Wake of Darkness (33 page)

“Of course,” Catherina replied, her
voice unable to conceal the disappointment that her behavior hid.

She turned to leave and Dante
followed close behind her, his hand on the small of her back. Alexander watched
Josephine’s family silently for a moment before finally turning on a heel to
stride out of the house once Catherina had left. He glanced at Sophie to
follow.

“Please
do
feel free to
visit us again Sophie,” Pauline invited; a smile on her lips, “I would very
much like to get to know you better.”

Sophie nodded. She knew Pauline
liked her, if only because they both distrusted Catherina. Sophie was grateful,
for a brief moment, to have gained obviously powerful allies in such a short
visit.

She nodded once more before taking
her leave.

The Leone family left as silently
as they had come, but this time, the atmosphere in the car seemed heavier. The
approaching conflict would be fought with no help to their small family. The
gravity of the situation visibly weighed on Catherina as she leaned against
Dante for support in the backseat.  

*

“We’re crazy, you know,” Sophie
said, leaning against the railing that ran along the second floor's balcony.

The Deep South winter chill ran
over her arms, up her neck, but she wasn't cold. She watched the light from the
streetlamps dance through the leaves on the trees.

“Why do you say that?” Alexander
asked quietly.

“There’s seven of us and
how
many
of them? We should
just high-tail it out of here.”

He shook his head. “I could not
abandon Dante like that,” he said. “Regardless of how correct you are.”

“I know.”

“And you would not wish to leave
Laney susceptible to such a threat.”

“You’re right,” she agreed with a
grimace. “I just get the feeling we’re not all going to come back from this
fight.”

He sighed and was quiet for a time.
“I believe it is a fool’s errand,” he finally consented. “However, we must not
think in those terms. We must end this contest with Jacques. When we do, we will
live in peace for a while.”

“That’d be a nice change.”

“Indeed,” he said. "Please do
not worry. We’ll scout some of the locations I suspect they occupy, keep our
ear to the ground so to speak; we will be as prepared as possible for the
coming engagement,” he assured her.

They walked silently inside,
closing the door behind them. She reached up and pulled his face to hers and
kissed him hard on the lips. When he closed his eyes, she suddenly jumped them
into his room. He smiled when he felt the wind blow past them, but did not stop
kissing her lips.

“That was interesting,” he mumbled
against her lips.

“Turn-about is fair play; besides,
they keep telling us to get a room…” she replied before his lips crushed hers
again.

His hands moved down her back to her
hips as she struggled to catch her breath. She trembled under his touch. His
lips traced her collarbone, sending chills up her spine. And with the chills
came the sudden realization that he could be gone tomorrow. She gently pushed
him away and stumbled back a step or two. She had to catch her breath. She sank
down onto the edge of his bed. She exhaled and rubbed her cheeks with her hands
as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and her heart raced in
anxiety.

He walked towards her and pulled
her to a standing position again. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms
around his waist. She rested her head against his chest and felt his heart race
beneath it.

He shook his head and buried his
nose in her hair. “I don’t want to lose you,” he said.

Her expression softened when she
looked at him. “I’m not going anywhere,” she promised. She closed her eyes a
little too long as she gazed at him.

“I should let you get some sleep,”
he said against her neck.

A shiver ran up her spine and she
smiled. “Okay,” she whispered.

She stepped back from him and
smiled. “Goodnight,” she whispered.

“Goodnight, my love,” he replied
quietly as she closed her eyes and was suddenly back in her own room.

She sleepily prepared for bed,
suddenly and uncharacteristically overwhelmed with fatigue. She smiled and
wondered how he’d known she was so tired; she hadn’t even realized it herself. The
stress of their situation seemed to be working a number on her. She turned off
the light and laid back on her pillow, closing her eyes to the night. But before
she fell quickly asleep, she heard her name.

Sophie,
he simply thought,
and without question or hesitation, she was suddenly in his room.

She stepped carefully to his
bedside as the light from the streetlamp filtered in through the window and
danced off of her bare arms.

He didn’t say a word, but tugged her
down onto the bed beside him, and pulled her body against his. He cradled her
there as he buried his nose in her hair, bringing her chills of desire and
soothing comfort at the same time. She felt herself relax in his embrace and
soon his breathing was steady and deep with sleep. Her body melted against his
as she followed him into the night.

Chapter 27

Alexander scowled at Catherina in a
veritable standoff in the living room. They glared at one another.

“Are you going to inform me of your
plans?” He finally demanded of Catherina, who had ignored his entrance into the
room for as long as he would allow.

“My
plans
?” She asked, in
her clear, acrid voice; the voice that sounded too much like theirs. She didn’t
look at him, but chose to watch the wind blow through the trees out the window.

“Yes. Your plans,” he replied,
reigning in his impatience which was threatening to grow into fury. He
pronounced his words slowly, articulating his frustration. “I am attempting to
prepare for our engagement with them. I cannot properly do so without
understanding what
exactly
it is you intend to do when you confront
Jacques.”

She looked away from the window and
leveled her cold eyes at him. “I intend to kill him,” she icily replied.

“And how do you propose that we do
such a thing?” he asked.

“I have my own plans,” she answered,
before turning back to the window.

That is what I was afraid of,
he
thought, but of course she did not respond.

He had blocked Catherina from his
thoughts long ago. He understood that she did not like it, but he couldn’t
bring himself to care. She had taken to staring at him that made him believe
she was under the impression that if she concentrated hard enough, some little
thought of his might slip through. She had been sorely disappointed time and
again.

I know you’re going to say no,
thought
Sophie preemptively as she came down the stairs towards him. “But I have to do
this.”

She stopped and stood beside him,
her hands defiantly on her hips, watching him carefully.

Catherina’s head shot up when she
heard Sophie speak. Laney came peeking around the corner. Dante suddenly
appeared in the living room, standing like a sentinel over Catherina, all of
them sensing the change of emotion in the room.

“You
do
know what it means?”
Alexander asked.

Sophie had been having dreams
again; the same type of dreams which had brought her looking for her new family
several weeks ago. Alexander knew this of course, but was still not prepared
for her sudden decision to pursue them.

“Of course,” she replied.

“What is going on?” asked Dante.

Sophie sighed. “I have to go find
my mother,” she explained.

Catherina looked at her with one
raised eyebrow, and Dante became instantly concerned.

“Sophie, it is extremely dangerous,”
he warned.

Alexander shook his head. He knew
better than any of them that any attempt to convince Sophie away from her goal
was useless, no matter how much they wanted to—or how hard they tried.

Jim lumbered down the stairs and
leaned against the banister next to her. “We’ll go with you,” he volunteered
with a nod.

“Thanks, Jim,” she replied, “but I
have to do this by myself.”

“Not the best idea, kiddo,” Jim warned.

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted and
looked to Laney. “What do you think?”

Laney shrugged her shoulders. “I
don’t think anything will happen, but Sophie, you know as well as I do that I’m
not even close to being accurate. I thought we were going to meet with one
person and then Celia
and
Chaz and Masumi showed up. Plus, you’re ten
times better at seeing the future than I am. Please don’t ask me. I don’t know
what’ll happen if you try to find your mother. Why do you want to find her so
badly, anyway?”

Sophie shook her head and glanced
at Alexander before answering her sister. “I can’t explain it, but it’s the
same feeling I had before I came into the family. There’s this sort of draw to
her. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but nothing about
any
of this
seems logical.”

“I know, Sophie, but it’s just scary,”
whined Laney.

“Fine,” replied Sophie, holding her
hands out to the younger girl, “come here. Let’s see what we can see.”

Laney shrugged and reluctantly
walked over to her sister, taking her hands. Catherina looked up quickly and
stood to join them.

“Allow me,” began Catherina with a
fair amount of self-confidence.

“No, we’ve got it,” Sophie replied
briskly, refusing her help.

Catherina stopped in her tracks and acted like she didn’t
know what to do. She looked at the remainder of her family sheepishly, and
hesitatingly retook her seat.

Sophie turned her back on Catherina
and closed her eyes. The images came to Alexander as Sophie received them, but
the swirl meant little to him.

The images came at him in confusing
flashes through Sophie’s mind, but it was not up to him to decipher what they
meant; that was not his gift, but theirs. Yet suddenly, just as they had begun
to increase in certainty, the images went black.

Sophie’s eyes flashed open. “They
know.” Her voice was grim. She stared straight ahead at Laney without seeing
her.

“What do you mean, ‘they know’?” Alexander
asked.

“They know everything,” said Laney
just as gravely, returning Sophie’s stare.

The two women, still linked, stood
perfectly and eerily still.

“Who?” Jim demanded.

Zoey slinked into the room and
watched Sophie warily.

Laney and Sophie continued to look
at each other and dropped their hands, their eyes still locked on each other as
a sense of dread overcame the room.

“I won’t be going to find her,”
said Sophie softly. Laney shook her head.

“What is going on?” Alexander demanded
louder.

“Her mother is part of Jacques’s
coven,” explained Laney.

Sophie continued, “They know who
each of us are, where to find us, what our weaknesses and strengths are. They
know everything: down to the cars we drive and our favorite colors.”

“Okay, so your mom’s here and
that’s a surprise, but we knew everything else. What’s the big deal?” asked Jim.

Sophie slowly turned to face Jim,
blinking as her eyes left Laney’s.

“They’re coming after us,” she
replied in a flat voice. “I think they want to take some prisoners.”

“When?” Alexander demanded.

“Soon. Today…tomorrow…I don’t
know,” answered Sophie, shaking her head.

“Damn,” Alexander whispered to himself.

I know,
she thought, nodding
her head and shooting him a meaningful look.
What do we do now?

My thoughts exactly,
Jim thought.

We can’t wait around here for
them to come get us,
thought Laney.

No, indeed, we cannot,
Alexander
agreed, pursing his lips and looking to the others as he plotted.

“Since I cannot hear what half of
you are thinking,” Catherina suddenly interrupted bitterly, “would you
mind
speaking aloud?” She glared accusatorily at Sophie.

“We’ve gotta go find them,” Jim replied.

“The best defense
is
an offense,”
added Alexander.

“I’ve heard that before,” Zoey
murmured.

Sophie sunk down and sat on the
bottom stair with a thud. She looked down at her hands, slowly rubbing them
together deep in thought. The thoughts flew through her head faster than even
Alexander could keep up with. Jim watched him as he heard what Sophie was
thinking. He studied Alexander’s face and tried to figure out whose thoughts
were whose: Sophie’s or Alexander’s.