The Three Fates of Ryan Love (15 page)

He didn't have a chance to see if she'd obeyed. Wiesel was on him in a fury. Ryan might be bigger and stronger than Wiesel, but the other man had the crazed strength of a lunatic. He fought with determination and excessive violence, gouging at Ryan's eyes, biting. He made claws with his fingers and went for the groin.

Ryan had been fighting most of his life, though. He knew how to move and how to use his weight and size to bring an opponent down. He managed to pin Wiesel against the cruiser, then he started pounding. He slammed punches into Wiesel's face and ribs, aiming for kidneys and the vulnerable belly. He landed at least a dozen blows that should have put the other man's lights out, but Wiesel didn't seem to feel any of it. Ryan leaned in and hammered his face, alternating punches and keeping them hard and fast. Wiesel managed to get his head forward and sank his teeth into one of Ryan's pectorals.

The pain shot through him. Ryan punched harder, but Wiesel didn't let go. Christ, he was going to bite a hunk of flesh right out of him. He staggered back, Wiesel coming with him, still latched on. A movement came from the corner of Ryan's eye, and a second later Sabelle had the gun that Wiesel had dropped. She pressed it to the other man's head. The cop's eyes widened and his jaw went slack—just for a second. Ryan jerked away, grabbed the pistol out of Sabelle's hand, and brought the butt hard against Wie­sel's temple. It took a second direct hit but finally Wiesel's knees buckled.

Ryan caught him under the arms before he hit the blacktop. The cop's eyes had rolled back, leaving slits of white gleaming between his lashes and a stain of blood around his mouth. Ryan managed to muscle the man into the backseat of his cruiser so he didn't get run over by the lunacy of the evacuation happening all around them just as, overhead, a helicopter turned on its spotlight.

Knowing how this would look if caught on film, out of context, Ryan shut the cruiser's door and pulled Sabelle to their car. Brandy's bark was frantic when he yanked open the door and shoved Sabelle in. Before closing it, he leaned down, fury and fear pulsing in his blood.

“Next time I tell you to get in the fucking car, you do it.”

She nodded.

He slammed the door and got in on the other side. It took maneuvering to get the car out of the parking spot. He skipped the clogged exit and went over the embankment and onto the street with squealing tires. The Challenger fishtailed and then he was speeding away from the wreckage.

With a grim look at the woman beside him, Ryan floored it.

T
hey left the city lights behind and accelerated onto the highway, watching as flashing emergency vehicles flew past, moving in the opposite direction. Beside Ryan, Sabelle sat quietly. He didn't have a lot to say either. His heart had finally started to slow, but his knuckles burned and the bite on his chest throbbed like a sonofabitch. A circle of blood had filled in a ring on his shirt.

Everything that had happened played in his head, sharp-edged memories that sliced through him as they rotated from one to another. The scorpions. The kid. The parking lot. Wiesel firing his gun.

The cop had nearly killed Sabelle. A split second either way, and she'd be dead.

Sabelle had warned him that these sisters of hers—
Not
my
sisters!
he could hear her say angrily in his head—could twist a man into whatever they wanted him to be. He'd heard her. He'd even believed her. Seeing it, though . . . She'd said the mean one—Aisa—could drive someone to suicide without breaking a sweat. After looking into Wie­sel's eyes, Ryan had no doubt. The cop had wanted him dead. Wiesel had been an asshole the other night, but not homicidal. Yet he'd pulled the trigger without hesitation. He'd aimed to kill. He'd
wanted
to kill.

Beside him, Sabelle sat stiffly, her face so pale that in the glow of the dashboard lights, she looked blue.

“Do you believe in fate yet?” she asked in a low, hurt voice. Her hand shook as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Do you think I've exaggerated the power of the Sisters? Do you still believe I have a God complex to go with my delusions of grandeur? This was just a demonstration, Ryan. The Three have been searching for us. They'll keep doing it. They'll keep finding us.”

He'd worked that out on his own. As much as he hated it, he knew she spoke the truth.

She covered her face with her hands and shook her head. “I was wrong to come here. You can't help me. I'm just going to get you killed.”

Probably true as well, but if she didn't have Ryan, she wouldn't survive either.

“Hey,” he said. “Don't get all hopeless on me. I'm tougher than I look.”

“You're human, Ryan. You'll never be enough to defeat them.”

That truth was the hardest to take, so he chose not to believe it. “Have a little faith,” he said.

He didn't take his eyes off the road, but felt her gaze on his face. She was looking for answers, wondering what she should place her faith in, no doubt. A higher power? God's ability to strike out evil? Or Ryan, and the unspoken declaration that weighted his voice.

He didn't know what she might see in his face and he refused to look away from the road and meet her searching gaze. He wasn't ready to think about—let alone
talk about
—what he was feeling.

“You're tougher than you look, too, snowflake,” he said softly. “Don't forget that.”

“Tough?” she repeated with a bitter laugh.

“You busted out of prison, ran headlong into danger, and saved my ass. From where I'm sitting, tough as nails, baby.”

She didn't smile, but he'd made her think.

He went on: “Maybe when we find these messengers of yours up north, they'll know how to fly under the radar. Maybe they're runaways, too.”

“Not possible. No one's ever escaped.”

He laughed. “You did.”

She shifted and stared at her clenched hands resting in her lap. Her tension seemed to spike without cause. It snagged Ryan's attention and brought him back to the sinkhole of questions he had about Sabelle and how she'd come to be here, with him. Landing on that mystery only sucked him down to a bigger one. Why had she been permitted to stay? Why were either of them still alive?

The sisters could have turned their swarm of scorpions on Ryan and Sabelle and dosed them with lethal amounts of venom or crashed one of those out-of-control vehicles into them . . . or given Wiesel better aim. With the kind of power they had, the three of them could create a million deadly scenarios.

Yet here Ryan and Sabelle sat, alive and well and headed north.

“Tell me how you got away, Sabelle,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because something's off. Too much of this”—he lifted a hand and waved it—“it doesn't make sense.”

“Are you seriously trying to rationalize what just happened?” she said hotly. “You want it to make
sense
? We're talking about the Sisters of Fate, Ryan. We're talking about the Beyond. You'll never fit either one into something you can call
sense.
”

He let out a heavy breath. “They could have killed us at least five times—and that's just tonight. I get why this Aisa doesn't want to do that where you're concerned. But me? That should be a no-brainer. I'm your wheels. Take me out of the equation and you're stranded.”

The night lights and billboards flashed by as she considered what he'd said. Every time he saw red rocks, he felt chased. Which was the opposite of what was happening, wasn't it? They were following clues toward an end, not being herded toward it.

Unless it was all another illusion. Christ, he didn't know what to believe anymore.

Sabelle looked back at her hands. She worried them in her lap, thinking. She had so much going on in that head of hers that he could practically feel the steam from the effort. Overriding it all was fear, though. She liked to accuse him of not trusting. He was man enough to say she had good cause. His reserve had served him well in the past. No man was an island and all that, but a strong man stood a better chance if he stood far enough out that no one else could catch him by surprise and bring him down.

Sabelle was another matter, on every level. She'd latched onto him and somehow become his responsibility. Somehow become his to take care of. At least until he saw her to a safe harbor. If he was going to protect her until that point, though, he needed answers.

“Why are you afraid to tell me how you got here? You think I'll use it against you?”

The dip in his voice surprised him. Hell, who was he fooling? The whole avalanche of emotion that had begun when Sabelle crashed into his life surprised him.

“It's not that,” she mumbled. “I just know you won't like what I have to say.”

He shifted. Odds were good that she was right. Still, he needed to know, and obviously she needed to know it wouldn't make a difference. “Doesn't matter what you tell me, snowflake. I'm all in. We'll see this through together.”

She slid her gaze across the darkened car, doubt as prevalent as the hissing tires and snaking road. “Do you mean that?” she asked.

Feeling heavy with the weight of it, Ryan reached over and took her hand. “Can't promise armor, but we've got some horsepower under the hood. I'll get you where you need to go.”

She didn't smile. “And after that?”

“Now you're wanting me to see the future?”

A small smile curled her lips. “No. I just . . .” She took a deep breath and left the thought unfinished.

That was a good thing, he told himself. They'd moved into dangerous territory. He already felt chin deep in quicksand. He'd been sinking inch by inch since she'd turned those big, wondrous eyes on him. Any deeper and he didn't know how he'd get out.

And Ryan
always
knew how to get out.

“There are only so many things that can move between the Beyond and your world Ryan. Without . . . help, I mean,” she said softly.

Help
could be a lot of things, most of them ugly.

“Angels can, of course,” she went on before he could dwell on it. “But demons, as you know, need a method. A doorway of some kind.”

That's why they'd been so interested in Reece. He'd been one big revolving door for them. It still made Ryan's brain lock up when he thought of it, how they'd used his brother. How they'd killed him.

“There are guardians who are bred to patrol the borders and slip in and out undetected. It's said the guardians can even pass for human, but they're kept in isolation, away from the rest of us. No one even knows where.”

And Sabelle was a slave in a palace. The Beyond was as difficult for Ryan to conceive of as dragons and unicorns.

“That leaves reapers,” she continued so softly he almost didn't hear. “Reapers are intended to move back and forth. It's their purpose.”

She gave him a wary look from beneath her lashes. Ryan felt the anxious flick of it but didn't turn his head. There was no way he could hide his feelings. Reapers were a sore spot with him.

“There are some reapers who enjoy death more than they should. They're like drug addicts, always craving the next soul. They steal souls instead of ferrying them to their next destination. If they're caught, they're punished and only allowed the scraps and leftovers.”

“What does that mean?” he asked in cold voice. He couldn't help it.

“When a natural death comes, a reaper is beckoned to take the soul. Condemned reapers are never beckoned. They live like vultures, watching their brethren and following, hoping they'll find a way to get there first.”

“Jesus.”

“The Sisters have gathered the damned and made a pact with them. These reapers do their bidding and the Sisters let them know when the seers predict the coming of a catastrophe. A feast of souls. They're always hungry.”

“Why would the sisters do that?”

At Sabelle's curious glance, he explained, “You told me the three of them can't come here in person. What do they care about souls and outlawed reapers?”

Understanding lowered Sabelle's eyes. “The condemned spy for the Sisters.”

“If they have seers telling them what's coming, why would they need spies?”

Sabelle grew quiet as she considered his question. He didn't know if she was editing her response or simply searching for the way to explain.

“Seers are like spotlights, randomly searching in the dark. We see pieces of the future with brilliant clarity, and yet what's on the fringes is hazy, and past the border of that light . . . it's indiscernible. The world is immense. We can never see it all.”

“What about the sisters? What do they see?”

It made sense to him that if the seers were spotlights, these powerful beings would be like small suns.

Sabelle shook her head. “The Three Sisters can't see the future. They can only control it.”

“I'm lost.”

“That's why they enslave the seers. I have no way of knowing for certain, but I believe at one time the Sisters could see the future but they lost their sight. Now they rely on us to tell them what's coming so they can change it or encourage it or fan it into chaos.”

“Just for the hell of it?”

“Sometimes.”

“You're saying there's no master plan? They're just playing a game without rules?”

“I don't think it was always that way, but now . . . yes.”

Ryan swallowed hard. It made him sick to think of the world she described. He couldn't understand how something as sweet and caring as Sabelle had come out of it. It made him doubt her, no matter how he tried to fight it.

“I am kept secluded from the other seers because of my power. Aisa would never say it, but she's worried I'll taint the visions of the others somehow.”

“Still lost.”

“Sometimes our searchlights find the same thing, sometimes we see the same thing differently. Those visions are the most accurate because they come with perspective. Different views of the same future. My beam is so strong that the glare would wipe out the others.”

He reached over, pulled her hand into his lap, and smoothed the long, fine-boned fingers over his thigh, keeping her anchored as her voice wavered. Now that he had her talking, she was giving up details she hadn't offered before. He wanted her to keep going.

“The palace where we live is huge. I've only seen parts of it. I don't know if that's because I'm isolated or if all seers have the same restrictions.”

“So you never talk to any of them?”

“Only Nadia. She's a slave, too. A servant who brings me food, washes my clothes, keeps my environment clean.”

“A slave's slave?” he asked.

“Even tasks like caring for myself are considered too much of a distraction. My purpose is to see. I think they only allow me breaks in between because they must.”

She paused and Ryan felt the straining silence. She wanted to say something else.

“What do you do in those breaks?”

“Eat. Sleep. Bathe . . . Watch you.”

He pulled his gaze from the road and looked at her, but Sabelle had turned her face away and so he was left with the smooth curve of cheek and a dark fall of hair as his only guide.

“Why me?”

He'd been asking that a lot. He desperately wanted an answer.

“My ‘spotlight' found you when your twin brother and sister were born. But it wasn't until they began dying and coming back that I learned how to call you.” She took a deep breath.