I stand. ‘Are you ready to go?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Let’s go then.’
She takes the papers on the desk and I ring the bell.
The nurse comes and opens the door. We walk to the reception desk. The doctor is hovering about waiting for us. I nod at him. He nods back and smiles at Victoria. She smiles back and then we are walking out into the sunshine.
Victoria lifts her face toward the sun and breathes a sigh of satisfaction.
I look at her. She is my sister. The thought is foreign. I can’t murder her.
She turns and looks at me. ‘If she had not come we would have mated and bred. And produced something special.’
I shudder inwardly. ‘We might have produced monsters.’
She smiles. ‘You don’t understand. That’s what they want.’
A hired chauffeured Bentley comes to a stop at the bottom of the steps. ‘Here’s your ride. Goodbye, Victoria.’
She shrugs and walks down the rest of the steps and gets smoothly into the back of the car. The driver closes the door and tips his head toward me before he drives off. For a moment I stand on the steps and lift my face toward the warm rays of the sun as Victoria had done. I can’t do it. I can’t kill another person in cold blood.
I take out my mobile and call him. He picks up the call, but does not say anything.
‘Abort the plan. Do you understand?’
‘Yes. Plan aborted,’ the voice on the other side says quietly.
My breath comes out in a great rush of relief, ‘Thank you.’
I feel a sudden shift inside me, a strange letting go. All the actions that have brought me to this moment have been sanctioned by a higher power than their demonic God. He did not win. Never once in my nightmares did the horse manage to break down the flimsiest of wooden doors and come to me. And never again would he be able to.
I will take my little family and go where no one knows us.
Victoria Jane Montgomery
I get into the car and watch him through the window. How very strange. The voices in my head have all fallen totally silent. Could it be that I have left them all behind in that wretched place? I watch Blake’s large, lightly tanned manly hand close the door—I’ve always loved his hands—and a single tear rolls down from one eye. I touch it and look at it with amazement.
I must still love him… Shame he will be dead soon.
A twinge of something hurts my heart, but I will not meddle with it. It will make a sniveling, timorous coward out of me.
The car pulls away, and I turn back to look at him through the back window. Framed against the hospital he stands very still. Seems such a waste. Such a contradiction to kill that which you love so deeply. Such a beautiful man, too. But I’d rather stand by his grave, below a hill, where a sentinel Cyprus tree stands guard and mourn a loss love than watch her victorious.
‘Where are you taking me?’ I ask the driver.
‘Longclere Hall, Lady Victoria,’ he replies politely.
It will be good to see my parents again. I sit back and cannot help smiling. I’m out and I’m free. I look down at the papers in my hands. I did it. I crushed him and next I will crush her. But her death will not come easy. I will make her beg me to die. I turn my head to look out of the window and my smile freezes. A tall, souped up SUV with large metal guards is speeding towards us. They planned it well. They knew which side I’d be sitting in. As it crashes into the side of the Bentley with a sickening sound of crushing metal, and a white hot pain, my gasp simmers in the air.
Once, a long time ago, I had a laugh like the tinkling of chandelier glass. A sweet sound. It’s not lost. There it is in the distance, but coming nearer. The light gets brighter and whiter than anything I have ever seen.
It’s a relief to let go.
Thirty
Blake Law Barrington
Our highest truths are but half-truths; think not to settle down forever in any truth. Make use of it as a tent in which to pass a summer’s night, but build no house of it, or it will be your tomb.
—Earl Balfour
I watch the car bearing Victoria move away from me until it turns the corner at the driveway and disappears from view. Across the road Tom is waiting for me. I take a step toward him, and I see a long black limousine, its windows tinted black, crawling toward me. I am not afraid to die, I never have been. It comes to a stop beside me. I lift my face toward Tom, let him know that all is fine. Perhaps I won’t be long, but even if I am, all is fine. I did the right thing. No more will I bloody my sword.
I open the door and a blast of air-conditioned, gently perfumed air hits me in the face. The perfume is disconcertingly familiar. Sick to my stomach, I bend my neck and look into the dim interior.
‘Hello, Blake,’ my mother says.
I look at her with dazed eyes. In the rubbish and the flotsam of the memories discarded as unimportant, tiny events, little snippets of conversations, a look here, a gesture there, bubble to the top and demand recognition. Delicate nuances of a language I did not understand until now. The darkened cold interior of the car yawns. I fall into it, feeling sick to my stomach, and close the door with a soft click.
‘I killed the wrong parent, didn’t I?’
She smiles. ‘You killed the right parent. You just didn’t kill the power behind the throne.’
‘You?’
‘Your father, as powerful as he was, was nothing more than the visible, coarser grains in the suspension of particles that is this war in our matterium. Power is never where you think it is, and never kept where one can see it. The value of anonymity for continuous power is incalculable. If you see something then you can reach out and take it.’
I stare at her with astonishment. I could not have been more amazed or shocked if she had grown horns. Nobody could ever have imagined that behind the scenes she is the hidden hand. The invisible power in the grand scheme of things. It is impossible for me to describe what I feel. Even the thought that my own mother is one of a handful of the most powerful people in the world, known only to the highest initiates, sitting at the pinnacle of the pyramid of world domination and directing the agenda of all the secret societies in the world, is too fantastical to believe. And yet here she is.
‘Why are you here?’ I ask, dazed.
‘Your car is due for an accident.’
‘I canceled the hit on Victoria,’ I say dully.
‘We did not.’ She glances at her watch. ‘It should have been done by now.’
‘Why?’
‘Because her plan was to kill my son, then my grandson, and finally my dead son’s wife.’
I am transfixed by her haughty, magisterial eyes. Something flashes into my mind, something indefinable. Fuck, there is just no escape. No matter which way I turn, how far I run, I always end up at the same door. I turn away from her and press my palms into my eyes. Oh, Victoria, Victoria! It seems you will have your revenge, after all.
‘Would you like some iced tea?’ my mother offers kindly.
‘No,’ I say, slowly. I take my palms away from my eyes and face her. ‘And what do you want in exchange?’
‘A successor. A hidden hand to hold the power after me.’
‘Me?’
She shakes her head slowly. ‘It was never you.’
Something inside me shrivels and dies quietly, but my voice remains calm and distant. ‘Why not one of Marcus’s sons?’
She shakes her head again. ‘The die was cast. By you.’
‘No,’ I state firmly. ‘You can’t have Sorab.’
‘He is not yours to give. Children come through us but they do not belong to us. The decision to join us is his to make.’
‘He won’t join you. I will teach him different from what I was taught. I will bring him up to know right from wrong.’
She nods as if conceding. ‘By all means. You may educate him in any way you wish, but if he decides, when he is able to, to join us, you must not stand in his way. That is al
l I ask.’
‘Why would he ever want to join a brotherhood of death and destruction if he had choice?’
‘You have your role to play. I have mine. He has his.’
‘And if I agree, you will leave my family alone.’
‘Until Sorab is eighteen, we will never contact him.’
‘What will you do? Trap him into committing some crime or scandal and then blackmail him?’
‘No. That won’t be necessary.’
I frown. ‘Offer him money, power and prestige?’
She seems amused. ‘Sorab is a catalyst. Offering him such things would be a waste of time.’
‘What then?’ I ask, frustrated.
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you more.’
‘Thanks, Mother.’
She smiles gently. ‘It’s all a beautiful and intricate game. Be courageous in the path you have chosen. There is nothing to fear. You have within yourself all that you wish to become and much more that you cannot yet even imagine. May our infinite creator bless and guide your path.’
I can hardly recognize her. I have only ever known her for malicious wit and vicious gossip, the spoilt wife of an astoundingly rich man, the unrivaled queen of the Kingdom of Snobbery. The transformation is too great to comprehend. ‘Why have you chosen the path you have?’
She looks at me as if I was a child again. I can barely remember her like this. Perhaps one little memory when I was five survives the brutality of my upbringing.
‘I was born into it. We are obliged. It is our divine destiny and we play the part given to us by our creator. We help prepare the harvest, by separating the wheat from the chaff, for want of a more eloquent metaphor. If there were no protagonists in this world, there would be no opportunity for a human soul to choose ‘good’ over ‘evil’. The negativity we perpetuate is a tool. Everything is a tool. This conversation is a tool. Use it as such.’
‘But the wars, the wanton destruction of water, air and earth—where is the choice there?’ I ask.
‘We are the hidden hands. Our job is to provide the catalyst. Yours is to use it. Violence, war, hatred, green control, enslavement, genocide, torture, moral degradation, prostitution, drugs—all these things and more, they serve our purpose. What do you do in relation to our urgings? Will you succumb to the darkness or will you stand and shine your inner light? If I put a gun in your hand, I am giving you a tool. It has the potential to be either positive or negative. The outcome depends on you.’
I drop my face into my hands. My heart feels so heavy.
‘Remember always that it is just a game. No one really gets hurt or dies. Offstage we are all the best of friends.’
I turn on her angrily. ‘Dress it up all you want. I don’t want Sorab to play catalyst. I want him to have a normal life.’
‘Can you look beyond what your eyes are showing you? Express love and happiness in a world of fear and darkness, and if you can, you will be as a beacon of light into the darkness.’
I look at her. ‘All right. I take up your challenge. We’ll see who gets Sorab.’
‘Goodbye, Blake.’
She presses a button and the car comes to a stop. I get out and close the door and the car moves away.
Thirty-One
Lana Barrington
How can I describe that moment Brian brought Sorab back to me? I had been told to stay indoors, and I was standing at the window that looks out to the gate when I saw them. Oh! I wanted to cry or call out to Sorab, but I couldn’t. I was so happy I lost my voice. There was not a word I could say. I turned around and ran to the front door. And it was Sorab who spoke first.
‘Mummy,’ he said.
I burst into tears. I couldn’t help it. I grabbed him from Brian and squeezed him so hard he squealed. Then he held onto my neck and said, ‘Sorab home.’
‘Oh, darling. Yes, you are. You are home.’
He waved at our housekeeper and he blew Geraldine a shy flying kiss but he wouldn’t leave me. I wouldn’t have let him go to anyone else anyway. I took him inside and he was hungry, poor thing. We made him scrambled eggs and a slice of toast and afterwards I let him have a red lollipop. I was so happy but all the time I kept glancing at the phone.
Finally, Blake calls to say he is on his way home. His voice trembles with emotion.
‘Are you happy, Lana?’
‘Yes, I’m happy.’
‘Good,’ he says softly.
‘Is everything all right, Blake?’
‘Yes, everything is just fine.’
And I laugh, a shaky, nervous, overjoyed sound. I feel as if we are just starting again. We’ve been given a second chance.
‘Say hello to Sorab,’ I say and hold the phone to his ear. I don’t know what he says, but Sorab listens intently and suddenly grins.
I am still holding Sorab pressed against my body when our housekeeper comes in with a slim black box.
‘Someone dropped this off at the front gate,’ she tells me.
I take the box from her curiously, snap it open and frown.
Inside, nestled on velvet, is Blake’s watch.
Epilogue
‘Time and the ocean and some guiding star and High Cabal have made us what we are.’
—Sir Winston Churchill,
Prime Minister, UK, 1940–1945 & 1951–1955
The woman awakens to the sound of a child’s laughter floating in through the open windows. She smiles and stretches, then strokes her belly. It is just beginning to show. A very small bump. She sits up and, hooking her feet into slippers, goes to the window. She can see her husband and son at the bottom of the garden. The boy is perched on his father’s shoulders and trying to peer into a bird’s nest.
She has the urge to run to them, but she doesn’t. Instead she savors that scene, a moment of beauty and joy. We have survived something so profound that it has bound us together like a tightly woven rope, she thinks. We aren’t the same fun-loving innocent people we once were but we are finally free.
Suddenly overwhelmed by emotion she finds herself running out of the bedroom and down the stairs like a child. Hurtling towards them.
At the double doors that lead to the garden she takes off her slippers and steps lightly on the tiles. They are already sun warmed. It is a beautiful day and there is not a cloud in the sky. The grass is cool under her feet. Before the man or the child have realized, she is already there. She throws her arms tightly around his waist and lays her cheek against his warm shirt. He stumbles forwards slightly with surprise and her son squeals. ‘Oh, Mummy,’ he scolds, ‘you’re going to make Daddy and I fall down.’
‘Daddy and me,’ she corrects automatically.
Her husband doesn’t say anything, just looks down indulgently at her.
‘What are the two of you doing?’
‘We’re looking at bird’s eggs, but we’re not allowed to touch them.’
‘That’s it,’ her husband says and puts the boy on the ground. Then he turns around fully to look at her. ‘Hey, gorgeous,’ he says to her.
‘You have no idea how often I dreamed of this day,’ she says.
‘Look, Daddy. I found a beetle,’ the boy cries and holds out his cupped palms.
‘Be careful, Sorab,’ his father warns. ‘You don’t want to kill it. Even the lowly beetle’s life is precious to it.’
The woman raises her eyebrow. ‘Don’t you think it's a bit early for philosophy lessons?’
‘No,’ says the man. ‘It’s never too early for him to learn wrong from right.’
‘But Mummy kills ants all the time,’ the boy says.
‘Well,’ sighs the man. ‘Mummy only kills them when they come into the house and make a nuisance of themselves.’
The boy opens his hand and the beetle flies out of it. He begins to run after it and the man turns to his woman.
‘Do you ever miss that other life, Blake?’
‘Never,’ he states emphatically.
‘Nothing at all?’
He lays his
hand on his wife’s belly and spreads his fingers out. ‘You are more beautiful to me today than ever.’
‘Answer the question,’ she teases.
He looks into her eyes and makes a mental note of their color, how it has deepened with her pregnancy. ‘Oh Lana, Lana, Lana,’ he sighs softly. ‘When I met you, my heart was a blank canvas. Now, it is a kaleidoscope of color, rich and eternal.’
She smiles and lets his words warm her insides.
This is just the beginning…
Because this is a totally reader-generated effort –
here is another constant reader request.
POV
Blake Law Barrington
When Lana Returned Home After Kissing Jack
She opens the front door of the apartment and finds me standing in the corridor. She stops and stares at me. I know her so well I can almost read her thoughts. Why is he home? Why is he looking at me like that? It’s a funny thing, but that look of surprise—For fuck’s sake, she has no idea at all what she is doing to me—totally flips my switch. And I start to move. Without thinking.
Without control!
In a flash, I have crossed the room and closed the door. I watch myself bend my head to kiss her and then rear back as if burned. Fuck her. She really does carry his scent, too. I want to strangle him. How dare he? How dare she? My eyes blaze into hers. She looks at me as if I am a maniac. Then I really lose it. Things happen so fast it’s a blur. I grab her by the upper arms and the next moment I have lifted her off the ground and she is lying dazed. Yup, flat on her back with me crouching over her like a fucking beast. I pull her skirt up and tear her underwear with my bare hands. Then I grab her legs by the kneecaps and open them wide. I jerk my face between her legs, and like a dog I sniff her pussy. The scent is sweet and familiar. My first reaction is to lick her and fucking take her right there. Stamp her with the scent of my possession. But I realize that I am holding onto legs that have been shocked into total stillness.
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