Anders cleared his throat. “Actually, miss, I don’t think they did. I found something on the body of that sorcerer fellow— something that tells me it wasn’t your daughter they were after.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a sheet of stiff paper. It was a photograph of a man.
“By the Blade of Vathris,” Beltan growled. “I swear I’ll kill them all!”
Another wave of dizziness swept over Travis, and not just from loss of blood. The man in the photo was him.
14.
It was far after midnight by the time they gathered in a mahogany-paneled parlor in the Seekers’ London Charterhouse.
Deirdre sank down into one of the parlor’s comfortably shabby chairs. For the first time since they heard the sound of glass breaking in Travis’s and Beltan’s flat her heart rate slowed to a normal cadence, and a feeling of safety encapsulated her, as familiar and reassuring as the embrace of the wing-backed chair.
It had taken over two hours to get through all of the Charterhouse’s security checkpoints. While it hadn’t been difficult to gain entry for Travis and Beltan—their files were on record with the Seekers—new dossiers had to be created for Vani and Nim. Fingers were printed, retinas scanned, and Deirdre’s authorization codes processed. She had thought the security guards would call Director Nakamura for confirmation, but to her surprise they hadn’t. It seemed Echelon 7 clearance was good for more than just access to Seeker databases.
“How long can we stay in this place?” Vani said, prowling around a Chippendale sofa where Nim lay curled up. The
T’gol
limped slightly, favoring her injured leg. The nurse—there was always one on duty at the Charterhouse—had cleaned and bandaged the wound.
“You can stay as long as you need to,” Deirdre said.
Vani gripped the laminated ID badge that hung from a lanyard around her neck. “And we can leave at any time?”
“Of course you can leave,” Anders said, hanging his torn suit coat on the back of a chair. “Not that I’d recommend it. In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not exactly safe out there.”
Vani spun around, advancing on him. “You Seekers are arrogant fools. I have watched you. You believe you know everything, yet there is so much you cannot understand. Is it truly so safe here?”
“Not if you keep talking like that, it isn’t,” Anders growled, cracking his knuckles.
Vani treated the Seeker to a scornful look. “If you think simply because you have large muscles that you have any chance against me, then you deceive yourself.”
“It sounds to me like you’re the cocky one,” Anders said. “Just because you’re some superspooky assassin type doesn’t mean you know every trick in the book. I worked security long before I became a Seeker, and I don’t need muscles to take out the likes of you. Go on, Deirdre. Tell her how I aced all those logic tests the Seekers gave me.”
Beltan interposed himself between the Seeker and the
T’gol
. He faced Anders. “I doubt I’d do very good on those tests, but my logic tells me you’d better back off if you want to keep your brain inside your skull.” He glared at Vani. “You, too. Do you think this is a good example for Nim?”
Vani’s scowl became a worried expression. “She is asleep.”
“Not anymore,” Travis said.
Nim was sitting up on the sofa, her gray eyes wide. “Are you going to hurt the bad man, Mother?”
Deirdre pushed herself from the chair, then knelt on the carpet next to the sofa. “Don’t be afraid, Nim. Anders isn’t a bad man.”
“Yes he is. That’s why Mother wants to hurt him.”
“No, he’s my partner, and he helped us get away from the monsters. Don’t you remember?”
Nim hesitated, then nodded.
“Anders and your mother are just a little tired, that’s all. We’re all tired.” Deirdre smiled, touching the girl’s chin. “You, too, I bet. Why don’t you go to sleep?”
Nim held her hands out before her. “No, I don’t want to sleep. I won’t see the gold men if my eyes are closed. They want to take me away from my mother because I’m a key. That’s what they tell me, only their mouths don’t move.”
“Hush, daughter,” Vani said, sitting on the arm of the sofa and stroking Nim’s dark hair. “There is no need to fear. You are safe here.”
“That’s right,” Deirdre said, doing her best to sound convincing. But they
were
safe there. Underneath all the rich wood paneling, every door in the Charterhouse was made of tempered steel fitted with electronic locks. This parlor was like a bank vault. Nothing could pass the doors. Or the windows. “Show her, Anders.”
The Seeker moved to one of the windows. “See that little beam of green light here? That’s a laser. Look what happens if something gets in the way of that beam.” Anders stuck a finger in the path of the laser beam—then snatched his hand back just in time to keep it from getting smashed as a row of gleaming metal bars whooshed into place, covering the window.
Nim clapped her hands. “Again!”
After several more demonstrations of the automatic safety features of the windows and doors, Nim was finally content to lie down on the sofa. She yawned and stuck a finger in her mouth, and her breathing grew slow as her eyes drooped shut.
Deirdre would have liked to curl up herself, but there was too much to try to understand. They moved to the other side of the parlor and spoke in low voices so as not to disturb Nim. A sleepy-eyed butler brought coffee, and Deirdre helped Anders pour cups for all of them.
“It’s not fair,” he grumbled in a low voice as they stood at a sideboard, backs to the others. “I get the train rolling along, smash all the baddies, and somehow I’m still the bad man.”
“Don’t worry about Nim. She just doesn’t know you like I do. Remember, I didn’t exactly trust you at first, either.”
However, in the time since, Deirdre had learned that she could rely on Anders in any situation. In fact, she trusted Anders more than she had ever trusted Hadrian Farr. With Farr, she had always felt there was some deeper agenda she didn’t know about, that if he ever thought he needed to, he would abandon her in an instant. Then he had, and now she knew why. Somehow he had found a doorway to Eldh, and he had taken it, leaving her behind. She supposed she couldn’t blame him for that.
Only she did. Farr had found what they had always sought together, and he had gone on without her. Something told her Anders wouldn’t do the same—that if he found a portal to another world, he would hold the door open like a gentleman and let her go first.
“You trust me now, don’t you, mate?” he said, pouring cream.
She laid a hand on his broad shoulder, drawing closer. Anders wasn’t handsome, but damn if he didn’t always smell good. . . .
Stop it right now, Deirdre.
Her hand pulled back. She wasn’t certain when she realized she could fall in love with Anders if she let herself. It wasn’t at all like what she had felt for Farr when she first met him. Back then, she had been as infatuated with the idea of the Seekers as with Farr’s film noir good looks. It was hard to say which of them had seduced her.
With Anders, it was different. There had been so much to get through: her mistrust, the fact that he had worked security, and the realization that underneath that heavy Cro-Magnon brow lurked a sharp mind. Even then she probably wouldn’t have realized the truth if it hadn’t been for Sasha.
“Quit glowing,” Sasha had said to her one day.
“What?” Deirdre had said, utterly confused.
“I said quit glowing. You’re like a night-light.”
Deirdre was scandalized. “I don’t glow.”
“You do when you look at Anders,” Sasha had said with a wicked grin. “Grant you, we’ve all gotten rather attached to the big lug, and not simply because he makes heavenly coffee. But it’s best to keep one’s professional relationships from becoming unprofessional. And by that I mean personal. I know you agree, darling.”
Just to confuse things, which Sasha had a great fondness for, she gave Deirdre a warm kiss on the lips before sauntering away on her lanky supermodel legs.
Ever since then, Deirdre had been careful, and as far as she knew Anders didn’t suspect anything. Which was good. Deirdre valued him too much as a partner and a friend to ever do anything to jeopardize their relationship.
“Come on,” she said, leading the way as he carried a tray of coffee cups to a table in the corner. While Nim slept, the adults gathered around the table, trying to make sense of everything that had happened.
“So it was me they came looking for,” Travis said, looking at Vani, “not you and Nim.” He touched the bandage on his arm and winced.
Vani circled her hands around her cup. “Yes, but it does not matter, for they have learned I brought Nim to Earth. There is nowhere I can take her now that will be safe from them.”
“But why do they want us?” Travis said, his gray eyes serious. For the first time Deirdre noticed that they were flecked with gold, just like Nim’s.
“You’re the one fated to raise Morindu,” Beltan said. “They must know that.”
“That is impossible,” Vani said, her visage darkening. “Besides the people in this room, and Grace Beckett and her closest companions on Eldh, only a few among the Mournish know this fact. I do not believe our closest friends have betrayed us to the Scirathi.”
“All the same,” Beltan said, using a cloth to wipe the edge of his sword, “they must know. And that means the Scirathi will come again.”
Deirdre cast a glance at the sofa where Nim lay. Something the girl had said echoed in her mind. “What did she mean?” She turned her gaze on Vani. “Nim said something about how the Scirathi wanted her because they think she’s a key. A key to what?”
Vani sighed, brushing her sleek hair from her brow. “I do not know what she means. A few times she has told me that the Scirathi have spoken to her. However, her story keeps changing. First she said they told her she was a precious jewel, then it was a little spider, and now it’s this—a key, she says. But I can only imagine she was dreaming. They have never gotten close enough to speak to her.”
“Haven’t they?” Travis said. “They were right outside her bedroom window tonight. Besides, you’ve forgotten how . . .” He cast a furtive glance at Beltan. “She’s not like other children, Vani. You know she’s not.”
Deirdre had heard the story: how the fairies had tricked Beltan and Vani, making each believe the other was Travis. While under the fairy spell, they had conceived Nim between them. Only it was more than that. Duratek had performed experiments on Beltan, infusing him with fairy blood. In a way, Nim was a fairy child. What that meant, Deirdre wasn’t sure, but the girl was certainly not a typical three-year-old.
Talk turned then to the matter of the stone arch—the gate— that had been discovered on the island of Crete. Vani was convinced it was a sign of Fate that the arch had been uncovered just when Travis needed to return to Eldh in order to fulfill his destiny.
“I don’t know if it’s Fate,” Travis said, gazing down at his hands. “But I’m willing to bet it’s not a coincidence that gate came to light on this world just when Morindu has been found on Eldh. There has to be a connection. Only what is it?”
Vani reached across the table, gripping his hands. “You are the connection, Travis Wilder. Don’t you see? The gate has come to light
because
Morindu has been found. It wants to take you there.”
He snatched his hands back. “What it if I don’t want to go?”
“You will go, because it is Fate.”
“I don’t have a fate,” Travis snapped, and Beltan cast him a worried look.
Vani seemed undisturbed. “Perhaps not. But my people do, and that fate is bound up with you. You will go to Morindu. We must go to this gate at once. Your blood will awaken it.”
“Blood,” Deirdre murmured, her mind humming. She glanced at the sofa and Nim’s sleeping form. “It’s what you and Nim have in common, Travis. That’s what connects you. Blood of power.”
Beltan cast a startled look at Nim. “A jewel, a spider, a key. Those things she said—all those words could be used to describe a scarab.”
“And the scarabs contain Orú’s blood.” Deirdre felt hot, a sheen of sweat breaking out on her skin. “That’s why the Scirathi want both of you. Either one of you could be used to open a gate.”
“Or perhaps open something else,” Vani said, her coppery face turning ashen. “Why did I not see it before?”
Anders refilled her empty coffee cup. “Sometimes it’s hard to see the truth when you’re too close to it.”
Deirdre had to agree with that. And there was one truth the others couldn’t see yet. “The gate on Crete won’t do you any good. You won’t be able to open it.”
Vani scowled at her. “Why is that?”
“Because the arch isn’t complete. The archaeologists won’t find the center keystone with it.”
“This is madness,” Vani said, clenching her hands into fists. “You only say this to keep Travis here. How can you know the keystone will not be found?”
“Because it’s in the vaults of the Philosophers.”
Deirdre couldn’t help feeling a little satisfied as they all stared at her. It was good to be the one with the astonishing revelation for a change.
“You remember the Philosopher who was helping me?”
Anders cocked his head. “He hasn’t contacted you again, has he, partner?”
Deirdre thought of the message on her computer screen, just before Travis had called. “Actually, I think maybe he has. But he first helped me to learn about the keystone over three years ago.”
It had been almost that long since she had gone over her notes on the case, but it didn’t matter; she remembered every detail of the mystery as if she had just uncovered it. Anders knew all of this already—she had vowed not to keep any secrets from him, and she had kept that promise—but to the others it would all be new.
She began by explaining how her shadowy helper—the one who she was convinced was a Philosopher—had first contacted her, just after she had stumbled upon a computer file with her new Echelon 7 clearance. A file that was deleted from the system the moment she found it.
Deirdre had never learned what was in that file, but soon after she made another breakthrough with the help of the unknown Philosopher. She explained how she had stumbled across a reference to the keystone in the archives of the Seekers while researching an old case, one concerning a Seeker named Thomas Atwater. In the early seventeenth century, Atwater was forbidden to return to a tavern where he had worked prior to joining the Seekers. The tavern had stood on the same spot where the Seekers would later discover the keystone, and which, three centuries after that, would house the nightclub Surrender Dorothy.
Talking about Glinda was still difficult, even after this long. Deirdre gripped the silver ring Glinda had given her as she described the nightclub and its half-fairy denizens. Duratek had been using them, hoping to learn from the experiments they performed on the folk of the nightclub, then had destroyed the tavern once they gained access to a true fairy.