Page 171 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Four

Andreas

I drift from one end of the sitting room to the other, absorbing the scene around me. Letting the impressions settle in my mind in the hopes I’ll understand the itch niggling at me, insisting that something’s out of place.

A thin gray light seeps over the antique wood and ornate upholstery of the room’s furnishings. Silence reigns through the vast villa, nothing reaching my ears but the occasional chirp of a bird outside and the soft rhythm of my own breath.

In the first couple of days after our introduction to Balthazar’s home, I’ve found myself waking up just before dawn and meandering through the rooms. Searching for any clue I can find about the mansion’s owner and associates while I don’t feel quite so monitored.

Of course, for all I know, he’s got hidden cameras covering every inch of this space. He could be watching me right now from his protected office, wondering what I’m up to.

My skin creeps, and I rub my arms. Frustration winds through my chest with a deepening squeeze.

We’ve ended up trapped yet again. Treated like objects for this sick bastard to toy with.

He might say it’s not a game, but he sure seems to enjoy toying with our emotions.

There has to be something I can learn from his chosen residence, though. I can’t believe he set up the whole house just for us to occupy it.

It has a lived-in feel to it, with little traces of human occupation that wouldn’t have been left by someone staging the house for sale. Patches of wear show on the thick rug by the fireplace. Scuffs mark on the floor beneath chair legs that have scraped at the varnish.

And also…

I stop by one corner and take in the room again, trying to avoid any assumptions. Just letting every aspect of it seep into my consciousness.

The niggling sensation expands, and my gaze narrows in on specific objects. That side table between two of the chairs… it has a style that doesn’t quite fit with the others in the room. A little bulkier and clunkier-looking.

A floor lamp in another corner gives me a similar impression—that it’s more modern and industrial than the main vibe of the furnishings. Kind of like the house was mainly decorated by one party, but someone else insisted on adding their own, different touch here and there.

If that’s true, who would Balthazar have let share the responsibility?

I glance around again and sigh. The revelation—if I’m even right—doesn’t get me very far. It could easily simply be the mark of an interior designer handling most of the décor with Balthazar sticking a few of his own purchases into the mix.

But it’s possible he has a collaborator he treats as more of an equal than an underling. Someone he shared responsibility over the décor with.

I have no idea whether that would be a good thing for us or a bigger problem than we’re already facing.

As I’ve done in the other rooms I’ve examined, I move to the sideboards and cabinets along the walls, opening them up to poke around inside.

Here, I find some dusty leatherbound books behind a glass door, a sheaf of blank linen paper in a drawer next to a baggie of faded potpourri… and on the shelves beneath it, a record player with a small stack of records.

My heart skips a beat at the final treasure. I have no idea if the device works, but amid the memories I’ve gleaned from so many minds over the years, I have a visual of how to work the thing.

Riva has gone without music since we arrived here—and I doubt she had much chance to enjoy it on the island either. Once she’s awake, I’ll bring the player to her room and set it up for her.

It won’t make that much of a difference to our situation, but when you’ve got next to nothing, you have to hold on to the little things.

With the small victory warming me, I pad over to the door. Just as I rest my hand on it to ease it open, the faint whisper of footsteps reaches my ears.

I nudge the door ajar just a crack. Peeking through the thin gap, I make out Toni’s tall, slimly toned form striding past me down the hall.

She has no idea I’m here. It’s a perfect opportunity to peek inside the mind of the woman who appears to be one of Balthazar’s most trusted associates.

I train my gaze on her, grateful when she momentarily slows to peer through the doorway of one of the rooms down the hall. There’s no need to narrow my search this first time; I want my first glimpse of her past to be totally unedited.

You never know what might turn up in a person’s head.

A tingle shoots through my eyes, and I careen into a memory.

Riding a bike—a glance down at childishly skinny knees pumping away—adrenaline rushing through her body—hair whipping back from her face as she veers around a turn in the sloping road?—

I jerk my attention away to latch on to some other target.

A classroom, university from the look of the students—a professor droning on while pointing to a projected map at the front of the room—Toni’s pen hissing diligently over the page in her notebook?—

On to the next.

A darkened room, fancy furnishings like the villa but with a more modern feel—picking her way through a mess on the floor that’s a mix of broken glass, puddles of what looks and smells like wine, and torn strips of fabric that might have once been clothing—stance tensed as she tilts her head, listening… for what?

I hold my focus there, intrigued and unnerved. What the hell happened there? What does it have to do with the woman Balthazar trusts?

Does it have anything to do with the man himself or her reasons for working for him?

The past Toni I’m inhabiting edges farther forward, and a ragged wail splits the air from somewhere deeper in the building, beyond her view. She straightens up and?—

The memory shatters. I sway forward, blinking hard to reorient myself to the pale morning light and the peacefulness of the just-waking villa.

Toni has marched out of sight. As soon as I lost my view of her head, I fell right out of her mind.

I grimace. There’s no guarantee I’ll ever find my way back to that specific memory.

Then again, there’s no guarantee it’s anything at all useful to us anyway.

With no further reason to stay hidden in the sitting room, I slip out into the hall and make my way toward the spiral staircase of the eastern wing that’ll take me back to the bedrooms. The sun has brightened outside, so the others will be up soon if they’re not already.

I hesitate as I come up on the drawing room where we spoke to Balthazar—our one and only meeting with the man so far, if you can even call it a meeting when he never entered the room. The quiet beep of the medical machines draws me inside.

Dominic lies as still as ever beneath the plastic case that contains him on the hospital bed. As still as death.

A shiver passes down my spine at the thought. I walk over to him and stand there for a moment, gazing down at him in silent vigil.

I’m aware of stories of miraculous recoveries, stolen from memories of people I passed by or lifted from books and newspaper articles I absorbed. They feel about as useful as a handful of ash.

No story is going to restore our friend to us. I’ve got nothing that would heal him.

As I stand vigil over him, my gut burns with that knowledge. We’re going to get you out of there , I promise in my head, with no idea how I’m going to fulfill the vow. We’re going to get you better. Somehow.

When I turn back to the doorway, I have to suppress a startled flinch at the sight of a figure on the threshold.

But it isn’t anyone I’m upset to see. Ajax treads into the room and comes over to join me.

He looks at Dominic too, with the solemn expression that seems to fall naturally over his dark face. I can’t stop myself from asking, “Can you pick up any thoughts from him?”

Is Dom’s mind still working within his cage of a body? It’s possible the guy I grew up with is already gone, and the figure before us is only a shell, a trick being held over our heads.

I don’t want to believe that.

Ajax adjusts his slender frame as he considers Dominic. He turns to me with an anxious swipe of his hand over the stubble of hair on his scalp. “Not right now. But that doesn’t mean he’s not in there. I’m no good at making the thoughts come.”

That’s fair, even if I can’t suppress a pang of disappointment. “I get it.”

The younger guy opens his mouth and then closes it again as if unsure of what he wants to say. The pang in my chest congeals into guilt.

He can’t be more than fifteen years old. I shouldn’t have put even a little of my hope on his shoulders.

But when he does speak, it has nothing to do with Dominic. His deep brown gaze holds mine intently. “ Your talent—you can reach into memories whenever you want, right?”

I nod. “Yeah. Why?”

Ajax hesitates again and then pitches his voice lower. “I think I saw Balthazar before. A long time ago, when I was really little, back at the old facility.”

My eyebrows leap up. “Really?”

He shrugs awkwardly. “I’m not totally sure. The details are fuzzy. But he gives me the same kind of feeling that man did. Do you think… if you looked in my head, would it be less fuzzy for you? It might be good to know a little more about him.”

A weird rush of gratitude sweeps through me. Ajax might only be partway through his teens, but this isn’t the first time he’s approached me offering something of himself that we could use.

It doesn’t matter how young they are—all of the kids here know what stakes we’re dealing with.

“I might,” I say. “When I go into a memory, it’s always fairly clear. But older or shakier ones are sometimes fragmented and difficult to totally piece together. It’s worth a try. Do you want me to take a look now?”

He draws his chin up as if in preparation—as if he thinks he needs to brace himself. Really, he won’t feel anything at all. “Go ahead.”

So, for the second time that morning, I fix my gaze on someone’s head and let myself tumble in.

Unlike with Toni, I have a clear target in mind. I can focus on a specific person and dredge up only the memories connected to that figure.

Balthazar, Balthazar, Balthazar.

The first images that rise up are from two days ago in the drawing room. I shove those away as soon as I recognize them, not wanting to relive the unnerving confrontation.

I swerve straight into a memory of a brightly lit gymnasium. Ajax is sitting on an athletic mat, the tiny, childish hands of his younger self fiddling with a sliding puzzle.

A broad, burly man has just ambled over to a couple of helmeted guardians who were watching over the kids nearby.

Ajax glances up, adjusting my view through his eyes. The newcomer has his profile to us, and the thick waves that frame his face are all golden-brown with just a few tiny streaks of silver, but I recognize our current captor in an instant.

He’s too far away from Ajax to overhear their spoken conversation. After a brief discussion, Balthazar strolls through the room, veering toward Ajax first.

He says nothing to the boy, just peers down at him for a few seconds before moving onward. But one thought resonates from his mind into Ajax’s, audible as if it were spoken.

What would Peter make of that one?

Nothing else slips from Balthazar to my temporary host. The man prowls on through the room, regarding the other kids in their training—and then one of the guardians marches over to escort Ajax away.

With the dwindling of the memory, I pull myself out, more purposefully than I was able to with Toni. The Ajax of the present peers at me with a mix of apprehension and curiosity.

I offer him a crooked smile. “Thank you. It was him. I’m not sure we can do much with what I saw, though.”

How much is it safe to say about what I’ve learned, when the man himself could be listening in now? He might have worked with someone named Peter—someone whose opinions mattered to him.

It’s probably better if Balthazar doesn’t know what clues I might have gained.

It’s a piece of a puzzle. Who knows when we might find others that would pull it into an enlightening picture?

Ajax smiles back, his posture relaxing. He pauses again before speaking, this time sounding a bit sheepish. “I— You can project memories too, can’t you? Your own. I was wondering…”

He ducks his head and then meets my eyes again, the previous solemnity returning like a shadow falling over his face. “No one will tell me if Devon is okay. I know you don’t know either, but I think it’d make me feel a little better to see him again, even if it’s from before. If you don’t mind.”

Oh, the poor kid. He told me right from the start, when he offered to help us escape from the island, that there was someone he cared about, someone he’d been forced apart from.

During the chaotic couple of days when we were hacking our way through the jungle, it became obvious that he and the other boy were a lot more than friends to each other.

That hectic time was probably the only chance they’d ever had to show their affection without worrying about the guardians intervening.

And then our freedom was torn away from us again. Now none of us has any idea where Balthazar has even stashed the other kids.

I can’t imagine how I’d feel if he’d torn Riva away from me. No, actually, I do have some idea—because that did happen four years ago, after us Firsts made our original escape attempt and the guardians took her away.

It was total fucking agony.

“Sure,” I say. “I’d be happy to. Why don’t you sit down—it’s pretty disorienting.”

As we move to the armchairs in the center of the room, I sort through my memories from our escape from the island for the moments when I saw Ajax and Devon together—laughing, holding hands, leaning on each other.

Will seeing the past really do Ajax that much good? I’m not sure.

But he asked for it, and I can give it.

It isn’t anywhere near enough. What we really need is a new future.