“I daresay we’ll have another chance with that one,” commented his Intuition.
The Heart rallied them. “The lovely lady is alive,” he said, staring down fondly at Verena. “That, at least, is cause for celebration. We have not failed. The offender is gone. The rest we must leave to God and pray she heals completely.”
Everyone nodded save Alexi, who did not seem convinced. None of them could be sure if lasting wounds and scars were left by hauntings. Beatrice certainly felt she’d never be the same for her experiences. No one in this room ever would.
“As you were!” Withersby cried to the room, waving his arms like a ridiculous puppeteer. The former and present Guards stared at one another for a long, uncomfortable moment. Withersby waved his fingers again for good measure. Belle looked like she wanted to laugh. Or cry. Both, likely.
Alexi turned to stalk to the front of the small church, a tormented scowl upon his young face. The Heart was by his side, asking his Leader, “What occurred in the hour since we parted? I feel your dread weight; what loss have you suffered?”
The Intuition was close by, too, concerned, and the rest fell in behind him. As they did Beatrice heard Alexi reply, his voice hard, “No matter. Life is but meetings and partings.” And then the new Guard were gone from the building.
Beatrice whirled to the corner where the goddess had been hiding, ready to scream, but all signs of her had vanished. Good God, did the Grand Work cut its way into the world so ruthlessly each and every time? Who had poor Alexi lost today?
Belle’s voice caught her attention: “Now what?”
“Back to Athens with Verena, and we keep watch until her dark night has completely passed,” Beatrice replied.
“But the new Guard—”
“Came from all over the city. The sacred space may be in the school, but their homes are elsewhere. They cannot have settled in so quickly. We were here first; we don’t deserve to be shunted aside. Athens is our home, too, for now.” Beatrice turned to Ibrahim ruefully. “Forgive me if I ever seemed like I doubted you. But what were we to do?”
“Indeed. Fate has us round the neck,” Ibrahim agreed.
He didn’t appear angry with her. Relief surged in her veins; the Grand Work had been trial by fire, and as Leader she was responsible for their successes and failures. Now, with all guidance removed, she didn’t know what to expect or to think.
She didn’t care about anything so much as Verena. That, and having a few choice words with the goddess, who was likely following her precious new pets, recalling Phoenix apologizing for their lack of courtesy. That they had been pawns of gods was never so evident. So too were this new crop.
Beatrice had to admit, if only to herself, that the new Guard were good, if young. Quite good.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
As Beatrice hoped, with the possessing spirit displaced, the crackling, invisible barrier to Athens vanished. Within the hour their patient lay comfortably convalescing in her upper-floor apartments, far from the comings and goings of any workers below. Ahmed and Ibrahim sat attendant at her side. Belle and George had run off to their café, the only ones who now had something in London to fall back on.
Beatrice was too full of raw emotion to sit still, so she stalked to the third-floor seal.
“Why did you leave me?” she cried out to the Phoenix entombed within. She had never felt an emptiness like she now suffered.
Blue fire coursed around her ankles, as if happy to see her, and Beatrice scowled, wondering if it was a trick. The fire, and Persephone, had been fickle. Did this little show of affection hope to keep her mollified?
“Some good you were out there on the bridge,” she murmured, kicking at the flames with her boot. “Fair-weather fire.”
“Our Lady, you owe us an apology,” she growled through clenched teeth. But now that she was no longer Leader, would the goddess come to her?
The light did indeed change, a sign of her summoning, and Beatrice whirled. “Where were you when we needed you?!” she cried, glaring at the beautiful creature before her.
She didn’t worry if she appeared raving; there were no workers here due to the lateness of the hour, and she wouldn’t have cared if there were.
Persephone stared. “I … was visiting with the new Guard, as I always do.”
“Are we not still your Guard? Are we not still in your damnable service?”
Persephone blinked. “You are still my beloveds, but you are no longer the Guard. It all happened so quickly. I did not think there could be two Guards, but I’d hoped—”
“So now we’re dispensable. We abandoned our homes, our lives, followed you blindly here to be cast aside thus?” Beatrice shrieked. “What if Verena had died?”
“I would not have allowed that. I gave her the kiss of life.”
“And a bloody lot of good that did her, lying there, alive but possessed by a fiend, only a shell of your light flickering within her.”
“She did not die,” Persephone repeated. “Danger surrounds the Work; there’s no cure for—”
“You could have warned us that, should any of our Muses leave, what we once fought might take its place!”
Phoenix fire crackled around Beatrice’s feet. Perhaps she was calling it forth with her righteous anger. The azure flames soothed her heart and mind. They stood upon his grave, and Beatrice now felt confident an echo of fire would always exist in her, as it would always exist at his tomb.
“I would never wish harm upon you,” Persephone said. “I don’t claim to understand all the particulars, how the Guard are chosen and when. That’s up to the Muses and to Phoenix—”
“Have you ever asked? Have you ever thought beyond your own immediate fancy? Your whims?”
“There needed to be a changing,” the goddess insisted. “Even if there’s no precedent. None of this has happened before; never two Guards, never on one soil. I felt a need, a possibility, and I followed the Liminal order … I’ve not always been able to be on hand, coming and going as I must between worlds. The bloodletting distracts me—”
Beatrice would have none of her excuses. “Beloved Verena nearly died tonight, senselessly, away from her home. Why, if those poor young wretches are the chosen ones, why weren’t they chosen in the first place? Why involve us at all?”
“Because it wasn’t yet time, you were our transition…” was Persephone’s reply. She looked regretful, but only a bit. Beatrice was convinced the goddess, regardless if she loved them or not, simply did not understand mortals.
“The Muses found you first, you who are of proper age. When Darkness moved against all Guard spirits to take them prisoner, things changed. Moving the phoenix fire here to London, things changed again. This new Guard … Guards are never so young. So many things weren’t in place—”
Beatrice glared. “You’ve just fallen in love with a mortal boy, that’s all. Nothing else mattered.”
“It is true that I’ve fallen for a mortal boy,” Persephone replied. “He is a magnificent, worthy young man.”
Pacing the fiery seal, Beatrice threw her hands in the air. “You’re unquestionably one of those divinities of old, prizing nothing but your lovelorn fate. Gods are petty creatures after all. It’s clear to me now that no one more powerful is listening, nothing helping mankind. No one knows a damn thing about any greater plan. Being your ‘chosen’ simply means people I care about must suffer. If you had been honest about that from the first, I might have more respect for you now.”
In the face of Beatrice’s wounded fury, Persephone was calm. “I am a force, but not an omnipotent one. I told you what I was—”
“You never said you were an accomplice to murder,” Beatrice spat. She was finished with the argument, not that it had done any good.
Storming past the goddess, she took refuge in her chamber on the uppermost floor. That small room housed all that was left of her identity, her shell of an existence. Beatrice collapsed upon her bed and wept, her world shattered.
Being Leader had fed her adventuresome spirit, made her feel important, given her beautiful, extraordinary friends.
She had thrilled at living an unconventional life. Despite the difficulties, she had found welcome in the purpose the work had given her, the direction she’d once so craved.
A wave of grief threatened to drown her. Standing in the sacred space, basking in the Power and the Light was an experience that could never be replicated. The Grand Work had made them a family—the six of them truly loved one another. Beatrice was not fond of loss. She’d had enough, and she didn’t want to be severed and lonely again. But she was no visionary, to see an alternate future.
“What are any of us now?” she exclaimed to the empty room.
Bright colors appeared at the foot of Beatrice’s bed. “I told you, you are my beloveds,” whispered Persephone. “You will always be my beloveds.”
Beatrice scrambled back. “Get out of my room. I did not invite you. You have no use for us, and I have no use for you.”
“I need you,” Persephone replied. “There is work yet to be done.”
“Get your precious new Guard to do it.”
“Beatrice, I need you. I will need you. Specifically you. And I trust you. There is no more precious thing than trust,” the goddess added.
They stared each other down. Beatrice’s nostrils flared; her fists clenched in her bedclothes. “I don’t trust you. At present, I’m inclined to hate you.”
Persephone stared at her, her aura cycling colors. “I know. I wish you didn’t.”
“Why couldn’t we speak to them? To our own fellows? It was as if we were physically gagged. What’s the sense in that? How does that help any of us?”
“I couldn’t risk having you frighten them,” Persephone replied. “It was manipulative of me, I know. But at the moment none of you are fond of the Grand Work. While I cannot blame you, I couldn’t have you turning them against their destiny on the very first day it was given, not when Verena’s life was in the balance. I paid for it, though.” She lifted her sleeve to show what looked like burn marks on her forearm. “All magic costs me these days.”
“What, I should pity you your scars? What if Verena yet dies? She is not fully recovered! What scar will you show me then?”
Persephone rose and paced the room. “I’m doing the best I can with a life I didn’t choose, either!” she cried, and Beatrice realized there was nothing as disturbing as a nervous deity. “Everything I attempt is to protect the Balance, the Muses, and Phoenix. To protect what remains of my beloved and the balance between worlds. The Whisper-world and the Liminal edge is making its own decisions, and I’ve no choice but to keep up with Prophecy as best I can. I struggle to understand my own part, to do my best when others have controlled and punished me for eternity.”
That seemed true. If Beatrice held any hatred for the goddess, she hated Darkness more.
“You’ve every right to be angry,” Persephone allowed. “The Grand Work places you at the threshold of life and death, endangering your lives and the lives of all those around you. But for all the Grand Work takes, it also gives. It saves the lives, hearts, and minds of many whom it touches. I owe you endless thanks for your service. I do love you—all of you—and I hope you know it. I’m fighting to make sure all of you will remain free, in this world and the next.” She moved toward the door. “Now I’m going to see Verena.”
Before Persephone could leave, Beatrice said, in a small voice, “Could the Grand Work not have asked us if we wanted this? Couldn’t you ask for volunteers instead?”
Persephone stared at her. Hard. “If we did, what would you say?”
Beatrice wanted to denounce the Work, to say that she wanted nothing to do with it. But would she really have refused? Even knowing what she did?
The goddess shook her head when Beatrice scowled. “You were chosen because you’d say yes anyway.” Then she passed through the door.
Beatrice gave chase, following the goddess as she glided down the hallway. If further apologies would be made, she wanted to hear them. Apparently knowing Verena’s location without being told, Persephone turned and vanished through the correct door as if she were a ghost, and again Beatrice followed.
Perhaps the divinity wasn’t lying when she said that her heart was still tied to them.
Inside, Verena was unconscious. Ibrahim stared at Persephone with steely defiance, a glare that screamed he’d known better, that he had warned everyone of this. His tortured expression mixed self-loathing and fury.
“You. You chose your precious English Guard,” he growled. “You, the Muses, the fire, you chose them over us and left us defenseless. What could we have done to stop this?” He indicated Verena’s limp body.
Persephone shook her head. “I did not choose them over you. But I had to be there for their annunciation—as I was for yours. This new Guard is charged with a grave responsibility that you were not.”
Verena woke with a heartbreaking cry. It both gave Beatrice hope and filled her with fear.
“I want to go home,” the girl begged in Arabic. Seeing Beatrice, she repeated the plea in English, perhaps forgetting, in her pain, that the Englishwoman understood Arabic.
“Please take me home,” she said to Ibrahim and Ahmed, again in Arabic. Then she saw the goddess. If she was angry, she chose not to show it. In English this time, she said, “Now that you’ve no need for us, I’d like to go back. To Cairo.”
“I want you comfortable and happy.” The goddess glanced at Beatrice, who clenched her jaw. “I’ve work for some of you but not all. Cairo can have you back. I shall not be too covetous.”
Looking at Ahmed, Ibrahim, and Verena, Persephone said, “Go in peace, and know that I am with you in spirit”—her voice faltered—“even when I fail you, as I’ve failed every Guard that has come before. I am sorry for your suffering, and I promise to give everything I have, the very last of me, to make it right.” Her lovely face hard with conviction and desperation, she opened a trembling hand and summoned a portal to the Whisper-world. Vanishing through, she left them with a disturbing whisper. “All my blood. I’ll spend all my blood until we’re finally free.”
Beatrice shuddered. Ahmed paced nearby, anxious like she’d never seen him. Ibrahim was staring at her. Despite the goddess’s welcome apology, it seemed none of them had gleaned any answers. Dismissed or not, they still had no idea of their next move.
She left her friends in Verena’s room and retreated to her own, calming herself with a cup of tea. There came a knock on her door and she called, “Yes?”
Ibrahim entered. Beatrice was glad she had composed herself, since he seemed to be completely under control and looked characteristically stoic. “As you heard,” he began, “Verena wants to go home. I think she should do so as soon as possible, though I believe she should rest here a few more nights and regain some strength first.”
His dark eyes were haunted as he continued. “It may mean life or death for her. It’s all she’ll speak of. Ahmed won’t leave her side. He’ll make the journey with her.”
Beatrice didn’t answer. After all, what was there to say?
Ibrahim stared out the window at the graying sky. “What do we do now?”
“The rest of you are free,” Beatrice replied. “Myself, I’m not sure.”
“Why do you say so?”
Beatrice sighed. “I vented my spleen upon our Lady before she came to Verena. When I did, she intimated that there was work yet to be done, and that I’m the one to do it.”
“And … me?”
“I’ve no idea. Ask her yourself,” Beatrice retorted. If they were no longer the Guard, she was no longer their Leader.
Ibrahim set his jaw; she regretted giving him cause for that.
“I’m sorry,” she began. “You’re the last person who should bear my frustrations. You know I’ve wrestled with our fate as you have.”
Her heart dropped into her stomach. Would he want to stay and help, or would he return to Cairo
with Ahmed and Verena?
She turned away to make another cup of tea, rejoicing in how that ritual masked every awkwardness.
Oh, God, she thought. Stay, or ask me to come with you. I cannot ask you to remain, no matter how much I wish to. She felt ashamed at her intense yearning, but there was nothing to be done for it. The company of Ibrahim Wasil-Tipton was something she craved. Whether he took an English name or not, whether he wore tunics or fine English suits, she craved his eloquent words, his weighty stare, his compelling presence. She had from the first.
Ibrahim was evaluating her. She felt his regard and worked to keep her face blank, kept her gaze fixed upon her cup and saucer.
“I … have not decided,” he said quietly, then surprised her with, “What do you feel I should do?”
He was asking for her opinion? Dare she give it? Was it her responsibility to knock down the walls he’d built up, to ask him to stay with her? It wasn’t, and so she continued their maddening volley of detachment instead. “The great Ibrahim Wasil-Tipton is deferring to my judgment?” Straightening her spine, she turned and gave him a smirk. “Are you feeling quite well?”
Ibrahim eyed her. A corner of his mouth turned up, surprising her, and they stood there in silence, smirking at each other. Beatrice hoped he was as engaged by the game as she. Their relationship always held a subtle dance of power.
“I’ll tell you in the morning,” he replied. Then he stepped forward, grabbed her hand in both of his, pressed it, and brought it to his lips.
Proper or no, Beatrice rejoiced that she was not wearing gloves. She could feel the exquisite touch of his full, perfect lips atop her hand, and time stopped as his dark eyes rose to meet hers. Her other hand, the one holding cup and saucer, began to tremble.
A sound escaped her that was part choke, part gasp, part cry of exquisite bliss, a sound that revealed too much of her inner emotion. This moment held all that she had desired, made her struggle to maintain even a shred of composure. This glimpse behind the mask of his stoic, impassive character was a moment of aching intimacy that revealed so much more than words … She felt a blush bloom on her cheeks like phoenix fire.
Perilous Prophecy Page 20
