“Why now?” I had my hands full with Dad, with hunting War, with managing Sariah trapped in my inner circle, not to mention the personal whammy of learning I was a mate and now a mother-type-figure-person. “What prompted you to reach out now when you’ve been here as long as War? She’s been plenty busy, but you’ve just been . . . doing what, exactly?”
“Your suspicions are well-founded,” he congratulated me like I had earned a pat on the head. “None of us can afford gifts for one another unless strings are attached. I postponed contact with you after hearing of your altered condition. I wasn’t certain you would honor our bargain, and if you didn’t, then I might never see my mate again. Rather than chance it, I waited and watched until Cole’s behavior toward you convinced me you were trustworthy.”
“That’s when you decided to use humans as messages in bottles.” The bite in my words didn’t go unnoticed, but they only made Janardan smile more warmly. I got the impression my humanity enchanted him. “That’s when the contagion started spreading.”
“Just so,” he said without a hint of sarcasm.
“I will honor the terms of the original agreement.” And not one clause more.
“Excellent.” He cast his gaze across the river. “I must ask for one final favor.”
Cole touched my arm when I started to argue. “What did you have in mind?”
“I must return to the swamp to collect your daughter. She remains in Death’s care, as there was no safe way to escort her without arousing War’s suspicions.” Janardan locked gazes with me. “You must stabilize the breach site so that my mate and our coterie may pass through.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.” A ball of dread lodged in my throat, and I couldn’t swallow past the implications. Death’s arrival would usher in the final battle for the terrene as well as accelerate the weather phenomenon sweeping across the globe. People would die. Charun would too. The potential for catastrophic fatalities hung in the balance, and I was about to tip us over the edge for the sake of a child who belonged to the man I loved and the monster in my middle. “I don’t have great control over my powers.”
Cole wiped away all traces of how much my answer mattered to him. “Will you try?”
“For you.” I brushed my fingers down his cheek. “Anything.”
Death was coming, one way or another. At least we could control this breach. That was something. It also indebted her to me. That couldn’t hurt.
Capturing my wrist, Cole pressed his lips against my knuckles. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” I turned to Janardan. “The task you’ve given me is a second favor, a substantial undertaking, and I must ask for a boon in return.” A wisp of the cold place flavored my tongue. “In exchange for stabilizing the portal and retrieving your mate and her coterie, I want you to work with—” I almost said Thom and winced, “—one of the taskforce doctors to create a cure for the contagion you unwittingly unleashed on the humans.”
“I am happy to end what I began.” He spread his open hands wide. “I harbor no ill will toward humans.”
Pissed he could say that with a straight face and mean it, I made the diplomatic decision to keep my mouth shut on the topic. There was no use alienating a potential ally against War.
“There is also the trifling matter of Famine’s coterie.” Janardan had the grace to appear chagrined. “Death gave her word that she would bring them through with our people. That was the bargain struck to allow me first access to this terrene.”
“We figured.” I massaged my forehead. “She wouldn’t have left them without a contingency plan. We assumed she would expect them to come through with Death.” Hearing it firsthand still sucked. “How likely are they to come through the breach swinging?”
“The odds are low,” he decided. “Without a direct order from Famine or her mate, it’s unlikely they will attack without provocation.”
Low was better than high. That was the only good thing to be said about his reassurances. I would have to take it and hope for the best.
“We should get moving.” I squinted up at the sky. “It’s dangerous to remain out in the open for so long.”
“Luce,” he began in a halting voice. “Do not think that because I am kind that I am merciful. Betray us, and you will live to regret your choice as many times as my wife wishes it.”
“Gotcha.” I sensed Cole bristle at my side. “Janardan?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t think because you’re Cole’s buddy that I won’t go dragon on your ass and eat you.”
With that, we left Janardan to make his arrangements, and possibly put on dry clothes, while we saw to our own preparations.
Santiago looked ready to spit nails over the deal we’d brokered. Charun hearing at work again. Moisture smudged Portia’s cheeks, and her tears reminded me of the heartbreaking loss of her own children. How that had been the catalyst for her joining Conquest. Miller didn’t look at us at all. He was too busy watching Portia, in Maggie’s body, leaking. Honestly, he looked too panicked by the tears for me to tell what he was thinking other than he would have traded his right arm for a box of tissues.
“I hope you’ve got a plan,” Santiago spat. “What you’ve agreed to is stupid to the nth degree.”
Portia rested a hand on his forearm. “I would have done the same,” she rasped. “For any of my children.”
His unforgiving lines softened while Miller’s hardened to diamond sharpness as his gaze fixed on the point where Portia touched Santiago. Maggie surfaced, and they lowered their arm. She winked at me and then vanished beneath Portia’s stronger personality.
Leaving them behind with a weight on my heart, I trudged up the path to the SUV, to Thom. Never a fan of sitting still, he fidgeted even in his sleep. He curled on his side in the front seat facing the door and the open window. I padded closer and rested my forearms in the opening to watch him rest, to assure myself he was still alive, that the Drosera hadn’t taken him from me.
“You smell . . . different.” He wrinkled his nose, eyes fluttering open. “Chemical.”
“Probably the IUD.” I stroked his hair, and his expression smoothed. “I’m still here, still me. Promise.”
“Good,” he murmured. “I like you.”
More than anything, I wanted to haul Thom into my arms for a spine-cracking hug, but he was still too fragile. That didn’t spare me from recounting Knox’s offer and waiting on the verdict.
“Hmm” was all he said in response.
“I’ve visited the enclave and met the leader. Knox seems like a fair man, and the facility is pristine. You could rest there, heal. You would be safe.”
Physically at least. Mentally, I hated he would be living among a reminder of his loss.
“That matters to you.” The intonation was wrong for a question. “It would ease your burden.”
“I want you with me,” I admitted. “I’m selfish that way. You’ve got to make this decision for yourself. If you don’t, I’ll keep you. Probably strapped to my back so I can protect you better this time.”
“I miscalculated, and I paid for it. It happens in battle.” He nuzzled my palm. “You’re not to blame.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree.”
“I’ll go to the enclave,” he decided. “I need to heal, and you need to forgive yourself.”
Not gonna happen. I should have been there for him. No. Scratch that. I shouldn’t have let him go in the first place. I should have refused to let him handle the worst infiltrations back to back. Poor leadership on my part caused this, and I would never shuck that blame. I didn’t want to in case I was ever tempted to make the same mistake.
I had lost so many people I loved, and this felt like another one slipping through my fingers.
“Okay.” I sniffled, wishing I could blame the runny nose on cat allergies. “Your phone was trashed, so I expect you to take one of Santiago’s tablets with you. We’ll get you a secure line. I want you to check in every day. Ev
ery single day. No excuses. One missed call, and I’m coming for you.”
“It’s for the best.” He smudged the stupid tears I’d hoped he wouldn’t notice slicking my cheeks with his thumb. “I’ll be fine.” His lips quirked. “And if I’m not, I know you’ll come for me.”
“Yes.” A thread of steel twined through my voice. “I will.”
Conversation sapped the strength from him, and he nodded off between one halting breath and the next.
Miller must have watched my back when I was too hellbent on seeing Thom to do it for myself. His neck twitched with the need to search out Maggie, but he sidled up to me and gazed down at Thom. The ache in my heart was mirrored on his face, and his voice scraped when he asked, “Where to next?”
“Canton.” A fragile tightness spread through my chest. “We’re going home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cypress Swamp hadn’t changed since the last time we motored through it on the White Horse airboat. The difference was Thom’s absence, which throbbed like a sore tooth . . . or a broken heart. Cole had returned from transporting him to the enclave and brought a second boat to hold our overflow.
I had never seen this one. It was all matte black, and its engine ran at about one third of the volume. It screamed stealth mode, and it might as well have a price sticker on the bow or a receipt for payment stuffed between the cushions. I could smell the leather seats and the burnt mechanical tang of a new toy being put through its paces.
Cole, Janardan, Wu, and I took the new boat. Santiago, Portia, Miller, and Sariah took the old one.
We glided through the water, cutting a familiar path through the spotted green duckweed right up to the tree with my found day carved into its truck. This area of swamp was under constant surveillance thanks to all the night vision cameras tucked high in the mossy canopy and the sensors floating in the water. Too bad I was about to negate the need for our early warning system.
A cramp tightened my gut as we coasted to a stop. Nerves or a heightened awareness of this entry point into my world, I wasn’t sure. I unstrapped and walked to the bow of the airboat. “How do we do this?”
“We go in.” Cole toed off his boots and socks. His pants disappeared next and then his White Horse polo. He stood there in skintight boxer briefs and dared me with an arch of his brow. “Your turn.”
I lost the shoes and socks without a flinch. Pants were more awkward but still doable. The button-down shirt was harder to part with, and it only came off because I had gotten into the habit of wearing a form-fitting silk pointelle undershirt beneath my uniform. While I could tell myself all day long there was no difference between a bikini and a matching bra and panties set, I didn’t believe me. Not until my fingertips brushed the hem of my undershirt did his gaze shift from me to Wu, who leaned forward in his eagerness to examine the rukav.
“Maybe I’ll keep the shirt.” It hit my navel and offered me the thin comfort of knowing if I drowned in the swamp, my daddy wouldn’t see all my assets once they fished me out for him to ID. “It’s tight and thin. I don’t think it will slow me down.”
Wu sat back, his interest thwarted, and began examining my initials carved in the tree.
Thanks to the IUD, or perhaps our chat, his interest in me was running cooler. More professional. Just the way I liked it.
I already had my hands full with Cole. Hopefully someday I would mean that literally. I didn’t need the friction my weirdo charun biology added into the mix by tossing out pheromones like candy at Canton’s Christmas parade.
Having a stranger dig around in my lady bits was never going to rank high on my awesome scale, but I was starting to feel grateful to Dr. Lachlan for giving me back this slice of normalcy. Cole and I were just starting to figure things out, and it was a huge relief to know that when he wanted me, his interest was genuine.
“Be careful,” Wu murmured as I wrapped my arms around my stomach. “This is a highly unorthodox mission. Conquest has never backtracked to a conquered terrene. We can’t know what the repercussions might be.”
As much as I wanted to ask if his father had ever tried returning home, and what had happened, I chose to exercise a smidgen of faith that if I was about to do something totally stupid that would get me killed, he would step in and shoot down my plan. Since that hadn’t happened, I considered his silence as his blessing.
Cole stepped up to the edge, and I joined him, our shoulders brushing. The air vibrated around him, his anticipation stirring up my anxiety. I wanted this to go well, for his sake more than Janardan’s.
“I really don’t want to get eaten by an alligator,” I confessed. “It seems like a bad way to go.”
“I’ll keep you safe,” he promised. “I won’t even let the crawfish nibble your toes.”
“You say the sweetest things.” I laughed softly. “How will I know what to do?”
“Instinct.” He clasped hands with me. “Go cold. Let that guide you.”
Let her guide me. That’s what he meant. While I doubted Conquest was PTA mom material, though she might be compared to War, her memory of the child was steeped in pride and affection. I was willing to bet she would want her heir back at least as much as Cole, if not for the same reasons.
“Here goes nothing.”
Sucking in oxygen until my lungs threatened to burst, I stepped out over empty air. Water licked at my heels as I was swallowed down into the belly of the swamp. I sank like a stone, and that was wrong. I should have been buoyant, but the tug in my gut tightened the lower I plummeted until my feet hit the silty bottom.
Bubbles escaped from my nose and mouth, tickling my skin as they raced for the surface. There was no point in opening my eyes. I was too far down, and the visibility was zero. I would have to do this blind.
Reaching for the cold place was instinctive, the headspace impossible to summon at will, but I had to try.
I dug deep, recalling all the glimpses I had collected into Conquest’s life, and used those to bring the reluctant chill to my fingertips. Slowly, at a glacier’s pace, the familiar ice swept through my chest and dulled my thoughts into comfortable numbness until I was swept along, a passenger in my own body.
Through the haze, I knelt and swept debris from a metallic circle inscribed with peculiar markings that bumped under my fingertips. Hard to tell from this angle, but I estimated it to be three times the size of a manhole cover. As I ran my hands over the raised design, a low vibration started in my bones, a welcoming resonance that linked me to this object. As if it belonged to me. As if I had every right to be here. As if it recognized my dominion over it and this place. The sensation as I located the handle wasn’t the same as when Cole or Wu touched me, but it was a close relative to the feeling.
Gripping the rung as tight as I could, I heaved with all my might.
It didn’t budge. Neither did I.
Weird.
Despite the effort, and the flurry of oxygen bubbles fizzing through the water, I wasn’t suffocating.
Weirder.
A dull impact rocked me, and I understood that Cole had landed beside me. He existed in this same peculiar pocket where breathing water didn’t drown you and gravity had taken a vacation. His fingers brushed mine where they wrapped the warm metal, and I heard him say “I’ve got you” in my head, as clearly as if he had whispered it in my ear.
Weirdest.
With him at my side, I cut the tether on my hesitation and submerged myself in the cold place.
Fractals of ice obscured my vision, and the bite of frost expelled from my mouth when I started chanting in the fluid language the rest of the coterie spoke with such ease. The vowels tasted sharp, the words jagged. The Otillian cut my lips on its way out. I tasted blood as it swirled through the viscous water around us.
The tithe has been paid. The thought pinged through my head, but it wasn’t mine. Take what is yours.
Fingers and hands and arms all coordinated to wrench open the hatch. Darkness waited below, fathomless as a night
sky and twice as endless. Another world slept below this one, and the temptation to crawl through creaked in my knees. Conquest was an explorer, and she was sated on that view, but I—Luce—was mesmerized by the peacefulness of the void.
Instinct snapped out an order to plunge my hand into the abyss, and icy fingers clasped mine on the other side. A woman with black skin and the tail of an eel swam beneath me, her clawed hand tight where our skin met. Her face was a grinning skull, a punch of white in a midnight complexion. Her ragged nails drew blood that chummed the waters around me in her desperation to climb to a higher world.
“Death,” I mouthed.
“Sister,” she spoke into my mind. “Well met.”
Cole’s arm struck out once her head cleared the seal. His meaty fist closed over her throat and squeezed with enough pressure to cause her eyes to protrude. “Phoebe first.”
Phoebe.
Familiarity rode the wave of recognition that this was the first time he had spoken her name.
Phoebe.
Sweet one.
That was what he named her when Conquest couldn’t be bothered to think up one, so certain her daughter would claim her title, her legacy, if she failed.
“Nicodemus,” she hissed through needlelike teeth. “I see you are well.” Reaching down into the blackness, she hauled an oblong disc beside her. “Is this sufficient to pay our toll?”
The egg-shaped pod floated up to us when she released its handle. Its hull appeared to be carved from charred wood as black as her eyes, and it stretched half my height.
Either Phoebe was a contortionist who traveled folded in half, or she wasn’t an adult.
Grief, love, and confusion splashed across his face as he captured the handle. “You placed her in stasis.”
Concern for him ripped through my hard-won calm, but whatever I had expected, it hadn’t been this.
“Yes,” Death hissed. “There was no other way.”
The cold place frayed around its edges, and Conquest’s hold on me began unraveling. Before that happened, I needed to know, “Where is Famine’s coterie?”
Death Knell Page 24