Hellhound (15 page)

I nearly jumped. “What are you doing, Ashton?”

“Been on the lookout. You?”

“I live here,” I replied, quite annoyed.

“Any leads?”

“No. I just spoke with him though.”

“Yeah? He was here?” He looked around with an arched
brow, sniffing the air.

“No, I mean, I don’t think so. I spoke with him on the
phone, and he told me he wasn’t in the city, but I came up here to check
anyway. Where have you been, Ashton? And why are you reporting to Claudius and
not me?”

He shrugged and finally calmed down in his fidgeting
long enough for me to get a better look at him beneath the moonlight and open
canopy of stars. Ashton’s eyes were dark, the skin beneath them dark and
droopy. He looked haggard, or terribly ill.

“Are you all right? You look awful.”

“Oh, thanks sweet cheeks. If I said that to you, you’d
slap me, or punch me. With you, I can never tell.”

“What’s your deal?”

“Been hunting the tracker night and day. He’s all over
the place, lost his trail at least ten times. It amazed me that I could even
pick it back up.”

“Why are you tracking him so fiercely?”

“It’s my job. I’m getting paid to do this, and as soon
as he’s in the clan’s hands, I can rest. I’ve never tracked a tracker before.
It ain’t easy.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. Better yet, tell Claudius
about it. I just got off the phone with him and he was chewing my butt off
about taking so long.”

“Well.” He calmed down even more, as if his adrenaline
finally wore off and he was about to collapse. “I’ll tell the Elders as soon as
I get a chance, but what have you been doing, Selene? Have you even left this
building?”

I shook my head. “Listen, daybreak is only an hour
away. You want to come down and crash on my couch while I go out?”

He grinned and looked at me through low lids. “Selene,
you asking me to sleep at your place?”

“Yeah, yeah, all right there, Romeo.”

I started walking past him. I heard a slight noise and
then a gust of wind. When I turned, Ashton was nowhere to be found, and in the
distance, I saw a fast-moving shadow that resembled a dark cloud amid the
lighter colored gray ones. Either he was onto something or he dashed back to
his place before he actually passed out. I didn’t know him well enough to know
if he lived in the domicile or not.

Perhaps Ashton lived out in the mortal world. Being a
tracker, he probably enjoyed his freedom quite a bit. I wondered how he, a dark
and elusive shadow stalker, could have paired up with a domesticated undertaker
like Lydia. They were an odd match. Well, people said that opposites attract,
completing one another, filling each other’s cracks and holes, and such, or
something like that.

I had to start somewhere, and the domicile was it. I
kept seeing my father doused in his own blood and lying face down in a pool of
black fluid. And I kept recalling Lydia’s memory about the event.

Then my mind wandered over my conversation with Demetrius.
I truly wondered if a person who believed in a pseudo-memory could push that
memory into the cerebral chamber. It was common belief that the cerebral
chamber only absorbed memories. It did not take desires, hates, emotions, or
fantasies. What if a person was drugged and wholly believed that they
experienced something that did not actually occur? Would that be construed as a
memory or a fantasy?

Now the question of whether or not a fantasy could be
absorbed into the cerebral chamber boggled me. I had to speak with Lydia just
to make sure. I never knew her to be crazy or sadistic, but then again, I never
believed that my former lover would betray me by killing my father. Who knew
what lay in the depths of a person’s mind? Sometimes I wondered if I even knew
what laid in my own mind. What was I capable of doing?

When I first suspected Demetrius had something to do
with the murders, I only half-hated him for something that had yet to be
proven. When I was given proof, I whole-heartedly despised him. But now that my
former lover offered a reasonable explanation to a crook in the system,
suddenly I was emotionally at war. With that one, simple hope, I was abruptly
thrown into turmoil. I clung to that hope. My inner being wished so frantically
that there was a fault in our criminal system.

It took a lot to convince me that he was the killer,
but it took just one rational alternative from his lips to pivot my thinking.
The only thing that bound me to the hatred was knowing that I couldn’t forfeit
my assignment without verifying the unconventional hope. I practiced self-control
and reasonability.

I pushed the thought into the nether regions of my
mind, keeping it only as a dim light of thought so that I wouldn’t feel
overwhelmed with the possibilities. In a best-case scenario, Demetrius would
have been proven innocent and all would be well with the world. I would find
and destroy the real criminal. We would become lovers again and live happily
ever after.

This was real life, and real life didn’t work that
way. Real life was twisted and morbid, and we lived as puppets. The more I hoped
for a good outcome, the harder my fall would be.

Suck it up, Selene,
I silently rebuked myself,
and pretend that he never mentioned
anything.

I pulled onto the gravel parking lot near the domicile.
There was a fake and nominal parking fee posted to keep mortals off the
property. There wasn’t anything of consequence nearby for them to park here,
but once in a blue moon the keepers would find a paid parking fee, which amused
them.

I slammed the door shut, and as soon as the gravel
crunched beneath my feet, the fog of the keepers swept through. I nodded at the
mist to acknowledge them in case they didn’t recognize me. They moved on and
lazily spread back into the tree line, soon disappearing from my sight.

I shuddered. My mind closed off any natural
inclination to wonder how horrible a death they could bring by melting my
insides. Oops, too late.

I could run to the domicile in no time, thanks to
Antonio’s powers, but I jammed my fists into the pockets of my trench coat,
kept my chin low, and walked.

The sun couldn’t infiltrate the thick canopy of
towering trees. I was sure somewhere up there were sentinels in the form of
animals, perched, and alert. Their ears were probably turned toward me, and
when I walked past, their eyes following me.

They didn’t give me any trouble, and never had. Unless
I turned rogue, they never would, and I was glad for that. No one wanted to
fight off vicious shape-shifters. Perhaps I could fend one off, maybe even two
if they didn’t get me by surprise, but not the entire army.

Closing in on the distance, knowing the trail by heart
and from memory, I moved at a steady pace. I stepped over fallen tree trunks,
low shrubs and limbs, and ducked beneath other things. As much as we walked
this route, a trail would never surface here. If a human didn’t dreadfully want
to wander this way, no one in their right mind would think that this was a
splendid direction to venture into.

Once I reached the known spot, which looked like more
woods, I paused. There wasn’t one animal, insect, or bird near. My essence
shimmied out of my pores in anticipation of mingling with the invisible
building. When the domicile recognized my scent and my essence, the vision
ahead blurred and swayed until a shimmer of building appeared. When it was
stable, about ten seconds later, I walked up the grand marble stairs and looked
up at the soaring towers. They rose above the canopy.

I pushed through one of the giant double doors and
stepped into the foyer. The sentries greeted me. Two guarded the door. The
first man simply nodded at me, said my name, and closed the door as I walked
past him and down the steps into the main lobby.

Angel’s dark, smooth voice called from behind,
“Selene, how nice of you to grace us with your beauty today.”

Oh brother. I imagined that worked with mortals, and
maybe even many females of my kind. Turning on my heels, I smiled to be polite,
plus he’d always been nice to me. He placed a hand to his chest, bit his lower
lip, and closed his eyes in mock pleasure.

I turned as the smile fled from my lips. Enough
friendliness. The faster I worked, the faster I could leave. Not even near the
clan for a minute and I itched to abscond from the dreaded domicile before I found
myself imprisoned within its towering, mystical walls.

I caught a few people off guard. They did double-takes
and then whispered amongst themselves. Obviously, people knew that I hunted my
former lover, but some didn’t know how to take that. These people weren’t
trackers and had no idea how to switch off their emotional tuner to do their
job.

A few members wondered if I took this long because I
couldn’t force myself to bring him in. I wanted to go right up to them and
explain the extenuating circumstances, or yell at them. Either way worked for me.
 

I avoided the Elders and minions, even when I grabbed
lunch. I wondered where they were. I stopped myself, as if thinking of them
would bid them to appear.

Taking the elevator, I went to my apartment first.
Everything was as I’d left it, but I dug around just to make sure. I never left
anything of substantial value here. The domicile was analogous to a locker. I
kept the bare necessities for my stay here, along with a few items for
emergencies or unseen occurrences. Pots and pans and imperishable food items
were stowed away in the kitchen. There were toiletries in the bathroom along
with towels and make-up. Some clothes hung in the closet, a pair of sneakers on
the floor, some undies and bras and socks in the dresser.

I sat on the edge of the bed and opened the top drawer
of my bedside table. I’d left a few bills and loose change sitting next to Demetrius’s
dagger. Everything was still here. It was compulsive to check my entire
apartment when at the domicile. 

I wanted to speak with my mother at some point, just
to see how she fared in all this mess and to make sure that she was well. I
also wanted to make sure that Claudius wasn’t trying to dive in after her now
that the appointed grieving time elapsed.

I hadn’t seen Claudius very often since this whole
thing transpired, but I couldn’t blame him for wanting to hook up with my
mother. She was an Elder of exquisite grandeur, which was one of the reasons
why my father went after her and why I turned out the way I did. Claudius was
alone now that Nathanial passed, and my mother was considered alone since I
didn’t live here. Still, I didn’t want Claudius to become my step-father, or
breed and then try to take me out.

Since I didn’t want to see the Elders until I finished
a good portion of my business, I pushed off a visit to their floor until later.
I went to Damares to get a good background story first. I was also curious to
know how she was doing. She wasn’t as strong as I was, and losing her brother
couldn’t have been easy. I’d rather that she go mad than to join him in the
rebellion.

I knocked twice on the door, and patiently waited in
the hallway. The insulation was remarkable and well done, so I couldn’t hear
Damares shuffle around before she approached the door.

Damares seemed as surprised to see me as anyone else.
She was sulking in sweats and a large t-shirt with a rag in her hand. She’d
been cleaning, and her apartment reeked of potent chemicals.

“Selene? What are you doing here?”

Not exactly the warm, excited response one would hope
for, but then again I remembered why I was here. Her reaction to my showing up
on her doorstep was understandable.

“I just came by to see how you were doing. Were you
busy cleaning?”

She looked at the blue rag in her uplifted hand. She
tried to keep it away from the doorframe and her clothes so that it wouldn’t
bleach everything on contact.

“Oh yeah, my once in a week deep cleaning.”

We faced an awkward pause and looked anywhere but at
each other. She didn’t make the first move, so I did. “Can I come in, or is
this a bad time? Wouldn’t want to keep you from...deep cleaning.”

Damares stepped aside to grant me entrance. “Sure,”
she said, her tone neither eager nor gloomy.

She closed the door behind us, tossed the rag into the
sink and washed her hands before putting on a teapot of water. Damares
absent-mindedly took out two round mugs, placed a tea bag in the middle of
each, along with two spoons of sugar.

As if snapping out of a trance, she suddenly looked up
and smiled a little like a crazy person. “Sorry, I didn’t even ask if you
wanted tea. I know you usually don’t drink caffeine, but I forgot. I’m not all
here today.”

I leaned against the counter across from her. “That’s
okay, I’ll take some.”

After a moment, the teapot whistle went off, and
Damares poured the scalding hot water into each cup, took a spoon, and stirred.
She placed a cup on the counter for me while she took hers, and then took a
seat on the couch. She tucked her feet beneath her as I sat down, crossed my
legs, and took a sip.

“Mmm,” I commented, “this is actually pretty good.
What kind of tea is this?”