“We will play later, Peaches, now go do your homework ready for me.” At this she shouted,
“Yey! Hell yeah, I will, just you wait and see, those equations are gonna look the shit, we are talking hearts, kisses and little cupid cocks in the margins and everything!”
“Good girl,” he responded on a chuckle, making me regret the call and wished I had just sent him a fucking text!
“Alright Luc, go for it.”
“Are you sure, ‘cause you could just go ahead and rub salt in the wound and fuck whilst I wait?” I snarled making him laugh instead of taking me seriously.
“Don’t give her ideas, Luc, it’s the last thing she needs…now I take it you needed something…other than some alone time and a porno of course.” he added because the bastard knew he could.
“Asshole,” was my muttered response and again he laughed.
“I need to know if there is anyone else out there who can look at this map, anyone we haven’t thought of.”
“Luc, come on, we have been through this, we have had every geographical expert looking at it and half the idiots believed it was the lost city of Atlantis!” Adam certainly had a point and he would know being the poor bastard that had been charged with meeting with them.
“I take it this has something to do with Amelia taking an extra copy of the map?” he asked getting to the point.
“Stealing an extra copy of the map, yes,” I corrected before adding the real reason for my call,
“She found a way to decipher it, Adam.”
“Whoa, okay so that’s new…how do you know that?” he asked after first expressing his surprise.
“Because she purposely left a copy in her room and gave me back the box, now why would she do that?”
“Because she didn’t need it anymore…alright, point taken, and you officially have my attention,” he replied making me raise a brow,
“And I didn’t before?”
“Luc, I have my wife here dressed in a naughty schoolgirl outfit, bent over my desk and leaving very little to the imagination other than the fucking pencil she has been sucking on this whole time…yes, only now do you have my attention.” I scoffed before being the one to mutter this time,
“Point taken.”
The amusing part about this comment was that most people who knew Adam, had never heard him speak this way. But seeing as we had that kind of friendship, then unless anyone was around, this was the natural way of things. And in truth, it was that kind of honesty I needed right now.
“Okay, so what do you need?”
“I want you to put together a team, anyone from experts in the geographical field, to Philologists, to the study of fucking ancient map reading…Hell, get me a fucking Scribe for all I care!” Adam laughed and made another point as was his way,
“Unless you’re referring to the Jewish recordkeeper variety, then I think we are all out of luck at finding an ancient Egyptian who documents the life of a pharaoh.”
“Adam.” I growled his name as a warning of my dark mood.
“Alright Luc, I will see what I can do…where do you want to meet?”
“I will come to you, as I think you have more chance of finding the people we need in the States…fuck, but it’s not like it’s lacking in the amount of Universities.”
“That’s true…and the map?” he asked.
“I am putting it in the box as we speak and will bring both…wait…what the…?” My voice trailed off the second I opened the box further thanks to the blood I had already spilled for it. But the moment a drop of my blood dripped inside the box, it started to do more than just vibrate this time. No, now it started to open at the seams before it suddenly stopped.
“Luc? What is it?” I didn’t tell him, wanting to find out for myself first.
“Go, enjoy your wife, I will call you back later,” I said hanging up to the sound of him cursing me, no doubt for leaving him in the dark. Adam loved a good puzzle as much as the next geek. Hell, but from what I had been told, he and Amelia would often be found hunched over a crossword or some new challenge bought for them in the way of some plastic, multicolored puzzle cube.
But as for me, well this was challenge enough and it just looked to be one I had just cracked...finally. So, after throwing my phone down on the table, I shifted the box closer to me. Then I lifted my right hand to my mouth, one that had already started to heal. After this I let my fangs extend and bit hard into my own flesh, deep enough to make it bleed thoroughly. Then I removed the map and allowed my blood to pour down into the box.
In seconds it started to unfold before my eyes making me curse,
“Fuck me…it worked.”
That was when it all started to make sense, as seeing her hand bleeding had obviously been when she had discovered the box’s secret just as I had. Because once the box was flat, it was easy to see the channels of blood that had started to fill. Channels that were there for a reason.
But for me that reason became something else entirety as I placed the map over the now flat piece of wood, watching as its destination started to seep through the paper.
One that included a name.
One I knew all too well.
“Gods, can it be?” I muttered in astonishment as I looked up at the painting above my fireplace. And for the first time in a long time, a real grin emerged as that reason became one that mirrored both my past and my future.
After this there was only one thing left to say,
“I’ve got you now, my little Šemšā…”
“I’ve got you now.”
Amelia
Chapter 20
Now and Forever
The second the song came over the radio, I cursed that my hands were full and was therefore unable to turn off the beautiful notes of Lady Antebellum’s, ‘I run to you’ quickly enough. It had been nearly two months of banned love songs and as the lyrics seemed to tell my life’s story it was of little wonder why…
‘I run from hate, I run from prejudice, I run from pessimists, but I run too late…I run my life, or is it running me?’
And wasn’t that just the question right now I thought as I struggled to the table with yet another armful of research papers my friend Yosef had given me. Damn my Spotify account recommending songs!
I quickly got to the table only dropping a few scrolls and one book, doing so just as the lyrics continued with…
‘Run from my past, I run too fast, or too slow it seems… when lies become the truth…’
“Yeah you can say that again!” I said picking up my fallen articles with annoyance and slapping them back on the counter just before grabbing my tablet and turning it off just as the beat kicked up with,
‘That's when I run to you… this world keeps spinning faster, into a new disaster so I run to you…I run to you baby’
“Nope, not now and not ever,” I commented as I killed the music and the second I did, that was when I felt it. Like a presence so powerful it sucked all the energy from the room and left me near gasping for breath. And that difficulty in breathing wasn’t just from the moment you realised that you were no longer alone, but it was more when you realised who it was that stole that solitude from you. Because when you were on the run there was only one being out there you hoped not to find in the room with you…