The Mephisto Mark: The Redemption of Phoenix

  “You’re chicken, aren’t you?”

  “They say chicken in Romania?”

  “It’s a worldwide euphemism for cowards.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Look it up.” She schussed left ski, then right ski, gripping her poles, focused on the slope. “Are you in, or not?”

  This was going to be epic. “I’m in.”

  “Prepare to lose, my friend.”

  “I’m out of practice.” I was never actually in practice. Until today, I’d skied four times my whole life, and those were related to a takedown back in the fifties. I learned, practiced, then we did the takedown, and my skiing career was over.

  “Excuses already? You must think you’re going to lose.”

  My competitive nature roared to life. “Not hardly.”

  “Okay, on three.”

  We counted together and as soon as we both said three, I pushed off. Just as I’d thought, it was incredible. Exhilarating. I risked a glance at her and saw she was laughing. We were neck and neck, moving faster and faster. I could see Jax and the others clapping and yelling. I’m pretty sure they were all rooting for Mariah, which only made me want to win that much more.

  Unfortunately for my manhood, she smoked me, probably because I tried to be tricky and jumped a mogul instead of skiing around it. My landing almost sent me crashing, and by the time I’d regained my balance, she was ten yards ahead, and I never caught up.

  When we were with the others, she pulled off her goggles and hat and high-fived Sasha. And she laughed. For the first time in a thousand years, I didn’t mind losing. I’d do it over and over, just to hear her laugh.

  ~~ Mariah ~~

  I’d never had a real holiday until that first week on Mephisto Mountain. As much as I wished Viorica would tell me the truth, a part of me was glad to keep up the ruse that I would be leaving on Sunday. I had no commitments, no pressure, no job to do. It was glorious.

  On Wednesday morning, I had my first piano lesson from Zee. It went infinitely better than my painting lesson. I would never be an artist, but I loved music, loved the chance to learn an instrument. Especially the piano. I stayed in Zee’s music room for several hours, his enthusiasm infectious. He played for me, all sorts of instruments, and when he picked up a mandolin, he talked me into singing with him. I’m certain he knew every song ever sung, and when he started playing some of the old folksongs my mother used to sing, that she’d taught to me and Viorica, I joined in. He stopped singing while I gained momentum and when I was done, he said solemnly, “You sound like Nora Jones.”

  I’d never heard of Nora Jones, so he played some of her music on an iPod he had hooked up to a complicated system of speakers that enveloped me in sound. I couldn’t understand what she sang, but her voice was low and smoky. Sexy. I guffawed. “No way do I sound like that.”

  He insisted that I did and said, “There are some Luminas who like to play. We get together once a week or so and jam a little. You’ll have to join us.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was sincere or just being nice.

  “I take all of this way too seriously, but it’s what I live for. I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t want you. Music deserves respect and your voice can’t do anything but make it magical.”

  “What about the piano?”

  “You need to practice every day, at least an hour of scales. Be here next Wednesday morning for another lesson.”

  “I’m leaving on Sunday.”

  He turned from the sound system and shook his head. “We both know you’re not leaving. I’m going along with the others, but let’s not bullshit each other.”

  “How do you know?”

  He rubbed one big hand across his extremely short hair. “I just . . . do. I can’t explain. Sometimes, I just know shit.” He walked toward the door. “I’ll buy your computer and TV this afternoon and set it up in your room tomorrow.” Without saying goodbye, he left.

  Zee was a weird one, but I liked him.

  I sat at the piano and practiced my scales and wondered where Phoenix was. He’d been at breakfast, but left as soon as he was done. He’d been quiet and hadn’t said anything to me beyond, “Good morning.” I assumed he wasn’t friendly because of the ruse, but it still bugged me. Moody people bugged me. I’d sworn once I was away from Emilian, I’d never be around anyone who brooded, who was prone to fits of anger. He wasn’t at lunch and I wanted to ask Jax where he was, but didn’t want to look interested.

  After lunch everyone except Phoenix and Zee went snowshoeing and they showed me all around the mountain. I saw the Lumina cottages made of stone and logs, some big, some small, all charming. We circled three stone buildings that were the stables and barn. Ty said he’d bring me on Friday for a look-see of all the animals inside. We went inside another stone building that used to be the dairy, but had been converted to a gym with a shiny wooden floor and basketball hoops at either end. The room that was once the creamery was now a workout room with all kinds of equipment.

  “We workout five times a week,” Jax said. “And we train here.”

  “What do you do to train?”

  Sasha cleared her throat. “Oh, just learn and practice some moves we use to capture the lost souls.”

  I had a feeling there was a lot more to it, but didn’t press. I didn’t really want to know.

  When we returned to the house, we ended up in the back, where there was a formal garden, currently frozen in ice and snow. Farther back was an enormous heap of glass, metal and wood, and next to it were the remnants of a very large fire. “What happened?”

  Denys said quietly, “That was Key’s greenhouse. He spent the past century building it, and destroyed it in about three hours a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Your sister told him it would never happen between them.”

  “I don’t understand. She’s clearly mad for him.”

  They all exchanged a look before Jax said, “Key is a little different than the rest of us. When we were boys on Kyanos, he and Eryx were very close and did everything together, usually without us tagging along. After Eryx died and came back, Key had a duty to hate him, to defeat him, and he’s stuck by that all this time, but he loved Eryx so much, it’s extremely hard for him. He’s always kept to himself, spending time with his plants and bees, taking care of the money, doing his leader thing. When Jordan came into his life, he thought it would be different. He thought he’d have a chance to let go of the past and be at peace. But Jordan hates Eryx more than any of us do, except Phoenix, so when she realized how Key feels about him, it was too much for her. She told him she could never love him.” He nodded toward the mangled mess at the back of the garden. “This is how he dealt with it.”

  “Why does she hate Eryx so much?”

  “He was behind her kidnapping, and when she was taken, the lost souls shot her boyfriend, Matthew. He was paralyzed. She died at Eryx’s hand, and if Key hadn’t brought her back, if he hadn’t been there to rescue her, Eryx would have brought her back and marked her so she’d be bound to him forever. Now Eryx is at her school. He’s taken five of her friends’ souls and she worries there’ll be more. She worries he’ll offer to heal Matthew in exchange for his soul. And all the while, he’s trying to convince her to go with him to Romania, to live with him and give him sons he thinks will be some superpower version of himself, with a strain of Anabo that will lure more people to him. Her entire life changed because of Eryx.”

  My eyes were drawn to movement in an upstairs window and when I looked up, I saw Phoenix staring down at me. “They’ll work it out,” I said, never moving my gaze from Phoenix’s face. “Jordan has been sheltered most of her life so she’s still idealistic and passionate about her convictions. She hasn’t learned yet that life is all about compromise.”

  Denys was closer to me, also looking up at Phoenix. “What concession has he offered to you, Mariah?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He insulted you
, but you’ve forgiven him and I wonder what he did to earn it.”

  Feeling more than hearing the underlying anger in his words, I turned my head to look at him. “He apologized.”

  He scowled. “That’s it?”

  “Is there something else?”

  He looked up again, as did I, but Phoenix was no longer at the window.

  “Be careful, Mariah.”

  My cheeks burned with the flush of anger that swept through me. “Of what? Phoenix? Do you think I’m some meek little flower cowering in a corner, hoping the big, bad Mephisto won’t step on me? Do I look like someone who lets people run over me? Do I?” I realized my voice had risen and they were all staring at me.

  “What you look like is somebody as fucked up as he is.” Denys’s beautiful face could be carved from granite, his jaw was set so tight, and his eyes were as hard as obsidian. “You have no clue what you’re getting into here.”

  I did have a clue, but he didn’t know that. I stepped back, aware I’d woken a sleeping bear and stirred up some unresolved hostility between him and Phoenix.

  Jax moved toward the middle of three doors in this side of the mansion. “Too heavy, Denys. Mariah is supposed to be enjoying her visit, so leave it alone and let’s go watch a movie. It’s about to become a blizzard.”

  Like he’d flipped a switch, Denys lost his angry expression and laughed. “I do suck at the serious.”

  Once again, I saw past the laugh and knew his torment.

  ***

  The rest of the day was without drama, and after dinner, Viorica came to visit. She seemed anxious and I asked if everything was all right. I expected her to open up, at least a little, but she gave me her too-bright smile, the one I knew was fake, and told me everything was just great. I wondered if our relationship would always be this superficial. I hoped not. I hoped she was so closed up because she was continuing the illusion that I was an ordinary human who would go back to my ordinary life come Sunday.

  I slept without dreaming again, which was odd, but wonderful, and Olga and I woke up to a winter white world. I’d never seen so much snow. My bedroom window faced the front of the mansion and when I opened the drapes, I saw drifts that nearly covered the tall gas lamps that ran down the drive. At breakfast, everyone said they had things to do until after lunch, so I spent the morning in the library, reading a romance novel in Romanian. It, along with four others, had appeared in my room the day before with a note from Sasha that said simply, Enjoy!

  I did enjoy it. I was just to a good part, wherein the hero in the story, a prince of some make-believe country, got told off by the heroine, an artist who’d been commissioned to do his portrait, when Phoenix came into the library. He was dressed in faded jeans and a long sleeved black T-shirt with a motorcycle logo. He hadn’t shaved, and his scruff beard made him look more dangerous. And more attractive, if that was possible.

  He walked to me and looked down at the book in my hand. “Savage Hearts? You’re kidding. You’ve got to be kidding.”

  His disdain made me want to laugh. “So you’ve read this book and you’re not a fan?”

  “No, I have definitely not read that book.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be a prejudicial snobby ass about something you know nothing about.” I curled tighter in the wingback and went back to reading.

  Annoying me, he took the opposite seat. “What’s the attraction? I don’t get it.”

  I looked at him over the top edge of the book. “What’s the attraction of any book? It’s a story about somebody with a problem and I want to see how he overcomes it.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  “He’s a prince, and people are trying to kill him so the villain can take over the throne of his country after his father dies.”

  “Who’s the chick with half her clothes falling off?”

  I turned the book and looked at the heroine. “It’s not a faithful rendering. In the book, she wears plain gray frocks with an apron because she’s a painter.”

  “Maybe later she wears that red dress and it falls off and the prince stands behind her on a seaside cliff and looks pensive. Without his shirt.”

  “It’s marketing. They sell more books with pretty people on the cover. The heroine is actually plain and the prince is . . . well, he’s like this picture. What difference does it make? It’s a good story, and I was just to a good part, so hush with your judgmental self.” I went back to reading. I’d reread the line, “Your impertinence is intolerable,” for the third time when Phoenix said, “Read it to me.”

  “What? No! Get your own book.” I’d already skipped around to find the sexy bits, and they were entirely too descriptive for me to read aloud. Especially to him. I felt myself blush just thinking about it.

  “You’re embarrassed because it’s a romance novel and you’re ashamed of reading it.”

  I sat up and glared at him. “I’m embarrassed because it has certain scenes in it that would be awkward to read out loud.”

  “You mean it’s pornographic?” He held out a hand. “Let me see.”

  Holding the book close to my chest, I shook my head. “It’s not pornographic. Just a bit racy.”

  He grinned at me then, like a badly behaved little boy, his eyes lit with mischievousness. “If you don’t read it to me, I’m going to steal it from you and read the racy parts at dinner, out loud, to everyone.”

  “Then I’ll stay in my room and have Mathilda bring my dinner.”

  “Then I’ll come to your room and read them to you while you eat.”

  “I hate you.”

  “Aw, come on, Mariah. I’m seriously curious. You can skip over those parts if you want. Just read it to me until lunch.”

  Glancing at the tall grandfather clock in the corner, I said, “That’s over four hours from now. Don’t you have work to do?”

  “I’m stuck at the moment. Sometimes I read when I’m hung up, and I’d just as soon have you read to me.”

  “Fine, but you have to promise not to mock it and make fun.”

  “I swear.” He settled back in his chair and folded his hands across his belly. “Okay, go.”

  I turned to the beginning and started over. Right after I passed page fifty, he interrupted and asked, “Did you just skip a kissing scene?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Read it.”

  “You said we’d be friends. Friends don’t make friends do things that’ll make them uncomfortable.”

  “It’s just a kiss. If you and I can’t, we can at least read about people who can.”

  With my face flaming, I went back and read the scene. When it was done, after Danielle told Prince Rupert he was a dishonorable cad and vowed to paint him with a hook-nose, Phoenix said, “This is bullshit. Real people don’t kiss like that. You shouldn’t be reading this because you’ll have unrealistic expectations.”

  “I read murder mysteries, but I don’t expect to solve homicide cases based on what I read. Give me some credit, Phoenix. It’s called fiction for a reason.” I looked at him and saw he was frowning. He was actually concerned about this. I sighed and said, “Okay, I’ll bite. How is this so different from a real kiss?”

  “It’s too perfect. Neither of them are awkward. Real kisses, if everybody’s on board and eager to do it, are messy and too rushed, or too slow, or frustrating, but they’re always exciting. It’s the promise of things to come that makes a kiss awesome. It’s shared intimacy, like a secret, and if it’s forbidden, it’s that much hotter. Prince Rupert and the painter just had a movie kiss, everything staged perfectly, nothing out of place. Their teeth didn’t bump. Neither of them were worried about bad breath. Her father is in the next room and there are people who could come in and catch them, but they’re not hurrying, or worried. It was all beautiful and perfect until she remembered he’s a putz and broke it off and stepped back to give him what for.”

  “He’s not a putz, whatever that is. He’s just conflicted.”

  “He’s all hot for her bu
t can’t have her because she’s a peasant and the court schemers will use it against him if he marries a commoner. If he’d use his brain, he’d see a way to have Danielle and the throne. As it is, he’s stealing perfect kisses from a woman he thinks he can’t have and planning to marry the lady next door because her father is Sir Somebody at court. Rupert’s the prince, for God’s sake, the future king. He can marry whomever he bloody well wants, but no, he’s going to bend to what the schemers want instead. Like I said, he’s a putz. Danielle should pack up her paints and hit the road. There’s probably some nice blacksmith back in her village who’d make her a fine husband, who’d give her sloppy, passionate kisses.”

  “I’m so happy you don’t write romance novels.”

  He looked genuinely surprised. “Why? Because I’d have her marry the smithy instead of the prince?”

  “Let’s continue, shall we? Maybe Prince Rupert will develop a brain you approve of later in the story.”

  He slumped further down in his chair and his long legs stretched before him. “Okay.”

  I read on, and didn’t skip the next few kissing scenes. The plot became more complicated when one of the schemers began romancing Danielle, swearing he was on the prince’s side, working undercover to spy on the conspirators. She devised a clever way of leaving information for the prince through her paintings. Everything was coming to a head. The king had died. The villain was turning the people against the prince, who was now king. The mole was revealed as the real villain when Rupert tricked him, using the clues in Danielle’s paintings to trip him up.

  And in between all the subterfuge and court conspiracies, Rupert and Danielle kissed a lot. And other things. Every time I skipped those scenes, Phoenix insisted I go back and read them. Then, close to the end, the kisses and the other things led to the two of them on a sofa in the turret room where the prince sat for his portrait. Sex was clearly up next. I stopped reading, flipping ahead to get past it.