The Last Guardian Rises (The Last Keeper's Daughter) (32 page)

“But you didn’t either, so it could have been there.”

The guard dipped his head slightly. “Correct,” he replied.

“Put up some surveillance cameras around the area. I doubt we’ll get anything, but…”

The guard pointed towards the tree line. “We already installed laser sensor devices. If anything passes through here, we’ll catch them.”

Hunter nodded and wearily walked back to his car. He couldn’t delay his next task any longer.

The doorman, as he would forever think of Mathers, had moved out of the archives and taken up residence deep in the woods beside a small stream. This would be Hunter’s first visit to Mathers’ abode. He’d heard it was a simple but comfortable structure that suited the man. Hunter drove by Stoke’s main guardhouse and steered the car to the right, down the lane which ran to his own home. He drove past wondering if Meirta was awake, and onto the gravel section of the road which took a steep decline down the mountain. He had to park by the side of the road, which wasn’t a problem since this was private property, and walked the rest of the way down a narrow footpath.

It was a cold night, his breath clearly visible when he exhaled. In their last conversation, Allerton had said it would be a hard winter ahead. At least that’s what the
Farmers’ Almanac
predicted, and his father – how strange to think of him that way – swore by it.

You need to be firm with him. Woodfolk are a tricky lot.
It was Merlin talking to him. Hunter was glad no one asked the specifics of how it worked, because he wasn’t sure either. But when he needed knowledge, advice, anything, all he had to do was reach down within and speak with Merlin.

“I know,” Hunter said.

You know he’s not alone,
was the quick reply.

“I do.” Hunter had been a detective in London. He’d dealt with interrogations before. The best way to handle Mathers was to catch him unawares and keep him mentally uneven.

Hunter stepped onto the small porch. “Mathers,” he yelled, pounding on the door twice before walking into Mathers’ home. Teach you to lock it next time, Hunter thought.

It was an open floor plan, everything contained in a single room, kitchen to the right, the bedroom – really just a bed – at the back. Along the left side was a low and tattered sofa centered in front of a very large flat screen. It seemed woodfolk appreciated a high definition television as much as the rest of humanity.

Mathers was on the bed, underneath a woman with long red hair, Retribution, whose naked back seemed to challenge him as he stepped inside.

“You got no right to come barging in here!” Mathers, angry and naked, pushed Retribution off him, struggled to free himself from the bed linens and came stomping up to Hunter.

Ignoring him, Hunter spoke to Retribution. “You should leave.” She gave him a cold fish stare and slipped a thin dress over her head.

“We aren’t done,” Mathers yelled, spittle spewing from his lips.

Retribution’s eyes never left Hunter’s as she walked up to Mathers and kissed his cheek. “Come see me later,” she cooed. “When you’re done with business.”

She was almost out the door when Hunter realized she meant to leave as she was dressed. “You need a coat,” he said.

She reached for the door handle. “I’ll be fine.”

“Let the strumpet go,” Mathers said.

“I’ll get to you,” he snapped at Mathers. “Here.” Hunter unzipped his warm coat and placed it over her shoulders. For just a moment he saw her face soften and instead of the constant scowl there was a brief glimpse of warmth. She didn’t say anything when she turned and left.

“Aren’t you a gentleman?” Mathers stepped into trousers and grabbed a sweater. “Interrupting a man in his own home, while he’s in a woman...” His words were jumbled as he donned the sweater. “… bad business that is.”

Hunter grabbed a kitchen chair and placed it next to the fire. Straddling the chair with his arms resting on the back, he began. “I would call bad business working with the Brotherhood.”

Mathers stopped grumbling long enough to pour himself a glass of whiskey. “No right to walk in here like that.”

“Why’d you do it?”

He drank half of the whiskey and immediately refilled the glass. “Bahh, you saw her. Wouldn’t you, given the chance?”

“You conspired with the Brotherhood of the Sanguis. I want to know why.”

“You’re insane, that’s what you are. Just like Merlin was. I’ll not have this charge tossed at my feet, no I will not.” Mathers spit on the hardwood floor. “We all hate wizards and witches. That is what you are now. Better they’d let Merlin die.”

“He did die,” Hunter said calmly.

Mathers snorted some alcohol through his nose, bent over and coughed. When he straightened he was red faced. “We all know he’s in there,” he said, pointing at Hunter. “Soon the darkness will take hold just like it always does.”

No one else had expressed what Mathers said, but he could see it in some of the Others’ eyes. Their doubt, mistrust, and suspicion about how he would use the power, or how the power would use him.

“When did the Brotherhood approach you?” Hunter asked.

“Insane is what you are.” Mathers sounded less angry.

“What I am is the king’s advisor.” Hunter paused to steady his thoughts. “Now who would you rather talk to about this, me or the king? He just got back from one of his hunting raids tonight. I’m sure he’d love to hear that the doorman has been less than honest with him.”

Having Merlin’s knowledge and his own detective skills made the task of confronting Mathers strategically less daunting, but it did not lessen the emotional toll this would take on him. He felt like his humanity was slowly slipping away. “I know you set Merlin up the night he came to you asking about the dryad. That was all part of a plan, wasn’t it? To push Merlin to use the dark magic, to push him past the edge, so to speak.”

Mathers’ deep set eyes narrowed into slits. “A trading of information is what we did.”

Hunter clapped his hands. “I applaud the plan, so clever and so conveniently plausible. Your love of the ladies is legendary. It wouldn’t be unthinkable that you’d fall in love with someone who might not feel so inclined towards you. If Merlin hadn’t come to you, how long would you have waited to speak with him regarding Glenda? Or was that just something you thought of in the moment?”

Mathers’ jaw was clenched tight like a dog refusing to give up a bone.

“It bugged me.” Hunter picked at his fingernail. “Or I should say it bugged Merlin that you gave her up so easily. All those tears for a lover you could not have, and then when Merlin erased the spell you didn’t blink an eye.”

“She’s was a lousy lay,” Mathers shot back.

“I doubt that. Who’s your contact at the Brotherhood?”

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

“Tell me what you know.”

“Or what?”

“If you don’t work with me, I’ll be forced to hand you over to the king. Now, we both know how much he loves Lily. How do you think he’d react to hearing that you are working with the Brotherhood to take her from him? That you in fact helped in her disappearance?”

“That’s a lie.” Hunter saw Mathers’ hands shake as he reached for the counter. “You have no proof.”

“I found the books you hid. The ones Lily sensed and that you stole from the archives. Nina had one in my, Merlin’s, tower. Tsk,tsk,tsk.” He wagged his forefinger at Mathers. “Very sloppy of you to let Nina take that ledger.” Before Hunter finished the sentence he saw the blood drain from Mathers’ face.

In his rolling gait, he walked to the small stepstool next to the bed and sat. “I did what I had to do for my family. I had nothing to do with Lily’s disappearance.”

Hunter reached out to Merlin.
Did you know he had family?

The reply came back.
His family is dead. He is the last of his kind.

“Good try, but your family is dead.”

Mathers’ attention drifted towards a table where an ornate ceramic pot was prominently centered. It was the only surface that wasn’t cluttered with the flotsam of Mathers’ life. How odd that he would put a barren twig in such a beautiful vessel.

“I was told to keep my mouth shut. To do whatever it took to make Merlin use his dark magic and to destroy the books you found.” Mathers used the stepstool he’d been sitting on to climb in the bed. “Couldn’t kill my babies. Your next question will be who? I tell you I don’t know. It was in London at a whore’s place I used to visit. She had the biggest—”

“Stick to the Brotherhood.”

“I was pumping her good and a voice spoke out to me. Behind a screen, he was. Told me what to do and what my reward would be.”

Hunter had to work at not getting annoyed. “You said this had to do with your family.”

Mathers looked over at the table again. “That’s my family. That’s my reward.”

“That twig?” Hunter asked.

Not a twig, but a cutting from the woods of his people,
Merlin said.

“He gave it to me. Said after I accomplished my task, he’d take me to the tree it came from.” Mathers swiped his hand over his mouth. “I’m woodfolk without my woods. It seemed a small price to pay.”

“Driving Merlin into the darkness was a small price?” Hunter stood. “Treason against the king.”

“Fuck you. Fuck Merlin. Him acting all high and mighty, while sleeping with that whore. Nina offered herself to me. Didn’t know that, did ye? That’s how she got one of my babies.”

Did you know?
Hunter asked Merlin.

No, I was a fool,
Merlin replied.

“The bleeding lot of you can go straight to hell. I did what I had to do to save my family. What would you do?”

He ignored the question. “Do you know who the man is? Would you recognize the voice?”

“No and no.” Mathers stretched out on the bed. “You can end me now, you can.”

Push him; there is something more he isn’t telling
, Merlin urged

“Why didn’t you come to us?”

“Us?” Mathers grunted. “Why would I? Nothing is what all of you know. The Elder knew. He left me. Left us all is what he did. He was afraid. Doomed, is what we are.”

“Why are we doomed?” Hunter felt his detective instincts tingling.

“Why? Why? Why?” Mathers rolled off his bed and grabbed the bottle of whiskey, drinking a healthy amount. “The gall to ask me why I didn’t come to you. You know nothing.”

“Then tell me and I’ll do all I can for you.” There was nothing Hunter could do for him but speed his death.

“As you will.” Mathers dropped the bottle, it rolled over the floor leaving behind a golden stream. “Tell, don’t tell, it doesn’t matter.”

Patience
, Merlin counseled.

“Lily is why we are all doomed.” Hunter turned the Elder’s ring waiting for Mathers to continue. “I’ve been watching over my babies for centuries. They hold no secrets from me. A caged canary is what we are.”

What the hell?

Merlin explained,
the canaries were used in the mines. They were the harbinger of poison gas.

“You’re saying she is going to die?” Hunter wanted to shake the information out of the doorman.

“No, not her. She’s here and now the darkness.” Mathers climbed into bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Sleep is what I need.”

Before Hunter could censor the words, Merlin’s voice spoke from his mouth. “There’ll be no rest for the Doorman.”

Krieger

“Where have you been?” Krieger whispered as he sat on the bed next to Lily. Careful not to wake her, he rolled an errant curl between his fingers, needing the tactile feel of her to prove to himself that she was real. His forefinger traced along her jawline and gently turned her face away from him so he could look at her neck. Nothing. The mark he’d placed there was no more, as was the blood bond they’d shared.

For days after she’d vanished, he could still feel her through the bond. He clung, like a drowning man, to the diaphanous connection, even though in his heart he knew she was too distant for even him to find. Then, inexplicably, the tenuous bond had snapped, and he’d been consumed in fire and rage and hate. His will knew no bounds, and he’d slaughtered whoever got in his way while looking for clues to her disappearance. Those he didn’t slaughter he terrorized, determined to bring her back, even if it meant from the dead.

Then tonight, when he’d lost all hope of seeing his beloved again, the call came, and here she was, his Lily and not his Lily.
I could slice my wrist and reestablish the bond.
She need never know it was gone. Unless she was the one who’d instigated the severing of their bond. How or why she would do that, he had no idea.

Lily murmured something he couldn’t understand. Leaning closer, her breath caressing his ear, he waited for her speak again.
How is it possible that this tiny being can calm me so?
He rested his head against her chest and closed his eyes.
Ba bum ba bum
, went her steady heartbeat which was the only music he needed.

“What do you want?” she asked in her sleep.

He lifted his head to see her eyes closed and her hands clutching the bedcovers.

“Lily, it’s me, it’s Krieger.” Helplessly he watched her fight an unknown opponent in her dreams. “Lily, you’re safe.” He gently subdued her hands as they thrashed about.

“No!” She sat upright, eyes wild, futilely trying to free her arms from his grasp.

“You’re safe, you’re safe.” He kept repeating until Lily finally
saw
him. She gulped in air, blinked, swallowed, looked around the room, and finally settled on him.

“Krieger.” She reached out and pressed her hand against his chest. “Are you real?” She looked into his eyes. “Is it really you?” She spoke between sobs, “I thought… it was just a nightmare, a terrible dream and now I’m awake and home.”

“Yes.” He wrapped his arms around her. “Safe.” Her small body shuddered against his as he gently brushed his hand across her back. “Shhh, everything is fine.” He wanted to know where she’d been. Who’d taken her? Why didn’t she have the mark? His questions were endless, but he held his tongue and continued to comfort her.