The Immolation of Eve (Eve MacKenzie's Demons Book 1)

by Helen Fields

  He didn't bother asking me what I wanted to do; he just started to drive as I stared out of the window. I could feel absolutely nothing. No grief, no anger, just a great black void. In some respects it was the most calm I had felt since the death of the woman I had always thought of as my mother. I held onto the emptiness as long as I could until finally Patrick had to ask where I wanted to go.

  'Somewhere peaceful,' I said. 'Somewhere with space, alcohol and telephones I can take off the hook.' He took the next turn and soon we were headed up into the Tatra Mountains. We were driving north of Brezno and mile by mile the buildings slipped away leaving nothing but forest and rock. After a couple of hours I saw signs of a ski resort and Patrick pulled up in front of a large hotel called the Tri Studnicky. He came round to my side and opened my door, picking up my bag for me. I appreciated the small gesture and went to thank him but he held one finger to my lips.

  'Don't. You don't need to say anything. You can have all the space you need here.' We walked into reception and I let Patrick sort everything out. After a few minutes a porter arrived and showed us to the top floor. I’d never arrived at a hotel with a man I barely knew, with no reservation and no luggage and I wondered what the staff must be thinking. Then I realised I really didn't care. Today, that was the very least of my concerns.

  We were in a large suite and a roaring fire was already glowing in the hearth. The vaulted ceilings and wooden beams made it the most romantic getaway you could imagine. I felt as if I were wasting it, here only to hide and lick my wounds. Patrick was opening the bar and held an empty glass up to me.

  'Whisky, please. No water, no ice.' He rummaged amongst the bottles, put a drink on the table in front of the hearth and pulled a chair up for me, close enough to feel the heat of the flames. I stretched out, comforted by the warmth and closed my eyes as I sipped my single malt. Patrick had a gin and tonic in hand, sat himself down and kicked off his shoes. The little gesture of familiarity made me relax. I was surprised that for the first time I could sit and watch the burning wood without feeling anxious.

  'I've always been terrified of fire. An irrational childhood phobia, I was told. Funny, but I feel much less afraid now that I know it wasn't irrational at all.' Patrick took one of my feet in his hands and started to unzip the ankle boots I was wearing. At first I pulled my foot away but when I looked into Patrick's face and saw nothing but a desire to help, I leaned forward and slipped my boots off myself. He took my right foot in his hands and ran his fingers over the scarring, more red than usual in the flickering light.

  'You remember nothing at all?'

  'I would only have been a few months old. I've always felt a sense of panic near fire but I never knew why. Patrick, it doesn't make any sense. I must be the baby that Adela handed over. We've seen the adoption papers and my burns match the medical notes. She only had one baby and yet I can't be the child that Olga delivered at the hospital. What am I missing?'

  'I don't know, Eve, it's not making any sense. The photo of Sabina Roman, where did that come from? You hadn't mentioned her before.'

  'Something happened, when I was in Krakow, I didn't say anything because I had no idea who the man was.' I leaned against Patrick and told him everything, from the kiss on the train to finding the envelope at the bar. He said nothing as I spoke and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing as me; that maybe I was following my father's footsteps into insanity. Eventually we finished our drinks and I finished my story. Patrick stood up and glanced at the clock on the wall.

  'It's getting late. You need to eat and rest. Let's get dinner. We can stay here tonight. I'll get a separate room so please don't think I'm going to try and take advantage of the situation.' He’d picked up the telephone to call reception before he'd even finished speaking. I walked behind him and put the receiver back down.

  'Stay with me tonight, please? I could use the company. I need to know I'm not going crazy and I feel safe with you. There’s plenty of space for us both.'

  'Alright, but there's something I want to say first. I think you're beautiful. From the second I laid eyes on you I haven't been able to get you out of my mind. If I could take away the pain you're in and bear it myself, I would. Now, that’s quite enough from me. Let's go down for dinner before I make even more of a fool of myself.'

  I smiled and put my shoes back on. We ate at the hotel restaurant, making small talk about my legal practice and his life at the British Embassy. I thought how lonely he seemed as he talked about life here, parties and dinners with no plus one and no real friends. It made me aware how lucky I was having Naomi around for laughter, gossip or just quiet companionship. Not for very much longer, I realised. What would I have to go home to then?

  We finished our meal and went back upstairs, feeling better after a hot meal and having told someone the story from start to finish. I had a long bath while Patrick made some calls to his office, then dressed in a robe and crashed out on the bed with my laptop. When Patrick had finished his own emails he came over.

  'What are you looking at?' he asked.

  'Sabina Roman. Now I feel like an idiot for not recognising the woman in the photo. I've seen her face loads of times, background roles in films, not many leads though. I never knew her name. She's sixty now and I can't find any new films she's made for years.'

  'What about Adela Karas? Anything come up there?' We found nothing and I couldn't even be sure that Adela had stayed in the States. I'd had enough for one night, closed my laptop and settled down in the bed. Patrick did the same. We turned out all the lights and laid there just watching the flames fade into red-eyed embers.

  I turned onto my side facing Patrick, one arm reached out to hold his hand. We whispered together in the dark like that, drifting into sleep.

  'Perun called me Kukushka. Naomi says it translates as cuckoo. At least now I know what he really meant. I'm an impostor, moved from one home to the next.'

  Patrick was half asleep. He spoke drowsily into my hair. 'Literally speaking it means cuckoo, but it's used in folklore here, children's stories. It means changeling. I'm sure it was just a reference to the colour of your hair and eyes. You do look a little, well, other-worldly. I don't know who Perun really is but you should stay away from him, he's playing games. Try to get some sleep.' He drifted off into his own dreams as I lay with my hand still in his, a chill seeping through my veins as if all my blood were draining from my body.

  I waited as still as I could for about quarter of an hour so that I didn’t disturb him then slipped out from under the covers to sit in front of the dying fire. I turned my laptop back on and half hid under a blanket to dim the light.

  I recalled what Patrick had said about Slovakia being steeped in superstition and wondered if a mix up between babies at the hospital had sent Branimir Karas into madness. I’d loved to read fairy tales as a child and could recall plenty about human babies being swapped with fairies. What surprised me more was that my internet search brought up a real life account of a so-called changeling child.

  Michael Cleary, an Irishman had been so convinced that his wife had been changed for a fairy that in 1895 he burned her to death. He was tried, convicted of manslaughter and served fifteen years in prison. Records suggested that twenty-five year old Bridget had become ill, probably with pneumonia, and Michael had refused to give her the medicine prescribed by a doctor he didn’t trust. As Bridget failed to recover the priest had given communion and various family and friends helped care for her. On the night of Bridget's death at least nine people had been in their house. It was likely that fever had made her incoherent and Michael became increasingly insistent that she was a changeling and not his true wife. She'd had urine thrown over her and was laid before the fire to drive the spirit out. Eventually Michael threatened her with burning wood from the fireplace and her gown caught alight. He threw lamp oil over her and the burns she suffered led to her death that night. Her body was hidden in a shallow grave until its discovery some days later. Michael Cleary had alw
ays stuck to his story that immolating the changeling was a genuine attempt to get his wife back. Bridget Cleary was burned to death as part of some horrific folklore remedy.

  I carried on my search for information and found that in mythology burning a changeling will make it fly away up the chimney and return the original child. I felt my feet prickle as I read on and had no doubt that Branimir Karas had believed the same thing as Michael Cleary. Two things were sure: One was that the sudden appearance of a baby without Down’s syndrome had put Branimir into an asylum where he had ended his own life by setting fire to himself; the other was that Adela had put me up for adoption knowing I was not the same baby she had given birth to. At some point I knew that Branimir Karas had held my feet over a fire to immolate the changeling he believed had replaced his baby. It was the most dreadful thought, that a man could be so filled with fear or hatred that he would do such a thing and yet without the immolation, without the scars on my feet, I might never have known any of this. Adela must have known I wasn’t her baby. If it had been a mistake at the hospital she would have simply taken me back. Finding Adela was my only chance of getting to the truth and Sabina Roman was the only way to Adela.

  Perun knew more than he had told me but had his own reasons for wanting me to find out the rest myself. Olga had looked at me with something close to fear in her eyes as I left. I ran my hand along the healed arm where Perun had touched me. Folklore it might be but it was powerful enough for Branimir Karas to believe that burning a baby's feet could bring back a lost human soul. I believed that one person could heal another through touch. A week ago I’d have laughed at such stories. So what am I? A changeling? I bleed when I'm cut, cry when I'm sad. Yet I survived a train crash that killed everyone else on board and I heard music in the Dragon's Cave that brought a centuries old curse, if that's what it was, back to remind me that I could be hurt. Since my mother's death, fate had conspired to bring me to Slovakia. Whatever else I believed, I certainly no longer trusted coincidence. I also knew that running away from this wasn’t an option. My trip home to England the next day would be brief. I had to find Sabina Roman.

  The next morning Patrick drove me back to Krakow. Our stop at the hotel had taken us part way and he was happier to drive me than put me on another train. Without Patrick's help I'd have had no hope of resolution. As he dropped me to my hotel I asked him for just one further favour; to translate the file from the security guard at the Dragon's Cave and email it to me. He could see that something had changed but was dignified enough not to ask. He came to my room to collect the papers. As he went to leave I realised how little, nothing in fact, he had asked of me in return.

  I walked to him and slid my arms around his neck. He didn't move, didn't speak. I pulled his head down to mine and I kissed him, long and hard on the mouth.

  'Call me when you get back to England. I only wish I could have done more.'

  'I promise to call you. You've done more than you could possibly know. I’m not sure why you did it but I can’t tell you how grateful I am,’ I said.

  ‘I did it because I’ve never been able to resist helping a damsel in distress and you seem to be on a bit of a collision course at the moment. Try to keep on dodging the bullets won’t you?’ He picked up the envelope and left me to my packing.

  Eleven

  I got home late last night to find a note from Naomi. She and Tim had gone away for the weekend so she'd see me in chambers Monday afternoon. There was also a phone message from Nate welcoming me back. He was in Edinburgh on business but would be back Tuesday evening and wanted to catch up then. I could have pretended to myself that I felt guilty about kissing Patrick but my world was moving too fast to punish myself for one kiss. I sent Patrick an email to say I'd arrived home without incident then grabbed a couple of hours sleep before going in to work.

  By the time I arrived in chambers Patrick had emailed me the translated security logs. I printed them out in the clerks room, put them in a sealed envelope marked 'Private - By Hand' and asked my junior clerk to run them round to Marcus Brandt a couple of lanes away in Middle Temple. I knew from Marcus' clerks that he was in chambers this morning and guessed that he'd read anything from me straight away after the events of the previous week. The files showed a number of incidents of odd behaviour from visitors leaving the Dragon’s Cave. It was usually last thing in the afternoon, the final visitors to leave, a man and woman who'd stayed down there longer than expected. Often it was just the security guards noticing women looking distressed as they came out. Twice women had been seen fleeing with clothing ripped or out of place. Only once had a woman asked for the police to be called but there was no note of what happened after that. Even so, it would be hard for Marcus to ignore. I knew I wouldn't be able to use anything so vague in Court but I had no intention of letting it go that far. I was, however, about to do something which would probably end my career at the Bar if anyone found out. I wish I could say I was doing it for Albert’s sake, but I wasn't. I was doing it for myself, so that I could leave without feeling guilty about handing the trial over to another barrister.

  I left it a good hour and then sent Marcus a text telling him to meet me in The Devereux, a pub at the edge of the Temple busy enough to be safe and noisy enough for a whispered conversation not to be overheard. He replied almost immediately to confirm he'd be there. I walked across the courtyard and through the cobbled streets, ordered an orange juice and waited for Marcus to arrive. When he walked through the door I could tell he was back on his usual cocky form and hoped I wasn't making a very serious error of judgment.

  'Marcus, can I get you a drink?' There was no harm in being polite and I needed him to stay around long enough to hear me out. This wasn't a conversation I could have on the phone just in case Marcus was feeling paranoid enough to record it.

  'I thought you never wanted to see me again, or words to that effect, so no, I don't want a drink, thank you.'

  'I think I said I never wanted to be alone with you again and we're hardly alone here, are we?' The pub was bustling with solicitors and barristers all celebrating victories or complaining about injustices. 'Sit down Marcus, this shouldn't take long. You received the documents?'

  'Are you recording this?’ he asked. Marcus obviously thought I was about to exact revenge for his assault. I suppose I was, but not in the way he was expecting.

  'No, I'm not, and you don't need to say a word so even if I were recording it you wouldn't incriminate yourself. Now sit down and listen before I lose my patience.' He did sit down at that and I saw just how scared he was; Marcus doing as he was told was a very rare event indeed.

  'I don't know what you think you're going to prove with those papers but it's all speculation and hearsay. You're wasting my time and your own. The fact that other women have come out of that cave looking dishevelled is irrelevant to this case.'

  'How do you think I come to have those papers, Marcus?'

  'I suppose they came from the security guard. Why?'

  'Absolutely. From the security guard who came into the cave and found you leaning over me with my shirt ripped.'

  'And how, exactly, is that relevant to the facts of this case?' I could see a vein pulsing below his left eye, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead.

  'It's relevant because he and I had a long conversation when I came out of that cave. The fact that he produced those records for me proves what he thought you were doing to me. Why else would he have gone to so much trouble?' I sat back in my chair to put little distance between us. Marcus was silent for a moment as he considered his position.

  'What exactly is it you want? Do you want to ruin my reputation out of spite? Or is it money? That's usually what it boils down to with women.' His fists were clenched and I wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  'I'm going to put this very simply and it’s non-negotiable. You're going to persuade the prosecution to drop the case against Albert Cornish. You're going to tell them that the victim's account doesn't
make sense because she went willingly into the cave and has no external injuries on her body, which can't be right given the state of the ground. Basically, you're going to do whatever it takes to get this thing stopped straight away.'

  ‘You have no proof that I did anything to you in that bloody cave.'

  'You're right, I don't, but whether anyone believes me or not the scandal alone would be enough to end any chance of you becoming a judge.'

  'What else do you want?' I shrugged and held out my hands to show that I was finished. 'That's it? Are you stupid enough to believe you can get away with blackmailing someone in my position just to win a case? You must be getting more out of it than that.'

  'You know what Marcus? You may not be able to see this but Cornish didn't rape Angela Smyth. I didn't just show you those files to get you to drop this case, I showed them to you so you could understand that something’s wrong down there. Or perhaps you were fully aware of what you were doing and had it planned all along?'

  'You know that’s not true.' He hung his head and I saw remorse for the first time.

  'Then drop the case. You have forty-eight hours. Phone my clerks when it's done and don't make the mistake of underestimating me, at the moment I have nothing to lose.' I walked out, my face burning red with anger. As I walked out it started to hail. The icy stones were big and they stung. The freezing cold helped me get my emotions under control before I got back to chambers. I shouldn't have let Marcus get to me like that; I was supposed to be the one holding all the cards. It was still a gamble. In his position I'd simply hand the case over to someone else to prosecute and hope my accuser didn’t have the nerve to go public. The truth is I would never tell anyone what happened, unable to face the media circus that would ensue. I could only hope that Marcus's ego was bigger than his brain. Time would tell.