by Liz Schulte
Corbin’s fingers dug into Thomas’s throat. “There are ways to silence you forever. I don’t have to kill you to do it. Keep talking and I will show you.”
I pried off his fingers one at a time, even though it didn’t matter if a vampire could breathe. It did, however, matter that he could still speak. “He isn’t telling you this for his health. He wants something from us. He’s ready to make a deal.”
Thomas smiled. “And the lady gets a prize.”
“No deals,” Corbin said. “He dies.”
“Corbin…” I tried for sympathetic.
He met my eyes. “He dies or I do. Both of us are not leaving this cabin,” he said, his voice tight. “You can’t possibly side with him. So long as he is alive, he is a threat to every creature in the Abyss. You have to see that.”
I nodded. “I do, but we can use him. He isn’t the mastermind in any of this. He’s a tool and we’re the pawns. I want to take down the players.”
“And that’s what makes you special,” Thomas said. “You can see past the surface to the end game.”
“Shut up,” Corbin and I said at the same time.
“No more talking,” I said, retying the piece of shirt over his mouth.
Thomas never stopped playing angles. But why was he so calm and why hadn’t he even tried to escape? When he was the loup-garou, he cracked the beam. He could have gone wolf-like in the boat and there wouldn’t have been much we could have done about it. Quintus’s words came back to me. The loup-garou always killed that which it loved most. What did Thomas love? I pulled the shirt from his mouth. “What do you love, Thomas?”
“Fishing for compliments? Very well. You, of course,” he said in a mocking tone.
I blinked a couple times. It was a lie. I could hear it, feel it. Not the words, but the tone, the whole attitude. “But you do,” I said. “That’s why you’re here. It doesn’t have anything to do with Paolo. That’s why you haven’t tried to run away. That’s why you keep coming back. You know, part of me always thought Corbin was crazy for thinking I would have any idea where you were. You left us in Arizona to fight a pissed-off angel on our own. You might be a coward, and you manipulate everything to get what you want, but the curse knows the truth.” I tapped his chest with my fingernail. “That’s why it wants to be here. It’s here for me. You didn’t run away. You didn’t tell Paolo when I left the house. You were waiting for me.”
Thomas gave me a pitying smile, but I knew in my gut I was right, and I could prove it.
I stood up and grabbed Corbin by the leather jacket, jamming my lips and body against his. It only took him a second to respond, and immediately there was the telltale sign of him sipping from my life force, but I let it go. I was making a point.
The beast in Thomas roared behind us. I broke free from the kiss and smiled over my shoulder at his glowing bright red eyes. “Would you like to rethink your answer?”
It growled and snarled, trying to move, but failed as the chains dug into its skin.
Corbin gave me a questioning look.
“The whole purpose of the loup-garou curse is to lose what you love the most. I thought that maybe it was different with him because he didn’t love anyone but himself, but then why hasn’t he tried to escape? He had to know that I was bringing you back. Paolo must have told him, but he stayed. Then when you left with him, he didn’t make a sound. And in the boat… He wants to be here, so I had to ask myself why.”
“Because he loves you,” Corbin said slowly.
I nodded. “Because the beast intends to kill me the first chance it gets. The curse is making the desire to be near me harder to resist. He will try to kill me.”
“Interesting,” Corbin said, looking back at Thomas with a slight smile. “And if he doesn’t?”
I shook my head. “No clue.”
Corbin paced away from him. “So what’s your plan?”
“I’m totally winging it right now. The council made me sign a contract that means they pretty much own me if they can prove that I broke it, which I have in so many ways. I need to figure out exactly what their angle is in all of this. I still need to stop whoever is doing the other killings in New Orleans, and I guess now I have the vampires to deal with, because there’s no way we are giving him to Paolo in the next ten hours.”
Corbin stared at the ground.
“Right? I mean, you don’t really want to go back to how things were, do you? I know you said you did, but look at the evidence, Corbin. Paolo has been using you all these years. You aren’t the same person you were then, whether or not you want to be. Camila is gone. They took her. If you go back, what do you think will happen to Selene? They are going to use her the same way. She’s your weakness, and Paolo knows.”
“Have I really sunk so low that I need a pep talk?” He laughed to himself. “I don’t know what I want to do yet, but you don’t need to concern yourself with me. What is your plan for him?”
That was an excellent question, and one that I didn’t quite have an answer to. Partly, Corbin was right. Thomas was a danger to the people of the Abyss because he was a narcissistic psychopath. But he also had moments (very few) of good. Maybe I had trouble reconciling both sides of him because I knew other people, Corbin included, who were also a lot like that, but still managed to be productive members of society. Also, it wasn’t my job to make these decisions. Sekhmets were neutral. We tried to avoid swaying the tides too heavily in favor of any side, but again that was a rule I’d always struggled with. When something felt wrong, it was hard for me to ignore it and continue on—much to my family’s consternation.
“When I was young and in school, they would make us do drills. Basically, war scenarios would be laid out for us and then we were assigned sides. We should have been able to support whatever side we fell on, because that was what we were expected to do as a race. I never could support the side I didn’t agree with. I was whipped and lectured and failed over and over again because I would not submit to their rules and allow them to think for me.” I clicked my teeth as an image of my grandfather came to mind. “The only person in my entire family who would sit with me on the days I was being punished was my grandfather. He’d tell me that it was okay not to understand why I felt so strongly about an issue. The important part was that I did feel that way and I stayed true to it. That was heroic, and those feelings were a gift from the goddess. She was guiding me and I was the only one smart enough to listen. Maybe he was trying to make a rebellious kid feel better, but it really stuck with me. It’s how I have lived my life.”
I rolled my hurt shoulder to keep it from getting stiff. “I don’t know why I think we should let him go, but I do. I know that he deserves punishment for his crimes. I do know that logically, but something in my gut tells me that Thomas has a role to play and it isn’t over yet. Killing him now will change all of our futures.”
Corbin shook his head. “That’s the biggest load of crap I have ever heard.”
I crossed my arms. “Then what’s your plan, Count Dracula?”
“We store Thomas somewhere miserable until his curse ends, then kill him. You could put him in Hollowfield. You have access, or at least know people who do. Meanwhile, we kill Paolo because that’s the only way either of us will ever get any peace after all of this, and you’ll have it worse than me. Paolo knows he cannot kill me without killing Selene.” The way he said her name, it was obvious it cost him something to do it. “So it will be harder to come after me. That’s why he’s exploiting Clara and Camila’s deaths. It’s his only hope without having to go into open war with the elves, and if what you say is true then he won’t have the support of the vampires behind him. It’s a risky move. Especially since I have Frost.”
Frost was a fellow bounty hunter who was a human necromancer and witch. “I don’t think anyone has Frost,” I said. “I don’t think she likes other people.”
Corbin gave me his typical smug smile. “She likes me.”
“You’re delusional, but whatever. So basically
your plan is to kill Thomas and Paolo. What about the council?”
“Your problem, not mine.”
“And the other killer, not your problem either?”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
I shook my head. “What if the council decides to make you its problem? Then what? You can’t defeat them.”
“Then I guess I’ll die, but at least I will die with the satisfaction of having killed both Paolo and Thomas. And again, they will have to be willing to kill Selene. I know your friends, Femi—they will never stand by and let that happen.”
“They could put you in Hollowfield.”
“I could use a rest.”
He was impossible. “Let’s say I agree to this. Then what?”
“Thomas won’t be a problem—I could kill him now if I wanted to. Paolo will, though. He’s old. Older than me. Older than all of us. If he at all sees it coming, we won’t have a chance. We need to take him by surprise. He needs to think he has won.”
“If he has the council backing him, all the plans in the world aren’t going to make a difference.” I shook my head. We needed to know more, and the best way to do that was to solve the case that they’d sent me to solve. The council wasn’t out to kill me, but I had no doubt I would be an acceptable casualty in getting whatever it was that they wanted. And if that was to stabilize the vampires and Corbin wouldn’t play along, then the shit was about to hit the fan. “We need to talk to Holden.”
The council’s reach was obviously wide, but I knew so little about them that I couldn’t say how wide. I slapped my hands together in front of my chest and said a quick prayer directed to Olivia.
Corbin stared at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Suddenly feeling religious?” he asked.
“Shh,” I said, waiting for Holden to arrive. It took several super-awkward minutes, but at last he came.
He nodded to Corbin and gave Thomas a look that probably should have made him crap his pants. While he didn’t release his bowels, the loup-garou disappeared completely, leaving only the traitorous vampire. Not only had he betrayed me in Arizona, he’d betrayed all of us. Holden was the sort to take that very personally. Oh, and Thomas had tried to turn Holden’s only living relative into a vampire.
I launched into an explanation about everything I suspected was happening.
Holden sighed. “Leilah has been the driving force in all of this, but I don’t see the council rallying behind Paolo.” He shifted his face slightly toward Corbin. “They will support whoever they think can keep the vampires in line. If another vampire steps up, no one would object.”
Corbin’s lip curled. “Not interested. Never have been, or I would have moved against Paolo years ago.”
Holden shrugged. “Then you can’t kill him.”
Corbin crossed his arms. “The hell I can’t. I don’t remember you asking for permission before you freed the jinn and turned the entire world upside down to get what you wanted.”
“What do you want?” I asked him. “Because if it’s Selene, she’s not in the cards.”
He rolled his eyes. “I want to be left alone.”
Holden nearly smiled. “Good luck with that.”
I shook my head. That wasn’t what he wanted. It might be what he wanted right now, but all of this was being driven by something else, whether or not Corbin chose to see it. “What do we do, then? How does all of this end?”
Holden rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know why we are discussing this,” Corbin said. “We kill this asshole then take out Paolo. Someone will fill the void. That’s life. Someone always steps up.” Thomas said something through the gag that I couldn’t understand. “We’ll let you know when we want you to talk.” Corbin kicked his leg.
I went over and untied the gag. “You have an opinion?”
“Never come between an idiot and his plan,” Thomas said, casting a hooded glare toward Corbin. “I can be killed with no fallout. I agreed to be the villain in this drama because a villain was needed. Paolo, though, is a symbol. Take him out and he becomes a cause, a cry of war. But by all means, you should have your revenge.”
A thin smile stretched over Corbin’s face. “He’s right.” My eyebrows shot up. I didn’t quite believe what I was hearing. “No one will care if we kill him. Let’s just get that out of the way before he finds a way to betray us.”
I shook my head, sighing noisily. “Okay, whatever. I have to get back to the city. I still have a killer to deal with. You guys figure this out.” I started for the door.
Corbin grabbed my arm and Thomas growled. “You can’t go back there. He’ll be looking for both of us.”
I pulled away from him. “This is my problem, not yours. Remember? You see, I actually care about people dying, whether or not it has anything to do with me. I’m going to find out what’s happening.”
He shook his head. “If he captures you, Femi… I don’t do suicide missions.”
I nodded. At least he admitted these things up front. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“I do them,” Holden said with a wink. “Olivia is quite fond of them. You know how to reach us if you need us.”
I laughed. That was too true. I closed the door behind me and carefully climbed in the boat.
Chapter 18