vocabulary he knew.

Amrod had the grace to look
uncomfortable. “Relying on children’s bedtime stories and
generations-old prophecies to build a defense against an invasion
for which there has been no evidence has caused some political
difficulties. The vampeen incursions so far have been seen as no
more than a petty annoyance at the same level as a bugs in a
vegetable garden.” He waved toward the back of the alley. “But this
is different.”

The sound of a perfectly normal cell
phone ringing made them all jump. Diego dug into his pocket, pulled
out his phone and answered it, then frowned and glanced at Zack.
“Alex, slow down, I’m sure
podemos fijarlo.
”

Seaveth turned to Lindál and slipped
her arm around his waist. She looked at Zack. “You must go with
Diego. Alexander will need you.” She shivered. “Lindál will get me
home.”

Zack touched her shoulder. “What is
it?”

“It’s begun,” she said, her eyes
staring inward.

“It’s bad but it’s not the end of the
world,” Zack decided. “Even if she’s living in New York now, the
chances of running into her are slim to nothing. We can find out if
she is living here. If she is, we can take steps to make sure you
don’t meet her again.”

“How?” Alexander said, shredding the
coaster steadily into flakes with his fingers.

“You move somewhere else,” Zack said.
“One of the other clans will take you in if we sponsor you.”

Alexander felt his stomach drop.
“Thrilling,” he said. His cell phone buzzed and he fished it out of
his pocket, feeling even less keen than usual to parade like a
human. “Alexander la Croix.”

“Alexander, you asshole. You never said
anything about being married!”

“Christine?” He sat up.

“Your wife just came into the office,
demanding to know where you live now that you’ve set yourself up in
a cushy job with an income and all that. She wants support for the
kids. You bastard. You
deserted
her, and she still carries
your picture in her wallet. I don’t know that you even deserve her.
She’s so sweet and you’re a pig.”

He clutched at his temple. “You told
her where I live, didn’t you?”

“I gave her your number. This number.
You can sort it out between you. Oh, and I quit. You can find
yourself another receptionist. I’m not working for an asshole like
you.”

Alexander put the cell phone on the
coffee table and stared at it. “She’s got my number,” he said.

The phone rang.

“Don’t answer it,” Zack said, standing
up. “We’ll make arrangements right away. If she has the number, she
might be able to trace the address from there. We don’t know how
resourceful she is.”

“She’s smart,” Alexander said, his
heart pounding. He couldn’t take his eyes off the phone. All he had
to do was pick it up and answer it and he could be talking to her
again. So simple. “Tested IQ of one hundred forty.” Juan had been
so proud of that one.

The phone fell silent and something
shifted and loosened inside him. He knew he couldn’t bear to lose
Mia again. It was as simple as that. As overwhelming as that.

Zack was talking into his own phone.
Only Diego was watching him. “Don’t do it, my friend,” he said in
Spanish.

“You don’t know her,” Alexander
said.

The phone started to ring again and
Alexander snatched it up. “Mia.”

“I’m not going to stop calling until
you talk to me,” Mia said. “So you might as well talk to me
now.”’

“I’m talking.” He took a deep
breath.

“
Fuck
,” Zack said, behind
him.

“I’m going to keep phoning until you
agree to meet with me. I know it’s you, Alexander. You called me
Mia. You can’t deny it. I don’t know how you dodged that bullet and
I don’t care. Keep your secret. I just want to see you and talk. So
I’m going to keep phoning until you agree. I can do reverse
look-ups and hunt you down. So make it easy for me. Agree to meet
me for coffee, assure me you’re okay and I’ll go away. You owe me
that much.”

Alexander closed his eyes. Her voice
caressed him, like it had when she whispered in his ear.

“I’ll meet,” he said.

“This is lunacy,” Diego raved. “
Usted
está fuera de su mente de mierda, mi amigo
!”

“English, Diego!” Zack snapped. “If
you’re going to insult him, at least do it in English, so I can
appreciate it too.”

“He says I’m out of my mind. But I’m
not,” Alexander said calmly, strapping the steel knife into the
spring-loaded wrist harness.

“Then why are your hands shaking?” Zack
asked.

“It’s because of her,” Alexander
replied evenly. “Because I’m going to see her again.”