La Dolce Vita
By Seniya
C is for Conspiracy
The complete lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working.
Part One
The morning came without much fanfare. The sun leapt out from beneath her night shawl, banishing ebony skies in a flurry of blues, purples and pinks. Starlight scattered and sunbeams descended.
It was the end of summer and as such, there was certain nostalgia in the dry breeze that descended from the line of mountains up north. A wistfulness that could neither be placed nor ignored.
Something was in the air. Perhaps it was something that had always been there, but today, it was stronger, almost tangible.
Something was definitely coming.
She hadn't slept well last night.
Maybe she had dozed off for an hour – two at most. Maybe.
As a result, there was no way to convince herself that any of the wild images now permanently running across her frazzled mind weren't real. There were the screams that echoed endlessly in her brain, the deep yellow eyes that stared whenever she dared to close hers. However, worse than those two combined was the worry that plagued her heavy heart.
Guilt wasn't something that settled. All through the night, her stomach had churned as though it were filled to the brim with bees. She felt sick. Sicker than the bile in her throat and the numbness in her limbs. Sicker still, every time her eyes drifted over to the corner of the bedroom that wasn't quite hers, and saw the golden hilt of that troublesome weapon glinting maliciously back at her.
This wasn't fair.
It couldn't be real.
How did one go from the realm of relative teenaged normalcy to a world of parallel universes, Greek myths and destinies? How did that old Chinese woman and her granddaughter really expect her to absorb all that had happened so docilely? To just go to sleep, wake up and then what? Do it again?
To not worry? To become some self sacrificing hero?
Not for the first time, the idea came to Will to run. There was nothing holding her here. Nothing but the strings of expectation that others had tried to tie her limbs with. She wasn't obligated to anyone. No one would care if she left.
Yet ...
She stayed still.
She couldn't leave without knowing. Lucia and Caleb. Were they alive? Had either of them survived?
The guilt in her stomach lurched again.
If anything happened to either of them, it would be her fault.
There was a thump at the bedroom door. A tired sounding voice followed by another thump. Susan. Usually, a meeting with her mother, especially one at such an early hour would have sent Will into hours of agitation, but right now she couldn't even muster the urge the turn her back to the entrance.
The door opened, allowing the aroma of lotion and hairspray to enter. God bless her mother, Will thought sardonically, the human beauty parlour, even at six in the morning.
"Wilhelmina!" She hadn't bothered to whisper, "there are some people at the door looking for you." The word "people" had been spoken in such a manner that Will knew these guests weren't the social type. Interesting. She didn't know anyone here – except for –
"Who?" But already she knew. Still flat on her back, staring at the ceiling, her stomach churned unhappily once more.
"The Heatherfield Welcoming Committee." Wilhelmina was still fully clothed, sneakers and sweat all over her Egyptian Cotton sheets. Susan resisted the urge to scream, "They're new." And early, she thought to herself, but didn't press the issue any further. "They say it's important."
Like hell it was.
Heatherfield had a welcoming committee did it? The mess of emotions in her stomach seemed to merge in that instant, forming one all together too familiar sensation. Anger.
In one easy motion Wilhelmina got to her feet, the tiredness that had been for hours tugging at her mind seemed to vanish. All of her senses were focused on that doorway, waiting, adrenaline fuelled, for what she knew was coming. Last night she had been in shock, she'd been afraid and she hadn't been able to give the pair the proper beating down that they deserved, but today was different.
"Don't let them in." Her voice had taken that dead calm her mother hadn't yet come to associate with resolution. Her father would know. Her grandparents would. Her mother couldn't. She would learn.
Her feet were unsteady, her heart was knocking so hard against her chest that it threatened to shove her over. "They're in the hall Wilhelmina." Susan stayed still, watching her daughter with a strained look on her face, "This is Heatherfield. We don't leave the neighbours outside to rot."
Rot? They would do so much more than rot.
Forgetting her mother, Will reached behind the door and grabbed the sword by its glistening hilt. Just as she remembered, that ice cold sensation covered her from head to toe and the resolution grew stronger. "Wilhelmina Vandom! Is that a sword?"
Mind made up, Will walked steadily downstairs. She'd force them to take her back to that place. There, she could – do something. She took the stairs two at a time, feet noiseless against the white carpet; her mother, on the other hand, behind her screaming all the way. Her grip on the hilt tightened and she pointed it forward, jabbing the air for emphasis as she yelled. "Listen to me to dirty little bitches. You are going to take me back to where-ever-the-fuck-land and we are going to ..."
Her voice trailed off, the sword dropped to her side. Standing before her in the florescent foyer were two little old ladies. Floral dresses and hairnets. Salt and pepper hair and bifocals. Sandals and white ankle socks. Both with their mouths dropped open, their shivering hands gripping their peach cobblers for dear life.
"Um ..." Will wasn't sure what to say, an apology was in order. Or was it? Who was to say this wasn't a disguise!
She was a second away from knocking off the first woman's hair net before her mother came up behind her and whacked her across her head. "Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Devonish – I cannot tell you just how sorry I am."
Upon seeing Susan, their expressions changed from fear to outrage. Cloudy eyes shifted from mother to child and clearly, drew the same conclusion. The genetics in this family left much to be desired. They spun around as quickly as the arthritis would allow and slowly began to limp their way towards the door.
"I'm sorry," Will felt obligated to apologize, it wasn't their fault at least, although the bubbling anger hadn't ceased. "I-I ... I thought you were someone else."
Her mother was far more vocal in her regret, "She's just having some troubling adjusting that's all. Mrs. Hale – don't tell your daughter about this, please! I-I ... Don't you want to come in and sit for a while ... I could put on some tea."
The opening and closing of a door was the only answer she was to receive. Will, shifted uncomfortably. She'd let her emotions cloud her judgment. That had been a stupid move, waving the sword around. She really didn't know what it was yet. Still, she needed to find those two –
"Do you realise what you just did?" Susan stormed back inside, her curlers had loosed, her face looked pink and strained. When she spoke her hands moved wildly, grabbing at the air, "This will be on the front page of tomorrow's paper mark my words!"
"I said I was sorry."
"Where did you even get that thing from?" Her dark eyes lingered on the weapon. It left much to be desired Will knew; old and rusty with a jagged and damaged blade. The only immediate threat seemed to come from hepatitis. "Is that Thomas'?"
"No."
"Then where did you get it if your father didn't give it to you?"
"I found it."
"Well, un-find it. Quick. I don't what that thing in my house." She had turned away from Will, gone into the kitchen and started to rummage through the cupboards. A few seconds later came the smell of cigarette smoke. "God, I never wanted to start smoking again." She trotted outside and back into the coat cupboard by the door, the stench of nicotine trailing behind her.
Her Dad had smoked too. He usually to ask her permission before though. Will, clutched her sword tighter, intending to shuffle back upstairs and hide it beneath the bed. "Here," her mother carried a guitar case in her hand, "Put it in here, then take it outside and get rid of it."
Will froze. "What?"
"I was serious about that thing, worse now how you're threatening people with it. Get rid of it." Will could see the reasoning behind that; the police if they came, you'd dump the weapon, clean up the scene of the crime. A weird line of thought for a sixteen year old girl, Will knew.
"Okay." She was taking it well, her mother. Will didn't want her to start screaming at her again, she had other things to deal with. She knew exactly where she'd dump it.
"Okay, okay!" Someone was kicking down her restaurant door. "We don't open until one!" Swearing under her breath, Yan Lin pulled off her rubber gloves and willed the stench of rotten eggs away before pulling open the door.
Will stood on her step, looking hassled, her short red hair sticking up in every-which-way, besides down. She had on a wife beater and jeans, flip flops – and more interestingly a guitar case slung across her chest.
Yan Lin rolled her eyes, "If I don't get one who won't knock, I get one who likes knocking too much."
"Gonna invite me in?"
"We were just coming over to get you, actually." She moved aside. Will passed her by, her eyes taking in the simple interior, decorated with plastic tables, wrought iron chairs and paper lanterns. "Had an emergency this morning." Yan Lin closed the door behind her, and the wide room was plunged into an eerie red light.
The smaller lady moved quickly, dodging around chairs and tables with practised ease, before disappearing completely around a dark corridor. "Watch your step, there're stairs."
Down the stairs, around a bend and down another long corridor, all buried in darkness. The place smelled awful, smelled like age and decay and smoke. When Will opened her mouth to speak, the smell flowed over her tongue – tasted like rotten eggs.
"We need to talk about last night."
"I suspect that's the Blade of Kandrakar in that case. Good way to carry it. Cassidy used to carry it in her cello case."
"Did you hear me? I said we need to talk about last night –"
"I heard you."
For all the age the place seemed to emit, there was a distinct lack of dust. It seemed like someplace that was often used, even cleaned. At the end of this corridor, at the left, was a very bright room and that's where Yan Lin went into.
"We need to go back and find that guy and Lucia. It's not that we just left ..."
Will froze. It took some time for her eyes to adjust to the bright light, but even after that, there was no mistaking what she saw. Rather, who.
His eyes were bloodshot, his face scarred almost beyond recognition. There was blood on his shirt, bruises on his hands and his long brown hair was soaked until it coated his scalp. He was sitting at a table, in front of him was a giant ceramic bowl that hissed and steamed, from it came all the smells which Will had previously attributed to the room.
When she entered, he looked up, and through his bruises, he frowned.
Will stammered, feeling ridiculously happy to see that he was, at least, alive in the most basic sense. "Where's Lucia?" She heard herself ask. His frown didn't disappear.
"She brought him to us early this morning." Yan Lin had put her gloves back on, "Put your head back down!" Before he could even think to reply, he was shoved face first into that disgusting liquid.
"What's that stuff?"
"Home remedy. It'll fix his face."
The room they were in was cool, owing to the presence of a standing fan off in the corner. The walls were white and filled with bookshelves, although not many books were on them. Instead there were endless jars, filled with reptiles and birds. There were ingredients; slimy, nasty looking stuff that had seemingly jumped off the pages of Harry Potter.
It was probably best not to ask.
Seeing Caleb here was a definite relief. The knots in her stomach seemed to lessen considerably. "You can sit Wilhelmina."
Will watched for a while as Yan Lin took a cloth and pressed it against Caleb's neck. Then she rushed off to the shelves and plucked down a few more jars. Caleb, for his part, held his face up out of the water, sputtering – Will noticed that at least now, it looked a lot less red. She saw a bar stool at the side of the table, with her guitar case still on her back, she sat.
"Where is the blade?" He gasped.
Will frowned; his gruff voice reminded her of all the injustices she'd been through because of him, she snapped, "I have it."
He muttered something with all that white ooze dripping along his face, it hadn't been spoken in a language she understood. But Will had heard enough rap monologues and watched enough Cinemax to know what he'd said hadn't been nice.
"What happened to your face?"
"What do you think happened, little girl?"
"I'm not a little girl."
"Obviously." He snorted, then raised his bruised hand and brushed his hair from his face, flexing his fingers before he reached for a bottle of what appeared to be whiskey. "You need to give that sword to me. It isn't safe with you. Anyone could come and just snatch it –"
"Down!" Yan Lin was back, this time with snails in hand, she shoved Caleb face first into the bowl. "The Blade of Kandrakar is always safe with its keeper." She gave Will a sideways look, "Wilhelmina has proven herself to be the keeper."
From beneath the foaming mists, she heard Caleb's grunt of disagreement.
"I don't want it." Will muttered.
Yan Lin's eyes widened. "I beg your pardon."
"I said, I don't want it." Caleb raised his head from beneath the ooze, "I-I ... There's been a mistake. I came here to bring it back. Maybe ... you could give it to your granddaughter ..." She trailed off, feeling guilty; obligated.
"It isn't that simple." She patted Caleb on the shoulders, and passed him a towel, "that blade chose you. I'm afraid you don't have much of a say in the matter. If you hadn't wanted it, you shouldn't have touched it."
"It's a sword – how could it choose me?"
"Lucia didn't tell you?" Yan Lin looked smug and then she turned to Caleb and smacked him hard across the back of his head, "You didn't tell her?"
"She's not a guardian! The guardians are old women. Either that or they're all long dead."
"So, what? There can't be new guardians?"
"Well, if she's the standard for entry," Caleb dried off his face and glowered at Will, who glowered back, "Meridian is doomed."
"You can go fuck yourself." Will yelled, before Yan Lin smacked her too, she held the empty jar of snails in front of her face, "There's no swearing in my house. From either of you. This is a swear jar, I think you both owe me fifty cents. Or four snails, whichever is easier for you."
"I don't know what a guardian is." But she was quick enough to realise that it probably involved that white haired man from last night, and that dark, dreary, hopeless place. "I can't even believe this is happening to me."
"It's a bit overwhelming, I can understand."
Overwhelming was an understatement. Yesterday, she had been introduced to the existence of parallel universes, evil princes, magic and destiny. How was she supposed to reconcile this?
"I'm only here for six months. Until my dad ..." She trailed off. No, they didn't need to know all of that.
Yan Lin didn't ask. "The shit hole you went to last night is called Meridian."
"I thought you said no swearing," Will said.
She found herself with another sharp smack being delivered to the side of her head, "There's no smart mouthing either! That costs a dollar and nine snails!"
"Whatever."
"Meridian can look better. It doesn't often but it can." Yan Lin spoke quickly, Will guessed that this would be her briefing, "Earth and Meridian are separated by the veil, there is a balance of good and evil on both sides that must be maintained. It is not your duty to protect Meridian. It's your duty to protect the veil, from both sides. Right now, Meridian is out of balance but back in the two world wars, Earth had too much evil and the imbalance was on our side. You understand."
It didn't make a lot of sense, but Will took the explanation as she heard it. "Who had the sword before me? You told me about Cassidy – but last night you talked about Nerrissa?"
Now, Yan Lin spoke slowly, as though she were searching for the words to explain, "Nerrissa was chosen by the blade. She wielded it for a long time, but ... she grew ..." She bit her lip, and dragged the jar of snails along the table, "It was given to Cassidy after that, and now it's yours."
"But you said that Nerrissa left the sword in the cave. Not Cassidy. Well, actually, you said that you didn't know who had left it. Why didn't you know?" She had a good memory, if nothing else to her credit.
Yan Lin clicked her tongue. She didn't look away, she wasn't afraid of telling Wilhelmina the truth. She had had years and years to go over the events that had led to the dissemination of her group of Guardians. "Nerrissa wasn't like you Wilhelmina. There was never any question in her mind that she wanted to wield that blade. It was her life. When they took it away from her ... Well, she did everything in her power to get it back."
Will bit her lip, she could feel the weight of the sword in the case on her back. It wasn't very heavy; probably ten or so pounds but metaphorically, Will figured it was probably the heaviest thing she'd ever touched. "Where is she now?"
"The Oracles, they're the ones who made the veil, the Heart of Kandrakar and everything else. They choose the Guardians as well. They locked her away in a prison for treason. That was years ago. I-I imagine she probably died in there."
"Sad story," Will mumbled.
"Everyone has their sad stories," Will jumped at the sound of Caleb's voice. She looked up to see him standing in front of her on the other side of the table. His face was all better, although his hands weren't. He'd dried himself off and was frowning at her deeply. "If you truly believe she is the keeper of the blade, then I will teach her how to use the sword."
"I told you that I don't want to –"
"What you want doesn't matter! There're bigger things in this world than you!" His green eyes flashed dangerously.
"You can't make me," There was defiance in her voice, on her face and in her blood, but already her heart was weakening. She could feel herself growing weaker.
"You are a selfish little girl!" He wasn't much older than her, Will could tell, although he acted like it, sounded like it, "Do you have any idea what will happen if you refuse to do this?"
The tension in the room grew tighter, wrapping itself around throats and tongues. Will rose to her feet, intending to put this overgrown boy-scout in his place, but she was stopped by a merry little voice, like the tinkling of bells.
"I'm ready to go over to Lydia Boyce's house!" It was Hay Lin, dressed in a trench coat and newsboy cap. She was her own literal interpretation of a reporter, obviously. "I have some really good questions to ask her. See, I watched Diane Sawyer interview Rihanna." She paused, pulled out a notebook and became serious, "How did that make you feel."
Her grin faded as she looked around the room at all the serious faces. "What's wrong – Hi Wilhelmina! I like your shirt!"
"Well it took you long enough to get ready," Her grandmother scolded.
"I wanted to look convincing," She chirped, Will had never seen someone so happy, "Caleb, your face looks so nice now! Yay!"
"Well, hurry up and go over there and tell me what you see." Her grandmother looked to Will next, "Why don't you go with her. Keep her out of trouble."
"Yeah, come with me Wilhelmina! It'll be so fun!" She was bouncing up and down like a little bird. It was no wonder why she could fly in her Guardian form. "What do you know about zombies?"
Will's mouth dropped open, "Zombies?"
"Go along." Yan Lin was already distracted by putting away bottles and cleaning up the ooze, "And hurry up, no dawdling!"
"Yeah, yeah!" Hay Lin grabbed her new friend, at least in her mind, by the hand and pulled her out the down. Chattering about everything and anything as she moved effortlessly through the darkness.
This, Will knew, would be interesting.
Back inside the brightly light room, Yan Lin turned to Caleb, who stared at the empty doorway with an expression of almost complete ire. "What did she do to you?"
He shrugged his shoulders and flinched almost immediately, "Well, forgive me if the supposed saviour of the world doesn't stand a chance against Phobos."
"They need to be trained."
"We don't have time to train anyone!" He snapped, "Especially people who haven't made up their minds yet!"
"She was chosen for a reason Caleb." Yan Lin carried all her dirty belongings over to a standing plastic sink in the corner, "Last night in the cave, she wanted to go back." She shook her head slowly, "Couldn't do a damn thing but kill me dead, she wanted to go back."
Caleb's expression changed from one of anger to one of confusion.
"That has to mean something."
Had Meridian always been so cold? In truth, Phobos couldn't remember. Most of his childhood had been spent in his bed chambers, with this temperature and comfort always carefully monitored. Sometimes it surprised him to see the skies outside so dark and foreboding, to see the moons so eerie and large. But only sometimes.
Most of the time, he didn't care enough to notice.
Last night he had been excited, but foolish, oh so foolish.
The Blade of Kandrakar had been removed from its resting place. The magic he'd cast on the cave had alerted him to that fact. So he'd gone to the caves to confront the keeper. Foolish, oh so foolish. He should have sent his army instead. He'd forgotten he'd had an army. Foolish, so foolish.
She'd been afraid. Hair like fire, eyes like a lamb. Pretty child, small, so small. He should have chased after her, she was what he wanted, what he needed. He'd become distracted by that idiotic rebel boy and that black skinned witch. She had been gone by the time he was finished with the pair of them. Then, they'd escaped as well. Foolish, so foolish.
Now, he had nothing.
She would be back. Little crimson haired child. Salvation. Sweet salvation.
He would get her next time.
Next time. Next time.
He sat comfortably in his throne, wrapped in furs and blankets. The gold on the throne made it cold. Cold like his father's heart. He mustn't get too cold. Cold made his blood worse, made him sicker. Brought that spectre of death even closer. He laughed to himself, delighted by the echo his voice made in the cavernous room, he'd escape death, his father couldn't, but he would.
He would. He would.
Author: Oh gosh guys, please don't make me feel bad about the updating thing. I try, I do.
School is awful, there are no words. I'm on winter break now, so I'm trying to do as much as possible. The next chapter will be up as quickly as I can write it. Next chapter we get into the meat of the matter, zombie hunting and such .
I don't really have a full fledged plot to say. Just a general idea of where this is going. That's been another reason for the delays – but I'll work it out. Suggestions are always welcome.
Happy 2010!