Saints of Evil | Trepidation Trilogy | The Empty World Sequence

Twenty-Four

There was this cuckoo bird pecking at her head, peck peck peck.  Valerie felt its tiny beak would break through her skull at her temple.  She tried to swat it away, but the bird said only moved to the other side of her head and laughed, "Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!"  Valerie tried to yell, to tell the bird to leave, but it said, "It's just a dream."

     Valerie realized she was dreaming, and realizing that she gained consciousness.  She raised a hand to her head.  It ached.  She searched her surroundings.  It was dark.  A child cried.  It seemed Brittany Leigh was there.  "Am I in Karachi?"

     "I don't know," she said, it really was Brittany Leigh.  "I was taken from my family's house.  We were all...unconscious when they brought us here.  I was first, and then they brought the boy, Malik and the baby.  No one has even opened this chamber since they brought you." 

     Valerie sat up.  "Eva, where is she?"

     Brittany Leigh leaned close.  "I think there is something more wrong with Eva," she whispered.

     Valerie managed to sit straight and turn around.  Her eyes were adjusting to the dark.  She could see the boy, maybe fifteen, maybe Arabian, vaguely Semitic looking anyway.  He was cradling a small girl in his arms, trying to shush her.  Eva was a ball of black blood-stained fabric in the corner, trembling and crying.  "She saw them cut-off Friedrich's head," Valerie whispered.  She crawled across the floor to her daughter. 

     Eva couldn't stop, Valerie had a good idea what was going on in her head.  This was an hysterical fit...brought on by shock or some such thing.  Valerie attempted to put her arms about Eva, but she swatted Valerie's arms away as if they were annoying cuckoo birds. 

     "Is there any food or water here?" Valerie asked.

     The boy was looking at her.  "You really are Lady Val!" He said, "I thought you looked familiar when I first saw you lift your head."  He was speaking some form of English to her, though he sounded almost Israeli.  Professor Sitchtin had been from Israel. 

     "Yes, I am Lady Valerie of Goth," Valerie told the boy, Malik, "Who are you?"

     "Malik," he said simply, "Malik Josef Jewel."

     "You are one of the Jewels?"

     "Yes, Steven and Helen had Nancy, Nancy and Cameron had Steven, Steven and Amanda had Amber, Amber and Trey had Malik, Malik and Lueticia had Terrence, Terrence and Susan had Camille, Camille and Josef had Malik, that's me."

     "Do all Jewels know their lines of descent?" Valerie asked. 

     "I don't know," Malik said.  "Do you know why we are here?"

     Valerie held a hand to her head, it still hurt.  She spoke as she thought, "Well, you are a Jewel, I am the mother of a Jewel, have been the lover of a Jewel, Eva is my daughter.  Brittany Leigh's family is close with the Jewels..."

     Brittany Leigh made an uncertain hum.  "I knew as they came for me that David had been attacked and burned.  They tried to take my brothers and sisters but it seemed they thought me most important.  And they tried to take Oliver, and he's not so closely related to any Jewels.  The Haven keepers were gone, they'd left to help Sadi and her family.  I think they've done it to get at Sadi and Trip."

     "I've never met Sadian and Trepidation," Malik said, "Neither has Elizabeth."

     "But you are a Jewel, like Sadian and her mother Mara, and the baby, Valor," Valerie said, "I was very close friends with Trip and Mara."