Visci (Soul Cavern Series Book 2) Read online

  When she didn’t finish, Jenny did it for her. “Because the lines were hereditary.” She was rewarded with another nod.

  “A generation ago—our generation, not a human generation—the non-royals came together and decided they wanted a more…accountable system of governance. And so the royals were set aside and councils formed for each region of the world, which were composed of individual Visci who ruled a city or area.”

  It annoyed Jenny to find herself interested in her mom’s details. “So the royal families walked away?”

  Her mother shrugged. “Some did. Some even became involved in the governance change, believing that having a royal system led to corruption rather than effective governing.” Her tone had become strong and matter-of-fact. “Others…did not want such a change. However, Visci are neither easy to get rid of, nor easy to kill.”

  Jenny nodded. Her mother had given her the talk about their kind’s strengths and weaknesses when Jenny was fifteen. Being hard to kill had been a “skill” Jenny thought was cool as a kid. Her mom never elaborated on what “hard to kill” meant or how they could be killed. Jenny wondered why she’d never noticed that omission.

  “And while there was fighting and some bloodshed—mostly human anculi, unfortunately—the governance of our kind shifted to one a bit more like a democracy than a monarchy.”

  Jenny thought back to how her mom had started this explanation. “Hang on. They were glad to see you go because…because you were part of the hierarchy?” She couldn’t imagine that was right. Her mom lived a normal, suburban life. A princess? Really?

  Jenny watched with a strange surreal detachment when her mother said, “Yes. I am—and you are—of Visci royal blood.”

  Jenny sat there for a moment. It felt like the strangest concept she’d ever heard. “So you’re what? A princess? A queen?”

  The subtle coloring of her mother’s cheeks told Jenny that she wasn’t used to talking about her status among the Visci. “The equivalent of a princess in human terms, yes. My father ruled a large part of the European continent for several centuries.”

  “Wait. You mean Gramps? Gramps is a king?”

  Her mom gave her a smile. “Yes. Though he doesn’t rule anything anymore.”

  Jenny watched through the window as they passed the Atlanta King and Queen—office buildings that resembled chess pieces. Weirdly fitting.

  The vastness of what she didn’t understand grated on Jenny’s nerves. How could she navigate such a foreign, alien world not knowing a thing about it? From her experience in London, she had more knowledge of Jivaja than her own people.

  “Who called?” Jenny finally asked.

  Her mom didn’t answer. It was like she hadn’t heard.

  “Mom?”

  “Sorry. Sorry. What did you say?”

  “In London. Who called? Who gave us the jet we came home in?”

  “Ah. Claude.” She looked thoughtful and then continued. “I’ve known him since I was about your age. He was only a child, as most full-blood Visci are. You might say we grew up together.”

  “Why would he send someone to call you? Why not just…” Jenny held up her phone. In London, a man had approached them with a telephone, and her mom spoke to Claude on the man’s phone rather than her own. It felt very Mission Impossible.

  Her mom smiled. “Because he doesn’t have my phone number. I imagine he would be able to find the house number, but he doesn’t have my cell. When I said I cut ties, I meant it.”

  Jenny nodded and ran her finger over the phone’s dark screen. “Why did he call you? Because of Dad?”

  “Yes. He wanted me to know…”

  When she didn’t finish, Jenny said, “Know what?”

  She frowned and shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Tell me.”

  It was clear that her mom didn’t want to.

  “No secrets. Remember?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  Jenny waited. After what seemed an hour but was most likely just minutes, her mom spoke.

  “He said he took care of who killed your father.”

  “What?” The words did a double-tap to her heart. The first tap was that Claude knew who’d killed Dad. The second was that this stranger had already “taken care of” them. “You mean you know who killed him? Why he died?” She sat up straighter.

  “I don’t know why.” She spoke slowly, as if each word were a Herculean task to get past her lips. “But, yes, I know who. At least, who Claude told me it was, though I don’t doubt him in that.”

  “Who?” Jenny slid to the edge of her seat, staring at her mom. Why didn’t she tell me this sooner?

  “Her name was Emilia Laos. She led the Atlanta Visci and the Southeastern Council.”

  Her heart thumped. How can that…? Why would the Visci kill her dad? She slid back in the seat. Had her mom done something to piss them off? How did this work? Had they declared war on the royals?

  “I am going to the council once this is settled,” her mom said, waving her hand around the limo. “I need to find out if she acted alone.”

  Jenny’s mind turned fuzzy. Her own people may have killed her dad. Anger, frustration, and disappointment whirled inside her. “Who…who do you think helped her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you have some idea?”

  “No. Not really. But I need to work out who is doing what. I haven’t been involved in…” She sighed and leaned back on the headrest, closing her eyes. “So long.”

  “I want to come with you.”

  She didn’t move. “No.”

  “I deserve answers too.”

  “And I’ll get them. I can’t… Do we have to talk about this right now?” Strain sounded in her voice.

  Jenny took a good look at her. Her mom, always thin, looked almost gaunt now, with hallows in her cheeks and those dark circles beneath her green eyes. People always commented on how young her mom looked. But now, her mom seemed…ancient.

  Jenny’s anger had all but dissipated. But nothing replaced it.

  It should have been unnerving how fast her moods shifted. But she couldn’t bring herself to care.

  She was glad for the numbness again.

  The next thirty-six hours had been a great big blur of people visiting the house, offering condolences and casseroles. Apparently, they go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Only Jenny hated peanut butter.

  She was still jet-lagged, even though they’d been home several days now, and her patience had worn thin more than once. Her mom had intercepted her several times, but there had been an unfortunate incident with one of the conservative politicians Jenny’s dad had been forced to rub elbows with.

  Jenny was pretty sure she’d be getting a bill having to do with removing melty cheese from Armani fabric.

  Today hadn’t started much better, with the biohazard cleaning company in at eight in the morning to “take care of the office,” as her mother put it. Or…cleaning Dad’s blood off of everything in the room, to put it more plainly.

  Crime shows never showed this sort of thing. Cleaning up the gross.

  The office had still been sealed off with bright yellow tape, which proclaimed only “Police Crime Scene.” Jenny expected it to also order them to “Stay Back” or “Do Not Cross,” but no. Just a label about a crime.

  Her mom had told her clearly and adamantly that she wasn’t to go into her dad’s office, even going so far as to lock the door.

  She hadn’t needed to bother. Jenny found herself too terrified to even touch the door, much less go inside. So when the cleaning company started to make all sorts of crazy noises early, Jenny had curled up more tightly under her comforter and waited.

  Mecca’s dad was coming this afternoon. When her mom had told her that, Jenny was all set to jump in with a bunch of questions she wanted to ask him. But, instead, her mom asked her to stay in her room—as if she were ten years old and unable to handle adult conversations.

  Jenny agreed,
but even as she’d said it, she’d known she was lying.

  When he arrived not long after lunchtime, her mom brought him through the house. Jenny trotted quietly down the back stairs, which led to the kitchen, and settled on a step about halfway up. Her mom offered David coffee, but he declined.

  “When I was young,” her mom said, “I used to be very spoiled and drank this with so much sugar, it would have made a cow diabetic. But that was a long time ago, when sugar was harder to come by. I reveled in it when we had it.”

  At the base of the stairs, in a framed photo collage’s reflection, Jenny was able to see her mom’s head—well, the back, anyway. David’s face was unclear and ghostly, but it was obvious that he stared at her mom.

  “I don’t want this to be antagonistic,” David said.

  “Is there a reason it would be?”

  Jenny waited for his reply, staring hard at his face’s fuzzy image in the glass, willing herself to see more detail that wasn’t there.

  “Ken told me about London,” he said.

  “So we both appreciate each other’s secrets.”

  After a long, uncomfortable moment, he said, “I have to ask you something. I need you to tell me the truth.” When her mom didn’t answer, he continued. “Did you know anything of Mecca’s kidnapping?”

  How can he even ask that?

  “No.” Her mom didn’t even hesitate. “I would never do anything to endanger her. And if I had known of some sort of plot, I would have stopped it.”

  Jenny smiled a little. Her mom sounded so much stronger than she had in the car when they’d come home from London. So matter-of-fact. Regal. Jenny couldn’t help feeling proud. And she knew that her mom spoke the truth. Even if her mom had kept things from her own daughter, no way she would have let anything happen to Mecca. Not if she could have prevented it.

  “How would you have stopped it?” he asked.

  “In truth, I am unsure whether I could have done anything. If I had had any idea that Mecca was in danger, I would have gladly broken my promise to myself and re-entered that…culture.”

  “So you’re not involved in their whatever it is? Their society?”

  Her mom paused for a second and then said, “I didn’t realize this was going to be an interrogation.”

  “I have to know that I can trust you.”

  Now came that sound that her mom made every time she’d caught Jenny in a lie as a kid. That unbelieving snort. It was the most unladylike sound her mom had ever made. Jenny couldn’t help her grin.

  “Trust me?” her mom said. “You’ve been lying all these years.” The wavering image in the glass that was her mom’s reflection leaned forward. “Tell me, David Trenow, is that even your name? Your brother’s name is Fontenot. Why is yours different?”

  Jenny hadn’t even thought of that. In London, Uncle Ken had approached them by introducing himself with his full name, but she didn’t pay attention to what he said. She’d known him most of her life, and he was just Uncle Ken. The fact that his last name was different from Mecca’s hadn’t crossed her mind. She’d never really noticed.

  David let out a sigh. “Ken and I grew up in the swamps of Louisiana.” He leaned back in his seat and looked at the ceiling, his eyebrows lowering and pinching together. “Ramshackle houses, kids with dirty feet, dirty clothes. Eating hot dogs every night because they were cheap. I hated it. I wanted to be better than that.” His gaze dropped back to her mom. “When I left, I got rid of my accent and changed my name.”

  She remained quiet for a moment, before she said, “All right. And the rest?”

  “And the rest.” When he repeated it, it was a statement, not a question. He knew what she was talking about.

  “Jivaja. Your powers.”

  “I don’t know how to answer that. I’m only familiar with the word because Ken told me about it and about the woman he met—you both met, I guess. We never called ourselves anything. We’re just people with a Gift.”

  “Tell me more.”

  Her butt began slipping, and Jenny realized she was literally sitting on the edge of the step. This was the bit she’d wanted to hear.

  In the reflection, David shook his head. “It’s your turn. Tell me about the Visci. You say you had nothing to do with Mecca’s disappearance. I think I believe you.”

  There was a long pause, and Jenny wished again that she could see more clearly.

  He continued. “But I also wonder how you can not be aware. I was at that property. We’re not talking a conspiracy of two or three people. It looks like an entire society. A very organized and large group. How could you not know?”

  Her mom’s voice tightened. “Do you know everything that goes on in your human society? I left the Visci when I married Jim.”

  Sorrow wedged into Jenny’s heart as she thought of her dad. Sorrow, followed by anger. She’d forgotten for a moment. In her excitement…she’d forgotten. She raged against his murder, and she raged at herself for having forgotten.

  She bit her lip. Hard. The familiar, spicy taste of blood tickled her tongue. She bit a little harder, and the sharp prick of perfect pain brought her back to the moment.

  Her mom’s voice broke in. “I decided I’d had enough of the scheming and the politics and the manipulation.” She shifted in her seat and revealed her profile. “I only wanted to love him,” she said. “And then love Jenny.”

  Tears filled Jenny’s eyes, along with a rush of sadness mixed with pride and awe. Even with all their talking in the limo, it never hit home that her mom had given up her life—her entire life—to make them a family. Jenny tried to imagine what it would feel like to give up her mom and her dad and couldn’t envision it. She was having trouble with her dad being gone, let alone if she’d had to leave him.

  When David didn’t respond, her mom kept going, her tone hard as steel now. “And I’d stayed out for more than two decades. Right up until she murdered him.”

  “Emilia Laos,” David said.

  “Yes.” Her mom’s voice cracked just a little bit, and Jenny’s heart broke. Again.

  “She’s the one who kidnapped Mecca.”

  “Yes.”

  In the glass, David lowered his gaze, saying nothing for a little while. When he raised his head again, he said, “I’m sorry that he got caught up in everything, Carolyn. I truly am. I tried to save him, but he was too far gone. His life simply leaked out. I struggled to stop it, but…” His voice had gotten higher toward the end and thick with emotion.

  She knew her dad was dead. Of course. She’d seen him in the casket before the funeral, grey, with his throat… Yes, dead. Definitely.

  But this vision, this one that David brought up…

  In her mind’s eye, her father lay between dead and alive, but skidding toward death with every second.

  She envisioned David crouching over her dad, trying to feed him life and all of it draining away like water down a sink. She didn’t even really have an idea of what that might look like, but it made a lump form in her throat like a softball.

  “His life leaked out.”

  That was the sentence.

  Jenny bit back a sob and slung her head from side to side, trying to dislodge the image.

  “Whether Emilia was the only one involved, I can’t be sure,” her mom said. “It’s been a hard decision, but I am stepping back into society. I will reconnect with the Southern Council, and I will discover the truth.”

  “Really?” David said. “They’ll let you back in, just like that?”

  “I have the credentials.”

  Yes. She was a princess, after all. Of course they would let her back in. Jenny didn’t dive very deeply into why she felt that bitter. Her emotions gave her whiplash.

  Instead, as she thought about her mom’s words, Jenny realized that her voice had taken on a much more formal tone than she usually used. Jenny wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  “What will you do?” David asked.

  The laugh that came from her mom was sof
t but sardonic. “I don’t exactly know as yet. I will need to work out the lay of the land first. But I plan to use whatever advantage I can to find out what really happened to Jim. Who really killed him.”

  Watching the filmy image in the glass wasn’t enough anymore. Jenny remained low and crept down two more steps. Now she could look through the banister struts and barely see both David’s face and her mom’s back. She tried to remain still so he wouldn’t catch sight of her.

  “I’ll do what I can to get information on his death, as well,” David said. “I am positive Emilia was behind it. I’m unsure whether anyone else was involved in the planning. Certainly, she wasn’t the one who carried it out.”

  “I don’t care about her little men. They do whatever a stronger will tells them to do.”

  David nodded. He seemed to be thinking hard about something, an intensity in his eyes. The silence drew out.

  Jenny held her breath.

  “Do you know someone named Claude?” David asked. “A Visc—” He leaned back. “Clearly, you do.”

  Apparently her mom’s face told that story. “Yes,” she said. “Though I’m surprised that you recognize him.”

  He didn’t look directly at her. “I made a deal with the devil.” Now he raised his gaze. “I haven’t decided whether I can trust you enough to tell you about it.”

  Her mom nodded. “I understand.”

  Why didn’t she say anything? Jenny wanted her to reassure Mecca’s dad that yes, he could trust her! What was the deal? Who was the devil? It was all she could do to keep herself quiet and stay on that step.

  “Will you tell me what you know of Claude?” he asked.

  Jenny thought about what she knew of him. Claude had sent a plane for them in London. A really nice plane. Jenny had never experienced that level of luxury. Leather swivel seats, tables, even a sofa that laid out into a bed. They’d had their own flight attendant. The flight crew outnumbered the passengers, because they’d been the only passengers.

  Jenny only knew that Claude and her mom had known each other as kids. They’d sort of grown up together. And he was obviously crazy rich.