Memorys door, p.15
Dream of My Soul, page 15
"You didn't care. You fought for me and you won. We were to be married on the first day after Lent. It was to be a small ceremony, just my family and yours."
They reached the far end of the island. Bryce's den was nearby, and the winds were not as strong.
"Where did Lorenz come from?" Marc asked. He didn't appear interested in slowing down.
"I don't know," she replied. "He must have spent years searching for me, or someone like me. No one knew what I really was except my mother, but elven lore is not uncommon. As far as I knew Lorenz was nothing more than a friendly merchant who sold my husband pretty trinkets to give to me. When he appeared just hours before our wedding, I didn't think twice about letting him into the palazzo. He said he had something special for me to wear during the ceremony. My mother was suspicious. I should have listened to her, but I'd known Lorenz for years by that point. Next thing I knew I was alone with him in my bedroom. I couldn't move a muscle and there were sigils all over the walls." She shivered. "He didn't use a knife to cut my wounds, but it hurt just the same."
Marc squeezed her hand. Had she touched his sympathy? "Where was I during all of this? I had to have been in the house."
"Actually, you were at the Church. You wanted some time alone, I think. For all your rebelliousness, you were devout. Ilario was going to bring you to the palazzo right before the ceremony. By the time you two arrived, Lorenz had killed both of our families."
The winds picked up again as they rounded past the shelter of Bryce's den. Marc stopped, forcing Vincenzia to stop with him. He pulled his hand out of hers and placed both of them on his hips. "Did you know that none of this was supposed to happen? Did you, I don't know, have some sign that all of this was wrong?"
"What do you mean?" Marc no longer looked angry or confused, but she didn't understand.
"Exactly what I said. They weren't supposed to die. We weren't supposed to die. Lorenz wasn't supposed to succeed. Something interfered."
He turned away from her to stare out to sea, though Vincenzia couldn't imagine that he could see much with mortal eyes. A dolphin's fin skimmed along that water just in front of the fog barrier, but there was no way Marc could see that little detail.
She waited, afraid that if she interrupted him she would spoil his thoughts. What did he mean, they weren't supposed to die?
Another minute passed before Marc came back to her in the present. "Something corrupted Lorenz's ceremony."
"You and Ilario," she said. "You burst through my bedroom door before Lorenz could collect my blood."
"No, it had to be before that. Maybe even before Lorenz entered your home, your palazzo."
The Venetian word sounded natural to, his accent perfect. Vincenzia's hope leaped at just the briefest glimpse of the Marcello she knew. "You're saying Lorenz was working with someone?"
"It's the only way any of this makes sense." Marc pulled his hand away from hers and stuffed it into his pocket. "You said that after Ilario killed him, his spirit escaped across a portal."
"Yes."
He nodded, but more in thought than in agreement. "I remember that. I remember Ilario ordering me through. I was to follow Lorenz and get your soul back."
"That's right."
"Could Lorenz have opened the portal after he died?"
Vincenzia started to shake her head in response, but stopped. "Lorenz couldn't have opened the portal at all. Only elves can open them."
"So Lorenz was working with another elf."
He made it sound so logical. "I've asked Ilario that question multiple times. Ilario insists no elf would ever help a mortal cross into a realm that is not their own."
"Is he sure of that?"
"He's sure. His father leads the Council that rules over all of the elven clans."
"Like a king?"
"Thane, king, emperor—whatever you want to call him, he's the one in charge. Elves don't have a wholly verbal language so they're restricted to our definitions. My point is that if there were a renegade elf opening portals for humans, Ilario's father would have known who it was and he would have sent one of his warriors to find him, or her, and stop them."
"Like his son? He would have sent Ilario?"
"Or his daughter. I've had run-ins with Ilario's sister. Calandria is quite formidable."
Was she ever. The one fight Vincenzia almost lost was the day Calandria tracked her down. Poor Ilario – stuck in between his beloved sister and Vincenzia whom he had been protecting for almost two centuries at that point. The siblings wouldn't fight each other, but Vincenzia had no qualms about defending herself with extreme prejudice against the elven assassin.
They had all survived that fight, but it was Ilario who had been hurt the most. The depth of emotion that ran between elven families left them vulnerable to each other's heartaches and pain. Nothing could hurt an elf more than to have to fight a family member. Vincenzia learned that day just how much Ilario had sacrificed for her. She would do anything to make it up to him, knowing that nothing she did ever would. She could only comfort herself by remembering that Ilario protected her by choice, and that he could walk away from her at any time. And yet, he chose not to.
"We're missing a piece of the puzzle," Marc said. "Are there any other forbidden children?"
"I doubt it," Vincenzia replied. "The elves spent hundreds of years scouting the earth in search of forbidden children and their offspring. There weren't that many to begin with and any that were found were brought to the Elven Realm immediately. By the time Ilario found me in Venice, I was already an adult by Renaissance standards. My father was long dead and my mother had remarried. I could touch nature, use magic, but it was so diluted through the generations that it was easily hidden." Vincenzia used her free hand to capture her breeze-blown hair, then she grabbed Marc's hand and brought it up to her ear. "You can't see it, but feel my ear."
She waited as his finger slowly traced the soft pinna. It tickled, but she forced herself not to giggle. "See. No point at the helix. Except for the fact that I was older than I looked, no one would suspect I was anything other than a normal, healthy Venetian girl."
Marc continued to touch her ear. "It's like touching glass. Your skin is so smooth."
"And sensitive." She could already feel her teeth extend in anticipation as the urge for him to touch more than her ear squirreled its way down the rest of her body. "Keep that up and I might just bite you anyway."
He jerked his hand back instead of taking advantage of what she offered. Of all the stupid, thoughtless things she could have said.
"It's okay," she said hastily as she dropped her hair. "I have it under control."
At least he didn't run away, but the moment passed and her teeth retracted. Vincenzia clamped down on her growl of frustration so Marc couldn't hear it. Marcello would have continued to touch her; his natural curiosity always got the best of him. This other man, this modern man who called himself Marc, was much more cautious, his life experience more harsh. War would do that to a man, and Marcello had never gone into battle, at least not until the day he tried to protect her.
"All right. Let's work on the problem from another angle." Vincenzia tucked her hand around his arm and tugged him to follow her. "How did you escape from Hell? You somehow managed to it without an elf opening a portal for you. Lorenz might have followed you instead of you following him."
Marc misstepped as he turned his head first toward the ocean, then toward the palms. Dusk had turned into true night. Only the stars directly overhead provided light, the moon hid behind the fog barrier. Whatever Marc sought, he didn't find it. He double-stepped to catch up with her.
"I didn't escape," he said. "I was rescued."
"Who rescued you?" she asked.
He shook his head. "You won't believe me."
"I trusted you five hundred years ago with my secret. Please, Marc, trust me now. I won't betray you again."
He inhaled a long, slow stream of air and released it just as slowly even as they kept a steady pace. "You have to understand. I tried to tell my parents. At first they thought it was cute that I had an imaginary friend, but after a while they thought I had serious psychological problems. He told me I had to stop talking to them about him, so I did. My parents eventually forgot and everything returned to normal."
"About who, Marc. Who rescued you?" she repeated. If Marc's rescuer could create a portal, then he was probably the same being that had pulled Lorenz's spirit out of her bedroom all those centuries ago. Ilario insisted that only an elf could create a portal, but elves were corporeal creatures. Marc described his friend as imaginary. The fae could shed their physical form, and had been known to play games with humans, but there were very few fae left in this world.
Marc shoved his hands into his pockets. "His name is Robin and he's an angel. My personal angel. He pulled me out and returned me to earth as an infant the same way he had pulled me out of Afghanistan. He doesn't need portals or magic. He just...does."
Of all the answers she expected to hear, of all of the impossible creatures that still wandered this world, an angel was the last one she expected Marc to name. "Are you sure?" she had to ask. "There are lots of spirits and ghosts out there that could be mistaken for..."
"I'm sure," he said, his voice sharp, defensive. "He's been with me since I was a kid. He's been protecting me, keeping me alive. He pulled me out of a convoy just before my truck exploded. Then he broke my leg so the Army would have to send me home."
It sounded like something the Fae would do, toy with a man's life before breaking him. She had very little contact with the fae.
"If it weren't for Robin I'd be dead," Marc continued. "I don't know anything about vampires, elves, werewolves or any of the other crazy shit I've had thrown at me these past few days, but I do know one thing: Robin's an angel and he's never betrayed me."
She tightened her hand around his elbow. "I didn't betray you, Marc. I had this change forced on me and I don't think this is what Lorenz intended. He wanted immortality for his mortal body. Instead, he lost his mortal body and now has become something else. He's not the sort to stop with just killing me. He has some grand design at work and we don't know what it is yet. If the Believers created Marcella to give her over to Lorenz, then we cannot let her fall back into their possession."
"Can't she just stay here on this island?"
"Forever?" She gestured widely at the dark shoreline. "It's an empty island. Wards and enchants can keep the mortal world out, but it can't keep us in. It was only ever meant to be a temporary safe haven. Ilario and I were tired, heartsick. We traveled the world trying to find a way to return my mortality so I wouldn't be this monster. We waited for you. Eventually Marcella will want to leave, and Musen will go with her. Musen is vulnerable and Marcella is too dangerous. Ilario would have to go with them, and I would have to follow."
"You waited for me?" Marc sneered. "You trapped me. You sent me through a portal not knowing who created it. You assumed I could find a way out again. It was a suicide mission."
"You were already dead." Blood tears gathered at the corner of her eyes. "We...Ilario didn't know what else to do at the time. The situation..."
"Was unprecedented," he finished for her.
"Yes."
Marc's frustration mixed with the salty air. She could see his struggle with the idea that he'd been betrayed, abandoned. She wished she could convince him otherwise, but that was a conclusion he would have to reach on his own, if he ever got there.
"I need to be alone for a while," he said.
She'd lost whatever ground she had gained. "Don't take too long, Marc. Whether you like it or not, we have to destroy Lorenz, even if we have to go through the Believers to do it. Can you find your way back?"
Marc turned away from her, but he nodded his head. She left him like that and ran back home.
Vincenzia disappeared and Marc found himself alone in the dark on the beach. The surf at his feet lulled him into a daze. He just wanted to forget for a few minutes, let his mind wander to someplace other than where he was. He did that when he was in Afghanistan, usually right before he went to sleep. Sometimes it was the only way he could find any peace when he closed his eyes.
His right back pocket buzzed, yanking Marc back into reality before he slipped too far into his reverie. His phone. He didn't think he would get a signal so far out from the mainland, especially with a magic barrier in place. He looked up at the sky. The stars twinkled back at him. The barrier could keep mortals out, but allowed satellite signals through.
He glanced at the screen before he answered. "Dad?"
"Thank God. We've been trying to find you. Where are you? The hospital says you were discharged."
His father's deep rumble gave Marc the shot of the comfort he was searching for. "Uh, yeah. I'm sorry about that. I'm not in Bethesda anymore. I was sent to a transition unit."
A lighter voice scolded from the background. His mother was upset and Marc couldn't blame her. His father responded, but he must have covered the phone in his large hands because his voice became too muffled to understand. Marc had screwed up. He had called them before he left Germany, but he'd been too distracted to keep them updated.
"Your mother insisted we fly to Maryland. We wanted to see you."
"No, that's all right," Marc replied, his mind spinning. "I should have told you I was leaving, but things...happened and I was transferred faster than I thought I would be."
“You said you had a broken leg and a concussion. That’s serious business, son.”
Marc could feel the flashback coming even as his father talked, only this time it wasn't the distant past. He had seen Lorenz when he hit the windshield of the Rover. It sounded like a boulder instead of a body. That gave Marc an idea.
“Uh, yeah. Look, Dad. I need to talk to you about something. Something important and I can’t have you asking me why.”
His father’s silence made him nervous. “Are you in trouble, son? I still have contacts, you know. They can help.”
His father had been an Army chaplain for twenty years. Marc didn't doubt that he knew people. “Not the kind of trouble you're thinking about. I just need to ask about one of the stories you used to tell me when I was a kid.”
“Which one? I told you a lot of stories.” He could hear the scrap of metal chair legs against a floor. His father always preferred to handle the unexpected while sitting.
“The one about the golem, the clay man.”
In the background, a blurred voice paged a doctor. His father must have talked his way into some administrator's office trying to find him, if they were at the hospital this late at night. “I never told you that particular story, son," his father answered after the announcement. "The couple of times I tried, you ran out of the room. Stephen King couldn’t scare you, but the Golem of Prague...you wouldn’t even touch the book. We never could figure out if it was history you didn't like or if it was something else.”
It was something else, but he could never explain that to them.
“Marc, are you still there?”
“Yeah, one second.” Marc sat down on the sand as he shifted the phone from one ear to the other. “Let me guess. The story takes place during the 16th century.”
“Yes it does.”
“Does the year 1520 figure into the story at all.”
“Not really. If you’re inclined to believe the golem was real, the Maharal wouldn’t have created him until much later.” He could hear clicking in the background. His father must have brought his iPad with him. “Having said that, there are some accounts that say the Maharal was born in 1520.”
The year Marc had died and Ilario sent Lorenz through the Portal to Hell. Significant? He didn’t know.
“Dad, let’s just say for a second that it is possible to create a golem. They’re not supposed to be intelligent, right?”
The clicking stopped. “Correct. They obey the orders of whoever created them.”
“Does the person who creates one place their spirit into the golem?”
Another long pause. Marc knew his father was analyzing the question, looking for a hidden meaning that would explain why his eldest son would ask it. “Not in any of the accounts I’ve read.”
“Okay, let’s just say it’s possible to do that.”
“Son, are you sure you don’t need...”
“Dad, just roll with me on this. If a golem has someone’s spirit inside to control the golem’s actions, would destroying the golem also destroy the spirit?”
“I honestly don’t know, son. The golem is just a story, a piece of folklore. If you really want to explore the issue we’ll talk about it when we’re all together.”
His folks believed therapy made his quirks disappear. Instead Marc had learned to hide them better.
“No, no. That’s not necessary. It was just a conversation that I had with one of my men and it got a little out of control.”
“All right. Can you tell me when we’ll see you?”
Good question. He didn't want to send his parents on a wild goose chase trying to find him. He also didn't want them caught up in the middle of this fight. “I don’t know. I really can’t even tell you where I am right now. You know the Army. They’re big on secrets.”
"I thought you were with a transition unit?"
He wouldn't lie. He couldn't lie to his father even if he wanted to. His father could sniff out fabrication better than anyone, even from a thousand miles away. "I've been transferred, but I really can't say where. I'm in the States, but other than that—I'm sorry, Dad. I really can't say right now. Please don't try to find me. I'll call you as soon as I can."
His father's sigh broke Marc's heart, but there wasn't anything he could do about it. "Okay, son. We’ll stay put and wait for your call.”
“Thanks, Dad. I love you, you and mom. You know that, right?”
“We know, son. We love you too.”
Marc disconnected and slipped the phone back into his pocket before leaning back on his hands, digging his fingers into the sand. He'd always trusted his parents to have all of the answers while he was growing up, but this last answer didn't help Marc solve the problem.
