The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [71]
Rage flared up inside Jace, then just as quickly died. She felt the first, queasy hints of the world yawing beneath her. She knew that if she shut her eyes she would see it: the dim, oily ocean, swirling.
She disliked these men, but she needed them. In the days after Maximilian’s death, nothing had made sense to her. She had drifted, a castaway on the gray sea, and she had nearly drowned. Then, unasked for, they had come, and their words had been a life preserver. Madness had surrounded Travis Wilder. But the men from Duratek had offered reason, explanation, and logic. With nothing left to save her from sinking, Jace had grabbed on for dear life.
The chair seemed to rock gently beneath her. No, she could not let go yet. If Travis Wilder was not a murderer, then he was certainly a bringer of death and madness, of that there could be no doubt.
She shut her eyes, and for a second it was there: leaden waves roiling beneath a sky that was a mirror, so that it was impossible to know which way was up and which was down.
You shouldn’t have done that, Daddy, she whispered without sound. You shouldn’t have done that.
Jace opened her eyes. “I know where he is.”
The man before her smiled. “So you do, Deputy Windom. So you do.”
23.
Six hours after her conversation with Hadrian Farr, Deirdre Falling Hawk packed her one battered duffel bag, signed out of the dreary East End efficiency flat she had been renting by the week, and checked into the Savoy Hotel.
The desk clerk eyed her T-shirt and scuffed leather jacket with polite disdain. However, when he swiped the credit card Farr had given her and glanced down at the card reader’s glowing display, his eyes bulged and a small, squeaking sound escaped him. After that the mousy fellow nearly tangled his arms together in an effort to serve her. He clapped for two bellhops to bear her bag ahead, then asked if she would prefer flowers or champagne in her room.
“Both,” Deirdre said with a smile.
For all their faults, that was one good thing about the Seekers: They had a positively magical credit rating. Deirdre didn’t know where the organization got its money. Rumors spoke of warehouses stuffed with Renaissance treasures and chests full of Roman coins. However, she suspected the more likely story was that, over the centuries, the Seekers had invested in various international financial concerns. There was nothing like five hundred years of compound interest to fatten a bank account.
Whatever the source of their money, one thing was certain: the Seekers were fabulously wealthy. And Farr had told her to take a room anywhere she wanted, as long as it was near the Charterhouse. They were flying nonstop to Denver in the morning to meet with Dr. Grace Beckett and Travis Wilder, and they did not want to be late.
Why are you doing this, Deirdre? she asked herself in the elevator. You said you would never have anything to do with the Seekers again.
There was only one answer, and it wasn’t that this was her chance to tell Travis she was sorry. Whatever their faults, whatever their machinations, the Seekers knew things, had access to things that no others could possibly show her. Knowing what she did—that there were indeed worlds other than Earth—how could she blind her eyes to them?
She had made no apologies to Farr for her earlier behavior, but she had taken his credit card, and she had agreed to meet him at the Charterhouse at 8 A.M. Now a lightness filled her, and a wild energy, as when she rode her motorcycle too fast through twisting canyons. There were answers waiting for her on the other side of that ocean, answers to mysteries she had dreamed about since girlhood. And while it was not