Inescapable (Eternelles: The Beginning, Book 1) (7 page)

Sera shrugged. “Are you surprised?”

Adri winced. No, she wasn’t. “Shouldn’t you be in your room, resting?”

“Oh, I have had all the rest I needed. Thanks to you.”

Did she imagine the stress on these last words?
Bon sang, non!
Sera remembered....

“What did you expect me to do?” she asked on a whisper.

Sera snorted. “Anything but that.”

And let you die?
How could a mother kill her child, even after a monster had emerged?

“I have classes to teach.”

She reached for the girl on the doorstep of the lift. “Over my dead body. You need to be kept safe, and Craig here will make sure you’re protected at all times.”

“Huh? What?” the confused man asked.

Sera glared at her. “Over
my
dead body!”

*

A silent war waged between the two of them.

Perhaps it was a blessing that FBI Special Agent Craig Tulane insinuated himself in between as they exchanged a barrage of invisible arrows laced with venom.

“Sera, please, something bad has happened. It isn’t just your ordeal. Susan Gregory has been murdered.”

So her mother had given Craig the lowdown of what had happened. Shocked by this other news, she sheathed her inner anger and shifted her attention to the man. “Susan? You mean Mom’s friend at the Met?”

Craig’s expression was grim and hard, his lips pursed in a thin line as he gave an abrupt nod. Behind him, her mother looked like a woman stepping up to the gallows—anxiety and uncertainty scrawled painfully on her pale face. She swallowed before saying, “They came for you around the same time that the beast killed Susan. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

“Beast?” Both Craig and Sera said blankly.

All eyes fixed on Adri.

Sera stepped back from the elevator. “Are you going to tell me what this mess is all about? I knew Susan but you guys were definitely chummier.”

She couldn’t help a hint of accusation in her tone, even though it was unfair to suggest her mother had anything to do with triggering what had happened.

Adri frowned and bit her lip on what surely must have been a smart retort, but the prickly attitude didn’t mask the terror and worry in her eyes.

She crossed her arms in self-defense, tired of the hostility. Feeling just a tad guilty, and also afraid. “I just—” She sighed. “Goodness, what happened to Susan, Mom?”

“It was…a soul stealer. He took her life, and her blood, too. He spirited some away in vials….”

Craig muttered a foul curse. “So this means—”

She looked from one to the other as one of the familiars wound itself around her legs and purred. Her body went hot one instant and then wracked with cold shivers. A sense of foreboding tip-toed up her spine, telling her—no,
screaming
at her—this was no coincidence. She raised her hand instinctively to her chest, searching for her pendant, but found nothing. Then she remembered—she’d taken it off earlier and placed it in its velvet cushion in the jewelry box on her dresser. Why would she need to wear it when staying here, in her safe haven? Safe—a relative term.

“Please, I need to know. What are soul stealers?” She was afraid she already knew….

Perhaps picking up on the helplessness in her voice, Adri rushed to her side and put an arm around her shoulder, drawing her into an embrace.  Sera stiffened, but when she felt the quiet but desperate sobs that came from her mother, the ice around her heart melted. If the formidable Adrasteia Dionysios was reduced to tears, this was bad. Really bad.

She returned the hug, her arms finding comfort around the slight frame, in the honeyed floral scent of the long, flowing dark hair. She thanked Nature for her height that allowed her to press her nose into the fragrant comfort of those soft tresses and even kiss them. Tears threatened to fall but she held back—the strain of doing so hard on her body. Her throat ached and her heart wanted to beat out of her chest. It had been a long time since they’d touched affectionately like this—so long she could barely remember. She allowed herself the luxury of enjoying it like she had as a little girl. Like she had before the world had come crushing over her.

The cat slid to and fro between their legs in smooth figure-of-eight movements, its purrs intensified, while the other familiars pattered around them in some sort of protective circle. Craig stood impassive some distance away, seemingly contemplating the complicated rococo curves of a sconce on the wall. Meanwhile, Sera’s heart longed to reach out to her mother—yearned for her to express the raw emotions that rocked her.

I love you, Mom. Please don’t cry.

But those words remained stuck in a scratchy steel cage at her throat. Saying them would lower her defenses, force her to accept her reality, to admit that she was fit to be saved—and that’s one thing she wasn’t ready to do.

That last thought sobered her up and she pulled back. Adri still clung to her, but her body was now still, not trembling like a leaf as in moments before. Relieved, she let her arms fall to her sides, sending a silent message to her mother to let go. The other woman got it loud and clear when she raised her head and gave her a soulful look. Moisture glimmered in the blue-grey depths of her eyes.

“No matter what you say, no matter how you feel, you’re my daughter,” she said on a hoarse whisper.
And I’ll always protect you,
were the unspoken words.

Sera’s mouth dried in a flash—becoming so arid, she could barely speak past the big lump in her throat. Anyway, what could she say in response that wouldn’t end up in another massive fight?

“Tell me,” she said tentatively, her voice sounding distant even to her. “Not knowing won’t protect me.”

Those last words brought the spunk back into her mother. “I’ve never kept secrets from you.”

“No, you just make decisions for me and…. Never mind, just
say
it, dammit!”

Adri stepped back. “Fine. The soul stealer took Susan’s blood while her body was being depleted of oxygen. I know because it was blue in color.”

Craig grunted. “I won’t ask how you came to know but yes, we found a puncture mark in her neck, a neat slit. Probably used a blade.”

Adri rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “I saw the man speak to Susan. I think he was her lover, and I didn’t like the look of him. When she left the table, I followed her, but…I was too late.” She hung her head in defeat and took a deep breath, but then raised a fierce expression to Sera. “
Ma fille
, two of those monsters who attacked you were soul stealers.”

Sera’s breath hitched, even though she’d expected her mother’s last statement. “But I hardly knew Susan. And I haven’t been to the museum in years. Why her? Why me? Did she know Rafe?”

Questions tumbled from her lips like bullets from a bazooka aimed clumsily at a feather in the breeze, landing all over the place.

Adri’s brows furrowed as she crossed her arms again and leaned to the side, favoring her left leg. Wild thoughts flittered about her face. “I’m just as confused as you, darling, but I believe that to understand what happened to you, we must first figure out what happened to Susan, and why.”

“The most important thing to keep in mind is that there must be two murder investigations. The official one by the local police, which, as we all know, will lead nowhere near the truth, and a separate, discreet one that only those in the midst of things must carry forward.” Craig gave her mother a knowing look. “No one should suspect how the community in Shadow Bridge factors in the equation and I’d like to keep it that way. Less prying eyes.”

“What do they say about the cause of death?” Adri asked.

“It would be asphyxia, except that—”

“There’s no petechiae in the conjunctivae,” she finished.

“They should make you inspector over at the department. Bet you’d step on a few toes,” he teased.

Adri bit her bottom lip, ignoring the joke. “Then there’s the blood loss.”

“There’s that.”

“Fine, so they’re baffled. Where do we start?”

“The man—thing—that did this was interrupted from finishing his task. Although as you say he took some blood to go, he probably would have drained her completely if you hadn’t ruined his party.”

“So?” Sera asked.

“So he didn’t accomplish whatever he wanted to accomplish, at least we hope. I suspect he needed all her blood for something, and he needed it right at that moment, at her death. Must be something to do with oxygen or air leaving her….”

“Air,” Adri said meaningfully. “Power.”

“Mmmm. Keep turning those wheels as I check this.” Craig pulled his cellphone out of his jeans pocket. Adri gave him a blank stare.

“It’s the assistant director George telling me that they’re sending one of the agents from the art crime team to the
New York office to support the investigation. He’s due in tomorrow.”

He caught Adri’s panicked look.

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle him,” he reassured. “The boss made it clear he wants me as lead in the theft case. It’s New York business, ya know. And what’s better,” he added, “I’ll have first dibs on what’s going on in the murder investigation as the two offences are linked. NYPD are none too happy with our noses in the pie, of course, but the suckers got no choice.”

“Meanwhile, I’m left with a lot of questions that need answers,” Adri said with a long-suffering sigh. “Too many.”

You are?
Sera wanted to stomp her feet.
Just like you to take the whole world on your shoulders, Mom. A veritable Joan of Arc.

Although this time, she was filled with dread, to the depths of her being. What was going on? Were her family and friends in danger?

“No.” Craig stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Some answers are not far away.”

“How so?”

“Think, Adri, think,” he urged. “You have the first clue. Air. Only a select few would know its true significance.”

Recognition flared on the Grecian features as though a fifty thousand watt light bulb had lit up in her mind. “The fae.”

“Always said you were smart,” Craig said approvingly.

The remark earned him a slap on the arm. “Insufferable man.”

“Yeah, yeah, but I’m charming enough when you need my help, lady. Must be my human half.”

“Whoa, guys. Get a room, will you?” she jibed, wanting nothing more than to taunt her proper mother.

“Sera!” Adri seemed about to burst now, pure indignation in her tone. Like she was itching to bend her over her knees and paddle her behind.

Sera suppressed a grin while Craig served her a lopsided smile and a wink. She liked the man, maybe because she knew that his mixed blood was a source of both pride and torture to his soul. He was a kindred spirit, in some ways. A mutt—that’s what he thought of himself. Product of a forbidden union between a human and a werewolf, the only kind of interspecies marriage that could produce offspring. As such, he’d wanted to find his place in the human world beyond the confines of
Shadow Bridge.

Sera longed to have his courage sometimes—to simply start over and put roots somewhere else. However, as long as the mystery of her origins remained unsolved, she couldn’t and wouldn’t leave. She needed
Shadow Bridge as much as Shadow Bridge needed her. For better or worse, this was her home—for now.

“So now I have a meeting to convene as soon as possible but not until...” Adri dragged her attention to Sera. “Not until you’re tucked in your bed again, resting. You’ll need your strength.”

There she goes again.

“Stop mothering me,” Sera said through clenched teeth. She’d mostly stayed out of the conversation but her parent’s condescension was getting too far.

“As far as I know, I
am
your mother.”

“So you like to remind me every second,” she muttered.

“What did you just say?”

“Forget it.”

“Right. Now I trust you’ll go to your room.”

“
You
go to yours if you wish. I’m getting out of here.” Sera did stomp her feet this time, to her eternal embarrassment. Adri’s fault that she was acting like a toddler with a tantrum.

“You’re too weak to teach today! I already informed the other instructors that you wouldn’t show up this week.”

“Good. Thank goodness I have you to sort it all out for me, seeing that I don’t have a functioning brain,” she pointed to her head for emphasis, “to think with.”

“Oh, Sera. Don’t be so childish.”

“Am I childish? Or are
you
the one intent on keeping me so? Think about that while I get off your hair!”

And with that, she stepped inside the elevator, pressed a button, and let the door close against the older woman’s stupefied face.

*

Adri stood staring, mouth agape, at the copper door of the lift, her heart breaking a little bit more. Harder. Exhaustion seeped insidiously through her bones, weighing her down.