Dawn of a Dark Knight (13 page)

He hissed. Power erupted from him, inadvertently shattering the window near him. Rain blew in through the shattered glass.

He thought back to his search of the neighbors. Marian Hardy. After half an hour of persuasive inducements, the woman obviously knew nothing. He’d slit the her throat, offering her life to the daemon god in the
Rite of Truth
in order to summon Traitius. Back then he had not wanted any human death to go to waste. Now, he was more calculated about when he summoned his comrades.

But how could he have fucked up so royally? He had been positive the woman and her daughter were ignorant of anything about his escaped prisoner. He should have killed the kid. It was just a subtle reminder why mercy was best left to the weak-minded.

Chapter Eleven

The middle seat in coach sucks
.

On one side of Kira, an overweight middle-aged businessman snored wetly. His body odor indicated he’d neglected deodorant today, or perhaps was a non-believer. He fell toward Kira’s shoulder. The teenage boy to her left scowled when she leaned into his bubble to push Mr. Snorer off. The kid cranked the volume on his mp3 player until it blared a distracting beat. He resumed flipping between colorful, bright computer games and a horror DVD on his ultra widescreen laptop.

How she would love to crawl into her bed and sleep for a few days.

A stewardess announced refreshment time, which was soda or water.
Generous.
And the flight was on time, expected to take three and a half hours. That put her into New York only a few minutes before her previously scheduled flight from Baltimore.

Maybe just a little shut-eye…

****

The door hissed shut as Kira stepped onto the wet steam room floor. One inhalation of stifling humidity and her lungs closed down. With a choke-cough she compelled them to work, but adjusted to shallow breaths. The temperature had to be cranked to max, at least one hundred fifteen. She should ditch the flimsy spa towel, but the haze parted for a moment…and she clung tight to the towel.

A low laugh erupted from Ashor as he fell back into a lazy recline on a tile bench. All she could see beneath his black terrycloth robe was his long, bare, muscular legs. Good Lord, each thigh looked to be the size of her waist.

For a second, the mosaic tiles on which he sat sparkled in the daylight that leeched through the massive skylight. With a squint, she made out mini Egyptian hieroglyphics.

“Come.” He held his hand out to her.

A flush spread over her body. Her core pounded with each heartbeat. Yeah, she knew where this was going. And she wanted it. Needed it. The hot floor burned her bare feet as she padded toward him.

He flashed straight white teeth—such a contrast to his naturally tanned skin. Where had he been born? The Mediterranean?

He stood and shrugged off the robe in a graceful, fluid movement that sent it pooling on the floor. With a raised eyebrow he dared her, and resumed his reclining pose.

She perused his now nude body. Dark blue, irregular tats decorated his toned muscles. That ink hadn’t appeared in any previous fantasy. The splash of reality startled her within her own dream. Just as quickly as the thought occurred, it flickered away.

She halted just far enough from him that he couldn’t reach her. My God, he was stacked. Her gaze skimmed his corded abdomen to his thick arousal. She darted a glance at his face. The smile was gone. The predatorial patience reflected in the depths of his dark eyes made her core clench.

Sweat trickled between her breasts. She immodestly dropped her towel.

Ashor’s body tensed, but he made no move toward her. She controlled the pace, at least for the moment.

She teased her fingers along his right foot. He didn’t flinch. Not ticklish. A part of her was disappointed. She traced her hand up his leg. Her breasts quivered with the force of each breath against the arousal whipping through her. Need swelled painfully between her thighs.

A fine muscle tremoring transmitted from him to her hands.

She stopped her movement at the junction of his thigh and hip to glance at his face. “Do you tremble for all your women or just for me?”

Ashor relaxed and replied in a gravelly voice, “Do you think you’re that special?”

Most definitely not the answer she wanted. That hurt. Wait a minute. Wasn’t this her fantasy?

Amusement danced in his dark eyes.

Damn him. He was toying with her. He felt the same need that burned her inside and out. Had to. Just for that statement she’d make him admit to it.

She captured his nipple with her mouth, sucking for but a moment before she bit the peak harder than she should.

He hissed.

She laughed softly, pleased by his reaction. Her laughter blew cool air over his nipple bringing it to a taut point. Trailing her mouth along his chest she licked at steam and sweat where they coalesced over his hard pectoral muscles. While her mouth traveled toward his other nipple, she moved her hand slowly down his abdomen to caress his inner thighs. She massaged her hand along his thick shaft. After treating the other nipple to a short tongue massage, she allowed her mouth to roam toward his bellybutton. Simultaneously, she reached beneath his pulsating length to carefully massage the velvety sac with her fingertips, feeling him tense further beneath her. How far could she push him before she broke through his steel control?

With a hand in her hair, he tugged her away from her southward trek. His mouth skimmed her cheek on a path to her neck.

Dammit, he’d skipped her mouth again.

But, then she realized: she’d won. She smiled against the bristles of his five o’clock shadow. His hands caressed her back while he sucked at her skin. All thoughts of victory were forgotten. Nothing mattered other than the feel of his tongue against her skin.

His mouth abandoned her, causing her to moan in frustration.

He whispered in her ear, “There’s only one man who can make you tremble.” He touched her quivering belly and laughed low.

She felt a shove on her side…

****

Disoriented, Kira glared at the elbow digging into her ribcage. It belonged to the kid next to her.

“Good dream?” The teenager with spiky pale hair grinned at her as the plane hit asphalt.

Kira shrugged and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

Once off the plane, Kira wandered the airport in search of Markus for almost an hour. What a mistake not to set up a specific rendezvous point with him. She parked it in the baggage claim area, waiting.

An hour later, Markus sauntered her way. His overgrown, dirty blond hair looked wet, as if he had just showered. To most women, he epitomized the super-attractive, if not a bit spacey, tanned beach bum that promised a great one-nighter but in no way a long-term commitment. His attire was highly inappropriate for winter in New York—jeans and his typical Hawaiian shirt, this time displaying old surfboards. As usual, he had no watch, which exemplified the problem with relying on Markus for anything that involved the concept of punctuality.

“Ready to go?” Markus asked as he grabbed her shoulder bag. His blue eyes were lit with excitement.

She raised an eyebrow and glowered pissed off, but made no effort to rise from the chair.

“Come on, duckie, I’m only a little behind. How long can you have possibly been waiting?” He was all smiles and jittery enthusiasm.

In a slow, deliberate move, she peeled her sleeve away from her watch. “Two hours and four minutes.”

“Oh.” He had the decency to look embarrassed. “Sorry. Thought it might take a while to get your bags. Well, how about we go get some lunch?”

“Since I found myself in a bit of a rush to get up here, I need to get some new clothes first. After that you can buy me dinner, considering the time.”

“Okay, let’s go,” he said carefully. “I just found a new Italian restaurant that looked promising. We can grab a bite and chat before the meet. Here are some special earrings from Kane with a tracker in them. He made me promise to give them to you, but I swear you won’t need them.”

He threw a plastic bag with two thick hoop earrings into her lap.

Three hours later, Markus led her into a dimly lit bar in Queens. They pushed through a throng of slightly inebriated, oversexed couples to claim a free table away from the entrance. The relentless beat of an unidentifiable song pulsed in the background.

“I’m going for a beer. You want anything?” asked Markus.

“No, thanks. This doesn’t feel right,” she said as she glanced around. Her stomach soured, and the spinach gnocchi she’d eaten earlier threatened to reappear. Kira glanced to her hand, now sticky from some substance left on the table courtesy of its previous occupants. She grabbed a leftover paper napkin and wiped at it furiously.

Markus smiled at her dilemma.

“Everything is fine. Calm down. Let me buy you a drink.”

Kira shook her head.

Minutes later Markus slid a frothy, yellow, frozen drink in front of her. A man with black wavy hair styled to camouflage a scar across his forehead followed behind. The newcomer looked to be in excellent shape for a man likely in his early fifties. He neglected to introduce himself as he sat across from her.

She couldn’t get any sort of read on him, which knotted her stomach. That meant he was practiced in masking his aura and suggested he may be able to sense her abilities.

Markus pushed the frothy, yellow concoction closer. She stared at the unwanted drink and shot Markus an annoyed look. He ignored her and threw his arm across the back of her chair.

After a hefty swig of beer, Markus asked, “So, where is it?”

The seller leaned back and crossed his arms in front of him with an air of boredom. His brown leather jacket creaked in complaint at the movement. Briefly the man glanced at Markus before settling his stare on Kira.

With a barely detectable French accent, he asked, “Who is to purchase it?”

“Does it really matter to you? We’d like to look at it to confirm its authenticity,” said Markus.

The man’s vivid gray eyes flashed annoyance before he veiled it. “It matters.”

“Have we met before?” Kira asked, swamped by the bizarre impression that he knew her. He didn’t seem threatening, but he was acutely interested in her, belying the bored look on his face. She maintained her own mask of uninterest, but found it ironic both of them pretended apathy, when in fact they were each vigilant.

“I don’t think so. Who is the buyer?”

“How about we see it, and then we can talk about the buyer?” Markus bargained.

The man reached for his jacket pocket to draw out an amulet. Its ancient, intriguing power called to her on an elemental level. The energy was nothing like the
wesekh
of two nights ago. Before he put it away, which he did as quickly as he had slipped it into view, she recognized the stylized triangle symbol at its center. The symbol of the Scimitar Magi. To mask her surprise, she sipped on the straw of the yellow frozen drink.

Biting bitterness exploded in her mouth.

“Holy crap,” she yelped. “Lemon? I hate lemon.”

“Want a sip of beer?” Markus slid the beer across the table.

Her gaze met the Frenchman’s observant stare for a second. He knew she had recognized that symbol.

The man watched her with a solemn glower. “We have established its authenticity. I think it best we continue this discussion another day. Tonight is no longer good.”

Markus sputtered as the man stood up and glided through the bar, disappearing.

Markus grabbed Kira’s arm and yanked her out of the chair. He towed her out of the bar in pursuit. On the sidewalk, there was no sign of the guy.

“Bastard,” Markus mumbled as he tugged her northward.

A chill passed down Kira’s spine. Several threatening auras approached. She put on the brakes against Markus and pulled. “We need to get out of here. Right now.”

A cloth flew over her head from behind. She fought, hearing a gratifying grunt when she landed a solid heel punch to a groin. Seconds later, she was airborne, landing shoulder first on the sharp, metal corner of something in the back of a vehicle. A needle pierced her arm, and then sleep.

Chapter Twelve

St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City

Ashor leaned against an upturned pew, panting. Somehow, they’d won. His gut burned in the aftermath of a solid strike from the now-executed daemon’s left mitt. The fucker had been downright vicious. Ashor shrugged off his T-shirt to press it against the free flowing blood from four twelve-inch-long crevices. Same old shit.

A sea of broken pews surrounded him. Wood pieces littered the marble floor, which sported a new, ten-foot-long, gaping crack. Superglue probably wouldn’t fix the decapitated bust of some long-dead pope. On the upside, it looked like the cathedral’s rector had removed the more valuable artifacts before they arrived. Since daemons preferred religious arenas for showdowns, officials realized when a magus called, they did whatever was requested or risked a gruesome death.

“You guys okay?” Ashor yelled.

Ethan replied from a pew several feet away, “Sneaky bastard. Its summoner must’ve sent those green Hashishin recruits to clean up. The stupid shits should know better, not that I’m complaining. Always happy to provide them with a one-way ticket to the afterworld.” He prodded at an oozing gash that ran from his shoulder to elbow.

“Idiots,” Ashor mumbled, surveying bloody remains of eight dead Hashishins.
“What was that daemon grumbling about toward the end?”

“Something about being deceived by an ally.”

Ethan yelled to Christian, who was using the reflection from his sword to style his hair back into place. “Can you reach the duffle, Christian?”

Christian dropped his hand from his hair and looked up, startled. “Yeah, I threw it by the door on our way in.” He rotated his leg in front of him. “That shitbag sliced my leg. I guess it’s not too bad. Should make for a sexy scar.” He smiled more to himself than anyone else before glancing back to Ethan. “I’ll get it.”

Christian returned moments later with a black duffle. “Who’s first?”

Ashor grunted and waved his free hand at his stomach. “I need a temp.”