The Hidden Key (Second Sacred Trinity)

by S E Holmes

  “Fuckin’ shut up!” Greenie spat through his few remaining teeth.

  Greenie’s abuse granted him Nash’s undivided fury. Smithy blinked up at his mother, seeing only a sad lady. He rummaged in a side pocket of his shorts for the carving he’d been working on. At the judge’s second of distraction, he darted out and stopped in front of Violet, offering her the shell on his open palm.

  “Here, take it.” He nodded encouragement and her fingers extended to accept his present.

  She furtively swatted a tear. “It’s very pretty. You are so clever to have made this.”

  Losing his patience, Greenie wheeled and slapped Smithy’s hand away, the shell arcing high and tumbling into the garden. The little boy stood frozen to the spot.

  Violet shoved Greenie, her expression mortified. “No!”

  The judge’s restraint collapsed. The dropped board glided to the ground. Crossing the space in three long strides, he planted a cracking roundhouse punch on Greenie’s cheek, whose head snapped back on his puny neck.

  Cupping his face, the addict wailed, “That’s assault! I’m suing you, you bastard!”

  “Please do. It will be my pleasure to see you in court,” said the judge, his tone quietly menacing. “You struck my son. I will have you interred in maximum security solitude where a stain on humanity like you can drown in his own vomit long before a guard notices. Or maybe, I’ll have you transferred to the cell of a notorious gangbanger with a romantic taste for weasel.”

  Sobbing, Violet grabbed Greenie and began dragging him away as he spewed invectives at the judge. “I’m sorry,” she cried in retreat, over and over again.

  “Violet,” the judge’s voice caught on her name. He gave her his back, bundling Vegas in a hug and herding him inside the apartment building.

  That was the first and final time since Violet left home, that she dared approach her son.

  I gasped awake in Enoch’s citadel. “She returned later and found the necklace in the garden.”

  Wearing her son’s gift close to her heart, always. It was difficult to perceive anything in bandaged mittens, but I gripped a hard lump. Peeling my hand open, just as Vegas had eleven years ago, revealed his limestone nautilus, leather thong and all. Somehow, I’d punctured time and brought it home for him.

  “Your mother loved you until her last breath, Vee,” I murmured. “She tried to shield you from her darkness. Addicts are selfish and self-destructive. Daniel showed me this on his boat. But Violet gave you the only thing she had left to give: ignorance of her sorry plight. She didn’t reject you … she saved you. And even though it must have hurt to be the object of your pain, so did the judge.”

  Prising apart one of his clammy fists, I placed the nautilus within and curled his fingers over the necklace. I needed a good long howl, but that seemed self-indulgent. Was that memory of his mother and Greenie buried deep in his psyche, ripe for the witch to plunder and exploit? If this didn’t work, I was at a loss for what else to do.

  I had no notion of time passing. Lurching awake from a half-sleep with a snort, I swiped dribble from my chin.

  “Bear?” a soft voice croaked.

  It might have been wishful thinking, were it not for warm fingers wiping tears from my cheek. Smithy broke out in rusty laughter.

  “Very elegant.”

  Gathering him in a fierce clinch, hysteria coloured my speech. “How could you be so stupid! How could you let her take you?”

  “Careful,” he groaned, his face mashed against my belly. “Everything aches.”

  “Good.”

  He shimmied upright, no mean feat considering I refused to let go. He had bed hair and his eyes were red-rimmed, but he was more beautiful to me at this moment than he’d ever been. Wide awake with no obvious lasting damage, he grinned and held up the nautilus by its leather strand. I dragged in a shaky breath, accepting the necklace to tie it around his neck.

  “Thank you, Bear. I’ve missed you,” he whispered in my ear.

  Taking my swaddled hands in his, he brushed them against his mouth, peeking from beneath his lashes. Then, he cupped my cheeks and gave me a lingering kiss on the lips. The sensation was warm and inviting and demanded more. I craved to surrender, his radiance stoking my love for him. With Smithy here, nothing seemed impossible. Finesse sought to belittle and corrupt these transcendent human bonds, which only elevated their preciousness. I broke from the kiss and pulled away, but not too far.

  “I won’t be appeased by kisses and sugary words.” Much. “From now on, we do this my way. That does not include you charging off to rescue the maiden like Sir Galahad on his steed. In case you hadn’t noticed, buddy, it’s the modern age. Promise!”

  He was not the only one who’d gained insight. I was crippled without him. The singular way to prevail was together. The era of team Trinity had arrived.

  “Sure.” He nuzzled my neck, planting tingly kisses along my clavicle. “Anything for you, Bear.”

  “Oh, you’re hopeless.” For a glorious few seconds, I wallowed in the tease of his caresses. Until reality intruded, reminding me of others in peril.

  “Tell me what happened … tell me what she did to you.”

  He stopped, his brows knitting again. Settling back, he draped an arm over my shoulders, scruffing his messy hair with his free hand. I snuggled against his broad, hard chest. A spent log broke apart in the grate, cinders coiling up the chimney. Smithy fixated on the fire’s depths.

  “Dad has that painting.”

  “Shame?”

  He nodded. “And all the rest of her works. Stacked around the walls of his bedroom.”

  “That’s how the judge remembers what they had together. By surrounding himself in the beauty Violet poured onto the canvas. And he sees her in you.”

  “It’s hard for me to tell if we looked alike. The images I got weren’t kind. She doesn’t know it, Bear, but Finesse has given me a great prize.” I squinted quizzically up at him. “Closure. She’s changed everything I thought I knew about my life and helped me to understand my father. Why he’s done the things he’s done, why he lied about my mother’s death.”

  I didn’t need to hear the story to know the source of his pain, and Smithy didn’t need to tell it. Aunt Bea always said, “Shared pain is pain halved.” Vegas and I had shared in a few weeks what most don’t manage in a lifetime of relationships.

  “The Crone forced you to relive your mother’s slide into addiction?”

  “Yeah, but that’s the weird thing. The witch picks the tiniest detail from your head and embellishes her version of the worst outcome.” He idly fondled the shell about his neck. “It’s artifice designed to disable, not fact. Yet living my mother’s fall had the opposite effect to what Finesse intended. It didn’t break me. She gave me clarity.”

  “The witch is slipping. Things are changing.”

  Smithy extricated himself and went over to a stack next to the hearth, hefting a large log onto the fire. Flames burst up into the chimney, bright warmth suffusing the space. He turned to face me, leaning against the stone lintel in crumpled boxer shorts.

  “She’s not going to be pleased you destroyed her club and escaped.”

  “Technically it was Daniel who destroyed her club. He’s a traitor and an idiot.”

  “He may be an idiot, but he’s no traitor. If he’s guilty of anything it’s overconfidence. The man believed the Trinity knife would kill her. He thought he’d do the deed and rescue me and we’d all be free to get on with our lives.”

  “If only it was that simple,” I sighed.

  “If only.”

  “He doesn’t trust me to get it done. He doesn’t believe in me. Maybe he’s right.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.” Smithy understood this was as much about my self-doubt as anyone else’s. “He can’t stand to see one more person get hurt because of her. And I think he’s testing your limits. So far, you’ve surprised him at every turn. You’ve taunted her in her true form and survived unscathed
without giving us away. If anyone asks me, that’s impressive.”

  Unscathed was a tad generous. He’d have a pink fit once he discovered my hands weren’t just burned from the explosion. “I’m not sure we agree on the definition of impressive.”

  Smithy rolled his eyes. “Why insist on calling him Daniel when he clearly hates it?”

  I shrugged. “It’s his true name. She stole everything else from him in the most terrible way, including his identity. I choose to remember him from the time before when he was his real, admirable self. And he needs a constant reminder that’s who he really is.”

  Smithy’s expression clouded. “But it seems cruel. He blames himself. What’s gone forever is too painful for him.”

  “No,” I declared. “Pain is how we remember what’s important. We cannot forget what that witch has taken from each and every one of us. Who’s truly to blame.”

  “And we cannot let her take everything.”

  “Correct. And now, we have to go and rescue him.”

  “I’m glad you agree, Bear. I was worried it might take an argument.”

  “You’ve moved on from jealous boyfriend to brother-in-arms?”

  “We’re both your Warriors, both invested in your safety. And I think, this time, there’s safety in numbers.”

  “We leave no one behind. Besides, I always lose arguments with you. It’s impossible to win against the son of a judge.”

  “Can you repeat that so I can record it? It will avoid a lot of hassle in future if I just press play.”

  “Not on your life.”

  He came to stand in front of me, hands out to help me up. “I need food.”

  “Enoch’s an amazing cook.”

  “Something other than kebrubs, I trust?” Smithy stuck his tongue out and made a gagging sound.

  Brussel-sprout kebabs were a specialty that earned Aunt Bea no compliments. “Lamb stew with dumplings and fluffy mashed potato.”

  “Yum. And I’m assuming there’s a bed in this joint? I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep for a thousand years.” He dragged me to my feet into a brief clinch.

  “Only sleep?” I batted my eyelids and kissed his bare chest in my best rendition of sexy. I required a great deal more practice.

  “Well look at you, all multry spinx.”

  “I’ll never live that down, will I?”

  My drunken episode seemed an eon ago. Trinity circumstances were bad right now, but I wouldn’t swap a single event that had brought us to this treasured moment. The Keeper’s Key helped me understand that even Mrs Paget’s passing was a necessary cog in time’s grand mechanism. Finesse’s unyielding tyranny made rare breaks more cherished and gave me hope, if fleeting, that love bestowed an advantage over her hatred. My foolish optimism was a stubborn bugger.

  Hand in hand, Smithy and I headed for the kitchen. “I think you need an extra shower.” He winked at me. “I’ll scrub your back. I’m sure you missed a spot.”

  “I did,” I nodded soberly. “I’m filthy.”

  He beamed wider. “Outstanding.”

  A flush splotched my cheeks. We knew this respite would be brief. Sunrise heralded another day without peace, unless we erased the Crone from this world forever.

  Mason whistled ‘Deck the Halls’ as he worked, looping leather straps over this latest chore’s shoulders to fix him firmly to the X-shaped wooden cross. That’s what he viewed his victims as: chores, not people. His benevolent mistress had given him an early Christmas bonus. The secretive Anathema specialist was only called upon for the most particular of jobs. He balanced on the top rung of a small stepladder with a torch in his mouth.

  Deep underground in his favourite vast chamber of L’Empire de la Mort, he paid little heed to the skittering of his mistress’ gangly pets that teemed the catacombs in droves. Instead of walls formed by human skulls, this cavern had high-relief carvings of gape-jawed heads, surrounding him in faces in the throes of agony. Mason relished the solitude of Paris’ intestines, the silence broken only by a pleasant metronome of dripping water.

  Others would consider an odour of dank, mouldy earth repellent, but to him it was a better perfume than traffic smog or the expensive scent of a woman. He inhabited dark, subterranean places in preference to the sun’s domain.

  Mason secured this chore in stocks of his own design, a hood over its head roped tightly at its neck. It wore nothing else, its body a wreck of burns and festering gashes. Were he capable of sympathy, Mason might have felt a glimmer triggered by the necrotic infection bruising its exposed flesh. He was surprised the chore hadn’t uttered a single complaint, no begging for mercy or attempts at a bribe for freedom.

  Neither did it grunt with the pain so evident on pressing anything against its ruined form. Usually it didn’t matter how powerful or well-muscled a male, as this specimen was, they gibbered and blubbered to be spared just as enthusiastically as any girl.

  Finesse’s punisher didn’t waste much thought on this irregularity, or many things for that matter. He was paid to act, not think. Although it intrigued him to learn how this chore ended up so out of favour. The mistress didn’t inflict her worms on any old rebel. Imagine parasitic burrowers swimming arteries and veins like so many piranhas, boring organs, poised to shred at a second’s notice. He could see them crawling beneath the chore’s mottled purple skin.

  Mason shuddered, reflexively digging a fingernail into his forearm. He’d allowed himself to get distracted. There was something entirely unsettling about this chore and Mason wanted rid of it. He hurried now, no longer whistling. The cross attached to a thick pole by a long bolt that allowed him to spin it like a game-show wheel. Firmly shackled at the ankles, wrists and under the arms, he rotated the chore until the cross was upside down.

  The occasion of the big reveal – Mason’s favourite part – was upon them. Kneeling, he loosened the knot and dragged the hood off, gasping in recognition. Finesse’s chosen one, Seth, stared at him as impassively as he had during numerous meetings to arrange ‘dispatches’. Inverted, bare, in restraints and suffering, Seth betrayed no outward sign of his discomfort. Mason rocked back on his heels and gulped. If the mightiest could fall from grace, no one was safe.

  With a grim smile, Seth said, “Mason. Never a pleasure.” The words slurred between his swollen lips.

  Mason was too stunned to respond immediately, his mind working in furious loops. Did Seth’s demise prove an opportunity for advancement? If he played the situation right, Mason fancied himself the top lieutenant, by the most-powerful’s side. But then, at such proximity he’d also place himself at heightened risk. Several of her deputies had vanished of late.

  If he was careful not to repeat Seth’s mistakes … “What crime did you commit?”

  “Abandoned a sinking ship. The Crone’s reign is almost at an end. Choose wisely my aspiring underling.”

  It was the sentiment of a fraught man. No force on earth rivalled the Mistress. Still, Seth’s attitude smacked of unflinching certainty. Or was it arrogance, a quality he was notorious for? Confusion plagued Mason. He wasn’t paid to think, but the situation demanded consideration. After he’d finished here.

  Ratcheting the lever of a block and tackle he hoisted the cross high. Swinging the beam out over a cylindrical hole, Mason lowered Seth until the apparatus neared the bottom far below, wedged tightly by walls either side. He scaled a rope ladder down into the well and detached anchoring chains. The cross now stood unsupported, Seth spread-eagled naked with his head closest to the chalky floor. Mason frittered a moment to gloat.

  “If you have any fantasies of liberation, hear this. You are jammed in this well twenty metres below the room overhead. It is a dead end with a single entry where Finesse’s Sentinels roam in unquenchable numbers. You are located at the furthest depths of the Paris catacombs, in an uncharted area where explorers are lost, never to return to light’s embrace. Not only are your hands taped and held in mittens, your neck is secured fast by a noose collar which chokes shoul
d you move. Once I’ve left, a wall of blackness and silence more profound than you’ve ever known holds sway. There is nothing to see by, no clue for navigation and no knowledge of your trap by anyone but me. Madness is your reward and will find you as surely as rescuers cannot. Illumination and sound are our alarms. None have ever breached my prisons.”

  Seth chuckled, softly at first. “None have tried.”

  “So what if they do?”

  “You have no idea who is coming.”

  “Your offsider, Hugo? I foresee a vacancy closing in another of my pits very soon. Who else cares about you? Family dead, lover gone, influence waning. You have nothing left, Seth.” Mason’s confidence remained firm. “I dare any bold and foolish enough. The witch observes all through her Sentinels. They do not need eyes to see.”

  He retreated skyward, taking his rope and his chains, the watery rays of his torch extinguished. Sentry-demons seeking new sport poured into the chamber, the silence broken only by claws on rock and frenzied screeching. The punisher was several caverns over by the time Seth answered. He was too far away to heed the whispered warning.

  “The Keeper is coming to avenge those she loves, and Finesse had better be ready.”

  Raucous laughter echoed from the pit, floating the stone-bound warrens. Confronted by such defiance, the Sentinels froze. Mason halted mid-step, cocking his head to listen. For the first time, the Crone’s punisher experienced a sensation both unpleasant and novel. A seed of fear germinated in his spine and no matter how he tried, Mason could not shake it free.

  For other works by this author, please visit: www.seholmesauthor.com. Thank you for reading.