Stone 02 Kato

by DB Reynolds

  When she looked back at Nick, he was watching Kato with such fondness, such naked love, that it took her breath away. It was the first unguarded moment she’d seen from him, and it disappeared in an instant when he caught her watching.

  “I’m not asking you about Gabler’s perfect woman,” he said briskly. “I want to know what Sotiris would gain from having Gabler at his beck and call. You know the politics of the museum, the way things work.”

  “Right,” she said, and gave it a moment’s thought. “Okay, so first, why me? Apparently, Sotiris was behind my hiring. Why?”

  “Obviously, he wanted the scrolls translated and thought you had the best shot.”

  “But he didn’t need them translated, did he? I mean, Kato didn’t. And you probably wouldn’t either. So, I’m guessing neither would Sotiris, right?”

  Nick shrugged. “Sotiris prefers to remain in the shadows, letting others lay the groundwork until he has what he needs.”

  “But what did I have that he needed? I didn’t even manage to translate them. All I did was—”

  “Activate them,” Nick interrupted. “Sotiris didn’t want them translated, he wanted them activated, and you have just enough magic to make that happen. I can sense it, and so would he. Kato tells me you met the man.”

  She nodded. “At a museum reception, but only for a moment. It’s not like we really talked.”

  “A moment is all he’d need. Was this before or after you were hired?”

  “Before,” she admitted. “I’d already applied, but so had a lot of others. I went with my parents to a reception at the museum—all of the big-money donors. Sotiris was there.”

  Nick nodded. “He must have known about the scrolls, probably even played a role in getting them donated to the museum. And then he made sure you were the one doing the translations.”

  “But why? The only reason the scrolls were activated—”

  “Was because you copied them. Exactly. I’m guessing you’re not the only researcher who uses that work technique.”

  “Well, no. Everyone does it, because we can’t work with the originals and the heat from photocopying . . .” Understanding struck. “You think Gabler told him all of that. But that means—”

  “That Sotiris has been cultivating him for some time. You don’t easily convince a man to host a demon from the underworld, not even a man as vengeful as Gabler.” Nick drew a deep breath. “But it’s not Gabler, or even the scrolls, that concerns me. It’s you.”

  Grace jerked in surprise, but then realized Nick wasn’t talking about her. He’d shifted his solemn gaze to Kato, who was staring back at Nick the same way.

  “He had to have known you were in that museum,” Nick said softly.

  “I never saw him. I wouldn’t have missed that.”

  Nick nodded his agreement. “He didn’t know your exact location, and obviously, Gabler’s demon didn’t recognize what was right under his nose. Because Sotiris would never have passed up the opportunity to gloat if he’d known. Fortunately, it’s a big complex, with much of the collection stored out of the public eye.”

  “Wait,” Grace interjected. “Are you saying Sotiris has always known where the statues are?”

  “No,” Nick said quickly. “And thank the gods for that. If he’d known, he’d have gathered them up and made sure they were never found or freed. Sick motherfucker,” he added softly. “But if he got close enough. . . . It’s his curse that put them in their prisons. If he was close to one of them, he’d know it. And an antiquities museum like yours would be a very logical place for them to turn up.”

  “Would he have known it was Kato specifically? Because the demon told Kato that Sotiris had wanted to free Kato himself, and that I screwed up his plans. Was it just Kato he wanted, or whichever warrior he eventually found?”

  “That’s a good question. It’s possible the demon lied, but. . . .” Nick frowned.

  Grace wanted to say something clever, something biting, about having finally found something Nick didn’t know. But she bit her tongue instead. She might harbor some resentment toward the great and powerful Nicodemus for his role in getting Kato—and the others—cursed in such a horrible way to begin with. But she couldn’t forget Kato’s joy when he’d been reunited with Nick. Couldn’t forget the words of guilt and sorrow she’d heard Nick whispering, or the look of unadulterated love she’d caught from him when he’d been looking at Kato earlier. Whatever his flaws, he clearly loved the men who’d fought with him.

  So she kept her thoughts to herself.

  And then everyone was getting up, gathering food, and shoving corks back into wine bottles. It was as if some silent signal had been given. And for all she knew, it had. These people knew each other a lot better than she knew any of them, except maybe Kato. And even he had a history with Nick and Damian that was far older and deeper than anything she’d shared with him. Truthfully, she didn’t mind having this odd gathering over with. Between murderous demons popping out of nowhere, killing neighbors, possessing her boss, trying to kill her new boyfriend—who, by the way, had been a cursed statue when she met him—it had been a long few days, and she’d be happy if she never heard the word “magic” uttered in her presence again.

  Of course, that seemed unlikely, given the man she’d chosen to fall in love with. And, yeah, she was falling in love, stupid as it might seem. She couldn’t pick some nice, geek researcher, with horn-rimmed glasses and an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure topics. No, not Grace. She had to fall for an ancient warrior, the only son of a legendary witch, doubly cursed by his own mother and his enemies, trapped in stone for millennia, and now pursued by the same evil sorcerer who’d cursed him in the first place.

  Although, now that she thought about it, her role was rather like the prince in Snow White, a gender reversal for the modern age. Instead of the prince freeing the princess with a kiss, she’d turned the tables. She’d freed the prince, not the other way around. Albeit not with a kiss, but there’d been plenty of those since then. She flushed hotly, remembering that there’d been a hell of a lot more than kisses.

  “What are you thinking right now?” The words were whispered against her ear, as a strong arm pulled her into the heat of Kato’s body.

  An embarrassed blush added to the heat of her thoughts. “None of your business.”

  He laughed, a deep masculine sound, full of confidence and promise. “I bet it’s all my business,” he murmured smugly.

  Grace gave his arm a half-hearted slap, but she also tipped her head to one side, inviting the kiss he brushed against her neck.

  “Geez, you two, get a room.”

  Grace looked up at Damian. “This house is our room,” she said archly. “But we have plenty of bedrooms if you need a place to stay,” she added quickly, her ingrained manners coming to the fore.

  “Don’t worry about us. We’re at Shutters,” Cassandra said, naming one of Santa Monica’s most luxurious beachfront hotels. “I’ve always wanted to try that place.”

  “My woman loves hotels,” Damian confided. “It’s the bathrooms.”

  “You make it sound like I have toilet fetish,” she said, jabbing an elbow into his gut. “I like the big tubs,” she explained to Grace.

  “She likes big things.” Damian wiggled his eyebrows.

  The time, Cassandra’s elbow jab was hard enough to have him sucking in a breath and rubbing his stomach.

  “By the gods, woman!”

  “Don’t be such a baby. I’ll make it better.”

  Damian brightened. “We’ll meet again tomorrow,” he said, suddenly in a hurry to leave. But he still took the time to walk over and wrap his arms around Kato, perforce collecting Grace in the hug as well. “It is the gods’ own blessing to have you back, brother.”

  Kato responded with a hug of his own, which left Grace feeling like a mouse between two behemoths. But she didn’t complain. How could she, when the behemoths looked like these guys, and one of them was Kato?

  “Come o
n, Damian,” Nick called. “It’s past midnight.”

  “By the gods, you’ve gotten old,” Damian complained. He strolled over to the front door, and took Cassandra’s hand. “There was a time when—”

  “Yeah, I remember those times,” Nick said dryly. “And the mornings after, too.”

  All three men laughed at that, while Nick came over to say his own good-byes. His hug for Kato was more restrained, and he didn’t include Grace, as if understanding that while she easily accepted an embrace from Damian, he would not be so welcome. And maybe he even understood her reasons, because the look he gave Kato as he hugged him was far more sorrowful than joyous. And the words he whispered—in what sounded to Grace’s trained ear like a bastardized form of ancient Latin—sounded like a plea for forgiveness.

  Kato hugged him back, holding on tightly before pushing away far enough that he could meet Nick’s gaze. “You are my brother and my leader, Nico. There is no forgiveness necessary, because there was no transgression. Not for one moment, not even during the darkest hours of my imprisonment, did I blame you. My only thought was to break free, to search out my brothers, and to join with you in defeating our enemy. And now we have that chance, and, as always will be, it is an honor to serve you.”

  Grace would have sworn she saw tears in Nick’s eyes as he and Kato embraced again, holding on tightly, before pounding each other on the back so hard that she winced.

  “We’ll meet again tomorrow,” Nick promised. “If Grace doesn’t mind lending us her house once more.” He turned to Grace when he said this, his eyebrows raised in question.

  “Of course not,” she assured him. “I want Kato safe. And all the rest of you, too. Besides, there’s a ton of food left over.” She smiled, and Nick smiled back in what was the closest thing to a warm moment that they’d shared.

  “One o’clock, then,” he decided. “Let’s be civilized about this.”

  Grace endorsed that idea heartily, and so, apparently did everyone else. It would seem that Kato’s friends were all night owls. Finally, something they had in common!

  She and Kato walked everyone to the front door, like good little hosts, and then closed it firmly. She gave a loud sigh that was matched by one from Kato. They looked at each other and laughed.

  “Bed,” he told her, taking her hand and pulling her toward the stairs.

  Grace spared a single glance around the downstairs area, wanting to be sure there was nothing that would deliver an unpleasant surprise in the morning, and then followed her magical new boyfriend up the stairs.

  THE DARKNESS WAS everywhere, thick, impenetrable. Kato struggled to wake. A crushing blackness stole the oxygen from his lungs, from the very air itself. This was more than the absence of light. This was . . . familiar. He knew the taste of this power. His heart raced. The Dark Witch’s magic was everywhere, a smothering blanket on his thoughts, a weight on his limbs.

  Grace. He had to warn Grace.

  He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He managed a stifled groan, not sure if it was real or imagined. Terror threatened to overwhelm his senses. Not again. He couldn’t do this again. He would not give in to whatever power thought to enslave him. He would rather tear himself limb from limb, shatter his organs, and boil the blood in his own veins before he would surrender. Never again would he be made a prisoner, a plaything, a helpless piece of flotsam in the sands of time.

  Not for himself, and not for Grace. He would not risk her heart or her life.

  He fought viciously, calling upon every ounce of power that remained within him. Using the Dark Witch’s own power against her. But . . . there was more. His soul shriveled against the unwanted knowledge and the nightmare it foretold. Damn it.

  He should have known better than to think his life could ever be his own.

  GRACE TOSSED AND turned in her sleep, chased by fragments of memories that couldn’t be her own. Horrible images of death and destruction, a devastating knowledge that she could do nothing but watch as screams bombarded her senses and the scent of blood filled the air. She tried to blind herself to the carnage while she fought to wake, to open her eyes on the true and familiar.

  She heard Kato’s groan, a deep sound of terrible suffering, of fear. And she knew. This wasn’t an ordinary nightmare. This was magic. Some evil fucker was making a play for Kato, toying with him, with them, one more time, unwilling to let him go.

  Yeah, well. Fuck that.

  She forced herself to wake, knowing as she succeeded that this was not a good sign. Whatever magic had invaded their consciousness didn’t care about her. At least, not enough to worry about keeping her under. It was Kato they wanted. He was a hundred times stronger than she was, a thousand times more capable of fighting off just about anything—magic or not. If he was still struggling with the intruder in his dreams, then it was bad. Bad, as in totally fucked. Because she had a feeling there weren’t too many powers in the universe who could succeed in attacking Kato’s mind.

  She sat up, her head spinning, her thoughts groggy. She reached for Kato, shocked at the touch of his skin. Good God, he was freezing. He was so cold that she worried whether his blood was still flowing, still warming his heart and powering his muscles. He could die from that alone. Forget whatever wicked designs their enemy was plotting.

  She blinked at the thought. Enemy. Was this Sotiris? Nick had worried about Sotiris knowing Kato’s location. Was that bastard trying to get him back, to shove him into some new, horrific prison?

  Fuck that. Not on her watch.

  She stretched for the bedside lamp and flicked the switch. Nothing. No light, not even the dying flash of a dead light bulb. Shit. This was bad, bad, bad. Beyond her bad. She reached for Kato again. Had it gotten darker in the room in the last few minutes? She couldn’t see his face anymore, couldn’t see him at all. She found his shoulder and grabbed him with both hands, shaking hard and calling his name.

  “Kato!” But he didn’t wake, didn’t give any indication that he’d heard her, or even felt her touch.

  Fear was a boulder sitting on her chest, crushing the air from her lungs, smashing against her heart with every terrified beat. She knew she couldn’t stand alone against whoever, whatever, this was, but she had to do something. She couldn’t let them have Kato. He’d suffered enough.

  She reached out blindly, scrabbling for the familiar shape of her cell phone on the bedside table, intending to call Nick. He was the big power here, right? Mr. Oh-so-powerful? He could stand against their attacker. He just had to get here in time.

  She slid her finger over the face of the phone . . . and froze. Someone was laughing. Her head snapped around, staring at Kato’s shadow-shrouded form. But her senses confirmed what her mind already knew. Kato wasn’t laughing. It was their enemy, laughing, enjoying his little mind fuck, toying with them.

  Grace forced herself to remain calm, to order her thoughts. What weapons did she have against a power she couldn’t see, a power who was attacking their minds, not their bodies? She frowned in sudden realization. That wouldn’t last. This mind fuck trick was entertaining for him, but in the end, their enemy must want more. Something else. Or someone else.

  She threw herself over Kato’s body. They weren’t getting him, not if she had anything to say about it, and not without taking her, too. She didn’t think even Sotiris had the power to grab Kato without coming in and getting him physically. Well, guess what? If they wanted him, they were going to have to deal with her. Which brought her thoughts back to weapons. What could harm a sorcerer of Sotiris’s power? Magic, of course, which she supposedly had. Not much, but maybe enough to disrupt whatever fucking plot they’d hatched to grab Kato. First, the nightmares, the terror, to immobilize the target. And then grab him.

  Wait a minute. Fuck magic. She had a gun! Damn, she’d spent so much time around Kato and all his super magical friends that she’d nearly forgotten all of her long-ago bodyguard’s lessons in saving her own ass. She didn’t know if a bullet could kill Sotiris, but she’d w
ager it could bring him down long enough for her and Kato to escape.

  She scrambled out of bed, grabbing her hoodie from the chair and yanking it over her head as she headed for the closet where she’d stashed her gun. She had an actual lockbox at her condo, but here in her parents’ house, she made do with a pair of empty shoe boxes, the gun in one and two magazines of ammo in the other. As she pulled open the closet door, she flicked on her phone and scrolled down, searching for Nick’s number. Was it under “N” or—

  The front door slammed open downstairs. She waited for the expected blare of the alarm, but there was nothing. Had she forgotten to set it? She didn’t waste time wondering. They were already on the stairs. She had only seconds before . . . the bedroom door crashed against the wall. Grace was already on her feet, racing to the bedside, gun in hand, wishing she’d had even thirty seconds more to load it. She had only one round, the one in the chamber. It was a trick her bodyguard had taught her, insisting that the lone “hot” round could save her life someday. Because there was no reason to pick up a gun for defense, if you didn’t plan to use it.

  She slammed her hand against the wall plate as she rounded the bed, bringing up every light in the room at once. Taking up position between Kato and the door, she risked a glance down at him. He was so strong, he’d triumphed over so much evil already, that she kept expecting him to open his eyes. To leap to his feet and draw that cursed sword of his. But he remained motionless, ensorcelled, cursed. . . . She didn’t know what their enemy had done, but she couldn’t count on Kato to save them.

  It was up to her.

  The intruders cried out as the lights came up, instinctively bringing their hands up to cover their eyes. But they weren’t delayed for long. Cursing vividly, they plowed forward, not even hesitating at the sight of her gun, clearly willing to die for their cause, whatever the hell it was. Or whoever. She’d seen the loyalty Nick engendered from his warriors. Why not Sotiris, too? There would always be people willing to follow evil with the same devotion that others pursued good.