“Alright.” I threw back the thin blanket someone had covered me with during the night when it had gotten cooler. I suspected our rocky friend.
“Good morning,” I greeted Stone.
“Good morning, seer,” he returned as I passed him on the way to the shower. “Are you well rested?”
“Yes, thanks to you.” I rubbed sleep from my eyes and yawned. Truthfully, my good night of rest probably had as much to do with Millie being close as with Stone’s reassuring presence. “How about you? Did you…do you…?”
“Sleep? No. It is not necessary. But sometimes Stone closes his eyes and allows himself to dream.” He glanced at Millie and I knew she played a starring role in his thoughts. “But not here. There are many enemies here and as of yet no allies. Stone takes his responsibilities seriously.” Very astute, succinct observations.
“You guarded us all night.” I touched his marble arm marveling at its cool surface especially after what he had so recently revealed to me. I wondered what lay underneath. “Thank you, Stone.”
“You are welcome,” he replied.
I closed the door to the bathroom. When I emerged ten minutes later a cloud of steam accompanied my departure. The water pressure had been great and the heat from it on my chilled skin had been just short of divine. Freshly washed hair and clean clothes. The amenities in the La Ville Sombre might not be luxurious, but they were so much better than the ship’s squalid quarters.
I tossed my dirty clothes into a laundry hamper that I hadn’t noticed the night before. “You two ready?” I queried glancing at Millie and Stone who stood close together, her hands resting on his forearms. He stared down at her as if she had just revealed an intimate secret.
“Si, sure.” Millie stepped away from Stone and smoothed her hair. It was mussed. But why?
“Ok. Let’s do this,” I said with more enthusiasm than I really felt. I just wanted to get the meeting with Phoebus over with so I could get Millie fed. The night’s rest hadn’t helped her as much as it had me. She still looked too pale.
I pulled back the curtain and stepped outside. The damp chilly air gave me goose bumps. But I was pleased to see that the drizzle had abated. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe the Court of the Light Immortals wouldn’t be as dangerous a place as Leonardo had intimated.
And maybe Phoebus would just open the doors to our prison and set us free.
Yeah, that was likely. As Stone had said we had no allies and too many enemies. I needed to keep my eyes wide open. Dreams had no place here.
“We haven’t eaten since the ship. Is there breakfast where we are going?” I asked the vamps who stood side by side waiting for us wearing adulterated track suits that exposed their lethal limbs similar to the ones they had been wearing at our first meeting.
“Yes,” Catonia replied. “But we must hurry. The City is far. The Court is even further. If we took the regular route we would never make it. Lucky we know a shorter way not many can take.”
Turning, she ducked down another long narrow path between stacks of pods that were nearly indistinguishable from one another. I had a feeling I was going to get lost a lot before I finally learned my way around.
After a fifteen-minute walk at a brisk pace, Millie was panting for breath and my calf muscles were burning. The vamps and Stone appeared unaffected. I was just about to beg for a break when we turned yet another corner and arrived at a dead end. Catonia and Evercy stepped up to a rusted metal door barely visible beneath the iron framework above it.
Catonia spoke a word in Elvish. While I wondered who had taught it to her the door clicked open revealing a landing and a steep staircase.
A distressed sound escaped Millie’s lips.
“My sister can’t do this,” I protested. “We need to find another way.”
“She insisted you have extra time to sleep.” Catonia looked vexed. “Because of that we have no more time to spare. You risk the Sun God’s wrath being late. Trust me when I tell you angering him is not advisable.”
“Stone can carry the pretty one.”
“No.” Millie pulled in a ragged breath setting her face determinedly toward the obstacle in front of her. “I can do it.”
“Maybe, honey. But you don’t need to.” I put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed frowning when I noticed how frail her frame felt beneath my grip. “Don’t be stubborn. No one is going to think less of you if you let the Stone help. Please. Do it for me. I would prefer you conserve your strength and regain your health sooner. Ok?”
“Ok, Cici.” She turned to the gargoyle. He swept her off her feet as soon as her hands touched his marble chest. “I hate being weak,” she muttered as the vamps began climbing the stairs. Stone set off right behind them leaving me to bring up the rear.
“You are not weak. There are many measures of strength. Not all are physical. Stone does not mind. Stone enjoys carrying you.” He lowered his voice. “If Stone could carry you forever and never let you down he would.” I think he meant those words for her ears alone but I heard them, too. My heart ached for him and the impossible love he had for her.
The vamps’ lucky shortcut practically killed me. I thought about asking Stone if he could carry me, too, as we ascended what seemed like endless stairs. Just when my legs were about to give out we reached another door and stepped out onto the same long dark corridor that had led us to the La Ville Sombre the day before.
A motion sensitive light clicked on and a stern faced Sun Elf stepped forward intercepting us.
“Renoir.” Catonia lifted her chin, and the guard acknowledged her in the same manner. “I hope the barracks is improved by the new cook we sent you.”
“It is. Thank you.” He smiled. “And I have more of the sunshield you requested.” Renoir handed Catonia a toothpaste sized tube with a handwritten label.
“It is a special Sun Elf concoction. We’ve discovered that it works on us giving us the ability to walk in the Sun City without being burned,” Catonia explained while squirting a silver dollar sized dollop of clear liquid onto Evercy’s outstretched palm. “The elf children use it themselves until they get older and develop a natural resistance.”
“It keeps us from growing weak in the sun.” Evercy spoke softly while rubbing lotion onto her arm.
“The elves share it exclusively with us. We barter for it.” I was gaining a clearer understanding about how things worked between the two cities. More specifically, how astutely Catonia and Evercy negotiated to their advantage. Beyond mutual needs being met, there was an easiness and mutual respect between them and Renoir where there had only been animosity with Roderick and the elves the day before.
“We have the seer.” Catonia gestured toward me. I had a hitch in my side and was stretching my arms over my head trying to get it out. “May we pass freely?”
“Sure, Cat,” the elf replied. He stepped to the side but his lingering appraisal of her made me think he would have preferred that she stay.
“This way.” Catonia moved to another door across the corridor that was just as cavernous as I recalled, at least thirty feet wide and twice as tall. As soon as I passed through a door on the other side I felt the air change from humid to arid, from chill to heat.
Blinking rapidly through glare so bright it pierced my eyes, I glanced back at the door as it closed behind us realizing that it didn’t look industrial at all from this side. It just appeared to be a normal entrance to an otherwise nondescript building.
“Come! I’ll guide you.” Impatient with my delay, Catonia grabbed my arm and dragged me down a winding set of stone steps without using the iron railing, joining the others on the ground. Catonia turned a corner leading us into a narrow street that had pale limestone buildings several stories tall on each side, their facades similar to the one that housed the door to the corridor. “We must hurry.” Her voice sounded an octave of concern higher.
I stumbled on the uneven cobblestones that were so warm I could feel their heat through the rubber soles in my ten
nis shoes. As my eyes began to accommodate, I soaked up the details of our surroundings. I noticed Millie was doing the same thing.
Entrances to clothing shops beckoned under bright awnings, but they weren’t any designers I recognized, and the fashion displayed on the mannequins in the windows was multiple centuries out of date. The tiered stacks of pastel pink, lime and lemon colored macaroons in the window of a confectionery made my mouth water. Without consciously meaning to I drifted toward the open door closer to the buttery rich aroma drifting out from it.
“No, seer. We don’t have time to waste.” Catonia tugged my hand. “And we don’t have a Light Immortal with us.” Before I could ask what she meant, I noticed a sign, the same one on all the shop entrances, ‘No Darks without proper escort.’
We definitely were not in Paris anymore.
“I can make it on my own now,” I insisted pulling my hand free from Catonia’s grip. My fingers had gotten sweaty in hers. As we continued through one block and then another, I started to perspire from the heat within the City of Lights even though it seemed to be early in the morning. I craned my neck to search for the location of the sun, but couldn’t find it. The sky was the same clear cloudless blue it had been the day before.
Was it real? Did it ever change?
The Eiffel Tower was a thousand feet tall, and we had risen no telling how much higher than that after entering the pink mist. At this altitude the atmosphere should be thinner and the wind should be stronger. But there was no burning in my chest from lack of oxygen and there was only a warm gentle breeze. I squinted harder at the sky. Was there a dome over us that allowed Phoebus to regulate the environment? I couldn’t see any glass panels, but then again if the Sun King could make the walkway that traversed the interior of the city invisible to those below, I imagined he could do the same thing with a dome above if he chose. After all, the Favored Progeny had the ability to thought form, to shape their ideas into reality using creation magic, natural resources and force of will. That was how Apollyon had constructed his underground castle and city.
“This is the administration office for Dark Immortals,” Catonia explained with a sweep of her hand toward a building that sat across from a large park with a lush carpet of green grass and a gurgling fountain. Tunic garbed Sun Elves guarded the entrance. “Stone and Millie need to register and receive their assignments.”
“They stay with me.” I shook my head. “I don’t want us to be separated.”
“But it’s not up to you.” Catonia looked at me as if I were a confused child. “Surely you realize that.”
“I understand that maybe that’s the way whoever is in charge wants it to be, but I would like to appeal to Phoebus myself. Maybe he will let my sister and Stone stay with me.”
“Let it go, ke’ mwen,” Evercy said. “She can try. We don’t have time to debate it with her.”
“Very well.” Catonia sighed, turned toward the park and gestured for us to follow. “But pick up the pace. You will have a much better chance of obtaining what you seek if you aren’t late.”
“The Soleil River,” Evercy pointed to a wide slow moving river. The banks were shored up with smooth slabs of stone the way they had been on the Seine River down below. “Servants are not welcome on the other side unless they are accompanied by their master or have official business at the Court.”
I nodded at her explanation but I could barely concentrate. Thinking of confronting the Sun King made my heart pound with trepidation.
The sides of the bridge were framed by crisscrossed iron railing and dotted with elegant gas lanterns on poles. The vampires’ footsteps were silent on the wooden slats but groaned beneath Stone’s heavy weight. A lone Sun Elf in formal late seventeen-hundreds apparel approaching from the other direction frowned when he saw us, tucked his tall hat lower over his eyes, and moved to the far side of the bridge as if we might contaminate him if he came too close.
“Slaves, Ever. We are slaves,” Catania corrected. “Servant implies we have some choice in the matter, which of course we do not.”
After a ten-minute walk along the waterway that took us around the sprawling palace complex, we turned and encountered an iron gate that stood ten feet tall and bore an emblazoned sun emblem. Its bars cast shadows across the turquoise faces of the crossbow wielding elves guarding it. The pink velvet smocks they wore were embroidered with a sun image that matched the one on the gate behind them. A long line of Sun Elf citizens elegantly dressed as if they had just stepped from the pages of a history book clogged the walkway and filed past the guards on their way through the gate. Swishy silk taffeta gowns and elaborately styled purple coiffed hair adorned the ladies, while hip length velvet brocade jackets, white stockings and buckled shoes were favored by the men.
A centaur at the rear of the line narrowed his eyes over the rim of his glasses, snorted and flicked his tail side to side as if annoyed by our presence.
“This is the entrance for the Light Immortals,” Catonia explained and waved her hand in an agitated circle. “Our avenue is around the corner.” She started walking faster and I quickened my steps to keep up with her. Through the gaps in the iron fence I saw that the large multistoried rectangular shaped palace was surrounded by a green topiary accented lawn. Following the sidewalk that bordered it, we turned the corner and found ourselves at the back of a line nearly as long as the one we had just left, only a much humbler one. Sullen Dark Immortals waited restlessly in their uniforms, black polyester track suits with the Sun King’s stamp like the ones we wore.
“Stay here,” Catonia ordered. “I’ll go to the front and see if I can get us inside quicker.” Heads turned and followed her as she briskly walked past them, but no one complained about her cutting in line. I got the impression that the Dark Immortals weren’t nearly as eager to enter the Sun King’s palace as the Light Immortals had seemed to be.
I watched Catonia as she confidently approached the two guards, arms spread wide, and commanded their attention. They glanced our way, their eyes narrowing with interest they didn’t attempt to conceal. Both nodded and she beckoned us forward.
There were whispers of recognition from the Immortals in line as we moved toward her.
“It’s the seer.”
“It’s her.”
“Did you hear her singing last night?”
The Sun Elf guard closest to Catonia studied me for a beat before turning back to her. “You’re late with your delivery, Catonia.” He hooked a thumb over his tunic clad shoulder. “I wouldn’t delay any longer.”
She nodded and ducked beneath the frame of the gate first. I went next, and Evercy, Stone and Millie followed us. Since Catonia obviously knew where she was going, I stuck with her as best I could, but it was hard. The crowd was thick and I lost her shortly after we passed through the door. My sister still cradled in his arms, Stone growled his frustration. The crowd immediately parted giving him a wide berth.
Catonia rushed to our side. “Almost there.” She grabbed my arm and led me across a wide marble foyer with walls that appeared to be stenciled in gold. We moved through a doorway framed by majestic columns and were met by a crowd of nearly a hundred Dark Immortals. They stood shoulder to shoulder in a long gallery while the ornately dressed Light Immortals we had seen earlier flocked to their seats along the benches on the viewing stands above us.
“Guilty.” His voice was a deep decisive boom reminding me of the warning buoys inside the Fajardo harbor. It was a warning I should have heeded but didn’t. Instead, I spun toward the source as if compelled. Though Phoebus occupied a raised platform on the far end of the domed gallery, I felt the pull of his allure as strongly if he were only inches away. Beneath a massive chandelier with pink sun banners as a frame, the son of Zeus stood proudly erect, emanating light, his broad shoulders thrust back, in full command.
He was easily the most handsome man I had ever seen. His thick blond curls were artfully arranged around his face, one that I had seen memorialized in art many ti
mes, but the painters and sculptors fell woefully short in their attempts to capture the magnificent reality. Intelligent brow. Stubborn jaw. Sensual lips. Mesmerizing. His perfect features shamed the spun finery he wore.
I wanted to touch his flawless skin.
I wanted to take off that clothing and trace the naked contours of his chiseled body with my fingertips.
I wanted him.
Without even realizing what I was doing, I took a step forward toward the temptation.
Phoebus set aside the scroll he had been perusing.
“Just so, my liege.” A moue faced Sun Elf with a starched collar and a white wig raised his hand in the air. Two court guards dragged a demoness with cuffed hands and a tear stained face forward.
“On your knees before the king!” the pouting attendant shouted. The demoness fell prostrate before the Sun God. Even from a distance I could tell that her shoulders were shaking with terror.
“Please, my lord.” Another demoness with mature horns pushed her way forward through the crowd stopping when she reached the shivering girl. “My daughter meant no harm. She only took the knife from her master on my behalf. Not to use against your people. For protection against our own kind. It is not safe in the La Ville Sombre, my lord. Surely you know. Please, I beg you. Show mercy to my daughter.”
His expression was a regal mask revealing nothing beyond the fact that he seemed to thrive on being the center of attention, Phoebus took a step forward. He surveyed the crowd and tapped his handsome cleanly shaven cheek. An audible hush fell over the crowd as everyone awaited his decision. “Madame, with your plea you convict yourself as a coconspirator in your daughter’s treachery. Guilty, both of you.”
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