Deception of the Magician (Waldgrave Book 2) (13 page)

“Maybe.” Greg said. He glanced over again. “Not likely.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Lena leaned back in her seat. Griffin sighed very loud next to her. When she looked over, he caught her eye.

Did she really drink all of that last night?

Lena nodded slightly.

She drank a whole bottle the night before last as well?

Lena nodded.

I’m not getting her any more. You shouldn’t let her drink like that.

Lena rolled her eyes at him. Ava was harmless; sure, she was drinking, but it made her so much easier to handle in large doses.

I’m serious. We don’t need problems on this trip, and you should really take better care of her.

Lena didn’t respond. After several minutes had gone by, Griffin started again.

I’ve just been informed that we’re stopping to have dinner tonight.

Lena looked over at him with interest. He wasn’t smiling.

I really don’t think we should, but as has been made very clear, I’m not in charge here.

They drove on for two more hours before pulling into a smallish diner off the freeway. They were seated at a handful of tables, and given the current mood towards the non-Council members as burdensome luggage, Lena was unlucky enough to get to sit with Ava, Griffin, and Master Spelman, a thin, blond, tired-looking man who was there to baby-sit. There was a good deal of sports memorabilia glued to the walls and a bar off in one corner. The smells of grilling and margaritas wafted through the dimly lit room. A sign on the wall boasted ‘The best grilled steaks since 1962.’

“I can’t believe we stopped. This is ridiculous.” Master Spelman unfolded his napkin into his lap.

“I couldn’t agree more.” Griffin glared at Ava, who ignored him and looked at Lena.

“What are you getting?” She said, smiling coyly.

Lena looked the menu over. It had been a long time since she’d had to order food in a restaurant. She found herself almost overwhelmed at having so many options. “Does anyone see a chicken section?”

“Second page.”

She thanked Master Spelman and flipped to the right page. None of the chicken dishes appealed to her, so she started hunting again. The waitress came over to take drink orders. Ava, of course, wanted her usual.

“I’ll have white wine.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t carry wine.”

“Oh? What do you carry?”

Griffin cleared his throat loudly. “She’ll have water.”

The table went silent as everyone looked at Griffin. He had already gone back to looking at his menu. When Ava didn’t speak up after a while, the waitress took the rest of the drink orders and left. Lena still wasn’t sure what she was getting.

Just get a salad…

She glared over at Griffin, who was perusing his own menu innocently, then decided she was getting something big and complex. When the waitress came back, she was ready.

“I’ll have the cheeseburger with American cheese, bacon, and no mustard.  I would like a toasted bun, and I want mayonnaise, but I want the bun crunchy when it gets here so please leave the top bun off and put the mayonnaise on the side. Fries and a side of ranch. Oh, also, I think we’ll get an appetizer. Onion rings, also with a side of ranch.” She closed her menu and handed it to the waitress. Then she looked over at Griffin. “You like onion rings, right? I love fried food.”

And it shows.

“Wow, 
someone’s
 tired tonight…” Lena snorted.

Master Spelman gave them a suspicious look before placing his order. After Ava and Griffin had placed their orders and the waitress had walked away, he continued to talk and not look at her.

Don’t undermine my authority. I’m here in your grandfather’s stead, and you will respect me. You’ve made it ultimately clear that this is a professional relationship, so stop acting like it’s not. It’s not a game, and I’m sick of your childish attempts for attention.

Lena was taken off guard. He had been distant since they had yelled at each other in the library, and he had tried to convince her once before that he was done with her, but she was almost sure he was serious this time. He wasn’t amused. He wasn’t smiling, or even smirking at her when Master Spelman asked him if Daray had specified any further sleeping arrangements if they couldn’t find a hotel with adjoining rooms. He wasn’t happy to be there, and he even seemed to be avoiding her at times. Even though he was usually one of the people stationed in the adjoining room, he never stopped over to talk or check on her. In fact, the only times he had talked to her since the mission began were to lecture her about how badly she was screwing things up—whether the scope included her whole life or just how she let Ava drink too much.

Ava was crankier than usual that night at the hotel, and Lena suspected it had something to do with the fact that she was finally coming off of her perpetual alcohol induced happiness. After she had finally taken four aspirin and settled down to sleep, Lena got up and went into the other room. Griffin appeared to be sleeping while Master Prescot watched a late night television show with the volume turned down. He watched her inquiringly as she walked over, picked up a pillow, and then dropped it on Griffin’s face. He shot straight up, stared wildly around the room, and then glared at Lena when his eyes landed on her. He turned over and laid back down.

“I need to talk to you.”

Master Prescot had gone back to watching the television, but Lena could tell that he was listening intently. He wasn’t part of the New Faith movement, but he was staunchly anti-Old Faith because he feared the reopening of the portal. Apparently he had been to college to study biology, and was one of the few Silenti scientists who had studied diseases from the standpoint that it was possible they had come from another world. While Lena had never had a personal conversation with him, Ben Collins had at some point, because she had dreamed it. Many years earlier, he had testified before the Council that “while the pathogens aren’t provably extraterrestrial, there is a fair chance that they were not originally from Earth.”

“Why?” Griffin grunted.

Lena glanced over at Master Prescot, then leaned in closer. “It’s personal.”

Griffin didn’t move for a moment, but then threw the blankets off and stood up in one movement. He walked over to the balcony, opened it, and gestured her out. 
It had better be damned important, because I’m too tired to be dealing with you right now.

Once they were both out on the balcony, Griffin had closed the door, and Master Prescot was watching them very obviously, Lena settled herself by leaning against the wall of the hotel and looking out across the city lights.

“You can’t tell her what to do.” Lena said.

“The hell I can’t.” Griffin replied. “I’m doing what’s best for her, like Master Daray told me to. Even you can’t deny she’s been drinking a lot lately.”

“She has, but it’s because this is hard for her. She doesn’t like to travel—“

“—because of the mistake of her marriage. I get it. I’m going back to bed now.” He reached for the door handle, but Lena caught his hand before it got there.

“Why are you being so touchy lately?”

Griffin stared at her hand on his own. “I’m not.”

Lena removed her hand. “Then why’d you yell at me at dinner? You’re being a real brat lately…”

“You’re the brat here, Lena.” His voice was full of loathing. Lena pulled her eyes away from the sparkling city lights and glanced over at Griffin. His eyes were burning. His voice had gone icy; even though he wasn’t yelling, it felt like he was. “You’re the one turning the world upside down because you think it will buy your freedom, but let me assure you it won’t. None of them have any intention of ever letting you out of Waldgrave. You’re the ungrateful brat who’s dragged us all out here on a worthless pursuit so that you can put power in the hands of the New Faith Representatives. And once they have it, our lives aren’t going to get any easier. They don’t trust you now, and they won’t trust you then. All this is going to do is make it harder, Lena. Once they have it, our support is gone. They’ll have all the control, and they’ll do with us as they please. Our lives are over after you put it in their hands.”

He yanked the sliding glass door open and almost sent it crashing off its runner. Suddenly realizing that Master Prescot was staring at them, he turned to Lena with a tired look in his eyes. His voice was back to normal volume and tone. “I’ll tell Master Daray your concern, and we’ll discuss it again tomorrow.”

He got back in bed. Lena walked in, shut the sliding door behind her, and felt Master Prescot’s eyes on her the whole way back to her room. She got into bed and her mind was racing. It was Griffin, because he was tired. It had to be, because she had thought her plan out very carefully. They had to let her go, right? If they had it, there wouldn’t be any reason to keep her locked up. She was going to leave the Silenti world afterwards, anyway; but then, she was Howard’s heir now.

She stared at the low hotel ceiling and fidgeted with the stiff blankets; she had never remembered hotel rooms to be so unaccommodating. The bed was so lumpy it was practically impossible to find a spot where she was comfortable. The alarm clock was the wrong color, the bathroom was cold, and Lena hated having to share a room. She turned over on her side and pulled the covers tighter around her shoulders, but it didn’t help. She had full temperature control over her room back home…

At Waldgrave. She was thinking of Waldgrave as home more and more since she had been away. She missed it. She missed Howard; deep in her heart, she was conflicted. She wanted to leave, but she knew she couldn’t leave Howard. He was her last true family.

Lena sat up in bed and looked very slowly around. The ugly tan walls and the cheap television; the furniture bolted to the ground and the bleached white and sterilized sheets that smelled vaguely of starch. The noise and cold air pouring past the thin, lanky curtains; it was all alien to her. It was exactly the way she remembered, but it was so far from feeling what she wanted it to feel like. She wanted to go back to Waldgrave and she didn’t. She wanted to be here and she didn’t. She didn’t know what she wanted, but she knew she didn’t have it. And not knowing what she wanted, she didn’t know where she should be going or how to get there. An alarm went off in her brain; she knew she was treading dangerous waters. If she couldn’t pick a direction, she would drown.

*****

CHAPTER 7

The next morning at breakfast, Greg gave Lena a gentle interrogation. The scene from the night before had made it around to all of the other Representatives, and some of the New Faith group were apparently concerned that there was some sort of conspiracy going on. Having actually seen what happened, Master Prescot was more of the mind that Lena was being pressured into a conspiracy. She took it upon herself to speak to each Representative individually that day to assure everyone that nothing was going on; it had been a discussion about Ava’s drinking. She didn’t need rumors flying around that could potentially derail her chances of bringing the portal back.

Her dreams were becoming stronger and more memorable with every day closer they came to Ecuador. Her anxieties were beginning to get to her as well, and she wasn’t sure why. The night they crossed the border into Panama, she had the most lucid dream she could remember.

Ben was sitting in a corner of a small roadside diner somewhere. All the signs were in Spanish, but all the people were speaking English. It looked like it was the fifties.

A woman was walking out of the kitchen. She was wearing a bubblegum pink floor-length evening gown covered in sequins that glimmered like champagne fizz and had puffy red hair. Her makeup was flawless, and as she walked towards Ben she pulled a diary out of her imaginary back pocket. She flicked it open, and suddenly there was a pen in her hand.

“Can I take your order?”

Ben looked across the table. “Lena?”

And she was sitting at the table, staring distractedly off into space. She looked over at Ben. “Hmm?”

He nodded at the menu, and she picked it up. “Oatmeal.”

The waitress pretended she was writing it down. She looked at Ben.

“Oh, no. I can’t read it. Lena will order for me.”

“What?” Lena looked over at Ben, who smiled sheepishly. She looked back at the waitress in the pink dress, but she had turned into Devin.

“I don’t want this.” He handed the diary to Lena, and then sat down where Ben had been.

Lena looked around the diner again. There was raucous laughter coming from somewhere, but she couldn’t see anyone laughing.

“I can keep a secret.”

“I don’t have any secrets to tell you, Dev.” Lena looked back at him. The laughter was getting louder, and it was starting to unnerve her.

“I can keep a secret.”

“I don’t…” But it was Marie this time.

The laughter was so loud it was buzzing in her ears. Lena couldn’t hear anything but the laughter, but when Marie whispered, it was as clean and clear as sunlight. She leaned in close to Lena, her dark hair and eyes shining with despair. “He told me not to tell you. He’s going to kill you, too.”