Ghosts of Averoigne

“I’ll have my stuff packed in a few,” he said. “You don’t need to come. Why don’t you go poke around downstairs? See if you can find some of those other old photos Jeremy was talking about, the ones from the lounge. Maybe you’ll see something he missed.”

Kara closed her mouth and nodded. It was actually a good idea.

“O—Okay.”

“Bye.”

He walked off, and the sense of his disappointment was almost palpable. His whole demeanor threw Kara for a loop. Logan was tough; ex-military, physically capable, hardened both inside and out. The whole time they’d been together she hadn’t seen a softer side of him, not even once. No real emotion. No regret.

No love…

The elevator doors closed, but Kara was still distracted. Could he really be jealous? Of Jeremy?

He coul

d.

She bit down on her lip. It almost make sense.

He is.

The elevator made some kind of a strange knocking noise, like it was impatient, and Kara reached for the faded ceramic buttons. There was only an ‘L’ for lobby, and a ‘2’ for the second floor. A third button — presumably for the third floor — had once sat above them both on the panel. It had been completely removed, and the hole covered with some sort of thick black tape.

Hmmmm…

Beneath the panel itself, Kara saw two keyholes set into the ancient wood. One was modern, and painted red. Probably something to do with emergency, or maintenance. The other keyhole was bigger. It was strangely shaped… and coated in dust.

Could he really be jealous?

Her time together with Logan had been short, but fiery. Consumed with a heat and passion she missed the instant it was taken from her, and one she resented never finding again. Not in any of her other boyfriends. Not even in Jeremy.

It was only young love, she thought. Just like he said. You were nineteen years old. Everything was fresh, everything new…

That had to be it. Logan hadn’t been her first first time with man, but it was pretty damned close. He’d certainly been her first true passion. Her first time falling hard for someone. Her first time being absolutely crushed, when he abruptly broke it off.

But while they were together…

You’re overly glorifying the whole thing, the little voice in her head admonished her. Time has softened all the rough edges. Polished up the good times, so that they shine like diamonds. Making them more than they really were…

“Maybe,” she said aloud. She’d almost even convinced herself. “Probably.” The elevator dinged again and the doors opened.

Kara was all business as she stepped out into the chaos of the lobby.

Seventeen

Kara once thought the origins of the Hallowed Order to be shrouded in secrecy. As if the knowledge of its beginnings were so important, so sacrosanct, not even Xiomara knew it in its entirety.

That part of the organization had always been romantic to her. The idea of being a part of something bigger than she was, even larger than the world around them. It was exotic. Spectacular. The sheer scope of it was astounding to Kara, much less the work the Order had done over the course of long, insightful centuries.

The truth however, was a lot less glamorous: almost everything that was known of the Hallowed Order had been lost to time. Even its name had been forgotten; at some point it had been the Hallowed Order of something, but whatever that something was had been unfortunately misplaced.

As it turned out, the organization created for the preservation of arcane knowledge hadn’t even been able to preserve itself. Ninety-nine percent of everything the Order had once accumulated; history, relics, a long litany of paranormal accountings — all of it — had been lost in a Paris blaze, sometime in the early 17th century.

“Whatever people do not understand,” Xiomara once told her, “they seek to destroy.” It was the one time Kara had actually seen the woman sad. She seemed smaller just then, even more frail than normal. “Knowledge,” Xiomara went on, “means nothing in the face of superstition.”

The razing of the Hallowed Order’s underground headquarters had been the single greatest loss of information ever to not be recorded. Homeless and hunted, their ranks decimated, it took another hundred years before the group could form any semblance of its former self.

Luckily they had investments. Owned properties. Kara had seen evidence of the power they once wielded; stacks of gold Krugerrands scattered through the drawers of Xiomara’s desk, jewels kept by members from dynasties long since dead. Everywhere she looked Kara saw rare paintings, priceless artwork… the sum total of generations of wealth, all bequeathed at their passing to every member’s one communal family: the Order itself.