The Key (Sanguinem Emere) (23 page)

So I am to lose Delilah too. I look to Dimitri, incredulous that he could do this to me, could turn his back on me and what we have. What we have shared together. I may have spent all day thinking about this probability, allowing it to segue into my dreams, but the reality hits me hard, like a violent sucker punch. He continues to impassively scan his magazine, a small frown the only indication that he has a single thought on the matter at all. Small consolation to me. I quietly watch him, fully aware that my face has gone red.

Fully aware of how ugly I am when I cry.

More than aware that this will be the last time I see him.

“Come with me,” Levi clicks his fingers at me, like I’m a dog he’s commanding to roll over and I turn my eyes to him, hating every inch of him, every turn of his lips, every sly twist to his eyes. This is his fault. I know it. I feel it. But my feet follow regardless as he walks from the library and into the foyer.

I will not cast one last glance at the man I love. I won’t. I instruct myself harshly. Even as my heart cracks in my chest. How is it that these people surrounding me don’t here its tumultuous howling?

Silence outside. I look up into so many accusing faces, all dressed up for a gala, and something in me stirs. Fear. It is like a cult. A furious, hive-minded cult. And there are so many of us. Them, rather. So many of them. All watching me like they know I injured him in some way. They all know what I’ve done, these faces that I don’t recognise. They all read it in me, in the man leading me out to a life without Dimitri. And this is to be the worst of my punishment, being slowly followed by their eyes as I slip out, walk the walk of shame. My own self betrays me now. I deserve this. I blatantly disregarded him and his instructions. I let out the monsters in the room.

Only I didn’t. Someone else is to blame. I should only be accused of giving myself over to the affections of my beloved friend, so like a sister, in a moment of abandon, for not maintaining my vigilance. And now I have lost both friend and sister. And Dimitri.

Delilah hands me my handbag, the only possession I carried with me, as I reach the door. She looks away from my eyes, but I can see the way her face is scrunched, her eyes watering, her mouth twisted into an ugly bent scream of denial. Even as she refuses to look, to see what is being done.

Levi swings open the front door and leads me out. He holds a twenty out to me, for the cab, he says, basking in my catharsis. I look at the money like the filth it is and glare up into his eyes with fury.

He smiles, reaches into his left shirt pocket and retrieves the very bane of my existence, the thing that sparked this outrage and ruined my life. He loops the leather hanging over my head and settles the key against my chest with gracious reverence.

I solemnly ignore its presence as all it serves is to hang me in my shame like the soul-sucking noose it is.

But what I can infer I don’t care to. Yet there it is, a pointing finger, the reason for my expulsion with a beaming, gloating smile.

As I turn from him, I hear his words like a mantra, “Keep his secrets, Eva.”

A cab waits ominously outside the gates, all the way down the drive. My walk of shame has not ended.

After what seems an eternity I reach the cabby and dig in my purse for whatever money I have. I drop a pile of notes in his grubby hand and stare up at the façade of my failure, the prison that I wish I had never entered, that I wish I could stay in forever.

“Where to?” He grunts.

“Just take me anywhere.”

SATURDAY 23 November 2008… 23:42

It could be any café. It could be any day. I could be any woman.

But it’s not and neither am I.

The coffee started to go cold an hour ago. Now it’s like ice to me, despite the heat. I haven’t touched it. I can’t even stomach the smell. The waitress approached my table expectantly about thirty minutes ago, but something in my face made her stop to wipe down the table next to me instead.

I take the tethered key from around my neck and dangle it over the cold coffee threateningly. It glints sadly at me and I stop my hand, scrunching it instead into my pocket.

I can’t feel. If I do, I will. And that’s bad. I’ve been feeling the whole evening. And I’ve only now managed to bring myself to this point. Where the anger is starting to edge out the pain. Little by little.

It’s better that I’m alone.

No Delilah. No Cess. All dead and gone. Some literally. Some not so. And what can I do? Tell the police?

Tell them.

Tell them what?

That my sister is… No, don’t do it, Eva. Don’t let this thoughts back into your head.

No Dimitri.

I tug out my PDA Something to do. Anything.

A ton of emails. It’s a start.

An email from Bram five hours ago. Before everything started to shatter.

I press my finger down over OPEN. Much too hard. Shuttering the feeling into that. It helps a bit.

Eva

Alex told me you’ve been seeing Dimitri Kron-

Really? I make to shut off the cursed thing but then his next words catch my eye…

-and I know it isn’t my place. But I’ve attached a document I bribed a detective friend of mine into sharing. Read it.

You’ll thank me.

By the way, we need to talk about Cecily.

Bram

The mention of my sister’s name leaves me blank. Don’t feel. Don’t. Don’t even think about it.

That she’s dead.

Goddammit. It’s like a loop of masochism in my brain. Can’t tell him that. Who’ll believe me?

I open the attachment mechanically. A photograph of something written on tile.

What is that, blood?

SATURDAY 23 November 2008… 04:02

The apartment reeks of disuse.

I squeeze my eyes shut and take the marker pen from the floor where I flung it almost an hour ago. Everything seems too slow, too dim in my mind, like bulbs have shattered and lacerated…

Something…

I raise my hand to the wall and start writing.

His secrets be damned.

TUESDAY 24 February 2009

Bordeaux

February Edition

Author Biography: Miss Eva Wright is the newest member of our writing staff and has done nothing but blow our collective minds away since she first walked through our door in January as a contracted member of the family. She is 33, single, and daring, as we learnt from her first feature piece (published here for your pleasure) on the illustrious and ever-elusive Dimitri Kron.

Dimitri, Lady Harvester

The man of more than just a thousand faces

“When I look at the world, I see the faces of the ones I love, the ones I will love, and the ones I’ll never get the opportunity to love.”

These were the first words that Dimitri Kron ever spoke to me as he sat across the way from me at Crème, a cigarillo in one hand and a double whiskey in the other.

Yes. The Dimitri Kron. The man who is said to have a harem of under-aged girls at his beck and call for whatever nefarious means he desires. The man who may, or may not, have driven a promising young girl to suicide. The man whose charitable ventures far exceed anything we plebeians could ever achieve.

But most importantly, the man we all love to hate. And love. And wonder about at every available opportunity. An yes, these words may seem indicative of a kind, generous, loving nature, but really what they are indicative of is the insidious nature of a hidden agenda.

The Dimitri Kron I was to engage myself with in a business endeavour, does have deep, dark secrets. Something that, when I first came to learn of them, chilled me to the bone and forced me to re-evaluate all my previous conceptions of this mysterious gentleman.

The evidence that we need to solidify his secrets – to some extent – has finally surfaced.

Dimitri,

I’m sorry. So sorry. For disappointing you.

Please tell her to stop coming here.

I don’t want to do this anymore.

These are the words that Addison Fleur scrawled into her bathroom floor on the night she committed suicide. Miss Fleur’s parents granted the rights to publish this note in the hopes that it would shine some light on the senseless death of their daughter.

Mr Kron has, as yet, been unavailable for comment.

More on page 23…

THURSDAY 5 November 2009… 11:22

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

Romans 3:23

My Most Exquisite Melinda

How charming that you have come to me with this delightful ploy. And must I commend you on your forwardness, your courage to assume I will not take this little missive straight to your Master’s chamber? But of course you knew I wouldn’t. Just as you knew that your intentions would intrigue me.

You understand me too well.

I don’t like it.

But I’ll bite. The key to your plans, you ask? The one element you are overlooking that could very easily make or break this deal. Yes, I know what that is. Or should I say who? The very person you wish to mar in his eyes, Eva Wright. Yes, I know exactly what you are thinking, a simple creature, more enamoured than any of the rest of us. And certainly too wrapped up in Dimitri to be deemed threat worthy. But trust me on this. She is the key. Or rather, she has it.

Find a means to distract her and I will get you your key.

If you can make it worth my while to be there at that moment, all the better.

Your Devoted Slave,

L.

I read the letter through again. It won’t do to let him think he’s rattled me. I can almost hear his smug little giggles as he penned his own puns. Just having him in my apartment is enough to pique my intense discomfort.

I was beginning to feel better,

I was beginning to feel like my old self and now this.

Levi clicks his tongue and moves quietly around my apartment, touching my things, making me shudder barely. Certainly not enough for him to see he has unsettled me in my own home.

His eyes pass over the recently painted over wall segment near to my bedside cabinet and I wince. It’s like having his hands on me all over again.

I sigh as I fold up the tattered piece of paper, slightly worn along the folds from pocket love, “And?”

“And what?” He smirks as he holds up some of the research I neglected to squirrel away in my rush to open the door, his eyebrow cocked marginally to match the pointed grin on his features.

No one has been in my apartment since that last night at Dimitri’s home. No one. Not even my brother. Though he made so many attempts to commiserate with me on home turf over the loss of Cecily. I managed to put off his need for comfort with a few desperate pleas to be left to my own sorrow.