Chapter 57: Chapter 57

The news barely crossed my mind and it was, in any case, impossible for me to think about it because Thomas opened the door to the stairwell smiling. He walked over to Seb Bassot and thanked him for some service and must have said something funny because everyone laughed. He gave me the feeling of knowing the Elvis group well when he shook the hand of Faycal. He came over to me and kissed me on the cheek before giving Carmichael an unwelcoming nod. His kiss left a warm trace on my skin and I bit my lip realizing the situation I was in. Thomas, my first boyfriend, was standing three feet from Carmichael, my… new boyfriend. But could Carmichael really be called a boyfriend? The idea seemed ridiculous to me considering his powers, his status among the castes, and the X-rated images that came to mind. And above all, he wanted to live with me. I realized that Thomas was going to know everything, this prospect made me anxious, especially since I now remembered having seen him only once since my death and had barely given him a look.

“You look much better,” he said, his enduring devastating dimple at the corner of his lips.

“I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“You didn’t tell her,” Thomas called out to Carmichael.

So I understood. I looked up at Carmichael who was already staring at me. I met his gaze and immediately guessed his intentions. He was testing me! If he hadn’t told me that Thomas would be present, it was only to observe my reaction. There was a silence before I placed my hand in his. Thomas had a brief moment of recoil watching the scene but had no time to react more because Gregory made his appearance.

He too cringed when he saw my hand in Carmichael’s, but then he grinned. He took a step forward without seeming to have the slightest fear in his stomach. There was a silence. Carmichael removed his hand from mine and took a step forward. This gesture surprised me, so I imitated him.

“Something is happening,” Carmichael whispered, “beware.”

Gregory hadn’t changed. His face still inspired fear. His transparent blue eyes and red hair pulled back in a ponytail accentuated his robust figure. I suddenly felt nauseous seeing the man who had already escaped me once. Anger flared in my veins and it was soon fury. Dust began to rise from the ground and swirl around us. But Carmichael was right, he would never show up like this without an escort. No matter how much I looked around, I still couldn’t see anyone. Elvis and his gang stayed behind on the advice of Johnny, who preferred to attend the show. On the alert, Mohamed Belhak was hot as embers. The desire for a fight could be read in his eyes as he positioned himself alongside Thomas. You could feel the palpable tension in the silence that followed Gregory’s appearance. I was trying to control myself but the urge to smash him was the strongest. Carmichael held my hand. Patience. Silence.

Thomas broke it first and attacked Gregory head-on. Spinning at the speed of lightning, he was suddenly stopped a metre from the big redhead and thrown violently back. He got up with difficulty, looking, like all of us, for the author of this invisible wall. I realized that only a telekinetic like me could erect that kind of barrier. And this caste must have had great powers because I knew that it wasn’t easy to hold a wall without being in sight of your enemies. Gregory laughed and cast his sinuous gaze in my direction.

“So, Baby, you finally slept with your Master Hand?!”

“Shut up!” Carmichael spat in a bloodcurdling voice.

“Sir is offended, it seems, admit that it bothers you to know that I fucked her before you!”

Gregory didn’t snicker for long, because hearing him call me Baby had already warmed up the rest of my senses. The burst of anger that reached my brain encouraged me to move forward and focus all my attention on the opponent’s invisible wall and try to break it. Gregory remained completely motionless when he saw me collide barely a metre away from him. I couldn’t go any further, he burst into a demented laugh and put his hand to my chest as if he wanted to feel it under his fingers again. I gathered my energy and focused my mind on my rapist. The fury that his sight inspired in me made me gain a few centimetres. He was smiling, but when I jerked my leg forward, his confidence crumbled, and he turned his head to his left. I spun around and met Naomi’s face. The gorgeous blond in a white tunic dress stalked forward. She had difficulty containing her barrier against my breakthrough, but even if her presence here proved unexpected and her powers revealed more than extraordinary, I didn’t forget that Gregory was my main objective. The problem with Naomi would come after, I refocused in my flesh each particle of power, and before Gregory could react, I imprisoned him in an invisible net. A fierce grin twisted my face.

“What are you doing, Naomi!” Thomas shouted behind me.

“Don’t get involved!”

She was almost crying as she said her words, but I paid little attention to her, my eyes transcended with hatred staring at Gregory. There, floating in front of me, he had no fear. It looked like he was seeking his death. Carmichael came to my side and looked at me.

“Free his head,” he said, his tone calm.

I obeyed, while I heard Thomas go in the direction of Naomi a few metres further. Carmichael put a hand on Gregory’s forehead as he tried to pull away. I saw a change in his eyes, he started clenching his jaw and then wanted to scream. I held his mouth shut as he suffered in agony. Each of his marks of suffering reminded me of those I had suffered because of this man. Carmichael turned his eyes to me, raised his hand to Gregory’s head, and I had no emotion when I saw him experience his last heartbeat. Breaking the net that held him, Gregory collapsed, dead, on the tarmac. I took Carmichael’s hand, looked at the corpse, and crushed it to dust. The place where his body was earlier now formed a huge hole in the middle of the roadway.

“NAOMI, STOP!” yelled Thomas.

I turned around and was surprised to see Naomi a few feet away from me. Taken by surprise, I was ejected backwards. I landed on my back and the impact forced the air out of my lungs. I got up with difficulty, but the hatred that Gregory had inspired in me still animated me, so I ran towards Naomi and broke her last defences. I grabbed her by the neck and, fed by an unnamed strength, I lifted her with one hand. She looked at me in horror as a pain in my hand made me cry out. Carmichael and Thomas ran into my invisible wall. Filled with anger, I remained closed to their requests to lower my shield. The skin on my right arm crumbled, and I let out another howl of pain. I heard windows open, so I gathered my strength and levitated us to the building porch out of sight. I dropped her there and watched her. Naomi, a strange gleam in her eyes, looked at me with contempt and the concentration she put on her extraordinary power could be read in the folds of her forehead. How could she have acquired this gift that she had never had, and why was she using it against me? I glanced at my right arm and the sight frightened me, the skin was ripped off and the pain was unspeakable.

“What happened to you?!” I cried. “Speak!”

“Naomi, please… stop,” said Thomas, who arrived with Carmichael.

She continued to stare at me without saying a word. The silence hanging on her lips gave me time to think. What was I going to do? Naomi was the mother of little Guillaume and Thomas was attached to her despite what he wanted people to believe.

“NAOMI, NO!” yelled Thomas.

She threw herself on me. I stopped her but she managed to pull herself back and focus more. I let out a scream as I felt my skin tearing all over. Naomi was using my powers! Furious, I rushed at her, stopping dead a few centimetres from her face. Frozen, I smiled fiercely at her and then pulverized her. Blood squirted over my body, but the rest of her blood remained contained in the air. Coldly, I gathered the liquid into a red sphere and vaporised it into a fine red mist. Covered in blood, I turned to meet the gaze of the others. Thomas, pale, seemed not to breathe. Elvis and Johnny looked at me, motionless, and their startled eyes examined me from head to toe. Carmichael walked over to Elvis and Johnny and whispered in their ear. Behind them, the neighbourhood came alive. I barely had time to slip behind the building and was followed by Carmichael and Thomas.

Johnny and the others came to join us but instinctively stayed away from me.

“Thank you all,” said Carmichael; “Elvis, your friends here are welcome at Mortain.”

“Can I talk to you, Elvis?” I asked him, still covered in blood.

He didn’t hesitate for a second before advancing in my direction and I felt a shiver pass through his friends when they saw him coming toward me. The blood was starting to dry on my skin, except for the blood from my wounds. The pain was bearable but my legs were shaking as I pulled Elvis aside.

“Do you want to stay here?” I asked him, while he looked surprised.

“How do you know?”

“At the ball, I had already noticed.”

“What?”

“You never felt at home in Mortain.”

“Yeah, but I can’t leave the vineyard and my father, you understand?”

I understood but his world had always been the suburbs.

“Your father will understand! When I return to Mortain I’ll speak to him.”

He smiled wider, took me by the waist and carried me in his arms before pressing me against him. His clothes soaked in blood and mine in tatters almost failed to withstand his onslaught of joy. He set off again in the direction of Mohamed, who, at the time, took him for a madman. I joined Thomas who remained motionless sitting on the grass.

I watched Thomas and knelt beside him.

“I’m sorry.”

His transparent blue eyes stared at me without emotion. He was still in shock at what he had seen and especially at what it implied for him and for the life of his son. My heart sank and the guilt brought tears to my eyes. They flowed and dug pink furrows on my cheeks.

I took Thomas’ hands in mine. A minute later I turned around, Carmichael was already gone. A moment passed before the feeling of having had a limb amputated slipped from my thoughts. I came to my senses when I saw Johnny approach with a blanket and take me with him to Seb Bassot’s apartment. The stairwell was now deserted. I was able to take a shower and Johnny helped me to dress my wounds. My entire right arm was wrapped in a bandage and he put sterile compresses on my lacerations. Under one eye, a gash dug the top of my cheek. Others were taking shape on my chest, on my legs, on my back and all the rest of my body. I was just a giant wound.

We had left the city around five o’clock in the morning and had taken a taxi to London, Kings Cross train station. Johnny called the castle and we took our reservations at the counter for the first train to Edinburgh. Thomas remained silent as we walked to the platform. Once the seats were taken, I was happy to see that the carriage was almost empty.

“What time will we arrive?” Thomas asked.

“In five hours,” answered Johnny.

“That gives us time to talk a little, then.”

Thomas’s sentence surprised me and I looked at him, puzzled.

“Your resurrection hasn’t weakened your powers,” he said, without an ounce of resentment in his tone.

I didn’t know what to say because the image of Naomi’s blood splatter resurfaced in my brain, along with the guilt that went with it.

“How did she get your powers?” said Johnny.

“That’s the question I asked myself all night,” I said in a whisper.

“She was determined to kill you, you had no choice.”

Thomas’s words echoed in my head and warmed my heart. They weren’t going to erase my guilty feelings, but they eased my conscience a little. This discussion went on for a while, but neither they nor I could come to a solid conclusion. The only certainty we shared was that we were missing an element in this story because the coming of Gregory and Naomi to the city looked more like a suicide than a prepared attack. I would have liked to share these impressions with Carmichael. I missed him and couldn’t help but think of him whenever silence permitted.

“So you’re going to become his queen?” said Thomas.

“What?!” I replied, not sure I understood correctly.

“Carmichael didn’t tell you?” Johnny asked me.

“Tell me what?”

“The vision of the Hanlons, the evening of your death!”

“What are you talking about?!”

So Johnny told me the whole story while Thomas kept watching my reactions. But I had none when I learned of the events that followed my death. Eric had fired and I had fallen dead in the middle of the garden courtyard. Thomas grabbed his gun and Eric passed out never to wake up again. I caught the desperation in Thomas’ eyes when Johnny brought up this part. Blake had killed Morgan and Carmichael had thrown himself on my corpse. The Hanlons came out of their hiding place and did the same, Abigail wept over my remains. After Morgan’s death, the fight continued, Johnny watched, devastated, the spectacle behind a window in the south tower. The Mortain troops quickly took over and Johnny was finally able to come down and see the spectacle of my body with his horrified eyes. The enemies were already all dead and a circle of allied castes formed around my prone body. Carmichael had his hands on my head and yelled at Prisca to come and do the same. Their efforts were in vain, but the Master Hand wasn’t giving up when Abigail suddenly started screaming like a lunatic. Suddenly she stopped and fixed her vacant eyes on Carmichael. Nicolas was in a trance like his sister, and Thomas caught him in his fall as soon as the vision had left his mind. Dead silence reigned in the corpse-strewn courtyard as the brother and sister regained consciousness and then exchanged a puzzled look.

“Tell your vision!” Carmichael ordered Nicolas, who was barely recovering from what he had seen.

“We saw…,” he stammered when Abigail cut him off.

“… Everliegh crowned queen!”

Her words trailed off for a moment and it was Prisca who broke the silence by grabbing Abi by the arm. She summoned her to say more.

“Explain exactly what you saw.”

“She was as alive as you and me, I swear!” continued Abigail confidently. “All dressed in white and gold, she was crowned queen alongside Carmichael, a gold diadem resting on her long black hair. The image is imprinted in my head.”

“It’s true,” her brother asserted.

“It’s impossible!” cried Thomas. “She’s dead!”

Carmichael and Prisca exchanged a knowing look before the elder Burton Race addressed Caleb and Salomon.

“Take Eric to one of the chambers in the Pomona room, lock him up and ensure that he receives the necessary care. The others, meet us in an hour in the room for an exceptional meeting.”

I had been transported to one of the rooms in the south wing. Johnny stayed with my body before going to settle in a corner of the Pomona room to listen to the meeting. No one had noticed his presence. Meanwhile, Thomas had joined his brother, who showed no signs of waking up. He made sure that Carmichael’s orders for his care were followed and joined the Pomona room as soon as the meeting began.

Carmichael and Prisca sat at the head of the huge round table, surrounded by Salomon, Caleb, Monica and Mas Andrès, Alysson who couldn’t stop crying and the Hanlons who now had the definitive honour of attending the council.

Everyone was surprised to see the absence of Blake and Ethan, but Caleb said he saw my brother run away with a demented look when he discovered me dead. My heart sank thinking of him. Did he know that I had come back alive? If that was the case, he would soon return to Mortain to meet me there, I was sure of it.

The council showed signs of agitation. Nobody could utter an intelligible sentence in front of Carmichael’s mute presence. The Six’s irruption, Morgan’s abortive attack, my death and the disappearance of Blake and Ethan made them all very nervous. The Master Hand tried to refocus the debate and silenced the assembly while other castes came to attend the discussions.

“There’s no doubt about Eric’s guilt,” said Salomon to Carmichael, “but why would he do such a thing?!”

“I see no explanation,” replied the Master Hand, “unless he was subjected to a powerful telepathic power.”

“It can only be that,” said Thomas, “he would never have hurt Eve! He loved her!”

His revelation left a silence during which Carmichael clenched his jaw. I had to credit Johnny with his talent for telling stories and remembering the most striking details. Through his words, I almost felt like I was there with them that night in Mortain, and hearing Thomas’ confessions to the council from his mouth pulled me out of my thoughts. Thomas scrutinized me and I lowered my head, refusing to have to face in his eyes all the hurt with which I overwhelmed him. Everything was my fault or happened because of me. His meeting with me had brought him nothing but problems, and yet he was still by my side in this carriage heading for the north. Johnny continued his story, so I plunged back into the memories of that disastrous evening.

“Everliegh will rest in one of the chambers of the castle,” declared Carmichael, “her coffin will be placed alongside Eleonore Burton Race and Elisabeth Darville.”

“She will come back,” murmured Abigail, who didn’t budge from her strange vision.

“We will see.”

Carmichael had spoken his last words and asked the whole assembly to separate, but Salomon decided otherwise.

“You know how much respect I have for you, my friend,” he said in the direction of the Master Hand, “but do you realize what the Hanlons’ vision means?”

“I dare not believe it.”

“If she comes back,” continued Salomon, “if she isn’t dead and becomes your queen, then it will be our best weapon against the Six, and you know it!”

“We are not there.”

“But we will be there, Carmichael,” adds Salomon, who knew his master well enough to know what limits not to exceed. “And when they want to carry out their plan to submit us all, we’ll have to be ready.”

“Her corpse is still warm.”

Carmichael had withdrawn with these last words. Johnny had understood that the Master Hand refused the hope of my resurrection in case the Hanlons had been wrong. They were so young, after all.

“I wasn’t aware of all that,” I declared, realizing that Johnny had finished his story.

“So what have you been doing all this time?!”

Johnny’s question was on point, and Thomas’ growing attention made me squirm in my chair.

“I learned to live again.”

“And you’re with Carmichael now?” asked Thomas, when this sentence seemed to rip his tongue out.

“I suppose.”

I almost whispered but neither of them made any comment. Thomas turned his gaze to the window of the train and his eyes were lost in the horizon.

Why didn’t Carmichael tell me? I was still wondering when a car came to pick us up at the exit of Edinburgh station. Thomas remained silent throughout the journey and Paul, the steward of the castle, took us back to Mortain. It was only when I passed through the huge portal that my heart calmed down. In front of the huge door in the centre of the facade stood Carmichael, as when I saw the building for the first time.

Ignoring the questions that had been nagging at me since my train journey, I quickly joined him and snuggled into his arms. His look of satisfaction in the direction of Thomas escaped me as I found warmth in contact with his skin. Johnny took his new canary-yellow Lamborghini and headed for the vineyard to find his father. Thomas left us without a word in the direction of the lake.

“We have to talk, you and me,” I say to Carmichael.

He smiled and carried me to his top-level apartments before I could hold him back. He undressed me and took me to the bedroom. A huge bed sat in the middle of the totally circular room. A flaming fireplace warmed up the atmosphere of this cosy and unusual place. The light was naturally dim as thin windows let in the sunlight to this ancient room. The room had kept a medieval aspect through its vaulted stone ceiling. The walls were draped in tapestries of red, white, and bronze colours. Two chests of drawers were attached to the walls, there was also a dressing table and a free-standing bathtub like the one I had in my suite, the Eleonore.

A queen’s bedroom, I thought as my lord laid me down on the bed.