Immortal Beauty (13 page)

“Do you require anything else Monsieur Hamilton? Something more to drink?”

“Oh no thank you.” Taylor just wanted to little strange man to leave him in peace and the smell of the food was making him more and more hungry. “Miss D’Aumont hooked me up with her mineral water and there is plenty more where that came from.” He gestured toward the fridge. He smiled and handed the man a coin. The Frenchman did not seem insulted and Taylor took it as a good sign.

“Very good sir. If you need anything else just call the concierge, we are always happy to oblige our guests here at the Ritz. Bon apatite!” With that the little man walked out of the suite. As soon as he left he walked down the hall to the stairs and pulled out a cell phone. He punched a number and waited a few seconds.

“Marcus. We have a problem.” He walked into the stairwell and disappeared.

Taylor looked at the food and sat at the small but lovely round table complete with a silver set and candelabra. It was straight out of a movie and his only regret that he was experiencing all of this by himself. He took a small bite and relished the flavor. It was unlike anything he had ever tasted and he ate very slowly enjoying each mouthful. It was rich and heavy and completely satisfying and he let his eyes wander around the room again where they stopped when he saw the clock on the wall. Three thirty! It was three thirty in the morning and Celine was just sending him food now? That was ridiculous and completely suspicious. Still it could have been a mix up but he was pretty sure that mix ups like that did not happen too often at the Ritz on the Champs Elysees. He took a few more bites and realized just how very tired he was. He could finish his research in the morning before he talked to Sasha and then he thought he would take the train to Orleans. It could prove interesting. At least he could see a little of the countryside while he was here. He couldn’t even think of touching the dessert which looked like a big puffy peach thing. Too tired even to change he lay himself on the sumptuous bed and fell almost instantly to sleep. He began to dream right away. It was the nightmare again. The same nightmare that had plagued him for as long as he could remember had followed him across the ocean. It was the dream that caused him to start drinking so long ago and every once in a while it returned to him. No therapist had ever been able to figure it out or make it go away. One of them suggested that as soon as he realized he was in the dream again that he was to start changing it. It never worked. Once he realized he was in the dream he slowly began to become the character and it was all too real as if this were his life. Little by little the images moved in his mind and he found himself once again in the midst of an angry crowd.

“Kill her!” People were shouting all around him and pushing him out of the way. The first thing he was aware of was the appalling odor that was threatening to make him sick. He had to keep moving. He had to get to the courtyard before it was too late and the pressing mob halted his progress. There were people of all ages and most of them looked as if they hadn’t eaten in a very long time. The air was chilly but most of them had very little clothing to keep warm. It was obvious they were all poor and when he looked down at his own body he could see that he too was one of the wretched masses. It was also obvious that the crowd was angry in an insane manner that happened when people gathered together in a frenzy.

“Kill her!” The shouts were getting louder and each time he heard those words he was paralyzed with dread. This could not be happening. This simply could not be. How did they ever allow her to come into the city? She was supposed to be on her way south to escape the violence that was erupting everywhere. She was supposed to meet him in a few days where they would take up residence in one of the small towns in the south of France. What had happened to their plan? He began to shove his way through the ocean of people not caring whether or not he was causing them harm. At one point the actually stepped on someone crying from cold pavement. He had to save her. He had to stop the wheel that had been set in motion. The smell was getting worse and he was being crushed by the ever increasing amount of people trying to squeeze into the courtyard. Finally by some miracle he was through. He looked up and saw the dreaded contraption. It was already covered in someone’s blood. Was he too late? He looked around the platform and his heart stopped when he saw her up above the putrid crowd. What was she doing there? Her clothes had been ripped and her hair was in disarray. She was looking through the people no doubt trying to find him. Please look at me! He thought over and over again. I am right here. After an eternity her eyes found his. She smiled. She actually smiled! A single tear was running down her cheek. He started to fight his way to the front of the platform but was knocked back by a man with a shovel. His head reeled in pain but he fought it to try once again to get to his beloved. She looked at him in earnest and mouthed a single word.

“No.” He could not hear her voice but imagined it as if it were real. The voice that he had heard coo him to sleep night after night when they were able to sneak away from the prying eyes of the noblemen and women in her inner circle. Far away from the court of Versailles they had found love in each other’s arms even though all the world could have told them it was wrong. None of that mattered now. All that mattered was that he save her. He closed his eyes and began to chant. He was no longer in the throng of the irate populace in the midst of Paris. He was standing alone on the vast plains of a land that he never knew the name of He was chanting over and over again the words he had learned so many lifetimes ago He readied his arms and opened his mouth to the skies. Thunder appeared from nowhere and shortly after the lightning began to strike nearby. A thunderstorm in the middle of winter would certainly be a diversion. He looked around as the frozen rain began to all on the crowd hoping for it’s dispersal. The weather only seemed to fuel the anger of the mindless mass of pitiful humanity. The screaming and ranting continued with even more fervor if that were at all possible. This could not be happening! She was still looking at him and beyond his comprehension he saw that she was smiling. Two men pushed her forward to the evil machine that everyone had their sights on. He could see now that her hands were tied behind her back. She never stopped looking at him. The men pushed her head through the wooden plate and locked it in it’s place. He began to scream now and tried once again to rush onto the raised platform that was dripping in blood. Again someone bashed him in the head. This time it was a rock and he faltered while his own blood began to fall into his eyes. She was saying something. It looked as if she were praying. The lightning struck again and this time in the corner of the courtyard killing several of the onlookers. People began to shriek and cry out. He looked again to the platform. The blade was falling and never once did her eyes leave his until her head fell from her lifeless body. The crowd sent up a cheer. Now he was filled with a killing rage. He began to chant again and the lightning struck the very platform where she had just been killed and the two men who had murdered the woman he loved were simply no more. The wooden structure began to waver and topple to one side as a loud creaking groan was heard. Before he jumped out of the way he saw a woman with a gray cloak covering her head rushing off the stage. She just managed to get off of it on time before it fell into splintered chaos. He did not see her face but was sure that there was a mass of red curls spilling forth from the hood of her very expensive garment. People were falling on top of him in fear as the crowd had gone insane with fear and blood lust. They began to run for their lives and it seemed as if the fire from the sky was purposefully picking out citizens one by one and two by two. People were screaming as their hair burned off their bodies in no time at all. The last thing he remembered before being crushed to death by the crowd was his lover’s name.

“Helene.”

Taylor woke up screaming. His heart was racing and his body was covered in sweat. The lights were on in his room and for that he was grateful. It was bad enough hat it took him a while to remember where he was. If he had bee in darkness in a foreign place it would have been much worse. He rose from the bed in his crumpled clothing and saw that he had kicked most of the bedding to the floor. It was the dream again in all of it’s transparent horror. Only this time there was something clicking in his mind. There was something about the woman on the scaffolding. Something familiar. She was always the same woman in his dream but something was haunting him now that he could not let go of.

“Oh my God!” He stared at the bed not quite able to move. The woman in the dream was Sasha! She was different somehow; different hair and different eye color but there was no mistaking it. They were the same woman. That is why Sasha had seemed so familiar to him as if they had met before. She was the lover in his dream doomed to die night after night for as long as he could remember. How could this be? This was insanity. Maybe his mind changed her face in this dream and he only thought it was her all these years. The mind could do some pretty strange things but he knew that this was not the case. Somehow Sasha White and the woman in his dream were the same person!

STRANGER AT MIDNIGHT

Sasha was fast asleep when she heard the tapping sound. She bolted upright and looked around her room. Nothing was amiss. The sparse modern furniture reflected the moonlight coming in her window. The pale robin’s egg blue piano looked eerily like a phantom in the cold light. Her tiny desk that she managed to cram in underneath the large window looked especially bright and the could see her chrome laptop reflecting the Paris night. She started to lay back down when she heard the sound again. Three taps. It sounded like someone was rapping on her window which was impossible because she lived so high up on the fifth floor. Like a rhythmic warning the tapping sound repeated itself and she was positive now that it had to be the window. Nothing else sounds like the tapping on a glass pane. She rationalized that a hinge must be broken on her old gray shutters and hitting the window. She reluctantly got out from under the covers and walked over to the silver drapes with white gauze overlay that kept the lights of the city out of her room when need be. She pulled back the material and screamed. There on the ledge was an enormous black bird. It was staring at her tilting it’s head to one side as if trying to figure her out. Sasha laughed out loud simply to release the fear and adrenaline that were running through her bloodstream. She had never seen a blackbird in Paris; yes she had seen a million pigeons and the endless little brown Piaf’s which haunted the cafes for breadcrumbs who occasionally became so bold they would land on her saucer and beg for a morsel, but she had never seen a bird like this. It must be someone’s pet who had flown the coop. Still staring at her with it’s cold intelligent eyes it reminded her of home where there were enormous crows and blackbirds abounding everywhere and in the Autumn they would congregate in the trees above. Sometimes thousands of birds would descend upon a neighborhood and at twilight they would begin their raucous song and one would think the world was ending the noise was so loud. They would then rise and fall and dance upon the noise swooping here now there before they settled in for the night. They never stayed long but the sight of a thousand blackbirds cawing and dancing on the wind was one that stayed with Sasha forever. They always frightened her as a little girl and remembered that the first time she had seen them she must have been around six years old and it was Halloween so she thought they were great black bats and no amount of consoling could stop her crying until she was safely tucked into her bed that night. She wouldn’t touch the candy from trick or treating and made her mother throw away her princess costume. Oh how she had raised a fit over those birds and now she felt the same darkness and apprehension she had when she was that frightened little girl. Poor thing was probably just trying to find it’s way home. She smiled at the bird and comically tilted her head in the same direction as the bird, trying to match it’s quizzical look. That’s when she noticed the figure in black. Outside on the pavement bathed in the same moonlight was a person in a black cloak. This was beginning to turn into a melodrama! The figure was pacing back and forth in a small circle. Unexpectedly the person stopped walking and looked up. The bird cawed loudly three times and few off into the sky. Sasha watched it’s progress and was awestruck as she saw the bird slowly descend in a circular motion moving toward the person on the ground. The figure held out a had from beneath the heavy material and the bird landed effortlessly on it’s hand.