Whispered Visions (Shifters & Seers Book 3) (11 page)

There must have been some signal Lizzie didn’t see because the door swung open, revealing a solidly built man with skin so dark it hardly seemed real. Upon seeing him, Spring went limp. It was as if all the anger fueling her packed up and headed off on vacation. Only her eyes, which were wide and wild, appeared to have any life as she let the newcomer lead her away.

“I’m sorry for that unpleasantness,” Alistair said, turning once again to Lizzie. “I should have known better than to put her on assignment here. She was one of my father’s most diligent disciples.”

Lizzie hoped what her mouth was doing looked like a smile rather than a grimace. “All’s well that ends well, I suppose.”

“Exactly.” Alistair’s eyes were practically glowing. “That is it exactly. What comes at the end is the important part. You and I understand it, but someone like Spring…” He shook his head with a sigh. “But someday they’ll see, won’t they?”

She wanted to scream, rage… anything other than stand there and act like nothing horrific had just happened. But stand there she did. There really was no other choice. She knew that what happened to Spring would look tame compared to what he would do to her - or Layne - if he thought she had betrayed him.

“They’ll all see,” Lizzie agreed, helplessness a heavy weight in her stomach.

“Today, it begins. The world is changing even though it doesn’t know it yet.” He said in full-on cult leader mode, complete with vague prophesying and inherent charm.

There was no doubt of Alistair’s role in all this. The question was, if he was the cult leader in this made-for-CNN story, what did that make her? What role would a bleached-blond anchor with a too-big smile assign her when all was said and done? Would she be a victim or an accomplice? Would she be willing to fight for what was right, or do whatever he asked to keep Layne safe?

Would she be a hero or a villain?

Alistair flashed one of his most endearing smiles and held out a gloved hand. “Are you ready to change the world, Lizzie Anders?
”

Victoria Station was busy but not overly crowded in the early afternoon. The smell of baked goods from various stands made Lizzie’s stomach growl as she and Alistair walked through the station to the stairs leading down to the the Tube.

She could make a run for it. There was no doubt in her mind if she made a break for it, screaming for help, there was no way Alistair could stop her. But she remained by his side as they darted around other travelers and fed their cards through the stalls leading down to the platforms.

David the Giant tried to talk Alistair out of taking public transportation, but he had insisted. Once they were out of the car carrying Pari off to wherever her assignment was, Alistair apologized for David’s lack of trust. “One day they will all come to know you like I do, but until then, I’m afraid we’re going to face a few obstacles.”

If those obstacles were his followers thinking she was going to stab him in the back at the first available opportunity, then she could handle it. Especially since the incident at the hotel had cemented her resolve to stab him in the back at the first available opportunity.

But that opportunity wasn’t here nor now. Sure, she could run off screaming and get away, but what would happen to Layne? Spring was right. They would torture him, leaving him near death until the full moon, and then once he was whole again, they would start all over.

Her stomach rolled at the memory of what they did to him on the night of the full moon. He thought she didn’t know, but of course she did. She Saw it the moment they carried him back into the apartment.

What if they didn’t wait until his salvation was only hours away? What if the next time they left him half-dead for days or even weeks? How much would he have to endure before she could find him?

It was too big of a risk, so instead of walking up to the uniformed officer on the other side of the platform and informing him she had been kidnapped, she stood stoically beside Alistair and waited for the train to come. One day, he would slip up and give them a way out. She just had to be patient and wait. Already, he trusted her more than most of his own people. It said more about his issues than it did her personally, but it was a start.

A whoosh of air tickled her cheeks, followed quickly by the sound of an approaching train. The cars whizzed by, and she briefly wondered if it was going to actually stop.

She’d never been on any type of subway system before. She’d grown up in Southern California, where burrowing into ground that had a habit of shaking and quaking every few years was a bad idea. Since then she’d been around the world as a member of the Alpha Pack, but that travel normally involved private planes and convoys of military-ready vehicles. She hadn’t used public transportation since she was thirteen and took the bus once a week to buy groceries.

The train was much cleaner than she was expecting. Maybe it was because of all the old movies set in New York that Mischa loved so much, but she’d been expecting graffiti and trash. Instead, overly-cheerful ads smiled down on cold, hard seats that looked remarkably clean considering the number of people who sat on them daily. Layne probably would have gagged and said something about the stink of too many bodies and food combos, but to her nose, even the smell was innocuous.

The train was crowded, but Alistair led her to a lone empty seat next to a stack of packages a woman had piled up beside her. The train jerked away from the station the instant her butt hit the seat, causing Alistair, who was clutching the handle above her head, to sway towards her. On instinct, she recoiled, a strangled noise emitting from her throat when his leg swayed too close to her knee. If Alistair noticed, he didn’t show it.

To be so crowded, the train car was almost silent. People stared at their phone screens or empty space, fastidiously avoiding one another’s eyes. A few people made quiet comments to their travel companions, but for the most part, no one said anything. The lack of voices made it all seem like a dream. For the first time in weeks, she was out in the real world, surrounded by people, yet there was no cacophony of voices. She could almost convince herself that they weren’t people at all, but some sort of hallucination brought on by extreme cabin fever.

They changed trains once before exiting at Charring Cross. The weather had been warm and sunny when they were at Victoria Station, but by the time they spilled out onto the street, clouds had begun to move in.

“We best get moving if we’re going to beat the rain,” Alistair said, leading her down the sidewalk. She was so disoriented, both from the drugs still coursing through her bloodstream and being thrust into an unfamiliar city, she didn’t realize what she was seeing at first. A concrete plaza stretched out before her. In the middle, two golden fountains were surrounded by merfolk. Stone lions lounged, watching the endless parade of double-decker busses and cars stream by. Lording over it all was a man in a tricorn.

“Trafalgar Square.”

“Indeed,” Alistair said. “I’m sorry. I’m being a horrible host.” He stopped, forcing a family of four to split up in order to move around him. “If you’ll look over there,” he said, pointing back towards the way they came from, “you can see Admiralty Arch. Beyond that is the mall, leading to Buckingham Palace. Parliament and Westminster Abbey are just down that road there.” He motioned to a busy road leading away from the square. Lizzie could see Big Ben stretching regally up towards the sky in the distance. “Directly in front of us,” he continued, “is the National Gallery, our destination.”

He had started walking again, and Lizzie had to practically jog to keep up.

“You do know I can’t grab onto a guard and figure out how to steal a Monet, right?” she asked, only half joking. She still wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to ask her to do. Fortunately, Alistair laughed as if she was the hottest thing to hit the stage at the Apollo.

“If I thought you could do that, we would be at the Tower of London shaking the hand of every person who was involved with securing the crown jewels,” he said, jogging towards their destination.

Lizzie had spent enough years living in giant, fancy houses as an Alpha Pack member so the entrance of the National Gallery shouldn’t have felt imposing, but it did. She wanted to look at everything, examine every column and contemplate each arch, but Alistair didn’t slow as they climbed the stairs and plowed through the lobby. His gait didn’t slow as they passed the spot where other visitors were tossing donations into a receptacle. Lizzie felt guilty walking into a place filled with priceless art and culture without giving something, but since she didn’t have so much as a pence on her, there wasn’t much she could do. She sent up a silent promise to the art gods that she would return one day and make it up to them.

Since it was the middle of the week, the museum wasn’t overly crowded. Only a handful of people stood in each gallery. Alistair pulled her through a set of rooms with blue walls where she briefly spied Monets and Picassos hanging on the wall. They finally came to a stop in a room where a gaggle of school kids in matching uniforms stood, listening to a curator tell a harrowing tale about the loss of an ear.

“Are those Van Goghs?” Lizzie asked, craning her neck to try to see over the children. Although, on second look, they appeared to be high school students, so maybe not so much children.

Lizzie had graduated - if you can really call it graduation when you’re getting homeschooled by people only four years older than you - a year ago. Layne had finished up his last year at the Catholic high school Charlie forced him to attend in May. So, in a different life, in a world where her Sight didn’t cut her off from the rest of the world, those students could have been her friends. Still, she couldn’t help but think of them as kids. The number of years she’d been on this earth wasn’t much more than theirs, but with the amount of living she’d done she felt like she could have been their grandma.

“Van G…? Oh, Van
Gogh
,” Alistair said, pronouncing the painter’s name with a hard “f” sound. “Yes, we have quite a few of his works here. Are you a fan?”

“A bit.”

In truth, Lizzie didn’t know much about art. Maggie had taught her just enough to complete her arts appreciation course requirement. But like any other eighteen-year-old girl, she’d seen
Starry Night
enough times to develop a few romantic ideas about Paris and the painter. Educated and sophisticated she was not, but at least she had sense enough not to wax poetic about something she knew nothing about.

Too bad the girl with a loud, New England accent on the other side of the room wasn’t in possession of the same level of self-knowledge.

Maybe it was because she was distracted by the loud Americans, or maybe it was simply because she’d been drugged mere hours before, but Lizzie wasn’t aware they were no longer alone until a deep voice sounded just inches from her ear.

“Langford.”

Lizzie turned on the ball of her foot, bringing her fists up to protect her face.

“Did I startle you?” the newcomer asked with an impish smile that wasn’t anywhere close to age-appropriate. The guy looked like he was probably in his thirties or so. He might have been able to pass for younger if it wasn’t for the occasional strand of gray decorating his beard, but as it was, it took everything Lizzie had not to curl up her nose in disgust. “Distracted by art?”

“Something like that,” she said, carefully tugging off her gloves at the pointed look Alistair threw her direction.

“Jane, allow me to introduce Rashid,” Alistair said. “Rashid is one of our investors. Rashid, this is Jane Smith.”

The gallery light reflected off Rashid’s dark eyes, making them look like they had real, honest-to-goodness sparkles as he reached for her bare hand. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

Objectively, Rashid was attractive. His dark, curly hair was offset by lightly tanned skin. The lashes surrounding his eyes were thick and long. And he was super-fit. Even though he was wearing a loose-fitting tunic, Lizzie would have bet her entire life’s savings on being able to bounce a quarter off his abs.

Of course, quarter-bouncing abs was pretty much a given on Shifters, and unless Lizzie had completely lost touch with reality, Rashid had a habit of turning into a wolf during the full moon.

“Do you enjoy paintings, Miss Smith?”

Miss Smith? Who the hell was Miss Smith?

Oh. Wait. That was supposed to be her.

“I do,” Lizzie said, prying her hand from his and slipping her gloves back on, “but I don’t really know much about them.”

“All you have to know about art is how it makes you feel. Tell me, what do you see when you look at this one?”

Was that a big S See or little s see?

And if it was the big S, what was she supposed to say?

What she needed was a script. She wasn’t made for this film noir lifestyle.

“I See sadness,” she said, deciding it answered both questions since the painting in question was much darker than the others surrounding it. If he understood, he gave no indication, but his eyes did keep straying to her gloves.

What were the chances he knew who she was? Realistically, pretty high. She was, after all, one of the highest ranking members of the ruling body over all the Shifters and Seers in the world. Alistair didn’t do a stellar job of protecting her identity with the fakest fake name in the history of fake names, and she had a distinctive look. Not a ton of girls running around with hair the color of carrots and more freckles than stars in the sky.

But the unfortunate truth of the matter was, no one was looking for her. The world thought Lizzie Anders was dead. Even if he did recognize her, he would talk himself out of believing it was really the dead Alpha Pack member. And even if he did believe it, he was a Shifter working with the SHP. The likelihood of him running to the Alphas and telling them her whereabouts was slim to none.

Later, when she was back at Brownlow Manor, she would nurse the disappointment squeezing her heart, but for now, her concentration was needed elsewhere.

“Only sadness?” Rashid asked. “Nothing else?”

“There is always something other than sadness, but sometimes it screams so loud it drowns out everything else.” Any emotion could. Sparks of complete joy or shocks of utter terror could wipe out all other sounds in a person’s brain, but never for long. Sadness, however, had a way of silencing every voice but its own for hours, days, or even weeks.

“Perhaps Renoir would be more to your liking than Manet,” Alistair cut in, placing a possessive hand on her shoulder. Her instincts told her to shake it off, not because of her Sight, but because everything inside her revolted at the idea of being touched by him. “Or Degas,” he continued. “You actually put me in mind of a Degas painting. I could see you as one of his ballerinas.”

“Oh no.” Rashid’s eyes roamed her body, pausing long enough on her too-wide hips to make her long for another shower. “Jane here is much too interesting for a Degas. Picasso would have been the only one to do her any justice.”

Picasso? Because he screwed up everyone’s face, putting eyes and noses in the wrong spots? Or because he tended to forget to include clothes on his models? Either way, Lizzie didn’t feel even slightly complimented.

Actually, she was starting to feel like a scrap of meat lying on the pavement between two ravenous dogs. She wasn’t completely opposed to the idea of them ripping out one another’s throats, but there was no way she was going to allow either of them to devour her as their reward.