Black Onyx Heart: A Novel of the Exiles of Aur: Exiles of Aur, #3

By Margaret M. Lin

She wakes up one day, stark naked, in a stranger's living room, without a clue of how she got there, who she is, or, really, anything that came before.  Everyone seems to think she's Bia, or Beatrice Kodaly, an old woman addicted to black lotus tea, which has given her the illusion of eternal youth and also made her forget everything else.  With nothing to go on but some photographs and fleeting, fragmented memories, Bia doesn't have much choice but to go along.

But as time passes, she shows no signs of aging, and Bia finds it increasingly hard to believe that too much black lotus tea is the reason for her amnesia.  The only thing, the only person, who seems real to her is Pliny Steward.  But to him, she is only a lotus eater.  And he is henchman to the sadistic Lucas King, dealer of black lotus, and her enemy.

Bia's search for answers seems to lead to black market dealings with the secretive island nation of Aur.  Perhaps the solution to the mystery, to herself, lies in that world of magic and nightmares.  But first, Bia must escape Lucas King, and she isn't sure she'll survive long enough to even discover who she is.

Black Onyx Heart is a paranormal romance, third in the Exiles of Aur series.  It can be read as a stand-alone or in conjunction with the other books in the series.  Overall rating for sex, language, and violence is mild to moderate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Small Grey Cat Studio
• Release date: Nov 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386444039

Margaret M. Lin

Margaret M. Lin lives in the Pacific Northwest, spending as much time as she can writing and painting.

Book preview

ONE

Iawoke and the void filled.

Someone, a woman, was screaming.

I opened my eyes but the light blinded me.  I closed them again.

I smelled stale cigarettes, musty cardboard, and artificial floral air freshener.

The screaming didn’t stop.

I was aware I was cold.  Naked.  There was rough shag carpet under me.

I opened my eyes again, blinking.

This time I was looking up at a round, frosted glass ceiling light.  There was a crack in it.  The light coming from it seemed ineffective, diffuse, casting faded shadows over a popcorn ceiling.

Around me was a dim, low-ceilinged room cluttered with dilapidated furniture, knickknacks, and tall stacks of cardboard boxes and magazines.

There also was the globular form of a woman rolling beside me.  She was struggling to get away from me, limbs outstretched.  Her mouth was a round O.

The screaming was coming from her.

She was perhaps in her fifties or sixties, with grizzled hair imperfectly dyed a dark red.  She was wearing too-tight knit clothes decorated with sequins, the fabric bunched up and showing white mottled bulges of flesh.

She bumped against the nearby coffee table and started grabbing at objects and throwing them at me, several soda pop cans, junk mail, a remote control, a pizza box with leftover crusts in it, and crackling plastic cookie packaging.

Her aim was terrible.

Her screaming became ragged and choked, merging with the sound of other voices arguing with each other, coming from a television.

Once she was out of ready objects to throw she collapsed on her back.

She was panting now, trying to catch her breath.  Her face was a purplish red.

I shakily pulled myself up so I was sitting.

As I did, the woman also attempted to sit.  She knocked over a stack of magazines with a groping arm, which in turn upset a brass stand.  A number of tiny glass and porcelain figurines, paperweights, and vials rained down.

She fell back again, arms and legs flailing helplessly, grinding some of the fallen pieces to powder beneath her bulk.

After some minutes she stopped trying to move, lying belly-up, looking helplessly at the ceiling.

I could see her eyelids fluttering.  She was blinking away tears.

Are you injured? I asked her, my voice unrecognizable to my own ears, the act of speaking awkward.

I made myself struggle into a standing position.

My legs were wobbly and uncertain but held.

I took some tentative newborn calf steps and the space around me wobbled.

Don’t you come near, the woman choked out, looking up at me with the whites of her eyes showing.

I won’t, I told her.

I pulled my arms over my exposed breasts.

When I didn’t do anything more, she cautiously started moving her arms again.

One arm collided with the coffee table this time.  She used the table for leverage, pulling herself up so she was sitting.  She spluttered as if emerging from water.  There were beads of moisture glistening on her forehead and upper lip.

Then she shifted and a glass figurine escaped from the folds of her skin and bounded onto the beige shag carpet.

My treasure.  All my treasures, she cried, eyes locking on the figurine.  You made me break them.  You have to pay for them.

My eyes followed hers to the figurine.  It was a horse.

No, a unicorn.

But it had lost most of its horn.

My eyes swept over the rest of the damage, over the crowded, dim room.

I didn’t know what to say.

The voices on the television continued to drone on, an argument over the husband’s sexual trysts.  An audience clapped.

I hugged myself, wrapping my arms tighter against my exposed breasts, self-consciously aware of the woman’s distrusting, fearful eyes as they presently raked over me.

How did you get in here?  Where’re your clothes? she finally said.

I don’t know, I told her.

Don’t know?  You a prostitute? To get drugs?  One of those lotus eaters?

I don’t know, I repeated.

Don’t know.  Well, I’ve seen you before, she said speculatively, dragging her eyes over my face and my naked body again.  Maybe it’s because you look like one of those lotus eaters.  I don’t have any lotus tea or money, if that’s what you want.  You need to leave.  I’ll call the cops. She paused, her eyes on me again, studying my face more intently.  Do you have anyone you can call, someone who can come and get you? she asked a little more kindly.

I don’t know that, either.  I don’t have any memories.

What do you mean? You have amnesia, you’re saying?

Yes.  Though, I said, hesitating, I seem to remember you a little.  But I’m not sure.

No doubt she found this comment as unsatisfactory as I did.

Then something at my feet caught my eye, a small crystal box with a hinged lid.  It was open, tipped over on its side.

One of its faceted edges caught what feeble grey light was coming in from a crack in a draped window.

Next to its open mouth was a single glossy black stone or perhaps some sort of odd seed, almost the size and shape of an almond nut.

The box and the dark seed both seemed more familiar to me than anything else, stirring the faintest memories of a narrow, high-ceilinged room with creaking wood floors, and furnished with ornate cherry wood furniture.

I remembered there was a woman in the room, flitting about now and then, at first young then growing old and feeble.

It definitely wasn’t this room or this woman before me now.

But even this one recollection eluded me the more my mind tried to grasp at it.

You don’t even know your name?

No, I told her.

How’d you get amnesia?

I don’t know that, either.

You got hit on the head?

I’m not sure.  I don’t think so.

I moved my head slightly, experimentally.  It didn't appear to hurt.

Then I drew a hand up tentatively, keeping my other arm carefully crossed over my breasts, and felt my hair and the skull beneath.

Everything seemed intact.

The sensation of my hair, which was straight and fine, falling down my back, felt strange, unfamiliar as everything else.

I drew some strands forward so I could see what color it was.

It was a very light blond, almost white, paler than my pale skin.

You're not very old, the woman said slowly, watching me.  You're just a teenager?  You're too skinny.  Are you anorexic?

I don’t know how old l am, I told her.

But I didn’t think I was very young.

How do I know you’re not just pretending you lost your memory? she said, her eyes narrowing to wary slits.

I don’t know.

Well, you’re not getting anything from me.

Yes, I agreed.  How long have I been here?

You don’t know that either?

I only remember waking just now.  You were screaming.

She frowned irritably, as if not wanting to be reminded.

Then her eyes found the fallen box at my feet.  I looked back down at it, too.

It gave her a new idea.

Were you trying to steal that? she demanded.

I don’t think so, I said uncertainly.  It looks familiar.

Suspicion flared up in her eyes, and the slits momentarily widened.

Well, I’m going to call the cops.

Yes, I said with enthusiasm, because it seemed better than me just standing naked before this woman.

She struggled to stand, using the coffee table again for support.  The table made ominous cracking sounds but held.

She was panting and her face returned to that purplish-red color, but she was successfully up now.

She was quite short compared to me, her head no higher than my chin.  Her sagging apple-shaped girth almost matched her height.

I have chronic pain, the woman told me after mostly catching her breath.

Oh.  I’m sorry.

Well, she then said, her eyes again on my face, again lingering over my crossed arms and down the length of my body, I guess I'll get you something to cover up.

She didn’t move immediately, as if second-guessing this idea, but then turned and moved with cumbersome, plodding steps into the adjoining bedroom.  She was mumbling something more about how much pain she was in.

She took what felt like an extended amount of time in there.  I could hear a book or papers being shuffled, then drawers being opened and rifled through.

My eyes drifted around the cluttered space, on the scattered figurines, and back to the box and the seed at my bare feet.

I bent down and picked them up, holding them in my open palm.

Both were cool to the touch.  The box appeared to be carved out of translucent crystal, as light and fragile as china, with no seams but for the filigree metallic edging around the opening and the hinge.

It seemed to be a work of great craftsmanship, out of place amidst all the cheap plastic and glass knickknacks everywhere.

Had I been trying to steal it? I wondered.

It was so familiar, it almost seemed possible.

I closed the lid.  It clicked neatly shut.

Then I bent and set it carefully at the edge of the coffee table.

I examined the seed next.  It felt like polished stone, only it wasn’t heavy enough to be stone, and one side wasn’t smooth; it was covered by a tangle of fine ridges that twisted and crossed each other.  At first it looked like a random jumble.

But it was strangely compelling, strangely disturbing, and too deliberate to be natural.

I traced over the ridges lightly with a finger, following a sequence as if by rote.

Around me the air seemed to shudder and fill with a buzzing sound, like a swarm of flying insects.

The buzzing grew more intense, and I felt an electric shock prick me, go around me and through me.

Then everything became pain and light, till I wondered if I was even corporeal.

I still had fingers, nerveless though they were; they dropped the seed.

It disintegrated before it could reach the carpet.

And then pain and light dissolved into nothingness, even as the seed had dissolved and was gone.

There was only the sound of a commercial jingle and cheerful voices selling something, coming from the television, and a drawer being closed in the adjacent bedroom.

Then the woman appeared in the doorway.  She was holding a shirt similar to the one she was wearing.

She appeared oblivious to what had just happened, not even looking at me.  She was preoccupied with the shirt, frowning down at it, looking dissatisfied with her choice.

She also clutched at something else, half-hidden by the shirt, a postcard or a photograph.

After a long pause of indecision, she left the doorway and came back into the room.  She didn’t seem to notice that she had stepped on more of her treasures, turning them to powder.

She returned to me, warily holding the shirt out from the distance of her arm.  She kept the card against her chest with her other hand.

I noticed she had an assortment of rings on all of her fingers, all half-buried by folds of flesh.

Here, I guess you can wear this, she said unenthusiastically.

Thank you, I replied, leaning forward to take the piece of clothing.

The woman quickly released the shirt, her own fingers wiggling as the fabric stuck either due to the static electricity or the pilling fabric.

I took it in both hands and unfurled it.  It was made of textured polyester and smelled heavily of scented laundry detergent and the all-pervasive cigarette smoke.

I found the neck opening and hastily pulled the shirt over my head.

It settled like a parachute down to my knees.

The woman made a snorting noise, which I took to be laughter.

It's too big on you, she observed, frowning away any mirth.  It was too small on me.  You're too skinny. You look anorexic. Then she added defensively, as if in reply to a comment I made about her weight, I gained weight because of my cortisol levels.  When I still didn’t say anything, she continued, her words quickening, My doctor says I should lose weight.  But I hardly eat anything.  And I can't exercise because I have chronic pain, and she won’t give me enough pain medication.  She doesn’t listen to me.  I'm not an addict.  I don't believe in drugs to get high.  I don’t even believe what the lotus eaters say.  It’s a drug, too.

What do the lotus eaters say? I asked, seizing upon the term she’d earlier applied to me.

She looked at me disbelievingly or as if she thought I was stupid.

Don’t you know?  Don’t you know about lotus eaters?

No.

Everyone knows about them. The rich and beautiful, she said sourly. They already have everything.  It takes lots of money to pay for black lotus tea.  It should be illegal.  It’s a drug, not an herb.  They say they have eternal youth, but of course they’re lying about it.  It’s all Botox and plastic surgery.  They don’t want to admit they’re just drug addicts.

I involuntarily thought of the seed and looked back down at the crystalline box, so ominously familiar.

But it conjured no further memories.

The woman’s gaze followed mine to the box, then back to me, her eyes narrowing with suspicion and speculation again.

You thought about trying to steal it again, weren’t you? she demanded.

No.  I wasn’t.  Why were you screaming earlier?  Was that when I was trying to steal it? I asked.

Of course I was screaming, she retorted, her hand clutching the photograph against her chest, fingertips pressing into it.  You came out of nowhere.  I thought you were going to attack me.

Oh, I said.

You say you don’t remember anything.

I don’t.

Then explain this, she said, thrusting the photograph my way, the pressure of her fingertips bending the edge of it.

I said, surprised, I’ve seen her before.

It was a black-and-white photograph on yellowed paper, showing the studio close-up of a young woman’s face.  She was perhaps in her late teens or early twenties.  She looked like she might be an ingénue from a bygone era, big-eyed and delicately-featured, almost fairy-like with her very light hair and porcelain complexion.  Her hair was pulled back simply and her eyes were arrestingly dark.  On the corner of it was written, All my love, Bia.

She was the woman in the narrow, Victorian room, the woman who came and went, who aged before me, transforming from the girl in that picture, full of dreams and hopes, to a frail, bent old woman with sad eyes dimmed by cataracts and disappointments.

The fat woman before me now made a snorting noise, waving the photograph at me.

Well, it’s mine now, she said.  I bought all of it at the estate sale, including the other pictures.  I didn’t even see you there.  Why are you here now?  I’m not giving them back.  If you want any of them you’ll have to pay me for them.

There was a sharp knock at the front door.

Who’s that? she demanded of me.

I don’t know.

She gave me a look that told me she didn’t believe me.

Perhaps she had good reason not to.

The knock sounded again.

She walked over to the door in her ponderous way and peered through the peephole.

From the look she cast back at me, she didn’t approve of whoever was on the other side.

A man.  Know him?  He related to you somehow?

I don’t know, I said again like a broken recording.

You say you don’t, she replied tensely, then turned back to the door when there was another short, hard knock.

After a slight hesitation, she made sure the door’s chain was attached and unbolted the door, opening it up an inch and gazing out.

Who are you? she demanded.

You stole a crystal box.  I’ve come to take it back, said a man’s voice.  It was a cool tenor, almost courteous, which made it sound all the more menacing.

TWO

W hat do you mean? I didn’t steal it, the woman said after too long a pause, swallowing loudly.  I bought it.  I bought it with the pictures.

The box belongs to me.  You will give it to me, the man’s voice said.

I got it from the estate sale, the woman said, her voice becoming higher-pitched and tremulous.  All of it was for sale.

Open the door, Kathleen, he said pleasantly.

You know my name? the woman gasped, flinching as if physically struck.

Of course, the man replied as if this was good news.  Kathleen Lee Krubb, and he proceeded to tell her what her birthday was, where