by Bryn Donovan
A couple of minutes later, as they were still talking, the music changed to a slow ballad.
Michael put a hand on Val’s shoulder. “Come on, you can dance to this.”
Jonathan looked over. His concern was well-intentioned, but he was starting to annoy her. And now that she was away from the familiar setting of El Dédalo, where she didn’t know everyone, she barely cared what people might think.
“Sure,” she said to Michael. They found a place on the edge of the courtyard, and she reached up to put her hand on his shoulder. “You’re a lot taller than me.”
“And yet we’re perfect together.” His low, teasing voice sent heat straight to her core as his large hand came to rest in the middle of her lower back, drawing her closer to him than she’d expected. He clasped her other hand in his.
“I haven’t done this for a while,” she told him. “But you showed me how in Cairo.” He perked up, the way he always did when she talked about their shared past. She added, “I was maybe twelve.”
“I bet you were adorable.”
“No,” she said honestly. Everyone was beautiful in their own way, a creation of nature and a blessed child of the Goddess. She believed that, but still…she’d had bad skin and braces. “Awkward stage” would’ve been putting it kindly. “And not many people liked me. I’m not just an empath from my mom, but also my father’s mother. So I’m really emotional, and I was even more emotional then. I’d cry all the time. Nobody likes that.”
Michael was quiet for a few moments. Then he said, “You should never feel bad for being sensitive.”
He was almost too good to be true. She dared to confess something. “You know, I used to daydream about this.”
“What?”
“Dancing with you like this. As an adult.” Not as friends, playing around.
His face lit with pleasure. “I’m fulfilling your fantasy? Right now?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.” He reached his hand down to rest on her ass.
“Hey,” she protested, wriggling.
He immediately moved them back to her waist again. “Sorry. Your ass is so awesome, it has a gravitational pull.”
She laughed. “Did you just say I have a big ass? Like a planet?”
“It’s definitely a heavenly object.”
“Smooth,” she admitted. His rising lust was making her dizzy.
He drew her closer in his strong arms, and words fled from her mind. The sensation of being so close to him, the beauty of the violet twilight and, over the sound of the music, the crashing waves of the sea…she wished it could go on for hours.
As the sound ended, he brought his face close to hers to murmur, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“I had a good teacher,” she breathed.
He leaned in and his lips briefly covered hers. The kiss brought back the memory of the pleasure he’d given her before and the promise of more to come. She took in a quick breath and her heart beat wildly, a disproportionate response to such a gentle kiss, like a breeze that triggered a tsunami.
They shouldn’t be doing this, not in public. She pulled away.
His eyes clouded with regret. “I know. We said we wouldn’t.”
Was it even fair to keep things a secret? It wasn’t like her to deceive anyone. She couldn’t think clearly when her senses were overheated by his passion. A back door to the mansion, not far from them, offered a quick escape. “I— I’ll be right back.”
She retreated and darted around the corner of the house, but she didn’t get any further before she heard Jonathan’s voice demanding, “What are you doing?”
Oh, no. She peeked around to see Michael looking at Jonathan as though he’d lost his mind.
“Kissing a pretty girl?” he answered.
Jonathan must’ve seen the whole thing, including her running away. But from a distance, he might not have been able to tell she’d wanted to be kissed. His big-brother protectiveness had come on in full force, despite the fact that she was an adult and didn’t, in this particular situation, need protecting. “No, this is Val. She’s like a sister to you.”
“Clearly not true.”
“She’s not a random hookup.” Jonathan had lowered his voice, because a couple of the party guests had looked their way. The fight reminded her of when they were in high school, though Michael wouldn’t know that. “If that’s what you want, there’s probably a half a dozen people here who—”
“I want her.” Michael’s voice was flat with anger.
Val covered her mouth with her hand. His intensity took her aback—and thrilled her.
Meanwhile, she’d retreated like a coward. She couldn’t keep hiding and eavesdropping like one. She stepped out into view. Michael and Jonathan saw her at the same time, and she opened her mouth to say something.
Foreign malice and hatred slammed into her, coming at her from the left and the right. Her heart beat wildly.
She searched the party scene, shouting to Jonathan, “Someone’s here!” Reflexively, he reached for his weapon, looking around them.
Gunfire rang out. Screams.
No! Val stood frozen in horror. The shadowed shapes of two men stalked down the hill toward the party, firing into the crowd. Where was the other one, on the right? A woman fell, and Val shrieked.
Jonathan shoved her and Michael hard toward the back of the mansion. “Get inside!”
CHAPTER TEN
Val ran, stumbling once before getting through the back door, another woman right behind her. An old man and a middle-aged woman she didn’t know crouched on the floor, their faces ashen. Shouting and gunfire thundered outside the door.
“Tribunal!” the woman behind her gasped.
Where’s Michael? He didn’t have a gun. Choking on panic, Val turned back to the door.
The woman grabbed her arm and yelled, “No!” Val yanked away from her, rushed outside, and peered around the corner.
People running. People on the ground. The terror and the hatred of the chaotic scene brought her to her knees, and she got to her feet again, her legs wobbling with the effort. She sensed Michael before she spotted him, a bright beam of focus and fury.
Unarmed, he ran at one of the shooters who gazed down at a fallen comrade. He came at the man from the side, unnoticed for a moment. But then the man looked up at Michael and raised his gun. A silent scream ripped through Val’s body.
Michael darted to one side as the man fired and in the next instant landed a brutal booted kick straight into the man’s throat. The assailant’s head bobbed on his neck before he fell backward to the ground like a tree. Michael rushed forward and with both feet jumped on the man’s face. A huge spurt of blood. It must’ve crushed his skull. Val covered her eyes, then looked again.
Jonathan ran toward Michael, yelling, “Don’t kill him!”
The shooting had stopped. Faint moans and voices punctuated the silence. Nic stood in the middle of the courtyard over a lifeless man, gun in his hands, breathing hard as he scanned around him for more enemies. Several bodies laid on the ground, but they stirred. One didn’t. The fear and grief of many ricocheted through Val’s being.
She jolted out of her frozen stance and jogged over toward Jonathan and Michael on wobbly legs. Now they both held guns.
“Val!” Jonathan said, looking up. “Read him, fast as you can!”
She understood. The man was dying. As she kneeled down next to him, she averted her eyes from his smashed face and blocked out the terrible hissing sound that came from his crushed throat. Squeezing the time as hard as she could, she plunged in.
She’d known it would be bad, but the stench of decaying flesh in his psyche turned her stomach.
They stood facing one another on a hill of desiccated grass under a yellow-gray sky. A massive wooden cross loomed over them both, taller than a skyscraper. Dead bodies, half rotted, had been stacked all around it—a worse scene than what she’d left.
She’d been in beautifu
l soulscapes shaped by religion—Jonathan’s, for one. But his, though shadowed with sorrows, was filled with his ideals. This one was what happened if the sorrow turned to the need of endless sacrifice, and no amount of blood could ever be enough to atone. She fought the urge to escape back into the ordinary plane.
The man’s face flushed purple-red with rage. “Where am I, witch?”
He couldn’t lie to her here, and she had to get all of the truth she could. “How many of you Tribunal are there?”
“Five hundred.”
So many.
His eyes widened at his own ready response. “Damn you to hell!” He tried to rush her and found he couldn’t move from the spot. Attacks never worked in this plane.
“Where are you based?”
“Rome.”
“What about in the United States?”
He spat. “What do you think? Saint Augustine!”
“How many in Saint Augustine?”
“More than a hundred.”
Her heart froze. There were maybe a hundred fifty people at the guarída in Saint Augustine, and Nic had said there were ten Knights. “Why only five men today?”
He sneered. “We heard about the party—”
“How did you hear?”
His eyes half closed in malicious glee. “Where is your equinox stone?”
Her hand flew to her throat.
The crystal her mother had given her—a tourmaline, half pale yellow, half black—had hung there on a chain for years. She’d lost it not long ago after visiting her and her father in Granada. It had been neither valuable nor magical, but she’d missed it dearly ever since.
“We drugged your tea on the plane, and stole it while you slept,” he said with pleasure.
“Who did? The men here today?” He nodded. “Anyone else?”
He grimaced. “No.”
“Then what did you do?”
“With the Lord’s help, I bound it to your mind. Everything you hear, everything you see—all mine.”
“You’re a psychometrist.” He could learn about people from objects they’d once touched. Somehow, using magic, he or someone else had forged a live link, so the crystal had continued to feed him information.
No, no, no. Horror overcame her. Without meaning to, she’d been a spy for our enemy.
“I have a gift from the most-high God.”
Her stomach heaved. “How did you find me?”
“Your Knight in the hospital rambled before he died. He wanted to tell you what had happened to him.” The one who’d died of ghost typhoid. But how had they found out about him? “You were our perfect informant, and you used your own name when you booked the flight out of Albuquerque.” She’d booked it with her fake driver’s license, but it had her real name. Because she didn’t go on missions, they’d never thought she needed an alias. Her mind swirled, trying to put it all together. “You got your friend the Scholar killed. The codex sounded so useful too. But no matter.”
“Are there any more like you who could use the stone?”
“We were going to ask the Greek girl about Sophie Kazokov.”
And when had the Tribunal heard about Sophie? She must’ve talked about her. She must’ve said her full name… She remembered. She’d been talking to one of the Knights about a mission when they could’ve used a psychometrist. How much more had they learned already? “Do you know where our headquarters is?”
“El Dédalo? We know it’s in southern New Mexico.”
Hearing the name sent a cold wave of dread through Val. “Are you planning to attack it?”
He grunted. “We were also interrogating the Greek girl about how to get in.”
Lucia, Samir’s fiancée, had ended her life before she could give up information. After they’d gouged out her eye, Jonathan had managed to contact her. She’d told him they were Tribunal before speaking her drop code—a particular, individual sentence or two that triggered the nanochips in her tattoo to stop her heart.
The Scholar had been so brave, so decisive. It was a horrible thing to be grateful for.
“Do you know the names of our Knights?” she asked. But of course, they did. “And their faces?”
“Yes. We made sketches.”
“Which other guarídas do you know about?”
“We were going to get those out of her too.” His sadistic smile made hatred flow through Val’s veins. “We know about the one downtown and the one in Granada.”
“The exact locations?”
“Yes. And we know you have ones in D.C. Athens. Sao Paolo. Rome. Paris. Manila.”
That was all? She supposed she didn’t often talk about them. “Where’s the equinox stone?” The sky darkened. No, no, no. She was losing him. Why hadn’t she asked this first?
The man grew transparent. “Blessed Virgin Mary,” he murmured. It made her sick to hear him call on the deity her grandmother worshipped.
She tried again. “Where in Saint Augustine are you?”
All went black and colder than cold.
She hurled herself back into the ordinary plane. To remain in the soul of a dead man led to one’s own quick death.
She still kneeled on the ground next to the body, Jonathan crouched across from her, watching her intently, and Michael also on his knees at her side. Nausea roiled through her. She scuttled away on her hands and knees and heaved up the bitter contents of her stomach like a sick dog.
“Shit.” Michael rushed over to help her to her feet. “What happened?” He encircled her shoulders with his arm.
Jonathan reached them, demanding, “Did you get anything?”
Maybe a couple dozen people remained outside now. A woman’s body laid in the grass not far from the barbecue grill, facing away from them, her long hair spilled out. Brown with blond highlights. Mellie Derin.
Val gagged again and wiped her mouth. Her whole body shook. How had it gotten so cold? Jonathan had just asked her something— What? Her brain wasn’t functioning properly.
Aquario Cruz jogged up, now wearing only a ribbed white undershirt smeared with blood. “Medics on their way. Does she need one?”
“No,” she said. “How many hurt? How many died?” Her voice trembled along with her body.
“Four dead, at least six wounded.” Jonathan’s and Michael’s rage rose up like one dark, rolling dust storm. “Nic and I are seeing if anyone else is hurt.” Knights had first aid training, and they’d probably bandaged up the injured.
Val burst into tears. For once, crying surprised her. She’d thought she was numb. The sobs racked through her, harsh and ugly. Michael wrapped both arms around her, holding her close. She was vaguely aware she probably had vomit in her hair or on her dress. Everything in the world was ruined.
Aquario said to Jonathan in a lower voice, “Obitus, half hour, I’ll call it.” He strode off.
Between Jonathan, Michael, Aquario, and Nic, they’d quickly dispatched the five shooters, descending from two directions, though both Nic and Michael had been unarmed. She raised her head from Michael’s chest. An older man ran over to Mellie’s body lying near the barbecue grill with a wordless cry, and his grief pierced Val.
“We need to get her away from here,” Michael said to Jonathan, his voice tight, and then he turned to her. “Come on, angel, let’s walk down to the beach, all right?”
A good idea. There was healing in ocean waters. Her mother had always said so. Though after all this, what healing could there be?
When the three of them reached the sand, Val took in a deep breath of salty air, and then another. Michael released her to walk a foot into the ocean with his shoes on. Washing off the blood, she realized, and maybe brains. Her gorge rose again and she looked away, taking deep breaths. After a few waves, he sloshed back.
Jonathan said to Val, “I know it was bad in there.”
Michael snapped at him, “Why didn’t you do it?” He put his arm around her again.
“Val can compress the time. He would’ve died before I could ask h
im much.”
Michael exhaled, his shoulders sagging. “That’s my fault.”
“No, no, no,” Jonathan said, warmth and earnestness in his voice, his eyes filled with sincerity. He put a hand on Michael’s arm and, for once, his brother didn’t pull away. “You were incredible. You kicked a shooter to death. You saved lives.”
Michael startled at the praise, and a cord of amity twined between them. Maybe they could be brothers, even if Michael never regained his past. The possibility brought one bare thread of hope to Val’s broken spirit. Michael cast a glance back toward the courtyard. “Who were they?”
“Tribunal,” Jonathan said. “Descendants of the elite in the Spanish Inquisition. They decimated our ranks centuries ago.”
Michael glanced at Val. “They think you’re witches,” he guessed in a low tone. “Because of your powers.”
“Yeah. They have powers too, but of course, theirs are from God and ours are from the Devil.”
Michael gave a humorless laugh. “So they’re literal descendants?”
“We don’t know,” Val said. “They’re the ones who captured Lucia.” Remembering the woman brought fresh tears to her eyes. First, one murder, and now, several. What would become of them all?
Michael took a moment, as if he needed to get everything straight in his head. “What if this is a nightmare?”
Jonathan blinked. “What?”
“All this,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “I’m in a coma somewhere, and this is a horrible dream.”
Suddenly, Jonathan looked weary beyond the bounds of physical exhaustion. “I’m sorry. I wish it were.”
Michael frowned. A seagull flapped near them with a squawk before veering back over the waves again. “How do we kill the rest of them?”
Jonathan looked to Val.
“I learned a lot,” she said. She was going to have to tell them she was the mole. The thought of it made her throat tighten with panic. “I’ll tell everyone at once at the obitus.”
Jonathan explained to Michael, “It’s a meeting we have after someone’s killed, to talk about how to honor the dead and, usually, take revenge for them. They’ll want you there.”