The Mark of Cain (3 page)

From her vantage point she could only see the wide
shoulders and upper back of the rock star. But Vinnie was somewhat facing her.
His mouth was moving quickly, as though nervous, and his hands kept rubbing
sweat away from his nasty brow. His eyes held a mixture of intimidation, awe,
worship, and a small grudging light as well; as though he was jealous or really
didn’t want to be speaking with the rock star, or maybe a mixture of both.

Curious now, she walked up to them, glancing at the
rock star from the corner of her eye. He was still facing away from her, but
she did notice the silver spike he had in his left eyebrow as well as the one
centered right below his lower lip that was twisted into what looked like a
humoring smile.

“Ah, and this is Hara, our best bartender,” Vinnie
said, sitting up, his whole demeanor changing as he gestured toward her in a
way that affirmed that she was definitely the piece of meat on the menu
tonight.

“Hara?” the rock star’s deep, husky voice asked,
surprise and anger edging into his words as he turned toward her, his eyes
narrowing into threatening slits.

She wasn’t used to getting this reaction. Usually,
her appearance made even the most saintly man leer at her like a hungry wolf in
nature documentaries. This guy—whose features were slightly exotic to the point
where she couldn’t tell if he was completely Caucasian, or if he perhaps had
something more to him—was looking at her like she had just ruined everything by
appearing.

Trying not to let him intimidate her—which was
difficult when his black eyes bored into hers, burning her sockets—she cocked a
shapely hip to the side, trying to act tough though she was the furthest thing
from it, as she replied, “Yeah. Got a problem with that?”

With Vinnie forgotten by the wayside, the man leaned
forward, his veins bulging in his neck under a bit of what she thought was
called a “tribal tattoo” that disappeared under his T-shirt on the same side as
the one exactly like it that ran along the length of his right arm. Why was he
so angry?

“Is that short for anything? Or is it just Hara?” It
was almost a threat.

“It’s short for Anahara….” Why was she letting this
guy intimidate her?

“Um…Mr. Adamson here owns some of the biggest clubs
in all the major cities. He was looking at adding this place…” she could hear
Vinnie explaining in the background, really begging for her to behave as nicely
as she always did.

Mr. Adamson. So he wasn’t a rock star at all. He was
an investor. Or, maybe he was a rock star
and
an investor. Who knew? She
hadn’t really listened to any music before she had finally up and left the
orphanage four years ago, and the music they played at the club she ignored and
didn’t listen to at home, so it’s not like she knew what a rock star would look
like anyway other than the ones who came here. She just thought that she could
see Mr. Adamson on a stage being adored by the masses. Something in his eyes
seemed to expect that. Besides, wasn’t it only rock stars who would have such a
large tattoo and multiple piercings? Well, other than the club-goers, but Los
Angeles was its own little bubble that wasn’t reality at all. Surely most
normal
people
out
of the bubble wouldn’t do that to themselves.
Especially
investors. And wow, for some reason he was making her ramble in her head….

As part of her long-winded thoughts, she found
herself wondering if she would know who Mr. Adamson was if she hadn’t been
raised in such a cloistered orphanage. She’d learned a lot since she’d left it
and come here, but she still felt as though she didn’t know anything at all,
especially about celebrities and their scandalous lives. It didn’t help that
Crystal was always complaining about how annoying Hara was because she didn’t
get most of the cultural references—or most anything else—that Crystal always
jabbered on about. They just hadn’t exposed her to such things in the
orphanage. They’d always kept her busy with other such things; telling her what
she should do and how she should behave. And for a while she’d let them.

The priests and nuns had wanted her to remain at the
orphanage forever, telling her that it was dangerous for her outside its walls,
but she was so sick of them controlling everything that she’d finally just up
and fled. It wasn’t that she wasn’t grateful for them taking her in after her
family had all been killed; it was just that they had sheltered her too much,
and she had gotten to the point where she had to live her own life. Besides,
she still kept in touch with them, buying the children gifts and visiting most
every major holiday. She may have left, but the orphanage would always be home.

“Excuse me. I have a pressing matter that I thought
was taken care of but I just realized
wasn’t
,” Mr. Adamson practically
accused, pulling her from her wonderings, his black eyes those of a shark as he
stood up, threw a wad of cash on the table with his thickly tattooed arm, and
stalked off before Vinnie could even stammer another sentence.

After regaining his composure, Vinnie threw her a
dirty look and ran down the stairs, his stomach bouncing as he tried to catch
up to the rock star. Hara couldn’t even move. What was all
that
about?
The guy had been smiling until she’d walked up, though it may have been more
out of disdain than actual happiness. And then, when she had, he’d looked so
angry…so dangerous for
real
. What about her could invoke such a
reaction? She knew she hadn’t wronged him because she’d never seen the guy
before in her life! What about her did he find so repugnant? And, if he still
bought the club, would she be forced to fake smiles to him every night? Or
would she be gone—fired—quicker than he had fled?

***

Inac stormed down the stairs of the club and out
into the warm summer night, his mind going back to that day twenty years ago
when he’d ordered the death of Anahara….

…“I’ve found her, sir.”

Inac could almost smell Micah’s fear, which not even
his relief of finding the girl could dim. He
better
be scared. Inac was
not a patient man, and his servant had been looking for
her
for three
years now. Why it had even taken that long in the first place was beyond him.

“It’s about time, Micah. I was beginning to think
that I couldn’t depend on you any longer. And you know what happens to people I
can’t depend on….” Inac knew that Micah would catch the barely-veiled threat in
his words.

As always, Inac was right. As his servant gulped in
trepidation, Inac leaned forward from the shadows he’d been thinking in,
letting the meager light from his desk lamp catch his face so the man could see
exactly how close to killing him Inac had been. He didn’t like it when people
didn’t take care of their jobs in a timely manner. And three years, even in his
long life, was too long to wait for something that should have been taken care
of in a day.

“You can depend on me. I assure you,” the balding
man said as he puffed out his burly chest in an attempt to appear unafraid. But
Inac was a master of detection and easily caught the small quiver Micah was
attempting to stifle. He was probably thinking about what Inac had done to
Micah’s superior when
he
hadn’t found the girl in a timely manner. Inac
had learned years ago that, to truly rule someone and keep them from betraying
you, you had to make them fear you unconditionally.

Inac smiled, sending another shiver down Micah’s
broad back from the cruelty and menace he knew was detectable in it. “You’re
lucky I’m in a hospitable mood today. Take care of this and I’ll promote you
past your probationary period. Mess up and you’ll think that your superior’s
death was merciful.”

“She’ll be dead by the end of the week,” Micah
replied, his Adam’s apple moving in his dark, thick neck as he choked back his
fear.

“No. By dawn. I want little Anahara dead
tonight
.
I don’t want any chance of her getting away. We have to strike before They know
we’ve found her.”

“She’s only a child….”

“Are you having second thoughts? Do I need to find
someone else? You know what happens to those who don’t pass their probationary
period,” Inac hissed through his teeth. He was
done
being patient.

“No, sir. I can do this.” Micah’s unusual olive
green eyes were as large as planets. He didn’t want to die.

“Then do as I ask and do it now. I don’t care how
young the child is.” As almost an afterthought, he added, “Oh, and make sure
her entire family is gone with her.”

“But….”

Between his teeth, Inac threatened, “Are you
questioning me?”

“No…I…I understand. The child’s entire family…. Do
you have a preference as to how they should die?”

Inac smiled as he leaned back into his comfortable
black leather office chair, back into the shadows that he embraced so freely.
Finally,
he would best God. Whatever this child was supposed to do, whatever she had
been
prophesied
to do, would never come to pass. Inac wouldn’t let Him
have any more soldiers doing His bidding.

Realizing that Micah was still waiting for him to
tell him how he wanted the girl to die, Inac replied with a smile that mirrored
the smugness in his soul, “Something painful. Something that will make death
merciful. And something that there will be no possibility of surviving from. I
can’t have her live. And neither can you. Your life depends on it….”

…Micah had lied to him. He had told Inac twenty
years ago that his problem was over. He had even shown him pictures he had
taken of the sliced up bodies before setting fire to them and the evidence: an
adult male, an adult female, two young boys, and a three-year-old girl. Anahara
was
supposed
to be dead. If Micah hadn’t already perished in a car
accident, then Inac would torture and kill him now.

Other than the unique name that made it obvious that
she was the supposedly deceased child, there was no doubt the girl in the club
had been
her
…the one prophesied about. Her hair was the color that the
prophecy said it would be—like sunshine and moonlight woven together. A color
he had never before seen in all his travels. It was almost like a mockery from
God Himself showing Inac that he hadn’t stopped Him like he’d been led to
believe. God was showing him with her innocent eyes that she was going to
become the saint he believed she was destined to become.

Instead of heading home, he went to the Los Angeles
headquarters of the secret society he had founded almost five thousand years
ago. There he had access to all sorts of documents, including secret government
ones. If he could find any information about Anahara and how she had survived,
it would be in here.

“Hello, sir,” the unimportant guard stated from
where he stood at attention when Inac walked in.

“Hmph,” was all Inac said.

“Can I help you with anything?”

“No,” Inac replied as he walked into his office,
slamming the door behind him so the guard would know that he didn’t want to be
disturbed.

Inac searched everything, looking for information on
the girl, but it was difficult to come by. Obviously someone didn’t want him to
find her. He slammed a fist on the desk, cursing The Order for actually being
able to trick him for the past twenty years. He felt like a fool.

But if he hadn’t seen Anahara’s body, then whose was
it? It was definitely a picture of a child the exact size and coloring as she
would have been….

After hours of searching, it finally became
fruitful. The girl had grown up in a Catholic-run orphanage back East. Other
than that, he could only find her school transcripts. The Order had done well
at hiding her. No wonder Inac hadn’t known that she was still alive. The only
way he would be able to know otherwise was if he had done some extensive
digging.

He couldn’t do anything about the past, but he could
remedy the situation before The Order found out that he knew she was still
alive. Before They found out that he was, once again, living in the same city
as she was. Before They found out that he’d met her and knew exactly where she
was. She wouldn’t escape this time because he was going to do what he should
have done twenty years ago. He was going to take care of her himself.

***

“Has anyone here ever heard these two words:
Noseriatif Tremokolio?” Professor Sampson, Hara’s Ancient Civilizations
professor, asked.

He looked around the room before sitting on the edge
of his desk and tossing his sandy brown hair out of his chocolate eyes. The act
reminded Hara of how young he was. He couldn’t be older than thirty….

Even under his scrutiny, nobody moved an inch.
Apparently nobody had.

“Noseriatif Tremokolio,” Professor Sampson
continued, “is a secret society similar to the Masons, Illuminati, or the
Knights Templar. However, the Mokolios, as we like to call them, are much more
powerful than every other secret society combined.”

“If they’re so big, how come nobody’s heard of
them?” a girl in the front row asked.