True Faces

True Faces

Ciara Steele Novella Series,
Book One

By Catherine
Banks

Copyright 2011 Catherine
Banks

Smashwords
Edition

~~~~

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~~~~

PROLOGUE

I hated sitting in the tree outside of her
window, watching her like some sick perverted stalker, but I
couldn’t stand having her out of my sight. Her buttery skin and
blonde hair blended perfectly with her hazel eyes that changed from
blue to green when she was upset and speckled with brown when she
was frightened. She was one of the few women left who were skinny,
but built with an hour glass shape. Her shape begged me to run my
hands along it and trace the curves.

I watched as she practiced kickboxing with
her radio blaring heavy metal rock music. Sweat trickled down her
chest and disappeared in to her tank top between her average sized,
but perfectly proportioned breasts. She was perfect and I wanted
her. The others would sense the difference in her soon and I had to
claim her before they tried to take her. But the women of this
century are much different than those of past ones. And this woman
is more different than any other of her century. I love her and she
doesn’t even know I exist. Such a cruel world.

~~~~

CHAPTER ONE

Akio flicked the center of my forehead making
me cringe in pain. “Still open,” He grunted. Akio was short,
Chinese and very powerful. He could kick my butt in two seconds
even though he was very very old.

I groaned and continued
my
Qigong movements and tried to
focus on the center of my forehead.

“
I don’t
understand why I can’t just focus on closing the eye first and then
do the other training.” I complained.

“
I teacher. You
student. Now focus.” Akio flicked my forehead again making me wince
in pain.

I sighed, but continued with
the lesson. Akio raised his fingers toward my forehead after two
minutes of watching me, but I grabbed his wrist before he could hit
the center of my forehead where my invisible, but very real, third
eye sat.

“
Anymore and
I’ll be blind instead of being able to close the third eye,” I
whispered calmly.

Akio frowned at me, his deep
wrinkles deepening further. I fought to push back the image of the
dragon that was overlapping his face.

“
Fine. No more
today, but you must practice,” he said angrily.

I put my right palm over my left fist and
bowed to Akio. “Thank you Master.” He nodded his head once and
hobbled toward the back of the dojo where his living quarters were.
I changed quickly into my work clothes then slung my backpack over
my shoulders and walked down the busy city street. The sun dried
the sweat on my face as I walked toward one of the seven
skyscrapers in the city.

Luna Villa was a two horse town when Akio
purchased his property in sixteen thirty four, but in the eighteen
hundreds the werewolf superstition spread and tourists swarmed to
any city they believed could house wolves. What better place to
look for werewolves than the “moon village”?

Tourism was still booming three hundred years
later and the merchandisers milked them for all they could. You
could get a mug, a shirt, even a blanket with a picture of a half
man, half wolf beast howling at the moon. The drawings were
laughable and I knew the real werewolves despised the drawings.
Yes, I said real werewolves. Not a very nice group to socialize
with, but they seemed to like it in Luna Villa since hundreds of
werewolves lived in the town. There were many other preternaturals
living in Luna Villa as well and it made for a very frightening
place to be out at night in.

The normal humans had no idea and the
werewolves played it up around the full moon, running through town
in their wolf forms or in combatant form (half man-half wolf). The
tourists would run to the cops and tell them how their friend was
eaten by a werewolf and the cops would shoo them away as drunk and
needing to get their fantasies in check with reality. Sadly it was
the cops who needed a check in reality.

I stopped at the red crosswalk sign and
waited for the little white man to signal me to walk.

Two men stopped beside me and the hair on the
nape of my neck stood up. I turned my head slowly and my eyes
widened. Over the men’s human faces flickered images of two ogres
who were smiling at me, revealing decaying brown teeth. I turned
away quickly and stared straight ahead trying to act like I had no
idea they were ogres and favored the taste of human flesh.

The signal finally changed and I walked
quickly across the street. I couldn’t run or they would know I
could see their true faces. I made it two more blocks without
seeing another preternatural until a werelion stepped in front of
me smiling wide. The blurred image of his razor sharp teeth
overlapped the small human ones and would have made me scream if I
wasn’t used to seeing it every day. “Hey girl. You look like you
could use a good time.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and shook
my head. “Sorry, I’m taken,” I said as strongly as I could. His
nostrils flared and I knew I was sunk. He wouldn’t smell a man on
me and would press the issue. It was broad daylight dammit. They
usually didn’t pull stunts like this until night.

He flared his nostrils again, looked behind
me then shrugged and stepped out of my way. “My bad.”

I wanted to look behind me to see what he had
seen, but knew that something that would have frightened a werelion
would have probably made me wet my pants. I walked quickly away
from him and started counting down the blocks to my work.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

I opened the front door and hurried inside
flashing my security badge at the guard as I ran passed. I turned
toward the front door as I waited for the elevator and crossed my
fingers. The elevator dinged and no monsters followed me inside.
Thank goodness. I climbed into my metal safe haven and pressed the
button for the sixth floor. Preternaturals hate to be in confined
spaces so the elevator was the only safe place for me at work, but
sometimes they used the elevator and I was forced to share the box
with them.

I slowed my breathing down and whispered, “As
long as the monsters don’t know I can see them, they won’t hurt
me.” If only it were true and I believed it.

The elevator doors opened and the noise of
the office brought a smile to my face. Secretaries, running between
their desks and their attorneys’ offices, yelled orders to clerks.
Attorneys yelled orders at the secretaries and yelled insults at
the other attorneys. The phones constantly rung and music from the
employee jukebox filled the air with a static hum. I loved my
job.

After grabbing a cup of coffee and adding two
sugars and one cream, I rushed to Robert’s office. He was yelling
at the phone, so I knocked on the door and stood just outside of
it. He slammed the phone receiver down and motioned me in. “Morning
sir,” I said with a pleasant smile on my face.

He nodded his head at me shaking around his
grey hair and pointed to a stack of tapes and files. “I need all of
the letters and legal pleadings out today and I need coffee.”

I set the coffee on his desk and picked up
the files and tapes. “Right away. Remember, you have a deposition
in conference room four in two hours and a counselors meeting at
three in the executive conference room on the first floor.”

Robert rubbed his temples. “What is the point
of a counselors meeting? The chief will tell us we’re doing a great
job, the other attorneys will gloat about recent wins and then a
debate will ensue which won’t get finished because no one can agree
on anything. It’s absurd.”

I smiled. “And you love every second of
it.”

He started to smile then shook his head and
frowned. “Coffee, now.” Any other secretary would have objected
that she’d just gotten him a cup of coffee, but I knew he would
chug the first cup and would need the second one by the time I got
back to him.

I turned and left his office before he could
think of some way to make me go to the counselors meeting in his
place. I set the files and tapes on my desk and put my backpack in
the bottom drawer. Sally popped her head up over the cubicle wall
and smiled at me. “So, did you meet anyone?”

I rolled my eyes at her and pushed her red
haired head back over the wall. “I stayed home all weekend and
watched episodes of Buffy.” We both sat down before one of the
attorneys saw us talking and docked our pay.

Sally sighed. “I don’t understand your
infatuation with that teen vampire show.”

“
Vampire
slayer
show,” I
corrected her. “And there is nothing wrong with Buffy. Wouldn’t you
enjoy slaying a few demons?”

Sally replied without hesitation, “I’d settle
for a few attorneys.”

I laughed quietly and hurried away from my
desk towards the full kitchen. The attorneys spent more time at
work than at home, so they decided to put in a full kitchen where
they could make their secretaries cook them food. Three other
secretaries I had never seen before were pouring coffee and tea
into mugs for their attorneys when I stepped into the kitchen. I
waited my turn for the caffeinated pot of coffee then grabbed
Robert’s favorite mug sporting a penguin with a green tie asking,
“What do you mean it doesn’t match my suit?” and poured the coffee
in.

I started adding sugar when one of the
secretaries started talking to me. I stirred the liquid and smiled
politely. “Sorry I didn’t hear your question?”

She was a thin woman, almost too thin. It
made me wonder if a kick to her side would break a rib. “I asked if
you had seen the new attorney or if you knew who was assigned to
him?” She asked with a bright smile.

I frowned. “I didn’t know there was a new
attorney.” Sally always kept me up to date on office gossip. Had
she forgotten to tell me or was she holding out on me?

One of the other secretaries, a woman too
obese for her tight shirt, rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how you
could have missed him. He’s only got the most perfect brown eyes
and black hair I have ever seen.”

The last secretary, the type of woman who
tended to be overlooked no matter what she was wearing, groaned.
“And the most luscious body.” All three women giggled loudly like
teenage girls.

I washed off the spoon I had used to stir
Robert’s coffee and shrugged. “Well I hope one of you gets assigned
to him.” They waved and I hurried to Robert’s office. I didn’t
really care about new attorneys and office gossip, but I preferred
to be kept in the loop so that I didn’t look like an idiot when
someone asked me a question about what had happened recently.

A hot attorney would at least be something to
look at instead of these other, old attorneys that worked here. We
did have one younger attorney, but he was not attractive.

I walked into Robert’s office and set his mug
in front of him and was almost out the door when he called my name.
I winced and turned around slowly. “Yes, sir?”

He had on his serious frown, the one that
meant he was upset. “The chief has informed me that you’re being
reassigned.”

My mouth dropped open. “But…but I’m always
here. I’m never late and I get your work out on time. Did I
misspell something or not check a box?”

Robert waved his hand to stop me. “Calm down,
Ciara. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re being promoted.”

I closed my mouth then asked, “What
floor?”

He smiled. “First.”

I sighed. Dammit. That was the floor where
the monsters worked, but it was also the Executive members. “Which
attorney is it?”

He straightened his tie, a sign that he felt
threatened by this new attorney. “The new hot shot, Eric
Wolfe.”

“
Wolf?” My voice picked up
a few octaves.