Good morning everyone! I'm over the moon excited to bring you a new-to-me series that sounds absolutely fascinating. I'm buried under deadline right now, so haven't had the opportunity to read it, but it has been moved up to the top of my TBR Pile. Please welcome Alayna Williams, and her new book, Rogue Oracle, Delphic Oracle Book II. She's going to be telling us about the Sisters of the Delphi today on the blog.
I have to share also real quick, folks -- this author is also known as Laura Bickle, and you'll remember I raved over her YA Amish Paranormal, The Hallowed Ones. Only, I didn't realize that until writing up this blog. No wonder this drew me in!
Look at this kick-butt cover!
Alayna Williams writes with power and poetry, combining old mythos with complete ass-kickery. You don’t want to miss this series.”
Chapter
1
He’d
do anything to hear those voices again.
Galen’s
head was too silent. The other voices in his head had drained away, leaving him
alone. He pressed his cold hands over his ears so that he could hear his own
blood and breath thundering, like the ocean in a shell. It was a bit less like
being alone. He peered into the darkness, waiting. Waiting for the next voice
to fill his thoughts and his dreams.
Through
the pulse of his hands, he could hear the whir of an air conditioner and the
creak of roof beams cooling overhead as sunlight drained from the day. The
orange strip of light shining underneath the closet door thinned and faded.
Galen brought his knees up against his chest, and a dress brushed against his
cheek. The jasmine scent of his quarry’s perfume on his clothes mingled with
the smell of shoe leather.
A
car crunched in the driveway, followed by footfalls and the rattle of a key in
the lock downstairs. Keys and purse jangled as they were cast on a hall table,
and he heard the thunk of shoes being kicked off on the slate tiles of the
entryway. The shuffle of mail sounded like a deck of playing cards.
Galen’s
breath quickened, and he dug his fingertips into his close-cropped hairline.
Not long. Not long, now.
Stocking
feet padded into the kitchen. He heard the refrigerator door open, close. A
microwave whirred, and a bell chimed. Galen’s nose wrinkled. Reheated rubber
chicken from a trendy bistro, with tomato sauce. A television droned,
comforting voices rising up through the floor. He leaned his head back against
the wall of the closet. The television voices nattered on about Middle East peace talks, of a terrorism suspect captured,
of the latest results from a television game show.
A fork clattered in the kitchen’s
stainless-steel sink. The television turned off, plunging the house into false
silence. Footsteps climbed the stairs to the second floor. Galen could hear the
polyester zing of stockings on the plush carpet as his quarry walked past the
closet. Light spilled under the closet door.
He
held his breath.
The
footsteps swished into the bathroom, opened the bathtub tap. Pipes creaked
behind the closet wall. Galen smelled bath salts and citrus soap, heard the squeak
of flesh against the bottom of the enameled tub. A shampoo bottle belched its
last quantity of soap before it was tossed away into a trash can.
Elbows
resting on his knees, Galen waited.
Like
the rest of his quarry, he’d never met her. This one’s name was Lena. He’d only been led to her by the memories of
others. Those memories burned bright in his mind for a few weeks and faded
quickly, like a bruise. They left behind vacant space, space meant to occupy
another. And another. His last victim, Carl, had remembered Lena.
Through Carl’s eyes, Galen had seen Lena in all her fearless beauty: Lena,
walking across Red Square with her lustrous
dark hair covered by a scarf. Lena, dressed in
a gown with a plunging neckline, her throat glittering with jewels…paste jewels
that contained smuggled microchips in the settings. Lena,
methodically taking apart a gun in a hotel room and wiping it clean of prints.
If
he’d ever really bothered to admit it to himself, Lena
had been the love of Carl’s life. Carl may not have seen it, but when Galen had
taken possession of Carl’s memories, he could see it. Carl’s memories were
twenty years old. But Galen wanted to see Lena,
as Carl had. Though Carl’s voice had stopped ringing in Galen’s head, some of
that feeling remained. Carl, the old spy, had carried a torch for Lena, right up until the time Galen had killed him.
The
light under the closet door winked out. Galen heard Lena
pull back the bedspread and climb into bed. He heard her punch the pillows and
rearrange the covers. After a half-hour, all Galen could hear was the soft hiss
of her breathing, moving in time his own breath echoing in his ears.
Galen
nudged the closet door open. His muscles creaked as he unfolded his lanky
frame. He caught his breath, certain that Lena
could hear it. But the form stretched on its side in the bed didn’t move.
Galen
approached the bed. Dim light from the street filtered through the curtains,
illuminating Lena’s features. Age had softened
her face, sketching lines that hadn’t existed in Carl’s memory. Her dark hair
was streaked with silver, brushed over a shoulder that was rounder than Carl
remembered. Her right hand curled loosely over the pillow, and a ring glittered
behind a swollen joint. Galen recognized it: it was one that Carl had given
her, many years ago.
Galen
peeled back a corner of the covers and slipped into the bed behind Lena. His arms wrapped around her waist and mouth,
ripping her nightgown. Lena awoke with a jerk,
struggling against him. She howled and bit the hand around her mouth, drawing
blood.
Galen
could hear her. He could hear her swearing at him, screaming. The scream
muffled as he wrapped his fingers around her throat and squeezed. He felt his
fingers shattering the delicate hyoid bone in her throat, dig deeper, into her
flesh. His own skin had grown porous and elastic, fingers reaching up into her
jaw. Lena’s eyes rolled back in panic. She
wheezed as Galen pressed his chest to her back. He could feel her warm flesh
against his cold body, felt the cells in his skin growing plastic, reaching
out. One of Lena’s white teeth glinted in his
thumb. It disappeared as his hand lost its shape, flowed into her mouth. In his
other hand, he could feel his fingers splitting apart Lena’s
ribs, feeling the fluttering of her heart like a sparrow in a cage. His hand
unfolded and fused with her heart, and he could feel his pulse pumping in time
with hers.
Trapped
in his embrace, Galen heard Lena whimper as
she became part of him, melting into his flesh. He could feel her
disintegrating, her skin losing surface tension as his body began its parasitic
devouring of every bit of vessel and cell, like a snake digesting its prey. But
this digestion was external: a slow dissolving of Lena’s
body. Galen was conscious of Lena’s elbow
somewhere near his lung, of her fingers wound around his ribs.
And
he could hear her. The whisper of Lena’s
memories suffused his head, like Carl’s had.
Whispers tumbled over each other, shards of
memory cutting deep in his head where they intersected with Carl’s fading
thoughts
Galen
smiled.
He
wouldn’t be alone…for as long as Lena’s voice
lasted. Afterward, just as Carl’s memories led Galen to her, Lena’s
secrets would lead him to others.
#
“The
warden calls you a monster.”
Tara
Sheridan stared over the edge of a manila file folder at the man in an orange
jumpsuit, wrists chained to his waist with a belly chain. He stared at her with
contempt over a scarred stainless steel table. As she paged through the psych
reports conducted by other profilers, she was inclined to agree. Zahar Mouda
was an accused terrorist. He’d been caught by campus police at a large
Midwestern university, attempting to drag a drum of solvents out of the
chemistry lab. He’d been unsuccessful in convincing the campus cops that he was
dragging a keg to a frat house. Subsequent inquiries had shown a pattern of
missing materiel that could be used to make bombs. Lots of them.
Zahar
shrugged, the movement restricted by the rattle of the chain around his waist.
For all the bravado of his words, he looked very young to Tara:
thin, stringy build, large brown eyes framed by square-rimmed glasses. His file
said he was twenty-two. She watched his fingers fidget with the chain around
his waist, watched him chew his lip.
“Do
you think I’m a monster?” he challenged.
“I
don’t know. But the Bureau of Prisons would like me to find out.”
“What
do you know about monsters?” Zahar snorted.
“Plenty,”
Tara told him.
He
stared at her, but his gaze faltered as it snagged on a white scar that crept
up from the collar of Tara’s suit jacket,
curling up around her neck to her jaw. Tara
didn’t flinch, didn’t bother to hide it. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt Zahar to know
that Tara had faced much greater monsters than
he.
Tara
leaned forward, pressing her elbows to the battered table, resting her chin in
her hand. A wisp of chestnut hair from the chignon at the base of her neck
pulled free, tickling the raised skin of the scar, and she ignored it. “What
were you doing with those chemicals?”
Zahar
rolled his eyes. “Look, I was just trying to make some money. It was just
little stuff, at first. First, the guy asked for a departmental phone book,
then a few sample slides, then…” He shook his head. “It was a few bucks, here
and there. For dumb shit.”
Tara’s
mouth thinned. This was how traitors were groomed. Small, inconsequential
things snowballed into larger favors. Before long, the victim had given up too
much and was indebted to his handler. There was no way out.
“You
took the money. Why?”
“I’m
trying to save up to bring my sister over here. She wants to study pharmacy.”
“Who
offered you the money?”
“Some
guy at the student union.”
“You
got a name?” She regarded him with ink-blue eyes, measuring to see if he told
the truth.
“Masozi.
That’s what I told the cops.”
Tara
tapped her pen on her notepad, keeping her face carefully neutral. The Federal
Bureau of Prisons had asked her to form a profile on Zahar, to determine how
dangerous he truly was.
“How much?”
“Ten
thousand per shipment.”
“That’s
more than enough money to get your sister over here.”
“Stuff’s
expensive.”
Zahar
leaned back in his chair, and Tara could sense
he was shutting down. She tried a different tactic: “Tell me about your
sister.”
Zahar
licked his lips, and his eyes darted away. Not a good sign…his body language
indicated that he was buying time, fabricating. Or else, weighing what to tell Tara. When he spoke, though, his voice was soft. Almost
vulnerable. “You don’t understand. I had to buy my sister back.”
Tara’s
pen stilled. “Buy her back?” she echoed.
“She’s
married. Third wife of a colleague of my father’s. He’s not really fond of her.
Slaps her around.” Zahar looked away, and Tara
watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “He agreed to allow her to apply
for a visa, but wanted money. Fifty thousand in US dollars.”
“What
about student loans?”
Zahar
shook his head. “I’m on fellowship. My tuition’s waived, and I get a monthly
stipend. Seven hundred fifty dollars, after taxes.” His mouth turned down, and
he pushed his glasses up his nose with his shoulder. “And, let’s face it,
nobody wants to see a male chemistry nerd do fifty thousand dollars’ worth of
exotic dancing down at the strip club.”
Tara
smothered a laugh. “Tell me about when you were children.”
Zahar
didn’t miss a beat. “Asha’s three years younger than me. Takes after our
mother. She did great in school. She got through her first year of college
before she met my father’s business associate when she was home on break. The
guy took an immediate shine to her.” His fists balled at his waist. “I wanted
to kick his ass.”
“What
was her favorite toy?”
“A
doll my grandmother made for her. She named it Rahma.”
“Tell
me about when you fought.” This was a trick question. All siblings fought. She
wanted to gauge how honest Zahar was with her.
“Our
worst fight was when we were little…she was probably seven. I found a bird egg
in a tree and broke it over her head. She ran crying in to our mother, and we
both got punished.”
“Did
you feel bad about that?”
“About
getting my sister in trouble? Not really.”
“No.”
She paused. “About breaking the egg.”
He
blinked quizzically at Tara. “I don’t know
what you mean.”
A
knock rang against the metal door behind Tara,
and a guard’s voice filtered through: “Five minutes, Dr. Sheridan.”
“Thank
you,” Tara called. She scribbled some notes on
her notepad. The Bureau of Prisons had guaranteed her a secure room without
observation cameras for her interview with Zahar. She was heartened to see that
someone would bother to check in on them, eventually.
Zahar
stared at Tara. “Well, what did you decide?”
“What
do you mean?”
“Did
you decide whether or not I’m a monster?” His mouth twitched around the word.
“I
haven’t made any decisions, yet.”
“But
your opinion is one that matters.”
Tara’s
mouth thinned. “Your psychological profile will make a great deal of difference
in this investigation. But mine isn’t the only opinion you need to fear.”
“Will
it make any difference in how I’m treated?” Zahar’s fingers knotted in the
chain. “Am I going to get deported?”
“That’s
not up to me.”
The
door behind Tara swung open, and two federal
prison guards crowded into the tiny room.
They unlocked the belly chain from the metal
chair, and marched him back through the door. Zahar’s plastic inmate flip-flops
slapped on the concrete floor.
One
of the guards held the door open. “You coming, ma’am?”
“Can
you give me fifteen more minutes?” Tara said.
“I’d like to jot down my notes while they’re fresh.”
“See
you in fifteen.” The door clanged shut, and Tara
was left in the tiny room with the fluorescent light buzzing overhead.
She
stacked the contents of her file back up neatly and placed them in the file
folder. She shoved the folder aside, placed her purse on the table. She rooted
around in the bottom of her purse for a pack of cigarettes. Tara
didn’t smoke, but the cigarette pack attracted little notice on the metal
detectors at the prison or in the quick manual search of her bags. Tara flipped off the lid of the pack and pulled out a
deck of cards.
The
back of the cards were decorated in an Art Nouveau pattern of stars on a
background of midnight blue, edged in silver. These Tarot cards had been a gift
to replace the deck her mother had given her, long ago. They’d been a peace
offering, of sorts - Tara’s lover had given
them to her, though he was uneasy with what they’d represented. Tara’s original deck had been destroyed. These still felt
too crisp to her, the cardstock still stiff and shiny-new. She hadn’t quite yet
bonded with this deck. Each deck had its own quirks, even a limited
personality, and this one seemed determined to surprise Tara
at each turn.
She
moved to Zahar’s still-warm seat, wanting to occupy his physical space. She
blew out her breath and shuffled the cards. The sharp cardstock cut her thumb
as she shuffled, and she popped her thumb in her mouth as she wiped away a
droplet from the edge of the deck.
“Tell
me about Zahar,” she breathed at the cards, ignoring the paper cut. “Tell me
about his heart, mind, and spirit.”
She
pulled three cards and placed them, face-down, on the table. Tara’s
fingers fogged the scratched stainless steel, and she turned the first one
over.
The
Fool, the first card in the deck, confronted her in a riot of clear
watercolors. The ancestor of the joker in the modern playing card deck, the
Fool depicted a young man skipping through a green field, toward the edge of a
cliff. The Fool held a bundle over his shoulder, and gazed skyward at birds in
a blue sky. The Fool, one of the Major Arcana cards, represented archetypes at
play, suggested the broad strokes of destiny.
Tara
steepled her fingers before her, brushing her lower lip. The Fool was a card of
innocence and recklessness. It spoke of youth. Where Zahar was concerned, it
might reflect the idea that Zahar had been carelessly going down the path of
the traitor without watching where he was going. At heart, he might be more
innocent than she’d thought.
She
turned over the second card, the Seven of Cups. Cups were one of the four Minor
Arcana suits, and represented choices and reactions to destiny. As a suit, cups
represented emotions. In her three-card spread, this signified what had gone on
in Zahar’s mind. The card depicted a man gazing at a pyramid of seven cups,
from which fantastical creatures and images crawled: dragons, golden fish, a
jewel-encrusted sword, a snake, a castle, and a veiled woman. This was a card
of illusions. Zahar’s head was filled with lies, perhaps from his handler,
perhaps from his sister’s husband. Zahar may have started out innocent, as the
Fool, but he’d made a choice to be deceived.
The
last card in the spread represented spirit. Tara
was most eager to see what Zahar really was, deep down. She flipped over the
Three of Wands, which depicted a man staring out over the sea at a ship,
surrounded by three staves. The Minor Arcana suit of Wands represented fire,
movement, and creation. But the Three of Wands was reversed, suggesting
treachery and ulterior motives. Tara’s brow
wrinkled. Zahar’s handler may have been lying to him, and Zahar might have even
been lying to himself. But, with this card, she was also certain that Zahar was
lying to her.
She
blew out her breath. She cleared the three cards from the table, shuffled them
back into the deck. She felt the whir of the stiff cards in her hands as she
whispered to them: “What else do I need to know?”
Tara cut
the deck three times and drew the first card from the top of the reshuffled
deck. Her brow wrinkled as she turned it over.
The
Lovers. The Major Arcana card depicted a man and a woman tangled in an embrace.
It was difficult for her to tell where one ended and the other began. A
voyeuristic angel watched over them from a cloud.
Stymied,
Tara rested her head in her hand. She didn’t
yet fully trust this new deck, and it seemed that this card had nothing
whatsoever with Zahar’s situation. She tapped the image with her fingers, let
her mind rove around the image. She didn’t like where free-associating led her:
to her own personal life. To Harry. Harry had given her this deck, and it
seemed to be intent upon reminding her of him.
Her
fingertips crawled up her collar to the scars lacing her throat, remembering
the feel of Harry’s kisses upon them. She hadn’t seen Harry for months. As an
agent for the Special Projects Division of the Department of Justice, he’d been
transferred a couple of times on various assignments, making a relationship
difficult. Tara understood; years ago, she’d
been an agent for Special Projects. Special Projects took, but rarely gave
anything back.
Her
fingers hesitated on her scars. Special Projects had taken much from her.
Working for them, she’d fallen under the tender mercies of the Gardener, a
serial killer who buried women in his greenhouses. She’d survived, barely, and
called it quits. She only hoped that Harry wouldn’t be subjected to the same
dangers.
The
latch on the consultation room door ratcheted back, and the door opened. Tara scrambled to shovel her cards into her purse.
Looking up with a scowl, she expected to see one of the guards.
“You’re
back early--” she snapped, but her breath snagged in her throat.
Harry
Li stood in the doorway, his hand on the knob. He was almost exactly as she’d
remembered him from months ago: sharply-creased charcoal suit, polished shoes,
black hair precisely parted. But there were circles beneath his almond eyes.
“Hi,
Tara.” He let the door clang shut behind him.
“I…oh.
I thought you were the guard.” She finished scooping the cards into her purse,
but her heart hammered.
Harry
inclined his chin at the disappearing cards. “Still reading?”
“Yeah.”
She zipped her purse shut and folded her hands over her purse. “How did you
find me?” she asked, but what she really wanted to ask was: Why here, and why
now?
“When
you said that you were getting back to work, I figured that you wouldn’t stray
too far from your forensic psychology roots.”
Tara’s
mouth turned down. “Just contract work. Some pro bono stuff for psychiatric hospitals.
That kind of thing.” She’d dipped her toe back into work, gingerly. So far, it
seemed to be going well, in those measured small doses. Her work with Zahar was
filling in for a government psychologist away on maternity leave.
An
awkward silence stretched.
Harry
stuffed his hands in his pockets, jingled loose change. He did that when he was
nervous. “I missed you.”
Tara
glanced up at him. His face was open, tired, and she felt a jab of sympathy for
him. Her fingers knotted in her purse strap. She was fighting the urge to stand
up and kiss him. “I missed you, too.”
His
eyes crinkled when he smiled, and he dropped into the other chair on the
opposite side of the table. Exhaustion was palpable in the broken line of his
shoulders. “Special Projects is killing me.”
Tara
reached across the table for his hand. His fingers folded around hers, wound up
so tightly that she couldn’t tell where hers ended and his began.
“I’ve
been there,” she said, without irony.
“I
know.” His mouth flattened. “That’s why I came to ask for your help.”
Tara’s
hand froze. She had hoped that he’d come to see her. Not for work. “Oh.” She
looked down at her fuzzy reflection in the table.
Harry
reached across the table, crooked a finger under her chin. “Hey. That’s not
what I mean. I wanted to see you, and –“
Tara
withdrew her hand and pulled her chair back, drawing her professional mantle
tightly about her. “Tell me about your case, Harry.”
Harry
stared down at his empty hand, closed it. “A half-dozen Cold War-era
intelligence operatives have disappeared. We’ve got evidence that specialized
intelligence connected to them is being sold internationally, to the highest
bidder. Most of it has to do with uranium stockpiles, leftover pieces of
weapons from Soviet Russia. Tehran
has been all over it.”
“That
sounds like a military issue. Or an NSA problem.” Tara
crossed her arms over her chest.
“You
would think. But the disappearances are…unusual. These men and women have been
vanishing without a trace. No bodies, no evidence of struggles.”
Tara
shrugged. “Maybe they defected. Maybe they’re having a e having a beach party
in Tehran.”
“Homeland
Security hasn’t caught any of them trying to move outside the country. Some of
them have literally walked off surveillance footage and were never seen again.
It’s like the fucking Rapture – they leave their clothes, jewelry, even cell
phones behind, and vanish. Of course, there’s also the fact that there are no
beaches in Tehran.”
He smirked, mouth turning up flirtatiously.
Tara
lifted an eyebrow, intrigued. “What’s their connection to each other?”
“All
of them were associated with something called Project Rogue Angel in the
1990’s. It involved cataloguing and tracking the disposal of nukes in the
former USSR.”
“That
sounds like a thankless job.”
“Wasn’t
as successful as one might hope.” Harry rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I think
that somebody got to these people. I can’t prove it. But I need help in
figuring out who’s behind the disappearances. You’re the best damn profiler
Special Projects has ever seen, and we need you.”
Tara
considered him. Harry wasn’t the type of man who would readily ask for help,
and he’d done so in a clumsy way. She was reluctant to become involved with
Special Projects again, to be their tool. But she owed him.
He
looked at her, eyes red with too little sleep. “I need you.”
She
reached forward, took his hand. She couldn’t say no.
IMMORTAL SACRIFICE
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