But I must save Henry.
Eager to not let slip her best chance at escape, she left through the living room doors and stepped right into the garden. There, the noise level dropped significantly. Only a few female Sumrects and humans chatted away around a table at the far end of the patio. She was about to sneak off when the subject of their conversation piqued her interest and glued her to the spot.
“… you reckon Regina ever got over Ansel?”
“I doubt it. We all know she abhorred that human girl, Amber,” a honey-coated voice answered. Dawn recognized it to be Blair’s.
Fortunately, the guests did not notice her standing rock-still in an unlit area of the patio.
“You don’t suppose, um, Ansel, was the one who killed her?”
“What a bizarre idea! Of course not,” Blair cried in outrage. “Those rumors make me so angry! But I wouldn’t be surprised if the human girl’s sudden disappearance had something to do with Regina.”
“What?! Did you hear that from Ansel?”
“No. He always said she died of pregnancy complications. Both her and the baby. But… something is fishy about it, don’t you think? No one knows for sure how she died. All we have is Ansel’s word.”
“You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if a half Sumrect and half human baby caused some complications.” A new raspy voice joined the conversation.
One of the human girls said in a much lower tone, “I heard Amber went a little mad herself the year before she died. A good friend of mine who worked at Chesterfield told me she frequently heard them screaming in the house, throwing things at each other… that is, when Ansel was even there. He was gone most of that year. Mrs. Cassadian had quite the temper… a walking hazard in the house, wrecking everything in sight. Ansel could very well have had enough one day and just lost it”
No, Ansel would have traded his own life for hers. There had to be a better explanation, Dawn thought to herself. However, although she believed Ansel played no part in Amber’s death, the many rumors surrounding the incident fed her unease. If Amber had died the way Ansel described, then why all the mystery? Why all the gossip and intrigue?
“Impossible!” Blair snapped. “He was gone because war had broken out on Panatomius, and he left to help his father, Artheastus, in battle. Have you forgotten what happened to him after her death? Locked himself in for years… wouldn’t speak to anyone… wouldn’t return to Panatomius. It was as though he lost his marbles too. Do you really believe Vance would have gotten where he is today had Ansel not stepped aside? As for Amber being crazy… Ha! She was mad to begin with. Don’t know what he saw in her.”
“And what makes you think he’s lying and Regina responsible?” the first voice questioned after a sniff.
Perhaps to toy with their curiosity, Blair did not reply right away. Only after a while did she whisper, “Because… they, Regina and Ansel, were what we Sumrects call surahs, a supreme pairing. She knew it. He knew it. Him choosing Amber over Regina was the ultimate humiliation, a big slap in the face—something Regina would never forgive! Honor weighs heavily for Sumrects, you know. How else was she supposed to react—” She choked on the last word as Ansel’s tall figure suddenly appeared on the patio.
Dawn held her breath. Has he heard their conversation? It was much too dark to see his facial expression, but his voice carried no hint of irritation.
“Good evening, ladies,” he said, bowing a little. “I hope you are enjoying yourselves.”
“Ansel!” the Sumrect next to Blair piped, pretending like they had not been talking about him just now. “We are having a grand old time, aren’t we? Care to join us?”
“Jules, thank you, but I must decline. I’m only out for a stroll in the garden. The crowd was becoming a little too wild for my taste.”
“Ah, what a shame… well, enjoy the walk, sir!”
“Thank you. I will.” He nodded.
Please don’t look this way. Dawn’s body tensed up with trepidation. It seemed to take Ansel forever to leave the patio, but he did eventually and wandered off alone to the bridge, his attire blending well with the night.
Dawn breathed a sigh of relief. She did not want to leave Chesterfield this way, but Henry’s life depended on her. Quickly and quietly, she backed away from Blair and the other guests and circled her way around the back of Chesterfield House to the stone path. She scanned the front yard briefly before she made the dash. Without looking back or slowing down, she ran through the wide-open gate and onto the street. First left. Then a right, she reminded herself.
For ten full minutes, she half ran, half walked along Chesterfield Lane, escorted only by the cool summer breeze whispering down the deserted street. She continued straight until she came to a battered sign almost completely hidden by a large willow tree. “Rosewood Alley”, it read. She turned right.
In the distance, under a yellow streetlight at the end of the alley, the tinted glider awaited its prey. Quinn’s here. An unexpected fury exploded inside her, but she walked steadily toward the tinted vehicle.
The vehicle’s back door popped open a sliver, as if acknowledging her arrival. She checked behind her and noticed nothing unusual. Her steps quickened. But just when she came within fifty feet of the open door, a blue convertible glider with blinding headlights sprang out of the darkness and roared its way down the alley, narrowly missing the parked glider, forcing Quinn to shut the door.
The convertible glider headed straight for Dawn at full speed. Like a deer in headlights, she could not move her body even though her mind screamed for her to leap out of the way. She watched, frozen, as the vehicle came hurtling toward her.
Then the miraculous happened.
In a curious stretching of time, the glider slowed to a spluttering halt at the last millisecond. The tip of its nose brushed the burlap over her stomach before it stopped. She staggered back from the vehicle. Her legs buckled, but an invisible force kept her from falling.
The alley grew bright as day, lit by a light that emanated from inside the vehicle.
Inside the vehicle?
Dawn saw a dark figure step out from the driver’s side and let out a groan. She should have known sneaking away would not be easy.
“Dawn! What are you doing in such a deserted place?” Ansel dragged her by the arm to the passenger’s side.
“I-I was just—What are you doing here?” She cast a nervous glance at Quinn’s tinted vehicle. Did Ansel know?
“Me? Take a wild guess,” he said, swinging open the passenger-side door with such force the handle broke off. “I couldn’t find you anywhere at Chesterfield, so I decided to check around town. And what do you know? Here you are in some Godforsaken alley. Am I that despicable you have to keep doing the exact opposite of what I say?”
What next? Abandon plan? Dawn thought rapidly. Quinn would not risk snatching me away while Ansel’s here. I must find another way…
“Get in,” Ansel ordered.
Propelled by a wave of indignation, she wriggled herself loose from his grip. “I’m sure you are used to giving instructions and everybody doing precisely as you say, but sorry to burst your bubble, I’m bad with directions. In case you haven’t realized.”
The black glider’s engine started behind them. Ansel ignored the sound.
“I’m not trying to boss you around. I’m trying to protect you.”
“Well, maybe I don’t need your protecting.”
Ansel opened his mouth as if he had a snarky remark ready, but he checked himself. “Can we talk in the vehicle? Please?”
Dawn watched the tinted glider disappear around the bend and sighed in frustration. Without replying, she climbed into the passenger side.
Ansel adopted a more relaxed manner once she was inside. Instead of turning the glider around, he zoomed out of the alley in reverse.
He kept his right hand on the steering wheel while he created a dense fog behind them with the left.
“Precautions,” he explained. They raced over
grassy hills for miles before arriving at Main Street, where, despite the late hour, it still glittered with lights and bustled with life. His hair blowing wildly in the wind, Ansel weaved through the tall buildings like a skilled New York taxi driver.
“Will you please slow down?” Hands over her mouth, Dawn forced down an urge to vomit.
“I can’t. I’m bad with directions,” he said in a sour tone, pouting his lips. For a second, she was reminded of a little child and could not suppress a giggle.
“What?”
“The great Ansel Cassadian being petty is fun to watch.” She blew away a strand of long brown hair the wind had smeared over her mouth.
A grin appeared on his face. “And you getting attacked by hair is also fun to watch.” Though he teased, he raised the top and reduced the speed. Soft piano music filled the vehicle. The sweet, nostalgia-infused melody struck her as strangely familiar. For some reason, the music evoked in her mind the odd moment on the beach when Ansel was inches away, shielding her from the Morvs.
“Dawn Rene, what’s on your mind?”
Blushing, she mumbled, “Nothing. This music sounds familiar. Where is it from?”
Ansel tapped the steering wheel with his index finger. “From my past.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
“I’m honored to be in your thoughts, at least for a little while.”
“Who said I was thinking of you?” She turned an even deeper shade of red.
“I had an inkling, as usual. I could be wrong.” He paused to wink at her. “However, I’m confident I’m not, as usual.”
“You know, it’s kind of creepy.”
“What is? Sneaking up on you in an alley? I’m sorry.”
“Well, yes… that, and how you have these inklings that are scarily accurate. It’s like you are either a mind reader or a talented stalker.”
“Not a mind reader. Not a stalker. Simply astute and amply informed.” Ansel swayed the glider from side to side. “You would not believe how much, uh, knowledge, I have of you, Dawn Rene.”
“Oh, really? Are you a medium or something?”
“I’m an expert on you.”
Dawn raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“For instance, you are a huge Chopin fan.”
“I believe I told you that.” She pointed out.
“Alright. You are a stomach sleeper.”
“A lucky guess.”
“Not a guess,” he said. “Your personality traits scream ‘stomach sleeper!’”
“Who says?”
“I was informed. Also, I once read a neat little study on human sleeping position and its correlation with personality.”
“Ha, a superficial supposition. You are messing with me, Ansel.”
He smiled. “Shall I continue?”
“Please. I’m not yet impressed.”
“Your favorite color is green. A dusty kind of forest green specifically. Why? Because the color reminds you of your childhood home. You have a baffling fear of lizards, cotton balls and the number two hundred and ninety-nine. Chocolate is your favorite snack, but you like it pure, not mixed with anything. Let’s see… You prefer salt water over brackish water. You love the smell of lavender. You cross your right arm over your left but your left leg over your right. Rachmaninoff’s second symphony is your favorite composition to listen to on a rainy afternoon… and you despised me something fierce about a week ago.”
“H-How do you know all these details about me?” Dawn stared at him, aghast.
“The last one, I gathered from the way you behaved at Crimson.”
“And the rest?”
“I…” He bit his bottom lip to stop himself. “It’s… a Sumrect thing.”
“To know everything about someone you’ve just met a week ago?” she said, alarmed. “You need to give a better explanation than that!”
“Ah, a better explanation, I’m afraid, will have to occur over a delicious meal.” Ansel brought the vehicle to a halt. “We need a celebration of our own.”
The glider doors lifted open.
Dawn had been so absorbed in the conversation she had not realized they were now hovering beside a soaring hotel in one of the busiest sections of town. Her attention was immediately captured, not by the magnificent structure, but by the embellishments on the hotel lobby doors. Each glass panel featured a large square circumscribing a circle with a dot in the center. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief.
“Ansel, look! The Eye! What is that symbol doing here?” she exclaimed as a valet strode up to help her out of the vehicle.
“Here, it takes not the meaning of a symbol but of a name.”
“Whose?”
Ansel did not need to elaborate because at that moment, the valet spotted the driver and cried out in recognition, “Mr. Cassadian! It has been too long. Welcome back to your hotel!”
Dawn’s jaw dropped. Next to her in the glider, Ansel flashed a sheepish grin.
✽✽✽
In the time that Dawn disembarked the glider and stepped into the lobby, news of Ansel’s arrival had already spread. Upon his entrance, he was bombarded with hotel personnel and curious guests who wished to catch a glimpse of the renowned yet elusive Sumrect. It was not until thirty minutes later that the two finally escaped to the restaurant on the top floor. Ansel had ordered the hotel to be closed, so the restaurant was empty except for the cleaning staff, who gawked at the two unexpected guests until they took their seats by a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the ocean.
“Ealon is your name?”
“My name in Sumrectian, yes.”
“What does it mean?”
“My name holds a similar meaning to the symbol for the Eye, which represents the sun in many cultures and in others, the joining of male and female forces—a whole. The symbol also contains a deeper meaning of rebirth, with the circle representing eternity. Add in the circumscribed square, and it means guardian of souls in Sumrectian.”
“Ealon… guardian of souls… sounds like a heavy responsibility,” Dawn mused.
“Could be… my name was chosen based on an ancient oracle and therefore shouldn’t be analyzed too carefully,” he said in haste before changing the subject. “So about giving you a better explanation. Do you see this bump here?”
He turned around and pulled aside his hair so Dawn could see a raised bump at the base of his skull.
“What is it?”
“An implanted information receiver and dispenser. Kind of like a computer. Though chip implantation was banned in humans—for good reason—long before you were born, many Sumrects still use it to communicate over long distances and with our Universal Intelligence Center—the UIC. Anyone with authorization can access contents within the UIC. That is, if the content is not confidential. I received a great deal of trivial information about you, gathered from various Sumrects you were associated with—owners of the houses you used to clean, for example. That’s how I know so much. See? No magic there.”
“How long ago did you receive the information?” She wondered why he would be given such information in the first place.
“Oh, just about a week ago.” He smoothed the napkin on the table.
The blank expression on his face told Dawn he was skating around the truth, but before she could interrogate further, he continued.
“The UIC contains information that even I may never gain access to… and mind you, Dawn, as a member of the Cassadian family, I have the right to enter into most departments of the UIC. Of course, the UIC, in return, can probe my immediate thoughts and memories. It can detect, record and store my intelligence potential, personality and the like. There is no hidden talent on Panatomius. Everything worthy to be explored will be explored. Everything is guaranteed to be registered and put to good use. ‘Maximize the potential of each Sumrect.’ That is the UIC’s motto.”
Ansel spoke about the UIC in a very matter-of-fact manner. Somehow, the invasion of private thoughts and memories did not seem to
bother him. He must have gotten used to the idea, having grown up with it, she thought. However, she bristled at the notion of living in a world where even thoughts and memories were subject to public scrutiny.
“Don’t you think that’s kind of dangerous? I mean, to give the UIC access to everything about you?”
“God, yes! I’m an opponent of this,” he replied promptly and firmly. There was an edge to his voice. “Who do you think made sure the practice of chip implantation was banned in humans? I wish I can do the same for our species, but for Sumrects who have never experienced life otherwise, lack of privacy is the norm, a comfortable existence they are disinclined to alter. Many changes have occurred in Panatomius over the past one hundred years. You are right. Up till fifty years ago, everyone’s thoughts and memories were public, but since then, my father and I have drastically limited the UIC’s powers and functions. Now, we at least have control over which thoughts are made public and which are not. Half of the UIC supported the modifications, half resented them. I proposed abolishing the UIC in its entirety and am working on making that a reality”
“By getting rid of the UIC, you are dismantling the very core of Sumrectian institutions. Won’t that cause an uproar on Panatomius?”
“No doubt, but I’m already a notorious figure there. My brother has done such a fantastic job of tarnishing my reputation and fueling my image as a wayward monster that I dare say one additional crazy act should make no difference.” He smiled at her as he took a sip of red wine.
Dawn felt indignation rise. How could so many Sumrects believe Vance’s lies without proof? Anyone who interacted with Ansel personally would not have believed a single bad bone existed in his body. However, she recalled her skewed perception of him at Crimson and realized that she too had fallen victim to Vance’s propaganda.
The Eye of Elektron: A Clean Urban Fantasy (The Sumrectian Series Book 1) Page 16