by Lund, S. E.
We drive to the hotel and Michel calls to order our flight to prepare, but there's been a mechanical problem and it's out of service for at least a day. He calls to find out when the first flight leaves, but it doesn't leave until early morning.
"Listen," Ed says as we sit in the hotel room. "I still think we need to check his place out tomorrow."
"You can do that on your own," Michel says. "I'm sending Eve back on the first flight out of here. I can't believe we brought her directly to Soren. Merde," he says and rakes his fingers through his hair. "I can't believe it."
He sits and stares at me as if I'm going to disappear before his eyes.
Then, his cell rings and he checks the caller display.
"Damn," he says, his eyes closed. Then, he taps the icon and answers. "Yes," he says, his voice low.
"I can't do that."
He listens.
Silence.
"I'll be with her the entire time. That's my one condition."
He listens some more and now I wonder what bargain he's striking. He ends the call and shakes his head.
"This is insane. This was a set-up," he says to us, his voice on edge. "He just wanted to get Eve alone somewhere and meet her. I have no choice but to take her to him or he'll kill Julien."
"What?" Ed says, looking between the two of us.
"I'll meet him," I say, not really knowing what that means. "I don't want Julien dead because of me."
* * *
We have a late meeting at the compound where Soren trains his recruits. It will mean a late night before Ed and my early morning flight, but we have to go. Ed drives the rental car and we arrive half an hour early, hoping to spend some time wandering around before the meeting, and are met by a young man dressed in combat fatigues at a guardhouse who requests our names and some identification. I pull out my badge and he looks it over and checks my name on his roster. He nods to Ed and Michel, keeping our ID and asks for our weapons.
I hand him my empty revolver and both Ed and Michel do the same.
The young man gives us directions and Ed drives to a low hangar-like building that looks like it would house small planes. I'm surprised at how little activity there is, and how freely we're able to move around.
Ed parks the car and we go into the small building, which houses Soren's private offices and find ourselves in a small reception area. There's no one there to greet us but we hear the murmur of voices off to the rear of the building. While Michel and Ed check out a door to the north, I step to a partially opened door in the south of the hall that leads to the back of the building and listen - the unmistakable sound of a male and female laughing intimately.
A deep voice - Soren, and a high female voice - perhaps his secretary - I can't tell. I peer through the crack in the door and am shocked at what I see. In the darkness, with only faint light from under the door illuminating the scene, I see them. Soren's pants are undone and are half-way down his muscular thighs. He's leaning over a young woman who is herself bent over a desk, her skirt hiked up, her legs spread. But what shocks me is what I see in the darkness behind him—a pair of huge black wings. I gasp and in an instant what I thought were wings transform into shadow and Soren turns his head towards the door where I hide.
I turn and walk back to Michel and Ed, not knowing what I saw or what to say.
"I saw him," I say, almost choking on my words.
"Where?"
"In an office in the back. With his secretary."
A few moments later, the young woman enters the hall and goes to the reception desk. The only sign that she's had sex is her still-flushed cheeks. She smiles sweetly when she sees us and asks for our names. She picks up a phone and speaks into it.
"He'll see you now," she says, and leads us past the desk where the two had sex and points to an office with an impressive leather chair and ornately carved mahogany desk.
He enters the room from an adjoining one - the bathroom, I suppose. He's wiping his face on a towel.
"You caught me at a bad time," he says, a smile on his full lips. "I was just washing up." He raises his eyebrows suggestively at me. Did he know I was there earlier?
I saw something strange – wings. Could they have been just shadows?
He finishes drying himself off and throws the towel onto a table before sitting down at his desk, motioning us to be seated as well.
I sit in a chair with Michel standing behind me as if to claim me. Soren sits with his palms held together almost in prayer.
Is he mocking us? I can't suppress a shudder.
"Cut to the chase," Michel says. "You wanted Eve here. Here she is."
Soren smiles. He gets up and comes to stand directly in front of me, just a foot away, his hands on his hips. He's so tall and powerfully built and beautiful in an unnatural way, the way Julien's manuscript described him. Every feature is perfect, symmetrical, as if he were a Greek statue come to life.
Behind me, Michel leans closer and rests his hands on my shoulders possessively.
"She's mine," he says.
"Technically, she's no one's seeing as you're too pure to claim her."
"She's Natalia's daughter."
"And she was meant for Julien," Soren says. "But I just wanted to see her for myself. You're willing to fight for her?"
"You know I can't beat you, but I will fight you even if I die."
"Relax, Michel," Soren says. "I just wanted to see her. Get to know her. After all, there's been so much to do about her. I wanted to make sure she's worth it."
"She's gifted," Michel says. "But she's not trained. We'll train her, get her ready."
"I'm sure you will." He turns to me. "How's Julien?" he says and smiles down at me. "I hear you've met both brothers. How to choose between them? That must confuse you."
"Leave Julien out of this, " I say.
"Ah, so sweet that you care about a vampire's well-being, given you want to kill them. Isn't it so sweet? I especially love it when humans fall in love with vampires. So tragic. Why, I bet you could love them both. Identical twins? How could you not?"
He steps closer, and Michel's hand tightens on my shoulder.
"I said relax, Michel. I'm not going to take her. At least, not yet. I just want to see what all the fuss is about." He tips up my chin so that I'm forced to look in his eyes. "She's pretty. I like petite blondes. You remember Marguerite, Michel." He reaches out his hand to me and I hesitate.
"Don't touch her," Michel says and his voice is low.
"Don't even think of threatening me, Michel," Soren says. "I could kill you all in the time it takes you to take a breath. I'll do what I want."
He holds his hand out, palm up.
"Stand up," he says.
I stand and he pulls me towards him so that I'm about five inches from him, our hands joined.
Then a wave of something rushes over me, a sense of a powerful questing mind searching out my own, looking for something, but I can't tell what it is. He goes all the way back to my childhood in Europe, to Budapest and the salon where I took music lessons. I'm sitting there in the ornate building at a grand piano, playing for my father and his colleagues. It's the year before my mother dies. The year before we moved back to Boston.
Then, he's at that day, and I'm sitting in the corner of my mother's office at the university, reading National Geographic magazines while she works in the lab that adjoins her office. I hear a commotion, hear glass breaking, hear a muffled sound, and then I go into the room only to find her on the floor and there's blood on her neck and it's frothing out of her mouth…
I cry out, my emotions overwhelming me because the memory's so real I feel as if I'm there in the moment, and tears bite at the corners of my eyes. Then calmness descends over me and my tears stop. He lets go of me and I almost fall back into my chair, Michel catching me, holding my shoulders. Soren goes back around the desk and takes a seat, staring at me over his steepeled hands.
"So what is it about you that Michel likes so much, Eve? Is it
your fair hair and hazel eyes? I think you remind him of someone he was once in love with." He looks up at Michel. "Danielle if I recall?"
"Eve is her own woman," Michel says, and the hatred in his voice is so clear, I'm surprised that Soren doesn't respond.
"Yes, and she has such a sweet mind to inhabit, doesn't she? Such a tragic past. So breathless for you, and yet fighting it with all her might, as if her life depends on it. And her life does depend on it, doesn't it, Michel? I can see why you want her. Is she that strategically important? Or can you just not bear the thought of me having her?"
"I love her," Michel says and it sends a wave of emotion through me.
"Oh, you love her, do you?" Soren says, his voice mocking. "She's not quite given in to you yet, has she? You haven't yet won her over, have you? She's still too fixated on finding her mother's killer. But give her time. She will be yours. You just can't wait to claim her, can you Michel? To claim her completely."
Soren smiles such an evil smile that I hate him even more if possible.
"I love it," he says and chuckles. "I love a good romance. Maybe one day, she'll have you both. Just like old times? She's attracted to him, too, you know. Even thought about it already, fucking him? But you already know that, don't you, Michel. It must just tear at your heart."
"You're a bastard," I say, and I don't know what's gotten into me. I should be afraid of him but I hate him right now so much I can't hold back.
Michel squeezes my shoulders. "She didn't mean that," he says quietly.
"I did mean it."
"Shh," Michel says.
Soren seems amused more than angry, his arms crossed, a smile on his face.
"To answer you, Eve, technically, yes," he says, "since my father and mother never married, I am a bastard but then, that kind of convention doesn't really apply to the gods."
"Gods?" I say, unable to stop myself. Michel squeezes me again and then he touches the skin on my neck with his hand and he must do something to my brain hormones because I feel a rush go through me. I can't speak, my eyes closing briefly from the intensity.
"Can we go now that you've seen her?" Michel says, his voice soft.
I open my eyes and watch as Soren purses his lips and finally nods. "Yes, by all means. Go back to Boston. Train her in the secret arts of the Adept. I suspect you're going to have a lot of fun with her. She's not likely to obey very easily. But you should get her ready for war."
Ed's been silent through all this.
"If there's nothing else?" he says, rising up. "We have work to do before Eve and I fly to Boston."
Soren nods. "I'm on my way East as well," he says. "Are you taking the flight in the morning? I heard the Council jet had some mechanical problems."
"Yes," Ed ads. "Michel has to stay until the plane's been serviced because he can't leave during the daylight. Eve and I will take the 5:30 a.m. flight."
"Tell you what," Soren says, and his voice has this conspiratorial tone to it. "I've got a spare couple of seats on my plane, and you're all welcome to come with me tomorrow at a more reasonable time. I'm leaving around noon. We'll take you all to Boston."
"We're fine with the arrangements we've made," Michel says, butting in.
"It'll save the Council some money. Come on," Soren says, smiling. "I'd enjoy the company."
Ed purses his lips and seems to seriously consider the offer. Is he crazy?
"What do you think, Eve?" he says and turns to me.
I still can't speak, and just sit there.
"It's my call, not Eve's," Michel says.
"No," Soren says, his voice firm. "It's my call. Isn't that right Michel?"
"You've seen her. That's what you wanted. Just let us go on our way."
Soren comes around from his desk and stands in front of Michel. He reaches out and cups Michel's cheek and Michel's eyes close briefly before opening again.
"I said, it's my call. There's nothing to worry about. I won't take her. She's still yours. You'll join me."
"We'll join you," Michel says, and his voice sounds flat, like Soren has compelled him.
"All right then," Ed says and extends his hand to Soren as if he's just another professional. "What time do you want us here?"
Soren shrugs. "An hour before would be fine. One of my drivers will pick you up in Helena in a UV-protected car."
He turns to me.
"Nice to meet you again, Eve," he says and bends down to me, taking my hand, kissing my knuckles. I can't respond, sitting there like a lump. "Until tomorrow."
* * *
I've never been so glad to be away from someone.
On the drive back to Helena, I slowly recover from the effect of whatever endorphin Michel's released in my brain.
"Do you really think it's a good idea to fly back with him?" I say.
Michel says nothing. He's staring out the car window, chewing on his bottom lip as if lost in thought.
"He forced you to agree, didn't he?" I say, taking Michel's hand. "He can compel you to obey him."
Finally Michel turns to me.
"There's nothing to worry about," he says. "He's not going to take you." He leans over to me, his hand tangling in my hair, and he kisses me. He strokes my cheek with his thumb. "You're still mine."
"Do you even know that he's compelled you?"
"Don't worry, Eve." He kisses me once more and turns back to the window, but he takes my hand in his, threading his fingers through mine as if his mind is afraid he'll lose me, even if part of it assures him he won't.
Ed looks at me in the rear-view mirror. "What did you think of him?"
I shake my head and gaze out the window at the stars above the hills. "I think he's very dangerous."
"He's powerful, that's for sure. All this firepower and money." Ed's thinking of weapons and soldiers. I'm thinking of his power to manipulate people's minds and of the shadows that looked like huge wings sprouting from his back. It was probably the play of shadows in a dark room. If I repeat that enough times, I might start to believe it.
Chapter 13
"Within yourself deliverance must be searched for, because each man makes his own prison."
Edwin Arnold
We arrive back at the hotel before 10:00 P.M. I go inside my room and immediately flop on the bed. Michel enters the room from his adjoining room a few moments later.
"You should get some sleep," he says. "I'll just watch news headlines. I'm not leaving you alone."
He's truly worried, despite Soren's compelling him not to. I nod and get my nightgown and toiletries and go to the bathroom, do my nightly routine of cleaning my face and teeth. I come back into the room and he's on the other bed with his shoes off, and is flipping through channels on the television. He glances at me when I go to my bed, his eyes moving over my body. I remember what Soren said – that he's attracted to me because I resemble Danielle, and that he wants me because of her.
"Julien told me there was something in your wallet I should see."
He frowns. "I told you he'd try to stir things up."
"Can I see it?"
He hesitates and then sighs, reaching into his jacket pocket to remove a thin leather wallet. He opens it and flips through it, then hands it to me.
"Go ahead."
I take it, feeling bad that I'm snooping but I don't stop. I open the wallet, which is made of fine leather and is smooth to the touch, black, with an inner fold for cash in a money clip and then a spot for credit cards and ID. Inside an inner pocket, I find a tiny picture of me as a girl, maybe ten, the year before my mother died. I sit on the side of the bed and just look at it.
I remember the day this was taken. The ten-year old me stands in the wings of a stage in an auditorium, waiting to perform in a recital. I'm wearing a black velvet dress with a big white bow tied in front and my long hair is up in a bun, tendrils falling around my face like a proper little lady. My face has this dreamy look to it, as if I'm staring off in the distance, lost in thought. It's me, just with a s
ofter face, smaller features.
He crawls over to me, and looks at it over my shoulder.
"Where did you get this?" I ask, not knowing how I feel about this.
"Your mother gave it to me."
"Why?"
"Because I supported her wish to keep you out."
"What do you mean?"
"To train you as a musician and wait until you were an adult before you were offered the option to join the Council. I helped her and your father hide from the Council."
"Michel," I say and turn to look at him. "Why didn't you tell me this?"
He shrugs one shoulder.
"I thought it would upset you to know."
"It upsets me that you didn't tell me." I look on the back and see my name written on the back with the year. My mother's handwriting. "Did I ever meet you?"
"That night," he says and points to the picture. "It was the recital after your Grade Six Royal Conservatory examination in London. After the event was over at the reception, I stopped by to congratulate you and we shook hands."
"So you knew my parents well."
"No," he says. "Not well at all. I was merely an intermediary between my group and your family. I didn't know your family had gone back to Boston until a year later. Before I could reestablish contact, your mother died. I did my best to ensure the Council didn't get you in their clutches."
"So it was you who lost my file?"
He doesn't say anything for a while.
"I had a contact in the normal child welfare system who was supposed to find you a good home, and I did lose track of you as soon as you went to live with your foster family. I didn't want to know where you were or who you were with. I wanted to forget about your existence completely, to protect you from the Council. And I succeeded, until you were looking for a translator. I had no idea Julien gave the manuscript to your mother. I asked him for it and he said he'd given it to a collector."
I just sit and look at the picture, my memories drawn back to that time of my life, travelling with my parents through Europe that last year before we moved back to Boston.