Embrace the Mystery [03] Blood Rose Series (7 page)

Quinlan, whose hair now hung about his shoulders, scowled at Lorelei. “Help us to understand what’s going on here. Is she behind the Invictus?”

“She and my father, yes. You’ve probably heard him called the Great Mastyr, he is both vampire and shifter.”

“Sweet Goddess. Then you are vampire as well. Why didn’t you tell us that?”

She shrugged. “Because I’m a disappointment to my father. My vampire genetics are the weakest part of who I am. ‘Negligible’ is the word he used. I believe they’ve been searching for the right mate for me, that because I’m also part wraith, I’d be able to form an incredibly powerful Invictus pair.”

“This is insane.”

“Yes, it is. Papa considers himself to be a scientist but my mother carries the ambition in the family, though she’s happy to use my father’s abilities. Margetta wants to rule the Nine Realms. She has desired nothing else for the past thousand years.”

Batya’s mind spun, question after question rolling through like leaves swept along by a brisk wind.

Lorelei met her gaze. “Maybe, if I told this from the beginning.”

Quinlan sat down on the couch and Davido moved behind Lorelei to sit in the chair next to her. Batya picked up the teapot and tray, as well as the cup and saucer she’d dropped, putting them back on the coffee table. She sat down at the opposite end of the couch from Quinlan as Lorelei slowly resumed her seat.

Over the past two years, since Lorelei had served in the clinic, Batya had imagined several scenarios to explain who the woman was, even a past that involved Lorelei being a professional, high-end thief in one of the Nine Realms and that she’d moved to Lebanon to escape capture.

Never in her wildest imagination could she have pictured that the delicate woman opposite her, teardrops brimming once more in her eyes, was the product of gross genetic manipulation and the union of a shifter-vampire and a fae-wraith.

“Excuse me if I stare at you.”

“I understand.” She settled back in her chair. “I suppose for you to understand how I ended up here, I need to tell you about Genevieve.” She spoke of her troll governess that Margetta had kidnapped to serve Lorelei over sixty years ago, forcing the woman to school Lorelei until she was eighteen.

Margetta had erred, however, because the woman had been the salt of the realm-world and had imbued Lorelei with the values she held so close to her heart, of love and personal liberty, of realm-service, of kindness to strangers, all good things.

At the very moment that Margetta had come to take her daughter out of the mountain prison and put her to work in the family business of scientific evolution and Invictus pair creation, Genevieve had concocted a plan to escape with Lorelei.

All had gone well until Margetta arrived just a few minutes early, and Genevieve had died helping her charge make good her escape. “I didn’t know until I was well away, hidden by the disguise I could create, that she’d sacrificed her life for me.” She shook her head as though, even after all these years, she still couldn’t believe what happened.

“Where did you go?” Quinlan asked.

She smiled and glanced at Davido. “I lived in Merhaine for a long time, in Vojalie’s shadow. I was a troll servant in your home for twelve years from 1952 until 1964. I think you might have recognized me when you saw me in the doorway.”

“Of course I did. You called yourself Jenny.”

“I did, after the one who had saved my soul, altering my life forever. Did you know what I was?”

Davido shook his head. “No. Only that you were special, but even I couldn’t figure out what you were. I was intensely curious, of course, but Vojalie-the-wise told me to mind my own business and to let you be, that you needed to find your own way through life.”

“Your wife is one of the best women I’ve ever known.”

“Except perhaps for my beloved Batya’s mama, I would have to agree with you.”

Davido smiled sweetly at Batya. Her mother had died in childbirth, a rare occurrence in the Nine Realms.

Shifting his attention back to Lorelei, he said, “Then Margetta must have found you there. In our home.”

“Yes. Do you remember the night that you lost all those cucumbers to an inexplicable frost?”

“I do.” He leaned back in his chair, stunned. “And here is a mystery solved. Amazing. Eighty years later, I finally have the answer to the strange phenomenon that destroyed only the cucumbers.”

“I battled Margetta then fled. After that, I never lived longer than a year or so in any one town except Lebanon. I don’t know what it is, how she can find me, but I must emit some kind of signature that Margetta eventually locates, despite all my disguises and shields.

“After the first year passed in Lebanon, I thought maybe the earth-world would be my salvation. You can’t imagine how happy I was when I marked my second anniversary.”

“Oh, my poor child. If only you’d approached me or Vojalie. We could have done something for you.”

She smiled and extended her hand to him. “Knowing you both was enough.”

“Jenny,” he murmured. He took her hand, covering it with both of his own.

“It’s good to see you again, Davido. Truly.”

“Where did you go after Merhaine?”

She detailed much of her wandering life, from realm-to-realm, which meant that she knew a lot about all nine realms, more than most realm-folk would ever know.

“So now I’m here.” Her gaze shifted to Quinlan. “I’m so sorry, Mastyr, that I brought Margetta here and that you suffered.”

His brows drew together as he stared at her. “You are not responsible for the evil either of your parents inflicts on the world. You are as much a victim here as I was of the recent attack. Now all we need to decide is what needs to happen next.”

Lorelei slowly rose to her feet. “Please don’t worry about that. I know what to do, then you can get back to business as usual.”

She turned as if to leave the room, but Davido met Batya’s gaze and gestured with his widening hands.
You can’t let her go. This must stop now.

“Wait,” Batya said. “We won’t let you leave.”

When Lorelei got to the doorway, she turned and blew them all a kiss, shifting afterward to her wraith form and sped away, floating swiftly through the air.

Batya’s entire being stiffened with sudden, powerful resolve. She tightened the enthrallment shield as she never had before.

At the same time, she followed after Lorelei and found her in her bedroom punching at the shield with energy blasts from her palms. “Let me out,” she shrieked, sounding more wraith-like than Batya would have ever thought possible.

“I can’t let you go,” Batya said, moving into the room. She knew both Quinlan and her father had followed her. She held the enthrallment shield with an iron grip, the value of a strong will in times of preternatural exchange.

Lorelei floated in the air, her hair weaving madly back and forth, her long black gown floating around thin spindly wraith-legs. “Let me go, Batya. You’ve done enough, given enough.”

“No, I haven’t. You’re my friend. I don’t desert my friends. Let me help you. We all want to help and we can. There’s a helluva a lot of power in this room right now.”

For the next few minutes Lorelei pounded hard on Batya’s shield and a couple of times Batya flagged, but either Davido or Quinlan put his hand on her shoulder and revived her.

In the end, exhausted, Lorelei resumed her fae shape and slumped to sit down on the floor. She fell apart at that moment and wept.

Batya would have gone to her, but Davido was before her. He gathered Lorelei up in his arms and jerked his chin at Batya. She took the hint and left the room with Quinlan.

She made her way slowly upstairs to her studio and crossed to look out the window. On the other side of the street, Margetta’s spy leaned against the opposing brick wall, puffing away on a cigarette with a pile of butts scattered around her feet.

Night had fallen.

She glanced back at Quinlan. “Didn’t you used to smoke?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I remember you always had a cigarette in your hand. Our friend down there smokes like crazy.”

“Gave it up. My
doneuses
didn’t like it so they ganged up on me about it.”

She laughed, then took in the absurd shirt and went to her closet. She pulled out the long-sleeved, black ribbed tee she’d chosen earlier from the stockpile the free-clinic kept on hand, and which she knew would fit him, then tossed it his direction. “Can’t have you battling with that on.”

He smiled and shrugged out of his shirt.

Rather than watch him disrobe and endure temptation all over again, Batya went back to the window to stare down at the spy once more. She worked to assimilate all these new, extraordinary things, from Lorelei’s strange DNA, to her immense power, and finally to the horror of the woman’s parentage.

“Monuments should be built in honor of women like Genevieve.”

Quinlan joined her by the window. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“She gave up her life for Lorelei.”

Quinlan sighed heavily.

“What are you thinking?” She looked up at him, his scowl as dark as she’d ever seen it.

“That my life has been very small.”

She snorted. “You’ve served Grochaire for how many centuries, without question? No, your life hasn’t been small, Quinlan, and you lay it down every damn night.”

“It doesn’t feel that way, not with the Invictus still operating in each of the realms. I should have done more, found a way to get rid of them once and for all.”

She thought he expected too much of himself and would have said so, but Davido arrived holding Lorelei’s hand.

“Lorelei thinks she knows where she can go next, a place she’s been trying to find for a long time, where Margetta won’t be able to touch her. Tell them.”

“Ferrenden Peace. I believe it lies on the border between Grochaire Realm and Walvashorr.”

Batya shook her head. “But that’s a place from childhood fables. It doesn’t exist. Tell her, papa.”

Davido shrugged. “I have reason to believe it might and that it’s been hidden behind an impenetrable wall of enthrallment, similar to your own, for a millennia. You can’t even see it on the maps, the enthrallment is that good. Just remember that most myths have some basis in fact, in history.”

Batya’s lips curved. “And did you once visit this fabled place, papa, in a previous millennia, perhaps?”

“Shrewd, very shrewd, daughter, but I’m not saying.”

Everyone tried to find out Davido’s true age, but he’d worked hard to keep it a secret. Batya thought it possible that not even Vojalie knew just how old he was or even half of the things he’d experienced over the course of his long life.

Quinlan, now looking magnificent in the snug tee despite the too-short pants, drew close to Batya and touched the back of her arm. She thought she understood. They both felt it, the need to do this thing. Yet she knew he wished himself anywhere but here and she hated the thought of going back into the Nine Realms.

But here she was with a mastyr touching her supportively, her father’s eyes expectant and glowing, and Lorelei struggling to control her emotions.

“We can get you there,” Batya said.

Had she really spoken the words aloud, committing herself to this path? And what would it mean that she’d be traveling with Quinlan for who knew how long?

Lorelei’s eyes brightened. “You can?”

“We can,” Quinlan added, his voice rumbling around her studio, taking command of the space. “I just wish we had a map.”

Davido snapped his fingers. “I’ll be right back.” He moved on quick troll feet, running from the room and down the stairs. Trolls had active, expressive feet.

Batya waited, her heart thudding in her chest. Was this to be her future, a journey with Quinlan, a vampire she’d been trying to get rid of for two months? He still held the back of her arm, his thumb rubbing up and down, more comforting than seductive, for once.

She might even have thanked him for his support, but Davido’s steps sounded up the stairs once more and he all but ran into the room. He carried his satchel, a worn leather case to which he was profoundly attached and which none of his children had been able to replace despite multiple attempts.

“I have the most beautiful and the most visionary of wives.” He lifted the side flap, pulling out an oversized, yellowed map. “She said I’d need this. It’s very old and covers Grochaire and Walvashorr Realms, just the two. What do you think of that?”

“Vojalie has always amazed me.”

* * * * * * * * *

Quinlan released Batya’s arm and reached for the parchment-like paper. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this one.”

“Probably not. I had to search the storeroom of my library. It took me a full day before I found it, Vojalie having been exceedingly specific about which one to bring with me.”

Quinlan’s biceps flexed as he carefully unfolded the ancient document. He made his way to Batya’s worktable, situated midway between the east wall and the foot of her bed.

Glancing over his shoulder at her, he waved a hand at the table. “Is the surface clean? I know you do a lot of your art here.”

Batya frowned at him slightly, though he wasn’t sure why. “Yes. Very clean.”

“What is it? Did I offend you by asking?”

She shook her head. “No. It’s just that, I’ve never seen you like this before. So … engaged.”

He felt torn. He might have asked what she meant, but the map carried a vibration and he wanted to find out if he could actually locate the fabled Ferrenden Peace.

He had several hundred maps of Grochaire, made throughout the ages. He’d followed many of them through his realm over the centuries, climbing down hillsides that weren’t supposed to be here or there. He’d found an old copper mine and later had it refitted and made safe.

Of course, other dark memories surfaced, that even as a child he would leave his house for days at a just to escape his father’s brutality. But the hours he spent exploring Grochaire had helped make him the man he was today.

He loved maps and he loved his land.

He spread it out and asked Batya if she had something that might hold down each of the corners.