Cordero. I need to think of him as Cordero.
No change, Blake. Or he’ll know.
“You were giving me such an immersive first-person perspective,” Cordero says once Beretta’s back in his post by the door. “Now you’re summarizing. Getting antsy to finish this up?”
Behind me the radiator’s clanging away. It needs to stop. My face is burning. This entire room feels too warm.
“I didn’t realize I was doing that,” I say.
“No. I guess you didn’t. Which reminds me.” Cordero checks her watch. “It’s time for another dose.”
“I told you I don’t need it.” I can’t go back into the fog. Not now. “I’m cooperating, aren’t I?”
Cordero’s smile is thin, no teeth. “Yes, but things are going so well as they are. No need to change our modus operandi, is there?”
There is every reason to change our modus operandi, but none that I can verbalize. I still can’t summon my sword or armor but I’m close.
I need an hour. Maybe less.
I need time.
I need to figure out why he’s here.
Why is Malaphar back?
Same reason Daryn’s here. It has to be.
They missed something.
What did they miss?
I need time to think.
And I need to recruit help.
“Don’t you trust me, Cordero? I’ve been nothing but honest with you. I’ve been sitting here, tied up, telling you everything for the past few hours. Don’t I deserve a little credit?” I look right at Texas. “Am I off base here? Because I feel like I deserve a gold medal for being such a good detainee.”
His reaction to the code word is no reaction. Same with Beretta.
Nothing.
Not a blink, twitch, or hitch in their breath.
Are they that good? That cool under pressure? Or did they miss it? Or are they confused because it’s not a perfect message? I’m not trying to tell them to keep quiet. I’m trying to tell them that a demon’s sitting right in front of them.
“You are being very cooperative, Gideon, but you still need the dose. Don’t take it personally. It’s simply a safety measure.”
Cordero looks to Beretta but Texas is the one to step forward. “We each had one dose,” he says. He kneels in front of me, snapping on the latex gloves. Behind him, Beretta points the pistol at me.
Texas looks up. On his face is an expression I can’t figure out, but that maybe is apology for what he’s about to do. So much for gold freakin’ medals. Shit.
He takes the hypodermic needle from a small black pouch, along with a square of cotton, then he pulls up my sleeve and presses the needle to my skin. I feel cool moisture as he depresses the plunger. The dose meant to go in my veins is absorbed into the cotton square.
Not into me.
Texas turns casually as he stands, making sure Cordero sees the spent syringe.
I have to drop my head because I know the relief’s showing on my face. Yes. I have a man on my side. He knows something’s wrong and Beretta must, too.
It’s a start.
Now I just need time. A chance to think. To let the last of the drugs burn off.
Cordero asks me to pick up where I left off. “You were on your way to Norway,” she says. “To Jotunheimen, I’m guessing. I think that’s where all those trains eventually brought you. Am I right?”
I take a second to tap into the feeling I had last time when I actually got the dose. Like I had clouds inside my head. I think of Sebastian and how he can make even breathing mean something. Convey something.
I need to sell this for it to work. I need to come across as the same old gut-spilling Gideon. Bad way to put it. The same uncensored Gideon.
Act blunt on the outside. Get sharper on the inside.
I can do this.
CHAPTER 46
Norway was Jode’s idea. We needed a safe, remote place where the four of us could work on mastering our weapons while Daryn waited for her next directive. Jode assured us Norway fit the bill.
After almost three days on trains, we arrived at the Oslo station around midday. Jode left with Daryn to go work some Ellis money magic at various travel agencies inside the station. An hour later, they came back with keys to a Mercedes van and a hold on a cabin in Jotunheimen National Park.
The former was purchased outright, in euros. The latter was free—part of a system of huts the Norwegian government provided for the pure enjoyment of the great outdoors.
This seemed a little too easy to me. It felt like were winging some pretty important stuff, but Jode knew more about Norway than I did, meaning he knew something about it. I had no choice but to roll with it.
Before we headed into the mountains, we stopped at a market and loaded up on food and supplies to last us a few weeks. Essentials like rice and beans. Canned soup. Crackers and chocolate bars. Then we left Oslo and drove past some of the most stunning vistas I’d ever seen in my life. Smooth winding rivers that cut through soaring mountains. Bright blue glaciers nestled in ridges. Waterfalls that dropped hundreds of feet into vivid green forests. After the past days crammed in train cars, not sleeping, on edge from Ra’om’s effect on me, the views and the fresh air restored me some.
Finally, with nothing around us but raw, unspoiled nature, we reached a tiny tourist stop where a woman gave us a map and instructions for reaching our hut. There were no more roads now. We had to go the rest of the way on foot.
By then, it was getting late in the afternoon and an approaching storm was bringing in strong winds and cooler temperatures. I was tempted to spend the night in the van, considering the group’s safety, but everyone else was determined to sleep in a place that was completely stationary.
We pulled on our packs and set off on a trail that climbed through dense alpine forest. Over an hour later, the trees thinned, the wind picked up, and the trail turned into pure ankle-twisting, rocky misery. Below us, a network of fjords spread out, their waters so calm they mirrored the dark clouds above perfectly.
“Where the hell are we going, Jode?” I’d already asked for the location and marked it on my GPS. But I was feeling the seventy pounds of food and supplies on my back. The cadre in RASP would’ve given this hike their stamp of approval.
“You told me remote,” Jode replied. “Remote requires a good bit of trekking.”
“You mean hiking.”
“No, Gideon. I mean trekking.”
We’d been doing that a lot, Jode and I. I’d become a human autocorrect for all his weird British phrases. He used fancy as a verb. Nosh meant food. Bum was ass. Loo was bathroom. And everything was either bloody, brilliant, or both, bloody brilliant, which to me only described one thing. Actually three: the color of my cuff, my sword, and my armor. They really were bloody brilliant.
“We should almost be there,” Daryn said. She was carrying a pack as heavy as mine, and didn’t looked winded at all. Tough girl. Tough, pretty girl.
Eyes down, Blake. Focus on the trail.
“We were told this hut is so far off the main trails, it never gets used,” she added.
“And it’s free, right?” Bas said, huffing at my side. He grinned at me, his teeth a white flash in the stormy light. “So it’s afjordable.”
That made me laugh, which I needed. A free cottage hours away from the nearest sign of civilization sounded like the opening to a horror movie to me—and I’d actually seen creatures that belonged in horror movies. I knew they were real so I wasn’t exactly feeling calm.
We arrived at the location as the last bit of daylight faded out of the sky. I studied it as we approached. The location was incredible—a bluff that jutted right over a fjord, providing panoramic views of mountain ranges as far as the eye could see. But our shelter itself wasn’t as impressive.
There were actually two small huts on the bluff. As we drew closer, I noticed the nearest one had a partially collapsed roof and a missing door. The other was built right into the hillside and was only
slightly larger than the outhouse farther up on the hill. The hut appeared to be uninhabited, but I went ahead and checked things out first. Approaching with my sword—wishing it was my M4—I cleared the tiny cabin, finally relaxed, and took a moment to study our new digs.
Roughly ten by ten feet, the place looked more like an animal burrow than anything else. The wall abutting the mountain was made of huge stones the size of tires. The other three walls were a combination of irregular wood beams, more stones, and, plugging a few cracks, rolled-up towels and magazines. There were three wooden platforms for laying out sleeping bags, the highest one barely eighteen inches below the ceiling timbers.
A fireplace was built into one wall. Above it, rusted pots, spoons, and knives hung on a wire. They clanged together with the wind that swept through the open door like something out of a nightmare. I was starting to understand why this place was free. On the plus side, I didn’t see any sign of rats or mice, and the two small windows seemed to be in working order.
“I like it,” Daryn said.
No one chimed in. The place itself was fine with me. I wasn’t going to miss towel service or a mint on my pillow. But I didn’t like the idea of us being on top of each other again. We were all definitely in need of some personal space.
“It’ll work,” I said. “First choice of bedroom’s yours, Daryn.”
She pushed her backpack onto the top bunk. Marcus and Jode quickly claimed the other two. Selfish assholes. But I let it slide because we were all smoked and it was starting to get cold.
“We need firewood,” I said. “And some kindling, before it gets too dark.”
“I’ll do the kindling,” Daryn said, stepping outside first. I couldn’t blame her. She’d just spent a few days with four bitter guys who hadn’t showered in … well, in a few days. Frankly, I was grossed out for her.
When she left, we all stood there for a few seconds absorbing her absence. Absorbing how she changed us. Her composure was contagious. She brought something to our group that was palpable. Without her around, a tide of tension came rushing in.
After a moment, Jode sat on his bed platform. “I’m knackered. I’ll just stay here.”
“You don’t get to pass because you’re tired,” I said. “Get up.”
“I’ll cut firewood tomorrow,” he said, yawning. “I’m more in need of sleep than I am of a fire.”
Marcus didn’t even bother responding. He just crashed on the other platform.
Anger revved inside me. Did they think this was a vacation? Didn’t they understand what was at stake?
That was the problem. They didn’t understand. Neither of them had experienced what I had. Neither of them knew how it felt to have a demon crawling through your mind, to feel its evil linger, to be polluted by it.
“Listen up,” I said, drawing on the last of my self-control. Bastian was leaning against the wall, the only one listening. He watched me closely, like he was worried about my next move. “This is how things are going to work. Daryn’s in charge. She gives us orders, we follow them. When she’s not around, I’m the guy you listen to. If you don’t like it, speak up now.”
Total silence. Marcus rolled over, turning his back to me.
Sebastian pushed off the wall and got in front of me, probably saving their lives. He herded me outside, over to the edge of the bluff. We came to an outdoor gathering area that resembled a mini-Stonehenge in the dim light—a half dozen flat stones arranged around a fire pit. Moonlight fell through the clouds in long beams and the air felt so thin and pure, it was almost painful to breathe. I sucked it down in deep drags.
“Gideon…” Bas said. “Bro, you gotta calm down.”
I peered over the edge of the bluff. It was too dark to see anything but I felt the drop of hundreds of feet. I took a step back.
“I’m calm,” I said.
“No, you’re not. You’ve been amped for days. What the Kindred did was messed up. It sucks. But you have to try and take it easy on us, you know?”
I looked at him. I had only vaguely described Ra’om’s mental torture to the group—they needed to know what the Kindred could do—and now I regretted even that.
Bas sighed. “I’m just going to say this one thing, okay? I know you’re not sleeping great. If you want, I can help.”
“You’ll … what? You’re offering to put me out? You want to be my sleeping pill? That’s so nice of you, Bas.”
He waved a hand at me. “This is what I’m talking about, Gideon. This right here.”
I checked myself—and yeah. I was being an ass. I knew I’d been this way for days. Tougher to be around. No one was ever going to call me the nicest guy in the world but this was too much. It wasn’t me. I had a wound and it wasn’t fast-healing. It wasn’t healing at all.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, okay?” Bas said. “But you gotta nip this in the bum.”
I laughed. Jode was rubbing off on us. “There’s really no bloody right way to take that,” I said. I sat down on one of the stones and rubbed my head. My hair was getting too long. It bugged me. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll manage.”
“Okay.” He sat on one of the rocks and stretched out his legs. Smoke was just beginning to rise from the hut’s stone chimney and the windows flickered with the glow of firelight. Daryn. She’d gotten it handled.
“That’s kind of a relief, actually,” Bas said. “It doesn’t feel right using my ability on you guys.”
“Yeah, they’re pretty worthless.” Our abilities didn’t work on the Kindred. I didn’t understand it. “Why have a weapon that doesn’t work on the enemy?”
Bas smiled. “Figures you’d see it that way. But what if they’re not weapons? What if we have them to learn?”
“To learn? I already knew how to be angry.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then explain.”
“I feel like there’s a nicer way for you to ask, but okay. I’ll give you my take on it. The things we can do, like your anger thing, Marcus with fear, me with weakness, and Jode with will … I think they’re for us to master. Like, the weakness thing isn’t something I have to wield so much as work out.”
“You think your ability is weakness to help you face your own weakness?” This was starting to sound familiar. It reminded me of the conversation I’d had with Daryn in Rome.
He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe. What do you think your anger’s for?”
“Pissing Daryn off?”
He grinned. “You are pretty good at that. But let me ask you this. What makes you angrier than anything? Angry at yourself—not at other people.”
“Easy. Failure.”
“Me, too. But failure how? Failure in what way specifically? That’s what I’ve been thinking about. I already had this … this kind of hollow spot inside me. Being from such a big family, I always got lost. We didn’t have enough money, you know, and I got passed between relatives. Live here for a while, live there. I went wherever anyone could feed me. I wasn’t treated badly or anything like that. But I never felt like I was anything special. Have I told you what my parents call me? My actual parents? Cinco, because I’m the fifth kid. It means five in Spanish. It started as a joke, I think. But I guess part of me believes it. That I’m just a number. A mouth to feed. Kind of just … invisible.”
He paused and the wind came up, rustling around us and filling the silence. “How’d I end up talking about me?”
“It’s okay. You were explaining your lifelong quest for attention, so it makes sense. All is forgiven.”
Bas laughed. “Exactly, dude,” he said. Then he slapped his hands on his legs and stood. “I need some chocolate.”
He headed back to the hut but I stayed out there for a while longer, filling my lungs with cool Norwegian air. Thinking about what he’d said.
I knew what my biggest failure was.
CHAPTER 47
The next morning I woke before the sun and did some recon around our hut. Our position was good, near fr
esh water, with great visibility, but I had to get lower in elevation to find a decent place where we could train. It took over half an hour of solid hiking to get down to the water, but I liked the grassy meadow that sloped gradually to the riverbank.
I took everyone there once they were awake, planning my approach as I wolfed down a granola bar on the trail. I was determined to start taking positive steps. It felt like the only way I could fight back against the images and the anger. Time to get stuff handled.
Reaching our new practice ground, I stepped out to the middle of the field as the others formed a circle around me. Steep granite slopes rose thousands of feet on either side of the river, framing us in and providing good concealment. High above, on a rocky projection that looked like an anvil, I could see part of the hut with the collapsed roof. Ours was behind it, just out of sight. Even if the Kindred had somehow tracked us to Norway, which I didn’t think they had, Alevar would have to do a direct flyover to see us in that fjord. I hoped we’d bought ourselves a little time.
“So, here’s how things stand,” I said. “Daryn’s waiting for drop-off instructions for the key, but we need to be ready if the Kindred track us down. That means we need to master our capabilities and our tools.” I went on, explaining how that would require that we each give our maximum effort. We had to make the most of what we had and work hard. The philosophy I’d learned in RASP was not to practice until you got things right. It was to practice until you couldn’t get them wrong.
As I spoke, my breath fogged in the cool morning. Bas nodded like, yes, yes, totally with you. Jode appeared to be filing everything I said away for future reference. Marcus crossed his arms and stared at the grass at his feet. Daryn listened, watching me with her steady eyes. Everyone was still here, still engaged-ish, and I wasn’t yelling or being overly sarcastic. Good start so far.
“Okay, let’s get this going,” I said. “First, we’ll get Jode outfitted with the bow, then go over some safety measures and work our way to doing drills.”
“Can’t we work with the horses first?” Jode asked. “I know how to ride.”
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