Janus the Arrival (The Janus Trilogy Book 1) (14 page)

Dana woke the
next morning and felt extremely tired, which was probably due to the fact that
she and Janus had spent the entire night getting to know each other a little
better. She wasn’t sure if it had been due to the amount of red wine she’d
drunk, or the fact that she’d truly fallen for the man. Regardless of anything,
he’d unquestionably proved to be a true athlete between the sheets, and from
what she could remember, at times she’d found it quite hard to keep pace. Apart
from the exploits during her student days, Dana had never really experienced
the embrace of such a sensuous lover. As Janus lay staring across at her, his
eyes naturally followed the contours of her right breast. They moved across to
the nipple jutting out over the top of the duvet cover and having sat up, he
suddenly felt her tremble with anticipation as he leaned forward to kiss it,
before grasping it tenderly between his lips. While she’d slept, Janus had
taken advantage and conducted a scan of her mind. Just as he suspected, her
motives were somewhat different than those she portrayed to him. Having already
known about her plans, long before she’d even set them in motion; all of her
actions had already been forecast in the Stones.

   
Consequently, Janus had already decided
he’d play along with her for a little while longer, although it was a real
shame that he’d eventually have to kill her.

Janus had
worked at the Clinic for seven months. The time had gone by relatively fast.
He’d definitely proved his worth on more than one occasion, but sadly, Rebecca
had ultimately been made redundant. This had been a difficult decision, but due
to the amount of time she’d taken sick, the clinic hadn’t had much choice as
far as they were concerned. This inevitably allowed him to continue his work
without any further disturbances, which suited him just fine. Janus had just
gone ahead and micro-injected a new batch of embryo’s. He was right in the
middle of freezing them when Dr Adams walked into the room.

   
‘Your other half’s waiting in reception for
you.’ He announced, giving him a knowing wink. Janus looked completely startled
for a moment. He had quite a few things going on in his mind at the time, and
therefore it took a minute or two before he realised who it was that he was
referring to. Dana looked up as Janus approached her from the stairway at the
end of the hall.

   
‘I was just having a chat to the receptionist’s
about you.’ She said, giving the two women behind the desk a great big grin.

   
‘It’s amazing how much they all adore you.
Anyway! I’d just finished for the day when I decided it would be a great idea
to come and meet you, so that we could slowly amble into town together for
dinner, and then maybe catch a play to watch, a little later on. What do you
think?’

   
Dana seriously believed that Janus was up
to no good, having had another good think about it. This also meant his work at
the clinic somehow had to be a part of whatever it was that he was up to.
Therefore, it was no great surprise that she was even more convinced,
especially after the way he acted during the rest of the evening. Initially, it
had been a few long periods of silence accompanied by the deep moody staring
into space treatment. Finally, despite her trying her best to change the mood,
she’d received a lecture on how she must never visit him at work in the future,
at least not without any prior warning. So, the mighty Janus did have his weak
spots after all. Dana felt that she’d at least scored one point for her father,
at long last… Providing that she was barking up the right tree.

She had gone to
answer the front door on the Friday evening of that same week, having come home
completely exhausted from an extremely busy time, both at work and especially
with Janus during the evenings. Taking her by complete surprise, the door
suddenly sprung inwards, catching her slightly off balance. Dana found herself
landing in the arms of a strange hooded man dressed in black, who with amazing
dexterity manoeuvred her into a position that she found completely impossible
to escape from. This was despite all of the police training she’d done in the
past. Dragging her across to one of her dining room chairs, he forced her to
sit down before expertly tying her hands and feet in such a way that even The
Great Houdini would have had problems escaping from this sort of predicament.
Trying to remain calm, Dana noticed two other figures standing around in the
background. They were also dressed in similar clothing and for that reason she
decided she had no other option than to cooperate with these people, who were
certainly not messing around for the sake of it. At first she wondered if it
was a robbery, and half expected to be beaten and gang raped. Yet there was
something about the way that these men were acting that told her otherwise.
Dana could only sit and watch in despair as they painstakingly turned her flat
upside down as they went through the various drawers and cupboards spread
around the place. She couldn’t help but notice that they were being very
meticulous as they went about their business, which usually meant that they
were more than likely searching for something in particular. Then the penny
finally dropped… it had to be her father’s diary. They surely must be searching
for her father’s diary. That was all it could possibly be. Despite all that, it
was still extremely hard to sit and watch her home being violated, while she
just sat there helpless. Gradually the three men started to become rather
agitated with each other, and then began to argue amongst themselves before
seeming to calm back down again. Eventually, they obviously managed to reach
some sort of agreement as they stood huddled together towards the far end of
the room, discussing something, whilst ensuring that she couldn’t hear
anything. As soon as it looked as if they’d finished, the man who’d originally
tied her to the chair suddenly turned and approached her. To Dana’s surprise he
simply walked over, reached down behind her and partly loosened her bindings.
As he did so, Dana caught a distinct whiff of his aftershave as he’d leaned
across her. This all happened just before he and his accomplices fled back out
into the night.

It took Dana
another ten minutes to fully free herself before she was able to grab the phone
and start dialling the police station. Yet something seemed to stop her from
completing what she’d started, and she ended up hanging up halfway through. What
was the point? She may as well clean up the place herself, because at least she
knew where everything belonged. Roughly an hour and a half later, the flat
looked almost respectable again. Feeling thoroughly exhausted she soon
collapsed in a heap onto the sofa and felt extremely pissed off. Having already
examined her wrists where the binds had been, she was pleased that the red
welts were not too deep. She knew they would gradually fade away without any
problems. She’d seen this far too many times for something like that to cause
her any concern.

The sound of
the phone roused her from her sleep. This caused her to moan out loud as the
irritating sensation of pin’s and needle’s crept along the arm that she’d
fallen asleep on. In the meantime, she placed the receiver to her ear and
listened as Janus’ voice spoke at the other end of the line.

    
‘I wondered if a certain lady fancied
coming over for a little bit of exercise tonight. If you get my drift!’ Dana
automatically apologised and made her excuses, opting not to tell him about her
ordeal. She then hung up, but Janus had already picked up on her thoughts and
seen that all was not well. He’d also visualised the three men in black very
clearly in action, and he certainly wasn’t all that happy about it. They and
their like had always been around throughout the centuries in one guise or
another. However, as far as he was concerned, they were simply amateurs who
only served to hinder him and his kind at times. Although, they did tend to
have their uses on the odd occasion.

The doorbell
rang continuously and Dana crept towards the front door in the vague hope that
whoever it was would be gone before she answered. She couldn’t see anyone
through the spy hole when she peered through, and so she eventually opened the
door with extreme caution. What she found, was a bunch of fresh red roses lying
on the doorstep in really nice wrapping, but just as she reached down to pick
them up, a dark figure sprung at her from the shadows. Yet before she even had
a chance to react, she was suddenly lifted from the ground, still clasping the
roses in her left hand. They passed swiftly through the hallway, and then
headed straight into the bedroom before Dana was hurled onto the king sized
bed. The flowers went flying from her grasp and promptly landed in a crumpled
heap up against the dresser that stood located just beside the window. Within a
matter of what seemed like seconds, she’d been stripped completely naked. She
was now very close to reaching an orgasm as Janus thrashed around on top of
her, already well assured of how her body worked and exactly what he had to do
to set her off.

   
Dana may have been exhausted earlier, but
she woke the next morning feeling unusually refreshed and in very high spirits
for a change. Janus had also surprised her with a breakfast offering of freshly
squeezed orange juice, some lightly buttered toast and two boiled eggs on a
tray adorned with a single red rose. She’d already put him down as a charmer
from day one, but this really established him as one of the top runners for the
title.

Arriving at
work looking a little dishevelled and much later than usual, Dana made straight
for the coffee machine as soon as she got there. She quickly slotted the
required amount of money in, and then made her selection, already knowing what
buttons to push, having done so on so many previous occasions. Moments later,
she entered her office clutching her half finished coffee and looked across in
horror at her boss. He didn’t look best pleased and he sat waiting for her
accompanied by three sinister looking men, all of whom were dressed in black
.
Dana immediately recognised the
distinctive aftershave that hung in the air. It mingled with the heavy odour of
the cigar smoke that always lingered around her boss. Trying not to give away
any sign that she recognised the smell, Dana stared straight ahead and glared
hard at the replacement FBI Agents. These men were obviously extremely callous
and they simply returned the stare, while her boss had absolutely no idea what
was going on. His face then started to redden and he seemed rather puzzled at
the sudden change in atmosphere between Dana and the three Americans. So in
order not to embarrass her boss any further, Dana tried to remain calm and
begrudgingly shook hands with the men, while searching for any signs of guilt
as she was formally introduced to them one by one. As the tension eventually
subsided, it was then explained, that as with her father, these men would
remain in the background for now. They would stay as mere observers for the
time being and only become involved at her insistence.

   
‘Some chance!’ Dana muttered under her
breath. ‘I’d have to be bloody well desperate for that to happen.’ Once another
room was located, as her boss had someone else to see in his office, a brief
meeting was convened to cover events to date. Halfway in, and at the mention of
her father’s death, Dana shifted uncomfortably in her seat. T
hey seemed to talk about him so
coldly, speaking as if he’d just been another pawn, who’d sadly made the wrong
move. According to the rules of the game, he’d been removed for good. Yet the
replacement piece was Dana. However, unbeknown to this lot, she still had a few
good tricks up her sleeve.

She’d
been pottering around in the kitchen when it had happened, but Susan Green sat
down and gazed into nothingness as she attempted to come to terms with what
she’d witnessed. She’d just finished cleaning up the worst mess she’d ever come
across, whilst trying to avoid being sick at the same time. It had taken quite
a while to ensure she had scrubbed everything.

After
playing quite happily with Jamie, who at only nine months was already walking
fairly well, she had looked at a couple of recipes she fancied in one of her
favourite cookbooks and then started to prepare some food. Every now and again
she casually looked across at the youngster playing close by. He was busy
teasing the family pet at the moment, pulling its tail as it stood by its empty
food bowl meowing, despite the fact that it had on just been fed. This was one
of its cunning tricks, but Susan was wise to its wily ways and knew it would
soon grow bored and give up. She hadn’t seen what had happened, but the cat
must have given a warning to Jamie, because she noticed a scratch mark on his
leg afterwards. It was the demented wail from the animal that had caused her to
look around initially, only to find Jamie standing upright and staring as if he
were in some strange sort of trance. His gaze focused very firmly on the
creature and his face showed definite signs of anger. Suddenly, without
warning, a blinding beam of yellow light shot from his eyes and settled
directly in the centre of the cat’s forehead. The poor creature had stood
rooted to the floor in absolute agony as its fur started to smoke in places.
Its eyes bulged in their sockets and its skin started to bubble and blister,
causing it to shimmer slightly and then grow in size. Susan stared in total
disbelief. She couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening, and so she
naturally moved to pick it up, just before it exploded into loads of pieces,
covering everything in sight. Well, just about everything, apart from Jamie who
by some miracle remained completely untouched by the flying debris. The clean up
operation had been performed in robot mode as she replayed the horror of the
event over and over again in her mind. What caused her more concern was the
excitement she’s seen on Jamie’s face and the evil look he’d given her just
afterwards, which had sent great big shivers down her spine. The boy was
sitting all innocent looking in the living room watching a video tape when
Susan first appeared in the doorway. She stopped and stood for a moment to
study him, before wondering what he found so amusing on the screen. Then her
jaw dropped when she saw for herself. Susan stared in utter horror as Jerry the
Mouse began melting Tom the Cat’s tail with a giant sized magnifying glass,
without him realising what was going on behind him.

Rachel
Moore felt completely unwanted at this moment in her life. She lay destitute,
close by the embankment, partially hidden in a rundown alleyway covered by
nothing except for an old cardboard box having become another victim of
circumstance. She’d left the keys in her car before heading off to jump from
the bridge, and now that had been nicked. She’d failed to build a new life for
herself and the unborn child that still lay in the comfort of its mother’s
womb. Some Londoner’s tended to look upon the homeless as a mixture of petty
criminals, beggars and worthless vagrants, who simply slept rough because they
chose too. Yet in reality, this couldn’t have been further from the truth. Many
of them had pretty serious problems in one way or another and each needed help
based on their own merits. Most officials were only concerned about the
embarrassment it caused, especially when it came to foreign visitors catching
sight of them. They were a blight to the country and all of the decent people
who lived there, but to some, the answer was to place these people out of sight
rather than addressing the reasons for why homelessness existed in the first
place. Therefore, it was only thanks to organisations such as Crisis and
Shelter that some managed to survive the tough rigors of their day to day
existence.

   
Rachel recalled an incident from the
previous evening, where she’d queued up with a whole host of tramps and wino’s
as the soup wagon began its nightly routine. The task was the almost impossible
one of
feeding the five thousand,
which was a pretty thankless task at times. It was the time, when one of the
winos, a large stocky man in a tattered overcoat, returned for a second
helping. In forcing his way towards the open hatch through the waiting crowd,
he made the fatal mistake of bumping into J.C. An old timer who everyone tried
to avoid, as he fully believed he was the true Jesus Christ. He alleged, to
those that would listen, that he was the one who would eventually put the world
to rights. Much as expected, J.C took an instant dislike to this type of
behaviour, and knocked the man to the pavement, before sinking his decaying
teeth deep into an exposed cheek. He lifted the head by the hair and gazed at
his audience in triumph before smashing it back to the ground.

   
Rachel felt sickened as she observed the
badly torn flesh dangling from J.C’s blood soaked mouth. This was seconds
before he finally spat it out into the road. The volunteers serving the soup
just carried on in silence as though nothing had happened. Past experience had
already proved it highly unwise to become involved in such matters, and some of
those in the queue had already started to get restless. Whenever trouble such
as that occurred, these people simply tended to stick together. Sometimes
they’d even turn against anyone who they classed as not being one of them.
Rachel had lived amongst them for only the last four weeks, but due to her
condition she’d been readily accepted into the fold with no great problem. Life
on the streets appeared a lot easier when viewed on TV or in newspapers, but
when it came down to reality, the instinct for survival soon kicked in. There
really wasn’t any other choice from her point of view. Deep down, she knew that
there were other possible solutions, but for now, she really couldn’t be bothered.
A man had died because of her selfishness, so maybe this was her punishment.

On
the Thursday afternoon of her sixth week of fending for herself, as she was
sitting out begging in the street, Rachel suddenly passed out. It was thanks to
a passing tourist’s quick thinking that the doctors would manage to save both
her and her unborn baby.

    
Two days later, after finally regaining
consciousness, Rachel’s found that her hospital bed was being pushed along an endless
corridor, while someone in a white coat leaned over and muttered in her ear.
She must have consented to something, because moments later she lay helpless,
and watched as a needle was being pushed into her arm. With a masked woman
holding the syringe and asking her to count slowly backwards from ten, she had
very little idea about what was going on. It was all a bit of a blur at the
time, but she still tried her best to pull herself together. She was totally
oblivious to the fact that she only reached four before she was completely
unconscious.

Rachel
couldn’t remember anything about what had gone on. She’d eventually been
informed that Danny’s birth had been very awkward indeed. It had been quite a
bloodbath at the time, according to what she’d been told, as the baby had
decided to put up a fight that very nearly resulted in her death. She’d been
well cared for since being admitted. Evidentially, the nurses had been
extremely appalled at her plight on the streets, especially those who’d
originally cleaned her up. Thankfully, it wasn’t something that they came
across all that often, although many remembered a junkie who’d caused absolute
chaos and sadly died, soon after the baby had entered the world.

   
After what had seemed like a constant
stream of endless visits from Social Workers and the like, Rachel was finally
allowed to leave. This was however, on the provision that she allowed herself
to be housed in a halfway house that had been designed specifically to meet the
needs of women like herself.

   
The first ten months went fairly smoothly,
especially as she had her own little flat, well that was what she tended to
refer to it as.
The food was plentiful and
she helped out by doing her stint on the shared rota system. It finally seemed
that her life was getting back on track at last. Rachel felt more confident
than she had for a good long while, and according to the regular health
visitor, she felt that Danny was being well cared by his mother although he was
also deemed to be very advanced for his age. On the downside however, many
people living there seemed to steer clear of him whenever they could. According
to what she’d heard, it appeared that his piercing blue eye’s made them feel
quite uncomfortable. Many of them didn’t really know how to deal with it,
especially as most of them already had other issues to deal with, so they
didn’t want anything else to worry about if they could help it.

It
was however, an incident two days earlier that had caused alarm bells to start
ringing in Rachel’s head. This totally knocked the confidence she’d managed to
build up and almost set her back to square one. She also had the added problem
that she was completely unsure about who she could possibly turn to for help in
this precise situation.

   
Danny had been playing quite normally in
the crèche with other children, just as he had on every other day, when an
older child had rather foolishly tried to snatch a toy that he’d been playing
with, from him. The girl’s worried mother had gone over to investigate why her
daughter had started screaming so loudly, and discovered her on the floor with
both hands held up against her face. Blood was oozing out between her fingers
at quite a rate, and she crying while muttering something about a nasty bright
light. Danny simply sat in the corner playing with the toy she’d tried to take
from him, with a great big smile on his face, before Rachel had walked over and
hoisted him into her arms. Yet when she checked to see if he was alright and
gazed into his eyes, she noticed a strange yellow glow lurking rather
menacingly in the background.

   
As expected, an ambulance had arrived
fairly promptly on the scene, along with two police officers. They immediately
started to ask what had happened, and there was lots of finger pointing, while
the other parents made sure that their children kept a good distance away from
Danny. The distraught mother of the injured child had eventually phoned the
warden in charge of the home to explain her daughter was currently undergoing
major surgery in the hope of saving the sight of both eyes. Appalled at the
news, Rachel seriously considered moving on to pastures new, before eventually
being persuaded to stay by one of the other mums at the complex, who she got on
really well with. She sure as hell wasn’t daft enough to think that many of the
other parents felt the same way.

Janus
was busy reading the Guardian newspaper, as he liked to do if the opportunity
arose, when he noticed one of the headlines about an aristocrat having died
from an accidental overdose. The story related to how the body of the wealthy
heiress; Marie de Pre’ had been discovered at her palatial home, having
suffered a severe bout of depression since the rather awkward birth of her son
Charlie. As he read further, it explained in full detail, how at only fourteen
months of age, the boy had been found playing on the floor of his mother’s
bedroom, while her body lay on the bed with a bloodstream full of heroin. It
also mentioned that the father of the child remained a complete mystery for
now, although the police were evidently going to great lengths to see if they
could shed any further light on the subject.

   
Janus smiled as he continued to read how
the dead woman’s parents, the Duke and Duchess de Pre’ of Findon had taken over
as guardians of the boy, pending the courts final decision. All of this would
happen once the case had been fully investigated and officially closed. It also
clarified how reporters were unable to obtain any further details or
accompanying photographs, due to the high level of security that surrounded
Findon Manor. The remaining passages just mentioned a few bits and pieces about
the family history, and how Marie de Pre’s cousin, someone who she was
purported as having been very close to, had died in an unfortunate flying
accident just two years earlier. This had happened in Copenhagen, with
assumptions already being made, that this had contributed to her wayward
behaviour and subsequent death
.
 

   
Placing the paper down on the table as soon
as she entered the room, Janus could tell Dana was tensed up from her day at
work. She was less the sort who liked to be stuck pen pushing in the office,
but more the outdoor type, who preferred to be on the front line where the
action always tended to be.
 

   
Unfortunately police work was not always as
glamorous as it was portrayed in the movies, but Janus smiled as he knew it
wouldn’t be too long before he had some of his own personal action for her to
contend with.

It
was during the coming period that Dana had a better chance to study Janus a lot
closer than before. She’d already been living with him for quite a while,
although she still occasionally needed to escape to the privacy of her own flat
every now and again in order to maintain her sanity. He was certainly an
unusual character, that was for sure, and his moods could change within
seconds, especially whenever she asked him any questions about his past. His
appetite for sex was completely insatiable at times, and there were even a few
occasions when she’d struggled to remember why she was doing this in the first
place. The guy was an absolute godsend in the sack, and he certainly knew what
she wanted, and exactly when she wanted it. His eyes however, were the real
mystery. They could be completely mesmerising at times. They sometimes had an
almost hypnotic effect that would seem to take place whenever she dared look
into them a little too deeply. It was almost as if they knew you were prying
and had the ability to act like sentinels, before switching into some sort of
defensive mode. Likewise, if you stared too long you’d feel as though you’d
been turned to stone, but still be fully aware of what was happening, despite
being physically unable to do anything about it. The following sensation would
almost seem to be one of Janus reaching into the very depths of your soul, with
any thoughts or feelings you possessed being easily accessed whenever he felt
the need. Although this was an extremely unsettling sensation, Dana had
eventually become accustomed to it and decided to fight back, at least until
she could determine how and why such feelings came about. She knew he practiced
such things with his mind and body, she guessed this was by means of his
dabbling with the eastern cultures, but he had claimed to hold certain psychic
powers during the time they’d spent together. Dana had also learnt to control
her thoughts, albeit to a lesser degree, and she now believed that as her mind
grew stronger, she would eventually gain the ability to shield certain thoughts
from him, if that was what was truly going on. Unfortunately that was not truly
the case, and therefore Janus just let the poor woman continue to think such
thoughts as he strung her along for a little longer.