The Last Etruscan

by Lyn Brittan

  But Sophie couldn’t leave without one more weird out. “I want to say, ma’am, that yesterday gave us a perfect wedding and gave you a perfect beginning to your new life together. I’ll just see you off downstairs,” she said, and slammed the door behind her.

  “You can wake up now. What the hell’s wrong with her?

  “You’re my wife.”

  “You’re a coward. Here. Bitch probably laced it with arsenic.”

  Luca smiled, but took a sip nonetheless. “Still alive.”

  “Doesn’t work that fast. Drink more. What time is it?”

  “Nearly time to leave,” he said between yawns. “C’mon, let’s get us showered.”

  ****

  They were ready an hour later, and Stephan held the car door of a new Aston Martin open for Luca and his new wife. It wasn’t his usual car, perhaps a gift from his brothers? He’d have to look into it and send a hell of a thank you card.

  “All the securities set up?”

  “Yes, Sir.” Stephan said. “Beautiful wedding yesterday.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” Luca tapped the trunk. “This car, where did it come from?”

  “Another wedding gift. Don’t worry. It checks out.”

  Good. He hadn’t expected any trouble at their destination, his family’s home in the Alps, but getting from here to there presented numerous security risks.

  He disliked leaving his city while a madman ran amok. Still, after a private discussion with his father, he’d left his family on high alert, and New Orleans couldn’t be in safer hands. He, his father, and brothers would go on the offensive as soon as Luca and Fanchon Marie returned from their honeymoon. Not all his brothers remained, only the ones without wives. He didn’t blame the rest for going. As long as the calendar read Beltane, the women and children would be safer out of the area, in case Breznik tried anything.

  He had, however, taken every precaution against it. The wedding guests had been told to keep the new date secret, though the reason why remained hidden. He hoped that it would buy him at least a week away. No, it hadn’t been the smartest move, but he wanted to give Fanchon Marie the whole experience. Like she said, no reason to let Breznik ruin their new life together.

  Speaking of, his woman had stepped inside the car when Sophie skittered out the house. “Sir! Sir! You have a phone call. He says it’s urgent, that he’d only speak to you.”

  “He, who?”

  The woman shrugged and gulped for a breath of air. “Don’t know, Sir. He claimed that he wasn’t at liberty to say, but that you’d want to take this call.”

  Great. Luca checked the time on his watch. They would need to leave soon if they had any prayer of staying on schedule. Private plane or not, when you submit your flight data, the powers that be meant for you to keep it. On the other hand, this call could have more than a little to do with the Morlena. Luca raised Fanchon Marie’s delicate fingers to his lips. “I will be right back.”

  When Luca finally made it to the phone, the person on the other end spoke to him in drawled out gibberish. Not a hex or foreign language, just random mismatched words. “Hello? Who is this?”

  Right about the time the other person stopped speaking and started laughing was when Luca heard the squeal of car tires. He rushed to the window, and the phone fell from his hands as quickly as the blood drained from his face.

  The car sped off.

  What the hell?

  Luca ran downstairs. Sophie wailed at the bottom of the staircase. He’d deal with her later. If she masterminded this or was in anyway involved, he intended carve out the heart of the woman who’d bathed and swaddled him as a child and he wouldn’t shed a single tear in the doing of it.

  “Please, Rom Baro...Luca, we’ll find her and—”

  “Shut up and get out of my way.” Sophia didn’t move fast enough. He smashed against the door frame as he bowled pass her.

  “I can help. Let me call and—”

  He heard the concern and fear in her voice, but he couldn’t tell if it was for Fanchon Marie or her own. He paused at the front door, turned and threw out one final word of counsel. “Sit down. Do nothing. If you’re not here when I get back then I’ll know. I will find you, and I’ll kill you.”

  He tried to calm his pounding heart. Someone had taken her, there was no other explanation, and Luca’s only chance in getting her back depended on him being able to hold it together. Sometime between being an annoying brat and now, this woman staged a full on attack and infiltration of his heart. She belonged to him, and he wasn’t about to let some twisted freak with a fetish for the recently reanimated take her away.

  Propelled by a dangerously powerful mix of fear and determination, Luca grabbed the tools of his trade: guns, knives, and talismans. Luca ran to his multistory garage soon after.

  “Damn!” Someone beat him to it; every car he tried to move had been somehow disabled. The only thing he could successfully turn on was a motorcycle stored in the back of a trailer. Wasting no more time, he revved the engine and sped off into the morning.

  ****

  Fanchon Marie knew she was knee deep in trouble the second Luca disappeared into the home. Stephan closed the car door milliseconds later. She tried to reopen it, but child door locks disabled the mechanism. After knocking on the window failed to get his attention, Fanchon Marie called his cell phone.

  “Stephan? Stephan? Open the door...just until Luca gets back. I’m getting claustrophobic back here.”

  He didn’t exactly grant her request. Nope, instead she heard the car come on and nearly fell back at the speed with which he took off. Only then did Stephan crack the window and separated the front of the car from the back. She could see his sick smile through the window.

  “What kind of game are you trying to play, Stephan?”

  “You haven’t figured it out already?”

  The only thing she was trying to figure out was how to bust his sardonic smile apart with a few kicks to the face. “Why are you doing this? Luca trusted you!”

  He shrugged and winked at her reflection in the rear view mirror. “They’re paying me.”

  “Wait, this is over money? You’re his friend. You’re his family.”

  “They’re paying me...a lot of money.”

  That’s when she snapped. Stephan rolled up the window, but not before she lobbed of a series of fire starting sparks in his direction.

  Fanchon Marie could hear nothing through the noise proof blackened glass for several moments. She took the time to come up with a plan of escape. She hadn’t gotten far beyond Step One, kill Stephan, before the air in the back filled up with a throat-clogging, eye-watering smoke. She tried to slow its effects but no luck. It didn’t matter how much she controlled her breaths or decreased any sort of physical agitation, her eyelids took on the weight of bricks as smoke seeped from the air vents and began to fog her brain.

  When she woke up, her head felt heavy, nearly impossible to lift. It took several moments for Fanchon Marie to figure out where she was. Cramped. Dark. Noisy. Bumpy. Crap! The little twit had stuffed her in the trunk of a car!

  The best possible worst situation ever. Fanchon Marie had seen enough TV movies and talk show specials to know how to get out of this. No need for spells and potions, just guts and determination. Fanchon Marie ran her hands along the edge of the trunk until she found a hole in the lining. She ripped up the fabric, a quick prayer of fortitude and tried to punch out one of the rear lights from the inside.

  She couldn’t angle herself enough to see what went beyond, but the absence of car horns and other sounds of traffic led her to believe that he’d chosen to drive on one of the many Louisiana back roads. Sticking her hand out to wave at passersby wasn’t going to be an option. Time to switch to the magic. Fanchon Marie bit into her hand hard enough to draw blood. Then she sang. More hushed than she would have liked, but still powerful, nonetheless.

  Her song was of need, courage, light, and hope. A song of marriage and family and promises to
be kept. It was a song that only one man would be able to hear, Luca. Every drop of blood that fell from her hand though the broken glass was another note in her grand musical composition. If he felt even the smallest amount of love for her, the magical melody would be the perfect road map. Her smile grew. Nothing about that man was small, not even his love for her. She could only hope that she hadn’t started it so late down the path that he couldn’t find the trail.

  ****

  Surrounded by water on three sides, Luca knew Stephan would head northwest, it was the only way out of the city with a screaming woman in your car. At least, that’s what he was banking on. He couldn’t imagine he or Breznik would be stupid enough to keep her in New Orleans. Just the same, he called Gregorio to have only the most trustworthy of his men scout out known Morlena hotbeds in town.

  Luca led the motorcycle towards the back country, more traditional Morlena territory, and slowed down only when his earbud sprung to life with a phone call. “Sean, I want you to take follow a northeasterly route. Meet me near Highway 10 and Route 1. Call if you catch her scent. Since we have known each other, you’ve wanted to hear me beg. Well, now I am. Please.” He didn’t give a damn about pride right now. He needed her home and safe.

  As much as he hated to do it, Luca pulled over and waited for Sean and his sensitive nose to arrive. It killed him, but he had his men and the wolves spread in different directions, and didn’t want to be too far out when the call came. He didn’t know who would be on the other end of it: Gregorio, Sean, Stephan, or Breznik. Luca stroked the gun he’d picked up on the way out the house. Whomever it was, he’d be ready.

  Gregorio checked in first.

  “Luca, I sent some boys to check out every inch of his apartment. Stephan’s room had been cleaned out, and the girl he was with is dead.” The bastard must have had something like this planned for a while. Their extended engagement hadn’t helped either. “Good news though. In Fanchon Marie’s bridal quarter, well, we got lucky. I found your Touching Coin stuck in a pile of clothes in the corner. At least he can’t use that against you.”

  Lucky for Luca, but it also meant that Fanchon Marie was without a piece of him and the small bit of protection within it. “Thank you, Gregorio. Keep the line open as much as possible. Call me with regular with updates.”

  Forty-five excruciating minutes later, the cell phone again.

  Sean. Callie had picked up her scent between the Maringouin and Atchafalaya Rivers. Luca turned his bike to cross the bridge over the Mississippi, to meet them head on. He avoided major roads to hug the river as long as he could. Twenty minutes into the ride, he heard a sound so intense he damn near ran off the road.

  Fanchon Marie. Her song. He caught up with the wolves, moments later.

  Callie drove the Jeep while Sean moved on silent haunches in the back, in wolf form, nose to the air. Wordlessly and without any regard for it, Luca ditched his bike to jump into the empty front passenger seat. She nodded once then sent the car forward with enough force that the back end fishtailed.

  Each trailed Fanchon Marie their own way, Sean and Callie with their noses and Luca with his ears, her powerful song, dragging him closer. They followed the river until it broke off into the back country. They took the vehicle as far as it would go as the paved roads gave way to gravel ones, then dirt paths and finally but the desolation of the swamp.

  With a good heading, Luca dialed Gregorio for reinforcements. “No reception.” He shook his phone in front of Callie. “You?”

  “None for me either. Where the hell are we, anyway?” she asked. Sean whined from the back seat, his own special type of request for an answer.

  “Lafayette. Cajun bayou country and Morlena territory. We are on their grounds now.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fanchon Marie’s energy reserves had long depleted by the time the car came to a stop. She heard two male voices though the darkness, but when the trunk opened, three people stood around her. Only two had heartbeats.

  Stephan, Breznik, and Marguerite Durand. Each wore a twisted grin and reason for wanting her here. Stephan had recently and absolutely made it clear that he didn’t want a non-blood woman as his Beluni. Breznik wanted his city and Marguerite? Well, she probably held the key. It kicked into Fanchon Marie’s head that she must be the power supply Breznik needed. Torture only provided the extra kicks and payment she wanted. Fanchon Marie swallowed hard. What did the spirit of that sick woman have in store for her?

  “Three against one. That hardly seems fair.”

  Breznik responded with a backhand across her face strong enough to propel her backwards into the car. “Oh, I’m not interested in fairness or parity. No, I’m interested in getting in that little hot seat of power. So far, it’s working out for me. In the interest of full disclosure, here’s what will happen to you. First, we’ll torture you. Then we’ll kill you. After that, we’ll torture you some more. We may torture you forever.”

  “It will be a first for me,” Marguerite said in a voice the sounded like unoiled gears. “To torture someone in life and then to do the same in death. Well! I am most certainly looking forward to it.” The icy specter floated closer and dragged a pallid hand across Fanchon Marie’s tear-stained cheeks. “Yes, cry for me, puppet. You will cry much more as the hours and decades pass by.”

  She looked around in a desperate search for any means of escape but came up empty. She could see no landmarks, streets, signs, or even homes. Nothing but marsh and swamp. They drudged though the muddy slush for at least three and a half miles. Whenever Fanchon Marie slowed down or got stuck in the sludge, Breznik would use a magical spark to administer shocks of “encouragement” to keep her moving. Each current of electricity left a new round of blisters that would take weeks to heal.

  Continuously and without mercy, her captors kept up this, and their laughter, torture until they came to a makeshift pier with a swamp boat tethered to one of its posts. Keys waited in the ignition. The awkward machine hummed to life seconds later and took Fanchon Marie farther into the swamps of Louisiana.

  She looked around to find herself encased on all sides by true back country. Places where you only knew your way around if you owned the land. Anger melted into desperation, which finally gave way to hopelessness. With each nautical mile they put behind them, it would become harder for Luca to find her and rescue her. Maybe she should give up. If they somehow took control her spirit, they could force her to do a massive amount of damage.

  “Careful,” Breznik’s voice said from the front of the boat. “Don’t get too close to the edge, princess. Gators would have you for lunch on the right side of the minutes.” Breznik needn’t have bothered. Fanchon Marie knew well the dangers of the swamp. She also knew she’d been in no real danger of falling off the boat. He’d only wanted to remove any illusions of possible escape routes.

  Fanchon Marie cursed herself for using so much of her energy on weaving a trail for Luca. Though to be honest, she wasn’t exactly sure what she could have done with a full tank of power. Out here in the swamps, without any of her normal implements and given her type of magic, she could only hold off the spirit of Marguerite that floated above them or control the beasts of the swamp, but not both at the same time. At least not for the extended period of time it would take for her to get a handle on them. Not to mention, she had two full on Roma men with their own magic and guns – not exactly good odds.

  As the final vestiges of hope slowly ripped apart, the boat came to rest at a home on stilts in the middle of the water. She felt the evil from several yards out. Despite her odds of survival, Fanchon Marie made a run for it. She had nowhere to go, but the swamp or perhaps something inside her, made her try. She didn’t want to be in that house.

  Her attempt was in vain. A snarling Stephan grabbed Fanchon Marie by the throat and dragged her across the splintered wooden planks into the structure. He cared nothing for the shards of oak that embedded itself in her exposed flesh. After a moment, neither did she. The se
cond her heart crossed the threshold, it seized for five excruciating beats. That was when Fanchon Marie knew for certain it was over. She would not make it out of this house alive.

  Her torture began the moment the door was closed them. Every magical charm known to the Roma was used against her, much to the delight of Stephan and Marguerite. Breznik maintained a bored expression; clearly he was waiting for bigger prey to arrive. A grander show. Fanchon Marie drifted in and out of consciousness several times during the evening and into the early hours. Then the witching hour came, 3:15 in the morning. It must have been, because Fanchon Marie lost the fight.

  She knew the second they killed her. A coldness swept up her body from her toes though her internal organs, and she felt each one shut down in rapid succession. At least the physical pain was over. One thing they hadn’t taken away was the peace that came with a passing. She rode high on a wave of calm and though her last living action involved tears, they were of joy and thanksgiving.

  She cried in the happiness of finding short but true love. She cried for uniting a city, hoping her death would cement the bond between her Vodou people and Luca’s Roma against the Morlena Clan. Her final thoughts were of the family she couldn’t have on Earth, but the knowledge that she, and the child she carried, would wait for Luca on the other side. When his time came, many years from now, his eternally young family would be the first in line to greet him. In that everlasting instant, Fanchon Marie Cosette Beltremieux died in peace.

  ****

  Luca knew they were on the right trail. Although Fanchon Marie’s song had long stopped, he, Callie, and Sean kept running into road blocks as they traveled by stolen boat. Namely, Morlena gunmen needing to be killed. That he left groups of three or four Roma to fight off a Rom Baro, showed how little Breznik cared for his people. Of course Breznik must have known the day with end with their deaths, but apparently, all he needed was time. Cannon fodder. Their little lives, distractions for Luca, gave him that.