Palm of Destiny (10 page)

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

 

 

The dream was unlike any he had experienced before. He was laying there on his back. The ground felt soft and spongy, like moss on a forest floor. Looking up, he could see the sky above him. It was dark and dense with clouds. Somewhere behind them he could see a small pinpoint of light. It was dark blue instead of yellow and didn’t look like any moon he had ever seen before. Rosalie was on top of him, swaying and gyrating.

The sucking sounds of her sex clenching and squeezing around his member with each motion were exceptionally loud in his ears. When he reached to try and touch her, his hands went right through her. He felt her insides against his hands and gasped. When he tried to withdraw them, they became stuck within her abdomen. He called to her, his mind hazy against the pleasure as she rode him, but no sound fell from his lips.

Rosalie….Rosalie….

“Rosalie!”

With a sharp inhale that hurt his lungs, Elijah shot straight up. His fingers dug hard into the mattress underneath him, and both of his knees came up. He was ready to launch himself as his heart pounded so rapidly within his chest that it boomed like thunder in his ears. Wide blue eyes had a startled look to them, and he let out a faint yelp when he felt something shifting across his thighs. Looking down, he saw that they were only pale white sheets moving as Rosalie stirred beside him. Sweat instantly cooled his skin, dripping slowly down his face and onto his neck. Swallowing hard to keep himself from panting, he slid his legs off the side of the bed and stood. One of his hands moved to his chest, rubbing the spot over his heart as though he could slow the beating down.

“Elijah?” Her voice was confused and soft, drowsy with sleep. “What’s wrong?:

“Noth…I mean…nothing. I’m fine...give me a minute.” He glanced back at her, but didn’t let her see his eyes. He didn’t want her to gaze into them and see the fear.

She sat up, her features darkening with a frown. “It’s not nothing if you won’t even look at me. I’m betting you had some sort of nightmare.” She smiled softly, though it didn’t chase the worry away. “Am I right?”

“Yeah. Um….” He didn’t finish his sentence as he moved across the large room and made it to the door. “It was so random…I need some air, all right?”

“Sure, okay.” Rosalie gave him a concerned frown, but nodded her head while she sat up in the bed. Her brow wrinkled further when he moved out of the room and pushed the door closed behind him with a little more than a soft
click
. A soft sigh left her, and she gave her head a small shake. Her ebony hair swirled around her face and bare shoulders with the movement, and her brown eyes reflected her confusion. Elijah hadn’t always been straight with her, that much was true; but she could help but worry about him and the situation they had found themselves in. She was just about to slide from the bed to go and ask him again about his nightmare when:

CRASH
,
bang, crack, BOOM.

The entire house shook in the wake of the loud and equally violent noises. Rosalie lurched off the bed and practically flew across room. She grabbed her soft silk robe from the hook on the back of the door, threw it on, and rushed into the hallway. “Elijah? Elijah?! Where are you??” Swearing under her breath, she quickly tied the sleek belt around her waist so the robe wouldn’t fly open. “
Elijah!
”

She came to a skidding halt in the middle of her massive living room. With wide eyes she looked around, searching desperately for the man who had saved her life not days earlier. When she heard shuffling in the kitchen, she rushed in that direction. She turned the corner and entered the space just as a shot rang out.

Two assassins were there, all dressed in white like the last time Rosalie had seen them. The wooden beam beside her face exploded, and she shrieked before diving behind the counter in her kitchen. Her face burned where pieces of wood shrapnel had hit and cut her. Her heart pounding in her chest, she turned to face the sink. Just below it was a drawer, and she knew that it had several large knives. Her face set in grim determination, she crawled slowly over to it and reached up to open it.

Snap!

A bullet ricocheted off of the metal sink, and Rosalie quickly snatched her hand away from the drawer. “Shit,” she whispered under her breath. She almost tried to reach for the drawer again, but she crawled back to where she had been before instead and opened the cupboard there. There were several large pots, a few frying pans, and some casserole dishes. She started to remove the lids from the pots and casserole dishes as quickly and as quietly as she could. Biting down on her lower lip while cringing, she laid them all out in front of her. There were five pot lids, all of them made from either metal or glass, and three casserole dish lids made from some kind of pottery.

Taking in a slow breath, she picked up one of the smallest metal lids in her left hand. In her right she picked up one of the casserole ones. She moved slowly, and as quietly as she could. Sliding over to the corner of the counter, she pushed her hair over her left shoulder so it wouldn’t hang into view. After counting backwards from five, she took a quick look.

Two sets of feet were there, standing just beside the back door. One set was bare, so she knew they belonged to Elijah. The other set sported white boots. That had to be the assassin. While it worried her that there was only one—where could the other one be?—she wasn’t going to let that change her course of action. “Please be as stupid as the last ones, please be as stupid as the last ones,” she whispered.

One breath. Then another. Three breaths. Now!

Before the death of her father, Rosalie had been an excellent shot with long barreled firearms and throwing knives. Her father had taught her everything that she knew for self defense purposes, and it was with those skills now that she acted. The metal lid she threw upwards into the air, as hard as she could. She tossed it at a slight backwards angle so that when gravity took it, it wouldn’t hit her.

The sound of the bullet hitting the metal lid was deafening. Rosalie felt her eardrums pop with the sound, but that didn’t stop her from acting. She only had one chance. After that…well, she didn’t want to think about it. With gritted teeth, she pushed herself from around the corner. She had less than moments to acquire her target before she attacked. The pottery lid went sailing through the air, wobbling and rotating, but following a straight, arcing path.

As the assassin started to adjust his aim, she ducked back behind the counter again with a gasp. She heard a solid
thunk
and then the sound of a body colliding with the floor. The scrambling of feet followed, moving toward her. Rosalie grabbed a glass lid and braced herself, holding her breath as she raised that lid.

“Elijah!” She said in name in pure relief as he came around the corner. She scrambled to her feet and threw her arms around his neck, hugging his naked body with all her might. “Oh my god, I thought you were dead!”

“I’m here. We need to go.” Elijah hugged her back only for a moment, then turned back to the assassin. With a strange blankness in his eyes, blood all over his torso, he raised a small handgun, aimed, and fired before Rosalie could even speak. He fired off three rounds. One of them slammed into the man’s neck, blood pooling instantly.

The second one hit him in the chest, but the hard
thump
made it clear that the guy was wearing body armor of some sort. The third shot missed, cracking against the doorframe and making it splinter. Speechless, her jaw gaping, Rosalie let herself be moved out of the kitchen. Elijah went back into her room and spent less than a minute getting dressed.

“You didn—”

“Yeah, I did,” Elijah responded, glancing over at Rosalie. There was something haunted in his eyes, and a tightness in his jaw. “For Ang. Now we
need
to go.”

“
Where
? And where did that blood come from?”

“We’re going to Morgan’s shop. We’re finishing this. And the blood is from the second assassin. Let’s go, Rosalie.”

Rosalie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. What had happened to the shy man with only an occasional backbone? What had become of the sweet, good natured Elijah who she had seen only minutes ago? “But…where…?” Before her mind was able to catch up with what he was saying, they were moving again. Feeling numb, all she could do was follow.

 

 

Chapter Eighteen

 

 

“Sir, I don’t know why you told me he was talking. A few mumbled words in riddles none of us can understand isn’t at all helpful in this case. Not to mention—” Officer Zan let out a quiet growl as her phone started to ring. “Will you excuse me, sir?”

Officer Zan’s superior gave her a frazzled look, but he was long used to her forceful attitude. More often than not it saved the day, and so he rarely faulted her for it. “Go ahead.”

Turning away from him, she put the phone to her ear. “Officer Zan.” Her eyes narrowed before she hung up and put the phone away. She turned to look at her superior. “Sir, two of the ‘assassins’ were just found dead. Shot by their own guns. One male, one female.” After a moment, she shook her head a little bit. “They also found more blood, both on the floor and on one of the bodies. It belongs to Elijah Grey.”

“I remember the story,” he said dryly and with a sigh before Zan could get into it…again. Elijah and Morgan had been all Officer Zan had spoken of for the last several days and it was starting to drive him nuts. “Do we know Elijah’s location and if anyone is with him?”

“No. All they found were fingerprints from a Rosalie Masters, some loose lids, and a bunch of broken glass and pottery. There are people looking for them as we speak, but so far it’s not that promising. Neither of them seems to have any close family or friends.”

“All right. Well…get back into that interrogation room and see if you can get the guy to say more. There’s a criminal psychologist standing by if you need him.”

“Thank you, sir.” With a curt nod of her head, Officer Zan did an about face and marched back down the hallway. Within seconds she was entering the interrogation room. It was fully lit with a nice table, a few chairs, a pitcher of water, and some plastic glasses. She sat down in one of the chairs after the door snapped shut behind her and reached across to fill one of the glasses with water.

She glanced only briefly at the man directly parallel to her, but her mind was racing. What else could she ask? What else could
anyone
ask? Aside from torture, which was unfortunately not legal in the United States—as far as she knew—she was all but clueless. The only other option she had was to start over. Maybe if she annoyed the man enough he would crumble. It had worked before.

“My name is Officer Zan. My first name is Clare.” She placed a finger to her chest, leaning forward so she could meet his eyes. “Clare. Do you understand me?”

The white garbed assassin stared back at her. Without his mask, he appeared to be just like everyone else. His eyes were a deep shade of navy blue, and his hair was somewhere between dirty and regular blonde. Boyish features made it difficult to tell his age, but Zan guessed he was between twenty and twenty-eight years old. Scars crisscrossed his cheeks and forehead and, if she didn’t know better, continued in strange and painful looking lines across the rest of his body.

The most prominent thing about him, oddly, was his nose. It was slightly angled to the right, which told her more than the scars that he had been in more than just a few fights. His expression was stoic and hard, but he appeared relaxed. He reminded her of a rock…only rocks offered a lot more insight into their ‘lives’ than this man did.

“Do you have a name? Or if not a name, something that people call you?”

The man stared back at her, but not a single word was spoken. Not even his lips shifted.

Taking in a deep breath, Officer Zan tipped her chin down in a partial nod. She stared at the table for a few moments before she met the assassin’s gaze with her own. “Let’s try something else. I’m going to ask you yes or no questions only. Nod for ‘yes’ and shake your head for ‘no’. Do you understand?”

* * * *

Ding, ding, ding
.

That was the sound of the tiny bell attached to the top of Morgan’s Magic Shop’s door. Morgan turned his head toward it, then ducked behind his desk with a sharp gasp. He wasn’t normally one to seek cover in times of stress, but when a gun was pointed at his face he did what everyone else in the world did: he ducked.

Elijah vaulted over the desk and almost landed on top of Morgan. Small trinkets and merchandise toppled onto the floor with him. That there were people in the store, frozen and shocked, didn’t concern him. Rosalie yelling at him to calm down was also not something that he was focusing on right now. All that mattered was pinning his alleged ‘friend’ onto the floor, putting a gun to his left temple, and snarling at him to talk.

“Where is it, Morgan? And what does the key open? Is it the amulet?”

“You’re taking this way too personally Elijah.” Morgan, for his sake, tried to keep his voice level. He had his arms out and visible to the best of his ability, his palms open and facing his attacker. Even though he was bigger than Elijah, he knew that he was all but helpless in this moment.

“
Where
is it?!” He shoved the hard metal end of the firearm tighter again Morgan’s head, his lower lip trembling.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar!” Tears glistened in his eyes as he awkwardly cocked the hammer back with a harsh
click
.

“Rosalie, will you talk some sense into this boy?”

Rosalie had been about to run around the desk to get to Elijah, but at the last minute she changed her mind. Why should she help Morgan when he had killed both her sister and her father? She didn’t need proof to know that he had done it. Why he had been targeting her this entire time—slowly removing people who she cared about—she didn’t know. But she suspected that, given enough time, Elijah would be able to draw all the information out of the bastard.

“Everyone out,” she called. “The store is closing early for the day, so please come back tomorrow.” It was easier than she had originally thought to clear the whole store out, but she did worry about people calling the authorities. They were going to have to move quickly.

“If you kill me, you—”

“Save it,” snapped Elijah. “I’ll bet you’ve used that line a thousand times in your life. Now tell me what I want to know or all anyone is going to find are pieces of your face and a dead body.”

Rosalie was stunned as she heard Elijah speaking. She could hardly even believe that it was him as she moved to the front of the store and turned the sign to Closed. Then she locked the door, the satisfying
thunk
of the deadbolt like thunder in her ears. There came a loud
crack
at the same time, which, near the end, almost sounded like a popping noise. She jumped and whirled around, her eyes wide as she stared at the desk. She had no idea what was happening on the other side, but she was almost afraid to—

Morgan’s low whimpering made her sigh in relief. As much as she wanted to go over there and see what was happening, she needed to keep a look out.

“Next time it will be your knee.” Elijah snarled, moving the gun back to Morgan’s temple. There was a large hole beside the older man’s face, and smoke was slowly drifting from it. “Now tell me…what does the key open? And where is the amulet? Both Rosalie and I know that you have it.”

“Key opens a case in the room, next to the one where I did your reading.” Morgan closed his eyes, feeling real fear for one of the first times in his life.

“That’s a lie. There’s nothing back there! No door to another room, nothing“

“I’m not lying.” He held his hands open wider, feeling his left elbow tap against the wall. “Go look for yourself. There’s a… never mind. Let me up and I’ll show you where it is.”

“I don’t think so. Rosalie, could you—”

“Already on it.”

Elijah listened as her footfalls took her from the door, past the desk he and Morgan were behind, and into the room. He listened for a few more seconds, then glared down at the man’s face. “Is the amulet inside the case? What does it do? Where did you get it? And how did you do…everything that you’ve done?”

Morgan started laughing quietly, his head shaking back and forth. “Tall order, kid. Real tall.”

“You’re seriously going to act like a douche while I have a gun to your head?” Narrowing his eyes, Elijah leaned over him more and his glare became even more potent. His index fingered trembled against the trigger. All he needed to do was give it a gentle squeeze and Morgan’s life would be all over.

“Not being a douche. Just trying my best to survive. And if this is where it ends, well…” He shrugged to the best of his ability. The fear was beginning to edge away into something that more resembled acceptance.

“You practice some sort of dark magic, don’t you? And what was with the assassins? Where did they come from? Did you kill Rosalie’s father? What about Angelique?”

“You’re asking me all of these questions
now
? I think it’s a little bit late.” A smirk shifted across his lips after he spoke, and then both of his eyebrows lifted. “I think you know the answers to them all anyway. Why not just live with that and be thankful that you’re only a little bit stupid?”

Elijah knew that Morgan was just trying to goad him into action—whether good or bad—and he shook his head slowly. “Give me the answers, Morgan. Or the box burns.”

That fear returned to Morgan’s eyes again, and he glanced around the space. He knew there was nothing he could do…even stalling wasn’t going to help him. “I practice dark magic. Yes.” He couldn’t stop the tremble in his voice. “Worship myself, not any God or Goddess. The magic… it’s in
me
. I created the assassins with it…controlled their minds, gave them purpose. Told them what to do. Was going to make you one of them, but Rosalie spoiled those plans.”

The pause was long, but eventually Morgan continued. “I didn’t kill anyone. Like I said. The assassins did it.” There was more of a pause, and he knew he was answering Elijah’s questions backwards. At the stare he received, it was clear that the younger man hadn’t forgotten about what he had asked earlier.

“Amulet’s in the case, yes. Got it from Rosalie’s father, who found it in an attic. One of my men delivered it to me many nights ago. As for what it does…”
Lie
, Morgan thought to himself.
He’ll never know
. “Not sure. Something important. A long while ago I ‘felt’ it. Sensed it, you know? Knew I needed to have it.” It wasn’t
all
a lie, but the majority of his last ‘answer’ certainly was. Morgan knew exactly what the amulet did.

Elijah looked ready to speak when he heard Rosalie come out of the room.

“I have the box, Elijah,” she called. “Do you still have the key?”

“Yes. It’s in the left front pocket of my jeans.”

“Okay. Um…when you get the chance you really need to come see what else I found in that room.”

Elijah gave Rosalie a nod, then shifted slightly and moved one of his knees over Morgan’s left hip. He knew the amount of discomfort that his new position caused by the cringe in the other man’s face, and he smiled. Not once did he even partially take his eyes away from Morgan while Rosalie crouched down beside him. She put the box she had found on the floor before reaching into the pocket Elijah had described. After a moment of searching, she finally felt it between her fingers and drew it out. “Got it,” she whispered.