Severed(23)

‘You look so like them. I'm amazed I didn't see it.'

‘I'm sorry?' Evie said, looking up at Margaret.

Margaret was smiling at her sadly. ‘You look like your father, but you have your mother's smile. And her eyes.'

‘That's what Jocelyn said too.'

Margaret blinked. ‘Jocelyn? You know Jocelyn?'

‘Yes.'

She shook her head in disbelief, ‘She's still alive then?'

‘Yes,' Evie said. ‘She stayed in Riverview the whole time, watching out for me.' Evie frowned at herself. She didn't want to get into details about Jocelyn. That wound was still raw. Jocelyn had known all along that Victor had killed her parents but hadn't thought to tell her. Instead she'd let her think that Victor was a good guy and not the lying psychopathic nut-job that he actually was. There wasn't a rule about how forgiveness worked in situations like that. Jocelyn had looked out for her, had spent a life in tweed, playing bridge and knitting, all to ensure that she was kept safe. But after everything that had happened  …  No, Evie thought, smiling grimly, forgiveness was still a long way off.

She realised Margaret was talking. ‘Jocelyn and your mother were always close. Like sisters. We were brought together to train. There was your mum and dad, Jocelyn, Earl, Victor and me. Six of us. We were all teenagers at the time  –  about your age. I was the youngest. I was barely fifteen when we first met. They liked to start us young back then. The man who was training us  … ' She broke off and Evie spotted the tremor in her shoulders that made its way into her voice. ‘His name was David  –  he was our mentor  –  like Victor was to you. Victor was David's protégé even then.' Again Evie picked up the edge to her voice when she mentioned David's name. ‘Victor was always following him around  –  a sycophantic lapdog. The two of them were desperate to figure out the prophecy, what it meant, who it was talking about.'

Margaret took a breath before continuing, ‘We were living up in the Bay area, in an old school building. We spent the days training, the nights hunting. Back then there weren't so many unhumans.'

‘How did you even get recruited?' Evie asked.

‘Oh, I was born into it,' Margaret said, giving her a quick smile. ‘My parents had been Hunters. All our parents were, apart from Victor's. He wasn't pure Hunter like the rest of us. They died when I was fifteen in a big battle with the Brotherhood.' Her eyes flew to Lucas briefly. ‘And then it was my turn. In the old days being a Hunter was a family profession. An honour,' she added, answering Evie's frown, ‘like generations of families going to the same college or all becoming doctors. I broke a twenty-five-generation trend by escaping.'

Evie pounced. ‘Why? Why did you escape?'

She smiled again softly. ‘The same reason your parents tried to, Evie. I was trying to protect my son, my unborn son.'

Evie glanced at Cyrus who was leaning back in his chair, one ankle crossed over the other knee. He blew air out of his mouth loudly.

‘How old are you?' Margaret asked.

‘Seventeen,' Evie answered, turning back to her.

‘That's how old I was when I ran. I was pregnant. Can you even imagine what it was like? First discovering that I was pregnant? Then knowing that if I had a child I'd be bringing them into the world to be this? A Hunter?' she practically spat the last word.

Evie gulped. She couldn't imagine getting pregnant at seventeen. But she could imagine the fear of bringing a child into this world to become a Hunter because she'd already spent hours thinking about it back in Riverview, before vowing she would never do anything so stupid or selfish. She shook her head.

‘No. Me neither,' Margaret said, ‘so I ran. I wanted more for my child. I wanted to protect him. It's funny  –  you won't know what it's like to be a mother  –  but there is nothing you wouldn't do to protect your child. Nothing. Your parents helped me get away. They were the only ones I trusted  –  the only ones who knew why I was running. I wouldn't have been able to escape without them. I ran, first to Europe and then, finally, when I thought it was safe, we came back here.'

‘Victor told me you were dead. He told me he'd killed you for trying to escape.'

Margaret shrugged. ‘Let me guess, was he threatening you at the time?'

Evie nodded.

Margaret began again. ‘When Cyrus was about eight I let him stick a pin in a map of the world to decide where we'd go next. He chose here. By then I thought it would be safe. I hadn't heard from Victor or any other Hunter in years. I thought I had left all that behind. I had a new life, a new name.' She snorted air out through her nose. ‘But then Cyrus chose this life.'

Cyrus groaned loudly next to her, his head banging the back of the seat.

Margaret ignored him. ‘Cyrus doesn't seem to realise what I risked to get him away, to protect him from all this. To him it's just a game. I'm just some silly woman worrying about nothing.'

‘Mum, would you just drop it already?' Cyrus huffed loudly.

‘Drop it?' Margaret shouted. ‘You could be anything you wanted to be, Cyrus, and yet you choose this? After everything I did. After everything I risked for you.'

‘Seriously? Here? Can't we save this for therapy?'

Evie interrupted. ‘I'm sorry, Mrs  … ?'

Margaret turned to look at her. ‘Locke,' she said. ‘I changed my name. I'm Margaret Locke. I've not been Margaret Hunter for twenty years.'

‘Mrs Locke,' Evie continued, trying to shake the thought that she was related in some way to this woman, ‘we thought you might be able to help us. We need to find out more about the prophecy.'

‘We need to know what we're supposed to do to make it happen, sooner rather than later,' Lucas added.

Margaret's gaze flew to Lucas. ‘We? You mean her?'

‘No. I mean we,' he replied pleasantly.

Margaret's mouth pursed. ‘I don't know what you're supposed to do.'

Evie felt every particle of energy in her body dissolve. That was not the answer she'd been hoping for. Everything hinged on this  –  on this woman being able to help them. If she couldn't, what were they going to do?

‘We only know one part of the prophecy,' Lucas pressed. ‘We know the Sybll broke it into fragments but we thought maybe you might know where we could find the rest of it?'

Margaret's face seemed to freeze for a moment. Evie could feel the older woman's nervousness like a pungent waft of air. ‘No,' Margaret said finally, holding Lucas's gaze.

‘But what about all the books you've got? All the research you've been doing for the last twenty years?' Cyrus interrupted.

‘What research?' Lucas asked. Evie heard the note of panic in his voice too.

Margaret gave a faint shrug. ‘It's just family tree stuff. Genealogy. I was interested in discovering the roots to the Hunter family.'

‘Why?' Evie asked, finding her voice.

‘It doesn't interest you to know where you come from?'

‘But you ran away from it,' Evie said, shaking her head, not understanding.

‘Well,' Margaret answered, ‘I wanted to know what I was running from.'

‘There's a family tree. I saw it  –  in the same book the prophecy was in,' Evie said quietly, thinking of the convoluted diagram in the back of the book Victor had given her. It had detailed every Hunter that had ever been, right down to her. That's where she'd first heard of Margaret  –  her name had been scratched through.

‘So you know then that you're the last one?' Margaret said, ‘You're the last full-blood Hunter. Your parents were from the old line. Most of us were. David our trainer, Jocelyn and Victor too. But I doubt either of them had children.'

‘Hang on, does that mean we're related?'

Evie turned her head. Cyrus was pointing his bloodied thumb at her with an expression of undisguised horror on his face.

‘Only distantly,' Margaret said, shaking her head. ‘Third cousins removed or something.'

Cyrus exhaled loudly. ‘OK, that's good. I can work with that.' He grinned at Evie, ‘Had me worried for a moment there.'

Evie couldn't see Lucas but she could guess at the look he was giving Cyrus. Margaret too was glaring at him. He seemed oblivious to it all, however.

‘The generations thinned through the years,' Margaret continued. ‘The concept of sending your children off to do battle in the name of a higher good disintegrated after the First and Second World Wars. People were questioning the sense of bringing children into the world just to have them sacrifice themselves in a war without end.'

‘But you had me. You got pregnant,' Cyrus pointed out.

‘Look,' Margaret snapped, staring at Evie, ‘there's nothing I can tell you about the prophecy. I'm sorry. I wish there was. There's nothing I'd like more than for this to end. You've no idea how long I've waited. But,' she said, her eyes coming to rest on Lucas, ‘you need a Sybll to tell you more. They're the ones the prophecy came from in the first place.'

‘We've tried that,' Lucas answered. ‘They don't know anything. Or at least nothing they're willing to share. But maybe  … '