by C. R. Jane
"I am truly pained to tell you that it isn't real, Penelope. None of it is. I apologize to be the bearer of bad news, but it was a lure. A trap. And a rather good one too, apparently."
I roll my eyes.
"They wanted you there for a reason, Penelope."
"Why the hell would they want an entire bloody brigade of Anomalies at their doorstep for Hallowe'en?" I deadpan. "That doesn't seem like a game of Trick-or-Treat they'd be all that stoked on playing."
"Not B.L.A.Z.E." Illiam shakes his head. "You. Specifically. The spares would have likely been killed. I can't help feeling that's a reference from something, something awfully recent..."
His words, the sentences he's stringing them into-they make no sense. Not to me. As far as I am aware, while the Sovereignty took a particular interest in my father up until he disappeared (no doubt because he was one of the first Anomalies known publicly in Britain), they've never targeted me personally. Our brigade's best tech has scrambled my BitID, which is B.L.A.Z.E. protocol and keeps us from being electronically located or analyzed. As far as I know, as far as they know, I've gone off the radar. I'm probably dead.
The majority of us are confident in our anonymity. If the Sovereignty have my name, or any information about me, then that changes the fucking game. Massively.
Illiam is done humming to himself and tapping one long, slender finger against his lips. His eyes are trying to lock with mine again, but I firmly shy away. The more time I spend in his company, the less comfortable I'm beginning to feel, and it worsens under the thrall of that gaze.
"There are cards the Sovereignty keeps very close to their chests."
"They're finding it more and more difficult to keep things secret these days," I state with pride, because most whistles blown these days are blown by an active member of B.L.A.Z.E.
"And I am sure you all thought this 'Opus Veritas' nonsense was the next arrow in your little quiver of tricks, an attempt to draw more of the general public to your cause. But I must assure you, no such treatise exists. It's a ploy. Bait. Subterfuge. The Sovereignty want you, Penelope, and they know exactly how to get you."
The curl of his lips isn't friendly or amused, but oddly sad. "Your valiance is both your greatest strength and your greatest weakness, my dear."
"Where's my brigade?" My voice is stern. It's a demand, not a question. He huffs out a sigh and sits back in his illegal American E-recliner, the roll of his eyes not really suiting his otherwise elegant aura.
"Safe enough. I saw to that." He nods in my direction. "You, on the other hand, are still at risk."
I blink. "Oh, am I?"
"Those who planted not one but two incentives for you to be at that gala tonight have not given up on their hopes of getting their hands on you before..."
Once again, his voice trails off, but my eyes narrow in suspicion. This strange man is far too well-spoken to allow himself to accidentally spill something I'm not supposed to know. Which means, he wants he to ask, "Before what?"
Illiam sets his cup and saucer down on a cobalt glass coaster.
"Oh, these unearthly ritualistic scenarios always have their fussy time limits," he says, waving me off with one hand. I snort derisively, not bothering to control my volume.
"Do they now?" I ask. "This would be the first I've heard of it. I'm not exactly big on any of the local cults, if you know what I mean."
"That is unfortunate," he says, his eyes glittering in a way that unnerves me more than how I'm once again unable to pull myself away from them. "Because they all seem to be rather big on you."
In the blink of an eye, I'm on my feet. The jerk of motion empowers me enough to yank my gaze from his, saving me from tumbling any deeper into it, and I stare him down from my now taller position. I like to be tall. As a girl barely over five-five living in a patriarchal paradise, I'm not in any way ashamed of that.
"And," I demand, "how would you be aware of that? Hang 'round with a lot of them, do you?"
Even with my confidence in my own supernatural abilities, I feel naked without my brigade behind me. Especially Duncan. If I had the big, burly Scotsman at my back, nothing this nonce could say would faze me in the slightest. And while Illiam has declared they're all safe, all of them, I have yet to see any proof of that.
My host raises one silver eyebrow at me. "Unfortunately. I find it beneficial to my cause."
The chill, which has been squirming about with the bats in my belly for the past few minutes, shoots back up my spine.
"You aren't going to finish your tea?" he asks innocently.
I barely hear him.
I'm over the threshold of the huge double doors and pounding the length of the candle lit hallway before he can add any afterthought, with next to no desire to turn back.
"All right."
My tone is hard, cold, and cutting, like a spearhead chiseled crudely from stone.
"Out with it, GQ. I've run up twenty-six sets of stairs, and somehow, I always end up on this same fucking floor with the ugly blue panel walls."
I slam to a stop, crossing my arms over my chest and fixing him with a firm stare. I don't care this time, I'm pissed off enough to hold my own, even if he does possess some sort of Magickal hypnosis.
"And oh, yeah, by the way-your hallway? Goes 'round and 'round in a circle, in case you didn't know."
Illiam just beams at me. He doesn't appear to have moved in the entire quarter of an hour I've been absent. "I know. Rather impressive, isn't it?"
"Not as impressive as you might think," I scowl. My offense doesn't crumble in the slightest. "Especially when you're looking for the fucking exit."
"Oh, bugger, sorry. That's my fault, I completely forgot to mention it before." Illiam clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth apologetically. "I'm afraid you aren't actually allowed to leave. At least, not until I'm certain you're safe."
Throughout my body, the muscles and tendons tighten. Reflexively.
"So, you just sort of took it upon yourself to decide whether or not I can defend myself against whoever wants to kill me?"
Illiam stares grimly at me for a good long while before looking down at his clasped hands.
"Firstly, this decision is not my own. And secondly, killing you is not exactly what these people have in mind when they finally have you in their clutches."
Just being in Illiam's presence is enough to raise the hairs on my arms, my thighs, along the back of my neck. Despite my proximity to the crackling fireplace, I swear it's a lower temperature in the drawing room than it is in the hallway. The air against my skin is frigid.
"All right." I'm more than happy to tackle this annoyingly attractive problem from another angle. "When do you plan on letting me go?"
"When I can be sure both you and your brigade will be safe. You are needed for the future, all of you."
"All of us?"
Illiam closes his eyes. For the first time, I see creases appear between his eyebrows, and he almost looks as if he's in some form of physical pain. "You, the Scottish boy, the one... the one with the heat, the flames, the fiery one..."
My once-taut muscles may as well have been frozen on the spot by that assertion. Derealization seizes my soul and plucks it from my body. It's as if I'm watching the conversation happen through a fog, unable to influence it in any way.
But this time, I don't think it's through any mind-control Magick of Illiam's. It's on account of my own astonishment.
"Penelope," he says, threading his pale fingers in and out of each other. My high horse is taken from me as he raises to his full height for the first time, towering almost a foot over me despite his trim, slender build. His shadow is imposing
to stand in, to say the least. Overwhelming. I'm unable to tell if I'm swaying, or if it's just another mind game he's playing on me.
"Forget about the Opus Veritas." His voice is smooth like velvet, teasing my senses like silk or sandalwood. Earthy yet ethereal in the exact same breath. "Forget about the arsemonger impersonating your father. For the next twenty-four hours, why don't you simply put your feet up, and enjoy a bit of well-deserved time off?"
The prick may be bigger than me, but I am determined to remain the dominant member of this conversation.
"I don't do time off." I square off with him, fully aware that while I feel I'm on equal footing I probably have all the characteristics of a Boston Terrier threatening a large Greyhound. "I do missions. Unless you didn't realize, when you kidnapped me while I was in the middle of one."
Chuckling, Illiam checks the rose gold watch on his wrist. One of the dials is pulsing with a soft orange glow. "My dear. I am fully mindful of the seriousness with which you and your brigade tend to operate. In the past several years, B.L.A.Z.E. has been the only entity that has even come close to planting a thorn in the Sovereignty's side. This is the reason I have chosen now to step in; our country cannot afford to lose you. Not yet, anyway."
"So that's why you knocked me out and brought me to your freaky, fucked up Bizarro World?"
My joke tickles him a tad more than anticipated. He laughs heartily, shaking his head. "Oh, so quick are we so claim violence against the old white man! No, my dear, I have more humane methods of transportation. I would never lay a finger on one so..."
He pauses in recollection. "I shall choose it carefully. Essential."
As he breathes out that single word, I notice he steps into me. Barely an inch, but I catch him. He isn't the only perceptive one, and I'm going to give the affluent weirdo a run for his money. "And that method would be?"
Illiam smiles, coolly. "It's a little arduous to explain. And even more so to understand."
"Try me," I bite. "I'm a smart lassie."
"I suppose the fastest way to explain it to you would be that I simply guided you into a gentle slumber. A dream, if you will."
I frown tightly. "A dream?"
Illiam's nod is so soft I may have missed it if I weren't watching him so closely. I also may have missed the way he steps subtly into me again, the front of his button-down fluttering against the cotton of my own well-worn T-shirt.
"I have an affinity with the plane of dreaming," he purrs, which is almost not a metaphor. "And I find it rather elementary assisting mortals with reaching that realm. Whether they wish to sleep yet, or not."
He drops the hand that was sweeping through his shimmering hair to his side. His fingertips brush the entire length of the blade of my palm, one after another in turn. It's only through my own sheer adamantine resolve-or vainglory-that I'm able to keep from jerking away.
"I felt it was an appropriate place to put you until all of this Samhain and Vetrnætr balderdash blows over."
Unnerved might be an understatement at this point. Every nerve in every pore of my skin is on fire, my instincts alive, alert with warning. His breath is cool across my face, cooler than it should be. I suddenly realize his thighs are against the front of my own, bare and pale within the short cargo shorts I wear for dexterity and comfort on a job.
I fight back a stomach-squeezing shudder.
"So, you caught me when I fell through the ceiling, loudly declared to bewildered onlookers that your 'date always makes an unconventional entrance', and then lull me to sleep when nobody's looking?" I scowl at him, determined to hold my ground despite my rising blood pressure. "Sorry for spelling it out like you're thick or something, mate. It's just next to impossible to understand you. It's like trying to have a word with the fucking Joker."
"Ah another modern reference." Illiam grins. His deep, dark eyes are again trying to draw me into their powerful allure. "As a matter of fact, as I mentioned briefly before, I slid you under long before you crawled into that vent. Before you made it into the building, even. You were in my arms long before your memory of landing in them, my darling," he adds with a touch more grit. "There was not a chance in any of the Chasms that I would allow you to walk into one of their traps on the Eve of Samhain."
I set my teeth. "So, my memories of the gala?"
"All a dream, I'm afraid. My sincerest apologies for that. Did you like your dress? I thought it was rather tasteful, actually. Even for a tomboy such as yourself."
His hand is rising at his side again, but this time it catches the hem of my shirt. His thumb hooks under one of the leather straps, lifting it barely enough to reveal the hard line of my abs beneath it. Seconds before I would have snatched it down again, it falls from its precarious perch, fluttering back down to my belt line.
"And how can I know I ain't dreaming right now?" I demand. Each word is spoken carefully in turn, to ensure none of them tremble. "How can I know all of this ain't just another fantasy? To keep my brain busy while my body's being prepared for some fucked up ritual-thing?"
The premeditated motion of his hand doesn't escape me, the way the arc it follows carries it right across the side of my breast. Close enough that he can tease his fingers across the cotton on his way up to adjusting his collar against his flawlessly pale skin.
"Unfortunately, little one..." Satisfied with the state of his collar, Illiam extends his hand with more boldness this time, brushing several strands of hair out of my eyes. The smile he wears as he takes my chin between his cold fingers is in no way pleasant. Quite the opposite, in fact.
"You can't."
My neck is exposed. Instinctually, it's my most prominent thought, and it's setting off all sorts of alarm bells in my skull. The way he's holding me, his thumb wedged beneath my jawline, is purposeful in how it leaves my throat jeopardized. My pulse throbs against his digits. His lips move wordlessly, and I wonder for an uneasy second or two if he's counting my heart beats.
I dare to look up at him, and it's quite possibly the stupidest thing I could've thought to do, because in an instant I'm mesmerized. Again.
It's an embarrassingly long amount of time before I realize his cool breaths are no longer registering on my lips, regardless of how we're closer physically than we were before. It takes me even longer to figure out why, and when I do, my body freezes in his placid yet potent grip.
It's because he's no longer breathing.
Illiam's eyes seem to open up as they bore into my own. They widen and widen, as if capable of swallowing me whole. I'm aware of his first hand, squeezing my throat beneath my jaw, threatening to lift me clear off the ground. I'm also aware of the other one as it slithers to the small of my back. Suddenly, not only is escape no longer an option, but resistance too.
Flickering firelight causes my vision to blur as I dig in my metaphorical heels, brace my metaphysical nerves, and remember the sense of valor tied to the name I so proudly wear.
"Well... that'll have to be your opinion."
A single beat passes between us as his hand draws me closer to him at the waist, and he releases a single, long breath across my bared throat. The sense of vulnerability is punctuated with something else, something darker, and I swear in the haphazard light being thrown into the room I see hunger in his eyes.
And then, he's gone. I slump against the wall, incapable of taking my full weight, my palms splaying out either side of me for purchase. I hear his footsteps before I can locate him, moving further and further away from me in the direction of the exit.
"I want the Opus Veritas, Illiam," I declare, my gasp ragged but firm. Loud. Resolute.
I'm not entirely sure whether I want to convey my tenacity, my disbelie
f in the tale he's been slyly weaving, or whether I'm just hoping his presence will return in a heartbeat to argue with me again.
To my heart-sinking disappointment, the wanker's gait doesn't change. He just chuckles, a sound of sheer joyful amusement. If repeated, it's the type of noise that could easily make a person judge his sanity.
"I wish you the best of British with that, little bird," he tosses over his shoulder, the short tails of his crisp, white shirt disappearing around the corner of the door and into the eternally looping hallway. "Remember-it doesn't even exist."
III
Illiam is absent without me missing him for the next few hours. He probably expects me to sleep, or find some other way to relieve myself of any boredom. That being said, anyone who claims to know me in any way whatsoever should be aware of my tendency to go snooping about when left to my own devices.
I don't care how passive aggressive it may sound. The snooty git intercepted our goal of obtaining whatever manuscript the Sovereignty are planning on unveiling as Britain's new official/unofficial national religion, kidnapped me, and is now refusing to let me go. As far as I'm concerned, he relinquished his right to complain when he first knocked me out.
Whenever that was...
For all I know, I'm still asleep. For all I know, he's crossed the supernal barrier into the 'plane of dreaming' (whatever that is) to play good cop, while his partners play bad cop with my actual body. For all I know, I'm in more danger now than I've ever been before.
We must all be indoctrinated to love Hallowe'en , I muse to myself bitterly as I nose through the drawers of a tall Wellington-style chest one after another. Because I swear, this holiday mucks me up more and more every year.
Each drawer holds items more typical than its predecessor, until I get to the top two, which are smaller. The one on the right is full of legal paperwork. It's all neatly organized, documenting stocks and shares under a multitude of names as well as art, property, and other personal estate holdings. But the one on the left...