Mona Lisa Darkening

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Being alive was so different from being dead. Loud and noisy. The soughing in and out of breath. The constant thumping of the heart. The rhythmic swish of blood rushing through the arteries, seeping up the veins. The ingesting of food. The chewing of it, swallowing it down. The digesting of it, then pissing and pooping it back out, burping and farting to help it along the way.

Messy life. How sweet it was — even standing tired and fatigued and light-headed from blood loss in the empty alleyway the portal of Hell had spit me into.

It was night, or more accurately, early morn with the breaking of dawn's first light trembling around the corner. No sounds rose around me. No heartbeats. None of the immediate noises of life but from my own solitary body. We were in the business district of New Orleans. Closed storefronts, tall office buildings, and ghostly warehouses were all that existed now — empty, waiting walls that would fill again with human noise and bodies when daylight painted the world sunshiny bright once more.

I wondered how Gryphon would have fared had we arrived a few hours later. When the streets were swarming with people, and the thick, heady rush of other blood, not just mine, was near. Wondered and shuddered at the near disaster that could have so easily been. I walked the empty streets, thinking those thoughts and others as I headed toward the French Quarter. Breathing deeply, I savored the thick humid air of Louisiana, warm even now in the winter month of February.

I'm back, I thought. I'm alive. And I couldn't wait to get home.

A cab turned the corner and headed down the street toward me. Only then did I give thought to how I looked, wearing attire that was more suited to attending an opera than walking the streets alone in the twilight hours of a breaking dawn. There was also the matter of how I would pay for the cab ride back home with no money, no purse, or even any visible pockets to hold the money in, should I have had some. I wondered why the cabbie even bothered to stop when I waved him down. Maybe the novelty of such a sight, although this was New Orleans, the home of Mardi Gras. Not much surprised the inhabitants here, I supposed.

The driver rolled down the window. I leaned in and captured his eyes… or tried to. Pain hit me, sharp and jabbing, when I tried to call up power.

"You okay, lady?" the driver asked as I bent over, gasping. He was a middle-aged man in his fifties, with coffee-colored skin and abundant white sprinkled in his dark hair.

"No, I…" Hastily, I tried to come up with a plausible explanation. "My date dumped me. Can you drive me home? I don't have any money on me, but I promise to pay you when we get there." I told him the address.

He looked at me like I was crazy. Not because of the way I was dressed but because I suggested he even do such a thing: drive a woman with no money to a place almost an hour away based on only a promise of payment.

Tears of tiredness, of helplessness, misted my eyes during his long and obvious hesitation. I wondered what I would do if he refused? I didn't even have any money to make a phone call.

"Get in," the driver said gruffly.

"Thank you!" I gratefully climbed into the backseat and closed my eyes in relief and fatigue.

I must have slept.

The driver's voice saying, "We're here, lady," brought me back into waking awareness, and my eyes opened to the beautiful sweeping sight of Belle Vista, the grand plantation house, a mansion really, that was my home now. Maybe it was the near loss of true life that made me see things anew — the grace, the age, the lasting endurance of the house and the surrounding land.

The soaring white columns and granite steps welcomed me now instead of intimidating me. And the people spilling out of the enormous front door twanged another ache in my heart, a good one, blurring my vision with tears. They called my name, shouted it, and I was suddenly in as much rush to reach them as they were to reach me.

I blindly found the door handle, pushed it open. Before I could take even a step, I was swept up in arms almost as big in proportion as the house. Arms that I would know anywhere — Amber, my giant Amber. Other hands touched me and I blindly reached out, touching them in return, laughing, crying, a sobbing snotty mess. I calmed enough to say, "Pay the driver. Tip him well, please. He brought me here, even thought I didn't have any money on me."

Aquila's smiling face swam into my vision. "I'll take care of it," he said, giving my shoulder a warm, welcoming squeeze before moving off to take care of the matter.

I was swept up into Amber's arms and carried inside, back to my home, back to my family.

"Are you all right?" Amber asked gruffly as he carried me into the front parlor. I nodded, my throat squeezed tight with joy, with thankfulness. I almost lost you, I thought. I almost lost all of you.

Instead of putting me down, Amber sank onto the sofa and settled me on his lap, holding me as if he would never let me go again. A hand wrapped itself around one of mine, and my brother's face popped into view. "Thaddeus," I sniffed, wiping the tears from my eyes.

"Don't cry, Lisa."

He was the only one to call me that. Just Lisa, instead of Mona Lisa.

"Got a tissue? Maybe the whole box," I amended, sucking back up some snot about to drip out of my nose. Yup, life was real messy. But being back, being alive, was so damn wonderful!

Jamie's red hair and freckles danced into sight as he thrust a tissue into my hand. I thanked him, brought the tissue to my nose, and honked loudly. We all laughed. His sister, Tersa, pushed a tissue box into my lap. "Thanks," I muttered, hugging her, hugging them both — the Mixed Blood brother and sister of my heart.

Their mother pushed her way forward, tall and sturdy Rosemary, whose heart was as big and as broad as her physical self. "Now, now, lass," she said, patting my hand. "Are you all right? You're not hurt anywhere, are you?"

"No, no. I'm good."

Another hand touched me. Many hands did, but this one I knew, could tell apart from all the others because of the uniquely different electrical energy that danced across my skin in a faint buzz of sensation. I turned and saw Dontaine, met those brilliant jewel green eyes of his, and was staggered anew by my master at arms, so devastatingly handsome. Different from the blunt and craggy roughness of my Amber the way a perfectly cut emerald differed from raw amber.

Dontaine gripped my hand, the soggy tissue captured between us.

"My wet tissue," I protested, embarrassed at the thought of my messy snot smearing those beautiful fingers. His face closed down and I knew that he thought I was rejecting him yet again.

I dropped the wet tissue and grabbed his hand before he could withdraw. The impulsive gesture lit up his face again, in a smile, dazzling bright, that showed pearl-white teeth as perfect as the rest of him.

Chami, my chameleon guard, one of my most dangerous men, though you couldn't tell it from his innocuously youthful appearance, finally asked what everyone wanted to know. "Mona Lisa, what happened to you?"

I told them.

"NetherHell," Tomas, my other guard, said with a touch of horror and awe. "Were you dead then?"

"I thought I was. My heart wasn't beating, and I wasn't breathing. But Gordane said that I was still alive." I told them about the gargoyle and the vast city-state he ruled.

"Did you see Gryphon?" Dontaine asked. He slept now in Gryphon's room, had taken his place as my lover. No surprise that he would ask about Gryphon.

"Yes. He and Halcyon rescued me, brought me back."

"How is Gryphon doing?" asked Amber. Of everyone here, Amber had known Gryphon the longest, been the closest to him.

"He's doing well," I said softly. And he was, for a new demon. I didn't tell them about Gryphon attacking me when we returned to Hell. Or of his blood craze when we came out of the portal. Come to think of it, I'd left out quite a bit, actually.

"How sad to think of Miles, Rupert, Gilford, and Demetrius in NetherHell," Aquila murmured, his comment making me wonder how close he'd been to the other four men. "And how fortunate, but surprising, that they helped you."

Indeed it was, especially since I hadn't told them the part about Mona Louisa being able to emerge and take over my body. "They were Monère warriors, newly dead. It was probably instinctive, coming to a Queen's aid," I said weakly. I know, pretty lame, but it was the best I could come up with on short notice.

"Gargoyles," Thaddeus said excitedly, thankfully changing the subject. "A rogue and a king." He had been spellbound when I had described the gargoyles and what they could do with their touch. "You meet the most interesting people, Lisa."

"Yeah, but I hope I never see them again. I like it just fine here. Being in NetherHell was pretty bloody awful." A yawn tried to overtake me. I fought it back. "How long was I gone?"

"Two days," Thaddeus said, more subdued.

"That long? God, I'm exhausted."

"We can see. Enough," said Rosemary, clapping her hands. "Everybody to bed now. Mona Lisa needs her rest, as do the rest of you. They hardly slept while you were gone, milady."

"I think I could sleep for twenty-four hours." I lost the battle and a huge yawn split open my jaws.

I closed my eyes, just to rest them for a moment, as Amber carried me up the stairs. Before we reached the second floor, I was sound asleep.