by Cege Smith
Mikel nodded. Ellie wished she knew what the man was thinking. No doubt he was delighted at how easily he was playing her.
“Mikel told me that he was blocking his ability for now and I’m guessing that he isn’t going to be up for an after dinner party like the last crew was given how old he is. I’ve just got to figure out a way to keep him down here and get him away from the others. Any ideas?”
Mikel considered. “Lucy seems to be a ready distraction for the other two. I think we should just let her take them into the library and then we can maneuver him into the sitting room. Offer him coffee and make some kind of excuse. I’ll help you.”
She smiled up at him and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Great idea. Thanks. C’mon, let’s sit down.”
Tonight she pointed for Lucy to sit at the head of the table so that she could sit next to Mikel. As she hoped, once they sat down, he slung his arm across the back of her chair and started to massage her shoulder. He seemed to be enjoying his role even more than she expected. But regardless, it made moving through dinner easier.
Mikel proved himself to be a charming dinner companion. He showed great interest in each of her guests. Unlike the last trio, the three men hadn’t known each other on the Other Side, so everyone was getting acquainted. Lucy was hanging on Cam’s every word, but it probably had to do with the fact that Cam was a thirty-year-old personal trainer. The other man, Dan, seemed annoyed that he couldn’t get Lucy’s attention.
Ellie saw Lucy cut glances in her direction throughout dinner, but each time she would just nod and turn back to Mikel. Every now and then she would lean closer to him and brush his knee. Soon he was clearing his throat and his chair had crept closer to hers. The plan was working.
Soon dinner was over and the men were grabbing their stomachs laughing and making comments about being rolled out of the room. Ellie and Lucy exchanged amused grins. Henry started to push back from the table, and Ellie could tell that he was getting ready to excuse himself.
She turned to Lucy. “Lucy, why don’t you take Cam and Dan into the library for an after dinner drink?” She looked at Henry. “My mother always told me that peppermint tea helped calm the nerves and ensured a good night’s sleep. I bet you’re a tea drinker, aren’t you, Henry?”
The older man smiled and wiped his napkin across his mouth. “I do enjoy a spot of tea on occasion.”
“Then maybe you’d like to join me and David in the sitting room,” Ellie said. In the meantime, Lucy was openly flirting with Cam while winking at Dan. “I think it will be quieter there.”
“I was actually thinking about retiring for the evening, but with such a kind invitation, how could I resist? I could use something to calm the nerves,” Henry said.
Ellie watched a frown cross his face. She knew what he was thinking and she knew what it felt like. He was feeling the emptiness of not being able to use his ability and it was bothering him badly. Ellie’s breath caught in her throat for a moment as guilt overwhelmed her. There wouldn’t be any going back for him, and if Mikel had his way, Henry’s future in the Afterlife was equally grim. She felt the hand on her shoulder squeeze gently.
Mikel looked at her with concerned eyes. She hated how easily he could act like a human being who cared. It made her job so much harder. “Great,” she said, recovering. “Why don’t you follow me then?”
She pushed her chair back and felt Mikel’s arm start to slide away. She grabbed his hand to hold the connection as she stood nodding to the remaining three. “Well then, if I don’t see the rest of you before you retire, I hope you sleep well. This way, Henry.”
The old man got to his feet and Mikel took her other hand as he stood up and leaned into her. “You are doing great,” he whispered in her ear.
Ellie tried to smile but it was too hard. She just nodded and then tugged to make him follow her out of the room. Henry was behind them and she heard him ask, “This is quite a place. It looks familiar to me. Where did you say it was again?”
“Its’ facade on the Other Side sits on the Lake of the Isles in Minnesota,” Ellie said. It made her sad to think that she may never see the lake again. “It was built by a man who made his fortunes from the iron mines in northern Minnesota.” She didn’t add that Joseph Bradford had added to his fortune in more unsavory ways.
“Ah, that’s it!” Henry said, snapping his fingers. He paused in the front foyer and looked up at the elaborate chandelier that hung above their head three stories up. “I did quite a bit of traveling when I was younger for work, and I used to study a lot of historical homes all over the United States wherever I went. I remember this one. That chandelier reminded me.”
“You like history then?” Mikel said. “We have that in common. Please, come into the sitting room and make yourself comfortable.” Ellie let him lead her to a settee that faced the chairs that sat under the window. She sat down, drawing his hand into her lap. She intertwined her fingers with his and then smiled at him. Her stomach was feeling tight, and she suddenly wished that she had skipped eating entirely. The evening was coming to a head.
Henry settled into one of the chairs. “Really? Is there a time period in particular that is your favorite?”
“The Crusades,” Mikel said.
Ellie looked at him in surprise. Knowing what she did, the religious relevance made the information even more enlightening.
“You don’t know everything about me, dear,” he said with a mocking smile.
“Fascinating time. Religious fervor and man fighting man for centuries,” Henry said, nodding. He crossed his hands against his chest and leaned back in the chair. “Both sides firmly convinced that they were right and the other was wrong.”
“It’s all in your interpretation,” Mikel said. “When I think about it, you had two sides that were so engrained and passionate about what they believed in that they would do anything to achieve their goal. That kind of conviction is admirable. Enviable even.”
Ellie was listening avidly to what Mikel said, and more importantly, to what he wasn’t saying.
“Think about it,” Mikel continued. “At some point, it wasn’t about who was right or wrong. It was about who was strong enough to dominate and win.”
“Interesting perspective,” Henry said, nodding. “Now, where’s that tea?” He looked back at the doorway as if willing Jeffrey to appear.
Mikel squeezed her hand then and Ellie knew what he was looking for her to do. Suddenly, Henry’s face swerved back to them with a look of horror. She’d been wondering when it was going to happen; Lucy just said that shortly after they parted ways, she was going to break Mikel’s barrier that was keeping Henry from his power.
“Monster!” he shouted, stumbling out of his chair.
Ellie stood up and holding out her hand said the words that Lucy told her to. “Anarebus col entracume,” she said in her most commanding voice.
Instantly, Henry collapsed onto the floor in a deep sleep.
“What did you just do?” The connection between them broken, Ellie saw that she was looking into David’s blue eyes again. He was alarmed.
“He knew. I could tell that somehow he knew what was about to happen and I had to stop him,” Ellie said. “I had to stop him before he alerted the others.”
“But you used magic,” he said, staring at her. His face was pale.
“Yes, I did,” she said. She made her voice tremble. “Lucy said that it could be a latent ability that I took before I came here that I didn’t even know I had. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to be mad.” Then she dropped the bombshell. She took his hand into hers and looked up at him. “Mikel.”
The face changed and she saw the shock in his expression. “How long have you known?” he said.
“Since the beginning,” she said. “I was confused at first, but then I figured out why you were doing what you were doing.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I was new here. It took me awhile to figure out
if you were trying to hurt me or use me some way, so I thought it was better to play along.”
His expression grew serious. “So why are you telling me now?”
“You’ve been so kind to me since I got here and you haven’t done anything that would hurt me, just like you said the first time we met here. It’s hard for me to trust people, you know that, and I had to make sure that you were being honest with me.” She hoped that her words carried the right level of sincerity. While she had always been the worst liar, the skill had improved remarkably since coming to the waypoint.
“Ellie, I, I don’t know what to say,” Mikel said. “This place where I live is full of treachery and deceit, and I know that I can play those games as well as the best of them. I admit that my intentions haven’t always been the most honorable, but meeting you made me feel something I haven’t felt in a thousand years. I can’t even believe it myself,” he said. He stroked her cheek and then her hair and Ellie felt a pit of despair grow inside of her. He couldn’t be serious. He was still playing her. Because if he wasn’t, what was about to happen was going to have horrible consequences.
To keep him from saying anything else, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around her and his mouth crushed hers. It was the kiss of a man who thought he was drowning. The kiss made her head spin and slowly she pulled away. His eyes were hungry and his breath came in short gasps.
“What is it?” he asked her.
“I want to see you,” she said.
“What?”
“I know you are there, behind his face,” she said, reaching up to stroke his cheek. He pressed it against her palm. “I want to see you.”
“I’ll be right back,” he said, starting to pull away.
“NO,” she said. “Don’t leave me.”
“I don’t want you to see,” he said. “And I don’t want you to be confused.”
“Mikel, it’s okay,” she lied. “You have nothing to worry about.”
Still he hesitated, but then she smiled at him and nodded. He took a step backwards. “You may want to move,” he said.
Ellie took several steps away from him. Looking at David’s face now broke her heart. She hoped that he would be able to forgive her for tonight. If their situations were reversed, she didn’t know that she could.
There was the same kind of blinding white light that she remembered from traveling the way line, and as it faded, Mikel stood there smiling at her. Behind him, slumped on the floor, she could see David’s still form.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
She could still hear Lucy’s voice in her head from their conversation earlier in the bathroom.
“The first few minutes after he releases David are going to be the most critical. Your job is to make sure that Mikel is completely distracted. He’s going to think that he’s won, and what you don’t want him to do is turn his attention to David in any way. If he kills him, we’re all screwed. You are going to need to keep up the act just a little bit longer and give me time to do my thing.”
As much as she wanted to rush to David’s side, she couldn’t. She still had a part to play, and she wouldn’t let Mikel hurt him. She held out her hand to him. “I am so happy that you dropped the charade, Mikel.”
His hand was in hers a moment later and then he took her in his arms. “And I am so glad that you are smiling at my real face and not that weak loser who doesn’t deserve you.”
“Dance with me,” she whispered, resting her head on his shoulder. She started to sway back and forth, and then he joined her, humming the same song from earlier above her head. She knew that she just needed to keep his back to David. “Why me, Mikel? It’s hard for me to believe that you could possibly care about me the way you say that you do. I’m sure you’ve met a million women.”
“It was your ability first. I knew someone who had the same ability once and you reminded me of her,” he said. “She was someone that I cared deeply about in my human life.”
Ellie stopped and looked up at him in surprise. “You were human?”
He chuckled. “Of course. We were all human once.” His face fell. “Her name was Gretchen. I met her the summer I turned eighteen. She was...lovely.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Ellie saw the flash of movement into the room. Lucy was there.
“Well, I take that as a very high compliment then, if I remind you of someone that you once cared about,” she said.
“Met, married, and buried all in the same year,” Mikel said gruffly. “She wasn’t strong like you, Ellie, and what her ability did to her drove her insane. There was nothing that I could do but watch her deteriorate into a madwoman. Her rantings and ravings drew the wrong kind of attention in those days, and it didn’t take long before the mob arrived on our doorstep to hang her.”
Ellie’s mouth fell open. Mikel saw her expression and shrugged.
“We shouldn’t speak of these things anymore. They are depressing. But it’s what happened with Gretchen that set me on the path to where I am today. Now with you by my side, I will have no equal.” His eyes glinted dangerously.
It all happened in what seemed like an instant after that. Ellie’s shock at Mikel’s revelation caused her to stumble and as he went to catch her, he glanced over at David. Lucy was poised over David’s still form and she was chanting. Mikel’s head whipped back to her and Ellie saw betrayal and death in them.
“You tricked me,” he hissed, pushing Ellie away from him. He was across the room in an instant towering over Lucy.
“You are going to pay for messing with me, witch,” he said. Lucy cried out as he shoved her out of the way.
Mikel grabbed David by the collar and hauled him to his feet. Ellie saw that David was just starting to come around, and Mikel grabbed his face and peered deeply into them. David didn’t move. “What did you do, witch?”
“I made it so you can’t use him as your puppet anymore, Mikel,” she said.
“I can kill him, though, can’t I, Lucy?” Mikel sneered. “You truly are a stupid woman. Why would you risk your sister’s life for a woman you just met?”
The blows just kept coming. Suddenly it all made sense to Ellie; Lucy’s helping Mikel but being reluctant about it and her covert attempts to help Ellie. But Ellie had the same question that Mikel did. Why would Lucy risk someone she loved to help Ellie save someone that she loved?
“Don’t hurt him, Mikel,” Ellie said, getting to her feet. She put her hand up to try to calm him. “What Lucy did just requires you to play fair. That’s all. You shouldn’t have manipulated me by using the man that I loved against me.”
Mikel looked at her and her stomach dropped. There was nothing but hatred there. If she didn’t know better, she would have said that she had hurt him. Badly. “It seems that I’m not the only one who has picked up the fine art of manipulation. You want fair. Fine, have it your way. You will get me that man’s ability,” he pointed at Henry, “and you won’t give me any trouble about it or I will break your beloved’s neck and hers to boot,” he said, cocking his head at Lucy.
She saw on Lucy’s face that she needed to buy more time. The rest of their plan wasn’t coming into play yet. “Let’s talk about this logically, Mikel. You can’t kill David. I need him, and so the waypoint needs him. You and I both know that you wouldn’t risk that. I need Lucy to help me with taking Henry’s ability and keeping mine under control. Let’s just all calm down.”
David’s eyes were open now and she saw that he was watching her. She was wracked with guilt. How much did he remember? He moaned as Mikel squeezed his throat tighter.
“Stop it!” she yelled. “Okay, I will. Just please let him go.”
Mikel unceremoniously pushed David onto the settee that he and Ellie had so recently vacated. It already seemed like a lifetime ago. “Get it,” he demanded. “Get it now.”
“Lucy.” Ellie gestured to the witch to come join her. Lucy was shaky getting to her feet, but otherwise seemed okay and Ellie was relieved. She
made her way over to Ellie and then knelt down beside her. “I’d like you to help me contain it so that as soon as I have it, I don’t go any deeper.” She winced. She hadn’t said the words exactly like they rehearsed, but it was close enough.
Lucy put her hands on Henry’s still body. She closed her eyes and seemed to be concentrating hard. Mikel moved so that he was standing by Henry’s head. He leaned down to their level. He glared at them. “No funny business, ladies. I mean it.”
Ellie and Lucy exchanged a look. Ellie anxiously thought about what she would do if the culmination of their plan went awry. The time had come, it was now or never.
Ellie closed her eyes and then let out a deep breath. Slow, steady, and controlled. She was in complete control. She had nothing to worry about. In her mind, she saw Henry’s body laid out on the floor, and just like with Martin, his form then looked like an X-ray. She gasped.
“Everything okay?” Lucy whispered next to her.
“Yes, I just didn’t know that it was going to look like this,” Ellie replied. Whereas with Martin she had to do a little bit of digging to find where his ability resided, in Henry it was like it was everywhere. His whole body glowed.
“I don’t think I can do it,” she said.
“You’d better do it,” Mikel growled.
“You are going to have to do it, Ellie. Do what he says,” Lucy said. She had uttered the words that Ellie knew meant their time had run out. If it doesn’t happen by then, there’s a chance it’s not going to.
Earlier, Ellie had asked what was going to happen if the last part of their plan didn’t kick in in time. Collateral damage, was Lucy’s reply. Stall as long as you can. Inside Ellie wept, because unfortunately for Henry, their perfectly laid plan had spun off the rails. She hoped Lucy’s Plan B would have time to work. Lucy was planning to link to Ellie and use Henry’s energy as a protection shield against Mikel if he tried to threaten them once Ellie had taken his ability.
Again it was like the thing inside of her was automatic. Like a serpent it crept down her hand and jumped the gap into Henry’s body. She heard the man moan in his sleep.
