The Dove (3 page)

Luke stared at the top of her head as she bowed her face to the ground.  Was she real?  He reached out hesitantly and touched the top of her head.  She felt real.  In fact, he could feel her moving as she sobbed silently.

“Wait!”  He jerked his hand back.  “What sort of trick is this, Nicole?  Why are you doing this?  Are you dead?”

She raised her tear-stained face toward him and frowned in confusion.  “I might be dead.  I don’t know.”

“You can’t be dead!”  He contradicted himself.

“I love you, Luke.  I have always loved you.”  She told him.  “You were all I ever had and I drove you away.  Can you forgive me?”

“My father… our father says that to forgive is divine.”  Luke said.  “Do you think I am divine, Nicole?”

“I have no idea.”  She shook her head.  “I only know that I have been lost and if you wish to kill me here and now, I am ready to die.”

“Wait!”  He said again and took her by the shoulders, pulling her to her feet.  “I can’t kill you.  I mean, I don’t want to kill you even if I could kill you, and I wouldn’t if I knew how, and I don’t so I won’t, and you don’t…”

“Shhh.”  She frowned at him, wiped at her eyes and put one finger against his lips.  “I want you to see something.”

Luke let go of her.  Now would come the catch.

“Nicole!”  He stepped back quickly.

“No, really!”  She smiled.  “I need to show you something.  I think I understand why I always felt the need to be close to you.”

“Nicole!”  He repeated her name, but with less enthusiasm.  There was something about her expression and the tone of her voice that made him stop.

“Lemarik came to see me, Brother.”  She told him.  “He showed me the truth.  Of how we were joined at birth.”

Luke pressed his hands over his ears.  He did not want to hear this.  He knew about it.  He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew.

“And how we were separated.”  She continued as she took hold of his arms, pulling his hands away from his head.  “It is the same with all the Watchers, Luke.  We have all been torn asunder.  We were never meant for this world or this life.  We were an accident, but we belong together.  Not as lovers, not as brother and sister, but as two halves of a whole.  Unity is the Word, Luke.  Unity!  That is what we are searching for.  We have been running about lost and the answer was right in front of us the entire time.”

“Nicole…”  Luke shook his head and the silver earrings jingled in his hair.

“My mother placed these in my father’s hair.”  She caught the braid in her hand and looked at the silver in the moonlight.  “Our mother has found the answer, Luke.  She is where she belongs with John Paul.  That is why I tried to take him for myself.  That is why I tried to take Uncle Luke.  Because something was missing.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’re scaring the hell out of me!”  He took hold of her hand.  “How did you get here?  Did you see our father?  Do you know where he is?  Did you see Lucio?”

“Look at me, brother!”  She grasped his face in her hands and he locked eyes with her.  A few moments later, the apprentice collapsed into the grass and the apparition of his sister evaporated in the ground fog.

Selwig, who had been watching this cautiously from his perch on the pony, approached Luke slowly, dropped from his saddle to the ground and pulled Luke into his lap after Nicole disappeared.

“Master Luke!”  The healer rummaged in his bag with one hand and pulled out a small bottle of oil.  “Master Luke!  Wake up!  Please wake up.”  He held the opened bottle under Luke’s nose.

Luke snorted and coughed and opened his eyes.

“Master!”  Selwig brushed his hair from his face.  “Are you all right?  Did she hurt you?”

“No!”  Luke pushed himself up and looked about the deserted meadow.  The horse and the pony stood a few yards away, champing on their bits.  “Where is she?”

“She’s gone, Master!”  Selwig told him.  “She simply faded away after you fell.”

Luke got up and brushed off his pants.

“What happened?  Who was it?”  Selwig stood beside him and stuffed the bottle back in his bag.

“My sister, Nicole!”  Luke smiled at him.  “She brought some very interesting news.”

“Does she know where Vanni is?”  Selwig asked him hopefully.

“No, but she knows where Sir Ramsay is!”  Luke whistled for the horse.  “We have to tell the Master!”

“But what happened?”  Selwig asked him as they mounted their rides again.

“I found out who Sophia is!”  Luke smiled down at him.

“Ohhhh.”  Selwig fell silent as they started back toward the house.

Chapter Two of Sixteen

And when he had opened the fourth seal And I looked, and behold a pale horse

Bari Caleb ‘Joel’ Kadif did not feel like an Emperor.  He felt like a murderer.  He’d never felt so low in all his life.  He sat on the tiled floor of the laboratory, staring at the door of the oven.  The automatic timer on the furnace had turned it off almost and hour before, and still, he sat, unable to drag himself up.  It was incredible to think that he had burned the body of the child… the dead child…thinking that it would help to bring his mind back from the depths of depression.  To get rid of the drag on his psyche and the emotional turmoil he faced every time he ventured into the lab.  He had hoped to free himself of this part of his life and move on in a new and better direction.  Now he felt as if he had committed the ultimate crime:
the murder of his own son
.  He could not shake the feeling of guilt that gripped his heart and yet he knew it was not true, it was imagination.  The child had been dead a long, long time.

He mourned the loss of his father, Omar, and his mother.  For the first time, he realized how much they had loved him and how it must have hurt them when he had rejected that love without even giving them a chance.  His empire had fallen into the hands of a man he had trusted completely and he had allowed the creature to bring one of his infernal companions to life in the guise of his own mother.  It was unthinkable!  Unbelievable!  Unforgivable!  Further, he had foolishly gone to her bed and compounded his crimes with great abominations!  If his father did suddenly appear to him there and then, he would not have resisted if Omar had ripped him to shreds.  If he had more courage, he would have cut his own heart out… if he could find it.

Bari dragged himself wearily from the floor, thinking of what he had to do next.  Colonel McGuffy had successfully replaced the palace guard assigned to watch over his grandfather with his own men.  The Colonel was just waiting for him to give the word.  Give the word!  The word! 
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was within God, and the Word was God.
  One of the few scriptures that he had learned from Joey came to his mind as he approached the oven.  He would have to make sure that nothing remained of the child.  Nothing that would betray what he had done here today.  He unfastened the bars on the heavy door and swung it outward.  The hinges grated and a strange smell filled the air.  The residual heat struck him in the face and took his breath away.  Very fine particles of ash drifted out of the interior and he fanned the air with one hand.  It was horrible.  These ashes had once been a living creature.  It was sacrilege to breathe them in.  He held his breath.

He waited for the ashes to float away and then took a deep breath before looking inside the furnace.  At first, he did not realize what he was looking at.  The oven was a state-of-the-art, self-cleaning device that was usually used to bake the various concoctions and alchemical experiments made by the people who lived, or had once lived in the palace, who dabbled in such things.  Omar had delved into the art from time to time, Jozsef Daniel had come here before he had been taken by the Ancient Evil, Lemarik had borrowed it once or twice and he, himself, had played about a bit in the lab when he’d first come here as Emperor.  For the most part, the servants had used it to dispose of the trash after the war had changed everything and shut down the city services for a while.  When set on high, there was practically nothing that could not be incinerated to oblivion by the intense heat.  A vent system attached to a chimney on the roof dispersed what little particulate matter that escaped the heat into the air in an almost invisible trail of thin, blue smoke.  The thing was so very efficient that it did not even have a clean-out chute or access for cleaning. 

Bari squinted into the wavy, hot air within the furnace and blinked slowly.  A small rounded object about the size of small cantaloupe lay on the stone floor of the oven.  It was glowing with an orange light.  It took several seconds for him to realize this object was exactly where he had carelessly thrown the baby into the oven.  He drew in a sharp breath and then stumbled across the lab to the wall where various metal tools and utensils hung on pegs and hooks. 

The Emperor grabbed a pair of long-handled tongs from the wall and rushed back to the oven.  He almost forgot how hot the interior walls would still be and tried to lean into the door to retrieve the object, scorching his tunic in the process.  The oven was beginning to cool and the orange glow was fading rapidly as the heat dispersed into the room, causing him to break out in a sweat.  He carefully dragged the object toward the door and then had to make three attempts at grasping the smooth surface in the tongs.

When he finally drew it from the oven, he fell back, almost dropped it and then managed to deposit it on one of the stainless steel tables.  The metal popped and cracked instantly from the heat.

Bari slung the hot tongs away from him as the heat began to be felt in his hands.  He closed the oven door and then hurried back to the table.  The glow had died to an amber spot the size of a marble in the center of the yellowish crystal.  He knew what it was.  He walked around the table, mesmerized by the sight of the deep eye sockets and tiny teeth now visible on the baby’s skull.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Luke Andrew had the Master’s attention now.  The big man stared at him from baleful blue eyes and Luke swallowed hard.  How could he tell this man what he knew?  He had rushed into the house, shouting for the Master and now he could not think what to say.  Barry of Sussex sat beside him, tapping his fingers on the table.  They were in the kitchen of his father’s house and Luke felt like a stranger in his own home, house in which he had lived the greater part of his life.  His life.  His Scotland.  All lost, it seemed.

“Uh, well, I really would rather not say, Sir.”  He said in answer to the Master’s last question.

“So this information just fell out of the blue?”  Barry raised both eyebrows at the apprentice.

“Not exactly.  I was told.”  Luke said shortly and pursed his lips.  He felt the slight twinge of anger rising inexplicably in his face.

“And you cannot tell us who told you.”  The Grand Master nodded his head briefly.

“I said I would rather not.”  Luke reiterated.  “The point is, my father or at least, my father’s body is in New Babylon, but my father, that is, Mark Ramsay, is not there.”

“So he is dead?”  Barry asked quietly.

“Don’t be absurd, Master Sussex!”  Luke’s anger snapped.  “I don’t know why I even came to tell you.  I should have known that you would treat me like an idiot.”

“I’m not treating you like an idiot, Luke.”  Barry sighed.  “You’re not being overly clear about this.”

“You see?”  Luke shook his head.  “I suppose it’s because you can’t understand something unless it happens to you.  There are other things in the Universe besides the Order, Sir.  And there are other creatures besides men in the world.  You should know!  I may look like a Scot and dress like a Scot, but I am no more a Scotsman than my father is.”

“I may understand more than you think, my son.”  d’Brouchart said quietly and then turned to Barry.  “Brother, if you would excuse us a moment….?”

Barry looked disgusted at being dismissed, but got up and left them alone in the kitchen.

“Now, Luke,” d’Brouchart smiled slightly.  “There are many things that you do not know about me.”

“Oh, really?  And I could say the same to you about myself.”  He said and then frowned.  “I am my father’s son.  You know what my father is!  You know what Lavon and Oriel and the others are.  If there was an Eighth Gate, that is where I would belong.”

“Really?  You think you are a Watcher?”  d’Brouchart raised both eyebrows.  “I know someone who might dispute your claim.”

“I’m certainly no Djinni!”  Luke said angrily.  “I’m telling you, my father is in the Abyss even as we speak, but his human body is in New Babylon.  He left it when General Schweikert… did something to him.  I’m not sure what the good general did to him, but whatever it was, it drove him to leave his human form.  They think they have him in New Persia, but he’s not there.”

“So his body is alive then?” 

“Yes.”

“And Sophia?”

“Sophia is with him… in both places.”

“Both places.”

“Yes.  Sophia is Andrea.”

“Sophia is Andrea.”

“Yes.  In human form, but she also left her human form behind and went with my father to the Abyss.”