Sunroper (Goddesses Rising)

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  “Son of a bitch,” Marley panted. She braced her hands on her knees for a few seconds until her pulse stopped racing and her chest no longer heaved from the adrenaline.

  She walked over to pick up the knife. It was well balanced and very sharp, and now it was hers. She went back and patted him down until she found a sheath attached to his belt. She yanked it off and snapped it around her own, securing the knife before checking him for other weapons. He’d tucked a Ruger into his rear waistband. That would’ve been slightly more effective. No doubt he’d planned to use the flux to throw the knife, altering its course if necessary and probably adding an extra shove when it struck. Then he’d use the gun on the other three, assuming none of them spotted him. Once he was inside, Riley could have sensed his presence without looking, and the moon, Quinn’s source, was close enough to full for her to use its power to disable him with a flick of her wrist.

  A glance at the church reassured her they were still undetected, but that wouldn’t last long. The ceremony had to be close to over, and while most of the people who would pour out of the building would have no clue who Marley was or what she was doing there, she couldn’t expect that no one would recognize her and tell Quinn.

  And she still didn’t want anyone to know she was the one taking the flux. When they’d hacked into the Deimons’ message board to track their intentions and movements, she’d learned that the first few guys she’d ever nullified had tried to get more flux afterward but hadn’t been able to accept it. That meant the more Deimons Marley nullified, the bigger the group that would want revenge. Her window for finding the rogue goddess distributing the flux and figuring out a way to stop her was narrowing.

  With her newly honed strength—like her senses, enhanced by the flux she’d taken in—she heaved Gash up by his collar and dragged him down the hill, ignoring his moans and weak struggles when he came to halfway there. A silver BMW was parked on the road that wound through the cemetery. She threw him against a headstone a dozen yards from his car and towered over him with her hands on her hips.

  “Who sent you?” she demanded. She wanted confirmation of the gossip.

  He shaded his eyes against the sun. “No one. I’m here for myself.”

  “Bullshit. You wouldn’t have waited so many months to act. Someone showed you the carrot. Who?”

  Gashface struggled upright and tried to look nonchalant, draping his wrists over his knees. But his sullenness ruined the attempt. He didn’t seem to have even noticed that the flux was gone. Maybe he thought he’d used it up in the fight.

  She waited. Finally, he rolled his eyes. “Tournado did. He’s back in the game, and he’s going after Remington in there for taking everything he had.”

  Marley laughed. “You are such a liar.” She wasn’t naive enough to think Anson would never go behind her back to get revenge on her friends, but she did know he was too smart to have let it all play out like this.

  He gaped. “No, I’m not. He—”

  She crouched and slid his knife from its sheath in one move, holding it with a backhand grip as she leaned into his face. “Tell me. Who sent you.” She wasn’t fooling around anymore. She’d use the knife if she had to, and the dangerous edge to her voice proved it.

  He stopped trying to put her off. “Delwhip.”

  “Senior or junior?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “What’s the difference?”

  “Were you to kill?” Her stomach went sour when he nodded, not meeting her eyes. “Who?”

  “Kordek first, then Remington, then the Jarretts if I could get to them. The woman last.”

  Weakest to strongest, relatively speaking, but also a deliberate order as each death would impact the others more. They wanted maximum disruption to keep Quinn from spearheading the Society’s partnership with Numina. Marley doubted Delwhip really cared if Riley went down first, but it was incentive to keep Gash on track.

  “Thanks.” Marley jerked him forward, then rapped his head on the stone behind him. He slumped over, unconscious. She almost left him there, but she didn’t know how long the wedding party would linger, so she hauled him to his car and tossed him in the trunk, kinking the inside release pull so it wouldn’t work properly. He’d get himself out—eventually.

  She scanned the graveyard and got ready to text Anson, but before she got a hand on her phone, an engine rumbled up the road. A moment later, their SUV pulled up behind the BMW. Marley got in, glancing over her shoulder as she did. A chill swept over her when she saw Riley standing at the top of the hill, staring down at her.

  How long had she been there? How much had she seen? There was a good chance she wouldn’t recognize Marley. She’d dyed her hair auburn when she’d changed her life and the sunglasses she wore hid her eyes. For sure, she’d never worn black leather and ass-kicker boots before, and Riley had never known Marley to be willing to or capable of fighting like that. But the way the bride stood, her bouquet hanging forgotten at her side, veil and train fluttering unheeded in the strong breeze…

  Marley slammed the door on longing and the vehicle at the same time.

  Chapter Three

  A global society is dependent upon cross-cultural cooperation in all realms, be they business, social, economic, or entertainment.

  —GS Consulting brochure

  “W

  here is he?” Anson gunned the SUV past the BMW, craning around to look for Gashface.

  “In the trunk.”

  A smile played around his mouth. “Did he give you a struggle?”

  “Hardly.” She checked the sky, which had grown overcast in the last half hour, but it was only lightly clouded, not stormy enough to account for the green tint everything seemed to have. The wind had picked up a little, too, but not sufficiently to bend the trees along the side of the road that way. A little queasy, she focused inside the vehicle instead of looking out the window.

  “He admitted Delwhip sent him and that he was supposed to kill them all.”

  Anson whistled. “Then I guess you did the right thing.”

  “And he was on flux.”

  His eyebrows went up again. “Did you ask him where he got it?”

  Her hand clenched in her lap. “He doesn’t even know I took it. If I asked about it, I’d be revealing myself. So no.”

  “Good thing I know where we’re going then.” A little of his old arrogance showed in his smirk when he flipped on the turn signal and checked for traffic before turning onto a major road.

  Marley was distracted by a dark red Viper they passed at the stoplight to their left. It looked familiar. She couldn’t remember where she’d seen it before. Last night, maybe? They weren’t common.

  And then she realized what Anson had said. “Wait, where are we going?”

  “Upstate New York.”

  Why the hell…

  She drew in a breath, understanding sweeping away her irritation. “You found her. How?”

  He shrugged. “I found evidence of where she might be. Some of the data I was running came together overnight.”

  “Where?”

  “Halfway between Albany and Hudson. On a farm in a tiny burg called North Chatham.”

  Marley checked the side mirror but didn’t see the Viper, Nick’s vintage Charger, or the Camaro Sam drove. Not even a limo or rented sedan that might be more appropriate for a wedding than a macho sports car. Riley must not have recognized her.

  “Any reason to think the goddess is there now?” Marley asked.

  “She could be. There’s lots of credit-card activity by suspected Deimons in that area once a month, and the timing is right.”

  She tried not to let anticipation bubble into excitement. It was hardly proof. “Okay, then. North Chatham it is.” She glanced at her watch. “How long to get there?”

  “Two and a half, three hours.”

  “Let me know if you want me to drive.” He never did, so she folded her arms, slumped in her seat, and closed her eyes to grab a nap.

  Not five sec
onds later, her phone rang. She sighed but didn’t move.

  “You gonna get that?”

  “No.”

  It rang again, loud in the confines of the SUV. Marley felt Anson eying her and sensed his amusement.

  “They spotted you, didn’t they?”

  She ignored him, but she couldn’t ignore the phone anymore. It was her own fault she’d been spotted, and now she had to explain what had happened and why she hadn’t stayed.

  She put the phone to her ear. “Yeah.”

  “You don’t sound happy to hear from me,” Quinn said wryly.

  “Why are you calling me when your best friends are getting married?” Marley winced not just at her defensive tone but at the words themselves. She should have thought that through a little.

  “So you did get the invitation.”

  “I got it.”

  “You didn’t RSVP.”

  Marley pinched the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes closed. “Do we have to talk about this? It’s a little late now.”

  “True, which is why I was so surprised when Riley told me she saw you at the church a little while ago.”

  “I’d be surprised, too,” Marley said. She considered claiming Riley was mistaken, but she couldn’t lie to her sister. Their parents had given Quinn up for adoption. They’d only been teenagers, and more than eight years later, they’d married, had Marley, and never told either daughter about her sister. Marley had found the paperwork when she was a kid, but Quinn didn’t know about Marley until a few years ago, when the whole leech thing happened. Bad circumstances to meet family for the first time, and Marley had struggled to be worthy of the relationship Quinn offered ever since. And failed miserably, multiple times. Deliberate lying just compounded it all.

  “Want to guess what we found?” A burst of sound followed Quinn’s question. Laughter and cheering. Marley could picture the guests sending Riley and Sam off to the reception in a fancy, crepe-paper-decorated car.

  “No,” she said, again truthfully.

  “Too bad. It was Gashface. In the trunk of a car near the church. Riley watched you put him there, and then she watched you get into an SUV with someone else and drive off.”

  Crap. Marley focused on the first part and hoped she could deflect Quinn away from the second. “He was going to kill you guys.”

  Quinn snorted. “You mean he was going to try?”

  “Okay, yes, he was going to try. But even if he never got to the altar, it would have ruined the entire day. I didn’t want that to happen.”

  After a pause, Quinn said, “Thank you. I know Riley and Sam will appreciate it when I tell them. Who sent him?”

  “Why do you think someone sent him?” Quinn would want to know the whole story, but Marley didn’t plan to tell them about the flux and the rogue goddess until it was no longer an issue.

  “Riley has seen him three times since she first gave him those scars. He didn’t do anything then.”

  Marley could have debated how circumstantial that was—questioned the conditions, pointed out the symbolism of doing it on her wedding day, blah, blah, blah. But she knew Quinn wouldn’t let it go, not even to put it off until after the wedding stuff. “It was Delwhip.”

  Quinn cursed. “I knew it. He’s fought against every stride we’ve made with Numina. If his brother-in-law weren’t the former president, they’d have kicked him to the curb a long time ago. Or worse.” She said something away from the phone, probably to Nick.

  Back on the line, she asked, “How did you know?”

  “Um, I overheard some guys and took a chance that it wasn’t big talk by little men. Since it was Gashface, you know, I was worried.”

  A deep voice rumbled in the background. The phone rasped, as if Quinn had held it against her body, and Marley heard her make a sharp exclamation. The voice responded, and Marley frowned. That cadence wasn’t Nick’s. It was Sam’s.

  “Where are you?” Marley asked.

  “At the church. Where did you think I was?”

  “The whole point of keeping this from you guys was to avoid disrupting their wedding day. Why aren’t you all on your way to the reception?”

  “Why are you fraternizing with the enemy?”

  Crap crap crap crap crap.

  Marley played dumb. “What are you talking about?”

  “The SUV. Riley got the plate, and Sam pulled the registration.”

  “On his wedding day? At a two-hundred-year-old church? You’re telling me they have Wi-Fi?” She forced a scathing tone but knew it wouldn’t work. She was so busted.

  “He has a broadband card and a lot more legal access now than he used to.”

  She wondered what that meant, but it didn’t matter. Not now. “So?”

  “So, Riley wouldn’t do wedding photos until he ran it.”

  There wasn’t anything Marley could say in a phone conversation that would be an adequate defense. Anything Quinn and the others could possibly be thinking about Marley, admitting she was working with Anson Tournado would be a thousand times worse. So she sat in silence, the hiss of tires on the pitted pavement the only sound.

  “Come on, Marley. Tell me what the hell you’re doing with the man who ruined your life.”

  Before Marley could do more than open her mouth with absolutely no clue what to say, her phone beeped a low-battery signal.

  “Marley.”

  The phone beeped again. “Sorry, Quinn. Battery’s dying. I’ll explain later.” She hit the button to disconnect, then held down the power button, almost breathless at the reprieve.

  Which was short-lived.

  “Your sister’s got your number now, huh?”

  Marley dropped the phone into the console next to her seat and flipped her bangs out of her eyes. “My sister has always had my number.” In every way that phrase could be interpreted.

  “What was she calling about?”

  “You.”

  Anson flicked a glance at her but didn’t grin or look pleased. He also didn’t make any snarky comments. “How’d she know?”

  “Riley saw your plates.” She shook her head. “Why is this registered under your real name?”

  He shrugged. “What would be the point?”

  She supposed he was right. After all, hiding his identity hadn’t stopped her from finding him.

  “I take it she’s not happy,” Anson said.

  “She wouldn’t be if I’d let her get past the question of why.”

  He stopped at a light and looked directly at Marley. “What will you tell her? When you stop avoiding the issue.”

  She stared through the windshield. “You know why I’m working with you.”

  “Yeah, but is that what you’d tell her?”

  She finally looked over at him. The conversation with her sister made her really see him. He’d lost weight, his natural slimness almost crossing over to scrawny. The bones and tendons in his wrists strained the taut skin over them. His eyes were dull and sunken, framed with bruise-like shadows, settled above sharp cheekbones and a brittle-looking jaw.

  Overall, he still looked better than when she’d found him in LA, and she liked to think a sense of purpose, the opportunity to make things right, was at least partially responsible.

  “I’ll tell her the truth,” she finally answered his question. Satisfied, he focused on the road again. Marley reclined her seat a little and closed her eyes. The radio came on, the volume low, tuned to some local pop/rock station. She let it float around her as she drifted off to sleep.

  …

  A couple of hours later, Anson woke her. She blinked back the haze of the half sleep she’d been in, surprised it had been so long. The SUV rolled slowly down a country road, fully residential with no streetlights or sidewalks but plenty of towering trees that had dumped yellow, red, and brown leaves all over the road and the yards.

  She pulled the lever to raise her seat and lowered her window a little. “This is it?” The sharp tang of burned leaves mingled with wood smoke and gave t
he chilly air an illusion of warmth.

  “The bustling metropolis of North Chatham, New York,” Anson confirmed. “Or is that sleepy village?”

  Most definitely the latter. Some of the homes lining the street were close to the road, others set back a little. Most were on the large side, colonial in style, with a few Cape Cods thrown in. Cheery lights glowed next to painted front doors and from homey windows.

  They passed a house with a United States Post Office sign, a single white church, and tiny Colonial with a long handicapped ramp and a sign proclaiming it the North Chatham Free Library.

  Five seconds later, they were on their way out of town.

  “That’s it?” Marley twisted to look through the back window, surprised at her nostalgia. The village reminded her of home, the inn she’d owned in Maine.

  “For the center of town, yeah, I assume so.” He glanced at the GPS in the dash. “The farm is a couple more miles.”

  Marley settled back in her seat and turned an alert eye to what was ahead. It was nearly eight thirty at night, late enough to be dark but not so late there weren’t other cars around. They’d have to do a quick scope now and come back later to really check out the place. They had a lot to learn if they were going to find a way to stop the goddess from giving out flux.

  “There it is.” Anson pulled the SUV into a gravelly cutout on the side of the road and turned off the engine. It ticked slowly down while they studied the open land across the street.

  Not that they could see much. Two silos towered against the sky, which glowed a faint orange from the lights of Albany half an hour away. Marley assumed the long, shadowed building near the silos was the barn, set back a few hundred yards from the road. She couldn’t see a farmhouse, but there were a few smaller buildings speckling the property. Despite the lack of visible details, the whole place gave off an air of abandonment. Marley listened hard, but only crickets and katydids sang their songs at deafening levels, too loud for her to hear anything else in the distance.