Darkside Sun (10 page)

“What doin’ out here?” asked the most ginormous man I’d ever seen in some island creole accent. The entire left side of him, at least what I could see around his shiny sentinel uniform, had been covered in black tribal tattoos. A line divided him across his shaved head, down his nose and chin. He was striking, unforgettable, I’d give him that. Scary, but striking. Gigantic arms crossed over a chest the size of Australia. “He wait’n on you, brah. You bring the
malihini
now, or he have me bring her.”

I was pretty sure my heart rushed up my throat and flew away. “I don’t want him taking me anywhere,” I whispered to Asher, still huddled behind him. If I was the virgin sacrifice, the giant framed in the doorway was most certainly King Kong. “And what does
malihini
mean?”

“It means newcomer. Fresh meat.” Asher moved aside, leaving me quivering on my own. “And if you don’t want Remy here to knock you out and drag you in by your hair, I suggest you get in there.”

I scowled at the amusement tickling his face. “Screw you.” Escape wasn’t an option since Asher was holding my memories hostage, and I so did not want that guy touching me, which left me one direction to go.

Hugging myself, I shuffled toward them. King Kong Remy moved out of the way. What kind of a name was that, anyway? It didn’t suit someone so mountainous, who could endure the amount of pain he must have suffered to get those tattoos. Not that I knew what would fit him better. Steve? Randall? I’d think of something.

As I trudged by Asher, he said, “The rule now applies, Plaid. You seemed to need to fondle me back there, but no more touching, of anyone, for any reason.”

I laughed at that. “Fondle—you wish. I like your outfit. The rest of you doesn’t hold much interest for me. Sorry to burst your bubble.” God, arrogant much? Had he really reacted to my touch? Or had I imagined his pulse speeding up under my hands? Yeah, that had to be it.

A drum-like sound bumped against my ears. It took me a second to realize Remy was laughing in a low, bass beat behind me. “She burns you, brah. May she got a backbone aft’ all. May have to change my vote.”

Chapter 11

I opened my mouth to ask Remy about the vote as I followed him inside, but one look from Asher, and I shut it without popping a syllable. A dull roar of chatter filled the room, of which I could only see a small rectangle of from the anteroom surrounding the doorway.

Remy lumbered off—there really wasn’t another word for how he walked, like he knew he was large-a-mungus and the world would simply get out of his way—and disappeared around the corner.

Hands worrying together, I stifled nervous laughter. I would not scream. I only had a few shreds of dignity left, if any, and I’d hold on to them for dear life.

“Get going, Plaid,” Asher said.

I turned to face him. He leaned against the door, all relaxed and comfy-like, grinning at me. Another joke I hadn’t figured out, apparently.

“Aren’t you coming?” I asked in a little girl voice.
Nice and steady, there, Addy. Nice job.

“I’ll be right behind you.”

“Afraid I’m going to bolt out the door, huh?”

His grin grew, splitting his face as he watched me. “Perhaps.”

I had a sudden urge to touch his chin to see if the shadow beard was rough, but I curled my fingers into fists and dropped them to my sides. I would not be accused of fondling anyone ever again. How humiliating. I really needed to find a new hobby to cool my nerves.

“What’s the big guy’s story?” I asked. “I’ve never heard an accent like that before.”

“It’s some mix of Hawaiian and Canadian English, and because he’s been away from the island for so long, it’s become its own dialect, I think.” One of his eyebrows jacked up. “You’re stalling.”

“Yeah, I’m stalling. What’s with the name? Remy’s French, right?”

“His mother was from Quebec.”

“I thought you didn’t ask each other personal questions.”

His inner beast squinted at me. “Move it.”

After scowling at him for another few seconds, I made my feet move toward the chatter beyond the anteroom that sounded heated rather than like pleasant party banter. I had an inkling they were arguing about me and whatever vote Remy had mentioned. Vote for what? Asher said they weren’t going to kill me, but what other options were there? Make me one of them, or … erase me from the planet was all I could come up with, in any number of creative ways.

Stopping at the corner of the anteroom, I leaned out just far enough for one eye to see past the cream wall. The room beyond made me think ballroom meets old-man smoking room. The walls were a dark tan. Leather sofas in a deep rich red color sat along two walls. An eclectic collection of chairs in complementary fabrics were arranged near the sofas, creating smaller meeting areas within the large room. It appeared a little frayed around the edges, so definitely not Asher’s place. Just spending a second in the room probably gave the guy the heebs.

A fireplace flickered with orange flame on the far wall, only a sliver of it visible through the mass of bodies that huddled around it. I counted nine black uniforms, ten if I added Asher to that. Ten sentinels. There were around thirty gray soldier uniforms standing farther back from the sentinels, and if what Sophia said was true, that the lesser ranking soldiers weren’t invited, then there were more than that in the Machine. If only the sentinels hunted, how did so few protect the entire world? He’d said they were shorthanded. Now I believed him.

I rounded the corner and baby-stepped toward them. One man stood on top of the stone slab that served as the lower mantel in a snazzy black pin-striped suit, complete with a black shirt and matching tone-on-tone tie. The only non-uniform in the place. The Colonel Asher had mentioned, I guessed? But he didn’t appear any older than me or Asher. Or anyone else in the room, I realized, surveying what faces were either facing me or in profile. Were they all frozen in their bodies at the age of eighteen to twenty-something?

The suit spotted me first. He shut up. The rest followed. Every pair of eyes in the room pointed toward me, none of them friendly except Sophia, who nodded encouragement. I hadn’t realized I’d backed up until my butt bumped into the hard, hot line of Asher. He drew in a quick breath, but I wasn’t sure if I’d hurt him or pissed him off. It wasn’t like I’d touched his skin.

The suit said something that sounded Russian, but after a second I realized he’d said, “Bring her,” with a heavy accent. I frowned, hating anyone talking about me as if I wasn’t in the room.

“Go,” Asher barked into the back of my head.

I jumped. It took a bit of silent convincing to make my legs work, but I finally started toward the group. Walking in front of Asher had been bad enough. Now I wobbled like a newborn deer testing out my legs on greased ice. Stupid shoes.

None of them seemed particularly happy to have me there, all wearing blank, bored, or angry expressions. Sophia urged me forward with a subtle wave. Why were they so pissed? Or was a bad temperament some prerequisite to work for the Mortal Machine? It made sense. Either that or it was a crappy place to work. Considering what the job description entailed, it seemed the most likely answer. Another reason why I didn’t belong with them.

The group opened like a noose and waited for me to crawl inside, Asher at my back, before cinching tight around us again. He moved by me, his posture rigid, and stopped before the suit. As Sophia had done to him, Asher held his arms snug against his sides and bowed, quick and sharp.

“Colonel, I present to the Mortal Machine a new candidate to be judged,” he said.

“I’m not a candidate for anything,” I blurted. Asher turned slowly to glare at me. I shut up.

“This is her?” The Colonel’s eyes were a tad brighter and colder than Asher’s. The Colonel stared at me the way a guy would greet a wart-ridden spinster who showed up as his blind date, brow arched, lips pinched. His mouse-brown businessman haircut had so much gel, it appeared to be a plastic cap.

Asher gave a quick nod, military precision and efficiency at its best. “We must speak before the votes are cast.”

The Colonel traced me up and down. His frown deepened. “It had better be something extraordinary you have to tell, or I’ll take it out of your hide for risking a gathering for this … this … woman.” The accent seemed to fade the more he talked. Weird. He flicked his fingers in my direction.

“Outfitter,” Asher said, “do not fail me.”

I caught a glimpse of Sophia at the edge of the crowd to my right. She paled a little before doing that abrupt bow thing. What was that all about?

Asher and the Colonel fuzzed around the edges before pulling a Houdini and vanishing. Huh. There’s something you didn’t see every day. Was that what it had looked like when Asher brought me here? Had I disappeared like that? I had to admit it was kind of cool compared to most things on my weird-shit-o-meter.

Most of the others meandered off into the room, talking among themselves. Their darting glances back at me suggested the topic of conversation. Awkward.

I caught an Aussie accent on a sentinel with shaggy brown-sugar hair who was parked on one of the sofas, yakking with a guy with heart-of-Africa skin. The tallest Asian guy I’d ever seen propped up the wall beside them, thin as a whip and probably just as sharp given how his attention seemed to latch on to every speck of movement in the room.

In my peripheral vision, a woman wearing a black sentinel uniform flipped out white-blonde hair you couldn’t get from a bottle. It fell like a spill of silk around her shoulders, long and sleek. The rest were guys, but one glance told me she’d been cut from the same cloth as the rest.

Back in front of the mirror, I’d been impressed with how good I looked, but the sight of her made me feel like Little Orphan Annie dressed in rags. And she wasn’t even in a dress. Whatever. Feeling like a frumpy bag lady landed pretty low on my priority list at the moment.

With Asher out of sight and nobody paying particular interest in me, other than Sophie who glared at the floor, I moved through the little people-huddles toward the door. I wasn’t going to leave, but with all of the hate in the room coming in my direction, I’d feel safer near the exit.

Before I made it out of the room, Sophia rushed past me and stretched her arms across the archway into the anteroom, bracing as if she expected me to pull a Mike Tyson on her. Even if I had the nerve to and the know-how, I kind of liked her.

“I wasn’t leaving, really,” I whispered. Too many ears in the room. I glanced back. Many eyes stared at me, suddenly full of interest. They could all bite my lily-white butt.

She sagged, exhaling hard. “Thank goodness for that. If you’d made me choose, I wasn’t sure which way I’d go.”

I rubbed my hands over my stomach just to feel the silk of the gloves sliding over my palms and calmed down a notch. “Choose what? What are you talking about?”

“I like you, Addison, but I’m afraid of Asher more.”

Oh. Ohhhh, crap. “If I’d left, he would have made your life even more hellish.”

She laughed, a deranged burst of sound that made me afraid for her sanity more than mine, and that was saying something. “That’s the understatement of the century.”

Bastard. “That’s why he let you come, isn’t it? He knew I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble, so he brought you to use against me. One more nail in my coffin, is that it?”

Her lunatic grin vanished. “Yeah, I just figured that out, too.”

“So by failing him, he meant you couldn’t let me leave.”

Nodding, she suddenly stiffened. “Among other things. Get behind me.”

I did as she asked, turning to see what had made her pale, and found a man wearing one of the black sentinel uniforms. “Back off, Marcus,” she warned. “Touch her, and Asher will snap you like a Christmas cracker.”

That brought an image of Asher grabbing the guy’s arm and leg and pulling really hard. Which tore a batch of giggles from my throat. Marcus grinned back at me. So this was the guy that made Asher squirm? It gave me a little thrill of glee that something could.

I had to admit Marcus was kind of cute for a psychotic assassin wraith hunter. He had sun-kissed hair, keeping it on the blond side of brown. It wasn’t long or short, but somewhere in between, curled up a little. As I said, cute. He pulled off one of those fresh-out-of-bed looks, mussed up a bit.

My cheeks warmed as he stared at me. The book said all sentinels had the same strange eyes: the brighter the color, the stronger the sentinel. Marcus’s were both bluer and greener than Asher’s, explaining why he had one more golden pin on his collar. His were pretty as opposed to beautiful, too surreal and otherworldly for me to accept them as anything other than little bits of artwork on his face.

Everything about him, that boyish smile, the lazy movements, all screamed innocent, harmless. If I didn’t know what he was, a sentinel of the Machine, I might have bought it. Since meeting Asher, I knew better. The danger contained in Marcus’s bronzed skin posed even more of a threat because of how disarming the packaging appeared to be.

“What’s got your panties in a twist, Outfitter?” he asked with a hint of good ol’ country-boy charm, the grin still firmly in place. Maybe it never left him, like permanent camouflage. It was certainly an improvement over Asher’s perpetual scowl. “Since when are you Asher’s go-girl?”

“Her name’s Sophia,” I said, smiling wide when he did. It was unnerving how I mirrored him, like a snake aping her charmer. I stopped smiling. His grew wider.

“There’s nothing wrong with my panties, and I’m not his anything,” Sophia said, her tremors growing worse. A knot of guilt tried to bisect my stomach. If it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t be caught between two dangerous idiots. I just had to go and open my big mouth and demand Asher let her come. “Just stay the hell back, and we won’t have a problem,” she said.

I finally clued in that the “among other things” that would make Asher do something nasty to Sophia involved the boy next door. “What do you want?”

“You need to wonder why I wanted to meet a beautiful woman?” he asked, staring right at me.

Oh jeez, really? That was the worst line I’d ever heard. So why did my face suddenly burn as if it had been flash-fried? “Somehow I don’t think you’re impressed by small-town plaid with the ice princess over there sharing my air,” I said.

He leaned back and glanced over his shoulder, pausing for a moment as if really taking her in, before focusing those pretty eyes back on me. “You mean Kat? She might look like a woman, but she’s just a guy without a penis.”

I blushed harder. I wasn’t used to guys naming their body parts in public. Prude? Yes, I guess I am.

Sophia snorted. “I’m sure she’d be thrilled to hear you say so,” she said.

Marcus took advantage of her amusement and skirted around her. “Addison,” he said in a so-soft, dark voice that rivaled Asher’s for whispers-in-the-dark quality, only Marcus’s had more of a bedroom darkness than a monster-under-the-bed sort. “Lovely name. Strong name.”

I swallowed, staring past him at Sophia, who struggled behind him. It took me a second to realize he’d grabbed her wrist and held her behind his back. Being so small, she didn’t have much of a chance against him.

“Let her go,” I said. “And I thought nobody was allowed to touch.”

“I’m not touching her skin, only her uniform, which I can do all day long if I want to, since I outrank her. And if she promises to go away, I’ll let her go.” Through that honey-sweet charm and those harmless good looks, the predator peeked through. I had no doubt I’d find a gun if I felt his jacket, too, and he’d make no more beans about using it than Asher. Only it would be that boyish grin you’d see last before a bullet exploded your skull. Creepy. Why didn’t he just order her away? Then she’d have to go, right? Maybe he just enjoyed watching her struggle.

“You know I can’t do that,” she said, grunting, her foot propped against his butt as she tried to pry herself free. I didn’t want her to hurt herself, and I had to admit, a small part of me wanted her to go and get Asher. The monster you know is better than the one you don’t, and all that.

The way Marcus carried himself, loose and swaggering, had made me overlook the potential in that body. I had no doubt he could twist Sophia like a pipe cleaner. “It’s okay, Sophia. He’s just flexing his charm. I’m not impressed, and I don’t think he’ll shoot me in the middle of a crowd, so just go, okay?” I didn’t want her to go and leave me with the cute monster, but I couldn’t stand there and watch her burst a vein.