Entwined, page 9
Nathen waited until they all settled and then chimed in, “I created this map yesterday. It shows missing people, pets, and unsolved murders all following a trendline from Florida to Texas. This is correlated to recent purchases within certain areas in each city. I think these might be arachnoid clusters spreading to take over the southern US. They’re currently setting up in Texas, but based on this, Nevada and Southern California will be next.”
Cameron’s gentle laugh distracted Nathen. “Nice segue, gorgeous.” He had not caught the teasing sarcasm about having abruptly changed topics, something he tended to do often but rarely noticed until someone pointed it out.
Undeterred, Nathen continued through slides and maps. It included things like past purchase history, new buyers, where the buyers had moved from, and shifted to coincidental crime reports that started to appear suspiciously close to the buy dates and ending soon after buyers moved.
He was grateful when Cameron helped him realize he was losing people with the minute details that interested only him. With this information, which he would normally not have any idea about, he was able to be more succinct and answer pointed questions about the house they believed was an arachnoid cluster.
“The issue is we would really like to focus on finding the queen,” Syn interjected. “Nathen brought up a good point. If we can kill the queen, we are much more likely to be able to disrupt their entire operation.”
“That sounds good, assuming they have one. But how do we go about finding it if it exists?” Alfonso asked, pushing his glasses up with one finger. Nathen mirrored the gesture before remembering he had healed his eyesight with his vampiric blood.
He rubbed his chin, thinking on his feet, visualizing his plan first, and then translating it on the fly into words. “Well, we have the address of the nest, or at least the house we think is the nest. I could project myself like I did with Maria, though not fully, and see if I can access their devices. Maybe they have something that could point us to the queen?” He hesitated. “And if not, maybe I’ll gather other information we could use to find more of them.”
“Wow! How do you…? I thought you were a vampire?” Beth said suspiciously.
Cameron chuckled, saying proudly, “He’s got mad skills.” Nathen could feel a wash of libido emanate from Cameron who had cast a quick glance at him. “In so many more ways than one,” he added mentally, distracting Nathen. Did he want to have sex right then? That didn’t make sense.
“He’s got the ability to use his blood for magic in the same way as the rest of you do for your skills,” Syn interjected.
“And the ability to learn blood magic,” Cameron offered.
“Well,” Beth pressed in a huff. “Why don’t you show us what you’ve got? If you can find the queen, why are we wasting time with all this other stuff?”
Nathen shrugged. “This is just interesting. It could be the case there’s more than one queen. Maybe they have different fiefdoms, or they’re working with different fae, or at least getting support from them? The speed at which they’re growing is pretty impressive. I have the ability to project myself through the internet, but it’s not an objective reality I see. It’s my mind’s interpretation of it. Though sometimes if the place has cameras, I can actually see the area in a more natural”—he air quoted—“way. I can try with what we have and see if I can traverse the network using the address. If it was a cell phone number, it would actually be easier. Most people don’t use real landlines anymore.”
“Sweetheart, do you need anything specific to do it? Or is it better if you don’t have an audience?” Alfonso asked softly.
“He thinks you might have stage fright. Want me to ask them for a quiet place where you can concentrate?” Cameron asked.
“Oh, no, I am not pee shy…” He smirked and took out his phone. Opening the browser to a blank page, Nathen stared at it and focused.
Serge let out a belly laugh, the first sound he had made all evening.
“What did he say?” Beth asked as Alfonso began making his rounds with a bottle of wine, refilling people’s glasses. No one clarified.
*
NATHEN
Nathen’s world rotated around him, and he heard the familiar sound of the ocean. His consciousness snapped. The room was the same, with its thematic Victorian furniture, and he shuddered as if he had just woken from a dream, only here he was alone, and instead of the crackling fire and lamps, the room was illuminated somehow as if the sun was out, though he could see no windows. In front of him a floating, black, door-shaped passage hung in midair. Peering in, he found steep stairs leading down into the darkness.
He visualized the address, and it formed in his hand as a small unsent package. It was a normal-looking package wrapped in brown paper with the address written in black ink and three I Love Lucy forever stamps. He shrugged and tucked it under his arm and glanced back at the black opening in space. As he entered it, the soundscape changed, and he flailed down the stairs as there were no walls for the sound to bounce off to help with balance. Nathen could only discern a pathway leading down into infinity. He regained his composure and continued cautiously down the stairs. After a few halting steps, he turned to look back through the portal. In the vast emptiness he could see the doorway far away.
Nathen continued down for what seemed like hours, but time was meaningless here. He could no longer see the doorway when he glanced behind him, and in front of him were only the same stairs he had been walking down. On either side was the void. Maybe he was missing something? Regardless, he was tired of holding the damned package. He shook it for good measure and for the first time noticed something rolling around inside. Like a child on Christmas, he gave it a good shake by his ear, though that did nothing to betray the contents. Maybe what was in it would explain why he was here? This was his mind’s construction after all. He shrugged and ripped the paper wrapped around a plain cardboard box. Lifting the flaps, he found a small, red rubber ball inside. Squeezing it, he mused it might be a dog’s ball, but otherwise there was nothing special about it. Confused, and about to return it to the box, he had an idea. After placing the ball onto the staircase, he tapped it and let it roll down the step’s edge. At first it made a small arc when it bounced from the next step to the third. But with each passing bounce, the arc got bigger and bigger until finally it bounced so high that even though it was a lot lower than him, its arc reached his line of sight. He began to give chase but drew up short when he heard the impact against the next step which sounded like glass shattering. The ball turned into a cloud of red dust that coalesced, morphed, and stretched into a floating doorway with what looked from a distance like a red door. He dropped the box he was holding, which fell off the edge into nothingness.
Nathen continued down the staircase until he reached the doorway. It was a deep-red, four-paneled door with a round, silver door handle. He twisted it and opened the door to find inside held a cave, brightly lit with sconces in the shape of round spiky spider egg sacs. As a kid, Nathen had become obsessed with learning about spiders in California after finding one in his house. He was fascinated both with not being bitten and with their lifecycle and place in nature. These egg sacs’ morphology, he mused, could belong to a brown widow spider. This must be the place I’m looking for!
He stepped in and closed the door behind him. Damp and warm inside, Nathen could hear drips echo off the cave walls. There were spiderwebs stretched across the walls, floor, and ceiling of the cave, and the space was intermixed with everyday furniture and appliances sparsely strewn and covered by deep layers of webs. Everything looked out of place, as if two realities mixed and intermingled.
He continued down the cave, which seemed to go deeper away from the entrance and door. There were no other people, just a long empty cave leading him to an antechamber and then into a large opening.
Inside was a desk, office chair, and a computer monitor all covered in webbing stretching out away from it, and with long pipelike structures connected to the walls of the large cave. He entered and sat down, the webs ripping as he disturbed them. The screen turned to a computer desktop, which he promptly began to interact with. He projected what he was seeing onto the display in the room he knew his body was in.
Nathen opened the mail client and started his search. He found two interesting emails that exactly pointed to what he suspected: one from a baron and the other from a queen. One spoke of resource transfer from various bank accounts to someone named Fredrick Malone, who was to distribute among the nests in the Southeast Region of the States, and there were negotiations still going on between the Southwest and Northwest Territories for possible alliances against the “blood thralls.” Nathen transferred the emails to his computer and willed himself to wake up.
He shook himself back into awareness, feelings of floating suggesting lightheadedness, and the mild gnawing that scratched at his desire for sustenance reminded him using his skills to interface with technology required the price of blood. He noticed the group staring at the screen. Syn was standing near the wall, reading one of the projected emails. Beth was sitting back in the armchair with a look of suspicion, and Serge and his partner Alfonso were holding hands on the couch, leaning forward.
“You okay, gorgeous? I saw your thoughts; seemed to be a long trip, though it was only a few seconds here. You closed your eyes and suddenly the screen turned on with those emails.” Cameron placed his hand on Nathen’s knee, inadvertently showering him with feelings of pride and awe.
Nathen nodded. “I’m fine, just hungry…” He flashed a salacious smile before turning his attention to the rest of the group. “We have some more information to go by and it looks like there are a few different kingdoms within the States, and probably the world. We can disrupt this node, and it might cut off some funding here, but to really slow them down, we would need to go after the head.”
“I don’t see where a few emails get us the location of the queen,” Beth said dubiously, eyeballing Nathen.
Nathen became distracted by Cameron’s arousal from knowing he was hungry, their link intensifying the desire. He smiled when Cameron tried to shake off thoughts of taking Nathen to go find a hotel room immediately and focus on the questions. “I think Nathen can pull that information, if he hasn’t already. The question is, do we go to this address now that we know it is confirmed to be a base of operation, or start using their technology to find something else?”
Nathen offered a polite smile to Beth. “I got her email address, and I can find the edge server that receives the first transmission and track her that way. If she is tech savvy, she might be using a VPN proxy server, but even that leaves footprints to the source location. We might want to send in the land fae to their location now. I have what I need to find her. If there are multiple queens though, I will need access to her computer in the hope they communicate with each other.”
Beth stared blankly at Nathen, which he took as understanding, until Cameron said, “You’re talking over her head, gorgeous.” Aloud, Cameron clarified, “The short of it is he’s going to need a little more time to investigate, and Syn can probably help with that. He’s got an address that your Coastal Plains fae could use, but it’s not where the queen is, or are, if there are more than one. It may be more strategic to wait a little while and let us do some exploration.”
Alfonso spoke up. “It doesn’t work like that. The land fae are relatively peaceful. They sought us out to help with this fight, so really, it’s us who go in. And there’s the five of us, plus a handful of others. Maria does well with healing us when we come back torn up, but we don’t have many resources.”
Nathen became single-focused. “I’m hungry and a bit tired from the travel. Maybe we can find a hotel or stay here for tonight? I need some quiet time.”
Nathen didn’t travel much as it was draining and overstimulating. If he was traveling alone, making quick repeated decisions taxed his mental reserves and the constant anxiety sapped his physical energy. He liked to stay in quiet spaces and leave crowded places as fast as he could.
At the mention of his hunger, a shot of arousal coursed through Cameron and also enveloped him. Cameron shifted in his seat. “Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. Syn and Nathen and I are going to go get a hotel and rest up. After that, Syn and Nathen are going to start working on some different leads. We have contacts here in New Orleans we might be able to communicate with. I also feel it may be getting past the time most of you are in bed, so everyone’s tired. It’s confirmed that the address you supplied does have the arachnoid there. You guys can make plans to watch them, perhaps?”
It sounded to Nathen as if everyone started speaking at once, which annoyed him more than usual in his current state.
Beth imparted, “We call them Araneae. And we already have someone watching that house.” Nathen could hear the annoyed tone from Cameron’s perspective which was something he had never been able to notice before. He could also see through Cameron’s ability to read the woman’s mind that the reason she was upset was because she thought Cameron was coming in and treating them like they didn’t know anything.
This all happened in a split second as Alfonso stood and protested. “We can’t have you stay at a hotel. We have a basement with a pullout bed and a second couch the three of you could stay in.” Nathen saw through Cameron the man was very much a homemaker and even though the house was old, he was trying very hard to fix it up and make everyone feel welcomed.
At the same time, Maria was also saying something about them not having to stay at a hotel.
Nathen was quickly becoming overwhelmed. The lack of blood, the whirlwind of emotions and thoughts he needed to work on shutting out in the same way as Cameron was able to expertly field and filter, coupled with the information overload, was getting to him and he started fidgeting, his leg bouncing up and down. He remembered his mother yelling at him to cut it out, and he tried, mindfully stopping his movement and pulled out his phone to start distracting himself. This was his way of stimming, something he recently learned was a way to soothe.
“Guys, thanks,” Cameron said. “We appreciate the hospitality, but I think for tonight it would make more sense to be in a hotel. We will update you if we find anything relevant.”
A wave of calm washed over him, and he let the phone rest on his leg as he noticed Cameron’s control over everyone in the room, a sense of serenity engulfing everyone. Cameron stood and turned off the projector, gathering Nathen’s things and slipping them into the bag.
As they walked out to the car, Nathen thought about Cameron’s ability to control his and other people’s emotions. Normally he would be upset, logically, if someone he didn’t know was having so great an influence on him. But because it was his lover, and the intent was to make him more comfortable, something his mind was not good at doing when overstimulated, he didn’t mind and was actually thankful for it. He purposefully projected his gratitude to Cameron.
Cameron wrapped an arm around Nathen and kissed his temple. “I know, gorgeous. It’s okay. I used to struggle with it, wonder if it was invasive or wrong to use my abilities to help people in that way. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that it’s not. When people are upset or sad, it’s easy for me to help them, to think more clearly. I do it as second nature now. And for you, it’s not easy to control your emotions. It’s a chemical imbalance because of the way your brain works. But I’ll always help when I can. I saw it was getting a little much in there. Let’s go find a hotel and get some rest.”
All three piled into the car again and drove back to the city. As they drove, Syn made reservations at a hotel in the French Quarter so she could do some sightseeing the next day with the plan for her and Nathen to work on trying to hack the Araneae or arachnoids and learn more about their queen.
Chapter Sixteen
CAMERON
Through the car ride, Cameron purposefully tried to keep his thoughts chaste, focused on the drive and what Syn was talking about with regard to their investigation, though it had been a struggle. Nathen’s hunger was an immediate aphrodisiac every time and it didn’t help that their deepening connection made Cameron feel Nathen’s lust for him and intensify his own arousal. Once inside the lobby, Cameron had mentally prompted the clerk to hurry with the check-in, until finally they were able to say good night to Syn and get into the hotel room. Cameron barely noticed the fairly well-appointed modern motif room, as he tossed the bags aside, then watched Nathen kick off his shoes and fall onto the purple-and-white bedspread, his arms spread wide, no doubt reveling in the quiet.
Feeling Nathen’s need to center himself and knowing the whirlwind of travel, meeting new people, and driving had been overstimulating for him, Cameron left him on the bed and made use of the bathroom. It had been a long day and traveling always left Cameron feeling like he had a layer of dirt on him, even though he hadn’t been working out or sweating at all. After peeling off his clothes, Cameron took a quick shower in the contemporary, black-tiled unit and allowed the emotions of the day to catch up with him. He had purposefully kept himself from thinking too much about Maria, until he saw her again, and that had been an almost tangible relief.
As the scorching water rushed over him, the showerhead set for a pounding massage, his tightened shoulders started to relax. Pouring shampoo into his hand, he snorted when he smacked it onto his newly shorn head, having forgotten he had a short week’s buzz cut since previously having most of his hair burned off. At least the soap smelled like oranges, making Cameron chuckle. Nathen’s analogy of his scent reminding him of a peach coupled with the new chemical addition of citrus made Cameron feel like a fruit salad about to be offered up for Nathen’s enjoyment. The thought sent a twinge through his cock, lengthening it as he washed himself all over with the good smelling shampoo, in lieu of soap.
