by Kristie Cook
Recognizing the difference was easy—Solomon’s mind signature was as dissimilar to Rina’s as I imagined their handwritten signatures would be. With Solomon approaching Rina’s door, I excused myself to leave.
“Wait a moment, dear,” Rina said. “I think you will want to see this.”
Chapter 5
Solomon came through the door, one arm loaded with a stack of newspapers. He handed some to Rina and some to me. The datelines showed yesterday’s date. My breath caught as I read the large front-page headline on the top issue:
A.K. EMERSON BELIEVED DEAD IN BOATING ACCIDENT
Divers Searching for Author’s Body in Aegean Sea
I fell back onto the couch, feeling as though Tristan had flipped me again. I knew this was the plan—to fake the author’s death because I could no longer be A.K. Emerson—but it still caught me by surprise. The words in such large print, official and publicized to the world, drilled the finality of it into my core. She’s really gone. I never enjoyed playing the role of the wildly successful author—the fame and attention wasn’t my thing—so I had actually expected to feel relief at her death. But she was a very real part of me, a very big part of me. She had pulled me through my darkest times. Only my writing and Dorian kept me going through the years without Tristan.
After recovering from the initial shock, I skimmed through the article. It reported my trip to Athens, Greece, with a “Jeffrey Wells,” who they believed to be the father of my son and new husband, and an explosion of the boat we’d rented for pleasure. Such a tragedy to come, the reporter wrote, when we’d just been reunited. A diving team continued searching for our bodies. Of course, they wouldn’t find them, and my guilt surged because they tried so hard. The rest of the article told about my books, their record-breaking sales numbers, and speculation of whether the last book of the vampire series would ever be published.
“What will happen to the last book?” I wondered aloud.
“Once the commotion of her death diminishes, we will announce that she finished it right before her untimely death, so it will be published,” Rina said happily.
“Sales of the whole series will probably break their own records,” Solomon said with a grin. “Art is always more attractive after the creator has died.”
“I currently am planning a funeral,” Rina said, flipping her hand toward her desk. “Some Amadis members in America will masquerade as your family. After the funeral and other formalities, Sophia will contact the publisher.”
The moment felt so surreal, Rina speaking about planning a funeral—my funeral, in some ways—with such a matter-of-fact tone. To her, A.K. Emerson was a vehicle, a means to an end. The author’s life and death marked an accomplishment for the Amadis. For me, though, her death marked the ending of life as I’d always known it—not just the death of the author, but the death of me as a somewhat normal human being.
I flipped through the other newspapers Solomon had brought. They were mostly American, from various cities in the States, although a few hailed from major cities throughout the world. The Associated Press sourced the article, so they were all the same, as was the photo, a headshot from my last book cover, over a year old. Though I didn’t look as old and fat as I had toward the end, right before the Ang’dora, the picture made me cringe. I had seriously let myself go over the years, and I appeared to be much older than my real age—more like forty-something—even with the professional touch-up to the photo. I now looked nineteen or twenty, there was life to my eyes and face, and my body was hard and fit.
“At least no one will recognize me as her,” I muttered, pointing at the ugly picture. Rina and Solomon chuckled.
I left them to plan my funeral. As I meandered through the mansion, I made my wall into a screen and sought out mind signatures, searching for Tristan and Dorian. The first ones that floated by me were staff members’. As soon as I realized this, I let go of their thoughts, not wanting to invade their privacy. By the time I’d wandered through almost the entire first floor, I was able to feel mind signatures from throughout the mansion. None were Tristan’s or Dorian’s, but I did identify Mom and Owen. I followed the “currents” to a large room at the end of a short hall.
Unlike the rest of the mansion, which felt primeval with its stone walls, antiques, and torches for light, this space reflected the 21st century. Computers lined one wall, and a dozen flat-screen TVs hung on another, with a theater-style seating area in front of them. I’d found the media room. And I also found Mom and Owen, watching several American news channels at once. It was early morning in the States, so America was just waking up to the news that my disappearance had turned into probable death. Some of the screens scrolled information across the bottom, while a few showed my picture, apparently the topic of the moment. According to the text running across the bottom, the Greek authorities had officially called off the search for my body.
“Hey, Alexis,” Owen said, “you look better dead than you did alive.”
Unlike yesterday, when he avoided my eyes as much as I avoided his, he looked at me and grinned. If he could act as though nothing ever happened, so could I.
“Very funny.” I punched his arm lightly. Well, I thought it was lightly, but I forgot my new strength. He gave me a face while rubbing his bicep. “I’m sure you will, too, because you can’t look any worse.”
“Maybe, but at least I never looked that bad,” he said, pointing at my picture on one of the screens.
“I can fix that.” I held my left hand up, palm facing him. He flinched, then narrowed his eyes. “I may have looked bad then, but I’m quite shocking now.”
“Ugh,” he moaned, rolling his eyes.
“That was quite horrible,” Mom said. “You’re a writer—surely you can do better.”
It was, admittedly, a bad pun.
I sat down on the couch next to Mom, as far from Owen as possible. Although I could joke around with him, it still felt odd—almost wrong—just to sit next to him. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell anyone, not even Tristan—especially not Tristan—what else I’d heard at yesterday’s meeting: the opinions that I should be with Owen rather than Tristan. The thought was nauseating. Owen was too much like my brother. He was also Tristan’s best friend, and I didn’t want to think about what this would do to their friendship.
Trying to ignore him, my eyes skimmed over the many TV screens. Some had moved on to other news, but some still had my face plastered on them.
“Kind of weird, huh?” Owen asked.
“Very.”
My life had always been strange, but it seemed “weird” had now gone to a completely new level.
“Watch this,” Owen said pointing at one of the screens. “It’s hilarious.”
He waved his finger, and the sound switched from another TV to the one he indicated. After watching for a brief moment, I realized the news station was from Atlanta. The reporter spoke off-screen about receiving a tip with my home address as the camera panned out, showing the full length of our street. We could only catch a glimpse of my house through the privacy fence and hedges, but what I did see . . .
“Holy crap! What the hell happened to my house?” My first thought was a Daemoni attack. Last time we’d had to escape, right after our wedding, they had torched our houses and Mom’s bookstore. “I thought Rina said to save it.”
Owen laughed. “It’s cloaked. That’s just an illusion.”
“Cloaked? An illusion?”
“Your house still stands, and we have people staying there,” Mom said, “keeping it protected. They’re actually using it as a secondary safe house, too. The primary Atlanta house is full, with so many seeking refuge from Daemoni attacks.”
“I thought the attacks had stopped.”
“The rogue attacks continue, because they can,” Mom said. “Enough of them to scare some of our more vulnerable into hiding.”
“And Sheree’s at the main house, still in detox, so that limits how many others can safely be there,” Owe
n added. “We were lucky the Daemoni didn’t find your house before our people got there.”
I watched the screen as the camera focused in on the rubble. The reporter ran a continuous commentary about the fire diminishing my house to nothing but a few charred four-by-fours, my probable death, and the authorities considering whether it was all a coincidence or foul play. A mystery, I knew, they’d never solve. It was kind of funny, to know the house really stood there and there were people inside. Then a feeling of discomfort poked at me, thinking about strangers sitting in my house, roaming the halls . . . our bedrooms.
“I packed anything important or meaningful before Dorian and I left,” Mom said. “It’s all been shipped here. We don’t really have many personal belongings, especially you. I think you took with you what you really wanted?”
I considered it and nodded. My laptop, Tristan’s old bag, Mom and Dorian were most important to me. I hadn’t owned many clothes and brought most of them with me to the Keys, so there really wasn’t much in the closets or drawers for anyone to pilfer through. What was there, they could have. It still felt strange, though.
“That’s what we mean,” Owen said, pointing to a screen showing a yellow-bagged body being wheeled out of a home on a gurney. “And that.” Another screen displayed pictures of a woman and a man, both in their mid-twenties, side-by-side, and the word “MISSING” labeled across the top in large, bold letters.
“You think those are Daemoni attacks?” I asked.
“Probably,” Owen said.
“How do we stop them?”
“We’re doing what we can,” Mom said. “We have troops out there, but the Daemoni outnumber us. It will probably get worse before it gets better.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re waiting for you and Tristan. Once you leave the island—and you will have to eventually—they’ll be distracted from the Normans.”
My stomach tightened into a ball and bile burned my throat. Mom was right, of course. We would have to leave eventually, and Dorian with us, and we’d probably always be under attack. On the other hand, if they weren’t chasing us, they kept themselves entertained with innocent people. I jumped to my feet, the need to escape squeezing the breath out of me.
Mom eyed me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going . . .” Leaving the island was out of the question, but I at least needed to be outside. “I’m going for a run.”
“Ah. I’ll go with you.”
I thought I wanted to be alone, but after the first half-mile, I was glad to be with Mom. We hadn’t had any one-on-one time since before I went nearly insane with the Ang’dora. Besides Tristan, she was still my best friend, and I could talk to her about things I couldn’t bring myself to discuss with him. Such as this mess with Owen.
“I thought you didn’t like the council, but you agreed with them, didn’t you?” I asked as she took us along a path through the woods behind the mansion.
She gave me a questioning look. “Who?”
“At the meeting, there were at least one or two who thought I should be with Owen. You used to think that.”
With the grace of a gazelle, Mom hurdled a log lying across the path. I jumped it, too, but surely not as elegantly as she did.
“I admit at one time I thought Owen was safer for you.”
“Is that why you wanted him to be my protector? To try to get us together?”
Her eyes cut sideways at me. “You don’t miss anything these days, do you? I wondered if you’d caught that meaning from Char.”
“I guess my mind’s finally in a place where I can pay attention.”
“I wanted Owen to be your protector because he’s a powerful warlock, possibly the most powerful we have after Martin. I saw that truth the day he was born.”
I stopped short for a second with surprise, then blasted forward to catch up with Mom. I had no idea how fast we ran, but I was pretty sure Olympians would hate us. “You’ve known him that long?”
“Since his birth. He’s always shown impressive potential. I wouldn’t be surprised if he out-powered even Martin one of these days.”
“So that’s why you and the council thought he’d still be a good mate. Not quite the same as Tristan—”
“But one of our best, yes.”
“And you agree with them? You’re on their side? I thought you didn’t like them.”
“I’m not on anyone’s side but our own, Alexis.” She ran a few paces before continuing. “I don’t like the council. Not in general. I don’t appreciate how they try to control our lives. Sometimes they forget they’re advisors, not the decision makers.”
We ducked under a branch and burst through the edge of the trees onto a meadow about a half-mile long and at least half as wide. The other end sloped upwards into a hill. Mom ran for it, and I stayed by her side.
“The ones I truly didn’t like,” she continued, “when you were an infant and they were planning your life—your mate—for you, are mostly the same ones who now think you should be with Owen. They’re temperamental and impulsive, either following everyone else’s lead or doing whatever suits their best interests at the moment. I don’t trust them because I can’t feel the truth in their beliefs.”
“So they’re like all other politicians.”
“Basically, yes. But not all of them. And they don’t have any final say. That’s left to the matriarch. She can’t be vetoed or overruled.”
“And if they try?”
“No one ever has. As Amadis, they serve—and trust—the matriarch. Their devotion and service to her represents their devotion and service to God. She’s ordained to be their leader, and they understand that.”
We came to the end of the meadow just before it sloped more sharply upwards and stopped for a break. We’d probably run at least eight miles, by my guess. A white stone building stood at the top of the hill, and I realized it was the Council Hall, which meant the village was right on the other side. A figure—Julia, upon closer inspection—rounded the corner of the building and ducked inside a low doorway in the back.
“They don’t seem to be so devoted to her now,” I said, starting a jog up the hill to see where Julia had gone. If there was someone on the council I specifically didn’t trust, it was her. Mom’s hand gripped my shoulder and spun me around.
“I admit something’s going on,” she said, “but we’re not going up there.”
I opened my mouth to protest.
“No, Alexis. You can’t keep running off on your personal whims, as you did when you went to Key West.”
“I didn’t do that for me. I did it to keep Dorian and everyone else safe.”
“Honey . . . remember you’re not in this by yourself.” She glanced again at the Council Hall. “Besides, you’re not ready. Not yet.”
She turned and took off down the hill, back toward the woods, expecting me to follow. I examined the Council Hall again, curiosity about Julia so strong, I almost couldn’t control my feet from heading up there. But Mom was right—I would need my telepathy, and I wasn’t nearly ready to try to use it again. I raced across the meadow to catch up with her, and we ran in silence for a while.
“You said something’s going on, so do you believe me now?” I finally asked.
She slowed down, and I slowed with her. “I believe in you, honey. I know you will eventually be able to use your gift to find out the whole truth.”
My jog diminished into a walk. Mom stopped and waited for me to catch up to her. She still didn’t completely believe me, but at least she didn’t outright deny anything as Rina had.
“And do you still believe in Tristan?” I asked because I really needed her on my side when it came to being with him. Surely Rina would fight for us, but I needed Mom, too.
She swung her arm over my shoulders. “Of course I do. I’ve always felt the truth about you two, even when I didn’t want to admit it. Besides, I can’t deny my own gift . . . or the Angels . . . or the Book of Prophecies & Curses.”
> “The book of what?” Did she really say what I thought she said?
“Prophecies and curses.” Yes, she did. “It holds all the prophecies received by the Amadis and all the curses the Daemoni have made. There’s a prophecy about you and Tristan in it.”
“Really? Where is it? I want to see it.”
“In the Sacred Archives, but—”
“And where is that?”
“In the mansion.”
“And the message Rina received about Tristan and me is written in there? How does she get their messages, anyway?”
“They’re written in a form only the matriarch can translate. So the message about you and Tristan is between Rina and the Angels. It’s not in the Book of Prophecies & Curses.”
I furrowed my brow, confused. “So the Angels’ messages aren’t the same as prophecies?”
“Prophecies are messages the Angels might have given to others besides the matriarch, usually in a dream or trance. There’s no way to verify if they’re real or imagined, though, so we consider them . . . strong suggestions or useful information.” She pushed a low branch out of her way and held it back for me. “The Angels’ messages, however, are much more direct. They’re only delivered when they need us to do something or behave or respond in some way we otherwise would not have. The Angels don’t interfere unless they feel they must, and then it is only with the matriarch.”
“So there was a prophecy and a message about Tristan and me?”
She cleared her throat and looked away. “Apparently, some didn’t take the prophecy seriously enough, so the Angels made sure we understood.”
I suppressed a smile. She’d been among the “some” who didn’t take it seriously, all the way up until Tristan and I were practically engaged. We walked past the gym and soon were on the arched path leading to the front of the mansion, but Mom stopped and took my hands into hers, stopping me, too.
“Alexis, you know you can trust Rina and me, even if you feel like you can’t trust anyone else?”