The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker (11 page)

Rebecca nearly smiled. “You are so sensible.”

“It’s about time you thought so,” he chided playfully. But he meant it. “Sweet dreams,” he said, rising again. Rebecca sighed slightly as he slid her bedroom door closed behind him. On the other side, Michael sighed as well, aching keenly for all that remained unsaid.

The black door hissed open again. Beyond, a shape. He not often took form, but when he did he wore that beautiful face. Tick…tock. Flesh…and bone. The beautiful face, looking about for something lost. Those terrible, burning red coals in the sockets of a skull. A burst of righteous fury. Those burning eyes blinked out, and soon afterward the hiss of the door closing. Peaceful darkness returned. For now. He couldn’t know her. Not like this. It wasn’t
her
anymore. But would he seek her nonetheless?

Percy stirred, her eyelids fluttering as she began to wake. She released the dream, refusing to give nightmares importance. Instead, she focused on the fact that her beloved lay naked against her. She heard the lull of the waves and opened her eyes enough to glimpse bright morning light play upon the curtains.

At the sound of her husband’s breathing, she blushed and recounted each exotic moment of the night. How beautiful he looked while sleeping—and he stirred in turn, his eyes
slowly opening. He emitted a soft, purring groan. The press of his warm, bare body sent a pulse of longing through hers.

“Good morning, love,” he said.

“Good morning, indeed,” Percy breathed, sighing and shivering as he kissed his way down her neck and back. The previous night hadn’t merely whetted their appetite for each other, it had illuminated starvation.

As the next morning saw Michael arrive in the front hall of Athens Academy, he looked up into the transparent face of a young boy. The harmless haunt of the foyer chandelier, a particular favourite of Rebecca’s who had floated in the crystals for as long as Michael could remember, was gesturing worriedly up the stairs. It took a moment for Michael to realize the boy must have seen him carry Rebecca to her rooms.

He looked around to assure himself the foyer was entirely empty before he dared answer. “The headmistress is fine. Don’t worry. She’s simply tired.”

The boy’s brow furrowed in disbelief. He then pointed down the hall toward the headmistress’s office, bobbing a bit for emphasis.

Michael walked under an arch into the hall beyond, his footsteps echoing across the polished marble. A few students ducked into doors here and there, late to classes, as normal. But…something wasn’t quite right. And as he stood before the formidable door marked headmistress, he recognized what it was: a narrow, unmarked door, subtle, and of the same wooden paneling as the walls, had appeared beside Rebecca’s office, which Michael would swear was never there before.

Suddenly, a spirit burst through and nearly right through Michael, had she not floated back with an irritated bobbing, folding her arms over her chest. She was tall, and Michael recognized her from just before the wedding.

“Mrs. Tipton, isn’t it? Hello. What are you doing?”

The ghost gave Michael a knowing, unsettling look. She opened her mouth and began speaking. He tried to follow the movements of her mouth, but it was no use; only Percy could hear the dead. The spirit batted her hand and, as she did, a bit of familiar blue fire leaped to life in her palm. Then she vanished.

The middle of the new doorway sizzled, and a flash of blue fire emblazoned upon it the number seven.

“Can you feel them—your friends?” Percy asked softly, attempting to translate the expression on Alexi’s face. They lounged side by side, sipping tea by the sitting-room hearth of their honeymoon cottage. “You have not often been away.”

“True, duty requires us close. But there is no danger, if that concerns you. A few spectral rumblings, but nothing they can’t handle.”

“You would be able to sense if there was pressing danger?”

“Yes.”

She wondered about mentioning Beatrice’s hint of betrayal, wanting to know what her husband thought of it, but she was afraid it would sound like she was questioning his friends, the people he knew, loved, trusted and led—or worse, questioning him. Until she had reason to doubt, she simply could not. Instead she would stay alert, as advised.

“Can you sense other things? You cannot…read the mind, can you?” Percy asked, blushing, suddenly wondering if he’d known all the scandalous things she thought while sitting across from him at his office desk.

“Not exactly, no. Though I never had to read your mind, my sweet. Of your many talents, hiding your enraptured gaze was not one of them.”

“Well, then,” Percy chuckled. “It’s best that you married me. While my eyes may have betrayed my feelings, the rest
of me surely would soon have followed,” she said, tucking herself under his arm.

“Oh?” he said, trailing a finger down her body. “Do share such a bodily demonstration of your feelings.”

Their day had been spent lazing about, sipping tea and a bit of champagne, kissing, caressing, and then always tumbling entwined onto a soft surface. It was the divan presently being put to good use. They had not bothered to dress since they arrived, and they still wore only gowns, though Alexi had allowed Percy to replace her nearly transparent robe with a lined one. There were, after all, drafts. Not that this kept him from every now and then loosening her strings, at which Percy giggled but did not protest. Throughout her life she had been forced to hide her skin. With Alexi she—the whole of her—could exist without shame, in celebration.

He traced the line of her jaw, clearly still amazed by her. But Percy could see clouds covering his wonder and pulling darkly at his mood.

“What is it, love?” she asked.

“I cannot stop thinking about those red eyes. The ones you saw in the corridor.”

Percy gulped. They’d been in her dream, too. “Yes?”

“Were they the eyes of that hellhound?”

“I…don’t think they were.”

“Hades, then?”

Percy made a face. “Must we use these names? It’s absurd. How can I now treat them as anything more than myth?”

“What—the devil, then?” Alexi’s eyes blazed with jealous fury. She’d never seen that look before, and it stole her breath with its oppressive intensity. “I don’t care what that thing’s name is, but no one will ever lay a hand on you. Is that clear? I don’t care who or what might be seeking you out, but I have you now. You are mine.”

“Yes, yes, love. There’s no contest, Alexi. I want to be
nowhere but with you. If something were to beckon me elsewhere…why, I wouldn’t want to go. Tell me you don’t question me!”

Alexi sighed. “I don’t question your love. I just don’t trust the forces that wish to tear everything apart, the ancient vendetta that began this in the first place. The goddess warned of a war when she lay the Grand Work at our feet. If it’s true that we’ve only begun the fight…well, as Beatrice Tipton said, we are only pawns. But I don’t want a war. And I don’t want you to be anything other than mine.”

Percy furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

Alexi looked away.

Percy moved to catch his eye. “Truly, Alexi. Do you not trust me? Do you not trust who or what I am?”

He stared out at the sea, his jaw clenched. “I just…I don’t know what you are.”

Percy rose to her feet, agitated. “I was born flesh and blood. I am now your wife. Don’t tell me this has something to do with how I look—”

“Not in the slightest! It has to do with what comes out of you, where it comes from and who you may have been, the question of your status, whether goddess and immortal, or—”

“Alexi, I’m no goddess. I’m mortal.”

“How do we know for sure?”

“I nearly died in your arms, Alexi. Shall we
further
test the theory of my mortality?” She shook her head. “I still have trouble accepting my own skin, all my queer qualities. I fell in love with you because you were the first man to ever make me think I could belong, that I was accept—”

“Percy, please don’t upset yourself,” Alexi demanded, rising and placing hands upon her arms. He guided her back to the sofa, held her covetously. “That’s not what I wanted.”

She sighed, turning to him with tears in her eyes. “I am too fragile to be questioned by a man such as you, by someone
so important to me. Please just accept me for anything I am and might be. I’ve no machinations, no knowledge beyond your own.
Please.
The world does not accept me. I had hoped you…”

Alexi’s jaw worked as she trailed off. He wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I do accept you, Percy. No matter if you have to watch me age and die before you, or I have to hold the Whisper-world off forever so it can’t steal—”

“Is that what this is about?” Percy breathed. “Aging, and
possession
of me?”

“In part. Watching you sleep—a perfect angel at my side, I envisioned you twenty years from now, entirely unchanged, and me haggard—”

“We both shall age. And I am yours, forever, no matter what,” she said.

“Yes,” he murmured, accepting her words. “And I am yours.”

They watched the sea. The sky was darkening.

Alexi finally waved a hand, and all the candles in the sitting room burst into flame. He plucked a thin, freshly bound book from the console table and said, “I read something that made me think of you. A new poet, an Irishman named Yeats.” He launched into a recitation, and Percy was rendered helpless by it:

I bring you with reverent hands

The books of my numberless dreams,

White woman that passion has worn

As the tide wears the dove-grey sands,

And with heart more old than the horn

That is brimmed from the pale fire of time:

White woman with numberless dreams,

I bring you my passionate rhyme.

He dropped the book. Percy had melted into his lap like a puddle of moonlight, drunk upon the tones of his voice,
staring up at him in adoration. “My white woman, indeed,” he murmured. When there was such wonder, beauty and passion in the world, what on earth could there possibly be to fear?

The Groundskeeper scowled. “Be gone, I’m hard at work!”

To his irritation, one particular wraith kept hanging about his makeshift laboratory on the riverbank, a chiseled-faced man with an intense look, dressed in cloth and metal bands, and whose hand at times faintly glowed. The Groundskeeper batted at him with his broom before focusing again on the rows of glass jars labeled with body parts. “I’ll make you whole again, my sweetie-snaky-lassie. We’ll sort out what happened, and what great punishments will be dealt! Lucy-Ducy had a nice dress, Lucy-Ducy made a great mess…”

After a long moment he hit himself on the head and muttered, “Seal number twelve.” Turning back to the coffin, he gently patted the edge. “I’ll be back, my lovely, but the Undoing continues without you. Soon you’ll see your hard work come to fruition!”

As he ambled down a diagonal concourse of grey mist, mumbling and singing, a shape slipped out of the shadows behind him, following but keeping closed in a fist the blue fire that occasionally sparked from her palm and locket.

Rebecca Thompson’s first notion of daylight came in a pounding headache. She moaned and refused to open her eyes. Why on earth was she in such a state? She threw off her covers and steadied herself with a hand on the bedside table.
Something small and round had been left there, and she squinted, picking up two tablets. She wondered how they’d gotten there but was thankful, and she downed them with a similarly provided glass of water.

Her eyes widened as she stumbled into her washroom. The blouse she’d worn the night prior was soaking in a pail of water. It took some time before she vaguely remembered having put it there, and when she gazed into the mirror she groaned. She looked as though she had awoken from death.

“Oh, no,” she murmured, and her face fell into her hands. “Oh, Michael, I am so sorry.”

But soon came a soft rap at the door and a voice calling, “Hallo! Eggs, as promised! Shall you welcome your breakfast, Headmistress?”

Rebecca opened the door, and Michael Carroll entered in a rush of bluster, good cheer and anarchic hair. He carried a steaming tray. Rebecca stared at the floor and gestured him farther into the room, closing the door behind him. “Morning, Michael, please forgive—”

“I told you, no apologies—and I’m starving,” he said, breezing past to place the tray upon a small table near the window overlooking the Athens courtyard. A newspaper sliding under the door spared her any more pleasantries; Michael, always eager for news, bounded to fetch it. “Well, what do we have here this fine morning? What news of common mortal—? Oh. Oh dear.”

Rebecca looked over to find him agape. A gurgling laugh began at the back of his throat. “What? What is it?”

“Could this be what I think?”

He brought the paper to Rebecca. She rubbed her eyes and focused on the blaring headline:

WARD OF TERMINALLY ILL CHILDREN CURED BY UNKNOWN MIRACLE
!

A shining toddler was sketched mouthing a thank-you to a winged angel who looked awfully familiar. After reading
a bit, Rebecca looked up at Michael, who only shrugged. Glancing back down at the paper, her face showed a mixture of awe and anger.

“Alexi is gone for a mere day, and look what happens.”

“Shameful. Shameful! None of us can behave,” Michael said. Rebecca looked up, flushing with guilt, only to see that he was laughing, his cheeks rosier than usual. “Hee-hee! Can you just imagine the nurses entering their ward to find their invalids throwing pillows and bouncing on mattresses?”

Michael’s glee could not be contained, though Rebecca tried to fight its contagion. This would not please Alexi in the least; they were not supposed to make their work evident in any capacity, no matter how wonderful the consequences. She frowned. “How on earth did she do it?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll go and ask after we eat! Before we do, though, did you happen to notice there’s a new door by your door?”

“What?” Rebecca said.

“Beatrice Tipton is adding doors.”

Lucretia Marie O’Shannon Connor, known simply as Jane, sat near the window of her flat with her embroidery, humming an old highland tune as a cool breeze trickled in from the slightly opened casement in her study. She’d had a glorious night, and Aodhan had been there. She wished he were with her now. She knew she had become too dependent upon his spectral company, but the older she grew, the more she pined for him. Regardless, it had been one of the very best nights of her life. And she knew his name, thanks to Miss Percy. A small but significant treasure when you could not hear or touch the man you loved.

A loud pounding upon the door made her prick her thumb. The plump white cat at her feet gave an annoyed growl before stalking downstairs and toward the door.

Michael Carroll bounded up the staircase, nearly trampling the beast. “Oh—careful there, Marlowe. My dear Lady Jane, how on earth did you do it?”

Jane blinked innocent eyes at him, but guilt heightened her Irish accent. “What in the name of Saint Hugh do y’mean?”

“The children’s ward! Don’t even think to deny it, you delightfully devilish gal. Oh—ha! Saint Hugh, patron to sick children, eh? Clever! Bloody brilliant!”

Jane noticed that Rebecca stood behind Michael, lacking his excitement. In fact, the headmistress looked peeved, even a bit ill. Jane’s heart sank. She’d hoped no one would mind. They were sick children, for Mary and Joseph’s sake! Alexi was the only one who should reprimand her. But then again, Rebecca might, too. She was, after all, second-in-command.

“I want to know everything!” Michael persisted.

“Michael, m’dear, there’s nothing to tell. Rebecca, what is this raving all about?”

“Quite the sensation,” Rebecca responded, pulling the paper from behind her back. “While I deeply respect the act, and though Elijah can daze anyone who pries…really, Jane, if Alexi were to hear—”

“Please don’t tell him,” Jane interrupted, urging Rebecca and Michael to sit. “You mustn’t think I meant to create such a scene, but the light just spread. It was all around me and
in
me. It grew like sprouting flowers. Those sleeping bodies just radiated vines of that light that kept on growin’! One of the children stirred. She said the angels had come, just as she’d prayed. Oh, Rebecca, then the light spread to all of them. The whole room was thick with light, curing, wrapping, healing…” Her tears ran as freely, and Rebecca had to clear her throat and fight the onslaught.

Jane continued. “Once that glorious web started spinning, I couldn’t stop it. It would have broken my heart. You don’t know how much more I want to—”

When she choked, Rebecca leaned forward and placed a hand upon her knee. “Yes, love, I do. I cannot imagine having the depth of your gift and being so constrained. But you know why we must be judicious.”

“I know. I do know. And I am sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize,” Rebecca snapped. When Jane looked up, startled, she smiled. “I only wish I could have been there to see.”

Michael spoke up. “How did you get in?”

“A handy bit of lock-picking,” Jane replied, careful not to incriminate accessory forces. “I’ve gotten rather good at it,” she added hastily.

Her friends knew better than to pry, but Rebecca rolled her eyes. “I’m sure.”

“We’re taking you to tea! Our treat!” Michael declared, grabbing Jane by the arm and marching her downstairs. Rebecca followed.

Jane grinned, feeling better than she ever had, save for one nagging worry: before the miracle last night, Aodhan had somehow managed to trickle a bit of ash onto her hand and mouthed the word “Beware.” She tried to ascertain more, but Aodhan was gone.

Beatrice Tipton was preparing one of the doors between Athens Academy and the Whisper-world, following after the Groundskeeper to undo his work with cerulean fire, but a putrid smell washed over her, heralding a powerful presence. Bile rose in her throat and she turned, every hair rising on her transparent flesh.

Funny, how her body still felt like a solid mass. She wondered if all corporeal sensations would one day go numb, hollow; but she felt so like herself, still felt the flame of desire for Ibrahim, still ached to feel his firm hand upon her hip, his lips upon—But these were distracting and ill-timed thoughts.

She had the advantage of being cloaked in deep shadow.
The goddess had done well in hiding these portal thresholds deep in the murk, frightening and taxing as it must have been for a soul of such light to do so. From this location Beatrice could watch a huge and hulking shadow, a human form hidden deep within—Darkness himself—hold out something raw and bloody. His voice was coaxing, but like stone on stone.

“Come, come, we must put you back together. Just as the Groundskeeper reassembles the Gorgon, you must become whole again, my pet. I’ll not have you bested, splintered by silly mortals.”

“Oh, good God,” Beatrice murmured, watching the shadow of a hound whimper and slide into view.

Not that true light shone here. Just the ghost of sunlight, the spirit of a candle, the wraith of gas lamp. The Whisper-world was just that: a whisper of all that was real. But its power was formidable, as were its army and its beasts. She would have to quicken her pace. As much as she’d like to give the poor girl a rest, Persephone would yet be called out, whether she liked it or not. The “puppy” now knew whom he hunted, and when it became whole again, God help her. Beatrice wondered if there was a way to bury a part of that splintered creature, vanquished by the great light inherent to the goddess, to keep it from wholly reassembling.

The portion of Phoenix fire she controlled—an entity that had always had a life of its own—seemed to react to this thought. A tendril flared, a snaking trail of flame that dripped down from her locket, making a circle in the air and tightening it, sparkling as if in joy. Beatrice grinned. A leash? That might indeed do the trick. But for now her job remained the doors.

Alexi would have spent weeks with his beloved by the sea, but the tasks of The Guard could not go untended so long. One bit of marital business remained, however, at the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where Percy was raised.

“I was expecting a dank, dark ruin,” he said with slight disappointment, staring at the Georgian edifice as they arrived. The abbey’s classic brick and woodwork facade was not wholly uninviting.

“Something more eerily romantic, perhaps?” Percy smiled, peering out the carriage window. “I lived here mere months ago, trapped like a ghost, beloved by Reverend Mother but desperately lonely. How life has changed!” She embraced him.

Drawn by the sound of their carriage, a novice poked her head out from a plain wooden door. Percy alighted, and the novice nearly shrieked. “Miss Percy! I did not expect to see you again so soon!”

“I’ve a…break in term, Mary Caroline.” When the sister stared at her companion, clearly baffled, Percy hurried to explain. “And this is my husband, Professor Alexi Rychman.”

The novice gasped before remembering herself. “Well, then. My regards! Surprises, indeed! Does the reverend mother know?”

Percy opened her mouth to reply, but Alexi spoke first. “I sent a telegram informing her of our arrival—and, yes, of our happy news.”

“Good, then she’ll be expecting you. I’ll show you right in.”

The novice escorted them through the front foyer and down a long and unadorned hall to a modest office, bobbed once and quickly disappeared into another wing. Outside the reverend mother’s door, another sister, a willowy woman in a white dress, greeted the couple.

“Hello, Percy,” she murmured. “Congratulations.”

Percy nodded. “Thank you, Sister Mary Therese. This is my husband, Professor Alexi Rychman.”

Alexi nodded. “A pleasure.”

“The young Miss Percy never required my tutelage,” the sister said with a strained smile.

“Indeed.” Percy grinned. “I shan’t forget the look on her face the day I was reading a book aloud in the courtyard in a language none of us had yet learned. What was it?”

“Greek,” Sister Mary Therese answered immediately—and, Alexi noted, uncomfortably. She opened the door behind her, and the room beyond was lit by a great fire in a hearth, casting everything in yellow light against cool shadows. The reverend mother’s voice boomed out.

“My dear Percy! Come embrace me before you introduce this husband of yours.” She came around the desk, a wrinkled, round woman whose mousy brown and grey hair poked insubordinately from her white coif, opening her arms. Percy ran to embrace her.

“So quickly, Percy,” the woman murmured with an amazed laugh. “So quickly. This incredible news.”

“Yes, Reverend Mother,” Percy exclaimed joyfully. “I’m as shocked as you.”

Alexi approached and bowed in deference. “Reverend Mother, it is an honour to finally meet you. I owe you tremendous thanks, for I cannot imagine my life had you not sent Percy to Athens.”

Percy blushed furiously, but while the reverend mother’s smile was warm, the look in her eyes was far from trusting. “Indeed. Well, these convent walls could not contain such a woman as she, Professor, as I’m sure you understand.”

“Percy, will you walk with me for a bit?” Mary Therese spoke up.

“Yes, go,” the reverend mother said. “I wouldn’t mind a moment to consult Professor Rychman on a few…
fiscal
matters.”

Percy looked to Alexi for permission, and he nodded as if she needn’t ask. With a wave and a tiny smile she disappeared into the hall.

“Professor,” the reverend mother said as the door closed. “There are many reasons why I wish to speak with you alone.”

Alexi pursed his lips. “I imagine finance ranks among the least important.”

“Indeed.”

“Well, if it is any concern at all, I am descended of a wealthy family and have many vested interests and a comfortable estate. Percy shall not lack.”

“While I am pleased to hear that, money is not my focus.”

“What is?”

“Your intentions.”

Alexi raised an eyebrow. He had assumed he would be welcomed with relief, not questioned as a possible threat. “Why, my intention was to make Miss Parker my wife, which I have done.”