Cast Into Darkness (27 page)

And what had brought him into such a fucked-up situation? Ah, yes. There was more than time enough to consider what he’d found in the tree house and stashed in his pocket. He reached inside and fingered the smooth surface of the pearl buttons ripped from Kate’s shirt.

He had business with Dmitri.

He rounded the courtyard and found his cousin lying on the floor of the columned portico at the rear of the house, where the automatic retrieval spell in his talisman had brought him as soon as Kristof had taken down Victor’s teleport block. Still out cold. He bent down and gave Dmitri a hard slap.

Dmitri groaned and opened his eyes, blinking against the harsh sunlight.

“Wake up. We have things to discuss.”

“Are they gone? Did you get the stone? What happened?”

Kristof grabbed Dmitri by the front of his shirt, jerking him to his feet. Dmitri’s eyes still had a slight glaze to them—the aftereffects of the stun spell.

His hand tightened on Dmitri’s shirt. “You’re going to tell me exactly what you did. Leave nothing out.”

Pulling a struggling Dmitri with him, he walked off the intricate green-and-blue mosaic tiles that mirrored the frescoed ceiling and threw Dmitri down on the stone courtyard.

Kristof circled around his cousin, his hands fingering the pearl buttons in his pocket.

“Tell me. How did you lose a Null in under an hour? She bash you over the head with a bottle? Or did she scratch you with her nails?”

Dmitri got to his feet and brushed the dirt off of his jeans. His eyes held his customary sharpness—the glazed look was gone.

“She had help.”

“I told you she might. Was it too much for you to handle?”

“No. It wasn’t a problem. Dylan Pearce was there when I took her. I knocked him out, but he must have traced the teleport.”

Kristof stopped pacing. “That’s impossible. No one can trace a teleport through that many blind routings.”

“Pearce did.”

“How?”

“How should I know? I was busy dealing with the girl.” He leaned back against a stone column. “She put up quite a fight.”

“I told you not to hurt her.”

“Hey, I didn’t do anything. I just asked her if she wanted to play.” He smirked, then a frown settled on his face. “She wasn’t so enthusiastic about it.”

Kristof’s hand clenched around the buttons in his pocket.

“Then she pulled a nasty little trick and burned me. It must have been an incendiary device of some kind.” Dmitri shrugged. “Got me with my guard down. I wasn’t expecting a Null to fight back.”

“I bet you couldn’t handle it when she did.”

Dmitri’s cheeks flushed a deep scarlet. Then he took a step toward Kristof, hands balled into fists. Kristof locked his gaze on Dmitri, and Dmitri stopped. His cousin’s arms were red and blistered, even after whatever healing spell he must have done. Incendiary device? Not likely.

“So you tried to assault her and she burned you? Good for her. What happened next?”

The smirk crept back on Dmitri’s face. “I had to teach the little bitch a lesson, didn’t I?”

“What did you do to her?” Kristof’s fist spasmed.

“I gave her a taste of the latest version of my pain spell.” He chuckled. “She took it for longer than anyone else has. I wonder if it’ll leave permanent damage.”

A red haze fell over Kristof’s vision. His body moved of its own volition, his fist shooting forward and striking Dmitri in the face. He watched as Dmitri fell to the ground. Stepping forward, he grabbed his cousin’s shirt, lifting him up. His fist smacked Dmitri—two, three times, each impact a loud
crack
that echoed across the courtyard. He was aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, of Dmitri’s wildly flailing fists, his cries, his own bloody knuckles. He had no idea if any of Dmitri’s punches landed. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that the throbbing pain in his fist cleared his mind. The haze receded. He dropped Dmitri to the ground and backed away.

What the hell was he doing?

He stared down at Dmitri’s bruised and bleeding face. Shit. Dmitri would retaliate. And the retaliation wouldn’t stop. Unless Kristof made it clear, once and for all, who was fit to be heir.

“I gave you strict orders not to harm her. You disobeyed me.”

“I don’t care what you ‘told’ me to do. I don’t report to you.” Dmitri got up and wiped the blood from his mouth. A flicker of jade-and-silver energy crept around the edge of Dmitri’s hand, the cloaked spell barely visible to Kristof’s magesight. Kristof got his own spell ready, hiding it from Dmitri’s view.

“When you’re on a mission you do what you’re told. If you can’t follow orders, you’re useless. You might as well be a Null.”

Fire rose in Dmitri’s eyes, a split second before Dmitri let loose his spell. A ball of green-and-silver lightning struck Kristof, arcing off the bright-blue glow of the special, reflective shield that sprang into place around him.

The ball boomeranged to its maker. Dmitri screamed as his own pain spell hit him, his back arching in agony, hands clutching his head as his fingers tore at his eyes in anguish.

How long should I let Dmitri enjoy a taste of his own spell?
A smile flashed across Kristof’s face.
A long time. Just like he did to Kate.

A single pair of hands clapped three times, echoing through the walkways of the courtyard. Kristof spun around. His father, expressing his appreciation for Kristof’s brutality, his two bodyguards flanking him.

“Very nice, my son. Turn off the spell while your cousin still has a brain cell left.”

Kristof hesitated but a moment, then ended the spell with a snap of his fingers. Dmitri whimpered, a long, low sound.

“Now heal him.”

“No.”

“Perhaps you did not hear me, my son. Heal him. If you want your Hamilton girl healed.”

Kristof closed his eyes for a moment. Then he stepped to Dmitri, knelt, and took his head in his hands.

I could cave his head in with a kinetic punch. Or slice his throat open with a kinetic knife spell. No one could stop me. Not my father, his bodyguards, and not Dmitri.

Then he thought about Kate, suffering the aftereffects of Dmitri’s spell alone with Melina and whomever else his father had sent to watch her. He tapped out the healing spell. The warm, amber light flowed down from his hands into Dmitri’s head, and slowly, the moaning grew softer. When his magesight showed that Dmitri’s aura was in balance again, Kristof stopped.

“Leave him. Come and sit by me. We have much to talk about.” His father motioned to a pair of hovering servants to take Dmitri away.

Kristof obeyed, following his father to the portico.
How much of my betrayal did he see through the talisman? Is he planning to have me killed, here, now? I should run while I can.

All that might be true, but the paranoia creeping through his head from the two spells he’d cast was spreading lies as well as truth. Papa wouldn’t kill him—yet. Not after he’d brought back the stone.

He sat across from his father on one side of a weathered cedar table. His fingers picked at its splintered edge, and he wondered how much the old man had seen through the monitor talisman, of Dmitri’s little game with Kate. He certainly hadn’t stopped it. Maybe he had even ordered it. His father could always let Dmitri take the fall for any charges the Hamiltons brought against them for the assault. But at the same time, his father had found a clever way to twist his knife even deeper into Kristof and watch him squirm.

His father tapped him sharply on the chest. “I’m disappointed in you. You risked the stone to go after the girl.”

Kristof straightened, smoothing his clothes back into place. He needed to spin events for his father, keep him as far away from the truth as possible. “I still hadn’t heard from Dmitri. The Hamiltons broke their word. They attacked me. I—”

“Yes, convenient how their attack shorted out my monitor talisman, wasn’t it? It isn’t like the Hamiltons to break a truce, especially when we have such a valuable hostage.” His father drummed his fingers on his chair and regarded Kristof. “Why didn’t you come straight here with the stone?”

“Dmitri missed his check-in. He hadn’t delivered Kate to the rendezvous. Something had to be wrong. I needed to—”

“Don’t try to convince me you were concerned for your cousin.”

“Dmitri’s recklessness could have sunk the entire mission.”

“How? You’d already gotten the stone. The girl didn’t matter after that, did she?”

Damn. He wasn’t even convincing himself with these excuses.
“I’d given Grayson Hamilton my word to return Kate in exchange for the stone. I wasn’t going to let Dmitri break it for me.”

“Dmitri, Dmitri. This is not about Dmitri.” His father shook his head. “You led the mission. You were responsible. Ah, Kristof, you are learning, but not fast enough. What do I have to do to show you how to manage Dmitri? Look over there.” He pointed to where an unconscious Dmitri was being tended to by two servants. “Now, after today, he may respect you. You punished him when he disobeyed you. You have shown him you are faster, more brutal, than he is. That is what it takes to be a leader.”

Kristof stared down at the blood on his fist, then glanced over at Dmitri, still moaning in pain. How many times had it been Kristof laying on the stone floor, his father standing over him? No. Whatever that was, it wasn’t leadership.

“Despite your other errors in judgment, I am proud of how you handled Dmitri’s disobedience. You are finally understanding what it means to lead this family.” His father smiled, a smile that spread darkness from the sharp points of his teeth to the red pinpricks of light deep in his eyes. “It mitigates some of my concerns about you.”

He motioned to his servants. They swept in and set down a bottle of ouzo and two glasses, poured a splash of the clear liquid in each, and backed away. His father held up his glass.

“To success. May the Makris family always find it, and may the Hamiltons always lose it.” He drank and slammed his glass on the table.

Kristof picked up his glass. He downed it all in one shot. The liquor burned his throat and he struggled not to cough. But it cleared the rage from his head. He could no longer afford it.

“Today you succeeded, my son. Despite yourself. You took unnecessary risks. One mistake, one, and we would have lost everything.” His father slapped Kristof across the face, hard, the
smack
echoing across the portico.

Kristof took the hit, the pain stinging his cheek, and stared straight ahead, expressionless.

“You are too young to remember what it was like when your grandfather ruled. Chaos. Weakness. Failure. After he lost half our arsenal to the damned Americans, I gained the support of the Synedrion and overthrew him. Showed them what a strong hand at the wheel could do. But the damage was already done. The Delacroixes had taken half of Italy. The Adelekes seized the Sudan. Even the Guptas made incursions into Iran. It’s taken years to regain what he lost, and even now we have yet to take back Rome.”

This was hardly the first time Kristof had heard his father recount family history, but he had no choice but to listen. His father seemed to think he would learn something from the lesson.

“That is why—” his father leaned forward and poked Kristof’s chest “—you must…not… risk…
the stone
. I won’t let Hamilton get another artifact that should be ours. Especially not one as powerful as this.” He stood. “Hamilton cares more about his daughter than the stone. Watch and learn. I will use the girl to force a retreat, and we will be able to wield the stone’s powers without any hindrance from the Hamiltons.”

Kristof frowned. “Won’t they file charges? Gain allies against us? We kidnapped her against the Rules—”

“No. She’s a caster. And they hid it, somehow. They have no cause to complain about us breaking the Rules.”

“Then they’ll protest what Dmitri did.” Kristof remembered the pearl buttons, still in his pocket. “And the spell he used.”

His father shrugged. “Let them. I don’t care. It won’t get them the girl back.”

His father smiled, a dark look that froze Kristof’s heart. “Don’t concern yourself with her. You have more important things to worry about. The security of this estate, for one. Melina will be too busy with the stone to monitor the grid. Take over for her. Now.”

Kristof obeyed, concentrating until he could feel the estate’s security grid thrumming in his senses like the smooth hum of his Ferrari’s engine. The force boundary, the teleport blocks, the cloaking talismans, everything seemed to be fine.

A sudden flare against the boundary. His eyes shot open. A simple probe, nothing the grid couldn’t handle. He relaxed.

“You feel it? The Hamiltons.” His father grimaced. “They’ll try something, in the next day or two, as soon as they realize they’re getting nowhere at the negotiation table. Be prepared, and make sure our security forces are ready.”

“I’ll need backup. Anton—”

His father waved a negligent hand.

Kristof pushed the wooden chair back and stood.

“And Kristof, make that your only concern for the next few days. Leave Hamilton’s daughter to Melina. If I hear that you’ve interfered… Well, you know how inhospitable this estate can be to the girl, if I so choose.”

“Yes, Papa.”
I will tear your heart out and grind your bones into dust, old man, if you put her in the Pit. I swear it.

He watched his father walk into the old estate house, his bodyguards following.

Your bodyguards won’t save you, the Synedrion won’t save you. And if I have to kill you without the stone, I will.

Kristof slammed open
the doors to Melina’s sitting room. “
Melina
. We have to talk. Now.”

The room was quiet, just the bubbling of ever-present chemicals on a burner to provide a background harmony to the calls of birds outside her window. A lone cup stood on her desk, the aroma of freshly made coffee still in the air. She was here. He hadn’t wasted the long and treacherous climb.

He stalked past the sitting room and her office, desk cluttered with a dozen unfinished projects, and made his way to her Sanctum. He put his palm on the door. It read him, and he felt it acknowledge his presence. Then nothing. It didn’t open. She had locked him out.