Mathieu (22 page)

Marcus’ lips lifted grimly on one side for a moment and then fell. “Duly noted. Get over there.” He gestured in the general direction of the sofa and then turned his attention back to the older man in the chair. “Why did you do it?”

“Marcus, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Hugh straightened up in the chair. “Jenn, tell your husband that I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Jenn walked in from where she’d been standing in the doorway. “I can’t do that, Mr. Devalle. I don’t believe you.” She walked forward and looked closely at him with an air of disgust. “You lied to me.”

“
You don’t think I’d do something to hurt my own daughter, do you?” Hugh’s eyes grew wide at the thought, and then he shook his head. “I’d never do anything like that. Amanda is the sun and moon to me.”

“Bullshit,” Eddie said quietly.

“As my colleague has put so succinctly, we don’t believe you.” Marcus placed his hands on the arms of the chair and leaned forward. “You’re in the inner circle. No one passes gas in the Foundation without you knowing. You’re up to your eyeballs in whatever happened here.”

Mathieu perched on a windowsill and watched the proceedings carefully. Anger was certainly the overwhelming emotion in the room, but there was an undercurrent of sadness as well. He tightened his hold on the darkness inside, forcing it down so that it wouldn’t slip into the room and complicate matters.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hugh repeated. He tried to stand up but Marcus shoved him back down into the chair.

“You’re not going anywhere until you tell us the truth.” Marcus growled. “We know you didn’t buy this house for your daughter. We know the Foundation owns it and we know what was in it until just a few days ago.”

Hugh squared his jaw at that news. “Do you now? That’s… unexpected news.”

“Unexpected?” Carol said from the couch. “For God’s sake, Hugh. You brought the best team you have in on this. Did you not expect us to do the legwork and find out about what you’ve been up to?”

“I expected you to do what you were told.” Hugh shot back. “Not that that’s ever been one of your strong points, Carol. You’re damned lucky that we let you be involved in anything, much less this. You’re lucky we let you back in the front door.”

“Fuck you.” Carol said it almost listlessly. “There wasn’t any ‘letting’ involved. You just wanted what was best for the Foundation, not for me. You kept me after everything that happened because you didn’t want to let the knowledge and experience go to waste.”

“
You needed us more than we needed you.” Hugh said awkwardly.

“Liar. And not germane to this discussion anyway.” Carol sighed. “Why don’t you tell us the truth now, Hugh? We know what was here and how it got here. What we don’t know is why you put Amanda in here with it. And without knowing that, I’m afraid we might not be able to do anything to help her.”

“You mean you won’t help her.” Hugh seemed to deflate as he said the words.

Marcus looked over to Carol, about to speak. Carol made a shushing motion with her hand and continued. “Let’s be honest here, Hugh. You put her here for some reason. Now you want us to pull her out. Without knowing the full story, I will have to advise my circle leader and his superiors that this project is too dangerous for us to proceed. I’m sure someone in your position can understand if we consider the loss of six Gifted people an unacceptable risk when compared to the loss, albeit tragic, of your daughter.” She paused and then continued. “I still have connections, Hugh. People still listen to me even if you tell them not to. All I have to do is make a few calls.”

Mathieu raised an eyebrow, but remained silent.

“You’re a cast iron bitch, you know that?” Hugh sighed and shook his head.

“I always have been.” Carol answered quietly as she closed the book in her lap and placed it carefully on the table. “What happened didn’t change that. It just made me reevaluate my circumstances.”

“I just liked it better when you were on my side, I suppose.” Hugh leaned forward in the chair, the leather squeaking under him as he moved.

“Most people do, dear.” Carol smiled a sweet smile with absolutely no warmth in it. “Now start talking.” Her voice had a sharp edge to it that made Hugh wince.

Marcus blinked and then repeated in confused voice, “Yeah. Start talking.” He stepped back and crossed his arms in an attitude of waiting authority.

Hugh
ignored Marcus and answered Carol. “You know that you might not get them to agree with you.”

“Do you want to test that theory? Eddie, give me your phone.” Carol reached in Eddie’s general direction, her tone commanding and imperious.

Eddie dug in his pocket for a moment before finding it and passing it over.

Carol paused, finger hovering over the screen before looking back over at Hugh and smiling sweetly. “Are you sure you want me to make this call?”

Hugh glared at her before shaking his head and slumping in defeat. “Of course not.” His voice was rough with emotion. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.” Carol placed the phone in her lap and assumed a posture of respectful listening. “How about telling us why you moved your daughter here with that thing in the basement?”

“Gaap?” Hugh said the name and Mathieu shuddered inside. “I really don’t know where to start with that.”

“Then start at the very beginning. I hear that’s a very good place to start. That’s what Julie Andrews always says, at least.” Eddie smiled grimly as he settled to the floor and crossed his legs to make himself comfortable.

Carol’s serene expression twitched and then returned to intent attention. “The Sound of Music aside, I’d agree with the sentiment.”

Hugh glared down at Eddie and then looked back over to Carol. “The very beginning would be that.” He pointed directly at Mathieu without looking away from the woman on the couch. “Have you figured out what that is yet?”

Mathieu silently raised his eyebrow again and considered that by the end of the night he might strain a facial muscle. He cocked his head in interest as he felt the pressure of all eyes in the room come to bear on him. Except Hugh’s. Those eyes still stared at Carol.

“That,” said Carol, “is a very delightful and helpful young man.”

“
Hardly.” Hugh snorted. “Hardly young and hardly a man.”

“You could try not talking about him like he’s not sitting right here. That’s incredibly rude.” Jenn said quietly as she walked over to stand next to Mathieu. She made as if to touch his hand, drawing back as he shifted away from her.

Hugh shrugged. “I don’t particularly care if I’m rude to something like that. It’s not like it’s a human, after all. Not any more, at least.”

Carol paused, seeming to choose her words carefully. “Then what is he?”

Hugh sucked on his teeth for a long moment before choosing an answer. “Power. Power in a coherent form, stretched over a framework that resembles a human host from long ago.”

“Power.” Carol echoed the word and glanced over at Mathieu with clinical eyes. She studied him for a long moment and her face softened. “Not just power, Hugh. Power doesn’t have emotions. Power doesn’t feel terror. Power doesn’t weep. This one…” She half shrugged as her words drifted off.

“Oh, I’m sure there are residual memories and ingrained behaviors attached to that framework. But first and foremost, power.”

“Even if I believed what you were saying, which I don’t,” Marcus said, “what does that have to do with your daughter?”

“Everything.” Hugh leaned forward, warming to his subject. “All that power, all that knowledge and we can’t touch it. It won’t let us near enough to bind it, use it or study it.”

“Not like I blame him or anything when you put it that way,” Eddie said quietly.

“You’re forgetting what we’re here to do,” Hugh snapped back. “We’re in a war against occult creatures and frankly we need better weapons.”

“Better… weapons?” Susan repeated after him. “I’m not getting the connection here.”

“Three of you were there when that thing,” Hugh jerked his head in Mathieu’s direction, “was created. You know what happened.”

Mathieu
listened with a morbid fascination, his stomach clenching and sinking simultaneously as the slightest suspicion of what Hugh might have done began to whisper in his ear.

Jenn spoke quietly, saying what she knew for those who hadn’t been present. “We trapped and fought something—a Demon—that was incredibly powerful. Too powerful, honestly. It was going to destroy us all with its Familiar…” She looked up at Mathieu and continued, “its slave… somehow managed to destroy it and save us.”

“And in the process freed itself from the Demon’s bindings.” Hugh continued for her. “But what you’re forgetting is what happened to the Demon when that happened.”

“It was destroyed. Completely and utterly. A team went over that place inch by inch for weeks afterwards to be sure.” Marcus said flatly.

“The creature itself was, yes. The personality, the physical form it affected, the molecules it pulled together to maintain that form, all gone. Think about the rest of it, though. The power, the knowledge of how to use that power, where did that go?” Hugh didn’t wait for an answer but merely pointed directly at Mathieu. “It’s a natural law. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only be converted or changed to another form.”

“Or stored.” Jenn said quietly as she looked from Mathieu to Marcus. “Hidden away where it could do no harm.”

“Where it could be wasted, you mean. Piddled away. Dissipated into the ether because it isn’t being used properly.” Hugh grumbled. “Which is why we needed to make another one of those.” Again he pointed at Mathieu. “One we could control. One that would have our best interests at heart instead of its own agenda.”

There was a dead silence in the room. Mathieu closed his eyes and hid his face in his hands.

“Your own
daughter
?” Carol’s voice was weak. “Your own child, Hugh?”

Mathieu straightened and spoke, his voice very soft. “They do not realize the full extent of what you’ve done. You don’t either. I am the
only
one here who knows exactly what you’ve done to your own child, what you’ve cursed her to, what you’ve forced her to endure.”

“It’s a small sacrifice.” Hugh still didn’t look directly at Mathieu, instead speaking to the room at large. “Once that thing is dead, she’ll be freed and back with us as something amazing.”

Mathieu walked to stand in front of Hugh, forcing the man to look at him. “As a thing to be used? As a framework of power and memories? As something you won’t even dignify with an identity or a gender?”

“As my daughter.” The man snapped back. “She’s different.”

“Damaged beyond mortal knowledge, her mind broken, her very soul torn and bleeding. Not so very different.” Mathieu spread his hands. “Bearing foul power and remembering where every bit and piece came from, still hearing every scream and sob, still tasting the iron and blood and smoke on the back of her tongue. You have done a cruelty far worse than even Gadreel could have ever conceived.” Mathieu shook his head as he looked away. “I did not think such a thing was possible.”

“Bullshit.” Hugh stood and spoke, biting each word off precisely as he looked down at Mathieu. “Powerful, beautiful and immortal, bound to a purpose. I did her a favor.”

“A favor?” Mathieu repeated softly as he turned to go back to the window. “God save us from your favors, Hugh Devalle. I shudder to think what you would do to one you hate.”

“Step into a circle around me and you’d find out pretty quickly.” Hugh snarled. “I don’t even know why you’d care. When we get her, we don’t have any need for you. You can go off and fade away to nothing and we won’t care. You can stay on that mountain until the end of time. Just hold up your end of the bargain.”

Mathieu twisted back to face Hugh, his eyes glittering. The room suddenly grew dark. “Unlike you, I am not willing to trade another’s soul for personal benefit. I am not willing to benefit from another’s pain and I am certainly not willing to have any part in any scheme that
does.”
With each word the room grew colder and colder, frost tracing intricate patterns on the inside of the windowpanes.

“Mathieu.” Marcus spoke the name sharply, his breath steaming in the air.

Mathieu started at the sound of his name. The room lightened and warmed almost immediately. “My apologies,” he muttered to Marcus before turning his back on Hugh and walking back to look out the window.

Carol cleared her throat and spoke quietly. “Hugh, did your daughter know about this? Was she part of this plan?”

“Of course not.” Mathieu answered for him from the window, not even turning to face the room. “The creature would have picked it up from her mind the moment it bound her. They know everything their Familiars know. Every thought, every fear, every moment of shame. It makes tormenting their slaves so much easier.” There was an emotion in his voice Jenn had never heard before. She leaned over to look at his face but he only turned away. “It’s almost impossible to hide anything from one of them.”

Hugh’s eyes slid to the brightly colored carpet by his feet as he sat down again. After a moment he shrugged. “I couldn’t tell her anything.”

“So you basically sacrificed your innocent daughter to this thing so that if we were able to destroy it, it would give your daughter all its energies and knowledge. I just want to be sure I have this whole thing right.” Marcus’ voice was tired.

“The ends justify the means.” Hugh said. “It’s simple enough. Your circle summons it back. That,” he said with a jerk of his head towards Mathieu, “destroys it. I get my daughter back and the Foundation gets more power than they’ve been able to accumulate in centuries in one fell swoop.”

“You get her back completely nutso insane, dude.” Dwayne spoke for the first time. “I had a little glance at what goes on over there and there’s no way anyone can come back from that and not be completely
bonkers.”
He glanced over at Mathieu’s back. “No offense, little bro’.” Mathieu shrugged, not answering.

“Dwayne’s right, Hugh. She’s not going to the same when she comes back.” Carol said quietly.