Where Oblivion Lives

by T. Frohock

  No one seemed to be following him.

  He still had some time, so he went to the hotel’s restaurant and ordered an early dinner. While he waited for his meal, he removed the brooch from his pocket and examined it again.

  Further attempts to divine the stone had resulted in the same images. Like a film stuck on repeat. Whenever he tried to move past the vision in the tower, the ghost-music would resume, growing louder until it drowned his ability to concentrate. Because it doesn’t want me to see the truth. Although even now he wasn’t sure if “it” referred to the music or to the entity that manipulated the song.

  The waiter interrupted his musings with his meal. Diago pocketed the pin and ate while watching the door. At five fifteen, his contact entered the lobby. She still wore her uniform.

  He raised his hand and caught her eye. She breezed past the maître d’, who did his utmost to intercept her path. He rushed behind her, but before he reached them, Diago rose and held her chair.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” The flustered mortal bowed and apologized. “She doesn’t belong here.”

  Diago took several francs from his pocket and pressed them against the man’s palm. “Bring the lady a glass of wine.”

  “Whiskey,” she said as she smoothed her trousers.

  “Whiskey,” Diago reiterated as he passed more francs between them.

  With an exasperated sigh, the maître d’ nodded and gestured to the waiter.

  Diago took his seat. “You have me at a disadvantage, madam.”

  She extended her hand over the table. “Lorelei Fischer.”

  Lorelei. Of course, the maiden of the rock. He took her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “You are a long way from home, Lorelei Fischer.”

  “The Rhine is my home.”

  “I should have known.” He released her. “Diago Alvarez, at your service.” The waiter came with her drink. When he left, Diago asked, “Or are you at mine?”

  She gave him a Mona Lisa smile over the rim of her glass. “How soon must you cross?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “Pity. I’ve never had the occasion to seduce one of the daimon-born.”

  “You don’t have one now.” He picked up his glass with his left hand so she would see his wedding band.

  “I thought that was for show.”

  “It is. It shows you I’m married.” Guillermo said to cooperate with Rousseau’s people, but he never indicated that Diago should tarry. “So how are we crossing? And more importantly, when?”

  She tossed down the shot and stood. “I have a car waiting.”

  “Excellent.” Diago paid his bill and followed her to the street.

  Her Citroën was a two-seater from the mid-1920s. A pair of Wellingtons stood at attention on the passenger floorboard. Lorelei got into the driver’s seat and nodded at the boots. “You might want to save your shoes. Where we’re going will be marshy.”

  She cranked the car, and the engine purred as if it had rolled off the assembly line yesterday.

  He changed quickly and put his shoes in his bag. “How did you guess my size?”

  “We didn’t guess.” She pulled away from the curb. “Guillermo’s secretary gave it to us.”

  Of course he would. It was the kind of detail Suero was known for.

  Once they had merged into traffic, she said, “I’ll get you across the river and to your car on the other side. From there, you’re on your own. There’s a map in the glove box. Take it.”

  Diago found the map and opened it. His route was marked in red. “Durbach is about twenty-one kilometers from Kehl?”

  She nodded. “When you’ve finished your assignment, follow the same route home. In Kehl, you’ll find a pub called the Angel’s Nest. Our people there will get you back into France.”

  “Got it.” Diago tucked the map into his pocket.

  Lorelei drove them out of the city and into the countryside. “Madame Rousseau said you served in the Great War.”

  Diago tapped a restless rhythm on his thigh. “I did,” he said, hoping the curtness of his response would dissuade further questions.

  He was glad he wasn’t required to go farther west, where his memories would be ignited by the sights and sounds of familiar places. This portion of the Alsace-Lorraine had belonged to Germany prior to the war, so he’d had little occasion to visit. Here, he could be a tourist, a traveler, unburdened by memories.

  Lorelei glanced at him and dashed any hopes he had of avoiding the subject. “What was it like?”

  “I try not to think about it.” And for the most part, he was quite successful. Unless I’m trapped in a nightmare or stuck in a car with a curious youngster.

  “They say the shelling was so intense that the sound waves bent reality in some areas.”

  Again, Diago recalled crouching in the trench—the memory returned unbidden, unwanted. The bombs pounded the earth around his unit. Mud and shrapnel pelted them in a hailstorm of violence. The shelling went on as one hour bled into another. The air shimmered in hues of black and gray—a bruised wave of sound crashing over them, drowning them in a cacophony of destruction . . .

  The car hit a pothole deep enough to jounce them in their seats. Diago opened his eyes. He wiped his palms against his slacks and let the wind carry the memory away.

  As his heartbeat gradually slowed, he knew it was time to shift the conversation to a different theater. Lorelei wanted to talk about the war. Fine. Unexploded munitions were still a very real threat even in the areas outside the Zone Rouge.

  Other dangers lurked for the nefilim.

  “Speaking of the shelling, do you have any idea how severely the bombardments damaged the old glyphs on the German side?”

  Lorelei considered the question. “We suspected a broken sigil was the cause of the music, but no one has gotten close enough to confirm it. The Black Forest was a bad place before the Great War. It’s extremely unstable now.”

  “Wonderful,” he murmured.

  “Keep your eyes open and your voice strong.” Lorelei eased the car around a family of farmers and their horse-drawn cart. “Trust your instincts. You’ll be fine.”

  He hoped she was right. They fell into a comfortable silence as Diago noted landmarks. Thus far, he’d been extremely lucky in being able to follow the plan to the letter. But one never knew when circumstances might call upon him to improvise. He hoped Rousseau’s Néphilim would get him home, but he didn’t intend to count on them.

  The ghost-music faded from his consciousness, conspicuous in its absence. “Does anyone still hear the music?”

  She shook her head. “Those who could hear it said that it stopped a few weeks ago.”

  Because it found me, Diago thought, and the idea felt so right, he didn’t discount it. Just as he had attempted to hunt the composer, so had the musician cast a wide net, searching for the one nefil who might respond to the music’s siren call—and that nefil is me.

  This wasn’t some random anomaly, then. The missing Stradivarius coupled with the presence of the brooch seemed to confirm his suspicion that he was the target. Now he just needed to find a way to turn the tables on his hunter. The secret lay in connecting the brooch with the music, and the answer to that mystery lay with the Grier brothers. Of that Diago was certain.

  They rounded a curve and the Rhine lay before them—the waves bristling and blue in the late afternoon light. The water was, Diago suddenly realized, the same color as Lorelei’s eyes.

  She steered the car down a little used road and the river dipped momentarily out of sight. At the bottom of a hill, the Rhine came back into view.

  Stopping at the end of the road, Lorelei cut the engine and got out. “Now we walk.”

  With his bag in tow, he followed her into the brush. The winding deer path led them to a marshy cove, where the waves lapped against the shore.

  While they waited for the sun to go down, Diago found a rock that was reasonably flat. He hummed a tune, the vibrations of his song burn
ing green and black in the air. Shaping a sigil, he used the stone’s coarse grains to reshape the rock’s natural outline. Soon he had smoothed a bench that would easily seat them both.

  Lorelei watched him. “I’ve never seen a nefil who could do that before.”

  “You’ve not known many daimons.”

  “But you’re angel, too. That’s what they say.”

  “Sometimes the things they say are true.” He settled comfortably on the rock. “There is enough room for both of us.”

  “No. I have no one to impress tomorrow, so I can get as dirty as I like.” She took off her shoes and left them on the bank, immersing her heels into the river. A few heartbeats passed in silence, and then she asked, “Is your wife sweet-voiced and kind?”

  Diago considered lying, or simply saying yes, but something in her question provoked him. He recalled Miquel’s kiss at the train station. How does it feel not to hide? “He’s my husband,” he said before he could change his mind. “And his voice is strong, a baritone. Miquel has much heart and sings what we call cante jondo, or deep song.”

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than a rush of freedom sent his pulse hammering, and he suddenly understood Miquel’s need to push societal boundaries. He watched her face carefully, waiting for her reaction as she absorbed his statement.

  Her lips parted, and he fully expected her to laugh, or to call him a marica, or whatever might be the current French slur for a fairy. Instead her mouth opened in a slow smile. “How delicious. Is he dark like you, this husband?”

  “He is Gitano, so he is darker.”

  “And his eyes?”

  “They are the color of a starless night, and they are as deep as the sky.”

  She made a low sound in the back of her throat, not quite a hum, not quite a word. “Maybe someday we can all meet and get to know one another’s songs intimately.”

  “Miguel doesn’t have sex with women.”

  “Only men?”

  Diago nodded.

  “What about you?”

  He shrugged. “I have loved both men and women.”

  “And now you are true to Miquel.”

  “Yes.” But not always. Without thinking, Diago reached once into his pocket to touch the brooch. Rather than guilt, he encountered only curiosity. What happened with the owner of this love token is in the past. Miquel is my present and my future.

  Lorelei turned back to the river and gazed at the water. “How very sweet,” she said, sounding as wistful as the waves kissing the shore. “Unfortunately my sisters, who remain in the Rhine, won’t care about your husband.”

  “Are they rogues?”

  “Deadly rogues, even to a nefil such as yourself.” She scanned the river and kept her voice low. “If they sense your presence, they will try to sing you into their arms.”

  “Can I help you somehow? Perhaps by rowing?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll get us across swiftly, because I know how to navigate the river. You would be in the way. All I need for you to do is remain still and quiet. Don’t answer their song. If they pull you under, I will try to save you, but they are strong, and I am only one. Do you understand?”

  Her message was clear. If the Rhinemaidens took him, he was on his own. “I do.”

  11

  Santuari, Spain

  Guillermo lined up the three drawings on a corkboard: Jordi’s composite, Bernardo’s rough illustration of the brooch, and the sketch of his nightmare. He dragged two chairs in front of the arrangement just as his wards chimed.

  Ysabel, still dressed in her funeral clothes, entered the office.

  Guillermo turned so that his body blocked the images on the board. He wasn’t quite done protecting her from the adult world of Los Nefilim. Baby steps . . . for both of us. Besides, the less she knew about Diago’s situation, the less she would inadvertently give away to Rafael. “So what did you find out?”

  “Everyone was there, Papá.” She sounded disappointed.

  He gave her a couple of beats, and when she didn’t continue, he decided to prompt her. “Let me ask you this: When we sang our glyph to honor our fallen comrades, did everyone join their auras with our song?”

  She frowned at him as if he’d asked her to decipher the ligatures of a complicated glyph. A greater length of time elapsed before she admitted, “I don’t know. I was so busy looking to see if everyone was there, I didn’t pay attention to their songs.” She thought about her answer for a moment and then flushed pink. “You’re teaching me something, aren’t you?”

  Guillermo nodded. “You have to be aware of your surroundings on multiple levels. It’s the hardest skill you’ll have to develop, but it’ll save your life.” And your foray into spycraft won’t proceed until you’ve proven to me that you can watch your back in a crowd.

  “I’m sorry, Papá. I let you down.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You learn more by making mistakes than you do through success.” As long as those mistakes don’t kill you.

  “Do you know who didn’t add their auras to our song?”

  “I do.” In fact, Sofia Corvo already had the pair under surveillance. If either of them were reporting to Jordi, Guillermo would soon know.

  Eager now, Ysa leaned forward. “Will you tell me who they are?”

  “No. That information is on a need-to-know basis.” When she started to protest, he raised his finger. “And you don’t need to know.”

  The sigils alerted them to someone approaching the office. Miquel entered and then paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Am I interrupting?”

  “No.” Guillermo gestured for him to come in. “Ysa was just heading downstairs to find Rafael. Weren’t you, sweetheart?”

  “Yes, Papá.” She started to leave and then hesitated. “We will talk later?”

  “Later.” Guillermo pointed to the door. “You’re dismissed.”

  Miquel held out his hand to her as she passed him. “What is this? No hello? No good-bye?”

  She gave his palm a light punch. “Hello, Uncle Miquel. You will teach me that new guitar riff tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She turned back to Guillermo. “I will do better for you next time, Papá.”

  “You did fine.” You stayed out of harm’s way.

  “Good night.” She opened the door and then disappeared down the stairs.

  “Good night, my little star,” he murmured to the empty landing. “She frightens me,” he confessed to Miquel.

  Taken off guard by the statement, Miquel glanced at the door. “Who? Ysa?”

  “She has to learn to temper her greed for power; otherwise, it’ll be her downfall just as it was Jordi’s.” And mine, he thought as he moved away from the corkboard. “I worry that she is growing too fast.”

  Miquel shrugged. “I don’t know. I believe Diago has swerved in the opposite direction and is too overprotective of Rafael.”

  “It’s a difficult balance to strike,” Guillermo conceded as he straddled his chair and crossed his arms over the back.

  Miquel wandered over to the board. He hesitated in front of the nightmare sketch. “That dream you dreamed,” he whispered. “It’s not a prophecy, is it?”

  “Usually prophecies come in the form of symbols. That”—he pointed at Diago’s image—“might be my own fear talking.” He’s worried and that meeting with Christina did nothing to allay his fears. He motioned for Miquel to sit. “Speaking of Rafael, how is he doing . . . you know, with the funeral and Diago’s absence?”

  Miquel dragged his gaze from the drawing and found his cigarettes. “We talked this morning, and he seems okay. He’s too much like Diago sometimes—he holds his darker emotions close. Although he is excited about spending the evening here. He brought his map with him.”

  “Oh? What kind of map?”

  “He drew a picture of Diago on a train, and Eva cut it out for him. Every day, he moves the train up the map into France. He doesn’t know it but Eva is teaching him geography.”
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  “That’s cute.” Guillermo chuckled and produced his lighter. Flicking the lid, his demeanor grew serious once more as his gaze returned to the drawings.

  The wards around the stairs chimed again and Suero entered.

  Cheeks flushed from the climb, he carried a file along with his pad and pen. “There isn’t a lot, but Bernardo and I did find some information.”

  Guillermo nodded to him. “Good. We’ll start with you.”

  Suero took his place at the conference table and opened his file. “In eleven hundred and forty-five, the nefilim were too few to command an entire country. The Inner Guards worked more like crusaders, guarding the Thrones’ territories at the angels’ bidding. There was a Sir George recorded as king of the Western Inner Guard after the Carolingian War. Sir George carried the blessing of the Thrones and was anointed with the ring you now wear.” Suero flicked a worried glance in Guillermo’s direction.

  The blessing of the Thrones. Guillermo clicked his lighter open and shut. The golden signet and its deep red stone caught the light. The band was thick and the sigils cut deep. Everyone covets the power of the Thrones; very few can endure the obligations of the role. The responsibility for the lives under him was a heavy burden, and today, he buried two in his care, having failed that duty. Outwardly, he showed no emotion, but inside, the thought of his failure pierced him.

  But this is my destiny, and I will not run from it.

  He said to Suero, “Jordi and I have battled for the kingship of our nefilim since our firstborn lives. You’re not going to shock me.”

  Clearing his throat, Suero continued, “Sir George and his nefilim were sent to oversee the angels’ interests during the transition period after the Treaty of Verdun. Rogue angels were a problem during those years.”

  “Those are the details we need,” Guillermo whispered. He shifted his attention to Bernardo’s depiction of the brooch, glaring at it as if he could somehow wrest the answer from the angel’s lips. A memory teetered on the edge of his consciousness, ready to roll straight into his brain, but he couldn’t seem to nudge it in the right direction.

  Something about the angel . . .