by Bryn Donovan
The image of Mellie, dead in the grass, came back to Val again, and she covered her face.
Michael drew her closer again. “Let’s get you back to your room.”
When they reached the suite and she went in, Michael hovered at the threshold. She looked back at him in a daze.
“I might be hard to be around,” he said. “I’m so angry, and when I’m with you I’m always…” He shook his head, not naming his other feelings. She could feel his rage and, yes, his desire for her, the latter so constant that it was becoming part of his emotional signature, but all of it was eclipsed by tender concern. “Do you want to be alone, or…” His blue eyes searched hers. “What do you need?”
It was a balm to her wounded soul. Few people considered how they affected her as an empath, and he was willing to leave the suite to her, even though he had nowhere else to go. “Don’t leave me.”
He nodded and followed her inside, closing and locking the door behind them. Then he put his arm around her, gently, as though she were made of spun sugar, and led her to a chair. “Sit down, okay? I’ll be right back.” He returned with a wet hand towel and crouched down to clean up her hair.
For a few minutes, she’d forgotten that she was filthy, with vomit in her hair and her dress. She shrank away and tried to take the cloth from him, saying, “No, here, I’ll do it.”
“Shh.” He continued. “Okay, there. Your dress—”
“I’m going to throw it away.” She got to her feet, unzipped the back, and jerked out of it while Michael took a step back. In her bra, panties, and shoes, she wadded it up and strode over to the kitchen to shove it in the trash.
“I’m going to go clean up myself.” His voice was husky. He retreated to the bathroom.
All of this was crazy, horror beyond nightmare. Within the hour, she’d attend an obitus to discuss their fallen brethren—none of them known to her; she had no close friends still in Saint Augustine, but they were her family nonetheless—killed because an ancient enemy had lived inside her brain. A wave of dizziness overtook her at the thought.
She took a minute-long shower and put on a black dress. It had a border print of clocks, but it was the most somber clothing she’d packed. At the time, she’d thought the clocks were cute. Now they seemed like a reminder that one never knew how much time one had left.
When they were clean and dressed, they went down to the meeting room on the first floor. Michael, Jonathan, and Val sat down at the table with Nic, Aquario, a Steward she didn’t know, and Mina Khouri, the Comandante at Saint Augustine, who hadn’t attended the party. The woman’s fury and guilt filled the room.
The big screen was split between the people at El Dédalo who called in: Capitán Renaud of course, the Diviner Andre Turner, and the Scholar Hadiza Okafor. It was the second time that year Hadiza had been summoned to an obitus, and it must’ve been strange for her. Until lately, the expert on the Tribunal had been a historian, not a strategist. She wore a bright cocktail dress. Andre wore a black button-down shirt, a little more dressed up than usual. There must’ve been a Christmas party at El Dédalo too.
Val told them what she’d learned, repeating the conversation between her and the unnamed Tribunal member more or less verbatim. One of the reasons she did debriefs of missions was that she had excellent recall of conversations and events she saw in other people’s psyches. The same was true of Reading the dying man. Andre recorded this part of the meeting.
When she explained that the Tribunal had been monitoring everything she’d seen and heard, she choked up again. “We looked all over El Dédalo for the mole. I was the mole.”
“It’s not your fault,” Jonathan said quickly.
“I don’t feel guilty,” she said, though she had at first. “I feel violated.”
“You were violated,” Capitán said in a dispassionate way that somehow consoled her. He turned to Comandante Khouri. “Why wasn’t there more security?”
She flinched but answered in a steady voice. “Aquario was there, and we had one Steward watching the cameras inside, but the rest were on missions. And before now, the Tribunal was only in Europe.”
Despite the disaster, Val couldn’t help but sympathize. Safety hadn’t crossed any of their minds. There had never been any disturbances at Anantara, and after a particularly grueling couple of months, the comandante had probably wanted her people to have some fun…but everyone knew these things. Everyone also knew that Capitán loathed excuses.
Val said, “It was so rash, after they’ve been so careful to cover their tracks.”
“They heard most of the Knights weren’t coming,” Jonathan pointed out. “We talked about it. They knew Aquario and I would be the only ones who were armed.”
Capitán said, “Knights at the perimeter would’ve prevented this. At the party itself, it might’ve meant more deaths from friendly fire.”
Aquario asked, “Dominic also had a weapon, no?”
Nic gave a slight shake of his head. “I disarmed one of them.” He said it without self-awareness or pride. His numb shock matched Val’s own. But around the table, eyebrows raised.
“How?” Jonathan asked.
“I, uh, I dove under a table and crawled to another one that was close to him. Then I threw a chair at his head. Knocked him out.”
“That would do it,” Jonathan said. “They’re wrought iron.”
“And Michael took one out?” Aquario asked.
Jonathan said, “Yeah. I shot one. The other guy was distracted, seeing if he was alive, and Michael went straight at him without a gun. He was so fast.”
Aquario gave a low whistle. “Pretty nice work from El Dédalo.” Some at the guarídas harbored resentments toward the headquarters, where Scholars and Knights had everything they needed right at their fingertips, along with regular access to Capitán Renaud. But Aquario’s signature held only gratitude and admiration.
Comandante Khouri turned to Val. “You’re sure they can’t hear us right now?”
“They can’t.” The fact that they’d been able to in the first place filled her with misery and fury. Her own body, turned into a weapon. “They said they’d have to find another psychometrist. They’re looking for Sophie Kazakov.”
Jonathan and Nic both froze at the name: Jonathan’s ex-girlfriend, who hated Nic.
Andre huffed. “We couldn’t even find Kazakov.”
Comandante Khouri asked, “Why not?”
“She removed her tattooed skin, along with the embedded trackers,” Andre said. Val couldn’t help but cringe, even though she’d heard about this before, and she saw Jonathan do the same.
“Wait,” Michael said. “That must’ve been incredibly painful. Why didn’t your sensors or whatever go off?”
“Vitals aren’t tracked at all times,” Ande explained. “So many things can cause an increased heart rate or an adrenaline dump. We’re looking for ways to refine it, but if we had some kind of central alert system now, we’d have false alarms all over the place.”
“I’m still surprised we couldn’t find her,” Comandante Khouri mused.
“I’m not,” Jonathan said in a low voice. “She can hack anything.”
Andre nodded. “And chances are good that she ordered the Superman glasses from the same underground vendor we use.” The glasses used infrared holographic imagery to change the way the wearer’s features appeared to security cameras, thus foiling recognition software. They’d first developed them for Knights in China. The anti-recog glasses would’ve made her almost impossible to find in a crowd. “But we couldn’t even find a trace. I’d say it’s likely she’s not alive.”
Jonathan tensed. Maybe it hadn’t occurred to him that she might be dead, though the thought had certainly crossed Val’s mind before. Why else hadn’t they been able to find her?
Capitán glared. “I gave no orders to call off the search. She’s still Manus Sancti. She’s presumed alive until we know otherwise.”
“Yes, sir,” Andre said.
; Comandante Khouri frowned. “The more immediate problem is one hundred Tribunal at our front door.”
“It most likely does not mean one hundred soldiers,” the Scholar, Hadiza, said. “In the past, less than half did the actual fighting.” Her contralto voice underscored the reassuring words, but did nothing to soothe Val’s nerves.
Khouri shook her head. “But we have only ten Knights here, and two mission Mages. Do we move everyone to other guarídas?”
“No,” Capitán said. “We defend what’s ours. We move more Knights there and to the two safe houses nearby. West, you’re staying. Rios comes here to begin training when she’s back from break.” Jonathan nodded slightly. He didn’t care where he was assigned, she was sure, as long as he and Cassie were together. Capitán rattled off a list of thirty-some names from many different guarídas, beginning with Samir at El Dédalo.
“Joe, you stay too,” he added. The order hardly surprised Val. With an imminent threat, another mission runner made sense, particularly a former Knight who’d killed a shooter with his own weapon. “We also fortify Granada.” He looked to someone who didn’t appear on the camera. “Get Comandante West on the other line.”
Michael spoke up for the first time. “I need a gun.”
Jonathan and Nic exchanged a glance.
Capitán asked, “Are you getting your memory back?” Michael hesitated and then shook his head. “But you’re offering to fight with us?”
“To defend the people here.” His protectiveness touched Val’s heart.
“No. Your assignment is to get your memory back. The meds will make you too sick to fight. But you did well today.” Michael’s jaw flexed in dissatisfaction. “Turner, why didn’t the Tribunal show up on our radar?”
Andre looked grim. “We were looking in Europe. As far as we can tell, they don’t use cell phones or the Internet to communicate. But now that we know they’re here, we have a lot of other options. We won’t rest till we find them.” It was more than a figure of speech, Val knew.
“Get as many people on it as you need. And find Sophie Karazov.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Two nights later, Michael jolted awake, his heart pounding, before he recognized he was safe in bed. He remembered the shooters again.
He’d resisted the idea of killing and being a part of Manus Sancti. Now, he’d stomped a man to death.
The gore splattered in his imagination, sickening him. He still wasn’t a bit sorry. More than that, he wanted to help track the rest of these monsters who’d somehow convinced themselves that slaughtering people at a Christmas party was the kind of thing God wanted them to do. It was beyond sacrilege.
In his mind, he’d gone over the kill again and again. Something had flashed in his consciousness right before he’d taken the guy down with a roundhouse kick, boot to the dome. Something connected to the sound of gunfire. The smell of the water. The panic.
He’d heard a helicopter, except there hadn’t been one. His mind’s eye had seen a rag doll, a filthy one. Why?
Soon, he’d have to ask someone about it, but he was putting it off. He wanted it to be a memory, even a terrible one. If it wasn’t, and his brain was just glitching, it would be yet another disappointment.
He should take a shower. Another one.
What time was it? A faint light from the window cast long shadows over the room. Early evening. He’d gotten up that morning and had tried to comfort Val as she’d wept again over the butchering of her people. The horrors of the killer’s psyche haunted her, and he’d wished there were some way to take the memory from her, even though he hardly had any memories of his own.
He’d gone to the doctor for his first injection that afternoon, and she’d accompanied him. She’d bought a few things at a nearby shop she’d loved back when she’d lived in Florida: a large seashell, salted caramels, and a perfume she’d worn years ago.
By the time they’d gotten home, Michael had been nauseated. He hadn’t thrown up, but for a couple of hours, he’d wished he would. Dr. Holst had told him that with each injection, the periods of nausea would grow longer and more severe, and the diarrhea and excruciating headaches would begin. He was going to become more and more useless—and frankly, really gross—when the people here might need his protection, and when Valentina needed his support and strength.
If he were honest, those weren’t the only reasons the medical treatment rankled him. Every hour he was sick was an hour he wouldn’t be kissing her, making her come and maybe, if she ever asked him for it, very gently and lovingly fucking her senseless.
He couldn’t chastise himself for thinking about that, even during such a horrifying time. None of his life made any sense, and the more he learned about it, the harsher it seemed, but what he’d shared with her balanced out the ugliness.
Their one time together had been a revelation. She’d opened herself up to him, and she’d filled his senses—the sight of her voluptuous naked body, the satiny texture of her skin beneath his hands, the sound of her escalating moans, the scent and taste of her. Though much about her was still a mystery to him, he already knew her kind heart and surprising strength. The fact that she’d been so intimate with him gratified him in a way that went even deeper than the physical connection.
Where had she gone? Even as he wondered, the door opened, and she came in.
She smiled at him. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“Better. Where’d you go?”
“Just down to the laundry room.” He recalled that she’d taken down a load of filthy towels. She came over to sit on the edge of the bed.
He intertwined his fingers with hers. “Are there more people here now?” It felt strange that he was so disconnected from what was happening with the rest of the complex.
“Yes. And more are coming tomorrow.” A frown creased her forehead. “They’re having a memorial service for all of them in a couple of days, in a cathedral downtown. Even though two of the families will have services in other places too.”
“Other places?”
“One of them had most of her family in Tangiers, and another one was from Bogotá. But Capitán Renaud wanted a ceremony for all of them here as well.”
Michael nodded. He found it impossible to continue disliking the leader now that the man was guiding his people in the wake of such a horrific attack. “You got so much information out of that guy in such a short time. That has to help.”
“I hope so. I keep thinking of more things I should’ve asked. As long as they’ve got the stone, there’s a danger they could use me again.” She shuddered.
He remembered when Jonathan had smashed into his psyche. At least he’d known at the time that he was being invaded. What she’d been through was so much worse. “They said it would be hard for them to find another psycho-whatever.”
“Psychometrist. Yes, they’re incredibly rare. But I still feel worried.”
“Maybe we should take a walk.” It would get her mind off it. The fresh air would do him good too, because he still felt queasy. “Is it safe for you to go on the beach?”
“They have the whole perimeter guarded. We’re probably safer around here than anywhere else in the world right now.” She looked out the window. “It’s a good idea. Ocean waves contain healing. And the moon is almost full…it won’t set until after dawn. I’ll send out a message to let them know we’ll be walking.” She input the message into the phone. “Let’s go.”
They wandered out past the courtyard, the scene of festivity and then tragedy not hours before. It was quiet and clean. The light from the torches glistened on the fronds of the potted palms. They kept walking out to the sand, toward the dock.
“That stone they took from you,” he said. “It was magic?”
“No. But it was to me.” She sighed. “My mother called it an equinox stone. It was black on one side—well, dark blue, almost black—and golden on the other. At the spring and fall equinox, night and day are the same length. It’s a perfect balance.�
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“Right,” Michael said, not following the significance of this at all.
“I told her I wished it was day all the time. I was scared of the dark then.” This stirred tenderness in his heart—both imagining her as a sensitive child, and also thinking of how that child had grown up to live through a nightmare in broad daylight. “She kind of petted my hair and said there would be some long nights.”
“Wow,” Michael said quietly. Her mom got credit for honesty.
“She said something about how accepting the darkness would make me stronger. And that sometimes, the darkness would lead to the light.”
“Did you know what that meant?”
“No. I must’ve been eight. I don’t think I understand now.” Val shrugged. “Anyway, I thought it was pretty. It had glitter in it. I asked Agnes Goldberg about it once, and she said there were bits of pyrite in the stone. I started wearing it every day, like Jonathan wears his crucifix.” She shot an apologetic look at Michael. It wasn’t the first time she’d done this—forget for a moment that he couldn’t remember anything. “He wears a silver one all the time,” she explained. “It was from your great-great-grandfather’s rosary.”
The family had been Catholic for that long, then. “Was he in Manus Sancti?”
Val nodded. “He was the first. My family goes back even further. In Spain in the sixteen-hundreds.”
“Is your stone that old? I bet it’s worth a lot.”
She shook her head. “My mother bought it at a souq.” Michael understood what a souq was—a bazaar shopping district, with shops and stalls—and he wondered if he’d ever actually been to one. “We’d just moved to Cairo. I don’t think it’s worth much. But to me, it might as well be a diamond.”
“Did you like Cairo?” There was so much more he wanted to know about her. He’d asked so many questions about himself that he’d grown bored of the topic. “What kind of school did you go to?”
“Oh, I never went to a school. My mother taught me when I was little. Once I got to Cairo, I had tutors.”