Forever The World of Nightwalkers - By Jacquelyn Frank Page 0,15
pick a wealthy host as it was to pick an impoverished one. When hosts rose into the Ether and touched souls with the waiting Bodywalkers, they learned a great deal about them. It allowed them to choose the most compatible soul they could find.
For Kamen that had meant physical strength, a position of wealth and power, and, most important, very few human connections, such as family or siblings. He wanted nothing to do with his host’s former life. He had no patience for the petty things mortals worried and squabbled about. His host, an entrepreneur named Thomas James, had been married. It had taken two weeks for him to Blend enough with James to dissolve the marriage. He had made certain to be cruel and do and say the most unforgivable things he could imagine, compelling the wife to walk out and never consider returning.
He had methodically alienated himself from his host’s former life in all ways except the financial and business aspects. Those he kept afloat, albeit from a distance, by using others to manage the day-to-day affair of maintaining a steady flow of income.
Because as powerful as the Templars were, they could not simply conjure the means needed to buy them the land that sheltered and secluded them or the food they needed to sustain their hosts.
“Your pardon, my lord.”
Kamen looked up sharply, seeing a hesitant acolyte standing just outside of the doorway. He had given strict instructions that no seemed to think on that for a moment and the lone was to cross the threshold into Odjit’s chamber—aside from himself and whomever was chosen to wait upon them. They also should know by now that he was in a perpetually surly mood and would remain as such until Odjit returned to them in her full glory.
Perhaps not even then.
Damn this never-ending existence, he thought heatedly.
“Well? You’ve come this far to test my patience. I suggest you speak with more alacrity.” He shut the compendium in his lap and moved it onto the table. It was heavy and quite old and needed to be treated with a great deal of care.
“I think we have found him, my lord.”
The heat of instant fury raced through him. His immediate thought was that by “him” the acolyte meant the nameless, as yet untraceable human who had mutilated their mistress. Then he recalled that he had not set that task to the Bodywalkers, but instead to humans. He had sketched the face of the Latino man to the best of his ability and had presented it to three different private detectives, two of whom lived in the area where the attack had taken place. As natives, they had to be able to find some clue as to who this man was. He was not a ghost after all.
“Menes,” Kamen said quietly when he realized the actual “him” that was being referred to. “Where? New Mexico I take it.” He had been hoping to get a shot at the Politic bastard while he was weak and still in the Blending process. If he was already in his stronghold with Ramses and his contemptible traitor bride to protect them, there was no point in making an attempt on him while Odjit was so indisposed.
“No,” the acolyte corrected him gently. “It turns out he’s been hiding in plain sight all this time. Sybelle the chantress has seen it clearly, although she is not of equal power to our great mistress—”
Chantresses were powerful spiritual women, also known as prophets—or a human might call them psychics. They could see things beyond normal ken. The future. Danger. Sometimes messages from the gods themselves, although it was rare for anyone in Templar ranks other than Odjit to lay claim to such a power. Odjit was easily threatened by anyone who harbored the potential to outgun her.
“Where is he?” Kamen demanded, cutting away the effulgent praise the acolyte was about to heap onto Odjit.
“Saugerties. New York.”
“Get Thorn. And my lead Gargoyle.”
“Of course, my lord,” the acolyte said, bending to enter a deep bow, as if the depth of his ability to bow before Kamen were equal to the amount of loyalty to be expected from him. But Kamen was no fool. If there was one thing he had learned in his many lives, it was that no one could be trusted.
No one.
The acolyte turned, but Kamen halted him with a sharp snap of his fingers.
“Fetch Chatha to me,” he said darkly. “I have a special task for him.”