It must have been why Bridget didn't raise one bit of fuss when Ezekiel had brought her to the apartment; she'd met her before. "It's her," was all he'd said, and Bridget had waved them in. She made no mention of sitting outside a ruined building in the worst part of the worst part of the supercity, suffering through lifetimes that marked her as a religion-monger, and eventually as a lover to Henrik.
Henrik had died to keep his secret, and Theda had just given it up to the Beast. Certainly, Bridget was harboring that information and more. Like exactly what kind of vision Theda had walked her through. There had been so many clients, so many visions and she'd been so tunnel-visioned for godspit, she just couldn't remember what Bridget's might have been.
But she was willing to bet it was a humdinger.
She fell asleep trying to work out the minutiae of it all, and like being in the closet at the lab, time warped itself into something she couldn't recognize.
She might have lain there for days for all she knew, alternately fighting claustrophobia and panic and finding a zen state where everything began to make sense. Once, it grew so light in the container, she was instantly afraid they had come for her and had yanked the cover open while she slept. She could see her hands, her feet, a sort of blanket that wrapped around her torso and reminded her of dove wings. Just as she realized the light emanated from her own body, she startled in the tank and the light died, leaving her listening to hoarse whispers in the dark that made her cram her mouth against the hole and scream for help that never came.
She even believed she stood outside the tank at one point, watching a horseman slump asleep in his chair. Or was he asleep? She couldn't tell from her vantage, but she could see another horseman slipping out from behind him, letting go a cord that snaked from around the slumbering man's neck. The second horseman snapped it in front of him, then coiled it into a neat bundle and tucked it into his jacket.
She heard him whisper into the semi gloom of the room.
"Theda?"
She tried to answer and found herself broke into yet another sweat, slammed back beneath the metal cover with her mouth next to the hole, dragging in air.
"Cain," she said. Once more, louder. "Cain."
She heard the thud above her of someone falling on the canister. "Two locks," she said. Her heart slammed against her ribcage in its own effort to be heard. Out. If it was Cain, if she wasn't dreaming, she'd be out. Please. Let it not be a dream.
It wasn't a dream, and it wasn't Cain.
Ezekiel.
"Minou." He sounded as though he could barely believe the evidence of his own eyes. His hand reaching into the canister for her was the stuff fantasies were made of. She reached up for him, thinking he would take her by the hand and help her to her feet. Instead, he pushed her hand aside and leaned into the canister, shoving his hands beneath her knees and behind her shoulders. He scooped her out and held her so close she could feel his heart tremoring against her chest.
"I've got you," he said. "I've got you."
She didn't realize she was crying until his hands were smoothing down her hair and he was shushing her. "It's okay. I've got you."
She felt a hand on the back of her shoulder and startled, afraid that she had been dreaming, but while every instinct told her to bolt, her body pressed closer to the person who held her, straining to join with it.
"No," she said. "No I won't go."
"We have to go, Theda." Cain's voice. "We can't stay here."
She felt Cain pressing something against her back. "Put these on."
Ezekiel's hands cupped her jaw and tilted her to face him. "You get to be the lizard King."
She sniffled, twisting enough that she could look down at the clothes Cain was holding out to her. The costumes had been in the part of the boutique that she set fire to. If they survived, they'd be smoke damaged. Surely that alone would alert any horseman left in the boutique.
"But they'll smell like smoke," she protested.
"That's why I stuffed the pockets with pot," he said, grinning.
She reached out for the leather pants, peering up at Ezekiel as she shook them out. "How will we manage?"
"Cain can answer that better than me."
She turned her eyes to Cain. "You have a plan?"
He held up a frilly petticoat. "I wish I had a better one," he said, yanking off his black watch cap and replacing it with a brunette wig. "We got rid of the guards in the immediate vicinity, but there will still be horsemen through the den. With Sasha in hospital, the Beast left an awful lot of horsemen on patrol here."
So the effeminate bastard had survived her gunshots after all. She hoped he coughed up enough blood that he drowned in it.
She had the pants up and was fiddling with the button when Ezekiel started lacing a metal disc belt through the belt loops. "We bought you a bit of time, Minou. But I wouldn't waste much of it asking questions."
She froze. "What do you mean, bought me a little time?"
"I mean you and Cain. He's getting you out of here."
"And you," she said. "He's getting him, me, and you out of here."
Ezekiel shook his head. "No."
"Yes," she said. She had left him before, once before, she wouldn't leave him again. "I saw things in the box, Ezekiel," she said. "Things I can't unsee."
He stiffened noticeably.
"Ezekiel? What did you see?"
"It doesn't matter." He passed Theda a voluminous white shirt and when she refused to put it on, he pulled it down over her head.
"I saw who we all are. Even you."
She heard a shuffle next to her, and she looked at Cain, thinking perhaps he knew what Ezekiel was talking about. "Cain?"
"Don't look at me," he said. "I'm just a regular man, marked by the god, sure; but still a regular man."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Ezekiel's warm hands enveloped hers. "I told you before. We're fallen. I'm fallen."
"Yes, yes I know," she said. "I saw that through your blood."
"Then you know that the god didn't just return to wage war, Minou. He came and we fought him for this world and we won. We won. And he turned tail and left us to our victory. All of us. His thousands of fallen, left us here in our final stages in our last human form, where we won't have to return lifetime after lifetime to suffer humanity as our penance for our pride. Where we can exist and thrive in our true forms instead of in the darkness of human bodies.
Her stomach clenched, ready to expel the bile collecting there, ready to heave out every soiled thought she'd processed, and she froze in his arms, afraid that what he was saying might be true.
"Don't you get it, Minou? Don't you understand?" He gripped her, frantic, almost fearful. "I don't have to be the Pale Rider anymore."
Theda let her mind return to all of the horrible memories of her youth, of all of the church services, of all the Bible studies, the prayers, the kneeling and begging and praying for a God to make a difference in her life. To help her find peace. And then the Apocalypse. The frightening sight of all of those souls returning to the divine spark from which they'd come, leaving her here in solid form.
None of that dogma had mentioned that fallen angels had been forced into human form. It might have mentioned that they'd taken human lovers, but not taken human form themselves. That they returned lifetime after lifetime into a human body as punishment for some act of mutiny eons ago. It was ludicrous. It had to be ludicrous.
"You can't be right," she said.
"You know I am."
"But you can still come with us." She had to get back to the original point. She wasn't leaving him here.
"I have to stay. The battle was won, but the war isn't over. Not by a long shot. I have to help the Beast finish it. I'm willing to be one of the fallen if it means I don't have to be this killing machine anymore. If it means I can go back to my true form." He pressed his lips against her fingers. "But I'm not willing to sacrifice you to him. You need to get somewhere safe, and I can't kn
ow where that is."
She ran desperately through her own memories, trying to find something that could make sense of all this. Dogma was no good to her now, everything she learned and taken as the gospel truth had been incorrect.
She turned to Cain. "Help me make him understand."
Cain wrestled the petticoat down over his naked torso and chucked his clothes into the isolation chamber. "I think he understands it pretty good, Theda. We have to get going." He turned to Ezekiel. "You can find your way back?"
Ezekiel nodded. "The guard will be coming around long after I'm settled back in. Too bad he won't be able to thank you for the 12 hours of bliss." He saluted Cain. "Better to be a fallen angel on Earth than an outcast in heaven."
Cain returned the salute. "Better to live as an immortal man than to return lifetime after lifetime and forget who you are."
"Better to be stupid, idiotic morons with no sentience," Theda grumbled. "Than to be stuck between two fanatical horsemen."
She'd had enough. She reached inside of the canister, fishing about for the godspit the Beast had given her. She'd jam that smear so far onto the back of Ezekiel's tongue, he'd gag on it. Then Cain would have no choice but to lug him out of the den on his stupid fanatical shoulders if he had to.
She couldn't get a hold of it right away; it had lodged itself down at the foot of the tank and it took a while for her to find it. When she stood again, it was to face Cain in his lacy petticoat, a pistol in his hand, pointing straight at her chest. Ezekiel had made a hasty exit. She caught sight of his disappearing back before the door closed behind him.
"Fuck," she said, stomping her foot. "You let him get away."
"I had my orders. Now you got yours." He brandished the gun at her.
"I'm sorry I shot you," was all she could think to say.
He shrugged. "Turned out to be the best solution," he said. "It allowed me to lay there and wait till the Beast and his cronies tucked our Pale General nicely away."
She eyed the gun. "You're not going to shoot me."
"Not lethally."
She ignored that. "So you know where he is, then."
"Hurry up. We've already wasted too much time."
"But how will he get back without being seen? How can you be sure he'll be safe until he's--"
"Don't worry about him. He'll manage." He threw a shaggy brown wig onto her head and adjusted it.
"But what was the point of all this if we just leave him here?"
"We came back for a man who needed rescuing."
"He still needs rescuing."
"What he needs is to be deprogrammed and I don't have the skills for that."
He took her by the elbow, and tucked the nose of the gun into her ribs. "If anyone asks, I'm a transvestite with a thing for Morrison."
"Who does have those skills?"
"You're relentless," he said with a note of admiration but he yanked on her arm just the same.
"Well, who?"
There was a short pause before Cain answered, and it was grudging at best. "Dr. Hurte."
She snorted. That foul man was dead. Even knowing Ezekiel needed to be reeducated, she wasn't sorry that the doctor would be unable to do it. And while she wanted out of the spitters' den more than she wanted to breathe, she knew that if she left without Ezekiel, she'd never see him again. There had to be some sort of leverage. She was still working it out as they scurried through the door of the lounge to the costume area when Cain spoke, startling her.
"Ami," he said.
It was enough of a shock to get the engines running.
"Not Ami, but maybe Bridget," she said, wondering how the marked man could read her thoughts, then realized that it was indeed Ami standing there at the entrance to the boutique. She tried to rush at him but Cain held her back by the sleeve.
"What are you doing here?"
Cain shook her arm, pulling her close and placing his arm across her chest protectively.
In her excitement, she had failed to notice the woman standing beside one of the melted wax figures. When she did notice it, she assumed that the redhead was simply a wigged and costumed mannequin that had escaped the blaze until the mannequin moved.
"Handsome here felt the urge to play snuff," Kat said. "And he earned that if he earned anything these last two days."
A scene flashed through Theda's mind of Kat and Henrik and Ezekiel. She eyed the redhead and the possessive way she moved toward Ami. She had horrible visions of what her friend might have endured at the general's hand, all so Theda could come here and get Ezekiel out of the Beast's clutches. All for nothing, it seemed. It just didn't seem worth it to let him suffer any more.
She went for Ami as casually as she could, without alarming the general.
"I'm sorry, Ami," she said, flinging her arms around his neck, feeling him shrug.
"Shit happens," he said.
Kat squealed with delight behind her. "Oh honey, shit hasn't stopped happening."
The high-heeled boots clomped closer.
Theda eased away from Ami, just enough to look him in the eye.
"Open up," she said and waited till his tongue showed. The relief in his gaze made her feel better about her decision. It felt right.
She slipped the smear onto the middle of his tongue, kissing his cheek as he slumped forward. He sunk to the floor with her arms still around him.
Kat hissed from behind her.
"You fucken bitch."
The last time Theda had stood in this room, she'd been afraid for Ami's welfare in the hands of this demon. She'd wanted a smear to dissolve the guilt she'd felt, but not now. Now, this place gave her strength. She'd beaten this god-forsaken pit once before, set it ablaze with her righteous anger, she'd do it again in a heartbeat. And she wouldn't let this long-legged hag stop her.
"I might be a fucken bitch," Theda said, "But it's better than being a feral cat."
Theda turned to face the Red Rider, squaring her shoulders against the onslaught she knew would come. Sucking air in to fuel her muscles for whatever fight she could muster.
And she waited.
Chapter 10
Theda had the sense that time was very much like a bar of soft toffee. It had stretched and rebounded and squashed and been compressed again so many times in the last hours here in the den. She half expected it to stick straight to her and keep her from moving as she watched the expression on Kat's face shift from patronization to pure fury. Indeed, her feet did feel stuck to the floor, her arms incapable of movement. She was aware of Ami at her feet, blissfully incapacitated by the smear she'd pushed onto his tongue just seconds earlier. She couldn't so much as nudge him with her toe; every tissue in her body strained toward the Red Rider, anticipating her reaction. Perhaps she shouldn't have put the woman's new favorite toy out of commission the way she had, but in that moment Theda hadn't been sure how she was going to protect Ami from the imminent torture she knew Kat planned for him. It was the best she could think of, and now she was ready to pay the price.
She knew, too, that Cain was somewhere behind her. The thought bolstered her, even if she knew that he too was frozen in place, awaiting some sort of commitment from the general. She could hear his quiet breathing, and shallow as it was, she could tell he was making an effort to lengthen the inhalations. If she was smart, she'd try to do the same so that when her muscles needed the fuel, they'd have it.
She lifted her chin in defiance, thinking of Ezekiel somewhere in the building, climbing back into his isolation chamber to pretend nothing was amiss, letting the Beast trust his favorite general would be reprogrammed back to the mindset of the Apocalypse. Except Ezekiel had no such intention to succumb to thought reform at all. The truth was a simple one: Ezekiel didn't need to be reprogrammed. He didn't want to be the Pale Rider anymore, and even if it meant she might never see him again, Theda understood that. She understood how sickening the shame of addiction could be, and his addiction didn't just destroy him – it literally destroyed others.
Better to be a fallen angel--outcast but whole--rather than the killing machine Ezekiel's human form had forced upon him. She understood that too. Hadn't she wanted to be transformed during the Ascension? Hadn't she wanted more than anything to be considered worthy? No, she couldn't blame him for wanting that. But it still hurt like Hell.
She'd known what it would be like to return here for him, and she'd come anyway. She'd risked capture and had suffered the panic of the isolation chamber to get him back, and even though he'd decided to stay, he'd done so in a way that would ensure her safety. She wasn't about to let some sociopath bitch take that away from him.
"What do you say, you old hag?" she asked the general, putting all the bravado into her voice that she could manage. "You ready to bring it?"
She thought she heard Cain snicker behind her, but she didn't let that deflate her determination. She forced herself to take a step forward, and it felt as though she was dragging her legs through heavy water.
"I bet you thought you were going to bat Ami around like some mouse in your claws." She forced a second step, willing herself to keep the general's eye. She saw something flit across Kat's face: amusement, perhaps. Good. If she was enjoying the bit of false bravado, then the chances were she would draw it out a little more.
"Maybe you thought you would take a whip to his balls the way you did the councilman's."
"You saw that, did you?" Kat smiled. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
"I saw more than that," Theda said.
Kat crossed her arms. "I hope you saw how molded he was. It took me a long time to get him that way." Her voice took on a preening tone, and Theda could imagine her as an actual cat, grooming herself after a strenuous kill. The image made her want to squeeze her eyes shut. Instead, she swallowed down hard.
"I saw you with Henrik," Theda said.
That raised a brow.
"Then you know what I'm capable of," Kat said. She looked briefly to where Ami was lying on the floor, his face a beatific expression of bliss. "I never quite got that reaction from him," she said. "I worked at it, really I did." She shifted her gaze to Theda and took a lazy step forward. "Tied him down. Took him every which way from Sunday. Tied him up. Gave him a show that would make a eunuch hard. Took him again."
Theta Waves Box Set: The Complete Trilogy (Books 1-3) (Theta Waves Trilogy) Page 43
