I had no clue what in the hell Bram was going on about and I didn’t even realize I was holding my breath until I exhaled. “So you actually believe my father thinks there isn’t anything weird going on with you?”
“That is my belief; yes,” he finished succinctly.
“My father is more than a little paranoid,” I continued, wondering if Bram was simply deluding himself into believing that Melchior wasn’t in the know. “He has his own people followed, as well as their phones tapped.”
Bram nodded as if this were old news. “Yes, he does.”
I raised my eyebrows in a rendition of “Well?”
“I am not one of his people,” he answered while shaking his head as if I were slow. Well, call me slow, but I wasn’t going to allow this conversation to end until I fully understood exactly where Bram stood with regard to Melchior O’Neil.
“Then what are you to him?”
Bram cocked his head to the side as he pondered my question. Then he faced me again. “To understand our partnership, it is best to explain from the beginning.” He cleared his throat as his eyes focused on something behind me. Pausing another few seconds, he glanced at me again as he sat up straighter, dropping his hands to his sides and clearing his throat again. He looked like he was about to deliver a soliloquy.
“I met your father long before he came into power,” he started, and his English accent suddenly sounded more aristocratic. “Melchior and I were first introduced as business associates, something which eventually grew into a partnership. In the beginning, we merely dabbled in importing and exporting, but it later turned into illegal potions smuggling after your father decided to become head of the ANC.”
“My father was the head of the ANC?” I asked in surprised disbelief. The connection between the ANC and street potion trafficking was pretty obvious—the ANC was supposed to stop potion smuggling and confiscate all contraband, relinquishing it to ANC custody. My father, as head of the ANC, would obviously have had unlimited access to all the contraband, which he’d obviously chosen to recycle.
Bram nodded. “Of course, Sweet. One cannot become the head of the Netherworld without first becoming the head of the ANC.” After another theatrical breath, he continued, “Once your father achieved his dream as frontrunner of the ANC, he grew quickly bored with it, and later affixed his sights on becoming the leader of the Netherworld.”
“So how do you figure into all of this?”
“Once again, you interrupt me, Sweet. I was about to segue into that very subject.” He frowned at me, but continued his narrative, thank Hades. “I was already a very wealthy man in my own right, long before I met your father. The truth is that your father never intended to create a partnership with anyone, but he needed my money, and we were both well aware of that fact. Hence, the partnership began and, as the years went by, we both became increasingly well-to-do, although I accumulated much more wealth than he.”
“Why was that?” I asked, realizing I was interrupting him, but not really caring.
“Because as an established businessman, and a prudent one at that, I withheld my investment unless I received a larger share of the entire pie.”
It was starting to make sense. Melchior needed Bram more than Bram needed Melchior. So while Melchior did all the legwork necessary to rise to the top of the ANC, before becoming head honcho of the Netherworld, Bram simply relaxed and profited from the illegal potions money rolling in. Yep, Bram wasn’t lying when he said he was a prudent business man.
“So after becoming leader of the Netherworld, why didn’t my father just do away with you?” I asked the obvious.
Bram laughed at the idea, shaking his head as if the question were absurd. “It is not so simple to ‘do away with me,’ as you so artfully phrased it.” His subsequent frown told me he didn’t find my question particularly polite.
I, however, couldn’t have cared less. “Okay, so from your story, it sounds like you were and still are in the perfect situation,” I started, eyeing him narrowly. “So why end it by aligning yourself with us, with The Resistance? Why put an end to something that’s obviously benefitted you so nicely?” I finished, glancing around myself and taking in his exquisite home. “I mean, this gorgeous estate, all your cars, No Regrets, all your women … why would you want all of that to end?”
Bram sighed and looked away from me. He tapped his fingernails against the table again as he zoned out on the dark night beyond the window. I followed his gaze and watched the stars twinkling alongside the crescent moon.
“I suppose you might say I turned over a new leaf,” he said softly.
“How so?”
He shrugged as he returned his attention to my face. “Yes, this is all fine and well, but even I can be subjected to bouts of … remorse.”
I frowned at him, taking a deep breath and shaking my head in disbelief. “You really don’t expect me to believe that you feel guilty now, so you want out?” I didn’t give him the chance to respond. “Because I don’t buy it, not for one second.”
Bram chuckled. “I do not know why I bother speaking anything but the truth to you, Sweet.”
“Neither do I.”
His chuckle faded as he stared at me for a few seconds. Then his jaw tightened and his lips formed a solid line. “I believe your father has grown too hungry for power. He is becoming a threat to everything we worked for,” he said finally, with no mirth in his expression. “That is the primary reason I will assist you in his removal from office.” He paused for a moment or two. “That and I will never forgive him for the abuse of his sole offspring.”
“Here we go with the lying again,” I said, unable to conceal the anger in my tone. “You were much more believable when you admitted the sad truth of your own greed, Bram. Don’t try to glorify your intentions by throwing me into the mix.”
Bram shook his head adamantly, even pounding his fist on the table top. It was a rare display of anger on his part, so very rare that I’d never seen him act like this before. I felt my eyes widening with surprise.
“I apologize,” he said instantly as he uncurled his fist and allowed his hand to drop to his side. He leaned back into his chair and studied me. “But on this topic, I have spoken nothing but the truth. Had I been fortunate enough to father offspring of my own, I would never have neglected him or her so carelessly, nor treated my child so cruelly as your father did you. And for that, I shall never forgive him.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I remained silent. There was something fervently intense about the way Bram had spoken and the way his eyes darkened at the mere mention of my relationship with my father.
“The truth is, Sweet, that you have become quite dear to me.”
I wanted to call his bluff, but I couldn’t—not when there was something so sincere in his eyes, something that insisted he wasn’t lying to me, that there were no tricks, no riddles, nothing I had to discern from his words. It was a rare moment in which I thought Bram was actually baring his innermost soul.
“The gravity of it quite took me by surprise, I am loath to admit,” he continued. “I found myself constantly looking forward to your impromptu visits at No Regrets. So when you approached me and asked me to escort you to the Netherworld, I felt such anticipation as I have not known for, oh, a hundred years or more. Yes, of course, I have often said that I would love nothing more than to bed you, but I also must confess now that our … bizarre acquaintance is one of the few joys in my life.”
Bram had never been so candid with me, and for the first time ever, I actually felt sorry for him. It suddenly dawned on me, as never before, that living for such a long time had made Bram an island unto himself. The more I thought about it, the more I realized there was no one he was close to—no one he considered his friend.
Except me. Yes, I had to admit that in our own limited and unique way, Bram and I were friends.
“At the expense of turning our last evening together into a maudlin scene, I shall ask that we change the subjec
t, if it pleases you,” Bram suddenly said. He cleared his throat and his posture stiffened. “I must confide my unease with anything that defies logic and reason.”
I got his gist. Like most men, he wasn’t comfortable when facing his inner emotional child. But, to be fair, I wasn’t either. “I understand,” I said simply.
“Have you no curiosity as to the other person with whom I paid a visit while in the Netherworld?” he asked.
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” I answered, glancing at him with renewed interest.
Bram smiled smugly as if our last conversation were now a distant memory, something to be locked away in his psyche. I had no idea if we would ever discuss it again. Why? Because Bram had said all he needed to say, and that was that.
“I believe you are acquainted with Caressa Brandenburg?” he asked, flashing me a raised brow expression.
“You visited Caressa?” I asked as shock welled up inside me.
“Yes, does it surprise you that Ms. Brandenburg and I have enjoyed quite a long friendship?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
He seemed to like my answer and grinned more widely, apparently enjoying the role of news anchor. “She is quite an attractive woman, do you not agree?” he continued, eyeing me suspiciously.
I could see right through him though. He was obviously trying to make me jealous and it wasn’t going to work. “Yes, Caressa is very attractive. No arguments there.”
“Are you curious whether I have known her in the way I should like to know you?”
I shook my head and sighed deeply. “For Hades’s sake, Bram, get to the damn point!”
“Answer my question, please,” he answered with his chin stuck out defiantly.
“No, I’m not curious; and no, I don’t want to know about your sex life, or lack thereof, at all!”
He frowned momentarily. “Ms. Brandenburg has informed me that the Netherworld is up in arms regarding a newspaper article your leader ran in The Netherworlder Today,” he started.
“Really?”
“Yes, and I, too, noticed many handwritten signs posted along roads and highways that supported the fall of the current regime.” He cleared his throat as he smiled at me. “By all appearances, the Netherworld seems ripe for rebellion, Sweet. And as such, your father grows more desperate each day. I am certain we both know what Hippocrates had to say about that?”
No, I had no clue Hippocrates had anything to say about it, but I sensed where Bram was going with his point. “Desperate times call for desperate measures?”
“Exactly, Sweet,” Bram said and nodded. “Exactly right.”
“Then you still think we can win even though the Netherworld Guard outnumbers our own soldiers?”
He was quiet for a few seconds. “Yes, I believe your side can prevail, if you proceed cautiously and correctly.”
“I need to know precisely where my father is,” I interjected quickly, realizing my father’s whereabouts were the crux of the entire matter. “We won’t have a chance in hell if we don’t know where to find Melchior.”
Bram chuckled. “Sometimes I believe you can read my mind, Sweet.”
He reached into his pants pocket and produced his pocket watch, handing it to me. I accepted the expensive-looking timepiece as I brushed my fingers against the face of it. I wondered why he’d handed it to me and glanced up at him with curiosity in my eyes.
“Long ago, I found it necessary to my well-being that I track your father’s comings and goings,” Bram said softly. Pointing to the watch, he added, “This pocket watch will allow you to do the same.”
“How?” I asked, glancing down at it again.
“It is a compass programmed to pinpoint your father’s location at any given moment.” He took it from my hand, placed it flat in his palm, and lifted his palm to eye level. The hour hand began turning counter clockwise before it settled onto the twelve o’clock position. Then the area at the bottom of the watch, which previously showed the date, displayed what appeared to be GPS coordinates.
“West, one hundred twenty-two degrees, by north, thirty-seven degrees,” Bram read aloud. Then he faced me with another smile. “It seems your father is close to Splendor, only in the Netherworld, of course.”
I dared not believe my own good luck. I’d known Bram would come through and in providing the answer to the problem of finding my father, he’d come through with flying colors, and then some. “Thank you,” I said earnestly.
Bram said nothing more as he stood up suddenly. “If it pleases you, there is one more item I would like to unveil to you before your departure this evening.”
I figured the business portion of our evening was now finished. And that was fine—there really wasn’t anything more I needed to know. “Sure,” I said as I clutched the timepiece in my palm, and warned myself not to leave it anywhere. That was the huge bummer about wearing gowns—there wasn’t a damn place to put anything.
I followed Bram through the dining room and into the wine cellar where I immediately noticed a painting, covered by a tarp, hanging on the wall. Bram strode up to it, but stopped short before unveiling it. Then he turned to face me with a broad smile.
“I do hope this will please you, Sweet.”
He grabbed the tarp and pulled on it gingerly, exposing the portrait he’d had painted of me. At first, I didn’t know what to say or think. Maybe it’s natural to feel shock when you see yourself reflected back at you in anything other than a mirror. But, I could only say that as far as the artist’s ability, he was more than simply talented. The painting looked exactly like me. It was the state in which I’d been represented that threw me for a loop.
SIX
It was a full-scale rendition of me, from head to foot. I was standing on a stretch of grass spotted with bluebells, a forest of pine trees behind me in the distance. The sky was an cerulean blue, interrupted by a few whimsical clouds that looked like white cotton candy. On one side of me was a lake, interrupted by a waterfall that coursed down the face of a craggy mountainside. On my other side, two deer, an owl and a few squirrels looked on curiously. But it wasn’t the Winnie the Pooh surroundings that struck me as completely baffling. Instead, it was the fact that nothing about the painting screamed ANC Regulator or law enforcement in general, which was something I’d expected given the title.
“I thought the painting was supposed to be titled ‘Fairy Law’?” I asked doubtfully, turning to face Bram who stood in silent appreciation of the portrait, his arms crossed against his chest.
“It is,” he insisted in a less-than-interested tone and then proceeded to point to the monogrammed silver plate inlaid at the top of the dark oak frame. The plate proclaimed the “masterpiece” to be The Fairy Law, just as I’d intimated.
The information reinforced, I refocused my attention on the painting, trying to glean some connection between it and the title. It was a little off-putting at first—seeing yourself reflected back at you and in a way that completely defies your own perception of just who and what you are. After a few seconds of trying to make a judgment regarding whether or not I liked the thing, I was left not knowing what to think. I mean, it was me clearly—the artist was obviously a good one because he’d been able to capture everything that made me me pretty well. But, at the same, time, there were definitely details that weren’t so much me. For one, my hair was totally off. Even though my hair is naturally long—ending at just below my elbows—and while I do have some good hair days when it adopts an inkling of a wave, my hair as pictured in the portrait was anything but mine. It trailed down to my butt in bouncy waves of full, golden curl—the shade a lighter gold with less honey tones than my natural color. Not only that, but the strands were interlaced haphazardly with rose, daffodil and lily blossoms, a baby pink ribbon snaking in and out of the tresses, like some slithering sea creature.
The Dulcie O’Neil I knew and loved so well would never do flowers in her hair and would never, ever, under any circumstance, do baby pink. Ever.
The expression on my face was neither happy nor sad but merely contented, the ends of my lips slightly lifted as if I was going for the Mona Lisa. There was an overall youthful naiveté to my face—my cheeks were round which made it look like I was all of eighteen years old. My eyes were wide and could have portrayed surprise if not for my eyebrows, which weren’t raised but sat idly above my eyes, appearing haughty with the way they arched so perfectly. As to the color of my eyes, they were much more of an emerald green than in real life and my lips were plumper, my nose a bit more pert and upturned.
But what really attracted my attention was the portrait me’s clothing. I was dressed in a lemon yellow gown (that had more in common with a negligee than a dress) that seemed like it was made out of chiffon, the material was so delicate and almost see-through. The dress was very short, ending at my upper mid-thigh and edged in fine white lace. My arms appeared to be clasped behind my back, one hand delicately reappearing at my upper thigh where I inched the hem of the dress up to the V of my torso. Even though the viewer wasn’t able to see anything he shouldn’t have, based on the angle of where I was holding the dress, it was pretty obvious panties hadn’t been of concern to the artist. And the fact that the portrait me’s arms were pulled back behind me, in turn, pushed my chest forward and allowed the viewer’s attention to wholly focus on my incredibly alert nipples which protruded from the translucent material and were the first things to grab the viewer’s attention. I felt myself coloring with embarrassment at just the thought that I was basically unable to stop staring at what were supposedly my own nipples.
As to the rest of “my” breasts, they were in a word: gargantuan. They had to be at least twice their actual size of a full C (which isn’t anything to scoff at!). The rest of the “dress” was painted so as to appear clinging to my curves, being both sleeveless and plunging in the front, revealing the swells of each side of my ample breasts. The empire waist flared into a short skirt which, again, was obscenely tiny over one leg. With the way “my” face portrayed a youthful sensuality and the fact that “I” was nearly baring my feminine fruit, it appeared as if the portrait me were beckoning to the onlooker, teasing him seductively. I could just imagine that the follow up to this stunning piece of art would reveal an image of this woman on her back with a man between her legs while the forest creatures continued to look on nosily.