CHAPTER 1
Seattle, Washington
The office was quiet and pristine and more fortified than it looked. There was a file, left unopened and sitting in the center of the desk. Beside it sat the photographs, stacked in a precarious cairn—or perhaps a warning flag in black and white. The warning would be ignored, as warnings usually were, since one did not send warnings and certainly not to this woman. She lived in world filled with power, fortified by legend. And the legend was enough.
Phillipe knew this, of course. He was a tall man, both muscular and thin, dressed like an academic with the red suspenders that had become his trademark. To outsiders he was harmless. His mind was lethal. So was the rest of him, and the woman trusted him implicitly.
As for the woman, she was not ordinary. Her voice, when she spoke, carried the hint of France, or Italy, or even Russia. She was tall and elegant and considered beautiful by some—but she was not human. Her hair was too blond to be natural, her eyes too silver to be ignored, and for these reasons she’d been Ais to the Etruscans, Theos in ancient Greece. Rome once called her one of the Ten Great Gods but they were mistaken—she was not a god. She was part of an immortal race, a member of the ruling Calata, which meant the invasion, named by an early culture with no other way to describe them.
The name stuck, as did the meaning, and throughout their long existence only seven had been strong enough to rule. Now there were six. Their names were in the ancient form with no equivalent in the human language. For expediency’s sake, they used numbers. She was Three. Her enemy was Six.
“There was always a darkness in the dreams,” Three said as she sat behind the desk. “We planned it that way.”
“Perhaps the darkness is failing.” Phillipe walked to the upholstered chair that was as uncomfortable as it looked. Music flowed from hidden speakers, a lamento from Puccini, selected because Three adored the tenor's voice while Phillipe detested it. She was not in the mood for a confrontation.
“How many girls?” she asked as the lamento switched to an aria.
“Three so far.”
“And you’re sure these aren’t accidents?”
“Murder doesn’t have to be obvious.”
The aria ended and another took its place. Phillipe shifted, slid one knee over the other and adjusted the sharp crease in his pants. Three flipped open the file and pretended to read, merely scanning the first few lines. Her scanning slowed, though, when she reached the bottom of the first page. As she turned to the second page, a muscle tightened near her mouth.
“Do we know how he’s tracking them?” she asked when the aria ended.
“Through the bond energy. He finds a mated girl, then sends a phishing link to download a code, embedding a subliminal message beneath the music on her smart phone. There’s also a meditation app.” Phillipe paused. “Advertised as a way to relieve stress.”
“Tell me how it works.”
“The message stimulates the subconscious, forcing the dreams. When the past life memories start to emerge, the memory lines appear on their hands.”
Three set aside the file and reached for the photographs, working through the first half-dozen at a steady pace. She paused once on a photograph of a feminine hand. Delicate lines—the color of faded henna—curled along a forefinger and across the wrist. Whispers of the past lives.
Phillipe leaned back in his chair. When he folded his hands, Three’s tension grew so acute she wondered if he was aware of it. She knew he wanted to talk about her enforcer, bring up the argument they’d had so many times she could repeat the words by heart. He would be persistent. Three would push back. Phillipe would then point out the obvious—that Christan possessed such consummate power even the mention of his name evoked respect and fear.
But Christan had disappeared four centuries ago. He’d gone into a place of silence, a cold, immortal place they called the Void. She’d tried to coax him out, but he refused with such finality she let him stay. Three understood Christan’s reasons. Phillipe, unfortunately, did not.
Another aria drifted in the background. Phillipe had grown quiet. Using the photographs as a diversion, Three returned to the task until her attention sharpened on the image of a girl, mid-twenties and slender. She was walking on a rocky beach while behind her raged a stormy sea. The photographer had been some distance away, at a higher elevation. The girl was turning toward the camera as if someone had called her name. Blond hair streamed out in a wave. The tension in her expression was startling.
“Who is she?”
“Galaxy North. Lives on the Oregon Coast, in a little town called Rock Cove. She’s having dreams. The woman in the next photograph is her therapist.”
“And does the therapist understand the dreams?”
“She has memory lines of her own.”
Three fanned the images across the desk, looking at the blond girl and the sea. “Is she who I think she is?”
“Yes.” The academic reached into the briefcase at his feet, then placed another photo on the desk. “And Kace knows about her.”
Three tipped the new image into the light, then pushed the photographs aside until they tumbled in a little avalanche across the desk.
“What is your point, Phillipe?”
“I don’t need to spell it out.”
Three frowned. Phillipe was her closest advisor. She allowed him to say things no one else dared and she didn’t appreciate that liberty now.
“You think I should intervene.”
“I think you should protect the girl regardless of the past.”
“Arsen’s close enough to that location,” she said finally. “Why isn’t he protecting her?”
“He’s watching her, but he isn’t going to tell her what those dreams mean, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“What’s he waiting for?”
“Christan.”
“How subtle.”
“We just did subtle,” said Phillipe. “This is direct.”
His silver eyes were swirling with the intensity of mercury. Three knew he intended to demolish her arguments. She was prepared.
“Every time we have a crisis you tell me to bring him back.”
“He’s your enforcer. He’s the only one who can protect her.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think, Phillipe. I’ve tried in the past and he refuses to do what I ask.”
“Force him.”
Three arched one eyebrow. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m quite serious.” Phillipe folded his arms across his chest. “Six is provoking a Calata war. You can’t let it go unchallenged.”
“These could be random attacks, not directed at the Agreement.”
“It won’t matter once the warriors rebel. Christan is the only one who can prevent open warfare.”
“Arsen is Christan’s second. He could control the warriors.”
“Not like Christan. Remember who he was, Three. Who he is.”
Phillipe didn’t need to remind her. Christan was a legend, the origin myth behind the most feared creature in the ancient world. He was her master of war, the cold wind before the warm rush, the most startlingly powerful being she had ever created. And four centuries ago, Three, along with the blond girl in the photographs, had nearly destroyed him.
Three turned her head and studied the horizon. The white haze of Seattle merged into the beaten metal sea and the effect was stunning. “There has to be another option.”
“There isn’t.”
“Christan won’t listen,”
“Tell him they’re killing the girls. He’ll listen.”
Three shifted her gaze slightly to the left, losing herself for an instant before she looked back. “This girl looks like she did in Gemma’s lifetime. Christan won’t come back if she’s here again.”
Phillipe shrugged. “He’s had to see her in all of her past lives. Why is this any different?”
Three’s smile was brief and tight. “It’s different.”
“Then force him, Three. If you fight this war without Christan, you’re going to lose.”
Three lifted a photo of the girl standing by the sea and doubted Christan could be forced to do anything. Too much had happened—and the crimes both she and this girl committed had never been forgiven.
There was so much she never explained. Decisions, made out of necessity, a contingent of power, of calculation. Lifetimes that had come and gone and spun around again. An Agreement all had sworn to protect but none had wanted to support—the alchemy could not grant immortality, so reincarnation had been a logical choice. The chance to find and reclaim the love that was lost. By the time Three recognized the destruction, the blood was already on the floor.
“Do you know why he did it?” Phillipe asked. “Why he put himself in the Void?”
Three had no way to answer. There were some tragedies that never should have happened but did. In her mind, Three could still see the girl with sunlight in her hair, turning her back on an enforcer already crushed by anger and pain. In her long life there was little Three forgot, but there was nothing she remembered with more acuity than the exact instant when Christan left the world. When the sun dropped from the sky as if it would never return. When the cypress trees—mourning trees—lived up to their name before the darkness devoured them.
The memories flashed through the edges of Three’s mind while her eyes remained fixed on the distant skyline of Seattle. “To do nothing would be safer,” she said.
“To do something would be more interesting.”
The silence extended into a period of waiting that grew painful. She supposed it was the arrogance of confidence, or the magic she hadn’t understood. Now the magic was failing. The girls were remembering the disasters in their past lives. They were dying. If Christan did not come back, if the warriors broke the Agreement, the peace would fall apart—and the old wars would start up again.
Energy spread in the room and rolled along the walls. Water in the bay grew turbulent. There was a moment—like an indrawn breath caught in surprise—before Three flicked her hand. Such a small gesture, barely there, and then thunder split the air above Seattle. Buildings rattled. Birds flew screeching into the air and people flooded the streets, gripping their cell phones and staring up at the clear blue sky.
“He’s in Montana and not himself,” she said as the power drifted away. “Plant your breadcrumbs, Phillipe. Let’s hope Arsen finds him in time.”
Because Phillipe was right and force had been the only way. Three needed her enforcer. Needed the girl who looked like Gemma. Needed them together.
And no one understood better than Three how difficult it would be.
Because there was a darkness in the dreams.
They’d planned it that way.