I bit my tongue in order to hold back what I really wanted to say in response. I placed the book on the table. “I’ll take a look at this...exciting historical narrative once I’m done beating a dangerous demon and the Cruenti Master. Thanks.”
He snorted. “You’re welcome.”
I turned and headed for the door. I opened it, but paused and turned to face him. “You brought me and my father back here from the police station after we were attacked. Why did you come after us?”
He gave a vacant stare. “I’m just here to do my part.”
With a sigh, I slipped out and shut the door.
After giving in to the promptings of my aching body, I went down to my room and took a nap. When I awoke, I slipped into the kitchen and had the cook fix me a plate. With Brande still gone down the street gathering the rest of the wizards, I didn’t dare waltz into the dining area, where everyone else sat enjoying dinner. I grabbed my food and went into the empty courtyard to eat. With a sigh, I sat at the center table, eating my meal in silence and watching shadows cast over the other side of the courtyard.
The sun had already started its descent in the sky, and with anxiety, my thoughts turned toward the enormous task I had ahead of me. I’d have to put aside my fears, complaints, and desires, and bring us all together so we could teleport and raid the Den. We couldn’t afford to break off into factions or tear at each other. I couldn’t afford to let my emotions get in the way either--Octavian would readily use them against me, as would Ammon. I had to be ready to make difficult choices, even if they hurt like hell.
“Need a drink?” Nikon Praskovya approached and set a glass of red wine in front of me.
I took a sip and gestured for her to have a seat across from me. I had been so preoccupied with recent events that I hadn’t been checking in on her. Perhaps that was a good thing, since I still harbored resentment toward her for nearly killing Brande.
I gazed at her. “I’m surprised you didn’t quit the embassy with some of the other wizards who left.”
She slipped into the other chair and took a swig from the bottle, kicking her feet up at the table and running a hand through her shoulder-length blonde hair. “You still have me under the heart-bind. I’m not a fool. Besides, I never run away from a fight--especially this one.”
“Good old Nikon Praskovya. I can always count on you to be you.”
She stared at the back of her hand for a few moments. “Your father...how is he?”
This must’ve been the End Times. Was Nikon Praskovya actually expressing concern over someone other than herself? “He walks around and does things as if he’s not blind. He’s so damned stubborn. Whenever I see him limp or get tired easily, or go to the infirmary for treatments...it just makes me feel like crap.”
She gazed at me. “I thought when he took me with him in Italy that he was going to shoot me in the back of the head and be done with me.”
“What happened?”
She took another swig from the bottle. “We found the remaining Black Wolves who were tracking us in Trent. Two of them managed to corner me, but...he saved my life.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Praskovya, what are you trying to say?”
She pursed her lips and then rolled her eyes at me. “What I’m trying to say is that your father is very good at killing things, and he’s an asset to our team.”
“Aww, how sweet. Now we’re a team.” I smirked and drank more wine.
“Speaking of fathers,” she set her bottle aside, “what did it feel like to encounter mine?”
“Well, I can certainly understand why you want to run a sword through the bastard.”
Her expression was devoid of all humor. “Joking aside, what did it feel like?”
I finished my wine. “Well...it felt terrible, to be honest. He’s strong, manipulative, and arrogant...just like Octavian.”
She nodded, her face darkening with the purple sky. “Do you know why I hate Cruenti?”
“Because of your sister.”
Lyov had taken his daughter, Nikon’s twin sister, when they were only sixteen, and used her as a human sacrifice as part of the ritual to become a Cruenti. Afterward, he forced Nikon into Octavian’s service, working for the Cruenti Master as a spy.
“That’s part of it, but not the entire reason.” She planted her feet on the ground and leaned forward. “From the time I began working for Octavian until a year ago, I was one of his datorems.”
“What’s that?”
“A fancy word for living, walking food. He’d take my blood. There were several of us on rotation for this.”
I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth, stifling a groan. “Why?”
Her eyes held a blank stare. “I think the reason he is able to avoid degenerating into a Black Wolf is because he drinks smaller quantities of wizards’ blood, and he spaces each feeding a certain length apart.”
“But he killed the resident Master Mentalist at the Gray Tower. He drained him completely.”
She nodded. “He has only drained three wizards since I’ve known him--a span of ten years.”
That would make sense. When I had fought Octavian’s brother Marcellus back in France, I could tell that he had gorged himself on several wizards and still wanted to drain me when he thought I was only an alchemist. When I had faced Octavian during the attack on the Gray Tower, he said his brother didn’t want to listen, and had grown arrogant and reckless. Was this what he had warned his brother about? Could draining wizards too fast and too soon cause a Cruenti to degenerate into a deformed monster?
My mouth felt dry. “Octavian only saves draining for a select few? Was he planning to drain me?”
She stared at the nearly empty wine bottle. “You’d be surprised to know that Octavian has built up his coven to revere the Drifter with the fervor of a religious cult. He told my father that the Drifter was the universe’s gift to him, a sign of divine favor.”
The image of the warlock kneeling and kissing my hand at Nuremberg flashed through my mind. “Octavian thinks I’m some sort of gift to him? I don’t understand...”
Praskovya turned her head sideways and brushed her hair back with her hand. Behind her ear was the same infinity symbol I had seen on the warlock in Nuremberg. She turned to face me. “Most of us have it behind our ears or on our necks. The zealots tattoo the mark over their hearts. My father has one as well, although he’s not nearly as devoted as some other warlocks. Octavian taught us that the Gray Tower stood in the way of a better world, of our enlightenment, because they kept executing Drifters. We are supposed to be the true believers--the devoted ones who would overthrow the illegitimate gatekeepers.”
I peered into my wineglass. “Octavian caught me at the Gray Tower. He could’ve easily snapped my neck. He wanted to kill me because of what happened to his brother in France. I wondered sometimes why he didn’t tear me apart when he had the chance. Now, I know why.”
Praskovya shifted in her seat. She looked uncomfortable. “Octavian would not drain and kill you. However, he would want to acquire your powers through making you his datorem. And, unfortunately for you, in addition to being the Drifter, you’re a woman. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore. I pushed my half-eaten meal aside and fought the queasiness in my stomach. I had just found my answer as to why Octavian tried to force me to drink his blood. It would’ve linked us and made it easier to overcome me.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small box with a detailed engraving. A ward protected the silver exterior. Praskovya placed the tiny box at the center of the table, and it clicked open. I gasped when I saw what was inside. I rose from my seat and stood to leave, but her gaze commanded me to stay.
She spoke to me in Russian, in a voice so low that I had to strain to hear her words. “You don’t ever want to be a datorem. Trust me.”
“Praskovya...”
She reached into the box and pulled out a tiny capsule the size of a
pea, surrounded by a glass ampoule and covered with brown rubber--an L-tablet. The spymasters at the Special Operations Executive offered L-tablets to all agents in case of capture and interrogation by the Nazis, but it was a quick way out for women instead of enduring abuse.
“Take the other one.” Praskovya prodded the little box toward me, like she was offering a piece of chewing gum.
A flurry of emotions rose in me, but most of all, anger. “You’re psychotic.”
“I’m helping you,” she replied, unfazed by my insult.
“I thought you were improving, but it looks like you’re still courting death.” I shoved the box back toward her.
She closed her eyes and parted her lips, placing the tablet far into her mouth, lodging it between her left gum and jaw. All she had to do was bite down on it when she was ready, and the arsenic inside would kill her. Her eyes snapped open, and she took the second tablet from the box. She leaned over and placed it on the table directly in front of me.
I wanted to hurl another insult at her, but I couldn’t, because now I saw her pain. My throat ached and I said in an unsteady voice, “I want to live.”
She rose from her seat and slowly approached, coming around and standing behind me. I felt her hand on my left shoulder, staying me to ensure I wouldn’t jump up and run away. She used her other hand to slide the L-tablet even closer.
“You want to live? So did all the other women who crushed these tablets in their mouths. But they understood that sometimes the enemy prevails, and they had to take the plunge. What do you think would happen if you faced Octavian again and lost, now knowing his full intentions?”
Honestly, in my mind, I believed that I would win. I would have to endure hell along the way, but I had to win. Father Gabriel once told me that our powers were gifts from God and had a greater purpose. So didn’t that mean I had a purpose as the Drifter? Wouldn’t it all work in my favor to destroy Octavian, close the rifts, and set things straight?
“Don’t you have any hope, Praskovya?”
My heart sank as I thought of the blue door--a psychological trigger for death, and from all places a children’s book. The wizards who had first tested my powers ingrained some of its lines into my mind as a child. How would the death-dealing doorway be any different from biting down on an L-tablet? And didn’t I try to throw myself through the blue door back at the police station to prevent Ammon from taking me? In that moment I felt ashamed of the times I’d look down on the other girls who’d lodge a tablet in their mouths before parachuting into Paris or another occupied territory. I don’t need an L-tablet, I’d say to myself. I had alchemical training by the Gray Tower and apparently the bravado to go along with it. But now that I faced enemies far more powerful than a man with a gun or an average warlock, a “failsafe” seemed like something I could use if all were lost. I had hope, and I was ready to fight, but what would happen if Octavian did capture me?
I felt like crap, but I reached for the tablet.
“I’m not saying that you must use it,” Praskovya told me. “But if it comes to that...at least you can go in your own way. Yes?”
I held the tablet between my thumb and forefinger. I dropped it into the box. “Can I keep the box?”
“Of course.”
Night had fallen.
68
Neal Warren came and retrieved me after dinner. He and Ekwueme, both Philosophers, had been interrogating Samson Grom and ensuring he didn’t try to escape. I followed Neal down to the basement, past the training room where the talisman was set up, and to the small warded room at the end. Neal opened the door, letting me step through first. I saw Samson tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Parts of his disheveled hair clung to his forehead with sweat, and his eyes were rimmed with red. He breathed with an unsteady breath, and a trickle of blood ran down his left nostril, though there were no signs he had been hit. He raised his head and watched me with cold, dark eyes.
Ekwueme had shed his suit jacket and stood next to him wearing an unreadable expression. Neal closed the door behind me and spoke in his British accent. “Tell Isabella what you told us.”
Samson snorted and spat in Neal’s direction, but his facial expression smoothed when he faced me. He spoke in his Texan drawl. “Master Zurek and I were acting on our own. There is no Tower in Exile.”
I crossed my arms. “So you two were the only ones after the talisman? What happened to the wizards who escaped north to Sweden?”
“Those of us who made it to Sweden were being led by Serafino Pedraic and Faron Bazyli.”
I gasped. “So Masters Serafino and Bazyli survived?” The two elderly wizards had helped my father shield me when I was a child, and they had been at the Gray Tower when Octavian attacked. It would’ve broken my heart if they hadn’t survived. I was relieved to hear they had made it to Sweden.
Samson continued. “They convinced the wizards in Sweden to break off into smaller groups and help the resistance leaders up north. When Zurek and I heard of the talisman’s existence from Master Pedraic, we contacted MI6 in London to retrieve it--and that’s when we learned you had survived.”
Neal interjected. “Luckily, I got in contact with the agency during that time. I had been calling and delivering intelligence reports every few days, but one of the directors told me about the situation with the talisman, and I intervened so that it wouldn’t go to Sweden. I encouraged MI6 to send it here, to Switzerland.”
“Thank you, Neal.” I stared at Samson. “So you and Zurek weren’t acting on anyone’s behalf but your own, you wanted to finish your jobs and capture me and the talisman. Is that it?”
Samson glanced at the ring on my finger. “Pretty much...ma’am.”
Ekwueme approached me, dissecting me with his gaze. I had to tilt my head to look him straight in the eye. “Now the question is, what should we do with Samson? The decision is yours.”
I turned to face the alchemist. His jaw tightened and his eyes burned with defiance, but there was also a touch of sadness in them. I said in a tight voice, “Well, I don’t know Master Ekwueme...why don’t we have him walk through a blue door?”
I was sure the venom wasn’t lost in my question, but if Ekwueme had any reaction to it, then he was very good at concealing it. “I see that more of your memories have resurfaced. However your anger is misplaced--what I did was logical and necessary.”
I shook my head and balled my fists. He was the brightest and best of the Philosophers, and unfortunately, at times, the most cold and calculating. I exhaled a deep breath and turned to Samson. I approached him and his entire body jerked in anticipation of another of my energy bolts, or perhaps a Circadian Circle that would kill him. Instead, I framed his face with my hands and stared into his widened eyes.
“Okay, listen up, cowboy. I can show you papers and argue a million reasons why you should stop trying to run me down, but I don’t have time. We don’t have time. You’re angry? Good, because I am too. In less than an hour, we’re going to take all of our anger and all of our strength, and we’re going to direct it against the so-called Lord Octavian and his minions.” I began untying Samson, glaring at Neal when he stepped forward to object. “So, Mr. Grom, you can either help us, or you can fight me now and end this.”
Samson rubbed his wrists and stared at me in astonishment. It took him nearly a minute to respond. “I’ll go with you...if you’ll have me.”
“Good. Now go take a shower. You stink.”
Neal opened the door and escorted Samson out. Just as they left, Brande stepped in with a scowl on his face. It was obvious he didn’t like the idea that Samson had been allowed to go free. “All the wizards are here. What’s going on with Samson?”
“He’s coming with us, and please don’t argue with me about it or I’ll whack you with a Circle of Silence.”
Brande glared at me. “Samson’s on my team.” His body language and facial expression told me that he didn’t like what I just did--and he certainly wasn’t going to let Samson ne
ar me.
“That’s fine with me.” I gladly welcomed Brande’s warmth when he came over and pulled me into an embrace.
Ekwueme stepped up to Brande. “Why did you get married when there is a sixty-four percent chance we will all die tonight?”
Brande gazed into my eyes. “At least, for now, my life is complete, Master Ekwueme.”
Ekwueme raised an eyebrow at me. “And it was also irrational for you to let Samson Grom live.”
I let out an exasperated breath. “You’re a hard man, Ekwueme.”
“That may be,” he said, “but I am seldom wrong. I will go speak with your father now.”
He left, and suddenly the room chilled.
The mansion was teeming with wizards. Brande led me upstairs to meet those who had been staying at the mansion down the street. Nearly thirty had gathered in the large dining area, while others congregated in the reception area, the courtyard, and the west wing. I could tell that the few wizards Brande introduced me to were people who hadn’t heard the gossip about me, didn’t believe it, or managed to still have a hell of a lot of faith in me.
With an encouraging hand on my shoulder, Brande steered me toward a tall woman with blonde hair. “Isabella, this is Eleanor, from the Vatican facility in Trent.”
She had warm gray eyes. She stuck out her hand. “Pleased to meet you. I saw you the night you visited in Trent.”
I shook her hand. “From what I’ve seen, you all have excellent training. I’m glad you’re here.”
“Thank you.”
The next wizard I met was a dark-haired man who reminded me of a soldier. He wore black fatigues and sported a military-style hair cut. “Hello, Isabella. I’m William. I was an Elite Elemental at the Gray Tower.”
“Thank you for coming.” We exchanged a few more words before Brande and I moved on.
“I noticed that the man who hosted half these people down the street didn’t bother to show up.” I frowned.
“Perhaps Victor isn’t the warrior type. All the same, it was good of him to host them.”
The Gray Tower Trilogy: Books 1-3 Page 83
