Authors: Brenda Joyce

House of Dreams (51 page)

BOOK: House of Dreams

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“Can't,” Tracey gasped, and even as she spoke, Cass realized what was happening. Tracey's fingers on her left hand, holding her wounded arm, were stiffening and whitening with the tension. Clearly a part of her was trying to hold the injured armâanother part of her was trying to release it. And Cass instantly realized why.

Because Tracey still held the knife in her right hand, which dangled at her side.

Cass stared as Tracey's left hand twitched and slowly began to open. She looked down and saw that her grip on the knife was tightening at the very same time.

And Antonio must have seen too, because he shouted, “Get out of the way!”

He was only yards away, having come across the hall. Cass didn't look back at him. She would not move awayâgiving him a clear shot at her sister.

Tracey had to vanquish Isabel. Cass would not think about the consequences if she did not.

Tracey slowly moved her left hand away from her right arm. Tears were streaming down her face, mingling with perspiration.

“Fight her, Trace, you can do it,” Cass whispered, wondering if the blade was going to be used against her.

“Too much pain,” Tracey whispered, and suddenly her right arm was dangling free, and in the next instant she had raised the knife high.

Cass stared at the bloody tip. Her heart stopped. It crossed her dazed mind that this was it. She had lost. Isabel would win after all. She was about to die.

And what happened next happened in the slowest of motion, as if all time had ceased.

Tracey looked Cass in the eye, and Cass watched as she pushed the knife down.

Not into Cass's breast.

Into her own breast.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Cass could not scream.

She could only stand in shock and stare down at her sister.

“Mother,” came an anguished whisper.

Cass whirled, to find Antonio holding both children, but Alyssa was struggling to break free of the circle of his arms. Tears covered her white, frightened face.

Cass took one last look at Tracey, then rushed to her niece, pulling her into her embrace. As she did so, briefly her gaze met Antonio's. Everything she'd ever hoped to see in his eyes was thereâconcern, compassion, love, strength.

“Is she dead?” he asked.

Cass thought so. But it struck her that she did not know for certain, and even as she realized that, she heard Antonio moving past her. Cass stroked Alyssa's hair, murmuring reassuringly to her, holding her hard.

But now she began to wonder, where was Isabel?

“I don't understand,” Alyssa whispered. “Is that woman gone?”

“I'll explain, one day,” Cass whispered, but she stiffened, glancing at Antonio, who was kneeling beside Tracey. Was Isabel gone? Could it be possible?

Of course she wasn't gone, Cass thought instantly. She knew it the way she knew the sun would rise tomorrow.

“She's alive, but she needs a doctor, soon,” Antonio said, standing.

Cass released Alyssa, weak with relief, but it was short-lived. They had no way of getting an ambulance or getting to a doctor. She glanced
warily around the dimly illuminated hall. Where was Isabel? Cass sensed she was near. The air felt heavy, dense, dark, and ugly, and it was pressing down on Cass almost unbearably. And it almost felt as if the pressure were coming from the inside outâwhich made no sense at all. Cass's shoulders felt so rigid from the pressure and the tension, she wondered if they would snap.

Her instincts screamed at her that they were in the eye of the storm.

That the worst had yet to come.

“We have no power, no phones, no transportation,” she said slowly, moving toward Antonio.

His gaze sharpened. “Cassandra?”

“There is no physician here,” Cass said. And even as she spoke, even as she met Antonio's gaze, and wondered why he was looking at her that way, she heard herself and was confused by her own words. They did not sound right. They sounded â¦ odd.

“We need to bandage the wound. I'm afraid to remove the knife.” He stared. “Gregory needs a doctor, too. I'm going to have to go for help.”

Cass found herself staring at her sister, lying in a pool of her own warm, red blood. She felt ill, violently so, but something else was happening, because a part of her did not feel ill at all. A part of her felt satisfied. Terribly satisfied.

Peace is death.

“I'll remove the knife,” she said, and before she knew what she herself intended, she was kneeling beside Tracey, who did not even appear to be breathing, and she was reaching for the handle of the knife.

“No!” Antonio shouted, grabbing her arm before she could pull the blade free of her sister's chest.

Cass flung him off unthinkingly.

And she watched him fall backward, onto the floor. And she was so oddly surprised at her own strength, but then she realized he was wounded; that would explain why he was so weak. Still, she hadn't meant to hurt him. She wanted to call out to him, but her mouth would not open, nor would it form the words she wished to say.

Peace is death. Trust me.

Cass froze, about to withdraw the knife, only vaguely aware now of Antonio, who was telling her not to take out the knife, that removing it might be worse for her sister, and he was calling her name, again and againâbut he sounded so far away.

The scene in the great hall had become surreal, Cass thought. Was this really happening?

Peace is death. Take the knife. Do what you must do to find peace.

Isabel,
Cass managed to think, her sister's white, nearly lifeless face swimming in and out of view. “Isabel,” she muttered, her mind, curiously sluggish, trying to hold on to that thought. Isabel had returned.

Isabel was stalking Cass now.

And Cass seemed to be above the room, looking down on everyone there. Antonio staring at her, the two children cowering together by the wall, her sister dying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. And Cass just standing there, poised to wrench the knife from her sister's breast.

Antonio was rushing her from behind.

“Cassandra!” Antonio was shouting.

And he was grabbing her.

Hardly even aware of what she was doing, Cass twisted free of himâand watched as he was hurled backward again, this time landing hard on the floor.

And she wondered how she had ever accomplished such a feat. Sobs reached her.

Distant sobsâas if from another world, another unearthly plane.

Death is peace.
The voice inside her head was so warm and soothing, mesmerizing. There was comfort in the refrain. Vast, unthinkable comfort.

But the children were crying.

Cass blinked and saw Alyssa crouched down beside the marble table, staring at her, crying, Eduardo next to her, holding her, also in tears.

The children,
she thought
. I have to save the children.

“Cassandra. Don't let her do this. Cassandra. Look at me. Cassandra. Can you hear me? Look at me!” Antonio cried, gripping her by her arms again.

His face was inches from hers, and Cass met his eyes, even as her body flexed, even as she intended to throw him off of her, damn him for his interference.

Kill him.

The savage, brutal thought formed itself inside her brain, and for one heartrending instant, Cass wanted to take the knife from her sister's breast and plunge it into Antonio's chest. In the next instant, she looked into his eyes and felt his pull.

I love you. Trust me.

Peace is death. Kill him.

Images flooded her confused brain. Images of him lecturing in his
black turtleneck, while she sat perched at her small desk, eating up his every word; images of her and Antonio side by side, staring at and discussing the ruby necklace; images of his face alight with intellectual excitement; images of a look, a smile; images of him touching her naked body, eyes wide, intent; images of him above her, while inside of her. I love him, Cass thought, staring, their gazes locked.
I love him,
I
love the children,
I
love them,
I
do.

“Cassandra,” he said. “You're stronger than Tracey. Fight her. Fight her, now. Please,” he cried, on a sob.

Peace is death
! Isabel screamed again and again.

And Cass felt the pain, inside her head, black and burning, an endless vortex, tearing roaring ripping her brain apart.

But she loved him. How could she kill him?

“I love you, damn it,” he cried, his grip tightening on her arms, hurting her. He was shaking her.

Cass relished the pain then, hoping it would detract from the spinning blackness in her mind, the blackness and confusion. Isabel's face loomed there, in her mind's eye, smiling, taunting, malevolent. Cass pushed Antonio away. “Go away,” she cried.

Antonio stared. “No. No. I will not.”

Cass shook her head, Isabel before her, her mantra echoing in her mind. She could not clear it.
Peace is death â¦ kill him. Now.

Cass broke into a sweat. She was shaking wildly, she realized. Her hands were clamped over her ears. She felt that if the noises inside her head did not stop, she would go deafâor insane.

Peace is death peace is death kill him kill him trust me.

“No!” Cass screamed.

“Cassandra!” Antonio shouted.

Cass clutched her head, harder now, and it was spinning, spinning furiously, making her dizzy, making her insane. She felt like tearing her head off of her own shoulders, to stop that damnably seductive voice, to stop the pain.

“Cassandra! Don't do it!” Antonio screamed.

Cass heard him, and she heard the children crying and she did not understand.
Kill him kill them all trust me .
..
I
love them
, she swore silently, and she saw the two huddled, terrified children, and then she saw Antonio, as white as a storybook ghost, and then she looked down, at her sister's bloody chestâand at the knife in her own hand.

KILL THEM ALL.

Cass stared at her hand, clenching the knife, and she felt Isabel, behind her, on her, inside her, and she thought about how she loved them, so much, and she felt Isabel's hatred and fury, wrapping itself tighter and tighter around her, and Cass began to strangle for lack of air, her body felt as if it were being crushed in a vise, and Cass looked at the knife.

KILL THEM ALL.

I â¦ love â¦ them â¦ she thought, sobbing.

And she watched the knife clatter to the floor.

She stared at it, a bloody metal blade, somehow lying at her feet, then watched as her own body also fell, slowly, in slow motion, to the ground, crumpling beside the knife.

“Cassandra,” Antonio rasped, pulling her into his arms from behind.

The pain, the black vortex, a huge black hole inside her mind, spinning ceaselessly, ceased.

In that one singular moment, Cass felt a blessed blankness, a dark emptiness, and then there was light.

Inside her brain. So much light.

And Cass felt the encircling warmth of his arms, his chest, and she heard his drumming heartbeat beneath her ear. “Am I â¦ okay?”

“I thought I'd lost you,” he cried against her hair. And he held her hard against his chest.

And there was silence.

The sun hadn't even risen when the first ambulances and police cars arrived.

Cass stood by herself outside, wearing a light wool sweater, her hands in the pockets of her jeans, watching the activity all around the house. A half dozen policemen were walking around, talking to one another grimly in their native tongue, appearing stunned and shocked. The looks they were exchanging were almost comical.

The paramedics thought her sister would live. Tracey and Gregory had been brought by stretcher from the house and loaded into an ambulance that would take them to the closest hospital in Segovia hours ago. Alfonso had been treated by paramedics inside, on site, as had Antonio. Apparently about an hour after he had left the house in search of help, a trucker had picked him up, and using the CB radio, they had called for help.

She was grim. No one would believe their story. Tracey would probably wind up in a mental institution. Would there be a criminal trial first? Would she be accused of murdering the electrician?

And these cops did not look up to the task at hand. They had probably never seen much more than a fistfight or a case of domestic violence, Cass thought. She doubted there were lab technicians anywhere at hand to analyze the “crime” scene. Maybe that was for the best.

The sun was higher now.

The day was stunningly clean, stunningly beautiful, and absolutely benign.

Isabel was gone. Cass had not a doubt. But for how long?

She couldn't help wondering if it was forever. This day was different from the days before. It was a quiet day, but not absolutely silent. Cass could hear far more than the hushed voices of the
policia
, she could hear a soft sighing breeze, the barking of someone's dog, and a chirping bird. Periodically a police car's radio would cackle.

The quiet day felt almost lazy; the unbearable, remarkable tension. that they had been living with ever since arriving at Casa de Suenos was gone.

It was almost as if a huge storm, which had been brewing, had swept violently through the area, leaving in its aftermath reduced barometric pressure and fresh, cool, clean air.

“SeÃ±ora?”

Cass looked up. A policeman was approaching her, and he was holding her laptop, which was open. Beyond him, she saw Antonio standing on the front steps, one arm in a sling to relieve his shoulder where he had been stabbed from behind, speaking with another officer, who Cass thought was in charge. They had yet to exchange more than a word or two since he had returnedâand since the police had arrived.

His gaze found and held hers.

Cass smiled.

He smiled back, then turned to the policeman he was speaking with.

BOOK: House of Dreams

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