Master of No One Read online

  Master of No One

  By

  Tricia Owens

  Copyright

  ©2019 Tricia Owens

  All rights reserved.

  A different version of this story was previously published by LooseId.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Acknowledge-ments

  Read more from Tricia Owens

  Chapter 1

  Chimera (kī-mîr’ə)—noun

  1. a mythological creature whose body is comprised of various animal parts including but not limited to a lion, a dragon, and a snake

  2. a mental illusion or fanciful dream

  A leksander wasn’t in the mood to watch someone die tonight, but choice was something he was learning to do without.

  He was dead tired. Yet again he had had trouble with the formula. Tiny but numerous inconsistencies meant it had been necessary for him to stay up nearly forty hours straight until his poison looked, smelled, and acted the way it should. Currently only adrenaline kept him upright. It left him feeling spaced-out and anxious, as if he’d been dropped into a giant fishbowl. He let none of what he felt show on his face, however. He watched, impassive, as the male with him held the vial Aleksander had handed him up to the moonlight as if inspecting it for potency.

  “It’s stronger than the previous batches,” Aleksander said from between gritted teeth. “You don’t need to question it.”

  “Oh, I’m not questioning your skill at all, poisoner.” The other chimera flashed him a grin in the semidarkness. “Just admiring the weapon. You could say I’m something of a connoisseur.”

  Michel’s grin held innuendo, but Aleksander found it annoying rather than titillating. Chimera assassins had a reputation, especially the handsome ones, but Aleksander had no intention of testing it out, now or ever. This one in particular—Michel Lior—was worse than most, constantly stopping in to check on Aleksander’s progress while he mixed his formulas, using it as an excuse to flirt. Aleksander much preferred working with Nicholae, another chimera assassin, who although deadly was grim and antisocial, much like himself. But no one had seen the dark-haired assassin for weeks. He might be dead, and the thought made Aleksander grimace. Their kind was difficult to kill. Excessive force or gruesome creativity was required to put them down. It was why Aleksander’s unique talent was so valuable.

  Beside him, Michel dropped his flirtatious manner and stiffened. His golden-haired head turned toward the shadows at the end of the byzantine alley. Aleksander stood as still as possible, not wanting to interfere in the other male’s work. His own part in this drama was over unless his concoction failed. It wasn’t likely, but he insisted on being sure.

  “She’s here,” Michel murmured. He quickly stripped off his clothes, unselfconscious, and handed them to Aleksander to hold. Then he was gone, not only slipping into shadow but changing into darkness, morphing into a shape no human eye could identify outside of nightmares.

  The brick wall was warm against Aleksander’s back, the stone retaining the heat that could be intense during Maltese summers. The winding streets were empty, the numerous overhead balconies shuttered and quiet, as if the humans knew something horrible lurked in the shadows tonight and that something more dangerous hunted it. The city watchtowers looked on, suspenseful in their stillness.

  A flutter of movement fifty yards to Aleksander’s right, near a set of the colorful 250-year-old warehouse doors that were unique to the city of Valletta, prompted him to hold his breath as he tried to be as silent as possible for Michel’s sake. It wasn’t long before he saw her: a distorted mass of scaled wings, bone hooks and spikes, skin that pulsed and swelled. She wasn’t the worst he’d seen, but she was bad enough, for in her gleaming, hungry eyes lay only an alien awareness. Keira had once been a healthy chimera like Aleksander and Michel, capable of retaining human form and hiding among their population, but no longer.

  The change had gripped her, bent her body nearly in half so her back assumed a misshapen hump. Her nails had become twisted claws. As she dragged them across the pavement, the raspy scraping noise they made raised gooseflesh on Aleksander’s arms. He frowned in the dark, wondering where Michel was, why he was letting this play out. If he could see Keira, then humans could too. All it would take was one person opening a window or a door, and the chimera’s secret existence would be secret no more. Aleksander gritted his teeth and bent his legs, preparing to engage Keira by himself.

  Before he could launch himself at her, Michel sailed down from a roof and landed lightly on Keira’s misshapen back as easily as a man would mount a docile horse. As Keira turned her head one hundred and eighty degrees to see what had attacked her, Michel stabbed her in the side of her thorny neck. She screeched. Aleksander cursed at the sound, which echoed between the old buildings. But her opened mouth gave Michel the opportunity he needed. He dashed the contents of Aleksander’s little vial into her open maw and tossed the bottle down her throat afterward for good measure.

  Michel jumped off the feral chimera and clung to the nearest wall with clawed fingers, his features elongated and dragon-like as the lust of the hunt called his chimera blood to the surface. He was prepared to fight Keira with his bare hands, but Aleksander, watching from beneath hooded eyes, doubted the violence would be necessary.

  In seconds Keira began to thrash. In minutes she was a twitching mound of unidentifiable flesh on the ground, soon to be reduced even further. Aleksander watched it happen just as he’d watched countless other stricken chimera succumb to his poison. And he didn’t react when it was finally over and the childhood friend he had known for over forty years crumbled to dust that someone would eventually sweep up and discard.

  Michel joined him afterward, in his naked human shape once more.

  “Nasty stuff,” the assassin commented. The eye he turned on Aleksander was wary now, a darker appreciation lurking in its depth, one that didn’t invite closeness. “I sometimes forget just how dangerous you are.”

  “Why would you ever forget that?” Aleksander asked.

  Michel laughed, but Aleksander heard the hint of fear in the sound. Michel, a trained assassin, was afraid of him. He wished it were something he could be proud of.

  ~~~~~

  Kirk Sullivan rubbed absently at his right hip, but when he realized what he was doing, he stopped. The physical therapist had warned him that although the injury would rarely bother him, he might begin using it as a psychological crutch. Kirk had laughed off the warning at the time. He wasn’t happy to prove the guy right in the middle of what was, for Kirk, one of the most important meetings of his and his brother’s lives.

  “You want me to serve as a slave for a murderer,” he said. “Are you out of your minds?”

  The chimera leaders—bosses, overlords, whatever they called themselves—didn’t look thrilled by the question, but Kirk felt it was legitimate. They might have him stretched over a barrel, but he wasn’t about to allow them to screw him with a telephone pole.

  “I’m willing to do whatever I need to,” he clarified. “I understand the score. But I thought I’d be paying off Leo’s debt by being a gopher or a lackey. I’m not exactly prime slave material here. Let’s be honest.”

  He noticed a couple of the chimera—all five were men who appeared
to be in their fifties and sixties, although he doubted that to be true—looking him over speculatively, as if judging a horse at an auction. He resisted the urge to draw himself taller than his already six feet two inches. He was a big man, thick and solid. If they wanted physical labor, he was fine with that. He’d spent his entire career within the NYPD on the streets, up until getting nailed by a taxi driver while he was crossing a crosswalk. His pelvis had been shattered, and he’d been left with a hip injury that was about to resign him to a desk job. But the injury only bothered him if he tried to run. He could do anything else the chimera asked of him…except what they had just asked of him.

  “I’m a good driver,” he said when the bosses didn’t appear convinced. Their expressions were stony, but at least they were human. Though Kirk had never seen a chimera in his natural form, Leo had told him stories. It was a transformation he could do without seeing for himself. “I can be a chauffeur, or run errands. Obviously my police background makes me ideal for working security—”

  One of the chimera laughed. “A human providing security for chimera. What an amusing concept.”

  “I’m strong, and I’m smart,” Kirk said to him.

  “Chimera are smarter and stronger.”

  “In their chimera forms, maybe. What happens if an onlooker has their smartphone or camera out? I understand you’re not too keen on being discovered by the world at large.” He spread his hands. “I don’t have that handicap.”

  “No, you have another,” growled the chimera.

  Kirk felt a twinge in his hip. “I can do whatever I need to.”

  Except get my old job back, he thought regretfully. He didn’t want to imagine what the rest of his career was going to be like once he was shackled to a desk. While he knew support positions were vital in the Department, he couldn’t shake the feeling that by being so far from the street and the people he wanted to protect, he wasn’t protecting them.

  “If that is the case, Kirk Sullivan, you will do as we say and serve as the grounder for our poisoner.”

  Kirk forced himself to take a deep breath and quell his frustration. He knew he could get too worked up sometimes. Go big or go home was his motto through most of life’s challenges and many of its pleasures. But this…he had to remind himself that he wasn’t the one in charge.

  “Please explain this to me. Maybe I’ve misunderstood, and I’m jumping to the wrong conclusion.”

  “You know very well what a grounder is,” said the chimera who appeared to be the oldest among them. He tapped his fingernails against the table once, drawing attention to their new, deadly lengths. “It’s your family duty.”

  “The reason I’m here is because my brother wised up and rejected you, and you’re handling it about as well as my last girlfriend. You can’t accept that Leo told you to take your grounder job and shove it.”

  Someone began growling, but Kirk pretended he didn’t hear it and went on. “My brother made two bad decisions: saying yes and changing his mind. Those faults are his, and that’s why I’m here. I’ll do what you want only if it’ll get you off his back. If you can’t promise that, then I’m out of here.”

  “You are not among friends,” warned the chimera who’d laughed at the idea of Kirk running security.

  “No, just my masters, apparently,” he mumbled. Louder, he said, “Tell me what it is you want me to do. If it clears Leo, I’ll do it.”

  “You will serve as an outlet for chimera expression.”

  “Could you be any vaguer? I nearly understood that.”

  The chimera muttered among themselves. Kirk had a fleeting moment of regret for his big mouth. His younger brother’s life was at stake. He didn’t doubt that these strange creatures would eventually find Leo and kill him for backing out of this deal. Kirk had never wanted to kick his little brother’s ass more than at this moment.

  Leo was a smart guy. Brilliant, even. What could he have been thinking to agree to be the slave of a shape-shifting monster? Kirk ground his teeth together, half fearing he knew the truth. Leo had been feeling lost lately. Rudderless. He’d admitted to Kirk that he’d been thinking of going off the grid to clear his head. Kirk thought that meant camping in the woods for a couple of weeks. Clearly he’d underestimated the depth of his brother’s desperation.

  And now I’m paying for it.

  “If you serve as grounder, assuming the role your brother left unfulfilled, his debt to us will be paid,” muttered one of the chimera.

  “Okay, good. Now tell me what you want me to do. What’s a grounder?”

  “At times our instinct demands that we allow our chimera natures to burst free,” the oldest chimera said with narrowed eyes. “Most chimera are able to control this instinct and retain their human forms, but some experience occasional moments of difficulty. That is where humans”—he spat the word as if it tasted foul—”are required. Your kind distract these chimera from changing form.”

  “Define ‘distract.’”

  “Grounders submit to chimera and siphon off aggression that would otherwise have been expressed in a manner hurtful to our kind.”

  “Sounds…painful.”

  Not to mention supremely awkward. Stand there and let a chimera whale on him? Kirk had taken his share of beatings in training and in the line of duty, but he’d never submitted passively to any of them. It just wasn’t in his nature.

  “A grounder serves as a panacea. His submission brings relief to a chimera who has lost himself.”

  Grounder. A better name than slave, but it brought to mind unpleasant associations with electricity and blown circuits.

  “Look, I really have no experience—”

  “You. Will. Learn.” The old chimera’s face didn’t harden so much as it crusted into a mask of fury. “Fail or run away, Kirk Sullivan, and your brother will pay the price. We are doing you a favor by allowing you to subvert his punishment.”

  He lifted his chin. “Running away was never an option. Neither was failing. I’m here for Leo, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make you leave him alone. How long am I acting as your chimera’s grounder?”

  “Four months. At that time we will review our further need of you.”

  They couldn’t even give him a straight answer.

  Kirk smiled serenely. “Sounds perfect.”

  It was a good thing Leo was somewhere that no one—not even his older brother—could find him.

  ~~~~~

  Kirk stood looking up at Rockefeller Center and wished for a punching bag. A few rounds would maybe—maybe—take the edge off the violence he wanted to inflict on a certain twenty-six-year-old named Leo.

  He fantasized about being the type of man who could abandon his brother. He wished he could say Sorry, bud. You made your bed with these creatures of hell. All the best to you, but you knew what you were doing.

  At least, he hoped Leo knew what he was doing, then and now. His younger brother wasn’t a kid by any definition of the word. Former spec ops, now a bodyguard—Leo could take care of himself.

  Or not. No one in his right mind would have taken this gig, so maybe Leo hadn’t left the military with only good memories in hand. Self-inflicted punishment was the only explanation Kirk could think of, but he dashed it away. It hurt too much to consider, especially when he had no idea where Leo was these days.

  “You behaved about as well as you could have.”

  Kirk gave the man who’d joined him a dirty look. “Didn’t drag my knuckles on the ground or urinate on the carpet?”

  The man, who wasn’t a man at all, smiled thinly with his thin lips. Everything about him was thin, as if he were a sliver who’d been whittled from a larger male. Kirk wasn’t fooled. Domenic could probably gut him in three seconds.

  “I hold a better opinion of humans than that,” Domenic said. He was dressed in a gray pinstripe suit that probably cost as much as Kirk made in a month. His silver hair was cut like a model’s. Again, probably costing more than any aspect of Kirk’s life was worth.
br />   Kirk didn’t like him, hadn’t since the moment he received the chimera’s phone call. Domenic had met him by the Strawberry Fields memorial as though they were spies, which had immediately rubbed Kirk the wrong way. He did everything aboveboard. That was what being a cop meant and why he didn’t want to know what his brother did for a living. Domenic, holding a copy of the New York Times in front of his face and refusing to look Kirk in the eye as if he thought people might be watching them, had explained the situation with Leo and the danger he’d placed himself in by failing to appear before the Council. It was he who’d proposed a solution—Kirk should throw himself on the mercy of the Council and see if they bit.

  Kirk wouldn’t have considered it if it hadn’t been for the timing. Not five hours earlier he’d been informed by his chief that he was being taken off his beat because of his injury. Permanently. Learning he’d just become a desk jockey had been a fortunate coincidence for Domenic, because it meant Kirk had been fired up and looking for an excuse to take a leave of absence and reevaluate his future.

  Kirk glanced around him now at the New Yorkers rushing past them on their way to other places. They were worried about deadlines and muggers but oblivious to the monster standing not four feet from him. “You don’t think humans are trash. Just garbage.”

  “Chimera can’t help the hierarchy of the predators on this planet,” Domenic acknowledged with a shrug.

  Predators. Kirk hadn’t been thrilled to learn from Leo that horror writers had been telling the truth all along: there were monsters among them. Not sexy creatures like vampires or werewolves. Chimera. Shape-shifters. Monsters that were the melting pot of nightmares.

  “What if I went to my bosses? Or the Times with this? You’re risking a lot by dragging a cop into your mess.”

  “I’m trusting that because you are a police officer, you’ll do the smart thing and keep your people safe from retribution by a far superior race of beings,” Domenic replied mildly, as if discussing the newest Frappuccino flavor being offered at Starbucks. “Your kind and mine have avoided conflict because of discretion. Once that discretion is violated, well…I don’t want to imagine the consequences, and I doubt you do either.”