Inescapable (Eternelles: The Beginning, Book 1) (14 page)

“But I heard rumors how he was spotted on fae territory.”

Adri rolled her eyes. Even better. Not! Looked like she had no way out of facing that lot today.

She stood and walked to the far wall where overflowing bookshelves filled the space. How she’d have loved to look out a window, but that was not possible in a vampyre’s lair. They couldn’t tolerate the sun, and despite not having a natural affinity with daytime, they didn’t drop dead once the sun rose to awaken only at twilight. They could function perfectly well in artificial gloom.

Sebastian stood and came up to her. “That’s why you refused the champagne.”

She nodded. “He’s the god of wine. Of course there will be a connection there.”

“Can he find you simply by questioning the vine?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

He reached for the bottle in its ice tub and proceeded next door to the bathroom, where she heard him empty something down the drain. Adri rushed to the door to find him dropping the empty bottle into the trash.

She gulped, and tears stung her eyes. “You didn’t have to do that.”

He shrugged. “I assured you you’d be safe on my territory.”

Adri reached out and hugged him.

He closed his arms around her, and pressed a kiss onto her head. “It’s okay, Miss Adri.”

She choked on a burst of laughter at his totally Southern, formal form of address. He was a dear friend, indeed.

Her cell phone vibrated against her thigh, and she cursed. How she hated technology and all that came with it. Who’d have thought one day they’d carry little flat boxes with them that could do virtually anything? As much as cell phones now provided convenience, as much she resented the need to adapt to every change across the years. One of the pitfalls of living very long lives or being immortal—you had to walk with the times.

She extricated herself from Sebastian’s arms and reached for the phone.

Craig
. Just getting better. What would he have in store for her?

“Tell me you have something,” she said instead of a greeting. He wouldn’t berate her the lack of social graces; Craig knew she had no space for fluff in her life.

“I do,” he replied, “and we need to talk. Stat.”

Perfect. He could join them. “I’m at Sebastian’s place. Come on over.”

She cut the call.

“Trouble?” Sebastian asked.

“Not yet, but we’re about to know.” She scrolled through the contacts list and found a number. After dialing, she waited for him to pick up.

“Kochar, get that lickable arse of yours down to Vibiza. We need your expertise.”

The police chief growled. “That’s in the vamp territory.”

“Well, tough shit, mate. You’re chief for the whole town, aren’t you?”

“Be down in a few. Tell them not to gun me down when I arrive.”

“They won’t.”

He snorted, and cut the call.

Sebastian watched her with a raised eyebrow. “Bringing the new chief in? This his baptism by fire or something?”

“Two birds with one stone, darling. We’ll need him on this.”

“On what?”

“You’ll be in the know soon enough.”

Sebastian’s phone pinged, and he checked the message. “Craig’s here. He’s outside.”

Adri nodded. “I’ll go get him.”

She stepped out of the club through a maze of corridors and emerged into the sunlight. Craig Tulane came out of his FBI-issue Chevy SUV and started toward her. The roar of a Harley cut through the quiet, and seconds later, Jeff Kochar stepped off his bike and headed to them.

Adri watched the expression in his face. He and Craig had met before, but not in his capacity as Chief of Police. She reached for Jeff’s hand and clasped his fingers.

“You know Special Agent Tulane?”

Jeff nodded. She picked up guardedness in his stance, in his thoughts. He remained wary, not trusting yet. But she’d gotten what she’d sought. No thinking of Craig as the “half-breed,” as most weres categorized him. Jeff would work, albeit reluctantly, with the FBI agent and not rock the boat.

“What’s going on?” Jeff asked.

“There’s a lot you should know, but let’s go in first.” Adri dropped his hand and led them in, through the corridors again, until they reached the entrance to the VIP club and bar. Sebastian waited for them on the threshold, and Jeff froze.

Adri threw him a glance. No love lost between vampyres and weres, but Jeff would have to deal with it. Sebastian’s territory was the politically safest place in the whole of
Shadow Bridge. “I gather you know the head of the town’s nest, Sebastian Rampling?”

Sebastian put a hand out, which Jeff shook with reserve dripping from every pore of his big body. Amid all this testosterone, she bristled. Time to set the ball rolling.

“Let’s go in.” She paused.  “Safe?”

“As much as you can expect,” he replied.

Indeed, the interior lay empty. Even the girls who would’ve been practicing at the poles had been turned away.

As they settled down at a booth, Craig chuckled. “A vampyre, a were, a half-breed, and a maenad walk into a bar—”

“And the half-breed finds all his teeth on the floor.” She threw him a withering glance that stopped his joke in its tracks.

“Vodka martini okay for everyone?” Sebastian asked.

“I’m on duty,” Jeff bit out.

“One won’t kill you,” Craig drawled, and tipped his head at Sebastian.

A glass with extra olives in front of everyone, silence thrummed. Adri took a sip of her drink and nibbled on an olive. A lone woman among a handful of men. Many would call her a shameless hussy, but she did prefer masculine company to feminine. No bitchiness then, or back stabbing. She knew where she stood with men, and who she could trust or not. That affinity had come in handy during her time as a courtesan. She’d frequented the top-most circles of power thanks to that position, and the men she had deigned to trust had never let her down.

“What the hell are we doing here?” Jeff asked.

“Shut up, Kochar. There’s a lot you don’t know.” Adri turned to Craig. “You have an update?”

He nodded. “It was indeed the Arles Bronze stolen that night at the Met. The most obvious seekers of this piece of art have been questioned—”

“But that failed to provide any results,” Sebastian interrupted.

Adri turned to him. “How do you know?”

“He still has his finger on the pulse of the Vampyre Federation and their race, of course,” Craig ventured.

Sebastian merely smiled.

“Wait a second. What is the Arles Bronze, and what are you talking about?” Jeff asked.

Adri nodded at Craig, the signal to bring him up to speed.

“Son of a bitch!” Jeff exclaimed when he had the whole picture.

“And that’s not everything,” Adri started. “Thandi found something in the archives.”

She told about the prophecy. Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, Craig downed his drink in one gulp and motioned for another, and Jeff kept up a litany of curses. If she’d thought things would ever get better...? Everything had to get worse before, right?

They all jumped when a pigeon flew in to come plonk itself in front of Adri on the table.

“Damn message birds,” Sebastian grumbled.

Indeed, things had just gotten that much worse. They all knew what receiving a pigeon meant—a summon onto fae territory. Guess she wouldn’t be barred entry there later, if they had convened her themselves. Exactly what she didn’t need, though.

“What do they want with you?” Sebastian asked as he sat up straight and placed eyes intense with worry on her.

She shrugged. “Guess I’ll find out when I get there.”

A shiver coursed down her spine. Nothing good would come out of this meeting; of that, she was certain.

“And what do we do?” Jeff asked. “I suppose you want to keep this information on the hush-hush.”

Adri nodded. “All three of you stand on the Shadow Bridge Council. I will need your support from here on. But until we find out how witches are involved, what the fae had to do with the air element in Susan’s death, and which team the weres bat for, we cannot trust any of them.”

“Dismissed?” Craig asked.

“Yes.” The word trembled when she said it, and she covered the quiver by downing the rest of her martini.

Once alone with Sebastian again, she allowed herself to toy with the stem of her glass. A nervous gesture if she ever showed any. He placed his marble-cold hand on top of hers. She didn’t flinch from the biting chill. During the day, vampyres’ skin turned deathly cold. They only warmed up once night threw its cloak over the world.

Adri looked up into his eyes. She did have a brother, yes, and she loved him to bits. But if she ever had to consider someone else as a sibling, Sebastian would qualify.

What’s going on?
she wanted to ask him, but didn’t, because that would mean dropping to a level of vulnerability she had never shown him.

“I’ll come with you,” he said.

She gulped. He would, too. Force himself to go out in a dark, windowless carriage and brace exposure to the sun for her sake. She placed her other palm on top of his. “You won’t be able to cross into their territory. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?”

She nodded.

A thought crossed her mind. She’d debated whether to ask him or not. No one but Zeus, Ares, and Des knew of the connection between Sera and Rafe. Dare she let Sebastian in on the secret?

She took a deep breath. “What Craig said, is it true? That you’ve got your finger on the pulse of all Vampyre Federation business?”

“I do.”

Adri squeezed his hand. “Who made Rafe Harcourt an overlord?”

He stared at her for a long time. But Sebastian being who he was, a Southern gentleman at the heart of him, he didn’t ask any question.

“Virgilio Manera,” he replied.

“The only overlord without a born heir.”

“But he’s the one who turned Harcourt. Otherwise, he’d never have been able to will him the position before his death.”

An ominous trickle started in her blood, and soon, her heart hammered so fast it sent that disturbing feeling throughout her.

“Rafe has been turned, Sebastian. Overlords have always been born vampyres. Never turned ones.”

His pale eyes grew somber. “Exactly.”

She gasped. “And that means....”

“A war is coming.”

Adri paused on the edge of the fae territory.

To the naked eye, the plain appeared empty, a vast spread of rolling green hills dotted by expanses of wild flowers. An invisible veil kept the fae world at bay, though, and none could step through it without the race’s approval.

She took a deep breath, clutched her hands around the body of the pigeon, and stepped through the veil. It was like entering a different universe. Small wooden houses dotted the landscape, and fields of corn and other vegetable patches covered the area around the dwellings. Packed-dirt roads criss-crossed through the place.

The bird started to squirm in her hands, and she released it. It flew to about a yard from her, shrugged its feathers, and before Adri could blink, an open gig pulled by a huge grey horse had appeared before her.

The carriage would take her to whoever had summoned her. No point fighting or asking for understanding at this point. She better buck up and go see who wanted to meet her.

She stepped into the gig, and once she had settled down on the thick cushion and wrapped the hand-woven gossamer afghan around her shoulders to ward off the nippy cold in the air, the horse started to walk. The slow trek took her throughout the colony. She rarely crossed another gig on the streets, but people, in the fields or on their home porches, stopped and stared as she went past.

If Adri had to describe the fae territory, she would liken it to a human Amish community. The people still lived like in olden times, with no technology or modern conveniences, not even electricity. As keepers of the elements of Nature, the fae believed they would lose touch with their heritage, and their power would wane, if they embraced the world as the humans had shaped it. They always claimed making the move to a modern lifestyle bore more harm than good, and berated the witches—the red-headed stepchild of the fae world—for having turned on their duty to protect Nature.

Still, fae and witch joined hands at the Shadow Bridge hospital, where sups from all over the world came to be treated.

Houses blipped past her and they were advancing more and more into the heartland. Adri swallowed hard. She’d expected someone in a high position had summoned her, but when they went past the abode of Bernum, the head of the fae who represented the race at the Council, her stomach began to churn.

The gig stopped in front of the last house on the territory. The dwelling appeared as lived-in as it looked old. Of course, if it were as old as its occupant, or who she thought occupied it, then no wonder this place looked like it did.

The horse snorted, and she took this as her cue to get up and step down from the carriage. With slow, reluctant steps, up the small wood staircase she went to reach the wrap-around porch. The door swung open as if sensing her arrival.

Dare she step in? Adri tightened the fabric around her shoulders. For once, despite having three layers of silk, linen, and cashmere on her, and even with the gossamer afghan wrap, a wave of cold washed over her to settle deep onto her bones.

Something would change once she emerged from this house.

If she’d ever emerge, too...but she shouldn’t think like that. Everyone knew she’d been summoned here.

On a deep breath, she walked into the dark parlor. The door swung closed behind her, and small dancing lights appeared in front of her face. They twirled and ran around her, before rushing into the adjoining room. She followed, and stopped on the threshold of a well-appointed sitting room. Porcelain knick-knacks graced every surface, safely tucked up on wisp-thin lace doilies.

The fae could make lace like no one in the world could, and judging by the ethereal fragility of the fabrics in this room, she had no doubt its occupant had made them.

The tiny woman with the weathered face and a shock of cottony white hair sat huddled on a sofa in front of a roaring fire. She smiled at Adri.

“Adrasteia Dionysios. We finally meet.”

Her voice carried warmth, and some of the chill around Adri melted. She ran the tip of her tongue along her lips. “You must be....”

The woman smiled even wider. “Mother May. Yes.”

The oldest fae alive, one who’d been on the
Shadow Bridge faerie plane of existence the longest.

“I don’t understand,” Adri ventured. “No one outside your kind has ever met you.”

Mother May laughed, the sound a tinkle of merriment so pure and light it clashed with her advanced-in-years’ appearance. “I’m not the ogre they make me out to be. Anyone just has to ask to meet me, and I’ll acquiesce to their wish.”

“Veronica asked.”

Back in 1577, when she had founded the Fleur de Lys society together with the notorious courtesan Veronica Franco—who’d decided to leave Venice with Adri’s support after being acquitted in her trial for witchcraft—and eventually established their headquarters here, in the newly-created Shadow Bridge, they had asked for a meeting with the fae, the ones who’d owned this territory since the dawn of time in harmony with the natives. Fully prepared to accept that her glory days as a
cortiggiana onesta—
an intellectual courtesan—had ended, Veronica had gladly embarked on this new venture, which proved to be the biggest one of their lives. So Mother May was the one Veronica met. She’d never confessed that to Adri, probably held in by some secret pledge with the old fae.

Years after, Veronica got her wish to see
Italy one last time and die there in obscurity, as she wanted. Adri still missed her warmth, intelligence, and positive energy.

Veronica had reassured Mother May they’d live peacefully with her people, and the fae elder had believed her and therefore welcomed them as neighbors.

“Ah, but I never show myself to the whole world. If you had come, we could’ve met a long time ago.”

That made sense.

For I never asked. Veronica, how you used to laugh at my aloof manner, how you saw through me. I am who I am, right?

Adri still hovered on the threshold, and Mother May must’ve noticed.

“Oh, where are my manners? Come on in, dear.”

Before she could take a step forward, the dancing lights returned to wrap themselves around her and carry her to the seat next to the old woman.

“That is enough. You will scare our guest away,” the old lady admonished.

The lights retreated, gathered into a ball, and then rushed to settle at Adri’s feet. To her utmost surprise, the shape of a
Labrador materialized, and seconds later, a big dog sat in front of her with its tongue lolling.

“Would you care for a cup of tea?” Mother May asked. A small table laden with lemon scones, clotted cream, and tea in a Belleek porcelain teapot appeared between their seats.

Adri stopped trying to make sense of the magic. This was the faerie world, after all.

Mother May poured her a cup and handed her the delicate bone china. The brew looked like tea, but Adri was wary. This was, also, the fae world, and she didn’t trust them.

“Oh, my dear. It’s only tea.”

Mother May then placed her hand over Adri’s, and wove their fingers together.

No faerie had ever touched her unless under duress, and in the kaleidoscope of images and thoughts that washed through her, she could detect no duplicity on behalf of the old woman.

“Go on, have a sip. It will warm you up.”

Mother May released her hand and drank some tea, liquid that came from the same teapot as Adri’s drink. There couldn’t be something off there, could it? She brought the cup to her lips and took a tentative sip.

For a second, the world swam around her. But when she blinked, everything was as it had been previously, and Mother May was offering her a scone.

She took one, and sank her teeth into soft, pillowy dough baked to perfection.

“Good. You are not one of those waifs doing everything to starve herself.” Mother May shook her head. “What is going on in people’s minds, I say?”

Against herself, Adri smiled. “You know about that aspect of the outside world?”

The other woman gave her a sharp glance under her lashes. “I might be old and live much like a recluse, but I’m not dead yet.”

“My apologies,” she bit out.

Mother May seemed perfectly fine and in good health. Why, then, did she not step in as her people’s head in the Council?

“I can see where that pretty head of yours is running to, young lady.”

Adri bit her lip. “Sorry.”

“Bah! No need for all that formality. And the answer to your question is that I dislike politics very much. That sphere is more the forte of my son, Bernum, and this suits our community fine.”

Speaking of Bernum and the Council, the meeting would be in less than two hours. She had no time to lose.

“May I ask why you have summoned me?”

Mother May sighed. “I received a request from someone very dear to me to let you in on the true nature of the portal. He has already told you part of the story, and I hold the rest of the tale.”

Adri sat up straighter. “You mean, my fath— Zeus? Him?”

“Indeed, dearie. Why is that so hard to fathom?” Mother May handed her another scone. “So you know about the early vampires, and the demons. The angels were summoned back into the sky and since then, they are allowed to walk the Earth every morning just before dawn. None of us can see them, except animals. Why do you think all roosters crow at dawn? It’s in greeting to the angels walking before them.”

After two millennia, some things could still startle her. Who would’ve thought?

And if she thought this revelation through, Des couldn’t be an angel. He had come to her at all times of the day, and given that he’d walked the Earth at that time, that could only make him...a demon?

Et puis, merde!
What had she gotten herself involved in?

“But there’s more,” she prompted.

Mother May nodded. “Sadly, yes. What I am about to reveal to you, none knows outside of our kind.” She paused, and sighed. “Twin daughters were born to a royal faerie couple. The Elders said the two of them would harness powers beyond our ken. They would be able to control the elements, but they would also have the gift of magic and prophecy.”

“Magic and prophecy? That’s the domain of witches,” Adri stated.

“You are right, my dear. But at that time, witches as you know them did not exist. One single race, born of that set of twins, would command all powers on Earth and on the faerie plane of existence.

“Yet, as the girls grew, it became apparent their birth hid something else. They were identical twins, split from the same fertilized egg. But that split had not created balance. Instead, it made one girl good, and one evil.”

Adri gasped, but she kept mum this time.

“Our people began to see how the twins who were supposed to be our salvation would in fact be our perdition. In the short-term, evil always wins over good, and such was the case here, too. The dark sister plied magic, and she taught it to those who wanted to wield that power. To protect our world and that of the humans, it was decided they should be stopped. Yet, they couldn’t be killed, because that would bring the end of all worlds.”

“The solution came in the form of the portal,” Adri said on a whisper.

Mother May nodded. “You know the truth now.”

“But they are prophesized to return, aren’t they?”

“Hmm, resourceful little one, aren’t you? Yes, it is said they will one day be delivered from their prison. All the elements have come together to seal their cell, but blood from one of their descendants can undo those locks and let them out.”

Blood? And maybe blood depleted of Air?

Adri gasped, and her heart galloped in her chest. “Mother May, tell me something. Was Air the strongest of the elements used to seal that gateway?”

The old woman narrowed her rheumy eyes onto Adri. “Yes, but why do you ask?”

In the name of all that is holy...
“Did the twins have offspring?”

“Thank goodness, no.”

“I’m not sure you’re right.”

“What do you mean?”

Adri pulled her cell phone and scrolled through the gallery. Once she found a picture of her and Susan, she zoomed on the image of the deceased woman and showed Mother May the screen.

“This woman has all the characteristics of White Witches, but she has never wielded magic or belonged to a coven.”

Mother May blinked. “Are you sure?”

“Please, look closely.”

The old woman’s hand trembled when she held the phone. “Where is this person now?”

No—not a good vibe there. “She is dead.”

Mother May gasped.

“And that’s not the worse. A soul stealer killed her, and escaped with samples of her blood that had been depleted of oxygen just before she died.”

Adri paused at the stricken expression on the other woman’s face. “Oxygen. Air. Blood depleted of Air. Could that be used to break the seal?”

“It very well could.”

The calm certainty in the faerie’s words rattled Adri. Mother May did not deny, nor did she attempt to buy time. She merely stated the truth as it was.