The Prophecy (Daughters of the People Series Book 1) (9 page)

“Oh,” Linda
said. “I heard you might be going there.”

James stifled a
grin. God bless the college rumor mill.

Amelia set her
fork on her plate. “What’ll you be doing?”

“I’ll be
translating some documents found in that dig, maybe help conserve them, and
while I’m there, I can work on some personal projects.”

Linda leaned
forward, her eyes bright, and peppered him with questions. Amelia tilted her
head. A small frown pulled her lips into a downward curve. The more questions
he answered, the deeper her frown got.

When Linda wound
down, Amelia said, “How long will you be gone?”

James sighed and
leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know, honey. Anywhere from a few weeks to
several months or maybe longer.”

“Will you come
back home at all?”

“Sure.” He
gripped her smaller hand, squeezing lightly. “If I go, I’ll come back as often
as I can, and you can visit, if your mom says it’s ok. I’ve heard the IECS
campus has all kinds of biking and hiking trails we can explore.”

Amelia nodded,
her brow furrowed. “I’ll miss you is all.”

“I haven’t made
a decision yet. It may be that I can’t go.”

Linda rose and
stacked their plates into a pile. “This is a good opportunity for you, James.
You should take advantage of it while you can.”

He glanced
toward Amelia. “There are still some things I have to take into
consideration.” 

Linda set the
plates down in the sink, then turned and rested her back against the counter
with her arms crossed over her chest. “Amelia, darling, why don’t you go get
your fall school schedule so your father can look it over?”

Amelia rolled
her eyes. “Geez, Mom. That wasn’t obvious at all. If you want to talk to Dad in
private, why don’t you just say so?”

“Ok, then,”
Linda said evenly. “I want to talk to your father in private, but I’m sure
he’ll want to see your schedule, too.”

“Yes, ma’am.”
Amelia rose and left the room, her stride just short of flouncing.

“When did she
grow up on us?”

Linda sighed and
faced the dirty dishes piled in the sink. “When we weren’t looking, I promise.”

James rose and
joined her. He rummaged for a dish towel and slung it over his shoulder. “What
did you want to talk about?”

Linda waited
until the sink was full of sudsy water to reply. “I know you’re worried about
leaving Amelia here with me. I’m not the irresponsible parent you make me out
to be, James.”

“I never said
you were irresponsible.”

“Right.” She
laughed, the sound rough and bitter. “I forget to pick her up from school one
time and suddenly I’m a monster.”

James gripped
the edge of the sink, tamping down the slow burn of anger rising in him. “It’s
more than forgetting to pick her up from school, Linda, and you know it. You
get so wrapped up in work you forget she’s there.”

“I do not.”

“Yes, you do,”
he insisted. “You used to do the same thing to me. You’d shut me out while your
mind was filled with some project you were working on and it drove me crazy.
It’s one thing to do that to your husband and something else to do it to your
kid.”

“I never shut
you out,” Linda said flatly. “You stopped listening to me. You stopped caring,
James.”

James reared
back. “No. I always cared.”

“If you did, you
didn’t show it.” Linda slumped against the counter. “I thought you were having
an affair.”

“I never cheated
on you. Never.”

“But you didn’t
come home, either.”

“God, Linda. I
was working.”

She nodded. “I
know. You took on extra classes, extra projects, more students, anything to
keep you away from home.”

“I was giving
you the space I thought you needed.”

“I needed my
husband.”

“Jesus.” He
barked out a short, humorless laugh. “Why didn’t you tell me that before we got
divorced?”

The tension
drained out of Linda’s shoulders and a half smile curved her beautiful mouth.
“Stubbornness?”

“Hunh. Maybe
some on my part, too.” God, wasn’t that the truth. Both of them were too
stubborn for their own good, and it was well past time they got over it. James
shook his head. That wasn’t a wound he wanted to prod again. “I don’t want to
leave you and Amelia alone.”

“You won’t be.”
She slid her arms around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. “If we
need help, you’ll be just a phone call away.”

He wrapped his
arms around her and rested his chin on top of her head. “Sure. It’s just…”

“No.” Linda
pulled away and met his gaze evenly. “No buts. You’re going, and while you’re
gone, you’ll call every night or two, and you’ll come up or Amelia will come
down. It’ll all work out.”

“I can have Jena
drop in to help out.”

She shuddered. “No,
thank you. Your sister hates me, and I can’t see her willingly stooping to helping
me out, not even for Amelia.”

James
acknowledged that with a shrug. Linda and Jena had never gotten along, though
he’d always put it down to differences in personality. That and his sister
didn’t like anyone, not even herself.

Amelia flounced
in, schedule in hand, and James let the conversation slide. He settled in and
watched a movie with them, and was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly the
rest of the evening went. Linda had set some of his fears to rest, enough that
by the time he left to go home, he’d made the decision to take Maya up on her
offer to work at the IECS. He’d make the arrangements the next day and by the
end of the week, he’d be on his way.

Seeing Maya
Bellegarde again had nothing to do with the excitement pinging through him, nothing
at all.

Rebecca studied
the final draft of the notes she’d made detailing her encounter with the Woman
with No Face. It had taken days to finish the report, first to calm down, and
then to tease all the nuances of the meeting from her memory.

She’d started
locking her office windows at night, though she suspected it would do nothing
to keep the Woman
out
should she wish to be
in
.

Rebecca read the
report a final time, then placed the typed notes into a file folder along with
the piece of paper the Woman had left on her desk. The morning after the
encounter, she’d called down to the Archives and had them gather every scrap of
information on file about the Woman, several linear feet of material dating
back at least three millennia, as far as  Naomi Spillfeite, the archivist,
could tell.

So much
information, yet no one knew the Woman’s true identity.

Surely she was a
Daughter. Her skills and age attested to that, assuming the mask hadn’t been
taken up by several successive individuals. Rebecca was certain, at least, that
the one who’d brought the infant to her in 1939 was the same woman who’d
visited her office just days ago. Beyond that, who knew?

A quick phone
call to the Archives ensured that an intern was on the way to drop off the
first box of material and simultaneously pick up Rebecca’s notes to add to the
collection. She’d waited until her report was finished to begin reviewing the
files they maintained on the Woman, quite deliberately. It wouldn’t do to taint
her memory with the recollections of others.

Still, she was
anxious to begin and was grateful, not for the first time, that the People had
gone to the trouble to collect and maintain such an extensive database on
themselves, their allies, and their enemies. Or, in the case of the Woman with
No Face, a person of an indeterminate relationship.

A hard knock
rapped on the office door and Rebecca smiled. The second phone call she’d made
after the Woman’s visit had been to someone she trusted nearly as much as she
trusted herself. As the door opened, she rose and studied her youngest natural
daughter.

Jerusha had
grown from a laughing child into a solemn adult, but that was to be expected.
The lives the People led were somewhat easier now than they had been when
Rebecca was a child, but it was still difficult, particularly for the youngest
daughters. Those were the ones who witnessed their mother’s happiness, if such
was fated, and the birth of the long-awaited first son. Some daughters grew
jealous of their younger male sibling. Thankfully, not her own.

“Jerusha, love,”
Rebecca gestured for her daughter and the two met in a hug. In spite of her
heels, the top of Rebecca’s head was inches shorter than her daughter’s. Thank
the Goddess Jerusha had gained her father’s height instead of her own. “It’s
been too long. How’s London?”

“Decadent,”
Jerusha replied, a hint of sarcasm tingeing her voice. Her crystalline blue
eyes sparkled, adding a mischievous hint to her expression. “Digging in the
dirt, reconstructing skeletons, guarding the loot. I’m constantly overwhelmed
by the excitement.”

Rebecca smiled
and led her daughter to the sitting area. “I’m sorry to have to pull you away
from your work, especially now.”

Jerusha shrugged
and dropped into an overstuffed chair. “It’ll be there when I go back.”

“Hopefully.”
Rebecca settled onto the settee. “Have you heard about the Öland Island dig?”

“Yeah. I ran
into Dani in London while she was tracking the artifacts. We had a high time on
the town searching for clues.”

“The two of you
must be mellowing. The last time you and Dani painted a town red, I had to send
in the cavalry.”

Jerusha snorted.
“We’ve aged a little since then.”

“Yes, you have.
I’m quite proud of the both of you. A mother couldn’t ask for finer daughters.”

“Nor could we
have asked for a finer mother.”

Tears welling up
in Rebecca’s eyes at the standard, formal exchange, said so often between
Mother and Daughter. She quickly sniffed them back, appalled at both the
overflow of emotion and the lack of control. Truly, being mortal had its
drawbacks. “Well. I’m sure you’re wondering why I asked you to drop everything
and come home.”

Jerusha arched a
black eyebrow and leaned back in the chair. “I did wonder a time or two what
was so important.”

“I have a job
that needs doing and I need someone I can trust to help me. You mustn’t tell
anyone, not a single soul,” Rebecca cautioned. “This mission depends upon your
utmost discretion. Will you help me?”

“Of course. What
do you need?”

Rebecca took a
deep breath. She’d thought long and hard about telling Jerusha of her meeting
with the Woman with No Face and had decided against it. Only a handful of
individuals needed to know of that incident, and knowing might hinder Jerusha’s
work. “I’ve received intelligence that our enemy grows strong. I need you to
confirm this.”

“They’ve been
quiet for decades now. Do you have any specifics?”

“Unfortunately,
no, but it shouldn’t be hard to assess their strength.”

Jerusha pushed
herself off the chair. “I’ll get on it right away.”

“There’s more.”
Rebecca hesitated as Jerusha sat back down on the edge of the chair. “My
intelligence says we’ve been betrayed.”

“By who?”
Jerusha asked, a hard edge to her voice.

“By a Daughter.”

“You’re
certain?”

“As certain as I
can be without hard evidence.”

They shared a
moment of silence. Some Daughters opposed the majority’s goal to overcome the
curse for them all. A few clung to their immortality, using it as a shield
against love, against trust. Others simply had no wish to ever become mortal.
Still, all were more or less open about their feelings on the subject, or
pretended to be. Very few would ever stoop to such an insidious act as
betraying the larger cause, but determining who would’ve done so might be
difficult depending on a number of factors Rebecca refused to consider. She was
no longer in the loop where efforts to contain the Eternal Order were
concerned, but they were rumored to have been forcibly disbanded long ago.
Surely this wasn’t their handiwork.

“I’ll get that
proof for you.”

A weight lifted
off of Rebecca’s chest. “Good. Now, Robert and Bobby will want to see you while
you’re in town.”

“I’ll stop by
tonight after I’ve visited the Archives.”

“I put in a
request a few days ago for the files you’ll need. They should be waiting for
you, but please don’t hesitate to request additional information.”

“I won’t.”
Jerusha smiled and the mischief returned to her expression. “My mother, the
director. Always so on top of things.”

Rebecca laughed
and settled in for a little girl talk with her daughter.

* * *

Night had fallen
by the time James reached the IECS compound. Once he’d gotten the ball rolling
with a call to Maya, it hadn’t taken long to make arrangements for an extended leave
from work and find somebody to take over his classes.

Saying goodbye
to Amelia had been the hardest part. Even the promise of frequent calls and her
visit during the Labor Day holiday before school started hadn’t been enough to
dampen her tears. When he’d stopped by to see her the night before he’d left,
she’d clung to him, and the guilt of leaving her had nearly overwhelmed him. Linda
had reassured him they’d be ok a dozen times, but it hadn’t assuaged his worry.

Because his time
at the IECS was likely to be long, he’d opted to drive down over two days. The
long journey had left too much room for second thoughts. Several times, he
caught himself searching for exits so he could turn around and head back home.
Each time, he forced himself to remember that Amelia would be fine, his work
was important. He’d see her soon.

He called Maya
when he crossed the South Carolina-Georgia line and let her know he was near.
An hour later, he entered Tellowee, the small town bordering the IECS. He
pulled over twice and checked the directions Maya had e-mailed him, and finally
found the main gate.

James stared at
it, glanced around and glimpsed the IECS sign, then stared again. From where he
sat, a ten-foot high brick wall extended to either side, bright lights
scattered evenly along it. Two guard shacks flanked the main entrance on the
outside. A sturdy iron gate blocked the road into the compound. In the
distance, he could just make out guard towers, adorned with what he could’ve
sworn were machine guns pointed toward the peaceful town.

Surely not. He
blinked, shook his head, and put the vision down to two days of hard driving.

Maya stepped
into the beams of his headlights, startling him. She waved, then came around to
the passenger’s side and slid inside. “Hey. The guards need to do a vehicle
check, and then we’re good to go. Pop the trunk and the hood, would you?”

What followed
was surely the most bizarre security check James had ever been through. Four
guards stepped out of the guard shacks, two from each one. A fifth approached
from the side holding the leash of a German Shepherd. All were dressed
completely in black, with Kevlar vests visibly thickening their torsos and
handguns strapped onto their waists. Each carried a machine gun slung over a
shoulder. The dog handler was the only male. The rest were tall, well-built
Amazons, their expressions so neutral and flat, their faces might as well have
been made out of stone.

One guard
stepped to the back of James’ car and rummaged through the trunk. Another walked
around the car holding a long-handled mirror to the ground. A third inspected
the engine.

James glanced
helplessly at Maya.

Her mouth
twitched into a slight smile. “Sorry. I forgot to warn you about security.”

“What are they
doing?”

“Checking for
bombs.”

He did a double
take, eyes wide, and clamped his teeth shut over his astonishment.

“It’s routine,”
she said. “No one expects you to actually have a bomb.”

“Well, that’s a
relief.”

“Roll down the
window and I’ll introduce you.”

“I don’t know. I
think that one’s got it in for me.” He nodded toward one guard, a pretty
blue-eyed brunette. She’d stood to the side the entire time his vehicle was being
inspected, staring intently at him, her rifle held crosswise over her body.
James was pretty sure she was itching to use it on him.

Maya shot him an
exasperated look. He obligingly rolled the window down.

“Y’all knock it
off,” she said. “You’re scaring our guest.”

The pretty
brunette slumped and slung her gun back over her shoulder. “We were just having
a little fun.”

“I know. That’s
why I let you go so long.” Maya winked at her. “I remember what guard duty’s
like.”

James closed his
eyes, unsure whether to laugh or bang his head against the steering wheel.

The guards
dropped all pretense of searching his car and crowded around his open window,
neutral expressions replaced by sheepish grins. Maya introduced them one by
one, and James shook their hands, trying to keep names with faces. After a few
minutes of chatting, during which each one called him “Dr. T.,” the brunette
(Andrea, maybe?) jogged into one of the guard shacks and triggered the gate
open.

He drove slowly through
it and followed Maya’s directions around the IECS campus. To the left, a
standard-sized oval track with bleachers on both sides dominated the open
field. The landscape rose behind it, dotted with other buildings whose
functions he couldn’t quite figure out.

The other side
of the road seemed more familiar. Maya pointed out each feature in calm, even
tones. The first building they passed held classrooms, offices, the library,
and a small museum. The road branched and Maya gestured to the right. He turned
off and drove past the main administrative building, a small cafeteria, a
building devoted to labs, and finally, the building containing quarters for
guests and interns. The entire compound was lit by security lights and was bright
enough that he could clearly make out people exercising or walking around the
grounds.

After he parked,
Maya led him up two flights of stairs to rooms used, she explained,
specifically for visitors to the Archives. “Elevator’s out. Should be fixed in
a few days.”

She opened the
door into a great room with a small kitchen on the left and a sitting area to
the middle. Two doors on the right led from the main room into what looked like
bedrooms. What captured his gaze, though, were the windows framing a view
across a good portion of the compound. Maya caught his stare, crossed to one
window, and pulled down a shade. “Sorry about the light. It can get annoying, but
if you pull the shades down and close the curtains, it should be dark enough to
get some sleep at night.”

James nodded, a
little dazed from the long drive or the lack of sleep, or maybe reality was
setting in and it was just different enough from the way he’d envisioned it to
throw him off. “Is all that security really necessary?”