Ghost Soldiers (34 page)

“We can't go to those bastards,” Maria said. “They're dealing with Cojocaru, and they sure as hell ain't friendly to me.”

“You sure?”

“Cojocaru's pet Nassid made sure he dropped their name when he came sniffing around. There anyone else we could try?”

He flipped through his memories. Boston and the surrounding cities held a small but diverse assortment of the paranormal underworld, from ghosts to werecreatures to shadowlings, a rumored Sidhe hiding in Quincy, magicslingers and witches, and other hidden races like the Nerokato and the Slin. The problem was it'd take a great deal of time to track them down, and the vast majority wouldn't be interested, for myriad reasons, in tangling with a sorcerer like Cojocaru. Still others were nonviolent and wouldn't help them wage war, no matter the stakes.

No, the best bet would be to solicit the Blackstone werewolves, an old, powerful and rich clan, and meet with them under conditions of truce of the Old Blood if he could. They might see Cojocaru as enough of a threat to get involved. If they agreed to help, they could tap a pool of dozens, maybe hundreds of wolves. Too risky to go directly to the alphas if the Nassid had been telling the truth about the wolves in league with Cojocaru. He knew a few werewolves lower in the clan who might let him know the lie of things.

“We'll try the wolves first,” he said. “I have some contacts with them. We'll feel them out. If the wolves are hostile, at least we'll know for certain. They may have turned Cojocaru's offer down, same as you.”

Xiesha spoke softly, staring down at the butt of the shotgun. “We never asked ourselves how this sorcerer knew you'd gone to Boston.”

Silence. Bailey stopped petting her wolf and stared at Xiesha with wide eyes. He could sense the bright green spark of her fear. Not guilt, but a cold fear Xie just might use the silver slugs in her shotgun on someone she thought a traitor.

“Easy,”
he sent to her across the link.
“No one believes you betrayed us.”

He felt the surge of her relief warm across their connection, as if he'd touched his hand to the fire-heated brick of a chimneystack.

“I think he marked the ship with a spell as we left Constanta,” he said to Xie. “And that's why he attacked the ship first when he arrived. If he knew where we were now, he would've attacked us here tonight.”

Xiesha nodded. “I thought perhaps the sorcerer could detect the remnants of the spell he killed her with. But you're right. It makes no sense to attack the ship if we sit less than a mile distant.”

“What about the vampire hunter?” Maria stared at Bailey, her voice low and bitter. “He's after us because of you. I hope you're fucking happy with your fangs.”

Bailey flinched and looked away. Her spirit wolf growled, a low, ominous sound, but she shushed it.

“What's done is done,” he said. “If Deor won't leave us in peace, we'll kill him too.” He glanced at Maria. “If we fight each other, Cojocaru wins. The Thorn wins. I'm done running from Cojocaru, and I'm done running from the Thorn. I want you all with me.” He looked at them in turn, starting with Xiesha and ending with Maria, holding her gaze the longest. “Each of you, and all of you. We end this.”

Xiesha smiled. “So, Master, what is your plan?”

So he told it to them, in detail, made them believe they could pull it off and watched the hope grow in their eyes, while he shoved his own doubts and fears deep inside a box in his mind, locked it and tossed it into the shadows that pooled there.

When he finished, no one said a word, but he could see it in their faces—every one of them was with him and would be until the end. One way or another.

Chapter Thirty-Five: Past is Past

The next night, Maria headed up to the warehouse roof and stayed until the moon set. The solitude did little to calm her nerves as she watched the planes and the water and the city lights. Sometimes she saw police cruisers, vans and unmarked sedans in the distance, across the channels and quays at the Conley Terminal, but all the activity remained concentrated to the south. She'd watched the news feeds on the laptop with the others—stories rife with speculation on a terrorist attack at the shipyards in Boston Harbor that sank a freighter and resulted in the unconfirmed deaths of at least sixteen people, including five well-armed and equipped supposed terrorists she knew were the Thorn knights. Some survivors told stories of demons and aliens and angels with black wings, leading one expert to suggest the terrorists had used some kind of hallucinogenic gas on the witnesses. The FBI counterterrorism and forensic teams rolled into Boston and shut down a huge chunk of the Massport Terminal. That's all she needed…more FBI in Boston. But it wasn't really her problem anymore, was it?

No. She had plenty of other problems.

That Karl loved her, she did not doubt. She could see it in his eyes when he looked at her, that slow-burn intensity giving off steady heat, sometimes flaring into something so powerful she felt as if she stood with her face too close to a roaring furnace.

But try as she might to dismiss it, the fact that Bailey shared a link with him in some ways more intimate than she could ever have…well, that burned just as fierce, but this time deep inside her guts, as if she'd swallowed red-hot coals.

The Thorn and some crazy sorcerer want my man destroyed, and I'm angry about some punk kid with blue hair. Get a fucking grip, Maria.

Easy to say. Harder to untangle the bitter knot inside her. Once, after Delgado had Turned her, she'd begged Karl to make her his. He couldn't. Things didn't work that way. But that didn't stop the acid of the memory from eating away at her.

Damn it.

He'd told her Bailey had left him no choice, that he'd Turned her to stop Maria from charging blind into Romania after him. So why did he keep her alive? And if he didn't have the heart to destroy her, then why did he bring her here, with them? So that Maria had to look at her face and be reminded every goddamn time…

She hopped off the gray ductwork and landed without a sound. No. She wouldn't hide from this new threat. Her and Bailey, well, they were going to have to get some shit straight. The sooner the better, and no time like the present. Best if Karl and Xiesha weren't there to interfere in case she had to get ugly.

She found Bailey downstairs, climbing up the sides of the cinderblock wall like a white lizard while her wolf sat on its haunches and watched her with its head cocked. Bailey maneuvered upside down, moving nimbly around the top of one of the wire-reinforced windows. No sign of Karl or Xiesha—they had to be in the second-floor office. Good. No interruptions.

Bailey's wolf turned toward Maria as she approached. It fixed her with its black eyes and stood. No growl, but its smoke fur rippled faster. Bailey looked up an instant later. She pushed off the wall, flipped and landed in a crouch with the bottom of her long coat pooling on the concrete floor around her. Maria hated that stupid fucking white coat with the missing sleeve.

Bailey stood and glanced at her with a hesitant smile on her face. “Sorry, didn't see you. I was just playing around—”

“He's mine. If you touch him, I'll kill you.”

Emotions flickered across Bailey's face: defiance and anger, guilt and fear. Maria liked the fear the best.

The spirit wolf growled, very low in its throat, a strange vibration that echoed through Maria's breastbone. She didn't even glance at it.

Bailey walked to her wolf and set a hand on its head. Her fingers disappeared into the churning black smoke. “Karl loves you. You don't have anything to fear from me.”

Something…something in Bailey's face, in her eyes… “You tried, didn't you?” Her claws curved out of her fingers. She spoke softly, words quiet and dangerous. “You tried to fuck him already, didn't you?”

Bailey didn't look away. “Yes.”

Maria started toward her. Slowly. Silent footsteps and every one of them pregnant with threat.

“He refused me,” Bailey said quickly.

“You knew he belonged to me.” No more than twenty feet between them now.

Bailey hugged her arms over her chest but didn't move away.

“Why the fuck shouldn't I drive you out of here? You almost got him killed, stopping me from talking to him and letting him know he'd been betrayed. Why shouldn't I throw you to the sharks for everything you've done? Let that sorcerer slap one of those collars on you. Or…yeah, this is better. Send you to your buddy vampire hunter, let him deal with you.”

Bailey dropped her gaze. “Maybe I'd deserve that—”

Maria cut her off, slashing through the air so fast her claws hissed. “I hate self-pity unless it comes from me. So shut the fuck up.”

“I wanted something…a connection. To not feel alone. But he refused, because of you. He was better than me.”

Maria stopped. They stood no more than a dozen feet from each other.

“Damn right he was better than you.” Her hands shook, just the slightest tremble. A weight had settled on her chest and grew heavier, as if she endured death by crushing, stone after stone.

“I understand now.”

“You understand what?”

“I understand what you have together. I'm jealous, but I'll never get in your way again.”

“As if I could believe that.” A woman who tried to steal someone else's man—how could anyone ever trust such a creature?

“I have no way to convince you. I'll have to show with time—”

“And why would I even risk keeping you around? I'd be a fool. A
minchiona
.”

“Karl—”

“I don't give a fuck what Karl wants where you're concerned. This is between you and me.”

Desperation on her face. “Please. I have nowhere else to go.”

“How's that my problem?” But as soon as she said it, she knew she didn't believe it. Karl had taken her in, despite what she'd cost him, despite her manipulations, despite how she'd almost gotten him killed more than once. Karl had saved Xiesha too. And her.

Karl Vance, specializing in whacking people and rescuing lost kittens.

Bailey opened her mouth to say something and seemed to think better of it. The silence opened in a chasm between them. Bailey turned aside. A muscle in her throat twitched, another in her jaw clenched like a squeezing python beneath her skin. A single tear slid a curving track down her cheek. Maria hated her for crying. Bright splintery hate, cold and sharp as bone shards in her bloodstream.

God damn it.

“I'll go,” Bailey whispered. “I'm sorry.”

She walked toward the door. Her wolf cast one last lingering look at Maria and followed after Bailey with its ears flat and its smoke tail down.

Bailey got halfway to the exit before Maria called out, “Wait.”

She didn't even pause. Her silent footsteps carried her toward the steel door.

“Damn it, Bailey,
wait
.”

At last she stopped, but she still didn't look back.

Maria spoke through clenched teeth, her jaw aching because she clamped them together so hard. “I can't send you out there. It'd be wrong.” And though Karl might understand, he wouldn't forgive her. He'd just look at her with those eyes, and she'd know she'd fucked up. Dropped the ball. Failed him.

“You don't want me to stay,” Bailey said, still facing the door.

“That's right. I
don't
want you to stay. But I'm a big girl. I'll suck it up. Give me your word you'll never come between me and Karl.”

“What would my word mean to you?”

“Just swear it to me, goddammit! Swear it on your oath as a Thorn knight. On your honor as Karl's sireling. Swear it on anything that
means
something to you.”

Bailey turned around. Two tear tracks traced down her cheeks, but she stared back, unblinking, her chin lifted with an almost absurd dignity. “I swear it on my oath, on my honor and on my wolf.”

Maria nodded. It had to be enough. She drew in air to make another threat, to ensure the state of affairs and repercussions shone with crystal clarity, but she saw the shadow of gratitude in Bailey's eyes.

So Maria said nothing more and walked away.

 

She found Karl in her room cleaning his SIG-Sauer, its parts carefully laid out on top of his steel coffin. He'd been sleeping in the soil to help speed his healing and recharge his dark energy. She rather hated the damn coffins. She slept on the bed whenever she could.

He glanced up from the disassembled pistol when she shut the door behind her. The air stank of gun oil. He set down a cleaning cloth, and his eyes glowed a soft red in the darkness.

“If you ever leave me for her, I'll hate you forever.” She wanted her voice to whip out like a steel cable, but it only twisted and writhed in the air like a dying eel. She hated it, and hated herself for sounding weak and needy. She touched her throat. It seemed to wrench shut.

He held her gaze for a long moment. Then, very quietly, he said, “Come here.”

She ran to him. Threw herself into him, and he caught her easily. His strong arms closed around her, and he held her tight, so very tight, as tears burned out of her eyes. He stayed silent as she cried. She tried to blink the tears away, to hold them back, and when they wouldn't stop, she tried to wipe them away, to slash them off her skin. He caught her hand and held it gently, but firmly, in his own. They sat like that for a long time.

“I talked to Bailey,” she said when the silence grew too much to bear.

“And what did you say to her?”

“Don't make me repeat it. You heard every word.”

He nodded. “You did the right thing.”

“It doesn't feel like the right thing.”

“Sometimes it's hard. You and I know that.”

“I'm always afraid.” She didn't look at him. “Always afraid I'm turning into Delgado. That I'll end up cold and heartless and cruel. The things I want—things I
wanted
when I was still alive…blur into my memories of what he did, and…what if I lose myself?”