Born of Ashes
“There is a man at the landing platform who wishes to speak with you.”
“I wasn’t expecting anyone. Has he been checked out by security?”
“He’s clean. No concerns there.”
More riddles.
“Well, tell me then, what is his name?”
“Peter Robillard, from Oxford Two. He says he only wants a word with you and to give you something.”
Jean-Pierre listed on his feet. He reached out for Seriffe’s desk.
“Hey,” Seriffe called out. “What the fuck? You’re about as white as a sheet.”
Jean-Pierre looked at Seriffe, but he didn’t exactly see him. “Bev, please see the gentleman to the conference room. I will be with him shortly. But … why are you mystified, if I may ask?”
“You’ll know when you see him.” She hung up.
His Epic phone rang. He withdrew it from the pocket of his jeans. Fiona. “Chérie. What is it?”
“You tell me. I can feel you weaving on your feet. What’s wrong? I mean I’m used to the battle training, I know what all that feels like, but this is different, right?”
“Oui. Fiona, I know that you are busy at the rehab center but could you come to me right now? Something has happened. I am not certain exactly what it is, but I want you with me.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll have Bev do the fold for you.”
When he hung up, he called Bev back and told her what he needed. She promised it would be the work of a moment.
A few minutes later, with Fiona by his side, he walked with her in the direction of the Militia HQ conference room. He gripped her hand too tightly—he could feel that he caused her pain. He released the stranglehold on her fingers and took a deep breath.
When he opened the door to the conference room, a tall man, at least six-four, perhaps six-five, wearing a conservative black suit, nicely tailored in the British manner of things, turned to face him. His hair was different shades of blond, darker beneath, streaked over the top, very familiar.
Fiona gasped and Jean-Pierre started nodding like an idiot. “Who are you?” he said at last because he could think of nothing else to say even though the answer was obvious.
“My name is Peter Robillard,” he said, his British accent elegant, refined. “My mother died when I was born, which was of course a very long time ago, over two hundred years. It took me decades after I ascended to find her, to find her grave in a church in Sussex, to take her name, her married name. I have strong reason to believe you might be my father.”
He heard a strange sound next to him and looked down at Fiona. She had her fingers to her lips and little sobs escaped her mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked up at him. “There, you see?” she said.
He was too much in shock to see anything. “See what? My son? Yes, I do see him, so I believe it must be true.”
“No. Not that. Isabelle. This is the reason she went crazy. She carried your child. She had been given a choice by the monsters of the revolution. Now tell me she made the right one.”
Jean-Pierre moved forward and sank into a chair. The past rose up like an enormous wave and crashed over him, of hearing Isabelle crying out as they took him away, “Forgive me. I have no choice. Forgive me.”
She had carried a child, his child, their child. The year, even the month of September when it had all happened, had been a terrible time in the revolution. He understood it all now: that if Isabelle would just confess to a series of lies, then she could go free, even though it meant sending her husband to the guillotine.
He looked up at Peter, at the man who looked so much like him, except for the eyes, and his heart unfolded like a flower blossoming.
“I didn’t come to cause you pain,” Peter said. “I just wanted to know the truth, to know more about Isabelle and if you were my father, more about you and why I was born in the south of England and not in France. I perhaps should tell you that my wife watched the recent farcical COPASS proceedings and saw your testimony. She thought you and I could not look this much alike and not be related.”
Fiona moved to stand in front of Peter. She put her hand on his shoulder and looked up at him in wonder. “He has your mouth, Jean-Pierre, and look at his cheeks, his strong cheekbones, even the line of his jaw. Only his eyes are different.”
“Like Isabelle’s,” he said. “That soft sweet fire in her eyes.”
“Then … you believe I am your son.”
Jean-Pierre shook his head. “You must be my son. How can you be anything else?” Still he stared, unable to move. He stared and searched each feature over and over.
“Do you have children?” Fiona asked.
Peter smiled. “More than one set. I have been married a long time to the same woman. We have eight Twolings, and the oldest three were born at the turn of the last century. There are children and grandchildren, great-grandchildren. Our family is very large indeed.”
Fiona returned to Jean-Pierre and dropped to her knees beside him. He shifted to look at her. “You were right, chérie. Isabelle had a profound reason for what she did. I understand it all now and I approve. If I had known, I would have agreed with her.”
She put her hand on his face as she so often did, “We have both been given our families back. Don’t you see? Don’t you see?”
He caught her hand and pressed it to his face. He nodded, then finally rose to his feet. He moved to stand next to Peter. He put a hand around the back of his neck and looked at him, really looked at him, searching every facet of his face, every damp glitter in his eye, the way his throat moved up and down in hard swallows, the way his body relented when Jean-Pierre pulled him into an embrace. “My son,” he whispered. “My son.”
“Father” came as a very soft low sound into his ribbed T-shirt.
After a very long moment, he released Peter, but not completely. He met and held his gaze. “I loved your mother so very much. She was a dance of fire in my life, so warm, so loving. But they were terrible times in France. I had been for the revolution and got caught in the terrible changes of 1793.”
Peter nodded.
“I am so sorry that I was not there for you. I ascended at the point of my death. If I had known, thought, even suspected, I would have come for you and for Isabelle. But I thought only that she betrayed me so I made my home on Second Earth and tried to forget all that had hurt me so deeply on Mortal Earth. How grateful I am that you found me.”
Peter wiped at his cheeks. “I was raised in an orphanage. It was … difficult. About thirty years ago, my wife insisted that I have therapy. She said my anger was irrational. It took me a long time to forgive you and Isabelle.” He chuckled softly and his eyes softened with tears once more. “And now to think that my father is a Warrior of the Blood.” But at that, a frown entered his eye and he ground his teeth in a way that seemed very familiar.
“What is it, Peter? Do you fear you will now be in danger? You and your family?”
“No, it’s my grandson. He’s … well, he’s got some radical ideas about Second Earth. He and his friends have been paying visits to Mortal Earth.”
Jean-Pierre was shocked. “Not through the Borderland at Rome. That would be foolish, dangerous.” Each continent had an entrance to Mortal Earth, a Trough through which death vampires could descend and not be discovered by the numerous grids around the world.
Peter drew a deep breath. “It’s worse than that. He can fold between dimensions.”
“Mon Dieu.”
“Precisely.”
“Could he defend himself against a death vampire?”
“I believe so. I have to trust that he can.”
“Has he taken sword training?”
Peter smiled. “He excels at it. He’s … gifted, probably like his great-grandfather, but he wants nothing to do with the war.”
“In that he is wise.”
“Warrior Jean-Pierre—” he began.
“Please, Father’ would do, or the French Papa?”
Peter smiled. “Very well. Papa. There is something I wish to say to you. I am so grateful for the work that you and the Warriors of the Blood do on our behalf. I wish you to know that the average ascender understands what is going on, all around the world. We know about the dying blood antidote and that many of our leaders are corrupt.
“I saw the footage of the battle at the Grand Canyon last fall. I saw the number of death vampires in Commander Greaves’s army. So many had to be a deliberate undertaking, had to be of his doing. We all know it, we understand it, but there is so little we can do as individuals.
“So we watch and we wait. When the time comes, please believe that you will not be alone, that Madame Endelle, for all her eccentricity, is not alone. There are movements in every Territory on the planet, usually led by Militia Warriors, even in those Territories aligned with Greaves, that work to keep the average ascender informed.”
“You are talking underground movements?”
“Nothing less. Greaves and his allies are too involved in the upper rungs of all governments to allow for open dissension.”
He was very intense as he said, “She has us, the commoners. We support her even if we can’t let our voices be heard right now.”
“I will tell her. Your words have given me great comfort.”
For the next few minutes, he exchanged phone numbers and email addresses with his son. Though he wanted to know him better, he felt certain that any evidence of a strong familial connection would put Peter and his family in danger.
Jean-Pierre turned toward Fiona and extended an arm. She moved next to him and he held her close. “I wish you to know my breh, Fiona Gaines.”
Peter offered his hand, but Fiona said, “Nonsense,” and slung her arms around his neck.
Peter hugged her back.
Jean-Pierre wiped his cheeks once more. “Look. I have turned into such a woman.”
“Hey,” Fiona cried, drawing back from his son and giving Jean-Pierre a playful thump to his chest.