Valor: The Custos Saga

  VALOR

  The Custos Saga

  By

  Jessica Tastet

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are fiction.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form, except for portions used for book review purposes.

  Valor

  Copyright 2017 Jessica Tastet

  Cover Design by Ashley Comeaux-Foret

  Formatting by Polgarus Studio

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-0-9986173-0-5

  ISBN 978-0-9986173-1-2

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  ALSO by JESSICA TASTET

  About the Author

  One

  The screams through the black metal door were high pitched and skin-raising. Alert in the darkness of the empty room, Kline tilted his stool slightly off-balance to distract himself. The trick was to imagine he was stuck in a horror movie. One of those bad ones that just left you bored.

  A long stretch of silence commenced. There may have been soft muffled sobs drifting from the cracks, but he dismissed them as he had all the others who’d cried in that room.

  A motion near the entrance drew him to his feet. Lucilius filled the doorway with his bulk, and Kline’s gut throbbed once. Fear. His abs clenched tightly against it. He despised it. Everyone feared this man but it offered no consolation. Lucilius exuded power from the sleekness of his black clothing to the broadness of his chest. His long face was chiseled with hardness and intimidation. He was a force; one that Kline knew couldn’t be tangled with without incurring a few scars.

  “From the sounds of it, I believe she’s nearly broken.”

  There was a matter of factness to his voice, as if he was announcing that the fridge was out of mayo. Death as casual as let’s fix her a sandwich and kill her with the same knife.

  Kline nodded and followed him to the metal door. The door shuddered under Lucilius’s grip and pulled free of its latch. A massive individual scurried into the corner leaving a grimy spotlight illuminating the surgical table and the blood stained instruments on a nearby cart.

  Kline stepped inside the room and took his place in the corner. As a guard he was here to watch, to report back to the elders that all protocols had been followed. As a new guard with very little power, he was simply to stay out of Lucilius’s way and keep quiet.

  The young woman trembled as Lucilius stepped between her and the light. Her hands tugged at their leather restraints, and her sobs were silent.

  “Now, now. Everything will be better now that I’m here.” Lucilius’s voice was a gentle melody, so different from the coldness that was usually there. It was chilling. Kline tensed.

  She squirmed and the eye that wasn’t swollen shut widened. Two hours ago she’d had a neat plaited braid and a clean white t-shirt. Now strands of ebony hair stuck out in all directions, her shirt was splattered with blood, and inflicted injuries were beginning to swell and make her unrecognizable.

  Lucilius continued in that mesmerizing voice. “Don’t you want things to be better? I’m sure this can’t be what you want. To be taunted and tortured. The pain unbearable. No, I’m sure you want to rest.”

  He paused and a soft ticking of a clock was amplified. She’d been quite pretty before, for a human girl. Not that Kline was afforded the privilege of seeing many females in his position for comparison. He didn’t imagine that the blood red tears, battered cheek, and shaky gasps would be considered attractive though.

  “Good.” Lucilius smiled. “Now in order to do that, I need you to answer a few questions.”

  Kline tensed and clenched his fists behind his back, focusing on his own self-control. His instincts throbbed to intervene.

  Her good eye closed and a grimace appeared.

  “You are an apprentice of sorts to Madame Lulu, correct?”

  Her eye flew open, fear bright and clear. As a Custos, Kline could hear her internal dialogue. She didn’t know who she feared more—Madame Lulu or Lucilius.

  She nodded as she decided that this threat was more imminent.

  “Good.” Lucilius nodded his head. “Now, Madame Lulu has some information that I need about the whereabouts of a certain book. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  Kline’s eardrum echoed with her heartbeat and the grip of his fists became painful. Chemicals flooded her body with fear, and he couldn’t hear any of her thoughts above the rattle of panic that had seized her. Humans broadcasted so loudly with no filter. Custos avoided humans when possible.

  “Answer carefully,” Lucilius said, taking her hand in his. Kline noticed the slow squeeze and the whitening of her fingers. She couldn’t feel the pain beyond her panic though. “I know you have my answer. You see, I chose you specifically and sent Gint to retrieve you for me.”

  Kline looked toward the far corner where Gint had retreated. His nearly seven-foot massive size didn’t allow for him to disappear, even in the shadows of the room. He was a monstrosity with his milk complexion and oversized arms. Despite his lack of human appearance, it was his eyes that gave away that something wasn’t right with him. Under any other leadership, Gint would have been eliminated for his homicidal tendencies, but Lucilius had found his special talent of inflicting pain and breaking down those who resisted, a great tool.

  She sputtered and then coughed. “I don’t know… she didn’t tell me.”

  “Shhh.” Lucilius leaned in. “I know she wouldn’t tell you where it is. You aren’t important enough for that, Child. I want to know who. Who does she protect? Who does she believe has it?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. She says she wants to stay out of it.”

  Lucilius’s thumb covered her one good eye and he pushed down with what Kline could tell wasn’t his full strength. She screamed and squirmed and gasped for air.

  “Do not lie to me. Who does she help most often?”

  “Her… her granddaughter.” She sobbed.

  “Who else?”

  “John Landon.”

  “And?”

  She s
hook her head. “I don’t know who the girl is.”

  “The girl?

  “I don’t know. I just know there is a girl. Please, I don’t know anything. I’ve only been in training a few months.”

  “Very well.” Lucilius released her hand and stepped away from her. “It’s unfortunate you couldn’t be more helpful.”

  Lucilius motioned for Gint. “Finish her.”

  He then turned and walked toward the door whistling. Kline dutifully followed, his insides burning with the need to release the girl as the code of conduct required. But Lucilius ran things these days. The rules of the elders meant nothing to him, and no one lived after they challenged him, not that many of them tried. Kline rationalized that this was self-preservation, but his mind wasn’t fooled. But he’d promised. The time wasn’t right yet.

  Kline stopped near his stool. He didn’t trust himself to walk further. “Is her life not worth anything?”

  Lucilius paused at the doorway, but didn’t face him. “Human life means nothing compared to what we seek. Do not forget that you aren’t human. If you remember that your loyalty is to the Custos people, you will have no problems. Do not forget.”

  Kline remained quiet, understanding the message behind the words. Agree with Lucilius or die. It’s how things were around here these days. Lucilius disappeared around the corner.

  The scream was short and piercing. The silence echoed.

  Two

  The house hadn’t changed. Angelica swatted at a persistent mosquito buzzing around her ear. The roof looked as though it had been re-shingled and the weathered clapboard siding had broken off at places along the ground, but the hand-stitched lace curtains still hung half-closed in the attic window. The garden hose was still in the rusty basket near the screen door that led to the back porch, where a woman sat hunched over in a rocking chair. The boards creaked beneath her weight.

  Angelica hid among the gardenia and evergreen bushes. She doubted the old woman could see. Should she stay hidden though? She’d debated that question for twenty minutes, and she hated indecision. The woman stared straight ahead, her thinning gray hair pulled into a tight bun at the base of her neck.

  Angelica had needed to see if this place was real. She’d needed to know it wasn’t a figment of her seven-year-old imagination, and now she stood staring at the looming object straight from her dreams.

  What now? What had been the grand plan for the confirmation? She hadn’t planned that far ahead. The clouds darkened to a slate gray, and still, nothing came to mind.

  A door slammed and Angelica eased back into the bushes. A short blond girl approached the woman. Their voices traveled to her in the eerie quiet.

  “Mom, you should come inside.”

  The rocking chair creaked.

  “I’m coming.” A gravely voice answered. “Why don’t you go run my bath?”

  The daughter hovered over her a moment longer, a hand resting on the back of the rocker in a protective grip. After a moment, she returned inside, her slippers slapping against the wood.

  Angelica moved closer to the edge of the bushes to see better. Everything was as she remembered it fourteen years ago. She’d dismissed the house, the woman, and the man that she’d known here years ago as just a sign of her overactive imagination. She’d told herself each time she’d shaken herself awake from another nightmare that none of it had been real. As the years had passed, it had become easier for her to believe her own reassurances. But there’d always been that thought, that inner voice that told her she was only lying to herself.

  “You can come out now.”

  Angelica twitched and a branch rustled. She stopped breathing and glanced around the yard for a visitor.

  “It’s not nice to keep an old lady waiting.”

  Angelica’s search turned up empty. No one else was here. The woman meant her. She took a deep breath and stepped out, hearing the bushes rustle behind her, closing her hiding spot. She’d known that Angelica was there.

  She took an uneasy step toward the porch, and then quickly closed the gap before her instincts kicked in and she ran for it. Angelica focused on the clear, unmoving bright blue eyes on the porch. She looked harmless. Angelica couldn’t really be in danger. Could she?

  Angelica squinted at the glassiness of her eyes until it registered that the lady was blind.

  Angelica’s words stumbled out. “How did you know I was here?”

  Her laugh trickled through the screen door, a sound like wind chimes. Angelica had remembered that laugh and dreamed of it often with this house. Angelica stayed behind the door, seeing the woman’s distorted image through the screen.

  “I’m the same as you, but I’ve lived more years. Means you can’t fool me easily. Did you come for some reason?”

  Now that she was close, the details of the woman from a hazy dream became sharply focused. There’d once been less wrinkles, and her blue eyes had given away every emotion, but for all of that, she was the same.

  “I think I was here a long time ago,” Angelica struggled out, the words catching in her throat. Why was this so difficult? “I was with a woman, Lily.”

  The rocking chair stilled and her breath rattled in her chest. Angelica felt a pain jolt through her as the shock of loss hit her. She quickly slammed the door shut on the part of her brain that felt other people’s emotions; this woman’s emotions at the mention of Lily. She’d been caught off guard, and the barrier must have gone down. She was usually diligent about keeping it in place. What was wrong with her today? She could feel the past pulling at her self-control as it had been doing the last three weeks.

  The woman’s voice scratched, but there was a hardness there that hadn’t existed before. “Why have you come?”

  Angelica’s chest compressed. This time it was her own pain jolting through her. “I just needed to know if it was real.”

  The old woman gasped, her hand lifting to her thin lips. “How can you ask that? My husband is dead because of you. I can no longer see because of you. How can you not know that it was real?”

  Angelica’s breath stopped and she couldn’t feel her arm. It was all real. Not just the memory of staying here for six months in that attic room, but the dream about what happened to the couple after she’d left. The black-clothed man that had plagued her dreams, following them from one place to another, killing the man who’d lived here. He’d liked to whittle boats—canoes especially. Had always had a knife and block of wood in his hands. The woman before her had baked delicious cherry pies that she’d placed on the counters to cool. Did she do that now or had her life stopped when her husband’s had?

  Angelica’s heart pounded against her rib cage. Why had she not known it was real? “I was only seven.”

  The woman’s voice was iron. “You have Custos blood in you, and we remember everything. You chose to forget, and that’s unacceptable. You need to go now.”

  The words stung as if she’d slapped her. Angelica stepped back. “I just want to know what happened.”

  The woman stood and attempted to straighten her stooped shoulders. “Then remember it.”

  The woman shuffled toward her back screen door. She fumbled with the latch, and then shut herself away from Angelica.

  Angelica stood a moment, unsure that it had just happened. She’d wanted to know… had felt compelled to discover the truth. Well it had been real, all of it.

  What did that mean though? What else had she tucked away as just a bad dream? And how could she be the person who’d so convincingly lie to herself? She made her living on lying. Shouldn’t she at least be able to tell the truth to herself?

  She shook her head and made her way back to the rental car she’d parked at the curb of the subdivision.

  Her mother, Lily, had done all of this when Angelica was a girl and the only part she had left of the woman was this old journal.

  I’ve found a home- safety, love, and freedom in New Orleans.

  Was there more for her to find there? How far did the
truth go back? And what did it mean to be Custos? It was a word that kept reappearing in the journal and now uttered by this woman—a word she’d never heard of before three weeks ago. At least that she remembered.

  Angelica had to know. She needed to know what had happened all those years ago that had made it so easy for her to convince herself it was a dream.

  Then New Orleans was her next stop. She had no choice.

  Three

  New Orleans

  Cain leaned further into the coolness of the shadows of Pere Antoine Alley. The Wednesday night Bourbon Street crowd was lighter than usual which was good for tonight’s mission, but bad for business in the Quarter. It probably had something to do with the young girl’s body being staked to the doors of a shop near the St. Louis Cathedral last night, but his assignment didn’t involve worrying about that tonight, and Cain had learned long ago to follow orders at all costs.

  A rustle in a doorway fifty feet away drew his attention toward Echo’s looming shadow on the brick alley. Contempt grew in his gut for his teammate. The soldier completely lacked stealth. How he’d moved up the ranks to his position he couldn’t fathom, and it was Cain’s misfortune to have him assigned to his team.

  Footsteps approached, growing louder in the stillness. Cain focused on the approaching brain waves, slipping in like a subliminal message. He came and went from others’ heads so quickly now that he didn’t notice the transition anymore. He reached past layers of fear and into the rambling thoughts of his target.

  The thoughts were skittish, darting around like a squirrel. He didn’t want to be involved in Vindica business. His wife was gone ten years now. He wanted to pretend the Custos line didn’t exist.

  His slight, stooped frame limped past Cain at an inconsistent pace with his thoughts. Echo fell out of the doorway seconds before he should have. Cain’s anger flared briefly. He’d be sure to reteach him these covert skills later in training, the hard way. For now he’d have to deal with his bumbling inadequacy.