“Yes,” Kyra said. “I believe what I’m hearing comes from Arindam.”
More looks between Niran and Sura.
They know something.
Leo said, “Would Vasu have given Intira this knowledge if he didn’t have a purpose? He hates Arindam. This must be a clue we can use to defeat him.”
“It’s Vasu,” Kyra said. “It might mean nothing.”
“Intira told you to show this to Prija?” Sura asked.
“Yes,” Kyra said. “She said Prija would know what it meant.”
Niran spoke quietly. “If this is music that Prija can read, then it’s useful.”
“How?” Kyra asked.
“We need to get you to her,” Sura said. “We’ll attack the compound, but Kyra will need to get to Prija. That will be her priority.”
“No,” Leo said. “Someone else can—”
“No,” Rith said. “We don’t have warriors to spare. This started out as a simple rescue mission for one kareshta and has grown into a massive incursion into the heart of a Fallen stronghold. We have seven warriors. We can’t spare one to get a coded message to a single woman who may not even be rational at this point.”
“A single woman who was instrumental in killing Tenasserim,” Niran said. “She’s not a babbling idiot. Any injuries to her mind were gained in battle, and Arindam took her for a reason. Prija is still a formidable weapon.”
Leo tried to jump in. “Kyra is not a warrior. She can’t—”
“A formidable weapon?” Rith argued. “That may be true, but your sister is his weapon unless we kill the Fallen. And we can’t spare a warrior to find her. Not if we’re going to go kill Arindam.”
“Kyra can’t go by herself!” Leo shouted.
“She’ll have to,” Rith said, glancing at Kyra. “I’ve spoken to Alyah. She’ll be fine. You can clear a path for her, scribe, but don’t lose focus. Lose focus, and we all die.”
Leo was seething. “I did not come to Thailand to lose my mate in your battle.”
“No, you came to Thailand in order to facilitate communication and relations between the free Grigori, the kareshta, and the Irin scribes of Bangkok,” Rith said. “Congratulations, we’re working together now, trying to kill a Fallen who is abusing women and preying on humans in Myanmar. You’re going to abandon the mission now because you’re worried about your mate?”
“I’ll do it,” Kyra said, squeezing Leo’s hand. “Leo, I have to.”
“No, you don’t,” he said. “This is madness. The Grigori in there—”
“It has to be Kyra,” Sura said. “Prija will listen to her.”
“Sometimes,” Kyra said. “Not always.”
“Then you’ll have to make her listen,” Sura said. “There’s a reason you were given this message.” Sura lifted the weaving. “A reason the angel showed this to Intira. There is a reason for everything.”
Kyra shook her head. “She won’t listen to me. Not always. I have a fifty-fifty chance at best.”
“No.” Sura smiled. “You have a mission that must succeed for us to live. That means whatever must be done to make my sister listen, you will do.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Leo was in a rage. Kyra kept trying to hold him back, and he kept pulling away, pacing their room while turning over the mission in his head.
Six warriors and Kyra. Six. There had to be a way to get more. They had to. Kyra couldn’t go into this battle. Granted, Niran and his men were far more effective than most Grigori because of their Sak Yant and discipline, but they weren’t scribes. The only trained Irin warriors they had were him, Rith, and Alyah. He didn’t know what battle magic Alyah had, but it couldn’t be enough to make up for the numbers.
Why was Rith so determined to rush into this? Why couldn’t they wait for more scribes from Bangkok? It was a short flight to the city. Why—
“Leo.” Kyra was sitting hunched in the chair, rubbing her temple. “Please can you stop?”
“I’m thinking.”
“And I’m in pain.”
“Damn.” He rushed to take her hand. She hadn’t been trying to hold him back, she’d been trying to hold him. “I’m an idiot. I forgot.”
She sighed, but her forehead relaxed when he took both her hands in his.
“I’m not usually this helpless.”
“You’re not helpless. You’re operating at full capacity right now. That’s the problem.”
“Ha!” Her laugh was bitter. “Operating at full capacity. That’s a new one.”
“As long as I’m with you…” His face darkened. “I’m staying with you.”
“But Rith said—”
“Rith is not my watcher. He may be leading this mission because he has the right magic, but he’s not my watcher, and he can’t make me abandon my mate in the middle of a battle. I agree with Sura. There’s something on that weaving that Prija needs to see, and I think it has to do with why Arindam’s men took her in the first place.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “Honestly, I think I’d be useless closer to the Fallen without you keeping me clear.”
“Exactly. And if Prija is the weapon her brothers think she is, then she could be the one to turn the fight.”
“She’s…”
“What?”
Kyra shook her head. “She’s angry. I can hear her. She’s angry and dark. That’s the only way to describe it. Imagine a black hedge around someone. That’s what Prija feels like right now.”
“Why so angry?”
“I don’t know. She doesn’t sound afraid in the least. Just… angry.”
“Does she think… Could she be thinking that her brothers abandoned her?”
“Possibly? I can’t talk to her from a distance, and there’s no guarantee she’s felt my presence or knows I can hear her. She might think she’s been abandoned.”
“Then when she see us, this anger should fly, shouldn’t it? She’ll realize we didn’t leave her.”
Kyra offered him a sad smile. “It doesn’t always work that way. By the time we find her, she may no longer trust her senses. She might not be rational at all. It’s easy to get lost in the darkness.”
“Have you?”
She nodded.
“What pulled you out?”
“Kostas,” she said.
Leo looked at his phone. “Do you want to call him?”
She shook her head. “When we’re safe. When it’s happy news. Not worrying.”
He wasn’t sure it was the right decision, but it was her decision. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
He stood and lifted her in his arms, carrying her to the bed where he laid her down and slid behind her. He took his usual position. One hand under her shirt and flat against her skin. His arm cradling her head. “We need to sleep,” he said, already drifting in the warm afternoon. “It’s less than twelve hours before we attack the compound.”
To Kyra’s credit, she didn’t seem nervous at all. “I’ll stay with you. I’m not foolish.”
“I know.”
She grabbed his hand and put it on her breast. “Love me before we sleep.”
“It won’t be too much?” He’d been careful with her since arriving in Bagan.
“You are never too much.”
Leo crouched in the forest, his dark clothes blending with the deep shadows surrounding him. He listened for the telltale footsteps of the night guard who had already passed by four times now. He was waiting for Rith’s signal.
Arindam’s compound in the hills was comprised of a dozen smaller buildings surrounding a temple with a familiar winged idol at the door. The Fallen lived inside the temple. His men lived and worked in the smaller buildings around it. During the day, much of the activity seemed to revolve around the angel. Women were brought to him. Food was prepared and offered. His sons came and went. Leo and the others had seen them stalking in the city below, but they had done nothing to confront them. They wanted the element of surprise. It was their best w
eapon against an angel and a superior force.
At night, a dozen guards patrolled the grounds, but none of them seemed particularly alarmed or watchful. Irin presence had not been detected.
A low birdcall sounded in the still air.
Leo nodded and Kyra tucked herself behind him, drawing her knives. The next time the guard passed by, Leo leapt on him, muffling any cry with his hand and stabbing a quick silver dagger into the spine of the Grigori. There would be no survivors here. There were no innocents among these men. They would spare the children and young men if they could, but the grown Grigori could not be allowed to live.
“On the right,” Kyra whispered. “Coming down the path.”
Leo ducked back. The first Grigori was already dissolving.
Kyra whispered, “Leo, there’s another—”
“I know.”
Within moments, the second guard passed by the steps of his friend. Just as he was bending down to examine the dust, Leo leapt again. This time the guard let out one sharp cry before Leo took his life.
“Damn.” He dropped the body and let it dissolve.
“How did you know?” Kyra hissed.
“What?”
“About the second man.” She closed her eyes. “The guards are all gone. I don’t hear any minds but our people along the perimeter.”
“Good.” He wiped off his knife. “I heard you the first time. About the second man.”
She frowned. “I only spoke once.”
“No, I’m sure I heard you twice.” He took her hand and jogged down the path. “Unless I’m reading your mind now.”
“I wasn’t trying to push my thoughts to you,” Kyra said. “I’ve never done that on purpose. Only when I’m searching.”
Something about the accidental intrusion pleased him. “Perhaps it’s because we’re reshon,” he said. Then he thought, Perhaps you’ll be able to hear this.
Her eyes lit, and Leo grinned.
“This is going to be fun,” he said. “And today it will be useful.”
Can you hear this?
“Yes!” he whispered. “More later. For now we need to move.”
They walked quickly down the path, aiming for the reinforced grey building where Sura reported that he’d seen Prija being held. In Kyra’s backpack was the weaving Intira had done. Their job, according to Rith, was to find Prija, kill her guards, then evacuate the women and children from the compound. Kyra had the most experience with Grigori children, and the others were hopeful the women and children would follow her with Leo translating. If nothing else, she knew the spells that would knock them unconscious. She’d used them before and was more than willing to use them again.
Leo heard a few sounds of struggle in the distance and knew the others were making progress.
“They’ve taken out… maybe fifteen so far,” Kyra said. “No, sixteen.” She sucked in a breath and gripped his hand. After a long pause, she said, “They must have found the sleeping quarters.”
Leo held her hand carefully and tried to imagine what it would be like to hear lives being snuffed out. He’d seen them. He’d killed them. But to hear multiple lives ended, multiple souls released to heaven at once… That, he couldn’t imagine. They were evil lives—the Grigori here showed no signs of tempering their soul hunger—but they were lives.
“The children,” he said quietly. “The women.”
Kyra nodded and began to jog.
They crouched behind a clump of bushes and watched the cinder block building. It was clear that the two guards knew something was going on. They chatted back and forth, one pointing toward the temple while the other shook his head. Some argument took place, but the one pointing toward the temple did not relent. After a few minutes, he walked off in that direction.
“Leo!”
“Wait here!”
She nodded, and Leo forced himself to leave her. He ran after the guard and intercepted him before he reached the temple. He pulled him behind another clump of trees in the garden, muffling the Grigori as he tried to shout. As soon as he had a clear shot, he plunged his knife into the man’s spine and waited for the body to dissolve.
He crept back to the edge of the compound, knowing that the rustling and struggle must have been heard. Within seconds, more Grigori were coming out of doors.
The element of surprise was gone.
He ran toward Kyra, grabbed her hand, and dragged her behind as he rushed the last guard at the women’s quarters. The man dodged Leo’s blow and ducked under his arm, punching Leo in the kidney with quick jabs. This Grigori was not a helpless opponent. The man’s elbow snapped back and caught Kyra in the nose. She cried out and blood poured from her nose. She fell to the ground and rolled away from his quick feet.
Leo roared at the sight of her blood and swung around, hooking the man around the neck with his massive arm. He snapped the Grigori’s neck to the side with one sharp jerk, then watched the man fall under his own weight. Leo looked down.
Kyra was reaching toward the Grigori, her knife out and slicing the man’s Achilles tendon at both ankles.
Leo grinned. “My woman.”
“Is he dead? He’s not dissolving.”
The Grigori was spitting up blood and jerking in Leo’s arms. He spun the Grigori around and plunged the knife in, tossing the body to the side as he helped Kyra up and wiped her face.
“Can you see?”
She nodded. “It might be broken.” She stuffed a rag under her nose and pointed to the door. “But I’m fine. Let’s go.”
Without another word, Leo yanked at the doorknob, but the solid metal door didn’t budge.
“Wait,” Kyra said. She went to the dust of the last Grigori and scattered it with her foot. “Here.” She bent down, grabbed the keys, and tossed them to Leo.
He tried three keys before he found the one that worked. Then he shoved them in his pocket and opened the door. Kyra kept behind him.
Leo kept his knife out. You never knew if kareshta would be hostile or not.
No males, Kyra whispered in his mind.
That is very handy.
A hallway stretched before them, four doors on each side. Leo tried one. Locked.
He tried the keys. No luck.
“Stand back,” he said quietly. “These open in. I can work with that.”
“How—”
Leo spoke to the first door in a loud firm voice. “Stand away from the door,” he said in Burmese.
He heard scuttling and waited for it to stop before he drew on his magic and kicked in the first door. It swung in with a crash, but there was no sound on the other side. Peering inside, he saw two young women and a small girl huddling in the corner. The room smelled like human waste and urine.
“Kyra?”
She ducked under his arm. “Hello,” she said quietly. “I’m Kyra. My husband and I are going to take you out of here and make you safe. Will you come with us?” Leo translated her words in Burmese as she spoke, hoping the women spoke the majority language of the region. By their relieved looks and quick nods, they did. They both scrambled to their feet, and one of the women picked up the little girl, who began to cry.
A quick burst of power filled the room with the little girl’s cry.
Kareshta.
Leo looked at Kyra and knew his mate had felt it too.
The woman holding the girl soothed her as they moved to the room across the hall.
That room held a heavily pregnant woman who was nearly skeletal.
Grigori baby.
Leo and Kyra moved up the hall, gathering the women and children from Arindam’s harem, but they did not find Prija.
“I don’t hear her,” Kyra said. “I thought I did, but now there are too many voices and I can’t tell.”
Leo knew she must be getting overwhelmed. He grabbed her hand.
She shook her head. “It’s not helping. Not anymore.”
“Let’s get them out of here,” Leo said.
He looked in the last room on the
right side. It was empty, but there was a long stringed instrument in the corner. “Kyra?”
“Yes?” Kyra was trying to pick up two children who were tugging on her legs.
“Did Prija play an instrument?”
“Yes. It was stringed. Kind of… a teardrop shape. It had a blue jewel on the face.”
He turned to the human woman next to him, the one from the room across the hall. This woman also looked half-dead and was nursing a baby. A boy from the looks of her pallor.
“The woman they kept in here,” he asked the mother. “Was she like you?”
“No.” The woman pointed to the Grigori children. “She was like them. But darker. Evil like the men.”
“What happened to her?”
“They took her away,” the woman said. “I don’t know where.”
Leo nodded and ushered the women and children down the hall, jumping ahead to scout the area outside.
The fight had turned from silent to muffled struggle. He could hear scrambling in the forest around him and quick feet in the night, but he could see little. Even with his vision turned up to its most acute with magic, the night was moonless and pitch-black.
“Leo, we need to get them away.”
He nodded. “Will they stay in the van, do you think?”
“They might panic if we leave them.”
Leo heard someone crashing through the bushes. He braced himself to fight, but at the last minute, Sura broke through the trees.
He scanned the group quickly. “No Prija?”
“They moved her.”
“Find her!” Sura said. “I’ll take care of them.” He switched to Burmese and a soothing voice. “My sisters, I will guide you and your little ones away from here.” Leo could see the women and children drawn to Sura and his calm, centered spirit. “Pick up the little ones if you can. It will make the walk easier. Stay together.” He looked back at Leo. “Find Prija. Find her. Rith and Niran are in the temple, but they’re going to need Prija.”
“I’ll find her,” Kyra said. “You take care of the children.” She grabbed Leo’s hand. “Let’s go.”