I curled my fingers into a tight fist and clenched my jaw, shaking my head. “It doesn’t work like that,” I told him. And then I frowned. Maybe the symbol couldn’t give me more than a generalized warning, but there was another way to find out more specifics. Screw focus; it was time to give in to the urge to do a reading.
I snatched the drawstring bag off the table. I could feel the cards within humming with power even through the fabric. With nimble fingers, I untied the loose knot holding the bag closed and dumped the deck of tarot cards out into my hand. They sizzled and crackled with otherworldly energy. They were charged and ready to go. Whatever was going on, whatever had triggered the Eye of Horus on my palm, the cards would have the answers. Or at least some answers.
I didn’t even bother with shuffling. There was no need, not when the power was thrumming through the deck so strongly. Holding my breath, I drew the top card and flipped it over.
The moment I saw which card I’d drawn, I hissed and dropped it on the coffee table.
Judgement.
The scene was much the same as it had been weeks ago: all of my Nejeret loved ones, dressed in rags and scattered across a desolate landscape. The Seattle skyline was visible in the distance, the buildings ravaged and crumbling. More Nejerets were fanning out beyond my friends and family along the decaying earth, unidentifiable where the ink blurred and lines became too close.
But there was one major, glaring difference. I wasn’t depicted on the card. The last few times I’d drawn Judgement from the deck, an image of me had floated above the depressing scene, arms outstretched to either side and back to the viewer, skin glowing with a brilliant golden soul aura. Now, there was no sign of me. I was gone. Vanished.
“Judgement,” Nik said, craning his neck to get a better look at the card. “That looks dreary. What does it mean?”
“Nothing good,” I said hollowly.
Judgement itself wasn’t a negative card, but in its current incarnation, it exuded an almost palpable sense of dread.
Numbly, I set the deck of tarot cards on the coffee table, eyes glued to the only card lying faceup. “Judgement usually means that some decision will need to be made,” I told Nik. “Something about the past—before the subject of the reading can move on to their better, brighter future.” I frowned, eyes narrowing as I studied the card. “Or, it sometimes has to do with a spiritual awakening.”
Considering I’d been present on the card the last few times I’d drawn it, soul glowing a bright gold, and now I was nowhere in sight, I thought it might be closer to the latter meaning.
After a moment, I added, “But it’s mostly about letting go of the past.” This particular scene suggested that the thing from the past that needed to be let go of was me. And that if it didn’t happen, the consequences would be dire . . . for everyone.
That little realization gave rise to goose bumps that started on my arms and worked their way around the rest of my body.
“Huh,” Nik said.
I glanced at him. “You’re telling me.”
BOOM.
My heart stopped for a moment as the room quaked with the force of an explosion.
I steadied myself with a hand on the table, while Nik reached for me, our gazes locked in a shocked stare. A heartbeat late, we both looked at the door, then back at each other.
To shake this building enough that we had to steady ourselves, the explosion had to be either really damn close or really damn huge. Both were terrifying options.
“Must be the fucking Senate,” Nik said, his voice a whiplash. He turned and rushed to the door.
“It’s got to be them,” I said, hastily collecting the tarot cards and stuffing the whole deck back into its drawstring bag. I tucked the deck safely out of sight in the pocket of my leather coat, draped over the arm of the couch and hurried to the door.
Nik blocked my way with an extended arm, his other hand on the knob. “Stay here, Kitty Kat. I’ll check it out.”
I scoffed. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I said. I mean, had he even met me? Stay here? Not a chance in hell.
Nik laughed a dry, humorless laugh and shook his head. “Fine, but don’t do anything stupid out there.”
Oh yeah, he’d met me. And he knew me well.
As I followed Nik out of the room and into the palazzo’s extravagantly decorated second-floor gallery and was surrounded by the sound of panic and mayhem from below, I thought we had our answer about the weird feeling I’d been having—the something that was coming was here. Except the sense of dreadful expectation wasn’t gone. If anything, it was worse.
This wasn’t it. The explosion wasn’t the “bad” thing setting me on edge. Or, at least, it wasn’t all of it.
More was coming. And soon.
2
We raced down the cavernous gallery, our footsteps amplified by the high ceiling and echoing all around us as we ran. The sounds of confusion and shouting from the lower level grew louder as we neared the main staircase.
We barreled down the left side of the imposing double staircase, the slap of shoes on marble drowned out by the noise from below. People pushed their way into the palazzo through the main entrance, fighting to get through. The crowd was bottlenecking at the towering doors. From the wild eyes and frenzied energy, it was safe to assume that the danger was outside and they were seeking refuge within the palazzo.
When we reached the landing where the two staircases converged, I grabbed Nik’s arm and pulled him to a stop so we could look out the tall, arched window. It gave us a good view of the Piazza Navona and the chaos filling the elongated space. An ocean of people moved away from the church across the square, but their progress was a slow current. A crowd like that, with everyone fighting to get ahead of everyone else, was downright scary. It was everyone for themselves, and being trampled was a real danger. A few enterprising people had even climbed the Fiumi Fountain, clambering up and over the four river gods to the towering obelisk at the center. At least whoever reached that first would be safe from being trampled.
It was easy enough to figure out where the explosion had originated. The thick plume of smoke billowing up from the far side of the square was a dead giveaway.
“The church,” I said to Nik, shouting over the cacophony below.
The church, Sant’Agnese, was to be the secondary location for the day’s events, where just Nik, Heru, and I were scheduled to address a larger audience of humans for a shorter period of time after the main meeting in the palazzo.
“I see it,” Nik said.
Sant’Agnese was a wide, white stone building with a centralized dome, a couple of towers, and enough other architectural flourishes to make it impossible for us to tell whether the smoke was coming from the church itself or something behind it.
Until a thick fissure snaked up the front of the church’s dome. The sound of stone cracking was so faint I almost thought I’d imagined it.
“Holy shit,” I breathed.
I watched in horror, paralyzed as the break in the stone reached the bell tower atop the dome. I held my breath, half expecting the whole thing to collapse in on itself. When ten seconds passed without anything happening, I exhaled in momentary relief and glanced at Nik sidelong.
He was squinting, his focus entirely on the church. “The doors are shut,” he said, then closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side, like he was listening really, really hard. After a few heartbeats, he opened his eyes and looked at me. “Can you hear that?”
I shook my head and shrugged. “I can’t hear anything over this,” I said, gesturing behind me to the sea of people crammed into the lobby of the palazzo. The sounds of their panic echoed all around us.
“It’s faint,” Nik said, “but I think I can hear people banging on the doors of the church.”
My eyes opened wide, drawn back to the church, and my lips parted, my heart dropping into my stomach. “The overflow,” I whispered, not wanting to believe that the thousands of people who’d bought overflow
tickets, giving them admittance to the second, standing-room-only Q&A session, were still in the church.
From the looks of the fractured dome, the place could become a death trap in a matter of seconds. I gripped Nik’s forearm. “If all of those people are still in there . . .” I exchanged a horrified look with Nik.
“We have to get them out,” he said.
I nodded vehemently. Not a moment later, a second crack formed in the dome.
We turned away from the window simultaneously and ran toward the final set of stairs. I took the stairs two at a time, but Nik was even faster. “See if you can find whoever did this,” he shouted back to me. “I’ll handle the church.”
“Alright,” I yelled.
With his mastery over his sheut powers, Nik would be far more effective at the church, anyway. With the merest thought, he could reinforce the dome and any other damaged part of the church with At and bore holes through the door and any other blockages caused by debris from the explosion.
And me—I loved a good chase. My heart rate picked up at the prospect, the excitement of a hunt thrumming through my veins, bringing me back to the days when Mari and I had been tasked with tracking down rogue Nejerets for the Senate. We’d been partners for nearly two decades and had worked as a flawless team. The hunt wouldn’t be quite as fun without her. But it would still be fun.
When Nik reached the foot of the stairs, he dove into the anxious crowd, but I paused six stairs up, using the elevation to my advantage. From this vantage point, I could see almost everything going on in the lobby. People still squeezed in through the main entrance, despite the increasingly cramped quarters. There were hundreds of people stuffed in here, maybe thousands, but nothing about any of them suggested that they were the culprit.
I could still feel a slight tingle on my palm, but the itching sensation had mostly abated. Whoever had done this wasn’t close enough to trigger the magical alarm. I wouldn’t find them in the palazzo.
Which meant I had to get outside.
I raced the rest of the way down the stairs and launched into the throng crowding the lobby. They slowed me down, but I couldn’t stop. A sense of terrible inevitability pushed me onward, making my heart hammer in my chest.
The crowd became denser the closer I drew to the main doorway. I shouldered people out of the way, moving against the stream, and eventually managed to squeeze through the doorway.
I was on the wrong side of the palazzo. The church was on the opposite side, which meant the bomber was probably over there too, and the only way to get to the piazza was to head around the block. That wouldn’t be the easiest thing to do, what with the huge crowd amassed on the sidewalk and street beyond, some trying to get up the stairs and into the palace, others throwing caution to the wind for the sake of the excitement and heading toward the square.
“Shit,” I said, standing atop the entry stairway and scanning the crowd.
It was much larger now than it had been when Nik and I first arrived. The people of Rome had greeted us by the tens of thousands with handmade signs and shouts of welcome. But this crowd buzzed with anxiety, the raised, panicked voices only building the tense expectation within me.
I had to find the culprit before they could do worse than they already had. The sense of mounting dread all but ensured that this catastrophe was only just beginning.
I wanted to scream at these people to leave. To get the hell out of here, away from the church. Away from the piazza and the palazzo and the bomber. Away from me. They should have been running for their damn lives. But they weren’t, which meant I had to stop the bomber before another, worse explosion exploited the human tendency to rubberneck. Before curiosity could get all of these people killed.
I couldn’t see anything in this crowd, not from the ground. There definitely wasn’t any clear way through the throng. I needed to get higher.
“Out of my way!” I shouted as I pushed between people. “Move, dammit!”
I earned a few angry looks, quickly followed by shocked second glances. I heard the word “goddess” thrown around—and my name, too—my presence distracting the people from the very real and present danger, and an eerie hush fell over the crowd in the immediate vicinity. They finally seemed to realize who I was and that I was trying to get through, and as they made an opening for me, I felt a rare rush of gratitude for my newfound celebrity.
I raced through the crowd, aiming for the blockade that had been set up in preparation for our arrival. I had my eye on a police SUV with garish yellow and blue paint checkering the sides.
Once I reached the car, I leapt onto the hood, the metal crunching under my boots. I climbed up the windshield, using the bar of lights to help pull myself up, then stood and surveyed the sea of people surrounding me. My eyes watered, and the taste of smoke was thick in the air. Hands on my hips and eyes squinting, I scanned the area all around me.
There were so many people. If I was right, if the worst really was yet to come and another bomb went off soon—if it happened in the middle of this immense crowd—the effects would be devastating. So much worse than the destruction at the church.
As my searching gaze swept across a portion of the crowd on the far side of the street, my palm suddenly burned like I’d grabbed a hot iron, and my heart skipped a beat. The universe was telling me that the threat I sensed via the symbol on my palm—likely whoever was responsible for the church bombing—was somewhere in the group of people on the sidewalk across the street.
I honed in on their faces, getting a good look at each and every person. I missed her at first, but a niggling feeling made me do a double take. And sure enough, there among the humans, I spotted a Nejeret. She was a small, nondescript woman with tan skin, dark hair covered by a beige head scarf, and a pinched mouth, wearing a tan trench coat. Her eyes met mine across the crowd, just for a moment, and the searing pain caused by the Eye of Horus inked onto my palm flared hotter.
It was her. The bomber. It had to be.
Target in sight, I crouched down, placing my hand on the edge of the roof of the SUV, and was about to jump down to the street when a horrifying groan rumbled up from the earth. Not a second later, the whole car rattled as the ground shook.
It must have been another explosion, only this time deep underground. Deep under the streets of the city, a warren of ancient catacombs cut through the bedrock. If someone set off a large enough explosion, even twenty yards underground . . .
There was the sound of breaking rock, and the road fractured, a jagged crack running down the center of the cobblestone street, some fifty yards long and widening to several feet across. People screamed and shouted, reaching out for their companions even as those nearest to the crack fell into that growing dark abyss. The crowd went from milling to manic in a matter of seconds.
I watched on in shock, mouth gaping.
More cracks sprouted from that central fissure, and the paving stones on either side crumbled into the opening—as did a few people—giving way to a ravenous sinkhole.
I stood, extending my hands out on either side of me to steady myself as the SUV continued to shake. Nik would’ve been able to fix this in a heartbeat by covering the whole street with a sheet of At. But he was busy on the other side of the palazzo, helping the people trapped in the church.
All the people on this side had was me.
I just hoped I was enough.
3
I jumped off the roof of the SUV and dropped down to one knee, bowing down to press both of my hands flat against the paving stones. I squeezed my eyes shut and sent my focus inward, toward my sheut, thinking only about the task at hand. Not about the lives that would be lost if I failed. Not about the sense of dread that even now, after this most recent explosion, continued to mount higher.
All of a sudden, a swell of electric energy flooded into me. I spooled that energy in my sheut just like Nik had taught me to do, building it up until I felt near to bursting. When I had enough to make the magic work, I opened my eyes
and willed the energy out of me in the form of At. It spread out from my hands and covered the street like ice over a lake, but so much faster. Ten yards . . . twenty . . . thirty . . . a hundred . . . the earth below continued to break and fall away, but everywhere the At covered it, people would be safe from falling in. I left a meter-wide crack running along the length of the fissure with long, icicle-like strings of At extending deep into the sinkhole for any people who’d fallen in to use to climb back out. If any of them had even survived. It was enough—for now. The crisis was far from averted, and so many more lives were at stake. Too many.
I stood, wiped my hands off on my slacks, and climbed back onto the hood of the SUV. I stood there, scanning the place where I’d last seen the female Nejeret, but nearly a minute had passed since I’d spotted her. A virtual eternity in disaster time. She was nowhere in sight.
“Damn it!” I swore as I jumped down from the SUV.
I dove into the crowd, weaving around people when I could, shoving them out of the way when I couldn’t. I felt like I was playing a life-and-death game of hot or cold, following the burning sensation in my palm and altering my course when the pain abated.
The sense that something terrible was coming increased with each passing second, urging me onward. Now I really did wish Mari was here with me. She’d be able to come up with a fail-proof plan to track down this murderous bitch in a heartbeat, while without my old partner, I was left to fly by the seat of my pants.
I continued to shove my way through the crowd, scanning every face in hopes that it would be the one to set off the symbol on my palm. Hopelessness was just starting to settle in when I caught sight of a beige head scarf, and the pain in my hand suddenly burned hotter. I had a lock on the Nejeret.
I just hoped that by the time I caught up to her, it wasn’t too late.
The pain in my palm seared even hotter, and I took that as a good sign. I was closing in on the mystery Nejeret. She had to at least have been involved with the bombings. Why else would the amulet inked into my skin be leading me to her?
Judgement (Kat Dubois Chronicles Book 5) Page 2