by Anna Windsor
“We should put this group down, adjust the formula, and make a new batch.” Donovan Craig had the black hood of his sweatshirt down like Griffen, and his reddish beard and hair made him look like an angry lion. The scars on his face, knuckle marks from years of scrumming, pulsed crimson like his temper. “They can’t heal if the flesh is torn completely away. You can see it’s a weakness.”
“Of course I can see.” Griffen didn’t even try to keep the snarl out of his voice. In all their sparring sessions getting ready for the ambush, these fighters had taken wounds. He realized only now that the wounds had been to their torsos, to the thicker portions of their bodies, where flesh could easily rejoin and knit. The fighters had healed without so much as scars to show for their damage, and he had assumed they were ready to face bullets and blades.
Failure.
Griffen wanted to kill something. “Work on the formula if you want,” he told Craig, “but I don’t want to spend any more time in research. These will do. We can armor the weak points.”
Craig’s frustration bubbled straight to the surface, revealing itself in his next comment. “These fools let you down. Give it more time, Griffen. Give us more time, and we can produce stronger fighters.”
Griffen glanced at the lab door. They had an endless supply of demon essence, but a limited pool of “volunteers” unless they started snatching goons off the street. Always a possibility. They could keep refining the process, especially now that they understood the problem of detached flesh, and that the eye tissue was weak and lacking in the same restorative powers as the rest of the enhanced body. When that bitch of a Sibyl had used her SIG to nearly shear off one of the fighter’s feet, she had blown away so much tissue that the ankle couldn’t coalesce. Unlike the original Rakshasa, the Eldest, these fighters didn’t draw their own essence back to themselves. If it got lost, it was just gone. The fighter on his knees probably needed his feet amputated. What good was a superwarrior who couldn’t walk? Prosthetics might make a difference, but the time needed to learn to use them—not worth it.
Griffen let air out of his filled lungs. Slowly. Centering and focusing. What happened, happened. He needed a teaching case anyway. An example to solidify his absolute control over all the fighters.
“We’re in motion now,” he told Craig. “We’ll make do with what we have, and if you come up with something better, we’ll add fighters as we go.”
Really, though, he wanted to shoot these six for being imperfect. For failing. He wanted to watch their blood pool underneath their shattered heads, but too much time and money had been poured into their creation.
Rebecca pointed to the fighter on his knees. “Let the old man out of his cage. I want to watch.”
The joy in her voice made Griffen give her request a moment’s consideration, but he knew that would be a bad idea. “No. Leave the creature alone. We have much better uses for him.”
And our energy’s low right now. We can’t risk losing control of him. That much, Griffen didn’t say, because it would only remind everyone of another one of his failures. To Craig, Griffen said, “Put the fighters up. Except this one on his knees. He’s finished.”
Rebecca grinned at the kneeling man, her blue eyes glittering as the Coven quickly moved to put five of the six fighters back into their cells.
The sixth remained on his knees beside his lone handler, eyes forward, expression dull. The elemental energy the handler used to contain the fighter felt like cotton in the air to Griffen, but it had little effect on him.
He drew the Glock he kept in an ankle holster. It had a full clip of hollow-point ammunition specially treated to be effective with his new creations. A man couldn’t be too careful.
Bloodlust rose like a blush to Rebecca’s pale face, highlighting the sharply tapered tips of her ears. She looked more otherworldly than ever, and Griffen sensed something about her. A readiness. A coming of age. He’d been feeling it for months, but right now in this moment, she seemed … completed, somehow. Like the next phase of her life was about to begin, whether or not he allowed it.
I have so much to live up to, Griffen thought, wishing his father had survived the murderous assault of the Sibyls. Bartholomew August could have advised him, could have guided him, but now Griffen had to carry on without that assistance. He could do it, of course. And he would do it.
The Coven returned in full, ringing Griffen and Rebecca and the kneeling fighter. Griffen gestured for the fighter’s handler to rejoin the circle, and he did so, leaving the containing blanket of elemental energy in place to keep the fighter subdued.
As the circle expanded to receive its returning member, Griffen said, “The men in my Coven do their best not to look at you, Rebecca, but some of them can’t help themselves.” Griffen caught a few quick glances as he spoke, and he sensed pulses rising. A second or two later, the guilty men managed to look anywhere but at him or at her. Good for them. His men would control themselves because they knew their higher purpose lay with the work of the group, that the group would suffer if he had to execute some of them for going where they didn’t belong. His sorcerers knew better than to cross him—and besides, Griffen figured they didn’t want to die at Rebecca’s hand.
“Men look at me. So what?” Rebecca didn’t so much as glance at Griffen. She was too captured by his weapon and the kneeling fighter.
“So maybe you’re ready to branch out into more serious relationships. Not the juvenile dalliances you’ve enjoyed in the past, but liaisons with a purpose.”
“I’m not interested in marriage.”
Griffen held up the Glock, let her study it, let her desire to see it in action grow. He knew she could imagine the tang of the gunpowder, the shocking crack of the shot, and the aftermath. He handed her the gun.
Rebecca took it without difficulty despite the elemental cuffs around her wrists and the chain binding her to him. Her smile widened as she crammed the muzzle against the fighter’s head. With no preamble or warning, she pulled the trigger. The explosion kicked the man’s head away from her and he flopped to the floor like a useless bag of rags. Gore spattered the concrete beneath the fighter, and Griffen finally got the blood he had craved, the payback for the immense ineptitude the fighters had shown in the failed ambush.
Rebecca offered Griffen the Glock, handle first.
He appreciated her good safety awareness, though he knew the barrel had to be hot against her sensitive fingers. He never worried that she would shoot him, because she knew he had bound his essence to the elemental cuffs. If she decided to be treacherous, his death would send a killing pulse through the metal, and he and his sister would die together.
“You shouldn’t focus all your energy on one Sibyl,” Rebecca said. “Broaden the field. Sibyls grieve their losses like all sentimental humans. Death hurts them. If we do enough damage, we could rip the fabric of the fighting groups.”
“You have a point, but you know why I want Andy Myles dead.” Griffen holstered his weapon and faced his sister as she sighed. “You know why I want her to be first.”
“To disrupt and weaken her dangerous fighting group, the one that poses the most threat to us.” Rebecca sounded like she was reciting, but at least she didn’t imitate Griffen’s voice. “To make an example. To get revenge.” Her eyes still danced from the excitement of killing, but her tone grew serious, almost emphatic. “Our father never made vengeance his first priority.”
Griffen gave this a moment’s thought and had to concede that his sister was correct. “Bartholomew August focused on winning battles and winning wars, and carrying out his higher purpose.”
Rebecca’s nod came too quickly for her to sense the trap Griffen had laid.
“We have a higher purpose, too, Rebecca,” he said, and he knew she couldn’t argue.
Her gaze roved around the circle of the Coven, but the twelve men who worked for Griffen remained silent and impassive, the hoods of their black sweatshirts obscuring their expressions.
Rebecca s
eemed to debate with herself, then settle on the truth of Griffen’s words, as he had been hoping she would.
“What do you have in mind?” she asked, sounding as interested as she did frustrated.
“It’s time you think about destiny. About passing on your power and abilities to a new generation. It’s the charge our father left both of us, and we should both be thinking in that direction.”
“I’m not interested in marriage,” Rebecca repeated, anger and fear creeping into her tone.
“Marriage isn’t necessary,” Griffen told her, relief sliding through him as he spoke. He felt the rightness of what he said even as the words formed. “I’m happy to bring you males and let you do what you want with them after they’ve served their purpose. Not all of them will be disposable, of course, but some won’t be missed.”
Rebecca reacted to this with hesitation, then with increased interest. Griffen could feel the bond between them strengthening, feel her weigh and accept this option, and he felt pride in himself—and in her.
Yes.
This would be much better than what he had been planning, marrying her off to an elementally powerful male who could control her. It meant he would have to be the one to supervise her for a while longer. She wasn’t all that much trouble, not really, not when he considered the amusement she provided.
And with the men, those poor bastards.
She would be the consummate killer, slaughtering the spent mate before he even understood that he had bedded a black widow, a mantis—a predatory female who disposed of inconvenient lovers before moving on to the next.
Rebecca raised the elemental cuffs that kept her in check—to a point. “And these?”
Griffen knew he had to offer her something in return for her level-headed acceptance of reality. She really had grown these last months. She had changed, and perhaps it was time to see if those changes made her more stable.
He fished in his jeans pocket and brought out the key.
Moving as one entity, the Coven circle widened, giving ground to Rebecca even before Griffen set her free.
“Come here,” he said. “We’ll see how this goes.”
Jack …
The cold violence in that voice cut Jack worse than any blade.
His chest ached. His lungs burned. Sweat plastered his T-shirt to his chest as his father’s voice punched through the motionless air.
“We can still work this out, boy. You’re only seventeen. You don’t know everything yet.”
Jack threw himself around a corner in the massive casino vault, scraping his jeans on a wooden crate. He had to get away from that voice. Had to find a place to hide. Concrete floors. Metal walls. He stumbled past stacks of locked metal boxes, costumes on mannequins, sculptures, paintings—nothing big enough to hide inside. Nothing safe enough to hide behind. His heart beat so loud and fast he knew his father could hear it, and his mother’s Luger shook in his hand.
“There’s no way out of here, Jack.” His father switched to a friendly voice. “You’re my only son. You don’t have to run from me.”
Lie.
Jack barreled into a dead end and edged behind the vault’s last wall, shoulders to metal, still shaking. His breath came so hard his father could probably track every rattle and wheeze.
Have to take care of him. For Mom. For Ginger. He had to get them out of this, because Ginger was talking to the feds and Mom was probably talking and Jack knew—knew—what his father would do. Jack had watched what his father did to his own sister, Jack’s aunt, after she talked, right here in this vault. He had seen it last year, and he wished he hadn’t.
“Jack.” Dino Amore, known to the bosses who hired him as “The Hand,” sounded less friendly now. Dino never left evidence and he never missed a target, and he’d made enough money by killing people to buy this little off-the-boardwalk casino in Atlantic City. After Jack saw his father shoot his aunt in the head, he’d been listening to his father’s calls, spying on his father’s meetings, trying to find anything he could turn over to the feds to get his father arrested and put away forever. He’d read FBI transcripts from other calls and meetings, and he knew the truth. His father loved nobody. His father loved nothing. Jack and Ginger and their mother—they were just social cover for The Hand and the dangerous crew who did his bidding. And now, with all the increased pressure from the feds, The Hand’s family had become inconvenient and dangerous.
“Do you want to know where they are, boy? Your mother and your sister? Show yourself. Talk to me and I’ll take you to them.”
God. Tears jumped to Jack’s eyes. Are they already dead? How did he find them? Jack felt like something was standing on his heart. He couldn’t stop sweating, and the Luger in his hand wouldn’t stop shaking.
No way his father had found Mom and Ginger. Jack had hidden them too well. The FBI—they’d already be picking them up at the location Jack had given, saving them, getting them out of Atlantic City and away from New Jersey and The Hand and his men, forever.
“It took balls to call me, Jack.” The Hand switched tones again, this time sounding like he did when he really, really wanted Jack to agree with him. “To tell me the truth about what you know, what you plan to do. I know you want to let me change your mind. Why’d you set up this meeting if you didn’t want to talk to me?”
Because as long as you’re alive, Mom and Ginger won’t be safe. Your little crew might look for them, but they won’t find a thing. You—you’d never stop.
That’s why Jack planned to kill his father, to hit the worst hit man in New Jersey mob history, but now that the asshole was almost here next to him, almost face-to-face—
He’s my father.
Jack lowered the Luger and held it against his right leg.
The hand that clamped on Jack’s left arm felt like solid iron. Cruel grip. Bruising, down to the bone. Was that emotion in his father’s frozen black eyes? The vault lighting and total panic played havoc with Jack’s senses. Was his father’s smile loving—or triumphant?
The cold barrel of the Heckler and Koch 9-millimeter against Jack’s temple gave a firm answer to that question.
The Hand held his gun on his left, but that didn’t matter. He could shoot either way, and he was deadly at any range, much less point-blank. “Where are they, boy?”
Jack drew a sudden breath. His eyes focused on the concrete wall a few feet in front of him, on the draped paintings leaning against that wall.
He doesn’t know where they are. Mom and Ginger are still safe. I’ll die, but they’ll be free.
He stopped shaking and tried to yank his arm free from his father’s grip. His father held fast.
The Hand didn’t fire. Instead, he smiled. “Balls, like I said.” He lowered his pistol, but not all the way. His fingers dug into Jack’s skin. “These people you think you’re friendly with, they’ve been confusing you. Ginger and your mom, too. Take me to them. We’ll work this out.”
For about three seconds, Jack wanted to believe him. He wanted to pretend he’d never heard his aunt gurgling as she died with his father’s bullet in her brain, that he’d never seen his father wrap her in a rug and carry her out like so much trash. Nobody had ever found her body.
Nobody would ever find his.
The world seemed to narrow to a few feet in a casino vault. Jack’s senses spun to high alert.
Maybe it was the flash of brutal glee in the bastard’s eye. Maybe Jack saw his father’s shoulder flex as he raised the 9-millimeter.
Jack shot his father in the face, just below his left eye.
The Hand’s bullet hit Jack in the side.
Jack fell, screaming and digging at the fiery, painful wound.
The Hand died on his feet before he ever fell, looking truly surprised, and—
Jack was back in Afghanistan. Back at the sweltering, blood-soaked mouth of the Valley of the Gods. He could smell the cat-piss stench of Rakshasa demons everywhere, only this time, he knew what they were. He knew the fuckers had killed
his men.
He knew they were coming for him just like The Hand. He was losing everything all over again. His family, his home. There was nothing. He had nothing. He was nothing. The life in him died. The will to live snuffed out. He gripped his weapon and stared at the swirling sand at the valley’s entrance.
He wanted only one thing now. Blood for blood. He wanted killing and he wanted death and he wanted …
Something else.
His grip on the hot stock loosened, and the rifle’s tip dipped.
He wanted …
Someone else.
For a few seconds, his hands seemed different. Older. Maybe stronger. No sunburn.
“Blackjack.”
The nickname punched into his awareness. His men used to call him that, in the war. But his men were dead. Most of them. John Cole had made it, and the few guys he’d held back with him from that expedition into the Valley of the Gods—Duncan Sharp and some younger guys. And back at operations, Saul and Cal would be waiting for him to check in, wouldn’t they?
God, I fucked this up. It’s over, and I fucked it up completely, just like Atlantic City.
Jack hadn’t died in that vault, but he’d lost his last name, his past, his home, and the mother and sister who’d gone into the federal witness protection program. Splitting the family was safer than sending them all together, and Jack was just a few months from adulthood. He’d already enlisted, so three months after The Hand died, with his shiny new Blackmore identity and credentials, Jack walked into basic training, an education, a career, and a destiny that finally seemed sterling and planned—until Afghanistan.
He felt like his guts were sliding out of his body, and the taste of sand and sweat filled his mouth.
He turned his head, glanced away from the valley, and saw a light that looked nothing like the ball-scorching sun he dealt with every day. Blue light, soft and cool, like the inside of a building. Maybe like water.
