Dominic's Nemesis (31 page)

“Drat.”

Her senses reeled with even the minimal
movement needed to grasp a handful of ice and bring it to her
mouth. She relaxed back against the pillows, repositioned the cold
compress atop her temple and suckled…letting her lids drift
closed.

She
’
d scarcely gotten comfortable when the
chamber
’
s adjoining door opened. Ugh! Not more
visitors.

“Canna say I like her hair dat-a-way. As if
she
’
s graying, only in
reverse.”

“
Kathleen
.”

“Alright, I’m on me best behavior.”

Eden opened her eyes to find husband and wife
ambling into the room, Dr. Raine with his medical bag in tow.

“Ahh, you
’
re awake.” The doctor smiled at her.

“Yes.” She moved the compress off to the side
with a grimace. Putting a hand to the braid pinned atop her head,
she struggled to sit up properly. Sometime during the night the
gown Stephan had given her had become twisted around her legs.
“What…did you mean, before, about my hair?”

They exchanged a glance.

Kathleen crossed the room quickly, made a
seat next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.
“‘
Tis nothing, lass. No need ta
worry. Never seen a more luxurious mane in all me days.”

Eden frowned. It was not like her friend to
lie. “Nell dropped the tray when she first saw me.”

“
Nervous
Nellie?
” Kathleen dismissed the issue. “Tha lass probably
faints at her own shadow.”

“How are we feeling, Eden?” The doctor bumped
aside the pail of ice with his medical bag on the opposite side of
the bed, pivoting to train his discerning eye on her.

“Dreadful.” No point in lying, she probably
looked every bit as vile as she felt.

“
Well,
let
’
s see what we
can do about that.” Dr. Raine leaned in and placed his palm to her
temple. “First the headache.”

Relief was not immediate, but rather a
gradual seeping of ease, as if his skin were a balm transferring
its healing influence to her. The once pounding beat in her head
lessened to an occasional twinge of discomfort. Her nausea winkled
out of existence altogether.

“The thirst I cannot lessen, I
’
m afraid.
” He blessed her with a rueful smile.

Just then a knock sounded from the outside
door of the bedchamber. Her bedchamber, she noted for the first
time. Stephan must have brought her here last night, after…The
evening
’
s events were a
tad fuzzy. She distinctly remembered being cast into the wine
vault, rescued by Kathleen and the brothers…But then that was when
things started to go hazy. Had she dreamed the wonderful visit from
Dominic? And had that dream then turned into a nightmare when the
entity materialized?

“Morning Eden, Kathleen.” Stephan
’
s greeting wrenched her from her
thoughts. She focused on his face and found him his usual subdued
self.

Ethan straightened. “If you
’
ve come to inquire after the patient, I
can assure you she is resting comfortably.”

“I need to speak with
you
.” His warm
honey eyes crystallized to hard, faceted amber.

The doctor gave them a departing gesture and
slipped out with the Sphinx.

Kathleen turned an arched brow on her. “What
do ya suppose dat is about?”

“Me.” She said with absolute certainty,
flinging the covers aside. It was time she saw just why everyone
kept gawking at her. No longer hampered by pain and nausea, she had
her plait half-unbound by the time she stepped within view of the
vanity mirror. Her hands stilled above the braid half-cascaded over
her left shoulder. Hair, that had all her life been a pale, ash
blond was now threaded liberally with ebony. The scattering of dark
strands she
’
d noticed
before seemed to have coalesced and produced a wide ebony stripe
just off the center of her head.

Eden scarcely recognized the peculiar visage
staring at her through the looking glass. She resembled a character
from one of Poe
’
s
horrids. What was happening to her? Frantic eyes collided with
Kathleen over the shoulder of her reflection.

“
Now,
lass, ‘tis
not as bad as all dat.” The older woman came
forward to lay a calming hand to the shock of ebony.

“I
’
ll have to powder it. Otherwise people will gawk.”
She inclined her head to the chamber door. “That
’
s what they are out there discussing right
now, isn
’
t it?
What
’
s to be done with
me…now that I look the madwoman they all expect I am.”

“No, I
’
d wager they
’
re trying ta figure out what did happen an’ how ta
prevent it ‘appening again. Tha boys like ya…if for no other reason
than tha positive changes you
’
ve wrought in their brother.”

She cringed as a new thought occurred to her.
“What will Dominic think when he sees me?”

Kathleen
scoffed.
“Dominic would no’ care if ya hair were streaked
wit violet.”

“How the devil would you know?!” She snapped
the words out, but she had not idea where they
’
d came from. The voice sounded harsh…and
not wholly her own. Frightened, her eyes jerked back around to the
looking glass. Instead of her own bizarre reflection, she spied a
raven-haired goddess snarling at her, with the vehemence of a
jilted mistress. Eden recoiled from the venom those black eyes
spewed, stumbling out of the vanity chair and bumbled into the
Scotswoman.

“Oh, pardon…
I don’
t know what
’
s come over me.”

Kathleen frowned at her. “Aye, you
’
re overwrought.”

She snatched at the explanation, desperate
for a rational basis for her own erratic behavior. “Yes, yes, that
must be it.” She needed help. The fact could no longer be denied.
Her first thought was Dominic, but she dismissed him. He still had
lingering doubts about her sanity and she
’
d give him no new cause for worry. Though
she liked both the doctors, they were men of science, and by
virtue, more willing to accept a simple medical diagnosis…insanity.
But the Sphinx. He was free-thinking and open-minded as well as
sympathetic to her plight. He would not condemn her outright.
She
’
d tell him and see
what he thought of her new reflection.

“Stephan, I wish to speak with him.” Her
request paused Kathleen in the chamber
’
s threshold. “Could you let him know please?”

“Aye.” And she was gone. Leaving Eden
alone…with the scowling reflection.

“
He
’
s mine! You cannot
have him.”

Scared to face the vanity, knowing what she
would see there, Eden turned her back on the looking glass and
stalked for the bed. She just needed to rest, like Kathleen said,
and then the voice would go away. The image in the mirror would
once again be her own.

“
It was his choice to leave. He could have
sent one of the others, but he left anyway. Abandoned you to
me.”

Eyes squeezed tight shut, Eden curled up on
the bed with her knees to her chest and hands plastered flat over
her ears.

“
Shut up,
damn you!
”

The voice, sinister, sensual, and serpentine,
reverberated within the walls of her mind, eating away her
confidence, her hope, her rationale. Until soon, the words were all
she heard. Fear all she felt. Dread and torment, plagued her to no
end.

“
Dominic doesn
’
t love you. He
’
s never coming
back.”

She had to get away from that voice, to some
place safe. Eden bounded up and off the bed, the drafty floor felt
cold against her bare feet despite a toasty fire in the hearth. She
crossed the room, not bothering to don her dressing gown.

The vanity loomed from the corner. A dark
force within compelled her forth to it. Wielding a pull so strong
she could not break from its thrall. Though she
’
d risen in haste intending to quit the
room, she found herself trembling before the cursed looking glass.
Eyes squeezed tight shut. Did she dare?

“
Eden…come with me. I miss you.”

The voice differed. Softer, less menacing
and…familiar. Her eyes popped open, and there trapped in the
vanity, smiling and beckoning was a vision of Millie. Without
realizing, she stepped forward. Reached out. Wait, her quivering
hand stilled a fraction of an inch from the glass…how could she be
seeing her cousin Millie?…her
very dead
cousin Millie.

“
It
’
s lovely here…no pain, no worries, no
death.”

“No life either.” Eden countered,
instinctively knowing that something was off about her cousin.
Millie was gone. “There
’
s no life where you are, and no death because
everyone there is already dead.”

Her cousin
’
s image flashed and writhing as if in pain, and
then gave way to her raven-haired tormentor. She snatched her hand
back. Even if she hadn
’
t
been staring at her, she
’
d recognized that malevolent cackle and the
chilling crawl of her voice ever time she encountered it. This was
the thing, the evil entity that plagued her. It finally had a face.
And it was time, pastime she faced her demon.

“
I
don’
t know what you want with me, but leave my cousin out of
it.” She put steel behind the words and planted her feet, more to
brace her nerves than anything else.

“
Ahh, the kitten grows claws…”

The sharp voice slashed across the delicate
fabric of her mind, cutting deep gashes in her subconscious. Eden
tried to stitch up the holes, but she could not keep up with the
entity
’
s destructive
power. Soon, the grotesque thing pounded at the door of her
conscious mind. Whisperings and hushed suggestions bombarded
her.

“Get out of my head.”

The raven beauty let her head dropped back in
full-scale malice. Her too-sharp teeth gleamed sinister. Her tongue
somehow seemed pointy and over-long. Serpent-like.

When she finished the creepy excuse for a
laugh, she impaled Eden with white-less eyes, an eerie speckled
black…and bottomless, like the astral realm Dominic had once
described to her.

“
Give me back what
’
s mine.”

“Stop it!” Eden went a little crazy then.
Panic from the creeping possession of her mind rallied her and she
struck a physical blow at the evil in the silvery surface. The
glass splintered on impact. She flinched from the sharp slice of
pain that screamed at her wrist even as her head snapped sideways
to avoid the flying shards.

Standing amid a sea of glass, the ruined
mirror a wooden hull before her, crimson leaking in a steady
dribble from her palm and wrist…Eden felt her head turn, saw
herself surveying the chamber as if she were seeing it for the
first time. Disjointed images, not her own, flitted through her
mind, of a remote residence and foreign-speaking people she did not
recognize. She had the sensation of being an observer instead of a
participant in the events. The same stifling fog overtook her, like
at Lady Haversdale
’
s
disastrous table turn.

That
’
s when she knew she had lost the battle. The evil
thing had control of her. Had somehow possessed her like that lost
spirit she helped conjure nearly two months ago. Her legs moved,
stepping around the glass and she wondered where the thing was
taking her. Or rather
them
. Her mind and body was now
occupied by two warring beings. The entity had the upper hand at
the moment.

Eden felt her body sway. The evil-thing felt
it too because their head glanced down at the bloody mess and
shifted direction to the nightstand. Dr. Raine
’
s medical bag. At least she was
logical.

Logical, but incompetent, Eden surmised a
time later. The evil-thing
’
s attempt at bandaging veered just left of useless.
She did not apply pressure to stop the bleeding, nor did she make
any effort to clean or close the wound. But merely looped a wad of
gauze over the end of the arm and mixed a concoction from
powder-packets Eden surmised were laudanum. Blood continued to ooze
through the loose wrapping leaving a macabre trail as the entity
exited them from the room.

* * *

“I must return today. At dust.” Dominic
forsook the pedestrian view from his brother
’
s windows. After the magnificence of
Châ
teau
Ambrosia
’
s
panoramic valley, all other scenery paled.

“Gabriel has not yet awakened.” His brother
made the statement in a bald voice Dominic recognized as
disapproval. Gideon did not like leaving things unfinished, he
knew.

“He
’
s improved. His essence is more at peace.” Dominic
gestured across the room to where the man in question lay still as
stone, the ever-present feline sleeping at his side. “
I don’
t believe he
’
s dreaming anymore, merely asleep.
You know yourself it is not odd for Gabriel to recover for extended
periods after a disturbing premonition.”

“What of Muse?”

“Send for me when he awakens and I
’
ll speak with him about the
cat.”

“And if I am dead by then?”

“Then I shall attend the services and speak
with Gabriel after!” His rarely-seen temper flared at his
brother
’
s flippant
macabre attitude. Only Gideon could accept death with such a serene
affect, not even bested by Cael. Cael’s extraordinary poise, while
unnerving at times, could also be calm and reassuring, but Gideon’s
fatalistic indifference evoked a chilling sort of unease that
Dominic had never grown used to. If not for Gabriel, Dom worried at
the person Gideon would become.