The Few (The Abductions of Langley Garret Book 2) (2 page)

By some miracle, I carried the tray to the living room without depositing its contents all over the floor on the way and instead set it carefully on the coffee table. Chara was at the window looking out over Neuchâtel, so I sat down and waited. What for I had no idea, but sitting seemed a much better position for me at that moment. I looked at Chara framed in my window, looking out at the view and had the sense that her mind was probably as active as mine. Hers with the reason she was here, and mine with what it could possibly be, or more precisely, how dire or dangerous it would turn out to be. Her quiet warning of danger in the elevator was still ringing in my ears. I knew then that my wishing away of the ten stolen weeks that had been taken from my life, had been a waste of time.

Chara finally turned from the window, looked at me for a moment and then walked over slowly to the sofa and sat beside me. She didn't add cream or sugar to her coffee before she sipped it. I took my coffee, sat back, and waited for her to break what appeared to have become a mutually agreed reflective silence. Just for a moment I allowed myself to admire her beauty, which now sitting apprehensively next to me on my sofa took on a new perspective. Her eyes were just as green and bright and her hair just as beautifully long and blonde, but she appeared older to me today than when I had first met her, while I sat on a rock next to a remote runway on an even more remote island. The innocence of her face that I had probably remembered with wishful hindsight had disappeared and her face was now tainted with knowing and not really wanting to know, and of responsibility and a task at hand. She sipped her coffee again and then placed her cup carefully on the table before turning bodily on the sofa and facing me squarely. She stared at me, and I stared back, waiting for what she wanted to say.

'It wasn't our choice to be Soter and Chara, Lang. But no matter how hard we try not to be, we are. Others will never let us escape who we are and what we represent.'

I went to say something, but she raised her hand. 'Let me finish. Look, my name is Sandra, Sandra Brennan. I know, pretty boring huh? But anyway, you and I are involved in something that is not going to go away and forget all about us. I don't know how you managed to get back here, because I was sure that you would never be seen alive again. But whatever happened, I know you understand that it's not a game and that there are people who believe we pose a threat to them and……..'

'It's all over for me Chara. All over. Nothing has happened since I got back, and really, that's the way I'd like it to stay.'

'It's not over Lang, I assure you. Otherwise I wouldn't be here.'

'Look, I don't want anything to do with all this crap! Just walk out the door and leave me to get on with my life Chara, Sandra or whoever you are,' I said, as I got to my feet and walked to the window. 'Just leave and let me get back to my boring life,' I muttered, looking out from the window, down onto the slate roofs of Neuchâtel town below me. She didn't answer, yet I could feel her presence coming towards me as I fixed my gaze on nothing in particular. I felt her hand take mine, and then wrapped my hand around something she had placed in it. Looking at her briefly first, before lifting my hand slowly and opening it to find a wedding ring. One I recognised immediately. My eyes burned into Chara's face with anger, disbelief and helplessness.

'She loved you and protected you Lang. Helen was a loyal daughter of Cleito.'

My eyes continued asking the obvious questions as they moved between Helen's wedding ring and Chara's face, which now had firmness and determination written all over it.

'How did you get her ring?'

'I was given it and told to bring it to you. I don't know any more than that.'

'Or won't tell me.'

'About Helen's ring, I swear, I don't know any more. But I'll tell you what I do know. Leda betrayed us and has opened the gates of hell upon each and every one of us who are descended from Cleito.'

'Your boss on the island? I thought she was just a lawyer or something like that.'

'She was the Commander on Decem Filios and highly trusted and admired. That's what has made it all the more dangerous and damaging. She knew a lot, if you know what I mean.'

'So she changed sides, or was working both for some time?'

'I don't know a great deal, but the end result is that it's a dangerous time for the Sons of Cleito and especially for you. Whether you want to accept that reality or not,' she added, as if saying that it was not going to be a matter of choice for me. I closed my hand tightly around Helen's ring, almost wishing to crush it in anger and confusion. 'I know none of this makes any sense to you right now but you are in grave danger Lang, and it is my swornduty to protect you.' My eyes asked the questions my mouth couldn't form. 'You ar
e
Soter, the spirit known as Daimon and you are the embodiment of safety, preservation and deliverance from harm. You are for some, a son of Zeus, but for all, you are our saviour and the one who will deliver our destiny. This Helen knew. We knew her as Eupraxia.'

'What?' was all I could mutter.

'Aeschylus said, that when you invoke the gods, do not be ill advised. For Peitharkhia, Obedience, is the mother of Eupraxia, Success, wife of Soter, Salvation; as the saying goes. So she is, but the power of Zeus is supreme, and often in bad times it raises the helpless man out of harsh misery even when storm clouds are lowering over his eyes.'

'I thought you were dead,' I said, as my brain decided that it couldn't decipher a single word she had just said, so it went for something that would perhaps have a response that it could comprehend.

'As I thought you were,' she said, and moved her hand towards her head and pulled her hair back from her neck and bared a scar about two inches long, running diagonally across the back of her neck. 'It was some kind of stun pellet with a cocktail of chemicals. Who ever shot me with it was probably aiming for my back, and being nice enough not to want to kill me, but where it hit caused problems and had me in hospital for three operations.'

'So who were they?' I asked, as she let her hair drop back across her shoulders.

'I don't know. It was a week later when I woke up in a hospital bed in Zakinthos and was told that I had been shot and was lucky to be alive.'

'How did you get to … where was it, Zakinthos?'

'It's a town on an island just to the west of the Greek mainland. As far as I understand now though, after you were taken, all hell broke loose and there was a lot of confusion as Leda was sending out messages saying that the island had been attacked and she wanted to be evacuated to the mainland for her own safety. She insisted that she had been the target of the attack but had repelled her attackers. Apparently I was found by one of the catering staff during the confusion, who then told Leda I had been shot. Luckily, Leda must have at least arranged to get me to hospital quite quickly.'

'How did you find out about what happened?'

'I was flown out the same way you were flown in, and the man who accompanied me told me when I regained consciousness.'

'A man with a square jaw and a military attitude, who sniffs a lot?'

'His name is Marcus, and he stayed with me in Zakinthos. Once I came to, he told me what he knew about the attack.'

'I'm sorry Chara, I mean about what happened to you, but you really are doing my head in. I thought I'd put all this behind me and I'm not sure I want to go back over it all. As far as I know, the Swiss authorities think I'm safe; well, safe enough anyway.'

'But you don't know what's going on Lang. Really.'

'Look, it was all some kind of mistake and….,' I started to say, but my intercom rang and interrupted me mid sentence. I walked over and pressed the button. 'Yes?'

'I have something for Chara.' I looked at her.

'My suitcase.'

'So you plan on staying then?'

'It's up to you.'

I waited a moment and tried to put all the pieces of this new jigsaw together. It was not turning out to be the quiet and uneventful Tuesday I had hoped for. 'Who is it?'

'A friend.'

'I'm a bit sensitive about deliverymen at my door I'm afraid. Go down and sort it out. Sorry.'

Chara shrugged her shoulders; clearly a little pissed off, but she took my queue and headed for the door.

'Can I stay?'

'If it's only you. No one else.'

'Understood,' she said, as if we had just closed a clinical business deal. I shut the door behind her after she walked through on her way to the elevator, and half thought about locking the door and leaving Chara and my past behind me. I even three-quarters thought about it.

Denial

Flopping on the sofa, all I wanted was that Chara and whatever and whoever she had bought with her, would all just instantly disappear. I opened my hand and looked down at Helen's wedding ring and then picked it up and read the inscription inside it.
'Only forever Helen, 1992'
I closed my hand around it and wished it had turned out to have been true now. Marriage, no matter how bad, seemed to have offered a security I wished I still had. All I had now, were questions, insecurity and threats, and from who and where I didn't even know. Hardly a great way to start a Tuesday, or any other day for that matter. The two men who had greeted me earlier in the morning came back to my mind and I decided they weren't innocent, lost businessmen who needed directions from a stranger. I stood up and walked over to the kitchen. I don't know why, but I decided to put Helen's wedding ring on top of the refrigerator and worry about finding a more suitable place later. Kitchens are like that – a safe, temporary place for items of value.

I caught my reflection in the glass door of my microwave oven and wished immediately that I would stop doing such things. My reflection in anything lately had made me miserable and more so today, as I contrasted my aging face with that of the world around me. Forty-six wasn't old I know, but just recently it was old enough to wish for younger days. I knew so little and so yet so much, but by either formula, I didn't know enough to make one ounce of sense of my life. While there were clearly those who thought of me as a somebody, worth abducting and torturing, I had the pathetic sense of being a nobody, who by necessity should be ignored completely. A knock at my door, which I presumed was Chara's, broke my thoughts and my concentration on my pathetic reflection. I walked slowly to obey.

Checking my front door's spy hole, Chara was waiting, alone. I let her in without saying a word but there was clearly a heated conversation going on between our minds. She entered, accompanied by her black
'travel-on wheelie'
suitcase that squeaked as it obediently followed her. 'The spare room's at the end of the hall.' She nodded and headed off. I stayed in the kitchen and moved Helen's wedding ring a little further back on the top of the refrigerator. It didn't look at all right there, so I moved it to the vitrine and placed it in front of our, well, my pathetic collection of crystal wine glasses. It looked better there. I closed the glass door of the vitrine, satisfied with my placement, yet completely dissatisfied with my state of mind, and of what this Tuesday had brought. As I was lost in wishing it would go away and turn back into the blissfully quiet Monday I had enjoyed, Chara's arms flinging around my neck reminded me that wishes never come true.

'Don't look so sad Soter. I'm here to protect you,' she said, accompanied by a flirtful peck on my cheek. I didn't answer, only offering a lying half smile in return for her affection – or what ever it was. 'Should I settle on Lang or Soter?'

'A rose?'

'Yes. By any other name.'

'I'm sorry Chara, but I just don't understand. Well, to be honest, I should say, I just don't want to understand any of this. I don't want to get involved in insane mysteries, myths and legends that make no sense at all. My mother is dead, my wife is dead and we both probably should have been, so as far as I'm concerned, that's enough payment. I'm a nobody, living in a little town, and I fill my days by doing a little teaching, and my evenings by drinking a little wine and trying to do a little forgetting. I'd very much like for it to stay that way.

Chara didn't release her arms' grip around my neck, and in fact, snuggled her head closer. She hummed for a moment. 'I wish I could spend my days as you wish too. Perhaps one day it will be possible but unfortunately Lang, there are those who have other ideas. You don't know who you are, I know. There wasn't enough time on Decem Filios to tell you, but you have to know that you are very important to many and until you understand this you won't find peace, no matter how hard you try to hide or deny. You are Soter, and your destiny is totally non-negotiable. You will deliver us all to safety, preservation and be our deliverance from harm.'

'It's mythical nonsense. I'm not Soter! I'm just Langley fucking Garret. A nobody who wants to stay that way.'

'It was all in your mother's letter Lang. You have known it for nearly ever.'

'It's all bullshit! Utter bullshit!' I spat, and untangled myself from her arms, storming for the relative safety of the sofa in the living room. I sat and made huffing noises as one does when they're pissed off with the world. Chara looked across at me from her face, buried in her palms, and her elbows implanted on my breakfast bar. She just smiled, which pissed me off even more as I felt I was being patronised like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum.