Otherworld Protector
Otherworld Protector
Jane Godman
Secrets and seduction…When Stella Fallon moves to Spain for her dream job, she never suspects that a cataclysmic confrontation is looming. Or that she is the last in an ancient line of sorcerers. Now, her rare powers put her at risk.The only one who can protect Stella is a man she once thought her guardian angel. Cal becomes humanbut his centuries-old secret could destroy her trust.But as the pair prepare for a battle of epic magnitude, they cannot deny their white-hot attraction…
He was beautiful.
It was not a word Stella usually associated with men, but it suited him. Don’t keep staring at the gorgeous mouth, she told herself firmly. It was his eyes that drew her most strongly. They were every bit as mesmerizing as she remembered. In the shade they were the color of a faded eucalyptus leaf. As he looked away into the sunlight, they shone like silver coins.
Forcing herself to focus, she asked the first of the many questions that jostled for a place on her lips.
“Why have you appeared to me now?”
That broke the spell. A slight frown creased his brow and he pulled his eyes away from hers. “Because you are in grave danger.”
JANE GODMAN writes in a variety of genres including paranormal, gothic and historical romance, and erotic romantic suspense. She also enjoys the occasional foray into horror and thriller writing. Jane lives in England and loves to travel to European cities, which are steeped in history and romance—Venice, Dubrovnik and Vienna are among her favorites.
A teacher, Jane is married to a lovely man and is mum to two grown-up children.
Otherworld
Protector
Jane Godman
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
While writing this book I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I’m one of the lucky ones. My tumor is low-grade and slow-growing. I’d like to dedicate this book to my fellow brain tumor fighters and those who care for and support us.
Contents
Cover (#u67f2f30d-c767-5509-a040-6e1e5f4e901a)
Introduction (#uce8bf07f-ba3c-522d-ac7e-609a5bcef5e3)
About the Author (#uca780df4-3a76-57b6-9ec6-900f7863cd7a)
Title Page (#u3ce0c8ba-f57d-5143-a7a4-f91e7a7ed6da)
Dedication (#u684d952c-7673-5c72-8a7c-4c824a0395e9)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_3b5a37c7-6a57-5347-8f2f-dd8fa80839d1)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_cbb9eea0-e44d-5ea8-9bbd-cc7078358360)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_146e845a-6650-5b00-960a-890b2a517f85)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_8751c988-0000-528c-9d13-5a0f95de71bb)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_93017369-23ca-5f5b-925d-bb5a643cef75)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_59419d4a-eecc-5a71-acb0-abd676c1097a)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_eb0e8fed-c59d-5539-ac09-3d894784b3d6)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_b7277ce4-85dc-5648-a87f-f302bda2867d)
Stella Fallon was in the process of discovering that there is nothing so hysteria inducing as the realization that you have given up your job and traveled to a new country, spending every penny of your savings in the process, in pursuit of a dream that doesn’t exist. Okay, so it had been a crap job. And the savings had just about covered her plane ticket. As she stared up at the vast crumbling mansion, these extenuating circumstances did not provide Stella with one single morsel of comfort. If the house was empty—and it certainly looked that way—she was officially homeless, jobless and, once she had paid the taxi fare, had exactly one hundred euros to her name.
“This is the right house, senorita. For sure.” The driver repeated the statement he had made a few minutes earlier. While his tone was patient, his eyes were wary as they met hers in the rearview mirror. Possibly he could sense her rising panic. He might even have been cursing the fact that, from the long line of eager tourists and experienced businessmen waiting for taxis at the airport that night, he was the one who ended up with this quirky-looking girl. Whatever his emotions might be, he was clearly fearful of not getting his cash and impatient at being kept waiting now that he had delivered her to her destination.
“It can’t be.” Although the driver had spoken in Spanish, she responded in English and he made a helpless, uncomprehending gesture. Stella corrected her mistake. “No es posible.”
“Sí. This is the address you gave me. La Casa Oscura—” he gestured into the pitch-blackness beyond the car windows “—it is well-known in this city.”
La Casa Oscura. The Dark House. Except it shouldn’t be dark. According to the emails Stella had received, it should be lit up in welcome for her. Or, if “lit up” might be construed as an overenthusiastic approach to greeting a new junior employee, there should at least have been some sign of life. There was none.
“You want me to take you to a hotel in the city center for tonight? That way you can come back in the morning. Check the place out in daylight.”
The suggestion made sense, and Stella was about to dent her precious hundred euros further and agree. That was when she felt it. Felt him. There was the familiar flicker of movement on the outer edge of her vision. She knew from experience there was no point in trying to capture it. He existed only on the periphery. Looking directly at him would cause him to disappear. But it was enough. Well-being, warm, mellow and welcome flooded her veins. Her protector was here.
“No.” Taking out her wallet, she counted out the right number of notes for the fare and added a tip.
“I can wait here until you are inside,” the driver offered as he pocketed the money. Stella could almost see him assessing the possibility of being featured as the bad guy in the following day’s tabloid headlines.
Cabbie abandoned lone Brit-girl tourist at death house, saying “I wanted my supper!”
“I’ll be fine,” Stella assured him and he shrugged a doubtful shoulder. She could hardly explain her newfound bravado to him. As she clambered out of the car, juggling her backpack and laptop case, the driver hauled her wheeled suitcase out of the trunk. With a final glance over his shoulder and shrug, he returned to the car. Stella waited for him to drive off before she turned to look up at the house. The darkness here on the hillside above the city was so all-encompassing that what she saw was the outline of the hulking building and none of its detail. First impressions were everything, and this one definitely didn’t feel comforting.
Although the house itself, like its name, was cloaked in obscurity, there was enough light from the street lamps for Stella to make her way unhindered through the vast wrought-iron gates. Thoughts of medieval prisons and torture chambers sprang into her mind. All useful ideas for future game projects, she assured herself, making a mental note. Her feet crunched onto a gravel drive. This, in turn, opened out onto a large, paved square and Stella noticed, with a feeling of profound relief, that there were several cars and motorbikes parked to one side of this area. In the darkness, she could not distinguish makes or models. One of the cars was definitely low-slung, sleek and probably expensive. Moncoya expensive? At the very least, the cars were evidence that the house might not be an abandoned ruin, after all.
Stella commenced a crab-like gait—dragging the huge suitcase, backpack and laptop bag—across the square to the house. As she did, her movements triggered a series of blindingly bright, fluorescent floodlights. It was surreal. If she looked up, would she see a hovering UFO? Or would she be surrounded by armed guards, dressed in black uniforms emblazoned with the gold Moncoya Enterprises M, and made to lie facedown on the ground while they searched her luggage for signs that she was a spy for a rival company?
Reminding herself that a fertile imagination was a necessity, not a liability, in her line of work, Stella continued up to the now clearly visible front door. This was a huge, green-painted structure, set within a vast facade of faded terra-cotta stone. The floodlights cast an eerie gloom that made the house appear to be suspended in space.
Stella didn’t quite know what she had expected. Relocation to Senor Moncoya’s Barcelona residencia will be a requirement of the post. That was what the email had said. Since she’d have agreed to anything—Relocation to the moon? Where do I sign?—for a job with Moncoya, she hadn’t really thought this bit through. Story of your life, she told herself as she pressed the bell next to the front door. No wonder that peripheral protector of yours has to work overtime.
The door was opened, not—as a tiny part of her had hoped—by Ezra Moncoya himself, but by a grungy-looking youth with dreadlocks and a beard that was plaited.
“You must be Stella,” he said, throwing the door wide as he grabbed her suitcase and laptop bag. “We’ve been expecting you.”
As she stepped across the doorstep into the vast white-and-chrome foyer, Stella knew her first impression had been wrong. She was in the most right place she had ever been.
* * *
Cal watched as Stella stepped over the doorstep of La Casa Oscura and the door closed behind her. As if the house itself was swallowing her up. He chided himself for the overimaginative foolishness of such thoughts. He had always known that this time would come—had known it since a time long before Stella’s birth. This precise moment was the reason he had taken the assignment, even though watching over mortals was beneath him in so many ways. Nevertheless, he had to take a moment to wonder at the staggering recklessness of his charge. Unlike Cal, Stella had no idea of who she was, of either her lineage or her destiny. So surely a little bit of caution would not have gone amiss in the circumstances.
He smiled reminiscently. She had always been the same. Even from the earliest age, the little girl with the spiky blue-black hair and wide green eyes had been a trouble magnet, hurling herself from one dangerous situation to the next with a bring-it-on fist pump and a grin. Her behavior had been so far outside Cal’s expectations that, on Stella’s sixth birthday, he had sought an audience to request advice on the matter.
“Never doubt the gravity of what lies ahead. For her or for you.” The Dominion, one of the leading angels of the fourth choir, had worn the traditional long gown, hitched with a golden belt. As a symbol of the seriousness in which he held his task of regulating the duties of lower angels, he had carried a golden staff in his right hand and the seal of his office in his left. Although Cal was easily equal in rank and power to the Dominion, by that time he had been fighting on the side of the angels for so long he always felt slightly overawed by such overt symbols of celestial authority. “When you joined us, you were handed the most demanding of tasks. Now, through this girl, yours is the responsibility for ensuring that peace is restored so that the border between the living realm and Otherworld remains intact.”
“I understand and have gladly accepted the burden you placed upon me. It is just—” Cal had thought back to the escapade that had prompted him to request this meeting. It hadn’t been that bad, he had reasoned. No one had been injured. The truck driver should have known better than to leave his vehicle unlocked with the keys in the ignition. And who’d have thought the skinny little girl Stella had been back then would have been able to get the hand brake off anyway? “I had not anticipated that a major part of my role would be to keep her alive until the prophecy can be fulfilled.”
“You must do whatever it takes,” the Dominion had assured him with a dignity that befitted his position.
So he had. What he hadn’t known then was how much he would enjoy it. Even now, nineteen years after the “do whatever it takes” conversation with the Dominion, Cal still found Stella’s cheeky grin irresistible. He’d broken a few rules along the way. They both had. There had been occasions when he’d had no choice but to materialize to help her out. It wasn’t exactly forbidden, it was just not recommended. Distance was the key to a successful relationship between protector and charge. The difference for them was that, unlike other mortals, Stella was conscious of Cal’s presence even when he didn’t appear before her in human form. That caused him some anxiety. She should not have been aware of him, of course. That wasn’t normal. But Stella was not an ordinary charge. And he had just watched his far-from-average charge walk into the situation he had dreaded since the day she was born.
The time had come. The prophecy was about to be realized at last. While the coming change in their relationship saddened him, Cal’s fighting spirit was roused by the prospect of action. This moment signaled the transformation they had all been waiting for. Casting a glance heavenward at the unusual formation streaking the sky with its three golden tails, he moved through the thick terra-cotta wall and followed his charge into La Casa Oscura. Or—as it was known throughout Otherworld—Moncoya’s lair.
* * *
“This place is amazing.” Stella placed her backpack down and turned in a circle to get the full effect. The faded beauty of the neoclassical facade she had glimpsed outside was in complete contrast to the stark modernity of the interior. The entire lower floor of La Casa Oscura was one vast, open-plan room and the whole of the rear wall was glass, affording a soaring, dramatic view across the nighttime city. At opposite right angles to this, another full wall was taken up with rows of computers and games consoles, each of which was linked to its own enormous plasma screen. Circular seating islands had been created at random intervals, breaking up the white-tiled floor space. In one corner, there was a sensory area with bubble tubes, soft lighting and—Stella noted as she completed her twirl—two men asleep on large beanbags. A shelf lined with hundreds of glass jars, filled with every kind of sweet, cookie and candy imaginable, sat alongside a soft drinks machine. It was a grown-up playroom.
The man who had opened the door to Stella nodded his agreement and gestured to the drinks machine.
“Get you something? I’m Diego, by the way.”
Stella accepted a bottle of chilled water gratefully. “Do you live here?”
Diego snorted. “Only the privileged few get to actually stay here in la casa. The rest of us drop by when there is a big project to work on or a deadline to be met.” He nodded in the direction of the sleeping men. “Thirty-six hours straight. We’ve been trying to iron out a kink in a new games title. Just about cracked it. Some people can’t take the pace. So you’re the crowd fund girl Moncoya’s been raving about.”
Stella felt a blush tinge her cheeks. Moncoya and raving were not words she ever thought to hear put together and then applied to her. It was the stuff of every gamer’s fantasy. “Is he here?” She tried not to sound too eager.
“Moncoya? He doesn’t greet new employees in person, you know.”
Her enthusiasm popped like bubble gum on a pin. Of course he didn’t. How stupid of her to ask. Just as she was about to stammer out an apology for her foolishness, the front door opened and, with perfect timing, Ezra Moncoya walked in. Even if Stella had not spent an obsessive amount of time doing internet searches for her new employer over the past week, she would have known him anywhere. Let’s face it, she thought, looking into the most unusual eyes she had ever seen, unless you had lived as a hermit in a remote cave for the past twenty years, you could not fail to recognize Ezra Moncoya. And to an aspiring games designer, Moncoya was a god. He had been Stella’s idol for as long as she could remember. While the other girls in the children’s home had pictures of boy bands on their bedroom walls, Stella had Moncoya advertising posters, snippets cut from magazines and game covers.
He was of less than average height with a slight build, but Moncoya’s presence instantly filled the vast room. He wore evening dress, but managed to bring a touch of his unique flair to the conventional outfit. Tuxedo and trousers in midnight blue were perfectly contoured to his slender physique, and he wore a cravat in place of a bow tie. It was his face, however, that drew—no, commanded—Stella’s attention. It was a face that graced the cover of thousands of electronics periodicals as well as the gossip pages of every international newspaper and magazine. Moncoya’s chiseled beauty was legendary, almost as well-known as his sexual prowess, but nothing had prepared Stella for the reality of the man. How had she reached the age of twenty-five without knowing you really could have your breath taken away by the presence of another human being? Moncoya ran a hand through his signature mane of tousled, morning-after hair, its highlights ranging from honey gold to caramel. The diamond studs in his ears caught the light. Until that instant Stella would have laughed if someone had told her she could find a man who wore black nail polish and blue eyeliner attractive.
It was those eyes that drew her in and captured her, she decided. Bluer than a summer evening, the irises were edged with gold as if encircled by fire. The effect was devastating. Once you looked into Moncoya’s eyes, you couldn’t look away. Not even if your life depended on it. She shook the foolish, intrusive thought away.
It didn’t seem to concern Moncoya in the slightest that Diego, after an initial blink of shock at his employer’s entrance, had faded away, leaving them alone. Or that, without the benefit of an introduction, a girl he had never met was gazing at him in spellbound silence across a distance of several feet. A slight smile touched his lips and he moved forward, holding out both hands.
“Stella Fallon. You are everything I hoped you would be.” It seemed a strange comment since, in those few seconds, she had no way of demonstrating the abilities for which he had hired her. Such was the force of his personality that she took the outstretched hands. The oddest feeling, like a slight electric shock, shimmered from her fingertips then tingled throughout her whole body at his touch.
Get a grip, Stella. He probably has this effect on women all the time. Stella collected herself with some difficulty. “Senor Moncoya, I want to thank you...”
He had gone. Releasing her hands, he strode away to the glass wall at the rear of the room. Stella hesitated. Away from the power of those eyes, doubt washed over her. Was that it? Was she dismissed? Or was she meant to follow? When Moncoya glanced, with a touch of impatience, over his shoulder, she got her answer and hurried to join him. For a few minutes they stood side by side, their reflections staring back at them from the window’s mirrorlike gloss.
Stella tried to see herself through Moncoya’s eyes. Short. Well, he wasn’t tall so that was good, wasn’t it? Stop it, Stella. Nothing is going to happen here. Slim. A bit too slim. Okay, I’m on the skinny side. Short, spiky hair. Hair that was a lot shorter than his. Wide eyes and pixie features—like a gremlin, a former boyfriend had once said...during a fight. Vintage dress and combat boots. It was her favorite look. 1950s movie icon meets steampunk rebel. Not the kind of woman for a man like Mon—Moncoya pressed a button and one of the glass panels slid back. With old-fashioned courtesy, he bowed slightly, indicating that Stella should precede him. She stepped out onto a wide terrace and inhaled the midnight scent of orange blossom. The entire city of Barcelona, lit up like a child’s fairyland, was spread out below them.
“Welcome to your new home.”
Stella turned to Moncoya with shining eyes, wanting to voice the thanks she had attempted earlier. As she did, her peripheral vision kicked in again, the movement urgent enough to make her pause. The feeling of contentment she got from knowing her protector was there was as powerful as ever, but this time there was something more. Something equally strong. She had never before experienced this particular sensation from her shadowy guardian. She took a second to examine the new perception. It felt a lot like a warning.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_c604b9c4-6f86-5238-9a9a-e514a116c69e)
As a child Stella would have long, imaginary conversations with her protector while playing with her toys. In these, his answering voice was quiet and masculine. He was the one person who always had time for her. He said what she wanted to hear. With him she felt safe and loved. If she was upset or fearful, she only had to think of him and he would come to her. It didn’t matter that he didn’t exist beyond the outer reaches of her vision, or that when she blinked he was gone. He was as real to her as any of her foster carers or teachers.
Stella had been three when her parents were killed in a car crash. When she pictured that day it was as a sharp turn in the road, a change in the path of her life. Behind her was a meandering, sweet-smelling country lane, lined with flowers. Ahead there was a gray concrete highway with nothing on either side to alleviate the monotonous view.
Every attempt had been made to find adoptive parents for her. “She has no other family and—I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s because she’s such a fey child or always lurching into mischief—but she doesn’t seem to take, if you know what I mean. And she should have grown out of the imaginary-friend phase long ago.”
Stella had overheard that fractious comment one day as she sat outside the matron’s office in the children’s home waiting to take her punishment for her latest transgression. It had set the tone for a childhood spent alternating between kindly foster homes and a series of trying-too-hard-to-be-homely institutions. It didn’t matter. She always had him.
No one else listened when Stella talked about the monster that lived under her bed. It didn’t matter where she slept, the monster would be there awaiting her arrival. Although its eyes were dark, sometimes they burned ember bright. In the dark reaches of the night, it whispered Stella’s name in a low, scratchy voice. The monster wanted Stella. Not just any little girl. Her. She would squeeze her eyes shut and her lips would form a silent plea for the monster to leave her alone. Her protector always came in answer to those appeals.
If she didn’t look directly at him, she could see the protector’s tall shadow on the edge of her vision. Somehow it was easier in the dark. Once, in the children’s home, the curtains had not been fully closed and a sliver of moonlight from the streetlight outside had sneaked through. Briefly, it had illuminated his face, allowing her eager gaze to drink in his square, determined jaw, fine mouth and silver-gray eyes. She had been startled into turning her head to stare directly at him, and he had instantly disappeared. From then on, he had taken care not to allow her any further close-up glimpses.
He spoke to the monster in a guttural language Stella didn’t recognize. Not aloud, of course. Instead the whispered words seeped into her subconscious. The monster would whine and attempt to cling to the floorboards in response. As her heart pounded out a rhythm of relief, Stella would sense the monster’s defeat and hear its slithering departure. Over the years, Stella came to understand how it worked. Even to accept it. The monster would always be there. It would always want her. But she would be safe...so long as her protector was near.
Now, for the first time in her life, the monster was gone. She had been so tired the first night after her arrival that she’d tumbled into bed in the strange room on the casa’s upper floor and not given it a thought. After five nights in Moncoya’s Barcelona mansion, she felt she could officially say her bedroom was a monster-free zone. And all it had taken to bring about this purge was a two-and-a-half-hour international flight. Maybe monsters didn’t have passports.
Stella sometimes wondered if her monochrome childhood was responsible for her neon-color imagination. Whatever the cause, her mind was a constant whirl of ideas. When she was young, color, shape, music and poetry all vied for her attention. As she grew up and became more discerning, she had become more focused. Honing her natural artistic skills in college, she had pursued her ultimate dream by completing a master’s degree in computer games design. She had left school twelve months ago to seek a job in London. In the most competitive field imaginable, slap in the middle of a recession.
The question was always the same. “What have you done?”
The answer never varied. “Nothing yet.”
Her awesome, hard-won qualifications counted for nothing. It was a vicious circle. Give me a job so I can prove myself. Prove yourself and we might give you a job. She took a routine office job to pay the bills on her tiny studio and spent her evenings dreaming up new ideas for games. She met up with a few university friends for drinks one weekend, and they had discussed their various ideas. The subject of crowd funding came up. It was how “Supernova Deliverance,” an online survival game with a supernatural theme, had been born. In its turn, it had led Stella to this job.
The email from Moncoya’s personal assistant had come on a cold, miserable day. One on which her job had seemed more boring than ever. It was fate, she decided, her heart skipping several beats as she read and reread it. Senor Moncoya had followed the progress of the crowd funding project with interest. He was particularly impressed with the way she had laid out the conceptual framework and her graphics development skills. There was a temporary internship at Moncoya Enterprises in Barcelona. Would she be interested?
“I have to reply today!” Realizing she had spoken aloud, she had retreated back behind her computer screen, her mind whirling with possibilities.
There was a brief job description. Ability to visualize compelling social games. Knowledge and insight of game balance. Strong design and drafting skills. Key phrases danced around her mind as she typed her resignation letter. Fluency in Spanish an advantage. Must sign a confidentiality contract. Good thing she’d chosen to take Spanish at school.
“Muchas gracias, Senor Moncoya. Te amo mucho.”
Since she had joined his company, Moncoya had given her no reason to withdraw that declaration of undying love. Okay, so he had some very odd friends and they liked to party hard. But if Moncoya wanted to hang out with a group of people who looked like stylish punk rockers that was his business. She caught occasional glimpses of his friends and was struck by two things that they had in common. They were all stunningly beautiful, and she wondered if that was a deliberate choice of Moncoya’s. Being so striking himself, did he choose to surround himself with others who were similarly good-looking?
The other thing they shared was a style idiosyncrasy. Each of them wore the same contact lenses. They all had the same curious ring of fire around their iris as Moncoya. Was it a statement? A tribute to Moncoya? Or was Moncoya’s own yellow burst of fire also the result of contact lenses? Out of interest, Stella had searched the internet for it. She had found something called “central heterochromia” that apparently would have got you an automatic burning as a witch in the Middle Ages, but even that didn’t come close to the blaze of color exhibited by Moncoya and his party people. She had shrugged it off. As a fashion statement it was extreme, but Moncoya was extreme. It was part of his charm.
There had been a horrible misunderstanding a few nights ago when some of Moncoya’s friends had taken a shine to Stella and seemed to feel she was an important guest rather than realizing she was just a very junior employee. They had wanted her to join the party, and she’d been forced to make a hurried exit. Somehow she didn’t think the amused tolerance Moncoya had so far demonstrated toward her would survive any attempts to gate-crash into his social sphere.
Stella was aware of the occasional exchange of looks between the other game design employees. She had overheard one or two barbed comments. She suspected she was meant to hear them.
“Why is el jefe still around? Never known him to hang around la casa for more than a day. Two at most.”
“Could it have anything to do with his new pet? The little crowd funder protégé? He calls her his star.”
“She’s a bit young for Moncoya, surely? Although, come to think of it, she does have that elven look he likes so much.”
Diego had chimed into the conversation then. “Ease up on her, guys. She knows her stuff, that’s for sure. And her artwork is spectacular.”
A job she loved. A boss she liked. And no monsters. This new turn in the road offered her a whole new direction. The drab highway was forever behind her. Ahead lay a winding, challenging mountain pass. She was ready to forge upward along this new scenic route.
* * *
“He doesn’t need to send his foot soldiers to lurk under your bed anymore, Stella. Not when he’s sitting right next to you.” And hoping that very soon he’ll be joining you in that bed.
Cal could feel the frustration pouring off him like sweat off a cage fighter. He wanted to storm over there, drag her away from Moncoya and all the way back to the only place he knew for sure he could keep her safe. When there were other people around it was so difficult to watch out for her. University had been problematic and so boring. Cal had yawned through the lectures and seminars that fascinated Stella. All those kids, all rushing somewhere. London especially had been the worst place to guard her.
Because it wasn’t just Moncoya he had to look out for. In a way Moncoya was the least of his problems. He snorted with laughter at that thought and mentally rephrased it. Moncoya was a dangerous bastard, but at least he would be predictably terrifying. It was the others, the unknowns, who posed the greater problem. Because word of the prophecy had trickled out. It had been inevitable. So many centuries had passed since the prediction was first spoken, and then written. So many great scholars had frowned and debated over its meaning. One of Cal’s worst fears throughout that time had been how the vague wording might be interpreted. Evil can twist any meaning to suit its purpose. And fragile Stella would be on the receiving end of those twists.
Confrontation with Moncoya was inevitable. But, as the apocalyptic time drew closer, who else was hunting Cal’s precious charge? Was the man on the bus really just a sad loner who got a hard-on from rubbing himself up against young women? Turned out he was. Could the woman who had run toward Stella with a closed umbrella extended in front of her like a weapon during rush hour really have been late for an appointment? Cal couldn’t take that chance. A strategically extended foot and the woman had gone sprawling into the gutter while Stella continued on her way oblivious to any danger, real or imagined. As it should be. All in a day’s work. No thanks necessary.
He didn’t want thanks. Or even acknowledgment. What he had never envisioned when he took this assignment and laid his plans for this day was that he would be forced to watch as his charge gazed worshipfully into the fiery eyes of the very being from whom she should be shrinking. On reflection, he supposed it was only to be expected. Moncoya’s touch, like that of all his kind, was known to be heady and intense. Moncoya, the most powerful of them all, could, it was said, induce euphoria to the point of spiritual, even physical, ecstasy with the lightest touch of his fingertips. Cal curled his lip at that. He’d believe that particular piece of Moncoya propaganda if he felt it for himself. Not that the little manikin would ever have the nerve to touch him, let alone come close to him. Not after the last time. Nevertheless, the new, dreamy look on Stella’s face seemed to confirm the rumor that Moncoya’s touch, once felt, had such a profound effect on the psyche that it evoked a desperate yearning to experience it again.
“More wine?” Cal looked up as the cause of his bad mood held the bottle of Rioja over Stella’s glass.
“No.” She shook her head, placing her hand over her glass a fraction of a second too late so that the ruby liquid ran over her fingers. She laughed, lifting her fingers to her lips to lick the droplets away. “I want to get back to that platform tonight. There are still some issues with fine-tuning the graphics.”
They were seated on the terrace at the back of the house enjoying its spectacular views over the city. The evening sky was a tapestry of coral and lavender threaded through with streaks of gold, and the air was heavy with the scent of summer flowers. Stella wore a sundress that looked as if it was made from six stitched-together handkerchiefs. From his position leaning against an olive tree to one side of the terrace, Cal studied her face thoughtfully. For the first time ever, she was wearing lip gloss. His heart sank further and he found himself torn between conflicting emotions. Moncoya’s presence made him want to behave like the overprotective father in a sitcom and tell her to get inside and cover up. Another part, possibly the stronger part, insisted in forcing his eyes to linger on the slender expanse of her thighs. It was an oddly possessive emotion, new and strangely exhilarating.
The sky darkened swiftly to night and bats flew in relay from the eaves of the casa to the street lamps and back, greedily grabbing any insects in their path. Moncoya leaned closer to Stella, and Cal clenched a fist against his thigh, willing the tousle-haired mongrel to give him an excuse to intervene, at the same time knowing he was powerless to do anything. Because this was as it had been ordained and he, of all people, could not deflect the course of the prophecy.
Just as Moncoya’s hand moved to within an inch of the pale flesh of Stella’s upper arm, a monumental crash reverberated around the garden. The ground trembled as though in the grip of a brief but violent earthquake, and a cloud of red dust flew up several feet from the terrace.
“Go inside.” Cal watched approvingly as Moncoya thrust Stella toward the open door. This was a first. Who’d have thought he’d ever find himself in agreement with Moncoya? He was aware that, although she followed the instruction, Stella hovered half in and half out of the casa, gazing at the point of impact in fascination.
Moncoya lowered his head and stretched out his arms, and the grotesque beast that had just fallen to earth drew itself up to its full height as it faced him. Moncoya appeared tiny in comparison. Grudgingly, Cal admired his courage. Moncoya spoke softly in a lilting language. The whole night stilled. The dust cloud settled. The creature bared its teeth in a snarl. Moncoya spoke again and it unfurled wings that spanned at least eight feet. Nevertheless, it appeared pinned to the spot.
Cal, growing tired of Moncoya’s dawdling methods, stepped forward and smashed his fist directly into the gargoyle’s hideous face. The creature sank into a crouch, its glowing eyes searching the darkness for the invisible assailant. Moncoya’s head snapped up and Cal took a second to mutter a curse. He had been determined not to reveal his presence to Moncoya. Not yet. Now Moncoya was aware of his existence, although he still didn’t know who Cal was.
“Time to catch up on your beauty sleep. God knows, you need it.” Cal delivered a swift, painfully accurate dropkick to the side of the gargoyle’s head. With a curious grace, the huge creature collapsed back into the red earth. Its natural defense mechanism kicked in and its flesh turned instantly to stone.
“Who is there?” Moncoya’s voice rang out.
Cal moved close, allowing his breath to touch the smaller man’s cheek. “Your worst nightmare,” he whispered. Moncoya’s eyes narrowed to slits of pure fury as he turned in the direction of Cal’s voice.
“What just happened?” Stella stepped back onto the terrace, her own eyes huge and very green as she stared at the recumbent gargoyle.
“A meteorite of some sort.” You had to admire Moncoya, Cal decided. The man could smoothly tell a bald-faced lie.
“That isn’t a meteorite!” Stella had begun to stomp across the garden in the direction of where the stone creature had fallen. Even though Moncoya reached out to halt her, his intervention wasn’t necessary. Before she reached the pile of rubble, Stella turned slowly back to the house, her expression changing. Cal knew that look well. It was a combination of suspicion and stubbornness.
Moncoya shrugged. “Does it matter?” He gestured for her to be seated but she ignored him.
Cal waited for her to say it did matter. Willed her to see Moncoya for what he really was. To finally understand why she had been brought here...
The wariness vanished from her face as she looked at Moncoya. Frustration chased away Cal’s brief feeling of optimism when Stella began to laugh. “I suppose another glass of wine won’t hurt before I get back to work.”
Chapter 3 (#ulink_ee8d9900-8f78-587d-b880-8c20c1bc545d)
Stella would have known her protector anywhere. She had stored up the memory of those curiously light eyes, that strong jaw, the perfection of his mouth. It was as if, in that brief instant of seeing him all those years ago, her mind had taken a mental photograph. That was how she knew the man at the beachside cafe was watching her. Not just ogling a random girl in a swimsuit. Not smirking with amusement as she struggled with the tie on her bikini top and almost flashed the whole Barcelonan beachfront as she emerged from the water. No, he was watching her because it was him, and that was what he did.
Although in his own form Stella’s protector stayed on the edge of her vision, she knew he sometimes came to her in human form. She would get that feeling—as if warm honey had been injected into her veins—and she would know. He was the lifeguard at the swimming pool when she slipped and hit her head. Or the electrician who fixed the faulty wiring in her apartment.
Once she had been jogging in the park when a dog ran toward her. She hadn’t been alarmed at first but, out of nowhere, a figure had streaked past her and wrestled the animal to the ground. The beast had clamped its jaws onto the man’s forearm, but luckily he wore padding so that its teeth did not sink into his flesh. Some sort of dog training exercise, Stella had thought as she ran past. Then the familiar soothing feeling had come over her and she had paused to look back. Although they had been there only seconds earlier, there was no longer any sign of either the man or the dog.
Another time, after a night out with friends, she had been about to get into a taxi when a line-jumper had shoved her out of the way and stolen her cab. Her initial fury had died away as the sweet warmth flowed through her. A collective gasp of horror had risen from the watching partygoers as the taxi pulled away straight into the path of an out-of-control truck. The cab had spun wildly, like a toy in the hand of a giant, before banging to a stop. Its rear end was crushed like a concertina. Stella had shivered in her thin party dress as she gave a witness statement to the police.
“There was no one else in the car,” the police officer assured her. “Luckily. Anyone in the backseat would have been smashed into a million pieces against that wall.”
The closest she’d got to actually seeing the real him was when she actually was involved in a car accident. She’d been sixteen. A rebellious, studiously unorthodox sixteen-year-old who jumped on the back of the motorcycle of her latest crush. When her protector pulled her from the wreck that time, the only precaution he’d been able to take was to pull his cap down low over his face. She supposed it was because he didn’t have enough time to do anything else before the gas tank exploded.
“Don’t keep hiding from me. I like who you are,” she had told him just before she lost consciousness.
That was what she said again now as she tugged a wrap over her bikini and marched up to the table where he sat.
“Huh?” He looked up in surprise as she took the seat opposite.
“I said I like who you are.”
“Thanks.” His grin was surprisingly boyish and shy. “I think.”
Stella’s heart did a funny little flip as if it had suddenly developed an extra beat. He looked so much younger than she’d expected. He hadn’t aged at all. They stared at each other.
Finally, she spoke again. “All this time.”
“I know.”
He was beautiful. It was not a word Stella usually associated with men, but it suited him. Despite the coiled muscular strength of his body, his face was artistic. If she didn’t know otherwise, she’d have guessed he was a painter, musician or poet. It was something about those high cheekbones, the narrow nose and strong jaw. Don’t keep staring at the gorgeous mouth, she told herself firmly. It was his eyes that drew her most strongly. They were every bit as mesmerizing as she remembered. In the shade they were the color of a faded eucalyptus leaf. As he looked away into the sunlight, they shone like silver coins.
Forcing herself to focus, she asked the first of the many questions that jostled for a place on her lips. “Why have you appeared to me now?”
That broke the spell. A slight frown creased his brow and he pulled his eyes away from hers. “Because you are in grave danger.”
She leaned forward excitedly. “Is this about that meteorite?”
“There was no meteorite, Stella.”
“I knew it! Never mind what Ezra said—” She broke off. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Cal.”
She studied him with her head on one side. “I thought it would be more dramatic. Gabriel, Raphael or something like that. But I like it. It suits you. So tell me about this meteorite that wasn’t a meteorite, Cal.”
“It was a gargoyle.”
Stella wrinkled her nose. “Like the statues you get on churches and cathedrals?”
“Some of them do spend their daytime hibernation crouching on buildings, yes.”
Stella watched him in fascination. Hibernation? Crouching? Those words ascribed a life force to something that could not be alive. How could he speak of something like that so calmly? Her mouth felt uncomfortably dry, and she decided to focus on the mundane rather than the bizarre. “I’ve left my bag down on the beach. Can you get me a bottle of water? I mean, do angels carry cash?”
He grinned and signaled to the waiter. “When I’m here, Stella, I do normal, mortal things. Plus some other stuff.”
“It’s the other stuff that’s starting to bother me.” Stella took a long swig of water. “Okay. How did a stone statue drop out of the sky into the garden of the casa the other night?”
“It glided.”
“Of course it did. Stone is well-known for its aerodynamic qualities.”
He started to laugh. “You’re so...you. Even though they have wings, gargoyles can’t fly. They glide. So it glided into Moncoya’s garden. I think they use the updrafts, the same way a bird does.” He mimed a gliding motion with his arms outstretched.
“Cal, are you seriously trying to tell me gargoyles are living creatures?”
“Not in the sense that humans are. Gargoyles are supernatural beings. During the day they are stone. At night they are flesh, blood, bone and muscle.” He tapped a fingertip against his temple. “Not much in the brain department, sadly.”
Stella exhaled slowly. “Okay, because you are you—and I’ve lived with the reality of you all my life—I’m going to suspend every rational instinct and try to believe you when you say that gargoyles can glide. So we’ve done the ‘how.’ Now the ‘why.’ Why did that particular gargoyle drop in on us the other night? Was it just a social call?”
“It had been sent to get you, Stella.”
“Sent to get me?” The word came out as an undignified squeak, and she fought to get her voice back under control. “Who by?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t been able to discover that. Yet. There are a number of possibilities.”
Stella glanced over her shoulder. “This is a joke, right? It’s a reality TV show or something. Any minute now someone will jump out with a microphone and we’ll all laugh about how I fell for this.”
“You know that isn’t going to happen.”
She sighed. “If I hadn’t known you all my life, I might have been able to convince myself this was some sort of prank. Unfortunately for me, you exude your own mystical gravitas. So this mystery person who sent a gargoyle after me is the grave danger you’ve come to warn me about?”
He shook his head slowly. “I can deal with gargoyles. They’re a nuisance, but easy to put back in their box. I can also take out whoever sent it.” The declaration should have sounded macho and boastful, but it didn’t. On Cal’s lips, it was a simple statement of fact. “But there is a very powerful being who wants you, Stella. This is one thing I am totally sure of. He wants you very badly and he is known for his determination. You must be on your guard.”
“And this being is...?”
“The king of the faeries.”
“I’m guessing we’re not talking pretty little winged creatures who live at the bottom of the garden.”
Cal shook his head. “This isn’t a child’s fairy tale. Faeries are ancient beings of wonder and enchantment. They have great physical beauty while they bring dire peril in their wake. Their power for destruction is enormous.”
“So how will I recognize the king of the faeries when he comes for me?”
“You already know him.” Stella had a sudden and overpowering premonition that she did not want to hear Cal’s next words. He said them anyway. “His name is Moncoya.”
* * *
Steam swirled around Stella and she exulted in the sensation, allowing the water to play over her aching shoulders. Too much time hunched close to a computer screen left her with a crick in her neck that felt as if it was here to stay. After several minutes of soothing warmth, she turned the shower to cool. The Spanish evening was still and sultry. It felt as if there should be sangria and flamenco guitar awaiting her, not a laptop and a pizza. Stepping from the shower, she wrapped herself in one towel and dried her hair with another. When she emerged from the bathroom, she was startled to find Cal sitting on her bed. He was wearing only a pair of ancient cutoff jeans, and the sight of his golden torso did something unmentionable to her insides.
“I suppose I should be glad you stayed out here,” she said, disguising her inappropriate reaction with sarcasm.
“I promise never to join you in the shower.” His gaze swept over her body, registering the fact that she was wearing nothing but a thigh-skimming towel. The corner of his mouth lifted in appreciative acknowledgment. “Not without an invitation anyway.”
The smile was almost irresistible. Almost. The memory of their last encounter was still fresh in Stella’s mind, however. Gargoyles and faeries and supernatural threats to her safety. It was all very well having a personal bodyguard—and, it really, really helped that hers was so gorgeous—but she wasn’t going to be drawn into all the weird stuff. She had told him as much down at the beach. It seemed he had not got the message.
“I’d like to get dressed.” She maintained a dignified tone.
“Pretend I’m not here.” Cal turned his back.
It was on the tip of Stella’s tongue to order him out of her room, when it occurred to her that she wouldn’t know if he’d actually gone. It was probably better to have him here, where she could see that glorious expanse of tanned, muscled back while she threw on her shorts and top, than send him away.
“Are you my guardian angel?”
Stella threw herself down on the bed, lying on her back, with her hands laced behind her head. The room was furnished in a traditional Spanish style with walls that were painted in warm, soothing terra-cotta tones. The floor tiles were a mosaic of blue and gold, and carved, dark wood furniture lined the room. A ceiling fan made lazy circles above her head. Cal seemed to debate joining her and then sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, stretching his long legs in front of him. From the angle she had chosen, all Stella could actually see of him now was the lower half of his legs and his bare feet. Just as she decided he wasn’t going to answer the question, he spoke.
“It’s hard for me to answer that because the concept of a guardian angel has been created by humans. Mortals have built a set of rules around something they do not understand because they want to be able to explain it.”
Stella threw a cushion in his general direction. “Answer the bloody question.”
The cushion flew back at her. “In my experience, mortals don’t like it when the response is not what they want to hear.”
Tired of not being able to see him, she moved to the other end of the bed and lay on her stomach so that her face was only inches from his. “Are you being enigmatic to annoy me or are you trying to tell me I’ve got the terminology wrong?”
“Both.”
He grinned and Stella watched in fascination as a dimple danced at the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t something she’d ever thought about, never having been able to get close to him before, but Cal did not conform to the blueprint of physical perfection that should surely be a prerequisite for an angel. It was those minor imperfections—the gap between his front teeth that was a fraction too wide, the tiny star-shaped scar at the corner of his right eye, the unruly lock of hair flopping onto his forehead, the golden-brown stubble—that made him such a stunning-looking man. And that in itself was surely wrong. Weren’t angels meant to be asexual? But, if what he was saying was correct, she needed to unlearn everything she thought she knew about angels.
She linked her hands together and propped her chin on them, enjoying being close to him. It was a strange sensation, like getting to know someone she had been acquainted with all her life. Or coming face-to-face with a pen pal in whom she had confided her most intimate secrets. Getting to know him? Who was she trying to fool? She’d stored up the memory of his face ever since that long-ago moonlit night. Wasn’t falling for your guardian angel forbidden? She frowned, trying to remember the results from the time she’d searched the internet for it. She was fairly sure horrible things would happen to heaven and earth if an angel and a mortal ever made love. Unless that bit wasn’t true? Her heart gave a hopeful little skip. Getting a bit ahead of yourself, Stella, she told herself firmly.
“Are you all right?” Cal’s voice brought her back to reality. “You’ve gone very red.”
“It’s what we humans do in the heat. I did a lot of research about guardian angels. I did it so I would know all about you. Are you telling me it was all wrong?”
She thought the look in the depths of his shimmering eyes became guarded. The laughter and teasing were gone. “Some of it almost certainly was.” His voice was colorless. “Guardian angel or not, can we do what I came here for? Can we talk about how I intend to keep you safe from Moncoya?”
Stella sat up abruptly. “Not this again.”
“Yes, this again.” Cal reached out a hand, but she evaded him.
“I need a cold drink.” Slipping from the bed without another word, Stella left the room and made her way down the stairs.
Chapter 4 (#ulink_eec2057b-390e-5ba2-91c0-40cd3ec8c3f5)
Cal swore under his breath. He could hear voices from the lower floor, which meant he could go down there only if he was invisible. Invisibility meant he would not be unable to interact with Stella, which in turn meant he could not try to convince her of the danger she was in. Every minute she spent with Moncoya was enabling the faerie king to draw her deeper under his spell. Such was the power the so-called “little people” could wield when they chose. Not that Stella appeared to be in need of much persuasion. Helplessness was a new sensation for Cal. It was not one he relished.
It bothered him that she thought of him as her guardian angel, although, in many ways that was exactly what he had become. Not by choice, and there was certainly nothing angelic about him. His thoughts recoiled from the memories that had led him here. It didn’t matter how he had come to be in this role. Whatever label Stella gave him, his job was to protect her and he couldn’t do that if he stayed up here and couldn’t see what she was doing. Sighing, he followed her.
Cloaked by invisibility, he reached the foot of the stairs and cast a swift glance about the vast room. Stella was standing by the drinks machine, sipping water from a glass. There was no one else around and Cal frowned. He had definitely heard voices. A glance at the glass wall showed him that the panels were closed. Shadowy movement in the dusk beyond the terrace caught Cal’s gaze and he walked over to get a closer look. His attention was diverted as Moncoya entered behind him through the front door. Stella didn’t notice and the faerie king paused, eyeing her rear view appreciatively. Cal couldn’t really blame him. It was a particularly tempting sight.
Moncoya’s embroidered waistcoat hung open over a white dress shirt and he wore skintight black leggings tucked into glossy riding boots. His hair was tied back in a ponytail. Momentarily, Cal caught a glimpse of the yellow ring that lit his eyes. How could Stella not see that there was something fundamentally wrong about this guy?
“Buenas noches.” Moncoya strolled forward and Stella swung around to face him. Although she smiled, there was a touch of nervousness in her expression. Good. I’ve managed to plant at least a seed of doubt, Cal thought. “Something troubles you?” Moncoya’s eyes raked her face.
Stella shook her head. “It’s this heat.” She took another sip from her half-full glass and Moncoya observed the action through narrowed eyes. It was clear to Cal that Stella was uncomfortable. Moncoya, his faerie senses so closely attuned to the feelings of others, would certainly pick up on it.
“Sí, it is very warm. May I?” Moncoya stretched out a hand for the glass. Cal recalled, just in time, that a faerie could claim a mortal for its own by luring the person into sharing food or water. Before Stella could hand over the glass, Cal reached out an invisible hand and snatched it from her. It shattered on the tiled floor.
Stella’s exclamation of shock echoed in the vast space. “I’m so sorry! I don’t know how I came to be so clumsy.”
“Be careful.” Moncoya spoke mechanically. “Your feet are bare. You must move away from this area while I clear away the glass.”
Biting her lip in chagrin, Stella followed his instruction. Moncoya knelt to collect the shards of glass. He looked up and straight at Cal. Cal froze, even though there was no way Moncoya could possibly see him.
“So the little star has a protector. How sweet.” The ring around Moncoya’s azure eyes gleamed with red fire, the way his sidhe underlings’ eyes did when they skulked under Stella’s bed. His voice was low and feral. “I don’t know who you are, but I can guess who sent you. No matter. A little rivalry adds spice to the conquest.”
With that, he walked over to Stella and slipped a possessive arm about her waist. Cal was left watching in helpless rage as his charge turned an apologetic smile on the faerie king. He weighed his options. Go over and intervene? It would give him great pleasure to sink his fist into Moncoya’s smug face, but there was unforeseen danger in that sort of action. Naively, Cal had assumed he would be able to warn Stella of the danger and she would believe him. He had not envisioned a scenario where she refused to listen. If she went willingly to Moncoya—or any of the other warring factions—all would be lost. And he knew his stubborn charge all too well. If he went after Moncoya with his fists swinging, he could not predict Stella’s reaction. She might view Moncoya as the underdog. What if she decided to punish him by siding with Moncoya? It was a chance he couldn’t take. He had to get her to listen to him...or force Moncoya into revealing his true nature.
The movement in the garden drew Cal’s attention again. It had become more obvious now. It was as if the darkness itself was swirling up against the window, shifting and changing shape as it pressed against the glass. The voices he had heard earlier were clearer now. Soft and persuasive, they murmured an incantation. Another sound, like giant beating wings and distant hoofbeats, caught Cal’s straining ears. Stella appeared not to notice these out-of-place sounds. Moncoya, his hearing as finely tuned as Cal’s, looked up with a frown just as the first crack appeared in the giant wall of glass.
Cal faced a difficult choice. He couldn’t remain invisible and shield Stella with his body. Materializing was dangerous because Moncoya would see his face. He would know whom he was dealing with. But Cal’s first duty was to his charge. Those thoughts took a fraction of a second. Then he reacted like lightning. Materializing, he grabbed Stella by the hand and threw her—protesting loudly—down onto one of the oversize cushions as far from the window as possible. Before she could bounce back up again, he covered her body with his own.
He was just in time. The entire glass wall at the rear of the casa imploded, showering the room with shards of glass. Moncoya’s howl of fury rose above the sounds of mayhem as the shapes of the night poured into the room.
“Who dares approach Moncoya in his lair?”
“Lair?” Despite Cal’s efforts to keep her completely covered, Stella wriggled partially out from under him and turned her head to see what had happened. But Cal kept her pinned in place with one of his legs spread across her body. He knew her too well. If there was danger, his feisty charge was likely to throw herself right into the thick of it.
The amorphous mass of the darkness began to shift and three winged figures could now be seen within the quivering cloud. Although their features were indistinct, their figures were female and they were on horseback. Moncoya lifted his hands and the formless horses reared up as though in fright.
“What are they?” Stella’s breath was warm as it tickled Cal’s ear.
“Valkyries.” He answered her absentmindedly. His thoughts were occupied with escape, his eyes measuring the distance to the door. “Be ready to run when I give you the word.”
“You know why we come.” One of the Valkyries moved slightly ahead of the others. Her voice was compelling and echo-like. As the Valkyrie spoke, the shapes around her shifted as though straining to get closer into the room.
“Your audacity is beyond astounding. I have staked the first claim. She belongs to me.” The words were spoken in a booming voice that was totally unlike Moncoya’s usual subtle tones.
“You wrong us. We do not come for the star. Ours is the task of escorting the fallen.” Cal wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but he thought the Valkyrie’s voice seemed to be fading.
“I will give you fallen aplenty. With her at my side, the conclusion to the battle will be swift and bloody, the outcome final. Otherworld will be mine.”
The Valkyrie’s horse lunged nervously as, laughing, Moncoya took a step forward. He raised his hands again and the dark cloud changed, becoming a swirling smoke cloud before gradually dispersing. In its place, as if by magic, Moncoya’s party friends began to pour in through the gaping wall. Laughter and music filled the room as they danced across a floor somehow miraculously clear now of glass and debris. The change in atmosphere brought even more theater to the scene.
“Now,” Cal urged and, to his relief, Stella leaped to her feet and kept pace with him as he ran for the door. As they burst through and into the night air beyond, he grabbed her hand, hauling her to the parked vehicles. Selecting the largest and most powerful of the motorbikes, he swung himself onto it, gesturing for Stella to get up behind him. She obeyed, clasping her arms tightly around his waist and pressing her cheek into his back.
“Can you start it?”
He fished the keys out of his pocket. “It’s mine.”
The engine roared to life and they screeched out of the drive just as the door of the casa flew open.
“I’m so glad I’ve got you for my guardian angel,” Stella yelled as, both barefoot and clad in shorts, they streaked down the hill into the busy city streets.
“Who told you I was an angel?” Cal shouted back over his shoulder, cutting across a stream of traffic.
* * *
“Can we talk about this on the way? Because I for one would like to put as much distance between us and Moncoya as I can.” Cal was throwing clothing into a suitcase while Stella sat curled up in a chair in his hotel room, watching him. Despite the heat, she was clad in one of his hoodies. The sleeves were rolled back and, when she stood up, it hung almost to her knees. Her feet were still bare.
“Talk while you pack. You can start by telling me about Otherworld.”
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Otherworld is a realm inhabited by supernatural beings. It exists alongside the world of the living, but is invisible to most humans. The intrusion of the Otherworld into this one does take place, but, when that happens, it is mainly unobtrusive and harmless.”
“Are you talking about ghosts?”
“Ghosts are the most common manifestation of an overlap between Otherworld and the world of the living, yes. But ghosts are not the only beings to inhabit Otherworld. If they were, my job would be much easier. Ghosts are generally not aggressive, although there are breakaway groups within their numbers, notably banshees and poltergeists. The Ghost Lord is not one of those leaders who seeks to take control of the whole realm of Otherworld.” Cal snapped the suitcase shut and looked around, checking the room to make sure he had collected all of his belongings. “Let’s go.” He glanced down at her feet. “We’ll get you some shoes on the way.”
Stella followed him out of the room. “It sounds complicated.”
“Tell me about it. Just as this world has its different countries and races and religions, so Otherworld has its own dynasties. It is not a physical realm, but it is as fiercely fought. Debates rage as furiously there as they do here. Battles are as bloody, if not more so. The difference is that the weapons used are deadlier and the methods employed are more ruthless. It is my task to ensure that the war for Otherworld does not spill over into the world of the living.”
“Sounds like a hell of a big job for one man.” Where in all of this do you find the time to babysit me? And why? Stella massaged her temples, trying to get rid of the ache that was forming there.
Cal chucked the suitcase into the trunk of a particularly nondescript car, and then held the passenger door open for Stella. She slid inside. It had not once occurred to her not to go with him. Her every instinct cried out that he was her only hope. Against what, she had no idea.
“Car. Bike. You must have known we would have to make a quick getaway,” she said as Cal started the car.
“I know Moncoya.”
Stella shivered. She wasn’t ready for that conversation. “Who are the aggressors in Otherworld?”
The city traffic was heavy and Cal joined a line of cars heading for the suburbs. “It changes over time, with different dynasties fading in and out of prominence. The vampires are always at the forefront of any conflict. Their prince has caused us problems on and off for the past few millennia. Rage is the most powerful underlying motivator for the vampires.” He grinned down at her stunned expression. “Makes them bloody difficult to negotiate with, I can tell you.”
Stella swallowed the obstruction in her throat. “You mean proper vampires? The full-on, bloodsucking kind?”
“Is there another kind?”
“But you just said that the overlap between Otherworld and this world is harmless. If vampires are real and they drop in and out to feast on human blood, I wouldn’t exactly say they do us no harm,” she argued.
Cal appeared to give it some thought. “I see what you mean. They do harm those individuals they feed on and ultimately transform into new vampires, that much is true. In the grand scheme of things, their proclivities don’t fundamentally change the earthly realm. It’s something vampires have always done. It’s a bit of a nuisance, especially when we get a high-profile case that has to be covered up. It doesn’t change the status quo, however, so there’s no real damage done.”
Stella covered her mouth with one shaking hand, regarding his profile with eyes that were wide with shock. As he drew up at a red light, Cal turned and returned her gaze with a question in his eyes. When she lowered her hand, her lips trembled on something that was an attempt at a smile. “A bit of a nuisance? Cal, what the hell is happening here? And why am I part of this Otherworld madness?”
* * *
Cal’s eyes ached. Neon advertising signs, overhead lights and the relentless stream of headlights coming in the opposite direction had taken their toll. It was only just over an hour since they had left Barcelona, but his intense concentration on the road and who or what might be following made it feel as if he had been driving forever. Squinting slightly as he read the road signs, he was relieved to see that they were approaching the city of Girona.
“Tell me again why we couldn’t get a flight from Barcelona Airport?” Stella spoke for the first time since they had left the shopping center on the outskirts of the city, where they had stopped to get fuel and the cheap plastic sandals that now encased her feet. Cal had managed to avoid the question about how she came to be involved in the Otherworld uprising by claiming it was a complicated story and he needed to concentrate on getting them to safety. Stella had huffed at him, but accepted his admittedly pathetic excuse. He wondered now if she really wanted to hear the answer. Sooner or later, it was a conversation they would have to have. He wasn’t looking forward to it. Bloody Valkyries. What had possessed them to get involved before there had even been any fighting? Their job was to gather up the fallen, not come storming in causing havoc before the first blow had been struck. But these were strange times. Ever since the three-tailed comet had first appeared two months ago, tensions in Otherworld—always heightened—had fizzed to the surface like champagne bubbles pressing at a cork.
“They will expect us to go to the main airport. It’s the first place they’ll look. Hopefully, by the time they think of the smaller airport at Girona, we’ll be out of here.”
Stella mouthed the word they to herself but said no more. He was worried about her. It was a feeling that went beyond the obvious concerns for her safety. She looked very small and lost in his well-worn hoodie. Cal experienced an overpowering, urgent desire to reach out a hand and touch her. To smooth the spikes of her hair into place or stroke her cheek. Determinedly he kept both hands on the wheel and fixed his gaze back on the road. Forced himself to remember that he was a protector, not a nursemaid or something more intimate.
The gargoyle had been an interesting, although not entirely unexpected, diversion. Gargoyles were generally solitary creatures. Nevertheless, Cal very much doubted that the one that had descended in such a cumbersome manner into Moncoya’s garden had arrived there on its own behalf. Gargoyles were not noted for their mental agility so it was highly unlikely the creature itself had been responsible for planning the offensive. A mind more cunning than that of a grotesque figure that spent its days crouching on the side of a church had thought up that little scheme. Because, even without Cal’s intervention, the lone gargoyle had never stood a chance against the might of Moncoya. Which meant it had probably been sent simply to discover if Stella actually was at La Casa Oscura. If it had found her alone and succeeded in snatching her while it was there...well, that would have been a nice bonus for whoever sent it. So who had commissioned a gargoyle to enter Moncoya’s lair on a reconnaissance mission? There were, as Cal had already said to Stella, a number of possibilities. None of them was pretty.
The arrival of the Valkyries had overset his plans in a way that the gargoyle had not. The Valkyries were not warriors, they didn’t take sides. Their disorientation signaled that the powers at work were more sinister and disruptive than anything even Cal had encountered before. He couldn’t have left Stella in the middle of the mayhem that had been taking place back at La Casa Oscura. And yet, wasn’t that exactly what was meant to happen? Wasn’t it her destiny to be launched into the midst of the uprising at this point in time? No. He shook his head. He knew now that the forces gathering were greater and more volatile than he had anticipated. Something had changed. Therefore he had to alter his plans accordingly. The confrontation would come, that part of the prophecy was inevitable. And Stella would be part of it. That too had been foretold. My job is to equip her for what lies ahead.It was bad enough when I knew what she was facing. I cannot allow her to go into this new unknown without preparing her. And this change of plan would have nothing to do with how you felt when Moncoya put his hands on her? He ignored the insidious little voice in his head as he followed the road signs for the airport.
“Where are we now?” Stella shifted in her seat and blinked at the unprepossessing view of industrial units in the darkness beyond the window.
“Approaching Girona. I need you to get on the internet and book us on the next plane to England.”
She bit her lip. “This is a bit embarrassing, but I haven’t got any money.”
He threw a quick grin in her direction. “I know. You never do. Reach over and get my jacket off the backseat. There’s a credit card in my wallet.”
“Angels with credit cards, what next?” Stella wriggled around until she’d retrieved his jacket. “Oh, I forgot. You get all antsy when I call you an angel.”
Cal was conscious of her scanning his profile in the close confines of the car but he deliberately didn’t respond to either her words or her scrutiny. After a shrug, Stella busied herself with her phone. “We’re in luck. There’s a flight to Manchester in three hours and they have seats available. Oh, and when we get on that plane, Cal—” her voice was restored to something approaching its normal tone “—I have one or two questions to ask you.”
“It might be best to save the conversation for somewhere more private.” There you go putting it off. She has to know. You can’t protect her forever from what she is.
“You might be right. But the question you can start with right now is why the bloody hell I’ve just paid for our fares using a credit card belonging to someone called Emrys Jones?”
Chapter 5 (#ulink_46e2a87d-1a8e-54e4-9199-0cd3c56db7ab)
Watching Cal while he slept might actually be addictive, Stella decided. The sculpted perfection of his chest rose and fell in time with his rhythmic breathing. The skin of his neck, exposed to her gaze as his head rested against the plane window, was incredibly smooth, with a bronzed sheen that was just begging to be touched. Long eyelashes fanned his cheeks and his lips were slightly parted. Temptingly so. You are annoyed with him, remember? That doesn’t go away just because he happens to be gut-wrenchingly gorgeous.
Cal was her most enduring memory, the one true constant in her life. No one else had stuck around. She had convinced herself he was her guardian angel, had even—she blushed now at the memory—daydreamed about him falling in love with her. Yet he was undeniably prickly about the label. If he wasn’t an angel, who was he? Or perhaps the question should be what was he? One thing was for sure, he was definitely flesh and blood right now. And his human form was doing something utterly primeval to her nerve endings. Nevertheless, the puzzle of his identity had never been far from her mind since she had first seen him at the beach. Considering what had been going on in her life just lately, it was quite remarkable that Cal managed to occupy so much of her thoughts.
She wondered if she should be more distressed at the events of the past few days. But, if she accepted the reality of Cal—and, throughout her life she had not just accepted him, she had welcomed him—then she had to also acknowledge that there was a whole paranormal world out there that she didn’t understand. It was true that the manifestation of it all at once in the form of gargoyles and Valkyries and Cal taking on this delectable human form was unbelievable. But perhaps there was a reason for that. La Casa Oscura might be within some sort of magnetic field or something. She still couldn’t get her head around how Moncoya, one of the most famous men in the world, could also find time to be the king of the faeries. More important, from a basic survival point of view...
“What the hell has any of this got to do with me?” She addressed the question to the sleeping beauty next to her. Cal didn’t stir.
Grudgingly, she had accepted his explanation about the credit card. “I have no idea what’s going to happen with Moncoya so we need to be prepared for any eventuality. I have a number of cards all in different names. It’s not exactly legal in the mortal realm, but it’s a necessity in the face of what our faerie friend might throw at us.”
She hadn’t asked the most obvious question about what Moncoya might throw at them. She had a feeling she might find that out the hard way. Instead, she’d gone for another, equally important, question. “Is Cal your real name?”
A heartbeat, nothing more, before he had answered her. “Yes.”
She had shown no further qualms about using the credit card again when, having left the car in the airport parking lot, they had checked in at a desk thronged with weary-looking tourists. “Our flight leaves at two a.m. Come on.” Cal had grabbed her wrist. “We’ve got time to get you some new clothes.” The nonexistent Emrys Jones had paid hefty airport terminal prices for skinny black jeans, sneakers and a light blue sweater. Hoodie, tacky plastic shoes, shorts and tank top had all been dumped in a restroom bin. It was a reminder that everything she owned was back at La Casa Oscura.
Now Stella was crammed into the narrow seats of the economy flight, with Cal’s broad shoulders overlapping her personal space and his long legs bent at an awkward angle so that his knees pressed against hers. They were about half an hour from landing in England and he’d been asleep since takeoff. She prodded him sharply in the ribs and he opened one eye.
“Nice to see you remain alert and watchful at all times, Mr. Protector.”
He yawned and stretched. “It’s an act.” Stella raised a skeptical eyebrow and he grinned. “Well, I fooled you, didn’t I?”
Stella cast a sidelong glance at the youth who sat on her other side. He had on headphones and was engrossed in his handheld game throughout the flight. “Tell me about Moncoya.”
“Moncoya has ruled the faeries for several centuries. He was not in the direct line of succession, nor was there ever any expectation that he would inherit the title. His claim was tenuous at best. In fact his only qualification, at that time, was his ruthlessness. Moncoya and his sidhes infiltrated the residence of the former king during a celebration. In the middle of the night, when everyone was sleeping, they rose up and slaughtered any who did not support them, including the king. Until that time, violence was not the faerie way. The faeries were thrown into total disarray, and Moncoya took advantage of the ensuing chaos to impose his will on them. He has ruled by fear ever since.”
Stella made a winding motion with one finger. “Go back a bit. What is a sidhe?”
“If you picture the faeries as a nation, a bit like Britain, then there are many nationalities within it. The sidhes make up the majority of the population. They are the ‘little people’ of Celtic legend.” Stella thought of Moncoya, who was just above her own height. “They are endowed with incredible physical beauty and are able to coexist with humans. Traditionally faeries have had the ability to shape-shift, but Moncoya frowns on it as it doesn’t fit with his modernizing ideals. Although Moncoya was elevated to the faerie gentry when he took the throne, he is a sidhe and he surrounds himself with loyal fellow sidhes.”
“So the party people at La Casa Oscura...?” Stella supposed she already knew the answer.
“Sidhes. They are Moncoya’s bodyguards.”
“I don’t understand how he can be the Ezra Moncoya he is in this world and also be the faerie king. You don’t get to build up one of the greatest games empires in the world without putting the hours in. If he has to keep dashing off to rule his faerie empire in Otherworld, I just can’t see how he manages it.”
Cal grinned. “It’s called magic. And Moncoya has such an iron grip on the faeries, he has no real opposition to his rule. He also has a very powerful weapon at his disposal...his two consorts.”
“Isn’t a consort like a queen? Does that mean he has two wives?”
“No. In Moncoya’s case his consorts are his daughters. He has trained his twin daughters, Tanzi and Vashti, to be his most powerful weapons.”
“What I don’t understand is why, if he has all this power over the faeries, he would want a presence here. Why bother with the pretense of being mortal at all, let alone this sexy, high-profile celebrity persona Moncoya has deliberately cultivated?”
Cal turned his head and gazed out the window for a moment. The plane was beginning its descent and, looking past his profile, Stella could see the lights of the towns and villages below them. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and curiously regretful. “That’s where you come in, Stella.”
“Finally.”
Cal turned back to look at her. “When I spoke of the beings who exist just beyond mortal sight, and who reside in the realm of Otherworld, there is one I did not mention. This one does not always choose to dwell in Otherworld. He, or she, will be born mortal and may, therefore, walk this mortal realm unnoticed. This, the most powerful of them all, is a rare and usually solitary being, with the ability to weave the most intricate of spells. Creating light within darkness, animating the bodies of the dead and exerting absolute control over the spirit realm. This being has no need of legions or battles, not when, with a single incantation, every undead entity within Otherworld and beyond will bow before this being in abject submission.”
Something about the solemnity of his expression made Stella’s heart flutter alarmingly. She tried to hide her nervousness by keeping her tone light. “Who is this being?”
“I’m speaking of the sorcerer known as a necromancer.” When she evinced no surprise, a slight frown creased his brow. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Sure have. Level Eight skills set. Very difficult to achieve. A couple of the guys in my halls at university managed it, but they were real stay-up-all-night-gaming geeks.” She laughed at his expression. “And you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
The frown vanished and he smiled in a slightly bemused, and utterly adorable, manner. “I really don’t.”
“‘Crypt Wars,’” Stella explained. When Cal still looked uncomprehending, she elaborated further. “It’s a computer game. Pretty basic stuff. You progress through the levels in turn and take on different forms as you do. The higher the level, the more powerful the being. Necromancer was Level Eight, just above fire-breathing dragons and just below carnivorous skeletons.”
“I’m not going to go into just how flawed that hierarchy is right now, but let me assure you that necromancers do exist outside the world of computer games. And necromancy is a spectrum, ranging from low-level skills such as conversing with the deceased to complete control over the undead, as I have described.”
“They do? How cool is that?” Stella fastened her seat belt. All around them the businesslike bustle of the plane preparing to land continued regardless of their strange conversation.
“Quite cool, until you realize the lengths to which each of these leaders would go in order to get a necromancer on their side.”
Stella thought carefully about it. “Oh, I see. If the vampire prince you mentioned, for instance, had a necromancer on his side, he could have a spell cast that would render Moncoya powerless to harm him. Powerless to do anything much at all, in fact.”
Cal shook his head. “Not quite. Moncoya is not undead, having never actually been alive in the mortal sense of the word. So, although a necromancer could have some control over him, it would not be absolute. The spell would work the other way around, however. If Moncoya got his hands on a necromancer, he could exert total control over the vampires, phantoms and therianthropes—or were-creatures as they have become known—within Otherworld as well as some of the lesser undead. It would also be possible, if necessary, to summon the earthly dead from their graves and raise an army of corpses. If Moncoya could do all of this, his dream of ruling all Otherworld would be realized.”
“A corpse army? How horrid!” Stella wrinkled her nose. “You said necromancers are rare, so I’m guessing none of the warring factions currently have one working with them.”
“Correct. You already have a very astute grasp of Otherworld politics, Stella. My sources tell me that Moncoya has uncovered the identity of possibly the most powerful necromancer of all time. The arrival of this unparalleled sorcerer was predicted centuries ago by another great necromancer, one whose very name has become enshrined in legend.”
“Who was that?”
“You would know him by the name he took during his time on earth. At that time, he called himself Merlin.”
“Well, yes. As sorcerers go, they don’t come much more well-known than Merlin,” Stella conceded. “You said necromancers are mortal, yet you just said he took the name Merlin here on earth. That implies he wasn’t human.”
“That’s because he wasn’t. Merlin was a hybrid. He was born of a mortal mother and a nonmortal father.”
“And there is really someone around today who Merlin predicted would come along and be this all-powerful necromancer? That’s mind-blowing stuff. I’m surprised he’s managed to keep it quiet. You’d think the press would be all over him like a rash. Talk about celebrity status.” Stella leaned across him as she spoke to look out the plane window. They were close enough to the ground now to see the lights of the individual cars, although, given that it was now the early hours of the morning, they were few and far between.
Cal’s breath was warm on her cheek when he spoke. “The necromancer of the prophecy is not yet aware of his or her own powers.”
“If that’s the case, how does Moncoya know who it is?”
“Merlin’s prophecies are well-known, but often cryptic. This one is no different.” Cal quoted the words, like a child remembering lines from a play. “When the three-tailed comet returns to Iberia’s skies and the brightest star has seen five and twenty harvests, then he who claims the heart of the necromancer star will unite the delightful plain. During Merlin’s time, Otherworld was referred to by many names, one of which was ‘the delightful plain.’” He was watching her face closely.
“You’re right. That is a pretty vague prophecy.” She leaned back in her seat. Cal’s eyes seemed to bore into her and she frowned, trying to get a sense of what he was attempting to convey to her. Her mind was stubbornly refusing to process what was behind his words. Part of her—a really big part, the biggest imaginable part—didn’t want to do this next bit. The plane wheels touched down in the same instant that it hit her like a punch in the gut.
“Oh, no. No. No.” She shook her head to punctuate the increasingly emphatic words. “Stella means star... And I’m twenty-five? And the comet appeared when I arrived in Spain... Iberia? Come on, Cal, this is all too far-fetched for words.”
In the end, it wasn’t the fact that he didn’t try to persuade her or even the trace of pity in the silver depths of his eyes that struck the most fear into her heart. Those things no longer mattered. Not when, just as the plane taxied to a halt and the passengers began to unbuckle their seat belts, she looked again at the youth next to her.
He smiled directly at her and she was momentarily dazzled by the faun-like perfection of his features. His eyes were his most striking feature. Even greener than her own, the irises had an outer ring of pure gold. As the implication of his beauty dawned on her, she turned to Cal. He was staring over her head at the young man. In the merest blink of an eye later, she looked back again. Despite the fact that the plane doors were still closed and the aisle was filled with passengers waiting to disembark, the youth had gone.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_c5baaf83-d5e7-5e26-afb9-d22163d65e3f)
“I don’t understand how he could be there one second and gone the next.” Stella was almost running to keep up with Cal’s long strides, but he didn’t indulge her by slowing down.
“A sidhe can move faster than you can blink.”
“Can they also make themselves invisible?”
“No. It’s much more likely he shifted. He will have simply changed his form and become one of the other passengers. Someone you wouldn’t look at twice. The harassed-looking woman over there whose roots are showing or the grumpy old guy with the cane.”
They were walking briskly, weaving through the throng of people, following the signs to passport control. “What does it mean? Him being there...sitting next to me?” Even to her own ears, Stella’s voice sounded very small.
“It’s a message from Moncoya. He’s letting us know we can’t hide from him. Keep hold of my hand.” As he spoke, Cal’s eyes were scanning the crowd constantly.
“Believe me, I have absolutely no intention of letting go.” To prove it, Stella twined her fingers more tightly between his.
“Shit.” This comment was dragged from him as he assimilated the fact that all of the automated passport control machines were out of order. Three manned desks were open and long, slow-moving lines had formed at each. They joined the end of one of these.
“This must be a coincidence. Surely?” Where had that nervous flutter in her voice come from?
“Perhaps.”
As words went, that one was less than reassuring. Stella cast an anxious look around her. The room was a huge, high-ceilinged, impersonal square. Other people were pouring in behind them so going back the way they had come was not an option. The only exits were beyond the barriers at which passengers had to display their passports. Two uniformed police officers stood to one side of the desks, surveying the crowd of people. In the line for the desk to the right of theirs, four young men clad in colorful ponchos and hand-knit alpaca sweaters caught Stella’s eye. They all carried panpipes and looked like walking advertisements for the Peruvian tourist industry. On closer inspection, it seemed they had not fully embraced the Andean lifestyle, since each one of them wore a headset beneath his wide-brimmed leather hat.
The line shuffled slowly forward. Stella was aware of the tension in Cal’s whole body that was somehow managing to communicate itself to her through the clasp of his hand. Turning to look at the line to their left, she was briefly distracted by the antics of what appeared to be a bachelorette party. Clad in tiaras, tutus and—bizarrely—galoshes, the six women looked as though they had been partying hard for days. “Have I missed some hot new trend? What is it with the headsets?” Stella wondered, noting that the women in the bridal group were all wearing them under their tiaras. Cal, tightly wound with inner tension, didn’t respond.
As more passengers surged in from newly arrived planes and the room became even more crowded, they were increasingly jostled. Still holding Stella’s hand in one of his, Cal also drew her close, sliding his other arm about her shoulders so that she was pressed up against the hard muscle of his chest. In spite of the circumstances, Stella took a moment to enjoy the sensation. “No matter how chaotic it gets, don’t move away from me.”
Stella glanced up at him, at the taut muscles of his jaw and the rigidity around his eyes. Was he tired, or was there something more to it?
Just then the poncho-wearing group shimmied closer and one of the men caught Stella’s eye. As he did so, he spoke into his mouthpiece. Immediately, the other three men turned in her direction. They were all remarkable for one thing. Their good looks. She glanced across at the women in the bachelorette party. The disheveled, hungover look of minutes earlier was gone. Each one of them could have been a glamour model, except for one fact. They were all tiny.
“Er, Cal...”
“I know. It doesn’t matter what they do, stay in contact with me.”
“There are police officers over there.” Obediently, Stella pressed herself tighter against him. “Can’t we go to them and explain what’s going on?”
“Stella, have you ever met a police officer shorter than you?” He was right. She glanced across at the two police officers, and one of them gave her a friendly wave. He was so handsome he might have just stepped out of a trailer as the romantic lead in a film. Sadly, his lack of inches meant he was never going to get that sort of starring role. Panic settled somewhere between her chest and her abdomen, making breathing difficult.
“What can we do?” They were completely surrounded now.
“If you are indeed the star Moncoya seeks—and you are the only one who doubts it, by the way—you can help me get us out of this.”
“How?” Stella shuddered as one of the tutu-clad women came within inches of them. Her lips drew back, showing very small, perfectly even white teeth. The expression was somewhere between a smile and a snarl. The ring of fire around her irises blazed bright.
“We will be stronger together.” Cal’s voice, usually the softly spoken, masculine tones of her childhood imagination, sounded completely different. Now, it had become a rich baritone, full of fire and majesty, echoing around the soulless room and bringing an abrupt end to the impromptu party. Stella looked up at him and watched in fascination as the silver light in his eyes shone more brilliantly than ever. The glow in their depths would shame the purest moon beams on the darkest night. It must be her imagination—of course it was—but it was almost as if the concentrated beam from Cal’s gaze was brightening the room, shimmering and glistening on each object it touched.
From nowhere, her invisible friend, Cal, had been transformed into a commanding presence of mountain-shattering proportions. Without moving, or speaking, he was dominating everything around him, and the sidhes promptly abandoned any further attempt to disguise their identity. Hissing and showing their teeth, they drew back slightly. Beauty really is only skin-deep, Stella thought. She was surprised she could string a coherent thought together at all, let alone make it a flippant one. Other passengers, sensing the sudden change in mood, also began to distance themselves.
The air around the two of them seemed to thicken and quiver. Stella had the oddest feeling that, if she reached out a finger, she would encounter a springy resistance. It was like being encased in invisible Bubble Wrap. Stella and Cal were alone, surrounded by a circle of irate sidhes and a more distant ring of wary onlookers.
“We’re out of here. Nobody is going to stop us.” Cal spoke again, still in that incredible, Shakespearean voice. Keeping his arm around Stella so that she walked in step with him, he began to move toward the passport desk. Nobody did stop them.
“Majesty will come for his star,” one of the poncho-wearing sidhes, braver than his fellows, whined at them as they passed.
“Majesty can fuck off.”
A collective seething rasp rose up around them. “Galdre. Deófolwítga.” Memories came flooding back to Stella. It was the language of the monster under the bed.
They had reached the desk now. Stella looked nervously at the immigration officer, seated in his booth. She had a horrible fear he might be handsome enough to take her breath away. He wasn’t. He was middle-aged, balding and looked as if he wanted to be elsewhere. Probably tucked in his bed. He also seemed oblivious to the jittery atmosphere, merely gesturing through the thick glass panel for them to step forward.
“My girlfriend is feeling unwell. These people were good enough to let us come through before them,” Cal said, and Stella was relieved to hear his voice lower several tones and approach something like normality. He held his passport out to the official on the desk and gestured for Stella to do the same. “Thanks, guys.” He raised his hand in a friendly wave to the line of people behind them as they passed through the barrier. Gripping Stella’s hand hard, he marched toward the two sidhes dressed as police officers. They moved to block the exit.
Looking down at Stella’s worried expression, he grinned. “That was fun. Ready for the hard part?”
* * *
Confronting a couple of angry sidhes in a public place, with a crowd of Moncoya’s foot soldiers snapping at his heels, would not have been Cal’s first choice of ways to give Stella an introductory lesson in how to deal with the threat posed by the faeries. A quick glance around showed he had no choice. Despite the early hour, this was an international airport going about its business. There were so many people milling around that the chances of bystanders getting caught in the cross fire were high. Doubtless the sidhes were counting on that. Cal’s reputation for protecting the innocent was well-known. Moncoya had derided him for it often enough. All of Cal’s ingenuity as well as his powers were going to be needed if he was to get Stella out of this and away to safety while ensuring no one else got hurt.
Those thoughts took seconds to flash through his mind as he and Stella walked toward the exit. The two sidhe police officers remained in place, blocking their path. A family with young children was just behind them.
Cal was unconvinced about the concept of fate. He had met the three goddesses who sat at their spindles spinning the threads of human destiny. His opinion of their motives and effectiveness wasn’t high. Perhaps it was because they were condemned to a dull, lonely spinster’s life for all eternity, but, in his many centuries of experience, he had discovered that they enjoyed making mortals suffer. Cal was of the school of thought that believed people made their own destiny. It helped if, like him, one wasn’t mortal, in which case the influence of the goddesses was hugely reduced. At that precise moment, however, he could have kissed one, or even all three, of the ancient crones. Because, for once, they chose to intervene at exactly the right moment.
As Cal and Stella got within a few feet of the exit, the mechanized doors swung inward. This startled the two sidhes, who had been standing with their backs against the panels. One of them began to protest, but the words died on his lips as three real police officers strode into the hall and paused just inside, looking around. Cal could tell they were genuine law enforcement officers. For one thing they were as tall as him. And none of them could, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as pretty.
“...reports of a commotion down here,” one of the officers was saying to his companion. He barely glanced at the sidhes. “Probably nothing, but the sergeant wants it checked out.”
“Come on.” Not waiting to hear any more, Cal dragged Stella with him, past the police officers, through the doors and into the arrivals hall.
He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Freedom, and the opportunity to lose themselves on a bus or train or in a taxi, was just yards away. As they made their way past the crowds waiting at the luggage carousels, Cal could feel dozens of eyes following them. He was willing to bet that most of those eyes bore a fiery ring around the outer edge of their irises. Sure enough, as soon as he moved toward the set of doors that would lead them to the outside world, a crowd of passengers—each of them predictably short in stature—moved into place, barring their way.
Cal slowed in his stride, casting around himself for something—anything—that would help them escape. To one side of the arrivals hall there was an official motor cart. It had been hooked up to an electric charging station.
“What are you doing?” Stella cast a look over her shoulder. “They are coming through. We need to make a run for it or we’ll be surrounded.”
He threw a quick glance behind him and caught a glimpse of colorful ponchos and pink tutus. Hauling Stella with him, he made for the vehicle.
“Jump in.” Even though the look she gave him was one of pure horror, he was profoundly glad when she did as he asked. He unplugged the vehicle from its charging dock and squeezed into the seat next to her. His knees came up almost to his chin in the cramped space.
“You’re going to have to supercharge this thing to get it past that lot.” Her eyes were huge and very dark green as she nodded in the direction of the doors, where the sidhes were now converging, waiting for them. There were a few anticipatory grins cast their way.
“I knew you were a girl after my own heart.” Cal grinned down at her. “Hold tight.”
“Hold tight?” Her expression was incredulous. “You don’t seriously think this thing is going faster than we can walk, do you?”
Cal didn’t reply. Instead, he focused his attention on the connection his foot made with the cart’s pedal. Summoning all his supernatural energy—now was not the time to screw things up—he intoned slowly and forcefully, “Onettan. Swiftnes.” The machine lurched, its electrical engine whirring loudly. He exhaled a sigh of pure relief as it raced across the tiled floor, gathering speed as it went.
“Cal, did you just tell this thing to go fast?” The cart was practically flying now, its tires burning rubber as it hurtled toward the sidhes. Stella lurched against him in the confined space. “And—my God, I can’t believe I’m actually going to ask this—did it understand you?”
“No. It’s only working through me. If I take my foot off the pedal, it will go back to the way it was.” All around them, sidhes were diving out of the way of the speeding machine. “Once we’re through the doors, get ready to jump.”
The automatic doors opened as the luggage cart approached, and Cal had time to assimilate the surprised faces of several taxi drivers on the pavement as they charged through the gap and out into the open air.
“Now!” He dived off one side and saw Stella go the other way. The cart made a startled whirring noise and ground to a halt in the middle of the road, causing a minibus to swerve around it. Leaping to his feet, Cal grabbed Stella’s hand. “You okay?”
She nodded and they broke into a run. Cal decided that making for the train or bus station within the airport complex would be too dangerous. Better to get away from the area completely and find another way into the transport system.
The pavement sloped away from the airport building and they were close to a multistory parking ramp when the two sidhes disguised as police officers emerged from its entrance. Cal looked over his shoulder. If they turned back, the dozens of sidhes in the arrivals hall would be waiting for them.
He stopped. The sidhes were mere feet away. Twin smiles lit their fiery eyes. They took several steps closer.
Cal raised his hand. “Fýrwylm.”
Flames shot from his fingertips toward the sidhes, showering them with sparks. Their smiles disappeared and were replaced by wary looks.
“That the best you’ve got, galdre?” Although the sidhe licked his lips nervously, he took a step closer.
“No. He’s got me.” Stella placed her hand over Cal’s. “What do I need to do?”
“That’s my girl,” he murmured, grinning down at Stella. “Think with me. Match your thoughts to mine.”
He could see the concentration on her face. Her brow furrowed with the effort. Then he felt it. A surge of power, like a jolt of electricity, pulsed through Cal’s body. This time when he raised his hand, together with Stella’s, the bolt from his fingertips resembled a flamethrower. He had known she would be strong, but this was beyond even his expectations.
“Fýrwylm.” Stella repeated the word he had used, and the flames burned even brighter. Muttering, the sidhes shrank back. “What language am I speaking?”
“Anglo-Saxon, the oldest form of the English language.” Cal led her forward, clearing their way by spreading a circle of fire ahead of them.
“How do you say bastard?”
Cal started to laugh. “It was the same word then that it is now. Or you can say dóc, which means illegitimate mongrel.” He didn’t add that he’d been called that himself a time or two over the centuries. Usually by Moncoya.
“Okay. Fýrwylm, you sidhe bastards.”
There were shouts now from the airport building and the sound of sirens. The two sidhe police officers had disappeared.
“Time to go.” Cal urged Stella into a run again. There was no way he wanted to have to explain what was going on to a genuine police officer.
“Did I really just do that?” Stella held her hand in front of her face, studying it as she ran.
“You did.” He looked back to see police cars and fire engines converging on the multistory parking ramp.
“What else can I do?”
“Let’s get away from here to somewhere safe. Then I can show you.” He smiled down at her, catching her hand and pulling her through a hedge into a field. “Or maybe you can show me.”
Chapter 7 (#ulink_aea9f052-d0ac-5894-bd5d-e7af84bcf287)
Stella slumped into a seat in the café. Despite the fact that she had not eaten for—she frowned in an effort to concentrate—over twenty-four hours, the sight of the tea and muffin Cal placed in front of her caused her stomach to pitch and roll uncomfortably. And it wasn’t just the lack of food, of course. A night with no sleep and the need for a long, hot shower were also taking their toll. Oh, and the vicious, bloodthirsty faeries who were on her trail. Yep, that lot would destroy your appetite anytime.
“Eat it.” Cal’s voice was stern as she pushed the plate aside.
“Where are we again?” She hadn’t really taken much notice of the signs as, wearily, she’d followed him from the train after a five-and-a-half-hour journey.
“Carmarthen.” Stella regarded him blankly and he elaborated. “It’s in South Wales.”
“I know where it is. I just don’t understand why we’re here.” There was a rising note of unaccustomed fretfulness in her voice. Stella didn’t like it and decided to drown it with tea. The brew was strong and slightly too hot. Its effect was revivifying and she sat up straighter.
“It’s on our way.” The café was set in a side street adjacent to the station. It was the first place they had come across after leaving the train. It was quiet now and Stella couldn’t imagine that it would get much busier once lunchtime arrived in the next hour. Two elderly women lingered over tea and cake at a table near the window and a man in overalls was reading a newspaper and eating bacon and eggs. The proprietor, a sour-faced woman, who appeared to derive very little joy from her chosen business, was watching the news on a television set with the sound turned down.
“On our way. That’s really helpful, Cal. On our way to where exactly?” The tea had gone some way toward restoring her appetite and Stella bit into the muffin. Its sweetness jarred her teeth but she could almost feel it sending a boost of energy directly into her bloodstream.
“The only place where I know for sure I can keep you safe.”
“Cal, I really cannot get my head around this. If I am a necromancer—let alone the necromancer of Merlin’s prophecy—wouldn’t I have known about it before now?”
He took her hand and Stella was conscious of the muffin crumbs and stickiness adhering to her fingers. His eyes, those beautiful, strange eyes, were probing her face. Wanting something from her, but she wasn’t sure what. “Don’t you know it?”
She started to shake her head, then stopped. His expression caught her attention and snagged on something deep inside her subconscious. It was as if a domino knockdown had been set in motion inside her head. One tiny memory triggered another, until the whole series fell into place. “Oh, my God, Cal.”
His voice was infinitely gentle. “When you were four years old, not long after your parents died, you were placed with a family in Suffolk. Do you remember?”
“I’m starting to.” Don’t make me do this. The images, so long buried, were scrambling to the surface now with a vengeance.
“It wasn’t your fault, Stella. You just told them what you saw.” Cal ran his thumb back and forth over her hand.
Unshed tears burned her eyes. “Imagine how they felt, those people who took me into their home. Their own little girl had died six years earlier. She was run over, and they couldn’t have any more children. They were supposed to be my forever family. Instead, on my very first night in their home, I told them I’d seen their daughter standing at the foot of my bed. I knew her name, described every horrific detail of her injuries—” she gulped in a mouthful of air “—I told them she blamed them for her death. No wonder they couldn’t launch me back to the children’s home fast enough.” She blinked the tears away. “How did I manage to shut that out of my mind for all these years?”
“Because it was bad. Because you didn’t want to remember something that hurt you so much.”
She hung her head. “It wasn’t the only time.”
“No. It’s the reason you never found a permanent home.”
Stella gave a wobbly laugh. “And I thought it was because I couldn’t stay out of trouble.”
“I think that was a big part of it, too. No one knew how to handle the little whirlwind who flooded their house or painted their dog blue and then had long conversations with their dead grandma.”
“Except you. You never abandoned me.”
He reached out a hand and ran his knuckles down her cheek. His touch heated her face as though there was some residual fire remaining from all the flame-throwing antics back at the airport. “I never will.” He laughed, lightening the mood. “I happen to think the world needs more blue dogs.”
Stella studied one of her hands as if she had never seen it before. It was the hand she knew so well. Small, with artistically narrow fingers and neat, unvarnished nails. It was hard to believe it was the same hand that had wreaked havoc on the sidhes just hours earlier. “So I really am a necromancer? I’ve been so successful at hiding those instincts that allow me to see dead people that I’d almost forgotten I had them. But there must be a world of difference between that and being able to summon the spirits of the dead, surely?”
“It’s simply a matter of honing the skills you already have. Even the finest necromancers have to practice their art.”
“I still don’t understand how Moncoya made the link between Merlin’s prophecy and me.”
“He has been looking for you for a very long time. He knew, of course, when the three-tailed comet would come. And he thinks you sent him a sign.”
“Me? No way...wait. Oh, hell. It must be the game, ‘Supernova Deliverance.’” Stella pulled in another deep, steadying breath. Cal took hold of her hand again, and the warmth of his palm on hers was comforting. She focused on that. “When I wanted to crowd fund the game, Moncoya saw an outline of my idea. That was what prompted him to offer me the job. The main character has powers like those you described and...well, let me show you.” She took out her phone. Before she could get the game up on the screen, the woman behind the counter turned the television volume up louder, distracting her.
“Manchester airport remains closed after a possible terrorist attack early this morning.” The news anchor’s brisk tones accompanied images of a line of fire engines outside the multistory parking garage’s smoke-damaged exterior. “Details remain unclear and police have said it is too soon to speculate about who is responsible. They wish to speak to this man and woman in connection with the incident.” Images of Cal and Stella checking in at Girona airport filled the screen. The images were grainy, but unmistakable. “The public are urged not to approach this couple, who may be armed, but to contact the police immediately with any information.”
Stella glanced from the television screen to the woman behind the counter. She was staring back at them with panic in her eyes as she spoke into her phone.
* * *
“This is the last leg of the journey. We’re almost there.”
Cal could see that Stella was flagging. Her face was pale with weariness, her mouth set in a grimly determined line. She hadn’t said much when they left the café, simply following in Cal’s wake as he had thrown the money for their food and drink down on the table and made a swift exit. She hadn’t even asked where they were going as they made their way past the ice-cream-colored buildings and along the narrow streets of the oldest town in Wales.
“What’ll it be?” he had asked, running a hand through his distinctive mop of chestnut hair. “Shave it off or get a hat?”
“Hat,” she’d replied, with a look of horror. And that was why, despite the bright sunlight, he was wearing a knitted skullcap pulled low over his ears. Stella, who at least was dressed in different clothing from that in the police photographs, had purchased it for him from a craft stall on the town’s outdoor market. They passed through this bustling thoroughfare on their way out of Carmarthen and into the countryside beyond.
“Shouldn’t we go to the police and at least try to explain what happened?” Stella asked now as they trudged up a steep hillside.
“How do you propose we start that conversation?”
She chuckled and the sound chased away some of his own weariness. “How about we just take a couple of corpses with us and let them do the talking?”
“Spoken like a true necromancer. Seriously, going to the police is exactly what Moncoya wants us to do. Think about it, Stella. He would like nothing more than to get you away from me. What more effective way to do that than to get us both placed in police custody?”
“You think he’s behind this terrorist nonsense?”
“I know he is. You have no idea what he’s capable of. I, on the other hand, know him only too well. If we were arrested, the first thing that would happen is that the police would place us in separate cells. That would suit his evil majesty right down to the tips of his highly polished fingernails.” His mouth was a hard, thin line. It was what tended to happen whenever Moncoya was the subject of conversation.
“Couldn’t you get us out of a police cell?” She reached out a hand for his, and although he felt the gesture was automatic, it tugged at something deep inside him. Something that had not been touched in a very long time.
They had arrived at the summit of the hill now. Cal paused and smiled down at her. He would never get tired of looking at her heart-shaped face with its huge green eyes and that incredibly expressive mouth. It was a mouth that could do sulky and sultry like no other he’d ever seen. Right now, it was breaking into a grin that was half shy, half teasing. “Of course I could get us out, but do you want to be on the run for the rest of your life?”
The grin vanished. “Isn’t that what we are doing now? This feels a lot like running to me.”
“We were coming here anyway. This was part of my plan, not Moncoya’s.”
“To come to the top of a hill in Wales?” Stella eyed him with obvious suspicion. “Don’t tell me, I’m going to become a wild woman of the woods.”
“Close. Come on.” Keeping hold of her hand, he pulled her with him as he began to descend the other side of the hill. This place had that effect on him. It refreshed him. That was the reason he always came back. Coming here with Stella was something he had never envisioned. Would she be able to sense how special it was? Why did it matter so much that she should? The questions became superfluous as, apparently infected by his pleasure, Stella broke into a run. Pulling him with her, she laughed as they picked up speed and the summer breeze cleansed their faces of the long, weary hours of traveling.
“Stop, you madwoman.” He pulled her to a halt. “We’re not going all the way to the bottom.”
They were about halfway down the slope and Cal led Stella into a small, dense copse. In the darkest part of this wooded tangle, he pulled aside thick fronds of overhanging ivy, uncovering the concealed entrance to a cave. The white limestone rock was barely visible beneath its covering of lichen. Even if a rambler chanced to wander off the hill path and into the trees, in this gloomy light the person would walk right past the cave. You had to know what you were looking for. More important, you had to be looking with the right eyes.
He felt suddenly nervous as he waited for Stella’s reaction. The arched entrance to the cave was high enough to walk through upright, and she studied this in silence for long moments. Then she turned to him with eyes that sparkled with excitement. “Can we go in?”
The entrance led them into a small cavern. It was large enough for Cal to stand upright inside it, but he could have stretched out his arms and touched both walls. Reaching up into a natural shelf in the rock, he took down a flashlight. Beyond it, the cave narrowed and Cal led Stella into the gloom, shining the light ahead of him.
“Just keep one hand on the wall and watch your step. The floor is uneven in places.”
They walked for a minute before the corridor opened out into a large circular space. The beam of the flashlight illuminated the scene. There was an old sofa and two chairs, a bookshelf and a table. Stella took in these details, blinking at Cal in surprise. “Someone lives here?”
“We do. For the time being.” Cal handed her the light and went over to the bookshelf. Taking down two old-fashioned oil lamps, he set about lighting them. Soon there was a warm, strangely homely glow about the place.
“No, seriously.” He glanced up from his task, holding her gaze. “You are being serious.”
“I told you I was bringing you to the only place I knew I could keep you safe. This is it.”
Stella flopped down onto one of the chairs. “After the hours of traveling, revelations and confrontation, in spite of the fact we’re in a cave, this actually feels incredibly comfortable. Where will we sleep?”
Cal pointed to an arch in the cave wall. “The bedroom is through there. I’ll take the sofa.”
“And this may be a bit of a girlie thing but...”
“There is no bathroom.” He started to laugh at her expression. “There is a stream just outside. It flows down into a deep pool. As long as you don’t mind the cold, it’s perfect for bathing. This cave has been inhabited on and off for centuries, so there is even a well for drinking water.”
“I was actually thinking of something more basic than bathing.” Even in the flickering golden lamplight, he could see that she was blushing.
“It is a bit primitive, I’m afraid. Think Victorians and chamber pots.”
Stella lowered her head into her hands and, as he observed her shaking shoulders, Cal had a horrible feeling that she might have started to cry. When she looked up, her face was a picture of laughter.
“In the space of twenty-four hours we’ve become desperate fugitives from justice.”
He studied her in concern. “Can you get used to it? This is the one place I guarantee Moncoya won’t come.” Just don’t ask me how I know that.
“I can get used to anything if I can get my head down right now and go to sleep.”
“Come with me.” He held out his hand and pulled her up from the chair. Carrying one of the lamps, he led her through to where a bed fitted neatly into what turned out to be a small alcove in the cave wall. Cal dragged a large trunk out from under it and took clean pillows and bedding out of that.
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Jane Godman
Secrets and seduction…When Stella Fallon moves to Spain for her dream job, she never suspects that a cataclysmic confrontation is looming. Or that she is the last in an ancient line of sorcerers. Now, her rare powers put her at risk.The only one who can protect Stella is a man she once thought her guardian angel. Cal becomes humanbut his centuries-old secret could destroy her trust.But as the pair prepare for a battle of epic magnitude, they cannot deny their white-hot attraction…
He was beautiful.
It was not a word Stella usually associated with men, but it suited him. Don’t keep staring at the gorgeous mouth, she told herself firmly. It was his eyes that drew her most strongly. They were every bit as mesmerizing as she remembered. In the shade they were the color of a faded eucalyptus leaf. As he looked away into the sunlight, they shone like silver coins.
Forcing herself to focus, she asked the first of the many questions that jostled for a place on her lips.
“Why have you appeared to me now?”
That broke the spell. A slight frown creased his brow and he pulled his eyes away from hers. “Because you are in grave danger.”
JANE GODMAN writes in a variety of genres including paranormal, gothic and historical romance, and erotic romantic suspense. She also enjoys the occasional foray into horror and thriller writing. Jane lives in England and loves to travel to European cities, which are steeped in history and romance—Venice, Dubrovnik and Vienna are among her favorites.
A teacher, Jane is married to a lovely man and is mum to two grown-up children.
Otherworld
Protector
Jane Godman
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
While writing this book I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I’m one of the lucky ones. My tumor is low-grade and slow-growing. I’d like to dedicate this book to my fellow brain tumor fighters and those who care for and support us.
Contents
Cover (#u67f2f30d-c767-5509-a040-6e1e5f4e901a)
Introduction (#uce8bf07f-ba3c-522d-ac7e-609a5bcef5e3)
About the Author (#uca780df4-3a76-57b6-9ec6-900f7863cd7a)
Title Page (#u3ce0c8ba-f57d-5143-a7a4-f91e7a7ed6da)
Dedication (#u684d952c-7673-5c72-8a7c-4c824a0395e9)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_3b5a37c7-6a57-5347-8f2f-dd8fa80839d1)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_cbb9eea0-e44d-5ea8-9bbd-cc7078358360)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_146e845a-6650-5b00-960a-890b2a517f85)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_8751c988-0000-528c-9d13-5a0f95de71bb)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_93017369-23ca-5f5b-925d-bb5a643cef75)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_59419d4a-eecc-5a71-acb0-abd676c1097a)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_eb0e8fed-c59d-5539-ac09-3d894784b3d6)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_b7277ce4-85dc-5648-a87f-f302bda2867d)
Stella Fallon was in the process of discovering that there is nothing so hysteria inducing as the realization that you have given up your job and traveled to a new country, spending every penny of your savings in the process, in pursuit of a dream that doesn’t exist. Okay, so it had been a crap job. And the savings had just about covered her plane ticket. As she stared up at the vast crumbling mansion, these extenuating circumstances did not provide Stella with one single morsel of comfort. If the house was empty—and it certainly looked that way—she was officially homeless, jobless and, once she had paid the taxi fare, had exactly one hundred euros to her name.
“This is the right house, senorita. For sure.” The driver repeated the statement he had made a few minutes earlier. While his tone was patient, his eyes were wary as they met hers in the rearview mirror. Possibly he could sense her rising panic. He might even have been cursing the fact that, from the long line of eager tourists and experienced businessmen waiting for taxis at the airport that night, he was the one who ended up with this quirky-looking girl. Whatever his emotions might be, he was clearly fearful of not getting his cash and impatient at being kept waiting now that he had delivered her to her destination.
“It can’t be.” Although the driver had spoken in Spanish, she responded in English and he made a helpless, uncomprehending gesture. Stella corrected her mistake. “No es posible.”
“Sí. This is the address you gave me. La Casa Oscura—” he gestured into the pitch-blackness beyond the car windows “—it is well-known in this city.”
La Casa Oscura. The Dark House. Except it shouldn’t be dark. According to the emails Stella had received, it should be lit up in welcome for her. Or, if “lit up” might be construed as an overenthusiastic approach to greeting a new junior employee, there should at least have been some sign of life. There was none.
“You want me to take you to a hotel in the city center for tonight? That way you can come back in the morning. Check the place out in daylight.”
The suggestion made sense, and Stella was about to dent her precious hundred euros further and agree. That was when she felt it. Felt him. There was the familiar flicker of movement on the outer edge of her vision. She knew from experience there was no point in trying to capture it. He existed only on the periphery. Looking directly at him would cause him to disappear. But it was enough. Well-being, warm, mellow and welcome flooded her veins. Her protector was here.
“No.” Taking out her wallet, she counted out the right number of notes for the fare and added a tip.
“I can wait here until you are inside,” the driver offered as he pocketed the money. Stella could almost see him assessing the possibility of being featured as the bad guy in the following day’s tabloid headlines.
Cabbie abandoned lone Brit-girl tourist at death house, saying “I wanted my supper!”
“I’ll be fine,” Stella assured him and he shrugged a doubtful shoulder. She could hardly explain her newfound bravado to him. As she clambered out of the car, juggling her backpack and laptop case, the driver hauled her wheeled suitcase out of the trunk. With a final glance over his shoulder and shrug, he returned to the car. Stella waited for him to drive off before she turned to look up at the house. The darkness here on the hillside above the city was so all-encompassing that what she saw was the outline of the hulking building and none of its detail. First impressions were everything, and this one definitely didn’t feel comforting.
Although the house itself, like its name, was cloaked in obscurity, there was enough light from the street lamps for Stella to make her way unhindered through the vast wrought-iron gates. Thoughts of medieval prisons and torture chambers sprang into her mind. All useful ideas for future game projects, she assured herself, making a mental note. Her feet crunched onto a gravel drive. This, in turn, opened out onto a large, paved square and Stella noticed, with a feeling of profound relief, that there were several cars and motorbikes parked to one side of this area. In the darkness, she could not distinguish makes or models. One of the cars was definitely low-slung, sleek and probably expensive. Moncoya expensive? At the very least, the cars were evidence that the house might not be an abandoned ruin, after all.
Stella commenced a crab-like gait—dragging the huge suitcase, backpack and laptop bag—across the square to the house. As she did, her movements triggered a series of blindingly bright, fluorescent floodlights. It was surreal. If she looked up, would she see a hovering UFO? Or would she be surrounded by armed guards, dressed in black uniforms emblazoned with the gold Moncoya Enterprises M, and made to lie facedown on the ground while they searched her luggage for signs that she was a spy for a rival company?
Reminding herself that a fertile imagination was a necessity, not a liability, in her line of work, Stella continued up to the now clearly visible front door. This was a huge, green-painted structure, set within a vast facade of faded terra-cotta stone. The floodlights cast an eerie gloom that made the house appear to be suspended in space.
Stella didn’t quite know what she had expected. Relocation to Senor Moncoya’s Barcelona residencia will be a requirement of the post. That was what the email had said. Since she’d have agreed to anything—Relocation to the moon? Where do I sign?—for a job with Moncoya, she hadn’t really thought this bit through. Story of your life, she told herself as she pressed the bell next to the front door. No wonder that peripheral protector of yours has to work overtime.
The door was opened, not—as a tiny part of her had hoped—by Ezra Moncoya himself, but by a grungy-looking youth with dreadlocks and a beard that was plaited.
“You must be Stella,” he said, throwing the door wide as he grabbed her suitcase and laptop bag. “We’ve been expecting you.”
As she stepped across the doorstep into the vast white-and-chrome foyer, Stella knew her first impression had been wrong. She was in the most right place she had ever been.
* * *
Cal watched as Stella stepped over the doorstep of La Casa Oscura and the door closed behind her. As if the house itself was swallowing her up. He chided himself for the overimaginative foolishness of such thoughts. He had always known that this time would come—had known it since a time long before Stella’s birth. This precise moment was the reason he had taken the assignment, even though watching over mortals was beneath him in so many ways. Nevertheless, he had to take a moment to wonder at the staggering recklessness of his charge. Unlike Cal, Stella had no idea of who she was, of either her lineage or her destiny. So surely a little bit of caution would not have gone amiss in the circumstances.
He smiled reminiscently. She had always been the same. Even from the earliest age, the little girl with the spiky blue-black hair and wide green eyes had been a trouble magnet, hurling herself from one dangerous situation to the next with a bring-it-on fist pump and a grin. Her behavior had been so far outside Cal’s expectations that, on Stella’s sixth birthday, he had sought an audience to request advice on the matter.
“Never doubt the gravity of what lies ahead. For her or for you.” The Dominion, one of the leading angels of the fourth choir, had worn the traditional long gown, hitched with a golden belt. As a symbol of the seriousness in which he held his task of regulating the duties of lower angels, he had carried a golden staff in his right hand and the seal of his office in his left. Although Cal was easily equal in rank and power to the Dominion, by that time he had been fighting on the side of the angels for so long he always felt slightly overawed by such overt symbols of celestial authority. “When you joined us, you were handed the most demanding of tasks. Now, through this girl, yours is the responsibility for ensuring that peace is restored so that the border between the living realm and Otherworld remains intact.”
“I understand and have gladly accepted the burden you placed upon me. It is just—” Cal had thought back to the escapade that had prompted him to request this meeting. It hadn’t been that bad, he had reasoned. No one had been injured. The truck driver should have known better than to leave his vehicle unlocked with the keys in the ignition. And who’d have thought the skinny little girl Stella had been back then would have been able to get the hand brake off anyway? “I had not anticipated that a major part of my role would be to keep her alive until the prophecy can be fulfilled.”
“You must do whatever it takes,” the Dominion had assured him with a dignity that befitted his position.
So he had. What he hadn’t known then was how much he would enjoy it. Even now, nineteen years after the “do whatever it takes” conversation with the Dominion, Cal still found Stella’s cheeky grin irresistible. He’d broken a few rules along the way. They both had. There had been occasions when he’d had no choice but to materialize to help her out. It wasn’t exactly forbidden, it was just not recommended. Distance was the key to a successful relationship between protector and charge. The difference for them was that, unlike other mortals, Stella was conscious of Cal’s presence even when he didn’t appear before her in human form. That caused him some anxiety. She should not have been aware of him, of course. That wasn’t normal. But Stella was not an ordinary charge. And he had just watched his far-from-average charge walk into the situation he had dreaded since the day she was born.
The time had come. The prophecy was about to be realized at last. While the coming change in their relationship saddened him, Cal’s fighting spirit was roused by the prospect of action. This moment signaled the transformation they had all been waiting for. Casting a glance heavenward at the unusual formation streaking the sky with its three golden tails, he moved through the thick terra-cotta wall and followed his charge into La Casa Oscura. Or—as it was known throughout Otherworld—Moncoya’s lair.
* * *
“This place is amazing.” Stella placed her backpack down and turned in a circle to get the full effect. The faded beauty of the neoclassical facade she had glimpsed outside was in complete contrast to the stark modernity of the interior. The entire lower floor of La Casa Oscura was one vast, open-plan room and the whole of the rear wall was glass, affording a soaring, dramatic view across the nighttime city. At opposite right angles to this, another full wall was taken up with rows of computers and games consoles, each of which was linked to its own enormous plasma screen. Circular seating islands had been created at random intervals, breaking up the white-tiled floor space. In one corner, there was a sensory area with bubble tubes, soft lighting and—Stella noted as she completed her twirl—two men asleep on large beanbags. A shelf lined with hundreds of glass jars, filled with every kind of sweet, cookie and candy imaginable, sat alongside a soft drinks machine. It was a grown-up playroom.
The man who had opened the door to Stella nodded his agreement and gestured to the drinks machine.
“Get you something? I’m Diego, by the way.”
Stella accepted a bottle of chilled water gratefully. “Do you live here?”
Diego snorted. “Only the privileged few get to actually stay here in la casa. The rest of us drop by when there is a big project to work on or a deadline to be met.” He nodded in the direction of the sleeping men. “Thirty-six hours straight. We’ve been trying to iron out a kink in a new games title. Just about cracked it. Some people can’t take the pace. So you’re the crowd fund girl Moncoya’s been raving about.”
Stella felt a blush tinge her cheeks. Moncoya and raving were not words she ever thought to hear put together and then applied to her. It was the stuff of every gamer’s fantasy. “Is he here?” She tried not to sound too eager.
“Moncoya? He doesn’t greet new employees in person, you know.”
Her enthusiasm popped like bubble gum on a pin. Of course he didn’t. How stupid of her to ask. Just as she was about to stammer out an apology for her foolishness, the front door opened and, with perfect timing, Ezra Moncoya walked in. Even if Stella had not spent an obsessive amount of time doing internet searches for her new employer over the past week, she would have known him anywhere. Let’s face it, she thought, looking into the most unusual eyes she had ever seen, unless you had lived as a hermit in a remote cave for the past twenty years, you could not fail to recognize Ezra Moncoya. And to an aspiring games designer, Moncoya was a god. He had been Stella’s idol for as long as she could remember. While the other girls in the children’s home had pictures of boy bands on their bedroom walls, Stella had Moncoya advertising posters, snippets cut from magazines and game covers.
He was of less than average height with a slight build, but Moncoya’s presence instantly filled the vast room. He wore evening dress, but managed to bring a touch of his unique flair to the conventional outfit. Tuxedo and trousers in midnight blue were perfectly contoured to his slender physique, and he wore a cravat in place of a bow tie. It was his face, however, that drew—no, commanded—Stella’s attention. It was a face that graced the cover of thousands of electronics periodicals as well as the gossip pages of every international newspaper and magazine. Moncoya’s chiseled beauty was legendary, almost as well-known as his sexual prowess, but nothing had prepared Stella for the reality of the man. How had she reached the age of twenty-five without knowing you really could have your breath taken away by the presence of another human being? Moncoya ran a hand through his signature mane of tousled, morning-after hair, its highlights ranging from honey gold to caramel. The diamond studs in his ears caught the light. Until that instant Stella would have laughed if someone had told her she could find a man who wore black nail polish and blue eyeliner attractive.
It was those eyes that drew her in and captured her, she decided. Bluer than a summer evening, the irises were edged with gold as if encircled by fire. The effect was devastating. Once you looked into Moncoya’s eyes, you couldn’t look away. Not even if your life depended on it. She shook the foolish, intrusive thought away.
It didn’t seem to concern Moncoya in the slightest that Diego, after an initial blink of shock at his employer’s entrance, had faded away, leaving them alone. Or that, without the benefit of an introduction, a girl he had never met was gazing at him in spellbound silence across a distance of several feet. A slight smile touched his lips and he moved forward, holding out both hands.
“Stella Fallon. You are everything I hoped you would be.” It seemed a strange comment since, in those few seconds, she had no way of demonstrating the abilities for which he had hired her. Such was the force of his personality that she took the outstretched hands. The oddest feeling, like a slight electric shock, shimmered from her fingertips then tingled throughout her whole body at his touch.
Get a grip, Stella. He probably has this effect on women all the time. Stella collected herself with some difficulty. “Senor Moncoya, I want to thank you...”
He had gone. Releasing her hands, he strode away to the glass wall at the rear of the room. Stella hesitated. Away from the power of those eyes, doubt washed over her. Was that it? Was she dismissed? Or was she meant to follow? When Moncoya glanced, with a touch of impatience, over his shoulder, she got her answer and hurried to join him. For a few minutes they stood side by side, their reflections staring back at them from the window’s mirrorlike gloss.
Stella tried to see herself through Moncoya’s eyes. Short. Well, he wasn’t tall so that was good, wasn’t it? Stop it, Stella. Nothing is going to happen here. Slim. A bit too slim. Okay, I’m on the skinny side. Short, spiky hair. Hair that was a lot shorter than his. Wide eyes and pixie features—like a gremlin, a former boyfriend had once said...during a fight. Vintage dress and combat boots. It was her favorite look. 1950s movie icon meets steampunk rebel. Not the kind of woman for a man like Mon—Moncoya pressed a button and one of the glass panels slid back. With old-fashioned courtesy, he bowed slightly, indicating that Stella should precede him. She stepped out onto a wide terrace and inhaled the midnight scent of orange blossom. The entire city of Barcelona, lit up like a child’s fairyland, was spread out below them.
“Welcome to your new home.”
Stella turned to Moncoya with shining eyes, wanting to voice the thanks she had attempted earlier. As she did, her peripheral vision kicked in again, the movement urgent enough to make her pause. The feeling of contentment she got from knowing her protector was there was as powerful as ever, but this time there was something more. Something equally strong. She had never before experienced this particular sensation from her shadowy guardian. She took a second to examine the new perception. It felt a lot like a warning.
Chapter 2 (#ulink_c604b9c4-6f86-5238-9a9a-e514a116c69e)
As a child Stella would have long, imaginary conversations with her protector while playing with her toys. In these, his answering voice was quiet and masculine. He was the one person who always had time for her. He said what she wanted to hear. With him she felt safe and loved. If she was upset or fearful, she only had to think of him and he would come to her. It didn’t matter that he didn’t exist beyond the outer reaches of her vision, or that when she blinked he was gone. He was as real to her as any of her foster carers or teachers.
Stella had been three when her parents were killed in a car crash. When she pictured that day it was as a sharp turn in the road, a change in the path of her life. Behind her was a meandering, sweet-smelling country lane, lined with flowers. Ahead there was a gray concrete highway with nothing on either side to alleviate the monotonous view.
Every attempt had been made to find adoptive parents for her. “She has no other family and—I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s because she’s such a fey child or always lurching into mischief—but she doesn’t seem to take, if you know what I mean. And she should have grown out of the imaginary-friend phase long ago.”
Stella had overheard that fractious comment one day as she sat outside the matron’s office in the children’s home waiting to take her punishment for her latest transgression. It had set the tone for a childhood spent alternating between kindly foster homes and a series of trying-too-hard-to-be-homely institutions. It didn’t matter. She always had him.
No one else listened when Stella talked about the monster that lived under her bed. It didn’t matter where she slept, the monster would be there awaiting her arrival. Although its eyes were dark, sometimes they burned ember bright. In the dark reaches of the night, it whispered Stella’s name in a low, scratchy voice. The monster wanted Stella. Not just any little girl. Her. She would squeeze her eyes shut and her lips would form a silent plea for the monster to leave her alone. Her protector always came in answer to those appeals.
If she didn’t look directly at him, she could see the protector’s tall shadow on the edge of her vision. Somehow it was easier in the dark. Once, in the children’s home, the curtains had not been fully closed and a sliver of moonlight from the streetlight outside had sneaked through. Briefly, it had illuminated his face, allowing her eager gaze to drink in his square, determined jaw, fine mouth and silver-gray eyes. She had been startled into turning her head to stare directly at him, and he had instantly disappeared. From then on, he had taken care not to allow her any further close-up glimpses.
He spoke to the monster in a guttural language Stella didn’t recognize. Not aloud, of course. Instead the whispered words seeped into her subconscious. The monster would whine and attempt to cling to the floorboards in response. As her heart pounded out a rhythm of relief, Stella would sense the monster’s defeat and hear its slithering departure. Over the years, Stella came to understand how it worked. Even to accept it. The monster would always be there. It would always want her. But she would be safe...so long as her protector was near.
Now, for the first time in her life, the monster was gone. She had been so tired the first night after her arrival that she’d tumbled into bed in the strange room on the casa’s upper floor and not given it a thought. After five nights in Moncoya’s Barcelona mansion, she felt she could officially say her bedroom was a monster-free zone. And all it had taken to bring about this purge was a two-and-a-half-hour international flight. Maybe monsters didn’t have passports.
Stella sometimes wondered if her monochrome childhood was responsible for her neon-color imagination. Whatever the cause, her mind was a constant whirl of ideas. When she was young, color, shape, music and poetry all vied for her attention. As she grew up and became more discerning, she had become more focused. Honing her natural artistic skills in college, she had pursued her ultimate dream by completing a master’s degree in computer games design. She had left school twelve months ago to seek a job in London. In the most competitive field imaginable, slap in the middle of a recession.
The question was always the same. “What have you done?”
The answer never varied. “Nothing yet.”
Her awesome, hard-won qualifications counted for nothing. It was a vicious circle. Give me a job so I can prove myself. Prove yourself and we might give you a job. She took a routine office job to pay the bills on her tiny studio and spent her evenings dreaming up new ideas for games. She met up with a few university friends for drinks one weekend, and they had discussed their various ideas. The subject of crowd funding came up. It was how “Supernova Deliverance,” an online survival game with a supernatural theme, had been born. In its turn, it had led Stella to this job.
The email from Moncoya’s personal assistant had come on a cold, miserable day. One on which her job had seemed more boring than ever. It was fate, she decided, her heart skipping several beats as she read and reread it. Senor Moncoya had followed the progress of the crowd funding project with interest. He was particularly impressed with the way she had laid out the conceptual framework and her graphics development skills. There was a temporary internship at Moncoya Enterprises in Barcelona. Would she be interested?
“I have to reply today!” Realizing she had spoken aloud, she had retreated back behind her computer screen, her mind whirling with possibilities.
There was a brief job description. Ability to visualize compelling social games. Knowledge and insight of game balance. Strong design and drafting skills. Key phrases danced around her mind as she typed her resignation letter. Fluency in Spanish an advantage. Must sign a confidentiality contract. Good thing she’d chosen to take Spanish at school.
“Muchas gracias, Senor Moncoya. Te amo mucho.”
Since she had joined his company, Moncoya had given her no reason to withdraw that declaration of undying love. Okay, so he had some very odd friends and they liked to party hard. But if Moncoya wanted to hang out with a group of people who looked like stylish punk rockers that was his business. She caught occasional glimpses of his friends and was struck by two things that they had in common. They were all stunningly beautiful, and she wondered if that was a deliberate choice of Moncoya’s. Being so striking himself, did he choose to surround himself with others who were similarly good-looking?
The other thing they shared was a style idiosyncrasy. Each of them wore the same contact lenses. They all had the same curious ring of fire around their iris as Moncoya. Was it a statement? A tribute to Moncoya? Or was Moncoya’s own yellow burst of fire also the result of contact lenses? Out of interest, Stella had searched the internet for it. She had found something called “central heterochromia” that apparently would have got you an automatic burning as a witch in the Middle Ages, but even that didn’t come close to the blaze of color exhibited by Moncoya and his party people. She had shrugged it off. As a fashion statement it was extreme, but Moncoya was extreme. It was part of his charm.
There had been a horrible misunderstanding a few nights ago when some of Moncoya’s friends had taken a shine to Stella and seemed to feel she was an important guest rather than realizing she was just a very junior employee. They had wanted her to join the party, and she’d been forced to make a hurried exit. Somehow she didn’t think the amused tolerance Moncoya had so far demonstrated toward her would survive any attempts to gate-crash into his social sphere.
Stella was aware of the occasional exchange of looks between the other game design employees. She had overheard one or two barbed comments. She suspected she was meant to hear them.
“Why is el jefe still around? Never known him to hang around la casa for more than a day. Two at most.”
“Could it have anything to do with his new pet? The little crowd funder protégé? He calls her his star.”
“She’s a bit young for Moncoya, surely? Although, come to think of it, she does have that elven look he likes so much.”
Diego had chimed into the conversation then. “Ease up on her, guys. She knows her stuff, that’s for sure. And her artwork is spectacular.”
A job she loved. A boss she liked. And no monsters. This new turn in the road offered her a whole new direction. The drab highway was forever behind her. Ahead lay a winding, challenging mountain pass. She was ready to forge upward along this new scenic route.
* * *
“He doesn’t need to send his foot soldiers to lurk under your bed anymore, Stella. Not when he’s sitting right next to you.” And hoping that very soon he’ll be joining you in that bed.
Cal could feel the frustration pouring off him like sweat off a cage fighter. He wanted to storm over there, drag her away from Moncoya and all the way back to the only place he knew for sure he could keep her safe. When there were other people around it was so difficult to watch out for her. University had been problematic and so boring. Cal had yawned through the lectures and seminars that fascinated Stella. All those kids, all rushing somewhere. London especially had been the worst place to guard her.
Because it wasn’t just Moncoya he had to look out for. In a way Moncoya was the least of his problems. He snorted with laughter at that thought and mentally rephrased it. Moncoya was a dangerous bastard, but at least he would be predictably terrifying. It was the others, the unknowns, who posed the greater problem. Because word of the prophecy had trickled out. It had been inevitable. So many centuries had passed since the prediction was first spoken, and then written. So many great scholars had frowned and debated over its meaning. One of Cal’s worst fears throughout that time had been how the vague wording might be interpreted. Evil can twist any meaning to suit its purpose. And fragile Stella would be on the receiving end of those twists.
Confrontation with Moncoya was inevitable. But, as the apocalyptic time drew closer, who else was hunting Cal’s precious charge? Was the man on the bus really just a sad loner who got a hard-on from rubbing himself up against young women? Turned out he was. Could the woman who had run toward Stella with a closed umbrella extended in front of her like a weapon during rush hour really have been late for an appointment? Cal couldn’t take that chance. A strategically extended foot and the woman had gone sprawling into the gutter while Stella continued on her way oblivious to any danger, real or imagined. As it should be. All in a day’s work. No thanks necessary.
He didn’t want thanks. Or even acknowledgment. What he had never envisioned when he took this assignment and laid his plans for this day was that he would be forced to watch as his charge gazed worshipfully into the fiery eyes of the very being from whom she should be shrinking. On reflection, he supposed it was only to be expected. Moncoya’s touch, like that of all his kind, was known to be heady and intense. Moncoya, the most powerful of them all, could, it was said, induce euphoria to the point of spiritual, even physical, ecstasy with the lightest touch of his fingertips. Cal curled his lip at that. He’d believe that particular piece of Moncoya propaganda if he felt it for himself. Not that the little manikin would ever have the nerve to touch him, let alone come close to him. Not after the last time. Nevertheless, the new, dreamy look on Stella’s face seemed to confirm the rumor that Moncoya’s touch, once felt, had such a profound effect on the psyche that it evoked a desperate yearning to experience it again.
“More wine?” Cal looked up as the cause of his bad mood held the bottle of Rioja over Stella’s glass.
“No.” She shook her head, placing her hand over her glass a fraction of a second too late so that the ruby liquid ran over her fingers. She laughed, lifting her fingers to her lips to lick the droplets away. “I want to get back to that platform tonight. There are still some issues with fine-tuning the graphics.”
They were seated on the terrace at the back of the house enjoying its spectacular views over the city. The evening sky was a tapestry of coral and lavender threaded through with streaks of gold, and the air was heavy with the scent of summer flowers. Stella wore a sundress that looked as if it was made from six stitched-together handkerchiefs. From his position leaning against an olive tree to one side of the terrace, Cal studied her face thoughtfully. For the first time ever, she was wearing lip gloss. His heart sank further and he found himself torn between conflicting emotions. Moncoya’s presence made him want to behave like the overprotective father in a sitcom and tell her to get inside and cover up. Another part, possibly the stronger part, insisted in forcing his eyes to linger on the slender expanse of her thighs. It was an oddly possessive emotion, new and strangely exhilarating.
The sky darkened swiftly to night and bats flew in relay from the eaves of the casa to the street lamps and back, greedily grabbing any insects in their path. Moncoya leaned closer to Stella, and Cal clenched a fist against his thigh, willing the tousle-haired mongrel to give him an excuse to intervene, at the same time knowing he was powerless to do anything. Because this was as it had been ordained and he, of all people, could not deflect the course of the prophecy.
Just as Moncoya’s hand moved to within an inch of the pale flesh of Stella’s upper arm, a monumental crash reverberated around the garden. The ground trembled as though in the grip of a brief but violent earthquake, and a cloud of red dust flew up several feet from the terrace.
“Go inside.” Cal watched approvingly as Moncoya thrust Stella toward the open door. This was a first. Who’d have thought he’d ever find himself in agreement with Moncoya? He was aware that, although she followed the instruction, Stella hovered half in and half out of the casa, gazing at the point of impact in fascination.
Moncoya lowered his head and stretched out his arms, and the grotesque beast that had just fallen to earth drew itself up to its full height as it faced him. Moncoya appeared tiny in comparison. Grudgingly, Cal admired his courage. Moncoya spoke softly in a lilting language. The whole night stilled. The dust cloud settled. The creature bared its teeth in a snarl. Moncoya spoke again and it unfurled wings that spanned at least eight feet. Nevertheless, it appeared pinned to the spot.
Cal, growing tired of Moncoya’s dawdling methods, stepped forward and smashed his fist directly into the gargoyle’s hideous face. The creature sank into a crouch, its glowing eyes searching the darkness for the invisible assailant. Moncoya’s head snapped up and Cal took a second to mutter a curse. He had been determined not to reveal his presence to Moncoya. Not yet. Now Moncoya was aware of his existence, although he still didn’t know who Cal was.
“Time to catch up on your beauty sleep. God knows, you need it.” Cal delivered a swift, painfully accurate dropkick to the side of the gargoyle’s head. With a curious grace, the huge creature collapsed back into the red earth. Its natural defense mechanism kicked in and its flesh turned instantly to stone.
“Who is there?” Moncoya’s voice rang out.
Cal moved close, allowing his breath to touch the smaller man’s cheek. “Your worst nightmare,” he whispered. Moncoya’s eyes narrowed to slits of pure fury as he turned in the direction of Cal’s voice.
“What just happened?” Stella stepped back onto the terrace, her own eyes huge and very green as she stared at the recumbent gargoyle.
“A meteorite of some sort.” You had to admire Moncoya, Cal decided. The man could smoothly tell a bald-faced lie.
“That isn’t a meteorite!” Stella had begun to stomp across the garden in the direction of where the stone creature had fallen. Even though Moncoya reached out to halt her, his intervention wasn’t necessary. Before she reached the pile of rubble, Stella turned slowly back to the house, her expression changing. Cal knew that look well. It was a combination of suspicion and stubbornness.
Moncoya shrugged. “Does it matter?” He gestured for her to be seated but she ignored him.
Cal waited for her to say it did matter. Willed her to see Moncoya for what he really was. To finally understand why she had been brought here...
The wariness vanished from her face as she looked at Moncoya. Frustration chased away Cal’s brief feeling of optimism when Stella began to laugh. “I suppose another glass of wine won’t hurt before I get back to work.”
Chapter 3 (#ulink_ee8d9900-8f78-587d-b880-8c20c1bc545d)
Stella would have known her protector anywhere. She had stored up the memory of those curiously light eyes, that strong jaw, the perfection of his mouth. It was as if, in that brief instant of seeing him all those years ago, her mind had taken a mental photograph. That was how she knew the man at the beachside cafe was watching her. Not just ogling a random girl in a swimsuit. Not smirking with amusement as she struggled with the tie on her bikini top and almost flashed the whole Barcelonan beachfront as she emerged from the water. No, he was watching her because it was him, and that was what he did.
Although in his own form Stella’s protector stayed on the edge of her vision, she knew he sometimes came to her in human form. She would get that feeling—as if warm honey had been injected into her veins—and she would know. He was the lifeguard at the swimming pool when she slipped and hit her head. Or the electrician who fixed the faulty wiring in her apartment.
Once she had been jogging in the park when a dog ran toward her. She hadn’t been alarmed at first but, out of nowhere, a figure had streaked past her and wrestled the animal to the ground. The beast had clamped its jaws onto the man’s forearm, but luckily he wore padding so that its teeth did not sink into his flesh. Some sort of dog training exercise, Stella had thought as she ran past. Then the familiar soothing feeling had come over her and she had paused to look back. Although they had been there only seconds earlier, there was no longer any sign of either the man or the dog.
Another time, after a night out with friends, she had been about to get into a taxi when a line-jumper had shoved her out of the way and stolen her cab. Her initial fury had died away as the sweet warmth flowed through her. A collective gasp of horror had risen from the watching partygoers as the taxi pulled away straight into the path of an out-of-control truck. The cab had spun wildly, like a toy in the hand of a giant, before banging to a stop. Its rear end was crushed like a concertina. Stella had shivered in her thin party dress as she gave a witness statement to the police.
“There was no one else in the car,” the police officer assured her. “Luckily. Anyone in the backseat would have been smashed into a million pieces against that wall.”
The closest she’d got to actually seeing the real him was when she actually was involved in a car accident. She’d been sixteen. A rebellious, studiously unorthodox sixteen-year-old who jumped on the back of the motorcycle of her latest crush. When her protector pulled her from the wreck that time, the only precaution he’d been able to take was to pull his cap down low over his face. She supposed it was because he didn’t have enough time to do anything else before the gas tank exploded.
“Don’t keep hiding from me. I like who you are,” she had told him just before she lost consciousness.
That was what she said again now as she tugged a wrap over her bikini and marched up to the table where he sat.
“Huh?” He looked up in surprise as she took the seat opposite.
“I said I like who you are.”
“Thanks.” His grin was surprisingly boyish and shy. “I think.”
Stella’s heart did a funny little flip as if it had suddenly developed an extra beat. He looked so much younger than she’d expected. He hadn’t aged at all. They stared at each other.
Finally, she spoke again. “All this time.”
“I know.”
He was beautiful. It was not a word Stella usually associated with men, but it suited him. Despite the coiled muscular strength of his body, his face was artistic. If she didn’t know otherwise, she’d have guessed he was a painter, musician or poet. It was something about those high cheekbones, the narrow nose and strong jaw. Don’t keep staring at the gorgeous mouth, she told herself firmly. It was his eyes that drew her most strongly. They were every bit as mesmerizing as she remembered. In the shade they were the color of a faded eucalyptus leaf. As he looked away into the sunlight, they shone like silver coins.
Forcing herself to focus, she asked the first of the many questions that jostled for a place on her lips. “Why have you appeared to me now?”
That broke the spell. A slight frown creased his brow and he pulled his eyes away from hers. “Because you are in grave danger.”
She leaned forward excitedly. “Is this about that meteorite?”
“There was no meteorite, Stella.”
“I knew it! Never mind what Ezra said—” She broke off. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Cal.”
She studied him with her head on one side. “I thought it would be more dramatic. Gabriel, Raphael or something like that. But I like it. It suits you. So tell me about this meteorite that wasn’t a meteorite, Cal.”
“It was a gargoyle.”
Stella wrinkled her nose. “Like the statues you get on churches and cathedrals?”
“Some of them do spend their daytime hibernation crouching on buildings, yes.”
Stella watched him in fascination. Hibernation? Crouching? Those words ascribed a life force to something that could not be alive. How could he speak of something like that so calmly? Her mouth felt uncomfortably dry, and she decided to focus on the mundane rather than the bizarre. “I’ve left my bag down on the beach. Can you get me a bottle of water? I mean, do angels carry cash?”
He grinned and signaled to the waiter. “When I’m here, Stella, I do normal, mortal things. Plus some other stuff.”
“It’s the other stuff that’s starting to bother me.” Stella took a long swig of water. “Okay. How did a stone statue drop out of the sky into the garden of the casa the other night?”
“It glided.”
“Of course it did. Stone is well-known for its aerodynamic qualities.”
He started to laugh. “You’re so...you. Even though they have wings, gargoyles can’t fly. They glide. So it glided into Moncoya’s garden. I think they use the updrafts, the same way a bird does.” He mimed a gliding motion with his arms outstretched.
“Cal, are you seriously trying to tell me gargoyles are living creatures?”
“Not in the sense that humans are. Gargoyles are supernatural beings. During the day they are stone. At night they are flesh, blood, bone and muscle.” He tapped a fingertip against his temple. “Not much in the brain department, sadly.”
Stella exhaled slowly. “Okay, because you are you—and I’ve lived with the reality of you all my life—I’m going to suspend every rational instinct and try to believe you when you say that gargoyles can glide. So we’ve done the ‘how.’ Now the ‘why.’ Why did that particular gargoyle drop in on us the other night? Was it just a social call?”
“It had been sent to get you, Stella.”
“Sent to get me?” The word came out as an undignified squeak, and she fought to get her voice back under control. “Who by?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t been able to discover that. Yet. There are a number of possibilities.”
Stella glanced over her shoulder. “This is a joke, right? It’s a reality TV show or something. Any minute now someone will jump out with a microphone and we’ll all laugh about how I fell for this.”
“You know that isn’t going to happen.”
She sighed. “If I hadn’t known you all my life, I might have been able to convince myself this was some sort of prank. Unfortunately for me, you exude your own mystical gravitas. So this mystery person who sent a gargoyle after me is the grave danger you’ve come to warn me about?”
He shook his head slowly. “I can deal with gargoyles. They’re a nuisance, but easy to put back in their box. I can also take out whoever sent it.” The declaration should have sounded macho and boastful, but it didn’t. On Cal’s lips, it was a simple statement of fact. “But there is a very powerful being who wants you, Stella. This is one thing I am totally sure of. He wants you very badly and he is known for his determination. You must be on your guard.”
“And this being is...?”
“The king of the faeries.”
“I’m guessing we’re not talking pretty little winged creatures who live at the bottom of the garden.”
Cal shook his head. “This isn’t a child’s fairy tale. Faeries are ancient beings of wonder and enchantment. They have great physical beauty while they bring dire peril in their wake. Their power for destruction is enormous.”
“So how will I recognize the king of the faeries when he comes for me?”
“You already know him.” Stella had a sudden and overpowering premonition that she did not want to hear Cal’s next words. He said them anyway. “His name is Moncoya.”
* * *
Steam swirled around Stella and she exulted in the sensation, allowing the water to play over her aching shoulders. Too much time hunched close to a computer screen left her with a crick in her neck that felt as if it was here to stay. After several minutes of soothing warmth, she turned the shower to cool. The Spanish evening was still and sultry. It felt as if there should be sangria and flamenco guitar awaiting her, not a laptop and a pizza. Stepping from the shower, she wrapped herself in one towel and dried her hair with another. When she emerged from the bathroom, she was startled to find Cal sitting on her bed. He was wearing only a pair of ancient cutoff jeans, and the sight of his golden torso did something unmentionable to her insides.
“I suppose I should be glad you stayed out here,” she said, disguising her inappropriate reaction with sarcasm.
“I promise never to join you in the shower.” His gaze swept over her body, registering the fact that she was wearing nothing but a thigh-skimming towel. The corner of his mouth lifted in appreciative acknowledgment. “Not without an invitation anyway.”
The smile was almost irresistible. Almost. The memory of their last encounter was still fresh in Stella’s mind, however. Gargoyles and faeries and supernatural threats to her safety. It was all very well having a personal bodyguard—and, it really, really helped that hers was so gorgeous—but she wasn’t going to be drawn into all the weird stuff. She had told him as much down at the beach. It seemed he had not got the message.
“I’d like to get dressed.” She maintained a dignified tone.
“Pretend I’m not here.” Cal turned his back.
It was on the tip of Stella’s tongue to order him out of her room, when it occurred to her that she wouldn’t know if he’d actually gone. It was probably better to have him here, where she could see that glorious expanse of tanned, muscled back while she threw on her shorts and top, than send him away.
“Are you my guardian angel?”
Stella threw herself down on the bed, lying on her back, with her hands laced behind her head. The room was furnished in a traditional Spanish style with walls that were painted in warm, soothing terra-cotta tones. The floor tiles were a mosaic of blue and gold, and carved, dark wood furniture lined the room. A ceiling fan made lazy circles above her head. Cal seemed to debate joining her and then sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, stretching his long legs in front of him. From the angle she had chosen, all Stella could actually see of him now was the lower half of his legs and his bare feet. Just as she decided he wasn’t going to answer the question, he spoke.
“It’s hard for me to answer that because the concept of a guardian angel has been created by humans. Mortals have built a set of rules around something they do not understand because they want to be able to explain it.”
Stella threw a cushion in his general direction. “Answer the bloody question.”
The cushion flew back at her. “In my experience, mortals don’t like it when the response is not what they want to hear.”
Tired of not being able to see him, she moved to the other end of the bed and lay on her stomach so that her face was only inches from his. “Are you being enigmatic to annoy me or are you trying to tell me I’ve got the terminology wrong?”
“Both.”
He grinned and Stella watched in fascination as a dimple danced at the corner of his mouth. It wasn’t something she’d ever thought about, never having been able to get close to him before, but Cal did not conform to the blueprint of physical perfection that should surely be a prerequisite for an angel. It was those minor imperfections—the gap between his front teeth that was a fraction too wide, the tiny star-shaped scar at the corner of his right eye, the unruly lock of hair flopping onto his forehead, the golden-brown stubble—that made him such a stunning-looking man. And that in itself was surely wrong. Weren’t angels meant to be asexual? But, if what he was saying was correct, she needed to unlearn everything she thought she knew about angels.
She linked her hands together and propped her chin on them, enjoying being close to him. It was a strange sensation, like getting to know someone she had been acquainted with all her life. Or coming face-to-face with a pen pal in whom she had confided her most intimate secrets. Getting to know him? Who was she trying to fool? She’d stored up the memory of his face ever since that long-ago moonlit night. Wasn’t falling for your guardian angel forbidden? She frowned, trying to remember the results from the time she’d searched the internet for it. She was fairly sure horrible things would happen to heaven and earth if an angel and a mortal ever made love. Unless that bit wasn’t true? Her heart gave a hopeful little skip. Getting a bit ahead of yourself, Stella, she told herself firmly.
“Are you all right?” Cal’s voice brought her back to reality. “You’ve gone very red.”
“It’s what we humans do in the heat. I did a lot of research about guardian angels. I did it so I would know all about you. Are you telling me it was all wrong?”
She thought the look in the depths of his shimmering eyes became guarded. The laughter and teasing were gone. “Some of it almost certainly was.” His voice was colorless. “Guardian angel or not, can we do what I came here for? Can we talk about how I intend to keep you safe from Moncoya?”
Stella sat up abruptly. “Not this again.”
“Yes, this again.” Cal reached out a hand, but she evaded him.
“I need a cold drink.” Slipping from the bed without another word, Stella left the room and made her way down the stairs.
Chapter 4 (#ulink_eec2057b-390e-5ba2-91c0-40cd3ec8c3f5)
Cal swore under his breath. He could hear voices from the lower floor, which meant he could go down there only if he was invisible. Invisibility meant he would not be unable to interact with Stella, which in turn meant he could not try to convince her of the danger she was in. Every minute she spent with Moncoya was enabling the faerie king to draw her deeper under his spell. Such was the power the so-called “little people” could wield when they chose. Not that Stella appeared to be in need of much persuasion. Helplessness was a new sensation for Cal. It was not one he relished.
It bothered him that she thought of him as her guardian angel, although, in many ways that was exactly what he had become. Not by choice, and there was certainly nothing angelic about him. His thoughts recoiled from the memories that had led him here. It didn’t matter how he had come to be in this role. Whatever label Stella gave him, his job was to protect her and he couldn’t do that if he stayed up here and couldn’t see what she was doing. Sighing, he followed her.
Cloaked by invisibility, he reached the foot of the stairs and cast a swift glance about the vast room. Stella was standing by the drinks machine, sipping water from a glass. There was no one else around and Cal frowned. He had definitely heard voices. A glance at the glass wall showed him that the panels were closed. Shadowy movement in the dusk beyond the terrace caught Cal’s gaze and he walked over to get a closer look. His attention was diverted as Moncoya entered behind him through the front door. Stella didn’t notice and the faerie king paused, eyeing her rear view appreciatively. Cal couldn’t really blame him. It was a particularly tempting sight.
Moncoya’s embroidered waistcoat hung open over a white dress shirt and he wore skintight black leggings tucked into glossy riding boots. His hair was tied back in a ponytail. Momentarily, Cal caught a glimpse of the yellow ring that lit his eyes. How could Stella not see that there was something fundamentally wrong about this guy?
“Buenas noches.” Moncoya strolled forward and Stella swung around to face him. Although she smiled, there was a touch of nervousness in her expression. Good. I’ve managed to plant at least a seed of doubt, Cal thought. “Something troubles you?” Moncoya’s eyes raked her face.
Stella shook her head. “It’s this heat.” She took another sip from her half-full glass and Moncoya observed the action through narrowed eyes. It was clear to Cal that Stella was uncomfortable. Moncoya, his faerie senses so closely attuned to the feelings of others, would certainly pick up on it.
“Sí, it is very warm. May I?” Moncoya stretched out a hand for the glass. Cal recalled, just in time, that a faerie could claim a mortal for its own by luring the person into sharing food or water. Before Stella could hand over the glass, Cal reached out an invisible hand and snatched it from her. It shattered on the tiled floor.
Stella’s exclamation of shock echoed in the vast space. “I’m so sorry! I don’t know how I came to be so clumsy.”
“Be careful.” Moncoya spoke mechanically. “Your feet are bare. You must move away from this area while I clear away the glass.”
Biting her lip in chagrin, Stella followed his instruction. Moncoya knelt to collect the shards of glass. He looked up and straight at Cal. Cal froze, even though there was no way Moncoya could possibly see him.
“So the little star has a protector. How sweet.” The ring around Moncoya’s azure eyes gleamed with red fire, the way his sidhe underlings’ eyes did when they skulked under Stella’s bed. His voice was low and feral. “I don’t know who you are, but I can guess who sent you. No matter. A little rivalry adds spice to the conquest.”
With that, he walked over to Stella and slipped a possessive arm about her waist. Cal was left watching in helpless rage as his charge turned an apologetic smile on the faerie king. He weighed his options. Go over and intervene? It would give him great pleasure to sink his fist into Moncoya’s smug face, but there was unforeseen danger in that sort of action. Naively, Cal had assumed he would be able to warn Stella of the danger and she would believe him. He had not envisioned a scenario where she refused to listen. If she went willingly to Moncoya—or any of the other warring factions—all would be lost. And he knew his stubborn charge all too well. If he went after Moncoya with his fists swinging, he could not predict Stella’s reaction. She might view Moncoya as the underdog. What if she decided to punish him by siding with Moncoya? It was a chance he couldn’t take. He had to get her to listen to him...or force Moncoya into revealing his true nature.
The movement in the garden drew Cal’s attention again. It had become more obvious now. It was as if the darkness itself was swirling up against the window, shifting and changing shape as it pressed against the glass. The voices he had heard earlier were clearer now. Soft and persuasive, they murmured an incantation. Another sound, like giant beating wings and distant hoofbeats, caught Cal’s straining ears. Stella appeared not to notice these out-of-place sounds. Moncoya, his hearing as finely tuned as Cal’s, looked up with a frown just as the first crack appeared in the giant wall of glass.
Cal faced a difficult choice. He couldn’t remain invisible and shield Stella with his body. Materializing was dangerous because Moncoya would see his face. He would know whom he was dealing with. But Cal’s first duty was to his charge. Those thoughts took a fraction of a second. Then he reacted like lightning. Materializing, he grabbed Stella by the hand and threw her—protesting loudly—down onto one of the oversize cushions as far from the window as possible. Before she could bounce back up again, he covered her body with his own.
He was just in time. The entire glass wall at the rear of the casa imploded, showering the room with shards of glass. Moncoya’s howl of fury rose above the sounds of mayhem as the shapes of the night poured into the room.
“Who dares approach Moncoya in his lair?”
“Lair?” Despite Cal’s efforts to keep her completely covered, Stella wriggled partially out from under him and turned her head to see what had happened. But Cal kept her pinned in place with one of his legs spread across her body. He knew her too well. If there was danger, his feisty charge was likely to throw herself right into the thick of it.
The amorphous mass of the darkness began to shift and three winged figures could now be seen within the quivering cloud. Although their features were indistinct, their figures were female and they were on horseback. Moncoya lifted his hands and the formless horses reared up as though in fright.
“What are they?” Stella’s breath was warm as it tickled Cal’s ear.
“Valkyries.” He answered her absentmindedly. His thoughts were occupied with escape, his eyes measuring the distance to the door. “Be ready to run when I give you the word.”
“You know why we come.” One of the Valkyries moved slightly ahead of the others. Her voice was compelling and echo-like. As the Valkyrie spoke, the shapes around her shifted as though straining to get closer into the room.
“Your audacity is beyond astounding. I have staked the first claim. She belongs to me.” The words were spoken in a booming voice that was totally unlike Moncoya’s usual subtle tones.
“You wrong us. We do not come for the star. Ours is the task of escorting the fallen.” Cal wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but he thought the Valkyrie’s voice seemed to be fading.
“I will give you fallen aplenty. With her at my side, the conclusion to the battle will be swift and bloody, the outcome final. Otherworld will be mine.”
The Valkyrie’s horse lunged nervously as, laughing, Moncoya took a step forward. He raised his hands again and the dark cloud changed, becoming a swirling smoke cloud before gradually dispersing. In its place, as if by magic, Moncoya’s party friends began to pour in through the gaping wall. Laughter and music filled the room as they danced across a floor somehow miraculously clear now of glass and debris. The change in atmosphere brought even more theater to the scene.
“Now,” Cal urged and, to his relief, Stella leaped to her feet and kept pace with him as he ran for the door. As they burst through and into the night air beyond, he grabbed her hand, hauling her to the parked vehicles. Selecting the largest and most powerful of the motorbikes, he swung himself onto it, gesturing for Stella to get up behind him. She obeyed, clasping her arms tightly around his waist and pressing her cheek into his back.
“Can you start it?”
He fished the keys out of his pocket. “It’s mine.”
The engine roared to life and they screeched out of the drive just as the door of the casa flew open.
“I’m so glad I’ve got you for my guardian angel,” Stella yelled as, both barefoot and clad in shorts, they streaked down the hill into the busy city streets.
“Who told you I was an angel?” Cal shouted back over his shoulder, cutting across a stream of traffic.
* * *
“Can we talk about this on the way? Because I for one would like to put as much distance between us and Moncoya as I can.” Cal was throwing clothing into a suitcase while Stella sat curled up in a chair in his hotel room, watching him. Despite the heat, she was clad in one of his hoodies. The sleeves were rolled back and, when she stood up, it hung almost to her knees. Her feet were still bare.
“Talk while you pack. You can start by telling me about Otherworld.”
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Otherworld is a realm inhabited by supernatural beings. It exists alongside the world of the living, but is invisible to most humans. The intrusion of the Otherworld into this one does take place, but, when that happens, it is mainly unobtrusive and harmless.”
“Are you talking about ghosts?”
“Ghosts are the most common manifestation of an overlap between Otherworld and the world of the living, yes. But ghosts are not the only beings to inhabit Otherworld. If they were, my job would be much easier. Ghosts are generally not aggressive, although there are breakaway groups within their numbers, notably banshees and poltergeists. The Ghost Lord is not one of those leaders who seeks to take control of the whole realm of Otherworld.” Cal snapped the suitcase shut and looked around, checking the room to make sure he had collected all of his belongings. “Let’s go.” He glanced down at her feet. “We’ll get you some shoes on the way.”
Stella followed him out of the room. “It sounds complicated.”
“Tell me about it. Just as this world has its different countries and races and religions, so Otherworld has its own dynasties. It is not a physical realm, but it is as fiercely fought. Debates rage as furiously there as they do here. Battles are as bloody, if not more so. The difference is that the weapons used are deadlier and the methods employed are more ruthless. It is my task to ensure that the war for Otherworld does not spill over into the world of the living.”
“Sounds like a hell of a big job for one man.” Where in all of this do you find the time to babysit me? And why? Stella massaged her temples, trying to get rid of the ache that was forming there.
Cal chucked the suitcase into the trunk of a particularly nondescript car, and then held the passenger door open for Stella. She slid inside. It had not once occurred to her not to go with him. Her every instinct cried out that he was her only hope. Against what, she had no idea.
“Car. Bike. You must have known we would have to make a quick getaway,” she said as Cal started the car.
“I know Moncoya.”
Stella shivered. She wasn’t ready for that conversation. “Who are the aggressors in Otherworld?”
The city traffic was heavy and Cal joined a line of cars heading for the suburbs. “It changes over time, with different dynasties fading in and out of prominence. The vampires are always at the forefront of any conflict. Their prince has caused us problems on and off for the past few millennia. Rage is the most powerful underlying motivator for the vampires.” He grinned down at her stunned expression. “Makes them bloody difficult to negotiate with, I can tell you.”
Stella swallowed the obstruction in her throat. “You mean proper vampires? The full-on, bloodsucking kind?”
“Is there another kind?”
“But you just said that the overlap between Otherworld and this world is harmless. If vampires are real and they drop in and out to feast on human blood, I wouldn’t exactly say they do us no harm,” she argued.
Cal appeared to give it some thought. “I see what you mean. They do harm those individuals they feed on and ultimately transform into new vampires, that much is true. In the grand scheme of things, their proclivities don’t fundamentally change the earthly realm. It’s something vampires have always done. It’s a bit of a nuisance, especially when we get a high-profile case that has to be covered up. It doesn’t change the status quo, however, so there’s no real damage done.”
Stella covered her mouth with one shaking hand, regarding his profile with eyes that were wide with shock. As he drew up at a red light, Cal turned and returned her gaze with a question in his eyes. When she lowered her hand, her lips trembled on something that was an attempt at a smile. “A bit of a nuisance? Cal, what the hell is happening here? And why am I part of this Otherworld madness?”
* * *
Cal’s eyes ached. Neon advertising signs, overhead lights and the relentless stream of headlights coming in the opposite direction had taken their toll. It was only just over an hour since they had left Barcelona, but his intense concentration on the road and who or what might be following made it feel as if he had been driving forever. Squinting slightly as he read the road signs, he was relieved to see that they were approaching the city of Girona.
“Tell me again why we couldn’t get a flight from Barcelona Airport?” Stella spoke for the first time since they had left the shopping center on the outskirts of the city, where they had stopped to get fuel and the cheap plastic sandals that now encased her feet. Cal had managed to avoid the question about how she came to be involved in the Otherworld uprising by claiming it was a complicated story and he needed to concentrate on getting them to safety. Stella had huffed at him, but accepted his admittedly pathetic excuse. He wondered now if she really wanted to hear the answer. Sooner or later, it was a conversation they would have to have. He wasn’t looking forward to it. Bloody Valkyries. What had possessed them to get involved before there had even been any fighting? Their job was to gather up the fallen, not come storming in causing havoc before the first blow had been struck. But these were strange times. Ever since the three-tailed comet had first appeared two months ago, tensions in Otherworld—always heightened—had fizzed to the surface like champagne bubbles pressing at a cork.
“They will expect us to go to the main airport. It’s the first place they’ll look. Hopefully, by the time they think of the smaller airport at Girona, we’ll be out of here.”
Stella mouthed the word they to herself but said no more. He was worried about her. It was a feeling that went beyond the obvious concerns for her safety. She looked very small and lost in his well-worn hoodie. Cal experienced an overpowering, urgent desire to reach out a hand and touch her. To smooth the spikes of her hair into place or stroke her cheek. Determinedly he kept both hands on the wheel and fixed his gaze back on the road. Forced himself to remember that he was a protector, not a nursemaid or something more intimate.
The gargoyle had been an interesting, although not entirely unexpected, diversion. Gargoyles were generally solitary creatures. Nevertheless, Cal very much doubted that the one that had descended in such a cumbersome manner into Moncoya’s garden had arrived there on its own behalf. Gargoyles were not noted for their mental agility so it was highly unlikely the creature itself had been responsible for planning the offensive. A mind more cunning than that of a grotesque figure that spent its days crouching on the side of a church had thought up that little scheme. Because, even without Cal’s intervention, the lone gargoyle had never stood a chance against the might of Moncoya. Which meant it had probably been sent simply to discover if Stella actually was at La Casa Oscura. If it had found her alone and succeeded in snatching her while it was there...well, that would have been a nice bonus for whoever sent it. So who had commissioned a gargoyle to enter Moncoya’s lair on a reconnaissance mission? There were, as Cal had already said to Stella, a number of possibilities. None of them was pretty.
The arrival of the Valkyries had overset his plans in a way that the gargoyle had not. The Valkyries were not warriors, they didn’t take sides. Their disorientation signaled that the powers at work were more sinister and disruptive than anything even Cal had encountered before. He couldn’t have left Stella in the middle of the mayhem that had been taking place back at La Casa Oscura. And yet, wasn’t that exactly what was meant to happen? Wasn’t it her destiny to be launched into the midst of the uprising at this point in time? No. He shook his head. He knew now that the forces gathering were greater and more volatile than he had anticipated. Something had changed. Therefore he had to alter his plans accordingly. The confrontation would come, that part of the prophecy was inevitable. And Stella would be part of it. That too had been foretold. My job is to equip her for what lies ahead.It was bad enough when I knew what she was facing. I cannot allow her to go into this new unknown without preparing her. And this change of plan would have nothing to do with how you felt when Moncoya put his hands on her? He ignored the insidious little voice in his head as he followed the road signs for the airport.
“Where are we now?” Stella shifted in her seat and blinked at the unprepossessing view of industrial units in the darkness beyond the window.
“Approaching Girona. I need you to get on the internet and book us on the next plane to England.”
She bit her lip. “This is a bit embarrassing, but I haven’t got any money.”
He threw a quick grin in her direction. “I know. You never do. Reach over and get my jacket off the backseat. There’s a credit card in my wallet.”
“Angels with credit cards, what next?” Stella wriggled around until she’d retrieved his jacket. “Oh, I forgot. You get all antsy when I call you an angel.”
Cal was conscious of her scanning his profile in the close confines of the car but he deliberately didn’t respond to either her words or her scrutiny. After a shrug, Stella busied herself with her phone. “We’re in luck. There’s a flight to Manchester in three hours and they have seats available. Oh, and when we get on that plane, Cal—” her voice was restored to something approaching its normal tone “—I have one or two questions to ask you.”
“It might be best to save the conversation for somewhere more private.” There you go putting it off. She has to know. You can’t protect her forever from what she is.
“You might be right. But the question you can start with right now is why the bloody hell I’ve just paid for our fares using a credit card belonging to someone called Emrys Jones?”
Chapter 5 (#ulink_46e2a87d-1a8e-54e4-9199-0cd3c56db7ab)
Watching Cal while he slept might actually be addictive, Stella decided. The sculpted perfection of his chest rose and fell in time with his rhythmic breathing. The skin of his neck, exposed to her gaze as his head rested against the plane window, was incredibly smooth, with a bronzed sheen that was just begging to be touched. Long eyelashes fanned his cheeks and his lips were slightly parted. Temptingly so. You are annoyed with him, remember? That doesn’t go away just because he happens to be gut-wrenchingly gorgeous.
Cal was her most enduring memory, the one true constant in her life. No one else had stuck around. She had convinced herself he was her guardian angel, had even—she blushed now at the memory—daydreamed about him falling in love with her. Yet he was undeniably prickly about the label. If he wasn’t an angel, who was he? Or perhaps the question should be what was he? One thing was for sure, he was definitely flesh and blood right now. And his human form was doing something utterly primeval to her nerve endings. Nevertheless, the puzzle of his identity had never been far from her mind since she had first seen him at the beach. Considering what had been going on in her life just lately, it was quite remarkable that Cal managed to occupy so much of her thoughts.
She wondered if she should be more distressed at the events of the past few days. But, if she accepted the reality of Cal—and, throughout her life she had not just accepted him, she had welcomed him—then she had to also acknowledge that there was a whole paranormal world out there that she didn’t understand. It was true that the manifestation of it all at once in the form of gargoyles and Valkyries and Cal taking on this delectable human form was unbelievable. But perhaps there was a reason for that. La Casa Oscura might be within some sort of magnetic field or something. She still couldn’t get her head around how Moncoya, one of the most famous men in the world, could also find time to be the king of the faeries. More important, from a basic survival point of view...
“What the hell has any of this got to do with me?” She addressed the question to the sleeping beauty next to her. Cal didn’t stir.
Grudgingly, she had accepted his explanation about the credit card. “I have no idea what’s going to happen with Moncoya so we need to be prepared for any eventuality. I have a number of cards all in different names. It’s not exactly legal in the mortal realm, but it’s a necessity in the face of what our faerie friend might throw at us.”
She hadn’t asked the most obvious question about what Moncoya might throw at them. She had a feeling she might find that out the hard way. Instead, she’d gone for another, equally important, question. “Is Cal your real name?”
A heartbeat, nothing more, before he had answered her. “Yes.”
She had shown no further qualms about using the credit card again when, having left the car in the airport parking lot, they had checked in at a desk thronged with weary-looking tourists. “Our flight leaves at two a.m. Come on.” Cal had grabbed her wrist. “We’ve got time to get you some new clothes.” The nonexistent Emrys Jones had paid hefty airport terminal prices for skinny black jeans, sneakers and a light blue sweater. Hoodie, tacky plastic shoes, shorts and tank top had all been dumped in a restroom bin. It was a reminder that everything she owned was back at La Casa Oscura.
Now Stella was crammed into the narrow seats of the economy flight, with Cal’s broad shoulders overlapping her personal space and his long legs bent at an awkward angle so that his knees pressed against hers. They were about half an hour from landing in England and he’d been asleep since takeoff. She prodded him sharply in the ribs and he opened one eye.
“Nice to see you remain alert and watchful at all times, Mr. Protector.”
He yawned and stretched. “It’s an act.” Stella raised a skeptical eyebrow and he grinned. “Well, I fooled you, didn’t I?”
Stella cast a sidelong glance at the youth who sat on her other side. He had on headphones and was engrossed in his handheld game throughout the flight. “Tell me about Moncoya.”
“Moncoya has ruled the faeries for several centuries. He was not in the direct line of succession, nor was there ever any expectation that he would inherit the title. His claim was tenuous at best. In fact his only qualification, at that time, was his ruthlessness. Moncoya and his sidhes infiltrated the residence of the former king during a celebration. In the middle of the night, when everyone was sleeping, they rose up and slaughtered any who did not support them, including the king. Until that time, violence was not the faerie way. The faeries were thrown into total disarray, and Moncoya took advantage of the ensuing chaos to impose his will on them. He has ruled by fear ever since.”
Stella made a winding motion with one finger. “Go back a bit. What is a sidhe?”
“If you picture the faeries as a nation, a bit like Britain, then there are many nationalities within it. The sidhes make up the majority of the population. They are the ‘little people’ of Celtic legend.” Stella thought of Moncoya, who was just above her own height. “They are endowed with incredible physical beauty and are able to coexist with humans. Traditionally faeries have had the ability to shape-shift, but Moncoya frowns on it as it doesn’t fit with his modernizing ideals. Although Moncoya was elevated to the faerie gentry when he took the throne, he is a sidhe and he surrounds himself with loyal fellow sidhes.”
“So the party people at La Casa Oscura...?” Stella supposed she already knew the answer.
“Sidhes. They are Moncoya’s bodyguards.”
“I don’t understand how he can be the Ezra Moncoya he is in this world and also be the faerie king. You don’t get to build up one of the greatest games empires in the world without putting the hours in. If he has to keep dashing off to rule his faerie empire in Otherworld, I just can’t see how he manages it.”
Cal grinned. “It’s called magic. And Moncoya has such an iron grip on the faeries, he has no real opposition to his rule. He also has a very powerful weapon at his disposal...his two consorts.”
“Isn’t a consort like a queen? Does that mean he has two wives?”
“No. In Moncoya’s case his consorts are his daughters. He has trained his twin daughters, Tanzi and Vashti, to be his most powerful weapons.”
“What I don’t understand is why, if he has all this power over the faeries, he would want a presence here. Why bother with the pretense of being mortal at all, let alone this sexy, high-profile celebrity persona Moncoya has deliberately cultivated?”
Cal turned his head and gazed out the window for a moment. The plane was beginning its descent and, looking past his profile, Stella could see the lights of the towns and villages below them. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and curiously regretful. “That’s where you come in, Stella.”
“Finally.”
Cal turned back to look at her. “When I spoke of the beings who exist just beyond mortal sight, and who reside in the realm of Otherworld, there is one I did not mention. This one does not always choose to dwell in Otherworld. He, or she, will be born mortal and may, therefore, walk this mortal realm unnoticed. This, the most powerful of them all, is a rare and usually solitary being, with the ability to weave the most intricate of spells. Creating light within darkness, animating the bodies of the dead and exerting absolute control over the spirit realm. This being has no need of legions or battles, not when, with a single incantation, every undead entity within Otherworld and beyond will bow before this being in abject submission.”
Something about the solemnity of his expression made Stella’s heart flutter alarmingly. She tried to hide her nervousness by keeping her tone light. “Who is this being?”
“I’m speaking of the sorcerer known as a necromancer.” When she evinced no surprise, a slight frown creased his brow. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Sure have. Level Eight skills set. Very difficult to achieve. A couple of the guys in my halls at university managed it, but they were real stay-up-all-night-gaming geeks.” She laughed at his expression. “And you have no idea what I’m talking about.”
The frown vanished and he smiled in a slightly bemused, and utterly adorable, manner. “I really don’t.”
“‘Crypt Wars,’” Stella explained. When Cal still looked uncomprehending, she elaborated further. “It’s a computer game. Pretty basic stuff. You progress through the levels in turn and take on different forms as you do. The higher the level, the more powerful the being. Necromancer was Level Eight, just above fire-breathing dragons and just below carnivorous skeletons.”
“I’m not going to go into just how flawed that hierarchy is right now, but let me assure you that necromancers do exist outside the world of computer games. And necromancy is a spectrum, ranging from low-level skills such as conversing with the deceased to complete control over the undead, as I have described.”
“They do? How cool is that?” Stella fastened her seat belt. All around them the businesslike bustle of the plane preparing to land continued regardless of their strange conversation.
“Quite cool, until you realize the lengths to which each of these leaders would go in order to get a necromancer on their side.”
Stella thought carefully about it. “Oh, I see. If the vampire prince you mentioned, for instance, had a necromancer on his side, he could have a spell cast that would render Moncoya powerless to harm him. Powerless to do anything much at all, in fact.”
Cal shook his head. “Not quite. Moncoya is not undead, having never actually been alive in the mortal sense of the word. So, although a necromancer could have some control over him, it would not be absolute. The spell would work the other way around, however. If Moncoya got his hands on a necromancer, he could exert total control over the vampires, phantoms and therianthropes—or were-creatures as they have become known—within Otherworld as well as some of the lesser undead. It would also be possible, if necessary, to summon the earthly dead from their graves and raise an army of corpses. If Moncoya could do all of this, his dream of ruling all Otherworld would be realized.”
“A corpse army? How horrid!” Stella wrinkled her nose. “You said necromancers are rare, so I’m guessing none of the warring factions currently have one working with them.”
“Correct. You already have a very astute grasp of Otherworld politics, Stella. My sources tell me that Moncoya has uncovered the identity of possibly the most powerful necromancer of all time. The arrival of this unparalleled sorcerer was predicted centuries ago by another great necromancer, one whose very name has become enshrined in legend.”
“Who was that?”
“You would know him by the name he took during his time on earth. At that time, he called himself Merlin.”
“Well, yes. As sorcerers go, they don’t come much more well-known than Merlin,” Stella conceded. “You said necromancers are mortal, yet you just said he took the name Merlin here on earth. That implies he wasn’t human.”
“That’s because he wasn’t. Merlin was a hybrid. He was born of a mortal mother and a nonmortal father.”
“And there is really someone around today who Merlin predicted would come along and be this all-powerful necromancer? That’s mind-blowing stuff. I’m surprised he’s managed to keep it quiet. You’d think the press would be all over him like a rash. Talk about celebrity status.” Stella leaned across him as she spoke to look out the plane window. They were close enough to the ground now to see the lights of the individual cars, although, given that it was now the early hours of the morning, they were few and far between.
Cal’s breath was warm on her cheek when he spoke. “The necromancer of the prophecy is not yet aware of his or her own powers.”
“If that’s the case, how does Moncoya know who it is?”
“Merlin’s prophecies are well-known, but often cryptic. This one is no different.” Cal quoted the words, like a child remembering lines from a play. “When the three-tailed comet returns to Iberia’s skies and the brightest star has seen five and twenty harvests, then he who claims the heart of the necromancer star will unite the delightful plain. During Merlin’s time, Otherworld was referred to by many names, one of which was ‘the delightful plain.’” He was watching her face closely.
“You’re right. That is a pretty vague prophecy.” She leaned back in her seat. Cal’s eyes seemed to bore into her and she frowned, trying to get a sense of what he was attempting to convey to her. Her mind was stubbornly refusing to process what was behind his words. Part of her—a really big part, the biggest imaginable part—didn’t want to do this next bit. The plane wheels touched down in the same instant that it hit her like a punch in the gut.
“Oh, no. No. No.” She shook her head to punctuate the increasingly emphatic words. “Stella means star... And I’m twenty-five? And the comet appeared when I arrived in Spain... Iberia? Come on, Cal, this is all too far-fetched for words.”
In the end, it wasn’t the fact that he didn’t try to persuade her or even the trace of pity in the silver depths of his eyes that struck the most fear into her heart. Those things no longer mattered. Not when, just as the plane taxied to a halt and the passengers began to unbuckle their seat belts, she looked again at the youth next to her.
He smiled directly at her and she was momentarily dazzled by the faun-like perfection of his features. His eyes were his most striking feature. Even greener than her own, the irises had an outer ring of pure gold. As the implication of his beauty dawned on her, she turned to Cal. He was staring over her head at the young man. In the merest blink of an eye later, she looked back again. Despite the fact that the plane doors were still closed and the aisle was filled with passengers waiting to disembark, the youth had gone.
Chapter 6 (#ulink_c5baaf83-d5e7-5e26-afb9-d22163d65e3f)
“I don’t understand how he could be there one second and gone the next.” Stella was almost running to keep up with Cal’s long strides, but he didn’t indulge her by slowing down.
“A sidhe can move faster than you can blink.”
“Can they also make themselves invisible?”
“No. It’s much more likely he shifted. He will have simply changed his form and become one of the other passengers. Someone you wouldn’t look at twice. The harassed-looking woman over there whose roots are showing or the grumpy old guy with the cane.”
They were walking briskly, weaving through the throng of people, following the signs to passport control. “What does it mean? Him being there...sitting next to me?” Even to her own ears, Stella’s voice sounded very small.
“It’s a message from Moncoya. He’s letting us know we can’t hide from him. Keep hold of my hand.” As he spoke, Cal’s eyes were scanning the crowd constantly.
“Believe me, I have absolutely no intention of letting go.” To prove it, Stella twined her fingers more tightly between his.
“Shit.” This comment was dragged from him as he assimilated the fact that all of the automated passport control machines were out of order. Three manned desks were open and long, slow-moving lines had formed at each. They joined the end of one of these.
“This must be a coincidence. Surely?” Where had that nervous flutter in her voice come from?
“Perhaps.”
As words went, that one was less than reassuring. Stella cast an anxious look around her. The room was a huge, high-ceilinged, impersonal square. Other people were pouring in behind them so going back the way they had come was not an option. The only exits were beyond the barriers at which passengers had to display their passports. Two uniformed police officers stood to one side of the desks, surveying the crowd of people. In the line for the desk to the right of theirs, four young men clad in colorful ponchos and hand-knit alpaca sweaters caught Stella’s eye. They all carried panpipes and looked like walking advertisements for the Peruvian tourist industry. On closer inspection, it seemed they had not fully embraced the Andean lifestyle, since each one of them wore a headset beneath his wide-brimmed leather hat.
The line shuffled slowly forward. Stella was aware of the tension in Cal’s whole body that was somehow managing to communicate itself to her through the clasp of his hand. Turning to look at the line to their left, she was briefly distracted by the antics of what appeared to be a bachelorette party. Clad in tiaras, tutus and—bizarrely—galoshes, the six women looked as though they had been partying hard for days. “Have I missed some hot new trend? What is it with the headsets?” Stella wondered, noting that the women in the bridal group were all wearing them under their tiaras. Cal, tightly wound with inner tension, didn’t respond.
As more passengers surged in from newly arrived planes and the room became even more crowded, they were increasingly jostled. Still holding Stella’s hand in one of his, Cal also drew her close, sliding his other arm about her shoulders so that she was pressed up against the hard muscle of his chest. In spite of the circumstances, Stella took a moment to enjoy the sensation. “No matter how chaotic it gets, don’t move away from me.”
Stella glanced up at him, at the taut muscles of his jaw and the rigidity around his eyes. Was he tired, or was there something more to it?
Just then the poncho-wearing group shimmied closer and one of the men caught Stella’s eye. As he did so, he spoke into his mouthpiece. Immediately, the other three men turned in her direction. They were all remarkable for one thing. Their good looks. She glanced across at the women in the bachelorette party. The disheveled, hungover look of minutes earlier was gone. Each one of them could have been a glamour model, except for one fact. They were all tiny.
“Er, Cal...”
“I know. It doesn’t matter what they do, stay in contact with me.”
“There are police officers over there.” Obediently, Stella pressed herself tighter against him. “Can’t we go to them and explain what’s going on?”
“Stella, have you ever met a police officer shorter than you?” He was right. She glanced across at the two police officers, and one of them gave her a friendly wave. He was so handsome he might have just stepped out of a trailer as the romantic lead in a film. Sadly, his lack of inches meant he was never going to get that sort of starring role. Panic settled somewhere between her chest and her abdomen, making breathing difficult.
“What can we do?” They were completely surrounded now.
“If you are indeed the star Moncoya seeks—and you are the only one who doubts it, by the way—you can help me get us out of this.”
“How?” Stella shuddered as one of the tutu-clad women came within inches of them. Her lips drew back, showing very small, perfectly even white teeth. The expression was somewhere between a smile and a snarl. The ring of fire around her irises blazed bright.
“We will be stronger together.” Cal’s voice, usually the softly spoken, masculine tones of her childhood imagination, sounded completely different. Now, it had become a rich baritone, full of fire and majesty, echoing around the soulless room and bringing an abrupt end to the impromptu party. Stella looked up at him and watched in fascination as the silver light in his eyes shone more brilliantly than ever. The glow in their depths would shame the purest moon beams on the darkest night. It must be her imagination—of course it was—but it was almost as if the concentrated beam from Cal’s gaze was brightening the room, shimmering and glistening on each object it touched.
From nowhere, her invisible friend, Cal, had been transformed into a commanding presence of mountain-shattering proportions. Without moving, or speaking, he was dominating everything around him, and the sidhes promptly abandoned any further attempt to disguise their identity. Hissing and showing their teeth, they drew back slightly. Beauty really is only skin-deep, Stella thought. She was surprised she could string a coherent thought together at all, let alone make it a flippant one. Other passengers, sensing the sudden change in mood, also began to distance themselves.
The air around the two of them seemed to thicken and quiver. Stella had the oddest feeling that, if she reached out a finger, she would encounter a springy resistance. It was like being encased in invisible Bubble Wrap. Stella and Cal were alone, surrounded by a circle of irate sidhes and a more distant ring of wary onlookers.
“We’re out of here. Nobody is going to stop us.” Cal spoke again, still in that incredible, Shakespearean voice. Keeping his arm around Stella so that she walked in step with him, he began to move toward the passport desk. Nobody did stop them.
“Majesty will come for his star,” one of the poncho-wearing sidhes, braver than his fellows, whined at them as they passed.
“Majesty can fuck off.”
A collective seething rasp rose up around them. “Galdre. Deófolwítga.” Memories came flooding back to Stella. It was the language of the monster under the bed.
They had reached the desk now. Stella looked nervously at the immigration officer, seated in his booth. She had a horrible fear he might be handsome enough to take her breath away. He wasn’t. He was middle-aged, balding and looked as if he wanted to be elsewhere. Probably tucked in his bed. He also seemed oblivious to the jittery atmosphere, merely gesturing through the thick glass panel for them to step forward.
“My girlfriend is feeling unwell. These people were good enough to let us come through before them,” Cal said, and Stella was relieved to hear his voice lower several tones and approach something like normality. He held his passport out to the official on the desk and gestured for Stella to do the same. “Thanks, guys.” He raised his hand in a friendly wave to the line of people behind them as they passed through the barrier. Gripping Stella’s hand hard, he marched toward the two sidhes dressed as police officers. They moved to block the exit.
Looking down at Stella’s worried expression, he grinned. “That was fun. Ready for the hard part?”
* * *
Confronting a couple of angry sidhes in a public place, with a crowd of Moncoya’s foot soldiers snapping at his heels, would not have been Cal’s first choice of ways to give Stella an introductory lesson in how to deal with the threat posed by the faeries. A quick glance around showed he had no choice. Despite the early hour, this was an international airport going about its business. There were so many people milling around that the chances of bystanders getting caught in the cross fire were high. Doubtless the sidhes were counting on that. Cal’s reputation for protecting the innocent was well-known. Moncoya had derided him for it often enough. All of Cal’s ingenuity as well as his powers were going to be needed if he was to get Stella out of this and away to safety while ensuring no one else got hurt.
Those thoughts took seconds to flash through his mind as he and Stella walked toward the exit. The two sidhe police officers remained in place, blocking their path. A family with young children was just behind them.
Cal was unconvinced about the concept of fate. He had met the three goddesses who sat at their spindles spinning the threads of human destiny. His opinion of their motives and effectiveness wasn’t high. Perhaps it was because they were condemned to a dull, lonely spinster’s life for all eternity, but, in his many centuries of experience, he had discovered that they enjoyed making mortals suffer. Cal was of the school of thought that believed people made their own destiny. It helped if, like him, one wasn’t mortal, in which case the influence of the goddesses was hugely reduced. At that precise moment, however, he could have kissed one, or even all three, of the ancient crones. Because, for once, they chose to intervene at exactly the right moment.
As Cal and Stella got within a few feet of the exit, the mechanized doors swung inward. This startled the two sidhes, who had been standing with their backs against the panels. One of them began to protest, but the words died on his lips as three real police officers strode into the hall and paused just inside, looking around. Cal could tell they were genuine law enforcement officers. For one thing they were as tall as him. And none of them could, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as pretty.
“...reports of a commotion down here,” one of the officers was saying to his companion. He barely glanced at the sidhes. “Probably nothing, but the sergeant wants it checked out.”
“Come on.” Not waiting to hear any more, Cal dragged Stella with him, past the police officers, through the doors and into the arrivals hall.
He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Freedom, and the opportunity to lose themselves on a bus or train or in a taxi, was just yards away. As they made their way past the crowds waiting at the luggage carousels, Cal could feel dozens of eyes following them. He was willing to bet that most of those eyes bore a fiery ring around the outer edge of their irises. Sure enough, as soon as he moved toward the set of doors that would lead them to the outside world, a crowd of passengers—each of them predictably short in stature—moved into place, barring their way.
Cal slowed in his stride, casting around himself for something—anything—that would help them escape. To one side of the arrivals hall there was an official motor cart. It had been hooked up to an electric charging station.
“What are you doing?” Stella cast a look over her shoulder. “They are coming through. We need to make a run for it or we’ll be surrounded.”
He threw a quick glance behind him and caught a glimpse of colorful ponchos and pink tutus. Hauling Stella with him, he made for the vehicle.
“Jump in.” Even though the look she gave him was one of pure horror, he was profoundly glad when she did as he asked. He unplugged the vehicle from its charging dock and squeezed into the seat next to her. His knees came up almost to his chin in the cramped space.
“You’re going to have to supercharge this thing to get it past that lot.” Her eyes were huge and very dark green as she nodded in the direction of the doors, where the sidhes were now converging, waiting for them. There were a few anticipatory grins cast their way.
“I knew you were a girl after my own heart.” Cal grinned down at her. “Hold tight.”
“Hold tight?” Her expression was incredulous. “You don’t seriously think this thing is going faster than we can walk, do you?”
Cal didn’t reply. Instead, he focused his attention on the connection his foot made with the cart’s pedal. Summoning all his supernatural energy—now was not the time to screw things up—he intoned slowly and forcefully, “Onettan. Swiftnes.” The machine lurched, its electrical engine whirring loudly. He exhaled a sigh of pure relief as it raced across the tiled floor, gathering speed as it went.
“Cal, did you just tell this thing to go fast?” The cart was practically flying now, its tires burning rubber as it hurtled toward the sidhes. Stella lurched against him in the confined space. “And—my God, I can’t believe I’m actually going to ask this—did it understand you?”
“No. It’s only working through me. If I take my foot off the pedal, it will go back to the way it was.” All around them, sidhes were diving out of the way of the speeding machine. “Once we’re through the doors, get ready to jump.”
The automatic doors opened as the luggage cart approached, and Cal had time to assimilate the surprised faces of several taxi drivers on the pavement as they charged through the gap and out into the open air.
“Now!” He dived off one side and saw Stella go the other way. The cart made a startled whirring noise and ground to a halt in the middle of the road, causing a minibus to swerve around it. Leaping to his feet, Cal grabbed Stella’s hand. “You okay?”
She nodded and they broke into a run. Cal decided that making for the train or bus station within the airport complex would be too dangerous. Better to get away from the area completely and find another way into the transport system.
The pavement sloped away from the airport building and they were close to a multistory parking ramp when the two sidhes disguised as police officers emerged from its entrance. Cal looked over his shoulder. If they turned back, the dozens of sidhes in the arrivals hall would be waiting for them.
He stopped. The sidhes were mere feet away. Twin smiles lit their fiery eyes. They took several steps closer.
Cal raised his hand. “Fýrwylm.”
Flames shot from his fingertips toward the sidhes, showering them with sparks. Their smiles disappeared and were replaced by wary looks.
“That the best you’ve got, galdre?” Although the sidhe licked his lips nervously, he took a step closer.
“No. He’s got me.” Stella placed her hand over Cal’s. “What do I need to do?”
“That’s my girl,” he murmured, grinning down at Stella. “Think with me. Match your thoughts to mine.”
He could see the concentration on her face. Her brow furrowed with the effort. Then he felt it. A surge of power, like a jolt of electricity, pulsed through Cal’s body. This time when he raised his hand, together with Stella’s, the bolt from his fingertips resembled a flamethrower. He had known she would be strong, but this was beyond even his expectations.
“Fýrwylm.” Stella repeated the word he had used, and the flames burned even brighter. Muttering, the sidhes shrank back. “What language am I speaking?”
“Anglo-Saxon, the oldest form of the English language.” Cal led her forward, clearing their way by spreading a circle of fire ahead of them.
“How do you say bastard?”
Cal started to laugh. “It was the same word then that it is now. Or you can say dóc, which means illegitimate mongrel.” He didn’t add that he’d been called that himself a time or two over the centuries. Usually by Moncoya.
“Okay. Fýrwylm, you sidhe bastards.”
There were shouts now from the airport building and the sound of sirens. The two sidhe police officers had disappeared.
“Time to go.” Cal urged Stella into a run again. There was no way he wanted to have to explain what was going on to a genuine police officer.
“Did I really just do that?” Stella held her hand in front of her face, studying it as she ran.
“You did.” He looked back to see police cars and fire engines converging on the multistory parking ramp.
“What else can I do?”
“Let’s get away from here to somewhere safe. Then I can show you.” He smiled down at her, catching her hand and pulling her through a hedge into a field. “Or maybe you can show me.”
Chapter 7 (#ulink_aea9f052-d0ac-5894-bd5d-e7af84bcf287)
Stella slumped into a seat in the café. Despite the fact that she had not eaten for—she frowned in an effort to concentrate—over twenty-four hours, the sight of the tea and muffin Cal placed in front of her caused her stomach to pitch and roll uncomfortably. And it wasn’t just the lack of food, of course. A night with no sleep and the need for a long, hot shower were also taking their toll. Oh, and the vicious, bloodthirsty faeries who were on her trail. Yep, that lot would destroy your appetite anytime.
“Eat it.” Cal’s voice was stern as she pushed the plate aside.
“Where are we again?” She hadn’t really taken much notice of the signs as, wearily, she’d followed him from the train after a five-and-a-half-hour journey.
“Carmarthen.” Stella regarded him blankly and he elaborated. “It’s in South Wales.”
“I know where it is. I just don’t understand why we’re here.” There was a rising note of unaccustomed fretfulness in her voice. Stella didn’t like it and decided to drown it with tea. The brew was strong and slightly too hot. Its effect was revivifying and she sat up straighter.
“It’s on our way.” The café was set in a side street adjacent to the station. It was the first place they had come across after leaving the train. It was quiet now and Stella couldn’t imagine that it would get much busier once lunchtime arrived in the next hour. Two elderly women lingered over tea and cake at a table near the window and a man in overalls was reading a newspaper and eating bacon and eggs. The proprietor, a sour-faced woman, who appeared to derive very little joy from her chosen business, was watching the news on a television set with the sound turned down.
“On our way. That’s really helpful, Cal. On our way to where exactly?” The tea had gone some way toward restoring her appetite and Stella bit into the muffin. Its sweetness jarred her teeth but she could almost feel it sending a boost of energy directly into her bloodstream.
“The only place where I know for sure I can keep you safe.”
“Cal, I really cannot get my head around this. If I am a necromancer—let alone the necromancer of Merlin’s prophecy—wouldn’t I have known about it before now?”
He took her hand and Stella was conscious of the muffin crumbs and stickiness adhering to her fingers. His eyes, those beautiful, strange eyes, were probing her face. Wanting something from her, but she wasn’t sure what. “Don’t you know it?”
She started to shake her head, then stopped. His expression caught her attention and snagged on something deep inside her subconscious. It was as if a domino knockdown had been set in motion inside her head. One tiny memory triggered another, until the whole series fell into place. “Oh, my God, Cal.”
His voice was infinitely gentle. “When you were four years old, not long after your parents died, you were placed with a family in Suffolk. Do you remember?”
“I’m starting to.” Don’t make me do this. The images, so long buried, were scrambling to the surface now with a vengeance.
“It wasn’t your fault, Stella. You just told them what you saw.” Cal ran his thumb back and forth over her hand.
Unshed tears burned her eyes. “Imagine how they felt, those people who took me into their home. Their own little girl had died six years earlier. She was run over, and they couldn’t have any more children. They were supposed to be my forever family. Instead, on my very first night in their home, I told them I’d seen their daughter standing at the foot of my bed. I knew her name, described every horrific detail of her injuries—” she gulped in a mouthful of air “—I told them she blamed them for her death. No wonder they couldn’t launch me back to the children’s home fast enough.” She blinked the tears away. “How did I manage to shut that out of my mind for all these years?”
“Because it was bad. Because you didn’t want to remember something that hurt you so much.”
She hung her head. “It wasn’t the only time.”
“No. It’s the reason you never found a permanent home.”
Stella gave a wobbly laugh. “And I thought it was because I couldn’t stay out of trouble.”
“I think that was a big part of it, too. No one knew how to handle the little whirlwind who flooded their house or painted their dog blue and then had long conversations with their dead grandma.”
“Except you. You never abandoned me.”
He reached out a hand and ran his knuckles down her cheek. His touch heated her face as though there was some residual fire remaining from all the flame-throwing antics back at the airport. “I never will.” He laughed, lightening the mood. “I happen to think the world needs more blue dogs.”
Stella studied one of her hands as if she had never seen it before. It was the hand she knew so well. Small, with artistically narrow fingers and neat, unvarnished nails. It was hard to believe it was the same hand that had wreaked havoc on the sidhes just hours earlier. “So I really am a necromancer? I’ve been so successful at hiding those instincts that allow me to see dead people that I’d almost forgotten I had them. But there must be a world of difference between that and being able to summon the spirits of the dead, surely?”
“It’s simply a matter of honing the skills you already have. Even the finest necromancers have to practice their art.”
“I still don’t understand how Moncoya made the link between Merlin’s prophecy and me.”
“He has been looking for you for a very long time. He knew, of course, when the three-tailed comet would come. And he thinks you sent him a sign.”
“Me? No way...wait. Oh, hell. It must be the game, ‘Supernova Deliverance.’” Stella pulled in another deep, steadying breath. Cal took hold of her hand again, and the warmth of his palm on hers was comforting. She focused on that. “When I wanted to crowd fund the game, Moncoya saw an outline of my idea. That was what prompted him to offer me the job. The main character has powers like those you described and...well, let me show you.” She took out her phone. Before she could get the game up on the screen, the woman behind the counter turned the television volume up louder, distracting her.
“Manchester airport remains closed after a possible terrorist attack early this morning.” The news anchor’s brisk tones accompanied images of a line of fire engines outside the multistory parking garage’s smoke-damaged exterior. “Details remain unclear and police have said it is too soon to speculate about who is responsible. They wish to speak to this man and woman in connection with the incident.” Images of Cal and Stella checking in at Girona airport filled the screen. The images were grainy, but unmistakable. “The public are urged not to approach this couple, who may be armed, but to contact the police immediately with any information.”
Stella glanced from the television screen to the woman behind the counter. She was staring back at them with panic in her eyes as she spoke into her phone.
* * *
“This is the last leg of the journey. We’re almost there.”
Cal could see that Stella was flagging. Her face was pale with weariness, her mouth set in a grimly determined line. She hadn’t said much when they left the café, simply following in Cal’s wake as he had thrown the money for their food and drink down on the table and made a swift exit. She hadn’t even asked where they were going as they made their way past the ice-cream-colored buildings and along the narrow streets of the oldest town in Wales.
“What’ll it be?” he had asked, running a hand through his distinctive mop of chestnut hair. “Shave it off or get a hat?”
“Hat,” she’d replied, with a look of horror. And that was why, despite the bright sunlight, he was wearing a knitted skullcap pulled low over his ears. Stella, who at least was dressed in different clothing from that in the police photographs, had purchased it for him from a craft stall on the town’s outdoor market. They passed through this bustling thoroughfare on their way out of Carmarthen and into the countryside beyond.
“Shouldn’t we go to the police and at least try to explain what happened?” Stella asked now as they trudged up a steep hillside.
“How do you propose we start that conversation?”
She chuckled and the sound chased away some of his own weariness. “How about we just take a couple of corpses with us and let them do the talking?”
“Spoken like a true necromancer. Seriously, going to the police is exactly what Moncoya wants us to do. Think about it, Stella. He would like nothing more than to get you away from me. What more effective way to do that than to get us both placed in police custody?”
“You think he’s behind this terrorist nonsense?”
“I know he is. You have no idea what he’s capable of. I, on the other hand, know him only too well. If we were arrested, the first thing that would happen is that the police would place us in separate cells. That would suit his evil majesty right down to the tips of his highly polished fingernails.” His mouth was a hard, thin line. It was what tended to happen whenever Moncoya was the subject of conversation.
“Couldn’t you get us out of a police cell?” She reached out a hand for his, and although he felt the gesture was automatic, it tugged at something deep inside him. Something that had not been touched in a very long time.
They had arrived at the summit of the hill now. Cal paused and smiled down at her. He would never get tired of looking at her heart-shaped face with its huge green eyes and that incredibly expressive mouth. It was a mouth that could do sulky and sultry like no other he’d ever seen. Right now, it was breaking into a grin that was half shy, half teasing. “Of course I could get us out, but do you want to be on the run for the rest of your life?”
The grin vanished. “Isn’t that what we are doing now? This feels a lot like running to me.”
“We were coming here anyway. This was part of my plan, not Moncoya’s.”
“To come to the top of a hill in Wales?” Stella eyed him with obvious suspicion. “Don’t tell me, I’m going to become a wild woman of the woods.”
“Close. Come on.” Keeping hold of her hand, he pulled her with him as he began to descend the other side of the hill. This place had that effect on him. It refreshed him. That was the reason he always came back. Coming here with Stella was something he had never envisioned. Would she be able to sense how special it was? Why did it matter so much that she should? The questions became superfluous as, apparently infected by his pleasure, Stella broke into a run. Pulling him with her, she laughed as they picked up speed and the summer breeze cleansed their faces of the long, weary hours of traveling.
“Stop, you madwoman.” He pulled her to a halt. “We’re not going all the way to the bottom.”
They were about halfway down the slope and Cal led Stella into a small, dense copse. In the darkest part of this wooded tangle, he pulled aside thick fronds of overhanging ivy, uncovering the concealed entrance to a cave. The white limestone rock was barely visible beneath its covering of lichen. Even if a rambler chanced to wander off the hill path and into the trees, in this gloomy light the person would walk right past the cave. You had to know what you were looking for. More important, you had to be looking with the right eyes.
He felt suddenly nervous as he waited for Stella’s reaction. The arched entrance to the cave was high enough to walk through upright, and she studied this in silence for long moments. Then she turned to him with eyes that sparkled with excitement. “Can we go in?”
The entrance led them into a small cavern. It was large enough for Cal to stand upright inside it, but he could have stretched out his arms and touched both walls. Reaching up into a natural shelf in the rock, he took down a flashlight. Beyond it, the cave narrowed and Cal led Stella into the gloom, shining the light ahead of him.
“Just keep one hand on the wall and watch your step. The floor is uneven in places.”
They walked for a minute before the corridor opened out into a large circular space. The beam of the flashlight illuminated the scene. There was an old sofa and two chairs, a bookshelf and a table. Stella took in these details, blinking at Cal in surprise. “Someone lives here?”
“We do. For the time being.” Cal handed her the light and went over to the bookshelf. Taking down two old-fashioned oil lamps, he set about lighting them. Soon there was a warm, strangely homely glow about the place.
“No, seriously.” He glanced up from his task, holding her gaze. “You are being serious.”
“I told you I was bringing you to the only place I knew I could keep you safe. This is it.”
Stella flopped down onto one of the chairs. “After the hours of traveling, revelations and confrontation, in spite of the fact we’re in a cave, this actually feels incredibly comfortable. Where will we sleep?”
Cal pointed to an arch in the cave wall. “The bedroom is through there. I’ll take the sofa.”
“And this may be a bit of a girlie thing but...”
“There is no bathroom.” He started to laugh at her expression. “There is a stream just outside. It flows down into a deep pool. As long as you don’t mind the cold, it’s perfect for bathing. This cave has been inhabited on and off for centuries, so there is even a well for drinking water.”
“I was actually thinking of something more basic than bathing.” Even in the flickering golden lamplight, he could see that she was blushing.
“It is a bit primitive, I’m afraid. Think Victorians and chamber pots.”
Stella lowered her head into her hands and, as he observed her shaking shoulders, Cal had a horrible feeling that she might have started to cry. When she looked up, her face was a picture of laughter.
“In the space of twenty-four hours we’ve become desperate fugitives from justice.”
He studied her in concern. “Can you get used to it? This is the one place I guarantee Moncoya won’t come.” Just don’t ask me how I know that.
“I can get used to anything if I can get my head down right now and go to sleep.”
“Come with me.” He held out his hand and pulled her up from the chair. Carrying one of the lamps, he led her through to where a bed fitted neatly into what turned out to be a small alcove in the cave wall. Cal dragged a large trunk out from under it and took clean pillows and bedding out of that.
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Jane Godman
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Secrets and seduction…When Stella Fallon moves to Spain for her dream job, she never suspects that a cataclysmic confrontation is looming. Or that she is the last in an ancient line of sorcerers. Now, her rare powers put her at risk.The only one who can protect Stella is a man she once thought her guardian angel. Cal becomes humanbut his centuries-old secret could destroy her trust.But as the pair prepare for a battle of epic magnitude, they cannot deny their white-hot attraction…