“Wait a moment, dear,” Rina said. “I think you will want to see this.”
Chapter 5
Solomon came through the door, one arm loaded with a stack of newspapers. He handed some to Rina and some to me. The datelines showed yesterday’s date. My breath caught as I read the large front-page headline on the top issue:
A.K. EMERSON BELIEVED DEAD IN BOATING ACCIDENT
Divers Searching for Author’s Body in Aegean Sea
I fell back onto the couch, feeling as though Tristan had flipped me again. I knew this was the plan—to fake the author’s death because I could no longer be A.K. Emerson—but it still caught me by surprise. The words in such large print, official and publicized to the world, drilled the finality of it into my core. She’s really gone. I never enjoyed playing the role of the wildly successful author—the fame and attention wasn’t my thing—so I had actually expected to feel relief at her death. But she was a very real part of me, a very big part of me. She had pulled me through my darkest times. Only my writing and Dorian kept me going through the years without Tristan.
After recovering from the initial shock, I skimmed through the article. It reported my trip to Athens, Greece, with a “Jeffrey Wells,” who they believed to be the father of my son and new husband, and an explosion of the boat we’d rented for pleasure. Such a tragedy to come, the reporter wrote, when we’d just been reunited. A diving team continued searching for our bodies. Of course, they wouldn’t find them, and my guilt surged because they tried so hard. The rest of the article told about my books, their record-breaking sales numbers, and speculation of whether the last book of the vampire series would ever be published.
“What will happen to the last book?” I wondered aloud.
“Once the commotion of her death diminishes, we will announce that she finished it right before her untimely death, so it will be published,” Rina said happily.
“Sales of the whole series will probably break their own records,” Solomon said with a grin. “Art is always more attractive after the creator has died.”
“I currently am planning a funeral,” Rina said, flipping her hand toward her desk. “Some Amadis members in America will masquerade as your family. After the funeral and other formalities, Sophia will contact the publisher.”
The moment felt so surreal, Rina speaking about planning a funeral—my funeral, in some ways—with such a matter-of-fact tone. To her, A.K. Emerson was a vehicle, a means to an end. The author’s life and death marked an accomplishment for the Amadis. For me, though, her death marked the ending of life as I’d always known it—not just the death of the author, but the death of me as a somewhat normal human being.
I flipped through the other newspapers Solomon had brought. They were mostly American, from various cities in the States, although a few hailed from major cities throughout the world. The Associated Press sourced the article, so they were all the same, as was the photo, a headshot from my last book cover, over a year old. Though I didn’t look as old and fat as I had toward the end, right before the Ang’dora, the picture made me cringe. I had seriously let myself go over the years, and I appeared to be much older than my real age—more like forty-something—even with the professional touch-up to the photo. I now looked nineteen or twenty, there was life to my eyes and face, and my body was hard and fit.
“At least no one will recognize me as her,” I muttered, pointing at the ugly picture. Rina and Solomon chuckled.
I left them to plan my funeral. As I meandered through the mansion, I made my wall into a screen and sought out mind signatures, searching for Tristan and Dorian. The first ones that floated by me belonged to staff members. As soon as I realized this, I let go of their thoughts, not wanting to invade their privacy. By the time I’d wandered through almost the entire first floor, I was able to feel mind signatures from throughout the mansion. None were Tristan’s or Dorian’s, but I did identify Mom and Owen. I followed the “currents” to a large room at the end of a short hall.
Unlike the rest of the mansion, which felt primeval with its stone walls, antiques, and torches for light, this space reflected the 21st century. Computers lined one wall, and a dozen flat-screen TVs hung on another, with a theater-style seating area in front of them. I’d found the media room. And I also found Mom and Owen, watching several American news channels at once. It was early morning in the States, so America was just waking up to the news that my disappearance had turned into probable death. Some of the screens scrolled information across the bottom, while a few showed my picture, apparently the topic of the moment. According to the text running across the bottom, the Greek authorities had officially called off the search for my body.
“Hey, Alexis,” Owen said, “you look better dead than you did alive.”
Unlike yesterday, when he avoided my eyes as much as I avoided his, he looked at me and grinned. If he could act as though nothing ever happened, so could I.
“Very funny.” I punched his arm lightly. Well, I thought it was lightly, but I forgot my new strength. He gave me a face while rubbing his bicep. “I’m sure you will, too, because you can’t look any worse.”
“Maybe, but at least I never looked that bad,” he said, pointing at my picture on one of the screens.
“I can fix that.” I held my left hand up, palm facing him. He flinched, then narrowed his eyes. “I may have looked bad then, but I’m quite shocking now.”
“Ugh,” he moaned, rolling his eyes.
“That was quite horrible,” Mom said. “You’re a writer—surely you can do better.”
It was, admittedly, a bad pun.
I sat down on the couch next to Mom, as far from Owen as possible. Although I could joke around with him, it still felt odd—almost wrong—just to sit next to him. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell anyone, not even Tristan—especially not Tristan—what else I’d heard at yesterday’s meeting: the opinions that I should be with Owen rather than Tristan. The thought was nauseating. Owen was too much like my brother. He was also Tristan’s best friend, and I didn’t want to think about what this would do to their friendship.
Trying to ignore him, my eyes skimmed over the many TV screens. Some had moved on to other news, but some still had my face plastered on them.
“Kind of weird, huh?” Owen asked.
“Very.”
My life had always been strange, but it seemed “weird” had now gone to a completely new level.
“Watch this,” Owen said pointing at one of the screens. “It’s hilarious.”
He waved his finger, and the sound switched from another TV to the one he indicated. After watching for a brief moment, I realized the news station was from Atlanta. The reporter spoke off-screen about receiving a tip with my home address as the camera panned out, showing the full length of our street. We could only catch a glimpse of my house through the privacy fence and hedges, but what I did see . . .
“Holy crap! What the hell happened to my house?” My first thought was a Daemoni attack. Last time we’d had to escape, right after our wedding, they had torched our houses and Mom’s bookstore. “I thought Rina said to save it.”