Chapter 24

I sit at the bar and sip my soda pop. The bartender, one of the club's owners and a famous male stripper, comes back to me.

“Nice night, huh?” he asks with a smile. “Cyn is swamped tonight. Nice nights bring out the dancers instead of the watchers.”

“Yup.” I look over to the woman at the DJ spin table. Her dark brown hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail. Her skin is pale against her black hoody. Her brown eyes are fixed on the equipment before her. The studs on her leather bracelet on her right wrist flash in the spotlight around her and the rainbow reflection of the multi-colored bracelets on her left wrist glimmer. “So she's too busy for me?”

The bartender, a vampire named Diac, laughs softly. “Sorry, hun. You'll have to settle for just me.”

My grin spreads before I can contain it. “Sometimes, Diac, you're too much.”

One of the human bartenders comes to take over Diac's position. The tall, lean,and lightly tanned vampire with light brown hair and eyes leads me onto one of the private rooms in the back. Everything in the room is dark red. We sit on one of the room's three couches.

“So," I say, getting right down to business, “what is new in the old harbor?”

“Bad stuff, milady,” the vampire says with a shake of his head. “Kic has been moving around in the city.”

“Kic?” I ask, bewildered. I remember the young man with bright purple eyes and crazy determination well. In a desperate attempt to impress his supposed demonic father, Grisley, the half-Dark One had tried to kill Myra while she was enraged at her sister's injury. One swipe of her clawed hand permanently damaged his left eye and scared his face. “What would Kic want here? Ni hasn't let him out of her sight in the past five centuries.”

“From what I've gathered, he has been sent to do a certain task for Ni.” Diac strokes the arm of the couch. “I would assume he was sent to kill you, milady.”

I sigh. I had a feeling Ni would do something like this. I really don't want to kill Kic. My intuition tells me he still has something important to do. “Great. As if I need someone dogging my heals. I will just have to deal with it until the time comes to sink that damned harbor under the bay.”

Diac nods, not wanting to oppose me. “What are your orders, lady?”

“Just keep watching,” I reply as I stand. “That is all we can do now. Oh, and Diac, I will have to bring Markus here soon.”

The vampire nods. “Yes, ma'am. I will tell Cyn. You just tell us when and we'll hold a special Senior's Night.”

I laugh at his cleverness. “Nice, Diac, very nice. You intelligence amazes me again.”

He grins devilishly. “Comes with hundreds of years of life, Lady Mim.”

I say my goodbyes and walk quickly back to my house and Markus.

I have found that Aqura holds the most startling information of the Four. She is very mystical and hard to understand, but if you think hard enough she is quiet a wonderful source of interesting facts about just about everything. Lyrena has been ordering around her snake people to record everything the mermaids and mermen of Aqura's.

This morning Feu and Winna were playing what Lyrena called the Test of Endurance. It was a test to see who could go the longest without speaking. Lyrena was the judge of this game and Aqura was watching with amusement. I took advantage of the rare quiet moment to ask Aqura some questions that have been bothering me.

“Aqura, do you know what I am?”

The blue woman smiled mistily. “You are many, many things. You will do many, many things. You will be many, many people. You will lives many, many lives. You have seen the dawn of time through our eyes and will see the end of time through the eyes of one of your reincarnations. You will have sad times and good times and times so deep in each that you will not believe it. You will always be you, but you will alter until you reach the perfect equilibrium.”

“What does that mean?” I asked her. “That I'll die a lot until I become perfect? What does that mean?”

Aqura smiled again and turned her attention to the other three. I sighed and knew she was going to say no more.

All I really got from her ramble was that I will never die. The thought scares me a little, but is reassuring. What would happen to the Four if I died? They wouldn't die, I know that. They all agree that they are eternal, that they can never leave this plane of existence. I don't think being released from my soul would go over well for the people around me. Feu vaguely mentioned a series of epic natural and unnatural disasters if they were allowed out again. I have also been able to pry out some little facts about the time they were free and they aren't pretty.

So, if I do live forever, in one way or another, I'm glad it is keeping the people of this plant safe from these four.

Markus sits up from the desk. It is late and Mimerain is sleeping peacefully in their bed. He is tempted to wake her up and tell her the revelation he has just made, but the last few nights after he translated the first diary entry have been restless for her. He watches her sleep as he mulls over his shocking find.

“The Balance of Powers is still alive.”

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