12.21.12: The Vessel (The Altunai Annals) Read online

  Shep turned a curious eye on his demanding host. “Tlalli?”

  “Tlalli is Victoria’s real name, though I doubt anyone else knows that. She and I, however, have history. Complex, not always friendly, but not always unfriendly.” He looked off in the distance for a moment before refocusing. “Anyhow ... As the case may be, I know precisely how she got off the plane, I just don’t know where she went.”

  His brow furrowed in thought, and Shep almost rolled his eyes. Almost. Really, in the middle of the Atlantic, where was there to go but down?

  12.18.12

  Chapter 11

  “Holy hell!”

  The currents nearly dragged her under before she got her bearings. No matter how she’d steel herself in preparation, teleporting into water always shocked the system. Victoria rolled as a demanding, frigid wave washed over her, before determinedly kicking hard and breaking the surface. The view set her at ease: she was in London, all right, having managed to land in the Thames. Before daybreak, the minimal water traffic and the deluge falling from the sky above created a cloak, allowing her to make her way to the banks unnoticed.

  As she pulled herself out of the river in an inconspicuous place, she turned her eyes skyward. Once the plane landed, her face was likely to be plastered all over every broadcast medium the BBC had. It was an inconvenience of the modern world; escaping attention was so difficult. It was for that very reason that she didn’t use her abilities in public too often. Her particular lifestyle required that she stay as incognito as possible. She never would have pulled so risky a procedure unless she was sure there wasn’t any other way.

  Glancing over her shoulder as water dripped from her saturated clothing, Victoria spotted Big Ben. 4:35 a.m. Two hours, three tops, to get safely out of London before the place was crawling with bobbies. She hadn’t been meant to meet her rendezvous until nightfall, but she realized now she had no choice except to call and make speedier arrangements.

  He picked up on precisely the tip of the third ring.

  “Aren’t in-flight calls sinfully expensive?”

  “Wouldn’t know,” Victoria grumbled. “Sort of had to make a personal emergency landing. I’m in Westminster.”

  In her mind’s eye, she saw his shoulders slouch as he sighed. “Do I want to know?”

  “You probably won’t have a choice. I left behind a body. I’m guessing it will be all over the news before lunch. Look, I’m cold, hungry, and I’m wearing the Thames. Can you just come get me?”

  “Hungry? You do plan on eating before I get there, don’t you?” he asked sarcastically. “I would hate to cut short our holiday together. And ultimately, I would like to remain alive.”

  “Tut tut, now, Alex. If you don’t count the dead agent landing at Heathrow, I haven’t sucked anyone to death for at least ... Oh, God, I think disco was still in style.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better ... how?” Alex teased.

  “The fact that disco’s no longer in style should, if nothing else. Can we just agree that bell bottoms should bring a death sentence for anybody not a standing member of the navy and get on with it? Are you coming to get me or not?”

  “Promise me you’ll eat first.” Alex waited patiently, his silence enduring as she mulled the notion. “Victoria?”

  “Fine. Fine. I’ll just find a bite and meet you in front of Parliament in, what, twenty minutes?”

  “Make it thirty. I have something to take care of first.”

  The girlish giggle in the background tipped off Victoria. “Visiting Monique again, are you? You know, Alex, I’m starting to think you’re actually in love with that girl. How is she?”

  She could hear the grin in Alex’s voice. “Delicious. Okay, I’ll be there, but where are you going to find something to eat in Westminster at this hour?”

  Just at that moment, a cliché Londoner passed, clutching his trench coat tightly and scrambling with his black umbrella deployed. Victoria sized him up and decided he’d do.

  “Street vendor. Thirty, Alex. Don’t be late.”

  “Never am.”

  She hung up the phone and picked her bag up off the floor of the phone booth. Making quick, light steps, she started off in the passerby’s direction, determined to whet her whistle.

  Chapter 12

  “Mon coeur, who was on the phone?”

  Alex set the cell on the side table and turned back to Monique, raising his hand to her face, gently tracing a finger down her jawline and over her red, swollen lips.

  “A very old friend,” he answered simply, smirking at the joke that the French woman in his bed would never understand.

  Monique, instead of giving into his touch, crossed her arms over her naked chest, sat up, and stuck out her bottom lip in a classic pout. “It was a woman, I think. I could ’ear ’er voice. An old lover, non? She wants you.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  Monique looked dismayed. “No?”

  “Yes, it was a woman. No, not an old lover. And I only want you. Now, I don’t have much time as it turns out, so if you want to—”

  “Why? Where do you have to go?”

  He could see the course of their late night turned lazy morning had definitely changed, and his unexpected phone call had spoiled the mood. With a huff, he rolled to his side of the bed, suspecting that he would be taking no pleasure from the few minutes he had left with his stopover lover.

  Not that he wouldn’t like her full time. Monique was impetuous, rich and young, and didn’t hold against him the fact that they came from different worlds. An orphan since the age of ten, Alex had never known a place he considered home. He had no objection, therefore, when Victoria asked that he move to England. He still felt guilty, however, asking Monique to fly in from Paris whenever he had a day or two where The Order didn’t have him traveling. He was still chuffed to bits that she even agreed to speak to him, given the fact that he couldn’t tell her anything about the society for which he worked or having an international art thief as a boss and mentor. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. Alex’s life was an archive of the exceptional.

  Sometimes, he still had trouble believing it was all real. He remembered very little about his parents. His sister had been old enough to be declared an independent minor, but didn’t think she was capable of taking care of her younger sibling. At fourteen, while living with a family friend, Alex received an acceptance letter addressed from one of the most prestigious boarding schools in Switzerland, the hefty tuition paid for by an anonymous benefactor. This, despite having never applied to said boarding school. It wasn’t until news arrived of his sister’s death a few years before that his mysterious patron’s envoy stepped out of the shadows.

  Explaining that the private “ecumenical” organization had provided for his schooling, Priest introduced Alex to The Order. At first, meeting only casually with other members, he found their belief system bizarre. Goddess worship sounded like a cult to him, and he couldn’t picture himself biting the head off of a chicken or being used for ritualistic sex. Well, maybe that second one on occasion, but not with any of the members he met. Just when he was about to create a respectful distance between himself and the group, Priest arranged for him to meet one last person. He walked into the West End coffee shop to find himself instantly entranced by the sand-hued woman with pecan-caramel hair and bright jade eyes. He had loved Victoria from the start. Not romantically, but in a familial way, like the older sister he had barely known.

  “Tell me, Monique, what are you doing on Christmas?” He sighed, changing the topic as he snapped back to the reality of this moment.

  Cleary perplexed by the shift in agenda, Monique slanted her head. “Going back to Paris.”

  Alex reached down to the space between them and took her hand into his, raising it to his lips and kissin
g her fingers. “Don’t. Stay here. I have to go out of town tonight, but I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”

  She nodded meekly and shrugged. “You travel too much now.”

  Leaning over and covering her mouth with his, he cut her off. As he pulled back, he licked his lips, still tasting the echo of the champagne they had drunk earlier.

  “Life is so short, and we never know what tomorrow holds. For me, I’d like to think it holds you.”

  Twenty-six minutes later, Alex found himself alone in the emptiness of his car, repeating the words he had spoken. Looking in the rearview mirror, he ran his fingers through his ashen, spiked locks. Alex hadn’t imagined arriving for his meeting with Victoria with sex hair. Still, better to show up in a barrel with straps and on time than properly groomed but late.

  He told himself that it likely didn’t matter. Victoria had told him how much she admired his non-conformist attitude. Showing up in a three-piece suit probably would have disappointed her more than the blue jeans and Rolling Stones, hot lips tee he now sported.

  “After all,” she had joked then, “I certainly didn’t get to where I did by following the path expected of me.”

  Even at this early hour, cars weaved through the Westminster streets. He hoped the slowly uptick in the flow of traffic hadn’t impeded Victoria’s ability to find sustenance. He further hoped that she hadn’t been joking about no longer committing unnecessary manslaughter the way Priest had said she once had.

  Alex spotted Victoria looking somewhat bored, arms crossed and leaning against a street lamp just a block away from Parliament. He noted the bag hanging at her side, the way the fabric was pulled taut by its weight. He had been too scared to ask on the phone if her heist had been successful and if she had deceived customs, or if instead he would have to find a way to acquire a Heathrow security guard uniform to sneak it out.

  The brakes squeaked as he slowed, then stopped alongside the curb. Victoria slipped into the passenger seat expressionlessly, setting the bag between her legs and slumping back into the seat with an air of distant resignation.

  She swished aside her knotted, clumped hair. “I hate flying.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Not in the slightest.” Her body shifted as she stretched, yawned, and straightened into a confident, commanding repose. “Do we have a time set for the ceremony?”

  Relieved he didn’t have to dance around the fact that she’d apparently killed someone, his voice took on a more chipper tone. “Per your request, milady.”

  Victoria clicked her tongue. “Milady? Have we regressed to Arthurian times, Alex?”

  Alex shrugged. “Sorry, I just never know what to call you. To your face, I mean. Goddess seems a little high strung.”

  “You had no problems a few days ago in Mexico.”

  “No one else was around. It wasn’t the same.”

  “So, we take you away from The Order’s proximity, and you finally see me as a friend, not an overlord. There’s hope for you yet. Victoria or Vick, Alex. No need for fancy titles.”

  “Yes, m– Victoria. Do you, um, want to stop and get some dry clothes somewhere?”

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Victoria smirk devilishly. “Your place maybe? Your Parisian paramour isn’t making much use of hers, is she?”

  “How did you—”

  “You reek of her perfume,” Victoria said, cutting him off, using the quickest excuse she could think of. “Though I’ll give her this: she has extremely refined tastes. That fragrance is only sold at one particular shop in Paris where it is hand blended by a Lebanese shopkeeper named Zeyneb. I’m guessing the champagne is from the vintner’s shop down the block from there. That particular label would be quite difficult to get out of the country; she must have charmed it through customs. Oh, she’s sneaky, Alex. I like her.”

  “Okay, the perfume I get, but what about the champagne?”

  “I can smell it on your breath.” Victoria pulled her tote from the floor and set it on her lap.

  He had been told by Priest that his mentor’s senses were heightened, but even this was beyond what he could have imagined. “Damn. I’ll tell her to tone it down when you meet her. Or should I say when you finally meet her? Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your promise.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re so set on that. You don’t need my approval. If you want to marry the girl, marry the girl.”

  “I don’t need your approval, but I would like your blessing.” He reached over the center console and nudged her. “Face it, you’re the closest thing to family I’ve got these days.”

  Victoria shook her head as she waved to the right, instructing him to turn. “Family. What a wonderful thought.” She closed her eyes and drew a slow breath, before her lips spread in joy. “She’s beautiful.”

  “You’ve never seen her.”

  “Did too.” Victoria tapped two fingers to her forehead. “Your mind is filled with images of her. Some of which I could have done without, mind you.”

  Alex guffawed. “You can see inside my head?” That hadn’t really been covered in serving-the-goddess orientation.

  She almost laughed. “Priest didn’t tell you. How typical.”

  Alex grimaced, wondering now if she could pick up on his unspoken four-lettered comments. “Priest says all will be revealed when the time is right, that I’m too young to understand everything you can do.”

  “You’re two whole years older than I was when the Guardian bonded me and I learned the truth about humanity. Priest gets a little uppity sometimes. Did you think I was limited to manipulating the elements?”

  Alex fervently shook his head. “No, of course not.”

  “Mind reading is one of my specialties,” she added. “One which certain parties were all too eager to use by,” she chuckled, “proxy.”

  He turned left and gunned the gas as they finally broke out of the city. “You mean the Altunai?”

  “One Altunai in particular. They can’t hear human thoughts unaided. To use an analogy, their minds run on a more advanced operating system than human ones. It’s part of the reason they needed someone like me. I’m the transformer. Through me not only can they hear, they can control as well. Yup, both upload and download.”

  “But, doesn’t the person know you’re, like, in their head?”

  Her smirk twisted as she leaned over the center console and whispered in his ear, “Why do you think you’re driving the direction you are now?”

  Chapter 13

  “The limo is waiting at the curb, Mr. Kronastia.”

  Dmitri acknowledged Anton’s statement with a nod as he led the party’s determined stride to customs.

  “This is never going to work,” Hector grumbled as he pulled up the rear.

  Shep wondered if perhaps he was looking for a way to escape into the crowd by dragging behind and dashing off at the first opportunity. More than that, he looked ... Well, as Shep’s old world grandmother had been fond of saying, he was wind-whipped, world-weary, and right-worn.

  Kronastia gave one doubting chuckle. “Dear Dr. Gonzalez, have you so little faith in me?”

  “If this were Russia or China, I wouldn’t doubt that you could get the passport agent to bow down and declare you a god. But in England? Not sure how you’re planning to pull this off.”

  Shep struggled to keep up. “I thought you didn’t go through general customs when you arrive on a private plane. How is it someone like you doesn’t get arrested every time you travel?”

  “I have arrangements with a number of officials that allows me to stay off record. I generally come in to this country by sea. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to hop on a cargo ship right now.”

  “I’ll meet you on the other side, sir,” Anton broke in before heading off in another
direction.

  Shep eyed him as he joined a queue for EU nationals.

  “Anton is Welsh by birth,” Kronastia informed them. “I don’t hold it against him. Neither should you.”

  Reaching into his pocket, Shep ran his fingers over the worn cover of his own U.S. Passport. In so many parts of the world, the document was like a golden ticket, and he doubted he would come to have any trouble when he was at the inspection counter. Kronastia was certain to have at least a handful of passports in the briefcase he took with him from his plane. However, he worried about Hector. Not only was he without documents when they left Mexico, but even then Mexican nationals needed a visa to enter Britain. Indeed, Shep was just as curious as his colleague about how this would play out.

  “No, not that one.”

  Shep felt himself jerk back as Kronastia grabbed the shoulder of his coat and yanked him to the line at the far end of the terminal. Ten minutes later, two world-renowned archaeologists felt like children watching their father approach the booth to buy them all a ticket to go on the merry-go-round.

  The agent was a young woman, perhaps late twenties, who appeared to be of Indian descent. She held her hand out expectantly as Kronastia gently deposited his passport du jour into her waiting grasp. Shep noticed how his fingertips brushed the woman’s wrists as she took the booklet, and even swore he saw her shudder as her eyes raised to meet his. From their distance and hindered by Kronastia’s decision to keep his voice low, neither Shep nor Hector could make out their words. But Shep was a college professor; he recognized blatant flirting when he saw it. He smirked with a good sense of humor. If Kronastia thought this little scheme was going to outwit a British ...

  “Gentlemen, are we ready?”