by F. E. Arliss
Secondly, she wanted to beat the crap out of something and so she picked up her phone and called Graham at the black castle and asked for him to set up a training session with one of the Shu Han masters. She wasn’t taking lessons today or any time this week or next from Saulaces - he was in the dog house for now.
Thirdly, she wanted to figure out a way to be ahead of the game when it came to the machinations of her evil, manipulative, cracked-in-the-head family. How she was going to do that - she wasn’t sure. But for now, a good workout where she pounded something would do.
Thirty minutes later she was facing a Shu Han master named Gu Wei Mo. Somehow that name did not inspire confidence. It sounded like some sort of animated cartoon about an overweight panda. Not that the older man looked like an overweight panda. He was actually short, wiry, and wizened. His scrawny limbs looked like they were made out of twisted saplings that had been out in the desert for a couple of decades.
Remi would soon find they felt like that too. He was fast, amazingly strong, and for such an old dude, could twist, jump and spin like a ninja.
He taught her several new moves that involved using her opponent's momentum and force to evade them. She loved it. Being small and supposedly frail gave her the distinct advantage of surprise.
To her further amazement, it turned out that Saulaces had been holding back on her. This discovery just served to make her even madder. Gu Wei Mo had her striking a wooden post that was a common prop in a martial art called Wing Chun - again not the most inspiring name. To her shock, it turned out that almost none of this really hurt. She could pummel that post madly and a good resounding crunch of the knuckles against the wooden poles or rope-wrapped midsection simply left a satisfying feeling of what that would do if it was her brother’s face. Or Isaac Frishkorn’s face. Or Emanuela Rossi’s face.
Remi had always had a particular dislike for her oldest brother, Paul. He reminded her of the prophet Paul from the Bible - always sour, down on women, sanctimonious. She was sure Father Polenski would have been most dismayed to have heard her say this. At this point, Father Polenski would probably want to put a stake through her heart so it didn’t matter that much anyway.
When she was busy bashing the crap out of a wooden sparring post in the series of moves Gu Wei Mo had shown her, Saulaces turned up. She gave him the most evil stare she could come up with and was surprised when he stepped back as though she’d shoved a white-hot poker in his face. That was unusual for Saulaces. He was the one who created awe and fear by his mere presence.
For the moment, she shrugged it off and went back to sparring, ignoring him. She wasn’t ready to deal with him quite yet. One rage-filled battle at a time. Turning back she bashed the shit out of her brother Paul’s smirking face imprinted on the pole in front of her from a projection of her mind. What she didn’t realize was that the projection was real. Her mind’s eye was showing itself. Saulaces exchanged a glance with the Shu Han master. His open mouth said it all. They could both see the projection.
When Remi was done working out, she thanked Gu Wei Mo profusely. In a low murmur, he’d explained that her projection of her brother from her mind to the post had been real. She simply stared at him blankly until he described her brother’s image to her right down to the crooked front tooth that overlapped in his smirking grin. He also told her that the look she’d given Saulaces had a corporeal component to it.
That didn’t surprise her as much. She’d figured out from the Lobishoman lord’s stumble last night that the energy she often sent in a wave could actually be felt. Remi thanked Gu Wei Mo for confirming the information. Still, it was amazing. Wow!
When she’d stared at Saulaces with anger, a lance of energy had pushed her anger towards him, allowing him to feel it physically. Wow, again! Remi had simply looked at Gu Wei Mo with her own mouth hanging open. Finally, he nodded, bowed slightly, smiled an elfin grin, and then used one wizened finger to push her chin up and her mouth closed.
Remi had started laughing, then booked another three weeks of sessions. She wanted to explore these different powers more thoroughly. Plus, the Shu Han master didn’t appear to have any compunction about telling her about her gifts. Projection, amazing. Projection of images and projection of energy. It had been extremely satisfying to get a series of moves that were not in the Saulaces playbook. She supposed in a way, the projection deal was what the skin-melting thing was too. It was all projection of energies.
For some reason, she felt like Saulaces had used her. Well, of course, he had. He wanted her to represent the clan in the upper world. He had wanted her to feel sorry that Kandake was dead. He had wanted her to feel guilty. He was just as guilty of manipulating her as her family had been. She understood why he’d done it - for the good of the clan. It didn’t change the fact that she was still being used. Yes, she’d agreed to it. She had to suck it up and realize that she’d said yes and own it. It was all her responsibility now.
Her natural family had been shoved onto her by birth. This one, she’d chosen. So there was no getting around the glaring fact that this was all her doing.
On the other hand, when it was clear she had some gifts that even Saulaces couldn’t control, he’d kept mum about them. Really, that was soooo annoying.
After showering in her tower room, Remi spent the rest of the day looking over the Colchi business interests with Saulaces, Mr. Bemis, and Georgie. It was quite an empire and very diverse. The one thing that connected all the investments was the fact that each tried, in some way, to make the world a better place. Remi was impressed. Contrary to many of the clans, the Colchi’s investments and business empire was based on ethically sustainable industry. There were no drugs, prostitution, human trafficking, or weapons manufacturing.
What was present was a hugely diverse portfolio that included alternative fuels such as wind turbine and solar manufacturing; clean water filtration systems; medical companies that specialized in finding herbal remedies; entertainment companies that produced upbeat, family friendly entertainment; and historical and scientific documentaries.
Individually, none of the companies were big enough to draw attention. As a whole, they provided an enormous income to the clan.
Not to mention, of course, that much of the clan’s holdings were from old donations of gold. Over the centuries that value had sky-rocketed. There were also valuable works of art that were on loan to various internationally recognized museums and to Remi’s amusement - a rather large interest in one of the world’s most prestigious insurance companies.
Saulaces emphasized that they did not have insurance investments that dealt with human health or lives. Remi only nodded. She was still giving him the silent treatment as she mulled over how to approach his withholding of information about her powers. She was being polite, but distant. Something he was a pro at. When the boot was on the other foot, it was quite uncomfortable she suspected.
Three days later she was able to calmly bring up the matter when they’d finished business for the day. She’d asked Graham to bring a pot of tea for her to the terrace and she was sitting in the shade relaxing when Saulaces appeared next to her.
“You’re annoyed with me?” he asked. It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yes. Yes, I am,” Remi said matter-of-factly. “Withholding information about the powers that are manifesting as I train is disrespectful. I dislike the implication that I’m either too stupid, too rash, or too irresponsible to deal with my own body, psyche, and energies.”
Saulaces squinted at her, his yellow-rimmed irises widening slightly as he contemplated what he wanted to say. “I apologize if my reticence was read as disrespect. It is simply that no one, and certainly no human, has ever had such power at their disposal before. I was uncertain how you would handle it.”
Remi raised her eyebrows, but said nothing, quietly waiting for him to continue.
“I was also unsure of how your physical body would react. It was possible that such energies could deplete
your reserves and have an adverse effect on your health,” he continued.
Remi felt her blood begin to boil and willed herself to stay calm and keep an even heart rate. “I thank you, Saulaces, for your concern about my wellbeing. However, I am a responsible adult and your Queen. There is nothing that should be hidden from me. Especially if it concerns my health, the health of the clan, or the way in which I am able to interact with the world on behalf of the clan.”
Saulaces looked pensive and nodded slightly.
“In addition, I ask that you never withhold information from me again. It smacks of disrespect for my ability to reason and act. Something for which I believed I had your confidence when I was asked to step into the role of queen. Seeing your lack of trust in my abilities to use or control my powers - by withholding information - angers me greatly and wounds me,” Remi stated this with a thread of iron in her voice. “Please don’t ever do it again.” With that she rose and left him. Her anger rising and causing her to be unwilling to spare another second in his company.
The next few weeks were tense. Several times Saulaces tried to apologize, and Remi, simply always nodded in gracious acceptance, but still kept an emotional and often, physical, distance. His actions would have to mirror his words before she would accept him at his word. Too often had she seen people apologize over and over, but never change their actions. Actions were, as her grandmother would have said, the proof in the pudding. When Remi saw that Saulaces was actually acting to help her with her abilities and to support her with them, as Master Go Wei Mo was, then she would believe his apologies.
It struck her that Saulaces had never expected her to stand up to him in such a manner. He’d come to rely on his awe-inspiring presence to intimidate and control people over the centuries. A mere human was not supposed to have the ability to put him in his place.
Remi realized that this was always how it was, human or not, with women of power. People used them, sucked them dry until they were husks of their former selves. Hopefully, there came a point where these women realized that they could use their own power for themselves. They would quit giving their considerable gifts away and begin to use them to protect themselves.
Saulaces had betrayed her. Just as her family had betrayed her. He had withheld information that could have helped her, protected her, and made her more autonomous. He hadn’t meant to. But that didn’t change that it was what he’d done. He had probably been trying to protect her.
Remi had seen her mother live all her life as a pampered princess of her father’s making in a golden cage. Her mother was afraid. So she allowed it to happen. She didn’t really want to know what the family business was. Her grandmother on the other hand, had been fully aware, and once she’d gotten well into middle-age and could no longer be the charming debutante that her grandfather had wanted - she had suddenly embraced her wit and business acumen with a vengeance.
That was when the family business had really begun to flourish. Her grandmother had been smart and dangerous, and with absolutely no moral compass. Remi had clearly inherited the smart and dangerous. Now it was up to her to instill her own moral compass in the clan. The existing moral compass was good. But Saulaces had to begin treating her with respect and as a colleague. An equal.
He’d probably never met anyone who could be an equal except for Kandake. Her loss must have been felt very keenly by the ancient Colchi. For a moment, Remi felt sorry for him. She quickly mentally slapped herself out of it.
Saulaces didn’t need her sympathy. She should save it all for herself and the rest of the clan. He’d been alive thousands of years, Sympathy was not going to help her control her destiny within the clan at his hands. She could have compassion - but she needed to contain her own power within her own control. That was the hardest lesson for women to learn. They had the power. They had to learn to keep it.
Chapter Nineteen
The Veil Sheared
Remi had gradually begun to find a more amiable rapport with Saulaces. He had a special interest in alchemy and the tower opposite her room at the black castle held an astonishingly bizarre laboratory that reminded her of something out of a Shelley novel.
Sometimes blue vials were boiling away on small flames. Once the whole area around the castle had shaken with some sort of explosion. The castle hadn’t budged.
Over the next few months she met often with other clans for business and brokered deals with Mr. Bemus and Georgie at her side. She was turning out to be quite a keen strategist, as the lessons had shown after her coronation.
She and Georgie were having lunch in an outdoor cafe near the Louvre, where they’d spent an afternoon of leisure absorbing the wonders of the museum’s vast collection, when Georgie excused himself to go to the ‘little boy’s room’ as he put it. Remi simply turned her face up to the sun and reveled in the afternoon rays. Jin, always a shadow, stood in the shade of a small tree along the avenue where the car was parked. As usual, he kept a watchful eye on everything that was happening.
After their waiter brought a fresh pot of tea and Remi had had a cup, Georgie began weaving his way back towards her when a black motorcycle reared up off the road and careened across the paved bricks. Georgie ducked for cover. Jin ran pell-mell towards him. When the driver swung a heavy extendable baton and cracked Georgie on the head, Jin practically flew through the air, toppling the motorcycle and causing the assailant to crash spectacularly into a parked vintage Mini-Cooper. The car did not fare well. Neither did the driver of the motorcycle. His head was tilted at an odd angle. Jin took one look and ran to Georgie. He was alive!
Glancing over his shoulder to check on Remi, Jin’s already not beating heart froze. She was gone. The attack on Georgie had all been a diversion!
Almost immediately, other Shu Han began to congregate as he messaged, via internally embedded comms, that Remi had been kidnapped and Georgie needed an ambulance. The assailant who had assaulted Georgie was dead. At least Jin would keep his head for having killed one of the attackers. Now to find the Colchi Queen!
Remi’s world had been black for hours. Crap! What a headache! She tried to unstick her gummy eyelids and only then did memory come rushing back. She froze, stilled her heart to a very low beat and commenced to play unconscious. Her mind raced. Where was she?
The room, even with her eyes closed, was very dark. It was also damp and moldy. Great! Underground again. As feeling gradually returned to her body, so did the sensation of pain. Her shoulders burned like wildfire and her arms were numb. Keeping a tight hold on her emotions and physical reactions, Remi began to explore her situation.
Remi lay on her side. Her arms tied behind her back, hence the burning shoulder joints and numb arms. Zip-ties, if she wasn’t mistaken. Her finger where the intaglio ring was, hurt like hell. They’d probably tried to take it off. Idiots! No way was it coming off.
The thin pallet under her stunk of mold, damp, human sweat, fear, urine, and feces. It was almost the worst thing she’d ever smelled. Maybe it was. When she’d smelled these things at the Colchi conversion ceremony they’d been fresh. Now they were old, rancid, and, she decided, stunk even more.
Slight clinking sounds, scuffling of small feet, drips of water, and hoarse breathing met her ears. She wasn’t alone. Slowly she opened her eyes just a sliver. Darkness. If it wasn’t for her Colchi blood, she would have been blind. What she was seeing now reminded her of the few seconds she’d once seen of a TV show called, “Naked and Afraid”. It had been awful, so she’d changed the channel immediately.
The room was large. On the far wall, several vaguely human shapes squatted, slumped, or lay crumpled in random heaps. The clinking was from the chains that bound their wrists to the wall. Any movement sent the chains to whispering. A bucket sitting in the middle of the floor, reachable only by extending the full length of each of their chains, wafted a foul odor over the entire room.
The hoarse breathing came from the form on the end. It sounded to Remi like what her father called a
‘death rattle’ in his hunting prey. One of the prisoner’s was close to dying. The entire scene was like something from a serial killer novel. When her mind registered what it really was, there was no comfort in it. It was a blood bank for one of the clans. They were keeping victims alive and chained to the walls.
It was like a veal farm she’d once seen. Little weak calves, hobbled by one foot so they couldn’t exert themselves and grow muscle, had been tethered in their own waste. Perhaps the only difference was that the calves were then slaughtered mercifully and quickly. These victims were bled over and over and over again. Until they died, like the barely breathing body on the end of the chain closest to her head was about to.
The next question was where were they? If she talked, how close were the guards? Would they hear? Well, there was only one way to find out. Remi tried to roll onto her bottom. It didn’t work. Her neck was literally collared in a heavy mesh cuff and strapped to the framework of the bed. So were her ankles. She was bound and trussed like a pig for slaughter.
The movement, however, had alerted the lump emanating the hoarse wheezing. A gurgling sound wisped past its lips. “Don’t bother. You’ve gotten the royal treatment. Neck collar, zip-ties, ankle chains. I’m surprised they didn’t put the ball-gag on you,” this indictment was handed out between wet-sounding gasps for breath.
