The Innocents

by Riley LaShea

  “But you know who they are?” Haydn guessed. “You have them memorized?”

  When Jim couldn’t respond, too intent on the feast ahead, Haydn’s fingers on his face drew his gaze away from Garcia. “I know it’s hard to think about anything but that first taste of blood right now,” she said. “But I need you to focus. Could you do that for me? Tell me the innocents’ names. All of them.”

  “Father Bryce Ameson, Oslo, he goes with Auris,” Jim began, and, too impaired to get to a weapon even if any were within his reach, Garcia could only watch the ship go down as Jim became the deraphs’ mutineer. “Jemma Hagger, York, she goes with Gijon. Rupert Darrow, Ghent, he goes with Cassius.” And on and on it went, names spilling from Jim without pause, each a cannonball in the hull, until they reached the bottom of the ocean.

  “What about mine?” Haydn asked when Jim finished.

  “He wasn’t given yours,” Jim answered. “It’s been rubbing Garcia raw too, knowing you would be left when all the others were gone.”

  Not particularly wanting the fact shared with her, it didn’t seem to sit too well with Haydn either.

  “What do you mean, given?” she questioned. “Someone gave you these names? Who?”

  “There was a man,” Jim said, and it occurred to Garcia he shouldn’t have trusted him either, should have spared some details Jim didn’t need to know. “Garcia met up with him in Dundalk. He said he was an ancient, that he had long stood against evil.”

  “This ancient didn’t happen to tell Garcia his name, did he?”

  “Rasputin,” Jim said.

  “Rasputin,” Haydn uttered, glancing to Auris when she laughed. “How many Rasputin’s have we met this century?”

  “Three, at least,” Auris returned.

  “Why do they always say Rasputin?” Gijon joined in their amusement. Amusement. After what they had done to Garcia. After they had turned Fiona into a traitor, and Jim into a monster. “Rasputin was such a fraud.”

  “But this man wasn’t.” Haydn’s humor faded. “Do you know anything else?”

  “That’s everything.” Jim seemed sorry he couldn’t give her more, and, looking less than satisfied with the findings, Haydn turned on Garcia once more.

  “And you? You’re sure you don’t know who my innocent is?”

  No clue, and every bit as aggravated by it as Jim told them, it occurred to Garcia what he didn’t know was also the only leverage he had.

  “The only way you’ll ever know is to let me live,” he said, and it worked. Staring through narrowed eyes, Haydn appeared compelled to give him a chance.

  For all of two seconds.

  “I’m sure there’s another way.” She nodded to Gijon to let Jim go, and watching Jim take two unsteady steps toward him, Garcia had a good idea what would happen next.

  “Wait!” he said, and Gijon’s inhuman reflexes caught Jim by the rope that still bound his wrists behind his back. “Do you think I wanted this? Do you think any of us wanted this? We have killed innocent people. It isn’t fair. None of us wanted to do it. They had to die because they are connected to you. Evil will not win. We did what we had to do. We don’t choose our burden. Our burden chooses us.”

  “What did you say?” Haydn’s gaze suddenly more attentive, Garcia wasn’t sure. He was just spinning words, saying anything and everything to keep Jim on a tether and buy more time to think. “Where did you hear that?” Haydn pressed. “From this ancient, by chance?”

  Realizing what he must have said, and that it was exactly where he had picked it up, Garcia watched fury flash on Haydn’s face.

  “Let’s go.” Handling none too gentle, she ripped the gag from Fiona’s mouth, nodding for Auris to untie her, and the idea that Fiona was going to walk free after playing, and screwing over, both sides made Garcia see redder than Jim.

  “You think it’s going to end like this?” he shouted. “You think I’m going to just give up? I am going to get out of this, and I am going to hunt down every person on that fucking list and kill all of you.”

  Not sure why he thought Haydn would just leave after that, that she wouldn’t feel the need to respond, Garcia watched as she came back toward him, stopping to pull a cumbersome book from the bookshelf, and twirling it in her hands as if it weighed no more than a paperback. He didn’t recognize it as the threat, though, until the book hammered his hand where it rested on the arm of the chair. Screaming at what had to be every bone in his hand breaking at once, he couldn’t pull away before Haydn brought the book down again, shattering the broken bones into pieces.

  “That should impede you.” Tossing the bludgeon into his lap, she knocked what little breath he had left out of him, and, slumping sideways, Garcia realized he would just give up. In that moment, he just wanted it over.

  “Leave him. We have to make it somewhat of a contest,” he heard Haydn say, and, lifting his eyes with difficulty, Garcia watched Gijon step away from Jim, leaving his hands bound behind his back.

  “I can’t come with you?”

  It was only then, in hearing Jim’s yearning to be welcomed as one of them, that Garcia felt tears that weren’t just from the pain slide down his cheeks. Jim was a good soldier, a good man, and Garcia had let him down. As he let Armand down. As he let down all the others before them.

  “You finish up here, and you’ll find us.” Gijon clapped Jim’s shoulder, before turning to follow Haydn and Auris out, and, sending a look Garcia’s way - spiteful or remorseful, Garcia couldn’t tell - Fiona, the turncoat bitch, slunk off after them, leaving Garcia alone with Jim as his long-time friend’s growl of anticipation filled the room.

  Three distinctive sets of footsteps behind her, Haydn turned as she cleared the doorway, forcing Gijon and Auris to either side of her as they stepped out onto the porch. By the time Fiona made it through the door after them, the sounds of struggle had already begun. Apparently, Garcia was putting up the good fight while he still had a slim chance at living through it.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Haydn blocked Fiona’s path to freedom, and, clearly surprised to be asked, Fiona tried to mask it with her usual expression of unflappable confidence.

  “I gave you what you needed.” She said, but a light press against her sternum was all it took to put Fiona back in her place when she tried to get past Haydn again. “You got what you wanted,” Fiona said.

  “At no cost to you. None of this really even matters to you, does it?” Fingers digging into Fiona’s chin, Haydn didn’t realize how angry she still was, until she saw the pain in Fiona’s eyes as she lifted her off the porch and could feel how much Fiona’s jaw wanted to crack under the pressure. “You don’t really expect me to overlook the fact that you aided in the deaths of three members of my clan, do you? Auris lost two of her young in this, one of whom was fast becoming one of my favorite specimens. You want to get home? Do the job, Fiona?”

  Thrusting her back into the cottage, Haydn watched her fly ten meters before she landed with a cry, and, yanking the door shut, she secured it with the rope Auris had taken from Fiona’s wrists.

  “Take the list back to The Rock.” She turned to Gijon and Auris when she was sure it would hold. “Don’t worry about being seen. Divide it up as it makes sense. Layla should be able to help you track them down.”

  “You still want us to go after them?” Auris was surprised.

  “Yes.” Haydn nodded. Knowing now where all roads led, getting their innocents to safety was even more imperative.

  “What about you?” Pulling the baseball cap from his coat pocket, Gijon flicked it out before situating it onto his head.

  “Oh.” Undiluted fury rumbled down Haydn’s back. “I have a stop to make.”

  13

  Fairly certain the pain that shot through his ears, eyes and forehead was the simultaneous sensation of his brain slamming against the back of his skull, Cain pawed at the hand that held him off the floor.

  “Well, this feels vaguely familiar.”

  “
I mean it considerably more this time,” Haydn assured him.

  “Yes, I can feel that.” Cain fought to get free, before facing the fact that the hand that held him may as well be made of iron.

  “This is a terrible position you have put me in, Cain. I am tired of having to threaten people, to turn people, and to kill people.”

  “I’m sorry you’ve had to do that.” Trying to diffuse the situation, the hypocrisy was almost too much to bear. It was like a bomb maker trying to convince a combatant caught up in the war not to set it off while he was in range. “But I would certainly like to know what it is you think I’ve…”

  “Do not fuck with me.” Haydn’s fist shook against his chest, and, further protest coming to his lips, Cain realized it was in his better interests not to voice it. “You know exactly what you did, and now I know what you did.”

  Accepting that Haydn wouldn’t have come back on such a rampage if she didn’t at least know something, Cain searched for an explanation that would soften the hard contours of her face.

  God, she was gorgeous when she seethed.

  “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right,” Haydn returned. “I don’t. You stood here lying to me repeatedly, when you didn’t just have the answers to my questions, you were the cause of my questions. I know you retain your human weaknesses, but I thought we were friends, Cain, at least enough not to do each other harm. Whatever it is someone gave you, or offered you, I assure you it will not be enough to make up for what I am about to do to you.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Cain countered. Though he could see in her gaze, could feel in the hand clutched so tightly to his shirt, that Haydn was barely in control of her more animalistic impulses, he felt a modicum of comfort in the fact that she had considerably more control than the majority of her kind.

  If it were anyone else, he felt safe in assuming, he would already be dead.

  “Care to elaborate?” Haydn prodded.

  “Let’s just say, I was offered nothing but escape from far greater tortures than you could ever dream of inflicting.”

  “Willing to bet on that?”

  “I didn’t want to do this.” Hand covering the fist that shook against his chest, Cain truly wanted Haydn to understand. He had done what he had done because there was nothing else he could do. He would never mean her harm. “You know I didn’t.”

  “That is the second time tonight I’ve heard someone say they didn’t want to do something, and it’s the second time tonight I wanted to rip a tongue out for it,” Haydn returned. “If you didn’t want to do it, Cain, you wouldn’t have done it. That’s how choice works. You make them, and you accept the consequences. You gave Garcia the names of their innocents. You killed Vinn, Raquel and Samuel. For what?”

  “For who,” Cain corrected.

  “Who?” Haydn shook her head.

  “Don’t be dense, Haydn,” Cain uttered, feeling almost sorry for her when Haydn’s grip lost some of its strength and he slipped several centimeters down the wall.

  “Lilith?” Haydn questioned. “Lilith told you to do this? So, what? If I won’t go back to her, she would rather have me dead?”

  “If she wanted you dead,” Cain said, “don’t you think she would have had me give Garcia your innocent’s name too?”

  Gaze flicking downward, Haydn stared at nothing, at last coming up with the logical conclusion.

  “She wants me alone.”

  “Only alone enough to return to her,” Cain substantiated, struggling for balance a moment later as Haydn let him drop the rest of the way to the floor.

  “Start talking.”

  Pausing the briefest of moments to tug at his collar and get used to breathing unobstructed once more, Cain recognized it wasn’t a request.

  “You weren’t the first to lose members of your coven…”

  “Ahh!” Haydn sulked away from him. “I hate that word.”

  “Clan,” Cain corrected. “Sorry. Clan.”

  The minutest of differences between Haydn and Lilith, just a substitution of words, it wasn’t really insignificant at all. One implying tyrannical rule, the other a sense of family, Cain imagined it a rather important distinction to Haydn when discussing loss.

  “Eight of Lilith’s died,” he tried to get them back on track. “As you know, her hunters have been at the game far longer than yours. Evidently, they had been studying the legend of the synjuments for centuries. It wasn’t until recently, with the advent of modern technology, that they found a means of tracking them.”

  “And how is that?” Turning back, worry settled between the cuts on Haydn’s face, and it occurred to Cain that, amongst other things, he was largely responsible for her current condition.

  “Soul-mapping,” he answered. “When a soul leaves a body, or, in this case, a portion of a soul, it produces a trail, a kind of eternal mark on the universe. Only while in flight.” One of the more interesting points for Cain, Haydn offered no more than an unenthusiastic stare when he waited for a sign of interest. “Haven’t you ever wondered what happened to the part of your soul that was stripped away when you were sired?” he tried to spur her curiosity. “It had to go somewhere, or the balance would be upset. As only a partial soul, though, it couldn’t just find a new host. Human beings need complete souls to survive, so that portion of soul hitched a ride, attaching itself to a soul already in existence.”

  “What? Like a tumor?”

  “I guess in a way you could say that.” Cain could think of more attractive analogies, but it did fit the general description. “These synjuments, they have the virtue of their own souls, plus the extra floating around searching for a new home. It makes them just a little better, a little more decent than most, counteracting the fact that you are just…”

  “A little less,” Haydn said, and Cain felt it unnecessary, and unwise, to substantiate the inherent character of her species. “So, these synjuments, the surplus of soul they carry…”

  “Is yours,” Cain finished, and, watching her for reaction, it appeared Haydn was trying very hard not to produce any.

  “Go on,” she uttered.

  “Going back through eternity, there are an infinite number of souls that weren’t ready to leave this plane for one reason or another,” Cain explained. “It’s a staggering amount of data. Given parameters of where and when a soul began its flight, though, it’s possible to track it forward into the body it currently inhabits.”

  “Parameters of where and when a soul began its flight?” To Cain’s misfortune, Haydn didn’t miss that particular detail. “So, Lilith discovers the source of her depleting numbers. She sends in an army to kill the hunters, and they discover this soul-mapping program. Then, she comes to you to get the parameters of my sires?”

  “No.” Cain shook his head. “Not at first. Lilith wanted someone to do the work for her, to track her sires’ synjuments. As you know, deraphs aren’t exactly known for their conscientiousness. When I got into the system, it didn’t take long to discover the mapping of Lilith and her sires was already done. It was just waiting there in a coded list. Once she realized she didn’t need me to find their synjuments -”

  “She realized she could use you to get rid of mine,” Haydn concluded, and, deed called explicitly out, Cain had to admit it did sound bad. “Please tell me why I shouldn’t destroy you right now.”

  “Because I am the only one who can help you.”

  “Do you know who my innocent is?”

  “No, not exactly,” he admitted.

  “How can you not know?” Haydn returned. “You did the tracking, right?”

  “Because I didn’t want to know,” Cain declared. “You forget, I have been doing this a long time. I know how to keep myself alive. I knew I would eventually need leverage. Though, I actually expected to have to use it against Lilith, and not you.”

  “Get to the point,” Haydn uttered, and it was the calm in the command that assured Cain her tolerance for him was wearing translucently t
hin.

  “I took the wrong path,” he said. “I got intentionally lost. I followed the wrong soul, and I gave Lilith a placebo. She thinks she knows who your innocent is, but she doesn’t. And you should be glad, because, along with their own, that person is now imprisoned at Lilith’s estate.”

  “Three of my clan are dead,” Haydn stated slowly. “And you think I should be glad? Would you care to rephrase that?”

  “I’m sorry, Haydn,” was all Cain could say.

  “It’s too late to be sorry, Cain. And, if you don’t know who my innocent is, you are of no further use to me.”

  “That’s not true.” Backing behind his desk, Cain held his hand up to stop Haydn’s approach. Not sure if she could follow through with the brutality pledged by her gaze, she sure as hell looked determined to try. “I think I know how you can find your innocent.”

  “How?” Haydn demanded.

  “Let me show you.” Motioning to his book, he beckoned Haydn behind the desk, unable to suppress the tremble that worked up from within as she took him up on the invitation, much too cognizant of the fact that, whatever Haydn decided to do, he had a lot of it coming.

  “Show me,” she uttered, and when he flipped to the back page, with his notes on the map scribbled in his normal unintelligible markings, Haydn sent him a look of displeasure.

  “I know,” he hurriedly called for a stay of execution. “Let me explain. This…” His fingers found the dotted line that moved over the Atlantic, connecting three continents. “Is Gijon’s synjument’s path. Going back two-hundred and fifty years, his synjument started out in New Orleans.”

  “That’s where I sired him,” Haydn said.

  “Exactly,” Cain returned. “But his synjument ended up in York. Auris’ synjument was birthed in Russia, where you sired her, but now lives in Oslo. The same pattern holds true for all of them.”

  “So?” Haydn said.

  “So…” Cain scratched at his cheek, digging the skin almost raw before determining the source of the itch was Haydn’s burning gaze. “When you follow the pattern, it becomes clear that, throughout their lifetimes, the synjuments have made their way closer to you, as if drawn by a cosmic force.”