by Gabi Moore
Milo swung his gun around the second he saw the horror in Aurora’s eyes.
“Jeez, man,” he breathed, dropping the weapon. “You’re going to give me a damn stroke.”
The figure stepped into the apartment, his dark face solemn. “I was too late. I tried to chase them, but I lost their trail three blocks over. They took the mother.”
Aurora had heard that voice before. She looked up at the figure, trying to focus on this one thing. One thing at a time. There was no way she could bear to handle more than one thing at a time.
“Shit!” Milo hissed. “How long ago?”
“Minutes. If you arrived five minutes earlier she’d have been right in the middle of it. It’s better than you arrived too late. If she showed up right then, we would have been trying to fend off a horde on our own, with sunrise hours away. This way, they ran instead of fight me.”
“Cheng is going to blow his lid,” Milo sighed. “He knew this was coming. Dammit, if Moreau would have just seen a doctor, like we told her—”
“Moreau?” Aurora spoke up suddenly. She’d heard a word she knew, and struggled upwards through the thick, sluggish current of her thoughts. She realized where she’d seen the stranger before. At Moreau’s.
“Mr. Fredericks?”
The stranger cringed as Milo threw him a surprised look. “Mr. Fredericks?” he asked thinly.
The stranger from Moreau could hardly have looked more different, now. Instead of a suit, he was dressed in tight jeans, sneakers, and a thermal shirt. It hugged his corded arms, broad shoulders, burly chest, and narrow waist much better than the suit ever could have.
“Mr. Fredericks?” And now, even in her shocked state, Aurora couldn’t fail to hear the humor in Milo’s voice. ‘Mr. Fredericks’, in question, was looking very uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than a six-something black man built like a wall of muscle was expected to.
“Look, she was… I couldn’t give my real name.”
Milo chuckled harshly. “Moreau told you not to go there at all.”
“Well, it’s good that I did, isn’t it?” the stranger replied with a snap. “Cheng and I both felt something… off, but he didn’t want to upset things—if we’d leapt straight in, none of this would have happened.” He gestured to the apartment around them, and at Aurora, who was sitting on her couch in the ruins of her life, watching their exchange as if through deep water.
Nothing they were saying made any sense to her. How did they know Moreau? And Cheng? What did they have to do with anything? What did they have to do with her? She was just a sales girl. A bartender. A nobody. And now, perhaps, an orphan. Alone.
“Oh…no…” she whispered. Her voice sounded far away in her ears. “No… no… Momma…”
“We can’t stay here,” the stranger insisted, glancing down at Aurora. “We’re sitting ducks. Much better to be on the move. Cheng wants us to all meet at the hospital. The sooner, the better. I think it’s time.”
Aurora wanted to ask, ‘time for what?’ Milo seemed to know; he looked very grim as he nodded. “All right, let’s get moving. Same hospital?”
“Same one as always,” the stranger replied, holding out a hand to Aurora.
She looked at it as if she didn’t know what it was, and honestly, at the moment, Aurora wasn’t sure she did know. He world had turned several full loops in the last few hours, and she didn’t have any secure footing, anymore.
She’d gone from one horror to the next today, and Aurora wasn’t sure she could take another one. What was there left to be tossed into her lap? She was afraid to ask, but as she looked around her old apartment, the kitchen table where her mother had always sat reduced to a pile of wood shards in its corner, she realized that she had already stepped into the next act. Whatever it was, she was already in it, now. There was nothing for Aurora to turn back to, so she took the stranger’s hand and let him help her to her feet. She needed more help than she’d realized.
“My real name is Lucian,” he told her in his perfect, rumbling voice. “Lucian Hemming.”
“Aurora Potier,” she replied automatically. A simple introduction—she was still able to handle that without a disaster. But the stranger—Lucian—smiled slyly.
“I’ve known you for much longer than you realize.”
His words sent a thrill of both eeriness and excitement down Aurora’s spine. Just today she’d been thinking that she’d never be in this man’s league. Between then and now, she felt as if an eternity had passed, and anything was possible. It was a joyous, and a terrible, sensation.
“Let’s go,” Milo rushed them out the door. The three of them retreated back into the dark stairwell, after Aurora grabbed a jacket from the hall. Milo and Lucian were both eager to get on the move and wouldn’t hear of letting her stop to change. They obviously feared the return of whoever had destroyed the apartment; looking around, Aurora found that she, too, didn’t want to be here if they came back.
But she stopped in the front doorframe anyway, just to glance back. Even in the dark, even wrecked, this had still been her home all her life. Her heart hammered in her chest; it was all she’d ever known.
A hand settled on hers, a large, warm hand. Lucian’s voice spoke softly, “There’s no use looking back. You aren’t headed that way.”
Deliberately, Aurora turned from the old apartment. She looked up into Lucian’s dark, dark eyes, surprisingly soft and understanding. She nodded.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
Down the stairs they fled. Aurora had a hell of a time in her boots, but they all managed to reach the bottom in one piece; every time she’d been close to falling, it seemed that Lucian was there by magic, lifting her effortlessly back onto her feet. She knew she was still not her normal self; everything had taken on a surreal quality, and she felt nothing, as if her emotions had simply been shut off. Aurora wondered how long this blessed numbness would last, if maybe she could make it last all her life. But even so, there was no way for him to be so quick. She wasn’t frazzled enough to misjudge physics, or time.
And the street level , Aurora found herself being ushered back in to Officer Milo’s car, back into the front seat. Milo was already behind the wheel. She turned to Lucian, about to ask if he wanted, shotgun, but he was gone.
“Where?”
“Get in!”
Without another word of protest, Aurora leapt inside and slammed the door. Not for the last time this night she wondered she wasn’t just being caught up in an elaborate kidnapping scheme. Then, of course, back would float the memory of Lucian’s strong arms around her, the heaving muscles of his chest, lifting her as though she weighed nothing… There was no need for them to trick her.
The windows fogged as they drove, but Aurora wasn’t really seeing the world as it passed. She was quite a distance away by the time they pulled into a parking spot and Milo climbed out. She followed, not seeing which hospital they were at. Not wondering why they were at a hospital. In fact, Aurora found herself blissfully un-curious, and unconcerned, as Milo led the way through the parking garage and into the hospital proper.
She hadn’t even stopped to wonder why Lucian hadn’t ridden along with them.
Aurora hadn’t been in a hospital in a very long time, not since her mother’s panic attack some five—was it six, now?—years ago. Needless to say, the memories of white hallways and scrub-clad hospital staff were not happy ones for her, but Aurora was still deep in a state of semi-trance, distantly aware of her surroundings, but unaffected by them, as if she were watching from the building next door.
Milo led her in through the front lobby, which was not so scary. Neat furnishings, soft lighting, and friendly front-desk staff. Well, as friendly as you got in New York at one in the morning, anyway. Milo and Aurora were directed to the elevators behind the information desk, and travelled up to the fifth floor.
As the elevator hauled upward, Aurora watched the numbers without interest. She barely noticed the strange looks she was getting from the staff and few late-nig
ht visitors. After all, under her jacket she was still dressed for work at Witching Hour. But Aurora didn’t pay that much attention, and when the elevator stopped and the doors opened, she followed Milo out and to the right, tracking the turns of a hallway that led into a med-surg unit.
Milo was following the room numbers, but Aurora was following some invisible tracks, some sixth sense down the hall. In better times, she might have wondered why she knew for certain which room they were going to; at the moment, she walked blandly down the hall, ignoring looks from the nurses at the station. Busy with room numbers, Milo didn’t even notice her behavior, and dived into the right room seconds before Aurora reached it.
“Milo! What took you so long?”
Aurora froze. That was Madame Moreau’s voice; they were visiting her at the hospital. What were they doing visiting her in the hospital? Aurora’s wonderful numbness was being disturbed, and the dreadful pang of reality was creeping closer. Her boots were stuck in place in the hallway; Milo stuck his head back out in the hallway.
“Get in here. It’s not safe for you anywhere, so you’d better be in here with us.”
With them? With who? Milo and Madame Moreau?
“I… I don’t think I… want to…” Aurora’s voice spoke up.
Milo frowned at her. “What? What are you talking about?”
Over his shoulder, Lucian peered out into the hallway. He looked even better in full light than he had half in shadow.
Aurora’s heart bumped. “How? How did you get here so fast?”
But Lucian’s face closed off, which left Milo to coax her into the room. More confused than ever, Aurora reluctantly let herself be drawn in through the hospital door, which Lucian shut behind her. She lurked near the sink, uncomfortable, and took in the scene within the room.
Madame Moreau was hardly recognizable. She’d only been at the hospital for a day; Aurora didn’t know what they’d been doing to her, but it looked like a month. Without her dramatic black furs, meticulous hair, and glamour wardrobe, she was just a frighteningly old woman. Aurora doubted she weighed more than sixty pounds, once she was in a simple hospital gown. Not to mention the lack of make-up; a specter was peering out of the huge mechanical bed, deprived of foundation, blush, mascara, eye shadow, lipstick.
The specter was looking straight at her, and Aurora found she could not break the gaze. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Milo and Lucian, of course. But it wasn’t until he stood up on the other side of the bed that Aurora saw the room’s fifth occupant.
Mr. Cheng smiled grimly. “It’s good you here, Aurora.” His usual jovial tone was missing, missing like Madame Moreau’s make-up. He just wasn’t quite right without it. Aurora stayed near the sink, as if thinking of making a quick escape. “There is much we need tell you.”
Chapter 6
Stubbornly, Aurora refused to budge much farther than the vestibule. Her aching feet notwithstanding, there was something going on here. Something she did not like at all.
Earlier today, she would have been angry. She would have demanded to know the meaning of all this. How do they all know each other? What’s been happening here? But it had been such a long day… Aurora was so tired. She felt as if she might fall over if she stood too close to the air vent. Much too tired to do anything but wait for them to speak.
Mr. Cheng seemed to guess at it, or at least part of it. He sighed and nodded.
“You are tired. Come, sit down.” He waved at the couch under the window, near him and Moreau.
Aurora didn’t move.
Milo sighed. “Come on, Miss. Nothing ever came from standing around in the doorway. We aren’t going to bite you.”
Hesitantly, Aurora looked at the couch. Her weight was leaning on the sink counter, and suddenly, she wasn’t even sure she could make it all the way across the room.
Lucian was at her side, like a flash, like a blink. She almost fell down in shock. “Can I help you?” he asked, setting a hand on her arm questioningly.
Aurora nodded shortly, and allowed herself to be guided around the big hospital bed to the seat near Mr. Cheng. Once she was seated, Lucian retreated back to the other side, watching with silent black eyes. Aurora tried not to stare back.
“Now, Aurora, there are things you need know,” Mr. Cheng started gently. He and Moreau were both looking at her in a way that made Aurora most uneasy: proud, and affectionate. Like distant relatives who had only seen you once, when you were a baby, who suddenly reappeared when you were sixteen. You didn’t know them at all, but they’d heard all about your life as you grew, unaware. Familiarity without connection. Aurora tried not to feel utterly creeped.
Madame Moreau spoke up now. Her voice was a pale shadow of what it had been, creaky and hoarse. There was an oxygen cannula looped under her nose, and the edge of an IV peeped out from under her sleeve. The more Aurora looked at her, the less this woman resembled the Madame Moreau she had known all these years.
“Aurora, Mr. Cheng and I have known you for… a long time. Not… not just since you began… working for me. I hired you partic—particularly to keep a closer… eye on you.” She paused, taking deep breaths. “Damn lungs, giving out on me… now of all times. Anyways… What I mean to say, is… that we’ve known you… and your mother, too, all your life.”
Well, just a little while ago, Aurora had wondered if she could weather another shock. This one was not so jarring compared to the others, though, and a thinning layer of numbness allowed Aurora to absorb this information without much of a reaction.
“When your mother… came to New York, it was because… your father asked her to, but she… she stayed because we all thought it would be… safest.” Huffing, Moreau looked between Cheng and Milo and Lucian. She was having obviously difficulty breathing and speaking so long. “Well, those of us who were… there at the time. Lucian hadn’t… appeared yet, and Milo was still… fairly new to the cause.”
Okay, Aurora thought. That one was a bit heavier. They had mentioned her father. Aurora held up a hand to stop Moreau, something she had never imagined doing before this minute. She opened her mouth to try and ask, but no sound came out. Aurora cleared her throat and tried again; success, even if her voice was not as clear as usual.
“You knew my father? And my mom?”
Moreau and Cheng exchanged a glance, and Cheng set his hand over Moreau’s frail, shaking one. “Yes, and yes,” Mr. Cheng replied. “We know your mother. We see her often over the years, as we watch over you. We have not spoken to her in many year. Too dangerous.”
“And my father?” Aurora pushed.
“That is more complicated,” Moreau sighed.
“But you knew him?” They had known him. There was someone else; he was real, not a phantom of her mother’s imagination, not a vague name on Aurora’s birth certificate. “You knew him?”
“We… know him. He’s here in New York,” Moreau replied softly.
“He’s here? In the city?” Aurora took a deep breath. Somewhere, she’d sort of expected this. It was true, then, that he’d simply walked out. He’d been here in New York all the time and had never wanted to see her. He could have visited, but didn’t, even while Ramona pined after him.
“Yes, which is problem,” Mr. Cheng agreed. “He is close to you, Aurora. Close to finding you. That cannot happen.”
That didn’t make sense. Aurora shook her head. “Why not? Why would he be trying to find me? He knows where to find me. The same place he left me.”
Moreau and Cheng were both shaking their heads. “No, no,” Moreau said. “Not at all. We moved your mother… to a new hiding place when… it happened. I’ve been hiding you… ever since. But, my girl, you have… no hope of understanding any of this… until we explain more… about who we are.”
That didn’t sound good. Aurora looked around between them. “And that would be..?”
“More than we look,” Lucian replied quietly from his corner.
“Let’s see, where to begin…” Moreau l
ooked around the room. “Cheng, you and Lucian… had better not show her. Milo… I’m afraid I have… little enough left… and your gift isn’t so… well difficult to hide… from the hospital staff.”
Milo nodded. “All right, Aurora. Think of a number between one and infinity.”
Aurora stared at him. “What?”
“Just do it.”
Aurora did; yesterday, she would have done it rolling her eyes. Today, she was more suspicious.
Milo grinned a thin-lipped grin. “178,444.”
It wasn’t even surprising, after all that had happened. “Let me guess, you’re a mind-reader?”
“Well, they used to call guys and gals like me seers, but I guess modern times can call me whatever fits.”
“So what, you’re a bunch of psychics?”
“No, Milo is the one… psychic in the bunch,” Moreau replied dryly. “I guess you would call me a witch.”
Aurora sat there, in this room full of crazy people, wondering if she, too, was quite insane. Moments like this, she was feeling it, because a part of her believed every word out of their mouths.
“Well, at least part of you believes it,” Milo muttered.
“A witch?” she hissed, as if to prove how skeptical she was. Aurora hated to seem gullible; that was New Yorker in her.
“Yes, my girl,” Moreau replied in a tired murmur. “I’ve been… hiding you… and your mother… from him.”
Aurora stared at her. “Him? My father?”
“Yes.”
She swallowed down a dry lump in her throat. Of everything she’d heard since she stepped into this hospital room… “He’s been trying to find me?”
They all looked at her then, eyes steely. “Oh, yes, Aurora,” Mr. Cheng answered for Moreau, who had started to struggle for breath. “He’s been scouring the city for you. But as long as Moreau was well, he could never find you.”
Disbelief, anger even, was building up in Aurora’s chest. “Why? Why would you keep him from me?”
“So you believe us?”
Aurora paused. The answer, of course, was yes, as ridiculous and out of reach as it all should have been. Maybe she was just in a state of mental upheaval, completely overwhelmed by the events of the last twenty-four hours. Maybe she just really needed some sleep. But Aurora did believe them, without reservation.
