Dark Deceiver

by Pamela Palmer

  Harrison raised a hand in greeting and caught up to them with quick strides. “Jack got a bead on one of the bastards. We thought he was heading for the Warner, but he kept moving.”

  He probably sensed the Sitheen and took off, Kaderil thought.

  “Jack and Larsen are on the next street following him,” Harrison continued. “We’ll go this way. I hope we can cut him off.”

  When they reached the corner, he held up his hand and peered carefully around the corner. “There’s Jack. We must have lost the Esri, dammit.”

  Kaderil squeezed Autumn’s hand, relieved but not surprised. Zander couldn’t be taken unaware and Ustanis was unlikely to be. Zander’s gift of sensing power in others allowed him to track the Sitheen. They would never get near him unless he wished them to.

  Harrison straightened but didn’t relax his guard as the three rounded the corner to meet with Jack and Larsen. The street was narrow and cast into shadow by the office buildings rising on either side. Half a dozen business types strolled the sidewalk across the street, but this side was all but deserted, thanks to the small band of street punks lounging against the building midblock.

  All at once, the punks straightened as if pulled upright by unseen strings.

  Kaderil’s instincts screamed. In a synchronized, fluid motion, the punks whipped out guns and began shooting, half in each direction. But Kaderil was quicker. He pushed Autumn against the building, shielding her with his body as he took two slugs to the gut. The bullets pierced his flesh, burning with surprising pain, but they wouldn’t kill him as they would her.

  Harrison dove into a nearby doorway. Kaderil pushed Autumn in after him.

  Autumn grasped his arm, trying to turn him. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He brushed her seeking hands aside and fumbled with the zipper of his leather jacket, hiding the bullet holes in his shirt.

  “Harrison’s shot.”

  Kaderil swung around, meeting the other man’s pained gaze.

  “Just the leg,” Harrison said, his voice tight.

  As suddenly as it began, the shooting stopped with a series of empty clicks. Kaderil looked out. One of the shooters was on the ground, likely shot by Jack. As Kaderil watched, the five remaining shooters collapsed in a single fall.

  “Enchanted,” he murmured. When Zander had sensed the Sitheen, he hadn’t run, but had set up an ambush for them.

  Autumn’s hand gripped his shoulder. “Is it over?”

  “I think so.”

  “Are Jack and Larsen okay?” A quaver of fear laced her words even as his gaze traveled to the other end of the block.

  His stomach clenched as he saw Jack fall to his knees beside the prone body of his wife. Blood ran down the side of the man’s face. Blood spread in a pool around the woman. Kaderil’s skin turned cold as he stared at the destruction.

  Such gratifyingly fragile creatures, Zander had said.

  “No.” The word that came from his lips sounded strangled. “No, they’re not okay.”

  Autumn slid past him and with a cry of heartbreak, took off running toward her friends.

  “Autumn!”

  “Go,” Harrison said behind him, his voice tight with pain. “I’ll call 9-1-1.”

  Kaderil took off after Autumn. He searched for Zander as he swept up the guns from the unconscious shooters, but saw no sign of him. The Esri captain could be anywhere, enchanting another armed human, readying another attack.

  He had to get Autumn out of danger. His hands filled with guns, he hurried to the scene of the carnage. Autumn looked up from where she knelt in the blood beside her friend, tears sliding down her freckled cheeks. “She’s bad, Kade.” The grief in her eyes tore at his heart.

  Jack cradled his wife’s head in his lap, tears mixing with the blood on his cheeks as he pulled the phone from his ear and snapped it closed. His desperate gaze rose to Kaderil. “Did you drive?”

  “Autumn drove.”

  “Get your car, Autumn. Quick, before the ambulances arrive. I have to get her to Myrtle.”

  Autumn gaped at him. “Jack, she’s going to need surgery.”

  “The doctors may not be able to save her. Myrtle can.” His head snapped up, his anguished eyes blazing with determination. “Go!”

  Autumn scrambled to her feet. Her gaze met Kaderil’s for an instant before she turned and ran for the car. He was about to go with her when Jack’s words stopped him.

  “Kade. Where’s Harrison?”

  “Shot in the leg.”

  “Help him.” Jack eased Larsen’s head out of his lap and struggled to his feet. Blood ran in rivulets down his face and bloomed from his shoulder. “We’ve got to get out of here. The bastards could be planning another attack.” His eyes were filled with such pain, such grief that Kaderil felt his own emotions twist in sympathy.

  Yet even in the face of such destruction, such disaster, these humans rose with courage and determination. Their bodies might be weak but their spirits were as strong as any he’d ever encountered. For the first time in his life, he felt a stirring of pride for the human blood that ran through his own veins.

  Autumn’s car screeched to a halt by the curb. The door slammed and she flew toward him, her gray eyes wounded. “Is she still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  As Jack bent down, his arms sliding beneath his wife as if he meant to lift her, something fell from his shirt to dangle on a chain around his neck. A light-blue, teardrop-shaped stone.

  The draggon stone.

  The hair rose on Kaderil’s arms. Victory flushed his skin as he stared at the prize he’d been sent for. The strange magic he felt around Jack suddenly made sense. It wasn’t Jack’s own power he’d been feeling, but the stone’s.

  His muscles clenched as he watched Jack struggle to lift Larsen, the human’s skin turning nearly as white as an Esri’s. Sweat broke out on Kaderil’s brow. The time was at hand. He could end his mission right this moment with nearly flawless ease. The Sitheen, badly injured, were in no position to stop him.

  Jack swayed. Kaderil dropped the empty guns at his feet and lunged forward to pluck the injured woman from his arms. “I’ve got her. Sit down before you fall.”

  “Myrtle,” Jack choked out as he sank to his knees. “I’ve got to get her to Myrtle.” The eyes he turned to Kaderil were desperate. “Help her. Please.” He fell forward, collapsing onto his side as his injured arm failed to hold him, the draggon stone lying against his heart.

  Autumn grabbed his arm. “Quick. Get Larsen in the car, then help Jack.”

  “No,” Jack said. “Leave me. Myrtle can only heal one. I’m going to need that ambulance.” His pleading gaze bore into Kaderil. “Save her.”

  “Come on, Kade,” Autumn cried, and his gaze swung to her. Tears and Larsen’s blood streaked her face. Misery and strength filled her eyes. “We don’t have any time. We’ve got to get her to Myrtle before she dies.”

  He was helpless to deny her.

  Later, he would complete his mission. Later, when there were no witnesses. Later, when Autumn wasn’t staring at him with a soft plea in her eyes.

  Kaderil rode in the back, needing the extra room for his long legs and the dying woman in his arms. Autumn’s emotions swirled around him, thickening the air, as she drove. How did the humans bear it? The fragility of their existence? Yet even as he wondered, he was beginning to understand. It was that very fragility that leant such a sharpness to the living and to the relationships they formed with one another. Bonds that ripped the heart to shreds when broken.

  What must it be like to matter that much to another?

  “Is she still breathing?” Forced to stop for a red light, Autumn turned in her seat to look at him. His chest ached with her sorrow.

  “She’s alive.” But only just. The woman had little breath left within her.

  Autumn met his gaze in the rearview mirror, her eyes heavy with the understanding that she was about to lose her friend.

  “I’m sorry, Autumn.
” The words came from his heart. He was sorry for this loss she was about to suffer. And the others to come. The ones from his own hands.

  She pulled up in front of a nondescript brick apartment building, then jumped out and ran around to open his door. While she’d driven, he’d felt the bullets that had penetrated his own flesh ease their way to the surface of his skin. As he slid out of the car, Larsen’s limp body in his arms, he felt them slide down his legs to ping on the pavement, one after the other.

  He tensed for Autumn’s questions, but her attention was focused elsewhere.

  “Is she still alive?” Her hand, where it touched his arm, shook.

  “Yes.” Barely. They hurried up the steps to find Tarrys waiting for them at the entrance, her feet bare beneath a pair of too-long jeans, a Redskins sweatshirt hanging to her hips, tears in her eyes.

  “Jack called. Myrtle is preparing the ritual.” She held the door for Kade, then followed him to the elevator.

  “Hey!” A man shouted. “You can’t bring her in here. She’s bleeding!”

  Kaderil sent the man a glower that had him scurrying backward.

  “Kade!” Autumn held the elevator door for him as he strode inside.

  “I’ll call the cops!” the man shouted, but his threats were quickly drowned by the closing of the doors.

  Tarrys’s eyes widened. “Is it illegal to harbor the injured?”

  Autumn scoffed. “He doesn’t want the blood on his floors.” She hit the wall of the elevator with the palm of her hand. “Come on, come on. Faster.”

  When the doors finally opened, Kaderil followed the women down the hall to where Jack’s aunt Myrtle stood in the same red dress he’d seen her in before, her expression grave.

  Kaderil eased his dying burden through the door of an apartment that looked as though someone had plucked it from a flower garden. He followed the silent Myrtle to a bedroom as blue as the sky.

  “Put her down, Kade.”

  He laid Larsen onto the striped bedspread, watching her head roll to one side, her face without color. He eased his arms out from under her and stepped back, his gaze seeking Autumn. She took his hand and held it tightly, her eyes bright with tears, her lips tight with misery.

  “Oh, dear,” Myrtle said, her words choked with tears. The blood still flowed freely from Larsen’s abdomen. She covered her mouth, tears springing to her eyes. “This is far more than I can do. We must call an ambulance.”

  “Myrtle…” Autumn said. “There isn’t time. Jack believed you could save her. He believed you were the only one who could. You have to try.”

  Tarrys joined the older woman beside the bed. “I’ll help you,” she said softly. Myrtle lowered her hand and enfolded the smaller woman in a tight hug. Against her shoulder, Tarrys said, “I haven’t much magic, but what little I have is yours.”

  Myrtle pulled away. “All right, then. Let’s try.” She pulled a stoppered bottle from the lace-trimmed basket sitting on the bedside table. “Open her shirt, Autumn. All the way. You can leave her bra.”

  Autumn released Kaderil’s hand and moved to Larsen’s side. But as her fingers moved from one button to the next, a sob caught in her throat. “I can’t do this.”

  “You must, dear. I must see the wounds.”

  Kaderil stepped forward. He gave Autumn’s shoulder a squeeze, then wrapped his arms around her and helped her pull the bloody fabric from the ruined flesh. Pressure throbbed between his eyes at the damage wrought by such small bullets.

  The wounds bared, Myrtle unstoppered a small vial of oil, filling the room with a smell that burned the insides of his nostrils.

  Tarrys slapped her hand over her nose. Autumn pulled out of his embrace and turned to face Myrtle with a grimace. “It smells like dead animals.”

  Myrtle said nothing, merely poured a small puddle of oil between Larsen’s breasts and laid two rocks on top of the glistening pool. She replaced the oil in the basket, then pulled out a stack of candles and handed them to Autumn with a pack of matches.

  “Replace the other candles with these, then light them. Quickly. And pull the drapes.”

  Autumn gave the matches to Kaderil while she and Tarrys changed the candles. Kaderil stared at the small package. He’d never struck a match, for Esria was lit by magic, but he searched his borrowed memories and found the trick. On the third try, the match sparked and burst into flame, a small triumph as long as no one started murmuring the death chant. As he lit the candles, Autumn and Tarrys lifted them to light others until the room flickered with candlelight.

  “Silence please, children.” Myrtle sat on the bed, placed one hand on the rocks, the other on Larsen’s forehead, and began to hum, then to sing under her breath, her words only sporadically audible.

  With a shock, Kaderil recognized the words as Esrian. He shouldn’t be surprised. Sitheen magic came from the Esri.

  “Heart beat with life…illness flee…vanquish death. Tarrys, your hand, please, dear.”

  As Tarrys sat across from Myrtle on the bed and placed her hand atop the older woman’s, Autumn came back to stand beside him, tears in her eyes. Kaderil pulled her against him in a movement that felt as natural as breathing. He enfolded her tightly in his arms as her grief buried sharp claws in his heart, his chest filling with the echoes of her misery and heartache.

  As he stroked her back, she trembled and clung to him and he felt needed, truly needed, for the first time in his life.

  The seconds turned to minutes as they stood, breath shallow, hearts racing, waiting for a miracle.

  Myrtle’s voice rose, the chanting turning more urgent, more frantic with each repetition.

  Autumn’s grip on him tightened as Myrtle lifted the stones, poured more oil and set them down again.

  “It’s not working.” Autumn’s words were light as the wind, for his ears only. But Myrtle’s gaze snapped up and speared them with anguished eyes.

  “No. It’s not working.” Myrtle’s words rang with a devastating hollowness. “Oh, my dears. I can’t save her.”

  Chapter 8

  Grief thickened the air, weighing on Kaderil’s heart as Autumn clung to him, her arms like a vice around his waist. Kaderil’s arms tightened around her quaking body, offering what comfort he could against Myrtle’s devastating words, words that still echoed in the small blue bedroom.

  The elderly healer sat on the edge of the bed, her dress as red as the blood still flowing from Larsen’s prone body. Tears and hopelessness shimmered in her eyes.

  Tarrys sank to the mattress on the other side, weeping softly. Though Myrtle was purportedly a gifted Sitheen healer, the devastation to Larsen Vale’s…Larsen Hallihan’s…mortal body was too great for even her skills.

  Autumn’s tears started to come in great sobs as she buried her face against his neck. Her misery sliced through him, making his chest ache with her sorrow. So much grief. So much suffering over a single mortal life.

  How did the humans stand it?

  None of this should bother him. He should, in fact, be rejoicing over this death. But he felt no joy. No relief. Only the echoes of Autumn’s distress and fury that Zander, by enchanting those shooters, had caused Autumn such pain.

  If there were any way to spare her this, he would.

  He stilled. Maybe he could. His power wasn’t great. But combined with Myrtle’s and Tarrys’s, it might be enough.

  Refusing to think too hard about the foolishness of saving one he was only going to have to destroy later, he squeezed Autumn’s shoulders lightly, then released her and crossed to the bed and Myrtle. The smell of the oil was even more pungent up close, and his eyes burned from the assault.

  “Try again,” he said to the woman.

  Myrtle looked up at him, her faded eyes swimming in tears. “I’ve done all I can,” she said softly.

  “Jack said my power is strong. We must try again.” He looked across the bed at Tarrys. “All of us.”

  The violet-eyed slave nodded, wiping away her tears. She pushed u
p the overlong sleeves of her sweatshirt and placed her small hand on Myrtle’s. Kaderil covered both of them with his own.

  Myrtle tried to resume chanting, but her throat was clogged with tears and she had to clear it twice before she could get any sound. Finally, she began to sing.

  Even as his logical mind ridiculed this soft-hearted, foolish action, the overpowering need to end Autumn’s suffering had him clearing his mind and pushing his energy, his power, into the broken body of her friend.

  He felt Autumn move to his side.

  She knelt at his feet and slid her free hand over Larsen’s where it lay motionless on the bed. “Can I talk to her?” she asked quietly, her gray eyes glistening with unshed tears.

  Myrtle nodded, but never ceased her singing.

  Autumn leaned over, close to her friend’s ear, her braid slipping over one shoulder. “Larsen…you have to get better. Jack’s okay. He’s hurt but waiting for you. He’s worrying about you.” Her voice broke.

  Kaderil squeezed her shoulder and felt a strange surge of energy, as if the power arced as it traveled between the unintended circle. The energy rose, like a humming through his body, an odd blend of Sitheen, Marceil and Esri power and Autumn’s love for her friend.

  “You have to get better,” Autumn murmured. “Fight, Larsen. Fight. Jack needs you. We all need you.”

  As the vibration inside him grew, heat began to build in both his hands, the one that covered Myrtle’s and the hand that clung to Autumn’s shoulder. A faint glow began deep within Larsen’s body as if she were suddenly lit from within.

  Autumn gasped and pulled away. At once, the glow died, the magic failed.

  Kaderil squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t let go! Hold her.”

  Her startled gaze snapped to his before she nodded and grabbed Larsen’s hand. “What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know, but somehow you’re part of it. I can feel it. The circle must not be broken.”