Return to the Shadows (20 page)

We burst out laughing the minute she was out
of earshot.

“Naked heathens.”

Mark was gasping for breath.

“Do I really have bags under my eyes?”

“Not at all,” he reassured.

“I don’t believe you.” I grinned. “Where’s a
mirror?”

“Sit down, Claire. Have some coffee with me.
You look fine, by the way.”

“Do I really?”

“Yes. A little stressed maybe.”

“Oh.”

“Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Same old Claire.” He grinned. “Are you
stressed?”

“Yes, but under the circumstances, who
wouldn’t be?”

“Maybe.” He shrugged.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us, Mark,” I
sighed, dragging us both off of personal ground and back to our
present situation. “We still haven’t found all the survivors from
the raids.”

“But we’ve recovered sixty people this week
alone,” he reminded me. “That’s sixty lives saved. And we are going
to find more, trust me.”

“He is never going to stop, you know.” I
couldn’t get around that grim reality.

“Kahn? Probably not.”

“We have to get rid of him, Mark.” It felt
callous to say it out loud. It simply wasn’t in my nature to speak
in such a cavalier fashion about murdering someone. Is it really
possible to kill something that isn’t alive? I shook my head. The
point was I wasn’t used to speaking so matter-of-factly
about...getting rid of someone...or something. But I knew that I
spoke the truth. There were no words to accurately describe the
sheer destruction that Kahn had wrought upon the villages of
Terlain. When I thought of all the people he had hurt and the lives
that had been destroyed, it sickened me. And to what purpose? The
answer was simple enough. To prove that he could.

“We will get rid of him. Together. Never
doubt it.” His hand covered mine and squeezed lightly.

“So.” I sat back and casually sipped my
coffee. “We just have to...oh, I don’t know...save the world?”

“Right. Piece of cake.” Mark shrugged. “Is
there any other reason why you’ve been on edge lately?” he asked,
apparently determined to press the issue of my stress level.

“Not really, no. Things are fine. Great. I
love the new job. Did I tell you about that? I write for a magazine
now.” Or I had before I took an extended leave of absence after
three weeks on the job. It will be nothing short of a miracle if
there is a job to go back to, I thought in despair.

“So what’s wrong?”

“Nothing that you don’t know about.” I looked
away. “Like I said, things are great.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me right
now.”

“Excuse me?”

“The trouble you’re in.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I
told you I just thought it was time to come back. The dreams, the
ones I told you about earlier...had me worried.”

“Ah. You came back because you were concerned
with my safety?”

“Not just you—conceited.” I felt another pang
of guilt and looked away.

“I’ll get it out of you eventually, Claire.
For now at least, you and Ashley are safe. Just so you know, I
intend to keep it that way.”

“You really mean that, don’t you?” I regarded
him thoughtfully. Before he could answer, Aries strode into the
dining hall. I ambushed the poor girl, unable to stop myself.
“You’re alive!”

“Yes?” She laughed and returned the
embrace.

“Claire was a little worried about you,” Mark
explained.

“And it’s no wonder, walking around half
naked the way you do. You’d think you were raised with the
heathens,” Marta groused as she bustled into the room carrying a
tray laden with sandwiches.

“Hello, Marta.”

“Hello yourself. Put some pants on.”

“Marta!” Mark and I turned on her,
horrified.

“I’m wearing pants,” Aries calmly pointed
out.

“Oh, well excuse me,” the old woman bowed
dramatically, “I thought you had fallen into a vat of paint.” She
left the room, parting shot delivered, still grumbling under her
breath.

“Well! Is it just me or is she in a mood
tonight? More than usual, I mean.”

“I think she was worried about you too,” I
confided. “Now, come sit down and have something to eat.”

“Thanks, I will. I’m starving.” She dug into
a turkey sandwich with obvious glee. “I didn’t see Bob or Ashley
when I came in,” she remarked.

“They’re out back catching lightning bugs.
So, what’s the word?”

“Were you able to find out anything?” Mark
propped his elbows on the table and leaned forward anxiously.

“As a matter of fact, I did. I found five
more survivors in the woods near the old auction site. A
family.”

“Thank you, Lord,” I breathed. “Where are
they?”

“I took them to our safe house before I came
here. I had to travel back to Oxborough, but I wanted to get them
to a secure location right away.”

“Exactly.”

“Good thinking, Aries.”

“Anything else?”

“I dispatched a rescue team to Fort Azores.
The family I picked up fled from the city two weeks ago. They said
there were others who had taken refuge with them. With any luck,
we’ll be able to recover those people too, and bring them to
safety.”

“Let’s hope,” I agreed, leaning forward and
crossing my arms under my chin. “Any other news?”

“Nothing yet from the coastal regions. That’s
going to take a few more days. However, it just so happens,” she
paused for a sip of coffee, “there is something interesting going
on in Oxborough.”

“Well, don’t keep us in suspense.”

“The masquerade ball is coming to town.”

“A ball? You want to go to a ball at a time
like this?”

“The masquerade ball isn’t exactly a town
social,” Mark explained. “Every year, Lydia holds the event in
Oxborough. The location is always the same; it’s the date that
differs from year to year. It’s an initiation for her…newly
acquired girls.”

“You’re joking,” I stuttered, flattening my
palms against the tabletop.

“Unfortunately, no.”

“But that’s sick. Someone should put a stop
to that. In fact, someone should put a stop to Lydia altogether,” I
said vehemently.

“Yes,” Aries smiled mysteriously. “Someone
should stop them.”

“What have you got in mind?”

“I know the date the ball is being held this
year. Three days from now, the party starts at sundown.”

“We may never get another opportunity like
this.” Mark rubbed his jaw. “Let’s do it. What are you
thinking?”

“We crash the party.”

“Wait. You guys are going to infiltrate the
ball?” I frowned. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Oh, no, I can’t go. I’d be recognized
immediately by the guards, and there’s no way I would blend in
anyway, even in costume,” she admitted.

“So…?” I turned questioning eyes to Mark.

He grinned at me from across the table.

“It looks like we’re going to the ball,
Claire.”

Chapter Ten

The Masquerade Ball

The ivory-handled hairbrush stung as Marta
brought it down onto the top of my head. “Stop moving.”

“Ouch! Damn, Marta, stop it,” I grumbled,
reaching a tentative hand to inspect my head for lumps—or any other
injuries. Tentatively, because Marta had been rather heavy-handed
this afternoon. I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least to find
an oozing gash from the repeated bludgeoning the older woman had
zealously delivered over the past hour. However, my fingertips
encountered only smooth hair that had been gathered and piled high
on top of my head in a style that would have been an elegant up-do
if not for the damage Marta was repeatedly inflicting on it each
time she told me not to move. It was hard to say who was doing the
most harm to the hairdo—me by moving, or Marta by flattening it
every fifteen minutes. Still, I had to give credit where it was
due, the woman was downright lethal with that hairbrush.

If I was ever called upon to do battle or
otherwise defend life and limb, I fervently prayed to have Marta at
my side, preferably in a hair salon. Or a kitchen. She was just as
lethal with her cast iron cookware.

I yelped again as she yanked hard on a strand
of hair that had escaped its confines. “You do realize you are
messing up my hair each and every time you hit me, right?” I
pointed out the obvious with an eye roll, one that I was secretly
grateful she couldn’t see.

“Well,” she huffed, temporarily removing her
nimble hands from my hair. “I keep telling you to hold still. It’s
your own fault if you’ve got a headache.”

“I never said I had a headache,” I muttered,
though, of course, I did. “I said you’re messing up my hair.”

“I’m almost done. Just another minute yet,”
she sighed, reaching for what had to be the one hundredth tiny
opaque hair pin in an effort to tame my long mane, all the while
bitching about my overabundance of light brown hair.

“My hair is the same as the last time you saw
me.” I felt obligated to defend the abused tresses. “I’ve only
grown it out a few inches. And that’s only because I keep
forgetting to have it cut.”

“Uh-huh,” she spoke around hair pin number
one hundred and one before shoving it into place. “Well, it’s still
a pain in the ass, much like yourself, which only makes sense, as
it’s your hair.”

Ouch. “Gee, I love you too.” I winced as she
delivered another tug that I was sure was harder than necessary.
“Lord, are you about done? How long does it take to do one woman’s
hair?”

“Well, now, that depends. If said woman wants
to ruin the most important night of her life, then it takes twenty
minutes. If you actually want to make tonight a success, then shut
up, hold still, and stop asking me if I’m done yet. It’ll take as
long as it takes.”

“I see.” I didn’t, although I understood the
hidden message in, “shut the hell up” well enough. “I don’t know
about this being the most important night of my life, though. I was
hoping to save that title for my wedding day. Besides, I’ve been to
plenty of dances. I think I know what to do.”

“Have you ever gone to one in order to plant
a skirt full of explosives?” she countered, probably only half in
jest.

“No.”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve got a
fifty percent chance of getting killed, quite possibly by blowing
yourself—and my boy—sky high. Wedding day, hell. I say anytime a
girl needs to get through an evening without getting herself
killed, it’s the most important night of her life.”

“Maybe...” I frowned, catching my bottom lip
between my teeth. She had a point. “Anyway, you’ll be happy to know
I won’t be keeping the explosives in my skirt. They’ll be in my
handbag,” I informed her when her fingers hesitated at my nape.

“You do realize it’s a clutch purse. A very
tiny clutch purse.”

“So? I’ll just take a full size evening bag
instead of the hand-held.”

“You clear that with Mark?”

“No, but I can’t see why he’d care, so long
as I’ve got my share of the bombs with me. The thought of wearing
explosives just doesn’t do it for me.” I barely managed to suppress
a shudder that surely would have set Marta into another semi-brutal
attack.

“You and me both. Okay, that’s as good as
it’s gonna get,” she pronounced, stepping back and whipping the
velvet cape from around my neck.

“You’re done?” My voice was thin with hope.
Oh please let it be true...

“Stand up and see for yourself.”

I was out of the less than comfortable
hard-backed chair without further ado. Hey, I was on the verge of a
serious butt cramp—nobody had to tell me twice. I took a deep
breath and spun around to face the enormous mirror that had been
built into the gorgeous antique-looking dressing table—and gasped,
wide-eyed, when I caught the full effect of my own reflection. I
hardly recognized myself.

I was encased in a sky blue gown that seemed
to shimmer with the slightest movement I made. That part wasn’t
much of a surprise, as I had donned the exquisite garment two hours
before when Aries had come bearing it and a small fortune in
jewelry, and Marta had announced that it was time to get ready. But
to see it in the full mirror left me speechless. It fit like a
second skin through the bodice, was halter-style at the neck, and
bloomed into a wide, full skirt that reached all the way to my
ankles. Tiny diamonds encrusted both the bodice and the hem, adding
to its glam. It was a dress fit for a queen, or a princess, of
which I was neither, but right then it was hard not to get caught
up in the moment. Right then, I felt like royalty. Never mind that
by the end of the night I would be armed with enough ammunition to
blow up half a kingdom. I forcibly shoved that unfortunate reality
away, focusing instead on the magic Marta had worked on my hair and
make-up.

Wide brown eyes stared back at me,
thick-lashed and languid and shadowed just so. Smooth skin and full
lips with just a hint of sheen completed the regal, fairytale
princess look. Honeyed hair had been glossed to perfection and
gathered high atop my head, with small tendrils left loose to curl
around my nape and to frame my face.

“Marta, my God...” I whispered, bringing a
hand to the side of my face, to my hair, yet not daring to actually
touch the masterpiece that she’d created. I hardly even felt the
headache anymore.

“Some of my best work, if I do say so
myself,” she preened shamelessly.

“It’s...it’s...” I stammered, struggling to
find the words without sounding overly vain.

“Beautiful.”

I turned suddenly at the sound of his voice,
my eyes snapping to his. Mark lounged in the doorway, and evidently
was not at a loss for words.

“Thank you.” I tried not to notice his
intense once-over, turning back to the mirror to gaze at the total
package Marta had created for this evening.

“Thank me, I’m the one that did it,” Marta
groused. “And it wasn’t easy, I can tell you that much.”