Water Viper: A Jesse Alexander Novel

by RJ Blain

  “I’m not sure, sir. I’m sorry. It seemed like a private research matter from my understanding of the situation. The First Gentleman asked me if I minded. I didn’t. Something was bothering him, so I didn’t want to give him anything else to worry about.” While I skirted the truth, it would work well enough in my favor—I hoped. Most people liked when I was considerate.

  “That was nice of you.” My mark led me down a long, winding corridor, coming to a halt outside a door with two Secret Service agents posted in the hallway. “Please stay here for a few minutes. Watch her, and make sure she doesn’t go anywhere or is bothered. I’ve been reassigned as her detail for the interim as a temporary; the First Gentleman required both of her agents.”

  The young men, likely new recruits getting used to their duty, saluted my mark, who gave a single nod and disappeared inside the room. I caught a glimpse of displays with several men wearing black suits monitoring them. They wore bulky headsets over their ears, probably to keep the hum of electronics from driving them insane.

  I leaned against the opposite wall so I could watch the pair of Secret Service agents, who stared at me with interest. If their job entailed standing in an empty hallway all day, I could understand why I held their attention. With my hair braided and decorated with tribal feathers and beads, I stood out in their clean cut, elegant world, as far from the prestige and grandeur of the government as possible without wearing rags.

  Expecting a long wait, I made myself comfortable, stifled a yawn, and took the time to think my situation through carefully. I hesitated, concentrating for the telltale pressure of a mystic listening to my thoughts. When I was certain no one eavesdropped on me, I focused on the issues I needed to deal with before I could act.

  Without any way of knowing if the First Gentleman and President worked together, I needed to consider everything two ways. If they were cooperating with each other, the First Gentleman meant to put me in the best position possible to finish my job. If they weren’t, I could guess the First Gentleman’s motivations: he didn’t want to hurt his wife more than necessary.

  The road to hell was truly paved with good intentions, and I was as guilty as the next person. In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter if my aunt and her husband worked together; I needed to confirm guilt or innocence regarding the Hope Diamond’s theft and act on what I learned. I needed proof.

  I needed to accept what I intended to do and trust those who wanted me to do it. The President was my aunt. The First Gentleman was my uncle through marriage. My mark was my uncle. The Hope Diamond’s thief was my uncle through marriage.

  History repeated itself, and a war was poised to be fought between sister and brother. Like the Civil War, their conflict would forever alter the United States. When the Hope Diamond burst, the nation changed, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Sometimes, the changes were small. Sometimes, a single person found new powers, powers they could use for America’s benefit.

  Sometimes, it sank cities and erased thousands upon thousands of lives in an explosion of black and blue light.

  Knowing what the Starfall stone could do made my work a little easier. With my own hands, I could stop disaster. I could change things. I could do something. My discomfort didn’t mean a thing when it came to the truth behind the stone’s theft and what the thieves wanted with it. I would find resolve in the truth, I would build every action on it, and I would do whatever was necessary to protect innocents from the Hope Diamond. I would do the right thing.

  When I did it, I would also take the final and hardest leap of all.

  When the dust settled, I would harbor the hope I could rebuild. I wasn’t a shifter without a species anymore. I wasn’t someone without any family, although I stood on the brink of losing it to protect many rather than a few.

  I had options and hope for a future, although I didn’t know where I’d go, what I’d become, or how I’d get there. Facing the risks and accepting them would make me stronger. The guilt and fear were nothing new to me. I’d felt the same way every kill, when I’d worried Todd would discover my crimes.

  When he had learned the truth, instead of shunning me, he trusted me with his father’s gun, gave me the katana I loved, and ranted and raved over a scratch and a tranquilizer dart. Guilt over my flight years ago stirred and wrapped cold hands around my throat, squeezing until it grew difficult to breathe.

  One day, maybe I would find the courage to openly set things straight with everyone. Until then, I would do what I did best. I would kill, doing the wrong thing for all the right reasons.

  Chapter Fifty

  The walk between the National Archive and the mayoral palace wasn’t a long one, but there were hundreds of paths we could take to reach our destination.

  I didn’t make it, and I only had myself to blame.

  Taking the road less traveled led straight to trouble, or in my case, a dart to the throat. Magic shot through me, strangled my pained cry, and numbed my body within a few heartbeats. My hand made it to the hilt of my sword, but it did me no good. I staggered a single step and slumped to the cobbles on my knees. My mark snatched a handful of my hair to keep my head from smacking into the stones.

  I knew I needed to do something, but my roar emerged as a quiet groan, and I sank into unconsciousness.

  Waking hurt; and the pain began in my fingers and toes before spreading up my arms and legs. When it reached my head, I screamed.

  A gag muffled the sound. I forced my eyes open. Dim light filtered through the thick canopy overhead, and the scents of a forest filled my nose. Abraham Adams, still dressed in his Secret Service suit, sat on a fallen tree and watched me with dark eyes. At his side stood a man I recognized as his husband, and he carried himself with the tense posture of someone who knew his guilt and couldn’t hide it from the world.

  My mark smiled. “Right on schedule. Excellent. Good morning, Runs Against Wind. I’m afraid you missed your dinner date. I’m sure no one will miss you. After all, you’re just tribe scum. Did you really think they wanted to keep you around?”

  While I expected psychological warfare from someone demented enough to steal the Hope Diamond, his aggression startled me into staring at him with wide eyes. If he wanted an answer from me, he’d be waiting a long time.

  “This is a terrible idea,” Edmund Fitzgerald Adams mumbled.

  “It’ll work. We staged it well enough anyone with half a brain will believe we were victims, too. We did everything to code. They have no reason to suspect us.”

  The gag kept me from laughing at the enormity of his assumptions and mistakes. All the worrying and stress boiled away to the reality of the moment. The need to prove guilt or innocence no longer mattered.

  Without me lifting a finger, they had shown the world their guilt beyond the shadow of a doubt. I wouldn’t need my assassin’s kit in its beautiful ebony box. By kidnapping me, by stealing me out from the custodianship of the Secret Service, by betraying me, their temporary principal, they signed their own death warrant.

  I remembered Randal’s quiet fury over the thought of traitors, his investment in my well-being, and his need to protect. We were, in so many ways, birds of a feather. I understood him. When I gave my word to guard someone, their life meant more than mine.

  For the moment, survival trumped everything else, and I contemplated my options. Until I figured out how I was tied me up and what they wanted with me, I couldn’t afford to act. I needed to balance my escape with finishing the job I’d started, and if they had the Hope Diamond, I would see it returned to the National Archive where it belonged.

  “We’ve been here too long, Abe.”

  “We’ll move faster now that the girl’s awake,” my mark soothed, giving his husband’s knee a squeeze. “Stop worrying. No one has any reason to believe we aren’t victims, too. When we’re finished, we’ll get rid of her, return the stone, and everything will be ready for the next stage. Everything is working out perfectly. I don’t know what that unnatural rabbit
wanted with Randal and Simmons, but I couldn’t have asked for better timing.”

  “Too easy. It went down too easy. Why the hell would Mr. Miller want them? It doesn’t make sense. They’re washouts.”

  “Randal is hardly a washout, and it isn’t Simmons’s fault he was on a lesser detail. They were trained in the old ways. They’d understand.” My mark rose to his feet, approached me, and crouched beside my head, reaching down to hook his fingers around my gag, yanking it out of my mouth. “I’m going to give you a choice, Runs Against Wind. If you cooperate, while you’ll be forced to disappear, you’ll live. You’re a nobody. Your record shows no living family. You’re an orphan adopted into a Native American tribe—they won’t miss you for long, either. After you’ve done what we need, I’ll send you somewhere remote and quiet where no one will find you for however long you live.”

  I swallowed and grimaced at the pain in my throat. “Or?”

  “We kill you and leave your body for the scavengers to find. Understand I’m not doing it for you, of course. I owe Randal. I’m doing it for him. Finding your body would end his career on a rather low note. I’d rather not do that to him or Simmons.”

  “Of course,” I croaked.

  “A pity, really. You’re pretty enough, for a girl. Black panthers are in demand, too.”

  “Siberian,” I snarled.

  My mark settled back on his heels, narrowing his eyes and frowning. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m not a panther.”

  “I heard all the reports. You’re a black-coated feline. There is no such thing as a black-coated Siberian. Whoever told you that is mistaken.”

  I inhaled and put every last bit of my strength into my roar, which rocked the man back a pace. “Panthers purr. I roar.”

  I wanted to tell him I would enjoy ripping my claws through his flesh and carving my mark into him for the world to see, leaving scars instead of ink in my wake—not that he’d live long enough for the wounds to become scars.

  “If you do that again, not only will I gag you, I’ll cut off part of your tongue so while you live, you’ll never speak a single word to anyone ever again—and I’ll make certain you survive. Am I understood?”

  Fury robbed me of the ability to speak in anything other than rumbling growls.

  “I think she got the point, Abe. Can we go? If anyone’s following us, there’s no way they didn’t hear that—and if they know she’s a tiger, they’ll try to find us because of that roar.”

  “Get the horses.” Rising to his feet, my mark drew his foot back and rammed it into my gut, driving the breath out of me. “That’s just a taste of what I’ll do to you if you try anything. Understood?”

  “Got it,” I wheezed, fighting to fill my strained lungs with air.

  For the first time in my life, I abandoned the need for concrete evidence in favor of a swift, bloody death for my mark. The instant he gave me a chance, he would die, and I would face the consequences with no regrets.

  I recognized a courier horse when I saw one, but the trio of animals Edmund brought had seen better days, although I couldn’t tell what was wrong with them. My nose confirmed what my eyes told me; the animals were sick, and whatever infected them made me uneasy.

  With strength greater than a normal human could hope to possess, Abraham grabbed me by my waist and hoisted me onto the smallest horse’s back, a chestnut whose dull coat betrayed her poor health. Patches of hair were missing. When Abraham untied my hands long enough to secure them to the saddle horn, I discovered the animal’s mane fell out at the lightest touch.

  “This horse is sick,” I mumbled, wary of stoking my captors’ anger.

  “We’ll be changing horses soon enough. It’s not contagious.”

  “But this is a good horse.”

  “Not anymore she’s not. Get over it, courier. You can’t save her. You can’t even save yourself.” Taking the reins of my horse, he went to his, mounted, and waited for his husband.

  Of the two, Edmund Fitzgerald at least attempted to pretend he gave a shit about the animal he rode, stroking the poor horse’s nose before mounting. The gelding staggered under the man’s weight, recovered, and plodded along at a walk.

  I doubted any of the horses could manage a trot, even if the men beat them.

  Shifting my foot in my boot, I was relieved to fell the stiletto pressed to my calf, hidden by the leather. They had taken my katana, although if I really wanted it, I could snatch it from Abraham’s saddle. “Why can’t she be saved?”

  “Too far gone. We’ll put them out of their misery when we get to our destination.”

  I bared my teeth, growling long and low. “You bastard.”

  “Can always trust a courier to make a fuss over some stupid horses. Right, Ed?”

  For all Abraham wore the pants in their relationship, I got the feeling Edmund Fitzgerald Adams had limits, and his husband had managed to cross a line with him. “For once in your life, could you just shut up, Abe?”

  “Fine.”

  The horses defied my expectations and shuffled into a tired, slow trot. The mare’s condition angered me so much I fantasized about the numerous ways I could bring Abraham’s life to an end. Uncle or not, I wanted the man’s blood. If I could make him suffer even half as much as he had tormented the three horses, I wouldn’t regret it.

  I saw humans do terrible things to other humans all the time. I went out of my way to murder scum like Mayor Longfellow’s predecessor. Of all the men and women I’d killed, none had made me want to set aside my strict morals on how to handle a murder quite as much as my own flesh and blood.

  Why couldn’t I have been born a mystic like Henry or Cleo? Then, I could have saved the little mare struggling beneath me. Despite the illness destroying her coat and tainting her scent, she plowed forward, straining with every step to do her job only because a human, a miserable excuse for a human, asked it of her.

  Tears born of rage burned my eyes. She was the type of horse I would’ve picked for myself, stubborn to her last breath, calm through adversity, and willing to do anything to succeed. She lacked Dipshit and Devil Spawn’s inclination towards violence, although I couldn’t tell if the illness had smothered her nature and had left behind an animal determined to keep taking her next step despite the odds stacked against her.

  An hour into the ride, walking more often than trotting, the two geldings Edmund Fitzgerald and Abraham rode were on their last legs while my mare kept forcing one hoof in front of the other, struggling long after she should have collapsed.

  Three horses waited tethered to a tree, their coats in a similar state of ill health, although they were far more rested and bright-eyed.

  Until my mare gave up, I’d fight for her, too. I couldn’t do anything else. “They’re no better. I’d rather keep this mare.”

  Abraham slid off the back of his horse and regarded me with a frown before eyeing the three horses waiting their turn to be ridden. “If you want to ride her to death, that’s your problem.”

  It worried me speed didn’t matter to the two men. How far had we travelled since leaving Charlotte? The woods told me nothing of where we were. Miles upon miles of thick forests surrounded Charlotte and the nearby mountains and foothills, stretching to the sea and encroaching on the land humans had abandoned after Starfall.

  I considered the rope binding me to the saddle. To escape, I’d have to loosen the knots holding my hands together; if I could escape those, the rope could stay tied to the saddle horn. Unfortunately, I doubted I could. With tiger claws, I could cut the rope’s strands enough I could pull free from the saddle and unbind my hands later. I’d done something similar once to help Todd, but I couldn’t remember the how of it.

  When I was free, I’d have other concerns, and killing my uncles topped the list. Even if I escaped, how could I help a horse so sick? Could I take her to Charlotte? Would she live long enough to get there? Would anyone care enough about a horse to try to save her?

  In that, Abraham had m
e pegged; when it came to horses, I abandoned rational thought. Rational, sound people didn’t keep horses like Dipshit and Devil Spawn.

  At least I knew they, along with Anatoly’s golden champagne mare, were safe.

  It took the pair of traitorous Secret Service agents ten minutes to set the two geldings loose and swap to the new, equally sick animals. The sick horses wouldn’t last long in the wild, and I hoped their deaths would be swift and merciful. They dragged themselves into a weary trot to escape captivity and disappeared into the trees.

  The new horses refused to be coaxed into a trot, and after twenty minutes of trying, Abraham accepted he wouldn’t get more than a slow walk.

  I shifted my boot in the stirrup just to feel the stiletto’s presence against my calf. Once my hands were freed, I had a weapon. I’d have to strike true to kill the two men, or stab them so many times they bled to death, but I’d make it work one way or another.

  As though reading my mind and liking what she heard, my mare snorted and tossed her head. Strands of her mane caught on the wind and spiraled to the ground.

  Edmund Fitzgerald’s horse died beneath him, and I swore on the animal’s blood and lost life to pay them back for their cruelty.

  “Why?” I snarled, and the promise of a roar grew deep in my chest. I swallowed back the impulse, refusing to look away while the gelding convulsed and finally stilled.

  “Because we must. You won’t understand.”

  “You were behind the thefts of all those horses. Why?”

  “We need them. The courier horses are the best. They survive longer. Some even recover.” Abraham slid off the back of his struggling horse and waited while his husband picked himself off the ground and took the reins of the spare horse. “When we’re done with you, we won’t need many more. You should like that.”

  “How many horses have you killed like this?”

  When I killed them, I’d stab once for each animal mistreated, and I’d hope the life didn’t leave their eyes until I finished.