“Aiutami!” Sandra cried out. “Aiutami!” More Italian followed, but it was too rushed for me to pick out any cognates. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me away from the buzzing crowd forming around our fallen foe and back toward the David—toward the gallery, where I assumed Vali was fending off the outraged woman and the five policemen, if that’s even what they were.
“I told them he’s having a heart attack,” Sandra said. “That should clear the exit enough that I can get you away and back to the palazzo, and—”
“Sandra, no!” I dug in my heels and yanked my arm free from her small hand. The museum was filled with too much cacophony now to hear what was going on with Marcus in the restricted area upstairs; for all we knew, he could’ve been fending off twenty huge men at that very moment. “We can’t leave Marcus. That guy said—”
“Heru can handle himself just fine.” She reached for my arm again, but before she could touch me, there was a single, explosive crack of gunfire coming from one of the rooms overhead … where Marcus’s voice had been coming from the last time I’d heard it. Sandra’s eyes widened, mirroring mine.
In the blink of an eye, a misty cloud of every color exploded around me, sweeping me out of existence. The gunshot had given Nuin’s borrowed powers the jumpstart they needed to kick in instinctively and sweep me to the one place I most needed to be—wherever Marcus was.
I reformed in a scene from a horror movie. A well-lit room with empty walls that had once been white and floor tiles that had once been the orange-brown of terracotta were spattered and streaked with crimson. The terracotta tiles were barely visible through all of the blood.
And then there were the bodies, broken and strewn about haphazardly like a child’s discarded toys. There had to be at least a half-dozen bodies, both male and female and all dressed in jeans and black T-shirts, all except for a crumpled form in the corner, wearing black slacks and a light blue dress shirt—Giovanni. Most looked like they’d had their throats either slit open or torn out completely. The meaty, metallic smell made my stomach churn, and I salivated and swallowed compulsively, a sure sign I was on the verge of throwing up.
In the center of the room was a blood-spattered marble sculpture—La Donna Triste, I assumed—but I could hardly spare it a glance. Not when Marcus, covered in enough blood to make me think he’d rolled on the floor at some point during the struggle, was holding a woman against the far wall with a single hand wrapped around her neck.
Sara’s rich caramel complexion and pale blouse were soiled with smudges of blood, though she wasn’t wearing nearly as much as Marcus, and her dark, glossy hair was in disarray. She was holding onto Marcus’s wrist with both hands as her feet dangled helplessly above the floor.
“Marcus!” I took several lurching steps toward him, my sandals slipping on the slick tile. “Jesus …” I had to stop partway to him to steady myself. “Are you okay? I heard a gun …”
Marcus released Sara, and she dropped to the floor with a splat, boneless and gasping for air. When he looked at me, his eyes were almost entirely black, only the thinnest strip of gold visible around his pupils. Nostrils flaring, he scanned me from head to toe. “You are upset.” He frowned. “So they came after you, too.”
He held out a hand as I neared, cautioning me not to close the final few feet separating us.
“No—yes—” I shook my head. “I mean, yes, they tried something, but it didn’t work, and of course I’m upset—I just walked into a room filled with dead bodies and blood … and you’re covered in blood …” I let out a single, despondent wail.
Looking up at the ceiling, I took a deep breath … which was a mistake. The air was so thick with the scent of blood I could taste it on my tongue. “Oh God …” I slapped my hand over my mouth, and my eyes started watering.
Marcus’s focus shifted to a point behind me. “Sandra, call Carlisle. Tell him we need a clean-up team here, right now, and tell him to call Mayor Peruzzi and make arrangements for law enforcement to turn a blind eye here for the next few hours.” He paused, then added, “When he confirms the Mayor’s cooperation, pull the fire alarm. Also, please have Carlisle send Dom with a clean set of clothes for me.”
Sandra bowed her head and pulled her phone from her back pocket, turning away as she brought it up to her ear.
Taking a deep breath, Marcus crouched in front of Sara. “Why did you make a deal with Set to arrange an ambush and try to kill me?”
Sara looked at him, blinked several times, then started to laugh; the sound was laced with hysteria. “Kill you? We didn’t set this all up to kill you.” Her wild eyes focused on me, filling with burning hatred. “We did it to detain you, so our other people could abduct her.”
Marcus tilted his head to the side. “Why? What does Set want with Lex now?”
Sara’s lips curved into a placid smile. “I didn’t ask, because I didn’t care.” Her smile melted, and she glared at Marcus. “I just wanted her gone. I wanted to rip her out of your life. I wanted to hurt you the way you hurt me.”
I shook my head in disgust. “What the hell is wrong with you? You made a deal with Set because—what? Because you’re a woman scorned?” I flung my hand behind me, in the general direction of the blood and bodies strewn about the room. “These people are dead because of you.” Sure, technically they were dead because of Marcus, but they wouldn’t have been there to be slaughtered by him in the first place if not for Sara’s petty deal with Set.
Sara’s eyes widened, and I thought I was actually getting through to her. Until I saw her attention shift to the sculpture in the middle of the room, lingering on it for a few seconds before returning to my face. I gritted my teeth and thought, This again?
“Impossible,” she whispered. “That can’t be. It’s not possible …” Again, her eyes shifted from me to the stone sculpture.
It was only natural to follow her line of sight.
And what I saw when I finally looked at La Donna Triste—when I finally really looked at her—made the blood and the bodies and Sara and even Marcus fall away, until it was just me and the sad woman. Until nothing else mattered.
Because she was me.
CHAPTER FIVE
Flesh & Stone
All of the mentions of impossibility and coincidence, all of the wide-eyed looks and raised eyebrows, Vali’s “makes more sense now” comment—it was all suddenly so clear.
La Donna Triste looked exactly like me.
She was sitting on her hip, her hand planted beside her, propping her up, and her lazily curled legs extended to one side. She was dangling her other hand over something, the same something she was gazing into; water, I thought, though to me it just looked like she was staring at the blood-soaked floor. A symbol had been carved into her chest, clearly not part of the original design.
And her name, La Donna Triste—the sad woman—truly befit her; she emanated sadness and heartbreak and eons of loss. I couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through to look so incredibly sad. I couldn’t imagine what I would have to go through to look so sad.
I blinked and shook my head as I took slow steps toward her. This wasn’t a depiction of me … it was not. I had to get that through my thick skull. La Donna Triste was not a sculpture of me. She was a woman Marcus must have known centuries ago, or maybe just some stranger Michelangelo had used as a model, but she wasn’t me; I was only twenty-four, and I’d certainly never met Michelangelo. Which made the whole situation so much more disturbing.
A coincidenza, Marcus had called it. A coincidence. A disturbing, mesmerizing, nauseating coincidence.
I sat on her pedestal and leaned in until my face was inches from hers. Subtle things were different—the arch of her right eyebrow, and the part in her hair—which made me feel a little better. At first. That momentary relief evaporated as I realized that she would look more right, more like me, if she were reflected. Because as she was now, it was like looking at a duplicate, at an exact, colorless copy, when what I was so used to looking at w
as a reflection of myself in a mirror.
Lowering my eyes to the symbol etched into her chest—a dog-like animal with pointy ears, sitting on its haunches, its forked tail held upright behind it—I felt unexpected rage burn within my veins. It was Set’s symbol, the Set-animal. His people did this to her, because she looked like me. They did this to Marcus, because she looked like me. It was almost like this was Set’s way to put a claim on me, through her.
“Sandra,” I heard Marcus say, “please text Dom and tell him to bring a change of clothes for Lex as well. Ah, Vali, there you are …”
Frowning, I glanced down at myself, not understanding what was wrong with my current attire. It was when I shifted on the marble pedestal, moving away from the sad woman’s face, that I felt the sticky wetness seeping through the back of my skirt. I was sitting in blood.
I managed to care for all of six seconds, until my attention touched on La Donna Triste’s necklace, just above the engraving of the Set-animal on her chest. The pendant hanging from an almost invisible chain was a falcon, its wings tucked in and its head turned to the side, just like the pendant hanging from a chain around my own neck. I touched my pendant, but my fingers felt numb.
The resemblance. Her emotion. Marcus’s attachment to her. His need to hide her from me. Her necklace. I didn’t understand what it all meant. But it had to mean something.
Uncounted minutes passed, a fire alarm went off, and people rushed into, around, and out of the room, scouring it of the blood and death and leaving behind the scent of bleach. It stung my nose, but still I stared at La Donna Triste. I needed to know who she was.
“Little Ivanov?” Marcus was standing on the other side of the sculpture. “Lex?”
I tore my eyes away from La Donna’s face to look up at him.
“Dom has a fresh dress for you.” He pointed toward the doorway that led out to the rest of the museum’s second floor with his chin. “You should go change so we can return to—”
“Who is she?” My fingertips were still touching the pendant hanging around my neck.
Marcus inhaled and exhaled seven times and stared down at me with guarded eyes, but he didn’t say anything.
“Who is she, Marcus, and why does she look like me?” My old friend hysteria had finally shown up to the party, making my voice shriller than I liked.
Still, Marcus said nothing.
“At least tell me why you didn’t want me to see her … why you were hiding this from me. Please, Marcus …”
His mouth opened and shut, and he winced. Wincing was bad. Wincing meant he was considering continuing to hide this mysterious truth from me because he thought dealing with whatever anger doing so would incur from me might be better than dealing with my reaction to the truth.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “I’ll be with Dom. Let me know when you’re ready to leave,” I said as I stood, looking down at the floor, at the barren wall behind him, at Sara, who was being handcuffed by a Nejerette in the corner of the room, anywhere but at Marcus. I made my way to the doorway in a fog but paused before I reached it, turning my head just enough that I could see Marcus in my peripheral vision. “Giovanni?”
“Dazed, but alright. I knocked him out when it all started, to protect him.”
“Good.” I swallowed. “That’s good.” Sara’s pettiness may have resulted in the deaths of a handful of Set cult followers, but at least the innocent young man was safe. I turned my head a fraction more, just enough that I could see Marcus’s eyes; he was staring down at La Donna Triste, his face etched with longing.
Fissures spread through my heart, cracking it and causing little pieces to crumble away. This was the problem with loving Marcus; he could wound me so deeply with just a look.
“Lex?” Dom touched my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get you changed.”
CHAPTER SIX
Her & Me
When Marcus opened the bedroom door, I was sitting on the foot of our bed; I had been for nearly an hour. He shut the door quietly before crossing the room to one of the tall, east-facing windows, clasping his hands behind his back as he stared down at the gardens. That he always chose that stance, preferred to look outside rather than at me whenever we were at odds, was incredibly frustrating. And even more frustrating was that I doubted his go-to reaction would ever change.
I waited, staring at his back. I waited for him to explain, to tell me something—anything—that would help me understand.
“Are you alright?” he finally asked.
My hands clenched, gripping the muted floral fabric of my second sundress of the day.
He showed me his profile, but his eyes remained downcast. “I know it bothers you … when I kill.”
I snorted. That probably should have been what was bothering me, but it wasn’t. I hadn’t thought much about the bodies since I’d laid eyes on her.
“I had no choice, Lex,” he continued. “I had to get them out of the way so I could—”
“Why does she look like me?”
When he still didn’t answer, only returned to looking out the window, I stood, took several steps toward him, and gripped his shoulder. I pulled him around to face me. He could have resisted. To his credit, he didn’t.
“Why does she look like me, Marcus?” I narrowed my eyes as I glared up at his perfect face. “Or is it that I look like her?” A fetid lump sprouted tendrils of dread in my stomach. “Is she someone you knew … someone you loved? Is my resemblance to her what drew you to me in the first place?” Stop it, I told myself. Just shut up! Stop talking! You’re being an idiot! But I kept on going without a second’s pause. “Is that why you didn’t want me to see her—because you didn’t want me to find out your secret?”
Marcus clenched his jaw, but still said nothing.
“Who was she? One of your human wives? One of the mothers of your children?” I growled in frustration and yanked on the falcon pendant, breaking the chain. “Did you give this to me because I reminded you of her?” I threw it at him. “Damn it, Marcus, just tell me, because thinking of all the possibilities, all of the reasons for more secrets—I can’t …”
Cold washed over me in a wave, and my skin prickled with goose bumps. There was another option, something I was missing … ignoring. Something that was too far-fetched, too impossible, too terrifying. But it wasn’t impossible, not really … not anymore.
“Nuin could travel through space and time,” I said slowly, searching Marcus’s eyes. “I have half of his power, and we already know I can jump from place to place, so I could be able to move through time, too … which would mean I could travel back centuries … and she really could be … me.”
I stared into Marcus’s eyes, waiting for a flash of recognition, for some sort of confirmation. Nothing, not even a raised eyebrow or a widened eye. No hint of surprise.
“You already knew. Of course you did.” I laughed sardonically and crossed my arms over my chest. “You remember me being there, don’t you. You remember me being a part of your life five hundred years ago, and you still didn’t tell me about it.”
“Not precisely.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Oh, well … enlighten me, please.” I recrossed my arms.
“I dreamt her—you.”
“You dreamt me.”
Marcus looked up at the ceiling, clenching and unclenching his jaw several times. When he lowered his gaze, focusing on me, his eyes were alight with emotion. “The first time I saw you, when I was watching over you for Alexander, I recognized you. I had Vali send me a picture of La Donna Triste so I could compare you to her, write off the similarities I saw between the two of you as a flight of my overactive imagination.” He shook his head. “But comparing you to her only confirmed what my heart already knew: that somehow, the two of you were one and the same.”
“So why—”
Marcus silenced me with slight narrowing of his eyes. “Until a week ago, I thought it was an At-dream. My control over my ba is such tha
t I don’t have At-dreams often anymore, and when I do, it’s only when the subject of the echo is integral to my future.” The corner of his mouth curved upward. “Which seemed more and more logical the better I came to know you.”
The ice coating my veins thawed a little. How could it not, when he was looking at me like that?
“But once you absorbed a full half of Nuin’s power, I came to think that maybe, just maybe, you actually visited me in 1517 … and considering that Nuin could also conceal memories completely …”
My arms relaxed until they hung at my sides, and I shook my head, laughing softly. It was a humorless sound. The possibility that I would, at some point in my future, travel back five hundred years to visit Marcus’s past was so unfathomable it was laughable. But that didn’t make it any less possible.
“You figured I could’ve done the same to you, traveled back in time and blocked your memory of it.”
“Precisely, Little Ivanov.”
I frowned, far from mollified. “So, why didn’t you just tell me?” My brow furrowed, and my eyes stung with a sudden welling of unshed tears. “Why’d you hide La Donna from me? Because that’s why you didn’t want me to come to the Accademia today, and why you left me in the gallery so you could go off with Giovanni alone …” I squeezed my eyes shut. “You didn’t want me to see her, because you didn’t want me to know the truth, and I need to know why, Marcus. I need to know why you felt the need to hide that from me.”
He pressed his lips together.
I shook my head and cleared my throat. “I need to be alone … to think.” Heading for the door, I said, “I’m going down to the gardens.”
Resonance: An Echo Trilogy Novella (Echo Trilogy, #1.5) Page 3