My Darkest Passion (38 page)
Absolutely never. Even if she weren’t being followed, she’d be keeping her arms in close, her empty coffee cup almost touching her chest. On edge and at sea no matter what. Now she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stay on her feet long enough to make it back to the doorway where she’d spent the night.
More than anything, she wanted to go home, take a shower, and curl up in her bed, in her room, in her house and feel safe. Her longing for the familiar brought a lump to her throat. She couldn’t go home.
Ever. Instead, she knew things she wished she didn’t and had seen things she wished she hadn’t.
Yesterday she’d been living in a Tiburon mansion with the staff of fifteen it took to look after Álvaro Magellan. Today she was in San Francisco with a hundred dollars and clothes that used to belong to someone else.
The light changed. For half a breath, no one moved. Two cars and a bike messenger zoomed through the intersection on the red. Normal, everyday people surged forward, and Carson went with them. The man following her crossed to the opposite side of the street. Halfway down the block, the crowd thinned.
Carson stopped outside a jewelry store and stared at the window. But she watched his reflection in the glass, not the display, trying to think what to do.
The tall, muscled, long-limbed man in faded jeans, an old T-shirt, and cowboy boots looked too scruffy to work for Magellan. She wasn’t one of the paid staff, but she worked for Magellan, too, just like everyone else in the house. Álvaro Magellan took on the
yes, sir
type. But the words
yes, sir
would never pass this guy’s lips. His jeans were pale along his thighs and white at his knees. A twoday growth of beard shadowed his cheeks. He had the kind of dark hair that probably lightened several shades someplace with a real summer. A haircut would not be amiss.
The shop window didn’t reflect the color of his eyes. He was too far away for that, but she could see him slouching against a wall like a Calvin Klein model. Her pulse slowed enough for her to breathe through her nose again. Her headache got worse. She took a few steps along the display window but moved her head to keep his reflection in view. For all she knew, he was some lowlife looking to snatch her purse. If she was lucky, that’s what he wanted.
She moved to the next store, pretending interest in a series of porcelain cats. She didn’t see Mr. Cowboy Boots’s reflection in the window anymore. Maybe he’d settled on someone else’s purse.
The proprietor of a sidewalk display of Long-Life Happy Balls held out a hand and circled the chiming metal balls around his palm. She looked up to acknowledge him, but his face vanished behind streaks of orange. Her skin prickled in a wave from the top of her head to the backs of her legs and along her neck.
Cantonese pitched and rolled in her ears, and for an instant she understood the words. Then the meaning flashed out of her head, and all she heard was the impenetrable rhythm of a language born on the Asian subcontinent. Cantonese was dying out in China, displaced by Mandarin. But here, in cities like San Francisco, with Asian populations that immigrated during the gold rush and after, Chinese meant Cantonese.
Traffic sounds whirred in the background, horns blared, wheels rolled over asphalt, engines accelerated.
Carbon particulates gave the air a sharp scent. Pigeons cooed from eaves, and she heard the Doppler shift of conversation and tinny vocals from iPod earbuds as people flowed around her. Music from one of the open shop doors floated over the noise. She concentrated on breathing, but her headache didn’t recede.
“Well, well, well,” said a voice behind her. The words were soft and mellow. “If it isn’t Magellan’s witch.”
Free Fall - A
My Immortals
series novella
CHAPTER 1
11:40 AM. Lobby of 101 California Street, San Francisco, California
H
e was here. Telos Khunbish had come. Relief nearly demolished her, it hit so powerfully. He was here, and now, improbably, she believed everything was going to be all right. Her life was irrevocably screwed, but she believed. She ignored the noise of the lobby and the man standing beside her. He was irrelevant. What a damn sad commentary it was that after nearly ten years in the city, Khunbish was the closest thing she had to a friend. Maybe even a real friend, because he was here, and she believed she’d get through this.
Her heart kicked up a notch when she got a clear view of his black BMW turning onto Front Street. Now, of course, she wondered if she’d made a mistake involving him. She didn’t make a habit of asking for help. She wasn’t good with people. She wasn’t even sure she’d asked right. Seems she had.
The BMW was definitely looking to park. Good thing. In less than ten minutes the lunchtime rush would start, and she’d be in real trouble. Even now there were too many people around.
“My ride’s here,” she said to Jack, the man standing beside her. She didn’t make eye contact because that would be dangerous. Instead she stared at his tie, but that turned out to be a mistake. The dark red silk looked like blood streaming down his chest. She focused on the shiny marble floor and the tips of his Oxfords. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Let me carry your things.” Jack reached for the moving box that contained the personal contents from her office. He knew Michael, and that meant she couldn’t trust him. Simple fact. She couldn’t trust anyone who knew Michael Ford.
“No.” She gripped the box tighter and looked at the street again, as if Khunbish could help her from afar. The BMW was waiting for a van to pull away from the curb. Khunbish had never met Michael. That was part of the reason she’d called him. That, and she didn’t know anyone else.
“Lys.” Jack was thirty-ish, good looking, and in line to make partner in the next two years. He did good suit. He was a competent lawyer and a decent litigator.
She faked a smile and looked at Jack without directly meeting his eyes. Over the years she’d gotten good at faking contact normal people never thought twice about. She lifted the box an inch. “Hardly weighs a thing.”
Jack smoothed a hand down the river of blood that was his tie. She held her breath, half expecting his palm to come away smeared red. He reached for her moving box, and she jumped back, heart slamming against her chest. Either Jack didn’t get it, or he was in league with Michael and meant her harm. He kept moving toward her.
“Don’t.” The word came out sharp and loud. The security guard at the lobby reception area looked over. She was close to losing it. Way too close. Blocking shouldn’t be this hard for her, but the last several days had been…difficult. Not enough sleep. Not enough to eat. Too much caffeine. Far too much stress.
“Lys. Come on.” His tie vibrated at the edges of her vision. Blood red. A river of red. He reached for the box again. “I’m only trying to help out.”
She risked a look at his face. His smile was hesitant, a little irritated, but that would be normal if he really just wanted to help. Just a regular person trying to be nice. Part of her didn’t believe it. He knew Michael, and Michael had tried to kill her. “Don’t touch me.”
Jack lifted his hands palm out and backed off. She regained a bit of her calm. It didn’t last long. The minute she relaxed, he moved into her personal space again. She made the mistake of assuming he meant to take the box. She swung her torso to one side, and by the time she realized he meant to touch her, she couldn’t avoid the contact. His hand landed on her shoulder, and her control shattered into a million pieces.
“What’s—”
Her immediate surroundings blinked out. She dropped the cardboard box, but maybe she didn’t because she didn’t hear it fall. From experience she knew not to move. Her sense of where she was in space disappeared along with her vision. The bitter taste of iron coated her mouth and oozed down the back of her throat to burn in her stomach.
He ignores the first symptoms; the sense of something off, the clammy sweat, the pinch in the left side of his rib cage. Pain crushes his chest, and he can’t get enough air. His knees give out, and he falls to the concrete.
By sheer dint of being terrified about what would happen if she went into free fall, she got her blocks back in place.
The normal world boomeranged back.
Sound, sight, scent, all of it crashed around her. Fire streaked along the left side of her face from just behind her eye through to the back of her head. She was present in normal time, out of free fall, except dozens of lives continued to thrum in her head, out of rhythm and out of control. The blowback would pass eventually, but in the meantime she was fucked up every which way. So was Jack.
Her surroundings came into focus, first in a grainy monochrome, then with increasing detail. Her spatial awareness returned with her depth perception. There were more people in the lobby than before. Too many. The noise shredded her nerves, and her head hurt like a mother. She remained on her feet. That was good. Her hands were empty, though, and that was bad. She didn’t see Jack anywhere, and that was really bad.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
It took her a minute to locate where his voice was coming from. Jack was crouched at her feet, putting things back in the box she’d dropped. He looked fine. He was fine.
Thank God
.
Her relief that she’d somehow managed to stop things in time made her go limp. The fact that she could even tell she was relieved meant she was probably going to be okay. She worked her tongue around her mouth until she had enough acid-tainted spit to moisten her throat. She needed to get the hell away from Jack and all these people, because next time she might not be so lucky. “Clumsy. That’s all.”
“Your mug broke.” He held up a shard of her coffee cup that included half the handle. He looked at her like he expected her to say something. Well, she didn’t. She’d already said all the words she could dredge up.
She dug in her purse for her sunglasses because, damn, her eyes hurt, and her skull was in a vise and about to fracture. Dark glasses or not, her ability to insulate herself from other people continued to erode. She hadn’t lost it this badly since her college days.
“Maybe you can glue it back together?”
From where she stood, just inside the lobby doors, traffic noise was a rumble that hurt deep inside her ears. She took the shard of porcelain and dropped it into the box. It broke into two more pieces and slivered what was left of her nerves.
Jack, still crouching, stared into the box. “Or not.”
She wished he wouldn’t talk. His voice hurt. At least now the metallic taste in her mouth was duller. Her vision continued to recover with her other senses. Jesus, that blood-red tie vibrated as if it were alive. She could feel her skin again, judge the temperature of the air. She stared down at Jack still helpfully, and rather sweetly, picking up her things. He didn’t deserve to die. She needed to get away from him. For both their sakes. If he ended up thinking she was a bitch, fine.
“Go back to the office, Jack.” He stretched to pick up a pen that had rolled out of easy reach. “You shouldn’t be down here.”
He threw the pen in the box and winced.
Oh, damn.
My Darkest Passion - Copyright
T
his book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
“My Darkest Passion,” © 2013 by Carolyn Jewel.
ISBN: 978-1-937823-08-05
Cover design by Patricia Schmitt.
All rights reserved. Where such permission is sufficient, the author grants the right to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.
Alas, I am not perfect. From time to time I make mistakes. The great thing about eBooks is I can upload fixes pretty quickly. If you find a typo, by all means let me know!
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- 2013.04.15 ePub version 1.0:
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