“NO!” Mamma screamed. Her benign voice was now the shriek of a Valkyrie. The room shook, and the threat of being ripped to shreds by the jagged incisors lashing at me was replaced by the possibility that the walls might actually cave in first.
Fear was my best friend that day because it gave me the strength to roll out of striking range of the maniacal thing gunning for me. I yanked my body up to a seated position as my brain spun around in my skull like a blob of Jell-O settling in a bowl. I pushed with all my strength until I hit the wall with my back. The door right next to me was a bonus.
The door.
“Don’t be sssstupid, witch.”
The snake was right. I could barely backpedal my legs across the floor, let alone run from something that had the advantage of not resembling anything remotely human. But I knew one thing for sure: if I didn’t do something, I was a dead woman.
SEVEN
Waking up with Greer standing at the foot of my bed was becoming a bad habit. I saw the outline of his body as my eyes shot wide open from the pain bouncing off my cerebral cortex.
“Turn down the damn noise!”
The damn noise turned out to be the blood raging through my head like a freight train. The worst hangover felt like the sniffles in comparison.
“Whoa.” I failed miserably at pulling myself up from the damp mattress. Each movement exaggerated the ultrasound-like waves rushing through my ears.
I made a second attempt to prop myself up on my side but I was naked, so my maneuvering included one hand on the sheet.
Exhausted and willing to concede utter helplessness, I resigned myself to the déjà vu that followed me wherever the two of us intersected.
“What now, Greer?” I flopped back down on the bed and released a puff of air. “Please tell me we had a few drinks and I passed out.” That wasn’t likely, because the last thing I remembered was an old Indian woman going Cujo on me.
He stood there in an impeccably tailored suit with his jaw grinding away at the words he was trying not to say. “Would you like me to reiterate the part where you were almost killed—again? Or the part where you were poisoned—again?” He jiggled the keys in his pants pocket as his voice got louder. “Or would you like to hear about how I saved your ass—again?”
“All of the above?” I croaked in a high-pitched tone.
He shook his head. “Damn it, Alex.”
As abysmal as I felt, I couldn’t deny how good he looked in that suit.
“You keep getting into trouble and I’m going to have to tie you up.”
I swallowed hard at the thought because as Thomas said, Greer was a man of his word.
“I can’t remember what hap—” A picture show started running through my mind, playing back the events leading up to my convalescence. Like fragments of a nightmare, the puzzle pieces moved around my head, each revealing just enough to turn my stomach a notch closer to a full throttle retch fest. I saw the old woman shoving food in front of me, and the beads hanging from the doorway. I remembered the sound they made when the other woman walked through them. The memory of cardamom and cumin made my stomach lurch, but when I glanced at the damp sheet covering my body I realized it wasn’t a memory. The smell was coming from me. The pungent spice was oozing from the pores of my skin and saturating every inch of the bed. I didn’t know how Greer could stand being in the same room with me.
I threw my head over the side of the bed to spare the mattress. I guess vomiting on an antique Persian rug seemed like a better idea. A hand swept my hair out of the way and then pulled my head back in perfect synchronization with the bucket appearing under my face. As the poison evacuated my body, I caught the reflection of an expensive cufflink attached to that expensive suit.
Not on the suit, I thought as his arm came within projectile range.
“God. Kill me,” I moaned as it kept coming.
Greer lifted me by my shoulders and lowered me back down against the bed. He moved a damp washcloth over my face and wiped away the vomit covering my jaw.
“I’ll have someone come up and change the bedding.” He headed for the bathroom with the bucket. “In fact, I’ll have someone bring up a new bed.”
“I think I ruined your nice suit,” I muttered. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
He laughed at the absurdity that I could replace a suit like that.
“It’s just a damn suit,” he said.
“Greer, that suit is somebody’s car.”
I opened my mouth to continue with the apology, when the playback began again. I remembered looking into the eyes of a snake. Don’t be stupid, witch—that’s what she said to me. I remembered moving backward, out of striking range of the Indian woman’s teeth. When my back hit the wall I thought I was dead, because cornered prey is usually dead prey. But during my Hail Mary up against that wall, Greer had come gunning for my offender’s ass, exemplifying the kind of man Thomas said he was.
An explosion ripped through the storefront and filled the black space with a beam of bright light. The walls had blown just as I predicted, and the last thing I saw was a pair of eyes locking on mine. The room began to fade as the face in front of me nodded up and down, but not a single word made it past the deafening ringing in my ears. It was my lucky day.
“It was you.” I yanked myself up enough to see Greer carrying the empty bucket back to the bed. “How did you know?”
“I told you.” He ran his finger over my forehead to scoop a damp strand of hair away from my eyes, “My people are watching you.”
“But it was you.”
It was Greer’s face staring back at me. When all the hell calmed down and the room came to a stop, the face looking at me was his.
“How long was I out this time?” Please don’t tell me seven days.
“Two days.”
“Thank God,” I whispered. I struggled to swing my legs over the side of the bed.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’ve got to find it, Greer.”
“Like hell. You’re not going anywhere.” He grabbed my shoulders and stopped me from getting out of bed.
“She called me a witch.”
“Rightly so.”
“Are you ready to tell me the truth?” It was more of an ultimatum than a question. My life was beginning to read like pulp fiction, and I was done being placated.
He nodded.“ Can you dress yourself? I can—”
“Yes. No. I mean…I’m good.”
There was nothing salacious in his offer. Twice I’d found myself naked in his bed, and I had no doubt he was capable of dressing me with clinical detachment. It was me I didn’t trust. Last thing I needed was to get the feel of Greer’s hands inside my head. An impression like that could make a girl stupid.
“I need a shower.” I really did.
I thought he’d fight me, fearing I’d slip and bash my brains in on the stone shower walls, and he needed me healthy. Instead of an argument, he nodded and headed for the door.
“Twenty minutes. You’re not downstairs by then, I’m coming in.”
Exactly eighteen minutes later, I came down the stairs to the main floor of the club. It was early afternoon, so the place was empty except for a few employees. Thomas eyed me from the bar and shot me a roguish grin, the scar reminding me of the caliber of the man I was dealing with.
I turned around to see Greer coming through the door behind the bar. He’d changed out of the suit into something more casual. Casual for Greer meant tailored black pants and a gray sweater. The knit was a nice change, as it hugged his skin and telegraphed what he’d been hiding under all those layers of crisp cotton.
I followed him to the mezzanine level. He flipped the lights on in a private room that had a long window spanning the length of the wall. The window looked over the main floor of the club, discreetly separating the voyeurs from the rest of the patrons.
“One-way glass,” he said. “This is one of our VIP rooms.”
“Do you get a lot of
celebrities?”
“We get our share.”
I wondered what constituted a VIP in Greer’s circle. My guess was that the definition went beyond actors and rock stars. Anyone with the ability to influence culture—politicians, financial moguls, gurus—would equate to VIP.
He walked over to the window and looked down at the empty floor. “Sit, please.”
We sat in opposing leather chairs with an occasional table separating us. What a stupid name—occasional table—like you only used the damn thing occasionally. Where I came from furniture was defined as practical and cheap. A table was a table as long as it had four legs. Not that I didn’t appreciate luxury. I could spend days flipping through issues of House Beautiful or Decor, but beautiful things were for other people. Where I grew up, women concentrated on a short list of goals: get married, have babies, and pray to God every Sunday that your kids weren’t cooking up meth in the basement.
Greer was the first to break the silence. “Did Maeve ever mention the Fitheach people?”
I rolled the strange word around my head for a minute. “Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
He took a breath and went deeper into his chair.
“Is that good or bad?” I asked.
“Neither. Just means we have a lot to talk about.”
“Why don’t we just get to it, then.”
“The Fitheach are your people—your clan. It means raven.”
There was a large statue of a bird in the photographs he’d shown me. It was sitting on the stone altar with its wings spread from one end of the stone slab to the other.
“As I’ve already told you, your family descends from a very powerful line of witches.”
The word made me uncomfortable. It conjured all kinds of images: pointy hats, grotesquely wrinkled women with warts on the end of their noses. And let’s not forget the green skin.
He gauged my reaction. I was pretty sure he intended to cement the whole “witch” thing in my head before he continued, because if I didn’t believe that—which I legitimately had a problem with—then how was he going to convince me of the rest?
“That’s right. I’m a witch. A very powerful one. I can also turn into a big black raven.”
He leaned into his knees. “What is it going to take to make you accept who you are? You’ve experienced things you can’t possibly explain, and I bet if I got inside that brain of yours I’d see the voice of reason telling you to shut up and listen for once. You refuse to see what’s right in front of you because you’re as stubborn as the woman you came from.”
I wanted to believe. I really did. But the idea was ludicrous. “Okay, say I buy into all this. What does the necklace have to do with it?”
“The amulet is a key. The Fitheach are the guardians. More specifically, your mother. And now, you.”
“And what exactly does this key open?” I bit my lower lip as a giggle burst from my mouth. It was really more of a nervous laugh, because I was starting to believe him.
He waited for me to compose myself before continuing. “Something so powerful it needs to be suspended beyond the reach of mankind.”
Mankind? Who used words like that? Now I really had to work at suppressing a laugh.
“I’m sorry. Continue,” I said.
“A prophecy.”
I cocked my head like a dog responding to an inaudible whistle. “Prophecy?”
He nodded once. “There are three. The prophecies were discovered over a century ago. Each refers to a calix of power.”
“A calix? What is that?”
“It’s a fancy word for a container. A vessel.”
Greer continued to explain what he called “prophecies,” but I could tell I was getting the condensed version. Maybe he didn’t trust me with all the details, or maybe he figured those details would sail right over my head. I suspected the latter.
“The first two prophecies refer to the first and second vessels. The power within them must be manifested as one. One without the other is useless. The first two have been secured. Both are safely suspended out of reach until the time comes when the race can use them intelligently.”
“And what exactly do these two vessels contain?” I wondered just how sane the man in front of me really was.
“The first vessel contains knowledge of the future.”
“And the second?”
“The second vessel delivers the ability to see that future.”
“Well, that’s just stupid. Why separate the two? Isn’t the ability to know the future useless unless you can see it?” First rule when you’re knee deep in ignorance—get indignant.
“Tell me, Alex, if you knew someone you loved was going to die in the near future, would you make the conscious choice to see it?”
I didn’t understand why he’d ask such an obvious question. Of course I’d want to see it. How many lives could be saved by such a gift?
His elbows rested on his thighs while his eyes leveled on mine. “The gift of seeing the future was not intended to allow mankind to alter the outcome, but to accept the outcome and prepare the world for the impacts.”
“But who wouldn’t try to stop it?”
He didn’t respond, and I realized the answer justified the logic.
“And now maybe you can understand why the vessels have to be protected. The human race isn’t ready for this. There’s no shame in that. The prophecies shouldn’t be used to change the course of the future, but to make the outcome meaningful.”
Who could stand back and do nothing while their child or best friend got in a car that was about to crash? The thought was frustrating.
“Those who’ve reached the state of divine.” He plucked the thought right out of my head. “The race isn’t destined to be crowned as saints, but the mind can reach a place where the greater good is an act of pure love for your people. Clearly you’re not ready.”
“And the third vessel?” I asked.
“The third is something very different. If the first two vessels could change the course of the world, the power within the third vessel could destroy it.”
He got up from the chair and stood by the widow again. I studied his backside as he looked out over the empty club, and wondered what it was like to be on his wrong side. I had no doubt he was a predator—a good one, but a predator all the same. I made the decision to never find out.
“The third vessel holds the power to control space and time. Whoever opens it will literally hold the existence of everything in the palm of a hand.” He turned back to me. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“I guess so.” I was no physicist, but I did understand the ramifications of someone being able to send me reeling back and forth in time, or finding myself floating through a black hole or some vortex.
“You said the amulet is the key.” I pictured a wooden box or a glass jar containing the ultimate power over mankind. “Why do you need a key? Can’t you just smash the vessel?” It sounded stupid, but it was a valid question.
He deadpanned me. “It doesn’t work like that, Alex. The vessel isn’t some cookie jar you buy at Walmart.”
“Then what is it?”
“Each one is different. We’ll know when we find it.”
“Find it? You don’t even know where it is?”
Greer walked toward me and stopped a couple of inches from my knees. “Not yet, but we will as soon as we find the amulet. You can understand how important it is that we find it, can’t you, Alex?”
Smart of him, trying to make me think I had some say in all this. He needed me to accept my role in the game, and that meant making me believe we were both after the same thing. But I felt like a tiny mouse under the large shadow he was casting over me.
You refuse to see what’s right in front of you. His words kept running through my head.
“They’ll come after you, eventually. In their eyes you belong to them.” His brows tightened, and I could feel his mood shift as
he stepped back a few inches. “Haven’t they ever tried to make contact? Even if they didn’t know where you were, they had to sense you—the amulet.”
I shook my head, but then a memory started to surface. Even though I hadn’t thought about it in seventeen years, it smacked me in the head like it happened yesterday. It was the year I lived on the farm. The man who called himself my foster father was anything but fatherly. His wife was a meek woman who ignored me and did her best to disappear into the background whenever one of us walked in the room. She didn’t want me there, and I eventually figured out why. I’d been living on the farm for a few months when he started coming to my room at night. I was only nine years old, but I knew it was wrong to let him touch me—so I didn’t. When I threatened to tell the social worker, he pointed out the well on the north side of the farm. It was a dark hole with a crumbly old wall around the edge. If I said anything, he told me he’d throw me in to drown and rot in the mud at the bottom. “Just like all the others,” he’d said. “No one’s going to miss you.”
There was a forest at the edge of the field that bordered the farm. I used to spend most of my time in there because it was the one place where he couldn’t find me. The tree roots and the dim light made him clumsy. I was kneeling at the base of a tree, listening to his boots stumble around the dirt and moss near where I was hiding. Something flickered, and then a black wing stretched across the lenses of my eyes like the moon passing the sun. I rubbed my eyes with my palms and then blinked to clear away whatever had flown into them. When I looked back up to the canopy above me, the trees were filled with perching birds—large black birds.
That was the last thing I remembered about that day. It was also the last time we saw the farmer. The state removed me from that place a few days later, and the look on my foster mother’s face as I got into the car and drove away told me we were both free.
It was another one of those epiphanies that kept coming in droves. Greer was right about seeing things I couldn’t possibly explain. Maybe he was also right about accepting who I was. I’d always felt kind of like a freak, and for the first time in my life I was beginning to feel normal.
The Amulet Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 1) Page 7
