The Beauty of Our Weapons

by Jilly Paddock

  “Anna, when did you ever hear me complain about you?” He sounded hurt.

  “You forget, my dear Michael, I don’t have to hear you.” I nodded to him. “Until we meet again—”

  I teleported out, mainly to remind him that my power held even inside his impenetrable Williamson shield, but also for effect. I may hate flashy entrances, but I always was a sucker for a dramatic exit.

  I didn’t go far, just into the stairwell on the ground floor. The receptionist waved as I passed her by and logged me out of the building. I paused outside, squinting up into the cobalt sky, part-blinded by the brilliant sunshine.

  Are you coming back to the Merryweather house now? Zenni asked.

  Not for a little while. I need some space to think.

  It’ll take around four hours to ready Brimstone for the trip to Tambouret. My partner paused before dropping the next bombshell, waiting for a protest that didn’t come. Jeb wants to take me off-line for thirty to forty minutes. Can you cope on your own?

  Sure thing. I flashed a brief smile along the departing spiral of our link, then I was alone.

  Chapter Two: An Unquiet Ghost

  Denied access to my tame fount of wisdom, I went in search of another source of that precious commodity. I meandered off the site, oblivious to all who passed me by, weighed down with the burden of the double task Collins had set. So preoccupied was I that I didn’t realise where my feet had taken me until I reached the elaborate silvered gates of Lissadell, my family home. A blank plate was set into the left-hand pillar; I typed in my identity code and a command to silence the alarm system, then laid my palm on the sensor and the gates opened for me. Walking slowly up the long drive between the beds of fragrant shrubs I was four years old again, possessed by the distant but still fresh memory of my first glimpse of the tall, elegant house. Something held me back from knocking at the imposing front door and I followed the path around to the back of the house, drawn there by the sound of voices.

  Three sun-loungers had been arranged in a rough triangle at the far end of the terrace and a red-headed young man sprawled facedown across one of them, shading his eyes to peer at the screen of a datapad held by a second man, who was sitting cross-legged on the paving and gesturing wildly with his free hand. A girl watched them from the third sunbed, a lovely, long-limbed creature with raven hair, a silver-mesh swimsuit and an all-over tan like a slick of golden oil, as even as a basted turkey. Scattered plates and empty bottles surrounded the group, the debris of an impromptu picnic, and they laughed together in a wine-heavy haze. I took great delight in creeping up on them, with such success that all three of them started at the sight of me, the girl squeaking in shrill alarm.

  “Anna!” exclaimed the man on the ground, my half-brother, Stuart. “What the hell are you doing here, sneaking up on us like that? You scared me out of ten years of growth!”

  “You stalk like a real pussycat!” added the redhead, with a winsome smile. I knew him too, Alexi Valiente, and it was such a dead-cert that he would become Tom’s step-son that he was almost family.

  The unknown girl simpered, a sexy little expression that must have taken her hours to perfect. “Introduce us, Stuie! Who is this gatecrasher?”

  For only the second time in his life I saw Stuart do what he was told. “This is my big sister, Anna-Marie. Anna, meet Tempe—the light of my life and owner of the most delightful body on the coast!”

  “Your sister? But I’d heard that she was real pretty!” The brunette covered her spite with a giggle. “And much younger!”

  “Tempe?” I raised one eyebrow—I was mistress of that gesture now, as Jeb had taught me the trick of it. “That’s an unusual name. Is it the diminutive of ‘temporary’, as in out of favour by next week?”

  She scowled with no finesse, her face becoming sharp and vulpine. “It’s short for Tempest, as in stormy, as in the waters you’re headed for if you keep on in that tone of voice, Stuart’s sister or not!”

  “Ouch!” Alexi winced. “There’s no need for a cat-fight, ladies! Let’s keep things peaceful, okay?”

  “Suits me.” I shrugged, watching Tempe climb unwillingly down from simmer. “What are you planning, little brother? An expedition for sure, if those are ocean charts.”

  “Just a little cruise. We’re taking the catamaran across the Pacific, the three of us, indulging in a touch of lazy island-hopping.” Stuart grinned up at me. “Want to come?”

  I didn’t need to be an empath to see that the emotional ties of this little group were skewed out of true, an uneasy triangle. Stuart might believe that Tempe was his companion, but she had other ideas. I hoped that Alexi had the sense to stay out of her clutches. “No thanks. I really only came up here to see Tom.”

  “He’s out, but Martha’s in the house.” Alexi supplied. “And you ought to come with us, Anna. We’d make a fun foursome.”

  “Oh no, Lexi, she’s a relic!” Tempe’s giggle clawed through the air once again. “She couldn’t keep up with a stud like you!”

  “I’ve neither the time nor the inclination for an ocean voyage, and besides, my lover might have something to say about my choice of shipmates.” I fielded the insult with a grin, then turned towards the house. “But you have fun, kiddies, do.”

  The kitchen was empty, so I scanned through the house and found Martha on the upper floor, in one of the boxrooms. She was kneeling in the midst of a happy sea of disorder, sorting through the contents of a trunk. When she heard the door open, she glanced up with fright in her eyes, like a naughty child. “Oh, it’s you! I didn’t hear you come up the stairs.”

  “That’s because I know exactly where to step to avoid all those creaky boards! You’re well, I trust?”

  “Fine, thanks. If you wanted Tom, I sent him down to the market for fresh vegetables. He should be back soon. If you want to wait, I’ll brew us some coffee.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself—you look busy enough.”

  “Just tidying a few things.” In that part-second she flushed crimson and her guilt sparked across my mental defences like an arc of static. “That’s a big lie, Anna. I have a passion for nosing through other people’s junk, but I prefer to use the tidying excuse because it sounds nicer, much more altruistic, helpful even. I’m rummaging through your family’s past, hauling all the forgotten fragments back into the light of day and even unearthing a lesser secret or two if I’m lucky, but I’ll stop if you object.”

  “I don’t mind. If there ever were any scandals in the Delany family, I’m sure that my father and grandfather buried the evidence far beyond anyone’s reach. I doubt there’s anything of interest to find in here.”

  “That depends on your personal definition of treasure trove.” She ran her fingers through the jumble with a shy smile. “There are some wonderful things in here; a mish-mash of broken jewellery, single earrings, paste brooches and snapped necklaces in the main, a jar of dirty brass buttons and some fascinating pieces of part-worked embroidery. I’ve even found some photographs. It was a passing fad around sixty years ago to have framed sepia prints of the family nailed to the walls. See, here they are.”

  I took the thin sheets of card and sat in the clutter to stare at them. The first was of a frail, pretty child hugging a large mongrel dog, which looked to have a generous measure of wolf in its ancestry, while the next was older, a faded print of a wedding party. I glanced along the line-up and failed to find a known face. The groom looked uncomfortable in a dark suit, a tall, spare man with a serious moustache and a gypsy glint in his eye, while the bride had a surfeit of blonde hair barely tamed in a pearl-encrusted plait, wore a simple dress in a pale colour and carried a spray of white orchids.

  “Lovely, isn’t she?” Martha looked over my shoulder. “She looks very much like you—your mother perhaps?”

  “No, that’s not Jeanne, but the little girl in the first picture could have been. This must be of my grandparent’s wedding, Lisieux and Andre Duvall.”

  “Don’t they make a hands
ome couple? He’s so dashing, so debonair, and she’s such a frail little thing.”

  “Frail? Grandmere Lisieux?” I had to chuckle at that. “Talk to Tom about her sometime. I think he was scared of her!”

  “No, really?” I saw her file my suggestion away, for action later. “The other image is also of them.”

  I looked at the final sheet. Three people stood by the white wall of a house, Lisi and Andre smiling and holding hands, still in the throes of their honeymoon bliss, next to an intense young man with dark hair and slanted, almond eyes. It took me several moments to recognise his familiar half-smile. “That’s Shi-yen Lune! Good grief, was he ever that young?”

  “We all were, once.” Martha took the photographs back and peered at the last one. “Can that really be Councilman Lune?”

  “He was a friend of the Duvalls, a long time ago.”

  She put the prints away carefully. “I found the wedding dress. Do you want to see?”

  It was a beautiful thing, boxed and wrapped in tissue paper, a gown of milk-white silk cut low off the shoulder and embellished with freshwater pearls. I recalled it then, from the holos of my parents’ own wedding.

  “It’s been altered since your grandmother’s time, shortened and bleached to off-white. I think that the original colour was a pale blue-green.” Martha fingered the silk. “I was going to have it cleaned and make a few tiny repairs. You know, Anna, it could be reshaped to fit you—and wouldn’t you look gorgeous in it!”

  “Really, Martha, I’ve no intention of getting married, not now or in the foreseeable future!” I laughed at the very absurdity of the idea. My relationship with Jeb had no need of any strait-laced legal or misplaced religious sanction. “Do whatever you want with the dress. Perhaps you could wear it yourself?”

  “Don’t I wish! It’s far too small for me, my dear.” She tucked it back in its box as if it were a baby. “There’s one more item, something really special. Ah, here it is.”

  She produced a tiny, black octagonal box from the clutter and passed it to me. Inside was a ring, a silver hoop with stylised leaves carved along its shoulders, set with a translucent stone like a bubble of cloudy water.

  “Now this was Lisieux’s. I can remember her wearing it.” There was a fault in the milk-pale jewel, a dark line in one end of it that gave it the ominous aspect of a snake’s eye. I tried it on, moving it from finger to finger, but it was loose on all of them. Touching the object called up a memory. “It’s a moonstone and she used to tease me that she had to put it out on the lawn each night so it could catch enough moonbeams to sparkle all day long. The first time she told me that I cried, scared that someone might steal such a pretty bauble, so she reassured me by saying that it was guarded by an imp. That night I crept to the window and looked out, and sure enough, there was this ring laying on the grass, watched over by a huge tabby cat. I saw the creature many times after that, when the sky was clear and moonlight filled the garden, sitting like a sentry with the stone between his paws. That was magical enough, but do you know what the weirdest thing was? Grandmere never owned a cat!”

  Martha beamed at me as if I’d given her a welcome gift, a snippet of family folklore to add to her treasure. “Take the ring away with you, Anna—it’s yours by right of inheritance, after all. Perhaps you can get it sized down to fit. Now, let’s break for refreshment.”

  Down in the kitchen she was all business again, the softer side to her folded up and put safely away. I accepted tea, as Martha could brew it from the leaf better than anyone I’d ever met, and sat at the table in front of a large slice of tipsy-cake. An uproar of laughter strayed in from the terrace, the girl and Alexi applauding one of my half-brother’s usually weak jokes. Martha wrinkled her nose. “What’s your opinion of Stuart’s latest inamorata? Did you speak to her?”

  “Yes, for my sins. She’s a shallow, selfish bitch who’s only in Stuart’s company until your son weakens and falls for her dubious charms.”

  She laughed at my honesty. “I hope he has more sense. I’d like to see some results for all those years I spent trying to drum some reason into his thick skull! As for Tempe, she does nothing for me, and Tom can’t bear the girl. He says that she reminds him too much of you at your worst!”

  “And he’s right.” That was the seed of my dislike for the wench, the fact she was a mirror to my past faults. “Happily I grew out of that irritating phase.”

  We sipped our tea in silence for a while and I felt Martha building up the courage to broach a new subject. “Anna, can I ask you something, something personal?”

  “Sure, but if it cuts too close to the quick you won’t get a truthful answer.”

  “I’ll accept that rider. You’ve known Tom for all of your life, so you must understand him very well, far better than I do. It hurts me to have to ask you this question, but I don’t know of anyone else who could answer it.” She took a ragged breath and stared me right in the eye. “Could there be another woman in his life?”

  That took me aback and I gaped at her. “What, Tom unfaithful? No, never! He’s honest, trustworthy and utterly loyal, if you’re his friend. You could give your soul into his safekeeping and never lose a single night’s sleep.”

  “I wish I could be so certain.” She was wringing her hands; I’d never seen anyone do it before and I’m sure she was unaware of the action. “He has more than his share of restless nights and recurring bad dreams. He often calls out a name in his sleep, always the same one. That name is Oona.”

  That froze me again. Martha knew nothing of Zeniths, nothing of Tom’s past ties with the project. He’d partnered the first of the series, Z-alpha 1001, and few living souls were aware that her pet name had been Oona. Tom had lived for eight years with her voice inside his head, lived on the edge of danger, on the lip of death’s abyss, owing his very survival to the skills of his computer-partner. The cost of breaking such a bond was inhumanly high, as I knew from personal experience, yet I’d recovered Zenni, while Tom had lost Oona forever.

  “She’s a ghost out of his past,” I said, picking my way around the broken glass of loaded words and dire secrets. “He cared for her very deeply, but that was a long time ago and someone took her away from him. She’s no threat to you, believe me.”

  “And if I asked him to tell me about her?”

  “You’d upset him terribly, and I don’t think he’d say any more than I have.”

  “Ah, but you’re exasperating, the pair of you! Sometimes I swear that you’re both up to your necks in a conspiracy that I’m locked out of!”

  She was perceptive, this woman, but I’d expect no less of Tom’s chosen one. “It’s business, Martha, to do with Delany Corp, and it’s confidential. If I said one word more I’d be in trouble and so would you.”

  “And I have to be content with that?” She grimaced.

  “Until Tom sees fit to end your ignorance, yes. I don’t have the right to preempt his judgement.”

  Martha stared into her cup, swirling the dark leaves in the dregs of her tea as if she could set the future with their pattern. “Was she beautiful, this Oona?”

  “I don’t know.” That was true enough. “I never met her.”

  “Would there be any holos of her in his private archive?”

  “I doubt it, but if there were, they’d be in a file only he could access. Let it be, Martha. You’ve no cause to be jealous of Oona. She can’t hurt you. She’s gone.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, probably, by now.” It was only a little lie.

  “Yet she walks in his nightmares, an unquiet ghost?”

  My other-senses whispered a proximity warning. “Hush! Tom’s outside.”

  Martha frowned. “How on earth can you tell that?”

  I used the first excuse that entered my head. “I heard his footsteps on the terrace.”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous! You are joking, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t need to answer her. Tom loomed through the doorway, juggling a paper sa
ck of vegetables, a six-pack of beer and a large bunch of cream lilies and apricot roses. “Hi, love, I’m back. These are for you, and these are for the cooler. Hey, Anna, great to see you, girl!”

  Martha made no move to take the flowers, her eyes narrowing in the first flush of alarm. “Don’t tell me that was just a lucky guess—you knew Tom had come back. How?”

  “I must have picked up some barely audible clue.” I grinned sheepishly. “It was a guess, just a feeling, that’s all.”

  “Don’t let her fob you off with those dumb excuses!” Tom’s gravelly laugh eroded the tension between us. “Anna’s psychic. Get her to scry your future in the cards sometime—you’ll be surprised at how accurate she is.”

  “Oh, you joker, you!” Martha scooped the bouquet out of his hands and stood on tip-toe to kiss his cheek. “What other tales am I supposed to believe? That this house is haunted, that the Delany family has faerie blood and that Anna’s grandmother was a white witch? Do I look that gullible?”

  “You look like the smartest woman on this continent, and the most attractive on the planet into the bargain!” That earned him a dig in the ribs and another kiss. Her dismay forgotten, Martha took charge of his purchases, plunging the blooms up to their necks in a sink full of water and sorting the vegetables.

  “Want some warm beer?” When I shook my head he snapped one off for himself, biting through the blister end of the bubble-pack and catching most of the overflow in his mouth. “Is the reason for this visit business or pleasure?”

  “Boring business, I’m afraid.”

  “Let’s talk outside.”

  The youngsters were still entrenched on the sun-loungers, arguing fierce and loud over which island they should take in first on their proposed route and which they should waste more than a day on. I felt a brief stab of envy for their free, uncomplicated lives, so divorced from trouble and care.