Threshold of Destiny (The Mysterium Secret Book 1)

by Linn Chapel

  Holt’s voice was clear and steady as he read. “Our hills and seas and streams, dispeopled of their dreams, their waters turned to blood, their dew to tears, wailed for the golden years.”

  He ended on such a note of sorrow that she was taken aback. Tentatively, she asked, “What do you think Shelley meant when he wrote those lines?”

  Holt seemed to recover from his sad mood. He lifted his head from the book and laughed. “Shelley believed that all things magical were forced to flee under the advance of the Christian era. But in truth, the Christendom that grew in Europe was full of magic. It’s easy to see that by reading the pages of an old herbal or by looking at the stonework of the middle ages. Not far from my family home in England, I have seen carvings of vines and animals and people twining madly about the columns of a medieval church. No, it is something else that deadens all of our senses to the magic of the world. It is materialism, our new modern master. And it has no sense of delight.”

  Tressa thought about that for a moment, and then asked, “If you don’t agree with Shelley, then why did those lines make you so sad?”

  Holt bent his head over the book again. “Our hills and seas and streams, dispeopled of their dreams... Why, because they remind me how greatly England has changed in modern times. England may even have lost its soul.”

  “You love England, don’t you?” Tressa added quietly.

  “Yes. I love England. That’s why I moved to the United States, where I can’t be reminded of all the changes that have come over my homeland. It’s not a harsh exile, Tressa. This part of America was settled by the English, and I find that oddly comforting. The cities along the New England coast were christened after towns in my native land, and their names ring like the chimes of old English bells... Dover, York, and Wells. My family estate lies near Wells, in England,” he added pensively.

  He stood and crossed the room to return the book to its shelf. Something on a higher shelf caught his attention, and lifting down a small canister, he examined its label. “Ice Spray?”

  “So that’s where I put it!” Tressa rose from the sofa to join him. “It’s a new version of Mace.”

  “Mace?” He looked even more mystified. “A mace was a heavy weapon in another age.”

  “Nowadays, it’s the name of a spray that can be used for self-defense. Lots of women carry Mace or Ice Spray with them when they work at night.”

  Holt eyed the small canister doubtfully. “The seal is unbroken. You’ve never tested it, have you?”

  “Well, no...”

  Holt removed the seal and handed her the canister. “Test it now.” He gestured toward the kitchen.

  Tressa fumbled with the small button on top. It took her three tries to get anything to come out, but finally, a burst of spray emerged in the direction of the kitchen.

  She turned to find that Holt was watching her with one eyebrow raised. “Tressa, your ability to defend yourself is not at all impressive.” He fell silent, and then he abruptly asked, “When is your next night shift?”

  “On Wednesday,” she answered. “It ends at midnight.”

  “Then it’s fortunate that I’m not leaving for London until Thursday. I’ll drive you home after your shift that night.” He turned and crossed the room to the window where he inspected the street below with a frown.

  Tressa was left to stare worriedly at his back with her heart pounding out a warning rhythm. She shouldn’t see him again. But how to refuse, when she didn’t want to?

  And now she knew the very day he’d be leaving the country. It was no longer some hazy date she didn’t want to think about, but next week on Thursday.

  She seated herself on the sofa, feeling helpless to refuse his offer to drive her home and just as helpless to alter his departure for London. She lay her head against the back of the sofa and closed her eyes in defeat.

  “It’s late, and you seem very tired,” came Holt’s voice from across the room, “but I must stay here for another hour. When I came to the window just now, I saw a shadow that could have been Stix. Go to bed, Tressa,” he said with a nod toward her bedroom. “I’ll stay out here, where I won’t disturb you.”

  She hesitated. Holt seemed to have no urges tonight, or if he did, they were well under his control. Otherwise he would have made an attempt to mesmerize her before now, she told herself.

  “Don’t worry, Tressa.” He swept his hand in the direction of her bedroom door. “Upon my honor, I’ll take no liberties with your person. If I give you any cause for concern, you could always stab me with your little canapé knife,” he added with a gleam in his eye.

  She laughed. Silently, she thought, As if I could ever be quicker than you!

  “Truly, you can rest easy. I’m far from perfect but at least I’m a gentleman, and there’s no doubt that you are a lady. The first I’ve met in a long time.”

  Tressa felt herself blush. “Alright.”

  But Holt would need some way to bolt her door when he left. She had given Peter one of her spare keys, but there was another in her desk drawer.... Should she give it to Holt?

  Although he seemed to have no plans to prey upon her tonight, there was always the chance that he might return with the spare key and mesmerize her at some later time. But even if he gave into temptation again, Tressa knew in her heart that Holt could never harm her in any lasting way.

  Moving to her desk, she opened the drawer. “You’ll need a spare key to lock my door from outside in the hallway when you leave. It doesn’t lock automatically, like modern doors. Here it is,” she said, walking up to him. “You can return it to me later.”

  Holt went very still as he stared at the key she offered.

  Take it. I trust you.

  Finally, he took the key. His fingers brushed her palm as he did so, and Tressa felt again, for an instant, their unnatural coldness.

  As Holt returned to his vigil by the window, Tressa crossed to the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth and changed into a loose white t-shirt and lavender pajama bottoms. Her sleepwear was far from provocative, she thought wryly. Feeling a little nervous anyway, she opened the bathroom door very slowly and peered out.

  Holt was still standing by the window, but now he was holding her music tablet and wearing the headphones she had left on a nearby shelf. He must have decided to entertain himself by listening to some of her music.

  She wondered what Holt would think of the all the high-energy music tracks Peter had given her over the past year, with instructions to preview them before helping out at his studio. She didn’t think Holt would like any of them, or the various tracks of global music she had collected, but he was bound to approve of the Mozart concertos.

  Feeling awkward about going to bed while Holt remained awake in her living room, Tressa opened the bathroom door wider and passed quickly into her bedroom. Holt didn’t seem to notice her.

  Eight

  When Tressa awoke the next morning, daylight filled her living room, making all the details of the walls and bookshelves appear sharper. The vintage carpet seemed more frayed, and all the empty spots about the room seemed even emptier.

  And everything was back in its place, as if Holt had never been there.

  The chest of antiques had been returned to its former position under the window. The drinking glass that had held his ale, and the bowl Tressa had used for ice cream, were both gone from the table next to the sofa. Walking into the kitchen, she found that they had been washed and placed in a kitchen cupboard.

  Returning to the living room, she looked for the book of poetry that Holt had read aloud to her. It was no longer on the sofa. Examining her bookcases, she found that it had been returned to its usual slot.

  She felt a sudden pang of longing for something she could hold onto, some sign that Holt had passed through her life... something that she could touch and look at later, when he was gone.

  But there was nothing.

  Crossing the room to her apartment door, she found it locked. Holt had bolted it fro
m the hallway with the spare key when he had left, just as she had requested.

  The locked door was the only scrap of evidence that Holt had been in her apartment last night. Even then, it was only evidence of his departure.

  When Tressa arrived at the hospital later that morning to begin her shift, she found to her relief that Dr. Patterson had been called to another wing of the hospital for the day. Her shift passed uneventfully.

  Later, when she arrived home, she could see no sign of Stix in the evening shadows that were deepening up and down her quiet side street. She walked up the front steps and unlocked the entrance door to her building without mishap.

  But in the middle of the night, she was awoken suddenly by the sound of her doorbell. Sitting anxiously up in bed, she listened to the faulty unit as it rang and sputtered in the living room.

  Brrrinng... psst... brrrinnng… psst... psst...

  Someone was downstairs at the security entrance, ringing to come up.

  Her pulse began to thud as she checked her bedside clock and realized it was a few minutes past midnight. She thought of Stix and immediately felt nauseous.

  Holt, I wish you were here.

  When the bell continued to ring, she rose from bed and switched on a lamp in the living room, then went to the intercom unit next to the door.

  “Who is it?” she said into the little speaker.

  There was no answer.

  Brrrinng... psst... psst...

  Tressa quickly checked the bolt to make sure her door was securely locked. It was.

  Brrrinng... psst... brrrinnng… psst...

  She ran to the kitchen to find matches. Lighting a pair of taper candles, she returned to the living room and held them out before her. Fire was her only recourse, but the candle flames looked pitifully small. She wasn’t sure they’d be enough protection.

  Holt, I wish you were here with me right now, she agonized once again.

  The bell sputtered one last time and fell silent.

  Minutes passed as she stood there with her heart pounding, holding the candles up and listening for any sounds in the hallway outside her door. But she heard nothing – no rasp of the doorknob being turned; no rattle of the bolt being tested.

  She felt a wave of relief wash over her. Still wary, she found holders for the candles in the kitchen, then carried the candles with her into the bedroom where she stood them up on her bedside table, still lit. Then she climbed back under the covers.

  The doorbell remained silent as the candles flickered and burned down close to their sockets. She blew them out at last, and finally fell sleep.

  In the small apartment near Boston’s Harvard Square, Peter pulled all the curtains shut.

  Sweeping aside some empty cartons and fast-food wrappers, he took a seat on the sagging sofa and waited for his younger brother to unpack the small cardboard box that rested in the middle of the floor.

  “Isn’t this the most amazing device, Peter? And it’s all mine.” Luke knelt beside the box and lifted out a thin metal object, cradling it in his hands with tender care.

  “It looks like an oversized ballpoint pen,” Peter said, unimpressed.

  Luke shot him a condescending look. “I know how hard it is for you to grasp any technical details, Peter. But trust me, this is the latest innovation in security detection. It’s called the Bug Catcher.”

  Rising, Luke pointed the device at the ceiling and a faint circle of red light appeared. Pacing slowly about the room, Luke swept the beam of red light from corner to corner, up and down walls, around the windows, and then onto Peter’s chest.

  “Stand up,” Luke said. “You’re the most likely site for a bug.”

  Peter complied. He’d been checking his clothing and gear routinely for weeks, but it’d be a relief to have electronic confirmation.

  “You’re clean. You can scan me next.”

  Peter took the device and ran the red circle over Luke. He found no bugs on his younger brother, which came as no surprise. Luke had always been too skittish to play an active role in the organization, although he had performed an invaluable service by drafting the Operation’s Handbook.

  Peter returned the Bug Catcher to Luke and sat down once again on the lumpy cushions. “Where did that little goodie come from?”

  Luke carefully packed the device away. “One of the labs at MIT. A friend of mine who works there tipped me off. It’s a prototype that’s twenty grams heavier than the final design, but it works just as well. I managed to bag it before it went into permanent storage. I figured it might be useful.”

  “Quick thinking,” Peter admitted. “But I thought Harvard was your playground.”

  “You know how I like to nose around.” Luke stored the box away on a shelf in the coat closet, just above a jumbled pile of jackets and muddy athletic shoes. Fortunately, he shut the closet door before Peter’s sense of order and clean living could be offended any further.

  Crossing the room, Luke seated himself in the office chair by his desk where he lounged back and eyed Peter expectantly. “Albert gave me some details after I scanned him with the Bug Catcher. But I need to know more, if I’m going to be able to help.”

  Peter gazed back at his brother as he collected his thoughts. He wasn’t sure when he’d started to feel uneasy. Maybe it had been a few months ago, in January, when Margot had been hired. Or maybe it had been as long ago as last summer. Oddly enough, that had been when Ted had come on board. But there was no doubt in Peter’s mind that something suspicious had been going on in the Operation for some time.

  Knowing that Luke might be able to make sense of it all, Peter launched into a concise narrative. When he was done, Luke stared off into space for several long moments. Then he rose abruptly from his chair.

  “I’m going for a walk.” The apartment door clicked shut behind him.

  Peter waited, feeling hopeful, for Luke would be thinking hard while he paced up and down the streets.

  If he followed his usual method, he’d form a logical overview of the Operation’s activities using the information Peter had given him. Then he’d use his personal brand of psychic ability to fill in some gaps of missing information. The result would be a nearly-complete picture from which he’d make a number of conclusions. Uncannily accurate conclusions.

  Just thinking about Luke’s special talent made Peter wish again that he had his own psychic ability, but nothing had ever shown up when he was younger. Now that he was twenty-five, he was too old to gain the kind of ability that ran in the family.

  He knew that having one was just as much a curse as it was a gift. But there was no doubt that a psychic talent of his own might come in handy whenever trouble cropped up, like now.

  All I can do is eat. And make some amazing videos – but no money.

  He went to the kitchen where he opened the refrigerator door. Catching sight of some packages with Chinese labels on the lowest shelf, Peter felt a spurt of hope. He brought out one of the packages and extracted a lumpy thing. It tasted good, so he ate a few more.

  Next, he sampled an Asian cracker from another package, dipping it into a jar of brown paste with a label he couldn’t decipher.

  Not good.

  Washing down the medicinal taste with a glass of water, Peter gave up on the meager foodstuffs in Luke’s kitchen and returned to the living room, where he passed by a coffee table that had been loaded with neat stacks of books. The provisions might be scanty and the apartment was a dust heap, but he had to admit that Luke and Albert kept their books in good order.

  Peter’s eyes ran over the stacks. One pile had titles featuring quantum mechanics and calculus, and another stack held heavy tomes on psychology. Next to that was a stack of books and periodicals about Eastern Europe.

  Peter chuckled to himself. The great outdoors had always beckoned to him more than the printed word. It would take him a year, maybe more, to read even a single chapter in one of the books on the coffee table before him.

  Just then, the apartment doo
r swung open and Luke reentered.

  “I’ve got some ideas, Peter.” Rolling his office chair closer to his desk, Luke slid a pad of paper in front of him.

  Peter quickly took a seat on the edge of the old sofa.

  “Point number one: Dr. Hayes has been gone for three weeks at a series of conferences in California.” Luke was scrawling notes on the paper pad as he spoke. “Point number two: the search for a secure facility for the vials of stored blood has been stalled.” He gave Peter a meaningful glance. “You should take a careful look around to see if the vials are still on the premises.”

  Peter nodded grimly.

  “Point number three: the number of pharmaceuticals used by the Operation has risen under Ted Johnson’s management. And Point Four,” he said, scrawling again, “involves your other manager, Margot, who has recently assigned one of your operatives to the task of staking out an apartment complex that’s half-empty.” Luke set the pen down and ran a finger over the notes.

  “What do you make of it all, Luke?’

  Luke lifted his head to frown across the room at Peter. “I think that Ted and Margot are secretly working on a plan to do something different with these vampires.”

  “Do you mean they want to eradicate them?”

  “No, not that.”

  “I hope they’re not going to try to integrate them into society, with no protections in place,” said Peter. “Remember that crazy effort a few years back, when some activists stumbled upon a vampire and secretly offered him amnesty and a home?”

  Luke nodded. “I remember. They all died. But I don’t think that’s the secret plan. Whatever’s going on out of sight, it’s about power. And money.” He rose from his office chair to pace about the small room. “Here’s my guess, Peter. The stored blood is being repurposed.”