Successors (22 page)

“You’re waiting to see if they followed us. You want to keep me as protection in case they come for you.”

She chuckled. “That would be a logical assumption. Unfortunately I never really thought about that. My intricate plan tapered off pretty fast after
leave prison
.” She dashed out the words with her hands.

“So, why haven’t you left yet?” He crossed his arms.

“I haven’t been thinking about leaving. At all.” She looked him over. “I’ve been thinking about how that little spot above your nose crinkles when you’re concentrating. I’ve been coming to terms with a werewolf who paints.” She looked over his messy studio living room and snickered. “A slew of things have been running through my head, but none more so than your hands and your lips…” Her voice tweaked a little on the subject matter, but she fought through the words. “…and why they haven’t touched me once since we arrived.”

He looked at her with the same sadness he had before. “I want to, very much,” he said softly.

“But…?”

“I want to trust you.” He shook his head, adding the nonverbal
but I don’t
to the end of his sentence.

She nodded, wiping the maiden tears from her cheeks. “I’ll wait,” she said resolutely with a false contralto to avoid the emotional squeak in her voice. “I’m not known for my patience,” she chuckled, removing a few more tears, “but I’ll wait. I owe you that.” She cleared her throat, trying to purge the raw emotions that were threatening to overwhelm her.

She could see Vince averting his gaze, either to spare her embarrassment or spare his guilt for letting her weep openly without any offer to console her. After a few deep labored, trembling breaths, her determination caught up with her sentiments and she was back to herself.

She slipped between the table and couch rather than crawl back over. She looked back at him, wanting to say about a thousand things. Most of all she wanted to say, “I love you,” but at this point he wouldn’t believe her, and she was much too unsettled with her own emotions to be spouting out proclamations of love.

“I am hungry, though,” she said when she couldn’t find anything else worthy of saying. It was the only thing she was certain about at that point.

He smiled. “Well, I may be an ass, but I can’t have my reputation as host sullied.”

40

Several weeks into his loneliness, Ethan found some camaraderie amongst the guards. Apparently, heartbreak was an excellent conversation starter. One of the guards, who called himself “Duke” even though his nametag said Dwayne, introduced him to the “prop room.”

On the main floor, several doors down from the cafeteria, was an unmarked door. It had one lock that was meant for a bathroom. The right-sized screwdriver was all Duke needed to pick it. “Bathroom stalls have better locks than this,” Ethan commented as Duke swung open the wide metal door.

“It’s hidden in plain sight. It’s one of Danato’s tricks,” Duke said. Ethan noticed his Texan accent got stronger when they were doing something they weren’t supposed to. Everything about him screamed cowboy: His blond curls begged to be clustered under a cowboy hat. His bowed legs hinted at a childhood of excessive horseback riding. His thick nose either meant he’d been bucked off those horses a lot, or he just got into too many bar fights in his youth. “It works pretty well,” Duke said, “until a couple of lonely guards start looking for a love shack.” Ethan eyed him, a little uncomfortable with the discussion, since he had never seen a female guard on the premises. “Not me, Bud.” Duke winked and flicked the light switch just inside the door.

Three dangling fluorescent bulbs hummed to life, lining their way through the room. The room was at least twenty feet deep and ten feet wide, and filled to the brim with crap: beautiful, abnormal, expensive, ancient crap. The sum total of the world’s worst garage sale was hiding in this room.

“What is all this?” Ethan grazed his finger across an old wooden desk. His finger turned black from the thick layer of dust.
“Fetishes.”

“Pardon?” Ethan sputtered, wiping his finger on his jeans.

“Fetishes, idols, religious paraphernalia; this stuff is confiscated from the prisoners when they get collected. Some of it is supposedly magical, so we can’t let the prisoners get hold of it. Like this.” Duke held up what appeared to be a stick.

Upon closer inspection, Ethan determined that it was in fact…

“A stick?”

“Yeah, to you and me, but to the Sorcerer Ogana, this is the very instrument that could free him from his prison.”

“You’ve seen the sorcerers?” Ethan asked.

“Once, for a second or two.”
“Danato still hasn’t let me in there. What’s it like?”

“Dangerous.”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Everything around here is dangerous.”

Duke gave him a smirk before picking up a horse statue. He poked around its belly, as if he expected little Trojan men to pop out of it. “There’s no way to contain a sorcerer, so they roam freely inside the time bubble. It’s constantly monitored to stabilize it. It isn’t the type of place you just visit.”

“I see. I think. What about the elementals, have you seen them?”

“Yeah, they’re a pain in the ass. They are no more imprisoned here than the sorcerers are.”

“Have you been stationed on the top floor?”

“No one has. Only military personnel are allowed to guard them.”

“Military?” He was surprised he had never been told this. “I didn’t even know we had military.”

“Yeah, they are an exclusive contract. No one but the military can handle the elementals. We don’t even see them unless something goes wrong.”

“What about the rest of the guards? Are you contracted?”

Duke laughed. “Oh, you’re serious.” His smile faded. “Boy howdy, he’s keeping you at arm’s length, isn’t he? No bud, we’re all cons.”

“Cons?”

“Armed robbery, twenty-seven counts.” Duke patted his chest, recounting the number of crimes like home runs. “We’re prisoners from other facilities. Most of us have life sentences, but the right candidates can get reduced sentences—or delayed execution in the case of death row inmates—if we cooperate and obey the rules. It’s hard work, but you’re either doing something in prison, or you’re doing nothing. Either way, better here than in a 9 by 9 cell.”

Ethan stared at Duke, trying to match him with the new description.

“Man, you really didn’t know. I’m sorry if that’s a kill-joy.”

“I guess I thought you guys were allowed to leave on vacations or something.”

“Our vacations are going back to our original prisons to visit with family and justify taxpayer dollars.”

Ethan nodded. “I guess that should make me feel better. I’m not the only one stuck here.”

“Yeah.” Duke wrapped his arm around his neck and ruffled his hair. “This place isn’t so bad. It would be downright pleasant if it weren’t for the lack of cable.”

“Thank you!” Ethan threw up his hands. “I thought I was the only one being tortured by that. Not even a blasted radio.”

“I definitely hear that.” Duke pulled a mask from a pile of equally ugly masks. “Hey, check this out. You ever see
The Mask
with Jim Carrey?”

“Sure.” Ethan reached for the mask.

Duke pulled it away and waggled it in his face like an index finger to a bad dog. “Don’t put anything in this pile on your face.” He threw the mask back in the pile. “Oh, and don’t put any rings on, or rub any oil lamps.”

“Seriously?” Ethan smirked. “Are there really genies in them?”

“Oh yeah, I rubbed one lamp thinking that a genie would pop out and grant me three wishes. Instead, I got a skin rash, the runs, and hair loss. Apparently I wasn’t worthy.”

“Why, was it because you’re a criminal?”

“No, because I wanted three wishes; it’s a conundrum for the ages. What’s really messed up is even though Danato explained the “desires clause” very clearly, I still went back and did it two more times. I was bald for like a whole year. So, trust a very slow learner: don’t… rub… the lamp.” Duke pointed at him vehemently.

Ethan laughed for the first time in ages. “Damn, is everything cursed? I was really hoping to bring something back with me.”

“Like what?” Duke started looking around for something safe. “You pick, I’ll tell you if it’s cursed or not.”

Ethan surveyed the room and saw a set of mirrors leaning against the walls. He remembered Cori’s comment about watching his workout for good form. “How about a mirror for the gym?”

“Let me check.” Duke climbed over a set of table and chairs to get to them. “As long as there aren’t any people living in it, you can have it.”

“People live in the mirrors?” He wondered why he even bothered to question anything anymore. He had pole-vaulted down the rabbit hole the minute Danato rescued him from a village that jumped continents at will. It was a waste of energy trying to stay on top of this new reality.

“Sure. Mirror people. It happens. I don’t really know how, but… let’s see.” Duke pulled a small mirror from the stack and reflected it back on the first mirror. The image of a little girl came up on the small mirror that didn’t reflect into the larger mirror. “Oh, hell no.” Duke put it aside and checked another one, and when that one reflected nothing but white, he grimaced and shook his head and put it aside. The third showed no reflection in either mirror. “That’s your mirror. It’s a little big.”

“That’s fine. I need it for the gym.”

“That’ll do it, then. I’ll help you get it to the gym.” They lifted the mirror and headed out. “Needless to say, this isn’t the type of excursion you should share with Danato.”

“Against the rules?” Ethan asked.

“No, just frowned upon. Dangerous stuff is against the rules. Mischief is
frowned upon
. I’m just not particularly fond of Danato’s frowns.”

“Understood,” Ethan said.

41

Three weeks after arriving in the south of France, Vince was already packing to leave again. Cori looked on with concern from the bed while he rummaged through his dresser drawers. Although their relationship had remained at the level of platonic roommates, she kept her word to wait for him to trust her.

“I can’t believe you’re going back there,” she said, leaning over her crossed legs to play with the frayed ties on the quilt. The bedspread looked like something Vince had gotten from his grandmother. She liked it though. It had kept her warm, which was good since she had spent every night alone in the queen bed.

Vince looked up as he packed his extra clothes. “You know I have to.”

“I know. I just thought you could go somewhere else.”

“If I don’t go back, Danato will send the collectors out for me.”

She shrugged. “So? We’ll hide out here. Put on disguises when we go out.”

He shook his head with a serious smirk on his face. “Still think you’re tough, don’t you?” Her eyes narrowed. “If I’m worried about the collectors, you should be worried too.”

“I’m not afraid of bounty hunters.” She pushed back on the bed and leaned against the headboard.

He smiled full-on. She enjoyed seeing it, even if it was at her expense. “They aren’t so much bounty hunters as beasts from hell, trapped in semi-human form. As much as I’d like to show you one, I’m not willing to endure their capture, again.”

“They captured
you
?” she mocked his ego.

“I missed my curfew once.” He threw his bag near the door and dug his coat from the closet. The long black trench, although still overkill for a werewolf, reminded Cori of how attracted she was to him. She looked over his familiar features that were so close to her, yet so off limits.

“What will Danato do when you get back?” she said pulling her gaze back to his eyes.

He shrugged into his coat. “Yell… a lot.”

“Will he keep you locked up?”

“No, in my human form he has no right to detain me.” With his coat on, Vince pulled his duffel bag over his shoulder and left the room.

Cori sat on the bed, waiting for him to come back, but she heard the front door open and shut. She ran out after him. She jumped onto the front porch, which wasn’t much more than a wooden pole supporting an awning over a short stone patio. Vince was already walking down the drive toward town where he planned to catch a ride to the nearest train station.

“Hey!” she yelled at his back.

He turned around and waited for an explanation.

Cori stood with her mouth agape waiting for
his
explanation. She hadn’t expected a tearful heart-felt good-bye with kisses and hugs, but a grunted “see ya” would have sufficed.

She lifted her arms to the sky in a silent w
hat the hell?

He didn’t say anything.

Tears were her only response to his silence. She couldn’t begin to withhold them. Not after this insult. She lowered her hands and backed up to the cottage door.

Her voice trembled and cracked as she snarled, “Bye.”