by Unknown
Remaining still, my expression as clear as the synthetic foyer down below us, I titled my head. "Are you sure about that? I have a really weird ability to look at things in a way most DV can't."
He swallowed hard, his forehead looking shiny. Good. I pulled it all back, leaving him reeling in his seat. Kevin shook his head to clear the sensation of having his arse handed to him by the Sophia. "I upset you. I'm sorry, it was insensitive—"
"It's fine." I smiled, gently, a balm to the trick I just pulled. "You don't know me. It's okay. But know this—finding the answer to the Horus Equation is the single most important thing to me right now. I want to help. It's what I do. And I can't sit by, doing nothing."
I let my voice drift off and dropped my gaze, hoping he'd take the bait.
After a moment, he rocked back in his chair and opened a desk drawer. Pulling out a flash drive, he stuck it into the side of his computer and began to open files. "These are executive summaries of each of the main studies conducted over the past fifteen years. If you decide you need actual data, we'll have to arrange for you to come back in."
After a few moments, he disengaged the flash drive and handed it to me. "I hope you do find something. We can all use a fresh perspective. Just call me if you have any questions."
I took the drive with a grateful smile and stood to leave.
"I'll see you out, Sophie. Sophia or not, you smell too good to go walking around on your own here. My guys don't, ah, socialize enough. They'd forget their manners."
"Yikes," I said, pulling a comically aghast face.
"No, I'm serious."
I gulped, believing him. He followed me to the doorway and flipped off the light switch, jingling through a key ring as he locked the door behind him.
Out in the hallway, I stole another glance at Marek's door. "Is his office open?"
Kevin shrugged. "No one ever goes in."
"Can I?"
"I guess, I mean, we wouldn't but—you're different. You're really different. Forgive me if I just wait for you here."
I stood in front of Marek's door, my hand over the latch. A quiet zing of energy. A ward. It hummed on my skin, alive, recognizing. How, when I was tainted by a Were bite? It didn't matter, did it? I just know it recognized me.
I pushed the door open, stiff on its hinges. The office was bright with sunshine, streaming in through two huge windows. Corner offices were so classy, even abandoned ones.
A hook near the door held a long white lab coat. I leaned into it, inhaling the faint scent of Marek's skin, closing my eyes against the memory that came away with it. Leather and sandalwood, lingering after so long an absence. Like so many things, it was haunting, a trigger object.
Marek's spaces were sparse, by nature, and this room was no exception. It could have been a generic office space, a stock photo. Few things personalized this office; the lab coat was one. I walked to the window and looked out over the trees lining the lot, the other office buildings further off. When I turned, I saw a photo, propped up against a pen caddy on the desk. The picture wasn't visible from the door.
It was a picture of me.
A candid shot, I looked off-camera. Maybe I didn't even know he took the picture. That tiny photo revealed a sliver of sentimentality I never knew Marek had. Seeing it resolved the twinge of guilt I felt at having plundered his office, seeking another connection to the man I had lost. It made it worthwhile.
I should go. I shouldn't linger where even he does not. I saw what I'd hoped to see and it was time to close the door once more.
I walked around the desk but, on my way to the door, my eyes caught something else.
Off to the side, on top of a filing cabinet, I spied a brown leather-bound book. It was half-familiar, though I couldn't place it. It was perhaps six inches long, small enough to fit inside a coat pocket. The dark leather had been rubbed pale on its corners. It looked like it wanted to be touched.
I ran my fingers over the worn smoothness of its cover before picking it up and opening it. Like all his journals, Marek had dated it on the inside front.
This one was the most recent yet.
I flipped to a random page for a peek. What would his mindset be? Would he still be the same dark soul? Would there be some flash of light in his eternally dark sky?
Should I even hope it was possible?
I found her. It staggers this unworthy heart to even form the words in my mind, let alone set them down.
I know it as surely as I know that I am damned. Although I've only spoken to her once, I know once is enough. So many failures have paved this lonely road, and it takes one brief brush of her spirit to illuminate each and every previous fault. Now that I have found her, I see clearly what every other woman lacked.
And though I know I am damned, I know that if anyone could change the mind of God, it would be she.
I lost all thought of simply skimming and continued, reading each word carefully, as if trying to memorize the text.
I'd returned from an extended stay abroad only a few days earlier; although business is largely unfinished, I cut negotiations short when I received a missive from Amarisa. She said it was time to come home.
I admit I'd had mixed feelings. Home was an idea that belonged in someone else's mind. Not mine.
However, she had warded her letter with an under-current that made it impossible to remain away any longer. I established our interests and tied up what issues I could before returning home.
Balaton had changed greatly in my absence, but the underlying pulse remained constant. Persistent. I craved the familiarity that my old city provided, even though long gone are the days when wagons drove ruts into the muddy earth and my journals were feverishly filled by candlelight.
Yet, for all the light this city shines forth, I saw none of it. No light, no heat, no color—the heaviness of my spirit and the hopelessness of my many years had kept me behind a wall of glass, isolated from life.
Until now. To think of her makes me pause in my writing, so dumbfounded am I.
It all started with a scent.
Odd, I know, to describe that touch of power as scent but, the more I think upon it, the more I know it to be so. I knew it could never be power like that of Demivampire. It was too…multidimensional.
This power had depth, a nuance of subtle strength that played like a flavor upon my tongue. This power tinged my grey world with a wash of gentle color. This power caught my attention and drew me to it, not knowing what it was but knowing I had to find it nonetheless. I needed to find it.
And I found her.
She has a subtle beauty, this woman; chestnut hair that falls in waves upon her shoulders, deep set brown eyes brimming with compassion for all the sadness they hold. It took all my strength to keep from reaching for her. I could not frighten her away, not when I may have caught a glimpse of my own salvation.
Another word that staggers me. I'd forgotten how it felt to hope for salvation. Though her eyes were not oracle blue, I knew the Sophia was only a heartfelt hope away.
I found her. I would not lose her, ever. I could not survive if I did.
And when I turned the page, I found a collage of sketches, the face of a woman with dark hair. Sometimes she smiled, other times she frowned hard enough to create deep creases between her brows. That same face, over and over, from every single angle with every gesture, every expression.
And they were all me. Younger, perhaps, but unmistakably me.
I stared at the sketches until my vision swam. He'd been talking about me.
I hastily looked back to the beginning of the entry for the date and saw it was dated in the late nineties. But—when did he ever speak to me? It was more than ten years before I met him, yet he had spoken to me, watched me, captured my image in his journal.
He'd found me and known me long before we'd ever met in the museum.
And this was the journal he'd been carrying that day. Not fate, not happenstance. He'd simply decided it was time.
&nbs
p; I nodded, my mouth set. I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. Both would have been appropriate. Such was the duality of my love for Marek. Pain and joy. Love and loss. Grief and completeness.
He was my everything. This entry made me think that maybe I was his everything, too.
I couldn't read anymore, not here in his abandoned office, surrounded by unfamiliar lab techs and bird specimens in cages. Tucking the journal into my purse, I took one last look around before closing the door.
My resolve was set. No matter what happened to me, I owed Marek the last full measure of my devotion.
Thankfully, traffic was lighter on the trip back home. I was grateful to put real distance between myself and Kevin's hoard of probably rampaging DV biologists. There was only so much geek I could handle at once, even without all the DVness.
As I drove home, I frequently reached over to my purse, just to brush my fingers against the journal. To make sure it was real. I kept seeing those sketches in my mind, those stolen glances Marek had inked upon those pages. They were the signs of an obsession—and it validated me, in a way. It proved that I wasn't crazy, or over-attached, or desperately hanging onto something that I'd blown up to exaggerated proportions.
Marek had been hung up on me, too, not just the other way around. It made my determination all the stronger. I'd see him back, somehow. It wouldn't be fair to let him down now. He'd loved me for too long.
Heat bloomed in my cheeks, though, when I reminded myself of my current predicament, caught up with a man who professed to love me despite not even knowing me. I couldn't help but feel like this Leni thing cheapened what Marek and I had. This insta-love, this out-of-the-blue courtship with a man who should have lived out his existence in rock magazines and on CDs and upon far away stages. I was all for fairy tale love stories and happy endings but the one I seem to have ended up with felt way too Grimm.
But it wasn't simply the Leni that made me ashamed of myself. It was remembering how it felt to be blown off by the guy I swore I didn't want.
And, even as I stroked the leather cover of Marek's journal, I spent the ride home working out what I planned to do about it if I didn't hear from His Highness by Friday night. Part of me really wanted to take matters into my own hands.
Not The Same Old Sophie, that's me.
And that might not be a good thing.
Waxing gibbous | moon 46% visible
The Expressway traffic was lighter than I expected, but then again I always expected the worst when travelling into the city on a Saturday. A few exits before center city, I turned off toward West Philadelphia. Before long, I pulled into the lot of the Windwood Hotel, which looked more like the parking lot of the budget supermarket in my old neighborhood. Grass growing in the cracks of the pavement, the hedges looking like they needed a stiff spraying.
Stop it. Stop finding fault with everything.
Really, the hotel was decent as far as I could tell. The fact that this one had on-site parking should have put it higher in my opinion because street parking sucked and I was too cheap for valet, or even a garage. I supposed that under more normal circumstances parking wouldn't have been a concern at all because Rodrian would have been driving.
I backed into a space and turned off the car, my hand paused on the seatbelt release. It was difficult to appreciate effortless free parking because the Windwood Hotel was the safe house where Dierk and his entourage were staying.
Enough with the unanswered calls already. We hadn't spoken since Cacilia took the phone. If he really wanted to blow me off, he'd better have the stones to tell me to my face.
Getting out, I got some looks when I slammed the car door. The lot wasn't empty. Not strange to see people coming and going in a hotel lot, but standing around in twos and threes, especially when they weren't smoking or holding luggage—that was weird. Hanging out in a hotel lot was weird. And the way I felt them watching me was weird. Paranoid? Who, me?
I had at least three dozen reasons to get back in the car and leave. Dierk was blowing me off, so if he was the King of the Pack, then by definition, all the other Weres would blow me off, too. With the Weres out of my life, things could go back to normal. I could get my life back. I could smooth things out with Rodrian, get my focus back on the hybrid research, become Barb's favorite employee and friend again. My life. My family. That's what I wanted.
So why didn't I get back in the damn car?
I balled my hand. The bite had healed, more or less, more scar than scab. A string of shallow pink dents where the front teeth, needle sharp, made clean pits. The scar itched sometimes, especially after I got out of the shower, so I rubbed it with vitamin E oil. It helped. Soon, it would fade like every other scar and memory that went with it.
Pressing my nails into the healing wound reminded me it was there. The sensitive skin in turn reminded me why I'd come here. There was only one reason why I wasn't driving away.
Shouldering my purse, I walked into the hotel and marched over to the reception desk. Bright smile, yellow ponytail, skinny tie softening the effect of the receptionist's starched shirt and stiff collar. She looked pleasant enough, although I didn't think I'd expected a hairy raging beast answering the phone and swiping room keys. Still.
She met me with a polished ultra-bright smile. "Do you have a reservation?"
"No." I smiled back. "I'm visiting a guest."
"Shall I call their room?"
What a relief. This would be even easier than I thought. For the duration of the ride out here, I worried I'd have to pull a scheme of Mission Impossible: Sophia magnitude. "Yes. That would be great."
"Room number?"
"Oh, I'm not sure. It's Dierk Adeluf."
Her gaze slid sideways and a dark-skinned man who'd been typing at the other end of the desk glided closer.
"I'm sorry, we don't have a listing." His voice sounded like water over rocks. Smooth, powerful, dangerous if I wasn't careful.
"Then look for the listing he is using. It's a suite, only a few doors down from an elevator."
"Is he expecting you?"
"No. No, he's not." In my periphery I saw another person get in line behind me. He stood too closely behind to be a guest waiting for reception.
"Your ID, miss," the second clerk said.
I pulled it out of my wallet and gave it to him, who handed it to Yellow Ponytail. She took it to the back corner of the office and picked up a telephone, speaking quietly to someone on the other end. I stowed my wallet in my purse and shouldered it again, twisting my waist with enough force to whack the man hovering over my shoulder.
I turned with wide eyes, faking an apology. "Oh, dear. Didn't see you there. Sorry."
"No answer in his room. Sorry." The receptionist had returned and held out my ID. "I'm happy to leave a message. Phone number, please?"
I was pissed. No answer. Right. The jackass was refusing me again. Well, two can play that stupid game. "Sure, I said. 382-5633."
She wrote it down, apparently not realizing those were the numbers for F*** OFF. Her loss. I could care less if she was that shallow. I turned to leave, feeling bad (again) for whoever actually owned that number. Another casualty of my spite and vulgarity. Oh, well, wars were messy.
I smiled like a snap of the fingers at the man who had been breathing down my neck and left.
Fine. Done. Fine. It was official. I could just go home. I had lab reports to get through. This whole stupid Were business only kept me from figuring out a solution for Marek. And Marek—if Dierk was out of my life I could sit down with Marek's journal and submerge myself guilt-free in his pages. That was what I wanted—I was a step closer to solving that wretched equation.
I reached into my purse to grab my keys. The metal key ring caught my palm the wrong way and woke up the nerve, sending a winch up my forearm.
No. I couldn't. Maybe the old Sophie would have taken the hint.
I wasn't her anymore.
All this Leni and Dierk's mate business and treating Sophie like a tro
phy oracle. Baloney. I'm me. For all I knew, everyone around me was a figment of my imagination and my whole life was only a dream and dammit, I hated passive voice and weak verbs and clichés.
I was a writer, dammit again. I owed myself a better ending than—than whatever this was.
I got into my car and left the lot, driving around the block and parking it out of sight behind a rusty panel truck. I pulled off my hoodie and stuffed it in the backseat, grabbing my black leather jacket instead. Then I pulled the elastic out of my hair, shaking out my messy bun. Jogging back to the hotel, I fooled with my phone while walking up to the pool entrance.
Humans inside. A few ladies left and I walked up to the door just as they came out. The last in line held the door, even.
My barriers were up as thick as I could make them. Dierk said the top floors were safe house only, the bottom two public. I could start at the top and walk the hall, scan each room until I found him.
Or look for a guard detail posted outside. That would be a big giveaway, too.
A couple and their children were using the pool. No one even glanced at me as I crossed the deck and exited the pool area. Elevators might have a camera. I'd take the stairs.
Ugh. Five stories.
No rooms on this floor, just business center, conference rooms, hotel laundry, pool. Turning the corner, I saw guards. Olberich and Janssen.
Could be good. Could be bad. At least I hadn't had to walk up any stairs. That was probably the good part.
Other people milled the halls, lounging, slouching, but Dierk's guards stood at rigid attention. That's where he was. I knew it. Very determinedly, I headed down the hall, not looking around, not trying to catch anyone's eye. I knew they watched me, but a practiced flip of hair over my shoulder allowed a glance behind that showed nobody followed.
