“No,” said Kahtar. “Start tessering.”
Delphine lifted a closed fist and opened it as though to reveal something delicate. A tunnel of light shot out. “Hurry, so no seekers notice.”
Kahtar stepped inside and she followed. “I thought creating tesseracts was a rare gifting only older women had. But not only can you do it, so can this man who attacked my wife.”
“It’s not a gifting I was born with, but I taught myself. I’m good at math—really good,” said Delphine.
“A lot of us are good at math.”
He sensed Delphine shaking her head before she pushed past him. In the light of the sparkling tesseract a faint frown wrinkled her creamy skin. She looked like a doll, an angel, perfection in miniature. Kahtar did not like or trust her.
Dark lashes ringed bright blue eyes she directed at him. “You don’t see me at all. Is it because you didn’t like my father? Somehow you got past your seeker prejudices to see Beth, but you hold onto Covenant Keeper ones.”
“My impression of you has nothing to do with your father, although he rarely told the truth either.”
She put hands on her hips. “No? I don’t lie arbitrarily.”
“Yet you harbor great giftings and don’t even share them with your clan.”
The blue eyes were intense. “Why don’t you share your secrets with the clan?”
“What do you know of my secrets, Delphine?”
“Possibly more than you do, Kahtar.”
“I’m Warrior Chief to you.”
“So you’ve mentioned.”
Kahtar narrowed his eyes at her.
“Your secrets are irrelevant to me.”
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, resting a hand on the hilt of one of his blades and motioning with his head for her to continue walking the tunnel of light. “And you dare to divert Old Guard. That is deception and lying.”
Delphine had the grace to avoid his eyes as she turned and walked slowly through the tunnel. “They can sense a tesseract. It’s a very temporary harmless thing for me to put their attention elsewhere for a moment.”
“They would end you.”
“Do you think? Sometimes I think they know.”
“Why would Old Guard allow you to divert them?”
“Why indeed.” Delphine trailed a petite hand over the veins of light surrounding them. “But that is neither here nor there at the moment. We should speak of him before we get there.”
“Please do.”
“Do you really not know who he is?” Delphine stopped to turn and search his face again. “You really have no idea?”
“I know that he used and killed my wife and you are his anchor.”
Delphine recoiled from his words as though he’d slapped her.
“I’m sorry. Why don’t you tell me how that happened?” He couldn’t keep the accusation out of his voice. If the woman dared divert Old Guard, it was no wonder she had ended up in this mess.
Delphine turned her back on him and continued her short staccato steps forward. “I was sixteen, at Avalon, with The Mother’s daughter. It’s a long story. I’ll spare you.”
“Delphine, maybe it’s best I know—the short version.”
“I thought he was you at first. I’ve always had a crush on you, so I went with him. His name is Tartarus.”
The name sounded vaguely familiar to Kahtar.
“The first time,” Delphine snorted but it sounded more like a cry of pain, “I wanted to be with him. I knew by then he wasn’t you. I knew you wouldn’t have wanted me like that what with our ages and positions and how you feel about me being like my father. You know I’d almost given you my declaration that summer before I left. Did you really never sense how I felt?”
“No! Please focus!”
“Yeah, and that right there is why I didn’t declare.”
“What’s why you didn’t declare?”
“The way you said no, like I’d offered to cut off one of your nipples or something.”
Kahtar cleared his throat. “Sorry. You were a little girl.”
“Like I said, you’ve never really seen me. Anyway, his heart was…a hole.”
“Sweet El.”
“The truth is even then he seemed, well, not really human. But I mean, so do you, sometimes. I was flattered when he singled me out. Oh, what’s the point of talking about this anyway? I was stupid. He took me. I escaped. A few years passed. He found me again. It was inevitable.”
“You told me his name, Delphine, but who is he really? Who are his clan? Where are they? What do they believe?”
Delphine glanced back, and he caught the glisten of tears. She lifted her hands to wipe them and kept walking, continuing to speak without looking back. “You’re asking all the wrong questions, Kahtar. You should ask, what is he? He’s a daemonium, same as you.”
BLOODY HISTORY—GALES OF NOVEMBER
BETH SAT AT the top of the stairs, her mind racing. The stress of Kahtar’s departure had left her limbs weak and numb like they’d been when she first came back. The thought of Kahtar hunting whatever his doppelganger was and trying to kill it terrified her. Delphine won’t be any help! How can he fight this by himself? What if he doesn’t come back?
“Bethy, you okay?” Her dad appeared at the foot of the stairs, peering at her through the bend in the railing. He always seemed to know when she was upset.
“No,” she admitted. “I’m not okay, Dad.”
Ted stomped up the stairs and studied her for a moment. “Me neither. Come down and help me try my hand at halo-halo ice cream. I found a recipe online.”
“That’s not going to fix this.”
“Bigger than halo-halo? Uh-oh.” Ted tugged Beth to stand and tucked her hand under his arm. She allowed him to lead her down the stairs. “You married a big strong guy. You have to trust that he can take care of himself.”
Beth managed to keep her mouth from dropping open. He knows Kahtar was here! How does he know that?
Ted gave her a sly smile and tapped his chest.
A smile lit Beth’s lips and she squeezed his hand. He sensed Kahtar! Hah! What would Cultuelle Khristos think of my seeker dad now? “You always make me feel better.”
Ted chuckled. The doorbell rang and he tugged Beth to the front door to answer it with him. “If it’s the punk rocker Halloween kid again, I’m not giving him any halo-halo. Did I tell you he came back this year?”
“You’re kidding. What did Mom do?”
“She opened the front door and handed him the trash to take to the curb. I’ve got to say, your mother has always had excellent timing.”
Beth tried not to remember what she’d been doing this Halloween. “What did he do with it?”
“What do you think he did? He took it to the curb.” Ted dropped her hand and yanked the door open.
They both gazed down at the chubby older woman standing on the doorstep. Abigail Adit, Elder of Cultuelle Khristos, looked up at them, her red hair wound into a sharp bun, cat eye glasses jammed onto her nose. Both hands were on her hips and one foot tapped out an impatient staccato on the stoop.
“Took you long enough!” she snapped. “It’s freezing out here and did I have time to grab a coat? No, I did not! There’s no more time to waste on niceties!” She reached through the doorway, grabbed Beth’s wrist and pulled her outside. The woman’s strength shocked Beth.
Ted followed. “Hey, lady, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Everything!” Abigail said. “Same thing I do every single day, with very little help from the rest of the world, mind you.”
Ted followed them. “Beth, do you know this woman?”
Abigail hauled Beth across the driveway. “Back off, Ted White, I don’t have time for your nonsense right now!”
What the—Abigail knows my dad?! Beth glanced back at him. “I do know her, Daddy. It’s okay—I think!” She held one hand up, signaling Ted to stop following as Abigail hauled Beth away.
They rounded the corn
er of the house, where Beth’s mother blocked their path.
“Oh, ho, just what do you think you’re going to do, Miss Carole?” Abigail snapped.
Miss Carole?
All the blood seemed to drain from Carole’s face. “Sister Mary Josephine?” she whispered.
“Of course! That too. When I said everything, I meant it. Does anybody ever think maybe I’d like a day off? If you have to get in someone’s way, young lady, go redirect your husband so Beth and I can get out of here! I have to go catch that stupid warrior your daughter married!”
Beth watched in stunned amazement as her mother obeyed, hurrying around the front of the house. Abigail pulled Beth through the gate into the backyard, stretched out one wrinkled hand, and the light-veined tunnel of a tesseract shot open in front of them. “Well, come on! Do I need to go get a convertible to carry you in? Move it!”
FOR A GIFTING she’d learned and cobbled together, Delphine’s tesseract moved them smoothly. Standing inside the tube-like structure veined with light, Kahtar considered that in all his time he’d known few who could tesser and less who could tesser well. Yet Delphine tessered them across the sea almost as effortlessly as Abigail could.
They exited to a grassy landscape dotted with sheep, the sun rising in the distance. A motorway sat on the next hill beside an old ruin on the edge of the cliff, already swarming with tourists. Kahtar felt self-conscious in his American police uniform, with only a single blade strapped to his side. He scanned, recognizing the location.
“This is Wales,” Delphine said. “Or Cymru, if you speak the language.”
“There are a lot of seekers and eyes here. You said this daemonium hid in Persia.”
Delphine’s scarlet cloak rippled in the wind as she turned to him, a certain beacon against the green grass. “Tartarus, and he’s not in Iran-Persia as we know it; he’s in Persia-Persia. You could call it a pocket of the past, kind of like the entrance to the mists is dotted with places that don’t really belong anywhere. He lives in a place like that.”
Kahtar refused to allow his expression to reflect surprise. How does this girl, who can’t be much more than twenty, know of daemoniums and the mists? I barely know these things after all my time.
“And how did you find such a place, Delphine?” he asked, unable to keep the threat out of his voice. The girl had been clever enough to find a pocket of the past and young and stupid enough to go there. They would all suffer for her actions, as Beth already had.
“I told you I’m really good at math. I spot patterns,” she said, positioning her red shoes on the dry grass of a hillock. “And I told you he found me when I was at a festival just outside Avalon. Can you imagine anything safer? I didn’t seek him out.”
For the first time Kahtar noticed something in her sparkling, often mischievous blue eyes that reminded him almost of his own, as though she’d seen too much. Her dimple-producing smile gave nothing of her internal state away. “Anyway, what you really need to know is that Tartarus has the same gifting I do, storytelling, but it’s not the same at all. He uses it as a weapon to get what he wants.”
“You don’t?”
Again Delphine stopped to look at him. “No. I do not. I use my gifting to help people no one else will help.” She began moving again, motioning for him to follow. “He’s dark and evil and although I could theoretically use my storytelling against him, I couldn’t ever manage it. His will is much stronger than mine, and when I’m with him I want to be with him, at least I think I do—I can never be completely sure! But you can’t trust me once we’re there. I only ever escaped him because he didn’t know I could make tesseracts, and he thought I’d died.”
“Tesseracts seem to be a strong defense to have over someone.”
“Not really. He can make his own, also self-taught. It was only useful when he didn’t know I could make them. His tesseracts are dangerous. Obviously he doesn’t care who or what he damages when he creates them—look what he did to your veil. If he makes one, don’t go inside it for anything.” Delphine jumped off the edge of a large rock and landed on a flat space of grass. “We’re here.”
Kahtar looked across the hillside and seascape. They were near the ruin of the old fortress, which appeared to be a popular tourist spot. “We tesser to Persia from here? Right out in the open?”
“Not exactly. This is the part where we sneak inside Clan Aberdyfi’s cloak. Cloaks are like a veil, only you can see the outside world from the hood of it. They’re thicker than a veil, but have so many openings and pockets they’re pretty easy to find and get inside of, one way or another.”
“I know what a cloak is,” said Kahtar, frowning at her. “You don’t just slip into another clan’s territory. By all rights they could claim our lives for it!”
Delphine looked delighted by that prospect, blue eyes sparkling, dimples everywhere. She shrugged. “They’d have to catch us first!”
“How many times have you done this? How many times have you sneaked in and out of Clan—what did you call them—Aberdyfi’s—cloak?”
“It’s pronounced Aber-dovey, the same in English and Welsh. And I’ve only ever sneaked out once, never in. There’s an exit from your look-alike daemonium’s lair inside. It’s how I escaped. I figure if I could get out this way, I can get back in this way.”
“I don’t tesser, but even I know that’s a big assumption. Tesseract doors don’t swing both ways!”
“Let’s just say I’m pretty sure I can fiddle with the hinges and force it.”
“Pretty sure?”
“Mostly sure.”
Kahtar clenched his fists. “Delphine, I don’t want to get put to death by some ancient Welsh clan. The clans in this part of the world can be harsh. Worst case scenario they kill us in whatever slow manner they prefer and they get Old Guard involved so both our families go into the mists! You don’t fool around with the clans from these lands! They’re humorless!”
“That was before Princess Di. They’re much more feeling now.”
“What?”
“It was a joke, Kahtar. Look, it’s the only way to get to him. He’s not going to stop looking for me. If he keeps looking for me in your veil he’ll eventually figure out where in the world it is. After that he’ll know where our Arc is. There’s no doubt in my mind he’ll know right off that most of Willowyth is our clan. He’s not like most Covenant Keepers. He doesn’t care if seekers notice him. I’m not here because I think we’re going to defeat him and make him go away. I’m here as a sacrifice to protect our clan. I know I won’t be coming back with you.”
The finality in her voice conflicted with Kahtar’s preconceptions of her. There was no immaturity in her action. Why didn’t I realize that was her plan? “You’re not going in with me then. Get me inside and go back to our Arc.”
Delphine smiled up at him, her gaze direct. “I wish you had really kissed me just once before you met Beth. I know I was too young back then, or you were too old, but I would have been good for you, and I would have loved you well.”
Her words, tinged with depth and regret, slid over Kahtar’s heart. He had no idea what to say. Without waiting for a reply Delphine turned her attention to petting the air beside her and Kahtar assumed she had found the edge of the cloak.
“You’re a good man,” she added.
A faint huff of amusement escaped Kahtar. Child, I’m not.
“Now be patient for a few minutes. We need to slip in and slide through this part. They won’t even notice we were there until we’re gone. The trick is to tesser us inside to Tartarus’s lair before anyone in Clan Aberdyfi sees us.”
Patiently and stealthily Delphine continued to tuck and wave her hands over nothing. Kahtar saw her fingertips vanish beneath something from time to time, but suddenly she shot to her feet, looking behind them.
“Someone’s using the tesseract I made to get us here! I think Abigail’s followed us! Come on!” Delphine grabbed the front of his shirt and yanked him through the cloak to the so
und of breaking glass. “Run!”
IMMORTALITY WASN’T KAHTAR’S gifting, nor the eons of experience it provided. Kahtar’s gifting was gestalt, and at moments like this it saved his life. In the split second Delphine and Kahtar exploded through Clan Aberdyfi’s protective cloak and landed in the middle of their village, he saw everything. Light glistened on windswept waves below the cliff to his right, boats bobbed in the harbor below. To his left a renovated fortress sat atop a hill, dotted with solar panels and hundreds of tiny windmills whirring in the November breeze. A walled path snaked around it, leading downhill. Everywhere warriors and mariners went about their business. As the sound of breaking glass echoed, announcing the breach of their cloak, they turned almost as one to look at Kahtar and Delphine with various expressions of disbelief.
You and me both, gentlemen!
Delphine hit the ground running, yanking at the ties of her cloak so the heavy scarlet fabric fell free behind her. Shifting his balteus so his sheathed sword wouldn’t interfere as they ran, Kahtar moved closer to the seawall, setting the pace beside her. He couldn’t cut these men down, and already had deduced the exact spot on the path where they’d be boxed in and captured.
Why did I follow a child?
At his side Delphine kept up admirably, her red slippers flying over flagstone, tiny but fast. Kahtar grabbed the back of her dress and jumped onto the seawall, holding onto her as they dodged half a dozen warriors still trying to figure it all out. The warrior chief in him admonished their slow reactions. He jumped back to the path and steadied Delphine before letting her go.
It took only seconds to reach the scrum of warriors below, but it was enough time for the men to form together to try and block their escape. Four of them spread across the path as a human shield and Kahtar reached for Delphine, intending to hold her and ram through them.
Delphine had other plans. She waved her hand, and the path seemed to drop, sending the men rolling into a ditch. Kahtar and Delphine jumped the dip and ran past. Behind him Kahtar sensed the ground right itself. Tesseract.
FOREVER The Constantines' Secret: A Covenant Keeper Novel Page 22