Chapter Twelve
“What the fuck!” Devlin exploded and stepped closer, sword raised to put the son of a bitch out of his misery. As he swung his sword in its downward arch, it was met by solid steel. He glanced over to see the gold in Evangeline’s eyes predominant and blazing in anger.
“NO!”
The one word wasn’t exactly a shout but it damn sure was a command. One apparently, he obeyed because he returned his sword to its sheath.
“Somebody tell me what happened tonight,” Eva hissed. When no one immediately answered her, she stared at Michael.
“I came upon a man attacking a woman in the alley. I stopped him. I let her go. His fear was more than sufficient to appease me. This hadn’t been the first time he’d done such a thing. I merely made sure it would be his last.”
She seemed to sigh in relief. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Why should we believe him?” Tony asked.
“Because soulless are a lot of things but they don’t lie, not really. They withhold truths but in this instance, I believe him.” She glanced at Devlin, her nostrils flaring in irritation as if to say typical hunter cynicism. He could read her body language quite well.
She bent down and grabbed Michael’s arm hauling him up. “Come with me.”
Michael got up and walked beside her, he didn’t appear to be hurt at all. Devlin had no intentions of letting either out of his sight and followed behind them, Tony coming up the rear. Devlin knew he was being an asshole, partly driven by jealousy because Eva rejected him, but also because he didn’t trust the soulless. Not until the man gave him more reason to, and the fact Eva wanted him was reason enough to not like the bastard. So what if he and the Chronicler fucked? At least he was her first. They made no promises to each other. The knowledge felt like a knife to his gut.
His grandparents had died because they’d been betrayed by a soulless being, one who had been known to his grandfather, who’d once been soulless. The fucker had led a group of hunters to them. They’d slaughtered the couple thinking them both soulless. Never knowing they’d had a child. One of the hunters realizing their mistake and how crazy the group was, found and hid the child—Devlin’s mother.
Devlin had become a hunter to avenge his grandparents, to weed out the fanatics within the hunter ranks but also to find the one who’d killed them. The soulless one who’d led the hunters to them and who’d killed his mentor. He hunted him still. One of the reasons he’d come to the States from Canada and agreed to take on the leadership of the hunters in LA was because he’d been tracking that killer. The sonofabitch was here, he suspected Michael, he fit the description. But half of them did.
They followed Eva into the kitchen. She stopped before a cabinet near the oven. She opened the cabinet and placed the ring on her finger in an indentation on the edge of the cabinet that seemed just an aesthetic detail, but she twisted her hand.
Devlin heard a slight click then the oven slid forward, revealing an entrance and a set of stairs. He shook his head in amazement.
“What is this place?” Tony asked.
But Devlin already knew. These Chroniclers knew how to hide their libraries. Her aunt in New York used to have a concealed entrance under one of her work counters in her bookstore. It led to a cavern that ran under the subway system that contained thousands of Chronicles.
“A hidey hole and library. My home office, if you will,” Evangeline replied as she headed down the stairs.
“Are you sure about this?” Devlin had to ask. She was taking a risk revealing this to the soulless.
“Yes.”
They had to walk down single file, she went first, then Michael, but Devlin was close enough to the man if he tried anything, he’d take his head. Still not convinced it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
Devlin hadn’t known the house even had a basement. Most homes in the neighborhood he’d been told didn’t because of earthquakes. And wherever they were headed was deep underground. They must have walked down at least three flights worth of stairs that spiraled a bit. The way was lighted enough they could see where they stepped, nothing to see really. Just gray cement. Then suddenly, they got to a sharp corner and the stairs ended, leading into a wider open area. Books were everywhere. The ceiling was about twelve feet tall and the shelves against the walls were lined with books. It was a bit cooler down here than the rest of the house. It reminded him a lot of the place her Aunt Wilhelmina had in New York. He wondered if they were created from the same kind of blueprint.
“Wow!” Tony exclaimed, coming up behind him.
“Yeah, how’d you know this place was here?” Devlin asked. She’d only been there for a few months. As far as he knew, there hadn’t been a Chronicler stationed in LA, which was why she’d been sent out there. But he could be wrong, as he’d been too often lately with her.
“This house has been one of our properties for a long time. There just hasn’t been a Chronicler here for the last thirty years, there hadn’t been a need to replace her until now.”
“Is it safe building with an underground level like this in LA?” Devlin asked as he glanced at the walls.
“We’re perfectly safe. It’s actually built between fault lines, but my family has found a way to fortify the area around the house underground.”
Devlin glanced down at the tiled floor and noticed etchings carved into the stone that looked like runes. “Are those runes of protection?” he asked surprised. He’d heard of such things but never actually saw one.
Eva seemed to hesitate, then said, “Yes, there are runes of strength and protection embedded into the tiles on the floor and in the walls behind the sheetrock so the library would be safe. We can withstand a 9.5 rating on the Richter scale and those are rare enough we shouldn’t see one for a few hundred years around here. By then, all of the Chronicles down here will be digitalized.”
“Wow! You’d make a fortune if you patented rune engineering,” Tony teased.
“It’s not for sale and not something easily done.” But she gave no more information.
Devlin knew no more would be forthcoming. Even though this might be a new age of cooperation between the groups, the Chroniclers still held secrets. Most, he imagined they’d never share. Like how to create such runes.
She moved toward an open door, it took them right into a comfortable sitting room that might also work as an office. There was a couch, a couple of wide comfy chairs, along with a television on a stand and a laptop on the coffee table. There was also a desk in a corner and an office chair. A mural of the sunset over water with a sailboat in the distance graced one entire wall.
“Wow! Beautiful!” Devlin stated. “Who painted it?”
“A relative. Come in gentlemen, let’s have a civilized conversation, shall we?”
“Do we have a choice?” Devlin asked.
“Not really.” She turned and pointed to one of the chairs, but spoke to Michael, “Sit.”
The soulless hesitated for a moment, then he took the necessary steps forward and with the fluid grace of his kind sat down. Crossing his ankle over his knee and placing his hands on his thighs in a non-threatening pose.
After she sat in the center of the couch and picked up the laptop placing it on her lap, Devlin sat down at the end. Putting himself between her and Michael. Tony sat in the second chair.
Devlin glanced around the room. He could see three long hallways that branched out from the room they were in. The size appeared to take up more space than the house above it. He assumed the hallways would lead to where the older Chronicles might be housed. It was all very impressive, not as large as her aunt’s place in New York though. Still, he was amazed the place remained undiscovered all this time and undamaged by any earthquakes.
“Who owned the property before you took it over?” Devlin asked.
“It has always been in my family and passed on to one of the Chroniclers. It has been rented all these years. It was decided not to renew the lease of the last renter and I took up residence.”
“Did your renters know about this underground library? About Chroniclers?” Devlin asked.
“No.”
He glanced at Michael, who continued to merely stare at Eva. Devlin wanted to question her more but wanted to see where she was going with having the soulless down here. Exposing him to her secrets. Did this mean she trusted him that much? If he betrayed her, he was a dead man.
“Now let’s start over. I brought you down here because this laptop doesn’t leave this room. It’s as secure as I can make it. Which is pretty damn bomb-proof.” She took a moment to access whatever file she was looking for.
“What’s all this about?” Devlin asked.
“I’m pulling up Michael’s file.”
“You have a fucking file on me?” Michael growled out.
“We have files on all of you, both soulless and hunters.”
“How is such a thing possible?” Michael asked.
She shrugged. “It is. My family has been aware of the soulless almost from the beginning and have kept records and born silent witness. But the times have changed, as have our functions, so we aren’t so silent and behind the scenes any more. We’re working with the hunters now to try to save as many of the soulless as we can. Instead of destroying them.” She glared at Devlin.
“What’s that supposed to mean? How are you planning on ‘saving us’ and from what?” Michael asked.
“Not really sure yet. Maybe the end of days. We’re still puzzling things out. Soulless are now working in unity with hunters and Chroniclers too. We’ve started sharing some information and working to help keep the peace at least in New York. It’s time we started here too. It’s what I was sent to do.”
Michael glanced in Devlin’s direction. “Not everyone got that memo, but it doesn’t matter. None of this holds any interest to me.”
“But apparently it does,” Eva countered. “Why do you seek this lost Chronicle, and do you know where Abel is?”
Michael captured her gaze. “Why should I answer you?”
She merely raised an eyebrow at his attempt to intimidate her. “Because I asked. And because I can sense your need to know.”
“That’s an emotion and I have none,” Michael countered.
“That’s not quite true. It just takes certain situations to bring them out. When you feed, you can hold some emotion, that’s why you feed. You hunger to feel something more than you already do. To fill the empty places.”
Michael licked his lips and then curled them up. “Eva, babe, do you plan on feeding my…hunger for emotion?”
“Ah, hell no,” Devlin drawled and leaned forward with his fist clenched.
Eva chuckled. “You walked right into that one, Devlin. Michael stop baiting Devlin, otherwise I might let him have at you.”
“He would be no challenge,” the soulless stated.
“Don’t be too sure,” she retorted. “You and I both know my feelings for you were nothing but curiosity.” She didn’t glance at Devlin when she said that, but she wanted to drive the point home to Michael. “You have free will, Michael, always have. While you’ve been stripped of a lot of things, that’s something you still have. You can choose to kill or not, you choose how to take in your emotion, and you choose which ones to actively seek out.”
“And your point?”
“Help us.”
“Why? What’s in it for me?”
“A chance to save your soul,” she countered.
His laugh was a hollow sound, lacking in any warmth. “I have no soul to save and even if I did, it would be damned five hundred times over. I believe that’s how long I’ve walked this earth.”
“It’s true. All of the rumors about redemption and you all being angels are true,” Eva insisted.
“Whether that’s true or not, no longer matters because we’re not angels anymore. Not sure what we are now but I know what we’re not.”
“How about being redeemed?”
“What about it?” Michael countered.
“You only need to believe in love,” she answered.
“Oh, I believe in it but I prefer lust. Less complicated,” Michael stated and winked at her.
“You sure about that?” Eva asked.
He seemed to hesitate then glanced at Devlin. “Sure enough.”
“Will you help us, Michael? Help us figure this out and find the missing Chronicle,” she pressed.
“Why should I?”
“Perhaps to save your soul.”
Devlin’s response surprised him, Michael could tell by the way Eva’s mouth dropped open it surprised her too.
“Hmm, perhaps we are making progress after all.” She grinned at Devlin before focusing again on Michael.
Then Devlin muttered, “Or what’s left of it.”
Her grin turned into a glare then she returned to her questioning of Michael. “Why did you pursue me, Michael? We’ve been out now a couple of times, each time in my mind it was clearly a date. You were making an effort to be charming, approachable. You wanted me to like you, and I do. Now why would you do such a thing?”
Devlin winced at her words.
“I meant you no harm. I would not have hurt you. I—I wanted to see. To know. If…”
“If what?” she prompted.
“If the rumors were true. If we do feel, can feel again.”
“Yes, Michael,” she replied as she glanced briefly at Devlin. “They are true. Devlin is a testament to that.”
“My grandfather was soulless, his wife human and they had a daughter. My mother,” Devlin said.
“And there’s Samuel in New York, his father was soulless, his mother also human. And Samuel’s wife Thalya was once like you, soulless. Now she has a soul. There are records of a few others,” Eva added.
Michael was silent for a moment as though absorbing their words. “I’ve told you all I know.”
“I am trusting you, Michael. I am trusting that you mean me no harm,” Eva said.
Michael stared at her for a moment then simply nodded.
“Why do the soulless think Eva is the key to finding the lost Chronicle?” Devlin asked.
“Abel believes she has it or can lead us to it.”
“I don’t.” Eva replied. “Do you have any of my Chronicles, Michael? Have you seen any of them or know who does?”
“What if I do, then what?”
“Where are they?” Devlin intervened.
He stared at Devlin before he responded, “I only saw one of the scrolls once. Abel had it. But he was still looking for one more. Something he called the lost Chronicle.”
Devlin and Eva exchanged glances.
“And before you ask, all I know is that it tells how to bring about the end of days and an end to life on earth as humans know it. The soulless would hunger for nothing.”
“You think it’s a way to regain your souls?” Devlin asked.
Michael shook his long locks. “Abel never said that, I just took his words to mean we’d be able to feed the emptiness. We won’t have to hide from humans…they would have to hide from us.”