by Susan Sey
Rush’s heart gave a hard thud and he followed Maria into the tea shop at a dead run. The heat was stifling after the bitter outdoor air, and Rush pulled off his hat.
“Did you find her?” he asked.
Lila’s eyes went wide with chagrin. “Oh, no. I’m sorry. Of course you’d think, with me shouting out the door like that . . . no. I just thought you should know that day I had Maria and Yarrow together in the circle? The day I asked to perform the protection ceremony?”
He nodded his encouragement when she stopped, but she had turned to Maria. “I thought it was you in danger, but it wasn’t. It was Yarrow.” She pressed her lips together until they were a thin white line. “I can’t believe I was so blind. You begged me to protect her and I still refused to see. I could have helped her. I could have—”
“Lila, stop,” Maria said. She snatched up Lila’s hands and squeezed them strongly. “That’s done and gone. Forget it. Help her now. Tell us what you saw.”
“Danger,” she said. “She’s out of the light of Our Lady. She’s been drawn into darkness. Such great and terrible darkness. Wicked. Malevolent.” She shook her head. “Dark.”
“Dark?” Maria asked. “What does that mean? Like literal darkness? Is she—”
“I don’t know,” Lila snapped. “Do you think I’d be talking in riddles if I did?”
Maria shut up.
“All I know,” Lila said, her teeth clenched over what looked like the mother of all headaches, “is that the danger is now. It’s present. Immediate.” She pulled a hand from Maria’s grip, offered it to Rush. Her skin was cold against his palm, but her eyes were hot. Hot and urgent. “She needs a soldier, Rush. A warrior.” She shifted her eyes to Maria, blasted her with that gaze as well. “She needs forgiveness. She needs hope. She needs you both. Find her.”
“We will.” Maria took Rush’s free hand with hers, made them a circle and power flowed into him, through him. “We’ll bring her home to you, Lila.”
Lila bowed her head. “An’ the goddess will it.”
“So mote it be,” Rush said. He pulled on his cap with one hand while Lila pressed something into the other.
“Take this,” she said, and Rush looked down at an old carved knife in his hand. The ritual knife Lila had used at every esbat and sabbat Rush could remember.
“Your athame?”
“It’s moose horn,” she said, and turned to Maria. “The warrior god is often symbolized by a stag. A horned beast.” She turned back to Rush. “It’s Yule Eve. The god is close and the veil is thin. Reach out for him, Rush. You’re a soldier, a warrior. You’re his child. He’ll help you.”
Rush had a little more confidence in the rifle waiting for him on the porch but didn’t argue. He took the sharpened antler and stuffed it in his belt. He and Maria hit the mine trail at a sprint as the Yule moon began its ascent.
Chapter 33
YARROW WAS cold. Not a biting, burning cold, but something sluggish and weighty that dragged at her. Without Einar, the altar in the mine was barren and stark. Not just uninviting, but actively hostile. She wished she could light a candle, chase some of that dark malevolence away. Provide a little heat, if nothing else. But she didn’t dare. She knew they’d be looking for her, and if they caught up to her before Einar did, it would all be over.
Einar. He’d come for her. He’d come and they’d fly away in his plane just like he’d promised. With all the cash she’d helped him bring on-island, they could afford to go anywhere they wanted. Somewhere warm, she hoped, but far enough away that nobody would know them or ask questions. Somewhere they could be happy together. In love. Just like he’d promised.
She curled her hand around the phone inside her mitten, around the text message that had saved her. She wanted to see it, to let the proof of his love warm her the way a candle never could, but she didn’t want to wear down her battery. God only knew when she’d see an electrical outlet again.
Then she heard it. The shush-shush of snowshoes whispering over squeaky-cold snow. Her heart thudded painfully in her ears, and she shuffled on numb, clumsy feet around the altar where she squatted in the shadows.
A flashlight beam played over the rocky walls and she stopped breathing.
“Yarrow?”
Relief blasted through her so hard that tears came to her eyes and she knew she must have doubted. Some part of her must not have believed he’d really come. The uncertain, vulnerable part of her that had actually listened while Agent di Guzman talked. Fuck you, Agent Smiley Face, she thought, and stood up.
“Yarrow!” Einar rushed across the room and swept her up in his arms. “Oh, thank Christ. I was half worried you’d run away.”
“From you?” She laughed. “Not likely. I’m totally frozen to death, though.”
He set her back on her feet, a small smile playing over his beautiful lips. “Well, we can’t have you freezing to death, can we? That would hardly do the trick.”
She blinked up at him. “What trick?”
He rubbed his gloved hands up and down her arms. “No trick, honey. It was just a figure of speech.” He hugged her. She made a noise and burrowed into the solid heat of him. She was so cold. She reached up for his kiss, his warmth, but he pulled back, his eyes feverish and bright. “It’s time, Yarrow.”
She nodded. “Yes. All right.”
She was still smiling up at him when his fist clipped her chin and she fell into a starry, pain-washed blackness.
CONSCIOUSNESS DRIFTED back on cold, gasoline-scented air. Yarrow shivered and tried to turn away from the bitter scent, but pain shot hot and brilliant from her jaw all the way to her hairline. Jesus, her head ached like a motherfucker. She couldn’t remember exactly why. Couldn’t see any point in trying to figure it out, either. Pain was pain.
Blackness beckoned, heavy and warm. She’d had enough of the merciless cold anyway. She turned toward oblivion, then a voice drew her back.
“Yarrow.”
She knew that voice. A thin thread of anxiety unspooled inside her. Einar. Beautiful, terrifying, beloved Einar.
“Yarrow, darling. Wake up.”
She forced her gritty lids to open and saw him looming over her. His face was shockingly handsome in the flickering light. Candlelight? Her eyes wheeled about and she suddenly understood a number of realities, none of them particularly encouraging.
First, she was naked. Which explained the cold. Especially since she was outdoors. Well, not outdoors exactly. Underground. That was it. Earthen floor, rocky walls, thick timber beams. Cold stone under her skin. The Stone Altar.
Memory came rushing back and she bolted upright. Or tried to. Pain—shattering and immediate—bloomed behind her eyes and she lay back.
“Oh, darling, your head?” Then his hand was on her forehead, his touch cool and obscenely gentle.
“Einar,” she managed. “What the fuck?”
“I’m sorry, Yarrow. It couldn’t be helped.”
She glared at him through slitted eyes. “You couldn’t help punching me?”
“There’s been a change of plans.” He gave her a flat-eyed smile and her stomach clenched. Nothing’s free, sweetie. It’s just a question of what you’re willing to pay. And then making sure you don’t get taken.
Betrayal sank sharp claws into her chest as Agent di Guzman’s words echoed in her head. Which was stupid. Absolutely fucking retarded. Because what right did she have to feel betrayed? You couldn’t be betrayed unless you had expectations. Unless you believed the world owed you good things.
And Yarrow knew better. She knew what the world owed her. Shit. Trouble. Pain. Everything she’d been dealing out her whole life.
Knowing that, she reflected bitterly, wasn’t quite the same as experiencing it, though.
“What . . .” She curled onto her side and drew up her knees, hiding her nakedness, her pain. “What do you mean?”
“You’re a very special girl.” Einar gave her a soulful look and an ocean of agony welled up inside her. “I wish I could keep yo
u. I do.”
“But?”
“But everything costs. And what I want? What I’m destined to have? It doesn’t come cheap.” He smoothed the hair back from her forehead with fingers that smelled of gas. “Our Lady requires sacrifice, Yarrow. Always.”
“Sacrifice?” Fear jolted through her and she struggled to sit up. To stand up. To run. Einar twisted his fingers into her hair and cracked her head back against the stone table with a careless strength that sent hot shards of nausea dancing in her stomach. She cried out, partly from the pain but mostly from despair.
“Shhh.” He leaned forward, placed something cold against her lips. She blinked away the film of desperate tears and focused on the wickedly sharp blade that was laid flat against her mouth. Panic struck like lightning at the sight of the knife Einar had used when he taught her how to offer blood to the goddess. She whimpered.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, his voice somehow both gentle and stern. “I’ll take care of you. It won’t hurt.”
“I thought—” She swallowed past a hard lump of horror and shame. “I thought you loved me.”
“Loved you?” He chuckled. “Yarrow, please. Nobody loves you.”
The words rang inside her with the purity of truth. He’s right, she thought. How strange that I knew that but didn’t really understand it until somebody said it out loud.
“You’ve been a disease to anybody who’s ever tried,” he went on. “Look at your parents. At Lila. At your friend, what was her name? Jilly? Are any of those people happy, healthy or whole?”
“No,” she whispered. Candles burned by the dozens all over the mine floor, their light thin, their heat stingy. She trembled uncontrollably against the unforgiving stone beneath her.
“And what do they all have in common, those poor, plagued people?”
“Me.” She gazed past the merciless blade into eyes that burned with fervor but also with honesty. She forced herself not to blink, not to shrink from this ugly truth.
“Your life was a waste, Yarrow. But your death will be priceless.”
Her death. The words spurted into her with the inevitability of a drowning victim’s first lungful of water.
“Think about it.” He crouched beside her, slid the flat of the knife across her cheek to the line of her jaw. Her heart pounded with fear, with anticipation, with resignation as the blade scraped against her skin. “Alive you’re nothing but sorrow and heartbreak. A disappointment at best, a legal nightmare at worst. But dead? Think of the gift your death would be. Your parents could finally let go of their guilt and shame over walking away from you. Lila could enjoy her twilight years in peace. Jilly could have the satisfaction of seeing you punished.”
“And you get my blood.”
“And I,” he said, smiling slightly, “get your blood. But you—you get absolution, Yarrow. You get to pay for your sins and finally, finally be free.”
Yarrow considered this, the gift of her death. Einar had scrupulously avoided mentioning the obvious bonus for him—dead girls seldom recanted confessions—but whatever. Compared with everybody else she owed, everybody to whom her death truly would be a blessing, one man’s selfishness faded into insignificance.
Everything inside her already felt dead anyway.
She wet dry lips and asked, “What do I do?”
IN THE dark of the mine shaft leading to the Stone Altar, Maria made a noise of suppressed fury and Rush threw out an arm to keep her behind him. “Wait,” he mouthed, though an answering fury welled up inside him. At Einar, yes, but also at himself. At Lila. At everybody who’d failed to see this desperate, endangered child now at the mercy of a psychopath.
At everybody except Maria, who’d seen just fine.
He reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out his SIG Sauer and offered it to her. She took it, her hands quick and competent on the weapon. He put his mouth beside her ear and said, “It’s loaded. Concentrate on Yarrow. I’ll take Einar.”
Then he stepped out of the shadows into the maze of candles. Einar crouched behind the altar, his lips next to Yarrow’s ear. The girl sat before him, naked as an abandoned doll, her eyes dull inside black rings of tear-streaked makeup.
“Hey, Einar.” He leveled the rifle at his cousin with perfectly steady hands, and circled slowly to the left as he sought a line of fire that wouldn’t endanger Yarrow. Maria followed him into the altar room, but moved in the opposite direction, the SIG firm in a two-handed grip and trained on Einar’s chest. “I see you found our little cousin.”
“And you found me. Hello, Rush. Maria.” Einar, unsurprised, rose to his full height, the candlelight dancing on the polished bone blade in his hand. “Aren’t you two clever?”
“Nah. Just disgusted.” Rush edged forward, instinct demanding caution in spite of the fact that he held a moosehunting rifle on a man armed with nothing but an antique knife. “What the fuck are you doing, Einar?”
“Only what’s necessary.”
“Necessary.” Maria breathed the word with a sharp-edged scorn. “How the hell is talking a fragile young girl into suicide necessary?”
“Christians,” Einar said in amusement. “Your Jesus redeemed an entire people by allowing Himself to be nailed to a cross and still you question the power of blood willingly spilled?”
“Spare me the religious bullshit,” Maria snapped. “Nobody believes it, least of all you. We all know the only thing about her blood that interests you is its ability to buy you a pass on a nice long prison term.”
His lips quirked. “There’s that, of course. Her suicide—though tragic—won’t exactly be unexpected. A troubled young girl seduced by black magic? It’s an old, sad story, but not an unusual one. I doubt anybody will want to put her family through the pain of investigating her story too closely.”
“Oh, but I will.” Maria gave him a smile that was all teeth. “I’m kind of a bitch that way. It won’t take me long to prove there’s no way she was the one smuggling supernotes into the country. Not alone, anyway.”
“Mmm.” Einar considered her with a sharp amusement that had Rush taking the slack out of the trigger.
“And what about you?” he asked, unexpectedly turning to Rush. “Looks like it’s coming down to brass tacks here, cousin. Choices to be made and all that. Your little girlfriend’s obviously made hers. Now it’s your turn.”
Rush shook his head. “You haven’t left me a choice here, E.”
“Of course I have. There’s always a choice, and in this case it’s a pretty simple one. Family versus the dick.” He grinned, the usual devil-may-care charmer. Rush felt sick. “No denying your Maria has a certain appeal, but she’s not blood. She’s not ours.”
“You can talk to me about honoring blood when you’re ready to spill our cousin’s?”
“Stepcousin’s.” Another smooth smile. “She’s not really ours. Plus I’m not the one doing the spilling. She’s doing that all on her own, and it’s powerful stuff. Can’t you feel it?”
“All I feel’s a bunch of crazy and I’m pretty sure it’s coming from you. Now put down the knife.”
“If you like.”
Einar flipped the knife in his hand and offered it, hilt first, to Yarrow. She looked up at him with huge lifeless eyes. Then she took the knife and brought the wickedly sharp blade to her wrist. She pulled it across her skin with the delicate motion of a violinist playing something sad and sweet. Just hard enough to break the skin but not hard enough to do real damage. A thin line of blood bloomed on her waxy skin and she looked up at Einar. He smiled down at her like a fond parent, a proud lover.
“Good girl,” he said. “Now for real.”
Rush’s heart knocked hard against his ribs, but his hands were steady as he sighted down the barrel of his rifle at Einar’s chest.
He flicked a glance at Maria. Now.
Chapter 34
MARIA SHOVED the SIG into the back of her waistband and launched herself at Yarrow. She took the girl in a flying tackle that rattled
her teeth and jarred her bones but knocked them both out of Rush’s line of fire and onto the dirt floor of the mine shaft. The knife leaped from Yarrow’s hand when they hit the ground, and she and the girl tumbled willy-nilly through a minefield of lit candles.
Maria braced for the blast of Rush’s rifle but heard nothing. Then she was too occupied with Yarrow to wonder why not. The girl fought like a cat, all claws and teeth and fury. Maria tasted blood, bright and metallic, on her lip when the kid landed a lucky elbow.
“For God’s sake, stop fighting!” Maria straddled the writhing girl, pinning her wrists to the floor. “You’re going to get us killed!”
Yarrow bucked and twisted under her, her breath coming in ragged sobs. “That’s the whole idea, bitch.”
Maria stared down at her. “You don’t want to die, Yarrow.”
“The fuck I don’t.”
TIME SLOWED to a crawl for Rush as Maria knocked Yarrow to the ground. Rush kept the rifle steady on Einar’s chest, instinct and skill allowing him to anticipate and adjust for the man’s startled step back and to his right as Maria tackled Yarrow out from under his nose. He let the breath flow out of his body as the women cleared his line of fire, and for the first time in two long years, he prepared to pull the trigger on a fellow human being.
This man wasn’t his cousin, he told himself. Not anymore. This man had forfeited family—hell, humanity—for pure selfish madness. But he dropped the barrel anyway. Not far, just an inch. Half an inch. Just enough to ensure that his bullet would put Einar on the ground rather than six feet under it.
The hammer clicked home into an empty chamber.
Einar’s laughter rang through the small room even as Maria rolled with a wildly clawing Yarrow into the far wall.
“You’d have done it.” He chuckled delightedly. “You really would have shot me. For shame, Rush. Where’s your sense of loyalty? It’s a damn good thing I thought to unload your gun back on Lila’s porch.”
Einar was still smiling when he bent and scooped up the knife Yarrow had dropped when Maria hit her. Rush threw down the gun and gripped the carved handle of the moosebone knife at own waist. The instant the hilt hit his hand, a certainty blew through him. It was right, he knew suddenly, that he should face Einar with nothing but this ancient knife, an almost exact replica of the one in Einar’s hand.