Chaos Lives in Everything - 13. Chapter 13

Rebecca could not believe she was home. Even though she had been away from the apartment for less than a day it seemed much longer. Until now she had never thought of her tiny rinky dink apartment has a home. To her it had always just been a hotel to stay in and an overpriced one at that. She could not stand to sit around in it for too long. Sitting around had always bored her, depressed her. She had to be on the move, she had to have something to do. That fact proved no less true now.

After scanning the place as if to make sure there was nothing out place-there was nothing to move other than the worn looking mattress-she went about making coffee. While waiting for it to brew she plopped down on the mattress and fished around in her pocket for the cell phone number that Dom had given her. He had not approved of him leaving her sight. Skold told me to look after you, he'd said, but I will not stop you. He sounded like some do-gooder boy scout whose civic duty was to look out for her. She had to bite her tongue to keep from reminding him that Skold had left her, just left her with someone that he or she did not know, and had not returned all not.

And if Dom had tried to stop her, Rebecca would have tried to leave anyway, even if she had to fight to the death. She couldn't stand to be in that cabin for one more second, surrounded by the dust and the cobwebs and the silence of the lake with only the occasional cry of a loon to break it. So he had given her his cell phone number to call if she need anything. Rebecca put the number into her cell phone and went to take a shower. She badly needed a shower. She smelled of stale sweat.

By the time she had finished toweling off, putting on deoderant, brushing her teeth, and getting dressed, the coffee was done. She poured herself a large mug and went out to check the mail. All of the mail boxes for this floor were at the end of the hall, intergrated into the wall. When she opened mail tumbled out onto the floor.

"Damn," she said, peeking into the little rectangular slot. She stooped, picking everything up. Of course it was just ads, coupons, and bills. It would be nice if some random person decided to send me a check that would pay off all of my debt, Rebecca thought. Then my debt with Bajork would be paid off. She snorted derisively at the thought. As if that's ever going to happen.

Just as she stood up the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Someone was watching her, she could feel it. She turned. A woman stood in the middle of the hallway, several feet away. She was startlingly beautiful and painfully out of the place, both at the same time. Her hair was a deep firy color that gleamed with a supernatural light. Her eyes were a bright shade of green, her skin pale and ghostly. The dress she wore was made of pure gold, the material clinging to her shapely body like silky. And her body was to die for. She had the curves and hips of a goddess. Rebecca could tell from the look of her bosom that she had nice sized boobs as well. At the sight of her Rebecca felt both entranced and uneasy.

In one sense the woman seemed real, as if she was really standing before Rebecca; as if it Rebecca could walk up to her and touch her, and feel real flesh. In another sense the woman seemed like a hologram. Rebecca tilted her head slightly to the right. The woman seemed less solid, her skin growing more transcluent. Her image rippled and Rebecca immediately knew two things. One: The woman was not really there. She was there but not in the physical sense. Two: This was not the woman's true form. The woman had appeared to Rebecca the way that she had wanted Rebecca to see her. This was a glamor spell. Rebecca sensed that whatever was behind the illusion was not so pretty. Without realizing it, Rebecca thought: If I were to see what she really looked like it would frighten me so much that I'd go insane. Literally put-me-in-a- strait-jacket insane.

A third realization struck Rebecca; where it came from she did not know. "You're the see that Dom told me about. The one that appeared to him at the Eiffel Tower in Paris," she blurted, now more curious and amazed than she was afraid. A question popped into her head. "But I'm just a human girl. Why have you shown up to me?"

"Skold is in danger," said the seer. Her voice echoed distantly, as if traveling from a different realm, perhaps even a distant time. "Go to his apartment and I will show you the way."

And then just like that she was gone.

Huh? Rebecca blinked. She looked around, turning this way and that but the seer was nowhere to be seen. Rebecca leaned against the wall suddenly feeling very dizzy. The seer's words echoed in her head:

Skold is in danger. Go to his apartment and I will show you the way.

Skold was in pain; that was the first thing he noticed when he came to. It had been many years since he'd felt such pain, the kind of pain that could not be ignored. The second thing he noticed was that his arms had been manacled to a steel table.

He leaned his head back against the table. His forehead was covered in a sheen of cold sweat. He hardly had the strength to look around, to take in his surroundings. Every muscle within his body felt heavy; the simple task of keeping his head up and his eyes open was exhausting. From head to toes he was naked. Wherever he was it was cold and damp and smelled of rot and dust. He looked down at the hole in his chest, the hole from where he had been stabbed.

I'm not dead yet, Skold thought. I'm not dead yet because she wants to keep me alive. For now at least.

The room was dim save for the faint light coming in through shattered windows. His vision was blurry, weakened like the rest of his body, but the rest of his sharpened senses had not faltered. He could sense someone standing in the shadows, watching him. He was not alone in the window.

"I know you're there Candestine," he said. "I can hear you breathing."

She stepped out of the shadows. Her hair, eyes, and skin glowed. Her face was hard, unforgiving. He could see her loathing of him plain as day: the way her eyes were narrowed, the way her jaw was clenched. The only reason why he was still alive was that she wanted to torture him. She wanted to see him suffer.

"What have you done to me?" Skold grunted. He bit his lip as the wound in his chest started to burn. "What did you drug me with?"

"It's a new serum that I've developed for interrogations," Candestine answered, stepping closer to Skold. She stopped, hovering just feet away. "It prevents fae from regenerating. It's quite effective. Often times I have to resolve to torture to get information."

"Are you interrogating me?"

"Before I kill you, yes."

"I have nothing that you want. I told you, I didn't kill the troll."

"And as I said before I know that you didn't kill the troll. If you were to throw the world into chaos again that wouldn't be your way of doing it. But you do have something that I want: your life."

"Where am I?" Skold asked.

"A place where they used to keep the insane, the souls that society has rejected. I found it by chance really. It's been abandoned for half a century now. I figured it was only fitting for you."

"An asylum," Skold said.

"Precisely."

Skold grimaced. "You must be feeling very proud of yourself right now. Not only have you injured me but you have me tied up. It took a whole team of people to do so, but a triumph is a triumph."

"Indeed. You have no idea how long I have dreamed of this moment, you at my mercy." Candestine held a dagger in her hand. The blade was dangerously sharp. The tip gleamed in the shadows. "By the time I am done with you you are going to beg for death, brother."

Skold threw his head back against the table again, and laughed. His laugher filled the room and bounced off of the shadows. He was taunting her. "You stupid cunt. I have never been, and never will be at your mercy. Yours or anyone else's."

Candestine sneered. "Well, we will just have to find out, won't we? Ananu!"

Somewhere a door opened, rusty metal hinges squealing. Ananu appeared, his assault rifle slung over one shoulder with a strap. With the other hand he carried a black brief case with silver clasps. "Commander," he said, setting the briefcase on a dusty table. He gave Skold scathing look for leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

Candestine opened the suitcase, the clasps coming open with a little snap. Inside of the suitcase were a number of crude looking torture devices. She held one up, a device that looked like tongs but was really used for cutting off a victim's eyelids. She smiled and again said, "We will just have to find out, won't we?"

Rebecca stood in the middle of Skold's apartment. Her blood was cold as ice. Someone had come in here and trashed the place and trashed the place up good. Who on earth would be brave (or stupid) enough to break into Skold's apartment and vandalize the place? Once again she remembered the seer's words. Skold was in danger. Maybe someone had come to assassinate him.

Twice she had called his name only to have silence answer in return. She could only assume that she was alone in the apartment. She had been standing in the living room, for how long she was no longer sure. Five minutes? Ten? An hour? This whole time Rebecca had been trying to muster up the courage to inspect the rest of the place-did she even want to inspect the place? The seer had made her come here for some reason, so maybe she was supposed to.

Stepping carefully over shattered glass, Rebecca crept down the hallway, trying not to make a sound. She turned through the first door and gawked at Skold's old battle armor laying forgotten on the floor. Overcome by a strong curiosity she hunkered down, reaching for it.

"Don't!" a voice cried.

Barely suppressing a yelp, Rebecca jumped to her feet. The seer had appeared again, in her semi transcluent state. She stood before the armor, her eyes wide.

"It has a protective ward over the armor," said the seer. "If you touch it the ward could kill you."

Rebecca gulped and took a step back. "Uh, thanks for telling me that. Why did you tell me to come here?"

"The person that took him knew Skold, knew him well," said the seer. "Only someone who knows him and who has a personal vendetta against him could do this. Someone who knows how he fights, how powerful he is."

"Do you know who took him and where he is?"

The seer nodded. "I will take you to him."

Rebecca hesitated. "Take me to him? How?"

The seer held out her hand. "Take my hand."

Rebecca took several more steps back, now standing in the doorway. She shook her hand vehemently. "Nuh huh. I maybe human, I may look stupid, but I'm not stupid. This is a trick, isn't it?"

"No, it is no trick." The seer smiled as if to ensure Rebecca that she really meant no harm. "If I wanted to kill you I could do so quite easily, but I do not want to kill you. We do not have time, Skold is in danger. He has saved your life twice now. Do you not want to return the favor?"

She sighed. "I do."

"Then take my hand."

Rebecca gulped and reached for the seer's hand. Their flesh touched and Rebecca felt that she was actually touching real flesh even though the seer's form still appeared ghostly. All at once Rebecca felt a crippling rush of dizziness. I can't believe I'm getting ready to do this, she thought. This has got to be the craziest thing that I have ever done.

And then a flash of bright purple light filled the room and they were gone.

Blood trailed all he way from Skold's chest to his toes; it formed a small but growing puddle on the floor. He felt incredibly weak. He'd lost a lot of blood. His wounds were not healing. For the last hour Candestine had tried to get him to scream, to beg, to show weakness only to fail.m

"Why?" Skold asked. "Why do you hate me so? Tell me. What did I do to hurt you?"

"Our father, Kane, all he ever cared about was you! He never paid any attention to me, pretended as if I didn't exist. It was always about you..."

"So you hate me due to your own jealousy." Skold laughed. The sound came out raspy, like a frog's coach. Candestine's eyes bulged with fury at his laughter.

"You are pathetic," he said.

"You are the one with no cock and balls, no memory. You are more pathetic than I."

"True. But I am not consumed with such petty, misplaced emotions. You act as though my father gave a damn about me, about us. Kane had no heart, just like I have no heart. My cock and balls, my heart, my soul, he took that all away from me so that he could have someone take his place when he died, someone better than he. A weapon. If anyone should have the right to be pissed off that would be me, but I don't have the capacity."

Candestine did not hear Skold's words. Everything from the expression on her face to the way she stood with her arms crossed and her shoulders slouched said that she was blocking out his words. "When they sent his body back from the war you were not there for the funeral. I was. I burned the body. I showed my loyalty to our father, to our family. And then they sent you in his place. They sent you as commander. They should have made me as commander. But I swallowed my pride, my hatered of you and I fought along side you. After all you were my brother, my blood, and blood is supposed to stand beside blood no matter what. After years of fighting, years of death and blood, when it came to that battle in the little village, I thought that you'd died. I couldn't find your body though I looked for days and nights on end. For three years I thought you were dead. For three years I was racked with guilt for hating you, only to find out that you had deserted not your king but your sister. You disappeared to go learn death magic, to comitt the worst crime that anyone could ever commit. You betrayed me. And that is why I hate you."

"You hate me for committing a crime that I do not remember committing," Skold said. "I do not blame it, nor do I question how you feel. Once upon a time we were bother and sister. And now I suppose that we are adversaries. If you want to kill me, so be it. But you tell your king that I had nothing to do with the troll attack."

"I will tell him no such thing." She walked over to where the she'd thrown the knife and picked it up. "I will find peace in killing you. I will find peace in vengeance."

"Do you really think so?" said Skold. "There is no peace for you, my dear sister. You will never let go of your rage. Because like me, like our father, you have no heart. Our mother had a heart but Paladin's plague killed her before I had any chance to truly know her. I guess having no heart just runs in the family."

"Perhaps you are right," Candestine murmered thoughtfully. "Perhaps. But it doesn't make a difference."