“No, I cannot say that.”
“Then we’re not as different as you’d like to believe,” he said softly.
Lena stood there, unable to move. She heard the car roar up the driveway, heard the car doors slam, and heard the front door creak open behind her. The warm swirl of Brian’s cologne should have comforted her. Instead, it made her queasy.
“What’s going on?” he asked, coming to her side.
Lena felt nothing but raw, angry disgust with herself. In that moment, she realized she was no different from the mage—a man she despised for the choices he’d made. She was trading favors with evil for personal gain, and the evil was threatening to swallow her up. If she succeeded in her goal, if she saved Heather by permitting the murder of innocents, how could she hold her head up? How could she rise every morning and live with the cost? How could she look into Heather’s eyes and know what she’d done?
The time had come to put her faith in Brian.
Pivoting slowly and avoiding Stefan’s discerning gaze, she faced Brian.
“I’ll tell you where the coins are,” she said.
11
As Lena brushed past him and headed for the stairs, Brian stared at the mage.
“Go with her, Murdoch,” he ordered. “But for God’s sake, don’t say anything that might make her change her mind. I’ll be up in a sec.”
A heavy set of boots followed Lena up the stairs.
Stefan returned his stare, completely nonchalant.
“What the hell did you say to her?” Brian demanded, raking a hand through his hair. Nothing he’d said to Lena had even come close to convincing her to give up the coins. An hour with Stefan, and presto, she cracked. That didn’t sound right at all.
“I didn’t threaten her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Did you hex her?”
The mage grimaced. “Of course not.First of all, on your instructions, I placed a mystic gap spell over the ranch, and second, I don’t use magic against Gatherers.”
“Never?”
Stefan shrugged. “The odd spell for training purposes, nothing more.”
“Then why is she suddenly ready to talk?” Brian stabbed a finger in the mage’s direction. “And don’t tell me you had nothing to do with it, ’cause I’m not buying that crap.”
Sitting back in the armchair, Stefan crossed his feet. “Just before you walked in the door, we were discussing the merits of experience over formal education—”
“Bullshit.”
“—and the consequences of the choices we make.”
Consequences. Now, there was a topic Brian could teach at university level. But hadn’t he covered that with Lena already—the cost to the world of allowing the coins to slip into Satan’s hands? “You talk specifics?”
“No. Generalities.”
“Then why does she look so upset?”
The mage scratched his ear. “I think the discussion stirred up a few bad memories.”
Brian stared at him. The little bastard was holding out on him. He knew it. But his time was probably better spent checking on Emily and listening to Lena’s story than trying to browbeat the truth out of Stefan.
“This convo ain’t over—just warning you,” he said. The mage and his wife, Dika, had their mobile home parked behind the training arena, across from the goldfish pond. Dika occasionally joined them for gettogethers, but seemed to prefer her own company. “You can go out to your caravan, but we’ll be picking this up again when I get the chance.”
Stefan stood. “I look forward to it.”
Brian had one foot on the staircase and a hand on the maple railing when he remembered one of his other problems. “Did Carlos come back to the house?”
“No.” Stefan sighed. “In fact, there was a disturbance up by the tennis courts about a half hour ago.”
Shit. He sure as hell hoped the kid hadn’t taken his rage out on the new fencing or the clay court. The house was insured, but he hadn’t upgraded the policy since the tennis courts went in. “What kind of disturbance?”
“Mystical.”
“How could it be mystical? Didn’t you just tell me that your gap spell made that impossible?”
“It’s a very complex spell. I was only able to blanket a thousand-yard radius.”
Brian glanced at Stefan’s face, but it was bland. Hard to know if a mystical disturbance was better or worse than a bent fence or graffiti spray. “Okay, I’ll check it out. Thanks.”
“Good night.”
At the top of the stairs, Brian knocked on the left-side door. He got a muffled invitation to enter, so he did. Emily lay on one of the two twin guest beds with her face buried in a pillow. For once, her iPod wasn’t hanging out of her ears. “Hey, pumpkin. I’m back.”
Nothing.
Figuring that was better than a get out, he crossed to the bed and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I heard Michael was here.”
She rolled over to look at him. Her mascara had left streaks all over her face, and her nose was red. “He says I made Satan more powerful. He says the Trinity Soul should be solving problems, not creating them.”
Brian sat on the edge of the bed. “He’s just a little cranky because he’s forced to wear that lost-in-theseventies, butt-ugly white suit all the time.”
She didn’t smile.
He brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Honey, listen. I don’t care what Michael says. We were just doing our best, and that’s all any of us can do. And just so you know, Lena’s agreed to help us find the other thirteen coins. Satan’s not going to get his hands on them, okay? We won’t let the evil guy increase his power.”
“Okay.”
“Attagirl.”
Emily wiped her nose with a crumpled tissue. “Carlos is mad.”
“I heard.” He gave her a rueful smile. “Can’t say as I blame him. I should have been here when Michael arrived. I’m sorry.”
“Carlos isn’t mad at you,” she said, hugging her pillow tighter. “He’s going through some stuff, and he’s been angry a lot lately. I’m worried about him.”
“I’ll give him another hour to get over it. Then I’ll go chat him up.” Brian stood. “We good?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got to see Lena. Why don’t you go downstairs and grab the bucket of rocky road out of the freezer? There’s never been a problem made that doesn’t improve with ice cream.”
She smiled.
Brian left the room. One down, two to go. Rallying the troops he could do. MacGregor mistakenly equated that talent with leadership, but that was only because the man was unaware of how badly Brian had screwed up his past.
Lena’s door was open and he strode into the silent room without knocking. She stood by the window, arms crossed over her chest, staring out at the falling night. The air around her seemed vaguely sad, though Brian couldn’t put his finger on why he thought that.
Exchanging a quick nod with Brian, Murdoch exited.
“You all right?” Brian asked her.
Her pale reflection in the window smiled. Definitely sad. “Yes.”
“Do I need to kick Stefan’s ass for anything?”
The smile deepened. “No, but thank you for offering.”
Still not the peppiest smile he’d seen, but it was a start. “Least I could do. Let’s get the hard part out of the way. Sit down and tell me where the coins are.”
She ignored his request to sit and remained where she was. Shocker. “You were right about the courier. I gave them to a friend who brought them to L.A. for me.”
“When are you scheduled to meet him?”
“Two days ago.”
Brian winced. That wasn’t good. “Have you been in contact with him since?”
“No.”
“You have a secondary drop arranged, though, right?” he suggested hopefully.
“No—”
His heart sank.
“—but I did ask a friend to meet him in my stead.” She turned to face him. T
hin lines of worry creased her brow. “But there’s been no news.”
“This friend normally reliable?”
“Very.”
Brian grimaced. “For the sake of my nerves, let’s hope that doesn’t mean the demons beat us to the punch. Is there any other way to reach your courier? Some kind of coded message on an Internet bulletin board, maybe?”
“Yes, but I can’t guarantee he’ll pick it up.”
He nodded. “Write it anyway. If you missed the drop, he’s probably as anxious to get hold of you as you are of him. With any luck, he’ll answer right away.” Not that luck had been riding shotgun on any part of this mission so far.
Lena crossed to the nightstand and dug in her purse for her iPhone.
He watched her type for a few moments, then asked, “Why now, Lena? You’ve been holding out for days. Why the sudden desire to give up the coins?”
She shrugged with an air of fatigue. “The usual reasons. Guilt. Shame. And it finally sank in that I was never going to get away. Not in time, anyway. I figured it was better to give the coins to you than to lose them completely.”
Made perfect sense ... but didn’t lessen the sting of knowing she’d reached that turning point with Stefan, not him. “So you’ve decided saving the world is more important than your personal goal?”
Her fingers stopped moving.
At first he thought it was his question that tripped her up. But seconds passed and she remained thoroughly engrossed by the screen of her phone—staring at it, barely blinking.
“What is it?” he asked, stepping toward her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She shoved the phone back in her purse. “Just a text from an old friend.”
He put a hand over hers. It was trembling. “Then you won’t mind if I take a look.”
“No—”
He snatched the purse from her hands and pulled out the phone. A quick check of her incoming message list gave him nothing. Empty. “What’s your e-mail password?”
Without a fuss, she told him.
He reviewed the in-box of her e-mail app, too, but it was equally barren.
“What was it, Lena?”
She was as emotionless as glass. And judging by how stiffly she held herself, just as fragile. Despite all they’d shared, despite the steady inroads he’d made on earning her trust, she wasn’t going to tell him what had just happened. And damn it, that stung.
He handed her back the phone. “Okay, fine. Keep your goddamned secrets.”
Walking to the door, he called down the hall for Murdoch. The other Gatherer returned with two dishes of ice cream, one of which he offered to Lena. She took it, but didn’t eat. Still, the very fact that she accepted an offering from Murdoch when she wouldn’t accept a damned thing from him sent his temperature through the roof.
He didn’t trust himself to hang around.
“I’m going to round up Carlos,” he growled at both of them. “If you get another message—from anyone—I want to know about it.”
When Brian reached the top of the hill, he stopped and stared. What the hell? He closed his eyes for a moment and then looked again, just to make sure he was seeing right. His beautiful new tennis courts and the small grove of oak trees around them had been reduced to a ... crater.
“Good thing you waited a while before coming up here,” Carlos said softly.
From right behind him.
Brian whipped around and found himself looking down the steady length of the young man’s sword. Moonlight reflected off the razor-sharp edge. Although his first instinct was to draw his own weapon, Brian resisted. “Unless you’re determined to die, I’d suggest you put that away.”
Carlos smiled. “You really think you could take me?”
“I know I can take you.” It wasn’t bravado. There was a reckless quality to Carlos that would lead to mistakes in a duel. “But I don’t want to fight. I came up here to apologize.”
The tip of the sword lowered. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for, man. It’s me who screwed up.”
“What do you mean?”
The young man snorted. “Did you happen to notice the big hole in the ground over there? The one where the tennis court used to be?”
“Yeah,” Brian said, turning to look at the crater again. Damn. “What happened?”
“Me, that’s what happened.”
“You blow something up?” Even as he spoke, he remembered Stefan’s description. “Or botch a spell?”
“Neither,” Carlos said. “There’s something wrong with me. One minute I’m frustrated as hell and the next I’m standing in a hole.” He looked down at his hands. “I left the house because I could feel it bubbling up inside me. If I’d hung around, God knows what might have happened.”
The house might look like the tennis court.
“Obviously, you’re casting spells when you get mad. You’ve been through a lot, and maybe you’ve got some residual anger about what Drusus did to you.”
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“Sure it is. And it’s perfectly understandable.” Brian poked Carlos in the chest with his finger. “Here’s the thing, though. Anger-management issues aren’t a big deal when you’re mortal, but when you wield the kinda power that you do, you need to control it. You don’t get to throw up your hands and whine, ‘Not my fault.’ Not when you’re channeling nukes.”
For a long moment, Carlos simply stared back at him, impassive. Then he said, “You need to talk to Emily.”
“Why?”
“She can explain it all.”
“Explain all what?”
“I’m seriously fucked-up,” Carlos said softly.
Brian didn’t know what to say to that. His first thought was that Carlos needed to see a shrink. But a shrink for Soul Gatherers? No such thing. “Did you hurt her?”
Carlos winced. “A little. But it won’t happen again, I swear. The funny thing is, some days when I’m with her the pressure inside me goes way down—”
“Brian?”
Brian spun around.
Lena was scrambling up the hill with Murdoch in tow. “I got a message from Tariq,” she said, holding up her phone. Her gaze slid across the remnants of the tennis court, then back to his face. “But it’s not good news.”
Good news? Was there really any such thing?
“Lay it on me,” he said dryly.
“He’s in Cairo.”
“Egypt?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
The coins were halfway around the world. Marvelous. He rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand. “Well, tell him to hop on a plane and come back. Now.”
“He won’t.”
“Why not?”
Her gaze flickered over the hole in the ground again. “He’s insisting that the coins are his—that he bore the risk of carrying them over here and, by failing to collect them, I gave up my rights. The strange part is, he’s not demanding I pay a scandalously large amount of money to get them back. Nor does he seem to be looking for a buyer.”
“Then why did he go to Cairo?”
“I don’t really know. He was born there, but he has numerous enemies in the city. I pulled a lot of strings to get him safely out of Egypt four years ago. It doesn’t make any sense that he’d go back.”
“He must have some reason.” Brian sighed. “Doesn’t change anything, though. We’re going to have to chase him to Egypt.”
“It’s not that simple,” Lena said slowly. “He knows how I work.”
“What does that mean?”
She hesitated. “It means he can make it very difficult for us to find him.”
“Of course he can.” Brian snorted. “I couldn’t possibly catch a break. All right. If we had access to the database, this would be a piece of cake, but since we don’t, we’ll do it the old-fashioned way.” At Lena’s arched brow he added, “Locator spells.”
He turned back to Carlos.
“Under the circumstances, I think it might be best if yo
u come with me.”
The boy nodded.
“Murdoch,” Brian said, “I’m leaving you in charge of Emily and the new recruits. Take your eye off the ball, even for a second, and I’ll make you wish you hadn’t. Got it?” He glanced at Lena. “You know your way around the city, right?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Cairo, here we come.”
They traveled to Cairo without incident, arriving just after midday two days after leaving San Jose. Lena felt the loss of time in the pit of her stomach. The photo Malumos had e-mailed her remained vivid, even though it had vanished from her phone screen moments after it had appeared. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Heather huddled on a darkened street corner, her clothes torn and dirty, her face deathly pale. The sharp angles of her bones had been clearly visible through her skin, underscoring the raw tragedy of the needle in her arm. Malumos had moved beyond simple starvation and beatings to heartless manipulations that would have a lasting effect. With every wasted hour, Heather sank further and further into addiction.
It was tearing Lena in two.
“Nice airport,” Brian commented after they had collected their luggage. “Cairo’s hipper than I expected.”
Lena smiled crookedly. Cairo was a city of contrasts. Urban and cosmopolitan on one side, Muslim and almost medieval on the other. One ride in a Cairo taxi and he’d be wondering if they were on a different planet.
Outside, a wave of nostalgia hit her, along with a gust of searing heat. She drew in a deep breath. The dry, dusty air of the Western Desert—which these days was choked with smog—filled her nose and mouth. The raucous sounds of traffic and car horns, the loud roars of departing planes, and the voices of boys extolling the value of a limousine ride into the city wrapped around her. Familiar, and yet so very different from the Cairo she knew as a young girl.
“Let’s line up for a cab,” she said, pointing to the line of people waiting. “I’ve booked us into a hotel that’s quite popular with American tourists. It’s small, but clean and comfortable. We can drop our bags off, then start searching.”
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