Sleight (46 page)

I couldn’t hear him.

In that halway, the sudden onslaught of silence nearly took my breath away. It was so foreign but was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. I couldn’t hear Ash, couldn’t hear his threats, couldn’t hear the racket of travelers and children and walkie-talkies. It brought tears to my eyes. It’s stunning how much a person misses something as simple as quiet until every second of the day is bombarded with sound.

A locked set of security doors stood between Ash and Summer and us, and even if this was our last walk of freedom, of life, at least these final few minutes would be quieter. And the shades—they didn’t move with us into the hal. The pressure in my face immediately lifted.

We traveled down a long halway through several more sets of heavy doors, into the bely of the airport. There would be no way out, no quick escape. This place was a maze, security cameras everywhere, and the officer escorting us had to scan his ID badge over and over again at every new section just to get the heavy, reinforced doors to unlock.

We came to a room at the end of yet another hal. It looked like a hospital waiting room, with large windows looking out over a less-busy part of the runways. The early morning sunlight was spotty and peeked through breaks in the cloud cover. The security guards left us in the room without uttering a single word, but it wasn’t until they’d closed and locked the door behind them that I realized just how bad things were. Even though there was a mile of twisted halways and untold security doors between us, Summer and Ash were at the airport, lying in wait. Lucian couldn’t be far behind.

Thoughts of what he would do to us, to everyone, once he had his hands on the book that we had with us al this time…

In an unusual twist, I hoped it would be the police who arrived before Lucian. At least if I were arrested, I’d be under armed guard, out of Lucian’s clutches. Unless they were working with him, the way the cops in Eaglefern were. Unless he found his way into my head via another unexpected, unwanted vision.

I was overwhelmed with despair.

Henry stretched his arm toward me. I took it and he puled me toward him. “It’s okay, Gemma. It’s going to be okay, my love,” he whispered. He was very weak—he had taken a bulet for me. My selfishness was reprehensible.

“Lucian is coming. Summer and Ash are here. Even if the police know I’m here, even if the airline people know about Bradley, it doesn’t matter. Lucian wil get to us first. I mean, look at this place?

We’re locked in! We’re prisoners already! And you’re…you’re…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. You’re dying.

“Is the amulet burning?”

I stopped breathing and touched it again, terrified at what I’d find. If Lucian had been near, I would’ve felt the triangle heating up long before now, right? Maybe he wasn’t at the airport yet and so the amulet was quiet, although it hadn’t warned us about Ash’s sudden appearance at the station or on the train, and his presence had brought calamity. I didn’t trust the coolness of the amulet as evidence of our temporary safety. I knew Summer and Ash were here. That meant Lucian was coming. And when he walked through that door, we were as good as dead.

“She’s near, Gemma…I can hear her but I can’t see her yet…,” Henry said, his eyes drooping. He was looking at something I couldn’t see. A tender smile crawled across his weary face.

“Who’s near, Henry?” I patted his cheek. “Stay with me. I can’t do this without you.”

“Alicia…she’s near…I’ve missed her so much, so, so much…” He was talking to nothingness, his eyes fixated on empty space. A tear roled down his cheek and his smile held fast. His lips quivered over the white of his teeth.

Oh my God. He was realy dying. He could see his mother, coming toward him, where nothing but dusty fragments danced through the sunbeams slicing the windows. I saw nothing, heard nothing, no shades, no Alicia. It was confirmed: the injuries were winning, the halucinations setting in.

“Henry, please…please don’t go, not now, not like this. Tel Alicia it’s not time yet. Beg her—beg Marlene and Teo and Delia—

beg them to help us,” I dropped to my knees and cried, kissing his hand over and over again, my own tears smearing across the surface of his skin. “Lucian is coming. They’re here, Henry, please, ask for her help.”

“She hears us,” he said. His voice was so soft, he sounded as if he were faling asleep. I sobbed into his lap. He placed his good hand on top of my head and tried to stroke my hair.

A knock at the door startled me and I again jerked Henry’s body. His eyes popped open.

I couldn’t grant entry to the outside party as we were locked in.

I could hear nothing, not even a whisper, coming from the opposite side of the steel door. The buzz of a scanned security pass was folowed by the heavy click of the locking mechanism as it released.

I was deafened by the pound of my heart in my ears, but instinctively took a protective stance in front of Henry and tried to control the sobs constricting my throat and chest. Anyone who wanted him would have to go through me first.

As the door swung open, I braced myself for the worst, running through possible escapes or negotiations with Lucian. Take the book. Let Henry go. I’l confess to Bradley’s murder. Kil me instead. I’l do anything you ask.

Officer Banks, the security guard from earlier who’d pushed Henry’s wheelchair, stepped into the room, folowed by another person I could not yet see.

Henry squeezed my hand. “She’s almost here…” The officer stepped aside and an impressive man dressed in an impeccable suit stopped before me, the smile wide on his handsome face. He looked very familiar, though I’d never seen him before. His features were so…so Henry.

“Bonjour, mademoisele,” he said, extending his hand. “I am Thibeault Delacroix, and we are in immediate need of leaving this beautiful city, non?”

“She’s here, Gemma. Alicia…she’s here…”

I trembled violently, my body overcome with torrents of emotion. I released my grasp of Henry and threw myself into the surprised arms of Henry’s grandfather, crying in spasms of joy, of pure, unadulterated relief. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the ghostly glow of Henry’s mother. She was smiling.

As relieved as I was to see Thibeault, I wasn’t naïve enough to think that his presence was the end of Lucian’s very immediate, very real threat.

“Thibeault, they’re here. Lucian’s here—his people—they told me we wouldn’t make it out. Please, we have to go!” I begged, puling on his arm.

“My dear girl, you are safe with me. Lucian cannot touch you now.” He placed his hand on my wet cheek and the surge of warmth almost buckled my knees. Like when Henry touched me, only times a hundred. And with the added element of a sudden vision: a plane, a vast blue ocean, fields of green, a house, a woman. A sheath of calm enfolded me.

“C’est bien, Miss Gemma,” he said. Thibeault nodded to the security guard as he broke his physical connection with my face.

The airport police officers mobilized and we were rushed out of the building into a private hangar where another set of guards stood at attention. Four burly men, outfitted for war, two of them strapped with intimidating weapons across their chests. The door to the plane opened and a young woman hurried down the stairway to greet us.

The two lesser-armed guards scooped Henry from the wheelchair and sailed up the metal steps toward the plane’s interior. His head flopped back and I could see he’d passed out.

I scrambled up the stairs, Thibeault close behind, the two heavily armed guards behind him as the plane’s engines roared to life. It was deafening, but not so much as to drown out the sinister warning that assailed my ears as I reached the top of the gangway.

“Have a safe flight, Gemmy-Gems. We’l be seeing you again before you know it.”

I dared not look past Thibeault for the location of the speaker.

The sudden heat of the bronze amulet against my chest coupled with the intense burning of my right palm told me everything I needed to know.

Lucian was folowing us to Rouen.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In case you’ve never done it, writing a book is damn hard.

Getting it published? Even harder. When NYC agents replied to my queries with requests for the manuscript, and then said thanks but no thanks, I wasn’t prepared to let that be the end. This story—

these people—have been too much a part of my life for too long.

Gemma and Henry and Junie and Ted and Marlene and Lucian (yes, even the bad, bad Lucian—isn’t he delicious?) are real to me.

They’re the people I have sacrificed hours with real friends and family to dote upon.

Writing a book is not a solitary endeavor. When Sleight was ready for other eyes, my fantastic crew of beta readers read and ripped. As such, wild thanks go to my biggest fans, Alanna R., Alysha V., Emily H., and of course, Yaunna S. My critique partners helped sculpt and restructure—thank you, Tracy Mueler, for those kiler line edits I looked so forward to every morning for a month; to Sue Ho, for facilitating when I needed it; and to Nicole Settle and Professor Alicia Hal in Alaska for being so honest with feedback.

With their advice and suggestions, I’ve sweated over the minutiae to a degree that would make any Virgo proud.

No acknowledgments page would be complete without recognizing my best-best-best friend-in-the-whole-wide-world, Lauren Albrice, who, between flashes of her own briliance with her mighty paintbrush, read the first (abysmal) draft and then sat through another round once the ink had dried on the fourth rewrite. I edited and rewrote while sharing cup after cup of instant coffee in her kitchen. She paints. I write. It’s what we do, even though the other housewives think we’re up to nothing but gossip and smut TV.

Husband (Gary Young), thanks for tolerating my mania and for yanking me back by the ankles when I was leaning too far over the edge. I wouldn’t believe in myself (or anything), if it weren’t for you.

You rock.

Mom (Kim Norman) and Dad (John Norman), thanks for supporting my research with al the great books (Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Kabbalah, Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, among others), the pep talks, and for being my mom and dad when I was acting like a spoiled, whiny brat. And thanks, Mom, for teling me that it’s okay and not at al pompous to write an acknowledgments page because I did work very hard on this project, and I didn’t go it alone.

Thanks to Janey-O, Christine, and Andrea, my writers group friends who inspire me to keep moving forward with their consistent, loving reminders that quitting is not an option. And Miss Rachel, you write the most amazing book reviews ever. Thanks for reading, reviewing, and believing.

If you don’t have mentors, get some: Lynn Henry of Random House Canada, Mary Schendlinger, and Steven Galoway. I learned so much in the brief time I spent under their grand, wise tutelage.

Finaly, thanks to my wee babies:

Blake, Godspeed. Come home from Afghanistan in one piece.

I’m so proud of you. We love you to the ends of the earth and back again.

Yaunna, thank you for reading my stuff and for making sure my slang sounded hip. You did me a solid there. You have always been my rock and wil inspire me until I die.

Brennan, thank you for teling me every day that I’m a beautiful mommy and that you think I’m a terrific writer, even though you haven’t read my book yet because you’re working your way through the Percy Jackson series. You are such a sweet, talented kid.

And baby Kendon, not a baby anymore, thank you for writing me such fantastic emails to tel me how proud you are, for supplying me with an endless stream of smooches and hugs, and for being the comic relief when it didn’t feel like there was anything left to giggle about.

The first draft of this book was written in my car at night, longhand, in a coffee shop parking lot, surrounded by cops and schizophrenics, over the course of six months. If it weren’t for the kind folks inside the building—Melissa, Saly, and Ralph—I wouldn’t have had my nightly peppermint tea, two milk, two sugars, to keep the juices flowing. And about those nights where you were out of peppermint: don’t let it happen again. Earl Grey and green tea are poor substitutes. Plus they make me gassy.

Indie publishing was not the way I saw this book happen, but if a handful of you love it as much as the handful of us here do, wel, then al these months won’t be for naught. If a bigger handful of you love it and share it with your own legion of humans, wel, we might have ourselves a little party.

And I stil have not given up on seeing Mark Strong do his dastardly best to breathe life into Lucian Dmitri.

Thanks, dear reader, for playing your part in The Dream.

Contact:

Web: www.jennifersommersby.com

Blog: http://planet-jenn.blogspot.com

Twitter: @JennSommersby

Facebook: Jennifer Sommersby (fan page)

Playlist:

Regina Spektor The Sword & the Pen

Samuel Barber Adagio for Strings

Death Cab for Cutie I Will Follow You into the Dark The Fray Look After You

Imogen Heap 2-1 and Aha!

Muse Undisclosed Desires

Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 14 in C Sharp

Paramore Miracle

Chopin Prelude No. 15 in D Flat

Metric Blindness, Help I’m Alive, and Gimme Sympathy Arcade Fire In the Backseat

Three Days Grace I Hate Everything About You The White Stripes We’re Going to Be Friends

Mumford & Sons I Gave You All

Paganini Op. 43, Variation 18

Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 3, played by David Helfgott Scores from Howard Shore, Alexandre Desplat, Hans Zimmer, James Horner, Carter Burwel, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Rachel Portman, Barrington Pheloung, Michael Nyman, David Julyan, John Debney, Jeff Beal, and Marc Streitenfeld.

So much music, so little time…

Table of Contents

Book One of the AVRA-K