Cheating Death

by April White

  The man’s gaze turned toward the younger MacKenzie men, and it sharpened. “I don’t believe I’ve met your sons.” He walked across to the younger and offered his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, James. I’m Aeron.”

  Ringo tensed, and my whole being was suffused with shock.

  Aeron.

  Council

  Death. I even fumbled the word in my brain. If I had been standing in front of him like the MacKenzie, I would have fumbled much more obvious things. Like speech. And maintaining a heartbeat.

  Death was in the house.

  To his credit, the younger MacKenzie only paled slightly as he shook Aeron’s hand, and Death seemed satisfied by something he saw in James’ eyes. He didn’t even acknowledge the elder brother, who was clearly sweating the introduction but was saved from it by the sweeping entrance of the Armans.

  Camille Arman looked like a cross between a runway model and a pixie warrior, which for her, was not as hard to pull off as it sounded. Somehow this fierce Frenchwoman had given birth to my friends Adam and Ava, both blond-haired and beautiful, but without the edge their mother wore like a superhero cloak. Camille went straight up to Aeron and offered him her cheek to kiss as she clasped his hand. “Aeron. You’ve come.”

  An interesting choice of words. Not “thank you for coming” or even “why are you here,” instead a declaration that required no answer. I could learn from watching the Seer Head.

  “Camille, you’ve aged not a day in the years since I saw you last. I would almost imagine you were one of mine.” Aeron’s voice was deep and smooth and rolled like liquid off his tongue, and yet the smallest tightening of Camille’s smile was the only indication she gave that his words affected her.

  Aeron looked at Ava then, and I was proud of her for meeting his eyes straight on. “And this is your lovely daughter,” he said to Camille, though he looked at Ava, who smiled graciously as he continued. “It will be a pleasure to work with you when you assume the mantle, Ava.” He shook her hand warmly.

  I couldn’t tell what Ava was thinking from her expression, which was as relaxed and unworried as it always was, but I knew her mother wasn’t happy about Death’s attention to her daughter.

  Adam seemed somewhat … vexed. I had only ever heard English people say it, but vexed was a good description for the slight worry, slight annoyance, slight confusion that warred for dominance in his expression. Aeron turned to Adam and gave him a nod. “Adam,” he said quietly.

  “Sir,” Adam replied. I was impressed at how together he sounded.

  Other people had come in, including Ms. Simpson and Millicent. Aeron moved to greet Ms. Simpson warmly with a kiss on both cheeks, and he shook Millicent’s hand formally. I couldn’t hear specific conversations anymore because the room had gotten too loud, so I watched body language as Aeron made his way around the room.

  Aeron.

  Death.

  I had to mentally shake the shock out of my brain. An actual Immortal was making his way around the Descendants’ Council room, greeting people he knew, introducing himself to those he didn’t. There was a raging sense of power around him – one that practically pulsed with something not exactly malevolent, but definitely dangerous. It was surreal to watch the people in the room attempt to wear politeness to cover their naked fear. I couldn’t look away no matter how painfully people reacted to the idea of Death in their midst.

  “It’s like watchin’ a bloody king, or maybe the king of assassins, make ‘is rounds, isn’t it?” Ringo whispered.

  Across the room, Aeron’s mouth quirked up in a smile. I tried to pretend there was no possible way he could have heard Ringo’s whisper, but a part of me believed it was entirely likely.

  “Shite,” Ringo whispered. He believed it too.

  There was a commotion coming down the stairs, and a guy I recognized as Raven’s older brother came in strong-arming a guy about my age with curly ginger hair. The faint echo of his Mongerness tugged at my stomach.

  “The big one is Dodo, the Monger who tried to take me from the Tower,” I whispered to Ringo.

  “‘E’s a Rothchild, right?” Ringo’s whisper was barely more than a breath of words.

  Dodo wore a bulky jumper, and he yanked the ginger to a halt so he could pull it off over his head. Underneath the sweater was a tactical tool belt, its multiple holders bulging with various weapons and hidden devices.

  I exhaled sharply. “Raven’s older brother. He was a mercenary in Africa.” How he managed to get all of that … stuff in a country where guns were illegal was beyond me.

  The MacKenzie got in Dodo’s face about being armed at a Council meeting, but Raven’s brother shoved past him and pushed the ginger into a chair.

  “Who’s ‘e got?” Ringo asked.

  The Ginger remained placidly calm despite almost losing his seat from the force of Dodo’s push. He had to grab at Dodo’s tool belt to keep from going over. Dodo righted the chair, shook himself free, and stepped back to guard the door. I studied the guy. “I’m guessing that’s Darrell MacFarlane.”

  He looked wiry and strong, but with the kind of lean muscle that makes people think they can take him on and regret it when they do. His fingers were tapping out a rhythm on his leg, something that looked vaguely musical, and his eyes were taking everything in.

  “‘E’s a thief,” Ringo whispered.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “‘E slipped somethin’ from the tool belt when ‘e grabbed it. Also, fingers and eyes in constant motion. It’s like an itch, thievin’ is, and when it’s been yer life, ye never stop needin’ to scratch it.”

  I looked at Dodo’s tool belt but didn’t see anything obviously missing. “You stopped,” I breathed to Ringo.

  “It wasn’t my life, it was my job,” he whispered back.

  One final person entered the chamber and closed the door behind him. The man was tall like Aeron and looked strikingly familiar. There was enough Michael Fassbender in his features that he owned every pair of eyeballs in the room, and he moved in a powerful, graceful way that reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t think who.

  The room literally stilled, and in that moment a case of Monger-gut hit me so hard I almost doubled over.

  “Duncan.” Aeron greeted him neutrally.

  Duncan.

  War.

  I took a deep breath in hopes that oxygen would calm my heartbeat down to something less … loud. This guy’s attention was pretty much the last thing I wanted to draw to myself for reasons that weren’t coherent so much as they were visceral.

  I wasn’t the only one, either. The Descendants in the Council room seemed to hold their collective breath, and I could have cut the tension with a knife.

  Duncan gave Aeron a charming smile that didn’t come anywhere close to his eyes. “Aeron. You’ve come out of your cave, I see.” There was an oily slickness in his voice that Seth Walters had, though I thought Seth could take lessons from this guy. I also noticed an odd resemblance between Seth and Duncan, and I had the fleeting thought that they might be related by more than just their Mongerness. I pushed that unbelievably disconcerting thought as far away as I possibly could. Seth wasn’t on this time stream because his grandfather had been blown up in 1944. I didn’t need to be seeing ghosts where they didn’t exist.

  “I believe all the essential players have arrived,” said Duncan with the smooth tones I associated with British boarding schools and Parliament. “Ah, Aislin, I didn’t see you there, although why you insist on wearing such a dowdy visage, I’ll never understand.”

  My double-take tripled. Duncan was looking directly at Ms. Simpson, and she was positively glaring back at him. “Thank you for that, Duncan. On all counts.”

  If the quiet gasps and shifting in seats were any indication, War had just outed Fate in front of a whole roomful of people who hadn’t known her identity. The looks of surprise on everyone’s faces would have been hilarious if the news wasn’t so … shocking. Ava seemed to be the only one i
n the room, besides War and Death, who wasn’t fazed by Aislin, and I wondered if she’d known.

  “There are three Immortals in that room,” Ringo exhaled softly. “That’s a lot of power concentrated in one place.”

  I stared at him for a second. “That’s like an atomic concentration of power,” I whispered. Ava had said there would be an attack that I needed to stop. But they were Immortal, right? Which meant there was no point trying to kill them. Was there?

  I looked through the peep hole at the assemblage of Descendant dignitaries, and my think-like-a-terrorist plotting was interrupted by Duncan, who was speaking to the group at large. “As you’re aware, my Descendants have been excluded from this Council for over seventy years—”

  “Ye’ve got one of your own with ye here now,” the MacKenzie interrupted, “and I can’t help but notice how well-armed he is.”

  Duncan glanced at Dodo in his post by the door. “He’s here for the prisoner. If you’d prefer he remove the belt, I won’t be responsible for your safety.”

  The MacKenzie stood to an imposing size. “I would prefer he removes the weapons, and I’ll be responsible for my own safety, thank ye very much.”

  Duncan repressed a smile as he indicated Dodo should bring him the belt. He placed it in the middle of the Council table and met the MacKenzie’s eyes. “Does that work better for you?”

  Considering the various holsters full of weapons were now well within the Shifter Head’s reach, I wasn’t surprised that he nodded. The belt was a little lopsided though, and I thought Ringo must’ve been right about the pickpocket nature of Darrell MacFarlane.

  Duncan continued before anyone else could add their objections. “I believe there has been a misunderstanding about our Family artifact—”

  “The Monger ring was blown up. That’s hardly a misunderstanding,” said Millicent archly.

  “Be that as it may, excluding my Family is an error that it’s long past time to correct.”

  “He or she who holds the Family artifact is entrusted with the responsibility to lead that Family in the ways of the Immortal from whence they came,” quoted Mrs. Arman. At least I assumed it was a quote from some Descendant manual somewhere, since I didn’t know anyone who actually used the word ‘whence’ in regular speech.

  Duncan’s pleasant, reasonable expression tightened just a little, as though he didn’t appreciate Descendant laws being spouted at him. “Of course, I could ask each of the rest of you to produce your Family artifact and prove its provenance, though somehow I doubt that would be fruitful.”

  “Well, obviously. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? My Family’s necklace has been stolen, and the thief must be brought to justice.” Millicent’s tone was imperious and commanding, and if I didn’t know who she really was under all that arrogance, I’d have been intimidated.

  I glanced at Darrell MacFarlane, whose fingers hadn’t stopped tapping out their pattern on his leg. He watched Duncan like prey might watch a predator.

  I nudged Ringo. “What’s Darrell doing?”

  “Waitin’ for somethin’,” Ringo said quietly.

  My eyes went to Aeron, who had moved back against a wall. He was watching Darrell intently.

  “Of course, the theft of the Clocker necklace,” Duncan said to Millicent with galling smoothness. “According to young Darrell’s statement, your great-grandchildren brought him to the keep to show him the artifact, and in fact, intended to give him the necklace. However, when they searched the room, they discovered the artifact wasn’t in the warded keep – the place you naturally protect all your precious Family heirlooms.”

  Millicent’s mouth tightened into a straight line. “The necklace had been there since my grandmother’s time. It’s not there now. He stole it.” Her glare landed on Darrell, who held her gaze without flinching. That was something.

  Duncan smiled. It was a truly disturbing sight. “We shall, of course, need to bring the children in to testify.”

  Millicent’s daughter gasped quietly, and then whispered something in Millicent’s ear. The Clocker Head’s eyes narrowed as she held Duncan’s gaze. “Why are you defending the thief? What is it you want?”

  “There is only a thief if an item was stolen. In fact, it seems that your Family’s artifact has been missing for some time, yet you have retained your seat on this Council without it. What I want is only what you have already been enjoying – a suspension of the artifact rule, and the reinstatement of Mongers to the Council.”

  Camille Arman gasped, “No!” It must have been an instinctual response, because it was very unlike her to lose control about anything. Millicent merely glared at Duncan, and the MacKenzie actually nodded his assent. I knew why, of course – his family didn’t have their Shifter artifact either – but I doubted any of the other Heads knew that.

  Duncan turned toward Camille, and I thought she might have flinched. “Camille, darling, why do you object so strenuously to my Family?”

  She took a breath and stood a little straighter. “Because they’re bullies and agents of dissent. The day that ring was destroyed was the greatest day in Descendant history.”

  War’s smile broadened and my heart stuttered in fear. “Ah, but you see, our artifact was not destroyed during World War II.”

  “Of course it was. George Walters was wearing the ring the day he was killed in the British Museum bombing,” growled the MacKenzie.

  Duncan gestured dismissively. “That ring wasn’t ours. We just – how shall I say it – borrowed it from the Pope in 1842 and never returned it.”

  I stifled my own gasp, but no one else did. Voices rose angrily, and Millicent might have actually fanned herself.

  The Monger ring didn’t actually belong to the Mongers.

  So, what did?

  I wasn’t the only one who wondered. Camille glared at Duncan, her arms crossed in front of her. “You wonder why I object to Mongers on the Council? You just admitted they stole something you claimed was an artifact, and now you want them reinstated? Does your Family even have an artifact of its own?”

  “Of course we do,” Duncan said, his tone full of derision.

  “What is it?” demanded Camille.

  He looked her straight in the eyes and smiled again. “We all have our secrets, don’t we, Camille?”

  She actually blanched a little at that, and I wondered what sort of secrets Camille Arman had.

  “You can’t think we would believe your claim that the Monger artifact still exists without proof,” said Millicent.

  Duncan turned to her. “And yet you expect to retain your seat on the Council despite your claim that the Clocker artifact has been stolen?” She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Duncan continued. “Our artifact represents our strategic strength. I wouldn’t have sired this Family unless I had a strategy to see my aims realized.”

  Aeron pushed himself off the wall he’d been holding up and stepped forward. His tone was casual as he spoke, yet his gaze on Duncan was laser-sharp. “If I’m to understand you correctly, Duncan, you wish to see the Mongers reinstated as a power on this Council, and you wish to suspend the artifact rule. The first I understand. The second feels too altruistic for you, frankly. Enlighten me.”

  Duncan’s smile tightened, yet remained in place. “Incentive. Time’s artifact is missing, and if the rumors are correct, Nature’s may very well be, too.” The MacKenzie looked like he was about to protest, but his younger son shushed him as Duncan continued. “Our position was denied when it was assumed our artifact was destroyed, and rather than see that happen to those Families, I propose that a missing artifact not be grounds for dismissal.”

  “I see,” Aeron said mildly. “And where is your Family’s artifact currently?”

  “Where’s yours?” Duncan shot back defensively.

  Aeron’s smile didn’t waver. “Ah, but you see, my Family does not have a seat at this table.”

  Fear seemed to flit across the expressions of several people in the roo
m, and I wondered what else they thought would happen when they asked Aeron to come to this meeting. I saw that coming a mile away.

  “I was called here to determine the veracity of this young man’s statements of innocence,” continued Aeron, the mildness gone from his voice. “I have no interest in the pettiness that seems to have infected this room.”

  He drew a dagger from under his coat and was by MacFarlane’s side in two steps. “Your hand, sir,” he snarled at the young man who had jumped out of his seat in terror at Death’s approach.

  Despite eyes wide with fear, MacFarlane’s fingers still moved as if he was tapping a rhythm in the air. Aeron grabbed his hand, and I thought he was going to cut the fingers off.

  Ringo started toward the door of our little hideaway but I grabbed his shoulder. “Wait,” I hissed. I reached for one of my own daggers with my other hand, as I kept my eyes glued to the peep-holes.

  Aeron ran the edge of the blade very lightly down the center of MacFarlane’s palm until just the thinnest thread of blood bubbled up. The room was cloudy with tension and fear, and I had an instant flash of a rocky mountain jutting up from a lake, covered in heather. A kilted man thrust a wooden sword at a ginger-haired boy, and the boy parried back with a dagger. He took a knock to the hand from the sword, but didn’t cry out, and the man grinned broadly and pulled the boy into a warm hug.

  The image was replaced with one of MacFarlane in a rough homespun shirt and the same tartan kilt as the man had worn. His shadow flickered in the light of a candle on a window ledge near him as he stood in a narrow doorway. His fingers tapped their rhythm on a rag-stoppered bottle filled with amber liquid as he watched the street. The door opened, and a white-wigged English gentleman stepped out. MacFarlane drew the rag halfway out, lit the end on the candle, and prepared to throw.

  The scene flashed, and suddenly Darrell MacFarlane was in the keep of Elian Manor with two children, a boy and a girl. The children appeared to be directing search efforts, presumably to find the Clocker necklace, and MacFarlane followed their lead.