Authors: Veronica Rossi
Riders (29 page)
Bas was the entertainer of the group. He had stories about everything, all extremely random and great. He’d say these things like, “Hey, G. Did I ever tell you my truffle story?” And you’d wonder how a truffle story could possibly be any good. Next thing you knew you were howling. You were picturing Bas coughing up truffles like owl pellets into a prop sink in front of fifty people. We got along pretty good, Bas and me.
Bas also mentioned that his life went sideways after an accident and, just by coincidence, we figured out that we’d all had those cuff-delivering “accidents” on the same exact day. August second. We knew we’d actually died on that day, or should’ve died, but we didn’t talk about the details. Too personal. On a couple of levels, for me. My dad had died on that same day, only a year earlier.
Marcus slept through most of Central Europe. On purpose, I thought. But Daryn and I came to a sort of unspoken truce. We started treating each other like business associates or something, which was weird. It was weird for all of us. Everyone knew it was weird. But it was the best I could do, and same for her, probably.
She didn’t share much about herself, unsurprisingly. Mostly, she wrote in her journal and listened to us, or talked about mission-relevant topics, except for once when she told us she’d grown up in Connecticut. A swanky sounding place called Darien.
“Daryn from Darien,” she’d said. “Go ahead and laugh.”
Coincidentally, Jode knew Darien, Connecticut. He’d yachted there or something, so they talked for a little while about that, which was adorable. Rich people comparing notes on their country clubs and summer homes always warmed my heart. Bastian and I sort of just listened like paupers.
I did some sharing of my own. A little about Anna. A little less about the Army. Not much, though. I felt claustrophobic and edgy. Not like myself. I knew it was still the aftereffect of Ra’om and Samrael in my head. We’d left them behind, I was pretty sure, but the nightmares stayed with me. My only defense was staying awake, which I did until I couldn’t. When I did sleep my mind ran a loop of my dad falling off that roof. Samrael’s arm around Daryn. My mom grieving. Anna losing her mind.
Brutal. A brutal, brutal loop that never lost its power. It gutted me every time.
If this was a taste of what the Kindred wanted to do to people, a whole
realm
built for this kind of abuse and torture …
I had to stop them.
We needed to get that key back where it belonged.
The door opens and Beretta appears, flooded by the light from the hallway, a new bulb in his hand.
Cordero stares at me in the semidarkness as he steps inside and removes the old bulb, replacing it with the new one. The lamp goes on and she’s still staring at me.
He
is still staring
.
It
.
Malaphar.
Now that I know, I can’t see how I missed it before. The concentration in those black eyes isn’t human. The way Malaphar has scratched and rubbed at his hands and knuckles. I had thought it was a habit but it’s not. It’s the tick of a demon, taking on the shape of a body that’s just a little too small. And his death reek. He made a good attempt at masking it with perfume. Now it’s so strong. It’s blatant.
I don’t know how to think of him. It’s Malaphar, but I still see a woman in front of me. It’s him, but it’s her.
Cordero. I need to think of him as Cordero.
No change, Blake. Or he’ll know.
“You were giving me such an immersive first-person perspective,” Cordero says once Beretta’s back in his post by the door. “Now you’re summarizing. Getting antsy to finish this up?”
Behind me the radiator’s clanging away. It needs to stop. My face is burning. This entire room feels too warm.
“I didn’t realize I was doing that,” I say.
“No. I guess you didn’t. Which reminds me.” Cordero checks her watch. “It’s time for another dose.”
“I told you I don’t need it.” I can’t go back into the fog. Not now. “I’m cooperating, aren’t I?”
Cordero’s smile is thin, no teeth. “Yes, but things are going so well as they are. No need to change our modus operandi, is there?”
There is every reason to change our modus operandi, but none that I can verbalize. I still can’t summon my sword or armor but I’m close.
I need an hour. Maybe less.
I need time.
I need to figure out why he’s here.
Why is Malaphar back?
Same reason Daryn’s here. It has to be.
They missed something.
What did they miss?
I need time to think.
And I need to recruit help.
“Don’t you trust me, Cordero? I’ve been nothing but honest with you. I’ve been sitting here, tied up, telling you everything for the past few hours. Don’t I deserve a little credit?” I look right at Texas. “Am I off base here? Because I feel like I deserve a gold medal for being such a good detainee.”
His reaction to the code word is no reaction. Same with Beretta.
Nothing.
Not a blink, twitch, or hitch in their breath.
Are they that good? That cool under pressure? Or did they miss it? Or are they confused because it’s not a perfect message? I’m not trying to tell them to keep quiet. I’m trying to tell them that a demon’s sitting right in front of them.
“You are being very cooperative, Gideon, but you still need the dose. Don’t take it personally. It’s simply a safety measure.”
Cordero looks to Beretta but Texas is the one to step forward. “We each had one dose,” he says. He kneels in front of me, snapping on the latex gloves. Behind him, Beretta points the pistol at me.
Texas looks up. On his face is an expression I can’t figure out, but that maybe is apology for what he’s about to do. So much for gold freakin’ medals.
Shit.
He takes the hypodermic needle from a small black pouch, along with a square of cotton, then he pulls up my sleeve and presses the needle to my skin. I feel cool moisture as he depresses the plunger. The dose meant to go in my veins is absorbed into the cotton square.
Not into me.
Texas turns casually as he stands, making sure Cordero sees the spent syringe.
I have to drop my head because I know the relief’s showing on my face.
Yes.
I have a man on my side. He knows something’s wrong and Beretta must, too.
It’s a start.
Now I just need time. A chance to think. To let the last of the drugs burn off.
Cordero asks me to pick up where I left off. “You were on your way to Norway,” she says. “To Jotunheimen, I’m guessing. I think that’s where all those trains eventually brought you. Am I right?”
I take a second to tap into the feeling I had last time when I actually got the dose. Like I had clouds inside my head. I think of Sebastian and how he can make even breathing mean something. Convey something.
I need to sell this for it to work. I need to come across as the same old gut-spilling Gideon. Bad way to put it. The same
uncensored
Gideon.
Act blunt on the outside. Get sharper on the inside.
I can do this.
Norway was Jode’s idea. We needed a safe, remote place where the four of us could work on mastering our weapons while Daryn waited for her next directive. Jode assured us Norway fit the bill.
After almost three days on trains, we arrived at the Oslo station around midday. Jode left with Daryn to go work some Ellis money magic at various travel agencies inside the station. An hour later, they came back with keys to a Mercedes van and a hold on a cabin in Jotunheimen National Park.
The former was purchased outright, in euros. The latter was free—part of a system of huts the Norwegian government provided for the pure enjoyment of the great outdoors.
This seemed a little too easy to me. It felt like were winging some pretty important stuff, but Jode knew more about Norway than I did, meaning he knew
something
about it. I had no choice but to roll with it.
Before we headed into the mountains, we stopped at a market and loaded up on food and supplies to last us a few weeks. Essentials like rice and beans. Canned soup. Crackers and chocolate bars. Then we left Oslo and drove past some of the most stunning vistas I’d ever seen in my life. Smooth winding rivers that cut through soaring mountains. Bright blue glaciers nestled in ridges. Waterfalls that dropped hundreds of feet into vivid green forests. After the past days crammed in train cars, not sleeping, on edge from Ra’om’s effect on me, the views and the fresh air restored me some.
Finally, with nothing around us but raw, unspoiled nature, we reached a tiny tourist stop where a woman gave us a map and instructions for reaching our hut. There were no more roads now. We had to go the rest of the way on foot.
By then, it was getting late in the afternoon and an approaching storm was bringing in strong winds and cooler temperatures. I was tempted to spend the night in the van, considering the group’s safety, but everyone else was determined to sleep in a place that was completely stationary.
We pulled on our packs and set off on a trail that climbed through dense alpine forest. Over an hour later, the trees thinned, the wind picked up, and the trail turned into pure ankle-twisting, rocky misery. Below us, a network of fjords spread out, their waters so calm they mirrored the dark clouds above perfectly.
“Where the hell are we going, Jode?” I’d already asked for the location and marked it on my GPS. But I was feeling the seventy pounds of food and supplies on my back. The cadre in RASP would’ve given this hike their stamp of approval.
“You told me remote,” Jode replied. “Remote requires a good bit of trekking.”
“You mean hiking.”
“No, Gideon. I mean
trekking
.”
We’d been doing that a lot, Jode and I. I’d become a human autocorrect for all his weird British phrases. He used
fancy
as a verb.
Nosh
meant food.
Bum
was ass.
Loo
was bathroom. And everything was either
bloody, brilliant,
or both,
bloody brilliant,
which to me only described one thing. Actually three: the color of my cuff, my sword, and my armor. They really were
bloody brilliant
.
“We should almost be there,” Daryn said. She was carrying a pack as heavy as mine, and didn’t looked winded at all. Tough girl. Tough, pretty girl.
Eyes down, Blake. Focus on the trail.
“We were told this hut is so far off the main trails, it never gets used,” she added.
“And it’s free, right?” Bas said, huffing at my side. He grinned at me, his teeth a white flash in the stormy light. “So it’s afjordable.”
That made me laugh, which I needed. A free cottage hours away from the nearest sign of civilization sounded like the opening to a horror movie to me—and I’d actually seen creatures that belonged in horror movies. I knew they were real so I wasn’t exactly feeling calm.
We arrived at the location as the last bit of daylight faded out of the sky. I studied it as we approached. The location was incredible—a bluff that jutted right over a fjord, providing panoramic views of mountain ranges as far as the eye could see. But our shelter itself wasn’t as impressive.
There were actually two small huts on the bluff. As we drew closer, I noticed the nearest one had a partially collapsed roof and a missing door. The other was built right into the hillside and was only slightly larger than the outhouse farther up on the hill. The hut appeared to be uninhabited, but I went ahead and checked things out first. Approaching with my sword—wishing it was my M4—I cleared the tiny cabin, finally relaxed, and took a moment to study our new digs.
Roughly ten by ten feet, the place looked more like an animal burrow than anything else. The wall abutting the mountain was made of huge stones the size of tires. The other three walls were a combination of irregular wood beams, more stones, and, plugging a few cracks, rolled-up towels and magazines. There were three wooden platforms for laying out sleeping bags, the highest one barely eighteen inches below the ceiling timbers.
A fireplace was built into one wall. Above it, rusted pots, spoons, and knives hung on a wire. They clanged together with the wind that swept through the open door like something out of a nightmare. I was starting to understand why this place was free. On the plus side, I didn’t see any sign of rats or mice, and the two small windows seemed to be in working order.
“I like it,” Daryn said.
No one chimed in. The place itself was fine with me. I wasn’t going to miss towel service or a mint on my pillow. But I didn’t like the idea of us being on top of each other again. We were all definitely in need of some personal space.
“It’ll work,” I said. “First choice of bedroom’s yours, Daryn.”
She pushed her backpack onto the top bunk. Marcus and Jode quickly claimed the other two. Selfish assholes. But I let it slide because we were all smoked and it was starting to get cold.
“We need firewood,” I said. “And some kindling, before it gets too dark.”
“I’ll do the kindling,” Daryn said, stepping outside first. I couldn’t blame her. She’d just spent a few days with four bitter guys who hadn’t showered in … well, in a few days. Frankly, I was grossed out for her.
When she left, we all stood there for a few seconds absorbing her absence. Absorbing how she changed us. Her composure was contagious. She brought something to our group that was palpable. Without her around, a tide of tension came rushing in.
After a moment, Jode sat on his bed platform. “I’m knackered. I’ll just stay here.”
“You don’t get to pass because you’re
tired
,” I said. “Get up.”
“I’ll cut firewood tomorrow,” he said, yawning. “I’m more in need of sleep than I am of a fire.”
Marcus didn’t even bother responding. He just crashed on the other platform.
Anger revved inside me. Did they think this was
a vacation
? Didn’t they understand what was at stake?
