The Waif's Tale (Valence of Infinity Book 1)

by C. L. Stegall

  With Lake Constance to the northeast and the Appenzell Alps to the south, the city sat in a valley. Most of it was forested or used for agricultural purposes. What I was most fascinated about when researching the place was that, since the city was founded on less than stable ground, most of the buildings were built on piles. Once I arrived and debarked, I made it a point to walk through the train station and its plaza, as the whole thing had been built on hundreds of those piles. It was very interesting to see.

  I made my way up St. Leonhard Strasse, past the Marktplatz, arriving at Wegelin & Co at precisely eleven o'clock. The building was a four-story box of an edifice. There was nothing interesting about its structure whatsoever. I waited in silence just outside the front door, my schedule having been met exactly.

  As I pondered the task at hand, the lights of the city lit the evening with a cozy feeling that permeated the world around me. I found myself quite relaxed. That is, until the doors opened and there appeared a familiar face.

  "Paris," he said, with a slight smirk, motioning me inside.

  "Elijah," I said, nodding. I stepped briskly inside as he closed the doors behind us. "Haven't seen you in quite a while. All is well, I presume."

  "Keep your presumptions to yourself, young lady. Follow me." With that, he strode away inside to the left by the teller windows. I'd not taken more than ten steps before we halted by a door and he ordered, "Wait here." He disappeared behind the door. I waited. Throughout every single encounter I had had with Elijah, the one constant was his remarkable lack of interpersonal skills. The man couldn't care less whether someone liked him or not. He was a single-minded purpose machine, that one.

  After two full minutes, Elijah reentered the lobby and handed me a small metal lockbox. It was barely large enough to cover the palm of my small hand. I looked up at him and cocked my head. "This begs the question."

  "What question?" he said, his eyes narrowing as he stared at me. I smiled, if only to perturb the man. I had never much cared for Elijah. He was an arrogant ass most every time we had encountered one another.

  "If you are already here and you had the box, why not take it to the magistrate yourself?"

  "I am no errand boy," he replied.

  "No?" I placed the box into my messenger bag, locking the clasp securely. "A matter of semantics, I suppose," I muttered.

  "Excuse me?" His irritation was evident. I shook my head, careful of the dangerous game I tended to play with him.

  "Nothing. I suppose today it is I who is the errand boy." I politely curtsied and turned to leave.

  "You will take utmost care in delivering that to the magistrate." Elijah's words came out as a specific order. Although I so wanted to take another poke at his effete attitude, I let it slip.

  "Of course, Elijah," I called over my shoulder. "Of course."

  CHAPTER 44

  1935, ST. GALLEN, AGE 58

  I had not gone more than three kilometers before I noticed that I was being followed. From the pace and heaviness of the footsteps, the tracker was a man of medium size. It appeared that my trip was not going to be as uneventful as I had hoped.

  I was about to search out the mind of the person following me when the footsteps faded and then disappeared entirely. Perhaps I had been mistaken. I was not one to be paranoid, yet this whole assignment felt a bit off to me.

  I continued on, making my way to the Abbey. As long as I was here, I was not going to miss the spectacle that was the Abbey at St. Gall. First built in 719, it had become its own principality in the 13th century. It was a piece of history worth visiting, I thought.

  I strolled along Burggraben, onto Moosburggstrasse. I could see the cathedral to my right when I heard the stranger's approach, just in time to twirl about, protecting the intended target, my messenger bag. The metal lockbox was safe even as the leather strap was ripped from the bag with force. I stepped onto the grass off the street and faced my attacker. My breath caught in my throat.

  "Thorne? What the bloody—"

  "Just give me the box, Paris. Please. Don't make this worse than it has to be." He approached slowly, his hands palms by his sides. A million thoughts dashed through my mind yet none of them made one ounce of sense.

  "What the fuck are you doing?"

  "Please, Paris. I don't want to hurt you. I just need the box."

  "You know I can't do that, Thorne." I settled myself, trying to cope with this unexpected turn of events. "Why are you here? I thought you were in Spain."

  "I can't explain. Please. Just give me the box. I'll leave you in peace, I promise."

  His words lay like stones on my heart. There was no other reason why he would try and disrupt my assignment. He was a traitor, turned against the Valensi.

  "Why, Thorne? Why?"

  "You don't understand what he's capable of. Few do. There's so much going on here that you're not privy to. Please. Trust me. I'm doing this for the right reason."

  "No."

  "What?"

  "Any trust I once had in you evaporated the moment you attacked me."

  "I didn't attack you! I just tried to steal the case. Once I realized it was you that he'd sent, I changed my plans."

  "Your plans?" My heart rate was slowing and my mind prepared for what was to come.

  "My orders were to kill the messenger and retrieve the box. but, I can say I managed to get the box without you knowing. You'll be safe. This will work."

  "You think that because you didn't kill me, I'll just surrender my mission and my duty? Do you have any notion of who I am and what I represent? You may have been a Protector by vocation, but you just fucking threw that title and duty out the window, you bastard. but, I am a member of the High Guard, not some lowly peasant girl returning from market. You fool." My words hit him as I expected they would. His expression closed, his posture relaxing, as well. We moved as one.

  Midnight at the Abbey, we met each other in a violent, terrible embrace. He had strength and size on me. However, I was quite adept at being the underdog. I had tossed the messenger bag onto the roof some thirty feet high, as I moved, giving him no chance to try and retrieve it and run without my interference. Now, as we met, I threw my torso to the side, bringing my knee directly up and into his chin. I let my anger focus the force of the blow and I enjoyed the sound of the bone giving way. His muffled cry began as pain and ended as anger.

  I slipped down and to my right to avoid his attack but he caught my arm and flung me around in a cartwheel motion, using my weight to my disadvantage. With only a split second to react, I spread my legs increasing my momentum and locked my opposing hand onto his wrist. Using that centrifugal force, I pulled him along with me as I planted my feet and jerked downward. It wasn't much but it was enough to get him off his feet for a moment, enough that I could recompose myself.

  I was shocked to see him come up with a wooden knife-like object in his hand. I surmised that, as a Protector, he would be going up against our own kind on occasion. I experienced a twinge of hesitation. This was something new. I was facing off against my lover, who was now my enemy and prepared to kill me by driving a stake through my hearts. Fantastic.

  "I'm so sorry, Paris. You've given me no choice." For a moment I almost believed him.

  "Go to hell, lover," I said, reaching into his mind.

  It was walled up pretty tight but I could tell he was still new at the mind protection game. Instead of forcing my way in, I let my thoughts linger and divide and slide into the crevasses. He made his move just as I saw it in his head. His momentum and speed were formidable and he might have succeeded if I had not foreseen the motion in time to react accordingly.

  I wanted desperately to continue my excursion into his mind, to discover if he had ever loved me at all. It was all I could do to push those thoughts aside and act.

  His hand lashed out, the wooden knife aimed square at my hearts. I let it come, waiting until the very last second to sidestep. My hand came up beneath his, twisting the knife and therefore his wrist o
nto itself. The bones in his wrist give way as the knife entered the skin just under his chin. I drove it straight up into his skull, using all the force I could muster. He didn't utter even a sound, his mouth pinned closed by the wooden stake. His eyes were wide in an expression of shock, plastered to his face by the scrambling of his brain.

  He dropped to his knees and I stood there for long seconds. His mind was gone, the chemicals in the wood reacting with his biochemistry. If I left the stake there, it would be hours before the chemical reactions would lead to his final death. I pondered doing just that as the tears forced their way from my eyes. I didn't want to cry. I didn't want to let this man, my lover, see me breaking like that. It was unfair. He should not have the satisfaction of seeing what his betrayal had done to me. I wasn't sure his mind was even functioning any longer but I didn't want any possible further disappointment should I slip in and confirm what I didn't want to know.

  I stared into those eyes of his, into which I had stared on so many more intimate occasions. My vision blurred and I brushed the tears away with a quick swipe of my forearm. Questions began forming in my mind, some of which felt like anvils dropped onto my hearts. I struggled with my breathing exercises and finally brought myself back to the point where I could shut down my emotions.

  I peered deep into Thorne's widened eyes and said, "I wish I could say I'm sorry. I wish I didn't have to be here. I wish this had never happened. but, you are who you are and I'm who I am. Know this: I'm not sorry, asshole," I said.

  I gripped the end of the stake, ripped it free of his head. With all the anger at being lied to for so many years, for being used and being brushed aside as nothing more than an obstacle, I shoved the wooden knife deep into his chest. His body folded to lie upon the cool grass in a heap. It was but moments before I could see the deterioration begin in earnest.

  I let the tears come once more. It was too much effort to stop them. Through the pressure and unusual difficulty in breathing, I refocused on the task at hand. I made certain his remains were cleared of any evidence as to who he was. It wouldn't take long before there was little left and certainly nothing recognizable as a man. Once the wood had reached and pierced his heart, there was no coming back. I had read some ridiculous novel once wherein the stake had been removed from a vampire's heart and he had come back to life. Such bullshit.

  Wiping the tears away, I quickly made my way to the roof and retrieved my messenger bag. I paused a minute to take in the view. Someone was walking along the street, nearing the area of our scuffle and I waited to ensure it wasn't some sort of back-up. Although, I was doubtful they would have thought a Protector would have needed any assistance to kill someone.

  I made my train with only minutes to spare, keeping my eyes open for anything out of the usual. I encountered no one else who might be prepared to take me out for whatever the hell it was that I was carrying. Still, my senses were on high alert until I made it back to the Citadel the following night.

  CHAPTER 45

  1935, THE CITADEL, AGE 58

  I entered the magistrate's quarters just after ten o'clock. I had knocked and heard his voice as he bid me enter. Upon seeing me, it did not take a mind reader to know that things had not gone smoothly.

  "I fear you have a tale to tell, young Paris?" he said, as I closed the door behind me and moved to the center of the room. I retrieved the small metal lockbox, unopened and not tampered with. Holding out to him, I could only nod.

  I tried my best, I closed my eyes and held them tight against the unbidden tears, yet there was no defense.

  "Sit, please," he said. I obeyed, having no will left to argue anything. He waited patiently for me to speak as I fought to regain my composure.

  "Things… could have gone better," I said, finally. There was a slight catch in my throat and I wondered if I would have the strength to tell the story I had to tell.

  "If I may?" he said. I lifted my eyes to meet his. There was a question in those steel gray orbs and it took me longer than I would have expected to grasp the nature of his query. Once I did, however, I let my eyelids fall once again over my weary eyes, nodding for him to enter my mind.

  The tale unfolded for him in a matter of minutes, from my arrival and words with Elijah to the ultimate betrayal by my former lover and his former Protector, Thorne. The memory had burned itself in my heart and mind but I did my best not to linger on it as the magistrate culled the images and hurt from my experience. As I sat there, my hands began to shake and I clenched them together to prevent it from showing. I made no sound or movement until I felt him slip from my mind.

  I waited for his voice but nothing came. My head was bowed but somehow I found the strength to meet his eyes. He held the small metal lockbox in his hand as he stared at me intently, unblinking.

  "I cannot thank you enough, Paris." There was something in his tone that I had not heard before. He had not added the word "young" to my moniker. As I realized this, he smiled a somewhat sad smile and placed a hand upon my shoulder. "Yes. I feel that there is little doubt that you have earned your stripes. "

  I could only nod, my heart still aching for the horrible events of the last twenty-four hours.

  "Take all the time you need, my dear," he said. "I will inform the Guard myself of your selfless actions. You have become so much more than I could have ever hoped for. Your loyalty is unquestionable and the Valensi are lucky to have you watching over them." He paused. "And, me," he added, with a brighter smile.

  CHAPTER 46

  1935, THE CITADEL, AGE 58

  T he days following were horrible.

  My world shrunk to exist only in my small, private quarters. No one dared disturb me. Even London kept her distance. I was alone. Truly alone.

  The moments blur together now but, at the time, they ricocheted from the sharp focus of my memories to the softer focus of the moments seen through my own weak ass tears. I hated myself one minute and hated Thorne all the more the next.

  I sat in silence on my bed, curled up and overwhelmed by the whole thing. I got up and splashed water on my face, willing myself to snap out of it. Still, the hot tears mixed with the icy water and I sank to the floor beside the sink and lost myself in the weight of the pain, the humiliation at being played, of being lied to for so long. I was blind to what was right in front of me.

  He had betrayed me.

  I knew it hadn't been love but I had trusted him like no other. We had shared our lives, our bodies. We were lovers. The passion that we'd shared, the intimacy, it was nothing more than a façade for him. I meant nothing. Otherwise, how could he have turned on me so easily? For God's sake, no one knew me as intimately as had Thorne. No one knew him as I had. Or, so I had thought. How did I not see it coming? How could I have been so fucking blind?

  Maybe I didn't know him at all. Maybe it had all been just an act. For years! How could he have played me so easily for years?

  "Fuck you!" I cried out to Thorne and to no one. I screamed out in agony as my fist crashed against to stone wall, the bones cracking, the pain only shifting from my heart to my hand. "You bastard," I whispered through the tears. "You bastard."

  For nothing more than the continued shift in pain that I felt, I used my left hand to reset the bones in my right. I should go to the infirmary but I was in no mood. I wanted nothing more than to be left alone to wallow in my own misery.

  My mind began running in circles, logic trying to backtrack and the searing ache in my hand began to grow numb. I searched back through every moment with him that I could remember—which was most of them. I could not pinpoint one moment where he did not seem genuine or caring. I had never experienced such conniving. Such duplicitousness.

  Had I actually been in love? Was I so enamored of the man—or, the feelings he generated in me—that I had not seen through him to the truth?

  What did it all say about me? Was I nothing more than a puppy on a string, at the whim of a manipulative bastard of a man who cared not one iota for me as a person? Was
I worth so little as to be thrown away like nothing more than garbage? I mean, my own lover had tried to kill me, for Christ's sake!

  I stood and washed my face with my good hand, drying off the water and tears. Gathering myself, I realized that I needed another diversion. I needed to get back to work. I pulled my shit together and headed for the infirmary. The nurse there, the very same as had taken my blood on the day I had arrived at the Citadel all those years ago, was bright enough not to ask too many inane questions. It appeared my reputation had preceded me, this time.

  As she double-checked the bone setting and then splinted the hand, my thoughts wandered to the level of loyalty Thorne had had for whatever cause he'd been following. I wondered if there had been any conflict in him as he attempted to murder me. In the end it only made my head hurt. My heart hurt. I just wanted to forget. As soon as the nurse finished up, I tromped off to the Abode.

  "It's a done deal," Dusk was saying as I entered the room. The entire High Guard was there, sitting on chairs and the couch while Dusk paced back and forth by the bar. "Frost has set his fate. The Hierarchy is meeting as we speak."

  "Who's Frost?" I asked, as I made my way around the bar and retrieved a bottle of Sobieski Red Label. I struggled to open it with one hand, then poured a tumbler full of the little water and slugged it back, all the while noticing that everyone was watching me but saying nothing. "Hello?" I said, as I poured myself another and put the bottle away. "Cat got your tongue?"

  "Umm, Edward Frost. He was arrested yesterday. Elijah brought him in." London's gaze never left me but I refused to meet her eyes, observing my surroundings through peripheral vision only.

  "It seems your errand to St. Gallen has resulted in uncovering a traitor in our midst," Dusk stated. He hesitated and then added, "I'm sorry, by the way." I just shrugged.