Her Kind of Trouble (35 page)

But what I heard sounded more like a frat party.

"—three!" The countdown, in a deep and vaguely familiar voice, was followed by a murmur of interested approval. "That is four. So far, neither man appears to feel the valerian. We will move to the fifth round."

They'd already drunk four times ?

"We don't have to keep doing this," insisted a voice that resonated through me.
Lex
. I pressed a hand to my mouth to catch back a little cry of relief to hear him still alive, still conscious. "Let me take my rightful place, Phil, and you can be my right-hand man. Together, we can make the Comitatus what it once was."

"I don't have a problem with the way it is now," insisted another familiar voice. Phil's. "Drink."

According to my informant, valerian—which was historically used for this sort of "contest"—was poison only in high doses, and rarely fatal. The point was which combatant's body was weak enough for him to pass out first.

Unfortunately, Phil wasn't playing fair.
And Lex Stuart has no idea
, my captive had gloated.
Weak
.

I knew Lex a hell of a lot better than either Phil or the sentry probably did. Lex might not want to believe his cousin would rig the "combat" in his favor—no poison in Phil's cup, and something far more deadly—"arsenic or something"—in Lex's. But Lex was not so stupid that he would blindly trust Phil, either.

Still, without proof, he
would
drink. It was his only chance to make his point. It had come down to a matter of honor.

After months of me fearing Lex's possible immorality, it was his damned honor that would kill him.

And yet…

"One," counted the deep-voiced referee.

He'd already taken four drinks of arsenic or something. Was I already too late to make a difference?

"Two."

Would I ruin what little he could still gain from this travesty? Isis Herself had told me,
With love comes pain
.

"Maggi?" prompted Rhys. He and Cat were staring. They'd heard the confession, too.

"Three."

A modest cheer followed that. Both men must have downed the contents of their cups. A little piece of me died when I did nothing to stop it. And yet…

"I wouldn't want him to stop me," I whispered. The Grailkeepers were my business. I'd railed at Lex every time he got in the way of that, even when it was for my supposed safety.
Especially
then! The Comitatus was his business. Would he thank me… ?

"That is five," stated the oddly familiar, British-accented voice. Hani Rachid? No! "We will move on to the next round."

Phil's voice asked, "You feeling all right there, Cuz?"

He couldn't hide the edge of gloating. And the clutch of horror in my throat, in my heart, snapped me back to sense.

I
didn't
care about the Comitatus. But I damn well cared about Lex. I cared enough to alienate him from me forever, if that's what it took to keep him alive.

"Again," his steady voice insisted, low and determined.

"One," stated the apparent mediator. I felt sure he
wasn't
Hani Rachid, but it didn't matter anymore. I fumbled at the zipper to my fanny pack, drew out the worn blue Isis Grail and the mini bottle of water, twisted off the cap.

"Two," the apparent mediator continued.

I sloshed water into the grail. One swallow's worth. Two… Presentation would be half the battle. "Stay here—"

"Three," finished the count—

—at the same time that I yelled, "Stop!"

And, grail in both hands, I strode into the middle of the underground chamber where stood thirteen of the most powerful businessmen in the Western world—staring at me.

I kept my step deliberately slow, dignified, as I drew my gaze across each suited figure. A few of them I recognized. An oil CEO. A politician. A media mogul.

And standing in the middle of the rough-hewn chamber, with varying expressions of annoyance, stood Lex, Phil—and Ahmed Khalef, Lex's corporate lawyer.

So this was the innermost circle of the Comitatus.

Nobody wore funny hats or ceremonial robes. The only nod to sacred clothing was that each man had a strip of colored silk draped across his shoulders, like a priest in vestments. And yet the essence of power in here hit me like a wave of Egyptian heat.

Lex broke the silence first, deliberately calm. "Maggi, you shouldn't be here."

"Damn right, she shouldn't!" That, of course, was Phil. He turned to the rest of the circle. "This is the kind of man you're willing to consider as our
leader
? One who leaks our deepest mysteries to any slut—"

"He didn't tell me a thing," I interrupted, before Lex could waste energy in my defense. "This did."

And I held up the Isis Grail.

But I continued to watch Lex.

Despite his mask of indifference, I knew him. I could see intense emotions flicker in his guarded gaze, and only the first was annoyance. Another was pleasure—I'm positive some part of him was glad to see me, maybe had feared never seeing me again. His guilt followed that, guilt for being glad about something that put me in danger.

But mostly he felt despair, a despair the choking sensation in my throat echoed back at him.

He's dying.

The strong stance and steady voice were a ruse. He was already feeling the poison. He knew his cousin, his society, had betrayed him. All he could do now was try to make a statement with the way he died, perhaps send a final, unforgettable message to the rest of the Comitatus—anybody left who might be worth fighting for, worth saving. If such men existed at all.

And here I came, interrupting his dramatic exit.

"How the hell can some stupid cup tell you—?" But despite being slow, Phil must have figured it out. His face stilled into wariness.

Smiling with no humor at all, I crossed the chamber to him. "You know what this is, Phil."

His eyes fixed on the chalice.

"It's a goddess cup. One of the goddess cups you've been determined to—"

He snatched at it, perfect illustration of my charges. Like I hadn't expected that. I drew back fast enough that he lost his balance and had to take a step to catch himself.

"To eliminate," I finished easily. "I've decided it's time to end that foolishness."

"You're interrupting our combat," he warned, but his posturing only betrayed his fear.

The only reason I didn't mock that
combat
was Lex had gone along with it. If he really was dying—

Please let it be reversible. Please don't let that fifth swallow have been the one to kill him.

—the worst thing I could do was to diminish his martyrdom.

Out loud, anyway.

"Your problem, Phil," I said, "is that you try to hurt the things you fear. Like what women can bring to a balance of power. Like the goddess cups.

"Like Lex."

"Maggi," insisted Lex. "No… " It was his battle to fight—but by trying to fight alone, he was already be-ginning to lose it. I knew him too well. I could see the signs of the poison—a nervousness, a clamminess, a glaze to the eyes.

We were running out of time!

"You're no warrior," I told Phil. "You're a coward."

Which is when Lex swayed, took an uncertain step—and dropped to his knees, looking confused. Not confused about what was happening to him. His golden gaze, on Phil, told me just how poignantly he understood that.

Confused that a body he'd been training since childhood really was failing him.
Dying
.

"I win," gloated Phil, as if I weren't even there.

"You cheated," I said, my voice cutting clearly past his. My day job includes lecturing to halls of up to seventy-five students at once. I know how to project.

Thirteen sets of eyes fixed on me. Only a handful of them seemed unsurprised. Phil's—his expression was the pure, furious rage of the guilty. Ahmed Khalef, the moderator who must have made sure Lex got the poisoned cup. Why hadn't I caught before that he wasn't Lex's attorney, but
Ids family's
attorney? Two other men whom I did not know but who, I had to assume, were in on Phil's plan the same way the sentry had been.

And Lex, even as he sank forward, tried to catch himself with hands that couldn't hold him.

As Lex slumped to the floor one man, a middle-aged blonde, hurried to his side, felt his pulse, looked concerned.

"I'm no coward," Phil insisted. "And I don't cheat. How dare you interrupt our sacred ritual with your baseless—"

"
Sacred
? If this were sacred, you'd know better than to rig the competition. You don't look sick, Phil. Everyone can see that you haven't even been drinking valerian, much less arsenic."

The blond man, clearly a doctor, swore. "We have to get this man to a hospital. Call in a helicopter, Phil. Now!"

"So that he can challenge me again? We're a warrior society, Ken. Survival of the fittest."

More of the men protested, coming forward, surrounding Lex—but I stopped caring about that At some point I would care more about bringing down Phil, about escaping from this pyramid with my own life—and all that life entailed. But for now, I had only one concern.

If Lex could be saved, somehow save him.

And if he couldn't…

His supporters, about five of them, parted for me as I went to him, knelt at his side. "Will a helicopter really help?" I asked the doctor named Ken.

He was rummaging in his black bag, drawing out a bottle of black pills. "Probably not."

No.
No no no
. No wonder the goddess's water had tasted so bitter, this time.

Seeing Lex like this felt nothing like last week's fears for an injured Rhys. Seeing Lex felt like
I
was dying.

My soul had made its decision long ago. Him.

I pressed my hand to his clammy cheek, all the more terrified when his gaze took too long to find me. If he was going to die, he deserved to know one thing, anyway. So I leaned close to him, kissed his lips, and whispered, "I seem to be pregnant."

His eyes, holding mine, warmed with gratitude. His lips tried to move, but I couldn't tell what he was trying to say.

Then his eyes went blank.

Chapter 21