“He thought it was the same thing all over again,” Ashe said, only partially asking.
Bus shrugged equitably.
“But you guys…” she continued.
He drew a breath and then let it out slowly. “She argued till I thought she’d shoot him,” he said with a nod to Spider. “And I–”
“Offered to?” Spider commented, her eyes on the slats covering the large window nearby.
Bus eyed her wryly. “I told you that was going to be your job.”
The girl smiled, but her heart didn’t seem to be in it.
“We were trying to stick together,” Bus continued to Ashe. “After everything, we weren’t quite in the position to be running back off again. I’d gotten pretty banged up getting out of Twitch’s place, and the dogs weren’t in too great of shape either. Add to that just losing Carter and Samson still being on crutches half the time and,” he shrugged, “we waited. And just when I started getting back to my usual athletic self…”
“You heard what was really happening,” Ashe filled in when he paused.
“Yeah.”
She nudged the last few bites of food with her fork, her appetite long since gone. “And the others?” she asked, bracing herself.
Silence answered her and she glanced up.
“Bus. The others.”
The old man looked away. “Jericho agreed with Samson, and because of him, Magnolia and their girls stayed put. But,” he grimaced, “Belle and some of the rest…”
She dropped her gaze to the table, trying not to show any reaction as he trailed off, leaving little question of what had happened to the cook and everyone else. And she’d known anyway. She should have just let it go, because she’d damn well known. Spider and Bus were a miracle; Magnolia and the kids even more so.
But not everyone would have stayed away.
She swallowed awkwardly, working to keep her expression calm despite the fact her heart seemed to be pulsing so much harder than it should have been. “You’re sure?” she asked, blinking as she looked up at Bus.
He nodded.
She looked back down.
“It wasn’t your fault, Ashe,” he said.
She made a noise to let him know she understood.
“Ashe,” he repeated.
She glanced up.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Her gaze went back to the table. It hurt, somehow. Their forgiveness. Their trust. So many people were dead, destroyed by ferals who never would have touched them if not for her. And Bus and Spider forgave her. Welcomed her back. They treated her like family, returning after a few months away.
Instead of Bloody Queen Ashe of Merlin, the monster who’d nearly gotten every cripple in a thousand miles killed.
She could feel shivers running through her, though she didn’t know why. “You guys have so much faith I wasn’t behind it,” she said, the words feeling as though they belonged to someone else. “But you just knew me a month. I never even told you I was a wizard. And the Merlin, they–”
“You saved my life,” Spider said quietly.
A laugh came out of nowhere, the sound harsh and teetering just this side of controlled. “And?” she retorted. “And what? So I stopped one feral. It could’ve been a trick. Hell, Spider, I could have been saving you for myself! And then Carter died. And Belle and all your friends, right after I just trotted off to the damn–”
“Hey!” Bus snapped.
Her breathing ragged, she fell silent, staring at him. Across the table, Lily watched her with wide eyes.
“We trust you because Carter trusted you,” Bus continued. “And because we’re not stupid. Yeah, we knew you a month. Day in, day out for a month, while you lived at the Abbey and could’ve killed us all in a single night. You’re a wizard, girl. You think we don’t know what that means? You think we haven’t gotten damn good at reading people, doing what we do?” He paused, and when he spoke again, the edge on his tone was gone. “You didn’t have it in you to be a feral, Ashe. You still don’t. And you didn’t kill our friends. Or yours. A bunch of wizard bastards who were already ferals anyway did.”
Still shaking, she looked back down.
“Let it go, kid,” Bus told her gently. “Guilt over the dead won’t do anything but hurt your ability to protect the living.”
Her jaw tightened and she nodded, more for his sake than any belief she could actually accomplish what he said.
A moment went by. Softly, plastic scraped across the tabletop.
She glanced up.
With a hesitant smile, Lily nudged the wrapped cookie closer. “It’s oatmeal raisin,” she said quietly. “Your favorite.”
For a heartbeat, she stared at the girl, dumbstruck in the face of the silly, simple gesture. Her hand trembling, she reached out and pulled the cookie to her.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
Lily’s expression didn’t change.
Ashe’s gaze fell away. Closing her eyes briefly, she drew a breath and then opened the wrapping.
“So…” she tried, her eyes locked on the nearly stale cookie. “This place.”
There was a question somewhere in the words, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to find it. The others didn’t seem to care, though, and from the corner of her eye, she could see Spider shift slightly on the adjacent table.
“It’s Blackjack’s,” the girl said, her light tone sounding more than a little forced after the tension of a moment before. “He got the whole thing set up after the latest developer ran out of money for repairs about a year ago.”
Ashe swallowed. “It’s nice.”
Bus scoffed. “It’s a condemned dump.”
Spider gave him a dry look. “Please. With Blackjack’s old army buddy giving him these MREs, and the local food bank getting a random donation of the popsicles you missed so much? There’s water just down the street, which is a damn sight better than some places we’ve been, and even you had to admit the generators in this old wreck were in fairly decent shape for their age.” She eyed Bus. “Come on. You remember Tucson?”
“I don’t want to remember Tucson.”
“Yeah. Thought so.”
Ashe glanced between them.
“We’re just here because Blackjack spotted a couple ferals in the area and we came to help out,” Spider continued, looking back at her.
“Did you find them?”
Spider smiled. “Oh yeah,” she replied, as though the alternative had never been in question.
Returning her attention to the cookie, Ashe nodded, relieved.
“Okay,” Bus said, taking Lily’s empty tray and setting it on top of his own. “Enough of ferals. Bastards yesterday left me sore, even if you seemed to be having a good time.” He met Spider’s incredulous expression with a mock-glare and then turned to Ashe. “What’s the plan now, your highness?”
She tensed at the title, but he just grinned as though he’d expected the reaction. Wetting her lips, she hesitated, and then drew a breath, trying to refocus like she knew he wanted.
“Pretty much what it’s always been,” she answered, her voice a bit hoarse to her ears. She cleared her throat. “Take out the Blood, preferably before the Taliesin king who controls them figures out the spell to bind us all.” She grimaced. “Even if I have no idea how to do that.”
“My favorite kind of plan,” Bus said dryly.
She couldn’t quite manage a smile.
“So what would be a good first step?” he prompted.
Pausing for a second, she shrugged.
“Alright, we’ll get to that later, then. So Taliesin’s king runs them?”
She nodded, keeping herself from looking at Cole.
Bus whistled softly. “He got any weaknesses you know of?”
The urge to look at Cole became nearly overwhelming.
“Not exactly,” she allowed. “He’s a Blood too.”
“The Taliesin king is a Blood.”
She nodded again.
“Th
is wasn’t the turn of conversation I was hoping for, kiddo.”
“Sorry.”
He exhaled slowly, glancing to Spider. “Yeah, well,” he said. “What can we do to help?”
She hesitated, her gaze flicking to Lily before she could stop it.
The little girl’s face darkened warningly.
Ashe looked away. There were too many variables. She needed to get back to the Merlin, though she dreaded the prospect of telling Katherine that Elias was gone. And as much as she hated the idea, she had to bring Cole with her when she went. Letting him wander off with knowledge of where Spider, Bus and the rest were hiding was out of the question. To keep her sister safe, she’d leave Lily here, except that chances were before she even made it to the door, the little girl would lose control, blow something up, and probably kill whoever was nearby.
She could bind Lily. She’d been planning on it anyway.
And the first moment Spider or Bus were busy trying not to get killed by ferals or Blood or whatever else they ran into, Samson and everyone else in this building would make sure the little glowing girl just mysteriously disappeared.
There wasn’t a choice. Not anymore.
She sighed. “Do you know where we could get a car?”
Chapter Thirteen
The uneven legs of the chair threatening to rock beneath him, Cole studied the other occupants of the silent wreck of a room. A few minutes had passed since the old man left to find them transport, and the words that’d been spoken since then could have been counted on one hand. Watching the table as though she could read answers from its scuffed surface, Ashe sat where she’d been all dinner long, while several yards away, Spider leaned on the frame of the enormous window, scanning the bits of the world visible between the splintered boards. Across the room, Lily was wandering along the wall, investigating the old lunchroom debris.
He wasn’t sure why Ashe’d covered for him about his family, or what to make of her near-breakdown. Believing it’d all been for some good reason, some innocent reason, would have been nice. He could just let his guard down and trust that, no matter what the rest of the world said, she actually wasn’t the monster everyone believed her to be.
And that’d gone so well last time.
Swallowing hard against his crawling skin, he shifted on the unsteady chair and looked away. He was tired of believing what people said about themselves despite the countless stories piled up against them, especially since it was the stories that kept turning out to be true. He was tired of being that naïve, or that much of a damned fool. He had to trust what he’d heard, what he’d seen with his own eyes, and what he knew. He knew his father was a man who’d been a good person, whatever he’d become, and maybe someday he could be again. And he knew going hysterical over the dead wasn’t Ashe’s style. She might be a good actress, but she was definitely a wizard to the core, and they possessed about as much compassion as chainsaws on autopilot. And he could trust that about her. He’d seen plenty of examples, from her emotionless mention of Cornelius dying at the airfield today, to the way she’d left God-knew-how-many Taliesin dead on the interstate a few hours before.
Which meant everything she’d said was suspect. Or, more likely, an outright lie to manipulate everyone here. And thus, he’d be an absolute moron to take his guard down or believe in her innocence for a heartbeat.
He exhaled, anger pounding on the base of his skull as his gaze slid to her again. Probably, she’d just covered for him because she wanted something. That seemed to be the theme for his life; why should she be any different? And it had to be something more than the obvious, since if getting more power had been her goal, the others would already be dead.
Maybe. Or maybe she was just hoping to keep him quiet, or at least scared of what she might say about his family – and of what her friends might do to him in response – until she worked out a way to use this latest development to her advantage.
His eyes narrowed. Well, he could just do the same. Calling her out was tempting, but probably not the best plan. Going at her directly wouldn’t get him anywhere, and there really were her gun-happy friends to consider. But murdering cripples wasn’t all she’d been accused of. And she’d admitted to being after the spell, which also gave him an opening. Even if Spider and Bus obviously weren’t the type to be bothered by killing if it seemed like a fun idea at the time, Lily was still on the fence.
And maybe getting Ashe to talk about what she planned or what she’d done to Malden could push the kid over the edge enough that, when the opportunity finally presented itself to get the hell out of here, Lily would be willing to go.
His gaze slid over, finding Lily against the far wall. Using her fingers like tweezers, she was picking through a stack of multicolored food trays.
“So the Merlin council killed all those people?”
Ashe flinched, as though he’d jarred her from whatever thoughts she’d been having. Blinking, she looked over at him. “What?”
“The Merlin council,” he repeated neutrally. “They killed all those people?”
She gave a cautious nod.
“And Malden?”
He saw her tense. “What do you mean?”
“Were they responsible for what happened to him too?”
At the window, Spider shifted slightly, not looking back at them though he knew the girl was hearing every word.
“Who told you about Detective Malden?” Ashe asked.
He paused, reading something strange in the edge in her tone.
“It was Harris, wasn’t it?” she continued.
“Does it matter?”
Her face darkened. “What’d he say?”
“That you set his partner on fire.”
Ashe hesitated. He could feel Spider’s attention on them, for all that the girl had yet to turn around. On the other side of the room, Lily’s orbit through the debris was slowly bringing her closer.
“Yeah, I did,” Ashe said quietly, looking away. “It was an accident. I lost control.”
His brow drew down at the discomfort in her voice. She’d burned countless Taliesin right in front of him. And now she looked unsettled by the memory of one guy she’d sent up in flames.
Yeah, right.
“You accidentally lost control of your magic,” he repeated. “Ashe, come on. After what I saw at the factory, that seems a little hard to believe.”
Her gaze snapped back to meet his. “The factory where I saved your life from the Blood, you mean? Or, you know,” she eyed him sarcastically, “whatever.”
He tensed, not looking away from her with all his might, despite Spider’s curiosity beating down on him.
“The police arrested me for my family’s murder,” Ashe explained acidly. “They interrogated me and locked me in a cell. Then an FBI agent came. Turns out, he was one of the Blood. And when I heard his voice, I panicked and lost control. I didn’t know what magic was, and bursting into flame and killing Malden like that scared the living hell out of me. But then Harris pulled a gun and tried to shoot me, so I ran.”
She grimaced. “Even if I’d known what I was doing, I couldn’t have saved Malden. I suck at healing, as you might’ve guessed from the fact I looked like roadkill not too long ago. And as for what you saw at the factory,” she gave him a scathing look, “I’ve spent nearly every waking hour for almost half a year training with Cornelius. And I’m nothing compared to the skill he and the others had. Oh, and I had the staff of Merlin, which is why you’re not dead from that portal right now.”
Spider glanced back. “You got him through a portal?”
“Yeah. And destroyed the best hope I had of recreating the spell in the process.”
He watched her as she turned away, seething. She thought she’d killed the man. And given how she looked at the moment, he wasn’t sure she’d believe him even if he wanted to disabuse her of the idea.
His gaze slid to the other side of the room. Several yards away, Lily had moved on to a bunch of broken pieces of mar
ble, and was steadily collecting those that interested her into a pile.
“And what’re you planning to do with the spell?” he persisted, praying the little girl started listening soon.
Ashe gave him a disgusted look. His heart began to pound harder.
“Or are you afraid to just admit it?” he pushed.
“Excuse me?”
“Just tell the truth. What’s the plan for the spell?”
“What the hell’s your problem, Cole?”
He paused. “It’s just a question.”
Her eyebrow climbed. “And you really want to go there?” she retorted with an illustrative twitch of her gaze toward Spider. “’Cause I’m more than happy to, but I don’t think it’ll go too well.”
“It’s not about that.”
“Then what?”
“I just know what you can do – all you can do – and I figure you should be honest about it.”
Ashe paused. “All I can do.”
“Yeah.”
“And what exactly is ‘all I can do’?”
“Oh, come on, Ashe. You really want me to be the one to say it?”
She hesitated again. “Since you know so much.”
He stared at her. Tense and angry, she barely seemed to be breathing as she waited for him to speak.
Disgust made him shake his head. She had to know Lily would’ve found out eventually. And it wasn’t like Spider would have an issue with her killing people, as long as they weren’t on her side. And yet she was still trying to keep the act up.
“How many are you planning to kill, Ashe?” he asked with quiet revulsion. “Really? Every Taliesin on the planet? Anybody who doesn’t swear allegiance to you as their god?”
He’d never seen anyone’s face go slack with shock, let alone a wizard’s, but at his words, everything melted from her expression but horror. Silently, her mouth worked, trying to find her voice or stop nausea, he couldn’t tell, but after a heartbeat, she swallowed hard.
Merlin's Children (The Children and the Blood) Page 19
