Order of the Omni: A Supernatural Romantic Suspense Novel (The Immortalies Book 1) Penny Knight (100 best novels of all time TXT) 📖

“Come in.” She puts her hand on my back, ushering me through the double wooden doors.

Sage, musk and pastries fill the air. I close my eyes while I inhale, taking it all in. Nothing has changed. I doubt it ever will. Franziska was a stickler for routine: breakfast at five, lunch at eleven thirty, dinner at six. It’s always the same, without fail.

I pull the chair from the round kitchen table and sit in my usual place. Franziska walks over with a silver tray filled with shortbread and a pot of tea. Her frail hand pours it into two saucers. Her normal precision not in sight, and tea spills over the cups. Is she sick? Nervous? There is something wrong, and it’s bad.

“Are you wondering why you cannot hear me, Elita?” She sits beside me. “You are wondering why you cannot hear what I am thinking. You are wondering what is happening to you. What it all means. I wished this day not to come, for you to live your life as a normal child and now a woman,” she says, her hands closed together looking as though she is about to pray.

“How?” I stammer in utter shock.

“I should have told you earlier.”

“Told me what?” My eyes water. She holds my hand in hers.

“Oh, Elita. The chosen one.”

The clock on the mantle chimes, while I wait for Franziska. Who’s disappeared to get something. Apparently, to help explain what the hell she’s talking about. My eyes dart to her liquor cabinet. I really could use something stronger than tea right now.

“Our family migrated to this town,” she returns before I have had a chance to add anything to my cup.

She places a brown leather album on the table and sits. “In 1840, from Prussia, they were run out because of our beliefs. They faced persecution.”

I nod. Remembering the story, she used to tell when I was younger.

“I’ve never seen this before.” My hand brushes over the old cover and turn to the first page.

“No, you have not.”

The once black and white photos behind the clear film have faded to a dark brown and cream hue.

“My great grandfather.” She points to a stern-faced man with an overgrown moustache. “He was a valued member of a congregation. He also had a gift.”

“Like mine?” Am I not alone? That would be nice to know.

“No.” She gives me a small smile. “He had visions.”

Ok, visions. This conversation is beyond anything I could imagine. Are we really talking about this? I massage my temples to prepare for the rest.

“One night he saw a devil. An immortal rising on the largest hill in Kaiserstuhl, not too far from here.”

I keep my eyes on the book and do not react to the thoughts of a devil rising. What the hell? Literally.

“They waited for days on end,” she continues. “They waited for it to rise. So they could capture it and end the threat. But, they waited, and nothing came.”

Right, because they sound like lunatics. Obviously, no devil is going to rise.

“Wait, how does this affect me? It doesn’t explain why I can–?”

That’s when she turns over to a page in the album. The mark, my tattoo. A brown piece of paper sitting under the film, mocking me. I stare open-mouthed at the same mark that was branded on me as a kid.

Did she do it? I always thought it was my mother. I swallow hard.

“My great grandfather had a vision. He saw this mark. Long before you ever were born. He would go on and on, about how this mark would be the saviour. He was not sure how or what form it would come to us. But he was firm. We must protect it.

“The day you appeared on the footstep of my sister’s house in Portland the mark had been delivered to us. It was on the back of your neck.”

Thank God. I don’t think I could’ve handled it, if it was Franziska who done this to me.

“You were in danger.” She touches my hand lightly. “Do you remember the men that were looking for you?”

“I’m not sure.” Those memories were in my box, vaulted up. I made a vow to never open it and look back. It’s how I survived. I cannot hide anymore. Not if I want to understand what is happening to me.

I try hard to pull those memories up. I remember running for what felt like hours. What was I running from?

“Drink the tea,” she says. “It will calm you and help you remember.”

I drink and finish the cup, and it comes crashing in waves. Like I’m right there.

I’m only eight years old and my mother had left me. It was Tuesday, I remember it clearly. I was meant to hand in my class project at school. I spent hours making a model of our house. Spending days outside collecting bags and bags of sticks. I sat in my room and individually sanded each one of them, making sure they were smooth and all the right sizes. I spent hours, weeks on the project. It was my escape. While my mother was in and out of the house, drinking and taking drugs in the lounge with a constant flow of men, I sat in my room and meticulously crafted my house.

That Tuesday I wanted her to drive me to school, I would never normally ask, but I wanted to make sure the model house was safe. I worked so hard on it. Opening my mother’s bedroom door, I knew something was not right. Normally she would be lying sprawled out on her bed, head hanging over the side, bottles of vodka on her nightstand right next to her needles.

She wasn’t there, her bed unmade, which wasn’t unusual. Her nightstand was empty, her wardrobes open and bare. There were no clothes, none of her makeup or perfume. It was all gone. That’s when I heard the noise, glass breaking in the kitchen and the voices of men in our