Chapter Eighteen - Part Two

Addy reached into her pocket and withdrew a small, plastic baggy with a crushed, white powder held within. With eyebrows raised, I looked at her.

“It’s two – I just crushed them up for you. They’ll keep him knocked out for at least eight hours. But it can take up to thirty minutes for them to kick in, so you’d better do it soon.”

“Eve changed the plan on me.” I said, taking the baggy and tucking it away in my back pocket. “Since Ethan’s out of the question, she wants me to find an alternate way of breaking the curse, otherwise I’m not getting that ring back.”

“That cow,” said Addy. “Although, can’t say I don’t blame her for wanting to save her own sorry skin. You know, I have a feeling that she would not die gracefully…”

“She’s getting ballsy,” I said, rubbing my forehead with a sigh. “And she knows that she has me backed into a corner. She could string me along forever if she wanted.”

“We need to teach that tramp a lesson, Mimi.” Addy said with a determined smirk. “Put her back in her place – remind her who the Leader is.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a handle on it. I’ll call Tidus and ask him if he and Claudia can meet tonight to do the truth spell. That way, not only do I get the chance to pick Claudia’s brain about The Order, but she might be able to find a solution to our problem with Eve.”

“Ok, I guess those beans are sort of cool. But what about Ethan the Barbarian? What do we do about him while you’re off saving the Village?”

I gave Addy a pleading smile.

“Addy, would you mind babysitting for me, pretty please? Eve knows the curse will take effect if she removes the ring, but I still don’t wanna risk leaving him alone. She really could try to kill Ethan.”

“Well, I did have a date with Collin planed, but, we don’t want Lover Boy in jail with Daddy-O too. I suppose I could cancel for a rain check…”

“Are you kidding?” I said, nudging my friend on the shoulder. “Invite him over. Hang out. Ethan will be passed out on the couch anyway. But if you guys do stuff – just try not to ruin the leather. Mrs. Trentley is pretty much paid to reprimand me...”

“Mimi: question. What are you gonna do when you show up to Claudia’s tonight without the ring? Aren’t she and Tidus gonna go ape?”

“Probably,” I said, biting my lip at the thought of it. “But, I’m thinking of giving the honest route a go for once – call it inspiration. And besides, Tidus was the main influence behind all of this. So if he wants the Council, he has to help me take down Charles – and that includes helping me with the speed bumps.”

“Amazing, truly amazing. Your genius never ceases to amaze me.” Addy said with a smile, but after only a moment the smile wobbled before sliding completely off. “But, Mimi, there’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

“Ok” I said, with concern for my friend. “What is it?”

“Look, I hate Charles just as much as you, Mimi, and ever since he threatened my dad’s position on the Leadership, I’ve been all for taking him down. But, I just need to know that the reasons that are motivating you to do all of this are… are…”

“Pure? Not evil?”

“Well. Kinda. Yeah. I mean, what we’re doing to Ethan’s dad and Leader Devila… I just wanna know that the ends will justify the means.”

I looked down for a moment with a sigh. I knew this piece of the puzzle would turn up missing soon. And now it was time for me to give it up.

“Addy, after my father died, I started doing a lot of research on the Nobles. I couldn’t find much on the Talimers though. For some reason, their history is really bare – it’s almost like they deliberately hid from the world. But I did manage to find this article about a case from about twenty years ago. It involved this kid named Benjamin Talimer – my mother’s cousin.”

“Oh, great.” Addy said, looking wary. “Please tell me this story has a good ending.

I shook my head.

“The article said his friends and family called him ‘Benny’. He was seventeen when he was killed – shot right through the heart. And my grandfather, Charles Edward Noble, was a suspect in his murder.”

All of the color drained from Addy’s lovely face.

“How could I have not known about that? How has this stayed hidden?”

“Because it never went to trial.” I said bitterly. “One day the charges against Charles were just… dropped – no explanation. And the police never recovered any other evidence to be able to pin the crime on someone else. So the murderer walked.”

I paused. That was the hardest part about any of this – that the true killer had gone free. That a young kid named Benny Talimer had been brutally murdered at the hands of my grandfather, and yet no justice had ever been served. And from the moment I had known that Charles was involved, I had resented him from the start.

“Addy, Charles is made of money, he could have easily made this all disappear. In fact, the article that I found about this case wasn’t even printed in Harbor – it came from Hasting. That’s where the Talimers are from.”

“You know what?” Addy said. “I bet this case is probably how your parents met to begin with. I mean, this would have happened when they were both kids, not much older than you and me…”

“This was three years before I was born.” I said, looking to Addy now with eyes that were no longer sad for the past, but hungry for the future.

“Something tells me that he did it – he killed that kid and somehow got away with it, scott-free. Call me paranoid if you want, but if he was involved in Benny Talimer’s murder, then who’s to say he wasn’t somehow involved in my father’s death too? And that’s where all the animosity and hostility comes from. It’s hard to follow a man who you think might be involved in killing your family… So,” I said. “Are we square again?”

“Oh babe, we never even left the box!” Addy said, throwing her arms around me, and providing all the cheesiness that only a best friend could handle. “I knew you had validation, I just needed to hear it.”

“Good,” I said, hugging her back.

“Okay, okay, enough with this drama, we’re not in a tragedy, for god’s sake.” Addy said, stepping back and flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Anyway, I’m off. But I’ll be back soon so you can take off, hmm?”

“Right,”

“Kay! Good luck, darling.”

Good and luck – two words that hardly ever seemed to work well together. And I was starting to think that there wasn’t really any such thing as luck in this town. Or good, for that matter.

*  *  *

“Ethan, can I ask you something?” I said, upon re-entering the living room. I closed the thick double doors behind me, putting my hands behind my back as I leaned against them, observing him quietly. With nimble hands, I plucked the baggy of crushed of Ambien from the back pocket of my jeans, and squashed it into a little ball with my hands before sliding it up the sleeve of my right arm.

Though he spoke, his eyes remained glued to the television.

“Yeah. Sure.” he said absently, scratching his shoulder.

“How important is the Leadership to you?”

“Very…” he said, clicking through a few channels. But after a moment he dropped the remote and looked at me. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Because, I still don’t know that much about you.” I said. “And you don’t really know that much about me either. In fact, the only thing we really know about each other is that the Leadership is important to us. But, I wanna know – how important is it to you?”

“Well, it’s important enough for me to be spending my time here with you,” he said, and briefly picked up the remote again to turn off the TV. “I’d say that has to be worth something, right?”

“And are you doing that because you really wanna be here? Or are you here because you think that it’ll keep your dad happy?”

Ethan observed me quietly for several seconds. A dark look had passed across his usually arrogant, sunny features.

“Can it be both?”

“Hey, at least you’re honest. Drink?”

Mrs. Trentley had rolled a small, waist height, golden trolley into the corner of the room earlier. It held a glass bottle of whiskey, a tumbler of ice, and two short glasses. I made my way across the room to this trolley, and began to pour us each a drink, despite the fact that he hadn’t answered my question.

“You know, Ethan, when your step-mom was grilling me last night at the gala, I admit that at first I was a little worried that I had been wrong about giving you a second chance.” I said. Surreptitiously, I moved my arm and the small crumpled bag came tumbling out. “But then, she told me about your plan to marry me, and have kids… and then I realized I couldn’t be mad at you – even if you do wanna be the Elder one day.”

“Really? And why wouldn’t that make you angry?” Ethan said.

“Well, because you’ve proven to me that you’re loyal – loyal to not only me, but the Leadership as well and I really appreciate that. So if you do become the Elder one day, I don’t think that would be a bad thing. And to be honest, I can’t say that I wouldn’t have done the same things if I had been in your shoes.”

The drinks were poured and the powder applied. I swirled the glass a little, added the ice, and thus satisfied, I picked up the drinks.

“But I should probably warn you now: I really don’t want kids and I’m definitely not marriage material. So the Noble bloodline will probably end with me. It’s a hard truth, but I’m sure the Garou will get over it. Besides, change is good right?” With a friendly smile, I extended one of the drinks to Ethan, taking a small sip from my own.

“Oh don’t be so dramatic, Mimi.” Ethan said rolling his eyes. “You’re just saying that because you think it sounds less demeaning than ‘Ethan, you’re not my type’ – but it doesn’t.” Ethan took the drink, but he set it down on the end table right away. “I know what you go for. You’re more interested in the ‘bad boy’ type …”