“You never stop to simply enjoy the scenery.” The realization saddened him.
“I can’t afford to.” She shook her head. “What?” She jerked her hand away and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, looking around her, whipping her head in every direction so quickly it looked painful.
People grumbled but parted around her.
Was this a component of acting so awkwardly people wanted to ignore her? Not based on the panic splashed across her face. “Kirby?”
“I heard... Where’s Gareth’s shop? Specifically?”
Min gestured in the direction they’d been walking. “Two blocks that way, on the corner. Easy to spot.”
“We need to go. Now.” She was sprinting toward their destination before she finished speaking.
She maneuvered through the crowds like they were an obstacle course. Min couldn’t navigate the throngs so easily.
He reached the shop a moment after watching her vanish inside. When he walked through the door, his heart stalled. Books were strewn everywhere, with displays and shelves toppled.
The damage looked superficial. Thankfully.
Min’s gaze fell on Kirby, who stood at the front counter, and sadness rolled through him. Gareth was slumped over, dark-red blood spilling over his hands and already drying in the pool around him.
“Your friend?” Kirby asked softly.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.” She stared at the counter.
Min reached for her. “It’s not your fault. We need to call the police.”
“It is my fault.” She nodded at a sheet of paper under Gareth’s hand.
Min stepped closer, careful not to disturb anything. It was a page torn from a book, and it was facing away from Gareth. The handwriting in the margins was in English, but the original text wasn’t. “What does it say?”
“It’s about a maiden of death, who takes lives though she knows the price of losing...” Kirby fell silent. “The rest of the book is gone. We need to be too.”
He’d like to wait. Tell law enforcement what they knew. He didn’t need Kirby to tell him that was unwise.
Something beeped once, sharp and distinct. The floor under them rumbled.
“Get down,” Kirby yelled.
Flame and debris exploded around them.
I won’t lose her again.
Chapter Six
Kirby had been in the middle of explaining her everyday reality, to Min when a man whispered in her ear, “You used to be a legend.”
Her body seized, and she whirled to find the speaker. Even with his voice low, she recognized it as belonging to the waiter she’d attacked. The one who fled their room in tears.
She scanned the streets, searching for his face. There were too many people, none of them running or moving abruptly. He could be any of the blond men walking away from her. Any of the backs wearing a hat.
“Kirby?” Min’s question interrupted her search.
Apparently the conversation about how he interacted with her while she was working wasn’t over.
“I heard...” It didn’t matter. The waiter was gone, and there was a reason besides her that he’d been here, or she’d have a hole in her somewhere. “Where’s Gareth’s shop? Specifically?”
“Two blocks that way, on the corner. Easy to spot.”
Kirby was already running, weaving through the crowds, not looking to see if Min kept up. She charged inside the shop, and stalled a few meters back from the counter. A man was slumped over, a single sheet of paper pinned beneath him.
She tried to keep up a minimal conversation with Min, but her mind was racing along the situation. They were being set up. There was more to this than a dead shopkeeper, though she did mourn the man. He hadn’t been a combatant. He hadn’t done anything but seek knowledge, and there was no reason to kill someone for that.
This wasn’t right. They needed to go.
The ground under her feet rolled, and the sound of an explosion ripped at her ears.
“Kirby.” Min’s shout mingled with the noise, and he threw his body over hers.
She tucked herself beneath him and screwed her eyes shut, as the store rained down around them. She hated the practical part of her, arguing that he was less likely to take damage so this was okay. It made her feel cowardly and callous.
The noise was deafening but only lasted a few seconds. She felt fine, and not just because Min was an excellent shield. He hadn’t covered all of her. Dirt and smoke should be caking her skin and clogging her throat.
She pried one eye open, and shock raced through her. Nothing was touching them. The debris seemed to hover millimeters above them. “Are you doing that?” She winced at the fear in her voice. How powerful was he? Was this why he kept himself away from combat? He wasn’t just impervious, he could also repel threats?
He shifted, and their surroundings did as well, collapsing further but still not falling on them. She couldn’t see his face from this position. Couldn’t read his expression.
“No.” The word was filled with awe and reverence. “You are.”
“No. Nononononono.”
“I’ve seen it before. You did it in Kuwait. You saved an entire building of civilians from a stray scud.”
She couldn’t... She wasn’t...
Her memories insisted it was true.
“You can expand the shield,” Min said. “Grow it slowly and use it to push the rubble away.”
Rubble was tiny little bits. This was a stone building, on top of them. “I can’t. I don’t know how.” She was helpless. She hated that feeling. Unless the rocks wanted to face her in hand-to-hand combat, she couldn't do anything.
Sirens bounced eerily around their temporary prison.
“If you do it now, we can be mostly clear before they get here.”
Not in time to get away. Not that she was concerned with escaping. They’d play the victims and be on their way. Play. A building had fallen on them. They were victims, but Kirby hated being associated with that word.
That didn’t give her the knowledge to do what Min suggested. Kirby didn’t even understand how the shield was there. She couldn’t feel it. She tried to grasp how she was doing it. To find the edges and push them out. Her mind met emptiness.
“Can you do it?” She tried to keep the panic from her question. “You covered me. You’re strong enough to push up, aren’t you?”
“Once your shield comes down, I’ll be crushed, just not dead. I’m not impervious, but I heal impossibly fast.”
She swallowed a string of curses, as frustration clawed at her throat in place of smoke. “If my shield wasn’t there, you would have crushed me when the building did the same to you. What were you thinking?”
“That I couldn’t lose you again.”
A fist clenched around her chest. What was it about her that made him go to so much trouble, life after life?
The sound of voices and shouts drawing closer saved her from having to process his words. It was time to do something else she hated—pretend she was a damsel in distress.
“Help.” It was too easy to let the fear flood her cry. “Anyone? We’re here. Hello?”
Kirby and Min waited as patiently as was possible when buried alive, while rescue workers dug them out. Her shield fell without her permission, but what landed on Min was light by that point. The sun had moved halfway across the sky when they finally emerged.
The rescue team was amazed that, beyond being a little dusty, neither Min nor Kirby was hurt.
The police didn’t talk to them for long. Min got as far as saying they were here for books and showing them his ID, and they were cleared to get checked out more in depth by emergency services.
Kirby couldn’t imagine what that was like—getting out of sticky situations by tossing around a famous name. The idea of being so distinctly in the public eye made her skin crawl.
She and Min waited in the back of an ambulance, no longer important to the chaos, now that they’d been cleared. He was on
the rear tailgate, keeping half an eye on her and half on the crowds. She sat on a stretcher. Where was their EMT? She itched to get out of here.
“I used to think we’d make an amazing team, if you weren’t already spoken for.” The hotel waiter’s voice clawed down her spine. It mingled with memories of her life at TOM, sounding too much like Mark’s and dragging up every time he’d threatened, terrified, and abused her. “But you’ll never be what you once were.”
He jabbed a needle into her upper arm. A wave of drowsiness swept over her.
The effects of the drug burned away just as quickly, as fire spilled through her veins. She whirled, to find him staring at her wide eyed.
Min wasn’t stopping her this time. Determination filled her. This agent of TOM had killed an innocent man. He could have killed others. Casualties like that were meant to be avoided in war, not intentionally created.
“I’ve been in the history books for more than a thousand years.” She didn’t know where her words came from, but they rolled out on a threatening growl. “Your faith is based on my works. I’ll be a legend for eternity.”
“How are you not—” He cast his gaze about wildly and backed up.
Kirby grabbed his wrist. The electricity and flames boiling under her skin was unfamiliar, but right. And they were delicious. “You, on the other hand, will be forgotten after today. TOM won’t remember you, and you most certainly aren’t going to Valhalla.”
She yanked him closer, despite his struggles and the fear spilling from him. She brushed a thumb over his cheek, and the life drained from him.
The strange feeling evaporated, leaving an empty pit in her gut and an ocean of confusion rolling inside. She screamed at the top of her lungs, forcing shrillness into the sound, and scooted away from the lifeless body.
An office appeared at the ambulance. “What the—” His hand fell to his club.
Kirby pointed. “He... He was starting his checkup... And he just... He fell over. I don’t think he’s breathing.” The fake panic came easily, thanks to years of practice and a stressful day. Her nausea helped bolster it.
“Step aside.” Another technician shoved past her.
She stared at the waiter’s body—a guy whose name she couldn’t even remember—as emergency services tried CPR.
It had been too easy to take his life. She was Kirby the Killer. Death was her training and her life. But this wasn’t the same, because she wasn’t in control. She swore she heard Mark’s voice, and that snapped something inside.
Ridiculous. You were protecting yourself. Protecting Min.
She was acting out of fear and delusion, not rationale. And if she didn’t get that under control, she might make the wrong decision next time, just like she had with Mark.
STARKAD DIDN’T LIKE waiting. He’d been doing it for more than a thousand years, yet he never mastered the concept. Sometimes life called for it, though.
Gwydion was making him look like a god of patience. “I’ll go without you.” He wanted to hop the next plane to London.
“You put everyone at risk, especially Kirby, if you do that. Our panic, acting irrationally and without a plan, is exactly what Loki hopes to incite.”
Gwydion rolled his eyes and gathered his luggage. “Or he knows you’ll refuse to act, and he’s tormenting you.”
They were in his hotel room and had been trying to reach Min and Kirby for more than an hour.
“I’m taking action, just not in the way you’d like. You know better than most that trying to out-think Loki is a path toward madness.” Not because Loki was brilliant, but because trying to outwit him led to indecision, and that was death. Starkad grabbed the remote and flipped on the TV.
“You’re going to watch movies? How the fuck are you not going out of your mind?” Gwydion demanded.
Starkad was ready to explode with frustration, but panic didn’t solve problems any more than inaction did. “I’m checking the news. If TOM was in the same place as Kirby, odds are high someone died.” Please don’t let it be her.
Instinct said she was all right. He didn’t have that nagging, ill sensation he’d experienced when she tried to kill herself. When Gwydion found her in the ally. Every other time she died.
But experience insisted something was wrong, and Loki’s words taunted him.
“Fuck.”
Gwydion’s curse drew Starkad’s attention to the screen. The BBC headline read Explosion in London, and the anchor was discussing whether or not this was a terrorist attack. There wasn’t a count of injuries or deaths yet.
“That’s where they were going,” Starkad said.
The explosion was meant to draw this kind of attention. To distract from something else. At least, if TOM was behind it. And this was definitely their MO.
Now Starkad was worried. “We need more information.” He reached for his laptop. Fortunately, with Gwydion staying behind after Mark’s death, he was able to gather their things and bring everything here.
“We have more fucking information. We need to go after her.”
Starkad wanted to. The desire itched across every nerve ending. “In the amount of time it takes us to get there, the entire world can change. If we leave without more intel, we risk making things worse.”
“So once again, you're going to sit on your ass while she suffers. You’re going to put her in danger, because you think the outcome might be bad if you act.” Accusation lined Gwydion’s tone.
Starkad tensed, and anger surged inside. “If she was in the explosion, we won’t help her by running out of here without a plan. Especially not knowing her status. If she wasn’t badly hurt”—which instinct still said was true—“she knows how to handle herself.”
“Don’t you want to know if she’s safe? Do you even care?”
Starkad’s rage tore from him in a loud roar. He pinned Gwydion to the closest wall, by the throat. “Of course I fucking care,” Starkad growled. “I don’t know how you justify asking me that. I’d burn this world to the ground if I thought it would save her.”
“So you keep saying. But she continues to die.” Gwydion stared back with cold eyes. “We need to do something.” A tremor ran though him, amplifying the fury in his retort. “I can’t wait. I’ve done that for centuries.”
Starkad held his gaze. The tension that flowed through the room was tangible. Anger hummed in Starkad’s veins, amplified by concern. Gwydion wasn’t a trained fighter, but he could grapple with the best of them when he felt inspired. And he was a powerful god when he summoned what he had access to. Could Starkad beat him if it came down to it?
Gwydion’s pocket chimed. Starkad let him go and grabbed his phone. Min flashed on the screen. Starkad put the call on speaker. “You’re both safe?”
“Yes.” The certainty in Min’s tone was reassuring. “You know?”
“The bookstore made the news,” Gwydion said.
“I lost my phone in the process.” Kirby’s voice came through clear and firm. “We had to deal with emergency services. Move hotels. We’re clean, though.”
Starkad could breathe again. “Good.” He wanted to ask more, but they couldn’t discuss details over open lines.
“I need to talk to you.” Kirby’s voice softened, and the hint of pleading cracked through him.
He ignored Gwydion’s glare and took her off speaker. “Okay. I’m listening.”
“He was a friend, from school.” Her tone was tight. “He knew...”
“Kirby?”
“Everything.” She gasped the word out.
Loki’s words were back, taunting Starkad. But the rest of this conversation had to be as casual and coded as anything they discussed in public when they were on mission. “You know how people like to talk.”
“I’d like to know more—” She bit off the words, and empty static filled the line. “About my family history. The woman I was named after.”
She should have her memory back. What was he going to tell her? Then again, sifting through all those li
fetimes had to be a mess, and it didn’t mean all of the images in her mind made sense or hovered near the surface.
“How far back do you want to go? I can tell you some vivid stories from the old country.” Were they fooling anyone who was listening in?
Loki or TOM? Not likely. A random law-enforcement agency that Loki might or might not have pointed in their direction? Most certainly.
Her laugh was strained. “I’d love to hear stories about the old country.”
Starkad swore he heard a thread of fear in Kirby’s request.
“We’ll be in your part of the world in a couple of weeks. We should have coffee. Catch up,” he said. Thankfully, it would only be another day or so. He wasn’t waiting any longer to see her for himself, have a normal conversation, and ensure she was all right.
“Sounds great. I’ll see you in a few weeks.” Kirby continued the charade to the end.
“See you then. Be careful.” Starkad disconnected and tossed the phone back to Gwydion.
Gwydion snagged the device out of the air, scowl in place. “Min was right. The passion you two have is enviable.”
It really wasn’t. Their passion set them on this path, and in the end, it was going to be what devoured and destroyed them. That didn’t make Starkad feel it any less intensely.
Chapter Seven
Min couldn’t erase the image of Kirby taking the TOM assassin’s life from his mind. Death happened. He saw it every day, and she’d been trained to deliver it.
She was right. If they were going to make it through this, and if he wanted to be a part of her life, he had to give her the same trust he expected from her.
He didn’t like that she’d killed, but he understood why. Doing so publicly felt reckless, but she was safe, and that was the most important element of the day.
They stepped into the hotel room Daz had secured for them. The entire place would fit in the living room of the suite they’d left behind.
Kirby latched the door behind them, draped her arms around Min’s neck, and crushed her body and mouth against his.
Death in the Night (Legacy, #2) Page 6