The Dove (2 page)

“Ahhh.  Ohhhh.”   Lemarik closed his eyes and smelled deeply of Nicole’s precious supply of strawberry scented bath oil.  “Strawberries!  I should like to find some in the market.  It has been ages and ages since I have tasted them.  The little seeds get between one’s teeth and the tiny crunch is so delightful.”  The Djinni shuddered to his toes and turned his face to the ceiling as if remembering times past.  “Your beautiful mother, Meredith, and your beautiful nephew, Omar, used to love strawberries.”

Nicole sat in the tub with her sponge clutched under her chin, glaring at her half-brother.

“Well, you won’t find any in New Babylon, brother!”  She snapped at him.  “Now will you please get out of my bathroom and let me get dressed?”

“Ohhhh.”  Lemarik set the bottle on the edge of the marble tub and pressed two fingers to his forehead, bowing slightly to her.  “A thousand pardons, my sister.”

She had nearly been frightened out of her skin when the Djinni had suddenly materialized inside the marble shower stall behind the milky glass panels.  Nicole clutched a sponge under her chin and waited while he backed out the door into her bedroom, leaving the door open.  She grabbed a brightly colored bath towel from the rack and got out of the tub.

“I have been traveling far and wide,” Lemarik’s voice drifted to her in his clear, sing-song fashion from the next room.  “The great creatures are growing in number and this evil one has unleashed the Imgogee hoards from the Abyss.  Loathsome monsters with great claws and snapping jaws!  I am afraid I lost the better part of my army to them in an ambush.  Most unfortunate.  Most atrocious!  I have come to learn whether my grandson has tasted of the treachery of the beast he allows to live in his palace.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Nicole shouted to him.  “You mean Jozsef Daniel?”

“Of course!  Do not tell me that you are not aware of his true nature, my little sister.  Have I not been telling you all along that you are playing with fire?”  Lemarik’s tone changed slightly.  “He has been coming to your bed.  Do not play the innocent with me!  We know each other much too well for that.  You are drawn to him because he is beautiful as once my son, Omar, charmed you.  You are a victim of your desires, my love.  You would have done better to have offered yourself to me.  I, at least, would have appreciated you for your true nature.  We are alike, you and I.  We could have made a glorious match.  Our children would have put the gods to shame!”

Nicole wrapped her bathrobe about her and emerged from the bathroom to find him going through the perfume bottles on her dresser, sniffing and smelling each one.  Tasting some of them.

“I don’t know why you came to see me, sir.”  She disappeared into her dressing room.  “You are barking up the wrong tree.”

“Wrong tree?”  He turned about and then spied a cluster of crystal decanters on her bar.  He crossed the room and began to taste the liquors in the bottles.  “No. No. No. No. No.  Not the wrong tree, the wrong branch, perhaps.  You have always been hard-headed, ill-tempered and uncompromising.  Why, I venture to say your noggin is as hard as an ironwood tree.  These traits, you inherited from our father.  He can be most stubborn.  I came to offer you another chance to save yourself before it is too late.”

“Speaking of our father,” Nicole came out of the closet, wearing a pair of dark blue shorts, pulling a flimsy, cotton blouse over her head.  She picked up her discarded towel and began to dry her hair.  “He is upstairs, you know.  Perhaps you would like to visit him.”

“I have seen him. 
That
is not our father up there.”  Lemarik poured a bit of brandy in a glass and picked it up.

“That is so our father!  I know Mark Ramsay when I see him.”  She sighed in disgust and shook her head.  “Classic denial.  Just because he isn’t swinging that golden sword over his head, doesn’t mean he’s not Mark Ramsay.  They did something to him.”  She sat on the edge of the bed and scowled deeply.  “I know I have never been on the best of terms with him, but I don’t like seeing him like this any more than you do.  It’s not right!  I happen to take pride in the havoc wreaked by our kind.  But Jozsef didn’t do it, General Schweikert did it.  The man’s an idiot.  A walking fool.”

“You can drop the pretense, Nicole.”  Lemarik smiled at her.  “I spoke with Sophia and she told me the truth.  She has nothing to hide and nor do you.  In fact, my heart was given great hope when I heard of how you visit him every day.  The plan you and my grandson have in mind will not work.  The Ancient Evil will know the moment you try to take him from the palace.  We will have to think of another way to rescue him.”

“We …we?”  She stopped working on her blonde curls and looked at him in surprise.  “You just said he is not our father.  Why would you help us?”

“Because you are my family, whether you like it or no.”  He crossed the room and hovered in front of her.  “You are my sister.  My only sister.  And your powers are very great, though you do not know it!  You must open your mind to who you are.  You are the daughter of Adar, the Mighty Hunter and Meredith!  Do you know who your mother is?  Do you know
what
she is?  I do not think so.  But you are no match for the Ancient Evil from beyond the Abyss.”  He straightened up and looked down his long nose at her.  “Even if you and Bari were to combine your powers, you could not stand against him and he has Hubur to help him.  She is most dangerous!  Horrible and ghastly in her true form.  To look upon her would be utter destruction!”

“She certainly is ghastly.”  Nicole agreed.  She knew very well that Jozsef Daniel was not her cousin, Jozsef Daniel.  She gazed out the window as she brushed her long curls into a ponytail on top of her head.  She knew very well that it was she, and not Lemarik, who was suffering from classic denial.  A fool, indeed.  She pressed the brush against her forehead as she felt the makings of a headache gathering behind her eyes.

“You know nothing.”  Lemarik said quietly and folded onto the floor in front of her, before placing his hands on her knees.  “Can you not trust me, Nicole?  We must put our differences aside.  You must take up your cross as the mystic healer, Simon of Grenoble, would say.  You are your father’s daughter.  It is time you act the part.”

“Then why don’t you enlighten me as to what my part is, brother.”  She tossed the brush on the bed and crossed the room to the bar and poured herself a glass of brandy and found a cigarette under the bar.  She came back to the bed and sat down facing him and blew out a long trail of smoke.  “Convince me of what I should do.  Why should I trust you?  You allowed me to grow old in the underworld!  You would have allowed me to fade away!  Why?”

“Simply because you were with my beautiful son, Omar.”  He said sadly.  “I wanted only the best for him.  I was selfish.  For that, I am sorry, but you would not listen.  You should never have been with him in the first place.  You are his aunt!  Did you never have the slightest bit of morality?  Of decency?  You seduced your brother, Luke Andrew, your uncle Luke Matthew and you tried to seduce John Paul as well.  Do you know who John Paul Sinclair-Ramsay is, Nicole?  Your mother tried to raise you as a decent, moral human even though you were never human to begin with.  I suppose your nature is stronger than even Meredith knew.  Have you never wondered why your father always seemed a bit afraid of you?  Come with me, Nicole, before it is too late.  I can take you home at least.  Luke Andrew would welcome you, I’m sure.”

Nicole’s face had grown very dark.  She did not like to be reminded of her past.  She cared very little for the concept of sin and had no use for God.  As far as she was concerned, the Supreme Deity had played a very dirty trick on both her and her brother.  They had been outcasts!  Freaks!  They’d had no one but themselves.

“Who is John Paul?  Tell me who he is, brother.”  She narrowed her blue eyes sharply, looking very much like her father.

“I could not tell you in a thousand years.”  Lemarik said quietly and then frowned.  “Do you know of the magick your father uses to transfer the mysteries of the Templars?”

“I know about their infernal rites and Holy Mysteries!”  She said derisively as she sipped her drink.  “What of it?”

“I can enlighten you.”  Lemarik stood up slowly.  “It is time you learned who you are, Nicole Ramsay.”  He stepped closer to her.  “You are your father’s daughter.  It is time you repaid some of the debt you owe him.”

“I owe him nothing!”  Nicole looked up at him as fear registered on her face.  “I have been looking after him here.  I have no intention of allowing them to hurt him, if I can help it!”

“You are helping the prisoner upstairs for your own selfish reasons.  You are frightened here.  You fear for your life!  You want to leave here, but you have no place to run.”  Lemarik took a step toward her.  “I had hoped that you might have learned something by now, but I see that you are still as selfish as ever.”

“Stay away from me!”  Nicole tried to get away from him.

Lemarik grabbed one foot and dragged her kicking and fighting to the floor.  He pressed her against the floor easily with one knee on her back.  She turned her face back and forth, cursing and struggling. 

“Now learn something, my sister.”  Lemarik bent over her and pressed one hand against the back of her head.  She shrieked, stiffened and then relaxed.  A few moments later, Lemarik stood up and looked about the room.  Something had distracted him, but he had given her what he wanted her to know.  She would sleep for while, and then he would speak to her again. He pulled his robe about him and spun around in a purple blur.

((((((((((((()))))))))))))

Luke Andrew slapped the reins against the neck of the black horse and the sleek animal picked up its pace a bit.  He had been riding south of the estate on a wild goose chase, looking for Lucio Dambretti when the sun had gone down.  Now the moon was rising over the trees, a huge yellow disc.  Selwig’s smaller pony trotted along beside the bigger animal.  The healer had refused to tell where Lucio might have gone, in spite of the Master’s threats.  Luke had felt extremely sorry for the distraught little healer and had brought him along to get him away from the Master’s wrath.  The Tuathan clutched his yellow bag in front of him with one hand.  His eyes were wide and his face was sad. 

He was afraid for his friend, Vanni, and Luke thought he knew why.  Lavon had admitted that Lucio had been asking him questions about Lucia and Sophia.  Catharine had submitted to the Master’s questions, but had provided nothing as to her husband’s whereabouts.  Luke slumped in the saddle and slowed the horse in order to allow the pony a respite.  They had been riding aimlessly for hours about the country and the healer had not said more than a dozen words.  Very unusual for the talkative little faery.

“I know you know where they went, Selwig.”  Luke Andrew commented as they rode along.  “It is quite obvious he went looking for my father in the underworld.  He thinks that Sophia is his daughter, Lucia.”

“She is not Lucia.”  Selwig told him matter-of-factly.

“That is beside the point.”  Luke glanced at him.  “I tried to get permission to go there myself.  I wanted to make sure whoever took my father did not take him to the underworld.”

“I don’t think he is in the underworld.  I think he is in the Abyss.”  Selwig nodded.

“Why do you think that?”

“I don’t know.  I just think that.”

“Do you know who Sophia is?”

“I know what Vanni thinks.”

“What does Vanni think?”

“He says that Sophia is like your father.”

“In what way?”

“He could not explain it.”

“Did he tell his father about it?”

“No.  That would not have been wise.”

“Why?”

“I cannot say.”

“If you…” Luke began and then stopped as he saw someone walking toward them across the moonlit meadow.

“Ohhhh.”  Selwig reined his pony to a halt and sat staring at the silvery form.

“Who is that?”  Luke whispered.  “Is it Sophia?”

“Noooo.  I don’t think so.”  Selwig matched his whisper.

“Stay put.”  Luke told him.  “I’ll see who comes.” 

He kicked the horse and rode toward the figure that seemed to be dressed in a white gown.  A woman. That much was plain.  As he drew nearer, his heart leapt into his throat as he thought it was his mother, Meredith.  As he drew closer, he realized with a start, it was his sister Nicole.

“Nicole?!”  He shouted to her and she stopped.   He halted the horse beside her and she looked up at him from haunted eyes.

“Brother?”  She blinked at him.  “Where are we?”

“Lothian!”  He slid from the horse and held the reins in his hand.  “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.”  She told him and her voice seemed far away, unreal.

“Are you a dream?  A ghost?”  He asked her and took a step back.

“I have come to ask your forgiveness.”  She fell on her knees in front of him.  “Shrive me, brother!”

“Shrive you?”  He took another step back.  She was not real.  This was some sort of trick.  “You are not a Templar!”

“I am your sister.  My father is your father.  I have wronged you, and I would ask your forgiveness.”