“Or it’s a diversion,” I said. “He’s luring us away from where he really means to strike.”
I was halfway into the U-turn before I even realized I’d made a decision. I hit the gas, creating another scorched-rubber screech.
My heart was hammering with adrenaline now, and I was certain that we’d just been duped. Someone was going to die because I fell for the trick and ignored what my gut had been telling me from the very beginning.
“How could he lure us to Rock Creek with his jackals and still make an attack at Oak Hill?” Logan asked, bracing himself against the dashboard. I bet he’d think twice before getting into the Mini with me again. “I’m not sure how far there is between the two exactly, but it’s a few miles at least.”
He was right, and I had to admit I was puzzled. But something inside me was telling me Oak Hill was still the target, and as badly as I understood how my power worked, I felt certain my reluctance to leave the area was driven by more than a suspicion.
“I don’t know how he created the diversion, but it doesn’t matter. Like you said, if he’s at Rock Creek, we’ll get there too late to do any good. If he’s at Oak Hill, we might get back in time to stop him.”
Logan glanced at the dashboard clock doubtfully, and I wasn’t that much more confident. We’d wasted a buttload of time rushing off after the red herring—if that’s what it was—and instinct told me he would already have selected his victim by the time he created the diversion.
My former parking space was still available, so at least I didn’t have to circle the block searching for a new one, but we’d been gone at least fifteen minutes, and I had a sinking feeling that we were too late.
I held on to the remnants of hope as I parked. I got out and hurried around the car to the sidewalk as Logan leaned in to retrieve his sword once more. When he stood up, his eyes suddenly widened at something he saw behind me. I started to turn but not in time.
A pair of furred bodies sailed through the air, impossibly high off the ground for such small creatures. They both slammed into Logan’s chest.
His sword was still in its scabbard when he hit the ground. I fumbled for the gun in my shoulder holster, then froze when a voice spoke over the snarls of the jackals.
“Move, and they’ll tear his throat out.”
I looked around, trying to spot the source of the voice, but the only human form I saw was Logan. He lay on his back on the sidewalk, a jackal’s jaws at his throat, teeth pricking his skin. There was no sign of blood yet, and we now knew how to cure the supernatural rabies, but I wouldn’t put anyone through that if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.
A second jackal stood on Logan’s chest, its ears flattened to its skull, its teeth bared as it snarled directly into his face. I could almost feel its fierce desire to attack, but so far, at least, Kerner was holding it back.
I stood absolutely still, my heart pounding in my throat as I frantically searched for a way out of this mess. But I already knew the only way to stop the jackals was to stop Kerner, and it’s hard to stop a guy you can’t even see. Especially when you’re standing stock still and hoping he won’t order his jackal to tear out someone’s throat.
“What do you want?” I asked. This was a calculated ambush, and I’d walked right into it, even parking in the same space I’d left from.
“Start by slowly putting your hands in the air,” he said. For a psycho who was infected with rabid insanity, he sounded awfully calm.
I was finally able to pinpoint the sound of his voice, and I realized he was hiding behind a parked SUV. Even if I managed to pull my gun, I’d have no shot. My aim might be ridiculously good, but I wasn’t carrying armor-piercing rounds.
Licking my lips and trying to stay calm, I did as he ordered, splaying my hands to show him I had no weapons. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that three more jackals had joined the first two, menacing Logan. The three newcomers circled him restlessly, snarling and growling, every nuance of their body language showing how badly they wanted to attack. Even more disturbing, they had streaks of blood on their coats, and their muzzles were wet and red with it. I hoped Kerner’s hands were steady on the reins.
Kerner stepped out from behind the SUV. He couldn’t have seen me comply with his command, so I supposed the jackals were working as his eyes and ears in addition to being his attack dogs.
“What do you want?” I asked again as Kerner came closer and I could get a better look at him. And, unfortunately, a better smell. He was dressed in a filthy trench coat and too-long jeans. The cuffs of those jeans dragged on the ground and had collected a revolting crust of … whatever. And the smell wafting from him was rotting garbage, outhouse, and unwashed body.
I must have wrinkled my nose unintentionally, because Kerner stopped and made a point of sniffing the air. Then he shrugged.
“My apologies,” he said, smiling at me like we were having a pleasant conversation. “I’m so used to it I can’t smell it anymore. I’ll try to stay upwind.”
This was not what I was expecting. His voice was calm and level, his words perfectly rational. There was no manic gleam in his eyes, no insane laughter or gleeful rubbing together of hands.
“You obviously want to talk to me,” I said as my mind kept trying to figure out what the hell was going on. “So go ahead and talk.”
“I would like you to stop interfering,” Kerner said.
I blinked at him. “You ambushed me to tell me that? Hate to tell you this, but I could figure that out on my own.” I braced myself, thinking maybe a show of attitude might bring out the screeching maniac I’d been expecting, but Kerner just smiled.
“I’ve pissed you and your friends off by killing civilians. I’ll only get to kill the real Konstantin once, and that’s a great pity. He deserves so much more after what he did to me. You have no idea …” Kerner shuddered, and I couldn’t help a moment of pity as I thought about what he’d been through—and what he’d be going through for all eternity if we captured him and I couldn’t persuade Anderson to do the right thing.
Kerner was a sadistic serial killer, but he hadn’t been before the Olympians had screwed him up, and somewhere beneath the madness of Lyssa’s seed was a scared, damaged human being. A scared, damaged human being I couldn’t afford to feel sorry for, I reminded myself. A lot of serial killers have sob stories, but they’re still monsters.
Kerner shook off the horror of his ordeal at Konstantin’s hands. “But never mind my sad story. While I won’t deny I enjoyed killing Konstantin in effigy, I have moved on to worthier prey. My quarrel is with Konstantin and his pack of gutless, soulless cronies, not civilians.”
All right. This guy was crazy after all. “Let me get this straight. You want us to leave you alone so you can have your jackals rip various and sundry Olympians into shreds. Is that the gist of it?”
He furrowed his brow as if thinking, then nodded. “Yes, that’s the gist of it. Once the world is rid of Olympians, it will be a much better place. And I love the irony of it all, that they used me as their lab rat to test Lyssa’s seed and that in doing so, they created the one and only being who could destroy them.”
Except for Anderson, of course, but Kerner didn’t know about that.
“I wouldn’t call it irony so much as poetic justice,” I said. And if Kerner hadn’t already killed four innocent victims, I might even have believed it.
Kerner looked delighted with what he must have taken as my agreement. “Exactly. And I think it only fair that Konstantin watch the ones he cares for die one by one, knowing he’ll face the same fate himself, just as he made me watch as he slaughtered my family.” He made a face. “Not that Konstantin truly cares about anyone but himself.”
My research had turned up very little family for Kerner. His father had died in a supposed car accident near the time Kerner went missing, and I had no trouble believing Konstantin had killed him in front of Kerner’s eyes. That didn’t exactly sound like watching his loved ones die “one by one,”
but maybe Kerner thought it made him sound more sympathetic.
I nodded. “Like I said, poetic justice. But I’m still kind of getting stuck on the killing-innocent-bystanders thing.”
Kerner stuck out his lower lip in a twisted pout. “I already told you I’ve moved on. I only meant to take out Olympians, but then I bumped into that first guy. He thought I was some panhandler harassing him for money.” For the first time, there was a hint of a manic gleam in Kerner’s eyes, one that said he wasn’t as sane and rational as he pretended. “He was a condescending asshole, and he looked so much like Konstantin … then he got spooked and started running away, just begging me to chase him.” He shrugged. “I probably would have been able to contain myself if the stupid shit hadn’t started running.”
“So it’s all his fault he’s dead?”
Kerner’s eyes flashed with anger, but his voice remained level. “When it was over, I felt more like my old self than I had since I was forced to take Lyssa’s seed, and I realized I could get my revenge on Konstantin and stop being so …” He made a circular motion beside his head with his finger. “… at the same time. Two birds with one stone.”
“And that makes it okay for you to kill people just because they have the bad luck to resemble Konstantin?”
The jackals snarled their disapproval of my tone, and I reminded myself that antagonizing a crazy man who commands a pack of rabid jackals wasn’t the brightest idea.
“I keep telling you, I’m finished with that,” Kerner growled. His voice had deepened, and he sounded strangely like his jackals. “It was fun while it lasted, but I know now that it was stupid and unnecessary.”
I glanced at the jackals and once again saw the blood on their coats. They had killed already tonight, and it sounded as if their victim had been an Olympian. Better than a civilian, but still … it was an awful way to die.
“Who?” I asked, not sure why I wanted to know.
Kerner smirked. “Someone whose loss Konstantin might actually regret a little. A pretty little blonde, descendant of Apollo. The Olympians call—called—her the Oracle.”
I fought to suppress my reaction. Phoebe had no redeeming qualities that I could tell. And yet it freaked me out enough to learn that complete strangers had been torn to shreds, partially eaten. Learning that something like that had happened to someone I knew … My stomach gave an unhappy lurch.
“There is one less Olympian to blight the earth tonight,” Kerner concluded with obvious pride.
I swallowed hard to keep my gorge down. “But she’ll come back,” I said. The body would somehow mend itself, regenerate the missing organs, and come back to life in the throes of the supernatural rabies.
“No, she won’t,” Kerner said with a smug smile. “Konstantin made the biggest mistake of his life when he chose me to host Lyssa’s seed. The madness infected the seed—which means it operates on a metaphysical level as well as a physical one. Pair it with death magic, and you have something that can destroy a Liberi, body and soul.” His voice was replete with satisfaction, then he frowned at me. “But you didn’t die,” he said speculatively. “I thought at first it was because my jackals didn’t eat your heart—did you know the heart was the seat of the soul?—but the Oracle expired before they’d managed to do more than nick her heart. I felt her seed snuff out, right here.” He patted the center of his chest. “Even without having directly contacted your heart, the infection should have worked its way there eventually. I wonder why it didn’t.”
I tried really hard not to picture a jackal tearing my heart from my chest and devouring it, but my stomach heaved anyway. I had no intention of letting Kerner in on the secret of how I’d survived. “No idea,” I mumbled.
The physical effects of his death magic were somehow mirrored on a metaphysical level. So much so that when the infection reached the heart, the body and the seed of immortality were both destroyed. If Anderson hadn’t broken my neck, if he’d let the super-rabies run its course, I would have died. And stayed dead.
Anderson had saved my life by killing me.
But that was a paradox to ponder at another time. I still had to get Logan and myself out of this mess, preferably without either of us being bitten.
I could tell Kerner was still curious about my continued existence, but he didn’t press me on it. “All I’m asking is that you stay out of it until Konstantin is dead,” he said. “I’m through with the civilians, and I have no quarrel with you or your friends.”
“No? Then why did your damn dogs bite me?” Once again, I was failing to humor the crazy person, and the jackals growled their displeasure. I checked on Logan out of the corner of my eye. He was lying very still, eyes closed, and he looked very Zen about having a rabid jackal’s fangs pricking the skin of his throat.
“That was unintentional,” Kerner said with an edge in his voice that said he was getting tired of my attitude. “For future reference, you might want to avoid shooting my jackals. They’re a manifestation of my death magic, and if you take one out, the magic comes back to me. The rebound effect makes me a little cranky.” He gave me a teeth-baring smile that was closer to a snarl.
“I’m not a fool, and my mind is still reasonably intact, at least when I have a recent kill under my belt. I understand why you feel the need to stop me. I’m just asking you to put it off for a while.”
He averted his eyes and ran a hand through his lank, greasy hair. “I know I’ll end up in the ground again eventually. I’m just one guy, and you’re all out to get me. But I can’t ever die.” He met my gaze again, and I saw a shimmer of tears in his eyes. “I can’t ever be released from the horrors of the prison you will put me in. And if I have to go to that prison knowing that Konstantin still walks the earth, then I will be spending eternity in hell.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “I’m begging you to let me have my revenge before you condemn me. Give me the one thing that will make my eternity bearable.”
Bleeding-heart alert—I was standing there facing a psycho who’d killed innocent people just because they vaguely resembled Konstantin, and I was feeling sorry for him. Not to mention the vengeful side of me that was overcome with glee at the idea of Konstantin getting killed by a man who was one of his victims.
Of course, it wasn’t like I was in any position to stop Kerner at the moment. Not unless I didn’t mind letting Logan get savaged. Sure, he’d probably live through it if they didn’t tear out his heart, but it would seriously suck. And while I’m a good shot, I’m not a quick-draw expert. With the gun still in my pocket, in all likelihood, the jackals could make short work of both Logan and me before I got a shot on Kerner.
“I’m attempting to show you a sign of good faith,” Kerner said with a little edge in his voice. I guess he was getting tired of my hemming and hawing. “I could have killed both of you before you even knew I was here.”
“Yeah, thanks for not doing that. But you’re asking me to stand by and let you kill people. I have a hard time saying yes to that.” And I had a hard time believing that Kerner would believe me if I said yes. So what was he really after?
“All right,” Kerner said, and there was now an angry glitter in his eyes. “Let me be more blunt: I’m hunting the Olympians now. Keep out of my business until I’ve finished with Konstantin, and the Olympians will be the only ones who get hurt. But if I see you or any of your friends near me again, civilians are going back on the menu. I’ve been controlling the death magic, only letting it loose for one kill a week, but the death toll if you don’t keep your nose out of my business will be considerably higher. Are we clear?”
Funny how I felt a lot less sorry for him all of a sudden. “Crystal,” I grated out.
He smiled, looking very pleased with himself all of a sudden. “I knew we could work this out. And if you or your friend make any attempt to follow me, I’ll take that as a sign that you’re rejecting our agreement. If that’s the case, check out the local news tomorrow to see how many people I ch
ose to punish for your mistake.”
He winked out of sight before I could answer, as did all the jackals. I could tell he was still nearby, because I could smell his rancid stink. Logan lay still on the sidewalk, his breaths shallow, as if the jackal’s jaws were still around his throat.
“Is the jackal still there?” I asked, because it was abundantly clear that just because I couldn’t see it didn’t mean it was gone.
Logan just blinked at me, which I figured was answer enough. I wouldn’t want to talk if I had a jackal’s teeth at my throat, either.
Kerner’s stink was fading, which told me he was leaving, though he was still completely invisible. I had no idea which way he was going, and I wasn’t about to move until I was positive he was gone.
As positive as it was possible to be with an invisible man, anyway.
After maybe three minutes, Logan finally sucked in a deep breath and slowly sat up. We both tensed for an attack, but none came.
Kerner and his jackals were gone. Maybe.
FOURTEEN
Later that night—or, more accurately, later that morning—we regrouped in the kitchen at the mansion. We were all tired and dejected from the failed hunt. I started a pot of coffee brewing, then did my best to recount everything Kerner had said, word for word, with Logan filling in a few details I had missed.
The coffee maker’s death rattle announced it was finished brewing, and those of us who were so inclined filled our mugs. Logan got a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the cabinet over the sink, and Maggie boiled water for tea. When everyone had their beverage of choice, we gathered around the table in the breakfast nook. There weren’t enough chairs for everyone, so Jack hopped up onto the counter, and Jamaal, who had waited up for us, stood leaning against the wall. Emma stood practically in the doorway and looked like she was bored and wanted to slip away while we weren’t looking.