Authors: Lynnie Purcell
“Now this is a place to live,” he said. “I think I’d like one.”
“I could get use to the view,” Alex agreed, looking behind to take in the opposite side of the bridge we were on.
I looked back as well and saw rows of small, stone houses and buildings backed by rolling mountains lit up with the colors of autumn. I didn’t recognize the mountain chain. Snow was on the peaks of the mountains and a cold wind blew around with wistful abandon. The sky was darkened by the night, but a thousand stars twinkled back at us. The others in our group were less impressed by the structure as Spider, Alex and me. They had seen castles before; they had probably even stormed a couple in their long lives. The magic of seeing one up close and personal had worn off. Too, I could sense they were all preoccupied by the meeting – even more than I was. Daniel, for one, had a distant look in his eyes. It was a look that told me he was trying to see the future. I wasn’t sure what good it would do him, not if Odette had seen whatever happened next before Daniel did.
I was more at ease than the others were. I trusted that if the meeting went bad, we could fight our way out. We always did. Not that I really expected there to be a fight. Odette had a vested interest in me. She would not want to fight after taking the time to bring me so far. Because of that certainty, I was more interested in the scenery than I was the meeting. I had seen all the mountain ranges in the U.S. several times over. None of them had held castles.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Romania,” Serenity answered.
“Really?” I asked, looking around with more interest than before.
“Mmmhmmm,” Serenity said.
Her golden eyes were full of warmth as she looked around the castle. It was obviously home to her; a home she was glad to see again. Sara looked around as well. She had never been to the castle, but I sensed she was familiar with the country. She was probably familiar with all countries. Someone with her talent spent their life mastering places. Sara’s survey done, she looked at Reaper.
“Do you want me to wait here?” Sara asked.
“No. I have something I need you to take care of,” Reaper said.
He held out his hand and they shared a moment of wordless communication. She looked surprised, but she nodded. She disappeared with a friendly wave at us.
Serenity, with Mick and Eli at either side – like bodyguards – marched toward the guards without another word. The guards moved out of Serenity’s way and let the rest of us pass without so much as a word of greeting. They didn’t stare. They didn’t even act as if we were there. We were flies buzzing past in the dark. It was annoying. Spider turned and rolled his eyes at me, thinking along the same lines. I smiled at him and followed the others through the gate.
Beyond the guards was a courtyard. The stone of the courtyard matched the stone of the exterior. There were benches around the perimeter as well as wintered rosebushes. On the benches were people. They were gathered in pairs and in groups of three. The wind was cut off by the wall and a dry blanket of quiet surrounded the space. The conversations of the Watchers were hushed, adding to the sense of peace in the courtyard.
A large, heavy door was directly across from the gate we had walked through. It opened as we approached. A woman with short brown hair and an angular face stepped in to the doorway. She was wearing a pencil skirt and an elegant blouse that accentuated her slender figure perfectly. She held an electronic device in her hand. She tapped out something on the device then snapped her fingers and the device disappeared. One second it was there, the next it wasn’t. She finally looked at us, her demeanor cool and professional.
“Welcome to our home. Odette is expecting you,” she said to us.
Serenity smiled at the woman. I could not tell if it was a genuine smile or not. Serenity was too skilled at playing games to give away her secrets so easily.
“Ileana. Darling! When did you get back?” Serenity asked in a friendly voice.
“Yesterday,” Ileana said. “Finally got finished with that Russian pig. It took forever for him to give up his secrets. He swore he loved me, but he refused to trust me…He loved me all the way to the bottom of the Moskva River.”
“They always love us hard…and die misguided,” Serenity said.
“It’s the fun of the work,” Ileana said. She looked at the rest of us, her eyes showcasing a repressed curiosity. “Odette wished me to see you to the room of knights.”
“Of course,” Serenity said. “How is the council?”
“They are preparing,” Ileana said.
Alex and Spider had confused looks on their faces. Alex leaned in close to me.
“What are they saying?” she asked.
“Empty words,” I said. “Can’t you understand them?”
I wondered if she was still affected somehow by her change in to a Nightstalker. I was not aware of her having problems understanding people talking the last time she had changed, though I had never been around her when she had come out of the change. I had only ever seen her change from human to Nightstalker, not the reverse.
Daniel put a hand on my arm in a reminder. “You developed your gift for translation, remember? They’re speaking Romani. If you focus, you can hear the difference.”
“Oh…right,” I said, having forgotten that gift. It was rare I had to translate, as most of the people I knew had the same gift. “They’re just saying ‘hello,’” I added to Alex, knowing she would want to know. “And comparing people they’ve killed.”
“Kay,” Alex said.
Ileana and Serenity had finished their exchange, my words silencing them. They weren’t used to someone pointing out the subtext of their conversation in such a pointed manner. Ileana gestured for us to follow her.
We walked through the large door she had been blocking and in to a vaulted room. The ceiling was white and gold; rich tapestries hung along the wall. The room echoed with the sound of our passing. More rooms branched off from the main room, looking equally as large. People talked and carried on with their business with no heed to our arrival. They all wore professional clothing and had the air of important business. Ileana took us through the large room without pause and through a smaller, though still impressive, door. This door led to a hallway lined with narrow windows perfect for shooting arrows. The hall was long and wide and led only one place.
A wide, white door cut off the long hall. It was closed. Two guards stood in front of the door. The way they held themselves and their cold acceptance of their ultimately violent duties reminded me of another door I had faced down a hallway. Goosebumps erupted along my arms as I thought of Lorian and how my ‘meeting’ with him had gone. The door was pushed open by one of the guards as we approached. Ileana stopped next to the open door. She smiled briefly at Serenity.
“Let me know if you’re going to be around,” Ileana said. “We’ll catch up.”
“Of course,” Serenity agreed.
Serenity turned and gestured me forward. Her expression was demanding; it demanded that I obey. Daniel nodded reassuringly and released my hand. The others moved out of my way and let me join Serenity. She made me walk first in to the room.
The room was as large as the entrance room. It had white pillars supporting the ceiling and a long blue rug that ran the length from the door to a large U-shaped table. The floor and walls were stone; broad windows lit up the space. There were no other decorations in the room, beyond the large table. At the table were nine people. The people were all different in size and shape – their ethnicities spanned the continents. The only thing that made them seem similar to me was the sense of age in their faces and the sense of height they all shared. They were taller than most of the Watchers I had seen, almost as if their age had given them room to grow.
In the middle of the table was a woman. She was black, with a sharp face and strangely aware eyes. Her face was familiar. I had seen her in a voodoo shop in New Orleans. She had shown Alex and me kindness when kindness was hard to find. It was when we had taken to the streets to search for Daniel. She was the only one I recognized at the table. All of Daniel’s warnings were lost with the recognition.
“I’ve seen you before,” I told the woman.
The fact that I had seen her before didn’t make me trust her. It made me trust her less. My first impression of her had been a lie. She had deceived me.
“Yes,” she said in a voice very different from the one I had heard in New Orleans.
There was no accent, no hint of southern charm. I couldn’t hear her thoughts and her expression and body language were entirely different than when I had first seen her. The façade she had kept up, to keep me from recognizing her as Watcher, was gone. It was as if I was seeing her after a couple of lifetimes’ worth of change.
“May I introduce you to Odette?” Serenity asked me in a voice laced with respect.
“We’ve met,” I said.
“You’ve met Odette?” Daniel asked darkness in his eyes.
“In New Orleans. She was operating a Voodoo shop. She gave me a bag…a gris-gris,” I said.
Odette smiled at the mention of the bags she had given Alex and me.
“Did the gris-gris bring you luck?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said.
“But it did bring you a rescue from torture,” Odette said.
I frowned at her.
“I had a tracking device put in them. Just in case,” she explained.
I brushed aside the idea that she been tracking me. It was creepy but not as important as my second emotion. The way she claimed herself as my savior irritated me. She didn’t get to claim that. I had rescued myself.
“You didn’t rescue me,” I said.
Odette smiled. “This is true, but I did help facilitate your ultimate safety…after you jumped in to the ocean that is.”
“That was all Reaper,” I said.
“Why was Reaper at Lorian’s that day?” Odette asked as if she was my teacher and I was a particularly dense student.
“To rescue King, after King’s cover was blown,” I said.
“Why was King at Lorian’s?” she asked.
“To get inside information on Lorian’s operations, so Reaper could stop him,” I said.
“And who do you think made that suggestion to him?” Odette asked.
My eyes narrowed. I didn’t have that information and she knew it.
“It was suggested to Reaper by Serenity,” Odette said. “She gave Reaper a way in to Lorian’s organization. He took it eagerly.”
I looked at Reaper for the truth. The realization that he had been manipulated by Odette dawned in his eyes. He didn’t look happy about it. He shook his head at me, to show he hadn’t meant to play a part in her intricate plans. He hadn’t meant to serve her needs; he had simply done what he could to stop the war, and she had used that to her advantage. I turned back to Odette, feeling annoyed that she had not only manipulated me, but a friend.
“So, what?” I asked. “You put King’s life in danger just so Reaper could rescue me? How is that supposed to make me like you?”
Serenity eyes flashed with anger.
“Watch your tone,” Serenity warned me.
“I’ll watch nothing,” I said.
Serenity’s face hardened. Odette held up a hand to calm Serenity. Odette was not as bothered by my tone as Serenity.
“I appreciate your spirit,” Odette said. “It will help. It has already helped you through dark times.”
“Times you know nothing about,” I said.
“I know enough,” Odette said, reminding of her gift.
I thought about her words and the reason she would bring up what had happened at Lorian’s. She wouldn’t mention it without a good reason – the kind of reason that manipulated me in to a place she could use.
“Are you suggesting I owe you for your…‘help’?” I asked.
Odette shook her head at my words, while the others at the table looked at me in a way that affirmed my question. They all thought I did owe her. It was hard for them to hide the emotion. They had spent too long cloistered in their castle and had forgotten how to keep their faces impartial. Odette, on the other hand, was as impossible to read as Serenity.
“I’m suggesting that I have a vested interest in your safety…thinking otherwise is a waste of time. Your safety means more than any threat you think I may pose to you,” Odette said.
Her words startled me; it was as if she could hear my thoughts and had known the exact right thing to say. Her eyes shifted to Daniel. I sensed him tense. It was a subtle shifting – mental preparation for her coming words.
“Daniel…” Odette said softly. “It has been too long. The cause misses you.”
“I don’t miss the ‘cause’…or the meddling of the ‘cause,’” Daniel replied calmly. “Especially in my personal life.”
Odette was not pleased with his defiance. She expected more from him than she did me.
“You cannot escape my ‘meddling,’ as you put it,” Odette said. “Not when my goal is the longevity of mankind and Watcher-kind.”
“He has grown petulant since you led him to the girl,” an olive-skinned man at the table added.
“Love changes some people,” another man said.
“He is not petulant as much as he distrusts the endgame,” a woman said. “He has grown bitter to the game.”