Finally, there was her smile. Unfortunately, it was borderline condescending. “Michael, you really have to let go of this idea that immortals are invulnerable,” she said. “It’s sort of like being human.
Humans have free will, but that doesn’t mean they’re not going to sin.”
Michael turned the comparison around in his head. “So just because you’re immortal doesn’t mean you can’t die?”
“Exactly,” she replied. Phaedra didn’t want to frighten Michael, but she had to make him understand. “And despite that knowledge you must choose to do what your heart and your destiny command.”
A cold chill clung to the early evening air, but Michael didn’t feel it. His body erupted in an explosion of heat, heat that housed fear and panic. Phaedra was telling him something he didn’t want to comprehend; she was telling him that Ronan could die. It was an unimaginable thought. Ronan was a vampire; he was amazingly powerful; he couldn’t die. And yet those weren’t the reasons Michael wanted him to remain impervious to mortality. It was because without Ronan by his side, Michael didn’t know if life would be worth living. She was also suggesting something incomprehensible, that Michael must stand by and allow it to unfold. He knew he could never let that happen. “Phaedra,” Michael began, surprised to hear himself speak when it was so difficult to breathe, “if you know something, if you know that something is going to happen to Ronan, you have to tell me.”
Looking down at her pleated skirt, she pulled on the material and stretched it out a bit. How she loved wearing this uniform, how easy it was to slip back into it. “Even if I knew exactly what was going to happen, I couldn’t tell you,” she replied. “I’m only here because you’re my friend and because Ruby cannot be trusted.”
Michael rubbed his sweaty palms on his thighs and tried to shift his mind from worrying about Ronan to figuring out the truth about Ruby. “You have to give me a few more clues about her,” Michael pleaded. “I don’t think she’s a vampire, she hasn’t shown any signs of being an efemera, but she is immortal, right?”
In many ways The Forest resembled the Holding Place, not at all in appearance, but in feeling. Both places held secrets, both places offered refuge from the real world, but both places were only meant to be resided in temporarily. “I have to go,” Phaedra announced, standing in preparation to transform back to her natural state.
“No, please, you just got here!” Michael cried, grabbing her arm, saddened that it felt as light as air.
“And you haven’t told me anything that I didn’t already know. Ronan may someday need my protection, and Ruby’s immortal.”
“Just remember that immortal creatures aren’t bound by morality,” Phaedra replied. “They can have their own agendas and may be here on earth for their own reasons.”
Suddenly it made sense to Michael. His friend’s return had nothing to do with otherworldly warnings or supernatural pronouncements; it had everything to do with good, old-fashioned human emotion. “You’re jealous of Ruby.”
Phaedra was so stunned by Michael’s allegation that her body fluttered. Part of it turned to mist, while the other part clung to its more solid shape. “That is so not true.”
Gleeful, Michael wanted to jump up and down, but curtailed his excitement by shoving his hands into his pants pockets and forcing his body to remain still. “You sound more like Fritz’s ex than you do some ancient paranormal creature.”
Just as she knew everything there was to know about Michael, he knew all about her. Phaedra couldn’t lie to him, and what made her different than most efemeras was that she didn’t want to. She considered him her friend. “I miss Fritz,” she confessed. “Actually I miss what we could have shared.
We never really got to any of the good stuff.”
Now this was the type of conversation Michael wanted to have. “Then stay! Pick up where you left off!” Michael shouted. “Guaranteed this thing Fritz has for Ruby is totally a rebound because he’s never gotten over you.”
Another breeze, another wave of sweet emotion. It was all beginning to be too much to bear. As much as Phaedra loved this place, as much as she missed being a part of Michael’s life, seeing Fritz every day, living as a teenage girl, that chapter of her existence was over. “I do miss Double A more than I thought possible,” she said.
“Then that settles it!” Michael declared. “We’ll make up some excuse that your parents were sick and you had to leave school... .”
A few more words tumbled out of Michael’s mouth before he realized Phaedra was holding up her hand in front of his face as if to block the sound. She couldn’t hear about the possibility of returning to the life she had almost chosen because it was the life that she had given up. She had made her choice, and she had to stick to it. As much as she looked the part, she wasn’t a teenager who could flit from one decision to the next just because she had changed her mind; where she came from things didn’t work that way. “I’m sorry, Michael,” Phaedra said, her words as faint as her appearance, “I gave up my chance to ever be human, and I can’t stay here as what I really am.”
Before Michael could protest or debate the reasons why her decision was dumb and foolish and just had to be discounted, he saw her body disappear before his eyes. Her uniform, her curls, her sweet face, gone and replaced with a soft mist of smoke that undulated, rippled in midair until it turned into a column of gray fog. As the fog rose to travel to heights Michael could never imagine visiting he heard Phaedra’s voice for one last time. “Remember what I said. Do not trust Ruby; she isn’t what she seems.”
In spite of the seriousness of Phaedra’s tone and the urgency of her message, Michael couldn’t resist one final comeback. “Yeah right, like anyone in this place is what they seem!”
An odd smell washed over him, and Michael thought Phaedra was answering him with some weird, cosmic joke. But then he remembered that the girl really wasn’t one to play tricks. No, this smell was earthbound, and it was foul and repugnant. Not interested in trying to solve another puzzle, Michael walked in the opposite direction of the unpleasant odor, leaving the task of uncovering its origin for someone else.
Nakano winced as he inhaled something equally repulsive. Compelled to move toward the smell, he stopped in his tracks when he saw the source, his mind bombarded by a flood of questions. Why won’t those bloody white roses just die? What the hell are they doing in The Forest and not clinging to the walls of St. Joshua’s where they belong? And why is Brania sleeping on the dirt surrounded by a circle of those ugly things?
Kneeling down next to her, Nakano’s knee squashed one of the roses, burying it into the earth, its delicate, stark-white petals ripped from its stem. He didn’t even have to speak Brania’s name and she woke up. Like a wild animal disturbed from a deep slumber, Brania clawed at the dirt, her arms and legs acting without thought, only purpose, to retreat and put space between herself and this intruder.
When her eyes focused she realized her intruder was unexpected, but harmless. “Nakano, what are you doing here?”
“Crikey, Brania, I could ask you the same question,” he replied. “Did I, um, interrupt some dodgy fertility ceremony or something?”
Ignoring Kano, Brania scoured the land and her memory for some clue as to what she was doing in The Forest or why she had been sleeping inside a circle of white roses. She knew they held some unknown significance and they had not been placed there arbitrarily. Whoever did this to her did so for a reason.
The last thing she remembered was walking in the woods, hungry, in search of a meal, the silhouette of a girl in the distance. Brania closed her eyes and tried to envision what had happened next, but her mind was empty; all she saw was black. When she opened her eyes, she was stung by how white the roses were, almost blinding, not natural, which meant whatever had happened to her, whatever had taken place here was not going to be remembered simply by willing her mind to concentrate. Best to use the situation, as bewildering as it might be, to her advantage. “Thank you, Kano,” Br
ania said, trying to sound like a confused victim. “I don’t know what happened, but it looks like you came to my rescue.”
Nakano was also thankful, thankful that the darkness hid his face from Brania so she didn’t see him blush. “It was ... nothing,” he stammered. “But sure ... You’re welcome.”
Walking toward him, making sure not to step on any of the roses, Brania grabbed Nakano’s hand. “I owe you my life,” she stated. “We both know The Forest is not always a safe place.”
An image of Penry’s lifeless body jammed itself into Nakano’s mind, and he shook involuntarily.
Stop thinking about the past, need to deal with the present. “Your father is looking for you,” Nakano said.
Amazing, Brania thought. No matter how Brania tried to manipulate Nakano, he never noticed.
“Thank you again,” she replied. “How did you come about this information?”
“Jean-Paul asked me where you were, I guess because he knows that we’re friends,” Nakano explained.
Thankful that the darkness concealed the true nature behind her smile, Brania replied, “Indeed we are.”
The color of his cheeks grew a deeper shade of red, but it wouldn’t have mattered if they had been standing in the light of day. Brania wouldn’t make fun of him; she was his friend. “He said David wants to see you,” Kano continued. “He didn’t say why, but you should be careful, because, well, you know David better than anyone.”
That was true. Brania knew her father better than anyone. So she knew he had deliberately sent Jean-Paul as a messenger, knowing that Nakano wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to run right to her.
She also knew that he expected her to remain stubborn and stay in hiding, making him feel as if he had the upper hand. It was time to prove her father wrong. “Thank you for everything, Kano, but you should go home now,” Brania said. “I need to teach my father a lesson.”
A few minutes later when Brania stumbled upon the three men huddled over the massive buck, she thought it was the perfect illustration of why you should never turn your back on your enemy. David, Jean-Paul, and Joubert were all crouched on the ground, their fangs buried deep within the animal’s flesh, each filling their bodies with as much animal blood as possible, unaware that they were being watched. “Looks like a feast fit for a king’s fools,” Brania declared.
Only David didn’t jump at the interruption. He continued to drink the buck’s tasty fluid until his hunger was quenched. He then took out a monogrammed handkerchief, the color of merlot, from the breast pocket of his jacket and wiped his mouth clean before turning around to acknowledge his daughter’s presence. “Jean-Paul, you didn’t tell me that Brania would be joining us.”
Brania loved watching her brother fidget. Using her enhanced vision she could actually see the confusion spread over his face as he pondered how to handle his dilemma. Hmm, she thought she would save his pretty, little French head from having to make a choice. “Jean-Paul had no idea I would be crashing your party,” she said. “He failed at the task you gave him.”
Sitting on top of the now-dead buck, David crossed his legs at the ankles as if he were sitting on an antique settee. “Really?” he replied. “I told him that I wished to talk to you and here we are, talking.”
Not moving from her vantage point of a small hill a few feet above the men, Brania cocked her head to the side. “Spin it any way you like, Father. Your son isn’t the reason I’m here; Nakano is,” she corrected. “He’s the one you should thank.”
David did his best to conceal his surprise, but Brania could tell by the way Jean-Paul flinched when she mentioned Nakano’s name that David had had no idea his beloved son had hired a third party to do his bidding. Teaching was turning out to be kind of fun. Until David decided to alter the lesson plan. “I forgive you for killing Margaret,” he announced. “I understand why you felt Nurse Radcliff needed to be terminated, and I have chosen to show you mercy. So you see, there’s no need for you to remain in hiding from me any longer.”
She felt her feet dig into the earth to stop her legs from shaking. She wasn’t exactly sure why, since she felt no remorse for causing the nurse’s death, but perhaps it was because she suddenly realized that if it came down to a physical confrontation, it would be three against one. Interesting, she realized, no matter how much you know there’s always room for more knowledge. “I never felt I had to hide from you,” Brania said. “You are after all my father. It’s just that for the time being I prefer to be alone.”
When David rose, the buck shifted slightly, and some excess blood slid down the animal’s tongue and trickled out of its open mouth. Brania felt such derision for this group of men that she half-expected them to scamper on all fours and fight each other to see who could lick up the last remaining drop. But no one moved, not until David motioned that they should join him. “And so we shall concede to your wishes,” he stated. “You may retreat to your solitary confinement, but I have one request.”
Her feet dug farther into earth. “And what is that?”
“That you be at my side during the upcoming Tri-Centennial Celebration,” David replied. “It is more than a matter of protocol. It is an auspicious occasion, and I would like to be surrounded by my children. Please don’t disappoint me.” David didn’t wait for Brania to reply. He simply retreated into the woods, followed by Jean-Paul and Joubert.
Damn him! Brania hated allowing him to have the last word, but he didn’t stick around long enough for her to say anything. And, now that she was alone with nothing in sight but the rotting corpse of a once magnificent animal, she had plenty to say. Her father should come back now, and she would show him how easily she could disappoint him. But she wasn’t going to be given the opportunity to form any sort of rebuttal; she had other matters to attend to. Like finding out why Imogene was screaming so loudly she was threatening to disturb all of England.
Racing into the cave, Brania thought she understood the reason for Imogene’s shrieks—Nakano was pacing in one corner of their hideout. “Don’t look at me!” he cried. “Crazy ghost girl was screaming her bloody head off when I got here.”
Not only was Imogene screaming, she was clawing at the sides of the lidless coffin as if she was unable to sit up, as if some weight were keeping her body flat against the bottom of the casket. The girl was going through yet another transformation, and Brania had a good idea who was responsible.
However, she wanted to keep that person’s identity a secret. “Kano, go home!” she ordered.
Flustered, Nakano didn’t understand why he was being yelled at. “But I didn’t do anything!”
Drawing upon every maternal instinct she had acquired while Imogene had been in her care, Brania spoke quietly but firmly to Nakano. “I understand that, but the truth is your being here upsets Imogene so I need you to leave, just so I can calm her down,” Brania rationalized. “Could you please do that for me?”
Reluctantly, Kano agreed. “Yeah, sure.”
He was hardly out of the cave before Brania jumped into the coffin and grabbed Imogene by the shoulders to try and force her out of her trance. “Imogene! What’s happening? Tell me!”
Arms flailing, Imogene was clutching at the air, Brania’s face, anything that would pull her out of whatever scene she was witnessing. “Dro ... drow ...” she gasped.
She was drowning. Brania’s instincts were correct. Imogene was still linked to Edwige, and now Edwige was swimming deeper into the ocean on her way to The Well. “Look at me, Imogene,” Brania ordered. “You’re safe, you’re with Mother.” Either Imogene didn’t hear what Brania was saying or she didn’t believe her. Her arms kept moving as if she was treading water, trying to reach a surface that didn’t exist. “Imogene, I need you to focus,” Brania compelled. “Use Edwige’s eyes and find The Well.”
Suddenly her body stopped shaking, her arms fell to her sides, and her breathing returned to normal.
“I see it,” Imogene announced.
Brania stared at
her in amazement, knowing that Imogene was gazing upon the elusive Well, the life force of all water vamps, the treasure that her father wanted to find and destroy. Holding Imogene close to her, wiping the sweat from her brow, Brania beamed. She wasn’t sure if she was prouder of Imogene for her unprecedented connection to Edwige or of herself for the skillful way her own mind worked. It wasn’t every day that she outdid herself, conceiving another plan that would teach her father that he had underestimated her. Soon he would discover that Brania was more powerful, cunning, and vengeful than he could ever hope to be.
chapter 18
Brania didn’t expect to find anyone else in the cave when she returned from her feeding, which is why she was surprised to find that Imogene had company. She was even more surprised when she recognized the girl who was sitting with Imogene in her coffin. She only saw the girl from behind, but her hair was just as red and wavy as the last time she had seen it.
“You’re the girl from The Forest!” Brania exclaimed.
“Brania, please, my guest’s name is Ruby,” Imogene corrected.
Turning to face Brania, her eyes no longer completely white, but now their normal blue, Ruby smiled. “Hello, Brania.”
Recoiling just a bit at the sight of the girl, a torrent of memory assaulted Brania, and in an instant she remembered everything that this Ruby person had done to her. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know how, but she knew two things: She was connected to this girl, and this stranger was dangerous.
“What are you doing here?”
Ignoring her question, Ruby instead extended her hand to Brania and asked, “Would you mind helping me out?”
Warily, Brania walked toward the casket and tried to hold onto the anger she was feeling and not give in to the fear that lay just underneath it. Fear was useless; it was for mortals, not for someone like her. Unfortunately, fear clung to her like a shy child clings to its mother. It simply would not let go.
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