Kaliya Sahni: Volume One (Kaliya Sahni Volumes Book 1)

by K. N. Banet

  “I stocked up on groceries a few days ago, so we have enough food. Everything else is yours to deal with.”

  I knew he meant ammo and other potentially necessary defensive items.

  “We’re fine then,” I decided, cutting off the engine. He jumped out first, and I wasn’t sure what to think of his weird decision to check the halls and walk in front of me. “Let’s take the service elevator instead of the main one,” I said softly, pointing him to a closed door. “That way, we shouldn’t run into humans, smelling and looking the way we do.” I was pretty sure we smelled like smoke, and Raphael was covered in dried blood.

  He nodded, and we went into the service area of the building, which had its own elevator for the building staff. I had special permission to use it when needed from the building owner, so management wouldn’t get onto me. Thankfully, the building owner also made sure there were no security cameras in this area because of my extracurricular activities.

  When we were on my floor, I checked the entry hall before unlocking my home and letting Raphael go in first. It wasn’t until I was in the door that my frazzled mind remembered the bags I left in the BMW.

  “I’ll be right back!”

  I jogged out, took the elevator back down, grabbed the bags from the trunk, then hauled ass back upstairs, anxious about leaving Raphael alone. On the flip side, I couldn’t leave a bunch of weapons in my car for anyone to find if they passed by.

  Once I was upstairs again, I saw Raphael in his customary place in my kitchen, already diving through things.

  “I’m making food,” he announced as I got closer. His shirt was already changed, and the blood on his arms was gone. If he had been injured, he was already healed. He wasn’t completely clean with dust in his hair and more blood and dust on his pants, but he’d made an effort. “Anything you want to eat?”

  “Anything pasta. Do you mind if I shower while you cook?” I put the bags on the counter. He shook his head when he saw me, and I was grateful. I didn’t like smelling like an explosion. “If you need anything to protect yourself in those twenty minutes, I’ll be unavailable, so check in here. I need to bandage and clean up.”

  I used my cellphone to access the condo’s security system and locked down. Metal closed over the windows and doors, all unusable until I lifted the lockdown. I turned the entire two-story home into a safe room. In addition, I had a safe room in the condo, just in case there was someone capable of getting in.

  “Thanks.” He looked at the windows, sighing. “Thanks,” he repeated softly.

  I walked out of the room, taking a deep breath as I made my way to my room. I cleaned up my jaw, hissing as I wiped the deep cut from Erline. The fact that I was still alive was the only positive. The two-inch-long slice would scar. It wouldn’t be hard to fix after it healed, but it would piss me off until then. I hadn’t been careful enough. I used tissue glue and tape to keep it closed then shoved my first aid kit back in the bottom cabinet, knowing I had better things to think about than Erline, who was very dead now.

  Beyond that cut, I had to admit, right after the explosion, the werewolf had hit me pretty good, bruising my cheek and jawline. I wasn’t swelling up as a normal person would, at least not as much, but that was only a small boon. The rest of it was a nightmare to look at. My shoulders, back, and ribs were all a sick patchwork of scrapes and bruises, and the back of my head was already forming a considerably sized bump.

  “I need a healer,” I said, talking to myself as I stared in the mirror. “I can’t go out like this. I’ll be slower than normal, and…” I hit my hand on the bathroom counter, pissed off at everything. “Did I buy any of that fucking ointment Cassius swears by? Fuck, I hope I did.”

  I shuffled through my cabinets, hoping I kept some on hand. I found it in the back of a drawer. I whispered my thanks to the universe and cracked it open. It stank, but I was about to shower, so that didn’t bother me. I rubbed it over every bruise. It wasn’t the most powerful healing ointment around, but it had pain-relieving properties and reduced swelling and bruising better than most things. It absorbed into the skin and the magic started taking effect quickly.

  I tried to shower quickly, but I kept pausing and losing focus on what I was doing. Everything was tumbling around my head as I went through the timeline over and over. It didn’t help that I wasn’t well stretched, and every bruised muscle I had was trying to seize.

  We went out with Cassius, and he told us he was going to the fae lands with Sorcha. I got a call from Tarak, saying the Tribunal was demanding an up-to-date review of the prison. Callahan had been getting onto him, but there was probably more. Something about Hasan making the Tribunal clean up their act. Dian, another fae and a Warden, was called back to the fae lands. Alvina had been unreachable even though I had called her private number.

  Everything lined up neatly, almost too neatly. I was even skipping over some problems like Kartane attacking Eliphas. Did that have anything to do with the breach, or was it opportunistic? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure I could even get the answers, but I wanted them. Everything had happened so fast and led to a hundred questions, and I wanted answers.

  By the time I got out of the shower, it had been thirty minutes. I cut the water, dried off, and had started getting dressed when I heard Raphael scream, not in fear but shock.

  “Kaliya, what are you doing?”

  That made me straighten up. I finished pulling on the shirt in my hands and walked out of the bedroom. When I reached the entry to the kitchen, I frowned.

  “I’m not doing anything…” I said carefully, watching him spin by himself in the kitchen.

  When his eyes landed on me, they went big and started to turn black. The black veins began to radiate out, telling me something was wrong.

  “Then who’s crawling up the back of my shirt?” he asked, standing so still I would have thought he met Medusa and was turned into stone.

  It took an extra second for his words to register.

  “Don’t move,” I ordered softly.

  A bold green on green patterned snake emerged from the collar of his shirt and wrapped around his neck twice, then rose up. When its eyes met mine, its hood flared open, revealing a bold yellow pattern that seemed like eyes. It was a display of aggression toward me—a warning.

  I knew a naga’s snake form when I saw one, and the vibrant yellow with that specific hood pattern told me who I was dealing with.

  “Nakul, if you want to live through the night, you’ll leave Raphael unharmed,” I warned, trying to keep my voice steady. I was hoping two things—Nakul took me seriously and Raphael was immune to all nagas or at least wouldn’t die a painful death, even if his healing was torturous.

  10

  Chapter Ten

  None of us moved for a long time, then Nakul moved all the way out of Raphael’s shirt, and there was a man holding a gun to Raphael’s head. Where he got a gun, I could reasonably guess, and it gave me a strong feeling as to how he got into my home.

  “I’m here to help,” my uncle said softly. “But until you understand that, I’m going to keep this here.”

  “Let me guess. In the mayhem of the breach and the escape, you got to my car, snaked into one of my bags, and hid there. And now that we’re here, you suddenly want to help since you realized I’d locked the entire condo down—no one in and no one out. You’re trapped and could have starved if not for revealing yourself. Or I would have found and killed you, eventually.”

  “I knew you would find me, but I took advantage of your focus on getting away and into a safe location to hitch a ride, yes.” He nodded sharply. “Now, niece, we need to talk.”

  “You…said as much at the prison when I was passing your cell,” I remembered, frowning. “What are you into this time?”

  “It’s not about what I’m into, it’s about what you’re into. You’ve pissed off some powerful people, and they started pulling strings. You were supposed to die in the prison.”

  “How do you know tha
t?” I demanded, trying to keep my cool.

  “Because they asked me to do it,” he answered simply.

  Why am I not surprised?

  “And? Are you going to try now or later? I don’t really have time to watch over my shoulder with you in my house. If you want to kill me, we might as well get this out of the way.” I didn’t have patience. If I was going to be dealing with people trying to kill me, I needed to get started with the why. The longer I let that question linger, the harder it would be to answer. I looked at Raphael’s black eyes and knew my own reasoning, but I already didn’t like how many unanswered questions there were around us. I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.

  I can beat Nakul. He’s honestly one of the easier fights for me—a small boon.

  “I obviously said no,” my uncle snapped. “Why in the gods’ names would I kill my niece and the last adult nagini?”

  “Because I threw you in prison. Well, actually, Adhar threw you in prison to keep me from killing you,” I reminded him. “Honestly, I wish you were dead right now after all the terrible things you did.”

  “I was out of my mind. Eliphas helped me regain my sanity, and I don’t plan on wasting it by killing my niece,” he said, exhaustion weighing down on him. I could see it in the lines of his sagging proud shoulders and the way his hard face softened. “I did do terrible things, but right now, I’m just trying to help the last real family I have. And our species. You can’t get killed. I won’t allow it.”

  “We’re not family,” I whispered. “Not in any way that matters.” Nakul and I hadn’t had a real conversation since I was a child. When we saw each other after I became an Executioner and he was an insane serial killer, it had been close to seventy-five years since a family dinner when I was young. We most definitely didn’t talk.

  “Kaliya, maybe you should tell him what happened to Eliphas,” Raphael said. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. Nakul still had that gun to his head, and neither of us thought he would survive a bullet to the brain.

  “Kartane took his eyes,” I said simply.

  “Ah. That’s regrettable. He started a power transfer then. Hopefully, Eliphas can kill him and reclaim or destroy his eyes before they’re used against him.”

  “Um…” I don’t know what my roommate was thinking, but I figured it was time to ask the obvious.

  “Nakul, I swear on our gods not to kill you if you lower your weapon off Raphael and let him continue with what he was doing, so long as you don’t attack either of us.” Crossing my arms, I waited.

  The gun lowered slowly, Nakul flicked the safety, then tucked it into the pocket of his prison jumpsuit.

  “I swear on our gods, I will not bring you or yours any harm and that I’m here to help you without considering myself in the matter,” he replied, lifting his now empty hands.

  “I’m taking you back after this,” I told him, staring at his now dark eyes. “I won’t ever let you walk free.”

  “I understand,” he said softly, nodding his head. “Who knows what might cause me to snap again.”

  “Exactly.” He seemed like the uncle I knew as a child. I had known when we caught him, even before, he had lost his mind. Grief did terrible things to people. Nakul and I were the two nagas who took things to different extremes when it came to the loss of our families.

  If anyone could even remotely relate, it was me.

  Maybe that’s why I hate him so much.

  “Back to the eye thing…” Raphael stepped out from between us. “Why is that a thing?”

  “Eyes are windows to the soul, and for witches, taking the eyes of another witch can do a number of things, from transferring one’s power to another or controlling them. It’s a very dangerous thing.” Nakul shrugged. “I’m assuming Kartane wants Eliphas’ raw power. He’s not strong enough to control Eliphas’ soul like a puppet.”

  “There are other body parts they like for different reasons, but yeah, eyes are special,” I added, shaking my head. “Sit down with me in the next room, Nakul. We’ll talk.”

  I didn’t want him near Raphael. Instinct told me Raphael was more important than my own life, something I had to ride with. Nakul was an imminent threat, and I wanted distance between them.

  “Of course.” He followed me out of the kitchen and dining area into the living room. I stared at the windows, wishing I could see the night sky, but large metal plates blocked the view.

  “Who wants to kill me?” I asked softly as he stood next to me.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think the situation between Eliphas and Kartane relates. They never really liked each other, so that’s almost expected. Everyone knew Eliphas had to watch his back around his second, yes, including the prisoners like myself.”

  “Who spoke to you?”

  “It was…” he trailed off and frowned. “I don’t remember. I remember the person introducing themselves. I remember hearing a name and shaking hands, wondering why I had a visitor, but…I don’t remember any of the details. Everything is blurry…” He sat down slowly on my couch, staring into space. I watched him carefully, wondering if it was an act, but as he grabbed his hair and tugged in frustration, I heard a hiss. I assumed he wasn’t lying because I needed something. Any lead I could work with, and he was right in front of me.

  “Your memory was tampered with then. Fantastic.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Not your fault,” I said, shaking my head as I sat across from him. “You can tell me what you can remember, and if you can’t remember anything else, I might be able to find someone to talk to about that. I know a lot of fae. I’m pretty sure the Phoenix witch coven can help as well.”

  Not that I can probably trust them right now. Maybe Paden? Maybe Cassius? Like ‘em both, but there’re problems with both right now.

  “You would do that for me?” He looked up, his dark eyes wide.

  “If it keeps me and mine alive? Yes.” I couldn’t take any chances, and if that meant helping a serial killer who was teetering on the edge of insanity, so be it.

  When this is all said and done, he’ll go back to where he belongs. Hell, maybe he’ll die during this and solve an assortment of problems for me. First, I need to use him for all he’s worth.

  Was it a cold way to approach it? Absolutely, but when it came to Nakul, cold was necessary for my sanity. I couldn’t let the line blur between us.

  “Well, what I do remember is they were looking for someone to kill you in exchange for freedom. A new chance at life outside the prison. Every single one of my fellow inmates has been locked away for decades, even centuries.”

  “Most have been there over three hundred years,” I corrected. In the eight hundred years since the Tribunal was established, they were the ones who couldn’t be executed. There were just over a dozen, but that was enough to send shivers down the spine of the general populace.

  “Right. So, they promised freedom; however, we all knew there would be parties, yourself included, looking to take us back or kill us…if that was possible.” He had a point. There were a couple of the inmates at the prison who were truly invulnerable or immortal. They had to be handled in specific ways. One was a demigod. The other was just a nuisance who’d figured something out, but no one knew exactly what he’d done to become what he was, and he certainly never talked about.

  “So, how does killing me play into this?”

  “Whoever killed you got a new life, without being chased around, without the criminal history. A free pass without needing to hide.”

  That made me a little ill.

  “That’s not possible…That would involve crafting, not just fake human identities. We do that every day, but a new supernatural identity? Really?”

  “If they wished to continue their crimes, they would be supported and covered up, so they could live whatever life they wished…under the rule of the benefactor.”

  “Oh, fucking fantastic. I can make a bit of a list when it comes to people with that kind of pull.�
�� The Tribunal, fae clan leaders, some werewolf Alphas if they had the right contacts. The list went on and on. The likelihood several people on that list would also want me dead? Probably only cut the list down by two-thirds, which wasn’t enough. I didn’t really go out of my way to piss most off, but I had a tendency of making enemies by breathing the same air as these people. “There are a hundred reasons why someone would try to kill me. From being the last nagini to my job and position. Do you know if this has anything to do with Raphael?”

  “That…” He pointed back to the kitchen. “Human? When I saw him at the prison, he seemed perfectly human. What is he?”

  “No one knows. Well, someone probably does, but we have no leads. Needless to say, I ran into a spot of trouble a few months ago, and he ended up my…charge, partner, roommate, whatever you want to call him.” I shrugged. “Look, Nakul, did they say anything about why they would want me dead?”

  “No. You dying is just part of the plan, and some are going to take them up on that offer. Others are too paranoid to work for people and will go to ground, but some will come after you.”

  “Some already have,” I muttered, thinking about Levi, Erline, and the werewolf twins. Now, I had to try to figure out who was next and how to stop them. Raphael came into view, and my fangs dropped when I saw him, his chest and his arms looking too large for their own good. The size he was, I wondered if he could even use the damn things like a normal person. Since I had met him, he’d beefed up even more, and every time he used his abilities, it was as if he got even bigger. I knew the last part was caused by his magic and would fade a bit, but I was still struck by just how damn big he was.

  Thank the gods for Cassius getting him clothing from the fae, or we’d be buying him three sets of the same wardrobe to fit at any given point.

  “Hold on one moment. Raphael, watch him but don’t get close—”