Authors: Melissa Marr
like Osiris in the netherworld. I will go through the circle of
darkness, without the breath stilling within me ever!
When she was finished, Ajani shook his head. His excitement had vanished.
“You’re just like the others,” he said. “Another failure.”
W
hen they reached Ajani’s house, Kitty felt a mix of excitement and fear. They were going to end this ongoing conflict with Ajani. It wasn’t the same as finding a way home, but after her bonding in the desert with the bloedzuigers, she wasn’t as sure that she wanted to leave. The Wasteland was her home as much as the land she’d left behind; truth be told, she’d lived here longer than she’d lived in California, so the Wasteland might be more her home.
“Ready?” Edgar asked.
She nodded, and Jack pushed open the front door. It wasn’t locked, but they expected a servant to be standing on the other side. She was poised to grab him and yank him out of the house. She wasn’t prepared to see Daniel on the other side of the door. She saw the look of hope in his expression—and the resignation that followed when he saw that she wasn’t alone.
“Just go,” she whispered, stepping in front of Edgar and Jack.
Daniel didn’t raise his weapon, but he already had it in his hand. “You know better than that.”
“Please don’t make me shoot you,” she said.
Behind Daniel, a servant vanished into the depths of the house.
Kitty knew they had only moments before Ajani—or his other killers—arrived. Daniel glanced past her for a sliver of a moment, but he didn’t address Jack or Edgar. Instead, he begged, “Go away, Kitty. Let them handle this.”
“Shoot him, or move away so I can,” Melody called from behind Edgar.
“Please,” Kitty half begged. Shooting him seemed less acceptable after she’d seen what Ajani had done to him.
Daniel lifted his gun. “You know I can’t let you walk past me unless I’m down.” He smiled at her before inviting, “Go ahead and shoot me, Kit. It’s okay.”
Edgar pulled Kitty to the side, and Melody fired. It wasn’t a killing wound, but it was more than Kitty would’ve liked.
Daniel fell backward, smiling up at her. “Once more so I can’t come after you.” He paused, took a visibly pained breath, and told her, “He has four fighters in the house. Two upstairs.”
Kitty had shot Daniel herself not too long ago, but the memories of his torture were too fresh in her mind. “Danny . . .”
Jack stepped into the foyer, and Daniel looked at him. “Chloe was with him in the library.”
“Let’s go.” Jack didn’t glance at Daniel as he strode into the house with Melody and Hector behind him.
As shots started to ring out from deeper in the house, Kitty knew they needed to move, but she couldn’t shoot Daniel again—yet if she didn’t, it would be worse for him if Ajani saw that he’d let the Arrivals into the house. “I can’t shoot you,” she whispered.
Daniel met Edgar’s eyes. “Let me take her out of here.”
“Can’t,” Edgar muttered.
Daniel sighed. “I’m sure
you
don’t mind: shoot me so I can’t follow.”
Edgar shot him in the head; then he bent down and grabbed the pistol that Daniel could no longer hold. He handed the gun to Kitty. “Stay behind me.”
The chaos in the house grew louder as they walked farther from the door. Thuds and yells mingled with the sounds of breaking glass. Interspersed with it were gunshots.
They found Hector hunkered down at the doorway of a dining room. “Melly’s upstairs,” he said. “I’ve got these. Go on.”
Daniel was one of the best of Ajani’s group of trained killers, and he’d eliminated himself. The staff at Ajani’s house was trained to fight, but they also weren’t apt to step into the middle of a fracas between groups of people who didn’t stay dead. Melody was hunting the two shooters upstairs, and Hector was exchanging fire with another. That left one unaccounted for—as well as Ajani. Kitty was feeling optimistic until she heard Jack’s voice inside a nearby room.
“This is not what we agreed on,” Jack said.
Gun at the ready, Kitty pushed open the door and slid inside. Edgar was close behind her. Standing just inside the room was her brother, and walking toward them was Chloe.
She walked in front of Ajani. There was blood spatter on her arms, but she appeared uninjured.
“I think I can still hit him,” Edgar murmured from beside her.
“No.” Jack darted a look at him and answered quietly, “The poison would kill her if you missed. We wait till we have a shot.”
Edgar looked at her briefly. His loyalty to her surpassed his loyalty to Jack. She put a hand on Edgar’s wrist and shook her head. They would wait.
“Hiding behind a woman?” Jack scoffed.
“Oh, but she’s not just any woman, is she, Jack?” Ajani was midway across the room, standing near a pair of exceedingly ugly chairs. Chloe was in front of him like a shield. He slid one hand possessively around her waist. “She’s one you’re willing to break our accord for.”
Jack said nothing, but his expression darkened. Kitty likewise didn’t point out that the accord had already been broken. She might be impulsive, but she wasn’t foolhardy enough to poke a rattlesnake.
“Sadly, she’s not as special as I’d hoped she would be.” Ajani tsked.
Suddenly, Chloe tried to jerk away, but Ajani’s arm tightened.
“I’ll kill him,” Ajani said casually. “He won’t shoot
you
to get to me, but I will kill him if you force my hand.” When she stopped moving, Ajani made an approving sound, and then, with his other hand, reached up and stroked his fingertips down her check and around the curve of her shoulder, stopping his hand just above her breast. “She has her uses, and I’m happy to enjoy her, but she’s still not what I need. We could trade.”
“Get behind me, Kit,” Edgar said.
“You know better, Cordova. Miss Reed won’t hide.” The look Ajani gave them was that of a patronizing father. “You also know that my people don’t stay dead. We can exterminate every one of you, or”—he glanced at Kitty with a creepily hungry look—“you all walk out of here, and Katherine stays. I’ll treat her like the queen she is.”
“No.” Kitty’s temper flared, and she drew her gun reflexively. The rounds in the third and fourth chambers were poison filled, but she had bullets in the first two that she could shoot first. Those bullets wouldn’t kill him, but they’d make her feel better.
Ajani’s gaze dropped to the gun in her hand. “My dear, I am willing to let Cordova live, and if you are obedient, we can even negotiate visits with him. Plus, while you’re here, you can have Daniel as your lackey too.”
“My sister isn’t going to stay here.” Jack had his pistol trained on Ajani. “The bullets are filled with poison. I
can
kill you permanently this time.”
“Is that why you’ve broken our agreement? To kill me?” Ajani asked. “I think we can come to a better accord. The position of governor has recently opened up, and I’d be happy to install you in his position.”
“We worked for him to stand
against
you. Why would we work for you?” Kitty kept watching for a chance. She could see that Chloe was poised, waiting for an opportunity to escape. They just needed a moment.
“The governor has worked for me since before you arrived,” Ajani told them. “It didn’t seem particularly prudent to tell you that, but then you frightened him, and he became more irritating, so I had him retire early.”
“He was torn apart by a demon,” Jack said.
“I know. You always clean up the demons after I have them do their jobs. You’re quite good at it; that’s part of why I use them so often.” Ajani paused and smiled, clearly drawing out the tension for his own amusement.
Kitty looked at Jack. The expression of incredulity on his face matched what she felt. Everything they’d fought for was a lie.
“If you won’t trade for Chloe, and you don’t want to be governor . . .” Ajani turned his gaze to Kitty. “Perhaps, you should do your own negotiating.”
Kitty stepped away from Edgar. “Let’s talk.”
Edgar started, “Kit—”
“Katherine,” Jack said at the same time.
She ignored them both. “Let them all go, and you and I will talk. You had an agreement with Jack for years.” She watched Ajani as she spoke. The hint of instability that Daniel had mentioned was there, but so was the keen alertness she’d always known. “This isn’t the way we have to be.”
Ajani smiled and shoved Chloe away suddenly. Kitty heard the hammer of a gun, and the whine of a bullet. She thought it was Edgar who had fired, but then he fell forward, pushing Kitty to the ground, keeping her safe from return fire. Vaguely, she realized that Jack had lunged for Chloe too.
When Kitty felt dampness on her back, she realized that Edgar hadn’t simply been pushing her out of the way. She scrambled out from under him and was frantically searching for a pulse. “No. No. No.” She rolled him over and leaned down to feel for breath. “You can’t do this to me, Edgar.”
She realized that Hector stood in the doorway only when he started to speak. “I took care of Melody. She’s dead . . . and”—he glanced at Kitty unapologetically—“so is Edgar, I believe.”
“Hector?”
Jack said.
Kitty felt like her world had just ended. She couldn’t look, but she couldn’t
not
look at Hector either. Her hands were still on Edgar’s motionless body. She was vaguely aware that Jack had lifted his gun, but Hector had already turned and walked away.
“I do apologize, Katherine,” Ajani said, “but you didn’t seriously think that I would lack a plan for this day?”
She stared at him as she knelt beside Edgar. “He’s dead.”
Ajani took a step forward, and Chloe ran over and grabbed the gun that had fallen from Edgar’s hand when he fell. She stood in front of Kitty and Edgar, her gun aimed at Ajani. “You leave her alone. Just . . . just
stop.
”
Without speaking, Jack lifted his weapon as well, but before either Jack or Chloe fired, Ajani said, “If you do that, Cordova will stay dead.”
Kitty hated what she was about to do, but there was no alternative. “Jack, don’t. Chloe, please don’t shoot him.”
Her brother glanced her way, and she saw the understanding in his eyes. He would let Ajani live for her, let things continue to fall apart all around them, all because she couldn’t bear life without Edgar.
This
was what she’d resisted for so long, the desperation to keep Edgar in her life.
“Just hear him out,” she asked in a voice that was far too close to begging for her liking.
Jack walked over to Chloe and gently pushed the muzzle of her gun toward the floor. “Wait.”
With a confidence that Kitty hated, Ajani turned his back to them and walked to one of two high-backed, gaudy chairs that were on either side of an ornately carved table. On the table were a crystal decanter and two glasses. He glanced over his shoulder at her before reaching for the decanter. The clink of it being unstoppered sounded strangely loud in the room. “I’d offer you all a drink, but I have only the two glasses here.” He poured some amber liquid into both glasses, looked back again, and added, “However, I suspect you would probably
all
drink out of the bottle, wouldn’t you?”
All the while Chloe and Jack still stood, pistols in hand but not upraised. They didn’t react to the disdain in Ajani’s words or actions. Kitty didn’t feel nearly as calm or focused as the other two appeared.
“Unless you cooperate, Edgar will not wake,” Ajani announced.
F
or a moment Jack wasn’t sure he could resist shooting. Edgar was dead on the floor; Katherine’s hands were wet with her lover’s blood. Chloe was staring at Ajani with horror plain in her expression. Somewhere in the house, Melody was dead—by Hector’s hand—and in the darkened library, Ajani had the temerity to sip his brandy in silence.
The bullets in Jack’s pistol would stop Ajani from rising again, and Jack wanted almost nothing more than to use the toxin that Garuda had provided. The one thing that mattered more to him was his sister, and she would be devastated if Edgar’s death were permanent. If his death could be undone, Jack would still his hand.
Still, he felt it only right to point out to Ajani that they weren’t powerless. He had his pistol trained on Ajani as he said, “The bullets are filled with poison. I
can
kill you permanently this time.”
Ignoring Jack, Ajani held out a glass to Kitty. “Since your brother seems otherwise occupied . . .”
She shook her head. “He’s not joking about the poison, Ajani.”
“I realize that.” Ajani watched them with a bemused expression. “I wonder, though, are you willing to gamble? What if I told you that I could send one of you back?”
“You can’t be serious—”
“To open the portal, I require a sacrifice,” Ajani said in an obviously falsely saddened voice. “That’s the cost of the opening. I’ve tried deaths from here, shed the blood of every species of beast and being in the Wasteland, but it appears that only someone from our world will do.”
“
Our
world?” Chloe echoed.
“Yes,” Ajani answered her, but his attention remained fixedly on Katherine. The extent of his obsession with her became frighteningly clear. There was no way Jack was walking out of this house without Ajani dead on the ground.
Quietly, Jack told Chloe, “The bullets in Edgar’s gun are filled with the same poison.”
She smiled in a way that was eerily reminiscent of Melody in a good mood, but she said nothing.
Ajani didn’t even glance at them.
“I’d hoped it wouldn’t ever come to this,” he said. He paused and smiled, clearly drawing out the tension for his own amusement. “I’ll give you a choice. Would you like to go home, Katherine? I can send you or Jackson back.”
Katherine stayed silent, but Jack saw her hesitate, an expression of incredulity on her face that matched what he felt. Of all the things he had expected Ajani to offer, that was nowhere on the list. After far too many years in the Wasteland, they were being offered a chance to return to the lives they should’ve led.