Staked

Staked

Sandra Edwards

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Sandra Edwards

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This book is a work of fiction and all
characters exist solely in the author's imagination. Any
resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any
references to places, events or locales are used in a fictitious
manner.

~~~~

STAKED

Time Brokers: Book One

By

Sandra Edwards

~~~~

Chapter One

New York City

Tonight

Ava Valentine scooped up the last of the Sun
Stones and closed her fist around their lingering glow. She held
tight, ignoring the sting, and absorbed the pain before it sheathed
her apprentice Mickey. Ava had long since developed a high
tolerance to the physical suffering that came with brokering time,
and that made her bounty hunting services invaluable.

Mickey cleared his throat—his way of
pretending that traveling through time didn’t hurt. He was getting
stronger, but not yet capable of handling the raw side-effects
alone. Someday he’d have to absorb the full impact, but not today.
Today he remained under Ava’s protection.

The stinging subsided as Ava dispensed the
pea-sized gems into a pouch no bigger than a teabag. She tightened
the drawstring and secured it on her belt loop before tucking the
little purse into the waistband of her blue jeans.

An uneasy silence spilled across the cool
night air and swirled around Ava and Mickey. She scanned the
darkened, desolate alley and eased the MPD from her back pocket.
Not that the
Micro Placement Device
, a Blackberry-type
gadget, could offer much support in the way of protection, but in
these electronically-underdeveloped times it’d do three things
well. One, verify when and where they were. Two, allow Mickey and
her to communicate over a secured connection if they got separated.
And three, confirm they’d landed in the same time period as their
fugitive.

Another glance around the alley and Ava
beckoned Mickey to follow her.

“I think the jump was easier this time.” He
shivered and tucked his fingertips inside the front pockets of his
jeans.

“Soon enough it won’t bother you at all.”
Okay, so that was a lie. As far as Ava knew, she was the only
broker who’d ever developed a tolerance to the pain of transporting
passengers through time—the only thing that kept every Karellian
within traveling distance of the galaxy from swarming Earth and
selling their services to the highest bidder.

The pain—she’d heard some describe as
excruciating—kept the number of Brokers to a minimum. It took a
certain kind of person to step inside the bowels of hell for mere
money. Some handled it better than others, but most didn’t even
want to try.

“When do you think I’ll be ready to broker?”
Mickey was one of the few willing to bear the pain for justice.

“Baby steps, my friend. Baby steps.” Ava had
been sharing the pain with him lately, but at a rate of less than
ten percent. It’d be awhile before he was strong enough to handle
even twenty-five percent, much less broker time.

Booze was just the medicine Mickey needed.
The nagging ache often dwindled within half an hour after entry,
and by her calculations they had another twenty minutes before he
was one hundred percent. A stiff shot might hurry that along.

“You want to get a beer or something?” Truth
be known, Ava could go for a drink too. Maybe it’d help settle her
nerves; they hadn’t been right since the new contact entered the
picture. He was someone she’d never met, and that saddled her with
a whole new set of problems when it came to chasing bounty.

“Can we?” Mickey licked his lips,
anticipating a cold one, and quickened his step, skipping sideways
alongside her. “Do we have time?”

“Sure.” Besides, she’d arranged to meet the
new guy at a familiar pub. She didn’t have a problem mixing
business with pleasure. In fact, she combined the two whenever
possible. It also helped that twenty-first century bars were a
favorite pit stop for those she chased.

They turned left at the next corner and
headed for a little bar called Louie’s. Thoughts of the neon-blue
sign hanging over the door and the pink and green palm tree in the
window brought a smile to her lips. Louie’s was always one of her
first stops when tracking bounties to the early twenty-first
century.

For some reason, twenty-ninth century
criminals thought the twentieth and twenty-first centuries were
grand hiding places. Why, Ava had no idea. The period’s urban life
had its charms, like the music, but she wouldn’t want to live in
this time. Most things had to be done manually and the technology
was rudimentary.

A chill clawed up Ava’s back as they turned
another corner. Somebody was watching her. Who, she didn’t know,
but she tagged a mental note to keep tabs on her shadow.

Seeing the pub’s sign all lit up in neon-blue
brought back memories, both good and bad. “Ah, Louie’s...here it
is.” She paused at the door and her mood lightened a little
inside.

“You know this place?” Mickey asked. She was
pretty sure he’d thrown it at her more out of curiosity than
nosiness.

“Indeed, I do. Very well.” But she didn’t
want to talk about it. More to the point, she didn’t want to talk
about
him
. And she didn’t want to give him a heads-up on
their location, either.

They could always sense when one was talking
about the other, Ava and...
him
. It was a lot like amplified
ESP. Another Karellian gift. Although, and she hated admitting it,
his tracking ability was stronger than hers because he was full
Karellian. She was only half; the rest of her was Mortal. He blamed
her Mortal side for their differences.

That’s rich
.
She could’ve sworn the problem was his greed and thinly veiled
ethics.

Mickey asked, “Is this another one of those
places with a story you’re not talking about?”

A chuckle charged up Ava’s throat and she
silently thanked him for the mental rescue. She didn’t like
thinking about those days. The effort was fruitless.

Lingering aggravation from her past made her
fling open the door harder than she’d meant. But it didn’t rattle
her composure. She was too much of a control freak for that.

Mickey followed her into the near-empty
tavern. “Is this where we’ll find Cole?” he asked, over the music
pouring from the jukebox. ‘Take it Easy’ from The Eagles, one of
Ava’s all-time favorite bands, flowed from the ancient machine.

“No, but we should run into someone who can
lead us to him.” Ava held her breath on that one, not knowing the
contact personally.

“Someone we can trust?”

Lying to Mickey wasn’t an option. “Not sure.”
She shook her head and scanned the room, an inbred trait.

A couple, the only patrons occupying the row
of booths to the left, weren’t the least bit interested in Ava and
Mickey. The woman sat on one side; the guy on the other. Both were
draped over the tabletop, hands and arms tangled so tightly it was
hard to tell where one stopped and the other began.

Red and gold hues swirled around the pair and
cloaked them in a veil only Ava could see. The color combination
showed their desire for red-hot sex.

Ava pulled her focus away from the couple. No
point in exhausting her limited energy on the would-be lovers. They
posed no danger.

An old man sat at the far end of the bar,
hunched over a half-empty glass. His scruffy, graying hair reminded
Ava of Mickey’s—minus the gray. A mauve aura, the color of
solitude, surrounded the old-timer. He needed no conversation, just
the bottle. No threat there.

All the tables on the right were empty except
for one near the bar. Two women, technically hookers, looked at Ava
and Mickey, mostly Mickey, and giggled amid clandestine whispers.
Those short skirts, tank tops and fishnet get-ups turned Mickey’s
face red.

Tones of smoky-black and candy-apple red
danced and shimmered around the women. They were lying in wait for
their next victim, but Ava wasn't about to let that be Mickey.

“Come on, Skippy,” she said, dragging him by
the arm. As they passed by the girls some vile-smelling perfume
crawled up Ava’s nose and turned her stomach.

“Why do you call me that?” Mickey asked,
exasperation shredding his voice.

Someday, she’d take him back to the 1980s and
show him. He reminded her of that kid from Family Ties that was in
love with Mallory. The one they called Skippy.

Ava chose the empty end of the bar and
dragged a stool out with the heel of her boot. The chair’s legs
screeched across the wooden floor.

“Ava. Long time no see.” Phillip, the
bartender, greeted her with a lonesome smile that was locked in
some dark area of his past. A lavender fog flowed around him. Her
presence had summoned a flicker of amusement in his memories.

Don’t do it. Don’t say his
name
.
Ava’s silent warning, she knew,
would go unheeded. “What can I say, Phil,” she said. “I’m a busy
girl.” Better to guide the barkeep as far away from
him
as
possible. She settled onto the bar stool and hung the heels of her
boots on the rails. “I’ll have the usual. My friend Mickey will
have...” She knew what he was going to order before she turned to
him, but sometimes it was fun to play these games.

“I’ll have what she’s having,” Mickey
said.

How original. And predictable. Mickey
could’ve benefited from Lucien’s company back in the day. On second
thought, that might’ve been like sending a mouse to train with an
elephant.

Shit. Now she’d done it. She’d let his name
rattle off her brain. How long before he showed up? Half hour?
Forty-five minutes tops.

“How’s Lucien these days?” Phil asked,
setting the frosted drafts in front of them.

“I wouldn’t know,” Ava said, hoping to sound
nonchalant. “I haven’t seen him in years.” And she wished Phil
would stop talking about him. Lucien would find her so much quicker
if the conversation didn’t change, and fast.

The door creaked open and the hairs at the
nape of her neck rose amid goose bumps. Some strange magic was at
work.

Lucien? No. Not Lucien, but somebody equally
as dangerous. Could Ava’s contact be a vampire?

Uh oh.

She fought the urge to look at the figure
claiming a seat at the bar, leaving an empty stool between them. An
overwhelming scent trickled over her and drew her in with the ease
of a fishing lure. Definitely male, and possibly vamp.

The desire to look at him needled at her, but
it wasn’t a good idea even though she wanted to in the worst way.
Was he a vampire, or wasn’t he?

Ava didn’t like messing with vamps. Still, he
had another thing coming if he thought she’d give up her
bounty.

She glanced in the mirror behind the bar and
wrestled with the urge to preen her hair. The chestnut color looked
browner than usual and she prayed it didn't look as drab as her
reflection portrayed in the subdued lighting.

Pathetic. Either Ava was pitiful or this guy
was a vampire with superpowers. She hadn’t even looked at him but
he’d already wielded an intoxicating influence over her.

His image in the mirror resided just outside
her peripheral vision—whoever said vamps don’t have reflections was
probably a vampire poking fun at some Mortal.

Ava tried to look at him in the mirror in an
offhanded way. His dark eyes caught and tangled her in a mixture of
turmoil and curiosity, even though he wasn’t looking at her. A wave
of lust washed over her, followed by a powerful need to move to the
empty stool separating them. She wanted this guy. She wanted him in
the worst way. This desire she was feeling was stronger than
anything she’d ever experienced—even the attraction she used to
feel for Lucien.

Damn it. She was a goner.

The magnetic stranger was talking to the guy
sitting on the other side of him, and paying no attention to Ava
whatsoever. She lowered her head and inched it to the left until
she had a good view of—his boots.