Power Games

by Victoria Fox

  ‘It was just another day,’ he finished, baffled, ‘just what happened …’

  ‘Voldan blames us,’ said Angela, ‘for what happened to Grigori. He blames us totally. He thinks we pushed Grigori to it … starting with me.’

  ‘And ending with me.’ Celeste looked up. ‘It wasn’t just the bracelet,’ she said. ‘When I went to Szolsvár Castle, it was to value a painting—a portrait of Cane’s wife. Grigori’s mother.’

  The castle sprang up in her memory: the isolated turrets, the cavernous rooms, the strange, quiet boy hidden up in the attic …

  Cane Enterprises.

  How could it be?

  ‘I visited weeks before Grigori’s suicide …’ The likeness above the Great Hall fireplace lived on as the ugliest Celeste had seen. When her superior called, she had described it over the phone. What were the words she had she used? Gruesome. Wretched. And heard the creak of a floorboard on the other side of the door.

  Grigori must have crept down from his attic, listening in, and bled at her dismissal: the final twist in his spiral of depression, her appraisal a blasphemy to his mother.

  Finally Angela asked: ‘Jacob?’

  The entrepreneur was hesitant. Jacob didn’t want to engage with the theory but, even as he resisted, he was grasping at echoes. Sitting cocksure at his desk with Leith, drunk on power, dismissing dreams like switching channels on a remote.

  ‘He came to see Leith and me,’ said Jacob. ‘Had some notion for building a product. We turned him down. It wasn’t viable.’

  ‘How old was he?’

  ‘Eighteen, maybe.’

  It wasn’t hard to fill in the blanks. Grigori’s last stake at success, a chance to finally make something of his life. Perhaps he had watched a documentary on business thinkers and had been inspired. Perhaps he had sincerely believed in it. Perhaps Voldan had advised him against the pitch, but his son had been adamant. Perhaps Voldan had loved seeing Grigori passionate about something again, and prayed it would bolster his confidence even if the blueprint were refused …

  Alas, no. On pitching to Jacob and his cronies, Grigori had wound up being guffawed out of the building.

  ‘Then what?’ Eve pushed. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘We laughed him out of town. I mean, shit, you should see the kind of things we get pitched, it was no big deal, seriously it wasn’t …’

  But it was to Voldan Cane.

  ‘We turn away people every day, it’s part of the business. If you can’t face rejection …’

  And that was it. Grigori hadn’t been able to face rejection, and they had all rejected him. So his father had avenged his rejected soul.

  ‘I don’t know about Tawny,’ said Eve, ‘but Kevin I can guess at. He got signed to Cut N Dry Records aged twelve. His final audition was up against another kid—I asked him about it once. Kevin described this kid, dark, small, with a stutter that made him difficult to understand. Don’t get me wrong: Grigori Cane was never going to be a pop star. He didn’t look the part, he didn’t sound the part, but I guess Voldan wanted to buy him a shot if that’s what it took to make him happy. Of course Grigori lost out. It was never going to be any other way.’

  The group pictured the scene: Grigori craving love and respect, what up until then had been cruelly out of reach, then, at the last hurdle, a kid with buckteeth and a bad attitude beat him to it. Being forced to witness Kevin’s rise over the years would have been torture. Months before his death, Time magazine had labelled Kevin ‘Bigger than Jesus’. It was the final nail in Grigori’s coffin.

  ‘There’s five of us here,’ said Angela, ‘and one more we’re certain of. It’s too much of a coincidence for it not to be connected.’

  ‘This is why,’ agreed Eve. ‘Oh God, this is why …’

  How bold the invitation had been, how brazen, assuming the party’s ignorance and arrogance because they would not remember—and Voldan Cane had been right: they hadn’t remembered. They hadn’t given Cane’s name a second thought because whatever pain they had inflicted on his son, however it had affected the boy in his leaden years, it had meant nothing to them. Absolutely nothing.

  What a price they had paid for their mistake.

  ‘Cane wanted us dead,’ said Jacob, ‘and he succeeded.’

  ‘He failed,’ Angela said. ‘We’re still here.’

  ‘For how much longer?’

  Eve pointed over the mountain. ‘What’s that?’

  Beyond the ridge was a burst of billowing grey smoke. Another appeared behind the plateau.

  Two fires.

  ‘Kevin,’ said Celeste, but her voice was thin and afraid.

  ‘It can’t be,’ said Eve. ‘Those fires are a mile apart.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Angela didn’t want to say it. Miles apart …

  Two fires. Two separate camps.

  Jacob started to walk. Celeste followed. Like children to their parents’ call, they trailed across the sand and into the forest, blindly approaching the unknown.

  94

  Inside the jungle, shadows closed in. Trees hulked. The forest hissed. Moans and howls they had heard from the beach moved alongside them now.

  Angela led the way. She could not explain the urgency of needing to spearhead the mission, to be the first to encounter what was waiting.

  Others.

  The suspicion they had nursed privately for weeks.

  Who were they? Where were they? What did they want? One moment she was convinced of the need to find them: people meant help, communication, even salvation. The next she questioned why they had stayed hidden.

  Either way, she had to know.

  They reached the foot of the mountain, a sheer grey wall, and could not go on. Moonlight trickled through the canopy, not enough to see by. They had no torches to light their way. They stopped for the night, burned a fire to keep warm.

  ‘They’ll see us,’ said Celeste.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. They already know we’re here.’ Eve did not know if she meant it as a comfort or a warning. ‘They have since the beginning.’

  ‘We can’t be sure there is a they,’ Jacob said. ‘It could still be Kevin.’

  But they didn’t believe it. The time for excuses was over. Until today there had been no answers, no full stop; only question marks. Now they had a reason for the crash, and it made them hungry for more. The three fires were an invitation. If they accepted, they knew that in some important way they would never come back.

  The shrieks of the rainforest arrived from near and far. In the firelight their faces were older, wiser, changed fundamentally, as if years had been both gained and lost.

  Mitch spoke. ‘Do you remember what Tawny said?’

  ‘Don’t,’ Angela warned.

  ‘Cannibals.’ Mitch’s mouth formed around the exotic word. It was magical. Voodoo.

  ‘We don’t know what these people are,’ said Angela.

  ‘But they won’t be like us.’

  ‘They might be,’ said Jacob. ‘Besides, I thought your demons came from above.’

  ‘People are the worst things to be afraid of,’ said Mitch. ‘Why have they stayed away? If they wanted to help us, they would have come forward.’

  ‘Unless they’re as afraid of us as we are of them.’

  ‘We have to trust that they mean us no harm,’ said Angela. ‘They won’t—not when they see Eve.’

  ‘Or especially when they see Eve.’

  ‘Go to hell, Corrigan.’

  ‘The others are our final hope,’ Angela said.

  ‘It’ll bring about an ending one way or another,’ said Jacob.

  His words hung in the steaming air.

  None of them slept that night. In the dead hour, it began to rain.

  95

  Noah dreamed. He lapsed in and out of that heady escape, hot with fever and cold with fear, pockets of emptiness that hurtled him back to an unknown present.

  Angela was walking in the dark; he could hear her breath and t
he sigh of leaves on her skin. Her hands were in front of her. Up ahead shone a dazzling light. She was reaching for it, getting close, but Noah had to stop her. The light was bad. It meant to hurt her. He shouted her name but she couldn’t hear. She kept going, seduced by the glow. Noah was with her, right behind, near enough to touch and he went to do just that, a graze, a brush, anything to bring her back … but she was gone.

  When he called, no sound came out. He screamed her name into silence.

  It was raining. Hard.

  Spots on his face were cold and harsh, yet gloriously fresh after days boxed up below deck. He tipped his neck back to meet them, mouth open, drinking the storm. The wide black sky churned and growled.

  The boat rocked. Men held him beneath his arms. Noah’s shoulders, elbows and wrists ached beyond the point of reasonable pain, numb in their sockets, trapped in place. The rope around his ankles was searing as wire.

  The pirates spoke in short, hostile bursts.

  That word again: Koloku.

  Noah wished he understood what they were saying. He struggled to break free and a thump landed on his back, knocking him forward, his cheek slamming on the deck. A boot descended, holding him down.

  A scuffle broke out. Their leader was angry. Noah saw why. It wouldn’t do to damage him. They had to keep him well—it was why they had been feeding him, watering him, bringing him up on deck for air. Why they could not afford to beat him.

  What for? What did they plan to do?

  The scuffle turned into a brawl. Rain slashed across Noah’s vision and this time when the boat tipped there was no one to hold him in place. He crashed into a heap of sacks, kicking his legs out in front of him, his chest pounding as he watched one of the men get thrown against the mast, the man’s head cracking and a jet of blood leaping free, staining the wooden pole red.

  Above, the sail whipped and flapped.

  Adrenalin came from nowhere. Noah had thought his muscles wasted, his will shattered, but when he saw his chance he had to take it. His hands groped across deck, locating a rusted cleat, its point sharp.

  Sharp enough.

  He worked the rope against it. By the time they came to retrieve him, it was already undone. Noah sprang, catching them off guard. Pulling free the bind at his ankles, he jumped from the deck of the boat and hurtled towards the roiling sea.

  The last thing he heard was gunfire, and then he hit the water.

  The ocean was freezing and oil-dark. Noah ducked under, partly survival and partly lack of strength to stay afloat. Bursts of black lasted a second and an hour, stinging cold and yawning deep as the roar of bullets ripped into the night.

  The pirates’ beam flashed across the churning waves, searching, searching, then gradually moving further away, the pouring, churning rollers hiding him from sight. Ice paralysed. Air escaped. His arms flailed.

  There was nothing around him, nothing below, only the bobbing light of the boat as it grew smaller and fainter, and the men’s shouts diminished.

  Noah tried to swim. He failed. His body would not work. He knew he would die now.

  Drowning was meant to be kind. As the oxygen left his body he would start to hallucinate—he hoped he would see Angela, the first day they had met and he had fallen fast into her green eyes, a deeper shade of green than he had known existed …

  She had been lost for too long now. He had to go and find her, someplace they could be together again.

  Noah let go, and went under for the final time. The ocean closed over his head and pulled him into her arms.

  96

  Szolsvár Castle, Gemenc Forest, Hungary

  Voldan Cane wheeled his chair into the library. He brought it to a halt beneath a gilt-framed mirror, the glass dappled and gloomy. No matter how many times he confronted his reflection, the horror never lessened.

  He had to trust that the battle had not been in vain.

  Still he had heard nothing from his contact.

  It made his blood catch fire.

  The explanation he kept returning to was that the man had been found, and forced. He had given himself away—and Voldan knew, no matter how impressive the man’s track record, it was only a matter of time before Voldan himself was given away too.

  The media was stumbling on from the tragedy—strange how in a matter of weeks a cataclysm could become the past, consumed by the tides of history. But once the perpetrator was found, interest would come rushing back. Voldan wasn’t hanging around for that.

  Janika materialised behind him.

  ‘Finish me off,’ he bleated. ‘That’s an order. I don’t care how you do it.’

  The maid emerged from the dusk. She bent to kiss him. ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘I do,’ said Voldan. ‘It’s over. My work is done.’

  Janika knelt. She took his hand and pressed the pale, crepey skin to her cheek. She smiled up at him, her eyes filled with wonder.

  ‘Never, Mr Cane,’ she soothed. ‘I’ll never do that. I’ll never let you go.’

  97

  Day 63

  Dawn came. The fire was smouldering. Grey light seeped through the trees.

  Weary, the band trooped on. The climb was slow. As they got higher, the tree shield parted and the sky was revealed, an angry, swirling ash. Thunder rolled across the clouds; crackles of light sparking between.

  From the plateau they scanned for smoke. The sea was heaving; the pitted caves dimpled into sheer rock menacing and ominous. Everything told them to leave. Had it said the same to Kevin? Was Kevin here, camping in the jungle, facing those dangers alone? Angela regretted their fight. He was a kid, just as Grigori Cane had been. They had forced him to fend for himself.

  Was Kevin still alive?

  What if they had got him?

  Mitch pointed. ‘There it is.’

  A single funnel of smoke: a beacon.

  The group scrambled down the cliff, tired but indomitable. Finding the others had become an obsession; they couldn’t think beyond breaking the mystery. Celeste and Jacob helped Eve, who groaned with the effort.

  ‘Stop,’ Angela said. ‘She has to rest.’

  ‘No,’ Eve objected. ‘Go on. Keep going. I’ll catch up.’

  ‘We have to follow the fire,’ said Jacob, ‘before it disappears.’

  Angela nodded. ‘We’ll be behind you,’ she said. ‘Go.’

  They watched their companions vanish into the trees.

  They were close now. They could feel it.

  Jacob, Mitch and Celeste were spat out onto the beach. It was raining heavily, drops that speckled the sand and pattered the water. White froth rolled on the ocean. A bundle of sticks burned in the cove, abandoned and dying.

  ‘Whose is it?’

  It was then they heard the sound. Chanting. A dreadful song that came at them through the forest, above and behind, growing all around. At the far end of the beach, a line of shadows crept towards them: black shapes moving, unfathomable through the pouring rain.

  Angela left to find water. They needed it.

  She said ‘we’ but she meant Eve. Her companion was bent double, her face grey, wincing through spasms.

  It was happening. They had to be ready.

  Alone, Eve released the cry she had been keeping in check since waking. She knew her baby was coming—and she wanted to be on her own. It wasn’t an instinct she had counted on. Like an animal, she craved a dark place: quiet and dark, a private stage for this miracle that had been performed since the dawn of time.

  Now, it was her turn.

  Angela told her to stay put. Her body told her to go.

  She crawled off the stump, panting, and moved on all fours. Her back ached. Her bladder was swollen. Her womb tensed, each contraction rawer than the last. Each time it brought her to the point of passing out, the pain lapsed and she could see again. You’re coming.

  Through brambles and ribbons she found her way, skidding down a dirt bank and sloshing through puddles, rain pooling from the tips of leaves and turning
the earth to sludge. Brown clay caked her arms, slick and greasy, and she slipped and landed on her front. Pain shot through her belly. A raging clap of thunder drowned her scream. Another contraction, this one devastating, and she moaned and panted, panted and moaned, as her palms gave way and she tumbled down a verge onto a bed of leaves. Her waters broke.

  The sky reeled. She crawled into a hollow, the entrance draped in fronds. Inside, it was cool and silent.

  Eve put her hands on the rock wall, hauling herself up on her knees.

  Her cries shook the cave. Nobody else could hear.

  98

  America

  Two months after a Challenger jet carrying seven celebrities disappeared over the Pacific Ocean and was never seen again, the world accepted the facts.

  All across America, services were held. The funerals attracted rampant media attention; several lawsuits were brought against breach of privacy, though most acknowledged the rituals were in the public interest. Each name had been written about, each face recycled, each life story engineered: it was inevitable the mourning had to be shared. Denial offered no more comfort. Hope was over.

  Joan Chase cut a glamorous silhouette at her son’s memorial. In couture Valentino with a black birdcage veil, her slim figure and pale, tear-blushed face was every inch the mourning beauty. Headshots of Kevin surrounded the empty grave: if they could not have him in person they would copy his image twenty-fold. From plump-cheeked, wide-eyed baby to the nineteen-year-old sensation he had latterly become, Kevin’s posters were tacked to billboards that chronicled his too-short life.

  Joan was stoic. Trey shivered in her arms. At the perimeter, fans wept openly.

  A film crew taped the whole thing.

  Sketch touched her arm. ‘You OK, Joanie?’