A PALE HORSE

The plane had been in the air for about an hour, and all the while Maggie had been contemplating her next steps. She had moved over to the end of the seat after Max and Peter had folded down a couple of the stowed cots. There, she carefully removed the crumpled notes that she had managed to yank from Margueritte’s file down in the underground lab before she followed Max into that cavern where they had met the naga. This adventure had taken such a turn in the last twenty-four hours...she was still trying to wrap her head around it. She reached into her bag and pulled out a black scrunchie and quickly put her hair up and rubbed her tired eyes. She felt like she could sleep for a year, and she desperately wanted a Dewar’s. She pulled out the pages that interested her in particular; Marguerittes file was the largest and Maggie figured that a few pages torn from the inside of the file wouldn’t be missed right away, if at all. She noticed the pages were dated at the top, and the first one she had ripped out was the very last page. She had sporadically taken pages from different sections of the folder before closing it and shoving the folder back into the bag. Her instincts told her that pulling pages in that way would tell her enough of the story. She was glad she had thought to take her own samples from the folders she had grabbed before the bag had been taken from her. She had learned, doing what she did for a living, that you have to back up your work and, whenever possible, provide proof of what you have seen or experienced. This one is going to be hard enough to believe… I’m not taking any chances! she thought.. She only wished that she would have been able to take pictures of the creatures that they had encountered under Lev’s estate. How she was ever going to be able to share that story, she didn’t know. She knew that her recorder had captured the exchange, but video was what was needed, not audio. Mikey let her get away with a lot and he trusted her implicitly, but she didn’t think even he would believe this story without visual proof. Maggie skimmed over the page with the latest date. It looked like the group responsible for the atrocities in the lab did a bunch of testing on Margueritte: blood, urine, and a pregnancy test for starters. The panels had revealed that she had A negative blood. Rare, Maggie thought. She wasn’t pregnant and she didn’t have any infections. Then she found what looked like DNA results at the bottom of the page. The categories that they had put the results into were not typical of DNA testing, though. Nothing denoting ethnicity, she discovered. Instead of the usual information, the categories were: Human, Angel, Vampire, Werewolf, Vila, Naga… In Margueritte’s case the line under human was one hundred percent under “human”. Although Maggie was glad that it turned out that Max’s mom was totally human, she was confused as to why that was even a consideration. Wasn’t all humanity, well... human? There is more to this, she decided. She rubbed her eyes and continued reading. The comments under the findings for this report jumped out at her.

Subject of this testing all human… viable for future tests…mustn’t let ARC find out about this current subject...could be the mother of new breeds and mustn’t be separated from the project...harvesting is an alternative to human conception and the offspring can be raised in the lab...subject must never be allowed to know and will not be awake when the harvest is taking place.

Maggie was astounded... Harvesting? Harvesting what? Her answer came from a small note in the margin of the same page, near the top, scribbled seemingly as an afterthought.

100% human ova source -rare!…will not be released. They had taken Margueritte’s eggs and used them for… God only knows what! The worst part is that the poor woman doesn’t even know that she had been used like this. A tear slipped down Maggie’s cheek and she looked over to where Max and Margueritte were sitting quietly together talking. Max looked up at her and smiled then cocked his head slightly when he noticed the tear tracks down her face. She quickly wiped them away and shook her head, and she smiled at Max. She realized that something as little as smiling at him made her feel better. She always used her real smile, seemingly only reserved for him these days. Max had become such a big part of her life and was set to hopefully become more than what he had been so far. Maggie’s face sagged and she turned away from the pages as she kept confidence with the wall of the plane. She knew she had a major secret she was keeping from him, and she suspected that maybe even he knew. Not the content, but the fact that she was unsettled around him and needed to unburden her heart to him. How could he not know? He knew surely by now that she was in love with him, and she was certain that Max knew by now that she was not a fashion designer. This couldn’t go on if they were going to have any kind of a chance at a future. She was torn between the fear that she felt at the thought of letting him in- REALLY in, and the guilt that she felt for lying to him. Her heart warred with her common sense and cynicism. Logically, he will be upset and feel betrayed and this will go down like all of those scenes on TV and in the movies where one person is not what they seem, she thought. He will not be okay with this- he may not be like his dad, but he definitely will not understand why you lied to him, repeatedly, when you could have come clean and found an ally. Honestly. Her heart allowed only the slightest hope that he may understand enough after hearing her story that he could overcome her deception; that Max could see past her behavior to her true feelings. She smirked to herself at the thought, knowing her Preston Luck and what usually happens in these situations. The heart won the war, and she came to a decision: it was not going to be easy for her, or him, but she had to tell him about the things she knew about Lev. She had to tell him about herself, all of it- about how she purposely went out of her way to meet him so that she could learn more about, and ultimately condemn, his father. She needed to tell him about Susanna and the ordeal that led her to do what she does. A hand on her shoulder startled her back to reality, and she immediately felt slightly nauseous. This is it, she thought. She noticed that Margueritte was laying down and had drifted back to sleep. Maggie scooted over and let Max sit on the cot next to her. She also noticed that Peter had his friend Tammy’s head in his lap and he was snoozing sitting up, his head leaning against the bulkhead. That was another story that Maggie would like to hear. She shifted her mind to her present situation and the handsome man that had stolen her heart over the past months. She smiled at him and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “How is your mom holding up?” she asked him. Max looked from her to the sleeping woman and then back to Maggie. He smiled another beautiful smile and Maggie thought how much more handsome he was when he wasn’t scowling. She could glimpse, and felt bad for the little boy who was cheated out of his mother in his eyes.

“She is a miracle, Maggie! I never dared to hope to ever see her again! All those years, being told… I thought she had died…” he trailed off and Maggie noticed a play of emotions pass over his face before his ever-present scowl returned. Maggie could tell that now he was really thinking about what had happened to them and to his mom over the past day. He had processed only part of the information, but she could tell he was good and pissed now. “I could kill Lev for what he has done!” The venom in his voice was a scary thing.

Before he could get himself too worked up, Maggie said, “Max, you have been through so much!” She reached out and grabbed his substantial hand and held it with both of hers, looking into his bottomless, stormy-blue eyes. STOP! she warned herself. Now- do it now! Rip off the Band-Aid, or you will be too far gone. She replaced his hand gently in his lap, took a deep breath, and began, “Max, I need to tell you some things. Things about me, about what we’ve been through together, but first, I want you to know what you have come to mean to me. I know you know that I am in love with you. I see in you, not your father, but your mother. She has a gentleness and kindness to her that I see in you. Oh, there are aspects of Lev, but they seem to be forced rather than natural.”

Max looked down at his hands and said, “I love you too, Maggie. I am the luckiest I could have ever hoped to be, but I fear I am not worthy of your love. There are things about me that I wish I could change. My father was only one of those things.” He looked to be castigating himself wordlessly, and her heart went out to him again. He carried his father with him, and he would never leave him. Maggie knew that, and she hated Lev all the more for it. He had taken a beautiful, loyal, and gentle boy and turned him into a walking paradox. His heart always belied his actions, and she knew he hated all of the things that he had had to do in service to his father’s organization. He continued, “And, you are not wrong. Anything that I have had to do for Lev is almost always evil in nature and is always forced on me. I have tried on my own to keep his crimes minimal, thwart his efforts as much as possible or to go about things in a way that is less… well, let us just say that I do not do things as Boris or Lev does. It is not nearly enough, but know that I always tried to do things the best way I could stomach. Lev stole everything from me, like he does everyone else. I hate him. I hate him, Maggie, and I will kill him.”

“I know this Max, but what if I told you that there is a way to get back at your father, without resorting to killing him?” Maggie asked him.

He looked at her sideways, “What are you talking about?” he asked her. “Well, and just remember that I love you and that will not change, but just like you there are things that I wish I could do differently.” Max looked concerned and Maggie took his hand. “Max, I’m trying to tell you that I think I can help you bring down your father!” Now it was his turn to look confused.

“How can you do that? I am sure that you have contacts and people that would help you, but your business is fashion, Maggie. Lev is a very dangerous man with no soul. Just knowing that you were in his home makes me sick.” He shook his head at her. “Maggie, I do not want you any more involved than you are at present. Even now Lev knows you were instrumental in our escape with my mother. He will be looking for payback.”

“That is why I want your help to take him down before he can do any further harm!” She told him. She found herself getting excited and agitated being so close to making a breakthrough with him, and the rest just came rushing out. She hoped he could see the love in her eyes and not damn her too much for her confession. “Max, I’m an investigative journalist. I have been gathering information on your father for years.” She hung her head at his look of disbelief. “I wasn’t at the club that night with friends. I was there with my agents, pretending we were all having a girls’ night out.” She continued, and thoroughly confessed. “I was there to meet you, Max. Just to meet you. You seemed like the best way to get to him, and I had been following you for months. I knew that you would be there that night. I purposely bumped into you and acted as if I had lost the girls I came with. I don’t even have friends!” She rolled her eyes, now filled with tears. She went on, huffing between sobs, “I really was there alone. My goal was to get to your father through you. Only along the way I fell in love with you! I fell in love and I just couldn’t let you go on thinking that I was ignorant of the deeds your father has committed. I can tell you every move your father has made since the beginning of last year, and I probably know more disturbing things about him than you do. But, Max, this is where we can get him back! We can pay him back for you, for me, for your mother, for all of the girls he’s ruined, everyone he has wronged! I have plenty of evidence to put him away, but Max, I just can’t do it unless you tell me it’s okay. I’m so, so sorry. I’ve never felt this way, and, even if you walk away, and, believe me, you have every right… just know that I love you.” She looked at him again with tears streaming down her face, her perfect makeup now a dumpster fire of black, purple, and wet. Maggie knew that telling Max this information could backfire on her and he could ultimately want nothing to do with her. She wouldn’t blame him. She wasn’t sure that she could handle him rejecting her, rejecting her feelings for him because of her need for justice and her methods of getting it. She waited a moment longer before saying, “Max, there is something else you need to know.” She slowly slid him the crumpled papers that she had been reading. He looked at her, shell-shocked and still trying to absorb what had just been said, and Maggie muttered, “I took them out of the folders before they were given back to the naga. You aren’t going to like what they say.” Max started reading and, before too long, he had sat up straight and his concentrating scowl had deepened into a visage of an anger of such conviction and permanence that it shook Maggie.

In a voice of metered ferocity, he asked her, “Why. Did. He. Do. This?” Maggie shook her head and reached out for his hand. “I don’t know, baby. I don’t know! I’ve been wracking my brain! Do you know why Lev would want her seed or anything about the underground lab?”

“Maggie, Lev is a monster. I have told you that much before. I did not know anything about his secret lab or any experiments and I certainly would not have condoned his treatment of my mother!” Max said vehemently.

She laid a placating hand on his arm, “I know that you didn’t have anything to do with what was done to your mom. You would not do anything like that. What Lev does, not only to your mom, but to girls in general, is atrocious. He needs to be stopped!” Her vehemence turned quickly to solemnity. “I didn’t tell you the reason I started looking into your father in the first place. Your father’s organization is known throughout the world, but it’s known to me as one of the most vile and cruel human trafficking operations going.” She had noticed that he had clenched his hands together and was rubbing vigorously on the heels of his hands as if trying to rub out any blemish or spots. Shakespeare ran briefly through her head and she shook it to get back on track. “When I was twelve, my best friend Susanna and I were walking home from the bus stop. A big black van passed us by and we didn’t think anything of it. It turned around, and when it reached us two men jumped out of the side door and grabbed us from behind. There wasn’t anyone around and they were so quick...” She had gotten over her own attempted kidnapping years ago, but even so, she shivered a bit reliving the moment of her abduction. “We were stuffed into the back of the van and taken to a warehouse. Susanna had a plan to get away when they went to take us out of the van again. They didn’t bind anything but our hands and those were loose enough that Susanna was able to get mine undone. I was working on hers when the van stopped. The two men opened the doors before I had enough time to get Susanna free.” She had pulled her legs up on the cot and wrapped her arms around them. Max had not moved throughout the whole tale. Maggie started rocking back and forth as she went on, “Susanna was always the braver of us. Her parents called her reckless, even. She would always stand up for people and do crazy things like jump her bike over the ramps that the boys in the neighborhood had made. Well, Suse was calm and I was scared. She kicked out at the first guy to stick his head into the van.” She smiled slightly, recalling her friend’s actions. “She caught him in the head and he fell back into the second man. It was the opportunity we needed to run. I heard Susanna tell me to run and I sprinted out of the van and kept running.” She stopped and turned her face to look at Max. The anger on his face was present but Maggie couldn’t tell if it was for her or at her. She took a deep breath and said in a small voice. “I thought she was behind me, Max. Right behind me.” She started sobbing and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “I couldn’t get her bindings undone. By the time I noticed she wasn’t right with me, they were driving away with her.” Max started to stroke her hair in a soothing way. “I ran until I found a Seven Eleven. There was a lady filling up her car and she took one look at me and asked if I needed help. She was so sweet and compassionate! I broke down and told her what had just happened and was told, at a later date, that I got out enough information for her to get a hold of my parents before I fainted.” She looked up at Max and he brushed the hair that had fallen to cover her cheeks with his hand.

“What happened to your friend, Maggie?” he asked her. His expression told her that he wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear the answer to his question but he asked anyway, needing to know.

“The police were called and met my parents at the hospital. They asked me what felt like a hundred questions. What did the men look like? Did we know them from the neighborhood? What color was the van? What was Susanna wearing? What else did I see in the van? What did the warehouse look like? Did I see any other girls? I kind of shut down after they left, but I did hear them telling my parents that there were smugglers that looked for girls around our age to sell to other people. Susanna’s parents were there, and they seemed happy that one of us got away, but I could tell that they were disappointed that it wasn’t their daughter.”

“I do not think that true, Maggie.” Max said to her, “They were probably very happy that you made it, otherwise they would not have any information about what happened.”

Maggie gave him a small smile and said, “Thanks, Max. It some time before we finally found her. She was not the same girl, Max. She wouldn’t look anyone in the eye, she jumped at everything, she didn’t want to be touched. I spent every day with her that I could. For the first couple of months, she wouldn’t talk to me. She sat in the corner and stared at nothing for weeks, barely eating or sleeping. One day, I just started talking about what had happened to her. I told her how sorry I was that I didn’t help her and how it was all my fault- what a lousy friend I was and that I was going to get even with those men. She seemed to snap back into herself at that moment, she had been going to see a therapist for months, but I mentioned revenge and she seemed to come alive. She looked me in the eye, Max! She grabbed my face and she pulled it close to hers and she made me promise that I would find out who was responsible. I had to find him and take him down. We had just turned fifteen! Fifteen, and here I was, making a dangerous oath. Now I was the reckless one! Anyway, I promised her that I would put an end to them.” She turned to Max and she saw it click with him. “I followed the trail for years, Max! I went to college for criminal justice, originally, but after working for years with local law enforcement, I discovered that I would get further, faster a different way. I needed answers! I needed to be let in! I knew that it would take too long to move up the ladder in that world, so I changed majors my sophomore year to journalism. Susanna continued to see a therapist and went on to help run a center for those previously trafficked and battered women. I left university and the police force, determined to become someone that could make a difference. And I did. I became...”, she paused to see his reaction.

“You became a fashion editor at LACE. Everyone knows that, and you do make a difference! LACE is the top fashion house in the world, thanks to you! Are you able to do something behind the scenes for your friend with that? I do not understand…” She held up her hand to shut him up, and smiled at his naivete.

“No, Max, you don’t get it. Yes, I’m Maggie Preston, contributing editor at LACE, but that’s not where my difference is made. Max, I’m also Delilah Mourning.” Max sat back suddenly, mouth agape, and stared.

“You are Delilah Mourning? Maggie, there is no one that does not know you! Internet, television, print! How? You are everywhere!”

“Not so fast- Delilah Mourning is everywhere. I don’t even exist in that world, so I am safe. This is by design. I have exposed some of the most dangerous people ever, Max. Your father fits into that category, don’t you think?” Max gathered himself and resumed his stance at the end of the cot.

“Yes, I believe he does. So, what happened? How did you get from there to here?” She noticed that Max seemed genuinely interested, and it was almost as if their world wasn’t crumbling around them for a moment. They were just two people getting to know each other. Truth be told, she was very eager to let Max know about the real Maggie. She retraced her steps back through her history. “We still keep in touch once or twice a month and I try to visit with her whenever I am able. I was a junior officer during college, but police work wasn’t going to help me find Suse’s attackers. Once I graduated, I moved quickly and while working for a magazine doing fashion articles, spent every other moment searching for missing children, learning the names and faces of people in organized crime families that specialized in human trafficking. I found men who would talk to a beautiful woman that stroked their egos and plied them with drink. I worked with police. I worked with the FBI. I worked with the CIA and Interpol, MI5, and even rival criminal organizations. I started helping these agencies close cases, learning what I could, absorbing everything about design and international crime. Not to brag, but I am very good at what I do, and nothing will doom a person faster or more completely than the court of public opinion and the power of the poison pen. I would research, the agencies would arrest, the court would convict. When the magazine I was working for went under, I was approached by LACE with a unique proposition- they would fully fund my continued investigative reports anywhere, anytime, no questions asked, plus pay me a tidy sum on top of it as salary. I was worried because there is no way that they should have known about my, um, other endeavors, but I got the feeling that it was okay. I think they wanted me to succeed as much as I did. In return, I was to take a specialized role, not only as editor, but also as an agent on their team, which had nothing to do with fashion. Mikey told me I was peculiarly qualified for, and that no one else could do for him, what he needed. He wanted me to teach his models what I knew; how to operate and do what I do in that world. So, now, I do that, and I’m glad for the help! That’s LACE- fashion house, magazine, femme fatale central, hotbed of espionage and investigative journalism. I’ve been on this mission, working until I could find out the information that led me to the one person that was responsible for what happened to Susanna and me. I’m so close, Max! Your father may even be the last piece of this, but as much as this means to me and the reasons behind it, I want you to know that you mean more. I won’t do anything unless you tell me it’s okay.” She had grabbed his arm again and squeezed as if she could hold on to him and keep him with her. Max put his hand on hers and patted it gently. It seemed that he had made up his mind somewhere in the middle of her story.

“I want you to know that I do not blame you, Maggie. I have done many things for which I am not proud. I try to help. I do, where I can, but living with my father started to change me as a person. I am not using that as an excuse for the things that I have been an accomplice to over the years, but I also could not condone what my father has done, either. I am sorry that the seedier side of life touched you in such a profound way and I do not wish for you to not get your story or your revenge after all these years. I will ask one thing of you, though. Please wait to do anything with this story until I have a chance to find a place to hide my mother, out of his reach. Never again will he touch her.” His voice had changed with his declaration, “I, too, want my revenge on Lev Avatov, probably more so than you do. Today was a day of revelations. While I was talking with my mother, she told me the story of how she came to be with Lev in the first place. You see, she has an older sister and they lived in Paris. Her sister married a military man who was in Paris on leave. He was a very handsome man with a twin brother. Theirs was a whirlwind romance and, although he was stationed in Paris-Orly during the last part of the Cold War, he was to be shipped back to the states and she couldn’t bear to be parted from him. So my mother helped her sister elope with the handsome pilot and they moved to the states. My mother was left in Paris where she had met the young Lev and his friend Rene. They were students at university in Paris. According to her, she fell hard for Rene and accompanied them all over Paris. Rene loved the theater and museums and anything cultural and when Lev was a younger version of himself, he enjoyed those things, too.” Max had taken Maggie’s hand and was absently stroking the back. “Lev had made it known to Rene that he was going to ask Margueritte out on a date and the two men got into an argument about who should date her. It was decided by the two men that they would let her decide who she wanted, and vowed that whomever she picked, that the other would step aside. They both asked her on a date the same day, each in his turn without the other.”

“She decided to go out with Lev?” Maggie asked, astonished.

He smiled at her and said, “It turned out that she had turned down Lev’s offer and told him that she was in love with Rene. It angered Lev so much that he went out and got drunk at the nearest bar.” Max laughed a little at the thought of his mother turning down Lev’s attention.

“I’m confused as to how she ended up with Lev, then?” Maggie said.

“Well,” Max said, “She and Rene decided to marry after a year together. She had not seen my father in those months and figured that he had moved on.” Max’s countenance clouded over. “It was a dark day when he showed up on her doorstep. My mother, being who she is, was naturally happy to see him. She noticed right away that he had changed. His demeanor was not the same, he seemed cruel and although pleasant, he was not the same person she had met the summer before. He told her about his new association with an important organization, and how they had moved him up so he was a man of some importance. She was happy with his success and told him so, but when she mentioned Rene and her upcoming wedding, he seemed to become agitated and told her that it should have been him she was marrying.” He paused for a moment and then continued with his story. “Lev asked her if she had thought about what would have happened if Rene was not around. She answered that she had, on many occasions, wondered what would have happened if she had not found the love of her life. She, in fact, told him ‘I thank God that this came to be’. That seemed to anger Lev, and he said that choices would have to be made. If she wanted to see Rene live to an old age, that she would have to let him go. When she asked him what he meant, he replied that a choice would have to be made, and if she chose to be a foolish, love-addled girl, he would make Rene disappear forever. She was to break it off, tell Rene that she had made a mistake and she was meant to be with Lev. That was all.” Max took a deep breath and looked over at his sleeping mother, then he turned back to Maggie looking her in the eye and said, “His eyes told her, and she believed, he could do the things that he had threatened. He had become a dangerous man. She would not let him hurt Rene. She told Lev that she would break things off with Rene and meet up with him later that night, then she went to meet Rene. When she told him that she could not marry him, that she had made a mistake, he went a little crazy. He asked her why and she told him that she had finally figured out that she loved Lev and that she could not be without him. He, of course, did not believe her. My mother would not be able to hide her love for anyone.” Max turned to look at Maggie and smirked, “Or, her contempt.” He continued, “Rene wanted to confront Lev to get the truth. She begged him not to go but he would not believe that she loved Lev like she claimed. It was the last time she saw him.” he said quietly. He looked down at her hand that still rested lightly on his arm. “She told me that she was pregnant at the time. Rene was the father and that she never got the chance to tell him. The baby was me, Maggie. I was Rene’s son. Lev was never my father, but they got married so fast after Rene disappeared that it was never suspected that I was not Lev’s child.” Maggie was stunned by the implications. Max was free of Lev’s taint! He was his own person.

“So, does this mean that you forgive the fact that I have been keeping a secret from you?” Maggie said tentatively. “I really didn’t think I would fall for you, Max, but you are so different from Lev. Funny and smart, serious… but you can be silly, hard and protective, yet soft on the inside. I love all those things. I love that you want to shield me. I wanted to tell you that I would help you take him down, but you seemed to try so hard to please him that I couldn’t trust that you wouldn’t have handed me over without a second thought.” Maggie looked at him as she stroked their interlocking fingers. “I think you are so much more than how you see yourself and that your mother would be so very proud to know that her son has saved so many girls from Lev’s clutches. I still am not sure what he does with them but if it is anything like what happened to your mother, I am glad you saved them from that fate or worse.” Max looked over at Maggie and smiled.

“I am not mad at you Maggie. I am glad that there are women in the world that are willing to stand up for not only themselves, but for others around them. There are so many monsters in the world, both human and not so human, we need to make sure that the human side wins over the monster.” He patted her hand and said, “Please keep looking over the papers you have taken, there is probably some clue as to why Lev is doing what he is doing. Let us just hope that you swiped the right ones.” He turned serious for a moment and said, “Maggie, we must be vigilant from now on. Lev will want revenge on you. Not only did you steal his son, but also his prize and all in one day. He will be out for blood… yours. If I am correct, he has been able to ferret out all that you hide, and you will not be safe alone.” With that cryptic statement he stood up. “I must go find Sam. Please study those papers some more; anything that can be learned from them must be found, verified, and used against Lev.” Maggie nodded from her seat and looked at the mass of loose papers she had managed to pull from the files before racing after Max into the snake people cavern. She shivered when she recalled seeing the naga for the first time. She wondered how they came to be locked up in the facility. She looked over and saw Peter staring at her and decided she had best get back to work, she wasn’t interested in playing twenty questions and she wasn’t sure how much he had heard or knows. She smiled and looked down at the sheets in her hand, and decided to pick up where she had left off. She had work to do and, as she thought about the man who had stolen her heart and looked at his sleeping mother, she decided she had more reason than ever to want to take down Lev Avatov. She needed to find out what A.R.C. was. She had had her fair share of experience with secretive organizations, and if Lev didn’t want Margueritte found by them, then that is exactly where she should be.