Fire on the Island (33 page)

They were
greeted at the front door, not by a doctor or medical staff, but by Alexei
Vasiliev, the solicitor. The man looked rather eerie himself, like he belonged
in the freakish establishment with his pale skin, dark hair and eyes, and
coal-grey suit.

"I am glad
you decided to come, Miss MacAllen. I am a strong believer in the importance of
closure." He shook hands first with Isla, and then with Jeremiah. When
they stepped into the foyer, the only sound that could be heard was their feet
tapping on the marble floors and the distant beeping of a heart monitor.

As they
descended a long hallway, lit by flickering fluorescent bulbs, Isla eyed the
crumbling ceiling and the walls where the paint was peeling away.

Isla had to
bite the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something about the
conditions. Despite her resolve, she lost the battle.

"Who takes
care of the...upkeep of the facility?" she asked with what could only be
described as a haughty sniff.

Vasiliev did
have the good grace to look apologetic when he answered. "The asylum is
running on a skeleton crew right now with just enough staff to care for the
remaining residents."

"Remaining
residents?"

The young man
nodded while ushering them into the stairwell. "Yes. The current residents
will be the last to live here. Benton Heights lost government funding and
private donations have long since stopped coming. It was decided that the
current residents would be allowed to stay until the time that they pass away,
after which the facility will close for good."

"Why not
just transport the residents to other institutions?" Jeremiah asked as
they reached the third floor and exited the stairwell.

Alexei stopped in
his tracks and turned slowly, pinning them with an intense stare. "Make no
mistake, while this is not a prison,
all
of the patients here are
extremely dangerous and are in various stages of mental decay. Please don't
forget that."

He started down
a narrow corridor and they followed him. "Benton Heights had neither the
security nor the resources to transport the residents. And, frankly, no one
would take them. Since most of them could not survive in a prison environment,
due to severe psychoses, it was decided to let them continue on living
here."

They stopped in
front of a thick metal door with a small, square window inset in it. There was
a cracked nameplate underneath the window that read
E. MacAllen
. Taking
a deep breath, Isla looked over at Jeremiah, and he nodded. Yep, this was
happening.

"Are you
ready?" Alexei asked.

"As ready
as I'll ever be to confront my would-be murderer," she mumbled. The
solicitor knocked lightly on the door but didn't seem to expect an answer.
Sticking a key in the lock, he shoved the heavy door open with a creak.

The three of
them stepped into the dimly lit room, and then Alexei nodded to them.
"I'll wait outside. Take all the time you need."

There were
similarities with Mhairi's room at Sacred Hearts—sparsely furnished with a bed,
table, and rocking chair, and a crucifix above the bed. However, Eileen's room
was dusty and unkempt with water stains on the ceiling and cracked linoleum on
the floor.

It was the wall
beside the bed that immediately drew their attention. There were dozens of
drawings taped to the walls. They looked like the scribbles of a child, but the
subjects were eerie screaming figures and what appeared to be runic symbols.
There were also incoherent writings carved and painted into the eggshell paint,
some under the pictures and some over.

Eileen lay on
the bed on her side, facing away from them. At least, Isla thought it was her.
Her face wasn't visible from that position. She jumped at the sound of metal
scratching across the linoleum as Jeremiah pulled up a chair for her.

Sorry
, he mouthed. Slowly, she lowered herself
onto the chair and wiped sweaty palms on her jeans. She cleared her throat
once, then again. "Hello, Eileen. Mr. Vasiliev told us that you had asked
to see me." Her voice was gravelly, and she couldn't catch her breath. She
didn't sound like herself.

The frail body
in the middle of the bed rose up and Eileen turned to face them. No matter how
much mental preparation she had gone through to get ready for that moment, it
still struck Isla like a punch to the gut.

Her face was
gaunt, her body skeletal. Black hair was scraped away from her face into a
severe bun, lips pinched from age and hard living. But her eyes were bright,
sharp, and exactly how Isla remembered them. In-
fucking
-sane.

The unfocused
eyes rolled toward her and zeroed in on her face. “Thought I’d killed you.”

Isla felt
Jeremiah tense from where he stood behind her, arms crossed like a bouncer,
glaring at Eileen. The statement didn’t faze her too much—she had expected
hatred, so mild unpleasantness was tolerable.

“You certainly
tried,” Isla answered, careful to keep her tone bland. Eileen cleared her
throat gruffly, as if her voice hadn't been used in years.

"No...I mean
I thought you were dead. It wasn't until I had Alexei start researching my
family tree to settle my estate that we realized you were still living. I'm
surprised you kept my last name," Eileen finished coldly.

Isla pinned her
with a jade green glare, refusing to be intimidated. "I kept my father's
last name. Besides, I've nothing to hide." Eileen snorted, but didn't
comment on who exactly her father
was
. Isla didn't want to show her hand
too early.

"Mhairi
was alive too, contrary to what you told me growing up."

"Was?"

"She
passed away two days ago at her assisted living facility."

Eileen shrugged
a bony shoulder, but her eyes were sharp. "Did you see her before she
died?"

"Aye.
Once."

While the older
woman digested that, she focused her attention on Jeremiah. "Who's
this?" Jeremiah remained still and silent, allowing Isla to direct the
conversation. He continued to scowl at the woman.

"This is
Dr. Rousseau. Jeremiah."

"A doctor?
My dear, I've already been committed."

It was
Jeremiah's turn to snort. "If I were in charge of your care, you'd be more
than committed. I'm a doctor of parapsychology." He narrowed his eyes at
her, gauging her reaction.

Raising an
eyebrow at Jeremiah, Eileen sneered at her daughter. "He's your
lover." It wasn't a question.

"My personal
life isn't any of your business."

Ignoring Isla's
comment, Eileen looked Jeremiah up and down. "He's handsome. The handsome
ones are always dangerous."

Isla rolled her
eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Spare me the motherly advice.
We're way past that. Why did you ask to see me?"

Shrugging
again, Eileen stared at some point on the far wall. "Just to see if you'd
come, I imagine. Why did you?"

There wasn't
any reason to lie. "To get some closure, I guess. Maybe some questions
answered. You going to try and kill me again?"

Eileen stared
at her and grinned happily. It was eerie to face a woman who looked so much
like her mirror image, staring back at her with madness clouding her eyes.
"No need. Your days are numbered anyway. The demon will come to claim you
soon," she said in a sing song voice.

Gritting her
teeth, Isla took a calming breath to keep from strangling her mother.
"Well, since you brought it up, what can you tell me about Daddy
Dearest?"

Pursing her
lips, Eileen glanced at the window and then turned back to Isla. "Charlie
was—"

"We both
know that I wasn't talking about Charlie. Tell me about Alastore." Eileen
shrank back against the wall and hissed as if she'd been bitten. "Don't
speak his name to me!"

Isla wasn't
proud of the little tingling of satisfaction she got from rattling Eileen's
calm exterior, but it was there nonetheless. She waited a beat until the
woman's body relaxed.

"How did
he come to you? I got the feeling it wasn't your intention to be unfaithful to
your husband."

Eileen shook
her head vehemently and tears gathered in her eyes. "No, never. I loved my
Charlie.
He
," she spat the word, "began coming to me in
dreams, taunting me with my darkest fears and most depraved desires. I would
often wake up somewhere else in the house, or even outside, with no memory of
how I got there."

Isla's eyes
widened, and although a sharp intake of breath was the only sound she made,
Eileen's fierce gaze zeroed in on her. "It's happened to you, too."

"Only
once."

Laughing
humorlessly, she continued. "How it starts. He finally came to me one
night when Charlie was in the city on business. I always used to think that he
approached me disguised as Charlie, but in retrospect, it was much more simple
than that."

"How
so?" Jeremiah asked, leaning forward in the chair he had pulled up for
himself. Isla smiled to herself at his inquisitive nature.

"I think
somehow he put the suggestion in my mind that I was really seeing Charlie.
Occasionally, the truth would sink in, and their faces would become
interchangeable. The demon was so handsome and compelling in his own right that
I just turned a blind eye to what I knew inside. That this was not my
husband."

The unexpected swell
of sympathy that rose inside of Isla scared her just a little. "Why would
he do that? Seek out an average human woman to seduce? What does he gain from
tricking you into bed?"

"You."
Jeremiah spoke up, and Isla was surprised to see Eileen nod at him, respect
evident on her ravaged face.

"Exactly
right," she said. "This 'average human woman', as you put it, would
be the mother of the next generation of one of the most powerful witch
bloodlines ever to exist."

Isla snorted,
disbelief coloring her face. "That's not what you used to say. The old
ways that Mhairi practiced were anything from pure nonsense to devil worship,
according to you!"

Shaking her
head sadly, Eileen lifted a shaking hand to pat at her hair. "I did say
those things, yes. Part of it was denial—I didn't want to believe such things
existed—and another part of it was pure selfishness. It was a part of my mother
that I would never get to share...never get to understand. Adolescent
frustration turns into hurt and anger...and so on and so forth."

Isla's eyes
widened as it occurred to her that she had never once considered Eileen's
perspective. What it would be like growing up with a mother who was a powerful
bruixi
,
knowing that she would forever be ordinary. "I can see how that may have
been hard," she capitulated.

"Let's get
back to Alastore," Jeremiah said. "What do you think he sought to
accomplish by setting out to create a
Lochrim-Bruixi
hybrid?"

Looking at him
as she would a slow child, Eileen leaned forward to pat his hand. To his credit,
he only recoiled slightly. “To create the ultimate weapon, dear. An offspring
that he could nurture and train in his depraved ways, with the power to destroy
the race.”

“That’s why you
tried to kill me.”

Eileen nodded,
and it chilled Isla to see the utter lack of remorse in her face. “He would
have taken you. Used you as a weapon to destroy us all. Whatever my feelings
toward my mother, I am positive that the
vigilati
are the only barrier
between our world and a hell like no one has ever known.”

"Bullshit.
Let's not pretend you didn't go bat-shit crazy and start believing that Isla
was the devil's daughter.
And
let's recognize that Isla was a living,
breathing reminder of your weak-willed infidelity, and rather than directing
that anger toward yourself, where it belonged, you took it out on an
eight-year-old child!"

Isla gasped,
and Eileen screeched as she reared back her hand to slap him. He snagged her
wrist before she could connect and squeezed just a little harder than was
necessary. She clenched her teeth and glared at him.

"We can
sit here like normal human beings and have a rational discussion about a mutual
enemy, but what we aren't going to do is forget who and what
you
are."

Jeremiah gaped
at the older woman when she dissolved into a fit of maniacal giggles. He
dropped her wrist like she was a leper.

"Doesn't
matter!" More cackling. "None of it matters. He's found you now and
he will have you!" Hearing her mother parrot the words Alastore had said
days before caused Isla's skin to crawl.

"He still
visits me, you know. I know about all of his plans for you. Samhain approaches,
dear."

Jeremiah
slapped heavy hands onto his knees and stood up. "Yep, time to go. That’s
enough, Isla." Smiling sadly, she nodded to him and stood. "Goodbye,
Eileen." They turned and headed for the door.

"You will
be the downfall of your people, Isla. Remember that," she called happily.
Isla froze, shoulders tensed, and slowly turned back around to face her mother.