A Temptation of Angels (11 page)

“What agreement?”

“It doesn’t matter.” The man’s voice deepened, anger sharpening its edges as he stepped toward her. Toward the light that would illuminate his face. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. You’ve done me a service by coming here, and I will do you one by destroying you and your friends quickly.”

She shook her head as he came into view, taller than she expected and as broad-shouldered as Darius. Hand already on the glaive at his belt, he emanated strength.

“No. Please…”

“Don’t be afraid.” His hair was black as a raven and nearly to his shoulders. “You’ll be with your parents. It will be better for you in the other world. This one is good for little but suffering. Surely even you know this.”

There was an undertone of desperation in his bitterness. As if he was trying to convince himself as much as her.

At last, he stepped fully into the light, appearing much younger than she expected. He was clad in tight trousers and a loose black shirt. When his eyes met hers, he stopped advancing.

“What… How…” He tipped his head, stepping closer to her, staring at her as if the answer to all of life’s mysteries lay in her eyes.

And then, she saw the answer to one of her own mysteries in the sea-blue depth of his.

She knew this man.

She tried to find a way to say it. To explain to him the connection she was only just beginning to grasp. But nothing came.

All she could do was stare into the confusion and shock on his face.

That, and hear his words. Words that stole her breath.

“Your eyes… I’ve only seen color like that once before, but… it cannot be.” Something fell from his hand with a clatter as he backed away, into the shadows, shaking his head. “It’s you.”

He turned and ran.

H
elen?” Griffin made no effort to be quiet when he saw her on the ground. He sprinted down the ladder ahead of his brother, reaching her in seconds. “What happened? Are you all right?”

“I… It was…” Helen shook her head.

“What happened?” Darius looked around, sensing there was more to the scene than was currently obvious. “Was someone here?”

“It was him.” She opened her hand, showing them they key that lay in her palm.

It was the key that made her sure. She’d rushed forward a moment after the man had disappeared, grabbing for the object that had clattered to the ground. In her palm, it struck the chord of recognition she had first felt when she saw the key found in the rubble of her home. This time, the bell rang louder.

She was transported to a day in which the sun shone on her tea party in the garden. She sat with her friend Wren at a small table, the dolls joining them in seats of their own. Wren had accepted the tea, shyly telling her that he had a gift for her as well.

Not something you can eat, like tea sandwiches, or something you can drink
, he’d said.
Something shiny and pretty to look at.

When he’d handed her the strange object, she had looked at it in wonder, much as she did now. It was not the same key, of course. But she understood now that it was from the same maker, and her imaginary friend had not been imaginary after all.

She heard her mother calling them in from the garden;
Helen! Raum! Come inside, children. It’s getting cold!

Raum, in the haze of childhood memory, had become Wren.

“Helen? Listen to me, Helen!” Griffin’s hands were on her shoulders, and she realized with a start that he was speaking to her. Had been speaking to her for some time.

She blinked up at him. “Yes?”

He plucked they key from her hand and held it in front of her. “Where did you get this?”

“He left it for me.” She looked into his eyes. “Raum left it for me.”

“I don’t understand.” Griffin paced the floor of the library while Helen sat, still in shock, on the sofa. “How is it possible that you
know
him?”

“I don’t.” She looked down at her hands. “Not anymore.”

“But you did.” Darius spoke from a chair near the fire. It was odd, seeing him so still while Griffin moved with catlike energy across the library floor.

“Yes.” She stared into the fire crackling in the firebox. “I didn’t think… Well, I didn’t think he was real. I played with him quite frequently when I was small. I don’t even remember when he stopped visiting.” She looked up at Griffin. “I mentioned him to my mother a couple of years ago. She told me that many creative people have imaginary friends. I remembered his name as Wren, and she never corrected me. He was the only friend I’d ever had.”

“Raum Baranova is hardly a friend.” Darius’s voice was dry. “The key in your hand was probably meant to be left at the scene of our murder.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in. When they did, she looked up at him in shock.

“Raum… Baranova?” She stood, pacing the room and struggling to breathe.

Griffin nodded. “Andrei Baranova’s only child. He was just sixteen at the time of his parents’ death. He hadn’t even reached Enlightenment.”

“Enlightenment?” Helen rose. Her throat threatened to close around her words, her mind connecting the things Griffin and Darius were saying with the things that had happened so far, the oddly familiar key, the blue-eyed boy from her garden. “Andrei Baranova’s son was a Keeper.”

Griffin nodded.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” she asked. “Raum’s the one who’s been leaving the keys.”

“It appears so.” Griffin’s voice was quiet.

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?” she demanded. “You obviously knew it was a possibility.”

Griffin shrugged. “We weren’t certain. Raum disappeared after his parents’ suicide. The Alliance tried to find him. It was unheard of for them to turn their backs on a Keeper, even one who hadn’t reached Enlightenment. But Raum just vanished. After a year passed, well… another Keeper had to be appointed in his place.”

Helen fought against a newfound sympathy for the boy who had lost everything. She knew well that loss.

“But why would he want us dead when he was once one of us?”

“I think revenge is a safe bet,” Darius said.

Helen couldn’t hide her surprise. “Why would he take revenge on us? On our families? No one forced his parents to sell keys to the Syndicate! No one forced them to commit suicide!”

Darius spoke. “No one said it had to make sense, Helen.”

She shook her head, pacing the floor. “There has to be some kind of explanation.”

“Is there any explanation that could absolve him?” Griffin’s voice was steely. “He murdered our parents.”

“I already told you he doesn’t do the killing.” She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth, but her regret was no match for Griffin’s anger.

“That hardly matters.” He looked down at her, his eyes bright with fury. “He ordered the executions.
He left one of his keys in my dead mother’s hand.
The fact that he didn’t take her life himself hardly makes him worthy of redemption.”

She swallowed, wondering why it was so hard to speak. “I know. I’m simply saying there may be more to the situation than seems apparent.”

“Actually,” Darius surprised her by speaking calmly, “Helen has a point.”

“Really?” Griffin’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Please
enlighten me, brother, because I can’t seem to find it.”

Helen flinched at the sound of his voice. She had only known the Channings for two days, but already it was difficult to reconcile Griffin as the furious, volatile person in front of her, while Darius sat in the chair, surveying the situation within the calm of his own mind.

“He said not doing the killing himself was ‘part of our agreement,’” Darius reminded his brother, recalling the conversation in which Helen had told them everything, word for word, that Raum had said during their brief encounter.

“I understand that he’s working for someone else.” Griffin stopped pacing, dropping into a chair next to the sofa where Helen sat. “It doesn’t matter. If he’s the one who killed our parents—the one who plans to murder us—we have to stop him.”

Darius nodded. “I agree. But don’t you think it would be wise to use him first?”

Helen looked up at Darius. “What do you mean?”

“If we allow him, he might lead us to whoever is ordering the killings,” he said. “That seems smarter than killing him now and never knowing who’s behind the executions. If Raum is nothing more than a hired killer, disposing of him without getting to his employer would be foolish.” Darius waved his
hand absently in the air. “His employer would only hire someone else once Raum is gone.”

For a minute, Griffin said nothing. He heaved a tired sigh. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Besides,” Darius said, “we have a new clue. We might as well use it.”

“What clue?” Griffin looked sharply at his brother.

Darius pulled a long yellow envelope from his jacket. “This one.”

He handed it over to Griffin. Opening the flap, he pulled a stack of folded papers from its interior. Helen checked her impatience as he flattened the papers across his knee, holding them up to the light of the lamp. His brow furrowed in concentration as he read, shuffling through the papers with increasing speed until he finally lowered them.

He looked at his brother. “Where did you find this?”

Darius shrugged. “In the room at the top of the loft.”

“You didn’t say anything.” Griffin’s voice was heavy with accusation.

“Yes, well… It was right before the clatter from below.” He looked at Helen, as if she had been responsible for the noise instead of Raum, who had dropped the key to the concrete ground just before running.

“May I?” Helen held out a hand toward Griffin.

He passed them to her. “They’re addresses.”

Helen flipped through the parchment. Griffin was right. They were addresses.

Theirs.

Darius explained. “They contain the locations of every Keeper who has been murdered. Plus ours.”

“We were next.” All the anger seemed to go out of Griffin as he said it.

Darius nodded.

Helen read her address among the others, all of them reduced to numbers and street names. A rope seemed to wind its way around her heart until her chest felt so tight she wasn’t sure she could go on breathing. She forced the air into her lungs. If she started mourning now, it might go on and on until it killed her as sure as if she had died with her parents.

She looked at Darius. “I don’t understand how these addresses can help us find Raum’s employer.”

“They can’t,” he said. “But the parchment might.”

Flipping through the papers on her lap, she scanned them for clues. A moment later, she raised her eyes, shaking her head.

“I don’t see anything.”

“That’s because you’re in the wrong light.” Darius waved her over to his seat by the fire.

She stood, crossing the few feet between them with Griffin on her heels. Darius rose, taking the parchment from her hands and holding one of the pages up with the fire behind it. The parchment was fine and thick. Very much like Father’s, Helen thought.

Even still, the fire highlighted the shadow of the watermark, faintly visible on the paper.

“What in God’s name…” Griffin leaned in until his face was mere inches from the parchment. Helen wondered if he needed spectacles. “They’re letters, I think.”

He straightened, looking first to his brother and then to Helen.

She could make out the shape of them, but the detail was lost. Rather than moving closer, as Griffin had done, she leaned back, trying to see the letters hidden in the watermark as part of a bigger whole, relaxing her mind and hoping it would see what was there.

A moment later, it did.

“They’re initials,” she said, looking from Darius to Griffin. “I’m almost sure of it.”

“I think you’re right.” Darius glanced at his brother. “And I think my brother’s eyes are in need of assistance.”

Griffin glared at him before turning to Helen. “Can you tell what they are?”

Helen held the note to the light of the fire once more, trying to see the image that was shadowed there. For a moment, she wondered if she had been wrong. The image suddenly looked very much like a set of triangles. But when she leaned back, looking again at the paper as a whole rather than focusing on the mysterious images hidden in the center, she saw it.

“It’s a
V
, I think. And an
A
. There’s a crest behind them.” She shook her head as she tried to make out the image. “It appears to be an animal of some kind. A bull, perhaps?” She lowered the paper, turning to the brothers.

“VA…” Griffin muttered. He looked at Darius. “VA with a bull behind it. Does that mean anything to you?”

He shook his head. “But we’ve had a long night. Maybe it will come to us by morning.”

“May I keep this for now?” Helen asked, indicating the envelope.

Darius nodded. “If you think it will help.”

“It might.” Her eyes itched from the strain of staring at the parchment. She resolved to think about it more tomorrow. “I’m so tired. But…”

“What is it?” Griffin asked.

“Do you think it’s safe for us to sleep?” She was thinking about the envelope containing the Channings’ address.