Reflections Of Angels

The Many Things She Told

"I know you seek a two-faced man." Salome said. "He was with you, not long ago. Seeking the key to free himself from what he imagines to be his chains. He shall not find it the way he's going about it."

"That's him." Jace said surely. "It's got to be. He escaped. Where is he?"

Salome chuckled. "Spirited away whilst you weren't looking, then he came back and spirited the girl away in the night too." Her smile was wry and canny. "Find her and you find the three of of them; the man, the girl and the babe."

"What baby?" Jace asked sharply.

Salome didn't reply; in fact, she seemed to look past him, like he wasn't there; to Evelyn, who skulked in the shadows behind. "She knows. For all your waiting and planning for the right moment to tell, and you waited too long. She knows. She knows, and without maternal guidance, she doesn't know how to feel about it." Salome laughed at her own irony. "So perhaps it shall eat at her; perhaps it shall sit in her soul, like many other things, and fester."

Evelyn clenched her jaw and said nothing. That was what Salome was looking for, a reaction; she'd deal with it emotionally once she left. Don't show anything; don't give her anything. A mantra Evelyn knew well.

"But something is coming." The shift in Salome's tone from almost playful teasing and showing off was jarring- as the conversation took a sudden turn. From the distant look on her face, one couldn't help but assume this she was seeing now, at this moment, in her mind's eye.
Suddenly, from where she was sitting, she raised her hands up by her face, eyes closed in a frown, palms turned up and out as if to receive.

Jace shot Alec a look of alarm. "I thought her arms were secured?"

"She keeps getting loose, I'm not sure how."

"From deep in the bowels of the earth- deep in its bones- something awakens." Salome told. "Something that rises to look out with covetous eyes. Something the Noble One buried long ago." Her lips twisted up into a snarl, her voice coming in a hoarse scrape as she spat out the echo that was to be the final word. "Hungry."

"That's it, I'm not having her scratch up our faces again." Jace said, eyeing Salome's savage stone claws. A series of deep-cut gashes on his cheeks spoke to his point. Crossing to her, he and Alec worked to wrangle down her arms.

Shaken from her daze, Salome wriggled and squirmed against them, threatening to fight and bite before she finally complied and relaxed against the chair. Once more she caught Evelyn's eye, and the corner of her mouth twitched a sly smile. "We serve the same great lady. And you have, you have served her."

Jaw set determinedly, Evelyn turned on her heel, and without a word, strode from the place.

A task for my readers, but only if you want a bit of a hint. Which of my own characters names means "Noble" in old German?