The Reckoning

by Alma Katsu

  “I want you to go to the room behind the kitchen,” Adair continued. “You’ll find a woman in there. Bring her some towels and untie her hands so she can wash up.”

  The word “untie” cut through the air like a high, sharp bell, and the young ones glanced nervously at one another to see if they’d heard correctly. Shock melted into disbelief at what they’d heard, and one of them laughed, thinking it was a joke.

  Jonathan started to rise. “Let me take care of it.”

  “Stay where you are,” Adair growled without taking his eyes off the young orphan, who, despite being heir to millions, seemed as surly and insecure as a kitchen boy. “No. You’ll do it, Mika. . . . You want to go see what I’m talking about, don’t you? I can feel that you do. There’s a good boy. Mind you don’t listen to a word the woman says. She is a siren, and you know about sirens, don’t you? They can drive men mad with their song.”

  “He’s had too much to drink,” Jude said apologetically to the boys. “He’s kidding, obviously.”

  Tilde started for the hall. “Mika, stay where you are. I think it would be best if I handled this—”

  “Sit down!” Adair boomed, shocking the room into stillness. “Did you not hear what I just said? It’s Mika’s job. I want him to prove himself to me,” Adair said, his tone unmistakable in its warning.

  Conflicting emotions battled inside; earlier, he had disapproved of Tilde corrupting the boy, but now, in his drunken state, Adair wanted to see how the boy would react when faced with someone weaker in peril, like coming across a rabbit in a snare. Does he let it go, or does he snap its neck? Or perhaps by sending the boy, an unknown quantity, to see his prisoner, he was tempting fate to upset his plans. As Adair sat with all those eyes staring at him, the room tense and uncomfortable, he realized that all he wanted was to make this spectacle stop. As though there was someone capable of stopping him.

  The boy stared at him pointedly before walking off in the direction of the kitchen, and his friends wisely chose to disappear, heading for the staircase. Before anyone else could speak, the doorbell rang. Jude sprinted for it, seeming relieved for the opportunity to get away. Before long, however, they heard a man’s raised voice demanding to see the owner of the house, a murmured response from Jude, and then the man’s voice again, louder, and the name “Lanore” distinctly audible, as well as “police.” Tilde started to rise but Adair raised his hand, bidding her to remain, and he lurched from his seat to follow Jude’s path out of the room.

  A tall, middle-aged man stood beyond the doorway, trying to get around Jude, who was barring the way. The man was harried and flushed, nervous but not about to leave without being persuaded more strongly. He pushed his eyeglasses farther up the bridge of his nose.

  “I’m telling you, there’s no one named ‘Tilde’ here,” Jude was saying patiently as Adair stepped behind him.

  “What’s going on? Can I be of help?” He wanted to get a good look at this man he presumed to be Dr. Luke Findley.

  “As I was explaining to your friend here, I’ve come looking for my girlfriend. Her name is Lanny. I know she’s here. Her cell phone GPS shows this address—” The man stopped speaking once he peered deeply into Adair’s eyes, and discomfort descended over him visibly. “You’re Adair, aren’t you? The man she told me about. You’re real. You really exist,” he said with a touch of awe, his voice dry. Jude stepped backward, away from the door.

  “Yes, I am. And you are . . . ?”

  “Luke Findley. But you know that already, don’t you?”

  “It seems we both know a little about each other. Come in, Findley. Lanore is here, but you will forgive me if I don’t send for her right now: she’s not in a position to receive visitors.” Much to Adair’s amusement, this man obeyed like someone in a dream, walking slowly into the hall. From there, he took in the others, suddenly understanding that the stories were true. He peered more closely, curious and repulsed at the same time, but didn’t comment.

  Adair looked Luke up and down. “So you are Lanore’s lover. To tell the truth, I am surprised. Do not take this the wrong way, but you are something of a disappointment. Not up to her usual standards. Lanore usually prefers her men . . . better looking.”

  “I heard you do, too,” Luke countered automatically.

  Adair was taken aback. The comeback was a surprise; perhaps he wasn’t as harmless as he appeared if he had the courage to say something like this. Brave or not, however, Adair reacted as he would to any jibe and punched Luke in the face with a closed fist. Something cracked inside Luke’s mouth, and blood dribbled from his bottom lip, which he had bitten through. He spit shards of a broken tooth into a palm.

  “Take care you don’t anger me further or you’ll find out exactly how I like my men,” Adair warned as he examined a scrape across his knuckles, a nick from the edge of one of Luke’s teeth. “Do you think maybe her tastes have changed and she is looking for a father figure, old man?” he said while flexing his hand, the cut quickly vanishing as though it had never existed. “It never would have worked between the two of you. She wouldn’t have been content for long. You’d have become nothing more than a lapdog for her, an amusement to keep her company. She hates being alone, you know. She’d welcome the devil into her bed so long as he promised to stay until morning.” He watched the man flinch. “Yes, that’s all you could ever be to her: a servant when you can be useful to her, a toy when you cannot. She can be ruthless, you know.”

  “I guess you’d know,” Luke mumbled through bloodied lips. “She got rid of you, didn’t she?”

  One of the onlookers let out a hiss, another a groan, amused by the visitor’s foolhardiness. This time Adair said nothing in response, just drove a punch hard into Luke’s stomach. He leaned over Luke, who had fallen to the floor and was writhing helplessly. “You haven’t a hope in the world against me. I advise you to try my patience no more.”

  He waved an arm at the pack of jackals at his back, suddenly tired of the audience. “Get out, all of you. Leave me alone with him.” They shuffled out, casting sideways glances his way as he paced the marble foyer. Let them be confused, he decided, not caring what they thought anymore.

  Adair could sense that Lanore’s feelings for Luke were genuine; in a way, they were as strong as they had been for Jonathan, although they represented a different kind of love. It bothered him tremendously that he could lose Lanore to such an unremarkable man. It didn’t take the sun god to steal her from him.

  He kicked Luke as he lay on the ground, deep into his soft stomach, then a second time to his face. It felt good to hit someone, to exorcise his anger. “Why did you come here?” he asked when he’d finished working him over, his monumental rage finally subsiding. “Do you think you are more deserving of her than I, that you have any claim to her at all? What did you think you could possibly do for her by coming here?”

  “I had to come,” Luke managed to gasp out, arms clasped over his stomach, sputtering blood onto the blond wood floors. “I knew she was here. I couldn’t abandon her. I’d rather die than live without her.” Adair wanted to despise the man on the floor before him but couldn’t; they were too much alike, both helpless in their love for her.

  If he couldn’t make himself kill this man, he wanted the lovesick fool to be gone from his sight. He pushed his sweat-soaked hair back from his face, then leaned over Luke. “I’m done with you—for now,” Adair said, lifting him from the ground with one hand. “While I am gone, I want you to think about the hopelessness of your position. Give up. Just give up. You will never be with her again; I won’t allow it.” He took some comfort from saying these things, as though he could will the future into being merely by wanting it.

  He nudged Luke down the hall. “Listen to me. Accept what I’m telling you and I might not kill you. I will send you back to your family, your daughters. I’m sure they still need you. Think about your obligation to them. There is no shame in giving up on her to go back to them. In fact, it is honorable.” Adai
r reached into Luke’s pocket and plucked out a cell phone. “Now, I’m going to put you somewhere quiet, by yourself, so you can think about what I’ve said. Remember, I don’t want to kill you, so don’t force my hand.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Adair knew of only one place where he could hide Luke: the garage, a cavernous space with bays for four vehicles. He secured Luke to a pillar, his hands tied behind his back. No need to worry about leaving his prisoner unguarded, since the garage was removed from the comings and goings of the household. Besides, the man was drifting on the edge of consciousness, dripping blood on the oil-stained concrete floor. He wasn’t likely to make trouble.

  After taking care of this unexpected visitor, it was time to move on to the matter weighing most heavily on his mind at the moment: Jonathan. His discomfort in Jonathan’s presence was now nearly unbearable. Most of it was guilt, Adair figured, guilt for what he’d done to Lanore, and for robbing Jonathan of his peace. But partly, it was because Adair no longer knew what Jonathan was anymore. Despite appearances, he was not a product of this world alone. At times he seemed to be an oracle, given the gift of future sight. Perhaps he had been made into a portal between the two worlds, a conduit for messages from these greater beings. And yet, at other times Jonathan seemed merely to be a spy of this queen he spoke of so cryptically.

  The idea of a queen filled Adair with surprising dread. A queen implied that there might be a king, too, a man who might feel betrayed by his queen’s interest in Jonathan. Most distressing was the vague feeling Adair had that he must avoid this woman and that under no circumstances should he ever meet her. He had no idea why this should be, but he’d come to trust his instincts.

  All this uncertainty left Adair queasy and off balance. He’d spent his life figuring out the unknown. However, it appeared that in order to understand this mystery he’d have to leave this world—a step he wasn’t yet ready to take. If Jonathan was a connection to the afterlife or to the queen, Adair saw that he needed to shut this channel down.

  Adair went to the kitchen and selected a knife, one that was heavy and broad, a serious piece of steel, and hefted it once in his hand. He then went upstairs, searching from room to room until he found Jonathan.

  Jonathan looked at what Adair had brought, but didn’t seem alarmed. He seemed to expect this development: the two of them alone, the butcher’s knife. He spoke first, taking advantage of Adair’s hesitation. “You didn’t keep your promise about Lanny.”

  The air between them suddenly felt close and prickly hot to Adair. How could Jonathan know what had transpired in that room if a voice from the other world hadn’t whispered in his ear?

  “Don’t bother to deny it. I can tell by the look on your face.”

  Adair turned away from Jonathan. “Then you should also be able to tell that I am in hell. The last thing I wanted to do was to hurt her. But I’d been waiting for this day for too long. . . . I couldn’t help myself. My nature would not be denied.”

  “Excuses are useless,” Jonathan answered. “Do you think it matters why? All that matters is what you did.”

  “You expected too much of me,” Adair bellowed, angry at being taken to task.

  “We’re talking about Lanny’s expectations, not mine.”

  “What happened . . . could not have happened any other way. A man cannot change his nature.”

  “We all have our natures to overcome. And if you couldn’t overcome yours, that means you are too weak, Adair. You aren’t deserving of her love. You’ve ruined whatever chance you had. Do you think she’ll ever be able to forget or to forgive you now?”

  Anger and despair flared inside Adair at these words. Lanore was his destiny, but the very thought of her plunged him into emotional chaos. It maddened him that he couldn’t control her. He’d been able to force everyone else to bend to his will, because ultimately he was willing to sacrifice whatever feeling they might have for him in exchange for obedience. With Lanore it was different. It felt good, strangely, to surrender to his need for her. And she was the only one to whom he could surrender. Only when he was with her could he forget—could he let go of—everything else that had seemed important.

  But he had underestimated the strength of his desire. Jonathan had warned him, after all. How stupid he had been to think he could change his nature so easily. It was not starting fresh and new between them; he’d seen to that, hadn’t he? Destroyed any chance before it could even begin.

  Still, he was only a man. He had limitations, he could not change completely in a day. He had expected too much, promised Jonathan too much. Damn Jonathan. Damn him back to hell. Adair would do things his way. Starting with Jonathan.

  It was time to send him back to the afterlife. His place was no longer on this side of the veil. He was a shade, an apparition clothed in flesh, maybe a spy or trickster, meant to lead Adair astray. Besides, Adair felt in his marrow that Lanore mustn’t see Jonathan again, that somehow this would lead to a great undoing. Even thinking of such an occurrence made Adair shiver.

  Too, Lanore would take one look at Jonathan’s ruined face and blame Adair. Know Adair was responsible, maybe even think he’d done it out of spite. He felt a sour, sinking sensation in his stomach at the thought of her disappointment. He seemed destined to disappoint her.

  Damn it all. Damn Jonathan. Damn her, too. She’d brought this on herself, he thought bitterly.

  A wave of shame washed over Adair, hot as boiling oil—shame that he couldn’t control himself, nor could he hide this from Jonathan. Ashamed that Jonathan seemed to know more about him than he himself knew. And he burned with jealousy, too. “You needn’t concern yourself about Lanore anymore, Jonathan. She’s mine now.” He thumbed the edge of the knife. “And since I have Lanore once again, I have no more need of you. It’s time you go back to this queen of yours.”

  “You might lie to yourself but you can’t lie to me. I know why you’re sending me back, Adair. You fear her, the queen I’ve told you about, and you’re right to be fearful. Trust me, you don’t want her to come looking for you. But that’s not why you’re going to kill me now.” Jonathan’s dark eyes studied him in an unnerving way. “It’s because you don’t want Lanny to see me. As ruined as I am, you’re afraid she’ll still prefer me to you. And that would destroy you.”

  His guess hit its mark. Adair flinched as though an arrow had pierced his chest. Jonathan was right: it would destroy him to see Lanore’s face light up with love for Jonathan. He couldn’t bear it. He would rather be cowardly and petty than allow the lovers to be reunited. But this was a fitting part of Lanore’s punishment, he insisted, if only to himself. For what she’d done to him, she should never see Jonathan again. If he must suffer, they would both suffer, too. If he couldn’t be happy, no one would be happy.

  “I don’t care what you think, Jonathan,” he said, bringing out the knife. “I will send you back to the world from which you came, back into the arms of your new mistress.”

  Jonathan held up a hand to stay the knife. “My last word of advice to you, Adair. You want Lanny’s love—I know you do, and it’s right that you should. For no one has ever loved you, Adair. Not your so-called friends, not your family. Not your minions. You might be the only soul in all of creation who has never been loved. The only unloved soul in the history of the world. Lanny is your last chance, Adair.”

  The revelation was too much for Adair. Flooded with shame, he drew the knife across Jonathan’s throat in one fluid motion. He didn’t flatter himself to think that he had moved too adroitly for Jonathan to defend himself: the dead man offered no resistance, wanting to return to the realm he had come from. Adair expected Jonathan’s neck would be gristly and tough to sever, but bone and tendon parted like butter before the knife, the head sliced off cleanly. There was no fountain of blood, only an oozing of a black, sticky sap. The body remained upright, suspended by the contraction of muscles for as long as it took to exhale, and then fell in a heap to the floor like a marionette whose strings
had been cut. It was as though he’d been keeping company with a shade, a golem, and not a real man at all. Looking down on Jonathan, Adair felt a chill pass through him.

  Pendleton was the first one to come across Adair, standing outside Jonathan’s room. Adair handed him the bloody knife. “Tell Tilde we will need some paid man to come for the body. I want it dumped in water—somewhere deep, where it can never be recovered.” He continued down the hall before Pendleton could even acknowledge his instructions, so stunned was he at the sight of Jonathan’s decapitated body crumpled on the Persian rug.

  THIRTY-TWO

  After Adair left, I lay immobilized on the bed, curled on my side with my knees tucked close to my chest. I must’ve clenched every muscle in my body during the rape, because now I hurt with every breath. My jaw, my ribs, my hips—all ached. I felt this pain because he had willed it. He wanted me to suffer. Remembering what Adair had done, I pulled my knees in tighter and cried in fear and frustration, knowing this—and worse—was to be my future.

  It was a miracle that it hadn’t been worse. Adair hadn’t hit me, hadn’t put a hand on me in any way. There had been no threats, no taunts, no gloating. As a matter of fact, if I remembered correctly—the episode was a blur of terror—he’d even tried to kiss me. And after he climaxed, he rushed off as though ashamed. Not exactly what I thought would happen if he caught me. It made no sense.

  Someone was coming: I heard the rattling of the doorknob. The door swung open and there stood Tilde’s stepson Mika, spindly as a colt. He was so pale that he glowed like a ghost. With those furtive eyes, he stared not at my face or at my bound hands but lower, drawn to the unexpected sight of a half-naked torso: my skirt was still twisted around my waist. I tugged at it awkwardly and he didn’t move to help me, didn’t cry out in alarm, didn’t seem empathetic or outraged or frightened in the least. He just stared at me.