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Kissed by Darkness(26)

By:Shea MacLeod


My thoughts were distracted by the chinking of armor and the scent of well-oiled leather. The man who entered was a warrior through and through, every inch of his armor polished and gleaming, eyes constantly alert, ready for anything. Even at so young an age, he was already the First Warrior of all the Warrior Priests of Atlantis. A son to make a father proud.

“Ah, Varan.” I gave the young warrior a strained smile. “I have need of you and your men.”

Varan bowed, crossing his right arm over his chest, fist pressing against heart. “As my lord wishes, so shall it be.” His right hand dropped to clench the hilt of a blood stained sword.







I jerked awake to a room flooded with sunlight. Not another crazy dream. They were getting all too frequent. First some guy digging in the dirt and now this.

I frowned. The guy digging in the dirt felt familiar. Not just because in my dream I’d been the guy, though that was weird enough on its own. No, it felt like I knew him, as though I’d seen him before. Except I hadn’t. Had I?

I slid out of bed and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. A knight digging in the dirt. A priest worried about some kind of plague. I’d been the knight and I’d been the priest, at least within the dreams. They were connected somehow, only I couldn’t figure out how.

I shook my head. They’d felt real, but surely they were just dreams. They had to be just dreams.

I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair. It was past time to pay the piper. I’d have to tell Kabita about my meeting with the Sunwalker — Jack — and my nighttime foray into Darroch’s house. She was so not going to be pleased.

I decided to take the coward’s way out and call her. She answered on the third ring.

“Uh, morning Kabita,” I winced. I sounded guilty. “Thought I’d catch you up on the Darroch case.”

“Great, he’s been asking for an update.”

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath. “You’re not going to like this.”







I was right. She didn’t like it. Not one bit. In fact, she was seriously pissed, and not in the English way. In the very American way. Though, it being Kabita, there wasn’t a lot of yelling, just a lot of deadly silence and very pointed “Ohs” and “Ums” which was worse. A lot worse.

“I don’t even know why you took this guy on.” I paced back and forth, flailing my free arm wildly. It’s what I did, especially when I was having an agitated phone conversation which included me having to justify myself for having done something really stupid. Like breaking into our client’s house in the middle of the night. “He’s creepy. And there’s just something off about him. Then there’s the whole amulet thing. I’m not sure he told us the truth about that.”

“And you’re going to take the word of this … Sunwalker … that our client is lying?”

“Oh, come on, Kabita. There was the picture! Plus, Darroch has given me the creeps since the minute I met him, long before I met Jack Keel. Did you meet him in person? Darroch, I mean?” The pause on the other end of the line was just a little too long. “You didn’t! I knew it!” I was practically jumping up and down in sheer delight. Then a thought occurred to me. “Why didn’t you?”

Kabita always, always met with the clients in person. She was very careful about the sort of jobs we took on and the people we worked for. The government required us to take on certain tasks for them, but the rest of the jobs and clients were up to us.

She let out a long sigh. “He came recommended. Highly recommended.”

My eyes narrowed. Normally, that wasn’t enough. Recommended or not, Kabita always checked out the clients in depth. The recommendation must have been very high, indeed. “Who recommended him?”

“My government contact.” Which essentially meant her handler and therefore, by extension, my handler. Being the independent woman I was, the whole idea of having a “handler” had always rubbed me the wrong way. It just wasn’t right.

The US government may have publicly denied the existence of vampires, demons, dragons, and the whole lot of other supposedly mythological creatures, but in reality they were very aware of just what having a bunch of monsters on the loose would mean to society. Which was why they’d set up a very special branch called the Supernatural Regulatory Agency and hid it deep inside the US Environmental Protection Agency.

I know, I know, it sounded completely ridiculous. Originally, the SRA was run by the US Military, but the president at the time didn’t much like that. Plus it was all too obvious and conspiracy laden. The newly forming EPA was gods sent. Since there wasn’t enough local talent, they imported people from Europe.