Epiphany (28 page)

“So the company, it’s local to us, like in Statesboro?”

“I think so, why?”

“Find out for sure. I’m gonna hit the can. Be right back.”

I really do need to take a leak, but somehow I veer off course, peering behind the
curtain like the Great and Powerful Oz will be waiting to hand me the 411 on this
girl. I don’t see him, or her, only several other scantily clad women who only remind
me how different she was. I want to bust in a demand they tell me her name and where
she is, but I’m forced to duck out and shove the curtain back when their escort/bodyguard/whatever
guy spots me.

No worries, Dane can find out for me, that man has scary ways of digging up the buried.
I hurry back from the bathroom and catch him just as he’s hanging up his phone. “Well?”

“Local company, kinda off the radar, Brock isn’t sure they’re on the Better Business
Bureau, if you catch my drift.”

“I don’t.”

He leans into me, talking low and discreetly. “I know nothing, and I’m going to say
this, walk out of here and never speak of it again. I may also fire Brock for being
a dumbass. It’s some on the side thing for one guy, mostly underage college girls
needing money.”

“Fuck,” I mumble.

“Fuck is right. My name is never to be associated with this, ever. I had no idea and
I’ll kill Brock if he jeopardized any of us in any way. You hear me?”

“Wait, so college, as in our college?”

“Yes,” he sighs, running his hand through his hair, mad as hell.

“My old job ready at The K?” Wait, better yet… “I’ll replace Brock even.”

“You always have a job with me, Sawyer, you know that. Just say the word.”

“Word. I’m heading back early. Don’t fire Brock until I say, okay? I need to talk
to him first.”

“You just fire him when you have what you need. My hands are washed of this whole
thing. Now get the fuck out of here and pay for the party in cash. No paper, you hear
me, Sawyer?”

“Got it. Go, man.”

Look out, Skipper, Daddy’s coming home
.

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THE SOUL MATE by MADELINE SHEEHAN

The world won’t end with a bang.

The world won’t end with a whimper.

In fact, the world won’t end at all.

But it will change and if we refuse to change with it…

It will be us that ends.

Bulgaria, 1056 AD

“The screaming has stopped, Emilian. Time to go.” Ferka gestured toward camp, where
Zora Petulengro’s birthing screams had previously seemed unending. Emilian had never
been so thankful before that he’d been born a boy.

He had no desire to go back to camp, even though a few minutes ago he’d felt the sudden
urge to run straight there, straight to…that baby.

That baby, a little girl who was to become his. No, she was already his. She had been
given to him, as a gift of sorts. They would be bound together as soon as he could
muster up enough courage to make his feet move. She would become his bride when they
were of age and would eventually bear his children.

He closed his eyes.

His soul mate.

He’d scoffed at his
tată
and
mamă
when they’d spoken to him of this foretold prophecy. How could a seven-year-old have
a soul mate? How could he have a soul mate?

But Emilian wasn’t just any seven-year-old. He was the firstborn son of
Baró
Gavril Drágon, the leader of their
Romani
clan, and already had more magic inside him than his full-grown tată. Magic that
would grow too powerful for any one man to contain without going mad. He would need
to have an outlet, a vessel with whom to share his gifts. That was where this baby
came in.

“You look green, my friend, but methinks you better go before the baró comes looking
for you himself.”

Ferka was right. Green or not, the wrath of Baró Drágon was indeed something to be
feared, especially if you were his son. Dragging his heels in the dirt, Emilian began
to walk slowly back to camp.

“Where have you been, you cowardly little fleabag?”

He winced as his mamă grabbed him by the ear and yanked him in the other direction
toward the Petulengros’s wagon.

“You were supposed to be close!”

He didn’t answer her; he knew no answer was good enough for Violca Drágon when she
was angry.

As his mamă dragged him across camp, much to the amusement of the entire clan, he
could only stare longingly toward where the horses were tied. He wished he could yank
free of his mamă’s hold, grab a horse, and be gone from here forever.

Boldo Petulengro thrust open the small wooden door of the wagon as they reached the
steps, his large overbearing frame dwarfing the entire structure. The look of disfavor
on the man’s face belied any happiness he thought the man might have had for the birth
of his new daughter.

Cowering beneath Boldo’s simmering glare, he slipped into the wagon and approached
his tată, but couldn’t avert his eyes from the sight of the new mother and her child.
Lying on a pallet of rushes in the corner, Zora was holding a tiny bundle in her arms.
The new mother looked exhausted, covered in sweat with small bruises under her eyes.
A pile of bloodied rags lay near a bucket of equally bloodied water.

“Come here, Emilian,” Zora said hoarsely, a strained smile on her face. “You must
touch her, make her yours so there will never be another.”

Ignoring the penetrating dark gaze of his tată, the anxious stare of his mamă, and
Boldo’s disapproving glare, he instead focused only on Zora, the only person who was
treating him with any sort of kindness.

On shaking skinny legs he knelt down beside her, waiting with bated breath as she
unwrapped the small bundle. A tiny head covered in black fuzz appeared.

The babe was sound asleep.

“Wake up, love.”

Zora stroked her daughter’s cheek. The baby blinked sleepily a few times and opened
her mouth in a toothless yawn. He fought the urge to smile. Just because she was adorable
didn’t mean he had to like her. Then she opened her eyes wide and the entire group
gasped.

“Green?” Violca squawked.

“What does that mean?” Boldo demanded of the baró. No
Roma
had green eyes. They had varying shades of brown, some almost black, others had hazel
or even caramel colors, but not a blue or a green among them; it was simply unheard
of.

Gavril stared at the tiny girl as a smile began to spread across his face. “She is
perfect, my friends. Do not fret, for green represents balance, harmony, and stability,
everything that Emilian will need. She is everything we could have hoped for.”

This answer seemed to delight the parents. Violca, however, continued to study the
baby with narrowed eyes.

“It is time.” Gavril lowered himself to one knee with Violca and Boldo following suit.
Together they said the proper Romani blessing over the two children, binding them
together in love, family, and clan. Their union had been foretold by nature and would
be upheld by the very people who had sworn their lives to protect nature’s blessings
and gifts.

“Touch her, child,” Zora urged, smiling at him.

Deciding to touch only the top of the babe’s head, he leaned forward. As he crept
closer, his body responded to the nearness of her and, without thinking, he kissed
her cheek instead, breathing in her scent. Shocked, he stumbled back and landed awkwardly
on his backside.

“Son?” Gavril asked. “Did it work? Did you feel something?”

Struck dumb by the sweetest perfume he’d ever smelled, Emilian couldn’t yet speak.
He could only stare at the most beautiful pair of sparkling green eyes he would ever
see.

Catskill Mountains, New York, Present Day

Too afraid to move, I continued watching with trepidation the daddy longlegs spider
that was poised directly above where I lay. It was a creepy-looking little devil,
with its tiny little body and obscenely long, spindly legs.

Bugs, I was convinced, were placed on this earth to make my life miserable. Then again,
there wasn’t much that didn’t make me jumpy these days. The end of the world would
do that to a person.

I blew out the breath I’d been holding as the spider took off running. It skittered
across the stained brown canvas ceiling of my 1980s pop-out tent trailer and disappeared.

“Ugh,” I told no one in particular. “I am having a bad day.”

“The day hasn’t even started yet, woman. It isn’t possible yet for it to be bad.”

I huffed at Becki, my trailer mate. “You don’t consider waking up to giant arachnids
hovering over your head, waiting to eat you, a bad day?”

I ducked the pillow that came flying from the other end of the trailer. It hit the
canvas wall directly above me where possibly hundreds, maybe thousands, of hungry
daddy longlegs spiders could be living.

“You could have scared the spider back out!”

“Trinity, it’s a spider.”

“Do you know how vengeful spiders are?” I asked in my haughtiest voice. “Especially
to the Greeks?”

I couldn’t quite tell since her head was still buried in her mattress, but she mumbled
something that sounded suspiciously like, “Here we go again.”

“Well,” I continued. “The Greek goddess
Athena
…” I paused. “You know who she is, right?”

“How could I not? You talk about her all the time.”

I chose to ignore that comment.

“Anyway, Athena and a mortal princess, named Arachne, had a competition to see who
was the better weaver of the two. Arachne won and Athena was furious, so she destroyed
Arachne’s tapestry and cursed the princess to live a life full of disgrace. Arachne,
unable to bear the weight of her curse, hung herself. Then Athena took pity on her
and brought her back to life…but as a spider!”

“Trinity, if I had known living with you was going to be a constant lesson in Greek
mythology, I really would have reconsidered.”

“How would you like to be brought back to life as a spider? Wouldn’t you be angry?
Or vengeful even?”

Becki scowled at me as I sat up. Her long curly brown hair was hanging in front of
her dark brown eyes, but I could see enough of them to know that if looks could kill,
I would have been dead two or three times by now. Becki Bӑlan was most certainly not
a morning person.

“Good morning, sunshine.” I grinned at her.

“I wish I could turn you into a spider,” she grumbled, cocooning herself inside her
blankets until all I could see was the tips of her toes.

I was about to respond with another little tidbit of Greek mythology when I smelled
it: Christmas in the middle of July. The sticky sweetness of fresh pine trees and
the thick, pungent odor of cinnamon flew in through the open window on the warm morning
breeze.

“Gerik’s coming,” I told her, jerking my head toward the doorway. The scent of the
man preceded him wherever he went.

The screen door swung wide open and a six-feet-four-inch shirtless Viking came bounding
through the small doorway, dominating the entire trailer, bringing with him his unique
scent. He always smelled so amazing, so intoxicating…but only to me. The one and only
time I’d asked another person if they smelled what I did… Well, I was pretty sure
Alana still thought I was insane.

Gerik paused just inside the doorway and shook out his long, soaking wet hair, spraying
water everywhere.

“Oh. My. God.” Becki moaned. “Why is everyone against me today?”

He turned to grin at her while stretching his long, muscular body. The magical runes
tattooed on his chest rippled with the sinuous movements.

Gerik Hjemsӓter looked like none of the other
Gypsies
in this Romani camp I’d been calling home for the past few months. Most of the men
and women in camp were of Romanian origins and had darker shades of skin combined
with dark, alluring features; others had olive complexions, also with dark hair and
eyes.

Gerik was different. He was strong and tall like most of the Roma men, his forehead
wide, his cheekbones high and prominent, but that was where the resemblance ended.
Like many of his Scandinavian ancestors, his hair was the color of ripe wheat and
his eyes were a deep ocean blue that misted and swirled like a stormy sea. Gerik’s
nose was proud and strong, unlike the majority of low-rooted muzzles here, and his
jaw was strong and square, standing out among the many rounded chins in camp.

Needless to say, Gerik was like nothing I’d ever seen before.

I watched him wipe his wet face and chest with his T-shirt before slipping it on,
easily picturing him covered in heavy animal furs and wearing a horned helmet. Before
I knew it, I was giggling.

Becki was watching me. She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Trinity, we all know how sexy Gerik
is.”

Her correct assessment of my thoughts embarrassed me, but Gerik hadn’t been paying
her any attention. As usual, his focus was solely on me.

“Do my braids, yeah?” He held out his ponytail holders.

My giggles turned into full-on hysterics. Gerik always wore his hair in two long braids
that hung down his chest, making him look even more the part of the Viking warrior.
I patted my bed. “Come, Viking. I’ll plait yer hair before ye go off to battle.”

Still grinning, Gerik grabbed the corner of my old red quilt and with one quick tug,
yanked it off me. I shrieked and lunged for my covers, managing to keep the sheet
over my legs.

“Ugh!” Still in her pajamas, Becki jumped out of bed and shot us a disgusted look.
“It’s a little early for the mushy stuff. I’m out.”

The screen door slammed hard behind her as she stormed out.

Gerik and I exchanged confused glances. Since I’d arrived in camp, Becki hadn’t been
a gracious morning person, but she’d never been outright mean.

I scooted closer to him when he sat down, taking the beaded ponytail holders from
his hand. The sheet that was still covering me slipped down my legs. I followed his
gaze to my underwear and exposed thighs.