Jivaja (Soul Cavern Series Book 1) Read online

  “Thank you.”

  Claude strode down the long hall approaching Emilia’s quarters. At the door, a young woman perched on a sturdy, wooden stool. She had a faint smell of apples about her. Claude tried to recall her name, but her face, though pretty, was just one of dozens of young ones who'd come to Atlanta. Claude had lost patience in trying to keep track of them all.

  She ducked her head as he approached, brown hair obscuring her angular face for a moment.

  Respectful, at least. A half-breed? When she raised her head and met his gaze, Claude found her deep-set eyes compelling with their cornflower blue pools.

  “She’s expecting you.” The young woman flicked the door handle with her fingers and gave it a push and it swung open without a sound.

  “Thank you,” Claude said. She would make something of herself in this life. Later, though, when she’d learned the ways. “Your name?”

  “Victoria Thornton.”

  “Well met, Miss Thornton. And good evening.” He inclined his head, which brought a smile to the young one’s lips.

  “Good evening to you, as well.”

  He went through the entryway and into the sitting room. It looked exactly as it had the last time he’d come here, with Emilia at her computer again. He approached the desk. “The girl at your door, Victoria Thornton, she’s promising.”

  “Yes. She’d been working the streets for a few months before she was brought in.”

  “She will accept responsibility well, I think.”

  “I agree. I was pleasantly surprised,” she said, her voice melodic as it had always been. “I’m glad you could come by. Tonight, I’ll be dining with Mecca on the music room balcony.”

  Claude kept his face expressionless as he listened and leaned against one of the chairs facing Emilia’s desk.

  “I’d appreciate it if you would bring her up for me.”

  A glorified nurse, pushing a wheelchair. “Of course.” Claude paused, then decided to take a calculated risk. “She is a willful girl, you realize.”

  “Yes, she is. But I think I can persuade her.”

  “Do you? Is there leverage you might use?”

  “Have you seen the reports on her father?”

  “Briefly. I didn't look very close, I admit.” Claude had read each report on David’s former wives with care. “But I believe I caught the overall meaning. You will pursue him as well?”

  “Yes. Having two in the fold will be a great advantage at this time.” She leaned back in the desk chair and the scent of cinnamon and cloves drifted over Claude again.

  He waited a moment before nodding. “Yes, the power they have would prove very useful in the coming conflict.”

  She turned her almond eyes on him. “I don't want the war to come to Atlanta, but I am afraid it's too late to stop it.”

  “I believe that's true,” he said. “In a previous age, you might have been able to fortify and keep the zealots out. Today, everything is immediate and it only takes moments to make something distant local.”

  “Mecca's power, along with her father's, will tip the scales, I think.”

  “Do you have a theory about this power?”

  Emilia fixed him with an intent gaze. “Do you think we’ve had it wrong about the Blood?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He wasn’t sure where she was going.

  “Do you think it’s possible,” she said, “that the Blood isn’t what sustains us?”

  “What do you mean?” He ground his teeth, frustrated at himself for not yet understanding, but feeling an enormity behind what she was getting at.

  “What if the Blood is only a carrier?”

  Everything became surreal as his thinking shifted to accommodate the shake-up of all the long-accepted tenets of their existence. Just contemplating it made his world tilt, yet in a way that made him feel the need to embrace it. Because it felt true. “It’s an intriguing idea. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m not sure yet. The way she killed Hayden—she drained him of life, but not blood. Yet he wasted away. Does it not follow that there is something other than the Blood?”

  “Yes,” he said. It made sense. “What about sharing blood with humans? How does that fit in?”

  Emilia leaned back in her chair. Her nostrils twitched almost imperceptibly as they always did when she concentrated. “I don’t know yet. Perhaps whatever we take with the Blood fuses with us in some way? When we share it with them, it gives us some measure of control over them?” She shook her head, her brow creased. “I don’t know.”

  “I believe it’s something we should consider seriously.”

  “Yes. If all of the beliefs we have about the Blood are wrong…”

  Claude remained silent for a time as they both considered the shift in reality such a discovery would entail. He did not want to abandon his original question, however.

  “So how do you hope to use the father to get the daughter?” He knew Emilia would not deny answers outright, their entwined past would ensure that, though she might hedge.

  Emilia’s eyes narrowed for only a moment and Claude knew her defenses had raised. He walked a fine line between acceptable curiosity and prying interrogation.

  “I hope that his previous crimes,” she said, “will alienate Mecca and make her open to other possibilities. Wouldn't a murdering father cause a daughter—even a loving one—to pull away?” The question was rhetorical.

  “Do we know for certain that he killed his wives?”

  Emilia shrugged, her petite shoulders barely moving. “Do I know without a doubt? No. But I think it's probable. And, more importantly, I think Mecca won't be able to come to a different conclusion, as much as she may want to. I'm counting on it to make her distance herself from him. Make her more vulnerable.” She watched him with fire in her eyes. “If not, we’ll eventually get him as well. He won’t be able to stay away forever.”

  “And if he tries to rescue his daughter?”

  “Him coming to us would make it that much easier. I suspect he’s the more powerful of the two.”

  “Perhaps so,” Claude said, though he believed it to be exactly so. David Trenow had made short work of the two who’d been sent to fetch him. Claude wanted to ask more of her plans, but it wouldn’t be welcome. He shifted topics. “Are things ready for the Maze Gathering?”

  “Almost. We have the offerings, and we’ve received most of the invitation responses. We have dozens arriving from outside the city. It will be a full house. We haven’t had a Gathering here in several years.”

  “The diversion will be welcome.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you chosen who will play?”

  “Not as yet. You’re welcome, if you wish. We’ll only have five spots this time, as we did last Gathering. I believe having fewer players makes the competition that much keener.”

  “I may play. I haven’t participated in a Maze in quite a long time.” At least eighty years, he thought.

  “Oh, very good.” Emilia’s smile radiated sincerity. “I may send Victoria in as well. What do you think of that?”

  “Do you think she has the constitution to gather the hearts?”

  Emilia inclined her head, a smile curving her lips and a twinkle in her eye. “That’s the question I’m hoping to answer.”

  “So you do have plans for her.” Claude found himself a little bit enchanted, as he sometimes did with Emilia.

  “Perhaps I do.” She looked back at the computer monitor and then said, “You will bring Mecca to me at ten o’clock tonight?”

  Recognizing the dismissal, Claude executed a small reverence to her as he spoke. “Of course. I would be honored.”

  “Very good. I will see you then.”

  “As you wish.” He stepped back and then turned away.

  He had plans to make.

  Chapter Eleven: David

  “But how do you know how to do this if you don’t have the Gift?” Mecca looked at him with her big, chestnut eyes. Teres
a’s eyes. Sorrow stabbed him in the gut. Theresa had been gone almost two years. He didn’t think he’d ever be used to not having her around.

  “I helped my dad when he trained Ken, remember? I spent so much time letting him suck the energy out of me, I started feeling like a gas pump!” He grinned and was rewarded with Mecca’s ringing laugh. A fleeting feeling of deja vu slid over him.

  Her hand rested on his arm. They were doing what his dad had always called Aura Exercises. It didn’t have anything to do with visual aura. It referred to the energy aura he knew Mecca could feel around him. He kept himself tightly shielded so he wouldn’t seem different from any other person. Difficult, but he’d been accomplishing it well, he thought.

  “Okay, now draw just a little from me. Not much. Just like a sip of water.” He opened a tiny hole in his mental defenses so she would have something to draw from. He felt the tug of her energy, pulling his own out like liquid through a funnel.

  “Is that right? I can feel it. Wow.” The small voice she used reminded him of what she’d sounded like as a very young girl, not a girl who’d just entered her teens.

  “That’s it. You’re doing it exactly right. Now, slow down. Feel it almost stop. Just a trickle. Good girl. Now stop altogether. Excellent. You’re getting better. Now tell me what you felt.”

  Mecca leaned back in her chair, breaking contact with him. Her chest rose and fell quickly, from the energy rush. He knew from experience that it took a while to learn how to integrate the energy so it didn’t feel like she’d just touched a live wire. She’d get the hang of it.

  “I could feel you. Like you know how clothes can feel static-y when you take them out of the dryer? All sticking together and stuff? I could feel that around your skin when I first touched you.”

  David nodded.

  “Then I just imagined myself pulling at that.” She grinned at him, her smile wide and beautiful. “I could feel your energy coming into me. And now I’m really hyper.”

  He laughed. “Okay, go on outside and run it off. It’ll be good practice for the track tryouts. Just be home before dark.”

  “Okay.”

  From the bay window in the kitchen, David watched her head toward the trees. The back of the house bordered on a small, wooded area with running trails. Mecca, sprinting in that direction, looked back and waved. Foreboding gathered in David’s gut like a stone. Something wasn’t right.

  The day darkened, but Mecca ran on, her dark ponytail bouncing side to side. The sun disappeared.

  Too fast. It shouldn’t be dark yet.

  The sense of familiarity that had persisted suddenly broke. The yard’s floodlights flashed on, illuminating the backyard. But light never touched the entrance to the woods. Sick panic snaked through his veins.

  “Mecca!” He raised his hand to the window.

  She kept jogging until she reached the mouth of the trail that led into the blackness. He saw the vivid green of her jogging suit in the bright lights. Without warning, three shadows tore out from the woods and enveloped her. She screamed—screamed for him.

  David crashed through the window and ran toward her. The trail at her back warped and shifted and became a tunnel. His legs felt heavy and slow, like he moved through water. He watched, horrified, as she struggled beneath the shadow-forms.

  Her wiry legs kicked out, but she never made contact with any of them. One pulled her ponytail backward, arching her back and exposing her neck. Wheeled around, she faced the house, and he could see the caramel color of her soft skin before the largest of the figures smashed his teeth into her neck.

  Her scream rang out and then withered into a sharp gurgle. The shadow-monster ripped upward. Where there had been the beauty of his daughter’s neck, now was only bloody gore punctuated by wet, choking sounds.

  Something yanked at his ankle. Or maybe he just stumbled. He skidded on the grass. His chin hit the ground with a brain-rattling snap of his jaw. He wanted to pull himself up, but his limbs wouldn’t cooperate. It was like the earth held him tight and wouldn’t let him go. He couldn’t get to her. He could only lie there and listen to Mecca’s watery, sucking breaths.

  It took only moments for the sounds to peter away, leaving the gentle chirrup of crickets. He lay his forehead on the ground. Sobs raged from his throat, rumbling out of him like a bullet train.

  When he quieted, many tears later, he realized he’d been hearing a rustling up ahead for some time. The soft scrape of something dragged through grass. He thought about just lying there. Staying and letting whatever it was have him. He had no idea where the vampires were—certainly they were vampires—but he no longer cared.

  Mecca was gone. Nothing mattered.

  That rustling again. Irregular, but constant.

  His head felt heavy, but he lifted it, raised his gaze to see what made the sounds. The world had settled dark and hazy, but he made out her shape, moving along, close to the ground.

  Bile rose in his throat.

  She dragged her torso along. He saw the grisly wound in her neck. Blood glinted scarlet in the dim light from the house. It covered her lips and chin, dripped from her mouth, from her neck. The grass below her became stained with it as she moved.

  He looked into her eyes and saw nothing he recognized. She was no longer the thirteen year old girl he’d been teaching just minutes ago. Fully grown, her shirt had been ripped open, exposing her small breasts as she pulled herself along the ground toward him. Her eyes twinkled with animal need, her lips upturned in an utterly grotesque smile. Her canine teeth had grown long and pointy.

  He backed away on his hands and knees. Fear pricked through his veins, and his belly jumped in protest. He barely turned his head in time—vomit spewed from him with such violence, it seared his throat. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

  She still came toward him. “Daddy—I need you, Daddy. Come, let me touch you.” That voice, low and guttural, carried a promise that made him want to puke again.

  Within four feet of him now, the thing that could not be Mecca scrambled closer.

  David’s limbs wouldn’t work. Panic brushed the edges of his mind. Losing control—even insanity—seemed almost welcome. He held it all at bay as he pulled his knees under him and crawled backward.

  The world shifted, and he was on his feet with Mecca standing before him. Her hand extended toward him, and he recoiled. He backed away until a solid wall blocked his path. How did he get so close to the house?

  She pressed her body against his. The coppery smell of her blood engulfed him. He convulsed with a dry heave.

  “Mecca,” he whispered. “Please.”

  She smiled and flicked her tongue over one of her teeth. “I love you, Daddy,” she said in a lilty, quiet voice, wholly unlike the one he loved.

  She turned his head to the side. Her sharp teeth pressed against his skin. His mind tripped, and his heart broke. A strange mix of sadness, dread, and inevitability whirled through him.

  She'd set the path. He could only follow.

  As her fangs broke his skin, he shot his energy out, straight into her and zeroed in on what remained of her life essence. He clamped his arms around her and drew her tight as she embraced him.

  Without hesitation or second thought—he couldn't allow himself that—he ripped it from her. He pulled her energy toward him as if he reeled in a marlin. Her head jerked away from his neck. She screamed, pain and terror in the sound. She stared at him with huge dark eyes, stained with agony.

  Her skin pulled taut against her bones. She tried to yank away from him, but he clutched her tight. He wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t.

  Her muscles weakened beneath his grip. She whimpered as her knees buckled, and she slid down. He went with her, still pulling, feeling the energy break away from her like a popped rubber band. Her face grew leathery and the gaping hole in her neck had browned and shrunken.

  “Daddy.” The words came in a dry croak. “Please, don’t. Please...”

  Grief and regret
stabbed him. Tears coursed down his face, and he squeezed his eyes shut, no longer able to watch as he destroyed his own daughter.

  She cried beneath him, her body frail in his grasp. He willed himself not to listen as her energy finally tore free and slammed into him.

  He staggered and fought for control as it rocked his soul. He rode it, and when it finally finished with him, he’d fallen to his hands and knees beside the withered husk of his daughter-turned-monster. He forced himself to look at her once beautiful face.

  As he did, he realized it wasn’t Mecca’s face at all.

  It was Sara’s.

  David jerked awake and bolted straight up, a scream on his lips.

  At the edge of the bed, Sara jumped a step back and put her hand on her chest. “Jesus Christ! Are you okay?”

  David barely had the presence of mind to nod as he fought the panic that brought an acid taste up from his belly. Adrenaline pumped through him. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s cool. You just scared the shit out of me, is all. You okay? That must have been one bad-ass nightmare.”

  He nodded as he fought to get his breathing and heart rate under control. He pushed aside the details of the dream. He didn’t want to analyze it.

  “Well,” she continued, “I came to wake you up because the prog came through. You’re in.”

  “Thanks.” The panic began to recede, but he couldn’t concentrate on the good news Sara brought. “I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”

  “Okay. I went out to the Brew and got some muffins while you were asleep. I had a taste for something sweet and they’ve got the best orange cranberry muffins. I’ll be in the basement when you’re ready.”

  He sat on the bed for several minutes after she left, breathing deeply as he regained some control. When he felt he could walk, he went across the hall to the bathroom. He immersed himself in the mundane tasks of relieving himself and cleaning up.

  In the mirror, dull, washed-out blue eyes looked back at him. If he could just find Mecca, they could disappear and become different people. David had the paperwork hidden away in a safe deposit box. It would only be a matter of signing a few bank accounts over to a holding company before transferring them to a different identity and then updating the paperwork with current photos.