by Leyton, Bisi
Just then, the town’s siren went off. This meant, hopefully, that Amanda had told someone Enric and Radala were on the island and soldiers were on their way to the clock tower.
She had to keep him talking.
“You have warned your people?” he deduced.
“Wait and see.”
“Listen, when Felip got you to open the Room of Ages, I took an artifact, a chart that can lead us to Lluc, but you have to get it to work. I cannot ask the empiric scholars to do it, so I thought you would.”
“Why won’t they do it? Don’t your empirics know everything?”
“Bach does not trust the empirics for various reasons.”
Because they tried to kill him, Wisteria recalled. “I’m sure it’s a good reason.”
“Yes, it was, Terran. So question me again.”
She’d never let Bach get away with calling her, or anyone else, Terran. “Never call me Terran again.”
“You cannot tell me what to do, Terran.”
“Enric of the Third Pillar, you came here because you needed my help. For some reason, all the wonderfully magical people in your world cannot do this.”
“Do not flatter yourself. The most inexperienced empiric could find Lluc.”
"So? Then ask them.” Trembling, she stepped back. “This is a game. You’re here for something else.”
“Five days ago, someone tried to murder Bach’s father. They got past the Sen’s bodyguards and the empirics.”
“And Bach?” she couldn’t help but ask.
“He was not hurt. However, with Lluc gone it will only be a matter of time before they attack Bach.”
“You expect to manipulate me into helping in some Family internal war?” Wisteria shook her head. “The Family has done enough to make our lives hell already. I don’t want to do anything that will make them rain down another Nero on us.” This wasn't just about her and Bach, so she wasn’t going to put anyone else at risk.
“Lluc is on Terra. If the empirics kill him here, The Family will think it was the Terrans—I mean, the Dirt People.”
“Humans!” she reminded him again.
Enric grimaced. “The Human Dirt People will be blamed. The only person who could possibly stand for you would be Bach, but he might not help you, if you let his brother die.”
Risking her life for Bach was something she never thought she’d have to do again. Her life with him was over. As for trying to save humanity, she was the wrong girl. “Why didn’t Bach come himself?”
“He does not know I came.”
“Right, I’m guessing he doesn’t want to see me.”
“Why would he want to see you?” Enric asked innocently.
There was seriously something wrong with him. Wisteria was beginning to remember why she never liked this guy.
“You are to locate Lluc on the chart and return here. You do not get to meet him.”
“So I’m leaving Smythe?” she asked while stalling for time.
“Yes.”
Never trust The Family, she reminded herself. “Save your breath, because I’ll never go with you anywhere. You killed Piper without a care and I know, given the chance, you’ll do the same to me.”
“You never loved him? You only pretended to care about him and you took some sick and twisted pleasure in watching him suffer.”
Her heart burned at his words. He didn’t know the first thing about how she felt.
“He was right to leave you.” Enric nodded smugly.
“Your Family kidnapped me, tortured me, beat me, and then tried to kill me. Your sister--remember her? Remember what she did? All of that was because of Bach and because I loved him.” Wisteria marched up to him. “You can’t stand there and say I enjoyed watching him suffer! You don’t know a thing about suffering and you don’t have a clue about what I felt. You and his brothers made me push him away and made him hate me.”
“And you want to punish him because you became bitter when he walked away.”
She slapped him and he didn’t flinch.
“We do not have time for this. This is not a game, Wisteria,” he fumed.
“Enric, this isn’t going to happen!” Wisteria shouted as everything around her blurred, and then faded.
*****
The next thing Wisteria remembered was her head pounding as she lay staring up at the ivory sculptures on the egg-shell colored ceiling. Her ceiling on the Isle of Smythe had holes and was a grayish brown.
Glistening in the moonlight, her sword stood propped against a table next to a large glass window. For a mere second, Wisteria had the worst case of déjà vu. Was she in London? Sitting up, she threw back the extremely soft velvet covers. She spotted light coming through the bottom of a door. Getting off the bed, she picked up her weapon and went to the door. Creeping out onto a landing, she found it overlooked a large living area and she saw two doors that possibly led to freedom.
“Hello, Wisteria.” Enric stepped up behind her.
Throwing her sword over the railing and into the living area below, she leapt over the banister and landed on a sofa.
“Yeah, you are not going to escape.” He appeared in front of her. “Over to the table, now.” He pointed to the large black table a few steps away.
“Where am I?”
“You have work to do.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to help you after you knocked me out and kidnapped me.” Her voice was trembling as she wrapped her arms around herself.
“Actually, I took you.” Radala came up behind her.
The light in the living area was much brighter than in the clock tower room, and Wisteria could see that Radala kind of looked East Asian, expect for her light green eyes. She was dressed in a long green dress, in the 1930s style she’d seen the women in Jarthan wear, as opposed to the green jacket and black trousers she’d worn when she was choking Amanda.
“You and Enric seemed to be going on forever, so I opted for giving you a little dark root. We do not have a lot of time.” Radala smiled as she smirked at Enric. “For a guy who does not talk much, you are very chatty with Wisteria.”
“You poisoned me with dark root?” Wisteria gasped, not knowing what dark root was.
“The dark root was to help you sleep. I have never used it on Terrans before. The reaction was not as interesting as I had hoped.” Radala sounded disappointed. “You simply fainted. I was hoping you might scream a little, like the Thayns do.”
There was something very 1930s housewife-like about the chipper way Radala spoke. She seemed more naïve, and perky, than Enric’s twisted sister Alba.
“Hmm, I wonder how she would respond to classical conditioning?” Radala remarked, as streaks of blue light emanated from one hand and shocked Wisteria.
“Stop.” Holding in a scream, she moved away from Radala and right into Enric. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Enric, this is really interesting.” Radala’s whole hand became blue.
“Radala, enough. You can play with it later,” Enric muttered, then looked down at Wisteria. “Get to the table now.” Squinting at her, he leaned in. “Trust me. You do not want me to ask you again.”
“I—”
“The sooner you do this, the sooner you return to your hovel.”
Wordlessly, she moved to the table.
“Here.” He placed a thick, blank sheet of paper in front of her. “Make it work.”
She bent down to study the completely white sheet of paper. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Come on, you should know.” Enric banged the table.
“I know this is a blank sheet of paper!” she yelled back. “You clearly don’t know what a map is.”
“And I clearly told you to leave the humans alone,” a stern voice spoke from behind them.
She knew that voice and knew she shouldn’t look back. She needed to focus on getting this thing with Enric done, but she couldn’t help herself. Looking beyond where Enric stood, she saw the speake
r.
Standing tensely on the other side of the large room, she saw Bach of the Third Pillar. The young man she loved with all her heart was taller now, with slightly bulkier arms than she remembered.
He crossed those muscle-bound arms over his chest.
Her gaze was riveted to him and she noted that his black hair was a bit longer since she’d last seen him.
His intense green eyes studied her in a way that sent her heart racing and made her boil. It was as if her temperature spiked at least ten degrees higher than normal. As his eyes bored into her, she could see they were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept in months. Seeing him so weathered and worn made her want to go to him and hold him, but she couldn’t, because those eyes also looked bitter and cold.
Biting her top lip, she looked away, glad that Enric stood between them.
“You were not supposed to be here for a couple of days,” Enric exclaimed in surprise.
Closing his eyes, Bach’s jaw clenched and his fists tightened until his knuckles were white.
“She is—” Enric wanted to explain, but stopped when Bach glared at him.
Bach sped to the table and snatched the blank paper away from Enric. “Get her out— now!” Bach’s voice was low and deliberate, and even Enric seem taken aback.
The harshness in his voice scared her, but she held her own.
“Now,” Bach repeated.
“I don’t want to be here,” she murmured, wanting to sound more forceful than she did.
“Bach, we have to—” Enric continued.
“If she is still here in three minutes, you will not be.” Seething, Bach slammed his hand on the table, cracking the surface. “And it will be painful for you. The kind of pain you will tell your grandchildren about.”
Wisteria had never seen him like this.
“Beloved,” Radala cooed. “Relax.”
“Radala, please,” he muttered.
“Listen to Enric.” Radala placed her hands on Bach’s shoulders as she whispered something into his ear.
Wisteria thought the girl might have even kissed him.
Grimacing, Bach nodded.
“I understand you do not wish to see her, but you were not supposed to be here. So do not take it out on me. She is the only person who can activate the wahr-chart, apart from one of the empirics,” Enric stated, also looking angry.
“Then you should have brought someone else,” Bach maintained.
“Who? An actual Red Phoenix agent who would sooner kill you? Bach, this is not about your childhood crush. It is about The Family, and right now this is the only way to get the wahr-chart to work.”
“Fine.” Bach scowled.
“Do you think I wanted to bring a Terran here?” Enric was boiling.
“I said fine.” He gritted his teeth.
“Besides, she and her friend almost killed Enric. I had to do something.” Radala winked at Enric.
No one laughed.
“I had it under control,” Enric defended
“I am surprised you would get this way over a Terran. I mean, she has not been renewed yet, but still it is a Terran,” Radala remarked dismissively. “Not worth having an entire conversation about.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Bach had never thought he would see her again. He never wanted to see her again. One thing he knew about Wisteria Kuti was that she was as complex as she was self-centered and manipulative.
“Bach—” Wisteria started to say.
Bach was never going to let her in his head again.
“Enric, she does not talk to me,” he warned Enric. “Locate Lluc and get her out.” He hated her with everything in him. Seeing her again made him loathe her even more.
“Nothing would make me happier,” she smirked.
At first, Yordi had wanted Bach to wait a few days before journeying to Terra to find Lluc, but Bach could not wait. He needed to find his brother, on top of whatever else was going on. Yordi had agreed in the end. “Just stay away from the Terran girls,” Yordi had teased.
Bach had long ago moved away from any interest in human girls, and Wisteria was primarily responsible for that. He was finally in a comfortable place with Radala. To make things easier, Radala was a Famila girl, laid back and above all, loyal to him. She was the kind of girl he, as a Sen-Son, was supposed to be with. The only thing Bach wanted from Wisteria was for her to leave and never return. “And she is never to come back here or anywhere near the Third Pillar.” Bach left the room. He found his way to the balcony of the den that overlooked the Manchester skyline.
“It is my fault.” Radala followed him out and slipped her arms around his waist. “I put her to sleep and got Enric to bring her here. I did not want to risk taking the wahr-chart to her island and we did not have time to convince her.”
Gripping the railing of the balcony, he stared down at the completely empty streets. He could not sense any infected for at least twenty miles. The infected were starting to starve to death, so this world was finally starting to die, but strangely this didn’t make him as happy as he had once hoped.
“Even the empirics cannot use the wahr-chart, and we know she has made other artifacts of the First Pillar work, so there is a good chance she can make these work too.” She kissed his neck. “It was the right thing to do, Bach. You know that.”
Bach wished there was another way to find Lluc. “Simply get it over with.”
“You really hate Terrans, do you not?”
“I loathe them.”
Radala laughed, before planting soft kisses on his face. “You will survive.”
“I need to be alone.” He broke off the kiss and ran his fingers through her hair.
“Okay, we will continue later.” She brushed his lips gently.
He saw Wisteria watching him from the table in the apartment.
As soon their eyes met, she turned back to the map.
It was killing her to see this.
Serves her right. He grinned.
“I know how I can make you feel better.” Radala placed her long finger on his lips.
“You are not even trying!” Enric bellowed at Wisteria from the dining table.
Bach looked over to see that Wisteria had thrown the wahr-chart in Enric’s face and stomped away.
“You are doing this. This is not a discussion!” Enric carried her back to the table.
Fighting to break free, she kicked at him until he dropped her. “Don’t touch me, ever.”
Enric sneered and proceeded to drag her by her wrists.
Something inside Bach started to boil. While he hated her, he couldn’t stand to see her treated that way.
“I will stop him before he breaks her.” Radala giggled. “We need the Terran in one piece, at least until we have located Lluc.” Slipping her hands from his chest, Radala sashayed inside. Taking Enric aside, she spoke to him and he seemed to calm down. She had that effect on people.
Bach’s gaze drifted across to Wisteria, who stood checking her wrists for bruises. Had Enric hurt her? He wanted her gone, not injured. He did not remember when he came back in, but in seconds he was standing a few feet away from her, forcing himself not to touch her.
“What do you want?” Her dark eyes, with those long lashes, squinted up at him. “You said you were going to let me go.”
She seemed so much shorter than he remembered. “If she tries to run away again, tie her up,” Bach said to Enric. “It will save you having to drag her.”
She scowled at Bach. “I can’t help you. I don’t know to use the wahr-chart.”
“Just get it done and we will get you back to that boyfriend of yours so you can get on with your breeding,” Radala sneered.
Boyfriend? Bach thought, as he moved away from Wisteria toward Radala. It had to be Steven Hindle. That vile, grotesque human had always been determined to breed with Wisteria. The next time Bach saw Steven, he would renew him.
*****
Wisteria returned to the blank chart. The faster she figured out
what they needed, the faster they’d let her go. The sooner she left, the further Bach would be behind her again, but her whole body shook while he stood breathing on her neck from just behind her. It felt like he was going to either kill her or kiss her and then kill her.
At first she’d been confused when she saw him, but remembered that the deal she made with Bach’s brothers still stood. She couldn’t risk Yordi or Lluc coming after her mother, or sending more empirics to Smythe. Enric would ensure that a reunion between them never happened, not that Wisteria wanted one. And, from the looks of thing with Radala, Bach had other distractions now.
She had to keep her focus on returning to Smythe, and the only way was to somehow get this stupid, invisible map to work. Studying the sheet again, she still didn’t know what do. Picking up the white paper, she found it to be smooth and damp. Flipping it over, the other side was black.
“Hurry,” Enric snapped.
When she put the map back on the table, an image of the earth appeared. “What is it doing?” Wisteria asked.
“The wahr-chart shows where the person we are looking for is. It contains maps from a hundred different realms,” Enric explained.
“How will it know who to look for?” Wisteria inspected the map.
“We do not know how it works. It is a First Pillar artifact,” Radala added.
“So ask one of them to explain how it works,” Wisteria suggested.
“There is no First Pillar,” Enric explained impatiently. “You got the threshold working. Now get this working.”
Wisteria noticed a symbol, like the Red-Phoenix ring her mother once had. Touching it, a series of characters ran across the page and the map changed. It looked like a hand-drawn map of Britain.
“Your Terran got it working,” Radala laughed. “Brilliant.”
Bach leaned over her to get a better look.
For a second, Wisteria was lost in his intoxicating scent. She missed being that close to him. Focus, Wisteria.
The image on the chart zoomed in over South East England and continued to magnify the town until it hovered over the Isle of Smythe.