Sun God Seeks...surrogate? (9 page)

Gasp!

“I’m going to have to say no,” I replied.

“The word ‘no’ only counts if it comes from me.”

There was a loud knock at the front door.

Smug jerk! He’s already here!

We lived in a secure apartment building, so I assumed he’d snuck in while someone was leaving.

“How dare you! You can’t just come here uninvited!” I threw down the phone on the bed and marched to the front door. I yanked it so hard it flew open and practically walloped me in the shoulder. By the time my brain registered that it wasn’t Nick, it was too late.

So I screamed instead.

***

Kinich’s shock from Penelope’s refusal to see him was still reeling in his head—
What? She doesn’t want to see me? Me? I am a god, for Christ’s sake!—
when he heard Penelope’s gut-wrenching scream erupt in the background.

“Penelope!” he roared into his cell and immediately ran for the door of his hotel room. It was the one and only time in his entire existence that he would have exchanged all his powers to be a vampire who could sift. She was a good twenty minutes away by car, ten without traffic.

Wearing nothing but a pair of jeans, he scrambled barefoot to the elevator and jabbed at the call button.

Fuck!
He couldn’t simply stand there waiting for a goddamned elevator.

He slammed his fist into the wall, leaving wires hanging from the gaping hole. “Fucking hell.” He bolted for the stairwell, descending ten steps at a time. When he finally reached the lobby, he was unnervingly close to losing control and unleashing his power. Not good. That would have left the few thousand people within a four-block radius looking as though they’d been sizzled in a microwave.

Kinich roared instead. Penelope was being murdered—by whom or what, he did not know—but there was nothing he could do to save her.

Dammit! He was a fucking god! He channeled the power of the sun. He could compel any human with his voice! But he wasn’t powerful enough to save one goddamned mortal? A mortal he’d now become reluctantly fascinated with—a fucking first for him at a really bad fucking time.

When the Yellow Cab pulled to the curb, he focused his energy on four simple thoughts: The traffic would clear—all of it—the driver would obey him, he
would
save Penelope, and come hell or high water, he would never, ever be stuck in this fucking situation again.

“Drive or I’ll castrate you!”

***

Kinich burst into Penelope’s apartment through the front door, which was left ajar. A broken potted plant lay in the center of the living room floor next to her Italian mosaic tiled coffee table. All of the lights were on, and a purse had been left sitting on the armchair in the corner of the room.

“Penelope!” He ran into what had to be her bedroom; it smelled like her.

Empty
.

“Bloody hell.”

Kinich closed his eyes and opened his senses. He hoped to feel or hear anything that might indicate which direction she’d been taken. If he could figure out that much, he had a chance of catching up.

Unless she’s been taken by an Obscuro
. Which he prayed wasn’t the case. Obscuros—dark vampires—were multiplying like cockroaches and missing persons reports were through the roof. It was believed they were turning their victims, building an army to prepare for the Great War that Cimil had prophesied.

This was the reason he’d come to New York in the first place; he’d been spending some quality time with an old—very, very old—friend who might help with this problem. For a price, naturally.

Kinich sensed a small disturbance in the air to his side, like a void or an absence of light. Once again, he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to drift into the atmosphere, hoping to catch a tiny whiff of her essence in the air.

There!

His eyes flew open, and he darted for the door. He almost reached the threshold to the outer hallway when his eyes caught another glimpse of the broken potted plant. A tiny clump of bloody hair stuck to one jagged edge of a large piece of the pot.

His heart skipped exactly three beats. “Holy saints.”

He picked up the shard and gave it a whiff. He immediately tossed it back to the floor when the foul stench permeated his nose.

Not an Obscuro.

“Fucking Maaskab.”

But why would they want Penelope?

CHAPTER 9

You know that scene in
Alien vs. Predator
when the woman stands right in front of Mr. Predator, almost pees in her pants, and then decides to team up with him to avoid becoming alien chow? Well, facing that monster standing at my door had been exactly like that. Only, without the teaming up part because I was pretty dang sure he’d viciously murder me on the spot.

No. Not going to be sci-fi BFFs
.

The hulking beast occupied my entire doorway with his deadly looking, soot-covered body clothed in a black leather loincloth of sorts. His hair was unlike anything I’d ever seen: long black ropes of crusty dreads down to his midsection. He looked like he’d shampooed, rinsed, and conditioned it in a slaughterhouse, and then, for good measure, did a little spritz with evil stench behind the ears.

I immediately gagged from the smell and sprinted to the kitchen where the only weapon in the apartment lay tucked away in a drawer.

The man, monster, demon—whatever—caught me by my hair, and I flew back with a snap that nearly broke my neck. My body arched painfully backward as he fisted my hair and pressed my head against his foul-smelling chest. Snarling and growling, his black-and-crimson eyes drilled into me.

“What…do…you…want?” I managed to croak.

He said nothing, but an unmistakable sense of doom crept into my bones.

He lowered his head ever so slightly and took a long, hard whiff. His eyes rolled back in his head.

Holy hounds of hell.

At such an angle I felt the muscles in my back stretching and pulling in an unnatural direction. I had to do something. Anything.

Across the back of my arm, I felt the tiny tickle of my giant, feathery philodendron that sat on the center of my coffee table. I reached out my hand and grasped a bundle of leaves close to the roots and swung hard. I landed a blow on the side of the monster’s head.

He stumbled for a moment and released me to the floor.

I righted myself and bolted to the kitchen where I yanked open the knife drawer and sent its contents scattering across the floor. The giant Chinese cleaver landed an inch from my big toe.

That was a close call, little piggy!

I swooped for it and then quickly reached for something else to hurl.

The cookie jar on the counter!
Empty, of course. Snicker doodles. I ate them.

The moment the monster appeared in the doorway, I smashed the jar in the center of his face. Blood gushed from his nose, but he simply smiled and flashed his blackened teeth.

I raised my cleaver and swung, but he moved to the side and caught my wrist. How had he moved so frigging fast?

He lunged for me, but I quickly twisted my body and used his momentum to throw him off balance. He did a face-plant. I took advantage and slammed the entire weight of my body into an elbow thrust at the back of his neck.

“That’s right, asshole. Black belt!” I bounced up and gave him a kick in the ribs for good measure.

Then he started to get up.

“What are you? Voodoo Terminator?”

I wasn’t going to stick around for an answer to that question. I bolted for the front door, swiped my boots, and didn’t stop running until I was at least ten blocks away. In the back of my mind I’d planned on going to the nearest police station—another ten blocks—or throwing myself in front of the nearest patrol car.

But fantastic miracles do happen!
No traffic?
Of course, for me, at the wrong time. The one day—ever—that I wanted to see an abundance of people and cars, and the street was vacant? Normally, at this time of evening, there would be traffic aplenty.

Okay. The best plan of action was to get as far away as possible, then go to the police.

I started running again, my bare feet ice cold and wet, toward the subway station. I rounded the corner to my right. The monster emerged from a side street directly ahead with his back to me. How the hell had he ended up in front of me?

I made a split-second decision to turn back the way I’d come. I ran one block then hooked to my right down an alley.

Shit. Shit.
It was a dead end. Why had I gone that way?

I turned around and darted back out to the street, thinking I’d simply continue running until the next block. But the moment I emerged from the alley, the bastard was there again.
Again! But how? How?

I dashed back into the alley but stopped halfway down its length, panting and on the verge of an epic freak-out.
Where do I go? Where? Where? Think dammit. Think, Penelope!

It was a dead end for Christ’s sake. There was only once choice: Hide behind the dumpster in the middle of the alley.

I bolted toward my sanitation sanctuary, crouched, and tried to calm my breathing. But with the city’s eerie silence, a mouse scratching its privates could be heard for ten blocks.

Oh please, God. Oh please. Help me
, I prayed silently with my hands clasped.

You’re agnostic, Penelope. Think that’s gonna really work?

Doesn’t hurt to try…

Then it struck me. Cimil’s handbook.

It had read: Do not open the door for people who don’t identify themselves. Run in the opposite direction of rotting stench. Do not hide behind dumpsters.

What the hell was going on? Was she some sort of psychic?

And now what would I do? I was hiding behind the dumpster. Just like Cimil had instructed not to.

Hide inside the dumpster.

No. I can’t. This was New York City—there could be anything in there: rotten food, broken glass, a dead body.

You idiot. You’re going to be the dead body if he finds you.

Oh hell.
What had I done to deserve this?

I slowly peeked around the edge of the dumpster toward the main street. Coast was clear for the moment. I slipped on my boots, lifted the heavy, plastic-molded lid, and slipped inside.

The stench was—
freaking instant-gag-reflex smells of hell!
—the most god-awful thing my nose had ever witnessed. Old fish and rotten eggs, mixed with something dead. Thank the universe for small favors such as winter, because had it been summer, my tossed cookies would be joining those smells.

Regardless, I pinched my nose and clamped my eyes shut.

Find a weapon. Anything. A glass bottle, a lid to a tin can, anything.

Oh, I hate you,
I argued with myself,
and your practical advice!

I reached out my hand, instantly finding something squishy and wet.

Ew, ew, ew.

I stretched my hand a little farther and found something long and hard. I wrapped my fingers around it and—

The lid flew open. My reflexes instantly took over, and I sprang from the dumpster, swinging with everything I had.

An arm reached out in midair and caught my wrist. “Penelope? What the hell are you doing inside there?” Kinich’s towering mass stood before me, barefoot and shirtless.

Kinich!

I was never so happy to see anyone in my entire life. I jumped and flung my arms around his neck. “Oh, thank God!”

I instantly felt my body hum with delight. His smell, his warmth…Touching him felt like being bathed in a euphoric tropical wave complete with magical seahorses and mermaids and…
endless orgasms?

He gently pushed me away and crinkled his nose. “Jeez, woman. You smell awful.” He glanced at my hand. “And why are you holding that?”

“What?” I looked at my right hand. Yes. I was indeed gripping a stale baguette.

How very deadly.

I dropped it to the ground and began rattling on about what had happened. Kinich stared at me like I was insane.

But wait.
“Not that I’m ungrateful—hell, I’m so happy to see you, I would name my first child after…I can’t believe I said that.”

He frowned.

“How did you find me?” I finally asked. “And what happened to your clothes? Are you okay? You must be freezing.”

Kinich considered my questions, clearly thinking long and hard about his answers. “I heard your scream and—”

It happened so fast, my brain simply couldn’t process it.

Kinich flew to one side and landed with a
smack!
on the cement. The monster was on top of him trying to wrap some sort of bumpy-looking rope around his neck. Kinich grunted with pain for a moment and then screamed, “Penelope, get back in the dumpster!”

“But…”

“Do it now, woman!”

I didn’t know what else to do, so I obeyed.

As soon as the lid thumped down, a burst of blinding light flashed outside. My eyes instinctively squeezed shut, and I turned away to shield my face from the heat seeping in through the tiny gap of the heavy lid.

Then, it was over, and I heard Kinich moaning.

I slowly peeked out and saw him lying on the cement. A pile of ash covered his half-naked body, and the monster was gone.

CHAPTER 10

My mind shuffled through all the possible explanations of what I’d just witnessed. Someone had put LSD in the public water supply, hoping to create the next Steve Jobs?

No.

Matrix
the movie was real, and I’d lived through a binary blip?

No.

Asleep?

No.

Deep coma?
Not on your life.

Well, poop! This can’t be real! Give me something. Anything! I don’t want the only plausible explanation to be that I’m crazy. That would suck. Badly.