The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [150]
“I love you, Grace.”
Her eyelids opened.
Grace pushed herself up and pawed at tangled hair. “Travis. Did you … say something?”
He smiled and placed his hand on hers. “I just said it’s time to wake up.”
“I’m sorry. I was at … I mean, I was only …”
“It’s all right, Grace. I know.” He tightened his grip on her hand. “I was there, in Spardis. I saw the shadow.”
She went stiff and started to pull her hand away, but he didn’t let go.
“You should have told me,” he said softly. “About the regressions. You’ve been having them ever since we got back to Denver, haven’t you?”
Now she did pull back. “You have enough to worry about, Travis. I didn’t want to bother you with a bunch of old memories.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was completely maddening. Why did she always think she had to do everything by herself?
“Bother me, Grace. Please. I mean it.”
She stared at him. Then a thin, fragile smile touched her lips. Slowly, as if she wasn’t certain exactly how to do it, she lifted a hand and pressed it to his cheek. “So when exactly in the course of this complete disaster did you turn into the strong one?”
Now it was his turn to blink, astonished at her words. He leaned back, then finally he shrugged. “I don’t know, Grace. I really don’t know.”
She looked away. “I can’t stop them, Travis. The memories. Sometimes I think the past is going to drown me.”
“What’s gone is gone, Grace. The past can’t hurt you.”
“Can’t it?”
He stood. “Come on. Deirdre called for room service. Let’s see if this hotel knows how to brew a decent cup of maddok.”
51.
Deirdre was already pouring from a silver pot when they stepped into the suite’s main room. She handed them steaming cups before speaking a word, and Travis wondered how he had ever doubted she was anything but a friend.
“Thanks,” he said, lowering his cup. It wasn’t maddok. It was the real stuff: rich, dark, perfectly brewed coffee.
“You owe me one,” she said.
Grace curled into a chair and took small sips. Before Travis could say anything, the door to the second bedroom opened, and Farr stepped out. He wore the same rumpled clothes as last night, as well as a frown.
“What did the Philosophers say?” Deirdre asked.
Farr ran a hand through his dark, curling hair. “Nothing. They said absolutely nothing.”
Deirdre frowned. “But that’s not possible. Stewart and Erics are dead, and we’ve broken Desiderata left and right. They have to say something.”
“Evidently they don’t.”
Farr and Deirdre locked eyes, and Travis sighed.
“Excuse me, but in case you’d forgotten, not everyone in this room is fluent in Seeker-speak. Could you translate, please?”
“I’m not certain I can,” Farr said, tucking in a wayward shirttail.
Travis squinted over his cup. “What do you mean? You’re the ones who always speak in mysterious riddles and drive up in black cars at all the right moments. I thought you Seekers had the answers to everything.”
Farr’s gaze was distant. “So did I,” he murmured.
It was Grace who broke the silence. “All right, now what do we do?”
Travis hadn’t really thought beyond coffee. Duratek still had Beltan, only now they had mutant-controlling sorcerers in gold masks as well. What could they do? He didn’t have the slightest clue.
Fortunately, another voice answered in cool, carefully inflected words. “We must find your friend, the knight Beltan. And quickly. We do not have much time.”
It took Travis’s eyes a moment to focus, as if the air unfolded around her. There was a click as the suite’s door swung shut. He didn’t remember hearing it open.
“Vani,” he breathed. “You came back.”
She smiled, the expression sharp as a knife yet not without mirth. “Incorrect, Wilder. I never left. I have been keeping watch over this hotel. It is safe—for the moment.” She cocked her head; her short, tousled hair glittered in the morning sun. “Is that coffee?”
“Let me,” Deirdre said, clearly too stunned to say anything else. She poured.
“Thank you, Seeker.” Vani took the proffered cup.
“It’s not maddok, you know,” Grace said with a grimace.
Vani breathed in the rising