The Book of Rai: SoH Ch. 01

"Reconnaissance and Contact orders, all. Try again." He eased in the frame, angling it back a degree at an instance, and again at another. The white V-neck framing his physique cut again the body before her, striking the straight v against the organic webbing of artery and wrought-iron that he was.

'Disgusting.' She considered the vein pulsing near his temple. She was sure she could see the subtle operation of a valve, opening and closing. He used it, she knew. Other's disgust. Used it to force the potency of his view as that of the opposing party, to be parried certainly, but just as certainly to be heard.

"Come now, be a good sport."

"More or less recent?"

"It's been quite a while."

"We took the sons of that Lankan lord. Ravana was it?

"The multiple. His sons were stronger. We took the daughter too. She rose to archivist. Obviously, not one of the good ones."

"Were they heather?

"No, children of Rai, all. 9th generation, a good one for resurgence. They weren't the last though. You're getting warmer."

"Charlemagne's? I'm sure we took note after the generation."

"No. Although Charles Martel's grandson, his progeny were 11th generation, their gift was too much a wildcard. The generation in between and those that followed were lackluster at best. We left them to fallow. Still have tabs actually, in case we get lucky."

"I give. When?"

"Before these three? We grabbed what we could of Tokugawa's children, the ones who wouldn't have risen to the new shogunate. Early 17th century, 4th generation. Homei Mizarat rose to High Blade captain of an archivist support. Fell in the rising. It's been a while. Longer still since the order went for sons of heather. Few thought that the common grain could produce such fine stock."

"I never bought that. Sure, Raians are strong, swift, brave. So is everyone else. So are many of the heather. It was only a matter of time before they produced someone with a physique and a brain."

"Bombastic Enterprise would beg to differ. He railed against them, really turned heads. For a while, he even convinced Infallible Chastity. Nothing for centuries, then 3 at once? All unrelated? These were questions Bombastic Enterprise did not wish to entertain, given his way, I'd be holding those dark trusses in hand and pumping his chest to speed exsanguination."

"What saved them?"

"Neglected Beneficence. She refused to give them up, played it pretty close to the chest actually. Argued that deeds and fact outweighed lack of genetic catalogue."

"That antiquated equation? I saw her in the file but I thought it was a rubber stamp on the reclamation order." She fidgeted, spotting their waitress on approach. Mousy, effervescent, yet understood well enough to keep it bottled around the vascular man. People seemed to understand monstrosity better than they could express it. Her eyes darted to him, sure that he wouldn't let anything important slip.

"Rubber stamped reclamation order is an oxymoron." Their waitress stepped quietly by, leaving Darjeeling and espresso in her wake. She took the espresso, eyeing the waitress' rolling hips as she swayed between the tables, noting her companion's eyes on the same. Poor girl might never see another sunrise. She sipped the acrid tang. "Few people respect her because of her relative detachment from day to day events. She actually holds more sway than Dynamic Obliterant. Recruitment over waged war I imagine."

"Why are you here?" She whispered, flicking her eyes to his, knowing the answer would be as discreet.

"He has need of me... Look, your reclamation order supersedes my intentions. I won't kill any of your little friends while I'm in town. Its above my head, and you have near infinite leeway." He paused, pushing his chair back into the grime underfoot. "We are the vanguard of hope and sanity in a dying world. I think political stratagems and melodramatic grim triggers can wait a few days." He pushed his chair out behind him, standing in a ripple of blood. "I leave for Avignon in the morning, New York the day after. You have that long to establish contact." He turned to leave, slipping into a crowd more easily than she would have liked. She swirled the darkness at the bottom of her cup, unable not to see the comparison to the events. Swirling darkness.

'Homme Vivant is giving them space. Calling off the dogs.' She thought. She didn't know what it meant. He'd been escalating his interests, forwarding groups of a more radical destructive process, breeding fear in their strongest bastions. With or without his intervention, she knew things were going to accelerate quickly. She stood, dropping too much by far for the coffee and tea, leaving without a glance. She ducked into a side street, another and another adjacent, and conscious of the pronged piece of metal sitting in her hand. She needed to relieve the scout squad before they did something stupid, if they hadn't already. A flick, a harmonic, a whisper of name and rank, so small a gap in time and there, instantaneous connection.

"Squad Captain, report."

"Green since last report, no visitors. Subject journeyed at 9 a.m. to the port. We used the opportunity for base reconnaissance. He has a whistler Ma'am."

"We know."

"Subject began workout 1 and 1 half hours prior to this contact, is continuing as we speak."

"You will be relieved at 14:00. You are to leave all materials and weaponry, excluding skins, overskins, projectile injection systems and whistlers. You are to arrive at Marseille safe house Epsilon by 15:00. Further instructions will be detailed there. You have each been wired 3 credits with an additional 2 from my personal account."

"I- I don't... Thank you." She tongued her cheek considering the familiarity. Unprofessional. Whistling a harmonic and twisting her fingers round the device, it steadily demagnetized and fell to her hand, producing a pleasant warmth as the iron slowly reintegrated into her blood stream. Stowing it, she noted a gypsy examining her from around the corner. Bombastic would have demanded the girl's death, young as she was. Couldn't have been more than 12. She promised herself she'd produce an order to silence, knowing that she would never sign it.

"So Bombastic an Enterprise..." she mused, fading into the Marseille heat.

Dappled in salt and balmy of nature, Carter drank in the taste of thickening night. The Marseille breeze tickled through his half open shirt, trickling down his rolled sleeves and across his rolled musculature. Collared and white, he felt the Mediterranean accent over pastel shorts a nice touch. Combined with a gifted watch of which he dare not ask the price, Carter stood next to the living room adjacent mirror and admired his preparations. 'Well the hair's a mess. Might as well enjoy it, they'll have it shaved once I'm stateside.' He slammed his fist to the edge of the table, the lever of his compression pulling a stiletto into the air. He caught it back handed before slipping it into a sheath behind his pocket. Another man might have flourished it first. 8", and unlikely to be found should the date trend to the adventurous, he felt sure he could utilize the piece in a close environment, throwing it for a disable if it came to it. He checked the eyepiece on his door, unsurprised by the lack of light from the opposing rooftop. It was only once he regarded his pin holes that he grew suspicious. No movement. Nothing. Sure they were careful but... No activity at all? He bit his lip, alabaster on cream.

"Maintain a state of normalcy. Go to movies. Date. You are to blend into your environ at any and all opportunities." His contacts words bit his better judgment.

"Just go. So what if they come? You can use their weapons. Just go. Where the fuck are they?" He stopped, rolling his back to the wall and sliding to the floor. "Breath." He stood, levering to his full 6 feet. He smiled. "You've got a date. She'll be waiting for you." He traced his hand along the wall, connecting the dots between the pinholes, pulling his right from his hip to the door knob. "Relax. Breathe. Pull the trigger." He opened the door almost like a man who knew what he was doing. The sandstone pulled the heat of the air out and in, drinking the balm breeze in sips and pulls, melting the night into one singular breath. In it, on the cusp of it, occupying the doorframe and the frame of mind of one who seeks another, Carter strode. And she watched. Watched when he turned for the stairs, watched as each foot slid to ground, watched as his fingers trailed along the wall, watched as he did, looking for what was next to come. The screen door of the cafe's kitchen burst in the blackness, a hair's length from Carter's nose.

"Ohmondieu desole! Oh, you're early." Her fingers worked the knot of her apron. His brow furrowed into the words, striking a smirk to shield his embarrassment.

"Its 9:00, isn't it?"

"Most people are fashionably late."

"I'm not most people."

"No," She said, twisting to hang her apron on the inner door, "You are not." He considered the compliment, if that, and leaned into the door frame as she passed, out and into the night.

"So where to?" He said. She smiled slowly, the moonlight catching on flecks of flour unchecked.

"Everywhere." She turned, jogging off and into the street, Carter left lost and dazed. Not wanting to lose his guide, he kicked off after, catching quickly the bobbing raven.

"Think you're fast?" She switched gears, pulling ahead and onto the curb, rushing over roots and gutters, sidewalk stones and cobbled earth. The shops and apartments, doors and windows blurred into a tunnel of him and her and nothing but space between. The roll of each step awoke the breath within him. He wanted this. Not consciously, but still. The chase, the lust, like every great relationship, boiled down to one run in the night warmth. She came to the port, spinning on her toes to sit on the rail, watching Carter's powerful gate crawl in. "C'mon. Big and strong and you cannot catch une petite fille?"

"A very fast girl." He puffed catching her examination and righting himself for round two.

"So what do you think?" The light from the Harbor broke a golden glow around her, slipping through her curls and igniting fire, skimming and clashing black where the moonlight caught cold off the water. If there were a more beautiful woman in all the world, he should never find her but for the minute and the moment in front of him. Her chest heaved under her white blouse, the subtle machinations drawing his eyes over her body, stopping at the pulsations and fidgetations of her tanned and shapely legs. Perfect smooth, like velvet.

"I think you look pretty."

"Oh... Merci? I meant the harbor. She is the old port. Can you see the island in the waves?" She nodded to the wine dark sea behind her, rolling as it did the thousand miles of glass to the sand shore of Africa. There among the caps was a stone that stood above the others, crenellations and structure twisting into itself, so stout a fortress that it seemed grown or carved from the rock itself. Gibraltar reformed. "C'est le Chateau D'If. You know the Count of Monte Cristo? Monsieur le Compte, he spent 15 years in the darkness there. He was betrayed by his friends, those who were closest to him. His love, Mercedes, was taken by another."

"Did he die in there?"

"Non, il s'est echappe, rose to tremendous power and destroyed those who sought to destroy him."

"Sounds more like a villain than a hero."

"We're all villains Carter." She turned into the harbor, looking out and over the waves to the hulking prison. Carter strode slowly to the rail placing a hand and an elbow on the metal, surprised to find it chill in the summer warmth. He leaned as the position required, out and over, nearer her and nearer the sea.

"Are you? A villain?" He asked. She shivered, despite the night.

"I don't know. Je ne s'ai pas. My mother used to tell me that all men, all people, were equal in their villainy, that the only way we ever got to where we are was climbing a mountain of villains crushed by other villains, the cruel replaced by the less cruel and deified for the whisper of mercy." She blinked, a sniffle on the tip of her nose and clouding in the corners of her eyes.

"I was told that a man is defined by his actions, his output."

"That makes sense. What does that make you Monsieur?"

'A weapon. An operative.' "A worker. I do what I'm told, and I work."

"I having the feeling you aren't as boring as you pretend to be. Are you enjoying the tour?"

"We've only been to one place."

"There isn't much else outside the business district, and I doubt they'll let us into the tower. The art museums are lovely, but closed for now. You picked a bad time for a tour Carter."

"Or did I pick the best time? I'm with a beautiful girl in the midnight. Doesn't get much better than that."

"Thank you."

"Hmm?"

"You called me beautiful. Thank you. I get it sometimes, from les drageurs. The pick-up artists. I always say thank you." A pregnant pause lay upon them, the space between filled by the rail's sharp force in her pliant ass and his gradual realization of her discomfort.

"Let's go somewhere."

"Where? I thought I was the tour guide."

The chopsticks broke with a discrete click, the wax paper cartons folding over in the streetlights. They walked along, fumbling with chopsticks and pieces of chicken, noodles and taste. "They're the only place in town with oyster pails. American style y'know? The boxes."

"I like them. Do they remind you of home?"

"Who says I'm American?"

"Non, truly you are kidding me. Café American? Chinese food in Marseille? You even got chicken. You are American."

"You think in English."

"How so?"

"French thought puts the person outside of their body, outside everything. They never are, the verb to be is never really used. You say, I have cold, I have hunger. Even names. You have your name, you are not the name. J'ai Carter. I have the name. You say I am something." A particularly succulent lump of chicken followed his musing. She chewed on his words.

"Are you something?"

"I'm American," He smiled, "you got me." He finished his last bite, hers already spent. Stowing the boxes in the trash of a nearby store front, they moved in the moonlight. "Are we going back to the café?"

"We could. We're pretty near my place. When I eat Chinese, I become sleepy... How do you say it? Would you like some coffee? Something to get me out of this." He could think of a few things he would like to get her out of.

"I'd like that. Where is your-" before he could finish, a hand whisked his away and up a flight of steps, the apartment block similar to Carter's in its design, steps and a balcony walkway to each apartment, even if hers wasn't quite as luxurious. She pressed him into the corner wall, lips flitting across his cheeks. His hands found her hips and lifted her away. Her eyes were green, and searched his for some sign of acceptance, some sign of return. They flashed across his face, his body, hungry in that way, that way that is a shallow breath, that is panted murmurs and that exists only in the hearts and eyes of those who are to be lovers. Her breasts, pert and entrapped in her bra were mashed and mashing upon his chest, inflaming their already burning passion. There was a press, there on the stairwell, when the game was not the brush of finger tips, was not the play of tongue in cheek but the attempt to enshroud. His hands surrounded her ass, pulling her crotch to his and ground his turgid shaft across her shorts. Her arms shawled his shoulders, lips locked to his entirety, the entirety of her body within the hollow of his. Their hands flit in the darkness, switching grips and ripping over so thin the barrier between skins. She was the one to break their kiss, leaning out for air. Before she could open her mouth, his lips had shifted to her neck, pecking first and kissing the line of her jaw, his right hand sliding to her left breast.

"Mon Dieu. Nous allez... Carter we... My apartment. I'm on the pill." Without word and without sound, he broke his ministrations. His eyes were still on the line of her neck and the deepening of her cleavage, the caps of her B cups breasts visible at the top of her bra. Ebony nubs on olive complexion. His eyes, as they followed the line of her chin and into her eyes did not quiver, did not shift, did not ask. They show only his need, naked and complete. Desire was there as plain as the amber depth in which it was housed. He pulled his hand from her breast to her cheek, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "I- We...Carter..." She looked down and away, taking the hand on her cheek with her own as she pulled him the rest of the way to her apartment door, without haste but in each discrete step the full determination that she was going to fuck this man. There was simply no alternative. Her keys fumbling in her hand, it was only with a sad look that she slipped her hand from his to steady the key as it entered the lock, twisting the door at once and in one motion. Bathroom to the immediate left, wall behind the door as it opened to his right. His hands were on her hips before she'd even turned around, his foot kicking the door closed behind him. Across the street a panting and disappointed woman with Binoculars realized she'd have to switch to her thermal monitoring system.

'Oh my God that was fucking hot.'

Carter's shoes were his next move as Josephine's were kicked to the wall behind him. His graces were of no match, and with the removal of his second shoe he caught off balance and fell into her, the two tumbling back and onto her bed, brilliant silver casting from white sheets in the moon's mirrored gaze. Carter had started laughing as soon as he'd tipped. Josephine as soon as she'd heard his laugh. They faced each other, pooled in the sheets. He turned to her as the laugh diffused, his smile inching to hers. His kiss pecked her lips, and his hands found the place where her blouse met her shorts. As his tongue penetrated her, his hands penetrated that of her person, running the course of her back and her bra, slipping under the material but without unhooking it. His goal was her to feel his touch. As much she did, his fingers brushed down her back and to the top of her sinew cheeks. She was lost in the sensation he elicited, the magic that came with his fingers. Her eyes flicked into focus, and into a determination resolute. She kicked her arm under her, throwing herself up and into a straddle over him. The question was on his brow before she'd even fully seated herself.

"Shhhh. Let me do this." Her hands trailed the buttons of his shirt, weaving beneath the fabric and over his solid athleticism. She sat up straight and moved to pull her shirt over her head, each iota of her Mediterranean complexion loved from first sight. As she decoupled her bra, he'd shifted to sit up slightly, pulling his shirt over his head and tossing it to the chair in the corner. Her breasts were perfect in his sight, filling his reaching hands and just so responsive to his fondling. He could hear her plaintive mewling as she arched her back, her crotch grinding feverishly into his. Seeing her distraction, Carter smiled. His hands drifted to her sides, and in one motion they'd flipped, her raven halo feathered across the bed. Eyes, smiling, even as her teeth pinched her lip. "You have me. What is your intent monsieur?" His grin waxed wolfish as it slid over her body, inching down to her steaming sex. Her head alternated pressing into the blankets behind her and flashing up to examine his movements, dying she was, slowly in anticipation. His palms washed her sides, fingers finding and hooking the waist band of her shorts, careful not to disturb the line of her panties. Her legs folding together, he slid the shorts over her feet and across the room, her legs opening to accept him. She wore a midnight blue thong, disappearing at the back of her sex. His motion glacial, he slid face and body an inch away from her groin, exhaling softly over the soaked material. She shivered bodily, as his thumbs hooked around them, a simple arch of her back, acquiescing to his request. The panties found the floor next to the bed, and with that his lips found her pubis.