It might, Sophie thought, except her dreams lately took the form of an endless buffet of vivid, emotional scenes from real human lives. At the last moment, drifting off to sleep, her mind reached for Adrian. And perhaps because of Niko’s mention of the Nazis, her dream settled upon the gentler moments between Grete and Karl. She let herself rest in those: coffee in the shop with pictures of trains on the walls, their laughing conversations, his shabby black coat and beautiful young eyes, the heat of his body when he stood close to her outside once, beneath the eaves during a rainstorm. The sadness, the love, the faint comforting hope that goodbye might not be forever.
THE NEXT DAY, Sophie got the call from Niko as she left her last class of the afternoon.
“Wilkes has left Salem,” he said, in the old proto-Greek tongue. “I’m trying to follow him, but traffic’s getting in the way.”
“You’re driving?” She did hear something like the low roar of engines behind his voice.
“Trying to, but everyone and their dog is getting on I-5. Rrrgh, I hate having to do this like a bloody mortal.”
Dread made Sophie feel alert for the first time all day. “I’ll watch for him. I’ll be ready.”
“Call us if he shows up.”
“I will. Thanks, Niko.” She hung up, and for a moment almost burst into tears of stress and exhaustion. Someone was coming, now, today, probably intending to hold her hostage and kill the love of her life.
But then she took a deep breath and held her head high. Don’t start crying. Start doing.
Wise words. She and her friends could defeat this. They could.
She strode back to the dorm, glancing around for enemies, heart thumping. Bring the battle, she thought. Let’s do this. Salem was less than an hour’s drive from Corvallis. It would happen soon. They’d catch the assassins. They had to.
But an hour passed, and then two, and the battle hadn’t arrived. Night fell. She had dinner at the cafeteria with Melissa, who ate little and stayed silent except to complain that her cramps were tying her insides into macramé knots.
During that half hour, Sophie’s phone lit up with texts between Niko and Adrian (cc’ing Freya and Sophie), all in their best attempts at writing proto-ancient-Greek in English characters, which made it harder than usual to understand. But, Sophie figured, it also made a pretty good secret code.
Lost him on the road, Niko said. Driving around Corvallis looking for him or his car.
Damn it, Adrian said. Couldn’t he have switched cars?
Yes, he could have, especially if he picked up a helper and some weapons. Maybe an SUV or van, to hide them better. But I don’t know what he switched to, so it could be anything.
I’m coming to the living world to help look for him, said Adrian.
No you are not, said Niko. You’re the target and they know what you look like.
Sophie put down her fork and tapped “reply.” Would you both shut up, she wrote in her own version of English-lettered proto-Greek. It’s me they’ll come after, so just stay near and wait for me to tell you when they show up.
She’s right, Freya weighed in. They’ll make a move on Sophie, and we’ll be there, more of us than they expected.
More of us to blow up at once, Adrian said.
And risk killing innocent students too? They wouldn’t dare, said Freya.
But Sophie wasn’t so convinced. Adrian’s words stuck in her mind and destroyed what was left of her appetite.
Across the table, Melissa shoved her plate away with a sigh. “Everything is gross. Ready to go?”
Sophie tucked her phone into her pocket. “Yeah.”
They dumped their trays at the bins, and walked out into the night. The wind blew spatters of cold rain at them. Wet leaves smacked down onto the pavement.
Melissa turned pained eyes up to Sophie. “Will you go with me to the drugstore? I need meds for these cramps.”
Sophie deliberated. Walk the streets in vulnerability, tonight of all nights? Or was it better to go somewhere the opposition wasn’t expecting her, and confuse them? Well, Adrian and the others could track her wherever she was, and perhaps outside was actually better, as they could reach her more quickly. “Sure,” she told Melissa.
They turned their backs to the wind and headed toward the shops at the edge of campus. Sophie tapped a text to her immortal friends on the way: Going to drugstore with roommate. Quick trip. Having sent it, she put her phone away, closed her fingers around the stun gun in her coat pocket, and resumed glancing around for suspicious SUVs or vans.
They approached a lecture hall, its windows darkened, and Melissa veered toward it. “Let’s cut through here.”
“Wait. Why?” Sophie strode after her, not fond of how they were heading into an especially dark region, between that lecture hall and the next, beneath tall trees.
“I thought I saw someone I knew.” Melissa marched onward, shoulders stiff in her puffy gray coat, ponytail whipping in the wind.
“Melissa, I don’t think this is safe.” Sophie held the stun gun tighter, ready to yank it out and electrocute anyone who looked at her wrong. She followed Melissa beneath the shadows of the trees.
In the dark between the buildings, Melissa stopped abruptly. Sophie almost bumped into her.
“That’s right,” the man’s voice said. “Stop right there. Hands up.”
The gleam of the gun was what Sophie spotted first, advancing out of the darkness.
Suddenly her stun gun didn’t seem so terribly useful. She slid it up her coat sleeve, out of sight as she drew her hands into view.
“Hands up. Don’t move,” a second voice said, another man.
She and Melissa both raised their hands slowly.
“Oh, God,” Melissa breathed.
Now Sophie made out their forms, two men in ski masks and long dark coats, both armed. The stocky build of the shorter one, and the fact that some dude was pointing a gun at her at all on this particular night, made her pretty sure it was Wilkes. The other guy was tall and broad-shouldered, and he pointed a handgun of some kind at her too.
Terror engulfed her—insides turning to water, hands and feet going numb, tongue sticking to the top of her mouth, all of it. At the same time her mind snapped into high gear, thoughts whirring faster and clearer.
Had anyone ever pointed a gun at her before? Not this life. Maybe a couple of times in previous lives. Didn’t matter right now. What she noticed was that even though she knew where she’d end up if she died, she still felt the fear of suffering a painful or lethal wound, and grief on behalf of her family and friends, who would be in an agony of mourning to lose her.
She either had to call Adrian and the others right now, or escape, maybe by fighting back. But with her hands up and two guns pointed at her, she could hardly do either; attempting to could get her shot.
Two guns, both aimed at her? Yes. Both men seemed more focused on Sophie than on Melissa, though Melissa obediently held still with hands raised too.
And Melissa had veered straight over here.
Anger gave Sophie the courage to speak again. “Told you this wasn’t safe,” Sophie said to Melissa. “Why’d you want to walk over here, I wonder?”
Melissa acknowledged her with a flicker of a glance in Sophie’s direction, but didn’t answer.
“No talking,” said the one Sophie assumed was Wilkes. He stretched out a hand. “Give me your phone.”
Sophie’s fear dashed straight from herself to Adrian. “I…didn’t bring it.”
Wilkes beckoned to the other guy, who lunged forward and grabbed Sophie, hauling her around with her left arm bent painfully up behind her. His body felt armored and bumpy—under his coat he probably had an arsenal strapped to him. Grenades maybe, and who knew what else. He twisted her arm harder, and when she screamed, he knocked her in the side of the head with the grip of the gun, hard enough that pain reeled through her skull and colored lights flashed in her vision. “Quiet,” he said, and she felt him yank the phone out of her ba
ck pocket. A second later, he frisked down her arms and legs, found the stun gun up her sleeve, and confiscated that too.
Crap.
“We heard you might have one of these,” the tall guy said. “Cute.”
He let go of Sophie, who dropped to her knees. Cold mud soaked through her jeans, and she hung her head, gasping, trying not to throw up from the nausea that the head blow had caused her.
Would they dare detonate a grenade here on campus? Sure, she figured. Between two buildings empty for the night, with one guy holding Sophie hostage at a distance while the other blew up the immortals—they could probably do it without hurting anyone except their targets.
As soon as her head cleared, she vowed, she’d take the first chance she saw. Someone would walk by soon. It wasn’t late at night yet. She’d scream her loudest, even if they stunned her or shot her for it. These bastards needed to get caught, and she still doubted they’d actually kill a mortal girl for their cause. They’d probably only use her stun gun against her, or shoot her in the leg or something—either of which would hurt like hell, but she’d endure it if it meant saving Adrian’s life and throwing these guys in jail.
Besides, a wound was nothing a blue orange couldn’t cure.
She kept her head down, surreptitiously watching the sidewalk across the lawn.
“David, was it?” said Wilkes above her, evidently looking at her phone. “Ah, lots of calls tonight. That must be the one.”
Sophie didn’t answer, and neither did anyone else, but he must have dialed the number, because soon she heard him say, “Adrian? We’ve got your girlfriend. Come alone unless you want her to get hurt.” After a pause, he said, “South side of Burke Hall,” and hung up. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he told Sophie. “I’ve got a grenade. He’s going to strap it to himself. I detonate it by this button.”
Sophie glanced slowly over her shoulder, just far enough to glimpse the dark shapes of the grenade and remote detonator clipped to his vest, under his coat. The gun, meanwhile, stayed pointed at her head. She turned her face forward again.
A detonator. Which worked on electrical signals of some kind, and therefore could, for all she knew, get triggered by a blast from a stun gun. Just as well that they’d taken it from her, and that she hadn’t tried zapping him earlier.
Still…crap.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Gun stays aimed at you till it’s all over. Another thing: it’s fine with me if this goes off and kills us all. You, me, him, your roommate, whoever.”
“No. Please. I’ll help you do this if you let me live.” Lie, lie, lie.
“Good girl.”
Over my dead body will I help you, she added to herself—accepting that the phrase could become literally true tonight.
Chapter Forty-One
ADRIAN TURNED AND SPRINTED AWAY from Sophie’s location even before responding. He had to get a look at the situation from farther off before appearing right in the middle of it. Kiri yipped in alarm, and ran with him.
“Where?” he asked the man calling from Sophie’s phone. Adrian could find her, of course, and was already quite close to her—he had been shadowing her all day, right next to her, one realm away. (Fine, I’m a stalker, FINE.) But if Thanatos didn’t know he could track her, so much the better.
“South side of Burke Hall,” said the voice.
“I’ll come. Don’t hurt her.” Allowing the tremor of fear into his voice was easy. Genuine, in fact. He could likely defeat these thugs, especially with Niko and Freya’s help, but Sophie could also get injured or killed in the struggle. And that was the absolute last outcome he wanted.
He disconnected the call and hit Niko’s number.
“Yes?” Niko answered.
“Get here now, now, they’ve got Sophie, both of you, come now!”
“On our way.” Niko hung up.
Adrian put his phone in his pocket and turned around. He stroked the dog’s head. “Kiri, stay.”
Kiri whined, but sat obediently, her gaze glued to him.
He sensed Sophie maybe twenty meters away. He didn’t know the campus map well enough to be sure where he’d end up when he switched over, but it was time to risk it. He switched realms.
Something slammed him sideways, knocking him onto the wet grass and leaving his shoulder throbbing. He glared up at the looming brick wall of the building. Rubbing his bruised arm, he climbed to his feet, glanced around, and deduced Sophie and the assassins were on the opposite side of the structure. As he crept around the corner in the shadows, he became aware of Niko and Freya approaching fast. Soon they burst into sight a few meters from him, sending misty rain gusting out around them.
They looked toward Adrian and paused. They wore college student disguises, jeans and parkas and sneakers, along with baseball caps and shaggy but realistic wigs.
“We go in first,” Niko told him quietly.
Adrian nodded. Tricksters excelled at diversions. Even buying Adrian a few seconds of confusion would be valuable.
“Be careful,” he said. Getting Niko or Freya killed wasn’t what he wanted either.
Niko gave him a nod, and linked his arm into Freya’s. “Darling,” he invited, and they set off around the perimeter of the building.
Adrian trailed them, far enough back to stay hidden, close enough to hear and see. Reaching the corner of the building, in the shadow of a tree, he pressed his back to the wall, and peered around into the dark space between this building and the next. What he saw nearly made him bolt in and start snapping necks. Sophie drooped on the ground on her knees, head bowed, with Wilkes (or at least it was probably Wilkes) pointing a gun at her, in an image straight out of a prisoner-execution nightmare. Adrian clenched his jaw to keep from making a sound.
Nearby he spotted the second assassin, gripping a gun and using it to cover both Sophie and another girl, who stood frozen with her hands raised. She was probably Sophie’s roommate, and equally deserving of being rescued. But all he could think of was how to grab Sophie and get her out of there.
At that moment Niko and Freya arrived, pretending to stumble upon the scene like innocent pedestrians.
Freya shrieked, very twenty-year-old-girl-ish. “Oh, my God! What’s going on?”
“Holy crap,” Niko rumbled, in dumb-young-dude tones. “Are you guys getting mugged?”
“Back off,” the younger thug said. “Leave or someone gets hurt.”
“Call 911!” Freya flailed her arms in a show of panic. “Oh, my God, I forgot my phone. Do you have one?” She was shouting the question at the roommate, it seemed, who furtively nodded but didn’t move.
The younger assassin, in the long coat that probably hid all kinds of deadly explosives, raced toward Freya and Niko. “Shut it!”
But the pair darted apart, faster than your ordinary mortal, and vanished from sight.
The assassin whirled around, looking for them.
Freya reappeared beside Melissa. “Over here.”
Niko, meanwhile, reappeared directly behind the assassin in the long coat, locked his arms around him, and they both vanished.
Wilkes pointed his gun at Freya instead, shouting, “She’s one of them! They both are!” But of course, his accomplice was out of hearing now, tussling with Niko in the other realm.
Freya shoved Melissa and said, “Run.”
Melissa bolted past Adrian, yanking out her phone on the way.
Wilkes turned, swiftly and expertly, and fired the gun at Freya. She fell with a cry. Adrian and Sophie both jolted in shock. Wilkes pointed the gun back down at Sophie, and called to Freya, “He made a big mistake doing it this way. You’re all going to be dead.”
Yeah. Adrian remembered that threat, in that voice, from a night he lay bleeding on the ground in a Wellington park.
He pulled in his breath. Time to act.
Adrian memorized Wilkes’ location and the position of his arms as they pointed the gun down at Sophie. Then he switched realms and strode forward t
he requisite number of paces. Moving through the spirit world, he heard the snarls and grunts of Niko fighting the other assassin, and Kiri’s frustrated barks from where she still sat, obeying her “stay” command. Adrian only had time to glance at all of them before reaching his target and slipping back into the living world.
Adrian appeared right behind Wilkes. He seized both of Wilkes’ forearms and yanked backward, snapping his bones. Wilkes screamed and dropped the gun, which bounced off Sophie’s elbow.
“No,” Adrian clarified, “you made a big mistake.”
Sophie shoved away the gun with her foot, leaped up, and kicked Wilkes so hard in the crotch that the force knocked Adrian back a step too.
Grunting and choking, Wilkes fell to his knees. Adrian pushed him onto his back and tore the ski mask off. As he suspected, it was indeed Wilkes—he recognized him from the online photos they’d found, even with Wilkes’ face now contorted in pain.
Adrian was on the verge of a false-cheery Good to see you again; meant to repay you for shooting me in February, when Sophie shouted, “He has a grenade! Look out!”
Adrian looked down to see the round shape strapped to Wilkes’ body beneath his coat, and the small black box on the other side that Wilkes was trying to grasp, even with his broken arms.
Adrian sucked in his breath, realizing it was a detonator. He seized Sophie and hauled her away in a giant leap, switching realms as they hit the wet ground. An explosion like a hellish orange firework burst into existence just before they leaped out of the living world, and he heard sirens for a brief second. Then they landed in the spirit realm, and a new sheet of flame and heat knocked him backward.
Shielding Sophie, both of them coughing, he stumbled away from the fire until they were at a safe distance. “Are you okay? Are you okay?” he asked her, realizing he was nearly shouting.
She nodded. They both stared at the flames engulfing a patch of forest. Kiri sprinted toward them from the side, and Adrian knelt and hugged her. “Thank goodness. Where’s Niko, girl?”
Kiri whined, looking at the fire. A fresh wave of panic hit Adrian. Yeah, he could sense Niko—straight ahead, in the flames. Adrian scrambled forward. “Niko!”
Persephone's Orchard (The Chrysomelia Stories) Page 33
