As soon as she was gone, Jax pulled his cell from his pocket and almost couldn’t dial, his hands were shaking so badly. When Key answered, he said, “Is the fake ready?”
“Andres finished Friday night and it’s been curing ever since. I’m planning to contact Eryx later tonight, tell him we located it, and ask what kind of favor he has in mind. Not that we believe a favor is actually on the table, or give a damn one way or the other. It’s only an excuse to appease him so none of his people will hassle Sasha. He should have the fake by tomorrow morning.”
“Give him the painting, or don’t. It doesn’t matter now.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“He knows Sasha is Anabo.”
The call was silent for a while before his brother asked, “How?”
Squeezing his eyes closed, fury overwhelmed him. “Katya sold her out.”
The ride home was tense and awful, no one saying a word. Jax was so stiff, she thought he might break right in two. Brody stared out the back window, and Sasha looked ahead at the road, which was difficult because it was snowing so hard. It had started in the higher elevations that morning and hadn’t let up all day, blowing into giant drifts against houses and fences.
She had no idea how he navigated through the mists. Coupled with the snow, it was zero visibility.
When they finally arrived at the house, Deacon was there to open her car door, holding a ginormous umbrella over her head while she walked to the front entrance. Inside, Mathilda was waiting, clucking at her, following her up the stairs and down the long winding corridors to her room. She had hot cocoa and a roaring fire waiting, and asked all about her day. Sasha answered automatically, not paying close attention, her mind on Jax and his over-the-top reaction to her mother’s letter. He’d known she would leave. She never wavered from it, so why was he so upset? Maybe because it was getting closer, and the tickets were a real reminder that their time was just about up.
“I always speak my mind, so ye’ll forgive me if I say it’s a tad strange how calm you are about leaving.”
Turning from the fire, she blinked at Mathilda.
“So you’ll do it, then. Leave Master Jax and the brothers, to go back to yer life.”
“I have to be with my mother. Surely you can understand that. You’ve been here over a century because your daughter was taken from you.”
“Drink yer cocoa, dearie.” She took her coat and hung it in the small closet, then went to smooth the bed that was already military straight. “I know he comes in at night and sleeps here with you. I also know he’s a gentleman. A child of Hell, with all that pull of the dark eating on him all the time, but he comes in here and looks after you without no touch like a man touches a woman.”
“How would you know?”
“I’ve been looking after these lads a long, long time. I know when they’re needing, and Jax is strung tight as an archer’s bow.” She fussed some more with the bed. “But he’ll stay that way, because he knows to touch you would be to keep you here forever, and he wants you to stay because you love him.”
“I know.”
Mathilda went to stoke the fire. “Ye’re a child, yet, so you don’t know anything at all about love, or men. Not but what you see on the movies, and the television, which is all made-up stories.” She finally stopped her constant motion and took the chair on the other side of the fire, her long skirts rustling as she sat. “Drink that cocoa, Miss Sasha, so ye’ll warm right up. I’ll bring some fresh-made oatmeal cookies after a while.”
She sipped the cocoa to make Mathilda happy, but she wasn’t in the mood, and her stomach had begun to hurt.
“Have you seen the wee box he keeps, with his mother’s memory inside?”
Sasha nodded.
“He’s got another, just since yesterday. Last night, while you were in the TV room watching your show, he went out and came back with a box like a heart. I’m a nosy woman, always was, so I went in there just a while ago and looked in that box.” Mathilda held out her hand, palm up. Sasha leaned over and saw a ring. A man’s ring. A familiar ring.
“Go on,” the housekeeper said, “pick it up, look at it, and you’ll see it’s just what you think. It’s your papa’s ring, isn’t it?”
Holding it between her fingers, she looked at the inscription inside, written in Russian, so worn it was hard to read any longer. My heart, My life ~A. It was given to the last tsar by his wife, Alexandra. Dad’s great-grandfather had been a Russian count who had escaped the revolution to live in exile in Paris, and took with him some of the tsar’s personal things for safekeeping, in hopes he’d return to Russia and give them back. Of course he didn’t, and as years passed, he sold the pieces, one by one, to make enough money to feed his family. His youngest surviving son left Paris and went to America, taking the last of the pieces with him, which he sold to buy land in Minnesota. He kept this ring, and gave it to his son, who gave it to his son, and now Sasha was holding it in her hand because her mother had sold it to a collector. Who was Jax.
Tears hanging from her lashes, she looked at Mathilda.
“He sent one of the Russian Luminas to buy it from her, and paid enough so she could get all that was needed for you to be with her.”
“How do you know, Mathilda?”
“I packed Boris’s bag, and he told me what he was about, going to Russia. He returned last night, and Jax went out to buy the box. He will give it to you when you leave, so you can keep the ring for your son.” Mathilda dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. “He wants to love you, but he doesn’t know how, doesn’t think he’s capable, so he does these things to make you happy, in hopes you will love him. He knows you’ll leave, but he hopes … oh, he hopes.”
Sasha handed the ring back to Mathilda and drained the last of the cocoa, more to hide that she was close to losing it than because she wanted more cocoa. Trying to keep it together, she set the cup on the small side table, then stood, thinking she’d go to her laptop and e-mail Mom that she got the tickets, even though she wasn’t absolutely sure she’d use them. She hadn’t been sure about much of anything for a while now.
The only constant in her life since everything went batshit crazy was Jax. No matter what happened, how horrible, how frightening, how sad—he was there. But it was all unconscious, some instinct in him that was as natural as breathing. Was that what love meant? That you were there for someone, no matter what it cost you? The longer he was around her and the more attached they became—so much they couldn’t sleep apart—the harder it would be for him when she left. But he never turned his back, never pushed her away.
She took one step and the room began to spin. “Mathilda, I don’t feel very good.”
Instantly, the housekeeper was fussing and herding her toward the bed, pulling at her clothes as she went. By the time she was under the covers, she knew she’d caught something awful. Mathilda looked worried, and that was the last thing she remembered.
“Is she asleep?”
Mathilda nodded, her lips pursed. “It’s a bad thing I did, Master Jax. Bad, bad, bad. Puir lamb trusted me and drank it right up.”
“She’ll never know. She’ll wake up later tonight and think she was sick.”
“I hope so. It’s not something I like doing, tricking her like that, but I reckon you know best.”
She left the war room, and Key said for the second time, “I don’t understand why you didn’t just tell her. She’s going to find out. She has to find out. All you’re doing is delaying the inevitable.”
“He’s buying time,” Phoenix said. “Think of the difference it’ll make if she stays because she wants to, not because she has to.”
“What she wants is no longer on the table. I guess she doesn’t have to accept immortality, but not staying on the mountain isn’t an option. I’d think she’d want to know that. And she needs to know Katya took the oath, sooner than later. She may tell her something about Melanie’s trip to Key West, which could wind up screwing the whole plan for next week. I�
�m ordering you to tell her, as soon as we’re back after tonight’s takedown.”
Key didn’t get it. None of his brothers did. Except Phoenix, because just as Sasha said, he was different. But he had a duty to his brothers, to the plans already under way for taking out fifty-five Skia next week. Jax nodded and said, “I’ll tell her.”
Her cell phone was playing an Augustana ringtone, the one she had for random calls from people not in her contact list. Groggy and feeling like someone had stuffed her mouth with cotton, she got out of bed and went to her backpack to dig around for her phone. She answered, sounding like a fifty-year-old chain-smoker, and Brett said, “Where are you?”
Aw, geez, she got out of bed for this? “At a friend’s house, and the answer’s still no, Chris can’t live with me. Your mother needs to get over herself. Tim’s barely cold.”
“You don’t really get how much she hates Chris.”
“Yeah, I do. She was an evil bitch even before she took the oath.”
“Speaking of oaths, guess who’s taking hers tonight?”
“Amanda won’t do it, Brett. I know she won’t.”
“Come to the ghost house and see for yourself.” He ended the call.
She immediately called Amanda, but of course she didn’t answer. She left her a voice-mail message, begging her not to do it, to wait until Sasha could talk to her.
Ending the call, she checked the time and groaned. It was past nine o’clock. She’d slept for hours and missed the game. Was Jax disappointed? Did he know she was sick? Surely he did. Mathilda would have told him.
Shaking her head to get the fuzzies out, she stood and went to the little closet to get some jeans. While she dressed and pulled her hair into a ponytail, she wondered how long she had before Amanda would take the oath. If Bruno was there, what would she do? She couldn’t go commando on Brett and the others, or Bruno would know she wasn’t normal.
Maybe she could get there before anyone else, find a place to hide, then grab Amanda and take off with her.
She went through the little sitting room and knocked on Jax’s door. As she expected, he didn’t answer. He was probably still at the school for the game. She went through his room to the bathroom and brushed her teeth, then went back and slid into her coat. Closing her eyes, hoping she’d practiced enough that she wouldn’t screw up, she imagined herself in the garage.
When she opened her eyes, she was standing on the roof of the garage, already sliding toward the edge. It was a long way to the ground.
Quickly closing her eyes again, she imagined she was inside the garage, and breathed a sigh of relief when she landed on the stone floor, just next to the side door, right beside the key rack. She didn’t turn on the light, not wanting anyone to come out and ask why she was taking a car off the mountain. They’d call Jax, and he’d tell her she couldn’t go, that if Amanda was going to pledge, nothing Sasha could do would make a difference.
Maybe not, but she was determined to try.
She picked a Subaru Outback, mostly because it was closest and the garage door behind it wasn’t blocked by snowdrifts. Backing out, she hit the button on the visor, and the garage door went back down.
It took a while for the heater to warm, and her teeth chattered while she drove down the long drive, through the forest, to the narrow road that led to the highway. The snow had stopped, which made it easier to see, until she crossed the mists. Eventually, she broke free of the dense fog and after a few more switchbacks, she was at the highway.
Driving toward Telluride, she tried to remember how far it was to the turnoff for Last Dollar Road. She knew the ghost house was there, because she’d heard people talking about it. A family named Taylor had built the house in the seventies, then the dad went wack and killed everyone. It had been empty ever since, because possible buyers claimed there were ghosts. True or not, it had served as a party house for local kids for years.
The turnoff came sooner than she had expected, and she took the turn a little too sharply, skidded, and almost landed in the ditch. Adrenaline pumped fast and furious, making her even more anxious. She crept along while she scanned the edge of the road, looking for a turnoff that might lead to the house. There were several, but each one had a name posted, and none of them was Taylor. She was getting close to the tiny airport before she spied a turnoff with an old, rusted sign. The name had long since faded, but someone had painted ghost house in white letters.
She shivered and turned up the heat.
The road was narrow and winding, and she came upon the house all of a sudden. There was a very small clearing in the trees, just enough for the little cabin and a tiny yard. East’s car was already there, killing her idea of waiting and hiding. But there was just the one car, so Bruno hadn’t arrived yet. The house was dark, except for one dimly lit window. A fire in the grate, maybe, or a candle.
Anxiety oozing from every pore, she sucked in a deep breath, killed the engine, and got out of the car. The old porch groaned and squeaked as she walked up the steps and crossed to the front door. She was about to knock, then thought, Why? This was an abandoned house. And she wasn’t a guest. The knob turned in her hand and the door swung inward, revealing a small, dusty hall with a narrow staircase along one wall and a doorway into a family room on the other. She heard deep voices, and a low, pained moan.
Moving slowly toward the entryway, she cringed when a floorboard creaked, but no one came running, so she continued on. At the threshold, she froze. The room was bare, lit by a fire in the grate and three candles on the floor, each one illuminating large figures in black spray paint: 66X. Her mind wanted to go back in time, to that empty warehouse at Pier 26, to the terrifying faces of people who despised her enough to stone her to death.
Fighting back the memory, she made herself focus on the here and now, on Amanda. Naked, her arms and legs were splayed like a jumping jack in the center of the X, her wrists and ankles secured to the floor with ropes tied to tent stakes that had been driven into the wood. She was unconscious, her pale skin splotched with countless angry, red whelps. Burns inflicted on her by Brett, who was even then holding a poker in the flames, heating it up. The air was thick with smoke and the putrid smell of burned flesh.
Sasha watched Brett turn from the fire; saw East move toward Amanda, a long knife in his hand. Julianne leaned against the wall next to the fireplace, a vodka bottle dangling from her fingers. She laughed when she saw Sasha. “Wouldja lookit who decided to join us.”
She remembered Reilly’s words. I never knew what evil looked like, until today.
Taking it all in, she knew, in a defining moment of truth, she couldn’t turn her back on this. Whatever sacrifices she had to make by giving up her mortality and remaining Mephisto for eternity, she had to do it. Amanda was willing to be humiliated and tortured, then hand her soul over to a liar, all so she could be somebody other than who she was. Maybe Brett was right and no one was immune. Eryx was a cancer, and if she couldn’t heal humanity, she could do her best to kill the disease.
Her lingering hesitation, she realized, had been nothing more than a lack of confidence. Capturing the lost souls, transporting them around the world, then sending them to their deaths hadn’t seemed like something she could do.
Looking at the evil in this room, she no longer had any doubts. She could do it. She wanted to do it.
They all three faced her, and she clenched her fists. “Let Amanda go. I’ve called her dad, and the sheriff.”
Brett smiled. “No, you haven’t. And no, we won’t let her go. She belongs to us now, isn’t that right, Amanda?” He moved close and poked her with the toe of his boot.
She roused and looked up at him with adoring eyes. “Is it time? Is Mr. Bruno here now?”
“Not yet. Soon. First, say hello to Sasha.”
Amanda jerked her head up. “What are you doing at my initiation?”
“What are you talking about? There’s no initiation! It’s only an oath! They’re torturing you because they’re evi
l.”
Brett lowered the poker and Amanda stiffened, eyes wide with terror. Just before he touched her soft, white belly with the hot metal, Sasha rushed him and shoved with all her might, gratified when he flew backward, into the wall. He hit it so hard, the drywall cracked, and he slid to the floor, stunned, his head bleeding.
Julianne stood straight and looked down at his crumpled form. “What a puss.” Raising the vodka bottle, she drained it, then lifted it over her head and threw it at Sasha.
Instinct made her duck. Reflex made her lift her arm and catch the bottle in one hand. Turning swiftly, she swung it in a whistling arc and bashed East upside the head. The heavy glass shattered, and he went down like a load of bricks, the knife clattering across the floor until it came to rest at Julianne’s feet. She bent to pick it up, and Sasha sprang into action, leaping across the five-foot distance to snatch the knife before Julianne was even halfway there. She turned to cut the ropes binding Amanda to the floor.
“Stop it! Julianne, she’s ruining it!”
“Shut up, Geek Girl. There’s no initiation. Brett and East just wanted to have some fun.” She weaved a bit while she walked toward Sasha. “I hated your guts the minute I laid eyes on you.”
“I’ll cry about it later.” Sasha threw the knife toward the farthest wall, satisfied when it plunged deep inside. Bending, she grasped Amanda’s arm and hauled her to her feet. “You can get your clothes on before I take you home, or you can go naked. Take your pick.”
“I’m not leaving!”
“Okay, naked it is.” Dragging Amanda behind her, ignoring her useless attempts to break away, not caring when she whimpered that Sasha was hurting her, she headed for the front door.
“My glasses! I need my glasses!”
“Get some new ones.” She hauled her to the door with one hand and reached for the knob with the other, jerking it open so hard, it flew back and banged against the wall. She yanked Amanda’s arm and was about to step out onto the porch when Mr. Bruno appeared out of the darkness into the dim halo of light from within.
THE MEPHISTO COVENANT Page 30
