‘I think it sounds rather romantic,’ said Clarice.
‘Good, because so do I, even after reading just that first fragment. Dr Severn said it sounded like a foretelling of doom. He thinks the female is a gorgon.’
‘Men.’ Clarice clucked her tongue. ‘Hello? They’re both half naked and holding hands, looking very pleased about it. I’d say they were enjoying themselves. Whatever they’re feeling, it looks amazing.’
‘Oh, it is,’ Meri murmured. ‘Thanks, Clarice.’
‘My pleasure. I look forward to visiting the mosaic when it is mounted in the museum.’
‘Me too.’ Though Meri had an inkling that Rio was going to do everything in his power to make sure this particular mosaic never emerged from storage. What it was suggesting was too radical for Teans to accept: that Teans and Perilous together could be something far better than what they were apart. The two were supposed to be symbiotic not predatory. Saying that, though, to the hardliners on both sides was akin to claiming angels should love demons. Little wonder the temple had been destroyed. But to Meri it made a world of difference: it was a comfort that others had trod this path before; her touch needn’t be a threat; it could complete in love. It was a promise that gave her the courage to be with Kel again. She couldn’t wait to get back to him so she could prove the poem right.
Then her more cautious side piped up. Slow down, Meri: to the Teans this is heresy. You are going to have to be cleverer than that. You can’t just run to Kel and try this. You have to work out how to make others see that you are right to love a Perilous, that some of the ancestors had done so too. You need time to make your case.
OK, she would have to take this slowly, see if there were any other examples she could use to bolster her case. Only when she was prepared would she take this to the council. Showing her hand too early would allow her enemies to defeat her with counter moves. It was as well Kel wasn’t around as she was nowhere near ready to try this out.
20
Kel tried not to fret as he was forced to wait in the hotel while his friends attempted to locate Meri. Searching for her would take time. He had to be patient.
Walking away from the window, he picked up the guitar and began playing, first, running through his favourite tunes, then drifting into a new melody. It reminded him of his time with Meri, their lazy days at the hostel where it was just the two of them with no interruptions. They had been the shortest days of the year but he had loved the long hours of darkness together with no need to go anywhere else. He put into it his longing to be with her again, his fear and his hope. Finally, he had the tune firm. He played it a couple of times. Not bad. All he needed now were words.
‘So I write music now. Who knew?’ he murmured.
There came a knock on the door. He hoped it was one of his team back, preferably with news of Meri but he’d also be happy with something to eat. A bag of airline peanuts didn’t do much to dent his appetite. He checked the peephole. The hotel manager stood outside. She was looking rather unhappy. He hadn’t been playing loudly, had he?’
‘Hola,’ he said, opening the door.
A boot kicked it the rest of the way open and a party of uniformed men bundled past the manager.
‘On the ground! Hands behind your head! Now!’ barked the leader.
The soldiers had guns so Kel wasn’t going to argue. He held up his hands to show they were empty and lowered himself to the carpet.
‘What’s this about? I’m here legally. I haven’t even been out of this room so I can’t have broken any laws.’
His hands were yanked down and joined in cuffs behind him.
‘The suspect is secured,’ the leader reported to a communication device on his lapel.
Suspect? Suspected of what? Kel had a sinking feeling that he had taken one risk too many by coming here. He had to protect the others if that was possible.
Into his eye-line appeared a pair of polished leather shoes, not the boots the others were wearing.
‘Kelvin Douglas, it is a pity we meet again.’
Kel swore. Tegel Waller: the least sympathetic council member from the yacht. It was now clear what this is about. ‘Mr Waller, I’m sorry to see you too but what justifies this? I’m visiting Jerez peacefully. Is tourism illegal now?’
‘It is for a Perilous. Men, take him away.’
Kel was heaved up by the upper arms. ‘What are you going to do with me?’
‘What I said. You were warned that it is fatal for you to come here.’
‘No trial, no chance of appeal?’
‘Laws don’t apply to vermin. You can lawfully be executed.’
‘Sir?’ queried one of the men. ‘You want us to shoot him?’
Tegel seemed irritated by the question. ‘Not here, obviously, lieutenant. A body is too much bother to explain. When are you next scheduled to take the helicopter out on patrol?’
‘Our duty falls tomorrow night.’
‘Then take him with you and see that he doesn’t come back.’
‘Sir.’
There was no point but Kel had to try. ‘Mr Waller, I beg you—’
‘I don’t listen to your kind.’ He turned away.
‘It’s not about me—it’s about the people I arrived with. Don’t harm them.’
Tegel folded his arms. ‘The deal has already been made and I am a man of my word. We agreed that we would just arrest the Perilous. Your friends will be escorted from our territory with one held back as a hostage for their silence. You don’t need to worry about them.’
‘A deal? Deal with whom?’
Tegel had lost interest. ‘Take him away.’ He held up a finger in emphasis. ‘And remember, no one must breathe a word to anyone outside your unit. This is a black op. Break your vow and then you’ll join the Perilous in that short flight out of the helicopter.’
Meri returned to her apartment after the day at college still deep in thought about what the poem revealed. At first she didn’t notice the envelope lying by her painting. She turned it over. Her name in Rio’s handwriting. He had been snooping again. Fortunately she had kept the mosaic photos with her so all he would’ve seen were the paintings of tomatoes, irrelevant snaps and his own selfie. She wondered what he could possibly have to show her. With trepidation she opened the flap. Several new images fell out of Kel and the blonde girl in a lift. They told a story of him moving in close, the girl reaching up, and then them getting involved in a kiss.
Meri gasped, letting the photos float to the floor from her numb fingers. She had been wrong. In the months apart, Kel had moved on. He’d turned to this beautiful stranger.
Oh God. She fell to her knees. The pain was indescribable. She wanted to die rather than face this. Not Kel. Not her one good thing.
There came a gentle tap on the door.
‘Go away,’ Meri whispered.
Leah came in anyway. ‘Oh, ma’am, are you hurt?’
Pulling herself together, Meri quickly gathered up the photos. Act normal, grieve later. ‘No, just…it’s not a good moment. I’d prefer to be alone.’
‘I’m sorry, really I am, but there’s someone in the kitchen who has begged to see you. She says you know her and she has important news for you.’
Meri felt a wave of weariness crash over her. Maybe the destruction of Atlantis had come as a welcome release to some people? She would’ve welcomed doomsday right now so she didn’t have to deal with yet more demands on her time. ‘Why hasn’t she come through the usual channels? Why via the servants in the kitchen?’
‘Because we are loyal to you. She says this visit isn’t something she wants the council to know about and I believe her.’
‘All right, I’ll see her for a few minutes and find out what she wants. Can you check she’s not armed? I wouldn’t put it past my enemies to try again.’
‘Of course, ma’am. I’ll get Bernard to check her personally.’
Meri’s battered heart lifted a little remembering that she had accumulated a few friends here
despite everything. ‘Thanks. And can you also keep the others away?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
When Leah had left, Meri pushed the photos back into the envelope, vowing to burn them on the first opportunity. She should feel glad that Kel had found some solace. He had left with little hope of returning to her. She could at least imagine him happy somewhere else far from here.
But not yet. Just now she wasn’t a big enough person to manage such selflessness. Right now she felt deeply hurt.
The visitor followed Leah into the room, features obscured by a hoodie marked with the logo: Data Bitches Rule.
‘Sadie?’ Meri rushed forward.
The girl threw back the hood. ‘Sorry no. I borrowed this from her though.’ It was the blonde girl from the photos, the last person on Earth Meri wanted to see. What did this mean?
‘Leah, please leave us.’ While I kill her slowly.
‘I’ll just be outside.’ Leah closed the door softly behind her.
‘Why are you here?’ Meri folded her arms defensively, eyes closed, afraid of her touch at the moment. She didn’t really want to kill anyone. Harm, maybe yes, deliver a slap or pull a hank of that ridiculous platinum hair, but she couldn’t trust herself to reign in her anger and stop at that.
‘So you know who I am?’ The girl laced her fingers together awkwardly.
‘No idea. But I know what you are: Kel’s new girlfriend.’ Keeping her eyes lowered, Meri passed her the envelope so she couldn’t deny it. ‘Come to gloat?’
‘I’m sorry they gave these to you.’ The girl put the pictures down on the side table. ‘It’s not what it looks like. I set Kel up. I kissed him on purpose. They wanted pictures to make you doubt him.’
‘You what?’ A chink of light crept back into her darkness.
The girl clenched her fists. ‘Don’t get distracted by that stuff: that’s nothing. I’ve done a very bad thing.’
‘Go on.’ Everything inside Meri froze, even rage, as she was strung between hope and despair.
‘My name is Nixie Jensen. When Kel was forced off the boat, the Tean Council contacted me and asked me to intercept him in France so they could keep an eye on him.’
‘You’re a Tean spy?’
‘Yes. I work for Tegel Waller from time to time.’
‘Why?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t expect you to understand but they were the only ones who helped me when my father was ill. His funeral was paid for by Tean Sympathizers in the Louvre colony. They raised the funds when I was nothing to them.’
Meri knew about the generosity of the Tean Sympathizers having relied on them in the past. ‘And they told you about us, the Perilous and Tean conflict?’
Nixie shook her head. ‘I already knew. I’m part Tean too. Dad’s father was half Tean. Dad didn’t tell me until near the end when we had no other choice but to ask the colony for shelter. He was too ill in those last weeks to travel with Rashid’s band. He should’ve gone to them sooner. Maybe they would’ve paid for his treatment.’
‘Maybe he didn’t want that.’ Meri wondered if the girl’s father had anticipated the price of going to Teans for help. She had already found out it was like one of those fairytale bargains that sucked for the petitioner: a stolen rose for a daughter, a handful of herbs for Rapunzel, a room of straw spun into gold for a firstborn. ‘What’s Rashid’s band?’
‘They are the No-Homers I’ve been travelling with the last few years. Kel joined us in January.’ Nixie gulped, eyes bright with tears. ‘The truth is, I engineered the meeting, took the band to a river bank where other operatives had tracked his progress. Kel still thinks it was a coincidence.’
Meri suddenly realized what must have brought the girl here. ‘What’s happened to Kel?’
Nixie crumpled in on herself, sliding to the floor. ‘I’m so sorry, so sorry.’
‘Nixie, what’s happened to Kel?’ Meri grasped her by the shoulders and shook her.
‘Mr Waller has him.’
‘You sold him out?’
She nodded. ‘I didn’t know what they’d do. I made a bargain. I thought they’d just run him off but they’ve taken him away. I talked to a guy in the unit that arrested him and he won’t say what they’ve done with him. He told me not to ask—he threatened me.’
Meri clamped down on the shriek of panic. ‘Is Kel still alive?’
‘I think so. The guy said everyone will deny they’ve got him. Mr Waller has put this under the highest security clearance.’
‘He’s acting illegally and without orders. I’m supposed to be the ultimate authority here. This is treason and against my express wishes.’ Oh God, she had to save Kel, but how? Meri was trembling. ‘Quickly, tell me everything I need to know.’
Nixie explained how she had come here with Sadie, Theo, Saddiq and Valerie as well as Kel to rescue Meri. All the while she had been feeding information to Mr Waller so he knew exactly who each member of the party were and why they were here. The rescue mission had never stood a chance.
‘Are the others OK?’
‘There’s going to be an irregularity in their paperwork tomorrow. One of them is going to be detained and the others put on a flight out only if they promise they’ll say nothing if they want their companion secure.’
‘Who’s he keeping?’
‘Valerie. He thinks from the description of a forty-year-old woman that she’ll be the easiest to manage.’
Meri found some gallow’s humour in that lack of judgement. ‘Anything else?’
‘That’s it, the end of my involvement.’
‘So he doesn’t know you are here. You’re not double-crossing me?’
‘I promise you I’m not.’
‘And why the change in heart?’
Nixie sobbed. ‘Kel offered me a h…home. I’m so sorry. I just wanted to belong somewhere. I thought it was with the Teans. I was wrong.’
Meri was short on sympathy just then but dropped a box of tissues by the weeping girl. ‘Nixie, you’ve got to pull yourself together. You’ve delivered your message but now we’ve got to work out how to save Kel. You can’t melt into a puddle.’ Where would Tegel keep Kel? Bernard would know, but would he tell her?
Meri’s fingers tingled as rage swept through her. She wasn’t without her own power. They continually underestimated her because she had being trying to do this through cooperation and persuasion. Her touch could kill as well as complete. She was not going to hide in her room. She was going on the rampage. Tegel did not know what he had unleashed with his betrayal.
Nixie shrieked. Meri caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her eyes were glowing like stars. For once, freaky was good.
‘Oh, get a grip. You’ve come to the last pure-blood Tean for help. This is what we pure-bloods do.’ She snapped her fingers at Nixie. ‘I want you to go and fetch my friends. Bring them back here. I don’t care how you do it, who you have to bribe, but get it done. If anyone challenges you, tell them you are doing it on my express orders. Leah!’
Her maid hurried into the room. ‘Your highness? Ma’am, your eyes.’ She knelt, head bowed.
‘I know. Cool, aren’t they. Leah, I’m furious.’
‘Yes, I can see that, ma’am.’ Leah’s voice was super-cautious.
‘Tegel’s got my man and I’m getting him back. There’s going to be a showdown with the council sooner than I thought. You have to decide whose side you are on: mine or theirs?’
‘Yours, ma’am,’ Leah said quickly.
‘Thank you. You’re hereby promoted to my second-in-command. Gather everyone on the staff who is loyal to me. I need all the friends I can get. Being loyal means accepting that things with the Perilous have to change, OK? No waiting another millennium.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Can Bernard be trusted?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Then send him to me. I’ve got a special task for him.’
Dispatching Nixie and Leah on their errands, Meri swiftly changed into a b
lack T-shirt and jeans. Peril-coloured light sparked from her fingertips. If the wrong person knocked on her door, they were likely to get the shock of their life.
Bernard coughed to announce his arrival. ‘You wanted to see me, your highness?’
Meri turned, knowing she made an awesome sight with her hair rising from her scalp and eyes glowing. ‘Take me to the place they hold prisoners which they don’t want anyone knowing about. I presume it is somewhere on the palace grounds, somewhere I’ve not been shown?’
She gave Bernard extra points for only reacting with a gulp. ‘Yes, ma’am. But no one is supposed to go there without permission.’
She touched her chest, feeling the sting of her own power. ‘Heir to the throne. I give myself permission. Let’s go.’
Kel held himself ready by the door of his cell. He had only one shot at this. He had to take out with extreme force the next person through that door if he had any hope of making a run for it.
He went over what he remembered of the way in. His escort had blindfolded him once they were in their vehicle. They’d driven for about twenty minutes, turned off what was a highway to a slower road with speed calming bumps. They’d taken a left onto a gravel track and pulled up in a darkened area. No light had seeped under the edges of his blindfold but he had felt the chill of the sea breeze and could hear the waves close by but below where he was standing. He’d had a bad moment when he wondered if they would just push him off a cliff but they had led him down a set of steel steps and into the prison. At that point they’d removed the blindfold and he’d glimpsed rock walls. He was in some kind of cavern system which had been turned into a holding area for undesirables. The smooth walls suggested it was man-made, perhaps the leftover workings of an old quarry before the sea encroached this far inland. His cell was as far from the entrance as they could get so even the sound of the waves was muffled. He’d explored all corners but there was no feature that promised any weakness: a chamber carved from rock, a solid steel door as the only access point, no window. If he was getting out, it was through the same way he got in.