CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“ARE YOU HURT?” JAMES ASKED, or at least Elliott believed he’d asked, Elliott couldn’t hear much of anything other than the pulse of his chest. He couldn’t catch his breath, dragging ragged, broken gasps down his throat.
Was Elliott dead?
Did Lucien kill Elliott and he was merely imagining his survival?
It wasn’t until James knelt before him, removing a strand of smoke-brown hair out of his eyes that Elliott could hear sound again–the drift of wings upon the sparrows, the churning hiemal wind through the winter valley, the gentle tone of James Wilde saying softly, “Are you alright, Elliott? Speak to me.”
Immediately, abruptly, Elliott forgot all words in existence. He tried, in vain, to remember words and what they had once meant. Finally, he managed to leak out a syllable. “I–” Then words flooded. “Alright. I am–I am alright. Am I alive? Did he hurt you? How badly are you injured?”
“You’re alive.” James ignored the last part, though Elliott noticed he clutched his side. Instead, James focused on him with the heat of a thousand violent suns. “How could you be dense enough to strike a deal with Lucien Montclair behind my back? What were you thinking?”
It took drowsy Elliott a full minute to comprehend what he meant. All of Lucien Montclair’s accusations of James returned to his mind. The arcane. The alchemy. The torture.
Lucien lied. James wouldn’t dismember his fellow peers while they were alive for study. He wouldn’t harm them at all. Lies from Lucien, all of it.
Instead, Elliott gazed at James in horror for a separate reason–James was rinsed thoroughly in blood. It was impossible to distinguish where Lucien’s blood ended and James’s skin and tie fabric began. Even his frost-white hair–that legendary spin of moonlit silk–was now crimson.
The winter snow was tinted so darkly in blood that it was as if Elliott was staring into a ravine of Rhenish wine that disgorged into the field of fresh snow.
James had slaughtered the boy completely. Lucien twitched with a gaping mouth and gawking eyes, his fingertips quivering in the throes of after death. Like a felled arrow shuddering, quaking from impact, Lucien was quavering before turning still.
Then Lucien Montclair was dead.
Slain on sacred grounds.
That stirred Elliott to his feet. “We need to get out of here–now.”
Sheriff Sangerfield would retrieve the sacrificed body at noon, if it wasn’t present for the recitation.
He would investigate. It was still early morning, which meant they had the advantage of a head start.
However, the boys had no vehicles, no motorcycles, no means of transportation.
The nearest train was hours on foot, and the snow would callously reveal their trail of footprints to every branch of law enforcement that would undoubtedly hunt them down.
Their actions would incite public outcry.
After all, the senior elector was assassinated.
This was an act of unsanctioned homicide.
In a pagan town.
James gripped his shoulders. “Listen to me. Listen, Elliott. Stop trembling. I buried my best clothes and part of my inheritance money for you. You need to shave your head and take the five o’clock train–”
Elliott rasped for air. “No–I won’t leave without you–”
“Don’t be a child, Elliott,” James hissed, “Of all times, don’t be a child right now.
Be a man for her. Take Kitty and run. I will distract the police as long as I can.
Then I will package my most valuable belongings.
When I am killed, it will be delivered to you.
It will be your belongings now, Elliott. ”
Elliott trembled like the earth after an explosive.
“No–” He croaked.
“Elliott,” James growled in wrath, from the depths of his lungs. “I will be killed for this. You can’t cry and whine, it’s what will happen. Kitty can’t be abandoned on her own, do you understand?” The murder would be for nothing.
“Come with us, please,” Elliott pleaded, and he hated how he sounded like a boy. As if he was pleading with his best friend to run away with him into the woods to play, instead of flee for their lives. James was right, they were boys becoming men.
James gave his farewell. He checked his watch, there wasn’t much time.
As he spoke, James drew paths of aimless circles in Elliott’s palm with his finger. Elliott gazed at the partially frozen river reflection and he realized it was a drawn symbol. James was drawing a map of the Banebury Botanical Arboretum, where the hedge circles spun in a maze. James made a path.
“Here. Right here is where my grandfather’s inheritance is concealed.”
Even without a pen and paper, James was giving him a map plot. Elliott was losing his mind. All of the images of James dying in a wildfire, a monsoon, a twister–all of it barraged his mind.
“I always wanted someone else to find it.” James started to instruct him, “Memorize this, then dig until you hit metal, discard the iron trove, it’s full of photographs. It’s a decoy. The true metal bronze troves are buried seventeen feet further beneath–”
Elliott hauled a desperate breath down his throat. “I will kill the provost with you.”
James froze, his skilled thumb ceased the circles in Elliott’s hand, even though Elliott didn’t want him to stop. However, Elliott finally had James’s attention, and his interest, therefore he didn’t dare let it waste.
Elliott implored, “Let’s kill the provost together. I know you want to kill him.”
Elliott read his journal once, even though he shouldn’t have.
James shook his head as if he were trying to constrain his head around the gravitational force of Elliott’s words. He would never turn down a plot to kill the provost. They were both young men meant for death anyway, it made sense. However, he was bewildered. “Who will look after Kitty?”
She was too young to come with them, Elliott realized. The police department would implicate her whether she had anything to do with the provost’s murder or not. “We can’t kill the provost. They’ll punish her for what we did. But we can still leave while we can.”
Elliott couldn’t bring himself to burn down her life with him. He wanted to steal her in the night, no matter how dangerous or irresponsible it was. However, the law enforcement would have firearms. What if she was struck by a stray bullet?
He’d destroy her entire future. If he took her across state lines, the media would implicate her in a homicide.
He refused to let her become associated with any of it. She was far too young. This was his crime. This was his problem. James couldn’t be responsible for Elliott either. He’d only be seen as an accomplice.
Elliott leaned his head further in his arms. “I was the one chosen for death. You should stay here in Connecticut. You can still return to your normal life.”
James lowered his eyes and thought for a moment.
“I don’t want to return without you.” James raised his eyes. “A manhunt will be issued; that’s more dire than if I become senator or not. A remote wilderness out of the country might be the only solution at this point.”
They wouldn’t need new identities, new documentation, or even new currency. However, they would need to live off-grid. Elliott had never lived without civilization before.
At least he wasn’t dead. He needed to focus on that.
Elliott collapsed onto his back in the snow. He needed to catch his breath before they ditched town. He inhaled lungfuls of crisp air, drinking in the cold air greedily, grateful to be alive. “Thank you for saving my life.”
James let himself rest beside Elliott for only one minute; his body sanguine in the snow in comparison to Elliott’s scrapes and bruises. “I swore to protect your soul. I meant every word.”
“Thank you for everything.” Elliott sounded quiet.
He stared at the painted, livid battle scar beneath James’s right eye from the recitation.
“But…this is your chance to live a normal life. I don’t want to ruin your life.
You could still be the future senator.” Elliott sat up and he wrapped his arms around his knees, then buried his face in his sleeves.
“This is your only life, James. Don’t waste it on me. ”
James could stay in Connecticut, if he wanted. He would graduate within a year and a half and start his career as a political aide for Congressman Pittman for professional experience that paid well. However, that’s not what he wanted.
He didn’t want to be anywhere without Elliott.
Instead, James rose to his feet. “The five o’clock train will leave without us, if we don’t make it there on time.” He checked his classic wristwatch again. 7:01 AM.
“The train?” Why did James keep mentioning the train?
James leaned closer to him and whispered his plan. “Knox Pearson lives in Kodiak, Arkansas. We will need supplies, provisions, and survivalist equipment. Knox’s uncle has a remote farm and we can hide out there.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as we can manage. Lucien will be declared missing by the time it’s the Yuletide, if not by the New Year.”
Similar to Lucien, James had been invited as a guest of Ambassador Bolívar to the Metropolitan Opera for the New Year Gala fundraiser. However, he was prepared to leave it all behind.
For him.
“All we need to do is leave now while we can.”
Elliott found his way to his feet.