Broken Wings: Genesis (5 page)

“Ah, the lovely Yeshua Star. What
brings you to our palace of delights?”

Morpheus’ voice was smooth,
sliding across me like a caress. I don’t know how he did it, but he always made
me shiver with its touch. And it was as though I could feel it touching me,
leaving me longing for the real thing. He knew the effect it had on me. That’s
why he did it.

I shook off the feeling and turned
to face him. Where his brothers were archetypal images of light, Morpheus was
shrouded in a look that exuded darkness. It wasn’t a sinister darkness, but the
tantalizing darkness that screamed
dangerous
, while at the same time
drew you hypnotically into his arms. His shoulder-length hair was almost a
blue-black, absorbing any color reflected in the room. He had the same, almost
golden skin tone that his brothers had, but where it brightened their look, it
darkened his. Morpheus sported a black goatee-mustache combo that framed full
lips and added to, rather than detracted from the perfected sculpture of his
face.

I let the heat smolder in my eyes
to match the intensity of the gaze he turned on me. To do anything else
would’ve been an insult. Morpheus was an immortal and had been worshipped as a
god for many centuries. It wasn’t hard for me to do. The man was
hot
.

His face split into a smile that
displayed beautiful, even white teeth. “Only you, of all mortals could make me
feel such heat, Yeshua. By the gods, I miss that.” He opened his arms and I
crossed the room to step into his embrace.

“Only you, of all
immortals
can bring out such heat in me, Morpheus.”

It was a lie and he knew it.
Morpheus and I had once been lovers, but now we only danced at the edges of
heavy flirtation. As sensitive as I was to energy, it was hard for me not to
become intoxicated with power when in the presence of most of the immortals.
But I didn’t play with them as I did with Morpheus. He was safe to me. I
couldn’t be that sure with any of the others.

He let me free of his embrace and
stepped back to examine my hands. “He
is
a nasty one, isn’t he?”

“So it
was
you who sent the
dreaming.”

Morpheus put on an affronted look.
“You don’t honestly believe I would let the guy get this close to you without
my protection, do you?”

“It was a little too real for
comfort.”

“He rode the dream web and touched
into the dreaming. He caught me off guard.”

Morpheus was embarrassed and
looked away, offering me a seat next to him on the scattered pillows at out
feet. The deep blue of his eyes turned to chiseled ice. “It will not happen
again. I hate that I keep placing myself further in debt, even to someone as
lovely as you, Yeshua.”

I put a gentle hand on his arm.
“Your debt is no larger, Morpheus. I’ve never felt that there was a debt
between us in the first place.”

“I know.” He wrapped his fingers
over mine and looked at me with sincerity. “Which is why I have no problem
being in your debt.”

Morpheus’ debt to me was based
purely on his pride. I had come to him years ago, asking for insight into my
repetitive nightmares. He couldn’t give me any. My dreamscape, past and future
was blocked to him in ways he had never encountered before, with either mortals
or immortals. He could step in and send the dreaming to me to help aid me in my
work, but he couldn’t actually step into my dream world. The dreamings he sent
were the price he paid for the debt he felt he owed me. He had answers for
everyone else, except for me. While he hated to be reminded of the one failure
in his immortal lifetime, he continued to look for an answer to absolve his
debt. I was his greatest failure and his greatest challenge, all rolled into
one.

I could feel the trace of his
fingers as they slid up my arm to the back of my neck. Morpheus leaned in and
murmured against the place on my neck where his fingers rested. “You never want
to play any more.”

The warmth of his breath sent
shivers of delight through my body. Combined with a self-enforced celibacy and
the hazy edges of the opiates, the heat began to rise. I pulled back to break
the connection to the energy that surrounded him like a cocoon.

It was hard for me to focus.
“Morpheus–”

He sighed and shielded me from his
touch.

I breathed with relief. He could
have taken advantage of me and I would’ve been pretty much helpless to stop
him. At one point in my life I hadn’t wanted to stop him. We had been lovers
for three glorious months. There was something to be said for being lovers with
someone who had several millennia of experience at his fingertips––literally.
The memory sent shudders through my body. But for those three months, I was
incommunicado with everyone. That was part of the reason Father David thought
of Morpheus with distaste. I had accomplished nothing more than a
pleasurable––okay, I admit, a
very
pleasurable––vacation. Reality had
finally crept in and I had cut myself off from him and had gone back to work.

I hesitated, but brought my hand
up anyway to caress his cheek. He closed his eyes and moved into the touch.

“Thank you.”

He laughed. “Most women thank me
for what I do
to
them, not for stopping.”

I had to join his laughter.
Morpheus wasn’t any more in love with me than I was with him. I only intrigued
him because there was a part of me he couldn’t access. That had never happened
to him before. Immortals are no different than the rest of us. They even
started as mortal human beings. Everyone always desires most that which they
can’t have.

“Chaz found the link to the dream
stalker and hooked me up.”

It was unnecessary to say.
Morpheus had already known. That’s why he had sent the dreaming. But I needed
to create a separation between us, to draw the lines back from the realm of
pleasure he assaulted me with, just by being in the vicinity.

“Yes.”

“So what do you know? Or better
yet, what do
I
need to know?”

“This one has been working under
my radar for sometime. There is more power to him than it first appears.”

Morpheus didn’t like admitting
that he had not seen this guy crawl up through the ranks of controlling the
dreamscape.

“How?”

He frowned, trying to puzzle it
out loud. “I am not certain. There is a true duality to him that hid his face
from me, I think. I sense both great good and the depths of darkness from him.
It is hard for me to do a true seeing, because he shifts from one to the other
so easily.”

It was my turn to frown. That
didn’t sound good. “What does this mean?”

“That you need to be very careful
with this one, Yeshua.”

“I’m always careful. What makes
this one any different?”

“You are
rarely
careful.”
Morpheus chided with a knowing look. “And the power that he calls upon is
stronger than I have seen in a millennia. There is more to this one than meets
the eye.”

“And you don’t know what it is?”

“I have my suspicions.”

“But you won’t share.”

The look that he gave me was
troubled. “Not yet. I am hoping that I am wrong. If I am right–”

“Then what?”

He shook his head and looked away,
avoiding direct contact with my eyes. Morpheus was spooked––and he didn’t want
me to see how badly. A sick feeling started to tickle the pit of my stomach.
This was going to get ugly.

“Okay, what
can
you tell
me?”

“Don’t go for a direct attack. Not
yet. I need a little more time.”

Yeah. It was going to get
real
ugly. I pushed up from the pillows cushioning me.

“You got it.”

Morpheus held me back by grabbing
my arm. “I mean it, Yeshua. Take care with this one.”

His concerned look was so sincere
I had a hard time swallowing past the fear he passed onto me.

“I promise, Morpheus. I will be
careful.”

I leaned in to kiss his cheek and
then pulled myself up from the floor. I left without looking back, because his
words disturbed me. There were times when I could put on a front of arrogance
that even I believed. This was not one of them. If Morpheus, revered as the god
of dreams, felt fear from something in the dreamscape, I would be a fool to
feel anything less.

The door to the antechamber opened
as I walked toward it. I took a good, deep breath of fresh air before heading
down to the twisted halls of darkness below.

Just as Morpheus had told me, I
was
careful. Or at least I was careful on the ride back to my apartment. There was
nothing I enjoyed more than riding the major roads and back streets of the city
at top speeds. Whenever I left Morpheus, I tended to tone it down a bit.
Operating heavy machinery does not mix well with opium. It left me wishing I
had scored a second cup of coffee before I left Chaz and Pietra to their
devices. But even if I had managed to get it to Morpheus’ place without spillage,
it would only have made me drugged
and
wide-awake. So I took my time on
the way home and was extra careful.

I left my bike in the unofficial
parking garage of my apartment building and went to take the elevator to the
second floor. It was unofficial, because as far as the city was concerned, the
space leased by the occupants of the warehouse was strictly for business use.
No one
officially
lived here, yet all of the spaces were actually
apartments. I wondered how much of a pay-off the landlord had to make to
inspectors each year. It wasn’t my problem. I more than covered my share of the
bribe money with the exorbitant prices I paid on my lease.

It was my lucky day. The elevator
was functional. It was a crapshoot as to whether it worked from one day to the
next. I frowned as I stepped inside and the doors closed behind me. There was a
tangy, metallic taste to the stale air of the freight box lumbering its way to
the second floor. It was subtle, so I barely noticed it at first. I knew the
smell for what it was. The doors opened on my floor and the smell was stronger.
A look down verified what I already knew. Blood.

It was streaked in spots across
the floor, drawing a trail around the corner up ahead. My apartment door was
around that corner. I stepped out of the freight elevator and moved forward
slowly, reaching at the same time to the middle of my back where my weapon was
tucked into my belt. I didn’t carry a gun. The things I dealt with were not the
type to be taken down with bullets––not even silver ones.

Before I hit the corner of the
hall, my fist was gripped tight to nine inches of layered carbon steel, its
blue-black, wavy pattern glinting iridescent colors in the faded light of the
hallway. It was a special blade given to me by Father David. The grip was
smooth oak from an ancient, lightning-struck tree. A band of interlaced silver
and gold circled the handle, carved with runes from a language so old that he
couldn’t even tell me what they said. Silver crosses made up the guard,
protruding between the blade and the grip on either side. At the cross point on
both sides, a Seal of Solomon gleamed gold in contrast to the cross.

Father David told me it was one of
a set of ancient blades specially made by the church for their elite demon
slayers. I just called it my “Companion” and left it at that. My Companion has
taken good care of me over the years.

I paused at the corner, preparing
myself for whatever I might find. The edges of the opium still tickled a fog
across my mind. That irritated me. This was no time for my senses and reflexes
to be dulled. The sound of the freight elevator kicking into slow gear made me
jump, as it started to move its way back down to the first floor. I didn’t know
whether or not it was headed back up to my floor, but I couldn’t take the
chance of being sandwiched between two unknown and potentially unfriendly
fronts. I had to move now.

I did look before I leapt. A quick
glance around the corner gave me a clear shot of a semi-conscious man leaned up
against the wall across from my door. It seemed okay for the moment. I stepped
cautiously around the corner, my Companion held in front of me. My eyes checked
the shadows. There was nothing. I went to reach out with my other senses, when
the man turned his eyes toward me. They were glazed with pain and I could tell
he was hanging onto to consciousness by a thread.

The blood trail stopped where he
sat and was coalescing into a small pool beneath him. There was a pleading in
his eyes that called out to me. I was still leery. People in my line of work
didn’t stay alive as long as I had by not playing it safe. The sound of the
freight elevator moving again reminded me I might not have a lot of time.

I edged toward the man with
caution, sending out my feelers as I went. It almost knocked me to my knees
when I connected with him. I don’t recall the last time I had felt such power.
He didn’t
feel
like an immortal. He also didn’t have that tarry, slimy
feeling of evil, either. I’m not sure
what
he was.

He lifted a hand to me and tried
to speak, nothing came out. The man slumped forward, unconscious, without a
sound. A trick? Maybe, but I didn’t have time to work through it all. The
elevator stopped at my floor. With my luck running the way it seemed to be at
the moment, it meant another somebody headed my direction.

I worked my way around the man,
but he didn’t move. Taking up a crouching, defensive position several feet past
his immediate reach, I faced the direction of the new threat and waited. My
heart was pounding in my chest and the adrenalin started pumping through my
veins, helping to metabolize the remaining opiate haze in my system. The sound
of footsteps crept slowly to the corner. Whoever it was, they moved with
caution. That’s all right––I was ready for them.