No. She hadn’t been fine since Ridley broke into her home. “I’m fine,” she mumbled even though she was on the other side of fine. The elevator dinged. People exited and they entered the metal box, Avery moved to the back, while she huddled near the control panel. The car had filled by the time they reached the parking level, yet she felt his eyes burrowing into the back of her head. He had questions. So did she. Hopefully, the storage room would answer them and give her some much-needed leverage before Ridley and her goddess upped the ante.
Chapter Twenty
Avery’s long strides chewed up the distance to the car while his thoughts churned on the interplay between Emeline, her grandfather, and the nurse. A thick undercurrent of tension choked the air between each of them. By her tense stance and guarded expression, Emeline knew Diane. And so did he. He’d seen her before, maybe at RedZone, and somewhere else. He just had to remember.
First Emeline, then the nurse. Too many coincidences lead a person to believe they’re not coincidences. Her name tag said Diane Ramsey. He’d text the info to Quin and info on Emeline. Between the picture of the drawings and the name, Quin would have a busy night.
Also, her grandfather wasn’t the addlepated elder he’d imagined. Avery would bet Grand felt the tension between the two women. Is that why he questioned him about protecting Emeline, because Grand knew she was in danger?
Avery began of mental tally of all the angles of Emeline’s story. First, the ex-boyfriend was a non-factor. Even after the fight at Belinda’s house, that story no longer floated. Second, the break-in was more than a crook looking for an easy payday. Third, Ridley Cross didn’t exist. Last night, Quin had run an extensive search on the name and had come up with nothing. Fourth, Emeline’s comatose friend at the house in Bronxville.
One night in and the damsel in distress story had fallen apart. Where would the real story take him and why did he continue to sit in the passenger seat?
She’s in trouble.
Seemed like she bought into the trouble and instead of asking for help, she’d buried her head in the sand. He should walk away. A client who wasn’t truthful would lead them both to their deaths.
Avery opened the passenger door to the car. He watched her saunter up to him, though that was her natural gait. A sexy, hip-swaying motion that made him want to grab hold and ride.
Walk away? Not when he’d finally tasted her, pinned her lithe body to the bed with her legs on his shoulders and his hands palming that ass. The memory had his dick aching. The reality of last night, her in his arms, destroyed the fantasy he’d created while stalking her. His heart—Shit!—wanted things it couldn’t have. Like her, all day, every day. And he wanted the truth.
She slid into the leather seat without a glance or a thank you. He slammed the door shut to the car and his desires.
“Sorry about Grand interrogating you. He has days when he’s not all there,” she said when he slid into the driver’s seat.
“I think he is always all there. Your grandfather has a determined will. Plus, he loves you a great deal.” The car rumbled to life. He exited the hospital parking lot and cranked up the heater. “Are there no other grandchildren?”
“Only child of an only child,” she repeated what Grand had said. “It’s just us. The family name will die with him.”
“Gamble?”
“Yes, an ancestor won big at the tables in Los Angeles during the gold rush and changed his name to Gamble. I guess you know that already.”
“Yeah—”
“Googled it.” They said together and shared a smile.
“How’d your parents die?” He asked.
A sigh eased from her, followed by a long pause. “Plane crash while vacationing in Mexico when I was fifteen. Grand was staying with us already and he won custody. They tried to tell him he didn’t have the energy to take care of a teenage girl. They didn’t realize he ran the New York City marathon every year. He stopped after his hip replacement. Afterward, it was as if all of his years caught up to him at once. One day he was a senior citizen, the next day he was a little old man.” Her voice drifted from love to pride and settled on sadness. “He decided to go to assisted living. I wanted to take care of him, but he packed his stuff and left. Three years later he shows up on my doorstep saying he wanted to die at home.” Her voice hitched but she managed to imitate her grandfather’s gruff voice perfectly.
A sniffle reached him and he glanced over. Her eyes were closed, yet…
“Your grandfather is gonna be—”
“Fine. Yeah. Because all 92-year-olds can take a beating and keep on ticking,” she grunted.
Avery gripped the wheel and snapped his trap shut. He deserved that for trying to feed her a fantasy.
A long minute dragged by before she said, “Sorry. Today hasn’t been a good day.” Her gaze never wavered from the windshield.
“Neither was last night.” At least certain parts.
Her head tilted toward the passenger window. “If you’re looking to have your ego stroked, I won’t help.”
Yeah, he guessed it would appear that way to her. His ego was big enough to survive rejection. Hell, there were plenty of times he phoned in a performance. But that’s not what happened between them. He didn’t have a name for it. No sanitized box to lock away the memory of what they did and the emotions shared. It would be easy if he could, but he relived last night every time he glanced her way.
And no matter what she said earlier, he needed to know if she felt the same.
***
Power is a drug. Enticing. Addictive, which the Goddess of Chaos would crave until the end of her days. By draining the Order’s disciples, her descendants, not only had she staved off imminent starvation, she’d gained all of their knowledge, which is its own kind of power. Many of which she had yet to study. The Book of Eidos, the grimoire they’d prayed over, most entries were nothing more than a quaint collection of stories.
Most, but not all. There was one entry which confirmed the information she plucked from Belinda’s mind that held more than promise. Something Anubis would be desperate to have—if he knew about it. She touched a pocket on her side, careful not to finger the Anu’Ra. Secreted inside a warded chest in the vault of the Order were shards of muftah aalam. The translation loosely meant the key to Duat. She saw the Key once, so many millennia ago when SET entombed Osiris—the true God of the Underworld. The Ankh with four vertical prongs positioned at the end dangled from the defeated god’s belt. How it came to be in the possession of the Order, she did not care. They belonged to her now. Reassembled, the battle would be over before it even began.
If she could collect the rest of the shards…
Finding a cache of quimaera Alamut had yet to seize was paramount for her success. The shards would have to wait.
Her fingers caressed the runes carved deep into the obelisk she leaned upon. Its twin stood a few feet away on the opposite side of an altar. Soon she would put them both to use.
She strolled to the edge of the roof and delved into the pool of her stolen power. Colorful chaos bands pulsed from her body in a wide multi-hued net which stretched for miles in each direction. She tooled the strands to search for one thing: quimaera. All of her plans would be waylaid without her army. The ever present threat of imprisonment and slavery loomed.
And SET.
She quivered at the thought of his name. Once he finished with his wife and her treachery, he would have no mercy for Khuket’s failure to deliver Reign Nicolis—his wife’s lover—to him, head and heart separated from his body.
Khuket had no illusions about thwarting the God of all Evil. SET’s insidious nature permeated the fabric of life. However minute in form, nothing escaped his touch. But so did chaos.
At the peak of her power, she would be his equal. With Avery absorbed within her, their merged powers would conquer all, starting with Nu. Bonded to the child host, the goddess would never be more vulnerable. Or safer in the warded mansion. Khuket had piggybacked
her way in once. She’d tried to breach the barrier again by bonding to their servant, Hector, but the wards stripped her from his skin and flung her away. She would find a way back into the mansion. Nothing would deter her from achieving her goal that every pantheon—Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Norse—fall to their knees as supplicants seeking her mercy.
Waves of pleasure rippled through her form. Victory, palpable and potent, was so near. Her army, plus Avery, and Nu’s defeat would ensure both.
A tug on her strands shifted her attention to the north. With her mind, she followed the trail to an area beneath a subway station where a nest of quimaera lay dormant. She would steal a few so not to alert Alamut. She wasn’t prepared to battle him again. Another tug on one of her strands yanked her attention away from the quimaera to her prey, Avery. He wasn’t far from the location of the quimaera. Tonight, she would have both—
The chiming of a phone derailed her thoughts and she shot a glance at Ridley standing near the other obelisk.
Ridley pulled the phone from her coat pocket and swept her finger across the screen. “Yeah? …You saw the address? How long ago did they leave?”
No deference. The human continued to speak, disregarding the importance of the moment. Khuket cooled her anger. Fortune finally favored her. She should kill her servant, but…the human was resourceful, and certainty of success wasn’t a given. So the human would continue to breathe. “Go. Deal with your problem.” While I deal with mine.
The relief on Ridley’s face should give her a cause for worry. Khuket brought her on this outing to keep an eye on her. The Goddess of Chaos didn’t believe in trust, but she had already spoken and to retract her permission would appear weak, a trait she couldn’t reveal.
One thought circled Khuket’s brain as Ridley departed. Her first disciple’s usefulness was almost at an end.
Chapter Twenty-One
The sun had set by the time they arrived in the Inwood section of Manhattan and found U-Haul Rent and Storage. Seven o’clock in the evening and night completely blanketed the city. The calendar may claim it was still fall, but in NYC, winter began after Halloween. Except for the heavy traffic zipping along, seven p.m. and midnight were indistinguishable.
The office to the facility had already closed, but Grand had written down the access code for the security door and his personal password.
“Unit 5-5-2. Fifth-floor unit fifty-two,” Emeline said. Motion lights clicked on as they walked down the long corridor, headed for the elevator. She glanced at the quiet man next to her. They hadn’t said a word on the drive over. The silence gnawed her bones, persecuted, and damned her for her culpability. She had no one to blame but herself. For her own sanity and Grand and Avery’s safety, she had to defeat Ridley.
If only he would understand, but even if she explained, Avery wasn’t the kind to sit idly by and let anyone dictate the rules of the game. This far in, she couldn’t risk his involvement. They would retrieve the Soul Catchers and that would give her leverage. Then she would tell Avery. She gave herself a mental pat on the back as the elevator opened.
They found the container five aisles back, in the middle of the row. She glanced at the paper for the code to the combination lock.
“When did your grandfather rent this unit?”
“Don’t know. Maybe before he went to the assisted living home. He didn’t ask for my help.” She dialed the combination and yanked. The lock opened. She removed it but the toggle wouldn’t slide.
“Need my help?” Avery stood next to her. His arms folded, which made him appear more intimidating.
More than you realize. Emeline stepped out of his way. A push with his finger and the toggle slid back. Avery shoved the sliding door with both hands, loosening the joints so that it partially rose. He bent, grabbed the bottom, and lifted. The light from the hallway completely illuminated the interior.
They’d fought traffic all the way to upper Manhattan for a locker that stored dust and dirt. Not a single box or container was there. A pent-up breath escaped her.
“He sent us on a fool’s journey?” Avery’s heavy footsteps reverberated inside the metal unit.
Grand couldn’t have been confused because he gave us the correct passwords and combination. He sent us here on purpose. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed the hospital.
The elevator dinged. They both froze.
“Close the unit and lock it.” Avery stepped out of the box and turned in the direction of the elevator.
Emeline didn’t ask why and didn’t waste time guessing who, as multiple sets of feet echoed on the concrete floor. She gripped the edge of the steel door and pulled. The metal screeched on the way down. She slammed the toggle home, replaced the lock, and gave the combination dial a whirl.
Emeline joined Avery at the end of the aisle. She peered around him, but he shoved her back, though not before she glimpsed Ridley leading four men. Emeline wondered how much she paid them. It was smart of her not to risk exposing the Order more than necessary, especially if they weren’t privy to her little plan.
“Friends of yours?” Avery glanced at her.
Now probably wasn’t the time to share. And why would he say that? “No.”
The footsteps stopped. Avery eased a weapon from his shoulder holster. “Stay behind me.”
They weren’t in any real danger. Ridley wanted him alive. She wouldn’t risk damaging her prize or the person who could deliver him on her doorstep. This show of force was nothing more than a theater act. ‘Oh, let’s put Emeline in danger and yank Avery’s chain.’ God help them all when he found out the truth. Hell hath no fury like a man made a fool of.
Avery peered around the corner. “Run to the next row now,” he whispered.
Emeline pivoted. A shot rang. She dropped to her knees, startled by the unexpected sound. She shot at me. She fucking shot at me!
Avery returned fire. He grabbed her arm and dragged her to her feet, then backed his way into the next aisle.
“Why did we go deeper? The elevator and stairs are in the other direction,” she whispered.
“You don’t run into danger without knowing who the enemy is. But I get the feeling you know exactly who’s out there.”
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish sucking air. His glare summed up his disgust. “Avery, I-I-”
“Save your bullshit for if we survive this ambush.”
He knew.
Avery pulled another gun from beneath his coat. “Can you shoot?”
“Yes.” She’d trained on a Glock. Avery handed her an HK Mark 23. The weapon was big. Her hand fit poorly around the butt, but it was a weapon and she would make do.
“Watch my back.” He waited until she nodded before he returned to the edge of the row.
Her conscience waged a war, arguing for her to tell him what’s going on. She was waist deep in shit, sinking fast and dragging him along for the ride. He was a mercenary used to being in dangerous situations and well aware of the details and ramifications. Keeping him blind with bullets zigging and zagging around would get them killed. She had to tell him and pray he didn’t abandon her. He peered around the last storage unit.
“Avery—” He glanced at her. “This is my fau-”
A shot rang. Avery’s head snapped back and he dropped. Stunned, Emeline screamed.
They shot him. She distracted him and they shot him. She rushed to his side and flipped him onto his back. Blood covered the right side of his face and trickled to the concrete floor.
NO. NO. NO. NO. “Avery?” she whispered. So still. She touched his face, ran her palm down his left cheek. Warmth seeped into her trembling hand, but his chest didn’t move. She leaned close to his lips and placed her hand under his nose, hoping to feel air.
A shot whizzed by her head.
Emeline flattened herself against his chest. She fired three rounds behind her. Then crawled to the end of the aisle and shot around the corner. A grunt and a thud
, followed by footsteps scattering in opposite directions. She and Avery were in the fifth row. Five more rows were behind them, leaving her smack in the middle of trouble with Avery dead. She swallowed down the wail climbing up her throat and focused on surviving.
She glimpsed a shadow out of the corner of her eye and spun in time to catch the edge of a coat darting by at the opposite end of the row. They were going to surround her. But why? What had changed to make her and Avery dispensable? And what did that mean for Grand?
Emeline scooted back to Avery. Even with one down, she couldn’t make it to the elevator without them seeing. The only staircase she’d spotted was next to the elevator. That left the large casement window at the end of the main corridor the only option.
“I want what’s in that storage unit, Miss Gamble,” Ridley shouted.
Why didn’t Ridley use her first name? Must be for Avery which meant she didn’t know he was dead. A cold wedge formed in Emeline’s center, spread to every inch of her along with a swelling rage. She’d led a man to his death. Not just any man.
She’d done a lot of things in her life. Some she’d love to forget. Leading a man into a trap and watching him die while protecting her topped the list.
I should’ve told him. Bile crawled up her throat. She shoved it down. Guilt later. Survive now. She had to go, couldn’t stay with him. Regret leaked out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks in a wet trail. She kissed his lips and whispered, “Next lifetime.”
Emeline shot out the lights in the hallway and those surrounding, pitching her small section into darkness, and giving away her location. She tip-toed to the other end of her row and steadied her breathing. She glimpsed Ridley peeking around a row. Emeline aimed. She’d have one shot then dash to the stairs.
I may die tonight, but not without Ridley.
Cold metal pressed against the back of her neck. “Don’t move.” A voice said behind her. The gun was snatched from her hand. “I have her, Miss Cross,” the man shouted. “Turn around,” he said to Emeline and shoved her into a patch of moonlight from an overhead skylight.
Evermore (Descendants of Ra: Book 3) Page 19