The Judas Relic: An Evangeline Heart Holiday Adventure (14 page)

With deliberate slowness, I bring my hands together until they’re eight inches apart. Attraction pulls the bolts together into an electric ball. I picture Aurelia, her spirit, her love of life and of friends, and her willfulness.

Black arms of nothingness open wide and embrace me in an all-consuming possession. I am deaf, blind, and mute.

And for once, my heart doesn’t hurt.

Chapter Two

I arrive in Rome on the wings of sunrise. Wisps of an orange and pink sky bleed into morning blue, and the sun shines bright from the east, already warming the dry air. Over rooftops, grand buildings rise in the distance, oddly pristine and unfamiliar.

My shoulders relax and I take the first deep breath of the week. This is going to be a cinch—no rain, no flood. Hopefully I can get in and out without a single issue.

Pride puffs up my chest. I’m getting good at this.

In front of me, tall box elms create an impenetrable wall around a home’s garden and repeat again near what looks like a rear entry into the house. Hand-painted and etched pots overflow with bright blossoms. Clusters of them dot the space and cuddle up to several benches scattered throughout the garden.

Beyond the lazy floating butterflies and working bees, the garden is silent and empty. Everyone must still be inside this morning. I hesitate and scan the entire back wall of the house, not sure I can sneak in without being seen—especially if my plan is to keep Aurelia from leaving. I step forward and a familiar blonde steps through the doorway, making me duck back behind a hedge. I’ve only seen Aurelia once before, but it must have been last week, because she looks the same. Curls held back by a gold braid frame a heart-shaped face, round with youthful pudginess. I slip behind a tall container bursting with tall, fluffy-headed grass so I can study her in secret. She’s barely as tall as I am and dressed in a simple tunic pinned at the shoulders with matching brooches. Turning to respond to a question, the curls spill down her back, stopping just short of the matching gold braid around her teeny waist. She skirts a narrow table and sits, smiling up at a servant as he sets a fruit plate and bread in front of her.

“Aurelia?”

I jerk toward the voice that haunts my dreams and try to dislodge my heart from my throat while I press deeper into the foliage. Greenery leans across my face, but I can still make out every single one of Constantine’s features as he comes outside. Golden eyes assess every possible threat and a youthful bunching of freckles dust his cheekbones. His demeanor changes and he scans the garden, pausing on my location. Aurelia looks up, but I can’t shift my attention off Constantine. While he stares intently at my etched clay planter, I curl my fingers around the lip and try to suck breath into my collapsed windpipe.

Whenever I am, however long it will be until he touches me, his raw handsomeness makes all the wrong parts of my body take notice. Impossibly tall, Constantine is somewhere between the thick, wide warrior I first met, and the lean death machine who trained me to be the same. His dark blond curls are cut close to his head and his fingers twitch constantly. I wonder when he got that nervous tic under control.

“Papa.”

He snaps back to Aurelia and rubs the edge of his eyebrow.
“Me paenitet. Ego vidi.”
Sorry. I thought I saw something.

Their Latin shifts in my head. I’m still not sure how that works, but I’ve stopped questioning.

She lifts a small hand to his forearm. “You worry too much.”

He smiles, and the sheer joy of it illuminates his entire face. I press my lips together and my heart finds a regular rhythm.

“You don’t worry enough.” He sits on the adjacent bench.

She nibbles a slice of fruit ad he plucks a slice of pear off the plate. “What time are you leaving?”

“Rom is bringing the chariot this afternoon.”

I sigh, and the gust makes the grass wave. About time I had an easy one. I loosen my grip on the planter and straighten. As soon as Constantine leaves, I’ll figure out how to stop her.

He stands and rubs the back of his neck. He’s made that gesture a thousand times with me . . . something is bothering him, but he’s trying to hide it. I narrow my eyes and study each nuance of his body language, but even now he’s a master at secrecy.

Unaware, Aurelia wipes her fingers, jumps up, and throws her arms around his waist. His eyes squeeze closed.

I lean closer.

He drops a quick kiss on her head and tucks his emotion away before she lets go.

“I’ll be home in a week, Papa.”

He straightens and clears his throat. “I’ll talk to Rom and ensure he’s readied everything. Though I don’t know why I bother. He worries about you more than I.”

She bites her lip and a blush reddens her cheeks. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything but squeezes her shoulder, then returns to the house. Aurelia fidgets, straightens her belt, and trails in his wake.

I want to run after him, make him remember me, tell him not to be such a jackass from the get-go so we can have more good moments. But I don’t because it won’t matter, because that time is over for me, even if it hasn’t yet come for him. Biting my lower lip, I step from behind the planter and creep toward the table, skirting a splashing fountain. Thunder rumbles in the distance, and I cringe.

Constantine’s journal is warm against my back, and I pull it out. Keeping it will only make this harder after I’m gone. I lift it, press the leather against my lips in a silent goodbye, and set it next to Aurelia’s plate, fingers lingering for one last second. “Read this,” I whisper, and my throat tightens. “Remember me. Remember us.”

Straightening my shoulders, I step toward the door. Light flashes to my left and I spin. Ilif’s image materializes next to the fountain and I leap behind the hedge near the door.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

That’s what I get for having a sentimental moment about Constantine. I should have grabbed Aurelia the second I could. If Ilif’s here, he’s obviously not into playing nice. He’s out to win.

No chance.

I separate the branches of the hedge and glare across the small yard. Dressed in a dark-brown suit today, that superfuck straightens his tie, aligning the blue and brown stripes with the horizon. The light-brown pattern on his shirt does nothing to enhance his translucent skin. Spindly fingers smooth the gray hair at his temples, making me smile at the amount now peppering his shiny black pompadour. When he’s artfully arranged his entire countenance enough to make me gag, he moves around the back of the fountain.

Not a chance he’s going to get any closer to screwing this up.

I burst through the hedge and splash through the basin, drawing a long rope of lightning between my outstretched arms as I race toward him. Errant strands leap from my hands and ricochet off the water. He jerks away, but not before his features contort with betrayal, quickly covering a trace of awe. Fueled by his rage, I flex my knees and lunge. He flickers and ducks, but I catch him in the side of the face with my right hand.

He solidifies, and a triple fork of lightning erupts from the fountain as I flare my own. I wrap my arm around his neck, and a sharp pain spears the base of my spine as we disappear.

Blackness rips him from my grasp and tumbles me backward. The pain ebbs as a high afternoon sun blinds me. I crouch and search the flat white landscape for that scuttling cockroach, Ilif, but there’s only me.

In the distance, mountains rise from the glaring expanse of nothing. I pinch the white dirt. It’s crusty and coarse. Straightening, I study the horizon again and frown. I’m on either the Salt Flats near home in Utah or an alien planet.

Okay, so this is new. Like I need more things to figure out. I prod the muscles of my back, trying to recreate the pain, but fail. I twist and lift my shirt. No wound, not even a red mark. Whatever that weirdness was in Rome, the arc healed it. Even so, something made my lightning go haywire. All that should have happened was that my lightning created interference so it was impossible for Ilif to stay. At least that’s how it worked last time.

So where is he?

And where am I? This is a disaster. Just when I have a small grasp on my lightning and how it works—or at least the arcing part, I find another new component. This is such bullshit. I rub my forehead and focus on the Ilif part for now.

When we were in Spain and I used my lightning, I never bothered to figure out where the interference caused him to go. All I cared was that he wasn’t with me anymore. I’m not sure if he goes back to the same place every time, or if I’ve screwed up his life enough to keep him busy.

That would be too handy . . . so, no. I need to expect him back at Aurelia’s side any moment. With another quick look around at the barren plains, I open my hands and fill them with twin balls of lightning.

Blackness holds me only briefly, and the silence of the salt morphs into the roar of water. Color and the pungency of wetlands surround me as heat and sunlight become misting droplets of rain beneath a gray sky that I recognize instantly.

The river is louder than when Constantine and I arced here after Aurelia’s death. I’m at the same narrow section, flanked on either side by thick trees that make it impossible to see upstream past the sharp bend to the right. Easy to see how people could get lured into a false sense of security. The river looks peaceful, especially since the changing landscape works as a distraction. An uneasy lump forms in my stomach, and I pull a strand of lightning from my fingertips and slowly tease it longer then let it snap back and repeat the motion while I scan for something sinister.

Downstream, the trees fade quickly into reeds as the ground becomes smooth clay. The bank is sloping and beachy. A nice contrast to the cliffs and rocks at the bend beneath the tree roots, enough to make someone forget they’re basically standing in a tight canyon. People die like that every year back home, trapped in narrow canyons when the rainwater comes. Though nothing looks obviously out of place or deadly, the tall walls will make escape impossible—just like home. I snuff my lightning.

Twenty feet farther downriver stands an arched bridge. Thick with a short railing, it spans the water in a wide curve with massive supports of stone rising from the water. Roman architecture doesn’t skimp, and even here their brilliance shines through. There’s a dirt road leading up to it, but the reeds obscure parts from where I am. The cramping is back in my stomach.

I tug at my collar as raindrops slip beneath the cotton fabric of my shirt. No time to whine about the weather, I push through the reeds and stop at the edge of the road. Travelers wander along, warily skirting me and averting their gazes. Long, deserted silences stretch between the large groups as they hurry through the light rain.

If I’ve landed here now, that can only mean Aurelia’s chariot will come around the corner within the next few minutes. I need to quit with the sightseeing and make a plan that will convince her she can’t cross the river. I wince and bite my lip. If her driver is more protective than Constantine, he’s not going to be an easy sell.

As the road twists away from the river, wide expanses of barren soil flank both sides. The reeds are confined to a few feet next to the river, but otherwise, short, brittle grass grows in patches. Hugging the road’s left side, a wide hill slopes gently upward a good twenty feet, at least enough to get us out of immediate harm. It’s topped with a group of trees that flow down the side, hop the road, and continue on a parallel path to the river. Though there isn’t an actual road to the top, the grass won’t be tough to navigate. When I was here with Constantine, I realized horses are just ancient four-wheelers, so a half-decent charioteer shouldn’t have an issue, and I’m positive Constantine wouldn’t entrust Aurelia to a novice.

I jam my fists into my hips and scowl at the horizon. There has to be a reasonable way to get Aurelia and her driver off the main road and climbing up a random hill.
 

An occasional shrub dots the landscape, but nothing that can help me divert the chariot’s path. The most obvious plan is to use my lightning to scare everyone away, but I don’t trust the reaction. If I stand in the middle of the road and play the sorceress, odds are good the charioteer will just drive around me, probably with spit and well-deserved curse—most definitely a sword aimed at my head—all while inciting a complete panic and speeding Aurelia to her death.

Saving that option for last.

Thunder rumbles in the distance and the edges of the clouds darken. More pedestrians hurry along the road, and I study their paths to see if that helps me at all. They stay to the confines of the road for the most part, but big groups spread into wide swaths and overflow the road into the short grass.

I glance over my shoulder at the racing water. I swear it’s moving faster. A few more inches of reeds are beneath the surface now.

Penya’s flickering light spears the dirt next to me and I jump sideways. “Where have you been?” I wipe my hands on my pants. “Ilif was at Aurelia’s. I tried to flare my lightning to get him out, but it flung me to the Salt Flats. What’s that all about?”

“Possibly his attempts to tamper with the arc. I told you he was close, and that is why we cannot waste time trying to get me out of here. Not yet. Save Aurelia. What have you figured out?”

I rub the end of my braid across my lips. “Nothing yet. It’s not like I can flag her down and ask her to please wait by the side of the road.”

“Why not?”

I flounder, opening and closing my mouth while my brain tries to compute a snappy retort. A raindrop slips off my lip and onto my tongue.

“Stop making life so difficult. Simplicity is key.” She moves closer. “Life is the same, Evy. Yet you doubt.” She sighs and reaches for me. Her face softens and her eyes betray a pride she hasn’t revealed before now. “Life is not this complicated series of tests and struggles you seem to imagine. It is meant to be lived, not endured. How many of the struggles in your life have you created? Stop inventing obstacles. Stop making arcing harder than it has to be. Your alterations will continue to be massive complications if you do not start looking past the impossible.”