Retrograde Motion - Part 2

Continued from "Retrograde Motion - Part 1" 

*****

Kali’s sleep was abruptly broken by a sharp knocking on her door.  Her hand fumbled about the beside cabinet until she felt her watch with her fingertips.  She examined it, barely able to make out the hands in the still dark room.  It was just past eight in the morning.

The door was knocked again.  “Kali,” came Hélène’s voice from the other side.  “Are you awake yet?”

Kali pulled herself out from under the bed covers.  It was cooler here than back in LA and she had chosen to wear an old shirt in bed.  Despite this, she searched for her robe before opening the door.

Hélène froze as the door opened, her hand poised to knock again.  “Good morning Kali,” she said energetically.  The girl was fully dressed and bright and alert.  Under one arm was the copy of The Shadows of the Planets Kali had given her the day before.

Kali yawned loudly.  “Do you know what time it is child,” she asked a little sullenly.

“Breakfast time,” exclaimed Hélène.  “They started making it five minutes ago.”

“And they will still be making it fifty minutes from now,” replied Kali, yawning again.  Before she could tell the girl to come back in half an hour her cell phone rang.

Kali turned round and frowned.  She walked over to the phone and Hélène followed her into the room.  Kali looked at the caller’s ID which read ‘John R’.

“John,” she said after flipping the phone.  “What is it?”

“Kali, it pains me to be so abrupt when talking to your charming self but I have a question of the utmost import that must be addressed before we progress,” said the voice at the other end.  John spoke with an almost knowing, laconic drawl.  “Are you in the presence of your charge?”

“Yes,” replied Kali patiently.  She found it better to let John exhaust his side of the conversation and answer when he had run out of breath.  “The child is with me now.”

“Good, very  good in fact.  Now, this is vital:  Do not let her out of your sight,” he continued uncharacteristically directly.

“I, what,” asked Kali, momentarily flustered.

“Keep an eye on her, sit tight and wait for help to arrive,” stated John.  “I’m sending you the translated version of Lucio’s message, which, may I add, impressed me – some very clever variations there.  I’m attaching a couple of images from the archives as well.”

“Look John,”  said Kali smoothly as she turned on her laptop.  “I’ve just woken up and you are going a little too fast for me.  Can you start at the beginning.”

“Yes, yes,” replied John a little irritably.  “To cut a long story short, Lucio was on the trail of an artefact, and an especially potent and unpleasant one at that.  This thing makes even legends like the Hasta Glundandra and the Libra Personae look like children’s toys.  I assume you’re familiar with the Calice de Ténèbres…”

“I’ve heard of it,” said Kali softly.

“… also known as the False Grail,” continued John.  “Of course, that’s just the name we have for it from some thirteenth century French stories that didn’t quite make it into Le Morte D’Arthur.  Not romantic enough I assume.  The actual artefact itself is far older than both the stories and, indeed, the artefact is supposed to darkly mirror.”

“I’m aware of the Chalice,” said Kali just a shade testily.  “Although I had assumed it had passed into legend.  It’s an essentia incline.  It…”  Kali hesitated.  She looked at Hélène, who was bending over besides one of the chairs.  It wasn’t something she wished to discuss in front of the girl.

“Lucio found a warlock that’s been using it.  And now Lucio is missing.  'Cannibalism' is an ugly but apt word.  You and your protégé do not want to end up as a nice snack for some essentia hungry monster.”

Kali glanced at Hélène again and her stomach turned a somersault.  “What do we do.”

“Like I said, sit tight.  I called the old man as soon as I translated the message.  He’s sending two Malacandrae to assist.  Nash Carnes was in Vancouver and he’s driving down right now.  Miko Toyotomi is going to fly over from Kyoto as soon as she works out how to get that katana of hers past security.”

“What’s this,” said Hélène to herself.  Kali was too preoccupied with John to notice her.

“Here’s the wrinkle,” continued John.  “I sent you two pictures of the Chalice, two pictures from the archive.  You see what the problem is.”

“I’m just opening them now,” explained Kali.  She frowned as she looked at the pictures.  “They look different.”

“Completely so, I know.  The first one is a sketch based on the reports from the thirteenth century when it looked like a gem studded golden goblet.  The second is from when it resurfaced in the late eighteenth century during the Reign of Terror and suddenly it’s a wicker basket about the size of a human head.  I don’t know which is more terrifying:  That there are two artefacts like this out there, or that there is only one which can look different…”

Kali found herself distracted as Hélène wandered round beside her.  The girl was holding in her hand a…  Well it was difficult to describe exactly what she was holding in here hand.  “I found this hiding under the chair,” she said.  It had the look of a little mechanical cockroach, with legs built out of metal and gears and string.  Improbably it had a miniature gramophone horn built onto its back.

Kali stared at the device in bewilderment for a moment until Hélène suddenly dropped it.

“It got hot,” she whined, rubbing her hand.  The little bug glowed a brilliant white and burst into flame. 

It shrieked shrilly and suddenly the hotel fire alarm joined in.  A sprinkler concealed in the ceiling burst into life, showering the room with water.  Kali’s laptop fizzled and died, the images of the Chalice flickering for a moment before fading to black.

“What in the nine hells is going on over there,” John had just enough time to say before the cell phone sparked and died as well.

“Come oan,” said Kali, her accent making an attempt to escape.  She grabbed her shoulder bag with one hand and Hélène with the other.  Kali dragged the surprised girl towards the door.  “We cannae…  I mean we can’t stay here.”

Kali pushed past the door with Hélène following along in her wake.  The lights in the corridor flickered unsteadily as another sprinkler kicked in above the pair.  Kali looked from left to right.  At the far end of the corridor she could see a green sign that proclaimed the emergency exit.

“This way,” she shouted.

Hélène finally gathered her wits and slipped free of Kali’s grasp.  The girl started running in long, easy strides towards the exit, still managing to hold onto her book.  Kali followed, her robe flapping freely as she tried to block out the disorientating wail of the fire alarm.  More sprinklers started to soak the pair with water as they passed underneath.

Hélène pushed the emergency exit open.  Beyond the door a bare concrete stairwell lead down to safety.  She leapt down the stairs, vaulting them two at a time.  Kali skittered along behind her.  She nearly slipped and fell as water dripped from her robe and onto the stairs.  If either noticed than none of the other hotel guests had joined them in their headlong rush to escape, they paid it no heed.  They were far to busy themselves.

Hélène reached the bottom of the stairwell and shoved in vain at the green double doors that lead outside.  They rattled but did not budge.  She tried again.  Kali joined in as she reached the bottom of the stairs as well.  Still the doors stayed closed.  Kali took a step back.

“What the…” she muttered as she looked at the doors.  A heavy metal chain with an imposing padlock was wrapped around the bars on the doors.  “This is no good child.  We must find another way out.  Perhaps the garage.”  Kali turned round.

The custodian was standing there.

He threw his mop to the side.  It clattered against the loudly.  Loud enough to be heard over the sound of the fire alarm.  He reached down to pick up the bucket just as Hélène turned to see what was happening.  The custodian’s pale eyes glittered with malice as he tossed the water inside the bucket over Kali and Hélène.

It erupted like a torrent, flying into their faces with much more force than should have been possible.    For Kali and Hélène, everything just faded to black.

*****

Kali’s head throbbed as she blinked open her eyes.  There was no way for her to tell how long she had been knocked out for.  She tried to move, but even turning her head the tiniest of fractions felt impossibly draining.  Her arms and legs refused to respond to her commands.

She was upright, more or less, and leaning back on some kind of almost vertical table.  Her arms and legs didn’t feel as if they were bound, just held in place by unnatural lethargy.  Kali managed to turn her head a little.  The room was dark, lit only by a couple of dull red emergency lights.  Deep shadows hid much of it, but it seemed like some maintenance cubby hole.  In the middle of the room, there was a battered old wooden desk.  To her left, another table had been rigged to just a little off vertical.  Hélène lay against it, still unconscious.

Kali sighed.  She prayed desperately that she was wrong, but she had to ask the question:  “Lucio, are you there?”

Lucio emerged from one of the shadows.  He was still wearing the custodians boiler suit and cap but his face was his own again.  “When’d you work it out,” he asked, his voice nasal and whiny.

“The homunculus in my room was the first clue,” said Kali, trying to keep her voice even.  “I suppose you found it funny that you could bug us like that.  It has your style.”  With great effort she swallowed and licked her lips.  It was exhausting even to talk.  “The way the sprinklers came on was a giveaway too, but if I’m being honest I didn’t know for sure until you walked into view there.”

“Enjoy your victory witch,” he sneered.  “It’s your last.”

“Is it,” asked Kali.  The only thing she could think of was to keep him talking.  If she just managed to do it for long enough then maybe help would arrive.  “How long have you really had the chalice for?”

Lucio’s face betrayed a moment of surprise before his eye’s narrowed.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That little display upstairs was way above your power level,” explained Kali with effort.  “You used the chalice, it’s a logical explanation.”

“Yeah I used the chalice,” replied Lucio angrily.  He strode forward until he was right in front of Kali.  He thrust one dirty finger right in front of her face.  “Let me tell you why I used the damned Chalice: Anika Nicolescu.  She was eight when they took her.  Eight!”  Lucio span away and stalked to the other side of the room. 

“Three witches in the Carpathian back country,” he continued once his rage had subsided.  “They had this immortality plan going with the Chalice – they’d kidnap a little girl and the oldest would use the chalice to steal her youth.  I got lucky and I caught the crone, with the chalice with too.  Wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t say a damned thing and I’m thinking times running out and their going to kill the girl out of spite anyway.  So I used it.  Sucked up enough of what was in her head to dust her coven and save the girl.”

“And you took some of her power too,” interrupted Kali.

“Her power wasn’t important,” shouted Lucio.  He gestured wildly.  “Saving a little girl’s life was.”

Hélène stirred.  Her eyes blinked and she muttered a few slurred words.

“That wasn’t the only time you used it though, was it,” guessed Kali.  “Was there even a warlock here?”

“Yeah, he’s… hanging around… till I need him,” sniggered Lucio.  “And yeah, I used the Chalice a couple of times since,” he admitted.  “Don’t you go all sanctimonious on me, bitch.  It was nothing that didn’t deserve it:  A troll in Siberia, a couple of warlocks in Europe,”  he shouted.  “We lock these artefacts away.  Hide them and throw away the key and people die.”  He walked back across the room till he was face to face with Kali.  “I saved lives.”

“Is that what all this about,” asked Kali quietly.  “You think that you know better than Charles?  Than the rest of us?”

“Yeah actually, I do,” sneered Lucio.  “When was the last time you were in the field?”

“You would corrupt all that we stand for,” said Kali coldly.  “You have turned against our purpose.  You are as retrograde  Lucio.  You are…”  An old Scots word surfaced in Kali’s memory, taught to her on her mothers knee. “…widdershins.” 

“Catilindria is meant to be retrograde Kali,” laughed Lucio.  “It turns against the rest of the ousiarchs and challenges them.”

“You know that is not the case,” thundered Kali as strongly as she was able to.  “We stand as a bulwark between the darkness and the light,” she continued.  “We protect the innocent from that which would lead them astray.  You will never lead us on such a folly.”

Lucio took two steps backwards and smiled unpleasantly.  “I never intended to lead the Stellae into a new age,” he said.  “But I thought that you would.”

Kali frowned in confusion.  Before she could marshal her thoughts to reply Hélène interrupted.  “Where am I,” asked the girl, her voice tinged with fear.

Lucio raised an eyebrow.  “I’d almost forgotten about your student,” he said as he turned towards Hélène.  “Hello there.  Kali been filling up your head with noble sounding nonsense?”

“Don’t answer him,” shouted Kali through gritted teeth.

“Doesn’t matter,” sneered Lucio.  He place one hand on Hélène’s shoulder.  “I can sense the answers running through her emotions.  It’s in her water.  Fear looks so ugly on a face as beautiful as yours.  Arab blood, right?”  Hélène nodded.  “But those striking green eyes come from a different background.”

“My mother,” said Hélène quietly.

Lucio turned back to Kali.  “I didn’t believe it till now but Charles fucking Brennan actually did it, didn’t he?  He actually found a muse.  You could start wars with this one.  Or stop them.”  He paused for a moment and smiled.  Had she been able to move, Kali would have shivered.  “She could even turn the supposed wisdom of a blind old man on its head.”

Lucio walked into one of the shadows.  He re-emerged moments later, with a simple wooden case less than a foot in length held reverentially in his hands.  “Change of plans,” he sniggered as he opened the case and unwrapped something from the velvet cloth inside.

It was a drinking straw.

A simple pink drinking straw.  One the ones with the ribbed section that let it be bent to an angle.  Lucio put the box to one side and approached Hélène.  He held the straw carefully, as if it would explode if mishandled.  In a way, it would.

“What is that,” whispered Hélène.  Tears formed in her eyes.

“Get.  Awae.  From.  Hur,” shouted Kali.

“Feeling stressed,” sniggered Lucio as he turned for a moment to Kali.  “I don’t need any Eldibria water sense to tell that.  Everyone knows your accent gets stronger when you’re stressed.”  He turned back to Hélène.  “Don’t worry child,” Lucio said with what seemed genuine compassion.  He wiped away the tears from Hélène’s face.  “It will only hurt for a little while.  Just one death to save millions like you.”

Lucio planted one end of the straw firmly in Hélène’s skin, just below the collar bone.  A little blood welled up.  Hélène gasped and went rigid.

Slowly and very deliberately Lucio put his lips to the other end of the straw and sucked on it.  A viscous red fluid flowed upwards.  “So sweet,” said Lucio dozily, taking his lips off the Chalice.  He shuddered and for a moment only the whites of his eyes were visible.  “The troll was foul, the crone sour and the warlocks bitter, but this girl is so sweet.”  Lucio put his mouth to the Chalice again and started sucking noisily.

Kali could do nothing but watch as Lucio tore away Hélène’s essentia.  “No,” she whispered as the girl started to deflate.  “No, no, no…”  Limp skin drooped from where the Chalice penetrated Hélène.  “No, no, no…”  It sagged further as the substance of Hélène was sucked up the straw.  Mottled greys and reds and creams flowed up and into Lucio’s waiting mouth.  “No, no, no…”

With a sickening gurgle,  Lucio gulped down the last remnants of Hélène’s insides.  Her flaccid skin slipped from the end of the Chalice and collapsed to the floor in a pile of abandoned clothes and integument.

Lucio sighed contentedly.  He wiped the chalice carefully and returned it to its box, which he then returned to its hiding place in the shadows.  “That happened to the Romanian witch too,” he giggled childishly. 

“They changed it somehow, made it do that,” he said as he pulled at the remnants of Hélène’s skin, disentangling it from her clothes.  “They didn’t just want to steal Anika’s essentia.”  Lucio put Hélène’s remains down on a battered wooden desk and pulled a box knife from a pocket.  He carefully cut at what was left of Hélène although it was impossible for Kali to make out exactly what he was doing. 

“They wanted her imago too,” said Lucio as he took of the custodian’s cap and threw it carelessly away.  He pulled off the boiler suit, revealing his naked body underneath.  “That’s all that’s left of your student,” he said.  He grabbed the remnants of Emelie by he hair and brandished them.  The tawny skin hung loosely.  “Her imago.”

Lucio held the Hélène-skin with both hands working his legs into it as if it were a pair of pants.  “I did this in Romania too,” he explained as he smoothed out the wrinkles at the thighs.  “Let me tell you, were they fucking surprised.”  Lucio jiggled the skin at the hips, tugging it over his own.  He let out a little gasp as he got it into position.  “You wouldn’t believe how weird that feels.”

Kali could only watch with horror.  Lucio’s legs should have snapped and broken the remains of Hélène, or at the very least, stretched them beyond recognition.  Instead, his torso was perched on top a set of wide, curving hips and long, svelte legs.  Hélène’s legs.  “It’s no’ possible,” she stuttered.

Lucio grinned unpleasantly.  “Amazing, isn’t it?”  He slipped one hand into Hélène’s arm, nipping and pulling at the skin as he worked his fingers into hers.  He flexed his newly gloved hand before repeating the process with the other arm.  “And I’m only half done,” said Lucio as he reached behind his torso to draw the Hélène-skin together at the back.  The deflated breasts swelled outwards  as Lucio’s waist narrowed with a weird cracking sound.

He was Hélène from the neck down now.  All that remained of his real self was his head.  The remains of the girls head hung from his neck, her long brunette hair spilling across the front of the body he had stolen.  “Almost done,” sniggered Lucio.  He stretched Hélène’s face, pulling it up and over his own.  It sat weirdly distended for a moment but he prodded and pulled it into position.  It settled into place, narrowing Lucios face, raising the cheekbones and turning his eyes a bright, vivid, green.

Lucio was gone and Hélène stood in his place.

“What’d you think,” said Lucio, his voice matched Hélène’s perfectly.  He walked over to Kali and smiled.  It was a Lucio smile, ugly and threatening.

“Yeh cannae get awae wi’ this,” snarled Kali angrily, straining against the lethargy that trapped her in place.  “Yeh’ll no’ fool anyone.”

“Are you sure,” said Lucio and the smile became Hélène’s – full of innocence and enthusiasm.  “I have her imago and I have her essentia.  You can not tell the difference now, can you” he asked in a perfect Hélène intonation.  “I imagine I shall be very sad after you die.  You were like a mother to me, but I am sure Charles and the rest of the Stellae will be there to console me.”  Lucio cocked his head to one side and his smile turned unpleasant again.  “Not looking forward to having the old fool stick his withered cock inside me, I’ll tell you,” admitted Lucio.  He leaned in close till his face was mere inches away from Kali’s.  “I’ll whisper in his ear as he dreams,” he said quietly.  “He’ll see things my way soon enough.  And better to be this beauty than some greying crone from Glasgow who hides her rough violence under a veneer of civility.”

Kali wanted nothing more than to hit Lucio, but she was held in place by whatever trick he had worked on her.  “Paisley,” she said through gritted teeth.  “Completely diffurent place.”

Kali’s hand moved.

It was just a fraction of an inch and she managed to keep the shock of the realisation off her face.  The lethargy curse that held her in place was almost certainly an Eldibria water working, affecting her body through the mass of water contained within it.

Had Lucio weakened his connection to Eldibria in pretending to be Hélène?

To Kali it seemed like a possibility.  A Stellae could only have two ousiarchs, but now Lucio wrapped himself in the cords of four. Entangled? The thought formed in her mind like a sigh. Perhaps the shadows are now a net. There was only one way to find out.

With a sharp, sudden, jerk of her neck, Kali crashed her forehead into the fake Hélène’s nose.  The resistance she felt simply melted away as Lucio staggered backwards, his concentration broken.  “Yeh wur right tho’,” said Kali as she stepped smartly forward.  She took a deep breath to calm herself before continuing.  “I am violent when I need to be:  You can take the girl out of Paisley but you can’t take Paisley out of the girl.”

Blood streamed from Lucio’s now delicate nose.  “You ruined my face, you bitch,” he shrieked.

Kali sought to press home her momentary advantage.  She stared at one of the red emergency lights in the room and focused a sliver of her power upon it.  The light’s glow intensified, shifting up through a fiery orange and towards and incandescent white.  A blinding flash drowned out everything else in the room as Kali summoned forth Arbol’s brilliance.

Lucio stumbled forwards to where he thought Kali was, having been temporarily robbed of his sight by the flash.  Kali was already one step ahead.  She had moved quickly to the side and stuck one leg out as Lucio passed.  He tumbled over it and was sent sprawling to the floor.

Kali didn’t let up.  She kneeled on Lucio’s prone form and grasped him by the neck and squeezed.  Lucio should have been able to throw her off but now he was trapped by the weakness of Hélène’s imago.  He clawed ineffectually at her arms.

“Kali, please,” said Lucio.  He sounded completely like Hélène again.  “You are hurting me.  Please stop Kali.”

Kali hesitated for a moment.  Another moment and Lucio might have been able to recover.  Kali stared at the perfect copy of the girl she had failed and found that it only strengthened her resolve.  She strengthened her grip and held on tight until the wheezing, pitiful pleas for help ceased.

Then Kali scrabbled frenziedly at the back of Lucio’s neck, trying to find the seam of Hélène’s skin.  She had to make sure.  Kali pulled away the face of her student, revealing Lucio’s face underneath.

He was dead.

Kali sat on the floor next to the body and burst in to tears. 

*****

Light flooded into the room through the opened door.  Kali looked up from the floor to see a slender figure silhouetted in the doorway.

“She’s in here,” said the figure.  It was a woman’s voice, her English lightly accented.  As she entered the room, Kali was able to make out more details and she recognised the lithe athletic figure of Miko Toyotomi clad in dark red bikers leathers.

Miko looked down at Kali and her stern expression softened.  Her katana scraped the floor as she knelt down.  “Come,” said Miko quietly.  “Let me help you up.” Miko took Kali by the hands and helped her to her feet.  Miko looked into Kali’s eyes.  She held the gaze for several seconds before bowing her head slightly and taking a few steps backwards.

“Evening Kali,” said Nash Carnes as he stepped inside the room.  He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.  “You don’t mind if I,” he asked, making a gesture with one.  “Ah, where are my manners?  You want one too?”

Kali shook her head silently.

Nash lit his cigarette and took a draw.  “Look, I know this is difficult,” he said apologetically.  “And you know we got to ask.”  Kali glanced at Miko.  She had one hand resting on the hilt of her Katana.  “We need to know how things went down.  And we need to know where the girl you were training is.”

Kali choked back the tears.  “She’s dead,” she eventually managed to say.  “Lucio used the Calice de Ténèbres on her.”  Kali paused to wipe away the fresh tears.  “There was so little left of her…  I burned it with Arbol’s fire, gave Hélène a pyre.  The ashes are there.”  Kali gestured vaguely at the blackened surface of the old wooden desk.  “Please return her ashes to her family.”

“The Chalice is here,” asked Nash with just a hint of nervousness in his otherwise relaxed voice.

“In that corner,” stated Kali flatly.  Miko glanced at Nash and he nodded.  The Japanese woman moved to where Kali had indicated.  “It’s in a wooden box,” said Kali.  “And it looks like.”  She stifled another sob.  “A drinking straw.”

“What happened to Lucio,” asked Nash.

“I killed him,” said Kali, looking directly into Nash’s eyes.  “He intended to kill me, pin the blame on a warlock and use Hélène’s imago to pervert the whole of the Stellae.”

Miko walked back from the corner and placed the wooden box on the desk.  She resumed her position just a few steps in front of Kali.  Again, she put her right hand on the hilt of her katana.

“We already found the warlock,” confirmed Nash.  “For what its worth, what he told us matches with what you said.”  Kali glanced at Miko’s katana again and for the first time noticed that its edge was flecked with blood.

Kali stared at the floor.

“We’ll have to take you to Brennan,” sighed Nash.  “This is all too tangled for me.  He and Father Lewis will get to the bottom of it.”  Nash took off his glasses and cleaned them with a small cloth.  “Aw dammit Kali, I hate having to say this.”

“I know Nash,” said Kali.  She smiled ruefully.

“You try anything and we’ll strike you dead,” said Nash apologetically.  “I’m sorry Kali, I had to say it for forms sake.”

Do it, said a small voice in Kali’s head.  Make them kill you, it continued as she picked up her shoulder bag from the floor.  Anything to make the pain stop.

*****

The early morning light had worked its way into Kali’s bedroom.  It had already reached the top of her bed, shining brightly onto her face.  Kali was awake, she had been for hours but she did not move from beneath the covers.

Instead she simply replayed the events of Charles’ hastily convened informal court over and over in her head.  It hadn’t taken long to verify her story and once that was done proceedings had taken on a very muted tone.  It had been unanimously agreed that the Calice de Ténèbres was to be locked away permanently in Stellae archives.

Little was said regarding Lucio.  Charles simply declared that he had been corrupted by the Chalice.  Even Father Lewis, who was as cantankerous a man as Kali had met, had bitten his tongue and stayed quiet on the matter.  They never asked what Lucio had said to her.  Kali didn’t want to dwell on the implications of that.

Afterwards, Charles had fallen over himself to accept the blame for Hélène’s death.  It was his fault for sending them to Seattle, he had said.  He should have listened to Kali’s objections, he had said.

And so Kali had been put on a flight back to LA.  She would continue to train new members of the Stellae.  Life would continue as before.

Except that it wouldn’t

Kali simply remembered the words Miko had shared with her before she had boarded the plane:  “The pain will never go away, it will only fade with time.”

Kali finally shed the bedcovers.  She had to pack Hélène’s remaining belongings so they could be sent to her family.  There were a hundred and one other little chores to do.  She could not spend the day in bed feeling sorry for herself.

The phone started ringing.  Kali took the handset from her beside table and sat on the chest at the end of her bed.  “Hello,” she said weakly.

“Hi Kali,” replied a cheerful voice on the other end.  Kali recognised the voice as one of her former pupils.

“Joe,” she said quietly as she ran her free hand along the lid of the chest.  He would be about the same age as Hélène was by now Kali realised, although he had been adopted by Charles and had come to Kali at a much younger age.

“Dad asked me to call,” continued Joe.  “He was worried about you.”

“I am fine Joe,” lied Kali.  “The same as always, just a few more grey hairs.”

“Do you look like that chick from those X-Men films,” asked Joe guilelessly.  “Because that would be pretty hot.”

Kali caught sight of herself smiling faintly in the mirrored closet doors.  She found Joe’s flirting rather sweet, mostly because it was never serious.  The boy never lacked for female company of his own age.  “The last few days have been difficult,” she admitted.

“That sounds like a story.  Sing, O Kalliope, of the last few days, that brought countless difficulties” he said with a little laugh.  “You can tell me about it when I arrive.”

“When you what,” asked Kali, taken aback.

“Yeah, Dad wanted me to run a couple of errands in California, thought I’d drop in for a visit” said Joe.  It was a lie, and Kali could tell it was a lie, but it was a lie she was prepared to accept and be thankful for.  “Do you want me to bring anything?”

Kali drummed her fingers on the chest for a moment.  “Do you have a copy of The Shadows of the Planets,” she asked.  “I have… misplaced mine,” lied Kali – she knew that Nash Carnes was taking the ashes of the book to France.

“If I find one I’ll get it for you,” replied Joe.  Kali could tell that he was smiling at the other end of the line.  “They just called my flight.  I’ll give you a call when I touch down in California.”

Kali hung up the phone and ran her hand along the lid of the chest again.  Buried under the lairs of fresh sheeting was the empty skin of Hélène.  Kali still wasn’t sure what impulse had made her snatch it and hide it in her shoulder bag in Seattle.  Perhaps she just wanted something to remind her of her failure – something to encourage her not to make the same mistakes again.

Kali thought about Joe’s harmless flirting again.  He would have been fascinated with Hélène – not just with the girl’s looks but with her Sulva nature.  Joe would have loved to have met someone like Hélène.

Perhaps one day he would.