“How wonderful! It’s an amazing piece. Congratulations.
But I’m afraid I can’t let you have it just yet. The show runs until next month, and we’ll be shipping everything to the buy-ers after. I hope that’s all right?”
Allegra nodded, even though she was disappointed. She had wanted to own it right then, tuck it into her suitcase and spirit it away so she could study it in private.
Everything from that fateful year came flooding back. Ben had not forgotten her after all. The painting was from the day they’d met—the day she’d been hit on the head with a field hockey ball and had been sent to the clinic. They had been roommates of a sort, sharing the same television. He had broken his leg, she remembered now, and had asked the field hockey team—her team—to sign his cast. It all returned to her in a flash as if it were yesterday.
“How long are you in town?” the assistant asked, as she ran Allegra’s credit card and checked her ID.
“We leave tomorrow.”
“Too bad. There’s a dinner party for him on Saturday night, and he loves meeting his patrons.”
Allegra’s mind raced. She could ask Charles if they could stay for a few more days. He had mentioned wanting to attend the opening of the new Olmec exhibit at the de Young. Of course he would want her to accompany him, but perhaps she could manufacture some sort of excuse and slip away to the party instead.
“My schedule is flexible,” she told the clerk. “And I would like to thank him for this piece….”
The gallery girl gave Allegra the address, writing it down on her receipt. “Wonderful! He’ll be thrilled.”
Allegra was not sure if “thrilled” was the right word. She remembered the last time she’d seen Ben: it was the first time she had marked him as her familiar, the first time she’d drunk his blood and taken him for her own. Then she’d disappeared off the face of the earth. She never thought she would see him again. Correction—she had hoped she would never see him again. Not after the terrible vision she’d seen of their future—a future she’d been running from for the last five years.
Every fiber of her immortal being, and all the knowledge she carried in her soul, told her to hop on the next plane out of the city. It was dangerous to see Ben again. She had fallen for him once, and her heart was in the right place now. She loved Charles, and they would renew their bond as they had since the beginning of time—since they had journeyed from Heaven’s kingdom to bring hope to the Fallen. Her heart was pledged to love her twin, as before, and yet it was this same stubborn heart that argued to stay, that would not let her leave.
She would see Ben on Saturday night, she was sure of it.
If there was such a thing as destiny, Allegra felt it pulling her in a new direction, one that would lead her far from the life she had planned, far from the Coven and the angel she had loved for eternity. Allegra thought she would feel tormented with anxiety and guilt, but instead, as she left the gallery, she felt a strange emotion—one she had not felt in a very long time: sh
e felt happy.
FOUR
Knives in the Market
The zambezi rest stop was unlike any Schuyler had ever seen. Not only was it a sprawling complex of restaurants and parks, with groups of large families picnicking in the grass, enjoying the afternoon air, but it also housed a full African-style safari. The affable staff explained that zoos were now common in a number of rest stops catering to the commuter crowd that traveled between Egypt’s largest cities. The owner had designed this one to mimic the African veldt, complete with zebras and lions.
“Apparently on Friday afternoons there’s a lion hunt,”
Jack said, reading the brochure. “They put a pig in the lion pen, and the lioness—”
“Stop!” Schuyler said, trying not to laugh. “That’s horrible.”
They smiled and held hands across the table, careful not to display any more public affection than that. Schuyler’s ability to shift her features, along with her many-layered ward-robe, let her blend in easily, especially with the black silk scarf around her hair. During her time in Egypt she had noticed that not every girl chose to veil, although of course there were some women in full head-to-toe burkas. But most wore stylish brightly colored head scarves with regular jeans and long-sleeve T-shirts. The wealthy women dripping with jewels had sleek salon blow-dried hair, and did not wear scarves at all.
The only inconvenience Schuyler had found living in Egypt was that she could not travel alone without taking on the appearance of an older woman, which tired her. Not that it was dangerous, but young women simply did not walk the streets by themselves. They either traveled in groups or with a male relative. Schuyler and Jack wanted to call as little attention to themselves as possible, so they tried to follow the local customs.
They finished their late lunch at the rest stop and were back on the road, fighting the crazy traffic once again.
When they arrived in the city, Schuyler found Cairo as overwhelming as she had the first time they’d arrived in the country, the streets and sidewalks extremely crowded, loud, and polluted, teeming with people and cars and the incessant honking of horns. With some difficulty, Jack returned their car to the rental shop, and they found a cab to take them to a hotel. Since they were trying to be careful with money, they headed downtown, where Schuyler had heard there were more affordable options, rather than the high-end hotels along the east and west banks of the Nile. The budget hotels were located in old dilapidated apartment buildings on busy, noisy streets. There were several grubby backpacker dives that Jack rejected, although Schuyler told him she did not mind. Finally they settled upon a small hotel on a relatively quiet block, whose lobby looked cleaner than the others around it.
Jack rang the bell, and after a long wait, a sleepy manager appeared from a back room. “Yes? How can I help you?” he asked grumpily.
“We’d like a room,” Jack said. “Would you have any available, sir?”
“For how long?”
“A week for now, maybe more. Is that all right?”
“She is your wife?” the clerk asked, casting a suspicious eye on Schuyler.