Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“Guys, I think we should leave, like, now,” Pierre says, pulling his sleeve out of my grip. “I, for one, don’t want to know any of this and am going to pretend I was never here, as I have a date at the weekend, and I intend to make said date.”
“But what about—” Una begins, but Pierre cuts her off.
“What about ending the week in a body bag? No, thanks. You heard what the guy said.” He gestures towards Valdemar, speaking as though he can’t hear him. “Does he look like a guy you want to disagree with? He told us to drop it. Now let’s do just that and get the hell out of here.”
Una glances at Pierre and then at me.
“You coming?” she asks, her shoulders dropping in defeat.
Tearing my gaze from Valdemar, I blink at Una. “You guys go.”
She reaches for me. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“She won’t be alone,” Valdemar cuts in.
“And that’s my worry,” Una tells him.
“For God’s sake, Una, can we just leave already?” Pierre steps forwards, gesturing to the exit.
“It’s fine. I’ll be fine,” I tell them, staring at Valdemar.
I can feel Una’s uncertainty, the internal tussle with herself about whether to leave me here with a convicted criminal. He may not have murdered my brother, but he has murdered others.
“If anything happens to her, I swear to God…,” Una hisses at Valdemar, not finishing her proclamation.
“I can assure you, she’ll be safe here. I, however, might not be.” He smiles at her. “I’ll show you both out.”
He leads them to the door, and I’m left alone, the stillness of the drawing room wrapping itself around me.
Savouring this moment before Valdemar returns, I contemplate what I’ve just learned.
Someone shot my brother.
But it wasn’t Valdemar.
From his reaction to my guessing game and what I saw in his dream, I know he tried. He held the gun aloft and aimed. But he didn’t pull the trigger.
So who did?
Rising, I pace the floor, wishing the fire was lit so I could ponder against the backdrop of its flames like Sherlock Holmes or some other famous detective on the hunt for a killer.
The obvious answer is Adolphe Fortunato. He was the only other man of influence there, a man with enough connections in this city to pull the strings. Ed knew Fortunato planned to kill him, condemning him to a slow and painful death of being bricked up behind a wall while still alive like so many other people who had crossed him. But then why would he shoot him? Did he take the shot when he saw Valdemar falter and then insist that Valdemar take the blame? That could be the case. What other possible solution is there?
“It was Adolphe Fortunato, wasn’t it?” I fire the question at Valdemar as soon as he returns.
He closes the door softly, his face grave, his colour drained. “As much as I want to tell you everything, angel, I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” I ask.
“Can’t.”
“Why? Because I might die?” I suggest.
“No, I can’t tell you.”
I stare at him. The way he said the word can’t is humming on the inside of my ear canal.
“Can’t,” I repeat, more softly, my eyes narrowing. “Did you make some sort of bargain? An oath?”
“More than that,” he says.
Valdemar takes the seat opposite me, a longing now in his expression. He wants me to know. He wants me to guess because he can’t tell me.
He can’t tell me.
“You’re bound by something—something you can’t break. What happens if you break the oath?”
“Nothing happens. Listen to what I’m saying, angel.” He scootches to the edge of the sofa, his knees square, leaning towards me. “I can’t tell you.”
Like with the word games Ed and I used to play as kids, I toss the sentence around before the clarity of it hits me.
“You can’t physically say the words, can you?” I ask.
Valdemar closes his eyes.
“Oh my God, what is it? Is it magic or something?”
“Or something. Ancient. Beyond the realms of our understanding.”
“But not the realms of Adolphe Fortunato.” My eyes roam the drawing room, taking in nothing as this revelation settles. “No wonder he’s such a powerful man with so many people in his pocket. Is he some kind of magician?”
“Not him,” Valdemar says.
I take note of the simple answers, each one seeming to take such an effort, as if the spell he’s under is aware of the topic of conversation and is keeping a tight leash on it.
“Then who?” My forehead knots, but even before the question is out, I can see Adolphe Fortunato and his sidekick. They’re never without each other. And they were both there that night, in the very room with my brother and Valdemar when the gun went off.
“Dr Tem-Pest? He’s the magic wielder?” I guess.
I’m met with silence, which I take as confirmation. Dr Tem-Pest is the conjuror. He’s the one who bewitched Valdemar, Jupiter, and Jacinta.
“So, who killed Ed, Adolphe Fortunato or Dr Tem-Pest?”
Valdemar gulps as if the answer is lodged in the back of his throat.
“You can’t even answer questions about it, can you?” I say.
He stares at me as if he’s trying to project his thoughts.
“How did you manage to make a statement, to talk to me about it at the prison? I don’t understand.” I shake my head, all the possibilities loose and jangling about in my brain.
He runs his hands through his hair before he speaks, his words heavy. “I shot your brother. It was me. I held the gun and shot him. It was my bullet. My gun.”
Staring at him, I try to see through his words. “You’re programmed in some way to tell the same version of events that everyone else was, the magic somehow enchanting you to tell that version and only that version. Am I right?”
He smiles.
“You can only say what Dr Tem-Pest planted in your head somehow?”
Another smile.
“Shit. There has to be a way to cheat this.” Rubbing my palms together, I stand and stalk the room as Valdemar watches me. “Okay, let’s try this. There was this story I heard once about a famous poet who, one day, went out fishing on his boat, but he died while out on the water. His boat was washed up on the shore a few days later, smashed to pieces, his body arriving with it. The townsfolk had no idea what had happened to him, unsure as to whether a great storm had killed him or the tyrannical sea serpent that the locals feared. Have you heard this story?”
The corner of Valdemar’s mouth rises. He knows what I’m doing. A tempest is another word for storm, and he referred to Fortunato as a serpent during one of our early meetings.
“Quite the wordsmith. I haven’t heard this particular story, but if I were to advise the townsfolk of anything, it would be not to forget the fair maiden,” Valdemar says.
“The fair maiden?” My eyes narrow as if trying to see beneath his words.
“In stories like these, there’s always a fair maiden,” he repeats.
Pressing my hands to my temples, I squeeze, trying to force my brain to follow what he’s saying. A fair maiden. A woman. But who? The only other woman who was there that I know of was Jacinta.
“Jacinta?” It doesn’t feel right, and I can tell by Valdemar’s face that I’m in the wrong place even when he remains silent, the words unable to form. “No. Not Jacinta. Then who?”
I pace the room again before Valdemar takes my hand and leads me back to the sofa.
“You look tired,” he says.
I glance at him, thinking I must look anything but tired. My brain is wired like I’ve just downed three espressos and chased them with an energy drink.
“Why don’t we go to bed?” he suggests.
I glare at him. “What? Are you kidding me? You’re thinking about sex while I’m trying to work out who killed my brother?”
“Sleep, angel. You need sleep. And so do I.”
“I don’t need sleep. I need answers, and you can’t give me them.” My voice pitches an octave, annoyed at being so close yet still so far from the truth.
“Can’t I? You were so close last night, angel. So close.” He whispers the last two words.
My eyes widen as the penny drops. “Your dream.”
“I’m not certain, but I’ve been wondering if you’ve been crossing into my dreams because, subconsciously, I’ve been letting you, it being the only way I could show you what happened that night.” He takes my hand. “Let’s go to sleep.”
He leads me through the rear door, and we make our way up to his room.
“I’m not in the least bit tired,” I tell him.
“I could wear you out if you’d like.”
I roll my eyes. “Very funny. Seriously, though, I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll help—and not in the way you think,” he says.
As we reach his room, he enters first and closes the heavy curtains, blocking out the low winter sun. The room softens as if convinced it’s night-time. He lights a candle in the corner that emits a lulling glow, the flicker of the flame hypnotic against the dim backdrop.
“Come.” He beckons me over to his bed.
After kicking my shoes off, I climb on, and he does the same on the other side, so naturally, like we do this every night.
I lie on my side, the soft mattress sighing beneath me as Valdemar pulls me into him.
He strokes my face, pushing my hair from my eyes and smoothing my skin.
“You just need to relax. Shut your brain down. Stop thinking, and sleep will come. You didn’t sleep properly last night, and you’re so tired. So very tired. You just need to sleep, angel. Sleep.” His heady voice settles in the room, the purr of his vowels and the lull of the consonants convincing me that he’s right. I am, in fact, so very, very sleepy.
And I’m back in the prison visitors’ room, back to when he held me so tightly and I wished, more than anything, that he hadn’t killed my brother because there was no other place I felt safer, no other place I’d have rather been than cradled in his arms.
But he didn’t kill my brother.
He didn’t kill him.
He didn’t.
So, who did?
There’s a determination in my step this time, like I know where I’m going and what lies ahead, and as much as I don’t want to face it, I have to get there.
The red of the carpet is deeper than I remember, almost black as the mud begins to seep from beneath the material and floods between my toes. I let go of the glass, knowing I don’t need it, craving to hold the gun in my hand.
I need to see this time.
Need to watch.
Ed is before me, the mighty rope restraining him, but rather than focussing on his tortured face, I look around.
A serpent rises next to Ed, a storm brewing overhead as clouds thicken above us, lightning striking against the bleak backdrop.
“No!” I shout, but it isn’t my voice that calls the word.
The serpent moves forwards, its tongue darting from its pursed lips, its eyes regarding the audience.
“Hussssshh,” it hisses. “It issss for the bessssst. For what did one exxxxxpect?”
“But I love him.”
It’s a female voice, but not my own. I search the darkness, but there’s no one there apart from the serpent, Ed, and me.
The gun shakes in my hand as Ed pleads with me, silently praying I will end his suffering as the bricks appear at his feet, one on top of another, cement lining them, the wall growing higher as more bricks are placed.
Ed’s mouth forms the words.
“Do it. Do it now.”
My finger slips against the trigger, my mind pleading with me to put him out of his misery, to end this torture.
The scream swells in my throat, and as it does, the gun is pulled from my hand.
And instead of closing my eyes, I look to my right.
A pale, slender hand takes the gun from me, aims it at Ed, and fires.
The serpent recoils, a hiss emanating from it as if it’s the one that’s been shot, but it’s Ed who slumps to the floor.
Dark hair billows around her tiny frame as she darts over to Ed. She’s young, beautiful, and bereft.
“I love you. I will always love you,” she tells Ed, cradling his face in her hands, the gun still clutched in her fingers. “And if we cannot be together in life, then let us be together in death.” She holds the gun to her temple, but the lightning strikes it from her hand as the serpent coils itself around her and drags her from Ed’s body.
Fingers intertwine with mine as Valdemar takes my hand, the pair of us watching the scene unfold.
“I will never allow a daughter of mine to fornicate with a Raven Hand. Never. And sssshe will not bear the weight of hissss death. That burden will be yourssss.” The serpent turns to me. “You sssshot him. You will pay the priccccce and forever hold your tongue.” At his words, the lightning strikes again, this time hitting my core and surging through my body, the current flowing with lies.
At the hiss of his last word, the serpent coils in on itself, the woman vanishes, and the storm blows over. Only Ed remains, his lifeless body limp on the floor.
And then he moves.
My eyes widen as Ed sits up and stares at the blackness surrounding him until he sees me.
Valdemar releases my hand.
“Go to him,” he tells me.
Slipping from his grasp, I make my way over to my brother, my heart beating against my chest. Blood drips from the gunshot wound, and the smell of gunpowder hangs in the air.
Fear coats my skin that Ed will not recognise me, but he reaches out for my hand as I come near.
“Ed?”
“Evan.” His voice is just as I remember, soft and mystical, like he has the answers to everything, and the nickname that only he has ever called me because he decided Evangeline was too much of a mouthful sounds so sweet. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.” Biting my lip, I hold back the tears.
“It’s been so long.”
“Too long.”
His skin is pale, almost translucent, and I feel a sudden fear that he’ll fade before my eyes, disappearing once again into the blackness.
“I have so many questions.”
“I’m sure you do, so I’ll try and tell you all I can. We don’t have long,” he says softly. “I met her when I started working at the casino. She was on the floor one night, dressed in a light sundress, her fingers drifting over the machines as she looked at everything and nothing. She wasn’t a gambler, and I knew she wasn’t staff, but truth be told, I didn’t know what she was —I just knew I needed to find out. So, I went over, introduced myself, and asked her if I could help her with anything. She was a mystery, a whisper on the wind, and I was intoxicated from the moment I laid eyes on her and every night after that.
“It was after I fell in love with her, completely and irrevocably in love, that I learned her name. Annabel Lee, daughter of Adolphe Fortunato. And I saw it, the sadness she was living with, the isolation, how he’d shrunk her world so small, she barely fit in it. She was a fair maiden, destined for greatness but locked in a tower by her cruel father. And I vowed I would help her. I would be her knight in shining armour. I would kill her father and rescue her.
“I told Valdemar what I suspected about the spiked drinks and got him on board with taking out Adolphe Fortunato.
“That part of the story is true. The Raven Hands came to the casino, Jacinta pretended to have had a reaction to the drugs in one of the drinks, and I was on hand to ensure the rest of the plan unfolded, but as you know, things didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped because Fortunato knew. He’d been spying on Annabel, and he knew all about our relationship and our plan to be together. So, he stepped in, his henchmen seizing me, and told Annabel she would never see me again. I’d told her to stay away, but she was never one for following instructions, another thing I loved about her.
“Then Valdemar arrived and drew his gun, and I knew there was only one way this would end, and I wanted it to be by his bullet rather than behind bricks and cement where I would choke on the thinning air and claw at the darkness. I asked him to shoot me, but he couldn’t. The Blood Oath was too strong to allow him to take my life. So, Annabel did, telling me that we would be together in death.
“But that didn’t happen. Hasn’t happened.” Ed stalls as if the pain of all this is too much for him to continue speaking.
I try to help out. “Dr Tem-Pest knocked the gun from her hand. She’s not dead.”
“Yes, he took the gun from her before she could kill herself. After my death, Fortunato had her locked away in a secure unit. Only doctors and nurses were allowed to see her, but one night, I heard her calling my name like she was close but not close enough. It was like she was just over my shoulder. She was looking for me. Through the bond, I asked Valdemar to find out what had happened to her, so he set some Raven Hands off with the task. They told him she’d somehow escaped the hospital and had walked right out into the Maelstrom and kept going until she was fully submerged, her body washing up on the shoreline the next day. My beautiful girl had finally managed to take her life to be with me in death.”
“So, she found you?” I ask.
His face drains, his lips dropping. “No. Because of the Blood Oath, I’m tied to Valdemar, unable to leave his side. She now wanders the unearthly realms heartbroken, calling my name. I hear her, every night, every day, searching for me, but she can’t find me, and I can’t find her.”
My mother pops into my head, how, even in death, she’s always smiling, her face serene like she’s at peace with the world, and I realise this is because she’s not alone. She’s with my father, her one true love. In death, they found each other and are now content in the afterlife, where love knows no bounds.
Ed’s face is nothing like my mother’s. He’s tortured, his shoulders racked with restlessness, his eyes constantly searching. He’s lost.
“How can I help you find her?” I ask. “What do you need me to do?”
“You know what I need you to do,” Ed says, his eyes darkening. “I told Valdemar to ask you to visit him, told him to write you a letter.”
“Oh my God,” I gasp. “ You asked me to kill him?”
“It’s the only way to release me from the Blood Oath. The only way for me to find my love and for me to be at peace. No one else would do this for me. Only you. I’m begging you. You’re my only hope.”
His frame shimmers, fading before my eyes.
“There must be another way,” I cry.
“You are a Raven Hand, Evan. It’s what we do. Now it’s time for you to fulfil your role. And there is no other way.”