by M. D. Archer
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to get between him and you, cut him off. Buy you some time.”
“And then what?”
“I’ll work it out. I’ll think of something.”
“But I don’t know where Dana is.”
“It’s an old building at the far end of the quay. The last building. It looks rusty and disused, but it’s not. You’ll find it.”
“But—”
“I’ll get there as soon as I can, I promise.”
Parsons flashes his lights at me again. I don’t have a choice.
“Okay. Here goes nothing.”
I indicate, then pull into the far right lane. I see a verge coming up, a logical place to stop, so I indicate and slow down. Nikolai is just behind me, but in the next lane over. Parsons is directly behind me, also indicating, slowing as I do. Just as I’m almost on the verge, I speed up again and pull into the last bit of highway before the exit. Nikolai swerves into my position, cutting Parsons off. He pulls over and blocks Parsons there. Earning an angry beep from a motorist, I take the exit at the last possible moment. As the road curves away, I see Parsons getting out of the car and gesturing angrily after me. I hope Nikolai can explain himself.
As soon as I reach the outskirts of downtown, I ditch Dana’s car—cops everywhere could be looking for it—and I start to run.
Chapter 39
I jog past large cargo ships, moored like silent beasts along the quay. Seagulls squawk and coast above, suggesting a recent dump of something tasty somewhere. A few guys in dirty overalls sit near the water, drinking something from tin cups. They cast glances in my direction then look away like they’ve seen it all before. An old building sits at the far side where the docks merge back into solid ground. This must be it.
As I open the warped and rusted metal door, a constellation of Lucan scents hit me and I know that multiple Lucans have shed blood here. On the ceiling, in the corner, is a closed-circuit camera.
What is this place?
My phone rings, echoing around me, an eerie sound.
“Nikolai, what happened with Parsons?”
“It’s taken care of. I told him you thought he was the Crawler and he seemed to buy it, but that’s not why I’m calling. Tamzin, the amulet…” A crackle hits my ears as he cuts out. “…forget about… the Consillium… wear the amulet...” His last sentence is crystal clear. “Wear the amulet because it will save your life.”
“Maybe, but maybe not. And it doesn’t solve anything. If I put it on, what’s to stop him coming after Dana? Or Mom and Dad.”
“If you wear the amulet, Rica will call Cedric off.”
“Ha!”
“I’ll talk to my father.”
“Great, more Armandis… that’s bound to help.” Bitterness seethes through my words.
“There is no way my father endorses what Rica has done.”
“Whatever. Nikolai, I have to find Dana.”
“But if you face Cedric, you won’t win.” His voice is barely audible.
“I’m sorry, Nikolai, but it’s too late. Even if you could get hold of your father, how would he be able to call Cedric off? It’s already happening. It’s gone too far. I have to end this.”
I shove my phone in my pocket and look down the dark hallway. It should be hard to identify anything over the pungent tang in here, but still, somehow, I’m able to smell the Lucan who is waiting for me behind the next door. His arrogant entitlement wafts off him like aftershave.
Rica.
The door leads me into a medium-sized chamber that has a warm, cozy reception area, like a parlor in an old-fashioned house. There is a corridor to the right, and to the left, two doors leading off to who knows where. My focus is on the man standing in the middle of this room.
Rica smiles, hands clasped behind his back. “Tamzin, hello. What brings you by?”
I lunge at him.
He jumps back, holding up his hands. “We have matters to discuss, no?”
To answer his question, I slam my fist into his face. He jerks back with the momentum, but recovers quickly, rubbing his jaw. His eyes blaze, but his lip curls up in a smile.
“Such lack of respect.”
Heart pounding, breathing shallow, I take a step toward him. If I focus on my breathing, I won’t lose control. “Where is she?”
Rica shakes his head, making a tsking noise. “Tamzin, I think you know what I want.”
“Are you telling me that if right here, right now, I agreed to put on the amulet, this will all end? You’ll tell me where Dana is, you’ll call off the final Enforcer, and everything will be A-Okay?”
“Well, I can’t see into the future, but following the rules of the Consillium would be a good start. I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement regarding Cedric.”
I narrow my eyes. Not a single cell in my body believes him.
“I’ll tell you what is going to happen here,” I say. “You are going to tell me where Dana is, and then you are going to disappear so that I never have to see you again.”
He smiles, slow and languid, then shakes his head. “Who do you think you are?” His voice is incredulous. “Who do you think you are dealing with?”
“I can take you, Rica, and you know it.”
He flinches, but continues to smile.
“But even so,” I continue, “here you are, alone, expecting me to do what you say.”
“Perhaps you have greater strength,” he concedes, “but I have the advantage of possessing information that you need. And if you were to render me unconscious, how would you find Dana?”
My eyes narrow as I take a step forward. “I’ll read your mind first.”
“Against my will?”
I falter, then send out a probe like he did to me the first time we met. He blocks it, laughing as he does. He lifts his chin, inviting me to try again.
All of a sudden, I’m exhausted.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
He looks surprised. “Tamzin, you are doing this to yourself. All you need to do is follow the rules and wear the amulet. It’s that simple. You need to forget the lies you’ve heard about how the Cursus women are special, and fall in to line. Tessa thought she was special. But she wasn’t, I can assure you. She realized this…eventually. Dana has never been a problem,” he muses, “but you…” His eyes narrow as they lock on mine. “You have more than made up for it. Let me spell it out for you, Miss Walker. Again. You are not special. You are cursed. With ignorance, arrogance, and—it’s becoming obvious to me—stupidity.”
And suddenly it’s so clear.
He keeps saying my bloodline isn’t special. So why won’t he shut up about it then? And why all this effort to subdue me? Why send three Enforcers after me? If I’m not special, then why is he so obsessed with me wearing an amulet that reduces my power?
“I think we both know what is best, what needs to happen now,” he says.
With a smile, I nod. Then I lunge forward to knock him to the ground, one knee pressing against his chest, the other on his legs, my hands around his neck. His eyes bulge wide in surprise.
“Where is Dana?”
“Ugh,” he gurgles, then, “amulet.”
My hands grip his throat harder. “Are you kidding?”
“Put… on… the… amulet.”
I squeeze even tighter. “Not used to hearing the word no, are you?”
He tries to struggle against me, his face turning red. I laugh at the surprise and helplessness on his face.
“He’s not going to last very long,” Rica gasps.
“Who?” I release my grip a little.
Rica coughs. “Vincent. He’s strong, but he’s no match for him, with his particular talents.”
I stare at him in horror, making sense of his cryptic comments. “Is Vincent with Cedric right now? Why?”
Rica manages to shrug, even in his compromised position. “Vincent, in his valiant but misguided attempt to help you, we
nt to find him, to slow him down. To give you a fighting chance,” Rica scoffs. “But he’s not prepared to deal with an assassin like Cedric. And he knows it.”
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
“Who… Vincent?”
“Either of them,” I growl.
I move my leg so that my foot is planted squarely on Rica’s chest and apply enough pressure to make him wheeze. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know.” Rica smiles.
My eyes narrow. Keeping the pressure on his chest, I reach into his mind, pushing past the mental barriers he’s putting up. I push hard… then harder. The veins in his temples throb with the effort of blocking me, but in the end, he can’t stop me.
“You’re telling the truth. You don’t know,” I say.
“So the way I see it,” Rica says, looking stunned but regaining his breath, his composure. “You have some pressing issues to deal with.”
He’s right. I have to find Dana and get Cedric away from Vincent.
“I’m only going to ask one more time. Where is Dana?” I move my foot so that it’s pressed against his throat, but he just stares at me, his face gray with the limited oxygen supply, his eyes red with the effort of withstanding my mental probes. Keeping up my cerebral assault, I reach into my back pocket and pull out the amulet. His eyes widen as I press the amulet against his mouth, prying open his teeth to push it inside his mouth.
“You can’t,” he gurgles.
“Oh, but I can.”
“Stop,” he says, his voice muffled with silver. But I don’t. With the amulet stuffed in his mouth, tickling his tonsils, I again reach into his mind, past his weakening attempts to stop me, until I get what I want.
“Thanks, Rica. You’ve been great.” I pull a set of keys out of his pocket and unleash a punch to his head that knocks him out.
THE AIR GETS colder and danker as I follow the corridor down its winding path, lower and lower, until finally I get to a door.
Through the window, I see Dana sitting on a chair, unconscious, shackled with enough silver to stop a Lucan football team. When I connect to her, I double over from the pain she’s in, but I don’t have time for weakness. My hands tremble as I fumble with the key. Dana moans as I push open the door.
“Dana.” I rush over to her, taking her face in my hand and lifting it to see her eyes. Her eyelids flutter. I rip at the silver chains, ignoring the burning sensation. As I pull them off, Dana’s red, raw skin becomes visible. I keep tugging at them, dropping them to the ground with loud clangs. The prolonged contact with heavy duty silver is draining my strength, weakening my body and muddying my mind, but I have to get her free.
“Tamzin. Thank God. Rica, that motherfu—”
“Let’s get you out of here,” I say, throwing her arm over my shoulder. She stumbles along with me, weak but able to walk. I use my other hand to text Nikolai. He needs to find Vincent, to get him away from Cedric.
When we get back to the top level, Rica is where I left him, motionless on the floor, but as we move past him, his arm twitches.
“Stay here, just for one second,” I tell Dana, placing her gently on one of the comfortable chairs lining the wall. She mumbles something incomprehensible. I hoist Rica over my shoulder and make my descent to the chamber once again. As I tie him up in the silver chains, he starts groaning and coughing, but I ignore him, making final adjustments to the silver chains around his neck, torso, and legs.
“Stop… no,” he rasps, his mouth still full of amulet.
“Doesn’t feel very good, does it?” I say as I pull the door shut behind me.
INSIDE DANA’S APARTMENT, I get her settled on the couch wrapped in a blanket, with a bottle of water and some leftover lasagna. On the way over, she told me how Rica had turned up pretending to wave a white flag, but had injected her with some vile silver-laced concoction when her back was turned. Between that and the silver chains, she is still weak, but I have to go.
“Dana, I have to find Cedric. Are you okay?”
“Wait, Tamzin, I need to talk to you.”
“Vincent is with him; I think he’s in trouble.”
Her eyes widen. “Yes, go. And I’m here, if you need me. Don’t worry about how weak I am. You can call on me if you need to.”
I frown, not sure what Dana means, but I don’t have time to wonder. I have to find Vincent. Where could he be? Where would Vincent have gone to stop Cedric? Jogging down Marshall Street, pulling out my phone to check in with Nikolai, it hits me. I don’t have to find Vincent and Cedric.
All I have to do is call out Cedric and get him to come to me.
I PACE BACK and forth across the first plateau of the Lakeview Hills.
On my way here, with Cedric’s image from the dossier clear in my mind, I had sent a message out into the night. There’s no Lucan delivery confirmation system, but still, I know he got it.
And he’s close.
The night air is refreshing and peaceful until a twitch in the atmosphere changes everything. A troubled darkness descends, foreshadowing Cedric’s appearance, and then he glides into view wearing a hooded cloak—like this wasn’t medieval enough already.
“Hello, Tamzin,” he says pleasantly, lifting his hood. “First things first… I want you to know that I’m not here to fight you.”
His Norwegian accent conveys a calm, reasonable authority. Knowledge, benevolence. He stands tall, over 6’3, with blond hair and fair but tanned skin. A Scandinavian poster boy. I study his face—his strong, even, Nordic features, almost bland except they’re too symmetrical to be described as anything other than handsome. His eyes, dark blue, intense, locked on mine, are his only feature that aren’t perfect. They’re hooded and sunken, but still somehow protruding. The deep purple smudges dusting the sockets suggest he rarely sleeps.
“Rica thinks that is why I’m here, but…” He pauses, choosing his words, savoring them, as if he’s spent time thinking about this moment, our meeting. “We could be so good together.”
“Good together? What are you talking about?”
“You must know by now. Surely? About your power? It’s so beautiful.” He inhales deeply, like he’s drinking in an enchanting aroma. Bliss washes over his face. “Together we would be unstoppable.” His eyes fix on mine. “We could control the others.”
“Control the others?”
I wasn’t prepared for Cedric to be crazy.
“Yes. Surely you realize by now.” A frown mars his features. “Tamzin… I’m disappointed. I thought we were on the same page.”
“The same page? We are not even reading the same book,” I snarl.
He shakes his head and gives me an indulgent, patronizing smile.
“Realize what?” I say finally, taking the bait.
His eyes light up. “We can imbue them with emotions, Tamzin. Rage or fear, or anything. We can fill their heads, their entire beings with it… and then, we can give them an outlet for the emotion.”
“Them? You mean Lucans, right? You’re saying you can control their actions.” If he’s telling the truth, his file was accurate. A kind of mind control.
“It’s easier when they already want to do it, of course,” Cedric nods. “Like Rogues wanting to fight you. That instinct was already there. I just helped it along.”
“That was you? Why?”
Cedric smiles. “I knew you would win, and you needed to realize your power.”
“Wait.’ I shake my head. “You were the ones making the Rogues attack me?” This doesn’t make sense.
“As I said, I encouraged them. Of course, Falcone was more strategic,” Cedric continues. “I wanted you to take off the amulet. I couldn’t feel you. It affected our connection, and I didn’t like that.”
My head is reeling. “You manipulated the Rogue that killed Chris.”
Cedric smiles and nods like he did me a favor.
My whole body is shaking.
“Which means you were already here. You didn’t arrive when Rica summoned y
ou as an Enforcer. You were already here?”
Cedric smiles. “Since the beginning. Tamzin, you know I was. Think about it.”
He lifts his hand, and I see the knife. He waggles it at me playfully. The gilded, ornate handle with a curved, steel blade. With a whooshing in my ears and a feeling like I’m lifting out of my body, I realize the awful truth.
“You,” I whisper. “You’re the Campus Crawler.” I want to drop to the ground; my legs are jelly.
Cedric smiles with delight. “You know, I do not enjoy the media as a rule, but I did like that particular label. Who doesn’t love alliteration?”
I shake my head, still gasping. Where did all the air go? “Why?”
Cedric plays with the knife as he considers his answer. “Well, to get your attention initially, but I may have been a little out of control. I feel a touch embarrassed about taking four. But, Tamzin—” He smiles as he waves an admonishing finger at me. “—that was your fault. Your pull, your power, I just couldn’t resist. You were everywhere. You were calling out to me, and I wanted to show you that I heard.”
Complete, total insanity.
“That first night, the night you Became,” Cedric continues, “the first one…”
“Jennifer Bright.” I want him to know that they had names. They were people.
“She just happened to be walking past me, and I was so full of you, Tamzin, your energy, I had to do something. Before I knew what was happening, I had followed her home, and then…” He spreads his hands like the ensuing gruesome events were inevitable.
I shake my head in disgust.
“And then, when I got a hold of your scent, your signal, I was better able to keep track of you, so I started following you when I could. So the next one, well, goodness, you were in quite a state, weren’t you, Tamzin?” he tsks me. “After you left that bar, I followed your little group for a couple of blocks, but when you left them and continued on alone, I knew it wasn’t time for us to meet yet. Still, you ignited something in me, and I had an itch I needed to scratch, so, well, I just couldn’t resist.”
Carly King. Her fatal error was being in the same place as me.
