One In A Million (The Millionth Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…

  To his left was a formal dining room with a large wooden table and ten chairs. A bowl of fruit was centered on a round, checkered piece of linen in the middle of the table.

  Remember me… to one who lives there…

  He made his way further down the hall, passing a half-bathroom to his right, the mirror over the sink reflecting his movement and making him jump. Opposite the bathroom was a stairway that led upstairs. He stopped to listen.

  She once was a true love of mine…

  The music wasn’t coming from upstairs, but instead from somewhere up ahead and to the right. He crept ahead, instinctively sticking to the wall on the left side of the hall.

  As he got closer to the sound, he could see the kitchen to his left. It was enclosed on one side with a counter and three stools; there was an island counter in the middle with pots and pans hanging overhead. A faint light was coming from the den, opposite the kitchen.

  He realized it was candlelight just as he heard their soft whispers and moans.

  Tell her to make me a cambric shirt…

  He peered around the corner and there they were, locked in a tangled embrace on the couch, Victoria on top. Sebastian’s head was clasped in her hands as they kissed passionately. Kyle felt no jealously, only dread. What was he supposed to do now?

  Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…

  They were still dressed, but Sebastian was trying to do something about that, pulling at the buttons on Victoria’s blouse.

  “Ah, ah, ah…” she teased, pushing his hands away.

  Unable to get to what he wanted from underneath her blouse, he instead began to softly squeeze her breasts through it, and their kissing became more feverish.

  Without any seam nor needlework…

  Victoria reached down between Sebastian’s legs and he arched his back in pleasure.

  “Do you like that?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Sebastian whimpered.

  Then she’ll be a true love of mine…

  Kyle didn’t know how much more of this he could take. Waiting for her at Starbucks, following her, watching her from outside the restaurant—all these things were bad enough. But to watch this? He felt uncomfortable, as if he were doing something wrong, but still had no idea what to do next. His mission so far was to find Victoria. To prevent this somehow. But when?

  Ask him to find me an acre of land…

  The Gray Man was gone, but Kyle decided to try to reach him. It couldn’t hurt. He stilled his breath, closed his eyes to the scene before him and reached out with his mind.

  “What do I do?” he whispered.

  At first there was only silence. Then, clear as day, he heard him in his mind: “Remember what I told you.”

  Kyle gasped at the sound of The Gray Man’s voice. Again, he whispered. “What? What did you tell me?”

  Silence.

  Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme…

  Moans of passion began to echo from the den. Kyle kept his eyes closed, trying to concentrate and hear even a whisper of The Gray Man’s voice, until he heard a sudden protest.

  It was Victoria. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

  Sebastian chose to ignore her. She pulled back from him a bit, so he gripped his fingers in her hair and pulled her back in for another kiss.

  Between salt water and the sea strands…

  It was brief, and then Victoria tried to pull away again. “No. I mean it. I can’t.”

  “Whatya mean?” Sebastian whined.

  “This isn’t right. It isn’t you. I promise. It’s—”

  In the moments that Kyle’s eyes had been closed, Sebastian had somehow managed to undo her blouse, revealing a lacy white bra underneath. “C’mon. Don’t be such a tease,” he complained, cupping one breast with his hand and grabbing at her butt with the other.

  Victoria shifted her weight and pulled away, her right hand slapping his left hand off her bra. “Hey, I mean it!”

  This was it. Kyle could see it now. Sebastian wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  Then she’ll be a true love of mine.

  The song finished and faded softly away.

  Sebastian looked at her with eyes of want and command. “I’m tired of waiting. I want it. I want you.”

  Kyle was just stepping out from his hiding place to intervene when Victoria’s voice went cold, her reply curt and tinged with annoyance. “You know what? I’m tired of waiting too.”

  And with that, she pulled a large butcher knife from beneath the couch cushion behind Sebastian’s head and stabbed him in the right side of his chest.

  It was as if the entire universe had punched Kyle in the face. He froze.

  Sebastian looked up at Victoria in shock and dismay, and then tried to pull away. But she closed her slender left hand around his throat, and with a strength that seemed beyond her, she viciously banged his head against the side table, twice, the sickening thud of bone on wood echoing through the house. He was still conscious, but barely.

  Spinning off him, Victoria turned around, her blouse flying open and revealing her breasts in the lacy white bra, her eyes… glistening black orbs.

  Kyle stood there in the hallway, unable to move, as her mouth pulled back in a sneer of contempt and her pure white teeth birthed into long fangs.

  “It’s about time you got here, sweetie,” she said, “because I’ve been waiting twenty long years for this.”

  AFTER BREAKING NEARLY every speed law imaginable between the tiny rest stop and Monterey, Tamara’s GPS announced the arrival at her destination: Victoria Brasco’s house was just up ahead, a single car parked in the driveway.

  Tamara parked and got out of the car just as an unmarked sedan sped up the driveway behind her. For a second she thought of bolting for the house but… then what? The sun had just gone down. Was she going to bang on the door after dark? What if Kyle wasn’t even here?

  The car came to a stop, and Detective Villa jumped out. “Mrs. Fasano! Stop right there.”

  She did as she was told as they approached her, two figures, outlined by the light from their car’s headlights.

  “You can’t stop me,” she said.

  Detective Villa disagreed. “You’re trespassing.”

  “Did the homeowner call that in, or are you making shit up?”

  Having been blasted by their headlights it was hard to see clearly, but Tamara thought Detective Villa’s partner was… smiling.

  “What’s so funny, Detective… what was it again?”

  “Parker, ma’am. Sorry. But this whole day has been a joke.”

  “When did you get here?” Detective Villa asked her.

  “Just now. I was wondering if anyone is home and what to do if they are.”

  They were all speaking softly. Besides her car and theirs, there was a Silver Mercedes SL parked in the driveway.

  “I thought I told you to drive that greeting card of yours to the station.”

  “Did you say that? I don’t recall.”

  This time Detective Parker actually laughed. “Well… okay. There ya go.”

  “Parker,” Detective Villa said curtly.

  “Sorry, man. But…I mean, what in the hell is next?”

  Tamara spoke up. “I don’t know, but the three of us standing out here in the dark isn’t helping anybody.”

  She watched as Detective Villa scanned the front of the house. It was a large, two-story, modern brick home, luxuriously landscaped with a slate porch and white fence balcony.

  “Most of the lights are out, at least in the rooms you can see from here,” she said.

  “Yeah. You see anyone?” Detective Villa asked, then looked at her sternly. “And don’t lie this time.”

  “No. I was just mustering the courage to go knock on the door.”

  Detective Parker raised his eyebrows. “And say what? ‘Hi! You used to boff my husband as a teenager. How’re things going?’“

  “Parker,” Det
ective Villa said, rolling his eyes.

  “Yeah. That’s exactly what I was going to say,” Tamara retorted. “Right after I asked her if two dumb-ass detectives from LA had contacted her yet.”

  Detective Parker put his hands on his hips and shook his head.

  “We haven’t been able to reach her. But we’re here now, and it looks like someone’s home. You should leave,” Detective Villa said, sounding weary.

  “And?” Tamara asked.

  “And I know you won’t.”

  “So what, then?”

  “You’re going to stay right here while we go speak to Mrs. Brasco. I like you, Mrs. Fasano, but if you get out of line or interfere with this conversation, I will arrest you on the spot for interfering with a police investigation. I give you my word on that. You understand?”

  Tamara looked at him in earnest, calling to mind their earlier conversation about Kyle. “Only if your word still means something. Does it, Detective?”

  He looked her and nodded. “You’re damned straight.”

  Every fiber of her body begged her not to, but she stepped out of their way and leaned against the door of her car, folding her arms in protest.

  Detective Villa nodded at his partner, and they proceeded to go a few steps up the driveway just as a scream came from inside the house.

  The detectives halted, and then broke for the door.

  They never made it.

  In stunned amazement, Tamara watched as a wall of white appeared in front of them, and the gray angel that had saved her at the rest stop stepped out from it.

  Both detectives skidded to a stop, then fell backwards in shock.

  Tamara’s eyes filled with wonder and thanks as she looked at the calm face and confident eyes of the man before them. His very presence radiated strength and hope.

  He was an angel. She just knew it.

  And he’d come to save her husband.

  CHAPTER 33

  Kyle looked at Victoria and was filled with horror, the shock in him melting away far too slowly as she advanced. He spoke but could barely hear himself. “No.”

  She crouched like a ghoul and began to creep her way towards him. “Oh, yes. You stupid man. You stupid boy!”

  The blue in him pulsed, beginning to build, and still he couldn’t move. How can this be? How?

  “It took a lifetime, my love,” she said in a mocking tone.

  She was reading his mind, his thoughts, just like The Gray Man could.

  But he was able to stop that now, to shield himself if he wanted to. He willed his mind closed.

  “Oh. Don’t go all quiet on me now,” she said, curving her lips down into the mask of a sad little girl.

  Sebastian moaned in the background, and Kyle briefly glanced his way. Blood was pooling in his shirt and on his temple.

  “Victoria. Why?”

  She was closer, perhaps only twenty feet away, stepping into the hallway to join him. “Do I have to explain it to you?” she sneered, using her tongue to lick her teeth. “He’s a fool. Eyes all full of want. He was simply meat for pleasure.”

  “Victoria—”

  “Sort of like what I was to you.”

  Her words pierced him. He blinked and swallowed, his throat going dry, as he began to see her more clearly. The tongue she kept licking her teeth with was long and sharp, and on each of her shoulders there was a single small spike. This couldn’t be real. “Victoria—”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “You were never meat—”

  “No, no, no. We aren’t going to have this conversation.”

  “But…”

  “I knew they were going to send someone for me. The Master said so. I didn’t know who though, until this morning, in the coffee shop.”

  “You saw me?”

  “Of course I saw you. What? Now you wanna know why I didn’t say ‘hi’?” she laughed. It was a laugh of hubris mixed with hate.

  Kyle shook his head in disbelief. “I never meant to hurt you…”

  She crept closer, one small step.

  “Oh, please.” She slammed the bottom of her fist against the wall, launching the collage of framed photos hung on it down to the hard floor below, glass shattering everywhere. “Spare me the bullshit. I’ve heard it before, the night you dumped me.”

  “No… please, listen.”

  “Do you want to know what all these were?” she asked, waving her right hand across the photos on the floor. “A simple construct of what I thought a happy life would be.”

  His eyes darted across the photos; a few were of her and her husband, others were of her kids. “It still can be.”

  “Can be?” she screamed. “It. Never. Was. No matter what I tried, I was never happy again. It was never the same with anyone else.”

  Adrenaline joined the blue. She was getting too close.

  “Why?” he stalled, trying to plan what to do next.

  Stopping her advance, she simply looked at him, cocking her head first to the right and then slowly to the left, as if she were studying a mold or germ in a petri dish. The black in her eyes shrunk into a piercing stare. “You’ve changed, you know.”

  Kyle stepped forwards from his spot in the hallway. They stood directly opposite one another on the black and white checkered tile floor, like chess pieces on a board. “How?”

  “You’re softer. Weaker. That girl, Caitlyn, right? She stole so much from you, even more than your wife ever did.”

  “How do you know?”

  “About what? The girl or the wife?”

  He had to keep stalling until he figured out what to do. “Both.”

  Sebastian stirred and saw them, a look of disbelief swimming over his face.

  Victoria looked over at him and reached out her arm. Kyle couldn’t believe his eyes as she levitated Sebastian. “No!” he screamed.

  She smashed Sebastian, up and down, repeatedly, on the coffee table in front of the couch, his limbs flopping loosely in all directions like a rag doll’s as he was knocked unconscious.

  Instinctively, the blue pulsed to Kyle’s hands, catching her attention immediately.

  “Ahhh,” Victoria sighed. She closed her hand into a fist then opened her fingers; Sebastian dropped to the floor. “Now my Romeo shows his true colors.”

  “Victoria, I don’t want to do this…”

  She mocked him. “Oh! Victoria! Tell me about your sorrows. Tell me about your fam-i-lee.” She laughed. “And why… they… never… made… you… happy.”

  “Stop it. Don’t do this.”

  “Tell me all your troubles, while I prepare to kill you.”

  He was stunned. “I’m not here to kill you.”

  “Ohhh? Really?” she glared, the whites of her eyes forming a thin disk around the black orbs. “How sad. I think you actually believe that, honey, but sorry. Sadly, you’ve been misinformed.”

  “What?” Kyle was confused. He thought back to what The Gray Man told him. What did he mean by “remember what I told you”? That meaning was the key to all of this; he knew it to his core. But what was it?

  She sighed and gave him a pitiful look. “It’s you and me to the death, my dear. That’s how this works.”

  “No.”

  She suddenly stepped forwards and grabbed him by his shirt, the tips of her claws digging into his chest. “Yes.”

  She was pulling him close when the blue shot out of his chest and crackled. She screamed and stepped back. Knocked off balance, Kyle fell and scrambled to stand up, calling a pool of blue to each hand, and began to form an orb.

  “Seriously?” she said with a sneer. “You’re going to beat me with that?”

  From seemingly out of nowhere, a spiked tail whipped from behind her, black and gleaming. It shot forwards and split the orb in half, right in his hands. Kyle charged and pushed her backwards, the blue in his hands burning into her.

  Her tail shot forward again, and this time it was Kyle’s turn to scream as it slashed him across his chest, gouging and t
earing his skin and barely missing his throat.

  So this was it. He realized with a certainty that Victoria had her mission and he had his. She was here to kill Sebastian tonight, and Kyle was here to save him. This had never been about saving Victoria from anyone else. It was about saving the boy, and maybe even saving Victoria from herself.

  All of this cosmic chaos, and his entire mission, was balancing on the life and soul of Sebastian, lying there in the den, bleeding out quickly.

  “Do you remember when you looked into my eyes and told me that you’d love me forever, Kyle? You lied, didn’t you?” she said, looking at him intently. “Now… why don’t you try looking me in the eyes just one more time.”

  Her eyes went from a glistening black, to a dull, flat and menacing black. The color of a shark’s eyes. The color of death on the approach.

  He let the blue flow freely from each hand, forming strands that slowly turned into whips. “Please, Victoria, don’t do this,” he replied.

  Reaching behind her, Victoria used her right hand to carve the air.

  Kyle thought he’d seen it all. He hadn’t.

  She sliced the very fabric of reality, through the atoms that made up the space between things, in a lazy “s,” and a hole of some kind opened right there by the kitchen, a hole to another world. A cosmic wind from that world blew in hot and full of tortured screams.

  Kyle was in awe. How many times had his pastor said it?

  Just a veil. A very thin veil.

  Between this world and the spirit world.

  And Victoria had just breached it.

  “NAP? Nap!” Parker was screaming, scooting back in panic from the man in front of them.

  Napoleon was without words, but for Parker’s sake, he tried. “Hey… it’s okay. Shh. Take it easy, rookie.”

  As a lifelong cop, he’d learned the art of description. A vic, a perp, it made no difference; description was everything. It told a story. But what his eyes were seeing now was nearly indescribable. A man in a gray suit and wearing a gray fedora stood before them. He seemed human but evidently wasn’t, or at least wasn’t any form of human that Napoleon had ever seen before. And he… glowed, that was the best way to put it, in a gray aura that was a shade or two lighter than his suit. He face was chiseled, with a square jaw and firm cheekbones, and his eyes glowed in the lightest gray of all, almost white.