welcome to crvboy - Destiny of Time by Black Heart

Susan sat quietly in the decidedly masculine meeting room of the private offices of the lawyer for the Beauvois Family Trust, Robert Larson, her fingers impatiently pattering the cover of an aged file folder on the large mahogany table before her. She had already opened and closed the folder several times, arranging and rearranging its contents for presentation.

Her eyes drifted along the ornate, cherry paneled walls, to the intricate plaster ceiling, and finally the slat-covered wall of windows looking out over the Garden District. The far wall of the room was anchored by a large, red granite fireplace which was crowned with King Louis IV clock, slowly ticking time away. She absently focused on its wasteful beat. Nagging, reminding her of the years she had wasted in this fruitless search.

She had been sitting at this table, unattended, for the past twenty minutes. She was drifting between feeling anxious and irritated. When Susan was shown in, Mr. Larson's receptionist had informed her he would meet with her in five minutes. Now she was beginning to feel forgotten and unimportant.

Somewhere behind her a door opened and closed.

"Detective Marsh, I presume." A charismatic, southern tenor sounded, breaking her absent reverie.

Marsh turned in the direction of the tenor and was greeted by an older gentleman dressed in a custom-tailored, deep gray three piece suit. His hazel eyes seemed to shimmer in the morning sun streaming through the windows. She began to rise from her seat to shake his hand.

"Formerly of the N.O.P.D." His hands gestured for her to remain seated as he spoke. "I do hope the change in venue wasn't too troublesome."

"No, no trouble at all, I was a little perplexed when they directed me here after I had been told to meet at your offices downtown."

"Dreadful mix' up, I sincerely apologize. I, in fact, rarely go there anymore. The elevators are for the kids, always in a hurry to get nowhere these days."

She only smiled at the comment.

"Taking the stairs keeps me young." He smiled in that disarming way great southern lawyers are so adept at doing.

"I have a few questions." Susan reached for her file folder, preparing to open it.

"Would you like some iced tea," he asked

Again she shook her head.

"You're right. Too late in the day for coffee." He spoke with oblivious southern charm.

Susan began to get frustrated, feeling she was getting the best runaround money could buy.

"No, thank you," she spoke rather forcefully. "I only came here to ask you a few questions. I'm beginning to feel this isn't only a waste of my time, but yours, as well."

"Whoa there. Calm down, cher. I know what you've come round' to ask me about, and as much as I would love to tell you everything, there are only a few things that I can at this time," he cooed

"What have I come for," she asked with the assertiveness of a police officer.

"Not what, cher. Who?" He smiled at her.

The comment deservingly caught her off guard.

"Who?" She stumbled in surprise.

"Master Colin Beauvois."

Susan sat quietly for a moment trying to collect her thoughts. Her eyes drifted down to the folder. She felt as if this man had just reached into her chest and rattled her heart. An uneasy feeling that made her mouth dry.

"I'll take that drink now," she whispered.

She could only nod her head in stunned silence.

As he returned and set the low ball glass half filled with bourbon and ice before her, he slid a burgundy-dyed Leather bound portfolio along the table, positioning it in front of her. Its worn leather edges beginning to show their age.

"I was first handed that folder in the spring of '55, my second year with the firm. I had won a few, minor property cases, Nothing to astonishing if I say myself. Anyhow I was told I was being rewarded for a job well done. My reward was that portfolio, the same as you see it now. I was told I was now sole trustee of the Beauvois estate. Marcus Banks, who was the senior partner at the time, told me I would never have to do another thing except look after the interests of that folder."

He took an easy drink from his glass.

"I figured at the time it was only until the beneficiary turned legal age or the age stipulated. So I thought 25 years at most. I've spent over half a century, almost my entire adult life, protecting those interests, only to receive a phone call late one evening, one that directed me to take this meeting with you."

Susan's hands smoothed over the deep red leather. Her fingers lingered on the impression of the embossed gold ankh. She gave him a solemn look, as if she were fighting with herself to ask for permission to open the folder.

"May I," she questioned simply.

"Cher, if you weren't meant to see it you wouldn't have," He answered watching her carefully.

Susan's hands slid easily to the edges of the binder, Her fingers playing with the brass bound corners.

"You said Colin. The person I'm looking for is Demitrius."

"Things change with time, cher. I'm sure you once donned pony tails and went by Suzy."

She nodded her head in agreement.

"Suzy is a familiar form of Susan. Where does the second name come from?"

"Would you believe me if I said it was his middle name?"

"Not likely," Susan answered without hesitation.

"Would you accept it," he fired back smiling.

"Fair enough, but that's the only answer I can provide; for now."

Susan nodded in acceptance. She effortlessly slid the folder back towards the lawyer. Not accepting the easy answers he was willing to provide. Larson gave her a surprised look as she refused the answers she sought.

"I only have one other question. How long?"

The lawyers hand collapsed on top of the portfolio, stealing it away. Back into his safe and guarded possession.

"People are a strange lot. They refuse to see. When they finally do, the reaction they have to what has always been there is amazing. I believe you once spoke to a man who couldn't convey it so easily." He spoke as he stood.

"I don't understand," she retorted taking a cue from his rise.

"Then it simply isn't time, cher."

Susan felt the jolting reality set in. The hard fought meeting had proved to be just what she knew it would be, a waste of everyone's time. Feeling alone and foolishly small, she stood and picked up her own file folder, one she never even got the chance to open.

Mr. Larson watched her stand, looking dejected.

"If not the portfolio, there is this." He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a sealed, parchment colored envelope.

The Rolls Royce Silver Cloud sped almost recklessly down the narrow, two lane road, a swirling storm of dry, cracked leaves and dust giving chase. The car reacted to the road with instinct, as if were on a track rather than the open black top.

The able quadroon chauffeur led the vehicle easily towards the interstate.

"It has changed so much, a raven haired woman cooed from the back seat, her eyes fixed to the scenery outside the windows.

"Yes Ma'am," the driver sounded dryly.

Ramon shifted on the supple leather seats, smoothing her tailored suit as she did.

"With the changes or without, I feel home here. New York, Rome, Paris, Prague: they all lacked that feeling. That certain tingle you get when pride swells your chest."

The quadroon appraised her in the rearview mirror as he maneuvered through the traffic on the interstate.

"Do you think the house is still intact," she questioned, sounding hopeful.

"It would be amazing if they didn't burn it to the ground the eve you left, madam."

She gave a temperamental huff.

"Remember, just before we left, that boy." She smiled as recollections flooded through her mind. "He was already broken, but so much fun while it lasted."

Her mind flashed with memories of the night the boy showed up on her front step, soaked to the bone from the night's storm. The clack of the iron shackles raced through her mind as she remembered fastening them around his pale, damp wrists. The perfect picture of exposure he made as his bound wrists were raised high above his head.

"It would have gone on forever if not for that stupid little girl." Her lips spewed venom laced with hate. "I should have strung her up beside him. Let my leather bite away at both of their flesh."

"Madam." The driver made an attempt to calm her.

"You remember the night; I lashed him so hard he was speaking in tongues," she murmured new images flashing through her mind.

The boy in the same pose as before flashed through her mind, his knees having long since buckled beneath him from pain as he hung from his shackled writs. His head hung limply forward as he muttered sentences in a dialect she couldn't understand. His body smeared with a mixture of fresh and dried crusting blood. The way his blue eyes blazed at her when she lifted his head by his matted hair. They still shone brightly, even through his swollen eyelids.

"I remember it. The way the thick blood ran along his back. The way it sank into the crevice of his rear. The way it curled around his abdomen, the droplets congealing on the ground where he hung by his wrists. He could take so much and beg for more the next day and even more the day after."

She groped herself obscenely as she remembered her last stay in the crescent city.

"I wonder whatever became of that boy, if the scars ever faded from his flesh. Did he ever allow another woman to touch him softly, or did he shrink in fear of what she could do out of menace?"

The Silver Cloud pulled off the expressway as she spoke and made its way through the streets of the French quarter.

Her eyes glazed over as she stared out the window, watching the old cities streets coast by her car window. She slowly drifted in and out of reality with familiar faces in the crowd that reminded her of people and a time long since gone. Ramon had long outgrown the instinct to approach these complete strangers she found familiar. She had done so in the past only to find they weren't familiar. Their faces only phantoms of her mind, like haunting dreams that conned their way into the vividness of the day.

In a separate vehicle, not too far away a similar conversation of a night left to memory was taking place.

"Why didn't you defend yourself," Caleb asked as he approached the stoplight.

"I guess in a way she manifested the way I felt about myself." Demitri shrugged.

"You never once thought about escape or anything?"

"I spent more time trying to run from myself. I learned the hard way there are things you can't run from or have beat out of you."

"It's a good thing I wasn't around, yet. I swear I would have strangled her with my bare hands." Caleb's knuckles turned white as he griped the steering wheel firmly.

"The light is green." Demitri chuckled lightly.

"You think she is what the crows were flocking around this morning," Caleb questioned as he drove.

"I fear so, I've been afraid she would return for a long time. It's like running away from home," Demitri glanced at Caleb. "You always go back."

The silver Denali pulled to stop along the curb.

"Why does Mr. Larson want to see you today." Caleb asked as he set the parking brake, ignoring Demitri's last comment.

"He doesn't want to see me. I want to see him," Demitri answered as he hopped out of the truck.

"For," Caleb questioned.

"He had a visitor this morning. I just want to see how it went."

"Can't we just ring her doorbell and say, 'Look get a life?'"

Demitri let out a bolt of laughter.

"I don't know. I've never tried that approach before."

"Like you're an expert or something," Calab added

Mrs. Xaviar had seen Caleb and Demitri make their way to the porch.

"Hello boys," she sounded happily as they approached. "I've set lemonade on the back terrace. Robert should be out shortly."

"A cold beer would be a lot better," Caleb joked.

"Boy, you'd best shush yo' mouth," she laughed as she grabbed his forearm and led the way to the terrace.

"Mrs. Marsh," Demitri questioned simply.

"She's in conference with Robert at the moment," Rose answered. "I could send her out once they are through."

"No need for that. I was just curious as to if she actually came."

"My liege, has anyone ever been able to forget you or simply walk away from your grace?"

"You'd be surprised, Rose." He laid a hand on her shoulder as they walked. "Civilizations."

"No accounting for taste." She smiled.

"I do have a favor to ask of you, though."

"Anything you ask is yours." She stopped her casual walk and stared intently at Demitri.

He smiled appreciatively "Can you find out if any historic homes have been purchased recently?"

"Chasing ghosts are we?" Rose continued her leisurely pace.

"Is there anything else to chase," he countered.

"A six pack." Caleb spoke up from her other side.

Rose gave his arm a quick pinch, receiving an audible yelp for her efforts.

"Didn't I tell you to hush?" her attention returned to Demitri. "Anything my lord, even if it means ghosts, I'll have what you wish by tomorrow."

Rose seated the pair at a small, lacy, wrought iron table before she made her leave to inform Mr. Larson of their arrival.