Pandora's Key (11 page)

Dr. Sullivan, who looked as tired as Evangeline felt, nodded.

“You need to find Samantha Harris,” Evangeline whispered. “You need to find Samantha Harris,” she repeated loudly enough to make the detective’s head snap in her direction.

Morrison scanned his notes. “Samantha—cult member and your legal guardian. Yeah, we’ve arranged to get a squad car over to her office. You sure that’s where she lives, too?”

Evangeline nodded. “Yes. There’s a door on the right side of the office that leads to a staircase up to her apartment on the top floor.”

“What about Miss Theopolis, detective?” Dr. Sullivan asked. “Shouldn’t you provide some kind of protection for her?”

“If they’d wanted to hurt her, they would’ve tried to kill her instead of her mother.”

Dr. Sullivan frowned. “How can you be so sure?”

“I’m as sure as I can be, doc, with an understaffed police department that’s currently waging a war on meth, gangs, and prostitution. From the sound of the situation, Samantha Harris had plenty of opportunities to off the kid at home, and murder, unless it’s fueled by rage, is usually a crime of opportunity. My bet is that Miss Theopolis isn’t in danger right now, but we can’t leave her home alone so we’ll drop her off at juvie tonight.”

“Juvie?” Dr. Sullivan gasped.

Morrison walked toward the door. “She’s got no other family and her guardian isn’t gonna take her in since if we find her she’s going to jail. Anyway, it’s too late to get her in a group home. Tomorrow her case will be turned over to Social Services and if she’s got no other family, she’ll be placed into our country’s foster care system.”

They’re talking about me like I’m not even here! Like I’m invisible!
Evangeline thought about calling Melia. Surely her step-mom would let her stay at their house. But then Evangeline would have to explain everything to them.
My mom has cancer—it’s in her brain—it’s terminal—Oh, and Samantha tried to kill her tonight.
Evangeline would rather risk it in juvie than say those words aloud, because if she said them to Melia, the entire situation would be public because her best friend had a big mouth.

“She can stay at my house for the night,” Dr. Sullivan said quickly.

“What?” Evangeline and Morrison asked in unison.

“Why would you do that, doc?” Morrison asked, echoing the very question in Evangeline’s mind.

“Because I don’t think a girl who’s just witnessed her mother’s attempted murder should spend the night locked up with a bunch of thugs and criminals. I’ll bring her to the police station first thing in the morning. That work?”

Detective Morrison eyed Dr. Sullivan for a long moment. “I’ll make a call. Give me a minute.”

A few minutes later Morrison returned. “Yeah, doc, that works. You bring her down first thing tomorrow morning.” He made to leave and said over her shoulder. “Don’t either of you leave town.”

It was seven o’clock but Juliette didn’t wake Malledy. She settled in a chair by his bed and watched him sleep as she’d done so many times when he was a baby. His brow was furrowed and she noticed that the tremors were creeping up his arms. The disease was progressing, swallowing body parts of its victim with relentless determination. Malledy mumbled in his sleep and Juliette made sense of a few of his words.

“Lightening bolt…
fille
…Portland…ahhh…
la clé
… mmmhph…”

Juliette leaned forward.
Fille
was French for daughter.
La clé
meant key.
Could it be coincidence? Could it be nothing more than the ramblings of a sick young man?
Juliette felt a tingling of foreboding.

“
Non
, it’s impossible.”
I’m so tired, so heartsick, so frustrated, that I’m overacting.
But the fear inside her refused to stop growing.
Have I made a terrible mistake?

Juliette had not told Malledy names or locations when discussing Pandora or the descendant.
But what if he’s known all along?
He had chosen his own physician who was located in Portland—was that a coincidence, too? Maybe…but how could Juliette ignore the fact that Malledy had said
daughter
and
key
in his sleep?

Malledy was still a brilliant young man. He was fighting for his life. If anyone could find out the truth, despite thousands of years of the Sect creating fictitious documents, misdirection on the highest levels, obfuscations, and false mythology (and when all else failed, countless murders), it would be him. Either way, Juliette needed to find out; she had a responsibility to find out. A wave of horrendous guilt washed over her.
Have I told Malledy too much? Have I ignored who he’s become?

Juliette sat down at Malledy’s desk and opened his laptop. She felt another pang of guilt and glanced at her right palm: the P forever scarred into her skin so long ago was faded.
They must be my first allegiance.
She closed her eyes.

Juliette was not a young woman anymore and leading a double life had taken its toll. A member of Pandora since she was a teenager, she’d joined the Archivists at twenty-three, sought out by the Order for her ground breaking work in several long-forgotten and seemingly dead Asian dialects. Her research had been specifically designed by Pandora to interest the Order because the Sect wanted one of their members to be firmly embedded in the Archivists’ powerful organization. If, the Sect believed, anyone were to find out Pandora’s secrets, it would be the Archivists, so it was important that a woman lived within Castle Aertz to monitor the other Archivists’ work.

Juliette had never wavered in her loyalties. She belonged to Pandora and the Sect was far older than the Archivists and far more deadly. As a member of Pandora, Juliette could not think twice about protecting all they stood for. About protecting the descendant. Even now, as she asked Pandora to allow her to save Malledy’s life, she knew that she might be called upon to sacrifice him.

Why did I tell him all I did?
“Because he’d lost all hope,” she whispered and opened her eyes. She began trying passwords and wasn’t surprised to see her attempts to break into the laptop fail. Malledy was a genius. If he had accomplished the unthinkable—finding Pandora and the descendant as well as both talismans, he had done what only a score of men and women had accomplished over thousands of years and none of them lived to tell the tale.

Malledy moaned in his sleep and Juliette turned to look at him.
Have I put everything I have pledged my entire life to protect at risk? And if what I fear is true, will I tell the leader and sacrifice you? Do I have a choice?

Malledy began to make a strange clicking sound with his tongue. Juliette pulled out her iPhone and pressed the “record” button. “Clkkk-tkkk-phtkkk-o-kkkl-dmgkk-clkkk-b-tkick-vokk-nkkkk…” Malledy’s tongue clicked rapidly against his palate. When he fell silent, Juliette pressed the “stop” button on her phone and stood. She needed to have the Archivists’ Director of Languages download a file from the audio lab to her computer.

The Archivists’ audio lab contained every language and dialect known to the world and even some thought lost. If Juliette was right, Malledy was speaking in Clickita. He was probably the only outsider in the world fluent in that African dialect, which had fascinated him as a child. Now, as his brain was deteriorating he was reverting to languages he’d taught himself in his youth.

Perhaps,
Juliette thought,
I can learn more from his nocturnal ramblings before I jump to a conclusion.
No one could fault her for being certain, could they? To bring her suspicions to Pandora and not only end her hopes for their help, but sign Malledy’s death warrant would not only be premature but unconscionable.
I must be certain,
Juliette thought, closing Malledy’s laptop quietly and walking toward the door. She almost felt righteous about her decision.

Evangeline recognized the mirror. It was the antique with hazy glass that hung over her mother’s bureau. She stood in front of it and her reflection stared back at her: blonde curls around a heart-shaped face. Strange, she’d always thought her face was oval and way too narrow. Her dark-blue eyes curved slightly up at the outer edges, just like they had in her mom’s painting, appearing feline and strangely predatory. For the very first time, Evangeline noticed tiny gold flecks in her irises. Her tongue darted out, licking her lower lip in a nervous habit she hadn’t known she’d acquired. “This isn’t me.” Her lips were still too full, but somehow they’d found a balance within the rest of her features and beneath a nose she’d always considered far too wide. Even her long neck seemed different—almost graceful instead of giraffe-like.

“This isn’t me,” Evangeline repeated. And then a red-hot poker dug into her temple. She winced, fingers flying up to press against her left eye. Evangeline gripped the edge of the bureau to keep from falling. The pain swelled, burrowing into the smallest corners of her mind with sharp claws. Evangeline’s vision narrowed, swirls and stars sparkling in front of her eyes, she opened her mouth to scream, and then, just as suddenly as it began, the agony receded, leaving her sweating and short of breath.

“What the hell?” Evangeline opened her eyes and looked at her reflection. But it was her mother’s face staring back at her.

“Help me, E,” her mother was begging.

“Mom! Tell me how!”

Her mother’s reflection pressed the tips of her own fingers into her left temple, the blue vein pulsing. The vein grew larger and bulged between her mother’s fingers, taking on a bumpy consistency, as if there was something other than blood pumping through its walls. Abruptly, her mother’s temple tore open and hundreds of tiny black spiders burst out in a stream of cherry blood! Evangeline gasped. The spiders skittered across her mother’s face—a sea of hairy-bristled, yellow-eyed arachnids—and streamed into her nose and mouth. As her mother’s eyes rolled back until only the whites showed, Evangeline punched her fist into the glass…

• • •

Evangeline woke in a burst of pain. The knuckles of her right hand were scraped and bleeding. She licked away the blood.
Another nightmare
.
But was it?
She couldn’t stop herself from wondering if what she’d just dreamed had really happened to her mom.
She asked for my help. How can I help her now?

Evangeline looked around.
Where am I?
The room she was in was pastel-green with yellow bears stenciled along the baseboards. There was a white crib in one corner, and above it were two small paintings of iridescent purple flowers so shiny, it seemed the blossoms were three-dimensional. Evangeline recalled her mom painting those flowers a few years ago. On the far wall, beneath a large picture window, was a bureau that matched the crib. The knobs on the drawers depicted Winnie the Pooh, Owl, Rabbit, and Tigger.

Evangeline hadn’t seen any of this at four o’clock when she’d finally fallen onto a futon couch, pulled a blanket over her, and instantly passed out. She rolled off the futon, made a weak attempt to smooth down the clothes she’d slept in, and walked over to the paintings, stopping when she smelled their intoxicating scent. “They’re not real,” she said, and instantly the perfume was gone.

A man cleared his throat and Evangeline turned to see Dr. Sullivan standing in the doorway of his kid’s nursery. “Um, hi,” she said, looking at her feet because she suddenly felt overwhelmingly awkward and self-conscious. “You didn’t tell my mom you owned some of her paintings.”

“It wasn’t pertinent.” Dr. Sullivan was already showered and dressed for work—a starched white button-down shirt, khakis, and brown leather shoes.
He could be in a Timberland catalogue
, Evangeline thought as she peered at him. “There’s some cereal and milk in the kitchen.”

“That’s okay—but thank you. I’ll just eat something later at the hospital.”

Confusion colored Dr. Sullivan’s expression.

“What’s wrong?” Evangeline asked, quickly looking down to make sure her shirt was on straight and the fly of her jeans zipped.

“It’s just—you look different.”