Killing Land (Rune Alexander Book 8) (20 page)

“I have to take care of some things,” she said, “and then
I’m coming back. I’m going to figure this out.”

Raze sighed. “You can’t stay in this cave. It’s dark and
freezing and you can’t fall asleep in the same room with that thing.
Rune, think.
You can’t—”

“I’m staying here.”

“Call Eugene.
He can transport it
back to the Annex and you can work with it there.”

She shook her head. “Eugene would take control. He’d ruin
any chances I might have of bringing Brasque out of that mess alive.”

The assassin finally spoke. “And the portal is here.” He
looked at her. “It has to be, doesn’t it?”

She nodded. “I was kicked off the path into Killing Land,
and the shimmer lord appeared…” She frowned. “You said you saw him arrive.
Where, exactly?”

“I was in the camp when I saw the flash. It was over the
caves, but I didn’t know exactly where he’d landed or where he’d ended up.
Until now.”

“But how did he get here, in this particular room? No way he
could have wandered through the entrance and walked down all those passageways.
He doesn’t leave that wall. I don’t think he can see.”

“I’ll look around,” Will said. “There must be a way in
nearby.”

He jogged from the room, gone in seconds.

“The portal is close,” Rune murmured, pushing her hand
against her stomach. “I know it.”

“It could have come off the path with you and Roma,” Raze
said, crossing his arms.

“No. There was nothing with us.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. And
Will
said he saw
it later.”

“You can’t believe anything he says.”

“Let’s get out of here. I want to check on Jack and Roma.”

But when they the room, the assassin was waiting for her. “I
need to speak with you.” He flicked his stare at Raze, then back to Rune.
“Alone.”

She frowned. “You found a shortcut?”

“Not yet.” His gloved fingers trembled, hovering at his chest.
“Before I can continue on, I need…” He paused. “I have a trade.”

Shit
.

She didn’t think her weak stomach—something she seemed to
have acquired after walking the path—would allow her to feed from him without
throwing up.

Her repulsion at biting the assassin had been bad before.
But after the path…

She shuddered and swallowed nausea.

She did not want to feed from the scarred flesh of Will
Blackthorne.

But he had a fucking trade.

She cleared her throat. “This better be good.”

Once again he glanced at Raze. “I won’t have my addiction
fed with that one watching.”

“Yeah,” Rune said. “I get it. It’s like having sex in public
for some people.”

He nodded.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” she told Raze. “Sooner if his
deal is shit. Wait for me and I’ll walk back to camp with you.”

“Rune,” Raze said. “Are you sure?”

The assassin stiffened. “She has bitten me before.”

Raze ignored him.

“I’ll be right back,” Rune said.

Once she and Will had walked into the next corridor, she
stopped and slumped against the wall. “This is far enough. What do you have?”

Shit. Let it be shit
.

“The female gargoyle told you there is no antidote for the
acid attack.”

She straightened slowly.
“Yeah?”

“She lied.”

She closed her eyes and clutched her stomach, torn between
giddy relief and sickening nausea. “Tell me.”

“There is a powerful antidote, but to get it, you may have
to kill one of them.”

“Just tell me, for fuck’s sake.”

“It’s in a gargoyle’s heart.”

She stared at him, shocked. “Fuck,” she yelled, finally, as
she remembered
Grim
speeding away with a gargoyle’s
heart in his mouth. How the fuck was she supposed to get another one?

Will knelt down before her. He trembled with anticipation as
he pulled the collar of his shirt away from the edge of the mask. “I have given
you the information to save your people. Feed.”

Her head swam and her stomach rebelled against even the
thought of sinking her fangs into his thick, rubbery scars.

Will Blackthorne was worth it. He
was
.

But her fucking finicky stomach was not ready.

She placed her hands on his shoulders, the ridges of scars
rising under her fingers like bones. She leaned forward, trying with everything
inside her not to gag.

He waited quietly, but his body hummed with eagerness.

Shit
.

Her throat seemed to thicken and silver flecks danced in the
darkness of the cave.

Just
bite
the son of a bitch
.

She closed her eyes as her lips touched a thick, ropy scar.

She didn’t want to force her teeth through those scars.

But if she was going to bite him, she had to bite quickly.
Hard and deep.
She had to get the blood.

Because when she got the blood, it would be okay.

It wasn’t just the scars she had to bite through that made
her ill. It was taste of agonized human and unbelievable depravity.

The taste of torture and despair.

The taste of hell.

She swallowed again and pushed her fist against the rolling
disgust in her belly. She dropped her fangs.

“Rune,” he said, his teeth clenched. “
Do
it. Do it
before I lose control.”

She struck at last, because the longer she waited the harder
it became.

She struck because the assassin knew things. Important
things, lifesaving things, and she would feed his addiction as long as he fed
her information.

She struck because it was her duty and she would not shirk
it.

And she struck because the assassin had just saved Jack’s
life.
Roma’s life.

Despite her irritatingly fastidious stomach, she fucking
struck
.

Then there was the blood, warm and creamy and full of life,
and she forgot about the burnt, brutalized skin.

There was only the blood.

“Ah,” he cried, his voice hoarse and holding more passion
than she’d ever heard from him. And then he was silent.

Swaying on the sharp edge of getting just enough and taking
too much, she reluctantly pulled away. As she withdrew, she darted out her
tongue and licked the wound closed.

That may have surprised her more than it did him.

“Thank you,” she murmured, “for saving Jack.”

Roma’s death would have hurt her.
Badly.

But Jack’s death…that would have been too much to bear.

She left him there, left him on his knees with his head
bowed as he wallowed in the ecstasy of having had her bite and the extreme
relief of living once again without withdrawals consuming him.

Raze was waiting.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Will’s blood sang through her veins.

Jack and Roma would live.

And for that moment, everything was good.

When she and Raze were once more in the unfriendly camp, the
people seemed less obviously aggressive.

The Annex had come and gone, and Killing Land didn’t want a
return visit. Still, despite their caution in antagonizing Rune, hatred was in
their quick, darting eyes.

Amidst the crowd, she spotted the doctor who’d pushed her
into his cellar. He knelt beside a man with a cut on his forehead, and as she
watched him, he glanced up and saw her.

He stared at her, unmoving for a long moment, then finally
gave her a small nod and went back to tending his patient.

Rune felt her crow before she heard him calling, and looked up
to watch him flying high above her. For a few seconds, nothing existed but the
crow.

For a few seconds, she believed in her soul that if—when—the
Next came for her, she’d take them on and she would win.

She was invincible.

Then Luciana Vega strode toward her.

“You destroyed the monster,” she said, as angry as the rest
of them, “but you brought the enemy in as well.”

“She made them leave as soon as she heard they were here,”
Raze said, glaring at anyone who glanced his way. “Show some fucking
appreciation.”

“Did they tell you,” Luciana asked, “that we destroyed some
of your ops?”

“Not yet,” Rune said. “But we’ll get the report.”

“We’re not helpless men and women to be fucked with.”
Luciana’s voice was fierce. “You need to remember that.”

“You hated the gargoyles,” Rune said, understanding suddenly
that the humans of Killing Land had tolerated the gargoyles because they had no
other choice. And that resentment had been building for a long, long time.

“This is
our
land,” Luciana said, her shoulders
slumping, no longer angry.
At least not at Rune.
“We
didn’t hate them because they were
Others
. We hated
them because we feared them. They took Killing Land over. They ruled us. With
them gone, we’ll be…we’ll be
us
again. As free as we can be.” She
crossed her arms, still glaring. “So thank you for that.”

“You knew the Delaneys were the gargoyles?” Rune asked her.
“Did Jill know?”

“We didn’t know. They kept their secret well. We thought
Gage Delaney was protecting us from the gargoyles.
From the
monster.
Of course all the encounters were orchestrated, we realize that
now. Gage and his people weren’t protecting us. They were manipulating and
controlling us.” She shrugged. “Not many places better to hide than Killing
Land, and they wanted it.”

“How do you know they’re going to leave?” Raze asked.

“We’ve heard two of them are deserting the block and that
Gage is either dead or stoned. They will move on now. Gargoyles will always
need to hide and Killing Land is not such a secret place now.”

“Stoned?” Raze asked. “He’s—”

“No,” Luciana growled. “I don’t mean he’s
high
. I
mean if they didn’t let him die, then he’s probably a little statue sitting in
someone’s garden.
Controlled.”

Rune forgot about Luciana and the other pissed off residents
when she saw Ellis and Levi striding toward her.

“What happened?” she asked.

“We were no longer welcome in that house,” Ellis said.

“No one got hurt,” Levi said, “but after he chased them
away, Grim took off.”

“We saw him earlier.” She looked around. “He disappeared. I
need to find him.”

“We’ll watch for him.” Ellis took her arm. “You look
so…awful.”

“I’m fine.” She patted her shredded pocket before
remembering she’d lost her cell. “I need your phone.”

He handed it to her. “I called ten minutes ago to check on
Jack and Roma.”

She lowered the phone.
“And?”

“Eugene says they’re stable. They’ve managed to slow the
acid, but not to stop it.” He squeezed her arm. “He doesn’t think they can stop
it.”

“I can,” she muttered.

“You’re going to feed them?” Denim asked. “Jack won’t want
that.”

“No, I’m not going to feed them.”

“How, then?”
Ellis asked.

“I’ll figure it out,” she replied, and walked away to call
Eugene.

After he answered, she told him immediately about the
antidote.

“Then we’ll need a gargoyle to kill, Rune, if you want Jack
saved,” Eugene said.

“Jack and
Roma
,” she said. “And I’m aware of that.
I’m bringing back two of them. You’ll have your choice.”

“Rune,” he chided. “I know you. If you got to know them at
all, you won’t want them killed. You don’t kill innocent
Others
.”

“They’re
gargoyles
,” she spat, but he was right. She
didn’t want the scarred Bellamy to die, and she didn’t want Gavin to die.
They’d helped her.

She hated to turn on them.

But she would if she had to.

She knew Eugene didn’t really care about any of that. He
just didn’t want two gargoyles—gargoyles that would belong to him—to die.

“Gage,” she murmured.

“Pardon?”
Eugene said.

“Neither Bellamy or Gavin will tell me where they’ve stashed
Gage unless I give them a reason to.”

“And that would be?”

She swallowed,
then
plunged on.
“Bellamy loves Gavin. Once you’ve got them there, put them in separate holding
rooms. Ones they can’t break out of.”

“Got it,” he said. “If you threaten Gavin, Bellamy will give
us Gage.”

“Yes. She’ll save Gavin.”

“There’s one problem with that, Rune.”

“I know. They’re not going to want to hang around and fight
for the Annex afterward.”

“No. And I want them.”

“There’s nothing else I can do,” she said. “I can’t hope to
catch an unsuspecting gargoyle. Bellamy and Gavin seem to almost trust me. They
want out of the Killing Land block and they want to join Shiv Crew to do that.”
She pushed her fist into her stomach.
“The others…not so
much.”

“But—”

“There’s no other way, Eugene.”

He was silent for so long she thought she’d lost him.
“Eugene?”

“I’m here. I’ll send a helicopter, Rune. Have them watch for
us on the Deer Creek field. One hour. I have a way to keep them after you use
them to get to Gage.”

“How?”

“I’ll explain when you’re here. Right now, let them know
they’re coming early.”

She hung up and carried the phone back to the waiting Ellis,
who stared at her with a frown. “What’s wrong?”

He knew her a little too well.

“I have to go to River County to see to Jack and Roma, and
afterward I’m coming back to Killing Land.”

“Rune,” Ellis exclaimed. “Why?”

She took a deep breath, glad to finally be breathing cool,
fresh air instead of the damp mustiness of the caves. “I found what came off
the path.”