Any Price (31 page)

“I’m not cold.”

“I know.” Lore shifted slightly, gathering her more securely into his body. “I need this.” The skin under his hands was silk. Feeling life beat through her was a gift. It overwhelmed him.

“We’re going to be all right,” Kenna said softly.

“Yeah? Found a way to look into the future?” his deep voice rumbled in her ear.

Kenna closed her eyes. Her body needed rest. “I found you, didn’t I?”

Lore couldn’t follow her reasoning as she slipped into sleep. From the edge of unconsciousness she sent another thought.

“You never quit a battle. You don’t give up. We’re going to be okay because you believe it the same way you refuse to lose.”

Three days later

It was two in the morning when Synth contacted Lore and Kenna.
“I’m coming back with Celina. We must take her to Vivian.”

“Excellent. Who is Vivian and why do we need her?”
Sleep evaporated and Lore was immediately alert to the underlying stress in Synth’s voice. This ability to communicate was more urgent than getting a phone call at this hour.

Synth sighed into the open line, letting them feel his strangely mixed feelings as he explained,
“Vivian is the castle you know as Kenna’s ancestral home. It’s more than a structure but not an actual being. She has knowledge of our kind far greater than mine. Celina needs her.”

“Wait. Explain this castle thing after you tell me what happened to Celina?
Kenna asked urgently.
“Is she okay? How did you find her?”

“Celina is not okay. Her physical injuries are many but not life threatening. The real damage is much deeper. As to finding her, sufficient to say our adversary was not aware one he calls a god walks the Earth. He will not make this mistake twice. Sadly the Asp did the one thing that allowed him to escape alive. Leaving Celina deeply wounded stopped me long enough for him to disappear. Bringing her home is more important.

“Vivian has always preferred women to males and I’m hoping a Royal Keeper in need will trigger her protective, healing responses.”

“Explain Vivian to me,”
Lore inserted calmly.
“What do we need to know about this entity?”

“Vivian is the entire structure. If she chooses to communicate in words, she often uses a body image, more substantial than a hologram, but not a biological entity. She can communicate without human form and seems to enjoy scaring the shit out of uninvited humans.

“It appears she is the work of the people who left two children in cryo chambers, but once again, her purpose is a mystery. She is not a teacher. Getting information out of her is impossible unless she chooses to tell you. Her one response to how she came to be there is, ‘I’m where I was meant to be. You are not’.

“My brother and I were awakened from the cryo chambers by a very sick human woman who died shortly after. The cryo equipment was concealed deep in a cave. Several hundred years later I came back and there was Vivian over the opening. She was a structure visually natural to the era but not quite true to it. The surrounding humans were already a generation away from when she’d supposedly been built. There was little information on how she came to be.

“She revealed herself to me in a limited fashion. Over the years we’ve developed an understanding. I get to be frustrated that she withholds information and she gets not to care what I think.”

“So the castle is a hostile?”
Lore asked.

“
No. The castle is a moody woman,”
Synth corrected,
“but a friendly. Kenna, did you feel welcome in her?”

“Very much,”
Kenna concurred.
“The only reason we are not there now is I’ve been too weak to travel and Gregory is making an ass of himself.”

A rumbling growl emanated from Synth.
“Your Gregory needs dealing with, little brother. He is the source the enemy used to enter your home.”

“I’m aware of that. However, we must continue to live undetected in a human world. Condemning him with no physical evidence is not the way to deal with him,”
Lore responded as he pulled on clothes.
“I have a lease drawn up and will have it presented to him after we exit the city. He’s already refused to lease the property, being forced to do so should push him to attempt his own plan of instigating a revolution. He has no idea how down range his pride and that idea are.”
Lore lapsed into military jargon he was most comfortable with. Down range was the target area and not where a smart individual wanted to find himself.

“Gregory is under the misconception that his people will encourage his claiming of both thrones.”
Lore smiled darkly.
“He’ll find out differently. This way we can handle him with complete support from both Keepers and the regular citizens.”

Kenna lay on the bed watching Lore dress as they spoke with Synth. She didn’t move mostly so she wouldn’t worry Lore. He was fanatical about her resting as much as possible. Pulling on some clothes would only take her a few minutes, so it didn’t worry her. Lore was the one involved in intricate plans.

“I’m concerned about the break-in at the old castle,”
Lore continued.
“Do you get any feeling from this Vivian if it was the work of our enemy?”

“Yes, I do. That’s why I think she’d be moved to expend some of that precious knowledge to help Celina. Vivian is mad as hell. I think she’ll know both Kenna and Celina have been attacked by the same force as soon as they enter her doors.”

Lore stopped moving, hands on lean hips in a commanding pose that came naturally to him. He appeared to be frowning across the room at a wall. In reality he was calculating how comfortable he was with entering an unknown entity and potentially exposing Kenna to danger. He was profoundly uncomfortable with the unknown power Synth indicated.

A new voice entered the conversation to everyone’s surprise. “
Bring my girls home.”

“What is this, Viv? Getting bold in your old age?”
Synth taunted her.
“Since when do you speak to strangers?”

“Synth, I hear your delicate lil’ feelings are hurt. I’ll try to be nicer if you try to be smarter. Okay, muffin?”
Vivian responded. Then allowing disdain in her voice, she continued.
“The magic was powerful and I needed to know how strong this threat is so I let the disgusting one do his little tricks to the window. I was undamaged in any significant way. He entered the kitchen, nothing else.”

Lore cautiously joined the conversation.
“Hello. How would you prefer being addressed? Lady Vivian?”

“Please, honey, just Vivian.”

“Fine, thank you.”
Lore continued, ignoring her condescending tone.
“Do you know the name of the one who entered the kitchen and can you tell me exactly what he did?”

“Of course I know his name. It was on the documents in his wallet. He came through the window, beamed his flashlight around and went to the hearth as if he were a hound on scent. He used his jacket to sweep the soot. Soon as he uncovered the face of the lady, he left.”

“Jesus!”
Lore spat.
“Naturally he went straight to the hearth. He was looking for the thing that didn’t fit. Odd thing became the only spot in the room that was not swept and dusted. The carving’s likeness to Celina would have told him everything else if this was the Asp.”

“His name is Simon Dahshur. His blood says he comes from the low countries,”
Vivian stated.
“Now bring my girls home so I may see to them.”

“We’ll be there in the morning,”
Synth informed them.
“Lore? Will you and Kenna be there?”

“You are that confident?”
Lore asked again.
“I dislike taking Kenna up there with no recon and a new power of unknown origins.”

“Find your answers in my experiences. We don’t have time to be squeamish about these things. Celina must go to Vivian and I suspect Kenna would benefit as well.”
Synth sent his knowledge to Lore on a flash push.

Absorbing that much knowledge and experience in this method showed Lore how much he didn’t know about his own abilities. There wasn’t time to marvel.
“We’ll be there. It’ll be camping for the first few days.”

“Fine,”
Synth responded.
“We’ll be there in under six hours.”

Two hours later Kenna and Lore mounted the steps leading to the Gray Lady’s massive front door. This time no one stepped in front of them. At that predawn hour when dark was thick with night’s deepest shadows, the castle glowed with flickering lights within.

Lore pushed open the door and they were faced with a huge fire in the mammoth hearth across the great hall. Around the wall every torch bracket had a burning torch. Above them the wheel chandelier had a lit candle in every holder.

“Looks like a welcome to me,” Kenna said as they looked around. There wasn’t a speck of dust visible this time.

“She certainly left the lights on for us,” Lore agreed. He felt this place in a new way, and what he felt didn’t seem to be a threat. Yet he could not let caution lie down for a feeling. Entering alone with Kenna was as friendly a gesture as he was willing to make. The others outside had been vehemently opposed to the two of them entering alone. Lore had finally pointed out that he commanded power none of them could match.

Behind them the door swung as if to close, but didn’t, leaving a small opening. Lore didn’t glance at it but a half smile pulled at the side of his mouth. Not closing the door was a sign of respect. A friendly gesture, if you will.

Across the room beside the hearth a figure of a woman materialized in a slow fade-in. She stood perfectly still as they regarded her. She was neither young nor attractive. Dressed in a simple gray dress straight out of the forties, her ample figure was neat but not remarkable.

“Welcome to your home,” she stated simply.

“Vivian?” Lore asked.

A smile changed her plain features to beaming warmth. “I have waited a long time for you to be where you should be.” She was looking at Kenna.

“I didn’t know,” Kenna answered.

The woman nodded, her hands clasped in front of her as satisfaction and peace flowed around her. “Now you do, dear. My purpose is to protect you and yours. For now, I’ve provided light so we could chat, but you realize we’ll have to do things in a way people understand in the future. Between you and me, if there is anything you need, I will be happy to supply it as long as it doesn’t scare the natives. I believe your man understands this.”

Lore nodded as he watched the exchange. The woman turned to him and pointed to a door off the main room to the left. “In there you will find a control room with tools you are familiar with. I am providing the security systems you know and some you don’t yet, however, they are yours to command.”

Lore raised a brow. “How do I know everything in that room and everything it shows me is not an illusion?”

“Because the two of you are the One for this place. You are where you should be and I can at last do what I am meant to do. I am a tool, not as simple as one of your computers, but the concept is close.”

“Again the question of belief arises,” Lore responded.

The woman chuckled. “Put your hand on the wall, the floor, anything indigenous to the structure and tell me what you feel.”

Moving Kenna with him, Lore went to the wall on the right, away from the door the woman had indicated. Placing his hand on it was touching a humming motor, every molecule active and yet solid. Then he felt the power moving under his palm.

Immediately he let go of Kenna to safeguard her from becoming attached to whatever this was. The power in the wall did not enter or leave him. It simply was him. His head whipped around to glare at the woman who had not moved from the hearth.

“What trick is this?”

“No trick. I am powered by those I was made to protect. I am powered by the One. Simply put, I am a symbiotic, artificial intelligence. Kenna’s genetic marker is mine. Through her I am yours. Were the first daughter marker to move to another, I would follow it. Since her family never ceased to exist, I have remained. My abilities were greatly diminished, as were yours without the connection to her, but now we are well. You guard your senses as you should. Open them and know the truth. I am an extension of you.”

Cautiously extending his senses, Lore frowned. There was certainly truth in what the woman’s projection said but there was much more as well. “I wouldn’t classify you as an extension of me. For one, I’m not inclined to wear skirts.”

“Humph,” Vivian sniffed. “Do try to keep up. I’m using the small words you can understand to explain a complicated concept. Please don’t remind me of Synth and his narrow view. It puts me in a bad mood.”

Kenna interrupted. “Can you heal me? Synth said he was bringing Celina because she needed your healing.”

Vivian’s expression change to a sad, compassionate smile. “I can help you, my dear. Assist in your recovery and certainly boost your immune system, strengthening you while you are within my walls, but I cannot restore life to dead tissue. My knowledge of Keeper physiology makes me the best doctor available. It doesn’t make me a real miracle worker. I’ll just look like one sometimes.”

“Again, we have much to learn,” Lore injected calmly, slipping an arm around Kenna to share her disappointment. “It’s time to let the others in. Is there something else you need to tell us before they enter?”

“Honey, if I need to tell you anything, I’ll do it. You brought that nice boy Landor with you. Do invite them in,” Vivian agreed as she faded from view.

“You like Landor but not Synth?” Lore questioned in amusement.