Rogue Descendant

by Jenna Black

  I made a fist and banged it hard on my thigh, trying to force myself back from the brink. The last thing I wanted to do was start this conversation with tears already running down my cheeks, and my eyes were burning in that familiar, ominous way. At least I could hand the article to Anderson instead of having to tell him what had happened.

  Taking as deep a breath as my tight throat would allow, I stepped into Anderson’s office and took a seat in front of his desk. I swallowed convulsively, hoping that would loosen my throat—and hoping that Anderson would take his time getting dressed so I could regain my composure.

  I was going to be asking Anderson to have a civilized conversation and even negotiate with the man who’d ordered Erin’s death, and I was going to have to bring up the possibility that Emma was the one responsible for the fires. No matter how cold Anderson might have acted when Emma had come by to drop her bombshell, I knew he wasn’t going to want to accept the possibility that the woman he’d loved and married had set a condo full of people on fire. I had to be in control of my emotions, because Anderson might well lose control of his, and that would be bad.

  I no longer felt on the verge of tears when Anderson stepped into his office, but I still wasn’t as put together as I’d have liked. Anderson had donned one of his endless collection of wrinkled shirts, and if he’d combed his wet hair at all, it had to have been with his fingers. He dropped into his desk chair looking even more safe and ordinary than usual, and though I knew it was an illusion, I grasped hold of it to help steady myself.

  Wordlessly, I tossed the manila folder across the desk, still not trusting myself to talk. Anderson raised an eyebrow at me, but opened the folder and read the article while I averted my eyes to avoid the pictures. I heard the pages flipping as he read, but I didn’t look up. An unfortunate, whiny voice in my head kept asking why everyone was so eager to blame me for everything that went wrong in their lives. I tried not to listen to it, because feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to help the situation one bit.

  I heard the sound of the papers being tucked back into the folder, then the soft groan of Anderson’s chair as he leaned back in it. Safe from the worry of catching another glimpse of the pictures, I raised my head and tried to interpret the look on his face.

  The best word I can come up with to describe his expression was neutral, and I realized he was making a concerted effort to hide his feelings. He was doing a much better job of it than I was. I hadn’t a clue what he was thinking or feeling behind that mask.

  “In case you were wondering,” I said, though I was sure he’d figured it out already, “that was my condo.”

  “So I gathered. Have you made any progress in your hunt?” he asked, his voice as neutral as his face.

  “Depends how you define progress,” I said. “I thought I was on his tail last night when the rain came in, but I have no way to be sure.” I braced myself for trouble as I took a tentative step into dangerous territory. “I was on his tail right about the time the fire seems to have started, and he was nowhere near my condo.”

  Anderson kept his neutral mask firmly in place, though I was sure he knew what I was implying. “A man like Konstantin never does his own dirty work. He has people for that kind of thing.”

  I was certain that was the truth, but I still couldn’t shake the uncomfortable suspicion that Emma was the true culprit. She had a much more obvious motive, at least in her own twisted version of reality, but Anderson wasn’t going to believe that unless I came up with actual proof, and I didn’t have it. At least not yet.

  “It doesn’t really matter who’s behind it,” I said, although it did matter, quite a lot. “Whoever it is, it’s an Olympian, and Cyrus should be able to put a stop to it.”

  Anderson shook his head. “I don’t care that Cyrus has supposedly taken Konstantin’s place at the top. He doesn’t have the kind of power that Konstantin does, and there’s no way in hell he can control Konstantin’s actions. Even if he wanted to.”

  I mentally cursed Anderson’s stubbornness. If he’d only acknowledge the possibility that Emma was behind the fires, he’d probably have set up a meeting with Cyrus already. Cyrus might not be able to stop Konstantin from coming after me, but I’d bet good money he could stop Emma.

  “So what you’re telling me,” I said through gritted teeth, “is that you’re content to sit back and do nothing while whoever it is kills babies and old ladies.” Anderson’s narrowed eyes said he didn’t appreciate my tone, but I was pissed enough not to care. “You’re not even going to try to negotiate with Cyrus.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t try.” Despite the narrowed eyes, he sounded calm enough. “I was merely pointing out that it’s not likely to work. We have no leverage.”

  No, we didn’t have leverage. Not unless Anderson was willing to go to war with the Olympians for my sake, which he wasn’t. And to tell you the truth, I was just as happy about that. The Olympians had too much of an advantage in numbers, and they would wipe us all out. Cyrus might not be eager to start that war, but not eager wasn’t the same as not willing. Konstantin had laid off Anderson and his Liberi because he knew that Anderson was capable of killing him, and that was a risk he wasn’t willing to take. Taking that thought to its logical conclusion . . .

  “We’d have leverage if you’d let Cyrus know what you are, and what you can do.”

  I’d tried to broach this subject any number of times since I’d learned Anderson’s secret, and he had always shut me down fast and hard. He’d even threatened to kill me—and whoever I told—if I revealed what I knew. I didn’t think he was bluffing, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he wasn’t willing to reveal the deadly weapon that could act as a powerful deterrent and give us a leg up on the Olympians. It felt kind of like we had a nuclear bomb but didn’t want anyone, not even our own people, to know it.

  “I think I’ve made it perfectly clear that that is not an option,” Anderson said in a low and menacing voice. “You’d be wise never to bring it up again.”

  I felt like grabbing him and shaking him. I couldn’t think of a single reason why we shouldn’t use his special power to our advantage. He obviously wasn’t shy about using it, at least not when nobody but me could see. I’d already seen him kill three Liberi.

  “I know you want me to shut up about it,” I continued. “But letting Cyrus know you have the power to kill him might be the only way to motivate him to—”

  “Enough!” Anderson pushed back his chair and practically jumped to his feet. His expression was dangerous enough that I stood, too, and took a couple of hasty steps back.

  Anderson stepped around his desk, but instead of coming toward me, he stalked toward the study door and banged it shut, turning a dead-bolt lock I’d never noticed before. He swiveled toward me, and I made sure there was a chair between us. It wouldn’t slow him down much, but it was better than nothing.

  “What’s it going to take to keep you quiet, Nikki?” He took a step toward me, and I took a corresponding step back as he raised his right hand. The Hand of Doom.

  My heart was slamming in my chest, my every nerve on red alert, but frankly, I was getting sick to death of being bullied. I wanted to shout out my rage, but I shoved a muzzle and leash on my temper. If I wasn’t careful, I could end up dead, or wishing I were dead, in no time flat.

  “You could try explaining why you’re so dead set against anyone knowing,” I said.

  Anderson blinked like he was startled. I guess he’d expected me to back down in the face of his threat. And why shouldn’t he expect that? It’s what I’d always done before.

  “Innocent people’s lives are at stake,” I reminded him. “People are getting hurt, getting killed, losing everything they own, all because one of Cyrus’s people has some psychotic vendetta against me. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything in my power and explore every possible way to make it stop. Even if it means pissing you off yet again. I don’t get why—”

  �
�If I tell you why it’s imperative that the truth doesn’t get out, will you promise to stop asking questions?”

  It was my turn to be startled. I don’t know where I was expecting the conversation to go, except that it wasn’t here. Anderson was actually backing down? It seemed impossible, and I was immediately wary.

  “So after all the huffing and puffing, you’re just going to give up and tell me?”

  “I’ll tell you what could happen if the truth got out. The answer won’t satisfy your curiosity, and you’ll want to ask me ten million questions in search of more details. You must swear to me that you won’t ask even one, no matter how curious you are. Not now, not ever.”

  Scant seconds ago, I’d been in fight-or-flight mode, sure this conversation was going to end with something ugly. Now I felt like I was going to explode with curiosity. Nothing like telling me I’m not allowed to ask questions to make me desperate to ask questions.

  “Or you could try taking my word for it,” Anderson said. “Giving me the benefit of the doubt, believing that I’m not a shallow, selfish person acting on a whim.”

  Anderson wasn’t human, and he never had been. At times, I was painfully aware that his thought processes weren’t always the same as ours. How could a man who’d never been mortal, had never had to face the possibility of his own death, think like everyone else, or understand the specter we all have to live with? Even the Liberi could die, no matter how hard it was to kill them, but Anderson couldn’t, and there was an inherent otherness that came with his true immortality. But despite that otherness, he did have feelings, and I realized for the first time that my insistence on knowing his reasoning had hurt them.

  When you read mythology, you see examples aplenty of gods acting shallow and selfish. I mean for Pete’s sake, the Trojan War started when a couple of goddesses got offended that a mortal said another goddess was prettier than they were. But I’d seen no sign that Anderson was like that, and I had yet to see him act on a whim. So the question became: did I believe Anderson had a good reason for keeping his secret?

  I hadn’t known Anderson all that long, admittedly, but I knew him well enough to feel certain the answer was yes. I was dying of curiosity, having been unable to form even a reasonable guess as to why keeping the secret was so important, but did I really want to draw this line in the sand over curiosity? Anderson was willing to tell me why he wouldn’t reveal his identity, but I realized that if I pressed for it, it would change something between us. He would always feel that when it came right down to it, I didn’t trust him. Once upon a time, that had been nothing but the truth. It still was, if you threw Emma into the mix. But this particular secret had nothing to do with her.

  I swallowed hard, forcing my curiosity back down. I believed Anderson had a good reason, and it wasn’t going to kill me not to know what it was.

  Maybe Anderson was manipulating me. It was something he was very good at, though I liked to think I was aware whenever he tried to do it. Maybe his feelings weren’t really hurt by my lack of faith, and he was just laying the guilt trip on me because he knew it was an effective tactic. But considering the things that had happened with Emma over the last few weeks, I figured Anderson was in enough pain already. No reason for me to add to it.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll trust you, even though I’m not very good at it. You’ve earned that.”

  He smiled at me, the tension easing out of his shoulders. “I appreciate it. More than you know.”

  If I didn’t know better, I could swear he was a little choked up under that smile. I thought about giving him a hug, but decided it would feel awkward, for both of us.

  “I’ll call Cyrus and see if I can set up a meeting,” he said. “I don’t have high hopes we can reach a resolution, but we should at least try.”

  “Thank you.” Going in there with such a defeatist attitude wasn’t going to help our cause, and I worried that Anderson’s refusal to suspect Emma would hamper any negotiations that occurred. But I’d gotten as much out of him as I was going to get.

  Anderson stepped aside so I had a clear path to the door, the gesture something between a release and a dismissal.

  “Um, sorry I got so pissy,” I said, because I couldn’t walk out without another word.

  “Me, too,” he replied, and the twinkle in his eye told me he’d deliberately left it up to interpretation as to whether he was apologizing to me or teasing me.

  I shook my head as I reluctantly smiled back. I stepped up to the door and opened the dead bolt.

  “If word of my existence reaches the wrong ears,” Anderson said softly, “it could mean the death of every man, woman, and child on this earth.”

  I turned back to him, and I’m sure my expression was one of naked shock.

  “When I say I have a good reason, I mean it.”

  What could I possibly say to that? My cheeks felt cold and bloodless, and my mouth gaped open. My mind could barely encompass what he’d just told me, and I desperately wanted to dismiss it as some kind of hyperbole. A shudder ran through me. When the first shock wore off, I was going to have a million questions—none of which Anderson would answer—but right now I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. I opened my mouth a couple of times in hopes that I would magically say something, even if it wasn’t something intelligent or meaningful, but nothing came out. So instead, I opened the door and hurried out of the room.

  TEN

  It was still raining later that afternoon when Anderson and I left for our meeting with Cyrus. Anderson had invited Cyrus to the mansion, but Cyrus insisted the meeting be held on neutral ground, so we were meeting him at a coffee bar downtown.

  I whipped out my umbrella as Anderson and I walked from the main entrance of the mansion to the outbuilding that held the garage. Anderson didn’t bother with an umbrella, stepping out into the steady rain without hesitation. He jogged ahead of me to the garage before I could offer to share my umbrella. I’d have suggested Anderson not make himself look any more disheveled than usual when going to meet Cyrus—I wasn’t sure the frumpy look gave off quite the aura of power he would need to convince Cyrus he meant business—but he wouldn’t have listened to me.

  I followed at a more sedate pace. I was carrying the manila folder with the article about the fire in it, and I’d also tucked in the email from Konstantin.

  Anderson was waiting for me behind the wheel of his black Mercedes by the time I reached the garage, the engine already running. His car was more elegant than he was, but in this area of politicians and diplomats, black Mercedes were a dime a dozen, so his car didn’t catch the eye any more than Anderson himself did. I took a deep breath as I slid into the passenger seat. I can’t say I held out any great hope that we’d get Cyrus to see things our way, and I was more than a little worried about Anderson’s temper.

  “Are you sure you can have a civilized conversation with Cyrus after what happened to Erin?” I asked as Anderson drove out of the mansion’s gates. I figured with his distorted view of Emma, he’d probably shifted a lot of the blame for Erin’s death onto Cyrus.

  “Yes,” Anderson said in his familiar mild voice. “He’s an Olympian. He did what Olympians do, and I know it was nothing personal on his part.”

  I was impressed with his stoicism, and wondered if that meant he was finally going to stop making excuses for Emma.

  The rest of the drive passed in silence, except for the annoying squeak of the windshield wipers. The rain was just hard enough to make them necessary, but not enough to keep them silent. The noise grated on me, but that was just because of my generally crappy state of mind. It took a lot of effort to keep myself from dwelling on the deaths that had occurred because of me. I wasn’t responsible, but I was part of the chain of events that had led to them. That was more than enough to have my conscience bothering me.

  Cyrus was waiting for us at a corner table when we arrived at the coffee bar. Not surprisingly, he wasn’t alone. No self-respecting Olympian would attend a meeti
ng with Anderson and not have a pet Descendant in tow. It always seemed a bit rude to me—kind of like carrying a gun in your hand—but obviously they felt threatened by him, despite being under the impression that he couldn’t kill them.

  Not being a Liberi, Anderson couldn’t be killed by the Descendant, so Cyrus’s gun would be shooting blanks if it ever came to that. Of course, I could be killed by a Descendant, so I gave Cyrus’s companion a careful once-over as Anderson and I approached the table.

  He wasn’t as goonish as most of the Descendants Olympians liked to use as bodyguards, though he wasn’t a ninety-pound weakling, either. Blond, good-looking, and stylishly dressed, he reminded me more than a little of Blake. I darted a quick glance at Cyrus, wondering if the resemblance was coincidental.

  Cyrus and his companion were standing when we reached the table. With his trademark friendly smile, he greeted us, shaking hands first with Anderson, then with me.

  “This is my friend, Mark,” he said, indicating the Descendant, who offered his hand. “I hope you don’t mind him sitting in.”

  Anderson stared at Mark’s extended hand, but made no move to shake it. There was a lightning bolt glyph on the back of Mark’s hand, telling us he was a descendant of Zeus. I didn’t like leaving him hanging there, but I took my cue from Anderson and didn’t offer any pleasantries, either. I guess Anderson found the Descendant’s presence as rude as I did.

  Still smiling, Cyrus patted Mark’s shoulder, and Mark lowered his hand.

  “Just a precaution,” Cyrus said, sitting back down. “I figured you probably weren’t too happy with me right now. I also figured you probably wouldn’t do anything stupid in a public place, but one can never be too careful.” He reached over and stroked Mark’s back like he was petting a dog. “I promise he won’t interfere as long as we’re just talking. You won’t even know he’s here.”