Necropolis

by Wendy Saunders

  ‘Let’s not go dangling him under the Veritas’s nose just yet. I figure with Luthor and Lucien, we’ll be okay to deal with anything that comes our way. I’ve dealt with more, with less, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘He won’t like it,’ Scarlett warned.

  ‘No, I don’t suppose he will,’ Olivia answered, ‘but he won’t risk Eve. You’ve seen the way he looks at her.’

  ‘Well,’ Scarlett smiled, ‘you can be the one to tell him.’

  Olivia stared at Scarlett her lips tightening.

  ‘What?’ Scarlett asked, ‘you may as well say whatever’s on your mind Olivia.’

  ‘Maybe you should stay with them too.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Scarlet blinked.

  ‘I could go with Luthor and Lucien, retrieve the Hourglass and then meet you wherever we decide on for the jump point. You don’t need to come with us.’ Olivia hesitated. ‘I…I don’t want to put you at risk, in your…’ she glanced down at Scarlett’s belly which was covered by her shawl, ‘condition...’

  Scarlett watched Olivia carefully.

  ‘How long have you known?’ she finally asked.

  ‘Since you first collapsed on my doorstep back in Mercy,’ Olivia admitted.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

  ‘You didn’t seem to want to talk about it,’ Olivia replied in understanding. ‘I’m assuming Sam’s the father?’

  Scarlett nodded.

  ‘Does he know?’ Olivia asked softly.

  Scarlett shook her head.

  ‘I’m not going to pry,’ Olivia told her gently. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine, but if you do, I’m here to listen, but in the meantime, I wouldn’t risk you or your child.’

  ‘My daughter,’ Scarlett whispered.

  ‘It’s a girl?’ Olivia smiled. ‘My Theia is going to be so happy to have a friend to play with.’

  Scarlett watched Olivia quietly.

  ‘I hope you weren’t planning on running off as soon as we get home,’ Olivia said. ‘You and your daughter are going to need family. I don’t know all of your story but I’m guessing if the Angels have got a problem with you, they’re also going to have a big problem with your daughter, who will be half Sentinel. Who better to protect you both than the Queen of Hell?’ she grinned.

  ‘You’re really starting to embrace that moniker, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, I am going to milk it for all it’s worth,’ she laughed loudly, ‘it’ll drive Elias nuts.’

  ‘I’ve never met anyone like you Olivia,’ Scarlett studied her seriously, ‘and I’ve walked the Earth for over two thousand years.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  ‘Olivia,’ Scarlett drew in a breath, ‘I appreciate your concern, more than you realize, but I have to come with you to Farringdon. The paper shows both of us in that photo. We can’t risk changing history. Besides,’ she reached out and took Olivia’s hand, ‘we started this together and that’s how we’ll finish it… the two of us.’

  Olivia squeezed Scarlett’s hand.

  ‘Very well,’ she nodded, ‘the two of us.’

  23

  Rome- Present day

  Theo’s eyes drooped again as his head rocked forward. Catching himself in time, he straightened and blinked, once again staring down at the confusing mass of illegible words swirling on the paper in front of him.

  It wasn’t just his focus blurring with exhaustion, but the simple fact was, the language itself still escaped him. Although the reams of paperwork had been written by his hand, he was still no closer to understanding the strange ancient language his mother had used so fluently. He stared at the paper in frustration but once again his heavy eyelids began to close.

  He jolted awake as a small, warm, familiar hand reached out and gently gripped his arm.

  ‘Why don’t you try and sleep Theo?’ Six whispered, her frail voice almost non-existent. ‘You’re exhausted.’

  He glanced up at the woman sat opposite him at the table. Like him, she too was surrounded by stacks of loose papers, inscribed with the inexplicable language, but unlike him, Six didn’t seem to have any trouble translating it.

  Over the time they’d spent confined together they’d grown close. He was exceptionally fond of the petite woman and she had slowly begun to warm to him. She’d been trying to teach him to decipher the language but no matter what she did or how she explained it, his brain refused to focus.

  Of course, part of the problem was the constant barrage of drug therapy he was once again being subjected to. Faraday had kept his word to Nate to allow him to rest and recover, but for no more than a few days before he once again became impatient and ordered Nate to resume administering the serum.

  It was taking a dangerous toll on his body though; he knew it and so did Nate. He was doing his best to constrain Faraday and limit his exposure, but the damage was done. His hands constantly trembled and he could barely keep solid food down. The weight had fallen off him; the white scrubs they’d forced him to wear were getting looser every day. Even his skin was a sickly, chalky white. His whole body ached, like he had a bad case of the flu. When he slept… if he slept, he was plagued by twisted, fevered dreams and in every single one of them he ended up back in front of the door. His head hammered constantly in pain, until all Nate could do was keep up an unending supply of oxy to take the edge off.

  Theo didn’t know how much longer he could last. He was approaching burnout, and Faraday had to know that.

  ‘Theo,’ Six shook his arm gently again, as her mouth moved.

  Barely any sound came out. When it did it was nothing more than a cracked whisper. The demon collar around her throat rubbed the skin raw, scar upon scar. Some days it was too painful for her to speak at all. He could see the agony in her eyes, and he wished Olivia was there; she’d be able to remove the damn collar from Six and ease her pain.

  Olivia.

  He briefly closed his eyes as his thoughts once more drew back to his wife. He missed her so badly, it was like a constant knife in his gut, wrapped in fear for her and their children’s safety. Faraday had insisted he had them captive, but Theo wasn’t so sure. He was eighty percent certain Faraday was bluffing, but the fact remained, he had Olivia’s compass and she would never have given it up willingly. Which begged the question what the hell had happened to her? He couldn’t contemplate the worse, he wouldn’t, otherwise there wouldn’t be anything left worth fighting for.

  ‘Theo,’ Six tried again, ‘you need to sleep.’

  Theo shook his head, too exhausted to fight, too exhausted to explain.

  ‘The dreams again?’ she mouthed.

  He nodded; he’d become fairly adept at lip reading since they’d become friends. He’d had to.

  ‘Walk through the door,’ she told him seriously. ‘If the dreams keep taking you to the door, try walking through it.’

  ‘I don’t think it would make much difference,’ Theo shook his head.

  ‘What have you got to lose?’

  ‘She’s right you know,’ a male voice interrupted.

  Theo glanced across at the hallucination of his best friend Jake who, still wearing his cop uniform, was propped up against the wall grinning.

  Theo knew better than to answer. Jake wasn’t real. Just as Hades wasn’t, or Roni, or Scarlett or any of the other figments of his imagination. It was just the result of the drugs and lack of sleep.

  ‘Stop ignoring me Theo,’ Jake crossed the room and leaned over, so his face was the same height as Theo’s.

  Theo refused to look at him, but kept his eyes fixed on Six.

  ‘Come on Theo,’ Jake grinned. ‘I know you can hear me so stop pretending. You know what you’ve got to do, you’ve got to open the door.’

  ‘Theo,’ Six drew his attention back. ‘If the dream keeps taking you back to the same place, your mind must be trying to tell you something.’

  His eyes were getting heavy again and it was becoming harder to understand
her. He pushed himself up from the chair, like an old man, and made his way over to the other side of the room, dropping down heavily on his sleeping cot, his body a dead weight.

  Once they’d been certain he was too weak to attempt an escape they’d placed him and Six in the same room, to continue to work on the translations of the prophecy. Her sleeping cot sat on the other side of the room to his and in the center was a table and two chairs.

  His head was spinning as he closed his eyes, but it didn’t last long as a moment later he slipped seamlessly into a deep, troubled sleep.

  He could hear the water lapping against the jetty as his feet dangled from the edge. The sun beat down warmly as he lifted his face and closed his eyes. He could hear and feel the soft breeze rippling in across the lake and he sighed in contentment.

  This was his home, in a way the farm in Salem never had been. Even James’ orchards and farmhouse, while it had been a sanctuary for him for a short while, hadn’t been his… hadn’t been home.

  Not like the lake house was. It was the place he’d fallen in love, the place his children had been born. They were all woven together like a complex tapestry, every laugh, every breath, every memory, and he longed for home with an intense ache.

  ‘I miss you too,’ a soft familiar voice spoke beside him.

  He opened his eyes and slowly turned his head knowing who he was going to find, but it didn’t stop the punch to his gut when he laid eyes on her.

  He watched as the breeze teased the long dark waves of her hair over her shoulder and her whiskey colored eyes locked onto his.

  ‘I miss you so much, it’s like a hole in my stomach,’ he whispered. ‘I wish I could’ve seen you one last time.’

  ‘You will,’ she replied.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know how much more my body can take Livy, I’m so damn tired,’ he admitted brokenly as he closed his eyes.

  ‘Look at me,’ she demanded softly, reaching out and cupping his jaw, drawing his face toward hers. ‘Look at me.’

  He did, opening his heavily lined eyes.

  ‘You are the strongest man I know,’ she whispered. ‘You can do this. Find your way back to me.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he shook his head. ‘I don’t know how.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ she smiled gently, ‘you’ve always known. Now the time has come my love. This is your moment; this is your crossroad. You have to choose.’

  ‘Choose what?’

  ‘You’ll know once you open the door,’ she replied sympathetically.

  ‘I can’t,’ he shook his head again.

  ‘Yes, you can,’ she lifted his face once again as his head dipped, her thumb stroking his jaw. ‘I believe in you Theo. I know you can do this.’

  She leaned forward, her soft lips pressing against his. He lifted his hand unconsciously, sliding it along her jaw and gently gripping the back of her neck as he sank into the kiss. Deep in the back of his mind he knew she wasn’t real, that she was a figment of his imagination. That she wasn’t really in his arms and they weren’t sitting on the edge of the jetty overlooking the lake, while the sun beat down on them, but he didn’t care. She parted her lips and he took the kiss deeper, taking the comfort he so desperately needed from her. The taste of her, the scent of her as it wrapped around him, coiling in his belly, soothed the ache for the briefest of moments.

  Even though she wasn’t real, he could feel her love for him, her need, and it fed his own desperation. When they finally broke apart, breathing heavily, she pressed her forehead to his as she drew in a shaky breath.

  ‘I need you Theo, as much as you need me,’ she whispered as her gaze rose to meet his. ‘Find me.’

  He blinked and she was gone. He was once again alone, staring out across the glittering lake, but he was not alone for long. He became aware of the presence behind him before he even turned around.

  ‘I do like her,’ Emmaline remarked conversationally, ‘she seems a very sensible sort of woman.’

  ‘She’s not real,’ Theo closed his eyes against the fresh wave of pain. He was still reeling from the intimate longing for his wife and now he was being confronted once again by the ghost of his long dead mother. He seriously couldn’t catch a break and it made him want to howl in frustration.

  ‘I beg to differ,’ Emmaline moved into his eye line, standing at the edge of the jetty as she looked down at her son. ‘Do you not know her better than anyone? I’d say you’ve got her down quite accurately, that’s exactly what she would have said to you if she was here.’

  ‘What do you want?’ he looked up at his mother, squinting against the bright sunlight.

  ‘The same thing she wants, I imagine,’ Emmaline replied. ‘I want you to be happy and whole.’

  ‘Then tell those bastards to stop sticking needles in me,’ he growled. ‘Oh wait, you can’t… you’re not real.’

  ‘Careful love,’ Emmaline smiled, ‘you’re starting to sound as sarcastic as your wife.’

  She held out her hand to him and waited patiently as he stared at it.

  ‘She’s right you know,’ Emmaline told him firmly, ‘this is your moment. You want to survive this? You want to go home to your family?’

  Theo sucked in a sharp breath and grabbed her hand, hauling himself to his feet.

  ‘You know what you have to do Theo,’ she told him seriously.

  He turned to look but found the lake was gone, as was the sunshine and warmth and comfort. He once again found himself standing in the narrow, dark corridor, facing the door, cracked open just enough for a single shaft of light to escape.

  ‘This is your crossroad Theo,’ his mother told him quietly, her eyes large and luminous as they too fixed upon the door.

  There was a sharp cracking sound from the other side and a whimper of pain.

  ‘I should have protected you better,’ Emmaline whispered, her eyes glassy with tears as she turned away from the door to face Theo, ‘but I was afraid too and that is my shame to bear.’

  Theo leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead as a single tear rolled down her cheek. Turning away from her he straightened his spine and sucked in a deep shuddering breath. His feet moved slowly, each reluctant step bringing him one step closer to the door.

  His heart was pounding in his chest, his mouth dry as he reached out with a shaky hand and pushed the door open.

  He stepped into the small room, the room he’d tried so hard to erase from his memory, but it all came flooding back in a tidal wave of sweat and fear. He had to clamp down hard on his bladder, reminding himself it was not real, as he took in the scene before him.

  The small, thin, dark-haired boy, no more than nine years old, kneeled before the measly fireplace. Clutched in his whitened knuckles was his father’s beloved copy of the bible. His voice warbled, somewhere between a sob and a whisper as the belt cracked down on his back again.

  He cried out in pain, the tears streaming down his already tear stained face, a fresh line of blood blooming on the back of his linen shirt.

  ‘LOUDER!’ a deep voice growled and everything deep inside Theo froze in abject terror.

  Theo looked up to find the towering monstrous form of Matthias Beckett, the man he had been raised to believe was his father.

  ‘LOUDER! YOU’VE GOT THE DEVIL IN YOU BOY AND ONLY GOD CAN CAST HIM OUT!’ Matthias growled again, bringing the thick leather belt down on the small boy’s back so hard it knocked him forward and he almost lost his grip on the bible.

  ‘Then Jesus said to him,’ the small boy sobbed, ‘Go Satan! For it is written, you shall worship the Lord, your God and serve him only!’

  ‘AGAIN!’ Matthias brought the belt down again, his lips peeled back in an animal like snarl, the whites of his eyes wide and filled with righteous fury. His shirtsleeves were rolled back to reveal his powerful forearms and the armpits of his shirt were stained with sweat from exertion. ‘FOR REBELLION, IS LIKE THE SIN OF DIVINATION, AND ARROGANCE, THE EVIL OF IDOLATRY, BECAUSE YOU HAVE REJECTED THE WO
RD OF THE LORD, HE HAS REJECTED YOU…’

  ‘Please,’ the small boy sobbed.

  Theo stared down at the young version of himself. So small, so tiny, just a fragile child and Matthias had beaten him repeatedly, forcing him to quote the scriptures, screaming at him that he was unclean, that he had given himself to the devil. Assigning his warped version of religion onto a small helpless boy.

  Slowly the fear deep in the pit of his belly began to boil. This was not faith; this was not what God would have wanted. This was the cruel perversions of a twisted man. He was not evil; he did not have the devil in him, and he had not deserved what Matthias had done to him.

  He had been given the gift of foresight and that was exactly what it was … a gift.

  He was not evil, and he could see now, that so much of what Matthias had done to him, had said to him, was deeply ingrained. No matter how much his world had changed, conversing with Gods, and Goddesses, spirits and witches, even being married to a Guardian, somewhere deep inside of him was still the beaten and bloodied boy who’d been told he was evil, until he believed it.

  But now, seeing it with his own eyes, staring down at the small dark-haired child he didn’t see the younger version of himself. He saw his own son, Logan. He knew his son had been born a witch; he bore the witches mark, a birthmark on his shoulder in the shape of a pentagram, but he wasn’t evil either.

  This was his crossroad.

  To let go of the past and choose his own path. He reached out as Matthias brought down the belt again. The boy flinched, but before it could strike him, it wrapped around Theo’s wrist and he yanked hard, pulling it from Matthias’s grasp.

  Matthias turned his black gaze on Theo, his expression cruel and filled with malice, his eyes wild with madness.

  ‘I was never the abomination,’ Theo whispered in realization, ‘you were.’

  ‘DEVIL SPAWN!’ Matthias bellowed in rage. ‘EVIL OF SATAN! I SHALL PURGE YOU!’

  Tiny flecks of spittle gathered at the corner of Matthias’s mouth, but Theo didn’t move. The fear in the pit of his belly dissipated, his tense muscles smoothed out and he drew in a deep determined breath.