When I got to the door to my room, I felt a momentary flash of despair. Surely Señora Duarte would be sleeping in my place to keep an eye on Ella. Did she know about my fall from Álvar’s grace? I set my jaw. It was a risk I’d have to take.
I clicked open my door as softly as possible. Señora Duarte, her hair all tied up in rag curls, snored softly in my bed. I bit my lip and tried to peer across the suite into Ella’s chamber. As quietly as possible, I padded to her bedside.
Ella’s eyes fluttered open groggily as I shook her shoulder, and I immediately put a finger to my lips as I motioned with my eyes to Señora Duarte. Ella blinked a few times. She probably wasn’t entirely sure if this was a dream or not, but she nodded once. Kissing her cheek, I lifted her into my arms.
We were nearly to the door when I realized the key piece I would need for my plan to work. The siren relic elixir. It was still tucked in the drawer to my nightstand—right next to Señora Duarte’s face. My mind raced. I had to fetch it, if I could.
I set Ella down and once again motioned for her to be as quiet as possible. Each footstep I made toward the nightstand seemed to creak unbearably. My gaze stayed fixed on Señora Duarte, focused on any shift in her soft, rhythmic breathing. I slid closer, one slow step at a time. Finally my fingertips rested against the nightstand.
With eyes squeezed shut and a prayer in my heart, I pulled at the little drawer. It creaked. Señora Duarte inhaled sharply, but then let out a deep breath. Still asleep. Squeezing my breath, I tugged the drawer the rest of the way open. The blue vial of siren elixir rolled out, glinting in the lamplight. Safe and untampered with. My plan became a shade less crazy.
Ella padded groggily beside me, grasping my hand as we followed Señor Torres, the Captain of the Guard, down the dark corridor.
Waking him in the middle of the night had actually turned out to work in my favor. His mind was softer, more susceptible to the siren relic’s magic. He showed reasonable resistance to the idea of taking me to the hidden chamber, but when I insisted that Álvar had summoned me there in an angry rage, he relented.
I kept a hand firmly on Ella’s as we neared the passage. My eyes switched left to right at the closed, silent doors. The slightest creak sent stabs of fear through me, even with the calming coolness of the siren magic in my veins. I could feel the power waning within me every second. There certainly wasn’t enough left to influence anyone else. To be stopped and challenged right now would be a disaster. But thankfully, the hallways remained empty. The Hacienda slept.
When we reached the little anteroom, Señor Torres shot me another hesitant glance. I gazed back earnestly. “I do hope Álvar isn’t furious that I’ve taken so long. I hate to think who he’d blame.”
The hint was clear. Gritting his teeth a little, Señor Torres set a hand on a seemingly blank piece of the wall. His fingers pressed down, and five indents sank into the stone. With a gentle rumble, the panel of wall slid open. Ella breathed a little gasp of surprise. I squeezed her shoulder.
The shadowy corridor spread out before us, dark as pitch. I hesitated. Álvar could be in there at that moment. Or his men. Even if he didn’t have the Ko Zhin, he clearly didn’t want people seeing whatever he concealed behind that wall.
But I had to try. I had to know.
A thought came to me. Summoning every final ounce of the siren magic that I could, I turned to Señor Torres. “You had better go in and announce us. I want to make sure he is ready to receive me.”
The Captain pursed his lips, but the magic still held sway over his mind, and he bowed. “If you wish.”
I breathlessly watched him enter the dark corridor. As soon as he vanished in the shadows, I grabbed Ella’s shoulders, kneeling in front of her.
“You listen to me,” I said firmly. “There’s something I have to check in there. But I can’t let that man know I’m checking, understand? You wait right here for me.”
Ella shifted nervously. “Maggie…”
“It’ll be okay. I promise. I’ll sneak in there real quiet. And if I hear Señor Castilla’s voice, I’ll come right back out, and we’ll make a run for it together. But you need to stay right here until I get back, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, nodding.
I kissed her forehead and, drawing in a deep breath, slipped into the shadow of the tunnel. I’d have given anything for Landon’s goblin relic right then. The corridor wound down, deep into the bowels of the Hacienda, dark and silent. And empty. But just when I was starting to think I’d better cut my losses and turn back, the corridor ended in a vast, round chamber.
I pressed my back against the tunnel wall to hide. But after a moment of holding my breath, I realized I didn’t hear the sound of anyone talking or even walking about in the chamber. Was there perhaps some other passage connected to the tunnel that I’d missed? I gathered my courage and peered into the large chamber.
Empty.
Except…in the center of the chamber, bathed in a column of moonlight that cut in from some distant grate above us, stood a pedestal of stone. And on the pedestal was a red staff. A red staff that emanated a faint black glow. A staff that filled my heart with hot, pulsing wind.
The Ko Zhin.
It had been Álvar all along.
The realization struck me like lightning on a pond. Álvar had killed my parents. And Jeb. And Landon and Bobby. He’d burned all those towns. He would have watched Yahn hang. And now he led the siege against an entire group of innocent people.
My people.
Nausea burned through me. My entire body trembled; my legs felt like jelly. In spite of all I’d seen, everything I’d had to face, I had never been more afraid in my entire life. I knew immediately that I had to get Ella, and I had to get her that instant.
The sound of scraping stone tore through the chamber. Startled, I spun around. Just behind the Ko Zhin, a hidden doorway opened in the wall. Fear cut through me. I turned to run, but then a strange, small sound, like a muffled shout, froze me in my tracks.
I turned back around, breathless. And then I heard a voice I recognized, a voice that sent ice shooting through my veins.
“My, my, my. If it isn’t Maggie, my little lost lamb.”
Percy Connelly stepped into the chamber. He held a struggling Ella in his arms, with one hand pressed firmly over her mouth.
“Look who I found,” he said, motioning to her as he stepped into the moonlight.
Rage burned through me. “Get your hands off my sister,” I roared, lunging for them.
Ella tore her face free from Connelly’s hand and screamed. “Maggie! Look out!”
But at the same moment, a harsh pair of arms locked around my waist. I shot a look over my shoulder. Señor Torres smashed one hand around my throat, glaring.
“Let go of me,” I shouted, gasping through his grip.
Connelly laughed. “I must say, it’s a bit of a surprise to see you here. Thought you’d caused all the trouble possible this evenin’.” He grinned, satisfied. “When I volunteered to guard the staff tonight, I just thought I was making myself useful to Álvar; I didn’t know I’d get this little surprise. But I don’t mind. I’ve been waiting a long time to give you what you got comin’ to you.”
He pulled a strange sand-colored relic from inside his pocket. Something about it filled me with fear and made me fight his grip with renewed fury.
“First the brat,” he said.
“Don’t you touch her,” I screamed, boiling with rage, fighting Señor Torres’s grip with all my might.
But Connelly pressed the relic against Ella’s forehead. In an instant, she went limp as a rag doll.
“No! Ella!”
He set her on the ground and started to walk toward me. I fought as I’d never fought before. Tears burned my eyes. “You’ll pay for this, Connelly!” I kicked Señor Torres with all my strength.
“Hold her still,” Connelly barked.
“No!” I shouted, tossing my head up, hoping against hope that I’d wake
someone in the rooms above us. “Help me! Someone hel—”
Connelly jammed the relic against my forehead. I went stiff as stone, and everything turned dark.
When my eyes cracked open next, I felt as if my head were submerged in a bucket of water. Everything blurred and swam around me and a dull hum filled my ears. I squeezed my eyes closed, then opened them several times. Only then did a semblance of color return, and only then did I start to recognize my surroundings.
The first thing I noticed was that I was standing, but something held my arms above my head. I looked up, blinking groggily. Dark iron bands enclosed my wrists. Chains. They hooked firmly to the wall, holding my arms up tightly. I looked down to see similar shackles locked around my ankles. My limbs could move a few inches at best.
The fog in my head pulled back slowly as I looked around me. Dark, damp stone. A single torch burning on the far wall. Empty sets of chains hanging at other places along the walls around me. And ahead, a thick wood door with a single, barred window. Like some kind of cell.
Blinking hard, I forced myself to piece together the events that had preceded this moment. I remembered the relic staff. The Ko Zhin. Connelly. Ella being dragged away screaming. A coldness clenched around my chest. Prison. I was in prison. I tugged my arms hard, but the chain only pulled taut.
“Hello?” I called. My voice echoed off the gray stone of the cell. “Is anyone out there?”
The yellow light of a lantern glowed through the tiny window on the door.
“Hello?”
Something clicked, and the door slowly swung open.
“Why, hello, Maggie,” Connelly said, strolling into the cell with a casual and insufferably self-satisfied air. “Sleep well?”
“You have no right to keep me here, Connelly. Let me go this minute.”
“I think not.”
I pulled at the chains on my arms. “Where’s my sister? Tell me right now.”
“Maybe she’s dead,” Connelly said, shrugging.
His words took my breath for a moment, but then I reminded myself that Connelly was lower than a snake. I couldn’t trust a word he said. “You’re lying.”
He snorted. “Guess you’ll never know.”
“If you hurt her, I’ll kill you!”
“How’re you gonna do that, huh? You look a little tied up at the moment.”
His tone sent a chill through me. No one but Yahn knew I had come back to the Hacienda. No one would know where to look for me. And besides, people disappeared every day in these parts. With no family but Ella, and my only living friend, Adelaide, catatonic in her room, it could be weeks and weeks before someone even noticed I was missing.
“What are you planning to do to me?” I asked, though to my dismay, I sounded more afraid than defiant.
A mean smile pulled at Connelly’s mouth. “Oh, there’s plenty I’m gonna do.”
“Álvar wouldn’t let you lay a hand on me.”
“Wouldn’t he?” Connelly chuckled. “If I were you, I wouldn’t trust anything Álvar said or did lately.” He tapped his skull firmly. “That relic got into his brain and made him think all kinds of strange stuff.”
I glared at him, but if Yahn had been right about the nature of the Ko Zhin, I knew it was true.
“He never really wanted you like that; you ain’t his type. It was just that relic grabbing hold of his head, making him obsessed with you. Hell if I know why—you’re nothing but a worthless little whore in my book.”
My mind was too swept up in his claim about the Ko Zhin to care about the insult. Why would the magic make Álvar obsessed with me?
“At any rate,” Connelly continued, moving closer, “he’s not worried about you now. Not when he’s gone to fight the Apaches.”
I tensed. “It’s morning? They’ve left already?”
“Yes, indeed. They headed off while you were sleepin’ in your cozy new room here. Good thing I kept that staff safe for Álvar. He’s got it right where he needs it now.”
Words died in my throat. Seeing this, Connelly chuckled. “I ’spect they’ll be back by lunch. Shouldn’t take them long to wipe those dirty Injuns out.”
I wanted to tear that smile off his face. “You have innocent blood on your hands, and I hope it haunts you the rest of your life.”
“I have blood on my hands? Do you see me off killing Apaches?”
“Please. Don’t act like you aren’t part of it. You’re probably the one giving Álvar all the ideas.”
Connelly laughed. “Oh, I see how it is. You don’t think your precious patron could possibly be capable of coming up with such an evil plan.” He snorted. “Well, think again. I do as I’m told, and I make myself useful to the rich little bastard. But he is the one with the hankering to torch this whole valley to the ground. Maybe you don’t know it, but the kid’s drowning in debt.”
I said nothing.
“Yes, ma’am. Every property he owns has been sold out to someone else. ’Course he got himself in real trouble when he started sellin’ out properties twice. Three times, even. It was just a matter of time before them creditors came to collect. Lucky for him, right about that time he found the fire relic.”
Connelly seemed to be enjoying every moment of this. “You oughta see your little lover boy out there. He makes sure we get the job done. Yes, he does.” He laughed. “The night we burned Green Springs, there was this one little cabin up on the hill. As we rode up, a man comes runnin’ out, screamin’ and beggin’ us to spare his six kids.”
“Stop,” I said, trembling.
“Álvar has him shot in the head. Then he raises that staff, and the fire comes out like nothing you’ve ever seen. Like a pillar of pure lightning. Well, the cabin goes up in flames like a wisp of cotton.”
“Stop.”
“We could hear them kids inside, screamin’ and—”
“STOP!” I shouted, thrashing my arms. “Stop! Stop it!”
Connelly quieted. I could see his smirk from the corner of my gaze. I clenched my jaw, hating that he’d gotten to me, hating that he’d found my most vulnerable place, hating the despair that surged into my soul.
“Sheesh,” Connelly said, folding his arms with satisfaction. “What’s eatin’ you? Not like he killed your family. Oh, shoot. I forgot. He did.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Why should I? I’m having so much fun.”
A woman’s voice echoed against the stone walls. “Now it’s my turn for some fun.”
I snapped my head up, and Connelly whirled around. We both stared, speechless, as Adelaide walked into the prison cell.
She looked different. She was barefoot and dressed only in her underclothes: a camisole and petticoat with a red corset. Her pale hair flowed wild and free around her. The blank grief in her eyes had changed to a fierce gleam. And around her neck, a relic amulet that made my pulse freeze.
“Adelaide,” I breathed. “What are you doing here?”
“I have a little business to tend to,” she said. She held up the almond-sized piece of Ko Zhin, still on the chain I had fastened it to, and gave it a kiss. “Look familiar, Connelly?” She smiled. “Bet you thought I didn’t know the code to that safe in your room. Tsk. You always did underestimate me.”
Connelly set his jaw. “You thievin’ whore.”
“Look who’s talking, sugar. If I recall correctly, you stole it from Maggie in the first place.”
“Listen to me, Adelaide,” I said, my voice shaking. “Take it off. Please. It’s very dangerous.”
A dark smile flashed in her eyes. “I know.”
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” Connelly growled. “Hand it over. Now.”
“What makes you think I don’t know how to deal with it, Percy?”
“You have no clue the kind of fire power that thing’s capable of.”
“Well, sure, I do. This lovely Hacienda’s burnin’ to the ground as we speak. I guess it’s so nice and quiet down here that you didn’t notice al
l the screaming.”
The color drained from Connelly’s face. I thought immediately of Ella, scared, alone, and terrorized yet again by fire. Dear Lord, let Adelaide be exaggerating to scare Connelly.
“You didn’t,” he said.
She shrugged. “It took a little persuasion to find you. But we do so need to talk.”
He took a step backward. “Stay away from me.”
“Now is that any way to speak to an old friend?”
Like a striking rattler, Connelly leaped for me. His arm clamped around my waist, pulling himself halfway behind me. His other hand squeezed my throat.
“Don’t come any closer, or your friend here dies.”
As if for emphasis, his fingers smashed against my windpipe. Gasping, I tried to fight his grip, but he held me against him, a human shield.
Adelaide’s smile faded. “Not wise, Percy.”
“I said get back.”
I thrashed with all my might, but that only made him squeeze harder. My lungs burned like hot iron in my chest as the world around me started to go fuzzy and dark. I could hear my own gagging and nothing else. All I could think of was Ella, alone in the world.
Adelaide’s voice rang in my ears. “Stop! Don’t hurt her.”
“You gonna get back?”
She obeyed, her voice suddenly small and afraid. “Please. I—I’ll do anything you say. Just let her go.”
Connelly glared but slowly released his grip on my throat. Air rushed in, and I coughed and gasped huge gulps of it.
“That’s more like it,” he said. He stepped from behind me and jabbed out an open palm. “Now give that relic to me this instant.”
Adelaide pulled the relic slowly from around her bare neck. As much as I wanted to see the thing far away from her, I knew it would be worse in the hands of Mr. Connelly. I kept my eyes on Adelaide, trying to silently communicate some other plan, any other plan. But she didn’t look at me as she stepped forward with the relic in her fist.
Relic Page 28