Rapture's Edge

by J. T. Geissinger

  When the smoke had cleared and the flying bricks and shrubbery had settled and the only noise was the angry hiss of a fractured radiator releasing pressurized steam, Laurent emerged from his hiding place behind the tiled column near the staff elevators just in time to see a woman—young, indigo-haired, half-dressed in men’s underclothing—tear off the driver’s door of a mostly demolished Ferrari, toss it aside like it weighed no more than a feather, and lift an unconscious, bleeding man twice her size in her arms.

  His first thought was PCP.

  Long out of fashion but still available, the hallucinogenic drug phencyclidine tended to imbue users with superhuman strength. When it wasn’t making them schizophrenic. His second thought as the duo entered through the sliding doors and the woman pierced him with her eyes—silvery-black and glittering, like coins at the bottom of a wishing well—was Dieu aidez-moi!

  God help me.

  She was supernaturally stunning, with an abstract face and courtesan’s body Picasso would have swooned over. She possessed a weird species of beauty, the type average people have no words or use for, alien and compelling, all lips and eyes and smoldering stare. Seeing her, Laurent thought for a moment he was having a heart attack. She literally took his breath away.

  “You!” she growled, freezing him in place with those ferocious inkwell eyes. “Help me!”

  Her French was nearly perfect, but not completely so; obviously, she wasn’t a native speaker. Perhaps she hailed from Mars.

  “Now!” she said as he remained rooted to the linoleum. The word was hard as two fingers snapping, and it jolted Laurent into action.

  “In there.” He pointed to an exam room just behind her, watching as she shouldered through the door and gently deposited the man she carried on the white-sheeted hospital bed. A quick glance over his shoulder and a mouthed instruction to Michelle, the night nurse—Call the police—and he followed her in.

  “He’s been shot.” The alien beauty stepped back to allow Laurent to move closer.

  He took his glasses from the pocket of his white lab coat and donned them, snapped on a pair of thin nitrile gloves, and did a quick, cursory examination of the victim. Blood had spread in an erratic circle over the front of his button-down dress shirt, and Laurent ripped it open with a yank that sent buttons flying. There it was—a perfect, round hole four inches below the burly man’s collarbone. Just above—or in—his heart.

  “Will he be all right?” The woman stood almost too close, watching intently as he examined the wound.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood. There’s no exit wound, which means the bullet is embedded. We need to prep him for surgery.”

  He straightened, faced her, and made a swift, visual assessment of her condition. No pupil dilation. No nervous twitching or shaking. No obvious signs of drug intoxication. She was, oddly, barefoot, even more oddly wearing men’s boxer briefs and an undershirt gone slightly translucent with perspiration that made it cling to her beautiful breasts in a most distracting, enticing way—

  She stepped closer, took his elbow in an iron grip, and said, very quietly, “He lives, or you die. Understood?”

  Laurent had heard this on more than one occasion from distraught family members. Threats to his life or safety were not so uncommon, but something about the way this woman shaped the words, the cold, cold intent in her dark eyes, truly frightened him. He chose not to antagonize her and instead simply said, “You’re family? We’ll need to get some information for treatment. And for the police.”

  At the word police, she released his arm as if she’d been burned and stepped back with a low, spine-tingling growl that reverberated through the room, animal, chilling. It was like nothing he’d ever heard before. Slowly, she backed away to the door.

  She was going to run. He’d seen this before, too.

  “Madam,” he said, holding out a hand, but she cut him off with a savage snarl that froze him in place and had his bowels threatening to spill themselves.

  “He lives or you die,” she reiterated, deadly soft, vibrating menace. She glanced at the cursive stitching on the front pocket of his lab coat. “Laurent.”

  The high, wailing scream of sirens underscored his hissed name. Wild, she glanced over her shoulder at the ER doors and then back at him. For a moment he imagined her eyes changed, something about the pupils…Had they elongated? To slits?

  But then she was gone. Like a gazelle she bounded away and disappeared through the glass doors into the night, just as three blue-and-white police cars with sirens wailing and lights flashing blazed into the parking lot.

  Eliana limped into the catacombs just before dawn, exhausted as she’d never been, every muscle aching, every step burning sharp with pain.

  The pain of heartache. The pain of confusion. The intense, stabbing pain of guilt.

  If Gregor died, she’d never, ever forgive herself.

  It took nearly an hour of navigating the silent, twisting passageways before she came upon the rusted metal stepladder hidden around a black corner deep in the belly of the catacombs. The ladder, drilled right into the rock, led up three stories through a ragged fissure in the limestone to the basement of the abbey. She climbed slowly, dazed, the chilled air doing little to soothe her abraded skin.

  She needed a bath, and sleep, and to talk to Mel about everything that had happened. Not necessarily in that order.

  The old wooden trapdoor was much heavier than usual to push open, but she did it, emerging into the frigid darkness of the basement—

  When suddenly, a strong hand reached out, lightning-fast, and painfully fisted itself in her hair.

  “You stupid fucking bitch!” Caesar hissed in her ear. Viciously, he yanked her head back and she lost her footing on the stepladder, twisting away from him. Pulling her by the hair, he dragged her clear of the tunnel and slammed her down to the dusty stone floor.

  Before she could rise, he kicked her hard in the ribs. Twice.

  Eliana heard Mel’s scream, and she heard another voice she recognized as Silas’s, but mainly she heard the furious snarls of Caesar as he beat her with iron fists and booted feet and called her every filthy name she’d ever heard, and many she hadn’t. She doubled over, too stunned to comprehend what was happening, too exhausted to do more than twist and roll on the hard floor, covering her head to avoid the more violent of his blows.

  “Stop!” Silas shouted, dragging Caesar away. “My lord, stop!”

  White dots danced in her vision. It had suddenly become very hard to breathe.

  Mel’s face swam into view, hovering above her, pale and horrified. “Ana! Ana, can you talk? How badly are you hurt?”

  Eliana inhaled a breath that felt like fire, and she coughed. Pain shot up her right side where Caesar had kicked her, and she moaned.

  “So help me, Caesar,” Mel hissed, staring at him, still restrained in the circle of Silas’s arms, “one of these days—”

  “One more word and you’re both dead!” Caesar shrieked, veins popping out on his neck. He twisted and fought Silas’s hold, kicking, but the older man was stronger and taller and held him fast, murmuring soothing words into his ear. Caesar settled after a few moments, and Silas allowed him to shake free, bristling but no longer spitting in rage.

  “You ruined everything! You led them right to us! Now everyone knows we’re in France, in Paris. We’ll have to move before we’re ready. We’ll have to change all our plans—”

  He shouted on and on, pacing back and forth over the stone floor, wild-eyed, red-faced, held back from attacking her again only by the outstretched hand of Silas, who seemed able to dissuade him with only that.

  Mel helped her to a sitting position, her hands firm around her back while she gulped in lungfuls of dank air.

  “My lord,” interrupted Silas smoothly, still with that outstretched hand, “perhaps you could allow your sister a moment to collect herself so we can find out exactly what happened.” He glanced at Eliana and Mel, still crouched together on the floor, and the
n turned his gaze back to Caesar. “I would be happy to speak with her and report back to you as quickly as possible.” His voice, still soothing, turned velvet. “In the interim, I’ll arrange for a girl to be sent over. Your favorite, perhaps? The blonde?”

  Still breathing hard, Caesar stopped pacing and shot a black glance at Silas. After a moment, he nodded curtly and then looked back at Eliana. His upper lip curled. “You’re lucky he’s here, sister.” He spat the word as if it tasted evil in his mouth. “If he wasn’t, you wouldn’t be breathing right now.”

  He turned and strode from the room, and as soon as he was out of sight Silas swept over and knelt down beside her.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, gently touching her shoulder. “He felt your approach. It was all I could do to keep him from bringing his gun.”

  Their eyes met. She saw the genuine concern, the sincerity of his apology, and she also saw the unspoken I told you.

  “You were right.” She tried not to inhale too deeply because it caused too much pain. “I didn’t believe you, but you were right.”

  “Right about what?” Mel asked as she and Silas gently helped her to her feet.

  Silas gave her a look—probing, intense—and Eliana glanced away.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up and we’ll talk,” he murmured, allowing her to lean on his arm as he led her toward the door. She felt his penetrating gaze slant down to her. His voice dropped even lower. “Thank Horus you’re back. When I heard you’d been captured by the police, then the explosion at the station, I felt…” He left it unsaid, the thought unfinished, and it hung there between them, louder than any spoken word. His voice turned harder. “And don’t worry about your brother. I won’t let this happen again.”

  Neither will I, Eliana thought bitterly, but she only nodded and allowed herself to be led away.

  Silas knew she was lying. What he didn’t know was why, or what exactly about.

  Eliana had rested and bathed and dressed, and now she stood staring at a crumbling eighteenth-century headstone, the winged angel perched atop, mossy and blackened with age. They stood in the little decrepit cemetery beside the old abbey, its rows of leaning headstones with faded inscriptions ringed by gnarled plum trees who decades ago had stopped bearing fruit. It was late afternoon; the sun was slung low in the sky and cast long, sinister shadows that crawled hungrily over the dead grass and up their legs.

  He thought it best to be outdoors, away from any interested ears, so they could speak openly.

  “…so I hid in a drainpipe until I was sure they were long gone.” Eliana’s voice was utterly emotionless.

  Silas studied her. Clad in her usual black leather ensemble, she looked even more somber than usual. There were faint blue smudges beneath her eyes, her lips held a downward curve, and every once in a while she would give a small, unconscious shake of her head, as if she were answering the same unasked question, over and over again.

  “And you didn’t know these men…” he prompted.

  “No. They weren’t from the Roman colony. It wasn’t the Legiones, or”—she hesitated for an infinitesimal second—“the Bellatorum. They were obviously sent by one of the other colonies. Or all of them, I suppose.”

  Silas narrowed his eyes. The way she’d hesitated was worrying. Very worrying indeed. But why would she withhold anything? What could she gain? Or lose?

  “You were in that drainpipe a very long time. It must have been awful.” He watched her hawkishly, scanning her solemn face for any hint of what she might be hiding, but she gave nothing away.

  She didn’t even blink when she murmured, “You have no idea.”

  “And you’re certain you weren’t followed here?”

  “If they knew where I was now, we’d have already seen them. I’d already be dead.”

  Hmm. He believed her sincerity about that; her voice was hard with conviction. But something was most definitely off. He decided to push her a bit and see how she’d react. In a sympathetic, thoughtful voice he asked, “Why do you think they bothered to blow up the police station? It seems a bit…loud for a group of assassins. At least, I always imagined assassins to be more of a stealthy group.”

  Her face changed, a flash of unidentifiable emotion, here then gone. “Diversion, maybe. I don’t know.”

  She turned her head and he couldn’t see her expression, so he slowly walked around behind her with his hands clasped behind his back, contemplative, patient. When they were shoulder to shoulder, he set his gaze in the middle distance so he could see her in his peripheral vision. “You’re probably right. Killers seem to enjoy creating diversions. Your father’s killers, for instance—they certainly knew how to divert you. Getting Demetrius to woo you so you wouldn’t suspect his real motives was, in its own way, a stroke of genius.”

  It was nothing, it was less than nothing, but his hawk eyes detected it and recognized it for what it was: a tell. A tiny muscle beneath her left eye twitched. Once. Otherwise, her face and body remained entirely impassive. Her breathing didn’t even change.

  But now he knew. Whatever she was hiding, it had to do with Demetrius.

  His mind leapt far, far ahead, calculating possibilities, creating, examining, and discarding hypotheses, working with the swift, cold precision of a well-oiled machine.

  Perhaps there had been no assassins. Perhaps instead of an attempt to end her life, the bombing had been more of an attempt…to win her heart. She’d returned here, so the attempt had obviously not been successful, but perhaps something had been planted.

  Perhaps a seed of doubt had been sown.

  “Yes,” she agreed, her voice steady and cool, “it was genius.” She turned her head and looked him full in the face, her eyes flat, revealing nothing. “Ingenious, rather. One wonders how a group of males with room-temperature IQs normally preoccupied with nothing more than screwing and fighting could be quite so cunning.”

  Ah. A challenge. He’d been prepared for it for years. What actually surprised him was that it had taken this long.

  He returned her gaze with a steady, open one of his own. “Hatred is a powerful motivator, principessa.”

  “Hatred?” she repeated, incredulous, and turned to him. “What reason would they have to hate me?”

  “Not you,” he said with a gentle shake of his head. “Your father.”

  She stared at him, revealing nothing. “Go on.”

  Silas let his gaze drift away, lingering over the forlorn headstones. A raven caught his eye, and he followed its flight from the branches of a leafless tree until it disappeared into the winter sky beyond the pitched roof of the abbey. “Children can never truly know their parents,” he murmured sorrowfully. “Love and loyalty conspire to blind them to certain distasteful truths.”

  Without looking he felt the change in her; the stiffening, the flash of heat. “Don’t talk to me in riddles, Silas. Say what you mean to say.”

  He took pains to ensure his expression was exactly the right combination of angst, caring, and sincerity when he turned to face her. “Your father was a brilliant man, Eliana. I served him for most of my life. I know his intentions were good—”

  “Silas,” she warned, moving closer.

  “But he wasn’t always the kindest man. In fact, he could be…unspeakably cruel.”

  He let it hang there between them, enticing as a windfall plum. Eliana said nothing for long moments, and Silas guessed she was searching her memory banks for corroborating evidence. She was silent just long enough to make him think she’d found it.

  “Kings are known to be heavy-handed,” she said stiffly. “The burden of rule rests on their shoulders. They can’t afford to be…soft.”

  “There is heavy-handed, Eliana, and then there is bloodthirsty. Tyrannical. Ruthless.” His voice dropped. “Mad.”

  She barked a disbelieving laugh. “Mad? My father, mad? You yourself said he was brilliant—”

  “Genius and madness often go hand in hand—”

  “What proof do you h
ave?” She was livid now, breathing hard, eyes flashing cold fire. She stepped even closer, and he took in a deep, intoxicating breath of her scent, not perfume but something richer, darker, decadent. “What evidence can you produce? My father worked his entire life to find the solution to the problem of our infertility and the curse of the Transition that’s plagued us since the beginning of time. And he found it! He actually did it! What kind of brutal madman would want us to survive, to join Bloodlines with humans and live in peace—”

  “Your brother shares a portion of your father’s particular brand of madness,” Silas interrupted, very quietly. She blanched, her lips flattened in disgust. “But none of his genius and none of his foresight. Caesar is warped in ways your father wasn’t, but, my dear, your father was warped in ways only the devil himself could conjure. Ask, if you don’t believe me.” He gestured toward the abbey. “Ask your friend Mel. Ask any of the rest of them. Your father had a side so dark it puts the blackest pits of hell to shame.”

  She flinched. All the color had drained from her face.

  “I’m sorry. Truly I am. I only say this to you now to help you understand why the Bellatorum conspired to kill your father and take the kingdom for themselves. They found out about the serum somehow—I assume it was from reading your father’s journal, or from Demetrius’s Gift of Foresight—and they knew it would put their own status in jeopardy if all the half-Blood caste of Legiones could survive the Transition. They’d no longer be one-of-a-kind warriors—they’d be one of hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds. How special would they be then? They used you as a pawn in their game of domination, and I believe, I have always believed, that their ultimate goal is nothing less than domination of the world itself. They’ll move first on the other colonies, kill the Alphas and their families, just like in Rome, and then they’ll turn their sights on the world at large. These are killers, Eliana. Killers who are tired of answering to anyone. Killers who will not hesitate to take what they want, by any means possible.”