“Broker is going to kill you,” Rictor said, looking him straight in the eye. “Broker dreams of you dead. I’m on that list, too. Artur. Elena. Everyone who was there in Russia.”
“Why?”
“Why does any man murder?” Rictor looked away, down at the facility. “We killed someone he loved.”
Aitan crouched, palms open, hovering close to the ground as though soaking the warmth of the earth into his skin. It was an old gesture, one Amiri had seen a million times—though not in years. It made him hurt. It made him remember good times instead of bad.
“It is the only way,” said his father quietly. “They expect me to bring him in. And Broker will not wish to immediately kill Amiri. He will torture him first. That will give me time to take down the security protocols for Jaaved and his men.”
“Ah,” Rictor replied. “Hope he’s not quick with the hot irons, then.”
Amiri set his jaw. “How long until Jaaved is in position?”
“Six hours, at least. We moved considerably faster than him.”
“Rikki might not have that much time.”
“She is more valuable to him alive,” said his father coolly. “She will survive.”
“Why?” Amiri snapped, choking on fury and fear and heartache. “Why do they want her?”
Aitan hesitated. Rictor said, “Blood. The blood of the Magi, to be specific.”
Amiri stared. He knew little of the Magi, only stories told by fellow shape-shifters and other members of the agency: A sorcerer, two thousand years old, had cursed himself and another with immortality, a long life that had not offered respite from death, but only the desire for it.
“I do not understand,” he said. “How does that involve Rikki?”
“The Magi was a baby factory,” Rictor replied. “He had loads of children. Buckets of children, for two thousand years. Right up until this century, when he finally died. He has babies scattered you still don’t know about.”
Aitan looked intrigued. “They are all similarly gifted?”
“Some. Depends on how diluted their blood is.” Rictor gave Amiri a bitter smile. “Would you like to guess how many members of Dirk & Steele are his descendents?”
“I would rather not,” Amiri replied, rather troubled by the whole idea. “But even if Rikki is related to him, then what do they hope to achieve by having her? She is an extraordinary woman, but she has no otherworldly gifts.”
“Not that you know of,” Rictor muttered.
Aitan rose slowly. “Enough. I will scout the perimeter. Both of you stay here.”
Amiri wanted to protest, but remained quiet. Being around his father made him feel like a child again, a stranger in his own skin. He hardly thought he knew himself or the old man. Nor did it help having Rictor near. One had raised him. The other had tortured him. The two were not so different.
Aitan slipped away. Rictor said, “Enjoying your reunion?”
“Read my mind.”
“Go to hell.”
Amiri studied him, unaffected by his anger. “Are you truly powerless?”
“You think I like your company that much?”
“I think that you are, and always will be, a stranger. I do not know what to think.”
“How heartening,” Rictor muttered.
Amiri sighed. “I am sorry. Is there anything that can be done for you?”
“No.” The other man’s gaze turned distant, thoughtful. Edged with hard memory. “I’m alive. I have everything I need.”
“Indeed,” Amiri murmured, surprised by his answer. Suffering an odd pang of conscience. “Rictor. Why did you come to us? You said Elena, but—”
“She never asked me.”
“You said she did not have to. What does that mean?”
“It’s none of your fucking business.” Rictor stood. The radio crackled on his hip. He turned up the volume. Voices hissed. Amiri heard comments about transport times, supplies, more men … and then, at the very end, a mention of one Doctor Regina Kinn.
You should see what she did to Marco, someone laughed. Son of a bitch wants to kill her ass.
Amiri stood, heart pounding. Staring blindly at the facility. Desperate enough to slam himself against those walls.
“Don’t,” Rictor said, watching him. “Don’t even think about it.”
“And what would you do for Elena?” Amiri asked sharply. “I cannot wait for Jaaved. Not when she is down there waiting for me.”
“Then do not wait,” said a new voice, soft and cold as ice. Amiri whirled, stunned.
Broker. As though materialized from air. No sound of his approach, and hardly a scent. He stood as though carved from stone—perfectly still, his gray suit smooth as bone. His eyes were flat, dead.
Further back, some distance away, was yet more movement. A cage closing in. Men rose from the forest floor like an army of ghosts. Camouflaged, weapons held high. Amiri tried catching their scents, but all he found was the faint musk of leopard scat. The mercenaries had used a spray to cover their odors.
And they had been in place for a long time, if Amiri was any judge. He had heard nothing. Of all the foolish, stupid, senseless—
“Amiri,” Broker said, and his gaze flicked to Rictor, who had his gun pointed strong and steady at the pale man’s face. He smiled, but it seemed forced. Uneasy. “You know better than that.”
“I know I could slow you down,” Rictor replied. “I know I could tear you apart with my bare hands.”
“You could do more than that, but only one man can kill me.” Broker tapped his skull. “I’ve foreseen it. But he’s not here. You are. And what strange irony that is. Mon petit meurtrier.”
Green light flashed through Rictor’s eyes. Power. But only for a moment, and then it was like watching a man be struck by lightning, or hit in the spine with a dozen hammers all at once. Rictor’s eyes glowed, and in that same instant his back arched so deeply Amiri heard his spine crack. A scream of pure agony choked free of his throat. He fell on his knees, coughing, gagging.
No, Amiri thought, watching Broker. No.
But the damage was done. Broker stared, pure astonishment cutting through his gaze. “What is this? What has happened to you?”
Rictor spat. Broker crouched, peering closely. Eyes finally sparking with some vital, dangerous light.
“A man like you needs no gun,” he said, and then, even softer: “You are mortal.”
Amiri stepped in front of Rictor, dropping low, fingers digging into the dirt. “Stay away from him.”
“Or what?” Loose laughter tumbled free of Broker’s throat. “Oh, my. If only Artur and Elena were present—”
Rictor reached around Amiri and fired the gun. Broker caught the bullet in his head and flew backward, slamming into the ground. Rictor scrambled to his feet, shoving Amiri aside. Running. He emptied the gun into Broker’s chest. Then kicked him.
Amiri kept expecting one of the watching mercenaries to stop Rictor, but none did—except for a single individual, a familiar face. From the airfield. His eyebrows thick as a rug. He looked from Broker to his attacker, and his eyes darkened with outrage. His finger tightened on the trigger of his gun.
Amiri knocked Rictor out of the way, hearing a roar in the air, feeling a roar in his body as pain snapped through his shoulder. He fell down hard, swimming in agony. Rictor fell on his knees beside him, handgun tossed aside in favor of the stolen AK-47, held tight and steady, aimed at the mercenaries as though his one weapon could kill them all. His face was grim as death, and he wore a cold hard resignation that was, for one brief moment, unreservedly bitter.
“It’s a flesh wound,” he said of Amiri’s wound, glancing down for just a moment. “Took a slice out of your shoulder, but nothing else. No smashed bones.”
Amiri had suffered from flesh wounds and this felt incredibly more painful. But he rolled to his knees, clapped his hand over the injury, and felt a tear in the meat, gushing blood. A quarter of an inch lower and his entire shoulder would have be
en destroyed.
Not that it mattered. Not when Aitan walked free of the forest.
He moved as though he owned the men around him, as though he was Broker and the man dead on the ground was the servant. Amiri searched his father’s face, but all he found was something aloof and pitiless, a quiet indifference, as though Aitan might watch the world burn and feel nothing: no love, no anger, no passion at all to live.
This was not the man Amiri remembered, even at his worst. The man who stood before him was a stranger.
This was not our plan, Amiri thought, and he had the sudden, terrible feeling that this had never been his father’s plan.
“I am certain you would rather die than be taken alive,” Aitan said to Rictor, with hardly a glance at Amiri’s bleeding shoulder. “Consider, however, what will happen to those who take your place when Broker awakes.”
Amiri stood, staggering. Rictor moved with him, catching him with his shoulder. Gun still raised, ready to fire. Behind Aitan, the mercenaries moved free of the forest, wielding a considerable amount of firepower.
At their feet, Broker stirred.
“In or out?” Rictor whispered. “Are we doing this?”
“In,” Amiri breathed, thinking of Rikki. Sweat soaked his skin; the pain was immense. He wanted to vomit.
The bullet in Broker’s forehead wiggled free, rolling into the grass. Amiri had never seen such a thing, and watched, steeling himself for the inevitable.
Broker opened his eyes and sat up. His face was still wet with blood; a red mask. All around them, silence. His men showed no reaction to their employer’s resurrection. Not even when he stood, and bullets rolled out from under his shirt and hit the grass.
Broker looked at Amiri. He looked at the blood, and the wound. Extreme displeasure filled his face. “Someone shot you.”
An unexpected response. Not the first thing Amiri had thought to hear. Though it made sense. Broker wanted him dead, but only by his hand. His revenge.
Broker looked at Rictor, then Aitan. “Who was it?”
“Marco,” said the old man.
He nodded, as though unsurprised. “Kill him.”
Aitan turned without hesitation. Marco stared, incredulous, then backed away with arms raised.
“No,” he gasped, staring at Broker. “Please—”
The shape-shifter’s hand lashed out, sweeping across Marco’s throat, leaving behind a hole so deep that Amiri imagined he saw the man’s spine. Marco scrabbled at himself, blood gushing. Eyes rolled up with horror. He collapsed on his knees, writhing, twitching.
Aitan shook his hand. Blood spattered the grass. His fingers were thick with claws, spotted fur riding up the sinewy muscles of his long forearm. Amiri could only stare, disgusted and astonished: His father, killing on the order of another—partially shifted in front of witnesses? This was a man who had murdered to keep such secrets, to keep himself safe from such a future. Who had raised his son in virtual isolation, simply to protect their bloodline.
I do this for you, whispered his father, inside Amiri’s mind. Anything for my children.
Amiri stamped down that voice, the terrible echo of his father that would not leave him.
Broker straightened his jacket—a ridiculous gesture, given the blood soaking through his clothes, still shining on his face. He gave Aitan a cold look. “Jaaved is coming?”
“As you requested,” replied the old man, without a glance for his son. “He believes he will kill you tonight.”
“And Amiri believed you were offering him a way to do the same.” Broker smiled, faintly. “You were right about the lure. Nicely done. Very … poignant.”
Amiri clenched his jaw tight. Slid a mask over his face. Calm, steady, hiding the storm in his heart. Erasing his rage. His fear.
No fear. Not when Rikki still needed him. All he had left was her. No one else mattered. And if she got hurt, or worse, died—
—he was going to kill his father.
Chapter Nineteen
The door was locked. Rikki had tried forcing it open more times than she could count, but all she had gotten for her trouble was a sore shoulder.
The window was made of unbreakable glass. Rikki had tried opening that, too. With a chair. And the lid from the toilet. And the pillow that now lay on the cold hardwood floor, next to her body.
She thought about her father, how he must have felt in his prison cell. Of the letters he had written her, saying it was okay, that he had books, that he thought of her all the time and when he got free, when he was paroled for good behavior like his lawyer said he would be, that every day would be like a Saturday, and he would make his flapjacks for breakfast and she would make her omelets, and nothing would be different. Nothing ever again. Just the two of them against the world.
She missed her dad. She missed him with all her heart. She missed him like she missed Markovic, who’d had nothing but given her everything he could, raised and nurtured and loved her as much as he was able, helping her survive and become what she had: strong and educated, but mostly just strong.
And she missed Amiri. She missed him like she missed her father and Markovic, and that was silly because she hardly knew him, but she missed him like there was a hole in her heart the size of those big Kansas skies, and she wanted him. She wanted him like she wanted home. Like she wanted her childhood back. She wanted him like she wanted everyone she had ever loved to live again, to rise from the dead, to tell her they loved her back, and always would.
Amiri, she thought. Please find me.
Her body hurt. Bone marrow extraction usually left an ache. Broker had taken blood, too. A lot of it.
And he had injected her with hormones. Specifically, to induce the development of multiple follicles. No secrets from Broker. He wanted to harvest her ova. Not all of them, he had said. But enough.
Stem cells. Actual children. God only knows what he wants to do with them.
Rikki did not plan on sticking around long enough to find out.
She forced herself up. There was a closet. She went to it and found more white jogging outfits. She took out a set, tossed it on the bed, and went to the bathroom. Looking at herself in the mirror, she stripped off her clothes. Her scars glared at her. She glared back, tracing each cut with her finger, pretending it was a knife. Drawing it in. Savoring.
I am going to fuck you over, Broker. I am going to ruin you. I am going to own you because you sure as hell won’t own me. Not as long as I’m breathing.
Rikki turned on the shower. She stood under the scalding water, skin burning. She did not cry; she planned. She always thought better in the shower, and this was no different. She gathered herself in the heat, in the scent of soap, and when she turned off the water, she was ready. She wrapped a towel around her body and went back into the bedroom.
Moochie and Francis were there. They stood by the window. A tray of food was on the nightstand.
The men stared at her chest. The towel covered all the important bits, but the scars were extensive. She looked like the love child of Freddy Krueger and Edward Scissorhands.
“Jesus,” Moochie said. Francis grabbed his elbow, giving him a warning look.
Rikki no longer cared—Amiri’s gift to her. That, and her priorities were straight as hell in this place. She wiped away the water that dripped from her hair into her eyes. “Why are you both here?”
“We wanted to make certain you were all right,” Francis said.
Rikki laughed out loud. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Moochie nudged the tray. “We brought you dinner.”
She stared, incredulous. “I have been kidnapped by a psychopath. He is running experiments on me. Who the hell knows what else he’s going to do. You think I want to eat? You really want to know how I’m doing?”
“Do you want to escape?” Francis asked quietly. Rikki’s mouth snapped shut. Moochie turned slowly to look him.
“Yo,” he said. “Maybe we should talk about this.”
Francis ga
ve him a long steady look. “Do you feel like murdering children for money? How about women? Last I checked, that’s not what we signed up for. In fact, I don’t think we signed up for any of this, Moochie-boy.”
“He’ll kill us first,” said Moochie. “This man has a long arm. He’ll find us and he’ll kill us. And even if he doesn’t, we won’t ever be able to work again.”
Francis looked at Rikki. “He’s sending us away tonight. New assignment for his organization. He wants us to go to Morocco and kill a family. Mother, father, two little boys. No reason given. He just wants them dead.” He turned again to Moochie. “It’s a test. You know it as well as I do. He thinks we’re soft.”
“Why does he care so much about what you are?” Rikki asked, unable to help herself. “Why not replace you? Kill you? He does it so easily with everyone else.”
Moochie’s jaw tightened. He shared a long look with Francis. “Broker recruited us. He found us. Paid us big money. We were flattered. His outfit is big, has a reputation. He could have had anyone.”
“But he wanted you two. Why?”
Francis raised his eyebrow. “Maybe it has something to do with what he wants from you.”
“Now you’re talking shit,” Moochie said, but he did not sound entirely convinced.
Rikki studied them. Both were big, with similar raw-boned features. Blond hair. “Are you related?”
“Cousins,” Francis told her. “Our mothers were sisters.”
“And the rest?” Rikki held his gaze. “The supernatural? Broker, able to rise from the dead? Doesn’t that surprise you?”
Both men went still. Moochie cleared his throat. “We, um, saw … stuff … growing up.”
“Stuff.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Francis said shortly. “Moochie? Dead or deader?”
Moochie looked rather ill. “Dead.”
He smiled faintly, and looked back at Rikki. “Do you want out, Doctor Kinn?”
“Yes,” she said. “But you have to help me do something first.”
Broker, they said, had left the building. Rikki refrained from making an Elvis joke.
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