That one is proving problematic. Perhaps it’s time you pay Bowers another visit.
“Yeah,” I said under my breath, rushing to catch up to Muses.
If he intends to follow you until he finds out what happened to Ward—
“I know,” I whispered as I stepped into the elevator with Muses.
“You know what?” he asked, looking at me curiously.
“That we have a lot riding on this.”
He pushed the PH button, then leaned back against the mirrored wall and closed his eyes.
“There is so much you have yet to learn, niece. You are just scratching the surface of what it means to be Patronus Ceteri. What it means to keep the balance.”
We were soon on the top floor, standing before Alejandro’s penthouse. I looked to Muses for direction, but he gave me none. Instead, he broke through the door and walked in like he owned the place.
“So sorry to interrupt you after your party, but we need to have a word,” Muses said, heading toward where Alejandro stood, having shot off the couch at the sound of our entry. “Many words, actually.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Alejandro had the wherewithal to look surprised, but I could feel his fear bubbling up to the surface, oozing through the cracks in his façade. He knew that his prized possession had been taken—which meant he could feel that it had returned. And he knew that we’d come for him because of it. “You,” he said to me, his tone accusatorial. “You’re with him?”
“I don’t know that I’d go that far, but I’m definitely not with you. That’s for sure.” I walked over to stand beside Muses, creating a united front. “And thanks for the offer to claim me, but I had to pass on that. You weren’t overly forthcoming about the fine print, but a friend let me in on how it reads. Being tied to you in that way is definitely not for me. Especially not after what you did to my friend.”
I looked up to see Reah looming in the corner, hateful eyes pinned on Alejandro.
“Who is this friend and what did I do to her?” he asked, schooling his features into the definition of calm indifference.
At that moment, Muses produced the stone and placed it on a nearby table.
“Now before you decide to insult us by saying this isn’t yours, don’t. I beg you. I had a rather trying night, and I’d just as soon forego any theatrics you’re contemplating at the moment,” Muses said, moving closer to the alpha. “What I want is for you to tell me what I want to know. We can do this the easy way, or…” he shrugged, looking not at all put out at the thought of having to do things the hard way. He was silently begging to. Alejandro seemed to realize the futility of arguing. Perhaps Muses’ reputation preceded him.
“That was enchanted for me by a young witch. She did so of her own volition and was compensated for her work. I see no reason for you to be interrogating me about this.”
“And how exactly did you pay her?” Muses asked, his voice sweet like honey.
“How you would pay anyone—with money.”
“You do know that it is illegal not to declare such items to the PC, do you not?”
Alejandro smiled. “A small oversight on my part for which I apologize.”
Muses stared him down. “And what does it do?”
“It offers protection. A man in my position can’t have too much of that, can he?”
“No,” Muses said, taking a step toward him, “I don’t imagine he could.”
Without warning, my uncle launched himself at the alpha, clamping his hands down on his head. Apparently he’d already had enough of the games and posturing; he wanted to get right down to business. But something about that didn’t sit well with me. Muses loved the chase—loved to play with his food before he ate it. So why had his patience run out so quickly? Why this time? Why this being?
I’d learn his reasoning soon enough.
“Tell me what you did to her after you paid her,” Muses said, his voice strained as he fought to hold on. The werewolf had his hands around Muses’ wrists, trying to pull them away.
“Nothing.” Alejandro’s reply was guttural and threatening. It seemed as though the wolf had no intention of going down without a fight.
“You will show me what you did to her now!” Muses’ command echoed through the room. Even though he was far from me, I could feel the press of his words against my mind. He’d turned his power up all the way and was still struggling to get through. Unless the wolf had an inner Nyx we didn’t know about, something was making him resistant to Muses’ inspiring power. I looked at the stone on the table and realized what I needed to do.
“Muses!” I called to him. “Muses, it’s this thing. We have to break it.”
The wolf chuckled when I picked it up, the stone cold in my hands.
“You cannot break it, you fool. What’s been done cannot be undone.”
With a deep inhale, he broke Muses’ hold on him, and all holy hell broke loose.
Taller than my uncle and almost fifty pounds heavier, the werewolf launched Muses across the room. I was so shocked to see it happen that I didn’t react immediately, which was a huge mistake. Alejandro lunged for me, and I narrowly dodged him. I dropped the stone and watched it slide across the hardwood floor into the wall. The wolf and I shared a look before we both dove for it.
I made it first, but I soon found him on top of me, his eyes wild and glowing amber.
Enough of this...
Nyx was none too gentle when she shoved me aside, smiling as surprise filled Alejandro’s eyes.
“Yes,” she said calmly, pushing up closer to him. “You hadn’t planned on a dark-eyed demon living inside the pretty little thing, had you?”
“What are you?” he asked, voice quiet and filled with awe. Guess he’d never met a black-eyed werewolf before. Probably because no others existed.
“I’m your worst nightmare realized,” she replied before charging him full of energy—enough to blast him across the room. He fell in a heap at Muses’ feet. “Now, you were about to tell my uncle all about your encounter with the witch that made this for you.” She held the stone in the air and waggled it back and forth a few times for good measure. “I suggest you improve your level of compliance and quickly.”
To his credit, Muses looked unfazed by everything that had occurred. He wasn’t ruled by his temper like my brother and me. He was the picture of calm as he plucked the werewolf off the floor by his collar and held him in the air so that only his toes touched the high gloss finish on the hardwood.
“You were saying…” Muses said.
“You can keep trying, but you’ll learn nothing. And you can’t kill me.”
“Oh,” Nyx said, elated by a perceived challenge, “I think we can. And we will if you don’t start talking.”
“You cannot kill me unless you can break the stone, and since that isn’t possible…”
Nyx strolled over to him like she hadn’t a care in the world.
“I wiped a town from the face of the Earth without trying. I don’t imagine it’ll take much to destroy you.” She looked down at the stone in her hand, still cool to the touch. “Or this, for that matter.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, focusing in a way I’d never felt her focus before. She channeled everything she had into the tiny piece of quartz. It warmed, then got hot—really hot. Inconceivably hot.
She looked up to where Muses still held the wolf and reached out her hand before him so that he could see what she was doing.
“You see, the thing is, when you’re essentially raw energy bound in flesh, you can do almost anything.” The stone started to mold to her grip. “Like incinerate a town, or burn a building to the ground with a flick of your wrist.” The quartz began to ooze between her fingers. “Or turn stone to liquid fire—then ash.”
With another squeeze of her hand, what had once been quartz blazed like the sun until it burned itself out. Nothing but blackened soot was left behind.
“See?” she said, feigning excitement. “
All gone. Now Muses, be a dear and do what you need to while I go wash this mess off my hands. And don’t worry, I already know where the bathroom is.”
She strutted down the hall to the sounds of the werewolf begging for mercy. With Muses, she knew he’d find none. That thought made her smile as she closed the bathroom door behind her.
Nyx relinquished her position when we made our way back to join Muses and Alejandro. I didn’t want to miss too much of the interrogation; I wanted to know about how the girls had died as much as Muses did. When I entered the room, I found Muses crouched down before the wide-eyed alpha, calmly asking about why he’d had the fighters killed.
“I didn’t have anyone killed!”
“Yes, you did. And I want to know why.”
“I can’t tell you something I don’t know.”
“Fine. Then show me.” I could see Muses’ knuckles whiten as his fingers practically bored into the wolf’s skull.
Then Sasha appeared, looming over Alejandro and my uncle.
“Is he lying?” I asked, not caring that nobody else could see her. She lifted her index finger to her chest, pointing at herself. “Muses, ask him about Sasha—what he did to her.”
Though I expected an argument, I got none. Instead, Muses did as I bade him and asked about the witch.
“Did you kill the witch that enchanted that stone?”
“Yes.”
“How did you kill her?”
“I broke her neck.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want anyone finding out about where my power came from…and neither did the others.”
Muses shot me a wary look. “The others? Which others?”
“There were four of us there that night—two of us from the Northside pack and two from the Southside. Each of us sought to obtain a different kind of talisman from her. When she had done what we had agreed to pay her for, we all knew that she couldn’t be allowed to live. We fought over how best to dispose of her. Ward struck her, and she managed to defend herself with a spell, but she was no match for all of us. He and the other two held her, and I snapped her neck.”
“You coward,” I said, my words escaping on an exhale. “You motherfucking coward!”
I shot over to where he knelt, knocking Muses out of the way, and backhanded him so hard blood spattered the wall near his head.
“Sapphira,” Muses said, grabbing me around the waist to pull me away.
“Four men, Muses! Four supernatural—”
“I understand that, niece, but I need you to curb your anger so that I can finish what I need to finish.” He released me and held my rage-filled gaze long enough to ensure that I had heard him. “There is more we need to learn.”
I gave him a brisk nod and turned away, needing some space. But I found none. I turned right into the ghost.
“He’s going to pay for what he did to you,” I said to Sasha softly. “You can go. Be at peace.”
She shook her head.
Then she held up four fingers and curled three of them back as if she were counting down: Ward. Kevin. Alejandro. She held that final finger up until realization settled in.
“Muses…we need to know who the last man is.”
He asked Alejandro and received a surprising answer.
“Murphy.”
“Murph? The one who runs the fight club?” I could do nothing to hide the disbelief in my voice. As Alejandro confirmed his reply, the ghost standing before me curled that final finger down so that none were left. “Holy shit, Muses. He’s trying to clean up the loose ends. And he’s somehow using his club to do it.”
“Call Nico,” Muses said. “Tell him to track Murphy down. Now.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed. The ghost stared at me as I did, as though she were still waiting for something.
“I’ll bring him down. I promise. You’re free now.”
Again, she shook her head. Then she disappeared.
“Shit!”
“What?” Nico asked, having just answered the phone.
“It’s Murph. From the club. He’s behind it all. Muses says you guys need to find him. And use Jenkins if you think it’ll help. He knows him—and Murph trusts him.”
“I will.”
He hung up without another word.
“He’s on it,” I said, turning to face Muses. “They’re going—”
My words cut off when I heard the sickening snap of bone echo through the room, filling it with the sound of death. I looked on as the alpha’s lifeless body fell to the floor, Muses hovering over it. He looked totally unaffected by what he’d just done.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Justice,” was his only reply.
“We still had questions to ask him!”
“And we’ll ask them of Murphy once your brothers track him down.”
It was then that his aura of satisfaction snaked around me. It moved like he did—carefully. Methodically.
“You intended to kill him all along, didn’t you?”
His eyes narrowed and his expression darkened.
“You did not see what I just saw. You did not see her pleading for her life at his feet. Begging for the chance to leave—that was why she risked selling her enchantments. She wanted to flee Chicago.” He took a step toward me, his lithe body coiled and ready to strike. But his rage was not for me. “I pride myself on few things, niece, but my ability to deliver retribution for those who cannot has always been one. You think I feel nothing. Care for nothing. In most cases, you would be correct. But not in this. And yes, I’d planned to kill him the moment we set foot in this penthouse, but that was not for you to know. This was my ghost to set free,” he said, jabbing a finger into his chest. “This was my wrong to right.”
I felt something for my uncle in that moment that I would have never thought possible—empathy. For one as cold and callous as he, he still had a warm, beating heart somewhere inside of him. I knew what that was like—to have armor so thick that even you eventually forgot what it protected. What was buried down deep inside. Just as he’d shown me briefly in the car when I’d first come to Chicago, there was more to Muses than he let on, a depth that many did not think he possessed. But I saw it, if only for a fleeting moment.
And I felt it too.
There was nothing for me to say to him, so I did what warriors like he and my father would have done; I gave him a tight nod of acknowledgment and walked away. We soon left the building in silence, both lost in our own thoughts. Mine of contemplation.
His of vengeance.
Chapter Thirty-Six
We left the body behind, not even bothering to cover up the murder. There was no time for that. We had more pressing issues to deal with, namely the rogue fight club owner with a penchant for offing anyone who was aware of what had happened to Sasha.
A taste of his own medicine was headed his way.
Nico and the others had split up to hunt him down. As we drove to Murph’s residence, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out to see Jenkins’ name on the display.
“Hey!” I said. “Did Nico call you?”
“Nico? No, why?”
“Because Murph is the one behind everything. He and three others killed Sasha, and now he’s using the club to kill off the others. The PC is hunting him down as we speak.”
“No need,” he said, his voice quieter than before. It held an edge of concern that immediately sent my hackles up. “I know where he is.”
“Where? I’ll be right there.”
A pause.
“He’s at the old fight club. With me.”
My eyes went wide as I looked over at Muses, who had clearly overheard our conversation. He whipped the car around in traffic, pulling an illegal U-turn, then raced off toward where Jenkins and the murderer were.
“Jenkins, I need you to listen to me. Get out of there now. I don’t care if you think you can help or take him down or whatever scheme it is you’re formulating in that crazy mind
of yours—just don’t.”
“It’s too late for that,” he replied. “He already knows.”
Then the line went dead.
“Shit!” I shouted, trying to call him back. His phone went straight to voicemail. “Shit, shit, shit…”
“The wolf is a capable adversary, Sapphira, and he knows his opponent well.”
“Yeah? And will that matter if Murphy has one of those nifty little thingies that Nyx just melted into nothing? If he does, Jenkins is screwed. You couldn’t get past the protection it gave Alejandro. Somehow I think Jenkins will be at a huge disadvantage if it comes to a fight.”
Muses didn’t bother to tell me pretty lies to assuage my fear. He knew better than that. Instead, he drove the car like a man possessed, weaving between vehicles while I alerted the rest of the boys to where Murphy was.
“I will tear that fucker’s head off if he hurts Jenks,” I said to myself.
“And if he does, you will get your chance.”
I clung to that promise while the minutes ticked by slowly. The reality was, as much as I appreciated Muses’ sentiment, I didn’t want to avenge Jenkins’ death; I wanted to prevent it. But either way, Murph was going down. He’d caused so much death and pain because of what he’d done.
I was happy to get the chance to return the favor.
Muses and I arrived at the fight club before the others. With no time to waste, we busted into the building, where the fight had already broken out. A few others were there looking on as Jenkins and Murph beat each other mercilessly. Either Murph’s talisman had been enchanted for something other than protection, or Jenkins was far more badass than I’d given him credit for, but either way, it was a close fight.
I moved to intervene, but Muses held me back.
“Wait,” he said, staring at the two of them. “Not yet.”
It was then that I heard the two of them having a conversation as they whaled on one another.
“You killed her!” Jenkins roared, burying his fist in Murphy’s face. Given the force behind the blow, it should have sent him flying. When it didn’t, I knew that the nulls fields were too far away to affect him. I also realized I didn’t want to be punched by the lone wolf when he was in possession of his full power.
Dead Zone (Blue-Eyed Bomb Book 3) Page 24
