Mikhail drew a cellophane from his pocket and punched in a phone number. "He's in the park. And alone. Deal with him," he growled. He glanced out the window again. "Now." He terminated the call.
Now that Turan was taken care of, he, Mikhail, would have no need to pump Father Edmund for more information. It would be easier that way, Mikhail thought. No witnesses. There were only a few minor details to take care of, and she shouldn't be too difficult to convince. He strode out of the church as he had entered it — seeing no one.
She was waiting for him by the edge of the woods.
A pair of black shoes, ladies shoes, brought Turan out of his brown study. He looked up.
"Do you mind if I join you, Turan?" Sondra asked.
Turan sat up. He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there, wrapped in despair. He had two days to convince Herta to come with him for the final ceremony and he didn't seem to be making any headway.
"Turan?"
He shook himself. "I'm sorry, Sondra. I was thinking of... other things. Please, yes, do sit down." Turan moved over so Sondra could join him on the park bench.
"My condolences—"
"Turan, please—"
Turan gave a wan smile and motioned for Sondra to speak first.
"Turan, I'm sorry for my temper the other day. My actions were inexcusable, but I hope you can find it in you to forgive me. I—" Sondra was twisting her hands around in obvious nervousness.
Turan covered her hands with one of his. "It has been forgotten, Sondra. No harm was done."
She looked up at him, hopeful. "Turan, I really am sorry for that. It's just that I feel responsible for you. After all we've been through together, I just thought that..." Her voice trailed off on a shrug and she looked away again.
"Sondra, we are friends, yes. But no more than that. There can be no more than that between us."
She sighed. "I know, Turan. I know." She offered him a small smile. "But you can't blame a girl for trying, can you?"
Turan's smile widened at Sondra's teasing. She may not be his soul-mate, but she was good for his ego. At the thought of Herta, he frowned again.
"Turan? Is something wrong?"
Turan glanced sharply at Sondra's innocent expression. Was there an undercurrent of malice in that question? He didn't know, but he would tread warily. "Fräulein Tanner and I have had a disagreement," was all he offered for an explanation.
Sondra nodded in apparent understanding. "American women are often difficult to get along with, or so I've heard. They have these strange ideas about how they should be treated. It seems that the younger they are, the worse their manners."
Turan ignored the implied offer of a confidence. "And it would seem that I am no better than some of the young ones, Sondra. My condolences on your loss."
Sondra looked suitably saddened. "I should have expected it, you know. She's had a bad heart for years, but she often forgot to take her medicine. From what the doctor says... Oh, dear. I'm really not supposed to talk about it, you know, but..." She brightened. "But you're my friend and I can't picture you gossiping."
She leaned towards Turan, one breast brushing his arm. Turan didn't draw away, but he didn't encourage her, either. It was, he gave a mental shrug, just Sondra's way.
"The whole place reeked of garlic, you know. Her bedroom? And you know how superstitious she was. I think she ate several cloves of garlic before she went to bed. This whole thing with Der Reizen bothered her no end. The doctor isn't so sure, because he says that arsenic poisoning has the same symptoms. That's why they're doing the autopsy, you know. Just to make sure." She gave a short laugh. "Although why anyone would want to kill my mother, I don't know. It's not as if she were rich or anything."
Sondra leaned back and gave the appearance of a dutifully grieving daughter, one lone tear wending its way down her cheek. "And there is so much to arrange!" She sighed.
Turan remained silent, not sure what to say in any case. To him, it hadn't registered with Sondra that her mother had died. He could sense no real grief in her. It confused him.
"Turan, I hate to ask this of you, but could you do me a favour?"
Turan nodded, startled. "What I can do for you, Sondra, you know I will," he said.
Sondra twisted her hands again. "Well, it's just that everyone has seen us together for the past few months, and now..." She shrugged. "Would you go with me to the funeral home? It would... make things easier for me all around." She looked up at him, then, her eyes wide and pleading.
"Poor Sondra," he said. "Certainly I will do that." He rose and held out his hand to help her to her feet. Being with Sondra for a while, he thought, would help him calm down. She had that way about her.
He missed the flash of triumph in her eyes as she put her hand in his.
Father Edmund watched, torn between concern and amusement, as Turan paced the small room. Three strides, turn, three strides, turn. Father Edmund hadn't been surprised to see Turan at his door this evening. Not after what he'd witnessed this morning.
"Turan, will you please sit down? My rooms are not big enough for you to pace like a caged tiger."
Turan, still silent, threw himself into an armchair. He glared at his feet.
"Thank you."
Silence reigned for several minutes and then Turan's fist came down on the arm of the chair with an audible thud. "How could she!" And he began to pace again.
Father Edmund closed his eyes and prayed for patience. "Turan," he said sharply, finally getting the other man's attention. "Sit. Down."
Their eyes locked, one pair blazing with fury, the other resolute. Resolution won the silent battle and Turan resumed his seat in the armchair.
Father Edmund picked up his mug of tea and held it in both hands. "Now, will you explain, quietly and without moving, and in words of one syllable or less for this poor old priest, what happened?"
Turan closed his eyes and leaned back. "I have no idea." Quickly, he sketched the morning's events, the search for the Walperdinger, the argument. "And then she just walked away, as if I, as if we didn't matter."
"Did you tell her everything?"
"Of course I did!"
Father Edmund sat back, as perplexed as Turan. "And you told her that, once the confirmation ceremony was complete, she was obligated to return to this world?"
"Well, I... she..."
Father Edmund nodded. "She didn't stay to hear you out?"
Turan shook his head.
Father Edmund was reminded of some of the young men of his church, lost in the throws of first love and just as dejected as Turan. He chuckled. "I'm beginning to think that I'll need to lock the two of you into a room until you start listening to each other."
Turan glared at the priest. "I do listen to her."
Father Edmund shook his head. "No, I don't think you do, Turan. Think for a minute. Put yourself in her place—"
Turan jumped up. "But I can't. She's human, I'm Sidhe. There is no way she can understand—"
"Turan!" Father Edmund was surprised. "Listen to yourself. You sound like that pompous ass at the bank. 'She' can't understand." He snorted. "And you don't want to. Herta is no less capable of understanding the situation than I am." He rose to his feet. "Or are you only here to have an audience for your temper tantrum?"
The two men stood glaring at one another for a long moment. The priest moved first, turning toward the door. "I'm sorry, Turan. I don't believe—"
"No!" Turan's hand shot out to grip the priest's shoulder. He dropped his hand when the priest winced. "My apologies. I..." He shrugged. "Perhaps you are right." He strode past Father Edmund to the door.
"It's 'The Need', isn't it?"
Turan stopped, one hand reaching for the doorknob. He nodded without turning around.
"I don't know about women, but human males go through something like that almost every day."
Turan turned, astounded. "They do? Even you?"
Father Edmund chuckled. "Even me. Well, not so much at my age, but..."
"How can you stand it without going insane?"
The priest smiled. "We don't. We've just learned to control it better."
"How?" Turan came back into the room and the two men resumed their seats.
Father Edmund, much to his own astonishment, found himself doing the unexpected — explaining the birds and the bees.
Krista sighed, her eyes worried.
It took her a moment for the reason to register with Herta. "Conflict of interest?"
"That and an overwhelming curiosity," was the rueful reply.
Herta stared up at the house and then at Krista. "Well," she began slowly, "This is your day off. Technically, you can't use anything you've discovered today in a court of law? Can you? "
Krista shook her head. "Only major evidence of wrongdoing, and I have yet to see that. Nothing unusual was found, according to the official report, so I really would have no need to be here investigating."
Herta backed up so she could see both the front and sides of the house. Her eyes darted between the windows on the ground floor and those of the floor above and then up to the pitched roof. She stared at the chimney for a long while before she brought her gaze back to Krista's face.
"Two meters, maybe?" the other woman asked.
"Square, I'd say. The chimney's in the right place from the front for the parlour fireplace. But look how far in from the side it sits. The parlour fireplace is closer to the outside wall by a good margin. Why put the flue so far into the building?"
Krista shook her head, not quite sure what Herta was seeing. That Herta was intrigued by something was obvious.
Finally, noting Krista's confusion, Herta chuckled. "Sorry. I tend to get carried away with puzzles."
"It's a wonder, though, that the Nazis didn't notice the discrepancy. Not that I've heard," Krista mused. "That sort of information would have made the rounds, I'm sure."
Herta perked up. "Not that you've heard? Hmmm... Tell you what. I'll go through those boxes this afternoon. Maybe Hans or someone wrote down what's in the space and how to get to it. When do you go back to work?"
"Not until Monday, but I wasn't expecting to find such a treasure as this." Krista waved a hand in the direction of the house. "I've scheduled all my other commitments in the next three days. Excepting Sunday, of course." She grinned at Herta. "No one works on Sunday."
Herta grinned and answered in the same tone of voice. "Of course not. By the way, how good's your Latin?"
"My what?"
Herta sighed. "Oh, well. From what I could gather from Father Edmund, Hans Theiner didn't trust my grandmother. He wrote a letter to my mother that's partly in German and partly in Latin and something else I don't have a name for. Perhapsa personal code of some sort." It wasn't quite a lie. "I can read enough of it to get the gist of it. His records appear to be in the same code. I was hoping you could help me go through them. Maybe we could find a clue there, but..." She shrugged. "It's no big deal."
Krista tipped her head. "We don't have much call for cryptology here. There's one in Munich."
Herta grinned. "Who has nothing to do but go through fifty years of junk notes and tax forms? No, I'll wade through it. Maybe I'll find something useful. If nothing else, the sorting should keep me out of trouble for a while."
Krista glanced at her watch and gave a sharp exclamation. With Herta's solemn promise not to do any room searching until she, Krista, could get back to help, the woman collected her bicycle and rode off.
Herta headed inside to deal with the paperwork. She passed the open office door, stopped and backed up. She'd left her computer open which reminded her that she still had a few things to do before she could tackle the boxes upstairs.
It took only a few moments for Herta to be connected to the Internet. She emailed the pictures and articles to Raelynne, collected her email for later reading and signed off. That done, she turned off the computer just as her stomach rumbled.
Lunch dishes were washed and left to dry on the drain board. Herta turned toward the stairs and was halted by the doorbell. She groaned and went to answer it.
Turan stood inside the trees and watched. Mikhail's car stood out front and, in the shadows of the porch he could see two figures in earnest conversation. His fists clenched and he fought down the urge to charge over and rip Mikhail's throat out. And Herta's. She was his! How dare she entertain other men! How dare—"
Father Edmund's words of last night came back to him. Faint, but there nonetheless. He took a deep breath, willing his thoughts to ... He shook his head. If not serenity, then at least sanity, he advised himself. And humans had to deal with this on a daily basis?
But what did Mikhail want with Herta? If he was meddling... Turan forced his temper down again, leaning against a tree in an effort to at least mimic nonchalance. He spun at the sound of a violent sneeze behind him. He hadn't heard Reikert arrive!
"Well?" he growled to cover his own confusion.
Reikert, wiping his nose with a handkerchief, stood beside Turan. "I wish you'd consider meeting me in a place that didn't aggravate my allergies, Turan," he said. If Herta had caught sight of them, she'd have recognized the young man from the bank.
"What does she know?"
Reikert sighed. So much for polite conversation. "I don't think she knows about the Passages. Not yet. I heard her and Krista discussing everything. I'm darned lucky she didn't recognize me in the bank, you know. That would have cost me dearly. She almost caught me that first morning."
Turan nodded absently, his eyes still glued to Mikhail and Herta. "What else?"
"She's found Hans' papers. I think she can read them," he added in a surprised voice.
"She can," Turan confirmed.
"Thanks for telling me," Reikert snorted. "It would have saved me some grief."
Turan turned his head to stare at the younger man. "What do you mean?"
Reikert blew his nose again before answering. "I came looking for you yesterday, but I must have just missed you. I saw Sondra, though. She wasn't sure where you'd gone, so I didn't see any harm in asking if she could read one of Hans' letters."
"You idiot!"
Reikert shrugged. "It wasn't anything important, Turan. Relax. It was one of his half-finished letters to Gunther. From the date, it was around the time when Gunther was in Dachau. Hans was going on about the idiots that had been trying to resurrect the Thule Society, from what I could tell. At least, I recognized that word, but I'm not sure of the context."
Turan groaned. "Not the Thule, Reikert. The Tiel. Some of my people. And you can bet that if Sondra knows, so does Mikhail."
Reikert looked confused. "So why is that bad? They already know about you, doesn't they? I mean, he talks to your girlfriend often enough."
Turan froze. "My...? You mean, Dahila?"
At Reikert's nod, several things became clear and Turan sagged against the tree. So much was clear now. His eyes were drawn to the couple on the porch. Turan straightened. Mikhail was leaving and he didn't look pleased. Herta, too, looked angry as she waited for the other to leave.
"Reikert, go back to the Gasthaus and pretend our conversation never happened. And don't talk to anyone!"
"But—!"
"No one."
Reikert left, grumbling and sneezing.
Turan strode toward the house, dismissing Reikert from his mind. He was determined to get Herta to listen to him, even if it meant tying her up and gagging her.
- 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 -