I love you, Mom. Please don’t cry.
But those words remained stuck in a scratchy steel cage at her throat. Saying them would lower her defenses, force her to accept her reality, to admit that she was fit to be saved—and that’s one thing she wasn’t ready to do.
That last thought sobered her up and she pulled back. Adri still clung to her, but her body was now still, not trembling like a leaf as in moments before. Relieved, she let her arms fall to her sides, sending a silent message to her mother to let go. The other woman got it loud and clear when she raised her head and gave her a soulful look. Moisture glimmered in the blue-grey depths of her eyes.
“No matter what you say, no matter how you feel, you’re my daughter,” she said on a hoarse whisper. And I’ll always protect you, were the unspoken words.
Sera’s mouth dried in a flash—becoming so arid, she could barely speak past the big lump in her throat. Anyway, what could she say in response that wouldn’t end up in another massive fight?
“Tell me,” she said tentatively, her voice sounding distant even to her. “Not knowing won’t protect me.”
Those last words brought the spunk back into her mother. “I’ve never kept secrets from you.”
“No, you just make decisions for me and…. Never mind, just say it, dammit!”
Adri stepped back. “Fine. The soul stealer took Susan’s blood while her body was being depleted of oxygen. I know because it was blue in color.”
Craig grunted. “I won’t ask how you came to know but yes, we found a puncture mark in her neck, a neat slit. Probably used a blade.”
Adri rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “I saw the man speak to Susan. I think he was her lover, and I didn’t like the look of him. When she left the table, I followed her, but…I was too late.” She hung her head in defeat and took a deep breath, but then raised a fierce expression to Sera. “Ma fille, two of those monsters who attacked you were soul stealers.”
Sera’s breath hitched, even though she’d expected her mother’s last statement. “But I hardly knew Susan. And I haven’t been to the museum in years. Why her? Why me? Did she know Rafe?”
Questions tumbled from her lips like bullets from a bazooka aimed clumsily at a feather in the breeze, landing all over the place.
Adri’s brows furrowed as she crossed her arms again and leaned to the side, favoring her left leg. Wild thoughts flittered about her face. “I’m just as confused as you, darling, but I believe that to understand what happened to you, we must first figure out what happened to Susan, and why.”
“The most important thing to keep in mind is that there must be two murder investigations. The official one by the local police, which, as we all know, will lead nowhere near the truth, and a separate, discreet one that only those in the midst of things must carry forward.” Craig gave her mother a knowing look. “No one should suspect how the community in Shadow Bridge factors in the equation and I’d like to keep it that way. Less prying eyes.”
“What do they say about the cause of death?” Adri asked.
“It would be asphyxia, except that—”
“There’s no petechiae in the conjunctivae,” she finished.
“They should make you inspector over at the department. Bet you’d step on a few toes,” he teased.
Adri bit her bottom lip, ignoring the joke. “Then there’s the blood loss.”
“There’s that.”
“Fine, so they’re baffled. Where do we start?”
“The man—thing—that did this was interrupted from finishing his task. Although as you say he took some blood to go, he probably would have drained her completely if you hadn’t ruined his party.”
“So?” Sera asked.
“So he didn’t accomplish whatever he wanted to accomplish, at least we hope. I suspect he needed all her blood for something, and he needed it right at that moment, at her death. Must be something to do with oxygen or air leaving her….”
“Air,” Adri said meaningfully. “Power.”
“Mmmm. Keep turning those wheels as I check this.” Craig pulled his cellphone out of his jeans pocket. Adri gave him a blank stare.
“It’s the assistant director George telling me that they’re sending one of the agents from the art crime team to the New York office to support the investigation. He’s due in tomorrow.”
He caught Adri’s panicked look.
“Don’t worry, I’ll handle him,” he reassured. “The boss made it clear he wants me as lead in the theft case. It’s New York business, ya know. And what’s better,” he added, “I’ll have first dibs on what’s going on in the murder investigation as the two offences are linked. NYPD are none too happy with our noses in the pie, of course, but the suckers got no choice.”
“Meanwhile, I’m left with a lot of questions that need answers,” Adri said with a long-suffering sigh. “Too many.”
You are? Sera wanted to stomp her feet. Just like you to take the whole world on your shoulders, Mom. A veritable Joan of Arc.
Although this time, she was filled with dread, to the depths of her being. What was going on? Were her family and friends in danger?
“No.” Craig stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Some answers are not far away.”
“How so?”
“Think, Adri, think,” he urged. “You have the first clue. Air. Only a select few would know its true significance.”
Recognition flared on the Grecian features as though a fifty thousand watt light bulb had lit up in her mind. “The fae.”
“Always said you were smart,” Craig said approvingly.
The remark earned him a slap on the arm. “Insufferable man.”
“Yeah, yeah, but I’m charming enough when you need my help, lady. Must be my human half.”
“Whoa, guys. Get a room, will you?” she jibed, wanting nothing more than to taunt her proper mother.
“Sera!” Adri seemed about to burst now, pure indignation in her tone. Like she was itching to bend her over her knees and paddle her behind.
Sera suppressed a grin while Craig served her a lopsided smile and a wink. She liked the man, maybe because she knew that his mixed blood was a source of both pride and torture to his soul. He was a kindred spirit, in some ways. A mutt—that’s what he thought of himself. Product of a forbidden union between a human and a werewolf, the only kind of interspecies marriage that could produce offspring. As such, he’d wanted to find his place in the human world beyond the confines of Shadow Bridge.
Sera longed to have his courage sometimes—to simply start over and put roots somewhere else. However, as long as the mystery of her origins remained unsolved, she couldn’t and wouldn’t leave. She needed Shadow Bridge as much as Shadow Bridge needed her. For better or worse, this was her home—for now.
“So now I have a meeting to convene as soon as possible but not until...” Adri dragged her attention to Sera. “Not until you’re tucked in your bed again, resting. You’ll need your strength.”
There she goes again.
“Stop mothering me,” Sera said through clenched teeth. She’d mostly stayed out of the conversation but her parent’s condescension was getting too far.
“As far as I know, I am your mother.”
“So you like to remind me every second,” she muttered.
“What did you just say?”
“Forget it.”
“Right. Now I trust you’ll go to your room.”
“You go to yours if you wish. I’m getting out of here.” Sera did stomp her feet this time, to her eternal embarrassment. Adri’s fault that she was acting like a toddler with a tantrum.
“You’re too weak to teach today! I already informed the other instructors that you wouldn’t show up this week.”
“Good. Thank goodness I have you to sort it all out for me, seeing that I don’t have a functioning brain,” she pointed to her head for emphasis, “to think with.”
“Oh, Sera. Don’t be so childish.”
“Am I chil
dish? Or are you the one intent on keeping me so? Think about that while I get off your hair!”
And with that, she stepped inside the elevator, pressed a button, and let the door close against the older woman’s stupefied face.
*
Adri stood staring, mouth agape, at the copper door of the lift, her heart breaking a little bit more. Harder. Exhaustion seeped insidiously through her bones, weighing her down.
What had she ever done to deserve this? To live for nearly three millennia and be reduced to an insult board for a bratty adult who still behaved like a spoilt teen?
“She does have a point,” Craig interjected through her litany of self-pity.
“Shut up.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He snorted, but mercifully did as she asked.
“You know, there is one thing that keeps nagging at me above all others,” she said after some moments of silence. “One thing I just can’t get out of my mind, and it’s terrifying me.”
“What is that?”
Her query about the mysterious Desmond Roxburgh may have to be postponed until further notice. More pressing matters abounded.
She turned and locked gazes with Craig. “The soul stealer drank Susan’s blood to get stronger. But we never asked ourselves, why would he also need to take the sample away with him?”
Chapter Five
After pulling on a skull cap and the gloves she’d left in a basket by the pantry door, Sera zipped up her burgundy leather biker jacket and stuffed her hands into her pockets as she rushed through the back gate of the garden like a sprite gasping for freedom. Along the way, she welcomed the nippy outside air like she’d welcomed a reprieve from the oppression inside, even though it felt chillier than usual at this time of year. The worked-up steam of anger shrank to a slow simmer, and then gave way to pure adrenaline as she picked up pace.
So her mother had gone and cancelled all her classes this week. The gall of her. As if the students could do without their lessons in Ancient World Languages and History, right? Still, that was for the better, because she couldn’t deal with company right now. Not that she’d ever let Adri know that. Oh, the shame. She couldn’t place herself as the adult among a swarm of energetic teens brimming with life. The very thing she loved about her job, she couldn’t handle at all today.
Her brown leather Converse sneakers flew over the rough stairs hewn into the hill that led down to her cottage by the pool. Dewy green overgrowth carpeted the stone wall on her right, as well as part of the ground, while a miniature sculpture of one of the turrets of their castle, complete with riding knight and a princess leaning out from a top balcony in the tower, rose to her left. Grass also grew in abundance through the stonework of the whimsical piece, giving the immediate area an otherworldly, fairytale appearance.
God, how she loved this place! If she ever left Shadow Bridge, she’d miss it like no other, except the cottage itself.
Her mother had let the unruliness of Nature thrive in this part of the gardens that stretched beyond the formal terraces, mazes, and floral plantings that would rival the landscaping in the royal palace of Versailles. Perhaps she’d done so to humor Sera’s artistic side, knowing her taste for order and elegance would not normally stretch to encompass this bit of wilderness. Although, she’d once admitted, she rather liked how it had turned out as it reminded her of other treasured places she’d enjoyed in times long past.
The cottage was a good walk from the main home that looked more like a medieval stronghold than a house, but to Sera, it was totally worth the fifteen minute hike—eight minutes, if you walked fast. A sturdy wood structure built from red bricks, a slate roof, and fitted with floor to ceiling windows to bring in light, she’d decorated it to her own taste and sense of comfort—not for show. Her sanctuary was anything but a tidy museum piece, and she liked it that way.
She made it in seven minutes, passing by the solar-covered rectangular pool and Jacuzzi, and unlocking the walnut door in the blink of an eye. Rushing in on a sigh, she’d barely taken off her gloves before something bolted behind her and pushed her to the overstuffed couch upholstered in a lively bohemian design. A warm, wet nose burrowed in her hair and a rough tongue licked her lobe.
“Will!” she cried, digging her fingers in the softest fur and feeling the overworking muscles beneath. “Will, stop it! Where did you…come from? How’d old… Jim…treat you? I hope he didn’t give you too much pie. …Will!” she said breathlessly.
The German Shepherd—named in honor of her lost love—sat on his hind legs and regarded her with adoring eyes and a dangling tongue. The excitement of seeing his mistress had him panting and whining and tapping his tail and front legs on the Persian carpet, utterly beside himself.
Dear, dear creature, my Will. You’ve come a long way since the time I plucked you from a kill shelter.
“My best friend,” she cooed, rubbing below his ears and ruffling the fur at his neck. “Always happy to see me. Missed you too, buddy.”
He placed a paw in her hand.
“We have to go check out that sick pigeon later. Jim said she should be ready for release in a few days. She’ll be happy to join her friends. And I hope you haven’t been chasing Tilly too much? Poor rabbit never gets a moment’s rest when you’re around. Alright then, let’s get to work.”
Will gave a loud woof that sounded suspiciously like an ‘Okay!’ Laughing, she gave him one last snuggle and pushed him gently back, patting his head.
She stood and assessed the space. The entire cottage consisted mainly of one big cozy room bursting with exotic decorative touches, and a full modern bathroom and stocked kitchenette at the back—all the creature comforts she needed. A wide, comfortable chaise at counter-corner with the couch sometimes doubled as a bed—or even the couch itself did—on days when she worked at her painting from sun up to sun down, and was too knackered to take the trek back to the house.
She had a feeling this would be one of those days, because she had no desire to go back up there any time soon. Not after what had happened—security be damned. She couldn’t be more secure than she was at her very own digs in Shadow Bridge, anyway, could she? The place where the portal was guarded twenty-four-seven, and life proceeded as normal.
This place was hers and she was safe here. Glass surrounded her, bringing the outdoors in, and to one side, a dim, secluded alcove, separated from the main room by a wood bead curtain—much like the veil in Shadow Bridge between the mortal and supernatural worlds—housed dozens of finished paintings carefully stacked against the wall. And waiting to be exposed to the world, her mother would say.
Her painting was her best kept secret for now. Well, not a secret, but a succession of private moments she wasn’t yet ready to share with a lot of people. An easel sat prepped up in the center of the room with a blank canvas on it, ready for her brush.
She switched on the central heating and discarded her jacket. Walking to the upright easel, she opened the handy storage drawer beneath the canvas. A palette lay there, begging for another round of color on its weathered, stained surface. Lately, she’d suffered a breakdown in patience and taken to pastels or acrylics. True, master artists always used oils, their skill unfolding with layer upon layer of paint, but she was going through a phase when she needed to see immediate results. Using a retardant to prevent the acrylic from drying too quickly, she could finish a painting in hours or at least, in a few days—not months, as use of oils would require.
She liked working at that speed; a beginning and an end at her fingertips. From sunrise until sunset.
She flipped open her acrylic storage case laid conveniently atop a folding table by the easel, and squeezed out the basics from their oversized plastic bottles—blue on one side, red and yellow on the other, white in the middle, a hint of black on top. Warm and cold, like the seasons. She placed two small cupfuls of water on the side extension. Will took his usual spot under the easel frame, totally relaxed, head on paws.
Taking a deep breath, she open
ed up her mind and let intuition loose like a hungry dog at a meat factory, mixing up colors in a blur of movement where there was no room for thought or logic. Finally, her hands stilled and she frowned down at the palette.
Her sight unfocused for a moment then restored itself. Reds. At least a dozen shades of red on the darker side of the spectrum, sickly earth tones, a hint of greyish white. And one she used sparingly—black. The non-color would always appear in her miscellany in feathery or hefty doses, but she never started with it. This palette brought a veil of shadow into the room. Dark, soulless, cruel. A smattering of dull blues gathered to one side. A suggestion of Naples yellow. No greens, open blues, purples, orange, and bouncing, distinct colors that she often favored in her surrealist style creations.
They did say surrealism consisted of mostly mystery, and the colors before her were certainly that. The canvas would give her the answer.
The freedom she normally enjoyed while here, being the artist and forgetting all else, suddenly twisted into a sharp ache in her gut. Flashes of the attack in the hotel room sprang in front of her like stills on a tiny projector screen blocking her view of the real world.
She looked down. The palette shook in her hand, as did the other hand that held the brush poised over it.
A power larger than her took over her mind and shifted her creative energy to another realm, forcing the real, flesh and blood Sera to watch like a dumb spectator.
This had happened in recent years—these visions—but only a couple of times, and only before she got ready to paint. In both other instances, the messages were pure, happy, leaving her with a light heart and unforgettable moments.
Once had been ten years prior, predicting that Kyle and Petula Sager, the Fae-Witch couple who’d endured endless protests from family members and even the Shadow Bridge authorities at their inter-species romance, would marry. The second time had been a month before Faith Geeley, one of the part-time waitresses at The Stirring Pot, had become pregnant with triplets—and Sera had already seen it happen.
She’d never told anyone about these hints of Second Sight, choosing to unveil her paintings only after the news were confirmed, for all intents looking like she’d painted the happiness after getting official confirmation of it. Just as well, because if everyone knew... If her mother came to know...
Inescapable (Eternelles: The Beginning, Book 1) Page 7