Dawn of a Dark Knight (5 page)

“I’ll take whatever punishment the gods dish out.” Christian may be dead right. But he would not let this conceited, sex-obsessed magus less than half his age and under his command dictate to him. Dark insanity poked through a crack in Ashor’s mental lockdown to suggest the presumptuous prettyboy would look much better with a solid nosebleeder. Ashor struggled to subdue the
kem-seki
. The psychosis pushed at his trigger-happy rage. Rage may be his special power, but it was only useful when fighting daemons. On a good day if he let it loose full throttle, it was difficult to control, but with the darkness of the inevitable Turn pushing, it was insanity to set it free. He hadn’t risked it in years.

Ashor said, “Have I ever been MIA when needed? Have I ever not been there to back you up in a fight?”

“No. I doubt you ever will. That’s not the point. The problem is you might make a mistake and kill an innocent. Also, you’re starting to draw attention with that trail of hacked-up bodies you’ve left behind. Did you know the cops labeled you the
Slasher killer? They think a bigoted anti-Arab serial killer is on the loose. Saw it on the six o’clock news yesterday, not that they have any leads. You and your knife fetish. Wasn’t it you who demanded all of us keep a low profile in public?”

Ashor smiled slowly. “Seems we’ve all been having some trouble with that recently.”

Christian turned beet red. “Listen, I didn’t know that girl was the governor’s daughter or that she was engaged.”

“It was an engagement party and her fiancé is Senator Fulford’s son. It’s been in the headlines for months.”

“She was smokin’ hot and not particularly enthusiastic about her father’s choice of…Stop trying to sidetrack me. You continue on this path and it might just speed up the process of Turning. Who knows. One of us has to take you out when
kem-seki
wins and
you go insane. You think we’re looking forward to that?” Christian’s face reflected fear for a second before he masked it. “You look like you’re about to go feral. A year ago this wasn’t an issue.”

Ashor remained mute. He knew the menace rolling off him looked bad, but he was back in control. For the moment. Why let him in on that fact? He enjoyed Christian’s scared shitless look. He deserved it, if for nothing other than the disrespect he was throwing.

Christian continued, “You need to find your
senariai
. She can pull you back from the edge and prevent the Turn.”

“You think I’ll find my destined woman in a Jacksonville meat market?” Ashor waved derisively at his surroundings. An image of Kira in those skin-tight jeans flashed through his brain. Silently he cursed and shifted as renewed arousal spiked with a vengence.

“I think you might find an easy lay here that’ll be a better outlet for whatever is causing you to go out alone. Try something different tonight.”

“It won’t work.” He glanced around, giving the scenery an actual scan. None interested him. He considered a brunette at the bar. All his body’s southerly activity died. A part of him sighed in relief. The other half of him cursed the gods.

“How long has it been since you’ve been bar trolling?”

Ashor grunted noncommittally. For years he’d been the master of the easy hookup and an idol of sorts for Christian, right up until ten years ago when he met Kira. Then, nighttime became a game of roulette. When he didn’t nightmare it up and black out, Kira came to him in dreams. And, holy shit, those dreams were worth taking the occasional gamble on sleep. Renewed arousal spiked. He shifted and did the scan-and-consider thing again. Didn’t work as well this time, as if his body knew he wasn’t serious.

The stubborn look on Christian’s face meant he wouldn’t drop this form of prescribed therapy until he gave it a try. Ashor looked three tables over and caught the eye of a blonde. Her sorority letters hung on a delicate gold chain around her long, tanned neck.

The blonde grabbed her look-alike friend and both strolled to their table. Her alluring hip sway drew his eyes to the junction of her thighs, which were barely concealed by a black ultra mini and a lacy strip beneath. Once she reached his table, she smiled flirtatiously and leaned in low, giving him an unobstructed view of her tanned breasts, encased in a lacy camisole. An unoriginal rose tattoo decorated the top of the left peak. His interest level registered somewhere around twenty below zero.

“Looking for a little fun to ring in the New Year?” She fluttered her mascara-crusted eyelashes and ran her tongue slowly over glossed lips.

The look-alike sat next to Christian and slid her hand along his thigh while whispering low. Christian shot her a charming smile that made her giggle and straddle his lap.

Ashor replaced his shades and took a sip of the scotch. He felt nothing but a sense of detachment when he scanned the girl giving him a peep show. She was young, easy, and arguably close to a ten on any male’s rating scale.

Christian raised an eyebrow in challenge.

Ashor turned his attention back to the blonde and forced a smile. “What’d you have in mind?”

****

Ashor followed the busty blonde out of the club. He struggled to remember her name. It was Shelly or Kelly or something like that, not that he cared. This wasn’t happening, at least not the
this
that she was thinking.

“What happened to your car? Something go through the windshield?”

“Had a little fender bender.”

All too accepting of that feeble description, she shrugged.

“Want some blow?” She laid out a string on the busted-up hood of his car. “It’s the good stuff.” She snorted, pinched her nose, and stared sightlessly into the night for few seconds.

“No. Got any meth?” A few grams might keep him awake a bit longer. He’d do any drug that promised an upper effect, but few worked on him unless taken in a high-octane quantity that scared dealers. The paltry string she laid out was unlikely to touch him.

“Nah.” She staggered toward him and playfully backed him into the car. “Here, let me take those shades.”

“They stay.” He pushed her hand away.

“You’ve got killer abs, ya know.” She ran her hands beneath the dark T-shirt, tracing the muscular ridges.

“How about we let your hair loose?” She giggled as she pulled the hair tie.
Once loose, she twirled the tie in an attempt at cool, but it flew out of her hand, zinging off the driver’s window onto the asphalt.

A French manicured fingernail traced one of the tats coursing down his neck.

“Like ink, do you?”

Ashor gave her an indulgent smile while struggling to appear relaxed. Aversion to her touch was almost painful. His stomach rolled like the Atlantic in a hurricane, threatening to spew at any second.

Her movements were well practiced as her hand massaged between his legs. Yet, she got nothing, which seemed to puzzle her.

“This happen to you a lot? I hear plenty of men at your age have this type of problem.”

My age. If she only knew.
“Maybe tonight’s just not the right night for this.”

The girl shrugged. “I’m gonna take another hit. Sure you don’t want one? It’s almost as good as sex, probably better.”

“You go ahead.”

After the second hit, the girl staggered back until she was leaning against a light post, giggling.

“Gimme a min, Pops, and then we can do whatever you want.” She closed her eyes, floating high. He was forgotten.

An area scan for evil came up clean. The girl was safe here. With no desire to touch her again, he grabbed his hair tie and jumped in the car.

As he pulled out of the parking lot, a familiar sensation slithered down his spine, one only he of all the magi experienced. He yanked out his cell. Quickly he texted the others.

Time to kill a daemon.

The icy sensation of daemon dancing down his back went double strength.
Shit.

Not one, but two.

Chapter Four

Kira eased into her office chair and took a swallow of the double-shot mocha she had acquired from the kiosk up the hall. Her desk was lost under a mound of unfinished files and assorted sticky notes. She punched the power button on the archaic desktop computer. With a sigh, she glanced around at the empty, beige-themed office she shared with three other residents here at Baltimore Regional Medical Center while waiting for the computer to cycle through its three-minute start-up routine. The desk across from hers had one framed five-by-seven of a smiling little kid. That was the only piece of personal decoration in the whole cubicle.

The flight from Jacksonville had landed a little over an hour ago. She’d missed her original flight last night, the last one out of Jacksonville International. After an all-nighter in an airport seat just about every joint in her body ached. Yet, despite exhaustion, sleep had eluded her. All she could think about was
him.
Or more correctly her hallucination of him.

God, her head hurt. She pawed through the hodgepodge of disorganized crap in her top desk drawer. There had to be a sample pack of ibuprofen in here somewhere. She twisted, reaching for the back of the drawer.

“You never gave me an answer two nights ago, babe.”

Kira jolted upright. A lightning bolt of pain shot down her leg where a Hashishin blade had grazed her, drawing an involuntary groan. “What are you doing here, Vance? I thought you were off today with the holiday and all.”

“On call. And got called. Happy New Year, by the way. Where were you yesterday and why didn’t you answer your cell?”

Vance Wilkins, MD, propped his hip on the corner of her desk and smiled with perfectly whitened teeth. His right hand fiddled with the ear tips to the stethoscope draped around his neck. The subtle scent of an expensive cologne hovered in the air around him.

“Wasn’t feeling well.”

“Too bad. You missed a great party. You have a rough night?”

“You could say that.” Kira fingered the edge of an ibuprofen packet. With a relieved sigh, she ripped it open and downed the two tablets with a swallow of mocha.

“I need an answer.”

“You were serious? Really?” What she wouldn’t give to avoid this. She could handle a shootout, life-or-death medical situations, and even Hashishin torture, but intimate relationships…definite problem area. Given the obstinate look on Vance’s face, she was in trouble.

She squeaked out, “It’s only been about five months, Vance, and I thought we were keeping things casual.”

“It’s been seven. Guys don’t put that kind of question out there on a whim.”

“That doesn’t mean we should get hitched.”

She assessed him quietly for a few long moments. She’d stuck with this relationship out of fear he might be her only chance for long-term, especially with the big three-O coming up in less than a month. The stability of a
normal
life partner sounded good. Good enough to settle? Vance was attractive, super-intelligent, financially secure, and a nice guy. Most women would qualify him as a great catch. He just wasn’t…
him.

Never comfortable with silences, Vance forged ahead. “It’s time to take the next step. Once we finish our residencies, we can both find positions in a major practice. Me in neuro, of course. You in internal med. When we have kids, you can go part time. You’re such a workaholic that I know you’d never give up your career.”

Kids?
Her pulse roared through her ears. Somehow she choked out, “I’ve always said I have no plans for kids.” She refused to curse a child to a lifetime of dodging Hashishins.

“I think we’re delaying the inevitable.”

“I don’t think now is the right time for us to marry.”

Vance rested his gym-toned muscular forearm less than casually on her desk. He launched into a litany on why they were destined to be together.

With drowsiness pressing her brain, Kira zoned. She recalled the very real feel of hallucination-Ashor’s muscular forearm against her body—a forearm that put the one resting on her desk to shame. And those sinful lips…He had almost done it. They had almost connected in what she considered the most intimate way. A part of her felt crushed that it hadn’t happened. Years of nighttime fantasies had taken her on sexual adventures she didn’t think Vance’s imagination could ever conjure. Yet, through all those fantasies Ashor had never kissed her. Not even almost. Asking
why
drove her nuts since the dream guy never answered.

She relived the feel of being pressed against that massive chest. Each breath from him had reverberated throughout her body. As if he had physically touched her, sensual heat buzzed her from head to toenails. Her nipples peaked.

“Maybe I need to remind you why we’re so good together? It’s been a while,” Vance suggested softly close to her ear.

“What?” Kira’s mind slammed back to reality. She glanced around, disoriented. The wrong man stared at her chest.

Getting hot from a hallucination replay and sending the wrong signals to Vance was wrong, not to mention utterly embarrassing.

“Good daydream? Let me make it reality.” Vance leaned in with clear intent to lip-lock. The smell of his cologne saturated her nostrils.

Kira turned her head and mumbled, “Not now.”

His lips grazed her nose.

“What’s wrong with you? You’ve been distracted for at least two months. There’s someone else, isn’t there?”

“No. There’s no one else.”
At least no one real.
Fantasy-Ashor had to be fiction.

“You’re acting like there’s someone else.” Vance grabbed her chin to force eye contact and towered over her. “I deserve the truth, Kira. And I want it now.”

“Let. Go.” In a moment of instinct, she yanked her face free and landed a solid palm strike to his chin.

Gripping his chin, Vance backed away. “Goddamn it, that hurt. I just want the truth.”

“There’s no other
man
in my life.” She rubbed her eyes against the subtle irritation of her contacts. Time to resolve this. Her mind struggled to find a diplomatic way out. Break-ups had never been her forte.

Vance’s pager went off. He glanced at the device. “My motorcycle accident finished his MRI. I’ve got to take off. We aren’t finished with this. How about dinner tonight?”