Chapter 42 #10
“We will consider your request and give you a proposal in one hour.” The woman removed Rachel’s ring from the scale and held it out. “Walk around the park, but stay in sight of the lake. You’ll be safe enough. The only predators here at the moment are the ones who live here.”
Rachel slipped the ring on her finger, thanked the Ladies Three for their consideration, then walked over to Lucas and Jack—and wondered when the other woman had left the room.
“Should I check out of the hotel room first?” she asked.
“No,” Lucas replied. “You’ll need a quiet place.”
She didn’t ask why she would need it. As she walked around the ornamental lake and studied the statues that looked unnervingly real, she realized she would give these people anything they wanted if they could somehow manage to save her from Alistair and whatever plans he now had for her.
15
Lucas Frost walked up to the table where Justine balanced the scales that decided the price of the Arcana’s assistance.
“She asks for nothing that would directly harm another,” Zerah said, lightly touching the seven cards that revealed Rachel Nightingale’s desires. “She asks to save herself; to survive; to thrive.”
“Can it be done?” he asked Justine.
She considered each item that she had used to balance the scales and nodded. “If she has the courage, we can set her free.”
“Her freedom will require flesh,” Lysandra said, turning her sketchbook around for him to see. “Her enemy has great influence across the river. Everything must be done quickly if she is to succeed.”
Lucas studied the series of drawings that showed the pathway to Rachel Nightingale achieving her desires.
Justine was right. The woman would need a great deal of courage if she was going to embrace this choice.
16
Rachel sat on a bench and studied the female statue rising up from the ornamental lake.
Emaciated, dressed in rags, holding a lantern.
A rock with a flat top rose up nearby, a perfect place to set a lantern.
Was that the intention? To leave the lantern in that place to light the way for other women who needed to escape, who wanted freedom?
What others? And where would they come from?
There was power—and anger—in that emaciated form. There was power and beauty in the lake’s other statue—a winged woman who stood atop a fountain that looked like a series of waterfalls that fell into the lake’s water.
Opposite images and yet the same. Like seeing pictures of a forest before and after a fire. But with a forest, there was hope that the green would return, that what had been sacrificed to fire would begin again. A new start with new life.
Was she about to burn down her old life in order to create a new one?
When she spotted Jack walking toward her, she rose and moved to meet him.
“Ready?” he asked.
How to answer that when she didn’t know what was ahead of her? “Ready enough.”
He led her to a large office that must be part of the pavilion but hadn’t been obvious when she walked past it an hour ago.
Expensive furnishings that she associated with a CEO’s office filled one side of the room. The other side held a conference table. The Ladies Three sat on one side. The woman who had been with Lucas Frost earlier that morning sat on the other side.
Jack pulled out the chair next to the woman and indicated that Rachel should sit there. Then he pulled out the other chair and sat next to her. Was he acting friendly or acting as a guard?
Lucas Frost sat at the head of the table.
“We have a solution that will give you what you said you desire, but you must understand that this is an all-or-nothing solution. You can’t cherry-pick what you’re willing to do.
As much as we can, because some things cannot be known until they happen, we will explain now what has to be done and what it will cost. Until we take the first step, you are free to decline our help and disappear in your own way. ”
“If I decline your solution and try to do this on my own, will I survive?” Rachel asked.
The woman who had been sketching during that first meeting looked at her with eyes that were now clear and said, “I saw no line of fate that would keep you from being permanently harmed by the man you are fleeing from—except the solution we offer.”
That was it? Do things their way or end up in an institution somewhere when Alistair caught her? Or end up in a shallow grave?
She should be more skeptical. But she wasn’t. She was here because she’d already considered the usual ways to escape an abusive partner and knew they wouldn’t work. Not against Alistair and his damn family name.
“What is your solution?”
“Transformation,” Lucas replied. “You will become someone else—something else—for one year. After that, you will return to your previous body. We will provide you with a new name and all the identity papers required to support that name.”
“Even with a new name, if I contact anyone I know now, Alistair will find me,” Rachel protested.
The woman who balanced the scales shook her head. “A year from now, Alistair Hampton will no longer be a concern.”
How can you be sure? She almost asked the question, but she looked at the Ladies Three and knew they were sure, that they had seen Alistair’s fate. Or at least a potential fate.
“During the year that the lines of destiny play out, you need to hide in plain sight in a place where you will be safe and where you will not be recognized for who and what you are,” Lucas said.
“What if this takes longer than a year? Do I stay—”
“No.” Lucas looked stern. “The bargain for transformation is for one year. Being something else longer than that can have severe consequences.”
Hearing the warning, Rachel asked, “What do you want in return?”
Lucas gestured to the woman sitting beside Rachel. “You will know her as Ashley Laxton. She is one of the Arcana who handles the arrangements for these kinds of business transactions.”
“You will know her as”—meaning she has another name among her own kind. Was that true for all of them?
Ashley Laxton folded her hands over the legal pad on the table.
“Our fee for helping you in this quest is twenty percent of your current liquid assets, whatever that might be.
We will close all your bank accounts, cash out any certificates of deposit in your name, empty your safe deposit box, empty any storage unit you might have in any of the towns around the Fate River.
Liquid assets will be transferred to accounts belonging to the Arcana, which are beyond the reach of someone like Alistair Hampton.
Everything that you value that we can move quickly will be moved beyond his reach.
“We will take care of you for that year, providing food, shelter, and safety. Before you take the last steps, you will contact the people involved in publishing your books, informing them that I will be your liaison for the next year, since you will be unable to contact them directly. I will take care of any transactions or approvals they require for your work.” Ashley paused.
“We will also need some of your flesh. How much will depend on how many places we need to be at the same time. We must be swift in collecting what belongs to you—swift enough that Alistair Hampton will not be aware of your actions until they are complete and our people have returned to Wyrd.”
Rachel stared at the Arcana around the table, stunned. “Why do you need my flesh?”
“Humans have a saying, ‘you are what you eat,’ ” Lucas said.
“There is a branch of the Arcana who are able to temporarily assume the form of any flesh they consume. Females from that branch will take your place and remove all your belongings. How many females will be required will depend on how many places they need to be simultaneously.”
What did it say about her fear of Alistair that having these beings take pieces of flesh wasn’t as terrifying as crossing the river again and being in a town where Alistair or his minions could locate her?
“How much flesh?” At that moment, she couldn’t remember the play where a pound of flesh was the payment for a debt. Was how much as important as where it was taken from?
“That will depend,” Ashley replied. “Thigh muscles usually provide sufficient meat and can heal without loss of mobility if tended properly.”
“When…?”
“It must be done tomorrow,” Lucas said. “You’ve been gone for a day already.
Your enemy can’t declare you missing and try to take your assets yet, but he won’t wait any longer than he must. There were inquiries already by a private investigator who was searching for the emotionally disturbed wife of an important client.
This PI talked to police a few days ago. ”
“We weren’t married yet, but Alistair was already laying the groundwork for me to disappear,” Rachel whispered. To disappear or be found dead in a seedy hotel in one of the towns along the river.
Alistair would talk to reporters about her depression and eating disorders that he had been helpless to change.
Her delusions about people trying to hurt her, especially him.
Would he mention that he’d been about to put her in an institution for her own good?
Men used to do that all the time when a wife or some other woman became inconvenient.
Men like Alistair still believed they could do it and not be questioned.
Rachel looked at Lucas. “You said transformation, that I’ll become something else. What?”
The woman who balanced the scales answered. “That will depend on you. Words have power here, Rachel Nightingale. Choose your intentions carefully because they will dictate what you become for the year you are with us.”
Terrifying thought. Exhilarating thought. “What do I need to do?”
Ashley pushed the legal pad and a pen over to Rachel. “Today you provide information, and we plan. Tomorrow, we take action.”
17