The Forgotten Locket (30 page)

Growling, I yanked my wrist out of Zo’s grasp and pushed myself to my feet, glaring down at him. “I helped Dante because I love him. But I don’t expect you to understand that.” I turned my back on him and took a step downstream toward Dante.

Zo’s voice called out from behind me. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“Like what?” I tossed over my shoulder without looking back.

I realized later that was my first mistake. Had I turned around, I would have seen Zo coming for me and I might have been able to avoid him.

My second mistake was in not calling out for Dante as soon as I had found my voice again. If I had, he might have heard me. And then he might have saved me before it was too late—before Zo’s body hit mine, before he wrapped his arms tight around me and flickered me into the unknown.

• • •

The spires of the Cathedral of the Angels pierced the sky above me. I landed on my back, my head aching and my vision off-kilter as I struggled to catch my breath after such an abrupt transition. I hated traveling with Zo; he lacked Dante’s grace and finesse.

Zo’s face hovered over me, his body pinning me down. He grinned and ran his hand down my cheek and along the curve of my neck. “Well, now, isn’t this interesting?”

I didn’t want to be here, and I wasn’t going to stay. I steeled myself to jump to the bank, but nothing happened.

Zo slid his hand down my side and locked my wrist in his fist. “You’re not going anywhere, my sweet. Not yet. Not until I say so.”

At the sound of his endearment for me, the black spot in my mind woke and acquiesced to his command. I had hoped the dark block was gone for good, but now I felt it return, cutting me off from the bank as easily as closing a door. I gritted my teeth at the pain that accompanied Zo’s touch in my mind. A trickle of sweat traveled down the back of my neck.

“Get off me,” I snapped, shoving hard at his chest with my free hand.

He rolled to his feet with a dark chuckle and yanked me up by my wrist, still holding me tight against his body.

But being that close to him, I could tell how sick he really was. I could hear his breath rattling in his throat. Sweat coated his skin. He kept bending and flexing the fingers of his left hand as though wanting to make sure he could still feel them. I suspected that holding me here was taking all of his remaining strength.

I looked around at my new surroundings, hoping to see something that would help me escape, but we were alone. I couldn’t see anyone else close by. Zo had brought me to an empty plot of land outside the cathedral walls. A bitter wind blew through the wrought-iron fence that encircled the small area. A few statues had been scattered over the uneven ground: a pretty girl, a man kneeling in prayer, a hooded figure, a crying angel. The shiver that ran through me had nothing to do with the cold. We were in a cemetery. Why had Zo brought me to a cemetery?

“Let me go,” I demanded. I tried to concentrate, to send a message to Dante on the bank, but Zo’s block made it hard for me to focus or find my balance. My thoughts kept scattering like leaves on the wind.

Zo shrugged one shoulder. He didn’t seem bothered by the cold. Or my demands. “I might. After you have helped me.”

“I won’t help you,” I snarled. “Ever.”

“You don’t even know what I want,” Zo said casually.

“I can guess.”

Zo arched an eyebrow in invitation.

“You’re sick. Dying. Just like Dante was.” I swallowed at the memory of Dante collapsing to the ground, of him lying so still and cold in my lap. “But he’s better now. And you want me to do the same for you.”

Zo grinned, his teeth dull against his grayish lips. “Very good. I must say, I was surprised when I saw what you had done. I’d been watching you for some time, and when the ripples in the river showed that you had not only healed Dante’s vision but patched the hole in his heart, well, I knew then that if it was good enough for Dante, it was certainly good enough for me.”

“If you think I’m going to help you like I helped Dante, you’re a fool.”

Zo’s face darkened in anger.

I watched warily as he took a breath and slowly regained his control.

“You said you would do anything for me.” His voice took on the same silky tones he had used in the cathedral to convince me I loved him, his words underscored with the same song I had heard before. Even though the song wasn’t as strong or as seamless as it had been before, the darkness in my mind responded, urging me to surrender, to obey.

I shook my head, dislodging the compulsion that was building. Zo might be strong enough to keep me from escaping, but he wasn’t strong enough to make me do anything else he wanted. Not anymore.

“You
made
me say that, so it doesn’t count.” I tried to yank my arm away, but Zo simply held on tighter. I could feel the bones in my wrist grinding against each other.

A muscle jumped near his eye. He thinned his lips in displeasure. The darkness in my mind faded to gray as he abandoned his attempt at forced obedience.

“A promise is a promise, no matter who makes it.” Zo looked down at the headstone closest to him. A small angel statue stood behind it, her wings extended to offer shelter to the name carved into stone:
Angelica Giardini.
He shoved me forward, closer to the grave. “
She
made me a promise too. Then she broke her word. And now she is here.” He hauled me back around to face him. His black eyes burned. “Do you want that to be your story?”

I swallowed. I had seen Zo in many different situations and with many different emotions. I had been threatened by him more than once. But I had never seen such raw violence in his eyes. I saw it in his face: not only the promise of pain, but an eagerness to inflict it.

He was clearly a man on the edge, desperate, and that made him even more dangerous than usual. I stopped struggling. Fighting with him would only make things worse. Maybe if I remained calm and at least a little cooperative, he would relax his guard and I could get away.

Or at least survive until Dante arrived.

“Who was she?” I asked, my voice cracking on the last word. I wrapped my arm around my chest, trying to hold on to whatever warmth I could. I could feel the tops of my ears and the tip of my nose tingling with the cold.

Zo touched the curve of the angel’s wing. “She was mine, once. She promised she would make me happy and give me sons and do whatever I asked.” He tightened his grip on me again, and I hissed in suppressed pain. “When she refused to marry me, I knew that all her promises were lies. She pretended to be an innocent flower, but she was poison.”

“Is that why you killed her? Valerie told us the story of how the Flower Girl refused the Pirate King and how she was broken, body and soul,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I winced. What had happened to trying to be cooperative? I braced myself for his reaction.

But Zo didn’t lash out at me. Instead his face tightened. The rattle in his chest grew deeper until it sounded like a growl. “She betrayed my trust. She humiliated me. She made me look like a fool.”

“And that was the worst part, wasn’t it?” I said, with dawning realization. “It wasn’t that she broke your heart. You probably didn’t even love her—not really. It’s that she refused you. She was no longer something you could own. It’s never about love with you, is it, Zo? It’s about possession. That’s why you want me to help you. Why you want
me
at all. Because you know you can’t have me.”

Zo clenched his jaw, anger flashing in his eyes. “Let’s make this simple, shall we? I blinded Dante, and he should have stayed blind. I broke his locket, and he should have stayed broken. But instead, you healed him. You defied the wishes of a Master of Time. It’s only fair that you even the scales by restoring to me what belongs to me.” He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me close to him again. “You owe me. After everything we’ve been through. Everything you’ve done. You owe me this.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” I said. “And you won’t get what you want. Not from me.”

Zo shook his head and smiled, the predator back on the prowl. “Oh, but sweet Abby, you should know by now that I always get what I want.”

Before I could react, Zo’s mouth came down hard on mine.

I tried to recoil, shoving hard against his chest with both hands, my fingers automatically turning into claws. He may have been bleeding out time from an unseen wound, but he was still physically stronger than I was. I aimed a kick at his leg, hoping to connect with a knee or an ankle, but with my brain screaming and my body struggling, I missed. I would have fallen if he hadn’t been holding me so tightly.

His mouth moved on mine in a smile. I could almost taste his amusement. It made me want to throw up.

He advanced, keeping me off balance and forcing me to take a step back. I felt the rough stone of the cathedral wall behind me. A small part of me was grateful for the support, but the rest of me hated the feeling of pressure all around me, of being trapped without being able to move, without a way out. His body was so close to mine.

Panic rose up in my throat. I didn’t dare close my eyes. I didn’t dare breathe. My vision started to turn black around the edges. I tried to twist out of his grip, but he seemed to anticipate my every move, countering me and keeping me pinned.

Was this how it was going to end, then?

Or was this just the beginning of something worse?

And then he was gone, his body ripped away from mine in one violent movement. I caught a glimpse of his eyes, a lightning flash of surprise in their dark depths, before he crashed to the ground a few feet away from me. I gasped out loud with sudden freedom, gulping down the cold air until the inside of my throat felt coated with ice. I scrubbed at my mouth with both hands, frantic to erase Zo’s touch.

A dark shadow rose up in front of me, and I shied away in instinctive fear, my heart beating hard and fast in my chest.

As the light cut through the clouds, I saw who had saved me from Zo’s attack.

Dante stood over Zo, his back to me and his feet spread wide to help him keep his balance. His hands clenched into fists. A halo of stillness settled over him, tightening his muscles. His body hummed with tension, focused and sharp. This wasn’t the stillness he summoned when he was thinking or planning; this was a profound absence of thought. And, in the void, there was only action.

Zo scrambled back, attempting to leverage himself up to his feet, but Dante was quicker. He moved forward, bringing his boot down hard on Zo’s hand.

I heard the sickening snap of bone, but Zo didn’t scream in pain. Instead, he smiled up at Dante as though he had run into an old friend on the street.

“It’s good to see you again, Dante. Frankly, I was beginning to wonder when you were going to show up. I was starting to think you didn’t care—”

Dante leaned his weight forward, and another snap cracked through Zo’s words.

His grin faltered for a moment, but then he drew in a shuddering breath and fixed it back in place. “I see you’ve decided not to play nice anymore.”

“Shut up,” Dante said, his voice the cold rumble of an avalanche. “Are you safe, Abby?” He threw the words over his shoulder without moving.

I nodded. Then, realizing he couldn’t see me standing behind him, I said, “Yes.” Then again, louder, “Yes, I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me.”

I felt more than saw a little of the tension leave his body. “Good,” he said in a tone that was reassuring to me but that made Zo’s eyes flick to Dante’s face. He must not have liked what he saw because a few drops of sweat appeared on his forehead.

“Abby did a nice job healing your eyes,” Zo said. “Impressive work. Just so you know, Abby,” he called to me over Dante’s shoulder, “I’m expecting the same level of quality when it’s my turn.”

“I doubt that will be happening anytime soon,” Dante said.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Zo said with a grin. “Stranger things have happened.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Dante said.

“I know you can’t keep me here,” Zo said, but his bravado sounded strangely flat.

“Watch me.”

He shifted his weight, but instead of breaking another of Zo’s fingers, he simply applied direct pressure on the two that had already been wounded.

“Hard to travel when you’re in pain, isn’t it?” Dante commented.

Zo dug his heels into the ground as he attempted to extract himself from under Dante’s foot.

But Dante simply pointed at Zo’s chest. “Stop,” he said, “or I swear I’ll make you wish you had.”

Zo stopped moving, though his breathing quickened. Sweat dribbled down the side of his face. “So this is your big plan, Dante? You’re just going to stand on me?”

“No,” Dante said. “My plan is to do this.”

And he reached down, grabbed Zo by the throat, and swung his fist hard across Zo’s face.

Chapter 23

I wanted to step back from the sudden violence, but my back was already pressed flat against the cathedral wall.