Hidden Mortality

by Maggie Mundy

  Seth was still standing by his front gate when she drove away. The thought of seeing him again scared her. The idea of never seeing him again was worse. How could she be so foolish as to go to his house? What made her faint on him? What must he think of her?

  Once she was at home and made coffee, it all seemed a world away from what was real. The phone rang. The sudden sound caused her to spill some of the steaming beverage on her pants.

  “Ouch! Damn that was hot.” She grabbed the phone. “Hallo.”

  “Cara, are you all right?”

  It was him. She would know that deep voice anywhere. He wasn’t even with her and her body was reacting by heating up. It was like phone sex, except he didn’t know he was having that effect.

  “Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I was just being a klutz and spilt some coffee on myself. It’s Seth, isn’t it?”

  “Janet had your business card. I was ringing to make sure you’d gotten home safe.”

  “I’m fine. Janet was probably right. The heat must have gotten to me.”

  “I’d like to thank you again for bringing the book to me.”

  “It was no trouble.” Silence and she tried to think of something brilliant to say. “Well don’t forget us when you want your next dinner party organized.”

  “I won’t forget you. Thank you again.”

  Then he was gone. Cara sat down staring at the phone. He had called her. Maybe, there was some way they could stay in contact without her looking like a total stalker, but she doubted it.

  Chapter 10

  Seth put down the phone and popped the business card back in his pocket. Janet would know he had used the extension in the forge. She would also work out who he had phoned. He couldn’t go back inside yet. Talking wasn’t what he needed right now.

  He had watched Cara since she had arrived in Bristol with her parents as an eighteen-year-old. He had watched her fall in and out of love. Then, he had fallen in love himself from a distance. Now, that they had finally met, he knew things were going to change no matter how he tried to stop it. Why was she reading books on immortality? There were too many unanswered questions here. What did she know?

  The forge was cool. Anyway, he wanted to work on his latest statue. He ran his fingers over the cool surface of the new slab of soapstone. As before, his mind could almost make out the shape waiting to be released. The slab was about eighteen inches high and four foot long. He had intended to turn it upright. Now, he knew that wasn’t necessary.

  Easing the slab onto a trolley, he moved the cart by the window so he could get the benefit of the natural light. His chisel and hammer became extensions of his fingers as he set to work.

  The next hour passed in a blur. He didn’t even notice the sunlight fading until Janet turned on the light. He smelled coffee. She placed the tray down on the chair near him. It held a bowl of soup and homemade bread smothered in butter. The aromas made his mouth water. Placing the chisel down, he picked up the cup. He caught the scent of something else and smiled.

  “Well, it’s cold out here. I put a tot of brandy in it. Got one in mine too.” Janet sipped and moved around to look at his work. “Bit different this one. The others have all been standing up.”

  “Not always. I destroyed some.” Seth had a feeling he would need to destroy this one when it was finished.

  “Some folk would pay good money for them,” Janet said. “You should let that dealer of yours have a look.”

  “No.” Seth loved Janet’s cooking but not her inquisitiveness. He finished the soup in a hurry, keen to get back to work. The shape was starting to become discernible.

  Janet’s words broke into his thoughts. “So, where did you meet Cara?” Janet sat down on a stool near his workbench.

  “She’s one of those I watch over. I saw her in Bath with a young man I didn’t know. I followed them to the bookshop. We both wanted the same book.” Seth remembered how the young man had glared at him.

  “So you did the gentlemanly thing and gave her yours. How sweet. I guessed she might be one of Rosie’s descendants when I saw she had one blue and one green eye. I remember you telling me that about Rosie. Don’t you always keep your distance?”

  “Yes, I do.” Seth hoped Janet would pick up this meant their conversation would go no further.

  “Well, I’ll go return to my emails. I’ll be back with more sustenance later, whether you like it or not.” Janet finished her coffee, picked up the tray and left.

  The swords, the daggers, they were nothing. It was the statues that made his mind run wild. Maybe, they were trying to tell him something, but he was too stubborn to understand.

  He chiseled away as the shape called to him. It waited to be released. It was a week after Rosie’s funeral when he had started the first statue. At that time, it was just a big old lump of rock out in the yard. He’d been so angry and needed to hit something.

  It had been in the image of Rosie but not as she appeared that night in the kitchen when she had been murdered. It was one of Rosie lying on her side, naked like the first time they had been together. It represented what he had lost and he had destroyed it.

  Why did he bother? He knew this one would end up smashed like the others in the past. The same as his past loves, he thought. His love for Cara would end up crushed. It was dark outside now. Janet was coming up the path with a tray. Seth put down his tools and opened the door.

  “Nice to see you haven’t lost all your manners along with your common sense then. Here’s food for those who don’t know what’s best for them.” Her smiling face didn’t match the statement.

  “Thank you.” He tipped his head in gratitude.

  Seth sipped on the cocoa and grabbed a slice of the fruitcake. He found himself looking at the stone and the female form hidden there. She was naked and lying on her back. One hand cupped her head, the other arm draped across her abdomen. The legs were together and slightly bent to one side. Janet had been talking but he hadn’t been listening.

  “I told him I’ve never been to Paris. My friend went there once. Said the Seine stank. He said his gallery has a new exhibition next month. He wants me to come and help with the opening. It seems silly going off gallivanting. My late husband Bill never held with the French. Mind you, that might be a reason to go. What do you think?” Janet moved closer to the statue. “Will this one be holding a dagger or outstretched arms?”

  “No.” Seth answered, before he could contemplate the question. “She won’t be holding anything.” She would never hold him and that was the one thing he wanted.

  “So should I go to Paris? I don’t like to leave you on your own. You get broody.”

  “I went there once. I was looking for someone. Like all cities, it has its beauty, and its horror.” Seth picked up his tools.

  “Did you find her?” Janet asked packing up the supper things. “Or was it a man you hunted?”

  “Who?” Seth wanted to get on with his work.

  “The one you were seeking in Paris?”

  “Yes. Both the person I was looking for and his friend were found deceased in the river.”

  “That’s cheerful. I’m going back to my computer and then it’s off to bed. If I go to Paris, I’ll need my beauty sleep,” Janet laughed. “Don’t forget Robert Fetter’s coming tomorrow. I don’t know why you don’t let him out the back. If he saw your statues, I’m sure he could find a buyer.”

  “All the more reason to keep him inside then.” Seth started to chisel away at the stone. He heard the door close. His body relaxed back into the repetitive movement of his sculpturing. As he tapped the chisel, he thought back to his time in Paris.

  It was New Years and the turn of the century, 1900. Everyone was happy. Perhaps, many were just deluded. He had followed Nigel Farnborough from his hotel. He had the same group of han
gers-on as the night before, young bucks with more money than sense. They would surely have been disillusioned to find the person they were carousing with was in fact seventy years old.

  The Eiffel Tower rose into the dark sky above with thousands of revelers gathered around its base. Three young women had already kissed Seth. He wasn’t interested in such things. Nigel and his friends were partaking of the joys being offered as well. There would be a few less virgins in Paris come the morning, but then again, Seth doubted there were that many anyway.

  Paris was renowned for having more prostitutes than any other city in Europe. The taxes they paid the church in the past had made it possible for the Notre Dame Cathedral to be built, so they were not going to disappear anytime soon.

  Nigel’s group made their way from hotel to brothel. Seth doubted with the amount of alcohol they had imbibed, they would last long. Nigel had left the brothel alone. It was the first time in the week since Seth had arrived that he had seen him away from the others. Seth followed Nigel for a short distance.

  He appeared oblivious of Seth’s presence as he nonchalantly strode along. They turned into an alley. Seth drew the dagger from inside his cloak and stared at it. It was identical to the one he had repaired so long ago. The one that Rosie had made him push deeper into her chest.

  Nigel was the only link to the dagger. James Rushton had eventually told him before he died that Nigel had been the one to order the repair. Seth had searched for him for so long that he was not going to turn away now. Two men approached. Seth moved back and hid in the shadows. Nigel shook the hand of one man before slapping the back of the other and turning to hug him. Seth saw something catch the light. He needed to move closer but now that there was more than one of them was hesitant.

  “Why, Edgar?” Nigel yelled, as he fell to his knees.

  “Because I’ll live longer if you die.”

  The attacker moved away. Seth glimpsed the blade handle of the dagger impaled in Nigel’s chest. It was a duplicate of the one in his coat pocket. Could it be the original? Was it the one he had repaired so long ago?

  Nigel collapsed onto the cobblestones. His lifeblood seeping away. The attacker turned to the other man who had his back to Seth.

  “Shouldn’t I feel different?” He asked.

  “You will. Take the dagger from his body. The power will be in it already.”

  Edgar pulled the blade from Nigel’s body and held it up. It appeared dull in the moonlight. Then Edgar bent over clutching his own chest. He put his hand inside his coat. When he withdrew it, his fingertips were covered in blood.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  “You’re dying, just like he has. Did I forget to mention that whatever you inflict with the dagger on another immortal will then be your own fate? How remiss of me. His soul as well as yours are removed. The immortal Lord awaits you.”

  Seth went to move from the shadows but the man who had spoken whistled. Four more men came around the corner of the alley. The stranger whispered to them. Then, he bent down and picked up the dagger as the men dragged the bodies from the alley.

  Seth followed them as they walked along, supporting the dead Nigel and Edgar. The two victims would appear to any passersby as nothing more than drunks who had celebrated too much bringing in the new century. The hirelings made their way under one of the bridges and finally tipped the bodies into the Seine.

  Seth needed to find the other man to get his revenge and be free of this world. A woman’s scream broke into his somber thoughts. He turned to see a coach hurtling towards her. Its driver slouched over, either dead or drunk.

  Seth pushed the woman to the ground covering her with his body. The wheels narrowly missed them as water sprayed up from the gutter. The horses swerved causing the coach to crash into the wall of the bridge. Screams filled the air as people fought to get the horses under control. Seth helped the woman to her feet. She appeared unharmed as her partner rushed to her side.

  Seth looked around for the man with the dagger. He was gone. He had saved one woman’s life but still had to avenge another’s. The man was alive. Seth would find him eventually. That night, Rosie came to him in his dreams. “Only the one left now my darling, and he’s the worst.”

  Seth looked at the stone in front of him. While he had been reminiscing of Paris so long ago, he had slowly chiseled away. It was her, Cara consumed him.

  He stretched. It felt as if the muscles and ligaments in his neck would tear apart as he moved. Why didn’t you get immunity to pain with immortality? It had been a thought he had pondered on many a time. He heard voices coming from the garden.

  “So who does he have dealing with his statues? I know my thing is the weaponry. These would sell anywhere though.”

  Janet tried in vain to draw Robert back to the cottage. His agent’s gaze devoured the statues, as he touched them. That was why no one was allowed to see them, Seth told himself. Each chip had been pain, trying to capture something he couldn’t have anymore. Other people might want them, but they couldn’t share his anguish. They had no right. Let them deal with their own. Seth glanced towards the new statue he’d worked on all night. He couldn’t let Robert see it. He left the sanctuary of his forge.

  He had worked all night and was hungry. “Janet is making breakfast for me. Come and join us.” Seth took his agent’s arm and guided him back to the cottage. “Now, I hear you’re interested in selling these statues.”

  “Listen, Seth, I was going to talk to you about an idea I had. Seeing those statues in the garden crystallized the whole thing in my mind.”

  “What?” Seth asked with dread.

  “A friend of mine is an editor of the magazine, Art U.K. He’s looking for a new slant to the magazine. The previous editor was into stately homes and the like. He wants young people showing the country their work.” Robert’s eyes glowed with excitement.

  “I’d hardly call myself young,” Seth said dryly.

  Janet laughed and he gave her a sideways glance.

  “Rubbish, what are you? In your early thirties? Look, your work is crying out for someone to see it.”

  Seth was about to tell Robert how foolish he was when it occurred to him this might be a solution. He could bait Rosie’s killer and draw him into the open. Then, he’d also be able to see Cara again. It was always an option to fool himself, to tell himself that he needed to see her again to create the statue.

  It wasn’t true. He knew her so well after all these years. Holding her in his arms earlier made it all seem so clear now. The touch of her was all he needed to make him be truly alive again.

  “I will let you sell my statues, but I want to know who is going to buy them. I reserve the right not to sell.”

  Robert smiled, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Artistic drama always makes the public want more and the prices go up.”

  Chapter 11

  Cara stretched her arms above her head to relieve the ache in her back. Maybe she could go to a physiotherapist and call it a work-related injury from leaning over her recipe books. It was a week since she had met the mysterious Mr. Scanlon. He kept cropping up in her mind. She accepted his explanation the dagger she’d noticed in his forge was a copy of an old one he had seen a long time ago. She still reckoned the thing looked like something medieval and gave her the creeps.

  He must have thought her hysterical to go fainting on him the way she had. It was just as well she would never see him again. This schoolgirl crush had to stop. It was a pity. He was rough and yummy. A part of her wanted to know if he was as good in bed as her dream lover.

  Last night had bought another dream about mutilation, but there had been nothing on the news. It was all rubbish. She couldn’t foresee people’s deaths. The stuff with Nanna and Aunty Eileen were coincidences. She had to keep believing that for her own sanity.

 
Mr. Perfect Peter Connor from The Evening Post wanted them to do another dinner. This time he requested a particular meal. He had been informed there was a well-known Irish treat called Dingle Delight. The fact that she had never heard of it and couldn’t find any reference to it in her books or online, made her think it didn’t exist. Dingle was a beautiful little fishing port but she hadn’t been there for a while. They did manage to get some of their fish and seafood from there and it was always excellent quality.

  He was testing her, which was okay. He might not get the dish he was expecting. He would get something original and hopefully delightful. She was thinking along the lines of a rich chocolate orange cake with clotted cream and chocolate and cherry ganache on top. It could become her signature dish and make her famous.

  Merlin rubbed up against her leg.

  “I’m sorry darling. I’m ignoring you, aren’t I?” The black and white bundle of fluff purred as she scratched under his chin. She loved Merlin so much. She had since she found him as a scrappy kitten fighting for survival on the streets. Sometimes he would have a mad five minutes and run around and around the flat.

  Occasionally he had been known to run into a wall or door, which caused him to slow down and go cross-eyed. “You’re right, it’s bedtime. Come on. I’ll let you out to do your thing. She would stand close by though he never usually went beyond the front yard. Plus she had the garden hose to squirt any other cat that got close.

  Merlin followed her downstairs and out the front of the flats. It was only September, but it was already getting chilly at night. There had better not be any pretty felines around. It wouldn’t do him any good anyway. He didn’t have the equipment anymore, even though he pretended to spray everything in sight in her flat.

  Cara peered up and down the street as she stomped her feet to keep them from freezing. A car crept down the street. She stiffened. Was it a taxi? No, it was a police car. It pulled in out the front of the flats, just as Merlin ran back and pressed up against her legs.