“This is a curse,” I retort to the sky, unable to pull free from Tau. “Let go of me so I can stop them!” Tau’s arms around me only tighten.
“No.”
In desperation I mutter a spell, “Hide the sun from my skin.” My flesh becomes cold to the touch. Bristling out, my skin elongates to a thousand sharp icicle points that cut into Tau’s arms. He flinches from the fleshy needles jabbing him while his own skin frosts over in a fine sheen of ice. It forces him to let go of me. My skin smoothes over and returns to normal.
The boatswain he had clutched in his grasp slips from his frozen fingers. Landing in the snow, the whistle gleams like a prism of refracted light. In a daze, I reach down and retrieve it. It warms in my hand. It has been waiting for me. Only me. Lifting it in my palm, its power surges into me like fuel to a fire.
Something grips me—some distant memory. Words fall from my lips unbidden, “In your hideaway, towers grow, so far away, in the dark of Sheol.” I place the whistle to my lips, my cheeks puff out as I blow; the sound of a thousand tormented voices howl in my head—they’re waiting for me to set them free.
Immediately, a rending tear forms in the air. It’s as if a sliver of the night sky has ruptured a hole in the fabric of our world. It stands open, a doorway in front of me to a wretched cityscape of dark, twisting towers. A vile, reeking stench bleeds into the air as fumes emit from the breech between worlds. Unbalanced and disoriented from the pain of howling voices, I stumble. An invisible force drags me toward the desolate gateway ahead.
The boatswain is stripped from my fingertips by Tau. He raises it to his lips. Darkness leaps up from the ground to pounce upon me when another few short wails from the whistle roll over me. I raise my hands to my ears; certain the shrill screams have made them bleed. I stagger as the offal reek of Hell flows back, ebbing and receding, a horrifying smudge of evil upon the landscape of home. The whistle shrieks again and I’m on my knees in the snow, retching and writhing in pain from the sound of it. The gateway to Sheol takes the shape of angel wings spread wide. Another long whistle blows and I’m swept away in the sound. I curl back into its resonance of the noise and spiral down. The sky goes black for me. My eyes roll upward. I fall towards the ground, but I never feel it.
“Simone...Si-moe-ohhnnn, wo gehst du hin?” Emil’s teasing voice calls to me in Deutsche, singing my name and asking me where I’m going. The playfulness of his words scares me more than anything has ever frightened me in my life. He only sings to those he plans to torture...or play with, which really amounts to the same thing.
Does he know? I ask myself. Fear makes my extremities heavy.
I glance over my shoulder at Emil. The waning light of day reflects off the crowns embossed on the brass buttons of his gray officer’s uniform. Having just come from giving his orders to his men, he looks impeccable in his knee-high black boots and single-breasted tunic. The black visor of his Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte cap hides the strawberry tones of his blond hair and casts a shadow over his eyes. I know his eyes without having to see them. They’re hooded, almost to the point of looking lazy, but they are anything but unobservant. The blue of them misses nothing, and of late, the only person they seem to seek out is me. They stalk me.
Some of the other German air force pilots are pulling out of Lille within a fortnight. British and American troops are pushing them out of France. By the end of 1918, the city should be liberated after years of German occupation; the tragedy is that there’s not much of it left standing to free. Emil thinks he can take me with him to his next position. He’s wrong. I’m leaving tonight. I just needed to find out where they planned to move. Now that I have the information, I no longer need to stay. I can be finished with this place forever—done spying on my enemies and leave with Xavier, my British contact, for Paris.
“Schätzchen,” he calls me “sweetheart,” as if he’s a lovesick fool, but we both know he’s incapable of the emotion. He’s without feeling, devoid of kindness or charity...or mercy. I don’t stop, but cross the red brick driveway from our main residence toward the carriage house. I need to collect my bicycle and be by the river at dusk.
“Simone, your rules should no longer apply since I have a very clear grasp of English now. Can we not speak in Deutsche? You need to work on your accent, Schätzchen,” He switches from playful German to amused English as he trails me. He has lost most of his accent; he sounds almost flawless. Deadly. I taught him English when he ordered me to never again speak to him in French or German. He knows it’s not my rule, but it amuses him to make it seem like it is. He makes all the rules.
When I don’t stop, but continue to hurry toward the gabled doors of the stables where I’ve stowed my bicycle, his voice turns stern. “Simone!”
I stop immediately, my feet as lead, and turn toward him to wait. He leans on the silver, wolf-shaped handle of his black cane; his left foot drags as he moves toward me on the drive. His limp is the second thing I noticed when I had met him. The first was that he has the face of an angel.
Emil had been a pilot early on in the war, but was wounded when British forces shot up his plane. He managed to make it back to his base and salvage his aircraft, a feat for which he earned a commendation. His award means nothing to him. It only serves as a reminder to him that he’ll never be allowed to fly another combat mission; a fact that causes him as much agony as the bullet still lodged in his leg. He has been working in intelligence ever since—stationed in Lille.
That’s how I met Emil. He needed a nursemaid—someone who could see to his wound and help him with his daily activities. I had been hand picked by him. He had found me when German infantry soldiers forced me, and many French citizens, into the streets of Lille on an April morning. The young and able-bodied women of Lille were to be transported to German labor camps by the order of General von Graevenitz. Emil had been there and had addressed the assembled crowd as carts pulled up to take us to waiting trains.
Emil announced that he needed someone who could speak and read English, someone who could also dress wounds and help him with his rehabilitation. Being the niece of a physician, my aunt pushed me forward from the crowd, thinking she was saving me from the slavery of a work camp. She frantically announced that I had trained under her husband to assist him in his medical practice, which was almost a complete fabrication. I’d been helping her treat minor ailments in the absence of my uncle, but I was not properly trained. Had she known what would happen next, I know she wouldn’t have spoken up. She didn’t know then that she was delivering me to the devil.
“What kind of girl is she?” Emil had asked my aunt, giving me a cool, assessing stare, like he was discussing a calf in the marketplace.
My aunt was only too eager to tell him, “She’s bright. She knows English—her father is French and her mother is British. Her mother taught her several languages—and the piano. She plays the piano like an angel.”
“An angel you say?” Emil had smiled. “How is her disposition? Is she skittish?”
“Skittish?” My aunt had asked. “Why no. She’s a very sensible young lady.”
Emil had slowly taken his pistol from his side holster and held the barrel to my forehead. The gunmetal was cold against my skin. I didn’t move as I gazed into his hooded blue eyes. My aunt beside me was aflutter, sputtering and gasping in her consternation. I barely heard her shrieks, my only thought in that moment was that I’d never see Nicolas’ beautiful brown eyes again or his boyish grin.
With Emil’s eyes still on me, his arm pivoted, removing the gun from my head to point it at my aunt beside me. The sound of the shot had made me flinch. My eyes strayed from his to my aunt’s body in the gutter. Blood had exploded onto the faces of the women who had been behind my aunt. They were all wailing now, screaming in terror, but I could hardly hear them as the shot had deafened me. I didn’t make a sound. I just stood there in shock, wondering numbly how that could happen. Emil took off his officer jacket and wrapped it gently around my shoulders as I
trembled. He then pulled my wedding ring from my finger and tossed it upon the body of my aunt. “You are mine now,” he had said before he led me away to his waiting car.
“Is a ghost whispering in your ear?” Emil asks me now. He touches my cheek gently. “You’ve gone quite pale.”
“I was just on my way to Olympia to see if they have any more of the jam you like. We’ve run completely out, and I thought you might want it for the journey,” I lie.
He has a faraway look. “You’re just as you were on the morning I found you—so pale—so beautiful. Has it really been more than two years ago?”
“Almost two and a half,” I murmur.
“The needle in the hay, that’s what you were, Simone, and I found you.”
“I hardly remember that day,” I lie. It’s etched in my brain. I have nightmares of it often.
Emil smiles at me now in admiration as he had then. “Nothing breaks your heart. You’re bulletproof. You’re like me—we both keep so many secrets.”
“If I don’t go now, it will be closed.”
My excuse to meet Xavier slips away from me the moment I see his scowl. “I don’t want your French jam. It will taste like the bitterest defeat now. I’ll never eat it again.” He watches me for a moment. His thumb comes up to trace my lips. I drop my chin. He lifts the silver wolf head of his cane beneath my chin, raising it so that he can see my eyes. “Do you know what I want?” he asks.
“No.”
“I’d like a kiss.”
I show no emotion as I lift my lips to his cheek and press them lightly against his skin. As I pull away, my eyes meet his.”
“You belong to me, Simone. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
He touches the lace of my collar, admiring the fine detail of the day dress he chose for me. “Good. Come, I want to hear you play while the staff packs.” He takes my hand and leads me back toward the grandeur of the main house. I don’t resist. Entering through the kitchen, I nearly stumble to a halt as I see the blood-spattered wall and lifeless body of Tomas, the head chef, near the cast iron stove. Emil’s hand gestures toward the blood pooling on the floor. “Tomas cannot come with us to our next location. I will miss him; I enjoyed his soufflé.”
I avert my eyes at once. Death is a regular occurrence here. I had thought Tomas had a better chance than most of surviving the German occupation. I was wrong.
Emil leads me to the music room. He opens the enormous doors, spreads them wide, and allows me to enter before him. The room is arranged with opulent furniture: centuries old carved mahogany chairs, gold silk-covered sofas, and a light-blue, silk tufted settee among others. Most of the artwork that had adorned this space has been removed, shipped to the Fatherland to be hoarded by relatives of the officers who reside here. Large, discolored patches of plaster remain as a testament to where they had been.
We cross the immaculate blue and gold carpet to the black-stained bench placed in front of the piano of the same hue. All of the silver frames near the piano have images of the family who had once lived here. I don’t know what happened to them, but they’re richer by far for not having to remain.
As I settle on the bench, I lift my eyes to Emil’s blue ones. The strawberry-blond highlights in his hair shine in the waning sun from the window as he doffs his officer’s cap. “What would you like to hear?” I ask.
“Play Johann Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D,’” Emil smiles. He drops his cap on the chair near us.
I remove my white gloves and take my hat from my hair, placing the gloves inside of it. Emil takes them from me and puts them on the chair beside his. As I rest my fingertips on the smooth ivory keys, gunshots explode from the floors above. My eyes rise to look at the ceiling, hearing the violent, high-pitched screams of women’s voices and the heavy pounding of running feet. “It’s just a bit of housekeeping, Simone. The staff cannot come with us; we have to be sure they won’t see something that they shouldn’t. I’ve given orders that they be...retired.” His hand rests heavily on my shoulder.
“You’ll kill them all?” I choke on the words.
“All but you, Simone. I have spared you.” He caresses my cheek before he urges, “Now play for me.” I hesitate for a moment, trying to think of a way to convince him to spare the lives of the staff. Emil leans close to my ear and growls, “Play!”
The first staggering notes are hardly discernable above the chaos and clamor. The pistol reports shatter the very air. Agnes, one of the chambermaids, pleads for her life, but her terrified cry is cut short. I concentrate on the keys so that my fingers won’t shake and I fade away into the music. I hide in the notes, momentarily free from the terror of the Lille chateau. It’s only when the song ends that I begin to pray.
I cannot stay here a moment longer...I can’t stay...Xavier, please come, Xavier, please...
Emil whispers in my ear, “Again, Simone.”
The pressure of Emil’s hand on my shoulder lifts. I continue to play the piano, frightened that if I stop he’ll change his mind and kill me, too.
“Dat’s lovely, mo chroí,” Brennus’ deep voice murmurs from just over my shoulder.
My hands fall on the ivory keys, making a horrible, discordant sound. “Brennus,” I rasp. I turn on the bench and find him behind me, a dark blessing in this place. My arms go around his waist as I clutch him. The soft, white fabric of his dress shirt soothes me. One of his arms pulls me tighter to him as he strokes my hair with the other.
“Whah is it? Whah has happened?”
“He has killed them all!” I sob. “All of them!”
“Who has killed who?”
“Emil. He gave orders to kill the staff!” I lift my eyes to Brennus’ phosphorous green ones.
“Shh…don’t ye cry.” Brennus’ thumb wipes a tear way as it slides down my cheek. “Dis Emil, is he here now?”
“He’s...” I glance around the room, but it’s empty. “He was here...”
Brennus scoops me up in his arms and holds me to him. My hands go around the back of his neck and brush up against his velvet-soft black wings. He takes me to a gold silk-covered sofa. Magically retracting his massive wings, he sits down on the cushions with me on his lap.
Brennus pulls the pins out of my hair one by one. It spills down my back with each lock he frees. “Emil might come back, Brennus.” My eyes dart to at the double doors still wide open. Brennus sees my fear and lifts his hand in that direction. The doors slam closed. “Better?” His eyebrow lifts.
I raise my hand and the furniture near the door slides across the floor and piles in front of it. I exhale and nod.
“Dat’s da way I came in, mo chroí. Dere is nuting out dere but an empty house and empty streets. I tink it’s jus da two o’ us here now. And whah are ye afraid of?” he asks as he wipes the rest of my tears with his immaculate sleeve. “Ye’re one of da most powerful craiturs in existence. I tought ye had learned dat by now.”
“It wasn’t like this before you came in. I wasn’t me—I couldn’t do magic—I didn’t even know magic existed! It was like I was living a memory...I mean, I was me...but I wasn’t really me.”
“Ye were na really ye?”
I shake my head. “No, I was her.”
“Eh?”
“Simone. I was Simone. She was me and I was her, but I’m just me now.”
“So now ye’re Genevieve?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Ye’re da one I like,” he smiles, still playing with my hair. He looks around. “So. Dis is a crap place ye’re livin’ in. From da outside, dere appears ta be a war going on...empty trenches, missing bridges, debris wherever I looked.”
“Big war.” I nod.
“Got caught in da middle of dat, had ye?” he asks. “By da look of tings, dis may be Europe.”
“It’s Lille, France.”
“Ahh. ’Tis.” He nods in understanding. “Dis Simone was French?”
“Oui,”
“Tings go bad for her?”
&
nbsp; “I think so. You showed up before I got to the end. I didn’t have to find out what Emil had planned for me.”
“’Tis a pity he could na stay. I’d have liked to have met him.”
I shiver. “Why are you being so nice to me?” Now that my intense fear of Emil is waning to an acceptable level, the very real threat of Brennus being here takes over.
“’Cuz I love ye. I’ll banjax yer enemies. I swear it.”
“I can’t trust you. You see everyone I love as a threat to me.”
“True, because dey are. I’ve gotten reports from yer house, mo chroí. Someting happened dere. Ye want ta tell me whah ’twas? Da fellas say dere were hordes of demons at yer door—in da daylight no less! Did ye take care of dem?”
“No. Something else did.”
“Someting? Or Someone?”
“Something’s stalking me, Brenn.” I whisper.
“Powerful?” he asks and I nod.
“Powerful enough to suck all the energy from me and use it against us.”
He growls in anger. “Genevieve! Ye need ta work on yer defensive spells! Ye should be wi’ me! I’ll teach ye how ta take power instead of give it!”
I scramble off his lap. “I’m with you right now!”
“Only because I came looking for ye!” He rises from the sofa as well, his hands in fists at his side. “Someting feels wrong about dis place. It’s almost as if ye’re na sleeping. ’Tis too real: I can smell da burnt food in da kitchen. Dis place lacks da haziness of da divine nightmare we shared jus dis morning.”
I pace in an attempt to stave off my growing panic. He’s right. It’s absolutely too real here.
“I do na have ta try ta keep ye here. Ye canna leave, can ye?” he asks in an accusatory tone. “Whah’s wrong? Why can ye na leave?”
“I’m not sleeping, Brennus. I...I don’t know. I may be unconscious. As soon as I wake up, I’ll be able to leave...I think.” I wring my hands as I glance at his hostile face.
Brennus takes a deep breath. His voice has the illusion of calm as he asks, “Where are ye now? I will send da fellas to collect ye.”
Iniquity (The Premonition Series Book 5) Page 7
