Ripper (The Morphid Chronicles Book 2)

by Ingrid Seymour

  Nothing good. Nothing good.

  The words echoed in Greg’s ears, leaving an imprint in the back of his mind and the impression that they’d come from Sam. Doggedly, he refused to return her gaze and acknowledge the shared thought. This was Mateo’s story.

  Not ours. Not ours!

  Mateo continued, “When Ashby was born, I thought we had proved them all wrong. She was delighted, just as I was. I thought myself so unworthy of that happiness, but it wasn’t until my blind skill finally opened up to her that I realized that joy was truly undeserved. It all ended so swiftly. One day, I was there tending to my baby boy, keeping him smiling as only I knew how to do. The next, I woke up and I suddenly knew exactly what Danata wanted.” He paused and seemed to shiver as if he were rediscovering the awful truth.

  Mateo’s voice dropped to a low murmur. “Hers was not a simple want. No. It was something more than that. It was a desire, an ambition such as I’ve never sensed before. What she wanted was her sister’s place.

  “What she wanted was the Regency.”

  Chapter 26 - Sam

  A cold shiver coursed through Sam’s veins, shooting straight into her heart and freezing it before its next beat. Panicked, she inhaled sharply, afraid of forgetting how to breathe.

  The knowledge that Danata had lusted over her sister’s post as Regent seared in Sam’s mind and sent her imagination into darkness, conjuring a barrage of scenarios, one worse than the next.

  For weeks, after fleeing with little more than her life, thanks to Greg, she’d pondered over the possibility that Bernard and Roanna were her parents. But if that was the case, it meant her mother had been the Regent and was still the rightful owner of that title. It can’t be. She didn’t want to believe it, even if that would finally explain Danata’s hatred toward her. It was just too much.

  Sam looked around the room, wondering if this would be the place where she would finally learn the truth about her past, if Fate had brought her here to confirm or deny her suspicions.

  And they had thought they were escaping, running away from danger and their problems. Fat chance.

  Well, there was no other choice but to grab this stubborn bull by its horns. Mateo didn’t seem happy to be talking about this, but he was willing, and she wouldn’t shy away from the answers he offered. If she was to figure out what she was meant to do with her life, she needed answers. All of them.

  “So she wanted the Regency and, obviously, she got it,” Sam said. “I think Greg and I can both guess by what means.”

  Mateo nodded. “From what you seem to know, I think your guess would be correct. I tried to dissuade her.” He bit down on his lower lip in frustration. “I couldn’t. Once she made up her mind and set her heart on the prize, there was no turning back. I have never, in all my years, sensed a need so great from anyone. She turned into a force of nature to be reckoned with. Her aimlessness disappeared and was replaced by a purpose so strong that everything else became irrelevant. Decency, morals, filial attachments, nothing else mattered to her but power.

  “I don’t know how she hid her black heart from me all that time. I had thought she was a good person, but there isn’t one grain of decency in her. She just hadn’t had a goal to direct her ambitions toward until then.

  “She had the gall to ask for my help. I refused, of course, told her I would denounce her treason, if she didn’t give up her deranged schemes. But it was a mistake, it only served as a warning and gave her time to turn my very best friend, Veridan, against me.”

  “Veridan?!” Greg exclaimed. “The Sorcerer? He was your friend?”

  “I take it you’ve met him.”

  “We’ve met, all right. He tried to kill us. More than once.”

  Mateo’s eyes drifted from Greg to Sam. “Kill you? Why?”

  “I guess because Sam wasn’t good enough for Ashby. I don’t know. All I know is that he does all of Danata’s dirty work.”

  “That, he does,” Mateo agreed, his expression growing impossibly sadder. “It’s hard for me to understand why. I know she helped him, helped his father and mother when they were going through a rough situation. But that hardly justifies his involvement. There must be more to it.” He looked truly puzzled. “He was a good man.”

  “Pshaw!” Greg didn’t try to hide his disdain for that opinion.

  But the conversation was getting derailed. “What happened next?” Sam asked, determined to get her answers.

  “She took Ashby and threatened to hurt him if I interfered.”

  Sam hugged herself, hating the pain in Mateo’s eyes, the brimming tears that wavered there. Yes, she needed to hear this, but what of this poor man? Reliving all these memories seemed to be splitting him in two.

  “I know she would have hurt him. Her lust for power was greater than any type of love she’d ever felt. She should have never been a mother. There is a reason why it is the job of Companions to hold the family nucleus together, but I dared feel smarter than Fate, at least for a while. In the end, I only played the fool.”

  Sam pushed to the edge of her chair, eager to learn what she could about Roanna. “Bernard, he was Roanna’s husband, right?”

  Mateo nodded. “Her Companion. A Dual, really. He was also a Sower, loved to work in the garden.”

  “He is,” Sam corrected, unsure why he was talking of the man in the past tense.

  “Glad he’s fine.” Mateo pronounced the last word with a hint of doubt.

  “We can’t be sure,” Greg said, mussing his own hair. “I mean, he was fine last time we saw him, but there’s no telling what happened to him after we left. We had to leave in a bit of a hurry.”

  “Do you know where Roanna is? Bernard was there, at Rothblade castle, but we never saw his wife,” Sam asked.

  Mateo stood and started pacing behind his desk. “I wish I knew. I didn’t stay to find out. For the nearly four years we were together, Danata’s caste was a mystery to me. As incredible as it seems, she managed to keep it hidden from me. She feigned shyness and modesty. I never doubted her assertion that she bared the Regent’s crown and staff as her only mark. It was common knowledge among the council and everyone else. I had no reason to doubt her. I had no reason to suspect that she was a Dual, a Dual with an evil power kept secret from everyone.

  “She tore Roanna and Bernard apart. I saw it happen. I saw them both fall to their knees and become little more than empty vessels. Their cares, their wants, their needs, which I had admired for so long, vanished in an instant. Roanna’s desire to serve her people ceased to be. I couldn’t feel it anymore. Bernard’s need to keep his wife safe and happy was still there, but it’d grown so faint, I could hardly sense it.”

  Tears were rolling down Sam’s cheeks, even as she fought them. The images Mateo described so vividly had brought back the panic and pain of her last hour at Rothblade Castle. Her last glimpse of Ashby, alive. Of his black eyes as he held his mother by the throat in an effort to protect Sam, a set of eyes that now seemed to peer down at her from this man’s face. It was all too eerie, bringing back her Companion’s last seconds of life before he died.

  “I almost fell to my knees myself,” Mateo continued. “I had allowed that to happen. Yes, to protect my son, but still. I tried to reason that no one had died. That even though Bernard and Roanna would never be the same, at least Danata hadn’t killed them.

  “In spite of everything,” Mateo let out an unamused chuckle, “I was still willing to think there was some good in that woman. That was until her needs changed again. Not even ten minutes had passed after her awful deed when something more heinous took possession of her.

  “You see, Bernard and Roanna had a daughter. Her name was Celestine. She was a beautiful child, liked to play with her big cousin, Ashby.” Mateo’s lips stretched as his eyes wandered to some distant memory of happier times, where children played without a care in the world.

  Sam leaned forward and placed a hand on the desk to steady herself. A mixture of fear and hope weighed her do
wn and kept her from running out of the small office.

  “Numb as they were,” Mateo said, “Bernard and Roanna posed no threat to Danata. The child, though, she was an uncertain variable, an unknown. In thirteen or so years, the child would morph, only Fate knew into what. Danata wasn’t willing to take that risk. She had no intention of allowing Celestine to live. Not when she could grow to become a challenger.”

  “So is she still alive?” she asked, her voice revealing a strange hope that made her feel silly. If Sam was Celestine, of course she was still alive. Duh!

  Mateo stopped and stood by the corner of his desk. He let his eyes rest on a stack of papers as if he were reading what was printed there, but it was obvious he was far, far away. “I should have stayed and denounced her, exposed her for what she is. But fear for my son’s life made it impossible. I wanted to help Bernard and Roanna. They were always good to me. But I failed them.” Mateo’s eyes were heavy with the weight of his failure.

  “You failed them?” Sam said in a low murmur.

  What?! So Celestine is dead? He couldn’t even save their daughter?!

  In the end, he had failed everyone, even Ashby. Because he had still died at the hands of his evil mother. Anger and disappointment roiled inside Sam’s chest. She wanted to shout at this worthless man, tell him he was nothing but a coward.

  But if Roanna and Bernard are not my parents, then who?

  “I let Danata break their bond and turn them into empty husks,” Mateo continued, unaware of Sam’s accusing gaze. “That failure still grieves me to this day. I tried to find comfort in having saved their daughter, but it’s not always enough.”

  Sam gasped, her anger and disappointment dissolving and leaving her chest empty and numb. Questions crowded her mouth, but she had no breath left to ask any of them.

  Greg, as always, read her emotions and said what she was too choked up to voice. “If you did save her, where is she now?”

  Mateo looked at them, his eyes suddenly brimming with the same suspicion they’d held before this conversation started.

  “If that is the purpose of your visit here,” Mateo defiantly said, “you are wasting your time. I don’t know where she is. I smuggled her out of England with the help of a Sorcerer friend, then left her in a hospital, so they could find her a home. Even if I knew where she was, I wouldn’t tell you. I wouldn’t tell anybody.”

  Sam stood then, even as her legs trembled beneath her. She was tired of this roundabout conversation, of this suspense, of this uncertainty about who her real parents were. These surges of hope were nerve-wracking.

  She must have looked fierce, because Mateo took a step back and looked toward the door as if ready to bolt.

  “That is not why we’re here,” Sam said. “Fate brought us to this place, as we’ve already told you. But there is a reason for our questions about Celestine. You see, I think . . . I think I might be Roanna and Bernard’s daughter.”

  Chapter 27 - Greg

  Greg and Sam told their story from the beginning. They told Mateo about her adoptive parents, the attempts on her life, their visit to Rothblade Castle, Veridan’s perusal through Sam’s memories, Bernard’s repaired vinculum and, finally, their escape.

  About halfway through the story, Mateo had sat at the edge of his chair, elbows on thighs, and lowered his gaze, listening intently. When they finished, he clasped the side of his head as if to keep it from exploding.

  Greg exchanged a tired glance with Sam. He didn’t want to pressure the guy—this was a lot to unload on anyone—but exhaustion was beginning to eat at the edges of his thoughts, and he didn’t think he could stay upright much longer. Sam gave him a slow nod and gestured with her beautiful eyes, a silent request for him to be patient. She had to be dead tired, too, especially after her ordeal with Elizabeth. Her strength and will never ceased to amaze him.

  He smiled and faked a sigh for her benefit, since Mateo was too lost in his own thoughts to notice anything.

  They waited for another moment, and this time it was Sam who couldn’t wait any longer. “So, do you think it’s possible? Do you think I could be Roanna and Bernard’s daughter?”

  Mateo straightened. His restless hands stayed on his thighs, worrying at the fabric of his pants. Tufts of hair stuck out at every angle. His black eyes looked as sharp as before, but there was a heaviness to his gaze that hadn’t been there before.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Sixteen,” Sam answered.

  “When is your birthday?”

  “April 23rd.”

  Mateo pressed a hand to his mouth and funneled his breath through his closed fist. “Damn, if you’re not Celestine, that’s a heck of a coincidence. That was the day she was born. When I dropped her off at that hospital, it was the only information I left behind. I wrote it on a piece of paper and pinned it to her clothes. At the time, I wasn’t sure why I did it. I guess Fate has been working on this plan for a fortnight.”

  Greg hadn’t heard that expression in a long time. His mom used to always say that when little coincidences happened, like when she walked into the kitchen right before the pot boiled over.

  “It’s an old saying,” Mateo explained when he noticed Sam’s confused expression. “You do resemble Roanna, now that I think about it.”

  A small gasp escaped Sam. Greg had been watching as she tried to keep it together, but her emotions finally got the best of her. She leaned into him, eyes full of tears. She whispered his name into his t-shirt and pressed her face to his chest. He held her tight.

  Since he met Sam five months ago, the thought of finding her real parents had haunted her, an urge more overwhelming than a splinter stuck in her eyeball. The fact that her question now had an answer had to be overwhelming.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured in her ear. “You know, now. We’ll find them. Don’t worry.”

  Greg felt the wetness of her tears through his t-shirt. She wasn’t making a sound and her shoulders were barely moving, but she was crying all right. And, from the feel of it, a lot.

  “Please, Sam,” he pleaded. “Don’t, don’t.” He made soothing sounds in a low tone, wishing Mateo had the sense to leave them alone. But he wasn’t moving. He sat there staring at them with insistent eyes.

  “Thank you for saving me from Danata,” Sam said into Greg’s chest.

  Mateo shook his head. “It was the least I could do.”

  After a moment of silence, he said, “You are tired, I can tell. Besides, it’s late, and I should check on Elizabeth and everyone else. Do you have a place to stay?”

  “We don’t.”

  “Then, you are welcome to stay here. There is a small conference room that would offer you a bit more privacy. You can move a pair of cots in there if you’d like.”

  “That sounds good.” At this point, Greg didn’t care if he slept on a slab of rock. The back of his neck was stiff. His eyeballs felt like they’d been doused in Tabasco sauce. All anyone had to do was snap their fingers and he would be asleep. The drive had been tiring enough, but add to that everything else that had happened, and it was a recipe for tired-to-the-marrow exhaustion. He could more than imagine how much worse it was for Sam. He could actually feel it.

  They followed Mateo out of the office into a dingy hall. There were bulletin boards on the walls, all crammed with handwritten notes. Greg had seen them on the way in and, like before, wondered about them. They weren’t ads asking for roommates or selling old bicycles, like was almost always the norm with bulletin boards. Instead, the pinnings looked like letters, all dated, signed and addressed to someone—not that the handwriting in any of them was legible enough to figure out who.

  “The guests write them,” Mateo said when he noticed Greg’s interest. “Can’t make any sense out of most of them, but sometimes they need to write, need to feel they’re reaching out to whoever it is they’ve lost.”

  Sam stopped in front of one of the boards. She moved a hand to her throat and rested it there. Her eyes dan
ced over the letters, from the ones at the top to the very bottom. Her lower lip quivered with emotion. Greg squeezed her shoulder in support. She turned away with a heavy exhale.

  Mateo guided them toward another door. He gave it a push and it swung open to reveal a small conference room. The room was empty but for a blackboard and few folding chairs stacked against the wall. There was no table. The scent of stale pizza and three-dollar hamburgers hung in the air. It was perfect, considering that sleeping in an alley had seemed like a distinct possibility just a couple hours ago.

  Greg dropped his heavy backpack on the floor and sighed.

  “Make yourselves comfortable. Scavenge anything you need from the common room. We’ll talk some more tomorrow.” He checked his watch. “Or today, rather.” He nodded and closed the door behind him.

  As soon as they were alone, Sam theatrically slammed her back against the wall and slid down to the floor. Her nose was a red knob from crying.

  “Best Halloween ever!” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “I don’t want to think. I don’t want to ponder. I don’t want to speculate. But those are the only things my brain can do right now. I just want to shut it all off.” She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Could you please find the switch?”

  “I could try.” He sat next to her and took her hand in his.

  They let their heads roll against the wall and faced each other.

  “Your eyes are red. You don’t look as handsome as usual.” She quirked a smile.

  “I don’t? It’s your fault. You deprive me of my beauty sleep with all these crazy adventures of yours.”

  She kissed him, her lips lingering against his for a long moment. Greg’s eyes closed of their own accord. Her kiss filled him with warmth, which made his limbs heavy and weak at the same time. When she pulled away, he leaned forward, searching, unwilling to let her go. Sam pressed a hand to his chest and gently held him back.

  “I love you,” she said.

  He brushed his thumb over her moist lips and savored the sound of those words. “I love you, too. No matter how crazy the scheme.”