The Marradith Ryder Series: The Art of Shadows, Part 40

Fiona took a deep breath, folding her hands. She sat back in her chair, and stared at Justin.

Over the many years that they had known each other, Fiona considered Justin her best friend. There hadn’t been a time that she’d ever felt there was anything that she couldn’t tell him. 

Now that he asked her about Rafael’s life; this was the first time that she weighed her response to him, and considered lying.

In the end, she decided to tell him the truth - though she didn’t think the truth would help either of them very much.

“Come on, Fi,” Justin prodded.

“I don’t know specifics,” she began. “Rafael was a warlock in a powerful coven. One of the witches betrayed the group, and the local aristocrats sent out men out to kill all the others. Rafael was almost caught, and was injured badly . He managed to find an abandoned house, and he hid there, in a basement.

“Rafael said that he couldn’t be sure how long he was there- days or hours- it all seemed the same to him. But the wound was infected, and though he was able to stop the bleeding, he was dying, shivering with fever and having hallucinations. And that’s when the demon came.”

She paused. Justin said nothing, but nodded that she should continue.

“He told me that it seemed like a dream. He asked the demon for his life , and in return, he would do his bidding. And that was when he was made immortal.”

“Does he know which demon this was…?”

“He does,” Fiona said. “He would never give me his name.”

“So all this time that he’s been a Sojourner…he’s been doing favors for this entity? When did you come to know of it?”

“Not until recently. And even then, I didn’t know that any of it involved Marradith.”

“Why did he finally tell you?”

“We got into an argument about my son. I told him that I didn’t appreciate always feeling somehow– beholden—to keep the secret of my son’s parentage. That was something Rafael forced me into when I became Sojourner, and I never agreed it. So he told me that I had no idea what it was like to be truly beholden. And he told me his story.”

“So he hadn’t trusted you with this information in all the years that you were together?” Justin said.

“No,” she replied. “He did not.”

“Alright,” Justin said. She could see he was trying to figure out how to spin this story.

“What are you going to do?” Fiona asked. “I really didn’t know. I am so sorry. You know how fond I am of your wife. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her. If I had known this involved her safety, and yours, I would have come to you.”

“I’m not sure what I am going to do yet,” Justin replied. “But I am going to think about this for a while more.  I won’t tell anyone about this until I make up my mind, and for god’s sake, don’t you tell anyone either.”

****

It was turning out to be a bad day.

Justin had a feeling in the pit of his stomach, like someone had shoved a fist into his gut. This news about Rafael was worse than anything he would have imagined. He didn’t care much for Castillo, and had been suspicious about him for a long time. But having his suspicions confirmed-and then some- still came as a shock.

He went up to the ground level, where a glassed in patio area served as a spot to read or have a quiet cup of coffee for those that worked at the Compound. Justin got a bottle of orange juice from a vending machine and sat down.  It wasn’t past eleven in the morning yet, but times like these made him long for a bottle of rum and a good cigar.

In the absence of something to kill, anyway….

He took out his phone and sent a message to Daria.  As he was finishing, the click of heels in the hallway made him look up.

Nora walked in. She stopped at his table but didn’t sit down. Instead she stared at him, with her hands planted on her hips.

Nora’s reddish hair was piled into a bun on the back of her head. She wore a gray skirt and a white blouse; simple, professional, she looked as if she might run off to go teach a class.

“I’ve been looking for you the better part of the morning,” she said.

“Sorry,” Justin smiled perfunctorily, slipping his phone into his pocket. “I was in a meeting. What can I do for you?”

She pulled up a chair and sat down.

“This is not business, it’s personal,” she said.

“Okay. Go for it.”

“Our girl is having a birthday soon.”

Justin smiled.  “Yes. I know. She made sure to make mention of it.”

“Yes, well, that child always feels the need to campaign for her gifts. That’s not a problem, though. I am thinking that this is a good time for her to get out of town for a bit.”

Justin sat a little straighter in his chair. “Any particular reason for that?”

“There’s about to be some chaos in this place. With Keiko’s pregnancy, and other things…”

“I heard about that….”

“And there is still the possibility that Paul may look for Scott. I think this would be a good time to get both Marradith and Danny away for a while.”

Justin lifted an eyebrow. It would serve his purposes as well. He wasn’t sure how things would work out with Rafael, and he could get her out of town before things got—sticky.

“What do you have in mind?”

“My brother has a home in California.  It’s a small town, and there are other cousins of ours that live there, too: the Drakes. There is a lot of family there and most are people with abilitites,”  she stressed. Of course she meant paranormal abilities. “Marradith and Danny could go together. And I’d send maybe one or two of her old friends from back home in Texas.”

“If we can agree to send a guard with her as well,” Justin said. “I’d sign off on it.”

“Alright then,” Nora said, and stood. “We finally agree on something.”

__________________________________

©2011 Lori Titus

Want to know more about Nora Ryder’s mysterious past? Look for the upcoming novella, The Moon Goddess, available in November 2011 from Wicked Nights. Meanwhile, keep up with the author’s latest projects on her website:

http://loribeth215.wordpress.com/

The Marradith Ryder Series: The Art of Shadows, Part 39

Marradith wasn’t supposed to do it.

But every now and again, she was tempted.

After finishing her work, and brooding too long over her theories of what was behind Rafael’s mysterious coma, she needed something to lift her mood.

She logged onto the Facebook page for Hallsdale High.

After she fled Texas with Justin, she was told that she could never access her old internet accounts again. There was to be no contact with her old friends: no email messages, no phone calls. Her life as a Sojourner demanded that she leave her old life behind.

Marradith sometimes wondered if that was a wise decision.

Of course, when she was being tracked by Leighton, Syd, and their men, she didn’t want to risk any contact that might lead the werewolves back to her friends back home.

But Leighton was gone. Syd had moved on to other things and people.

A fake profile under the name Mary Graham gave her access to pictures and messages passed between friends who logged into the school’s page. She paged through the pictures of the track team, which included a new girl named Petra Danners, who smiled and showed off a medal proudly.

Petra Danners was Marradith’s replacement on the track team.

She saw pictures of other friends together, sitting outside in the quad, laughing and making silly faces for someone’s camera phone. It looked like more fun than she remembered.

They don’t even miss me , she thought. They just kept going without me.

She clicked off the Facebook page and went into her old email account.

Advertisers filled her inbox with spam, regardless to the fact that she hadn’t opened a single email or link from this account in at least six months.

One name stuck out. Harley Solano.

The email was recent. It had only been sent days before.

Marradith had known Harley since elementary school. They were best friends, the closest thing to a sister that either girl had.

Marradith,

Call and tell me you’re alright. Or at least write me back. Where have you been? There was a story on the news some time ago about you being a witness to a shooting or something.

It took a moment for Marradith to decide what she was going to write. She had to be careful what she said. One thing was for certain. She had secrets to protect now, and Harley was a girl that usually knew bullshit when she heard it.

Marradith sighed. She wrote the truth, with a few major details omitted.

 

Dear Harley,

I’m okay. Sorry that I haven’t written. After the shootings at LessCost, my parents freaked out and relocated us. I couldn’t find my book with all my passwords in it once we unpacked, and I finally found it today. I hope you weren’t worried. My parents don’t want to live in Hallsdale anymore.

 

Harley must have been sitting in front of her computer, because the response was almost instant:

OMG! I thought for sure somebody had gotten you and you were dead. That’s what people have been saying, you know! Where are you? How have you been? I want to know everything. We have to get together next month.

Next month?  Marradith typed.

Don’t play innocent , chica, Harley replied. You know why next month. You’re going to be seventeen.

****

Lysette had a box of her ex-boyfriend’s things, that she kept in the back of her closet. After he died, she couldn’t bring herself to look at it.

She hadn’t been with him at the end, and that had been her choice.  After offering him everything that she could- her support, her time, even a transfusion of her own blood, nothing worked.

One morning, she stood in the hall of his house, suitcase in hand. He was more like himself that day, clearheaded, despite the disease that slowly ravaged his mind. He walked up to her, with a look in his eyes that she would never forget. “I love you so much, he said, but you just don’t understand. You’re young, yet. Go and have your life. That’s as it should be. I’ll fight as long as I can, and then, when I can’t anymore…”

She put a finger to his lips. Lysette was surprised to hear a sob from her own throat. She couldn’t count the years they had been together, and it was ending.

He took her hand and bent down and kissed her deeply.

“I don’t want to go,  I’m scared,” she admitted. She had never uttered those words to anyone.

He planted a kiss on her forehead, smoothing tendrils of her long hair with his fingertips. “It’s okay, darling. Go.”

She’d left the house, got in her car, and never looked back.

***

Opening the box, she took out a small book of photos.

These were precious items, things that he’d sent to her apartment in California a few weeks after she left him. Many were so old that they needed to be kept someplace cold and dark.

There was a pendant, a gold locket. Lysette recognized it as a momento mori. Inside the sealed jewelry was a bit of ash from Leighton’s first wife, Caroline.

There were pictures. A photo of Leighton and his two young sons, fair skinned black children who would both grow up and leave the island of Kitanya. One would travel to the American south, and the other to Italy, where he would never be heard of again.

There was a daguerrotype of Leighton so old that the face was blurry, though his eyes remained clear.

Amongst these very old things was a new photo, a picture of a teenaged girl.

Despite Marradith’s brown skin, Lysette could see an echo of Leighton’s heritage. Something about her chin, the shape of her face.

And she’d not seen fit to let him at least die in his own way. Marradith killed him. It was a shock when she realized that her own Father, Justin, had married this woman. He was as much a traitor as she was.

Lysette was going to make sure Marradith Ryder paid for killing the only man she’d ever cared about.

_______________________________

©2011 Lori Titus

The Marradith Ryder Series is expanding, with the release of two novellas outside of the web serial: The Moon Goddess, which will be out in November 2011, and Marradith, Darkly, due for release in February 2012.

Until then, you can keep up with the latest at Lori’s website: http://loribeth215.wordpress.com/

or follow her on Twitter as Loribeth215.