Читать книгу Dane - Elizabeth Amber - Страница 11

Fear boiled in Dane, hot and caustic. “It’s not—”

Sevin shook his head. “No. Gods, no. It’s not Luc. It’s a girl. Fey. Come see what you make of it. Before she’s found and her body disturbed.”

Bastian threw on his clothes, and within minutes the three brothers were at the foot of the hill, and Dane was standing over the twisted body of what looked to be an eighteen-year-old girl.

Set between Aventine Hill and the Tiber River, this was the Monte Testaccio area, built on pottery shards. The Vinarium—a market dedicated to the commerce of wine—had stood here in ancient times. Traders had carried their vintages here in amphorae from faraway vineyards. Once these clay vessels were emptied, they had been tossed into the Tiber. Eventually, the broken shards had built up so high they’d threatened to block the river itself. They’d been fished out and tossed onshore here. Like this girl.

“She looks to have washed up here, likely having been dumped from farther upriver.” Dane kneeled down and pushed her damp shift aside, stoically inspecting her. In Special Ops, he’d dealt with more than one bloated, lifeless body over the past twelve years.

“There are needle marks on her arms,” he noted. “And a red ring around each of her breasts.”

“What from?” asked Bastian.

“I don’t—” As Dane bent to examine her more closely, a pungent odor struck him full in the face. Onions. His insides twisted and heaved. Turning away, he staggered and fell along the shore, fighting the urge to retch.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Bastian demanded from behind him.

“Onions. Fuck, can’t stand the smell of them.”

“I don’t smell them,” said Sevin, his tone bewildered.

“Nor I,” said Bastian. “But don’t forget—in ElseWorld Dane had training that gifted him with an ability to detect the minutiae of scents.”

“Do you suppose this is a clue of some sort?” Sevin speculated. “Could she have been murdered in an onion field?”

Their voices seemed distant as Dane grappled with the awful stir of memories that gnawed at him like a shark’s teeth. And the guilt. Always the terrible, seething guilt over the fact that he’d come back alive while their fourth and youngest brother, Lucien, had remained missing. He could still see Luc’s trusting, terrified face all those years ago. Just as if it were before him now.

It had been a Moonful night when all had gone so awry. Their parents had gone out to the grove—the very one Dane now owned—leaving their four boys in the care of servants. Dane had recently become curious to learn something of these mysterious rites in which the satyr engaged under a full moon. And he had sneaked out, hoping to spy. Unknown to him, Luc had followed.

They’d been boys, not yet men. Luc only five to Dane’s twelve. Both had been years away from fully understanding what it meant to be Satyr, for they would not be physically ready to participate in the carnal rituals until their eighteenth years, when their bodies would finally alter for the first time with the coming of the full moon.

The night should have been safe for them. The grove’s perimeter had been bespelled by their parents and the rest of the Satyr clan—there had been far more of them in Rome then—who’d gathered there for the rituals. No human should have been able to pierce the veil of magic surrounding it, and all Else species would have been engaged in the Moonful observances.

Yet somehow, there had already been other spies there in the grove that night, waiting. And when Dane and Luc had accidently stumbled upon them, both brothers had been captured and hauled away. His last memory of Luc was as they’d been blindfolded. When Luc had looked to Dane to save him.

But he hadn’t, and for that he couldn’t forgive himself. Instead, both boys had gone missing, and only Dane had turned up again a year later. Alone and without any recollection of who’d abducted them or any of the events during the time that had elapsed since then. With no recollection of what had happened to Luc.

If he was still alive these twelve years later, Luc would now be a month shy of his eighteenth year. In four weeks, another Moonful would come, and his young body would alter for the first time in his life. It would put him in danger of exposing what he was to his captors.

Luc. Gods, where are you? If you’re alive, please hold on a little longer. I’ll find you.

A shout came from nearby, yanking Dane back to the present.

“Fishermen,” Bastian murmured. “They’ve spotted us.”

“Summon the polizia!” Sevin called, going to meet them. “We’ve found a body.”

Managing to get to his feet, Dane glanced downriver, dragging fresh air into his lungs. In the distance, he saw a faint flash of iridescence—the two nereids heading westward to the Tyrrhenian Sea, where they would then turn north toward Tuscany. After wending their way through a labyrinth of sea, river, tributary, and stream, they would journey overland again for a short distance and then pass through the gate to ElseWorld.

No doubt they would swim swiftly, anxious to deliver their juicy morsel of gossip. The whereabouts of a defector—him. He had two maybe three weeks at most until the Council sent Trackers after him. He would not hide from them. But he wouldn’t allow them to take him either. Yet he could think of only one thing that would stop them. This solution had come to him earlier, back at the temple. And now the scroll he’d crumpled and stashed in his pocket weighed heavily on his mind.

The fishermen had arrived and were exclaiming over the body, crossing themselves and muttering as they awaited the arrival of the local authorities.

“They’re handling it,” said Bastian from behind him. “Let’s go breakfast and bathe. You’ll be more yourself.”

Dane nodded and the three of them headed homeward. “I’ll need a lift to Capitoline later when you go,” he said matter-of-factly.

“What’s on Capitoline?” asked Sevin.

“A wife,” Dane replied.

At the first blush of dawn, Eva’s Shimmerskin lover departed her bed, returning without complaint to the ether that had spawned him. As her world swam back into focus, she lay there naked amid tangled covers, her skin still flushed from his attentions. Except for her quickened breath, all was deathly quiet. She was alone. Melancholy. She shifted and felt a pleasant, residual tenderness in her private places.

Last night under the full moon, her body and spirit had been driven by a primal instinct to mate. She had been satisfied dozens of times, both by her own ministrations and by those of her conjured lover. With no true Will of his own, he had obeyed her every command. He’d warmed her body with his, but he hadn’t warmed her soul as she imagined a flesh and blood lover might have. Whenever she’d lost herself to the pleasure for even a moment, her instruction to him had waned. At such times, he had a tiresome habit of slacking off in his attentions. It was a difficulty that plagued the ritual every month, and one for which she knew no cure.

She’d dominated him and he had submitted to her Will. It was the opposite of what she wanted from a lover. She would have much preferred one who would command her and take charge of matters. One who would lead her with his strength and spirit, into a deeper pleasure of the mind and heart, as well as flesh. For when all were equally involved, would not the pleasure be exponentially increased? This was something she longed to discover for herself.

It was a luxury to wallow in these yearnings for these few moments. She only permitted herself to do so in the immediate aftermath of this monthly event, in the privacy of this room at the coming of dawn. In the full light of day, she’d leave such foolishness behind and go about the business of living a respectable life.

Until next month, when the fullness of the moon came again, reminding her of what she could and could not have.

The lock clicked, admitting Odette. Bearing a silver tray set with a teacup, a teapot, a small basket covered with a linen cloth, and a mortar and pestle, she came to stand beside the bed, staring down at Eva. Just beyond her, the sky was striated with fingers of pink and orange fast giving way to the blue of daylight.

Eva smiled, inhaling blissfully. “Mmm. I smell beignets.”

“You always like them since you were une bebe.” Odette sent her a fond glance as she set the tray down on the bedside table. Eva stretched her tired muscles, making no attempt to cover herself, uncaring that Odette saw her in this state. For this was the woman who’d helped raise her for the past twenty-two years, and Eva had no secrets from her. Except one.

Her green eyes flitted guiltily to her maidservant, then away. If she told her what had happened in the grove last night, Odette would hound her even more about her safety and would try to curtail her freedoms. After so many years in the family, the woman was more an aunt than a maid or governess, and she would have no qualms about making free with her advice. It was too early to have the incident dissected and criticized. Something about it was too private.

Odette set the basket of pastries on the bed next to her. Then, turning her attention to the mortar, she tossed in a few pinches of herbs and an oval, button-sized seed, and began grinding them together.

Eva pulled a warm, flaky beignet from the basket beside her. Nibbling, she left Odette to her task and rolled onto her stomach toward the opposite side of the bed, the covers tangling around her bare legs. Pulling the table’s small drawer open, she found her mother’s diary and flipped to the page she wanted. Resting on her elbows, she studied the spidery feminine scrawl.

“Why you read Fantine’s prattle?” Odette asked, gesturing to indicate the book. “You got it committed to memory by now, eh?”

Eva shrugged, tracing a finger over the loop of a “y.” She’d only found the book after her mother had died four months ago, and she’d read it a dozen times since. “It still smells of her perfume. And I like to see her handwriting. It makes me feel closer to her.”

Her eyes slid down the list of names, all male. Fantine’s innamorati. By now, she had narrowed her suspects to three candidates among the wealthy society here in Rome, based on the dates her fey mother had been with them. One of them had to be her father.

But here was the puzzle. None on the list bore the surname of Satyr. And there had been no satyr in Rome at the time of her conception. She’d concluded that her father must have used a pseudonym. If so, he might prove reluctant to reveal himself to her as satyr, even if she found him.

She tugged at the thin length of gold chain that draped her neck and sawed it between her lips. “What sort of man abandons a beautiful woman full with his child, leaving her to fend for herself?” she mused.

Odette sent her an inscrutable look, continuing her grinding. “A bad one. One you better off not knowing.”

“I don’t want to know him. I only want to make him admit himself to be my father and to explain his desertion of us.”

“So you say,” scoffed Odette. “Finding him isn’t gonna make things right. Don’t expect his heart will open to let you in. You were a love child, but he won’t love you.”

Leave it to Odette to find her weakest point and probe it. “Believe what you will, but it won’t stop me from looking for him.”

Thanks to her bedding of this mysterious man, her mother had become with child. Eva’s conception had occurred on a night of the full moon, for this was the only time a satyr male could impregnate a female. Yet, even on such a night, the satyr could control his seed. It therefore followed that her father had either been unforgivably careless, or that he’d given Fantine his child on purpose. But it was what happened next that truly confounded her. And had confounded Fantine as well. Eva ran a fingertip along her mother’s words, penned twenty-two years ago:

September 1, 1858

I am enceinte! Such joy! Mon Ange says he hopes for a daughter. One who looks like me. He sends me to wait for him in Florence, where we will marry and live as man and wife. Odette is angry at his negligence in getting me with child and has tried to guess his identity. But he is my secret. I won’t tell her his name, though she will learn it soon enough when he comes for me. I know I am a disappointment to her, for I was meant to marry well among human society. But my beloved is surely fine enough even to suit the likes of her.

September 14, 1858

Why does my darling leave us here in Florence so long without word? When will he come? It has been two weeks now and I grow worried. And huge.

I now know the truth of what I carry in my womb and wish to share the news with him. Odette has discovered it, of course. She is in a foul temper, muttering and cursing the head of my beloved. For it seems his seed has dominated mine. This child born of our joyful union will not be fey as I am, but will be satyr instead. As he is.

Will he be pleased? He’d so wanted a daughter. But I hope he will be happy with a son, for if it is to be more satyr than fey, then it can only be a son.

September 23, 1858

If there had been any doubt that my offspring is to be satyr, none exists now. The birth is imminent, and just four weeks have elapsed since Mon Ange and I lay together. Only a child of his species requires so little time to gestate. I confess I am glad this discomfort is to be of so short a duration. But Odette nags at me to flee through the gate. And now the ElseWorld Council has sent an escort. It seems that without a husband, I must go into exile. I have sent a letter to Mon Ange, the third I have posted to him and gotten no reply. I am fat, penniless, and joyless. All looks bleak.

October 3, 1858

I have a daughter! I am in shock. Odette is as well. We don’t know what to make of it. I bowed to the pressure, so we are all back in ElseWorld now. No one here knows the circumstances of my sweet baby Evangeline’s blood, and we shall endeavor to keep it that way. I will keep her safe and hope my dearest darling comes to us. Evangeline will need him to protect her. I fear for her if anyone discovers what she is.

But Fantine’s “dearest darling” had never come for them, and they’d had no word from him either. Instead, they’d lived in exile on the other side of the gate, unable to get permission to return or to communicate with this world. The treaty of 1850 negotiated by the satyr of Tuscany had established immigration quotas for interworld passage. Then the Great Sickness had changed things. Traversing the gate from ElseWorld to EarthWorld had become all but impossible, except for diplomatic or business purposes sanctioned by the Council.

Over the following two decades, Fantine’s hope had slowly dwindled and been replaced by bitterness. She had dedicated the remainder of her life to keeping the truth of Eva’s blood secret and to schooling her on one goal. When Eva grew up, she was to somehow make her way back to Rome and wed a wealthy human as her mother had not managed to.

And Eva had learned this lesson well. When her mother died four months ago, she had immediately applied for a visa to come here. In view of the growing need for her particular skill, and her professing herself to be fey and passing the test of this, thanks to Odette’s powders, a visa had been quickly granted.

“Why wouldn’t she say who my father was?” Eva wondered aloud. “And how could you not have known? You were her greatest confidante.”

Odette shook her head, tsking. “She a Marital Broker like you, always around men. Too many of them come and go from her bed for me to keep track. I tell her if she gonna act like a Grande Horizontale, then at least get paid like one. But, no, she was in love with love, your mother. Happy to have her clients between her legs, while she found wives for them among the humans.”

Odette scooped a heap of finely ground powder from the mortar into the teacup. Then she tilted the teapot and filled the cup with steaming water. Fantine and she had worked together to discover the ingredients for this brew through trial and error, and Eva had drunk many a strange concoction during her youth in order to help them determine exactly the right balance.

Odette absently stirred it now with a small silver spoon, waiting for it to dissolve. “My poor sweet Fantine. The years go by and she tired of every single one of them gentlemen—human or Else—long before they tire of her. Was always happy to bid them farewell the minute she got them married off. Never listened to their pleas to keep them as lovers after they wed, so I didn’t worry. How was I to know one among them would break her heart and leave her with a bambina one day? A good lesson for you.”

Eva grimaced. “I know, I know.”

“That’s good, then.” Odette plumped the pillows. “Sit up now, mademoiselle.”

Setting the journal aside, Eva pushed herself upright, hugging her knees. By the time the cup was handed to her, its contents had cooled, and she swallowed them quickly and without argument. Having taken this brew nearly every morning all of her life, she was accustomed to its bitter taste and to its more fortunate effect of disguising the fact that she was satyr. Not only that, it rendered her scent so close to that of a fey’s as to be indistinguishable, even to the Trackers. They’d detected nothing when she’d been sent to them for species verification. They had declared her to be predominantly fey—the offspring of a fey mother and a human father as she’d claimed. And so she and her maid and servant, Pinot, had been granted passage into this world.

This brew had allowed her to come here. Allowed her to remain here undetected. Its essential ingredient was the small pit of an olive found only in particular trees—those in the ancient groves planted by the satyr. Which meant they could only be found in a single location here in Rome. On land that evidently had been acquired by the flesh and blood male she’d met last night—the sole person who had not been fooled by her ruse. How had he guessed? And why only him?

Eva set the empty cup on the tray. “Was that from the olives I brought last night?”

“Non,” said Odette, going to throw open the window. “It’s from what we brought with us from ElseWorld’s trees. You’ll need to go again to the grove on Aventine and gather more.”

Go back? And risk encountering him? “Why?” Eva asked in alarm. “What was wrong with what I gathered last night? Were they too unripe?”

Odette’s coarse, tightly pinned hair didn’t sway when she shook her head. “Ripeness don’t matter. It’s just that the trees you pick from were the wrong ones.”

“How do you know?”

“Just do. You follow Fantine’s map next time.”

Eva spread her hands in exasperation. “I did follow it. It’s confusing. Why don’t you come with me to help next time if you think it’s so easy?”

Odette quickly drew a sign on her chest with a forefinger to ward off evil spirits. “Satyr lands give me shivers, like the dead walking past.”

“Yet you’d bid me go there, in spite of your superstitions.”

“That grove won’t hurt you—you one of them. Those old trees sense it’s best not to do you harm. You go back there in the next week or so. Don’t have to go today.”

Apparently considering the matter settled, Odette began straightening up the room, intent on removing all trace of what Eva had gotten up to last night. The bottle of wine that would replenish its own contents within the month was capped, and it and the goblet returned to the cabinet.

Eva slid lower in her bed, feeling suddenly tired. She took the brew every morning, but it only made her sleepy the morning following Moonful. She opened her eyes again when Odette came closer and reached for one of the ropes tied to the headboard.

“Leave them. I’ll do that,” Eva protested halfheartedly. “I don’t like to trouble you.” She tried to get up but sank back, a trifle dizzy.

“You rest.”

“I should get up. I have things to do. I need to return to the grove for more olives.” She yawned. “And I promised to take the girls to tour the ruins.”

“You take those little heathens out later. Rest now.” Odette tucked her in, as she had when Eva was a child.

“Don’t call them that. They’re orphans, who lost their mothers to the Sickness. Abandoned by their fathers as I was. They need and deserve our kindness.”

Mmm-hmm. Odette untied the ropes from the headboard and looped them around her hand without comment. They, too, would be stowed in the cabinet and Eva wouldn’t see them again until next Moonful.

“Really, I’ll do all that,” Eva insisted again. Her lashes fluttered as she battled sleep.

“No shame in this, cara. It’s your nature,” Odette soothed.

Eyes drifting closed, Eva shook her head on the pillow. She knew better. Fantine and Odette had loved her, but they’d considered her a freak. Their refusal to discuss her “nature,” and the strict secrecy they insisted upon with regard to it, had taught her that there was shame in this, at least for a woman. Satyr males were revered in ElseWorld, but she—the lone satyr female—was quite simply defective.

Yet they had always arranged for her comfort during the ritual she performed each Moonful. And Odette continued to aid and abet it in every way after Fantine’s death, in spite of the fact that she scorned the satyr species in general. By the time Eva woke again, the cylinders on the bedside table would be cleansed and returned to the cabinet. The phallus at the foot of the bed would be polished and rotated back to its former position among fanciful vines and clusters of grapes carved from olivewood.

“I don’t know what I would do without you, Detty,” Eva murmured dreamily, hardly noticing she’d used her childhood nickname for the serving woman. Upon the first Moonful after Eva had turned eighteen, Fantine had been confronted at last with undeniable proof that her daughter was truly satyr. A faraway, longing look had come into her eyes. One that said she was remembering Eva’s father. But all she’d said was, “Well, we must make do.” But it was Odette who had done the practical things that had helped Eva to survive undetected.

“Dear Maman.” Eva sighed, her eyes drifting closed. “I miss her.”

A gentle hand adjusted the coverlet over her. “Sleep now. Dream of that rich husband you gonna get soon.”

Eva nodded into her pillow. She’d marry well into the ranks of this human society, and somewhere in heaven her maman would know and be proud of her success. But for herself, Eva wished for only one thing. To find her father. In heaven, she hoped her maman would understand it was something she needed to do.

A smile touched her lips. One like that of the beautiful Fantine, who’d felled half the men in Rome and then gone on to do the same in ElseWorld’s French Enclave.

“Pretty smile like that. You’ll have your choice of men. But you’ll marry human, not a satyr like ruined your poor maman,” Odette said, satisfaction coloring her voice. “You show these Roman curs who the Delacortes are. You make them pay.”

It was a maxim Eva had been weaned on. From childhood, she had been groomed to avenge the wrongs this world had done her mother.

“Rest, bebe. Odette’s gonna keep you nice and safe.” She lapsed into voces mysticae then, the chants and protection spells that she’d whispered over Eva for as long as she could remember. It comforted Eva to hear her familiar words, and she drifted off into a drug-induced sleep.

“That’s it.” Bending closer, Odette gently pulled back the coverlet, then stared down at her for a long moment. She curved a palm along Eva’s cheek almost reverently, then slowly ran her hand downward, over her throat, a breast, ribs, until finally her hand came to rest on her belly. “That’s my good girl. Dream of babies. And revenge.”