Nine While Nine

Chapter 2-2

“No. It’s all wrong. It’s too soon,” Liam chimed in. Rain on my parade why don’t you? He reached out tentatively and touched my cheek. An unnameable look traversed his face for just an instant. His pupils dilated, before the titillating look went into hiding under a surge of anxiety.

We both examined my reflection again. I had an unmistakable radiance now, coming from my eyes, hair, and skin. I was ethereal. I was also thrilled with this amendment. Liam? Not so much. In fact, he looked a little ill. He seemed at a loss as he raked his fingers through his hair.

“Feck, feck—b****y hell—how did this get fecked up?” He cut loose with the mild expletives, his accent thickening with his angst. He dragged his stare from my reflection to look directly at me. “s**t. No. This isn’t how it works. Someone certainly screwed the pooch on this one.” He held my face in his hands, examining it closely.

I tried pulling away from the uncomfortable moment; he was too close.

“You can’t really look like this. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. Not yet.” Relinquishing my face, he began to pace the room, shooting me confused oblique glances all the while.

“Well then how is this supposed to work? What exactly has gone wrong?”

“I can’t get into that now. I don’t know what’s happened, but all the more reason for us to make our exit.”

In a flash, I was alert, catalyzed by an inkling of a conspiracy that surged mind-bogglingly into my head; a result of the sudden shocking acceptance of this situation that I was unable to escape.

I reeled swiftly toward the loft stairs and ran up them to my bedroom. Glancing back, I could see I’d startled Liam with my abrupt exodus. It took only a moment for him to register the change, and then he was racing up the stairs after me.

Flinging the closet door open, I dashed inside the sizeable walk-in and reached up to the top shelf to yank down an oversized leather knapsack. I tossed it onto my bed, then quickly added two garment bags.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Liam asked gruffly, standing on the landing with his arms crossed over his chest.

“What does it look like?” If he was going to be surly, I would respond with ambiguity. I crossed to my dresser and dug through it, pulling out all my favorite clothes. I tossed them hastily into the open bags. No time for folding or being tidy.

“Isabeau.” He grabbed my arm gently. “No.”

His change of tone made me pause; he’d gone quietly somber. I tugged on my bottom lip while I bit down lightly on my Chanel Vamp lacquered fingernail. Both were nervous habits I had been trying to stop most of my life. Should I anger a Coimhdeacht? What would happen if I pissed him off? My life is already gone, after all. What else can he take from me?

“You win,” I murmured. “I’m going with you.” Tugging my arm from his grip and pointing at the clock on my night stand, I continued, “The way I figure it, I’ve been asleep for roughly twenty minutes. No one is going to think that’s odd. I work really weird hours, and I tend to take catnaps in strange places. It’s totally normal for me to fall asleep at a concert, in the car, nightclubs, anywhere I feel secure and comfortable. My friends know this, they’re used to it, and they keep an eye on me. They’ll leave me there for a while before they try to wake me up. The party could easily go on until four in the morning. If I fall asleep and miss a half hour of it, it’s no big deal.” I took a breath. “I’m packing. I’ll go to Seattle with you, but I’m taking some of my things with me.”

“You can’t. It’s against the rules.”

“Rules,” I choked out “Now there are rules?” Flabbergasted by this new tidbit, a bitter laugh escaped me.

“You can’t take anything, particularly anything that could be detected missing, and there is nothing here you need now anyway. Our kind are never in need. You’ll have everything you could possibly find necessary.”

“I think I know better than to take anything that might be noticed missing. No one is going to think I was robbed. Besides, who’s going to notice? I’m dead, right? Are they going to inventory my belongings? It’s not like my friends have catalogued what I own.” I tossed a small embossed brass jewelry box into the suitcase, maybe with a little more oomph than was warranted. I couldn’t bear to part with any of the items housed within it. It wasn’t all the jewelry I owned, just some pieces of my mother’s that had been passed down for several generations.

With a glare on my face, I turned to him. “Look, Liam,” there was an edge of surrender to it. “I worked really hard to rebuild my life after my mother died a few years ago, and then again following a fiasco of a relationship just last year. I’m not even going to bother telling you the details to that awful mess, but I finally got my heart put back together. I might even want to fall in love again someday. I’m on track to open my dream business, and I have a handful of friends that I can honestly say I truly love and care about. Everything was going perfectly.”

Pausing long enough to take in the way his eyes had softened at my words, I could see how the set of his jaw and shoulders had relaxed. He was hearing me. He was understanding my point.

“I’ll do this. Obviously, I have no choice. But, I will not go into it struggling and empty-handed. You, or whoever else is in on this fun, will just have to deal.” I finished my speech and swallowed over my heavily pounding heart. When first launching into my tirade, I was worried about pushing him too far. After all, what did I truly know about him? Could he become a wrathful sort? I was so far out of my league tonight. If he could make it so no one could hear or see him, what else was he capable of doing?

Waiting with my pulse fluttering in my chest for a reaction from him, I braced myself for any possibilities. It took a few ticks of the clock, but a smile slowly spread across his face. I narrowed my eyes at him, unsure what he was playing at, or if I could trust this.

“Feisty. I like that.” His dark gaze scaled over me, weighing my intentions. “Okay, fair enough. I’ll give you ten minutes, but only what can fit in this.” He retrieved my leather knapsack from the bed and tossed it to me. Shaking his head, he shrugged in surrender. “But be quick. We should have already gone . . . and if Gideon finds out—”

“Gideon? Who's Gideon?"

“My boss. Get a move on, please.”

Ten minutes. Okay, I could work with that. It would be rough, but I’d make it work if it meant I could take part of my world with me. I tore a tunic cardigan from a hanger, a beloved dress Gigi had designed just for me followed, along with a couple of hand-knitted scarves. Then, I threw some bras, panties, a few thin layering T-shirts, and my best jammies from the pile on the bed and into the awaiting bag. In the bathroom, before ransacking it as quickly as I could, I changed into jeans, a T-shirt, a warm sweater, and tall leather boots. It was much more appropriate for traveling in than my party get-up, which also got rolled up and crammed into my bag. I emerged with a few choice necessities and my makeup case. You just don’t sacrifice your MAC collection, not even under this kind of dire circumstance.

I rushed back down the stairs. Ten minutes was not a lot of time to figure out what you would regret leaving behind, and my time limit was closing in fast. I’d always wondered what it would be like to be on one of those game shows where the contestants won a timed shopping spree . . . Well, now I knew. It was a crazy brand of high anxiety with my brain spinning in every direction. Sparing ten seconds, I steadied myself with a deep calming breath. My external hard drive! All my photos of family and friends, my pictorial history, my own crafting recipes, and digital grimoire were all saved on the eight-terabyte drive.

My hand came to rest on my mother’s best recipe book, the one passed down through the family for generations. It contained recipes for all the amazing culinary treats she’d sold at her shop. I couldn’t leave it behind. Snatching it from its snug place among the many books, I added it to my plundered items. Still at the bookshelf, my fingers grazed over the distressed bindings of three old copies of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Which one to take? There wasn’t a ton of room left in the bag, nor much time to decide. I picked my favorite, the one that held an inscription from a father to a daughter on her seventh birthday. I carefully slid it into the bag to join the rest of my things.

Finally, I drew out a thick leather-bound book, so large it had to be housed on its back, on the largest shelf at the bottom, and let it settle on the floor. The leather creaked when I opened the cover. This book had no pages. All but a half-inch frame of the thick, creamy paper had been cut away, leaving a hiding spot for my little cash-stash. It wasn’t a huge hoard, but it would help, since I found it highly unlikely a quick stop by the ATM to withdraw my immense savings would be allowed by the rules. Liam said all my needs would be met, but I’d feel a whole lot better with this greenery stuffed inside my bag.

“Again, you won’t need that. You’ll be set up.” His voice was quietly reassuring.

“Again, don’t care. I’m taking it. Rest your mind, I never told anyone that I had it here,” I declared as I glanced around the living room, tortured with the understanding that it was for the last time.

Echoes of laughter from past gatherings with my friends suddenly twined through my ears, waking up a cyclone of memories. My eyelids slipped closed to relish them. Christmas morning with Robert, our very first at this apartment. When we’d still been mad for each other. That was before the deceit and betrayal tore us apart. I could hear the ripping of the shiny colorful paper and feel the weight of the amethyst necklace he’d surprised me with as it lay against my chest. It had been cleverly tucked away inside a signed copy of Queen of the Damned. I forced that melancholy scene away, and in its place rushed our Orphans’ Potluck Thanksgiving, when everyone had arrived with comfy butt cushions and a side dish to be shared. Games had been played, thanks given for all we felt lucky to have in our lives, and then hours of B-horror movies, laughs, and cheap wine until the wee hours of the morning. Parties. There had been so many parties, both extravagant and minor, over the course of those few years spent here. All of them were treasured memories. Even the one time a group of uninvited guests turned up in my kitchen and set it on fire while cooking a kielbasa during my engagement bash. I laughed at the silly memory that at the time, caused so much distress.

“Isabeau, pass the Chunky Monkey. Quit hogging it.”

“Surrender the Mint Chip, and you can have it.”

“Gigi has the Mint Chip.”

“Well I’m not done with it, Isabeau, take the Moose Tracks instead.”

“I already had too much Moose Tracks, I need some mint . . . and the whipped-cream vodka, please, Cat.”

Cat, Gigi, Moira, Rachel, and I had been slightly stoned during one of our infamous girls-night-in. Bottles of Smirnoff, one each of French Whipped and Cherry, were being passed between us, in addition to five pints of Ben and Jerry’s. A stack of movies rested next to the player. All chick flicks. All featuring dreamy guys and happy endings. Three of us were tending to our broken hearts, l*****g our wounds as well as the ice cream spoons, while the other two cheered us on to get back in the saddle. Plans were made for a return to New Orleans, just us girls, for a debauched Halloween. We’d been in serious pain the following day, but that night had been well worth the cost of the next morning. My girls, my sisters, my best friends. What would I do without them now?