“You know, you keep telling me what we are isn’t anything supernatural, yet I keep finding out about things like daemon pulverem and familiars and all this other crap, which isn’t exactly textbook Science 101 material.”
“Considering scientists can’t even unravel the origins of the universe yet, does it truly surprise you to know there are things that defy current scientific explanations? There are yogis who can control their body temperature through meditation. Animals hibernate for winter in a form of suspended animation without eating or drinking. Yet awake, they would die if they went several days without water. There are cicadas that only emerge once every seventeen years. There are things science hasn’t even discovered, much less begun to figure out.”
“But a cat who’s over four hundred years old? You expect me to believe that?”
“Did you ever expect to believe you’re a vampire?”
He had her there.
“How did he live so long?”
Matthias shrugged. “He’s like an antidemon, a spirit that could take whatever form he chose, and he chose the one you see. He’s not really a cat, he just looks like one.”
“Why does he stay at the office?”
“It’s where he chooses to be. He is the best early-warning system I could ever ask for.”
True. If it wasn’t for Murry, the daemon pulverem would have killed her.
“That’s why we had to move from the LA office in the first place,” Matthias continued. “He discovered our security team was infiltrated.”
They stopped for the night in St. Louis. As much as Taz wanted to get home, she wanted a shower and a soft bed even more.
Cuddling up to Matthias felt right, there was no denying. She’d get to spend hundreds of years with this man?
She was a lucky woman.
“There are so many places I want to take you, Taz,” he whispered, kissing her. “So many places I’ve been that I wished I had a soul mate to share them with.”
“Like where?”
He nuzzled her neck. “Key West, for starters. I’d love to watch the sunset at Mallory Square with you. I’d love to dive with the stingrays off Grand Cayman with you, take you on a tour of places I’ve been throughout my life. Britain, Ireland, Europe.”
“I’ll follow you anywhere, Matthias.”
They lay quietly for a few minutes. He thought she might be drifting off to sleep when she spoke again. “What are the Others?”
“That’s hard to say. We don’t know a lot about them, unfortunately.”
“My dad said they’re sort of like werewolves.” The glimpse she’d had of the severed head of the one that nearly killed Matthias had churned her stomach.
“Yes and no. They were the origin of the myth, those like them. They’re also the Yeti and Bigfoot and the Swamp Ape and all those kinds of legends.”
“Chupacabra?”
“That, too. Anything that’s a bipedal unidentified thing, it’s most likely where a group of Others have one of their bases.”
“Can they really change how they look?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Supposedly they can, but who knows if that’s true or not? We don’t know for sure. All I know is they don’t call themselves ‘Others,’ that’s just a label we gave them eons ago to distinguish them from us and from humans. They call themselves ‘lycans.’”
She thought about it. “Lycanthropes?”
He nodded. “Different from shape-shifters. The lycans are tightly knit. Unfortunately, we don’t know as much about them as we’d like.”
“You were ready when that one attacked me at my house that night.”
“I was ready for whatever was going to attack. I thought it was another daemon pulverem, at first. I didn’t know it was an Other until we got inside.”
“Okay, while we’re on the subject, what’s with the sword?” She noticed he didn’t have it with him.
“It’s a very old relic. Unfortunately I don’t know a lot about it, it’s that old. It’s been passed down from generation to generation, and if you want to destroy a daemon pulverem—”
“Or behead a lycan,” she smiled.
“Yes,” he agreed, “or that. It’s the best thing to use. You can destroy a daemon pulverem other ways, but the sword has a special property that dissolves a daemon pulverem’s bond with its form.”
“But doesn’t kill a daemon pulverem?”
“No. Like I told you, the energy isn’t destroyed, it just dissolves the bond, the form the body has. The creature can reform another body and come back, but it takes a while.”
“Can you kill its energy?”
“Yes, but it involves rituals that I have no idea how to perform.”
“Who does?”
“Ra—” He stopped.
“Rafe?” she finished.
He nodded. “He studied that, knew a lot about it. Which is another reason he was helping us, and was going to help train you.”
“Oh.”
Matthias’ voice softened. “He was incredibly well versed in ‘arcane’ knowledge. Much of it learned while he was with Cassandra. She was very skilled with the knowledge and lore available to her at the time.”
Taz sensed there was more behind his words than he let on, but she let it go.
Matthias continued. “Rafe took that knowledge and built upon it. He had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.”
“He diverted his energy after she died?”
Matthias no longer met her gaze. “Yes. He also spent centuries perfecting his skills and control. Just because a vampire has powers doesn’t mean they’re strong, especially if they can’t focus. He was a master at that, put many who were much more powerful than him to shame. There will never be another like him.”
Matthias was asleep, but Taz knew there was no rest for her yet. That skin-crawling feeling had returned, a nagging thought drumming constantly. Rafael’s laptop bag sat by the desk.
Might as well.
She took a deep breath and opened Rafael’s e-mail. Taz was used to getting dozens, if not hundreds, of e-mails a day. His e-mail hadn’t been checked since before his death, and only twenty downloaded.
Two were spam. Seventeen were newsletters, announcements, general stuff from e-mail lists he was on.
Delete.
The last was from a woman, dated just that morning. Taz fought the unexpected surge of jealousy, knowing full well Rafe had a life outside of the one day they shared together. She wasn’t exactly in a position to be jealous.
Rafael, I haven’t heard from you in a couple of weeks. I left you some messages, but you haven’t called me back. Are you mad at me? Give me a call, I’m worried. Luv ya!—Trish.
Trish, hmm?
A ghostly chuckle rumbled through her brain. Wonderful, just what I need, to have that back now. The voice had been quiet ever since the oil change incident.
The silence had been blissful.
Taz found Rafael’s cell phone in the laptop bag and turned it on. Sure enough, there were several voice mails. Taz played them.
The girl sounded younger than her. She also sounded worried, but it was hard to tell by the tone and content of the messages if she was more than a friend. Her cell number showed up on the outgoing call logs as Trish. When Taz matched the number to the incoming list, she found quite a few.
Taz felt bad. Obviously, the girl had no idea what happened. Logging into the corporate VPN, she found the information she needed, punched the number into her cell phone, and went into the bathroom before hitting send.
He answered on the second ring. “Davidson.”