Fury’s Kiss

by Nicola R. White

  And finally, everything started to come together. Perris had another oracle. That was how he’d known about Alecto even before she’d appeared in my head. How he’d known to send Miller and Priest to watch me. My mind raced. Another oracle just like Ruby—did that mean there was another child involved? Hadn’t Rachel said the Perris’s had adopted a boy named Nikos, the orphaned son of an employee?

  “You killed Ruby’s father to get to her. Did you do the same to Nikos’s parents?”

  “Collateral damage.” Perris’s voice was still hoarse. “No fun in it at all. Not like the fun we could have.”

  I tightened my grip on his throat again. If the sick son of a bitch didn’t tell me something useful soon, I wasn’t going to be able to stop myself from killing him, and to hell with the consequences. He started to choke again and I grudgingly loosened my hold enough to let him speak.

  “What did you mean, all it would take is one missed phone call?” I demanded.

  “I’ve had people watching you and the girl for days. If anything happens to me, they’ll go after her. With terminal force. Of course, I’d hoped to have you both alive, but I can be flexible.” He grinned again. “I do have a spare, after all.”

  I hissed in frustration and threw him hard against the driver’s side door. I wanted nothing more than to punish him for the things he had done, but I needed him alive and able to speak. He had out-maneuvered me.

  “By the way,” Perris said as he pushed himself upright. “Great show in the backyard the other day.”

  Unable to control myself, I punched him in the face and had the satisfaction of seeing blood gush onto his expensive white shirt. His hands flew up to his face, gingerly feeling the now-crooked cartilage of his nose under the flood of red. “You bitch!” he screamed at me.

  “You can still call your goons with a broken nose.” I might have to hold off on killing him, but that didn’t mean he was going to get VIP treatment.

  Beneath the gush of blood, Perris’s features twisted hatefully to reflect the evil inside. “You’re going to be very sorry you did that,” he said thickly, wincing as he tried to stem the flow of blood with the hem of his ruined shirt. I felt an extra twinge of satisfaction when I thought of how much he must have spent on it.

  “Maybe,” I answered. “But I wouldn’t count on it. When I get out of this car, you’re going to call up whoever you’ve got watching Ruby, and you’re going to tell them you’ve changed your mind. Send them far away and make it clear that no one is to come near her again. Or I will hurt you. Slowly. Are we clear?”

  In answer, Perris moved quickly, reaching under his seat to pull out a gun. He held it at point blank range in front of my face and I grabbed the gun, jerking it up so it pointed at the roof of the car instead of me. I twisted, and something inside his arm snapped. Perris let out a strangled scream and the gun fell to the floor.

  The bastard really was a glutton for punishment.

  “Seriously,” I said, “what is it with you? Get this through your head—you are not smart enough, fast enough, or tough enough to take me. Now, are you going to call off your men, or do I need to hurt you some more?”

  He didn’t waste his breath answering me, just lunged for the gun again. He managed to snatch it off the floor with the hand I hadn’t just crushed, and I rolled my eyes. The guy was like an evil Energizer bunny—he just kept going and going. But instead of leveling the weapon at me again, he put it to the side of his own head. He smiled at me, a ghoul covered in his own blood, and I froze for a split second. He wouldn’t…would he?

  A split second was all he needed.

  “Bitch,” he said clearly. His finger tightened on the trigger. His eyes went dead. Blood spattered.

  Fuck. I stifled a startled scream and fumbled for the door handle, scrambling to get out of the car and away from the body. He was one sick bastard, but shooting himself in the head just to incriminate me? That was beyond crazy. Even for a psycho like him, it didn’t make sense. Maybe he’d realized he couldn’t get away and had decided death was preferable to giving up all that power? It was beyond comprehension that someone as arrogant as Christos Perris, who had spent his entire life using and abusing others, would just give up like that.

  But the grisly evidence was right there in front of me.

  And all over me. I gagged, but managed not to vomit. Regardless of what had gone through his twisted mind in the last few seconds of life, Perris had pulled me even further into his deadly game when he’d pulled the trigger. I had God only knew how long to get Ruby to safety. There was no time to give in to my horror and disgust. Not to mention I’d been left standing in a parking lot with a dead body.

  Again.

  Ethan Graves hadn’t yet identified the fingerprint found on the first body as mine, but he would come for me sooner or later. And surely he’d be interested in knowing why my prints were all over Perris, too. The only saving grace to the whole thing was that it would be clear from forensic evidence in the car that Perris had pulled the trigger himself.

  I paused. Or would it? What if Perris had somebody on the inside? Somebody uniquely positioned to make evidence that said one thing seem to say another. Somebody who had shown up at the track just prior to the shot that nearly killed me.

  Somebody like Special Agent Ethan Graves.

  I looked around the parking lot desperately. What was I going to do? I could drive away with the car and the body…and then what? Park it in my driveway?

  I shoved my hands through my tangled hair, trying to think things through. Burning the evidence would leave nothing for Graves to accuse me of, but how long did it take to fully dispose of a human body? And where would I find a secluded place to burn a whole car on tourist-ridden Cape Cod?

  I got my ass in gear and headed away from the car, wiping my face and arms on the hem of my dress as best as I could. If I could just make it to my car, there was a chance this might all be OK. For now, at least. If I got away from Spyder’s unhindered, I could grab Ruby, call the others, and be on the move before anyone else came after us. The band inside the bar was cranked up so loud, it was possible no one had heard the shot. Once we were safely out of Graves’s reach, I could figure out my next move.

  I rolled my head on my neck tiredly as I approached my car. I hadn’t gotten the boost of energy I needed, but the clock was ticking and I had to get Ruby to safety. The security of my little Honda was just a few steps away when a voice shouted at me from behind.

  “Freeze! FBI!”

  I turned slowly. Speak of the devil. Agent Graves, arriving just in time to catch me with blood on my hands. Literally.

  What a coincidence.

  By now, the crowd outside the bar had noticed something was going on and had started to form into a clump of spectators. I even saw one or two taking pictures with their phones, but I didn’t have time to worry about it. I had to think of a way out of the mess I was in. I raised my hands in the air, but I knew I couldn’t let Graves cuff me and take me in. Not when there was a chance he’d been in on the whole thing with Perris.

  I looked around, searching for a way out, but I didn’t see any options. I couldn’t use any of my more interesting abilities with so many witnesses around, so I just kept edging toward my car. There was no way Graves would shoot me in front of all of these people.

  I hoped.

  “Get on the ground,” he warned me, “and put your hands on your head. I will use force if you give me no other option.”

  I kept edging. I was almost there.

  “This is your final warning,” Graves yelled at me.

  A shot rang out and gravel flew at his feet. He dove behind the closest car, yelling for the crowd to get down and stay back, and I took the opportunity to jump into my own car. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw Jackson running toward me, staying low. He had a gun in his hand and I watched with wide eyes as he hauled open the passenger side door and jumped in.

  “Drive!” he ordered. I obeyed and peeled out of t
he lot as fast as I could. As I screeched out onto the blacktop, I spared a second to glance over at him.

  Jackson Byrne had just shot at a federal agent to rescue me.

  Chapter 24

  “Are you insane?” I shouted as I swerved out onto the road. “You just shot at an FBI agent! What are we going to do now?”

  “Would you rather have been arrested? Or shot? Didn’t you see me trying to get to you before you left the bar? What were you thinking, leaving with Perris on your own?”

  “So you’re saying this is my fault?” I blew up at him. “You’re the one who turned Spyder’s into the shootout at the O.K. Corral!”

  “You never should have tried to take on Perris without backup.”

  “Fine,” I snapped. “You were right and I was wrong—I wasn’t ready to take on Perris alone. But it doesn’t change the fact that his men are going to go after Ruby. And we won’t be able to get to her now, thanks to you.”

  I knew I was taking out my worry and fear on him, that picking a fight wouldn’t change anything, but I couldn’t help it. The situation was impossible. Ruby and Alex were in danger, Rachel and Nora were still back at the bar—no doubt about to be hauled in for questioning by a seriously pissed-off Agent Graves—and Jackson and I weren’t going to get far with the manhunt that was sure to follow.

  Jackson took out his phone, tapped a few keys, and hit send.

  “Now what are you doing?” I asked. It hardly seemed the time for text messaging.

  “Letting our backup know we’re coming. I called an old squad mate when I found out what you’d gotten Nora and Ruby mixed up in. I’ve had him on standby since you got shot.” As he talked, he pulled the SIM card out of his phone, stomped it under the heel of his boot, and tossed it out the window.

  “What about the others? We can’t just leave them behind.”

  “I told you before, no one gets left behind. Since we were both at the bar and couldn’t look out for Ruby, Ty has been watching over her and Alex all night. That text message was the signal to grab them and disappear.”

  He glanced over his shoulder to see if we were being pursued, then added, “Nora will know what to do too. I never really believed anyone was after Ruby, but it made her feel better to have an escape plan, just in case.”

  “What do you mean, that was the signal to disappear? Where are they going to go? The police will be all over the Cape looking for us.”

  “Ty’s the best,” Jackson said simply. “No one finds him unless he wants to be found.”

  Since I had exactly zero better ideas, I settled back in my seat, but I had my doubts. Even if this ex-squad mate of his could get the girls to safety, I couldn’t see how the two of us would get across either of the two bridges that spanned the Cape Cod Canal and connected to the mainland. The Canal was only about five hundred feet wide, definitely a swimmable distance, but I didn’t relish the thought of wading into the heavily-trafficked, rushing water only to meet police on the other side. The ferries would also be monitored and there was no way we would be able to get on a flight out.

  I voiced my concerns, but Jackson didn’t answer, just continued to give directions as I drove, and it wasn’t long before it became clear where we were going.

  We weren’t swimming the Canal—we were swimming the Atlantic.

  When we reached Marlin Beach, one of the smallest of more than a hundred stretches of publicly accessible sand along the shoreline of the Cape, Jackson told me to pull over. “Come on.” He got out of the car and headed for the water. “Our rendezvous point is out there.”

  Out where? There was nothing but empty ocean in front of us. While the man-made Canal connected the peninsula to the mainland, the Cape was bound on all other sides by the North Atlantic. Even if we did make it to one of the islands right off the coast, there was nowhere to go from there.

  I stared out at the water and shuddered. There were Great White sightings reported every summer. I might have abilities most people didn’t, but I doubted I could fight Jaws and come out on top.

  Jackson stripped down to his boxer briefs and bent to bury his clothing in the sand. A siren screamed somewhere in the distance and I thought again of huge, jagged teeth, but I followed suit. If Jackson said we had to swim, then I would swim. So far, he had kept me alive and out of custody. I helped him scoop sand out of the hole he’d dug and piled my clothes in on top of his.

  “It won’t take them long to find our clothing if they bring dogs in,” he explained, “but it might keep them guessing when they find the car and no sign of us. Their first assumption will be that we switched rides, not that we went into the ocean.”

  “What exactly do you mean, our rendezvous point is out there?” I asked as we waded into the water. “How far out there are we talking?”

  The cold water bit at me, a sharp contrast to the warm air of the beach, and gooseflesh prickled my skin. I winced as I waded out farther and Alecto hissed in my head.

  “Ty will have a boat waiting to pick us up half a mile offshore.”

  The water was up to my waist now and I put a hand on Jackson’s arm to stop him. We had little time to waste, but I had to tell him what was on my mind in case something happened to either of us.

  “You should know…I saw some things back there at the bar.” He turned to face me and I took a deep breath before continuing. “Things you might want to keep private. From your time in the military, and about your brother. And I know you’d rather that Nora and Ruby had never gotten involved in this, but I just wanted to say thank you for taking care of Rachel and Alex, too—they’re my family. I know you’ll probably be moving on with Nora and Ruby when this is over, somewhere safer, and I just…”

  There was more I wanted to tell him—like stay with me, or don’t go, or maybe even I think I kinda, sorta love you. But I couldn’t say the words, even after everything we’d been through. My feelings were too huge, and the risk of rejection was too much to handle.

  Embarrassed, I didn’t wait for him to respond, just dove under the crest of the next wave that rolled toward shore and swam for the open water ahead. Whatever happened now, at least I wouldn’t get eaten by a Great White without Jackson knowing I understood why he’d pushed me away. I couldn’t express myself fully, but maybe—hopefully—my damaged, broken protector would someday see in himself what I had. That he was worthy of being loved.

  The salt water of the ocean mingled with unshed tears to sting my eyes, and I blinked my brille into place so I could open them underwater. The moon shone bright, its rays of light stabbing the sand below me like shimmering silver spears diffused by the water. Tiny fish flitted past, changing direction when they came too close and realized there was a predator among them. I thought of the distance that still separated me from Jackson, and was reminded of the barrier I’d worked so hard to maintain between Alecto and myself.

  The barrier that had proven to be nothing but a liability.

  The truth was, I was stronger—we were stronger—when I opened myself up to the Fury. By opening my mind to her, I had been able to overcome Victor Priest in that seedy motel room, and it was because of her I had lived through the gunshot wound that had nearly destroyed my lung. The door between us wasn’t helping me and finally, beneath the silver shadows of the moon and the waves, I let it melt away for good. I hadn’t been brave enough to open myself fully to Jackson, but Alecto deserved more from me. She had saved my life, opened her memories to me, and gotten no reward but captivity inside my head.

  Welcome, I told the Fury, inviting her in. I surrendered to the possibility that she might take control, that I might lose myself again as I had the day the oracle had spoken through Ruby, but I had to give Alecto the freedom to choose. She was a part of me now and to deny her was to deny a part of myself.

  Well met, sister, the Fury responded. At last, you understand.

  Ever since I had seen Alecto and her sisters charging into battle in my mind’s eye, something had been niggling at me. And now, it final
ly made sense. The warrior women I’d seen when I’d looked into Alecto’s memories hadn’t been Furies, after all. Not exactly. Like me, they were humans who had opened themselves completely to the divine, formless energy that was a Fury’s true nature. Accepting the unknown was a test I had finally passed, and in accepting my role as Alecto’s hostess, I now had access to greater awareness and understanding of my gifts. Something dark was stirring, perhaps as old as Alecto herself, and I had been chosen to be her champion in the war against it. Her sister in arms, as she was my sister in spirit.

  A keen longing struck me for the other Furies I now knew must also be awakening around the world, confused and alone, and I vowed to find them. I would locate Tisiphone, Megaera, and the others, and I would help guide the women they had chosen to be their own hostesses. I tried to picture life without Rachel and Alex, the sisters I had chosen for myself, and recognized Alecto’s pain at her separation from her own sisters. Whatever was out there, the evil that had inhabited Christos Perris was just a forerunner. We would need to stand together if we had any hope of being ready to face it.

  A burning in my lungs distracted me from the tumult of memories and emotion that swirled through me, and finally I surfaced. I turned in circles, treading water as I searched for Jackson, but he was nowhere to be seen. A trickle of fear competed with the cold of the water to chill my blood and I turned again. Where was he?

  I scanned the horizon. Nothing.

  “Jackson?” I kept my voice low so it wouldn’t carry over the water. There was no reply, and my heart pounded. What could have happened to him? What if there was a shark in the water with us? I scouted the waves anxiously for the smooth, gliding wake and sharp, glistening fin that would mean death prowled the water around me.

  “Jackson!” Again, there was no reply.

  I strained to listen while my arms and legs churned, treading water, until finally I heard a sound. There. A faint splash, almost inaudible.