“So what are you thinking so hard about?” he ventured to ask, knowing that she could at this point either cut him to the quick with a retort or give him the answer he was looking for. One never really knew what Shado was capable of until she opened her mouth. Another lesson learned through the years of dealing with her. Sometimes he wished he had never accepted the contract that had been dangled in front of him. Of all the authors that he brokered, she was by far the most difficult of them all. And also the most profitable writer. He acknowledged that fact with a tight smile.
“Nothing that you need to worry about.” She said sharply. In Shado speak that meant to back off and he threw up a hand in his own defense.
“No problem. I want you to meet with a few people over the next couple of days, hon. There are some publicity things that I think you really need to consider for the next release.”
Shado sighed, her irritation coming to the forefront once more. It was enough in her opinion that she had agreed to this thrice damned convention, now he was pushing her to do the publicity shit. She shook her head. “Look, Terry, I’m here. I’ll attend the crap I need to, but don’t sign me up for anything more ok? I don’t want to do the book circuit, the talk show stuff none of it. That was our deal, and unless you want to break contract you’ll stick with it.” She threatened him.
“Hey no problem. Just a suggestion that’s all hon. Whatever you want.” He back pedaled quickly. Something had her on edge he thought. Granted, on her best day she was difficult, but this was something different. She seemed almost ready to fly apart at the seams.
Shado placed the now empty flute on the tray of a passing waiter. She sent him a scathing look and pulled herself up tightly. “Look, I’m tired, it was a bitch of a flight and all I want to do is crawl into bed for the next twelve hours. So, on that note, I’m going to say my goodbyes until tomorrow morning.” She held up a hand to cut of his protest. “Save it Terry, I need sleep.”
He was forced to watch her wend her way through the crowd, amazed as always how the ebb and flow of the throng parted before her then swallowed her up. No one tried to stop her for conversation, no one seemed to notice that she was leaving at all. Shaking his head, he wandered over to where one of the executives was having an animated conversation with a well known author. He carefully interjected himself into the conversation.
Once she left the buzzing ball room, she sighed in relief. Her hatred of all things crowded and noisy crashed into her for a moment, but the silence of the empty elevator car soothed her nerves. She closed her eyes and her head thumped against the cool steel wall. Another sigh and her eyes opened again on a scene from her past.
Another elevator car another time.
She was furious. How dare he treat her this way. It was bad enough that he had ignored her through her childhood, such as it had been, but now to expect her to jump when he called. Just because he MIGHT have a use for her. It made her beyond angry that he would be so cavalier in his treatment of her. She had to force back a self deprecating chuckle. His attitude certainly hadn’t changed at all. She had never been anything more than an inconvenience. A reminder of a time that he wanted to forget. Hell, she thought as she waited for the elevator to stop, he couldn’t even acknowledge me as his daughter. Oh no, that would be admitting that the great Alexander Waverly had ‘made a mistake’ his own words hurtful and haunting still. No, I had to deny who I was and become his grand daughter. She stifled a snort of annoyance causing the two agents who accompanied her to glance at her in question. She sent them a look guaranteed to quell their curiosity only to have the blond, what was his name again?, give her a half hearted grin of sorts. At least she thought that was a grin, it was something any way. A slight quirking of his lips, as if smiling was foreign to his nature. There was a look in his eye that made her wonder just how much he knew. Something had her guessing that he understood more than she had given him credit for.
The older agent spoke as the elevator dinged their arrival. “Well here we are, agent apartments may not be the greatest, Lt. but they aren’t too terrible.” He held open the elevator door for her with one arm across the sensors and made as if to grab the duffle she had dropped on the floor of the car with the other. She ignored his silent offer of assistance and swung it with ease over her shoulder. She stepped around him and looked down the dull grey hallway.
“How depressing.” She muttered. “You would think Alex the Great would invest in an interior decorator.” She shrugged and gestured for them to lead the way. Solo took the lead, his partner, Kuryakin-that was his name she remembered, walking just off her left side. He made her nervous, there was something about him that tugged at her mind. Almost like a memory, something fleeting and visceral, she tried to pin it down but it skittered away like a feral animal. She sighed lightly, it would come when it was ready and not before. She watched him move from the corner of her eye, he was graceful and light on his feet, a controlled power that spoke of martial arts training. His slight build would mask his ability, she knew, people would judge him based on what they saw and he would prove them wrong. Solo turned the corner and she started to follow, Kuryakin in step with her. She hadn’t gone two feet down the corridor when the “giant hand of fate” reached out and knocked her for a loop. Blackness descended on her quickly, trapping her breath in her chest, a giant fist squeezing her brain into mush as the vision took hold.
She was walking in the dark, it moved and twisted around her a living entity, its tendrils seeking out the light that she was on this plane. It sought to swamp her in its existence, to extinguish the light that threatened it once and for all but with the ease of years of practice she pushed the dark back. She formed a bubble of protection to shield herself from the dark influences, keeping it at bay as she traveled to wherever she was being pulled. For pulled she was, the compulsion to continue forward something that she couldn’t fight against. She had before only to discover that it did no good, when the Power called, she had to answer. So, now she traveled, following the strange compulsion Power laid on her to the door that waited for her across the Abyss. She could see it’s outlines, glowing strangely blue in the dark, just a faint hint of color in the total black that surrounded her, but it was enough to speed her journey. She was eager to see whatever she had been called to see, to escape the eerie darkness that marked the place between the worlds.
At last she stood before the doorway, she put a hand out to push it open only to have the door pulled open from the other side. She stepped back in surprise, that had never happen before, she had always been the one to open the door. The light streaming from the other side was blindingly brilliant, making her eyes stream and she dashed away the tears. Something reached from the light into her warding and pulled her forcefully into the light. She had the faint impression of an ancient power, then the light began to swirl around her, leaving only impressions, fleeting touches of colors… blues… golds… flame reds and at last the stark scarlet of pulsing blood splashing against something black, staining the white purity with the color of death. With a scream she was flung out of the light.
She came awake screaming, heart wrenching terrifying screams. She found herself caught in a pair of powerful arms that wrapped around her and pulled her against an equally powerful chest. For a moment she struggled against the embrace but then softly crooned words registered and she opened her eyes. A concerned pair of blue eyes met hers and she realized who held her. In that instant she could almost remember what she had been shown, it flickered then died, lost for the moment in the morass of terror the vision had left her with. All she knew was a terrible sense of loss and devastation. She found herself clinging to the slim, strong shoulders of Illya Kuryakin as the pain of loss cascaded through her. He held her tight as the sobs came. His blue eyes locked with the concerned brown ones of his partner and he shook his head at the question. He hadn’t understood anything that she had screamed upon regaining consciousness. Her words had been in a language totally foreign to him but the terror that embraced her now, he could understand. Something made him want to comfort her. So he sat on the cold steel floor and rocked her gently, crooning to her in his Mother tongue until the medical team came racing around the corner.