Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(48)

In the meanwhile, he needed to take some much needed time to recoup.

He had learned a lot by experimenting in the early years.

In more mellow times he could inhabit a healthy adult body with relative safety for up to twenty or even thirty years. When he was able to take his time, he could groom a future host and harvest not only a body but also the host’s finances and resources at his leisure, adding them to his own separate estate, which he maintained with numbered Swiss accounts, property managers and accountants.

In periods of crisis he rushed through his hosts at a more precipitous rate, especially when he indulged in his tendency to overeat and drink during times of stress.

He found that the ideal method was to take over a body and rest for a few days or a week, to let the meat recover from the death of its natural spirit and adjust to its new owner. When that couldn’t happen, the body didn’t have time to adjust properly and tended to fail at a faster pace, especially when he was involved in strenuous activity. In fact, the more energy he had to expend, the faster the meat deteriorated.

Everything came with a price, but it was still worth it. By taking over a body, killing its native spirit and inhabiting it through its prime years, he avoided the cycle of death and rebirth. He bypassed that very critical, vulnerable period of forgetfulness involved in starting a new life. He reduced the risk of forgetting his own identity and the identities of those who hunted him. It gave him an edge.

He had suffered through some tough times and narrow escapes, but he had managed to leap from body to body for most of the last six thousand years. He had only gone through a natural birth three times.

The first time had been the inevitable result of his escape from his home world. Once he had been killed, and the last rebirth had happened when he had died by accident. Each birth and new life had involved years of dreams and confusion, ambitious study, the single-minded pursuit to understand his nature, and to recover his memories and his power. They had been harsh vulnerable times when his enemies had come closest to annihilating him. He didn’t like to think about them.

When he had reached the motel room he wanted, he used the master key to open the door. In the meantime, his driver parked the limousine, pulled Justin out of the backseat and force-marched the male to the room.

“Let him loose,” he told the driver, who did as he ordered.

The man looked in a mirror to bid adieu to his current body. His host had been a handsome young computer salesman and a fitness fanatic, perfect for his purposes. He strolled over to Justin as the young man shook free of the driver’s hold and rubbed one wrist.

“Wait outside,” he said to his driver.

The driver left the room, shutting the door gently behind him.

Justin’s clever, narrow face was tight with tension as his gaze darted around the room and settled on the bed.

The man sighed. “No, we’re not here for that. I already told you, there’s no time.”

In the end Justin looked at him, all satire and mischief gone. It was clear that the young man knew what would happen, as most prey did.

Justin said, “You don’t have to kill me.”

The man felt an unexpected pang and tilted his head in acknowledgment of it. He said in a gentle voice, “But it is to my advantage if I do. I do like you, but players of the shadow game cannot afford to make decisions based on sentiment. I wish I could promise this won’t hurt, but the truth is, I just don’t know. No one has ever survived to tell me. I will try to be careful though.”

He shot out a hand before Justin could reply. His host’s hard, strong fingers gripped that clever face as Justin fought to punch him, and he sent out a black spear of energy that impaled Justin’s head. Justin’s body convulsed as his spirit died.

Timing was crucial when he took over a body. He had discovered there must still be a spark of that mysterious, vital thing called life, or his own spirit couldn’t take hold. It was impossible to inhabit a host that was already dead, futile to inhabit one that was dying. In the process of experimenting on how to transfer from body to body throughout the centuries, he had discovered how to create his drones, killing off just enough of a body’s essential spirit to allow for his control yet leaving enough of a life spark so that the body could continue to behave like a normal human.

He lowered Justin to the bed, slipped out of his old host and into Justin’s body. The body of the computer salesman fell discarded to the floor.

He had to ride out the last of the convulsions. Uncomfortable, but necessary. The meat always sustained some trauma at the death of its original spirit.

After the convulsions had run their course, he took a power nap. Then, although he could have wished for more rest, he made himself sit up and get out of bed. He had too much to catch up on, phone calls and e-mails to make to various employees, and then he needed to redouble his efforts on the hunt. Plus, he was happy to discover that he felt hungry again. Justin had been careful not to overindulge in what he ate.

He didn’t bother to glance at the computer salesman’s body that lay sprawled by the bed like cowboy Woody from Toy Story. Instead he went to the mirror again and inspected his new residence with the clever, narrow face, and the well-kept body.

He tried out one of Justin’s charming smiles and felt another pang. Whatever had caused that adorable, mischievous twinkle was gone. Still, he did like the result.

He widened the smile to watch the dimples deepen. This could work out better than he had expected. Justin cared about his ex-wife. Depending on what abilities and memories she recovered, Mary might actually trust him for a short, critically important while.