“Have you just come to gloat? I’d quite appreciate being left to wallow right now.” My fingers toyed with the brown envelope in my lap. Part of me wanted to look at them again, just to reinforce my decision.
“No, no. You’ve missed the main reason I set up this whole shebang. It was to lure you out of your little hiding place, of course.” I’d had to big up this meeting and say I was doing something similar to Jack’s meeting with Ellie. There was no way I would have been leaving the apartment without anything to prompt it.
I was surprised, though, that in Dimitri’s presence I felt the magic I’d been practising singing to me. I was more powerful here, in front of him, I was certain of it. Though I’d still only be able to keep a mild breeze for a minute at most during my practises at home, I felt certain I was stronger here. Plus, reverse image searching the scrolls had led me to find more techniques that I’d been trying to implement. It was all making me slightly more powerful.
But it was my secret weapon and so I simply sat still, waiting for Dimitri to reveal what was required next from me. “I think I had you pegged wrong, you know. I thought you’d be all angry at me, try and use that pathetic gun you’ve got on you, or something, when I showed up. I have to say I’m disappointed. I get the feeling you’d even come with me willingly, but I have this scene all played out in my head, and in that I knock you out, so…”
He trailed off and I felt my eyes slipping shut. He was right, I didn’t bother trying to fight it.
***
When I woke up, my fight returned. My head was pounding and my hands balled into fists. I couldn’t move: those same tendrils that had chased after me during our first meeting were holding me down now, my limbs bound to an uncomfortable chair.
In front of me, Dimitri stood with Jack. Jack was gagged and bound the same as me, only he was stood up and with a shadowy knife pressed to his throat. Eyes wide, I had never seen him look terrified before.
My struggling was frantic and my breathing laboured as I worked tirelessly against the secure binds. “What are you doing? You promised you wouldn’t hurt him.”
Dimitri continued to tease the knife against Jack’s throat, the smallest drop of blood rolling down his exposed skin. “In case you haven’t realised yet, Ilona, I’m not completely sane. Sometimes I change my mind. This is one of those times. But, of course, I’m not an unfair person. I have a choice to offer you.”
The tendrils began to unwrap slowly, dragging themselves back to Dimitri’s shadowy figure. My limbs were free and I jumped up straight away, lunging for Dimitri without thinking twice. An invisible wall stopped me getting more than a few inches closer. “Now, now, no need to be hasty,” he chastised, knife pressing into Jack’s neck further, a dark sneer conveying his warning.
My movement halted, but my breathing was ragged as I held in sobs. In this situation I should have fire, anger and determination, but Dimitri was right. I just felt empty and sad. I just wanted him to leave my friends alone.
“What do you want?” My voice didn’t catch, but my hands trembled and I stared at Jack, praying I could get him out of this without the knife going any further. “What do I have to do?”
“If you look over there,” Dimitri removed the knife from Jack’s throat and gestured to my right side. “You’ll see a knife quite similar to this. I think you should go and pick it up.”
I did as he said, my shoulders hunched and hair dangling in my face. It was heavy, far heavier than my own knife, whose absence I just realised. The gun was gone, too. This knife was old, incredibly old, with intricate carvings of red engrained in the darkest wood I’d ever seen. It was beautiful.
Standing back in my original position, the knife dangling by my side in a limp arm, I watched Dimitri with sullen eyes.
“Now you should stab yourself.”
For the first time in this scenario, my eyes widened and I faltered. “What?”
“Stab yourself. To kill, naturally. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of practice.”
I turned the ornate knife in my hands, holding it steady. Holding it how I held a knife about to murder someone. “But why? I thought you wanted me alive.”
Dimitri shrugged, a wicked smile developing on his lips. “I did, before. It was amusing, you amused me, but now it’s boring. You’re just hiding in your room, which is not good for me. Seeing you all miserable in the park… it’s just boring, really. If you at least had the decency to look annoyed I’d just sabotaged your friendship, perhaps you’d be worth it. You’re not even mad about the fact I’m about to kill your boyfriend.”
Jack had begun to struggle, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. “But you’ll let Jack go if I do?”
“Yes. Well, I mean, I’m saying that I will but I suppose you’ll never know since you won’t be here to see. But, I’ll give you my word, if that means anything.”
“Okay.” There was nothing more to say. Dimitri’s face was alight, he was enjoying this so much that I didn’t doubt there was nothing I could do. I felt my power, but this invisible wall was there and if I attempted to fight back and failed, Jack would definitely die.
I had to trust him; it was the only way.
My hands steadied, wielding a knife meant to kill was something I’d done a hundred times, whether it was in training or to actually draw blood. There was no difference if I was doing it to myself, really. I knew how to reduce the pain, to make sure I wouldn’t bleed out. Under the ribs and up to the heart. No big deal.
I focused on the rhythm of Jack’s erratic breathing, holding my own breath and burying the blade in my skin.
The impact never came and it dissolved in my hands as Dimitri’s booming laughter filled the room. He must have been using his magic to make it inhumanly loud. I stared in horror as he slit Jack’s throat, glee emanating from him.
Screaming, I watched Jack’s body fall to the floor, limp and lifeless. Dimitri laughed, softer now, as I hugged myself and tried to take deep breaths. “You monster. You, you-”
Jack’s body dissolved just as my knife had and Dimitri finally settled down. “Calm down, I was only messing with you. He’s fine, back at home with no idea any of this is going on. I’m not interested in hurting either of you, but having all this power with no one to use it on, it just gets so boring.”
I was speechless. For a split second, I gathered the wind in my mind, wanting more than anything to knock him off his feet and battering him with all the force I could muster. I barely resisted.
“Anyway, the whole point of this was because I want to know where the assassin’s that are no doubt coming are staying, and when.”
Containing my rage was difficult. The power was there, inside me, and out of curiosity, I touched the invisible wall in front of me, making sure it was still there. It was. I didn’t want to know what he was going to do with the information, but I could certainly guess. All this had definitely been more than just to cure boredom. I was a mess and I certainly wasn’t about to actually put Jack in danger by lying about it.
“They’re staying in the Park Hotel, I’m not sure exactly how many though. They’re coming at the end of the week.” My voice was ready to break, but it held steady, as did my face. Mimicking Dale’s mask of indifference now was the hardest it had ever been.
“Excellent. Well, it was good to see you today, Ilona. Many thanks. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”
Dimitri vanished and I was left alone in the warehouse. I pulled out my phone and rang Jack without thinking, needing to hear his voice and make sure he was safe more than anything. “Hey, what’s up?”
“I was just wondering, erm, if you could check whether I have any milk left. May as well go and pick up some more whilst I’m out of the flat.”
I heard rustling, something crash to the floor and Jack’s curse. “You’ve got some. How’s Jenny? Good? What was up with her?”
I exited the warehouse warily, surprised to find my car parked outside, gun and knife on the passenger seat. “Sh
e’s fine. Just some rubbish happening about the adoption. She just wanted to talk it out.” There was no point in telling him. I definitely didn’t deserve any sympathy and there was no reason Jack would even find out until this whole mess had either blown over, or Dimitri had won.
“Oh, right. Well, I’ll see you soon if you’re coming home anyway.”
“Yeah, cool.”
Hanging up, I finally allowed myself to break down. Kicking the dashboard, I didn’t care that the plastic had cracked, but bunched my hair in my hands and sobbed into the empty car. I was being so selfish, keeping Jack and Jenny alive and giving Dimitri the information, but they were worth so much more than the lives of people who chose to kill for a living.
I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled. Jenny was gone, I wasn’t going to get her back, and soon enough Jack would be gone too.
I wondered if when I’d left, when I’d run away from England with Leo, whether I’d be able to forget the fact I’d allowed so many people to die.
Chapter Twenty
The smell of burning flesh was worst as I stood in the fresh wreckage of the Park Hotel. A putrid smell that made me curl over and dry heave. Jack clasped his hand with mine, despite the rest of the Guild being present. It was the first time I’d touched him in a week. After the incident during the double-date, I’d stayed safely locked in my room and away from him as much as possible. All my effort had gone into learning to manipulate the air around me.
The death count was a hundred and twenty three. Everyone inside. The majority hadn’t even been Fae. Breeze tickled the back of my neck and a dark voice whispered “thanks for the help.” I retched again.
Pulling my hand from Jack’s, I returned to the car and secured myself in the back seat, unwilling to face the scene behind me. All my fault. Absolutely all my fault.
Everyone else piled back in, grim expressions all around. “We’re finding him, right now. You’d better all be working your arses off to find this son of a bitch.” Dale wasn’t messing around. I got the feeling he wouldn’t even be ringing Jasper about this until we were either victorious or dead.
My hand, stuffed in my pocket, felt a note materialise around it. He just had to rub it in, didn’t he? Of course I couldn’t pull it out to read now, but I did feel the bile building up once more. “We’re going to get this bastard,” Glen hissed in the front seat, fists banging against the dashboard. “Before he hurts anyone else.”
“I want all of you doing as much as you can to find this guy. Search all the CCTV you can get your hands on, even if you’re not supposed to have your hands anywhere near it. I want every inch of this city checked to locate this piece of filth. Got it?”
We all nodded.
Back in my flat, I excused myself to the bathroom to read the note Dimitri had put in my pocket.
I’m in the warehouse just off Rosewood Avenue. Get there by midnight tonight. When I say the word, you’re to shoot Dale.
Love, Dimitri
I slid down against the counter, tearing the note into shreds until the writing couldn’t be deciphered. My hands shook. Tonight was the final showdown, then.
Taking a deep breath, I gathered all the power I had been training myself up to hold. It wasn’t as strong in this crouch – I required a strong stance normally – but the wind whipped at my face and the energy seeped into my body, setting it alight with strength.
I picked up my bottle of shampoo with the circling current, lifting it to the middle of the room. I wasn’t drained quite yet, but this wasn’t enough to do anything to Dimitri. Taking all the power I could muster, I concentrated the air, squeezing it so that it would pressurize Dimitri’s head until he was fit to burst. Someone could easily shoot him once I’d done that.
I squeaked when the shampoo bottle exploded, sending its contents throughout my bathroom. I barely managed to shield myself with the last bit of air I could command.
I had power, even if my muscles now ached and my breathing was laboured. It was stronger around Dimitri, too. I could do this. I was sure I could.
Giving my bathroom a quick wipe and shoving the destroyed shampoo bottle in the bin, I settled my breathing and calmed my expression. No one else had to die but him.
Jack shot me a concerned glance when I re-emerged, his entire posture tense where he was pacing the room. “You should leave, now. Get out of here so you don’t have to go to this stupid facedown. We should leave, together.”
I came to a standstill. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do. I mean it more than anything. We could leave the country, just get out of here right now and we’d be safe, and together without anything to worry about.”
“You don’t really want that.” I couldn’t look at him; my gaze stayed glued to the floor and images of us lying on the beach in some tropical country flashed before my eyes. It would be so perfect. “What about your family? About Ellie? They all care about you.”
“I love you, Ilona.”
“Are you sure I’m not just second best since Ellie’s no longer available?”
“You know that’s not true,” Jack argued, his feet appearing in my line of vision as he stood before me. His hands gripped my arms and I was forced to ignore the intense longing he ignited in me. “I just want to be with you and I don’t want to get hurt fighting this battle that shouldn’t have anything to do with either of us. You don’t want to be Fae, you don’t want any of this. It’s not your responsibility to go out and get killed. It’s my fight more than yours.”
“I already told Leo I’d leave with him,” I muttered, pulling away entirely and refusing to observe Jack’s reaction. “After all this is finished and you’re at university in Scotland, I told Leo I’d leave with him. I never expected…” I didn’t deserve to leave with Jack, anyway. I wasn’t supposed to be happy after I’d caused so many deaths.
“Oh,” Jack slumped down on the sofa, grimace overtaking any hope he’d been holding onto. “It doesn’t matter, then.”
“Don’t be like that. Of course I wasn’t expecting you to suggest that we could leave. You have an entire life here, you’re clever and you have your family. You shouldn’t want to leave any of this behind for me. It wouldn’t be worth it. I told Leo I’d go with him as a friend. It was his idea, not mine.”
“I said it doesn’t matter, then.”
“Jack, if we both get out of this alive today and you still want to leave when the school year if over, then I’ll leave with you. But I can’t abandon everyone right now, it wouldn’t be fair. It is my fight,” more than anyone’s, considering what I’d done. And it was going to come out today that I’d been under Dimitri’s thumb, I didn’t deserve to escape from that. Jack had to know how I’d betrayed everyone before he knew whether he actually wanted to run off with me. “Realistically, we need our exam results if we want to get any kind of decent job when we’ve left.”
Jack sighed. “Me, you and Leo together? That sounds like one big happy family.”
“You don’t have to be jealous of Leo. I barely know him, we just have a common goal, to get out of this miserable system. I don’t fancy him, at all.”
Grabbing my waist, Jack pulled me down on the sofa next to him, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and allowing me to bury my face in the crook of his neck. “Okay. I can wait. I just had this idea of us running off right now and never turning back, you know?”
“I know. I want that, more than anything, but it’s just not realistic. I do want to leave with you Jack. I want to be with you.”
He kissed my temple and it sent shivers down my spine.
“I need to start doing what Dale said. The only chance of us getting out of this alive is to find this bastard and shoot him down.” Retracting myself from Jack’s comfort was hard, but I did it reluctantly and began watching random pieces of CCTV footage through my monitor, searching for Dimitri with facial recognition. Even if it didn’t find the information itself, I had no doubt I could get a picture that convinced Dale when I guided
it towards Rosewood Avenue.
***
“I’ve got him.” The time was approaching ten o’clock and no one in the Guild had been successful yet, so it was time for my intervention. “I’ve got him! Rosewood Avenue. There’s an abandoned warehouse there, recently gone out of business. I’ve got to go and tell Dale.”
I didn’t wait for a response from Jack before exiting the room, ready to tell Dale my findings and get this whole thing over and done with. I was trying to push the possibility that I might have to kill the man I was about to talk to from my mind.
“Dale,” the use of knocking had been abandoned since this mess had begun. “I’ve got him. Rosewood Avenue.”
The Reluctant Assassin Page 16
