by Lund, S. E.
“How is it that Soren doesn’t know that my mother’s alive? He’ll find out if he doesn’t already know.”
“He has some blind spots,” my mother says. “He doesn’t see us, Eve.”
Michel holds out his hand. “No, Natalia. Don’t.”
She looks at him, her expression frustrated. “It’s the only way to convince her.”
Michel holds his head as if he has a headache. “Now you’ve played a card that you can’t take back,” he says to my mother, a note of resignation in his voice.
She turns back to me and shrugs. There’s a determined look in her eyes, as if she’s made her decision and is going through with it. “He doesn’t know my mind. Or Michel’s. Or Dylan’s. Or your mind,” she says. “We’re opaque to him and so he doesn’t see us.”
“No, you’re wrong,” I say, shaking my head. “He’s been in my mind before. I know it. He’s spoken to me.”
“Only when he shares blood with you can he access your thoughts, but the ability fades once the blood leaves your system. The rest of the time, you’re a blank. He can’t get into your mind, he can’t see you or your role in events. We’re all blind spots. Adepts are invisible to him.”
“But Michel can be compelled as well. If he knows you’re alive, why doesn’t Soren?”
Michel shakes his head. He glances away, as if he can’t meet my eyes. A look passes between my mother and Michel. She nods and then turns back to meet my eyes.
“Michel isn’t compellable. He never has been.”
“What?” I frown and look at my mother and then back to Michel, who keeps his eyes averted. “But all that time… I read the manuscript. It said you were both were compelled to stay with Marguerite. She forced you when you were with her to do all kinds of things. Then when you were with Soren, he forced you to kill my mother. You said it was only after you ascended that you became immune to it. You were never compelled?”
He shakes his head, staring at his hands. “I’m like you and Dylan. And your mother.”
“But Julien… You’re twins. Your DNA is identical.”
“Eve,” my mother says. “Think of epigenetics. Twin studies. Take twins separated at birth. Both twins have the 9-Repeat DAT gene for antisocial personality disorder—psychopathy. One is abused mercilessly while the other is raised in a loving environment. One becomes a criminal, the other is non-violent. All four of us have something in common. We’re all Adepts who had violent or abusive experiences at a critical time in our development. It makes us uncompellable.”
Michel sits up at that. “My father beat us. For some reason, Julien was more resilient. My father always saw something different in him and maybe favored him more. Julien stood up to him while I didn’t. It’s the experience of trauma that makes us immune. It makes us adept.”
“But Dylan…”
“Dylan’s first foster home was like yours,” he says. “His foster mother was a drug addict and he lived in neglect and abuse until the Rhys family adopted him. Natalia grew up in the rough neighborhoods of Hungary during the occupation. You were abused by Franklin…” Michel takes in a deep breath. “Julien’s still compellable and that’s why he can’t know that your mother is alive. Soren would know.”
“So you sent Julien on some errand to get him out of the way so my mother could come by?”
Michel nods. “He can’t know, Eve. It would put everything at risk, Julien’s life included, so if you truly love him, don’t tell him.”
I sit in silence for a moment. “Soren can’t get into my mind?”
“His telepathy is one way, unless he shares blood with you. He can get into your mind and talk to you, but he can’t read you,” Michel says. “That’s why he needs you to connect him to the others. That’s what they lost. They lost their ability to connect with each other. It’s a one-way link only but you give them the ability to reconnect.”
“I’m sure he can,” I say, remembering the times he’s said things that were too close to what I was thinking. “He’s read my thoughts before.”
My mother shakes her head. “No. He’s just very skilled at reading you as a person and he watches for your response. I’m certain of it. We’ve tested him. You’ll go back to Soren, cooperate, and when the time is right, we’ll make our move against him,” my mother says. “If all goes as we plan, Soren will stop the plague, then he’ll be destroyed, and we’ll re-establish the Council and enforce the Treaty. We’ll make our move against Blackstone. Then we’ll eradicate vampirism.”
“Soren already has a cure. Or, should I say, a poison that kills vampires.”
“He also has the antidote to the plague,” my mother points out. “Once he deploys it, we’ll kill him. Then vampires will be history.”
“What about a cure? I thought you had changed your mind about killing them all.”
“At this point, that’s not possible,” she says. “Our only hope is to stop both Soren and the plague. Vampires will have to die off completely. Lord knows we’ve wrought enough pain and death against mortals that we don’t deserve to exist. We don’t have the time to spend finding a way to cure vampirism without killing them.”
I frown. “But that means you’ll die. And Dylan. I’ll die as well.”
“You won’t die if we’re successful,” she points out. “By cooperating with Soren, by giving him power and helping him in his little power play, he’ll turn you back into mortals, if you want. It’s then that we’ll act against him.”
It’s too much for me to take in at once. “I want to ask Julien what he thinks of all this,” I say to Michel.
“You can’t, Eve,” Michel reminds me. “Julien is compellable. The first thing Soren will do is force Julien to tell him everything he knows.
I cross my arms. I hate that I can’t talk to Julien about this. “I don’t trust Soren to do what he promises,” I admit. “You two think you can see the future, but so does Soren. He knows each and every possible future as well.”
“He doesn’t know all the parts we each play in those ends,” Michel says. “And he can’t see the four of us. Dylan, you, Natalia, and me. That’s the key. And that’s all I can say without messing up the future.”
“So, I’ll know the plan when I need to and not before? Is this more of what was done before? I know the plan without knowing I know it?”
Michel shrugs. “I can’t say.”
I sigh, exasperated, trying to understand it all. I turn to my mother. I should feel ecstatic that she’s alive and here with me. Instead, I feel only betrayal. “So I should cooperate?” I ask.
“If there was any other way…” she says, reaching out to touch my hand. “We don’t have much time, Eve. Every day the plague spreads. Now, are you with us?”
I glance at Michel. “Yes.”
“Good. You have to go,” she explains. “Take Julien back to Soren. Play along with him. Things will be put in place when the time is right.”
Michel is still really upset. “There is another way, Natalia,” he says, his voice shaky. “I wanted this as a last resort.”
“That way took too much time. We have to move and soon.”
Michel glances at me, his face haggard. “I’m sorry, Eve. Please know that this wasn’t my choice.”
I shrug, not knowing what he means. “I’m past forgiving you, Michel.” When I say it, I see him cringe. I turn to my mother. “Let’s do it.”
My mother smiles, but Michel is not nearly as happy. He seems as if there’s a huge weight on his shoulders.
My mother stands up. “I have to leave, now, or I’ll see Julien on the way out.”
She comes to me and pauses, a pained expression on her face. I know she wants to be my mother again, but there’s still a part of me that refuses to let her in.
“I’m sorry it had to be this way, Eve,” she says softly. “Believe me, if I could have wished this all away, I would have. We all have to do our duty.”
“You could have come to me. If Soren can’t read us as you say, th
ere was no reason to stay away.”
“Soren might not see me, but others can. I had to stay completely out of your life so there was no trace of me.”
I nod, but don’t make a move to hug her. The door closes with a heavy thud behind her.
* * *
Michel and I sit in silence for a while, nothing but the sound of wind outside the windows.
“Are you never going to speak to me again?” he asks, his voice sounding hurt.
“Give me one good reason why I should.”
“Because I love you and you love me, in spite of it all.”
I close my eyes and take in a deep breath. I’m not even going to argue with him about this. I don’t know if I love him any more. How could I after everything?
There’s a knock at the door. “Come,” Michel says and a guard opens the door and pokes his head in.
“You asked to be notified when Julien returned. He’s downstairs in the parking garage.
Michel nods. “Thank you.”
The guard leaves, closing the door behind him.
“What do I say to him?” I ask. “Unlike you, I hate lying.”
“Go ahead and tell him everything, Eve, if you really want to,” Michel says, waving his hands. “It will kill him. Maybe all of us.”
I shake my head and fist my hands to stop from responding.
“Go get him,” he says with a weary sigh. “It’s time to leave.”
* * *
I speak with the guard, who tells me that Julien is now in the building’s lobby, answering some question about security. I take the stairs and find him standing in the storefront, watching the street, his arms crossed. I tiptoe up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist, my head resting in his strong back.
I hear his intake of breath, and then he lays his hands on mine. “It’s time to go back,” I whisper. “But I really wish you and I could run away from all this. Go somewhere and forget about everything.”
He turns around and wraps his arms around me, pulling me against his body. “Me, too,” he says, his voice warm. “You don’t know how many times I’ve thought the same thing.”
“I’m so tired of this life, Julien. All the lies, the deception. The tragedy in my life. The secrecy. I feel as if I’ve never had any happy moments in my life.”
“You’ve never been happy?”
I shake my head. “Not completely. There’s always been this sense of impending doom, even when I’ve been momentarily happy with you.”
He pulls me more tightly into his arms. “I’m so sorry about everything that’s happened to you. I wanted none of this, but this is what we have to face. War asks a lot of us.”
“I guess I thought I’d be doing research, not any of this,” I say, frowning.
“I know. You thought you’d take over where your mother left off. Maybe you can one day. Maybe it’s just a matter of time.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, wishing I could confide in him but afraid that if I do, what Michel says will come true and Julien will die. I can’t stand to have anything happen to him. We can’t discover the key to immortality soon enough for my liking and the first thing I’ll do when Soren and Blackstone are defeated is look for it.
I’ve made up my mind.
“What do you think Soren wants from you?” I ask.
“More torture, no doubt. He’ll want to make each of us jealous of the other. Compel me to be with Gabrielle to make you jealous. Put you with Michel to make me jealous. His usual MO.”
“He loves to see people struggle. It’s like he can’t feel things himself so he needs to watch others feel for him,” I say, laying my head against his chest.
“I never thought of that,” he comments. “Makes sense, though. I figured it was just having all that power. It corrupts, and I believe it. Soren’s always been tougher on Michel because he knows I didn’t want to kill Marguerite, that I spared her the agony of burning to death by staking her. If I could have seen what the consequences would have been, I would have fought Michel harder to keep her alive. But he was desperate.”
I squeeze Julien more tightly, wishing we could have just thrown Soren back into one of the tanks. “We can’t see the future,” I remind him. “All we can do is make decisions based on the evidence we have at the time. That’s all, Julien.”
Julien sighs. “I wish…” he says and strokes my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I wish we could run away. All I want is for us to be together, but we have to see this through. We have to stop them both—Soren and Blackstone.”
I nod and stand on my tiptoes to kiss him softly, hugging him more tightly to me.
When we pull away, he kisses the top of my head and we stay like that for a long moment. Who knows when we will get the chance to embrace again.
* * *
We collect Julien’s possessions before returning to the vehicle. Before we get inside, I slip my arms around Julien, pulling him down to kiss him in front of Michel. I don’t care if Michel sees me, because I will never, under any circumstances, be with him again. I want him to realize that I’m with Julien now.
Whatever we had is over.
Julien holds me in his arms and kisses me back. Then he gets inside the vehicle. Before I can get in, Michel comes to me and pulls me aside.
“What do you want?”
He shakes his head slowly, an expression of regret on his face. “I know what you’re trying to do, Eve. I’m sorry you had to learn all this. I’m sorry for my deceit. I don’t blame you one bit for giving up on me. I expected it.”
I shrug, not wanting to concede anything to him. I turn to the vehicle and see Julien through the window. He’s watching, his brow furrowed. “You’ve lied to me so much, I’ll never know whether to believe you again.”
Michel looks a bit desperate, his lips pressed thin. “I lied only to protect you, Eve.”
I turn back to watch Julien, who is looking at me with such warmth in his eyes, such affection and sympathy that I don’t want to look away.
“This is a lot to take in,” Michel says. He sounds so tired. “Give yourself some time. We were only doing all of this to protect you and to prevent Dominion.”
“The road to hell,” I mutter, wiping my cheeks. “I don’t know who to trust anymore, except Julien. I’m not sure whether to cooperate with you or fight you.”
“Don’t do anything right now,” he whispers. “Give it time before you decide what to do.”
I turn and examine him. I can see pain in his expression, in the wideness of his eyes and the way his mouth is turned down in the corners. His eyes are bloodshot as if he too could cry at any moment.
His telling me the truth is a bit too late for me to forgive him, and for me to be with him again. I’m surprised at how much it hurts my heart to think that I could ever stop loving him, but right now, I have.
Chapter 102
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
William Shakespeare
We take the vehicle back to Soren’s compound. As usual, the streets are deserted and except for an occasional face in a window, I don’t see a living soul. The winter is cold and a light snow falls as we drive through the streets. Here and there are the burnt hulks of buildings that were razed to the ground. With no firefighting capacity and no water service, fires burn themselves out, leaving the charred corpses behind.
It makes me sad to see the city this way. I love Boston’s cobblestone streets and old buildings. I love the new parts of the city and the harbor. Now it’s a mess. I wonder how far the plague has spread and how long it will take for this plan to make a difference. How much of the world can we save?
Can we save it or will it all fall into the steam age?
We approach Soren’s compound once more, and are met by armed guards who examine the vehicle’s occupants and wave us by. We’re expected.
When we get to the driveway in front of the mansion, two guards come to the vehicle and stop us. They haul Julien out and put manacles
on his wrists and ankles. Julien resists initially, but then Michel shakes his head.
“It’s just show,” Michel says. “You know how Soren loves a performance.”
Julien gives in and holds his wrists out so they can cuff him in the old metal shackles. My heart squeezes, because I’m sure Soren will be gloating to have Julien under his control once more. He’ll show Julien his power in the hopes of striking fear into Julien’s mortal heart.
I follow with Michel as the guards lead Julien down the long hallways to Soren’s study. We find Soren sitting at his desk with the blonde Gabrielle sitting on his knee, dressed in a revealing gown of blood red that highlights her pale skin. He’s nuzzling her neck with affection.
I remember what Soren said to me about losing someone you love and feeling one hundred times the emotion a mortal feels
A memory of the dream I had of him crucified comes to mind and regret stabs through my heart. Michel is misguided. He’s an idealist willing to do very bad things for the end he thinks is right. He’s dangerous, as all extremists are, but even now, even after everything I’ve learned about Michel, I still don’t want to see him dead.
The guard hauls Julien into the room, his chains clinking and jangling. Soren looks up from Gabrielle and sees us, immediately smiling, his expression one of triumph.
How I hate him.
The guard shoves Julien to his knees in front of the desk.
“Well, well, well,” Soren says, sitting up and pushing Gabrielle off his lap. “What have we here? The brave knight himself.” He rises and comes to stand in front of Julien.
For his part, Julien keeps his face impassive. If he feels any fear or hatred towards Soren, he says and does nothing to show it. He’s stoic in the face of all that gloating.
“Are the shackles necessary?” Michel asks, his voice tired.
Soren frowns. “Questioning my decisions are you, Michel? Remember, now that you’re human, you’re vulnerable. I could crush the both of you with my hand. Crucify you upside down like St. Peter.” He catches my eye briefly and a chill goes through me, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.