Chapter 490
Katelina spent the bulk of the trip talking to Xandria and listening to Ryuu snore. If Hikaru was right, he would get better once they moved to a lower altitude. Ume sat next to Loren, her face rigid and her eyes on the floor. Katelina could only imagine what was going through her mind, and none of it was good.
Oren let them out in front of a hotel. Katelina was grateful that the early morning streets were deserted. She could just imagine people staring as they swung out of the vehicles.
The hotel was modern with a huge lobby and glass sculptures. Their dirty, stained appearance drew strange looks from the staff behind the counter. Things got even more uncomfortable when they were asked for passports and visas.
The terror was short lived. Jamie and Jorick used their whisperer abilities. Then came paying. Verchiel brandished his Guild issued credit card. Jamie flinched. The Guild would already know they'd given Wolfe the slip, and now they'd know exactly where they were.
They moved away from the desk and farther into the lobby to hand out keycards.
"Torina can share with the human," Oren said as he handed his sister her key.
She huffed. "Why should I have to share?"
"Because everyone is sharing, and you're both females."
"Etsuko is female. So is Verchiel's little sister, or the Japanese shrimp."
"They're not my fledglings," Oren said firmly.
"Then who does that Lickspittle belong to if not you?"
Oren narrowed his eyes. "Do not call Etsuko that. I've told you before that it's time you learned your place."
"Any blood debt I owed you is long paid, brother!"
The employees at the hotel counter stared openly. Apparently the "whispered" suggestion to accept them was wearing off already.
Jamie motioned toward them. "Perhaps this could be discussed another time?"
Oren ignored him. "It isn't the matter of a blood debt. You are in my coven."
Torina scoffed. "Your coven? What happened to deferring to age? Jorick is the oldest, isn't he? Doesn't that make this his coven?"
Another member of the hotel staff joined the pair and the three leaned over the counter. How long would it be before they called the police?
"He's declined leadership multiple times."
"That was before, when we were attacking Kateesha and The Guild. That was your war. This is his. He's the master of the war coven. He's the one in charge. Until he says"
"Share with the human and be quiet!" Jorick snapped. "You're making a scene."
Torina spun on him, but Jorick grabbed Katelina's hand and dragged her toward the stairs. "I've had enough of these idiots."
Katelina couldn't agree more.
The room was as shiny and modern as the lobby, with a giant tinted window. Jorick drew the blackout drapes and frowned at the effect. "The light may leak around the edges."
"You could stack the furniture in front of it," Katelina suggested. "I'm going to take a shower and get this smell out of my hair."
The bathroom was painted bright red with shiny white fixtures. She peeled off her ruined clothes to stand under the rainfall shower. She scrubbed away the soot with a washcloth that quickly turned black.
The scene in the cave played in her mind and she leaned against the tiled wall. Verchiel had hinted that she'd been caught up inand acted onsomeone else's emotions. Could that really happen? If so, whose were they? The child-father, nameless only because his mother had never called him anything but monster?
She couldn't deal with it, so she turned off the water, tugged on a nightshirt, and headed for the bed, while Jorick took his turn in the bathroom. When he finished he returned with the dagger she'd left on the counter. "Where did you get this?"
She clicked off the TV. "Micah gave it to me. He found it in the cave."
Jorick weighed the blade. "Do you know what it is?"
"It was Fethillen's." With a sigh she added, "It's the dagger Sorino was looking for."
Jorick tapped it against his palm absently. "It serves him right. Besides, it would be better if you were armed. Yes." He set the dagger aside and smiled. "Finders keepers."
He slid into bed next to her. She snuggled closer to him and laid her head on his chest. She breathed in the familiar comforting scent of him, warm and safe. In his arms it seemed impossible that she'd watched Fethillen and the child-like Father burn, that tomorrow they might face Malick in a final showdown that could leave one or both of them dead.
She held him tighter, as if she could keep him alive by hanging on. Micah had taught her how to fight, or had started to. Thanks to his blood she was stronger now, maybe even stronger than Jorick if she tried. She couldn't defeat Malick. She couldn't stop Jorick from fighting. Maybe she could protect him. Maybe this time she could be useful.
Jorick pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "You're always useful, little one."
"No, I'm not. But I won't let you die." She tipped her face up to meet his eyes. "I can't."
"I have no intention of dying, not when I have this to live for."
She nuzzled her cheek against his skin. "You can't control if someone kills you. You're not God."
"Says who?"
She looked up sharply and he sighed. "No, I am not God, but I promised you shortly after we met that I wouldn't leave you, remember? I don't make promises lightly."
"You can't promise what you can't control."
"I can control it. For once, trust me Katelina. I've been in plenty of battles."
The redhead they'd killed in Tajikistan had been in plenty of battles, but he was dead. Was there someone mourning him? She tried not to think about it, not to put herself in their shoes and suffer the crushing ache of loss.
"Aren't you afraid?" she asked. The question hung heavy in the air and she wished she could draw it back, but there it was, not a heartbeat after he'd asked her to trust him.
"Yes."
She caught her breath.
He offered a weak smile. "You didn't want to hear the truth?"
"No, of course I wanted the truth. I just-"
"It's not the truth you expected. Regardless, it's what it is." He drew her back to him. "I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of failing. Again. I had the chance to kill Malick before and I didn't. I meant to, after Velnya died. I stormed the citadel, though to be honest I had very little resistance, and burst into his chambers. He knew I was coming. The other Executioners were waiting, one after another, and I fought my way through them while Malick watched. While he gloated. While he spurred me on with placating words. When the last of my had-been allies lay at my feet, I attacked Malick. I used everything I had and he laid me low. Then he let me go." The words were bitter. "As though to say I posed so little threat he could let me do as I pleased."
He growled. "He deserved to die then. Now he deserves to be torn to shreds and buried for a thousand years while the worms carve tunnels in his flesh and insects eat his eyes and tongue."
The imagery was vivid and disgusting, but she didn't disagree. Though her memories of the torture were foggy and incomplete, she knew somewhere deep that it had been horrific, that he had broken her. Then he'd had her killed, not for anything that she'd done, not because he hated her. Because he wanted to punish Jorick.
"Yes, for that," Jorick said quietly. "For all of that and more. For leaving that-kill switch in your head. For letting the redhead feed from you. For all of the things he allowed his lackeys to do. For forcing us to chase after the Heart, and leading us to wake Samael. Had I killed Malick when I first tried, none of those things would have happened." His tone turned desperate. "What if I fail again? What will he do in the next hundred and fifty years? Who else will he destroy?"
Katelina wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, like she could force all the pain out of him and into herself. When she found her voice it was as raw as his. "You won't fail because you can't. You asked me to trust you, and I do."
He drew a deep, shuddering breath. "Yes. He will die." He caught her face in his hands. "He will die and his body will burn."
"I know." His eyes blazed with dark purpose; a foreshadowing of Malick's pyre. She sank into the imagined flames and let them wrap around her until she disappeared into the throbbing center of his determination. He was all there was, all there had ever been. His thoughts swirled around her like a thick black fog: dark, angry, guilty, trembling with so many emotions that he couldn't reconcile them. He'd never been afraid before, not of Claudius, or Kateesha, or even the Children of Shadows. He'd known he could beat them, had never doubted it, but this-
She saw Malick through the mist, wearing strange clothes, his hair in a ponytail, his beard bushy. He spoke words she didn't recognize, yet she knew what they were. "Work for me and I will reward you in ways you cannot imagine."
"You're a demon."
The master laughed, flashing fangs. "Better to work for the demon than to be fed upon."
The scene changed. A woman lay in her arms, clothing torn and bloody, her hair a mess. Her face was a blur, lost to memory and time, but the agony was fresh; the anger devoured her, tearing, rending.
A new room. From the view it was as if she knelt before Malick. "Please."
The master smiled. "Yes, I will give you the power to kill your sister's murderers. Drink from me. Become my son in blood!"
The dark fire consumed her, then it was gone and she was on the hotel bed clutching Jorick and trying to come to terms with the room and with herself.
Jorick stared down at her. "You-"
She shook her head to drive away the last tendrils of foreign emotions. "I-I don't know. It happened with Kai."
She quickly explained and he rubbed his chin. "You're right, I hadn't noticed. I thought there was something strange about your anger at the airfield, but I chalked it up to the adjustment period. You're sympathetic by nature, and easier to manipulate, so in the cave I thought the Father had done something to you. When all of this is over, we'll explore your abilities."
She nodded uncertainly. Training with Kai was one thing, but with Jorick-what if she didn't catch on fast enough? What if she wasn't good enough? What if she disappointed him?
"You will always be good enough, whether you can read minds or not, whether you're strong, or weak, or mortal, or immortal. I don't love you because of what you can do. I love you because of who you are. You will never disappoint me."
He pulled her close. "I love you, Katelina. I will always love you."
She buried her face against him and squeezed her eyes closed. "And I love you, Jorick."
