Once inside the room, I turned to close the door and watched as the pair took positions on either side of it. I couldn’t stop myself from closing the door quickly and putting as much space between them and me as possible.
Atop a small table someone had placed a serving tray. Curious, I lifted the lid to reveal soup and a crusty roll. The moment the aroma hit my nostrils my mouth began to water and it was all I could do to set the lid back down and leave the tray untouched. It might be foolish; Alexander had said he wouldn’t poison me, but I couldn’t afford to take chances. I wondered how long I could go without eating.
I went to the bed I had refused to sleep in the night before and sat. Studying the grounds might have been the smart thing to do, but that wasn’t really why I’d done it. I had needed a distraction; needed to feel like I was doing something useful.
Now I began anew my struggle to understand what was happening, turning the puzzle over and over again in my mind. Every question led to five more, and I finally came to the conclusion that I simply needed more information. Alexander had promised to give me answers. Not that I trusted him to keep that promise, or that his answers would be true, but it was the only hope I had so I clung to it.
From time to time I felt the Voice trying to break through my defenses, each time getting stronger. Either that, or exhaustion was making me weaker. Either terrified me; I needed my wits about me now more than ever.
I laid across the duvet and closed my eyes. My mind still focused on keeping the intruder at bay, there was a small part able to drift, and soon my thoughts turned to Taren.
Two days earlier I’d been tortured because he hadn’t told me he loved me. It seemed so laughably unimportant now. I imagined him, crazy with worry, doing anything and everything to get me back. What did words mean compared with that? Compared with him sitting by my side, day and night while I recovered from the excruciating burns I’d sustained killing the Root Demon?
A Root, I thought bitterly. Because apparently Master Dogan was right and there were several, one of them trying to take up residence in my brain as I lay there.
Was it going to be like this at every Gateway, I wondered—me needing to be ever vigilant against both external and internal attacks? The thought frightened me, both for the fact that it might be true, and for the fact that it wasn’t looking good that I’d be getting to another Gateway.
20
I blinked groggily against the light. As my eyes adjusted, this new reality—of me being held captive in a French villa by a Daemon—came crashing back, and I sat up so quickly my head swam. It was hard to believe I’d fallen sleep, no matter how exhausted I’d been. I reminded myself that the only thing I’d consumed was water from the tap so it was pretty unlikely I’d been drugged. I turned to the clock on the bedside table and realized it had been more than a catnap; four hours had gone by.
I pulled myself from the bed and stumbled into the bathroom where I splashed cold water on my face and took a drink. I caught a whiff of myself as I did, and realized I wasn’t really proving anything by not showering. Yet, when I went to remove my clothing, I couldn’t. Who was to say I wasn’t under video surveillance? Completely creeped out, I opted to do the best I could with the sink and a washcloth.
Not long after I was done, there was a firm knock at the door followed by the male Red who had driven Monica and me the night before. Mitchell, she had called him.
“You will come with me,” he said, then turned, leaving me little choice but to follow.
To my surprise, Mitchell led me not to a dining room, but to a large study, where Alexander sat in front of a computer.
He smiled at our entry and motioned for Mitchell to leave.
“Did you have a pleasant day?” he said, as if that were a completely reasonable thing to ask under the circumstances.
“You promised me answers,” I said, ignoring his question. I refused to act like anything other than what I was—a prisoner.
“I did,” he said, “but I thought that before we sat down to dinner you might like to call your mother.”
I blinked, taken completely aback. “You’ll let me?”
“I thought it might bring you some comfort to speak with her. Of course,” he said, and I braced for the catch, “I must insist that you not reveal your current circumstances.”
That was it? It’s not like I even knew where I was beyond the south of France, which wasn’t likely to lead to rescue.
“Does she not know I’ve been…what’s happened?” I said, trying to be diplomatic.
“She does not,” he said. “Your Institute has kept her in the dark.”
That was probably for the best. There was nothing she could do to help and if anything was going to send her off the deep end, this was it.
“So, as long as I pretend everything is fine…”
“You may have a few minutes,” he said, “though of course I’ll need to be present.”
“Fine, whatever,” I said, anxious to make the call before he changed his mind.
While he made a few clicks of his mouse, I had a moment of panic: was this some kind of trap? A way to use my mother against me? But I dismissed the thought. The man clearly had the means to kidnap my mother, whether I Skyped her or not.
He motioned for me to come around to the other side of the computer, while he stepped just out of view of its camera.
I quickly entered my log-in details, my stomach twisting while I waited for the call to connect.
“Em!” I heard my mother’s voice a moment before her face popped up on the screen.
“Mom,” I said, choking back tears, “it’s so good to see you.”
“You too, baby,” she said. “Where are you now?”
“Traveling to Italy,” I said, figuring it the safest answer.
“Is it gorgeous?” she asked excitedly. “What have you seen?”
“I haven’t seen much of anything yet,” I said, trying to make my tone light. “You know how the Institute is: all work, no play.”
“Well, you tell them to ask Jack Nicholson how that turns out,” she said, only half kidding.
“I will,” I said, again blinking back tears. This could not be the last time I saw this wonderful, difficult, amazing woman.
“What is it, Em?” Her expression became concerned. “Is everything alright?”
Alexander shot me a warning look, but it wasn’t necessary. I’d already dismissed the idea of trying to get off some kind of warning about my situation. Even if Alexander let her live long enough to relay the information to Annys, I didn’t know anything that would aid in my rescue.
“Nothing, Mom. Can you believe I’m already homesick?” I said, doing my best to sell it. “I miss you.”
I must have done a good job because she replied, “I know, babe, I miss you too.”
Alexander made a motion with his hand and I knew it was time to wrap it up.
“Listen, I’ve gotta go,” I said. “But I love you, Mom. More than anything.”
“Love you too. Call me in the next day or two so I don’t worry,” she said.
“I will,” I said, realizing too late that I should have consulted Alexander before making such a promise. This might have been a one-time thing. He seemed unperturbed, though, other than wanting me to say goodbye.
“OK, bye, Mom,” I said.
She smiled and blew me a kiss which was too much to bear; I clicked the button to disconnect.
No longer able to hold it in, a sob escaped my lips, and I clapped my hand over my mouth to prevent any further outburst. I would not cry in front of this man.
“I had hoped that speaking with your mother would make you feel better,” he said gently.
I nodded, regaining my composure. Say what she would, even Gretchen wouldn’t deny that being able to hide behind a mask of appearing fine wasn’t going to come in handy in my current situation.
“It did,” I said, then forced myself to add, “thank you.”
I expected smugness i
n the face of my gratitude, but instead he said, “It’s the least I can do. I know this has been hard on you, and I know it’s my fault. I only hope you will come to see why it was so necessary.”
Fat chance, I thought, but remained silent and forced myself to give him a slight nod.
Alexander led me from the study and out onto the balcony I’d passed on my way to meet him that morning. He motioned for me to take a seat, and as he did the same, it seemed as if Alexander himself were as golden as the sun setting in the distance behind him. And his eyes... They reflected the light in a way that made it difficult to look away.
“The staff tells me you haven’t eaten yet,” he said with concern.
“The staff?” I tried to keep my tone neutral when I added, “Is that what you call that half-demon horde of yours?”
He chuckled. “Horde? I’ve seen a demon horde, and it’s considerably larger than the handful of Reds I have working for me.”
Where had he seen that?
Instead of asking, I shrugged and said, “Potato, po-TAH-to.”
He took my sarcasm in stride, simply saying, “Please, eat something.”
When I made no move to do so, he sighed. “Alright then, answer me this question, and I will answer one of yours. You may speak freely; mine are the only ears who will hear it. Why do you work for the Institute?”
“Because I believe in what they do,” I said, wondering if this was some kind of trick question. “Why don’t you? I doubt you’d want demons running loose, spoiling what is obviously a cushy life you’ve got going on.”
“True,” he said. “But the Institute isn’t exactly up to the task, now is it?”
“We’re still here, aren’t we?”
“Ah, yes, we are, but that’s precisely my point,” he said. “That was your doing, not theirs.”
How much did he know? And how did he know it? Did he have people working for him at the Los Angeles Gateway as well as the Roman one? He knew how I took my coffee and that my mother was in the dark about the kidnapping.
“Without them, I wouldn’t be alive,” I said finally.
“Perhaps,” he said, tilting his head as he made the concession.
“I answered your question, now answer mine. What do you want?”
I braced myself for the answer, wondering whether it would be the truth or a lie, and how I would know the difference.
“I want a world with more Daemons in it,” he said. Then he flashed his flawless smile and added, “A whole horde of us.”
For a moment his words lay there until I was willing to pick them up, to examine their implications.
“Why?” I said, my pulse quickening when I added, “So that we can fight the demons?”
He waived his hand as if the notion were inconsequential. “If we must,” he said. “But that is the least of what we can offer.” He leaned forward and spoke low enough that I had to lean closer to hear him. “Imagine a world with more of us. Think of the advancements humankind could make. Do you know your history? Do you know how it used to be, before the split?”
“Yeah, half the Daemons hated the fact that the other half was hooking up with humans,” I said, not seeing his point.
“Before that,” he said with a hint of exasperation. “Point to any key point of human evolution and I’ll show you how Daemons were at least partly responsible for it—the majesty of the Egyptian pyramids, the Greek system of government, even the mysterious Etruscans—all helped along by our ancestors.”
“And you want to go back to that?” I said, intrigued despite the warning bells going off in my head.
“Actually, I want to go forward,” he said, his eyes flashing with excitement, his words picking up speed. “To forge new bonds between man and Daemon. To usher in a new era of cooperation between our two races.”
“Let’s say what you’re telling me is true,” I said in a way that made it clear I was assuming no such thing, “why would you kidnap me? Why wouldn’t you contact the Institute? If your goals are as altruistic as you claim, they would want to help.”
“Are you certain of that?” he asked softly.
“Of course,” I said reflexively. “Why wouldn’t they?”
“Well,” he said, “an institution that has existed for millennia with the sole purpose of keeping demons at bay might not be eager to become obsolete.”
“How would that happen? Having an evolved population doesn’t mean it wouldn’t need protection from demons.”
“It would if there were no more Gateways. If the very means by which the demons could access this world was severed completely and irrevocably.”
No more Gateways? No more people dying due to demon attacks? No more worrying about Taren, or having to guard my mind against deadly intrud—
“Is that even possible?” I said, doing my best not to get carried away.
“The Daemons responsible for the separation were wise to take action before it was too late, but they were too soft,” he said. “Even as they split the world, they believed reconciliation was possible. That in time, fences—Gateways—could be mended.”
Even if there had been a time when that was possible, it was long gone now. If he was telling the truth—big if—then he was right; what did we need the Gateways for? They only made us vulnerable.
He filled my silence by saying, “If the demons were no longer a threat, we could turn our attention elsewhere.“
“Like…?”
“There is no limit to what we might achieve. Take cancer—a blight on the world, yes?” he asked, continuing only when I’d nodded. “Part of the reason it is so deadly is the rate at which it multiplies. What if we could slow that growth rate? Stop the cells from mutating?”
“I...” I had no idea what to say. There was nothing about Daemons working with cancer in my textbooks. Did they even have cancer back then?
Alexander pressed on, his words growing urgent. “We could stop bleeding, reset broken bones. There is no limit to what we might achieve,” he said. “And that is just what the Daemons themselves might accomplish. Without the taint of the demons infecting every man, woman, and child—”
“Infecting?” Yes, there were some that were susceptible—often becoming Reds, or insane, or both—but every single human? The possibility made my skin crawl from the inside out, as though that taint were touching me now.
“Your Institute is naive if they think otherwise. The touch of the demons goes deep. But,” he said, his voice conspiratorial, “if their hold was severed completely, if humans—the planet itself— were free of their influence…”
No demons? No illness?
And then, against my better judgment, something broke loose inside of me and I was flooded with a feeling almost foreign to me. It was hope. Hope of not just keeping the monsters at bay, but being free of them completely.
“It would be a Utopia,” I said, when I could breathe again.
His blue eyes penetrated mine. Had I really thought they were frightening? They were kind.
Then his lip curled just short of a sneer, bringing me back to reality. “I hope it would be better than that.”
“What could be better than Utopia?” I asked, confused.
“Freedom,” he said, bitterness touching his voice.
I refrained from asking the difference between the two because I needed him to keep talking. Instead I said, “How would we do that, exactly? Have a world with more of us in it?”
“There already are more of us,” he said, and once again hope surged in my chest.
It was what I’d been yearning for. What I needed—to be trained by another Daemon, for there to be enough of us that we had a chance of winning. The world he’d described was far beyond anything I’d dreamt of, but why couldn’t it be true?
“And you know where they are?” I asked, unable to keep the excitement from my voice. “How did you learn what you are?”
“Before I pour out my life’s story, Ember, and I will,” he said, “will you please eat some
thing? If I am going to train you, you need all of your strength.”
Train me? Assuming he wasn’t psycho, I couldn’t ask for a better teacher. I looked at the array of food before me and thought, what could it hurt? His fantasy vision of the future was more likely to make me pliable than anything he could have put in the food. I grabbed what was closest to me, which happened to be a basket of bread, and began slathering a demi-baguette with truffle spread. Too hungry to savor the taste, I wolfed it down while Alexander spoke.
“We have a duty,” he said. “We and others like us, to live up to our powers, to make proud our ancestors and once again make strong our lineage.”
I was too busy chewing to respond. Now that I’d started eating, my hunger increased exponentially and I reached for a crusty roll.
“The trouble with your Institute, is that they have no vision,” he said. “They are focused solely on maintaining the status quo. And then you come along, and they get a glimpse of what is possible. What you’re capable of. Tell me, did they greet you with open arms or suspicion?”
A bit of both, I thought, but I wouldn’t be admitting that to him.
“I killed the Root Demon that commanded the lesser demons of the Los Angeles Gateway,” I said. “Of course they thanked me.”
“Yes, after they conspired to excommunicate you,” he said, once again driving home just how deep his moles went. “And after you did exactly what they wanted, which was to put things back as they had been before. Better, in fact. You are the most powerful among them; have they honored you in any way? Consulted you on decisions that directly affect you?”
I didn’t bother responding—he clearly knew the answer. I tried to pass off my silence as simply chewing, when in reality the wheels were spinning in my brain. Hadn’t I been afraid to tell anyone about my nightmares? About the fear that gripped me whenever I tried to access my powers? I had good reason to be scared—Annys had proven she would do what she thought best for the Institute, even if that meant expelling me.
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