S and Murder (Hannah Graves Spin-off One)

Six

Six:

“You should go back in there and do more to deter him from investigating you!”

Ren growled in a low tone that rocked me like a subwoofer thundering through a club. I locked my eyes on his silver-grey gaze, and I felt as if we were now the only contestants in the world’s most ridiculous challenge of stubborn futility. Ren knew me, he knew I was never going to back down and I was not going to sit and listen to some mortal pick me apart.

I have been incredibly good to the humans in my orbit—mostly. While I am not willing to let them deep into my heart or life, I do look after them from a distance, ensuring they are safe. Being a strong immortal such as I am, I feel fiercely protective of those in my orbit. I also feel extremely defensive of myself as well.

“Let’s just get this s**t-show over with and go see the damn King of Hidden.”

I said, and my tone was not one of submission, merely one of resignation to the hoops I now found myself forced to jump through. Siegfried is not my favorite person, and I hardly felt beholden to him. He was not my king, but I did live in his territory, so I would be remiss to start pissing him off by challenging him openly. There may come a day when the benefits stopped outweighing the risks, however, I have yet to reach that point.

Largely the King leaves me alone. He usually only inserts himself when there is a crisis, like the potential for exposure to humanity. As best I could figure, there were millions of immortals living on earth, even still, they did not desire a war with the mortals, and they knew there would be nearly no avoiding conflict. Immortality as a potential prize would make almost any short-lived creature willing to sell out his brothers for a chance at the grand prize. Not to mention humanity’s macabre need to poke, prod, and dissect everything alien to them.

Being the little alien girl on a planet far from home, I was worried I would be the one on the proverbial chopping block. Besides, if people knew what I could do, they would want to use me, and use my powers to conquer their foes. It is a base human trait as old as the world, and the history of the dust and bones littering the wreckage of human history.

Great or small, the peoples of the earth were predictable in all the wrong ways. Considering my sordid history, and the death at my hands, humans would not hesitate to round me up and dice me apart. To them, I was the outside element, the deadly intruder stalking their halls and their homes. Even if I tried to assure them, I meant no harm, they would not listen, because all they would see is a monster.

Fear can make people deaf to the pleas of those around them. Self-interest governs all the modern universe, mortal or immortal.

***

Ren drove me to one of the private access points for Hidden, which was only open to the guards, and select other law-enforcement staff. Believe it or not, this private elevator sits just beneath the Brooklyn Bridge.

Riding down what can only be described as a techno-marvel elevator to hell, is a bit unnerving. You are going thousands of feet beneath the surface, and yet less than four minutes later, the door hisses open and the fake rays of light in the faux sky nearly blind you as the trade district of Hidden greets you.

All around me, furry feline bipedal beings called Volupine shop and barter. Amongst them, I can see human-looking magi and even some Nix, but they mostly inhabit the lower district of the subterranean city of Hidden.

Holographic technology seems to blanket you in every direction you turn down here. Almost like you’ve fallen through our dimension entirely, straight to a more technological world adjacent to the one we perceive as the “real world.”

Simpler than this is the truth, we are in a world far more advanced than what the mortals could begin to fathom. Hell, I can barely fathom the magnitude and scope of immortal culture and technology, and my people dropped me off in a starship!

“Hello white rabbit, that was a rather crazy trip we just took.”

I murmured to myself in a sarcastic tone, and Ren looked at me with a perplexed look. I rolled my eyes and said, “You know ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ The book. You do remember books, right? Square things that you open and the words tell you tales.”

I said, probably sounding a bit bitchier than I intended, but I was now in what I perceived as enemy territory. Hidden made it clear long ago that I was a charge of sorts, not really one of them so much, as someone they were kept within a comfortable distance, while I was observed. This city of wonders and marvels of a post-modern utopia is not mine nor were they made for me. This is more like the opulent home of my jailers than my city.

“Sir Renford, welcome home!”

One of the Volupine said to Ren with a warm tone of affection. He seemed to pretend I was invisible. I suppose to most of these people, I was best left alone. Like the humans, the immortals can shun and ignore that which does not fit within their own social norms. Not just the human-looking immortals either. The felines, and even the cold metallic and electric Tren are also guilty of this.

“It’s been a long time, my Lady, I hope your father is well?”

Ren replied and I suppressed the urge to gag at his very Austen-like dialog. Ren was very much a character worth of one of Jane Austen’s works of fiction. Not that I am knocking her cleverness. She was brilliant! Just stating the fact that her wording is dated in this day and age.

“Come along, we have to make haste. It is nearly time for court. We shall be late.”

I waved my hand over my body to animate the inappropriateness of my current attire.

“Um, hello, does anything I am wearing scream, “I am headed to court to see a king in public?! You should have let me change!”

I bickered and I felt amusement rush through me, as a familiar presence closed in on us.

“Father, please give the girl a break! She does have a point. That is why I have come bearing gifts, mainly Prada and other nice things, no need to thank me. This stubborn olf texted me to bring you a change of clothes. You are also free to use my apartment to change. You smell like a brothel after hours.”

Christen said cheerfully, and I turned and looked at the red-black Prada leather handbag she was offering me, and the other morsels of silken fabric poking their head from the bag where they were neatly folded.

***

Christen Daily, Renford Daily’s only daughter, lived in the upper spires of the city, where five large pointy buildings reached to the very tip of the fake sky. She lived in what I have come to understand as a sort of Nix embassy. Their apex clan does not reside in the city, but higher-powered alphas and their families do live in the tip above the city. As a detective who patrols both peoples, Ren is afforded every luxury for his family. This also gives Christen a place of honor in court where Ren hopes she might discover an eternal-mate worthy of her noble alpha-female bloodline.

The Nix are matriarchal, and their men, even the most dominant ones, adore and cherish their women. To them, r**e culture is beyond illogical, and so are the Neanderthals above the ground who practice it.

Christen was silver-blonde like Ren, but she had her mother’s softer curvy form. She was tall, about five-ten, and she had belle curves in all the right places. Her breasts were generous, and so was her very ghetto-worthy booty. Not that I ever mentioned this aloud, for fear Ren might decide to unleash his fatherly crusade against the horny succubus.

“Most cherished of my soul, you have me worried all the time. I hardly hear from you, and your mother also says you have been distant from her of late. She misses you, misses her roost and her little princess.”

Ren said, pretending I did not hear their heart-melting conversation. I was bathing in the next bedroom over and Christen was preparing our outfits for court. Think more wine, dancing, and some petitions to Siegfried as well. Also, the proper forum for polite society to discuss the potential risks to its denizens.

Her lavender-scented milky water was a bit much, but it was amazing for a girl’s pores and her tone. My skin was going to be like hot butter once I was out of this bath, and I had nearly forgotten how the other half lived. They might not be technically rich, but Ren and Christen lived in the lap of luxury. He worked hard so that his daughter wanted for nothing.

“I have been busy with the court and with my work in the lower district. None of us knew how bad it had become! With all that has been happening lately, and the appearance of the Veron in our new world, father, we have so many people sleeping exposed to all manner of dangers! We also still have a massive chasm to repair at the edge of the lower city. But first, we have been exploring the possessed apex’s former lair for any information.”

Christen explained to her father, and He was silent for a very long moment.

“I worry for you, the ventures you undertake. You are the most precious one of our line, our daughter, our heir.”

Ren said, with all the theatrical prowess a man over a few thousand-years-old could muster. Christen was a lot closer to my age—per-se. On the immortal scale, her two-centuries was very nearly as much a teen as twenty-one still felt to me. I still feel like a perpetual walking hormone ready to explode at any time. When exactly will that stop, and adulthood begin?!

“Father, you know my work means everything to me. Besides, more of our strong women need to stand with Skylark. She is setting a new example for the dominant to follow. We must show her our support and help to lead our people into a better age, and a more unified front when the Veron come knocking at our door. It will be with a horde of bloodthirsty savages, not the poultry one with some thralls bent to his whims.”

She said, basically summing up recent events that even I had heard something about. Basically, there had been an ancient vampire bat-like being hiding like a sleeper agent for over thirteen-hundred-years. He was finally discovered after he had utilized dark alchemy to possess Skylark—the current Apex—long lost aunt. Now, Skylark, her mother Senna, and the entire apex family are grieving the death of Sorak, the former co-apex of the Nix.

The lower city had been neglected by the privileged, and with the apex family not residing in the city, they had been ignorant of the hostilities between lower city poorer casts of Nix and humans, and the upper-class. Even in a utopia, there are endless sources of misery, you just have to know where to look to spot them.

After a few more minutes, I climbed from the tub and I raised my arms as the enchanted expression of air rushed over me, drying me completely. It was almost by magic, except that was not the right term for it.

I put on the lacy undergarments and the shiny silken silver dress. The silver pump heels and the red-black bag, which stood out even more on the outfit with the reflective quality it held. The red and black mirrored the crimson and black of my eyes and the pupils.