by S. W. Clarke
“You saw that symbol in my memories?” I whispered.
She nodded just once. “I saw it. Did you?”
I swallowed, met her eyes. Except I didn’t really see her—I saw through her, into my own head. I had seen that symbol … I knew I had. But where?
I retraced everything from that day. Breakfast, training, the boy arriving. Kissing him, being discovered by my father. The night’s performance, the attack. Running from the tent, being captured by the vampires. The gods leaving. And, of course, that final moment when I saw my family.
Which was also the moment I scarred him.
“It was …” I snapped my fingers a few times in quick succession, then growled. “GoneGodsDamn it, where did I see it?”
The old woman set the piece of paper to her chest, right below her neck.
I sucked in air. In that moment, I didn’t see her—I saw the boy. He’d had a chain around his neck, the edges of it only visible above the collar of his shirt.
I had seen that same chain around Valdis’s neck when I’d wounded him. He had thrashed, and the chain swung out from under his collar. It was an amulet. On the end of it, a metallic object.
An upside-down tree.
“The boy was him,” I breathed. How had I never understood it before? I was fourteen and traumatized, and maybe I hadn’t wanted to understand it. Maybe I hadn’t wanted to feel complicit in what had happened with my family.
But he had pretended to be the boy, and I had kissed him. Then I felt the thorns on my neck.
He’d tried to bite me. And when my father found us, he’d stopped Valdis from turning me. He’d angered him, and that was when he had decided to kill them all.
The woman’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Do you know what this sigil means?”
I refocused on her. “Not a clue.”
The tremor in her fingers had intensified. She kept the piece of paper to her chest, pointing with the forefinger of her opposite hand. “Angelic script. It means ‘rebirth.’ ”
“Rebirth,” I repeated. “Anything else you can tell me?”
“The amulet is used to draw forth souls from Heaven. If the sparrow guides souls to Heaven, this is what draws it back.” She pointed to the paper. “This amulet is used to find a certain kind of soul.”
“A certain kind of soul?”
She lowered her chin, her eyes finding mine from under her lids. “Some souls are fierce warriors. Their hearts carry forward into future generations.”
“You mean like good genes?”
“No. No, no, no—I mean what I say.”
All this talk of souls was making me feel as woozy as drinking a tumbler full of Jägermeister. Silence fell between us, and I shivered.
Why was I cold?
I glanced down and tensed; I’d had this entire conversation naked to the waist. I grabbed the towel and wrapped it around my chest. “Well, I’d wager my time’s probably up.”
She took my hand, set the piece of paper in it. “Seeing is one of the great trials of being human. I am sorry for what you have endured, Patience Schweinsteiger.”
This would be a moment to grip her hand. To thank her for allowing me to see. But something like nausea flowed over me at her intimate knowledge of my pain, and I stood from the table. “What is it they say? Challenges make the woman?”
She stepped back as I crossed to the chair in the corner and began pulling my clothes on. When I pulled a twenty out of my jacket pocket and extended it to her, she held up her palms in refusal. “No, no.”
I kept it extended. “Please.”
The old woman lowered her hands. “It’s your only cash. You will need it for what is to come—trust me.”
Instead of asking her how she would know anything about what was to come, I slowly replaced the twenty in my jacket. I had seen enough to understand that this woman bore some ability I couldn’t possibly comprehend.
I opened the door a crack, stopped. She was cleaning up the massage table.
Before I lost my chance, I went back, took her hand and raised it to my cheek. “Thank you,” I whispered.
She didn’t get the chance to respond before I slipped out the door and into the stark fluorescence of the mall.
↔
When I came into the front of the massage parlor, Seleema and Frank rose from their seats like anxious parents.
Seleema came straight to my side. “How was it?”
“Terrible. Awful.” I kept walking, and the two of them fell into step at either side of me. “But I got what I needed.”
“What did you see?” she asked.
I ignored her question and held up the piece of paper as we walked. “We need to head back to the apartment.”
Seleema held her hand out for the paper. She stopped hard. “This is angelic script. It is ancient.”
I turned and raised an eyebrow. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you know it.”
Seleema traced the drawing with one delicate finger before looking up at me. “Rebirth. Where did you see this symbol, Tara?”
“Around a certain ex-vampire’s neck.” I paused. “And in Paul the singer’s apartment.”
“What?” Frank and Seleema said together.
I resumed walking, and they followed at a distance. “Paul’s a good guy,” Frank murmured. “He wouldn’t have anything to do with ex-vampires.”
I didn’t even glance back. “I believe you.”
Seleema caught up to me with her arm looped through the crook of Frank’s—a habit of hers when she wanted to give someone a little nudge, I was noticing. “I do not believe Tara is accusing Paul of consorting with ex-vampires.”
“Not knowingly,” I whispered.
“You think he is?” Frank asked.
“By degrees of separation.” I glanced over at Seleema. “Do you need to finish out your shift here?”
The houri made a face. “It is true that I have made a commitment to the proprietors of the bazaar, but if you need me to accompany you, I shall.”
After her earlier scene with the littering teenagers, I knew what a big deal it was for her to offer as much. “Stay,” I told her. “I’ll FaceTime you if I need you.”
She nodded. “I will keep my electronic device close by for the Time of Face.”
Frank chuckled. “Babe, I do adore you.”
As we came to the exit, Frank and Seleema exchanged a long kiss.
I turned away, staring out over the parking lot. For the first time, I noticed my hands shaking at my sides. I lifted one hand, stared at it. I couldn’t stop the tremor.
This was adrenaline.
And for me, adrenaline was a big deal. Adrenaline didn’t come easy.
Why had my fight or flight instincts kicked in?
Because you’re close, a voice returned. Closer than you’ve ever been.
Five years I’d spent preparing to see him again. To finish what I couldn’t in that circus tent. And there in that massage parlor, I had relived it all—every moment of that day. It had unspooled again in my head, and now it was as fresh as the day it happened.
Fresher, even. Because at fourteen, I didn’t understand certain things. I didn’t know the boy was the man who killed my parents. I didn’t know what he would go on to do after the gods left—kidnapping and killing and continuing his sadism as though he weren’t human now.
As though he was still immortal.
And I didn’t know then what I was capable of. I knew I had fight in me, but I was brutalized and afraid. I was too young, too traumatized.
Now my body was telling me it was ready to fight.
“Ready to go?”
I glanced up. Frank was standing by my side with his keys out.
I nodded. “I’m ready.”
We drove back to the apartment building. While Frank was still climbing the staircase, I bounded up ahead to the third story. I went straight to Paul’s door, knocked hard and loud.
No answer.
“He’s at work,” Frank called u
p.
“Until when?” I called back.
He stopped on the second-story landing. “Until midnight.”
I cursed. “It’s only four.”
Frank’s keys sounded in the lock of his apartment. “Want a panini?”
“What about Annabelle?”
“She doesn’t like paninis.”
I leaned over the railing. “No, I mean, what if Annabelle doesn’t have eight hours?” I leaned farther. “Hey, you’re the landlord, right?”
He looked uncomfortable. “Yes.”
“So you have a master key.”
Even more discomfort. “Yes.”
“So you can let me in.”
“Nope. That would be a violation of my tenants’ privacy.”
“But Frank—”
He raised a hand. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Tara. But I think the best thing right now is to call the police about Annabelle. Tell them what we know.”
Now it came clear to me: Frank was that type of guy. Law-abiding. Good, yes, but also beholden to authority. A believer in the system.
He didn’t recognize his own personal power. Not when it came to this kind of thing.
“That’s a good idea, Frank.” I paused. “Make the panini. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes.”
Frank didn’t move. “Fifteen minutes?”
“I’m going to write a note for Paul and Annabelle. Leave it on their door.” I smiled down at him with the most innocent eyes I was capable of.
He gazed up at me a second longer, then shrugged. “All right.” Then he pushed his door open and went inside.
When his door closed, I went straight to the landing window overlooking the street below. I couldn’t wait eight hours. If I had to go where I thought I’d end up going after this, I needed confirmation right now.
I didn’t have Percy, but maybe I wouldn’t need him for this. I unlatched the lock, pushed it up. Not a very big space, but I didn’t need much.
I popped out the screen, set it on the floor as I mapped the layout of the complex in my head. The placement of this window would allow me to get over to Paul and Annabelle’s place.
I set my back to the wall, leaned out the window and gripped it from the outside. Cold October air greeted me, and the sound of cars moving below. I leveraged myself up and out in one motion, my feet landing on the sill.
I crouched there to get a proper view. Right of me sat the wrought iron balcony attached to the apartment I needed access to.
Except it was a bit farther than I’d anticipated—a good eight feet over.
I unhooked Thelma from my belt, let the whip drop to its full length as I got a good hold on the grip. I ran my thumb down the grip in just the right way, and the metal hook extended from the cracker at the whip’s end.
I eyed the distance, shot the whip out toward the nearest bar of the balcony. It wrapped handily around the bar, and the hook caught the whip as it came around.
I tugged, and it held tight. I flicked out the carabiner on the whip’s grip, attached the whip to my belt. With both hands on the grip, I belayed myself right, pushing out for a second over the street and swinging over to the balcony. I caught the bottom of it, pulled myself up.
When I climbed over the balcony, I patted the railing. “Good construction.” I unhooked the whip from the bar, replaced it on my belt.
And then, turning to the double doors, I made a prediction: Paul and Annabelle wouldn’t be the type of couple to lock the door to their balcony.
I pressed the latch down, and the door swung right in.
Bingo.
Chapter 14
“Hello?” I called out as I slipped inside the apartment. It was just the polite thing to do, of course, but all that greeted me was semidarkness and the scent of vanilla. Probably Annabelle’s influence.
I struck around the couch and toward the coffee table. I pushed through the pile of mail and discovered the folded Post-It note I’d glimpsed the first time I’d come into this apartment. It was the same piece of paper Grunt had handed to Annabelle in the bar.
I picked it up and held it up to the light issuing in between the open double doors.
“I’ll be GoneGodDamned,” I whispered.
I sat down on the couch, pulling the tiny drawing out of my jacket and setting it alongside the Post-It note, which was actually from a doctor’s prescription pad.
The symbol was the same on both.
Rebirth.
I stared at the prescription note. “Dr. Elvarish Drow,” I whispered, running my finger along his name just below the monogrammed symbol. “And you just so happen to be working out of Langone, the same hospital Grunt sent Annabelle to. My, my, the coincidences just rack up.”
A slow knock came on the apartment’s front door.
I tensed, still on the couch, and stared down the hallway.
“Paul?” a voice called through the door.
I stood up, grabbing the doctor’s note and folding it and the drawing inside the breast pocket of my jacket. “Frank?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Uh … is that you, Tara?”
I crossed to the door, unlatched it and found Frank standing on the other side. “Hi, Frank.”
He blinked at me, then gazed beyond me to the open double doors. “Your panini’s ready.”
I tapped my fingers on the door. “I guess if I don’t come soon it’ll get cold, and then you might have to call it a pani-no.” I chuckled, but was greeted with stony-faced silence. “Can we, um, just not mention this to anyone?”
“I have to tell Seleema.”
“Of course. Besides Seleema.”
He sighed. “I assume you’re doing this for Annabelle.”
“I’m doing this for Annabelle, and for all the future Annabelles out there.” I didn’t know why I was entreating Frank to believe I was trying to do good. Maybe because I knew he had the purest soul a houri had ever seen. That meant something, after all. “I promise I didn’t touch anything.”
Except for the doctor’s note.
Frank pointed over my shoulder. “Did you pick the lock on the door or break it?”
I glanced back at the double doors. “It was unlocked.”
He rubbed his nose. “Go ahead and close up, then. Let’s go.”
I left Paul and Annabelle’s apartment almost exactly as I’d found it. Downstairs, Frank had in fact made us paninis; the kitchen was fragrant with bread and cheese.
My stomach rumbled, but I had priorities. I pulled my phone out.
He placed one in front of me as I sat down at the table. “What are you doing now?”
“Calling Seleema.” I hit the FaceTime button, and the phone began ringing. After a few seconds, it picked up, and the video blurred as the houri fumbled to bring the phone up to her face.
A moment later, only the top half of her face appeared in view. Behind her lay the mall’s interior. “Tara?”
“Yeah, S, it’s me. Listen, I’m going to sneak into Langone.”
Seleema blinked. “I will go with you.”
“Really? I haven’t even told you any of the details yet.”
“You are doing this for Annabelle, are you not?”
“Well, yes.”
“And I am a houri.”
“That you are.”
“And you called me because you want me to use my feminine wiles to help you enter the restricted sections of the hospital. It seems likely you want to break into the office of the doctor Annabelle was sent to.”
I cleared my throat. “I mean, I wasn’t …”
As I stuttered, the houri’s beautiful dark eyes seemed to peer right through the screen and into my core.
Finally, I shrugged. No use batting the ball sideways. “Yeah, that’s why I called.”
“I will come home.”
Frank came to my side and knelt down so his face was in view. “Dear, that’s breaking the law. I know you wanted me to tell you when you’re breaking any laws.”
Seleema’s eyes li
t when Frank came into view. “Thank you, my love. I understand.”
“And you’re still going to do it?”
“Franklin, you have told me that doing the right thing does not always mean abiding by the rules.”
He glanced at me with something like regret on his face. “I did tell her that.”
I gave him a soft, sympathetic smile. And in my best Southern belle accent, said, “Well, you’re right as rain, Frank.” I glanced back at Seleema. “And the longer Annabelle is gone, the narrower our chances are of ever finding the sweet precious again.”
Frank rolled his eyes, but he didn’t argue with me.
No one ever argues with the Southern belle.
Seleema stood. “We go now, then.”
I nodded. “We go now.”
A child screeched somewhere in the mall, and the video began jostling as Seleema started walking. “I am coming.”
Frank stood. “I’ll drive over and get you.”
“No—I will take the underground people-mover.”
I glanced up at Frank for translation.
“You sure you can navigate the subway system, dear?” Frank asked her.
“Do not patronize me, my love. I will see you in forty-seven minutes, unless the trains are delayed by repairs or a human commits suicide by train.”
He rolled his eyes again. “Honey, not every human jumps on the tracks to—” But she hung up before he could finish.
As soon as she did, I replaced the phone in my jacket and stood. “I’m afraid I’ll have to take a raincheck on the pani …” When I glanced up and met his eyes, I went silent.
Frank’s arms were folded. He gazed at me with a severity I hadn’t seen before.
I straightened and faced him.
“Listen, Tara, if anything happens to her,” he began, then stopped. He ran his hand over his face. “Ah, I’m no good at these talks. She’s a grown houri.”
I nodded once. “I get it, Frank. You love her. You don’t want her to get hurt.”
“I can’t come with you to protect her. I’m not like you and her, and I know it.” He waved a hand at me, as though what I was was self-evident. “I’m not a fighter. I’m not tough. So all I can do is drive the car and cook you paninis and ask you, from the very bottom of my heart, to watch out for her.”
