Mona Lisa Eclipsing

SIXTEEN

I WAS WALKING, I told Dante. Better my feet than the torture of riding him again.

“You might enjoy riding me later, when we have a condom,” he said with gleaming eyes, pulling me to my feet.

An intriguing prospect. “Another promise?” I asked. Pulling off my borrowed shirt, I waded into the stream to scrub it clean.

“At least as good,” he said, lips curving in a hint of a smile. “Maybe even better.”

“Promises, promises.” I splashed him with water and he retaliated. I squealed and he laughed, and we frolicked in the water for a bit. And that was almost as much a marvel to me as sex with Dante had been.

My lover, I thought, running my eyes over him in wonder as we resumed our journey, walking at an easy pace, holding hands. He was unabashedly comfortable with his nudity, with good reason. There was nothing to be embarrassed about with a body like that.

“Eyes forward, you shameless wench,” Dante said, amused at my frequent sideways peeks at him, “or you’ll get me too stirred up to walk comfortably.”

“Would serve you right after teasing me with that comment about riding you.”

“I’ve created a sex fiend,” he said in mock dismay.

“That you have,” I said, surprised at the truth of it. It was a bit mind-blowing, going from thinking myself frigid to eagerly looking forward to the next time we could make love.

“How are you doing with the sun?” I asked.

“As long as we stick mostly to the shade, I’ll be fine,” he said, reassuring me.

We eventually came to a thriving town nestled against the blue waters of the sea, a wonderful breath of comfortable, bustling civilization. It was a modestly affluent community with paved streets, groomed lawns, and waving palm trees.

“Wait here.” Dashing into an empty backyard, I snatched some clothes drying on a line, sending a silent apology to the owners.

We dressed: Dante in a T-shirt and baggy shorts, and a pair of loose trousers and a fresh shirt for me. I rolled up the sleeves and knotted the loose ends of my borrowed shirt at my waist. There. American tourists. Although the bare feet did look a bit odd.

Dante bespelled the first fellow tourist we came across, his blue eyes lightening into true silver as he captured the man’s will with a glimmer of power. “What town is this?”

“Corozal,” the man replied.

“In Mexico?”

“No. In Belize, Central America.”

“How far to the Mexican border?”

“About nine or ten miles north.”

A murmured request from Dante, and the man pulled out his cell phone, dialed the number Dante gave him, and handed him the phone.

“Hello?” answered a voice.

“Dad, it’s Dante.”

After eliciting twenty dollars—they accepted U.S. currency here—Dante thanked the man and sent him on his way with instructions to forget meeting us.

“Aquila will be here in an hour,” Dante said. “The rest will be along as soon as they can.”

“Is Aquila the bird man?” I asked.

“Bird man? Ah, you mean the eagle shifter.” He eyed me pensively. “You still have no remembrance?”

“Only a few things. I’m not sure if they’re true memory or something I dreamed up. I wanted to ask you about them, but not here,” I said, looking around the crowded street. “So what will it be? Shoes or something to eat and drink?”

Our stomachs won out over our tender feet. We chowed on fish, rice, and beans at the nearest restaurant and quenched our thirst with a pitcher of water, so hungry we didn’t speak at all until we were finished eating.

“Eleven dollars left,” Dante said, sitting back, replete. “I think we have enough to buy you some shoes. Shall we?”

We were able to pick up some cheap sandals for both of us, and made our way more comfortably to the waterfront where we sat on a stone bench overlooking the bay, watching the sun set in a majestic splash of color beneath the shade of a rustling palm.

“It’s hard to believe that hours ago we were running for our lives,” I murmured, head resting on his shoulder. “Humans seem to be much more civilized than the Monère.”

“We can be a primitive bunch,” Dante agreed, arm draped around me, fingertips stroking the bare skin of my arm. “But I beg you not to judge all Monère by what you saw of Mona Sierra and her people. That was, indeed, truly primitive. We have more ruled order in America, and our conditions are not as meager as what you saw here.”

It was the perfect segue into what I had wanted to ask him. “Is it? In one of my . . . I don’t know what to call it . . . flashbacks, maybe, I saw a young teenage boy starved even more than those hunters were, and appearing even more wild. He was shackled to a wall and wore only torn trousers. His body was unwashed. His hair was so matted with filth I couldn’t tell its true color, and he smelled of urine, like he’d been chained there for days. Was that something that really happened?”

“I cannot say for sure, but there is a young Mixed Blood boy I saw you with, whom you said had been abandoned in the bayous and grew up feral. When I saw him, however, he was clothed, his hair washed and combed.”

I chewed over his words. Nothing conclusive, but disturbingly possible. I moved onto my next vision. “Then there was you. Pretty much like how I described the boy—half-naked, wild, shackled to the wall.”

“Ah,” said Dante. “That was true memory. You saw me in my maddened state.”

True memory. The words jarred me. I had suspected, but to have someone confirm them as truth was still a shock.

“Do you remember anything else of our encounter?” he asked.

“No, just that brief glimpse. It was triggered when I came to rescue you from Roberto and found you chained up.”

“And enraged. Similar to how you saw me before. Any other memories?”

“Yes. This one, though, was the most disturbing. The moon . . . I was pulling down light from the full moon. Pulling it into myself. Drinking it down like this amazing cocktail of energy. Was that real?”

“Very real. You are describing Basking, what you and other Monère Queens are able to do: pull down the moon’s renewing light and energy. Take it into yourselves and share it with others around you. Only Queens can do this. That’s what makes you so valuable to our people.”

“So Mona Sierra has this ability also?”

Dante nodded.

“Why is that so valuable?”

“Because it renews us and allows us to live a full span of life—three hundred years.”

“Three hundred years!” I squeaked. “You’re kidding me.”

“No, milady. I kid you not. Without Basking, we age faster and our lives are shortened to a human life span, which is why my brother and I are more physically mature than other Monère boys our same age. We were raised up among humans and never Basked in a Queen’s light until you.”

The questing brush of another’s presence, distant yet, interrupted my next question. My head lifted from his shoulder as I felt Dante’s own power flare out in response.

“Your friend?” I asked.

“It is Aquila,” Dante replied after the briefest pause.

“Why did you hesitate?”

“Because Aquila is not my friend,” Dante said, looking out over the water.

“Why? Do you dislike him?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Because I left you.”

We had danced delicately to this point once before. “Why did you leave me?” I asked.

“Because you desired that I go.”

“Why, Dante? I can’t remember any of it. You’ll have to tell me.”

“We . . . hurt each other,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “Both of us had the finest intentions, but we wanted different things. And then another matter crept between us, and after that yet another incident.”

“Dante.” I waited until his face turned to me. “You’re saying a lot of things, but you’re telling me nothing.”

Aquila’s presence grew stronger. He was visible now in the sky.

“I’m afraid to tell you,” Dante said in a low voice. “Afraid to help you remember. Afraid that I’ll lose you again when you do.”

Whatever it is, now wasn’t the right time to probe further, I noted in frustration as an eagle, large and graceful, clutching a cloth bundle in its talons, landed behind a building a hundred feet away. “It never seems to be the right time. But you’ll have to tell me soon.”

“Soon,” he promised.

“I’ll hold you to that,” I said as a man emerged from behind the shed, his feathers exchanged for clothes. I looked with interest at the neat, thin mustache and the Vandyke beard, wondering if it would trigger any more memories, but no flashbacks occurred.

“Aquila, I presume,” I said as he approached.

“My lady, are you well?” Aquila asked, both relief and consternation on his face.

“Much better than how I was faring a few hours ago.”

“Dante says that you do not remember any of us.”

“Nope, sorry. Hit my head real hard and can’t remember anything of the last several months.” Despite the easy way I spoke, I was far from blasé about it. “How long before the others arrive?”

“They should be along shortly. They’ll be arriving by helicopter.”

“Do you have any money?” I asked.

“Yes, milady.” He pulled out a small wad of cash, to my vast delight.

“Good. Let’s go do some shopping, and we’ll fill you in on what happened.”

We gave Aquila a brief rundown as we purchased some better-fitting clothes, along with bra and underwear for me—luxury items I’d never take for granted again. We also got sneakers for the both us, even more essential than a bra and underwear.

“The better to run in if we need to,” I quipped, lacing them on.

Aquila looked quite pale after hearing us recount our adventures, and remained sharply alert when I returned our borrowed clothes back to the clothesline. The twenty dollars from the tourist looked like it was going to be a permanent donation, however. There was no sign of him.

The whop-whop-whop of a helicopter headed us back to the waterfront to await its arrival, drawing a crowd of curious onlookers as it landed like a giant metal gnat on the rippling green lawn.

“Quentin’s here,” Dante said. Even though he spoke in a normal tone of voice, I was still able to hear him over the noisy whirling of the helicopter blades.

“Who’s Quentin?”

“My twin brother.” With a broad smile, the first time I had ever seen Dante smile so openly, he stepped forward to greet his sibling. The young man who jumped out of the landed craft was seriously good-looking, I noted, with a face like a male model. They embraced with a quick, hard hug.

The wattage in the young man’s grin rivaled the brilliance of the sun. “Milady. Aquila,” Quentin said, greeting us easily. “Let’s get on board.”

Dante’s father and another man I didn’t recognize were seated in back. I climbed in and took the seat next to the stranger while Dante slung himself into the last seat beside me. Quentin and Aquila sat in front next to the pilot.

As soon as we were all buckled in, we lifted back into the air.

“I know you’re Dante’s father,” I said to the large man sitting on the end, deliberately leaving the headset off so the pilot couldn’t hear us. “But I don’t remember your name.”

“I’m Nolan, milady. Nolan Morell.”

“Where’s the other guy? The one who could turn invisible?”

“Chami’s waiting for us back in Mexico,” Nolan said. “The helicopter could only fit six besides the pilot.”

I glanced at the man next to me who had been watching us silently. He had dark hair and eyes and his skin was deeply tanned like the Mexican natives here. His dark coloring was offset by the white silk shirt and the tan leather gloves he wore, lending a quiet, subdued elegance to his otherwise average appearance.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a loud voice, thinking him human like our pilot, as I peered more closely at his face. “You seem oddly familiar. Do I know you?”

It seemed as if all breath suspended inside the craft for a moment.

“My name is Halcyon,” came the quiet reply, as if the man knew he didn’t have to raise his voice above the noisy thrumming to be heard by me.

Halcyon . . . I had heard that name recently. Then it came to me—when and where, and why he had seemed familiar. “This Halcyon?” I asked, lifting out the necklace I wore around my neck with the cameo that bore the face of the man sitting next to me. The face I had seen briefly in flashback.

“Yes.”

His confirmation threw my world spinning topsy-turvy once more.

I wanted to make him clarify exactly what he was confirming—that he was what Dante had called him, a demon. But I couldn’t, not with Dante’s other words echoing in my ears.

The woman before you is the High Prince of Hell’s chosen mate.

“The woman” being me.

I swallowed with a mouth that was suddenly dry as I turned to Dante and asked, “This is the Halcyon you were talking about?”

Dante nodded. “Yes.”

“I thought you were making all that stuff up to try and scare Mona Sierra.”

“No,” Dante said, all his joy over seeing his brother draining away into familiar grimness. “I made nothing up. Everything I said was true.”