Undying. V.K. Forrest

      KENSINGTON BOOKS

       http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 1

      He stood beneath the lengthening shadows of the Acropolis, high on the hilltop over the city of Athens, and watched as the last rays of sunlight faded. With the coming of darkness, he could feel the evil of the night slither in on its belly, much like the quarry he sought tonight.

      Arlan walked quickly through the Agora, keeping his head down, leaving behind the noisy tourists boarding their tour buses.

      Two weeks ago, thousands of miles away in the little U.S. town of Clare Point, the vote had gone against a human by the name of Robert Romano. With the plunging of twelve daggers into an ancient oak table, the man’s fate had been sealed. For more than a decade, the pedophile, a monster who dealt in the underground sale of child sex slaves, had been pursued across several continents by law enforcement. Robert Romano, known by multiple aliases, had recently made the FBI’s most wanted list after the abduction of a five-year-old from a grocery store in the suburbs of Detroit. At the present time, the FBI did not know his whereabouts. Romano was careful, and he was clever.

      Not clever enough.

      In twenty minutes, forty-six-year-old Romano would be waiting at a designated spot on the southern end of the Agora, a spot that came to life after dark, both with ghosts of the past and the haunts of the present. The human would be there to accept a cash payment for the delivery of two male children, ages six and nine, who were currently being held in an apartment two blocks away. Delivery of the children was to be made once Romano received his cash in small currency euros. The unfortunate buyer would not receive his merchandise because Arlan would be waiting. A clean-up crew would rescue the children and see that the buyer was arrested by local police. Romano would no longer be the authorities’ concern.

      Now almost dark, the warm evening air had grown thick with the sounds and scents of the ancient city. It was funny how cities all smelled the same, sounded the same, when Arlan closed his eyes. This could have been any street in any city in the world in the last thousand years.

      He inhaled deeply, lifting his chin, flaring his nostrils. Someone was roasting meat in one of the nearby restaurants that catered to the tourists…lamb. Elsewhere, sewage overflowed. He caught the hint of a woman’s cheap perfume on the air, although he walked alone in the twilight. Embedded in the night air was also the sour scent of human body odor. The fetid bouquet of fleas feasting on rodents.

      In the distance, beyond the ruins, Arlan heard doors opening and closing. Footsteps, both heavy and light, echoed through the gathering fog. Over time, the sputter of car and motorbike engines had replaced the rhythm of wooden cart and carriage wheels, but in his mind, they were still somehow the same.

      These were the sounds and smells of humanity. For better. For worse. Despite the ugliness of much of it, Arlan longed to be a part of this world. He was jealous of the man roasting lamb for gyros on the street corner, the woman slamming the window to muffle the harsh words she flung at her cheating lover. Arlan would never know the mundane life of a mortal.

      At the sound of shrill laughter, he tensed. Despite the cover of darkness, standing here in human form, he was vulnerable. He gazed intently in the direction of the noisier, busier Plaka, blocks away, where tourists flooded the streets eager to sample the moussaka and ouzo. Eager to buy their trinkets to mark their journey, they had no idea of the evil that lurked in the shadows or the salvation about to descend on two helpless children.

      Arlan’s partner was late. He checked his cell phone, noting the time. No call and Regan was twenty minutes late.

      Arlan worked his jaw in indecision.

      The plan had been for Regan, pretending to be the “customer,” to meet Romano at the Areopagus. Arlan would serve as the lookout. Regan was to lure Romano into a secluded area amid the ruins and there, the execution would be carried out as ordered by the High Council. Arlan and Regan would carry it out together. Two daggers. Two were required by primordial sept law.

      But Regan wasn’t here and time was running out. If Romano slipped out of their hands, there was no way to say when the planets and moons would align again. There was no way to know when the opportunity to catch him would offer itself again, or how many more children would lose their innocence in the intervening time.

      The coarse laughter of the woman grew louder, closer. Arlan heard a second woman’s voice. They were speaking Greek. Both were drunk, or high, or both. He caught a flash of short skirt and long bare legs. Prostitutes. After dark, when the museums closed and tour groups were led to the safe streets of the Plaka, the Athens underworld came to life here. From the shadowy Areopagus situated beneath the lights of the Acropolis, one could see the whole city. In this place, one could buy drugs, sex…and even children.

      Arlan made the decision. There was no time to call the council. No time to await further instructions. The sept had been watching this bastard for eighteen months. They couldn’t afford to let him go. The Kahill sept’s duty to God would not allow it.

      One moment Arlan was a thirty-something guy in jeans and a black leather jacket and the next he transformed into a hundred-pound canine with a mangy spotted coat and yellow eyes. The physical morph came easily to him, like slipping on a worn leather glove.

      The moment the morph was complete, Arlan felt the change in his psyche. Judgment grew hazier. In this animal body, he lived for the moment. Surrounded by the scent of dangers, he had to force his man-brain to remain in control of the beast. He could feel that control stretched taut, thin and tight as a wire.

      Arlan slinked behind a rock and darted across the footpath, behind the women, his tail brushing a skirt. One of the prostitutes cursed him, first in Greek, then Italian, but they continued walking. Hundreds of packs of wild dogs roamed the streets of Athens. The locals gave them no notice. Arlan knew he could blend in with the others.

      Knowing he had a few minutes