Dark Descendant (18 page)

swallowed a lump of dread that formed in my throat. I did
not
want a repeat of the evening’s near panic attack. I sucked in a deep breath and hit the gas, concentrating hard to keep any potential

flashbacks at bay.

When I parked once again on the circular drive, I was pleasantly surprised to find Maggie

waiting for me under the shelter of the porch roof. She was by far the nicest of the
Liberi
I’d met so far, and I couldn’t help liking her. The rain pounded down relentlessly as I got out of the car

and popped the trunk. It wasn’t terribly cold out, but the rain came with a generous dose of wind,

and I wished I’d worn a heavier coat.

Maggie could have stayed safely under the porch roof and kept dry, but instead she beat

me to the trunk and was lifting my suitcase out before I could get to it. The suitcase wasn’t

particularly heavy, being a small roll-aboard and only lightly packed, but I was still surprised by

how easily Maggie plucked it out of the trunk and scampered up the front steps with it.

I slammed the trunk shut and hurried to follow, eager to be out of the rain. When I caught

up with Maggie on the porch, I reached for my bag.

“Let me take that,” I said. “You don’t have to carry my bag for me.”

She grinned at me. “Anderson’s got you on the third floor. Trust me, you don’t want to

haul your suitcase all the way up there.”

I put my hand on the handle of the suitcase and gave a gentle tug, but she didn’t let go. I

rolled my eyes. “Come on, I’m supposed to be living here now, right? So it’s not like I’m a guest

and you have to carry my bag.”

“You don’t understand,” Maggie said, still grinning at me, a cheerful twinkle in her eye.

She twisted the suitcase’s handle out of my grip, then lifted it one-handed over her head like it

weighed no more than an empty grocery sack. “I’m descended from Zeus, through Heracles. I

don’t have any storm magic, but I am seriously strong.” Yes, I could see that. “I even carry

things for the guys sometimes, though it offends their masculine sensibilities so much it’s an

argument every time.”

She said it lightly, and there was no change in her expression I could put my finger on,

but I got the feeling that it bugged her. I guess it had to be kind of tough to be a strong woman in

a household full of supernatural alpha males, most, if not all, of whom had been born in times

when society accepted it as fact that women were lesser beings.

I followed Maggie up the grand front staircase, which featured a remarkably

genuine-looking reproduction of Winged Victory on the landing, making me feel like I had been

magically transported to a museum. When we reached the second floor, Maggie gestured with

her free hand toward the long hall leading to the right.

“That’s the east wing, which is Anderson’s. The first door on the left is his study, and you

can go in there whenever you want as long as the door is open. If the door is closed, knock first

or he’ll get cranky. The rest of the wing is off-limits unless you’re invited or unless there’s an

emergency.”

This information naturally set my suspicious mind to wondering what Anderson might be

hiding in the east wing, but maybe I’d just seen
Beauty and the Beast
too many times. It was, as he had pointed out, his house, and it was only fair that he have his own private space within it,

even if he was living with a bunch of other
Liberi
.

“The west wing is where Jamaal, Blake, and Logan’s apartments are,” Maggie continued,

gesturing to the left and then starting up the next set of stairs. “Jack, Leo, and I all have rooms on

the third floor.”

“I haven’t met Leo yet,” I said. I was beginning to think he was a bit of a recluse, because

even when I’d been in the process of investigating Emmitt’s so-called “cult,” I’d rarely caught

sight of him.

“He’s not very sociable,” Maggie responded. “He’s a descendant of Hermes, who was a

god of commerce. If we didn’t remind him to eat and sleep every once in a while, he’d spend

every second of every day sitting at his computer scrutinizing the market. We tease him about it,

but the kind of money he brings in makes it possible for us to do a lot of good. And live well

ourselves, while we’re at it.”

“Who’s Anderson descended from?” I asked. “You’ve told me everyone else’s ancestor,

but not his.”

“That’s because I don’t know. He’s very mysterious about it. No one recognizes his

glyph, and he’s not saying.”

“Any idea why not?”

“Nope,” Maggie replied cheerfully. “But if you want to see if you can pry the secret out

of him, have at it.”

My only response was a soft snort. If Anderson wasn’t going to tell his closest friends, I

was damn sure he wouldn’t tell me, so there was no point in even asking.

We’d finally reached the third floor, and Maggie led me down another long hallway.

Even with eight or nine people living in the mansion, there were plenty of rooms to spare. Dust

covers draped the furniture in many of the upstairs rooms.

The “guest room” Anderson had assigned me was actually a generous suite, with a huge

bedroom, a luxurious bathroom, and a cozy sitting room, complete with a rectangular table

against one wall that could serve as either a desk or a dining table. It was a hell of a lot nicer and

more comfortable than my hotel had been.

“Do you want to take some time to unpack and freshen up?” Maggie asked. “Or would

you rather have the grand tour first?”

I stifled a yawn. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in what felt like forever, and the

king-sized four-poster in the bedroom was calling to me. However, I doubted I could sleep

comfortably without thoroughly examining my surroundings first.

“Let’s do the grand tour,” I said. “I’m going to crash if I hold still for too long.”

“All right then. Follow me!”

The tour of the house lasted the better part of an hour, and it left me wishing I’d drawn a

map as we went along. I’d been right about the house’s origins—it had once been a plantation.

Which meant that it was huge, with a zillion rooms, and also meant that there were servants’

corridors and staircases all over the place. Combine those classic plantation features with a

century’s worth of additions and renovations, and you had a dizzying maze. Or maybe it was just

my own fatigue that made everything so confusing.

By the time I got back to my room, I doubted I could find my way to the front door

without help, and I was so tired my eyes ached. I locked both the door to my suite and the door

to my bedroom before finally allowing myself to collapse into bed and fall into a deep,

untroubled sleep.

It was still pitch dark out when I awoke. A nightlight
glowed faintly from the open

bathroom door, and there was a little light cast by the digital clock by the bedside, but otherwise

the room was oppressively dark. I was used to the lights of the city creeping around the edges of

my curtains, and to the sound of cars passing by at all hours of the day and night. Here in

Anderson’s mansion, I felt cut off from humanity, alone and out of my element.

I didn’t know what had awakened me, but the shiver of unease trailing down my spine

told me
something
was wrong
. I lay still and peered into the darkness, checking to see if anything was amiss. When nothing immediately tweaked my threat radar, I almost let my eyes slide closed

again. I was still dead tired.

But there’s something inherently disturbing about sleeping in an unfamiliar room,

especially when that room is part of a huge, pre-Civil War mansion inhabited by supernatural

beings, and I couldn’t just dismiss my nerves. I stifled a yawn and sat up, wishing the room

weren’t so damn dark.

I started to reach for the bedside lamp, and then froze as my eyes picked out a

man-shaped patch of shadow in the darkness. A man-shaped shadow that wasn’t looming over

me, as I’d half-expected, but that was lying on his side on the bed beside me, his head propped

on his hand.

I couldn’t make out his features in the dark, and so I had no idea who it was. Until he

moved and I heard the telltale clicking of the beads in his hair.

With a yelp of alarm, I tried to throw myself off the bed, reaching for the lamp as I did

so. I figured Jamaal knew the layout of this room better than I did, and I’d have a better chance

of making it out the door if I could see where I was going. But Jamaal was faster than me, and

before I could pull the chain on the lamp, he’d grabbed my arm and yanked me back onto the

bed.

I tried to get in an elbow jab, but my movements were hampered by the sheets tangled

around my legs. My jab missed, and moments later I found myself pinned face-down with my

arm wrenched up behind my back. Jamaal was big and powerful, and my struggles were useless.

I considered screaming for help, but then decided against it. I doubted anyone else in the house

was close enough to hear, just as I doubted there were a whole lot of them who would be eager to

help me against Jamaal, who was one of their own.

“How did you get in here?” I gasped. “I locked the doors.”

Okay, it was probably a pretty dumb question under the circumstances. It really didn’t

matter how he got in my room. But I guess I wasn’t eager to face the important question—what

was he going to do to me?—so I ignored it in favor of the trivial one.

Jamaal laughed humorlessly, but at least he wasn’t actively hurting me. Yet.

“There is no lock strong enough nor wall thick enough to keep Death out,” he murmured,

his lips close to my ear so that I could feel the puff of his breath against my skin. The ends of a

couple of his braids had found their way under the collar of my flannel night-shirt and tickled the

base of my neck.

“Are you speaking literally or metaphorically?”

I felt his slight jerk of surprise. I guess he’d expected me to cower in fear at his menacing

words, and there was certainly a part of me that was afraid. But there was another part of me that

was getting just plain fed up with all the bullying and threatening, and that part was keeping my

fear at bay.

Jamaal’s hand tightened around my wrist, although his grip had not yet gone from

uncomfortable to painful. “You think because I can’t kill you that I can’t make you suffer?”

I snorted. “I’m not an idiot. But you’re going to do whatever you’re going to do no matter

what I say, so I figure I might as well speak my mind.”

I no longer made any attempt to struggle against his hold. What was the point? “Fair

enough,” he said, still talking into my ear. I noticed his breath smelled faintly of clove cigarettes.

I guessed as an immortal, he didn’t have to worry about lung cancer. “I’ll speak my mind, too. I

think you’re a lying, murdering spy who works for the Olympians.” His grip on my wrist

tightened at the words, and I clenched my teeth to suppress a whimper of pain.

“I think you murdered my friend and that you’re going to string Anderson along with

hopes of finding Emma while you gather information for your boss. And I think Anderson is too

desperate to believe in you to think straight.”

“Ever considered that
you
might be the one not thinking straight?” I asked, my voice tight

enough that he couldn’t miss the fact that I was in pain. He surprised me by loosening his grip.

“I’ll be watching you,” he continued, ignoring my question. “If I see even the slightest

hint that you’re playing us false, there will be hell to pay.”

He rolled off of me and sprang to his feet in one fluid motion. My lizard brain urged me

not to move from where he’d left me, fearing any movement might incite him, but I couldn’t just

lie there on my stomach being Little Miss Submissive.

Swallowing the lump of fear in my throat, I carefully turned over onto my side and

pushed up onto my elbow. Jamaal didn’t pounce, but he didn’t go away, either.

“I was speaking literally,” Jamaal said, and for a moment I had no idea what he was

talking about. “Locks can’t keep me out. If you fuck with us, there’s nowhere you can hide that I

can’t get to you. If you’re out of here by the time the sun rises, I’ll give you a free pass no matter

what you deserve for killing Emmitt. But if you stay in this house and I find out you’re working

for Konstantin…”

Before I could even think what to say, he stalked away from me. I could barely pick out

his shadow in the darkness of the room, but I was pretty sure he passed through my bedroom

door without even bothering to open it.

FOURTEEN

After Jamaal left, I
got up and turned on the light. I’d never be able to get to sleep if I

didn’t explore every nook and cranny of my room to make sure I was alone. I was not at all

comforted to find that the bedroom door and the entrance to my suite were both locked. I wished

I could believe I’d dreamed Jamaal’s visit, but I knew I hadn’t. If he could pass through locked

doors, then I supposed he could have escaped from his basement cell on the night of Emmitt’s

death, despite all the pounding and shouting I’d heard. Of course, if passing through the locked

door would have earned him another date with the Hand of Doom, I didn’t blame him for

choosing a different form of protest.

I made a halfhearted attempt to go back to sleep, but I failed miserably. The dark was too