The Chosen (5 page)

He worked through the string of numbers again, adding, then subtracting, multiplying and dividing them to see if he could come up with something that made sense. He tried to see if they matched up with letters in the alphabet as some kind of alpha-numeric code.

Remington scraped away with his Waterman fountain pen at the paper he’d set beside Deigo’s page. Sometimes doodling gave his brain a chance to think. He drew a globe and began to criss cross it with lines. His eyes drifted back to the numbers. Perhaps the numbers weren’t related to the alphabet at all. Perhaps they weren’t coded as he thought. But it couldn’t be as simple as longitude and latitude, could it?

Then again, Diego obviously never intended anyone to look this page over and realize first, that it was a map with no names, and second, that the locations on the map indicated here and there by dark blobs of ink, were directly related to the numbers scribbled in the corner. If the numbers were what it thought, the hodgepodge of lines and dots looked like a trail from Tombstone down into Mexico and then further down the coast nearly to South America.

His thoughts were interrupted as downstairs the door to the building opened and closed and footsteps came clomping up the stairs.

 

 

She’d just begun to drift off, letting herself dream of exactly what she might buy for clothes once Remington was done with his arrangements, when the sound of approaching footsteps on the floorboards outside the office snapped her eyes wide open.

The knob on the office door turned, and the door creaked inward. In walked Colt.

Her heart gave an extra beat as his gaze slid quickly over the front of her faded blue button-down chambray shirt that stretched tight across her chest. Colt Jackson was the kind of man who could have a woman in a lather just with one look.

Behind him a fiery redhead stared China down, her emerald eyes narrow and her lips pinched tight. As close as she stood to Colt, she seemed mighty possessive. A single sniff pegged her as Darkin. Succubus if China had to guess based on the girl’s assets. Well, well, perhaps Colt wasn’t as opposed to Darkin lovers as he’d led her to believe.

China gave a slow, heated gaze in Colt’s direction before she spoke just to tick the prissy woman standing next to him off. “Hello, Colt. It’s been a while.” Her drawl was lazy with a heavy dose of sensuality.

Colt grunted with a curt nod, but his eyes instantly darted to the open doorway behind the desk. She heard the sliding scrape of shoe leather against the floorboards in Remington’s office a second before he appeared in the doorway behind her.

Perhaps Remington had been right about being nothing like his brothers. They certainly looked nothing alike now, except for the dark sweep of hair, and those piercing blue eyes. Both were extremely attractive, but Colt was more ragged and rough, his overgrown, shaggy hair curling against his collar and his clothes dusty, while Remington looked every inch the well-heeled gentleman. With his shorter haircut and spotless, tailored clothing, he looked wealthy, powerful, and alluring to China.

“Did I just hear you say—” Remington’s blue eyes widened along with his mouth into a giant, heart-stopping smile. “Hey, little brother!” He rushed forward and swung his arms around Colt in a bear hug that knocked a huff out of Colt. “Good to see you. Especially all in one piece.”

The fancy miss next to Colt grinned, and China tamped down the prickle skating over her skin.

Colt pulled out of his brother’s arms. “Good to see you too, Remy.” His glance connected with hers, and that familiar heat rose to the surface. “See you’ve got China working with you.”

Well damn, at least he’d noticed her, she thought smugly. China stared at him, willing him to remember what her body against his felt like, how she’d bested him, leaving him tied buck naked to the bed in Silver City. Her blatant attention made the woman next to him antsy. Good. The no good sonofabitch deserved it after abandoning her at the bank to climb her way out of the rubble. But the presence of two Jackson brothers in one room was almost more than any normal female could take. Good thing she was far more than a mere mortal—or an average Darkin.

But perhaps this could be entertaining. A cat-like smile curled her lips as she glanced from one muscular Jackson to the other. For a second China wondered just how closely the two brothers resembled one another without their clothes on.

“Yep. Got her out of the Bisbee camp jail, no thanks to you.” Remington nudged his brother with his elbow, but his face went soft and his blue eyes out of focus as his attention settled on the redhead. Every hair on China’s head rose up sharp and stiff as the air filled with the scent of male attraction. “And who is this charming young lady?”

China didn’t give a damn who the bitch was. She didn’t like her. Just a whiff of her cheap perfume and the look of her confirmed her suspicions that she was a succubus.

“Certainly you’ll introduce us,” Remington persisted.

Colt glanced back over his shoulder, his brows knitting together slightly and his jaw flexing as if he’d rather do anything but that. Damn, China knew that look. Colt
did
like her. Far more than he wanted to. “This is Miss Lilly Arliss. Lilly, my brother Remington and Miss China McGee. Lilly’s helping me find Pa’s part of the Book.”

She bet. Based on the subtle way Miss Arliss touched Colt practically every damn chance she got, they’d shared more than just a trip from Bodie together.

An inexplicable ache started in her chest as Remington pushed past his little brother, purposely knocking him aside with his shoulder. He bowed slightly from the waist, never taking his eyes off the unnaturally green eyes of Miss Arliss, and lightly grasped her hand in his smooth one, brushing a warm kiss over her knuckles. “A
pleasure
to meet you, Miss Arliss.”

China bristled. He’d never done that with her, and he continued to hold Miss Arliss’s hand a moment longer than propriety demanded.

Certainly the succubus was absolutely stunning. Tempting men was her job. That didn’t mean China had to like it. Or her. Tension crackled between the Jackson brothers.

Miss Arliss blushed at Remington’s attentions, and Colt quickly wedged himself between them, breaking his brother’s hold on her hand. The jealous coil of tension in China’s gut twisted a little tighter. Colt clearly had enough feelings for the little Darkin to go head-to-head with his brother over her. China’s dislike of her increased another notch.

“I didn’t haul us all over God’s creation to watch you kissing hands and sweet-talking ladies. Pa didn’t leave pages. He left a
riddle
. The kind of thing you’re so good at. Need you to solve it so I can go find what we’re looking for and not waste any more time.”

China resisted the urge to snort. That was rich coming from Colt who flirted with ladies as naturally as he breathed.

Remington turned to his brother. “You didn’t find his piece of the Book?”

Colt shook his head slowly, his jaw tight. “Nothing in the damn box but a scrap of paper with a riddle written in Navaho.”

“You don’t speak Navaho, let alone read it. For that matter, neither do I.”

“Yeah. But Balmora apparently does.”

“Balmora? You mean Marley’s analytical decoder machine? You saw it?”

Colt’s lips twitched. “I think he’s going to have a hard time letting her go to the queen, when the time comes.”

“Her?”

“I’ll explain later. Right now, can you make heads or tails of what Pa meant?”

Colt fished a single piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, handing it to Remington. In the light pouring through the office windows Remington scanned the page, his lips moving as he read to himself. He had nice lips, China thought, very close to the same sculpted shape as Colt’s. But did they kiss the same way? She bet they didn’t. Remington was more polished, and far more reserved, than his brother.

Remington brushed his fingers back through his short dark hair. “Well, the first part is pretty straightforward. We’re going to need the whole damn Book of Legend to close the Gates of Nyx.”

“I figured out that part myself, thanks,” Colt said sarcastically. Even as he leaned close to his brother looking at the cryptic message, China kept Miss Arliss in the corner of her vision. The woman stepped lightly around the office, running her fingers over the fine leather volumes in Remington’s library, and cast a cautious glance in China’s direction. The air in the room eddied with agitation between them. One Darkin in cahoots with Hunters was more than enough for China’s taste. Two was overkill.

She and Colt shared the same wild, predatory nature, and she could hardly see this fancy little bit of skirt having the wherewithal to be able to keep up with bred-to-the-bone Hunters. She looked too damn dainty for that. China flipped her long hair over her shoulders and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, feet braced wide apart like a man’s.

Her gaze darted from Remington to Colt and back again, assessing, weighing them against one another. Colt was fire; Remington, ice, but they both had the potential to burn away her common sense. What was she doing attracted to another Hunter anyway? She should have learned her lesson the first go-around. Hunters and Darkin didn’t mix, at least not romantically. Physically . . . well, that could be a whole other matter.

The two brothers, their dark heads close together, kept picking at the message. “At the height of the mountains, where legends are born and reborn from the ashes . . . Phoenix birds are reborn out of ashes,” Remington murmured. “Legends—another word for myths and superstitions. It could be the Superstition Mountains outside of Phoenix.”

“What about the eye part?” Colt pressed his fisted hand to the top of the desk.

“Alone it doesn’t make any sense, but see where it says sew and tapestry in the rest of the line?”

“Yeah?”

“Ever heard the story going around of the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine?”

Colt snorted. “Who hasn’t?”

China made her move. She slid, swiftly and silently, between the brothers, standing as close to Colt as she could get, but resting her hand on Remington’s surprisingly muscular shoulder. Let the little succubus suck on that, she thought.

The heated glare Miss Arliss threw back at her could have burned the fringe off her buckskin jacket, but instead it sent sparks of pride shimmering along her veins. China liked to win, no matter the cost. She glanced up long enough to lock stares with the succubus and give her a self-assured smirk along with the silent message:
Mine. Back off.

The Jackson brothers were oblivious—absorbed totally by their riddle. “Well, legend has it Jacob Waltz used the rocks called the Eye of the Needle and Weaver’s Needle as landmarks to the mine,” Remington said.

“So you think Pa was in cahoots with Waltz?”

Remington turned away to face the windows, his shoulder slipping from beneath her touch. She closed her hand reflexively against the loss. He looked out at the dusty street and shrugged his broad shoulders. His expensive suit hid far more than it revealed, China thought. He was every inch as handsome as Colt, and that was saying something, since she’d been certain she’d never meet another man who could wipe Colt out of her mind as her greatest misadventure.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Remington said. “Point is that if you were looking at those mountains or Phoenix, I’d think the Eye of the Needle is the place to start.”

“You’re leaving something out,” the succubus interrupted. Miss Arliss deliberately strode up to Colt, placing her hand on the broad expanse of his back, and leaned between the brothers, pointing to the paper they were looking at.

Nearly in unison both brothers turned their identical blue eyes to her brazen show of bosom. She was practically falling out of her corset, China thought bitterly. They were probably magically enhanced breasts. That would just figure for a succubus. Colt’s eyes widened a bit, and he swallowed hard, while Remington colored slightly. Colt cleared his throat and gave Lilly a heated look that could have melted a solid gold bar. China silently fumed.

“You missed the last two words.” Miss Arliss leaned her shoulder into Remington and threw a “take that” glance at China. China resisted the prickles of heat washing over her skin. She’d mastered her power to shift long ago and refused to give in to the automatic response her body had to her intense annoyance with the other Darkin. Cool. Collected. China refused to give in to the pulsing heat beneath her skin. She spun away on her boot heel to look outside and calm herself.

 

 

“Chosen destiny,” Colt grumbled, crossing his arms. “So what? Means we get to choose how it all turns out by our actions.”

The sexy redhead tilted her chin up. “No. ‘Chosen’ is capitalized.”

“Yeah, so?”

Miss Arliss’s hand curved around Colt’s bicep and Remington’s muscle ticked in response. Even if she was working with his brother, he’d have to have been deaf, blind, and dead not to be attracted to her, even if she was clearly Darkin. And from the sexually-charged aura rolling off of her thick as fog off of water, he could tell she wasn’t just any Darkin, but a succubus.

His little brother was in some deep water with her, and Remington wasn’t certain Colt could swim. It was hardly fair that the ladies were so attracted to the outlaw image Colt liked to flaunt. They were drawn to it, bees to honey. Even China, despite her earlier protests, still perked up when Colt had walked in. That irritated him.

“Do you really think your father would have done that if he didn’t mean you three boys?” Miss Arliss said. “You are the Chosen.”

Colt pulled away from her touch and rubbed the back of his neck, frowning with discomfort. “Ah, come on, Lilly, don’t start up with that again.”

Remington chuckled. Oh yeah. He had it bad for the succubus already. Poor bastard. “I hate to say she has a point, but perhaps she does.”

Her unearthly green eyes sparkled. “It’s your destiny to reunite the Book of Legend, and all of the Darkin know it.”

Colt cast a serious glance his way. “I’ve got something you need to see.”

“More important than the clue?”

“Could be.”

“Well, let’s have it, then.”

Colt pulled a worn leather journal from his pack and handed it to Remington. The leather was smooth from use beneath his fingers. Familiar somehow. He’d seen this before when he’d been a small child, but he couldn’t place when or where. “What’s this?”

“Ma’s diary. Had it with me all this time. There’s clues in there, like the one I found about Diego’s map. Things that Pa should have told all of us, but didn’t. Soon as you can, read it.”

Behind the three of them came the clearing of a throat and the tap of a boot against the wooden floorboards. “Excuse me, hate to break up this little tea party, but didn’t you say you’d need to reunite the whole Book of Legend?”

They turned, and all looked at China. “That clue you got out of the safety-deposit box. That’s to a map that leads to one of the pieces, isn’t it?” she said as she shifted her piercing pale gray eyes between him and Colt.

The brothers glanced at each other. Pa’s number-one rule had been “never trust a Darkin,” and they both knew it. Neither of them were absolutely certain Diego’s map led directly to the hidden piece of the Book. They turned, united, back to China. Colt shrugged. “Could be.”

China threw up her hands and growled, her smooth pink lips tightening over her even white teeth. “Great. A bunch of idiot Hunters out to save the world and it ‘could’ be the key to the next piece. You know, it’s a wonder that we didn’t both get caught in that last heist.”

Remington stepped over, unable to resist the odd pull China had on him, and leaned in closer to her. “I did tell you that I tend to be the brains of the family.”

China huffed, brushed the fall of her blond hair off her shoulder in irritation, and turned away from them. Remington gave a lingering look at the tight spread of leather over the shifter’s derrière, then noticed his brother did the same. For a second he wondered if Colt had sent his message to stay away from China only because he didn’t want Remington too close to his past lover. He also wondered if Miss Arliss were already his brother’s next flame and realized Colt’s
old
flame was in the room tracking every move they made with cat-like precision.

“Let me know when you actually want to do something about finding what you’re after, instead of just cackling about it like a bunch of old hens,” China threw back at them as she stared out the window. While she stood motionless, her anger pulsated, prowling about the room like a living thing.

“I think your analysis of the riddle was wonderful,” Miss Arliss said as she grasped his arm.

The skim of her touch over his arm ignited the tension China seemed to cause in him. He turned back to Colt’s Darkin and deliberately gave her a sinful grin that made even a succubus take a second long look. “Thank you. Nice to know someone appreciates my efforts.”

“Oh, I’m glad you can make sense of it,” Colt said gruffly. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we still don’t have a single piece of the damn Book in our hands.”

“True.” Remington grasped and held the lapels of his long coat as if he were in court debating. “But we do have a good lead to the second piece. The clue in Diego’s safety-deposit box starts just outside Tombstone.”

Colt took off his Stetson and smoothed the edges of the firm felt brim between his fingers, then locked his familiar blue gaze with Remington’s. “We’re running out of time, Remy. I can’t go to Phoenix looking for Pa’s part of the Book and go on a hunt for the piece Diego heard about at the same time.”

Remington glanced over at China. He’d only gone to Bisbee as a favor to help Colt in his quest to reunite the Book of Legend, but it seemed his little brother wasn’t out of the woods just yet. He needed further help. “What if China and I were to go after it?”

China shifted, cocking her head like a cat, listening to them. But she remained steadfastly gazing out the window. He damn well knew nothing too interesting was happening on Allen Street. She was as stubborn as his brother.

Colt’s gaze softened. “You’d do that?”

“I’d be willing to sacrifice a few weeks in the office for you if it meant saving the world,” he answered, his words laced with sarcasm. They both knew going after the pieces of the Book required both a Hunter and a Darkin to access the hiding places.

Colt’s mouth twitched, and he gave him a brotherly slap to the shoulder. “That’s mighty big of you, Rem.”

“Nobody asked me if I’d be willing,” China interrupted as she turned away from the window and strode slowly up between them and directly across from Miss Arliss.

The succubus glared at the shifter. Remington wasn’t sure he’d ever seen two female Darkin go after one another before, but the two might as well have had pistols out and cocked the way they glared at one another.

“Do you have any idea of what will happen if you
don’t?
” Miss Arliss said.

China glared back. “The end of annoying Hunters?”

“How about the start of a new world order, featuring a sadistic archdemon lord at the helm?” she volleyed back.

China stood up a little straighter and glared at Remington, as if somehow her misunderstanding of Miss Arliss was all his fault. How? What the hell had he done?

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” China groused.

Remington put up his hands in defense. “I just found out, like the rest of them.” He jerked his head toward the window. “What the hell is that nois—?”

A mixture of screams, the whinny and galloping of spooked horses, and the thunderous crash of wood splintering came from the street outside the office. A shadow darkened the interior of the office. As one they ran to the windows.

Miss Arliss’s mouth dropped open. “What
is
that . . . thing?” she demanded.

He glanced upward at a most unusual sight. The silver fabric skin of a giant dirigible, at least two hundred feet long and fifty feet across, glittered in the afternoon light as it descended over Allen Street, scattering the citizens and animals below. “It’s a dirigible, a class A, I’d guess from the size of it,” Remington answered over the din coming up from the street.

“That better be good news,” Colt said. Remington heard him slide the revolver from his hip holster and slam the hammer back. “I’ve just about had my fill of bad news.”

But Remington’s attention was fixed on the dirigible. Near the front, across the silver skin, was an image of a red castle turret bracketed by black bat wings. “You ever seen that insignia before?” he asked Colt.

“Nope. You?”

Remington shoved back the edge of his long coat and pulled his gun from his hip holster. “You packing silver?”

“Marley’s special bullets.”

Remington nodded. “Then let’s join the welcoming party, shall we?”

Miss Arliss grasped Colt’s shoulder. “I’ve seen that insignia before. That’s vampire. European or Russian royalty.”

“You tellin’ me we got a vampire nobleman just deciding to drop in for a visit?” Colt grumbled.

China snickered, crossing her arms. “Since when would that be so strange for you two? You are Cy Jackson’s boys, after all.” She had a point.

Miss Arliss pointedly ignored her. “Based on the size of their dirigible, I’d say it’s either a very small vampire nobleman with a very big inferiority complex or an entire battalion of vampires.”