The Deception Dance

by Rita Stradling

  When Nicholas jumps in beside me, I say, “Please, tell me what happened.”

  Nicholas reverses the car out of the drive, turns and accelerates. He says, “Stephen found Chauncey before my plane touched down. A...” pause, “...man had taken her to Berlin.”

  “A kidnapper?”

  He says, “I don’t think it started out that way, but in the end he was guarding her hotel room door.”

  “Guarding?”

  “Yes. Stephen fought the man, by the time Stephen got inside the hotel room Chauncey had slit her wrist.”

  “Slit her wrist?” I choke out, and then cough. “You should have taken her to a hospital in Berlin!”

  “She refused," he says.

  “You could have forced her...”

  “We had a doctor with us, but it didn’t matter, she didn’t just cut open her wrist, she mangled it. She’s dying, Raven. She made me promise to fly her back to Linnie before she fell unconscious.”

  We bump up onto the driveway, driving into the well lit parking lot. I examine the blood still on his navy suit. A mysterious kidnapper? Chauncey taking her own life? That adds up like two plus two equals a thousand. They want us to stay, to stay at their mansion, at any cost...

  Does my scream exist if it’s not released? I think so. It amasses and lodges in my chest, throbbing with every inhalation of breath, fighting to be set free. But I don’t let it; I imprison the scream behind grinding teeth. I keep my jaw clenched as I ask, “do you expect me to believe that?”

  “What?” Nicholas asks, but I can’t manage another response.

  My scream lingers in the silence that follows, not because it escapes me but because I am so aware of its unexpressed potential. The moment he parks I swing open the car door releasing the charged air into the misty night.

  Nicholas sprints toward the hospital and I am not far behind, I catch up as the front glass doors slide open. I take short inhalations of sterilized air; the smell always reminds me of death. Nicholas’s soles squeak against the white linoleum of the hospital floor, my dirty bare feet only make a soft patter. We weave through halls until we see Stephen standing guard at a door, just as the man he supposedly fought, how ironic.

  “How is she?” Somehow, still after everything I know, I can’t muster the same scathing tone for Stephen. Unlike Nicholas, he has a look of true remorse on his face; but like Nicholas, his suit is covered in blood.

  “Alive.” His gaze doesn’t lift for us. “Linnie is in there with the nurse.”

  “Did she tell you why she did it?” My voice breaks, surprising me. “Did she say why she tried to kill herself?”

  Nicholas cuts in with, “no...”

  While Stephen responds, “she didn’t try to kill herself.”

  Nicholas shoots Stephen a narrowed eyed glare.

  “She was confused.” Stephen wipes his face, as if to dislodge some of the misery there. “She didn’t know that I was the one outside her door. She just heard the fighting and knew the man guarding her was distracted. She tried to cut off her tattoo.”

  I shudder, I can’t help it. “Because her tattoo was infected?”

  Nicholas cuts in again with, “Yes...”

  But Stephen shakes his head. “No, I think the infection had cleared. By the time I got in there, she had hacked her arm up and bled out...” Stephen’s voice breaks. “I was too late, seconds too late.” He steps away from the wall. A tear drops off his cheek, a tear for Chauncey.

  I have no tears, I never do.

  Stephen doesn’t say anything, he just walks away.

  I don’t know why the question is important or why I ask, but I call after him, “Did she cut her tattoo all of the way off?”

  Stephen glances over his shoulder, adorned with a phosphorescent halo on his blond head. “Yes,” Then almost too quiet to hear he says, “But the mark is still there.”

  “What mark?” I whisper, and without meaning to I gaze up at Nicholas.

  The ‘wrinkled brow and pinched lips’ look he’s giving me could only be called darkly contemplative so at odds with his angelic features. Then another expression sets on his face, his eyes pinch closed and he inhales through his nose. Resignation, that’s what his expression is, a gloomy acceptance, and it scares the hell out of me.

  He opens his mouth but before he can tell me whatever he has resigned to, I back into Chauncey’s sick room. Avoidance, avoidance is good.

  I don’t take another step in when I enter, though; I peer through a space in a floral curtain circling Linnie sobbing into a limp hand; the color of those fingers is all I need to see. I listen to the rhythmic beeping of machinery, yes, she’s still alive. I don’t want to breathe in the scent, the static hygienic smell which bothered me in the hall but suffocates me here.

  "Raven," Nicholas’s breathy whisper brushes across my ear.

  I turn, choosing the lesser of two evils and follow him into the overly bright white deserted hall.

  “Raven,” he repeats outside Chauncey’s room before closing her door. “I need you to come with me; there is someone you need to talk to.”

  We walk a few paces and when we’re out of earshot of the room I round on Nicholas. I just can’t keep the fury inside any longer. “Did you have something to do with that? Did you do that?” I point to Chauncey’s room.

  He flinches and looks back at the closed door. “Something to do with that? Do that? What do you mean? We found her that way; there was nothing we could do.”

  “That is your story, is it? I’ve had enough. Stop it. Stop lying. I know your secret Nicholas.” Even though I’m yelling, I back up to the spotless white wall.

  He walks toward me. His face is so kind and innocent; his expression just screams: ‘trust me.’ No wonder I was so completely taken in. I’m not falling for it anymore! Not buying them bringing back an almost-dead Chauncey as coincidence, not now that I know better, not now that I know what they do for a living.

  He reaches out.

  “Do. Not. Touch. Me.” I step farther along the wall. “Andras told me what you are.”

  He jerks like I struck him. “Really?” He meets my furious fearful gaze with a sneer. “What exactly did he say I am?”

  “A killer. That’s your job, that’s your secret: that you kill, maim, and torture...”

  He lets out a bitter laugh.

  “Then tell me it’s a lie. Tell me Andras lied. Tell me that there is some other explanation.” I mean to sound scathing but sound more as if I’m pleading; begging Nicholas to clear his name.

  “It’s more complicated...”

  “No, it’s not. It’s a yes or no answer. Are you a killer?”

  “Not in the way you think I am...”

  I throw up my hands, two open palms toward Nicholas. "You killed Mrs. Trandle... you or Stephen, killed her..."

  "No! What?" Nicholas closes the distance between us in one quick step and gently but firmly grabs my wrist. “Andras didn’t lie, he can’t lie. But he never, ever tells the complete truth. And I didn't kill Mrs. Trandle. Where did you even get that from?"”

  “Let go of me...” I yank away from his grasp but his strength resisting me is startling. A killer’s strength. But for some reason I'm still not as terrified as I should be; his angelic mask is so hard to see through. As if, even though I know he's bad (a killer), my body still doesn't believe it; doesn't do the fight or flight thing, or any of the reactions it should when faced with a murderer.

  “No. Please, Raven. Wait. Let me explain. I am a killer...in a way, but I only ever kill demons or those who work for demons.”

  My eyelids stretch toward the white tiled ceiling and my arm’s resistance fails. I inhale sharply but my breath catches as a bubble in my throat unable to be sucked in or released; after a few dizzying suffocating seconds I cough. It’s been a long day; I’m not hearing things right. I wheeze out, “What?”

  Nicholas speaks with slow, deliberate clarity, “Demons, Raven. That’s my secret, my family’s work, we hunt an
d kill demons.” He raises his free hand to caress my cheek.

  I just stare, not even ducking away. Did he actually say demons? Like The Bible, God and angels kind of 'demons'? Is he insane? He travels around killing people he thinks are demons? This is worse than I even imagined. I swallow.

  He steps in closer. “I’ve wanted to tell you, so many times in the past few weeks. I...” he leans forward, as if he’s going to kiss me, but shakes his head and straightens before touching my lips.

  Head flat against the wall I say, "Nicholas, I can believe that you think the people you kill are demons, but demons don't...”

  “They do, they exist," his tone isn't angry or pleading, it's matter-of-fact, as if I'm the crazy one instead of him. He continues, "Please, there’s someone who will explain everything to you...my grandfather. Let me take you to him.”

  I really should be scared of Nicholas, he obviously is… delusional; but for some reason I still can't muster fear. Instead, the tension drips out of me. Slumping against the wall, I say, “But I can't ...” I lick my lips and glance around trying to clear my mind and form words on why I can’t leave. “Chauncey is... hurt. I can’t leave her. This isn't the right time for your, um...demons stuff, Nicholas. We'll figure this out later ...”

  “No, Raven, Chauncey isn’t the only one who’s dying; my grandfather could go at any moment. It is...” He pauses to inhale through his nose and close his eyes with the exhale. “It is his dying wish to speak with you.”

  I shake my head. "Dying wish? That doesn’t make sense.” Nothing makes sense.

  “It will.” He uses his hand still clutching my wrist to lead me down the hall, I don't resist. We walk through the emergency waiting room, out the hospital’s sliding glass doors toward his car.

  I come to my senses and yank back my hand. “No, Nicholas, I just can’t leave Chauncey and Linnie. I should be here.”

  Nicholas, who had just stepped off the curb into the parking lot, backtracks taking a step toward me. “Please Raven; this is your only chance to know the complete story, the whole truth. And...” he looks to the car. “If there’s any chance of saving Chauncey, my grandfather knows it.”

  “Wait, there’s a way to save her?” I step off the curb.

  He nods not meeting my pleading gaze. “Yes.”

  I look over my shoulder, but make up my mind quickly and say, “I’ll follow you, but I’m taking the scooter.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Day Twenty-Nine (continued again)

  I hear Nicholas close the door, leaving me alone with the old man. Since the first and only time I saw Nicholas's grandfather close up, he looks as if he has aged twenty years. He manages to appear uncomfortable in his resting position, as if simply living is a tremendous effort. His four-poster bed dwarfs his sickly frame. The room does not have the same hygienic death smell of the hospital; instead in this dusty stuffy space death is as present as if the reaper is lying beside the old man on his oversized bed.

  I sit in a sky-blue wing-chair pulled next to him.

  Nicholas’s grandfather’s eyes are closed. I don’t want to be impatient with someone so feeble, but, I’m running out of time. If there’s a way to save Chauncey, it needs to be done now.

  As patiently as I can, I prompt, “Nicholas tells me you know a way to save Chauncey?”

  The old man’s eye lids, like the thin membrane wings of a moth, flutter open. “Did he?” The old man’s voice is quiet, scratchy sounding, “Then my descendant spoke rashly, you’re...” he coughs, “…friend is far past anyone’s assistance.”

  I start to stand up but he interrupts me, “It is too late for your friend. I need you to stay and hear what I have to tell you.”

  I gently tap the bed beside his hand on his light-blue quilt. “Sir, I’m sorry, if there’s no way to save her, I need to at least be there with her and my sister; I have to leave now.”

  He inhales a ragged breath. “Please, Raven, this is my dying wish.”

  I slide back into my seat and stare at him.

  He clears his throat. “I apologize,” he says, looking at me, “It is difficult for me to be so near to you.”

  Great. Forcing myself to not roll my eyes, I nod as courteously as I can.

  He continues in a weak voice, “My name is Tobias Leijonskjöld. I need to tell you about the third lord of Leijonskjöld Slot, of the old castle, who lived five centuries past.” He clears his throat. “The lord was a pious man who feared god, adored his children but most of all loved his second wife. She was younger than him; younger than even his oldest son, but this was common in those days.”

  His voice is so soft I lean toward his bed. His eyes are a milky blue, like dirty ice, I wonder if he can still see.

  He goes on, “His wife Elena was impulsive and what people now say: ‘had a free spirit.’” Cough. “The lord perhaps loved her too much, that is what his sons told him.” He exhales and closes his eyes. I wait for him to continue but either his body or his words seem to pain him too much for a few long seconds.

  “As I said, the Lord was a pious man who devoted his life to the works of God. Satan resented the Lord’s faith and fortitude and sought his downfall.”

  My eyebrows raise as his history story turns biblical, but I don’t interrupt him.

  “Satan sent his most devious servant to the Lord. This scheming servant, the Grand Marquis of Hell, had taken over the body of a Magician who had summoned him. The Lord was deceived by the demon Grand Marquis, he thought he was a traveling musician; the lord welcomed him into his house. The Grand Marquis was named, is named Andras.”

  Without meaning to, I make a high-pitched sound.

  He does not pause telling his story. “I do not know if Andras made any attempts to ruin the Lord before he met Elena, but he made none after. The Lord found out that Andras was truly a demon the same day Andras left. But, Andras left with Elena.”

  The old man rakes in a breath and hacks out a bout of crackly coughs. When his coughing fit subsides he continues, “Elena left the Lord a letter with her apology for a love that she could not disregard or burry.” His hand shifts over his chest, he looks almost as if he’s clutching at his heart.

  His breathing comes in sharp rasps that slowly subside. “Could you help me sit, Raven?”

  I’m not sure sitting is wise, but I help him. I fluff his pillow, set it against the head board and aid in propping up his body. “Can I bring you anything? Water?”

  He holds me with his murky gaze, “No, just for you to listen to me is enough.”

  I sit back in the chair.

  He examines my face with eyes that I’ve decided can definitely see.

  “Demons...” I prompt.

  “Demons,” he says, sighing. “With the help of his sons, the lord hunted demons, hoping that he could find his wife. He was convinced that she had been tricked away from him, that she was somewhere suffering. He dedicated his life to finding the damned that walked this earth. For twenty years he heard no word of Elena. But one day his son trapped a demon that had possessed the body of an old woman and under coercion the demon revealed to the Lord that his wife died.” A tear slides down the almost transparent skin of the old man’s face.

  I touch his hand again, hoping I can give him some comfort. His lips turn up in a slight smile then drop with more tears, “She was murdered by a soldier who had sold his soul to Andras. When a person sells their soul they are marked by a demon, they are given the mark of the beast; this marks them as ‘soul-bound,’ so that when they die their soul is taken to Hell. The soul-bound soldier sought to punish the Grand Marquis for not relinquishing his soul, and he did in a most violent and terrible way.”

  “The lord learned that after Elena's death, Satan had made a deal with his Grand Marquis. Satan took Elena’s soul and kept it in purgatory; he told Andras if he collected a million souls, Elena would be given a new body and live again on earth.”

  “The Lord dedicated his life to finding and killing demons. He and
his descendants stood against the forces of Hell that sought to infest the earth. The lord was rewarded by God with a life more than half as long as Methuselah’s.” His fingers wrap around mine, they are as soft and insubstantial as feathers. More tears are sliding between the ridges in his face.

  I have a strange overpowering sensation in my stomach, a fidgety gloomy feeling. I drop my gaze from his eyes, his piercing yet milky eyes. I lean forward suddenly wanting to embrace the old man, to hold him and tell him how sorry I am.

  “I thought all this time I was waiting for Andras to be killed, working so that one day he would be destroyed. But the day you walked into my house I felt my body begin to die. I think, perhaps, I have waited all these centuries for him to bring your soul back. And now...” He closes his eyes and does not complete his sentence.

  I don’t speak for an eternity, or perhaps just a second, I’m not sure. The feeling, the inexplicable feeling of guilt (that’s it, guilt), clutches tighter around my center. “How do you know that she’s me? Why do you think I’m Elena?”

  “Do not you know that you are her?”

  As much as I want to say: ‘nah, that’s just crazy talk,’ there’s a part of me that feels completed by this story, as if I’ve been waiting to hear it. That part of me is jumping up and down shouting: ‘Yes, I do, I know it!’ I don’t respond; I don’t have anything to say.

  “I didn’t need it to know, but the proof is in the mark on your neck, his mark.” He coughs. “It was my wish to tell you our story because the last time you did not know what he was when you left with him. Perhaps this time, since you know, you can make the right choice.”

  My lip trembles. I turn away from his gaze but I can feel it on me. I hold back a dry sob, how inappropriate sobbing at a strangers deathbed. But there is nothing strange or foreign about this man; I’m positive, as I knew from the first moment that I met him that I’ve known him for a long time.

  Then I remember, Chauncey. I snap my head up as the pieces of what happened to her fit together in my mind; Chauncey disappearing with those men, her tattoo or mark, her inexplicable beauty and inability to see it, the madness, the letter, trying to cut off her mark. “Chauncey is soul-bound. She sold her soul.”