by Jenna Black
Anderson looked anything but convinced, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. If I were an ordinary human being, or even an ordinary Liberi, my chances of finding the killer with so little information would be almost nil. But I wasn’t an ordinary human being, not anymore.
“Look, it may still be a long shot,” I said, “but what do we have to lose by trying?”
Anderson thought about it a little more, then came to a decision. “All right. We’ll go stake out the cemetery tonight.”
“We?” I’d known he wouldn’t let me go alone, and with his ability to kill Liberi, Anderson seemed like a logical choice to go with me, but something about the way he said it told me he didn’t mean just him and me. “Who’s we?”
“All of us,” Anderson said, and my jaw dropped. “We can cover a lot more ground if we all go together and then split up.”
“But I’m the only one who’s got a realistic shot at finding him. Maybe.”
“Your shot at finding him doesn’t get any worse if the rest of us are there looking, too, and our chances of actually catching him are a lot better. We don’t know what he can do, and I’m not sure what it’ll take to subdue him.”
It was then that I realized the very important question I had so far failed to ask, had failed even to contemplate. “What are we going to do with him if and when we catch him?”
Anderson was the only one of us who could actually kill a Liberi, but I knew without asking that he wouldn’t do it. For reasons I didn’t understand—and was too fond of being alive to want to delve into—Anderson didn’t want anyone to know who and what he actually was. Even Emma didn’t know, and I doubted her finding out the truth would make their marriage any smoother. What Anderson saw in her—other than beauty—was beyond me.
“First, we’ll question him and see how much of what the Olympians told us was the truth. There’s nothing he can say to excuse what he’s done, but if the Olympians are hiding something, I think it’s important we find out what it is.”
I had to agree, though given the ferocity of the killer’s attacks, I wasn’t sure how much reliable information we could get out of him. He seemed several eggs short of a dozen to me.
“Okay, so we question him,” I said. “If we can. Then what?”
Anderson looked at me warily, and I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever was coming next. “Then we hand him over to the Olympians.”
I was right: I didn’t like it.
“No way in hell I’m handing anyone over to those sons of bitches,” I said in what I hoped was a calm voice.
I thought my statement might piss Anderson off, but there was no sign of it.
“What do you suggest we do instead?”
And that, of course, was the problem. Dogboy couldn’t be allowed to run around ripping innocent bystanders to shreds, and Anderson wouldn’t tip his hand by killing him.
“We can lock him up,” I said weakly, though I already knew the suggestion sucked. We had some rooms in the basement that were basically prison cells, but it wasn’t like we were equipped to be the killer’s eternal prison guards.
“It’s really hard to keep a death god descendant locked up. Most of them can walk through walls and doors.”
I sighed. “And fences,” I murmured, remembering Jamaal’s demonstration at the reservoir.
“If we can’t contain him, then we have to kill him. And we’re not equipped to do that.”
He gave me a meaningful look, and I swallowed my desire to argue. “So we hand him over to the Olympians, and they have one of their pet Descendants kill him, and now they have a new Liberi under their thumb.”
“I’ll admit it’s not an ideal solution,” Anderson said. “But it’s the best we’ve got.”
Anger burned in my chest, and I fought to hold it back. That wasn’t the best solution we had, and we both knew it. Death-by-Anderson was not a pleasant fate, and I hated the thought of putting anyone through it, but better that than to hand the Olympians a new Liberi on a silver platter. Not to mention that from what I’d heard, the Olympians weren’t exactly into clean kills themselves.
“Why won’t you—”
“Do not go there!” Anderson warned, and the steel in his voice told me in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t open to discussion.
I bit my tongue, but it was hard. Generally, I liked Anderson. When I was able to see him as something other than my boss or a god, he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and I respected his mission to make the world a better place. If it weren’t for him, every descendant of a Greek deity in this mansion—me, Maggie, Blake, Emma, and Leo—would have been forced either to join the Olympians or forfeit our immortality to one of the Olympians’ pet Descendants. Those descended from other pantheons—Jack, Jamaal, and Logan—would have been killed, their immortality “harvested” for someone the Olympians considered more worthy. And let’s not even talk about all the hidden Liberi and their Descendant families Anderson had helped.
Anderson was one of the good guys, but right now, I thought he was being a coward.
I didn’t say that out loud, of course, but I didn’t make any particular effort to keep my opinion from showing on my face.
Anderson and I stared at each other in a silent battle of wills. Ordinarily, I’d bet on myself anytime, but to my shame, I looked away first. I could never unlearn what I’d found out about him, and I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to stand up to him the way I thought I should again.
SIX
We headed out toward the Rock Creek Cemetery at about ten o’clock. To my surprise, when Anderson had said we were all going, he’d really meant all. Even Emma joined us, though it was clear she’d rather have stayed home and let us do all the work. She had little interest in fighting evil—unless that evil was Konstantin.
It was way earlier than any of the previous attacks had occurred, but there was always hope—however faint—that we might be able to find and capture Dogboy before he struck. Anderson had assigned us to teams of two, with Leo, our immortal accountant and nonfighter, tacked on to one of the teams as a third wheel. I’d argued against him coming, but he was another warm body, and it was theoretically possible he could be helpful. Maybe he could capture our killer and bore him to death with talk of managed futures.
Anderson teamed me up with Jamaal again, but I didn’t mind quite so much. Jamaal had been perfectly civil to me on our mission the day before; and besides, if you have to prowl a cemetery in the middle of the night, having a super-intimidating death goddess descendant by your side is the way to go.
As Anderson had said, the Rock Creek Cemetery was huge. As if that wasn’t enough death to choke anyone, there was also the National Cemetery right across from its southeastern border. Both cemeteries were surrounded by spiky iron fences, but it wouldn’t be particularly hard for a determined trespasser to get over them.
Each team was assigned a section to patrol. Something about the stretch of Rock Creek Road that ran between the two cemeteries called to me, so Jamaal and I took that as the focus of our surveillance. We’d determined that my supernatural aim made me the most likely to take the killer down without too much of a struggle, so my .38 Special was tucked in my coat pocket. It was about as creepy a section of road as I could imagine, with the National Cemetery and its regular pattern of small rectangular headstones on one side and the Rock Creek Cemetery with its more varied headstones and mausoleums on the other. The streetlights made a feeble attempt to light the darkness, but there were enough pools of deep shadow to make anyone uncomfortable.
The night wasn’t particularly cold, although there was a chill wind that made me long for a cup of hot chocolate in front of a crackling fire. Jamaal wasn’t much of a talker, so our first hour of surveillance went by with nary a word between us to break the eerie silence. There was occasional traffic on the street, but the later it got, the longer the gaps between cars, and the sense of isolation made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. We weren’t actually in a cemetery, but my lizard
brain didn’t much appreciate the distinction.
After the first hour, Jamaal broke out the clove cigarettes. He smoked with quiet intensity. Usually, the cigarettes seemed to be good at helping take the edge off, but he still seemed kind of agitated when he stubbed the butt out. I wasn’t entirely surprised to see him light another about five minutes later.
“What do you think the significance of the cemeteries is?” I asked Jamaal when I couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “Why does the killer attack near them?”
He blew out a steady stream of smoke before answering. “They may call to him. Maybe he feels most at home among the dead.”
“Could it have anything to do with his death magic? I mean, do you think it’s, I don’t know, powered by the cemeteries or something?”
He shook his head, making the beads at the ends of his braids click and rattle. “I don’t know any more about this guy or how his power works than you do.” There was an edge to his voice, like maybe my questions were getting on his nerves. He took another deep drag on his cigarette. “I’m descended from Kali, not Anubis.”
“Yeah, but they’re both death gods, and—”
“And death gods all look the same to you?”
I came to an abrupt halt and stared at him. Was he really suggesting there was something racist about my questions? I noticed the fingers of his free hand were twitching slightly. I didn’t think that meant anything good.
I held up my hands innocently. “Whoa. Remember, I’ve only been a Liberi for a few weeks,” I said, keeping my voice calm instead of snapping at him as I was tempted to do. “I don’t know as much about the gods or about magic as the rest of you, and I never will if I don’t ask questions. I didn’t mean to offend you, if that’s what I did.”
Jamaal’s eyes glittered in the darkness, and my pulse began a slow and steady rise. If he was going to lose his grip on his temper, I was in deep shit. We were smack dab in the middle of the stretch of road between the two cemeteries, with no possibility of anyone hearing if I yelled for help. Not that I would yell for help against Jamaal if it was possible civilians might come to my aid.
Before I had a chance to get too worked up, Jamaal closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. He held it for a moment, then let it out slowly. When his eyes opened again, his hand had stopped twitching, and he no longer looked like he was irrationally pissed off at me.
“Sorry,” he said softly, hanging his head. “I’m getting the feeling hanging around the cemeteries for so long isn’t such a great idea for me. It’s making me … edgy.” He took one last long draw on his cigarette, then used the glowing butt to light another.
I was pretty sure he was feeling ashamed of his weakness, but I had to wonder how much of it was his fault. Did being around so many dead people make his death magic long to come out and play? He had trouble controlling it under the best of circumstances.
I took my life in my hands and decided to try a little humor to lighten the mood. “And this is different from the norm how, exactly?”
He gave me a rueful smile, and my pulse blipped from something other than fear. Jamaal with a smile on his face was enough to make any red-blooded woman swoon.
“I’m sure there’s room for one more grave in there,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the Rock Creek Cemetery.
I blinked. “Wait a minute. Did you just make a joke?” Jamaal had the sense of humor of an angry bear.
“Who says I was joking? Now, let’s keep moving. And save the Q and A for sometime I’m not surrounded by the dead.”
We resumed our pattern, walking up one side of the road, then crossing when we got to the end and taking the other side on the way back. The moon was close enough to full to give us some light, but the place still felt oppressively dark. And Jamaal’s body language was getting progressively more tense. Despite his chain-smoking, I saw no sign that the clove cigarettes were helping the situation.
“Are you okay?” I asked tentatively, afraid the question would set him off.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he rattled his beads again. “I’m sick of all this useless wandering around. I want to do something.”
No doubt about it, he wasn’t in as much control as he had been just a few minutes ago. If I didn’t think it would make him blow up, I’d have suggested he head back to the car and take a break for a while. There was a light sheen of sweat on his face despite the bracing wind, and he’d picked up his pace, covering so much ground with his long strides I could barely keep up. I could practically feel the … something … within him that was struggling to burst out.
“We should be hunting the killer,” Jamaal continued, “not just hoping to stumble on him by pure luck.”
“We’re hunting the best we can with so little information to go on,” I reminded him. “And there’s a luck factor to—”
“Goddammit, Nikki! Shut up!” He was panting now, both hands clenched into fists. He looked as feral as he had the day before during our brief confrontation with the kids.
I’d have obliged him, except I’d been quiet for most of our watch, and that hadn’t stopped his control from decaying.
“How can I help?” I asked instead. He was as twitchy as an addict desperate for a fix, and I suspected he was about as unpredictable. He was also infinitely more dangerous.
A growl rose from his throat. “You can’t.”
And then he disappeared into thin air.
I had a sense of motion off to my left, and though I looked in that direction, I couldn’t see anything. I heard Jamaal’s braids rattling, and I used the sound to track his motion as he either leapt over or went straight through the fence and into the cemetery.
“Jamaal!” I called, but he didn’t answer, and the sound of clicking braids faded. “Dammit!”
I didn’t know where he was going. Maybe even he didn’t know where he was going. With my subconscious tracking skills, I could probably follow him, but I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to catch him. Whatever progress he’d made toward becoming sane and rational seemed to have fled him completely, and the effect had obviously grown worse the longer we’d been near the cemeteries. I hoped to God it would fade once we got him out of here. Assuming we could.
I might not have known where Jamaal was or where he was going, but what I did know was that I was standing in the dark all alone with a cemetery on both sides of me. Immortal or not, this was not a situation in which I felt even remotely comfortable. I dug my phone out of my coat pocket. I hated to tattle on Jamaal and tell Anderson he’d wigged out on me, but I didn’t see that I had much choice.
I’d just turned on the phone when I heard the sound of running feet behind me. My first thought was that it was Jamaal coming back, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I shoved the phone back into my pocket, wanting both hands free to defend myself if Jamaal had gone completely berserk, but when I whirled around, the running figure I saw was not Jamaal.
He was approaching from Allison Street, which led to one of the residential areas near the cemeteries, and he was running full speed, arms pumping like mad, coattails flapping behind him. He tried to turn the other way on Rock Creek Church—away from the cemeteries—but something spooked him, and he let out a strangled cry. Then he was running between the cemeteries. Straight toward me.
I got a quick look at him when he passed under one of the streetlights. A tall, well-built white male with dark hair and a matching beard and mustache. His eyes were wide with terror, and I knew he was running for his life. I even had a guess what he was running from, only there was no one else in sight. No dogs, either. Just this one guy, running.
I reached into my other coat pocket, drawing out the extremely illegal concealed weapon I was carrying. Too bad I didn’t see anything to shoot at. I took a step toward our would-be victim, thinking I was going to feel like an idiot if he was just some asshole on a bad drug trip.
“Where are they?” I called to him, making sure not to point my gun straight at him.<
br />
His eyes went even wider, and I had the feeling he hadn’t even seen me until I’d spoken.
“Help me!” he cried desperately as he pumped his legs even harder. Then he came to an abrupt stop, practically falling on his ass as he ground his shoes into the grassy earth that bounded the cemetery.
Just like I saw nothing to explain why he was running, I saw nothing to explain why he’d stopped. Until he screamed, that is.
A shadowy shape coalesced out of the darkness, leaping through the air. The shape was little more than a blot in the darkness until it crashed into the victim, when it became a medium-sized dog that looked like a small wolf. A coyote, maybe. It clamped its jaws around the guy’s arm, and even a solid blow to its muzzle didn’t dislodge it.
Another shape flew through the air at him, and I fired at it. The creature went insubstantial again in midair, and my bullet passed harmlessly through where it had been. The other, however, had a firm grip on the victim’s arm, snarling and shaking its head as he screamed in pain and terror.
I took aim at the creature … coyote … whatever the hell it was. Despite knowing my aim was infallible, I hesitated before pulling the trigger, afraid to shoot at something that was so close to the victim, but I figured I didn’t have much of a choice. I couldn’t see any more of them coming, but I knew they were there, that we would soon be overwhelmed.
I squeezed the trigger, and this time, the coyote stayed nice and solid. The bullet hit it square in the head, and the man was finally able to shake it off his arm. The coyote landed limply on the pavement, but I saw no sign of blood except for that on its muzzle.
The man climbed to his feet, breath sawing in and out of his lungs as blood soaked the arm of his coat. I hurried to help him, knowing he had to be in dire pain. I kept a careful eye on the coyote as I slipped past it. Its eyes were closed, its tongue extended through bloodied teeth.
