Mirror of the Gods, page 8
Lucy, horrified, realized that she could picture it happening. Could see it so vividly. She could hear the screams and smell the stomach-churning scent of smoke and burning flesh. She could hear Dira’s screams. Because she had, over and over again, every night since the bracelets had somehow become bonded to her.
“You.” She gasped, eyes wide. “It was you.” Her voice sounded hollow even to her own ears as she lifted her face to stare up at Dira’s. “You’re the daughter from my dreams!”
No one spoke as the two women stared at each other for a few moments.
Then Dira nodded.
“But that would make... But the burial mounds, they were... God, they had to be hundreds of years old, close to a thousand! You said Mordira was a family name,” Lucy rambled, “but if that woman—the main burial mound—was Mordira the First’s, then who was your mother? Who are you?” Lucy paced as she tried to wrap her mind around what was happening.
“I am Mordira the Third. We each were named after one of the four, one of our parents. Jeger was named after her mother, while Kreager and Ridder were named after their fathers. The four previous Vanir.”
“Wait, wait.” Clint held up a hand to silence the shocked and astounded squawks coming from Lucy. “I’m not following.”
“Just how old are you?” Lucy asked. Was that amusement in Dira’s eyes? “When did your parents die? Let’s go with that. Because in my vision your mother was wearing armor. Battle armor. And you were wearing breeches and a tunic. It couldn’t have been—”
“It happened in 1540,” Dira said bluntly.
Lucy gaped and blinked her widened eyes once, then twice, before promptly going limp.
***
Ridder had her in his arms immediately, gathering up her form and taking her toward the couches Clint had previously occupied.
“Okay, I’ll give it to you that whatever is going on here is odd, and definitely not normal, but you all having been alive since the sixteenth century? That’s just absurd.” Clint scoffed, looking around at all of them.
Ridder set Lucy on the couch gently, propping her head up on a decorative throw pillow. The moment he pulled away, she gave a moan and curled in on herself. He had to fight off the desire to stay there for a moment, to just watch her as she settled. Instead, he turned away and slunk back toward the others, pushing all those confusing feelings down and far from his mind.
“Believe whatever you want, Doc,” Jay said smoothly. “As long as you understand that Lucy is in serious danger, we will need your help finding a way to get those cuffs off. For her sake.” She stretched out over her chair and the one Lucy had been in. She looked regal and dangerous, like a queen or a panther splayed out in the sun, all sleek muscles and dark beauty.
“So the first step is finding out what the symbol is, right?” Clint asked.
“Yes. But we won’t discuss this without Lucy, so for now, just relax. I’m going to shower,” Dira announced, and moved back toward the bathroom, opening and shutting the door with a quick and loud snap. No one else said a word, too consumed with their own thoughts to argue.
***
Penthouse Suite
Wardian Apartments
London
Cold green eyes surveyed the rise of expansive skyscrapers, the mixture of history and modernity, only to feel nothing but disdain. Buildings like the odd egg-shaped structure were nothing more than a blight, a blemish on the distinguished face of a once elegant city.
“Disgusting,” he murmured to himself, a snarl pulling at his lips.
“Sir?”
Sighing heavily, the man turned to eye the employee who kept himself at a fair distance, not daring to fully enter his home.
“What did you find out, Simmons?” he demanded, his voice sharp and crisp, the English accent smooth and as elegant as the man himself.
His thick, cropped blond hair, with streaks of gray around the temples, was styled perfectly and fashionably away from his face. It complimented his soft cream skin. His sharp green eyes were like glinting daggers of emerald that commanded the attention of whomever he looked at. The classic aristocratic coloring was paired with a tall, athletic build and draped in a perfectly tailored luxury Italian suit—there were no words to describe Alastair Duncan other than beautifully lethal.
“The team missed two of their check-in windows, last night and this morning,” Simmons answered, his voice even, close to monotonous. “Police and city reports indicate a large power outage in the area just minutes after their last known communication. Batteries in cars were drained, windows were blown out, and the electricity went out for a few hours.”
Alastair’s face remained a cool and impassive mask.
“We believe it was the work of the artifacts,” Simmons continued, finally stepping into the luxury apartment to set the folder he carried atop the white marble island.
Alastair stepped up to the file and opened it. A soft, round-faced young woman smiled up at him from the picture attached in the corner. Her student ID, he noted. Light gray eyes, a wild mane of curling warm brown hair, and a smile as brilliant as the sun. Alastair hummed deep in the back of his throat as he flipped through the pages paperclipped into the folder.
Impressive academic transcripts, meager but admirably managed financial accounts, a singular property worth no more than three hundred thousand dollars, bequeathed to her through family friends, and so on. She was exceedingly normal. So how, he wondered, did a young woman like her get mixed up with the Vanir? Even thinking of the four made him sneer. Their lofty morals and their holier-than-thou nature. Their penchant to judge the actions of mere mortal men as if reality were based solely upon the scales of justice, of right and wrong, instead of the broad spectrum that is morality itself. And here was an all-round average woman, a helpless little fly caught in their web of righteousness, with no real hopes of escaping.
It was like watching a helpless, innocent lamb being led to the slaughter.
Displeasure sparked in his eyes as he snapped the folder shut, turning to Simmons, who stoically awaited his orders.
“Where is she now?” Alastair demanded coolly. “This... Lucy Sheridan.”
“According to the university, a family emergency arose, and she elected to drop her course load for the semester. The house has remained untouched since our surveillance, her car has not moved, and none of her information was on any flight manifests from the last twenty-four hours. We are still monitoring airline information, but we doubt she is traveling by normal means.”
With a low grunt, Alastair turned and began pacing toward the window and back again.
“Find out where they went, where they took her. Once you have, prepare travel plans,” Alastair ordered. He snatched the folder up. “This time I will go myself.”
Simmons nodded before turning crisply away. Once he was alone, Alastair let the folder fall open again.
“What have you gotten yourself into, Ms. Sheridan?”
Chapter Ten
The sinking of her stomach startled her awake. Lucy blinked bleary eyes as she glanced around, dazed and confused. What happened?
Pushing up with a sharp inhale through her nose, she glanced around the cabin of the plane. The pieces began clicking back into place. That’s right. Dira had been explaining just how she was connected to the burial grounds. And the fire.
Running a hand over her face, Lucy frowned, looking around at the others who were now scattered about. Clint sat in one of the four leather armchairs surrounding the small conference table, his arms crossed firmly across his chest and his eyes shut. Ridder sat beside him, his face illuminated by the cold white light of whatever he was peering at on his phone. Jay’s hair, her braids piled high in a careless bun, was visible over the back of the chair, and from the tapping that filled the cabin, Lucy could easily deduce she was working on a secure laptop. Kreager was nowhere to be seen, but Dira sat in another leather armchair directly across from the couch, long legs stretched out in front of her.
She looked to be asleep, so Lucy took a moment to truly study her.
For someone who claimed to have been alive since 1525, she looked no older than thirty. Her hair, a tightly coiled bun of gold pinned at the nape of her neck, showcased her sharp cheekbones and defined jaw. The clothes she wore, while casual, were obviously expensive. From the leather jacket to the designer jeans, all the way down too, no doubt, expensive yet scuffed boots.
Dira sighed and shifted in her seat. “I can practically hear the questions you have rattling around in your head. Ask them before you explode,” she grunted without opening her eyes.
Lucy jolted, then blinked in surprise as the blanket that had been placed over her fell to the floor. Picking it up, she rubbed it softly between his fingers before moving over to the unoccupied chair next to Dira.
“I’m sorry. I just... this has all been so much. I don’t know what happened,” Lucy began and watched as Dira’s eyes fluttered open and locked with hers.
“It’s alright. But this is something that, moving forward, you would have been questioning, wanting to know more about. The connection between us four, why the bracelets are important to us, and more.” As she spoke, Dira stretched a bit before languidly shifting in the chair.
She looks so dignified without even trying, Lucy thought. They all did. It honestly wasn’t fair.
“You call each other siblings,” she started, curling her legs up on the seat and draping the soft blanket across her lap. It was an unspoken question, but one Dira picked up on quickly. Understanding, she jerked her chin upward settling back against the chair comfortably.
“Yes. For all intents and purposes, they are my siblings. Our parents were the same way. They learned, trained, fought, and protected humanity together for over five centuries.”
Lucy’s brow furrowed a bit as she cocked her head to the side. “Protected humanity from what?”
Dira was quiet for a few moments, the look in her eyes deep and heavy. Eyes that had seen great pain and unimaginable hardships, Lucy realized.
“Itself,” Dira answered, taking a deep breath before continuing. “War is in our blood. It is a large part of our very beings. But we are bound by honor, tradition, and duty to uphold all that is good and right within the world. Our job, as the Vanir, the guardians of the natural order, is to protect the world from what we call the human condition. Humans will always do what is in their best interest, regardless of who it affects or hurts. Humans will always need protection from themselves,” she explained.
“So you protect the natural order of things and humans from themselves. But what does that make you? If you’re not human, what are you?”
While Lucy was curious, she was also afraid of the truth. Giving a barely-there smile, Dira shifted in her seat.
“We are the descendants of gods. The gods from the realm of Vanaheim.”
For a moment, Lucy could do nothing more than gawk. Her mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide. She was more than a little confused.
“So you’re... what, demigods? Immortals?” she asked and watched the amusement in Dira’s eyes bloom and her lips twitch into a wider smile.
“We’re not immortal. More like we were gifted with... extended mortality.”
Lucy blinked in confusion, then just stared.
“If we’re fatally wounded, and we die, there is no coming back from that,” Dira explained solemnly. “The medallion that Kreager carries can only heal, it cannot bring anyone back from the dead. But with our training and our extended lifespan, as long as we are not immediately killed, we can live for centuries.”
Lucy was so wrapped up in her thoughts and the explanation that she didn’t even notice her ears pop, adjusting to the lower altitude. They had begun their descent. So soon?
The plane jerked as the wheels touched down on the tarmac.
Dira chuckled. “You slept for the last few hours of our flight.”
It didn’t take long for the still disoriented Lucy, with her backpack slung over her shoulder and armed with her tote bag and snacks, to be ushered off the plane. As she stood in the chilly air, it spread over her skin and elicited goosebumps.
Despite her jeans and long-sleeved shirt, Lucy immediately wished she had a jacket to put on. Fall had come to England quicker than it had to Boston, the night air crisp and cool. The moon hung full and bright in the midnight sky, a scattering of stars twinkling coldly.
Thankfully she only had to stand there for a few minutes before she was basically shoved into a large SUV. Ridder took the driver’s seat while Dira gracefully climbed into the passenger seat. Jay and Kreager sat in the two seats behind them while Lucy and Clint sat in the third row.
“Are you alright?” Clint asked, catching Lucy by surprise. She found his eyes forward, but his brow furrowed.
“Yes... I’m alright. Thank you.”
A few moments of silence passed between them before Clint spoke again. “I apologize. For what I said earlier.”
Lucy stared at him, her eyes filled with surprise, before looking away as she considered her answer. She sighed deeply. “It’s okay. I know it’s a lot to take in.” She felt his eyes on her now.
“You seem to be taking it well.”
Lucy shrugged. “I don’t have much of a choice. Besides, I’m not sure I have accepted it, so to speak. Just...” She glanced down at the cuffs on her wrist. They glinted with each passing streetlight. “I’m just pushing everything down for the moment.”
On the surface, she looked as she normally did. Bright, happy, at ease. However, the skin beneath her eyes was dark. Her hands, resting palms up on her legs shook slightly, and not just because of the jostling of the SUV. This was a tremor—small, hardly detectable. But there. Curling her shaking hands tightly, she pushed them under her thighs, hiding them.
“You should sleep when we get wherever they’re taking us.”
Without looking at him, Lucy nodded and pulled down her sleeves to cover the silver artifacts she’d unearthed purely by accident weeks before.
Clint turned his head away from her, toward the blur of trees that slowly began melding into a cityscape.
They drove in relative silence for the next twenty minutes before Ridder maneuvered the SUV into the drive of a large house. The lights were on, illuminating the front lawn in a swath of warm light, warm and inviting. Lush green ivy crawled over the light tan bricks, while bushes and flowers that were expertly trimmed and attended to swayed in the breeze, rustling softly.
“It’s beautiful,” Lucy murmured.
Jay turned around in her seat to give her a wide beautiful smile. “Isn’t it?”
Lucy felt an indescribable pull to the house that stood in all its regal glory, light gray smoke billowing from the brick chimney.
She rounded the back of the SUV, taking her belongings from Jay, who held them out to her with a grin. Ridder silently took her duffel this time, before his brother could grab it, shouldering it with ease—as if it was filled with feathers. Lucy blinked, blushing as Ridder turned his deep eyes to her own.
Dira cleared her throat somewhere behind her. Lucy turned and met the amused look she was being given with a sheepish smile.
“Clint is right, you need more rest. We all do. Tomorrow will be a busy day.” Without waiting for the others, she turned on her heel and headed up the drive to the stone walkway and into the house.
Jay snickered as she made her way after Dira, arms loaded down by four large metal cases. For a moment, Lucy wondered what was in the ominous baggage but decided she was too tired to stand around and speculate.
***
The three men stood watching Lucy silently trudge up toward the house. When the front door shut, Clint finally spoke.
“If you never get the cuffs off of her, don’t give her false hope. She’s terrified. It may not seem so, but I’ve known her for over a year now, and I can see it hiding beneath the surface,” Clint murmured as he turned his cold blue eyes to the other men, who were gazing back at him coolly.
“What I’m saying is—”
We know what you are saying. You’ll excuse me if I don’t believe this protective act you’ve got going,” Ridder snapped, eyes black with temper. He took a step forward, and bared glinting white teeth at Clint, looming over the professor, a protective surge rearing up inside him and nestling in his chest as he stared at the man.
He leaned down to put them face-to-face. “I have seen things,” he said. “Moments of her life, and I know the kind of man you have been to her. So save your pitifully empty and thinly veiled threats for someone who believes you. She can use the cuffs. And she is the first person, other than the four of us, who has been able to do so in nearly five hundred years. There is more to worry about now than getting them off her.” Ridder’s temper had come quickly, and it disappeared just as fast as he straightened and pulled away. But it still simmered behind his cold, almost obsidian eyes.
“She will not be a prisoner,” Kreager said softly, “or killed, should we not be able to remove the cuffs from her.” He leaned against the SUV, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared down at Clint.
“But she’ll never lead a normal life again,” Clint said as he looked between the two.
Ridder sighed in exasperation, snatching his designer luggage. He hoisted Lucy’s duffel bag higher up on his shoulder and pushed past the slightly baffled professor.
“She was never normal to begin with,” Ridder called over his shoulder as he climbed the stone steps. He crossed the threshold into their home without hesitation.
***
By the time Kreager and Clint had entered the house, Jay was already unpacking and setting up her computer system on the vast antique dining room table, and Dira was leaning against the counter in the kitchen, talking into her phone, her voice hushed barely above a murmur. Having contacts all over the world helped immensely, especially when trying to make sure that the Order had no idea where Lucy had vanished too.
