The Key (Sanguinem Emere) (5 page)

A small frown puckers between Delilah’s plucked, prissy eyebrows, “I couldn’t tell you, Sweetheart. He told me not to,” She closes her eyes and breathes out as she speaks, dispelling negativity, or revelling in awe, “We are to be, at all times, sophisticated and discreet within and away from Dimitri’s presence, unless he instructs us to do otherwise.”

Her eyes snap open as she looks at me and, for the first time since I have known her, I can see a hint of jealousy in the set of her jaw, “But I suppose now that you are here, there is nothing for it. He approached me almost a year ago and invited me to live here with him as his sometime consort, but mostly as his social liaison. Of course I was instructed to be quiet about our arrangement and only to accompany him to specific events and functions where I may be noticed on his arm. About three months after my injection into his home, Cecily was introduced for much the same reason.”

A sweet, pink rose rises to my sister’s pale cheeks as she avoids my eyes.

I stare her down, my mind tumbling over moments, discussions, attempting to find some link to Dimitri. Why did I never read about this? Him and Delilah? Get word of this? Were they that good at keeping it under wraps? Too high-brow for my publications.

Shame punches me in the stomach.

“So let me just try and get my head around this,” I begin, the accusation still colouring my voice, “You have been sleeping with him this entire time, as has Cecily. But you couldn’t tell me because he gave you some sort of cultist mantra to live by. And so you convinced me that he was attracted to me and wanted me and that it would be good for me, after Bram, to allow myself to be taken in by the charms of a man that keeps a harem of women, one of whom is my best friend and the other is my sister?”

The sturdy set to Delilah’s face softens somewhat as she holds out a hand to me and I take it in my own without thinking. Years of routine have led me to be incapable of displaying appropriate anger etiquette where she is concerned. “I felt the same way when I came here at first. But he has this way of making you feel safe.”

“Safe from what?” I nearly shout the words at her, exasperated by her docile, cloistered tones, as I snatch my hand from her fingers, irritated by the way she strokes my skin as though trying to placate an over-tired toddler.

“Does it matter?” Cecily’s voice whispers from the other end of the kitchen, almost forgotten in my rage at Delilah. I turn on her, fully prepared to voice my disgust at her audacity for daring to think her thoughts are welcome in any argument I see fit to delve into after what she has done, but the innocent adoration over her features makes me stay my tongue. I try to reprimand her. I want to scream at her like a banshee, like my voice has no end, my hatred will never cease. I want to punish her until she crumbles into the soft, soppy ball I have always known my baby sister to be. But all the energy, the emotion and effort of it drains from me as I open my mouth to shout and nothing comes out but a small noise, almost akin to a sob. Cecily takes it for what it sounds like and she walks swiftly towards me before I can step aside in fear that she will touch me. Afraid I’ll hurt her feelings with the volatility of my adverse reaction to her closeness.

But I allow her to grasp me by the shoulders and pull me to her chest. I allow her to stroke my hair and coo in my ear like a mother. Because once again, not for the first, second, or even third time since this strange, tumultuous day started, I feel like I am missing a foot to stand on. As though some peculiar mixture of chemical substances is reacting under my feet and everyone else knows about the incoming explosion, except me. And it feels almost natural for them to treat me like a baby, because I am beginning to see the similarities. I want to scream constantly, because no one can understand my dilemma, they don’t seem to understand me.

I pull gently away from my sister’s embrace, not wanting to break her pattern of affection or her tender, overwrought, little heart, but unwilling to feign love when, to me, she is still a traitorous whore.

Sort of.

“You know what? This is just a little too psychotic for me, Ladies. I’m going home.” I mutter as I extricate myself and dig for my car keys in the wreck that was a perfectly well-packed handbag before I destroyed that illusion.

Delilah, quietly standing by and watching my inner turmoil with concern lining her features, speaks in a small voice, as though afraid I may attempt to punch her. Her fears are not exactly unfounded I have to concede to myself. “Do you really want to, Eva?”

A sigh escapes my lungs before I can stop it, but my words seem to flee with it and I groan to myself at my complete inability to shut up, “No, not really. But I know a scandal headline when I see one and this one is bound to cause a wave of destruction for us all. That is, of course, unless we wind up being listed under the obituaries for being stupid enough to find ourselves in some sort of love/suicide cult. I know how these things end, and it is always in tears or blood.”

“I can’t let you leave, Eva,” Delilah whispers again, quietly, as I march for the door. I can feel a chill race up my spin to curl away under my hair as my skin twitches in the first pangs of fear. I turn to the girls who have both risen, although Cecily is standing a step behind my friend with her hand tight on Delilah’s arm.

“What is that supposed to mean, D?” I try and keep my voice gentle. I have been in situations before where an interviewee, or sometimes, on occasion, a family member of the recently deceased, has threatened a combination of physical violence and detention. Training would dictate that I keep calm and try to think of a plausible exit strategy. But this is my friend. Why do I suddenly feel the urge to run from the fervour I see brimming in her eyes?

“You know what it means, Duckling. I was told to make sure you are comfortable. That you are important and we cannot lose you. And besides,” Her eyes well-up enough to loose a single droplet, “I can’t lose you, either.”

“Delilah, don’t do anything rash,” Even to my fearful ears, the tremors are clear.

“I don’t plan on doing anything, Eva,” Delilah croons as she visibly softens, her face slightly mocking at  my apparent paranoia, and tuts in annoyance at the trill of her cell. She pauses for a brief moment as my eyes dart towards the shade of the door being cast on the wall beside me. It’s starting to get dark and the long afternoon shadows are enticing. I wish I could be out in the summer evening with leaves whispering to me and the fragrance of old heat making my mouth water. But Delilah’s face has turned more severe, as she bites off her words into the mouthpiece, and slightly cold as she glances at me, ice lacing her gaze. “I see,” She mutters and clicks the flip-cover shut, her eyes lazily passing to Cecily as if the moment of winter never happened.

“That was Levi.”

My sister wrinkles her lip in disgust with an uncharacteristic sneer, “What the hell does he want?”

“He has a message from Dimitri…”

The tension in the room crackles under the weight of both their accusatory looks being turned to me. I glance hopefully at the door again and then sigh in mild irritation at myself and my ridiculous fear. They would not – could not – ever do anything to make me stay here if I really didn’t want to. What has gotten into me? Their behaviour is certainly odd, for both of them, but not good enough reason to start suspecting delinquent reactions.

“Eva, Dimitri wants to see you. Alone.”

The fire in their cumulative eyes makes my skin quite literally sting. Although Cecily is doing her best to seem less invasive than Delilah who is glaring at me with open jealousy.

“So?” I sneer back, fuelling my bravado with self-satisfaction I don’t actually feel.

“Well, it really doesn’t matter to me either way what you do,” Delilah begins off-handedly as she snaps the eye-contact off and starts clearing the crockery off the counter-top.

“Good,” I snatch my handbag closer to my side and head for the door slowly, trying to feign disinterest in whatever it is Dimitri has to say, though I know it’s an obscene lie. I desperately want to see him. And hear what he has to say for himself. And maybe reminisce just a little about the monumental feelings that have started bleeding through my limbs after last night.

“But he says he has a story for you.”

SUNDAY 16 November 2008… 18:22

Dimitri sits across from me with steepled fingers.

I chose the dining room for legitimate reasons. I think. For one thing, It’s close to the entrance hallway, which is close to the door. And open-plan, which is pleasant - the room leading off nicely to the foyer.

I met Dimitri in here, my purse still clutched to me, my feet ready to leave if I, in any way, felt discomfort at his approach. The options were 1). The solid, non-descript area to the left of the foyer with its doors auspiciously closed, or 2).  The open-plan, high-walled dining room.

I chose the least threatening option.

I have every right to leave, dammit. Every right to storm out of here without hearing his explanations, without agreeing to see my friend or my sister ever again. But the bastard knows me, it seems. He knew what it would take to make me stay.

A story. The same one I chose to engage in when I first met him? The reason I got mixed up in all of this. The reason I can’t stop staring at his face across the way from me.

I think. I hope.

Anything else would be a travesty.

Because I don’t love him.

Dimitri smiles and that tweak of intrigue cocooned in lust preens inside me and I glance directly into his eyes, fighting discomfort with discomfort. If he thinks he is going to put me at ill ease, he’s sorely mistaken. I place people off-balance for a living. Especially people like him. Seemingly secure in their invulnerable castles of secrets. Their mansions and hotel rooms. The palaces whose walls they seek to hide behind.

Well guess what? You let the enemy in behind the lines, Romeo.

“You’re upset, My Lamb,” My heckles rise with an inaudible snarl at his words, and especially at the familiar term of endearment, as I let the emotion leach from my face. I cannot be a person to him. I won’t let him see my rage and start picturing me as a human. If he sees me as such, then I become a thing to manipulate.

And my emotions have been indiscreet enough as it is since I arrived here. To be honest with myself, since long before that, even.

“That would imply that there is something here to be upset over, Dimitri.” I keep my features as impassive as I am able, but the gleam in his eyes is hard to ignore and as he stands from his end of the twelve-seater and starts sauntering over to me; I feel the machismo sliding off of me like oil from water. But I keep my gaze locked to his and watch his approach wearily.

He sits beside me and takes my hand, which I allow to lie scrunched inside his, an angry fist of denial in the face of all this…

“Don’t be,” He ignores my earlier statement and I watch as the moonlit shadows outdo the divinity of the shaded-lamp-glow over his features. His storming eyes settle over me as he straightens up and slips his hands from my despairing fist, reaching his regal height and roaming his glance over mine.

“Delilah told me of your intentions,” He speaks formally, “To leave, I mean.”

I nod in silent affirmation of the unspoken question lingering between us.

If it is true.

“I see.” His eyes look sad as they rotate away from mine and I have to literally pinch myself to remember why I am here. Be stubborn. Be reluctant. Anything to get the story. Anything at all.

And end this ridiculous infatuation where it stands. I can’t afford to be romantically beholden to a story-hook. I’ve let myself remain ‘enamoured’ with him for too long. This story should have been sent in to print three weeks ago already.

“Wasn’t it you who told me that the best way to learn of your ‘quarry’,” I flinch at my own words given back to me on his lips. I’d never meant to make him feel like he was just a thing to be pursued. Maybe that’s why he’s doing this to me. “Is to immerse yourself in his environment?”

I glower at him as the words of his finished question ring in my ears. “So you’re trying to tell me you brought me here to give me a glimpse of how the other half lives?” I let my eyes wander over the general environment in disgust, recalling all too plainly the tension between the girls in the kitchen.

“I brought you here because I wanted you. And I thought you felt the same way.”

A pause hangs between us like the blade of a guillotine. He reaches into a pocket and pulls out a small, navy velvet box which he puts on the table between us.

“Go on, open it.” His eyes shine and a shadow of a smile almost crosses his lips. One of those very open, honest ones that would normally melt me. If I’m going to be honest, it still does.

I daintily pry open the box. Nestled within is a silver bracelet weighed down with charms. A few of them catch my eye as lovely for their shine, others for their age. But the entire thing is like carnival jewellery. So many of them that if I spent an hour studying it I still wouldn’t be able to recall everything on here.

I touch it with the tip of my fingers, a gesture I just can’t accept right now. An heirloom.

And he’s giving it to me.

I glance up into his eyes watching me and I flinch at the disappointment and the sadness as he looks away. He saw my hesitation.