The Destiny (Blood and Destiny Book 4)

by E. C. Jarvis

  Larissa swallowed again, her throat drier than the Eptoran dessert. She thought of Kerrigan’s simple request to bring back some water to drink and wished now they had done simply that instead of getting into this messy situation. She lifted the dress at the hem and pulled it up, glancing down at the ledger in front of Miss Cosby as the woman flicked over a few pages. The dress fell to the floor at her feet, leaving her in nothing more than flat shoes and a pair of knickers.

  “Everything,” Miss Cosby said.

  Larissa sighed and complied as she focused on scanning the walls to look for a hidden safe—anything to distract her mind from the shame of the situation.

  “Turn,” Miss Cosby said, a haughty sneer in her voice as she wiggled her flabby arm around, making a turning motion. Larissa obeyed, feeling the familiar burn of a blush touching her face and neck, moving down to her shoulders. “Stop.”

  Larissa stopped, facing the door. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. An awful noise of squelching leather and creaking chair legs followed, and she almost laughed as she visualised the woman getting up. Her entire body tingled with nervous anticipation. She had no idea what was going to happen but willed herself to be ready to react to something as the bigger woman stood close behind.

  “There’s a man on my books who would like to do some very naughty things to you, girl.”

  “Oh?”

  “Solomon Covelle.”

  Larissa ignored the churning in her stomach.

  “He left just recently, sadly. There is another who would pay a pretty price for your pretty head.” Something cold and sharp pressed against her neck.

  Larissa froze in place, fearful of making the wrong move. Her latent healing ability wouldn’t help much if she were stabbed in the throat. Her body tingled from head to toe, nipples standing to attention in the cool air. Her breath became shallow. “Oh?”

  “Your name is at the top of the list of people wanted dead. The President is offering a lot of money for your death. So, either you’re very foolish in coming here and telling me your name, or you have some other purpose. Which is it?”

  The point of the blade pressed in deeper, breaking open her skin as a line of hot blood trickled down her neck.

  “Perhaps both,” she said finally. Her heart ached for Holt to come flying through the door and save the day, but her heart sank as she remembered she had asked him not to kill anyone, and he was probably taking his time working on meeting that demand. Why had she done that? What possible purpose was there in sparing people like this? Once again, she was out of her depth and in trouble for no good reason at all. She could only hope that keeping the woman talking for long enough would give her time to think up a plan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Holt’s thighs and calves trembled and ached as he worked down the chimney. His hands pressed to the sides, edges of his boots feeling for lumps in the brickwork as he lowered himself slowly. The cut on his hand didn’t appreciate being dragged down rough bricks coated in layers of thick soot, and he made a mental note to clean the wound at the first opportunity. Losing a hand to gangrene was not an appealing prospect. The chimney space narrowed as he went, and at one point, he worried he wouldn’t fit any farther. The thought of climbing all the way back up and looking for another route in had him worried, especially as the clock was ticking.

  The back of his neck pulsated with worry for Larissa, a worry that never surfaced so strongly before. He’d always managed to school his emotions during a mission, to focus on the task, but these days, he was riddled with doubt.

  The air inside the chimney was acrid with old smoke; it filled his lungs and tickled his nostrils, making the descent even harder. He had no perception of how far he’d come, or how much farther there was to go; the light from the grey cloudy sky above seemed nothing more than a distant dot. Voices below stopped him in his tracks. He braced against the walls, one toe stuck into the brickwork, the other foot turned sideways, pressing against the wall, both hands at awkward angles, an elbow digging into the corner behind his head. His body trembled from trying to hold position as the people who had entered the room spoke.

  “Let me light a fire. It’s freezing in here,” a female said. Holt ground his teeth together. She sounded closer than he would have guessed, and as a gas lamp lit the view below, he could finally see the bottom, no more than a few feet away, a pile of logs resting in the iron basket.

  “It’ll get warm enough in here once we get going. Take your clothes off,” a male voice said.

  Holt’s head knocked back against the brickwork. He wasn’t sure what would be worse, having the woman light a fire or having to infiltrate the room with people engaging in sexual activity inside.

  “I won’t be a minute,” the female said. A head full of mousey brown curls appeared beneath Holt’s feet. She placed some kindling and paper between the logs and lit a match, thankfully not turning to look up the chimney, though she really had no reason to. A moment later, she disappeared and the flames came to life.

  Holt looked back up the chimney. The grey dot of sky was too far away—by the time he climbed all the way up, the air would be too thick with smoke to make it all the way out. It seemed he would have to deal with both bad scenarios.

  Heat from below licked the soles of his boots. He edged slowly down the wall, his limbs screaming silent protest. Smoke tickled the back of his throat as the fire came to life, spitting and hissing hot embers up the chimney. He prepared his mind for a fight the moment the people inside the room saw him. The woman would probably scream, making her his first target. With any luck, the guards would assume hers was a scream of pleasure. He hoped the male would be in some form of partial nudity, which would make him less of a threat to begin with. He would silence the woman, then knock the man out and leave them both tied up in the corner.

  With the plan solidified, he let go of the wall and fell to the fire, his feet landing either side of the basket with a dull thud. Flames licked at the inside of his legs, the heat burning through the material of his trousers. He ducked down and scrambled out of the fireplace, pulling his dagger out, ready to attack.

  No scream greeted him. He placed his back to the wall and looked over to the bed. The bedsheets appeared as one mass of writhing and grunting. Neither of the lovers seemed to notice his presence. He edged toward the door, conscious that a guard might be standing just outside. As he glanced over at the bed again, the woman turned and noticed him. His grip on the dagger tightened, but instead of a scream, she simply smiled, held up her hand, and mouthed five minutes at him.

  He gave a single nod, then slipped out into the hallway.

  The empty hall echoed with heavy footsteps coming in his direction. He marched towards a turn in the hallway and waited for the approaching figure to appear—a male, he presumed from the gait. A guard came into view, the pupils of his eyes having but a moment to dilate as he processed the sight of Holt’s fist flying toward him. The first punch landed straight across his jaw, and the larger man grunted, smacking into the wall as he twisted to the side. Holt’s fists took over for his mind, releasing a relentless pounding into the man’s head until the guy collapsed into a heap and seemed unlikely to rise any time soon.

  He set to work, binding the wrists and ankles of his first downed enemy. Killing him would have been simpler, but whenever his hand twitched in the direction of his knife, he thought of Larissa. He didn’t want to disappoint her or cause an argument. They had more than enough to cope with. With a grunt of frustration, he dragged the prone body by the wrists along the floor and, lacking another option, settled on leaving it there for now.

  More footsteps headed toward him from the same direction. He sighed and returned to the corner. The second guard was far leaner than the first and took only one straight punch to the jaw, though Holt’s fist ached as he bound the guy up and dragged him down the corridor to lay beside the first.

  When a third man approached, Holt found it almost comical how easy it was to subdue
such inept idiots. No wonder these men weren’t in the military; they wouldn’t last two minutes.

  Once his pile of knocked-out bodies reached five men, the rest of the brothel seemed quiet. He backtracked to the room where the two lovers were still involved in their embrace to tie them up as well.

  Finally, he reached the Madame’s room. He pressed his ear to the door, hoping to hear Larissa inside speaking softly to the woman, trying to convince her to her cause, as she was in the habit of doing. Instead, he heard muted muffles and a shuffling noise. He frowned, then barged through the door, flinging it so hard it smacked into the wall as it opened. Larissa shrieked and clutched at her chest.

  “Gods, Holt, you scared me. Get in. Close the door,” she said, waving at him. His feet froze in place, and it took a moment before he could comply, for she stood utterly nude at the opposite end of the room, one foot balancing a chair onto two legs, leaning it against the wall, the other foot upon the chest of Madame Cosby, who had been tied up and gagged. Holt pulled the door shut behind him.

  “You’ve done well,” he said blandly as he tried in vain to keep his eyes off Larissa’s backside.

  “Praise can wait. Come stick your head under here and grab this,” she said as she pointed beneath her. Holt did as instructed, pushing aside the inconvenient tightening in his trousers. This didn’t seem an appropriate time to have that sort of reaction, but he could hardly control it.

  Attached to the underside of the seat was a covered box hidden by a lid. A series of springs acted to keep the lid closed. Holt leant over the desk and stuck his head between Larissa’s legs to look inside. A bag of coins sat waiting. He pulled the bag out, and Larissa let her foot off the chair, which thudded as it fell to the floor. The hefty lump of a woman underneath Larissa’s other foot squirmed.

  “She is not securely bound,” Holt said as he discarded the coins and set to fixing the bindings Larissa had made. She had used the dress she’d borrowed as rope, which—while innovative, left her without anything to wear.

  “Well, excuse me for not being an expert on tying people up while naked. Are the guards subdued…or dead?”

  “Subdued, and the other patrons also. We must leave.”

  “Why the rush?”

  “Because more patrons will arrive and this mess will be discovered. Our escape may become perilous.”

  “What if we just put a closed sign on the door?”

  Holt finished tying the knot and stood to face Larissa. “That seems overly simplistic…but I can’t see a reason why it wouldn’t work. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it.”

  “Because you’ve never worked in retail. I used to fantasize about doing it myself whenever Greyfort left me to run the shop while he went out obtaining stock, but I never quite had the guts. I wish I had done it now. I doubt he would have fired such a lucrative employee for such an indiscretion.”

  She headed to the door and bounced into the corridor with a spring in her step. Holt’s eyes were drawn once more to her backside, and as mesmerising as it was to watch, it seemed impractical.

  “Larissa?”

  “Yes?”

  “It might be an idea to put some clothes on before you go racing across the city.”

  “Oh. Good point,” she said as her cheeks turned pink.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Larissa’s feet ached. It seemed unusual to feel pain. She had gotten so used to doing daring things without giving pause to the consequences, and now her unique ability waned with every step. They had agreed to walk back to the train across the city, avoiding the farce of the dangerous cab system and the chance of more fights than they were equipped to handle, though the trek aboveground took far longer than she’d hoped. Kerrigan suffered the most, and even a break halfway with a night spent sleeping in an abandoned warehouse hadn’t seemed to do him much good.

  Her entire body felt on edge, anticipating trouble at every turn. They had left behind a mess which would no doubt be discovered at some point, and she expected to hear the angry death calls of a mob chasing them down at any minute, but as they turned into the manufacturing district, and the familiar street layout leading to the train station tugged at her memory, she wondered if perhaps they could make it out in one piece after all. She could only hope Cid and the others had fared better and that the train awaited their arrival.

  Holt hadn’t said a word for most of the day. He still seemed to suffer with the occasional bout of sweating and reversion to a virtual comatose state, like some drug-addled criminal who’d gone too long without a fix. She tried to press on regardless, as if she were a tired mother dragging a pair of battered sons home through the streets. Thankfully, both men had been alert enough to evade people.

  The deserted city felt strangely hollow and oppressive at the same time. No smoke rose up from the houses and buildings, except for the occasional plume which they avoided at all costs. The only place which had looked more populated than the rest was the small Dolonite Citadel on the outskirts of the city. Larissa had considered going inside to beg the priests for food and water, but as memories of the Cleric came flooding back, she thought better of it. They had been lucky in finding two good people of the faith in Narry and Sandy; she didn’t like to bet on their luck holding out.

  “Someone is at the train,” Holt said when they turned a corner.

  “How can you tell? We’re still a few blocks away,” Larissa said as she looked around. Tall buildings blocked their view entirely.

  “Because he can hear someone banging loudly on something metallic,” Kerrigan said, his chin turned up and head cocked to one side.

  Larissa strained to listen as her feet slowed. A slight clanging sound could be heard on the wind. She wouldn’t have placed it at the train if she’d noticed it without the help of the men, but she trusted their judgement.

  “Do you think it’s Cid?” she asked. She could almost see him at the controls, hammering away.

  “No way of knowing until we get close enough to hear him swearing,” Holt said.

  “Was that a joke?”

  Holt didn’t answer, his face set hard, the look of a man concentrating as he walked, alert and ready for any form of circumstance. Kerrigan had the same look, though it seemed a lot more forced. He was more likely to collapse into a heap than put up a good fight against an attack. Their pace slowed, and the group curved off towards an alley, ducking out of sight. Larissa kept her mouth shut; it had happened a few times on their journey, and she had learned to follow the course without argument for safety’s sake.

  “What is it?” she whispered after they stood around in silence for a while.

  “Ambush,” Holt said. Kerrigan nodded solemnly.

  The clanging and banging sound continued, the noises slightly louder. They were so close to the train station she could almost feel the sense of victory at having escaped the city.

  “How can you tell there is an ambush?” she asked, glancing around. The street looked utterly innocuous as far as she could see.

  “There are two men sitting on the rooftops.” Holt pointed to a warehouse nearby. Larissa moved to poke her head out and look when she was violently dragged backwards. “Don’t look,” Holt said.

  “Can we go around another way?”

  “They are clearly expecting us to try to get out via the trains. I expect all routes to be covered,” Kerrigan said. “It would be safe to assume the others have been compromised and the train is no longer a viable means of escape.”

  “Agreed,” Holt said.

  “No,” Larissa said with a sigh.

  “No?”

  “That’s Cid making that noise.”

  “How can you possibly tell?”

  “Because I asked him to fix the train. No one else would know I’d asked him to do that, and I doubt these people would be smart enough to put together a ruse to make us think he was still working on the train. These are thugs who want their stolen money back, not mastermind criminals who care about ensnaring us.” L
arissa swallowed hard. She hadn’t told Holt she’d given her name to Miss Cosby and that the President had her at the top of a wanted list. That mistake had been foolish to say the least, and she was loath to have to confess to it. They were so close to getting out, it didn’t make sense to give up hope now.

  “Can you disappear?” she asked Holt, already knowing the answer. He shook his head. “All right, in that case, we split up—”

  “No,” Holt and Kerrigan answered in unison.

  “Yes. I will go first. I’ll try to sneak through this way, and with any luck, they won’t see me. If I can get to the others and get them prepared, we can make a stand together, or I’ll tell them to get the train ready to go. Give me five minutes’ head start, then the two of you find another way around. If you get caught, just run towards the train station. Don’t try to fight.”

  “Larissa…” Holt began.

  “If you can come up with a better plan, let’s hear it.” A silent moment passed by. The three of them stood looking awkwardly at one another. “My plan it is, then,” she said.

  She turned away from Holt and Kerrigan, acutely aware of the incredulous looks on their faces. She swallowed the huge lump in her throat and peeked around the corner, spotting one man on the rooftop where Holt said he would be. He wore a flat cap and carried a large rifle. She could only hope he had a worse aim than her own if he was lucky enough to spot her. A second man appeared, only the edge of his head coming into view as the rest of him was hidden behind a chimney stack. Both men looked in opposite directions.

  She watched for a moment, glancing around elsewhere to try to spot any other hidden would-be ambushers. When both men turned their faces away, she raced across the street, her heart thumping loudly as though it had jumped up between her ears. She skidded to a stop and stood flat against the warehouse wall. She could see the edge of Holt’s face poking around the corner, watching her carefully. He reached out and flicked his hand to the side, indicating for her to move on. She trusted his judgement more than anything; if he said the way was clear, that was good enough.