Kindred of the Fallen (25 page)

“Our House has little experience molding an
ingenium
such as hers and I have never worked with one as powerful as she may be.”

“Are you saying you’re not fit to guide her through this?” Cyrus challenged.

Abbadon rose. “Instead of hearing what I’m saying, your instinct to protect your
kabashem
at the expense of the collective skews your judgment and taints your words once again.” He crossed his arms. “I have taken responsibility for her tutelage. I will not fail her, as I once did you.”

His old friend turned and walked out through the door leading to the garden.

Cyrus sat, reminded of the weight of his past and the dark shame he carried. The atrocious mistake he’d made nearly two hundred years ago had forged his current path and shaped his future, but Abbadon was not to blame.

Chapter Seventeen

Icy rain beat down on Evan, numbing his body as he waited on the corner of 56th Street and 7th Avenue. A white van pulled up in front of him. The door slid open and a burly man yanked him in.

“Put this on and we’ll take you to see Artemis.” The guy threw a black hood at him.

Evan put it over his head. A musty odor invaded his nostrils. The hood obscured his vision and did too good a job filtering air as well as light. He took shallow breaths.

They drove for what seemed like hours. By the time they stopped, he was shivering uncontrollably from the soaked clothing. The door opened. Someone yanked the hood off and led him from the van through an underground garage to an elevator. One guy wore a neck brace. Another had a cast around one wrist. The third one, wearing a blazer instead of military-esque apparel, looked as if someone had recently broken his nose.

Five floors below ground, the doors opened to a smiling Artemis. Lovely, but he sensed without a doubt also quite deadly.

“Don’t you look pathetic. I think I’ll have to take pity on you. Jagger, get our new friend some fresh clothes,” she said to the guy with the wrist cast and black batons strapped to his thighs. She turned back to Evan. “You do want us to be your friends, don’t you?”

Evan nodded.

Jagger disappeared down a carpeted hallway.

Artemis led him in the opposite direction to a room distinctly similar to one used for an interrogation room on TV crime shows. A table with two chairs was positioned in the middle with a video recorder set up in the corner.

“Sit,” she instructed.

Evan took a seat facing the camera.

“Once you start down this path, there’s no going back. You need to understand that.”

“Can you guarantee you’ll get her to come back to me?” Only one thing mattered.
 

“There are no guarantees. But I do know a way to get her back and to make it undesirable for her to return to him. First, I need you to give me what I want. Information.”

“How do I know I can trust you to help me after I tell you what you want to know?”

“The plan I have in mind will also serve the needs of my employer and has already been sanctioned. We have a small window of opportunity to set it into motion and I’ll need your help to pull it off. In helping you, I also do my job.”

“I don’t understand how.”

“Comprehension isn’t required, only compliance.”

Coldness crawled over his skin. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything about Serenity. What you know about her childhood, any strange occurrences you may have witnessed, her hobbies, routines, if she’s a late or early riser, how she takes her coffee. Every detail, no matter how small.”

Evan wondered if this was what it felt like to make a deal with the devil. At least he didn’t have to sign away his soul in blood. “All right.”

“Stone, start the camera,” Artemis said to the man in the blazer.

In her bedroom, Serenity faced the window, watching the cascade of rain. Projecting images of her father hadn’t left her as drained as she felt now, but she had never wanted to see him. Reliving his supposed suicide in her memories had been enough.

She thought learning more about her
ingenium
would be exciting and enlightening, but Abbadon had looked like a man preparing for a funeral.

Streamers of Cyrus’s energy brushed the edge of her pool, stretching from the hall to meld into one. He rapped at her door. After the second knock, the door opened.

Cyrus approached slowly, reaching out for her, but she stepped away.

“I don’t want you to touch me.” Her voice was a whisper. Pain flickered in his face. She turned her back to him. “If you touch me, I’ll feel better. I don’t deserve to feel better.”

“I can imagine how unbearable it must have been to end things with Evan, but you don’t need to punish yourself. It’s my fault things turned out this way. If I hadn’t used him to get close to you, you wouldn’t be suffering now. Please don’t turn me away. Let me comfort you.”

“The only thing Evan did wrong was love me. He’s confused, alone and in pain, while I get to come home to you.” She spoke softly. “I just want to be alone.”

The door closed.

She slipped off her boots and sunk down on the chaise, facing the window. Beyond the glass, the day remained gray and wet. The dim light slowly faded and once ensconced in darkness, she closed the curtains and switched on every lamp. She sat at the drawing table and images took shape in her mind like figures in clouds.

Her fingers whipped out sketch after sketch—all flawed, all wrong. Crumpling the paper, she began again. When she had gotten close to what she envisioned, skeletons waiting to be fleshed out and brought to life with detail and color, she set up her paints and canvas.

Threads of regret and guilt settled in her neck and shoulders, weaving into knots. The balls of tension tightened until her muscle fibers grew so taut she feared something in her might snap. With the breaking dawn, she had two paintings. One had a shadowy, blurred landscape that evolved into a vibrant, lush countryside. The other, savage and dark, was of a man floating on water as doves picked him apart. A saturnine expression draped his face, but his eyes conveyed his agony. Doves circled overhead, bloody pieces of his flesh in their beaks. His hands were shackled to his chest, unable to fend them off.

The room smelled of model airplane glue from the Liquin. Her fingers ached, but she refused to rub them. Her body, gutted out and empty, felt fragile as eggshells. Over the last few days she seemed to need less sleep. Perhaps it had something to do with her connection to Cyrus, but she’d do anything to close her eyes and forget for a few hours.

She changed into her running clothes and went outside. The cool air bit at her skin and she took off jogging. She needed to drive her legs forward, for as long as it took, until she felt nothing but the sweet delirium of fatigue.

Chapter Eighteen

The sound of knocking jarred Serenity from the clutches of sleep and she opened her eyes. Had it been a dream? A second rap on the door convinced her it hadn’t.

“Come in.” Her voice was scratchy. She cleared her throat and sat up.

Cyrus stood hesitantly in the doorway. She held out her hand, needing him. In a blink, he crossed the room and his long, thick fingers intertwined with hers. He glanced at the fresh paintings propped against the window across the room and climbed onto the bed next to her. She rolled over, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder. He held her and she closed her eyes.

“I’ve dreamt about finding you,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ll never forget the day you were born.”

She opened her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I was in Morocco on business and I extended my stay so I could visit the Imperial cities. I was in Marrakech when I had a Whitescape.”

“What’s that?”

“A legend or so I thought. I had never met anyone who actually experienced one. I was drinking tea and gazing at the stars when I felt a sharp pain underneath my mark.” He put her hand on his chest, just below his heart. “It radiated throughout my body and shot up my spine to the back of my neck. The pain was so excruciating it blurred my vision and brought me to my knees. Then everything turned white and the pain subsided. In its place, I was filled with love and such joy. In that moment, I knew you had been born. Without a doubt, I knew you were in the world and I had to find you. And it was on that eve I decided I would build this house for you. October ninth will mark the thirtieth anniversary of my Whitescape.”

She leaned up on her elbow and gazed at him.

“I wondered what your smile would look like, what kind of personality you’d have, how your voice would sound.” He stroked her hair and then cupped her face in his hand. “You are the sparkle in the moonlight and the melody in the music. I loved you before I met you, but with each day, I’m overwhelmed by how my love for you grows.”

She caressed his face. “I love you.” With all her heart, she loved him, and it terrified her. She’d stayed with Evan needing a durable connection to someone, anyone. The bond she had with Cyrus couldn’t be replaced or surpassed. Even though she’d only known him less than a week and it defied logic, she’d never been more certain of anything in her life. But everything good came with a price.

The intercom phone mounted on the wall next to the door buzzed.

She groaned and crawled out of bed in the dim light. “Hello,” she answered groggily.

“Come downstairs. I have a surprise for you.” Cassian’s voice was eager.

She yawned. “What kind of a surprise?”

“A really good one. Grab Cyrus and come down now!”

There was a click, followed by a dial tone. She hung up the phone and yawned again.

“That was Cassian. He said he has a surprise and we have to go downstairs right now.”

She staggered to the bathroom, splashed water on her face to persuade her senses to awaken and changed from a comfy T-shirt and cotton pants to jeans and a simple top.

When she returned to the bedroom, Cyrus had opened the curtains. Ebbing sunlight pierced the lavender and periwinkle sky.

Cyrus took her hand and they left her room. In the hallway, music played.

She gave him a curious look. “Do you know anything about this?”

“I have no idea.”

By the time they got downstairs, the music had stopped. From the conservatory, they saw lights on in the courtyard. Outside, the white stone table was set, lit white candles were scattered about and lanterns cast rays of jewel toned colors throughout the courtyard. Music erupted from the outdoor speakers. The sound of strumming guitars, drums, strings, and then whistling invigorated the evening, lifting her face into a smile.

Cassian strolled out of a door opposite them, shimmying his shoulders and dancing to
The Enemy Guns
by DeVotchKa. He grabbed Serenity’s hand and twirled her around several times. Then he pulled her close and put his arm around her waist as he went into a Cha-Cha. She couldn’t stop laughing as she tried to keep up with him.

He sang the lyrics, which only exacerbated her laughter. They whirled about the courtyard and she followed his lead as best she could. He whistled along with the song and she grinned as wide as her mouth would allow, carried away by his gaiety.

The song faded to a close and he twirled her so she stopped in front of Cyrus. An upbeat version of the jazz song
Sway
,
sung by a woman, played next. Cassian grabbed Talus and danced with her. Serenity pushed up against Cyrus and he curled his arms around her.

“Can Cassian heal more than the body?”

“He can heal emotional disturbances but only if you’re open to it. He can’t help with anything as severe as blood rage or the dark veil. He said he tried to heal you in the car, but you weren’t receptive to his energy.”

“I feel much lighter now,” she said. “Can all healers do that?”

“No. He thinks he’s weak but he doesn’t realize how special he is.”

Cassian and Talus moved like professional dancers, their movements crisp and exact.

“Have those two had lessons?”

“After Cassian discovered some show called
Dancing With The Stars
, he insisted on taking lessons. He said he would use what he learned to woo his
kabashem
someday. Talus joined him.”

Abbadon and Mrs. Carter carried several platters out into the courtyard.

“Abbadon cooked! We’d better savor every bite,” Mrs. Carter said full of glee.

Everyone walked over to the table and sat down to an aromatic feast.

“I have prepared monkfish in saffron sauce, grilled cuttlefish, mussels in a garlic and wine broth, salt baked sea bass with herbs, grilled vegetables and braised short ribs for our meat lovers,” Abbadon announced.

Lots of oohs and aahs rang out around the table. She didn’t know how it happened, but she ended up next to Talus.

“I’d like to apologize for the way I spoke to you,” Serenity said.

“Please don’t. It’s not necessary,” Talus said, giving a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

For a second, she hoped they might become friends, but just as quickly Talus’s polite, polished smile faded and her frigid exterior returned.