CHAPTER TWELVE

 

lamentations

Lucian stared into the shadows to avoid Rachael’s gaze. She gave his arm a gentle squeeze, but he didn’t respond. If he touched her, he was afraid he wouldn’t stop. Beneath her scars, he saw the woman he loved.

The Wyrm was close to taking her. Only an exorcist could see the blue-black shadow in her eye that indicated her possession. Lucian calculated the depth and color of the Wyrm’s reflection; Rachael didn’t have long. Worn down by her constant battle against the demon, she was too weakened to survive a sustained attack. Yet he could only exorcise the demon with her permission. There would be no opportunity to save her if he couldn’t win her trust.

The kitchen door slammed, causing both of them to jump. Rachael rose as Caleb stalked into the room and tossed their packs into a corner. He shook the rain from his coat and hung it from a peg by the stove. “Nasty out there.” He dropped the manacles on top of the packs.

Lucian touched the cut on his throat where Caleb’s blade had nicked him. He remembered Caleb from the group that had brought Rachael back to the Citadel. Even as John stepped onto the wagon beside her, he’d singled the constable out with praise for rescuing Rachael. The other Katharoi took note, and Caleb preened in his sudden celebrity.

Now the constable went to Rachael and put his hands on her shoulders. She tilted her head as he whispered in her ear. He slid her coat off, and Lucian noted Caleb made sure his knuckles trailed down her arms. She nodded and murmured a reply. She didn’t chastise him for his intimacy; she seemed to take it in stride. Caleb smiled at Lucian over her shoulder.

His touch bespoke familiarity with Rachael’s body. Lucian’s fingers massaged the head of his cane. Apparently she had wasted no time mourning his exile before she decided on his replacement. He observed them through his lashes as he tried to dampen his jealousy. Had he seriously expected her to spend the last sixteen years pining for him after he’d sent her Hell?

Caleb had rescued her, so she should be grateful to the constable, but even gratitude had its limits. The man was so utterly beneath her in both intelligence and station. She should have thanked him and moved on to a more suitable arrangement with a man of her rank.

Rachael touched Caleb’s wrist lightly as she spoke to him again. The constable was so distracted he didn’t notice her check the Citadel insignia on Matthew’s sword before she put the strap over her head. She made sure the side of the sheath bearing the Citadel’s motif was to her back and out of Caleb’s sight.

Lucian frowned. She must want him dead very badly to hide his use of the Citadel blade. His ability to call on the power of God through the sword might be the only evidence standing between him and a noose. A new ache filled his chest. While he hadn’t expected her love, he had not anticipated her to use subterfuge. He had hoped she would at least find it in her heart to forgive him. Instead, she planned to subvert his chance for a fair trial.

Caleb went into the office. Rachael lingered on the threshold and spoke to Lucian. “I’m leaving the door open.”

There was nothing veiled in her warning; she would be listening for his movements. Lucian didn’t bother to answer. She frowned, but she must have thought he dozed, because she didn’t push the point. She left him alone, and he was grateful. 

Fingers brushed the back of his hand and he sat up with a start. Surprised to find his cheeks wet, he rubbed his face dry and found Lindsay’s pale gaze fixed on him. She must have sensed his discomfort, because she looked away while he composed himself. Her hand never left his.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

She looked down at her left arm and wiggled her fingers. “It still burns, but I can handle it. Did you fix it?”

He nodded.

“Thanks.” She nodded toward the office. “Is that Rachael?”

“Yes.” He wondered how long the girl had been feigning sleep.

Lindsay craned her neck to look into the other room. “There’s something wrong with her. She’s got some kind of shadow in her eye.”

“What?”

“In her eye, there’s a shadow. It makes her pupil shiny and blue, but it moves like a cloud. It’s never in one place for long. What causes that?”

“You saw it?”

“Can’t you?”

Now he knew why the child had been drawn to him; she was an exorcist. The telekinesis alone was a worthy talent but her ability to detect a possession made her a rarity. When John saw her talents, he would know her potential and her future at the Citadel would be assured. Lindsay would be safe.

He realized he would never see her take her vows against the Fallen. She would grow up and he would be nothing but a memory of her first days in Woerld. “The Wyrm,” he said and swallowed past the hollowness in his throat. “You are seeing the evidence of Rachael’s possession. Whenever a demon possesses a mortal, the demon casts a shadow in the person’s eye.”

“Can anybody see it or is this another talent?”

“Only an exorcist can see it. It’s your talent. Like it’s mine.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he noted Rachael had slipped back into the room to watch them. He knew she expected him to use the ritual words to renounce his rights as Lindsay’s Elder, but he couldn’t summon the phrases to his mouth. Not yet. He didn’t speak until he was sure he controlled his voice. “Lindsay, this is Rachael Boucher, the Judge I’ve been telling you about. Present yourself to her and do as she says.”

Lindsay hesitated. “You okay?” she whispered.

He nodded. “Go.”

Lindsay didn’t ask any more questions. She glanced back at him as she crossed the short distance to Rachael. She walked up to Rachael and thrust her chin out and cocked her hip; her arms crossed her thin chest. Lucian held his breath, although her stance indicated defiance, Lindsay didn’t openly challenge Rachael. Yet. 

“Let’s go in here,” Rachael said. “We can talk in private.” She gestured for Lindsay to go into the office and, after another quick nod from Lucian, Lindsay obeyed her.

In her own way, Lindsay let Rachael know where her allegiance rested, and it was with Lucian. He was simultaneously proud and frightened for her.

Caleb emerged from the room and almost ran into Lindsay. “Hey.” He smiled. “You might want your coat.” He stepped around her and plucked her jacket from the peg. “It’s still a little cold in there.”

She took her coat and put it on before she disappeared into the other room. Rachael followed the girl and shut the door.

Caleb lounged by the stove. He waited a few minutes before he said, “It wasn’t enough to ruin her life once, was it?”

Lucian dropped his gaze to the floor.

The constable warmed to his topic. “Now the whole ordeal is going to be dredged up again. Did you stop and think what that’s going to do to her?” He paused as if he was expecting an answer. “You’re like a cancer, Lucian. You just spread grief wherever you go.”

Lucian tried to merge Caleb’s voice with the sound of the rain. When his twin and her cohorts had taken their amusement in his disgrace, he’d never had any difficulty shutting them out. He’d learned to calm his mind and not hear them, but he found himself unable to draw Caleb’s words behind a convenient fantasy. The constable was too close to the truth.

Caleb crossed the room and bent down so Lucian had no choice but to look at him. “I love her, Lucian. I love her like you never could.” The constable lowered his voice until he could barely be heard over the rain pounding on the roof. “I’m going outside to walk the perimeter. Make a run for it. Take one of the horses and go back to your sister, go to some other city of sanctuary. Open a Gate and go to Hell, I don’t care, but just get out of everybody’s lives forever. I’ll take care of Rachael and the girl.”

It was the easy way out. Lucian knew once he cleared the back door, the constable would kill him, and Rachael would be none the wiser. He might have considered the offer a week ago. Not now, not after last night. The Spirit had touched him and he had found his courage. He understood how Matthew had been able to calmly give himself to save Lucian. Now Lucian would give himself to save Lindsay. There was no going back.

“I swear you’ll live.” Caleb drew his blade and kissed the hilt. “I swear before God Almighty and the Citadel I serve.” He sheathed the blade and rose, backing toward the door. “You be gone when I get back.”

The constable slipped away, but Lucian looked to the door shielding Rachael and Lindsay. He wouldn’t abandon them. Even if they took Lindsay from him and Rachael hated him enough to lie about him, he wouldn’t abandon them.

Not this time.

†

The fire Caleb built warmed the room, and Rachael lit two candles to drive away the late afternoon gloom. She caught Lindsay staring at her scarred face in fascination. Lindsay looked away guiltily, but Rachael didn’t chastise her. Instead, she observed the thin girl with white-gold hair and pale blue eyes. She seemed to be made of glass; such a fragile child, and the delicate ones never lasted long.

“Are you in pain?” Rachael gestured to Lindsay’s hand.

“I’m fine.” She touched the bandage absently. “Lucian fixed it.”

“Has Lucian told you about me at all?” Rachael sat on the couch beside the trembling girl, hoping to reassure her.

Lindsay got up and moved to sit in the chair facing Rachael. “Yes, ma’am.”

The Wyrm. Even this new to Woerld, she was sensitive to the evil Rachael carried. She didn’t try to encourage Lindsay to return to the couch. “What did he tell you?”

“That you’re a judge. And that Pete is with you.”

“That’s all?”

Lindsay shrugged and kicked one foot back and forth in her nervousness. “Is Pete okay?”

Rachael thought about saying yes, because he was okay, much more so than if he’d lived, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie so glibly. “Have you ever promised someone something?”

Lindsay nodded and twisted a strand of her hair through her nervous fingers.

“Well, I made a promise to Lucian, and it’s very important that I keep it.” Because trust is hard earned and easily betrayed. “Be patient a little longer and when we’re done, Lucian will talk to you.” Rachael watched her chew her lower lip. She wished she could send Lindsay straight to Lucian, but the news of Peter’s death wouldn’t be easy on her. Impaired by her grief, Lindsay’s testimony would be muddled at best, non-existent at the worst. No, it was better to question her first. Once Rachael acquired the information she needed, Lindsay could grieve in peace.

“This won’t take long, will it?” The hope in her voice was heartbreaking.

“No. It shouldn’t take long at all.” Rachael noticed Lindsay’s eyes were the same color and almond shape as Peter’s, but Peter’s hair had been darker, almost brown. An image flashed in her mind of Lucian and Catarina laughing together over one of Catarina’s asides; their eyes were identical too. She recalled standing across the room, watching them enviously.

“Well.” Rachael pulled herself out of her memories and back to the present. “I’m a Citadel Judge. That means anything that you tell me I will have to report back to the Seraph and the Council. Do you understand?”

Lindsay nodded.

“Why don’t you tell me about meeting Lucian?”

Lindsay’s foot swung faster, and she narrowed her eyes at Rachael. “I know how this works. I’m not getting Lucian in trouble.”

Rachael wondered what lies Lucian had used to twist the girl’s allegiance to him. “Who says he’s going to be in trouble?”

“He told me he shouldn’t have opened the Gate.”

No, he shouldn’t have opened the Gate. Rachael slipped into a dream. She remembered her excitement when Lucian had promised to teach her the Psalms to open the Gates. In the potter’s field, they had stood so close she felt Lucian’s heart beat against her back. John says I’m not ready for the Gates.

John’s a fool.

Rachael started when Lindsay’s voice disrupted the memory. “He said when you got here, he was going to be under arrest. And I wasn’t supposed to be upset about it because he broke a promise.” Her glare deepened and a tear slipped from the corner of Lindsay’s eye. She wiped her face.

Perhaps Lucian wasn’t twisting the circumstances to win Lindsay’s sympathy. Rachael remembered Caleb’s eagerness to see Lucian in chains. It was possible he’d been trying to prepare Lindsay for just that scenario. “What else did Lucian say?”

“He said that I had to do what you said, nobody else. Then when we get to the Citadel, I could trust you and John and John’s wife Tanith. He said to trust nobody else.”

“John, Tanith, and me. No other names?” Surely he would have given the child the name of a compatriot, someone within his and Catarina’s intimate circle, not the Seraph’s family. 

“Nobody else. Why’s he in so much trouble?”

“Lucian made a very solemn promise never to open a Hell Gate again. We call that promise a covenant. In return for promising not to open the Hell Gates, the Council banished Lucian.” Because John couldn’t order Lucian’s death, not with her life hanging so precariously in the balance. To lose Catarina to the Fallen had been demoralizing, but the loss of all three of the Seraph’s foundlings would have been devastating to the Citadel’s future.

“He didn’t leave Hadra to open a Gate. He left because of you,” she said.

Rachael licked her lips. “What?”

“He just happened to be there when Peter and I came through the Veil. You’re the whole reason he left Hadra. He still loves you and wants to make you better.” Lindsay held up her hand. “Like he fixed me.”

Rachael’s pulse jumped. This didn’t make sense. No matter how desperate his situation, Lucian was far too reticent to tell a child something so intimate. “Lindsay, I know Lucian would never tell you that.”

“He didn’t.” She met Rachael’s eye, defiance radiated off her small body. “I saw it in his heart when Catarina attacked us and he protected me. You remember. You were there too. You told him to go away and he did, not because he wanted to, but because staying would hurt you more.” She sat up in the chair and leaned forward. “And you know it,” she whispered.

Rachael rubbed the patch over her eye. She wanted nothing more than to look into Lindsay’s heart and see if the girl spoke the truth or only her version of it. Yet she restrained herself. Without the Wyrm, searching a foundling with the intimacy of a soul-touch took finesse; foundlings couldn’t shield themselves from the stronger Katharoi. With the danger of the Wyrm, Rachael didn’t dare broach Lindsay’s frail defenses. The only way she would know the truth is if the child slipped in her story. “Tell me everything, Lindsay.” She reached out to touch Lindsay but stopped shy of making contact. “Help me understand.”

†

Caleb still hadn’t returned when the door to the office opened. Lucian gripped Peter’s wallet. It weighed like a rock in his hand.

Lindsay emerged first, and she came straight to him. “She wouldn’t tell me about Peter. She said you had to. It’s bad, isn’t it?”

He stood and she reached out to him; he put his arm around her as Rachael entered.

“Where’s Caleb?”

“He went out. Rachael.” The kitchen door closed, and Lucian stopped talking. Too late. He couldn’t risk discussing his concerns with Caleb in the room. It was possible that when Rachael questioned him privately, she would have Caleb stay with Lindsay. He doubted the constable would take his aggressions out on the child, but Lucian was taking no chances.

“Yes?” Rachael prompted.

“I’d like to talk with Lindsay alone. If that’s all right.”

Caleb gave no sign anything was amiss.

“Certainly,” she said. “Let’s go look at your golem, Caleb.” She grabbed her coat and gestured for the constable to lead the way.

When they were gone, Lindsay pulled away from him. “Lucian? Is it bad?”

“I’m afraid so.” He motioned for her to sit on the bed and she obeyed him.

“It’s okay if he’s hurt, even if he’s like Rachael.” She whispered, “I’ll love him anyway.”

There was no easy way to tell her. “Lindsay, Peter didn’t make it through the Veil.”

Tears were already brimming over her lashes and she rocked herself. “He did too. He’s just lost.” She turned to him.

He wanted to lie and tell her she was right. He wanted to tell her anything to make the grief leave her gaze. Instead, he pressed the wallet into her hand. “Rachael said he died bravely. They’ve buried him at Citadel. I’m so sorry.”

“She’s wrong.” Lindsay took her brother’s bloodstained wallet and turned it over in her hands. “This isn’t his.”

Lucian refused to take the billfold when she tried to hand it back.

“It’s not his.” She insisted and opened the wallet.

A piece of paper floated to the floor, and Lucian bent down to retrieve the photograph. Two children on a beach, one was definitely Lindsay, the boy was surely Peter. He held the picture up to her.

Her body hitched with sobs. “Are you sure he didn’t go back to Earth? I mean, that would be okay, even if he went back without me.”

Lucian shook his head as he reached out and drew her to him. He took her shuddering body in his arms and held her. “Let yourself grieve for him so you can let him go.”

“It’s not fair.”

“No,” he admitted, “it is not.” Her sorrow went through his heart and for a moment, he was tempted to heal her grief as he had healed Catarina whenever she felt bad. The temptation lasted but a second. He reaffirmed his vow not weaken this child as he had his twin.

He looked up to see Rachael in the doorway again, their bleak guardian angel. He felt her magic steal into his heart for a glimpse of his soul before she withdrew. His pulse quickened.

When they were young, she would test his love by watching him with her soul’s eye when she thought he was too preoccupied to notice. One day he’d asked her to stop, because he wanted her to trust him without resorting to prayers and spells. To keep his love, she had acquiesced, and he had turned her heart to glass. So now he opened himself to her and let her see he had nothing to hide. 

Lindsay trembled in his arms. He rocked the child, rubbing her back as he had when he first found her in Hell.

Rachael hung her dripping coat on a peg and came to the bed. She sat beside him, but she spoke to Lindsay. “Peter was very brave. He saved your life and even returned after his death to tell me you were in danger. That was his last request, that someone save you.” She stared at her hands and made no effort to touch the child. She started to say something else, then thought better of it and remained silent.

“He was your foundling, wasn’t he?” It was a rude question, and Lucian wanted to bite his runaway tongue, but he’d held his silence for too many years. His time was short; he would waste no opportunity to touch her.

Rachael rose and occupied herself with tidying the room.  She moved so quietly, Lucian almost forgot she was there. He lost track of time while the rain pattered against the roof. Lindsay’s sobs trailed off into distressed hiccups. With his back against the headboard, he held the child through her grief and watched Rachael with half-closed eyes.

As he hovered on the threshold of sleep, he felt Rachael’s breath tickle his ear. “He was mine.”

He started, but even as he opened his mouth to tell her he was sorry, she put her finger against his lips.

“I know,” she said.