by Keri Arthur
“He’s okay,” Riley and Azriel said together. Riley flashed him a narrowed look. “Can you tell me where he is? I have a general idea of location, but pinning it down is somewhat fuzzy. It’s as if there’s some sort of field around him that’s redirecting our connection.”
“Given we believe Hunter is capable of magic, that is more than possible.” My voice sounded hoarse, and I still wasn’t entirely sure my stomach was going to stay where it was supposed to. This was my fault. If anything happened to Rhoan . . .
“This is not your fault,” Quinn said softly. “You undoubtedly made the risks as clear to him as you did us. He chose to remain.”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts, no guilt,” Riley said. “Just action. You need to contact Hunter.”
It was the next logical step. I spun on my heel, walked back to Rhoan’s room, and once again hit the Speaker button before dialing Hunter’s number.
She didn’t take all that long to answer. “Hunter,” she said, voice cool and ultrapolite. “How may I help you?”
“You can fucking tell me what you’ve done with Rhoan,” I replied, unable to help either the language or the edge of anger in my voice.
“Risa,” she murmured, voice deceptively mild. “I was just about to contact you.”
I wasn’t using a vid-phone and I couldn’t actually see her, but it didn’t matter. It was almost as if she’d reached down the phone lines, wrapped her fingers around my neck, and squeezed tight. It was all I could do to remain on the line, to not run.
“Forget the fake niceties,” I somehow managed to spit, “and just answer the damn question.”
“The damn question,” she said, tone still as polite as before despite the menace that continued to wash over me, “will be answered in my own good time. Meanwhile, you might want to explain your attempt at murdering my Cazador.”
“If I’d wanted her dead, she would be,” I said. “Where’s Rhoan?”
“He’s tucked away somewhere nice and safe. Consider him a bond against your good behavior.”
“Such a bond will only work if he’s alive,” I said. “What guarantee do I have that he is? Or, if he is, that he’ll remain that way?”
“You have my word—”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not inclined to trust the word of a woman who would murder her own brother.”
I felt Riley start and glanced at her. Her face had lost much of its color. Jack’s dead? she mouthed.
“We believe so,” Azriel murmured. “I cannot find the resonance of his soul, and death is the most logical reason for that.”
“Oh dear god,” she whispered.
I knew she was thinking—as I’d been thinking—that someone who would kill her only living relative wouldn’t blink twice when it came to killing one of the best guardians the Directorate had ever produced. Rhoan would be just one more bloody blot on her road to ultimate control.
“Jack,” Hunter said, voice even quieter and all the more frightening because of it, “was foolish enough to go up against me—”
“No,” I cut in. “He merely intended to warn you against using the Directorate in your mad scheme to rule the world.”
“You were not there, so do not tell me what was said and done between us.” There was something in her voice that went beyond mere viciousness, something that was almost otherworldly, and it had me wondering uneasily if her connection with her god had just come online. “He was warned, long ago, never to go up against me because it would go ill against him. He ignored that warning.”
“Because he cared about the organization you started and he helped run.”
“I was his sister. His older sister. He owned me homage and obedience.”
It was a statement that showed just how far she’d stepped away from the sanity barrier. “He owed you nothing—not if you were about to destroy everything you and he had spent centuries building.”
She snorted. “As creator, it was mine to do with what I wished. He knew that, just as he knew the consequences of going against me.”
There was nothing I could say to that. Nothing that was going to get through to her. Jack’s death was a great loss to the Directorate, but many more good men and women would lose their lives—both within the Directorate and without—if Hunter wasn’t stopped.
“But we digress,” she continued. “I gather, given your attack on Janice Myer, that you have found the key, and right on time, too.”
“Yes.”
“Then why the attack on Myer?”
I snorted. “Because I didn’t believe you’d actually let me retrieve it without attempting to snatch it from under my grasp. I had no intentions of losing control of another key.”
“And yet you will lose control of it; otherwise, Rhoan Jenson will die.”
I clenched my fingers but otherwise didn’t respond to the threat. “When and where do you want to meet?”
“You may bring it to me here, at my office.”
Her office? At the Directorate? My gaze shot to Azriel’s. That was the one location neither of us had expected—and the one place where she certainly had the odds on her side.
“What, no smart reply? Have I finally rendered you speechless?” Hunter paused, and a stronger hint of amusement crept into her voice as she added, “What about you, dear Riley? I’m gathering you’re there, fuming away in the background?”
“That I am,” Riley growled, “and you had better not hurt my brother—”
“My dear former guardian,” Hunter said, a patronizing edge in her voice, “I am more than aware of your capabilities thanks to your years under my employ, but you have no idea about mine. Please control your temper, or I might just end your brother’s life for the fun of it.”
The anger that exploded from Riley was so fierce that it knocked me back a step or two. And yet, somehow, she controlled it.
“Do not hurt my brother,” she said softly, and for the first time in a long time, I saw the guardian in her. It was every bit as scary as the change that happened in Rhoan. “As my former boss, you also know that I keep my promises. And if Rhoan dies, then there is nothing—in this world or the next—that will stop my vengeance.”
“Oh, I believe a threat or two to your children might just do that,” Hunter drawled. “Do not play this game, Riley. You have far more to lose than me.”
Riley opened her mouth to reply, but I held up a hand, stopping her. “Let’s stop the threats and concentrate on what actually matters right now.”
“Good idea,” Hunter said. “I want the key. Now.”
“No. Not until I know Rhoan is safe.”
She snorted. “I’m hardly likely to release Jenson before I get the key.”
“And I’m hardly likely to give you the key, given you then have no reason to release Rhoan. Sorry, but I trust you as little as you appear to trust me.”
I could almost see her smile. It wasn’t a particularly nice smile. “Undoubtedly true. The only difference is, I’m willing to destroy not only Rhoan Jenson, but everyone and everything else you might hold dear until I get what I want. You, I’m afraid, cannot say the same.”
No, I couldn’t. But I’d be more than happy to destroy her. Only trouble was, that wasn’t going to be easy, either. If the bitch was inviting me to her place, then it could only mean it was protected against all comers—human, nonhuman, and possibly even those not from this world.
“What about a compromise?”
“Not a word I’m all that familiar with, but I’m willing to listen.”
Eat this one, Amaya muttered. Enjoy will.
Eat her slow, I growled back. I want it painful.
Slow good, she replied. Slow fun.
“I’ll come to your damn office,” I said, batting away delicious visions of Amaya slowly devouring Hunter. “And you’ll tell me where Rhoan is. Once he is safe, I hand over the key.”
“Just like that?” Hunter drawled. “Somehow, I very much doubt it.”
“Oh, you can have
the damn thing,” I said. “But it won’t be of any use to you. You can’t get onto the gray fields, and the temple guardians will certainly never allow you to pass through their grounds, let alone access the gates. So yeah, have the key, for all the fucking good it will do you.”
Her amusement seemed to swim around me, thick and savage. “Oh, how little you understand me. Did not the sorceress you defeated only very recently make a perfectly usable gateway? I am more than willing to wait the length of time it takes for my people to figure out its complexities. As for the key—the mere threat of it is, for now, enough.”
“Then you have nothing to lose by agreeing to my terms.”
She didn’t immediately answer, but I had no doubt she was using the time to mentally order more of her people into the protection of her office. She wasn’t the type to take chances.
But the numbers didn’t matter. Getting into her office—the one place she obviously felt safe—did. Every instinct I had was now telling me it was the only way I was ever going to get close enough to use the knife Stanford had given me.
“Fine,” she murmured. “We shall do it your way, for the moment. I expect to see you in five minutes, or I will ensure there aren’t enough pieces of Rhoan Jenson left for his loving sister to bury.”
There was a long, deep growl from behind me. Hunter laughed and hung up. I hit the End button and glanced at Riley. She was clenching and unclenching her hands, but very little of that emotion showed in her face. How she was remaining so controlled, I had no idea.
“I will kill that bitch once Rhoan is free—”
“No,” I snapped, “that’s my job. Your job is to get your brother out from whatever trap Hunter has laid around him, then get safe.”
Her gray eyes became little more than icy slits. “I will not—”
“Riley, enough.” Quinn gently squeezed her arm as he glanced at me. “You cannot do this alone. I have known Hunter for a very long time, and for all the knowledge you have gained over the past few months, for all the strength, skill, and heart Azriel has, neither of you will defeat her.”
“When she is connected to her god, that is undoubtedly true.” My brief smile was grim. “We know what we’re doing. We know what we face. You have to trust us. You have to let us go; you have to let us do the task the fates have given us, without interference of any kind.”
His gaze flicked from me to Azriel, and it lingered long enough to make me wonder if some sort of communication was happening between them.
“So be it,” he said eventually. “But be warned. It is said that Hunter’s true lair in the Directorate lies not on the top floor, but in hidden recesses deep underground—and that it is so well protected, not even ghosts can get in—or get out.”
Then that was probably where Jack had been killed. And I wondered whether I’d find his ghost there.
Riley swung around to face Quinn, her expression a mix of surprise and anger. “You cannot be serious—”
“There are some things that simply have to be. This, my love, is one of them.”
“But—” She glanced at Azriel for a moment. “What did you say to him?”
“That we are at a crossroads,” he replied. “What path our futures take very much depends on all our actions over the next hour.”
Her face paled. It was a threat of death. She knew it; I knew it. Whose death was now the question—and one we would all get an answer to soon enough.
“Look, we don’t have the time to stand here and argue.” I tugged off the ring I’d gotten from Rhoan and offered it to her. “Please, just get Rhoan out from whatever net Hunter has around him, and let us deal with her.”
“It would appear that I have little other choice.” She accepted the ring, then stepped forward and gave me a fierce hug. “Don’t let Hunter win. I want to be a grandmother; I want to spoil your son as rotten as I did his mother.”
Tears filled my eyes. I blinked them rapidly away, pulled from her grasp, and held out my hand to Azriel. Three seconds later, we were standing outside the Directorate. I raised my gaze, studying the upper levels of the green-glass building. Somewhere up there was Hunter’s office. Or at least the public face of it.
This was it. This was the endgame.
I spun, wrapped my arms around Azriel’s neck, and kissed him fiercely.
“Just in case,” I said.
He didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. I could feel his emotions flow through the inner reaches of my soul, and they were even more turbulent than my own.
After all, he knew in full the paths that lay before us, thanks to the fates.
I swung back around and marched into the Directorate’s foyer. The security guard glanced up as we entered, and an odd sort of expression—one that was part fear, part pity—crossed his face before he managed to compose himself.
“Risa Jones, I believe,” he said, voice neutral.
“That I am,” I replied. “I’m here to see Director Hunter.”
“She is expecting you.” He glanced at Azriel. “I’m afraid you’ll have to hand in your weapons.”
Azriel crossed his arms and simply said, “No.”
The guard blinked. “I’m sorry, but I have been ordered not—”
“I will not relinquish my sword,” Azriel said, “but even if I did, it would do Hunter no good, as the sword has a mind of its own and will follow me into her lair regardless. And heaven help those who try to stop her.”
The guard hesitated, and an odd sort of blankness came into his eyes. Communicating with the boss, I realized. Obviously, Hunter had stacked the decks with her people, rather than people who were loyal to the Directorate itself.
Life returned to the guard’s eyes. “You’ve been cleared to carry within the building.” He paused to hand us both a pass. “Please use elevator five—it will take you express up to the director’s suites.”
“Thank you.”
I turned and headed for the elevator. Number five opened as we approached, but my steps slowed as I was hit with a vision of the doors closing and the elevator plunging to unknown depths, killing us both. It would certainly be the easy option when it came to getting the key.
“Hunter knows I can transport us both out in such an event.” Azriel’s fingers lightly pressed against my spine, urging me on. “And she is so arrogantly sure of her own superiority that she would prefer to kill us herself rather than employ a third-party means of doing so.”
“If she was so sure of defeating us, she wouldn’t be meeting us in one of the securest buildings in Melbourne.”
I swiped the pass across the scanner. The doors closed and the elevator rose rather than dropped. Relief still swam through me. Azriel might have been certain of this outcome, but Hunter never did the expected. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had chosen the smashing-elevator option.
I watched the numbers climb on the softly lit floor-level indicator above the doorway, and with each level that passed, my tension grew. When the elevator finally stopped on the tenth floor, I was wound up so tight it felt like the slightest touch would shatter me.
I licked my lips and forced my feet forward as the doors opened. Azriel was at my back, his calm exterior belying the tension and readiness within him. Once in the foyer, I paused and glanced around, wanting to get an idea of the layout before I went any farther. The only way on or off this floor was via the elevator we’d used. Where the other elevator doors should have been there was solid concrete, and directly in front of us was a reinforced security area that practically bristled with all sorts of scanners and weapons. Hunter was taking no chances. There was also no fire exit, and apparently no bathrooms. Hunter, old vampire or not, still had to use the loo like the rest of us, but if she was this paranoid about her safety in a place that was filled with guardians, then it would make sense that she’d have a private bathroom.
The guard beyond the security barrier had one hand on a rather nasty-looking weapon as we approached. He nodded his head toward the scanners. I stepped
through first, stopped when he motioned me to do so, and watched as several lights, some blue, some red, scanned me. No alarms or lights went off. I was motioned through into what looked like a glass cage and held there while Azriel went through the scanning process. Again no alarms sounded.
“Weapons in the box,” the guard said, shoving a clear plastic container into our little cell.
“I will not relinquish my sword, and Hunter is well aware of this fact. And,” he added, glancing up at the discreetly placed camera in one corner, “she would be well advised to stop playing these games or I will simply transport into her chambers and kill her. I care nothing for Rhoan Jenson’s safety myself, remember.”
The guard’s eyebrows rose, but before he could say anything, a light flashed; then Hunter said, voice cool and amused, “Let them in, Walter, swords and all.”
He pressed a button and one section of the glass cell retracted. The walls and ceiling had been covered with thick but plush soundproofing, and it gave the corridor an ominous, almost forbidding feel.
“Second door on the right,” he said.
We moved forward. Our footsteps made no sound; in fact, the only sound to be heard in this place was the squeak of the guard’s chair as he settled back into position, and my somewhat rapid breathing.
The second door slightly clicked open as we neared it. I wouldn’t have been surprised if some black-hooded creature suddenly appeared and bade us entry into hell itself, but imagination and reality were two different beasts. There was no one at the door, or even in the large conference room beyond it.
“Welcome to my humble home away from home,” Hunter said, her voice coming from everywhere and yet nowhere. I looked around for speakers but couldn’t immediately find them; nor could I find any cameras. They had to be hidden in the walls. “I am glad to see that you are punctual. Or rather, Jenson will undoubtedly be glad that you are punctual.”
“Enough with the word games,” I said, keeping my voice even. I wished I could so easily control the tension. “Tell me where he is and how to free him from whatever trap you may have wrapped around him.”
“As you wish. There is, however, one small complication—you can’t rescue him.” The amusement in Hunter’s voice was stronger. “And it is the reason I have allowed your lover to keep his sword. You see, the magic that secures Jenson can only be bypassed by a full-energy being such as your reaper. Your uncle, as a half-breed, will only succeed in killing both Jenson and himself if he undertakes the rescue attempt.”
