Torment (Craving 2)

“You, my dear…Lisa’s granddaughter, have shown me how to proceed with my plans,” he said, and in that moment, his eyes glinted with a wickedness I have never before witnessed. How had my grandmother cared for him? He appeared evil to the core.

He did something with his finger, twirling it as he gave me a half smile. A tray with a pot of tea, little mugs, and an assortment of food appeared on the long table in the center of the stark chamber.

“Sit,” he said. “Let us be comfortable while we negotiate.”

“No,” I said. “I won’t sit with you. It is your fault Allora killed my grandmother.”

“Indeed, I know my part in this. Do not think I have not suffered for the fateful decision I made.” He eyed me, shrugged, and poured two mugs of tea. “Now sit, or do you think that sitting with me makes you more vulnerable to my plans for our future?”

“I don’t sit with the enemy. You and I have no future, and nothing would make me amenable to working with you,” I answered.

“Sit,” he repeated patiently.

“I don’t break bread with the one warlock who admitted he was instrumental i

n my grandmother’s death.”

He slammed a fist onto the table, and in spite of my bravado, I jumped, then stuck my nose in the air and looked away from him as though he hadn’t startled me.

“Do not try my patience,” he said on a hard note. “Do not forget my loss because of yours. Lisa was the only and last bit of light in my life. She said she saw the humanity in me and would never give up until she retrieved it for us both. I adored your grandmother. I had no idea…had no reason to believe Allora would do more than use Lisa’s magic. I am five hundred years old…only a bit older than my sweet Lisa was when I lost her. I have learned to bide my time to get what I want. I have it…time. As you do, as Lisa should have had.”

I gave this some thought. “You cared for her…that much?”

“Ah, now we enter the forbidden ‘personal’ part of my life, which I have never spoken about with anyone other than Ramon…and that proved a mistake.” He inclined his head. “I have learned a great deal since I made that error.”

“So, you don’t want to answer me?” I pursued. He was giving me a window into a world where my grandmother had been alive. I needed to know more about her.

“Cared for her, you asked?” His voice was a low hiss and then he closed his eyes before he answered. “I adored and worshipped her.” He flicked his finger again and this time produced a full portrait of a woman in a white sundress, picking flowers in an open field. She had looked up at the photographer and he captured her smile. “Your grandmother,” he said sadly.

I moved towards the portrait. Her hair was as red as mine. Her eyes appeared violet, like mine. I was transfixed for a moment.

“How could you love when you are…?”

“Just because I am a Dark Warlock does not mean I am devoid of all emotion. I am ruthless and cunning and powerful, but I have…always…will always adore Lisa. No other will ever touch my heart.”

I almost snorted with derision. I didn’t want to believe him. How could I? He started the chain of events that got her killed.

He eyed me and said, “You find that unbelievable, I see it in your exquisite violet eyes…so much like hers. I told you at the outset I would not answer any question with a lie. You asked the question, I answered.”

“I have her eyes, and her red hair…but that is where the resemblance ends,” I said as I stared at her portrait. It was the one thing that stuck out above the rest. I had never seen a picture of her before, and I was almost overwhelmed with feeling.

I had always been so curious about her. In spite of the fact that I was here with him as his prisoner and things could go very wrong very quickly, I pressed on because I needed to know more about her.

“Yes, though your nose is a bit like hers…but, I think, more like your mother’s,” he said softly as he stared at me.

“My mother? Are you saying you knew my mother?” I was momentarily taken off course.

He ignored my question and said, “Are you telling me that your mother had no pictures of your grandmother?”

Clearly he was astonished. I took a long breath. “She left Scotland in something of a hurry with scarcely more than the clothes on her back.” That was all I knew of how she came to New York. She would never speak of it, telling me I was just a child and didn’t have to think of such things. I lost her before I did start thinking of such things and then there was no one with any answers for me. I said, feeling the sadness I always felt when I tried to conjure up an image of my grandmother, “No…no pictures…nothing.”

This fact had always left me feeling an emptiness inside. I supposed it showed on my face and he responded with an odd stare.

I defended my mother at once, thinking his look was one of criticism. “Had she lived, she would have told me everything.”

“Yes, I agree,” Beyland surprised me by saying. “Your grandmother sent her off to protect her from Allora. I realized that afterwards. Lisa must have believed eventually they would be reunited.”

He touched his forehead and closed his eyes and suddenly the room was filled with light and in that light was a scene. It was as though he pulled it from his memory to put on display for me. His power, I realized again, was immense.