by Sue Wilder
Three turned, putting her back to the black windows and not caring if One was tense. Waves of contained power shimmered through the room, strong enough to move the furniture. Twenty feet away, a chair slid across the polished tiles and stopped, exactly one-half inch from the wall because Three, even when angry, was always precise.
“I want him to know I’m here.”
“Don’t act prematurely,” One cautioned. “It’s only been two days.”
“You’re ignoring the obvious.”
“Arsen could be anywhere, doing something quite innocent, you know that, and the diplomatic fallout if Six realizes you’re here—”
“This is not the time, One,” Three interrupted while flames in the fireplace suddenly roared into a blaze and then damped down again. “You worry about yourself to much.”
The smaller woman straightened. She walked to a low credenza and poured two glasses of a sparkling fruit juice, silently handed one to Three.
“I’ve not worried for myself since the explosion in the Tassili n’Ajjer, when I knew we all should be worried.”
In silence, the two women faced each other, aware of secrets that hadn’t been shared despite the cooperation over the past six months.
“How did you know Phillipe was injured?” One asked. “She called you, didn’t she? She compelled you from half way around the world.”
Three’s silver eyes flickered with the dark energy of mercury.
One stood, stunned. “Was Phillipe truly close to death?”
“He was. If she hadn’t compelled me into Algeria—it was Two’s power, it had to be. She called me Ci.” The Etruscan word for the number three, and the Calata member had never felt such a commanding imperative. “She’s not Two. Christan feared the same thing, but I know what I felt. It was Two’s magic, but the girl is not Two.”
Normally, One would have exploded at the information, but she appeared calm, accepting, nodding once.
“I’ve always feared Two did more with that blood bond than she ever let on. Vengeance was too deep in her heart. That’s why I opposed your desire to have the bond performed.”
“Nothing specific has been confirmed, One. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“And I suppose sandstone massifs destroyed in an instant is one more conclusion to be innocently explained? I think not, Three. It’s both of them, isn’t it?”
“It’s possible the blood bond is more powerful than we expected.”
“Have you been monitoring them?”
“Of course. Christan is my enforcer. I know where he is.”
One walked across the room, looked down at the desk littered with files and set her untouched glass of juice aside. “And where has he been these past six months?”
Three told her, watching as the other Calata member stiffened in shock. Christan had been secluded on an island off the coast of Cambodia, in the middle of enemy territory. It was the last place anyone would have looked for him.
“He’s reckless, Three.”
“You’re too timid, One. Leander would be far more effective if you could get past your fears and turn him loose to do his job.”
“My fears are not the issue. The mood on the Calata was dangerous even before the Piedmont. Bringing Christan back now is only going to inflame the entire immortal society and if this girl is with him—”
“Arsen is missing,” Three interrupted. “Christan is coming back, and Lexi with him. You can’t possibly think they wouldn’t come.”
“I understand the loyalty—”
“Arsen is like a brother to Christan—I couldn’t stop him if I tried. Would you rather I not tell him and deal with the result? What if Arsen is truly in danger?”
One looked up. “Is he stable enough to be back?”
“Phillipe is with him, both of them.” Three refused to share the alarming information from Phillipe, that her envoy stood on a golden beach and watched a terrifying myth come to life. Pulled from a time before time itself, the creatures were known as The Two, powerful and unrelenting, and when they chose to reappear in the world, they would consume a bonded pair and all in immortal society would be in peril.
Phillipe had relayed his shock, watching Lexi shudder as transparent, opalescent wings unfurled in the sunlight. In her anger, her grief over Arsen, she had become Justice in that instant. And the man who was meant to become Vengeance, who owned her heart, who was Three’s enforcer with the power of the blood bond flowing in his veins—that man had fallen to his knees in anger and pain.
It lasted only a moment before both had come back into themselves. The entities had not fully manifested, but the darkness crept close. Three steeled her spine against what Two might have invited back into the world, who she might be destroying in the process.
“Has Leander discovered new information?” Three asked, wanting to change the subject.
“He confirmed Giam’s report.” Arsen had been working on routine business transfers orchestrated by Three. He needed a reason for remaining in Florence to keep an eye on his estranged mate, Katerina Varga. Her research grant to study Etruscan artifacts had worried both Three and One, considering Six’s interest in anything related to Two and her fascination for that ancient culture. Then there were the events in Cyrene—which led to the altercation in the Tassili and Phillipe’s near death—and now Arsen’s apparent abduction.
Three asked, “Do you know for certain he met with Katerina?”
“Apparently, there’s surveillance footage from a private security system. Leander hasn’t seen it.”
“Have they found Katerina?”
“Not yet.” One’s composure appeared to be slipping. The files on her desk were lifting with the sort of agitation that could send papers flying to the floor. Three realized One felt some responsibility for the risk to Arsen since security was her obligation. After a moment, One said, “There’s no reason for the Calata to go after Arsen—you’ve said it often enough.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences, One.”
“Then perhaps the move was against Katerina and Arsen got in the way.”
I’m sure Six knows those scrolls from Cyrene are useless,” Three said. “His alchemists would have translated them by now. It’s possible this attack involves Katerina and that Etruscan archive she was working with, some knowledge she may have discovered. If they were after Katerina and she called Arsen, he would have gone to her no matter what.”
“Perhaps we should be looking at the archive,” One suggested.
“Ethan has been working on it for months. Dead ends everywhere.”
“But Katerina would know what she was researching.”
“Yes,” Three admitted, “which is why we should be looking for her as intensely as we’re looking for Arsen.”
One returned to the credenza, selected a fresh glass and a bottle of wine. “Perhaps it is a romantic tryst and nothing more.”
The rain beat furiously against the black windows, driven by a wind coming down from the Alps in the east. Three stared into the firelight. “Since they’ve been estranged for centuries, I find that unlikely.”
“Then what do you find likely?”
“Someone wanted Christan back and used Arsen to motivate him.”
“Too obvious, Three.”
“Two was never subtle.”
The implication hung in the silence. The Calata members stared at one another across the exotic space.
“This always comes back to Two, doesn’t it?” One said without her characteristic heat.
“It comes back to Gaia.” Three was equally subdued. “Two told me before she disappeared that it started with Gaia and would end with Gaia. I’m afraid we are getting close to that ending.”
“And those immortal entities? Are they also part of this ending?”
Three thought about the girl who had been Gaia in her first life, Gemma in another life, and who, in this life, had performed the blood bond with an enforcer of consummate power.
A girl who had
sung Two’s lamentation: inferno, canto, hell, singing.
A girl who had changed, for an instant, into the ancient entity known as Justice.
And then Three thought about the enforcer, falling to his knees. Answering her call for Vengeance.
“I hope not,” Three said.
But Three no longer put much faith in hope.
