She glanced at the untouched drink. “Thank you.”
He canted his head, studying her closely. “You look a little more with it now. Do you think you can help us review some evidence?”
“Review some evidence?” That had her more awake than the coffee could have managed. “You have evidence?”
That rage burned hotter. Fiercer. Commanded her to seize this evidence and use it. She somehow managed to remain seated, denying the need to grab the man and force him to show it to her.
He nodded. “Your father had CCTV set up around the house. Only the outside.”
He had? She had never seen it and he had never said anything about it. She shivered as she recalled what he had said to her—he had hidden her mother, and he had kept her secret.
Because someone wanted her?
Was she the reason he had been killed?
Her stomach somersaulted at that thought.
Crushing grief bore down on her again but she battled it. She couldn’t succumb to it, not when she needed to see this evidence.
She stood on trembling legs and gripped the back of the chair to steady herself as she waited for them to grow stronger, not trusting them with her weight. The man offered a hand and she held her arm out, allowed him to take hold of it and support her. He led her into the corridor and along it into another room, this one darker and larger than the interview room. A set of monitors were mounted on the far wall, the images on them flickering.
The officer nodded to another man as he swung on his chair to glance at them, and closed the door behind her.
Marinda pulled the second chair out and sank into it, staring at the screens.
At her home.
She recognised the front garden, with its colourful roses. The second monitor showed the rear garden and her father’s vegetable plots. Plots he would never tend to again. Tears threatened and she sniffed them back, steeled herself and looked at the two men as the greying officer took a seat on the other side of the one at the controls.
“Ready?” he murmured, his warm voice filling the tense silence and easing some of her nerves.
She nodded.
Her eyes leaped to the screens as the man pressed a button and the video began to play. The images blurred at times, pixelating before becoming crisp again.
At first, nothing happened, but then a dark silver car pulled up at the gate on the narrow lane and two men got out. They were both tall and slim. She peered closer as rage ignited in her veins again, trying to get a better look at them. The quality of the video was good, but not crystal clear, especially whenever the men were moving. It didn’t help that one of the men was wearing a hat, hiding his face from the camera.
Both wore black, the man with the hat dressed in an elegant suit while his companion who walked a step behind him wore a long black coat that was tight to his slender frame.
It wasn’t much to go on.
She stared at the man without a hat, imprinting him on her mind, studying him closely to catch the times the images were clear and she could make out his face. His black hair. His features. His pale skin. She put everything about him to memory so she would never forget him, and then tried to do the same with the second man.
He paused at the door, lifted his head so she could finally see his face, and slid a look at the camera.
A chill shot down Marinda’s spine and she gasped as she felt as if he had looked right at her, as if he had wanted her to see his face.
Rage burned out of control inside her as she stared into his golden eyes.
She would find him.
She would find both of them.
And she would butcher them.
She stilled as that thought hit her. Her stomach flipped. No. She wouldn’t attack them. She would tell the authorities if she found them. She would bring them to justice that way. Not through violence.
Never through violence.
But that burning fury refused to abate as the man without a hat pushed the door open and entered ahead of the one in the suit. That man finally dragged his eyes away from the camera and stepped into the house.
Her house.
A strange sense of feeling violated washed through her. Her home had been her sanctuary, a safe place she had always returned to, one where her best memories had been made and she had been happy. Now, all of that was gone. Her home was the scene of her worst memory, and she would never feel safe there again.
The man in the suit exited the house, neatening the cuffs of his jacket, walked to the car and got into it. It moved away a moment later.
She looked at the greying officer to her right. “What happened to the other man?”
She checked both monitors, but he didn’t emerge. And then she was on screen, walking down the garden path. Pausing. Heading inside.
Another chill tumbled down her back, and she asked with more desperation, “Did the other man come out?”
The officer offered a sympathetic look she suspected was meant to be calming. “He didn’t.”
Marinda swallowed and stared at the screen, watching it all playing out. The ambulance and authorities arriving. Her being taken away. Police entering the house. Not once did the man appear again.
“We checked every inch of the house and that’s when we found the CCTV server. We reviewed the footage front and rear, and he never comes out. It’s why we wanted you to see it. Is there another exit he might have taken?”
She shook her head, her mind going blank as something hit her.
The man had been in the house at the same time as she had been there, struggling to save her father.
And then another thought struck her.
If there was no other exit, and the police had searched the entire house, where had he gone?
She looked at the men beside her. “You checked the attic?”
The greying man nodded. “We checked everywhere, with several officers in attendance. He couldn’t have slipped around us. The house is small.”
She frowned at him. “So, what? He just disappeared?”
An image flashed across her mind. A hospital room. A blond man. The car park. His arm around her. Blue light. Darkness.
And then a black-walled room.
Fear gripped her, hit her so hard she was physically forced back in her seat as she stared wide-eyed at the screens, fighting to make sense of those images as she breathed hard. Where had they come from?
Her head ached and she rubbed her temples as she sagged forwards.
“Are you unwell?” The greying officer had moved. His hand was gentle on her back as she fought for air.
Fought to make sense of that barrage of images.
“Just shocked… stressed,” she muttered, hoping he didn’t probe because she felt as if she was going insane. First her father had told her crazy things, and now she was having visions of a man who felt familiar.
But who she didn’t know.
The man who had taken her hostage at the hospital?
Was she remembering him at last?
She stared at the desk in front of her, trying to recall him. Another bright blue flash receded to reveal the dark room, and a sensation built inside her, stronger than before.
Something was different.
Wrong.
“Do you have someone you can call?” The man squatted beside her and she glanced at him.
Cass.
Her father had told her to call Cass.
Was it possible Cass knew everything?
She nodded, stood and fumbled with her jeans pocket, digging out her phone. It had a signal.
“You can use the interview room.” He guided her out of the room, back along the corridor as she stared at the screen of the phone, working through everything in her head, trying to figure out where to begin.
“Thank you,” she uttered as she stepped into the room.
He nodded and closed the door, and she pressed the call button on Cass’s entry in her contacts list.
Her heart lodged in her throat as s
he brought it to her ear, listening to it ring. Where to begin?
“Mari?” Cass’s gentle voice curled around her, a comforting embrace that had tears falling. Dreadful silence followed, thick with awareness, and then Cass croaked, “Oh gods, no.”
Cass gasped and then sobbed, biting out something in Russian between each one. The sound of her pain, her grief, tore more tears from Mari as she sank to the floor on her knees, clutching the phone to her ear.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, crying with Cass, pouring out her grief as that rage continued to kindle in her veins, refusing to abate. When Cass finally spoke again, she was hoarse.
“London. Come to London.” Those words sent a shiver through Marinda, had her tears drying up as disbelief washed through her.
“Papa said the same thing.” She couldn’t believe it was coincidence. Had her father known Cassandra was in London?
“Whatever he told you to do, you have to do it, Mari. Promise me… you’ll do it.” Cass sounded so serious, the hair on the nape of Marinda’s neck rose.
Her only memories of Cass were her laughing, smiling, her pale blue eyes filled with love and light as they had joked and played. But then Marinda hadn’t seen her in a decade, since Cass had returned to Russia for a family reason.
“What he told me doesn’t make any sense.” Putting those words out there lifted a weight off Marinda’s shoulders that she hadn’t even realised was there. “What he said was crazy, Cass.”
“Nothing Eric has ever done was crazy. He was too damned serious for his own good. You need to go to London. If Eric told you to go to London… you need to be there.”
Because her father could see the future?
Had been able to see the future.
Her throat closed and she shoved the darkness away, unwilling to let it consume her. “I can’t go. The funeral—”
“You must go, Marinda,” Cass snapped and Marinda tensed.
She couldn’t remember the last time Cass had called her by her full name. It shook her, had that fear she had felt several times since finding her father bleeding out returning.
Someone was after her.
Someone was after her and both her father and Cassandra had known it.
“I’ll meet you in London.” Cass’s tone softened, the hardness leaving it as she continued, “Please. I’ll explain everything there. I’ll arrange for Eric’s funeral. He wanted to be cremated and his ashes placed with your mother’s. I can take care of that. We can place the ashes together… later.”
The building urgency in Cass’s voice had Marinda growing aware of her surroundings, of the fact that two men were hunting her, and one of them might have been in the house while she had been there.
Meaning, he knew she was in the vicinity.
She glanced around her, her vision blurry and her eyes sore, fear welling up to subdue the rage. She didn’t want to miss the funeral, but her father had felt it was dangerous for her here. He wouldn’t want her to be there, risking her life.
He would want her far away. In London. Where he had seen her.
“Please, Mari. Promise me you’ll leave there tonight. Return to Paris, get some things and go to London. Don’t delay. I’ll be on a flight first thing tomorrow.”
On a flight. Cass wasn’t in London? But she had told her to go there, just as her father had.
“We can meet in Paris—” she started.
“No! It has to be London.” Cassandra muttered something beneath her breath and then said, “I’ll meet you there. I’ll send the address of a hotel. A room will be waiting for you. Be careful. Swear to the gods, you’ll be careful.”
Swear to the gods?
She nodded. “I’ll be careful.”
“I love you, Mari. I’ll be there before you know it. No one is going to hurt you.”
The line went dead.
Marinda stared at the floor.
Her turbulent thoughts fell into line, her whirling emotions falling into place with them, and one feeling stood out.
Flooded her.
Her life was never going to be the same again.
Because something had changed inside her.
Something that howled for revenge.
Chapter 5
Calistos patrolled the streets of London, on the hunt for more than daemons. He needed to blow off steam, and he was in the mood to party.
Needed a little freedom from the shackle that was Keras.
The damp pavement reflected the colourful lights of the pubs and clubs that lined the road, the chatter of the people spilling out onto the street filling the cooling air with noise that provided an adequate distraction from his thoughts.
Fucking Keras.
He amended that. Fucking all of his brothers.
They were treating him like a kid again.
Every single one of them, whether in person or via text message, had issued the same order.
He wasn’t to go near the gate, any gate, without backup.
It really pissed him off.
What angered him more though was the fact Keras had been able to see through his bullshit and had called him on it when they had stepped back to Paris after the meeting.
Keras had told him again that Calindria would want him to live, and had made things worse by adding that if they were going to win this war and protect their home, they needed everyone at the top of their game.
That grated.
Mostly because he knew Keras was right.
He had let everything get to him and he hated it, he hated that it had dragged him down so far.
He hated that he hadn’t fought those daemons.
His brothers treated him as if he was weak, and now the daemons probably thought he was weak too.
It was time he showed everyone just how strong he was.
Now that he had healed from the punishment the bitch goddess Nemesis had dished out to him as payment for speaking the language of the Underworld in the mortal realm.
It had come as a shock when he had been summoned. He hadn’t realised he had spoken his native tongue when in the grip of the pain of his injuries. Speaking it was forbidden because it harmed the fragile mortals. His thoughts briefly drifted to the beauty and his gut twisted. He must have hurt her too by speaking it. Another black mark against him. He didn’t want to know what else he had done wrong that night, but more kept coming back to him.
Making him feel even more of a bastard.
He shook his head to dislodge the thoughts of her and focused on his mission, putting it all behind him.
He had healed and he was back on his feet, and back in the game.
The daemons had better watch out.
And so had the ladies.
He flashed a practiced smile at a group of women outside one of the bars, mentally ranking them at the same time. None of them met his needs. They were pretty, but not drop-dead gorgeous, and they certainly all looked like the type who would cling.
He was in the market for hot and fast tonight.
The same as always.
He grimaced when he moved on, lifting his head to chart the path ahead of him and seek out potential prey. The sky at the other end of the street bled crimson, black smoke boiling into it, and screams replaced the chatter around him as the stench of spilled blood filled his nostrils.
Damned otherworld.
The Moirai had cursed him and his brothers, giving them the power to see the future of this world if they failed in their mission to protect the gates between it and the Underworld. It was an irritating way of keeping them on their toes.
Whenever they scored a victory, the otherworld improved. Fewer buildings lay in ruins. Fewer screams filled the thick air. Fewer daemons prowled the streets, picking off the humans.
Cal had enjoyed seeing the effect he had on the future once, but since the enemy had finally made their first move a few months back, he had despised it. It rarely improved now. They had sealed a gate, had taken down strong members of their enemy’s ranks,
and still the otherworld looked like shit.
He squeezed his eyes shut and focused on the present. The past and future could go fuck themselves tonight.
Tonight was about pleasure, release he badly needed.
When he opened his eyes, the otherworld remained. Great.
He could feel that things were getting serious. He didn’t need to see it too.
Caterina, Marek’s steady hybrid girlfriend—or girl-fiend as Valen had taken to calling her—had been trying to question her brother, Guillem, a human-turned-wraith who was the only lead they had. So far, he hadn’t been much help. Guillem’s loyalty rested firmly with the wraith who had taught him to embrace his new nature.
Eli.
Esher, one of Cal’s older brothers and the craziest out of them, had been twitchier than usual over the last month or so and Cal could understand why.
Esher had killed the wraith’s lover, Lisabeta, a daemon who had been able to cast illusions and had been intent on making Esher her pet, turning him against the humans. Now, Eli had sworn revenge.
Which made two of them, since Esher wanted revenge on Eli too, hungered to kill him as repayment for the fact he had almost taken Esher’s life.
Esher was a liability.
Their enemy now knew that he and his brothers were the keys to opening the gates. That left them only three paths to breaking the gates when they were open, leaving the link between this world and the Underworld open so they could bleed together into a new realm they would rule.
Attack when someone wanted to pass through the gates and he and his brothers had to open one.
Force their hand somehow.
Or lure one of them to the gate alone.
Cal reckoned that they could easily lure Esher to a gate.
Before Cal had grown bored of his big brother’s constant nagging, Keras had mentioned summoning a Messenger to send to Hades to request that all traffic be diverted to only three of the gates—New York, Paris and Tokyo.
It was a good idea, but it also meant that Esher was in more danger of flipping his switch and going off the rails, and doing something stupid. Esher protected Tokyo, and even with Daimon there to back him up, he was a liability.
Calistos: Guardians of Hades Series Book 5 Page 5