“But I don’t actually know anything,” Lore says. “I can’t really do any damage.”
“They don’t know that,” Asher says, shooting down her protest. “They have no clue what you might have gleaned in your time at that compound, and apparently their plans go all the way to the top of the government food chain.”
The time has come, the Walrus said, to spill all of the beans. “That’s why I’m planning to do more than get Lore the hell out of here. A lot more.”
“I’m listening.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “They have to think she’s dead, and it has to be the most convincing fake-death ever. I don’t care how many explosives it takes and what we have to blow up to make it happen, but this time next week, it’s going to be all over the news that Xaine and Lore Capello died in a horrible, untimely, and gruesome accident. I want shrines set up and candles burning all over the planet so that not a single one of those Legacy fuckers can doubt for a second that it’s the truth. What Cas tried to do for her, but fuck subtle and understated. This is going to take showmanship. Production values.”
The world goes silent. Lore drags in a breath, nice and slow, and holds it. My eyes are on her, our bodies so close that I can scent her anxiety. She’s afraid, rightly so, and carrying a million other burdens that I’d shoulder if I could.
Jackson Trace was right again. Lore can’t spend the rest of her days under lock and key, and there’s only one way for her to have any sort of shot at living.
“If we do this right, it’ll cause more than a PR speed bump for the Legacy. With a good enough frame job, we could make it look like not-such-an-accident.” Thinking about it makes me sick, but I plow ahead. “One of their guys tried to put Lore on ice, and we have a hundred YouTube videos that caught it from all angles. Every news outlet on the planet wants a statement right about now, but I haven’t said anything… yet. We drop a word or two to the press about a secret vampire organization with political ties, the authorities start looking into things, the public goes a little apeshit. Then, if it looks like they actually killed me and Lore—”
“The Legacy will have to slow down,” Asher says. “They’d have to do damage control to keep their campaign from running right off the rails. I’m sure they don’t want a bunch of stake-brandishing, UV gun-buying, torch-carrying zealots on their hands.”
“Exactly. And I don’t care how big this thing is, they’re not seven billion big. Vamps or not, they’re still incredibly outnumbered.” And for once, Asher Reece and I are in full accord when we both say, “It would buy us some time.”
“Well, shit,” Lore contributes. “Guess I get to die again… again. Now I’ll never get to be famous.”
I can’t help the grin that hits my face, because we both know she would have been the most awkward celebrity ever. “I don’t know about that, love. Look what death did for Elvis.”
“Or Tupac and Biggie,” she says.
“I really hate to break up your little bonding-over-dead-people moment,” Asher’s impatient voice slips between us, “but how exactly do you presume to pull all this off?”
Summer blockbuster-style.
But all I say is, “I’ve got a couple ideas.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lore
Whispers sweet like poetry,
You’re glad to know you’re all of me.
Caught up in your strong embrace,
I think I’ve always known your face.
Guitar in my lap, I sit on the stage where it all began. We waltzed in here hours ago under the guise of a belated wedding reception, and I swear that waiting is all I’ve done since. In the beginning, there was a good bit of action. They smuggled in Asher’s supplies via giant catering racks and amp cases, men scurrying here and there to put all the things in place for this, the end of my story.
Our story.
Footsteps sound on hollow wood, and I know them by their very cadence because his walk is a metronome, perfectly in sync with the world as I know it. My head turns, a smile alighting on my lips before Xaine even comes into view.
Bleeding blue and colored red,
You’re every thought inside my head.
Pleasure plays a ruthless game,
All you do is speak my name—
“And I run to you,” Xaine sings, finishing the line for me as he emerges from behind the stage curtains.
“That works.” I set the guitar aside and peer up at his exceptionally scowly face. “Is there a problem?”
“Nope.” When he holds out his hand, I allow him to pull me to my feet so that we’re face to face. “Everything’s going according to plan.”
“Then why so serious?”
“I’m really going to miss that water feature.” His gaze slides to the glittering blue-green tank under the dance floor and trawling up one wall. After a moment, he turns back to me. “You have everything you need?”
I cock my head toward the familiar pink bags parked at the edge of the stage. “I’d just unpacked them, too.”
“Remind me to buy you some new luggage,” he says, shooting them a really dirty look. “Those things are bad luck.”
I start offer up some quippy comeback, but a door against the back wall slams open and I tense up. Xaine does more than that, pushing me behind him before Asher steps into the light.
“Fucking A, Reece,” Xaine mutters, easing his arm down. “What ever happened to ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’?”
“My big stick isn’t any of your business.” It sounds like it should be a joke, but there’s no humor behind it. Asher and Jess have opted to stay and fight, to take each day is it comes and each enemy in much the same way. “We’re all set. Not much left to do but set the charges, slip out the door, and blow the place up. You two should head to the back and get ready to exit. There are eyes on this building, so we’re going to use the service entrance in the alley leading to the restaurant next door. We can use a covered rolling rack to get you out to the van.”
“You’re smuggling us out as food?” Xaine sounds disgusted, and the look on his face is pretty priceless. When laughter burbles out of me, he gives me a look like I’ve lost every marble I ever owned. “What’s so funny?”
“Beloved husband of mine,” I sober up enough to squeeze out the words, “I am food.”
“Yeah, well I’m not.” And he looks honestly insulted by the comparison.
“How sweetly the tables do turn,” I grin, sliding my hands into his back pockets. He takes that as an invitation to put his tongue down my throat, and in two seconds flat we’re falling into what’s recently become a very good bad habit.
“For god’s sake, I didn’t sign up to babysit two horny teenagers,” Asher says.
Xaine lifts his head long enough to toss out, “Nobody asked you.”
Everyone tenses when the door slams open again. Squinting into the darkness, I make out the barest glimpse of bright orange hair and the flash of something metallic hitting the light. The moment the newcomers step into the illuminated circle around the stage, I frown. Rather than her usual clubbing gear, Tamsyn is drowning in a sweater big enough for a small pony, and Jax Trace is wearing an unbuttoned gray dress shirt that flutters around his midsection. The white beater underneath is stained a rusty red. The same crimson is splattered in darker patches down his once-neat black slacks.
I squint at him again. “Is that—”
Jax cuts me off. “Blood? Yeah, but don’t worry, it’s not mine.”
“…a sword?”
Because it is. It’s a fucking sword, and it’s clamped in his hand like he’s been using it, and recently.
Jax lifts the metal weapon a few inches, looks at it, and gives a nod in the affirmative, as if owning and wielding something like that is yet another thing he does. “Yes.”
“Just checking.” Oddly, I’m fine with it, because really, life doesn’t any get weirder than it’s been for the past few weeks. It can’t possibly.
Slightly more
perturbed, Xaine blurts out, “What the ever-loving fuck, Trace?”
Jax doesn’t get the chance to answer, because there’s the whine of a UV charge and the definitive click of a hammer being pulled back. Jess stands right behind him with two guns to the back of his noggin.
“Light or lead, pendejo?”
“Shoot him with both,” Xaine tells her, but she’s looking to Asher for an answer, and he only shakes his head.
“It’s all right. He’s all right.”
“He is covered in blood and smells like death, so he’s not quite as right as he could be,” Jess corrects Asher, but she takes a step back and lowers both weapons.
“Technically I smell like undeath.” Jax glances down the front of his shirt. “And if it’s unblood, does that mean I’m not actually covered in it?” Jess gives him a curled lip and a disgusted nose-wrinkle, and Jax waves it off as if two guns to his head is nothing. “Shoot me with both if you want, but you’re going to want me conscious to hear what I have to say.”
“Don’t you mean we’ll want you alive?” Asher frowns, then starts muttering into the radio communicator he’s got strapped to his wrist.
“Oh, I’ll be alive,” Jax says. “But two gunshots to the head might take a few days’ recovery. And in the meantime, the big, bad vampire coalition—”
The power abruptly cuts out, plunging us into pitch-black darkness. In the distance, I can hear the glass plates slamming into place over the windows: the building’s going into lockdown again, exactly like the night of the concert.
“—is here,” Jax’s disembodied voice finishes with no small amount of I told you so.
“We’ve got hostiles in the building,” Asher tells the rest of the PFC crew via radio as the emergency power clicks on. The pale imitation of light bathes the room, leaving shadows pooling in the corners. “Everyone watch your asses and work your way toward the service entrance.”
I draw that much closer to Xaine. His welcome hands search me out, fingers digging into my arms. Everyone’s afraid to make a move, and as one, the collective gaze shifts to Jax and Tamsyn.
“Nice one, dipshit, they trailed you here,” Asher says as he sweeps the room, locking the doors so that no one can get in.
Or out.
But the guy with the sword only shrugs. “You were going to blow up the place anyway, right?”
“Yeah, on my goddamn terms and timeline,” Xaine counters, clenching up like he might take the two steps necessary to punch my guardian angel in his butt-chin.
“No time like the present,” Jax says, matter-of-fact. “Besides, you’re going to need some bodies to make that cover story of yours stick.”
“Yeah, except we’re still in here.” Xaine dials up the volume several notches, pointing out the obvious to Captain Oblivious.
“I didn’t say it was a perfect plan,” Jax says. “And pipe the hell down, Capello, before you bring the heat down on our heads.”
“Those assholes didn’t follow me here. You’re the douchebag that let them in.” Xaine extends a hand toward to Asher, who’s quickly and efficiently distributing UV weapons. He goes to hand me a modified Glock, but Xaine gets there before I can, snagging that gun, too.
Everyone else checks magazines and flicks safeties. Asher reaches behind his back, unsnapping a holster on his belt; a second later he’s slapping the taser into my hand again.
I shoot him a wry look. “Seriously? Am I ever going to get a gun?”
“You get a gun when shit gets real,” Asher says, passing me a bulletproof vest. “Here, put this on.”
Struggling to fit my arms through the holes and Velcro it shut around me, I grumble a bit. “At what point does it get more real than a secret group of angry vampires trying to kill me—”
Except I don’t get to finish because he shoves me behind him, shielding me from the silent figures slipping onto the darkened balconies above us. A series of not-so-subtle clicks echo in the aftermath, and the humming charge of UV weaponry spirals eerily upward. Then, like a ghost, there’s another sound that steals my breath, a teasing tinkling that sounds light and innocent, but is anything but.
“Wind chimes.” I wasn’t afraid, not until my mind registered that familiar clink of metal-on-metal. “Wind chimes.”
Xaine pulls me closer. I know he hears them, but I don’t think he understands. My hand shoots out of its own accord, seeking the one person who could possibly know. When my fingers locate fabric, I ball it in my fist, gripping Jackson Trace’s sleeve. His face is turned toward the balconies, piercing eyes scanning each and every cowled figure, taking mental inventory as he always seems to do when he stares right through people like that.
Weighing them.
“Little late for the party, guys,” he finally says, raising his voice to carry through the vast space. “Reception ended hours ago.”
I’m still searching, frantically skimming over each and every hood, each and every face, through the crowd and beyond, trying to find him. I curse everything, then: the darkness, my mortality, my shitty human eyesight. My fear magnifies every single time that soft metal jingle tears through me.
“Oh, but the after-party’s just beginning.” His voice ripples down my spine, and I can’t help the shudder that races across my flesh. Goosebumps rise to the surface a second later when I realize I’m standing directly across from the man who keeps trying to orchestrate my demise. His silver-tooth smile is all for me when he says, “Surprise, love. Did you miss me?”
Xaine growls. I relinquish my hold on Jax’s arm and clamp my hand around Xaine’s bicep, holding him back as best I can with a sharp, “Don’t.”
“I’d listen to her if I were you, mate.” Tiberius lets his grin slide sideways. “Smart girl, if a little forgetful.”
Flanked by two more hooded figures, he stands a mere ten feet from our little cluster. The rest of his group has us surrounded and covered from all angles. Basic strategy says to find the high ground. Keep the enemy beneath you.
Unlucky for us that I wanted to sit onstage one last time.
“Pissed off some very important people, you lot have.” Tiberius fixes those piercing eyes on me again. “Telling secrets.” He gestures to Jess and Asher next. “And you two, blowin’ shit up. Think you’re clever, do you?” He looks past me then, gaze tracing over the rigid line of Jax’s shoulders, sweeping past Tamsyn’s orange head and beyond. “Sin-eaters, angels, vampires, Virtues, and vigilantes. Jesus, it’s like an immortal grab bag, isn’t it?”
“Reaper.” I say the word seriously for the first time. Xaine’s head turns toward me, and I can see the reflective flash of his vampire eyes in the half-light. His gaze caresses my face, dark brows drawn together in consternation. I can only shake my head in reply, because really, I’m not entirely sure of anything anymore. “You forgot ‘reaper’ on that list. I mean, you are here with us.”
“Very good, love—”
“Call her that again,” Xaine warns him, “and I’ll wipe you clean off the planet, mate.”
Tiberius laughs. “You can’t kill me. Like the lady said, I’m a reaper. Indestructible. Unkillable. It’s what makes me the perfect machine. Bleed me, burn me, stab me, shoot me, I’m here until the Big Man says I’m done. Except I’m starting to think I might never be done. Like maybe the Almighty’s forgotten all about us.”
There’s a smile on Jax’s face that sends an arrow of fear into the very heart of me. An inferno burns behind those eyes, a righteousness that scares me more than Tiberius and all his minions.
“The Almighty might have forgotten, but I haven’t. I remember you, and I’ll remember you for all my days.” When Tiberius stiffens, Jax’s disconcerting smile widens a bit more. “Don’t think for a moment that I won’t.”
Then there’s a sound, that subtle whoosh of ignition when flame catches gas, the genesis of judgment. Blue light suffuses Jax’s face, illumination rippling across our respective skins like the glimmer of sunshine on water. A shimmering undulation of disb
elief passes over Tiberius’s face, the chains across his cheeks rattling when he gulps back whatever arrogance he was about to hurl our direction.
“Word on the street is that you quit,” the reaper tells Jax. “Hung up your wings and turned in your halo. So what’s one little Virtue soul to you, anyway?”
“To me? Nothing.” Jax offers up a shrug. “But obviously she’s of value to someone very important, if they keep sending you after her. Joke’s on you, though. You’re wasting your time. A soul in Judgment can’t be reaped.”
“Her soul’s already been judged,” Tiberius snaps, but he edges back all the same, his gaze moving from face to blade. “She’s just waitin’ out the clock. We both know it.”
Jax takes a step toward him. “Takes both coins to cross the river, Tibs.”
“You think you’re clever?” The reaper speaks bravely, but those sharp eyes betray his wariness. “Where’s the other coin?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jax says, still advancing. The shadows at the reapers’s flanks fade backward, retreating from the fiery tip of Vengeance. “Until she holds both in her hands, she’s safe from the likes of you, the likes of him, and them, and everyone, really.”
“You’ve invested an awful lot of energy into a single Virtue,” Tiberius tells him. “What about the other six?”
“All I need is one.” When Jax shifts his weight, the blue flames leap and hiss to match. “Someone with a Grand Plan, well… they’d need the full set.” There’s a smirk on his face that does nothing to quell the anxiety in my belly. “The reaper gig was your chance at redemption. You were supposed to ferry the souls, work off your indenture, and then go home. What exactly are you hoping to achieve instead?”
“The tide of war is shifting. I’m finally choosing a side.” Tiberius’s expression is the grim, self-righteous look of a man who’s picked a path and decided to follow it to the end. “That’s the lesson I was supposed to learn, right? That I can’t sit idly by while the Titans clash around me? You’re not going to win this one. Not this time. Your ranks are scattered and outnumbered. You have no army. You have no chance. You’re waiting out the clock, too. No wings, no halo, no hope.”
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