Her face went utterly blank, draining of color.
“Patience?” Brandt rose slowly, confusion turning into something far more uncertain as he connected. It was the phone she’d kept secret from him when they’d lived in the outside world, the one she’d used to talk to Hannah.
Eyes wide and scared, she turned the display so he could see the text. It read: Put it on speaker.
A heartbeat later, the main house phone rang.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Heart hammering, Patience stared at the landline. Jox reached to punch the speaker button, then paused and looked at her. “Okay?”
She was badly afraid that things weren’t okay. Why the text? Why the speaker? Why was Hannah contacting her at all? It had to be her or Woody; they were the only ones who had the private number save for Rabbit, and he was in the room. And Reese Montana, granted, but she wouldn’t be calling after all this time. Which meant it was Hannah or Woody . . . and that knowledge held Patience all but paralyzed.
Good news or bad news? She didn’t know, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
“Do it,” she told Jox, her voice barely above a whisper. Brandt took her hand and moved up behind her, his body warm and solid. The winikin punched the button and the phone emitted the faint snake hiss of live air.
She swallowed hard, then said, “Hannah? Woody?”
“They’re here,” a man’s voice said, “but they can’t talk right now. Someone else wants to say hello.”
Patience’s knees nearly folded as Rabbit lunged to his feet with an inarticulate cry of horror. But even without that confirmation, she knew. She knew. Her stomach lurched and her heart hammered into ovedrive. “Iago.”
Brandt’s fingers closed on hers hard enough to hurt, but she barely felt the pain. Every fiber of her being was focused on the phone, on the hiss of connection and the rustles of movement on the other end.
Then a small, scared voice said, “Mommy? Daddy? Are you there?”
The world stopped as she stared at the phone. She hadn’t heard the voice anywhere but in her dreams for the past two years, but she knew it instantly, intimately. Braden.
“Nooo.” The whisper leaked from her lips, taking air and hope with it. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t possible.
Only it was possible. And it was happening. Please, gods, no.
“Sonofabitch!” Brandt moved around her, headed for the phone. His face was dull red and etched with rage.
She grabbed his arm and tried to yank him back. It was like trying to stop a moving vehicle by pulling on a door handle—impossible—but she couldn’t let him get to the handset. Training and instinct took over, and she spun, kicked out, and caught him with a foot sweep. By the time he’d regained his balance, almost beyond himself with fury, she had darted around him and put herself between him and the phone, arms outstretched.
“Don’t,” she warned in a low voice. “That’s not Iago right now. It’s Braden, and he’s terrified.”
She was shaking. Behind her, small breathing sounds came down the line, making her picture Braden clutching a phone and trying to be brave while Harry watched, wide-eyed. The image nearly killed her. But at the same time it brought her the strength to stare down Brandt, holding him off until some of the wildness left his eyes.
He let out a long breath, then stepped up beside her as she turned back to the phone. He took her hand, gripping hard. He was shaking. They both were. Voice almost breaking with the effort of holding it together, she whispered, “We’re here, baby. Are you and Harry okay?”
“I’m here,” said a second version of the same voice, this one softer and more hesitant, not from shyness but because Harry weighed each word so carefully. He added, “We’re okay.”
“Hey there, champ,” Brandt said, using the daddy voice she hadn’t heard from him in so long. Hearing it now nearly broke her. He continued: “You’re going to have to help each other be brave. We’ll be there soon.” The promise was underlain with a threat aimed in Iago’s direction.
“Are Hannah and Woody there?” Patience asked.
“They’re in the other room, sleeping. When are you—” The heartbreakingly young voice shifted away, followed by a yelp of “Mommy!”
“Wait!” She reached for the phone, but stopped herself because it wouldn’t do any good.
Brandt put his arms around her, holding her close. She leaned on him hard, but didn’t take her eyes off the phone, knowing her babies and the winikin were on the other end.
In a low, dangerous voice, Brandt grated, “Talk to us, Iago. What do you want in exchange?”
“Who said anything about an exchange?” The Xibalban’s voice was as oily as his magic.
“You didn’t just call to torture us,” Brandt said flatly.
“Didn’t I? I’m getting a kick out of it, actually. Better yet is telling you that I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without you two. Ix lied and said he was going to the hellmouth down in the cloud forest that night. Once I knew which ruin he’d actually been at, it was easy to find the dark-magic entrance. I’ll be there when the passageway opens. Me and the other members of your little family.”
“Please,” Patience whispered without really meaning to.
“Which is worse, I wonder—for me to have my brother vanish, leaving me with little more than spellbooks and lies . . . or for you to know that your sons and winikin are going to help me start the new fire and call an army?”
She swallowed a sob, refusing to give Iago the satisfaction. But she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but cling to Brandt.
Voice resonating with fury, he rasped, “Patience and I killed Ix, not the boys and the winikin. What’s more, I’m a Triad mage. That’s what you really want, isn’t it? You want the power of the Triad backing up your magic. Even better, you want to take one of the Triad magi out of the equation. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“You’re not a Triad mage yet,” Iago countered.
“Your intel is dated,” Brandt said without hesitating. When Patience frowned up at him, he glanced at Rabbit and tapped his temple, indicating the jade circlet that had—they hoped—cut off Iago’s connection with his embedded spy. Then, hardening his voice to a last chance, asshole growl, he said, “Do you want to make the trade or not?”
“Four for one? I don’t think so.” A beat of silence. “You and wifey-poo together. Four for two.”
Half a second before Brandt could no-fucking-way Iago’s counteroffer, Patience said, “It’s a deal. When and where?”
“Eight tomorrow night, on the other side of El Rey, near the palace.” Iago paused. “Don’t be late.” There was a click, and the line went dead.
Silence filled the great room.
A shudder racked Patience. “Oh, gods.” She let go of Brandt and staggered away, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth as vicious nausea ripped through her, nearly folding her double. “Oh, shit. I’m—”
She broke and bolted for the bathroom just past the kitchen, cracked her knees on the marble flooring, and puked miserably in the toilet, hanging on to the seat and sobbing in between bouts. Then she was just hanging on to herself and sobbing, folded into a huddle on the bathroom floor. Brandt didn’t try to get her up. He just sat on the bathroom floor to gather her against him and hold on tightly, rocking her as long shudders ran through his big body.
She clung to him as the first terrible wave of grief and fear passed, leaving her wrung and miserable.
“We’ll get them back,” he said, whispering the words into her hair, over and over again. “We’ll do whatever it takes. I swear it.”
And even though she knew he couldn’t make that promise, she tightened her arms around him. “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”
He stilled. “I didn’t say anything.”
They pulled apart, looking at each other, and then at their forearm marks. Her jun tan didn’t look any different, didn’t feel any different. But she had just heard him in her
mind.
When they returned to the main room, Strike was waiting for them, face drawn. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I swore to you that they would be safe off the grid. I was sure they would be . . . but he’s stronger than any of us thought.”
Patience swallowed the surge of bile that came at the thought that, in the end, the boys probably would have been safer staying at Skywatch. Exhaling against the pain, she said only, “Then we’re going to have to be stronger than he thinks.”
“He won’t know what hit him,” Brandt said, voice low with menace. But she knew he was thinking about what he had been saying about Iago only minutes earlier. Things like “serial killer,” “monster,” and “escalating.”
Before, the Xibalban had been too unsure of his powers to attack them directly. Now he had no such qualms.
Strike said, “Based on the cement blocks and old radiation signs Rabbit saw through Iago’s eyes, we think he’s hiding in a bunker or a fallout shelter.”
“Carter put together a list of possibilities,” Jox reported from the kitchen, where he stood with a cell to his ear. “Jade cross-referenced them against power sinks, prioritizing Aztec and Mayan ruins, and got the list down to a hundred and twenty-four possibilities. It’s going to take time to check them out.”
“Too much time,” Strike said.
“Maybe not,” Leah countered. “Some detective work might help us narrow down the location.”
Jox said, “Carter’s also trying to run down the more distinctive tats you guys saw on the makol that attacked you, hoping we’ll be able to figure out where Iago’s doing his recruiting. No luck so far, though.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of doing some investigating for ourselves.” She turned to Strike. “Can you crack whatever box you set up and find out where Hannah, Woody, and the boys are living now? If Iago grabbed them from their home, there might be evidence of where the makol were prior to the attack. That could lead us back to Iago.”
Patience shuddered. When Brandt’s fingers brushed hers, she grabbed on tight.
Strike tipped his hand in a yes-no gesture. “I can get the address, but it’ll take some time. Lawyer one is going to have to ask lawyer two, and so forth, complete with a satellite-bounced password that changes every three days.” He paused. “I really didn’t want to know how to find them, in case . . . well, just in case.”
“In case we had a major security breach, you mean,” Rabbit said resignedly. “I’m grateful for your paranoia, because it means this wasn’t my fault. Not like Oc Ajal.”
He said something else, but Patience couldn’t make out the words over the sudden rushing in her ears.
“Oh, gods,” she whispered. Her stomach surged, knotting muscles that were already sore from retching, and felt like they were going to be at it again, real soon. “No.”
Brandt tried to tug her closer. “What?”
“No.” She dropped his hand and backed up a step, away from them all. “Gods, no. He didn’t. He couldn’t have.” But he could have. And he had.
“Patience.” Brandt got in her face and took her shoulders. “Talk to me.”
She locked on to his gold-shot eyes and her heart broke. He would hate her. She hated herself. Gods. This was her fault for being weak, for being a liar and a sneak.
Voice shaking, she said, “In El Rey, Rabbit and I were directly blood-linked when Iago downloaded him. And I got a splitting headache right after.” She swallowed another hard, hot surge of nausea. “He said he wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without us.”
“He was talking about the intersection,” Brandt argued. “Even if he got into one of our heads through the blood-link to Rabbit, he couldn’t have gotten the boys’ location. None of us knew it.” He took a step toward her, hands outstretched.
She backed away. “I—” She couldn’t get it out.
His color drained. “No. Tell me you didn’t.” She would’ve given anything to deny it. When she didn’t, his hands fell to his sides. “Patience.”
“I knew.” The words felt like they’d been ripped from the place where her heart used to be. “The address I found on Strike’s laptop was out-of-date. I couldn’t use Carter, so I went into the archived files and found Strike’s report of his first meeting with Mendez, when the bounty hunter grabbed him. I wanted her name.”
“You hired Reese Montana to find your boys?” Strike asked. He was staring at her like he’d never seen her before.
She knew the feeling.
“She found them within a few days and texted me the address. I memorized it, deleted the text, and started making plans to go see them . . . but when it came down to it, I couldn’t do it. I don’t know if it was my warrior’s talent, rationality, or what, but I finally admitted that you guys had been right. I couldn’t risk it, couldn’t risk them, just to make myself feel better. So I made myself forget the address and stop pretending that seeing the boys was going to make everything better.”
“Oh, Patience.” Brandt’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“If I had thought there was even the slightest chance Iago would . . .” She trailed off. Forcing herself to meet his eyes, where the gold flecks were buried beneath dark anguish, she said, “I’m sorry.” Her voice broke on the inadequacy of the words.
She was braced for his wrath.
She wasn’t prepared for him to cross the few feet separating them and take her in his arms.
“We’ll get them back,” he said, voice low and determined, as much a vow as if he’d shed blood and sworn to the gods themselves. “You’re not the enemy. Iago is.”
Then he kissed her temple. And she lost it again.
Clinging to Brandt’s solidity, she buried her face in his chest and wept silently, pushed beyond sobs to long, shuddering wails of tears, grief, and misery. Through it all, he held her, the two of them standing there, leaning on each other in the middle of the great room, as the others melted away.
He didn’t say anything, didn’t try to tell her it was going to be okay, that he was always going to be there for her, or any of the other platitudes they both knew he couldn’t guarantee. He just held on to her and let her cry herself dry.
When it was over, when the storm of weeping had passed, leaving her headachy, wrung out, and dry mouthed, she held him a moment longer, pressing her cheek against the wet fabric of his shirt, and listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart. Then, finally, she pushed away and looked up at him.
His face was deeply etched with strain and wore the impassive self-control of a warrior, but he was looking at her rather than past her.
Her voice shook. “If I hadn’t gone looking for them—”
He silenced her with a finger to her lips. “If I hadn’t gotten stuck inside my own head, you wouldn’t have needed to.” He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “But I’m here for you now, and we’re going to get them back.”
She let herself lean into him for a moment longer, thinking that maybe she could count on him this time. But if she’d learned anything over the past couple of years, it was that she also needed to be able to count on herself.
Easing away from him, she inhaled a shuddering breath, and focused. “I know where they were living as of six months ago. We can start there.”
Under an hour later, Patience stood at the side door of a neat, unremarkable house in a neat, unremarkable suburban neighborhood, fighting the shakes as Rabbit worked on the lock. Brandt was beside her; the others were ranged behind them, a chameleon shield hiding them from view. But neither her teammates nor the shield spell could change whatever was waiting for them on the other side of the door.
She was trying not to imagine blood, but it painted her mind.
“The boys said the winikin were with them,” Brandt said under his breath. “He said they were sleeping.” He’d repeated it so often that it sounded like a mantra. She wasn’t sure which of them he was trying to convince.
“Got it.” Rabbit twisted the knob and opened
the door, but stepped back to let them lead the way.
Brandt went in first, pushing past her like he wanted to shield her from whatever was inside. She was right behind him, though, nearly piling into him when he got halfway across the room and stopped dead.
She saw blue Formica, dark wooden cabinets, glossy black appliances, and a neutral tiled floor. The refrigerator was covered with cartoon-character magnets, newspaper clippings, and childish pictures drawn with more enthusiasm than skill. A Bose radio took up counter space and played jazz—one of Hannah’s favorite styles—with the volume set low.
There was no blood spatter, no sign of a struggle. That wasn’t why he’d stopped. His attention was locked on a framed photograph that sat beside the radio.
In it, the foursome had been caught midpicnic, laughing, with sandwiches and drinks spread haphazardly on a wooden table. Hannah’s hair was shorter and had more highlights, but the purple pirate’s bandanna and the lively sparkle in her good eye were the same. Woody’s hair might’ve gained more threads of gray, but his casual dress and easygoing smile were unchanged. The boys were tall and lean for their age, with Brandt’s intensity in eyes the color of her own. Braden, handsome and perfectly groomed, stared directly into the camera with a charmer’s smile, while Harry looked into the distance with a dreamy smile, his clothing faintly rumpled, his hair sticking up over his ears.
“They’re growing up.” Brandt’s voice broke. “And the winikin . . . gods, I miss them. I want them back, not just safe, but with us. For good.”
Before, she would’ve given anything to hear him admit that, to know that he felt it too.
Now, she moved up beside him, leaned on him briefly, and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. “We’re in this together,” she said, meaning not just the two of them but the entire team.
His fingers brushed hers, caught, and held. He squeezed, then let go and nodded once, a short, businesslike chin jerk. “Let’s do this.”
The magi fanned through the house. Patience and Brandt took the upstairs, first checking the big, brightly painted master that held an odd mix of neatness and jumble that reflected the twins’ personalities. She wanted to sit there and inhale the fragrance of crayons and the well-oiled baseball gloves that sat on a shelf, one splayed flat, the other with a ball carefully fitted into the pocket. Instead, she kept moving, touching Brandt’s hand on the way by.
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