She often lingered in the kitchen after breakfast to enjoy a second cup of tea while she read. The sound of Consuelo chopping vegetables behind her was curiously comforting. Consuelo made all her broths from scratch and the smell of onions, garlic and peppers frying, followed by the rich scent of a chicken slowly simmering, was Audrey’s idea of aroma therapy. When there was a hearty comforting soup on the stove everything felt right with the world even if she was thirty-years-old now and no closer to figuring out what she really wanted to do with herself, besides meet the right man, of course. What exactly constituted the right man was also an issue because, more than once, she had thought she had found him… Thought she had found him… there was a clue in the way she put it to herself. Had she truly felt they were the right men or had she convinced herself, overriding the much deeper (and wiser) instincts of her heart because her body craved sex and her soul longed for companionship?
Her e-book reader propped up against a wine bottle, she seemed to be doing nothing with her life as she stared at it, but appearances could be deceiving. In truth, she was broadening her mind with all the different books she was reading, and striving to become a better person by clearly staring every one of her thoughts and feelings straight in their virtual faces to avoid making more time-consuming mistakes. She had just eagerly devoured the paragraph Subtle energy is simply energy that cannot be accurately measured using current scientific methods. It is not supernatural, paranormal, or scary—it is just energy. It obeys some—but not all—of the same laws as does physical matter, its counterpart… Subtle energies operate on a different plane or continuum than do physical energies. Yet they can be at least somewhat defined in comparison to physical energy…(1) when Darlene stepped into the kitchen, her hands crossed over her apron in the way that indicated she was making an effort not to be emotional.
“Audrey, dear, your father wishes to see you. He’s in his study.” The fact that she bothered to state the obvious indicated the matter was serious.
Audrey turned off her e-book reader and slipped it into the pocket of her over sized cashmere sweater. “Thank you, Darlene,” she said formally but let her shoulder brush affectionately against the older woman’s as she walked past her.
Stuart was not seated behind his desk. He was standing before one of the windows, his hands lightly clasped behind his back, staring outside. The sky had the soft deep gray feel of a feather comforter that might rip open into a gentle snowfall at any moment. She was beginning to wonder if he had heard her come in when he turned toward her. “My love,” he said quietly.
Of course she knew what day this was but she always made a stubborn effort to ignore the morbid anniversary.
He approached her, picking something up off his desk on the way—a small black box he held cupped in both hands. “Did you have a nice time with your friends yesterday?” he said absently.
“It was all right. What is that?”
“A gift for you.”
“But you already gave me a lovely birthday present.”
“This is… something special. It belonged to your mother. I don’t know if you remember that she was thirty-years-old when…”
“Yes…” It meant nothing, her reason said firmly, but her heart (and she had just promised herself to pay more attention to the vital clues concealed in her intuitions) felt otherwise because it had sped up anxiously.
He set the box down on a table next to a brightly painted wooden replica of the boy king Tutankhamun raising a spear with which he was ostensibly about to impale a hippopotamus or a crocodile, symbols of chaos and death and the enemies of Maat—the divine order-imposing force contained within corporeal existence. Very gently, he lifted a fine golden chain out of the box from which hung a small light-green object. She held out her hand and he placed the scarab on her palm, the chain coiling like a golden serpent around it.
She whispered, “Is it real?”
“Yes, and as far as I can tell it dates back to the eleventh dynasty. As you know, the scarab, khefer, was the hieroglyph for Becoming. It was associated with Atum-Re and Khepri, He Who Came into Being, the One who breathed life into the universe. Khepri represented the creative force latent in the darkness of the Void, which was also symbolized by the morning sun and depicted as a man with the head of a scarab. The ancient Egyptians believed scarab amulets had the power to protect them from evil forces…”
She looked up at his face, then regretted it. She had seen grief in her father’s eyes, she had seen respect and excitement, she had seen them shine with amusement or fade to a flat, pale blue with anger, but she had never seen fear in them. “What? Do you want me to wear this at all times to protect me from evil forces?” She tried joking away the terrible moment.
“Yes,” he sounded relieved she had said it for him. “If you would please do this for me, I would appreciate it.”
Profoundly disturbed by the thought that her father might be going barmy, she quipped, “Even in the bathtub?” desperately making light of the situation. It was a relief when the infinitely sober expression in his eyes was replaced by a much more mundane embarrassment as he looked away.
“I leave that to your discretion, Audrey, but it would make me happy if you would indulge me in this matter.”
She opened the delicate clasp and promptly slipped the necklace around her neck. “Of course I will,” she spoke lightly. “It’s lovely. Thank you.” She would, obviously, desire to wear different jewelry in the future, but she refrained from mentioning this now. She hoped that once the dreadful anniversary of his wife’s disappearance had passed he would come to his senses and not feel quite so strongly about her wearing an ancient Egyptian scarab twenty-four-seven.
She went straight from her father’s study to the mud room. It had begun snowing and she was overcome by the need to step outside beneath the gently falling flakes. The sadness that had been there for twenty-two years—like a sound too high-pitched for her every day emotions to register—was humming loudly and distinctly through her heart. She was afraid, not of the evil forces her father suddenly wanted to protect her from but of more insidious dangers caused by the aging process, which sometimes constricted arteries and prevented the blood from flowing properly through the brain, thereby rendering the person so afflicted slightly, or completely, senile. Her chest was so hot with old sadness blended with a potential new grief that she welcomed the cold slap of the wind outside like a benediction as it cleared her head. Her Da was not losing his mind. His specialty was ancient history, particularly Egyptian, and the scarab had belonged to his beloved wife, who had mysteriously disappeared when she was thirty-years-old. It made sense, emotionally if not rationally, that he was afraid for his daughter now that she was the same age and that, as he had always done, he desired to protect her. The scarab was merely a symbol of how much he cared for her. She would wear it as often as possible, proudly and happily, because she was truly fortunate to be so deeply loved.
She took a different route than she had that morning, following a path along the tree line so she could walk beneath the falling snow and occasionally lift her face to enjoy the cool kiss of snowflakes on her cheeks and lips. She could feel the scarab resting lightly against her solar plexus. It was the anxious flurry of her thoughts, not the amulet’s subtle pressure, which was responsible for the fact that she couldn’t seem to take a deep breath unless she made a conscious effort.
Her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her black wool coat, Audrey stopped in her tracks and shouted out across the gently undulating landscape, “Mother!” The snow did not muffle her voice, on the contrary; she felt as though it rang for miles in all directions. She liked that. “We still love you, Mommy!” She could see individual snow flakes clinging tenaciously to blades of grass for a heartbeat before dissolving.
The profound silence was suddenly broken again, this time by the aggressive strains of Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights. The music was muffled by her coat pocket. She fished out her cell-phone and when she s
aw Aapti’s number on the display decided to answer it.
“Hi.”
“How are you, sweetie?” Her friend knew what day it was and for ten years had been helping her get through it.
“I’m okay.”
Aapti was respectfully silent for a moment before she said eagerly, “Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Colby Eckart’s son got back from Afghanistan last night. Before that he was in Iraq, and before that no one knows where he was. He’s been gone for years.”
The Eckarts were their closest neighbor, in fact, she was planning to trespass on their land in a few minutes on her way to her favorite haunt, a place where she had spent uncountable hours indulging in hopefully dreamy melancholies.
“The rumor going around is he was part of some elite special forces unit,” Aapti informed her. “They say he-”
“Aapti? Hello!” She held the phone up, searching for a signal, but gave up after a few seconds and slipped the phone back into her pocket, shutting it off. She really hadn’t been in the mood to talk. She would tell her friend about the scarab another day.
By the time she reached the burned out old church which had so excited her little girl’s imagination, she regretted having come so far. It was snowing hard and she had to keep turning her back to the wind whenever powerful gusts threatened to blind her. The roof was completely gone but three of the tall central arches rose against the sky like a dragon’s ribcage blackened by smoke and time.
It was sad growing old. There was no doubt the place remained eerily beautiful to her but she was only thirty and already how cold she was felt equally important. The needs of her body were slowly but inexorably becoming even more demanding than those of her heart, which wanted to stay there and use the ruin’s haunting atmosphere to stoke and feed the mysterious fire of her imagination. Just fifteen years ago she would have stepped over tumbled stones sensing, searching for another dimension. The air was a veil and if she believed hard enough her next footfall would transport her into another space and time, not into the bloody history her father read and wrote about but into an alternate universe where beautiful legends were real and dreams actually became flesh. The young girl who had felt this way was still alive inside her but her skin seemed to be growing thicker and making her awe-filled voice less and less audible to her mind—so preoccupied with adult matters—until eventually the inescapable realities of old age and sickness would silence it forever.
“No!” she yelled, and once again relished the sense of power that filled her as, like magical messengers, the urgently milling snowflakes seemed to deliver the energy in her voice a great deal farther than was physically possible. Then she regretted having so forcefully announced her presence. She stood rigid with fear as a large black dog ran directly across her line of sight before disappearing behind one of the church’s ruined walls. When the tall figure of a man suddenly stepped through a jagged archway in the same wall, her relief was so intense her knees literally felt weak. The wolf-like dog possessed a civilized master! She was safe!
“Good afternoon,” the man’s voice was deep and quiet.
Apparently, his pet was shy of other people because it didn’t reappear.
He held out his hand. “Jonathan Eckart.”
She slipped her black leather glove into his. “Audrey Goodrich.”
Their eyes met and she forgot all about reclaiming her hand. He let go of her first, reluctantly it seemed, but she wasn’t thinking clearly… The snowflakes abruptly felt like confetti flying wildly in the parade of her emotions—shyness, admiration, curiosity, disbelief, hope, uncertainty—every feeling inside her felt as intense and exaggerated as a carnival float.
“Where’d your dog go?” she asked, shoving her hands into her pockets. She had no idea what to say to a man who had just returned from hell. “Welcome home…”
“Thanks.” He didn’t take his eyes off her face. “You’re Wilona’s daughter.”
Everyone knew about her mother, she was used to it. “And you’re Colby’s son,” she retorted, feeling too vulnerable today for polite condolences.
“Not exactly.”
His eyes seemed to have absorbed the essence of the deserts they had spent so many years in. His pitch-black pupils were strikingly visible set in his light-brown irises. A romantic novelist would undoubtedly describe them as “golden” or “honey-colored” but such adjectives would merely diminish their direct luminosity. “Not exactly?”
“We’ve been neighbors forever, Audrey.” He didn’t smile. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“Likewise, I’m sure, but you haven’t answered my questions, Jonathan. Should I not bother asking you any more questions in the future?”
He had a beautiful smile and she realized why it looked so familiar—because she saw it in her father’s study every day. He had the mouth of an ancient Egyptian king. His lips weren’t as sensual as Tutankhamun’s but they were definitely sinuous and his face had been forged by the scorching desert sun into a tanned golden mask. He wore an elegant ankle-length black leather coat and not a single strand of hair was visible beneath his black knit cap.
“So, you think we have a future together, Audrey?”
“Well, as you said,” she felt the warm color in her cheeks defy the cold, “we’re neighbors. We’re bound to run into each other now and then… unless of course you go away again.” Despondency, disappointment and desperation were added to the parade of emotions still blasting away inside her with all the deafening subtlety of a brass band, making everything she said sound faintly ridiculous. For some inexplicable reason, she felt there was much more that should have been said, that needed to be said…
He stared over her head as if he could see beyond the trees and pasture lands all the way to Iraq and Afghanistan. “I’ve done what I can.”
“And we’re very grateful…” she murmured. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what he’d been through; it was impossible to know what on earth to say.
His gaze returned to the present and her face. “Who is we?”
“I’m sure I speak for everyone when-”
“I’m sure you don’t.” He sounded tired.
“Would you and your father care to join us for dinner this evening?” The question burst out of her heart and bloomed into words on her tongue before she could stop it.
He touched his black-gloved fingers to his forehead and chest as he bent slightly at the waist. “We would be honored, my lady.”
No one had ever called her “my lady” except in jest, or in spite, but she distinctly sensed he wasn’t making fun of her. He had picked up some attractive habits in the Middle East. As her father never tired of pointing out to people whenever the subject came up, countries synonymous with terrorism and bloodshed had once been the sites of great civilizations with profound spiritual roots, roots that often bore no relationship to the dying distortions of more modern fanatical branches.
“Seven o’clock then?” She was already wondering what to wear when she abruptly remembered any dress she considered would have to match her scarab amulet. Stuart never entertained guests on the anniversary of his wife’s disappearance and he might not be happy she’d invited someone without asking him first, but it was too late now. She wouldn’t take the invite back even if she could. She couldn’t simply wait to run into Jonathan Eckart again, he was too… beautiful, there was no other word for him, at least as far as his physical appearance was concerned.
“I’d offer to walk you home, Audrey,” he glanced over his shoulder, “but I have to get back if I want to be ready in time for dinner. I’ll bring some wine.”
“You’ll love our cook, Consuelo. She’s from Spain!”
He laughed. “Now I’m really looking forward to tonight. Cheers then.” He turned and walked away. Watching him as he crested a hill with long, sure strides, she waited to see if his dog would run after him, but apparently it had already left.
Chapter Three
/> Stuart wasn’t in his study. The house Audrey had grown up in was large enough that finding someone, if they weren’t in their usual haunts, constituted a workout. Darlene was proud of the fact that not a single wing was kept closed; more than ten tastefully appointed rooms were always ready to receive guests. And indeed, they were regularly occupied by historians, philosophers, writers of all varieties, the occasional scientists and, once in a very blue moon, a politician or two.
Standing in the middle of the formal entrance hall, Audrey yelled, “Father!” too chuffed to contain herself. She was quite fond of raising her voice today. Was this a sign of insecurity? Did she feel the need to be heard, to make her mark on the world? Had Wilona yelled for help?
She banished the thought and ran up the central staircase. Her father wasn’t in his bedroom suite but she had seen his car in the driveway so she knew he was home. Perhaps he too had felt the need for a constitutional. The first thing she had done was tell Darlene and Consuelo about the unexpected dinner guests. The little chef had sprung into action, the set of her jaw and the glow in her black eyes making Audrey’s mouth water. She had seen that look of determined concentration many times before and the results were always brilliant.
She’d given up and was walking to her room—where she planned to spend enjoyable hours fannying around with her wardrobe—when she heard a muffled thud just above her head. Someone was in the attic. Smiling, she ran down the corridor and up the steep stairway with practiced ease. As a child, she had spent countless hours in the attic playing haunted house with her Barbie dolls. Her imagination had effortlessly transformed the delicate spiders’ webs and ponderous furniture draped in white sheets into the walls of a haunted castle concealed behind veils of mist. She even went so far as to paint portraits of the castle’s inhabitants, complete with elaborate serpentine frames, and then she had fashioned numerous white cardboard tombstones, folding their bottom edges so she could tape them in place.
Eternal Blood - Books 1-3 Wolf Shield, Sword of the Blood, Vampire Bride Page 2
