Riddle of Fate

by Tania Johansson

  The grey-haired man bowed and hurried from the room. Phalio watched him go, a scowl wrinkling his face. He muttered a curse under his breath before turning on his heel and leaving the room. Derrin pulled the cupboard door open and Khaya barely caught herself from spilling onto the floor.

  He put a steadying hand on her arm. “We need to get out of here,” he said, face calm.

  Khaya nodded, glancing at the door, half-expecting Phalio to walk back in and catch her. Derrin gestured with his head and she followed him out through the door by which Phalio had entered.

  As soon as they were through the door, Derrin slowed to a walk. “Why are we walking?” Khaya whispered, fighting the urge to push him to go quicker.

  Derrin pointed to the windows that lined the hallway. Outside, two guards, ambled along, swords hanging from their hips. They were talking and laughing, but they had the look of readiness about them. No doubt they were more alert than their casual appearance would have you believe.

  “If you run, they will notice. The alarm will be raised, and you will be captured. Walking gives the impression of being calm, composed and entitled to be where you are.”

  The urge to run was like a prickle down Khaya’s back. It soon became an itch and she had to fight to calm herself enough to keep at a reasonable pace. All she wanted to do was break in to a full tilt run. Her stomach lurched when a guard outside turned and looked directly at her. She took a deep breath and kept walking. She watched him from the corner of her eye until he turned away again, apparently unaware of who she was.

  Her jaw started aching and she realised she was clenching her teeth. Relief flooded through her when she pushed the door open to exit the hallway.

  She gasped.

  The lawman who had arrested her in the foyer turned to face her. He was three feet from her and from the look on his face, he recognised her immediately. He paled and launched himself at her. He pressed her against the wall, his forearm squeezing against her throat.

  Then he yelped as Derrin wrenched him off her. Grabbing him by the collar and belt, Derrin threw the man to the ground. Eyes wild, the guard looked around for his assailant. Seeing no one else, his gaze settled back on Khaya. He opened his mouth to call for backup. Derrin’s fist connected with his mouth before he could get a sound out.

  The guard skidded across the floor and lay still when he stopped. Rubbing her throat, Khaya walked over to him. Blood trickled down from his nose and the corner of his mouth. “Is he dead?” Khaya asked.

  “No,” Derrin said.

  She looked at his chest. Was he breathing? “How do you know?”

  “If he was dead, there would be a Collector here by now. Come.” Derrin led her out by a side door. Woods bordered the building and Khaya sighed with relief once they were under the cover of the trees.

  “How were you able to do that anyway?” Khaya asked. “Hit him, I mean.”

  Derrin snorted. “I said I was an angel, not a ghost.”

  Derrin didn’t stop or let up on the pace for what seemed a long time. Finally, Khaya put a hand on his arm. “I have to rest,” she gasped. “Can we rest for a while?”

  He looked back at her with concern etched into his face. For a moment he again seemed so familiar. But surely, if she’d met him before, she would never have forgotten those dark eyes. Or the dimple.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Getting Acquainted

  Night was drawing in by the time they reached Derrin’s cottage. He pushed the door open and dust swirled down. “I thought you said you’d been staying here,” Khaya said, wriggling her nose as if she was fighting the urge to sneeze.

  “I have. I don’t normally use doors.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Of course you don’t.”

  The cottage was dilapidated. Derrin hadn’t even noticed the state of it before. Suddenly, he felt as though he should have cleaned it up a bit. He dusted a chair down for her. “Sit, I’ll put a kettle on for you.” He was glad he’d thought as far as getting a few essentials in case the need to bring her here arose.

  She perched on the edge of the chair, her hands on her knees. She was touching as little of the chair as she could. “I must confess,” she said, glancing around the room, “when you said you’d been staying in an empty house you’d found, I was worried the owner might turn up. That concern at least has been put to rest. How long have you been staying here?”

  “A few months,” he said with a shrug.

  “Really?” she said, the corners of her mouth turning down.

  “I’ve not spent much time here,” he muttered defensively as he put the cup of tea in front of her. “How long have you known Brier?” he asked when he sat down on a rickety chair across from her.

  She flinched at the name. “Long enough to know he wouldn’t have done this to me deliberately.”

  Derrin couldn’t stop himself from snorting. Seeing her indignant stare, he said, “Oh, I’m sorry, did he stumble and land with you in tow in the lawmen’s offices?”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous. He was only trying to help me. He thought it my best chance at clearing my name and returning to a normal life.”

  She was serious. She actually still believed the man had her best interests at heart.

  “First of all, I know for a fact Brier is working with some… people who mean you harm. Secondly, when has your life ever been ‘normal’ and why would you want to return to the way things were?”

  Khaya had been sitting with folded arms, but they now dropped to her sides, her mouth gaping. Derrin scratched the back of his head. Had he been insensitive? No, that was unreasonable. It was about time she learned who Brier truly was.

  “What do you mean he’s working with people who want to do me harm?”

  Derrin stood by the cobweb covered windows. He peered outside. “Midnight,” he said.

  She shivered. She’d escaped for now, but what did that mean for her future?

  “I’ve seen them,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “Brier. I’ve seen him with Heran.”

  “Who is Heran?”

  After a pause, he said, “He’s also an angel.”

  “Of sorts,” she said with a cocked eyebrow, pulling the scar above her eye tight.

  Derrin nodded.

  “I thought angels are meant to be good.”

  “They are, for the most part.” He wished he could tell her everything. She would never trust him if she knew what he was.

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “I’ve told you. I was a friend of Merrit’s.” He knew that Merrit’s ability was to see spirits. Derrin hoped she would believe that meant Merrit had been able to see him.

  “Right. That still doesn’t explain why you are helping me.”

  “I sympathise. I know what it’s like to be persecuted for things that you have no control over.”

  “Oh?”

  He ran a hand through his curly black hair. “That is a tale for another time.”

  For a moment he thought she was going to push for more, but then she pursed her lips. “What do we do now then?” she said instead. “We can’t stay here for ever.”

  “One step at a time. Tonight, we rest and tomorrow we prepare.”

  “Prepare for what?”

  “To fight angels.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Khaya took the proffered bag with trepidation. She held it at arm’s length, the top of it between her finger and thumb. “What’s inside?”

  “That is for you to find out,” Derrin said, a lopsided grin showing off his dimple.

  “That didn’t work out so well for me last time. Not to mention the mouse.”

  “You can’t kill this one,” Derrin said and then flinched at his choice of words.

  Khaya squinted one eye at him. “Gee, thanks.”

  “Anything you need?”

  “Are you leaving?”

  “I need to find out what is going on out there. I'll be back soon.”

  She shrugged
and Derrin winked out of view. Khaya was glad to be alone. She needed to think through things and his presence was… distracting.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about Brier. Derrin had to be mistaken about him. There was no way he could mean her harm. They hadn’t said it to each other, but she thought Brier loved her. He’d certainly behaved as though he did.

  Phalio’s words returned to her. He’d said that Brier had handed her over because he was concerned about her mental state. Afraid that she’d lost her mind. She snorted. That was an outright lie. No doubt Phalio would have said anything to make her doubt herself. To unsettle her, make her feel alone. And she couldn’t be that blind, could she? To spend so much time with someone and not know who they truly were. That wasn’t possible.

  A small voice protested that until recently Brier hadn’t known who she was. She’d not told him about her double life, her ability and her work at the library. She quashed the thought. That was different.

  She put the bag down on the kitchen table and moved her chair back. At least it wasn’t moving. Even so, she avoided looking inside by keeping herself busy with cleaning the house. Eventually, she ran out of things to do and squared up to the bag.

  Staring at it, she allowed her mind to creep closer to it. As it passed through the bag, she mentally felt the coarse weave of the fabric. She stopped the moment her mind touched the object inside. She stroked the surface of it.

  It was a plant. A thrill swept through her. That was easy! She allowed herself to go deeper. She felt the bark of a tree trunk and then the small channels inside, carrying water sucked up through the soil, up to the branches and leaves. The leaves were delicate, like cotton between her fingers. If she pulled, she would tear them. She felt the leaves crying out for sunshine, yearning for warm rays to feed them.

  With a grin, Khaya pulled her probing senses back. She drew the bag open and her smile dwindled. The tiny tree was shrivelled and in desperate need of water. Did she do that? Was that all this ability was good for? To kill things? She gritted her teeth against the tide of frustration and poured some water from her flask onto the dirt in the pot.

  She was tempted to look inside the tree again to watch it drink, but she dared not. She didn’t want to hand Derrin a dead plant at the end of the day. Instead, she went outside. The lawn had been taken over by wild flowers and Khaya sat down among them. Some of the flowers were drooping, as though too heavy for their stems. She probed one of these.

  It lacked vibrancy. It reminded her of an old man whose breathing was laboured, wheezing in and out. It saddened her. Her focus shifted to its roots. If only they could manage to draw more water.

  Suddenly water trickled through them, rushing up the stems to feed the desiccated petals. They awakened, like a sunrise, they brightened. Khaya chuckled, elated that she had managed to do something good with her ability.

  A crunch behind her. She swung round, heart thundering. “Ah! Don’t sneak up on me,” Khaya said, a hand to her chest.

  “Sorry,” Derrin said, “I guess it’s a habit.”

  Only then did Khaya realise the sun had sunk low. Her stomach growled. “Come,” he said, “I’ll make some dinner.”

  While he cooked, she told him of her progress with her ability. “Tomorrow,” he said, “you move to something that’s alive then.”

  “Don’t you think it’s too soon? I think I need to practise some more first.”

  “No. You need to develop your skills. The only way to do that is to move on to more difficult challenges.” He held up a hand when she wanted to interrupt. “And we are on borrowed time.”

  She folded her arms, but kept her silence. He was probably right, but she cringed inwardly at the thought of the dead mouse… that burnt smell. “What did you find out today?”

  “They don’t know where you are. And they don’t know that I helped you.”

  “Who’s ‘they’? The Company or the angels?”

  “Both. Although, of course, unless the Collectors have someone on the inside at the Company, they won’t be aware of my existence at all.”

  “You used this term before: Collector. Is that what you are?”

  “Yes. At least, that’s what I used to be.”

  “And what does a Collector do?” Khaya thought she could guess. Derrin had said if that guard had been dead, there would have been a Collector present.

  He scrubbed a hand through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck. “They help the dying.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they escort souls from this realm onto the next. There are other names for us in folklore. ‘Taker’, ‘Angel of Death’, ‘Reapers’. But we are the Collectors. We help souls transition to the afterlife.”

  Her face paled. She shook her head slowly and pressed up against the wall behind her, trying to put more distance between them. “You can’t be,” she muttered.

  Derrin sniffed. “What explanation would you believe for how I vanished into thin air?”

  “I… It’s just that… I assumed that was an ability. That’s all.”

  “What? Is it really such a strange thing? You can tell the future and fix things with your mind alone. If anyone could believe this, it should be you.”

  “Are you evil? Are you here because I’m going to die?”

  He burst out laughing. “No, I am not evil. I’m meant to be neutral and if it wasn’t for you, I would have been. And no, I’m not here because you’re going to die.” He shook his head as though clearing a troublesome memory.

  Khaya frowned, confused. “Do you realise that very little of what’s coming out of your mouth makes any sense?”

  “That’s a gift of mine,” he said with a lopsided smile.

  Khaya grinned in spite of this strange situation. It soon faltered again. “Why can only I see and hear you?”

  “I have my theory about that, but the why of it doesn’t really matter now.” He had more than just a theory. Best to relate one crazy notion at a time.

  Her eyebrows lifted. “That’s why the innkeeper told them that I was alone when I checked in. He wasn’t lying. He didn’t see you.”

  He nodded.

  “What did you mean by ‘if it wasn’t for me you would have been neutral’? Did I make you do something bad?”

  “You didn’t make me do anything – bad or otherwise. Besides, I don’t regret what happened.” He held up a hand. “That is a tale for another night.”

  “One more question,” she said and waited for his nod before continuing. “You said you used to be a Collector. Why aren’t you anymore?”

  “I broke a law.”

  “And they relieved you of your post?”

  “That’s another question,” he said, face stern. “In a manner of speaking yes, but I left before they could dole out their sentence.”

  “So you are on the run from them? Is that why you are helping me?” She pursed her lips. “Sorry. I guess that was enough questions for now.”

  “I’ll stay with you tomorrow and we can work on improving your skills.”

  She nodded and he winked from view. She sighed. She wished she knew why he was helping her. She didn’t believe it was because he knew Merrit. She wasn’t even sure if she believed that he’d known Merrit. Perhaps he wanted to spite his previous employers. Could she be some pawn in a game of revenge?

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  Derrin heard Khaya stirring. The smell of frying sausage filled the cottage. It had been many decades since Derrin had needed to cook. It was something he’d enjoyed when he was alive.

  He glanced over to Khaya’s room. His stomach fluttered. How did it do that? he wondered. He hadn’t thought a Collector was capable of getting nervous over a woman. A woman of all things! He cursed himself for a fool. He knew that he could never be with her. All he wanted to do was ensure her safety and move on. Before he was unable to bring himself to leave her.

  “I made you some breakfast,” he said when Khaya emerged from her room.

  She pulle
d her coat tighter around her shoulders. “You didn’t need to do that.”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  She smiled. “I am hungry.”

  “Are you not eating?” she asked when he put a plate in front of her.

  “Don’t need to.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.” He grinned at her. “I thought we would start with this.” He put a snail down on the table in front of her.

  “Eeew! Do you mind? I am going to lose my appetite if I have to look at that thing.”

  He put it in a bowl and placed it out of sight. “I thought maybe it would be best if you knew what you were probing.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Are you worried you will kill it?”

  Khaya’s mouth pulled down at the corners. “Kind of.”

  “I’ll help you as best I can, but that is a risk that we are going to have to take. You have to master your ability.”

  As soon as Khaya finished her last bite of breakfast, Derrin put the snail back in front of her. “Let’s start. All I want you to do, is to explore it. Don’t focus too hard or too long on one aspect of it.”

  She swallowed. “I’ll try.”

  It didn’t look like she was doing much. She stared at the snail as though trying to look straight through it, her eyes glazing over.

  “I can see its tiny heart. It seems so weak, hardly a throb.”

  “Now move to something else,” Derrin said.

  Her head cocked to one side. “Its muscles are pulling and pushing. I think I could make it move where I want it to go.”

  “Not yet. Don’t try to…”

  She gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. She blinked and her eyes refocused. The snail lay rigid. It’s body stiff. She turned large, regretful eyes on Derrin.

  “No matter,” he said. “We will try again.”

  “I was only –”

  “I know. It’s fine. Next time try to stick to exploring the different parts of it as opposed to interfering with how anything works.”

  “That’s what I’d planned to do. Once I get in there, though, the temptation is so great. It is like not eating for a week and then having your favourite meal put in front of you. You can see it, smell it, but you know you shouldn’t eat it. It is nigh on impossible.”