Authors: Lynn Viehl
“I really need to get back to work.” Drew silently cursed himself for ever speaking to the would-be author in the first place. “My thesis isn’t going to write itself.”
“You may find this of great value to your own writing,” Cantwell said. “I’ve just discovered the most marvelous blog about writing. You’ll never guess what the title is.”
“ ‘Words R Us’?”
“Paperback Writer,” the other man said, beaming. “Exactly like the Beatles’ song. I’ve always considered that my personal anthem, you know. I think it’s an omen, Mr. White.”
“It probably is,” Drew said. Now he’d have the damn song stuck in his head all night. “I’ll look it up when I have a chance.”
“Be sure to leave a comment on one of the giveaway posts when you do.” Cantwell held up a paperback book with the naked, wet torso of a man on the cover. “I did and I won a free copy of her latest novel. She even signed it for me.”
Drew smiled, nodded, and began backing away toward his door.
“And do come by whenever you take your next writing break,” the novelist called after him. “You can read the first draft of chapter thirty-seven. The Orcs have just surrounded my paladin and his band of elven warriors.”
“Sounds amazing.” He was almost there.
“They have a spell battle, and accidentally transform the Orcs into dragons—”
“Okay.” Drew unlocked his door and darted inside, leaning back against it with a sigh. “Next time, I swear, I’m posing as an illiterate migrant worker.”
He chuckled at his own joke as he went over to the computer and booted it up. There were several messages from Jessa and Matthias, no doubt with details on Rowan’s identity makeover and relocation. Another e- mail caught his eye; it was from Paracelsus. The e-mail itself contained a terse suggestion he play the lottery immediately.
He took out his mobile and muttered as he saw ten voice mail messages from Paracelsus waiting. He didn’t bother to listen to them but called his friend immediately.
“It’s Aphrodite,” Paracelsus said. “She’s decided to go home and give herself over to her demons.”
Drew knew a little about Rowan’s background. As a kid she’d run away from a wealthy, abusive father, and although she’d never gone into details, she’d always made it clear that she would rather kill herself than see him again. “Maybe she needs to do this.”
“Do you know what he did to her?”
“Not exactly.”
“He forced her to become the image of his dead wife,” Paracelsus said. “The same religious fanatic of a wife who thought Aphrodite was possessed by a demon, and who tried to kill her when she was nine years old.”
Drew closed his eyes briefly. “Why is she doing this?”
“Her father has made some very effective threats against Rowan’s lover and her friends, which he is fully capable of carrying out.” The other man sighed. “She never gave me her father’s name, so she could be anywhere. I had hoped she had told you something.”
“I know she grew up in New York, but we’ve never used real names, either.” Drew thought for a minute. “Jezebel might know.” He logged onto his system and tried to IM Jessa Bellamy, who fortunately was also online. “I’ve got her. Hold on.” Quickly he typed out the situation and asked if she knew who Rowan’s father could be.
J:
She never told me his name, but once she mentioned that she had lived in a mansion. A very old one, in Manhattan I think. She said there were only two of them left in the city.
There are more than two mansions in New York
, Drew typed back.
J:
There was something else about it. Now I remember. Freestanding. Her father’s home is one of only two freestanding privately owned mansions left in Manhattan.
Drew sent her his thanks and promised to keep her updated before he logged off from the session. Over the phone, he related what Jessa had told him.
“I know both of them,” Paracelsus said. “One is being converted into a hotel. That leaves the King mansion. Rowan’s adoptive father must be Gerald King.”
Drew frowned. “Didn’t Gerald King die a few years ago?”
“Evidently not. I am going over there, but if it is as fortified as Rowan claimed, I will need some technical support.”
Drew was already opening the highly illegal program he used to hack into other systems. “Consider me your personal assistant.”
“I know you can,” he gasped. “But you don’t have to do this to me. I promise, I won’t try to hurt you. Let me go.”
“I can’t. Maybe after I talk to her and explain things. I don’t know.” Taire pushed open the driver’s-side door with a flick of her thoughts and then pulled back some of the force she had wrapped around Sean.
Some of her father’s men came out into the garage with guns in their hands, but Taire made the bullets fall down to the floor and pushed the men aside like rag dolls. She had Sean walk in back of her as she went in, and after knocking out six more guards she led him to the elevator.
“This is my house,” she explained as the lift took them to the top floor. “I grew up here.”
“You’re Gerald King’s daughter?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have any parents. I just call him Father because he said to when we’re around other people. When we’re alone I call him Gerald, just like she did.” She watched the numbers light up: 2, 3, 4, 5. “I hope he’s home. Sometimes Father goes on business trips.”
“Taire, you don’t have to do this.”
She frowned at him. “I told you, this is my house. I live here. I don’t have anyplace else. Father is all I’ve got.”
“Then why were you living on the streets?” he asked as she made him walk out into the hall.
“I made a mistake, and Father got angry. He said I had to leave. Then I hurt one of his men and I ruined his car. I couldn’t come back until I fixed things.” She guided Sean toward her father’s suite. “All he ever wanted was to see Alana again.”
“Taire, is Rowan his daughter? Is Rowan Alana King?”
She stared at him in surprise. “No, of course she’s not. Rowan’s like me. She was just the first. When she went away, Father got me to take her place.”
Taire stopped outside the doors to her father’s suite. She had never entered his rooms without an escort, and for the first time since she’d left home, she felt uncertain.
She gnawed at her bottom lip. “Maybe I should knock.”
“Let me go in,” Sean suggested.
“That would be stupid. Father has lots of guns. He would just shoot you.” After politely knocking on the door, she opened it and crept inside, pulling Sean along after her.
The nurse who came out of Father’s bedroom saw Taire and dropped the tray she was carrying. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”
Taire was confused, too. “What are you doing in my father’s room?”
“Mr. King is very ill,” the nurse said. “I’m sorry, but he can’t have any visitors now. You’ll have to go.”
“Rowan?” Sean shouted.
“In here,” Rowan called from the bedroom.
“Stop yelling.” Taire opened the closet door on the other side of the room and pushed the nurse across the floor into it. She slammed the door shut and fixed the knob so the woman pounding on the inside couldn’t get out. “I can’t believe Father is sick.” She dragged Sean with her into the bedroom.
Rowan sat in a chair beside the bed. Father, who was in the bed, looked thin and ashen and didn’t move. Taire forgot about everything as she rushed to his side and took his frail hand in hers. He looked as if he’d aged fifty years since she’d run away.
“Father? What’s wrong with you?” When he didn’t answer, she stared at Rowan. “What did you do to him?”
“He was like this when I got here.” She glanced at Sean before she reached down and pulled out a needle port that had been taped to the inside of her arm.
Gerald King opened his eyes and looked at Taire. “Why are you here?”
“I found Alana for you, Father.” She looked over at Rowan. “You have to take his hand now and change for him. Do it.”
“I’m not Alana, kid, and neither are you. My mother’s been dead for a long time.” She stood up and turned to Sean. “We need to get out of here.”
Gerald grabbed Taire’s arm suddenly, and dragged her onto the bed. “You’re not leaving me to die,” he told Rowan. “Give me the transfusion.”
“My blood won’t save you, old man,” Rowan said. “Nothing will.”
“Father, please, don’t get mad,” Taire pleaded, at the same time trying to free herself from his bony grip.
“Shut up,” he told her. As she stopped fighting, he turned his head to Rowan. “My physicians think differently.” He reached under the covers, and took out a gun. Taire’s eyes widened as he pressed it to her temple. “Put that needle back in your arm and start the transfusion, or I will shoot her in the head.”
Taire went still. “You don’t want to hurt me. You love me. I’m your princess. You said when I got old enough you were going to marry me. Like the first Alana.”
King spat in her face. “You’re nothing like Alana. Why would I want you when I can have her?”
Taire felt something blaze up inside her, a cold fire that devoured everything she felt. She looked at Rowan, who could have everything but didn’t want it. She looked at Father, who had everything but didn’t want Taire.
The walls began to shake.
“It’s the kid,” he said as he steadied her. “She’s telekinetic.”
Gerald King started rising out of his bed, the tubes feeding into his body snapping and the sheets falling away. He looked down at the runaway girl, his face contorted.
“Stop this at once,” he said, trying to hold the gun in his hand steady. “You can’t do this to me, Alana. I won’t permit it. Do you hear me?”
“I’m not Alana. I’ll never be Alana.” The girl straightened, watching the gun as it flew out of his hand and embedded itself in the door. “I’m Taire.”
Several men armed with rifles burst through the door. Sean rammed into one who tried to knock down Rowan, and tossed him into the computer array. Sparks exploded from the ruined equipment as the man went down, but when Sean turned three of the men tackled him.
“Make her stop this,” Gerald hissed at Rowan. “Before she kills us all.”
“You’re her father,” she snapped as she dodged a swing from one of the men. “
You
stop her.”
The second swing connected, and Rowan went down beside Sean. She heard panels cracking overhead, showering down chunks of plaster and several glass globes, which burst like bombs all around her. She covered her head, and then felt the same push she’d felt the night of the accident, which this time shoved her out of the way as the bodies of King’s men went flying out through the doors.
“Rowan.” Sean crawled over to her, lunging at the last minute to cover her with his body as noise filled the air and the ceiling collapsed on top of them. Dust and smoke choked her as she struggled to push away a beam that had Sean’s still body pinned on top of hers.
“Sean? God damn it, Sean.” She shook him, but he didn’t move, and when she grabbed the back of his neck her hand came away wet with blood. “Oh, no. No.”
Rowan struggled to her knees, squinting to see through the cloudy air. She saw the outline of the girl’s form and called to her.
“Please, kid, that’s enough.” She curled over Sean as a wall buckled. “You’ve got to stop now. The whole place is coming apart.”
“No.” She turned toward the windows, which exploded outward. “He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t love you. There’s nothing left.”
Rowan saw Gerald King’s body hovering just beneath the hole in the ceiling. He was unconscious, possibly dead. Beyond him the sky was turning purple.
An ominous rumbling started beneath them, deeper and lower, as if the mansion’s foundation was beginning to shift and come apart.
“You don’t have to live here,” Rowan shouted over the noise. “You don’t need him. You’ve got me.”
The girl glanced at her. “You don’t even know my name.”
Rowan struggled to her feet, staggering toward her with her hand outstretched. “I know who you are. I was just like you. He did the same thing to me.”
The girl shook her head. “You ran away. I never wanted to leave.”
“Didn’t you?” Rowan got to her, and rested her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “He only loved Alana. We were just substitutes for her. He’s a sick man, honey. He shouldn’t have done those things to us.”
The girl looked up at her. “You don’t understand. You don’t know how it was. How hard I tried to make him happy.” Her voice broke. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know who you are,” Rowan insisted. “You’re my sister. My little sister.” Going with her instincts, she wrapped her arms around the girl and hugged her tightly.
The rumbling gradually died away, and the mansion stopped shaking. And then the only sound came from the girl as she clung to Rowan and wept.
“Shhh.” She stroked the tangled curls. “It’ll be okay, kiddo. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
A gun fired, and her little sister jerked. She looked up at Rowan and tried to smile before her eyes closed and she crumpled against her.
“You son of a bitch.” That came from Sean, who was struggling to his feet.
Rowan eased her down to the floor and looked into the dying eyes of Gerald King, who held the gun leveled at Sean’s head now. “No.”
She didn’t have to touch her father to shift; her body still remembered the sick, obsessive love he had felt for his wife, and drew on it to change back into the image of her one last time.
As Rowan had hoped, it completely distracted him. “Alana,” he whispered, his mouth wet.
“You’re a monster, Gerald,” she said calmly. “Just as I was. Now you’re going to die.”
The old man bared his teeth. “Not without you, Alana,” he rasped.
“Put down the gun.” Sean stepped in front of her, shielding her and the girl. “It’s over.”
“No.” Gerald tried to get up, and looked down at his useless body. He struck a fist against his motionless legs. “I’m not ready. I’m not . . .” He glared up at Sean. “You can’t have her. She’s mine.”
Sean bared his teeth. “She’s not a fucking possession.”
Rowan heard the change in his voice, and saw her lover’s back make a strange ripple. The smell of jacqueminot flooded the dusty air, and it seemed to be coming from him.
“Sean?” Her eyes widened as his body began to change, his shoulders lifting, his torso narrowing. The close-cropped blond hair on his skull erupted into a curtain of black that hung down to his shoulders. When he looked back at her, the chiseled angles of his tough face began to soften and flow, changing into more refined, elegant planes and hollows. The midnight black of his eyes gradually lightened until they were the light blue of heaven.
“Forgive me,
ma mûre
,” Sean said with Dansant’s mouth, in Dansant’s voice. And then he was Dansant, Sean’s clothes hanging like curtains from his leaner frame, and when he moved over to Gerald King the old man fired directly at him.
“No!” Rowan ran to him, but skidded to a stop as she saw a smashed bullet fall at his feet. She reached out and touched the hole in his shirt, and then tore it aside to look at his unmarked chest.
She touched the place where there should have been a ragged, bloody hole, and then looked up into his angel eyes. “What are you?”
“We have never been sure,” he said gently. “But I cannot be killed by bullets.” He looked down at King, who had fallen unconscious, and bent to take the gun from his hand. “Or madmen.”
A very tall, broad man struggled his way into the room. He had a full head of silver-blond hair and a full beard of the same. His eyes were narrow and flat black, with a distinct Asian slant to them, and his skin was neither Caucasian nor African-American but something in between. He used a cane to pick his way across the floor.
“Paracelsus,” Rowan breathed.
“I see I’ve arrived late. Hello, Rowan. It’s lovely to meet you at last.” He nodded politely to Dansant as he knelt beside the girl and checked her pulse. “This child is still alive. My car is waiting downstairs, and I know a surgeon in the city who can help us.”
“I will carry her,” Dansant said, bending down to carefully lift the girl into his arms.
Although debris littered the floors, and the elevator had locked down, they were able to make their way to the first floor by way of the emergency stairs. Paracelsus’s limo was parked just outside, and when the driver came around to help them in, Rowan did a double take.
“Do I know. . . .” She studied his face for a moment and then slowly smiled. “I’ll be damned. Jimmy Findley.”
Findley tipped his hat and grinned. “Happy to help bust you out of here again, miss.”