by Lisa Olsen
Ugh. Maybe I didn’t want to remember him after all? I decided then it didn’t matter what I had or hadn’t done with Aubrey in the past, it was staying in the past as far as I was concerned.
Ulrik held his hand up, catching our attention. “Hold on a sec, does anyone else hear that?”
“Hear what?” I asked.
“Like an electronic beep… there… Did you hear it that time?”
“I heard it.” Carys smiled brightly. “I think it’s coming from the other room.”
“I think you’re right.” Ulrik flashed her a quick smile, leaving us behind as he went in search of the source.
I was about to follow when he reappeared, holding aloft his trophy – a cell phone with the charger still attached. “Anja’s phone,” he announced.
Chapter Seven
Ulrik handed it over, standing close to Anja as she swiped through the screens. “Better hurry, that beep means low battery.”
“There’s no signal,” she sighed, her brows drawing together in a pucker of frustration.
“You can still check and see if there’s any information in there to tell you where we are. Anything on your calendar…”
“No, there’s nothing,” she frowned, swiping faster. “Oh… except here’s your picture in my contacts! It says your name is Bishop though.”
“Bishop,” he repeated, the name resonating with him.
“Head’s up, Bishop.” Mason didn’t bother to wait for a reaction, lobbing a soda can at Bishop’s head.
Bishop reached up and deftly snatched it out of the air without looking. “Hey, did you get me those reports on the Stenger case I asked for?”
“You bet. I scanned it before I sent it to you. It’s pretty much like you thought. He was tenderized a little then bled out, probably into the mouth of someone we know. It’s kind of a sloppy cover up really, usually they make a half hearted attempt to disguise the neck wound. But it isn’t raising any flags in the department. Why the interest on this one?”
Focusing on the electronics on the work bench, Bishop decided it would be easier to dodge the question than explain something he didn’t fully understand himself. “It’s… complicated.”
“Yeah, I’ve been hearing a lot of that lately,” Mason muttered, taking a seat on the opposite side of the workbench and grabbing the gear out of his hands. Bishop resisted the urge to pull it back. He knew Mason was much better at that stuff than he was, but now his fingers were decidedly empty.
“Did you talk to Cage about the surveillance op I mentioned before?”
“That’s me, I’m Bishop. I remember now. And I think I’m some kind of a cop.”
“Bishop?” Carys’ lips formed a pout. “I prefer Ulrik.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t. It never sounded right to me.”
“Okay, Bishop it is,” Anja smiled up at him, and that clicked too, though he couldn’t understand why. “At least we know we’re friends, we’re in each other’s phones.”
“That’s true.” He smiled back at her, but it melted away when he caught the look on Carys’ face. He wasn’t allowed to smile at another girl, but she was allowed to stick her boobs in another guy’s face? Bishop bit back the scowl, returning his attention to her phone. “Who else you got in there?”
“Ah… Aubrey’s in here.”
“There now, you see? We’re friends as well. Now would you free me from this wretched thing?” Aubrey rattled the chain around his wrist.
“Keep your trap shut or I’ll give you something to yell about,” Rob growled at Aubrey. “I’m in there, ain’t I?”
“Oh sure, of course you are,” Anja replied a little too quickly. “But ah, this is where it starts to get murky. I guess I thought it would be fun to stick other pictures in here. I have Hanna Evans, just like Bishop’s phone, but it’s a pic of Supergirl. I’ve got a Carter with a pic of He-man, a Jakob with a pic of Skeletor, Felix with a pic of Kingpin.”
“And me?” Rob asked.
“It’s, um… your picture is a pile of poo,” Anja admitted, and Bishop looked over her shoulder. Sure enough, there was a smiling pile of poo icon where Rob’s picture should be. “I’m sorry…” she started to say, but he waved her off.
“No matter. It’s a joke, I expect.” Only Rob didn’t look like he thought it was very funny. He looked like he wanted to hit something, Bishop had seen it a hundred times.
“What about me? Am I in your device?” Carys asked, and Anja shook her head.
“No, I’m sorry, I’m afraid not.”
“It’s hardly surprising that we wouldn’t socialize,” Carys sniffed.
“You’re telling me,” Anja murmured, tabbing out of the contacts and into the gallery. “Oh… This is the Sistine Chapel. And this one is…” She frowned, zooming in to get a better look.
“That’s St. Peter’s Basilica,” Bishop supplied, recognizing it instantly. “Looks like you spent some time in Rome.”
“Maybe we went there on our honeymoon?” she smiled at Rob, who gave her a curt nod.
“Yeah, maybe.” What was that guy’s problem?
“Aw, son of a biscuit, it died.” Anja sighed with heavy disappointment. “I wanted to see where we went next.”
Rob shook off his rotten mood, leaning in to kiss her temple. “Plenty of time for that later.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“I don’t suppose it matters to any of you, but my arse is falling asleep,” Aubrey said with a petulant whine.
“I’d be happy to kick it for you,” Rob growled, taking a menacing step toward him until Anja caught at his arm.
“Rob!”
Rob’s shoulders rolled, annoyance coming off of him in waves. “That toff is cheesing me off. I liked him better when he was unconscious.”
“This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Bishop stepped in. “I suggest we stop letting ourselves get distracted and go back to our systematic search of the house. Only report back here if you have a significant find.”
“That sounds smart to me,” Anja agreed, tugging Rob away from Aubrey, who glowered up at him.
“Yes, it’s an excellent plan. Shall we go, cariad?” Carys smiled up at him, tucking her arm through his.
Bishop responded without thinking twice about it, his hand settling over hers on the crook of his arm. “Of course, My Lady. Right this way.” He wasn’t sure why the formal response came naturally to him, but the way her smile brightened, he had a feeling she expected such old fashioned care.
“I’ll stay here then, shall I?” Aubrey called out sourly as they all left the room, ignoring him completely.
They’d already searched a room with some items that Carys recognized, and Bishop found it interesting that there was no sign that they’d been sharing the room together. No men’s luggage or toiletries in the adjoining bathroom. Maybe she was old fashioned about some things? There hadn’t been anything interesting in her luggage, apart from the fact that she had some very expensive pieces of jewelry and more shoes than anyone had a right to take on a trip with them, by his way of thinking.
They ventured upstairs, finding another bedroom with a woman’s belongings, and Bishop wondered if they belonged to the poor dead girl lying on the floor in the great room?
“Apparently she liked to read,” Carys reported, finding a short stack of books by the bedside table on the floor. “These are all in Norwegian.”
“Really?” Hanna was a Scandinavian name, but then again, so was Anja. “What kind of books are they?”
“Runic Amulets,” she read off the spine. “Of Oak and Ash, Candleburning Magick. I’d say we found our witch’s room. These belong to a Nelleke Thorsdatter.”
“You can read Norwegian?” Bishop asked, picking up one of the books himself.
“I do,” she replied, tossing them aside without interest in favor of a handwritten journal.
“And so do I,” Bishop frowned down at the book in his hands, the words making perfect sense. Why would he know how to speak Norwegian? What o
ther languages did he know? Where exactly was he from? And why did he go by two names?
For long moments he stared at her silhouette against the night sky, the starlight making her hair glow. Bishop came out onto the terrace, his arms wrapping around her waist as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ve wanted to show you this place for a long, long time. I was born just on the other side of that ridge by the banks of the Volturno river. I spent many a year walking along that road down there, sometimes we were so poor, I had to wrap rags around my shoes to hold them together, but I’ve always loved this countryside. I’m so glad I have a chance to share it with you too, bâobèi,” he sighed, his arms wrapping tighter against her middle as he breathed in the smell of sunlight in her golden hair.
The Italian countryside slipped away and Bishop was back in the bedroom again, watching Carys read a dead woman’s journal. He was Italian? And that last bit had been Chinese, did he know what he’d called her? Yes, he’d called her precious. And she’d felt precious to him, the most important thing in the whole world.
So why didn’t he feel a thing when he looked at her now?
“I recognize that look,” Carys said, setting aside the journal to kneel on the bed. “You’re thinking entirely too much, Ulrik. Perhaps we should take a break and celebrate our engagement?” she asked, reaching for his shirt and pulling him close.
“It’s Bishop,” he corrected her, his hands covering hers to keep them from wandering. “And it’s not the time or the place for something like that.”
“It’s certainly the right place,” she disagreed, her gaze darting to the bed and back again. “And as for the time, there is always time for love, is there not?” she asked, her hands sliding free of his grasp to glide over his chest.
“Carys…”
“Think of it as therapeutic,” she insisted. “Perhaps a few minutes of pleasure will release even more of our memories? Perhaps you will remember saying my name with an altogether different kind of emotion?”
Apparently she wasn’t so old fashioned after all, but he wasn’t about to stop for a quickie while they were trying to find a way out of there. “You can stay here and pleasure yourself all you want, but I’m going to keep looking.”
Carys laid back on the bed, a speculative smile curving her lips. “I don’t mind you looking at all, if that’s what you prefer,” she teased, hands sliding over her curves.
Bishop looked away, hating the fact that part of him wanted to watch very much. His eyes lit upon a series of three high windows, too small to climb through, but if he could climb up there, he might get a better look at the lay of the land. Ignoring her heavy breathing and soft murmurs of pleasure, he dragged a chair to the first window.
It was too frosted over to see through, but more importantly, it wasn’t covered with that tingling energy barrier. “Now we’re in business,” he grinned, hopping off the chair to grab another one, hoping to use it to break the window out. Not sure how much force would be required to smash the window, he hefted the chair with all his might. Not only did the window break into a shower of glass, but the chair itself busted into little more than kindling as if it’d been made of balsa wood.
Bishop stared down at the broken pieces of wood in surprise. “I guess I didn’t have to hit it so hard.” Now that the window was broken, he could see out into the night, but there was nothing out there but snow and distant trees. “Great, now I let in the cold for nothing,” he grumbled.
Carys sat up with no trace of passion left in her face, leading him to believe that the show she’d been putting on from the bed had been more for his benefit than hers. “My but you’re strong,” she said with genuine admiration.
“Maybe the chair was faulty,” he shrugged, tossing the leftover pieces aside. It hadn’t felt unstable though, it’d felt like the same, heavy wood chair that’d easily carried his weight. Picking up one of the broken legs, he snapped it easily in half like a toothpick. “On second thought…”
“You’re bleeding,” she declared, clambering off the bed to his side, turning over his hand, which had an inch long gash from the broken glass.
“It’s not a big deal, it didn’t even hurt.” Bishop tried to downplay it at first, until he started to enjoy her soft touch. She really was a beautiful girl.
“But you’re bleeding,” she insisted, clucking her tongue with distress as she tore a strip from the hem of her expensive dress without giving it a second thought, pressing it to the wound.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” But in that moment, he enjoyed her fussing over him, the way a fiancée should. “I don’t think it’s even that deep,” he started to say, but realized she wasn’t listening to him. She stood frozen, an odd look of concentration on her face.
“The blood…” she murmured, her eyes still distant and unfocused. “I remember caring for you another time. You’d been stabbed. There was so much blood.”
“Stabbed?”
“Yes, there was a duel. You championed my honor, of course.”
“A duel?” Bishop had to laugh. “Maybe it was a joke or a demonstration or something. Nobody fights duels anymore.”
Her gaze snapped back to the present. “No, you were magnificent!” she insisted her eyes shining. “My champion. You won more than my hand that night. Oh… your hand!” Carys realized she was holding onto it tightly, and let go, which made the makeshift bandage flutter to the ground. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have let go.”
“I told you, it’s not that bad,” Bishop insisted, thinking they might find some first aid supplies in the bathroom, but when he turned over his hand, the edges of the cut had already knit together. Only a faint red line remained to show where the injury had once been.
“I don’t understand,” Carys murmured. “You were bleeding, we both saw it.”
Bishop stared at the rapidly healing wound, understanding dawning like a flash of lightning. First the super strength and now the rapid healing. “Holy shit… I’m like a superhero!” he crowed with delight.
Chapter Eight
The house was ginormous. I got excited when we found the entrance to the wine cellar, but there were no secret doors or panels leading to an escape tunnel like I’d been hoping. Somehow we ended up in a bunk room with four beds built into the walls. No luck with the windows in there either, they were shuttered and spelled, like all the others.
Two of the beds showed signs of use, and I was pretty sure the matching luggage I rifled through belonged to Aubrey. He seemed like the type to pack all of his clothes by color coordinated outfit, rather than grouping all the shirts together, the pants, etc. He didn’t have anything of interest, except for a wad of pound notes I found tucked into a side pocket. I put them right back where I found them, it wasn’t anybody’s business but his that he carried a small fortune in cash.
I looked up to see Rob stuffing something in his pocket. He wasn’t looting the other bed, was he? “Any luck on your side? What do you have there?”
“Something I picked up back in our bedroom.” Rob drew it out again without any trace of guilt, and I felt bad for having suspected him. “Don’t need battery power for this.” He showed me an old fashioned, silver pocket watch, popping the cover to reveal my picture tucked inside.
“Aw… just like Captain America has,” I grinned up at him in delight.
“Beg pardon?”
“You know, like in the first movie. Steve’s got a picture of Peggy in his watch. I might not know who I am, but I know I’m a big Cap fan.” My t-shirt proved that.
“Ah, right,” he nodded, making the connection. “So long as it’s me who’s your hero now,” he added with a half smile.
“I don’t know, have you done anything heroic today?” I teased, sliding my hand under the neat stacks of clothes, just to be thorough. “Mother of pearl…” I cried as my fingers encountered something sharp and pointy. “What the heck does he have in there?” Carefully peeling back the clothes, I found a dagger tucked in among the socks. “Wh
o keeps an unsheathed knife in their luggage?” I grumbled, looking for something to put over my finger, which had a nasty cut along one side.
“Someone who wants to discourage light fingers,” Rob replied, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and reaching for my hand. “Let’s have a look there,” he said in a soothing voice, his fingers curling around mine.
“It’s not that bad, it just kind of stings,” I said, expecting him to press the cloth to it, but instead he brought it to his lips.
“Nothing but a paper cut. I’ll kiss it and make it better, shall I?”
His lips closed over the tip of my finger, tongue rasping against the pad as he held my gaze with his. The breath left my body in a soft rush, completely taken by surprise at the action. His tongue darted out to swirl over the tip again, and my lips parted, a strange longing sweeping over me, for what – I wasn’t sure. He sucked lightly, and I braced myself for the sting, but there was no pain. None at all.
“Hey, let me see…” I pulled my finger back, stunned to see the cut had vanished completely. Not even a trace that it’d been there before. “Did you see that? It’s gone!” I gasped, utterly astonished. “Either I have super healing powers or you have magic saliva!”
“Don’t be silly. There’s no such thing,” he frowned, turning away, but I wasn’t about to let it go.
“No, really. The cut is completely gone, look.” I held my finger as close to the candlelight as I could without singeing it. My skin was smooth and unbroken. “I wonder if I should try cutting myself again?”
“No,” Rob said with enough emphasis to make me take a step back.
“Jeez, I wasn’t about to open a vein, I’m talking about a scratch. We have to see if it’s you or me that has the ability.” Without waiting for a response, I reached for the dagger, wincing as I sliced the tip of my finger again.
“Anja…” Rob scowled, taking the knife away and setting it on a small table with a clatter. “What’d you have to go and do that for?”
