Soul Objective: Evelyn’s Story (Part 4)
Basil lowered Evelyn onto his living room sofa, checked her pulse, and cocked an uncertain brow. “Are you alright?”
Evelyn glanced about the room. Basil’s place? She raised a shaky wrist against her forehead. Feels normal. “Wha—What happened?”
“You fainted,” Zarkisian answered and backed away. “Shall I get you a glass of water?”
“N-no,” Evelyn croaked, tried to sit up, and failed. Discomfited by Zarkisian’s clinical gaze, she shifted her hips on the couch, and closed her eyes. “Maybe you’d better.”
“By all means,” Zarkisian replied.
After Zarkisian strode into the kitchen, Evelyn peered around the room. The plates and silverware remained on the table, unwashed. The flames of the twin table candles, so tapering and delicate, hovered above their wicks at the same height as when she sought to leave. Panic seized her spine. I’m still in Basil’s apartment—a prisoner?.
Zarkisian returned and proffered the requested goblet. “Here.”
Evelyn watched twin beads of water snake around her fingers and drip off the stem bottom before chancing a sip. Cold. Refreshing. Nothing else. She gulped half the glass, the chilled water revitalizing her parched throat. “How—?” she gasped and cleared her throat. “How long was I out?”
“Not long,” Basil answered, stroking his goatee in contemplation. “Maybe a minute,” he decided with a devilish grin. “Two at the most.”
Evelyn scowled. “It can’t have been as short as that.” She raised a hand to her forehead. Cool Normal. “It took me at least an hour to escape from the labyrinth—”
“Labyrinth?” Basil queried like an indulgent uncle.
“Yes, a cave,” Evelyn answered. Fractured recollections flooded her consciousness. “Twisting, gloomy. I escaped from it down to a beach. No one was there,” she gushed, images and impressions racing and tumbling through her mind. “I started up the beach to find someone—anyone—when a giant serpent rose out of the water and came toward me.”
“I see,” Basil said, slipping onto a nearby matching chair. “Did it say anything?”
“It called my name,” Evelyn replied. “Said it had been expecting me.”
“Oh?” Basil replied in a clinical tone. “For what?”
“It didn’t say,” Evelyn answered, her mental turmoil grinding to a half. ‘It didn’t say why, either.” She knitted her brows in concentration. “Then it started to come near me, and I could feel its hot, slobbering breath on my face. I tried to run, but I got caught in the sand and couldn’t move. I was going to fight it off when somebody called me—” Evelyn stared at Basil with misgiving and disbelief. “You?”
“I was trying to wake you up,” Basil replied.
“I was struggling to get away,” Evelyn recalled, trembling, “and you stopped me. Why?”
“I tried wrapping you in a blanket and moving you to the sofa,” Basil chuckled, “but you put up quite a fight.”
Evelyn’s neck hairs prickled. “Why a blanket? Why wrap me up at all?”
“You were shaking,” Basil explained. “I thought you were cold.”
‘That’s a pretty weak explanation for a medical professional.”
“I was only trying to help.”
“Help what?” Evelyn replied with feverish suspicion. “My kidnapping?”
“Nothing so duplicitous as that,” Basil said with a reassuring smile.
“I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“We didn’t get to finish our discussion before,” Basil replied, glowering. “Now we can. But before we begin, let me ask you one more question.”
“What?” Evelyn frowned. This better be good.
“Did the dragon identify itself?” Basil asked in an earnest voice. “Did it give you a name?”
Huh? How is that important? Evelyn squashed her brows in concentration. “It said its name was Anger Me In You”
“Angra Mainyu,” Basil corrected.
“King of the Amesha Spentras, it said,” Evelyn added with disdain. “If that means anything.”
‘It does,” Basil assured her, pleased at her revelation. “Now we can pick up where we left off before your female histrionics.”
Histrionics? Female? Evelyn sprang to her feet in indignation.
“Sit down,” Basil ordered. “Or I’ll put you back where you were for good.”
Evelyn noted the diamond-hard savagery in Basil’s gaze. He means it. She resumed her seat on the sofa. Better learn what I can while I can no matter how fantastic. “OK, where was I?”
“Dakhanavar,”
Zarkisian’s eyes sparked with constrained pride. This means something to him—how much? Evelyn shrugged. “Never heard of it.”
“Most Americans, most Westerners haven’t,” Zarkisian acknowledged with a sigh. “But they should.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the mountain home of the Armenian vampire of the same name,” Zarkisian replied.
“I’m not much into supernatural beings,” Evelyn tittered despite herself. Don’t lose your cool, Evelyn. She clutched her purse beside her thigh and sat erect on the sofa. “Especially vampires from places I’ve never been to or heard of.”
“Is that so,” Zarkisian declared, more statement than question. “You are part Romanian, aren’t you?” he asked, his eyes searching her face.
“So?”
Zarkisian smiled. “Didn’t your mother or grandmother ever tell you stories about ghosts and goblins before you went to bed?”
“Not if she wanted us to sleep, she didn’t,” Evelyn protested. “Carpathian, Armenian, Transylvanian—location or reputation didn’t matter so much as the creature’s ability to scare us.” Evelyn shrugged again. “None of them ever did in my case. Too fantastic.”
“And the others?” Zarkisian asked. “What about your siblings?”
Oh, oh. Keep Desdemona out of this. “Same as me.” Evelyn dropped her focus onto the cuticles of her fingernails. “Totally unbelievable.”
“I see,” Zarkisian remarked, unconvinced. “What if that creature is also the Armenian name for hell?”
Huh? Evelyn peered into Zarkisian’s luminescent eyes. Something spectral shifted in their depths like a flicker of ash flaking from a dying ember. He’s serious. “Many children’s stories are based on old legends,” she rationalized and cleared her throat. “I don’t see how an on-the-nose namesake makes your vampire any different or special.”
“Oh, but it does,” Zarkisian countered with a smirk. “Especially for someone with your ethnic heritage and lineage.”
“I’m Romanian,” Evelyn declared, feeling edgy. “I told you that before.” Where’s he going with this? “We have nothing in common with the Bulgarians, Turks, Greeks, you name it in that region. Especially the Armenians.”
“That is where you are wrong,” Zarkisian replied and got to his feet. “You’re one of us.” He glowered for emphasis. “Far more than you know.”
He crossed the room to the armoire desk tucked inside the alcove overlooking the street. Producing a gilded key from the inside breast pocket of his blazer, he unlocked the mahogany panel and revealed his writing desk and computer laptop. Reaching behind the monitor, he twisted a dial back and forth without looking, the combination known by heart. The center panel popped open and he reached inside. Using both hands, he pulled out a linen-cloaked object approximately three feet tall, turned, and faced Evelyn.
“I should have shown this to you earlier,” he apologized, extending his weighty prize in Evelyn’s direction. “My show of force wouldn’t have been necessary.”
This is why he’s kept me here? Evelyn swallowed, intrigued despite her apprehensions. There’s more to our meeting than potential date rape. “What is it?”
“Your heritage,” Zarkisian replied, crossing the room. Halting in front of her, he undid the topmost piece of masking tape. “See for yourself.”
Pulling the gauzy drapery aside, he undid a second piece of tape, and the top of the linen shroud dropped away. Inside, a golden, tubular structure stretched toward the ceiling like a cockeyed miniature of the Eiffel Tower. In the dusk of after-dinner candlelight, the absurd structure suffused the air with a mystical, other-worldly glow.
Evelyn traced the interconnecting arabesques from one level to the next all the way to top with her index finger. So intricate, so delicate, so grandiose. “What is it?”
“The spangenhelm of our leader,” Zarkisian announced, eying the wonder on Evelyn’s face with satisfaction. “It speaks to you, does it not?”
Evelyn nodded. “I feel its power,” she whispered, her chest stirring with a nameless awe. “And who is your leader?”
“The Shahanshah,” Zarkisian replied. When Evelyn knitted her brows in ignorance, he added, “King of kings is your Christian equivalent.”
Evelyn glanced upward. “I’m not—”
“Of course, you’re not,” Zarkisian interrupted.
A cold queasiness seeped through Evelyn’s belly at Zarkisian’s assumption. Like Christ’s resurrection? “Where is this leader?” she asked in a careful voice, noting the reverence in Zarkisian’s eyes. “Here? On earth?”
Zarkisian shook his head. “He is coming soon,” he assured her and set the crown on the coffee table. “Heavy,” he explained, flapping his wrists to relieve the strain. His gaze hardened again. “You must help.”
“Lift that?” Evelyn exclaimed, certain that wasn’t what he wanted but feigning ignorance just the same. “You must be joking!”
“Not that,” Zarkisian retorted and his mouth twisted with scorn. “With the ceremony.”
“Me? What can I do?”
“Ensure the coronation ceremony comes off as planned,” Zarkisian answered.
“How?”
“Have Miriam marry the German gentleman, Mr. Albrecht, whom I mentioned earlier,” Zarkisian replied. Noting Evelyn’s uncertainty, he wheedled. “You can do it, Evelyn. Use your parental authority. Now that Victor has abandoned his parental responsibilities—”
“No!” Evelyn surged to her feet. “I already—” Zarkisian’s face glowed with adamantine determination. Careful, Evelyn. Control yourself, or he’ll send you back in Dakhanavar. “I know nothing about your Shahanshah or your beliefs—” She paused. Outlandish as they may be. “But I do respect them, just as I hope that you will respect mine. And those of my daughter.”
She checked Zarkisian’s reaction—restrained impatience. “Perhaps I could persuade her,” she prevaricated, “if I better understood her role in the ceremony.”
Zarkisian’s brows beetled. “You know what you need to know.”
“I see,” Evelyn replied, sensing Zarkisian’s increasing irritation. Is this a sore spot? “But if I knew her importance, I could—”
“Marrying the treasurer of the kingdom of Hayastan should be incentive enough,” Zarkisian retorted, opening and closing his fists with suppressed rage. “I could make you do it—you’ve experienced my power—” He glanced at his hands and extended his fingers until their ashen color returned. “But the use of force seems inappropriate in light of such a joyous celebration.”
“Unless you can’t get what you want any other way,” Evelyn realized aloud and frowned. His power to co-opt people’s minds forms the basis of our relationship. Has all along. “Tell me, Basil,” she asked through gritted teeth. “Was it kismet that brought us together in Kuwait City all those years ago? Or were you using your power to control my mind even then?”
A crooked smile creased Zarkisian’s face. “I prefer to think it was the former,” he equivocated. “We were both alone much of the time. You seemed as interested as I was. And—”
“I was a married woman AND you knew it!” Evelyn cried. “To one of your professional colleagues, yet you took advantage of him.” Evelyn covered her face with her hands. “No wonder Victor left me. You caused it.”
Zarkisian regarded her as if observing the actions of an ant. “You still have Miriam.”
Do I? Evelyn spread her fingers and eyed Zarkisian’s face. “Is she even mine?” she wondered, blushing with shame. When Zarkisian did not respond, she whirled, and pointed at the gilded crown. “Or is her part in this coronation what you had in mind all along?”
“What if it is!” Zarkisian snapped. “Forces more powerful than you can imagine have waited years, centuries for this coronation to happen, and now it’s almost here.” He shrugged. “You can either choose to participate in all its royal glory, or play your part as a zombie. Your choice. The outcome remains the same either way.”
“I—uh—” Evelyn turned away, overcome by her emotional turmoil. How can I do what he asks? It sounds ghoulish, fantastic. She shivered. I don’t want to return to Dakhanavar, either.
“Well?”
Evelyn’s shoulders shook with grief. If I don’t agree, he’ll force Miriam to marry Albrecht anyway. How can I let that happen? She shook her head in resignation. “I’m afraid—”
“Yes?” Zarkisian asked in anticipation.
End Part 4
