by K. N. Banet
I tried Alvina first, my favorite of them all.
“Alvina’s office—”
I hung up when I got her secretary. I wasn’t sure why. It was instinctive. I didn’t want to talk to a secretary. I wanted to talk to a member of the Tribunal. There was a difference.
I scrolled through the names, realizing Alvina was the only one I was comfortable calling outright but considered Hasan’s name when I saw it. His son, Hisao, had trained me and pointed me towards being an Executioner. That little fact had amused Hasan the only time I’d met him. I trusted the son. Hisao was one of the very few people who terrified me, but I trusted implicitly with my life.
I hit Hasan’s name, taking a chance.
“Hasan speaking,” he said, honey practically dripping off the words. The old werecat oozed sex in two words, and that annoyed me.
“This is Kaliya Sahni, North American Tribunal Executioner—”
“What can I do for you?” he asked, his tone more professional. He hadn’t let me finish my sentence, another annoyance. “Has something happened to your charge?”
“No, something has happened, though. Tonight, I went to the prison for a review…” I trailed off as everything started to click together.
9
Chapter Nine
“Kaliya? What happened at the prison?” Laced with worry, Hasan’s voice didn’t fall on deaf ears. I heard him just fine.
I still didn’t answer for a long time, staring at the empty road ahead of me in the dim light of sunset. It was a wild assumption, but I was certain the breakout was planned to get me and Raphael killed. Certain enough, I didn’t trust telling the man on the phone. Certain enough, I assumed the only person I could trust was already in the car with me.
“Kaliya, answer me, or I’ll consider you compromised and send in someone to find you,” he finally snapped.
“There was a breakout,” I finally answered. “A breach on a massive scale. Both cell blocks were breached, and doors were opened. Tarak was killed, and Korey was the new Alpha by default when I got out. Eliphas was injured,” I explained, leaving a lot out for my own reasons. “I’ve already put Phoenix on a Code Black because their safety is priority.”
“Let me make some calls…” He sounded nearly as shocked as I had been the moment the wall was breached. “Good call on initiating Code Black. Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“Raphael was with me…because Cassius was called to the fae lands only a few days ago…” That filled me with dread. Once I got home, I planned on walking myself through the timeline, just to make sure I wasn’t insane. I didn’t feel insane. I knew I was in for a fight. The breakout didn’t kill me, but that didn’t mean the cleanup wouldn’t.
“There’ve been some challenges between the clan leaders. Leadership was called back due to the internal politics of the matter. There’s also going to be a wedding and however many funerals they need by the end of it.”
“How do you know?” I demanded, my hands shaking. Did I trust the father as much as the son? I needed to call Hisao. Having someone I could trust on the Tribunal would be a boon when I had no idea who else I could turn to. The problem was, asking Hisao could offend him and offending that werecat was probably worse than offending his father.
“I’m Hasan, leader of the werecats,” he answered enigmatically. It was answer enough. He had sources, and he wasn’t going to make me privy to them. “Get home, go on lockdown with your city. If this is the scope you make it seem, there won’t be much you can do to stop them all in Phoenix. I’ll make a plan of attack with the rest of the Tribunal. It’ll probably be a global effort.”
“I can tell you who wasn’t able to get out,” I finally offered. “I killed one of the werewolf twins in the northern cell block. You’ll need Korey to verify which one. Raphael and Dunter tangled. Raphael won. He’s dead, right?” I directed that last one at my new survival partner.
“Yes.” Raphael kept it short and sweet, all I needed.
“And we killed Erline before getting out. She tried to hunt us down,” I finished. “Injured Levi, but he tried to take us out with a tornado before we made it off the prison’s territory and through the security barriers. He’s definitely an active player in whatever the hall is going on.”
“And everyone else in the northern cell block is unaccounted for?” If I was Hasan, I would also be sounding a little shaky hearing this for the first time, so I didn’t hold it against him.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Get home, lock down, protect yourself. Hopefully, most won’t stay and cause trouble in Phoenix. If they try to go to ground, well, we’ve caught them once, we can catch them again.”
“Do you really think I should hide?” Part of me wanted to do my job, even knowing this was too big to do on my own. There was no way I would be able to catch all of them and survive to tell the tale. There were other Executioners and Investigators out there who could help. Part of me wanted to hide. A very small, smart part of me knew this was bigger than I could manage, and I shouldn’t try to do it all.
“Yes. Now, I’m going to let you go. I’ll send word when I’ve briefed the Tribunal and we’ve contacted the Wardens. Any updates I get, you’ll get.”
He hung up on me. I wasn’t annoyed by that.
“What now?” Raphael asked softly as we watched the sun go down and leave us driving in the dark.
“We hide and weather the storm,” I answered. “Raphael—”
“You think this had something to do with us,” he finished for me. “So do I.”
“I’m glad we’re both paranoid enough to get to the same conclusion. If Cassius gets back to us, we tell him nothing, is that clear?”
“You don’t trust him?” That confused my partner more than I wanted. I had hoped he would understand.
“I trust Cassius. I don’t trust his wife. I don’t know her, and I’m only just learning what sort of reputation she has with her own people. On top of that, let’s put some things together. Dian, the fae Warden, wasn’t here for this. Next, our two local noble fae were called back only a few days before I was asked to go. A breakout of this scale had to take months to plan, or it would have been impossible. Next, it was definitely an inside job. We know that Eliphas’ second in command took his eyes.”
“Really?”
“Kartane is his second, yes. Moving on, Tarak was killed. Now, I don’t know if Korey is part of this, but she sent us into the building, and that’s where we ran into Erline. Levi tried to kill me twice, and you once by proxy being in this car. I don’t know who we can trust right now, and I’m not taking any chances. If Cassius gets back to us, we tell him we’ve locked down and leave it at that. We won’t go to his house; we won’t be vulnerable around him. We don’t know who might be watching him or who he might think it’s safe to report to. I trust his loyalty and honor, but those things aren’t exclusive to me.”
“So, we’re in this on our own,” Raphael finished, looking away.
“From what I can tell. If this was planned just to kill us as collateral damage and ties into something else, we’ll get out of it easily enough. That’s what I’m hoping for, but…”
“But we need to watch our backs until we know for sure.” He nodded a couple of times before turning back to me. “I’m with you all the way.”
“Thanks.”
We drove in silence as I tried not to let what he said touch my heart. He was probably considering his own survival, and I had already proven my skill at keeping him alive, even if I couldn’t fucking save anyone else.
When we entered the city, I drove by different venues I knew of. The Jackalope was closed, windows dark. I hoped Paden was already home. I drove by the vampire nest and the club they ran, thankful the club was dark as well. Even the entrance to The Market was missing. Not just locked to outsiders, but completely gone.
Finally, I pulled into the parking garage for my building and sighed.
“Is there anything we need to stay inside for a
few days without dying?” I asked him, not turning off the car yet. “I’ll run and get it while you get inside.”
“I stocked up on groceries a few days ago, so we have enough food. Everything else is yours to deal with.”
I knew he meant ammo and other potentially necessary defensive items.
“We’re fine then,” I decided, cutting off the engine. He jumped out first, and I wasn’t sure what to think of his weird decision to check the halls and walk in front of me. “Let’s take the service elevator instead of the main one,” I said softly, pointing him to a closed door. “That way, we shouldn’t run into humans, smelling and looking the way we do.” I was pretty sure we smelled like smoke, and Raphael was covered in dried blood.
He nodded, and we went into the service area of the building, which had its own elevator for the building staff. I had special permission to use it when needed from the building owner, so management wouldn’t get onto me. Thankfully, the building owner also made sure there were no security cameras in this area because of my extracurricular activities.
When we were on my floor, I checked the entry hall before unlocking my home and letting Raphael go in first. It wasn’t until I was in the door that my frazzled mind remembered the bags I left in the BMW.
“I’ll be right back!”
I jogged out, took the elevator back down, grabbed the bags from the trunk, then hauled ass back upstairs, anxious about leaving Raphael alone. On the flip side, I couldn’t leave a bunch of weapons in my car for anyone to find if they passed by.
Once I was upstairs again, I saw Raphael in his customary place in my kitchen, already diving through things.
“I’m making food,” he announced as I got closer. His shirt was already changed, and the blood on his arms was gone. If he had been injured, he was already healed. He wasn’t completely clean with dust in his hair and more blood and dust on his pants, but he’d made an effort. “Anything you want to eat?”
“Anything pasta. Do you mind if I shower while you cook?” I put the bags on the counter. He shook his head when he saw me, and I was grateful. I didn’t like smelling like an explosion. “If you need anything to protect yourself in those twenty minutes, I’ll be unavailable, so check in here. I need to bandage and clean up.”
I used my cellphone to access the condo’s security system and locked down. Metal closed over the windows and doors, all unusable until I lifted the lockdown. I turned the entire two-story home into a safe room. In addition, I had a safe room in the condo, just in case there was someone capable of getting in.
“Thanks.” He looked at the windows, sighing. “Thanks,” he repeated softly.
I walked out of the room, taking a deep breath as I made my way to my room. I cleaned up my jaw, hissing as I wiped the deep cut from Erline. The fact that I was still alive was the only positive. The two-inch-long slice would scar. It wouldn’t be hard to fix after it healed, but it would piss me off until then. I hadn’t been careful enough. I used tissue glue and tape to keep it closed then shoved my first aid kit back in the bottom cabinet, knowing I had better things to think about than Erline, who was very dead now.
Beyond that cut, I had to admit, right after the explosion, the werewolf had hit me pretty good, bruising my cheek and jawline. I wasn’t swelling up as a normal person would, at least not as much, but that was only a small boon. The rest of it was a nightmare to look at. My shoulders, back, and ribs were all a sick patchwork of scrapes and bruises, and the back of my head was already forming a considerably sized bump.
“I need a healer,” I said, talking to myself as I stared in the mirror. “I can’t go out like this. I’ll be slower than normal, and…” I hit my hand on the bathroom counter, pissed off at everything. “Did I buy any of that fucking ointment Cassius swears by? Fuck, I hope I did.”
I shuffled through my cabinets, hoping I kept some on hand. I found it in the back of a drawer. I whispered my thanks to the universe and cracked it open. It stank, but I was about to shower, so that didn’t bother me. I rubbed it over every bruise. It wasn’t the most powerful healing ointment around, but it had pain-relieving properties and reduced swelling and bruising better than most things. It absorbed into the skin and the magic started taking effect quickly.
I tried to shower quickly, but I kept pausing and losing focus on what I was doing. Everything was tumbling around my head as I went through the timeline over and over. It didn’t help that I wasn’t well stretched, and every bruised muscle I had was trying to seize.
We went out with Cassius, and he told us he was going to the fae lands with Sorcha. I got a call from Tarak, saying the Tribunal was demanding an up-to-date review of the prison. Callahan had been getting onto him, but there was probably more. Something about Hasan making the Tribunal clean up their act. Dian, another fae and a Warden, was called back to the fae lands. Alvina had been unreachable even though I had called her private number.
Everything lined up neatly, almost too neatly. I was even skipping over some problems like Kartane attacking Eliphas. Did that have anything to do with the breach, or was it opportunistic? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure I could even get the answers, but I wanted them. Everything had happened so fast and led to a hundred questions, and I wanted answers.
By the time I got out of the shower, it had been thirty minutes. I cut the water, dried off, and had started getting dressed when I heard Raphael scream, not in fear but shock.
“Kaliya, what are you doing?”
That made me straighten up. I finished pulling on the shirt in my hands and walked out of the bedroom. When I reached the entry to the kitchen, I frowned.
“I’m not doing anything…” I said carefully, watching him spin by himself in the kitchen.
When his eyes landed on me, they went big and started to turn black. The black veins began to radiate out, telling me something was wrong.
“Then who’s crawling up the back of my shirt?” he asked, standing so still I would have thought he met Medusa and was turned into stone.
It took an extra second for his words to register.
“Don’t move,” I ordered softly.
A bold green on green patterned snake emerged from the collar of his shirt and wrapped around his neck twice, then rose up. When its eyes met mine, its hood flared open, revealing a bold yellow pattern that seemed like eyes. It was a display of aggression toward me—a warning.
I knew a naga’s snake form when I saw one, and the vibrant yellow with that specific hood pattern told me who I was dealing with.
“Nakul, if you want to live through the night, you’ll leave Raphael unharmed,” I warned, trying to keep my voice steady. I was hoping two things—Nakul took me seriously and Raphael was immune to all nagas or at least wouldn’t die a painful death, even if his healing was torturous.
10
Chapter Ten
None of us moved for a long time, then Nakul moved all the way out of Raphael’s shirt, and there was a man holding a gun to Raphael’s head. Where he got a gun, I could reasonably guess, and it gave me a strong feeling as to how he got into my home.
“I’m here to help,” my uncle said softly. “But until you understand that, I’m going to keep this here.”
“Let me guess. In the mayhem of the breach and the escape, you got to my car, snaked into one of my bags, and hid there. And now that we’re here, you suddenly want to help since you realized I’d locked the entire condo down—no one in and no one out. You’re trapped and could have starved if not for revealing yourself. Or I would have found and killed you, eventually.”
“I knew you would find me, but I took advantage of your focus on getting away and into a safe location to hitch a ride, yes.” He nodded sharply. “Now, niece, we need to talk.”
“You…said as much at the prison when I was passing your cell,” I remembered, frowning. “What are you into this time?”
“It’s not about what I’m into, it’s about what you’re into. You’ve pissed off some powerful people,
and they started pulling strings. You were supposed to die in the prison.”
“How do you know that?” I demanded, trying to keep my cool.
“Because they asked me to do it,” he answered simply.
Why am I not surprised?
“And? Are you going to try now or later? I don’t really have time to watch over my shoulder with you in my house. If you want to kill me, we might as well get this out of the way.” I didn’t have patience. If I was going to be dealing with people trying to kill me, I needed to get started with the why. The longer I let that question linger, the harder it would be to answer. I looked at Raphael’s black eyes and knew my own reasoning, but I already didn’t like how many unanswered questions there were around us. I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.
I can beat Nakul. He’s honestly one of the easier fights for me—a small boon.
“I obviously said no,” my uncle snapped. “Why in the gods’ names would I kill my niece and the last adult nagini?”
“Because I threw you in prison. Well, actually, Adhar threw you in prison to keep me from killing you,” I reminded him. “Honestly, I wish you were dead right now after all the terrible things you did.”
“I was out of my mind. Eliphas helped me regain my sanity, and I don’t plan on wasting it by killing my niece,” he said, exhaustion weighing down on him. I could see it in the lines of his sagging proud shoulders and the way his hard face softened. “I did do terrible things, but right now, I’m just trying to help the last real family I have. And our species. You can’t get killed. I won’t allow it.”
“We’re not family,” I whispered. “Not in any way that matters.” Nakul and I hadn’t had a real conversation since I was a child. When we saw each other after I became an Executioner and he was an insane serial killer, it had been close to seventy-five years since a family dinner when I was young. We most definitely didn’t talk.
