Heart of darkness, p.14
Heart of Darkness, page 14
part #8 of Dark Secrets Series
What? I mouthed at him, hands out.
He laughed and nodded down at Elias. The man had gone back to his conversations now and was no longer staring at me, but I figured Drake saw the whole thing.
As we ate, I kept trying to catch Lily’s gaze, or even Beth’s, but neither of them would look at me, and they both made very deliberate efforts to look away if ever our gazes crossed for a moment. It hurt, and it made me actually want to cry. Which made me want to punch them both. But what did I care? If they wanted to be stupid, then they could be stupid. I didn't need them.
After dinner, people left the table and moved about the room, forming clusters for conversation that didn't appear to discriminate breed or race. Witches talked with vampires; vampires with Lilithians, and even the humans mingled equally, without fear. It was pretty awesome, and it made me think—just a tiny, tiny bit—that my parents had achieved something pretty cool here. I knew a lot about Vampire and Lilithian history but seeing the peace among them, first-hand, really put things into perspective for me. Made me think maybe my dad wasn’t such a closed-off prick after all.
Drake glided over to me then and leaned in, a playful grin on his face. “I noticed you turned a few heads when you walked in.”
“One in particular,” I scoffed, sipping my soda. It was in a wine glass, which made me feel all grown up.
Drake laughed. “Are you offended?”
“Um…” Was I? “No. I just… why was he staring? Did I meet him as a baby or something, or does my dad or my mom know him?”
“They know of him. But they’re not closely-acquainted,” he advised, leaning in with his hands behind his back and a bright, honest smile. “He was staring because you're beautiful, Aubrey. And though that doesn’t give a man the right to follow you with his eyes, I know it took a great amount of control for Elias to draw them away.” He leaned away again, casting his eyes across the room. “You affected something in him, I would say.”
I snorted, feeling a bit awkward and also kind of beautiful.
“Elias is a good friend,” Drake explained. “A worthy suitor. After the vision I saw of him, the way he protected your mother, I would not have objections toward this union—”
“Whoa!”
“However,” he added, as I freaked out, “I have informed him that you are only seventeen, and he was quite taken aback by that. He has no interest in a child.”
“Good.”
“Although, I’ve not known of Elias taking an interest in a woman ever, except for in that vision. So, if you can find it in your heart to, perhaps, establish a friendship with him, I would not frown upon it.”
“Um… he’s like, thirty. I really don't think we’d have anything in common.”
“Aubrey, my dear.” Drake laughed loudly. “He is much, much older than thirty.”
“How old?” I asked, following him as he walked away.
“He’s one of my oldest council leaders. Comparable only to your uncle, Arthur.”
“Wow.” My eyes popped, moving across the room then to find him. Okay, so in human years, he was too old for me. In vampire years, he was too old for my grandmother. And yet that somehow made him so much more fascinating. “What century was he born in?”
“If you would like to know him, my darling, ask him yourself.” He glided away, turning back to throw me a grin, and I smiled into my glass. I wouldn’t go talk to him. I wasn’t interested at all. I only wanted to know how old he was.
Across the room, I spotted Morgana speaking with Lily—what looked like a heated discussion—so I shifted my eyes along the walls to see if Beth was still here. Maybe if I could get her alone, she might talk to me. But, instead, I found Elias glancing my way again. He smiled at me, so I raised my glass at him, smiling back.
Then I turned away. He was cute, for an old guy. Okay, so he wasn’t that old, if I was honest. He was tall—really tall—with neat sandy hair and eyes that stood out, light blue, even from across the room. He wore an expensive dark-blue suit and his shoulders were broad, so he looked like a gladiator at a business meeting, as if he was almost out of place. And yet, beneath all of that, he also looked like a super sweet guy.
Maybe I would strike up a friendship. After all, he was a vampire. I could probably trick him, or even seduce him, in to triggering my change.
“Aubrey Knight,” trilled a high voice from behind. I turned to see Morgana coming at me with open arms. “I’ve been trying to get away to come see you all evening.”
I put my glass down on a table and hugged her as she hugged me, her silky hair smelling like melon as it brushed my nose. “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but I’m not sure about that yet.”
“What do you mean?” She held back a smile.
“Mom says you created me with witchcraft.” I got straight to it. “And everything I know about you so far is only bad.”
“What do you know?” she asked, folding her arms in as she cocked her head.
“Only what Mia told me. My parents don't tell us anything.”
Morgana smiled to herself, looking kind of evil when she did.
“I know you killed my mom so that she’d have me. And you were burned, like she was, and came back without memories too—”
“That’s right.”
“But you got your memories back?”
“Yes.”
My mind flashed back then to when I first saw Morgana—the day I pulled a thin, olive-skinned woman through the veil at my parents’ behest. “And that woman that I brought back, like… five years ago…”
“That was my mother,” she said, her eyes shadowing with concern. “I’m surprised you remember. I thought David erased that.”
“Erased it?” I frowned at her. “Why would he do that?”
“Because they didn't want you to know anything about me, or my family. Or your own abilities.”
“Yeah, well, now they do want me to—I mean, to at least learn about how I killed that guy. And they said you and Drake could help me. So.” I shrugged, folding my arms after. “When can we get started?”
Morgana looked up then as Shirley Temple bounded over. “Hi!”
“Hi.” I tried not to frown and lean back in outrage, but she was way too bouncy and enthusiastic.
“I’m Eva. Lilith’s first daughter.”
I looked down over her red hair, freckled nose and kind eyes. “My parents told me about you.”
“All good, I hope.”
“Well, nothing bad, if that counts.”
She seemed disappointed. But she perked herself up and elbowed my arm gently, standing beside me to look across the room. “So, Elias Davenport, huh?”
“Not interested.”
“He’s too old for you. And too important.” Morgana steered my shoulders away from him.
“Too important how?”
“He’s a World Council Leader. If he’s to take an interest in anyone, it should be someone with as high a stand-in as—”
“The princess?” I offered, presenting myself, a little insulted that she was about to say I wasn't good enough for him, even though I didn't even want him.
Morgana laughed. “You're not here to fraternize with the opposite sex, Aubrey. You're here to figure out how you killed a boy with one touch. What if that touch can kill a vampire?”
I never thought of that. And now it made sense. Elias was important. If we became friends, and I killed him, it would cause a few big problems in the Set. And probably royally piss off my grandfather.
“So, where do we start?” I asked her. “In figuring my abilities out, that is?”
“Well, I already know a few things that can help. For one, I know that you can see souls that have slipped through fissures in the veil.”
“Fissures?”
“There are these tears, like… if the earth and its magic is made up of both dark and light, positive and negative, good and evil, if you will, then when a tragedy occurs—something that goes so far against the laws of nature, like a violent murder, for example—it creates fractures or fissures in the energy that shrouds the mortal realm: the veil. And so—”
“So, the ghosts I see are ones who died tragic deaths?”
“Yes. They’re neither a ghost nor the living, because, when they tried to walk through the Rivers of Life, the hold of that tragedy stopped them from passing through, and they got stuck halfway between life and death.”
“Which is why that ghost could manipulate things in the living world?”
“Right, because he wasn’t quite dead. Wasn’t quite in or out of the living world.”
“That makes so much sense.” I stared off at nothing, realizing my mom was probably right to have sent me here, even if I’d never admit that. “So how come no other ghost has ever done that before?”
“I guess you were just lucky.” She shrugged. “But your ability to resurrect isn’t what worries me. It’s this touch of death.”
“Do you think it’s a consequence?”
“No,” both her and Eva said.
“It’s some kind of gift,” Morgana added.
“But we don't really know what it is, or why it surfaces,” Eva said, “and it’s also really weird that your gifts are surfacing before you’ve been made immortal.”
“So you two are working on this together?” I asked, wondering why Eva knew so much.
“Mm-hm.” They nodded.
“I was a student of Jason Knight’s—your uncle’s—for many years,” Eva told me. “I’m the science in this team, and Morgana’s the magic. Drake can help us too, but he’ll be busy with the summit for the first few weeks.”
Weeks? Argh. I sighed, shrinking, ready to go home already.
“So, is it true?” Morgana asked. “Is Danny Jason’s baby?”
“Where did you hear that?” I looked around for Aunt Lily, not sure if she knew yet.
“She doesn’t know,” Eva said, turning my attention back to her with a sense of urgency. “And it’s probably a good idea if we don’t tell her.”
“Why?”
“She can be really petty,” Eva advised. “Especially when she gets jealous.”
I nodded, hugging myself. “So, who told you? Because the only people that know are those involved, and me. And Elora.”
“Lily just told me that Jason cheated on her with your mother,” Morgana said. “And I put two and two together pretty quickly.”
“What? She’s spreading lies about my mom!”
“Yes,” Morgana said pragmatically. “And there’s nothing you can do about it, so don’t go storming over there trying to shut it down.”
“But—”
“Look, we know she drugged them,” Eva said softly. “And—”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I’d replicated Morgana’s Passion Potion, and there was some missing. So, I figured the only way Jason would do that is if he was drugged. He’s just not that kinda guy, you know? I knew him for ten years.”
“But other people don’t know that,” I said, feeling a panicky rise of anxiety. Lily couldn’t just walk around spreading bad stories about my mom. I wouldn't let her!
“They don’t need to know that,” Eva reassured me. “Everyone who knows your mom and dad know that they’re an unbreakable force, Aubrey. A love like no one has ever known, and not one person, in their right mind, would ever believe that Ara would cheat on David. Not even with Jason.”
I nodded, exhaling the panic, because she was right. My mom wouldn't even leave my dad after he hit her, so there’s no way anyone could rightly believe she’d cheat of her own volition. Mom seriously, pathetically and determinedly, loved my dad just way too much. “So what gave it away about the baby being Jason’s then?”
“Come on, Aubrey. The two-and-two on this one is as obvious as Lily is bitchy.” Morgana tapped her head, and I laughed. “Daniel is the exact age that corresponds with the time when everything went down. I just can’t believe Lily hasn’t figured it out.”
“Guess it’s hard since Dad and Uncle Jase are twins.”
“Probably. Anyway, you look tired.” Morgana turned me toward the door, glancing over her shoulder as Elias Davenport moved our way. “Go up to bed and I’ll come get you in the morning. We can have a chat and see if we can figure out this dangerous ability of yours.”
“I’m not ready for bed—”
“Then go for a wander through the castle, but don’t be standing here when Elias finishes his walk through the blathering mob of seizers.”
My head jerked back in confusion, making my chin double for a moment. “Blathering mob of Caesars—as in the Roman emperors?”
“No, as in seize. To grab.”
I glanced at a woman who moved her hand out as Elias passed—plucking, or… seizing him to a stop—so she could blather his ear off, when all he wanted was to get five steps through the crowd without being talked at. He waited politely though, giving no indication that he was desperate to move on, and offered an expression of genuine interest as she droned on. I laughed. “Blathering mob of seizers. That’s pretty good.”
“Yes, and it’s given you the perfect moment to escape. Now get going,” Morgana insisted. “If he comes over here, he will charm the pants off you, and I will have to kill him. I won’t have my niece ending up with a man who’s a few centuries older.”
“Why not? My dad was a hundred years older than my mom,” I teased.
“Your mom wasn’t a baby I once held in my arms, or I might have put a stop to their relationship too. Now go.” She gave me a little push.
I laughed. “Okay, night.”
“Nice meeting you,” Eva called.
I waved back without turning around, and followed my guard up toward my room.
Jules
Mia made a word on the game board that I was certain no dictionary had ever recorded. I smirked at her tiles. “You sure that’s a word?”
“Positive.” Mia seemed so confident that I considered letting it slide, then thought better of it and grabbed the dictionary. “Ha!” I exclaimed, and she started moving the tiles before I even showed her proof.
“Okay, okay.” She got up then and headed into the kitchen. “Want a drink?”
“Please.”
“What would you like?”
“That red soda stuff.”
“The Bundaberg?”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said absently, planning my next word on the board. I felt so comfortable here. I liked this big house, with its homey smell of bread, squishy sofas, and the giant square dining table, made of solid wood, kind of like the foundations of this family—not the greater family, with Ara and Jason and all that—but the family residing within these walls. Mia was a great kid, and she’d been so welcoming of me, even babysitting me, keeping me company when she should have been hanging out with her friends. They’d both gone to such great lengths to make sure I felt at home here and yet, with Jason staying at Elora’s now, I felt like maybe it was time for me to leave too.
Mia came back in and placed the drink on a coaster in front of me, scrutinizing my word. When she decided it was acceptable, she sat down, pulling her chair in with her ankles.
“So, how’s life now without Aubrey at school?” I probed. I knew this had been a real sore spot for her.
“It’s okay.” She shrugged shyly, hiding her emotions behind a half smile. “I have JM Junior.”
“Who’s that?”
“Tom. Aside from the secret nickname of BS—Bad Smell—Aubrey always called him John Mayer Junior—”
“Let me guess, because he looks like John Mayer?”
Mia smiled. She was a really simple, really kind girl, with curly blond hair and warm eyes like her dad. I could see why she had so many friends. But none of them would ever measure up to the friendship she had with Aubrey. A sisterly one.
“She’ll be back, right? Aubrey?” I asked.
“Yeah, when Aunt Ara cools down, I guess.”
“She’s just worried,” I said, arranging my tiles on the stand. “It’s pretty scary that Aubrey killed someone, Mia.”
“I know. I mean… I was there. I just…”
“Miss her?”
“Yeah.” Mia looked up then as Mike came through the front door, calling out hello.
“We’re in here, Dad.”
“Hey.” He grinned, moving over to kiss her head on his way to the kitchen. “So, Mom called. She wants to know if you can look after Scarlett tonight. Said she’ll buy pizza.”
Mia’s eyes lit up. “Do you think she’ll mind if I bring a friend?”
“Is that friend a boy or a girl?” Mike asked, leaning around from the kitchen.
Mia looked guiltily at me, pleading for help.
“It’s a boy,” I told him, “but it’s as platonic as it can be. He looks like John Mayer.” Both Mia and I screwed our noses up for good measure.
Mike nodded, falling for it. “That’s fine then. Just… stay in the lounge room.”
“We will.” She grinned, hopping up to start packing the game away.
“I got it,” I offered, taking over.
“Thanks.” Mia burst from the room and up the stairs, leaving behind an almost awkward silence then as Mike came back in, not realizing she’d left. He stood for a moment, and the silence swelled.
“Hungry?” he said.
“Starving. Want me to cook something?”
“Uh…” He laughed to himself. “Let’s keep my kitchen safe for the night, and maybe eat out, since it’s just us two.”
I nodded. I hadn’t been out anywhere since I got here. Not the beach, the supermarket. The only place I’d visited was Ara’s house and the lake across the road. I hadn’t even seen Mike’s cafe. If he was forcing the issue, trying to get me to go out, was this just a step toward asking me to leave? I mean, it was pretty weird me staying here. It was okay while I was with Jason, but… now that we’d broken up, I wasn’t Mike’s family anymore. I had no place here.
“Um… I…”
“What’s wrong?” Mike sat across from me in Mia’s chair.
“Should I leave…? I mean…”
“Why would you leave?”
