Mathieu (11 page)

“I tried but you and your friends wouldn’t let me.” Mathieu gave him the oddest look and then closed his eyes and breathed deeply. After a moment he opened his eyes again. “Strong emotions like what you’re feeling right now are… difficult. The more people, the stronger their emotions and the harder it is for me to focus. With many people, not
only
do I have problems with the emotions, but then I have the concern that I might attract attention from things I’d rather not.”

“You’re going to have to pull it together and deal with it. I don’t know what else to tell you.” Marcus suddenly dropped to the edge of the bed next to Mathieu, frowning at the visible flinch the other man gave at the movement. He chose to ignore it and kept speaking. “I have a good group of people, a good circle. They’re looking to me for protection and guidance and I’m not going to let anything happen to them. That includes protecting them from you if you break. Which I think you will.”

“I don’t know if I will or won’t, to be completely honest with you. I lack an anchor.” Mathieu had been shifting his position away from Marcus in slow, stealthy motions during their conversation. Now he stopped and gave Marcus a strange look as he continued, “When I was bound to Gadreel—as repugnant as that was--I had something to hold me steady. Now that he is gone I am adrift on currents I can’t navigate. I discovered quickly enough that the best way is to avoid the currents altogether—avoid humanity.”

“You can’t avoid us forever.” Marcus leaned forward, eyes narrowed as a thought suddenly occurred to him. “Do you miss Gadreel?”

Mathieu raised a hand away from the cat in his lap and ignored the sleepy protest the animal made as he brushed a dark lock of hair from his face. “I do not miss
him.
I think I miss the stability he gave me. I do still find myself searching for him sometimes, almost like feeling for a lost tooth with my tongue. But I don’t miss him or the things that he did.” He looked down at the cat and spoke again. “I will not be a burden to you, and I am not a threat. It may shock you but I still have a small measure of pride left to me. That miniscule shred will not allow me to be forsworn.”

Marcus shook his head and then stood, this time slowly as to not alarm the other man. “We’ll have to see, I suppose. Tomorrow I have to get you through two airports, a transatlantic flight and security with
a
fake passport in a post 9-11 world. I’m going to bed. You should get some rest too.”

He walked to the door, patted his pocket and then pulled out a small digital camera. “Damn. Nearly forgot. I need to get a picture so that they can cook up that passport for you tonight.”

Mathieu nodded, gently placing the protesting cat on the bed before standing where he was told and allowing a rather grim looking photograph to be taken.

Marcus grunted at the picture. “You look just like a criminal. Perfect.” He looked back at the door and placed his hand over the edge of the ward. “You have got to show me how to do this.” He didn’t wait for a response, just ran his hand over the wall before looking back over his shoulder. “Can you let me out?”

“Gladly.” Mathieu placed his hand on the doorjamb and twisted the wards just
so
, expelling the other man with enough force to throw him into the far wall.

“You don’t have to get pissy about it.” Marcus called over his shoulder as he walked down the hall.

Mathieu just shook his head and closed the door, enjoying the silence and the companionship of the cat.

C
hapter Eighteen

Jenn came early the next morning. Her blisters were mostly gone, but it still hurt to climb the stairs. The dishes and silverware on the tray she carried clattered with each step.

When she reached the door at the far end of the hall, she saw that it was open just a crack.

Shifting the weight of the tray in her arms, she knocked on the door. It swung open under her fist and she saw Mathieu sitting on the end of a bed that had not been slept in, looking out the window at the garden below.

He’d dressed in some of the new clothes, a short sleeved dark gray shirt and a pair of tailored black trousers with some black leather loafers. His hair curled around his collar, still wet from the shower.

Both he and the cat in his lap turned to look at her at the same time and she was struck by how similar the gazes were in their intensity. The sight wiped away her first thought of how handsome he was in the morning light.

“Good morning!” She made to walk through the open door and felt the tingle of his wards on her skin, just like in the mountains. It didn’t hurt, but the resistance stopped her this time. She paused and then asked, “May I come in? I brought you some breakfast.”

“Of course. You are always welcome.” He waved her forward and she was suddenly able to come in the rest of the way.

Placing
the tray in the middle of the bed, she raised an eyebrow at it and asked, “Did you sleep well?”

“As well as I ever do.” The cat stepped delicately from Mathieu’s lap and walked over to investigate the tray of food.

Jenn lifted the napkin covering the plates. “I don’t know what you like so I just got you a little bit of everything. Here’s a croissant, and a baguette. Some honey, some chocolate spread, a little cheese, some jam. A little fruit. Marcus insisted on making your coffee for you—said he knew just how you liked it, but I can’t imagine anyone drinking it that sweet and light.”

Mathieu shrugged with one shoulder and picked up the mug. “I can’t imagine anyone choking down what he drinks either.”

“Philistine.” Jenn picked up a second mug from the tray. “You should drink it black, like this. Black as my heart.” She giggled as she sipped it and rolled her eyes in pleasure at the flavor.

Mathieu shook his head and then tore off a small piece of cheese and fed it to the cat. “Your heart is far from black. Trust me when I say I’ve met much worse.”

“The food is for you. You need to eat.” Jenn spoke firmly this time. “Trust
me
when I tell you that cat eats better than any person in this house.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does. But that doesn’t mean I can’t share with him, does it?” He tore off a small piece of croissant and nibbled it. “Happy?”

“No.” She paused and then asked hesitantly, “Do you need to eat? I guess I should have asked that first.”

He smiled sadly. “I don’t know. I know I can go a long time without eating or being hungry, but I also know that I enjoy it upon occasion.” He shrugged. “I suspect the answer is somewhere in the middle between ‘no’ and ‘yes.”

The cat meowed for attention and got another piece of cheese for its trouble. It sat and delicately washed its face, watching the humans on the bed.

Mathieu
watched her for a long moment and then spoke. “You aren’t as sensitive as Marcus, are you?”

She took another sip of coffee and then shook her head. “No. How did you know?”

“He felt the difference between my wards and the house’s wards immediately. You didn’t and I suspect still don’t.” The cat licked his fingers and got a scratch between its ears in return.

With a laugh, she nodded. “Nope. And that’s the real kicker, too. I’m directly descended from one of the main founding members. I was born, bred and raised in the Foundation, studied all the tomes with every waking moment. I can draw a perfect circle, build a charm, form a compulsion because I’ve got the book learning. But Marcus--the man from a farm in Nebraska and no pedigree--he’s got the gift. He’s so sensitive and powerful he’s off the chart.”

“Sometimes the power without the knowledge can be very dangerous.” Mathieu nibbled the croissant absently. “I seem to recall something of that sort the first time we met.”

She nodded. “He’s been working on that. Very hard. It’s consumed him since we last met.”

“Fearing another meeting?” Mathieu picked up a fresh strawberry and offered it to the cat. At the feline’s offended look, he half-smiled and ate it himself.

Jenn drank her coffee and paused before answering. “Anticipating might be a better word, I suppose. After all, you’re fascinating. You’ve got the potential of being the most important discovery the Foundation has ever made. I know the Board of Directors has been debating what to do about you since we first met. Not even addressing the sheer amount of historical information you could give us, you’ve got knowledge and power of the like we’ve never seen and it would help us so much. That’s why we’ve been keeping tabs on you all this time.”

“Of course, you’re not taking into account that I have absolutely no interest in helping you.”

Jen
n’s face tightened and then relaxed. “But you of all people know how dangerous and horrible occult creatures can be. And these… these things… they make anything else we’ve run into pale in comparison.”

“Exactly. And that is why I want nothing to do with any of them ever again.” He carefully put the coffee cup back on the tray and pushed the plate of food over towards the cat, smiling as it started licking the cheese. “You saw first-hand what one of Gadreel’s ilk could do, and it wasn’t even trying very hard. It was more amused than angry.”

She pouted for a moment before sighing. “Point made, I suppose. So what makes one of those things so much more dangerous than your ordinary run-of-the-mill supernatural being?”

Mathieu shrugged. “Power. Demons are naturally powerful when they first come over from There, but as they expend their energy they get weaker. They’re not tied to this world so they can’t use what comes from here unless they find a way to filter and store it.” Unconsciously he crossed his arms and started rubbing them back and forth as he continued.

“When they weaken, they lose cohesion and memory. Memory is knowledge. Knowledge is power and knowledge takes power. They keep themselves strong by using something else to hold all their power and knowledge all for them, something bound to this world and bound to them. They can take what they need at will without draining that which makes them what they are.”

“Something else?” Jenn’s green eyes widened in understanding. “You mean a person. A Familiar.” She nodded. “I know the concept. In the old stories it’s usually an animal—a black cat or something.”

“Familiar.” Mathieu said the word flatly as he stared ahead at nothing, not noticing the cat climbing back into his lap. “Another word for ‘slave’,” he continued as he looked at her. “Other words might be ‘toy’ or ‘plaything’ or ‘whore’.”

She nodded again, her face concerned as she watched him still rub his arms. “Are you cold?”

He
looked down at his arms as if he’d not realized what he’d been doing. He forced his hands down and answered quietly, “No. I just don’t like to show my scars.”

Jenn blinked. “Mathieu, you don’t have a mark on you. Your skin is perfect.”

He looked down, ran his right hand up his left forearm. “I see them everywhere, all over my body. I’m not perfect. I’m filthy.” He brought his hands together, rubbing at invisible stains before visibly forcing them to rest on the bed.

“Are you going to be okay when we leave this house?” She leaned forward and put a hand on the bed next to his. “Marcus said something about your wards keeping you together, but you won’t have wards when we leave.”

“I don’t know.” He looked at her hand and very gingerly moved his own back into his lap. “I don’t know. I have my reservations. Is it time?”

She checked her watch and nodded. “Yeah. We need to head to the airport. Mr. Devalle got a private jet chartered for us so you don’t have to worry about being crammed into a plane with a bunch of strangers. But we’ll still have to go through the airport to get to it and we’ll have to go through security.”

She paused and then spoke again, twisting the coverlet on the bed with her fingers. “Hugh has really put a lot of time and money into getting your help. And put himself at odds with a lot of the Board of Directors, too. He only wants Amanda back. Put anything he might say to you through that filter, okay?”

“I’ll keep that in mind while I recall his veiled threats.” Mathieu sighed as he stood up and vigorously brushed the cat fur from his pants, pausing to pick off the individual hairs that stubbornly lingered.

“He only wanted the best for her. He’s a great dad, you know?” Jenn rearranged the dishes on the tray absently while she spoke. “I used to be jealous because Amanda had the best dad ever who let her be whatever she wanted to be, while I had the mean father who made me
learn
Hebrew and Latin and how to read the stars and cast runes. I mean, we all know what it’s like to occasionally feel like someone else’s parents would be so much better to you than your own, but with her I really did believe it. Didn’t you sometimes used to wish you had someone else’s parents?”

Mathieu gave her a look that she couldn’t interpret. “No.”

“I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong? I didn’t mean…”

“No.” He bowed his head to her and then picked up the suitcase from the corner. “You said nothing wrong. But it is time to go.” He looked at her for another long moment and then touched the wall and closed his eyes.

There was an audible pop in her ears when his wards came down and she thought that she might have seen the slightest outline of something traced on the walls gleaming from the corner of her eye. It was gone before she could focus on it, though.

“I need to get my stuff.” She stood up and gestured for him to follow her down the hall.

C
hapter Nineteen

Mathieu stood before the great door, staring at the spells of protection carved into the lintel.

“This house was built in 1535 by the founding members.” A voice next to him said. Mathieu closed his eyes and leaned away from voice.

Hugh continued. “The door is original to that time period. The founding members were a loosely associated group of witchfinders who had come to the conclusion, separately and together, that there was something much greater than mere witches causing problems in our world. Something infinitely more powerful, something more insidious than a bunch of old women brewing herbals in the forest.”

Mathieu turned to look at him and nodded. Hugh smiled and continued. “The witchfinders were rich from taking a portion of their victim’s estates. They invested that money and formed our Foundation so that we could learn more about our true enemies and defeat them. They built a chapterhouse here so they could work undisturbed.”