by Aaron Gansky
“Not sure I got all that, but if you guys are good with tall, dark, and creepy, I might as well come along for the ride.” Erica hoisted herself onto the largest, thickest black horse. Sparky leapt up behind her and balanced himself on the flank of the steed. “Let’s roll.”
“That,” Ullwen said, drawing his sword, “is my horse. I suggest you dismount immediately.”
“Don’t blame me. Midnight wants me to ride him.”
Ullwen’s face grew so pale, it nearly glowed. “How did you know his name?”
“Same way I know he hates carrots. Now hop on Blaze. He says he’s faster than Midnight anyway.”
Ullwen reached for Midnight’s reins, but the horse reeled back, nearly tossing Sparky off.
Erica patted the beast and said, “Easy, big boy. We got a long night ahead of us.”
“This is an outrage,” Ullwen said.
Lauren laughed. “Lakia is a summoner. When it comes to animals, it’s best to listen to her.”
“But Blaze is not a warhorse,” Ullwen countered.
Erica said, “Give him a shot. You may find you actually like him. Last one to the monastery has beresus breath!”
* * *
Less than an hour before sunsrise, Oliver and the others rode up to several buildings that composed the monastery in the Cerulean Woods. The conglomeration of mismatched, roughly built stone structures, little more than different sized rocks hastily thrown together with mortar, spread across the span of several acres. The Monks of the Cerulean Order focused on three things: prayers, studies, and self-defense. They’d taken enough time to construct something that would stand and keep them out of the rain and snow, but did little else.
Even at this early hour, the monks worked diligently. Several men in robes identical to Oliver’s pruned the broad bushes on the grounds with steel shears. Others stood with bowed heads at the doors of each of the buildings. The first building, the largest by far, had a door flanked by two large monks. This building consisted of the main worship center and the library. Monks moved in and out of the building, greeting each other wordlessly with nods of their heads.
The horses’ hooves clopped on the frozen soil. One of the taller monks approached them. Oliver dismounted. They each bowed their heads slightly as a sign of respect. Each removed the hood pulled over his head. The man’s appearance startled Oliver.
His head lacked all traces of hair, and, even in the faint light of the moon, Oliver could tell the man had no pigmentation. More than pale, his skin was swan-feather white. It shone brightly and reflected the ethereal blue light of the moon.
Oliver had no idea how he’d missed the red eyes under the hood. An albino, no doubt, but Oliver hadn’t coded an albino, hadn’t even allowed for something like that to occur at random.
A familiar fear settled in Oliver’s chest. They were so far off the script, they had little chance of ever getting back on track. But the constant changes of the game, new apparitions, new motivations, unsettled him greatly. It seemed the game had decided not to play by the rules he’d established using Deep Red.
“Welcome back, Father Vicmorn,” the man said in a soft, smooth voice.
Oliver’s throat tightened. He’d not intended for any of the monks to speak, other than Eljah and Vicmorn. He wanted to ask who this man was, but, if he were truly Vicmorn, he should know. If he admitted his ignorance, they might suspect something.
“Thank you. Where is my father?”
“The library. Shall I notify him of your arrival?”
Oliver’s mind assembled each bit of information. Vicmorn had been elevated from Brother to Father in the Cerulean Order when he’d received the prayer amulet. That gave him authority over every monk on the grounds, except for Eljah, a power which might allow him to avoid making simple mistakes. “Please do. I wish to speak to him before we sleep. My friends and I require rooms and beds, and our horses stables. We’ve traveled far and need rest and food.”
Aiden muttered, “Yeah we do. I’m starving.”
“Very well,” the man said. He whispered to a monk pruning hedges and pointed to the stables. To Oliver, he said, “You may wait for your father in the dining hall. I will have food prepared for you and your guests.”
“Thank you,” he said, wishing he could thank the man by name. Oliver led the others to an octagonal building behind the main chapel. Glassless windows lined the walls. Inside, a long table stretched out across the center of the room, flanked by two smaller tables. The four sat at the table closest to the kitchen.
“So this is where you grew up?” Aiden asked.
“Vicmorn, yes.” Being back in the monastery brought back strong memories, but not Oliver’s. Vicmorn’s memory floated up from dark waters like a drowned body.
He remembered being a child, no older than seven. A strong hand squeezed the back of his neck until he was sure his spine would snap. The hot metal of a Blood Monk’s curved blade pushed under his chin. Outside, crops and trees and bushes exploded in flames. Monks in flowing blue robes defended themselves against men with long, flat sabers. Eljah stood before him while a trickle of Oliver’s blood ran down the blade of the black-robed monk.
Give me the books or this one dies.
It wasn’t real, only an echo of a memory, but it felt real, as if Alrujah was truth and North Chester the dream. Oliver put a hand under his chin and felt the slight rise of a pale scar.
Erica tugged at her gloves as she surveyed the room. “Think the walls will stay up long enough for us to eat?”
“They haven’t fallen in over a hundred years. They may not be pretty, but they’re effective.” The conversation mercifully pushed the memory from his mind.
Ullwen paced the room, inspecting the walls and the plain harspus wood furniture. “I’ve always longed to come to the monastery of the Cerulean Woods. The dedication of the monks has been fabled for generations.”
The door to the kitchen swung open, and Eljah emerged holding a wooden tray filled with vegetables and fruits—beets and broccoli, carrots and celery, persimmons and pears, all of which had been meticulously groomed by the monks to resist cold temperatures.
“No meat?” Aiden whispered. “Bro, I could full-on use a hamburger right about now.”
“Welcome travelers,” Eljah said. His smile curled one corner of his mouth and suggested he knew something, some secret he shouldn’t know.
Ullwen said, “We are greatly honored. Thank you for your hospitality, Father.” The term was not one of a familial relationship, as Oliver had with Eljah, but the proper title for Eljah, who was both a monk and an ordained minister of Alrujah.
Eljah set the tray on the table. “You must be hungry. Please, eat your fill. Adonai is good. We have a plentiful bounty this winter.”
Erica took a carrot, leaned to Oliver and whispered, “When are you going to explain who this Adonai guy is?”
“Essentially, He’s God,” Oliver replied.
“Okay, and that would have taken too long to say while we were in the woods?”
“There were fangands coming after us,” he said.
“Lame excuse.”
Oliver sat at the table and took a stalk of celery. It was the first food he’d had in Alrujah. The stalk was crisp and tasted exactly like celery should. He shouldn’t be surprised, but he was.
Lauren sat between Ullwen and Aiden and bit into a pear. Her eyes closed. She looked as exhausted as Oliver felt.
Despite the late hour, he pressed on. When he finished his celery and some carrots, and complemented them with some of the fruit, he asked Eljah, “What books were the Blood Monks looking for?”
Eljah’s eyes flitted about the room quickly. “Blood Monks?” His feigned ignorance meant he knew something Oliver didn’t. Likely, Eljah did not trust everyone in the room. Perhaps he knew more about Ullwen than Oliver did.
“What are you talking about, Vicmorn?” Lauren asked.
He shook his head. “Never mind. I had a nightmare last night is all.”
He stared hard at Eljah and hoped to convey a simple message. We need to talk.
Chapter Twelve
Humans were not as skilled as the dwarves in masonry and smithing, nor were they as skilled in the physical arts as the elves, but Adonai loved them above the other races. To them He entrusted righteous ambition, determination, and perseverance. These qualities served the race well. And Adonai established the throne and the blood of kings through the humans.
—The Book of the Ancients
BAILEY RENEE PULLED AT her bottom lip—a nervous habit she’d picked up from Lauren—while a Minnesota State Trooper filtered through her sister’s things. Slightly shorter than her, he looked just as young. How long had this guy even been a cop?
Her mother crossed her arms and rubbed the skin on her elbows.
Detective Joseph Parker, a head taller than the trooper and thicker in the chest and shoulders, worked next to him. Worry lined his face. He looked no older than her mother.
Both wore gloves while they picked up her pillows and searched her sheets. They rifled through the books on her shelves, the video games, and strategy walkthroughs. They even checked her piggy bank. But Detective Parker spent most of the time at the window. He ran a finger along the weather stripping like an Army Sergeant going over new recruits’ bunks. “You say the door was locked from the inside?” The smell of him and the sound of his coarse voice said he’d been a smoker for years.
“Yes,” Bailey Renee said. Her mother took her hand. How long had it been since they’d held hands? She’d been four, maybe, crossing the street.
“Window doesn’t look like it’s been opened. Where does Dad live?”
Ms. Knowles cleared her throat. With one hand she touched the front of her neck, as if she had a necklace to play with. “He moved to California twelve years ago.”
Detective Parker pulled off his latex gloves and shoved them in the pockets of his black coat. With a raspy, “Excuse me,” he pressed past Bailey Renee and Ms. Knowles and headed toward the living room. “I have to ask the reason for separation. I don’t mean to pry, but it is important.”
“Divorce,” she said. “He had a job in California. And another woman. A whole new life he liked better than what we had here.”
Her mother had never said that out loud, and Bailey had never been brave enough to ask. While she was disappointed in her father, she didn’t much resent him. Not as much as she should.
“Lauren was what, four?”
Ms. Knowles nodded. Bailey Renee moved to the couch and sat down. “You think he did it, don’t you?”
Reaching into his coat’s inside pocket, Detective Parker took a cigarette from a box and put it between his lips.
“I’d prefer you not smoke in my house, Detective.”
“I’m not smoking. I’m thinking.” He stared out the kitchen window to the frozen pond in the back yard. He’d stared at it a lot since he showed up an hour ago. “I’m trying to replay the scene in my mind. We haven’t found any signs of forcible entry. You say she was gone this morning before school?”
Bailey nodded.
Parker reached a hand in the pockets of his slacks and pulled it out again, empty. He mimed lighting the cigarette, then proceeded to suck on it as if it were lit. “You’re way up on this hill. Lots of ground to cover. Snow’s too muddied to get much information. Her car’s still here, so maybe someone picked her up. No signs of a struggle, so we can assume it was someone she knew.”
“I didn’t see or hear anyone last night,” Ms. Knowles said. Anyone else might have thought her voice steady, but Bailey heard the weakness in it. Soon, it would crack completely. She was like this in emotionally stressful situations—all business, all calm resolve until she felt she had a moment to breathe. Then, her tears would come, and come hard. She’d done it when she rushed Lauren to the hospital two years ago after a near-fatal episode of anaphylactic shock from a bee-sting, and she did it again now.
Parker leaned against the counter and called to the officer in Lauren’s room. “Any prints yet?”
“Just hers,” the officer said.
Parker crossed his legs at the ankle. He took the cigarette from his mouth, pretended to exhale smoke, and put it back in. He looked hard at Ms. Knowles for a minute. “I’m quitting. If I die, it’s not going to be from these things. Having some trouble letting go completely.”
Ms. Knowles nodded. “I quit six years ago.”
Parker closed his eyes for a moment, more in thought than fatigue. Without opening his eyes, he spoke to Ms. Knowles. “I know how this is going to sound, but I mean no disrespect. I have to ask. How were things here at home? There’s a big difference between an abduction case and a runaway. Either way, Brandon’s Law is still in effect, but knowing the case better will help us find her faster. So, if my questions seem too direct, I apologize.”
“They were fine,” Ms. Knowles said, but her voice rose sharply at the end. She sounded like a child caught cheating on a test.
Bailey’s stomach soured. Why had she never considered Lauren running away? She’d never do anything like that. But the possibility remained, and she couldn’t let her mother tell half-truths to protect her fragile ego. The stakes were far too high. “No, they weren’t,” she whispered.
Parker asked, “What was that?”
“They weren’t fine,” Bailey Renee repeated.
“She wasn’t happy here?”
“Of course she was,” Ms. Knowles said. She stood up from the couch quickly, touched her throat and started to pace. “Why wouldn’t she be happy? She’s got a beautiful home, three good meals a day, a loving family.”
“Stop, Mom. She wasn’t happy, and you know it.”
Detective Parker flicked imaginary ash off the end of his unsmoked cigarette into the sink. He opened the fridge, stood stooped over with his face in the door for a minute before pulling out a container of water. “Where do you keep your glasses?”
“Real glasses or imaginary?”
“I’m not trying to quit water, Ms. Knowles.”
Bailey Renee pointed to the cupboard above the sink.
He poured a glass and looked hard at Ms. Knowles. “I know how you feel,” he said, decades of smoke choking each word to a pinch. “I’m not here to judge your parenting. Raising a teenager’s one of the toughest things anyone can do. I get that. But if you want your daughter back, you have to be completely honest with me. I need all the information we can scrape together. Doesn’t matter how insignificant it feels, how unrelated. And you can’t worry about how it makes you feel or look. You’re not on trial here.”
The speech sounded rehearsed and stiff. He’d probably worked tons of cases like Lauren’s.
Parker put the water back in the fridge. “Please continue, Bailey.” The cigarette stood at attention between his fingers while he sipped the water.
Bailey took a deep breath. If Lauren had done something to hurt herself, Bailey would at least be partially to blame. And she couldn’t live with that. “I should have been nicer to her,” she said.
“You were mean?”
“Sweetie, please. Families fight sometimes. Her life was no worse than anyone else’s.” Ms. Knowles put a gentle hand on Bailey’s shoulder.
Bailey Renee stood up and walked to the kitchen. She leaned on the opposite counter and stared Parker in the eye. “I wasn’t very nice to her. I teased her about her weight. I teased her about the game she was making. It may not sound like a big deal, but I’m sure she got teased at school, too. A home should be a safe place. A place where you don’t have to worry about ridicule and yelling or fighting.”
Parker drained the last drop of water from his glass, set it on the counter, and put the cigarette between his lips. If he had lit it when he pretended to, the thing would have been smoked out long ago. “How old are you?”
“Fourteen.”
He pushed his lips out. The cigarette pointed at her. “You sound older.”
“Thanks?”
Ms. Knowl
es came into the kitchen. Fear broke her voice, and her eyes turned gray, the color of cement glazed with rainwater. “Detective Parker, I never did anything to hurt Lauren. I never laid a hand on her.”
Hands in his pockets, Parker said, “That may have been the problem.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Ever hug her? Put your arm around her?”
Her hand went back to her neck, and Bailey looked at her feet.
Parker grimaced, the cigarette bowing. “Forgive me if I’m too forward. My ex complained a lot about my lack of tact.”
“I don’t blame her,” Ms. Knowles whispered.
“Can I assume, then, that there were few signs of affection?”
Bailey nodded.
“You think she felt isolated?”
“Are you interrogating me?” Ms. Knowles snapped.
Parker took the cigarette from his mouth and replaced it in the box. “No ma’am. Just trying to get a picture that will help me find your daughter.”
“I didn’t call you here to accuse me of being a bad mother.” Anger replaced the fear in her throat and made her voice tiger strong.
“We’re on the same side, here, Ms. Knowles,” Parker said.
“Everything we can tell him will help him find her, Mom.”
Parker’s cell phone rang. He answered. “Got it. We’ll be over soon.” He hung up. “You said she was friends with Oliver Shaw?”
Bailey nodded.
“I’ll head over there and ask a few questions, see if they know anything.” He replaced his phone in his pocket. “She had journals in her room. A lot of them. May we take them? Scan through them? See if we can find anything?”
“You won’t,” Bailey Renee said. “They’re all filled with stuff about her game.”
Parker nodded. “I’d still like to see them if that’s alright.”
Her voice wilting, fingers pressed to the small of her neck, Ms. Knowles said, “That’s fine.”
Parker called after the other officer. “Wrap it up fast. Grab the journals. We have to make a stop on the way back to the station.”