Aydin’s hand slips from mine and he crosses his arms, leaning against the rock wall. My hand feels empty. I hate how scared I am, how much reassurance I need.
“When the prisoners died they would throw their bodies out to sea,” he says. And, that is the simple horror of life. People die, tragedies happen. Souls are lost and forgotten. I don’t want to be forgotten. Most of all, I don’t want to forget.
Chapter Forty
Food sits in front of me in a metal bowl. The clanking of tin echoes on the stone walls as the spoon hits the sides of the dish. I can’t eat. Every time I try my stomach revolts, churning and threatening to release the meager bits I have managed to swallow.
It is so dark, I can barely make out his features. Aydin sits just outside the small circle of light around me. He lets the oil lamp burn continually, knowing I am scared of the dark. The tendrils that slither in and take hold, leaving me shaking. Emily had started by chiseling at me. Henri had cracked it open, revealing the soft insides, tearing at me, desperate to leave my body in ruin.
Ludari. I can’t let his name pass my lips.
He has stolen my freedom. Violated me in ways I never knew a person could be. He has marked me and left me tugging at the noose around my neck, tightening the grip. It is he who stalks my nightmares, his eyes I dig at, his lips that snarl, sand pouring out, filling my throat and threatening to suffocate.
My body shudders. We have been in the dungeon for maybe two days. I don’t t know how long I slept after Aydin took me from the chateau. The days are lost to me, swallowed up in the darkness.
“You need to eat,” Aydin tells me. He doesn’t seem to understand that I simply can’t. I know I need food to regain my strength. I spoon another bit of cold soup into my mouth and fight back the nausea that grips me. I force it down, my eyes watering, over the lump in my throat.
“Why did you do this?” I ask.
“It is my job to keep you safe.”
“I’m pretty sure you have been fired at this point.”
Aydin sighs, loudly. His runs his hand through the thick black hair. It must have covered his scalp enough to have kept it from being burned. It is only his face that has been scorched.
“It doesn’t matter. This was the only way to get you away from him.”
“Why would you risk your life?”
Aydin sits forward. I look at him, finally. The burns have faded some, new skin is trying cover the deep wounds, though it still looks raw and painful. “I made Abigail a promise.”
“You risked your life for a promise?”
“No, Charlotte, for your mother.”
His honesty silences me. I didn’t realize how much he cares for her
“You are not the first woman I was Guardian to. I’ve lived for almost two thousand years. There have been many before you.” His voice is callous, like he can read my thoughts.
“Did you make promises to their mothers as well?”
Aydin turns his face away. No. He didn’t. He releases another long sigh and sits back in his chair. “I was Abigail’s Guardian. Unlike you, she knew of our existence.”
I let that sink in for a while and we sit again in silence. He had been Claudette’s as well. Just how long he has been around has yet to completely register. I doubt that I can ever grasp it.
“Abigail asked me to keep you and Emily from the life she lived,” Aydin finally says, breaking the dark air that has settled. “Abigail grew up surrounded by greed. She asked me to make sure that you and Emily were to be spared, at any cost.”
“Spared from what?”
“Ashur. Ludari,” he says. “A Keeper is created to track the records of the ancient bloodlines. That is it. Guardians are placed, to watch over them, make sure no evil falls on them.”
I know all this, Lucius explained. My mother told me the story.
“We are meant to protect from a distance, but Ludari was interfering,” Aydin says. “He was taking girls, too young, barely old enough to bear children and forcing them into lives as virtual slaves. He found the ones he believed were direct decedents, and arranged marriages. The families had no choice. He was powerful and covered up what he was doing by making it seem like the parents of the girls were the ones making all the arrangements. By the time I was created, he had established several family lines. The 'Golden One’s' he called them. It was insanity.”
My stomach roils. “You kept girls for him? For Ludari? So they couldn’t escape?”
“Do you think you are the first girl I stole from him?”
“I don’t know Aydin! I have no idea what is going on.”
“I was created to be a Guardian, but when I saw what Ludari and Ashur were doing, I knew I could not be apart of it. But if I tried to escape they would have killed me. How could I help any of those lives if I were dead? So, I waited. Protecting the girls as asked, and when I could, only when I knew that I wouldn’t be caught, I took them and sent the girls away to live in safe-houses.”
Aydin stands and starts to pace. “As time went on, more people, humans, vampire, became involved. Lucius helped me, even though I didn’t want him to. We would sneak girls through the channels I set up. I don’t even know where they end up. No one does.”
“Why is he doing this?” I ask. “Why take girls and force them to have children?”
“In short, purifying the bloodlines. Breeding humans like dogs,” he says, looking away. “Ludari believes if he had a pure line of human descendants from the Twins, he would in turn be able to harness the power of them.”
“What power?”
“Of the bloodlines. The stories say that the Gods of ancient times, well before any of us, are true. Of Goddesses walking the Earth, of Seers, Demons and Monsters. Ancient powers of empathy and the ability to see the future.”
“That’s insane,” I say.
“Is it?” Asks the nineteen-hundred-year-old vampire who sits in front of me. I laugh, simply because I might cry if I don’t.
“Why didn't you take my mother?”
He rakes his fingers through his hair again. “I couldn’t, Ashur was obsessed with her.”
I know a few things about having someone obsessed with you. They grab hold and refuse to let go, even if it means it will destroy the very person they crave. “I’m sure she understood that Aydin.”
“She does. I think she does. Hope she does. When she asked me to take you and Emily, she knew that it would be the end of everything I had set up.”
“Why me?” I ask. “Why does everyone think I am so important?”
“Ludari thinks you will be very valuable because of what you can do,” he says. “Abigail made the deal to come to France to give you and Emily more time. Ashur convinced him to wait until you both were older and then, Abigail was to be the one to turn you.”
Wait. What?
“You mean, Ludari’s plan was to bring me here and turn me. The entire time?”
“Yes, from the moment they discovered what you could do. If Ludari got his hands on you, Charlotte, you never would have survived. So we formed a plan.”
“This had been planned, from the time I was a child? Why on earth would you send me to France before you decided to snatch me?” I yell.
“I sent someone to get you in Florida,” Aydin says. “But, your neighbor was watching.”
“You sent someone to kidnap me from my house?”
“I changed my mind, it would have traumatized you being taken from your home by strangers.”
“Traumatized? Are you kidding me?”
“I didn’t plan on Ludari acting so quickly,” Aydin snarls. “The man I sent to watch you in Florida said it was too risky to take you. Ashur’s men would have caught him.”
“You had a man watching me in in Florida?”
“I couldn't very well leave you unattended. Not with Ashur keeping such a close eye on you.”
“Ashur had men besides Lucius?”
“Yes, Charlotte. You know Guardians rely on humans.”
&nbs
p; I sag into my chair. “You were cutting it really close. Why didn’t you take me before Henri ...”
“I’m going to kill him,” Aydin says. It isn’t a threat. I look up and manage to look past the inflamed skin to see his eyes, the steel color rages. “Next time I lay eyes on him, I’m going to kill him.”
I look away. The expression on his face leaves little room for doubt. “What is Henri in all of this?”
“I’m not sure. Henri, like his father, is brilliant,” Aydin says and looks away. “My guess is to do exactly what he has been doing. Research. That is what Ashur has had him do the last twelve years.”
“Ashur has been forcing Henri to research genes?”
“I don’t know how forceful Ashur had to be,” Aydin says. “It doesn’t matter, you are more import. Abigail wasn’t concerned over Henri. Just you.”
“So my mother basically asked you to kidnap me?”
Aydin runs his fingers slowly through his hair again. “Abigail planned everything. I was supposed to take you the night Emily died. You weren’t ever to go home again. And then, it was all ruined.” Everything spills out of him like he has to release it the weight of it all. “Abigail came up with a way to keep me alive. She had made the deal with Ashur, and we waited. When it was time, you were to come to France, and when Ashur gave the orders for Abigail to turn you, I was to take you and send you away. No one was to know where you were. We knew that the stakes were high. It risked everyone’s life. And then Ludari changed everything. We had to act and fast. This was the only way.”
My mother planned it all. I hated her for leaving and she had risked everyone she cared for to try to keep Emily and me safe. The number of people involved and the scope of what he says is incomprehensible. It has been years of work, of trying to undermine an ancient evil. Years of secrecy, a constant threat of discovery. The hardest to understand, are the choices Aydin has made. The idea to choose to save one life and let another go. How they must weigh on him. It is in his eyes, the lives that have been lost, the ones he couldn’t save. I can understand, almost. Never have I been faced with a decision that would alter the lives of others. I have only concerned myself with my own.
“I don’t understand what the Organization has to do with any of this.”
“I told them of what Ludari was doing, but he kept everything well hidden. They couldn’t charge him with anything. On the outside, he was guarding and recording families, just as he is supposed to.”
“So they did nothing?”
“Ludari has made friends, some at the top, a few of the Elders. They know what he is doing, and are working alongside him. They’re funding Henri’s research, providing not only finances, but different ways for Henri to experiment.”
My stomach twists. I don’t want to know what Henri has been doing. “The corrupt members in the Organization are Ludari and Ashur?”
“Yes, and a few Elders, though I still don’t know who.”
“It’s become, what? Split in half?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because I work for the Organization,” Aydin says.
Why am I not surprised?
“Then, the powers in the Organization that Ashur and Henri fear, the ones that they worry were going to take me, and Henri’s research, is in fact, you?”
Aydin spreads his hands out in front of him. “The one and only.”
I shake my head. I’m beginning to think my mere mortal brain can’t hold all this information. Everything has been flipped, topsy-turvy. “So now what?”
“We wait for Lucius, then we move you.”
“Where?”
“The next safe-house is in Italy,” Aydin says, he stands again and walks to where I sit. I look away.
“Looks like we are stuck here for a while,” I say.
“Yes. Unfortunately, I am stuck with you until Lucius shows.” He sounds annoyed, but I turn to see the corner of his mouth turned down, the tell tale sign he is hiding his smile.
“What if he doesn’t?”
“He will.”
I wish I had his faith.
Chapter Forty-one
We have been here maybe a week, probably less. I have lost track of time, sitting idle in the darkness. During the day, Aydin refuses to allow me to go the cave opening overlooking the ocean. He can’t protect me there. I don’t complain or put up a fight. Instead, I sleep the days away or lie reading a few of the poetry books that are in my cell. Most of the time I sit with Aydin in the vast cavern, ignoring the items the oil lamp reveal. The heavy chains and metal cages that hang above my head whisper to me, but I refuse to listen.
Aydin occasionally tells stories of his childhood, of him and Lucius, mischievous boys, stealing bread from the kitchen. They were big, tall, lanky boys and the girls that worked the house often used them as mules or to help them clean. They were the youngest in the ludus, favored by Ashur and the doctore.
He paints a bright picture of two boys that grew into strong men, taught to fight, but were loved and respected. Aydin never calls Ashur his owner, or his master, or makes any reference to his life as a slave. He doesn’t have to. I know it was that very life that drove him to steal away the girls Ludari was using.
He keeps the truth from me, the darkness that he lived in and the pain he endured. He doesn’t tell me of the things he was forced to do, or the men he killed. The life he led in the ludus is what shaped him, the words he never speaks and the stories he leaves out. Aydin keeps it all clean, covered in a veil of light. Maybe it is easier for him to remember it this way. Or maybe he doesn’t want me to know how ugly it really was.
I love his stories and sit in awe at the life he chooses to tell. I push for more and he gives me bits to shut me up. Aydin’s stories keep me from having to look at my own. I can’t think of Abigail, of Henri, or how at any moment, we could be discovered hiding in a filthy dungeon. Aydin’s life would end, mine as well, but not nearly as merciful as death itself would be. I know what Ludari wanted me for.
The times Aydin isn’t lost in memories, he is quiet, refusing to speak. These are the worst. The darkness and silence is driving me insane. Images of my mother creep into my thoughts and I know if I focus too long on them, I will be chiseled down to nothing.
Aydin can sit so still, I have to check to make sure he is still with me, glancing over to see his blank face and distance stare. The burns are healing, very slowly. His eyes have cleared and I can look into the metal color again, and see the cruelty he cages in them. There are times I am scared of him, when he grows mean and impatient at my questions.
The stories he does reveal about the gladiatorial fights are the ones where his opponent didn’t die. His voice rings with pride as he speaks, I can see it in his eyes. He watches my reaction as he tells me that the gladiators were often paid with the gift of a woman.
“You must have had a line out your door,” I joke. Aydin is taller, with broader shoulders than Lucius, I can only imagine what he must have looked like.
“I did.”
“Don’t be modest for my sake,” I laugh. “How long did you live there, at the ludus?”
“Until I was turned, for many years after.”
“It must have been amazing,” I say.
“It was hardly glamorous, Miss Charlotte. Don’t get what you see on TV confused with history.” His voice is hard. If I’m not careful, he’ll sink into one of his moods again.
“So how long was this line of yours?”
“What line?”
“Of women, Aydin, stop being coy with me.” I shove his arm.
“It stretched for miles,” he laughs. “Almost as long as yours.”
What? Jerk.
“I’m going to guess your number is in the millions, Aydin,” I snarl. “You can stop insinuating I’m some harlot.”
“I have a lot of time on my hands, but not that much,” Aydin says. “I certainly do not think you are a harlot, though even by today’s standards, your d
ouble digits are quite impressive.”
“Seriously? You know my number?”
“No, I do not, nor do I want to,” Aydin looks away.
“I guess if I had to sit around while people had sex, I’d be judgmental too.”
“I didn’t sit around and listen to you,” Aydin says, shaking his head, but I think he’s laughing. “I do not mean to hurt your feelings,” Aydin says, dryly. He stands and leaves. I am left alone. I worry that he is angry, but know he leaves so he can rest in his cell. Yet, when he leaves it is for hours. He so is easily riled, moody, and temperamental. It drives me mad. He is my only constant. Everything I have ever known has been taken away.
-------------
I sit at the thick wooden table, again, trying to eat. Aydin is in one of his moods. My fork makes scraping sounds as I scoop up bits to force in my mouth. It’s cold canned soup, my new damn favorite. My fingers trace the long grooves that run through the wood at oddly spaced intervals. Metal brackets hang at the end of each groove. I have spent most of my dinner time and the better part of a week or more, trying to figure out what the table was used for.
“Can you stop?”
I look over at Aydin, who stares at me with cold eyes. His face in the light of the lamp is mean, his jaw tight.
“Stop what?” I look around, then down at my food.
“Will you stop scraping your bowl and just eat your fucking food?” He stands quickly, and I sit upright surprised. He is tense, far more tense than I have seen him before.
“I’m trying, I don’t have an appetite.”
“I see. Would you prefer something else?” Aydin’s voice is unnecessarily loud. “Would you like me to fly out and pick you up something different?”
“I never said you could fly,” I snap. My heart pounds in my ears. He is scaring me and he knows it. “This is just a lot to take in.”
In the Shadow of Angels: The Guardian Series 1 Page 30
