The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📗

ticked. Finally Arkady opened his eyes and slowly focused on Nick. “Is that my daughter? No. My Eréndira was a living human being, a brilliant and passionate woman. That slip of paper you hold there? That is a photograph. A trick of the light. It pretends to capture a moment in time.”

Nick looked at the photo. So this was Arkady’s daughter, Arkady’s lost, dead child. “Where did you find this?”

Instead of answering the question, Arkady flung his hand toward the Rubik’s Cube on the desk. “Have you ever played with one of those?”

“Not recently.”

“Try. You’ll find you can solve it in under a minute.”

“Yes. I remember doing it once or twice before, in the future.” Nick picked it up. He had not touched anything plastic in many days. Its particular slickness, its strange lightness, set his teeth on edge. Nick put it down beside the photo. “You found these things in Devon? In 1815? What do they have to do with each other? What do they have to do with Castle Dar?”

“Ignatz Vogelstein.” There was pungent loathing in Arkady’s voice.

Nick took a shallow breath. So Arkady now knew that old Lord Percy had been that famous Ofan.

“I went to Castle Dar,” Arkady said, “expecting to find a crazy Ofan. This Eamon, this new earl—he is crazy, yes. As crazy as that water bird, you know, the one that laughs.”

“A loon.”

“Yes. He is crazy like that. But he is not the Ofan I thought I was going to find. Instead I found another Ofan. Very powerful. But . . . dead. Ignatz Vogelstein. The leader of the Ofan investigations in Brazil. The killer of my daughter. The man I have waited so many years to strangle with these, my bare hands!” Arkady held up his long white fingers, his cigarette clamped between his teeth. “Always I have hoped to find him, so I could kill him. But he is dead. He has escaped me.”

“Darchester killed your daughter? I don’t believe it. I knew the old earl my whole life. He was a harmless old windbag.”

“Oh, you think so?” Arkady pointed his cigarette at Nick. “Before he went into hiding after the death of my daughter, your harmless old windbag was a man of middle age. A powerful man. A leader of men, a teacher, a prophet. She was young, and brilliant, and he? He seduced her. Not as a lover, no. But he seduced her as a teacher. He had in Brazil an Ofan think tank to try to pierce the Pale and learn its secrets. He stole the very best young minds from the Guild and Ofan alike. They experimented with the power. And my daughter, she was the strongest. One day she crossed the Pale. They were all working together, but Eréndira, she was the one, she went across. Vogelstein was holding her hand, and he let go. How could he let go? My daughter was lost. . . .” Arkady stopped. He could not go on.

“She died,” Nick said gently.

“Yes,” Arkady whispered. “She reappeared across the world and in another century. In her fear and pain she found Vogelstein, not me!” Arkady flicked his cigarette into the fire and pressed his palms to his eyes. “But he had this much of the humanity. He told me where to find her. She spent her final moments in my arms.” Tears seeped out from under Arkady’s hands. “She could not even speak! When she was dead I went to find him, to kill him. But he was gone. Never to be seen or heard from again.” Arkady lowered his hands and his tear-washed eyes shone electric blue. “The coward disappeared, my priest, poof! Like a puff of smoke.”

“And he came to Devon.”

“Yes. Now I know that he came to Devon. All along he had been this Georgian earl, this Lord Ignatius Percy. Ignatz Vogelstein, that was his Ofan name. After he fled Brazil he stepped back into his aristocratic life. He grew old in hiding, as the earl. Then he died.”

“Why is that important now?”

“Because Ignatz, of course, he didn’t just go to ground. All those years he continued with his research. He knew there was a talisman, and he searched for it. Perhaps he even found it. The crazy Eamon, even he knew there was such a thing. He thought it was that stupid cube! But Ignatz was up to something in Castle Dar, and he was not alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think?” The Russian stood, unfolding up out of his chair until he loomed over Nick. “Where do you suppose your little Julia Percy is this evening, Nick?”

“In her room. She went early to bed,” Nick said.

“No, no.” The Russian smiled down at him. “She is not in her room. This is why I am so glad you have the other woman. You will not be too heartbroken when I tell you.”

Nick found himself on his feet. “Arkady . . . do not play with me.”

“Your old girlfriend.” Arkady spread his hands. “The little pretty Julia. The poor little orphan. She is gone.”

Nick felt the air leave his lungs. His world contracted to a tiny point.

“What time is it?” Arkady looked at the clock on the mantel. “Nine o’clock? She ran away into the crowd at seven. I am just back from looking for her myself. . . .” He opened his box and extracted another cigarette, then waved it, unlit, between his fingers: “But—poof! Like her grandfather before her, she runs.”

“Arkady, there is a riot out there! A woman lies dead in the square! It could be Julia!”

“It is not. I checked. That dead woman, she has the red hair.”

“Why did she run?” Nick heard his voice as if from a great distance, his body taut and still.

“Because,” Arkady said, fishing a Zippo lighter out of his pocket. “She is Ofan. I was coming to find her. She fled.” With one smooth gesture he flipped the Zippo’s lid and made the tall flame leap up. He lit his gilded cigarette and leaned back in his chair.

Nick watched