Truth Behind the Mask Read online

  “I did, and as much as I hated the thought of that man for so many years, I couldn’t bring myself to hate the man who spoke to you tonight. May he find peace now.”

  “May we all,” Rogue said. “That damned Phoenix disappeared like he got sucked into the shadows. I couldn’t find him anywhere, and I was barely minutes behind him when he took off.”

  “I think there’s much more than we realized to this boy,” Melina said.

  “I can’t believe he was in plain sight and we didn’t get him,” Rogue said.

  “He’s an unusual leader. He actually takes part in the fighting, albeit a fleeting role tonight. But then, he did have the grand finale planned. He was obviously the one who set Tito’s car in motion amid the distraction of the fireworks display,” Melina said, rubbing at Rogue’s neck.

  Pagan smiled as she watched her sister knead Rogue’s broad shoulders. Every so often Melina would reach out to touch Rogue’s hair. Pagan shrugged out of her jacket, then pulled off her boots and trousers. She carefully peeled off her gloves and surveyed the damage. She pursed her lips. It didn’t look too bad. Clad in just her underwear and T-shirt, Pagan padded off to the door in the wall. “Back in a moment,” she called back, knowing full well she hadn’t been heard.

  She waved her hand over the secret catch that opened the door into her bedroom. The door was visible only on the inside of the lighthouse. From inside her bedroom, it was invisible to the naked eye, the lay of the wallpaper deftly hiding it from detection. Pagan entered and headed straight for the bathroom.

  A voice stopped her dead in her tracks.

  “Now that’s something you don’t get to witness every day. Let me guess, it’s a walk-in closet.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Pagan turned around to find Erith seated on her bed, leaning back against the headboard, dressed in her sleep attire.

  “How did you get in here?” Pagan asked.

  Erith held up a small penlike device. “It broke the triple locks that curiously hold the door to your room in place. No plain old key and latch for you, eh, Pagan? You’re secured by locks, lights, and alarms in this place.” She turned to stare at where Pagan had apparently just walked through the wall. “The door’s gone. Just one more of the many mysteries this place seems to hold.”

  “Do you need something?” Pagan asked quietly, reaching for her sweatpants and pulling them on slowly as if afraid to startle Erith or the strangely charged mood in the room.

  “I need to know what’s going on. I was woken up by a series of very large explosions. I’m a light sleeper anyway, but these were fireworks that lasted for a long while. Now, unless it was someone celebrating the weekend in grand style, I’m of the mind it was something more suspicious. I thought I’d see if anyone else had heard it. I couldn’t hear anything from Melina and Rogue’s room and didn’t want to bother the happy couple, so I came looking for you. I figured you wouldn’t sleep in your hearing aids and wouldn’t have heard the row that was brewing outside. I had the romantic notion we could sit hand in hand at the window and watch the display together. Imagine my surprise when the door was locked, and not just by any old means either.”

  “So you broke into my bedroom.” Pagan was both alarmed by this thought and yet, for some strange reason, not very surprised.

  Erith tossed the gadget on top of the bedsheets. “It got me where I needed to go.”

  “Just who are you, Erith, to break in and out of places at will?”

  “I think the ‘who are you’ question is more mine than yours, Pagan. I can break in and out of places because I was taught at my father’s knee how to evade and hide. The technology I came by through watching ‘uncles’ at work. Some of it fell into my hands. Men can be so careless with their toys. What I want to know is why Pagan Osborne, the shy woman who installs alarms for a living, who I find I love with all my heart, has the need for a multibolted locking system on her bedroom door.”

  “We’re very security conscious. It’s an occupational hazard,” Pagan answered her, poker faced.

  “Bullshit, and you know it!” Erith eyed Pagan curiously. “Why are you still dressed when it’s long after four in the morning?”

  “I wasn’t sleeping very well—” Pagan began, but Erith held up a hand to forestall her.

  Erith got up and crossed the room to where Pagan stood beside the window. The light of the dying moon cast them both in gray shadows. Pagan watched as Erith reached for her and pushed her a little out of the moon’s pale glow.

  “Indulge me a moment, please,” Erith said and, on her tiptoes, reached up to Pagan’s face. With her fingers shaped to make ovals, Erith fitted her hands over Pagan’s eyes and made a mask shape that effectively covered Pagan’s face.

  “My own guardian angel. The one forever hiding in the shadows, by my side by night and day, it would seem. The one that very rarely looks me straight in the eye for fear I’ll see the woman behind the mask. The same one who pitches her speech barely above a whisper, fearing that I should recognize her voice.” Erith leaned back, removing her hands from Pagan’s face. “Just how long have you been a Sentinel, Pagan?”

  “Now why would you think that crazy idea about someone like me?”

  “Because it’s the only thing that would truly make sense about you.”

  Pagan blinked, stalling desperately as she tried to decide what to say.

  “You shouldn’t have brought me here, should you?” Erith asked. “My being here creates a problem when you go out to do your thing around the city. If I come looking for you and you’re not here, what can you tell me? What could you possibly say that wouldn’t sound fantastic or give the game away?”

  “Erith…”

  “And yet I’ve been so welcomed here, made to feel such a part of your family. Let inside, but not truly let in on what really happens here because you can’t tell me. I’m a part of the ones you fight against. I’m one of the bad guys.” She shook her head slightly. “You have to know I’d never betray you, or your family. You have my word on that, Pagan. I love you too much to ever give your secrets away.”

  Pagan stared at her and then leaned against the window ledge with a sigh. “You’re right. You’re not supposed to be here. I made a judgment call that I have not regretted, but I should have thought it all out first. I ended up exposing you to that which you weren’t supposed to know.”

  “You’re the Sentinel who got me away from home, aren’t you? The one who took me flying through the sky, held me safe in your arms miles above the city?”

  “Erith, you have to understand—”

  “No, I just need you to confirm what I felt from the moment that Sentinel stepped foot into Rogue’s office downstairs and found me seated before the computer deliberating whether I should do it or not. It was you. You who came into my home and rescued me. You who brought me to your own home. You who walked me safely back when I foolishly went back for my bike. The same you who is all too aware what my dad is mixed up in, what I was unwittingly brought up in, and yet still you brought the enemy’s daughter into your family’s home.”

  “Your father isn’t my biggest enemy. Phoenix is. His father killed my parents. Now his son is carrying out a vendetta against his father’s old gang members and the Sentinels themselves.” Pagan looked out the window at the moon. “This Phoenix has to be stopped.”

  “By you?”

  “If it is my destiny, then yes.” Pagan looked back at Erith and marveled at how beautiful she looked in the pale light of the room.

  “I knew it was you. I thought I was going crazy at first, but that Sentinel just seemed so much like you I trusted her right away without even considering it. I felt in my heart it had to be you behind that mask.” Erith smiled. “You’re very sexy in your leathers, do you know that?”

  Pagan chuckled, relieved that the truth was finally known, yet unsure what to do next. “You have amazing skills yourself,” she said, pointing to Erith’s lock breaker. “Rogue is fascinated by your alarm disa
bler. Wait until she knows about this. And Melina will be very impressed by what you can turn your hand to.”

  “Is she a Sentinel too?”

  “No, she’s so much more than that.” Pagan held out her hand. “I have to know something.” She took Erith’s hand in her own. “Can you still love me knowing what I am?”

  “I love you, Pagan, all of you. The Sentinel is obviously a big part of you that I need to get to know, but from what I have seen, she’s very much like the Pagan I know and love.” Erith kissed her. “I love you, Pagan, woman and Sentinel both.”

  Pagan sighed against the soft lips that covered her own. “I love you too.” She kissed Erith, then pulled back. “Come with me.”

  Erith followed her lead. “Where are we going?”

  “Into the lighthouse.”

  “Except for Rogue’s office at the base, I thought that was just a façade?”

  “Oh, it’s so much more than you could ever have dreamed of! Believe me, it’s full of surprises.” Pagan pressed at the hidden entry that led into the lighthouse. “If you care anything for me, whatever you witness here remains in your knowledge but never comes from your lips.”

  “On my honor,” Erith said. “I may be my father’s daughter, but his ideals and mine have long since parted company. I’d never do anything to betray you.”

  “It’s not just me,” Pagan said and opened the door.

  Rogue and Melina looked up at the opening of the door and then past Pagan to Erith.

  “I don’t believe this place!” Erith gasped, twirling around slowly as she took in as much of the lighthouse’s insides as she could see.

  “Seeing is believing.” Rogue pointedly looked at Pagan, then turned her attention back to Erith. “So, can you really be trusted with the knowledge of the lighthouse? Given your track record with the office below?”

  Erith had the grace to look shamefaced. “I should have realized my breaking in here wouldn’t have been something to slip under the radar. Not with Pagan being the one who busted me here.”

  Rogue gestured to the screens all displaying a point of view. “Let’s just say you’ve caused us concerns on many occasions.”

  Erith nodded. “I won’t let you down, any of you.”

  “Again,” Rogue said.

  “Ever again,” Erith said.

  “So, Ms. Baylor, will you share the details of your lock breaker with Rogue if I show you how we can monitor the whereabouts of people in our building, even when they should be asleep in their own beds?” Melina asked.

  “No wonder you could send Pagan out after me so fast,” Erith muttered, looking at the multitude of screens at Melina’s work space—including one currently displaying Pagan’s empty bedroom. Erith gave Melina a startled look and Melina just smiled back enigmatically at her.

  “So I take it she knows everything now?” Rogue asked Pagan.

  Erith stared at them all. “Oh, come on! I’ve spent quality time staring at her from over my desk. I know every inch of that face, that voice, and those hands.”

  Pagan could feel the blush slowly work up her neck and burst onto her face. She shifted surreptitiously to look at her hands, wondering what Erith found so fascinating about them. They were solid hands, with blunt short nails. She caught Rogue grinning at her and clenched her fists as if to hide them.

  “She’s the only person I’ve ever felt truly safe with, in the leather costume or out. My heart recognized the truth behind the mask long before I truly believed it myself.”

  Melina nodded. “You know she shouldn’t have brought you here? You were supposed to go to a safe house.”

  “I’m guessing as much. Why did you bring me here, Pagan?”

  “I wanted you where I would know you’d be safe,” Pagan said simply. “And for me, with my family is the safest place to be.”

  Erith shared a smile that made Pagan’s heart skip a beat. She then stepped forward and held something out for Rogue. Rogue accepted it dubiously.

  “It won’t bite,” Erith teased. “Pagan said you’d probably be interested in what this little gizmo can do, and I owe Melina one for not ejecting me from the bedroom in the first place.”

  “She picked the lock to get into my room with that thing.” Pagan fought down the urge to sound proud over the feat.

  “You truly do live up to your call name,” Rogue said, turning the pen-shaped object between her fingers, studying it from all angles.

  “Call name?” Erith asked.

  “We call you Red Fox over our comlinks,” Melina said.

  “Red Fox?”

  “It wasn’t my choice. Rogue picked it for you,” Pagan said.

  “I thought it suited you. It describes both your physical attributes and how wily you are.”

  “I’ll take it as a compliment, then. So, what do you do here if Pagan is the Sentinel?”

  Pagan laughed. “Erith, I am merely a fledgling Sentinel. Rogue here is Chastilian’s chief Sentinel.”

  Rogue raised her eyebrows at Erith’s slow and blatant appraisal.

  “Did you train Pagan?”

  Rogue nodded.

  “Did you teach her the flying-people-through-the-air-on-a-thin-piece-of-wire trick?”

  “I jumped off a building with her when she was barely six years old.”

  Erith looked at Melina for an ally. “What have I gotten myself into here?”

  “A family that will protect you with both their love and honor,” Melina replied.

  “Melina is one of Chastilian’s Sighted. She watches over us when we are out in the city. She sees all, knows all. She’s our eyes in the darkness,” Pagan said.

  “You have the computers and surveillance equipment that an IT geek would sell their soul for.” Erith’s eyes ran over the various monitors, each with its own view of the outside world.

  “On the subject of gadgets, tomorrow you and I will have a talk about just what you can make. I think we can find a better use for your talents from now on,” Rogue said, still looking over the item Erith had given her.

  “Does that mean I get to be a Sentinel too?”

  “No. Sentinels hear their calling way before they take to the streets. But there are many facets to the Sentinel’s armory. The Sighted guide them, and there are others who assist in the cause,” Rogue said.

  “I can assist,” Erith said. She looked over at Pagan. “I might as well use my talents wisely for a change.”

  “Though the skill of breaking into girls’ bedrooms is a talent most lesbians would kill for,” Rogue said under her breath.

  “We’ll stick to using them for a greater good for now,” Melina said with a wry chuckle.

  Pagan yawned and rubbed at her eyes with her fists, then winced at her damaged hands.

  “Before you fall asleep, we need to get some cream on those burns,” Rogue said.

  Erith’s head whipped around. “You got burned?” She was immediately at Pagan’s side checking her over. “Where the hell did all these bruises come from? And there’s blood on your face too! Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?” She cradled Pagan’s hand in hers. “I’ll see to it,” she said, making a face at the scorched skin. She took the cream from Rogue and reached for Pagan. “Is she done for the night now? Off duty or whatever?”

  Melina nodded, clearly amused at Erith’s take-charge attitude.

  Erith paused for a moment before taking Pagan away. “Those fireworks were more than just exuberance, right? You guys would be the ones to know?”

  “Tonight the Phoenix hit the Ammassari Dealership. The fireworks were just one part of the fire display he had to offer,” Melina told her. “I’m sorry, Erith, but Tito Ammassari died tonight.”

  Erith’s face crumpled as she received the news. “He was a nice man, a good boss.” She bit at her lip and raised her eyes to Pagan. “You were right. This Phoenix has to be stopped.” She paused, then asked, “My dad is still in custody, isn’t he?”

  “He’s still with the police, yes,” Melina said. �
��He wasn’t out with the rest of the gang tonight, Erith.”

  “He doesn’t know when he’s well off.” Erith shook her head and turned her attention back to Pagan, who was standing silently beside her. “I’ll sort Pagan out and then get back to bed. Rogue, you and I will talk tech tomorrow.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Erith led Pagan back toward the lighthouse wall. “How come the door is visible on this side of the wall but not on the other?”

  “Sentinel magic,” Pagan said as she triggered the secret door back to her room. She turned back to Melina and nodded toward her screens. “You can turn off the camera to my room now.”

  “It triggered the second Erith started working on the locks,” Melina said, reaching over to press a button so the screen showed yet another angle of the city instead. “I was otherwise engaged this evening to do anything about our resident locksmith.”

  “Is there nothing you don’t know about?” Erith asked before stepping through the door.

  “Inside this home, no. But outside it, I could stand to know where Phoenix’s hideout is,” Melina replied. “It appears he can evade us at every turn.”

  “You’ll track him down, I have no doubt of that,” Erith said and pushed Pagan into her room. “Let’s get you sorted and get you to bed. The hours you keep, it’s a wonder you can function properly in the real world!”

  The door to the lighthouse disappeared once more and Erith shook her head as the bedroom wall gave away none of its secrets. “Hidden cameras, magic doorways, Sentinels masquerading as security specialists.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t masquerading. We really fitted all that equipment for the car lot. This business is as much mine as it is Melina and Rogue’s.” Pagan sat down on her bed and jumped a little when she felt Erith’s small hands run across her neck.

  “You need to get your T-shirt off so I can assess the damage. You’ve gotten a burn mark here too somehow.” Erith ran a finger along Pagan’s neck and tugged at the offending article. “Off!” She hastened to the bathroom and came back with a damp cloth and a towel.

  Pagan swiftly removed her top and heard Erith’s intake of breath at her near nakedness. She felt warm hands smooth a path across her shoulders and down her bare arms. She realized Erith was feeling the muscles under her skin.