The Mephisto Mark: The Redemption of Phoenix (15 page)

“Do you go to see movies?”

“Not often.” Mostly never.

He took a bite of his cake and as he swallowed, he eyed me speculatively. “You’re probably not a girl who likes blow up movies, but I can’t really see you getting into chick flicks, either.” He turned the TV on and pulled up a lis
t, all in English.

Moments later, he said, “We’ll start this one and if you hate it, say so and we’ll watch
something else. It’s in English, but I’ve set it for Romanian subtitles.”

I was
surprised when it turned out to be an animated movie.
UP.
I polished off my cake before the first scene was done, which was a good thing because the second scene had me crying my eyes out. Zee smiled. “Sasha has seen this three times, and she
still
cries.”

It was sweet and so sad, then heartwarming and funny.
I was delighted and loved every second of it. When it was done, we watched the credits, which were as enchanting as the movie. I decided I’d watch it again, later, by myself. “Thank you,” I said from where I was snuggled into the couch, covered by a cashmere throw.

He scooted closer and pointed to different buttons on the remote, explaining how to load a movie, how to make it have subtitles.
He had it connected to a computer program that would translate any movie. I wished I could understand English so I wouldn’t need subtitles. Here was one upside to becoming a Lumina – I’d be able to speak all languages. I could watch any movie I liked and understand what they were saying.

“I’ll get you a TV for your room and you can watch in there. You can also stream movies off of the Internet, in case there’s one we don’t already have. Not likely, but just in case.”

“I don’t have a computer.”

He turned his attention fro
m the remote and gave me a shocked look. “Why? Are you a technophobe?”

“I don’t know what that is, but I don’t think so. I’m just very short on funds
, and computers are expensive. I used one at school to write papers, and I’ve used one at the library for different reasons, but I don’t know much about them, and I’ve only been on the Internet a few times.” I smiled up at him. “You look like I just told you I wear a fur pelt and club small animals for dinner.”

“It’s just weird these days. I’ll get you a laptop, and teach you how to use it.”

Another clue. Why would he buy me such an expensive item if I weren’t going to stay? I nodded and said thank you, then sat up and refolded the throw. “I’m going to bed, where hopefully I’ll sleep. My days and nights are all mixed up.”

“It’ll get better in a week or so.”

For stealth guys who spent their lives sneaking up on the lost souls to capture them, they weren’t trying very hard to keep me in the dark about the truth to things.

He walked me all the way upstairs to my door and patted my shoulder as I told him goodnight. He seemed suddenly shy and awkward. “If there’s anything you need, I mean anything at all, or if you just want to talk, or hang out and watch a movie or listen to music, I’m here for you.”

“I’ll remember. Thank you.”

“Do you play any instruments?”

I shook my head and resisted smiling because he was so serious, but what a joke. Like Emilian would have paid for me to have music lessons. In return for cooking and cleaning, Marta had paid for my clothes and food. It wasn’t as if she owed me anything extra.

“Would you like to learn? I could teach you
anything you like.”

“Why?”

“Because music makes everything better. Just listening to it changes your world, but being able to make it . . .” He was so solemn. “That’s magic. The music room is at the end of the hall where the TV room is, so come there tomorrow and you can decide if you want to learn. If you don’t, that’s okay. I’ll play things for you and you’ll tell me I’m brilliant and I’ll be happy.”

“What if I don’t think you’re brilliant?”

He shrugged. “Lie.”

“Deal. But maybe day after tomorrow, because I’m scheduled for a painting lesson with Sasha in the morning.”

“No hurry. We’ve got all the time in the world.” Unaware he’d just dropped yet another clue, he gave me another awkward pat on my shoulder and disappeared.

Chapter 8

November 6, 1888

Yorkshire

Tonight Jane will meet my family. Waiting for Deacon to finish knotting my tie, I’m nervous and fidgety. He looks at me from solemn dark eyes. “I’ve reminded your brothers of their manners. They will be best behaved.”

“What if their best behaved isn’t good enough?”

“Your lady will not think so. Because you have love and respect for them, so will she.”

I hope he’s right.
Taking a quick look in the mirror, I feel ridiculous dressed this formally in the middle of the night, but this is the only time Jane can sneak away for a visit. I nod to Deacon and pop out of my bedroom and into Jane’s.

I
n the dark, in a chair next to her window, she waits for me. I can see her, but she peers into the darkness without seeing me. She still doesn’t have enough Mephisto to see in the dark. I wonder how long it will take.

“Phoenix?” she whispers.

“I’m here,” I say, moving toward her.

She stands, already dressed in her shift. I’m disappointed and slightly ashamed of wishing I’d seen her take off her night
-rail. Nothing is so beautiful as a naked woman, and this one is mine. I’m impatient to move forward, but very aware I have to move slowly. She’s still firmly on the fence about me, and Mephisto. She’s been in London the past week for fittings of gowns she’s to wear for her season next year. She’ll officially be on the marriage mart, and with her beauty, her family, and her charm, she’s sure to have an abundance of proposals.

It’s imperative I convince her to stay with me, with my brothers, before she’s offered up to all the eligible bachelors in England. I can’t withstand that kind of competition. Maybe she’d be more
inclined if she wasn’t still so put off by what we do. It’s the Anabo in her, and the only thing that will change how she feels is increasing the Mephisto within her soul.

It takes almost twenty minutes for me to help her dress
, and I miss the simplicity of earlier times. Women are so buttoned up these days, it’s absurd. I wish she could just throw on trousers and a shirt and be done with it. I suggest it, and as I expected, she’s horrified. “I can’t meet your brothers in men’s clothing. It’d be indecent.”

I wish she’d be indecent. Just once. I wish she’d become Mephisto more quickly.
We kiss every night before I leave her room after my visit, but it’s never what I want it to be. Always awkward, consistently short-lived. I’ve begun to wonder if taking her to bed will speed things up. The idea has merit, but the execution will be challenging, to say the least. Jane is so proper, so ingrained with society’s notions of respectability. The freedom of women to enjoy their own desire without guilt waxes and wanes through the years. It’s my misfortune that the time I find my Anabo is during a pendulum swing to the furthest side of strict morality. Women do not have fun in 1888. Jane lives her life inside, reading, or embroidering, or arranging flowers someone else cuts and brings to her. The one acceptable outdoor activity, besides sedate strolls and croquet, is riding, and Jane has a healthy fear of horses. Not that I blame her, but all of my urging for her to try again falls on deaf ears. She refuses. I’ve even offered to let her ride Bailey, the wee, sweet Shetland pony Ty brought home two years ago. No, she says. Riding is for other people.

I love riding. Love horses. Love letting mine have his head
to race across the moors. I love to be outside. Staying inside all the time is painful. I don’t understand her lack of curiosity. There are so many things to see in the world, adventures and beautiful places and unusual food and different people. Jane is content to stay at home and read. I like reading, but how much more fun it is to live my life than read about someone else’s.

“Have you thought more about the balloon launch?” I ask hopefully.

“I don’t understand your fascination with those death traps,” she says with a catch in her breath as I tighten the laces on her corset.

I explain. Again. “
Imagine being up in the air. You can see forever in every direction. Haven’t you ever wished you could fly?”

“I’m scared being as high as a horse’s back. Being close to the clouds sounds petrifying.” She smiles as her gown settles over her head and I turn her to begin the long row of buttons. “I’ll go and watch you, if you like.”

“No, it’s not the same.”

“Don’t be cross with me, Phoenix.”

I imagine the rest of eternity with her. Will we lead separate lives? “I’m not cross. Just disappointed.”

Finally, she’s enc
ased in her blue silk armor. I reach for her hand. “Ready?”

She nods and I transport us to the front hall of the Mephisto house.
I expect her to look around, to ask questions, but her cornflower eyes are firmly affixed to the staircase. “How lovely to walk up those stairs,” she murmurs. “Thank you for healing me, Phoenix.”

“Of course.” I offer her my arm and we begin climbin
g. At the landing, I look down at her before we proceed to the doors into the drawing room. “Thank you for coming tonight.”

“It’s my pleasure.” She smiles at me. So sweet, so pretty. So perfect. “Shall we?”

My stomach is in knots as Deacon opens the doors and we step inside the room. They are all there, dressed as I am. Zee is playing the piano. Beethoven. Ty sits in a chair before the fire, his mastiff, Gretchen at his side. Key stands next to the fireplace, hands folded behind his back, his long hair bound in a silk tie. Jax sits at the card table, endlessly shuffling a deck. I wonder where Denys is.

They
all come forward, and I’ve introduced each of them to Jane, thinking it’s going well, about to invite her to sit down to wait for tea, when Denys appears. He’s dressed in work clothes; black leather and heavy boots. Holding a glass of whiskey in one hand and a red corset in the other, he’s grinning. And loud. “’ello, Janie, m’dear! I’ve brought you a present.” He weaves toward us and she draws a bit closer to my side.

I watch what happens next the same way I’d w
itness a train wreck – morbidly fascinated and completely unable to stop it.

When he’s only a few feet away, he stops, his eyes grow wide and he stares at her. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my whole goddamned wasted life. If my brother wouldn’t hate me forever, I’d take you away with me and never bring you back.” His jolly
mood is history. Fat tears well in his eyes and he looks at me. “Lucky. Shit, you’re so fucking . . . lucky.” He looks down at the corset in his hand before he hurls it into the fire. “Not funny. Aw, Christ, ‘s not funny.” He turns back to Jane and sniffs long and loud, obviously trying to not cry. “I’m s’sorry, Lady Jane. I mean no disrespect. And I promise if you decide to stay with us, I won’t ever off . . . ins . . .” He swallows. “Treat you like anything but the lady you are.” He sways slightly and blinks at her.

“Jane,” I say, “this is my youngest brother, Denys.”

She moves forward and kisses him on the cheek. “You’re very kind,” she says in her soft voice.

He tries desperately to stand straight, but he’s too drunk and she’s unbalanced him. Before I can stop him, he’s fall
ing into her and they both go down in a tangle of blue silk and black leather. I’m reaching for Jane when I see Denys kiss her. Not a brotherly peck. He holds her head and kisses her full on the mouth. I’m reeling with the need to smack him around for his betrayal and impertinence – drunk, be damned – when it registers somewhere in my brain that Jane is kissing him back.

I’m certain n
o one notices. Not even Denys. As soon as I’ve retrieved Jane and she’s standing next to me, her breath coming in short little gasps which I refuse to believe is anything but the tightness of her corset, I say to Denys, “You need to leave.”

He rolls to his side and curls into his misery. If I wasn’
t so angry, I’d feel sorry for him. As it is, I want to haul him up by his collar and shake him until his balls rattle.

Key steps up and
lifts Denys to his feet before they both disappear.

The visit is over. My other brothers are so
uncomfortable, it hangs in the air like a noxious odor. Jane is blushing, staring at the floor where Denys had been, smoothing her hair from its muss.

Without letting her say goodbye, I grasp her arm and take her back to her room at the Longbourne estate. As soon as we arrive, I draw her close and kiss her. I want it to be amazing. I want her to want it. But she doesn’t. I don’t. A terrible
, traitorous thought has planted itself in my head and no matter how many times I whack it down, it grows again.

Maybe God got it wrong.

~~ Phoenix ~~

My dreams were weird again that night. Not scary. Nobody was dying. Mariah and I argued about strange topics, like whether or not Harley-Davidson manufactured the best motorcycle engines. In the dream, she knew as much as I did about bikes, and I’d been building them since they were first invented. The dream meandered along and we were standing on top of the Eiffel Tower arguing about gender politics, religion, and finally, about whether caviar was wretched excess, or the most delicious food on Earth and therefore worth the money. Then we were eating caviar on a bed in Morocco and she was naked and the rest of the dream took awesome to new heights.

I woke up
in my cold, empty bed with a raging hard-on and said into the dark of my room,
“Damn.”
It had seemed so real.

I’d never had an argument with Jane. I’d tried, and failed. She gave in, or changed the subject. She never got angry, never called me on my bullshit, never told me to step off. I stopped trying because it seemed cruel. I argued with Jax instead. And the Luminas, and Deacon, who gave as good as he got. After J
ane died, I would let it build, then argue with other guys in pubs. It typically never ended well. I had cost the family a lot of money rebuilding pubs. And spent a lot of time on Kyanos arguing with myself because I pulled months and months of solitary after beating the everloving shit out of men who turned a perfectly good argument into something personal. I never threw the first punch, but once one was out there, I gladly took the bait. I was usually drunk and forgot I was infinitely stronger than my opponent. It never ended with me losing. Except I’d be sent to Kyanos, which was a huge loss. I hated it there. I hated being so alone. There was nothing to do, no plans to make, no one to argue with.

If Mariah stayed, if we could be friends, she’d dish it out and always understand it was as much for the adrenaline rush as to make her point.
Just thinking of getting into it with Mariah had me smiling.

And thinking of getting into bed with her had me groaning. It would never happen. It couldn’t. I needed to read something like algebraic theory before bed tonight. Maybe I’d dream simultaneous equations instead of simultaneous . . . other things.

Damn, that was a hot dream. If I knew for sure it’d be the same, I’d go back to sleep and dream it all over again.

I’d never
had a sex dream about Jane. She would have been glad to know, but I felt guilty. Jesus, my whole fucking life was a guilt trip and it seemed I could never get off the train.

I
needed to lay off thinking about it. I had things to do today. Rolling over, I saw it was six in the morning, already two in the afternoon in Bucharest. I showered and dressed, and by two-thirty local time, I was back in the park with a cup of stolen coffee and my phone, Google-mapping Mariah’s apartment building. I’d gotten the address from Key, who’d asked me to clean it up. Whether Mariah returned to Bucharest or stayed on the mountain, there needed to be no blood from the lost soul in her apartment.

I suspected Kyros also wanted me to see where she lived, and I was certain of it when I finally found it and went inside and began climbing seven flights of rickety stairs. He wanted me to know what her life was like in Bucharest. He knew how it would make me feel. So m
aybe I knew he was manipulating me, but it didn’t alter that he was right.

Gustav’s
was depressing, but her apartment made me angry. The building was falling apart and stunk of meth, there were cockroaches everywhere, and I know I saw a rat beneath the stairs on the fifth floor.

Inside her apartment didn’t make me feel any better. It was one small room with a narrow bed that was more like a cot. A tiny table and one chair sat next to a
thin window that looked out at a concrete wall. One corner of the room was partitioned off by a half wall, barely hiding a toilet and a sink. I assumed she had to go down the hall to take a shower. No telling what kind of people shared the communal bathroom, but from the sound of some guy shouting and another one cussing at the top of his lungs, and a sound I could only assume was a body hitting the floor, my money was on scary as shit. The showers were yet another place where Mariah must feel exposed and afraid.

I felt all the
weight of her life in my chest, bumping against my heart.

When
I ripped the bloody blanket from the bed, the scent of heather drifted up from her sheets. The blood had seeped through, so I took the sheets, as well, and rolled all of it into a ball that I left by the door for the time being. I looked closer at the shelves attached to the wall next to the door and noticed she had exactly three books: The Bible, Kafka’s
The Metamorphosis,
and
Life in the White House
, a photograph book Jordan’s mom had done for charity before she passed. Other items on the three shelves included chipped dishes, a bag of cat food and two small kitty bowls, a box of the Romanian version of Pop-Tarts, some toiletries, a tin box full of odds and ends like rubber bands, old, short pencils and safety pins, and a coffee can stuffed full of Romanian money. There was a slip of paper inside with a tally. She’d drawn a pot of gold at the bottom; encouragement, I supposed.