American Quest (23 page)

Bedelia wiped her eye. “I take it you didn’t go to your interview?”

Shannon shook her head, eyes wide. “Oh no, I went all right. Figured I had nothing to loose but another fistful of curly locks. They didn’t hire me for that job, though. They didn’t think I was cameraready, go figure! But the station manager took pity on me and hooked me up with his buddy in radio. You don’t need hair to be on radio.”

Bedelia laughed. “Well, whatever happened to your hair then, honey, it looks like it’s grown back beautifully now.”

Bedelia’s cheeks glowed with pink circles of cream blush. Two distinct lines ran down from either corner of her mouth, giving her the cheerful look of a marionette. She cast her gaze back toward the kitchen, shoulders still giving the occasional shake. “Your order’s probably up, kids, I’ll be right back.”

Bruce watched her go and noted how that distant, sad look in her eye had vanished.

Forte rubbed the back of Shannon’s neck. “You got a good heart.”

His gaze lingered on hers a moment longer and she blushed. “That waitress just looked like she needed a laugh. When I saw her I thought, the way her brows and her nose came together, it looked like, reminded me of . . .”

Forte nodded. “I thought so, too. Thought she looked like your mom. Totally different personality, though.”

“Reminded me of someone I know, too,” Bruce said, thinking of Carlotta.

His smile slipped. He and Gloria would have those beautiful babies. He’d solve this, fight this, whatever it was he was supposed to do, and bring her home.

Bedelia returned with their food and lingered awhile, chatting with them as they ate. When Jamie told her where they had come from and where they were going, she brightened.

“I love going for long drives! My late husband and I used to go on road trips all the time. It’s weird you should mention it, because last year I saw this van all decked out for the Mexican Independence Day celebration. It was painted all red and green and white, and it had this big-toothed, smiling donkey on it that looked so weird it made me laugh. Ever since then I keep having one of those recurring dreams where I’m going for a long drive in that painted van to see my sister Gloria.”

Bruce caught his breath. He might have been distracted before, looking for clues and scrutinizing the place, but the name riveted his attention.

Bedelia continued. “But my sister passed away a long time ago. She’s gone, husband’s gone, even my daughter’s gone now. An asthma attack. One day she was there and the next . . .” she blinked. “It never occurs to you that you might outlive your children.”

The distracted sadness returned to her eyes. She looked up at them again with a steeled resignation. “It’s just me now. But in the dream, Gloria doesn’t even look like my sister. Not the way she looked when she died, or even when she was younger. In the dream she looks entirely different—pretty young Spanish thing.”

She shrugged with a laugh, apparently self-conscious. “So silly of me. Dreams don’t mean anything to anyone but the dreamer. I’ve just been getting them so often.”

Jamie eyed Forte and Shannon.

Bruce was on the edge of his seat. “Those columns out front. Have they always been there?”

Bedelia shook her head. “They went up right around the time I saw that funny-looking van. I took leave from work when my husband was in the hospital. Then later when I started working again, there they were. I guess the owner thought it’d make the place look more substantial.”

She turned and regarded the room with a wave of a dishrag. “Hasn’t helped business much, though.”

Jamie leaned forward. “That dream you were telling us about? What happens in the end? When you get to your sister’s?”

Bedelia shrugged. “You know how it is with dreams. I always wake up before it ends.”

She wandered off again and the four looked after her as she busied herself in the dining room, wiping down tables that didn’t necessarily need wiping.

Bruce turned toward Jamie. “Do you think you can talk her into it?”

Jamie nodded. “It’s worth a shot.”

They all pitched in for the check and Jamie gathered the money to go pay.

Bruce overheard Jamie’s voice. “Bedelia, do you believe in fate?”

Bedelia gave a nervous laugh, and then cautiously said, “I don’t know anything about that, really. But if I did I’d say those dreams would have something to do with mine.”

Bruce nodded to himself as he wandered outside with Forte and Shannon.

Shannon linked her arm with Forte. “Weird stuff happening today, but I guess there’s no doubt we’re on the right track.”

Bruce nodded.

He took a careful look at the columns out front. There was nothing unusual about them. He half-expected to find the symbols that had appeared on the stump in the forest in Maine. But there was nothing.

Still, the columns seemed to have an unusual quality to them. They didn’t look like they’d been there a year. It almost seemed as though someone had sanded and painted them the day before.

Jamie’s smile filled the doorway when she joined them outside. “Seems our new friend Bedelia agrees that she’s long overdue for a road trip. She’ll have her bag packed and waiting for us in the morning.”

ISOLDE PAUSED BY THE ARCHWAY, filled with hatred for Enervata.

Her loathing for Rafe used to be an effective anesthetic, but that was gone. Gone forever. Replaced by the pain of loss and remorse over what might have been.

Enervata’s voice drifted through the archway, along with the agonized groan of another. Not Hedon. She stepped inside.

Isolde did not find them in the main hall. She hadn’t expected as much. She knew to follow the corridor to the west room where a door stood ajar, a door that would not even exist during times when Enervata allowed his new fixation to roam free. It was the door that led to the Hall of Amusements.

Enervata’s voice again: “All I ask is for a simple explanation.”

A cry of agony.

“You can put an end to this, my friend. Tell us how Kolt plans to turn Jonathon Raster. Tell us and we’ll let you fly away home.”

Another cry, this time shriller, followed by a convulsive groan.

Isolde could see that, once again, Enervata stood in his natural form, mopped in sweat and blood. She stepped inside.

All eyes turned toward her. Enervata and Hedon regarded her openly. Surreptitiously came the gaze of Jachai, one of Kolt’s Pravus lieutenants, who lay prone on the floor, bound in chains.

But also watching her were the eyes of the imprisoned: those in
cells, those on chains, and those in boxes or jars. Those who had, at some point, infuriated Enervata beyond the mercy of murder. Those who should be dead, but who Enervata maintained through a spell of immortality. They lived on, most of them silent, in those cells or boxes or jars. Forever suffering. And they thrived on moments such as this when the torture of another soul meant another joined them in their misery.

Glueg had been lucky. Even Rafe, though first subjected to torture, had been lucky. Should Isolde openly defy Enervata she would not be so lucky.

“Look what the canteshrikes dragged in,” Enervata said, casting aside the tool he’d been using.

He lifted a brow at her. “Had a little sport, did you?”

Isolde lowered her eyes and examined her body, slashed from head to talon with yawning wounds and the odd broken bone. She had bathed in the pool along with the other silly, vain creatures before returning here, but the gashes still wept.

“Good sport refreshes my body and mind. The same way you, master, choose to unwind.”

Enervata’s black liquid eyes had been searching her face, watching for her hatred or fear or nonchalance. She’d give him the latter only. Let him guess at what burned within her heart. She even affected a smile.

He seemed satisfied and even impressed by her demeanor.

“Walk with me, Isolde. Hedon, please continue.”

The wretch on the floor whimpered. He was crouching naked, hands bound, the chain encircling his neck at a length of no more than twelve inches from the floor. Isolde wondered whether Enervata had begun torturing this servant of Kolt after Rafe, or alongside him.

Isolde and Enervata left the hall and entered the living area where Sileny stood dusting an Erté figure.

“Some Courvoisier please, Sileny.”

He turned to Isolde. “I must admit, I wondered over your reaction to Rafe’s departure. Your hatred of each other was obvious, but . . .”

He wagged a finger at her. “One never knows.”

Isolde inclined her head but said nothing.

The sound of Jachai’s screams filtered through the corridor.

Enervata’s eyes drifted back toward the Hall of Amusements.
“Strange. I have been to see this philanthropist Jonathon Raster and found no vulnerability in his character. Kolt has virtually no chance of corrupting him.”

“With Kolt, one never knows his plan. He corrupts e’en the most virtuous man.”

Sileny appeared, filling tulip glasses with Courvoisier and presenting one each to Isolde and Enervata.

The malice fractured around Enervata’s eyes. Beneath that lay a strange sort of frustration.

“She drinks only wine, you know. I can’t seem to persuade her to try a little cognac.”

Isolde tilted her head. “She?”

Enervata waved a hand at the north wall, beyond which he kept the young dark-haired woman, Gloria.

“She’s a woman of discriminating taste. Quite remarkable, really. Her palate. If she would only open herself up to try the cognac, I believe she would be able to divine the nuances from one region to the next.”

Isolde regarded him quizzically. His concern over this woman’s palate transcended the strategic maneuvers of his mission.

Enervata’s expression shifted. “Now let us return to the Hall of Amusements. Care to join in the fun?”

“My sporting need not have an end. I may learn something from our friend.”

“You may indeed, though I think I’ll leave it to Hedon after all. He has a rare talent in matters of torture. Pity it does not make up for his failings.”

Isolde caught the darkness of Enervata’s expression. This pretense at equanimity—casually chatting over a glass of cognac—did not fool her. Had he not slain Glueg and Rafe already, both Hedon and Isolde would likely be dead or displayed on some pedestal. But his resources were now dwindled and he lacked time to recruit replacements at their level.

Isolde knew that she and Hedon would both be dead at Enervata’s first opportunity. What she didn’t know was whether she would die quickly, slowly as Rafe had, or worse.

The sound of Jachai’s whimpering rang in her ears as she reentered the Hall of Amusements.

“Made a bit o’ progress, haven’t we, master?” Hedon nudged Jachai with his foot. “Tell the master what you just told me, lad.”

Jachai garbled in reply.

Enervata frowned. “What’s he saying? I can’t even understand him.”

“Och, that’ll be because most of his teeth are laying around ’ere somewhere. Mouth full o’ blood and spit. But I can make out what he’s saying all right. The way a mum knows the words of’r own babe.”

Hedon laughed with delight at his own joke, the period of grieving for his brother seeming to have passed.

“Says our good philanthropist Jonathon Raster has an auntie, he does. Poor dearie’s in sad health and our Raster’s just beside himself over it.”

Enervata’s eyes narrowed. “And Kolt is promising her return to health in exchange for his corruption?”

“Would appear that way. This auntie’s like a mother to’m, it seems.”

Enervata frowned, considering this. “That is a problem for us. Do you think Jachai’s hiding anything more?”

Hedon shook his head. “My experience, we’ve got all there is from him.”

Enervata nodded. “I agree.”

He turned to Isolde and grabbed her wrist.

For a moment, she thought he meant to drag her to the center of the room and chain her down alongside the now-toothless Jachai. But instead, Enervata lifted her arm and grabbed the hilt of the dagger that hung from the strap across her chest.

He withdrew it and approached the quivering, prone wretch on the floor.

Jachai’s eyes flew wide. He babbled an indecipherable plea.

Isolde shook her head. Did he really believe Enervata would let him escape? Didn’t he even realize his good fortune?

Another might have passed the dagger to Hedon, but Enervata preferred to carry out the final stroke himself. He grabbed Jachai by the hair and yanked backward, exposing the white arc of the Pravus’s throat. The blade flashed.

Isolde averted her gaze.

She looked down instead at the glass in her hand, the amber liquid
the dark-haired one had refused to taste. Isolde smiled. Odd, despite the bleakest environs, how one might find ways in which to entertain oneself.

She sipped her cognac, letting the golden heat turn her lips and tongue to silk.