I began to head for the door to the lobby. “Tell me what to do.”
He grabbed my wrist. “I’m not letting you go out there.”
“Is there another way out?”
Asa looked down the stairs just as the door began to rattle. “Not anymore.”
I snatched the necklace and lifted it over his head, then put it over mine. The heavy locket rattled as it bounced against my belly. “I can distract them, and you can get out.”
He grimaced. “Do you honestly think I’m gonna let you parade in front of Reza—”
“Let me?” I poked him in the shoulder. “We’re a team, you jerk! Just because I let you boss me around sometimes doesn’t mean you’re actually the boss.”
He drew in a strained breath, then his hands fell to his sides. “You’ve got to hold his attention.” His eyes met mine. “But he’s gonna hurt you. Try to break you.”
Fear curled inside me, a snake ready to strike. But if this meant Asa would get out, if I could give him this chance—I forced a smile. “I’ve just carried a giant splinter of original Strikon magic around inside my body for months. You think I don’t know how to deal with pain?”
He stared at me for a second, then reached up and wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, bringing our faces close. “I fucking love you, Mattie Carver,” he said in a ragged whisper. And then we were kissing, and I have no idea who started it, only that it was desperate and hot, clenched fists and harsh breaths and me determined never to let go, knowing it would hurt like hell when I did. But the sound of crunching, buckling metal from below wrenched us apart. “One minute,” Asa murmured against my lips. “I swear. Hang on for me.”
“Here I go.” I tore myself away from Asa. My hands fumbled to open the locket’s latch, my plan forming at the speed of light. With a quick prayer, I plunged through the doorway to the lobby. “I need to talk to whoever’s in charge—” I started to shout.
The words died in my throat. People were cowering against the walls, their arms over their heads. Whimpering. Somewhere beyond the elevator banks, someone was shrieking, the noise saturated with agony.
I glanced behind me as the door clicked shut, no idea whether Asa had emerged and skirted the elevator banks or was still in the stairwell. But he’d asked for a minute, and that’s what I was going to give him. My right fist clenched tightly, my palm sweating. This had to work. It had to.
The locket clanking against the zipper over my belly, I walked past the elevators and the cowering people who had sought shelter against the wall, then turned as I reached the soaring atrium. Here were more terrified people huddled on couches and in corners, a few of them crying, their eyes all focused on the concierge, who was writhing on the eight-pointed star set into the polished marble floor. The front doors were maybe fifty feet away, but I could already see the way was blocked with agents. Given the man who was standing in the middle of the lobby like he owned the place, I was guessing they belonged to Brindle.
“Hello, Mattie,” said Reza, taking his eyes off the contorted body of the concierge, who immediately went limp. “Have you been making mischief again?”
I blinked at him for a moment, taking in ebony hair slicked away from the most exquisitely handsome face I’d ever beheld. “I was just trying to give you guys back the rest of your relic. You’re the ones who had to try and hijack Asa.”
He gave me a sad smile. “We were certain the splintered magic would have taken its toll, maybe even damaged you permanently. We did our best to spare you.”
“You’re so full of crap. Your stupid mercenaries had orders to use me as leverage.”
He chuckled, looking over my shoulder toward the elevators. “And where is Asa?”
“Long gone.”
“I don’t believe you.” His dark-brown eyes settled on my face. “But let’s find out, shall we?”
Suddenly it felt as if he were tracing a red-hot knife right down my middle, from my throat, between my breasts, down my stomach, all the way to the apex of my thighs. The agony wrenched a scream up from my depths, but I clamped my teeth down on it, not wanting Asa to hear, not wanting to distract him from whatever he was doing. I glared at Reza as my legs buckled and I fell to my knees. But I kept my right fist clenched, determination holding my fingers closed.
Reza smiled pleasantly as he strolled toward me, as his gaze traced over my belly and I felt the pain inside, something rending and tearing.
“I’ll take that.” He lifted the locket from around my neck.
Now, a distant voice cried from beneath the pain.
Still smiling, Reza opened the locket. And then the smirk melted from his face. “This is empty. Where is the relic?”
“Right here, you asshole.” I shoved my fist upward, opening my fingers to press the knobby lump of gold against his stomach.
Reza screamed, his arms flailing as he reeled backward. I lunged up with him, one hand wrapped around my middle, the other balled in the front of his shirt, keeping the relic close to him as I projected all the pain I was feeling onto him. It was like a deadly loop between us, him lashing out to protect himself, using all the painful power he possessed, and me taking it in and pushing it back out through the original relic, making him sense all the pain he was causing me. He tripped over his own feet and fell backward, and I landed on top of him. The pain whited out my thoughts, just like it had when Asa pulled the splinter. Only this time, Asa wasn’t here to anchor me, his hand on my chest, warm and steady. This time I was alone.
But I wasn’t empty. Inside me I carried wishes and wants and hopes so big and fierce and tangled that they couldn’t be eroded by the mad rush of hurt roaring through me. Hands shoved and punched at me, but I clung like a freaking barnacle, determined to give Reza back every last ounce of bitter magic he dished out.
My back slammed against the floor, knocking the breath and intent right out of me. My muscles twitched, but the pain was gone, having evaporated as soon as I’d let go of Reza. Gasping and confused, I stared up at the ceiling. A man in a suit glared down at me. On his wrist was a silver cuff. He was blond, ruggedly handsome.
It was Keenan, the Headsman Asa had nearly strangled with a pair of suspenders in Bangkok.
He knelt down and scooped me up as I struggled feebly, swatting at him with empty hands. The relic was gone. I’d lost it. My ears ringing, I looked around to see the lobby full of Headsmen, tackling anyone who ran, tasing resisters, zip-tying the wrists of their captives.
I kicked at Keenan, then pitched forward so forcefully that he nearly lost his grip. My gaze snagged on a discarded plastic spoon sticking up from the dirt in a planter near the wall, and I grabbed at it, thinking to use it as a weapon.
“Stop,” he snapped, trying to corral me as I clawed for it. “Calm down.”
“Screw you, buddy.” I smacked at his face as he bundled me toward the door. The Brindle agents who had been by the hotel entrance, probably keeping people away, were gone, and the circular drive beyond the doors was scattered with Headsmen, their cars blocking incoming taxis and limos. I peered over his shoulder to see Reza crawling on all fours, pale with the echo of the pain I’d inflicted and looking as confused and terrified as I felt, scrambling to get behind the front desk and away from the marauding Headsmen. “You’re taking me but letting Reza Tavana get away?”
“Fuck him.” Keenan’s grip on me was steel, but his hands were clammy, and his face was shining with sweat as he carried me, struggling like a speared fish, out of the hotel.
“Help,” I shrieked.
He clamped his hand over my mouth. “Mattie, it’s going to be okay. Stop struggling. I know you’re scared, but you have to stop. We’re almost there.”
But I couldn’t stop. Asa was somewhere in that hotel, and the place was full of people who wanted to cage him. I thrashed and writhed, trying to get my feet back on the ground, and Keenan barely managed to contain me as he got us out from under the massive hotel awning. He stepped over another plastic spoon that h
ad been planted upright at the edge of a flower bed.
“Look at me,” he said as I drew back to slap him again.
I gasped, my upraised palm frozen midair. “Asa?”
He gave me a smile that managed to be seductive despite the black circles under his eyes and the sweat pouring off his body. “Not bad, am I right?” He turned me to face the hotel.
“How did you do this?” This was no boa constrictor. It was more than the size of an elevator—it was the size of a city block.
He pointed to the spoon. “Like the carnival. I had to lay them around the perimeter. After what they experienced with the Headsmen, it wasn’t hard to get Betsy and Roberta to put together something realistic, but I had to surround the whole area. I went as fast as I could, but there were agents everywhere. I couldn’t have done it if Reza hadn’t been completely distracted.”
I peered through the glass doors and into the hotel lobby, where I could still see Headsmen swarming in and out, could still hear shouts and screams. “I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.”
“Exactly. Here’s hoping the actual Headsmen are competent enough to call in their cleanup crew before Reza and his minions crawl away.”
“You let him go.”
“I had to prioritize.” He put his arm around my waist as we limped toward the street. “Besides, you hurt him worse than I ever could.”
“But I lost the relic.”
“You were still holding it when I pried you off him. Got it in my pocket.”
No wonder he looked so bad. “Let me take it.”
“Not this time.”
“Why not?”
“You getting power hungry on me, Mattie?”
“Are you serious?”
He squeezed my shoulders as we limped up the block toward his van. “You were fucking incredible,” he said as we reached it.
I turned and looked up at him. “You weren’t so bad yourself.”
His eyes searched mine, and he smoothed a stray curl away from my face. “We’re a good team, yeah?” He gave me a faltering, stunningly vulnerable smile. “Do you think—”
He arched away from me with a cry of pain, his limbs locked and his muscles taut to the snapping point as he hit the sidewalk. I staggered back as his assailant raised a second weapon, and I had a split second to register his face before my world lit up in yet another explosion of bright-white pain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
By the time the shock stopped, I was in Asa’s van. So was Asa. We were in the very back, packed so tightly that I was half on top of him. Like me, he was lying on his stomach, wrists and ankles zip-tied.
I raised my head and looked down at his face, his closed eyes. “Asa?”
“Yeah,” he said with a moan. He didn’t open his eyes.
“It’s Daeng.”
“I know. I can feel him now.”
“Why couldn’t you before?”
“Sensilo relic was in my pocket.” His voice was ragged with exhaustion. “Dwarfed any magic of that kind in the area.”
We shifted as the van made a tight turn. “Where do you think he’s taking us?”
“Probably to whatever headquarters they’ve got set up . . .”
We both got quiet as the van braked and we heard gravel popping beneath the tires. The van rolled to a stop, and the engine went silent. I winced as a train’s horn blasted somewhere nearby, followed by the clack of wheels on rails.
“Near a rail yard,” mumbled Asa as footsteps approached. “Fuck. We’re not in Buckhead anymore.”
The door swung open, and Daeng smiled down at us. He had a long wound on the side of his face, clumsily stitched, as if he had done it himself. “Hello, my friends,” he said, his voice soft but filled with cold menace. “I thought it important that we have a talk.”
He grabbed me first and dragged me through a small parking lot toward a shop with boarded windows and a shabby sign out front that said, “Abby’s Wholesale Bridal.”
“Oh, the irony,” I said, too weak from all the punishment I’d taken to put up a good fight.
Daeng hauled me through an open doorway and into a warehouse room with a few overturned mannequins piled in the center. In front of them were two chairs, facing each other. Daeng plopped me down in one and deftly fastened my wrists to the chair, followed by my ankles. “I’ll be right back.”
I sneezed from the dust he’d kicked up, my stomach tight with dread. This place in no way resembled the sheriff’s station where the Headsmen had set themselves up last time.
A minute later, Daeng was dragging Asa across the floor. Asa wasn’t struggling, but it was clear he wasn’t giving Daeng any help. He was totally limp, and Daeng was sweaty and grunting as he heaved Asa onto a chair.
“The more uncooperative you are, the more I hurt her,” Daeng said gently.
Asa sat up quickly and glanced down at his pockets. Daeng clucked his tongue. “I emptied them before I stopped the shock.”
“Where’s the rest of your crew?” I asked. “Aren’t you a Headsman now?”
“I was. But then most of my colleagues killed themselves, and I killed those who were left.” His fists clenched convulsively. “I decided I needed to pursue my enemies on my own. Fortunately, Mr. Okafor put out a call for assistance, conveniently letting me know where to find you.”
Asa’s jaw was rigid. “What the fuck do you want?”
“A measure of justice. There’s so little of it in this world.”
“No shit,” said Asa. “I’d figured that out by the time I was four.”
Daeng sighed as he stepped back to survey his handiwork. “I understand you, Mr. Ward. I feel as if we are kindred spirits, perhaps.”
“Do you make a habit of tasing and tying up kindred spirits?” I tried to sound calm. “That’s no way to treat your friends, Daeng.”
Daeng chuckled as he turned to me, his eyes glittering with hatred. “Better than I’m going to treat you.” He strode over to a metal cart covered by a cloth and ceremoniously uncovered it, then rolled the squeaky-wheeled contraption closer. On its surface were arrayed a few syringes with scary-long needles, metal picks, tongs, a corkscrew, and a scalpel.
“You’re not even in the same league with me,” Asa snarled as he glared at the cart. “You’ll never be even half as good.”
Daeng stiffened, his fingers positioned over one of the syringes. “Good . . . how do we gauge that? Results? Because now I have the Sensilo relic.” He patted a bulky round lump in his breast pocket. He’d obviously wrapped it in something to try to shield himself from its effects. “And by the time the day is out, I will also have the Strikon. You will tell me where it is.”
“Unlikely.” Asa’s lip was curled with contempt.
Daeng plucked a syringe from the tray. “You met Arkady,” he said, turning away from Asa to stand over me. He ran a finger along the side of his face, next to the poorly stitched gash. “So did I.”
“Then you should realize that people like him are your real enemies.”
“Are you not my enemy, Mattie?” He examined the syringe in the gray light filtering in through a few unboarded windows. “You were as cruel to me as Arkady was.”
“That’s nothing compared to what I would do to you,” Asa said, his voice echoing in the room.
Daeng smiled. “If you had the chance. But you haven’t. The last time we met, your little reliquary had to save you. And this time? You will watch as I punish her for it. Who is the more powerful one between us, Mr. Ward?”
I stared at a clear drop oozing from the tip of the needle. “What is that?”
“Are you afraid of pain, Mattie?” Daeng asked.
“It’s not exactly my favorite thing.”
“Ah. But you’re not afraid of it. I can tell.” He tilted his head. “I know what you are afraid of, though. I watched you in that sheriff’s station. You are afraid of being controlled.” Sweat dripped from his chin, and his cheek was twitching.
A hard chill rolled through
me as he wrenched up the sleeve of my blouse.
“You pathetic little worm,” Asa shouted. “I’m the one you’re gonna have to deal with! I’m the one who’s gonna make you sorry you were born!”
“You can’t provoke me into hurting you instead of her,” Daeng said dreamily. “So stop trying.” He aimed the needle at my upper arm. “They juiced Arkady as soon as they brought him into custody.” He looked over his shoulder at Asa. “Do you think that I should make her cut off her ears first, or her lips? The pain won’t clear her mind, not when Arkady’s magic has invaded her veins.”
I whimpered, and Asa’s eyes flashed with rage—and unmistakable fear. “I’ll get you the original Strikon relic,” he said quickly. “Today.”
Daeng laughed. “Oh, yes. And I’m sure I can trust you.”
“Then I’ll tell you where, and you can go find it.” Asa was looking back and forth between the needle and my arm.
Daeng dug his thumb into my skin, and I grimaced. I was fighting tears, determined not to shed even a single one for this maniac. “The night I first saw you,” he said to me, “I was struck by how vibrant you were. I was at that party, thinking nothing could bring me pleasure. It’s hard for men like us to find, you know. Hard because we’re so sensitive to it, hard because too much makes us prisoners. We can never trust it. But you . . . I watched you dancing, and I thought . . . there is joy. Real and natural and . . .”
He wiped his face on the sleeve of his black button-down shirt. “I couldn’t wait to meet you. I was so eager to experience some of that joy for myself.” He leaned down so that his mouth was right next to my ear. “I wanted to taste it.”
Asa’s chair scraped against the floor as his body jerked. I glanced over to see him leaning forward, his face contorted with fury and helplessness. His expression only heightened my dread and fear, and I closed my eyes. “I never intended to hurt you,” I said softly. “I could tell it hadn’t been easy for you.”