Wilde Child 7

by Jenn Stark

  It wasn’t a hardship. As always, the man was impeccably dressed, his deep gray suit and snow-white shirt looking freshly ironed. His long ebony-colored hair was swept back from his face, revealing deeply bronzed skin, piercing dark golden eyes, and finely chiseled features. He was tall, well over six feet, and deceptively slender, though his well-cut suits tended to make him seem slighter than he really was. I’d had firsthand knowledge of the power he contained within his well-maintained body…and of the various planes, dips, and curves of that…

  Armaeus’s lips twitched, and I forced myself to focus. “So why are you here? It can’t be to facilitate an introduction between me and Jonathan. We’ve already met.”

  “I thought I might assist the search more effectively in person,” Armaeus said, and his gaze sharpened on me. “You’re still hurt.”

  “I’m fine,” I corrected him. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him being here, and I certainly wasn’t sure how I felt about seeing him in person. I looked at Jonathan. “Where do you want to start?”

  Jonathan sighed, looking slightly away, then back to me. “At the beginning, I suspect. If you’ll follow me?”

  The Revenant security leader led us into the cramped apartment, if apartment was really the right word. The space was ascetically decorated in fifteenth-century monk, its furnishings several austerity points below spartan. Beyond the foyer was a dining room with a table but no chairs, and following that, a sitting room with only a folded mat in one corner of the smoothly polished stone floor. Nothing hung on the walls, and there were no windows. A long hallway led us to the rear of the structure, where we were greeted with two large windows. They framed a double arch of lit candles that stood directly in front of the windows on a narrow side table. All the chairs from the dining room table had been dragged in here and set along the walls. Jonathan gestured to them.

  He had the air of a man with a story to tell, so I obligingly sat, but before he could get started, I held up a hand.

  “History lesson can come later, if it’s not germane to the search,” I said. “I mainly need to understand who these children are, where you think they might be and why, and any third party you suspect. And I need to know all that, like, now.”

  Jonathan hesitated, shooting Armaeus a look. The Magician’s answering smile seemed at once a little too familiar and self-satisfied, and I found myself bristling. It was almost as if the Magician was conveying I told you so with that little glance, and for some reason, that cheddared my cheese.

  “I apologize for being brusque, but time’s of the essence here,” I said coolly, drawing Jonathan’s attention back to me. “The children have already been missing twenty-four hours, possibly longer, right?”

  “Yes,” Jonathan said at last, releasing a pent-up sigh. “Very well. The children, Lyon and Anna, were not related, and were not a couple in your parlance, but they have been good friends since their fostering.”

  “Fostering.” I truly didn’t want the history lesson, but this part might be useful. “When did that start, how long did it last, and where was it?”

  Jonathan considered the question. “It began in 1950, it lasted until 2000, and they both came from separate families in Spain but were fostered in Hungary.”

  “For fifty years,” I clarified, mildly aghast.

  “That is the standard time, yes. It would be the equivalent of ages five through late teens, and encompassed the bulk of their educational years.”

  “Right.” It wasn’t my place to judge. For that, I’d need to exchange places with Nikki, whose expression showed that she was judging enough for both of us.

  “What about their parents?” Nikki interjected, clearly aghast.

  “They remain with the community. By the time the children are sent to fostering communities, they have already learned much. It is not as if they are abandoned unawares.”

  “Wait.” My brain was starting to hurt. “So by age sixty, you people are roughly eighteen and—then what? You slow down?” It appeared I needed more history than I’d thought.

  “Put succinctly, yes. Which brings us to Lyon and Anna. They are functionally in their late teens, having just returned from fostering, but they excelled in their studies. Excelled in all things, really. They have found the return to Gotica somewhat stifling, but have been well trained. They understand our need for secrecy and have agreed to honor our requirements.”

  Right. Because teenagers were big fans of rules and restrictions. “What happens to…ah, members of the community who don’t, ah, honor your requirements?”

  “There are other paths they might take. Some live alone, or in less urban settings. These were all options available to Lyon and Anna, in time. They were not prisoners.” Jonathan’s tone had turned defensive.

  I smothered a grimace. Like most eighteen-year-olds, Lyon and Anna’s definition of “prison” might’ve differed from their elders’.

  “Because they gave the appearance of twenty-five-year-olds, they were free to move about the city at will, day or night,” Jonathan continued. Which, arguably, did sound pretty generous. “Of course, they were also chipped.”

  Okay, back to prison. “Chipped,” I said. “Did they know this?”

  He hesitated. “No.”

  “And those chips are now…?”

  Another hesitation. “No longer responding.”

  That didn’t come as a surprise.

  “Right.” I pulled out my cards from my hoodie pocket, aimlessly shuffling them. Barcelona was an enormous city to cover on foot, even with the help of the cards. We’d better get started. I found my gaze returning to Armaeus again. What was his real interest here, I wondered again.

  Then I got it.

  “No,” I said, sharply. Nigel, Nikki, and Ma-Singh all straightened at my tone. “No, no, and no.”

  Armaeus simply smiled and inclined his head. “I think you’ll agree, given the time constraints, that astral travel is our only possible solution, Miss Wilde. To effect that, I am at your service.”

  Chapter Eight

  We trooped back to the dining room with chairs in hand. I was a big fan of there being a table nearby when I was seated for an astral travel session. Mainly because I usually ended up face-planted on it.

  “What is this process, exactly? I don’t understand,” Nigel groused for the umpteenth time.

  “It’s not rocket science, sweet buns,” Nikki said, the faintest edge of irritation finally sharpening her voice. “You know what astral projection is, putting yourself someplace else, ideally to report back what you see. That’s what Sara does—with a spotter, usually—only she can use her mojo to actually locate objects, people, whatever while she does it.”

  Nigel’s gaze swung to me. “Does it hurt?”

  “Like a bitch,” Nikki said cheerfully, patting him on the back. “Don’t worry, though. You just have to catch her when she falls over. Which, believe me, she will. Just be glad she’s staying in this dimension. She’s a sucker for bringing back tagalongs when she goes off the grid.”

  “What?” he growled through clenched teeth.

  I ignored Nigel and his misplaced concern, but Ma-Singh was beginning to worry me. He seemed to get larger every time I looked at him, larger and closer, until he practically loomed over me as I settled into my seat.

  “I do not like this,” he said succinctly.

  I didn’t know Ma-Singh as well as I knew Nigel, and my second in the House of Swords had far less experience with me blundering into danger like it was a second helping of dessert. I cut him some slack and laid a hand on his arm. Ma-Singh froze. It occurred to me I probably had just breached some ancient House etiquette, but I didn’t care.

  “I appreciate your concern, Ma-Singh, I do. You’ve done everything you can to protect me, and I’m grateful for it. But you can’t take this journey with me. I’m not physically traveling—I’ll never leave this room.”

  “But your mind is traveling,” he said, unmollified. “That is still too great a risk. And the
Ace says you once came back…skewered.”

  I winced, recalling the event he referred to, an unfortunate experience in Atlantis that I wouldn’t soon be repeating, with any luck. I’d returned with the weapons of another world piercing my skin, the only way I could carry them back through time and space. That little round-trip adventure had made flying coach suddenly bearable again. Ma-Singh also surely had heard about the time his own former leader had sliced me up with her white swords of doom, before we’d become friends. So, yeah, I could understand his trepidation.

  “That’s not going to happen here. With any luck, I’m not going to leave the city—maybe not even the neighborhood. The children will be close, I’m sure of it.”

  Ma-Singh folded his arms over his powerful chest and glowered. One thing about Mongolians, they were excellent at glowering.

  “We should begin.” Armaeus stood off to one side, allowing Ma-Singh to get his father bear on a moment longer while the others moved into place. I pulled the cards from my lap where I’d been shuffling, and glanced toward the pictures of Anna and Lyon that Jonathan placed on the table. They were two attractive young adults, sophisticated and smiling, with deep brown hair, flashing eyes, bronzed skin. They were the picture of health and vitality, and for some reason, that made me nervous.

  Apprehension hung heavily over me as I drew cards in quick succession, laying them out before me. The Hierophant, Four of Wands, Three of Swords. No one spoke, but the ball in the pit of my stomach intensified.

  “Church or a hospital,” I said, sweeping the cards back into the deck and setting them aside. “Older the better. Maybe…” I thought about the Four of Wands. “Maybe somewhere they have weddings, if it’s a church, or a hospital that overlooks a picturesque park, something like that.”

  “The Basilica of Santa Maria Del Mar is a popular site for weddings,” Jonathan said quietly. “It’s not too far either. You’ll know it by its stained-glass windows, particularly its Rose Window.” He glanced to the wall, though there were no windows in this room. “It would be closed now.”

  “Not to me,” I assured him.

  Ma-Singh had finally moved back, and Armaeus stepped over to me, standing to my right. At his glance, Nikki took up her position on the opposite side of my chair. I smiled at her, and she patted me on the shoulder.

  “You got this,” she said. “And I got you.”

  Nikki was my anchor when I traveled, my surefire means of getting my metaphysical butt back home. My sinking stomach made me think I was going to need more than her strong arms this time around.

  I pulled my gaze quickly away, focusing again on the table as my throat worked. The dread was greater now than it usually was. It’d been a while since my last travel stint, and that one hadn’t ended so well. That was all. I was simply nervous.

  Beside me, Armaeus’s soft, confident voice began the chant that had already sent me down several journeys across the globe. Funny, I could never quite work out what he was saying, exactly, for all that he was standing right—

  I slumped forward.

  My spirit detached almost immediately from my physical form, which looked strangely bowed beneath me at the table, as if the weight of the world now rested too heavily on my shoulders. Did I always look like that? I’d be sporting a dowager’s hump before long if I didn’t knock it off.

  “Miss Wilde…” Armaeus prompted.

  I’m going—I’m going. And I was. With a spurt of focus and pent-up energy, I managed to move through the thick walls of Jonathan’s home with only the slightest drag to slow me down. Then I was in the heart of the oldest section of Barcelona, finally quiet in the predawn darkness. I swept through the narrow streets and around ornamental stonework and trailing wrought iron, skirting fountains and ancient cornerstones and even a few trees. Then I was moving up, up, my gaze searching for the enormous churches of the ancient city.

  It didn’t take me long to find them. As I scanned, I picked out several great churches—but it was the one with the giant rose window that caught my attention. Not so much because Jonathan had mentioned it…but because it glowed.

  The Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar seemed lit from within by a strange, spectral light, the effect causing the enormous window to radiate with unearthly beauty. No one could possibly be in the church, however, not at this hour.

  I moved toward it anyway, my feeling of dread increasing. Based on the cards I’d pulled, the children—young adults—whatever they were, the young Revenants would be in the basilica, I was almost certain. Not wanting to disturb the light pouring out of the rose window, I skimmed toward the roof, giving over to the feeling of dropping through tile and stone and beams as I entered the enormous building.

  Fortunately, one advantage of churches was they were dominated by one big room, which made the job of searching that much easier. I dropped into the center of the basilica in a rush, but the usual sense of quiet sanctuary didn’t greet me here.

  Glancing toward the sanctuary, I located the source of light, a strobe-like flasher atop the altar, bright and steady enough to fill the entire space, its pulse so rapid that it seemed like one continuous stream from a distance. But there was no other movement in the room.

  “Search the basement?” I murmured aloud.

  Armaeus seemed to hesitate, then spoke words directly in my mind. Apparently, he didn’t want everyone to hear. “What do you see?”

  Nothing—light. There’s a light on the altar. Otherwise, the place is empty. I swept my gaze around the room again, relating the form and size of everything I saw. When I got to the altar, I felt more than heard Armaeus’s intake of breath.

  “Return to us, Miss Wilde.”

  I frowned. Despite his higher-level powers, Armaeus couldn’t usually see more than I could, relying instead on my translation of what I saw to help him understand the situation on the ground.

  Why, what’s wrong?

  Armaeus said something I couldn’t pick up. There was the sound of people arguing behind him, arguing—or, no, not arguing. Shouting orders, first Armaeus’s cool, strong voice, then others, dimmer, less controlled, more emotional. And one that was yet farther off, striking a keen note of…

  Anguish.

  My gaze sharpened on the sanctuary, and I drifted closer, willing myself to go quickly but somehow unable to do so. At least not until I saw the wine spilling from the top of the altar, the graceful cup overturned in one hand of the figure lying on the ornately carved surface. Confusion suffused me, and then in a flash, I understood and whipped forward, my mind working again, my thoughts flowing quickly enough that Armaeus finally stopped whoever he was talking to and returned his attention to me.

  “Miss Wilde, no. Return to me, now. Return!”

  But it was far too late for returning, far too late for me to do anything but will myself more toward corporeal form. I couldn’t fully materialize, not completely. Which meant I could not help these children—children in everything but physical form, truly, lying on the altar, huddled together, their arms entwined as if in a lover’s embrace. They were robed in pure white silk, clothes clearly not their own, and they were…they were…

  My hands fluttered up to my face, covering my mouth, but the scream I silently uttered seemed to ricochet off every wall and pew in the great and terrible space.

  The light that blossomed up between the two bodies of the Revenants was not that of some strobe or electric lamp. It was the dying surges of their hearts, two hearts, completely exposed in their chests, pierced through with blades. The Three of Swords. The two Revenants were dead—very much dead—their eyes hollow, their mouths slack. The marks of strangulation across their necks attested to their manner of death, but their violent passing was somehow not at all evident in their faces, which remained beautiful and taut, as if caught in a trance.

  Impossibly, however, their hearts beat on without the need of their bodies or brains to sustain them. And the light that poured from the hearts must have taken their captors by surprise, I
suddenly realized…the unholy sacrifice they were planning had been interrupted—interrupted!

  I jerked my head up. They’re close! I thought furiously to Armaeus, but he’d clearly already figured that out. They’re close! I can find them!

  “No,” he growled back, and there was real panic in his voice. “If they are strong enough to kill a Revenant, they are strong enough to trap you.”

  But they didn’t finish the job.

  I was going to hunt for them regardless, Armaeus be damned. I swept through the church and all its corners, finally hearing a sound.

  “Hello?” a thin wavering voice called out.

  Someone’s here, saw the light. Which means it can’t have been burning long. We were so close, Armaeus. I missed them by a half hour! I’m not going to miss their captors.

  “Miss Wilde—”

  I tuned him out. Flowing through the church, I felt no other forms in the pile of rock and glory, and I burst through the rose window again, circling wildly. On the glittering streets below, cars drove in every direction, too many of them to follow at once. Despair struck me anew. There was no more trail after this, I knew. I’d stopped reading cards with the revelation of the Three of Swords, too cowardly to go further. And now it was too late. To return to my inert body in the protection of my friends was to give up, and I couldn’t give up. The light in the rose window was only now beginning to fade. Were the killers of those children waiting for their Revenant hearts to fade before they finished their work?

  I remembered the small voice, concerned and confused. The priest! They’d be on him too fast—too fast—

  I turned around toward the church as quickly as I’d burst out, and blew back into it. Mere moments had passed. The priest was still working his way up the central aisle, picking up speed, but now he was no longer alone in the church.

  The priest stopped. Gasped. Then he moaned something in broken, haggard Spanish, his voice rising with panic as he dropped his flashlight and fumbled for his phone.