“Wonderful.” Standing, Rick took his coat from the adjacent chair and put it on as if getting ready to depart. “I’ll let you three finish up. There’s a flight leaving in an hour, and I want to be on it. I don’t like to be away from my family.” He extended his hand. “Kalamack. Good to have you on board.”
Max leaned forward to look at Kal over his glasses as Kal and Rick shook hands. His eyes were a dark brown, and bloodshot. A thin hand held back the metal charm hanging around his neck. It was probably the spell that was keeping him cool. “I’ll have my secretary book you a flight for late next week and send you a listing of nearby apartments,” Max said. “Consider it part of your salary.”
“Thank you,” Kal said softly. “I appreciate the offer for transportation, Mr. Saladan, but I’ll make my own way out there if you don’t mind. I’m not leaving my orchids, and I’ll not risk them on a plane. The pressure shifts are damaging.” Not to mention he wanted to bring his car.
Rick peered at him in disbelief as he settled his coat about his shoulders. “Are you sure?” he asked loudly. “Eight hours versus three days? A small ear pop, and it’s as comfortable as your living room. Pretty women bring you drinks and food. Max, buy him two tickets so his plants can sit next to him.”
“No, thank you,” Kal said. “I’d appreciate the drive time to change my focus.”
Colonel Wolfe leaned in, whispering, “I don’t like my feet off the ground, either.”
“Suit yourself,” the vampire said, clearly not caring. “Ulbrine,” he said, shaking the man’s hand before giving Max Saladan and Colonel Wolfe a nod and walking away. Kal watched the waiter he passed shudder, the human clearly not knowing why.
Mood expansive, Ulbrine sat back down in the shade, his satisfaction obvious as he beamed at Max’s listless expression. “Gentlemen, shall we order, now that the predator has left?”
“I could do with a mimosa,” Max said as the waiter hustled forward. “And the breakfast special with the shrimp and scrambled eggs.”
“Meat tray,” Colonel Wolfe said as he found his place. “And no fish on it. I want meat.” He hesitated. “And a bowl of chowder.”
Kal slowly sat down. He was going west to work as a field manager to infiltrate a human-run lab headed by a vampire CEO. His loss of his own work would be temporary, and once he’d gained Trisk’s techniques, it wouldn’t matter. From there, he could fix the elves’ failing genome so that no one, not his child or anyone else’s, would have to go through the hell that he had endured.
“I’ll have the roast duck,” he said absently as the server hovered expectantly at his elbow. “With honey drizzle,” he added as he took the pollen-laced flower from the centerpiece and replaced it with his own faded orchid bloom from his hat.
Ulbrine was wrong. The elven savagery to survive hadn’t skipped a generation. He would do anything and everything to bring his name back to greatness and save what was important to him. Just the idea that Trisk’s theories were better than his burned holes in him. They were faster, maybe, but not safe. He’d find fault with Trisk’s work—even if he had to invent it.
4
Kal’s steps were silent as he walked up the stone-paved path to the large ranch home snuggled between rugged palms and dunes held down by long grasses. Cocoa Beach was a ten-minute drive, the Atlantic an easy five-minute walk. The house afforded him a large private yard that kept his neighbors at arm’s length. It had been remodeled only a few years ago and had all the bells and whistles, not that he used the modern kitchen much. It was the walled garden that had attracted him. With mature fruit trees and a shallow koi pond, it had spoken to a part of him he hadn’t known he possessed. Turned out he wasn’t the only one it spoke to.
His parents thought he’d been crazy for wanting the solitary living space over the condo with a communal pool and private beach, even as they’d bought it for him as a graduation present, a consolation, he’d always thought, for having to work at a secondary lab in the hopes of someday transferring to the nearby NASA facility.