Serpent's Sacrifice (The Vigilantes Book 1)

by Trish Heinrich

  “Agreed. We need a list of possible targets.”

  “If she’s trying to get the support of the police, maybe she’d hit them?” Lionel suggested.

  Marco shook his head, eyes hooded as he frowned in concentration.

  “If you’re trying to create chaos, then I think several smaller attacks would be more likely. Make everyone wonder who is going to be next.”

  “But where?” Alice asked, rubbing her eyes.

  “Good question,” Marco said. “But you’re not going to help us figure it out if you’re exhausted.”

  “I need to go see Uncle Logan.”

  “Visiting hours aren’t for a while yet,” Lionel squeezed her shoulder. “And we’ll stay, in case anything happens.”

  She smiled at him.

  “Thanks. I think,” she yawned again. “A little sleep might be good.”

  Lionel followed her to her room and leaned against the door frame. As he stared at her, he slowly grinned.

  “Something funny?” Alice asked.

  He shook his head and came toward her. “I just...I’m glad you’re alright.” Then he took her in his arms and held her like she was the most precious thing in all the world to him. It was the kind of spontaneous affection she’d longed for from him, but all she could think about was the brief look of pain on Marco’s face as he watched them.

  Lionel kissed her forehead, his fingers lingering on her cheek. “Sleep well.”

  As she pulled the covers up, Alice shoved all the questions about Marco and Lionel away. There was too much going on as it was. She’d been foolish to open one more can of worms.

  Maybe when I wake up...

  She drifted off before she could even finish the thought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The difference between the hospital last night and this morning was stark. Instead of chaos, the lobby was relatively calm. The floors gleamed in the soft fluorescent lighting, a half dozen or so people sat in various states of boredom or worry, only half listening to the terrible music playing from a nearby radio.

  “Excuse me,” Alice said, wiping sweaty palms on her blue Bermuda shorts.

  A sour faced nurse glanced up. “Yes?”

  “I’m here to see Logan Miller.”

  “Oh, him,” she said. “Room 548.”

  Alice frowned, wondering what Uncle Logan had managed to do to the woman when he’d been mostly comatose.

  “Thanks.”

  She’d only been asleep for a few hours when Gerald called to tell her that Uncle Logan was awake and asking for her. Alice hadn’t even bothered brushing her hair before leaving, tying a yellow scarf over her frizzy bobbed hair instead.

  There were bruises on her face that the wide sunglasses couldn’t hide and her hands were swollen and bruised. She wondered, as her ballet flats slapped on the shiny linoleum, if Uncle Logan would notice and if he’d be angry with her. What would he say? What would she?

  She paused a few feet from his door, wiping her hands once more on her shorts.

  Whatever happened, she had to see him, to tell him she was sorry and that she loved him.

  Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Alice approached the room.

  A young police officer stood guard at the door and smiled at her.

  “I’m glad he’s gonna be alright. I love his columns.”

  She smiled back and stepped through the door, then stopped short when she saw her uncle’s bruised and battered face. Shock and relief crashed over her and she burst into tears.

  Uncle Logan held out the hand on his unbroken arm, two of the fingers splinted and she took it with great care.

  “Enough of that,” Uncle Logan whispered. “I’m going to be fine.”

  It was several minutes before she could calm down enough to speak.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “You didn’t do anything.”

  “But we fought the last time I saw you and all I could think about—”

  “No, no. Now, that’s enough. I forgave you before I was down the stairs.”

  “If anything...I’ve never told you how much I...”

  His bruised, swollen face softened.

  “You don’t have to. I know. I know.”

  She nodded, taking deep, shaking breaths to try and stop the tears that refused to be quenched. After a moment, she caught sight of Gerald trying to sneak out and stopped him.

  “How were you able—?”

  “Detective Garrick.” Gerald laughed, a deep throaty sound. “Read that nurse the riot act and told the rest of the staff that if anyone stopped me they might just find their cars towed.”

  “I’ve never been so glad for him in my life as I am right now!”

  They all laughed at that, though Uncle Logan’s was cut short with a wince of pain.

  “Even with my help,” Gerald said, his dark face becoming sober. “He’s going to have a long road to recovery. Whoever that was, worked him over good.”

  “Knew what he was doing,” Uncle Logan said.

  Though she didn’t want to, Alice had to ask, “How do you know?”

  “It takes great skill to do all that to a man and not kill him,” Gerald said.

  “I’d like to know who this Phantasm is...” Uncle Logan gasped as he tried to move his broken arm. “After I’ve recovered.”

  Alice looked at her hands.

  “I know that look,” Uncle Logan said. “Your aunt used to get it when she didn’t want to tell me something. What is it?”

  She swallowed. “I know who is behind all this.”

  Gerald took a step toward her.

  “Phantasm,” she said. “It’s Victoria Veran.”

  The two men stared at her. Gerald opened his mouth a few times as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he just snapped it shut and looked away.

  Through the swelling on Uncle Logan’s face, Alice could tell that he’d clenched his jaw, a hardness appearing in the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  Alice nodded.

  “And...did she...? Diana?”

  “Maybe. At the very least, she didn’t try to stop it.”

  Uncle Logan looked like he wanted to rage and yell. The fingers on his unbroken hand twitched as if he wanted to clench them into a fist and he winced with pain.

  “What are you going to do?” Gerald asked.

  “I don’t know. I went after her last night and...it didn’t end well.”

  Uncle Logan leaned his head against the pillows.

  “I want you to leave, and never come back. But I know you won’t do that.”

  “I can’t. I did this, my carelessness took Phantasm off her leash. I have to stop her.”

  “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “And that you’ll let me help you.”

  Alice shook her head. “Have you seen yourself? She sent someone to take you apart, piece by piece.”

  “And she failed,” Uncle Logan said, his voice soft and stubborn. “I’m in this with you, until the end.”

  She wanted to tell him no, try to convince him to leave for a while. But Alice knew that wasn’t fair. She wouldn’t leave and neither would he.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He gave her a bruised half-smile.

  The phone in the room buzzed and since Alice as closest, she picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Alice?” Marco’s voice was full of tension.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The prison called. I’m sorry but, Douglas has taken a turn for the worst, they said he won’t last the night and he’s been asking for you.”

  Alice stared at the wall, not sure what to say.

  “I know you may not want to hear this,” Marco said. “But I think you should go. If you don’t, I think you’ll regret it.”

  She glanced at Uncle Logan, who was frowning at her.

  If someone had told her last year that sh
e’d be torn between seeing her father for the last time and staying at Uncle Logan’s bedside, she’d have had a few choice words for them. But now?

  “I think you’re probably right. I’ll go now.”

  “What was that?” Uncle Logan asked.

  Her mouth felt dry and a hollow grief threatened to take over. She took a few deep breaths to hold it at bay and told her uncle and Gerald what Marco had said.

  At first neither of them spoke. She was afraid to look at Uncle Logan. How could she really be thinking of leaving him after what had happened?

  But then, she felt his fingers brush her arm.

  “I understand. You should go to him, make your peace as best you can. I’ll still be here when you’re done.”

  “For at least another week,” Gerald agreed.

  “Thank you.” She kissed him on his bandaged forehead. “I’ll come back tomorrow. Maybe sneak in a donut and some coffee.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  The first time she’d walked through the penitentiary doors, Alice was nervous. Now, the last time she’d walk through them, she felt more so.

  Alice didn’t understand the jumble of emotions coursing through her. She recognized anger’s bright hard flame, but there was also deep sadness and bitter doubt mixed in that anything either of them had to say would make a difference now. Hadn’t he made her life hell? Hadn’t he brutalized her mother?

  As she was escorted down the yellow halls, past the quarantine room that her father had been in the past month, Alice felt her palms become sweaty.

  What did he expect from her? What did he want in these final hours? What did she?

  The walk was far too short to come up with answers and before she was ready, the guard stopped in the doorway of a room with a large window looking out over the water.

  Douglas was laying with his emaciated face turned to that window. One thin bony hand lay over a battered paperback, the other on the white blanket. There was a loud rattling in his chest when he breathed and oxygen tubes were in his nose. An IV jutted out from his painfully thin arm.

  She stared at him for a moment, trying to calm her heart and quench the tears threatening to fall.

  Something made him turn, the sound of her breathing perhaps, and his yellowed eyes met hers. A faint smile crooked his chapped lips and he gestured to a chair nearby.

  “I didn’t think...” He took a wheezing breath. “...you’d come.”

  “Well,” she said, sitting on the edge of the chair, “you were wrong.”

  “About many things,” he said, his gaze far off for a moment.

  They sat like that for a little while, him focused on the blanket around him and her on the window. Alice realized with no small amount of shame that all their interactions had centered on the Syndicate, and now, when it counted, they had no idea what to say to each other.

  Her eyes eventually fell on the book he held.

  “What are you reading?”

  Douglas started a little, a look of embarrassment on his face.

  “Oh, just...here.”

  She turned it over carefully, as a few pages from the middle began to slide out.

  “The Hobbit?”

  He shrugged. “A guy I met in the war...carried a copy with him. One night...cold...half starved...he read it...best story...I ever heard.”

  She almost couldn’t hold back the tears this time. To find out, only at the end, that they had this one, small, beautiful thing in common broke her heart.

  If he’d been different...what would we have been like?

  “One of the inmates...gave me that copy...before he left. Kind of payment...for trying to take care of him,” he said. “But if...you want it...I won’t have much use for it...soon.”

  Alice nodded. “Sure.” When she looked up, Douglas was staring at her with a gaze so sad, so full of regret that it made her wince.

  “You were right, you know,” she said, wiping her eyes as if there was dust in them. “About my anger.”

  “What happened?”

  She told him, and then realized that of everyone she knew, he was the only one she didn’t feel afraid to tell.

  “You’re stronger...than me.” His voice broke. “I’m...well, it’s good...to see it.”

  She nodded, her mind desperately trying to find something to talk about. Anything, except the one thing they probably should. Her eyes fell on the book in her hands, the one common thread between them that had nothing to do with the Syndicate.

  “Can I, um, would you like me to read to you?” she asked.

  His yellowed eyes glistened, and he nodded.

  It was wonderfully easy to lose herself in the story, something Alice realized she hadn’t allowed herself to do in far too long. As the words tripped off her tongue, the room took on a warmer glow and the two of them became fellow travelers on Bilbo’s journey. Her fears and anger dissipated, and she found herself laughing with Douglas at the story.

  It was a shock when Alice looked up to see that the sun was now half-sunk below the horizon, red and orange tendrils spreading like petals on the water of the Sound. A man brought some kind of thick liquid for Douglas to drink, but he wouldn’t touch it.

  “Tastes...foul!”

  A doctor came soon after, his face grim after listening to her father’s chest.

  “Are you settled? It won’t be long now,” the doctor said.

  Douglas nodded. “Can...she...stay?”

  The doctor looked at Alice, who felt a terrible mix of fear and duty to see this through to the end.

  She nodded, and Douglas seemed to sink further into the narrow bed.

  “Thank...you,” he whispered.

  “Do you want anything?” Alice asked.

  He pointed to the book she’d laid down and Alice picked up the adventure where they’d left off. After a little while, his eyes fluttered shut, his chest rising and falling at odd intervals.

  Not knowing what else to do, Alice kept reading until her voice became hoarse, and the low light from the bed side lamp made her eyes strain.

  She stood and stretched, not at all surprised now to see the lights of the waterfront reflected on the inky water. It was so quiet in the little room, nothing but the sound of Douglas’s intermittent wheezing. Alice found it odd, and yet right somehow, that despite everything, all the unanswered questions, the threat that even now plotted the destruction of her life, that she would find peace here.

  As she sat back in the chair, Douglas’s eyes flew open, a strange light in them. He groped for her and she gave him her hand. His fingers were like holding a bundle of sticks, but very strong sticks. It looked like he was trying to say something, but he couldn’t find enough air or strength to do it. He gestured her closer, and she leaned down, the sour smell she’d begun to associate with him was horribly strong this close. It made her want to step away, but Douglas held onto her tight and Alice couldn’t move.

  “I—s—sorry! Sorry!”

  She pulled back just enough to see tears wetting his weathered cheeks, a desperate, fearful look on his face.

  Alice swallowed, her own tears beginning to fall. If he needed to hear that she forgave him, she couldn’t do that. Maybe if they had a few more years, but not now. It killed her in that moment to realize that they were just beginning to find a way out of the hurt and bitterness he’d mired them in. And they’d never see where that could have led.

  Taking a deep breath and hoping he could somehow see and hear what was in her heart, Alice said, “I know.”

  It was enough.

  He loosened his grip on her hand, expelling one long, tired breath before closing his eyes.

  It was an effort to lift each foot up the stairs to her loft, and in the end, Alice just sat down at the top, letting the aching loss in her chest take over.

  In moments, strong arms wound around her and Alice knew without opening her eyes that it was Marco. They might’ve sat there an hour or just a few minutes, but when the sobs calmed she felt a strange lightness
inside.

  She leaned back against his chest, tears still trickling down her round cheeks. Marco tightened his arms around her and Alice sighed, letting her body meld itself into the curve of his.

  This was where she belonged. With him, wherever, whenever.

  The realization should’ve been shocking, or at least a little surprising, but it wasn’t. Maybe there was clarity from her mind and body being so very tired, maybe all her defenses were too weak to argue with her. But whatever the reason, and however it had happened, Alice embraced the fact that she loved Marco.

  Was I ever in love with Lionel? Really in love?

  Marco brushed a gentle kiss on her temple.

  “I’m so sorry Alice.”

  She was jolted back to why Marco was holding her and the tears started falling fresh and painful.

  “I don’t know why I’m so sad,” she whispered.

  “Because for better or worse, he was your father. You can’t help loving him, no matter what he’s done.”

  She nodded.

  “Do you want help making the arrangements?” he asked.

  “No, the prison said they’d take care of it. The only thing he requested, was to be buried next to my mother...”

  Marco held her tighter. “Whatever you need.”

  You, I need you.

  But somehow, she knew he wouldn’t believe her. Marco would have to be convinced that she loved him in a way she’d never felt for Lionel.

  “Hold me,” she whispered.

  At some point, she fell asleep, and he carried her to bed. He must’ve laid down with her, because as the morning light fell across the room, she saw Marco cast one gentle glance at her before leaving. When she reached behind her, the fog of sleep still thick on her brain, the bed was warm and his smell, like baking bread and something very male, lingered on the sheets.

  She buried her face in that spot and let sleep take her once again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The knife slashed across Alice’s chest, her suit protecting her from being wounded. She crouched and rolled under another try from her attacker.

  They had gotten word that another Fantasy gas canister had gone off in a new housing development. Twelve homes, all infected.