“The angel?” His mouth tightened. “The bastard is around somewhere. He doesn’t sit still long. I’ve got Derek keeping an eye on him.”
Max nodded, not wanting to ask. She forced the question out. “How many did we lose?”
Pain carved deep grooves in his face. “Four of mine. So far. Liam could still go either way.”
Tears burned her eyes. “And my Blades?”
He ran his hands up to her shoulders, sympathy and sorrow softening his gaze.
She looked away. “How many?”
He drew in a breath and slowly let it out. “Six. Giselle and Magpie are the only witches left of the anneau.”
Slowly Max ran her fingers through her hair. An ache filled her, sharp and wild and more painful than she knew how to bear. So many dead. She couldn’t bear to ask for names, not yet. She pulled away from Oz; she needed to be alone. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later.”
She backed away and strode back the way she’d come. Tears ran down her cheeks and she didn’t wipe them away. She turned a corner and stopped, leaning back against the wall, her arms tight around her stomach.
“You survived,” Tutresiel observed sardonically.
She scowled, turning her head to look at him. He stood a dozen feet away in the mouth of another corridor. She faced him, brushing away her tears roughly.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said.
“Have you?” he asked, his brows arching. His sharp cheekbones and crimson eyes made him look demonic.
“I need your help.”
“Do you now? What for?”
“Come on.”
She walked away and he fell in beside her. His wings made soft, metallic rubbing sounds as they walked. Max said nothing. She was searching for that cold, quiet place inside where pain gave her strength. It was elusive, and the ragged, aching hole inside her gaped wider.
Niko and Tyler were in the corridor outside the holding rooms. They grinned at Max as she approached.
“Good to see you upright,” Niko said, his obvious relief belying his sardonic tone. His gaze shifted to Tutresiel and his expression turned cold.
“Giselle wants Selange and her Blades out of here now.”
“She’s going to just let them go?” Tyler asked.
“Except for Thor. He’s mine. Let’s do it.”
They went inside. The circular room had steel doors running three-quarters of the way around. Niko yanked the levers free on one of the doors and yanked it open. Inside was a big cell. Selange’s Shadowblades were laid out on the floor like cordwood. Just as Max and Alexander had been bound in Aulne Rouge, they’d been cocooned in wire-wrap straps. Tyler and Niko went in and sliced their legs free so they could walk. The six of them were filthy. They stood slowly, staggering and swaying as they eyed Max. All but Thor, who remained on the floor. He watched Max from lidded eyes.
“Out now, all of you,” she ordered. “Get Selange,” she told Niko.
“What are you going to do with Thor?” Alexander asked. He had come to the doorway of the prison room, two more of her Shadowblades on his heels. His expression was tight and closed, his dark eyes churning with emotions she didn’t want to read.
“He and I have a score to settle,” Max said. “I owe him.”
“He was only following orders. You know he could not refuse.”
“I know what he was doing,” she said, then turned to Niko as he emerged from Selange’s cell with the witch draped over his shoulder. She had been sedated and hung like a sack of potatoes. Like her Blades, she was still covered in ash and dust. Her bruises and cuts had not been healed, and dried blood still streaked her skin.
“Get the bitch out of here now.” Max paused and her mask slipped. Her lips trembled. She firmed them, speaking with quiet implacability. “Akemi’s truck is down on the road. You’ll need to pick it up. Alton, too. Giselle will want to talk to him. Tutresiel, I want you to follow Selange and make sure she leaves Montana. No stragglers. Now get moving. They need all the night they have left.”
She ignored Alexander’s taut, searching look as he helped herd the Shadowblades out. He hesitated as he passed, but her expression was forbidding. He gave a jerky nod, his mouth pulling tight, and left. Niko lingered, looking like he wanted to say something, then he followed Alexander. Finally it was just Tutresiel and Max. She glared at him.
“Well? Got something you want to say?”
“You are not going to tell me to kill them? It’s stupid to leave them alive. Sooner or later they will be back’probably sooner.”
She shook her head, sighing heavily. Hunger was making her start to shake. “Just make sure they don’t double back.”
He gave a mocking bow. “As you wish.”
With that he left. Max took a breath. One last thing to do, then she could grab some food and go find a hole to crawl into and lick her wounds in peace.
She went to a cabinet on the wall and withdrew a vial, syringe, and plastic case with zoll biphasic rbw in block letters on the front. So armed, she went to kneel beside Thor in the big corral cell.
“Good to see you made it,” he said, his voice raw and cracked.
“Thanks to you taking your time.”
He made a movement that might have been a shrug, then gave a pained grin. “Why I am still here?”
“Because I owe you.” She reached out and rubbed her thumb over his cheek where Scooter had marked him. It had told her that Thor didn’t belong to Selange, not really. At least not willingly.
“How would you like to join my Shadowblades?”
His eyes widened, then he sucked in a gasping breath, his chest arching off the floor. “I can’t,” he rasped. Pain twisted his expression.
“I know. But I think I can help with that. And unless you flat out tell me no right now, I’m going to do it. For what I owe you, and because Horngate can use you.” She silently counted out ten seconds. His head knocked hard against the floor. The tendons of his neck corded and his teeth clenched as his compulsion spells tortured him, trying to force him to say no.
“All right then. So you don’t want to say no. Time for you to die.” With her one hand, she flipped the top of the vial open, then hesitated. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I think it will work. Your compulsion spells are tied to your life. When you die, they should let go. The only problem is that once your heart stops, the odds of me waking you up are close to zero. If this was a reliable way to break bindings, everyone would be doing it.”
She looked at him, silently asking the question. He squeezed his eyes shut and gave the faintest nod. It was all she needed. She poured a droplet of the brown, viscous liquid out of the vial onto his forehead. It sank in and disappeared like rain on parched earth. Thor’s body spasmed and shuddered, then shook with convulsive tremors. A moment later his eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped dead.
Max counted the seconds as she drew a knife and began cutting away the wire ties. She tore his shirt open, exposing his muscled chest sprinkled with curly blond hair. Thirty seconds. She waited. At last she saw the bindings unravel. The neon blue tendrils curled away, shriveling up until they disappeared. Quickly Max unlatched the defibrillator case and flipped it open. She grabbed the bottle of gel and tore it open with her teeth, spitting out the lid and squirting gel onto the paddles and rubbing them together. She toggled the machine on and set it to three hundred joules. Only higher settings worked for Shadowblades and Sunspears, if defibrillation worked at all. She pressed the paddles to his chest and pushed the button with her knee. The jolt lifted him off the floor. Next she snatched the syringe and ripped away its wrapping. The needle was a good eight inches long. She jammed it into his heart and thumbed down the plunger, flooding his heart with adrenaline, then hit him again with the defribrillator. She began compressions on his chest while the machine recharged.
“Come on, dammit,” she muttered.
She hit him again with a jolt of electricity and pumped his chest some more. Ten co
mpressions and then she bent and opened his mouth, pinching his nose shut. She drew a breath and blew into his lungs carefully. Too hard and she’d rupture them. Another breath. She sat up and grabbed the paddles again as the machine beeped its readiness at her. She set the paddles against his chest again and moved to press the button.
“Don’t,” he groaned, and coughed, turning onto his side. His muscles clenched and he threw up. A thin spattering of clear liquid was all that came out. Max cut the rest of the cable ties and waited. He stayed that way for about five minutes, before he recovered enough to sit up, rubbing at the welts on his arms.
“Now let me ask you again, do you want to join Horngate? You don’t have to. You can walk away free as a bird.”
He frowned at her. “I’m bound to Selange.” Then he sat up straighter, his eyes widening. “Wait a minute. I feel ΓǪ” He surged to his feet, his hands running through his long hair as if searching. He locked his fingers behind his neck and folded his elbows to his head. “I can’t fucking believe it. I really am free, aren’t I?”
“Dead will get you that way,” Max said, packing the defibrillator back up. She picked up the poison vial and carefully snapped the lid back on. “So what do you want to do?”
“Eat,” he said instantly. “I’m so hungry I could eat a bear, hide and all.”
“I’ll feed you,” she said with a tired grin. She couldn’t believe it worked. For years she’d daydreamed about finding someone to kill her and bring her back, but she didn’t trust anyone enough, and she didn’t want to risk dying before she could pay Giselle back. “But I need to know if I’ve got to walk with a gun at your back or not.”
He dropped his arms and cocked his head to the side. “You’re serious. You took Alexander and you’ll take me, too. Why?”
“Lately I’ve been told I’m stupid. And just a little bit insane.”
He grinned at her. “Alexander said you were a Prime worth serving.”
She made a rude gesture. “No one serves me.”
“Wanna bet? All right. I don’t have anyplace else I want to be. I’ll stay.”
“Then make an oath. Right now. Promise me you’ll protect and serve Horngate to the best of your ability.” His brows rose. “That’s it?”
“As far as I’m concerned. Giselle will probably demand more.”
He rubbed his hand across his stubbled jaw. He nodded. “I promise that I’ll protect and serve Horngate to the best of my ability. Until I die.”
A shimmer wash of pale yellow magic swirled around him and was gone. Max shook her head. “You shouldn’t have put a time limit on it. If you want to leave here, I’ll have to kill you again and you almost didn’t wake up this time.”
He smiled, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops. “See, the truth is, I’m not actually as dumb as I look. I know a good thing when it runs a cattle prod through my chest. Alexander was right about you, and now that you let me in the door, I don’t mean to get away easily.”
“You’re both dumber than a box of rocks,” Max muttered as she went to put the defibrillator away. Thor was waiting behind her when she turned around. She sighed. “Come on. Let’s get some food.”
23
ALEXANDER RETURNED TO THE COVENSTEAD WITH a leaden stomach. It was Max’s right to have her revenge on Thor’he had tried to kill her, and he was the next likely choice for Selange’s Prime. It made sense both strategically and personally to kill him. But Alexander should have tried harder to stop her. He owed Thor. He should have fought for him.
Niko parked the truck near the massive greenhouses. They still stood with little damage. A miracle of magic. The plants inside had not fared so well. They had dried to tinder.
“What the hell do we do with this rock?” Tyler asked as they climbed out.
“It’s not just a rock. It’s the Hag,” Alexander said, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.” he said.
“Let’s leave it’her’here for now,” Niko said. “Giselle or Max will tell us what they want to do with it.”
They walked back to the entrance to the underground compound. No one spoke to Alexander, though their silence did not seem angry or resentful. It was more somber and mystified. Too much had happened, and Alexander was hardly important in the scope of it all.
Inside they stayed together as they wandered down to the kitchen. He hoped Max would be there. He wondered if they all felt the same way. They needed to be around her. They needed the comfort of her strength, and they needed to reassure themselves that she was still alive. He was no different from any of them.
She was not there. Instead when he walked in, he found Thor sitting at a table with Lise. She was watching him shovel enchiladas into his mouth with a cynical smile. She looked up and her smile widened. Thor lifted his head and set his fork down.
“I suppose you’re another one of us, too,” Niko said sourly, crossing his arms.
Thor stood slowly. “I guess I am.”
“How?” Alexander demanded.
Thor shrugged. “Let’s say I’ve been born again. Hallelujah, praise the Lord, and pass the whiskey.”
“She killed you?” Tyler asked.
Thor nodded. “And then I made her a promise.” He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Are you Niko?” he asked, holding the paper out to the blocky, dark-haired man.
Niko took the paper and read it. “Tyler, you’re with me. We’re going to give Xaphan a break. The rest of you go help the coven with cleanup.”
Niko turned and pushed back out, and they fell in behind him. Thor walked next to Alexander.
“Why did she do it?” Alexander asked softly. “I thought she was going to put a bullet in your head.”
“Me, too. Turns out she believed me when I told her I didn’t want to have to kill her.”
“You stalled until we got there?”
Thor nodded. “You were almost too late.”
A spasm flickered across Alexander’s face. The memory of Thor’s hands on Max’s throat kept playing in his mind’s eye’a few more seconds and she would have been dead. He was appalled at how much the idea of that hurt. “Thank you.”
A hard look settled over Thor’s face. “Don’t. I knew you wouldn’t let me live if I killed her. I was ready for that. Selange wasn’t going to send me hunting children ever again.”
IT WAS CLOSE TO DAWN AND MAX STILL HAD NOT TURNED up. Alexander was getting worried. He had hardly seen her in the last four nights. He had begun to think she was avoiding him, which, if true, offered him some hope that he bothered her as much as she bothered him. Tyler had told him that she had gone for a run in the mountains hours before, and she still wasn’t back.
He finished dumping a load of rubble on the heap outside, then stood just inside the entrance of the mountain. The minutes ticked by. He paced back and forth. A bare scrape of sound alerted him, and he turned just as she came around a jut of rock.
She stopped, her brows raised, then walked past him. He swung the door shut and latched it before following. She went twenty feet and stopped. She did not look at him. “Is there something you want?”
So much. He did not say it. “Thank you for Thor.”
Her shoulders shifted. “I didn’t do it for you. I owed him. And Horngate can use him.”
“Yes, it can. But that is not why you did it.” He put his hands on her shoulders because he could not resist touching her. He gently turned her around to face him. “You scared years out of me. I thought Xaphan was going to burn you alive. And then to see Thor with his hands on your neck’” He grimaced. “More people than just you owe him for not killing you.”
“I’m not sure I did him any big favors.”
Alexander frowned, his thumbs rubbing her neck lightly. “You are angry. Why?”
She shook her head. “Not angry. I’m just ΓǪ”
“Just?”
She pulled out of his grasp. “I just need sleep. There’s a lot of wor
k to do to rebuild Horngate. And to get ready for this war.”
Not until that moment did he realize she was deep into that inner place where he could not follow. He resisted the urge to grab her and shake her out of it. But he could not let her walk away either. He had to hold her there and bring her back out of herself. He ran his tongue over the edge of his teeth. Alexander was struck by the notion that she was fragile. Just like steel, under the right conditions she could shatter.
“You have not eaten in some time. Come join me. You can sleep on a full stomach.”
She hesitated, then nodded grudgingly. “I could eat.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “But that’s all.”
Bitter Night Page 33