Jivaja (Soul Cavern Series Book 1) Read online

  Will might be persuaded to help her escape, but it would take time. But how much time she had, Mecca didn't have any way of knowing. She shuffled through the papers on her lap without really seeing any of it. She had to find a way out.

  Escape wouldn’t be easy. She had no idea where she was being held. Was she even still in Atlanta? Only one door into or out of her windowless room. And Will had used a keycard to unlock that door. She couldn’t even see a way to get out of her bonds by herself, and none of those guarding her seemed easily out-smarted. They — the Visci? — had left only her hands and her head bare and they avoided getting too near, either. They feared her, but not tons. At least they remained wary of her touch.

  “Will?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why did they kidnap me?”

  Will cocked an eyebrow. The sharpness his voice held earlier was gone. “Because you killed a full blood. I would have thought you knew.”

  “But how did they know? Do they have some weird telepathic thing where they can see what happens to each other?”

  Will laughed. “No, no. Don’t be silly.”

  “That’s sillier than the existence of blood-sucking…whatever they are?”

  “Point taken.” He studied Mecca for a long moment. His gaze made her flush. Not the tingly feeling that confused her when Emilia or Claude spoke to her. This seemed more normal. Like she was crushing on him. Come on, Mecca. No time for Stockholm Syndrome.

  Will shrugged. “Hayden Anderson became something of a black sheep in these last few years. He didn’t attend councils. He didn’t show up when summoned. He would come when he wanted to come, never when required.” He paused and noted something on the clipboard. “He started killing people he shouldn’t have been killing.”

  Mecca reined in most of her questions, settling on only one, in case he didn't continue to feel forthcoming. “They can only kill certain people?”

  “Not so much. More precisely, there are certain people they are forbidden to kill. And as I said, Hayden rarely obeyed orders. He began feeding on, then killing, the children of people in high places.”

  “And Emilia was afraid it would call attention to them.”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up. “No, not at all. Haven’t you yet wondered why in all the time you’ve lived here, you’ve never noticed them before? Why you’ve never heard in the news of any bodies found mysteriously drained of blood?”

  Vampires, but not vampires. They don’t fear exposure, yet certain people remain off limits. Why? “It’s not the Visci” —the name sounded strange on her lips— “being protected,” Mecca thought out loud. “It’s the humans. But the powerful ones.”

  “Well, the families of the powerful ones.”

  “Because they could be sure of cooperation if the powerful people knew their families would be spared. Or the opposite is likely too. Their families would not be spared unless they cooperated.”

  Will inclined his head. “Just so.”

  Mecca paused again, still thinking aloud. “Because it's easier to control a city if you control the most powerful within it.”

  “Hayden killed two college kids. One, the son of a city councilman, the other, the daughter of a state Congresswoman. Emilia and the Elders ordered Hayden be monitored.”

  Mecca tried not to gasp. The man by the Dumpster. She’s totally forgotten about him! It all clicked.

  He saw everything. He saw her discover what Hayden was — or, rather, what he wasn't: human — and he saw Hayden wither away to a skeleton. He must have cleaned up the remains. That’s why she and Dad didn't find any body or even traces of a crime scene.

  “Why didn’t they stop me?”

  “Why would they? You took care of a difficulty that would have been very sticky for them. When you intervened, they no longer had to worry about convening the council nor about passing judgment on him. You became a very convenient wrinkle at that moment. Now, you’re not quite as convenient.”

  “So they want to know how I did it. Why? To use against each other?”

  “Perhaps. They sometimes have problems with rogues like Hayden. And there are other factions, so a power like yours might prove useful.”

  “Factions? Like political.” They had an entire society set up, just underneath the human one. Crazy.

  “Somewhat.”

  “Why are you sharing with me like this?”

  “Because in the end, it doesn’t matter.” Will smiled again, showing straight but lightly stained teeth. “When you meet with her, either you’ll agree to whatever it is that Emilia wants, or you won’t. If you do, you’ll learn all this on your own anyway. If you don’t, you won’t be in a position to do anything about it.”

  The timer beeped and startled her. Dread crept along her skin. Will moved to the locked medicine cabinet in the corner.

  “Don’t put me to sleep yet, Will. Please. You don’t have to.” Her pleas did earn a pause, but only momentarily before Will began filling the syringe.

  “Sorry. You heard Emilia. An hour to read, then to sleep. It’s your own fault you didn’t read. Though you may wish to jump to the end and read the seventh report.”

  “Seventh? Emilia said there were six previous women.”

  “There were.”

  Mecca flipped the first six folders onto the floor beside her bed and looked at the last one on her lap. She didn’t want to open it, but already Will was putting things away in the drug cabinet.

  Like the others, a marriage license sat on top of the pile. David Trenow, age 39, and Teresa Stone, age 25. Her mother. Mecca stared for a moment and then turned that sheet over. The next page contained a simple typed report on her parents’ marriage, including her own birth and her mother’s cancer.

  It concluded that “although Teresa Trenow’s illness cannot be directly attributed to David Trenow, neither can the woman’s death be positively attributed to the cancer itself.”

  Mecca squeezed her eyes shut.

  Tears threatened to tumble as she leaned back against the pillow. Ringing clanged through her head, shaking her brain. She barely heard Will approach the bed. It only took a moment for Mecca to feel the weight of her eyelids. This time, instead of fighting it, she ran to it, embraced it and fell, grateful, into the darkness.

  Chapter Seven: David

  David passed the old stadium along I-75/85, the highway always busy, even at midnight. They’d taken him south of the city, almost to the country. He didn’t realize he’d been passed out as long as he must have been.

  He kept the speedometer at seventy, and an old burgundy Ford with chrome spinner rims blew past him. The van swayed, and he tightened his grip on the wheel to keep control. A Volvo on the other side of him changed lanes.

  Going back to Jim’s might prove to be the stupidest thing he could do. But he only had this one lead in finding Mecca. If he could have left Irish alive, he might have gotten more information. But that hadn’t felt like an option at the time. It was also possible that he wouldn’t have seen it if it had been an option.

  When the interstate split, he took 85 north straight on to Buckhead.

  He'd managed to remove all the tape, but his face still burned, like patches of smoldering undergrowth after a forest fire had been mostly contained. The memories he’d leeched from the Irishman told him they had Mecca. Whoever “they” were. If he could get Jim to talk — and he would — he could at least find a starting point. Once he started, he wouldn’t stop until he found her.

  No matter who he had to kill.

  They seemed to think he had the same limitations on his power that Mecca did. Like any other skill, though, their Gift could be refined and honed. After Teresa died, Mecca let him train her only long enough to control it. She refused to learn anything further. She'd originally wanted to stop training altogether. He’d had to convince her to go on, for the safety of others, at the very least. So she had no idea what she could do with her Gift.

  Mecca needed skin-to-skin contact for a direct ene
rgy pull, but he had no such constraints. Any sort of contact would work for him. Clothing optional. This was a misconception he could use.

  Since dumping the husks out of the van, he found that he’d begun distancing himself from his emotions, particularly compassion — the one that had taken him so long to learn. He wasn’t happy to return to this state. He’d spent enough of his life there.

  Still, Jim’s betrayal bothered him more than he wanted to admit. He couldn’t understand why Jim would be in league with these people — creatures. It couldn’t be for the money. He came from an old Boston family and certainly didn’t need the extra padding from monetary gifts. Perhaps they’d found him sticking it to his secretary. Blackmail creates incentive. That didn’t sound much like Jim either, but every man has his vice.

  David turned off the highway, watching his rear view mirror. No headlights followed as he came off the exit. The drive had given his anger time to dissipate, which was probably good for Jim in the long run. David no longer planned to simply kill him outright. That had been his knee-jerk.

  Turning into the tree-lined subdivision, he cut the headlights and eased down the narrow roads. He edged the van to the curb around the corner from the Barron place. The wooded part of the property backed up to the road here. On foot, David cut through the trees and circled around behind the house.

  The pool lights still twinkled in the water, but the patio itself remained dark. Lucky break. He crept along the tiled deck of the pool and peered into Jim’s office. Only a green-shaded bank light on the desk glowed, leaving most of the room shadowed. Jim sat forward in the leather desk chair, talking on the phone, his back to the window. He gestured widely, his raised voice audible but unclear through the glass. David watched for a moment longer and then slipped into the pool cabana.

  In the darkness, he crouched and felt beneath the bench until he found the small box fastened to the underside. David had an identical one beneath the cedar steps of the deck in his own backyard. He and Jim had bought them at the hardware store over a decade before.

  With a flip of his finger, the box popped open and the key fell onto his palm. A delicate pressure brushed against his jacket sleeve, and he jerked his arm away, adrenaline spiking. A yellow lab stood just over his shoulder, watching him.

  “Oh, Christ, Mojo. You scared the shit out of me.”

  At the sound of his familiar voice, she bounced forward and licked his hand. He scratched her behind one ear with his free hand, then patted her neck. “Okay, be a good girl and go on.” Mojo only watched him, her tail swishing back and forth so hard it made her back end sway. He patted the side of her neck as he stood, and then he pushed past her, out of the cabana.

  Within moments, he’d made his way to the back door and let himself in, his adrenaline still spiked and pumping. He moved through the immaculate kitchen and into the living room. Then he stood outside Jim’s office, listening. Jim’s voice alternately rose and dropped, but David couldn’t make out the words. David wrapped his hand around the knob and opened the door.

  When he entered the room, Jim, seated at his desk, his shoulder propping the phone against his ear, raised both brows. He stood. “Carolyn, I have to go. We’ll talk later. Yes, everything is fine. I love you too.”

  David pictured ripping Jim’s head from his neck and throwing it into the pool. That would be gratifying. But not very practical and probably not possible without a large, well-sharpened object. David leashed his impulse and regarded Jim with what he hoped was an impassive look that didn’t match any emotion in him just then.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

  “Dave — I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t want to do it, but — You have to understand.” Jim rose and took three steps around the desk.

  “What is it I have to understand? I understand that you set me up. I understand that you drugged me.” David approached the desk. “I understand that you handed me over to two men who would have killed me. Two men who kidnapped Mecca.” The words hung in the air.

  “Kidnapped Mecca?”

  “You still haven’t given me a reason not to kill you.”

  “They said they would hurt Jenny and Carolyn if I didn’t cooperate. They mean business. You remember when Tom Drury’s boy got killed in that car accident a few years ago?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “It wasn’t a wreck that killed him.”

  “Drury. That guy on the council with you?”

  Jim nodded.

  “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Jim said, everything about his voice and posture overwhelmed.

  David closed the distance between them in seconds. He hit the desk lamp as he passed. It clattered to the floor and made crazy shadows as David slammed Jim against the wall. David pinned him with a forearm to the chest.

  “Don’t fucking lie to me, Jim. Who are they?”

  “They’ll kill my family!”

  “Right now, you should be more afraid of me than them.” David searched his friend’s face. Jim looked more and more defeated as the seconds ticked by. “Tell you what. I already know what they are. How about you just tell me where they are?”

  “I don’t know where they are. If I did, I swear — I swear — I would tell you.” Fear and desperation tainted Jim’s breath, giving it a sour smell. “You think I wanted to do that to you?” His voice raised with each word until he was almost yelling. “Do you think I want to even be involved with them?”

  David moved a step back, letting Jim away from the wall.

  “I’m resigning my position on the council this week. I won’t be manipulated any longer. If they kill me, they kill me. At least my family will be safe.”

  This was the Jim he knew. This was the man he’d expected to have a drink with earlier. He didn’t want to feel this compassion.

  The shrill chatter of a cell phone’s electronic ring startled both of them. David shot a warning look at Jim, who simply raised a hand and then stepped to the desk and picked up his cell phone.

  “Hello? No.” He looked over at David as he spoke. “What do you mean he escaped? No, I haven’t seen him.” A vein in Jim’s forehead pulsed visibly as an edge crept into his voice. “Absolutely not. You lost him, you find him. I’m not your lapdog, Ms. Laos, and I’m not one of your foot soldiers.” He listened for several moments, then said, “Fair enough. Yes, I have the number. Goodbye.” He swiped to disconnect, dropped the phone onto the desk, and ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair. “They’re looking for you. If I hear from you, I’m to call them.”

  “And who was that?”

  “Her name is Emilia Laos. As far as I know, she is their leader. I don’t know how organized they are, but their setup reminds me of the mob. One head and lots of little soldiers.”

  “You have their number. Give it to me.”

  “I only have a cell number, but you're welcome to it.”

  David stood in silence as Jim took a business card from his Rolodex and handed it over. David read the card out loud. “Emilia Laos. Import export.” He didn’t recognize the address.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Find Mecca.”

  They watched each other for a moment before Jim said, “You’re going to need money. They’ll be monitoring your bank account. You have no idea how far their hold goes in this city.”

  Jim walked around to the front of the desk and retrieved the green-shaded lamp from the floor. He switched the light off and then flipped it upside down. He turned a small wing nut set in the underside of the heavy brass base. When he removed the nut, the bottom of the lamp slipped out and a small bundle of money, folded in half and rubber-banded, fell onto the desk. He replaced the false bottom and tossed the wad of cash to David.

  “There’s a little over a grand there. It’s all I have liquid at the moment. You’re welcome to it.”

  David regarded him with a steady gaze as he pocketed the money without looking at it. He turned and walked away without another
word. When he reached the doorway, Jim cleared his throat.

  “Dave.”

  He looked back. Jim still looked like his old friend, but he no longer felt any trust in the man. It had been replaced by bitterness.

  “I’m sorry for tonight,” Jim said. “And for Mecca. If I can do anything…”

  “You’ve done enough.” He left the grand house through the back and headed to the parked van.

  He spent a tense and nervous night, his jacket pulled tight around him, beneath the highway overpass in a questionable part of town he didn’t recognize. Jim’s words had made him hesitant about wanting to go home.

  He’d tried to sleep, off and on, but the expectation of crashing glass and the gleam of fangs at any moment kept any meaningful sleep away. Why he kept seeing fangs, he didn't know. He hadn't seen fangs on either of his kidnappers. When the first morning rays penetrated the van’s gloom, he breathed a long sigh.

  He didn’t dare use the GPS on his phone — he kept his phone off altogether — so he stopped at a gas station and bought a paper map. It’d taken him ten minutes to find the rack in the back corner of the store. He plotted his route to the address printed on the business card.

  The warehouse district encompassed at least twenty-five city blocks, but he’d had no trouble locating the building belonging to Emilia Laos among eight warehouses of varying sizes.

  He parked the van several bays away from the one he wanted. It seemed to be the only warehouse on the street with no activity. As he walked by its neighbor, he stopped one of the gruff-looking men working there.

  “Hey, why’s that one dark?”

  The worker, who looked well into his fifties, narrowed his eyes. A scar on his cheek twitched as he took David’s measure.

  “I’m looking for new space for my auto parts,” David said. “If that one’s vacant, I just might move my business over here.”

  The other man brushed his hands over dirty jeans and eyed him. His suspicions were not allayed, David knew, but the man replied anyway. “Nah, it ain’t vacant. Whoever’s there don’t get stuff in often. We see some guys working out there every couple a weeks.”