Death had given her life, the lives of her mate and their children, to spare mine. So had Kapoor. So had countless others. Our allies arrived when I had given up hope. Their loyalty and sacrifices would not be forgotten.
All I could do was pray Wu had a plan to protect my people. After. I wouldn’t sacrifice them. I had lost too much to give up more.
I hit my knees and retched until I emptied my stomach. As much as I wanted to shy away from the tender caress of Cole’s fingers down my spine, I was too spent. I accepted his comfort, hating myself for that weakness the whole time.
I plopped down on my butt once I was certain I was done. As if it mattered one bit if I got vomit on me when I was drenched in blood and other things. The smell might even be an improvement. That thought sent me into a laughing fit, and I flopped onto my back to stare up at the gloriously Malakhim-free sky.
“She’s off her rocker.” Santiago limped into view. “She finally cracked.”
“She’s relieved,” Miller rasped, leaning on Maggie for support. “It’s over. We won.”
Phoebe landed nearby, shed her dragon skin, and curled against my side, her arm around my waist.
“What a story this will make.” Thom plopped down beside me. “The two-souled demon who saved the world from angels.”
“We’re charun,” I corrected him primly. “Not demons.”
He laughed softly and leaned against my other side, happy to have lured me out of my hysterics.
“Wu is coming this way.” Santiago tightened his grip on a sword he had taken off one of the bodies. “Can I kill him now?”
“Not yet.” With great and terrible reluctance, I nudged Phoebe aside and shoved upright to face him. But I didn’t get to my feet. I was too damn tired. “Are you here to double-cross me too? Triple-cross? Quadruple-cross? You’ll have to forgive me. I can’t keep up.”
“I didn’t expect gratitude,” he began.
“Good,” Maggie spat. “You won’t find any here.”
The barbed tone was far more Portia than Maggie, but my friend maintained her control over her body.
“I arranged for a meeting with Father,” he started again.
“That’s why you left Kapoor tied out,” I realized. “He didn’t know where you had gone.”
And had Wu confessed, Kapoor would have fought him to join him. The urge to hunt was too strong.
“I promised Ezra I would deliver you to him.” Wu kept going in an almost apologetic tone. “You had fortified the island. You had rallied the allies best suited to aid you. This was as ideal a situation as any. I convinced Father he could lead his forces to certain victory and crush the legend you were creating in his fist.”
“How did you kill him?” I drew my knees to my chest and hooked my arms around them to anchor me. It was that or fall backward and risk not getting up again. “You never explained that part of your plan, and I figured that meant you didn’t have one. I expected us to wing it.”
Wing it.
Because he had so many.
God, Luce. Hold it together.
“Cole isn’t the first to consider there might be other uses for the metals each member of the cadre produces. The individual properties are specific to each incarnation, a quirk we discovered some time ago.” He glossed over the whole experimentation angle being how they came to make these scientific breakthroughs. “Death produces the least of all the cadre. It’s theorized that since she reanimates her children, which puts her in total control of them, she requires less to bind them to her.”
That much made sense at least. “Okay.”
“I collected the metal over a period of ascensions, from multiple incarnations, and then I forged a blade. When it proved successful, I made it a twin, and then I destroyed all my research so it couldn’t be done again. Not without resources enough to subdue and harvest from cadre, and the list of people outside our organization capable of such a feat were too few to worry me.”
“I’ll go out on a limb and say those were the black daggers Kapoor was wielding when he took down Ezra.” The action happened too far away for me to discern any details that made them special, but they did the trick. There was no disputing that. “Are the blades poisoned?”
“The metal doesn’t kill charun. Not in the way you mean. It isn’t poison, and it doesn’t drop them the way Death’s gift works when she wields it. It turns the immortal mortal. It makes charun as easy to kill as a human.”
The implications sank in, and I grasped what he wasn’t saying, what he wouldn’t dare speak in front of Cole and the others, who thought the worst was over.
Two blades. Two sacrifices. Two very hard to kill charun.
He meant for us each to take one to the seal where we entered this world and take our lives with them.
The span of years he had plotted and planned for this boggled the mind. I was too human in my thinking to encompass that much time devoted to revenge. He had looked at his life and understood there was no point in searching for love again and that procreation was too dangerous. His father wouldn’t let him choose his own mate, and he would rather cut down his grandchildren than claim them.
“Are you sure he’s dead?” Miller sat to relieve Maggie of her burden. “The Malakhim carried him away.”
“They don’t understand death.” Wu shook his head. “Not in relation to him.”
Their god had fallen, and they had no frame of reference for what that meant. Ezra had trained the ability to think as individuals out of them until they were a united whole. No doubt they would follow whatever protocol matched this scenario closest, and then they would sit and stare at one another until help came to give them fresh purpose.
Had they not killed so many with their boundless hatred, I might have pitied them.
“But he is dead,” Santiago pressed, as eager as the rest of us for confirmation. “It’s over.”
“He’s dead,” Wu confirmed, and then he slid his gaze to me. “But it’s not over yet.”
“All that’s left is to seal the terrenes.” Portia picked up the thread, sounding as relieved as the others to have what they expected to be the largest hurdle overcome. “Luce has to return to Canton for that, right? To the seal in Cypress Swamp?”
“Yes.”
“What about you?” I had never asked him where his people breached. “Where do you go?”
“We entered this terrene over what is now Beijing.” He kept his gaze locked with mine. “It will take me fifteen to twenty hours to reach it.”
I gazed out at the frothing water, washing red onto the shore, and knew I would have to place one last call to the NSB if I wanted to avoid an incident too big for them to sweep under the rug. “What about the knives?”
“I was hoping you could request your allies search for them.” He dipped his chin. “And Kapoor.”
“I can do that.” I made to stand, but I didn’t get far.
Santiago put a hand on my shoulder and offered, “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” I covered his fingers with mine for a brief second. “For saving us.”
“Don’t make a big deal out of this,” he grumbled, snatching his hand back.
He walked into the water, wading out to his waist before he dove.
The celebratory vibe I had envisioned for this moment never manifested. It was hard to consider this a win after so much loss. “How long until the Malakhim report Ezra’s death to his superiors?”
“Hours,” Wu said with certainty. “Only Father and I can operate the seal within this terrene. Without us, the Malakhim will be forced to wait for contact from the other side. There are two check-ins each day, and we’re four or five hours from the second.”
The militant policing of their border with us drove home the critical need for destroying the seal. All of this would have been for nothing if their people marched through the breach and replaced Ezra before we got into position. This was a one-shot deal for us, and we had already pulled the trigger.
“How long
will it take your people to mobilize?” I was guessing not long if they checked in like clockwork to ensure their prize terrene remained under their control. “Does your father have a successor?”
Once upon a time, Wu would have been expected to step in. He was marked as a traitor now. The Malakhim would be sure that news carried to the right ears. Within hours, there would be a bounty on his head, I was sure. Hunting him down would be the first order of business for Ezra’s replacement.
“They will be ready to breach this terrene within twenty-four hours of notification. There are protocols in place that will take no time to activate. Our people are keen to hold this world, and there is no hope of charun from the lower terrenes breaching any higher.”
That fit with what Sariah had told us from the get-go. I hadn’t believed her then, but I did now.
Thanks to Kimora’s death, I no longer had to wonder how she knew so much about the higher terrenes. She must have overtaken a Malakhim at one point, though I doubt her mark had belonged to Ezra. True Malakhim were too set in their ways to accept anything less than death before dishonor, and it didn’t get worse than a Malakhim agreeing to a bargain. My guess was she rooted out one of the Malakhim lite, possibly through her connection to Kimora, and used his knowledge gained from infiltrating Ezra’s ranks to make the call.
Wu wasn’t the only one who played the long game. She had learned the art at her mother’s knee. But she would be a future problem for the coterie, not for me.
“We have no time to waste,” he said, and I could tell he meant it. “Our window of opportunity is already closing.”
All hope that I could take an extra day — hell, an extra hour — to say my goodbyes evaporated like mist.
I had already said them anyway, right? Many times. I had been tossing I love yous at people like confetti at a parade. Everyone I loved knew what they meant to me. How many people got that closure? How many were allowed to put their affairs in order before they go? I was lucky.
Yeah.
Lucky.
Water splashed, and I puzzled over Santiago returning so quickly. “That was fast.”
“What can I say?” He held up his hands, a knife in each, the blood washed off them. “I’m good.”
The expected response would be a derisive snort, so I put in the effort. “Not that good.”
“Fine.” He threw them at my feet, and they stuck in the soft earth. The hilts glinted oddly, the metal alive with black iridescence. “The Diorte attempted to retrieve Kapoor after he hit the water. They couldn’t find him, but they salvaged these. They were on their way to present them to you as a token of his bravery.”
With so many predators in the water, and so much prey falling from the sky, I had a grim certainty where Kapoor had ended up, and so must Wu. He shut his eyes, and moisture dampened his lashes, tears he wouldn’t let fall. The news had gut-punched him. He was lucky I didn’t too.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, aware he was the closest thing Kapoor had to a friend. “He was a good man.”
“No, he wasn’t.” Wu sobered before I worked up to a full eulogy. “He wanted to be, but good men can’t enact change on this scale without stepping over the line. He and I left that line behind a long time ago.” He knelt and chose his blade without revealing the magnitude of what it meant. “I’ll call you when I’m in position.”
His wings flared, and he touched the sky before I could decide what to say to him.
Good thing too. I didn’t want our parting words to be in anger, and that’s all I had left. It was the fuel I was burning to see me through to the end, and he was a motherload of kindling.
“We should move out too.” I palmed the remaining dagger, wary of its heft, and got to my feet. “Canton is about four and a half or five hours away.”
Doing the math gave me a much-needed morale boost. If we hurried, the coterie could steal another four or five hours together before we had to move into position.
“I’m hungry,” Rixton announced. “Saving the world ought to taste like pizza. Extra pepperoni. Extra mushrooms. Extra sausage. Extra onions. Extra —”
“We get the picture.” I rolled my eyes. “Place the order when we get close. We’ll eat at the farmhouse together.”
One last meal. I couldn’t think of a better group of people to share the honor.
“I knew I liked you for a reason, Bou-Bou.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “Now that this is over, we need to talk about your career choices.”
I was so far removed from the daily grind, I had to stop and remember I was employed by the NSB’s charun taskforce. They hadn’t fired me. I hadn’t quit. I just stopped going to work when the heat got turned up too high for me to pretend any longer.
Try as I might, I couldn’t fake caring. In a few hours, none of it would matter. That didn’t mean I could get away without answering. “Are you asking for a promotion or for me to accept a demotion?”
“Um, hello? Picking up the badge again in Canton is a promotion.” He preened. “What else would you call being partnered with me?”
“Other, less flattering words come to mind.”
“Poor thing.” He clucked his tongue. “Clearly you sustained brain trauma during the fight.”
“No one hit me in the head.”
“See what I mean? You’re obviously delusional.”
Unable to stop a laugh from escaping, I shook my head. “Let’s go home.”
When Air Cole passed over Canton, I allowed myself to pretend I really was going home to the farmhouse, to my old job, to my old life. That the nightmare had really ended. That we had won. That there was some prize for victory. But then I spotted the charred remains of the police department and lost my grip on the fantasy.
Someone had left a few lights on in the farmhouse, not that it mattered in the grand scheme of things. I wasn’t all that worried about running up my utility bills at the moment. Pinching pennies ranked somewhere below actually using my gym membership and returning a DVD rental from a few years back.
Cole touched down, and Phoebe landed beside him. We didn’t have to wait long for the others to come up the drive in their rented SUVs. Gathered together, all of us alive and back where it started, I had to admit it was a better homecoming than I ever dared to dream.
And when the front door opened, and the smells of lasagna and freshly baked bread poured out behind Sherry, I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my face.
“You’re here.” I beat Rixton to her and hugged her tight. “How are you here?”
“Your friend Wu arranged it.” She fluttered her lashes at Rixton over my shoulder. “Unlike some people, who still carry on about dragon-riding nonsense, I got to straddle an angel.”
Mouth hanging open, he peeled me away from her. “You did what now?”
“Straddled an angel.” She bit her bottom lip then let it pop free. “Rode him for hours.”
Rixton dove for her, and she screamed at the top of her lungs, pivoting to run, but it was too late. He scooped her up, an arm under her legs and one behind her back and swung her around until she ran out of breath and curled against his chest.
“On the topic of angels,” Rixton said. “Where’s my baby?”
“Mr. Boudreau offered to babysit since angels don’t come with built-in car seats.”
Rixton planted a smacking kiss on her nose. “That’s why you’re the brains of this operation.”
“On the topic of babies,” I interrupted, extending my hand behind me. “Sherry, there’s someone I would like you to meet.”
The air shimmered next to me as Phoebe shed her dragon form and her invisibility. Closing her soft fingers around mine, she came to rest her shoulder against mine.
“This is my daughter, Phoebe.” I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “You may or may not remember her as a baby dragon the size of a corgi.”
“Kid, you require no introduction.” Sherry laughed, and it sounded joyful, genuine. “You’re the spitting image of your mother.�
�
“Thanks,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I chased you down the hall that time.”
“You’re fine.” She waved it off. “They warned me there was a baby dragon in residence. The important thing was I could run faster than you.”
Cheeks red, Phoebe ducked her head and leaned into my side.
“What’s that?” Sherry reared back, her hand on Rixton’s chest. “It feels like … ”
“A deflated tire?” I supplied. “It’s Rixton’s boobs.”
“I don’t have boobs.” He squished Sherry against him. “Don’t listen to her, Sher-bear. I can explain.”
He carried her across the threshold while she pretended to swoon then ambled into the kitchen.
The others streamed in behind them, lured by the scents of homemade food and lots of it.
This was so much better than pizza.
This was home.
Cole rested a heavy hand on my shoulder to stop me. “We need to talk.”
Phoebe broke away and hustled to catch up to Thom, who walked in with her.
“Can we talk after we eat?” I forced a smile. “Do you hear my stomach?”
Conflict warred in his expression, but he let the matter drop in favor of taking care of his mate.
We entered the kitchen to find Sherry had spent the hours it took us to fly home baking. Food covered every available surface, and two Malakhim lite bustled from stove to fridge carrying out her orders.
Her time in Haven had clearly put her at ease with charun, and for that I was grateful. It didn’t mean she and I were okay, but it meant maybe she wouldn’t mind if Rixton kept a hand in after I was gone. Which, honestly, we both knew he would be unable to resist.
Now that he knew charun existed, he wouldn’t forget just because the world was safe. For the time being. The opposite was likely true. The NSB had formed its taskforce with the purpose of concealing charun activity from humans. While I had to hand it to them — they did perform a public service in hunting down predatory charun with a taste for human flesh — their primary focus was in covering their own asses.
With ease, I could picture Rixton forming his own team, perhaps with the members of my coterie, in answer to that. He would want to protect humans, but he would also want to help charun. He could do both, and well. He had the brains and the temperament for it. Not to mention the heart.
End Game (The Foundling Series) Page 20
