Dark Heart (23 page)

Still thinking about her options—first, whether she
had
any options regarding Justin, second whether she
wanted
any—she glanced out the window next to her table. A man was looking at her car. He seemed familiar.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Where had she seen him before?

And then she had it. He was the middle-eastern man who had tried to dance with her at the blues club. The one who had stepped out of the bar and maybe caused the redhead to bolt.

What the hell was he doing staring at her car in a parking lot in Fallbrook, California? She’d come here almost on the spur of the moment. How had
he
gotten here?

Sandra watched him. She couldn’t see his face full on, only his profile, indistinct through the rain-blurred glass. Suddenly he seemed to sense her attention. He turned and vanished toward the side of the window, in the direction of the entrance.

A moment later he walked into the restaurant. Up close, it was him. He turned to face her, his gaze boring into her.

What had been a dismal failure of a day as a detective had suddenly turned into something else. What it had turned into she wasn’t sure. Not anything good. The hesitant, boorish persona the man had shown before, at the blues club, had vanished. Now he radiated danger.

He walked straight toward her, his eyes burning. Hidden beneath the edge of the table, her hand worked the catch of her bag and came to rest on the butt of her pistol.

“Hold it right there, pal,” she said to him. “No closer.”

The man—hadn’t he said his name was Omar?—wore a wide-collared shirt—a fad Sandra could’ve sworn had died in the seventies—and baggy bell-bottoms.

He looked down at her and snorted contemptuously.

“And if I don’t? Are you going to shoot me, Detective?” His voice was as dry as the desert, heavily laden with that piping accent. He stopped just in front of her.

Sandra suddenly, desperately wished she had stood up before he blocked her in the booth. She didn’t show it. “Stay right where you are and we’ll get along fine,” Sandra responded coldly. “I don’t—”

The man lunged for her.

She jerked out the pistol and pulled the trigger. The gunshot cracked and the man stumbled back, crashed into a glass-topped table. The glass shattered, scattering across the floor.

A woman emerging from the rest room screamed.

Sandra slid from the booth, took a shooter’s stance. Both hands gripped her pistol and she locked her elbows, staring straight down the barrel at the man.

He was lying on the ground, not moving.

Had she killed him? At that range she couldn’t have missed.

She remained cautious, keeping her distance. The restaurant had become deathly silent.

“Call 911,” Sandra commanded the terrified lady by the bathroom, coming around to where she could see the inert man’s face, never taking her eyes off him.

Then his eyes snapped open and he grabbed for her leg. Sandra fired again, but the man’s speed was unbelievable. She’d shot him again, she knew she had, but he kept coming after her, and she stumbled backward, careening into another table. It rocked and the glass plate slid off a bit, but did not fall over.

And then he had a grip on her arm, twisting with frightening power. She felt her bones grind together. Christ, he was fast! How had he gotten to her that fast?!

Sandra leaned into him, trying to dislodge his hand, but he let go and shoved her away from him, not with any fancy technique, just with raw power. His hand snaked out, chopping at her wrist. Sandra’s gun clattered to the tiled floor. She gasped at the pain raking across her wrist.

She lashed out with a low kick at the man’s kneecap, following it up with one to the balls. But what would have put any normal man on the ground, curled up, holding his groin and trying not to puke, didn’t faze him at all. He grunted softly and, without pausing, launched himself into the air. His feet rammed into her chest at the crest of his jump. The air exploded from her lungs and she smashed into the side of a table like a wrecking ball. The table went over with her on top of it. Glass shattered all around her.

She struggled to breathe, tried to raise her head. There was a vast ache like a vise around her chest, choking off her breathing.

Omar straddled her, then sat down hard on her belly, pinning her to the ground. His hands wrapped around her throat and squeezed. She struggled desperately, pounding at his face, but to no avail.

Seconds later, as she felt her consciousness ebbing, the man relented, relaxed his grasp on her throat.

“Listen,” she croaked, “you know I’m a cop, the police are on their way, and you’ve got witnesses, lots of them, watching through the front window! Get out while you still can!”

With one hand, the man kept her neck pinned against the floor. He used his other hand to spring the magazine from her gun and toss it away.

“If you have no gun, you are no longer the big cop woman, are you?” His Arabic accent was guttural and very pronounced.

“What do you want?” Sandra asked.

“I want you to stop looking for things you know nothing about,” he said.

“Thanks for the tip,” she said. “I didn’t realize I was getting close to something.” Sandra wanted to keep him talking, wanted to start a dialogue. The longer she kept him talking, the longer she stayed alive—and the more chance the local suits would come riding in to save her. She shifted her body a little, hoping to gain a bit of leverage she might use to throw him.

He pulled her head up by the hair. Sandra gritted her teeth from the pain. His mouth descended close to her ear.

“I want to kill you slowly,” the man murmured, his voice insidiously intimate. “I want to treat you like the whore you are. You cannot beat me. Your gun is nothing. Compared to me, you are nothing. Stop looking, or I will find you again. I will kill you. This is my first, last, and only warning. If you—”

There was a loud shout and someone slammed into the killer from behind. Suddenly free of his weight, Sandra rolled to her feet, crunching glass. It was the busboy! He stood lightly on his feet, facing the middle-eastern man, who was glaring murderously at the young Asian kid. His dark hair was tied back. He wore a grease-stained white apron.

“Get out, kid,” Sandra said. “It’s not your fight.”

The kid ignored her. He was staring intently at Omar. “My uncle would say you are being unwise, good sir,” the boy murmured to the man. “You have chosen a poor path, he would say. What would your uncle say?”

The man looked at the boy curiously. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I think he would disapprove of what you are doing. He would think badly of you, as any good uncle would. Do you wish to bear the disapproval of your uncle?”

The wind seemed to go out of Omar’s sails. He looked around nervously, then looked back at the boy. “Who the hell are you?”

“We all have uncles, sir. We must be wary of their disapproval, mustn’t we?” the boy answered.

Sandra stood in mute bewilderment. What in the world was the boy talking about? Why was the man listening? Sandra eased slowly closer to her gun. The man had not removed the bullet from the chamber. She’d kill him this time. This time, she would make sure he did not get up.

“Fuck you!” the man raged suddenly. “Fuck this!” He turned and sprinted toward the bathroom.

With a grunt, Sandra lunged for the gun, snatched it up, and chased after him. She flung the bathroom door wide and stepped in, crouched, ready for anything.

And found nothing.

Omar was gone.

Sandra looked at the tiny window just to the left of the toilet stall. Closed. She whipped her gun around the edge of the stall and—

—empty.

“I don’t believe this!” she muttered, feeling fresh waves of pain rise from her battered wrist to meet her crushed ribs. She looked over at her reflection in the mirror and nearly dropped her gun in shock. The mirror’s surface seemed to be liquid, shifting like a receding ripple on a pool of water.

“Christ…” Sandra shook her head, closed her eyes, and rubbed them gently. Her eyes were playing tricks on her. Probably shock. He’d hurt her enough for that.

When she looked again, the mirror was stable, normal, as smooth as if the liquid ripples had never happened at all.

A siren sounded outside.

Where was the cavalry when you needed them?

And now that they were here, what the hell was she going to tell them?

J
ustin woke with a start, sweat standing on his brow, a rotten taste in his mouth.

For a moment he had no idea where he was. Then he began to recognize the gloomy outlines of his shuttered bedroom. His bed.

He raised one hand and stared at it. The impossible dream was still fresh—
burning
fresh—in his mind.

But he
never
dreamed. Not when he was truly asleep. He’d lost that ability seven hundred years ago! He’d gone two thirds of a millennium with never even the ghost of a dream to disturb his Dragon-bought rest.

He realized his hand was shaking, and with an effort lowered it and hid it beneath the bedcovers.

What did it mean?

He closed his eyes, but the details still danced behind his eyes. He had dreamed he stood on a high place. Behind him was a woman whose face he couldn’t see, but he knew her hair was dark. Like Gwendolyne’s had been…

In his hands he brandished a great silver sword, a razor of gleaming light, as he stood beneath a sky livid with fire. And from that fire, stooping like an avalanche, a vast, glowing form surged down upon him in a tsunami of terror.

As he raised himself to meet it, bearing up his own silver flame, his battle cry came rushing to his lips:
“Strike for the Sword! For the Light!”

Now his lips moved silently as he shaped the words in the dim confines of his room.

Once again he felt the fear of the dream, the terror and, somehow, the exhalation as he waited to do battle with—

Surely a nightmare. A fantasy. For he knew that dark shape thundering down the sky, knew it as well as he knew his own form. And he would never oppose that one, never. Had he not proved himself over the endless centuries?

So why had the Dragon sent him this dream? He had no doubt the Dragon was capable of such a thing. The Dragon was capable of anything. But why, after seven hundred years, had he chosen to disturb his disciple’s empty sleep now?

Perhaps as a warning…?

But a warning of what?

Suddenly uneasy, Justin threw off his covers and rose from his bed. He padded about silently until he was dressed, then crossed to the far wall of the room. His hands moved against secret catches. Half a minute passed, and then he heard a sharp click, and a section of wall swung back, revealing a room beyond. The secret entrance in the wall moved slowly, ponderously, as if it was very heavy. It was.

Justin stepped on through, the last wisps of his dream falling away. Blessedly so. Nevertheless, the feeling that he was in danger still prickled at the base of his skull.

The room was long and narrow, about thirty feet by ten feet. The walls were cinder block. The only door into the room was made of steel a half-foot thick, set on hinges an explosion wouldn’t damage, and now, as he watched it swing shut with a soft thud, it was closed and locked tight. The only way to open the door from the outside was by punching in the correct code and waiting out a delay of thirty seconds.

The only way to exit the room from the inside was by getting past him.

Incandescent light bulbs in the I-beam ceiling shed a harsh light—a light that was reflected in each of the twenty-five mirrors that lined the room’s walls. The mirrors were of varying sizes and shapes. The largest were propped up against the far wall. Other, smaller mirrors hung on the wall. No mirror was smaller than half the size of a man. Each mirror had come from a different part of the world.

Justin knew of six other “Disciple Rooms” like this one. One was in Kalzar’s mansion in Saudi Arabia. Another was in Lyon in France. There was one in Capetown, South Africa, one in Moscow, one in Rome, and the latest had been set up in Brasilia. Each of the mirrors in the Disciple Room connected to one of the Dragon’s disciples who had served him for more than a hundred years. When the disciples passed that mark, they were given access to these rooms and could travel at will between their cities and the abodes of each of the seven Elder disciples.

Any disciple, or any trainee with an Elder disciple’s permission, could enter any mirror with ease—traveling through the master’s fiery realm to their destination.

Justin waited, staring unceasingly at Omar’s mirror, like a cat waiting for a very large mouse.

The mirror began to ripple.

Omar’s face slowly appeared, contorted with effort, frozen in time. Finally he moved. The watery surface of the mirror pulled away from his skin, and his flexed arms and clawing hands came through. He opened his eyes and began to prepare for the drop to the floor.

Omar’s mirror was a smaller one, and perched high on the wall, the sign of a younger disciple or a trainee.

He tripped on the border between worlds and fell headfirst to the floor of Justin’s room. Traveling through the Dragon’s world was difficult for the younger ones. Often times they remembered nothing of it. If they remembered anything, it was only a flash of fiery red and a droning, baleful voice. Their minds, unaccustomed to such a drastic shift of reality, compensated by putting them, for all intents and purposes, to sleep.

Slowly, wincing from the impact, Omar struggled to his feet. He rubbed his head, blinked a couple of times.

Then he saw Justin, leaning patiently against the wall.

Omar was a disciple of the Dragon. He could not age. His immortal hands could crush bones and his eyes could see through the dark like day. No wound could mark him for more than a day; if Omar’s neck were severed, his body would grope for the head, reattach it, and heal. With every decade that passed, he became more powerful, serving his master and hoping for promotion.

As Omar rose from his crouch, he appraised Justin, trying to keep his own expression hidden and secretive.

But Justin was an Elder, and a trainee disciple could not hide from an experienced immortal. Omar’s emotions flashed up and disappeared as fast as lake swells while reflecting the noonday sun. Surprise, bewilderment, curiosity, fear…

“It looks as though you had a rough flight,” Justin said.

Omar shrugged. “The mirror I used to enter the Dragon’s realm was smaller than the one I usually use. I…was in a hurry.”

“Why the rush?” Justin asked.

Omar shrugged, glanced at Justin warily. “No reason.”

For the first time, Justin allowed himself a smile. It wasn’t a friendly one. “Omar, you fool. Don’t try to lie to me.”

“What do you want, Justin?” Omar asked. Justin heard the sliver of worry that was wedged in Omar’s heart.

’Tis well that you should worry,
Justin thought.

Omar looked longingly at the exit. Justin stepped closer. Omar would never make it unless Justin permitted it. They both knew that.

“What causes you to travel the mirror this day?” Justin asked.

“My business is my own.”

Justin allowed his smile to lengthen. It exposed some of his teeth. “The master sent you to me to apprentice. To train. You belong to me. You have no business of your own. You keep no secrets from your teacher. From me.”

“I am certain that Kalzar—”

“Kalzar has no jurisdiction over you. Not any more. Not in this place.”

“Don’t try to bully me.” Omar frowned, but he did not move toward the exit.

Justin’s eyes narrowed. “Where did you go, Omar?”

“To visit a friend.”

“Where?”

“In Arabia.”

Justin did not move. He did chuckle softly, though.

“If you lie to me one more time, Omar, I will rip your right arm off,” he said, his voice pleasant.

“You can’t harm me!” Omar said nervously. “We’re all immortals. I know the rules that govern us as well as you do!”

“Do you? I would ask yourself that question again, if I were you.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Not any longer. I issue promises, not threats.”

“I do not fear you.”

Justin pursed his lips a little, as if he might laugh.

“Truly?” he murmured. “Truly you don’t?”

The space between the two immortals crackled with tension.

Justin’s voice was sharp in the silence. “Once more, where have you been?”

Omar hesitated, probably deciding whether or not he believed Justin’s promise. He shifted his weight to one foot, then to the other. His hands remained at his sides, but Justin could see them twitching.

“I was in California.”

“Detective McCormick is also in California today. Small world.”

“Who?” Omar tried to look ignorant—it was one of his better poses.

“I told Kalzar to leave her alone,” Justin said.

Omar struggled with the lie, finally abandoned it. “You toy with her to the point of danger, Kalzar says. She could find out things she should not know. She already knows things she should not know.”

“Did she see you?”

Omar shifted again, and Justin knew the answer.

“Yes, and thanks to your unsurpassed clumsiness, she now knows more than she ever would have had you left her alone. She has a focus for her investigation. She is not an idiot, as you are. She will find out about you, and she will track you to us. To me. Who knows what she will discover along the way?”

“You should kill her!” Omar snarled.

Justin raised an eyebrow. “You presume to give me orders?”

“She should have died days ago. When she first discovered the scale.”

“When she discovered the scale? Am I to kill everybody, then, you fool? How many do you think have seen that scale? Her partner, the technicians, other police officers. This is not the primitive Arabian backwater of your birth. Killing her would accomplish nothing more than to call attention to her case. To the scale. To
us!”

He paused, then sighed in disgust. “You have no imagination, Omar. You are stupid and dangerous to our order. You are dangerous to me. And to
Him
. And that I cannot permit.” Justin moved languidly away from the wall.

Omar’s eyes flicked around the room. He was openly nervous now.

“You cannot kill me.”

“Your belief in your own invincibility is touching.” Justin walked toward Omar.

The trainee disciple looked longingly at the door Justin had abandoned behind him, and Justin knew what was going through Omar’s small mind.

Under Justin’s now scale-covered skin, muscles slithered like snakes from one thickening bone to another, lashing them tightly together with unearthly strength. His face elongated and the cracking noise of his teeth growing filled his head. His brow thrust out and up until it became a solid bar over shadowed, reptilian eyes. Wings erupted from the ripping skin on his back, spraying a token amount of his blood as they unfurled.

“J-Justin!” Omar cried, backing up. “Kalzar ordered me—”

“I have told you before.” Justin’s voice was the gravelly rasp of hell. “Kalzar does not rule here.”

Omar made his break. Dodging to the right, he tried to slip past Justin. But this pathetic attempt was yet another sign of his inexperience. If he had ever spent time in the dragonling form, Omar would know that Justin’s senses were now heightened threefold, as were his reflexes.

Justin allowed Omar the hope that he might actually reach the door. Just as Omar passed, Justin lifted one wing.

The blow knocked Omar completely off his feet. Lying on his back, he stared, horrified, into Justin’s red-slit eyes.

Justin reached down and hooked his talons into Omar’s rib cage, lifted him off the ground. Blood spurted. Omar’s screams turned shrill but were swallowed by the thick walls of the room.

Dragonling muscles sang to Justin, begged him to crush those brittle bones.

“I told you to leave the detective alone. I trust we need not have this conversation again?”

Omar gagged on his pain. Justin could feel Omar’s heart pumping against one of his claws, which was buried deep in the writhing man’s side.

“You have disobeyed my commands. I consider myself a lenient teacher, but there are times when discipline must be enforced.”

Omar had regained some of his poise. Through gritted teeth, he looked down at Justin, still seeking some shred of defiance.

“Did you talk to the detective?”

Omar shook his head, but Justin saw the truth.

“I told you, Omar. Do not lie to me.”

Slowly, so that Omar had time to watch, Justin brought his other claw up and grabbed Omar’s right arm.

“J-Justin! She—!” Omar’s response was cut off by his own scream as Justin began to pull. Justin’s muscles flexed, hardened, and strained. Omar’s scream ripped his throat ragged. Wet, snapping sounds thrummed through both their bodies as the muscles, tendons, and finally the skin in Omar’s shoulder pulled loose. Blood gushed onto the floor. The arm curled spastically against Justin’s claw and he held it up for Omar to see.

Omar’s scream became a groan, but he didn’t lose consciousness. It was that way with all disciples, even trainees. They could never lose consciousness due to pain. Justin knew that lesson well. It was something he learned often at the Dragon’s hands.

Justin brought his long, sharp teeth close to Omar’s ear. “Come with me,” he whispered. “You have failed as my apprentice. You have no place in Chicago.”

Turning, Justin walked through one of the full-size mirrors, leaving barely a ripple to mark his entry. He dragged the bloody, maimed disciple with him.

Omar’s groan elongated as they cut the surface of the mirror. The sound stretched and coiled around them. At the best of times, a trip through the mirror was intense and uncomfortable. Wounded, it was hell.

“You don’t sound so cocksure anymore, Omar,” Justin cooed. The world became dark burgundy and crimson. Streaks of every red imaginable hovered in the air like water, splashing against Justin and his cargo, but never wetting him, never leaving a mark of any kind on his skin.

It was said that the Dragon had been driven from this world by Saint George. To escape the wily knight, Justin’s master fled into his own reflection in a lake. Saint George drained the lake, trapping the Dragon forever, and that was why everything behind the mirror seemed like fire trapped within water. Hatred caged in shifting droplets. Venom that burned.