fruit trees and herbs quilted a sizeable area off to the side, chickens clucking somewhere to a chorus of trilling frogs. The woman’s land flourished green and abundant, the morning light golden. Her hair shone in the sun; the perfect moment captured from a gentle Southern USA romance.
She halted on the grass, bare feet sinking in its lushness. Her smile faltered as silence chopped the air like a fallen axe, and her expression morphed to fear. She lifted two fingers and blew a short, sharp whistle. Wings whooshed and a peregrine falcon plunged from the sky, alighting on her upraised forearm.
“Find Seth for me, Poe!” she urged.
The powerful bird bulleted skyward, the perspective changing to reveal the house from above, obsidian water glistening in patches through the thick canopy. A stone fence the size of the Great Wall of China contained the glorious gardens surrounding the young woman’s house in a semicircle to the swamp. Egrets and fowl took flight in panic, bigger, less harmless creatures splashing the sucking depths.
The falcon searched the ground in widening arcs, eventually showing thinned vegetation and a scrawny dirt track meandering beyond the gates of the woman’s fortress paradise. A fat hedge marked the outer extremity of her land where dense wilderness ate any sign of habitation.
Abruptly, a man came into view, poised within her boundary on one side of the hedge. He was tall and seemed somehow noble, even at a distance, his longish dark hair whispering in a slight breeze.
“Stay this side of the line where you are hidden! Please,” the woman pleaded, seeing through her bird’s sharp eyes.
From the other side came frenzied shouts. Poe floated overhead in time to sight a boy in sodden coveralls pop up to slap the surface of a water hole, gagging. His fishing pole sat suspended next to an abandoned scoop net, where a catfish flopped feebly on the bank. The youngster had clearly lost his footing in the effort to snag his catch.
His friend clambered the ridge, frantically jerking a branch to the shore. But his efforts weren’t fast enough and the struggling boy submerged again, this time for longer. The man paced the perimeter, plainly trying to decide if he should save the boy or remain within the woman’s haven.
“Please, please. Keep inside the line! She will find me if you appear outside.”
The boy came up gurgling, his flailing arms limp with fatigue. The man paused, and then thrust his way through the hedge, stripping off his shirt while moving in swift, long strides down the embankment. Powerful muscles flexed beneath bronzed skin in the light, his movements sleeker than those of a hunting jaguar. The woman dropped to her knees and sobbed, both hands cradling her belly.
“No! No. What have you done! We are damned. Our baby …”
He dived in, emerging with the boy moments later, sculling to the edge and hefting them up by tree roots. He hastily checked the boy’s pulse, and once satisfied he was still breathing, deserted him to the care of his friend. The man bolted away from the woman’s house through the scrub with more grace and speed than humanly possible.
“Poe! Get Billie,” she groaned. “We must prepare. The Crone comes for me.”
A tortured cry ripped from the man, a sound to rend the heart. “Sorry! I am so sorry, my Keeper,” echoed his footfalls. “Stick to the plan. Protect the Stone. I love you, Raphaela.”
I gasped to consciousness, spit on my chin and an anvil in my chest. I scrubbed my tired eyes, which felt like a massage with sandpaper. Jetlag had never caused such vivid dreams before. And I knew that beguiling voice: Seth. The man who paraphrased Baudelaire in my dreams was the same man forced to make a terrible choice between protecting his lover and saving a dying boy. My mental disturbance had seemingly reached new heights of detail and I had no idea what weird message my brain was attempting to send.
Hugo observed me sidelong through narrowed eyelids, his brow creased. Headlights briefly illuminated the dark corners of the basement garage. The journey was finally over.
“You are home, Winnie.” It was the first time Hugo had addressed me personally, the care in his words more disconcerting than anything else.
Four
Our warehouse had no designated parking, so we hired six spaces in an underground car park at a short walk along the narrow alley which hid the alcove granting entry to my home. Our only neighbour, Judge Smith, reserved the six spots opposite. It was not Fortescue’s British racing green Mini or my beloved custard yellow Vespa that captured my focus as we climbed from the Bentley, my limbs jelly with travel. It was the hulking black custom-built Ducati Monster 696 lurking in the gloom opposite.
My pulse spiked. So the judge’s son, Vegas, was in tonight. Unless he was too drunk to ride and opted to be responsible by taking a cab to whatever party or nightclub he planned on hitting later. Although responsibility and Vegas Smith were mutually exclusive concepts. His modified bike, an illegal ride for someone barely eighteen, was a prime example of its owner’s disrespect for all things representing authority. I beat the curiosity away. We used to be tight, but were no longer on speaking terms and I refused to waste a moment more on him. I’d already wasted an excess.
“Quit dawdling!”
I was too fatigued to argue and permitted the indignity of Hugo’s arm firmly around my waist as he hustled me towards the automatic roller door securing the car park. He glared resentfully as the barrier rose ponderously, ducking under to hustle me up the steep ramp and out into the warm embrace of a summer night in Sydney. The briny tang of the nearby harbour was proof I was finally home. I had no chance to appreciate it.
Hugo bundled us furiously along the narrow lane, cobbled by worn sandstone blocks harking back to the days of the First Fleet. The street made a divide between old and new. On one side, veiled behind a fenced-in well-maintained garden of Australian natives, sat the judge’s towering glass-and-metal-beam addition to the original brick structure beneath. Opposite, occupying almost an entire block, hunched our building.
Tucked away in a forgotten part of the city, the three-storey edifice was of elaborate Romanesque design. Tall, thin arched windows and rowed circles of stained glass abutted by long columns with squared capitals were reminiscent of Sydney’s beautiful Queen Victoria Building. The facade’s attractiveness was somewhat lessened by the wire mesh covering every expanse of glass and the thick metallic doors Bea had apparently installed prior to our arrival here.
We reached the inset doorway flanked either side by imposing stone columns, the porch floor tiled in a lovely geometric mosaic. The shadowed portico hid a sophisticated array of security devices, which seemed at odds with the building’s colonial exterior. Hugo thrust his face up to the discreet video camera nestled high in a corner to the right, which utilised facial recognition software to permit automatic access. The steel arched door glided aside on well-oiled hinges.
“Is there an emergency?” I asked, a little breathless.
“No talking! Straight to your room.”
“What are you? My nanny? And you actually have access to our house?”
This enigma topped them all. He was the first. Ever! Bea had always maintained that the fewer people who knew about the fortune in antiquities she possessed, the smaller was the likelihood of theft or worse. Such as my kidnapping and ransom. The constant paranoia usually provoked an eye-roll from me, but Hugo’s presence was a breach of rules that had never wavered over my entire life. It was most disturbing.
We vaulted inside and he abruptly stilled us on the landing, which spanned the front of the ground floor hall overlooking the sunken display three steps down. Hugo turned to face me, cocking his head, hands lightly on my shoulders. My spine zinged. The door sealed with finality at our backs. Would he enlighten me about all the rushed travel and madness? He grinned, a ferocious expression. I shrugged from his grip and took a couple of steps back. One of his hands now rested on the grip of a huge pistol holstered at his hip.
“I am not your nanny or your nursemaid or your fiancé eloping to Mauritius. I owe a blood debt to your benefactors. A life for a l
ife. I am an assassin. If necessary, your mortal shield.” He chuckled, a dry, menacing sound devoid of real amusement. “My job is to give my life for yours, should it come to that. I have permission to do anything and everything it takes to assure your safety. Satisfied, Winsome? Have you other questions or topics for debate?”
I readjusted my hanging jaw and gulped, shaking my head. “To my room, then.”
“I thought so.”
I barely registered our progress through the vast collection space, despite the endlessly fascinating wonders kept there. We ascended the single set of stairs at the hall’s end, leading to the first floor gallery ringing the warehouse’s central atrium in a rectangle. Inlaid marble of intricate patterns and hues, gleaming polished wood and balustrades that reminded of fine golden lace added to the refined aura of a museum. A soaring stained glass dome painted the atrium in a dazzling kaleidoscope of sunbeams during the day, almost enough to hide the criss-cross of wire hugging its underside.
Hugo shepherded me around to the right, past the kitchen, and onto the wing where my own private suite sat alongside the study-cum-library and then Aunt Bea’s private quarters. Fortescue and Mrs Paget’s apartments sat directly opposite on the other side of the void, along with two other rooms locked up for