Witch World (37 page)

“Drop the riddles,” I said. “If you have something to ask, ask it.”

Frankie came so near he towered over me. “What do you feel behind you?” he asked.

“Death,” I said. “Suffering.”

“Death ends suffering. You can’t have both. You need life to have pain. But only at the end of life is there enough pain to create enough pleasure to make life worth living. That’s the paradox, and the purpose of this place.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

He nodded. “If you were to die here, slowly, horribly, you could give pleasure to many.”

Again, I cautioned myself to show no fear.

I poked him in the gut with my flashlight. “Your master wants me alive. I’m the mother of the superchild. Are you sure you want to kill me?”

He brushed away my light. “I don’t like the power your position gives you. You did nothing to earn it. And that child—I think she’s a menace.”

“Then maybe you should kill me. You can always lie to your boss. Just tell her I disappeared. But you know I’m stronger than I look. You saw what I did to Russ. It might be that I end up killing you.”

Frankie smiled without mirth. “I have had this thought, that you should simply vanish. Only I don’t fear you or anyone else. Russ was a pawn I could have taken down with one blow. You barely survived your duel with him. Does that tell you something, Jessie?”

“Not really. Except you’re beginning to bore me. Step aside now, or I’ll kill you where you stand.”

Frankie took a step back, but not aside. He still blocked my exit. “I promise you a slow death. And I promise it will please me.” He raised his torch over his head. “Prepare yourself.”

I reached for my screwdriver. It was tucked in my belt, at my back. At the same time I wedged my flashlight in my front
pocket so that I’d be able to see but wouldn’t have to hold it.

I sensed Frankie’s boast wasn’t idle. He could have killed Russ easily and that meant he probably had a significant advantage over me.

Yet he was lying when he said he didn’t fear anyone. Lara had gotten to him when he had plucked her from my hands. The wave she had created had made him grimace and choke, and he had to be thinking,
Why, she’s only a month old. What will she be like as a teenager?
I suspected he wasn’t the least bit intrigued with her potential. For sure he was willing to risk Susan’s wrath to dispose of Lara’s mother.

I needed to strike a single death blow. Failing that, I had to invoke my fire and hope it overwhelmed his. Yet I feared his hidden powers. For the heat of his torch was suddenly growing in leaps and bounds, its flames being fed by magic. I didn’t want to think how many witch genes he possessed.

I pulled back my screwdriver as an archer would his bow. The tool was my arrow. If I failed to sink it in his chest, I was probably screwed, no pun intended.

“Ready?” he asked.

I forced a smile. “Always.”

“Stop!” a voice called from the depths of the sewer.

The voice was commanding.

Frankie lowered his torch.

I did likewise with my screwdriver.

Out of the sewer walked a tall figure clothed in black
leather. In his right hand he held a sword. There was blood on it, red drops dripped off the steel onto the dark floor.

“Kendor,” I whispered, as my heart beat hard in my chest. God, it was good to see him. He just had to walk into the cavern and Frankie seemed to shrink two feet in height. Definitely, the flames bursting from his torch calmed down. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the damn thing went out. Frankie couldn’t help himself, he instinctively backed off. For his part, Kendor seemed amused to see the two of us together. He gestured to Frankie with his sword.

“Your master is anxious to make a deal with this young woman,” Kendor said. “How did you plan on explaining to her that Jessie was dead?”

Frankie sneered but his expression lacked conviction. “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he said.

Kendor stared at him. “No?”

Frankie shook his head. “This is our place. She has no right coming here. But I’m willing to overlook this transgression if she agrees to leave now and never return.”

“No,” Kendor said.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Frankie demanded.

Kendor raised his sword a foot. It was enough.

“You know,” Kendor said.

Frankie backpedaled another step. “This is sacred ground. We have a right to protect it.”

Kendor twisted his blade slightly so more of the accumulated
blood on the blade flowed free. “You could consult with those you put in place to guard this ground about your rights. But I’m afraid none of them would have much to say.”

Frankie acted offended. “You dare to play your barbaric games here? I’d strike you dead myself if Susan would allow it.”

“No,” Kendor said again.

“‘No, no’—you sound like a bloody parrot. What is it that you want?”

Kendor smiled. “Nothing.” In a move almost too swift for my witch eyes to follow, he sprang toward Frankie. High in the air, Kendor sliced Frankie’s head off at the neck. The massive skull fell like a bowling ball, landing with a thud.

It was horrible to watch—and fascinating—as Frankie’s long body slowly bent at the knees and waist, sitting down and leaning forward without a head. It took almost a minute before the blood stopped spurting from the main artery in the stump of his neck.

Kendor paid the body no heed. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his sword before returning the blade to its sheath, which hung behind his right side. He gestured for me to reenter the sewer, where he took a seat not far from the opening to the cavern. Sitting across from him, I rested the back of my head on the concrete wall.

“Thanks for saving my life,” I said.

Kendor shook his head. “It was I who allowed your daughter to be taken,” he said.

“You can’t blame yourself. This power that Susan has, this bafflement—the whole Council seems helpless against it. Even Cleo doesn’t know what it is.”

Kendor sighed and pulled up a knee to rest his arm on. “That’s true, she doesn’t understand it. Unfortunately, I do, to some extent.”

“But you said at the Council meeting you had never seen anything like it before.”

“I lied.” He paused. “I’ve known Susan since the day Caesar returned victorious to Rome and proclaimed himself emperor. I was with him that day, and that was the day I first spied Syn in the crowd.”

I trembled. “Are you saying that Syn and Susan are the same person?” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“She was your lover?”

“For two thousand years.”

I found it hard to speak. “Tell me your story.”

“WHEN WE LAST SPOKE ALONE, I TOLD YOU OF MY
commitment to Caesar. I won’t belabor this part of my tale except to say that his victory at Alesia gave him the momentum to return to Rome and crown himself emperor. Those were exciting times. Finally, I thought, mankind could be brought under a single umbrella of law and justice and grow in the manner I had always dreamed possible.

“But it was a fool’s dream. In my enthusiasm to have Caesar unify Europe, I overlooked what was under my nose and allowed Brutus and his gang of thugs to kill a man many called a god.”

“Was Syn involved with Caesar’s assassination?” I asked.

“No. Syn had barely awakened to her powers when Caesar was stabbed to death. But even as an infant witch she understood the mob mentality of everyday Rome better than I did. For she was a native of the city, while I was not. Many times
she warned me to increase Caesar’s personal security. I should have listened, but perhaps I was too confident in the love the people showered on him wherever he spoke.”

“You said you first spotted Syn in a crowd,” I said. “Did you recognize her as a potential witch?”

Kendor flashed a rare smile. “As opposed to a beautiful woman? I suppose the two went hand in hand. From the instant we met, I was hypnotized by her dark eyes. It had been ages since I had fallen in love, but sometimes, staring into those eyes, I felt as if I had met the greatest mystery of my life. Of course, she had a wild streak—most powerful women in those days did, especially when it came to Rome. I wasn’t with her long before I knew she had the ability to become connected.”

“How could you be certain?” I asked.

“I wasn’t certain until the day I put her through the death experience. But it was something I sensed to be true and I had lived long enough to trust my intuition.”

“Did you sense the evil in her?” I asked.

The question seemed to surprise Kendor. “Syn wasn’t evil, at least not then, although I saw something in her I had never seen before in any woman. I don’t have a word for it. Her beauty was obvious, of course, her energy undeniable. She was the daughter of a senator, rich and spoiled, and was used to traveling with a dozen slaves who would jump at her least command. But when she came to me, and I sent her slaves away, she didn’t mind.”

“Was she trying to impress you?”

Kendor smiled. “I think it was more simple than that. We were in love, we wanted to make each other happy. Syn quickly saw that I disliked crowds so she got rid of her help. She didn’t need it. We only needed each other.”

“How did she become connected?”

“By that time I had connected a hundred witches and had discovered that freezing a person to death was the least traumatic way. But Cleo is right—half those who lack the healing gene fail to survive. I couldn’t tell whether Syn had it by looking at her. I only knew that she would be a powerful witch if she did survive. The winter after we met, I took her to the Italian Alps and led her into an icy lake, one of the hardest things I ever did in my life. But fortune smiled on us that day, or I should say that night. Because it was during the night, beside a roaring fire, that she suddenly sucked in a breath and was alive again.”

“So when we go through the death experience we really die?”

“Yes. But most witches who connect in this fashion usually stop breathing for a short period of time. Ten or fifteen minutes at most. Syn stopped for ten hours. I assumed I had lost her. It was a painful night, then a joyous one.”

I was thoughtful. “I wasn’t breathing when I woke up in the morgue. Is it possible that I was dead for several hours?”

“It’s likely. You two have a lot in common.”

“I hope not,” I said.

He gave me a curious look before he continued. “Syn was reborn in the depths of winter. But it was that following March, on that infamous day known as the ides of March, that Caesar was killed. After the loss of our leader, Cleo and the Council asked me to leave Rome and return to England, where they were centered. But at the same time I refused to leave the city because Syn didn’t want to go. It was strange—even at such an early age she wanted nothing to do with the Council.”

“Did they know about her?” I asked.

“Of course. They knew I had a woman. But only Hatsu came to visit us.”

“Would he recognize her if he met her today?”

“I’m sure he would. But Syn went to great pains to avoid the other members of the Council. Even when other witches came to visit, she would make herself scarce.”

“What excuse did she give?”

“She didn’t want to be part of an organization where she would have to be beholden to anyone. I tried explaining that we didn’t operate that way but my words fell on deaf ears. I suspected that Syn was jealous of my loyalty to Cleo.”

“Did she feel threatened by her?” I asked.

“That’s a reasonable assumption but I’m not sure if it’s accurate. For Syn was the most fearless person I had ever met, even among witches. Naturally, because I couldn’t be with her every second, I taught her everything I knew about the sword,
and she turned out to be an extraordinary student. Not because of her genes, which were powerful, but because of her lack of inhibition. She didn’t care how many she killed, if attacked, and she didn’t worry how close she came to death in a battle. You assume I protected her for the first century of her life and that’s true, but later she was to save my life as often as I saved hers.”

“So she was a killer from the start,” I said.

“No.”

“But you just said—”

“Syn never hurt a soul unless provoked. It was fascinating for me to observe that after she became connected, and inherited an amazing array of powers, she became more gentle in her dealings with people. Besides never keeping another slave, she became more friendly and cheerful. In those days, I imagined the love we shared had brought about the change in her. It was so perfect it seemed to overflow from inside us and spread to others.”

“Perfect,” I said with a sigh. “That’s the word I always use when I think of Jimmy.”

“Then you understand.”

“Yes and no. I can’t listen to you talk about Syn without thinking of the Susan I’ve met.”

“That’s fair. I’m no different. It’s hard for me to think of those days because of
what
she is today.”

“How did she change? Why?” I asked.

Kendor unsheathed his sword and studied the blade. He was a long time answering. “I wish I knew,” he said.

“There had to be a reason.”

He shrugged, sliding a finger down the length of the blade, letting it draw a faint film of blood from his skin. “I can give you reasons. A basket full of them, which a modern psychologist could use to construct a profile of why Syn turned bad. But it would just be a list of events. It wouldn’t tell you how her heart changed.”

“Tell me anyway. Tell me her history.”

“Very well. In the fourth century, in 386, Syn and I had our first child, a boy named Robere. He was a wonderful child and he grew into a great man. And we were further blessed when we discovered that he was a witch who possessed that special gene that would allow him to heal others as well as himself. I changed him when he was thirty in much the same manner I had changed his mother. At the same time I taught him how to defend himself, but perhaps I spent too much time on his training. He became a great warrior and in 431, when Attila and his endless hordes of Huns attacked Rome, my son marched out to protect the city.