Among the Debris (Son of Rain #2)

by Michelle Irwin

  After two weeks of exploring the various schools at Cambridge, of sneaking through the back end of their computer systems to hunt down information about past students, I was no closer to finding Zarita.

  What I had found though, was a link between her and Evie’s family. Both David and Emily had attended the university at the same time as Zarita. Emily and Zarita had even shared a number of classes. I couldn’t help but wonder whether that alone was part of the reason for Zarita’s name being linked to Emily’s file.

  Maybe my entire trip was for nothing.

  The only thing that gave me some semblance of hope was that the classes Zarita and Emily had shared were in the field of ancient mythology. It lent credence to the concern that Zarita might know more about the world of others—that she might actually have been a willing informant when it came to Emily.

  There was only one way to find out for sure.

  With a little bit of difficulty and digging deep into the records, I found the address on Zarita’s applications—an address in Cyprus. Knowing that there was little more I could learn from the university’s records, I decided to hitchhike my way out of England and head in the direction of the only lead I had.

  “HELLO, I just wanted to talk to—”

  The soft click of the phone cut off my call for the sixth time. For four months, I’d trekked alone throughout Europe trying to find any additional information on the elusive Miss Demitriou. Despite having an address from her past, finding her appeared almost as impossible as hunting David and Evie had been years earlier. Only this time, I had access to even fewer resources. It was possible Zarita Demitriou no longer existed, at least not under that name.

  Although there was no record of a marriage or a legal name change—all information about her stopped a few years after she graduated from Cambridge with her bachelor’s degree—I had found information about another linguistics’ expert, one who’d apparently risen from nowhere before getting her master’s and PhD, a Professor Zarita Cristou.

  I’d tracked down a phone number in Cyprus, but so far I’d had no success reaching her.

  Each time I’d tried, the call was ended prematurely.

  The first few times, I had actually managed to get out my name and ask for the professor before getting the third degree about what I wanted. Now though, the receptionist, or whoever it was answering the call, seemed to recognize my voice, and I was barely able to get out a handful of words before being cut off.

  After trying for the sixth time in as many days and getting the same, now expected, result, it was time to call in my limited reinforcements. I had minimal access to computers and the Internet, so I had to rely on payphones for all of my calls and public computers for my searches. Not only that, but I was running extremely low on cash—despite being able to score some in slightly less than legal ways.

  What I was about to do would probably be painful, I picked up the phone, fed in some money, and called Eth to see if he could help me.

  As I punched in the numbers, a funny feeling settled in my chest. It would be my first contact with home in months. I’d grown somewhat used to being alone. If it wasn’t for the hole in my chest where my heart had once beat, and the weight on my soul as I wondered about Evie, I would’ve called my time away pleasant.

  The distance from both Evie and my family had offered me the freedom to get in touch with who I wanted to be. Although the circumstances were less than ideal, the reality of it was a welcome relief.

  It was something I hadn’t had since . . . well, since ever. My entire life so far had been a series of events governed by everyone else’s expectations. I’d been an Elite because it was my birthright, a solider because it was my responsibility, a therapist to my sister by requirement, and a lover to Evie because I’d had no other choice.

  Not once had I been asked whether I wanted to do any of it.

  Maybe if I had, I would’ve done things differently. Maybe I wouldn’t have. There was no way of knowing for certain, but the time by myself with just the one objective gave me freedom and the peace I needed to start sorting through my thoughts. Not that sorting through them made anything clearer, but it helped me regain some sense of sanity and a modicum of control.

  Regardless, I found my thoughts drifting to Evie more than anyone else. Each time my stomach growled over a skipped meal, I wondered how she was and whether she was getting enough to eat. Whenever a beautiful European woman with glowing olive skin crossed my gaze, my mind offered up memories of the matching tone of Evie’s skin. She was woven through everything and without fail my body reacted to thoughts of her with a quickened heart rate and an aching need to hold her in my arms again.

  Each time I was held hostage by my emotions, a small piece of me wondered again whether Dad could be right. It didn’t seem likely that I could feel so much without there being an external source, like a spell, influencing me.

  Pushing the thoughts away, I listened to the ringing tone as the call raced across continents to my brother’s cell.

  “Hello?”

  My yearning for home increased dramatically when I heard Eth’s voice, but agony over my losses followed closely behind and left my voice flat. “Hey, Eth.”

  “Oh my god, he lives!” Eth laughed. “How the hell have you been?”

  I thought about telling him about the sleepless nights, the fruitless searches, and all of the difficulties I’d encountered in following my lead, but he would think I was being a whiny bitch. Instead, I decided to cut straight to the chase. “I need a favor.”

  “Uh huh.” I could almost hear the eye-roll down the line that the first time I’d spoken to anyone in my family since they’d put me on the plane was to ask for something.

  I read out Zarita’s phone number. “Can you get me the address relating to that number without getting it on the radar?” It was definitely possible, and if I had easy access to the Rain’s networks, I could probably have it in about an hour. Lou probably would have been able to as well, before . . .

  The thought caused a stabbing ache in my heart and a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Eth however had never been quite as good on the computer, so I wasn’t sure he would be able to do it without assistance. He’d have to though; the less people who knew about any possible lead I’d found, the better.

  “Sure, it might take me a little while though,” he warned. “Where are you?”

  “Cyprus.” I gave him the details about the street I was on—he would be able to track it easy enough through the phone booth, but it was quicker and easier for me to give him the information. It would mean he could get onto my request sooner rather than going on some useless search for my location first.

  “Okay, there’s a hotel down the road from where you are. I’ll arrange a room for you and call you when I get something.”

  “I—” I was going to say that I was fine, but he interrupted me.

  “Don’t even argue with me. I know that you didn’t take much money with you. You haven’t touched your accounts either, so I don’t doubt that you could use a good night’s sleep and a decent meal. Probably a shower too. I’ll be doing everyone on the street a favor. Maybe even everyone in Europe.”

  The thought of a proper bed and real food was far too good to resist, so I accepted without further arguments.

  “How’s Dad holding up?” I asked with some hesitation as Eth investigated whether the hotel could be booked through the Rain connections. Dad had to be suffering after Lou’s death, and then to top it off, I had left so soon afterward. It had likely put him on edge. Eth was sure to be dealing with the brunt of his anger and frustration.

  There was a moment of silence on the other end of the call before Eth changed the subject. “Why do you need the address?”

  “It’s just a potential lead.”

  “What sort of lead?”

  I wasn’t sure how much to give him. Maybe it was a bust, but maybe Zarita would know about phoenixes. She’d certainly studied the righ
t courses at university. And then what? Why had she disappeared? “Just a lead. Someone who might be able to help me figure out if you and Dad are right about Evie’s spell.”

  “I wish you’d give up this nonsense and come home.”

  “You and Dad were the ones who convinced me to try to do this.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, well, that was before you disappeared for months without a trace. Without even a single blip on the radar.”

  “You’ve been searching for me?” It confirmed that his statement about my accounts not having been touched wasn’t just an off the cuff guess. I wasn’t sure whether to be offended that he’d been tracking me or relieved that he was at least concerned enough about my plight to be following up on me.

  “Don’t make this into something bigger than it is. Dad just wanted to make sure you were okay, that’s all.”

  “Sure, Dad did,” I teased, knowing that for all his bluster he’d no doubt checked as much for his own sanity as Dad’s.

  “I just thought you’d be back at home by now so we could straighten everything out. It’s all just a big mess at the moment.”

  My good mood dropped away instantly at his words—further proof that I was always the one in the wrong in their eyes. I was sick of getting the blame for everything—even if he was right and it was all a mess, it wasn’t only my doing.

  “I can’t straighten shit out until I get some answers, can I?” I snapped.

  “That’s not what I—” He cut himself off with a sigh. “You know what? It’s too hard to get into on the phone, so just fuck it. Do you want the hotel room or not?”

  After I confirmed I was willing to go to the hotel, he gave me the name of the one he’d book me into, and we said our goodbyes, ending the call with his promise to call as soon as he had any information about the address linked to the phone number for me.

  Almost an hour had passed before I was in a hotel room, and another hour before I was showered and enjoying the spoils of room service. Eth was right. It had been a damned long time since I’d had a decent meal. I was just finishing off a steak when the phone rang.

  Eth read out an address to me before I’d even finished saying hello.

  I jotted it down on a hotel notepad and thanked him. Checking the clock, I decided it wasn’t too late for a house call. It wasn’t like I would have any more success waiting until the following morning—I likely to be kicked out either way.

  AFTER KNOCKING on the door, I stood back and waited with baited breath for any sound from within. I counted the seconds that passed, each one seeming to drag endlessly on. Almost a minute had gone by before I heard a shuffling sound on the other side of the door. There was no voice calling out to ask who it was, so I assumed the person on the other side was checking the peephole.

  “Please,” I said in the most charming tone I could muster as I leaned again the door so they could see my face better. “Please, I just need to talk to Professor Cristou.”

  There was silence for a moment before a quiet voice, brimming over with distrust, and a voice thick with a melting pot of accents answered me. “How did you get this address?”

  “Please?” I begged instead of answering the question. “It’ll only take a minute.”

  “Why do you want to talk to her?”

  “I’ve heard she’s an expert in mythology. I could really use one of those right now.”

  There was another pause. “Why?”

  I rested my head against the door as my mind was assaulted by memories of Evie. “I need to find out what she knows about phoenixes.” Silence answered me, and I felt the cracks in my heart and mind open up again. My eyes burned, and my heart hammered against my ribcage. I leaned against the door and pleaded, in a soft, broken voice, “Please? I just need to speak to her.”

  There was another pause, and then the sound of a chain being removed from the door.

  It opened a crack, and I had to look down to meet the eyes of the short, robust woman on the other side of the door. She’d aged at least twenty years, had added at least that many pounds, and gray hairs now peppered her long, almost black curls, but I could still see that it was the same woman, Zarita Demitriou, who had attended Cambridge with Evie’s parents.

  Her hazel eyes narrowed as she looked me up and down with suspicion. I had to be a hot mess, I hadn’t shaved since before I had flown to Europe, or cut my hair, and I’d only brought three sets of clothes. Because I’d cycled through them, washing them in sinks at random rest stops and backpackers’ dorms, they were already starting to wear thin. The leather jacket I wore had definitely seen better days—using it to huddle against the cold nights had seen it become faded, stretched, and warped. Everything hung from my thinned frame in a way that probably made me look like some sort of beggar.

  Instead of being slammed shut on me, the way I expected, the door opened a little wider, and she stepped back to allow me to enter. Without waiting for an invitation, I walked through the opening, taking care to close the door behind me. When my gaze fell on Zarita again, I was shocked to find the barrel of a tiny pistol pointed in my direction.

  “Who are you?” she asked with a surprisingly hardened voice. “Are you the one who has been calling?”

  Holding my hands up in surrender, I nodded and gave my name.

  “Well, Mister Clay Jacobs, how did you find me?”

  “Your phone number was printed in some academic papers.”

  She nodded, as if that much was obvious. “But why would you come to me for mythology? I have studied languages for years, so I am unsure what makes you so certain I can help you?”

  “Because that’s not all you studied though is it? You studied more than that, at Cambridge.”

  The gun, which had slowly been lowered as she asked the questions, was raised again. “I didn’t go to Cambridge.”

  She was lying, and we both knew it, but I’d obviously overlooked the fact that she’d constructed a new early university career for her new identity—or had studied again.

  “I am a linguistics specialist, not a mythology expert, so I ask again, Mister Jacobs, how did you find me and why must it be me to assist you?”

  The reason she must have been so suspicious of me, right from the get go, was because I’d asked about mythology right off the bat. If she had tried to bury that part of her life and I’d known about it, she had to wonder why and how I knew. I decided it was balls to the wall time. “I was looking for Zarita Demitriou, but I found you instead.”

  The gun was re-aimed again. “She is dead.”

  “That’s what I gathered, but it doesn’t change the fact that I need her help.”

  “What help?”

  “If I wanted to learn more about the mythology of human incarnations of the phoenix, where would I start?”

  Her eyes narrowed again. “Why are you interested in long-dead Phoenician myths?”

  “There’s this girl. She is—was important to me.”

  The hand holding the gun wavered a little. “This girl, the myths mean something to her?”

  I chuckled mirthlessly. “You could say that.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  My lips curled up into an involuntary smile as I described Evie to Zarita. I hated that they did, and yet I dreaded the day that they wouldn’t any longer. It was only after I stopped that it dawned on me that I had practically repeated David’s words from the audio recording I’d found. His emotions were my emotions, further proof of Dad’s suspicions.

  By the time I’d finished, the gun was by Zarita’s side, and I was relieved that it was no longer trained on me. “You sound very smitten.”

  I didn’t want to go into the whole saga over whether I was actually smitten or whether I had been spellbound, so I just nodded. “You could say that.”

  “I’m still not sure how you expect me to help though.”

  Honestly, I wasn’t either, but I had to hope she could because I had no other ideas. I had no idea why she was linked to Emily’s file, but I knew
enough about the Rain systems to understand she had to have provided some information to them about phoenixes or Emily. The fact that the three of them—David, Emily, and Zarita—were at Cambridge together made me certain she knew much more than she was letting on. “I just need to be pointed in the right direction, and maybe have someone help decipher any relics I can find.”

  “That’s all you want?” She stared at me with a look of careful consideration.

  “I swear that’s it.”

  “And the girl? Does she want this information?”

  I pushed my fingers through my hair. The time I’d spent wandering around Europe had seen it grow longer even as my waist had shrunk with malnutrition. “Honestly, I don’t know. She . . .” My voice cracked as I tried to form the words. “She left me.”

  The expression on her face softened to one of almost pity as she watched me crumble under the question. “You want her back?”

  “Yes.” The word was out before I could think it through enough to hold it back. Do I want her back? “No.”

  She didn’t want me, so it didn’t matter, did it? The choice had been taken out of my hands, and there wasn’t any point in trying to find her again—I couldn’t face another rejection like the one in Rolla.

  “I don’t know,” I added. “I can’t explain it all, but I think the answer to how I feel is in the legends.”

  Zarita hummed. “So let me get this straight . . . you think gathering information about long-forgotten myths is the way to decide whether or not you are in love with a girl?”

  I scrubbed my hands against my face and groaned. It sounded crazy when she said it, but ultimately wasn’t that the exact reason for my quest—to determine whether or not I had actually ever loved her or if it had all been a lie . . . a spell. “Something like that.”

  “What will you do if you don’t like what you discover?”

  That was the million-dollar question—and the one answer I didn’t have. “I don’t know. I just know that I need to know—I need to gather everything that I can before I can decide what to do with it.”