Echo Prophecy

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  Somehow, Neffe read the desperation in my eyes, a desperation verging on insanity. Her resolve hardened, and she spun on her knees. “Vali! Pick him up—carefully!” she ordered, pressing a wad of cloth napkins against her father’s punctured, bleeding chest while the huge, blond man lifted him off the floor.

  I followed as they took Marcus’s body to a nearby room, one I’d yet to explore. I was surprised to find a well-stocked home clinic. I might have wondered what the hell it was doing in the main house of the Heru compound, but all I could think about was Marcus. He can’t die. He’s lived for thousands of years … he can’t die!

  “Carlisle, find the three oldest Nejerets here and begin drawing their blood,” Neffe ordered. “We need to transfuse.”

  “Take mine, please,” I begged.

  Quietly, Dominic explained, “His body needs stronger blood … more mature blood. The older the Nejeret, the more developed their regenerative abilities. I’m sorry, Lex, but you can’t help him.” Until Dominic spoke, I hadn’t noticed his arm around my waist keeping me standing.

  “Don’t we need a doctor?” I asked, watching Neffe cut off her father’s shirt.

  “Neffe has more medical degrees than any other living being, Nejeret or otherwise. She’s the best,” Dominic informed me.

  I watched Carlisle herd in his three chosen, ancient blood donors, one of which was Sandra. I hadn’t known she was among the oldest of Marcus’s line. “What about their blood types? What if they have the wrong kind?” I asked, panic and fear thick in my voice. “We might kill him!”

  “Start the transfusion,” Neffe told another Nejerette I didn’t recognize. “He’s AB positive—a universal receiver,” she explained as she cut an impossibly deep incision down the center of Marcus’s chest. Blood, thick and incredibly dark, welled up and over the edges of the incision, and not once did Marcus flinch.

  Because Marcus was dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Age & Wisdom

  Neffe revived Marcus three times before he finally stabilized. One of the bullets had pierced his heart, the other two his left lung—it had taken her fifteen minutes to repair the wounds enough that his vital organs would mend themselves properly. Once she’d cracked his sternum open, I had to look away.

  “He’ll live, I’m positive,” Neffe told me as she shamelessly peeled off her bloody clothes in the center of the home clinic. I hit Dominic’s arm with the back of my hand for his equally shameless ogling.

  “What? I’ve seen it all before … several times,” he replied, his thin lips curling up into a sly, close-mouthed smile.

  Neffe rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Sometimes I get lonely.” She motioned for me to follow her into the attached bathroom, where she stepped into the shower. Marcus’s blood was all over her, even in her hair. I, on the other hand, only had it on my shirt.

  Shutting the door, I asked, “So, what happens now?” I hopped up and perched beside the sink on the white tile counter.

  From beyond a fogged glass door, Neffe explained, “Now he regenerates. It could take him up to twenty-four hours to heal enough to regain consciousness. All of his body’s energy is currently going toward repairing his vital organs. We’ll move him up to his suite, and if you’d like, you can stay with him there. I just assumed that once he returned, the two of you would start sharing a bed …”

  “Neffe … he’s your dad!” I exclaimed. “How can you even think about that?”

  She laughed, and the sound reverberated in the increasingly steamy, confined space. “You should ask around about his reputation.” She paused. “Actually, maybe you shouldn’t. Anyway, he’ll look different for a while—noticeably thinner and possibly sickly or older. His body will be focused entirely on healing what it needs to survive, not on remaining young or robust,” she explained. “But don’t worry, he’ll be the old Heru—Marcus—in no time. One of the perks of being so ridiculously ancient.”

  After my mini-coma, I’d lost weight and appeared sickly, and I’d only been out for a handful of hours. Marcus, on the other, had actually died … several times. How different will he look?

  After listening to the shower run for a long moment, I asked the question that had been troubling me since I became certain of Marcus’s recovery. “Neffe, what about the guy who shot him?”

  “Ah, yes. He is, by his own stupid announcement, guilty of attempting to assassinate the Meswett and nearly murdering a member of the Council of Seven. We don’t kill our kind easily, but he’ll be executed … after he’s interrogated, of course. We must discover the other traitors behind the attack. Do you approve?”

  “Yes,” I hissed, surprised by the venom the single word could contain. I wanted to tear the shooter apart with my bare hands.

  “Wonderful,” Neffe said, shutting off the water and stepping out of the shower. I tried to ignore her perfect, curvaceous body while she toweled off, but it wasn’t easy. I frowned, knowing I would never have curves like hers.

  Unhurried, Neffe slipped into a soft white robe. “Now, I have many things to do for the excavation if we truly are to leave next Friday. You should go upstairs and change, then go to my father. Sit with him. Your presence will bring him comfort.”

  I did as she suggested, winding my way through hallways, stairwells, and corridors, Vali leading and Sandra trailing behind me. I stopped by my own rooms just long enough to exchange my bloody silk blouse for a plain black T-shirt and to wipe the crusted blood off my stomach before heading to the suite next door—Marcus’s suite. The two guards at the door instantly let me inside, offering supportive smiles.

  Thanking them, I slipped through Marcus’s sitting room without a single glance around me—I needed to see Marcus, not what he owned. But, holy crap, I was terrified. Will I even recognize him?

  “How is he?” I asked Dominic, who was standing in the doorway between the sitting room and the bedroom.

  “He’s healing,” my half-brother said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “He’s … did Neffe explain that he would look different for a while?”

  “Yeah. Thanks, by the way, for everything you did. I probably would have collapsed if you hadn’t kept me standing.”

  Dominic lifted his hand, and with gentle fingers, tilted my face up so he could see it better. “It was nothing.” A faint smile softened his sharp, pale features. “Someday I’ll tell you of our father. I’ll tell you of his treatment of my mother and of me. Then, I think, you’ll understand why I would do anything for you, the one prophesied to cause his destruction.” Or the world’s. Dominic’s eyes shone with unshed tears, but before I could voice my doubts, he dropped his hand and said, “I’ll leave you two to your happy reunion.” He left me in the doorway and sat in the furthest armchair.

  With an apprehensive sigh, I walked into Marcus’s bedroom. It took me several breaths to fully comprehend that the middle-aged man lying under the covers in the enormous, four-poster bed was Marcus.

  As I approached the bed, I took note of all the little changes to his face. His hair was salt and pepper instead of jet black, and there were faint wrinkles on his brow, at the corners of his eyes, and around his mouth. Some of the precision of his bone structure had been softened. I let out a shaky laugh, thinking it was so typical of Marcus that he would look like a dapper older gentleman instead of someone suffering from a chronic illness, which had been my body’s reaction to using regeneration to heal.

  I grasped his nearest hand, wrapping both of mine around it. “I will never accept your life in exchange for mine,” I whispered vehemently. “Do you understand me, Marcus? I refuse to live in a world where you don’t exist.”

  I laid my forehead on the bed between my arms. To an observer I probably looked like a woman deep in prayer. If I were, it was to a very old, very proud man, who had once been considered a god. There, lying in supplication to Marcus or Heru—whoever he was—I fell asleep. Thankfully, I didn’t dream.

  ***

  “Wake up, Little Ivanov,” murmured a
quiet, masculine voice. It was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. The hand I’d been holding when I’d fallen asleep was gone from my grasp—instead his fingers were gently stroking my mess of mahogany hair. I smiled into the comforter before raising my head.

  Though he was still the middle-aged version of himself, the sight that greeted me was breathtaking. Marcus was awake … smiling … alive.

  “Come here,” he said softly, patting the comforter on the opposite side of his body.

  I yearned to cuddle with him, to feel his warm, solid body next to mine, but I shook my head. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Come here,” he repeated, demanding.

  I bit my lower lip in hesitation, but the yearning in his eyes won me over. I walked around the bed and carefully slid closer to him.

  “I’ll recover, Lex,” he murmured, and a rush of relief filled my chest. Part of me hadn’t believed that he really was okay until that moment.

  I curled up against him, and voice wobbly, said, “I’m counting on it.”

  He sighed and tightened his arm around my waist.

  I breathed in, eager for his spicy scent, but I was disappointed. “Why do you smell different? I mean, you don’t smell bad, just … different.”

  His thumb began caressing my ribs as he spoke. “Well … as far as I could tell, I was shot in the heart. Am I correct?”

  I nodded against his shoulder, attempting to keep my breathing steady. The skin he was stroking burned with a pleasant fire.

  “Then I must have been given blood from another Nejeret—possibly several. Until my own blood cells replace it, I’ll smell a little bit like each of them. You’re developing heightened senses rapidly, Little Ivanov, if you could smell the difference. Did you know that in the most powerful of us, our sensation of touch is heightened as well? I am one of those … are you?” He chuckled as his thumb continued its gentle stroking.

  “Marcus,” I finally growled between uneven breaths. It just so happened that all of my senses had been slowly becoming more sensitive, including touch.

  “Ah … very well,” Marcus said, ceasing his tactile ministrations. Lightly, he pressed his lips to my forehead, the hint of his stubble a pleasant scratchiness.

  “Pardon the interruption, Meswett,” Carlisle said from the doorway. “But Heru should really eat now that he’s awake. It’ll hasten his healing process. There’s a tray of food for you as well in the sitting room,” he said as he wheeled in a multi-level food cart heaped with a variety of dishes.

  Sitting up, I gaped. “That’s all for him?”

  “Regeneration brings on a hearty appetite,” was Carlisle’s response. It made sense; I recalled my own increased appetite after waking from the coma.

  “Why’s my food out there?” I pointed my thumb over my shoulder toward the sitting room. “I’ll eat in here with him.”

  “Meswett, I’m not sure you want to watch him eating just yet. After recovery from such a fatal injury, the first few meals can be … unpleasant,” Carlisle warned. I tried to picture polite and proper Marcus shoving handfuls of food into his mouth, but couldn’t.

  I clenched my teeth and stated, “I’m staying.”

  “Lex …” Marcus said, his voice laden with warning.

  “Marcus.”

  He sighed at my mulishness, and followed up with a groan as Carlisle rearranged pillows and propped him up into a sitting position. “If you let me eat my first five meals alone, I’ll tell you the truth behind the Contendings of Heru and Set myth.”

  A glimpse into Marcus’s past, a chance to see the man who’d inspired one of the most famous Egyptian myths, was almost too much to pass up … almost. “Three,” I countered.

  He narrowed his eyes. “Five.”

  “Four.”

  “Five.”

  I snorted in exasperation. “Fine, five meals. But you’d better let me know as soon as he finishes,” I told Carlisle. I really didn’t want to leave Marcus’s side, but I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, either.

  “Of course, Meswett,” Carlisle said with a bow and minutely shaking shoulders. I was pretty sure he was laughing at me.

  I left the bedroom and quickly ate my own food—lemon and herb-roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and glazed heirloom carrots, paired with a small carafe of a light white wine—at a small, granite-topped dining table set in front of a picture window. Staring out at the tree-lined horizon, I sighed. He really is okay.

  “Daydreaming?” Dominic asked in his smooth, French accent. I’d been so lost in thought, I hadn’t heard him enter the room.

  “Sort of,” I said, turning to look at him. He was sitting in an oversized, steel-gray armchair on the opposite side of the room. His chin-length, nearly black hair was slicked back as usual, but it looked wet. I figured he’d taken a break from chaperoning me to get cleaned up. Last I’d seen him, his clothes had been stained with nearly as much blood as mine had been, but his current attire—black-on-black pinstriped suit pants and a midnight blue dress shirt—was immaculate. “You’re very sneaky, you know.”

  Amusement touched his handsome features, curving his thin lips and making his coal-black eyes sparkle. “Precisely the reason your Marcus frequently employs me as a spy,” he told me. “And I prefer the term ‘stealthy.’”

  “Alright … stealthy,” I agreed.

  For the first time, I had a chance to examine the décor in Marcus’s personal space. His house in Ravenna had been decorated generically, reflecting none of his actual taste, but his sitting room screamed “MARCUS” as loudly as if he’d stamped his name on every chair, table, and trinket in bold, garish letters. Gray and black, the two colors that dominated his wardrobe, seemed to govern his home décor tastes as well. Every piece of furniture was sleek and elegant, somehow managing a level of subtle sensuality.

  Strewn about the room on shelves and tables were little bits of bright blue, orange, red, and violet, all in the form of priceless antiques. And they weren’t corner-shop-in-a-quaint-town antiques, but million-dollar, personal-invitation-to-a-silent-auction antiques. They were black market with a capital B.

  “You can return, Meswett,” Carlisle said, making me jump. I was glad I’d refrained from picking up any of the irreplaceable statuettes or vases—otherwise one might’ve been in pieces on the floor.

  “Thank you.” To Dominic, I said, “Maybe you should ask Neffe to come up and keep you company, if you plan to hang around.”

  My comment earned a bark of laughter from the bedroom.

  “I think not,” was Dominic’s reply. “Go to him. Saga and Sandra will join me here soon enough.”

  I nodded, thanking him silently for releasing me from the guilt of abandoning him. I hurried into the bedroom and shut the door.

  “I expected you to look different,” I told Marcus as I crawled toward him on the bed.

  Locked on me, his irises bled from gold to black in an instant before his eyes narrowed, and he groaned.

  “What? What is it? Does something hurt?” I asked frantically, my hands fluttering around him.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “No, definitely not. Definitely, definitely not.”

  “Okay … will you tell me your tale now or do I have to actually wait until you’ve consumed all five of the agreed-upon meals?” I asked as I cuddled against him.

  “After I rest,” he said, pulling me closer.

  With my head laid on his shoulder, I warned, “You’d better not back out of our deal.” When he didn’t respond, I looked up at his face. He was already asleep.

  ***

  Sometime during the next morning, I woke and adjourned to my suite to brush my teeth and shower. When I returned to Marcus’s bedroom, he was already awake and sitting up in bed. I gasped when I saw him.

  “Marcus! You look ten years younger!” I exclaimed. He didn’t look his usual late-twenties or early-thirties, but he was getting there.

  “Do I?” he asked, unconcerned.

  “Are you going
to tell me about the myth now?” I settled in the large cushy chair at his bedside, dropping a leather tote stuffed with books and my laptop on the floor.

  “No,” he said, smiling mysteriously. “I must eat again, and then rest. I hope you don’t mind.” His eyes twinkled. He was toying with me, seeing how far he could push me.

  We danced that little routine at least a dozen times over the next several days, me asking for the true story behind the myth, him denying me and then eating and falling asleep. I would sit at his bedside and watch him breathe, or I would read or hold quiet discussions with other Nejerets in his sitting room. It was simple and domestic—an easy routine to fall into.

  On the fifth evening after the shooting, while I was sleeping in my own bed for once, my ba found its way into the At of its own accord.

  I was watching five-year-old me play lackadaisically on the swings in my parents’ backyard. A dark-haired and golden-skinned man dressed in a colorful, belted robe was approaching the little-girl version of me. Turning, he sat on the next swing over, and I inhaled sharply.

  For a long moment, I thought the man was Marcus—he bore a striking resemblance in both coloring and bone structure, but there were subtle differences. Marcus was slightly shorter, making his musculature seem bulkier, and he carried himself differently, more like a modern man. The familiar stranger had an alien grace, his movements too smooth, too quick, too fluid. Who is he?

  Five-year-old me giggled joyfully, like the tinkling of a dozen bells. “You’re dressed funny!”

  The man smiled back at her, but said nothing.

  I knew I was in an echo of something that happened when I was a little girl, but I would have sworn the interaction I was watching never actually happened. I couldn’t remember ever meeting this Marcus look-alike.

  “I’m Alexandra,” the little girl version of me announced, her swinging newly enthused.

  The man who wasn’t Marcus inclined his head and repeated in a foreign, ancient accent, “Alexandra.” It sounded like “Ah-leek-saaan-drah.” He pressed the fingertips of his right hand to his chest and said, “Nuin.”