by Laken Cane
“Goodnight, Grim,” she said.
She didn’t put the child in her crib. “You’re sleeping with me tonight,” she murmured to her sleeping daughter.
Kader snuggled against her, and there in the semi dark, Rune stared at her until her eyes grew too heavy to stay open.
For now, Kader was safe.
Her crew was safe.
And as she began to drift off, she felt the bed dip.
“Goodnight, baby,” she murmured.
“Goodnight,” Ellis said, and with the baby sheltered between them, they slept.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rune put a small plate of cooled scrambled eggs on the highchair tray, then poured some juice into Kader’s sippy cup. “Eat up, kid.”
She sat down at the table beside the baby and took a drink of her hot coffee. Kader picked up her spoon, then used her free hand to grab a handful of eggs, which she then preceded to stuff into her mouth.
Rune grinned.
The kid looked as healthy as ever with her pink cheeks and bright eyes and healthy appetite. There were no scabs, no marks, no scars.
She had no trouble breathing, no sore throat, nothing.
She glanced up at Rune and smiled, and for a second Rune’s heart stopped.
Was that the berserker’s smile?
Or was it just her imagination, sparked by Roma’s words?
She frowned at Roma, who sat across the table eating a stack of pancakes that would have fed a normal person for two days.
Roma paused with a bite halfway to her mouth. She glanced at Kader and then back at Rune. “I’m sorry I said that, Rune. It was wrong.”
“Drop it.” Rune picked up her fork.
Ellis walked to the table and pulled out the chair beside Rune. “Drop what? What’s wrong?”
“She’s unhappy because I told her the baby looks like the berserker.” She nodded toward the baby. “Do you not see it? Something about the eyes and forehead…”
Levi and Denim glanced at each other, then looked at their plates. They said nothing.
Ellis paled, then put his arm around Rune. He glared at Roma.
“I’m sorry,” Roma said.
“You should be sorry,” Ellis said. “That’s an awful thing to say.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Rune said. “Strad isn’t Kader’s father. She gets her coloring from me. He happens to have black hair and blue eyes as well.”
Ellis nodded. “That’s exactly right. Roma is silly.”
Don’t think about it.
Rune took a deep breath. “We have to get to work.”
Ellis sat down. “I’ll send updates to your phone.”
“The guards are outside, baby. If you—”
He smiled. “Go to work, Rune. We’ll be fine.”
She was thankful—and a bit surprised—that he was handling the events of the previous day so well. But then, Ellis was accustomed to those he loved being hurt. He was too strong to let any such thing cripple him for long, though she could still see the horror of it lingering in his eyes.
“What would I do without you, Ellie?” And yeah, she’d said it a thousand times before, but she meant it. She had no idea how they’d get through life without him.
“Remember,” Roma interjected, helpfully, “you’ll still have Bill when Ellis dies.”
They all looked at her.
“Roma,” Levi said. “Tact is not exactly a strength of yours, is it?”
She lost her smile.
Rune sighed, kissed Kader, and then left the house. It was time to get back to work.
Roma climbed into the car beside her. “I have a feeling about today. The air—”
Rune’s cell rang, interrupting the girl. A light rain misted the windshield, and Rune put the wipers on as she dug her phone from her pocket.
“This is Rune,” she said, then leaned forward to turn up the radio.
“Rune,” Luciana yelled, “We need you!”
“The fuck is wrong, Luc?”
“That guy is here. Ramsey. He’s killing us all, Rune. He’s—”
And then she was gone.
“Fuck. Fuck.” Rune stomped the gas pedal and sped down her street. “Asshole.” The son of a bitch was going down. She didn’t care who was making him do what—she was going to take him out.
“Roma, call the crew. Tell them Killing Land is under attack by Jett Ramsey.”
As Roma was calling the crew, Rune punched in Eugene’s number. “Ramsey is in Killing Land,” she said, when he answered. “He’s murdering everyone there. Send someone to pick up Tasha. I don’t want her to see what’s about to happen.”
“I’ll handle it,” he said. “I’ll send Annex ops to help.”
“No. More ops will only get in the way. I’ll call you if we need backup.”
“Fine. But you won’t have long before HLE finds out he’s up there and crashes your party.”
“That’ll just give him more people to kill.”
“I’ve put the best people I have to work making protection against Ramsey’s touch, but they’re not ready yet. At least wear your vests and as much clothing as possible. He needs bare skin for his touch to be effective.”
“Okay.”
“Also, I have some information about our doctor and Ramsey.”
She hit speaker. “You’re on speaker. Tell me what you know.”
“Let me start with this,” he said. “There’s chatter that every single one of our enemies—the Next, for one—has taken notice of this doctor. They’re all trying to find him. And they will succeed, Rune. He wants them to. He’s ready to be noticed.”
“If the Next gets someone capable of mind control—”
“They will help him grow. And they will begin to control the world.”
“I have to kill them both.”
“Yes. Yes, you do. But I don’t know how you’re going to manage to kill a man you can’t find and another man you can’t touch.”
“Because he can teleport?”
“Not only that. He kills by touch. All his victims died because he transfers some sort of lethal infection that spreads through the body and kills quickly. You can’t let him get close to you. You can’t fight him with your claws, Rune.”
“I’m fast. I’ll handle it.”
“Listen to me. Even if the infection can’t kill you, it can put out of commission for a long time. You can’t expose the crew to him.”
“He kills when he touches us. We don’t know that he can kill if we touch him,” she said, impatiently. “We’ll do what we need to do. Tell me what else you’ve got.” But she was scared.
Jett Ramsey was going to be hard to beat.
Impossible, maybe.
“The doctor is human, Rune.”
It took her a second to understand what he was saying. “So how is he using mind control to manipulate Ramsey?”
“It’s not mind control.”
“Then what?”
“I think he’s developed some sort of technology. Elaine Garrett said he was working on something big. And if he can build a device to control one Other, then all he needs is the support of a powerful group to develop thousands of them. If that ever happens…”
“Then we’re fucked.”
“Yes. Unless you get to him first. You have to find the doctor. He’s more important than killing Jett Ramsey.”
“I can’t let that asshole wipe out everyone in Killing Land while I’m searching for a doctor.”
“Figure it out, Rune. You have to stop them both. Let Ramsey lead you to Stavish.”
“The crew and I will do what we can. Just like we always do. You’ve found nothing about a Dr. Gerald Stavish?”
“Ingrid and her team found no doctor by that name in this county, or even in this state. She said she’s going to widen her search parameters and will let me know when she finds him.”
“What about Jett Ramsey?” Roma asked. “Is there a weakness we can exploit?”
“Yes,” Eugene
said. “There is. And her name is Tasha.”
“Tasha can’t help us kill him,” Rune said.
“No,” Eugene agreed, “but as far as I know, she is his only weakness. I’ve got people researching grievs, and they’ve found nothing. Grievs are not only difficult to kill, but they’re impossible to catch. Fire, maybe? But you can shoot him all day long and it’s not going to kill him.” He hesitated. “I don’t know how you can stop him, Rune.”
“Call me if you find a weakness,” she told him, and hung up. She couldn’t listen anymore. She had to think.
“I’ve got my slingshot,” Roma said. “And you’ve got the shotgun.”
“Jack has the gun,” Rune said.
“They’re both Skyllian weapons. Maybe normal guns and blades can’t stop him, but my slingshot and the shotgun might at least knock him out so you can grab him.”
“Then what?” Rune asked, but things were looking a little brighter.
“I don’t know. Catch him, cut off his head, burn him? Seems to work for everyone else.”
Rune nodded. “It’s not much of a plan, but it’s all we’ve got.”
“I’ll call Raze and tell him to bring a couple of hand grenades. You catch Ramsey and I’ll shove those little bombs up his ass. I don’t care what he is—he’s not coming back from that.”
It felt good to laugh, even though it lasted for only a moment.
She sped toward Killing Land, her heart pounding, her stomach tight, her mind grim and full of darkness.
Part Three
BROKEN
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The dead were everywhere.
Halfway through town Rune began spotting bodies on the ground. They lay in yards, atop the hoods of cars, even in the street.
She parked the car in the driveway of an abandoned house and she and Roma jumped out, Roma with her slingshot and Rune with a handgun she knew wasn’t going to make a lick of difference.
But she heard gunshots, pretty much constantly, echoing in the air of Killing Land. Chances were good that if Jett Ramsey didn’t get the crew, stray bullets from the frantic, terrorized townsfolk would.
She pulled an extra jacket from a bag in the backseat. “Put this on, Roma. And if he gets near you, try your best to keep some fabric between his hands and your skin.”
Roma held the jacket, frowning. “What about you?”
“I’ll have a better chance to survive the asshole than you will.”
“That’s true.” She shrugged into the jacket.
Rune called Jack.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’ll be there in two minutes,” he said. His voice made her feel better immediately. “The twins are right behind me.”
“Got the shotgun?”
“Yes.”
“We’re halfway through town. On foot.”
“See you in a couple of minutes.” He hung up.
She and Roma jogged deeper into town, quietly, heads swiveling constantly as they watched for danger.
For Jett Ramsey.
“There he is,” Roma whispered, but when Rune looked in the direction she indicated, no one was there.
“He see us?” she asked.
“He was looking at us when I spotted him.”
They crept along, Jack, the twins, and Raze falling in around them, and the longer they walked, the more afraid Rune became.
Not for her.
For her crew.
When we want you, we will have you.
She stopped walking and they milled around her, a question in their eyes.
“It’s too dangerous,” she told them. “I have a chance. You don’t. I want you to return to Spiritgrove and wait for me.”
Raze laughed. “Rune, don’t do that. Don’t do that.”
“You know we won’t go, honey,” Jack said.
She looked at each one of them. “I think it’s a trap. I won’t die, you know that. But one touch from that motherfucker and you’re gone. I can’t save you this time. There’s no antidote. You’ll just be dead.” She paused, and quite unintentionally put her hand over her heart. “And I can’t live with that.”
They watched her, sober and silent.
Finally, Jack spoke. “Why do you think it’s a trap?”
“Her gut,” Levi said.
Rune nodded. “My fucking gut.”
They stood there, the little group of crazy, brave, deadly people, and as one, they refused her request.
They didn’t have to say another word. They just looked at her.
She’d known they wouldn’t listen to her. She might have been their captain and if it came down to it, she was perfectly within her rights to fire every one of them for disobeying her.
But they were equals, and she wasn’t pulling that shit.
She hadn’t grown soft—she just loved the hell out of them.
Their deaths would break her.
“You have to stop trying to make us sit out the bad fights, Rune,” Jack said. There was no softness in his eye. “You’ve got to believe in us.”
She stared at the ground, unable to meet his stare. He was absolutely right. “I apologize.”
Maybe it was a trap, maybe it wasn’t.
They’d fight at her side, regardless.
She shot out her claws. No matter what Eugene said, she was reasonably certain Jett had to touch his victims, not the other way around.
And if she got the chance, she was cutting the bastard’s head off.
“There,” Denim said. “I just saw him. He was there—”
“Not anymore,” Levi said.
“Does it seem to you that he wants us to see him?” Jack asked.
“Or wants us to follow him,” Rune said, grimly.
“So what do we do?” Roma pulled the cuffs of the jacket a little further over her wrists.
“We follow him,” Rune said, and led them on.
Distant gunshots continued to split the air, punctuated by hoarse yells and abruptly halted screams, but the town was surprisingly devoid of people.
Some of them were dead, and some had obviously figured out they couldn’t kill their deadly intruder and were running. Most of them were likely hiding. And that was just smart.
“Look,” Raze said. “House across the street.”
The curtains were pulled back, just a little, and a woman with a pale face and wide eyes stared out at them.
“Let’s go talk to her,” Rune said, and they strode across the street.
The woman shook her head, violently.
“Shit,” Rune said. “He’s in the fucking house.”
Almost before the words left her mouth, Jett Ramsey appeared in the window behind the woman, and reached around her to gently cup her jaw.
She fell immediately.
“Shoot him,” Rune yelled, but even before the words left her mouth, Jack pulled the trigger of the shotgun, shattering the glass and half the wall of the little house.
Roma followed a half second later with her slingshot, but they all knew Ramsey was already gone.
“Impossible to kill him,” Raze muttered.
“No,” the assassin said, appearing so suddenly at Rune’s side that she thought for a second he had some teleporting abilities of his own. “Just very difficult.” He looked at Rune. “I have an idea.”
She inclined her head. “Let’s hear it.”
“Gunnar took me to the portal. I know where the truly unkind path lies.”
Rune’s eyes widened. “Son of a bitch. If we can lure him there…”
“I can shove him in,” Will said.
“How do we lure him there?” Roma asked.
“We don’t,” Will said. “I do.”
Rune frowned. “How?”
“By using his weakness.”
“He has no weakness,” Jack said.
Rune stared at the assassin. “Yeah, Jack. He does.”
Will said nothing.
“You’ve kidnapped his fucking daughter?” Raze sa
id.
Will didn’t take his stare from Rune.
“Shit,” she whispered. She hated it. Tasha was an innocent and the killer was her father. But…“We use the girl as bait.”
“It could work,” Roma said. “Better than my idea of butt-fucking him with a hand grenade.”
The assassin glanced at Roma, and a glint of laughter shone in his eyes. But then he put his stare back on Rune, and there was nothing but darkness in his bottomless eyes.
“What do you want to do, Rune?” Jack asked. “Do you want to use the girl, or do you want me to kill this asshole for taking her?”
No judgment was in his voice. No disapproval. Just the question.
Not so Raze. “That’s some bad shit right there,” he growled. “We’re not the bad guys. You told the girl that.”
“It’s a wicked thing to do,” Roma agreed, “but it could rid the world of a man we can’t kill.”
“It’s not like we’re sacrificing the girl,” Levi said.
Raze turned to snarl at him. “She’s watched her father kill half the fucking world, and this idiot—” He paused to jerk a thumb at Will. “This idiot with his mask just terrorized and kidnapped her. Now we want to make her bait her own dad into being shoved into a fucking abyss. She might disagree with your definition of the word sacrifice, buddy.” He took Rune’s arm. “We don’t want to do this, Rune.”
Rune turned her head to look at him. “Look at the fucking bodies surrounding us, Raze. Yeah, we want to do this.”
His jaws bunched as he ground his teeth, but finally, he inclined his head. “Then let’s get it done.”
“How?” Jack asked.
“Follow me,” Will said, and trotted away.
He led them out of town and toward the caves, but not nearly as far. In a field of tall grasses, gnarled trees, and nesting birds, he stopped.
Not even Rune knew where the portal was. She hadn’t wanted to know, really. But she felt a sickening eagerness in her stomach at the thought of finally standing face to face with the unkind path.
The path she, Roma, and Nikolai walked hadn’t exactly surrounded them with flowers and candy.
But the path that had fucked up the berserker…yeah. That path was unkind.
And Will had exposed Tasha to it.
“Where is she, Assassin?” Rune asked, frowning.