Chapter 42 #11
Lucas Frost met with Justine, Zerah, Lysandra, Jack, and Ashley in the Arcana’s private section of Destiny Park. He looked at each of them and said, “What do we have, and what needs to be done?”
“She was clever,” Ashley said, “which means it will be more work for us. But we can give the fate of some others an opportunity to balance the scales. Recently, three female bodies were found on the shore near Destiny Bay and have been a feast for many. Females from the branch of the Arcana that can transform through consuming flesh could make use of those bodies and accompany the Rachels who have the tasks that involve the most risk. I was told the remaining flesh of the three bodies is almost beyond use for transformation, but it will work for enough hours to complete the tasks. After the flesh is taken from them, the remains could be moved to a place on the other side of the river where humans will find them.”
Lucas nodded. “That will allow them to be identified. Yes, we’ll find a place for them on the other shore where they will be found.”
“Two of the females will go with the Rachel who will return to the apartment, since that is the biggest task and the one with the most risk,” Ashley said.
“The three of them will pack up all the possessions they can carry—mostly clothes and toiletries and small things that are listed as having sentimental value, as well as the laptop and information about Rachel’s work.
“I will go with another Rachel to her primary bank to assist in closing her accounts and having all the funds transferred into accounts controlled by the Arcana. We will also arrange to have any communication from the bank sent to Rachel Nightingale at a post office box that belongs to the Arcana.
“The third female will go with the third Rachel to the bank that holds her safe deposit box and another savings account. They will empty the safe deposit box and close the account, requesting a cashier’s check, which I will deposit into one of our accounts.
Then they will walk to the post office that is just down the street from that bank and arrange to have all the mail from the PO box forwarded to one of our mail drops.
“The fourth Rachel will go to the branch of the public library in King’s Hill where Rachel Nightingale is known to spend time.
She will turn on Nightingale’s phone and make calls to a train station and a police station.
She will leave the phone at the library for the police to find and head for the nearest river bus stop, then ride that vessel until she reaches the location where one of our boats will be waiting for her.
Her transformation will be of the shortest duration.
It won’t matter if that Rachel is spotted getting on the river bus because the woman getting off the bus will not look the same. ”
Lucas considered the planning and the implications. The Arcana who crossed the river would be at risk. It was possible this Alistair Hampton would have hired men to kill Rachel Nightingale as soon as they saw her.
He looked at his brother.
Jack nodded. “Each Rachel and companion will be protected.”
“We’ll take the flesh for the Rachels tonight,” Lucas said. “That will give Rachel Nightingale a little time to heal before her transformation tomorrow.” He looked at Ashley. “The next step?”
“Rachel Nightingale has been making a list of the people who need to be contacted—names and e-mail addresses mostly. A few phone numbers that she had memorized.” Ashley hesitated.
“She has a storage unit that contains the extra copies of her books, as well as most of her business papers and her favorite books by other authors.”
“Does she have the key to her unit?” Jack asked.
Ashley nodded.
“Then a Rachel isn’t required. We rent a garage in Penwych and keep a van there that we use for hauling supplies.
Some of our people will leave early in the morning to pick up the van and drive to King’s Hill so that we’re ready to open Rachel Nightingale’s storage unit at the same time the Rachels are clearing out everything else.
We’ll load up as much as we can take in one trip and bring it to a storage unit we rent in Lovecraft. ”
“You’ll look after our people?” Lucas asked his brother
Jack smiled, showing teeth. “I’ll take care of them.”
And anyone who came looking for Rachel Nightingale while Jack was keeping watch wouldn’t be found for a very long time.
18
Rachel sat at the conference table, making lists, while four women sat across from her learning how to forge her signature.
They didn’t look anything like her except for being about the same height, but she was assured that no one would be able to tell the difference once the Arcana did whatever they did.
All of her banking information was in the notes section of her pocket calendar, but it was in code.
A simple code, to be sure, substituting letters for numbers and numbers for letters, but she’d been able to fool Alistair because he’d told her every day for the past year that she was too stupid to be clever.
When she’d first met him, he said she was a brilliant novelist. Two years later, he called her a stupid hack.
Soon she would shed all the labels that cut into her life, her thoughts, her hopes, her dreams.
Once the four women had perfected her signature, they went up to her hotel room to study her clothes in order to select “costumes” that would mimic her clothing well enough to match the style of dress that people associated with her.
She had gotten so thin her bones showed through her skin. The women who were going to impersonate her all looked to be a normal weight and would never fit into her clothes. They weren’t concerned about that. They assured her that they would look slim enough to fool most people.
While preparations were going on around her, Rachel wrote the e-mails she would send to her editor and agent, to her family and closest friends—at least, the friends who had been close to her before Alistair had isolated her from everyone who might help her get free of him.
She assured her friends that she would be fine, but they wouldn’t be able to contact her.
She told her agent and her editor that she needed to disappear for a year and asked them to contact Ashley Laxton, who would act on her behalf.
She reviewed the e-mails with Ashley, then used an auxiliary computer in Lucas Frost’s office to send them.
“You should get some rest now,” Ashley said. “The Rachels are done looking at your clothes, so you won’t be disturbed if you go to your room.”
She would have liked to walk around the park, but the tourists had arrived, and she understood that if one person recognized her from a book cover photo or a picture of her with Alistair on a newspaper’s society page, her effort to escape might end before it began.
She put on the oversized hooded jacket that Ashley took from the office closet.
Leaving the office, Rachel followed Ashley and wondered how a secret wing of the hotel could be backed by lush gardens when the pavilion, the food stands, and wide sweeps of lawn were between the rest of the hotel and any kind of gardens.
“When are they going to take the flesh?” she asked.
“Soon,” Ashley replied. “They want you to have a full day to rest and recover before the transformation.”
“Have you ever done it? The transformation?”
“I have.” Ashley held out a hand. “You need an escort to reach the hotel from this direction.”
Rachel took Ashley’s hand as they approached the moon gate and walked through.
“It didn’t do anything,” she said.
“Be grateful.” A warning.
“If I’m going to become something else, how do I choose? Do I choose?”
Ashley released her hand and continued escorting her to the hotel stairs. “Don’t try to choose a shape. Think about what you want to be when you’re in that shape, what you want to have while you inhabit that temporary life.”
“Words have power,” Rachel said quietly. “Intentions matter.”
“Yes.”
When they reached Rachel’s room, Ashley looked around, then checked the mini fridge. “You have water, juice, cheeses, and small containers of food you can heat up in the microwave. And there is some fruit on the table. Do you need anything else?”
Assurances that this plan would work, but that wasn’t something the Arcana could give with absolute certainty, since some of the success of this scheme rested with her. “No. Thank you.”
She picked at the food on and off all afternoon while she read a story in a series where she knew the hero and heroine would triumph over the villains and continue their adventures in the next book.
If she couldn’t concentrate enough to remember the names of any of the secondary characters, it didn’t matter. Good would triumph over evil.
She just hoped she would emerge triumphant in her own story.
Quiet movements in the room. Not stealthy, just quiet.
Rachel opened her eyes.
A hand immediately pressed on the shin of one leg, and a woman said, “You shouldn’t make sudden movements. Stay still while I turn on a light.”
The woman turned on a lamp on the other side of the room. Soft light.
Rachel blinked. Nothing wrong with her vision. It had still been daylight when the Arcana had taken her down to the room in this wing where they “harvested flesh.” She remembered being helped onto the table, and then…
Her hands moved over the covers close to her legs, but she hesitated to touch, to find out what she had sacrificed in payment for freedom.
“How long did I sleep?”
“A few hours.” The woman approached the bed. “I’m Kia Dance. Do you remember me?”
“You were in the room.”
“Yes. I’ll look after you tonight and tomorrow until it’s time for your transformation. Are you hungry? Liquids and light meals are recommended.”
Was she hungry? She hadn’t been until Kia mentioned food, but…“I need to pee first.”