“Nik,” I said softly, resting the half-empty glass on my knee. “I—”
He was standing at the stove, just out of view, but poked his head around the wall to look at me. His hair was askew, the longer strands swept mostly to one side, and his stare was open and intent.
“It was a little girl.” I stared at the glass of milk but watched Nik out of the corner of my eye. “Couldn’t have been more than seven years old.”
Nik didn’t say anything for a moment, just watched me right back. “One of the kids infected by the Ouroboros disease?” He reached out to do something on the stove, then came around the corner and into the living room. He sat on the coffee table in front of me, his legs splayed wide and his elbows on his knees. I could feel his eyes on me, I but still couldn’t bring myself to look at him. To see him. I wasn’t used to him being so attentive or serious. I didn’t really know how to interact with this Nik.
I nodded. “The girl—she entered the final phase right after another kid.” My face felt numb, my voice devoid of emotion or intonation. “The sedatives don’t always work.” I swallowed. “Nobody was ready when she went rabid, and I was the first to get to her.” I blinked slowly, seeing not the glass of milk in my hands but the hospital in the Tent District. The chaos and fear. The little girl tearing into that poor teenager’s body.
“She’d already killed a couple people,” I continued, “and she wasn’t showing any signs of weakening yet. I—” Another blink, and I cleared my throat. “I stopped her.” Finally, I met Nik’s eyes. “I killed her.”
Nik didn’t reach out to touch me or offer up any comforting platitudes. He simply stared at me for long seconds, his breathing even, his heartbeat steady. I could feel my own slowing to match his, pulled in by the steady rhythm, like he was the moon to my ocean, regulating the tide of emotions within me. “Do you know her name?” he finally asked.
Again, I nodded. “Abigail.”
His answering nod was slow, thoughtful. He shifted his hands to his knees and pushed himself up. “Hang on,” he said, already walking to the apartment door. “I’ll be back in a second.”
After he shut the door, out of the corner of my eye I noticed something shiny on the coffee table, about a foot from where he’d been sitting. It was the little mirror pendant that afforded Dom’s soul a window out to the physical realm. The broken chain was gone, and a thin black leather cord had taken its place. I wasn’t quite ready to face Dom after my meltdown, but it was a comfort to know he was nearby.
Nik returned a couple minutes later with a tattoo machine in one hand and a small bottle of At ink in the other. “Ready to add her name to the list?” he said, sitting on the couch beside me. He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and pulled my left arm out so it lay across his lap, then ran the tips of his fingers over the list of forty names. Of the dead. My dead.
I shivered at the gentle touch.
Nik’s gaze flicked up to meet mine, a faint glimmer of that familiar, snarky spark shimmering in those pale blue depths. It was the first I’d seen of it since waking. “Any others I should know about?” He shrugged one shoulder. “You’re so efficient, I just figured you were bound to have racked up a few more names by now.”
The ghost of a laugh shook my chest. I thought of the mercenaries who’d invaded Garth’s apartment—some of them hadn’t survived—but finding out their names would require a fair bit of detective work on my part. And even then, it would be impossible to say which had been killed by my hand and which by Garth’s. And then I thought of Mitch Carmichael and wished, yet again, that I’d killed him. But I hadn’t.
Eyes locked with Nik’s, I shook my head. A second later, my stomach grumbled. Nik snorted, and I smiled sheepishly.
He gave me back my arm and stood, heading for the kitchen. “Food, first, then ink.”
I glanced down at my arm. I could still feel his fingertips gliding over my At tattoo, like his touch was seared into my skin. It was as though the At ink was having some sort of a reaction to him, its creator.
“Here you go,” Nik said, dragging my gaze up from my arm.
“How—” I shook my head, staring up at him. Numbly, I accepted the plate and set it on my lap.
Nik returned to the kitchen.
“You know how you said you can sense the At ink?” Briefly, I thought back to that morning on the roof of the Columbia Center, to the way his attention had been drawn to the freshly inked piece on my arm even though it was covered by the leather sleeve of my coat. “I think, maybe, it can sense you, too.”
Nik came back with a plate of his own and sat a couple feet from me on the couch. “What do you mean?” he asked, shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.
“I—” I laughed under my breath, then looked at my plate. It was filled with scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and sausage links. I couldn’t remember the last time so much real food had been cooked on that stove. “I’m not sure,” I told him, picking up a triangle of toast. “I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out.”
“You do that, Kitty Kat.” Nik speared a sausage link with his fork, then winked at me. “You do that.”
Chapter Twenty
“So why’d you come here, really, Kitty Kat, because I know it wasn’t for this.” The tattoo machine hummed in Nik’s hand, the needle scratching incessantly into my skin, depositing opalescent At ink and permanently marking me with Abigail’s name. My arm was stretched across Nik’s lap again, and I was resting my head on the back of the couch.
I sighed, heavily, and closed my eyes. There wasn’t much to stare at on the ceiling anyway. “I need your help.”
“With what?” Nik asked, not missing a beat with the ink job.
I opened my eyes and turned my head so I could see his face. Or, at least, part of his face. With the way he was leaned over my arm, I could see maybe a third of his perfect, masculine features. It didn’t matter what angle I viewed him from, his beauty was unreal regardless. Not that I would ever tell him that.
Nik lifted the needle from my arm and looked at me sidelong. “Next time, warn me before you move. This shit’s permanent.”
My pulse jumped, and I glanced down at my arm, worried I’d made him screw up.
“I was kidding,” he said, nudging my shoulder with his. “It’s At, Kitty Kat; it does whatever I tell it to do. If I mess up my lines, I can fix it.” He laughed under his breath. “I’m done, anyway.”
I could see that, considering I was still looking at my arm.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he reminded me.
I raised my gaze to meet his, licked my lips, and inhaled deeply. “I, uh . . .” I looked away, focusing instead on the opposite wall. Nik’s pale stare was too keen, too knowing. “Earlier today—”
“Yesterday,” Nik corrected. “It’s already tomorrow.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What time?”
“Four in the morning. You went through a single regeneration cycle, but I think you’ll need one more.”
I nodded absently. It made sense, considering the state I’d put myself in, not to mention everything I’d put my body through today. Or yesterday. I hadn’t intended to lose so much time—or any time. But it wasn’t like I’d have been able to execute my plan at midnight, anyway. Oh, no; this plan required regular business hours, very specific ones. This plan allowed time for one more regeneration cycle, thankfully. Nik was right: my body needed it.
“Yesterday,” I said, “I had a little chat with one of the board members at his flat—Mitch Carmichael. It didn’t matter how persuasive I was; he didn’t have the information I needed to stop this disease.” I glanced at Nik—his attention was rapt, all on me—then returned to staring at the blank wall. “When I was done with good ol’ Mitch, I sent him to Bainbridge.” Disgust was thick in my voice. “I figured they could get other useful information out of him, even if he’d proved useless with this.”
“You don’t sound too happy about that,” Nik commented.
> My lip curled. “The things he did . . .” I shook my head, heartbeat picking up. “I wanted to kill him so badly.” My eyes burned with unshed tears. Poor Sammy. “I wanted his soul to die.” I looked at Nik, defiant. He tended to frown on me killing humans. So did I, but that wasn’t the point. “It’s what he deserved, but . . .” My shoulders slumped.
“No doubt he deserved it,” Nik said quietly. Seconds passed, me attempting to regain my simmering composure and Nik studying every inch of my face, watching me struggle with my frustration and anger. “But it wasn’t weakness—not killing him.”
I snorted derisively and crossed my arms over my chest, redirecting my stare back to the wall.
Apparently Nik was over my avoidance strategies, because he gripped my chin and turned my face back toward him, forcing me to look at him. To face him. “You exercised restraint. Even when faced with what was clearly a lot of rage.” The faintest smile touched his lips. “I’m a little impressed, actually. It’s not your usual style.”
I tried to yank my jaw free, but he tightened his grip. I clenched my teeth together so hard that they creaked.
“Besides,” Nik said, “you can always finish the job later.”
I stared off to the side. Only if I survived the coming day, and that was questionable, especially if Nik wasn’t down to help me. “Nik, I—”
Pierced eyebrow quirking upward, he released my jaw.
I took a deep breath, then dove in. “I’m going after the rest of the board. Today. According to Carmichael, there’s a board meeting scheduled for this afternoon. They’re going to be voting to un-chair Constance Ward—she’s the chairman of the board—so they’ll at least need a quorum, but from the way Carmichael was talking, the other twelve board members will all be there. It’s the best chance we’ll have of getting the information we need to stop this thing.”
“We,” Nik said. An observation, not a question.
I shifted on the couch, pulling up my left knee and turning to face him. “Getting into the boardroom will be the hardest part, but once we’re inside, you can seal us in with the board—and everyone else out.” I leaned in a few inches, eyes searching his. “Once we get what we need from them, I can create a gateway to the Tent District or Bainbridge or wherever we need to be. But if you’re not with me . . .” I’d have to rely on door locks. I’d only have seconds to get the information. And I’d probably die in the attempt.
“Why?” Nik’s voice was flat, his stare distant. “Why do you care so much?”
“If I can get the cure to Dorman, he and his people will support Heru,” I explained. “He’s already agreed to—”
“Bullshit.”
For several seconds, I sat there with my mouth half open. Brow furrowed, I brought my lips together.
Nik fixed his intense, pale stare on me. “This isn’t about Heru’s revolution. It’s more than that to you. What is it, Kitty Kat? Why does finding a way to stop this disease matter to you so much? It doesn’t affect our people.” He laughed under his breath, humorless and bitter. “In fact, if it really does come down to a war between humans and Nejerets, a pandemic wiping out most of the mortals would go a long way toward evening out the playing field. This disease could wipe out millions—billions—if it gets beyond the Tent District. The infection rate is already exponential, and it’s only been contained because people so rarely come and go from that place.” He inhaled and exhaled, his eyes searching mine. “So drop the holier-than-thou, I’m-doing-this-for-the-good-of-our-people act and tell me the real reason you want to stop this thing, because the good of our people would mean letting it run its course.”
My chest heaved with each successive breath, and my nostrils flared. The words coming out of his mouth were so unexpected I could barely understand them, let alone believe them.
“Why?” Nik asked once more. Demanded.
“Because it’s not their fault,” I snapped, standing. I stalked across the room, not caring in the least that I was wearing only a T-shirt and underwear. “Because they’re not our enemies, no matter what the Senate or Ouroboros or Initiative Industries want us to think.” I spun around when I reached the front door and headed back toward the kitchen. Pacing always helped me think, helped the words flow, and I was ready to unleash on Nik. “Because innocent people shouldn’t have to pay for a war they know nothing about. That’s the real bullshit, Nik, and I’m not about to walk away from these people just because they’re a different species. Just because walking away would be easier. They deserve better than that. I don’t run when things get hard.” I glared at him. “I’m not a coward.”
A slow, wolfish grin spread across his face. “But I am?”
I glanced at him, but kept on pacing. “I never said that.”
“Not in so many words.” He stood and rounded the coffee table, coming to stand directly in my path.
I tried to turn away from him, but he took hold of my arm, and I knew better than to test my strength against his. He would win that battle, every time. I settled on a question instead. “Why did you leave?”
Nik was quiet for so long I doubted he would answer. But finally, he did. “I needed some time. It was too quiet in my head after Re was gone. I didn’t know how to be just me.” He was talking about the time he disappeared a little over three years ago, after waking up from a decades-long coma and finding his body housing one soul instead of two. But that wasn’t the time I was talking about.
I jutted my jaw forward to keep my chin and lips from trembling. “Not then,” I said, my voice hushed. “Before, when I—when we . . .” I cleared my throat. I was referring to the one and only time we kissed, two decades ago, just downstairs. It was back when the shop had sold magic and mysticism rather than ink and fortunes. The kiss had been both wondrous and disastrous. It had been the beginning of the end.
Again, Nik let that long silence settle over us. “Re and I had an agreement,” he finally said, speaking of the other, godly being who’d shared his body for millennia. “One of many. Where certain things were concerned, my body was mine alone. He agreed to forgo pleasures of the flesh, so long as I only pursued them when he was dormant.”
My gaze wandered up to Nik’s face.
A bitter smile twisted his lips. “Over the centuries, Re became more and more resistant to voluntarily going dormant.” Nik’s grin grew sly. “But I’d learned early on that he detested physical pain, so if I found myself, well, wanting, all I had to do was drive him away with pain, first.”
I thought back to the flashes of memory I had from earlier, when he’d first arrived. He’d been covered in scrapes and bruises. And then I recalled all of those mornings so many years ago, when we’d been working together to track down the rogue Nejerets responsible for my mother’s murder—Nik had suffered from minor injuries more mornings than not. Was this, right here, the explanation for why?
“I fell into a pattern,” Nik explained. “For millennia, I only ever touched a woman after I’d run Re off with enough pain to keep him dormant for hours. I never touched anyone in any non-platonic way while he was conscious.” Nik tilted his head to the side, his pale blue eyes locked with mine. “Until you.” He released my arm, but I didn’t move away. “It was too much for Re.” Another gentle, bitter laugh. “Maybe too much for me, too.”
I faced him fully, ever so slowly shaking my head. “Why?” I searched his eyes for answers I doubted he would give me. “Why me, Nik? Why then?”
It was his turn to look away. “I’ll do it—this thing with the Ouroboros board. I’ll help you, if you still want me to.”
I blinked, opened my mouth, blinked again, and just stared at him. Disappointment warred with exhilaration within me. His non-answer spoke volumes; I just didn’t know what it was saying. But his offer to help me with my current mission chased the disappointment away, and a grin overtook my face before I could even consider stopping it. “Really? You mean it? Even if it’s not what’s best for our people?”
He shot me a sly gl
ance. “Humans, Nejerets . . . we all share the same ancestors.” It was true; thousands and thousands of years ago, Nuin, the first human Re possessed, had been born to two fully human parents. He’d started our species the moment he reproduced, but we all truly originated in the same place. Without humans, we wouldn’t ever have existed at all.
“Well, alright,” I said, still grinning.
“Besides,” Nik added, his tone light, “we’ve got to make sure your boyfriend’s safe.”
My smile soured. “Garth’s not my boyfriend.”
“Oh yeah?” Nik moved around me to pick up our plates from the coffee table. “Have you told him that?”
I frowned, then stuck out my tongue at Nik.
He laughed.
Feeling lighter, I waited until he disappeared around the wall dividing the living room and the kitchen, then made my way to the coffee table and picked up the mirror pendant. “Dom?” I said, holding it against my palm so I’d be able to hear his response. “Are you around?” I couldn’t see him, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t nearby.
His sharp-featured face appeared not a second later. “Little sister . . . you are well?”
I had no doubt that he’d overheard much of what transpired with me over the past few hours. It had probably been driving him crazy, knowing I was entering a tailspin and not being able to do anything about it. “I’m fine. Now,” I added. “But I had a lot of help.”
“I know. And I’m grateful to Nik.” He paused for a moment. “Perhaps I have been too critical of him.”
“Oh,” I said with a laugh. “I never thought I’d hear you say that.”
Nik poked his head out of the kitchen, but as soon as he saw me talking to my palm, he retreated again.
Dom fell back into silence, and I studied his somber features. It was clear that something was bothering him, even in his miniature state. “What is it, Dom?”
He sighed, heavily, something he still seemed to be an expert at despite having no physical lungs or breath or mouth to actually sigh with. “It’s Garth,” he said. “He never made it to Bainbridge.”
Kat Dubois Chronicles Page 32