Into the Night

“Deadly Alliance”  - Excerpted from Project Prometheus: IN HER NAME

copyright 2001 by Esther Mitchell

            They were nearing Nineveh.  She could feel the energy within her rise, and her power come flooding back.  Black Widow glanced at the man driving the battered old jeep and triumph bubbled through her.  Once she told Ra’id that his slut of a little sister was on her way to Nineveh, she had his complete attention and cooperation.

            “They’re on foot, Ra’id,” she reminded him wryly as she steadied herself with one hand on the dashboard again.  “I think it’s safe to slow down.”

            He shot her a scowl.  “If you had done as you were told and sat in the back—”

            “I’d be laying back there in the sand somewhere.  Don’t give me that crap about a woman’s proper place,” she snapped.  “This is my proper place.  And you don’t have to break land speed records to get there.  She’s not going to beat us to the temple.”

            His face twisted derisively.  “You do not know these women as I do.  Especially not the little virgin.  They all have evil powers that they use to ensnare men.  They can appear suddenly, far from where you believe them to be to torment any man they choose.  My father told me this.”

            Black Widow bit back a laugh.  Ra’id believed that the Daughters of the Star of Heaven were evil!  What would he think if he knew he’d made a pact with the Devil - a pact to become the Devil?

            “She’s not a virgin anymore,” she said instead, taking glee in the darkening of Ra’id’s scowl.  Apparently, the desire to murder one’s sister was immaterial when it came to her interaction with the opposite sex.  Ra’id looked protective as all hell.

            “How do you know this thing?”  He demanded sharply.

            A sadistic smile twisted her lips.  She wasn’t about to let him know the truth.  “You have your spies; I have mine.”
 

            He cast her a disgusted look.  “If she is no longer a virgin, then she is no longer a threat.”

            “You fool!”  Black Widow hissed, sitting upright sharply.  “As long as she remains alive, the Poet-Priestess is a threat.  Didn’t you read those incantations on the tablets?”

            “Fiction,” he dismissed her words with a condescending sneer.  “All that is of any value in those tablets is the location of the hidden door.”

            She laughed darkly.  “Keep telling yourself that, sugar.  In the meantime, we need to remain alert.  Even if you don’t believe your sister is a threat, the man who travels with her is.”

            His attention snapped to her.  “What man is this?”

            “A man you’ve already killed.”

            As Ra’id’s face paled, Black Widow sat back, satisfied that she’d at last convinced Ra’id she was serious.  She needn’t tell him that she could control Matthew if she wished.  Ra’id wasn’t going to live long enough for that to make a difference to him.

Like what your read?  IN HER NAME is available now at Aspen Mountain Press

copyright 2006 by Esther Mitchell

 ”The Scent of Evil” - Excerpted from SHADOW WALKER

        “There you are, boy!”

            Trevor’s eyes snapped open at the familiar voice, and raw rage poured through him, replacing the sweet torture of Jaye’s presence.  His hackles rose at the degenerate scent of cheap cigars and cheaper bourbon, and a low, feral snarl rumbled in his chest as his world went red.

            “What the hell do you want?”  He growled menacingly, his gaze fixed sourly on the dark, grizzled man in a rumpled three-piece suit.

            Jerome Watkins stopped, and his eyes took on a wary look.  Then, with forced heartiness, he continued, “I heard they had my boy in here; that you was a real hero.  I also heard you got amnesia.”  He stuck out one beefy hand as he advanced again.  “I’m your dad.”

           The murderous haze filming his vision deepened, and Trevor scented blood.  Wildness clawed its way through him, and he drew in a scent no human sense could detect – the rotten taint of evil.  This man bathed himself in it.

           “I know damned well who you are.”  Trevor’s lips pulled back in a snarl, exposing his teeth.  “You’re not my father, Jerome.  You’re nothing more than a goddamned sperm donor.”

          Jerome’s hand dropped to his side, and he took an uncertain step back.

           “Now look, son; I know I wasn’t around as much as I shoulda been, but I was young, and I didn’t know nothing about taking care of a bunch of little kids,” he tried, with a faltering smile.  “Your mama should have –”
 

            Trevor lunged at him in a blur of motion, an attack the other man didn’t see coming until he was pressed up against the wall, face-first, his arm twisted up behind his back, hard, and Trevor’s elbow pressed tightly against the back of his neck. 

           “You listen to me, old man,” Trevor snarled, “and you listen good.  If you ever mention her in my presence again, if you dare even try, I’ll rip your fucking throat out.”  He thunked Jerome’s face against the wall, hard.  “You killed her, you stupid son of a bitch.  Her and Delmar both.  You’re not good enough to even think about them.”

            Jerome trembled violently, and the scent of his fear filled the corridor.  Swallowing jerkily, he rasped,  “Okay, son.  I didn’t want to rehash that stuff, anyway.”

            With a muttered expletive, Trevor released Jerome with a shove, and stepped back.  “Then why the hell are you here?”

            “I… I got me a job.”  Jerome massaged his arm as he put distance between himself and his son.  “It gives us something in common, so I thought we could… I dunno…”

           “I don’t give a damn what –”

           “I’m working for this rich guy in Philly; you’ve probably heard of him.  Charles Billings?”
 

            Trevor’s eyes narrowed.  Yeah, he’d heard of Billings.  The name came up in the files Julia sent him over.  The guy was some kind of political high-roller.  He still hadn’t figured out what Billings had to do with Prometheus, but if Jerome was involved with the guy, it likely wasn’t good.  “Figures.”

            “Anyway,” Jerome continued, undaunted as he warmed to his subject.  “You were my inspiration, Trevor.  I figured, if you could work for the highest bidder, so could I.  Guess that gives us something in common, huh?  With us both being mercenaries, and all…”

            The rage he kept bottled up exploded with the roar of a volcano, filling Trevor’s ears with its thundering power, even as his voice went lethally quiet.  “We’re nothing alike, you bastard!  I work for a better world, and you…” His lips curled in silent disgust.  “You’re nothing more than a hired thug.  You disgust me, Jerome.  Now, get the hell out of my sight, and don’t ever come back.  If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”

            Terror flashed in Jerome’s eyes, and he nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to get away.  Within seconds, Trevor again had the corridor to himself, as the haze of fury seeped from his body.

            Trevor drew a ragged breath and eased himself into one of the waiting chairs, trembling violently.  The ferocity of his emotions shocked him, and their power was a soul-robbing, physically taxing force.  He was weak and unsteady from the intensity of his reactions to both Jaye and Jerome; he had no idea which one was worse, passion or hate.

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copyright 2006 by Esther Mitchell  - Excerpted from SHADOW WALKER

    It was a ten-minute drive from her home in Kensington to the NNMC, and Jaye prayed no cops were out tonight as she sped toward the hospital.  The nagging sense that Trevor was alone and in need of help was her only companion as she raced to the facility.  She was on autopilot, with little awareness of her actions as she showed her ID to the guard at the NNMC’s gate, parked and locked her car, and headed toward the inpatient wards.  She was just at the door into the building when something in her peripheral vision stopped her in her tracks.  She turned, her eyes scanning the bushes beside the building and her brow furrowed.  What was out there?

    She shrugged when she saw nothing, but her skin prickled with awareness she didn’t want to acknowledge as she turned toward the door again.  A  whimper, followed by a moan, sent a chill through her that wracked Jaye to the core.  It sounded like an animal, and a man, in pain.  She spun around, and her eyes searched the bushes again, until she saw one move.

   Heart in her throat, praying that she was about to find a wounded dog, Jaye eased toward the bush.  Whatever she found there, she already knew she wasn’t ready for it.

   A warning growl faded into a whimper of pain and fear as her hand touched the bush, and she eased it aside, expecting an injured animal.  A dismayed gasp left her at what she found, instead.

   Trevor lay in a tight huddle between the bush and the wall.  The moonlight touched his dark, bare skin, and he shivered from the bitter winter cold.

   “Trevor!”  Immediately, she yanked off her warm trench coat, aware it still wouldn’t be enough if he’d been out here long.  She glanced up as the hospital door opened and an orderly stepped outside.

    “Hey!”

    He turned toward her, and Jaye barked out a single order.  “Get some blankets, stat!”

   She returned her attention to her patient.  There were no outward signs of trauma, which did nothing to explain why he was out here in the freezing cold and as bare as the day he was born.

   “Trevor?”  She laid a cautious hand on his shoulder, and felt the shudder that lunged through him.  “Trevor, can you hear me?”

   His only response was a low whine, and Jaye reassessed the situation with a muttered oath.  It was worse than first appearances.  Last time she found Trevor huddled in fright, he’d come around quickly, and he was still fully clothed.  But he was weak then, and they only just made it back to his room from the medical storage down the hall, taht time.  Clearly, his situation was deteriorating.  She didn’t want to know how, why, or where he lost his clothes, and his animal instincts were sharper now than his human ones.  There was no way she could count on his help getting him back to his room, and she certainly couldn’t do it herself.

   Resolutely, she reached over and pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her coat draped over Trevor’s broad shoulders.  He growled and yanked away, but she had her phone in hand, already.  Biting her lip, she punched the speed dial for Inpatient’s trauma unit.

  “Naval Medical Inpatient trauma ward.  Chief Petty Officer James speaking.”

   “Chief, this is Dr. Michaels.  I found our missing patient.  I need a gurney, and a couple of orderlies.”

   Lydia was a professional; Jaye had to give her that.  Though the other woman didn’t deal with psychiatric patients very often, she kept her curiosity to herself, and her focus on the patient’s care.  “I’ll call down and have ER get one out to you, ASAP, Ma’am.  Where are you?”

    “Right outside the lower entrance to building ten.”  Jaye clicked off the phone as the orderly she summoned earlier arrived, his arms loaded with blankets.

  “Thanks.”  She took them and turned to Trevor.  He still looked oblivious to her presence, or his own humanity, and only stirred enough to voice a warning growl as she replaced her coat with the warmer blankets.

   “Ma’am… Is he all right?”  The orderly’s worried voice reached her.

   “He will be,” she murmured, keeping her voice low and soothing as she stroked Trevor’s head gently.  She kept her eyes on him, aware that taking her gaze off this wild animal would be a mistake.  She only prayed her words were the truth as she again whispered, “He will be.”