“One of the perks of the job was free tuition and books for my brother and me. We got free tuition and books, but not the stuff that would help us fit in. Like wardrobe and good haircuts. We were trashy kids who lived in a rundown trailer park, or community as they preferred to call it. And we looked like what we were.
“My older brother managed it better. He was a lot more easygoing, good natured about the teasing. Eventually his peers decided he was more or less cool, like their mascot James Dean or something. I don’t know. Let’s just say that my adjustment had sharper edges.
“Long story short, I figured out early that I liked girls and wanted some of what they had to offer. Unfortunately the admiration wasn’t mutual.”
“That’s… hard to believe.” Mercy ventured in a soft voice after he was silent for a bit.
Raif really didn’t know what to say to that. So he went on.
“The girls… They looked so clean and shiny and smelled so good, not like perfume, more like the smell of wholesome. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. They looked like they’d been taken care of. Of course they were. Taken care of that is. And I wanted to be close to that.
“When I tried to get close enough to talk to them, they looked at me like I’d gotten lost on my way to the back door. Sometimes they laughed. One girl, I remember, just sniffed. Sniffed. And turned away like I wasn’t there.”
Mercy could hear the emotion in his voice and could almost imagine the way he must have felt as a little lost boy.
“The other news is that, about the same time, everybody was starting to figure out that I was good in school. Despite rumors of me being a imbecile,” his helmet light turned toward Mercy pointedly, “I was good enough to compete with the brainiacs. Right before I turned fourteen, Black Swan found me and I was out of there. Had no reason to want to stay.
“Fast forward to speed dating because of a bet I lost to Torn. First, I’d had a bad night. A really bad night. When I first saw you sitting there at that speed dating table, what I saw was what I imagined one of those girls might look like all grown up. Prim and proper and entitled and sure that nobody who wasn’t fourth generation Yale was good enough to talk to her. So I lashed out.”
“Preemptive strike.”
He turned toward her thinking there was no reason to hold back. He didn’t have any reason not to tell the whole story.
“Yeah. Seeing you sitting there almost knocked me over. I wanted you to like me so much and I was so sure that you were going to make me feel like a walking piece of shit…
“The thing is that, right after I blew the place up, I realized that maybe I hadn’t been fair. I hadn’t even given you a chance to say hello before I shut down all the possibilities. I deliberately put you on the defensive, but it wasn’t you I was mad at. I figured that out.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. For all the good it did. You were already long gone when I got my shit together and I didn’t know anything about you. I remembered your first name, but not your last name. I was being so intent on not looking and feeling like a fool, again, that I left myself without any way to find you. Like an idiot.”
“You wanted to find me?” She sounded like it was the strangest thing she’d ever heard, but she also sounded enthralled, which encouraged him to continue.
“Yeah. For all the good it did. So - and believe me I know how lame this is going to sound - I started going back there on days off. I’d just walk around the area hoping that maybe you lived or worked close to where that restaurant was.” He laughed. “I got to know the neighborhood really well. I could mark on a map every single place to sit down or urinate. I could write a guidebook and call it Looking for Mercy in Midtown.”
She’d been studying him quietly, soaking it all in, almost afraid to move. “Catchy title. And not a bad strategy either. Just so happens I work and live within a few blocks of there. It’s probably surprising that you never saw me.”
“Wow.”
“Yes. So I’ve got to ask something. What were you planning to do if you saw me?”
He stared for a few seconds with the light shining in her eyes then put his head back against the wall and laughed. “You give me more credit than I deserve if you think there was a plan. Sometimes I rehearsed apologies, but when you tried to talk to me on the plane I had a brain freeze. Maybe I would have chickened out and just become a stalker.”
“Wait. You had a brain freeze on the plane when I tried to talk to you? I thought you were just being an asshole.”
“I can’t blame you for thinking that. It wasn’t my best impression.”
“Yeah. But you looked for me? Tried to find me? To apologize?”
“Well… partly.”
“What’s the other part?”
After several moments of silence passed, he said, “It’s your turn. Tell me about you.”
“What about me?”
“You can start with, ‘I was born…’, and take it from there.”
“I’m a long-winded teacher-type. You might be sorry you opened that door.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Alright. My adoptive parents were killed when I was a baby. I was raised by a grandmother who hadn’t been particularly impressed with the idea of adopting and had been very vocal with my parents about that. I know because at least once a day she reiterated that she’d warned them against adopting and pointed out that she’d been right because look how badly things had all turned out for her. She was saddled with some faceless stranger’s kid.
“She went through the motions of care, but not the motions of love. So I knew I was missing something and I wanted that something I was missing.
“By second grade I had figured out that I was smart and that I could get positive recognition by doing smart things. I might not have had parents who doted, but I could stand on the fringes of approval if I pleased my teachers. So I studied. Hard. And eventually put myself through graduate school on scholarship and stipend.”
“We have something in common then. We both pretty much raised ourselves. Mine were absent. Yours were dead. From a kid’s point of view, it’s about the same.”
Mercy was thinking that the following day was her birthday and that she was the only person alive who knew that and cared. When she didn’t respond right away, he pressed on.
“How did you end up at Columbia?”
“Luck. Mostly. In the early sixties, spy satellites found about ten thousand archeological sites in the Middle East. Lost cities with roads and canals. All ‘undiscovered’.” She put the word ‘undiscovered’ in air quotes although he didn’t see that since his helmet light wasn’t on her at the time. “Some of them were as big as a hundred and fifty acres. So archeologists all over the world began petitioning the governments of Turkey, Iraq and Syria for permits to excavate and investigate. It took nearly forty years to get in, but I was lucky enough to get taken on as assistant slash intern at one of the sites that was permitted to dig.
“I was there for a little over three years. One day my boss handed me a letter. It said there was an opening at Columbia. I remember looking up at him with a question on my face. That’s when he offered to recommend me if I wanted it.” The smile on her face revealed that she was reliving that day as she told the story. “Well, I’d never lived anywhere like New York, but the opportunity seemed like a gift from the gods. I think I might have squealed,” she laughed, “which both embarrassed and pleased the man I worked for. He was a famous guy, at least in circles frequented by archeology academics, attached to de Gaulle in Paris. Very prestigious. I knew a recommendation from him would go a long way.
“He told me to keep the champagne corked until there was an actual offer, which was good advice, of course.”
“But you got it.”
She smiled. “But I got it.”
He reached over and pulled away a tiny piece of rubble hanging from her eyebrow. “And now you’re here.”
“Now I’m here.”
“Yeah. Tell me how that happened.”
“Stays in the collapsed cavern, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. If we get out of here alive, you have to forget everything I’ve said. I was pretty disillusioned after the speed dating incident. I didn’t come away from that feeling excited about the prospect of connecting with the opposite sex. So I gave up on the idea of maybe meeting somebody. Ever. And decided I needed to make some big changes in my life. Do something different…”
“Wait. Hold it right there. You’re saying you were so upset about that scene with me that you gave up on the idea of dating?”
“I think you underestimate your heartthrob worthiness, Sir Nightsong.”
“Dr. Renaux. You thought about me.” He said it like he couldn’t really believe what he was hearing.
“Call me Mercy. Yes. I thought about you.”
“In a good way. Right?”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” He chuckled. “The experience was so horrible that I rededicated myself to work, but that didn’t seem to be filling the…”
“Hole?”
She could tell that he was smiling an infuriating smile. “Was your development arrested at age thirteen?”
He laughed. “Probably.”
“Anyway, I got a message from a man named Monq. It was so intriguing I had to check it out. I guess that’s what archeologists do. We get intrigued by mysteries and have to go where they lead.
“He told me about vampire and, naturally, I thought he was a loon. Right up to the moment when a kid materialized out right next to my chair and showed me fangs.
“I’m still not sure why I didn’t die of a heart attack on the spot. Seems like I should have, but I didn’t even faint. Or scream. Isn’t that what women are supposed to do? That’s what women always do in movies.”
The sound of his soft laugh came closer to making her heart skip than the vampire had. “Sooooo. Either you’re special or they got it wrong.”
“Which one? Right now I’m feeling like a disappointment to my gender. No fainting. No screaming.”
“You want me to pick?”
“Yeah. You set up the parameters. Now choose.”
“You’re special.” Although she couldn’t see it, his smile became a grin. “And they got it wrong.” She laughed. “So Monq figured a trick vampire show is worth a thousand words.” She nodded. “And it worked.”
“And it worked.”
“And now you’re here on this grand adventure that will probably end in our deaths.”
“Hmmm. Nothing funny about that.”
He took her by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “It has its drawbacks. But it’s not all bad either. Finally found a way to get you alone. ”
Sir Nightsong couldn’t have surprised her more if he’d started singing “Dixie”. He started moving forward being careful to keep the light where she could see in front of her.
“Anybody ever mentioned that it’s hard to get a read on you, Nightsong? You’re kind of a moving target.”
“Nobody’s ever said that in so many words. I have had a couple of people tell me I’m not worth trying to decipher. I think the exact words were along the lines of ‘fuck off’.”
“Can’t imagine why anyone would ever have that reaction.”
He chuckled. “You don’t have to forget the… uh, incident. But I do think you should let me out of the penalty box. Since mine will probably be the last face you ever see and all.”
“I can’t see your face. When it’s not dark, there’s a light shining in my eyes.”
After twenty minutes of moving further into the cavern they noticed three things. The cavernous space was getting larger instead of smaller. The air was getting thicker instead of thinner. And they could hear some noise ahead that sounded like an engine.
“Listen.”
“What is it?”
He shook his head back and forth. “Let’s go find out.”
“Famous last words.”
After several minutes of forging ahead they noticed that, with every few steps, they were able to discern a fourth factor in their ever changing equation. The cavern was getting lighter instead of darker. The engine noise was also getting louder. A faint glimmer of hope was starting to take root in their minds.
What they found at the end of their short journey seemed both miraculous and magical. The cavern opened up into a circular space about forty feet in diameter. The far side featured light coming from above and a small waterfall that fell into a pool.
They looked at each other.
“Good news or bad news?” Raif asked.
“Bad news first,” she replied.
“It’s a dead end with no way out.”
“I don’t like the bad news.”
“Exactly why it’s called bad news.”
“What’s the good news?”
“We’re not going to die of thirst. Assuming that water is good to drink. We can shut the helmet light off thereby doubling our ability to light the darkness. Again. And, last but not least…”
“Yes?”
“We can wash the mountain off so I can see your beautiful face before I die.”’
She cocked her head. “You think I’m beautiful?”
“Well… Not now.” She hit him on the arm while he laughed. “I meant that in theory your beauty will be restored when you’re cleaned off.”
“Oh. In theory.” She sat down on the ground.
He sat down in front of her. “Hey. You know what though? Seriously?”
“What?”
“I think we should try to use what time we have left well.”
She looked around. “Doing what?”
“Fucking.” She picked up a pebble near her hand and tossed it so that it landed against his abs. “Hey. What was that for?”
“Fucking? Really?”
“Yeah. Look, I know I’m not a ladies’ elf like Finngarick. Maybe I’m not your death by sex fantasy, but you’re mine.”
Mercy gaped, not knowing whether he was serious about the sex or the fantasy or any of it. And she seriously wasn’t about to let him know that the face she saw in her most erotic nocturnal moments was his.
“I don’t know you well enough to be able to tell when you’re joking and when you’re not.”
He nodded like he was mulling that over. “I get that. So we’ll make it easy. I’m half joking about the fleshy friction. I’m perfectly serious about the fantasy part.”
She stared at him for a while trying to figure out if he was telling the truth about telling the truth. “If you’re being honest, about the fantasy part, then thank you. It’s nice to go out on a high note.”
Reaching for her bronze taffeta back pack that would never be stylish, or clean, again, she began digging around inside. After a few seconds she said, “Yes! I thought so!”
“What?”
She withdrew a packaged rectangular item and held it aloft. “A protein bar! Don’t worry. I’m giving you half.”
“Protein bar.” He made a face. “Those things leave an aftertaste like road kill.”
“First, it’s food. Second, you’re actually going to complain about the taste now? When it could be your last meal? Third, how do you know what road kill tastes like? Fourth, strike that last question. I don’t want to know. But if that’s really how you feel, I’ll just eat the whole thing myself.”
He launched himself at her feet and sat on his knees, holding his curled hands up like begging paws.
She had to hand it to him. The guy wasn’t just drop dead gorgeous in an exotic and bad boy way. He could also be cute with cross currents of little boy that called to her nurturing instincts. He was a mystery, an unlikely combination of traits that was near irresistible to a professional mystery chaser.
Rolling her eyes, she unwrapped the bar. What she revealed looked a little like jerky pressed with straw. She broke off half and started to hand it to him, but he leaned forward and opened his mouth. She extended the ha
lf bar toward his mouth, expecting him to take a bite, but he took the entire piece and began chewing while grinning. Mercy wasn’t sure whether to be appalled, amused or amazed that his mouth was that big. But she wasn’t going to insist on manners when they were spending their last hours in a cave together.
Raif walked over to the pool to try the water. He leaned down to smell first. When it passed that test, he dipped his hand in for a taste. “Well, I’ll be a…”
“What? What is it?” She came up behind.
“It’s warm.” He looked up at her. “Mercy, you’re a good luck charm. There must be a fissure underneath leading to some volcanic activity down deep.”
She stared at his upturned face for a beat before she started laughing. “Got to give it up for your attitude, Raif. Not everyone would call this situation lucky.”
His face split into a grin that she knew would be heart stopping if his face was clean. “Let’s go in.”
“In?” She looked at the water dubiously while Raif stood up and started stripping off clothes.
“Come on. We’re both freezing. The water will warm us up. It’s like a natural hot tub.”
“I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know, Mercy? If there was ever a time to throw caution aside, this has got to be it.”
He was making good points both about the chill and the caution. She grabbed the hem of her sweater and pulled upward.
CHAPTER 19
Farnsworth looked at her phone. It was a text from Rev. Dinner at my place tonight. 8. Don’t get caught up and be late.
She smiled at the phone thinking she was the most blessed woman who ever lived. How many could say they lost their love, but got him back again? One. So far as she knew. Okay. What shall I wear?
Rev: Little as possible.
It was a private joke that didn’t seem to get old.
She set the alarm on her phone so that, if she did get caught up in work, she’d have a warning and know when to quit. It was a good thing she’d had the foresight because she was in the middle of looking at the reconciliation of the clinic budget when she heard the chime.
Knights of Black Swan, Books 7-9 (Knights of Black Swan Box Set Book 3) Page 27
