The Fire King (8 page)

“We are leaving,” she told him, and then looked at Serena and said, “Watch your back. You have a leak.”

“Or you do,” replied the shifter-woman; but she seemed distracted, staring as she was at Soria’s hand on Karr’s arm, and then his face, her expression inscrutable.

The half leopardess retreated down the hall, still facing them but stepping lightly over the corpses with a grace and ease that made Soria think that she had eyes in the back of her skull. “Go. I’ll give you a head start, and then I’m coming. Maybe you’ll be alive when I catch up. Or perhaps I’ll finally have enough proof to kill him.”

Soria suspected the second option was far more appealing to Serena. “The man came alive after being in a coffin for thousands of years. You think it’ll be that easy?”

Serena said nothing, but stooped to pick up another gun from one of their fallen enemies. Karr moved sideways, so smoothly that Soria hardly noticed until she suddenly found herself partially hidden behind him. The protective gesture startled her, but not enough to distract from the guns held loosely in Serena’s clawed hands, weapons aimed directly at their heads. Soria could almost hear the shots, imagined the bullets slamming into both her and Karr.

It’d be easy to hide, she thought. Easy to blame on these dead men.

But Serena did not shoot. “Go,” she whispered, and disappeared around the bend in the hall.

Soria stared after the shape-shifter, breathless. Karr shook off her hand and strode down the hall, watching where Serena had disappeared. Tense, coiled, still begging for a fight. Utterly alien. Lethal.

And he was
her
responsibility now. If he hurt anyone it would be her fault for letting him go, for trusting in nothing but faith and instinct. A tremendous risk, and the enormity of it slammed into Soria so hard that she held her stomach, bent over with nausea. She was a fool. Certifiably insane.

Karr’s back was still turned. “What is this?”

“You have your freedom,” Soria said through gritted teeth. “For now. Prove you deserve it.”

“No shifter would agree to such a thing.” He gave her a sharp look, which darkened instantly into a frown. “Are you certain you are not hurt?”

“Yes,” she muttered, and turned from him to walk unsteadily down the hall, trying in vain not to look at the bodies on the ground. Listening hard for the living. No way to know how many gunmen were left, and Serena’s own men might not react well to seeing Karr loose.

She glanced over her shoulder and found him standing very still, this giant of a man, inhuman and bleeding. Watching her with that same frown.

“You prefer to stay?” she asked.

“It is a trick,” Karr said. “Why are you helping me?”

Soria set her jaw, suffering a trembling weakness in her knees. Her stump throbbed. All she could smell was blood: her hand was sticky with it. She wanted to go home and hide for another year, in shadows, away from the world and its nightmares.

“No one else can,” Soria told him, and started walking again, not waiting to see if he followed.

But he did, moments later.

No one stopped them. The halls were silent. Karr did not trust the quiet. During his days of captivity there had been voices, footsteps, the clink of metal and glass. Always, someone nearby.

Now, nothing. Everything felt emptied, broken, like the remains of a village after an army’s sweeping pillage. Even the small white lights burning cold and bright from the ceiling held a hint of death about them; there was no spirit in their odd, unwavering flames. He wondered if his elderly caretaker was safe.

Soria walked in front of him, quick on her feet, almost running. She was his guide through the labyrinth of rough-hewn corridors, the walls little more than dirt and stone. He was led by her, defended, perhaps manipulated—but it was all done in such a manner that Karr found himself unable to turn her away, to shed himself of her presence. She was, he thought, indispensable. And that, in his view, was almost as strange as coming back from the dead.

“You are unwell,” he said, as Soria stumbled. Three times now she had almost gone down, and she had begun clutching her empty sleeve, twisting it in her hand, her knuckles white.

“I am fine,” she told him.

Another dead man lay in their path, the seventh that Karr had seen since the first encounter in his cell. Blood seeped from a massive head wound, pooling along a slant in the floor away from the body. His bowels had voided, and the scent triggered memories: battlefields churned to mud and ravaged flesh; shape-shifters and chimeras, lost forever in death, bodies halfway between animal and human. His vision darkened, as though the sun were setting again in his mind. Sunset had always brought out the scavengers.

Soria stopped, staring at the body. “You need clothing.”

“I think not,” Karr replied.

He was finding it difficult to speak. His voice sounded wet, thick, as though made of mud; and he swallowed hard, struggling to remain impassive when all he wanted was to charge ahead, quickly, and be free of this place. His body ached to shift as well, but the hall was narrow and small, and he could not say what would happen. His control had always been limited to what skins his instincts made him wear.

Soria frowned. “I was not suggesting
his
clothes.”

“You misunderstand,” he replied.

“Then tell me.”

Karr struggled for words. “It is another cage.”

A peculiar expression passed over Soria’s face, and he pushed past her to take the dead man’s weapon. It was heavier than it looked, and he tried to hold it as he had seen the others do. Soria gasped. He found her staring at him with alarm.

“You should put that down,” she said.

“You fear it?”

“I do.” Soria held out her hand. “Please. Give it to me.”

His fingers tightened, but her unease was infectious. He wondered if it was wise to hold something so dangerous, a weapon he knew so little about. Perhaps it was magic, as the lights seemed to be, or another manifestation of human tinkering. Certainly it was nothing as straightforward as good sharp steel or his own claws.

“I require a weapon,” he said.

“You can kill a friend just as easily as an enemy with one of those. They are difficult to control, and you have no training.”

“But you do.”

Her expression hardened. “I know enough.”

Karr studied the weapon, its long dark lines. It was hammered from some odd metal, he thought, a construction both clunky and elegant, depending on the angle from which one studied it.

He reluctantly held out the weapon. Soria released her breath and took it from him, gingerly, with distaste, kneeling quickly to set it down. She lingered, though, studying the weapon, and squeezed part of it with her fingers. Karr heard a click, and watched as the base slid free. Soria held it up to him, turning it sideways so that he could see the small objects tucked inside: made of metal, pointed on one end.

“Bullets,” she said, pronouncing the word carefully. “And this is a gun.”

“Gun,” he echoed.

She tossed aside the bullets and stood. Karr gave the gun another long look, then started moving again down the hall, stealing the lead from her. Such weapons caused great damage from a distance, and though he and Soria could just as likely be attacked from the rear, it bothered him that she should be so exposed by going first. It bothered him more than he cared to admit. She was the enemy. She was allied with a shape-shifter.

Shades of gray,
whispered a small voice in his mind.
You do not know where the lines are drawn in this place. Make no assumptions. Just watch and learn.

He could see the human woman in his mind, standing in front of the masked soldier, pale, sick, her weapon unsteadily raised, her dark eyes lost. But not with fear. Just memory. Karr knew the signs.

Not that it helped explain anything about her. Or about why seeing her in danger so utterly stopped him. Suddenly, killing the shape-shifter had no longer seemed so important. Suddenly, breathing was impossible. Suddenly, despite his strength, he could not move fast enough to reach her.

But he had. And the shape-shifter, rather than continuing her attack, had acted to save the woman, too.

You are living in a mystery,
Karr told himself. In war, as in life, he had become accustomed to finding himself in situations where he had no control. Even over himself. But this was wholly different.

Perhaps
he
was different.

He touched his side and felt the thin line of a scar. Behind him, Soria made a small, irritated sound.

“About the clothes. If you want to survive outside this place, you need to follow basic rules. Covering up is one of them.”

“Do not patronize me,” said Karr mildly, listening hard for anyone else who might be close. He continued to finger the scar in his side, remembering the blade that had slid into his body, twisting. “I understand survival.”

“Not like this,” Soria replied, with an intensity and gentleness that cut him so deeply he could do no less than stop again and look at her.

“I do not trust your interest in helping me,” he said.

“I do not care,” she replied. “Trust is irrelevant when committing oneself to an honorable action.”

It was an old proverb. Her mouth had trouble pronouncing the low, formal tones, but the meaning encapsulated in those few short words was perfectly clear. Karr had heard it often while growing up, and it startled him to hear her repeat an adage known to few outsiders. He thought she looked surprised, as well.

“Where,” he asked slowly, “did you learn my language?”

She ducked her head, braids swinging. “We have to keep moving.”

Suspicion filled him, then a thought, a theory that made his chest tighten with unease. “Were you held captive by my kind? Was that how you lost your arm?”

She flinched, then met his gaze. “No.”

He felt little relief at her answer. “But you were among us. For some time, I think.”

Soria shook her head, knuckles white as she twisted her empty sleeve. “You are wasting time.”

“Were you a slave?” he persisted. “I forbade the practice, but I do not know how long I have been gone. Someone else—”

“Stop,” she commanded, her hand flying up to touch him but pausing just at the last moment. His skin prickled, suffering the heat of her nearness. He wanted to feel her touch, and gritted his teeth until his jaw ached. “I was not a slave,” she told him quietly. “Now, please. Move.”

“Perhaps there was another before me,” Karr went on in his coldest voice, furious at himself for wanting this woman. “Did you learn my language through interrogating
him?
Gaining
his
trust?”

She blew out her breath and shoved past—or tried to. Karr grabbed her arm and she twisted, shoving her knee up into his groin. No human had ever struck him, and he was unprepared for the attack. Pain exploded, rocking him forward as he stifled a throat-cutting gasp. Tears squeezed from his eyes. He was dimly aware of the woman standing beside him, still and silent as a grave.

“I am sorry,” she said. “Reflex.”

Both were lies. He could hear it in her voice. But he felt no anger, none except for himself. The woman was a fighter—in spirit, certainly—and he had cornered her. Underestimated her.

Karr wanted to vomit, but there was nothing in his stomach. He fought for breath, sparks dancing in his vision, keenly aware that the woman stayed by his side. When he finally managed to steal a glance at her face, she was pale but resolute. No fear filled her gaze. Just a question:
What is he going to do?

Karr looked down, found himself staring at a dead man. The air was thick with the scent of blood. Memories rose, swimming inside his mind with devastating clarity. With them, fear. With them, heartache.

Enough.
Karr closed his eyes, placed his hands on his knees and, after a careful negotiation with all the disparate, aching parts of his body, finally managed to straighten. He loomed over the woman. She had to crane her neck to look into his eyes—which she did, unflinching.

“How is your arm?” he asked.

Her gaze finally wavered. “Fine. Your balls?”

“Still attached,” he rumbled. “Shall we go?”

A wry smile touched the corner of her mouth, and for one moment—defying sanity—he almost smiled back. But his groin still ached, it was difficult to stand, and he was still a prisoner, even though Soria had assured him otherwise. He would be a prisoner in his own ignorance until he learned about this new land he had found himself in. And why he was still alive.

Gritting his teeth, he began walking down the hall, struggling not to hobble. Soria murmured, “Ahead, turn left,” and when the corridor split, Karr did as she suggested, pausing briefly to test the air.

He smelled the shape-shifter, as well as the red-haired man who had entered his cell and killed the soldiers. The man’s scent was strong here, twined with another—perhaps the young woman Karr had glimpsed, dark and long-legged. And then, quite abruptly, cool air touched him. He saw no door but smelled the desert, and the rush of relief that poured through him was both agonizing and sweet.

He looked over his shoulder at Soria. “You need not follow. I can go the rest of the way alone.”

“I suppose we all tell ourselves that.”

Karr deliberately settled his gaze on her empty sleeve. “And how long have you been alone?”

Anger sparked inside her eyes. Karr grunted, turning quickly before regret could shadow his face. He had never been good at hiding his emotions. Of course, he had never felt so compelled to speak so freely as he did with this woman.

Small heart,
he chastised himself.
Using words to hurt her.

Cool air caressed his shoulders and chest. Karr walked faster, straining his senses for any hint of danger. He heard nothing, and when he rounded the bend he finally saw a door, standing ajar. Beyond, the night. No guards. None he could see.

“A trap,” he murmured.

Soria peered around him. “We could have been stopped long before this.”

He edged forward, lured by the fresh promise of night. “There were many people here, but the only bodies I have seen belonged to the men in black.”