Even before one of the henchmen discharged his weapon, Ezekiel had flown for the man's legs and sent him crashing to the floor with a grunt. The rifle sailed backward and discharged again at the door before a second man launched himself onto Ezekiel's back, pummeling the back of his neck with the butt of his weapon. It was only then that Theda realized she still had the pistol in her hand. She leveled it at the man pounding away at Ezekiel's shoulders even as she realized the fools were trying to subdue him--not kill him--when death was the only sure way to take him down.
Her shot at Sasha had been a lucky strike; she wasn't sure she could be that lucky again. She might hit Ezekiel. A third man gave her a squint-eyed glance, seeming to be working out whether or not she was an actual threat, and when his assessment was over, he launched himself at Ezekiel's left side, leaving her standing gawk-eyed.
"Idiot," Theda said, feeling a little offended and at the same time sensing relief creep up her spine that she wouldn't have to shoot the pistol because she simply couldn't fire again. Her knuckle was frozen stiff and she was left gaping at the tussle before her, willing herself to do something, but paralyzed by the violence of it.
Despite the blows raining down upon him, Ezekiel had not let go of his quarry's neck. It was terrifying to see his small-minded intent to squeeze the life out of the man beneath him. It reminded Theda of her own addiction; there was nothing like the purity of singular intent to drive home a purpose. Even so, Ezekiel was just one man, and eventually he would be subdued.
"I'll shoot," she said, but no one seemed to hear. She cleared her throat. "I swear I'll shoot."
She'd seen her general kill before. She'd even seen him take on more than one assailant. Back at Julio's apartment, just after she had discovered he was the Pale Rider, he'd let several of his own men take him down with much greater ease than these untrained henchmen. Ezekiel had suffered a terrible beating then, and she realized in this moment that he had let himself suffer it only so she could escape to safety. What he was doing now was not allowing the beating. And the henchmen were beginning to realize exactly why he was the Pale Rider in the Beast's apocalyptic army.
He swung on each of them as though they were nothing but gnats trying to swoop in for a small nip. The first one to reach him he took by the throat and smashed his head into the skull of the dead man on the floor. When the assailant went flaccid in Ezekiel's grip, there was a brief moment when Theda saw her general's face as he rose, but it wasn't the carefully detached expression he'd worn back at Julio's when he was focusing on buying her time. No. This face had no sentience in it. This expression had been stolen by something that took complete control of him and totally obliterated the owner. The Ezekiel she knew was gone.
If she was terrified of the councilman and of the Beast before this, she was horrified by what she saw on Ezekiel's face. It wasn't her general she was looking at; it wasn't even death himself. And exposure to it caused her heart to seize in her chest. What she saw was the face of a man in the throes of his addiction, giving into it, his eyes rolling back in pleasure, his teeth grinding together in an involuntary spasm. She couldn't withstand the naked pleasure she saw there, knowing that it was brought on by the extinction of another person's life.
This was the personification of the terrible days of the Apocalypse all over again, and the bald terror of those days streaked up her spine, raising each hair as it went. She had to force herself to tear her eyes away from the fracas in front of her, to seek an escape route, because there was no way she was staying in that room with that man, not for one more second.
She bolted, half afraid the addiction in him would see her and would round on her.
Her foot caught on something as she lunged for the door. She'd managed to wrap her fingers around the handle before she realized she was caught, but she'd not made it this far these last months by taking the time to sit back and assess the things that wanted to bar her way. She survived by running.
She kicked out at what caught her, shaking her foot as her other hand palmed the wall next to the door. She worked at gaining leverage as she twisted and yanked, but no matter how she worked at opening the door, whatever held her foot fast wasn't letting go.
She finally had to cast a harried glance downward, at first thinking there shouldn't be anything barring her escape except maybe catching on Sasha's wig. When she realized fingers had wrapped around her booted toe, she kicked them with a fierceness borne of panic. They tightened and she nearly let go a shriek when she realized whose fingers they were.
Sasha.
His cheek was twitching as he peered up at her. His chest was rising, slowly, yes, but definitely rising. She hadn't killed him after all.
"Let go," she hissed at him, trying to keep her voice low enough that Ezekiel wouldn't hear her and turn on her as she tried to escape.
Sasha tugged on the boot, forcing her to kick again like a mule. He was demonically strong for a dying man and she nearly lost her balance.
"I said let go."
He managed to lift his other arm and wrap his fingers around her calf, giving her a hard enough yank that she fell in an awkward tumble next to him, throwing out her hands so she'd land on her palms. When her knees struck the floor, she winced but managed not to cry out. He released his grip on her foot and sent his fingers climbing up her leg like she was a length of rope that he planned to inch along. She'd be damned if she'd let him pull her on top of him.
She clambered forward, scrabbling to keep a grip on the floor and yank herself forward and free of him. She thought to give one final thrust backward with her foot in order to gain her freedom, but he took advantage of the movement and pulled so hard that she fell to her belly and slid along the floor backward. She twisted around, thinking she could roll to her bottom and kick off to her feet. She caught true sight of him then, and the naked hatred in his face surprised her.
His wig had come loose. Beneath it, the hair was netted and mousey brown. Those lips of his were still stained the same red, but for some reason the cherry lipstick wasn't contained in its perfect full kiss. It leaked from the corner of his mouth and pooled on his chin. Tiny red bubbles popped in the other corner.
She'd caught his lung with her bullet, probably through his rib cage.
"He'll kill us all," she said, pleading, not daring to look back at Ezekiel because she knew what she'd see, that he was very nearly done with his murder spree, but was far from finished doping his addiction. "He's gone and he'll kill us all."
She didn't expect an answer, but there was enough of a groan escaping Sasha's lungs that she realized he was laughing. His hand went to the back of her neck so quickly, it took her off guard and before she realized it, he had pulled her down toward his face. It was a shock to discover his mouth had covered hers. She tasted the coppery tang of blood, lots of blood, as his tongue entered her mouth. She had only enough time to think that she should have used Sasha to force the henchmen away from Ezekiel. Then Ezekiel wouldn't have had to succumb to this deadly relapse, and his own dizzying freefall would have been more of an awkward tumble until his feet touched ground again.
But that thought dissipated like so much steam as the blackness took her and she lost ground, lost all sense of corporeality in the dizzying kaleidoscope of color that swam out from the darkness that was Sasha's psyche. She saw his life, this one and all the ones before, in living, breathing Technicolor.
At first, when she was still freefalling, the thought flashed through her mind that Ezekiel had been right: her power took her through multiple lives with her johns. She'd just been too high before to realize it. Not now. Now the dizzying swirl of Sasha's lives ran through her psyche so fast she barely had time to register them all.
She saw him in Trier and recognized him as a young magistrate ever so willing to pronounce all of her victims as guilty. No matter who Theda brought before him during her lifetime as Erich the torturer, Sasha the magistrate was already predisposed to find the person guilty of witchcraft.
She saw him in Nazi Germany, gathering prejudiced soldiers to him like a mother hen gathering her brood.
She saw him in Aztec conquest.
She saw him in Egypt.
In Sodom.
In Eden.
She saw him in repose in a field of nettles and briers, greeted by every manner of hideous creature; there too, came the lovely ones, with wings shedding their feathers in a rain of plumage. Shame-faced at first, then relieved as they shed their wings and stretched naked, arms toward the Earth. She thought she recognized other souls then, but the realization of what she was witnessing stole the familiarity from her thoughts, and left only one:
Fallen, all of them. In an earth so young the nettles hadn't yet formed bloom. But not Sasha. Not fallen. Never fallen.
One cannot fall when one is not ascended. It was a strange thought, but it streaked through her mind as though he had spoken it. Theda pulled away, swiping the back of her hand across her lips, smearing Sasha's blood straight into her hairline. She felt it grow cold there as she gathered the courage to speak.
"Lilith," she said, knowing it was true even as she spoke her name.
Sasha's eyes flashed with something Theda would have called jealousy if she had to name it, and then he blinked and the look was gone.
"You spiteful whore," she said, scrabbling backward to the door. Sasha wasn't interested in a re-vision, he wanted no part in enlightenment. He could have cared less about his past lives. What he wanted was for her to see it for herself and know that he had no delusions about who he was or would be.
Not for the first time she felt as though she had been abandoned here. She wanted to curse the god for taking all those unworthy souls and leaving her here to suffer through heinous acts and insufferable evil. She realized in the moment that she would only receive what she would allow. It was time to unplug from everything that kept her here.
She cast one final glance at Ezekiel, checking to be sure she'd actually lost him, knowing that she had to at least get out of here, gather up Cain, gather up Bridget and get the hell out of Dodge.
He'd squeezed the life out of the last henchman and was standing stoop shouldered, hunched over six inert bodies, dragging in breath after breath so audibly she could hear him from where she stood. She reached around behind her to grip the handle of the door, thinking to bolt, when he lifted his gaze to hers. What she saw on his face made her freeze.
"Ezekiel?" It was him. She knew it was. Involuntarily, she let go the handle.
"Minou." One word, coming from the caverns of his lungs, rattling past his voice box in a way that made her nearly collapse with relief.
And then the door slammed into her back, throwing her, tripping, over Sasha. She caught herself before she went to her knees and sent her eyes to the doorway, praying it was Cain. Please let it be Cain.
Of course, it was the Beast.
Chapter 3
As usual, the Beast was devastatingly handsome, dressed in a pinstripe suit with a blood red tie. His hair was slicked back, but one small lock of hair had escaped the pomade and hung down beside his temple. A smile snaked across his features as he regarded Theda. He took no notice of Sasha at his feet, and gave no indication that he was aware of the dozen horsemen that filed in behind him, or of the way Councilman Prusser minced into the room and clung to the wall.
"You know," the Beast said without so much as looking at her. His eyes were for Ezekiel, even as Theda knew he was speaking to her.
"You almost look like her."
For a moment, Theda was confused, and then she remembered Cain and Ami had helped her disguise herself as the Red General. They'd dyed her hair red, cropped it close and spiked it with gel. She'd had to practice walking in the high-heeled boots.
To her surprise, the Beast said nothing more about her disguise, electing instead to address Ezekiel.
"Oh, General," he said with so much oil in his voice he could've slid across the floor. "You surprise me. Don't tell me you're murdering those poor men because you think they would harm your precious lover."
From the corner of her eye, Theda could see Ezekiel squaring his shoulders with an almost suspicious focus. The panther like quality of the way he sidestepped the dead henchmen made her force her gaze back to the Beast, thinking perhaps the man had made some threatening movement. He hadn't. As far as Theda could see, he was still carrying an almost casual demeanor. Even so, Kat had brought Ezekiel here to face the Beast and answer for his disobedience. He was wise to be on guard.
"Surely you don't think this woman is Theda, Ezekiel," the Beast said. "It's Kat, you silly fool." He took great care in slipping his hands into his pants suit pockets, delivering a disbelieving shake of his head at the same moment. He cocked his head toward Theda with a smile.
"I've got to give it to you, General Kat, I really didn't think you'd fool him."
"I'm not Kat," she said. "You know I'm not."
"Give up," the Beast said, his tone so melodic and pleasing he could have been singing to an inaudible tune. "You've been a naughty general. I told you not to touch the girl. She was mine. And you went and killed her just the same."
"I'm not dead. She didn't kill me."
Her gaze flew to Ezekiel only to see that he was buying it; his gaze had narrowed dangerously.
"It's me," she said, lifting her hands toward her general. "Can't you see that, Ezekiel? It's me. Theda. You know it is."
She started for him, thinking surely he knew who she was. He'd made love to her just moments ago, he'd told her he knew it had to be her when she took forever getting him out of the cubicle. Of course he couldn't be fooled by the ridiculous disguise.
Without so much as an intake of breath, the Beast closed the space between himself and her, stepping neatly over Sasha's wheezing form and taking her by the neck in one hand. He shoved her against the wall, and she felt her ankle twist painfully in the boots as she tried to resist.
"I'm sick of your disobedience, Kat. You of all my soldiers should know what I do to the generals who disobey me?"
The Beast squeezed, cutting off any protest. And then, just low enough that only she could hear, he hissed at her. "You're like a bad rash that won't go away. And I'm running out of the patience to see it healed."
Theda felt her chin lift and she had to work to get the words out. "Fuck you."
He glared at her. "Henrik. Tell me. Now."
If she wasn't careful, Ezekiel would either try to save her or try to murder her. If she was lucky, and it was the first, then he'd have to take on another dozen of his horsemen as well as the Beast, and she wasn't sure he could come back from that. If it was the latter, and when he found out what he'd done, he wouldn't come back from that either. Fury built on the bile that collected in her stomach.
"If Henrik didn't tell you himself," she said to the Beast, "then I'm sure he didn't want you to know."
The suaveness disappeared entirely from the Beast's demeanor at her words, and Theda could swear he actually growled at her.
"You think I've kept you alive because I have to?" He squeezed harder, cutting into her voice box with the webbing between his thumb and finger. "I thought maybe I could coax it out of you, scare it out of you, even bully it out of you." With each verb, he thrust her head into the wall and released as though he wanted to punctuate his words with the sound of her head slamming into the plaster.
She coughed from the stranglehold and winced as each thrust made the back of her head more tender. She tried to speak and only managed to release another cough. The Beast was gracious enough to ease off his pressure. She gasped in oxygen enough to fuel a few words.
"Don't forget the re-education," she whispered. "That didn't work either." She found it within herself to smile at him, all the better to watch his blood pressure suffuse his face.
A quick jerk of his hand, pressing her harder into the wall, proved that he didn't think her comment was funny. His face crept to within an inch of hers. She stared into the crystalline eyes, inhaling
the minty freshness of his breath, noting the perfect arch of his brows. Yet for all that beauty, the voice was harsh when he spoke, like gravel cutting up fine China.
"I don't need to know it. Whatever his vision was, whatever you showed him, it doesn't matter." He stared at her, tonguing the inside of his cheek thoughtfully.
"You'll find I'm relentless in my purge. You. The so-called lovers. Even my own Henrik. Willing to die for his little secret." He shifted weight from one foot to the other, making her cough again as his hand moved. "What do you suppose is so important that a young man in his prime would die rather than confide in his own father. Don't you find that strange? Don't you find it strange that anyone else would die to keep it? Especially a disgusting little piece of junkie flesh like the one in front of me."
Theda squeezed her eyes closed; he was just goading her, that was all. She wouldn't rise to it. She wouldn't.
When he realized she wasn't going to speak, he grunted and let go of her neck. Her eyes fluttered open to see that he had backed away and crossed his arms in front of his chest. She gave a cursory scan of the room, trying to assess where Ezekiel was, how far the horsemen were from the door, whether there was a good clean escape route.
"You had explicit orders, General Kat. You were not to kill the girl. You were to bring her here to me for questioning."
She opened her mouth to protest, but one of the horsemen backhanded her in the stomach. She collapsed into herself, holding onto her belly, trying to catch her breath.
"I don't care what past you and General Ezekiel share. It doesn't matter now; you were told to forget it. You couldn't and now I can't trust you anymore. In fact, in the face of a grief-stricken man out for revenge, your strength means nothing. You're no more than a mere kitten with tiny, useless claws."
Theta Waves Box Set: The Complete Trilogy (Books 1-3) (Theta Waves Trilogy) Page 38
