Dark Protector

by Ana Calin

  “What did they do to him, Dad?”

  “Is breathing difficult? How about talking?”

  “Damn it, Dad!” – No difficulties – “Answer me!”

  The door creaked ajar and Dad’s face sprang over mine. His breath steamed my cheek as he whispered, “Play along. Breathing is difficult, Alice. Everything hurts, no matter what.” Then he straightened up to face the visitor.

  A mind-blowing surprise to see the person interested in my wellbeing this time was Hector, the bearded singer with aquiline features. Only when two men in POLICE jackets followed did I realize he wasn’t there as brother-in-pain, though. His frown and suspicion-filled eyes measuring Dad from head to toe already spoke of a strict inspector or something, but as he flashed his badge my mouth still popped open.

  “Your wife kindly told us that Miss Preda is awake,” he croaked, low and controlled, as if he hadn’t been there with us, as if he’d only just read the case facts in a file that got slapped on his desk. What movie is this?

  “She’s still weak.”

  “That’s okay.” Hector adjusted his attitude to match Dad’s aristocratic demeanor, clearly mocking.

  “Later, Agent Varlam, I must insist.”

  “Time is precious, Dr. Preda, given the circumstances. Surely you understand.”

  More of this back and forth “I insist,” and “So do I,” until Dad was left with no choice, the two officers framing him on each side. With silent threat on their furrowed brows they grabbed Dad by his arms. Offended, he jerked from their grasp and whisked his suit, giving me a reassuring, “I’ll be back with you as soon as the hawk’s out. Don’t let him pressure you.”

  With that the officers ushered him out, and Hector took the chair by my side. Up close he looked roughly used as well despite his facial hair that did something to hide the signs. His lips were split, a cut with stitches presided on his forehead, not to mention that one eye was already turning from blue to black, so it couldn’t be just in my head – he’d been there with us, he’d taken a gulp of dread and violence as large as I had.

  “What is this?” I managed, unable to hide astonishment.

  “Isn’t it obvious? Agent Hector Varlam, at your service.”

  “Jesus, Hector!” Memories of lilt guitar tunes spun in my head. “You were there with us. You lived it all first hand, what? Why? Why are you here?”

  “Now, now, take it easy, babe. I don’t need you to recount what I already know. I need to find out what happened after you played decoy and got almost everybody out of the cottage.”

  “How do you know I played decoy?” I didn’t wait for the answer though, other questions pressing against this one like a crowd against a door. “And what do you mean almost everybody?”

  “There have been fatalities, I’m afraid. Marius Iordache and a few others didn’t make it. I hate being the one to deliver the news.”

  “Jesus Christ!” One particular memory lit up – the Wretch, coughing out blood and grunting.

  “Alice, please.” Hector lowered his voice and face. “This isn’t easy on my side of the barricade either. But we have to keep a cool head and recount the facts while the whole thing is still warm. If too much time passes, the brain begins editing broken pieces of memory.”

  “How long have you been on this case, Hector? How long have you been chasing BioDhrome?” I didn’t even think of beating around the bush. If he’d been undercover it was because he already knew, no doubt. He decided to be straight-forward about it, too.

  “Quite a while – six years, to be exact.”

  “So, you didn’t get them in six years, and now you want me to believe that my account of a fight in the woods will make the difference?”

  “A fight? Is that what happened?” He looked at me with raised eyebrows but no genuine surprise.

  “I have a feeling you know more than you let on.” Like he did that I played decoy.

  “The rescue team did find the body of a villager close to where they found you. But I seriously doubt you were the butcher.”

  “I wasn’t. It was wolves.” But I had a feeling he knew that, too.

  “Humor me. Tell me what happened.”

  I did. Short sentences, only facts – struggling to push the gate shut in the face of all emotion. Hector listened, eyes down at his hands taking notes on a small notebook.

  “You were the only one attacked, you know,” he murmured when I was done, without lifting his head. “The rest of us ran and ran, spurred on by rage and bloodlust. The rush began to fade once I reached the woods, and by the time I reached the village in the valley I was dead tired, my lips and fingers frostbitten. I didn’t find a soul in the village, Alice, it seemed completely deserted. I was the first to find refuge in the church. Soon the others joined, your friends Leona Ignat and George Voinescu included. All usable paths turned out to lead to that village like a fuckin’ maze. The church was the only friendly-looking place, all houses looked like coffins.

  “Interestingly enough, the only one who managed to escape that maze was Damian Novac. He came in last, hours later, not alone. He’d found the military base deep in the woods, some miles from the village, and brought help. How he made it there remains a mystery. Like so many things about him.” At this point, his eyes shot at me. “He was here with your father, wasn’t he?”

  “So is this it? Is this why you’re really here and pretending to be bonding with me? To find out what they talked about, compare my version to the one they give you?” I proved unable to hide the contempt in my voice. He’d been shadowing Damian for years, and yet here he was, squeezing information from me.

  “Damian Novac is dangerous, Alice, you must understand. I have reason to believe he’s working for a powerful criminal organization. I don’t have proof, since the guy is damned shrewd, given, but I’ve been around him for six years. Six. That’s enough time to feel things, if not know them.

  “I’d studied Novac before this mission, monitored his every move, adjusted my personality to get under his skin. We became friends, or so I thought. He always remained detached and secretive. Still, one thing slipped, by chance actually – his friendship with your father. I discovered it when I saw him emerge from Dr. Preda’s private booth at the Marquette . . .” He went on carefully here, “The booth where Svetlana danced for him, you understand? For your father. I’m sorry, Alice. I really didn’t want to tell you this, but I need your trust.”

  The news hit me hard. “What?”

  “I’m saying that your father rented a booth at the club and paid for anonymity. I’m saying he’s working for the same criminals as Damian Novac, and that he’s having an affair with Svetlana Slavic.”

  “My Dad is the mobster she danced for?”

  “The mobster thing was just speculation, cheap gossip. But Novac – I’ll have to stop here, you’re in no condition to hear this.

  “My condition didn’t stop you before. Go on.”

  Hector gritted his teeth. “You know how I received the assignment to get close to Damian Novac, Alice? The Executioner file, archived with the R.I.S., disappeared six years ago. Disappeared, you understand? No one can make that happen unless they’re the K.G.B., F.B.I., fucking David Copperfield or a nasty monster with friends in high places, like the organization he’s working with. That’s how the Intelligence Service got me on the job. After six years of rubbing shoulders with him, I still don’t have evidence against Novac, I don’t. But I’m positive as hell he’s a villain.”

  The room spun with me. This isn’t happening was back in the charts.

  “So help me.” Hector lowered his voice even more, taking my hand in both of his. They pressed on my bandaged fingers, reminding me of how my nails had come off. The pain helped revive awareness that I was still in the real world.

  “What did your father and Novac talk about?”

  He put slightly too much emphasis on this last question. My thoughts suddenly fit together like puzzle pieces, leaving no room for doubt – he’d come t
o see me as an investigator, yet he’d done as good as all the talking, telling me horror stories about a Machiavellian Damian and a father I refused to recognize. All of this even despite the hospital bed and IV lines snaking around my arms. “Everything hurts, no matter what.”

  It dawned on me. The son of a bitch tried to manipulate me into betraying my own father, and Dad had known it. Maybe what he said was true, but this was my father he was talking about. I turned my head to the narrow window, letting the gray daylight flood my eyes, as stinging as it was.

  “I wouldn’t know, Agent Varlam. I wasn’t yet awake.”

  “Yes, you were,” he insisted. “Your mother told me you were.”

  “She was wrong.”

  “As simple as that?”

  “It’s the simple truth. Now if you don’t mind, I’m tired. Everything hurts.”

  Hector tensed, I felt it in his grip on my hand and the intensifying pain in my fingers.

  “I really hope you’re not covering anything, Miss Preda,” he stressed. “More shit will happen if I don’t lock up Damian Novac soon.”

  “And who else would you have locked up, Agent Varlam?” My own father, right?

  “Whoever aids him in his endeavors, directly or indirectly,” he spat.

  As soon as Hector was out the door Mom rushed in and kissed my forehead, again and again, smothering me.

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

  She gazed lovingly into my eyes, tears sparkling among her lashes as she stroked my hair. “I love you so much, baby.”

  A wave of guilt washed over me. With a weak hand, I reached for hers. “I love you too, mom. It’s just that –” How do I put this? “Dad has answers.”

  “Answers?”

  “For Varlam,” I lied. It was easier. “Please, Mom, where is he?”

  She frowned, searching my face unconvinced.

  “Your dad had urgent business back in Constanța, and was forced to return on a short notice.”

  I frowned. “That’s weird. He seemed vehement to remain by my side when Agent Varlam came in.”

  “Well, he said the business was related to the case at hand.” She stroked my forehead.

  Slim and graceful, Mom reminded me of a swan with her perfect blond-and-white chignon and elegant suits. She seemed a Royal. I wished I’d inherited more of her looks than I had of Dad’s.

  “Where are we, by the way?” I said, looking around.

  “The General Hospital in Brașov.”

  A white-lit place it was, but depressing as hell. I got to explore its corridors while searching for Leona as soon as I could walk, which didn’t happen until the following day. Considering the great blood values I was supposed to have according to Dad, the weakness and vertigo that made me throw up were unexplainable. Didn’t dare talk to Mom about it, though. It was hard to even look her in the face, knowing what I knew now – that Dad had been sleeping with a girl my age, a girl I knew.

  But I couldn’t walk without help, so I had to live with the crushing guilt as we strolled through the hospital. To top the whole thing, I had this ever-present sensation that I saw Damian everywhere, unyielding and unnerving that I almost choked on it.

  “Is it just me, or you’re in love with this boy?” Mom said with a patient smile as we walked down the hospital hallways to Leona’s room.

  “I am.” The truth tumbled like a rock off my chest.

  “He must be very fond of you, too. He spent hours by your bed.”

  My heart jumped. “He did?”

  She nodded. “Didn’t take his eyes off your face. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was hypnotized, standing there like a statue.”

  I don’t think a bungee leap could’ve been more exhilarating than the feeling that coursed through me at those words.

  “When your father and I arrived, he was already with you. God, sweetheart, never put us through this again.” She paused, swallowing the panic down her thin, dry-skinned throat as she skipped to a part that seemed to comfort her. “That boy was always there as doctors swarmed around you, and he stayed after they stabilized you, too. I didn’t have the heart to ask him for privacy.”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  “He’s remarkably handsome, if I may say,” Mom continued with another conspirator smile.

  “That he is,” I whispered.

  Only after we finally found Leona’s room in the east wing – as dark and humid as any old building that rarely saw an investment – did the bitterness succumb, replaced by a flood of sadness at the sight of my friend lying on that piece of metal with a flimsy mattress, her chocolate eyes drooping and lips drawn downward from crying.

  We exchanged no words. Just that locking of the eyes. I dropped by her side and squeezed her in my arms as hard as my tired muscles allowed. She was softer than usual, her flesh felt like warm polenta. And tears flowed, wordless, both of us shaking with them, our fingers hooking like claws in each other’s hair, tugging as memories drained from us. We cried and leaned on each other like exhausted boxers until there was no drop of rage left, just sighs and lunatic laughs.

  Although Leona was perfectly healthy too, as her blood tests showed, the hospital wasn’t cleared to let her go. The police had ordered that none of the survivors were to leave the premises until specifically permitted to do so.

  “This is more of a prison than a hospital,” Leona said as we sat on the empty bed opposite from hers, looking out the cracked window into a sad, grey park.

  “A situation I’m sure Hector has manipulated using his badge,” I retorted.

  Indeed. Clearance came in about twenty-four hours. Every survivor was allowed to leave, no one had serious physical injuries, but mentally we were all wrecks.

  We drove with Mom at the wheel for four hours to Constanța in silence. George was sensitive to sound, he covered his ears, and his face would twist in a grotesque mask if any of us dared to utter a word.

  “He killed a man with his own hands, the trauma was most severe for him,” his doctor had explained. “He remembers every detail of it vividly, which gives him terrible headaches. Don’t leave him alone, for whatever reason, except maybe when you’re sure he’s asleep. He might do something reckless to punish himself.”

  The street to my parents’ house revealed itself on a last turn, cobbled and ghostly in our headlights. The barking from neighboring yards and the crisp sea air were the first to greet us, followed by the screech of our old iron gate and the warm darkness of our living room. I think that was my first real experience of synesthesia, I could almost feel the massive oak bookcase through my skin, the homely upholstered couch, Dad’s favorite armchair.

  George didn’t wait for an invitation to throw himself face-down on the sofa in the small antechamber that opened into my room, which I used to call my “boudoir” back in high school. Leona and I shared my bed.

  Mom turned on the lamp outside, the thick skeleton of our old apple tree bathing in its mild light. We kept the curtains open so we could face it from the bed, my old guardian from childhood days. It felt safe, but I still couldn’t close my eyes until the early morning hours. Something was missing, something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t home. It only hit me when my eyes snapped open at midday, my brain refreshed: Where was Dad?

  I threw the blanket aside, squirmed out of bed – squashing Leona in the process, and provoking a sleepy grunt – and rushed to the master bedroom.

  The curtains hung open, making way for the pale winter light through the overlarge window. The bed was made – of course. Mom must’ve been up for hours, if she’d slept at all, considering the circumstances. Having left my parental home a few years ago to live with Leona in the suburbs, most of my parents’ habits had moved to the back of my brain, only to resurface when exposed to them again. As they did now.

  I went to the kitchen to find Mom sitting at the table, her thin fingers slowly stroking a coffee mug smeared with souvenir photos of San Francisco – one of the few items that still bound her to
her own home. Her stare was lost over the black liquid that didn’t give out steam, which meant she must’ve been staring blankly at it for some time now. Her hair, blond and crisscrossed by gray strands, fell rumpled to her slim shoulders. A fluffy white nightgown clad her thin body.

  The sight was disconcerting, considering her usual innate urge of always looking flawless and making an impression of aristocracy on all eyes that fell on her, including the cleaning lady’s. Now the absence of an elegant and shiny chignon and the uncovered wrinkles on her meager face in the presence of a stranger were another definite sign something was wrong.

  A heavy winter coat hung negligently on the rest of his chair, his chubby hands cupping a coffee mug like pillows of flesh emerging from under thick sweater sleeves. His mien was grave as he set small brown eyes on me.

  After a few moments of puzzling silence he stood up, gathered his coat and turned to the door that led directly to the back garden. With a hand on the handle and the coat on the other arm, he turned once more to Mom.

  “You know where to find me.”

  She nodded, and he left.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I walked slowly to the table, and sat down in the man’s place.

  Mom didn’t raise her head. On the contrary, she seemed to sink it even closer to the mug, a hunch forming on her slim back that was otherwise as straight as a wood plank. Hadn’t it been for the thick bathrobe, I would’ve seen the skin stretch over her ribs. The truth of the man’s visit must’ve been a burden not much different from an affair. Could it be?

  “So?” I breathed.

  Her fingers still stroked the mug with slow, even moves. “We’ll be under police surveillance. I don’t know for how long.”

  Police surveillance?

  “Why?”

  “You and your friends. The –” She chewed on her lower lip, probably to keep back what looked like a nervous breakdown. Her cheek twitched. “Those people from the mountains. BioDhrome, they told me.”

  Panic shot to the tips of my toes. “BioDhrome’s our priority now, Tiberius. They won’t stop here.”