Unholy Promises

by Roxy Harte

  No, Nikos is the only living family I have. My brother, my twin, and I will not leave here without seeing him. I will not leave here without him. Period. “You can’t have my brother, not for that. I will not let you change him into the monster who could take King Cobra’s place.”

  “He is already the monster, Ari.” Henri puffs his pipe, inhaling enough to blow out a smoke ring and then another. “But, if you insist on this tragic course…”

  “Stay out of my way, Henri,” I warn. “I’m here to save him.”

  Henri chuckles around the stem of his pipe, slapping me on the back. “Ari, Ari, Ari. You give me hope for an eventful New Year. Thank you. I was beginning to get a bit bored. But of course you do realize you can’t have him.”

  Neither of us takes our eyes from the brilliant landscape, a wintry wonderland forming with the falling snow.

  “But as long as you are here perhaps you could do a final favor for me before you die trying to accomplish the impossible?”

  My blood runs as cold as the melt dripping from the icicles hanging outside on the eaves. Favors are never a good thing, not for the likes of Henri. “In exchange for you looking the other way for a bit?”

  “Non, but I will make certain it is not my people who kill you.”

  I glance at him sideways, seeing his mirth written plainly on his face. “What would you have me do, Henri?”

  “Kill Eva. She’s become a liability.”

  * * * * *

  Avoiding tolls and major highways, I zigzag a path from Lyon to Paris. The peaceful, snow-covered rolling hills and clear skies of the countryside are at odds with my chaotic mind. Henri wants me to kill Eva for him. “Fuck!” Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  All I wanted to do was get in, rescue my brother, get out.

  My pocket vibrates, my cell phone interrupting my tirade. The phone vibrates again and I consider not answering but I know without looking it is Garrett or Sophia, or both of them together, and they are worried. I shouldn’t, because by answering I will leave too many unanswered questions, which will in turn worry them more than if I hadn’t answered at all. “Hello?”

  “Where in the bloody hell are you?”

  Ah, Garrett, and yes, by the sound of his voice, hours past worried.

  “What? No Merry Christmas?”

  His answer is an irritated exhale.

  “I’m sorry. I had to go out of town, but I should only be a few days.”

  “You promised no more disappearances,” accuses Garrett.

  “It couldn’t be helped,” I reply, wishing I hadn’t answered. “Is everything okay there?”

  “Everything’s fine, if you don’t count Kitten’s dramatics. Could you speak to her?”

  Oh hell. “Of course.”

  “She’s already on the line.”

  “Sophia?”

  “I’m here,” she whispers, but not so softly I don’t hear her voice crack or the underlying thread of worry. Not giving me a chance to reply, she asks, “You’ve gone to France?”

  “What?” I ask, shocked but trying to remain calm. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s okay, Thomas, Garrett isn’t on the phone now. He had to deal with something downstairs, so you can tell me the truth.”

  “The truth is I have to do something that is very important and I will be home in a few days.”

  “The truth is you’re evading.”

  Sometimes she scares me with her accuracy…like now. I pull off onto the side of the road and step out of the car. I need air, and it smacks me in the face with an icy gust. Beneath the clean air is a subtle hint of wood smoke. Strangely, its scent is a calming embrace. The gravel beneath my feet gives way to crunchy frozen grass as I walk over to a fenced field, breathing, watching cattle grazing, their warm breath a cloud of white around their faces. Not too far away, a farmhouse spills dark smoke from a stone chimney.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s the truth. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

  My heart skips a beat as I wonder why her feelings matter so much. “I love you.”

  “I love you, Thomas. Just promise me you will come back to us.”

  “I will come back to you and Garrett. You need not fear that.” I sigh, running my hand through my hair, pacing, thinking too much. How can I be so transparent to her?

  “That’s not what I fear. Please, please come home to us.”

  For the first time since fleeing Paris, I wish I could confide in her. She would rest easier if she knew I was here for Nikos. “What do you fear, Sophia?”

  “Losing you.”

  “Don’t, sweetheart.”

  “How can you command that? It’s Christmas, the one day most people go to any length to be with the ones they love. Your being there instead of here says much of our relationship.”

  I close my eyes against the white landscape, wishing I were there. “I promise I will explain. Soon. But until I can, please believe I love you with all of my heart and all of my soul. Know that above all else.”

  “Do not seek the because—in love there is no because, no reason, no explanation, no solutions.”

  Anaïs Nin

  Chapter Eight

  Kitten

  My mind paces in its cage of bone and tissue. If I focus, my pulse, beating somewhere between my ears, is all I hear. Sometimes I can even drown out my thoughts with so much noise, the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of blood shooting through my veins a very noisy thing indeed.

  I think perhaps it is night, although it could as easily be morning. Nothing here in the dark of my brain is factual. It is memory or it is daydream, but it is not solid. Nothing is solid inside my cranial cage, but better here than there. There being my body, of course. I left my body and the steel confines that hold it motionless when the first ache lodged solidly in my lower spine. That was hours, or maybe days after my palms had gone numb, my knees, shins and ankles just as useless.

  A fact I can attest to is that Master is not here. He does not watch me and that makes me lonely, although I am not alone. Master would never leave me alone and unprotected.

  I know Enrique is here, standing watch, but only because the air ducts are wonderful conductors of voices.

  “When will you be back?”

  “Soon, I only need to go to the office for a little while.”

  “I don’ like dis, I don’ like being Kitten’s keeper.”

  “I won’t be long, I promise.”

  I think Master kissed him goodbye, or maybe I just imagined it. No, I think he kissed him. In my mind, I see Master wrapping his hand around Enrique’s nape, pulling his head close as he promises not to be long, the strong assurance of his hand wrapped tight around Enrique’s neck making his words believable, and then his lips pressing into the middle of Enrique’s forehead, the promise sealed.

  I sigh, wishing wistfully it was my forehead being kissed goodbye with promises.

  The sigh is a big, huge mistake that makes me remember my body. Shards of pain remind me of my steel prison. Trying to focus on the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of my heartbeat, it hides in the loud, pitiful sound of moaning and then sobbing. I hurt. It’s a blessed I-hurt-all-over hurt, which allows me to focus on something other than my broken heart. Tears stream down my face, attesting to my fears that Lord Fyre has left us and I do not think he is coming back.

  Her name is Eva. That much I know. He dreams about her and he has gone to find her, although he has never spoken of her. If he did not talk in his sleep, I would never have known of her existence.

  I think he went to France because he always dreams in French.

  Considering his native tongue is Greek and he lives in the United States, I find it very odd he dreams almost exclusively in French, though his dreams aren’t always of Eva. More often they are nightmares. I know he has lived a very dark life, or maybe his nightmares aren’t memories at all, and honestly just fears made Technicolor in his brain. But then I wonder…if they’re just fabrications, why do they wrenc
h his soul so?

  I hope Eva doesn’t want him.

  That was mean. I take it back. If he truly loves her as much as his dreams make it seem, then they should be together, even if she loves him only half as much.

  She would be a fool not to love him.

  Which means he won’t be coming back.

  God, what was I thinking?

  Perhaps I could tell him about the baby…

  Then what? Would he support my plans? Would he hate me and think me a horrible person? I am a horrible person—I want to kill my baby.

  No! No, I don’t.

  I want this baby. If God has given me a second chance to be a mother, shouldn’t I take the chance? Even if I don’t believe I deserve it? Oh God. A baby will change everything. Everything…

  Sobbing, choking on snot, it is only when a soft light blinks on I realize I am hysterical, or if not hysterical sobbing hysterically. Isn’t that the same difference?

  “Blow!” Enrique commands, holding a tissue to my nose. I obey.

  “Again!”

  I blow again, but then I am retching as snot leaves my throat to go through my nose and vomit follows.

  “God, you’re a mess. I can’ understand why Garrett would leave you like this!”

  “You can?”

  “No, can’. I can’ understand it.”

  “You can’t understand it.”

  “Sí,” he answers, clarifying my confusion with his thick accent as he wipes my face with damp cloths pulled from a baby wipe dispenser. Handy things, baby wipes. They clean up all kinds of messes, even snotty, vomity kinds of messes.

  “Are you done now?” he asks, holding my chin, looking into my face.

  “Done?”

  “Sí, done. Wit’ dis…dis tantrum?”

  I jerk my face from his hands, quite offended. “I am not throwing a tantrum!”

  “Oh sí, you are,” he insists, pushing my bangs out of my face. “But it won’ get you out of dis cage. No, Enrique is just watching you, making sure you don’ die in a fire or somet’ing. Making sure you don’ die on your own snot and puke too. So save dis…dis theatrics for your Master. Because I am jus’ de houseboy. Dis is not my bis’niss.” He takes my face in his hands and makes me look up at him. “If he knew de truth of de secret you keep, ju wold not be in dis cage. It’s no my bis’niss to tell him.”

  He stands and the light blinks out as he closes the door, leaving me once again in pitch-black darkness. Oh God! Enrique knows my worst fears? How can he know?

  “I am not throwing a tantrum!” I scream at the closed door, not caring if he really hears me or not. I say it for myself, to convince myself, whispering it again, “I am not throwing a tantrum…and I am not pregnant.”

  “Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field.”

  William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

  Chapter Nine

  Eva

  The sound of the key unbolting the deadlock pulls me back to earth. I stand poised to enter the warehouse apartment I shared with Luka for the six short months we were together before he died, not remembering how I’ve gotten here. Holding my car keys, I know I at least drove.

  Facing the heavy steel door and peeling paint, I know I’ve forgotten something. I try to force my brain to work, to de-numb. Why is it always so hard to remember the forgotten and easy to remember the fact something important has been misplaced, even if just a memory?

  The iced-over metal grate beneath my feet is hazardous as I stomp snow from my boots, my hand on the doorknob for support. I finally remember the forgotten in the nick of time, pressing a hidden finger lever and disabling the first of many security measures.

  I should go.

  I can’t believe I’m here.

  Looking out across the ebony Seine, the answer to why I am here lies in the memory of other things forgotten, though more likely pushed back and away, deeper into my psyche so that the memory is less painful. Here, every scent holds his presence, the fragrance of this place found nowhere else on earth, the combination of water, wood and rusted steel awakening memories long tucked away.

  In the days following his death, I hid here, lost in the scent, comforted by the sameness. Henri forced me out, and thank God he did so. I lost myself in work. Lost myself in a different kind of sameness, comfort found in the routine of destruction and death. I return after so long, seeking once again the memory of him.

  Opening the door to the warehouse, I am assailed by the faint memory of a cologne I never knew the name of, the contents of a full bottle soaking into plaster and wood where the bottle shattered on impact the night of Luka’s funeral. Crossing the threshold, I shun the light switch and kick off my boots before padding barefoot to the cabinet that holds his best Ouzo Giannatsi. Reaching blindly, my hand closes around the familiar shape. Of course, not the same bottle we shared before he left, but one of the many stocked in his pantry because Giannatsi is impossible to get without traveling to Greece. He kept cases.

  I swig straight from the bottle, choking on the heat of the first swallow before enjoying the more subtle licorice aftertaste. Bottle in hand, I cross the wide-open space to sit on his bed, actually just two mattresses stacked. Quite utilitarian except they are covered with luxurious satin sheets, a velvet goose down-filled duvet and a mink blanket. You would have to have known the man to appreciate the simplicity and the luxury. Luka was first and foremost a sensualist.

  Running my hand over the velvet, I remember it was once a brilliant burgundy, the color remaining only a faded memory of its former glory. Its texture stirs memories of a cold, snowy afternoon, but I force them away, waiting for the ouzo to take hold. Only then will I dare face them. More ouzo, standing, pacing. I really shouldn’t be here.

  My cell phone vibrates and I pull it from my inner jacket pocket. Liam appears on the caller ID. I wait for the call to go to voicemail, wait longer, waiting for the message light to blink.

  Two swigs of ouzo, and then two more before I am ready to listen to his message.

  “Eva, s’me. I took your advice, my flight leaves in two hours. The Welsh countryside is lovely in the winter, peaceful. You need some solitude right now too. Come with me, get away from Paris, get away from work. God only knows how hard the last assignment was on you. I went over the debriefing notes. Why didn’t you tell me a kid was shot? You can’t keep this stuff inside, Eva…you can trust me…share your emotions with me. You don’t have to literally be the Ice Princess all of the time. Call me back or show up at the airport. I’m worried.”

  Four swigs of ouzo weren’t enough for me to have listened to that message and I’m not sure which emotion to experience first. Warm and fuzzy, because he wants me to join him in the romantic Welsh countryside? Pissed as hell, because he was in my file, reading my personal notes about what exactly happened on my mission? Annoyed maybe, because he referred to me by the pet name I was given first year because absolutely nothing made me cry?

  I’m not calling back.

  If he’d said “meet me at the airport”, I would have gone.

  As it is, I just need more ouzo.

  I toss the phone onto an antique sideboard and swallow more liquid fire before setting the bottle next to it. Turning, I face the biggest demon in the room—his antique wardrobe. It is a prize possession, a family heirloom passed too many generations to mentally click which great-great it would have been who lovingly carved and painted it for his new bride. It is exquisite, with elaborate twists and curves and painted roses. Just opening the door releases his scent and, knowing that, I wait, taking the time to slide out of my jacket, holster, shirt and pants. I seriously consider leaving my bra and panties on, but who am I kidding? I want to be naked when his scent leaps free from his closet, I want my skin wrapped in his scent.

  The room is icy and my skin stands at attention, covered with gooseflesh as I open the closet door. Inhaling deeply, I step inside, pulling his silk robe, a traditional kimono he acquired in Japan, f
rom its hanger. I hold it to my face. Taking Liam’s advice, I embrace the emotion tearing through my heart and sob openly for the first time in a decade. Tears streaming down my face, I rub the cool, slick fabric over my breasts and stomach in complete agony over my loss of him before wrapping myself in it. Within moments, my body heat mingles with the scent so that when I lift the fabric to my nose, it is as though we are together once more.

  Stepping over the pile of tossed clothes, I reach for the ouzo and take several long swigs, warming the back of my throat. His ouzo, just as his scent, is a familiar comfort, and I remember the night it was his lips, his tongue, teaching me to enjoy the flavor, the flavor of him.

  The sound of rain hitting the panes draws my eyes to a high window. When did the snow change to rain? The storm makes the sky appear as black as night, it must be day by now at least. A flash of lightning illuminates the room. Reaching full force, the storm pounds the metal roof, reverberating through my pounding head. I blame the headache on Liam.

  Reaching for my jacket, I withdraw a small pillbox containing Vicodin and swallow several.

  Keeping the ouzo near, I lie down on the bed, wrap myself in the luxury of the mink throw and prop myself against the many down pillows. I flip on the bedside CD player, filling the room with soft jazz. Lulled by the hypnotic bass notes and warmed by the alcohol coursing through my veins, I will myself to relax, the tension in my neck and shoulders greater since the storm began. Or since Liam’s call.

  Funny, I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t on edge, each mission blurring into the next. The last mission racing to the forefront, I battle away the images of the man, his gun barrel aimed, his trigger finger ready. Was I really that much faster? The wife and daughter screaming but not racing to the man, racing to the playpen in the corner. It seemed not real when she lifted the toddler to her chest, the blood…slow-motion horror, and then fast-forward as so many were yelling, running, an airlift ordered for the youngest victim.