Tedd and Todd's secret (35 page)

They stopped speaking, while Aidan racked his brains, trying to put the pieces together in the most difficult puzzle that he'd ever seen. As they walked on, he ran every fact he knew through as many angles as his mind could imagine.

"I've arrived," James said, stopping in front of a building. "What you're about to see is the last clue I can give you."

"Why?" Carol asked. "You can do a lot more for us. I'm sure you can."

"Not now. Ashley wants to seal my destiny. When I enter this building I'll disappear forever," he said sadly. "Up there I'm going to finish in the most painful way. Life stinks."

The thin figure of Otis Cade paced nervously around his dark wheelchair as he gesticulated with his hands, running all the possibilities through his fearful mind. He was pushing himself to the limit looking for alternatives. There was always a way out, however complicated the situation was. The day before, he'd been able to give Ashley a good fright even though nothing had happened in the end. And now he couldn't permit himself any loose thinking. Time was about to finish and he needed to find a way to kill his adversary. It was a question of strategy.

A sound at the door broke his concentration and the options he was analysing crumbled away. He looked at the entrance in irritation and saw the silhouette of Ethan entering the room.

"Sorry to interrupt you," the youth excused himself on seeing the expression on Otis's face. "I wanted to say goodbye, friend."

"That's a detail," Otis replied. "I don't know if I would've resisted so much if it hadn't been for you."

"Of course you would've," Ethan said. "I was in your situation and I know how alone one can feel, especially at the end."

"And you beat that," Otis said, barely covering the fear that was tormenting him. "I'm going to lose and it makes me happy to be able to talk with someone before this finishes."

"That still hasn't been decided, Otis. Don't lose hope until the end."

"The end's already here, Ethan," Otis said, continuing to pace around the wheelchair. "I don't even know what to ask for my last wish."

Great sadness flowed out of Ethan Gord. He had no idea how to console Otis. For a second he regretted having come to see him. There was nothing he could do for him, and they both knew that defeat meant paying the ultimate price. Now he understood the Calvary that his opponent had had to go through, sixty-five years before, when he'd defeated him. Ethan had been so euphoric in victory that he hadn't given a thought to what price the defeated had to pay. Afterwards, he didn't want to know anything about the subsequent battles. He’d resolved to keep himself removed from the Blacks and Whites, until his son got sick and he decided to find a way to help him. Getting involved again, he'd met Otis and Ashley, the new adversaries, and discovered to his great surprise, that he could talk with someone about something that he'd always kept to himself. Ashley, as much as Otis, was grateful for his company in their lonely destiny. Ethan shared time with both, but it was with Otis that he'd formed a special friendship.

Now, only a few hours were left before the end, and although it was something he'd known from the very beginning, he felt great pity for whichever of the two was going to lose. The one he would never be able to talk with again.

In all likelihood that would be Otis. And he promised himself that he would never get as involved again with whoever occupied the wheelchairs. From now on, they could kill themselves peacefully and it wouldn’t mean anything to him.

"Good luck, my friend." Ethan embraced him. "Concentrate on what's to come."

"I'll never forget you," Otis said sadly. "I already know what I would like."

"If it is in my hands…"

"You're going to say goodbye to her, aren't you?"

"Yes, I thought I'd go and see her," Ethan replied, not understanding what his friend had intended to say.

"Tell Ashley that she's been a great rival. And that down deep it would make me happy to see her win. Having listened to what you've told me, she sounds like a great woman. She deserves victory. I deserve what's going to happen to me."

"Don't talk like that," Ethan said. "Nobody can know…"

"I know you'll tell her what I've just told you," Otis said, sitting down in the wheelchair.

"I will," Ethan promised.

CHAPTER 26

James White opened the front door and entered the building calmly. Behind him, Aidan and Carol followed grimly, their muscles tense, looking around them for any sign of a Black waiting to kill James, given the fact that the man in white had announced his impending and painful death back in the street.

Aidan Zack had been inclined to go in first, but remembered that he couldn't interfere in the ongoing mayhem. Anyway, James had already shown that he could look after himself. The little man had told them plenty in their walk along the street together, and the last thing they wanted now was for James to disappear forever.

"If you know you're going to die in this place, why enter in the first place?" Aidan asked as they stopped in front of a door. "We'll help you."

"Do you think I don't know what would happen if I didn't enter?" James asked sarcastically. "I'm heading towards my own death and I don't know that I can save myself by not entering. What sort of a fool do you take me for?"

Aidan declined to answer the duplicate James White. It wasn’t surprising that he was acting like he hated everything around him, because he was close to the end of his own life. His will had vanished along with everything else it carried. They'd ordered him to enter this house and he had to do it, whether he wanted to or not. Aidan felt sorry for him and couldn't stop thinking that it was Ashley, his wife, who'd ordered James here.

This last point dismayed him more than anything else. As far as he could see, Ashley was the leader of the Whites and Otis led the others. James, therefore, was a sort of soldier who belonged to Aidan's wife's army. It didn't make any sense that she wanted to see him dead. Surely that was something that went against her own interests.

James opened the door and entered a tastelessly furnished apartment where the air was stuffy. The doors and windows had been closed for a long time. It was unoccupied.

Aidan made Carol walk behind him while he checked all the rooms. James had already told them that they couldn't kill normal people, but it was very clear that when you were in the middle of a battle there was always the likelihood of accidents happening. And unfortunately that had been the case with Lance.

"There's nobody here," he said to Carol as they went back to the living room and found James standing as still as a statue in the middle of the room.

"Whatever, happens, don't even think of touching me," he said in a serious voice. "It's for your own good. Goodbye, Aidan, remember what I warned you."

And suddenly it began.

Aidan and Carol knew that this short man dressed in a white suit had walked away from an accident that had killed dozens of people and they'd seen him jump through a sixth-storey window with their own eyes. They should have been prepared for anything, but when it started that did not help.

James proffered a chilling scream and arched his back to the point of breaking. Aidan’s first impression was that someone had stabbed him with a spear, but that was an error of judgement. There was no one else there. James bent himself forward and fell to the floor, throwing terrible punches with his bare knuckles into the carpet below, screaming desperately.

Carol held on to Aidan, who watched horrified at whatever was tormenting James. He must have been poisoned or something like that, Aidan thought. There was no sign of anyone else in the room. Whatever was happening appeared to be his own internal battle.

The screams were getting louder. James was exchanging one impossible painful position for the next, his small body shaking violently. Then suddenly he lifted himself onto his knees, with suffering written across his face. He was putting unbelievable pressure on his jaw. He extended his left arm and realized that it wasn't his, then it fractured on its own. Aidan and Carol heard the crack ring through the room and watched horrified as the arm stretched further. It grew a few centimetres, losing hair as it did.

James rolled on the carpet as more bones cracked inside him. He was no longer screaming; exhausted groans limped out of his mouth when he had enough strength. His legs had suffered the same fate as his arms. They had been broken from the inside, then stretched and begun to set again. They'd outgrown the length of his trousers. The hair had also disappeared and in the end his white suit began to rip on not being able to support the new body within. Between pants and atrocious convulsions, James took off his shoes and threw them away. The hair on his head had grown, and was now hanging halfway down his back.

"My God!" Carol exclaimed gripping Aidan's hand for dear life. "What's happening? We've got to help him."

"He warned us to stay out of it," Aidan reminded her. "We can't do anything for him."

He hugged Carol against his chest, trying to keep her from watching the unfolding horror.

James's body continued deforming itself before rebuilding. His head was partially covered by a blond mane, his lips were fleshier, his nose flatter and as with the rest of his body, he had less hair. His eyebrows were no longer bushy, his voice, expressed in groans and sobs, was sharper, the tone different, there was little doubt that his throat had undergone the same changes. Aidan stared at his chest and understood suddenly that he was transforming into a woman.

A very tall woman.

Silence filled the room. The two witnesses didn't dare breathe, as they continued to watch the transformation on the carpet. A few minutes had passed since James White had moved. Then the body moved slowly, and stood up, looking around the room, frowning.

In front of the amazed eyes of the couple, a nude woman, as tall as Aidan, turned around and looked at them. Instinctively she crouched, collected the ripped pieces of the white suit on the floor and covered herself as best she could.

"Who are you?" she asked, frightened.

"Don't you know us?" Carol asked.

"Don't worry about us," Aidan said trying to reassure her. "Here, cover yourself with this."

He gave her his coat and she grabbed it quickly and covered herself. Aidan recognized her face as soon as he saw it, and the idea that was forming in his head began to make more sense. She was the same as Helen Black, except for the colour of her hair and her eyes. Those belonged to the Whites.

"I'm a policeman. My name's Aidan. What's your name?"

"Helen, Helen White," she answered without deliberating.

And then everything made sense to Aidan. The truth stormed through his mind with frightening speed. He went over the details that he knew and they all started fitting together. Just as James White had told them, his transformation into Helen White had been a clue. The other had been a sentence, when James had explained that his will didn't matter because he was only Ashley's pawn. Then, Aidan couldn't have imagined that James had been talking literally.

"You aren't James White?" Carol wanted to know, still in the dark as to what had happened.

"No," Aidan answered walking up to Helen. "James has gone forever, just like he said he would."

"How can he be a woman now? I don't get it."

"Listen carefully, Carol. He isn't a woman. This is a lady, or better said, a queen."

Carol sounded more confused. "A queen? What are you talking about?"

"She is a white queen," Aidan explained patiently. "James was a pawn. It's incredible, but we have been watching a game of chess."