Prince of Demons 2: The Order of the Black Swan (11 page)

What happened to having an aptitude for adventure?

She stopped in her tracks as soon as she’d finished that thought. It wasn’t just the evidence of her choice of reading material. She
did
have a longing for adventure. Brave had given her exactly that and, as time back in Edinburgh had gone by, she found herself smiling as she thought about that experience. Stomping on Peregrination’s equipment. Hearing a horribly ugly black thing squeak when she stepped on it. Seeing the confused look on the straithgard’s face when she screamed. Watching loke juice run down the front of Brave’s body.

One night, after
dinner and small talk with people who might be called acquaintances at best, she grabbed her coat to go out for a walk. Heading east on Princes Street she began taking stock of her life, the one that was going to be new and improved when she sold everything and left Dallas.

It hadn’t just been the city that she’d left behind. It was an entire life history. She had voluntarily driven away from family, friends, and all the cozy familiarity of the place that was home, for better or worse, for a crazy gambit to live on a houseboat in Boston harbor. On reflection, as adventures go, it was pretty tame in comparison to the outlandish experiences she’d been racking up lately.

If things had followed a somewhat predictable course, she probably would have eventually had her fill of exotic Yankee vistas and headed home to the Lone Star state to pick up where she’d left off. She might have eventually found a guy who was more like Brave than Stuart. The sort of guy who would do anything for her, even stage crazy outrageous adventures just to please and entertain her.

At that moment she would have given just about anything to send Dizzy a text to meet for a drink. Right away. There was no question that Dizzy would help put the whole mess in perspective.

Why would a person be nuts enough to give up a friend like Desdemona?

Lana had started to form friendships with Myrna and Josep, but she left the dimension before seeing where that would take her. She started giggling to herself as she walked along, not really caring how that might look to strangers.

Maybe she was on the verge of losing a hold on that or any other verifiable reality.

Friends like Desdemona were hard to find.

Family like hers? Well, there was no possibility of finding a substitute.

Career? What Cal had said about meaningful work replayed in her head. When he’d first introduced the concept of work that was satisfying down to the soles of the feet, she had scoffed and perhaps even ridiculed him for being naïve.

That was before the results of the aptitude test set off bells, whistles and bright spotlights. When she’d first heard that she was well suited to be an adventurer…

Adventuress?

She smiled to herself when she replayed Brave’s voice saying, “
It felt great, didn’t it? Your heart was pounding, the adrenaline was rushing.”

For the first time, she was completely truthful with herself.
Yes. Yes, it did.

One thing was certain. Transferring catalogued archives to computer in a sublevel basement was not her idea of meaningful work. Even managing the people who manage the portfolios of rich people had been more meaningful than that.

For the first time since she’d left Dallas, Lana felt like her life had definitely taken a turn for the worse. In the beginning, the transition of moving cross country to a place where she knew no one, and learning to live within the tiny confines of a boat when she’d always had Texas size spaces around her, had been enough to hold her attention and keep her mind occupied.

She hadn’t yet had a chance to get used to those changes before she’d been sucked into another dimension without even knowing that others existed. Black Swan had taken over her life and her choices, but things had been such a whirlwind of confusion and emotion that she hadn’t had time to sort out how she felt about that. It had been all she could do to keep treading water, so to speak.

Right at that moment, however, it all seemed to converge as a perfect storm of loneliness. She pulled the lapels of her tan trench coat a little closer to her throat and looked toward the south, to the buildings lined up on High Street. She wondered if the view of the Royal Mile was identical in her dimension of origin. She couldn’t say for sure because she’d never been to Edinburgh.

What she could say for sure was that it was time to make some changes. She just had to decide what they should be and how to go about it.

She was lost in those thoughts when she happened to look up and see Cal smiling as he emerged from the Balmoral Hotel with his arm around a tall blonde. The woman was chic enough and polished enough to be hired as the focal point for a Cartier ad.

Lana stepped out of the way of pedestrians, over to the edge of the sidewalk next to the closest building, and watched. She realized that she hadn’t seen Cal since she’d returned from the experience she privately called her “time in Demon World”. It didn’t escape her notice that she hadn’t given any thought to not seeing Cal. None at all. Not up until that moment.

While Cal and the woman with him waited for the doorman to call a taxi forward, Cal leaned over and said something in her ear. She laughed. It was clear from their body language that they were lovers.

Lana did a quick assessment of her feelings about that and found that, no, it didn’t bother her in the least. Cal had never hinted that they were exclusive. Far from it, they’d had one sort-of date that hadn’t gone well and one kiss that was good, but not earth shattering.

Lana turned to walk back toward Charlotte Square before she was seen. She didn’t want to make him feel awkward, but stopped suddenly when she realized that making Cal feel awkward was
exactly
what she wanted. She had, after all, promised payback and she’d learned from her three cousins that no matter the time or the distance, you don’t just forget about payback. Payback is sacred.

Calling up every trick she’d absorbed in high school drama, she rearranged her features into the look of a tempest, ran up behind Cal and jumped in front of the couple in an aggressive, angry-woman-scorned sort of move.

Cal’s expression was shocked as he looked into the face of an irate Lana.

“Lana, what the…?”

“Oh, yes,
what
indeed?” she spat. “You’ve left me and the babies without enough to pay the fuel bill and gone off to play bang the blonde at the fancy fucking Balmoral Hotel. Easy enough to see where the money goes.”

Lana looked the other woman up and down with disdain, while the date looked around as if she would die from the embarrassment of being associated with such a scene on the street.

“Cal?” the girlfriend asked uncertainly.

“So here you are,” Lana forged ahead, giving the performance of her life, “with a peroxide slut!”

That was apparently more than enough for Ms. Cartier. She turned and walked off leaving Lana smiling ear to ear at Cal like a cat with feathers on its chin.

He shook his head and nodded at her with eyes twinkling. “Well done. Props and all that as you Americans say. Remind me never to play you again.” He glanced over his shoulder in the direction the blonde had gone. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve a catastrophe to avert.”

She laughed as he ran after the leggy descendant of Vikings, calling her name, which was either Judith, or Cal was developing a lisp. She lingered until she saw Cal overtake his date and catch her by the elbow. Lana had no doubt that Cal would offer a plausible explanation that Judith would choose to believe because that would be preferable to giving him up.

There were no residual feelings that Cal might have been the one that got away.

No. Cal was a very nice guy, but… if she was being brutally honest with herself, the only “but” she could think of was that he wasn’t Brave. Compatibility was there on every scoring point, but there just wasn’t that raw spark – the one that set every nerve ending at attention and awaiting orders, that heart pounding, breath quickening, stomach fluttering, thigh clenching extra something that maybe only came once in a lifetime. If that.

As she watched Cal and his friend get into a cab further up the street that he hailed himself, and drive away, she experienced a moment of crystal clarity.

How horrible was it, actually, to be pursued by someone who wanted her so much that he was willing to stage the most elaborate fantasy in history to impress and please her?

As the last of the light was disappearing, she turned back toward Headquarters. The growing gloom was okay with her. She didn’t want to be seen by people on the street who were hurrying to trains that would take them home to dinner with family. Or the people who were joking with friends on their way to a nearby pub for a pint.

What Lana wanted was what everyone wanted, to be someone who had someplace to be with someone who needed them more than anything.

What came to mind as she hurried along was the picture of seeing Brave’s face for the first time. There was no way to explain her reaction except to say that it was a feeling of… home. He may have been her someone who needed her more than anything. If that was the truth, she needed to retrace her steps before he became the one who got away.

For the first time since Stuart had said, “I can’t. I just can’t,” and left her standing shell-shocked in a four-thousand-dollar dress, she had a destination. She knew exactly what she wanted. All she had to do was find that ring and hope that it worked the way the demon said it would.

‡

P
ut the ring
on and say his name.

Lana was pretty sure that had been the instruction the demon had given.

She raced down the hallway, fumbled with getting her door open, and hurried to the sock drawer. Beneath the thin socks, thick socks, plaid socks, knee highs, and humping reindeer joke socks were the ski socks.

She untied the loose knot that held them together and shoved her hand to the bottom of the toe. She knew the ring was still there, but still felt a sense of relief when her fingers came in contact with the cool metal. Her eyes slid closed for a second then she withdrew the ring.

It dawned on her that she might be getting a little warm because she hadn’t stopped to remove her coat. She set the ring carefully on top of her dresser then unbelted and unbuttoned her coat without taking her eyes off of it. She pushed her shoulders back until the coat began to slide down her body. She caught it then placed it over the foot of the bed thinking there were much more pressing issues than hanging up coats.

Her impulse was to grab the ring and say Brave’s name, but she stopped herself, thinking she needed to be smart. For instance, if the ring somehow transported her magically to wherever Brave was, what would she want to be wearing? Would she want her hair up or down? Makeup or au natural?

Maybe the charm would send a signal to one of Brave’s demons and someone rude, like Dart, would come for her. In any case she wanted to be ready. Maybe she should pack an overnight bag with, say toiletries and such. Not toothpaste though. Their powder was so much better.

So Lana prepared for the most important date of her life. She took a long shower and used her Yves Auvaine body wash, which she saved for special occasions because one would have to be an heiress to afford it every day. She washed her hair, shaved away every hair that she didn’t
really
want to keep and let her hair air dry into the wavy mess that Brave said he liked.

She pulled out her most flattering pair of skinny jeans that also had spandex for comfort and ease of movement and topped that with a wine-colored silk shirt and put on low-heeled shoes that would allow for running, if necessary. She pulled out a small duffel and added a pullover sweater with standing ribbed neck that zipped up to cover her neck and chin. She threw in a pair of flannel gloves and two rolls of toilet paper.

Standing in her bedroom looking at the duffel, she mounted an internal argument over the pros and cons of leaving a note. Eventually she concluded that no one would miss her that much and, to tell the truth about where she was going and what she was going to do when she got there, she would have to admit to a lot of debriefings that had been partial, but understood as thorough.

Get ready. Here I come.

She put the strap of the duffel over her head and let it rest cross body. Taking a deep breath, she slipped the ring onto her right thumb and said, “Brave.”

She waited. Nothing happened. She looked around the room and listened intently for the sound of air movement, something.

Again she said, “Brave.”

And again there was no response.

After a half hour she began to think that it was Dart’s very fine trick on her.

Like payback.

The thought of that, never seeing Brave again, made her as queasy as a dimension shift.

Close to giving up and deciding that it was nothing but a cruel joke, she had another idea. Her heart began to beat a little faster because she was sure she knew what she’d done wrong.